All of this will of course be done with the minimal of indication. I bloody hate people who don’t indicate or have no awareness of those around them, when in control (albeit loosely speaking) of 1.5 tonnes of metal. Manners apply everywhere, and on the road that means allowing people in their metal boxes to know where your metal box is going. This is called safety and it really should be everywhere.
Except, it seems, on this leafy and quiet suburban road in Essex.
It’s a bright and sunny Tuesday afternoon in May and I’m on way back from two successful meetings, and I’m feeling pretty bloody good. The orders I’d had signed off today not only put me over target for the month with half of it to go; but also put me ahead of the entire southern sales team.
So I was happy as Larry, driving along, fag in hand, with my Shine 8 compilation CD playing. I wasn’t in any kind of rush, as I was ahead of rush hour traffic, the roads were fairly empty and the sun was out. As the guitar kicks in and I begin shouting/singing to Reef’s Place Your Hands; I notice a car ahead on an adjoining road being erratic and hurtling towards the stop line of a T-junction. I can tell the driver must be oblivious to the fact that any second now he is meant to be giving way. To me.
I look in the rear view mirror and see there are a couple of cars behind me, but the one directly behind isn’t up my arse. I tap my brakes twice anyway, just in case.
All of this happens in under two seconds, and my speed has already begun to decrease subconsciously. So when my fears are realised, and the Golf just pulls out in front of me, I am fully prepared. I screech to a halt, inches from his passenger door as he instinctively slams his foot on his brake at the sound of my horn.
Just because I half knew it would happen doesn’t stop me from leaning on the horn and shouting at the driver, informing him of my candid thoughts and views pertaining to his driving prowess. My car has stalled, a rather annoying electronic glitch in my particular 306 that has developed along with a few other random electric glitches.
This annoys me even more, along with the blank look from the tall man behind the wheel sat idling in his Golf, music blaring. As he stares at me, his head is still nodding to his music. I angrily prod the hazard light button and notice that the cars behind are slowly overtaking both of us as I climb out. They are rubbernecking as they creep by and are then gone. The road is eerily empty with the exception of a stalled Peugeot 306 and an idling Volkswagen Golf GTi. The latter is sat at a slight angle to the former. He hasn’t even put his hazard lights on.
His music gets louder once I’m outside my car, then louder again as he winds down the passenger side window.
‘What, nothing? You’re just going to sit there and stare like a fucking idiot?’ I shout above the music which I now realise is Blur.
Still, he doesn’t say a word.
‘Fuck’s sake mate. What are you doing? If I wasn’t always looking out for people like you, you’d have a fuck-off dent in the side of your car. What were you doing?’ I repeat, but I may as well be shouting at a brick wall; he just stares at me, rocking back and forth and nodding to the music.
As I approach the VW Golf, I notice how the man behind the wheel looks. Hollow dark eyes, dishevelled with a haunted lost look. On edge. On the edge.
Like I said before, I’m not a fighter and aim very much to avoid confrontation, and so I begin to calm down. He looks like shit, and I begin to feel sorry for him, empathy quelling my anger. It isn’t so much that he looks like he could kick off, but he has an aura of someone who has nothing to lose. Genuinely concerned, I ask him if he’s ok.
Finally, a break in the blank look on his face. A sickly grin comes across his face as he shouts ‘Mate, I’ve got something in here to say sorry’.
I can see him trying to find
…a knife?
something in his door. Could it be a weapon? An actual gift? Things are beginning to feel strange, like they’re going south quickly. I decide to draw a line under it and get on with my day. ‘Don’t worry’, I say, ‘nothing’s actually happened, we’re both ok and I did manage to stop. Just keep an eye out, eh? No need to give me….’
I stop speaking and am amazed at what I am seeing this man in front of me do.
‘Fuck. You. Peugeot. Wanker.’ He shouts, enunciating clearly each word, grinning as he spits them out in sadistic glee. I gape, speechless, at his extended middle finger, then watch as the hand moves to the gearstick. I observe him thrust the car into first gear, as if in slow motion. As the VW Golfs gears mesh together and engage the power through the cogs and into the wheels, then so does my rage fire up and explode into action as if mirroring the process. I see red mist and then
nothing.
Chapter 35
The Good One is weak. The Good One is empathic. The Good One forgives.
Not I.
This vermin, this little shit that has just shown the utmost of discourtesy. I’ll exact my punishment upon him. How dare he?
I see his little rodent eyes watching me in his rear view mirror as he speeds away, and so I make sure he knows full well what he has done. The wheels that have been set in motion. The machinations have begun and they will run their course. I point, my arm and finger motionless except for the tiniest of movements on each strong and angry pulse of viscous blood pumping through my suddenly vicious and vengeful heart. My powerful heart.
I know he sees me draw my finger across my throat as I continue to point. The finger accuses, unquestionable, unwavering as I walk back to the car and climb in. I start it up. Credit where credit’s due, the Good One drives hard, and even a diesel engine that has been trained to speed from the outset can hold its own in a duel upon suburban roads.
