“Life, not death, is the great adventure” – Sherwood Anderson
1
Rugby, 2003. We are all crammed into the local club again. It is Friday night after all, and there’s not much else to do in our quiet provincial town. Conversations are shouted, not spoken, loud in order to be heard over the damn PA speakers. Adam and I slip out back to cool off and smoke a joint. It’s much cooler outside, not stuffy and sweaty, and we talk for a brief few minutes. From three floors up we can see most of the town centre. Cars come and go down below. Sirens whir way out in the distance. Far off we can see the bane of the whole town; the chimney at the cement works, constantly blowing off smoke into the darkness. Adam passes me back the smoke with cheers.
Slipping back inside and keeping our red eyes away from eager gazes we dig into our spot in the crowd to watch the next band. I felt warm again, the edges fuzzy, stoned. As the band starts I can’t help but grin. For half an hour we are barraged by a wall of guitars. Between songs I gaze around the crowd with my mouth agape, in awe of the music. “Where are they from?” I ask with a shout.
“Northampton.”
Later I do my research, looking into bands from the same town. It turns out there are dozens of great bands from the same town. The weirdest thing is that its only twenty miles away and I’d never even been there. A friend and I drive over to a gig, which turns out to be one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. After that we made regular trips to numerous venues to see different bands each time. We’d talk about these bands and their songs on the return trips like they were gods of our own age and ability. I knew nothing else about the place, other than some standard facts lifted from a history book. People have moved for better reasons before, we can be sure of that.
Adam’s words proved true when he turned to me after their first song that night: “There’s something in the water over there.” I simply had to drink from the same well.
“Oi. H,” I could hear someone calling me. I gazed around and heard it again. “H!” I looked up at Joe’s place. He was leaning out of the window. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“Not much. Get the kettle on man,” I said, pointing up at him, “I’ll be back in five minutes with a thousand tea bags!” Joe retracted back inside the window and I pressed on to the shop. Early mornings. Sometimes I find them the best time to be alive and sometimes the worst, depending on the hangover.
I worked my way around town quickly, dragging myself into a few places and ticking off my to-do list. Last night’s drinking had left me tired, broken and dry. It was all I could do to hold myself up, but I persevered knowing that Joe would listen to whatever endless stream of bullshit I decided to spout. “Ah man,” I complained as he opened the door and we clambered up the flight of stairs to his flat. “I feel like I’ve died.”
Joe was ever content, he worked in a kitchen and frequented open mic nights around town, making every single audience member bawl in laughter at his comedic genius. He was like a guru, he was that chilled. I’d go round when I was feeling most disconnected and alienated from society, life, the town. He’d always manage to ease these thoughts with his simple kindness and friendliness.
I caught sight of George walking one afternoon and rode up to say hello. “I’d recognise that face anywhere,” he said, taking my hand in a tight grip, “how you doing?”
“I’m getting out of this place,” he said, something I’d heard plenty of people say but less people act upon. “It’s fucked.”
Sometimes I feel the same and sometimes I don’t,” I told him. “It’s a love – hate relationship, you know? Today, I’m thinking we’ve run our course together – the town and me. Where are you thinking of going?”
“Anywhere for six months or so,” he snapped. “Up north was my first thought. Maybe I’ll get onto the continent; I’ve got a friend in Munich I might stay with.”
“You’ve got it all planned?” I asked.
“Mate. The way I see it is if I can’t live anywhere else I’ll return anyway. If you see me here, again, in a year you’ll know it’s me that’s fucked, not this town.” George always had a way of putting things in lamens terms. Art meant nothing to him; he didn’t even consider the concept of being arty when he did things. He was brutish and straight-forward. He didn’t stop to think of what to say, he’d simply say it openly and honestly.
We shook hands and parted ways at the top of the hill. I’d helped friends pack up their stuff when they left home for the first time before. More often than not education was the reason for the migration. I’d driven people out of town on the A407 and beyond to their new lives. It was saddening each time, to see someone go onto new things, but that was the selfish way to look at it. They were doing what they felt they had to, and so must I.
Moving out of town was already decided for me, but George’s strange words of depressing encouragement sounded out over passing traffic. If he could get out, so could I. A shift in life is what I drastically needed. Life in my hometown had run its course. I’d spent long enough walking the same streets and meeting the same people over and over. It was such a small place that life often became a repetitive hallucination. Every single day seemed to repeat itself like the day before and the day before that. We were all stuck here, locked into a Groundhog-day like scenario. Something had to give, and I was going to make it happen, if for no reason other than challenging myself.
2
I moved and it was into a cramped lifeless mess of a house with six other people – none of whom actually knew each other. It was difficult to say the least. I tried to live the way I wanted to by organising communal eating, by doing the recycling, by sharing, by allowing a little give and take; but I found it couldn’t be achieved very easily. If there was no cooperation it was all but impossible. There were six other people who probably hadn’t thought about things like that as deeply as I had, if at all, and they all want to live their way – to live their life and not mine. I found it all very frustrating. I’d often find myself asking ‘Why don’t they see? Why don’t they understand how they should live?’ But, and it took me a while to figure it out, it wasn’t how they should live – it was how I should live. Around myself I built my own nest.
Over the years you develop your own unique idea of how you should exist. You sieve through your own values and hopefully act on them, making them become a reality to you, not only an idea. Then you piece it together. Over time you only know how to live that way and no other. I feel that this is where I was at. That all the years at home had done their job and installed the right set of ethics and values and beliefs into my very being, like I was now really unable to escape the things that I’d grown up with.
I disliked parts of some of my housemates for a number of completely different reasons; one was into metal and covered his room in horrible black posters and strange-shaped guitars; one was into the labels – and bought clothes that cost an extraordinary amount because they had a certain logo printed on them (he didn’t care they were all made of polyester and horribly sweaty); another housemate was into money and only ever talked about cash, savings, outgoings, budgets and stuff relating to money; another would go out clubbing and claim not to remember anything from the night before every morning; another one was a thief, a cheat and a liar – who drove us all mad. They drove around all day too, ate out a lot at expensive chains and had very little time for any thoughts or ideas that were alien to them. I felt as if I could see right through them all - as if none of them really had any guts, any spine, any morals, any original ideas, but mostly: any beliefs, any true, honest concrete beliefs. We were not like-minded, at all.
But what could I do? Only ease them into the things I wanted them to do by suggesting all cooking a big meal or by going on, at extreme length, about how easy it was to lift this empty water bottle up with one hand and place it into the red recycling box instead of the bin. Slowly, ever so slowly, it began to work. It was a miracle! Housemates began eating together, all chipping in for the meals, and eventually the recycling bin was full before it was taken away every other week. Our Saturday morning fry-ups were the stuff of legend, and they helped pacify the vibes in the house. It was a good start.
On the first day at the University we were all ushered into the hall for an introductory lecture from the Dean. All these new faces hung around in the foyer, talking in hushed tones. I squeezed past them, smiling. I’d already learnt to enjoy my own company, and was a few years older than these younglings. Shuffling up to a seat three rows from the front I sat down between two people I’d never met. I was in a particularly good mood that day, feeling warm and ready to embrace anything thrown at me.
The hundreds of newcomers surrounding me seemed nervous and on edge as I looked around. It was understandable really; they’d been plucked from their comfortable lives at home and placed here in a new town. Everything was new and anything possible. I was the most calm and relaxed person there that afternoon. The whole crowd looked stunned, shocked and scared as all the tutors lined up along the sides of the room.
The Dean strode in and took his place centre stage. “Welcome,” he said. He gave his speech, which he’d clearly been rehearsing. The delivery was perfect. He appeared to be boring everyone apart from me. He had my full attention, I was enraptured. He wrapped it up with one line that I’ll always remember: “You,” he said, waving out at the crowd, “are the cultural shock troopers of a new generation.”
My jaw dropped. The hair on my neck stood on end. I looked round, smiling, as if to say ‘did you hear that?’ A mass of unfamiliar faces looked back expressionless. I was the only person who was floored by his encouraging statement. Granted, it was cheesy, but it was hopeful, and I liked it.
3
From my second floor window I had a good view of only one thing; mud hill, a strange mound of dirt, rubble and weeds locked in by buildings. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone, and no-one would want to own it. A tall, sharp fence surrounded the lost plot. I attempted to scale the fence once, but bailed when I realised I wouldn’t be able to get back out.
I dreamt dreams about that heap of mud. Dreams where I sat, courting my crush, drinking beer as the sun went down, as the sun came up and as the rubble trucks came for the whole hill. All the usual stuff dreams are made of. No-one understood the beauty of the thing when they came to visit. “Nice view,” they’d say with a sarcastic snigger. I stared at it for hours from my window as I worked at my desk – this lost, misplaced, alienated man-made void.
When it rained the hill turned into a shiny, brown slop. The heavier it rained the more it appeared to melt away, but it somehow kept its height. My housemates couldn’t get their heads round my love affair. “It’s the only wasteland this side of the river,” I told them. The spots they liked and frequented were less forgotten than my choices. They dug American-style retail areas; I dug muddy hills and tiny parks. Mud hill gave me many eventful evenings, and, as I wrote, some turns-of-phrase that floored me.
If I wasn’t spending the evening gazing out the window I’d hang out with Terry, who lived in the opposite room. Terry and I got along okay; he was into music, at least. He liked to talk about drugs a lot. Being from the rave capital of the UK I quizzed him about the scene there often. The drugs thing I didn’t mind, but it got a bit tiresome after a while. There really was more to life than getting fucked up, I tried to tell him.
He had his jumper laid out on the bed, arms stretched out, and no creases at all. A bit of a perfectionist, he’d treat pretty much all his clothes with both care and this weird sense of respect. ‘They are only clothes’, I’d tell him, ‘as long as they serve their purpose who gives a shit?’ He took up the jumper and pulled it over his head, brushing it downwards until it looked just perfect for him.
“Surely, you’re gonna put a t-shirt on under that jumper right?” I asked him.
“You don’t put shirts on under jumpers like this.”
“What man? You mad? You’ve gotta wear a shirt under a jumper, you’ll only gonna get itchy otherwise. You don’t wanting to be scratching around all the time do you?”
He looked straight at me, pushing his head forwards a little. “I know about jumpers, alright? You don’t put shirts on under a jumper, that’s the whole point of a jumper. You’d look like a fucking pleb if you had a shirt collar sticking out from underneath wouldn’t you?”
“It doesn’t bother me”, I told him. “I’d rather not be itchy. And besides, what the hell are you gonna do if you get too hot and wanna cool off? You’d be wishing you wore a t-shirt underneath then! You’re possibly making a commitment you won’t be able to keep – right?!”
“Look man, I know style. And I know how to look smart, unlike you, you scruffy fucker. You’d learn a thing or two if you took my advice.”
“You mean how to wear a jumper properly?” I butted in.
“That for starters.”
“Man, you can’t tell me shit about what I wear. About fashion or that crap, I’m not interested. You wear shorts all year round, so don’t feed me no shit.”
Things such as this went round and round, but we were the only two housemates able to laugh both with and at each other. We were so unalike it was baffling how we could get along at all. He was the one who pointed out the church bells, showing he did have a soft side to his solid shell. “Isn’t it beautiful on weekend mornings when you wake up hearing the church bells?”
I looked at him. “You alright?” I asked, “that’s a tender observation for you isn’t it?”
Terry always had his back up. I thought I saw myself in the way he acted from time to time. We got on, as housemates have to, but we weren’t best friends. We put up with each other, and killed time together.
I proudly put a map of our new hometown up on the kitchen wall as if to say ‘this is our home now – let’s embrace it.’ Let’s explore and find all the good secret spots and the hidden bike tracks and little waterfalls and the lush green patches of grass and figure out the numbers and journeys of all the bus routes, locate the train station, or the hospital, or the river, or the record shop or whatever. Let’s find everything. But no-one took any notice of it – in fact, they drew all over my map.
To begin with it was just this little fish in the middle of the reservoir, and it went downhill from there; a big black circle drawn round our house clearly marked in permanent marker: ‘Our House’. I could put my finger on our house with my eyes closed. Everyone else had to look up the street name or run their fingers along the journey from the town centre to find the place on the map. Did they ever attend a geography lesson in their life? Had they ever even read a map before? It seemed unlikely.
As the map got progressively more and more defaced I began having trouble even reading half the road names myself. Confronting the culprit red handed I asked whether he could read and not abuse the map I’d put up for everyone to use. “I can read a map” he’d said.
“What is this massive circle here for then? It isn’t even anything important. It’s in the middle of a field.”
“Oh that? That’s to mark a crop circle.”
“A crop circle? Don’t talk shit man. You hate the outdoors, you’d detest a crop circle all filled with bugs and shit. Plus – you haven’t even been out of your room for days. And – and, you definitely wouldn’t have explored that far out of own.”
“I do leave my room…,” he said, “…to explore.”
“Really! Not to go anywhere but the kitchen,” I stabbed, pulling the map down and easing the blu-tack from the corners.
I felt hunted and hated by most of my housemates, which suited me just fine. The library was where I spent most of my time after lessons, before lessons and in the evening. It was a warm environment, and there was plenty of peace and quiet, which is what was sorely needed for me to clear my head. Walking home one afternoon, folders and notebooks spilled from under my arm, I was almost cornered by a Hare Krishna.
“Excuse me!” he called, “Are you working hard?”
“Yes,” I replied, holding up my papers and continuing on my quick way. I had more work to do yet, much more.
But I hatched plans; gripes at home were taken to the next level by all of us. In the fridge I left a carton of stale milk, hoping someone would drink it, though we’ll never know. Only they know now.
I came home one night to find the stereo in our kitchen had been sabotaged – but it was obvious why. I was the only person in the house who ever used the tape or the CD player on the damn thing. Everyone else used only the radio to tune into shitty stations which pumped meaningless, mainstream crap constantly. For some time I had put up with it and they’d had to put up with whatever weird stuff I was playing that day. But that day I found the tape and CD functions both broken. Purposely, I thought, so I couldn’t use them. Only the radio could be used and I instantly knew this was an attack against me and no-one else. This was big news.
A few days prior to finding the stereo broken I’d found a portable stereo sitting on top of a skip. I’d taken it home and painted it up, memorising the buttons – then spray painting over them. Ha! I knew what to do. So, I snapped off the aerial and threw it away. I’d painted over the tuning gauge already so the last thing to do was superglue the tuner button so it couldn’t be turned on at all – so only tape and CD would work, and only if you knew which button to press.
I put it in the kitchen and sniggered to myself: now they’d have to listen to my stuff. I’d never have to endure an hour of shit RnB whilst I cooked dinner again! We’d never argue over CD or radio again – now I’d only have to argue between tape or CD by myself.
It already felt like the routine was getting me down too much. To get comfortable is maybe the worst sin, I lamented. Stay uncomfy, stay excited and hungry, willing to go with the flow and ignore any inhibitions. When I think of those times I remember how comfy and boring my whole outlook, attitude and life was. Everyone got my goat – everything wound me up and I found myself locked away repeating days over and over for the first time, lost in time and headspace.
Maybe I was depressed. Maybe it was some kind of blockage, but I’m only able to see these problems looking back with the benefit of hindsight. At the time it seemed as if I was morphing from one person to another; growing up. I was out on my own for the first time; no parents to run home to and eat dinner with. Nothing was familiar, everything was new; that was incredibly exciting, but I still felt I wasted too much time.
4
I went out of my way to visit places no-one ever mentioned. I’d ride around all the so-called sketchy estates, hang out at various local dives and search for the bookshop in someone’s front room that proved ever elusive. The students usually avoided these landmarks, but they were worth celebrating. Local folk far outnumbered the students, and would know of these places. I had to find someone on the inside to show me around.
With only one tribe of friends life would get boring quickly. We weren’t cut from the same cloth. We didn’t have things we could get lost in talking about. I wanted to get a feel for the town, and its people. What was it like, really? Who were the local characters I ought to meet? Does the 40 bus go up the hill or left at the park? Many early nights I rode around looking for someone to befriend.
It was a standard British market town. The Market Square was lined with big, grand buildings, which stood in great opposition to the tiny little stalls. Those grand buildings were all full of chains now; consumer capitalism at work, even in the provinces. Looking up, you’d notice all the windows full of cardboard boxes, and wonder what the view from that window would be like. The stalls seemed stuck in time; they were still built in ten minutes every morning from rusty metal bars and a tarpaulin, but they were independent; they were their own bosses.
