by Max Frick
between Bitterman and the ticket machine.
When he pulled the first toenail, that's when they seemed to realise that they were probably going to die. Up till then, any preliminary tying up, or blows delivered to keep them from struggling, only made them think that they were about to be robbed. 'Take what you want,' they would invariably whimper. 'Just please don't hurt me.' Why must everything these days be for profit or personal gain? But when he produced the stationery knife and began - with a detached indifference, impervious to their pleas - to cut into the quick beneath the nail to loosen it, before gripping it with the pliers (every household had them) and twisting and pulling and pulling and twisting until, finally, it lifted wholesale from its moorings; that was the point of realisation. That's when the pleading and screaming - which to Bitterman's trained ear still seemed to contain an element of pretense - became a primordial roar of despair. The soul itself made audible, no less. Sadness and anger and shame and helplessness all billowed forth at one and the same time, of their own accord, from some hitherto unplumbed depth within them: sadness for the friends and family they would never see again; anger at the unfairness of it all, that they had done nothing, as far as they were concerned, to deserve this; shame at their own credulity and helplessness; and the helplessness itself: that they were slowly being tortured to death and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.
All she had to do was pop her coins into the coin slot. Pop her coins into the coin slot, remove the dispensed ticket and Bitterman was home free. She set down her shopping for the last time and, on straightening up again, pat-patted her overcoat pocket, looking, Bitterman surmised rightly, for her purse. Not finding it there she pat-patted her other coat pocket but found only that it wasn't there either. Now, where on earth had she put it?
Bitterman remained stoical, staring straight ahead, with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.
She began to rummage lightly through the topmost items in the first of her shopping bags, pulling that one this way and this one that. No purse. She rummaged too in the second bag. No purse. And in the third. And the fourth. No purse. No purse. In the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, eighth and ninth. Still no purse. So it simply must, then, be in the tenth and last bag. It wasn't. Oh, my! So she renewed the search in reverse more thoroughly, and more agitatedly, than before.
Ten. Nine. Eight...
Bitterman fought hard to remain stoical, staring straight ahead, with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.
...Seven. Six. Five...
Bitterman fought harder to remain stoical, staring straight ahead, with his hands clasped firmly, very firmly, behind his back.
...Four. Three. Two...
Bitterman fought hardest to remain even the least bit stoical, glaring straight ahead, with his hands clasped firmestly behind his back.
...One and... Bingo! Oh, thank goodness! She drew out the purse from its hiding place - sandwiched between this and that unnecessary article in a bag full of unnecessary articles, further down than she ever imagined it could be, on account, no doubt, of it's being a good deal thinner than when the whole unnecessary shopping spree began - she drew it out from its hiding place and turned to Bitterman with an apologetic grimace. He in turn unclasped his firm hands to raise a gentlemanly palm, in Lieu of saying: 'that's quite all right. Could happen to anyone'. But it was all he could do by now not to raise that hand just that little bit further and throttle her to death with it right there and then in front of the ticket machine; to beat, beat, beat her damp head hard, harder, hardest against the jutting edge of the coin slot, allowing her thick blood to flow freely down past the ticket tray and form a wine-dark puddle between those bulging bags at her now limp and lifeless ankles; before turning to the person immediately behind him with an apologetic grimace of his own.
Bitterman hurried to push his own coins into the coin slot. He did not wish to get stuck behind this woman again on the escalator. More hurry, alas, less speed, and every other coin was rejected, the machine's internals unable, seemingly, to keep pace. You could not kill a machine. Even Bitterman knew that. But, in Bitterman, logic was seldom a match for his explosive temper and were it not for the long line of potential witnesses queued up behind him he mightn't have been able to restrain himself from, from, from ripping off the machine's frontage, with his bare hands and, and, and unfurling its paper and, and wrenching out its innards cog after malfunctioning cog.
In the event, he re-inserted the rejected coins, grabbed the dispensed ticket and made hastily for the escalator before it was too late.