I roar after my quarry, revs high and all torque, diesel engine hammering; thundering as if venting fury on my behalf. I feel like death himself, the grim reaper flying after his prey ready to dispense with apt punishment. I see his car up ahead, trying to shake me off by turning down a side road
NO INDICATION
that I see heads out to the peripheral edges of a partly finished new housing estate. Snidey, sneaky little shitrat. Perfect.
Little parasite, you are mine.
Bland house after bland house speed by, from the outer parts of the estate, where they are finished and up for sale, through to ever decreasing levels of completion.
I gain upon him, his weakness has obviously crumbled his resolve. He is making rash decisions, each one hindering his potential escape. I, however; I have the impetus of wrath and the keen senses of fulmination and close the gap even further as he again endeavours to lose me. Fool.
And what joy. As I hurtle round the corner that he has just driven down, I see that he has lost control and crumpled the front of his car against the front of a partially built three bedroom semi-detached home. Thank you, you solidly built epitome of suburban insipidness.
I can see him shaking his head behind the wheel at the front of his car. The impact must have even put the stereo out of action, as now the only sound is the hiss and pop of a ruined engine, and the ticking of cooling metal.
No rush. I climb from my parked car, and walk slowly, crunching through a thousand scattered pieces of glass, strewn around the wrecked Golf GTi. I hear pleading coming from the car now, and the sounds of struggling.
I survey the area around us. So far are we into the labyrinthine network of streets and cul de sacs of partially built hives for the unimaginative that we may as well be on a building site in the middle of a desert, rather than a few hundred feet from populated Essex suburbia.
Chapter 36
Dazed, shit-scared and already exhausted from his struggles, Jonathan slumped back in the Recaro seat. He heard the engine noises, the ticking sound of hot metal cooling, the hiss of a punctured radiator. The entire stereo had shot out heavily on impact and cut his left arm as it flew past, still in its metal anti-theft bracket. The cut felt deep and throbbed with his quickened pulse.
He could hear crunching footsteps, taking their time getting to hi
m. The side mirror had been lost in the collision so he couldn’t see behind him. He didn’t want to see. He really needed to see.
He had taken that last bend so fast, had taken it blindly at nearly 50mph on a road designed for slow driving amongst houses and children and safety and life.
It was narrow and unforgiving, and he had lost control as the tyres lost their grip and had clipped a kerb and ricocheted to the opposite side of the road. There he had hit a steeply dropped curb at an awkward angle and hit the front of a partly built house at nearly 35mph. Needless to say, the damage to the car was extensive and pretty final.
And so Jonathan sat there, unable to flee, his legs unable to move, trapped beneath the dashboard that was now substantially further back than it should have been. He wondered if he would have had more strength to escape had he not caned it so much over the weekend.
He wondered if he’d be stronger generally if he didn’t cane it so much all the time.
‘Please. Help me.’ Was that to this man, walking purposely towards him, or was it to someone that clearly wasn’t there, on what was essentially a patch of mud and half built houses and roads?
His previous bravado had waned considerably, and he felt tears blur his vision, and rising emotion causing a bubble in his throat.
‘Please, man. Please. I’m so sorry mate, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I was an arsehole back there, I wasn’t thinking strai…’
Jonathan’s words faltered as he looked into the cold, dark eyes of his pursuer. They had come down to his level and the man was staring at him, an evil smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It was the same man that had walked up to him at the junction where he hadn’t been paying attention. But it wasn’t the same man at all.
‘What is your name, pitiful creature? The man asked, enunciated his words through a half smile that didn’t reach his raptly sinister eyes. There was a dark undercurrent of glee, a subtext of mischief.
‘Jonathan. Without the h.’ A lifetime of saying it, it just came out. Habit. Almost laughable had it not been for the circumstances.
‘Well, Jonathan without the h; why were you so very rude back there? Firstly, you drove like an imbecile, completely oblivious to those you were sharing roads with; being a DANGER…’
‘..I know, I’m so sorry..’
‘AND THEN, Jonathan without the h, you were unmannerly to my better natured passenger, the Good One.’
‘..the who, sorry?’ Jonathan knew there hadn’t been anyone else. This guy seemed psychotic and delusional. ‘I don’t know who you mean, but honestly, I cannot apologise enough!’
‘The Good One. He isn’t here now, as I’ve been sent to deal with you. And I will deal with you in ways that you made happen. Do you see that? DO YOU? YOU LITTLE SHIT!’
Jonathan flinched, spittle flying in his face. What the hell was happening? Was this really happening, was he about to get knocked about for being a bit of a dick in his car? Was the day really going this shit?
The man leaned in to the car, reaching across him and pressing the seatbelt holder button. The inertia reel whipped the seatbelt back into its resting place and Jonathan felt hands roughly grab bunches of his jacket and he was hoisted out as if he were a child, pulled out from the mangled dashboard that had been trapping his legs.
The pain that flared up was immediate and intense. His legs weren’t broken, but they had been badly bruised from the impact, and now had several new gashes from razor-like broken plastic edges and distorted metal gouging him on his exit from the collapsed dashboard.
