“He fuckin’ ran over Kafka, mate, what you expect me to do, nothin’?”
Yeah, The Trial flattened like fuckin’ road-kill in the middle of Vauxhall Bridge Road. This bald cuntster in a silver BMW watched it fall out my back pocket; drove right over it tryin’ to beat the lights. But I am Lord of the Lights; I fuckin’ rule those lights. I just stood there in the traffic, eyes closed and I heard ‘em go red, yeah. Fuckin’ magic it was. And I had him. The fucker was mine cos not even some bald cuntster in a BMW’s gonna jump the lights at this junction. One of the busiest intersections in London; five lanes of heavy duty traffic. I got buses, cars, taxis and the biggest fuckin’ trucks you can imagine in my hair all day, cos this here’s my patch.
“So Mr Ray, you don’t den…”
“Mr Ray? The fuck is he - ‘scuse my Swahili.”
“Okay, S-Sting… Sting then.”
“And I ain’t fuckin’ Sting neither, mate; cuntster with his pop fuckin’ reggae and his tantric knobbin’ – what you take me for? I told you, the name’s Stingray. Geddit right.”
“All right, Stingray. You’re not denying then that you…”
“I’m denyin’ everything, mate, till my brief gets here. I know my rights. Even the homeless have rights, yeah. ‘specially the fuckin’ homeless!”
Not that I consider myself homeless, mind. Yeah, I work on the streets but it ain’t my home. Yeah, I sell the Big Issue but I’m no fuckin’ loser like most of those saddos with their excuse-me-for-livin’ faces and their fuckin’ mutts; I got standards. No standin’ around outside some pussy tube station for me tryin’ to get trade. Junction between Vauxhall Bridge Road, Mill Bank and Grosvenor Road, that’s my patch. One of the busiest fuckin’ intersections in London. Lights go red and I got less than a minute to sell my wares. In and out the traffic I am, drunk on adrenalin, shovin’ the Big Issue in their faces. I don’t say a fuckin’ thing. Just march up and force them to look at me, what I’m sellin’. Shove it right in their fuckin’ windscreens. No shoutin’ Big Issue for me neither, too demeanin’ and anyway, what would be the fuckin’ point? Too much noise: engines revvin’, stereos blastin’ out.
When the lights go green, that’s when I breathe, have a fag, hang off the railings, metal quiverin’ in my hands, traffic rushin’ past me like my life. A life measured out in an endless fuckin’ sequence of coloured lights. Stop, get ready, go, get ready, stop, get ready, go… on and fuckin’ on, an endless fuckin’ game of cat’s cradle goin’ on inside my brain.
“The duty solicitor is on his way Mr errr… Stingray. You’re entitled to make a call – you want to let someone know you’re here?”
“I’m fuckin’ homeless mate, there’s no-one.”
He’s seen the wedding ring; put two and two together and come up with fuckin’ ten. I ain’t married, never have been. Ring’s just, you know, symbolic. Seventeen years me and Jan were together. Never married though; I couldn’t see the point. And then, well, we split up. Well, she left me… for fuckin’ God! Ha! When they told me, yeah, when it finally happened, it was like this fuckin’ great hole had opened up inside my stomach. Hole in my stomach the size of the fuckin’ airbag that would’ve saved her had there been one in that poxy Escort we were in at the time. Took her three months to die. Hospital was fuckin’ useless. Stable they said she was, so I sat by her bedside day in day out for three month, lyin’ through their fuckin’ teeth with my ‘yer-gonna-be-fine-Jan’s.’ Fuckin’ stable! Yeah, the ring’s symbolic. Had it made out the bits of metal they took out her chest from the BMW that jumped the light and ploughed into us.
If she could fuckin’ see me now though, eh! She don’t buy it of course, the spiel I tell everyone ‘bout me bein’ my own boss and all that. I’ll be tellin’ some cuntster in the pub how it is, ‘bout how I gave “my nine to five its P45,” how “I ain’t no wage-slave; I own me – the freehold’s in my name” and I’ll see her over by the bar, shakin’ her head. Jan could always see my bollocks comin’ a mile off. Nah, she don’t buy it cos… cos she’s the one who sees me in my room at night, legs dead on my feet, leverin’ off my shoes with a ruler cos o’the blisters. She’s the one who hears me barkin’ the fags and diesel fumes out my mouth, cough with a volcano inside it.
“S’like I said, he fuckin’ ran over Kafka, mate. What you expect me to do, nothin’?” My mouth is gnawin’ a bone while it talks.
Yeah, I fuckin’ had him. The fucker was mine. I strode over, stood right in front of that silver BMW of his. Could feel the headlights warmin’ my thighs, see my reflection loiterin’ with intent on his windscreen. Had my shirt off and my Florence Nightingale tatt with her tits out givin’ him the finger from my chest. Fuckin’ magnificent, I looked! A fuckin’ 1!! Then he went and smeared me across his windscreen with his wipers didn’t he, the cuntster. So I smashed a copy of the Big Issue against the fuckin’ glass. His face stared up at me in a million fuckin’ pieces as I tongued his aerial and made to mount the bonnet. I could see his hand on the door handle, the other hoverin’ above a bank of switches. So I went round the driver’s door and flashed him my black and gold smile. Next thing the window opens and the air-conditioning’s exhalin’ in my fuckin’ face.
“What the hell did you do that for,” he said, hand playin’ with the fuckin’ goatee on his chin. “You’re going to pay for that even if you have to sell that shit magazine for the rest of your life!”
And so I did what any self-respectin’ bloke would do faced with a bald fuckin’ cuntster with a pussy on his chin, sittin’ in a flash BMW – I leant inside and bit his fuckin’ face off. It was like this newsflash rage came over me cos I totally fuckin’ lost it there for a minute; a real fuckin’ Care in the Community moment it was. Ha!
“So you broke the driver’s windscreen, is that correct?”
“Broke the fuckin’ windscreen?! I didn’t break his fuckin’ windscreen, mate! I just like went to talk to the bald cun… to the driver about replacin’ the book he’d run over. And bein’ the entrepreneur I am, I used the opportunity to try and sell him a Big Issue. You ask me there was a flaw in the fuckin’ glass or somethin’ cos all I did was place a copy on the windscreen and the thing just fuckin’ shattered. The rest was self-defence, mate cos after that he went A1 apeshit; a real fuckin’ Care in the Community moment it was. I’m tellin’ you that bloke wants sectionin’ cos he fuckin’ lost it, mate I’m tellin’ yer. Shouldn’t be allowed on the fuckin’ streets.”
