Meet Weird Bob

I knew a French bloke once. Ex-copper by the name of Serge Warrant.

A loud and insistent knocking at the front door woke me up at some ridiculously early hour this morn. And whoever it was wouldn’t go away. I was forced to get out of bed, fling on some boxers and a t-shirt and open up.

An icy blast of wind shot in through the open door and up my bare pins.

Weird Bob stood swaying about on the doorstep, shivering his nuts off, bloodshot wasted eyes swivelling wildly in their sockets like fucked radar trackers, those beastly teeth of his clattering together. He was clearly off his head on something and held a large carrot in his hand.

He shrugged. Slurred something about having been out all night and lost his keys. Before coming in, he stared down at the carrot, then hurled it away.

"I was at a mate's house, yeah," he gruff-mumble, crossing the threshold. "And I met this lady aircraft mechanic. And a gay boy, and a wicken." He paused for a bit, struggling with his own equilibrium and thoughts. "I mean, what are the fucking chances of that?"

I didn't care. I just wanted to climb back into bed and told him as much.

It was clear though, without his keys (and therefore access to his own abode), Weird Bob would require a period of shelter in my place. Almost certainly the location of a locksmith via telephone, quite possibly some of the contents of my fridge and, if our historical interaction is anything to go by, some of my weed stash too.

And there would be a wait until the locksmith came, during which he would talk incessant shite until my ears bled. A terrible enough ordeal anyway, but more so at such an early hour.

I pondered whether to just leave him to his fate in the hallway, and had decided to do just that when Weird Bob produced a partially squashed sandwich from his coat pocket and held it up at eye level, inspecting it carefully.

He had difficulty focusing, and stroked the thing with his long, bony forefinger, lifting the top slice of bread with the kind of caution a bomb disposal expert might display when checking out a suspicious package.

He peered in.

“Egg mayonnaise,” he murmured. "A veritable bitch of a sandwich this one. Not at all sure she should be here this morning.”

He let it fall to the floor, having trouble co-ordinating his foot to mash it flat on the carpet, then turned and stared me out, all a-furrowed brow and mythical Gatekeeper teeth.

“You remember about six months ago, when I was Burt Reynolds?”

“No…”

“Well, I think I’ve become him again.”

Weird Bob conjured a clear plastic spoon from the sleeve of his coat and held the rounded side up close to his face, searching for his own convex reflection for proof. Then he held the spoon up to my face.

“Can you see him?”

Even by Weird Bob’s surreal standards, this was strange shit and given the unholy hour, I wasn’t in the mood.

Weird Bob moved the spoon about slowly up and down and side to side in front of my face, giving me the full range of angles of my own semi-transparent warped reflection until I batted his hand away and made a move for my front door.

“He’s in there somewhere the little fucker,” Weird Bob muttered.

He growled at the spoon, then popped it in his breast pocket, his increasingly intense stare suddenly giving way to a befuddled grin. He produced his keys. He let himself in without another word.

I spent the rest of the day in a vague state of agitation, strumming my acoustic guitar wistfully, flitting through Internet porn, trying to think of lyrics to songs I need to finish.