If it is your life

by James Kelman

  The entrance gate into the parking area of the unprepossessing building lay ahead. Inside was a trailer but not much else. There were warning signs on Trespassing and Security. Suddenly a uniformed male appeared with a cup of tea or coffee in hand, a newspaper beneath his elbow, he yawned and spat to the ground. He had not seen me yet directed the spit towards the space into which I headed.

  That boded ill. It meant he knew I was there. Probably he saw me from the trailer window and here he was keeping me at bay. I was tempted to return to the inner city. Mid to late afternoon. I would need a place soon. There was a cinema whose early evening entertainments provided a panacea for parties exhausted by life’s travels. Persons dotted themselves about the hall and might sleep. Management’s attitude was benign. When the programme ended the ushers roused individuals in a tentative – not to say sympathetic – manner. On one occasion one such usher panicked when unable to rouse me. I apologized for snoring. The usher apologized for wakening me. She had feared the worst, an inference drawn from the manner in which my head lolled. That to me was appalling. A lolling head at my time of life. I was a mere boy. (Sometimes I dreamed I was a man.)

  But you needed money for the cinema. During mid-evenings I had access to a secret hidey-hole but a snag existed therein. I had to not-snore. This hidey-hole though secret lay within earshot of ‘the existent other’.

  Immediacy. Needs and necessity.

  Meanwhile the uniformed male security stared in my direction. He knew I was there. I had a sandwich in my pocket. I could eat it while pondering a course of action.

  A brainwave. What if I hoofed it back to the Agency? The bureaucrat woman probably worked until very late. I could invent a pretext to reenter the building and see her, then be dismissed by her. But this time I would concentrate very hard and not discover myself having exited the building. I would find a secure wee spot and bed down for the night. I didnt even need to see her, I could just secret my way into the building, maybe find a spare settee someplace.

  Ah but this was the stuff of fantasy. I recognized it for the hollow ruse it was. I was about to lose myself in the subterranean depth of the subconscious. I had embarked on a shifty stratagem that would result in the bureaucrat woman mentioning her spare settee, that I might bunk there for the night and snuggle into her and be as one, we two, and raising myself onto my elbows, her below me, her eyes

  *

  It is amazing what our brains get up to.

  I had no foolish dreams about sharing her bed. It didnt matter how presentable I was in my individual underwear pack. No point being silly about it. Such women have suitors. She could have been married. Probably to a Duke of England. I had noticed a number of ‘high-quality’ cars parked in the vicinity of the Agency. All had metallic fashion accessories, heraldic designs as befitting the class of vulture. What are these designs called again? I always forget. Perhaps her aristocrat suitor drove one such … car. One hesitates to call them ‘car’. He would have a sentry employee watching the door who would have recognized ‘the prowler’. Me. I was the prowler. A ‘high-velocity’ rifle would be trained on my very skull. If I made the wrong move my brains would be blown away by the male security. And the powers-that-be would defend him to the very marlow, this being a society structured on sinecurial wealth and the veracity of inherited inequality.

  But what if the bureaucrat woman was away home? Perhaps she had a husband and weans to feed? Perhaps she languished in spinster’s quarters, bemoaning her lack of a man, and that man might be me.

  There was an ATM across the road from the Agency. I could stand near there and watch for an opportunity to enter the premises. But what if a domestic security appeared? He might assume a ‘high-level’ burglary was in operation, that I was standing guard for a gang of bank robbers, then below street level and burrowing their way down to the vaulted dungeon wherein lie riches beyond one’s wildest dreams. Gold bars and stocks of bullion. It would be better walking apace than standing guard. But even that reeks of suspicious behaviour and the domestic security would seek answers to awkward questions.

  What to do? The rain the rain.

  Goodness me the fucking rain!

  I was standing outside the entrance gate to the car-park of the unprepossessing building and had yet to approach a decision, my brains a complete mess, and the rain! a fucking downpour. Not just rain! This was more than rain! Them big heavy dropulet gobs of that what do you call it when you are running for cover – water water all is water, water water where do you run? I hurried back and forth but found no place. I was fucking drenched to the skin. A matter of moments, that was all it took! I shrieked at the sky but to no avail. That huffy feeling came over me: why hasnt God presented me with a convenient doorway?

  Inside the carpark I saw the light in the security trailer. Perhaps this was a benign intervention. I pushed open the gate. The rain beat down on me as I splashed through the puddles. Another sign read

  WARNING KILLER DOGS OUT THE BACK

  I stepped up to the trailer door, about to chap it, but I didnt. The uniformed male security would have been waiting there, concealed behind the door. He had seen me and would have watched my approach. But ye Heavens the weather! The rain maintained volume, pattering off the tin walls and ceiling. I needed shelter man no two-ways about it. I chapped thrice. He answered immediately but did not stand aside that I might enter the trailer. His hand hovered above the butt of his gun. He carried himself erect, shoulders stiffly back. This was to warn me that he could handle himself in an emergency. I had a sandwich in my pocket. Maybe I could feed him the fucking thing. I should say he was about sixty or something like that, seventy. My father was fifty-three the last I saw him, five fucking years ago though why I refer to him I dont know except, well, I was not about to have a physical scrap, not with a gun-totin stranger, elderly or not, especially one who reminded me of my so-to-speak daddy.

  He gazed sideways and down over my head, seeking accomplices after the fact. I stayed silent. Now he waited. Eventually I gestured at the unprepossessing building, and realized the place was deserted. And that the rain had stopped, it had. Pools of water lay on the ground. It was no figment. His attitude had tempered. Something about his shoulders, a weariness.

  Who sent you? he said.

  I was wondering that myself but made no reply. I think I must have smiled slightly.