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Yes, I see,” the buyer said as he walked towards the window. For a long time he stood against the dim lights of Queen Street.
The boy could see the furniture in the room more clearly now, the Sony 42” plasma TV, the dark brown leather of the 3 seat Chesterfield sofa, and armchairs. The boy sat at a rectangular oak table and waited.

“How much tape do you have with you?” asked the buyer, turning slightly so the boy could now see his profile, “Enough for a life story?”

“Tape?” the boy asked, “oh, you mean how much hard disk space do I have for an mp3 recording, 16 gigabytes.” The buyer looked questioningly at the boy, “about 30 hours.” The boy said.

The buyer approached the table and turned on the small lamp beside them. The boy let out a gasp. “My God.” He whispered, as he stared speechless at the tramp buyer.

The buyer was rugged, scared and unshaven; he almost looked like a tramp.

“Is your equipment ready?” the buyer asked.

The boy’s mouth was open before the sound came out. He nodded. Then he said “Yes.”

The buyer sat down slowly opposite him and said quietly, “Start the tape.”

The boy put his Nokia phone on the table and pressed record.

“You weren’t always a tramp buyer, were you?” He began.

“No, I was a 25 year old man when I became a tramp buyer, and the year was 1968.”

The boy thought about the year before saying “Damn, you’re old.”

The buyer glared at the boy.

“Sorry, I mean how did you become a buyer of tramps?”

“Well there is a short answer to that, but I am not going to tell you that, I want to tell you a really long story about my life, you see I have no friends any more, I sold them all.”

“But I thought you only sold tramps, you know, the homeless and the vagrants?” the boy asked.

“In the beginning it was like that, now I will sell anyone I can, to anyone with cash.” The buyer could see the confused expression on the boys face, “you see the economic meltdown affected everyone, even people traffickers, I was buying the tramps, and then selling them on for a tidy profit. When the economy went bad, I was still buying them, but I couldn’t sell them on. This house was full of bloody tramps, couldn’t move for tramps, tramps in the kitchen, I even tried to store some in the garden, but they ran away.”

“But I digress.” The buyer continued, “It was the year 1968, I lived in a nice house in Wimbledon, London. There was a tragedy, my younger brother died.” And then he stopped.

The boy cleared his throat, and asked, “Painful memories?”

“Oh no,” the buyer replied, “You see my brother was an idiot, and I mean a proper idiot, always doing stupid things, always getting caught in bad situations. One time he was caught with a goat, a duck and a llama in his bedroom.”

“Where did he get a llama in London, in 1968?” the boy asked.

“He broke into the zoo, which is tragically how he died also.”

The boy looked at the buyer for a moment before saying, “He died breaking into a zoo?”

“No,” the buyer continued, “my brother liked animals, and I do mean really liked animals. He died because he thought the tigers were, how should I say this, he thought the tigers were sexy.”

The boy let out a laugh, “so your brother tried to f”

The buyer interrupted, “Yes, OK enough about that unfortunate accident.”

“Well, I would hardly call breaking into a tiger’s cage to have sex with it, and the tiger eating you, an accident, would you?” The boy struggled hard to hide his laugh as he spoke.

“I told you my brother was stupid.” The buyer bowed his head in shame, the shame of his little brothers forbidden love. “After the incident, I had to move away from England, everywhere I went people would point at me and laugh, so, I moved to Paris, I rented a small apartment in Saint Germaine Des Prix, and got a job washing dishes and sometimes waiting tables in a little restaurant there. Things were going fine until, I was walking home one night, it was around 4am, the restaurant had been very busy and the last patrons had left at 2:30am. I had just turned the corner into Rue St. Peres when I saw two men struggling with what looked like a body. One of them stared me right in the eyes and shouted, in English, Hey you, give us a hand. I was in shock, there they were these two strangers in Paris asking me for help with a body, and asking for it in English.” The buyer paused for a few moments then asked the boy, “Would you like something to drink?” “I have beer or whisky.”
The boy told the buyer he wouldn’t mind a beer, and the buyer walked slowly out of the room.
The boy wiped his now sweating brow with the sleeve of his jumper, pressed pause on his phone and walked over to the window. The street outside was now deserted, the street lights, gave off a warm amber glow in the darkness, he could see the silhouettes of the trees in the garden, and tried to picture the garden filled with tramps.

“I hope it is cold enough for you.” The buyer said as he placed a tray of beer, some glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the table.

The boy walked back to the table and sat down.