The Credit Card

Some people say home is where the heart is, but I feel as if I've dropped my heart in every place along the road. I've always wanted a place, you know like everyone else, with a front door and a kitchen and pictures on the wall... just somewhere that I can call my own. Somewhere that I can not just live, but love to live in. I don't care how fancy it is, mod cons and whatnot never excited me, it could be a s**t-hole, but as long as it's my s**t-hole I couldn't care less.

I've been sleeping rough for 3 years now. It's not quite rough in the way you'd think though. Yes there's grit and danger and fear, but I never minded that, I almost enjoyed it, that feeling of having to look around and judge your surroundings, it's like a game, a big long game that makes the loneliness somehow bearable, because that's what made it rough for me. That feeling of being alone, knowing that no one's ever going to report you missing, or worry whether you've got enough to eat, or think about you in any way... at all.

Most places I stay between a night and a few weeks, it really depends how long it takes before the police tell you to move on again, but Talley Park road bus stop was different, I'd been there for a month now, sleeping under the shelter by the station, the police see me, but this area's nice, they don't say anything. No one wakes me up in the middle of the night to say “You can't stay here”, and although I like the consistency of it, I can't help but feel a little stuck, it's easier to run when you have no where else to go, but when you've got somewhere, that motivation to find a home is gone.

2 weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to pack up and go, I'd decided that maybe it might be worth giving in and approaching the local hostels for a placement, winter was coming on fast and I didn't want to have to face it outside again. I've always avoided the hostel system. After the way things were back with my dad I don't think I'd manage well being told what to do again. I always said to myself, I want my own place and in that ideal living under someone else's rules didn't fit in, at least on the streets it's up to you what to do with your life.

Once I'd made the decision to give in, I'd realised I'd need money, no place was going to take a 19 year old, under-qualified lad without a penny in his pocket, even hostels require some rent up front. I'm very used to getting by without money, I never take handouts, I refuse to beg, because I never wanted to rely on someone else to survive. I know in primary school we're taught all these morals about the evils of stealing, but I'd rather take what I need than beg, and boy supermarkets made it so easy for me those days, but money... Money wasn't something I'd held in my hand for a long time. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

That's when I saw her. Have you ever looked at someone and felt like you know their entire life story. That's what I felt when I looked at her. Daddy's girl, never lifts a finger, gets everything she wants, I thought I had her pegged and who knows, maybe I did...

I was doing what I usually do that day, sitting at the stop, making it look like I'm waiting for my bus, staying unnoticed, undetectable and there she was walking down the street in her fur coat, fumbling through a weighty looking purse, she stopped at the cash machine behind me and typed in her pin, and I know it's wrong, but I couldn't help but peek. My mind just wanted to know what it was. Girls like her, they don't need credit cards- if they lose one, daddy would just buy them another, but guys like me, we get nothing from daddy, well unless a good old beating counts.

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I could tell she didn't need the money partly by the way she keyed her pin in so absent mindedly, not stopping to check if anyone was peering over her shoulder, like it didn't matter to her.

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I kept repeating it over in my head, as if I'd get the chance someday, but I knew she'd just walk on, girls like her don't get the bus, they get a lift, or a cab, or a f*****g limo. Then she stopped right next to me, she sat down on the bench under the shelter and began to rifle through her bag, as she went through it, scrabbling about for something, she pulled out several things and laid them out on the bench next to her... including her purse...

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Girls like her don't deserve credit cards, they don't earn the money on them, they don't pay it back, they just lay them out on benches at bus stops and they don't even look over to see if anyone's eyeing it up and believe me I was. People who are so careless, well people like me owe it them to teach them better, to teach them to look out for things, we need to make them learn the hard way and that's exactly what I attempted to do.

I carefully opened the purse, ignoring the wad of notes I slipped the card out and placed it into my pocket, I then slowly got up, looked at the clock-tower and began walking calmly away.

That's a little trick mum used to teach me when I was little, don't look like there's any reason for you to be stopped and no one will stop you, and to think other kids were all learning invaluable things like the alphabet at the time!

I didn't dare take the card out for the rest of that day, I wanted to wait until the next night time when no one was about, just to be safe.

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It's weird that after a nights sleep a number can still be so ripe in your head. Probably not in hers, she hadn't even bothered to cancel it. See what I mean- careless. Ripe with anticipation I keyed in the number, heart pounding nose burning for the unfamiliar and distant scent of money. I checked out £300. Then I waited.

The machine whirred, a lively tune of wealth sung as it spat out the thick wad of cash into my ready hands. The paper crinkled, it didn't feel real. It just felt right.

...

Two weeks later I'm still at Talley Park Road, I still have the money. It's funny how I never spent a penny, it's like I can't bear to separate from the feel. You see I've never had proper money before and it's like if I spend it on a bed, it's not mine anymore, it just goes to feed the system. It goes away from me.

I've even still been nicking for my food, because after a year or so doing it every day, why pay just because you can, when it's so easy just to be in and out? No hassle, no bother. By now the streets have become so custom a part of me doesn't want to move on- what's the point? I'm fine here anyway.

I finally have money... I just don't want to spend it.

So here I am sitting in the dark, blending into the background, waiting for the bus I never board. Wondering what to do next. If there is anything to do.

Then I see her.

Similar get up to before, only this time a long wool coat and a beret. Again she looks through me. I am merely a background shadow to her.

I study her, appearing to study nothing at all. Her eyes are sad. Her lips shake. With a desperate expression she pulls out her phone and puts it against her ear in her drunken fluster. Still not seeing me. Still in her world.

“Please pick up ok, You can't do this to me, not after everything we had, I thought you loved me!” She sobs down the phone, hysteria arising in her tone, oblivious to the world around her, only alive to her own selfish despair.

Then it grabs me.

The pull of the purse, flung out next to me. Careless and unaware.

I open it.

I slide the card back in.

And it was like nothing happened.

Another quiet crime of the night no one noticed, no one missed.

She hangs up the phone.

The bus comes and she staggers upright.

Spinning round she sees me.

She nods.

I nod back.

She gets on the bus.

I never see her again.