It was an untidy town. On the pavements outside never-ending rows of terraced houses lay bags of rubbish, loose papers flying around, broken bottles, rotting fruit and veg. All manner of waste, disposed of in the street needlessly. No-one seemed to know when their bin day was, or even cared to make use of the collections. Potholes plagued the roads; broken slabs tripped you up on the path. Puddles splashed from left and right all the time. In the autumn around the park leaves gathered themselves in deep drifts, growing in size each day, until they were two or three feet deep. I was able to add a whole ten minutes onto my journey home by trudging through the leaves instead of around them. Who knows how many spiders I’d return home with? Where all the leaves went was a more important question.
The town should have been the capital – it almost had it, but not quite. The King settled on the spot the train station now occupies, but he fell from grace. London became the capital, the castle was destroyed, and the privilege to have a University in the town was taken away, until only recently. It felt forgotten, lost, out in the country, and tucked away. Generally unvisited, and avoided; it risked itself in some way.
There was never anywhere to go. The Theatre was over-priced and pretentious as hell; all interval red wine drinkers in suits. The Museum was only a viable visit once a year, tops. The caged birds in the park not only made you feel bad but were sad-looking and, well, caged. The Art Gallery changed their exhibition every three months. That left only endless industrial estates, leafy parks, boozy pubs, and cosy friend’s houses; our own entertainment.
I pulled out my map and found a tiny park I’d not visited before, just ten minutes from our place. It was locked in between some sketchy estates. On the way there I passed a lady throwing a bucket of water from the 3rd floor of her block of flats. It was like a scene from Victorian London – degenerate and depraved. The park itself was a bit disappointing. There was no-one there. The lake didn’t win my attention or envy either. It was muddy and overgrown – I couldn’t see the fish that were supposedly alive in there. A couple of ducks quacked lazily and heartlessly. I rode along a couple of pathways but was confronted by a dead-end spinney. It was a useless park – that’s how it felt. I rode home quickly and tried to forget about it.
Strolling or riding around with the weather beating down caused me to think of the past; the long years that the town has withstood the elements. How hardy it must make people. How long people must have stood in the same spot, in different surroundings.
I’d heard people say there was nothing to do. It was that tireless, heavily-overused phrase that drips from the mouth of most stupid fuckers. Of course there was stuff to do – there was never anywhere to go. You had to make it happen; I’d learnt that lesson long ago from playing in bands. I kept busy every day. There was so much to discover out there. A new town offered new choices, ideas, friendships, everything was new. Being out of the house constantly I enjoyed a magical time when the town seemed to be our oyster.
In the alleyway beside the club I met Aaron and Kath one night. I’d seen their band a couple of times but we hadn’t met proper. We eyed each other suspiciously for a second before they beckoned me over. They both shook my hand before turning to each other and jokingly shaking each other’s hands. I liked them immediately. They both had a zine from the stash I’d brought with me. Aaron leaned in, sliding a joint out from under his cuff. “Do you smoke?” We snuck off to the corner of the garden.
A couple of months went by. Each day a chore; hacking away at my desk over and again, lost in a tangle of lined paper and thoughts. Staring out at Mud Hill, turning over the record, scratching my head and biting my nails; time slowed so much it stopped all the time. My only daily human contact was in either the classroom or the kitchen. Gigs were my only real comfort, and there was only one place to see bands regularly.
Faces recur at small local gigs. Once or twice a week, in an attempt to curb the trudge of work, we’d find ourselves at the same place, often with the same bands. I’d hide behind a pint and watch the bands, then go to selling magazines afterwards. I met Eva one evening when I was approaching everyone with my by-line: ‘Do you wanna buy a magazine?’ Usually it came out more like ‘Doyoowannabyamagazin?’ as I slurred and juggled with my cigarette. She said she didn’t want to. Buy a magazine, that is. Still, we got talking. I liked her immediately.
The club played a vital part in not only my life at the time, but the lives of almost everyone around me. Everyone I knew in town, I knew from there. Alex, the soundman, should have been knighted for his services to local music. Patrick, an elder musician, was always there, pint in hand. Just sitting at the bar everyone respected his past accomplishments, and revelled in his stories of touring. Though I was new in town, I never felt lonely there, even if I had turned up on my own. There was always the book exchange to check out and keep busy with between bands.
Aaron wanted to corner me and discuss literature. “Come round Wednesday,” he said, “and we’ll listen to some records too.” An offer no-one can refuse! He and Dan were inseparable. They both lived in a big terraced house with an undisclosed amount of people. You never could tell how many people actually lived there – it had a revolving door. There was always someone in the kitchen, someone in the toilet, someone asleep in the living room. A couple of people hid in the shadows of the back room playing computer games, but we won’t get into that. Every inch of available space was either being sub-let or was stacked up with guitar cases and bits of drum kits. The whole household were living from Thursday to Thursday, when they collected their next dole cheque. Here was a real band; living and struggling for their music. It felt encouraging and I’d leave after those regular Wednesday night get-togethers with plenty to think about and plenty more to write. “See you next week,” Dan would say as I climbed down from the massive attic room at the end of the night.
Aaron’s attic room was something else. Somehow he managed to pay less rent than everyone else but had a bigger space. Bright rugs with spaceships and rockets lay spread out at random; an endless amount of guitars and keyboards stood all about; helium balloons sat on the ceiling in multi-colours; candlelight flickered and flowed against the walls; every surface was covered by something, be it toys, rolling papers, loose records, ashtrays, empty mugs or clothes. It was an enchanted place – somehow lost in time as Aaron got older, but his taste in visual stimulation stayed the same as it was when he was 10 years old. Each time I went by to visit we slowly built up our friendship. We could talk, or just listen to music. Silence wasn’t awkward, like my housemates thought.
New friends seemed to judge as to whether they had had a good or bad day by their level of creative productivity on that certain day. A good day meant they had read fifty pages of the book they were on, had absorbed two new albums, practised with the band and cooked up a feast for the whole household. It was inspiring to know people lived their lives in this way – giving themselves tasks to achieve each and every day.
“You are what you leave behind” – or so they say. That struck a chord with me. So as we deconstructed our lives with beer, weed and late nights we constructed music, art and writing. We replaced our lives with the things we had created – we replaced ourselves with the very things that will outlive us. Achille’s mother, Thetis, told him the only way to become immortal was to have people speak your name after you’ve died. Think of all the living famous people. Think of all the dead famous people. Ten times more people still speak the name of Shakespeare than half of the famous people still living. It can seem you need to be dead to get any credit for the work you’ve done. It’s less true with music than literature.
According to some friends if you were unfit and ate like a fly, but were productive, then all was good. My trouble was I buzzed from needing something to do that I stayed holed up in my room for half the day; reading, listening to music and writing feverishly before going out to see friends. I’d always achieve what I wanted to achieve that day too early. Then I’d let myself out to explore the town and search for a foundation of inspiration from which to drink.
5
I got back to the house late one night dehydrated and weather-beaten. Everyone was in the kitchen drinking. With no explanation I leapt into it: “They’re trying to kill us,” I said before I’d even taken off my headphones. My housemates looked stunned. “Honestly,” I said, “they’re out to get us.”
Sair was the first to speak up. “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re going crazy. Yesterday you were all happy and talking about watching girls walk by and now you’re giving us this crap. Wait. Why are you all red-faced? You’ve been drinking haven’t you?”
“No I haven’t. In fact, it’s nine-thirty and I’m totally sober.”
“Well at least tell us what you’re on about. Who is out to kill us?”
“Too many people. They can’t control us easily.” Everyone sat around the dining table staring at me blankly. “Really,” I said, “we’re probably fucked already. We just gotta make sure we’re near a well-stocked bunker when they do come.”
“Who’s they?” asked Spit, who had been silently stirring his noodle.
“They,” I said, pointing out the window, “them. The powers that be.”
I gazed over everyone in turn. Sair shook her head, Spit looked down at his food and Terry looked shocked, sold by my propaganda.
“What the fuck is this?” Sair demanded, “and where have you been? We cooked dinner for you two hours ago.”
I poured a drink and pulled out a chair. “I’ve been in Aaron’s attic.”
“Ah!” Sair and Terry said in unison. “The moral poisoner,” announced Sair, looking at Terry, who smiled. I shook my head, still grinning.
“Nah. He was playing these conspiracy documentaries. You’ve all got to watch them, and then you’ll see what I mean. The end of the world is near,” I said with a smile still stretched across my face.
Sair and Terry were one of those couple who immediately began a relationship, weeks after meeting. Neither of them were particularly outgoing and occasionally Terry joked about hating having to go out and search for a girlfriend when he could put his efforts into winning over a housemate. That shows what he was like; lazy, but comfortable. They watched a lot of TV, the artificial version of reality. Whenever I passed their room I could hear the thing blaring out nonsense.
Meanwhile, Terry’s ex lived next door and would turn up to cry on his shoulder when her own life started to fall apart. The expression on Sair’s face said it all: ‘kill.’
From time to time I’d be locked away in my room and would get a knock on the door. Terry came to me when the two of them argued, but they’d never stay mad at each other for too long. An evening, if that. I’d spin my most lovelorn records and try to twist his conventional taste in music.
Sair would come by when they argued too, but we went out for walks together. The good thing about having female friends was that I could walk around and talk to them about girls. We’d often walk down to the Abbey and stroll around the grounds in darkness. I’d smoke a joint and rant about Eva for a while. Sair said she actually enjoyed hearing about my failed attempts to win her over, especially as her relationship was getting more and more serious. “I can’t stand it when she walks past the house,” was a big concern of mine at the time. I eventually had to chase her. It was true; I was falling.
Spit was a true character. We didn’t ever see eye to eye. He was into metal. He attempted a couple of bonding sessions between the two of us but they fell flat. We simply couldn’t agree – our personalities and our character were too different. Tattoos of bats poked out from the sleeves of his forever black t-shirt. He dragged his guitar to every shitty open mic night in town, playing metal covers on an acoustic to empty rooms. I went a couple of times but found it too cringe worthy. He was yet another melodramatic drama student with emphasised facial features. Sometimes he’d sing in the shower. His lead-in line to any conversation, even with the ladies, was: “my philosophy is...” Kill me quick, I always thought. At home he’d only ever make an appearance to make a mess cooking or to fill his huge mug with weak tea. We always exchanged pleasantries but we avoided each other. Like me, he was always a bit too highly strung and uptight. We were two horsemen forever crossing swords.
We were getting the ingredients together to make pancakes. The ingredients were all laid out on the counter, the cookbook was open, things were looking good, when suddenly we realised there wasn’t a mixing bowl. I knocked on Spit’s door to check it was cool to borrow his.
“Can we use your big mixing bowl please man?” I asked.
“Well, you used it last time without asking,” he moaned, avoiding eye contact. He must have had a bad day.
“I didn’t fucking use it!” I spat back angrily.
“Yeah. Well, whatever. Use it.”
Such was the way things went in our house. It was petty argument after petty argument. Lost money for bills, unpaid bills, and housemates you didn’t see for weeks on end. Sair had used his bowl last, without permission. These things happen when you’re living with a number of random people. Little squabbles and complaints become enlarged by a feeling of being surrounded by people ripping you off somehow. Often, you could cut the atmosphere in our communal rooms with a knife, it got that heavy. Most of the time we hid in our rooms, drumming up hate, I guess. Communal living is one of life’s extremes.
When my housemates drove out of town to score they’d sometimes invite me along, even if I wasn’t picking up drugs. A sideline had led Terry towards some quick cash with which he planned first to buy a big TV. It was a sawn-off scheme from the beginning. With the car rattling along I’d finally get the buzz of being physically on the move. Even the shortest journey felt life-affirming, like I was travelling again. The trip was short, but it was a start at least.
I stopped going in the end because I got into an argument with Sair on the way back one night. A police car pulled up alongside us at a roundabout, which she unduly cut up seconds later. With Terry’s £350 investment stashed in a plastic baggie under the front seat we didn’t need to be violating any traffic laws at all. Especially right under the nose of the law. We miraculously weren’t pulled over. But the adrenaline moment kicked in and I terminally damaged my friendship with Sair.
They moved and moved along shortly after that anyway. And so did I; first to 152, and then to another large communal house on a hill with a real garden, not just enough space for the bins. Sometimes I do miss those who I forged awkward friendships with during those initial few months in town, but it wasn’t my first lesson in friendships fading away. People change; I’d already learnt that lesson.
6
Eva bleached her hair back then. It was a striking off-white pale yellow colour, like she’d left the peroxide on a little too long. She sat at home a lot, learning Bob Dylan songs on her acoustic guitar. We started meeting up after I’d drunkenly rang her a week or two before. “Come round,” she said. She gave me her address and when I turned up I was surprised at how big her house was. She gave me slippers to wear inside. I nodded to her housemate, and she led me upstairs to her room. There was one framed poster in her room; a huge blow-up of the cover of ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’ by The Clash. The halftone dots morphed into dizzy stars as she kissed me.
I took her to the cinema one night. It was the small, independent cinema that showed decent films. She wanted to see some weird film about wolves or something. I was fairly uninterested. Inside we sat close and talked timidly before the film started. As the lights dimmed down we fell silent and still – full attention toward the screen. “I really want to see this film,” she reminded me, whispering in my ear as the titles came on.
Halfway through, during those few seconds of cinematic restlessness, we shuffled and re-arranged ourselves in our seats. Suddenly she was leaning toward me with the back of her shoulder resting on the front of mine. Her hair flailed and tickled my nose. I felt compelled to stroke it. Her jumper brushed against my bare arm.
I kept still, my arm in the same place; jammed between her back and my side. ‘Say something – before it’s too late’ I was thinking. She seemed comfortable. When the film ended and she stood up to go I realised I had no control of my left arm whatsoever. She slipped her arm through this lifeless limb and leaned into me for the long walk back to her house. We discussed the film, wrapping up our different opinions on the matter.
We’d sit talking on her bed, mostly. We were tempted by each other, but both standoffish and frigid. Sometimes we’d go out and drink together – we’d be wobbly on the spot by the end of the night. I usually kicked up some qualm with going out; having to pay to get into a glorified disco. But she liked going and I couldn’t deprive her of fun. Plus, I enjoyed watching her dance, lifting her arms right above her head with her eyes tight shut. The moves she pulled off, still wearing her big boots were enough to impress anyone. Here she was; the coolest girl in town, and she was with me! I pinched myself.
I could lose whole evenings just being with her. She excited me, and said she found me exciting too. Finally I had someone to be with, if nothing else. We’d meet up in the evening and I’d listen to her talk endlessly about work. She said the most amazing things; made bizarre observations, expounded and expanded small topics or issues into huge, drawn-out conversations taking everything into account. She had an opinion on everything and I waited eagerly to hear them. I was smitten. ‘This is love. This is passion,’ I read at my desk. I re-read every book on the shelf about love, drawing on other’s experiences instead of mine; building up a picture entirely different to my own.
Dan and I played guitar together occasionally. He looked like a young Ramone, and I resembled the knackered roadie. He wrote great songs, albeit a bit sporadically. The tunes we did play together were always his. We’d go down to the rehearsal space and use everyone else’s gear to record long, drawn-out, droning songs. We never played the recordings back, as far as I can remember. We spoke about music non-stop; comparing bands or songs; planning records that never came out, dreaming of travelling with music. Sometimes being idealistic can be the spur someone needs to actually get things done. But we went on to achieve very little of what we planned.
We both played in other bands at this point; both members of the brainless rhythm section. Attempting to win over a sceptical audience whilst we sweated through another half hour set, we’d both simultaneously become disillusioned. What was the point? Looking out at the same thirty faces from last weekend, it was understandable. It was like time had stopped for both our bands. Things were stale, and a bad smell was in the air. We thought we’d get the potpourri out and freshen up the room.
We started a band together. Or Dan did anyway, he wrote all the material. I was just reliable enough to show up on time, with my own gear. The gigs we played felt great. There was a new spark, a new life in our blood. On nights of gigs I’d be frantically running round all day; forgetting to eat, drink, missing connections and people I was meant to meet. But those few sweet moments onstage churned up a world of possibilities in our minds.
Dan had a knack for song writing, but in particular for making his songs fit your life. The walking along in the rain struggling to keep your cigarette lit. The mental instability brought on by yet another crush. Forever trying to decide whether life was too long, or too short. All those highs and lows played out to the backdrop of the same town.
We were so alike but so different too. Women flocked to him, but he treated them badly, leaving a long succession of ex’s in his trail. I tried to treat everyone well, but women seemed to actively avoid me. Our interests were much the same, but our attitude couldn’t have been more different. He was ruthless – he didn’t care for trying to please everyone, and would often put his foot right in it without caring. I was cold and calculated, and thought out every tiny detail of what I’d say. Methodical and picky were my middle names.
