So much for tracing my steps. You know how I was lost before. Yep, you guessed it I’m lost again. Well, not lost exactly; I know where I am in relation to being able to find my way home. I can hail a cab – cabs! I never want to park my ass in a cab for as long as I live – and have it wait outside my apartment while I duck inside and fetch cash from under my mattress. So to speak. I don’t actually keep money under my mattress, it’s just a figure of s.
On the other hand, maybe I’m not lost. Follow the sound of the police car siren. It’s possible that it’s dealing with some other matter unrelated to me, the taxi and the abducted girl. But it’s a safe assumption that it’s not. If that came out correctly. Heck, you know what I mean. You’re a smart crowd.
***
The police car, siren blazing, lights a-flashing, sped on. Inside, at the wheel, was pc Plodder. This was not, of course, his real name; it was a nickname bestowed upon him by his colleagues who undoubtedly found it funny, or just slightly amusing, at least at first, now it had simply stuck, and if his real name were used, few knew who it was referring to. He was simply Plodder, pc Plodder, and he hated it. But what could you do? Once a name had been given to you, and accepted by all else, that was it, it was now your name, the name you were known by. Whatever other name might be on your passport, such as your real name, the one your parents lovingly gave you, is neither here nor there. He hated it even more when “plodder” was shortened to “plod”, as if Plodder was his real name and Plod his nickname. In a sense, this was so. The few times of the year – Christmas, Birthdays, the occasional wedding – when he saw his family and old friends from the neighbourhood, and they’d say, “Hey, Michael, how are you?” he’d wonder who Michael was for a moment, and one time, embarrassingly so, even looked behind to see who was standing there. This he hated the most, that his own name, when used, sounded wrong to him. So actually, Plodder was his real name. Not the one on his passport, not his legal name, but real by virtue of being the one that those he now spent the majority of his current life in the company of, knew him by.
Seated beside him, riding shotgun as it were, is pc McGinny, a true English hating Scot, which is odd when you consider he now lives in England and has done for many years now. When questioned on why, if he hates the English so much, he doesn’t live in Scotland, he replies that he hates the Scots more. When then quizzed why he doesn’t choose some other part of the world to make his home he spits out, “Because I’m British, you heathen bastard!”. The truth of the matter is he’s a miserable sod whose only happy when he’s unhappy. Just one of life’s little paradoxes. (Which incidentally, is yet another thing that Plod hates, that he is always, almost always, picked to partner McGinny. Some people are just born to lose.)
Plod took the corner too fast, skidded horribly, managed by some miracle to straighten the car and promptly crashed into the back of the taxi. Fortunately the little girl was no longer inside all trussed up and gagged, being inside one of the houses, free of ties that bind and gags that gag, chomping greedily down on ice-cream, instead. But unfortunately neither officers were wearing their seatbelts. McGinny wasn’t because he felt it wasn’t what real men did, and Plod hadn’t his on because… Well, he used to wear his seatbelt. But every time he did so, and when partnered with McGinny (which was most of the time) he’d get an ear full of McGinny-isms on the theme of real men don’t wear seatbelts. It seemed easier somehow to not bother with his seatbelt. Which is a shame for him, because instead of two broken faces against the smashed windscreen, they’d only be the one.
***
I reached the end of the street and turned into the next and am happy to report that I recognized it. Or rather, what the street contained. Unfortunately, that’s as far as my happiness extended for the sight that greeted me was a two car pile up involving one police car and one taxi. And a lot of nosy gawkers – or perhaps they were concerned citizens – crowding around it. I couldn’t see the girl. Maybe she was inside the taxi, or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was hurt, or maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I could see that my wallet and phone, wherever they were, were lost to me now. So I performed an about turn and headed back the way I had just come. Because it was definitely time to get home, pack up my stuff and go. Go where I didn’t know, but gone was what I needed to be. Because I was now on the lamb, as I believe the expression is.
One Response to Chapter Eight