Memoires of a Heroinhead

A Brief History of Work

2012-01-14T12:52:00.002+01:00

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One day I will tell you of the time I worked as the school's milkboy, delivering the fresh crates to the classrooms each morning, then in the afternoon, collecting the vile, curdled, stinking empties, for 25p a week – which is slave labour now, and was slave labour then. I'll tell you of how, after a couple of weeks, I got bored and lay on the stage, in the assembly hall, chucking the bottles across the room while laughing and banging my feet as each one exploded and shattered; how the  teachers congregated at the entrance, waiting the arrival of the school nurse, as they thought I was having an epileptic fit - when really, all I was having, was a whole lotta fun. One day I will tell you of that.

And of the time I landed a paper round with John Menzies. How I rose at 5am each morning and delivered yesterdays news, in the snap cold, pitch black mornings, with all of Central London's paedophiles in hot pursuit. I'll tell you how that comforted me, as at least then (I thought) my sister would be safe. I'll tell you all, and of why I kept my round a secret, as only poor children had to deliver papers to earn money to save up to buy their own clothes and new school uniform. One day I'll write about it: John Menzies, Pimlico, 1987, of how I pissed on the priest's Daily Telegraph, tramped it in dog shit, then posted it through the vicarage letterbox, and how the following day I was refused entry to the newsagents, and my paper round was then the burden of some other poor unfortunate's soul.

And one day I will tell you of the time I worked in the Five Star Car Wash on Shepherds Bush Green, and how we dusted and polished dashboards, shook out and hoovered floor mats, then drove the cars through the wash, hand buffing them the other side. I'll tell of how the tight-fisted owner, a big fat cigar smoking Turk who dressed in fur and gold and had a fleet of second hand Mercedes, how he'd send his family members through the wash with a twenty pound note placed under the passenger seat to see which of his workers would pocket their good luck rather than put it in the kitty - the kitty which no one ever saw shared out. I'll tell of that. I'll tell you all.

And of how, when I was 15, I passed myself of for 18 and landed a labouring job with Kone Lifts. And how one afternoon, while having lunch with Joe and smoking thai weed on top of the elevator, I fell down the back, my spine bent to snapping point, and Joe clutching a hold of my legs to prevent me from falling 100ft down, to certain death, into the concrete pit below. I'll tell you of that, and of how, when I told my mother she completely freaked out before asking me for the next week's rent in advance: “Just in case!”

And one day I will tell you of the Video Rental Shop where I was taken on for work experience from a YTS scheme, and how I worked 12 hour shifts for not a penny of pay; how one Friday evening I stole a copy of: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, before ringing the till open and walking out, leaving three hundred plus pounds for some lucky soul to find.

And I'll tell you of the time I spent working at Hyde Park Police Station as an apprentice electrician for Blenheim Electrics, of being treated like a piece of shit by everybody except a man called Ray; of how I hit the head bully across the kneecaps with a scaffolding pole when he tried to strip me naked as part of an initiation ritual, which would end in me being tied to the roof and laughed at for hours before being ordered down to make the tea. I'll tell of that.

And of how I worked for just about every Soho nightclub, handing out flyers while dressed up as an alien with a plastic spaceship sellotaped to my head. All that, for free entry, two drinks vouchers, and a whole lot of trouble from rival club promoters. I'll tell all about it, and off how when Ewan died (their main leafleter and my best friend) they disowned me, blamed me for his death for introducing him to heroin. After that I was no longer welcome in the clubs, and what's more, they grouped together and barred me from the funeral, said that if I attended there'd be another death! All those people Ewan hated so much, putting him in the ground, fake tears behind blacked out rock sunglasses, as now they'd have to find another great guitarist who'd be prepared to record for nothing, and hand out leaflets to boot.

