The Madness of Mr Meretrine: Chapter 2, Part 2

Hey, fellas. I've not been on YWS for about a week, so I don't know if you guys even remember me or my story.  XD Nevertheless, here's part two of chapter two. Reviews, as always, would be much appreciated.  

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Logic went out the window, really. Even a fully accomplished thief doesn’t snatch stuff right under a shopkeeper’s nose – I knew that, and in any normal situation I’d have thought ‘no, it’s not a good idea to start a stealing competition in the middle of a busy supermarket’ and walked away. However, perhaps because I was bored and hot and hadn’t really had any communication with anyone for about four days, the other boy’s obvious challenge had me hooked. He had shown some form of interest in me and, coming from a family where your parents view you as a meal ticket, no wonder I leapt at the chance for some socialisation, even if it was by way of nicking things.

So, I raised my eyebrows back, sauntered over to a stand of chocolate bars, snatched a handful of Dairy Milks and thrust them into my pockets, tipping my head slightly in the boy’s direction and nodding. He looked me up and down, clearly unimpressed, and mouthed ‘child’s play’ in my direction.

‘You do better, then,’ I mouthed back, scowling.

He grinned and began to walk in what seemed like an aimless direction, whistling loudly like an over-acting cartoon character. I was trying to figure out what stall he was heading for when I saw him collide with an old woman carrying about five packs of cigarettes. I laughed quietly, thinking him a pretty clumsy thief, when I noticed him, as he helped pick her packets up, slip one of the cigarette boxes into his jeans pocket. As he helped her back to her shaky feet, holding the crook of her arm to steady her and apologising earnestly, I saw his hand slide into her open handbag and draw out her purse. He walked towards me, grinning smugly and rattling the wallet he’d just acquired, and I couldn’t help but laugh – not just a shoplifter, a pickpocket.

So, I was playing with a master. Time to up my game.

I wasn’t a very accomplished pickpocket myself, but I knew the art of it to a certain degree. Oh, I know there are plenty of people who’d scowl at me for calling it an art form, but, realistically, you can’t deny that such trickery is skilful. With pickpockets it’s not like they run up to a stranger, thrust their hands in their bag and yank out their money like some stupid, obvious thieves do; they’re subtle, using both charm and false sincerity to achieve success. It’s harder than you think, you’ve got to perfect it – thus it’s an art. Anyway – it’s all about distraction mainly, so, in a way, pickpockets are just like magicians. The only difference is that, when a magician performs, people clap their hands because they’ve no idea how they’ve done it, whereas when a pickpocket performs, people scream their heads off because they’ve no idea how they’ve done it.

Anyway, upon seeing my opponent’s excellent performance, I decided I might like to hone my own skills in that area, but in the present busy location I figured now wouldn’t be the best time. Pickpocketing gone wrong isn’t an easy situation to get out of, so I didn’t want to risk it.

So I risked something else.

I saw a grubby little kid of about eight standing in front of a news stand, snot running down his face and gaze fixed on the upper shelf in which all the men’s magazines resided. He lived on the same estate as me and, ever since I kicked his ball into the road, resulting in it being crushed under a car, he’d been trying to get one up on me in retaliation.

Kid who didn’t like me looking at dirty magazines? This had promise.

I marched over to the stand, ripped the women-plastered publication he was gawping at from the shelf and rolled it up, thrusting it into my pocket and pulling my shirt over the protruding top. I turned to the kid, eyebrows raised, and he pointed an accusing finger in my direction. I knocked his dirty hand away, aware of my opponent standing a few feet behind me.

“Don’t think someone as young as you should be looking at these,” I said, patting the faint strain of the magazine against my top.

“You’ve stolen it,” he hissed, a lisp curling his words.

“No shit,” I replied sarcastically, loving the way the performance was going.

“I’ll tell,” the kid threatened.

“Tell away, idiot. That’s if you want to explain to your mum why you were staring with your mouth open at the pin-up magazines,” I replied, shooting a look at his saggy-skinned, fat mother wheeling a trolley a few meters away. I heard my opponent crack up behind me, and found myself smirking. “Off you pop back to Mummy,” I said mockingly.

The kid scowled, scuttling off with his arms folded indignantly. I felt the sensation of someone approaching behind me, and heard the voice of my opponent in my ear.

“Good one,” he said. “Enough of the competing, anyway, let’s get some real goods.”