I once took him to a talk at the Library. An old bearded guy gave a talk on John Clare, local nature poet and general lunatic, whom Dan had never even heard of. It tested his patience. Whilst I sat enraptured, scribbling notes down on a scrap of paper, I could see him out of the corner of my eye fiddling with his scrappy Converse. Poetry wasn’t his thing, which was strange because he wrote lyrics. The age difference between us – a matter of four whole years – showed its head for the one and only time. Never before or since had we argued so bitterly as to what is and what isn’t cool. It was pointless really, but we both stressed ourselves out.
“While we’re at it,” I screamed outside the Library that night, “you and Anna! That’s not cool.” He had been giving her a run-around, his feet hot one minute, then cold the next. I felt it was wrong to lead people along, and was vocal about it.
“Fuck you,” he yelled three times, loud enough to make all the gnarly town pigeons burst into flight, before striding up the high street in his trademark six-foot-plus shuffle. He disappeared around the corner in seconds flat.
“You’re banned from the library,” I screamed whilst he was still in earshot.
We resolved things within days. Anger is like ice – quick to melt. We nursed our swollen pride together at the club that weekend whilst another band raged onstage. After the gig we sat atop the children’s climbing frame in the park; sharing a smoke and a bottle of rum. As friends we couldn’t stay mad for long. As part of my steady routine I turned up outside Eva’s big house throwing pebbles at her window. She wasn’t in, so I left her a scrawled note and dejectedly walked back home. All I wanted was a kiss.
Lana lived up the road from me at 152. We’d been at so many of the same gigs we got to know each other. She invited me round occasionally to talk shit. It was a brief, unconditional friendship, based on the fact I liked listening to her talk. Her place was one of the houses that never seemed tidy, even from the outside. The bushes grew and grew. There was never any sign of life. Young children who passed looked at the house imagining the wicked witch or a gremlin living there. It terrified people; the idea of an unkempt doss house. In autumn, when the trees were skeletal, all the leaves from the park would blow down and collect on the pavement outside. We’d sit around the kitchen table for hours on end, whilst a large ashtray brimmed over. She drank vodka, and I drank tea.
“You should stop smoking that stuff,” she told me one night.
“You should stop that too,” I nodded at her, putting a bomb together.
“Ah. Well my natural mode is to be asleep. That’s my level. This only wakes me up a bit.” She rushed and babbled her words, gesturing wildly with her hands, clearly buzzing. She spilt vodka on her jeans but didn’t notice.
“I’d be bouncing off the walls if I took that,” I said.
“Your natural mode is highly strung; speedy anyway, and fast-paced. That’s why you get on with weed. You’re getting down to a normal level.”
I thought about it. She was right. “That’s it exactly,” I replied, as if she had read my mind. “When I stay sober I’m always running around, bussing and bouncing off the walls. Literally all day. Fast-paced, for sure, and stressed. Have you seen my nails?” I held out my hands, palms upwards, fingers curled in, showing off my nails.
“Shit,” she said, patting my hand, “you really must be stressed out. Here, smoke another.” She put a Rizla in front of me.
Moreover than the uppers Lana chose to take her house seemed to be the driving force. Its walls were never quiet; the hum of traffic from the main road out front, or the ten bordering gardens at the back. Early in the morning even the birds were too loud. Strange vibes emanated from every room. Because there was no clock, and the curtains were always drawn shut, your perception of time became hideously jangled. You’d pop in for a cuppa, and leave a day later at 11pm, with a new bike and a headache. The landlord was so relaxed it was unbelievable.
Lana ranted on and on, hardly stopping to breath, about everything. She told me all about her time wandering around New York, totally lost. She’d bumped into Ghost Face Killa and his entourage, who shared a blunt and invited her to an orgy. She politely declined the offer, “However great it would have been,” she said. “Ghost Face Killa was all up in my face like ‘Come on, come on, you bitch. Come with us!’ I just couldn’t go.” Lana was a very good liar but also kept herself to herself, so anything she recalled may or may not have actually taken place. It was hard to know.
152 was like Vegas in that the lights were always on. Someone was always busy; either cooking, watching TV, smoking, or sleeping. There was non-stop action and noise from each room. Whilst someone was asleep on the living room floor, someone else was in the bathroom cooking marshmallows over a candle. Logic had little purpose or effect. The walls were wafer thin, dividing one upstairs room into two with a stud wall. The living room walls were constantly wet, making the light bulb flicker on and off because of the leaky bathtub. We noticed a bulge in the ceiling and Lana climbed onto a chair to check it out. She gave it a poke with her finger and out came the water, pouring all over her poor head, soaking her in seconds. New games became old games overnight. Life was led and abandoned quickly within that place.
We spent late nights evading the 9 to 5 monotony. Staying up, carrying on and on in pursuit of leisure - permanently in the pursuit of leisure. What else would someone want to do at this age but to live and experience and enjoy whatever it is that we do experience? Lana and I talked more than we ever did, but at least we were capable of dreaming.
Late at night the only place open for supplies, such as Lana’s important vodka, was a Costcutter. I hated the place; I avoided it at all costs, but after 11pm it was the only place open for miles. Groups of young thugs forever hung around outside, looking scary. Nick had been trapped in there once when an armed robbery took place. He said he ducked behind the bread shelf and waited for it to blow over. He stayed to talk to the police and by the time he got home the sun was up.
It was not only the area that annoyed me but the shop itself too. There was so much colour on all the packaging that it was hard to choose what you wanted after a couple of joints. The guys at the counter were in a constant state of edgy, grumpy tiredness. Their eyes scanned around the shop floor and across the video screens lazily. They never gave you the price – you always had to ask. The place oozed such hostility it was amazing anyone went in there. But sure enough Lana did, and she was a sight out shopping at 3am. Her hair all ragged and tangled up she picked up items, looked them over, then picked up the next one.
Lana painted, but I never saw her in action. She’d always hide her stuff away. The only tell-tale sign she had been painting was when she kept her comfy trousers on after a session. A hundred layers of crusty dried paint stuck to her thighs as she crossed her legs one way, then the other; waving a cigarette in one hand and a glass of vodka in the other. She wasn’t looking to make money from her art, like the young arty chicks I’d met at Uni; she wanted to make art her life. Any relationship between career and money was unheard of. There is a huge difference, and only time can tell one from the other. Some people give up, get caught up in plain living, and some don’t. I still never saw any of her paintings, but she waxed lyrical about the ideas she was having, and how she would execute them. It was mostly beyond me – I didn’t know acrylics from enamels – but it was fascinating to hear.
At Lana’s I’d usually be sending messages to Eva to meet up afterwards. She didn’t like Lana, but that may have had something to do with me. Lana was my friend, but Eva I was involved with. I’d never have cheated on her, though whether we were together or not was a constant source of confusion to even myself. My head still spins just thinking about it. Sometimes we were together. She seemed cold when I tried to approach the subject, forever changing the conversation. Still, we lay on her bed as often as I could arrange. We talked, touched and kissed, but never slept together.
7
“I don’t want this anymore,” Eva said first-thing one morning. I moaned, swept the hair from her forehead and asked what she was talking about. “All this.” It was over. She walked round my room in her underwear, collecting her clothes before she said “Goodbye Henry,” smiled tenderly a final smile and left. It was strange that it ended quicker than it started. I tried to cry when I heard the front door slam, but I couldn’t even force a tear.
When she had begun using words such as ‘eternity’ and ‘forever’ I was initially weary. Was there a hidden meaning behind such strong words? A guilty conscience maybe? Something had been a-miss. Her obvious avoidance of certain parts of our conversations set my mind reeling, spinning round like a top. With every waking thought I analysed and over-analysed each aspect of our relationship. It had been doomed from the start; we rushed into things, and that got us off on the wrong foot. I saw her years later, much to my surprise, outside a club in Nottingham. We were just leaving and she turned up with some guy; immediately I disliked him. Her hair was auburn now. “I like this,” I said, giving it a flick. We hugged and I’ve not seen her since. All good things must pass. I’d worked off my infatuation with Eva by this time, but still feelings came up from the abyss as I sat in the back of the van on the way home thinking.
I dragged two housemates out on a midnight bike ride. We headed out to the old railway track – four bikes and three lights between us. It was so dark we kept riding into each other. I couldn’t even force a laugh. By the old station there were engines and wagons pulled up; all rusty, metallic, and rotten wood. Trees hung over and made the whole scene nightmarish. They were big, imposing-looking things. I pulled out a pre-roll and lit up, blowing smoke up towards the sky and watching it dissipate. Everything was running away from me. At least friends could help you forget for a while.
I went round to visit Aaron and Jez pretty often at their house. After the usual pleasantries we’d make our way to the kitchen to chitchat and smoke. It was Ronald Reagan’s nightmare scenario: “These young people, they get together, they read books, they smoke marijuana and they talk.” I always thought the worst intended part of that line was the “they talk,” because people can, do and will talk about anything. Where’s the harm in that? To have an uninhibited conversation, free from being spied upon, or bugged, seems to be one of the last freedoms we have left. We can’t even walk the streets late at night without being suspected of something. With friends conversation is always more freeform, more fluid and, frankly, more interesting.
We’d been talking non-stop for a while, taking it in turns and laughing together.
“Why is it that all ghosts are portrayed in Victorian clothing?” Aaron asked. “You never see a ghost wearing Fubu do you?”
“Maybe you can’t go directly into the ghost world,” Jez answered. “Maybe you’ve got paperwork for a hundred years before they let you become a ghost. The Victorians have just finished their paperwork so they become ghosts people can see.” The three of us laughed. It was a novel idea.
“That means that in, like, eighty-five years all the ghosts will be wearing Fubu and Spliffy and shit,” Aaron says, “mid-to-late nineties ghosts.” The laughter increased.
“I’d never thought of that. That’s good.” I put my empty tin on the counter. “I was sure I saw a ghost once,” I said.
“Really? Where?” Aaron quizzed.
“Badby Woods, years ago. You were there,” I nodded at Jez. “The more I think about the more I think it was a trick of the light. The moon was shining through the trees in rays so it could have been that. I was convinced at the time though. I was terrified, actually.”
“Ghosts are rubbish. I mean, it can’t be proven. Come on. It’s either a trick of the light or an hallucination.”
“Still, it’s like religion and all that. Gives people something more to think about, to worry over. Something bigger than themselves.”
Jez looked contemplative, holding his beer tight to his chest. “What about birds?” he asked, “You know how you’re told never to touch a pigeon? Maybe it’s because they’re not really there – that they are ghosts – that you’re told that shit.”
Stood around in that kitchen we spent so many hours philosophising over meaningless junk. “The poor are far more philosophic than the rich,” as De Quincey rightly said. We didn’t have penny one, but conversing was free. Leaning on the counter we’d talk rubbish and have fun with it. We invented random concepts and discussed matters over and over; girls, work, music, bicycles, food. Friday and Saturday nights were a time to laugh and joke, to really unwind with friends, to converse. Why on earth would we want to be stuck in a nightclub where we couldn’t hear each other? At home the beer cost less, the music was quieter and the talk much, much better.
These nights all blend together. It was a whirlwind of laughter, jabber, and cigarette smoke.
“No-one wants to touch a pigeon anyway,” I said.
“Of course not!” added Aaron
“Not me! I hate ‘em.” Jez agreed. He repeated it for emphasis: “Hate ‘em.”
“Yeah. All gnarly. Shit ruffled and roughed-up feathers and one manky leg poking out of this dirty street-urchin bird. It’s strange that they are basically doves, and doves are meant to be the nicest bird. They’re this biblical emerald gem or whatever.” I ranted. We paused on the thought.
“I’d never even imagined the possibility of animals being ghosts.”
“Yeah man,” Aaron jumped in. “Ghost pigs, ghost cows, ghost sheep. Imagine all those thousands of millions of animals getting killed at the slaughter house before their time. Those places must be riddled with ghosts and dispossessed animal spirits.”
“Ever been to an abattoir? They do have a really low, depressingly stark vibe to them. Definitely.”
“I’ve never been to an abattoir,” I revealed, “thank fuck. I hate blood. And I hate animals.”
“That’s why your veggie then?” Jez asked.
“Yep.”
“So it’s got to mean something that abattoirs have that vibe to them. There’s either a genuine haunting or just your brain confirming that you know all these animals have been slaughtered in that spot,” Aaron cleared up.
“Yeah it’ll be your sub-conscious I suppose,” Jez chipped back in. “What are you doing at an abattoir not knowing that they’re steeped in years of blood, guts and gore!” He laughed, took a swig of beer and had a toke. Knowing it or not, that put an end to that part of the conversation. The final word had been said on the subject and we all agreed without having to agree. The talk took a right angle, as they often do, jumping from subject to subject without rhyme or reason.
“What’s this you’ve got here?” I asked pointing at a large glass dish on the worktop, filled with what seemed to be brown sludge, covered by a layer of badly burnt mashed potato. I leant over it to give it a smell. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“That,” said Jez, “is a thoroughly-overcooked Shepherd’s Pie.”
Our talks would go from serious, to hilarious, to stupid and back to serious. We plotted our own school of thought: amateur philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology, as we knew nothing at all about any of those subjects. Our talks involved all, so we thought it fitting. Though we knew nothing academic about these matters we discovered parts inside our own moral fibre that validated our rants. We touched on concepts that had probably been conceived a hundred years ago. Not knowing this we found ourselves in a state of constant revelation when we expounded on these matters. “Knowledge is only human understanding of human understanding,” Aaron declared one smoky evening.
“Give me a pen man. Quick. I’ve got to write that one down!” I’d holler.
There would come the time when I had to walk home. I’d shuffle backwards out the front door, putting my gloves on and filling my pockets with tobacco. This was the sad part of the night. It always seemed to be raining when I came to leave. An attic room with a view awaited me, but not for long. Sadly, our lease was up. The house full of hatred was a horrible place to live, but I was still glum about leaving. The group was dispersing. We were part of each other, no matter what our moods were. Even if we hardly ever found common ground, our lives had run parallel for a long time. That was currency in itself.
The fact we had to move snuck up on us all. We were all sad to be leaving the house that looked like a castle. It was always warm, I’ll give it that. The bigger issue was that just as our tenancy ran out I was starting on a new magazine. It had to be completed, and now the magazine and I both needed an office. Focus shifted briefly from talking shit to getting things done. Plus, I was graduating. It was a hectic time.
Lana had a spare room until she hopped the pond in three months time. I got rid of all my junk and moved a few boxes up there. It was temporary, I kept reminding myself; and cheap, cheap, cheap. Dan and Nic came by to help me move, stacking boxes on top of each other in every corner. Amongst all my belongings I sat like Buddha, picking up the vibes from my new room. Finally I was able to devote my time to doing magazine work full time. I setup my makeshift desk, got my pen jar to hand, my notebooks too, and started finishing that damn issue.
8
So there was Lana the insomniac; myself, newly unemployed and proud; and Ernie, a lost Midwestern American guy working on his comics in his basement office. We got along just great. We’d always compare the two places; England and America, which provided hours of entertainment. “The British have bad teeth,” he revealed. He thought appearance meant more over there. After watching Fantasia one night we got onto Disney. Ernie disliked Disney immensely, and had a conspiracy theory about the whole machine. He thought they were out to brainwash children and adults alike. “Don’t fuck with Disney,” he so gravely said, “They’ll kill you!” The look on his face said he was totally serious.
I liked my dope, but Ernie didn’t. He was already far off on another wavelength as it was. “The problem with stoners is they always tend to be moody and introverted,” he observed. I was actually smoking a joint at the time, so I didn’t take it as a personal attack. I could see how I was moody and introverted though, and agreed. No use in trying to hide it.
I thought he was often eccentric for the hell of being eccentric, but he corrected me. “The British are an eccentric people because they are highly intelligent. Not the Americans; we’re average, at best. British culture seems so well established and grounded. You’ve got a firm grip. You’re sure of yourselves.” He thought Northampton had a livelier, more hip, and more friendly arts scene than his last home. I couldn’t believe it – his last home had been New York. Surely, there was more happening there than here? “Maybe,” he pondered, “but it’s so fucking elitist, and so unfriendly in comparison.” Within a month of being in town he had friends, an office, and a decent job. Everyone knew his name, wanted to hang out with him, wanted to meet him for dinner and wanted to read his comics. Girls wanted to peel off his horn-rimmed glasses so to render him sightless.
