I was on Argyle Street a few weeks ago doing a bit of window shopping when it started pissing down and the rain was getting heavier by the second. I was about a twenty minute walk from my office so decided to take shelter in a shop doorway until it passed.
I was sharing it with a Big Issue seller and she was dressed head to toe in black robes and a headscarf. I’d say she was in her mid fifties. I ignored her as I didn’t want her to start asking me to buy the magazine. She called out to some man across the street and I took it to be some eastern European language. He trundled across the road dressed in his battered suit jacket and into the shelter.
Then the strangest thing happened. A homeless guy walked up. He had a dirty old rucksack on his back, a dark blue parka jacket, hood up against the rain and a huge, wiry, dirty beard. He stopped in front of us and proffered a small bundle of coins to the woman, about £1. He put it in her hand and waved off the offer of a magazine. Then he just walked off.
What a bloody lovely bloke. He’s homeless, or doing a very good impression of it and he’s handing out his money to others.
After a few minutes the rain wasn’t letting up and I decided to try door hopping. Spending a minute or so in each doorway and walking a short distance in between to avoid getting wet. On thinking about it now, it’s not going to work, as I’ll still spend roughly the same amount of time out in the rain. However, I did it.
I moved off and then the rain came on heavier suddenly so I ducked into a lane which leads to a bar/restaurant. The lane is near the Argyle Street arcade, the L-shaped indoor jewellers haven.
I saw as I walked in there were two people further in the lane. The lane opens out to a courtyard about 30 metres away from the street. I turned to face the street so I could watch the people walking past. I heard footsteps behind me and voices getting closer to me but I couldn't make anything out. A few seconds later the guy walks out the lane into street and she followed. I heard her call after him. It was mumbled but I heard her say "Twenty pounds!" He was looking over his shoulder at her but he walked off and she stayed in the shelter of the lane.
I didn't want to be seen to be taking an interest about what that might have been about so I turned to my right slightly and took an interest in something else along the street. But then I felt a presence at my left shoulder.
"Scoose me mate have you got any change like, for me bus fare?"
"No, sorry" shaking my head.
"Aw please mate"
"No"
"But I need something extra for me bus fare". She unclasped her hand and I saw about eighty pence there. It was at this point I noticed her Newcastle accent, and I thought where's she wanting to get the bus to?
She said she needed to get to the hospital and I then noticed the blood on her face - smears on her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, even her teeth. Her teeth.... she had four on the top row at the front and the rest were hiding at the back somewhere. The rest of her mouth was just dark spaces.
She lifted up her matted fringe of dark brown (dyed dark red) hair and showed me a huge gash in her forehead, just in the hair line. It looked about half a centimetre deep. It was red and inflamed and a wide open wound. As she'd reached up to brush her hair our of her eyes her fingers caught her roll-up cigarette and bent it almost at a 90 degree angle.
I thought this is only getting worse for you isn't it?
She kept saying she was in a strange country and that she was a Geordie. Newcastle is only 300 miles away and she had managed to source booze and cigarettes already so she was far from helpless.
I said I only had notes on me, hoping to deflect her thoughts away from my money.
"You can afford to give away a note"
"Not a £10 note I can't" In truth I had a £5 note and a £1 coin on me.
"Aw, c'mon, you've obviously got money. Look at you, with your suit n that"
"Well, I've got more money than you that's for sure" I said. I was standing there with my small Primark poly bag containing my £4 jumper.... yes, I am loaded.
Then we spent around two solid minutes going back and forth about my 'money' while she told me I had more money than her, to which I agreed numerous times. She then offered to walk with me to get change from my bundle of £10 notes she then said...
"Look if you give me some money I'll do anything you want..." my eyebrows raised "...as long as we can keep it a secret, cos I don't normally do that kind of thing". She stared at me. Her eyes were almost pleading. Cheap blowjob...on Argyle Street...on a weekday lunchtime?
I looked at at her dirty, bloodstained face and the thought crossed my mind I wouldn't want to put my cock in there for any reason. Number one. Disease. Number two, those four teeth would grate right along my shaft. And then there's the number three...blowjob in broad daylight on a city centre street... etc.. arrest, jail, divorce, bedsit.
As if to persuade me to start throwing my money at her, she sought to show me exactly how much blood she had on her.
She started to pull up her grey hooded top and I soon saw that it was only one of three she had on. I glanced out towards the street and saw people looking at me. A man in a suit in an alley while a manky homeless woman began pullng her clothes open. Christ almighty.
She pulled the first one open, then with one hand pulled at the zip of the second one. They both had blood on them. She third one came open and she pulled up her white blood stained t-shirt to show me her belly. Bloodstained. What the fuck had she been doing?
When she had pulled her t-shirt up I actually thought she's going to show me some titty here.
It was at this point she stumbled and dropped some of her change. Her head swung loosely round as she heard the clink of the coins on the ground. I helped her out by pointing with my toe towards a shiny 20p lying in the cobbles and she swayed her head back and forth tryng to locate it.
She saw it and bent down to pick it up and (very) unfortunately overbalanced and pitched forward onto her face spraying the ground with her small coins, her poly bag over her wrist rustling. She made no sound at all as she battered face first into the ground. No sound of pain. Nothing.
I grimaced at the thought of her manky bloodstained clothes against my 100% woollen suit and drew back instinctively. She was on her knees, forward on her face. She hadn't even managed to break her own fall.
I looked down at her and quickly realised it could be a while before she resurfaced from the wet cobblestone and within about two seconds I had made my decision.
I stepped over her into the rain. Leaving her where she lay, almost motionless.
Because she had fallen several passers by were looking at her, and looking at me. I realised that they might think I'd pushed her, but there was no way I was going to help her up. I walked off rather briskly, without looking back. If I looked back, I would have looked guilty of something. I stopped again in another doorway 30 metres ahead and there was no sign of her wobbling around in the street trying to find me.
I waited there for a few seconds, then buggered off.
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1 comment:
Glad to see you are back. Mate, you showed much more restraint than me - I would have told her to fuck off and walked away!
Also a tip - the Quarter Gill in Partick has been gutted and refitted and extended. It actually quite flash now. But when I asked my brother if he thought it was trying to get new clientèle, he replied 'ye cannae polish a turd'. Might be worth a visit!
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