Munter 12: Rainy Cactus Incident

He went into the Grove bookshop minutes after it opened. He spent nearly two hours reading fragments of literature, and travelling the world via atlas. The assistant with the enormous breasts sent a number of tacit condemnations his way, but as he was leaving he was surprised to see her send him a look of concern that was almost sweet in its nature. He wandered without purpose for a while before noticing the Luas tramline on Abbey Street and deciding to get on one. It was about twelve in the afternoon. He didn’t particularly want to go anywhere. He just thought he’d take a short journey. He boarded a busy trembling carriage that smelled an uncomfortable blend of hospital and salty snack foods. The hospital smell was down to the route this particular tram took, stopping at about two different hospitals within the space of an hour. His fellow passengers were in the most part patients from these hospitals curled up timidly in their seats with their plaster-cast arms on their laps and their crutches draped over them. The salty snack food smell came from two teenagers sitting close by wearing long black robes, reading heavy metal magazines, and eating from an endless supply of bags of crisps.

*

There were no seats available and Munter had to stand in the middle of the carriage with his right leg wrapped around a handrail. He put The Yellow River Concerto CD into his CD player. It was incredibly joyful and pleasurable to listen to on the tram. The music was just putting him into a mood of delicate calm when he spotted a young girl sitting a few seats away from where he stood. She was about sixteen and very pretty. Her clothes were inelegant, a tracksuit of dreadfully poor quality and a pair of worn white trainers. But her face was extraordinary. Her nose was a sweet little snowy button which sat perfectly between her faultlessly outlined mouth and icicle blue eyes. She reminded Munter of a photograph he'd once seen in a family photo album. A face amongst many faces at a long ago wedding. The face was gentle, lacking shallowness and contempt, and seemed to capture the human being at its most lovely. He never found out whose face it was in the photo. This girl on the tram had something of that face about her. She had a plant sitting on her lap. He couldn’t see the plant clearly. But even if he had seen it clearly, he would probably not have known what kind of a plant it was because he’d never been much to speak of when it came to matters of botany. It looked a bit like a cactus.

*

A man started to talk to the young girl. Munter noticed her face suddenly soaking with the redness of embarrassment. The man was sitting on the seat next to her. He was a big man wearing a baseball cap and he had a face that was sweaty and dirty from time spent away from wherever he called home. He had a sneer that perhaps came from many occasions of antagonism and insensitivity in his life. Munter could tell a lot about someone from a sneer on the face. He couldn’t hear what the man said and he couldn’t hear the girl’s responses. He was otherwise concerned with the Yellow River Concerto which was flowing fervently along now upon rippling arpeggios and thrilling musical phrases. He couldn’t turn it off. The music was now fixed to this situation. The concerto twinkled and billowed in Munter’s ears as he watched the man continue to speak to the blushing girl. The man was in his thirties. There was something not right-looking about him. Munter thought he might have been drunk. He had a rotten look about him. He was also wearing a tracksuit. It struck Munter that this man and this young girl were probably completely different people in every way except for tracksuits. The man leaned over and started to caress the plant. The young girl was smiling and still blushing. Munter noticed some other people on the tram eyeing the man with disgust. He couldn’t hear the man’s voice but he could sense it had a despicable noise to it.

*

Munter tried to get the young girl’s attention with his eyes, to truly garner how she felt about this horrible intruder in her life. He was certain she was wiser to the man’s revolting intentions than she was appearing to be. He wanted to be assured that her blushing and her entertainment of the man’s lechery were merely the consequence of her colossal politeness. Though Munter couldn’t find her eyes, he believed she would soon find a way of letting him and everyone else on the tram know that she could see past this piece of shit and she wasn’t having any of it. But she never did. She kept blushing and speaking to him and smiling in response to what he said. Suddenly the Yellow River became angry, surging forth in a furious burst of energy. The flutes and pianos turned their trickling melodies into violent roars of rhythm and Munter couldn’t listen any longer. He took out his earphones. The tram stopped. Both the man and the young girl were getting up to leave. Munter heard the man say, It’s just over there, in a despicably hoarse voice, exactly the voice he’d imagined the man to own, and then he watched as the man pointed to a hotel in the area. The young girl nodded her head and started to leave the tram alongside him. Munter’s heart sank. He could not believe this was happening. Why wasn’t anyone stopping them? This piece of shit had convinced this young girl to accompany him. Where? Was he taking her to the hotel? Who could tell what he was going to do? All Munter was sure of was that she was leaving with him. Why wasn’t anyone stopping them? It was none of their business. It was the middle of the afternoon, for God’s sake. What was she doing? What was she doing with the plant? They were walking away from the tram together in the direction of the hotel.

