Man of Ruin

by Oliver Franks

“I can explain—”

  “What about that homeless man they mentioned?” said the doc. “You never told me about that.”

  “No,” I said. “I—”

  “Call the police right now, Dave. Do it!”

  “Mum?”

  “Shut up, Daryl!” she shouted. “Dave,” she said, now fully into her angry mother routine. “If you don’t call them right away, you know how this looks?”

  “How?” I gulped, feeling stupid for asking.

  “It looks like you’re a bloody vandal is how it looks! And possibly, if that poor man dies, a murderer.”

  “Mum, why is this bloke in our house?”

  “Moreover,” she continued, “it looks like we’ve been sheltering you!”

  “Oh dear,” I said pathetically.

  “Yes, oh dear!” she cried.

  Then she sort of fell into the arms of Daryl, who managed to give me the dirtiest look I think I’ve ever seen.

  “Alright,” I said, putting my hands up. “You’re right. I’ll phone them now.”

  It was distressing for me to see the doc upset like that, especially after how kind she’d been, the pizza and that, all the giggles we’d had the night before.

  I moped over to the phone, still extremely reluctant to call.

  “It was an accident,” I said again meekly.

  Daryl sort of growled at me.

  Feeling completely at a loss, I picked up the phone. I started dialling the numbers 999. Then I stopped, turning to Daryl and the doc.

  “Should I dial 999?” I asked. “Or something else?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Dave!” shrieked the doc. “I can’t believe you hurt someone so badly like that. I mean . . . why? Couldn’t you control yourself?”

  “It was an accident!” I protested. “Just a horrible accident . . .”

  “Mum,” said Daryl. “Would you please tell me what is going on? I mean, what is this man doing here? Why did you bring him here?”

  “Look, I’m not some kind of criminal, alright?!” I shouted. “It’s just that—”

  “Oh, Daryl,” said his mum, holding her son’s hands. “I don’t know how to explain. It’s just . . . so strange.”

  “You’re telling me,” I mumbled.

  “What is so strange, Mum?” Daryl pressed, frowning at me, though he was now talking softly to his mother.

  “This man . . .” She pointed to me, clearly distraught. “This man,” she repeated, struggling to get the words out, “has been . . .”

  “Yes, Mum? Go on.”

  I couldn’t stand it. She’d been so nice to me, so understanding up to now.

  “He’s been . . . peeing some kind of . . . acid.”

  She delivered the words with an air of pure horror.

  “What?!” Daryl wore a look of disbelief, shock and disgust all rolled into one.

  “He came to my surgery yesterday, and I didn’t believe him at first. But then he showed me, Daryl. Then he showed me! And it was real. It was terrible. Unbelievable. He destroyed my wall,” she rambled, clearly afraid, and Daryl was listening calmly, staring at me, a picture of distrust. I might as well have been Osama Bin Laden for the look he gave me. “And I believe it now,” she continued. “He can . . . I don’t understand how . . . what’s caused this awful thing to be . . . But somehow, it’s real. It’s happened. I just wanted to help him. I felt sorry for him. I didn’t know he’d hurt anyone. I didn’t think he was dangerous. Oh, Daryl, I’m sorry.”

  I stood there watching and listening to them discuss me, feeling the total outsider, the total freak.

  “It’s okay, Mum,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  Then he turned and gave me another stern look.

  “You,” he said. “Get out.”

  “What about the police?” I said.

  “I don’t care about the flipping police. Just get the hell out of my house! Now!”

  The doc was refusing to look at me. I guess that part about the homeless guy had totally freaked her out. It was as if I no longer existed as that nice lad she’d shared pizza with, as if I was just a monster now.

  “Alright,” I said. “No need to shout.”

  I turned to leave.

  “It was only an accident, Doc,” I said. “The homeless guy. A stupid accident. Thank you for helping me out, your hospitality and that. The pizza was grand.”

  And with that, I left.