We had a house rabbit too, who I spent three months chasing after when he wouldn’t go into his cage last thing at night. He liked to play cat and mouse with me. He’d chew the carpet, chew your jeans, knock the ashtray off the table, eat anything and everything. Fittingly, his name was Chuckie. I had a new house, a new bicycle, a new pair of shoes and a rabbit now. Everything but the decor of 152 was looking up. It was time to get serious and get down to work, but my environment wasn’t exactly conductive to do so.
The place was a mess, and my thoughts were influenced by the mess. Post and shoes piled up around the front door, giving off a musty smell. It was a shambolic, chaotic hovel that powered itself on dirt and grime. The kitchen window appeared to have fixed itself shut with grease and muck. We had no Hoover, so Ernie took to sweeping the carpets. That only kicked up more dirt, which settled back down in thicker and thicker sheets. The stained glass window in the front door was held together by duct tape, but it still rattled and shook when the door was shut. We all worried that with the next close it would fall out, sail down in slow motion, and then shattered into a thousand sparkly pieces at one of our unlucky feet. No-one wanted to clean, myself included.
In the garden the washing line was a green-brown with mould, bugs and grime. You didn’t want to hang out your washing for fear of it coming in dry, but with a neat green line running across the fabric. The grass was long and scratchy, and the trees lining the back hung over limply, dropping an incredible amount of leaves. A small rubber paddling pool had been left outside all autumn gathering dirt and dirty water, leave and more dirt. It became an analogy for 152; left behind and ramshackle. Cut a long story short; the place was a fucking dump.
On Thursdays I usually went record shopping. There was a stall on the market, and I befriended the old guy behind it. He turned me onto Phil Ochs, for which I am eternally grateful. I’d spend hours flicking through all the sleeves in the cold. He did have a lot of shit stuff, but there were diamonds in the rough – I knew that, and was willing to scrape around looking for those gems. If nothing took my fancy I’d walk to the second hand record shop and browse there until I found something. It would have been criminal to return home empty-handed and un-triumphant; not clutching an album or two under my left arm as I rolled a cig with my right. Back at 152 I’d put on my new purchase and sit down to write.
Long, winding, self-indulgent music seemed best to write to, so I started putting on psych and prog whilst working. This was all new, but part of my growing tastes. Often I’d listen with the headphones on to really appreciate the stereo work. The more ethereal and euphoric the music the better. That way I could zone out and get my head into one space. On a few occasions I found myself waking up, at my desk, midway through a sentence. I’d check the clock – yes, I’d lost three hours and Neu 1 was still on repeat. To yawn that much, and be able to work still, is commendable, though albeit useless.
For sustenance I took to making a huge vat of vegetable broth once a week and heating it up for dinner each day. Ernie loved my broths. I noticed he hung around the kitchen, breathing in deeply through his nostrils as I sliced carrots or potatoes and dropped them into the huge simmering pot. Our limited collection of herbs was mined until it dried up entirely. “More oregano!” he’d declare after taking a spoon to taste.
“More stock cubes!” I’d reply, “We simply must have more veggie stock!” This is where we’d count up some loose change and run to the corner shop for something or other.
After a couple of hours work we had a broth we were proud of, and that tasted not only delicious but heavenly. It was not just food; it was a medicine capable of reviving even the most malnourished and emaciated comic book artists and budding writers. In combination with Ernie’s homemade sour dough bread we had discovered a system of feeding ourselves that was cheap, tasty as anything and healthy enough. We’d put on an episode of the Simpsons and sit down to eat on the floor at our low coffee table. I’d roll a joint after dinner, do the washing up and disappear back upstairs with a handful of ideas and notes to make. Ernie would head back into his basement office, with much the same single-minded work ethic. Now Lana and I lived in the same house we never saw each other. She was always asleep, at work, or awake when I was asleep in the mornings.
Dracula and I had some things in common. Little to no natural light ever penetrated my tiny back bedroom. It was constantly gloomy and dour; not the ideal environment in which to write, being dark and depressing. But still I squeezed out work, one word at a time, until I’d collected enough material; then came the editing, proofreading and printing. That was a whole other ballgame, a whole new bane on my existence. That magazine, though produced under some tense and strenuous circumstances, in an environment conductive only to rotting away ones soul, was one of my best collections of work. That surprised me because when I pulled out of the writing to concentrate on the editing I noticed it was quite an upbeat, lively and happy collection of short stories. I guess extreme circumstances prompt other extremes.
“Am I in the new magazine?” friends would jokingly ask. I’d laugh and skirt around the question. It didn’t matter who appeared because I’d deny it was even based on them anyway. Better to let fiction do its thing over the course of time and blur the lines.
“When’s the new one out?” I was also asked a lot. “Soon man, soon,” was my usual response. It took me months of work to get each collection finished. I likened it to recording an album; months of writing, recording, mixing and editing, playbacks or read-backs over and over and finally putting the package together. That analogy people seemed to understand, all my friends being music players and lovers, though hardly any of them committed to making a full album. Once I’d started though, I couldn’t bear to stop for worry that I’d have to start on another project. One thing at a time seems easier to deal with.
The elation felt when I collated a batch of new magazines was better than any drug. I’d put on something fast and dance round the room kissing every staple. It was the culmination of all those months you’d spent fretting and editing shit over and over. All the work was finally over and in front of me was a pile of paper; my latest effort. I couldn’t wait to get them out into the world. This was better than any job I’d ever had, or were likely to have. My time was my own and here was the proof!
Ernie too had just been printed for the first time, in a collection of skew-whiff comic artists. He had been on the phone to friends back home telling them to go out to the shop and pick it up. He had gone global, with his first major printing. It was success, indeed. He had even been paid!
He and I sat cross-legged on the vinyl kitchen floor and sank a box of wine to celebrate. In the first 24 hours I’d shifted three copies; not bad, but not good either. The comic collection must have sold much more. Still, I kept my head up and took them with me wherever I went, tapping up random people for sales.
And so my stay at 152 came to an end. The magazine was completed and I found a new, bigger, cheaper room. It was a time of rejuvenation. Once again I pulled in a number of favours and moved my belongings to another house.
9
Our place on Brookland Road was just what I needed; another communal house, but functional and active this time, with a huge garden that sloped away from the back door. It was quiet, and suburban, which excited me. I’d not lived in the suburbs before. I gravitated to the attic room, of course. I’d read under the covers every morning, listening to the bin men make a racket or the singing newspaper boy. The carefree student life I was getting used to, but I made sure I was productive with it.
My new housemates were movie-obsessed, so there was a huge TV in the living room. I’d made a conscious choice to avoid TV at most costs, but I enjoyed watching a film or a documentary from time to time. Of the memorable occasions sat in front of that screen the riots stuck in mind. Strolling round the house each evening I’d tune into the news at 10 and watched the madness unfold for 4 or 5 successive nights. ‘Should I be feeling this way?’ I wrote in my journal, obviously confused.
The house was having a new roof put on at the time, so I moved my office down to the living room whilst everyone else was out at work. I sat in the same spot each day, by the whir of the fishtank. After numerous cups of tea I’d be shaking and thinking so fast I couldn’t even write half of it down. It was hell. Two floors above the noise of tacks being driven home and moronic Radio One came from the roofers.
Meanwhile I started touring more and more with various bands whenever I could. I’d sit up front, driving, biting my nails. I was out of town for weeks on end, living this double life. “Have pen, will travel,” was my motto. All those experiences are a whole other batch of stories, and a whole other far removed existence, though I wouldn’t change them for anything. Not only was I on tour, but more importantly, the magazine was on tour with me. Stumbling upon people when we were out, I’d sell magazines to anyone I could persuade to buy them. Experiences were coming in fast, and magazines were going out like hotcakes. Finally I was able to take the word to the masses and gather material to write about. I filled journal after journal.
If we weren’t staying out I’d crash on Ben’s sofa because we’d be off again the next day to another gig. That sofa was the right length to sleep on soundly. I’d been back and forth to 152 since Lana had left town. When she moved out an endless succession of stoners, musicians, dole-queue militants, bartenders, dealers and even a civil (suit-wearing) servant took rooms. I’d managed three months in the back bedroom whilst I finished off another magazine. It was quiet but the house shook me. We weren’t in harmony. On one visit I realised I’d slept in every room, and every nook and cranny, of the house; the bedrooms, the landing, the sofa over and over again, and the basement too. But I’d never slept in the biggest bedroom. That room was evil. I never even set foot in there. It was Lana’s room.
Long after I’d moved out I was staying in the basement halfway through a tour. It was unfit for human inhabitation, that’s for sure. Spiders lived in every corner; damp oozed and squelched down from the ceiling, and the room was constantly covered in dust as people ran up and down the staircase above. You had to dust your face off in the morning, and then dodge the broken bottles to get to the toilet. It was nothing like it was when Ernie had his comic book office down there when he lived with Lana. It had gone bad - it was hell.
There was one saving grace; the room was always dark. Pitch black – the perfect light to sleep in. I returned back late one night, having been given a set of keys. It was early morning and the sun was just coming through the cracks in the curtains. I sat on the sofa for a smoke before bed. I heard a rabble coming up the path. Uh oh. The front door burst open and in marched a small army of drunks, crashing around the place and trying to tip spirits down my throat. I sat on the sofa awkwardly as a party in motion surrounded me. I felt out of place; I’d been travelling all day, and they’d been drinking since one. Just as more people arrived I slunk off into the basement to try and sleep.
It was obvious I wouldn’t be getting any sleep as I pulled the covers over my head. I could have gone home, but even then I’d only get a couple of hours sleep; might as well stay here now. Upstairs, the party raged like a herd of elephants. The bass from the stereo shook the whole house, covering me in more and more dust. I swear I heard a whole minute-solid of glass smashing, followed by applause and cheers.
I lay in the basement cursing everyone and wondering how rough I’d feel in the morning. I pulled my hair out and bit my nails. I’d hardly ever get drunk because it seemed to create monsters of my friends. Here was further proof alcohol and I didn’t get on. The whole thing didn’t compute with me; go out, get drunk, lose your inhibitions, spend too much money, stagger home, talk shit; let that barrier down and serve only self. Where was the fun in that? I vowed not to drink at all that year. I made my own fun.
You should’ve seen the place in the morning. It was such a sty. It was disgusting. I’d always been stern and serious; since I left home, at least’; hated wasting time, hated pubs, hated drunks and to have friends exhibit such a lack of seriousness made me even more serious. Tomorrow was yet another morning come too early and a long, freezing cold or boiling hot drive to some other hellhole venue, but it was still going to be better than any pint I’d ever had.
The decor at 152 stayed the same until Ben, who was sub-letting the basement, took it into this own hands to tidy up, fix up and paint the whole house. Being unemployed meant he had no budget whatsoever. He literally begged for and borrowed even the paintbrushes. That was testament to his proactive attitude when he got back from stretches of touring with the band. While the other members fell into the post-tour-funk, questioning why life was so boring, he kept working, and working. He was a drummer after all; like a shark he had to keep moving.
I, however, did slip into the post-tour-funk. The writing kept coming but thoughts and memories came back at such a rate that I couldn’t jot them down quick enough. Meanwhile, other parts of my mind suffered; I’d spent however many weeks getting into the routine of touring that I couldn’t figure out how to make a sandwich, or how to set the washing machine. My room became a sty as records lay loosely strewn around, pens got tangled up in dirty clothes, and the corner of the room became a giant bin. All I wanted to do was write and sleep, even food was neglected too often. The action had been ripped away from me and it was hard to adjust back to the day-to-day. I wasn’t on the move now; I was back at my desk late on a Saturday night, listening to the radio quietly mixed in with the wind. I rang round some friends and headed into town to meet up.
Why we ended up in a nightclub I’ll never know. I wish I’d never gone, thinking about it now. It was yet another dreary night. I drank three pints of coke and spent most of my time chain-smoking on the rooftop, feeling like I’d rather be at home. But inside on the dance floor I watched a mass of throbbing, writhing bodies dance to another bad nu-metal tune. “Help!” I screamed at random people, arms raised to the ceiling, “What the fuck is this? A disco?!” They smiled and grabbed me, taking me into the crowd, thinking I was enjoying myself. “It’s a disco, a disco,” I repeated like a mantra between gritted teeth as I was thrust around between people. They were laughing and singing along, but I was not laughing or singing. Things couldn’t get much worse. I slid down onto my hands and knees and crawled through all these dancing legs. I smoked a cigarette outside, waiting for any of my friends to come out but no-one showed up. Finally, I headed home alone, feeling eternally miserable, stopping to lurk around the bus stop for the evasive 26 night bus.
I’d quit drinking so why I thought a nightclub would be a good place to go is beyond me. My friends were there, though it wasn’t their usual watering hole either. Everyone in there seemed alien. Why waste time drinking 2-for-1’s? Why not stay home, invite friends round and talk over a beer or two? I figured people satisfy themselves in different way. My hatred was directed mainly at the idea of a nightclub; a glorified school disco with alcohol. Didn’t the punters want to go and see a band? Or sit in a decent traditional pub by an open fire where you could hear each other talk? Was it fun having to look over your shoulder in case you got jumped by some angry boyfriend? I think not. At least I had my room to run to and hide in. There, I was master of my own universe, but losing grip on whatever my destiny was to be.
10
Northampton has, and has had, its fair share of wierdos. I found them fascinating, though I didn’t want to befriend them. Leave them to their own lives, and I’ll stick with mine. Plus, cheap cider didn’t agree with me. A homeless drinker on the High St became a local character known as ‘Touchdown.’ From standing upright he’d bend far forward with his head low, take a long swig of cider, then raise his head as high as possible and reach for the sky with both hands, stretching out his whole body. His face would flush red and people passing would watch as he experienced another particularly intense head rush - just another way to get fucked.
As far as I was concerned the homeless contingent in town didn’t have half a brain between them. I thought they should have got creative with their position, and not just resort to begging. They should have been printing their own zines and flogging them on the high street. Kinda like the Big Issue, except more unique and more interesting. They shouldn’t have been trying to tap you up for a pound using poor, tired old methods. They’d come up to you and make you feel bad. “Maaate. Soouund. Do you do people favours? Would you help me oouut?” They should get to know the closing times of every shop in town so they could go round the back and get the leftover food as fresh as possible. They should have been keeping track of whose bin-day was when. Oh, if I’m ever homeless, I swear, I’ll make the best use of my time ever.
Greyfriars was the bus station in the town centre. It was the best place to spot weirdos. If you needed to score, needed to catch a bus, or liked people watching you’d end up there. It was an ugly, looming building. It had been voted worst-looking building in the country one year. It smelt of piss and damp. The fact that no natural light could penetrate its walls; and the never-ending grime the buses brought in, it kept true to its name. It was forever grey and dismal in there. You could almost smell death.
But it is at these sorts of places that the most poetic ramblings seemed to ooze out of my brain. If I’d left my notebook at home I’d kick myself and curse, pull out my roller ball and jot notes on the back of my hand. Back at home I’d have to write it all up, leaving it to the archive, coming back to it at some point and wondering what the fuck I was trying to say when I wrote it. It was a hard life.
It came upon me without realising that I’d fostered a slow-paced routine. Only when I saw friends and broke off from the day’s work in the evening did I realise.
“Had a cheese and pickle sandwich,” they’d ask.
“Yeah.”
“A ginger beer on ice?”
“Yeah.”
“Attempted to finish a story whilst staring out the window at the cul-de-sac listening to Dylan?”
“Ha! Yeah. How did you know?” I wondered.
And then came the crunch: “Because you do the same things every day, in the same order.”
It was true. I was guilty. I’d developed such a rigid structure to my daily routine that I was comfortable again. I was in severe danger of getting into the same mess I was in before moving to town. However, for the first time I was able to write as much as I please, to really think things over and dedicate as much time as possible to doing so. It could get lonely, but I liked it. There was no other rational reason to lock myself away. There was no money involved. I feared sending my work off for possible publication, worried about how much the editor would want to cut. I had no fear of rejection, I thought about it a lot. I didn’t want my stuff ripped apart and re-constructed by some clever suit in an office. That wasn’t my scene. I had my own magazine, and my own office, which smelt of socks instead of potpourri. I cut my teeth writing short story after short story. People were reading my stuff about town and the feedback was positive. Figuring out my own way of doing things, I worked at my craft each afternoon.
