tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27406350417254236562024-03-12T16:00:31.503-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy WayGravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-82369866109636458352017-06-16T17:39:00.000-07:002017-06-16T17:39:46.365-07:00STIGMATA: The Indelible Track Marks of Katy JonesSTIGMATA: The Indelible Track Marks of Katy Jones<br />
<br />
I met Frank on my third day in a new city. I'd moved from Manchester to Sheffield with my then boyfriend who'd found a job at a steelworks. The building Ari worked in was nicknamed 'Smack' because the sheer temperature as you entered from cold, clanging outside steps smacked you in the face. He'd return home each day filthy and smelling like a combination of doner kebab with extra garlic and a strange odour slightly resembling sump oil. By day three in our new home somewhere along the once-red carpeted top floor corridor of Park Hill flats, the supply of heroin I'd brought with me from Manchester had gone and, as I awoke in my usual pool of sweat, I remembered all I had left was a tiny zip-lock bag containing used filters. The worst part about my situation was the knowledge that there must be at least a handful of dealers living in the same building. Perhaps, even next door.<br />
<br />
It was before six a.m, Ari having left already for his twelve hour shift. Ari feared heroin. I hadn't promised to stop, but he saw our move from Manchester as a new start away from the people who could supply my habit. He genuinely thought I would stop. Just like that. After cooking up my filters, which only took the edge off what would inevitably become an increasingly uncomfortable day if I didn't score, I pulled on yesterday's clothes, grabbed my key and left the flat. Huge windows the length of the deserted corridor showed the city's spires and tramways in a panorama of grey, its sky deceptively blue. It could have been summer but for the leafless trees and the prickling cold. Relieved that the lift was working, and smelling slightly less offensive than it might, I headed down and out. <br />
<br />
Cringing downhill and past the station, I crossed the main road and groaned up another hill to the ancient stone main library building to look up the time of the next NA meeting. It was closed. Sheffield is built on hills, and each incline oozed out of me putrid heroin-sweat, each step sending electric-shock like pains through my bones. I yawned, brine streaming from my eyes and nose as I muttered self-deriding expletives at not having found a supply earlier in the week, and began my hurried limp towards the city centre. My clothes chafed my skin with each movement. A lone council worker pushed a road cleaner around the pavements, its noise sluicing though my nerves and putting my teeth on edge. I had the idea that if I could avoid asking people who were begging for a hook up and instead sit through until the first fag break in a meeting, I could tag along with whoever was going scoring. If I was lucky, there would be someone selling somewhere close by. I'd known dealers to turn up outside, answering the calls of the nonbelievers amongst the anonymous soldiers, having committed such crimes myself back in Manchester. But I didn't know where any of the meetings were. It was so early that none of the obvious begging spots were occupied. Nothing was open but a small newsagent. I made my way down an alleyway, which opened up into a small square and sat down on one of the benches outside a pub to smoke. Grey clouds were blowing in, obliterating the winter sun and all the joints in my fingers ached as I rolled myself a cigarette from the bitty powder of tobacco in the bottom of my near-empty pouch. Cold and withdrawals eroded my ability to adequately roll the tobacco in the rizla and the result resembled the attempts I'd made as a child with mint from the garden in rizlas sneaked from my Dad. I may as well have had flippers in place of my hands, they were so numb, and after several failed flicks of my lighter, I approached a man who was smoking on the steps of an adjacent building and asked him for a light. He sat on the bottom step, curled in on himself, his number two haircut and days old stubble draped in the hood of a green army jacket. He scuffed the toe of his Reebok trainer on a stone, grinding it into the pavement and looked up at me. His eyes were pools of pupil in which I attempted to see my own.<br />
<br />
“You startin' ere then?”<br />
“What? Where?”<br />
He gestured to the sign on the entrance of the building: Kick the habit: start a life.<br />
“What's this place, then? Kick the habit? A rehab? Are you?”<br />
Passing me his lit cigarette to light my own from, Frank eyed me up and down with a smirk. <br />
“Startin in a few weeks if I do us rattle. Came early cos I couldn't sleep. Looks like thah could do wi' joining us.”<br />
“Uh, maybe not: but there is something you might be able to help me with...”<br />
I immediately perked up, the simple thought of having chanced on a fellow heroin user who could find me what I needed alleviating in part the creeping sickness I felt. Frank never made it to the appointment he had at the rehab. As we walked, he told me they were to take blood to determine the amount of heroin in his bloodstream. Then he'd be prescribed the appropriate regimen of britlofex , temazepam and whatever other medications were included in the home torture pack that was to be prescribed to him and handed out by whoever was supervising the detox. His blood test never happened. Instead, we walked in step to the phone box outside the bookmakers across from the post office, from where Frank dialled his dealer. Whilst we walked to the bingo hall and waited for the red Orion to show up, Frank told me about his girlfriend, Katy, who cut words into her skin with the points of needles and filled the words with ink, and I told Frank about Ari and his innocence about my continued heroin use.<br />
“He must be fuckin' blind,” Frank laughed. “Cos I clocked ya straight off.”<br />
We weren't left as long as Frank had expected for his man to to arrive. He was, Frank told me, an early bird, taking advantage of the hours when most dealers kept their phones switched off. I'd struck lucky, indeed. We piled into the back seats behind two men who looked to be in their early twenties. The driver held out his hand for our money as he drove up the hill that passed behind my building, whilst his associate passed over a half teenth to each of us. Flashes of green and concrete shot past through the window's frame, like a double exposure against the grey of my reflected face. Frank wrote the dealer's number for me on the inside flap of my rizla packet after we'd been dropped off outside the old, abandoned court building opposite Sheaf market. The streets were filling up with shoppers and people on their way to work, a few junkies gathering in groups around the entrance, where a woman in a long skirt held bunches of lucky heather in a hawking basket. <br />
I was waiting for Frank to ask me for a bit of my gear for the introduction, but he never did. He hadn't pretended it was more expensive than it really was, hadn't set any conditions on me accompanying him. I was about to head for the stand-alone pay as you piss single toilet and bid Frank farewell when he pulled on my sleeve.<br />
“What you doin' later?”<br />
I told him I'd nothing to do but sort myself out. Ari wouldn't be home til after six. <br />
“Thah don't wanna go in there. Come in t' Pollards toilets wiy us and come back wiy us for a brew and meet our Katy.” <br />
The heroin was good. Frank and I shared a cubicle in the men's toilets of the tea rooms. Old ladies' disapproving looks followed us out and I wondered whether they knew what we were really doing, or if we'd been in there for a sly jump. Outside, we caught the bus and made our way to the back of the top deck, where Frank lit a cigarette. Seeing the powdered tobacco in my pouch, he offered me one of his Lambert and Butlers. We smoked in silence as the bus passed through Wicker, under the railway arches and up the hill towards Pitsmoor, Frank picking at a hole in his tracksuit trousers, bloodstains on the crook of the knee and down the inner leg visible despite their navy hue. He appeared to be increasingly anxious as the journey progressed and took a strip of yellow diazepams from an inner pocket, popping four of them into his mouth and crunching, handing me the remaining one. <br />
Our bus continued past the Northern General hospital and turned right at a church. Men huddled around the entrance to a mosque, others walking in groups towards it in an increasingly thick drizzle that gave the appearance of mist through the steamed up bus windows. With a swollen index finger, Frank cartooned a syringe sticking out of the eye of a Bart Simpson in the part of the window still clouded in condensation, before grabbing the bar, pressing the bell and swinging himself standing.I followed him down the steps, thrown into the wall, and out into the street as the doors opened with a mechanical hiss. <br />
The pavement smelled of rain and dog shit, and the fragrance of cumin, coriander, fried chicken and samosas blew in the stinging wind. The houses were Victorian, small, stone-walled front gardens leading to heavy front doors. Walking back a few yards in the direction the bus had come from, Frank took the first turning into a narrow terrace of smaller houses. There were no front gardens, the coal holes directly on the tarmac. Each pair of houses shared an entrance, a tunnel which led to the back yards and front doors, which were positioned on the sides of the houses. Frank's home was half way along the street. Heavy, yellowed net curtains sagged in the diesel-blackened front window and an empty blue paper recycling bin blocked the front door.<br />
“Round t' back.”<br />
The yard was a scrubby patch of uncut grass with a brick toilet built against a high wall, overlooked by the backs of terraced houses in the next street up, higher up the hill. I could smell the contents of the open-lidded wheelie bins which lurked beyond the low fence dividing the two yards. Frank took a choke chain from his zipper pocket and put its attached key in the lock. It didn't turn. Grabbing a handful of gravel, he threw it at the window, calling Katy. I retreated to the shelter of the ginnel and pressed the door bell, which did nothing.<br />
“'S a wind up one,” yelled Frank, taking another cigarette and throwing me one. “We never wind it up. Shit.”<br />
“No front door key?”<br />
“We keep it bolted. Back's on't sneck. Our Katy don't like being 'ome alone. Like fort knox, this place; 'as to be. Not that we've got owt to rob.”<br />
After several attempts at rousing Katy, we heard two bolts slide, a key turn and a small figure appeared squinting through the crack in the now open door.<br />
“What time d'ya call this, then, eh? This ya new keyworker then?”<br />
Her hair was cut in a half-mohican and dyed pink. Her eyes, still crusted with sleep, were pink-rimmed, a slither of dried dribble clung to the corner of her mouth. She moved to one side to let us through into a small galley-like kitchen. Wrapped in a duvet over a dressing gown, she shivvered, telling us to hurry up and close the door. <br />
“We just ran out of gas. Did you buy any when you were out?”<br />
“Oh for fuck sake. Is it on emergency?”<br />
Katy nodded.<br />
“All gone. It's bloody freezing. You got a tenner for the meter?”<br />
Frank looked sideways and reacked into his pocket, pulling out the remainder of the heroin he'd saved for her. She hesitated, looking from me to Frank, squinting into my eyes, a smile making its way onto her dry, cracked lips and up into her eyes like she'd just realised she'd matched three numbers on her scratch card after all.<br />
“You're not his bloody keyworker, are ya? Why didn't ya tell us ya cheeky bastard?” She punched Frank playfully on the arm and leant over to give me a squeeze on the shoulder. “I'm Katy. Sit down, I thought he'd brought someone home to check up on him, sorry flower, don't mind me, I'm a proper loony tune, me. So, how did you go at t' blood test then eh? Managed to find a vein, did they?”<br />
Katy sat next to me on the big, yellow-orange sofa and reached under the cushion for her works. Emptying the contents of the large, pink, fluffy make-up bag, she began testing the sharpness of a collection of used 1ml orange cap needles against the back of her hand. I reached into my bag and passed her one of mine which was new and unopened. She scrutinised it, checking it hadn't been used and resealed. <br />
"Cheers petal. Can't be too careful eh." She turned to Frank. "So?"<br />
He grinned widely. "I didn't go. We met outside. Took her to meet Taz instead."<br />
"But no gas?"<br />
"No gas. But there's wood in t' coil oil."<br />
"Any coil in t' coil oil?"<br />
"A bit."<br />
"A bit he says. A bit. Right, what's t' time?" <br />
"Not past eleven yet."<br />
Katy poked around between her toes. <br />
"Fuck sake- I can't find nowt when it's this cold. Make us a brew, eh, Frankie love, and stick some hot water in this for us. Please?" She passed him a hot water bottle in a knitted pink cover. <br />
Katy chatted away as she rubbed her legs in search of somewhere to inject. Her body, hands and feet were dotted with Indian ink in the places the needle had entered her, detailing an exquisite map of her years of heroin use, tattoos following the path of her veins like dotted tree roots, assymetrical spider webs, words etched in the gaps between. A memorial to the damage done. <br />
I felt a depression come over me, an emptiness I couldn't put a finger on. I didn' want to return to Ari, to the lies that had become our life. Not even lies- his irrepressable, naive positivity. I didn't want to stop using heroin. Using it suited me fine, but he was caught in its stigma, trapped in his blind faith that his world no longer contained its ills. I didn't have the energy to face him. I wanted to stay right here with people who wouldn't be disappointed in me when I failed to transform into someone who was not me in one easy step.<br />
We didn't have a landline in the flat, Ari and I, and in those days, before the mobile phone became widespread, we didn't have those either. Blissful non-communication. I had a little cash saved up from selling the things we'd not brought with us into our new co-habitation, and also from the car I'd sold because the insurance had been crippling me. All I had to do was to offer a tenner for gas in exchange for a couple of nights' sofa space. I looked at Katy, in her vein-search trance, her lower teeth biting her upper lip in the contortion of the frustrated. I thought of Ari, of his young, frightened eyes, his terror of the unknown: the part of my life which he wanted to put on bleach-boil until it dissolved.<br />
Ari had seven brothers. His parents were happily married. They were converts to evangelism, and, though disappointed in their sons' refusal to participate in their new-found faith, they were generous, loving, accepting of me. Ari's mother had given her grandmother's engagement ring to his older brother, Yaron, and had told me she was saving the wedding ring for Ari to give to me. Touched as I was, I felt, had she know about my habit, she wouldn't be talking about marriage and babies. She'd have been taking Ari aside to introduce him to nice Christian girls. Nicer girls than me. Nicer by far. As I watched the tendrills of blood curl into Katy's heroin and her plunger descend slowly into the barrel, I felt her relief and sought my own. I pulled a tenner from my hidden inside pocket and posed my question. Katy passed me the gas card for the meter and I headed back into the cold. <br />
The Happy Shopper in Page Hall was a small convenience store. The smell of weed merged with the warm air inside. I bought milk and cornflakes, asking the small, middle aged shopkeeper for a packet of Drum.<br />
"Samson?" he asked, pulling out a couple of boxes from under the counter. "Golden Virgin? Two fifty, five hundred gram, top quality pirate gear."<br />
"Gear?"<br />
His eye widened in a naughty-boy grin as he fumbled under the packets of tobacco to reveal a few baggies of what looked like skunk buds.<br />
"No, not that: gear. Brown."<br />
"You have to ask t' boys outside. Bad boys. Not real Muslims. They skip mosque and give us a bad name. Drink alcohol. You drink alcohol?"<br />
I shook my head. <br />
"Good. So, flower, you want GV or Samson? You want a weed?"<br />
"Just the Samson, cheers."<br />
"I do bag for five pound if you want a weed, love."<br />
"I don't smoke it."<br />
He'd taken my money and given me change before I realised I'd forgotten the gas.<br />
"And stay off the hero drugs. You want a good weed, you know where I am. Best deal this side of Sheffield."<br />
I felt a little hungry and as I passed the takeaway, it was just opening for lunch. I bought three one pound meal deals of fishburger and chips before returning to Frank and Katy's.<br />
When I returned, Katy had gone for a job interview courtesy of 'New Deal' for a shop assistant post in Meadowhell. Frank was watching a video of The Fast Show and I handed him the gas card and the food. Once the gas fire was lit, condensation streamed down the window and the atmosphere became passable. The walls were bright yellow and a victorian upright piano stood against the back wall, the only other furniture being a long coffee table, the sofa and a comfy armchair, where I sat to eat. Plants stood atop the piano- a cheese plant, a fern, a small date palm. The floorboards were varnished and swept. Both alcoves adjacent to the chimney breast were stacked with books. I felt at home here. It wasn't that Ari deserved my disapperance: it wasn't planned, as such. I didn't wish upon him sleepless nights of anxiety, wondering where I was. I hoped he'd sleep through my absesnce, believing we'd missed each other. But I didn't work the night shift, and I realised that he'd know what I was up to. I'd disappeared for days when we'd been living between our two flats back in Manchester. He'd always known why. We'd been through the silences, the tears (his) the justifications (mine) the threats to tell his parents (why did I care? I liked them. A lot. I craved the normality of their close family. But not the pressure to conform). I knew I wasn't the girl for him. I knew I wasn't the girl for anyone. But still I moved in with him. Perhaps the fact that he cared was enough.<br />
Katy returned with a slightly flabby man in jeans and ski coat, his long brown hair visible under a blue beanie hat. She'd been asked if she could cover up her tattoos if she were to be offered the job. <br />
"I asked t' stuck up cow if she could cover up her ugly gob and she asked us to leave. Now I'll have no end of grief down t' social. Oh well, I found Mark, so it's not all bad news. If you need anything, his stuff's same as you got off Kermit."<br />
I laughed. "Kermit?"<br />
"Yeah cos he's a muppet- but for fuck sake don't call him that- he likes everyone to call him Taz."<br />
<br />
As it happenned, I later discovered, Ari had met someone at work who'd invited him clubbing. He'd come home to find me missing and left me a note saying he'd be in a club under Wicker arches if I wanted to join him later. He'd dropped an E with his new friend, who'd also given him enough speed to keep them working the next twelve hour shift. By Sunday evening, he'd been on such a massive come down, I don't suppose he'd have had the energy to mumble much more than how terrible he felt, had I been there to hear it. <br />
As days rolled into weeks and months, Frank and Katy's became my home from home, my retreat from Ari's six-day, twelve-hour shifted weeks. Ari and I both needed frequent breaks from the tense atmosphere my continued heroin use, combined with his accusing looks and questioning expressions, created.Our two worlds never met and Ari continued his weekly entertainment of E and speed in the Arches on Wicker, just footfalls away from a needle exchange. To mention his drug hypocrisy would be to admit his fears were well-founded. Silence was the superior option by far. <br />
As for Katy's interview, she'd been lucky that time. And the next: an interview for a job in a bike shop, where she'd said the only thing she knew about bikes was that she was a fuckin good ride if they had a few quid spare; they could take her for a test run in the repair workshop, fix her up good and proper for fifty. She came back in fits of giggles, wondering whether or not to be relieved they'd laughed her offer off as a bad joke. But the third time, it all hit the fan. She'd been called up for an interview for a position in telesales. Upon being offered a choice of tea or coffee, she'd shaken her head and told the stiff little balding woman in a twinset that it was ok, thanks, but she carried her own refreshment. Opening her bag, she'd pulled out a can of Tenants Super and cracked it open. What she hadn't realised was that an open insulin orange cap packet had somehow stuck itself to the can, its used, bloodied needle still inside, minus its cap, cascading onto the desk between her and the interviewer. <br />
'Sanctioned. Sanctioned! I've been down t' CAB and they've helped me apply for incapacity- but in t' meantime, what the fuck am I suposed to do? Deliberately reducing me chances of finding work, they say...lucky they didn't call t' poo-lice.' Katy looked up at me, needle in hand, holding her palms outstretched like the junkie incarnation of Topol's Tevier in Fiddler on the Roof, before reloading her syringe with indian ink from an upturned bottle cap on the table. 'I ask you: how's this fucking fair? How? I've already spent me crisis loan.'<br />
Katy went back to digging the final dots of the letter N into the bony flesh of her left ring finger, before starting a T on her pinkie. <br />
'We'll be alright, petal. We'll get through grafting and maybe even get a few quid backdated.'<br />
'No, Frank. It's now or never. I'm booking another appointment for detox. And I want you to come with me.'<br />
Frank stood up from the sofa he'd been lounging on, his hands shooting to the back of his head, elbows out-turned in a triangle of defiant dread. His eyes scrunched up, then opened wide as he dropped his hands and shrugged, eyeing me up and down with a questioning glimmer. A smile worked itself across his eyes. I could see his facial muscles trying to control himself not to let it reach his mouth. <br />
'I've told you before I'd pay you a bit for electric and gas, but the council aren't going to cough up for housing benefit when they're already paying for you two.'<br />
'They are if this is your official address. We'll split it three ways.'<br />
'Even if they did, it'd take ages to sort...'<br />
'Frank, I said I want to detox. If you won't I will. I can't fucking DO this any more.' Katy was shouting now. As she stood up, she nudged the table with her knees, knocking over the tall, plastic bottle of blue ink, which pooled over used needles, empty clingfilm wraps, bits of foil, rizla packets tobacco pouches and cups, flowing around the full ashtray. <br />
'Aggh, for fuck sake, Katy...'<br />
As ink began to seep into Katy's duvet cover, illustrating its white, blood-flacked expanse with swelling thunderclouds, Frank ran to the kitchen for a dishcloth. Katy scooped up the near-empty bottle, attempting to direct the contaminated ink back into it along with grains of tobacco, cigarette ash, fluff and general detritus. By this time ink was dripping onto the floor in various sized puddles, and as I helped Frank wipe it up, Katy began to cry. <br />
'Come on, now, it's not that bad, our Katy.' Frank eyed his girlfriend with a mixture of concern and fear. Until now, I'd never witnessed anything worse than a few jokey tiffs between them, fast resolved with the cure of a fresh score. But this was different. Katy lurched towards Frank, then stopped, as if suddenly changing tack, and hurled the Indian ink bottle towards his face. As he ducked, it missed him by inches, hitting the bottom corner of a huge, clip-framed film poster for Taxi Driver, which crashed from the wall, hitting the gas fire and smashing to the floor. Shards of glass scattered. Katy collapsed into a cross-legged position in front of the fire, her dressing gown falling from her naked shoulders and revealing the extent of her indelibly-inked trackmarks, spreading from thick, wavering branches of blue along her inner legs and arms, flowing out in rivulets and tributaries, her bare feet seeping blood where she'd trod through broken glass. <br />
'Fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck sake. Fuck bollox cunt fuck shit.'<br />
And she began to laugh.<br />
<br />
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-69106119370887573812015-07-07T08:19:00.003-07:002015-07-07T09:07:59.624-07:00Breaking the bond: four heroin addicted mothers tell their stories<br />
<br />
Alicia is a heroin addict. She is also a mother of two. Terrified of losing her children into care if her addiction is discovered by the state, she chooses not to seek the help of drugs services or register for methadone or buprenorphine substitute therapy. To look at Alicia, you would not guess that she has been addicted to intravenous heroin, on and off, for twenty years. She's dressed elegantly in a long, khaki linen skirt, suede boots and a white faux fur jacket. She appears confident and she smiles warmly as she hugs me and kisses each of my cheeks continental style. She is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music and has an MA in the same discipline. She has a hectic schedule of rehearsals and performances with her jazz trio, for which she plays piano.<br />
<br />
'I started using heroin when I was in my teens, and I swear nicotine's harder to quit.' Alicia states, as she blows vapour from her electric cigarette. I ask her what flavour she has and if she's successfully switched from 'analogue' cigarettes.<br />
<br />
'Oh, I used to smoke twenty, thirty- I dunno, maybe forty cigarettes a day. I smoked rollies, so I never counted. But I smoked a lot. I used to play piano with a cigarette dangling from my mouth and I ruined the keys with fag burns. I'll have one or two a week now, tops, and I'm telling you, they taste disgusting now. I have to clean my teeth afterwards, else my mouth tastes like a sewer.'<br />
I pull out my secret stash of rolling tobacco along with my own e-cig and we laugh conspiratorially.<br />
<br />
'They'll probably find out one day that these things are even worse for you and then I'll either try to quit or go back to smoking fags,' Alicia continues. 'I love this flavour: it's black jack. Like those sweets you had as a kid- you remember them?'<br />
I agree, laughing, remembering the halfpenny chews I'd buy with my friends from the local old fashioned sweet shop and general store. Alicia and I are around the same age and started using heroin for very similar reasons. <br />
<br />
'I was sexually abused from as young as I can remember. He was a family friend. My mother didn't believe me over him. I went off the rails and ended up in care for a while. That type of pain doesn't go away. I tried antidepressants. So many different kinds. Therapy; counselling; group therapy...even yoga and meditation. But nothing works. Heroin works. It helps you cope with the pain, with the trauma, you know?' I nod. 'But you know, it's illegal. And then there's the stereotype- the thief, the prostitute. People judge you. They think a heroin addict is so out of their face that they can only sit there and gouch. I've always looked after myself. I have all my teeth. But I never use enough to get a gouch on: not since I had my kids: I use to survive. To get through life.'<br />
<br />
I ask Alicia why, if she's happy to use a nicotine replacement product, what's so different about switching from heroin to subutex, suboxone or methadone. As she talks, she plays with the zipper on her coat.<br />
<br />
'I'm a mother. Maybe I'd try it if I hadn't got kids, but I'm not willing to take the risk. I don't want to quit. I'm happy when I'm using.'<br />
<br />
It may not make a lot of sense, if any, to someone on the outside, but to a survivor of severe childhood trauma like Alicia, it is a perfectly logical explanation. She has been using heroin to mask symptoms of the depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress she suffers from, and amongst heroin users, this is far from unusual. Recent government policy strongly encourages total abstinence, which usually means fast reductions, even for long term maintenance patients on high doses. This results not only in painful physical symptoms, but mental health issues which frequently include debilitating depression, insomnia and panic attacks. And, for many, a return to heroin use. On the Methadone Alliance's discussion boards, the hottest topics focus on forced reductions faced by growing numbers of methadone clinic clients across the UK. Combined with the government's austerity measures, which include funding cuts and closures of many organisations which previously supported heroin addicts, such as Manchester's Lifeline, things are not getting any easier.<br />
<br />
'Some people aren't confident enough to speak out when their reduction isn't working for them. I would need maintenance permanently if I ever switched. When you start using heroin at a young age, your brain never develops the same ability to produce endorphins and dopamine that someone who didn't use develops. I've been using for more nearly three quarters of my life. But maintenance rather than reduction: that's all changing. Policy has changed. Besides, methadone and subs are way harder to get off than the gear. They're different drugs from heroin. They have different effects. A lot of people can't stick to their scripts. They use on top and get double addictions. What if it didn't work for me? Plus the rattle is twenty times longer because of methadone and subs being long acting. It's really drawn out. Then there's the paws (post acute withdrawal syndrome). I need to be there for my kids. I need to be able to perform. The stigma could jeopardise my job. I can't afford to get ill again. Every time I quit, I was having terrible flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks. I couldn't leave the house. I need the emotional stability that heroin gives me.'<br />
<br />
We discuss the trials for prescription injectable diamorphine, and Alicia rolls her eyes. She won't get it, she believes. If she could, it would be the answer to her prayers. But her fear of losing her children keeps her account with her long term friend and dealer ticking over like a beautifully maintained Rolls Royce. <br />
<br />
'I've met women, I know women who've had their kids put into care and even adopted because they couldn't stop using heroin occasionally on top of their script. If they'd never gone on a script, who'd have ever known they were using? Jane, well she was on a script and after she lost her partner, she relapsed a few times. The court took her kids. She never came back from that, not after her baby was adopted and they stopped her visitation rights. It was just too painful for her. She uses more heroin now than she ever did before. She's careless, chaotic. She was never like that when she had her kids. She was really careful. She only used enough to keep her stable. Those kids were her life. They were clean, well fed. Had plenty of toys. She had a full time job. She's lost that job now. She was a brilliant mum. Now, she's just an empty shell. She's got nothing left to live for. And the kids have lost their mum: can you imagine that kind of trauma? Now they're that much more likely to go on the gear themselves when they get older, to cope with the pain of losing their mum. All that on top of losing their Dad. He overdosed. They'll think she doesn't love them. But my god she loves those kids. She's lost without them. Their world has been turned upside down.'<br />
<br />
Alicia pulls a tissue from her pockets and blows her nose, her tears smudging her carefully applied make up. I can almost feel the fear radiating from her. It seems, listening to Alicia's heartfelt words, that it is not so much heroin that has broken Jane's family, but that the very services who are in place to help parent addicts like her who have failed them.<br />
<br />
'She wouldn't overdo it when she had her kids with her, you know?' muses Alicia, composing herself and stuffing her tissue back into her bag. 'But since her youngest was adopted: I mean, adopted- not just in care: that's so final, and the other two had contact with her stopped. Well, she's overdosed twice on the gear mixed with benzos and booze. She wasn't even drinking before. It was just the gear before. She's a mess now. It's horrible.'<br />
<br />
According to the Saving Mothers' Lives report, almost two thirds of women starting replacement treatment for heroin addiction are mothers. Only half of them live with their children. Typically, after registering with the drugs service, there is a minimum wait of two weeks before a prescription, or 'script' can be written. Each service user will be assigned a keyworker who will meet with them once every few weeks to a month for half an hour aside from the initial assessment. There is also an preliminary assessment from a prescribing doctor, followed by appointments to stabilise the patient, who will subsequently see the doctor monthly. All other support, such as groups, classes or acupuncture are voluntary. However, there are very rarely crèche facilities: in most establishments, they are absent, and many sessions are placed at inconvenient times for parents, for example, during school pick up, resulting in parents in treatment with far fewer options for support than their counterparts without dependant children.<br />
<br />
Sara only had to wait two weeks for her script when she first registered with Addaction for methadone treatment, but she told me that those two weeks were far harder to get through when she was faced with the fear of a possible referral to social services.<br />
<br />
'I was injecting at the time and they told me to stop injecting or they'd call social services. I broke down crying and couldn't stop. Then they told me they might make a referral to social services because of my mental health. I thought to myself, I wish I'd never walked through this door and I told them so. I was lucky I was having counselling at the time because I told them I had that support and they didn't make the referral in the end. Plus my friend gave me some methadone. Bless her, that was really kind of her, because how else would I have managed to stop injecting? I couldn't afford to be smoking the gear and I wouldn't have been able to look after my kids if I'd gone into withdrawal. I think, as I remember, I did inject a couple of times before she gave me the juice, but do you think I told my keyworker? All social workers see is a heroin addict. They judge you. They don't see you as a person. If you're late for an appointment, they think you're out scoring, even if you had to wait a long time in the chemist: they never believe you.' She laughs, taking a long drink from the cappuccino she's nursing. 'I probably won't sleep tonight after all the coffee I've had.'<br />
<br />
So, how did Sara cope with the transition to methadone?<br />
<br />
'It was horrible. They say ten ml is equivalent to one bag (of heroin), but it's not. Well maybe it is when you smoke it. I was using three bags a day and the thirty ml just didn't hold me at all. I ended up on sixty, but it was horrendous before I was stable. I barely slept a wink. I was sweating and aching for a few weeks. My nose was running like it had missed the bus.'<br />
<br />
All new service users are put on a daily supervised script, which is consumed in front of a pharmacist every day. Methadone is a long-acting synthetic opioid, but because different people's bodies metabolise it at different rates, a lot of people wake up each morning feeling the initial stages of withdrawal.<br />
<br />
'They had me on supervised for far too long. I'd wake up feeling like I'd been run over by a bus and then having to get my son ready to come with me when I was feeling that ill was horrible. It was hard to get to the chemist at the same time every day and because I don't drive, I'd have to walk with him to the chemist six days a week in all weathers. It just wasn't fair on him. And he'd be asking me why I had to go every day. They make it really hard for mothers. I used to love Sundays, because the chemist was closed, and I got to take home that day's dose. When I was using (heroin), my dealer used to just pop round for a coffee and a chat when I needed to score.' Sara smiles and whirls her finger around in what's left of the chocolatey froth. 'I love my coffee. I think I'm just as addicted as I am to the methadone. Well, my son didn't know she was bringing me anything. She was always very discreet. I never used in front of him. Never talked about it in front of him. You hear about people who do, but I've never witnessed it- it sounds like an urban legend to me: the junkie mother with a filthy house, bags of heroin open on the table and dirty needles strewn around. What sort of mother would behave like that? I think films like Trainspotting and Pure have gone a long way to contribute to the stereotype people have of us. I'm not saying stuff like that doesn't happen. But that wasn't me. It isn't me. I love my boy.'<br />
<br />
Sara tells me that since starting on the methadone programme, that she has not used any heroin. She's incredibly proud of her achievement, and even more proud of her son, who was Pupil of the Week at the local primary school the previous week.<br />
<br />
'He gets it from his mum', she jokes.'But seriously, it's my boy I have to thank for keeping me off the gear. If I hadn't had him, I <br />
wouldn't have been strong enough to do it. He kept me going. He keeps me going, alright- I never stop!'<br />
<br />
But when I speak to Angela, she tells me that some service users feel they have to play the system in order to stay on a script and be allowed to continue taking home their medication. Unlike France's methadone programme, where writer, Shane Levene, describes success as being measured not on abstinence, but decreased use, UK drug services create a situation where some service users trick the system or simply lie about their use of heroin whilst on a script. If a service user gives a positive sample for opiates, they are unable to take their medication home and must remain supervised. If a long term patient who has been picking their medication up on a weekly basis gives a positive sample, they are immediately returned to a supervised script from either a three times, weekly, twice weekly or the maximum for newer clients, a weekly take home script.And of course, for mothers, there is the threat of social services.<br />
<br />
'I've done it myself, I'll be honest with you,' Angela states, shrugging her shoulders. 'I've not used (heroin) for a while, but I'd know when I had my appointments and when I was likely to be tested, so I'd just work around those dates and inject in places no one would notice. I was going through a really tough break up. It was really on and off and because my ex, my kids' dad, he still uses heroin, every time I saw him, it was so hard to stick to my script. It was him who told me not to tell them I'd used. He said social services would take the kids if I did. They don't support you. They're supposed to be there to help you, but they seem to use all their funding to take kids into care. Just because you're a heroin addict doesn't make you a bad parent. There are people who are not addicts out there really abusing their kids and social services turn a blind eye. They target us because it's easy. As soon as the judge hears the word “heroin”, you don't stand a chance. At the CDT, some of the staff are really prejudiced. They'll use any excuse to make a child protection referral. Just crying at an appointment is enough. It's disgusting. People with attitudes like that shouldn't be allowed to work with heroin addicts. It lowers your self esteem.'<br />
<br />
Surely these parents' fears of losing their children and the reality which backs up those fears is counterproductive to their treatment. Were the system in place more empathetic, parent-centred and less punitive, honesty about using whilst in treatment would result in help, for example, an increased rather than a reduced script for those who need more, and extra, longer sessions with keyworkers.<br />