He screamed as he was firstly thrown on the ground, and then forcefully sat up against the open doorway of his car. Agony exploded in all his wounds with each rough movement.
All there was, was his moans, the car’s hissing and popping, the crunching of glass pieces under him and his attacker’s feet. He heard police sirens far, far in the distance. They would do him no good.
‘Please, I’ll do anything,’ he sobbed, ‘I’ve not been thinking straight. I’ve been a total wanker, I know that. I’m sorry. I’m not all there, I just lost my job and my gir..what are you doing?’
His mounting fear, increased to terror that temporarily numbed his pain as he saw the wing mirror in the man’s hand. He tried to move away, to the side, anything; but his legs are useless. Too much pain for them to be effective.
‘HELP ME!’ His shout echoes through empty estate streets, yet to be inhabited.
‘You need to learn some manners, Jonathan without the h. Without the fucking ANYTHING Jonathan!’
With that, he thrusts the wing mirror full force, glass part first into Jonathan’s face. New pain takes over his world as his nose ruptures, lips split as they mash against his teeth, several of which also break.
‘NO CONCERN FOR OTHERS’.
He smashes his face again, the mirror cracks in multiple places. So does his cheekbone .
‘NO INDICATION’.
In his other hand is a broken piece of the indicator cover. He hits the face again, breaking it further, some shards pierce his cheeks, one completely through, the pointed end puncturing his tongue. Pain is everywhere.
‘NO SPATIAL AWARENESS. NO HUMILITY. NO. FUCKING. MANNERS!’
Jonathan’s vision is lost in one eye as it’s slashed in two from a piece of mirror. The pain has plateaued, and all he now knows is his nerves screaming, in his face, in his legs. He thinks he is crying, squealing, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore other than how fast a shit day turned monumentally bad.
He thinks of his girl, who isn’t his girl. He sobs when realisation dawns that he fucked it up, he won’t see her again; and he wonders from afar how much she will grieve as he blearily sees the indicator stalk in the crazy man’s hand. He has wrenched it from the steering column and is laughing maniacally as he raises it above his head and is shouting something…something.
‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvre, Jonathan’. The last words he hears, as the indicator stalk is plunged into his remaining eyeball and deep into his brain. Death is instant, finally.
Chapter 37
It had been a slow day at Lou’s Bar & Grill. Again.
In fact, it had been a slow week. Month, even.
Shit, let’s face it, if it had ever gone past ‘slow’, to ‘fairly busy’; it hadn’t ever lasted very long for one reason or another. Seriously, what the hell had she done opening up this bloody place?
These were the thoughts going through Louise Richardson’s mind as she tallied up the takings so far that day. She wouldn’t normally, SHOULDN’T normally be doing it at 7:50pm at night, but with the exception of the two tables that were just on drinks and the one man eating, that was pretty much it for the night.
Hopefully serve a few more drinks to the two tables and cooking the choices of the man currently perusing the menu; other than that she didn’t have much else to do.
She may get a few more stragglers in need of something to soak up the booze part-way through their drinking session, or a couple at the end of an early drinking session but it was mostly over bar the shouting.
Was it over for the Bar, she wondered? It had been just two years and a handful of days. Her dreams had not reached fruition, the dreams of one establishment turning into a chain of Lou’s Bar & Grills. Dreams of financial freedom and achievement.
In fact, those dreams fell very much short of the mark. In hindsight, the £14k she had got through (arguably nefarious and) harsh means could have been invested better. It could have been a bar in Spain. It could have been a large chunk of a flat or house. Hell, they could have been a couple of years travelling in luxury.
Was it karma, then, maybe? Greg would probably say so. Greg, her knight in shining armour even after she’d left him for someone with a bit more get up and go. Greg who dealt with her debts even after she’d turned her back on him and tried being a holiday rep for a while. Greg who really would insist on remaining friends when she was way more suited to cutting ties and fucking off. How many ti
mes can you kick a man when he was down until they cut you off? Evidently, one more time.
And it was his good nature, and Lou’s ability to be swayed by her over bearing (and vicious, is that fair?) parents that lead to her threatening unsuspecting Greg with court proceedings if he didn’t give her a pretty big wad of cash to get her name off the mortgage. She had gone for £20k. They agreed on £14k. Either way, she felt guilt daily for the fact that she had done it. Not that she’d ever admit that.
Needless to say, they no longer spoke. He’d sorted out her debts. He’d given her half of their shared possessions despite him being the one that had bought them all. And then, he’d given her £14k out of the flat that she hadn’t paid the mortgage on for years.
The payoff was losing most of their shared friends. It was also losing his friendship that he had insisted stayed despite her instincts being to the contrary; especially as she fucked her way through any of his acquaintances she’d had the hots for while she’d been with him. She chose not to think too much about the few dalliances that had happened while she was still with Greg, sometimes with him passed out upstairs after drinking too much and her staying downstairs for ‘a couple more’ with Ross or Richard or Chris or Aaron or
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