The waiting game

It was one of those downpours you remember several years later, rain pouring down faster than a shower at top speed. To step out in it, even for a minute, is to get drenched. This is the sort of rain that tests out the truth of supposedly water-proof clothing and the leak you thought you’d fixed in your roof. The gutters gush like rivers. The nearby reservoir, almost empty from two years of semi drought, fills like a bath with both taps on full. This is one of those rains that angered Gods were invented to explain. In ancient times a chicken, or even a goat, would pay dearly for this level of precipitation.

The streets are empty, very occasionally someone runs past, at a sprint, desperate to get where they’re going. In a parked car two men sit in the front seats, biding their time, as if waiting for the rain to stop. They look like they’ve been sitting there for some time, and will be for some time longer.

“You still got that water bottle?” asks the man in the passenger seat.

“It’s empty,” says the man in the driving seat. It seems ambitious to call him the driver, as it seems desperately unlikely that he’ll be doing any driving in this rain. It’s not just that he wouldn’t be able to see the road, the rain seems so thick it’s debatable whether the car would be able to pass through it.

“I know,” replied the first man, “that’s why I need it.”

The driver turns and gives his colleague a strange look, although he passes the bottle non-the-less.

“To piss in,” the passenger explains, “you don’t think I’m going out in this do you?”

“It is heavy.”

The passenger unzips his fly, but is prevented from going further. “I don’t want to fuckin’ see it,” the driver shouts angrily, “piss in the back seat.”

“I’m not getting out in this, not even for 10 seconds, I’ll get drowned in that time.”

“Well climb over then.”

The passenger starts the awkward process of climbing through the narrow gap into the back. He is big, over six feet tall, wide, both muscular and fat. Seeing him moving reminds you of the elephants into a Mini equation. He is that fourth elephant, struggling against the laws of physics.

In the front seat the driver peers bleakly into the rain. “It hardly seems worth it,” he says.

“Hmmm?” moans the struggling form beside him.

“Hardly seems worth it, staking a guy out in this weather. Who’d be mad enough to go anywhere if they’re safe and dry inside? Besides, an elephant could walk down the street and we wouldn’t see it.”

“Now you mention it I did seen an elephant stroll past ten minutes ago.”

“African or Indian?”

“I didn’t ask. How d’yer tell anyway, they’re both grey aren’t they?”

For a moment the car is filled with the silence of a man failing to piss in a bottle.

“Something about the ears, I think. I forget exactly. Or it might be the tusks.”

There is more silence and more non pissing.

“Well at least we do know that if anyone comes out they’re definitely up to something. What sort of job is this, anyway?”

Finally there is a gush of piss into bottle.
From the back the passenger answers, relief in his voice. “Dunno – stakeout?”

“Yeah, but what sort of stakeout? Not the usual, not a wife hiring us to watch her husband. It needs two of us for a start.”

“Could be some private stuff for the cops, unofficial like.”

“Hmm, or the other side.”

“What the Thompson Twins? Why would they bring us in? It’s not their way to use outsiders. It’s just two more sets of eyes, two more people that could betray them. Besides, it’s a bit slow and subtle for them ain’t it, just sitting and watching, they’re usually a bit more direct.”

“Could be they’re suspicious about one of their own gang, so they have to use people he won’t know.

“Are you still pissing? Jeez, no wonder there’s a hosepipe ban, you’ve got the country’s water supply stashed in your bladder.”

“It’s your fault, buying me drinks in the bar then plying me with water and coffee to sober me up.”

“I didn’t know we were gonna get a call did I? Foster didn’t say anything about it, thought we’d have the night off. Who’d expect a job in this fuckin’ weather.”

The pissing finally stops. The passenger starts to clamber back to the front seat.

“Put the top back on for fucks sake.”
The passenger stops to screw the cap back on the bottle. “Sorry.”

“Jeez, piss all over the car, that’s just what we need. We could be sitting in this bloody car all night and all day, can’t open the window for the rain. And you want to stink it out with piss.”

“Sorry.”

He clambers back, this time without trying to carry the bottle. The driver sits in silence and ignores the somewhat comic efforts of his colleague. Eventually he settles into his seat and sits, puffing from the exertion.

