Limbo 56 by Mike Morris (suggested reading .TXT) 📕

the roads; they're a danger to themselves and everyone else. Just for fun, I drove the van right up under her back fender, scowling at her pale reflection. After a few minutes and a couple of blasts from my horn, she got the message and scooted up a narrow dead-end street, stupid old cow.

After that, I felt a bit better, and started to look for a likely bar. You can't expect to drive for hours without a bit of refreshment. The man with the desk was probably waiting anxiously for his money. With luck I could force the price down and keep some for myself. Just a bit of good business, that's all. Mr. Clark ought to be proud of me.

Some old bums were camped on the sidewalk, huddled round a heating vent under a makeshift blue plastic tent. Just for a laugh, I swerved into a big puddle and almost drowned the closest one. Bastards deserved it, lazy bums, too idle to work, living off welfare paid for by my tax money. I was still pissed off when I turned into the parking lot behind the bar, thinking maybe I could tell Mr. Clark I got lost, or maybe the desk man wasn't at home.

I scrounged a battered half-pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment and ran into the bar without getting too wet. Inside, it was dark and pretty empty, just a few gray shapes in the dim light. Joe the bartender, or whatever his name was, stood polishing glasses with a dirty rag. I tried a bit of humor on him, but he wasn't having any - miserable bastard. He said something about my tab, and I told him to wait till payday. How can a man get ahead, I told him, when he has to pay taxes to support a bunch of lazy welfare bums, not to mention all these foreigners we keep giving money to instead of spending it on our own people. I had to pay twenty pounds off the tab, so I figured I'd get twenty pounds worth of gas for the van and claim forty. You've got to make an honest quid some way.

I chugged down the first beer and waved at Joe for another. I looked around. Just my luck, the only woman in the place was a fat old broad of about 40, staring cross-eyed at the wall with a table full of empty bottles in front of her. I stuck a crumpled cigarette in my mouth and looked around for a match. An untidy shape materialized out of the gloom, and a man scraped up to the bar next to me. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was another old bum. Not one of the ones I'd soaked, this one was only a little damp, and he'd even made a clumsy attempt to shave.’

The young man leant back and looked at Gladys. “It’s funny,” he said. “One moment you’re in a warm pub, drinking beer, not knowing how lucky you are. You may be not too bright, not too popular, but you have a job, a few small dreams. You have a future, with a few good things that might happen.” He sighed. “The next moment, you’ve taken that step, that small step towards the precipice, and you’re destined to fall off the edge into Hell. Can I go on?” he asked diffidently, and she nodded.

"I got no cigarettes," I told the old man, turning my back.

"I was only going to offer you a light." I felt his old breath as he settled comfortably next to me.

"Look," I told him. "I don't need no light. I don't want no book of matches you picked up out of the gutter. Just leave me alone. Go get a job or something."

A ragged sleeve and a cheap plastic lighter appeared in front of me. I lit up with a disgusted snort. "Joe," I said. "What sort of a bar is this? You want to get rid of this dead-beat?"

The bartender ambled over and filled the bum's empty glass. "Thanks, Theo," the bum said, laying out some money. Joe/Theo looked at me. "Gentleman can stay as long as he likes," he said. "As long as he pays for his drinks."

I snorted and carried my drink to the dark table next to the fat broad. She didn't even notice me. I sat and drank the watery beer, getting angrier all the time, thinking about lazy welfare bums, drunk all day, while honest workers had to slave away, just to pay their taxes. I stared pointedly at the fat broad - any port in a storm - but she ignored me. The sky outside the dirty windows got blacker, along with my mood.

The shapeless blob of the old bum loomed up and he sat down at the table. "Here, this one's on me," he said before I could get a word out. He put a beer-mat and a bottle of beer in front of me.

‘Bastard,’ I thought. ‘Rubbing it in with his welfare money. I'll show him. I'll take his beer; it's about time I got something back.’ He sat and watched me for a couple of minutes while I drank the beer and ignored him. He took a sip from the glass in front of him. I prefer drinking beer from a bottle. Why dirty a glass?

"I've got one, you know,” he said finally. "A good one."

"What?" I asked irritably. The old man was annoying me with his bad breath and wrinkled face. I wanted to shove him off the chair, or march him into the street. Still, I figured, I might as well get another drink out of him.

