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Mark Kotting -
NAPPY RASH.

“Think Harry Potter with no magical powers, or friends, living in south london, doing a job he hates, stressed, paranoid and lonely. I loved Mark Kottings bleak, funny and poetic tale of a london cab driver.....

Like Travis Bickle sedated by the Tindersticks, a man simmering on the edge.....

A funny and moving tale of a man working too hard, for too long, for too little.....”
Sean Lock

Nappy Rash (extract)

All I’ve got to show for my thirty eight years, is the hand I’m holding
and a green medallion swinging from my neck, with a taxi driver’s
number stamped on. I’m allowed in some bus lanes, not in others.
Where’s the sense in that? And who cares? I fucking do.
Someone’s figured it out, on a computer in some office, tucked behind
his desk. All sorted. Putting in a set of lights here, a roundabout
there. My point? It’s a fucking mess.
I don’t trust anyone. I used to. I thought l could read sets of eyes.
Not now. I mean, who the fuck can? But as I said, I thought I could.
Now I couldn’t tell a good man from a bad man. A chump from a champ.
Only yesterday a carpenter flagged me. He didn’t have long hair, or
look like Jesus. I should have known. It was one in the morning, no
traffic, we were bouncing along. He’s telling me about his job, about
him. Talking, we call it. His mates work at Tesco’s, in blue check
shirts. That’s not for him, swiping frozen chickens across scanners,
dead skin, packed in plastic. He’s a carpenter, a working man, cuts
wood like the best of them. He wasn’t going to be no Tesco’s boy. I
nodded my head to that. We got to his estate, an estate where worms
come out at night. The meter was showing twelve, but I’m going to give
it to him for ten. I’ll do that if I’m heading home, do it for my yin
and yang.
Fuck it, I liked him. “Have it for ten,” I said.
He leant in my window and said “See you cock.”
Bang and he’s off. His legs going up and down, ankles moving his white
socks along. He even had a limp, and he’s across the road, smashing
through a door. I watched, didn’t move from my seat, what’s the point?
He’d sucked me in, ran away. He told me his stories, setting me up, for
his get away. I was left with twelve on the meter, not a penny in my
hand. He’d done a runner. He’d turned into a runt. I flicked my switch,
turned the meter to zero, went home.

Mark Kotting
Nappy Rash.
Wrecking Ball Press
ISBN 1-903110-16-5