It was too late. He reached the escalator just as she was heaving the first five of her bags onto the emerging top step, before she herself stepped onto the emerging top step, practically dragging the remaining five bags behind her onto the emerging top step. There was simply no way around her, and Bitterman, reaching a now trembling hand for the circulating handrail, stepped resignedly onto the newly emerging top step and allowed - had no choice but to allow - the escalator to convey him slowly, all too slowly, down to the platform below.
And when the toenails were all gone he'd cheerily start in on the toes themselves. This little piggy went to market. Snip! This little piggy stayed home. Snip! He had found stem cutters to be the most suitable implement for this type of thing. But, unlike pliers, not every household had them, so he had taken to carrying his own - a good, sturdy stainless steel pair with curved blades and medium length handles. The longer the handles, the greater the leverage, of course, and the less effort required to sever the toe. He could only manage the smaller toes these days with the cutters he had, and unless he took to hauling around with him a pair of three foot long industrial bolt cutters, any big toes would just have to remain intact. Not that it mattered much. By the time he got as far as 'roast beef' on the second foot the game was as good as over, the pig-ee passed out from the pain and only occasionally drifting into semi-conciousness to mumble mechanically for mercy. And the floor by now was awash with blood and waste matter. Wee wee wee, right enough.
Bitterman's blood boiled. He could not, by now, have been any more heated if he were descending - as one day he surely would - into the fiery depths of hell itself. As if to counterbalance this hellish descent he cast his blazing eyes heavenward. On the low, steeply sloping ceiling, strip-light after strip-light sailed monotonously overhead. Far below, a train whistled out of the station low to high, and no sooner had its distant rumblings subsided than further distant rumblings grew louder and closer and another train whistled into the station high to low. The sloping ceiling prevented Bitterman (prevented everyone, in fact, but those near the very bottom of the escalator) from seeing the platform entire, from seeing whether this newly arriving train was the eastbound train or the westbound train, whether, in short, it was his train or not. On hearing its arrival, everyone who until now had been content to let the escalator ferry them down at its own pace began stepping onwards and downwards to the platform below, on the fifty-fifty chance that it was indeed their train. Everyone beyond the bag lady, that is. Of course she was not about to move, was she? Good Lord, no! Not her. Not with all the baggage she was carrying. That would be impossible! Simply impossible! Completely out of the question! Oh, no, no! The rest of the world would just have to wait, wouldn't they? And they could like it or lump it!
Bitterman momentarily toyed with the idea of doing the rest of the world a favour and firmly planting the sole of his foot squarely between her shoulder blades, just to hurry her along a bit. He'd be happy to miss ten trains if he could only watch her tumble head over heels down the escalator with her shopping flying up and around her, before hop-stepping gaily over her broken and twisted bulk at the bottom while the escalator ran on regardless beneath her. But, as Bitterman toyed, she - lo and behold - did gather up her bags, with no small effort, and began struggling down the steps along with everyone else.
Well I never! Wasn't this a turn up for the books! Bitterman was more than a little surprised. Perhaps, o
n reflection, he'd been a bit too hard on her. And as he dogged her footsteps down the stairs, increasingly hopeful that he might now actually make this train, he even began to feel chastened enough to contemplate offering her some assistance with her bags. Then, all of a sudden, she stopped dead in her tracks. For she had now reached that point, low on the escalator, from where she could see the platform entire, and could see, consequently, that this waiting train was not her train after all.
Now, Bitterman hated a great many things in this life. He made no bones about it. He hated, for example, busy bodies. Or he hated, say, petty thieves. He hated queue jumpers and litterbugs. He hated smokers, but he also hated anti-smokers. He hated liars and he hated cheats. He hated the feeble minded, the half hearted, the proud, the meek, the weak, the powerful, the ignorants, the arrogants, the filthy rich, the filthy poor, the pretentious, the vainglorious, the fashion followers, the trend setters, the has-beens, the wannabes, the overeaters, the underachievers, the speed freaks, the Sunday drivers, the tight lipped, the tell tale tits, the God botherers, the devil worshippers,
