Rotimi Ogunjobi - The Crooked Bullet

“That’s awful. What are you going to do now Frank?” Fernandez sounded genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know yet. You never plan to lose your job, I believe, or do you? I’ll get by somehow, I am sure.” Frank shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m happy you can think like that. It’s all really no more than just a job, see? Just hang on to that truth and you won’t feel so bad anymore” Ellen advised.

“Thanks, Ellen,” Frank said to her and signed the voucher for his check.

“Good luck Frank, we’re going to miss you” Ellen shook his hand

“Going to really miss you, Bro. I know we didn’t get along so well on some issues, but I really think you are a great guy. Namaste.” Fernandez also emotionally took his hand.

Frank emptied much of the contents of his desk into the bin. They were mostly half-written stories that were long dead. This completed, he left the office of East End Mirror, giving one last tired salute at the door, and his few prized possessions in a little box under his arm. Spencer Cowley standing menacingly in the middle of the news office returned the salute.

Frank caught a bus home from Shoreditch to Hackney Central, looking pensively out of the window all through the journey. At Hackney Central, he bought some fruits from a stall and walked to his flat which was about two hundred yards away.

It was still just around midday. He found it strange and a really confusing experience to be home at this time of the day.

Frank put the fruits in the fridge, took out a can of Guinness, and lay on the sofa to watch MTV. The Ex-Man’s newly released video was still getting prime-time play treatment. Every time he heard the song, he always got this feeling that he knew the voice even though it had been passed through a synthesizer. But then a lot of rap often sounded quite like the same, unless you were doing it in some patent way like Snoop Dogg or even like Grandmaster Flash, who he very much thought was the boss. Frank soon drifted off to sleep.

There were three missed calls on his phone when he woke up. He dialed his voice mail. There was one message from Trevor:

“How are you doing, Frankie? You did have quite a skinful last night, didn’t you? Talk later” [click]. The second message brought him fully awake.

“Hi Frankie, it’s me Nancy. You’ll call me back, will you? [Click]”. No, he wouldn’t. Nancy Hughes was an old flame, who had house stepped on her foot three weeks ago at a rave party. Life had a way of working funny new habits into lonely people’s lives because as much as Frank had ever known, Nancy was chronically agoraphobic and would rather watch a golf game on television than from the middle of a mile wide green. That was how shocked he had been to find Nancy at a rave, where six dozen lunatics were getting smashed on cheap booze and screaming above the deafening music.

The third was from his mum in Manchester, wanting to make sure that he was still wearing clothes and not walking around naked in the night like all those hooligans. Now, Frank knew this was an important message, and if he didn’t reply to his mum’s call, she would probably come knocking on his door the next morning. So Frank called mum and assured her yes, he still was wearing clothes; no he wasn’t wearing manacles around his neck; no he wasn’t smoking pot yet, and yes He’s still got a job - the last one being now a lie.

He returned to watching television. Again the video of an EX-MAN rap rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” was playing on MTV. He liked it.

When Frank woke up the next morning, he found three more missed calls on his phone. They were all from the same number and certainly didn’t belong to anyone in his phone directory. Frank had a policy of not returning missed calls from unknown callers – primarily because it costs money and again you never know whom they are from. From experience, unknown callers usually spelled trouble – debt collectors, tax office, and bank calling about your un-approved overdraft.

It was a nice Tuesday morning, and Frank was just getting into the routine of preparing for work until it suddenly occurred to him that hey you got no job, man. Nevertheless, he dressed up. The unemployed always have a place to go - the Jobcentre never turned anyone away. And in any case, the Jobcentre was the logical place to start looking for another job – theoretically.

He took Spencer Cowley’s check with him, tucking it into his shirt’s pocket; and thinking to visit the bank, later in the day. The check was not for a lot, and he didn’t imagine it would take him quite far. So he definitely needed to get a job really fast, primarily because the rent needed to get paid by the first day of each month, which was just about a week away. The last thing he needed at this time was to have himself thrown in the street. Frank thought the check was mischief really because he usually got paid by bank transfer. It occurred to him that Spencer intended to make a statement with the check - like he didn’t want to have anything more to do with Frank.

Hey, here is your pay you fucker; now get the hell out of here and don’t ever come back.

Frank hated visiting the Jobcentre, primarily because as everyone knew, it was the place where you went in hopeful and came out hopeless. There, as he expected, he found himself in the company of the drunk, the druggies, and the born layabouts-, all waiting to be fed into the omnivorous mill of the unemployment benefit processing machine.

He made a quick start at the job search computer, and it confirmed because that seemed its only purpose for which it seemed to have been made, that there was no job available for journalists within 50 miles of Hackney. Not about to completely lose hope though, Frank joined the queue to see an employment officer.

“What kind of job are you looking for?” the lady asked. Frank had a feeling that she didn’t care, and was just going through the rote.

“I am a journalist,” Frank told her. She tapped some keys on her computer, and ruefully shook her head.

“No journalist job here,” she said.

“I know that; I just checked from the computer by myself and couldn’t find any listing. I thought maybe you had some other jobs that haven’t been yet listed.” Frank replied, mildly annoyed.

“Would you be willing to consider any other job?”

Frank had a fleeting thought that having a full-time job as a disc jockey would have been so cool but he didn’t think they made jobs in that model yet; at least not in London.

“Yes, depending on what you have available. I really must pay my bills somehow”, Frank replied. Humming gaily, she tapped some more on her computer.

“I have got some vacancies for truck drivers. Do you have a license?”

“No I don’t have a license to drive anything on wheels,” Frank laughed; thinking he had no desire to drive a fucking truck.

“Door security?” She again suggested.

“I have a problem standing for long,” Frank told her.

“You wouldn’t consider a street cleaning job either I guess because of your disability?” Frank imagined she was mocking him, with the way she said “your disability.” Nevertheless, he just shook his head, thinking no way was he going to be scooping dog poop for anybody.

“Traffic warden?” She asked. Again Frank laughed and shook his head. As far as he knew, nearly everyone who owned a car was looking for a traffic warden to murder.

“Okay then, could you check back next week and we might hopefully have something along your street. In the interim would you like to sign on to receive unemployment benefits?”

At this time a mail boy passed – probably sixteen years old or so.

Get off that chair and go do some work like a man you lazy motherfucker ; his disgusted eyes seemed to say to Frank.