Unless
Flash fiction. A man's thoughts spiral as he trudges home.
This is a story I wrote a few years ago while not entirely “with it”. It’s not my usual style or content, but I don’t want it to just sit in my Google Drive forever.
I haven’t edited it much because I feel like that would be betraying my past self.
Content warning for obsessive sexual thoughts.
His weed dealer hadn’t been in, which was weird because his dealer was always in - either him or his brother were always in, and even though he hadn’t texted ahead like usual it shouldn’t matter because one or the other should be in. When he had walked up and rung the doorbell he saw a curtain rustle in a nearby house. Someone had seen him ring the doorbell, but he had been there a few days ago and no one had been curious enough to peek through the curtain and watch him ring the doorbell - surely they didn’t watch everyone ring the doorbell all the time, and it wasn’t an unusual time of day to ring the doorbell, it wasn’t like it was 4am or anything, it was a normal time to ring the doorbell and there was no reason for anyone to watch him ring the doorbell, unless -
Unless his dealer Jack (was that his real name? It seemed funny to be a roguish type and actually be called Jack) had been arrested. That would be a good reason to get twitchy and watch all the loser druggies lining up and maybe she (it was probably a she) had taken a photo of everyone so she could report them to the police, although the police wouldn’t care about people buying weed but she (whoever she was) might do it anyway and then there would be a photo of him somewhere on the police system and he had already gotten into trouble with the police in the past for theft and he had put all of that behind him and had a proper job now but maybe they’d just look at his name and think he was a wrong ‘un and go through everything about him.
His dumb fuck parents had named him Nicholas; his mother had married his father and taken the name Kidd and then named him Nicholas and when he was little it didn’t matter that people called him Nick and he was just Nick but then he grew taller and his voice grew deeper and he became Nick Kidd - Nick Kidd, like Kiddy Nicker, like he kidnapped children, like he was a paedophile. People didn’t even say “someone has nicked a kid”, that wasn’t a thing people said, but when it was his name it suddenly was. He knew no one really thought he was a paedo and he definitely wasn’t a paedo, but all the guys would call him a paedo - a gay paedo even - and even when he spoke to his little brother they’d see that and make jokes and he definitely wasn’t a paedo and he tried to get people to call him Nicholas but then that was too snooty so he told people to call him by his middle name Eddie. His school friends did call him Eddie but no one else called him Eddie; he was still Nick Kidd, and on official documents he was still Nicholas Kidd, Nick Kidd, but now he was older everyone did call him Eddie. Most people thought Eddie was his real first name and that was good but there was still a Nick-Kidd-ness about him and as he walked home weedless he could hear the name as his feet struck the pavement - Nick-Kidd-Nick-Kidd. And that’s what the police saw him as, his birth name on official documents, Nicholas Kidd, Nick Kidd, so if some old curtain-twitcher saw him then the police would read his name and they wouldn’t trust him - a friend of a friend of his was a police officer so he probably knew his name and probably knew all the Kiddy Nicker jokes and the whole force would know his name and they’d think “no smoke without fire”.
What if it wasn’t because of the weed that his dealer had been arrested - almost certainly arrested? He stopped in the street to Google Jack’s name. There were no articles about him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been arrested. He realised he shouldn’t stop in the street because people might look at him. The police didn’t really arrest people for selling a bit of weed, not small-scale, they might arrest Jack on that pretence so they could investigate everything else about him. One time when Nick had been round his house there was a girl there who was probably Jack’s girlfriend, or Jack’s brother’s girlfriend, and she seemed about twenty, but he wasn’t good with ages so she could have been younger and Jack was in his forties anyway so he shouldn’t have been going out with a twenty-year-old. If she was even twenty years old. She could have been fifteen - it was entirely possible Jack had been going out with a fifteen-year-old and had only ever dated fifteen-year-olds and it had been Nick’s responsibility to help her or tell someone but he had been silent.
So the curtain twitcher could have been reporting to the police all the potential paedophiles that had gone round Jack’s house and everyone would have already heard all the jokes about Nick and they’d think “no smoke without fire” and get all up in his business and search his house and it would mess with his work and he’d lose his job, or else everyone there would shun him and he’d feel he’d have to lose his job. It wasn’t like he had ever had sex with a child or watched child porn or even really thought about children. Had he thought about children? He was pretty sure he hadn’t, but he had thought about a lot of things so it was possible he had thought about children at some point, and when it came to porn he had to just trust that everyone involved was eighteen or older - he couldn’t really be sure, they didn’t present their passport during the video or before or after the video and actually that would have made him feel a lot better even if it might disrupt the flow, if the women (and the men? But the men always seemed older) all presented their passports so he could be sure he wasn’t a paedophile.
It was all unlikely, it was unlikely Jack had been arrested for being a paedophile and that the nosy cunt next door was taking note of all the other potential paedophiles, and even if it turned out he had watched some video with someone who was under eighteen (and some of them really did look quite young, so that even if they weren’t eighteen they were probably made for paedophiles so they could pretend the girl/woman was under eighteen while they were jerking off, and although he avoided anything with schoolgirl vibes sometimes he’d start a video and it would have schoolgirl vibes or creepy vibes, and with all the homemade videos with useless titles he couldn’t really be sure of the vibes until he started watching it and by then it was too late) then it was more likely that the police would be able to see he hadn’t been searching for children, he at most came across one or two which accidentally featured someone who could actually pass for eighteen and was advertised as of age, and if it was an accident then he wouldn’t be put on the sex offender’s register, and it wasn’t a case of “no smoke without fire”.
There was no reason to worry about any of this, even if it was possible, entirely possible, that his dealer was a paedophile and he was an accidental paedophile - and in fact he did once have a dream that he was wanking in school toilets, it was the toilets of an all girl’s school, a primary school, but he hadn’t actually dreamt of a child, unless there was a part of the dream he had forgotten, which was also possible, entirely possible, and that would make him a paedophile if he had sexual dreams about children, and then he really ought to be on the register, but what he really needed now was some weed. Then he could sleep and dream about something besides children but the only other dealer he knew could also be a paedophile and he didn’t really like him and he could call a friend but he wasn’t sure it was safe now, it didn’t feel safe now to call anyone. He needed to go home and he needed to lie down and he needed to think clearly about all this because he wasn’t thinking clearly and he just needed some clarity and if his mind was clear then he could work out what to do now.
Reading this back, it’s really hard to resist sorting out the grammar, though I suppose that defeats the point. The idea at the time was to write something as unpleasant to read as The Depressed Person, by David Foster Wallace. Thoughts?
This line says it all: what he really needed now was some weed.
Really interesting to read something so outside your usual style. Also, I second what A says!