The Night Worker

He slid the door open under the bare light bulb and stepped into the shower. He turned on the water. He picked up the loofah and self-pumiced a swathe of aggression across the surface of his body. He reached for the shampoo. He massaged it into his scalp. He closed his eyes to shut out the foam, and suddenly it was night, a very personal night… There was a stain behind every word whispered around the streets at night and it was, “skin aggro”, “skin aggro”, and it stuck into the consciousness of all of them from the shivering outside and it wrapped around the lintels and the architraves of their doors, slowly wafting in just that bit more every hour, spreading like dust, growing like yeast, slowly plaguing their houses, indecipherable at first but then self-plaiting into discernible letters: “skin aggro”, “skin aggro” and as it got older throughout the night, it sank to the doormat outside and shuffled its way under the weatherboard, almost apologetically, almost wiping its feet before crawling up the hall carpet and into the living room. And the whispers turned to shouts around the drunken midnight watershed and defiant cries spilled through the air, cries of hatred and intolerance, a braying of loud machismo that caused anyone inside to latch and double-bolt their shutters.
They had “aggro” tattooed on the digits of the dominant hand and “skin” on those of the other and the thumb of that hand was removed because it had no purpose, it carried no letter, and a reversible thumb was anathema to their attempts to reverse the evolutionary process. This philosophy was applied equally vigorously to their victims.
They tattooed the eight fingers and the one thumb of those they encountered with an ink-colour that contrasted best with the underlying skin colour of the future carrier. Good taste in these matters was important. After the removal of the other thumb, anaesthetic was offered or refused in sympathy with the recipient’s religious convictions, so that, for instance, no alcohol was applied where it would not be allowed or appreciated. As they carried out their operations, they sang their anthem, their hymn of the changing world order:
“Single thumbs single thumbs domination! Double thumbs double thumbs subjugation! We’re just scum Soft in the cranium We just exist to fill a vacuum We’re brain-numb Primed for martyrdom But you’re going home without a second thumb!”
Then, the area cleared, they moved on to their next “parish.”
Women were always left unmutilated because they might be unclean.
Men were chosen for the best skin colour contrast with whatever stocks of tattoo-ink they had left. They practised economy in everything.
Anyone with fewer then eight fingers and two thumbs was left alone, was in fact swiftly moved away from, crossing the street if necessary.
And when the dark died down, and the dawn blew in, all powdery traces of the night’s events were sucked back out through the front doors and nothing stayed to echo the night except a distant remnant of an equally distant song:
“We’re new monkeys; you’re still gentlemen But you won’t thumb your nose at us again.”
And it all died down, and it was quiet. And he rinsed the foam away, opened his eyes, and turned the shower off. He stepped out of the shower, and started dressing for work, at a time that most people were retreating home from the pub. And in the distance, he could hear the familiar homebound refrain:
"There's gonna be a Blacon bust-out.
There's gonna be a Blacon bust-out.
There's gonna be a Blacon bust-out..."
He smiled, and made for the front door.