The Nut Seller

The young man’s face has a puffy just past adolescence look about it, a short ginger blond beard and moustache below longish blond hair, which would probably be lank if not washed often enough.   A large floppy leather satchel in brown and dark grey from which various papers threaten to escape, is draped across his lap.   The dark maroon lining of his well-cut dark grey suit jacket is visible as his elbow rests on the back of the train seat, and matches exactly the colour of his shirt under the soft black jumper he got for his last birthday.   

He is engaged in an animated telephone conversation which reveals a slight under bite and badly stained upper teeth as he speaks.  Pale eyes flick between the train window, his finger nails and the floor; he avoids looking at other train passengers while he chats just a little too loudly with his friend on the phone.

“We can just meet at Sandy, Thursday after work.”  

“Yeah for a drink or something, maybe pizza.”

He rents one small bedroom in the upstairs of a dingy share house in a back street behind the Railway Station at Sandringham.  His room is barely large enough for the king single bed he picked up at a great price from the Salvo’s, and his clothes live on hangers behind the door, or on the floor depending on their state of dirtiness.  The small sash window doesn’t always open, and when it does is usually impossible to close, consequently his room has a boy smell; old socks and overnight farts.  On the weekends he takes his laundry home to his Mum, who feeds him her home cooked love by way of nourishing soup and fruit cake while she washes his shirts and undies. 

He doesn’t mix with the share house people, but prefers the company of a handful of trustworthy young men he’s known since high school, who share the view that they are all just a little above the average bloke.  He studied commerce at Monash, and last January scored a two year contract with a nut wholesaler, he’s working to become a world expert in the niche market of macadamia and pistachio growing in Victoria.