<br />
'If I'd have said to them “my script isn't holding me, I need an increase,” well I doubt they would have given me more unless I'd told them I'd used on top. But because I was so scared they'd call social services on me, how could I take that risk? So I went through the withdrawals on my own. I did it on my own but it would have been a hell of a lot easier with some support there instead of that nagging fear of social services getting involved and the stress of that fear of my kids going into care making me want to keep on using heroin to cope with the stress. It's a vicious circle. You see a lot of them that go in there (Addaction) selling their scripts and buying heroin and crack. Because they don't see their kids anyway or they haven't got any kids, it doesn't matter to them if they get kicked off. They probably feel relieved not to have to go traipsing down the chemist every day to be honest. But it's different when you have kids. You're fighting against the stereotypes. They call heroin addicts “junkie liars": but because of that, you have to lie to people and pretend you're not an addict because a lot of people wouldn't let their kids play with your kids if they knew. A lot of employers will hold that against you and give the job to someone else. My kids would get bullied if any of the other kids in their school found out I'm on methadone. They'd say things like “Your mum's a dirty junkie”. I keep my house spotless. I don't know if that's an obsession I got because of the concept of “getting clean”, but I do. I hate that concept. Just because someone uses heroin doesn't make them dirty. It's a painkiller. No one calls pain patients who need diamorphine or morphine dirty, yet they're also addicts. They're killing pain. I'm killing pain. The only difference is that my medication was illegal and I'd prescribe it to myself.'<br />
<br />
Does Angela feel she may feel the need to use heroin in the future?<br />
<br />
'The last time they reduced me, they put me on a two ml a fortnight drop and told me I wouldn't notice it. By the end of the month I could hardly sleep. I was aching all over, had terrible stomach cramps. I felt like I had flu, yet my keyworker was like, “it's all psychological, you shouldn't feel any different when it's such a small drop”. They dropped me two ml again when I asked them not to. I wrote to the manager, and they left it at that, but they never put my dose back up and I'm still feeling rough after a few months. So, yeah, if it carries on like that, it's going to be a pretty big temptation. They say it's good for my kids if I get off my script, but I'm so much less irritable and tense when I feel okay. Who isn't? I don't want to be a stroppy mother. I need my medication. That's my right, surely? To be able to have enough medication to keep me well. Why would they take that away from me when they know without it I can't function properly?'<br />
<br />
Is the simple fact that a parent uses heroin enough to remove a child into care? Drug addiction does not mean that a parent is by default uncaring or neglectful. It is possible to be a loving, supportive and responsible parent and be a heroin addict just as it is possible for a non addict to inflict abuse, neglect and harm. Alicia speaks to me about Jane, the mother who lost her kids to adoption.<br />
<br />
'She was unlucky because the she just didn't click with the social worker. She showed me some of the reports they'd written and they were putting two and two together and making seven. I remember one part which described a visit where the social worker noticed Jane hadn't done the dishes or folded the laundry. The carpet hadn't been hoovered for a couple of days and she made a comment about the house being filthy...and if they thought the house was “filthy”, then they presumed she was leaving drugs and works all over when she wasn't. I know she wasn't, because I was there. It wasn't pristine, but it wasn't filthy either. They wrote in the report that was used in court, “Jane neglects the housework and leaves dirty dishes all over the worktops. My concern is that she may be leaving drug paraphernalia laying around which could cause significant harm to her children.” There was a lot of stuff like that in the report. How can they take away someone's kids on a false assumption? I would understand if she had been- that would have been understandable- but she hadn't. The woman's just found her husband dead- and they're criticising her for not washing up. If she wasn't an addict and the house was a mess, they'd be understanding- even paid for some help with the cleaning. I supported her through the whole ordeal. It was horrible. In the end she was telling me to meet her in secret because she was scared they'd start on me if they knew I was still seeing her. She became really isolated, really depressed. She talked about ending her life. They could have helped her, but they didn't. There's help for people with physical disabilities, but with hidden disabilities? Nothing but judgement. They'd visit once a week and send a family support worker round once a week. She sat for an hour drinking tea and talking: how is that practical support? Jane needed practical support. But the whole time, they were writing a lot of negative stuff down in their reports and not giving any practical help. If she'd had a different social worker, who understood and saw her for who she really is, things would have turned out different. Her kids didn't want to go into care. They became really clingy, started wetting the bed. They used that against her, when the reason they were wetting the bed was because they were scared of being taken away like their new sister was. They didn't wet the bed before social services got involved. All this because she gave a few positive samples. That was just the tip of the iceberg.'<br />
<br />
I wonder how many more women there are like Jane, and how the effects of Jane's reaction to her partner's death had on her children was weighed up by agencies against the effects of being taken into care and later, denied access to their mother. Or if the only thing the family court judge read in the report was that Jane was a pregnant heroin addict with a partner dead from an overdose. Considering the fact that children who grew up in care are far more likely to become addicts themselves than those who are raised by a loving parent, Jane can only hope that her baby's adoptive parents provide a warm, loving home. Her older two children were not so “lucky”, and are in two different children's homes.<br />
<br />
I spoke to Sunshine, the adult daughter of a now-recovered heroin addict, about her experiences of growing up with an addicted parent. She lived between her two parents as a child, her father, who is not an addict, and her mother, with whom she spent around thirty percent of her time. She has a lot of compassion for her Mum, although there have been difficult times.<br />
<br />
'She turned up for the birth of my first child off her face on heroin. She was falling asleep on the chair next to my bed. But she was there. At least she was there. She was a very liberal mum and yeah, sometimes she was in trouble. Sometimes she'd be ill. But then I'd be able to go to my Dad's. If I'd not have been allowed to see her, that would have been far tougher. It would have been far more difficult than dealing with all her ups and downs. She was never abusive. I always had a cooked meal and I have some great memories from my childhood with her. She's a brilliant Nan to my boys, just brilliant. Even if she spoils them rotten. I'm so proud of her for getting clean. She's a support worker for addicts now. It makes my heart smile to see her happy.'<br />
<br />
With her own experiences of being a heroin addicted mother, Sunshine's mother Liz is able to understand what the women she helps are going through. Although there are some social workers and drugs workers who are ex addicts, many have the qualifications, but not the life experience.<br />
<br />
'It's great here. We have an anonymous drop in, which I do two days a week. I see a lot of mothers who are scared of losing their children because of their addictions and a lot of mothers who I'm helping turn their lives around so that they can begin the process of getting their kids back home. I'm lucky I didn't lose Sunshine, but her Dad was always there for her if I couldn't cope. A lot of these women are totally alone with no support from ex partners. Some of them have partners in prison. Some of them grew up in care. Some have been through domestic violence and with legal aid being stopped for divorce, it's even harder for those individuals. It's not easy, but if I can help them with practical things, give emotional support, a lot of them will come to the point where they know for sure that using heroin and crack to cope with their situation is only going to make things worse. Once your mentality changes and you find new ways of coping, like the acupuncture and meditation we do here and the relapse prevention groups, it's easier to begin your recovery from a stronger place. The women who still have their kids at home tend to do better with their recoveries than those who have their kids in care, although there have been a few happy reunions. It makes my job worthwhile seeing families reunited. They're not bad people. They're just doing what they can to cope with tough lives, but with street drugs, first there's the cost. Then there are the health risks.'<br />
<br />
Liz is angry that the government's funding cuts have hit so many organisations which support women like those she helps.<br />
<br />
'The fact is that the government don't seem to realise that it's going to cost them more in the long run. Harm reduction, maintenance substitution scripting and support are really important tools. Not everyone recovers from addiction: in fact the percentage is pretty small. That's only going to get worse now so many services have been axed. There used to be free counselling for child survivors of domestic violence: that's gone. They've cut the funding for services for rape survivors. If you don't get the support you need in the early stages you're much less likely to be able to cope and much more likely to end up using substances to cope with the trauma. You see poverty, unemployment, homelessness. You see suicide. We've lost a few of our clients here over the years to suicide. It's devastating.'<br />
<br />
It seems fitting that the day I'm due to meet Jane that there's a sudden downpouring of hail as I run across the road to the café where we've arranged to meet. I'm feeling slightly anxious. It's going to be hard for Jane to talk about what's happened to her and I'm beginning to think she won't turn up. After my second coffee. I pick up my phone to try her number one last time. It's switched off. It reminds me of all the times in the past I've waited for dealers. The switched off mobiles. The phone boxes stinking of piss with their receivers smelling of spit, stale tobacco and perfume. The standing in the rain for hours, waiting, and I decide to give her a little longer. I remind myself she wanted her story told. I'm beginning to think I'll be kicked out if I don't buy something else, and consider either leaving (I've been here nearly an hour) or buying the cheapest thing available, which is a piece of fruit for twenty six pence. As I make my way towards the counter, I hear the bell on the door ring as it opens, and I turn to see a small, dark haired woman in skinny jeans which wrinkle in places they should cling, and a grey hooded top. She walks towards me with a slight limp and I guess she's been injecting in the most painful areas of her feet. She's wearing no make-up and her shoulders are hunched. She makes brief eye contact with me and smiles without her eyes, which have the look of deep, unresolvable pain about them.<br />
<br />
'I'm sorry I'm late. I thought you wouldn't be here.' She shuffles from one foot to the other, her eyes taking in her surroundings. I ask her what she'd like to drink and I ask the proprietor for an energy drink for Jane, another coffee for me, remembering Alicia's words about not sleeping. I'm tired too, having had a restless night going over the questions I want to ask Jane without making her feel worse than she already does. I needn't have worried. Jane answers everything and more without me even having to ask much at all.<br />
<br />
'I grew up in care,' she begins. 'And now my kids are going through the same. I'm scared shitless they'll be sexually abused like I was in care and I'm powerless to do anything to protect them. It's my worst nightmare become reality. My last daughter was born addicted. The doctor told me it could kill the baby if I stopped. The withdrawals can kill the foetus you know. So they put me on methadone and I was doing fine. I was doing really well, reducing really slowly. Everything was going to be alright. My eldest daughter was seven at the time, and my boy was four. I was clean when I had them both. I was happy. Me and my boyfriend were both clean. Then we drifted back into using after my son was born. But then I got pregnant again. We hadn't planned to have any more kids but I was over the moon when I got pregnant again. We both were. I wasn't using much before I went on my script. The kids didn't know. Why would they?.' Jane ponders her question for a moment, picking her nails. They are short and bitten, but not dirty. She picks them throughout our conversation, cleaning out dirt that isn't there. 'And then he died. He overdosed. Their Dad. I found him in the bathroom. He'd taken brown, white, benzos, vodka, super. He'd done a snowball (a mixture of crack and heroin) on top of all that and some of my juice (methadone) was missing. He'd had a massive heart attack.'<br />
<br />
She hugs her arms around herself and rocks backward and forward, squeezing her eyes tight. I ask her if she wants to stop. We don't have to do this. We can talk about something else and meet up another day if she wants to.<br />
<br />
'No, I'm okay. It's okay. Do you smoke?'<br />
The hail and rain have stopped now and we stand in the tiny courtyard behind the café, where Jane pulls out a can of Tenants Super from her pocket and cracks it open, offering me first swig. I shake my head and say thanks as she takes a long drink and stands the can between her trainers. We both roll cigarettes and debate on whether it would be better to sit at one of the two tiny tables that are crammed into the tiny, half-sheltered space. The chairs are wet and Jane wipes hers down with her sleeve.<br />
<br />
'I thought I'd have a nervous breakdown after I found him, but I didn't. I feel awful saying it, but in some ways I thought it was going to be easier bringing up just two kids instead of two little ones and a grown up one. And I still feel so fuckin guilty for even feeling like that, but...I shouldn't be saying this. It hurt like hell. Of course it did. We lived together for eight years. You have your ups and downs when you're together that long don't you? But I'm still angry with him. I know he did it on purpose. Fuckin coward.'<br />
<br />
'You think it was suicide?'<br />
<br />
'I know it was.'<br />
<br />
A study conducted by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse entitled Parents with drug problems: how treatment helps families states that, statistically, parents who live with their children have far fewer drug related issues and are also far more likely to stick to and complete their treatment programmes than those who do not live with their children, and Jane's story makes this all the more poignant. She strongly believes that if her children had not been removed from her care, that she would have been able to stabilise on her methadone and even possibly come off her script, eventually. But as things stand, she has no desire to ever stop using heroin. Not unless she's able to make contact with her children again. The 'stronger foundation on which to start their recovery and build their lives' which having children at home creates, according to the same study, has been taken away from Jane, perhaps forever. There are tens of thousands of looked after children of addicts in the UK, the vast majority of whom are from poor backgrounds. There is little known of the lives of the children of fully functional addicts simply because their parents are so functional. They hold down jobs; they run their own businesses. Amongst them are professors; lawyers; estate agents; entrepreneurs; salespeople; teachers; surgeons; bank staff; anaesthetists; medical professionals. They are anonymous. The stereotypes simply do not apply, save, perhaps, for the anaesthetist or the doctor prescribing their own diamorphine: they don't shoplift; they don't work as street prostitutes; they don't hang around with other addicts in the street, waiting to score. They are utterly unrecognisable as heroin users.<br />
<br />
They inhabit the eclipsed arena of the heroin world: they are invisible. Unless they seek treatment. Or unless they are caught. And because they are generally otherwise law-abiding, this is not a huge risk in the world of the internet where 'clean, fresh urine' is discreetly and freely available. It is this comfortable invisibility which heroin addicts like Alicia feel protects them by interference from the State. They are off the radar. The dire consequences of the stigma of addiction keeps them hiding. And, frequently, also keeps them from seeking treatment, should they wish to take this route.<br />
<br />
Jane held down a regular job as a care assistant in a residential home for adults with learning disabilities until her partner died. Her partner worked as a boiler engineer, and between them, they were comfortable. Yet he had been hiding stacks of unpaid credit card bills from Jane as well as the fact that he'd been missing mortgage repayments and their home was due to be repossessed. Jane feels her partner took the easy way out and left her in an impossible situation. Before his suicide, she may have been using heroin until she discovered she was pregnant and sought treatment, yet she planned to reduce her methadone and be off the script before the baby was born. But life does not always work out as planned.<br />
<br />
'After he died, it was so hard not to go back on the gear. And I didn't go back on it: like I told them over and over again, I only used it sometimes, in minuscule amounts, because they were nearly finished reducing my script and I felt unable to cope with that so fast. I'd nearly made it. But they didn't believe me. We lost our home and most of our things. We were put in a one room bed and breakfast. I was heavily pregnant by then, with two kids in this room with only two single beds and a push out sofa. I found I couldn't carry on reducing my script. People can judge me and ask me- didn't I think of the baby- of course I did, but until something like that happens to you, you don't know how you'll cope. I don't think anyone has the right to judge unless they've been in those shoes. I had to carry on looking after my children, who were suffering the death of their dad, the loss of their home. We lost everything at once. Ironic as it sounds, heroin helped me cope. I don't think I could have carried on looking after them if I hadn't used on the occasions I did. I was trapped between a rock and a hard place. That's quite apt, isn't it?'<br />
<br />
Jane's baby was taken away from her at birth because she consistently failed to provide clean urine samples. She believes that if she had been given the chance to keep her baby, with the right support, she would be on the road to recovery by now.<br />
<br />
'It was like every bad thing you can possibly imagine happening at once. I didn't cope at all well with my baby being taken. It's the cruellest punishment. All I needed was support and time. That's all I needed. But with her gone, I fell apart. I started using more, in order to cope. They kept saying I didn't need an increase in my script, but I did. By the time I got it, it was too late: they'd already started proceedings for an interim care order. I fought for those kids tooth and nail through the courts. I tried so hard to hold it together for my kids. So hard. Telling them their sister would come home. But instead I lost them all.'<br />
<br />
It's difficult for me to listen to Jane's story and a deeply tragic reality for her. She reassures me that she's told it many times already and she hugs me for a long time before she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, leaving me with a huge wad of papers to look through. They are her court files which contain reports from the social workers who made the decision to place her two older children in long term care and her baby for adoption. The file is thicker than two London telephone directories and as I flick through them, I see that Jane has made notes and highlighted phrases and paragraphs in fluorescent marker pen throughout the entire document.<br />
<br />
'They took my baby off me. I wasn't even allowed to breast feed her. The methadone in my milk would have helped her with the withdrawals, but they didn't listen. I was hysterical when they wouldn't bring her back to me after the birth, and that went against me. They didn't understand that if they just listened to me instead of making these decisions that I couldn't cope with that I would have coped better. When someone tells you you're having your baby taken off you, you're going to be broken. You're going to be angry. You're going to cry...scream. You're going to shout at them. Anyone who just sits back and lets someone take their baby. Well that woman doesn't exist or she's already dead.'<br />
<br />
Does Jane understand the harm that she caused her baby by continuing to use heroin whilst pregnant?<br />
<br />
'Because she never knew me, she'll never know, will she, unless they tell her. But yeah, they're unlikely to portray me in a positive light if they do. I know it was irresponsible. A lot of heroin babies are stillborn or premature, underweight. They can die from the withdrawals. I could have lost her like that which would have been a lot worse. But I wasn't using heavily. Just a bit now and then because I wasn't coping and didn't have a lot of support. I can't justify what I did but I didn't do it because I wanted to hurt her. But they just kept on reducing my methadone and I needed something to hold myself together because I had my other two to care for. You can't do that when you're in permanent tears. The antidepressants they gave me made me feel so ill I was like a zombie, so I stopped taking them, and the next ones and the next ones were no better. They made me worse. I mean, on the advice labels it warns against their use in pregnancy, so...what were they doing to my baby, the tablets the doctor gave me? I didn't drink a drop of booze when I was pregnant. Not a drop. Not until they denied me access to my other two kids.'<br />
<br />
Jane shows me one of the social worker's reports and points out some highlighted words.<br />
<br />
'Risk of emotional harm. Risk of significant harm. Their Dad dies and they become homeless in the space of a week. Then to top it off, they have their new sister taken off them. Isn't that enough significant harm for them? Not according to the social workers, no. Apparently, shoving them into a children's home is gonna fix that. Not. Do they honestly think that's the solution? Do they honestly think that was the right thing to do?'<br />
<br />
She points to a paragraph on an A4 sheet towards the bottom of the ream of papers. It reads 'Jane presents at contact as hostile towards staff and is clearly of a volatile temperament and emotionally unstable. In spite of the fact that she has had two clean urine samples recently, the fact that previous samples were positive cannot be overlooked. I recommend stopping contact until she is engaging well with children's services and Addaction, has stabilised on her methadone with regular clean samples, has completed six months of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and has as her mood swings pose a risk of emotional harm to her children.'<br />
<br />
'I wasn't hostile: I was angry and bereaved. And because I was angry, because I was upset and hurting like hell, I'd cry when I saw my kids. I never showed my kids how angry I was: but I did shout at the social worker a few times before or after I had contact, because they weren't listening to me. I was telling them my kids were begging me to come home. The woman who was in there with us supervising the contact knew that. She was sympathetic. But the social workers, they didn't listen to me and they didn't listen to my kids when they were asking me, “please mummy I want to go home.” Instead of helping me to get to the place where that was possible, they reduced the risk of significant harm by stopping contact. I didn't ever get housed in a place where my kids had bedrooms so they could start visiting me. I ended up in a women's hostel. And I ended up being told I only had third party contact. That means birthday cards, Christmas cards, basically. Didn't they realise how much that was hurting my babies? Don't they understand why I'm like I am? Everyone got me wrong. Interpreted what I said wrong. All I ever wanted was to have a happy family. Instead of that, I never saw my kids again.'<br />
<br />
There are many, many women with similar stories to Jane. Amongst them are many victims of domestic violence who are using heroin in order to cope with their situation. But in Austerity Britain, there is little hope of things changing. There is not enough funding for organisations which could offer full support to women and their children. Women's Aid refuges are not only underfunded, but according to their website, don't have the resources, support workers or facilities to house women who use drugs. If a woman admits to drug use, they are not given a place in a refuge. There are far fewer refuges available which accept women who are on methadone programmes, and those that do only have sufficient staff to support one woman per refuge. Applicants also must have been on the programme for a period of time and must prove that they no longer use drugs. Solace Women's Aid in Southwark, London, offers a service which assists drug dependent women in ending their dependency and offers their children therapy and support, but considering the widespread nature of the problem, Britain desperately needs far more more organizations to follow in the footsteps of this pioneering programme. So in cases which involve domestic violence, it is no wonder that most women trapped in violent relationships and addicted feel they have nowhere to turn. Whilst women like Alicia continue self medicating in the hope that they will not be discovered by the authorities, many mothers who would like to start on substitution programmes feel the barriers to seeking treatment are just too much of a risk to take. What can be done to make services more accessible to those mothers who are scared to seek help? Liz says:<br />
<br />
'We're not going to call social services unless there is a genuine risk to a child. Just the fact that a person is using drugs isn't a risk in itself. There are a whole host of factors involved which could contribute to a child being subject to a care plan, such as the risk of overdose, especially when a person leads a chaotic lifestyle and is using heroin in combination with crack, benzos or alcohol. A lot of addicts also suffer from mental health issues, and their children can sometimes end up becoming their carers. Children's Services runs a young carers group so those kids can get some support and take part in group activities. It's not always a situation where a child has to be taken into care. Some parents leave young children alone and go out scoring. Getting on a script helps people get their lives together. It's always going to be there, and there's support where people need it. Parents wishing to start their journey into recovery must know that so long as they're taking the right steps, recovery is always going to be easier than to carry on using.'<br />
<br />
But until the stigma of heroin addiction is gone, the work being done by workers like Liz will always be undermined. Heroin addicted parents will continue to lose their children, will not seek treatment and will continue to keep their addictions secret for fear of consequences which can include, amongst many injustices: loss of access to children; mistreatment by medical staff; courts allowing contact with violent ex partners simply because a heroin addict holds the stigma of being a 'lying junkie'.<br />
<br />
It's dark when I leave Jane's office. As I cross the road, I realise that I forgot to ask her about the forced reductions after she mentioned that a script was “always going to be there”, and I wonder how, and if, she would be able to help someone like Jane find her 'happy reunion'.<br />
<br />
Outside the methadone clinic across the road, a group of people huddle together, smoking. They have a look about them of desperation, like they're looking for something, yet don't even know what it is, moving from leg to leg, hugging themselves against the cold. One of them is crouched in a near-foetal position, looking like he's in the initial stages of withdrawal, and another strides away from the group and begins shouting into a mobile phone.<br />
<br />
'If that were three fuckin bags then I'm a fuckin ballerina. Yeah I'm sayin you're a lying fuckin cunt. There was only two bags in there. Yeah, two fuckin bags. Two. TWO! There was NOT fuckin three.' He flings his arm up in a wild attack on nothing and hurls his fag end into a scrubby, dog shit bag-strewn bush before shouting again, so loud this time, his voice cracks.'Yeah you will fuckin get down here now with another bag or I'll fuckin break your fuckin legs.'<br />
<br />
The wind picks up, blowing leaves around crushed, empty super-strength lager cans, cigarette<br />
butts and empty, torn rizla packets as it begins to rain and I walk away.<br />
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-77372716507372950602015-06-04T04:57:00.001-07:002015-06-04T04:57:23.567-07:00Badger StewBadger Stew<br />
<br />
Beyond the locks, where the willows droop into a gulley of black mud and leaf mould, is the stream, and beyond its makeshift oak-trunk bridge, is the container. Seven old tyres balance against its flaked, once-green rusty walls, its doors secured with an old Yale padlock and a dirt encrusted choke chain. Only his three-legged lurcher knows how long he's lived there, collecting dead wood to fuel his pot-bellied burner where, if the weather is icy, he boils purified water collected from the cut in a family-sized lifesaver bottle.<br />
<br />
His wrinkled, sun-browned face, shiny and dark as a newly opened horse chestnut from years of living through all seasons outdoors, sits on a neck as thick as a tree trunk. His stocky, short torso clad in clothing from the army surplus: an olive green t-shirt; a German parka, the small flag-patches on its arms coloured black; perhaps with dirt, perhaps with a marker pen: nobody knows but him. His torn combat trousers in ambiguous print, unidentifiable perhaps even to experts in military designs, their muddied bottoms drooping into mud-encrusted para boots.<br />
<br />
Hidden from view in undergrowth bordering the towpath, he draws back elastic, his slanted eyes steady as a feline on the prowl, fixed on an unsuspecting brown duck playing bottoms up in the water. Ping. He misses. The duck paddles to where his stone cast rings in the surface, checking for food. Three more tries and she's down, squawking, flapping and flopping; gone. He reaches for his hook-ended stick and snags her by the neck, tail feathers dripping. Skimming brown across shimmering, dawn water, mist clinging to her limp body.<br />
<br />
His fire is ready as he sits on a log to pluck feathers into an old potato sack. An entire duvet he's made during this savage existence: ducks, swans, coots, geese. His container's floor carpeted in the skins of deer, squirrels, rabbits and in the doorway, a badger skin. All have filled his cooking pot; all have been caught, trapped, sling-shot by him, save the badger, which he witnessed being crushed by a careless driver one icy night. Not the most delicious of stews, its meat as musky as its scent; but it had filled his belly and his dog's for a fortnight, preserved by the frosty, midwinter air. With calloused hands, their tough skin engrained with filth, he slits the naked duck open, throwing its innards into the bushes for foxes to find. His dog will share his duck. Of all the creatures of this world he inhabits, the fox is King and his vixen Queen. Their lair carved in hard earth beneath his container, he hears them scurrying deep below. In the winter months, they screech and howl in mating and in spring, he watches as the young emerge to begin their lessons in foraging. The foxes will never be harmed on his watch. This family, his downstairs neighbours whom he feeds and nurtures will outlive all others. Never will a fox skin adorn his metal walls, nor keep him warm.<br />
<br />
Peeling the skin from the duck, he scrapes off its fat with uncut, unbitten fingernails, letting it drop into the pot resting over the fire. It sizzles as it hits the cast iron vessel and he adds first pieces of skin, then the entire duck, minus its head, which his dog grabs and chews, devouring even the beak with contented crunches. With his sharpened penknife, he slices onion to the pot, then the stems, leaves and buds of wild garlic, stirring with a hand carved wooden utensil. Unpeeled potato pieces are followed by water, also inhabited now by sprigs of thyme. Amongst runner beans, cabbages, wode, calendula, leeks and slug-eaten lettuces, tomatoes climb, in yellow, orange, red and green, fixed with hooks and wire up the corrugated walls of the rusting, green container. The ripest fall easily into his hand and he squeezes them straight into his cooking pot, gelatinous seeds sliding between his fingers and oozing into boiling liquid below. His stew smells good. Fat hen is his spice, growing wild by the banks of the cut, and he rips buds and leaves from above the full, simmering cauldron, his hands and the wild herbs growing moist in the steam.<br />
<br />
Then, carried across the cut's brown soup of sludge and shit comes the open strum of a single guitar. Notes bend as machine heads are gently adjusted into tune, followed by a series of melancholy chords, joined by a lone, hoarse voice.<br />
<br />
“Aye, mi corazon, dime, pero dime dime di-i-i-i-i-meee”<br />
Flamenco drifts on dawn air as he stirs, stirs, stirs his cast-iron cauldron, its inner grey enamel chipped and full, the edges splattered with the colours of his wild cuisine, his eyes so accustomed to the smoke now, which tangles through his rough-shorn hair, that they barely water. And he stretches his legs, his boots' soles warming in the fire's flame. He sits on one of three long, oak logs he's rolled into position around his firepit, a three-legged, three-horseshoed trivet in its heart, upon which stands his pot of stew, next to his cast-iron kettle, suspended from its handle on the hook of his kettle iron. He lines up four cups and into each places a teaspoonful of roasted and powdered dandelion root: his substitute for the coffee he would drink each morning with his wife. But that was many years ago now, and he yawns, stretching again, unable to recall even the outline of her face. As boiled water spits and fizzes from spout to fire, he whistles a bird call, loud and shrill before unhooking the kettle and pouring water into his enamelled tin cups, standing the kettle on a large, flat stone.<br />
<br />
Now Jarad is coming, stooping under the tangled branches which surround the clearing, snapping twigs and nettles underfoot, brambles snagging his thick, rainbow-striped woollen jumper as he walks. From his boat he has brought a carton of longlife milk, a packet of ginger nuts, and their daily fix of sugar in a cylindrical, watertight container. Seeing Sean by the fire, Jarad smiles, waving a greeting.<br />
<br />
“I smell you've caught a duck, my friend,” and Sean laughs his rasping, wheezy chuckle, picking up his utensil and giving the stew another stir, then collecting a little for Jarad to taste, as he does every morning.<br />
“Cooked to perfection.” Jarad observes, his eyes, which change from green, to blue, to grey, depending on the weather, glinting with a mischievous smile.<br />
<br />
The two men sit, face to face across the fire, clutching cups, stirring in milk and soft, dark sugar with brown-stained spoons. They sip their brews, staring into the flames.<br />
<br />
It hasn't always been this way: this life hidden from view, out of reach- or seemingly so. He had children once. A flaxen-haired girl he named Starlight, pushed into the world through twenty four hours of his once-wife's labour, coated with vernix and blood and handed to him two days later accompanied by the saddest eyes he'd ever seen. He'd been at a squat party in Bristol and swore he had meant to be there for the birth.<br />
<br />
“I was two weeks overdue! Two weeks! Two.Fucking.Weeks!” those broken-voiced words echoing still in the years collected inside him. His daughter would be in her thirties now, and his son? He had left whilst Angelica was pregnant, never to see her again. He doesn't even know what she named him, or if he really was the boy she had hoped for.<br />
<br />
He sips from his tea now, his thoughts merging with Jarad's accounts of his daughter Rosie's difficulties at school. Occasional words he picks up: bullying; tears at bedtime; “they shout 'water Gypsy' at her to taunt her”.<br />
But she is strong; proud of her ways and those of her people before her.<br />
<br />
'They're only jealous of her freedom, Jarad. The world doesn't change in that way: there will always be the jealous ones, the violent ones, the indifferent ones and the ones who join us.'<br />
<br />
And Jarad nods as he picks up his guitar and plays. A moment later, Phoebe brings Rosie, holding four balti dishes which clang together in time with Jarad's chords, and a handful of cutlery. Sean scoops a ladle full or two of stew into each bowl and they are passed around the circle of friends and family until everyone's lap is full. This daily ritual: sometimes porridge, sometimes cornflakes: but always something shared- serves to remind Sean that family is not always tied by blood; that in this life, you take to your heart those who accept you, share what you have until they are moved on by the absurd laws- sometimes of nature; sometimes of the heart, and here, on the cut, of the government- which force people to move on and on endlessly, even when they want to stay longer. He cherishes each moment.<br />
<br />
It is Rosie who hears it first. Perhaps the souls of children are more open to the vibrations that most cannot detect. But after a while, all four of them stand, their empty bowls stacked in a pile so fast that Jarad's pings to the ground.<br />
<br />
'Vehicles can't get down here.'<br />
<br />
'They can if they belong to British waterways.'<br />
<br />
'I thought they'd closed off that gate,'<br />
<br />
Jarad's eyes are pierced with worry now and he brushes past nettles and brambles without care if he's stung or cut, towards the ever-approaching chug chug chug of a heavy diesel engine and the gunshot sounds of snapped sticks and branches.<br />
<br />
They are here.<br />
<br />
An irate, officious-looking man approaches, dressed in a suit and fluorescent yellow jacket, a yellow hard hat on his potato-like head. He is red-faced and pockmarked, his angular jawline which could have been handsome were it not for his malice, set in an expression of impending doom. He has a clipboard in his hand and is followed by a worried-looking young man in work boots and jeans under the same style of jacket and hat.<br />
<br />
The first man's voice is robotic and abrasive. He takes a sheet from his clipboard and flourishes it menacingly.<br />
<br />
“I'm serving you with a notice of enforcement. I see you're still here in your illegal dwelling. Well it's going today. Clear out your rubbish, you hedge vermin. Better move sharpish if you want to get down the housing department, eh?”<br />
<br />
“Leave him be, you beaurocratic jobsworth,” shouts Jarad, grabbing the paper from the bailiff's hand. “What do you people get out of this, eh? Eh? Leave us alone. Your vehicle is damaging the woods.”<br />