One day I will tell you of it all, and of the years I worked at Vaughans Ltd, employed as the Head Baizer, cutting out and gluing green felt onto the bottoms of reproduction antique lamps; of how I wired 24 armed chandeliers and shot smack in the toilets; of how I went to war with the managing director after he illegally made three workers redundant, and how I brought the place to daily standstills until they'd had just about enough and tried to blackmail me after finding used syringes in my bag. And how, when I wouldn't surrender my position, they offered me £15,000 to accept and sign a dismissal for gross misconduct, which I did willingly , but not before trying to get the work van thrown into the deal - though on being reminded that I couldn't drive, I conceded it was a fair point and took the cheque, and a whole lot of drugs, and that was the start of the good times. One day I'll tell you all about them.

And of my next job, working for BPP, employed to pack boxes, yet somehow, two years later, finding myself in the manager's chair wwith a three quarter million pound annual budget - which mostly went on luxury chauffeur driven cars, heroin, and crack cocaine. And that was the start of the even better times. Until I was dismissed a year later due to “horrendous expenditure abnormalities”.  I agreed to go as long as they paid me up until the end of the month. I was leaving the country anyway. One day I'll write about that.

And of my first year in France when I faked enthusiasm and went grape picking in the countryside. How after two days I was a broken man, cursing at how inhumane the work was,  phoning my father-in-law and having him drive 300km, into the thick of the Beaujolais hills, to rescue me.

And one day I'll tell you about my 18 months with Arctic Spas, travelling an hour and a half each morning out into the middle of nowhere, then walking for 25 minutes through fields of cows and horses, to repair, modify and test top-of-the-range jacuzzis, and how one day while on a maintenance call in the Grenoble mountains, ten below zero, I slipped with a screwdriver and pushed the thing three inches down into my hand. I'll tell of how the fire brigade had to come and save me and take me to the nearest hospital, from which I fled as soon as I'd been stitched up as I was getting ill from opiate withdrawals, was more than 4hrs from home, with no methadone, no medical insurance, and no passport. I'll tell you of all that.

And about the time I worked for Envie Rhône, a 'Program of Insertion' for social misfits, the insane, and those on pre-release from prison. I'll explain of how we fixed-up washing machines, fridge freezers, and ovens, and how the conditions in that place were like stepping back 100 years with every law and safety regulation ever fought for IGNORED. I tell of the workers, all on short 3 month contracts, blackmailed, so if they said anything their contracts would not be renewed, and then it'd be either back to prison or the mental hospital. Then,  when I complained, having no place to be sent back to, the entire company and every social institution of the region closed ranks and tried to force me out, and when I wouldn't leave (or shut up) they contacted an old success, an ex-prison tough, and had him threaten me, to stop my action “OR ELSE!”

And one day I'll tell of the weeks I spent working in the Beaux Art Museum, how I stood there from 11am to 6pm with my hands behind my back surveying the public and giving them directions when I was lost myself. I'll tell you of how we were allowed to play phone games to pass the time, and  how I pretended I was playing Zombie Shootout or Clubroom Billiards when really I was writing, something they wouldn't have permitted, just in case I was writing about them - which of course, I was. I'll tell all about it.

And also of the time I worked in the Town Hall. Of how I was paid to follow behind the Mayor, fanning his wind to either side as he went, making sure that his councillors, riding in his slipstream, didn't die of intoxication while trying to lay a successful knife in his back before sailing on by. One day I will tell of all that, and of how on Saturdays I had to dress up like a low class waiter and lead soon-to-be unhappy couples into the marriage room with a low sweeping bow, then walk them down the aisle - the Bride to my right; the Groom to my left - inviting them to take seat on the ornate King and Queen, wood and velvet chairs.

One day I'll tell you about all these things, only not now and not here, as time's ticking on and I'm just not paid to write.