“I got a job," he said, creasing his ugly mug into what must have been a smile. "I got a good job."

"Yeah, sure," I answered. "That's why you're sitting in a bar in the middle of the day.”

He looked anxious. "I came in out of the rain," he coughed. “Soon as the weather clears a bit I'll finish -- what I have to do."

I looked skeptical and drained the bottle. "I'll get us two more," he said and hurried off to the bar.

‘What the hell,’ I thought. ‘If the old fool wants to spend his welfare check, that’s fine by me.’

He came back with two more bottles. "I'm not on welfare, you know," he said as if he'd read my mind. “I've got a job."

He looked so self-satisfied; I just had to take him down a peg. "So you tell me," I said sourly. “OK, you panhandled someone. I got to work for my money."

He gave me a watery stare. "I got a regular job. Got all sorts of money. Best job I ever had." He licked his lips. "I got money, right here." He tapped his greasy coat. "Soon as I finish, I'm going to get me some new clothes, a car...."

I stared at him. I couldn't believe the stupid old bum had lots of money. I'd seen him, a few days before, standing on the corner, hand out for a quid. He licked his wet lips again, nodding in excitement. The old man was buying drinks, talking about getting wheels. If it wasn't for the money he'd dug out of his old coat, I'd have thought he'd finally gone totally crazy.

Then it hit me. Drugs! The old bastard was delivering drugs. Somehow, he had gotten himself in with some big dealer. He was a harmless looking old bum, delivering drugs, carrying all sorts of money, hidden in his old clothes. That was it. He was going to drop off the money and get his cut. It wasn't fair. He was just an old bum. What right did he have to all that money?

I took a deep pull on the bottle and tried to think clearly. I wanted to strangle him right there. Keeping his money stashed away in his clothes, just like my old man used to, till the old lady started to 'find' it when he was snoring in the old armchair. Why should this old derelict have cash and not me? I thought of all the things I could do with the money; a new car; a couple of broads. I could go to Las Vegas, and pick up a real stake. All you need is a start.

"Get me another drink," I told him tensely, and he looked at me uncertainly. I forced a smile. "We're friends, aren't we?" He grinned, happy to have a real living breathing human friend. When he came back, there was a shot of whisky with the beer. I saw Joe with his dirty beer-rag, giving me a disapproving stare, and forced another smile at the old man. "Thanks, old-timer." I decided I was going to get some of that money. What use was it to an old lay about? What was he going to do with it? Sit and look at it all day with those watery old eyes.

I sat and watched him as he gabbled on, trying to keep a smile pasted on my face to hide the disgust I felt at his loose mouth and shaking hands as he slobbered over his beer, slopping sticky puddles over the table. I even bought a round myself while I tried to think of a good story to try and get some of that money out of him. How much should I ask for? One thousand? Two? Senile old fool should be good for at least that. If I didn't get it, his pals on the street would steal it from him, the thieving bastards. If only I could get him drunk, but he spilt more beer than he managed to get past those rotten teeth.

And instead of getting drunk, he was getting more talkative, blabbing away through a mouthful of spit, so that I wanted I wanted to punch that gray old face, right there and then. Just a bit more patience and I could 'borrow' a grand or two, then, when he came whining for his money, I could laugh in his face. Who would believe an old fart like him. I kept racking my brains for a good story, and he kept distracting me with his cracked voice and rotten teeth.

Suddenly, he stood up. "Nice talking to you," he said through a mouthful of spit. "But I have to go. - Some of us have to work, you know," he added, archly.

That did it. I almost flattened him right there. Rage blurred my vision, and I suddenly knew what I should do. I didn't have to beg him for his stinking money, I could just take it. I could knock him flat and grab those wads of drug money he had stashed away in his lumpy old clothes, and he couldn't do a thing about it. He didn't deserve the money; he was nothing but a criminal. I'd do the world a favor by taking it all.

"Wait a minute," I said quickly, grabbing him. I forced another smile that almost cracked my face. "Wait, I'll come with you." He glanced nervously towards the bar, but Joe was somewhere in the back, having a smoke or something. "Look," I said desperately, "it's still raining. Tell you what; I'll give you a lift in my van. What are friends for," I said, putting my arm around his shoulder, suppressing a shudder.

He allowed himself to be led out, and we squelched across the parking lot. The old man shivered in the rain, and I grabbed his arm. "Down there," I told him. "The van's at the