  I don’t think I’d clocked the doc properly at all. She had been far more shaken by my demonstration than I had thought, possibly more in a tizz about the whole thing than even me, as unfair as that was. I’d been silly to trust her. Playing the angel, playing Mother Teresa, watching Sharknado, eating pizza and drinking wine. She had seemed okay, but the whole thing was just her way of dealing with the strange metamorphosis of my member. Underneath it all, I had shaken her world something rotten. All her education and she hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening to me or any way of looking into it. Not only had it ruined her office window, but my wee had also reduced all her knowledge and learning into purest drivel.

  *****

  I didn’t make it far before the police picked me up. How could I? I was slap bang in the middle of nowhere, early on a chilly autumn morning and with no transportation. Certainly I was the only mug out walking that country lane.

  The doctor or Daryl must have called them ’cos I didn’t. I took one look at my phone, shuddering and putting it straight back in my pocket when I saw all those missed calls from the afternoon and evening before: my parents, James, Martin, and a bunch of other numbers I didn’t recognise. They all tailed off at around nine o’clock. Must have given up on me about then.

  The police cars were speeding with all their sirens blasting and bright lights flashing and everything. I could hear them coming miles off, but what was I to do? I suppose I could have legged it to a field, hidden there or something, but I just couldn’t be arsed. They’d get me in the end, and the doc was right: the more I ran, the worse it would look.

  Once they saw me, the cars came to a screeching halt and the officers got out, approaching me with caution. I could see one or two of them had guns, though thank God they weren’t pointing them at me.

  “David Smith?” one of them called to me, a bloke in a brown suit with floppy hair and sideburns. A detective or something, I guessed.

  “Yes, that’s me,” I said.

  “You’re under arrest for murder and seven counts of vandalism.”

  Oh, bloody hellfire. That silly tramp had only gone and died.

  CHAPTER 12

  “PUT YOUR HANDS UP where I can see them, Sonny Jim.”

  I did so and the detective in the brown suit gave a whistle, signalling a pair of the uniformed officers to approach me.

  “I’m not dangerous,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said the detective.

  With a meticulously blank expression, he was chewing on a toothpick and appeared to have several days’ worth of stubble on his face. He kept flicking his unkempt blond hair from his eyes, which were as tired as any I’d ever seen, and I’d seen quite a few staring back at me in the mirror on a hungover morning. Dog tired his were, with great bags under them like the floppy skin of a wrinkled pug. A complete twat, I realised, and someone who would do his utmost to make things unpleasant for me.

  The pair of uniforms came and started patting me all over.

  “I don’t have any weapons or anything,” I said.

  One of them laughed and then I felt his hand grabbing hard on my buttocks.

  “Oy!”

  “Don’t worry, sunshine,” he whispered. “I’m not queer, and if I were, you’d be the last thing on my mind.”

  Then he yanked my hands together in front of me and clanked a pair of cuffs over my wrists.

  “Not sure they’re so discerning in the nick, mind,” he added.

  I should have been frightened at that point, I suppose, but I was just numb and utterly gob-struck by the whole thing.

&nbs
p; “Clear, Sarge!” he called when they’d finished molesting me.

  Just then, the door of the first police car opened and a woman stepped out. She had an angry yet bored look, wrinkling her nose and looking at me as if she just stepped into a rubbish tip and I was a bag of rotting food someone had left there. With what I’d call a chunky build, she had a pudgy face, thick nose and the reddish-tinged splotchy cheeks of a drinker. Her oily black hair was cut short, too short for her cumbersome head, and she was wearing blue jeans that tightened savagely around her mountainous thighs. Covering her top half, she wore an ill-fitting little black suit jacket with a plain white T-shirt underneath, which bulged horribly with her not inconsiderable cleavage. I realised with a sinking heart that I was looking at another twat. A big one. Perhaps an even more complete one than the man.

  “Alright, people!” she barked impatiently. “Shove him in the back then and let’s get ourselves back to the station. The coffee may be shite, but at least it’s hot and black. More than I can say for this flabby piece of dog’s business here.”

