The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

rotting sewage. He closed the tap and went round to thank the owner.
    ‘Where are you going?’ the man asked.
    ‘I’m looking for work.’
    ‘What kind of work?’
    ‘Rickshaw work.’
    The man looked doubtful. ‘You can afford one?’
    Tochi thanked him again and turned to go.
    ‘If you want to make money quick, lots of boys are taking an operation. We could do a deal.’
    The man seemed to smile with only one half of his face, which frightened Tochi a little, and he apologized and said he really had to go.
    He heard a coal train shrieking to its stop on the other side of a building up ahead. He rounded the building – a cinema – then crossed the rail lines and climbed. The auto drivers were all outside the station, most of them asleep in their taxis while they waited on the morning crowd. One driver stood with his back to Tochi, singing.
    ‘Bhaiya, can I ask for your help?’
    The man turned round, in no hurry. He was shorter than Tochi, and his small moon of a face and thin legs seemed a wrong fit for the rest of his body, as if all the fat in him had deposited itself in a wide belt around his waist. His hair was slicked back. ‘Kya?’
    ‘I’d like to speak to someone who will sell me an auto.’
    The man looked Tochi up and down, at his ruined clothes. ‘Autos don’t come cheap. Who did you rob?’
    ‘Who do I speak to?’
    The man made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘No more licences in the city. Find some other work.’
    ‘Just tell me who I need to speak to.’
    ‘You need to speak to me, and I’ve told you already.’
    Tochi remained where he was, looking at the man. ‘Maybe I should ask someone else.’
    The man chuckled and turned his head to the side. ‘All this government support must be going to their heads. Now they want to work with us, too.’
    From the autos came a couple of sleepy, smoky laughs.
    He spat at the ground, right between Tochi’s feet, and stood there smirking, arms crossed over his chest as if waiting for Tochi’s next move. Relenting, Tochi returned to the station platform and was about to cross the tracks when a voice called him back. A body pieced itself together through the dark, chest uncovered, an orange lunghi twisted expertly around waist and thighs. The man asked if Tochi was the one looking for an auto, because he had one for sale, or at least his brother did.
    ‘Where is it?’ Tochi asked.
    ‘You know the clock tower? By the maidaan? Meet me there in the morning,’ and before Tochi could ask anything else the man turned and hastened up the platform.
    Away from the station, he breathed in a clear, great draught of air, looked up and asked God to please let this chance be real.
    He checked under each stairwell he passed for a place to lie down, but they were all full, and soon he realized he was near the river. He crossed the flyover, spookily quiet at this hour, and scrambled on down. The water looked seductive, its dips aglow with moonlight. Off to his left was the simple outline of the long red bridge. At the river’s edge, he took off his trousers and shirt and washed them in the water, then returned to the wall in his wet clothes. There were already people bedded down for the night, bodies lying low against the bricks, sheltered from the wind above. He found a space further along and lay on his side, facing the river. It didn’t take long for his eyes to feel heavy, and the last thing he registered was the fat honk of a tugboat gliding darkly by.
    He was at the maidaan not long after sunrise and already the place was filling: shoeshine boys setting up for the day, office men strolling to work, nuns on their morning constitutional. He couldn’t see the man anywhere. His eyes moved to a tidy saffron crowd gathered in the shade of an apple tree. They were sitting around a man who kept pointing to a piece of paper in his hand. Some sort of protest, maybe. Tochi looked up at the clock tower. He wished they’d agreed on a specific time.
    He was