Unrequested love
I'll be honest - in this particular scenario, I was completely unprepared and taken quite by suprise. I hope by the end of this tale you can forgive me for my lack of vigilance, but if you can't - I quite understand.
Walking back from Liar Dan's place is somewhere between a fair distance and a bit of a walk. It normally takes around twenty minutes, but the abundance of hills on the route adds a little strain in to the endeavour; so when we started walking back I knew in my heart of hearts that by the time I reached my home destination there would be a slight pant in my words and I'd be glad for the brief respite before we headed out once more; on to whichever bar the evening saw fit to provide us with.
In actuality I would return with a severe stitch and a pair of lungs that ached as if they'd just been individually sodomised by a forceful yet strangely patient inmate. The reason for this wouldn't be the exertion involved in the walk itself but rather what happens to me when I see something that I find (for reasons hitherto unappreciated by the human race in its entirety) utterly, utterly hilarious.
As my tale is a short one, I'll launch in to the story proper well within the first 78% of my text, something that isn't going to happen again any time soon, so appreciate it now while you still can.
I live in London; the idea of someone requesting money from me for no good reason is not a shocking one, so I was not shocked at all when he first asked me for a single English pound. I'd known he was going to be an issue of some form when I caught him out of the corner of my eye. I say corner as his very gait put him instantly in the 'Possibly psychotic, probably annoying, definitely fetid' category of stranger from the second I caught a glance of him, so I avoided his gaze at all costs. In fact I only just about managed to clock the fact he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, down the middle of a public road, at nine pm, on a cold day before he was two feet away from me, requesting funds.
But obviously it wasn't this mildly annoying homeless man that was funny to me - what was funny was his blatantly fraudulent reasoning for needing cash. Although this man was maybe 5'11'', he was built like a brick fat house and so black that white people were crossing the street up to five miles down the pavement just in case he chose that route. He was not the sort of chap that you would worry about if he had to walk to the shops by himself. It was due to this that the laughter centers of my brain had not been in the slightest prepared for:
'Excuse me boss could I have a pound, I've been RAPED.'
There was a half-second pause as my mind absorbed the information, noticed a possible error, replayed the input, replayed it again, ran it past my bullshit detection department, then sent it via supersonic courier to the very heart of my sense of humour. My mouth clamped shut and made little wheezing noises that threatened to break in to a near-hysterical shreik of laughter at any minute. I looked him in the eye, he looked straight back in earnest. So many questions whizzed through my head: 'Why did he say the word 'raped' like that?' 'Why would someone rape this man?' 'How the bloody hell would they go about doing so?' 'Was he raped by a ... tractor of some kind?'
Throughout this entire thought process he maintained eye contact with me and I had to look away before I giggled right in his sad yet pleasantly round face. I concentrated hard and forced the laughter down - Jim and Liar faded in to the background and I was back in acting class, trying to convincingly play a normal human being who was concerned for this man's welfare just to attain an AS Level in Acting Technique that I would never, ever use.
'Sorry mate, but I haven't got any change.' This was true.
'I've been RAPED.'
...he said it again! Why does he keep saying it like that?! Is he trying to test me?! I looked at him - all I saw was pure, honest, hurt emotions. I started to think crazy things: Had this man really been raped? If so - who by? And what the HELL was their motivation? Again, laughter tugged at me as I tried to visualise how it would be physically possible to in any way forcibly bugger a man of this size. I felt a little bad for finding this image of him bum-upwards screaming like air escaping a balloon so funny and calmed down a little. I'd maintained eye contact this time and managed to get a response to him in a much faster time.
'I know man, but I really don't have any money.'
'50p then - I've been RAPED.'
STOP SAYING THAT!!! How would 50p possibly help?! Call the emergency services, it's free! Do you need to leave it under your pillow for the rape fairy?! Oh God Michael don't laugh! I tried to force back yet more comical situations forming in my mind's eye. Him sitting back at the squat trying to come up with reasons he'd need a pound; him crying 'Eureka!' when he'd come up with this one. My diapragm started to spasm and I knew things would only get tougher from here on in.
'Sorry, I don't have any mo-'
'20p, I've been RAPED.'
'No, I really have no-'
'A penny - I've been RAPED.'
That did it. Something in me snapped. My eyes bulged open and my lips became thin slivers of red as I focussed with intense concentration on middle distance. The next sound to come out of my mouth would not be words. If I didn't laugh in the next two minutes I would piss all over myself and anything within a five meter radius. All I could think of was the idea that a single penny could somehow compensate you for such a thing - or that such a thing happening somehow gave you special access to a penny at the end. That scene in American History X with Ed Norton simply being thrown a penny after his ordeal, so many things threatening my grip on my lips and my bladder.