  They laughed and pulled me to the car.

  It took a second or two for me to realise she was talking about me. How rude! I thought better of defending myself though. I was flabby, that was true, and she did not look like one to be messed with.

  I was definitely in for a rough ride.

  *****

  I spent the drive pensive and annoyed, itching to bite my nails but struggling to, what with the cuffs. The police all sat in silence, occasionally yawning. I didn’t know if that was an act to make me feel uncomfortable or if they were all just tired and bored by the whole thing.

  The station was in downtown Crawley. I’d walked past it plenty of times, though always careful to avoid it at night when I’d had a few too many. We drove up outside the front and they hauled me out of the car. It was just like one of those news reports you see on telly. There were people waiting with cameras flashing and whatnot, and I realised that was because it was indeed one of those news reports you see on telly. At least it would be shortly, as soon as they edited it all for the next bulletin.

  Inside, they didn’t mess around. After taking some basic details, name and fingerprints and all that, I was taken straight to be photographed and then shoved into one of those bare rooms for interrogation—only a table, a recording device, a few chairs and a little camera watching it all from a corner of the ceiling. Christ, I thought, sitting there alone while they got their shit together or drank their coffee or whatever it was they did before they officially interviewed someone. Not only was I being tried for murder, but I had also been photographed all morning wearing Christopher-bloody-midlife-crisis’s old Gant wear. I’d seen enough movies to know that the picture they take of you when they bring you into the station is the one that sticks.

  Whatever happened, I’d already been sentenced to Gant for life.

  *****

  “Right, you little gob shite,” said DCI Pauline Hollingsworth. “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”

  They came in—whirled in, I should say—plonked themselves down in the chairs opposite me, flicked on the switch to the recording device, rattled off their little spiel for it, reading out everyone’s names, the date, etc., then started lobbing questions at me like barrels of faeces.

  “Were you at the Dog and Whistle pub on the night of the second of September?” said the exhausted-looking side-burned one, DCI Phillip Butter.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And were you involved in the destruction of the men’s urinals at that establishment?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  This seemed to catch them off guard. I guess they were expecting me to put up a fight, hoping that I would try to dodge and evade and that, through their own dogged ingenuity, some or all of their questions would stick to me and give off enough stench to try me in court. I wouldn’t give them any such satisfaction.

  “Yes?” said DCI Hollingsworth, spitting out the word. “Would you care to elaborate on that?”

  “Alright,” I said. “I went for a wee and the urinal was destroyed.”

  “Look, Sonny Jim,” said DCI Butter. “This isn’t some game we’re playing here. This is serious.”

  He rammed a finger into the table to emphasize his point.

  “I’m being serious,” I said. “I didn’t expect my piss would have that effect, but that’s what happened. I know it sounds weird, but it turned green. My wee. Bright green. And the whole thing just sort of . . . caved in.”

  DCI Butter leaned back in his chair and let out a snort and a snigger. He put the toothpick back in his mouth and shook his head, smiling, flicking his hair from his eyes. DCI Hollingsworth, on the other hand, was giving me an evil look, leaning forwards, scrunching her face like she was pushing out a large turd.

  “David,” she said. “Is that seriously the statement you want to give us? You peed in the urinal and it fell apart?”

  “And your wee was, what . . . bright green?”

  “I’m sorry, but yes,” I said. “That’s what happened.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” cried DCI Butter.

  “Now, now, Phil,” said DCI Hollingsworth. “That’s his prerogative. If he wants to wind the judges up something rotten, who are we to stop him?”

  “I suppose . . .” DCI Butter sighed.

  “The main thing is, David”—she looked at me—“you do admit to causing the destruction of the toilets?”

  She was laying a trap, and I knew it, but I also knew I had no other explanation to offer, and I hadn’t worked out a detailed lie that I could spin for them. There just didn’t seem any point.

