ABSTRACT
In a piss-saturated doorway next to the entrance to the town-centre pub a sickly young bird sporting a blanket over her knees was begging for money. She was flaunting her little tits and scabbed bare arms. Her nipples protruded like two tab ends under her thin polycotton T-shirt and her elbows glowed, incandescent, in the autumn dark of a Leeds Saturday evening. Her face was blank. Popped up next to her was a bit of card, the remnants of a McDonald’s Happy Meal carton. Printed on it was that postmodern piteous spiel: HOMELESS PERSON, PLEASE HELP. Benno must have thought it wasn’t an evening for being a ‘homeless person’. Either that or he was showing his appreciation of the nipple show, because he threw a pound coin on to her blanket as he passed on his way into the pub.