I pushed my way down the High Street carrying a box full of paper. It was hot off the press, and I was heading home to collate it all. Those charity street-sellers were the bane of everyone’s life in town. You couldn’t go for a peaceful walk down the street without one of them trying to catch you. I had a spiel ready when they did pick me out of the crowd: “I buy from charity shops, so I’m doing my bit.” Now kindly fuck off!
They never understood, or cared to understand. If they kept pressing me I’d bite. I’d whip out my secret weapon: the idea that charity work should not be paid work. My Grandma worked in Oxfam as a volunteer for a dozen years at the end of her life, so why should these kids get paid whilst they do their bit for charity? They shouldn’t! Charity shouldn’t be a profit making business, it should be a service. “You understand what I’m saying don’t you?” I’d ask them, “You shouldn’t be getting paid should you?” And then I’d give them the death stare. That usually kept them quiet, and if it didn’t I’d walk away and refuse to discuss the matter with an imbecile. How can charity allow itself to be undermined in such a way?
I do my bit by shopping for books in charity shops because they are about the best place to look. I couldn’t stand the big chain bookstores which I always considered to be way, way overpriced. You’ve got to be persistent when it comes to buying books in charity shops, and not expect to find what you’re looking for. On record shopping binges I’d have a mental list of records to look for, but book shopping was different. Half the time I’d pick things up because I knew it’d be months, or years, before I found that book again. At 50p, or a pound, they were all bargains in my opinion.
What I really liked most about charity shop buying was going into a shop, and up to the book rack, and chasing the names on the spines. Standing there with my head slightly cocked, in my element. Sometimes, upon closer inspection, you could imagine who brought which books into the shop. Living in a University town, and having studied at that University, I could immediately tell when a student had ditched all their books. Who else would be reading Oxford Classic editions of Dead Souls, Dubliners and New Grub Street? Students, definitely. But were they reading the huge introductions in those editions? Even I, a hardened reader, skipped those most of the time.
Mostly though, the shelves of the charity shops were weighed down by bad, commercially-produced, shitty literature. Endless books with no worth whatsoever. To be read as entertainment only. Who read this shit? Couldn’t they at least go to the classics first?
I blame everything on books and over-sleeping. They were the two problems with life at this point. I’d sleep for so many hours each day that I walked around in a constant state of half-sleep. Even the living dead had nothing on me now. Zombified and disorientated, I stubbed my toes and stretched out on the sofa reading whilst my housemates were at work. I was always so tired because I hardly ever woke up. Reading only made me more tired, sending me to sleep earlier and earlier. Hours later Gary would wake me up by slamming the front door. The power of the written word never felt so heavy.
11
Mornings in the attic were red. The sun shone in the skylight and beamed through the red blind, bathing the room in bright red, red, red. Maybe it was all the seeing red that was altering the state of my head? Was it making me angrier? At the crack of dawn I’d wake and try to cover up the window with jumpers, paper, and the rug, anything to keep out the bright colour. Then back to bed I’d go until midday or so. There was no particular rush to wake from a peaceful golden slumber.
My to-do lists were neatly arranged on the desk so when I did wake up I could arrange to tackle them. I got obsessed with making lists; a list of shopping, a list of things leant out to people, a list of band work, magazine work, places to go and things to do; a master list of all my other separate lists. Through the clutter of them all, through all the chaos they brought on, it was actually better that way. Through disorganisation an organised system fell into place. Following a sloth-like departure from the bed things quickly sped up and the day got moving.
There were always errands to run – there was some fun in creating things to do. Walk to town under the guise of going to the bank, but use that as an opportunity to do the charity shop trawl. Catch a friend and drag them out from their comfy day at home. Failing that I could always just sit around at home and get lost in the TV, but that made me feel guilty that I really was wasting my life away.
Tuesday evenings were reserved for band practises. I’d somehow fallen into a band, without intending to. At first I was just going along to hang out at practise, to be one of those guys in the way whilst the band argued and bickered their way through another four hours. Band practise almost always consisted of setting up, having a smoke, and letting the magic come to us. It all sounded better stoned. The more dynamic the better; if the song could start off whispering, and finish sounding stadium, we left happy. I had my equipment to lug home, our storage cupboard being full, and had to grab a taxi. Crikey, I’m unemployed but spending, I worried.
Taxi drivers always tend to be talkative and weird. I’ve heard dozens of stories about taxi drivers ranting and raving about young girls, and or sex, or their family troubles. All the stuff you wouldn’t talk to a stranger about. When you do encounter a normal taxi driver you are thrown off guard. The chitchat flows smoothly instead of jolting along.
“Where have you been tonight?” he asked.
“Practising with the band,” I said
“Guitar?”
“Yep,” I said, holding up my case.
“Really playing though? Not like all those pop stars nowadays?”
“Yeah, actually playing. I don’t write the songs but...” I trailed off.
“None of them can even play now,” he said, pausing for a second, thinking. “Robbie Williams – he can’t fucking play!”
“Yeah. I don’t think he can play. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t write his own songs either.”
“Lady Gaga,” he jumped in his seat excitedly.
I laughed. “She just dances around in crazy costumes doesn’t she?”
“She does write. Same as Lily Allen.”
“Lily Allen’s alright. I suppose,” I admitted.
“She’s no Suzi Quattro though is she? You know Suzi Quattro?”
“Not personally.” He laughed and looked back using the rear view mirror, shaking his head.
By the time we reached my house we’d discussed so much music the journey felt like an hour. I dug my guitar out of the boot and waved him goodbye. Gary was at home so I sat down to tell him about the taxi driver. “Sounds alright,” he said. The alarm in the kitchen went off and he jumped up to turn it off. “Well, Henry. It’s my birthday.” The clock had struck midnight. I knew it was his birthday, of course, I’d put it in my diary. “We’re going to the driving range at three if you wanna come?” And with that he left to go upstairs and sleep.
So we went to the driving range. A large muddle of messy musicians stood driving out these golf balls as far as they could and laughing at each other. A meagre bunch; they could all fret awkward chords and play triplets with their kick pedal but they could hardly hit a golf ball. They were professionals at one game, but amateurs at another.
Back at home there was even a two-tiered cake waiting for him. He spent the evening walking round the house with a pointy little hat on his head. Thinking of his size and build, and his strong sense of masculinity, you’d never have thought he’d wear a sparkly pink hat on his birthday. The juxtaposition was killing me as I sat slouched on the sofa in the living room, drinking a ginger beer. When he came past I burst out laughing. “Gary. Gary! What is that?!” I pointed at his hat. His eyes looked up, swimming in beer, but his head didn’t move. He laughed, wobbled on the spot, and let out a cross between a sigh and a grunt, indicating his night was over. It was a good birthday.
12
I was in a bad mood one afternoon. I made a hasty decision to trudge around town under the guise of having errands to run. It had been snowing heavily for a day or two. The walk in the snow lifted my spirits. I couldn’t help but force a smile – the snow seemed to improve any day. The season seemed to take a sharp turn. All the school kids evacuate at half three and walk across the park, stopping only to make snowballs or to watch a fight. There are hundreds of them clumping together in packs, shuffling along, dressed in the school colours; purple and black. What a contrast to the grey and white of the park.
Fifteen minutes after school though, and they are all gone; soaked up into warm houses hidden away on close-knit side streets. The park is now back to being peaceful – only dog walkers and short-cut-takers remain in sight – all wrapped up in scarves and gloves. They make little impact on the park though; comparable in size, age, history. They may even die here; but the park stays put. Its one part of Mother Nature trapped inside a town. The size of this space would be nothing to rave about if it were found anywhere outside the town, somewhere in the countryside. But, because it is building-locked, we have something to marvel at, and the town has something to hold dear. It may not be a scenic show-park; lacking in lakes, ducks and rose gardens, but it is simple and pure.
Under cover, I watched a few people pass by for a while whilst I smoked. Now everyone else seemed pissed off. The young mums gave evil stares, the builders over the road didn’t whistle or stop work to chat; they stood still and stared in an intimidating manner as people walked by. It was interesting to see such a shift. Snow days I loved, but the general public seemed to hate them. They still had to drive to work, skidding the whole way, risking life and limb. Wearing my boots I was safe and sound, holding my head up high trekking down the high street. I felt untouchable.
Only the night before we had gone on a never-ending, rambling walk the long way around town, leaving a dizzy trail of footprints in the snow. A whole crew of us assembled at the pub before walking slowly through the snow during the night. Gloves, scarves and hats were worn and snowballs were thrown. Oh man, how they were thrown! As Kath stood under a snow-covered tree I ran up and grabbed onto a branch, causing my own snowfall. Poor Kath was showered in white fluff, but she was laughing gaily and holding her mitten-covered hands up to the sky like she was ecstatic. As I let go of the branch I fell, slipped and landed on both knees, which ripped holes in the legs of my jeans. The pain was there, but being so jubilant from walking round with friends in the snow I didn’t feel a thing. The concrete was hidden by white. We made a huge snowball in the park under darkness before all splitting home.
I strolled into the shopping centre for some warmth, naturally gravitating to the newsagents and the music press. I found myself reading an article in one magazine. Two alternative types showed up and reached out for another magazine. A few seconds passed before one said to the other: “What has he done to his hair?” I almost laughed out loud, but managed to contain myself. Their first comment was on the appearance of a band, not the band’s music. They’d got things the wrong way round. They were touching on an alien concept to me. The day was suddenly clouded by a depressing idea. Why these things got me so down I don’t know.
I bumped into Mark and mentioned what I’d overheard.
“Ha!” he laughed. “Did you hear about Dave Maniac? They played at the Hundred on Friday. He’s got his head screwed on right. They took, like, thirty people in a fucking bus! The same as all the bands. The place was ram-packed. They played. The promoter gave them twenty-five quid!”
“Whoah! What?”
“But that’s not it. What’s great is Dave and the band drove home. Next day, he took that twenty-five quid, caught a train straight back, found the promoter, and gave him a smack!”
“Fairplay,” I said.
“Too right. It’s simple. You pull people and you should get squared-up fairly. I mean, they had no contract or nothing but, come one, at least play ball. Everyone’s so keen to pay-to-play; it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Pay-to-play; the term any young band should accept but try not to accept too. Hobbyist or professional – that’s the difference between the two. Do you want to stay around town forever? Or do you want to get out and take you music to the people? The fact that the town was actually a viable stop for any band out on their first proper tour meant we saw a whole shitload of bands. All sorts. You name it; we probably saw them when they had the original drummer, and they’d just released their first EP. That rubbed off on the musicians in town; they thought ‘why don’t we tour?’ And rightly so; touring does seem to improve the moral faculty of anybody, it encourages you to get out of your comfort zone and to see some of this country, maybe even the world. That felt big.
Dave Maniac and his band, The Maniacs, ran the rehearsal rooms in town. At least, they were always there, all three of them, to open up and close last thing at night. I got to know them from being there a few evenings each week. The Maniacs were the only active revolutionary or political band in town. For a brief few gigs I thought they were the best band around, period.
The rehearsal rooms were exactly as they should be; musty, cluttered and cold. Plus, it had the best name of any rehearsal rooms I’d heard – Big Noise. Nothing could have been more fitting. It was a perfect old three-storey carpet storage warehouse. Two floors had numerous rooms and Aaron’s band had free roam of the entire third floor.
Their space was something else; a huge room, with old metal-framed factory windows spread along both sides, a small toilet cubicle, and one primitive wooden room boxed in the corner, iron pillars throughout. Most of them wound up staying there on and off. They found a fridge on the street and dragged it up three flights of stairs. The lift had stopped working long ago, but they managed it, stopping for a smoke break on every floor.
Throughout the room equipment, merchandise, clothes, bits of odd furniture and rubbish lay in a pell-mell fashion. Your feet were constantly entangled by leads. Visitors came by constantly; out of town bands stayed over; but what I remember so fondly were the cold winter evenings when we watched film after film on their projector so we could sit by the heat of its fan. Wrapped up in other people’s clothes we were still freezing cold, but we shared everything. “Spliff up!” was a phrase used heavily. Aaron and Dan would burst into laughter every time, spending the next half an hour arguing as to who should roll.
They put together a makeshift studio in the box room, consisting of a never-ending, living throb of borrowed or stolen equipment. I learnt patience in that wooden box. Time passed slowly as we all listened to playback after playback. Sometimes we’d go over and over the same ten seconds of a song, as someone tweaked the reverb on the snare drum to the nth particle.
I quickly understood what it was to be patient, to always push to the end goal of ‘completing’ what you were doing. Never before had I recorded for this long; night after night spilt into month after month. Other bands congregated outside, or, from time to time in the summer, on the rooftop.
I always thought it was dangerous up there. I daren’t ever look over the edge for fear of vertigo. I tried to look out, and around. There was a great view of the town; one of other rooftops and a main roundabout. One misty winter night the brewery looked like nothing I’d ever seen. It appeared to be giving off smoke. The whole site looked other-worldly. We’d have BBQ’s on nice evenings, play music as late as we liked. Various members of various bands and friends all gathered. The Maniacs had filmed their masterpiece music video on the rooftop too. It started out as a serious concept but quickly became a ridiculous shambled three-minute burst of brilliance.
The band had invited everyone they knew. Word spread quickly around town. They’d been to the college and roped in various students too, making the video a real celebration of the town’s youth. There was no concept. Between shots of the band playing in front a graffiti-strewn backdrop they dropped in all these characters. Two heavy metal guys dressed as pirates, a young ballet dancer, a racing car driver and then Moe, cutting across screen in his pizza delivery uniform dropping off an extra-large to the shoot. It was a budget video, but it looked great.
Connor, a local musical face, even made a cameo smashing the bands organ to bits with a pickaxe. Halfway through the shot of the street dancers Nicky cut through carrying her bike. It was a fun evening, and that was reflected in the spirit of the final cut. I even got in on the action, with a close-up of me mouthing ‘wow.’
The highlight of the video, I thought upon seeing the completed thing, was the final shot. James, the bassist, is stood in a real thug pose holding onto a dog lead at full stretch. But there was no mean-looking dog on the end of the lead. Oh no. There was a sheep, somehow looking almost as mean as a big, snarling dog. In the last few seconds, as the guitar rings out, James turns to face the camera, and then the sheep faces the camera. It looked brilliant. Where they got a sheep from, I’ll never know, but I was worried it was going to jump off the roof in a moment of terror and panic. No other local music video had so celebrated the eccentricity of the town. It was a special piece.
More than ever before I felt my presence on the scene was just as vital as everyone else’s. It didn’t matter who came through the doors at Big Noise, we’d all welcome each other like best friends. In the antique toaster we cooked through muffin after muffin, as I fumbled with the soldering iron and set about fixing another pile of broken guitar cables. People came by to put up flyers for their gig on the notice board. The smell of dope wafted up from the front door as bands took five between rehearsing their set.
I loved all the local bands for no reason except the fact they existed. It was essential to have music made in our locale, especially the bands that really documented their experience in the town. I listened carefully for lyrics which mentioned specific buildings, people or memorable nights we’d shared. Some were clearly about events or circumstances I was involved in, or had been told about, at least. Some memorable ones still stick in my mind, whether they included me or not; “Your new hair’ll be the talk of the dole queue,” or “I still wander aimlessly through the Morus trees,” or “I love to moan, I’m so alone.”
It was one of those times when you felt and believed that right here and right now couldn’t get any better. That the whole world’s effort and experience came to a point at the very spot and moment you and your friends were standing in. We were at the very epicentre – the heart of the matter, and nothing could stop us now. We were kings of the town, the country, planet earth, and beyond. Things seemed never-ending and all-encompassing. There was so much to see for ourselves, so much to do with our lives, and the entire world’s knowledge to learn. And yet the lows were still low.
13
I was tired of trying to read sun-bleached spines. Scouring the book shelves, with my head titled slightly to the right, sun-bleached spines were a real bane. I had to stop, take them off, glance at the cover, only to discover it was some crappy two-a-penny Catharine Cookson novel. Please, have the forethought to put your book shelf in a spot that sun doesn’t touch. I’d appreciate it. I’ll be the one digging through your books when you decide you don’t want them anymore, and I like things to be neat.
I also longed for a second-hand book store. This place would ideally be dark and dingy, with a low ceiling and the crushing but comforting sense of being surrounded. A shop dedicated to books and nothing else. No postcards or gimmicks. A place with a musty smell and shelves taller than you can reach. A place with old chairs hidden in corners in which you could spend the whole afternoon without hassle. A place that serves itself, its customers and its community. They were few and far between, even in cities, and almost unheard of in provincial towns. People simply didn’t care that much. I cared, I really cared, but there was nothing there for me. Still, I did manage to pick up some real gems from time to time, due to my patience and willingness to spend months trawling each second hand shop.