<br />
They can all see it now: a towering, yellow bulldozer with a crane attached, crashing haphazardly through the tranquillity of the woodland, crushing rabbit warrens and toppling small trees in its wake.<br />
<br />
Rosie begins collecting stones, hurling them in handfuls at the bulldozer, her piercing screams sending birds scattering from the treetops.<br />
<br />
“Take her home, darling. Move on fast and leave me a pukkering cosh as you go,” shouts Jarad over the cacophony of the bulldozer; but Rosie won't be stopped, her stones now raining down on the two men, who shield their faces with their sleeves as they hurl abuse back. Phoebe takes out her phone and starts to film the bailiffs as they continue to invade the small family's peace with racist abuse.<br />
<br />
“You dirty little pikey brat: what the fuck do you think you're doing you filthy gyppo scum!”<br />
<br />
“Stop, Rosie: there'll only be more trouble if you hurt them. Stop, my child.”<br />
<br />
Rosie turns to face Phoebe and screams a no, her face contorted in eleven year old fury.<br />
<br />
“They're trying to take Uncle Sean's home away and I'm going to stop them.”<br />
Phoebe tries to put her arm around her daughter, to shield her from words she was never meant to hear. But Rosie shrugs her off and heads for the container, fast as a ferret, Sean's lurcher barking behind her as she turns her attention from growling at the bailiffs.<br />
<br />
And Rosie's scaling the container like a spider, her years of tree climbing paying off as she reaches the top and stands, holding her arms to the wood's canopy and screaming like a warrior.<br />
<br />
“Get that child down!”<br />
The head bailiff is shouting at Jarad, gesticulating wildly. He obviously expected to find no one here but Sean at this early hour.<br />
<br />
“Get her DOWN!”<br />
<br />
But Rosie has other ideas. She has heard many a tale around the campfire of bailiffs and evictions and she's brought the chain and padlock Sean uses to secure his door, and she's fastening it around her ankle and locking it onto the container's heavy iron fittings as the bulldozer crushes over the camp fire, buckling metal and driving logs into the earth, shuddering to a halt just inches from her.<br />
<br />
“LEAVE US ALONE!” Her almost-adult voice drawing the attention of the growing crowd of boaters who have come to see what's happening. And one by one at first, and then en masse, they climb the container to join her; young, old, children and parents, single boaters and lone pensioners.<br />
<br />
“Pulled his boat right out of the cut, they did”<br />
<br />
“Lucky I'd sold it first- there was nothing they could do.”<br />
<br />
“They're trying to turn the canals into a theme park for the rich.”<br />
<br />
“YOU SHALL NOT PASS! YOU SHALL NOT PASS! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”<br />
<br />
And it's working. For now, it's working. And as the bargees chant, the bailiffs make a hasty retreat, the lurcher tearing at the trousers as they scramble into the bulldozer, which reverses back over the desecrated countryside. For now.<br />
<br />
<br />
They all know they'll be back with the police.<br />
<br />
<br />
Sean will collect what he needs of his belongings and sit on the stern of Moonlight as Jarad and his family head for new places. Away from the school where Rosie never went that morning; away from the container and the family of foxes. Jarad will weld Sean's trivet, but his cooking pot is rent in two by the bulldozer.<br />
<br />
And as the boat cuts its path through the water, the rising sun shimmers daggers of yellow and gold in the trails it leaves behind.<br />
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-29252628838088305472015-04-16T08:06:00.000-07:002015-04-16T08:06:47.889-07:00GypsumHe's perched, cross-legged on the torn, black, cheapest Ikea sofa, furling foil around a chewed pencil stub. He's sworn never to go back. Promised. Promised himself. The misses. His kids. Two kids, a girl and a boy, who lay now, sleeping, in the room above. He promised. As he rips an oblong of foil the size of monopoly money, hears creaking above. Stops. Silence. It's seven minutes past one. He's careful to fold a long line the length of the foil, turns up each end and pours on powder the colour of gypsum. Just one. Just tonight, then he'll stop. It's day two since he broke seven years clean. Just the one. But he only used half a bag yesterday. He'd felt the need to save some. Just a bit. And he's proud of himself for not injecting it. Each click of the lighter, though, each crackle of the foil, each hiss of air sucked through the tube is a sound closer to being discovered. Each careless outtake of smoky breath, a smell closer to divorce. He must be crazy. Still the next day, he dials that same number. <br />
<br />
<br />
He's living close to the edge of discovery, the denim pencil case he's put his paraphenalia in on top of the shared wardrobe in his marital bedroom. Just foil (used and new), cling film-wrapped bags (three for twenty five just like the old days: some things never change) and an electric lighter. He's not stopped wanting since that first toot: it's the smoking that's making him want it all the time, that's what it is: he never wanted it so often before. Not when he was injecting. And he's looking for an opportunity to slip out. Plenty of milk in the fridge. The gas and electric meters topped up. Enough toilet paper to last a bloody month. He opens the cardboard box of Tetley and rips the plastic foil wrappers. Tips the teabags into the bin and shoves them under vegetable peelings and cigarette ends. Ties it up and opens the back door. Out it goes, into the wheelie bin. His adrenaline is working now, hands sweating as he holds his palm out to see if it's shaking. Calm, calm. He goes upstairs into the bedroom and reaches for his denim pouch, which he shoves deep into his jacket pocket. He's already put his old favourite spoon in there before throwing out the teabags. Sticks his head round the living room door, where she sits in front of Ice Age 4, one child snuggled up on either side of her.<br />
<br />
<br />
“I'm just going down the local shop to get some teabags. You need anything while I'm out?”<br />
<br />
She shakes her head. <br />
<br />
“Thanks love. See you in a bit.”<br />
<br />
<br />
And he's out the door, straight into the car. <br />
<br />
<br />
The chemist on Wicker is open as expected and he uses the left hand door with the yellow and green exchange sign. He shows his battered old keyfob he's had stashed for years and he's handed a brown paper bag. It's too big, he thinks, wondering how he'll stash all this. Back in the car he drives around the corner to a safe spot, rips all the packets open, shoving ten now-unsterile needles into his denim stash along with ten little yellow packets of citric. Brown paper bag with its black needle bin goes straight into the black, cast-iron effect dustbin. He was going to wait until she was asleep. No, he'll wait. But he's looking around, checking there's no one looking and he's ripping a piece of filter from his unlit cigarette, opening the bag he was saving for later and scooping four heaped spoons from his tiny handmade foil scoop into his spoon. He's filling a syringe with water from the little brown pill bottle he remembered to bring, just in case. Though he swore he wouldn't inject. It'll just be this once. Or maybe once a week. Even once a month. The mixture spits onto his hand as it boils to yellow-brown. It's nothing, this. Just a little bit. Not even half a bag. And seven years has given his veins a chance to emerge, if some are missing, so be it, but that place in the crook of his knee, he's been checking it all week and it's going to be an easy hit this time. And the blood squirts up first try, and he pushes down like he's never stopped at all. <br />
<br />
<br />
It hits fast; his body flushes hot, feels it flow up his leg: up, up to his brain, that taste in the back of his throat like coming home and he knows he'll never stop at one. <br />
<br />
<br />
And the feeling's all but a memory. Wishing he'd put more in the spoon. The only giveaway his pinned eyes and forgotten teabags.<br />
<br />
“Make us a brew then, love”<br />
<br />
Going back through the bin (why did he open the packet, stupid twat) just putting the bins out (again) and he wonders how long before she notices his crime against her sane reasonableness. <br />
<br />
<br />
It's not true what they told him at the meetings. Hours each day wasted, reading repetitive messages from frayed and delaminated colour coded cards. Not true at all. We used to live and we lived to use. Untrue. Not back to where he started. Not back to begging for spare change or lifting testers from Boots counter. Not cashing kites down the cheque exchange. Not on a teenth a day and double. It's not true what they told him. Not back to square one. Unless you count that first square of foil. Five scoops from the homemade measure, tapping the powder with a bitten thumbnail into the old spoon. Just one more for luck and it cooks up a treat. The crimson plume sending his dick rock hard as he pushes home. <br />
<br />
<br />
It's the little things that give him away. One by one. She knows the signs. A forgotten, used filter when she's hoovering. Storming in, empty-handed from the local shop, two small, sad, tearful faces full of broken promises of sweeties and sherbet dip: a declined receipt and a useless debit card thrown in his face. A cup of boiled, cooling water beside the ripped, black sofa. A trail of black soot on the lino where he dropped his spoon. It's always the small things. And the shouting starts. The slammed doors at night; the rev of the engine as tryes screech away, his children's cries fading to silence as he pushes the plunger home.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-57195655223752791802014-02-19T04:51:00.000-08:002014-02-19T04:51:13.226-08:00Hangin' up on Fear: Suspension Hanging Suicide Style.Hey all,<br />
<br />
I'm sorry I've not posted for a while. I hope there will be a new post coming up soon. <br />
<br />
<br />
It involves flesh.<br />
<br />
Meat hooks? Not quite. <br />
<br />
Imagine a human, suspended, mid air. By the flesh. <br />
<br />
Suicide? Only metaphorically.<br />
<br />
Only the strongest, bravest, some might say most crazy individuals have the courage to attempt this ancient art. <br />
<br />
In the words of the incredible woman I'll be writing about: FUCK FEAR.<br />
<br />
<br />
WATCH THIS SPACE.<br />
<br />
Love & Inspiration,<br />
<br />
Vee XGravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-57357718806474853222013-10-28T05:47:00.001-07:002013-10-28T05:47:18.087-07:00'The Assimilated''What’s my name?': Changed Memories and Observations on Cultural Identity<br />
<br />
<br />
…do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place..<br />
-Hillel<br />
<br />
<br />
…the assimilator…allows it to happen. This is achieved simply by doing nothing about being Jewish. Three or four generations, and the family ceases to count as Jews, unless bloodthirsty lunatics like the Nazis start up a grandfather hunt. Remaining Jewish in a free society takes work. If the work goes undone, Jewishness dims and dies. It is the exceptional assimilator who tries to speed the death by such devices as changing his name and obscuring or denying his background.<br />
<br />
-Herman Wouk; This is my God.<br />
<br />
Hiding, always hiding. I remember the words: don’t tell anyone you’re Jewish. Nobody told me why not. Just a child in nineteen-seventies small town England. DON’T TELL ANYONE YOU’RE JEWISH. Five short words, or seven. <br />
Am I the generation of disobedience?<br />
I told. I am a Jew. A Jewess. Yehudah. Yid. <br />
‘Mouth almighty, you are.’ This was my father’s name for me. ‘Pride comes before a fall.’ He’d look at me and narrow his already narrow almond-shaped brown eyes. <br />
‘Oh yeah?’ Defiant then as I am now.<br />
If they did not want me to be a Jew, why did they tell me? <br />
If I had known how much trouble telling would cause, then whom would I have obeyed?<br />
<br />
Listen: <br />
I have been less than a week in big school. Although this is real big school, it still has that nauseating smell of stale disinfectant, spilt milk and accidental urine, like the kids’ school. I close my eyes, remembering half-tables, pushed into imperfect hexagons, where various small children sit in stiff grey-blue uniforms. Here, in this high-windowed room, generations of eleven-year-old girls have watched the same, whitewashed walls, paint so thick now that the bricks resemble cobblestones. Here, we sit at those same antique desks that they once used. On the front wall, above the teacher’s podium, is a photograph of the class of 1891, and I wonder how it would have felt to be there then. I imagine future girls- boys, even- eyeing a photograph of my class, one hundred years hence. No. Stop. I do not want to imagine such things. <br />
In a long, horizontal groove disrupted momentarily by a white ceramic inkwell, lays the burgundy Parker fountain pen my parents bought me as a prize for passing the entrance exam. <br />
Then: STAB! <br />
-like static electricity in my back: I yelp, swivelling at breakneck speed, roaring at the girl behind me, who bleaches her hair and leaves her eyebrows dark.<br />
‘You killed Jesus,’ she mouths. <br />
She wields no sharp objects and holds her hands innocently upon her desk, but in my role as Sherlock Holmes, I deduce that the weapon in question was a school-issue compass. <br />
I speculate as to why they cannot think of anything more original to hurt me with. Rage seethes within me. <br />
‘Mary Godston! Report to my office at the end of class.’ This is Handwriting and Reading, the only class taken by the Headmistress. Another thing I have come to expect is that it will always be my fault and it will always be me waiting for the red light to turn green and the buzzer to sound in the big hall outside Miss Grimsby’s ‘Study’ What she studies in there is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it has little to do with justice or fairness. I had thought it would be different here. I wonder if teachers have visual difficulties, as they never seem to witness whole events. I wonder if it is because my family are not rich and are not paying any fees for me to attend the school. <br />
Over time, I have become a pan of hot oil on constant simmer like the plug-in slo-cooker my father uses to cook cholent, which is the vilest food in the world, ever. It consists of pieces of lamb so soft that they resemble overwashed dishcloth fragments that have been bleached to rags. The meat festers in slices of potato and butter beans with the consistency of silt. I visualise this girl who has just practically stabbed me, drowning in a bath of cholent. I do not make a sound. I do not protest. I am past all the but misses and the it wasn’t mes. I will save her for another time. I have learnt over the years that ‘telling’ only gets me branded the troublemaker. I have found that my parents are unsupportive to say the least: <br />
‘Just ignore them. They’re jealous. You’re more intelligent than them. JUST IGNORE THEM.’ This is the voice of my mother. ‘Walk away’.<br />
‘Just tell them you’re not Jewish. JUST IGNORE THEM.’ This is the voice of my father. ‘Why did you have to go and tell them you’re bloody Jewish?’ <br />
But I am Jewish. Am I not a Jew? Anti-Semitism is a term I have to learn for myself. <br />
‘Mary GODSTON!’ Just the sound of this name uttered in this way gives me the yucks.<br />
‘Yes, Miss Grimsby.’ The woman is tall: cropped dark hair, dark, dark-circled eyes. Dog-tooth suit in black and white; tan tights. I want her to be ugly: she is not. Just stuck up, but not ugly.<br />
‘Stop daydreaming!’<br />
<br />
Cut to headmistress’s office. Some time the previous year. An hour before the Eleven Plus. Legs shaking uncontrollably. <br />
‘Wipe that smirk off your face.’<br />
Miss Sergeant has tree trunk legs. Her feet swell from ugly brown flat-soled Ecco shoes like a plump baby’s foot forced into the cutesy first shoes found thrown from prams in righteous fits of remonstration. My mother says that she has gout, the disease of old men who drink too much port. <br />
‘People like you may think you are better than the rest of us, but you’ll never pass the entrance exam. It’ll be the local comprehensive for you in September.’<br />
In the cabbage and gravy infused dining room, I stare at the green and white streaked vinyl floor. The tables are arranged like bus seats. I sit behind Jane Johnson, who has braces and a lisp. Her hair is impossibly straight and seems white as it emerges from her pink scalp. I play ESP with the back of her head, willing her to scratch her head. Scritch scratch itch- scritch scratch twitch- scratch your itch- itch itch itch itch. She glances, then glares at me, turning back to her paper, an almost imperceptible tut emanating from her pouty mouth. <br />
People like you<br />
People like me…I meditate on this concept. Eleven years old, water-blue eyes, wavy dark hair hacked into a long at the back, short at the front affair, which renders me boyish, despite it being the latest fad. Larger-than average ears, but not sticky-out like Jan’s were before she disappeared from school for a fortnight, only to return with them modified and plastered on in a new, flatter position. Nose: definite ‘problem’ area. Listen to this: my cousin Sharon is ten years older than me. She’s my uncle Dave and Aunty Rosa’s daughter. Even though Dave looks like my father’s twin and Rosa could pass for my mother’s sister, Sharon doesn’t look like any of us. How do you work that one out? She has smaller ears; her nose is small and pointy and upturned. She bleaches her hair. No, it’s not what you think- she really is Uncle Dave’s daughter. But her face is plastic. My mother says that if she keeps on having plastic surgery, she’ll go the same way as Michael Jackson. <br />
At home, bedroom door secured, I spend extravagant quantities of time in front of the mirror. I push my nose up into a pug, forcing my eyes to see past my hand which semi-obscures this object of exquisite and enthralling beauty. My top lip follows my nose on its journey up to Caucasia with the alarming effect of revealing a gummy, buck-toothed smile. I try again, this time adjusting the length of my ear with my free hand. If, as my classmates inform me, I truly do resemble the Wicked Witch of the West, Malificent the wicked fairy or witch from the Sleeping bloody Beauty, then the plastic surgeon is bleedin’ welcome to fit me a new face. <br />
The invigilator calls us to ‘place’ our pens on the tables. My paper remains blank. I have failed my Eleven Plus. But I pass the entrance exam. I pass with the second highest grade and gain a free place at a prestigious single sex high school. <br />
<br />
The same year, my father goes to work in Saudi Arabia. <br />
The locals look him over. <br />
‘Jew or Arab?’<br />
My father looks at his feet, shrugs.<br />
‘I’m English,’ he says. ‘I’m an engineer. I’ve come over to work. Look, this is my workmate, Martin.’<br />
He nods at his friend as if his goyishness will save him by association. The man laughs wryly. <br />
‘We are brothers, then. I make you an honorary Arab. We are all Semitic.’ My father closes his eyes and inhales deeply. He feels his skin prickle, chill, in the Middle Eastern heat. His eyes open and he sees azure sky, palm tree fronds. <br />
‘Come, you want alcohol? Come, friend: we all of us have secrets here.’<br />
<br />
I begin to spend every break time in the school library. This is not permitted. It is obligatory to step outside for a breath of fresh ostracisation and frostbite. Enough already. I head for the section marked Religious Studies, take the first book that I find, one of a half-shelf dedicated to the Holy Bible, scrape myself up to the heavy oak table and read. <br />
Abram lay with Hagar. And so Ishmael was born. Through Sarah, Abram, now called Abraham, gave seed to Isaac. <br />
Jacob, son of Rebekah and Isaac, lay with Leah. She bore Reuben, then Simeon, Levi and Judah. <br />
Bil’hah, Rachel’s maidservant, bore Jacob Dan and Naph’ta-li. <br />
Zil’pah, the maidservant of Leah, gave birth to Gad, then Ash’er.<br />
Jacob again had relations with Leah: she bore Is’sa-char and Zeb’u-lun. A daughter, Di’nah, she bore to Jacob.<br />
Rachel bore Joseph. Her final son, she named Ben-o’ni. Rachel died in childbirth: Jacob, now named Israel, changed his son’s name to Benjamin. <br />
I wonder how it would feel to have four mothers and one father. I decide that I will never get married and even if I become a multi-trillion-zillionaire, I will never, never hire a maidservant. <br />
I discover that it is not permitted to mix wool and linen fibres. At home, I ask my father what will happen if I weave wool with linen.<br />
‘Look,’ he says, showing me the heel of my stiff, grey school regulation sock, which has been drying on the radiator. It is threadbare. ‘Unless you want to go fishing with your socks, get one hundred per cent fibre. That’s why we’re the best tailors in the world.’ <br />
I smile at this logic, and wonder why my father fries bacon and latkes on Saturday mornings. <br />
<br />
For as long as I can remember, every summer holiday, we pack everything (including two black cats named Siggy and Fred) into the back of our rusty white Ford Escort estate and head South down the M1. By the time we reach Golders Green, which is always the first stop, my bladder is in danger of exploding. My father always parks down a pristine crescent off the main road and brings us to a little kosher restaurant. When I am done in the toilet, he buys us falafel with humous and Israeli salad in circular pitta breads. I hear Yiddish and Hebrew spoken naturally. My father asks for extra zehug, which is a hot sauce, a permanent feature of our fridge at home. He has a hand-held blender which he uses to whiz up handfuls of small, pointy chillis with coriander, salt and enough raw garlic to keep vampires away from the entire town, never mind our kitchen. <br />
When our bellies are full and I have consumed a full two cans of mitzli mango (mitzli means ‘juice’ in Hebrew, one of the few words I know apart from Shalom, and a couple of Hebrew songs), we take a walk ‘to stretch our legs’, as my father puts it, before we make the next annual visit to my father’s friend the luthier on Edgeware Road. Everywhere I look are Jewish people. I feel angry at my father, because he doesn’t wear a kippah. We go inside a shop which sells religious books and artefacts. My mother negotiates a price for a Hebrew course with eight cassettes and a book. The proprietor shows her a range of Mezuzahs from basic plastic to intricate gold. My eyes are wide and sparkly as I imagine how they will look on the doorposts of our house, but my father shakes his head.<br />
‘Come on, let’s get going now. We have to be in Southend for teatime. Your Nan’s expecting us and I want time to see Sammy Berger’.<br />
Sammy Berger is my father’s violin making friend, and he always calls him Sammy Berger, never just Sammy. My mother and I reluctantly leave the shop behind my father, who is always in a hurry, and I take my new possession out of its brown paper bag, parading with it down the street, hoping people will see it and not notice that my father is kippahless. I know that he is just making excuses not to buy the pretty brass menorah that I want. I know that he will make a stop in the local supermarket, where everything is kosher and most of the labels are in Hebrew as well as English. <br />
We stock up on Mitzli mango, which is syrupy, sweet and moreish. I want to buy packets of chicken soup, which is my favourite junk food, but my mother says why do I want that when I cook the best chicken soup and the packet one is full of MSG, which she says gives her a headache. My father buys gefilte fish for the journey, which I detest, and ten bottles of Palwin no.10, the sweet, red kosher wine that he lets me taste on a rare Friday night. We carry our bags of shopping to the car and set off towards Edgware Road. From the window, as we drive, I see Hassidim: families and men in shtreimels and I remember, years before, another summer holiday.<br />
<br />
I am sitting in my grandmother’s back room, the window open. It is summer and I smell saltfish air blowing in from the Thames Estuary. I love this smell, fresh as ozone as it mixes with the sweetness of the doughnuts she is frying and will later fill with the sticky red jam that she has boiled and boiled in a heavy old cooking pot. I am five years old. Later, when my mouth and hands are sticky with sugar, my father comes in and wipes my face clean, licking sugar from my fingertips so that I jump up and down in excitement. I know that soon he will be taking me to the beach. He asks me if I want to see the curlies. I do not know what he means by this, what curlies are supposed to be. <br />
‘What you want to take her down there for, Dave, Benny?’<br />
My grandmother always muddles the names of her sons. My father, Benjamin, is the younger of her two boys. Sometimes she calls him Rachael, which is my auntie’s name and my middle name. This makes me giggle, because I know that my daddy is not a girl and sometimes he will pretend to be cross and call her a silly bugger. Then she will flick him on the ear with her finger and tell him that he should bang our heads together for disrespecting his old mama. <br />
‘I’m going to show you the curlies, aren’t I, bubbeleh?’ he says, tickling my belly as he balances me on his crouched lap. My grandmother shoots him a look.<br />
‘What do you want to fill her head with all that rubbish for? Bloody old Jews.’ My father rolls his eyes like Harpo Marx and wiggles his ears. I don’t know how he does it and I don’t think I will ever be able to wiggle my ears like that. I spend what seems like hours practising in front of the kitchen mirror: no way. My grandmother shakes her head in defeat.<br />
‘Give your Nan a kiss.’ <br />
My grandmother Elsie’s face feels soft like the velveteen leopard I carry everywhere with me. She smells of ancient powder, lipstick and the red concoction that she calls rouge. Sometimes, she takes me into her bedroom and I close the hinges of her heavy dressing mirror around my head, seeing myself replicated smaller and smaller until my face disappears. If I have been extra specially good, she sprays Estee Lauder’s Youth Dew onto my wrists. It looks and smells like Coca-Cola, which I am not allowed, because it will dissolve my teeth. <br />
My father hums Shnirele Perele, a Hasidic song about the coming of the Messiah, Moshiach, under his breath and I feel my grandmother’s body stiffen. <br />
My father and I walk along the beach. He is carrying my shoes and I am running in and out of the water, chasing the tide. In the distance, nearby the houses on the waterfront, I can see the silhouetted figures of children and adults. As we draw closer, my father nudges me.<br />
‘Look. There they are. The curlies,’ he winks. I am more interested in the cockleshells and pebbles that I am filling my pockets with, and in the two golden retrievers fetching a tennis ball from the water. I love the way their fur clings to their lithe bodies, how the water sprays from them as they shake themselves. <br />
‘Daddy, can I have a golden retriever dog?’ But he is not listening to me. He has that faraway look in his eyes and what my grandmother calls his ‘naughty boy smile’. <br />
‘Look, bubbeleh, you see? Those curly locks they have, you see, they’re called peyes. They can’t trim the corners of their hair or beards.’<br />
I watch these children playing on the beach in their long, black clothes, heads covered. They look so familiar to me, yet so distant. <br />
I want to ask my father why my grandmother is so mean about Jewish people when we are Jewish too. I want to ask him why he has brought me to this place where he grew up. Why he wants me to look at these people in the same way as we look at the lions when we visit London Zoo, except that we wave to the lions and shout hello. The children look happy. I pull on my father’s hand, wanting to run to play with a little girl who looks about my age, but my father holds me back. He kneels down and speaks to me quietly.<br />
‘Would you want to go to the beach and never be allowed to wear your swimming costume?’ I shake my head. ‘Don’t get involved in religion, Miriam.’ <br />
I know he is being serious, because he is calling me Miriam, not Miri. Although I don’t really know what religion is, I shake my head solemnly. I do not understand why I cannot go to play. I am still smiling at the girl, who smiles back with eyes that reflect my own. <br />
‘Nanna Elsie’s brother was killed because he was a Jew. Don’t let people know you’re a Jew. It’s better never to get involved. You’ll understand when you get older.’<br />
Even though I am just five years old, I can see that in some way, these people are related to me. I do not know why, but I envy them. Young I may be, but I still understand that a colossal part of who I am is being methodically and deliberately denied to me. I feel loss. I feel shame, a shame which will cling to me like the barnacles that I try to prise from the rocks after the tide has gone, but which refuses to let go.<br />
We walk and walk, my father carrying me most of the way on his shoulders, until we find Rossi’s Italian ice cream kiosk. My father buys me a big cone of my favourite ice cream and as we stroll down Southend pier, he tells me about the days when he would visit his Grandmother Goldstein and Grandmother Isaacson as a child. He tells me about Mezuzahs and menorahs, lokshen and bagels. Real bagels, he says, not like those fluffy things they sell in the supermarkets. He tells me about the East End of London and the Blackshirts, the broken windows and the burning Jewish shops, the tailors, and how the doctors tore the womb from my Great-auntie Rachael when she was fifteen after she had a baby from a boy called Charlie. He tells me how they covered all the mirrors in the house and took all the cushions off the chairs for seven days until she wasn’t their daughter any more. I feel terrified that one day I will be dead and alive all at the same time and that I will never see my family again. <br />
<br />
Sammy Berger has his workshop in a room up some wooden stairs, tucked in amongst the backs of Victorian terraces, down a backstreet and an alleyway. It is a wooden structure built on top of a brick-built outhouse. The alley is paved with blue bricks cast with diamond-shaped criss-cross grooves. Some are missing, and the spaces where they were are filled with tarmac. Metal dustbins stand at back gates. There is ivy growing up the bottom of the stairs, covering the banister; it reminds me of the trip we made the previous year to see Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate cemetery, the way the ivy twisted and curled around delicate wings and fingers, brushing the silent stone lips of angels. <br />
The smell in Sammy Berger’s workshop is of resin and spruce and turpentine. It is lit by a dim, clear glass bulb, its yellow filament flickering ever so slightly. Along the workbench are chisels, planes, rasps and gauges. I am fascinated by the tiny thumb planes, too tiny even for the hands of babies. What a baby would be doing with a plane is anyone’s guess, but that’s what I call them: baby planes or, better, fairy planes. Sammy Berger is a slight man with wire-rimmed spectacles and bushy black eyebrows. His hair is combed back to cover the initial stages of baldness. It is wiry rather than curly, and has become less and less bushy over the years that my parents have known him. I don’t know how he met my father, how they know each other and I never ask. They just are. They talk about music and a woman called Mrs. Thatcher. Here in this room of half-varnished violins dangling from brown string and brass hooks, bodies of ‘cellos, hulks of double basses hunched in shadowy corners, it is as though I have never seen Sammy Berger without his white apron, a yellow and black striped pencil tucked behind his right ear. <br />
I take a piece of maple with a curved edge from a box labelled SCRAPS. I check it against the ribs and mould of the viola Sammy Berger has clamped up on the bench beside him. He is constructing the back from a single piece of maple, its grain deep and contoured like a shimmering Ordinance Survey mountain range. He lets me slot my piece of wood into its larger counterpart, where it fits like a baby tucked snug on its mother’s hip. I love the shape of these instruments, their womanish curves: names like ribs, belly; neck. The necks and scrolls of double basses lean together like giant fern leaves, waiting to unfurl, scrolls of 1/16th size violins like newly formed foetuses. The ebony of fingerboards, hard, cold and perfectly smooth; pegs chiselled, filed, sharpened, sanded: kidney-shapes mounted with tiny boxwood spheres. I pick one up and roll it between thumb and forefinger, like I do with my pen in school. I lift it to my nose: it smells of bees’ wax and I have to resist the temptation to put it into my mouth and chew it. Instead, I run it over the tip of my nose and smell my breath mixing with the smell of the wood. <br />
When Sammy Berger passes me a small gouge, I look to my father and he nods, checking me in a way that says: be careful. Sammy Berger lays it in my hands, placing my thumbs and fingers in the right position. The steel at the tip of the blade is thin as paper and sharp enough to cut soft stone. Seeing my hands shaking ever so slightly, he guides them, metal scraping maplewood into curly slivers.<br />
‘The tools are your friends. Don’t be afraid of them,’ he says. His voice is softer than my father’s. ‘If you treat them kindly, hold them gently, yet firmly, they’ll do as you ask them. If you’re rough, if you’re not sure of their friendship, if you squeeze them too hard, your hand will slip. Look, your knuckles are white!’ <br />
I try to be calm. I have never been allowed to hold one of these tools before. <br />
‘I want to make a face’, I tell him, pointing to a ‘cello, its scroll, the head of a woman with piles of curly hair and mother of pearl earrings. <br />
‘Aah. Then you need this.’ He reaches for a rasp and begins to grate at the wood. ‘Ha!’<br />
Already it is more head-like in shape. As I take each tool to scrape, file, plane and cut, my world becomes concentrated into one small space. I work with the grain, control it, own it, as cheeks, nose, pits for eyes form. I pass a licked finger over my work to see the depth of colour, to bring the grain to life. I will varnish it a red-brown, I think, as my dreams are abruptly disrupted by Sammy Berger, who has made tea for everyone in enamel-glazed tin cups. He sets down a very ringed wooden tray on which my cup rests. It is un-chipped white with a blue rim and handle. <br />
‘I put plenty of milk, but it’s a touch hot. Don’t burn your tongue! Your momma will never forgive me’. Then he looks at what I’ve been doing. ‘Look, Benny, look! Your daughter is a natural!’<br />
I keep the feeling that his words give me stored up inside myself. I wish I had a teacher like Sammy Berger. When I grow up, I decide, I will make figurines of maple and walnut and boxwood and I will sell them at Harrods. I never do varnish my carving. I slip her into the pocket of my navy blue zip-up jacket. I call her Zana and over the years she becomes smooth as glaze as I touch her secretly in times of stress or sadness or boredom or whatever abstraction. <br />
<br />
I have no sisters, no brothers (as far as I know). I am what they call an only child. Although Maya Collins fights and bickers almost constantly with her brother Kalen, who is my friend too, and even if they both tease their baby sisters Sophie and Zoë, who are twins, I crave a sibling.<br />
‘Sibling rivalry’, says my father when I ask him why, if they are brothers and sisters, they are always fighting. ‘When I was a kid, your uncle and I had to share a bed. I’d be at one end and Uncle Dave at the other. There was only one pillow and he was three years older that me, so he thought he had the right to it. He’d start kicking me, pulling the blankets off me, sticking his feet in my face, so I’d go for the pillow and we’d fight over that bloody pillow every night until the bloody thing burst open- feathers everywhere. Up my nose, in my mouth. All over the place, they were. And I just knew Dave was going to call your Nan and say I broke the thing.’<br />
I laugh. We are looking at an old photo album with a dark red leather cover. It smells of Time Before Me and is so heavy I find it uncomfortable to carry. The pictures are monochrome. Grandmother Elsie is fat, with round cheeks and a long nose. Her curly hair looks stiffened into waves with an unknown substance. She wears a small hat at an angle, and tortoiseshell spectacles. She looks angry in her big double-breasted winter coat with its furry collar. I flick through the pages until I reach the first of what my father describes as ‘glorious technicolour’, but which is more like looking at life unfocused, through scratched orange-brown lenses. Grandmother Elsie still looks angry. Even in the photograph where she is holding tiny me in white blankets, she looks angry. And I see something else, something indeterminable in her expression. Is it fear?<br />
‘So what happened?’ I enjoy listening to my father talking about his childhood, about his brother and sister and how they had to piss in a pot to avoid the outside toilet and its spiders, and how mornings were so cold they had to break the ice on the goldfish bowl. I don’t like the one about Uncle Dave frying the goldfish and eating them, and I never believe it anyway. Sometimes I can’t tell if my father is teasing me when he tells his stories. <br />
‘Well, I tried putting my hands over his mouth; it didn’t work, I must have been about five or six maybe, him eight or nine, not exactly an even fight, eh?’ He laughs, enjoying the story almost as much as me. ‘Your Nan ended up storming into the room anyway, with all the noise. She got both of us by the ear, shouting and raving about her only good pillow, when we knew it was the worst one! We both had the belt for that.’<br />
I don’t like the part about the belt either. My father carries on talking:<br />
‘She had us collecting the feathers up and putting them into a potato sack while she stood there, checking every last tiny bit of down was gone from the bedroom. She cut the old pillowcase in half, put half the feathers in each and had us sew them up.’<br />
‘So, you had one pillow each!’ I look at the lines around my father’s eyes, the lines that my mother calls crows’ feet and he calls laughter lines. If I ever have to have lines, I will never name them after a scavenging bird’s ugly foot.<br />
‘We still fought about the pillows after that. Yeah, funny old thing, sibling rivalry…’<br />
<br />
The house where we live is big and old and half falling down. It has a small garden with broken flagstones, pear trees and mud, not grass. It is midsummer and the school holidays. I have been trying to persuade my father to plant a lawn, but he has said no so many times that I am astounded when he arrives home from work with a brown paper bag fat like a packet of sugar, and tells me to open it. Inside are millions of tiny flat, brownish seeds and I know what they are because he has a fork for digging in his other hand. <br />
‘You’ll have to help me with the mowing!’ he smiles, rubbing me on the head. I take my little trowel and help him soften the earth for planting. When we are done, he lets me throw handfuls of cool seeds over the earth. When the water from the rusty can, which we hold together, hits the ground, the smell of rain on hot days fills my nose and I realise that it doesn’t have to rain to make that smell. After that, I make the smell as often as I can by pouring glasses of water over flagstones in the midday sun. It smells of happy.<br />
On muzzy summer evenings we go to the park compost heap with plastic carrier bags. My father climbs to the top of the heap, grass cuttings clinging to his yucky brown Farah trousers, and begins to throw me wallflowers in full bloom. The sweet scent of the flowers and grass is nothing like our stinky compost heap at home where potatoes sprout from onion skins, eggshells and overboiled lamb bones. I gently place each plant roots-down into the bag. The roots are swathed in dry, terracotta-brown compost, more like sawdust than real soil. When all the bags are full, he carries me home on his shoulders and I search his head for white hairs, pulling them each one out with a sense that so long as I pull out these hairs, which should not really be there, my father will never grow old; my Daddy will never die.<br />
