Tramp

Chink.

£1.45.

I hate getting tipped.

That’s what it is, tipping. Granted, the punters think it’s just being generous to a roadside scoundrel. Charity bestowed upon this human mutt to cleanse their delicate sense of self-guilt, right up until the moment they exhibit their monstrous gluttonies at the dinner table, surreptitiously flirt with the neighbour’s spouse or accidentally kick a pigeon.

Of course, I’m not asking that people be deliberately horrible to me; oft I am the subject of misguided anger and redirected sense of loss. So much so that, over the course of the last 7 years or so, I seem to have developed a knack for extrapolating the origins of my assailant’s real issues purely upon the nuances in the nature of their attack. A passing kick of my hat (somewhat welcomed by the part of one that cannot abide being tipped, which is most) revolves around a mere mishap at, or indeed lack of prohaps at work or school, depending on their age and persuasion. Physical violence is somewhat less immediate, in that it extends from a strung-out unhappiness, the sort only a disappointing youth could, and does, supply. The most interesting, however, is verbal abuse. This grows from a more personal fertiliser; the potassium of taking bullying to heart, the nutrients drawn from self-doubt and loathing, planted in a bed of loneliness and watered regularly with the knowledge that they hate the world, and the world feels similarly inclined towards them. Unfortunate for them, yes, but it’s still no reason to shout at me.

This knack hasn’t been born from pure idleness, it comes in useful for my purpose, the reason I am here. From my sub-pedestal, I can observe the state of the city I inhabit, with startling depth and accuracy that no amount of surveys or CCTV cameras could emulate.

Despite this, my main service I provide to the punters is not of surveillance, but of a purely voluntary input of rounding off the scene. With economic growth and thorough and widespread prosperity comes a downfall; a kind that hit’s the lesser beings with such a fervour that they emerge in a state of ‘Trampdom’. Now with rigidly defined governmental barriers – none of which I shall bore you with – the tramp provides the invaluable service of perspective in a prosperous city-wide ethos. It gives a sense of stability.

They tried getting rid of us, of course; the unsightly aspects of the glittering hive, but this had a creeping catastrophic concurrent effect throughout the metropolis, centring upon the populous no longer in possession of the mental safety-blanket of ‘There are people worse off than me’. The lack of which, bred doubt.

Doubt led to fear.

Fear branched off into anger, insecurity and depression.

These in turn spanned off into paranoia, mania, a light smothering of the 7 sins as well as several other topics that aren’t suitable for light conversation. This –extremely gradually, I might add – led to collapse. This mythical ‘Tree Of Doubt’ destroyed economic civilisation.

And so here I am, beneath the Saxmundon North Road, muttering my well-rehearsed script of mumbled nothings to my cardboard mat, a tartan blanket infested across my left leg and right foot, up to the ankle. As I sway – not strictly from side-to-side, more side-to-front – a small grey-blonde tuft of hair which pokes through one of the many holes in my moss-coloured woollen hat follows its own erratic path, dancing in such a way as to mock my petrified facial hair with its length, height and freedom of movement. The facial hair itself wouldn’t be overly bothered as they tend not to like heights, suffering from vertigo and pulling my face down with such an astonishing weight, that sight-less inspection would lead you to believe I was wearing a sharpening stone on my face.

Gusts of our winter winds seem determined to pass through the subway via the holes adorning the right knee of my jeans. Holes which, far from being the fashionable tears of the young men’s wardrobe instil a somewhat sepulchral feeling that they are missing a whole deal more than woven cotton.

I sit, consciously disregarded, subconsciously dependable. A civil servant in my own right. I’m waiting for a break in the crowd to leap up and inconspicuously walk away before my replacement arrives. Still, Mary Poppins is on by the theatre next to me, and that starts in 10 minutes. The crowds should ease off then. I get myself into a comfortably awkward position from which I can spring up, instantly shedding my tramp-skin and take my suitable unrecognisable form home in order that the man from the night-shift might take over.

It’s been a long time since I saw him.

The crowd still hasn’t died down.

My parrot’s getting restless.

Chink.

£1.47.

I hate getting tipped.