All the books I haven’t read and all those I have read must be separated from each other. All the ones coming in – much faster than I can read them – go onto the ‘to-read’ pile. The two mustn’t mix. To have books on your shelf, and on display, that haven’t been read I believe to be the ultimate faux-pas. I tell no lies as to what I have and haven’t read. Half the time when people talk about books no-one has even heard of the stuff I consider classic works. Stevie Smith, Alan Sillitoe, Maxim Gorky and Joan Didion aren’t all classic material that has made its way into the canon of the general literati, but are all heavy-weight, interesting writers that do their thing well and ring my bell in one way or another. They were all equally vital as Dickens, Dostoyevsky or Henry James. I was discovering new books each week which were knocking me flat; and none of them seemed to be anything anyone had heard of.
The books I’d read I put under the bed in banana boxes. I looked them over. Christ, what was I doing with all of them? Holding onto them for the sake of it? The house was top-heavy from all the volumes, and that worried me slightly. Obviously, I dreamt of owning my own library one day; wall to wall with the books I’d read over the years. Then I could wait around for the Grandchildren to arrive so I could dish out wisdom and literature from my armchair; ‘Oh Jimmy, you’re being ignored by the woman you love? Here, take The Painter of Signs. That’ll sort it out. Raman and I had a lot in common when I was your age.’ Or: ‘Going to Mexico are you? Well, have my collection of B Traven and read them all before you go. The rebellion may have been over a hundred years ago but there will be some similarities still.’
Until then I had a long, long time to wait and read. There, again, was the danger of dispensing someone else’s wisdom, not my own. Someone else’s knowledge that I was just passing on.
Dan and I both went to the library, and to the gardening section, to take out books on growing veg and starting an allotment. I was disappointed because the section only took up one shelf. Looking for books with Dan was like taking a baby to a football game; he wasn’t aware of what was around him. The environment meant nothing; he’d never used the Dewey-Decimal system in his life. Arriving back home I looked at the book Dan had chosen; a glossy how-to guide, with dozens of colour pictures and diagrams. The book I took out was not glossy and contained only words. Hundreds of dense pages of text. Strange that the books we both chose said so much about us both – Dan wanting the easy option with the diagrams and pictures, and then me going for the words, words, words.
You always think your friends as similar, but upon closer inspection; the way they move, talk, act, all number of infinite factors, you start to see it is those differences that actually make the friendship. You can’t always have common ground. If you were exactly the same, as nobody is anyway, things would be pretty boring. You’d essentially have no company, because you’re always technically with yourself?! Plus, talking poetry would be boring because you’d have read the same stuff, and had the same reaction.
John Clare is about the only Northamptonshire writer who made it anywhere near the canon. In fact, he got right into the barrel and is considered one of England’s finest nature poets. Of the massive collection of poems he left behind, in various stages of completion, his endless descriptions of animals, hedgerows, the bounding fields and his life as a writing flâneur is the stuff he’s remembered for. “I Am,” probably his most well-known poem, is as good a place as any to start, but is much more introspective than the majority of his work.
One of the few paintings of him shows him sat, in his bald old age, in the portico at the front of All Saint’s Church. It’s a corker. Knowing the view from that very spot you can understand why he would sit there; the courtyard used to be much smaller and would look straight out on to the road; and besides, there were people to watch. Apparently, he used to write love poems for people in exchange for a screw of tobacco. I always thought I was born a hundred years too late – all that tobacco I missed out on!
I had a dream about sitting under that portico, pretending to be John Clare for the day, when another local writer turned up: Alan Moore. I can’t remember what we talked about but it must have been Clare. I think it was raining too, so the air was thick whilst we were talking, which added a mystery and tenseness to his already tense and mysterious voice. Alan Moore is part of the canon too, but not a literate canon, per se. In the comics world he’s considered the greatest, an absolute don, the Shakespeare of his field. You’ll have seen one or two of the films he (begrudgingly) allowed Hollywood to adapt from his comic books.
The best thing about being local to Clare’s old haunting-ground is that you can easily go out with a book of his and discover the area, to a certain extent. Clifford’s Hill is a Norman earthwork castle that he used to visit fairly regularly and even immortalised in print:
“The firs look bright on Clifford Hill
The river bright below
All foamed beneath the watermill
While beauteous flowers do blow
‘Tis here I’d wander morn and night
With fondly gazing eye
To see the sunny golden light
Go down in yonder sky”
Late one afternoon Aaron and I rode out there, alongside the river all the way. Crossing the river, we passed the mill but ignored the ‘No Trespassing’ signs and lifted our bikes over the fence anyway. If you weren’t looking for it you’d miss it but also couldn’t miss it at the same time. Hidden behind dense trees stood Clifford’s Hill; tall and proud and covered in trees itself now. We scaled the steep banks up to the top and stood to admire the view, or what was left of the view. It was difficult to see through all the trees but we tried and remarked on how far we would be able to see if it weren’t for all the trees.
The hill is worth a visit even if Clare hadn’t written about it, and I kicked myself for not discovering the nice quiet secluded spot before. Even if half of it overlooks a busy caravan park you can appreciate the view Clare would have had all those years ago; a mile or two of clear sight in any direction, hence why the Normans chose it as a spot to hold fort, although we were surprised at how small the flat top was. If I’d have had the book on me I would have read the poem aloud, but alas, I left it at home. I wasn’t interested in sitting in these spots and pretending to be John Clare. I wanted simply to sit there and think: ‘Someone else sat here once and wrote it down,’ then think about time and distance, even if we were in the exact same spot.
At the back of Clare’s books, the reprints anyway, there is a glossary of words he used, including many references to A Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, which I still can’t find anywhere on my book scouting trips through the county. Granted, the thing is a hundred and sixty years old now, so that’s probably my main problem. Still, I must persist, and so the book is put on a mental list of volumes to look for, along with hundreds of other.
Books now permeated my every thought. I foamed at the mouth at the sight of anything related to paper, to stationary, or to books. At home in the living room Gary was watching the huge TV. I slipped through the room carrying my dinner but stopped dead when I noticed the person on the screen mishandling an ancient book. “Oh no,” I was crying and shaking my head, “just look at what he’s doing to that book!! That’s sacrilege! It’s horrible. Turn it over, please. Spare me!”
The guy was taking pages and flicking them over from the bottom of the page. I always took it as gospel that everyone knew how to handle a book. Sometimes, I abused my paperbacks a little, but not a lot. I’d never break the spine. A hardback book I always treated with care, love and respect; supporting the covers in one spread hand and turning each new page from the top right hand corner with the other, ensuring I didn’t crease the paper or cause any unnecessary damage. Rarely would someone outlive a book if they were all treated this way. But alas, I still see people folding the covers of their paperbacks right back on themselves every day.
Why would I want to lend out my copy of Paz’s In Light Of India when the chances are it’s going to get screwed up and broken? Or, worse still, never returned! A friend had been talking about her plans to visit India. “What have you read about the country?” I asked. “Nothing,” she said. One brand new Lonely Planet Guide to India, unthumbed, does not research into a new country make. If I was planning on visiting India I would have re-read every book I have on the country, along with as many different works of fiction and non-fiction I could get my hands on. You want to get a feel for the people, their history, their habits, ways, and their culture. Talking big and dreaming were simply not good enough.
14
It seems to me that the more you fill your head with books, music, art, people, ideas and longing, the bigger the void gets as you become more and more aware of the world and its endless possibilities. It’s debilitating if you stay in the same spot for too long. An already incredibly vast and complicated world becomes more vast and complicated. It actually seems to make you more miserable. You begin to daydream about those possibilities so much that it seems they could never be possible. Being book bound had never before been such a misery. Modern life had become slavery.
One incredibly complex lyric comes to mind. I studied this one a lot. It comes from only the most obscure band who themselves ripped it from an equally unheard of book. It’s a dense package: “History is written with leisure to reminisce / An even temperament / Hindsight, selectively applied / A luxury not afforded those completely given to their times.” My translation was that if you are totally involved in something you are not going to be writing about it, you’ll be too busy getting involved. I unpacked layers of meaning as I sang the four lines over riding around town, or holed up at home. Hundreds upon thousands of other lyrics seemed to fit the way things were. Love, death and rambling seemed to be the three most common threads. I lamented on those three certainties continually. For a while material possessions seemed to be my problem, so I spent two days off the books cleaning out my room, but that thought faded quickly. Stick to what you know. Keep the stuff – keep it all!
I longed I stayed, and the more comfortable and familiar the town became, the more junk I accumulated. You could have mistaken it for my lifelong goal. It’s simple; you have that thrifty, collectomaniac gene and so you hoard crap. I’d figured out all the places to buy junk long ago and would scour them regularly. I needed a shirt and found one. “It’s not even been worn,” the old lady behind the counter observed. My wardrobe had always filled up in much the same way; hand-me-downs and second hand bargains. That suited me just fine.
And so did everyone else’s. We all lived below the poverty line, but we tried to have a little fun still. None of us were any worse off for doing so, in fact, better off. With our downtime we were philosophic, if nothing else. I still have that shirt, and am still pretty frugal, and so are all my friends. It just makes sense doesn’t it?
All the complexities and intricacies of this life we juggled with, and I went home juggling. What was the consequence of a possible action? When shall I do this or that? Who is similar to whom, and in what ways? Who? What? Where? When? Why? The five W’s they tell you about at journalism school, don’t forget to add the single H too: How? For a while I wrote them in big, bold letters of the back of a poster and hung that in my room. It was like a game; I’d start thinking of a subject, then question that over and over, going further off into distant tangents and forgetting where I’d even started from. This was stuff I could never write down; the thoughts were lost before they were even found, so it would have been useless.
I began keeping a dream diary also. I was developing “my own strand of psyche-meditation” I told a couple of friends, “you gotta stand on your head for five minutes reading a question mark.” It was interesting to discover myself further by seeing what questions I asked, what further questions they prompted, and the sort of rubbish that you stumbled across on the mind journey to nowhere.
My own psyche - my spirit, soul and mind - felt turbulent. Everything was unsettled and shaky. I noticed changes in my own behaviour and opinions, not to mention my tastes in music and art. Things went boom. Suddenly I found myself quite open, and interested in much more than a previously (fairly) narrow-mindedness. With everything in front I couldn’t commit to taking any of it. I questioned and picked at it all but spread myself thin; learning a little (from books) about a lot. I was Jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. I could talk with anyone about anything but if they were more knowledgeable on a subject I was fucked, and I felt that. It started to piss me off. That anger I tried to take home and turn into a renewed passion for learning, but University was far behind me now; I’d built my own work ethic on top of that with sturdy foundations. I kept plodding along at a steady pace, learning as it came and as I went.
Finally, I found a job. It was terrible, but it was something. “In this economic climate blah blah blah,” the radio constantly said. As usual the people were more interesting than the place or the work itself. Those first few months of any job are okay, I can stand them, because there is something to learn, and people to meet. After a few months though, I’ve always found it tedious and got itchy-feet. To live like that is just impossible; you have to make a change, for good and all.
“What have you been doing today?” my housemates asked when they got home from work every day.
“Been sat upstairs pretending to write,” I’d say, “and now I’m off to work in a super-shit hellhole.” Just as it got dark I was heading out and they were coming home. We lived in totally different time zones.
At work I tried to instigate a revolution. I explained to my workmates and managers alike why it was needed and how it was possible. But revolutionaries who have to have explained to them the need for revolution are poor revolutionaries. I should have known that then, but tried anyway. Like all of us I was tired of being paid minimum wage and seeing the company make so much money from my efforts. I felt that the profit should have been distributed a little more evenly, improving the worth of all the employees and encouraging them to stay longer, and to take a little more pride in the menial tasks they had to complete. But these are the dangers of consumer capitalism and franchised businesses; at the top of the triangle the money is placed, whilst at the bottom there is nothing left. We all worried constantly about bills we couldn’t pay, birthday presents that needed buying, shopping that had to be done; my razor had gone blunt months ago and I needed a new pack.
Unable to convert my colleagues I’d shrink back home to the safety of my attic. Writing was not all I did; it only took up some of my time each day to maintain a decent habit. With the rest of my downtime I smoked, read and watched documentary after documentary. At this rate I’d die with a pen in one hand, a joint in the other and a documentary on social housing on the TV in front of me. I was torn between what was good for me, and what was ultimately going to be the death of me; weed and television. ‘This repose,’ I told myself, ‘must not continue.’
15
My other two new housemates were quiet. Maybe they too were sat at their workstation reading Eric Newby? I doubted it. They were both girls, and both gifted bakers. It was terrific. However late I arrived home from wherever I’d been there would still be cakes left out for me. It was great; and they were both great too. The softest sponge I’d ever tasted; like putting a tasty edible foam pit in my mouth; and the sweetest, most colourful icing lay on top in a thick layer. At Halloween they collaborated on ginger shortbread gravestones for all the trick-or-treaters. The very first group who came to the door each received one gravestone before the shortest boy at the front inoffensively said: “Don’t you have any chewits?”
We all laughed at that. “He probably had a taste and threw it away,” Jane joked.
“No way! Not if he had tasted it.” Gary liked the cake situation just as much as I did. It was easy to tell the truth, and to tell the girl what she wanted to hear. No need to lie.
“Those were good Jane. So good. Fucking tasty.” I said, brushing the crumbs from my mouth, putting my palms together and bowing slightly towards her, Japanese-style. I’d eaten ten already.
She guffawed. “Oh, thanks guys.” She grabbed us both to hug, one with each arm; like we were her brothers. I patted her on the head. She adjusted her glasses and shuffled off to watch a film, being interrupted every ten minutes to hand out another round of shortbread gravestones. “Stupid fucking doorbell,” she muttered as she closed it once more.
The months slipped by. Winter came and went with a heavy wind, spring sprung into summer like a leaf hoovered up. I got up, ate, wrote, went to work a shit job, came home and rang round friends. Things were okay, it was summer now. People were more lively, more active, and more out-and-about. The streets positively hummed with people singing their favourite song as they walked along. No need to continue hibernating, for winter has gone. Forget all about that, for the time being anyway; the days were getting longer and longer.
Plus, Gary and I had signed up for the club’s freak trip to the seaside! There was cause to celebrate, though not with beer; with both sun cream, the protector; and ice cream, the pacifier. We were going to search every charity shop, but could find only a handful. There were only inflatables and postcards for sale in this town. We’d walk a block, looking around, checking the place out, before stopping in the shade to recover. It was so fucking hot. The kind of sky blue day where the sky itself actually looks fake – it’s so blue it looks unreal. What possessed us to jump the fence behind someone’s house and begin walking across the flat, open fields is beyond me. We got bitten, we got fried, and we got so lost it was comparable to casually trying to walk across the Sahara. And I hate being lost, I really do. Nothing we could do but give up and turn back. Houston, we certainly have a problem. Abort mission.
“Let’s just sit on the beach man.”
“Ah. That’d be a good idea.”
So we walked back to the beach and stayed in the shade when we got there. Gary drank two litres of water straight, he was that parched. I told him to sip, man, sip, but he didn’t listen.
I surveyed the beach scene, lying back on my elbows. A sprinkling of kids, a dollop of pensioners and a scattering of parents; surrounded by slimy green brown seaweed. Picturesque was not a word befitting to this view. I took my shoes off for five minutes and felt only scratching and sharpness on the glassy sand. This beach was painful, literally. Were we still locked in Victorian seaside tourism?, I pondered. Was it 1890 or 2008? The sight of a yellow shell suit brought me back to reality, and the modern day. And there we sat until it was evening and the bus came to pick us all up. It was like the Magical Mystery Tour all over again. We all clambered aboard; parents stoned, children high on candyfloss and pensioners asleep, all thoroughly red-fleshed. I closed my eyes for a second and woke up back home.
In summer things always got busier; there were bands to see, magazines to sell, and potentially girls to meet. Propositions to make and be made, friends to see, hills to climb, and bike rides to be organised. It was an exciting time, just as long as we could make it past the weekend to experience the next one. Tom Kerry was coming to town, and he was big and successful now. We all wanted to see the new Tom; the one who’d got that magazine cover and was on the cusp of hanging out with bona fide film stars. It was all very exciting, if you believed the local paper.
Tom was an old friend from everyone’s early touring days. He showed up gig after gig, we should’ve taken him on as a roadie. We’d seen him dead drunk, first thing in the morning and just out of the shower, the three most vulnerable spots to be in. He wasn’t famous; he was Tom. We knew nothing would have changed, that it was all press talk and bullshit.
