The Day Tripper by James Goodhand

Author:James Goodhand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2023-12-29T13:59:05+00:00

* * *

“What’s the point of you?” Blake says. A toothy grimace an inch from my face. Rank coffee breath. “What are you on this Earth for?” He’s towering over me and I’m off balance. I stumble against the wall. “Dirty, stinking scum.”

There’s an explosion not far away, followed by a cheer. The night sky glows brighter than ever. The sirens are coming now, swelling in volume from all directions. “You know what you did,” I say.

“You’re a wrong’un, Dean.” He backs up enough to look me up and down. “The state of you. I’m going home to my family now.” He smirks, and I’m more aware than ever of my ill-fitting trousers, my T-shirt with its frayed Reebok stripes, my nicotine hair, my blotched face. “You should go back to yours,” he says. “I’m sure loads of people are missing you.” He could turn, leave any other way, but he chooses to push past me. The shoulder of his suit grazes past my chin.

This guy haunted my childhood. He beat me and left me to die in the Thames. He turned my life into this disordered wreck. I am a pathetic, failed effect. How much of the cause is down to him?

There’s heat in my eyes. A tingling on my nose. I’m allegedly thirty-five years old; why does it feel like I’m about to cry? Why is my reaction to this guy just as it was in my teens?

I take a hit of booze.

No way. No fucking way.

The half-full rum bottle slips out of my hand and shatters on the ground. Blake turns.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” I shout.

He stops dead, scowls at me over his shoulder.

“How dare you imagine you can just walk away, after everything you’ve done.”

He’s back in my face again, chest against mine, but I stand firm.

“You should’ve died in the river, waster,” Blake says.

“You fucked everything.” Why do I sound so weak?

“Who’d care?” Blake spits. “Who’d care if you were dead?”

I glare at him. I don’t know. Who would care?

“You’re an evil bastard, you know that?” I hiss, forehead against his.

There’s a shout from behind us. Two heavy palms land on my shoulder. Another hand slams into Blake. We are wrenched apart.

I stagger backward against the wall and lose my footing. Blake goes over on his back, sprawled like an upturned beetle. There’s the squawk of sheared fabric: his trousers bust open at the seam.

Two police officers stand over us. “Get up, you pair of pricks!” the stockier of the two says. He grabs his baton and extends it with a flourish.

“You think we haven’t got better things to do than deal with stupid fuckers like you?” The policeman, short and square-headed, looks at me like I’m dog shit on his shoe. He’s holding the tip of his baton an inch from my front teeth. Like a million other coppers, he exudes the air of someone who shouldn’t be anywhere near the job.

“I’m going,” I mumble.

“You’re right there,” he snaps. He barrels into me, and I am swept along the alley in front of him.

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