I noticed the drunk from a long way down the road. He was hard to miss: a huge, wide-shouldered horror of a man wailing gibberish at passers-by and thrashing his gibbon-like arms about. In his left hand he clasped an unopened can of Stella.
I walked towards him and watched him as he thrashed and wailed. He started pointing at the sky, now at the wall, now at an invisible thing in front of him. He wasn't getting a response. A young couple arm-in arm in front of me crossed the road to avoid him. I kept walking. I could have crossed the road. I could have followed the young couple and sought safety in numbers. I suppose I didn't want to think of myself as a coward.
But the size of the man, and that desperate wailing voice. I was shit-scared. I'd read in the paper about a man who walked into a supermarket with a huge knife and stabbed an innocent shopper to death, then beheaded her, right there in the frozen food aisle, and casually walked off with the head. But I walked straight towards him anyway, just as he was serenading a lamp-post. The sound he was making was horrible, all phlegmy vowels and drool.
He wore a battered baseball cap, under the shade of which his battered bristled head oozed sorrow, madness and booze vapour. As I tiptoed towards to him I saw that a yellow crust had formed at the corners of his mouth. I noticed the caried black ruins of his teeth. He turned from the lamp-post and looked at me. I was within attack radius. I saw the young couple look over their shoulders as they turned the corner of the street and carried on with their charmed lives.
The drunk opened the can of Stella. He used the abhorrence of his mouth to suck up the explosion of foam. Instantly he puked up the foam which, after travelling the considerable distance from his head to his feet, splashed all over the pavement. He gulped more lager. He retched, but managed to keep it down.
'Iss juss bou' money inni?' he said.
'Sorry.' I said.
''Money ere, money there. Ere's yer money, 'ave some money. Money, money. Thass it. Thass woss all bout. Money an gettin pissed.'
He took another slurp of Stella.
"I wizh I was inna BNP but I can't cozz I 'ate myself."
I tried to insinuate myself past him as he spoke, but he stumbled sideways and blocked my path. He looked at me with a look that, even though he was out of his mind, I could identify as disdain.
"Ahnggh agn huh," he said. "Am I your mum? Am I your dad?"
"No you're not," I said.
"Ah your jussz hippy, thas all. Don worry, I won 'urt yer. Am an 'ippy zwell. We all are." He finished off his can and threw it into the road. A passing car sounded its horn.
"Ey, ey, fuck off you cunt, you fucking cunt, al kill yer fuckin cunt," the drunk bellowed. He scrambled up the lamp-post and started screaming that combination of vowels and drool again. I saw my chance and started to walk on, but I heard him hit the floor and start running to catch me. My heart stopped for a couple of seconds.
When he'd caught up to me he vomited again. Just a little bit this time. "Do you wanna drink?" he asked.
I said no. And suddenly it was my turn to feel disdain.
Stupid people really should keep their mouths shut, I thought. Listen to this big arsehole trying to say something profound, pretending to
wisdom. At least if you'd beaten me up it would have been something pure, something you were good at. I looked into his eyes as I thought all this.
The atmosphere had changed. As he swayed in front of me now it was as if he were swaying on a blade's edge, preliminary to an abysmal fall. But he had more. He had been building up to it. Looking as earnest as its possible for a sub-normally intelligent, paranoid schizophrenic, wet-brained alcoholic who has never been loved by anyone and who has been on a 72-hour amphetamine binge, to look, he put his hand on my shoulder and said: "I am Jesus for a day. Call yer mum an yer dad. Tell 'em that yer okay. They neeto know yer okay. Don' forget you 'ave a choice." Then he turned round and walked away, holding his gibbon-like arms aloft, making the sign of the devil's horns.
