Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

the walls of his caravan. He’d slept badly through the rain of the night before.

Across the bay, islands sat, squat black smears across the horizon.

He looked for a drink. He needed to open the windows, he needed to air and clean this place. There were empty bottles everywhere, vodka and rum.

He walked out, the salt air smacking into his face. He shut and locked the door, and headed down to the Local.

On the way he got a phone call. Joe wanted to speak to him. He wanted to say he was sorry.

‘For what?’

The man croaked something inaudible. Then he told him to go to the arcade at 3 p.m.

Michael had grown up nearby, had remained in this town by the sea while all of his friends had departed. Mistakes had forced him to leave when he hit twenty. Paying for them allowed him to return.

He still remembered the butchers, the moustache of one, the dirty beard of another, the red faces all around, the soap-meat smell of the drains outside, the suds on the steps, the red cuts in the windows, as pleasurable and tasty-looking as good food can be in films.

But it was not there any more.

Now, there was a small supermarket in its place.

The automatic doors hissed aside from his steps.

He headed for the spirits.

He found them near ice and frozen food. He found a great bottle of rum on offer and clutched it in his right hand as he felt around for his money, as he headed down the long aisle.

There were other people here, though not many.

He wondered, briefly, if he recognized one of the strangers, an older woman trying to find cereal. He did not know how he would have known her. There were children, too, on their phones near the magazines and newspapers.

He thought maybe one of them had taken a ride with him and Annie, once. He didn’t know.

As he went to join a short queue at the checkout, he felt fingers touch his neck.

He spun around, the bottle slipping from his hand and shattering on the hard plastic floor, shards of glass and spirit skipping along the ground like stones upon a sea.

There was no one behind him. At this realization, he began to feel cold. He began to shake.

He heard the sound of amusement arcades again, the door open at the Local’s front, the horror of their music manifest once more.

An assistant came to help. He had a roll of blue tissue paper and a dustpan. He began to gather the spilt mess.

‘It’s OK—’ Michael began.

‘I just need to clean it up.’ The man set up a yellow sign to warn of a wet slippery floor.

‘I only had—’ Michael looked around and stopped.

Other people were near him now. Everyone looked back at him. As if there was something to see. The older woman from down the aisle, she was behind them both, and she looked at him with awful pity.

He was shaking. He looked at his hands and saw he was shaking. He looked at the open door of the Local, he listened for the music, and it was louder, now.

‘If you see my colleague at the till, you can pay for the bottle,’ the assistant said.

‘I can’t buy two.’ Michael stared down at the man. ‘I can’t afford two.’

‘Then just pay for this one.’

‘But I didn’t drink it.’

‘You broke it.’ The assistant stood up. ‘You’re on CCTV. We’re recording you.’

‘What does that mean?’ Michael’s face began to twist. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Don’t get upset. Just pay.’

‘I’m not getting upset! I just asked you what you mean – that you’re recording me. Why are you recording me?’

‘We – we record everyone.’ The assistant looked slightly nervous, now. ‘It’s what everyone does.’

‘Why?’ Michael felt like he might cry. He felt ashamed.

‘In case you do anything wrong.’

‘Someone touched me on the neck,’ Michael said, ‘I – I didn’t do anything wrong. They made me turn.’

The assistant stared at him.

‘I just want what I paid for.’ Michael grew more agitated. ‘What is wrong with that? I just want—’

The older woman came up behind the assistant and placed her shopping basket on the conveyor belt.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, nodding to herself, unloading a tin of coffee, a box of oat cereal, and a large bottle of rum. ‘I’ll pay for him. He can pay for the broken one, I can buy the new one.’

‘Why?’ The assistant stood, shaking his head.

But she did not answer.

The checkout assistant asked her the same question. He told her that she thought she was being kind, but she wasn’t. That a man like him didn’t need more of what he was having.

The woman said nothing.

Outside, she handed Michael his bottle.

‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, taking it, his hands still shaking. She seemed like she wanted to talk, but Michael turned away.

‘Don’t you want to talk?’

He left, hurrying down the street.

‘I guess that’s the thanks I get,’ the woman said, but he kept going.

He kept going.

He tried not to have too much before the arcade. He had a coffee to wake himself up. He walked back out into the light, minutes drifting into hours. It felt like days had passed since the morning.

The arcade was blue-carpeted, dark but for the flashing lights of machines. There was a boy playing an arcade light-gun game, firing madly at aliens rushing towards him on the screen. Old men stood by the gambling machines at the back, an area called REEL, eighteen and over only.

It was through there Joe disappeared, week after week. He had heard a rumour once that Joe owned all of this. He had heard another rumour that the man didn’t own anything at all, that it was just in his name, that it was a scam, it was all one big scam.

That was all. Those small plates moving back and forth, back and forth. The glittered lights and the copyrighted music. Realistic-looking ducklings moving up and down in a cabinet. An emptiness of gum and scattered coin.

The amusement