(This post was originally posted in poem format. You can find a copy of the original posting HERE)
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A New Memoires post will follow soon...
Thoughts & Wishes To All, Shane, X

Venison Wild

2011-12-09T12:46:00.006+01:00

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It was a dark wet shiny night. I lay on a mattress in the back of a stolen van, a cold wind seeping in and annoying me from the loose back doors tied close with string. In the front seat driving was Lee Laws, a nineteen year old wiry blond crook, and in the double spread passenger seat besides him was first Paul K, and to his left, Alan. All three boys were in their late teens or early twenties, and all three were repeat criminal offenders. I was too, only I was much younger and my crimes much less serious. There was barely a week passed where one of us wasn't up in court, and for the two years I'd known Lee he had spent over half that time in Feltham Young Offenders Institute. In the back of the van, partitioned off from the others by a metal grille with square holes just large enough for the last inch of a joint to be fed through, I lay down smoking and looking past the ends of my feet at the motorway lights as they filed by in relentless and uniform fashion. I was fifteen and we was heading out of London, into the black of the country, to rob a house which Lee had already cased and said was safe and easy.

After getting bored watching the lights and the purple sky I closed my eyes and listened to the stories of the older boys. They talked about girls, and crimes and upcoming court appearances and arrests and how they'd replied “No reply” to three hours of intensive police questioning, no matter how heavy or mean it got. Lee Laws was especially shrewd in that way, or so his stories made him out to be, though others said he was “the biggest squealer in West London” and that being caught with him was like being caught red-handed-bang-to-rights. I didn't know what the truth was, but I know Lee Laws looked and talked the part, and I know I had visited him in prison that summer and had sat there as his girlfriend kissed a sixteenth of hash into mouth. I also know it was him who'd spun into the estate two weeks ago in this white van with all the wires under the steering wheel ripped loose and twisted back together. The truth on nights like these doesn't really matter. Stories float in and are as true and as real as the places they carry you away to. Sometimes, when the van quietened down, I'd raise myself from the mattress and on my knees make my way over towards the front of the van. From behind the partition I'd stare out at the rain and watch the windscreen wipers at work. At other times I'd focus on the motorway, miles and miles of dotted lights with black fields to either side, stretching off across wherever. Occasionally we'd pass another car or see one whipping through the wet in the opposite direction, but mostly on this black wet night it was just us, driving out of town in a stolen Sherpa van and telling stories as we hoovered up the road. In a way I wished we had no destination, that we could just drive – drive and never stop and the sun would never rise again.

“Right boys, now listen up,” said Lee, with a good inch of a joint poking out his mouth. “When we get there don't be going all fucking doolally and grabbing just any old thing. Most the antiques are pure shite, reproductions, and worth fuck all. What we want is the silver, the two carved bone ornaments in the hall, and the painting above the old fireplace. Any jewellery, money, cameras, small things like that, take 'em. But remember, leave the pots and the vases alone.”

Alan and Paul nodded away to Lee's instructions. I laid on the mattress in the back, more than blissfully stoned, smiling and thinking about taking the pots and vases anyway – struggling out into the night with a huge fake Ming vase that was no good to anyone. I started laughing out loud at this mad world of thoughts that was playing in my head.

“Oi!!! Shit for brains, r'ya listening?!” Lee shouted, darting a roach of the joint at me. “No fucking around, OK, or it'll be ya first an' last time out wiv us. Got it?”

Sucking the last bit of death out of the roach and holding the smoke, I nodded. Then I exhaled and the van was quiet and Lee and the others were intent on the road, and I wondered if the conversation had actually occurred or not.

By now we had been driving for maybe ninety minutes, maybe longer. The City was an unimaginable length of distance behind us. In my stoned mind I imagined it as resembling something like Bethlehem, only without a saviour. Even the big green reflector direction boards were not out this far, and the lighting on the motorway had changed too – was duller, darker, creepy – a row of thinly dispersed twin lamps down the central divide. Sometimes a little square of light would glare out in the black of the fields, a lone house or cottage and nothing else.

