YNG

He’s affectionately known as YNG: Young Naked Guy. Occasionally he wears a shirt, but never any trousers. He does own trousers, but chooses instead to carry them over his shoulder. He’s tolerated remarkably well by the people of the town, who give him food and water every day, and sometimes try to make him wear trousers, without any success. He wanders from one neighbourhood to another, doing inexplicable things. Today he is fascinated by a bottle, turning it around and around in his hands to watch the motion of the liquid sliding about inside. He has a truly enormous penis (it almost reaches his knees) but is utterly innocent of sex, and seems completely happy. I’m told the local women say with regret: ‘the right dick on the wrong man.’ Occasionally he tries to board a minibus, which causes a commotion. He also loves chasing cars, and it’s a fine sight to see him sprinting at top speed barefoot down the hill, his penis flapping joyously in the wind.

ONG

Old Naked Guy is a different matter. He’s a truly malevolent old fucker who has built himself a horrible nest on the street outside the Ethiopia Hotel, where you can’t easily avoid him. His nest is constructed mostly of rocks and mysterious knotted plastic bags that probably contain awful things. His main activity seems to be burning: burning cigarettes down to his fingertips, burning tangled clumps of string, burning electrical cables and rubber, things that shouldn’t be burnt. Every time I walk that way I try not to meet his eyes, but I always do. He has a piercing, venomous stare that sometimes makes me trip on the kerb or stumble over a rock.

ONG does wear a pair of trousers, but only pulled halfway up his thighs, which is somehow much more indecent. For the record, his penis is tiny. It looks like the knot on a burst balloon. One day, perhaps he’ll burn it.

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