Liar Dan stepped in - thank God.
'Sorry, but we're totally strapped - not a bean.'
'Got a cigarette? I've been RAPED.'
Dan took a moment to compose himself as well. 'Have the rest of mine mate.'
The guy stuck out a meaty paw and took Daniel's now-post-coital cigarette from his grasp. I noted he already had one in that hand lodged between his first and middle finger.
He wandered off without saying goodbye and I started staggering down the street like I'd been stabbed. All of my abdominal muscles were twitching involutarily and it was affecting my stride. This man has seriously disabled me. I didn't want to run, but I wanted to be out of his earshot when It happened
Jim was staggering next to me, his face as crinkled as a kicked-in scrotum and Dan walked calmly behind, observing our behaviour. I was the first to crack.
"Baaaahahahaha! Oh God! Oh.. oh God... hheehehehehahahah!!! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAA - oh... oh aaahahaha!"
I crumpled in to the squatting position and bounced up and down. My stomach hurt like hell. Jim was having similar problems controlling his body and both of us were in need of aid here. Dan started chuckling at us as much as anything and together we sounded like an orgy of coked-up howler monkeys.
I got to my feet and laughed solidly for the next fifteen minutes, covering half of the distance home. For the next fifteen I had long enough between fits to explain why exactly I was laughing and what was going through my head while I was talking to the guy.
I got back home - my lungs were red raw and a stitch so painful I could barely move had set up shop down my left hand side. But God was it funny.
Daniel and Jim later filled me in on his actual choice of apparel. What I had earlier mistaken for a pair of shorts had in fact been a pair of boxers that had been pulled down over his bulging buttocks at the back. This piece of underwear and the dirty t-shirt had comprised the whole of his outfit. For a moment, a cold wind of guilt had blown through me. Had he actually been raped? Had I spent a full half hour of my life laughing over an actual rape that had actually happened to the very man I was laughing at not a few hours before I met him? I am a horrible person and I am going to Hell.
At the time of writing it has been around a week since this all happened and that wind of guilt has almost blown itself out. A few hours ago, Dan called me to let me know that our bummed friend was still practicing the same spiel on passers by at 9am this morning. Safe in the knowledge he was indeed talking out of his arse and I am in fact a lovely, lovely man, I posted this story. Thanks for reading.
Walking back from Liar Dan's place is somewhere between a fair distance and a bit of a walk. It normally takes around twenty minutes, but the abundance of hills on the route adds a little strain in to the endeavour; so when we started walking back I knew in my heart of hearts that by the time I reached my home destination there would be a slight pant in my words and I'd be glad for the brief respite before we headed out once more; on to whichever bar the evening saw fit to provide us with.
In actuality I would return with a severe stitch and a pair of lungs that ached as if they'd just been individually sodomised by a forceful yet strangely patient inmate. The reason for this wouldn't be the exertion involved in the walk itself but rather what happens to me when I see something that I find (for reasons hitherto unappreciated by the human race in its entirety) utterly, utterly hilarious.
As my tale is a short one, I'll launch in to the story proper well within the first 78% of my text, something that isn't going to happen again any time soon, so appreciate it now while you still can.
I live in London; the idea of someone requesting money from me for no good reason is not a shocking one, so I was not shocked at all when he first asked me for a single English pound. I'd known he was going to be an issue of some form when I caught him out of the corner of my eye. I say corner as his very gait put him instantly in the 'Possibly psychotic, probably annoying, definitely fetid' category of stranger from the second I caught a glance of him, so I avoided his gaze at all costs. In fact I only just about managed to clock the fact he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, down the middle of a public road, at nine pm, on a cold day before he was two feet away from me, requesting funds.
But obviously it wasn't this mildly annoying homeless man that was funny to me - what was funny was his blatantly fraudulent reasoning for needing cash. Although this man was maybe 5'11'', he was built like a brick fat house and so black that white people were crossing the street up to five miles down the pavement just in case he chose that route. He was not the sort of chap that you would worry about if he had to walk to the shops by himself. It was due to this that the laughter centers of my brain had not been in the slightest prepared for:
'Excuse me boss could I have a pound, I've been RAPED.'
There was a half-second pause as my mind absorbed the information, noticed a possible error, replayed the input, replayed it again, ran it past my bullshit detection department, then sent it via supersonic courier to the very heart of my sense of humour. My mouth clamped shut and made little wheezing noises that threatened to break in to a near-hysterical shreik of laughter at any minute. I looked him in the eye, he looked straight back in earnest. So many questions whizzed through my head: 'Why did he say the word 'raped' like that?' 'Why would someone rape this man?' 'How the bloody hell would they go about doing so?' 'Was he raped by a ... tractor of some kind?'