For a moment the stories and talking had ended, and the joints had stopped circling. We were all heavily stoned, sat or lain out in the hash-smoke filled van, withdrawn into our own individual existences. In moments like that the only thing we all had in common was the shiny wet road ahead. In the back of the van I now concentrated on the sound and the feel of the wheels, understanding worlds of different stuff from even the most subtle changes. It wasn't long after that that I heard a dislocated noise beneath the van, felt us slow and drift to the left, and made out the night time click-clicking of the van's indicator. It made a part of me feel sad, forlorn – I could have willingly lain in the back forever. I felt the van turn and all my insides and brain seemed to turn with it. What light there had once been from outside was suddenly quenched and the road underneath was slippery, bumpy and uneven. Trees and bushes scraped and beat on the sides of the van, and for the first time I became aware of the rain pelting down on the roof. I got to my knees and took myself to the partition, looking out the window from over Paul's shoulder. From what I could make out we was on a well travelled country lane, that may or may not have been an official route. Whatever, it had surely been cut out by smaller cars as the van had a hard time passing through and the added weight caused our wheels to sink and spin and go nowhere every now and again. The only light now was from our left headlight. We'd knocked the other one out hurtling over speed bumps in the city. The van dipped and jerked and bumped and made awful dying sounds. The few tools we had in the back jumped up and crashed back down on the metal floor. We all peered out, looking for something to show up ahead.

It was the sound of gravel under tread that initially told us we were approaching some place. At first little spurts of it and then a constant scrunching. Pestle and mortar. Up ahead, picked out by our headlight, the road widened and a few black shapes came into view. The place smelled. It wasn't unpleasant, just different, like a hamster's cage or rabbit hutch or muesli. It was a farm. The van crunched into the opening and turned right, and there, as if it had just materialized from nowhere, stood a house – perfectly still and black and empty. Lee slowed the van down, turned it around so as the back doors were facing the house and then stopped. With the engine still running he just sat there with a huge thin grin scarred across his face. I started to say something but my voice seemed so loud in the cut of night. Lee shussed me up with a raised hand and a pained expression, as if even though there was nobody around they still might hear. That's what living in the city does to you. It's a kind of paranoia. After that we all spoke in whispers, and tried to act as silent as the night.

In the front, with the cabin light on, Lee and Paul slipped into black gloves. Lee gave a quizzical look across to Alan and held his hands up and wiggled his fingers. Alan shook his head. Lee scowled, before screwing his face up in suppressed laughter at Alan's amateurish mistake. He turned my way.

“Give Alan your gloves,” he demanded.
“What? No, they're mine. I need'em. The police have my prints!”
“Give 'em over ya plum! You're not coming in with us. I want you here.. keeping dog. And if you hear so much as a ghost's fart you're to hit the fucking horn, OK.”
“But You said I could come in with you!”
“Next time. Give Alan your gloves. While we're gone get the doors open and skin up a zoobie... but don't cane it!.”

Begrudgingly I fed my gloves through the grate to Alan. He yanked them from me and was soon spreading and wriggling his thick fingers in them to get the right fit. “Perfect! Just a right good perfect fit!” he said, knowing it'd annoy the shit outta me, as if my gloves fitted him better than they fitted me. I didn't really care. My heart was beating furiously thinking of entering a strangers house and taking things. I'd really only wanted to go in so as I wouldn't be left outside alone. Finally it was the joint thing which won me over – the chance of having first dibs on one I had rolled and top-loaded myself. It was a novelty too novel to turn down. The only other time I was anything other than smoking cardboard was on those rare occasions I had a note and bought a ten pound draw myself.

Down under the steering wheel Lee flashed a torch, turned it off and handed it to Paul. Paul took it and then did the same. Then Lee took out a second torch, flashed that one too, turned it off; and kept it for himself.