Silence follows. The two men stare at the blurry light in the house they are watching. There is no sign of movement, or activity, but it is hard to see anything. As the man had said, an elephant could walk past and they wouldn’t notice.

“I heard a story once,” says the driver. Situation like this, couple of guys hired to do a stakeout one day, short notice, no idea who the client is or who it is they’re watching. And strict instructions that they’re both required for as long as necessary.

“Anyway, one of them has a date, foxy girl he’s only just hitched up with. The stakeout goes on longer than they expected, the day turns to night, still no movement from the house. He’s late and he’s desperate to see his girl, so he leaves his mate to watch the house alone.

“It turns into an all-nighter. The guy in the car has no idea who he’s watching or why and he’s not prepared properly, he’d been up late the night before, so inevitably he falls asleep. Not for long, but long enough. He wakes up and sees that the guy’s car has gone from the driveway.

“Now the guy he’s working for is known for his temper, he’s done serious injury to his best of friends for cock-ups not unlike this one. So the guy panics. He’s desperate to find out where the man he’s been watching has gone, so he thinks he’ll break in.”

“What the fuck for? He’ll hardly have left a note.”

“Like I say, the guy’s not rational, not thinking, maybe he’s hoping to find an address in the notepad by the phone, but really he’s just clinging to a dream, a false hope. Anyway he goes round the back of the house, tries the windows, doors, tries to pick the lock, but doesn’t have the tools. He thinks about breaking in, but realises how that would look.

“Anyway, twenty minutes of this mucking around trying to find a way in and he finally gives up and returns to his car. As he does so he passes the man’s car in the driveway. It’s empty. He’s back in the house.

“So did the guy see him?”

“Who knows? Probably not, no reason he should come home and immediately check out the back of the house for would-be burglars. Besides, it’s late at night, too dark to see anything. Anyway, the guy returns to his car and is wide awake for the rest of the night, but his man never moves again.

“Next day his boss asks what happened and he says “Nothing, the man never moved all night.” His mate backs him up, they both collaborate the other’s story.

“Next day the guy wins the lottery and clears out of town.”

The passenger bursts out laughing at this. “Ah fuck off man,” he says between laughs. “Wins the fucking lottery. I could do with some of that.”

“I’m just telling you what happened, I don’t know what the odds were. Strange things happen. Anyway, the guy fucks off, leaves a message for his boss, gets out of town, sees a bit of the world.

“Six months later he comes back. Tries to call his boss – nothing. Tries calling his mate – nothing. Goes round to their houses, everyone he speaks to says they haven’t been seen for six months. Not since the day he left, not since the day after that stakeout gone wrong.”

“So what, they dead then?”

“He doesn’t stop to find out. He gets straight back in his car, legs it right out of town. Never goes back.”

The passenger is laughing again. “Man the tales you tell. It’s like this really big build up then a ten million to one lottery win, then he gets back to the biggest game of hide and seek ever.”

“I’m just telling you what happened. Anyway, what’ve you done with that bottle?!

“I pissed in it, remember.”

“I mean where is it? I need to go now”

“It’s in the back.”

The driver climbs over into the back. He is slighter and fitter than the passenger and it is a simple matter for him, none of the clowning struggle of the big guy.

“Jeez, it’s three quarters full. That’s a two litre bottle, that means you’ve pissed 1.5 litres, that’s equivalent to two and a half pints.”

“I drank four pints. Never mind the water and coffee. Where did you think it went? I’m not a fucking camel.”

“Twenty years I’ve been in this game. Any other line I’ve work I’d be a manager by now. But me, no, I chose the pissing in almost full bottles career line. Sitting up all hours watching rain fall, trying to entertain a guy who doesn’t even show me the respect of believing the true stories I tell him.”

“Ah just shut up and piss.”

The back seat fills with the noise of a man pissing into an already nearly full bottle.

“Fuck, George, it’s the front door. He’s leaving the fucking house.”

“Don’t kid me, I’m having a piss.”

“I’m not kidding, he’s leaving. Fuck, get back in the front, he’s going to his car.”

The driver hurriedly finishes his task and clambers back into the front. Even before he’s fully comfortable in the driver’s seat a car two spaces in front of theirs lights up and revs into action.

“Shit, how the fuck am I s’posed to follow him in this?”

Without seeing more than a blur of light in front of him he sets off in pursuit.