Maya Collins is in my year at school. Her birthday is the second of February, which is the day before mine. She is my best friend and ‘blood’ sister. We make a pact to be friends forever even after death in her attic bedroom. Her mother, whom she calls Bethany instead of Mum or Momma, is a nurse, and Maya has raided her workbag for the purpose of our initiation ceremony. There is a square iron bolt set into the black lock box on her bedroom door, just like the one on my room and she slides it across. <br />
‘Really, Miri, you want to do this? Because we can never go back on our pact.’ I nod.<br />
Maya has a really cool wardrobe that must be as old as the house with a big drawer in the bottom, and it is filled with amazing clothes, scarves shoes, fur coats. She lights two red candles, which are stuck in Portuguese wine bottles coated in wax drips, then two joss sticks. She places a huge chiffon scarf over my head like a veil and I do the same for her. <br />
‘You know that anyone who breaks the blood pact will die a horrible, agonising, early death?’ I nod again, not really believing what she says, and I am sure she doesn’t either. Then she reaches into her pencil case, which is white nylon covered with plastic stick-on beads. Her name is written inside the seam in indelible green pen. She takes out her fountain pen, which is the same as mine. ‘We have to sign the pact on parchment paper and seal it with ceiling wax and barbers oil.’ <br />
Ceiling wax is sealing wax and barbers oil is Olbas Oil. The parchment paper is normal A4 which we have stained with tea and burned around the edges. Maya has written the pact in blood, she says, but I don’t believe this either. It says, in large, crooked letters:<br />
<br />
Maya Lynette Collins and Miriam Rachel Goldstein<br />
Blood Sisters in Life and Death.<br />
This is our pact. Made on:<br />
Sixteenth of July Nineteen eighty seven<br />
Signed………………..…… ………………………<br />
<br />
Maya’s bed is Victorian with brass posts and a patchwork quilt. We sit in its sagging centre as Maya rests on the Rupert annual and signs the paper in slanting cursive. She hands me the pen and I sign too, trying to make my signature as florid as Maya’s, but I still like hers better. <br />
‘Miri?’ <br />
‘Yes?’<br />
‘What’s your name?’<br />
‘What?’<br />
‘I mean, what’s your name really?’<br />
‘What do you mean?’<br />
‘I mean, in school, you’re Mary Godston. But that’s not your name, is it?’<br />
‘No.’<br />
‘So if you’re Miriam Goldstein, why are you Mary Godston?’<br />
‘…’<br />
‘You’re weird.’<br />
By now I am as red as the silk scarf that has been draped over the small dormer window. I don’t know why. I mean, I really don’t. I don’t want to be weird. I don’t want to be Mary Godston and I don’t even know if I want to be Miriam Goldstein. Sometimes I fantasise that I am Maya’s sister. Maya’s mum Bethany is Jamaican and she is just the best. She wears her hair in fine dreadlocks and sometimes she wraps them in big colourful scarves. When she’s all dressed up she looks like an African Queen, with big clip-on earrings and bangles and beads. That’s why Maya has so many cool clothes to dress up in. When I stay over at Maya’s, Bethany lets us stay up to watch films with her. She calls them movies. She lights joss sticks that come in cardboard packets with pictures of flowery many-limbed elephants and plaited, multicoloured strings, which we take off when the packets are empty, to make friendship bracelets. There are always loads of candles on the big Victorian mantelpiece; big fat multi-wicked ones and little globe-shaped ones coated with millefiori wax which glow from inside. I know how to make millefiori flowers in Fimo, but I wonder how they do it in wax; how they keep the wax warm enough to work it, so it’s soft but not liquid. My favourite candle though, is a glowing globe the size of a small melon, with an indigo sky filled with stars. There are palm trees and little buildings with windows which light up yellow when the flame is on. When we’re watching a film, I sometimes catch myself watching the candle instead of the film, the little black wax houses coming to life, my imagination taking me to hot, dusty alleyways where veiled women laugh and hang out clothes on lines which criss-cross from balconies and fruit vendors sit on elaborately woven carpets.<br />
Tonight, Bethany has promised we can watch one of her favourite films. <br />
‘Hello! The lights are on but no one’s home!’ I’m back in the attic on Maya’s bed and she’s holding a hypodermic syringe with a long, thick needle. Under her hands is the ‘pact’ document. Her eyes are wide and spooky and I feel goosepimply all over. ‘We gonna do this or what?’<br />
‘What are you going to do?’ This is freaking me out. Maya laughs then shakes her head, which makes her curly red-black hair shimmer in the candlelight, even though it isn’t dark outside. The sunlight passing through the scarf makes her hair more red, the ends like pure pink gold. <br />
‘Come on, then. Look.’ She takes me by my right wrist and turns my palm upwards. ‘Do you want me to go first? We just have to prick our thumbs then rub them together. See what I got from Bethany’s bag! It doesn’t hurt like if you prick yourself when you’re sewing. Trust me, my mom’s a nurse! Ha ha, you get it, trust me, I’m a doctor…’<br />
‘You do it.’ I brace myself for a big pain, but when she does it, it is almost pleasurable and when we rub thumbs together, the blood feels a bit like oil and warm water.<br />
‘Blood sisters.’<br />
‘Blood sisters. Now do your thumbprint next to your signature’<br />
The thumbprint looks more like a blotch but when it dries, I can see that Maya really did write in blood. I am surprised by its shiny quality. Maya pulls a baby wipe from a plastic pot and passes it to me. I wipe my thumb, noting the tiny dot where the needle pierced my skin. She tears a piece of medical tape off a roll and I wind it around my thumb. She takes off the veil and I follow. When Maya has folded the document, she holds the sealing wax stick to the candle flame. As it melts it bulges and soot sticks to it. Maya hands it to me and I smear a blob where the flap of paper covers the other, then, pulling it away, a string like pizza-cheese, of brittle, red wax, snaps. Maya presses her skull and crossbones ring into the wax. We take turns dripping Olbas Oil over the paper. I rub some on my nose. We are done. <br />
I don’t feel much different, I don’t think. Do I? When Maya’s mom puts the film on, I have butterflies. Does Bethany know we are blood sisters? What if she finds out what Maya took from her bag? Worse, what if my parents find out? I find myself hiding my taped thumb. When it gets sweaty under the plastic tape, I excuse myself and get rid of it in the bathroom. <br />
The film is The Color Purple. We giggle when Maya’s mom tells us the actress who plays Celie is called Whoopi Goldberg, like a whoopi cushion. At first, I think the film is going to be boring. It starts off in 1909. Another costume drama, I think to myself, but it doesn’t take long to hook me and when by the end I still want more. Whoopi Goldberg becomes my favourite actress and I ask Bethany if I can borrow her Alice Walker books. Reading is my sanctuary. I feel blessed that I am not illiterate. <br />
It is the later learning that methadone, or Method One was synthesised by Hitler's chemists and the association with syringes that causes me to cast my mind over past memories and to fictionalise it in writing. We are all human and our experiences shape us sometimes into the antithesis of what we expected to become.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-57611070469499560572013-10-25T18:13:00.001-07:002013-10-28T05:49:27.631-07:00Fierce Midnights Slipping on oozing germoline ointment squished underfoot, she lurches, feet arching over knees like a Viennese showhorse's dance towards the brown plywood fire escape door. Cold, the bar's metal pressed down in fingerless-gloved hands, fingers grasp suddenly sensing the change from the two-bar fire that glows in the corner splitting light in luminous waves. <br />
'I don't like it here; have to get out, have to go', her voice shimmering off brick as winter stabs her skin with fractious tinkling shards, echoes from cement, where ferns dangle ominously. Prehistoric greens dance in waterfall motion, the bricks' orange suffused with violet tinges, shapes in five dimensions looming with each shuddering of iron underfoot. Down, reverberating in bases and trebles towards concrete of pebbles and fragmented glass slivers. Another world. <br />
He doesn't follow, content, wrapped in vibrations of trance grazing woodchip walls, the lava lamp low as trails fascinate his fingers. The shoreline's low now, waste of oil from the steelworks washed with driftwood still backward towards furnace chimneys, flames licking the orange skyline over grey-brown sea. <br />
'I don't like it. Where are you? I don't like it, I said...' and the drum drum drum of electronic beats suffuses with cicadas unseen but heard in the constant of their stolen midnight. <br />
He follows seemingly languishing in her unrest, his smile to her a leer, grotesque shapes from the shadows of garages where gravel crunches beneath bootsoles, fingers clenching oversprayed hairspikes in nervous twists and pinches. She waits with the darkness of untime. Through arching greens of bushes, the horizon dinosaurs of poplar, swirling clouds catch colour lit in neon from below. Sounds like the birth of creation chirrup softly beneath squawks and rustling unknownness. <br />
And they stand on the bridge over cars which trail reds and yellows like fast-motion New York in the movies, the wind blowing spray from the sea like mist, salting skin in sticky dust. She could walk now, walk over the flatness from here, remembering stories of past tragedies of chemical innocence. <br />
Industrial structures of tall metal frames distant with flaming licks of light reflect in saline pollution, sand slipping as mattress foam as they step. Faces glowing round fires, guitars and songs sung as she sits now, an ethereal white-clad woman, dreadlocks curl moving like snakes' tails, now vines. In her eyes, her face returned in light, hollow, joined as one, lips brush soft warm damp as moss. <br />
'Come on. Lena? Come on.' <br />
But she doesn't want to leave, grasps flesh feels skin, cloth like silk on bony shoulders, breast brushing breast; backs shiver in sea-cold air. The fire soothes yet prickles. Senses envy, though he isn't her man. And his face distorts to mohicaned gargoyled mouth, twisted fingers in putty, water as liquid mercury. <br />
'Stop it, be you. Be you again. BE YOU,' and he takes her hand, pulling her towards streets that bend uphill, lights rainbowed in sound, shells of figures brushing silhouttes of song. Smells suffuse in intoxicating greens, smoke curls in words towards home. Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-23423378670374039492013-10-25T14:45:00.000-07:002013-10-25T14:45:45.456-07:00New: ArtHey all,
It's been a while and I've invested in a long-needed dongle aka stick. I've managed to download some photos of some of my paintings. I hope you like them although the photos taken from my phone don't do them justice. I aim to have them printed and available for the season of much alcoholism, so be prepared to have something more unusual to send this year...
Much love to all who continue to support what I do.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kjQun8_BDM8/UmrmbwGoTGI/AAAAAAAAAFg/SWd81DDvVDs/s1600/241013-1459.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kjQun8_BDM8/UmrmbwGoTGI/AAAAAAAAAFg/SWd81DDvVDs/s640/241013-1459.jpg" /></a></div>
Vee XGravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-91315746512300235652013-09-13T06:11:00.004-07:002013-09-13T06:28:34.384-07:00Remebering Jimmy I was born here, you know, between this river and them train tracks. See? The jagged metal posts they put there to stop people jumping in front of the trains or playing chicken on the line. All new. They weren’t there then. You could say British Rail learnt the hard way. Not that it’s British Rail any more. Not since Thatcher sold it off, along with everything else she didn’t own.
‘It could have been any one of us.’
I’ve heard it so many times. From friends, from half-cut wankers who drink here, waste their lives on this two-sided picnic bench on the side of the cut where it joins the brown flow of natural water near the top lock. And Janey smiles that slanted eyebrow sympathy, thinking thank fuck it wasn’t me. And she’s right. She’s right, hugging me like I’m on my way into court and the sentence is terminal. It could have been any one of us. We’re all capable. And I could have been. But prison’s not for me. Better to end it with a rope around my neck up on that tree out there, than do time.
I don’t remember. I keep saying that and seeing the doubt in their eyes. For all my fifty-two years, I don’t remember anything but that last pint of Stella, watching the swans on the river. I love the river. Some folk complain about the mosquitoes, the smell of sewage in the summer. But for me, the curls and bubbles of that brown, soupy flow is like a warm cardigan that wraps around old bones: comforting and home. I was born here, three houses to the left, without a midwife, my father clutching me, still corded, as my mother crawled on all fours screaming for the afterbirth to come. And no doubt I’ll die here too. Too late in life for new starts, new places, new friends.
Do you think I don’t notice the fear in their eyes when I walk into the pub? After what they’ve heard, I don’t blame them. They smile, they run off their hiya how are you huns with a different air. Or is that my imagination? I can’t call it a guilty conscience, because I really don’t remember: not a thing.
Lydia came to see me last Wednesday. She was wearing the scarf I got her in the charity shop, the one with chenille roses woven over plain thread. Some of them were threadbare, but she loved it anyway, how the dark red of the roses contrasted with the nearly black. I remember joking with her how she looked like a Gypsy girl. We’ve got that Gypsy look in our family, the dark hair and light eyes, and it suited her.
‘I don’t believe you did it, Mum.’
That was the only thing she said on the matter. That was that. She made conversation about her work, about Darren’s new hi-fi system and how he’d hung speakers in the bathroom just for her to listen to her music in the bath.
‘They think it’s a girl’, she said, generations of broken promises in her tone, and put my hand on her belly, but the baby must have been asleep.
We watched a film but I couldn’t keep up with the storyline. All I remember is a baby being hurled out of a window and the crowd cheering after a gaping, shocked pause. And as I went to pull out the sofabed for her, she stopped me, grabbing the black, tubular metal of its frame, and I felt so old.
I’m chewing through my prescription at six days’ worth at a time; nearly a weeks’ worth today. DHC. Sounds like an eighties rap band and it’s a shame I can’t inject it. Too old for that now; too old for the vein hunting fuckery of it all. I’ll save that for the family history files. Last time I told the doctor I’d lost my pills on the way to Brighton on the train to visit Lydia, but I’m running out again and I don’t know what I’ll tell him this time. I suppose I should take one a day or even half, try to make them last. Or maybe I’ll take the lot next time I pick them up and hope I don’t wake up. Swallow whole with water. Do not chew. The bitter, waxy fillers stick to my teeth and I pick it out with my thumbnail, scraping it from underneath with my front teeth. I can’t sleep. Not even these tablets make me sleep any more. Not even with the sleepers on top.
The night is a long, too-quiet space where each creak from the heating and warped wood makes me jump. I hear Lydia’s sleep-breathing as I descend the stairs. In the kitchen I pull the blind shut and leave the light off. Squatting against the units I roll a cigarette. The recurring nightmares have started again. I’m holding his hand through the window of a train as it leaves Marylebone and I can’t let go. As I run out of fast enough steps, the guard is blowing and blowing his whistle and shouting but his hand is locked tight and I’m dragged off the slope at the end of the platform and he’s laughing as I fall into my bed and jump awake. It’s sixteen years since Lydia saw him last.
‘It’s just a dream, Mum, you need your sleep. Please try and sleep; you look so tired’
But I’m afraid the wheels will catch me. I’m afraid of the sound of crunching bone under iron. It’s so real. His laugh, his face. The same laugh as he had that afternoon he rolled into the beer garden as if the years hadn’t passed at all.
‘Nora. I thought I’d find you here.’
And I flinched. Years of memories marked in his greyed stubble.
How do I know if I did it when I don’t remember? He came up to me as if in a dream. Straight to my table as though he’d only popped into the pub for a piss and come right back to finish his crisps twenty years later.
I’ve been smoking with Terry next door; smoking all day as if the bitter dog-on-heat piss taste will wash away my conscience of what is being said. Do they think I’m guilty?
“Come on, Nora: I mean, I know I’m supposed to be his mate and that, but the way he treated me that day, accusing me of shagging you in his face. I thought he was gonna total me. There is no fuckin way you would do something like that. God’s honour, I’ve lived next door to you since we was kids and if there’s one thing I know about you is that you’re not fuckin capable. I mean, you might be capable of many things, eh, but not that. Not that.”
Terry’s eyes light up red around their sea green irises and I can smell the saveloy he just shared with me mixing with the Stella on his breath.
Tonight; tonight I will say my goodbyes. I will take the last train from the bridge they built too high to climb.
The river gurgles its polluted grumbles as a rusty barge approaches the lock which merges the manmade with the endless flow to the sea. Jake raises his can of special brew to us all, his crumpled cigarette-end vaguely reddening his features as he gently moves the rudder. Can I leave this place? I would die in prison.
There’s a gap in the galvanised fence where the kids get in. But I only need a ladder.
And as the rush of wind from the train hits me full in the face, I’m standing in the kitchen doorway and Lydia’s eyes are boring into mine as she nods, the knife’s blade glinting in the only light from the gas cooker. As fat from the sausages I’d started cooking flare up in yellow flame, Jimmy’s silhouette crumples and doubles over. And I can smell the metallic sting of butcher’s shop dustbins as sticky, dark warmth rubs between my fingers and Jimmy takes his last, wheezing, gurgling, stunned breath.
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-11634877554835440912013-09-02T16:48:00.000-07:002013-09-02T16:48:20.870-07:00Aha! Can I really write something from my phone? You never know. If so, this will be my worst post ever.Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-65644709116567375712013-04-16T04:29:00.000-07:002013-04-16T04:29:28.600-07:00Coming soon: Art from VeeIt's been a while, but I'm still alive. I'm no longer homeless and I've been able to invest in some art materials, having lost everything I own (yes, everything) when I became homeless.<br />
So I'll soon be posting some photos of my art, which will be available to buy.<br />
Sending you all much love and inspiration,<br />
<br />
Vee XGravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-11059332200421492972012-11-20T05:53:00.002-08:002013-10-17T09:17:29.969-07:00Any Old Iron<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was one of those summers in the eighties where the dust sweltered into liquid rays. The Destructor, our name for the council tip, murmured quietly to itself, humming with flies and the putrescence of summer refuse. I held my breath when I could and tried not to use my nose. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were there to acquire scrap metal. Wasn’t stealing. We were helping the council workers cut down on labour hours. Giving them time for fag, tea and Daily Sport breaks. Same with the skips: saving folks money on having to rent another for the next load. And the Old Man was the Skipper: Captain of the Skips. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d brag about it in school: The Old Man could make a bike out of spare parts, un-crush a crumpled sax and re-align the keys, shellac new pads into place in the space of a few hours and use that same bike to ride to a gig that very night. I made him a few customers that way. Some, more satisfied than others.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Old Man’s workshop was a bizarre mesh of spare parts, spread out on newspapers between half-eaten bowls of cat food. Slug slime glimmered over cracked ceramic and away over unknown, putty-like blackness which suffused the kitchen’s lino tiles. Bike chains soaked in petrol with rusty ball-bearings. Stacks of gears in various styles and qualities partnered chainsets, cantilevers, brake cables, forks; piles of nuts and long, sometimes bent, bolts with dints in the thread like a badly-ploughed field. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d sit, cross-legged, for hours, pulling steel snakes from black-oil pools and rub them rust-free with tattered J Cloths. I wanted them as bracelets, but I always had to hand them over to be sprayed with WD40 and fixed onto finished frames. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t allowed to spray-paint the frames. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It ain’t a job for kids. You’d make it drip’</div>
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So, guzzling shandy from a pint on a trayfull The Old Man had brought from the pub, I’d watch as colour flecked onto sanded steel, or aluminium on a good day. Pixels of paint splattered newspaper in reds, blues, greens. Never pink; never metallic. He’d mask pressed-alloy badges with tape, satisfyingly peeling them to reveal his liberated trophy brand names: Raleigh; Claude Butler; Brompton; Reynolds.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only money he spent on renovation was on transfers from suppliers, puncture repair kits and, if and when all else failed, spare tyres and inner tubes. It didn’t look too hard to transfer manufactureship and up the price. Alloy rims, steel rims: all cleaned up, spokes straightened and re-set, then spannered or quick-release fixed into place and spun, spun, spun, the Old Man’s nose nearly skimming metal, as he checked for alignment. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he tested each one. The kids’ bikes, I’d be sent to ride with my pal JoJo chuddy, named for his chronic chewing-gum habit. According to legend, the stuff would ‘wrap round his heart’ when swallowed. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JoJo Chud had a chopper. It had a springy wire attached with some sort of animal tail attached to the end. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It’s a raccoon tail’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘No it’s not.’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Is’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Not’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Is’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Not’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, one summer, between trips to the school lab where JoJo’s Old Man worked as a technician, The Old Man discovered the Moulton. This wasn’t any old iron to him; wasn’t any old bike. Its tiny wheels, smaller than a miniature child’s racer, squatted beneath long, erect poles, finished off with handlebars and a proud, leather saddle. It was a folding bike, light and practical. It wouldn’t just fit in a car boot when it was all screwed down: it would fit on your lap in the back-seat of a mini, or even in a large handbag if it was stretchy enough. Light enough for a kid to sling over the shoulder and run away with. And the old Man looked a proper tit on a Moulton.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Moulton became an obsession: suddenly, steel ‘tanks’ were being cashed in down the scrap yard to make space and time for this new habit which was to take on an increasingly comic role in the Old Man’s bike-building career. The Moulton became King of the Road, as Any Old Iron became Any Old Moulton and the Old Man began travelling miles just to pick up a cheap Moulton from the Why Magazine.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In those days, e-bay didn’t exist. The Why (what have you?) equalled a constant supply of visitors to the crumbling shell of a house, in the form of customers. They’d come to buy anything from tables and desks, to fridges and French horns, metal clarinets and fire surrounds. What hadn’t been skip-fished or rescued from the Destructor, had been bought up dirt cheap from less skilled Why vendors, rubbed down, lacquered, plated, varnished, smoothed, de-rusted, sanded or straightened out, depending on necessity. From a dented, seized up, ten pound trumpet and a few hours’ labour, a shiny, springed-up, nearly-new number would emerge, unrecognisable and ready to market as my handmedown or unwanted gift.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Bought her a new one for passing grade five,’ he’d say, if the question arose regarding the reason for the sale. Or</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Present from the Auntie. She wouldn’t take it back. Shame, really, but it’s time for a clear out. It’s got to go.’</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as the focus on the Moultons became a thorn in the Old Lady’s ever-decreasing arse, they increased in number, lined up with bags and shit-ridden trays of dusty, grey, cat litter along the coat-hung wall of the old back-corridor. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it was the embarrassment more than anything else which made her hate the things; though I felt a grown man on a fold-up shopper, in cycling tights and a beer-stained sweater should have pleased her in some ways: it certainly made me and my friends laugh. I’d invite them round just so they could laugh at the bizarre spectacle. But as the rain fell on the once-hopeful coupledom, so the Moultons were relegated to the Yard, amongst lead and copper pipes, filing cabinets, stacks of bricks and other ‘unmissable gems’ some of which were to fester in situ for the next twenty years, strangled in dandelions, buddleia, thistles, ivy and seeded grass, which grew from gaps between the crazy paving. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as the lead was weighed in for cash, so the screaming rows reverberated through un-plastered gypsum board and up the uncarpeted, paint-flecked stairs, where I sat, sleepless, waiting for nothing.</div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-8248292935699854582012-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:002012-10-31T12:57:36.444-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way Chapter 7 AND THE END OF PART ONE!!!<br />
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<b>Seven </b></div>
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<b><i><u>Free
Lunch</u></i></b></div>
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-Excuse me, but I’m sure I know you from
somewhere?</div>
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I replace the can of <i>No Frills </i>baked
beans on the shelf and turn around to see the dishevelled figure of what could
possibly be a girl. </div>
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-No, I don’t think you do, mate.</div>
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-Your face looks awfully familiar</div>
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-You mean I look awful. Eyare, I remember you: you’re that Christian
what reckoned god’d give us some money, right?</div>
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The girl, it’s definitely a girl,
blushes slightly and holds out her hand.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m Sue.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right. Gaz. Love the new hairdo.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Sue smiles in this coy kind of way
and takes a moment to examine her feet.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well yours is very…uh, interesting….how do you stick it up?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
See how I’m progressing? Huh? I’ve
even shaved me sides, bleached me mohie and dyed it green, stuck it up for the
first time in a long time. Must be love eh? A peacock’s gotta woo his peahen
and Kiwi deserves the best. When I get round to see her later she’ll be right
chuffed…yeah, it’s gotta be love. I even got a bath round at her place, but she
won’t let us move in. Too early or some such bullshit. But to be honest, I’m
shitting myself. Cos Kiwi wants me to get clean. Uh-huh, you got it, not just
in a bath sense. She wants me to finish with the gear. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I wanna say something rude to this Sue, like <i>I’ll stick it up your
arse in a minute, love </i>or <i>I stick it up with whale jizzom </i>cos that’s what I usually say when people
ask…cos I used to get it all the time. Not so much as an <i>Alright </i>or a <i> how are you </i>just <i>how do you stick your
hair up?</i> Yeah, I used to get cunts coming up to me asking me that all the
time before I…how shall I say this? I didn’t exactly get disowned by my old
friends, more I got sick of their constant hassle about the gear, you know?
Yeah, before I <i>drifted away</i>…so I’m laughing at the old memories when I
was down the Star and Garter and all the punk gigs, punk pillar, all that.
Yeah, I used to go all over the country with them, knew punks from everywhere…
good times. I miss them. So I just smile and say</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Trade secret, that.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Sue laughs.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I won’t ask if I can touch it, then…I bet lots of people want to touch
it, don’t they? It’s just so….tactile! So we meet again. So how are you, my
friend?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Not so bad. Yerself?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fantastic, thanks. I’m doing my first year in hospital.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So what are you? A nurse or a patient? They let you out of the asylum,
then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You’re funny. No, I’m a doctor.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Sue’s blushing again. I remember
what Spid said about the ladies liking a bit of rough, oh my, oh my. Images of
NHS medicine stores flit through my mind.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Doctor Sue.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Doctor Hawkins at your service. So how are you doing? Have you found a
place to live?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I put four cans of beans and eight
cans of tomatoes in my basket and she walks with me to the cheese and yoghurt
refrigerators.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-9p, alright, that. Yeah, I’m sorted, got a job too, off the social.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
This is total bullshit, but it
appears to impress Sue.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fantastic. So you’re a social worker!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No, I got it off the social- the dole: you know. Nah, I’m an advice
worker, but don’t ask us for any advice, mind, cos I’m still a trainee.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gosh, how interesting. So did you read the gospel I gave you?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m not about to tell her it went
up in smoke with the rest of the rubbish from my room, but I am tempted. After
all, she told me to ask for the lord for help and the lord warmed me up when I
was freezing half to death if you wanna look at it like that. Don’t look at me
in a bad way. I didn’t mean it as an offence. I was cold. Right? Right.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No offence, like, but you’re never gonna convert me. I’m not interested
and besides, I’m Jewish.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Are you? God has a very special place for the Jews. Do you practise?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Twenty questions, here we come. You
didn’t know that, did you? Well, did you? I’m feeling like I shouldn’t have
told her this. Is it guilt? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Remembering Bubbe Ilyana, the stories she told. The woman in the
wasteground. It’s very personal to me. I don’t like to let my front down this
easily. There’s too much stuff. Stuff that scares me: stuff that I wouldn’t
feel comfortable telling you. Why, you ask? Look at me: I let her down. When my
mum got ill, I never thought she’d die. Bubbe used to cry and cry, wailing into
the night when she found out my mum had cancer. No one expects their only child
to die before them, but for Bubbe, it was worse. It was like after all she’d
survived, all she’d seen and survived, to be punished like that, like she said;
she just stopped believing in a god. In her God. Our God. She’d wail through
the night to Hashem, muttering the Shema, whispering Tehillim every night, and
after my mum died, she just stopped. She never lit the Shabbes candles again
after that. Never.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Yeah, don’t ask me about that. Like I said, I prefer to forget. I was
just coming up to my thirteenth birthday when she died. When my Bubbe died.
Just fourteen days after my mum.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Listen, Sue, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Yeah, Sue’s god had a very special
place for Bubbe Ilyana, alright, and for my mum, and for me. Except I’m sure
you’ll agree, I’ve done this to myself, so just go stick all your bullshit in
your gobshite pipe and smoke it up the chimney, will you? You don’t know nothing,
little doctor Susie the shikse. Sorry, maybe that was out of order. But it just
pisses me off is all. I wish I’d never told her.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Okay, but that’s brilliant</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Whatever.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The queues at the checkout are phenomenal. I take advantage of the
crowds to check that the peroxide is securely positioned in the waistband of my
trousers and fish in my pocket for change.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Shit, I don’t believe it! I’ve only lost a fiver. You can’t lend me the
money for this lot until I see you again.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s worth a try. I wish to fuckery now even more that I didn’t tell her
about me being Jewish. But I’ve blown my giro already and I need my change for
the phone. Sorry to disappoint you, but when the fuck are you going to
understand that I don’t do all this shit because I want to?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
No one goes into that room in school where they have those little
careers advice sessions, do they, and when the teacher asks them when they grow
up, what do they want to be, reply, well, Miss, I want to be an intravenous
heroin addict. Do they? WELL DO THEY? Yes, I’m angry, alright? You alright with
that? Cos it’s not you with a fuckin heroin habit and a girl trying to put you
through the fuckin land of hell is it? No? No. Then shut the fuck up. You don’t
know me, ain’t walked in my boots.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh dear, gosh! You must have dropped it somewhere in here. Perhaps
someone’s handed it in. Should I ask?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
This is all I need. A tenner’s
worth of shoplifting down my trousers and having to wait around looking like a
dodgy bastard with ANARCHY emblazoned across my chest, whilst some do-gooder
makes enquiries on my behalf. Thanks, but no thanks.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No one ever hands money in if they find it. I wouldn’t.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I would.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well you’re one in a million, love, forget it.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-But you can’t afford to lose five pounds either. It’s a lot of money to
you.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, don’t patronise me. Just help us out here, Sue. I don’t have the
time to go chasin around for five quid. I’ve gotta get back to work. It’s my
first week, I’ll get the sack. You’ll get it back. It’s for food; I’ve got
nothing at home. I’ve gotta eat.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I could’ve been a doctor. Could’ve been a lot of things. Don’t look down
on me; don’t pity me, and most of all, don’t think I‘m stupid. You think I’m
nothing? You think I’m no one? Okay: let’s have a look at you. Think you know
me, do you? There’re things you don’t know about me. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, alright. I tell you what. I’ll pay for this on the condition that
you come to dinner with me and my friends.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Now she’s scribbling her number on
the back of an old receipt and handing it to me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sounds fair enough, cheers darling.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
So I put my cans with Sue’s
convenience foods on the conveyor belt and shuffle to the end of the checkout
to bag it up. £1.08 and a not so hot dinner date. Not the best graft I’ve done,
but it’s got potential.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
No. No. fuckin NO! It ain’t funny. I could definitely do without this. I
drop the Kwik Save bag where I stand and leg it over to the front garden. The
bastards, the fuckin evil bastards. I’ve squatted this place comfortably for
over two years and I thought I was safe. Swear to god I thought I was safe. And
now I come back and find all my worldlies scattered aimlessly over this
overgrown wet grass and brambles and all the windows and doors boarded up with
super-safe metal fascist barricading. Even the cellar windows. Okay, it’s not
the first time. But look at my drawings, all scattered and smeared and smudged
and blowing down the road with the litter and dog shit like rubbish. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-BASTARDS! FOCKIN BASTARD CUNTS!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m shouting to no one, to anyone
who’ll listen, anger surging through my body, fists clenching, blood pressure
going insane as I charge at the front door, kicking and thumping the brown
barricade, roaring like a mad bastard.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’LL FOCKIN KILLYOU, YOU FOCKIN BASTARD FASCIST CUNTS!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And I want to cry, but tears won’t
come. The sweat’s streaming down my face, and pure rage seeping out of my pores
at the pure injustice</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-WHERE’S ME FOCKIN TWENTY-EIGHT DAY NOTICE? WHERE THE FOCK IS IT?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s just vindictive. Pure fuckin
vindictive evil. Just because I’ve found myself shelter, just because I ain’t
paying some bastard landlord who charges extortionate rent and never kills the
cockroaches or fixes the roof, never mind the leaking sink. Now this place’ll
probably just be left to fall down, left empty, just because if one does it,
it’ll give others ideas about freedom, about squatting, right? Jealous
bastards. It’s not like you think. It’s not like you think, this world. They
won’t rent me their flats, won’t rent me their rooms. Don’t you know that? You
fockin bastards. Pity the poor, do you? Well, don’t fockin pity me. Don’t worry
about what’ll happen to me now, will you? Eh? That was my life in that room.