Throughout this entire thought process he maintained eye contact with me and I had to look away before I giggled right in his sad yet pleasantly round face. I concentrated hard and forced the laughter down - Jim and Liar faded in to the background and I was back in acting class, trying to convincingly play a normal human being who was concerned for this man's welfare just to attain an AS Level in Acting Technique that I would never, ever use.
'Sorry mate, but I haven't got any change.' This was true.
'I've been RAPED.'
...he said it again! Why does he keep saying it like that?! Is he trying to test me?! I looked at him - all I saw was pure, honest, hurt emotions. I started to think crazy things: Had this man really been raped? If so - who by? And what the HELL was their motivation? Again, laughter tugged at me as I tried to visualise how it would be physically possible to in any way forcibly bugger a man of this size. I felt a little bad for finding this image of him bum-upwards screaming like air escaping a balloon so funny and calmed down a little. I'd maintained eye contact this time and managed to get a response to him in a much faster time.
'I know man, but I really don't have any money.'
'50p then - I've been RAPED.'
STOP SAYING THAT!!! How would 50p possibly help?! Call the emergency services, it's free! Do you need to leave it under your pillow for the rape fairy?! Oh God Michael don't laugh! I tried to force back yet more comical situations forming in my mind's eye. Him sitting back at the squat trying to come up with reasons he'd need a pound; him crying 'Eureka!' when he'd come up with this one. My diapragm started to spasm and I knew things would only get tougher from here on in.
'Sorry, I don't have any mo-'
'20p, I've been RAPED.'
'No, I really have no-'
'A penny - I've been RAPED.'
That did it. Something in me snapped. My eyes bulged open and my lips became thin slivers of red as I focussed with intense concentration on middle distance. The next sound to come out of my mouth would not be words. If I didn't laugh in the next two minutes I would piss all over myself and anything within a five meter radius. All I could think of was the idea that a single penny could somehow compensate you for such a thing - or that such a thing happening somehow gave you special access to a penny at the end. That scene in American History X with Ed Norton simply being thrown a penny after his ordeal, so many things threatening my grip on my lips and my bladder.
Liar Dan stepped in - thank God.
'Sorry, but we're totally strapped - not a bean.'
'Got a cigarette? I've been RAPED.'
Dan took a moment to compose himself as well. 'Have the rest of mine mate.'
The guy stuck out a meaty paw and took Daniel's now-post-coital cigarette from his grasp. I noted he already had one in that hand lodged between his first and middle finger.
He wandered off without saying goodbye and I started staggering down the street like I'd been stabbed. All of my abdominal muscles were twitching involutarily and it was affecting my stride. This man has seriously disabled me. I didn't want to run, but I wanted to be out of his earshot when It happened
Jim was staggering next to me, his face as crinkled as a kicked-in scrotum and Dan walked calmly behind, observing our behaviour. I was the first to crack.
"Baaaahahahaha! Oh God! Oh.. oh God... hheehehehehahahah!!! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAA - oh... oh aaahahaha!"
I crumpled in to the squatting position and bounced up and down. My stomach hurt like hell. Jim was having similar problems controlling his body and both of us were in need of aid here. Dan started chuckling at us as much as anything and together we sounded like an orgy of coked-up howler monkeys.
I got to my feet and laughed solidly for the next fifteen minutes, covering half of the distance home. For the next fifteen I had long enough between fits to explain why exactly I was laughing and what was going through my head while I was talking to the guy.
I got back home - my lungs were red raw and a stitch so painful I could barely move had set up shop down my left hand side. But God was it funny.
Daniel and Jim later filled me in on his actual choice of apparel. What I had earlier mistaken for a pair of shorts had in fact been a pair of boxers that had been pulled down over his bulging buttocks at the back. This piece of underwear and the dirty t-shirt had comprised the whole of his outfit. For a moment, a cold wind of guilt had blown through me. Had he actually been raped? Had I spent a full half hour of my life laughing over an actual rape that had actually happened to the very man I was laughing at not a few hours before I met him? I am a horrible person and I am going to Hell.
At the time of writing it has been around a week since this all happened and that wind of guilt has almost blown itself out. A few hours ago, Dan called me to let me know that our bummed friend was still practicing the same spiel on passers by at 9am this morning. Safe in the knowledge he was indeed talking out of his arse and I am in fact a lovely, lovely man, I posted this story. Thanks for reading.