They were all pictures of dead people, every one of them. Some of the pictures were of little children, others were of grown-up children. They were lying down, or half-sitting, and there were big cuts in their faces and their bodies, cuts that showed a mess underneath, a mish-mash of shiny bits and oozy bits. And all around the dead people: black paint. Not in neat puddles, but splashed all around, and finger-marked, and hand-printed and very messy.
In three or four of the pictures the thing that made the cuts was still there. He knew the word for it.
Axe.
There was an axe in a lady’s face buried almost to the handle. There was an axe in a man’s leg, and another lying on the floor of a kitchen beside a dead baby.
This man collected pictures of dead people and axes, which Steve thought was strange.
That was his last thought before the too-familiar scent of chloroform filled his head and he lost consciousness.
The sordid doorway smelt of old urine and fresh vomit. It was his own vomit; it was all over the front of his shirt. He tried to stand up, but his legs felt wobbly. It was very cold. His throat hurt.
Then he heard footsteps. It sounded like the Mouse was coming back. Maybe he’d take him home.
“Get up, son.”
It wasn’t the Mouse. It was a policeman.
“What are you doing down there? I said get up.”
Bracing himself against the crumbling brick of the doorway Steve got to his feet. The policeman shone his torch at him.
“Jesus Christ,” said the policeman, disgust written over his face. “You’re in a right fucking state. Where do you live?”
Steve shook his head, staring down at his vomit-soaked shirt like a shamed schoolboy.
“What’s your name?”
He couldn’t quite remember.
“Name, lad?”
He was trying. If only the policeman wouldn’t shout.
“Come on, take a hold of yourself.”
The words didn’t make much sense. Steve could feel tears pricking the backs of his eyes.
“Home.”
Now he was blubbering, sniffing snot, feeling utterly forsaken. He wanted to die: he wanted to lie down and die.
The policeman shook him.
“You high on something?” he demanded, pulling Steve into the glare of the streetlights and staring at his tear-stained face.
“You’d better move on.”
“Mama,” said Steve, “I want my Mama.”
The words changed the encounter entirely.
Suddenly the policeman found the spectacle more than disgusting; more than pitiful. This little bastard, with his bloodshot eyes and his dinner down his shirt was really getting on his nerves. Too much money, too much dirt in his veins, too little discipline.
“Mama” was the last straw. He punched Steve in the stomach, a neat, sharp, functional blow. Steve doubled up, whimpering.
“Shut up, son.”
Another blow finished the job of crippling the child, and then he took a fistful of Steve’s hair and pulled the little druggy’s face up to meet his.
“You want to be a derelict, is that it?”
“No. No.”
Steve didn’t know what a derelict was; he just wanted to make the policeman like him.
“Please,” he said, tears coming again, “take me home.” The policeman seemed confused. The kid hadn’t started fighting back and calling for civil rights, the way most of them did. That was the way they usually ended up: on the ground, bloody-nosed, calling for a social worker. This one just wept. The policeman began to get a bad feeling about the kid. Like he was mental or something. And he’d beaten the shit out of the little snot. Fuck it. Now he felt responsible. He took hold of Steve by the arm and bundled him across the road to his car.
“Get in.”
“Take me —”
“I’ll take you home, son. I”ll take you home.”
At the Night Hostel they searched Steve’s clothes for some kind of identification, found none, then scoured his body for fleas, his hair for nits. The policeman left him then, which Steve was relieved about. He hadn’t liked the man. The people at the Hostel talked about him as though he wasn’t in the room. Talked about how young he was; discussed his mental-age; his clothes; his appearance. Then they gave him a bar of soap and showed him the showers. He stood under the cold water for ten minutes and dried himself with a stained towel. He didn’t shave, though they’d lent him a razor. He’d forgotten how to do it.