  “Yes, I do,” I said with a sigh. “Accidentally, as I said.”

  “When you went to . . . relieve yourself?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  She sighed and smiled to herself, jotting down some notes.

  “So the acid that you used,” she said. “That was actually your urine? Not something you cooked up with recipes you found on the dark web?”

  “Yes!” I said. “It was my wee, my piss, alright?! I don’t know what’s happening to me. Look, I’ve never been on the dark web. I haven’t got a clue about that sort of thing, alright!”

  “Your piss. I see,” she said, continuing with her notes. “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m writing this nonsense down.”

  *****

  The interview continued on like this with DCI Hollingsworth taking the lead. It was like pulling teeth, I can tell you. They asked about every last incident: the park, the hospital, everything. I soon understood, in a strange way that did me no favours, that it was my piss that allowed them to put it all together. Not only did they have witnesses in each location, but they also had collected samples and considered the urine itself to be of prime importance, though not for the right reasons. For them, it was some toxic substance I had concocted to do harm, as if I was some kind of a terrorist or a Russian spy or something. They didn’t buy my story about weeing in each place but gladly took my acknowledgements that I had been there and had caused the damage as confession enough.

  “Look, I’m telling you that each time was an accident, okay?” I protested, losing my rag. “Do you get it? An accident!”

  “Don’t get shirty with us, Sonny Jim,” said DCI Butter. “You’re in deep enough shit here as it is. And do you know, I think DCI Hollingsworth has been a model of professionalism here today, considering all these ridiculous lies you keep telling.”

  “That’s very kind of you, DCI Butter,” said DCI Hollingsworth, nodding.

  “For Pete’s sake, son,” DCI Butter continued. “Did you really think we’d believe any of it? I mean, this is the kind of bullshit you see on the front page of the Sunday Sport. You do realise that?”

  DCI Hollingsworth chuckled at the reference.

  I couldn’t believe they were comparing my case to those reported by Britain’s most outrageous tabloid—that esteemed publication covering pressing issues such as alien rapists, sex s
candals involving high-ranking leaders of Nazi Germany, and disgruntled ex-lovers relieving themselves in celebrity driveways.

  Actually, sounds about right, I thought. I could already picture the unfortunate headline: MAN PISSING SUPER-ACID IS BANNED FROM EVERY TOILET IN BRITAIN.

  *****

  They went for a fag break and left me to stew on it.

  When they came back, they started hitting me even harder, but I had decided that all I could do was keep telling the truth. Of course, I still had the ace card in my back pocket: a live demo. That would shut ’em up for sure. Yet I really didn’t have the stomach for that. I guess I wasn’t overly keen to be the cause of yet more destruction to public property and create what I was sure to be a massive scene. I guess I just wanted to see how the wheels of justice would turn first.

  “Look, we’ve got witnesses left, right and centre, Sonny Jim,” said DCI Butter. “Many saw you at the scene of the crime, of each of the crimes. Even the poor bastard who died identified you and told us what happened. You yourself said ‘acid burn’ on the phone to the emergency services—”

  I jumped on this. “You see! Why would I call it in?”

  “The recording shows a reluctance to explain what actually happened. You hung up. If it was your urine that caused it, as you say, why didn’t you tell them that?”

  “I didn’t want them to think it was a prank call!”

  “But then why make the call at all?”

  “Because I wanted him to get help. Can’t you see that?”

  They looked at each other.

  “Maybe you felt some guilt at your actions?” offered DCI Hollingsworth.

  She flicked open one of the files and pushed it over to me. I glanced at it and felt instantly sick. There were pictures of the poor homeless guy, lying sprawled on a hospital bed, his chest covered in a huge putrid red and green rash, his face half-obliterated.

  “Wait,” I said, my voice shaking. “You said he told you what happened. What did he say?”

  “We don’t have to tell you that.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  DCI Hollingsworth took a deep breath.

  “He said he was sleeping in that wheelie bin and when he woke up you were pouring acid onto it.”