Sandee bucked up as the sloshing of rain puddles hit her ears. ‘A ray
o’ hope’ she mumbled to herself while she straightened her tank top
and stuck her chest out. It was a phrase she’d picked up from a book,
she thought it sounded rather fancy. As the sloshing neared the
silhouette of a small bear emerged in front of her. It padded slowly
towards her, huffing and puffing as if it were having an astham
attack. Under the light the bear transformed into a short,
disproportionately corpulent man in a battered coat. He was wheezing
from the strain that walking caused him. He wore a moustache that
spilled over to his upper lip, reminiscent of a walrus. His voluminous
torso bobbed like a buoy in water as he took step after heavy step.
Sandee gaped at the man bemusedly. More like a million rays o’ hope
an’ ugly ones at that, she thought. However duty beckoned and she was
one for thorough professionalism. She sidled upto the man, wearing her
version of a seductive expression. ‘Wanna have a good time buddy?’
The man turned, his body went rigid and his eyes bulged with outrage.
‘Stay away!’ he screamed. ‘Stay away you filthy whore! Keep your
diseased body away from me!’ The girl looked at him with astonishment,
she had met her share of unwilling men but none so offended as this
one. ‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ, take it easy ya bloody bear.’ she drawled
as she went back to her spot, wiping the man’s spit from her face.
The man almost ran to the other side of the road as if mere physical
proximity with the girl meant death. He walked the rest of the way
home, a distance of thirty metres from the whore, warily, frequently
glancing backwards to see if the whore was following him. He stopped
in front of a decrepit apartment building, scheduled for demolition
two decades ago but still standing as a silent testimony to greed and
ineptitude. The door was old and battered with garish green paint
peeling off it. Inside, the lobby, a space the size of a public
restroom, was lit by a tiny bulb. He climbed up the stairs and stopped
in front of a door just as old as the front door and even more
battered. The nameplate on it read ‘Ignoramus J. Really’. He opened
the door and stepped in, greeted by a smell of onions and steak and
steady snoring of. He banged the door shut and made his way to his
room. ‘Ignoramus’, his mother said drowsily from her bed, ‘is that
you?’ ‘Yes mother, go back to sleep’, he replied with the impatience
of a busy man. He plopped down on his creaking bed and dreamt of a
beautiful white horse with a flowing mane.
Sandee sat on the pavement, a cheap cigarette in her mouth, hungry,
cold and bored. She thought of the young man with the pink nose and
the huge ears who had come to her a week ago. Best sex she’d ever had.
And that was saying something for one in her line of business. I wish
that one would come again, she thought and giggled at her own
inadvertent innuendo.
He groaned in pain as the sunrays hit him through the open window.
‘Mother!’ he yelled anguishedly, ‘how many times have I told you nto
to open the windows! Close it this instant!’
‘Don’t order me around like yer the boss of me, pal.’ she replied from the living room, her voice already unsteady.’
‘Rot in hell you bitch!’
‘Don’t curse me, boy. The J in yer name don’t stand fer Jesus.’
‘You uncouth hag!’ he roared in anger and helplessness. He staggered
to the basin in his pajamas, a tear at the rear providing an ample
view of his enormous derrier and gazed at the mirror. A week’s growth
of hair adorned his cheeks and chin. I look gaunt and unhealthy, he
thought. He picked up his razor and got to work.
Fifteen minutes later he was gazing at a healthier version of his own
self in the mirror. He wiped his face on a towel and studied it
closely. His eyes widened with horror as he noticed a dull, tiny spot
of red on it. He threw the towel and hurriedly examined his face.
There it was. Right under his left cheek. A cut so small it was
invisible. But to him it magnified in size until it become the size of
a tennis ball. He let out a long, panic stricken shriek of despair
that’d have put any tenor to shame and ran to the door, pausing only
to don the battered coat. His mother gazed bemusedly as he shot out of
the door like a bullet and then shrugged and poured herself another
stiff one.
Manny skimmed through the local newspaper uninterestedly. No rapes,
no murders, no gory robberies. Damn, was last night dull. The phone
rang and he picked it up. “Hello, Dr. Rivers’ clinic’ he said dully.
‘No, the doctor’s not in.’
‘I don’t know, he comes and goes as he pleases.’
‘I don’t know if he’ll be here at five. I don’t know!’
‘Woman, how many times do I have to say this? I don’t know!’
‘I’m a bad sort of employee. I don’t even get paid for this, I have
no fucking clue why I sit here everyday.’
He banged the phone down and resumed his perusal of the newspaper. It
was at this moment that the door burst open and a wailing tornado
dressed in a pajama and a coat shot in. ‘Take my blood!’ it screamed,
thrusting out a hairy, pudgy hand. ‘Take my blood!’
Manny almost fell off his stool in surprise. He gaped at the thing in
front of him and as if the urgency in it’s voice were contagious, he
ran and sunk his teeth into it’s hand. Manny did not function well in
emergencies. Blood splattered all over his face, adorning his pink
nose, his brown eyes and his giant ears. The thing roared in pain and
sunk it’s teeth into Manny’s neck. The last thing Manny remembered
before passing out was the goodtime he had with the whore the previous
week.
The whore was generous. She not only gave him her body but the
retrovirus inside it. Manny, of course, had no fucking clue. He never
did.