Might look like litter to you, but it was my life.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I need a dig. I need a fockin dig and I need it now. I give the door
one, last, gut-wrenching kick before I dig my kit bag out from under my
mattress, which lays now like a sad paralytic over chairs and drawers, and fill
it with the sodden dregs of my life. I’m tense as fuck as I scrape my boots
over the tarmac to Birchfields Park and head, smouldering, towards the rubble
of some past church forgotten amongst the trees.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I sit on a bench improvised from gravestones and shuffle through my
pockets, through fucked up drawings, pencils and useless keys, looking for my
works. The orange caps of syringes lay scattered around, their decapitated
plastic bodies half-buried, trodden into the soil. My lighter will hardly keep
its flame as I cook up. My hands are shaking and sweating despite the bag I had
earlier and my muscles feel so tense that the handle of my spoon’s digging into
my finger and thumb. The search for veins has become such a drag that I just
give up and unzip my trousers and pull them down at the front to find my fem.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Yeah, I know, I always said I’d never go in my femoral, ok, I said
enough would be enough, that I’d call it a day. I remember saying the same
about needles, the same about heroin, the same about cigarettes and the same
about eating gefilte fish. So, it’s got fuck all to do with gefilte fish, but
right now, I just don’t give a shit. I just need to blank it all out, get my
mind off this hostile society. I’ll have a dig and gouch out here for a bit
here in the park for a while; concoct a strategy to deal with the bastards.
Just when I feel that snag of the needle passing from flesh to vein, Stakki’s
words are playing in my head, mocking me</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i>-YOU’RE DYING, GARY, YOU’RE
GONNA DIE SOON, DON’T FUCKIN FORGET THAT YOU FUCKIN CUNT!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And as soon as I push the plunger,
I know that I’ve done too much. I’m passing out onto the cemetery floor,
pissing myself, dying amongst the ancient Christian gravestones. And there, in
my head, before I lose consciousness, I hear Bubbe Ilyana’s voice and she’s
singing:</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i>Shema Ysroel Adonoi elehenu adonoi echad .<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
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Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-64928100769001790842012-10-18T10:43:00.002-07:002012-10-18T10:43:37.004-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way: THE NEXT INSTALLMENT! Chapter Six<div align="left" class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>Six<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b><i><u>Helping you Back to Work<o:p></o:p></u></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The doors are locked when I arrive at the Jobcentre. A few people stand around outside, smoking, so I light up in the sod’s law that the doors will open and sit down on the curb. A girl cycles up and chains her bike to the bars that they put there for security, though I don’t know why they bothered, cos they’re kicked in and bent now at numerous attempts at robbing, most of them successful by the looks of it. A mangled, rust-flecked wheel, its tyre hanging off is attached to one of the poles by a D-shaped lock. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I’d bring that bike inside with you love</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
I tell her, eyeing the wheel and looking her in the eye. She thanks me and starts wrapping an extra chain around all the parts of the bike she can. Won’t stop ‘em robbing the handlebars or the gears, though, will it? I don’t know what’s up with me. One minute I’m robbing someone and the next I’m warning skinny women to look their bikes properly. Worth the smile she gave me, though. Real smiles don’t happen much. Why would I rob someone who’s signing on at the Jobcentre anyway? I’m not all bad, you know, seriously: I’m not. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hear the jangle of metal and everyone turns as a young bloke unlocks the doors. Here we go now, all streaming into the faceless grey room and heading towards various desks. I join my habitual signing queue, surveying my options. This is the worst hour of any given fortnight, give or take this and that. At the first desk, there’s the <st1:place w:st="on">Caribbean</st1:place> woman with the dreadlocks. She’s my best option. I can have a laugh with her; she’s friendly enough, never gives me any hassle, just lets me sign and leave. The third desk’s got that obese ex-army looking bastard smouldering behind it, General Misery I call him. If I’m next and he calls me I swear I’m going to go look at the job boards and rejoin the queue. I never get past him without grief about anything he can dream up. Last time I was in here, he was telling me I had to cut off my mohie: I mean, the cheek of it, eh? I told him he couldn’t discriminate against me on the grounds of cultural identity and you should’ve seen his face turn from puce to beetroot, nasty fucker. I asked him if my hair could read or write or fill forms and he couldn’t answer. Just like school. I reckon that if I get the other bloke, it won’t be so bad. He’s constantly skiving in the back and probably doesn’t give a toss about his job. Someone’s with the woman and the General’s calling the woman with the bike up, leaving me at the front of the queue. Leaving me with the skiver, who’s still leafing through the files. Dirty bastard: always got his fingers in someone’s drawers.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look around. Posters for various schemes on the grey felt notice board. The reception. The jobs desk. A wiry woman with a rucksack is leaning forward, one hand on the jobs desk, job card in the other, waving it at the spotty official.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-What do you mean I can’t get the job because I’ve not been signing on for long enough?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
The bloke looks sideways</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Not my rules.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Don’t give me this <i>I’m just doing my job</i> rubbish either: I’ve got a double first, an MA, fifteen years’ experience, and <i>you’re </i>telling <i>me </i>I’ve not been <i>signing on</i> long enough!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-All I can do is sign you up for the course, but you don’t qualify for that for another six weeks, so-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
The woman’s eyes bulge.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-A <i>course</i>? I don’t <i>need </i>a <i>course</i>! I can start the job tomorrow! This is ridiculous! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Nothing I can do; like I said, it’s not my rules.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-And they say they want to get people back into employment? This is ridiculous, ridiculous. Honestly!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
This place does my head in. And she’s right. It is ridiculous. I mean, she actually wants a job: so give her the job! No wonder this country’s got such a high unemployment rate if people are asking for jobs and the Jobcentre won’t let them apply. As for me, it’s my turn and guess who’s calling me up. The skiver’s been calling my name for ages and I’ve been so busy sympathising with the jobseeker that I haven’t heard him.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Mr Fitzpatrick! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Alright?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
I smile at him and hand over my book.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Mr Fitzpatrick. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
The bloke starts typing stuff into the computer, occasionally looking from the screen to my book. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I don’t think we’ve met before.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
What? He gets up without waiting for me to respond to his comment, just walks over to the filing cabinets, starts rifling through them again. I lean back, hands behind my head and yawn. The woman they wouldn’t give a job to has gone, replaced by a group of blokes with mobile phones clipped on their belts or in their hands. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-That ent worth botherin wiv, innit, don’t wanna be applying for something like that, innit?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-He don’t wanna work in a factory, innit, ent you got anyfink in a suit shop, know what I mean?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Yeah, like a fashion outlet, innit-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
The bloke’s taking ages. I’m shifting in my chair, wanting to get out of this place before it stifles me. The General’s calling his third client since the cyclist and here’s me, still sitting here. I wonder if this is how he passes his day, wasting as much time as possible so he does less work than anyone else. But he’s back now, and he’s still not asked me to sign.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Right. Mr….Fitz…patrick. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
He’s pulling up his chair now and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-So what have you been doing to look for work in the last two weeks?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
Here we go. I haven’t had this in a while. For fuck sake.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Looked through the Metro News on Friday. Applied for a couple of jobs in there and in the Big Issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was for a caseworker, right, for the homeless.</div>
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It’s not all lies, you know. I always flick through the Metro. They still put loads of crap through the letterbox of the place I live. Sometimes I’m lucky. As for the Big Issue, I know plenty of vendors and I have a look through now and again. They were looking for a caseworker, so he can check. Caseworker my arse, I’ve my own case to work on without working on someone else’s.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I see. Any other jobs?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-One’s this job up in <st1:place w:st="on">Rochdale</st1:place>. Outreach worker for an Asian Community project. The other…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-An Asian project? These jobs usually specify knowledge of ethnic community languages, do they not?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Nah, I’m really interested in the job. Listen, do you have a problem with Asian community projects or something?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Of course not</div>
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The wanker’s going red now. Stupid cunt. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Are you saying that you think there aren’t any Asian people who can speak English? Do you seriously believe it’s my only language?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-No</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Just leave it out will you. Listen, there was a woman in here earlier who was asking for a job, and you know what they told her?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Mr Fitzpartick</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-No, you listen, <i>Steve</i>, you listen, they told her she’s not been signing on long-</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Mr Fitzpatrick</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-They told her she’s not been signing on long-</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Can we just get back-</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Signing on long enough</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-to the interview</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-THEY TOLD HER SHE’S NOT BEEN SIGNING ON LONG ENOUGH TO GET A JOB! </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-O……K….could you please keep your voice down, Mr Fitzpatrick?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Are you listening to me?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-OK, can we get back to the interview now?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Come on then, what did I just say?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Right, do you keep a jobsearch diary?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Yeah, I do actually. And I also listen to you, but you don’t listen to me, do you? </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mouth might be moving faster than my politeness, but I’ve heard that one before and damn, this time I seem to have lost it again. I make a sham of looking through my pockets. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Do you have it on you?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I don’t believe it. I’ve fockin well left it at home again…fock sake…no way</div>
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-Could you mind your language please? Well, you must be aware that you should bring it with you every time you sign on, surely. You’ve been signing on for a substantial period of time now and-</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-No one told me. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-O….K….well, it seems to me that you are deliberately reducing your chances of finding full-time employment.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-What the f…</div>
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He’s typing into the computer again now and I swing round, leaning my elbows on the desk and have a look at what he’s writing <i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe that Mr Fitzpartic is deliberately reducing his<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-You spelled my name wrong.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Could you move away from the screen please Mr Fitzpatrick?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Or Mr Fitzpartic?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Sorry?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I said, you spelled my name wrong.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Oh, yes. Sorry. I’ll just correct that…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-See. I could do your job for you. I’m doing your job for you and you’re saying I’m deliberately reducing my chances of finding work. Listen up and listen up good. You don’t know me and you’re telling me that <i>you</i> think I’m deliberately reducing my chances of finding full-time employment. The spotty bloke over there- I point to the jobs desk –<i>he </i>thinks the woman who was in earlier can’t apply for a job because she’s not been signing on long enough. Figure it</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Mr Fitzpatric-</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-No, <i>Steve</i>, figure it out: this place ain’t helping no one.</div>
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Shit. Shit with a capital S. I mean, I like a good rant, but if I could snatch those seven little words from his ears and unsay them, I would. He smiles. Pulls my book out of its plastic sleeve and flicks through it. Rolls up his sleeves and, elbows on table and chin cupped in his hand, he pauses, stares at me long and hard, laughing voicelessly through his nose</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Well. This time, I’m only putting a warning against your name on the computer. But if you fail to produce a completed jobsearch diary next time you sign on, I’m going to stop your benefit.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-For fock sake, look, I can write down what I did right now…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I’ve already asked you to mind your language in here. I can cut your benefits right now if you prefer. And that won’t be necessary.</div>
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He’s shaking his head and I’m writing him a list of what I just told him on one of those scraps of paper with one of those little stubby black pens they have in there and sliding it across the desk towards him</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I said, that won’t be necessary. I’m afraid rules are rules. And with that attitude, I can tell you now that you’re virtually unemployable, so I’ll be calling you up for a Jobsearch review interview, so that we can help you to match yourself to a job which suits you. You’ll need to bring evidence of all the jobs you’ve applied for from now until the interview. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Look, I know what I wanna do. And I am applying for jobs. Like the woman I was telling you about said, this is ridiculous. Seriously. Ridiculous. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Right. I see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The skiver’s eyes narrow significantly. –Well, the interview will help you to develop your jobsearch skills. I have an appointment for you on the Friday after next at nine o’clock prompt. Failure to attend the interview will result in your benefit being cut. If you can report by half past eight to reception, there are some forms you will be asked to fill in whilst you’re waiting.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-…………</div>
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Skiving Bastard writes down the time of the interview on a slip of paper and hands it to me along with my book, a slitty smile manifesting itself on his reptilian face. Problem is, the stupid cunt’s either playing me for a fool, or he deliberately made me forget to sign on.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I need to sign on. Are you deliberately reducing my ability to sign on?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Uh, sorry, uh…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So after one of the biggest doses of bullshit I’ve ever witnessed in this shithole, I sign on. What a palaver. All that crap for one poxy signature.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Good luck then, Mr. Fitzpatrick.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I leave the social smouldering with rage, scowling as I pass the group of wannabe suit salesmen who are now hanging around outside the door. I cross the road and walk through the car park at the back of the curry houses and head to the chemist next door to the doctor’s surgery. Inside, an Asian woman is sitting on a chair, cuddling a toddler whilst she wheels a pram backwards and forwards with her other hand, waiting for a prescription. I see Gladys at the other side of the counter as I go up and lean on it. Had enough today and the day’s hardly started. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Alright, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city>, love?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Alright Gladys. Just had to sign on. Got loads of hassle, threatening to cut off my money.</div>
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Gladys shakes her head. She’s alright, is Gladys. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-They trying to make you do slave labour again?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Worse. Will you give us two bags of ten?</div>
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Gladys pulls out two silver-grey resealable bags of needles from a box under the counter and hands them to me.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-You want a bin, love? I shake my head –Don’t you worry, love, everything’ll work out for you in the end, you see if it won’t. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Cheers Gladys, love.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Now you take care, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city>, love.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Yeah, you too. See ya later.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Tarrar, love.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m moving slowly down the streets, barely looking up, kicking the cans and scattered wrappers which cling around my feet, the opening lines of a Dylan song repeating itself over and over again in my head:</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Some-one’s got it in- for me,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re- plant-ing sto-ries- in the- press.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who-ev-er it is, -I wish they’d cut it out<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when they will, -I can on-ly guess.-<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Songs my mother used to play on her record player. She loved Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen: all that stuff.</div>
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Summer’s on its way and onto the billboards are creeping huge pictures of Tony Blair, the New Labour election candidate for the general election next year, with demon eyes and the caption</div>
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NEW LABOUR NEW DANGER</div>
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Underneath in red spraypaint, someone’s written:</div>
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SAME OLD TORIES SAME OLD FASCISM</div>
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Do you think I’ll be voting? What’s the point? Honestly, what’s the point. Even if Labour do get in, they’re not real Labour anyway. Yeah, same old bullshit. As I head south down <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Wilmslow Road</st1:address></st1:street>, the clock in the bakery rejects shop reads ten past nine.</div>
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<b>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-So, what happened after I left then?</div>
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I’m sitting with Spid on one of the benches in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Piccadilly</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Gardens</st1:placetype></st1:place>, feeding the pigeons with the remnants of a stale Netto family white thick sliced loaf.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Forget it.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-No, I wanna know. What did he say after I focked off? </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Some shit about how you couldn’t face up to reality. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Fockin wanker. He’s well out of order.</div>
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I rip a slice into shreds and chuck it into the mass of pigeons. A lone sparrow dives for a piece, managing to peck a crumb before being bombarded by the diesel-blackened scrawn.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Can’t believe he only offered us a tenner for that system. Must be worth at least a couple of hundred.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Go down cash generator next, yeah? Stop changing the subject. Go on, what did the cunt say?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Kiwi well fancies you ya know. He don’t want his little sister on the gear; ya can understand it from his point of view.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Yer jokin! What? Kiwi? Never!</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I know, she’s more into her party drugs and shit.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Nah, I mean she fancies <i>me</i>!</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-She’s liked you for ages, Gaz, don’t tell me it wasn’t obvious.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-What the fock?</div>
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I’m smiling inside now. All this time…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-I know, mate, takes all sorts. Fock knows what she sees in you, but some women like a bit of rough-</div>
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He’s pissing himself laughing now, and normally, I’d have started getting all arsy with him, but…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Cheers for telling us before, mate.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Well you know now, don’t ya, eh? Something you been hiding then, eh?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Spid, mate, I fockin <i>love </i>that girl…</div>
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I’m grinning all over now, standing up and flinging the rest of the loaf over the path and into the grass, followed by a flea-ridden flapping of wings.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five a.m. Light oozes through the mesh of membranous curtains as I flicker out of a light and futile sleep. I shift onto my back under the heavy army jacket which lays, crustaceous, draped over my blanketed form.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cringing awake in still-drunk opiate need. Primary opiate, secondary opiate: risk reduction harm reduction. Flashes of history, Irish- (Jewish on the maternal side), the maternal instinct, the far side, right side, left side, left, right, left, right; wrong. Left wrong, long-gone. Cat’s got the biscuit, mother, fine-featured, long-fingered, leaning into the oven with a cloth, cinnamon-hot oven-air scorching the down on her face. Terror. They put them in the ovens. And I sob to myself, never-known pain of a generation I have not witnessed.</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>About time too eh? So here it is as promised...a slight delay, but not too bad! So-</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>Apologies for the long wait. Many thanks to all those who have followed me from the beginning and to those just starting to read now. Without you there would be no blag. </strong></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>Love and inspiration to all of you</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<strong>Vee X</strong></div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-2381652414637957222012-09-25T10:10:00.003-07:002012-09-25T10:10:51.531-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way Chapter Five<br />
<div class="MsoFooter" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Five</b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><u>The
Whole Bag</u></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Nadine leaves the cinema knowing. It’s obvious. She can’t believe she
didn’t think of it before. She’s discovered something new and incredible to
fill the intense boredom and despair between writing essays for her BA in Film
Studies. She pictures the lifelike realism of the scenes depicted in the film,
the skill of the director in his use of lighting effects to capture the essence
of the post-modern, urban lifestyle. She considers it all the way back to
Didsbury on the bus; how it must feel, the raw hedonism, the pain. She imagines
the pleasure as she lays between her <i>Habitat </i>Egyptian cotton sheets,
fragrant with her new organic aromatherapy foaming bath oil, she pictures the
room where it all took place, the faces of the characters etched into her
dreams.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She returns to the cinema four times in the week to watch the film. As
she grows familiar with the lives of the characters, the subtleties of the
plot, the locations, the language, she begins to embrace the sheer amplitude of
the journey of knowledge and enlightenment upon which she is soon to embark.
Each time she witnesses the opening scene, the music reinforcing the depth of
its meaning like metal studs on a biker jacket, her determination to experience
total harmony with the film’s characters is topped up withy super unleaded. On
the fifth day, she buys the book. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Lectures drag on. She’s finding it impossible to hear the lecturer over
the Circle and District Line of her brain. Her notes become sketches of the
main characters and his close-knit circle of friends, surrounded by the names
of the actors, characters, best boys and boom operators. By the end of the
week, she’s discovered the world of Longsite Market’s pirate video vendors.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The first person to share the pirate video extravaganza is Jont. Nadine
watches his Harrow-boy countenance with interest throughout the showing, keenly
awaiting the signs of disgust or fascination to register upon his thoughtful
brow. Analysing his opinion in this matter proves fruitless as the plot absorbs
her once more. During a relevant scene, she speaks:</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It is, you know.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You haven’t! Fuck me, Nadine, that’s awful! You don’t still do it?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Every day…I can’t help it.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You…surely it’s just a matter of, well, not doing it any more?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You don’t understand: I’m in Hell…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
After this satisfactory
fabrication, Nadine finds it easier to become more deeply involved with the
infrastructure of the characters’ psyches, allowing her to create for herself a
more stable post-urban environment in which to exist. The transitional stages
between the reality of the plot and her own life-text will be the hardest.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The first stage could have been selected from amongst a number of action
plans. To begin with, she has the notion that a purchase will be the obvious
way forward, but she realises that this will barely be possible without first
creating a suitable environment in which to fulfil this end. The Salvation Army
are delighted with their new acquisitions, although what to do with a
mattressless bed is a trifle puzzling. Stage two involves creating a general
awareness of her predicament amongst friends and contemporaries. For she is, at
this point, a part of her own illusion, believing she has reached the unknown,
when, in actual fact she has yet to venture within vomiting distance of the
clan of whom she claimed ruthlessly to be a part. Stage three proves to be
wearing. But now that she is wearing the right clothes and has aquired the
layer of grime which she considers obligatory, she is ready to begin.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s incredible, she thinks as she looks into the grey-green eyes of
yours truly: not only am I the first that she has approached, but she believes
I can satisfactorily fulfil her retail needs. She’s never spoken to a real-life
punk before and she’s scared. She said knew that I was a <i>smack-head </i>the
moment she saw me: punks always are, she says, The Sex Pistols started it. They
were all at it, her Auntie Maisie had told her once, <i>‘Like spiky-haired
rats’</i>. The high speed walk beside me down Great Western Street makes her
innards fizz like bicarb and citric in water. She looks around, hoping to be
seen with me, her maharishi, her initiator. As we reach a telephone box on the
dual carriageway, I pull the door open, step in and let it swing shut behind
me. Nadine loiters around the phone box, watching the cars flash past. Grass
sprouts from the cracks in the tarmac mixed with crystals of shattered glass
and cigarette butts.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right, give us yer money and wait ‘ere. Be about five minutes. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-How do I know you’re going to come back?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You can’t come with us- he don’t know ya. D’ya want the stuff or not?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yes, but…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, you know where to find me anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She reluctantly hands over a crisp,
bank machine ten pound note and watches as I dodge the high speed traffic and
head towards Quinney Crescent. Ten minutes later, we’re heading back the way
they we came.</div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The grains crunch tasteless between her teeth. Nadine pours the contents
of the foil sweet wrapper into a water-filled teaspoon and strikes a match,
following the instructions. Spikes of water hit her hand like the fizz of a
dispersible vitamin C as she boils her mini-crucible. But the grains remain
intact at the bottom of the spoon. She can’t be doing it right. She boils the
teaspoon dry, scraping the orange-brown residue into a Rizla and adding tobacco
from a Marlboro Light. As she smokes, she relaxes, lying back on her mattress,
willing herself to be ushered into the dark.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Facing me proves to be a trifle embarrassing, owing to her obvious lack
of knowledge beside such a master. As she approaches my dishevelled form, I
shift slightly in my crouched position and glance sideways at her, pulling on a
crumpled rollie. </div>
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-Yeah, I know, love. Before you say anything, I’ve got me brother to
kick the fock out of him. I got fockin brick dust and all. Still got the
wrapper at home on me floor. Put the citric in it and it don’t fockin dissolve.
I was rattling to fock and all. Took us til six in the morning to score. </div>
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Nadine takes mental notes on technique.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m sorry, I thought…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Na, love, you can trust me. You know where I am for fock sake- I’m not
into ripping people off. I’m going down later if you wanna come.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Thanks Gary, I’d really appreciate that.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Laindon Road in Longsite has always struck Nadine as a quiet, orderly
neighbourhood. Tonight, though, the atmosphere is several rungs below the
atmospherically lit room and the warm, slyly affectionate greeting of the
salesman she has come to expect. Yellow streetlights buzz and hiss as kids on
mountain bikes circle parked cars, occasionally stopping to lurk on street
corners. She follows me out of the all night convenience store carrying the
apple she’s bought for fifty-eight pence and hands me the change. I step into
the phonebox and she slinks in after me. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
We lean back against the dilapidated terrace wall in silence. <i>We’re
just waiting for a taxi- waiting for a taxi. Just waiting for a taxi, waiting
for a taxi- waiting for a taxi…</i>my instructions turn into a nervous rap
behind her eyes. She feels small and insignificant alongside me, acutely
conscious of her southern intonation and Airwalk trainers, of the lack of dirt
under her fingernails and the sweaty banknotes wrapped around the Barclaycard
which she’s clutching inside her Stussy hoodie pocket.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, I’m gonna try him one more time, then I’m trying someone else.
He’s fockin us about ‘ere. You might as well get off and I’ll meet you later
when I’ve got it. You don’t wanna be hanging around: might be ages. See you
about half eleven, usual place.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright, see you later.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You’d better give us yer money. You want three, right? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She’s not sure, but she thinks she
hears me snicker to myself as I watch her strut off in the direction of Daisy
Bank Road. They might call it Victoria Park, but that’s just a convenient way
to get students living in Longsite.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I’m sitting in the milkshake bar on Wilmslow Road with Lee. Liam’s just
gone for a dig in the toilets upstairs and he’s made Lisa wait outside and keep
on begging ‘til she’s made enough for herself, cruel cunt. Nothing I can do but
tell him he’s wrong. Shouldn’t treat her like that, can’t stand to watch it.
It’s nearly eleven. Splinters of hard, white rain pelt the windows, running
down the pink-captioned glass in streetlight-orange rivulets. People whisk by
outside, holding their collars and hoods up against the storm. Cars, taxis and
buses vomit torrents of spray onto the curry-house-neon pavements, soaking any
cyclist daft enough to be navigating the cycle lanes, blocked as they always
are with parked cars and delivery vans. I take two sachets of brown sugar from
a glass on the counter and pour one into my tea, which I stir before pocketing
the spoon. The other, I proceed to pulverise through the packet with my
lighter. Then I open it and pour it into the minimal contents of a re-sealable
plastic bag and shake it fervently. Ha, you like this? You like my style, my grammar,
my florid language? My tactics? My cunning? We ain’t all stupid, you know. Not
even Nadine. She’s just lost the plot. We’re all in the gutter, Oscar Wilde
said, but some of us are looking at the stars. She’s been looking at too many
stars, I reckon, got her head stuck up there. As usual, I’m doing someone a
favour. The less heroin, the less habit…I’m quite pleased with myself, truth be
told.</div>
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-Does this look like three bags to you<i>? </i>I ask.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Lee explodes with laughter.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Nadine’s hovering in the vicinity of <i>Cool Wines Hot Videos</i>,
obviously edgy. Lisa sits shivering beneath her blanket on the step,
mouth-but-not-eyes smiling as I approach.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-‘ere ‘e is. Oi, Gazza, she bin looking for ya.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright Lise. Nadine, it’s all in one bag. Want a biscuit?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I pull out half a packet of cookies
out of my pocket, hand Nadine a bag-biscuit sandwich, then hold out the packet
for Lisa.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You wanna watch yerself with that stuff, it’s fockin dynamite, innit,
Gaz?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I grin and nod.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-She’s right, you know, love, take it easy, know what I’m saying?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What ya say yer name is?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nadine.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nadine. D’ya toot it or dig it?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m sorry?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-D’ya toot it? Smoke it on foil? Or inject?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>* *
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The anticipation manifests itself in horror. This is it. She’s been
building herself towards this moment for so long that the reality of the
situation softens the contents of her large intestine and sends it arsewards.
Clenching her cheeks, she speed-shuffles towards her front door, ferreting in
her pocket for her keys. In the darkness, thoughts of using the pavement had
crossed her mind, but fear of exposure forbade it. The key’s in the lock and
her bowels are surging horribly. Climbing the stairs is horrific; she can feel
the stagnant matter seeping into her Valentino knickers, smearing between her
arse cheeks as each leg moves onto the next stair. Her keys drop between the
banisters as she tears open her flies, flies round the corner and onto the
toilet, as what feels like a pint of water cascades into the pan. She exhales
hard and examines the extent of the damage. Two moist, sticky skidmarks. She’s
appalled. Removing them along with her self-scissor-massacred jeans, she slings
the offending items into the washbasin before realising that she’s left the
front door open.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
A sweetbitter taste. More sweet. This is more like it. She dabs again at
the powder, its flavour registering in her mental catalogue, before emptying a
small amount onto a square of tinfoil. Better to test it safely, wean herself
in gently.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The effect is not as she expected. Nothing. This is not happening, she
thinks, emptying a third of the bag onto the black broccoli of residue on the
foil, an acrid taste in her mouth, in which she holds a tinfoil tube as
detailed by Lisa. She tries again, the powder melting as before, but this time
running down the foil as she inhales its smoke successfully.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She feels it in her legs first, a heavy warmth, and then in her stomach.
She turns to place the foil on the vegetable crate coffee table and a wave of
nausea hits her, pre-vomit saliva surging as she makes a second dash to the
bathroom. Nothing is left to come up as she views yesterday’s spinach and
ricotta cannelloni merging with milky Special K and what could only be this
evening’s portion of chips, the primary heave. Staggering to her mattress, she
flops onto her back and drifts into a semi-consciousness of strange dreams and
eventually, sleep.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m onto a winner with Nadine. She wants three bags a day? She gets
three bags a day, courtesy of yours truly and the Organic Fairtrade Sugar
Company. <i>Produce of Barbados</i>. And Afghanistan, possibly: the lesser
contents ain’t exactly clearly labelled, though it should be. Sell it in Boots
the chemist, they should: make my life a hell of a lot easier at any rate. </div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m not in my usual spot when Nadine pays her visit to Rusholme three
weeks later, pins and spoon and citric in pocket. In my place sits the teen
waif, Lisa. Heroin-chic heroin chick, the girl with the flaxen hair. Beautiful
heroin angel. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hiya Lise. I was looking for Gaz, have you seen him?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah. Wanna score?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Nadine half-smiles. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You going?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-When me geezer gets back.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
On cue, a gangly bloke in scraggy
army surplus gear crosses the road holding a blanket.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oi! Fort you woz goin’. Oo the fock’s this? Oi, who the fock ‘re you?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Lisa cowers. Liam lurches. Grabs
Lisa by the shoulders and a full-scale domestic ensues, (if one could call it a
domestic, given the circumstances) <i>I do not believe it! He is actually
punching her!</i> Nadine doesn’t feel like sticking around, it’ll only be a
matter of time before she gets hit too.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ya comin’ then? ‘s alright, ‘e fort ye was a pig or somefink.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Links corner. Behind an old, blue Ford Transit a young woman pulls a
plastic bag out of her mouth. Gold teeth are visible as she opens the bag to
reveal a cluster of cling-film wrapped packages of heroin. Like a bag of frozen
peas. There are at least fifty. Lisa hands over a ten pound note, crumpled and
sweaty. Nadine gives the woman twenty five pounds in fresh-from-the-bank notes.
One for Lisa, three for Nadine. Only Lisa has to share her bag with Liam. It’s
been a bad night and just for now, she’s going to straighten herself out with
this little bit as best she can before she heads to Chicken Run corner to find
a punter. She can’t stand to do it straight, tries her best to avoid it, but
it’s getting tough to fund the two of them, and tonight’s the worst, cos the
rain puts off the punters. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Scarletts smiles at Lisa. She likes her. Shouldn’t be doing gear, not at
her age. Sixteen, did she say? Looks on the downside of fourteen, but you can’t
always tell. Then again, isn’t Jesmond’s little cousin out punting gear every
Friday night off his mountain bike for the big man? And he’s only eight. You
can’t get done when it ain’t you sellin’ and what would a little kid be doing
selling brown? Too much problem for the five-O. What chance does the poor
little fucker have, up to nuff shit and he’s not even hit ten. Right little
gobshite, playing the hardman. Fifty-fifty he’d end up like his uncle anyway,
the way he worships him. The youth start young and they die before they hit
twenty if they don’t use their brains. At least she’s her own boss, to a
certain extent. Regular customers- well, it’s not like it’s a hard sell. The
A-1 vendors’ market. She wonders if the posh bird thinks she wants to be doing
this. It wasn’t exactly her childhood dream, but it’s hard starting up in
business when you’re broke. A few more months of this is all, and then she’ll
have enough to buy up some stock for her market stall. Start small and work up.
She ain’t doing it for a joke, you know: she knows how to put an outfit
together that’d make this gimpy girl Nadine into the Dancehall Queen, no lie.
But she looks out of place here, Nadine does. Messin with things she don’t
understand. Naïve as they come. If Lisa’s got any sense, she’ll blag her third
bag off her easy. That cunt Liam’ll knock her out and stamp on her head for the
lot if she stays around long enough. It’s not as though she’ll be running to
the police saying someone stole her heroin, now, is it?</div>
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<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
In the toilets of the milk bar, Lisa and Liam watch as Nadine slides the
needle into a perfect vein, blue against a red-brown sunburnt arm. Blood
registers first time. They exchange glances. <i>She did say she does three bags
a day…perhaps she normally goes in her legs. Shy in front of Liam…</i>Dirt
under her unbitten nails, pushing down the plunger on a one mil insulin-only.
She staggers, slumps. Falls. A dull thud, then a trickle of blood on the toilet
bowl. Blue skin. Blue. Check her pockets. Just the one bag, Liam’s got the
other. Blue.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Get the fock outa here!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Liam! Call a fockin ambulance. We can’t jost leave ‘er!-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You fockin watch us leave the daft bint-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-But Liam! Get the fock off us, yer ‘urtin us- we can’t jos-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fockin gerra move on!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i>Down the stairs, white tiles,
pink walls. Strawberry milk, mango milk, banana milk, ice cream sundae,
knickerbocker glory. Glass door, taxis, buses, turn the corner.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Come on, ya daft bitch</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-For fock sake, Liam! We gottoh phone an ambulance! Liam!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Shut it. Just fockin SHUT IT! She’s the eightf person ta die this year
an’ I ain’t gonna be fockin responsible fer anovva daft bitch oo lies ta lok
‘ard.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Liam, she might not be dead-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, bitch, I’m gonna fockin deck ya in a minute.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-But Liam, can’t we jost-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Sirens. Flashing blue lights. Liam
legs it. Lisa isn’t far behind.</div>
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Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-80927655466094120802012-09-25T10:06:00.000-07:002012-09-25T10:06:19.460-07:00Poems from NowhereHey everyone,<br />
I've added a new page of poetry to Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way. I'll add to it as and when. You'll find the link at the top of my main blog.<br />
POEMS FROM NOWHERE<br />
<a href="http://www.gravedigginpoetry.blogspot.com/">http://www.gravedigginpoetry.blogspot.com</a><br />
<br />
I hope you enjoy reading.<br />
Love&Inspiration,<br />
Vee XGravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-26974016572769542152012-09-15T09:17:00.001-07:002012-09-15T09:27:53.441-07:00<br />
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An Intoxicating Journey with Ruth Johnston: Word
Intoxication <o:p></o:p></h1>
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Take an hour of your time. Take two. Just for you. Time when no one else
is around. Hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. Because this time’s just
for you. It’s time to allow Ruth Johnston to take you to the edge of life with
her new anthology of poetry. Let her tantalise you with semantics. She said it.