I grinned, and we split off, each wandering down different aisles and sneaking random items off the shelf. I selected food items, cigarettes (I didn’t even smoke – not yet, but they seemed the right thing to have) and one or two CDs – anything I could hide sufficiently. By the time my purloined goods were becoming somewhat obvious (all you needed to do was look at me twice to realise that I had a packet of cheese puffs stowed under my top) I was relying on people’s obsession with their own stupid lives to render me inconspicuous, and so I was rather relieved when I bumped back into my previous opponent and we began to make for the doors of the supermarket. He took one look at my shoplifting-inflated girth and said ‘okay, let’s get out’.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after we left – whether we’d go our separate ways or hang about a bit appreciating our stolen goods together – so I decided I’d exit the shop first, walking off in a random direction and seeing whether he followed. I didn’t want to follow him and appear clingy, but nor did I want to walk away and miss an opportunity to make some kind of friendship; during our competition was the first time I’d been somewhat happy in months. It was certainly a pretty good distraction from my normal life, so I didn’t want to throw it away unless I had to.

However, not everything went to plan.

As I was making my way to the sliding doors, the penetrating heat beginning to lick my skin once again, I found myself fighting harder and harder to hold my shirt in, to prevent my stolen goods from falling out from underneath and displaying to the world that I was a thief. Feeling as though I was pinching myself together at the seams, I had almost, almost made it to the door when-

When my foot caught on something.

My arms flew open as I attempted to reach for something to steady me, and I felt seemingly hundreds of purloined items pouring out from under my shirt as I groped for something to hold onto. The doors, my last hope - the stupid, sensory shop doors – slid open, obliterating the one remaining way of breaking my fall, and I fell with a thump onto the hard, supermarket floor, feeling and hearing the bag of cheese puffs explode beneath me. I lay their, motionless, as millions of heads turned my way, scowling, aghast, at this ten-year-old shoplifter.

And all I could think was that automatic doors were the stupidest bloody things in the world – always taking several seconds too long to open when you want them to, but magically snapping apart when you, for once in your life, need them to linger. 

With only a split second to look round, I noticed the grubby kid from my estate, the one who I’d mocked earlier, placing his left leg back on the floor with a smug smile.

The bastard had tripped me up.

But before I could get to my feet and smack the pathetic little prick round the face, I heard someone call the word.

“Thief!”

            Much like those years ago when I’d ran from the dog, the vicinity fell apart into chaos. I tried to scramble to my feet as onlookers shouted in my direction, wanting to do their part for the neighbourhood and muscling forward to try and prevent me escaping. I struggled to my feet, feeling as though a sea was tearing me apart at either side – a roar of noise and chaos and confusion – only to feel the vice-grip of a grey-haired man’s hand clamping down on my shoulder, almost knocking me to my knees once again. I kicked out at the others trying to grip me, like determined prey writhing against a pack of predators, and tried to wrench away, yelling obscenities and pulling as the man holding me attempted to maintain his grasp. His firm fingers began to clench around my right arm, which I was trashing wildly in attempt to get free, before I heard the sickening yet delightful thump of fist on skull, followed by the tension on my shoulder falling away.

            “Run!” the older boy – my previous opponent – shouted, shoving me forwards out of the shop.

 I didn’t need encouraging. Free from the man’s imprisoning grip, I tore myself from the surrounding crowd, out through the doors and off over the car park. My heart was slamming into my ribcage, adrenalin coursing through my veins as I ran blindly, feet pounding harder than my heart, across the tarmac. I sprinted out in front of cars (who’d break suddenly and thump their car horns in annoyance) and weaved through the car park until I reached an unbelievingly inviting alleyway, which I raced down in attempt to get clean away. Through the throbbing of my own pulse, the roar in my ears and the rasp of my heat-dried breath, I could hear the beat of the boy’s footsteps behind me, his voice telling me to keep moving every time I slowed. My eyes, blinded by sweat, which drenched every inch of my flaring skin, soon began to adjust and realise the direction I was taking, rather than shutting off and allowing my adrenalin to dictate the way. After running for about six minutes straight, I slumped wordlessly to the floor of the alley the pair of us were in, not caring that the filthy ground was probably infested with some kind of long-forgotten medieval disease because, right now, in the searing heat, with my parched throat and sweat-glazed skin, I doubted any medieval disease could make me feel any worse.

Thanks to the twat that tripped me up, I’d lost my bottle of water, and so I was now sat sweating like a drug-denied crack addict with no means of cooling myself down. Providing I didn’t die of dehydration, I was going to find that prick and kick the bastard into the road to be crushed under a heavy tire, just like his stupid football.

“Want some water?” came a voice next to me.

I didn’t even pause to look at him, let alone speak. My fist shot out like an arrow, yanking the bottle from his offering hand and plugging it into my mouth without thought. Water splashed soothingly down my parched throat, quelling the burning irritation almost instantly, and I didn’t stop drinking until I’d nearly drained the entire bottle, realising that perhaps he’d want some too. Granted, the water was tepid and felt a bit greasy with the heat, but in the burning hellfire of this particular day it felt like ice by comparison. Similar to how if you ate ice cream on Pluto it would taste as hot as soup – that sort of thing.

I tore the bottle out of my mouth, breathing like a horse. There was merely a trickle of water left in it, but I proffered it anyway.

