FEEDING THE MONKEY

'Have you told him yet?' she said as we sat drinking coffee.
'No,' I said. 'I wanted to tell her and you before anyone else.'
The day after I got a text saying, 'Congratulations, well done, Xxx.'
I texted back, 'I feel strangely unmoved, thought there'd be doors opening in my mind but haven't detected anything like thus far'
Boots walked past alone. He used to walk around a step or so behind a woman could have been his twin. She had long dyed black hair, like him, and like him, wore plenty of eye liner. But I've not seen them together since I moved in here.
He had a bad accident, head injury affecting his speech so when our conversations would include me saying, 'Sorry?' when I hadn't understood what he said. A lot of what he said was ideas that other people or groups of people should do and I'd say, 'Why don't you do that?' and he'd say, 'I might,' but I don't think he ever did.
Since the laundry time change I've not seen him to talk to and unlike with Godmother I don't miss the contact. Thing is I can't trust him not to be telling someone else what I say as he tells me what others have said. Boots was an ally of Plover and would pass on information about him.
'He put that poster up,' he told me when I asked, pretty sure who it was anyway, the language and target of attack.
Once in a meeting in the flats Plover started a rant, was eventually asked to leave then escorted from the room still shouting, jabbing his finger at me as I watched curious about the condition of his internal world. If I saw him in the lift I'd grunt, 'Uuhh,' and he'd turn his back to me. He was quite frightening really because he had a history of violence taking a sword to his son who said, 'He's a wanker.' I wouldn't like the D to say that about me, not behind my back, she has a healthy contempt.
I'm someone easy to talk to, available for gossip, never revealing sources, expedient in distribution. 'Well I heard...' is a way I'll begin an exchange, and I mean exchange, I don't give for nothing, I expect something in immediate return or I'm clear I'm planning for the future and feeding the monkey.