And she’s not lying: it’s <b>Word Intoxication</b>. Are you ready? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now imagine you’re sitting in an old, oak rocking chair, padded with velvet
and chenille cushions. You’re ready? No? There’s a wide, open fire burning,
enough logs to stay alight for hours, a footstool to lay your feet. And if you
like dogs, there’s one right there, dozing in front of you, warm and cosy in
the fire’s glow. She won’t be bothering you; she’s been fed. Or are you a cat
lover? There’s a cat on your lap, purring and content. Are you ready? What’s
missing? Ahhh, a crisp glass of cold white wine. You prefer red? Here it is,
woody and warming. The open bottle’s right beside it. Perfect. Because you
won’t be leaving that chair. You won’t even notice if you need to get up to go
to the toilet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Because you’re holding Ruth
Johnston’s new book. Open the beautifully illustrated cover, which is as sexy
and risqué as her poems of lust, love and desire. Flick to the first page and
prepare to be intoxicated. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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From her smack-in-the-face opening, <b>First Blood</b>, right through to
the final whispers of <b> Sea Echoes</b>,
Ruth sure lets you know she’s in the room. Her first words hit you like a
truck: unexpected, harsh, powerful. And you’re immediately mesmerised. She’s
got you where she wants you. You’re under her spell. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>As I kneel
within your mess,<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>sweet
ecstasy <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b> breathes within
my chest.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Nostalgia runs through Ruth’s
poetry like barbed wire and jasmine petals. She calms, satisfies, then strikes.
Sensual and all at once painful: the sentiments expressed are in the balance of
emotions and stark, livid contrasts. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In her passionately moving
dedication to her Father, <b>The Man In The Moon</b>, she enchants you with
smells and textures of childhood, moving chronologically through to her
devastating loss, mourning and final acceptance: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Soft cashmere
sweaters,<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b> That smelled so
good,<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b> always of soap
and sandalwood<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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With the juxtaposition of the
seemingly oxymoronic, she stuns you with her slyly witty proverbs, at times,
reminiscent of William Blake, such as the simple yet universal short verse, <b>Truth.
<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b> Word Intoxication </b>is loaded
with raw human emotion. Ruth’s language is both metaphorical and in-yer-face.
Her slapstick yet grey comedy will have you laughing in delight. In <b>Washing</b>,
she fools us: within the apparently mundane, we encounter the fear of loss: in <b>Hangover
Day</b>, the final line catches us and draws a knowing smile. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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In <b>Word Intoxication</b>,<b> </b>we
are never far from the harsh, the brutal, beautiful, yet often painful
realities of life: betrayal, death, fear, growing young and growing old. It’s
all there: Ruth’s unflinching verse takes you through the stages of birth,
rebirth, death and beyond. From tedious household chores, to the heights of
eroticism, from simple pleasures of motherhood to her vivid descriptions of
abuse, to the ultimately soothing, almost-sung lullaby-like motifs. Ruth’s
poetry speaks right to the heart.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Your intent was
never to destroy me<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b> Only to enjoy me.</b>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The printed copy of <b>Word
Intoxication </b>will be available within the next two to three weeks, so to
get a taster of Ruth Johnston’s work, curl up, turn off your phone and check
out Ruth’s blog at: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.wildernesschicpoem.blogspot.com/">http://www.wildernesschicpoem.blogspot.com</a>
</div>
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<b>Word Intoxication </b>is
available now for Kindle here: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-muumrFgrvvA/UFSsdvv-qwI/AAAAAAAAAC0/rp39_MZ4Wk8/s1600/wordintox.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-muumrFgrvvA/UFSsdvv-qwI/AAAAAAAAAC0/rp39_MZ4Wk8/s1600/wordintox.png" /></a></div>
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Word-Intoxication-Wildernesschic-Poetry-ebook/dp/B00966A12Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=utf8&qid=134737378&sr=1-1<o:p></o:p></div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-4298284811375956392012-09-13T05:46:00.003-07:002012-09-13T06:09:47.333-07:00Last Son In Havana<span style="line-height: 200%;">I gave you my life</span><br />
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And I passed you the bottle</div>
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We drank like a knife</div>
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Cutting Freud on full throttle</div>
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I don’t give my heart</div>
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But I gave it to you</div>
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Without her( )in the start</div>
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Of my substitute blues</div>
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And the band played boleros</div>
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The double bass snagged</div>
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Was the first time I’d cared oh</div>
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How sweet when we shagged</div>
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And the balcony shuddered</div>
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The drain stank of shit</div>
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And the cats chased each other</div>
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(You sucked on my tit)</div>
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Do you know how it happened</div>
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How good turned to bad</div>
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Or why I seek maps of</div>
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The way back from sad</div>
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I thought that I’d found it</div>
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The day that we wed</div>
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But there’s no way around it</div>
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We don’t share a bed</div>
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And strange as it seems</div>
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(Do I miss your embrace?)</div>
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I relive it in dreams</div>
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Of the dragons I’ve chased<br />
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<span style="line-height: 200%;">© Vee 1993-2012 </span></div>
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Note: with the word 'son', I refer to a style of Cuban music, rather than a male offspring </div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-7820603123719627632012-09-13T05:05:00.000-07:002012-09-13T06:11:24.154-07:00A Month in the Absence of Imploding Love<br />
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The day I drove away from you, you were drinking. You said you’d take me to court to keep our kids away from drug addicts. Your voice, loud enough to qualify for a job on stage. Our daughter, our son, curling up and clinging to me. It was bed time.</div>
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“Your mother’s a fuckin junkie. Your mother’s taking drugs. Your mother’s injecting heroin.”</div>
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But you know I’m not, don’t you.</div>
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This is how I have to love you from now. Away from the street we once shared, the same streets, the same houses and parked cars look different. On the estate, the old brown Cortina pimped with chrome has lost the smile I used to give it. In the supermarket, I buy food for our children, but never for me. I buy brandless shampoo without bothering to smell it first, and cheap baby wipes. I don’t buy rice anymore. You told me a meal is not a meal without rice. Last week, I cooked a curry and rice and left it to putrify, day after day, until the smell became too much. Even the dog seemed repulsed by it as she watched me scrape it into her bowl. Now a silence of insults and condemnations divide us. This is how I have to love you from now.</div>
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You sent me texts asking me why. Do you honestly not know why? You say I have kidnapped our children. How can I force them to speak to you? They’ve been through enough. Don’t you think? They tell me no and no and I don’t know and my heart breaks. I am not punishing you; it’s not how you tell me in texts and emails. Oh, you. You say you still love me. Well, I heard that once with a black eye and all-over bruises. I stayed and hoped and wished and believed in romantic ill-usions. It makes no sense any more. Romantically slinging words like practise cricket balls. Prostitute; slag; descara’a; junkie; smackhead; babylon; traitor. Cunt; bastard; arsehole; shit; alchie; abuser. </div>
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Remember when you said to me,</div>
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‘Don’t ever tell me you love me again’</div>
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It made you angry, you said.</div>
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Last night, you texted me that you had no money. That the house was too big, that you wanted three pounds to buy cigarettes. Our home, where I fucked you at the kitchen sink in broad daylight, still doing the dishes and laughing, me asking you if you thought the neighbours were looking. Our home, where the kids planted carrots and beetroots and moonflowers. Are the beetroots ready yet? Did you eat the kids’ rainbow carrots? The children were so excited when they bit through purple skin to find orange inside. They will be no good for eating if you leave them too long: you might as well. Our home, where you banged the bathroom door shouting</div>
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“Are you enjoying your injections?”</div>
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The moonflowers died before we left, eaten by the slugs.</div>
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I cannot answer. I have no words. Meanings get lost in translation and as the insomniac hours draw in, I sit, alone, listening to our children’s soft, sleepy breathing. I thought we would share foreverness and the misery of old age, waiting to see who dies first.</div>
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It wasn’t enough, our volcanic, hateful, jealous, sick love. Only self-hate could keep us there longer, with your frustrated rants concerning my 'imminent overdose'. My 'subsequent death'. You always said you’d find another woman, someone ‘better than me’.</div>
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But I’m still alive, still here. </div>
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When I met you, I had six months heroin free. I traded my elixir for our wet, psycho-fucks which had me craving endlessly more. I substituted marriage for the intravenous heroin I once thought was all I would ever want or need, until I thought I’d need nothing else but you. </div>
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It wasn’t endless, though, was it? What do you think we would achieve if I came back? It’s unexpectedly hard for me to write this. I don’t want to cry any more. I was crying every day before I left. Do you remember?</div>
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Do you remember when we walked though <span lang="ES-MX">Parque</span> Central and you wouldn’t hold my hand? Do you remember sharing a <i>Vegas, </i>always twenty sweet-papered, cigar-flavoured cigarettes a day between us, and half and half made ten. The tiny, cardboard-petitioned room, storm rain dripping through two hundred years of plaster, wood and horsehair and landing on our naked, sweating fuck-bodies. Do you remember how I would shout '<i>Vete pa’ la pinga' </i>at total strangers in the street? '<i>Go to the dick', </i>a strange translation for 'fuck off'. Havana killed me with guava rum from <span lang="ES-EC">Pinar</span> del Rio, drank straight from the bottle, and her lecherous street boys who touch before speaking. We killed each other with obsessive, unyielding suffocation. You never believed a word I said.</div>
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“Lying junkie!”</div>
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So as I read your hidden messages to an Argentinian woman with a face like mine, as I read your romance to her, her who you called your princess of love, as I read your invitation for her to come to live with you, of your lies that we were separated, that I 'knew about her and didn’t mind', so the cravings for heroin set in. Don’t you think that reaction is normal for a ‘fuckin junkie’, no matter how long abstinence is? My only surprise is that I didn’t go score a bag and pin it up years ago. I tried to forgive you. I tried so hard. But how could I forgive, with your constant word-debacle and counter-accusations? I am not you. I did not do as you did. Neither did I use heroin. You used to ask me about every mark, every bruise. You’d look and ask me,</div>
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‘What’s that bruise?’</div>
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‘I don’t know’</div>
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‘What’s that dot in the middle of it?’</div>
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‘How the fuck should I know?’</div>
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‘Looks like a needle mark to me’</div>
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How I wished it was. </div>
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I could have done it soon after our daughter was born. I had so many contacts then. It would have taken one phone call and my old best dealer would have been waiting for me in the bus stop visible from our old front window in Sheffield within ten minutes. I could have done that when you were out. You would never have noticed.</div>
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I could have done it when I dropped our daughter off at nursery. Half the mothers were on the gear, weren’t they? I could have had a word in their ear and gone to the needle exchange across the road, bought some citric and be straight enough to walk home happy for a good fuck in the child-free hours. You wouldn’t have noticed.</div>
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When they gave me the diamorphine before my operation, I tried not to enjoy it. But fuck, it would have been magic if they’d put just a little more in. After the post-op pharmy smack wore off, the nurses treated me like a naughty child when I cried through the night, every night, because they wouldn’t give me enough to kill my pain. I was in agony. You were angry with them, do you remember? You demanded to see the boss and we both knew some insider was swigging the oramorph, skipping patients’ doses. Because I spent my days clock-watching for the next dose, and my hospital sheet lied. You swung from kind to cruel, telling me I had my operation so I could have a nice cunt for someone else. Don’t you think I deserve a nice cunt? You try giving birth twice and prolapsing: fucker. </div>
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And as I heart-wrenchingly debate a return to the pin and spoon, of morning aches and the endless search for the return to normal, you sit in our family home, waiting for me to come back. I can’t do either. Much as I crave the two kids two parents set up, I can’t go back. You and me were exhausting. Now, I can breathe. Much as I crave the needle, I think of our kids. Do you think they would notice?</div>
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Don’t you think they noticed how desperately unhappy we were together? You sit, now, in our family home, amongst our things, my books, the kids’ toys, their clothes and writing, my violin.</div>
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Are my dirty knickers still on the floor where I left them? When I left, the sheets were still washing in the machine. Did you hang them out to dry? Do you wank, sniffing my dirty knickers, thinking about me pissing in your mouth and how we fucked on the trampoline, naked, at three in the morning. Or is it just words? The “I still love you” line. Does it matter how much we love when we don’t know how to love without destruction?</div>
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I was about to tell the kids a story when you started shouting, remember? Do you remember how much they loved to snuggle up with me in bed and hear the stories I invented for them? Do you remember telling me to stop telling them overexciting stories at bed time?</div>
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So now I sit here, in someone else’s house, without you. I don’t want to be bitter. I don’t have the space in my heart to be angry anymore. You are who you are and I’m not easy to live with either. I told you never to marry a heroin addict again, no matter if they’re using or not.</div>
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‘You weren’t a heroin addict when I met you; you were clean.’</div>
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Well, I use deoderant and like my baths. Ah, but how naïve you thought you weren't. Didn’t you tell me, over and over, year after year, how your best friend <span lang="ES-EC">Jicoteo</span><span lang="ES-EC"> </span>died of an overdose, ten years clean? I told you it was suicide. You said no; no, it was too strong for him. It gave him a heart attack, clutching his chest post-injection, crying, ‘Mama, Mama, mi <span lang="ES-EC">corazon</span>!’<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I’m sorry I scared you with confessions of my desire for heroin. I couldn’t handle the pain, my beautiful boy. Do you remember when I called you that, when first we were lovers in Havana? Back then, I never thought I’d hurt so much as I do now. I never thought I could love anyone like I loved you. Sometimes, I have wanted to hate you until the stars implode. </div>
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It’s dark and autumn is creeping up with the smell of wood smoke. Our trips to cut wood won’t happen now. Will they? Do you really think I wanted to leave?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
My heart is smashed into pieces on concrete like a plated dinner thrown against suburban dining room wallpaper, pieces of steak detaching and globbing onto shag-pile carpet. Gravy running around the contours of red flocked flowers.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I never intended to stay away. But I didn’t have the choice.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 32px;">
Grrrr.... Hope you're all having a better time than me hahaha,</div>
<div style="line-height: 32px;">
Love& inspiration, Vee X</div>
<div style="line-height: 32px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="line-height: 32px;">All work remains the property of the author © 1993-2012 </span><br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-43065285579282096262012-09-13T04:53:00.002-07:002012-09-13T06:09:09.714-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way Chapter Four<br />
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b>Here's Chapter four of Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way. For those of you who have been wondering, the Mancy Way (pronounced Manky Way) is slang for the Mancunian Way, the dual carriageway which snakes through and over Manchester. So it's not 'Mansie', but Manky. I hope you enjoy reading. Thank you as always for taking the time to read and comment. Have a beautiful day all. Love&Inspiration, Vee X</b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b>Four<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b><i><u>Holidays in the sun<o:p></o:p></u></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I see Spid sitting on the sofa on the walkway outside his front door as
I reach the top of the stairway. As I approach him, a grin spreads over his
face, his eyes screwing into wrinkles as he dangles a set of keys in front of me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What’s that?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He puts them deep into his pocket.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Front door, burglar alarm and bedroom. <i>Burglar alarm</i>! Ha! That,
my friend, is the key to the kingdom of fucking liberation.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, can you elaborate on that?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid stands up, taking a swig from
his can of Special Brew and grinding his spliff end under his heel. I follow
him inside. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ve screwed her in more ways than one, Gaz, more ways than one.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He’s laughing, taking out the keys
and admiring them, sunlight catching sharp, newly-filed steel edges and casting
dots onto the walls like a mirrored disco ball. –Six quid it cost me to get
these cut. Plus a tenner’s worth of the great Gardner’s crop Ah, but is it
gonna be worth the price!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-That bird you left with last night? Sara?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sa-rah. Sarah, yeah. Got her fucked on skunk in order to pull off a
brilliant manoeuvre. Robed the keys, got ‘em cut, back in bed before she woke
up. Had a nice chat with Tania over fried breakfast and all. Should see the
place: it’s a fockin gold mine. They’ve even got one of those coffee makers
what froths the milk for you.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Never been there myself.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Tania’s parents are loaded, apparently. The dad’s a banker or
accountant or fuck knows what, she didn’t say, just said he’s <i>big in finance</i>,
fuck sake, banker wanker, and the mum’s a lawyer or barrister or something, <i>in
law. </i>I dunno, but they’re all rich cunts in that house, right. Went into
the bathroom and there’s this <i>Tag Heuer </i>watch on the sink. Left it,
though, for future reference.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It’d have been in me pocket and straight down the cash generator, no
questions asked.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, but use your brain, Gaz. I’ve got the keys and we’re gonna be
looking at more than a fockin watch. It’s gonna be airline tickets and a
holiday for us, courtesy of Rich Student Wankers, inc.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He’s talking at me like I’ve even
got a passport. I’ve never had a passport. But Amsterdam don’t sound like a bad
idea. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Amsterdam?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-My sentiments exactly. Just gotta find a time when they’re all out and
we’re in there…did you go to that party then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ended up gouching out in the attic through most of it. Aaron’s meant to
be cooking a meal tonight; Stakki and Kiwi are down there…you got Tania’s phone
number, then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, if she gave us the right number. Ain’t you got it?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Have I fuck. What about signing on? If we fuck off, they’ll kick us
off.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid gives me one of those looks
like I’m stupid and he has a job putting up with me. I told you before,
sometimes I think I’m an expert at mind reading, right: always thinking I know
all the bad shit people are thinking about me. But I know Spid, and if he’s got
something to say, he’ll come straight out with it.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck that. Fuck sake, Gaz, we’re going on holiday. Chill out.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Students, right? Always down the pub. Give her a ring, see what they’re
up to. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Dunno, might look a bit sus.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Not if you meet her after we done ‘em over.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Come on. You gotta understand I have me principles. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I put a bit of filter onto my
spoon, watching the liquid level sink just a touch as it’s absorbed into the filter.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ll come with yer, chat bollocks with Tania. Go on, at least we’ll be
sure they won’t come home if we’re meeting them. Give Sarah a ring.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What if she wants me to stay over?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You don’t want that. Jesus, this is too fockin complex. Got a pin? You
want some of this with me?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Don’t you want all of it?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Did enough for both of us.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nice one, cheers. Who’d ya get it off?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Scarletts. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Her gear’s shit, man.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, this stuff’s fockin dynamite. Same stuff as I had last week.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I was asleep for ages after that.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It’s good stuff. What you gonna do then? Give Sarah a ring, yeah? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right, you got some tens and I’ll go down the phonebox.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I chuck him my change bag and go
back to trying to find a vein. It’s alright for Spid. Like I said, he never got
into the shit like me. He’s been on and off for years, but he always stops for
a while. Took him years to lose his fear of the needle. Took me a day. If it
wasn’t for watching me doing it up like that for years he’d still be on the foil.
Or still just smoking spliffs and drinking Special Brew, happy as Larry. Like,
look at him now, off down the phonebox when I just offered him some of me
brown, instead of doing it straight away. I’ll never be able to do that. When
I’ve sorted myself out, I find some paper and sit at the table to doodle.
Spid’s back in a few minutes, smiling.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right then, I’ll have a dig and we’re off. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Careful with that shit, though, Spid, like I said, it’s fockin strong.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He finds a vein first try without
even tying himself off. I watch him push home slowly, slowly, stopping half way
and pulling the needle out. He puts his thumb over the little drop of blood and
rubs at the mark before laying back into the sofa as it hits him.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ahhhhh. Dutch courage…just gizza few minutes and we’ll go…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s at least three hours before he
moves from that spot, just smiling to himself and nodding on and off. His
half-full pin’s still sitting in front of him with the cap off, on the
glass-topped table amongst Special Brew cans, ashtrays, flecks of sticky bud,
tobacco strands and crumpled Rizla. Thank fuck he only did half.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid pulls up outside the student house in Didsbury. The lights are all
out except for the one in the hall. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-They’re definitely out. You wanna check, though?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You knock. I’m not meant to know where she lives.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gaz, you’re a proper fockin div ‘ead. Fock sake, no one’s meant to
recognise us. <i>You’re not meant to know where she lives. </i>You never cease
to amaze me, seriously.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
We’re wearing blue overalls, black builders’ hats and boots we picked up
from the army surplus. So long as we look like professional furniture removal
men, who’s gonna blink an eyelid? We both took out all our piercings, covered
the mohie: could be anyone. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright, Gaz, you go knock.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Spid, you knock. If Tania answers the door, she’s gonna recognise me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fock sake, Gaz. How many times I gotta tell you? Just say <i>Is this
Whalley Range?</i> Like you’re looking for the right place, put on a scouse
accent and we’ll come back another day. Go on, I gotta reverse the van up the
driveway. Get out, open the fockin gates and knock.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Fuck sake. So I cross the road, prop open the double front gate with
bricks and go knock on the door. There’s not a sound comes from inside, so I beckon
Spid to back the van up. He nearly bangs into the tree on the corner of the
hedge, but he gets it into position nicely and opens the back up, lowers the
platform down and opens the front door. I’d be shitting my trousers by now if I
wasn’t constipated. I hate this shit, but it’s gonna be worth it. If we make
it. This is Stakki’s van, an old Luton he uses for furniture removals and
whatever odd job he can find, and he’s lent it to Spid for the night. What
story he’s told him I don’t know, but he’s got to get it back by midnight. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s always been up for a bit of the old class war. Robbing the rich
just pays them insurance money, gives us what we could never have afforded and
probably never will. We’ve never done violence, never robbed the elderly and
always check they can afford it. So don’t diss us, cos you’ve no idea, have
you? Spid’s in this to progress, not to fund a habit. He’s never had much of a
habit like I said. See, that half full pin sitting on his table? He put on the
lid, put it in the back of his sock drawer and that’s where it’ll probably stay
til he feels like doing it. He should be careful doing that though, fuck knows
what sort of little microbacteria build up in it, just sitting there, doing
nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The warning beeps of the alarm sound as Spid steps inside the carpeted
hallway and he turns the key in the lock of a little white box, the lights
changing from red to green as if giving us the all-clear.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Cheapskates. We’d never have got the code. Right: you take downstairs,
I’ll go up. Big stuff, we work together. Make it quick, right.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
There’s a Technics stereo system in the first room which I unplug and
shove part by part into army bags, followed by an expensive-looking VCR. CDs
and videos clatter into a binliner along with the remote controls and a
multipack of batteries. Candlesticks and trinkets from the mantelpiece all go
in, and that coffee table’s coming with me along with the conveniently light TV
set. Even the rug looks nice, like one Aladdin would ride on, so I roll it up
ready for a fuckin magic carpet ride back to base. Shame I can’t take it home
with me, be nice to brighten the place up. It all goes straight in the van,
even the sofa, cos me and Spid work out that since the label says ‘Liberty’
it’s begging to be free. Table lamps, books, a mobile phone. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The next downstairs room’s obviously a bloke’s room with its aftershave
and dirty trainers smell, socks and clothes on the floor, posters of Cindy
Crawford and Rachel from Friends plastered all over the walls. I shove a mini
hi-fi complete with all the CDs in a in a bag and empty the wardrobe, shoes and
all. There are several suits and a whole bunch of ties. Yeah looks like this
one’s a proper smartarse. The shelf’s full of books on Law, and me and Spid
just pick up the whole thing between us, carrying it to the van, books and all.
What? You don’t think it’s right stealing books from law students? I can get a
good price for these, and in a few years time, this bloke’ll be making more in
an hour than I get to see in a month. Don’t worry about him. This experience
will convince him he wants to continue his studies in Criminal Law and he’ll
become one of the top prosecutors leading to more beds being filled in
Strangeways than ever. Yeah, don’t worry about him. He’ll be out buying new
clothes on his credit card tomorrow, just like Tania will. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Even the kitchen’s got a ghetto blaster, along with the cappuccino
maker. It’s all coming, down to the last teaspoon and the salt shaker. The
cooker’s electric, so no gas explosions here when it’s gone. We leave the gas
hob. The whole of Manchester heard the explosion when one of the flats near
Spid went up. The punks had a punx picnic to raise money for the old lady who
got her flat exploded cos some cunt didn’t use their brain when they were
robbing whatever gas-related stuff from the flat below. Before you ask, it
wasn’t me. Thank fuck she wasn’t in when it happened. There it is, the Tag
watch. This time it’s by the kitchen sink along with a pile of silver rings.
Seems like whoever owns it doesn’t trust that it’s waterproof. It all goes in
my pocket. When all the stuff’s in the van, we go back for the beds. Duvets,
pillows, towels and linen, it’s all coming. Even the shampoo, so long as it’s
unopened. The money posh cunts spend on toiletries is just stupid, and there’s
people I’m sure who wouldn’t mind paying a fiver for a bottle of anti-wrinkle
when it’s twenty quid in the shops. The last mattress wobbles and quivers as we
chuck it on top of everything and Spid closes up the back of the van. On his
way out, he jemmies the door to make it look authentic, then resets the alarm.
Funny it didn’t go off, eh? Not that anyone takes any notice of alarms. The
street’s silent but for the buzzing of a streetlight and the hum of traffic from
the main road. And we’re gone.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Or are we? Soon as I’m sat in the van, a police car draws up, stopping
directly opposite the driveway. I’m panicking now for real, bile rising up in
me innards. I check the wing mirror for Spid, but I can’t see him. Jesus, I’m
thinking. My heart’s racing: now I’m gonna be caught with a vanload of stuff
and this is Stakki’s van, and fuck knows what Spid told him, but at least we
changed the plates. Or will that make it worse? And Stakki will get implicated
and I’ve got all me gear back home under the fuckin mattress- like that’s not
the first place they’ll look- not that they know where I live- or do they? And
now I’m looking at years in fuckin Strangeways. If Spid knows what’s good for
him, he’ll have done a runner and I’m getting ready to open the van door and do
one myself. The driver of the police car’s looking across towards me, but I
hope to fuck the streetlight’s making the windscreen shine so she can’t see
me…if she gets out, I’m doing a runner…shit, the position I’m in here they’ll
not have a hard job catching me, but I’ll have a go. Shit…the police car revs
its engine. What the fuck is all this about? It’s not like the alarm went off
or nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The policewoman looks away and the car moves off slowly down the street.
I hear footsteps crunch on the gravel driveway and Spid gets into the van. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fock sake, thought you done a runner, Spid. Fockin hell, it’s a trap,
they’re comin back for us with reinforcements.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid starts the engine and drives,
not stopping to shut the gates behind him. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Shut it will you, I watched them go: they turned left down Wilmslow
Road. Now why would I do a runner and leave you with all the stuff, eh? Don’t
you think I want any?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I laugh, still nervous as fuck and
make two roll ups, lighting one and handing it to Spid before I light mine.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Jesus, I was shitting myself.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You and me both. Now let’s get this stuff stashed and get the van back
to Stakki. As we reach Princess parkway, we’re pissing ourselves laughing, the
streetlights flashing by in streaks of orange and the cold air rushing at as
though the open windows. By the time we turn off into Hulme, we know we’ve made
it.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It takes us a while to shift all the stuff into an empty place above
Spid’s, but we’ve got help, a couple of the squatters from next door keen for a
free couple of CD or warm, new duvet in exchange. We lock the place up and head
for Aaron’s place. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid parks the van sideways round the back of Aaron’s and changes the
plates. Techno’s blasting out of the house, the kitchen window wide open, Aaron
standing with his back to the sink. I pull myself up on the ledge and climb in
that way, shouting in his ear as I land inside, making him jump so he spills
his drink.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hoi polloi! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck sake, it’s you, Gaz. Never heard of a door? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Spid’s knocking on it now.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Stakki let him in already. You wanna eat?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I shake my head and go through to
the hall, where Stakki’s talking to Spid.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright, Gary. Get a good price for the van, then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Five grand. Not bad for a heap of old scrap, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stakki jabs me in the ribs and
holds his hands out to take his keys, shaking his head.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ll trust you it’s round the back, then, unless you got the keys cut
before you sold it.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Come on, Staks, we’re not that bad. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
As I’m speaking, a police van pulls
up outside and my heart nearly stops. Here we go. Shit, I’m thinking to myself,
fuckin pigs. What the fuck are we gonna
do now? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Quick, Spid, get the fock down the cellar. They’ve not seen us, have
they?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stakki’s looking at me like he
wants to punch me as I leg it down the cellar steps, followed by Stakki’s
shouting-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I might have known, you bastards, what the fuck’ve you done now?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Me and Spid sit on the cellar steps
to listen as there’s an almighty knock on the front door.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-A bit late in the evening for festivities, is it not? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Blunt, disconnected syllables,
sounding read, rather than spoken. A male voice. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Uh, how can I help you? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
That’s Stakki now.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-There has been a complaint about excessive noise levels coming from the
vicinity of this house. Do you live here? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, it’s my mate’s place. It’s his birthday.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-For two days? The party’s over now, so I’m asking you to turn the music
off immediately, otherwise I will have no alternative…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right, I’ll do that straight away. I’m really sorry, yeah, I’ll just
get them to turn it off.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-If you would.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, g’night, thanks mate.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The front door’s closing and I see
through the cellar window a middle aged, overweight policeman climb back into
the van accompanied by a thinner version of himself. The music stops abruptly
and after a while, they drive away.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gotta get out of here, I’m paranoid as fock, Spid, I’m not joking.
Thought that was it. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oi you two you can come out now. Stakki shouts. –What the fuck are you
two up to anyway? Spid, you told me you were helping someone move a piano, so
what’s up with you?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Just allergic to the boys in blue, they get near me and I break out in
handcuffs, I joke.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ha ha very funny, Stakki’s saying –I’m not too keen on them myself, but
I don’t start shitting myself every time I see them. On second thoughts, don’t
tell me what you’ve done, cos then I can’t be accused of being a grass when you
two get clocked. Fuckin hell, you used my van to pick up a load of smack,
didn’t you?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
We say in unison. This is getting
stupid. I don’t know what the fuck happened with Stakki: he’s usually a really
chilled out bloke. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well, you better not have any on you, cos I’m not getting in shit if
you used my van to pick it up.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-We didn’t, says Spid –and we
left the gear back home.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Jesus, Spid. You’re really fucking up, man. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stakki’s face is getting redder by
the second and his veins are standing up on his neck and forehead. I think to
tell him to watch his blood pressure but change my mind. Instead, I sit down on
the bottom stair to watch the show. I can’t be arsed to get involved in it. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What’s your fockin problem, Stakki? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-My problem? No, Spid, what’s your problem? I fuckin hate smackheads.
You used to be well cool before, but… I dunno, you’re just…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Just what? A smackhead? I don’t even have a habit. You can’t group
people, Stakki. What? I’m fuckin up cos I hate five O? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No, Spid, I saw you. That wasn’t contempt. That wasn’t hatred: it was
fear. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when you and Gary went scuttling
down the cellar like a couple of fuckin rats. I can’t even trust you anymore.
You’re just going down the same old road to hell with your fuckin mate.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He’s staring into my eyes now, a vision of ugly, vicious twattery, pure
disgust showing on his face.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-‘Scuse me if I don’t exist, Stakki. What’s your fockin problem? I ask.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ll tell you what your <i>fockin </i>problem is you stupid cunt:
you’re an evil bastard.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What? I don’t even know ya!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, well I’ve known Spid for years and as soon as he meets you…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I went to school with him-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-As soon as he starts hanging around with you he turns into some wannabe
punk rock fuckin hero, I mean heroin, for fuck sake, it was you who introduced
him to it, you bastard- </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I don’t do gear cos Gary tells me to, Stakki, I have my own mind-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, right, so tell me the truth- it was Gary brought it, first time,
you told me so-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-We took it together</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You wouldn’t have thought of that on your own-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m not a kid. What the fuck?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Right, so now you’re gonna tell me you can come off it just as easily
as you went on it…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m not fockin <i>on it, </i>I just use it sometimes</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-That cunt’s on it alright! He’s pointing at me now, like a cartoon,
looks like steam’s gonna come out of his ears at any second, shouting –enjoy
your injections, Spid, you stupid bastard.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I can stop whenever I want to. Just fock off will you, Stakki?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No, I won’t <i>fock </i>off, sticking needles in your arms for fuck sake,
and you don’t wanna stop do you, cos it’s so nice living in shit. You’ve
forgotten who you are, you know that?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fock sake, Stakki, I’m up for a new flat, what you mean, living in
shit? Fockin ask Kiwi about my new flat-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What about you Gary? Got that central heating fixed yet? Or you too
busy teaching my friend how to shoot heroin? I mean that’s the only thing you
ever fix, ain’t it? Cos you’ll never fix your life.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Just now I see Kiwi walk into the
hall, puzzled.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Someone say my name? What’s goin on? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Tell him about my flat, Kiwi! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s irate now, really getting in
Stakki’s face and I swear they’re gonna fight at any minute. I honestly can’t
be arsed with all this. It’s not like I’ve not heard it all before, just didn’t
realise Stakki couldn’t stand the sight of me. His loss. Like I told him, he
doesn’t know me. Just cos you’ve chatted with people now and again and greet
them when you see them around doesn’t make you bosom buddies. But this, him
going on with himself like this is totally out of the blue. Last person I’d
expected to turn nasty.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Chill out, you guys and come get some food. I heated you a plate up
Staks and it’s gone cold already. Yeah, your flat’s gonna be wicked, Spid,
petal.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-See, you heard her. Why are you going on with yourself about Gary?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What the fuck’s going on, boys? Behave now, come on, we’re all friends
here.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m biting my nails now, getting
the anxiety creeping through me. I’m really not for this shit. Thought we were
gonna just drop the van off and chill for a bit. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m an evil cunt, Kiwi, right, remember that, an evil fucker, I say.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Leave it out, Stakki, Gary’s my mate, right.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, Kiwi, he’s human trash.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, just fuck off, will you, Stakki.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Kiwi comes and sits down next to
me, puts her arm around me. Her body’s warm through the little orange vest top
she’s wearing and she smells of patchouli oil. I lean into her and put my head
on her shoulder. I love that girl. Love that girl since the first moment I laid
eyes on her. Now she’s kissing me on the cheek and whispering in my ear, asking
me if I’m alright. God, it feels good, and I make a conscious decision to stop
fucking about like a teenager and just tell her how I feel. I’ve not even told
Spid. She’s holding me tight and shouting at her brother</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What the fuck has Gary done to offend you so badly?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What the fuck hasn’t he done?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-<i>What the fuck hasn’t he done</i>, Spid’s mimicking now, shaking his
head from side to side, -Christ, Stakki, can you tell us all where all this is
leading? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I can tell you where all this
is leading you, you poor, sad, pathetic bastard. You’ve not grown up at all,
have you? It’s all a fuckin big laugh, ain’t it? Ooh, ain’t we big, ooh, ain’t
we cool, punk rock. Real punks don’t use heroin, you sad losers. God you’re
such a hard bastard, eh, Spid? But you’re gonna end up dead, and I hope that
hit you love so much is worth it. Just don’t expect me to come to your funeral.