Having ditched the band he stood onstage motionless as he laid out a new template for himself. Gone were the horns and the expensive keyboard, replaced with stark, shimmering minimalism and a backing track. The audience hollered for old classics, but Tom wouldn’t play them. “Good for him,” I told Aaron between songs, “Fuck the old stuff!” The set ended and Tom packed away his own gear, waving and motioning for us to go round to the back door.
“It’s been a while,” we all told him.
“Too long,” he said. We talked and shared a joint, catching up on all we’d missed and all that he’d done.
“Where’s your limo?” I joked.
He laughed and flicked away the roach. “Limo! I’m catching the train at half eleven.” Brilliant, I thought, even after having considerable success he’s still catching the train.
We dropped him off at the station and watched him disappear into the ticket office, pulling along a wheeled suitcase and carrying his trusty guitar case. So long, old friend, go in peace, knowing we all still love you.
No doubt we all smoked until the early morning again at someone’s house. Summer is a time when the barbeques seem endless and friendships seem to blossom as quickly as the daffodils in spring, growing into bright coloured living entities of their own. How many days must we have spent riding around town, going to and fro on errands and trying to fit everything in? Synchronicity was something I always was good at; I’d plan out each day the night before with a quick to-do list.
Dan rang in the afternoon. “Meet me at the Co-op. Let’s go watch the football at the club,” he said. I agreed, wondering why either of us would want to watch the football. Neither of us we particularly sporty, and neither of us had any interest in football whatsoever. Attila had given me a portion of space cake, saying it was enough for one, so I thought it’d be funny to eat that. I ate half of what he gave me, just to be safe, thinking I’d eat the rest later.
I wrapped up the cake in a piece of tissue and grabbed my bike. By the time I got to the shop the world had changed completely. I had to send Dan in to get me a drink because I was sure I couldn’t handle it. Things were already freaking me out. We rode across the park, but it felt like I was floating or flying along the path. I was sweating, I was laughing, I had to keep stopping to walk but then even walking became too hard so I had to get back on the bike. Never before had I felt so unsafe riding on the road.
I’d been stoned before, of course, but had never really eaten a large enough amount to get properly fucked up. Dan and I had to duck into a friend’s house on the way. I couldn’t go any further. Laying down on their rug, then stretching out, and lying back down. That got uncomfortable, so I’d stand up. Then sit down. Then I’d lie down again. It went round and round like this, unable to find a comfortable spot, me holding my head saying: “Ah man. Ah man. This is bad,” whilst Dan and Nic laughed at me and asked for the rest of the cake, which I dutifully gave up. They supplied me with pints of water which I managed to sip slowly.
When I woke up it was half time. There was no-one in the house. I felt dazed and confused; like the world around me was still bendy and tactile. I hobbled round to the club and caught up with everyone. Slumped down in the middle of the room, the huge projection screen was right in front of me. I could tell there was a game of football on, but I couldn’t tell who had the ball or what teams were even playing. It was a nightmare, but unimportant. I watched the whole second half in this way; clueless and stoned out, though not uninterested.
Dan and Aaron always used the term “stoned-over.” It was kinda like hung-over, except from weed. You must know that cloudy headedness, that warm chest and that familiar green mucus? Well, the next day I woke up more stoned than I’ve ever been, still. It was surreal. I wasn’t stoned-over, simply still stoned.
Aaron rang. “You’ve got to get down here,” he was saying. He sounded out-of-breath.
“Wassup?” I asked.
“Dude. Seriously. Get down to Pied Piper, they’ve got a skip full of records and shit out front. There’s a load of us here pulling stuff out. Be quick, man. Be quick.” It sounded too good to be true.
I jumped straight on my bike and rode round to meet him. Sure enough, the shop had shut overnight. It was one of two second hand record shops in town, the other still managed to stay open despite financial troubles and thousands of pounds of stock that wouldn’t shift. Pied Piper fell victim to bad stock, being way off the beaten track and having an owner who hated music. I could have run it better myself, I always thought. Its doors were locked, the windows covered with cardboard and a notice stuck to the door that read: “Closed for good. Thanks.”
Aaron’s feet were dangling out of the edge of the skip. “Give us a hand,” he asked, and I helped him out. On the pavement he had already made a pile of stuff he was taking home with him. Half a dozen other scavengers had also done the same. “Holy shit!” he screamed, holding up a 7” single for me to see.
“That’s Snuff’s Christmas record!” I took it and prised open the sleeve. “I’ve never even seen it before! Etched B-side, way cool! You’ll get a tenner for this,” I waved the record around for everyone to see, beaming with fulfilment.
“And another,” he added, holding up another copy. “There’s one for both of us.” He smiled and we shook our heads.
Not only were there records being saved from scrap but also a whole slew of other fairly useless, but interesting nonetheless, rubbish; a whole packet of plain fridge magnets, an old lockable wooden stash box complete with key, and three plastic buckets. The other scavengers came and went with their finds, but we stayed, methodically emptying the whole skip and putting it back in after discussing whether we had a use for all this stuff. Some things we had no use for but took anyway, not willing to see it go to the landfill.
It was life, death and rebirth, right there. The records were recorded at some point when the band was full of life, left for dead in the skip out front and reborn when we saved them. Back at Aaron and Jez’s we spun his new collection of 78’s, listening to all these crooners sing about life, death and rebirth. Love too, but we weren’t focused on that. We were focused on the amount of soul and passion that went into making the song feel like an experience you’d had with the singer.
“Before you learn or experience something it’s always a new concept,” I was telling Jane in our kitchen. She seemed baffled. “Think about embarrassment. When you were shitting yourself, wearing your nappy, you had no clue as to what embarrassment was. You’d probably be laughing and wriggling around like little kids do as your parents changed you in the supermarket toilets. If you shat yourself now you’d be embarrassed, right?”
“Yeah, I would be,” she admitted.
“Well somewhere along the line you did something embarrassing and connected that new emotion or response with the concept of being embarrassed. There was a spark and you joined the dots, understanding what that felt like to you.”
She still looked bemused, trying to grasp my concept of understanding concepts. It was, I admit, quite un-typically heavy conversation compared to what we usually talked about over lunch. We usually discussed music and highlights from last week’s news. Mostly music though, and both of us were encyclopaedic about it, having stored up thousands of lyrics and other useless information. We simultaneously took a sip of tea each. She picked up a chocolate digestive and I carried on.
“The same goes for guilt,” I added, “for love, for affection, although those are both things that are engrained without you knowing it from day one anyway. Emotional pain, physical pain...”
“Broken bones,” she added.
“Yeah, why not. Also, global warming, fixed bonds, politics, washing machines...” I listed things off, counting fingers as I did. “Global warming. I mean ten years ago I’d never even heard of global warming. Now you hear the term every day, literally every day. You’re smacked over the head with it every time you turn a corner! I had to read about it, be told about, before I could grasp it. Even so, there are little niggling parts that I don’t understand.”
Our talks often went round in circles. We were unable to communicate ideas to each other without going the long way round. We’d talk for hours and come back to the same exact point. A lot of the time we’d both go to talk over each other, having something to say at the exact same time.
“You first,” I’d say. And off she would go. Then, struck by the sound of her own voice she’d say “Am I going on? Stop me when I do,” exactly as I did.
It was hard to talk about concepts without me going on and on and on. Talking non-stop to compensate for something or other, as well as having a point to get to eventually. There were so many ideas that intertwined that all of them had to be mentioned – listed off – to ensure the other person was able to understand exactly what you were trying to convey. They had to know every angle that you’d looked at something otherwise they may not get the bigger picture. If you presented them with all your thoughts on the subject they may put the puzzle together in the same way you did, and come to the same conclusion. “Sorry. Just stop me when I start sounding like a lecturer,” I told her.
“Ahhh. There’s one concept you haven’t quite yet grasped. Unless, you’re preparing for a future career... In which case... I’ll let you off.” She smiled. “Still, I’m not a student.”
“And neither am I!” I celebrated by clenching a fist, LA hardcore style.
16
It was a Sunday afternoon when I quit my job and I was eating out at the club. I liked the friendly faces, the low price and the atmosphere, and the fact it was usually the most nutritious and healthily hearty meal of the week for me. If no-one I knew turned up for the cheap food I’d pick through the leftover Saturday supplements and catch up on the week’s literary news. I was huddled over my plate with the paper spread out in front of me when I noticed a girl looking at me from the other side of the room. I smiled, she smiled, and I went back to eating my lunch.
Whenever I looked up from my plate she seemed to be staring straight at me. Smiling, but staring too. I wondered if I either had food on my face or was eating like a horse or something. This went on for about five minutes. Our eyes would meet as we both looked up and around from our plates.
Soon enough she got up and started walking straight over to my table. I noticed her blonde hair bouncing gently as she strode towards me. These full pink lips pressed together but with plenty to say. She had her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her jeans until she reached the table. I felt nervous just watching her.
“Hi,” she said smiling, brushing her hair back over her ear with her middle finger.
“Hi,” I said.
“Are you finished with the salt and pepper?” she asked.
I loved the club. It justified why I still lived in the town. Maybe it was the only reason left? You were not only encouraged to get involved; you were basically begged by the management. If you dropped a glass someone would hand you a dustpan and brush. It was all hands on deck. There, you could talk politics, music, or art with any of the regulars. They were all ears and willing to talk. For a while I was the doorman; a role I never thought would suit me. I collected crisps, cokes and free entry to gigs as payment. I met and talked to everyone, putting down Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy in order to take three pounds and stamp hands.
“You’ve got it alright,” Aaron observed over our regular Sunday lunch.
“Not so man. I’m broke.”
Aaron suggested starting a campaign. ‘Make Northampton Edible,’ he dubbed it. The plan was we’d never have to pay for food again. “I want everyone to plant stuff and eat it,” he said with gusto and zest, and you could tell he meant it. He (rightfully so) wanted to convert everyone round to his way of thinking. Under the cover of darkness we walked over to the park. We’d noticed an empty flower bed, which had been dug over but had not had anything planted. We took a huge bag of Berlotti Beans with us. I ran in lines digging small trenches with a trowel. Then we sprinkled in the beans, I covered them over and we threw on a bit of water. We’d finished planting three 20ft beds in less than three minutes. No-one saw us or approached us. We felt, afterwards, as if we had won, like we had ‘showed them,’ that we had taken a step in the right direction. It was a liberating experience, even if the flower bed was re-dug two days later and filled up with pretty flowers. Just another failure.
The fact that Aaron and Dan didn’t live in the same house made no difference to their friendship. They were still like brothers and best friends, together as often as their lives would allow. We all lived in a minute radius from each other, so meeting up had never been so easy. Late at night I’d ring them both and arrange a meet up in the park. We’d all wrap up two joints, decant the mulberry liqueur into plastic bottles and head to our favourite bench.
During the day we had taken to meeting under the canopy tree. Because the long branches hung lazily down it formed a natural shelter further inside. Sat on our bikes in there, no-one would ever see you. It was a dull place to stand, actually, but one we adopted nonetheless.
At night the park was serene, still warm enough to sit on the bench under the flickering streetlamp talking. Dan would do his funny leg dance and Aaron would tell us both about the songs he was writing. I listened, mostly, sitting with my legs crossed, nodding pensively, blowing out smoke. It was the words not said that mattered most, the pauses that said something else. The best thing a bassist can learn is the importance of the notes not played, as a listener, and a writer, I told myself the words not said counted equally to those spoken, shouted, or screamed. We were talented, young and healthy, but not wealthy, and we had a great time in each other’s company. The world, or should I say the park, was our oyster. All three of us were newly unemployed, and happy to be so. Bike rides aplenty!
Everyday there was something to do. Walk into town and mingle around, check the record shop out. Get the map out and go check out a hill or two. Record loops of reverse guitar and watch those two try to sing over it for a couple of hours. Sit in or go out, the choices were endless. We talked endlessly, expressing deepest worries to wax over or recalling events for a laugh. It was quite obvious we were, all three of us, mentally deranged in one way or another. To be concluded from this I found that everyone must be mentally deranged, because three-out-of-three is really quite telling. That was good to know, and better to know that Aaron and Dan agreed, totally. We must all be mad - I’m glad that’s clear.
“Of course we are all gone,” Dan said.
“It goes without saying. That’s part of the electrics going on inside the brain. You can’t put a 12 volt adaptor in a 9 volt socket – that’s scientific fact. It’s impossible too, I think. Brains are made up of different capacitors and resistors; all wired in differently, pumping a million signals in a billion ways at once. We are, like, the ultimate organic instrument.”
Dan and I looked at each other. “Aaron, where do you get this stuff from?”
“It’s exactly what we’re talking about. Your line of thought is so... wacked out,” I said. “How does ours seem?”
“Fucked up as well.”
“Must be the biff.”
Laughter, then a pause.
“Hey, check out those silly fuckers over there,” Dan pointed over at the dimly lit road on the opposite side of the park.
“What the...”
A parade of cyclists went past through the night at speed on bastardised big wheels, tall bikes and tandems. There was a good dozen or so out, all lit up with luminous jackets and flashing lights. It was rare to see that bike gang out this late, especially on their custom models, but we presumed they were on a pub crawl of the two places in town with metal-only jukeboxes.
“Ah! The cut-off denim is killing me!” Aaron screamed so they could hear, holding his arms up to his face to protect himself from imaginary shrapnel.
We liked them really. They’d offered to soup-up all three of our bikes at the fete, free of charge. You can’t argue with that display of friendliness. We thought they would get off on having three nice retro models to fiddle with, and left them to it whilst we checked out the sumo wrestling for kids event. Usually, our bikes were in a constant state of disrepair. There was always a broken brake cable, a slow flat, or a problem with the derailleur. But we persevered and kept on regardless of fault, weather, or rival bike gangs. There was only one method of transport that summer, though we were already keen cyclists.
I setup the little table at the front door to collect money from all the punters. By now it was standard routine; I’d got my thing together and thought I was quite a good doorman actually. The local reggae group were just wrapping up their soundcheck when I started letting people in. I reserved the last bottle of ginger beer. There were only about twenty people in, all mingling around and smoking out back on the patio.
The next customers to arrive were two policemen in bright luminous jackets. I opened the door for them and the first one to step inside said: “you are being recorded,” as he pointed to a camera attached to the side of his hat. Hey! Cool! I’m on camera, again. “Who is in charge here tonight?” he asked.
I thought about it carefully - stalling – because whoever’s name I gave would probably be in trouble, judging by the look of these guys. “One sec,” I said and went off to grab Alex from the sound booth. “Urrr, Alex, the police are here.”
“Really?” he asked, turning away from a half-built joint.
The two policemen strolled in behind me, looking around the room menacingly, followed by a huge guy carrying a clipboard. He must have been from the fireboard. They all looked very proper, and very serious.
“These two people are from the council and have been sold alcohol without being asked for proof of membership, so we are investigating a breach of your license.” Fucking party poopers! He pointed to two normal looking punters, both with untouched pints in their hands. Borough council plants!
“Funbusters!” Mike whispered in my ear as he walked past.
They ordered the bar be shut for the night. The fire inspector got nosey and scouted the place out, either ticking boxes or putting X’s in boxes on his clipboard. “Where is your fire alarm?” he asked.
“Behind the door?”
“No it’s not.”
“Behind the front door?” said Mike, knowing what the alarm looked like.
“What is this?” he asked, fiddling with a broken fire alarm. Two cables hung out of it, attached to nothing. Mike had a smile on his face. We both knew it was fucked anyway.
“I just work here,” Mike said innocently, but sounding guilty. “I just work here,” he repeated, “I’m not really sure of the inner workings of the ship.” He tried his best to cover up, but the words sounded contrived as they spilt from his mouth. It was humorous exchange.
The bands argued with the authorities, then between themselves, as to what would happen to their gig. They threw around ideas. Someone suggested we lock the door and have the gig with the people who were already here, but the police said that was out of the question. Then the bands debated lugging their equipment up to the next pub and demanding they let them play. I can’t remember what they sorted out in the end, but I was annoyed to have been deprived of seeing the two bands again.
The police poked around for half an hour, not letting anyone come in or anyone leave. Those of us holding were getting nervous. Then they seemed to disappear, leaving us all kind of stranded. As the front door closed behind them Alex called for everyone’s attention and jumped up onstage to give a little speech.