“Ok,” he said, very seriously, “we can get in round the back. All we have to do is put a small pane of glass through. There's no alarm and no dogs. Let's go.” The boys filed out. I unstrung the back doors; went around the front and sat in the driver's seat.
“Lee,” I whispered “Can you turn the van around so as I can see better?”
“No. Never. Just incase we need to make a quick getaway.”
“Oh, Ok,” I said. Then: “Lee?”
“What?”
“Where's the hash?”

A huge grin spread out across his face. “Don't miss a fucking trick this one,” he said, taking his kit out his back pocket and handing it me. “Hash is behind the rizlas... and don't take the fucking piss!”

I took the Gary's kit, fondling the Rizlas to make sure the hash was really there. It was. I closed the door and watched in the wing mirror as the boys headed across the gravel courtyard, made their way to the right of the house and then disappeared. I sat in silence for a moment, the whole of Britain black and wet and deadly silent around me. How I'd ever see anyone in this until it was too late I didn't know, but I was dog and so dog I was.

I was sitting in the front seat, the small cabin light on, crumbling a good pinch of hash into the head of a joint that was sitting up on the dash when I heard the sound of breaking glass. I stopped what I was doing and squinted hard into the wing mirror. Another little pop rang out and a thin piece of glass shattered on the ground and tinkled like one of those Chinese wind chimes. I continued with my joint, one eye on the wing mirror. That's when I saw it, to my horror, a light flitting about high up in one of the attic windows. At first I wondered if it was the boys already in the house and up top, but no, it was too quick. The last shard of falling glass had barely stopped singing. I jumped out the van and sprinted off in pursuit of my friends. When I arrived around the back Lee was sidled right up tight against the door with a strained look on his face, his hand the other side trying desperately to locate the door latch to release it.

“There's someone inside,” I hissed, “There's a light upstairs!”
“Fuck off , Shane,” said Paul, who'd never really liked me, “you're just shitting it!”
“I'm telling yas there's someone inside! Lee, there's someone up in the fucking attic.”

Lee withdrew his arm out the door. “Where?” he asked/whispered. I led the way.

Back around the front of the house I pointed up to the window where the light had come from. Of course, now it was black and as indifferent as any other. I sensed someone looking down at us.

“Lee, I swear there was a fucking light. I din't imagine it!”

Lee stood looking up, figuring whether to take me seriously or not. He seemed to have pretty good information that the house would be empty but something was niggling him. While we were looking up at the window a very feint light then showed itself, but this time coming from the middle windows. It originated from somewhere deep in the thick of the house. This time we all saw it and went sprinting for the van. As we got in I warned Lee and Paul to be careful as my joint was sitting unrolled up on the dash. Then I regretted top-loading it. With the boys back it'd be roach supper for me again.

Lee started up the van and put his foot down. Desperate to get up some speed he kinda pushed and urged the van forward like he was giddying on a horse. Then we were up and running, skidding back through the soft wet path, me holding the doors closed as there'd been no moment to slam and tie them shut. I watched Alan take my half prepared joint and twist and screw it into a cigarette, in that clumsy brutal fashion he had. Secretly I still harboured small hopes that he'd hand it back for me to spark up, but he didn't. He lit it himself, took five or six huge holding drags and then passed it on to Paul. All the while Lee was speeding in the wet, through black roads that led to god knows where. I sat there in the back, waiting for the joint to be tossed my way, my heart pounding and thinking of blow-outs and 100ft drops into blackness.

* * *

It seemed like an eternity that we had been in the black, driving around dangerous country drops. The joint had left me completely wrecked. I was back laying on the mattress my mind chasing a million different inter-connected thoughts which I could visualize in my head. At one moment I even imagined that I was in my bedroom and it was somehow being driven around Britain. Every now and again I'd hear Lee droning on about joining a different motorway home as the police may be waiting for us along the common route. He kept saying that, over and over. I gave a look up and out the wind screen. God it was really black out there. Visibility was reduced to maybe a metre ahead by the power of one fading headlight. It felt like a film, or a video game. Everyone felt like that, I think. No one was talking. We were all staring straight ahead, tuned into the moment, focussed on the cosy light we illuminated in the dark, all in the zone, hypnotized by the road ahead as we drove on an endless spot.