“Nah, thanks,” I heard him say, prior to the familiar sound of a beer can cracking open, which he drained just as quickly as I had the water.

I think the sight of him drinking alcohol made me very aware of his company, and triggered within me the uncontrollable desire to ‘make a good impression’. I struggled to my feet, overly conscious of how idiotic I must have looked slumped on the floor, wheezing like a seventy-year-old.

“You’re a bloody idiot, y’know,” he said suddenly, dropping the can on the floor and rummaging in his pockets for something.

I didn’t know how to respond. “What d’you mean?”

“You new to stealing? Because that was a piss-poor performance,” he asked.

“No,” I said defiantly, “I’ve been doing it for years.”

“Well then, I’m surprised you’re still roaming around. If you’re always as obvious as that, how come the cops haven’t nicked you?”

“I’m not ‘always that obvious’” I snapped, more offended than I should’ve been. “You try hiding stuff in an outfit like this.”

“I could do it with my hands tied; I’m a pro, me.”

“Piss off,” I replied, but I found myself smirking.

He mirrored my expression, lighting up a cigarette.

“Honestly though, I’m gonna have to train you up – keep stealing like that and you’ll be down the station in no time.”

“Look, I said, I’m normally undetectable.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered dismissively, inhaling smoke. “You could still learn a thing or two.”

“Such as?” I replied, staring at him through the haze around his head.

“Pickpocketing,” he suggested. “I know a pickpocket when I see one, and you ain’t one, not yet.”

“I’ll give you that,” I said, nodding. “I’ve never really tried it, but I’d like to learn.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got potential. How old are you?”

I shifted a bit. “Ten,” I muttered.

He didn’t mock me though, just nodded and continued drawing on his cigarette. “Started stealin’ around that age myself,” he informed me.

The words tumbled before I could stop them. “Why d’you start?” I asked, “Boredom or hunger?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said, shaking his head. “Second one really – I needed to survive after my mum cleared off. Used to kid myself that I’d nick enough cash to get back to Ireland, and Mam would be there waiting for me.”

I’ve always been rubbish at recognising accents, but only after these words did it occur to me that he had an Irish accent, rather than the Barnsley drawl.

“How long have you lived here, then?” I asked.

“What is this, ‘Question Time’?” he responded, somewhat irritable. “About nine years, right? No more questions.”

“Can’t even ask your name, then?” I said, smirking.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Max. Max O’Neil. You?”

“Daniel Sawhurst.”     

I’d cemented what could be called a friendship after one evening with Max. He started teaching me a thing or two about pickpocketing, and after his so-called ‘master class’ he estimated that I’d probably be able to ‘steal the wallet off an old woman in the process of going senile’. I wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or not, and didn’t ask, but he seemed to like me either way, which was a first.

It was a night of new things in every respect, really. As the sticky heat died down and the sky seeped away into dusk, I was introduced to various new activities by Max – drinking, smoking, even the concept of throwing a brick at a bus shelter, coupled with the skills surrounding making a quick getaway from an area of vandalism. I know, I know, you’ll be shaking your head and rolling eyes, but you can’t really understand how it was; not if you come from a vaguely cushy life where your parents glance in your direction every once in a while. None of it was serious – it was just entertainment, for God’s sake – and I was just glad to have someone to talk to who didn’t act like I was a stain on the carpet.

Better still, however, was that it didn’t take long for me to realise that Max was obviously a highly respected guy in the neighbourhood. Perhaps it was because he dished drugs out under one of the town’s dank bridges, perhaps because he kept a knife in his pocket – either way, I didn’t care. Because, for me, a ten-year-old child with no friends and no authority, entering a bottom-of-the-league-table school able to say that I was on first-name terms with Max O’Neil was protection I couldn’t buy.   

I liked Max, contrary to him seeming like a dick to the large majority. He’s among the few people in my life who, if I met them now, I wouldn’t tell to go fuck themselves.

I said, at the beginning, that bad and good people don’t exist. You probably don’t really believe me yet, but I’m getting onto the subject where Max is concerned. See, by society’s viewpoint, he would quite definitely be considered a bad person, but that doesn’t mean he’s awful through and through. I mean, he befriended me, didn’t he? And in hindsight, I can see that it was probably more out of pity, and empathy, because he knew how it was to be a lonely kid who needed a bit of protection from the big bad world. Probably took one look at me struggling against that man’s grip in the supermarket and decided that if he left me on my own then he may as well condemn me to death.

So he helped me out. Doesn’t sound like a bad person to me.

Okay, okay, there’s the whole area of him stealing and vandalising and generally acting like a thug, but, y’know, that’s all details. I know he was a dickbag in some respects – a lot of respects – but he still knowingly guaranteed me an easy ride through my school life, something that any number of the town’s tough nuts could have done but wouldn’t. I can’t exactly shun him; he did more than I ever would’ve.

What I mean is that no one is entirely awful. Even Hitler was nice to kids.