And as for that piece of shit; Kiwi, I don’t wanna see you anywhere near him
ever again, alright?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Kiwi laughs in bewilderment and I can see she’s<i> </i>totally
incredulous.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What? Who the fuck are you to tell me who I can and can’t see? Look,
Stakki, you’re just coming down off those pills, come and eat, everything will
look different tomorrow, trust me. Just come and eat.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, pills, why’s that so fuckin alright? Eh? You never hear of people
dying off pills? Cos they do. Wanker.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, yeah, Spid, whatever. I can’t be bothered arguing any more. I’m
worried about you is all. Selfish cunt.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So it’s all Gary’s fault, right?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Kiwi’s kissing my ear now, fuck
knows how she can stand it, cos I can’t stand the smell of myself. A bath would
be heaven. She kisses my cheek again, then raises her eyes to her brother.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m serious Kiwi, stop fuckin about. He’s bad news. Gary, this is the
last thing I’m gonna say to you. You’re such a fuck up. You fuckin stink. Your
ribs are showing through your clothes. Your skin’s a fuckin disaster. You’re
covered in festering needle marks and bruises from head to toe. You leave your
putrid needles in the bathroom wherever you go…just get the fuck out and get
yourself into a rehab or go overdose yourself or something before you drag
everyone else to hell with you. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, well, at least I don’t pretend to be mates with someone I can’t
stand.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Immediately, I think of Stan. But
that’s different. Tania. No, I like Tania. Spid keeps shouting, so angry that
the spit-spray’s flying from his mouth, clouds of miniscule droplets
highlighted in the hall lamp. And Stakki, shouting back, face flame-red:</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-YOU’RE DYING, GARY, YOU’RE GONNA DIE SOON, DON’T FUCKIN FORGET THAT YOU
FUCKIN CUNT!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I get up from the stairs, Kiwi’s
hand stretching out to me as I go, touching my fingers, following as I walk
straight past Stakki, open the front door and spit in his face as I walk out
into the cold night air. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gary, come back! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I ignore her and just keep on
walking. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The sky’s thrown an orange-purple
blanket over the stars and I’m turning the corner, breaking into a run, an
overwhelming feeling of utter nothingness welling up behind my eyes.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
© Vee 1993-2012 </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
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<br />
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-9047056004739881872012-09-05T09:18:00.001-07:002012-09-13T06:12:29.523-07:00Memories from Sheffield, UK<br />
<br />
<br />
That was me, twenty-fuck-knows-something,<br />
Back seats of a bus with Kev. "See this blade," he says, eyes straight-forward,<br />
Missing nothing,<br />
Puffing on a pavement-picked re-roll,<br />
"Stash it in yer bag fer us flower?" Think I'm falling for that one?<br />
So he keeps hold of it,<br />
Hands shaking slightly<br />
Like the hardman he dreams of being. Got a teenth of gear on us, and him, his rocks<br />
too,<br />
And I worry more about the knife:<br />
Though the knife won't cut me:<br />
That's meant for some other cunt.<br />
That was the thing with Kev, Couldn't just leave things be. I'd been clean for a while,<br />
Smiling to myself in anticipation.<br />
And Kev's a caring bloke.<br />
Seeing me right, seeing I don't go over<br />
(See the joke,<br />
Him with a blade and the rest? But for us, back then, it was like that:<br />
Like everything was normal<br />
And one day we'd just wake up<br />
And smell the clover) So I tip what I want in the spoon<br />
And Kev's going mental like,<br />
"You planning suicide or wot?"<br />
Cunt tries scooping some out<br />
And we bicker,<br />
Snot flying, Til I agree.<br />
Nuff folks died like this. Never forgot that day.<br />
Kev givving us a dig in the back of me leg and<br />
having to do more straight after anyway.<br />
Looked after me did Kev. Coulda punched his fuckin lights out at the time<br />
though.<br />
<br />
MEMORIES#2<br />
No one's got nothing. Fuck all. Seriously.<br />
Nothing. And we're all loitering round the<br />
market, sweating in various shades of<br />
dishevelled grey. It's autumn, and crowds of<br />
starlings are swooping in circles over the river,<br />
ready for migration. "Wish I could fuckin migrate," says Deano.<br />
"Some fuckin decent gear in Thailand, and it's<br />
dirt cheap."<br />
"Yeah. Bollocks to this place."<br />
"Hold up, check it out"<br />
There's Paul with a fuck off grin from ear to ear. And we're round him now like flies round shit,<br />
shoving without remorse to be first in line for<br />
poxy sub-sized clingfilm wraps of the devil's<br />
very own elixir. Me and Sid go together to the men's bogs across<br />
the road in Sheffield's finest fuckin tearooms<br />
and I watch him go in his fem, shaking like a<br />
puppet on meth as he fixes his habitual<br />
snowball. Takes me longer, not sunk to the depths of the femoral, but vein hunting's a proper pain in the<br />
arse these days. And I ain't for snowballin. I'll<br />
save that for the winter down Firth Park.<br />
And as it goes in I'm unsurprisingly<br />
disafuckinpointed. It's cut with so much crap it<br />
barely makes me well. So it's back down the market for a rant at the<br />
former-saviour now-cum-cheeky-cunt. Of course he's long gone. Next time I see him, he's sat in the back yard of<br />
the rehab, crutches by his side and an empty<br />
denim tube where his left leg should have<br />
been. "Fuck sake, what happened? Fuck, mate, I'm so<br />
fuckin sorry, fuck, fuck fuck!"<br />
"One word. No, two, actually. Artery. Gangrene." I can see in his eyes we're no longer<br />
frienemies, just fucked up memories of a life<br />
that shouldn't have been.<br />
<br />
MEMORIES#3<br />
<br />
We've just scored some fuckin dynamite. Not<br />
had nothing half decent in ages. Joe pulls up his<br />
battered white nova outside a 1930s semi on<br />
Parson Cross and me and Geni step out onto the<br />
tarmac pavement.<br />
We all push past overgrown privet, avoiding broken bottles, staffie-shit and crushed cans in<br />
gone-to-seed grass and push the ajar door open.<br />
When is a door not a door?<br />
When it's a jar.<br />
And up the uncarpeted stairs is a room where<br />
two kids sit on a fuck-stained mattress. They look all of twelve, the pair of them.<br />
Joe exchanges notes and bags with them and<br />
they start cooking up. Well, the boy does.<br />
"How the fuck old are you two?"<br />
I ask as I watch the boy pull the half-empty pin<br />
out of the girl's scrawny arm and set to finding a vein for himself.<br />
Joe and Geni and mirroring the process, 'cept<br />
Geni's holding up the needle to me<br />
"Ladies first, petal, Joe can do his own..."<br />
Fuck this.<br />
And the girl's answering me through half-closed eyes<br />
"Twelve"<br />
And I was right.<br />
Fuck this.<br />
I might be rattling like a cunt but I'm outta here.<br />
Rather have a dig in the back yard than sit through this macabre fuck show.<br />
Yeah, I'm outta here.<br />
The faces of those two kids and Geni's dirty<br />
needle, outstretched towards me forever<br />
etched into my mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
© Vee 1993-2012<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-28130609653731215162012-09-05T09:07:00.002-07:002012-09-05T09:07:36.405-07:00<br />
Apologies to all who have been waiting for Chapter Three of Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way. I've been running around trying to find a home...<br />
Well, it's posted now, so hope you all enjoy reading.<br />
This is old, old stuff...<br />
I'm working on more stories from The Old Man at the moment, but it's nowhere near finished yet.Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-75780774483573838902012-09-05T06:23:00.000-07:002012-09-13T06:13:36.772-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way Chapter 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9fZWgPnRDu4/UEd0J4wu4qI/AAAAAAAAACY/sxRcmbLD2e4/s1600/veeeye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9fZWgPnRDu4/UEd0J4wu4qI/AAAAAAAAACY/sxRcmbLD2e4/s320/veeeye.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Here's Chapter 3 for you. Artwork by me X<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b>Three<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<b><i><u>Community Care<o:p></o:p></u></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s a lucky, lucky bastard. How the fuck he does it, only he knows.
Okay, I’m lying, cos I know how he did it: Stakki’s sister. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
This place is falling apart and the fact that they were only building it
thirty years ago as part of an ‘urban regeneration’ makes you wonder if they’ll
be knocking the new places down in another thirty. I wasn’t even born, but the
people who remember will tell you about the big lorries of prefabricated
concrete driving up and down when they were building the crescents and all
that. The Victorian terraces were unfit for human habitation, they’d said.
Slums. “Unfit for purpose” is the new cliché: that’s what they were saying
about this place ten years after it went up. And they’ll say it again. If we’d’ve
had the money to renovate them, or a landlord who gave a shit, the old terraces
would have had all mod cons plonked in’em and be in perfect working order:
plenty still stand and no one’s pulling those down. Ironic as it is, they’re
building near replicas now (just scaled down, hard to believe though that is;
the windows and doors smaller and cheaper, without the fireplaces, cellars or
character).</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
But they wanted to cram people in like fleas on an old dog. And don’t
forget the constant need for lining the pockets of the bigwigs, eh? So that’s
where the Hulme crescents came in, with their dimly lit so-called deck access
and unaffordable, under-floor heating systems. They had the nerve to lie that
they’d based the plans for them on the Royal Bath Crescents: even named them
after their Georgian architects. Talk about taking the piss. I mean, do you see
the resemblance? <i>Any </i>resemblance? Who visits Hulme and thinks, <i>wow,
what a beautiful place! It resonates with the spendour of polite Georgian
England! </i>Nah, I didn’t think so. S’pose they just thought because we were
from generations of poor folk, that we must be stupid, eh? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
So here we are, just down the road from the beauty of Robert Adam
Crescent, where the architecture’s been condemned, and just across from Rolls
Crescent and Royce Road, in the place where there’re less cars per population
than virtually anywhere else in the entire effin country. Well, if you checked
the prices of the insurance premiums round here, you’d think everyone drove
Bentleys. And as for interior and
exterior décor, well that’s the only thing about this place that’s looking
good. Every wall in Spid’s flat is covered with graffiti. He’s got a foldout
table with his decks on and a speaker on each side. I love this old place. It’d
probably be dead already without the squatters. Keeping it alive. It’s probably
the most vibrant part of Manchester at the moment and everyone wants a piece of
it. Musicians, DJs, artists, poets: people are coming from all over just to
party and get a piece of this place. It feels like history in the making, well,
underground history at least, but we know that’s the only history worth
reading. And the parties we have here are fuckin legendary. But tonight we’re
going down PSV, or the Lighthouse or the Caribbean Club as it’s also known,
which brings me back to Stakki Kays. And his sister, Kiwi.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s getting rehoused into one of the new flats. Otterburn Close’s
days are numbered. Kiwi filled the forms in for him. It’s not that Spid’s
illiterate or anything; we went to school together, just down the road from
here, back in the day. That’ll be gone too soon, meet the rage of the
bulldozers along with the rest of the place, no doubt. Seems office complexes,
commuter hotels and exclusive, gated housing developments are more important
than local businesses or educating poor kids these days. I mean, they don’t
even give us a Dales. Everyone knows it’s the cheaper version, so what do they
give us? Asda. Well, moving on, Kiwi knows how to answer the questions on the
form: that’s the difference between her and me old mate. Spid works the odd
evening cash in hand for her and they got talking. From a conversation about
how the Prince’s Trust gave her a grant to set up in business producing and
selling her herbal highs and the free holiday in Crete she got through a
women’s charity, they got round to chatting about Community Care grants off the
social. And rehousing forms. Either the council or DSS had a total systems
failure or Kiwi’s a bloody good writer, because when they’ve finished building
the flat he’s been offered, he’s getting a grand to kit it out. He showed me
the letters. But back to tonight, and we’re getting ready for a night out and
I’ve just put some heavy <i>Conflict </i>on the decks. <i>The Ungovernable
Force. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You still got them free
tickets?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I have to shout over the music, but
Spid can’t hear me and keeps shouting</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-WHAT?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Back at me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-TICKETS! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He eventually understands but
shrugs.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck knows where I put ‘em. Be alright, Staks’ll let us in, he put us on
the guest list.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sorted.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Funny old life, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Funny old life. Lost the bus, losing the squat and turning into a
fockin Norman Normal.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i>Norman Normal. </i>See what I
mean? Where do all these names originate from? Maybe there really was a really
normal bloke called Norman once but I guess this one’s more to do with the
rhyme than Happy Larry. Larry the Lamb? Who knows. If you find out, drop us a
line.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You’ll be working in a bank next, Spid.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ll be robbing a fockin bank if it all goes tits up.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s sitting on his battered old
yellow-brown sofa and rolling a spliff the size of the Camberwell carrot from <i>Withnail
and I.</i> He’s still got the same skinning-up tray I painted him for his
birthday on one of my mum’s trays way back when we were fifteen. I did the
sides black and the wobbly edges silver and on the tray itself it’s got a rip
off of the Subhumans <i>Day the Country Died</i> picture, except the snotty,
puking punk’s got Spid’s face. Yeah, we’ve been friends for years, me and Spid.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
When the record finishes, the door’s shaking like it’s being kicked in
and someone’s shouting to be let in. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Open the door you fockin cunt!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ha ha, that must be Kiwi. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Me and Spid are laughing now. She’d
been nearly breaking the door down and we hadn’t even noticed. But it ain’t
Kiwi, it’s a bunch of people from the squats and buses we vaguely know. No
matter, the more the merrier. It’s always like this at Spid’s place, people in
and out all hours, punks, hippies, Travellers, students; anyone up for a good
time. They’ve got Special Brews and White Lightening; one of them’s drinking
from a bottle of Strongbow. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Eh, put anuva record on then Gaz</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
So I’m flicking through the records
til I find <i>The Day The Country Died, </i>cos seeing the tray’s made me want
to listen to it. I put it on a bit quieter than before so we can hear each
other, swear I’m going deaf, the amount of noise I force on my ears sometimes.
We get to talking, me and Spid, about the old times, people we used to know.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, Jascha, he was sound; wonder what happened to him?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Last time I saw Jascha we were
stopping in the bus somewhere in Devon and the tourists got a bit ratty. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, remember him telling that stiff arse American couple they were
parked up in a designated rave zone, and they were breaking the law if they
didn’t want to join the party?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gaz, they were Canadian. Yeah, I remember that, fockin comedian he was.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-And they either believed him, or-</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Or they were shitting their pants</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Shitting their pants probably.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-More likely, yeah.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I stretch and laugh. Good memories,
definitely. Funny how those memories always come with some sort of block on the
bad parts. Cos at the time, I was whingeing a lot and I remember Spid whingeing
a whole lot more, but, yeah, when I look back it feels like it was fuckin
paradise.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I was pissing my sides when they drove off in their swanky camper. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Good night, that party.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, seriously. Talking of parties, what time’s Dred-Rock start? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Me and Spid push past the queue outside the Lighthouse and lean up to
the ticket window.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-On the guest list mate- Spid
grins, shoving the free tickets through the slot under the window. See, he’s
not that disorganised after all. –Spid and Gary.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright, go on, have a good night.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The girl behind the window rips the
tickets and hands them back to Spid as she starts to serve the next person.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s eleven thirty and the bar and dance floor are still more or less
dead. People are mainly sitting on the raised platforms behind camouflage-netting,
the so-called chill out corners. The smell of weed hangs with fag smoke in the
air and I’m looking around to see if I clock anyone I know. Up on the stage
there’s Stakki with his decks on the table in front of the massive wall-hanging
I painted for him, a skinny girl with dreads on the decks, better looking than
Stakki, but that’s what he asked me to do and for the twenty quid he offered
me, it seemed like a bargain at the time. Every time I see it, I always notice
the mistakes on it. He’s churning out all the old favourites, heavy dub stuff.
There’s always a bit of jungle later, but not yet, and it’s not like the
crowd’s going wild or nothing. It’ll pick up later, it always does. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Shalom’s behind the bar. There’s not even a queue. Spid’s chatting her
up like usual. She’s a beautiful woman, no mistaking that: high cheekbones,
long, black hair she’s wearing in braids tonight. Full, painted lips, always
glossy and sparkly with that lip gloss she’s always putting on. Spid gets all
schmaltzy about her sometimes, going on with himself like, <i>ah, Gaz, I wanna
know what that lip gloss tastes like. </i>So I asked her once, <i>Shalom, can I
borrow your lip gloss a minute</i>? She looked at me in a sort of <i>what the
fuck? </i>way, then handed it to me. I unscrewed the lid and I went to paint
Spid’s lips with it, <i>Oi, what you doing, you nutter? </i>Shalom was asking,
but Spid was pissing his sides, just licked his lips and said, <i>Strawberry. </i>Her
skin’s flawless, looks like she’s never even had a spot in her life, all
translucent like those bars of toffee you used to get in the swimming pool
vending machine, with the little hammer you were supposed to break it with.
Yeah, whatever happened to that? It came in a little aluminium tray. Highland
toffee, that’s the stuff. Maybe they still sell it to tourists in the
Highlands, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And there’s Stan. He’s sat with the Gardner over in the farthest corner,
but he sees me and stands, beckoning me over.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oi, Stan the man!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He looks proper wasted, eyes red
and slitty. The Gardner greets me and I sit down. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So who was that bird you sent to see me then? Stan asks. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ah, that was the lovely Tania. She found you, then.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stan pulls out two tenners and
waves them at me with a leer of satisfaction. Here we go. I never meant for him
to do one. I know, call me a hypocrite, cos it’s not like I’ve never done it
myself. I’m not being funny, but it’s proper pissed me off. Pisses me off that
he’s gloating over it like he’s a fuckin hero for pulling a fast one on Tania.
Thinks he’s a clever cunt, but I don’t see bragging’s ever had any purpose.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You burned her, ya tight bastard!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gaz yer goin soft. You got the hots for her or somefink? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m shaking my head, part in answer
and part in annoyance. Stan’s still going on with himself</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-She’ll learn one day and by that time she’ll be doing it to some other
virgin, that’s just the way it is.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, yeah. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Even the veterans get fucked over
every so often, but not like that. Well, now I’m gonna have to tell her
something to keep her sweet. We’ve all had our share of shit in this game.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well enjoy yourself, cos she might be coming down later.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nice one! There was twenty more an’ all. Got meself some class skunk
from the great Gardner in the sky. So we’ll be seeing her later, then? Maybe
then me and her can get together, share a blunt and get down to some serious
romance. Nice little body she’s got on her, eh, Gaz?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And he’s laughing like the old
pervert he is. He’s well into his forties and Tania’s just nineteen. I might
look like I don’t have morals, but like I said, I like Tania and I’m feeling a
bit of a cunt for sending her to him in the first place, but losing forty
quid’s better than whatever he has in his mind now and I remind myself to warn
her off. I just give him an evil and he claps me on the back, cackling and
saying </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ah, Gaz, soft as shite.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The Gardner’s the name we all give this bloke who’s sat here, chain
rolling and chain smoking his home-grown weed. He’s got sensi, skunk and
whatever else takes his fancy, which he calls organic. Two flats knocked
through in Otterburn, boarded windows and tin foil lining give his gardening
project the perfect hiding place. It’s like summer in Barbados when you go in
there. <i>Sunglasses are optional </i> is his catchphrase when you walk through the door. All lights and
fans, and he’s got filters rigged to the vent system so no one on the outside
smells nothing, or at least, that’s the idea. Cos every time I’ve been up
there, either I’ve got a nose like a sniffer dog, or the gavvers are turning a
blind eye. Either way, he does an exceptional trade and never gets busted. Fair
play to him, he looks happy enough tonight, and he’s one of the nicest blokes
you could meet. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Just leave it, Stan, okay?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-If it’s herbs she wanted, I’ll help her out; always happy to be of
service, grins the Gardner. Stan’s laughing and miming someone having a toot.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Aah, in that case, I can’t help you, and in that case also, you did her
a favour, Stan. But the karma will get you in the end, and I advise
compensation in the form of green, my friend.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-That’s what I was gonna tell you, Gaz, I was doing her a favour.
Anyway, right, you don’t know me, I don’t know you: I’m not Stan, I’m just his
mate, up from London, ‘cept I used to live here, right? I was just round there
when he was out and took the opportunity to do a bit of business with her.
‘Cept she never showed up. The guy let me down. What’s me name? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I just play along with it. He
enjoys some sort of fantasy world where he’s some superfly diamond geezer, but
everyone else knows he’s just a tosser who has to shave his head really close
because he thinks if he does that people won’t realise he’s gone bald.
Forty-something going on fourteen.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Uh, Rob, yeah?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Rob, fockin nice one…Rob. You fockin twat, Gaz, Rob.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright, but I don’t fockin know ya so I’m gonna do one now.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Suits me, ya smelly bastard.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I go back to the bar to find Spid.
He’s still chatting to Shalom. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright Shalom? Look, Spid; if Tania comes in and you see Stan, you
don’t know him, right?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Why the fuck I’m bothering to play
Stan’s game is beyond me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gaz, I don’t even know what she looks like.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Agh, just forget about it. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s winking at Shalom now and shuffling off across the dancefloor,
doing her a silly dance to try and make her laugh. He never gives up. There’s a
throwback from the sixties dancing too, enjoying the lights, her arms in the
air, grey hair long and held under a tie dye headband, pink, wire-framed
glasses and a psychedelic dress. She moves in snaky spirals, like she’s still a
teenager, eyes half-closed, content. I love it when I see the older ones still
having a good time. This place is good like that, you get a real mix of people
from all walks of life. Yeah, PSVs ain’t bad.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-D’ya wanna drink Gaz?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Wouldn’t say no, cheers lil sis.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Shalom hands me a can of Red Stripe
but I ask her for ginger beer instead. She cracks the ring pull as she’s taking
the money off a bloke with loads of facial piercings. Face like a fuckin
pincushion. I mean, I got a few in me nose and me ears, but you can’t even tell
what this geezer’s face looks like. Maybe that’s the idea. Just as she turns to
put his money in the till, the doors open and in walks Tania with a group of
her uni mates, two blokes and a girl.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, shit, here she comes. You don’t know Stan, right?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Last thing I want is shit off Stan
calling me a grassing bastard. Why the fuck did I send her there? Anyone but
Stan.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I don’t know him anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania sees me straight off and runs
up to me, tugging on my sleeve. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Where’s your mate then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hi Tan, alright?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, don’t act the innocent with me: where the fuck is he?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s shifting from one foot to
the other, hyperactive.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, seriously, I don’t know what the fock you’re on about. What mate?
What the fock happened to you? Stop pulling my fockin clothes, woman. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I give her my best smiley face,
like. Look, I told you before, I like her: I never set her up. I’m as pissed
off with Stan as she is. And if you don’t believe me, I want <i>her</i> to.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah you do, you know exactly what I’m on about. I always treated you
right, Gary, I thought you were my friend.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You are my friend, Tan, you’re my mate, you’re cool. I like you. Now
tell me what happened.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Where the fuck is your so-called mate? If you’re my friend, you’ll tell
me where he is!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Who?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Cockney fucking Stan, that’s fucking well who!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’ve never seen Tania like this.
She was never like this with me before, and trust me, I’ve scammed her good and
proper, but all friendly, like.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, you went down there, right? What, wasn’t he in?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Oh, the bastard was in alright!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hang on a minute, it’s Stan we’re talking about here. Cut the bastard
bit out, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Her eyes are like saucers now, like
they’re about to pop out of her face.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, he ripped me off, alright? Now where is he? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I shrug my shoulders and shake my
head, all concerned.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No, not Stan. Look, I don’t know where he is, but he’s not like that
anyway. He’d not rip off one of me mates, no way.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well, the bloke I saw wasn’t even a Cockney! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Did he say his name was Stan?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-…uh, no,but…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well, there you go.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What does Stan look like?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Black guy. Funki dreads.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Now, I’m wondering how I’m going to
carry this information to Stan, not that it matters in the end. In the long
term, it’ll all be jumbled up with the rest of the bullshit she encounters if
she stays on the bumpy old downhill moped.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I told you. It was probably one of his mates. He don’t exactly keep the
best company.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well, if you see him, tell him I want my forty quid back off his mate. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Forty quid? Did you a favour really. You that desperate to get yourself
a habit? I told you; you shouldn’t be doing that shit. Do yourself a favour and
get yourself a nice bag of skunk and lay off the brown for a bit, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Just tell him.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’ll do that.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I feel sorry I ever met Tania
sometimes. But when I think about it, I just remind myself that if it hadn’t’ve
been me, it would’ve been someone else. And I try to look out for her in my own
way.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The place is filling up, the dancefloor slightly populated. Shalom comes
to say bye to me: her shift finished, she’s heading for the New Ardri for the
herbal tea party.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Been here four hours and it’s only just getting going. Well, I’m off;
have a good one, say bye to Spid for me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
But I don’t have to: he must have
been watching her from wherever he’d buggered off to, cos he’s already walking
over, giving her his best hug and a kiss on the cheek. Like I say, he doesn’t
give up easy. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-C’mon!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s dragging me onto the
dancefloor and jumping around too fast even for the General Levy that’s bassing
out of the sound system <i>booyaka booyaka<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i> </i>-Got some phet if you want some</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, yer alright</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You sure?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Never touch the stuff</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i>incredible<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Now I feel someone putting their
hands on my shoulders and I turn round to see Spid, grinning from ear to ear.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright Gaz, who’re your friends?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Tania, Spid: Spid, Tania</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s giving Spid a big hug now.
Thank fuck for that. I didn’t wanna dance anyway. Can’t be arsed with dancing,
truth be told. She’s trying to get Spid to dance and they’re talking, looking
over at Tania’s friend, who’s dancing with her other two mates. They look like
right pricks, dancing like a load of corpses, stiff and jerky. That’s why I
don’t like dancing to anything except punk. Rarely even bother with that, but
you can’t go wrong with a bit of jumping around. Then Tania’s dragging Spid up
to the girl she came in with and putting their hands together like Bob Marley
and the two politicians, except this is definitely a little more romantic. So
much for his dreams of lifelong love with Shalom, but seeing as she’s not
interested, he’ll have to fish elsewhere. I hear Tania’s squeelie, girlie voice
even over General Levy</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sarah! This is Spid, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Oh my god!</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
There’s quite a lot of <i>oh my god</i>ing
and Spid’s sucking it all up, laughing along with it, taking the plastic pint
glass of purplish liquid she’s passing to him and smelling it, giving her one
of his quizzical looks.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What’s that? Meths? Makes you blind, what, are you an alchie, it ain’t
that bad is it? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Thinks he’s funny, but so does she.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Snakebite and black; taste it, it’s nice.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He’s slurping out of the glass,
downs quite a bit before he hands it back.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So you’re a mate of Tania’s, right?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I live with her actually.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So you’re not her mate then?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Course I am.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I leave Spid to do his spiel and
get myself back to the corner. Time to sit down. I don’t see Stan any more,
thank fuck, but Kiwi’s here, sitting with a group of people we’d hung outside
the Sally with last summer, on and off. Kiwi shouts me and a couple of people
shift up so I can sit down. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You comin to the party after? The bloke next to me spoke.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Might as well; where is it?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He hands me a photocopied
hand-written flyer with a map on the back.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It’s at our place. We’re getting evicted next week, so might as well
make the most of it before the twenty eight days are up. Stakki’s going down
later with the decks and there’s a couple of bands. Me brother took his decks
down earlier, should be massive. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sounds good. Oi, Kiwi, You going to this party?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah; come with us. I’m going down in a bit with Aaron.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, I will, nice one.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Yeah, I’m happy I’ll be leaving
with Kiwi. Spid comes up the steps and over to me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m getting off now, going back to Sarah’s.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Who, that mate of Tania’s? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Aaron shouts over at Spid, winking
at him</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright Cassanova?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
He’s obviously seen something I’ve
missed.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sorted.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You’re not coming to this party then, Spid?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I hand him a flyer, but he gives it
straight back to me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nah, Gaz, I got business to attend to.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright Spidster, see yer tomorrow, right.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You bet, come round about lunchtime.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Nice one.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-See yer Kiwi.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid slopes off, looking over his
shoulder at me, laughing.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I wake up in a darkened room full of people sitting around on various
mattresses and floor cushions. Indian throws hand on the walls and some bloke
with a guitar is singing some Bob Dylan song. There’s loud techno coming from
somewhere else and jungle from another direction. And drums. Nothing makes
sense. The floor’s littered with dog ends and empty cans. I rub my eyes,
yawning, aching again like a twat on this hard bleeding floor, and sit up. Dawn
light’s filtering into the room through an orange chiffon scarf someone’s
pinned over the little skylight in the sloping ceiling. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Wossa time?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
A crusty girl in a worn woollen
jumper turns round and smiles at me as I check my pockets. Can’t believe I’ve
fallen asleep in public, but I’ve not been robbed, thank fuck. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You’ve been out for about four hours; it’s about six, I think.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I remember getting here, just don’t
remember coming into this room. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Was I in ‘ere when I fell asleep?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Dunno, you were crashed out when I came in.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Shit. Have you seen Kiwi?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Who?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Kiwi- Stakki’s sister. Bright red hair.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Don’t think so.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
My head’s in pieces. I’m getting to
my feet now in hot and cold sweats, skin creeping. Mouth tastes like someone’s
shat in it, ears blocked, nose and eyes running the Manchester fuckin marathon.
I walk the corridor, checking for a bathroom. The second room on the left
doesn’t have a door and I look in. It’s like punk pillar at midday, ‘cept these
aren’t punks, but it’s full, even the empty bath’s got people sitting in it,
sharing spliffs and drinking. There’s a bloke sat on the toilet with his
trousers round his ankles and by the stench, he’s actually shitting in public.
Well, it takes all sorts, eh?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Is there another bog in this place?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The public shitter replies happily
as he looks up from his NME,</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-One on every floor, man. It’s palatial, man, patatial…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Cheers mate.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Let me know how you get on, mate. Do you ever stick your hair up, by
the way? I’ve always wanted a mohawk…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
His words fade as I head towards
the stairs.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The bathroom on the next floor down has a door, but when I open it, I’m
confronted with a girl throwing her guts up, her mate slapping her on the back.
Well, at least there’s someone else who feels as bad as me, cos my guts are
starting to feel a bit like hers probably do, but by the looks of her, she’s
got a considerably longer time to wait until she can heal her wounds. The
ground floor bathroom’s locked and there’s a fuckin queue of four people. I
seriously can’t be arsed with this, but I need water. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Have they been in there long?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
A waifer-like girl in a cheesecloth
dress shakes her head and the door opens.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Save my place, love?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She nods and I head for the
kitchen. There’s a massive table in there like the type they have in the
costume dramas, the ones the servants prepare the food on, and there’re people
all sat round it drinking mushroom wine. They start chatting to me about the
mushrooms, how they got them down Heaton park, asking me to join them, but I
just go fill up my pill bottle from the tap, telling them to have fun as I
leave. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I don’t have to go outside or anywhere else, because the queue’s died
down that fast even the cheesecloth girl’s gone and the bathroom’s empty. Maybe
they all went in together, who cares? The washbasin’s filthy, its blue enamel
coated in crusty white scum which has obviously been building up over a period
of years rather than weeks. We’ve got soft water in Manchester, so you can’t
blame limescale for that. I run the tap for a bit, washing my spoon and rinsing
out my mouth, drinking a bit, though I make sure I don’t touch my mouth on the
tap, cos it’s sprouting black mould. You think I’m not bothered about stuff
like that, don’t you? Think I like it? Fuck off. Do you like mildew and shit?