*

The tram was still parked. The doors started to close. Munter didn’t know what came over him. He slipped out the doors as they snapped shut behind him. He was so close getting out that the hem of his coat got trapped within the door and the door had to open again to free him. He stood at the tram stop for a moment and thought about what he'd done. He was aware of his motivation, that was for sure, but now he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, or if he was going to do anything. The tram slowly started to move leaving Munter standing alone at the stop. He could see the man and the young girl walking away in the distance. He started to follow. What else could he do? He was a little hungry and when he spotted a delicatessen out of the corner of his eye he was tempted to forget about the possible sexual assault that was about to happen here and duck in for a sandwich. He didn’t do this. He kept with his following. The man and the girl walked past the hotel and turned at the bottom of the subsequent street. So the rotten bastard did not have a hotel room in mind. Munter picked up pace. The man and the girl had disappeared from view. It slowly became apparent to Munter that the corner they had turned had led them down an alleyway. That suggested bad news to him, so he began to run.

*

The alleyway was a flood of leaves. He followed a trail left where the man and the girl had waded through. As he trudged along, he imagined he was walking in a field of corn flakes. The man was standing with the girl in a clearing next to a tall bony tree. They were talking. The girl was still carrying the plant. Munter stood back for a bit and watched them. It occurred to him then that the girl might consent to whatever activity the man suggested. After all, she had left with him. And there she was.

*

A light drizzle was pattering on the leaves. It was a peaceful sound. The man put his arm around the girl. She recoiled slightly, but didn’t pull herself away completely. They were still talking. The man slid his arm down so that he had her gripped by the waist. They kept talking to one another. The rain grew a little heavier and Munter became suddenly aware of the bald patch at the top of his head. The rain was splashing down on an exposed floor of flesh contained within his puffy mound of hair. The man pulled the girl closer to him; she dropped the plant and began struggling for release. Munter started running towards the tree. He'd no idea what he was going to do when he got there. He knew he had to get the girl away from the man, that was all. He tripped over what appeared to be an amputated car exhaust pipe and fell, his face squashing down onto a large snail that was gummed to the leaves. The man saw him and slackened his grip on the girl. She managed to free herself from his hold and began running in Munter’s direction. After peeling the slime and crackly snail-shell from his face, Munter stood up taking with him the exhaust pipe. He held it in a pose borrowed from Ray Winstone on the poster for the film Scum.
Why did you leave the tram with that guy? Munter asked the girl as she came running past him.
You were on the Luas? the girl asked.
Yes, I saw the two of you getting off. I thought there was something suspicious about it.
He told me he had hash to sell. He’s a lying bastard. He just wanted to shag me. Will you get my cactus? I dropped it.
Okay, I’ll see what I can do.
The man remained standing at the tree in a bullish style as Munter etched forward cautiously, the exhaust pipe beginning to slick through his slimy hands. If he had to, he would beat the guy with it. If he couldn’t hit him on the head with it, he would hit him in the stomach. If he couldn’t hit him in the stomach, he would hit him on the back, and if not the back, then the legs. If he had to.
Nothing was going on there, bud, the man said as Munter came into hearing distance. I know the girl. Just go about your business.
I saw the two of you getting off the tram, said Munter. She said you told her you would sell her some hash.
Don’t mind her, she’s a little bullshitter. She spins tales like mad. A right little spider with her lies. Don’t worry about it, mate. Just go about your business. It’s raining, for the love of Christ. Do you not want to get out of the rain?
Munter did want to get out of the rain. He was dripping wet. But he didn’t like the look of this episode with the young girl and this man. He looked it up and down and it didn’t sit right with him.
I’ll tell you something, he began. For a moment, I took you for that serial killer. I thought you were going to kill that girl.
What? Are you crazy, mate?
I’m sorry, but the whole thing didn’t click properly with me. You can’t be too careful. I was looking out for that young girl.
I can understand that, bud, but Jesus, no way. You thought it was me? Sure that murdering bastard was found last night. They caught him. Did you not hear? He was a doctor or something. Doctor Death, they’re calling him. Sure you’ll see for yourself, it’s in all the newspapers this morning. There’s photographs of him and everything, looks like a right sick bastard. Jesus, I can’t believe you thought it was me. How’d you get that into your head?
I told you, said Munter. I was looking out for the girl.
The man walked off then, leaving Munter to ponder his moment of vigilance. He dropped his planned weapon to the ground and picked up the girl’s cactus. The rain got heavier, spilling violently into the clearing, and breaking the sluggish silence of the afternoon. The girl came running back to him, grabbed her cactus, said Thanks, and ran off again.

***************************************************

More springs went inside the dusty couch and his ass sunk into it, nearly touching the floor. Munter sat for a moment lodged inside the dusty couch and surveyed the city of alcohol that had developed in his home. He would have to clean all of this up. It didn’t look good at all. He would bring the city down as soon as he was feeling up to it. He had to try and get some sleep first.