A couple of stray Australians, believing themselves to be in the warmer reaches of Notting Hill, wander in. Seeing a chance to exercise an act of old-country benevolence, the Aussie guy pulls out a smoke and gives it to this arsehole. Now this idiot’s all over him.
“Nice one, bruv. SEEEN. Let me carry you shit for you.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU. I WAS TALKING TO THE LADY.”
“It’s cool, buddy, just er...”
“Just what?”
He stares hard into the Aussie guy’s eyes and presses his head against him, the poor sod now reeling; purblind; red in the face and his girlfriend is starting to really get the shits.
“Tell him to go fuck himself, Dobbo.”
Dobbo decides to wade in, kakking himself.
The shopkeepers surround the scene and the guy walks, lighting the smoke; grinning and staring between the Aussie girl’s legs as she puts some breakfast stuff, eggs and the like, on the counter.
“Nice nice nice nice nice.”
“Rack off, numb-nuts.”
“Lay down, gal, let me push it up, push it up.”
“Look, mate, just fuckin’...”
“Leave it.”
“Twenty-four pounds thirty-eight.”
“What?”
On the final corner: the pub.
Well. I wouldn’t know about that anymore, would I? Be the last place I could afford to be seen in. I mean, what if they decide to reopen the case? Then what?
When Mary tells me that it’s “the best craic in town,” I undoubtedly always agree with her that it just might be, and change the topic as fast as I can, save that she might see me faltering.
The ways of W9 lives are reflected in the otherwise preposterous comparisons with the South Bronx.
The five corners.
The five boroughs?
Preposterous.
Henceforth, the tradition of tolerance for the rights of ordinary fucked-up people, a communal tradition that was fought for in the ’70s right on this spot by the one and only Joe Strummer and company, intertwines and combines to make up the disfigured landscape.
Truth is, there’s no shrugging off the fact that these folk are forever condemned to scrape around like lunatics, sucking for dear life on yesterday’s rotten air, cast over hill and vale.
Hanging over W9, Mr. Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower watches as the nuclear sun sets down. This architectural abomination stands creaking, turning a blind eye to Japanese photographers, while at its roots, skulls are caved in and crack rocks are sold to whoever the hell wants, by dealers who freewheel the nearby Grand Union Canal on stolen bicycles.
Meanwhile Gardens is also apparent as it skirts both canal and tower and is the divider and last breathing space before visitors to this hellhole say goodbye to common logic. Forever.
On the canal itself, most are as oblivious to the Canada goose; Gray heron; Mallard; Kestrel; Coot; Moorhen; Black-headed gull; Wren; Robin; Song thrush; White throat; Chiffchaff; Willow warbler; Starling; Greenfinch; Goldfinch; Woodpigeon; Gray wagtail; Dunnock; and Blackbird, as the birds are to them.
Best keep it that way.
Meanwhile.
Gardens.
The underdeveloped.
The youth.
The hood rats and the squeaks.
Hood rats (mainly black), who like any young voluble yet asinine revolutionary, guise themselves and any sign of vulnerability in a uniform of oversize sports clothes; hoods pulled down low over cap even lower, with one hand always down the trouser front. Listen listen listen listen. I do what the fuck I want. Don’t arsk. A gun is a gun and I DO have one. Next to my blade. Live at my mum’s, innit. My sister’s got three kids and she’s younger than me, innit. My dad? Don’t know, mate. Don’t fuckin’ know. Three guys, right. Chase me in my car and I get mashed, innit. Don’t want no fuckin’ hospital though, innit.
Squeaks (mainly white), who like any terrified young revolutionary, guise any sign of vulnerability by wearing a uniform of tight-fitting sportswear which also doubles as a mask for the lack of a soul. Obsessive about their appearance to the point of perfection, their goal is to have you believe that the projection of superiority is indeed true. Nice trainers. Gleaming. I do the right thing by me mum. If you (dirty filthy fucking animal) do anything to hurt any one of my family or their kids, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I’ll clump you with a fuckin’ hammer. I’ll cut your fuckin’ heart out (after I’ve cleaned the house for me mum and taken me gran up to the hospital). All right? Have you been fuckin’ smokin’?
A community of chagrins and fighters set against a world of cheap booze and even cheaper promises.
Fighters against a war they started.
Fighters for peace.
Secondhand peace.
A community of losers and bruisers.
A community nonetheless.
Life made difficult is practical by default, with little room for the spiritual.
Even less room for the likes of me.
My mobile rings.
“Hello?”
“Johnny.”
“Yes. This is...”
“I fuckin’ know all about you, you cunt. You won’t get away with it this time.”
Then the line goes dead.
I look at the last caller to find the number withheld and flick a somewhat tentative snarl into the eye of my fear.
Loud pangs begin in my temples. My throat tightens, and remembering to breathe, I look around to see where I might fall if I were to pass out. The world begins to swim around me and the deafening sound of an ambulance threatens to pop my right ear. As though a six-foot tuning fork has been struck at the core of my very being, I vibrate from the inside out. Then I stumble to a chair and clench my eyes as a million pinpricks pepper my forehead, squeezing out tiny beads of alternating hot and cold sweat. I don’t know if I will ever see again as I open my eyes and hear a high-pitched wail that accompanies the darkness. A backward scream travels into my chest, and as though a light has just exploded, I begin to make out solarized shapes in front of me. I can also hear my heartbeat and I know I’m back. After a few deep breaths, I manage to look out of the window from behind drawn curtains. Fade up to a rat and a squeak and a Mazda. Music so, so loud.
Their own heads bop up and down together, as though choreographed like two ornamental dogs that people used to place in the back window of their cars in days gone by.
Arseholes.
Easy now.
Remember the foundations of morality and grace.
Hovering on Johnny’s lowest periphery, Colleen O’Neill staggers along Harrow Road toward Our Lady and curses those red-nose buggers in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Her bright red hair ambuscades the crowd; the stench of sperm keeps them at bay. She is literally dying for another drink. She now sweeps aside her blazing locks to reveal a face that resembles a weather-torn cliffside, as she sniffs an air not quite good enough for her and surveys the space with a condemnation reserved for the damned. Her goal is to head out of the space for Westbourne Park Road, where she just might get lucky with a punter, preferably three.
Since the age of eleven, Colleen has been fucked into one bad situation after another. At the age of twelve, when she realized she could get paid for getting laid, there was no looking back. There were also no trips to the seaside. No hopscotch. No crushes on boys. No Bunty or Judy magazines with cutout dresses and little tabs attached to place on figures that you could also cut out and keep. No bedroom where she and her friends could practice kissing on their arms. No “what’s for tea today, ma’am?” Just no one. When the boxer said he’d take care of her, he kept his promise: beating her to a pulp, using her as an ashtray, and raping her daily. The drink became her only means of protection from a world that offered ineffectual amounts of faith, and little by little the price of that protection got higher and higher and higher.