I saw as little as anyone else, though being in the back I felt and heard it more. Lee had suddenly shot up straight in his seat with his foot hard pressed on the brake. His arms were out straight, gripping the steering wheel and fighting desperately to keep control of the van. Something big bounced of the driver's side and made a god-awful sound doing so. As it had happened I was hurled back on my arse on the mattress. The van skidded, trying to take a grip in the wet. And then it stopped, .the pit-patta of rain on the roof and steam converging from all sides.

“What da Jesus!” screamed Alan. “We fucking hit something... we' hit something!”
“What was it?”asked Lee. “Did anyone see it?” We shook our heads collectively.

I scuttled over to the back of the van, pushed the doors open a foot and peered out. Nothing, just darkness, the smell of wet bark and exhaust fumes.

“Maybe it was an animal,” Alan said.
“What kinda animal?” said Paul, “This is England! D'ya think it was a six foot badger?”
“Ya never know what lives out here, boy-yo. Back home there's an all manner of unknown tings, sure... live out in da forest at night which no-one dares know about.”
“Maybe it was a scarecrow,” I said, seriously.
“A fucking Scarecrow, Pffff!!!! Fuck off back to LaLa land, Shane. A scarecrow!”

That's when Lee turned an unhealthy shade of grey, the colour suddenly drained from his face. “But you know what, yeah,“ he said, ominously, “I think he's almost right. Only I don't think it was a scarecrow but a man.”
“A man? Who would be out here? Walking the rain, going nowhere?” asked Paul.
“A tramp. A local,” I said. “There must be some people who live around here and these carrot-crunchers love walking around in the splodge, kinda like watering themselves.”

Paul turned round and darted something vicious at me. It wasn't a joint roach, but a cigarette filter or something. It meant shut it! It was the peak of nerves before tension, before the van fell deadly silent for a moment. Then Lee started to speak. His face was rigid with shock, cut out against the black backdrop of the window with the windscreen wipers ever so mechanically squeaking away. When he'd finished what he had to say he was looking at us in turn, as if this was a night where our lives would change.

“I think we've killed someone,” he'd said, all trance like, “I saw the head. An eye. It took a second out to look at me like one of those weird flashed messages they're not allowed to advertise with. I really think we've killed someone.”

We all sat staring back into Lee's ghostly and handsome chiselled face of fear, the hash buzz prickling through our eyes and skin. Lee's eyes were even wider, the pupils huge and agitated and full of night tales. Swept along in the moment we were all thinking the same thing: even if it was an accident, we were in a stolen van, with one light, not a driving licence between us, we were all stoned and we all had repeat criminal offences behind us and more pending. Then there was the house we'd attempted to burgle. God, we'd be fried, even taking into account it was only a carrot cruncher we rammed down. It was Alan who broke the silence, a calming pragmatic Irish voice:

“We're gonna hafta ged'out an take a look, boys. It'll do us not a bit of fecking good sitting here, sure, imaging what we've done and scaring the bejesus outta us. And if it is a man, maybe he's not dead? Maybe we can help?”
Lee shook his head. “And what if he's not dead? He'll have seen our faces. I think we should just go.”
“We can't just drive away, Man! To do that'd make it ten times as serious. We'd be tried for being evil, man! I'll tell ya d'hat for nuffin.” Now Lee was nodding. Then we were all nodding. Lee chucked Alan a torch. “You lead the way,” he said, “I don't want to see it.”

The three older boys slipped out off the van and into the wet. I opened the backdoors and joined them as they came around the sides. Alan and Paul led the the way, I was a foot behind, and Lee behind me – though not so much as he'd be alone in the dark. We cut a long diagonal line across the road, to where whatever it was would have landed up. Alan shone the light around, showing up thick and inaccessible bush and tree to either side. The road really had no right to be here at all. And then without quite realizing it I was jogging and then pushing on between Alan and Paul who'd now stopped. The light had caught something and had opened up. And there it was, in the road, a head and a large sad eye, the rain running off it's face like tears: we'd hooked ourselves a deer.