“We’ve been operating here without an entertainment license for more than ten years.” There was a cheer, and the small crowd held their drinks aloft. “Technically, without a membership card, you shouldn’t even be in here, but we are lax about these things. But to them...” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door, “...we’re breaking the law. You were all here to see it. This is the end. The club is dead now. If everyone could leave, I’d advise you to get out of here while you still can.”
I grabbed my bag and wrapped up ready for the outside world. Just as I was leaving Alex grabbed my arm and said: “you realise that’s it for this place now,” in total seriousness. He was serious, and I felt gutted. The only decent grassroots venue in town had just been shut down and I was there to witness it. I felt privileged to have been there at the very moment it got closed, but the ripple effect hadn’t even started yet. There were bound to be other repercussions. More was bound to come out as the rumours started, and I looked forward to hearing them and putting them all straight.
As it turns out I was probably the first person to break the news to someone who wasn’t in the room when it happened. Making a quick exit, as recommended, I bumped into Aaron on the tight terrace of Charlotte Street. I relayed the news, he stood stunned and shocked. “Nah, no. Can’t be. Can’t be,” he repeated like a bad mantra. He threw down his cigarette, stamped it out and shook his head, looking down at the litter-strewn pavement.
Everything was cancelled and the club shut for two weeks. I wandered aimlessly at the weekends, wondering where the live music was. No-one knew what was going on, apparently there were meetings but I didn’t hear about any of them. Then, the club issued an official statement. Something totally out of the ordinary for them, as no-one was officially in charge, leaving the running of the club to a board of indecisive individuals. No-one wanted to take the helm and captain the sinking ship. They wanted to put chewing gum in the holes and hope for the best. A copy was posted on the front door and re-printed in the local rag. As it turns out it wasn’t quite as serious as we had all been led to believe. They were closed now, but would be re-opening on the strict condition that everyone through the door becomes a member. Thank God – they were going to make it through. And the only way to make it would be to put this membership system in place.
It’s hard to see why I wouldn’t have ended up a regular at that club; live music, cheap drinks, space for sly smoking, home cooked food, and good people. Nothing else in the town quite had it all. At no other watering hole could you plug your music in and play that whenever you wanted. There were other community-orientated, artsy spaces and cafes but nothing with regular bands. That really sealed the deal.
17
All the scum of society were out car booting, myself included. I was going from table to table, carrying a stack of books and scouting for more books, positively overflowing with volumes. No-one else was looking for cheap paperbacks, the collectors are going for the hardbacks and you can spot them a mile off. We existed in two different worlds – they are not the type to trifle with used paperbacks, and I shouldn’t be the type. They all served only to complicate an already complicated and dense, detailed mind. Last thing at night I put down what I was reading, took my feet off the desk and heard the Phippsville church bells strike three am in the rainy, absolute serenity of a Saturday night and Sunday morning.
A grey half-moon fog hovered above the suburb. A slow wind scraped along the side of the house. On one side of the street all the streetlights were out in an attempt by the council to cut costs. My curtains swayed slightly, though the window was shut. I could see cars, but all I can think about is how wide the road would be if there were no cars. The radio hummed inaudibly from my bedside cabinet. A bathroom light came on across the road like a beacon. I concentrated on the way the buildings rose and fell with the lay of the land.
Looking out of my attic window at night the epiphanic moments were few and far between. I was thoroughly bored. I snuck around in the dark when everyone else had long since gone to bed. Treading lightly with my shoes off to avoid any noise, fumbling around with my arms stretched out in the dark, looking for the banister, the door handle or the box of matches. I’d fall asleep and wake to another long day, as the exact same person in the exact same place. Nothing had changed and nothing was changing. It was a mid-life reclusive crisis, come fifteen years too early. Life had stopped. It was on pause.
Even the Bardic Picnic, some crusty tribal ritual where the townsfolk pick a poet, bored me that summer. All I saw were a load of hippies treading water in front of the stage, smoke rising, very little light, as the sun went down over the fields of the abbey. I waited for the epiphany, but it never came. Things must have dried up in the afternoon heat. Months slipped by, lost in repetition. I could be found at one of three places; at home, at the library, or at the club. The triangular mile. Three points of base. It was a small world, and one I let myself become too wrapped up in. Getting comfortable was the silent killer; the death of liveliness, creativity and sociability.
I looked up words in the dictionary like ‘sullen’ or ‘morose’ wanting them to apply to me. I sat reading, writing quotes in my notebook and brewed up distaste for almost everything. I moaned a lot when I found someone who would listen. You could always trust Dan for a good moan, so I invited him over a couple of nights a week. Life seemed to be passing me by at a hundred miles an hour, and I was letting it happen. Days on end disappeared from memory.
It’s just that at this age you’re always thinking what will become of you. You feel aimless, helpless and disaffected in your late teens and early twenties. You’re unsure as to what slot you’ll eventually fill on this earth. It’s an uneasy thought. It depresses. The fact my course was finishing didn’t help one bit. What should I do next? More education? A job? A house? Rent? Council tax? All I wanted to do was live, experience and write about it. I didn’t want to go near any adult hassles at all.
Writing encapsulates boredom. My personal need to write was born out of boredom, but was also an antidote to boredom. I dampened boredom, but also heightened my sense of boredom. Writing is a solitary gig, and that lack of human interaction can make you feel further from the human race than you might every want to be.
As a result I often took the bus just to break up the day and create some sort of action for myself. The routine got so gruelling sometimes. The same old haunts, the same roads, the same four walls in the same bedroom. Never before had I longed for someone else’s company and someone else’s bed so much since Eva had, quite literally, evaporated from my life. Staring out the window, I’d people watch. Often I’d see a familiar face and wave, but they never seemed to see me. As much as I tried I could not read on the bus. The train was okay, but not the bus. Why? I don’t know. But I can speculate that it’s because I prefer to gaze out of the window and look at people. That and the fact that in this town by the time you’d got your book out and read a page or two you’d have to put it back away again. The journeys were never long enough.
The view from the attic bedroom window; out into the cul-de-sac of retirees, people carriers, recycling boxes, hedges, garages, satellite dishes, and the dog which is let loose to run on the small patch of grass in the middle of it all. I enjoyed neighbourhood-watching, spying on the residents and the binmen, watching the rain when it came. The thought struck me that my life was similar to that of a retired person. Our days went on and on, regimented by routine. Waiting for the finer points in life; the post.
I told Dan I’d been riding the buses a lot. He said he was going to start riding the bus more often because that’s where all the pretty girls are. “Dude,” I said, “all the pretty girls ride the bus!” It was true, but neither of us were going to approach random women, fearing they may mistake us for tramps. How embarrassing it’d be to be shouted out on the bus, in a confined space. One afternoon, we pulled up to a stop and I watched a guy walk past with a cigarette tucked behind one ear and a syringe behind the other. Everything seemed to be getting rather depraved in town.
But the biggest bane of the whole weird scenario was the chip shop. It came to represent everything I couldn’t break away from in my doomed existence; I placed the same order every time I visited. It was monotonous, but I liked it for some reason. The staff recognised me and gave me knowing nods. Never being able to take a risk and go out on a limb; to accept and to change.
Even the chip shop seemed stuck like me – looking exactly the same as the day it opened eight years before. It became the ultimate analogy for the doomed, locked-in-a-groove life I seem to fall into if I stay put for too long. Things had to give, and I knew that then. Here I was, young and full of ideas, but letting go of it all. Was I advancing in years or just killing time? Something had to change, and drastically.
Another sign life was getting listless came in the form of a bird. It got caught into our conservatory. It kept flying into the glass over and over. I opened the door fully to let it out, but it only made it crazier. I didn’t know what else to do. I watched it for a while, waiting for it to fly to freedom. ‘That bird and I are alike,’ I thought. ‘We are both trapped.’ Somewhere there was an open door to a big, wide world but neither of us could find it.
18
There was a lunar eclipse and I really wanted to see it. All afternoon I was wondering where to get the best possible view in town. When 9 o’clock came around I rolled a couple of joints and rode up to Bradlaugh Fields, a huge open space only a couple of minutes from my attic room.
The sky was grey and overcast – it was likely I wouldn’t see anything but I decided to give it a shot anyway. Whilst unlocking my bike it started raining, luckily I had my coat on. By the time I reached the fields it was raining heavily and I was drenched. A familiar musty smell emanated from all around.
Over the hills and hollows I rode and way, way up to the top of the hill, lifting my bike over a fence to access the best viewing spot nearby. Looking down across the town I could only make out the church spire and the cricket ground lights. The wet greenery shone between us like never before. I pulled out a joint and lit up, blowing out smoke into the rain. I gazed up at the sky, trying in vain to see something, anything; the moon, the sun, anything but grey clouds and heavy rain drops. It was useless. I’d not see the lunar eclipse this time.
I gave up looking for the moon but tried to find the exact location where you could see the most of the town. Passing a gap in a hedgerow I saw an adult fox, only about eight feet away. It stopped to look at me for half a second and kept on walking away, undaunted and defiant, into the darkness. Now I was pleased I came out in the rain.
For twenty minutes, as it got dark, I stood alone in the top field. Smoking and soaking wet I embraced the moment and laughed both with and at myself. It’s funny how you can find peace and quiet in the oddest situations sometimes. I didn’t care I was soaked through, and I didn’t care that I had yet to ride home. Listening to the rain on my coat I noticed how silent the rest of the world seemed. Even here, locked in by housing estates, there was no sound to be heard, but the tapping of the rain.
Looking down at the grass I saw how rich a green it was when wet. It was slimy and slippy. Also, it was short. Who was cutting this grass? Anyone? It was a perfect question to contemplate in the wet. The mood I was in now was elated and overjoyed. It was a soaking of biblical proportions. It felt as if all the sin and anguish and anxiety were being washed away with every raindrop that hit me. I walked my bike home in the rain.
For months Aaron had been riding around town chasing reduced food with the yellow sticker. “9pm,” he said, “is the greatest time to be alive.” He sustained himself in this way. But then we met this guy round the back of the Co-op with his feet and legs sticking out of the bin. He seemed alright. We sat down on the pavement and talked about stuff he’d found. He told us his squat overlooked the park, and asked us for a cig. The electricity had been left on; he and a friend had moved in and were living like kings thanks to the food carelessly thrown out.
“I like my brown bread pretty fresh – none of this pappy bleached white shit.” He yanked off a piece of the loaf and ate it anyway.
We ate grapes, nodding slowly, as he talked. He stroked his beard and fumbled in his pockets a lot, but he was interesting. He seemed awkward, like we had surprised him by stopping to listen to him jabber on. “What are your weekly outgoings?” we asked. “Five pounds,” he said.
Our jaws dropped. No-one could live on five pounds a week. Surely it couldn’t be done? We wanted to move into his place and start saving our cash. Every morning we could look out on the town’s busiest park. It seemed like heaven. His life wasn’t free of worries, but we could imagine otherwise for the sake of a daydream. I’d setup my desk looking out over the grass, bolt my door from the inside and write each night by candlelight. Pinch me!
I considered every way of making enough money to live on. I upped magazine sales and began selling off my more prized records. I accepted every offer of dinner. I worked cash in hand at the weekends. I’d almost reached Grizzly’s five-pound-a-week outgoings, but not quite. Money seemed to drain through imagined holes in every pocket. Enough money to continue paying rent I did not have. Things were on the verge of getting desperate.
I’d always felt tame and boring in comparison to some of my friends. They seemingly managed to keep doing interesting things, hold down girlfriends, jobs, bands, and having fun getting into sticky situations; like jumping out of a plane, punching actors in the face, or narrowly escaping a tough pasting from the entire Falmouth Town Football Team. They stayed up later than me, and told more gripping stories. I kept quiet, stern and sober in the corner too often, retiring to bed at a reasonable hour; never pushing the boat out too far in case I couldn’t get back to port.
I was my own worst enemy. I dreamed a lot, and wanted for women, travel, laughs, but could never follow through and make these things happen outside of a definite comfort zone. Where my friends were dramatic and adventurous I was sloth-like and approached everything outside my room gingerly. When we met and they rehashed their exploits I wondered how quickly my life seemed to be draining away. I had wanted to do something amazing with my life. I wanted to be proud of my time in this world, but that seemed impossible now, those dreams were so far away.
Through all the long, boring days and the loneliest nights which would test anyone’s patience I had one constant, my one source of salvation; music. Not only could I not sit still, but the room couldn’t be silent. Music played constantly. I noticed it went through stages; I listened to one thing intensely, often for months before I switched to something else. Madness obsessed me for a while; both the head-state and the ska band. After them it was The Carter Family. There was no telling what style this possessed fixation would lead me to next. Even whilst lying in bed the radio whispered, so life was never wholly silent. What would have happened if there had been silence? I didn’t fear silence, but I avoided it automatically. “Be silent and your heart will sing,” said Tao, but there was no singing to be heard with the stereo off.
Thousands of songs and lyrics sat archived in the nether regions of my brain, like the ancient tomes that sit locked away in the British Library. You had to order those books in advance, like something had to trigger a melody or a lyric to spring to mind. “Wasted youth and a fistful of ideals / I had a young and optimistic point of view.” That was how I felt. It was comforting to know that someone else had summed up my position in their words somehow. “I’m rich in possessions but I’m technically bankrupt / sat in the darkness stealing light from a candle / rueing all the money I’ve held and mishandled,” was another that I could have written. If only we were able to replace them with experience and knowledge, I often worried, how much richer and learned of character we would all be. You can read all you want, listen to people talk and sing about it, but nothing beats the personal experience. As friends told me about their travels and holidays I couldn’t help but think: ‘I bet it’ll be totally different when I go there.’
I spent my last night in town at the club. Even the band onstage seemed pointless and trivial now. I took to the beer to drown myself, ending up dead drunk, having to ride my bike home. Phil shook my hand warmly and bid me farewell. “Bon accord,” he said, translating it incorrectly for me: “nice to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again sometime in the ether.”
Savour this last bike ride, I told myself; past all the streetlamps with no light; across the park I’ve crossed a thousand times before on my 10-speed with one brake, a flat tyre and knackered gears. I am this bike – broken. In defeat I return to my cave. I’m going to lick my wounds and come back out when winter is over. Even in darkness the grass brightened up and looked half-luminous. Any people were few and far between this late at night, with their hoods pulled up and coats painted a different, wet colour. I pull down my hood and felt like I was floating along with all the rain dripping down my face. I was soaked but I embraced the moment. This doesn’t happen every day, I told myself.
As selfish as it sounds I needed to live for myself and not my social life. I needed to keep moving. The travelling and the writing should take priority. Keep pressing on, keep moving forwards and don’t get trapped in one spot for too long. All of life’s lessons were to be learnt at the end of an era.
The next day these twins came past me on the station platform, and they were punk as fuck. They were colour-coordinated too; red, white and black, the three most striking colours to use together. One twin wore black converse, the other a red pair. If one twin had white stripes down her sleeves, the other twin had black stripes. Young punk chicks at any train station catch my eye, and capture my heart.
They strolled straight past, not noticing me, talking away. I admired their slick appearance. They took the stairs and crossed to the other side of the station. When their train came in they were gone forever. I was about to go forever from this place. They’d emphasised the fact that I was on a one-way journey away from a little life I’d built for myself. They were heading somewhere I wasn’t going; I was disappearing in the opposite direction. Daydreams came through thick and heavy; epiphanies they were not, but more a series of revelatory flashes.
The town had showed me what life was all about and then left me for dead; knackered, worn out and exhausted by it all. I felt as if my personality had been changed by simply living there. With one foot on the platform, and one foot on the train, I was shrinking back home to wear that ball and chain forevermore. It was all over. Life must move on, and here I was; making a move.
Climbing onto the train I thought of my very first night in town; sat in the back of a pub experiencing my first poetry night. That pint left a familiar taste, even now; I was a regular for a while. Once the flashes came, the flood gates opened; there was the theft of Aaron’s bike, which we watched before he flew off in pursuit; Jez’s long-haired black cat that hated me for an unknown reason; the evening bike rides over the hills and hollows of Bradlaugh Fields, struggling to stay on the bike as we took the track at full speed; flipping onto two mattresses at Big Noise repeatedly all night, or putting up those tents indoors; the way cyclists were directed in the opposite direction to the buses on Gold Street, making it a hairy navigation; the strange sign for a stolen dog we stopped to decode; and Trinity Avenue, the gentle, sloping, tree-lined, nicely open road, which will be forever autumnal in my mind. Things didn’t seem so bad now there was cause to reminisce.
- Originally published as my first attempt at a novella for #21 'From The Side', reproduced here in full.
