Thursday, 5 June 2008

Joe Blogg doesn't pay my wages

I do this job, right, working for nothing on the streets. No, I'm not a prostitute, because if I were, I would probably earn shed loads of money for doing it. Don't get all excited for nothing.
I get to wear a smart (?) uniform, that generally makes your bum look big and protective gear that should, but doesn't, stop most of the blades and bullets that might 'accidentally' happen to make contact with precious parts of your body.
I also get lots of abuse - I have been called all sorts, you name it, I have been that once or twice in a night on the street. I sometimes want to shout back at them and remind them of the fact that I am missing some crucial anatomical bits that would enable me to do the things they suggest I do (and hence deserve the name they give me). Alas, the irony is that in this job I am merely a number... with a dozen (bad) names.
I have spent hours in freezing cold on the streets of my town - for nothing.
I have spent hours in freezing cold and lashing rain on the streets of my town - still for nothing.
I have seen the bad and the ugly - whilst I was the good one!
I am the only one of my kind who doesn't even dream of doing all these things for money.
Trouble is, you see... in this job you don't see life at its best. You deal with mean, heartless and rude people - and that's only the colleagues!! Out on the streets the outlook is even worse.
I guess you kinda have to sterilise yourself against all the pain and grief - and remove any spot of sensitivity that might get screwed up by what you see around you.
I come home at dawn: frozen, drenched, with some dim-wit's vomit on my boots, with bruised knees (from wrestling on cold concrete.... you should try it, it's fab!!), after a 23 hours day work - and feeling sorry not for myself, but for them, all those small and mean people, in their small and mean micro-universe. I feel sorry for the bloke who drinks his wits away and for his beaten teenage girlfriend (with 3 babies by different fathers and living on income support) who doesn't even fathom a different life. I cry in pain when I see the 'kids' who don't find anything better to do other than create a good thick ole' criminal record for themselves.
Not many people heard of me in this town. I am officially a number, after all. But most of the town heard of Joe Blogg who hangs around the off-licence in Queens Road causing scandal every night. I bet you heard of him, too. You actually know him, don't you? He wears a blue tracksuit and a baseball cap. Yeah, that's the one. Most of the time he wears a baseball bat as well - to accessorise.
I had to speak to Joe Blogg the other night, apologising on behalf of a frail old lady who had the audacity to cross his path when he was 'upset'. I went to speak to him after I have visited the old lass in Hospital, down the A&E. (She will be fine, the doctors said, few more stitches and she will be able to eat through a straw, they said. As good as new!) And Joe Blogg said to me, after his pro-bono suggestion that I should go forth and multiply (together with my entire clan): I pay your effing wages!!!
No, you don't, Mr Blogg. Nobody has yet the money to buy my humanity and my sensitivity. And because of that, Sir, I feel sorry for you. I feel a me-ta-phy-si-cal sorrow for you.
When you will pay my wages, I shall feel worried. Or actually, let's strike a deal: I will let YOU feel worried.

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