You don’t, do you? So why the fuck should I? </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I fill up from my bottle cos the mould on the tap’s put me off and I sit
on the bog lid to empty the gear into me spoon, adding a bit of citric from the
film container I keep it in. I like this opaque plastic one, matches the
clipper lighter I’ve got now.<i> Small things please small minds</i>, my mum
used to say. But I don’t wanna think about my mum now. Not now. I give it a bit
of a crush with the orange lid once the water’s in and give that a lick when
I’ve finished, force of habit. I’m heating it now and that divine smell…I’ll
maybe tell you something else about this when we get to know each other better,
but I’ll keep it to myself for now…the clear, brown liquid’s formed now and I
drop in my filter, feeling the warmth through the plastic as I pull it up into
the syringe, then flick the bubbles up and push them out.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hurry up, mate.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
There’s someone hammering on the
door now and another voice:</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What’re they doing in there? Shagging?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I put the pin back between my teeth
and shove everything else back into my inside pocket, get my shoelace. Roll up
my sleeve. See, there is a reason I cut off the sleeves on this fuckin coat,
and I’m not regretting it now. So I tie myself off and swap the pin for the end
of the lace between my teeth. My fuckin arms are destroyed. I’m feeling around
for even a quarter-decent vein and hoping to fuck I find one here, cos I’ve
done the rounds all over the place and it’s not getting any easier, and the
cunts trying to break the door off its hinges ain’t helping. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hang on</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I shout at them through clenched
teeth.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Well, hurry up, I’m bursting.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
If it was a bloke I’d tell him to go piss outside, but it’s a female
voice so I just tell her I’ll be out in a minute. After digging around in all
the well-worn scabs, I’m feeling like going in the fem. I’ve tried both arms
and hands, between the fingers and I’m not even bothering with the legs at the
moment cos it’s just not been happening there lately. I mean, if they call this
having a dig, I reckon it’s a fuckin exercise in gravediggin. Seriously, I
always said I wouldn’t go in the arteries, but there’s always a point when you
stop giving a fuck. Fuck sake. Every time I pull back the plunger there’s a
fuckin bubble, and I hate missing. It stings to fuckery. So I try just above
the outside-thumb part of my wrist. And I fuckin miss. The vein’s wobbling
around, pushing aside every time I try for it and this pin’s getting blunter
every try. It’s almost like a fuckin tapestry needle. But here,
here…we…fuckin…go…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I try again and blood’s shooting into the barrel, cauliflowering into
the brown. Jesus. My teeth let go of the lace and I push the plunger all the
way as fast as it’ll go before the vein’s decided it’s had enough, pull back
again and shoot the deep crimson back into my wrist. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
As I stand up, I flush the bog and it hits me like a truck. Not felt
this for a long time. This stuff I got off Scarlets and it’s fuckin dynamite.
There’ll be overdoses on this shit, trust me. I don’t give a fuck about the
cunts knocking at the door any more now than I did before and I take my time,
standing up stretching my arms high, arching my back and stretching my neck
back as far as it’ll go. I take my time washing the pin, stashing my ‘quet
before I open the door. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It’s all yours, mate. All yours.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Someone in the queue mutters under
their breath at me</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuckin smackhead</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
But do I look like I give a fuck?
I’m way past the stage of wondering how they know. I mean, look at me: when I
say I don’t have much meat on my bones, I ain’t exaggerating. And when I looked
in the mirror just now, my eyes were pinned like poppy seeds. And besides, It’s
not me who’s desperate for a piss: like I said, they can piss outside. If you
don’t like it, don’t fuckin do it. End of. And like the saying goes, judge not.
But I reckon those who preach it are the most judgemental of all…</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The front door’s wide open, mellow trance audible from the front room. I
see Kiwi on the decks as I poke my head around the door. Stakki’s crashed out
on the floor and a bloke with long ginger hair and a beard’s having a
conversation with a woman I vaguely recognise. There’s a joss stick burning in
a brass holder, dead pink ends protruding like the spines of a cactus from its
central orb, lines of ash surrounding it in a dusty, grey star. Kiwi looks up
and grins at me.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Where were you? Last time I saw you, you were sitting in the corner in
that room with all them drums, knocking about on some bongos with some Rasta
bloke, cained out of his box on sensi. Kept calling me daughter of Iration.
Said his name was Moses. It was all getting a bit weird for me, so I came down
here to see Stakki and you’d vanished when I came back to find you.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck sake; I don’t remember how I got there, I just remember waking up
in the attic.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What, and you missed the party?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I guess.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-So that guy really is called Moses?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Turns out, I find this out later,
but Moses had actually carried me upstairs like a kid and put a blanket over me
cos I’d crashed out in the doorway of the drumming room and people were nearly
standing on me. Yeah, I told you Moses is a top bloke. Heart of gold.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You sticking around? Asks the ginger bloke.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I need to get some sleep at some point, but yeah, what’s going on?</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
That’s Kiwi for you, always up for
a party.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Aaron’s cooking a meal tonight if you’re up for it and Sam’s cooking
space cakes for afters.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Wicked, I’ll bring me mushroom wine. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Kiwi sticks her tongue out, pulling
a Filter record out of its sleeve. –Imagine calling a <i>baby </i>Moses! </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I slip out of the room and through the front door, this gear seeping
through my veins like magic. I’m cotton-wool heavy. The sudden brightness
outside hits my retina with a stealth of bright white light. Through blotches
of light stuck on my eyes, I see a collapsed sofa in the long front garden
grass, uni kids sitting half asleep, smoking. The morning’s surprisingly warm
for the time of year, the kind of deceptive pre-spring day you get in England
which you hope will last, but never does. I’m sitting on the doorstep,
scratching my nose and leaning against the brick-built porch. Lighting a
roll-up I made earlier and found squashed and dry in my back pocket, I inhale
smoke with the new morning’s diesel. Close my eyes, enjoying the opiates,
remembering better times from years ago, when I’d have closed my eyes and seen
strange landscapes flitting behind my eyelids. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I remember the first time I tasted heroin. Like magic: pure, fuckin
magic. I was with Spid, but he never loved it like I did. When I talk to some
cunts who say they didn’t like it, never touched it again, I don’t get it. Then
I read about how some people have strong opiate receptors, some don’t. Some
have nothing worth speaking of to enjoy it with in their chemical make up. So
it’s all in the body chemistry and I’m glad to say, I’m one of the lucky ones.
I struck gold. Yeah, the first time it was like going home. We were in Spid’s
bedroom, but I breathed in that smoke off the foil and I was in a poppy field,
the warm breeze blowing over me, these white and purple poppies everywhere,
just swaying, sun warming me. I knew where I was but the image and texture of
what I saw was so lucid. Floating, weightless, paradisiacal opium dreams. And I
never looked back. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Even though this gear’s fuckin dynamite like I said before, I wish I
could bring back those times. Gotta get home, I’m thinking, get my head down,
but I can’t be arsed to move. Some seriously nice fuckin gear, this. I love the
way it tastes in my throat, the itchiness of my skin, the whole fuckin thing.
Makes me remember why I can’t get clean: I don’t fuckin want to. Ten years I’ve
been in this madness and Just now, just now, I can absolutely and
bottom-of-the-heart-feelingly say I don’t ever, ever, <i>ever</i> want to let
it go.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Enjoy it while it lasts. After a bit, I open my eyes, the sun cutting
into my pupils. I stand, yawning, stretch, and drag myself back inside and into
the attic. I’ll get home later. Then I remember: I said I’d meet Spid. And
apart from that, I’ve got work to do. There must be some potential earners in
here. Like I said, this measly little bit I’ve got left won’t last forever.</div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>* *
*<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Spid’s looking at the blue translucent resin clock on the mantelpiece
which stands amongst various American whisky bottle candle holders and match
boxes. Twenty to nine. An X-Files poster on the wall depicts Mulder and Skully
in soft, yellowish focus with the words <i>The Truth is Out There</i>. He turns
and checks on Sarah. Still asleep, her mouth hangs open, pouting. He’s pulling
back his side of the duvet, careful not to disturb her, and standing up,
replacing the cover. The ashtray on the bedside table is overflowing with fag
butts and roaches. Last night’s bag of skunk lays next to it, now only stalks,
seeds and a couple of buds. </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Grabbing his clothes and shoes, he tiptoes over to the pile of clothes
Sarah took off the night before. Sitting down next to them, he’s getting
dressed, poking her trousers for the sound of keys. Nice one. Checking she’s
still sleeping, he slides the trousers towards him, pockets first, and grabs
the keys tight in his fist, shoving them into his pocket soundlessly. He’s
nearly dressed now, just putting on his socks and boots, treading carefully
across the carpet to the door. Sarah hasn’t even shifted. Leaving the room, he
creeps downstairs and slips out into the street.<br />
<br />
<br />
© Vee 1993-2012<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-50851509200033764182012-08-28T06:46:00.002-07:002012-09-13T06:13:05.868-07:00Having a Dig into Victorian History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2hS7rG1Kl3k/UDzOFdgQuhI/AAAAAAAAABY/rzkvqYduoIQ/s1600/veeneedle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2hS7rG1Kl3k/UDzOFdgQuhI/AAAAAAAAABY/rzkvqYduoIQ/s320/veeneedle.png" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b>Having a Dig into Victorian
History<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
I remember total insanity. Scouring the floor for more dropped, hidden,
lost brown bits of cigarette filter, my drugs worker looking on, eyebrows
raised, lips in a pillar-box slit. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
‘What the fuck are you doing with that? You’re not seriously intending
to use that…?’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
I was. It would have been better
off in a museum. In fact, a quick search reveals that there is a similar model
in London’s Science Museum (pictured above), though the case mine had lacked
the elaborate engravings. It came in a small, rectangular tin; a nineteenth
century hypodermic glass syringe with a detachable,
hundred-years-of-bluntness-needle. Its metal plunger fitted leaklessly still
into the barrel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Its last job had been to inject brandy or rum into boozy cakes and it
had been in the family for years. I’d taken it out of a mouldering drawer of
pastry cutters, fish knives and spatulas, wooden spoons with the scent of
nineteen-seventies Madeira cake: a rolling pin wrapped in a cellophanesque slick
of dough. I had never intended to use it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
‘Listen, just calm down, the needle exchange opens at eight in the
morning. That’s in five hours. You do not have to use that. For fuck sake, look
at it, who are you, Sherlock bleedin Holmes?’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
He couldn’t hide his laughter now. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
It was like a kilt pin. Fuck knows how Victorian addicts saw their
habits through with these cumbersome contraptions. Surely they must have had
the technology to make the points thinner than that? I took the sharpening
stone I usually used for the kitchen knives and began teasing the needle’s
bevel across its surface until it seemed sharp. It wasn’t. No matter how many
times I tried, it wasn’t going to pierce flesh like a newly-opened disposable
insulin 1mil. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
‘You try!’ I snarled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
‘Fuck off! Listen, Just don’t do it. If you have to do it, plug it. And
I’d better go.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
‘Plug it up your own arse, why didn’t you bring me a fuckin pin? That’s
why I called you. Sorry, mate, just go back to bed.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
This was supposed to be him keeping an
eye on me before I went into rehab. They’d told me to call any time I felt like
using, day or night, no matter the hour. For harm reduction’s sake, I presumed
that they could help me out on this. Call it the fantasy mobile pin service,
but in reality I knew he wouldn’t bring anything but words: perhaps I thought
words would help? But if you don’t ask, you don’t get, right? Anything was
worth a try. It didn’t work. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
I can’t remember if he did go then, but I do remember his exasperation.
I didn’t have it in me at this point to even grasp the concept that what I was
doing was in any way foolish or unreasonable. Perhaps it was neither. Just a
logical solution to the problem that I had binned all my old pins on bin day
that morning in preparation to detox. Just I didn’t like detox. And I’d changed my mind. Only, by
the time I’d changed my mind unconditionally, every place which supplied
needles was closed. And everyone’s phone was switched off. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
So it was the usual take-the-edge-off filters shot, in a highly
unsuspecting vessel. I wondered whether the syringe had been used for heroin
before, and if so, by whom. Is it such a peculiar object to have in one’s
family kitchen? Certainly beautiful, if you’re into medical antiquities. But
there was no beauty in this particular dig. If I honestly thought I’d be able
to get a vein with this contraption, I fast realised my dishonesty. I wasn’t
bothered so much by the fact that trying hurt like a pisshole with terminal,
untreated cystitis, but by the fact that it was never going to work. I mean,
this needle was thicker than an 8 B pencil lead. It was like trying to slice
through bone with a butter knife. And I did try. I tried for a good while, but
as slicing my poxy, sunken, cotton-thin veins in half became a more and more
worrying possibility, between re-sharpenings, I gave up. In the end I just
ended up jabbing it into my thigh and pushing it all in. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
And it stung like a subcutaneous
cigarette burn. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: center 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: center 36.0pt;">
The metal
filings can’t have helped, and I’m thankful to this day that I didn’t find a
vein. Goodness knows what Victorian steel dust would have done to my
circulatory system. I can’t remember what happened to the thing after that. I’d
have gone for my clean pins and then scored is what I imagine, but I can’t
remember. And as for the old glass pin; who knows where it went? Perhaps my
mother donated it to a museum. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 32px;">© Vee 1993-2012 </span><br />
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2740635041725423656.post-89364526504429416462012-08-28T05:35:00.001-07:002012-09-13T06:15:54.274-07:00Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way: here's the second chapter for y'all<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>Two<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b><i><u>Burnt
Dumplin<o:p></o:p></u></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s back. I know she’s back because the only person who ever comes
here is Tania and I can hear the cellar window banging shut. At least I think I
know it’s Tania. I’ve been lucky so far. No unwelcome visitors, not even local
kids coming for a mess about. I don’t want people coming and going. Spid knows
where I live but I go to his. It’s better like that. I scored a nice fat bag
earlier like I planned and I’m as happy as Larry, whoever the fuck Larry is. I
often wonder who the fuck these characters from Turnofphraseland are. Well I’m
happy as I can be and I ain’t about to give even a pinch of this to Tanya,
never mind who paid for it, eh? I do the hard work so you don’t have to. Just
call me Mr Muscle, ready for action. I piss myself laughing at that as I pour
out the neon-green water from a can of processed peas into a dirty pan. Dead
matches float to the top and charcoal dust spreads out in a film over the
surface of the liquid. I wipe a spoon on my <i>Le Petit Punk </i>T-shirt ,
remove the loose lid and eat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s a miserable fire I’ve got going but it’s doing the job of
de-numbing me. Got some wood from the waste ground behind those student places
off Wilmslow Road. Funny, people are. The whole time I was busy ripping wood
off this rust-sprung bed carcass, there was this old woman with an Aldi bag,
just standing there, staring at me. Staring. She didn’t smile or frown. Just
looked. She had a familiar face, long-nosed, deep-set, dark eyes; skin like
soft, old leather, the colour of well-seasoned laurel-wood. She wore one of
those turban-style hats, old and grey as her coat and cardigan. Grey skirt,
grey tights; shoes from another era. They made them to last back then. When I’d
piled all my wood up and grabbed it, started to make a move towards home, I
passed her, gave her a smile. She just stood there, barely moving, on the
periphery of this scrubby, broken place: lilacs, ragwort and buddleia breaking
through cracked concrete, cans and papers and carrier bags blowing around, and
she didn’t smile back. Watery, her eyes: bulging un-shed droplets of salt water
just sitting in the loose lower lids of those sad, sad eyes. It made me wonder
what those eyes had seen and I wanted to take her hand and just take her home
with me. Just to talk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
But I didn’t. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Take care love, I’d said. <i>Take care, love. </i>What the fuck? Then I
remembered. It wasn’t ‘til I got back here until I remembered who she reminded
me of. My Grandmother.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Made me sad, that. I loved my Grandmother. Bubbe Ilyana. Ilyana Yablonsky.
She was the snuggliest, cuddliest, sweetest lady in the world. I remember,
being small, hiding under the table, Bubbe feeding me secret sweet things,
giving me secret kind words and kissing my forehead when I was in trouble with
my parents, who were always in trouble with each other. Bubbe was my refuge.
Never angry, never shouting: not with me. She would defend me even when I knew
I’d done wrong. I miss her. Aye, no time to dwell on it, times change. Feel sad
though…if she saw me like this… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
So back to the real world. I shove the empty pea can into an empty
carrier bag I’ve hung under the stove as Tania’s footsteps increase in volume.
Up she comes. Three knocks on the door and she’s calling my name. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-You on your own Tan?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Course, hurry up, my fingers are falling off.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
In she comes, swinging a huge
collection of high street bags: Kookai, Next, Miss Selfridge, Morgan, Oasis.
Her lips brush my cheek and this time she smells sweeter than before, all
perfumed up. Can’t say the same for myself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And then, something clicks: the shoes. Bubbe Ilyana’s shoes. They were
the same. Silver leather with narrow, narrow, pointed toes and soft, purple
suede just covering the toes like hearts. Heels like they don’t make any more,
silver heels with nails in the bottom that went click-clack, click-clack and I
remember her talking about those shoes, how they’d crossed the sea with her on
the Kindertransport: her mother’s shoes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She never saw her mother again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Then the lady in the wasteland becomes Bubbe Ilyana and I’m wondering
why she was crying. And where she got the shoes. Strange thoughts. I begin to
question if she was even there at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, Lee’s still not answering his phone. You can’t sort us out, can
you? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I’m not really listening, not
wanting to communicate with this situation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gary, are you okay?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Huh?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I said Le-<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Lee’s not answering his phone, yeah I know. Sorry, Tan, I was somewhere
else for a minute. Been shopping, I see.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-New Visa card. What do you think? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She pulls out this transparent top,
MORGAN and a red PVC heart plastered across the chest, holds it up against her,
grinning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What’s that say? Moron?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Don’t be cheeky, I paid sixty five quid for that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck me, so you are a moron.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I would fuck you if you ever had a bath, and anyway, I didn’t come here
to be insulted. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I can’t be arsed with this. I’m not
in the mood. See what I mean when I say she’s lucky she met me first? Credit
card scams click through my mind, but I’ll take it slow with Tania. I don’t want
to lose her trust. But if she thinks I’m insulting her and not the other way
round, I guess it’s just another case of another fuckin planet. Let’s see how
long she can keep her head in the clouds. I’ve seen stronger women than Tania
dead in bus station toilets with their fancy-clothed arses soaking up their own
piss.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Fuck off then, Tania. If you wanna spend sixty-five quid on a bit of
fabric, that’s up to you. My Nan came to this country with nothing but a pair
of shoes and the clothes on her back, but she could take sixty five yards of
fabric and feed her entire family for a month and pay the rent off the clothes
she made, and trust me, she would never have put her name on a piece of crap
like that: look, the stitches are already coming unpicked…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She’s got this crazy look in her
eyes now. Maybe she’s going to cry, but then she smiles instead. That pitying
look that I shouldn’t like, but do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Feelings? Hell, I don’t have
feelings. Not that I want you to see, anyway. Do I?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ah, forget it. I like you, you know. And I’m not going to fuck you
either, okay? No offence meant, none taken, right? And look, if you wanna
score, you better get yourself down Cockney Stan’s. He’ll sort you out if you
tell him I sent you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The look of disappointment ain’t
exactly breaking my heart; not even a look of desperation would have broken my
heart, but she wasn’t desperate then. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I don’t even know him. Oh Gareeee- can’t I just get a bag off you? Just
a bit?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Frowning now, she is, throwing
herself onto my bed and knocking over a Kookai bag, clothes spilling out onto
the floor.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Watch out, you might not be able to get a refund. Look. I’ve told you.
I’ve got fuck all. Last bag I had was shit, didn’t feel nothing off it. I had
to scrape it out with the wet filter and do that after, just to take the edge
off. Tan, I’ve got a proper bad habit, gotta spend the rest of the day grafting
before I can score again and I’m not being funny, but I got shit to sort out
now. I’d ask you to help us out but…look, I ain’t no dealer. I don’t need the
hassle. Stan’s got one of them new flats down Chichester Road. First flat on
the corner when you get to Asda- third floor, with a balcony, right? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s not lying: it’s like that most days, more often it’s worse. I’m
telling the truth about yesterday. More or less. Just talking as if we’re still
on Thursday. Come on, who doesn’t improvise the lyrics a bit when they’re
singing sad songs?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Stan, right? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-That’s him. Just say you know Gary and he’ll sort you out. Look, I’ve
gotta get on with some stuff. If you go down to Stan’s…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, I get the message. You going to Dred-Rock tonight?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Might do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
I start picking her new clothes off
the floor for her, put them in the bag for her and put it in her lap. She puts
her hands around it and cuddles it forlornly, like she regrets having bought
it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Might see you there then. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, might do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
My mind’s working overtime as I see
her out. I laugh, thinking about Lee. Cunt ain’t never gonna answer his phone
cos that number’s always gonna be switched off, laying as it is at the bottom
of the Manchester shit canal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
When she’s gone, I take out the bag and do some up just cos I’m feeling
the stress. Maybe it’s Tania and her credit card, maybe I’m mourning a wasted
credit card opportunity. Maybe it’s just life in general. Don’t know why I bothered after I do it, cos
there’s no rush or nothing. I stash my used filter with the others in my little
baggie, counting them, yellowish brownish, some lighter than others, some I
swear I’ve boiled half to death in desperate times and been loath to throw them
away, Just in case, eh? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Yeah, I’m on a weird one today. Those eyes stay in my mind. And those
silver leather shoes. Bubbe Ilyana’s shoes. Fuck, I miss her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b>* * *<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: 36.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania gets off the bus at Bonsall Street and walks past the flats,
condemned for demolition. Just Malarky remains open, a wholefood co-op; the
chemist and bookie’s boarded up now. An old man with a carrier bag dangling
from the handle of his walking stick shuffles along a walkway and down the
stairs on the end of the block. Huge graffiti designs in multicoloured letters
and faces cover entire walls in 3D block script; Tania can’t make out what most
of them say. Above, way up high, white letters drip, misspelled against the
black painted concrete:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
SAY GOODYE TO THE PLAYGROUND IN THE
SKY<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
And underneath:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
NEVER QUIT!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
HULME FOR HULME PEOPLE.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
OTTERBURN CREW.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
This isn’t a place for Tania, but she’s drawn in as though watching a
film. She doesn’t feel real here. Rows of Travellers’ trucks, caravans and
buses crowd the concrete courtyard alongside cars and caravans. Litter blows in
the wind with music, techno beats bounce off walls which soon will become empty
space. She sees a sofa outside a front door, a woman in a flowery hippy skirt
sitting, smoking, her hair a mix of braids, dreads and silk-wraps. These are
people, like me, they are people, but not like me. Not like me, she thinks and
wonders what she’d say to them. Wondering what she’s doing here, wondering why
she stopped that night in Rusholme and put a pound in a beggar’s hat. It’s all
unfolding in a seemingly uncontrolled way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
A clapped out fiat slinks past, slow reggae bass shaking the bodywork.
The driver’s a Rasta in a red, gold and green tam and he beeps the horn and
slows down. Panic rises in her: why’s he beeping at her? She speeds up walking,
then feels a fool as he shouts a greeting to the chef behind the counter of a
small catering van which advertises in bold Caribbean colours:
akee&saltfish, curry goat, rice’n’peas, goatfish, snapper fish, dumplin and
other stuff she’s never heard of, let alone tasted. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Y’irie, Star?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The shaven headed bloke waves back,
shouting<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Irie, man, I-rey!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania crosses the road in front of
the car, parked now, the driver chatting with the bloke in the van. Tania’s
wondering what <i>goatfish </i> is…goat
and fish, a fish like a goat? Why would anyone want to eat goat anyway? Yuck.
And the worst of all: <i>fried plantain. </i>Fried plantain? And sorrel? Why
would anyone want to fry and eat garden weeds? And <i>ackee</i> sounds yucky.
There are purple cans of grape soda and a jug of caramel-coloured liquid she
can’t identify. But the food smells good and she’s wondering if she’d ever be
curious enough to try some.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Past the Nia Centre and up to the corner opposite Asda. Here we are,
Chichester Road. She hangs around on the corner for a minute, looking up at the
flats. Counts one, two, three floors. Approaches the door, slowly, nervously.
Three buzzers: inside the light-up boxes are names: the bottom reads CRAIG in
neat, black fineliner; the middle one’s empty. The button for flat three has
STEVE TANNER biroed in inside the light-up box, badly handwritten in blue.
Hesitating, she feels inside her pocket: forty quid. She looks back up the
street in the direction from which she’s come. <i>Ackee&saltfish,
rice’n’peas</i>…the smell still drifts in the slight wind. OK, here goes. She
doesn’t want to do it: she’s right out of her comfort zone. Rusholme’s okay;
seedy, but feels safer. When she looked up this place in her A-Z, the words
MOSS SIDE flew off the page at her, totally freaked her out: <i>I mean,
everyone know’s it’s</i> <i>the gangland capital of England</i>, she’d thought.
But this is Hulme, right, not Moss Side. Her father would have a frickin heart
attack if he could see her now. One…two…three…four…five, silently counting to
ten before she raises her hand, extends her index finger and presses the
buzzer. It makes a farty, electrical sound. Soon after, a crackle is emitted
from the silver-grey slotted speaker.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Even in the <i>yeah,</i> she can
hear a rough, Mancunian accent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Is Stan in?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Who are you?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m a mate of Gary’s. Tania. He said you’d sort us out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah? Gary who? Could be Gary fockin Lineker.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She can feel her face glowing. Glad
she plastered on the foundation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Gary with the mohican.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Uh, hang on, I’m coming down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Coming down off what? She breathes
in and leans against the wall next to the buzzers. Deep breaths. The intercom
goes dead and she waits, nervous: nervous enough to light another cigarette as
she sees dirty once-white Reebok classics, Adidas pants with poppers down the
sides, then the rest of the stocky bloke, who jumps down the last flight of
stairs. On top he wears a navy Nike sweatshirt and his hair’s shaved so close
his head’s shining. He opens the door just a crack and speaks, his voice croaky
like he smokes too many cigarettes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-How do I know you’re not five O?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s never heard of <i>five o </i>before,
but she supposes he must mean police. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I’m just a mate of Gary’s. He said…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Show us yer browns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-What?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I said show us yer fockin browns, din’ I? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Uh…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania hasn’t a clue what the man’s
talking about, and he’s got these crazy eyes she’s trying to avoid looking at,
but he’s staring straight into hers. His face is pitted, skin shrunk tight over
sharp bones and his skin’s dry as paper. The myriad lines he has are set in a
frown. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Don’t fock me about, right. Show us yer fockin arms then. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I don’t inject. Gary sai-<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-How the fock do I know yer not five O? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Look, I’m not a pig. Ga-<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The word escapes her mouth
unexpectedly. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Any twat can say that, though, can’t they? En’t what you say, it’s who
you are. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Please, let me finish my sentence. Gary said to come and see you. He
couldn’t sort me out and said you would. I’m alright, yeah? Look, I want four
bags. I’ve got forty quid, right.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The bloke pauses, looking her up
and down for a minute. After what feels to Tania like ten minutes, he seems
satisfied.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Alright. I can do you five bags for forty. But I’m gonna have to go and
pick some up. Be about half hour, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Cheers. Look, I really appreciate this, Stan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She smiles, relieved how well this
is working out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-No problem. Give us the forty and I’ll see you outside the dole in half
an hour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stan opens the door a bit wider and
Tania feeds the money through to him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Just gonna get me coat. Don’t hang around here. Go, shift, for fock
sake. Go to Asda do a bitta shoppin or somefink. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She gave him the money. Forty quid. Forty pounds sterling. Four tenners.
A bargain, really: could’ve been five. Simon Tanner; Stan; Cockney Stan. Hold
on a minute: <i>Cockney</i>? Cockney Stan, Stan the man. Stan, Stan the heroin
man…was he? She gave him the money and he took it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s got money. People say that money doesn’t grow on trees, but it
does for Tania. Money is made from paper and paper’s made from wood and Tania’s
money comes from Daddy. Reams of paper, scattered with figures: calculations;
profit, loss. Daddy’s BIG IN FINANCE and Daddy’s rich. Would she have handed
Stan the money had it been her own? A Post Office giro? Signing on, forty
quid’s more than a week’s payment, but Tania’s never been on the dole. Would
she have handed it over if it had been part of a measly student grant that
didn’t even cover the rent? But Tania doesn’t get a grant: she’s not eligible.
Her parents earn too much. Instead, she gets an allowance from Daddy. Dearest
Daddy, Daddy dear. <i>O Mio </i><i><span lang="IT">babbino</span>
Caro</i>, just like in the operas she’d seen on countless family outings. A
cheque in the bank every month. And Tania spends money like cows eat grass.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania’s always shopped at Sainsbury’s. Sometimes Tesco, but never Asda.
She turns the corner and crosses towards the large supermarket, crossing the
huge car park into the shop. The baskets have green handles and she heads
straight for the booze aisle. Lingering before rows of wine, categorised into
countries of origin: Argentina, Australia, Chile, Colombia…white to the left
and red to the right. No, not wine today. She doesn’t want to carry the box.
Boxes are divine; a box of red Stowells and she’s got a near-perfect night. But
Southern Comfort’s what she’s decided on. The next isle is spirits. She chooses
a bottle of Southern Comfort. Reads the labels on a few rums. Cockspur; Asda’s
own brand; Bacardi; Appleton; She likes the label, but Wray and Nephew
Overproof White Rum sounds more interesting. Adding it to her basket, she’s
checking her watch and she’s got twenty minutes to go.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Okay, clothes? Does Asda even sell clothes? Definitely worth
avoiding. Videos? Music…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
A young mother pushes a toddler in the trolley seat. He has blonde
dreadlocks and big blue-green eyes. Totally cute, Tania’s thinking to herself
and wondering if she’ll ever have children of her own. Wondering if she’ll ever
meet a man she’d want to have children <i>with</i>. She’s smiling at him now,
giving him little waves, as he waves his arms wildly at the bright jelly
packets, beginning to whine as his mother pushes the trolley on, looking from
the jelly to his mother emphatically, reaching and grabbing air as he breaks
into a howl<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-I wan yeleeee!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Baby, next time we’ll get jelly, okay?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-BurrIwanyelleeee!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hey, sugar, mummy’s gonna get you jelly next time…I can’t afford it
today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The boy’s wails fill the shop as
Tania joins a long queue, the same woman joining the queue behind her. Rows of
sweets and chocolates light up his eyes again as he leans and reaches for
Skittles and Smarties, nearly precipitating himself from the seat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-We’ll get some when I get paid, little man, eh-ey, don’t cry now
momma’s likkle man.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania watches the woman cuddle her
boy back into the seat, rubbing her nose with his, kissing the tears from his
wet cheeks and wiping his nose with a tissue. In her near-empty trolley are
baked beans, onions, spaghetti hoops, tinned tomatoes and spaghetti, all in the
white cheapest range packaging. All the while the boy continues to cry and cry.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
She feels in her pocket for change, offers the woman a pound.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-For the baby? Is that okay?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The woman smiles, her hazel eyes
lighting up and creasing into a smile.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Ah, thanks darling, hey, Josh-Josh, this lady’s just given you some
pocket money; say thank you to the nice lady.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The toddler hides his face in his mother’s coat amongst, old, dried
tears and snot from earlier episodes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-It’s okay, don’t worry, he’s shy, huh? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
The woman nods and chooses a packet
of Skittles, handing it to her boy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Hey little man, you want these? Say thank you, Josh, like a good boy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Adrenaline rushes to Tania’s
stomach as she checks her watch. The woman at the checkout bleeps her shopping
over the scanner and swipes Tania’s card through the till.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Do you want any cashback?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Yeah, can I have fifty pounds please?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
At the tobacco counter she buys
forty Marlboro Lights and leaves through the automatic doors . <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
It’s quarter to four when she gets to the dole office on the corner of
Moss Lane East and Chichester Road. She can’t see Stan, so she pushes at the
door. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
-Sorry, we’re closed. A man wearing a blue and yellow Employment Service
tie speaks through the glass. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania lights a cigarette and leans against the wall. Reggae is pumping
out of the Little Alex across the road; a greying Rastaman, dreadlocks hanging
almost to his knees, is talking into a mobile phone in the doorway. She watches
as buses drive up and down Alexandra Road, dropping off and picking up
passengers. The smell of hops drifts in the air from the nearby brewery. The
Rasta from the Little Alex slopes off up Alexandra Road towards the park as
first spots of rain begin to fall. Taking another cigarette from her near-empty
packet, Tania lights it from the one she’s just finished. It’s half four and
there’s still no sign of Stan. Perhaps he’s had to go home first or something,
she thinks, as she turns and walks down Chichester Road towards Stan’s flat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
There’s no reply when she rings the buzzer. She presses the light-up
button again, which is starting to glow yellow in the fading daylight. It’s
raining heavily now and the wind’s picked up, blowing the branches of an
ancient, lone tree which stands in a random patch of rubbly grass. A car seat
leans against its trunk as though the tree’s just waiting for its driver to
appear to speed it out of the inner city and away from impending chainsaws and
bulldozers. A battered Asda trolley lies beside it, surrounded by empty cans,
bottles. Some lay misshapen and melted on a circular patch of black and grey
where a fire has scorched the earth. Tania doesn’t know it, but this is the
Birley Tree, which once stood at the gates of Birley High School. Its branches
curled into the shape of a hand sticking two fingers up to the world, one
hundred and ten years it has stood, this black poplar, Queen of the trees of
Hulme.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Tania steps backwards into the dusk street and looks up at Stan’s flat.
The windows are dark. After pressing the buzzer again, she walks back towards
the dole, rain soaking through her jacket and trousers. It’s just coming up to
half past five as she reaches the corner of Moss Lane East, cold rain dripping
from her hair and down her back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Stan is nowhere to be seen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
When Tania looks back at this day,
this is what she will always remember: the smell of hops and the scorched earth
beneath the Birley Tree.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p>© Vee 1993-2012<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Wayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535049480477577355noreply@blogger.com3