*

The animal wasn't dead. Close to it, but not quite. It was just laying there subdued, eyes looking at gathering swamp flies, a slow and drowsy heave and fall of its chest, a composed exhaustion of life. Spilling out from its underside was blood, deep red in the yellow light and running across the road in streams with the rain. There was also blood and mud on the bedraggled fur near its front hoof.. Lee, who had practically melted at the thought of having killed a human now reformed and once more took the lead. He walked in, and without a word knelt down, clenched the deer's nose and mouth and in a loving, minute long embrace, he snuffed the remaining life out of it and then laid its head gently down and remained there like that for a moment with his eyes closed.

“Can't let the poor thing suffer on like that,” he eventually said, “That'd be the same as driving off.” And just when we thought Lee maybe had some kind of deep soft humanity, he added: “Ok, let's get the fucker in van.”

“Wha?” I or one of the others said, maybe all of us.
“The van,” repeated Lee, walking off “I'll back it up. Let's get it inside. I know a South African butcher who'll take this off our hands.”

Shocked, I looked at Paul and Alan. Paul and Alan were looking at the deer. The deer was looking at something no man can ever see.

Lee backed the van up and on rejoining us climbed in the back, stood the mattress up against the side, then hopped down. With Paul's help they dragged the deer around so as it was slumped dead longways with its head towards the exhaust. He and Paul grabbed the top end of the animal and Alan and I took either side of its middle. We tried lifting, but weighed down by death, the deer was having none of it. It sagged and got heavy in all the wrong places making it impossible to lift. Lee said we should lift it by the legs. Somehow that idea seemed too painful and no-one was very keen on doing it. Instead, in a clumsy, awkward fashion we all lifted it's top half into the back of the van and with Lee pulling on it the rest of us heaved and pushed, inching it slowly into the back of the van. When it was finally inside we all slumped down wet and exhausted staring at this thing which we had come across. Alan, Paul and Lee were laughing in amazement, and between heavy breaths talked excitedly about its size and saying how unreal it all was. Alan grabbed an old A-Z off the floor, laid it on his lap, then took out his spliff kit and began skinning up a joint. I watched Lee who was poking a twig in the deer's ear.

*

The laughing had been going on for a while before it dawned on me that the gufawing and snorting concerned me. I turned around, heavily stoned and confused. I could feel a bemused smile across my face, the smile I always got when I was stoned and baffled and fifteen and not sure if anything at all was actually happening. I tried to figure out what the joke was, but I couldn't. All I could decipher for sure was that it concerned me. “What?” I asked, “What???” When they saw my face, my stinging red eyes, they laughed harder.

“Would ya look at the state of that cunt,” said Lee, pointing at me, “he's out his fucking tree... wrecked! D'you think the Deer'll be safe back here with him?”
“Will it me bollix,” said Paul. “You seen the ways he's been eyeing it up! Oi, Sicko, no fucking dodgy business when ya think no one's watching, OK? If your hands start wandering or you try and mount the thing you'll be walking back to London!”
“Yeah Shane, go easy on her she's had a rough night!” was Alan's input. Everyone was cracking up, their laughter echoing in my stoned and cushioned head. That in turn set off my own thoughts and I was then bursting red too and laughing like a madman at the bizarre images which were playing out in my mind. And then I blinked, or breathed, or something and it was suddenly like nothing had ever happened , and I was left wondering had I just started cracking up laughing while the others were talking serious? I stared around at them for a moment, confused, but now they were with grave faces and surely they couldn't have been laughing??? Only they had been... I was sure of it. Then the words hit me. Not what they said, but what they implied... what had started their laughter.

“You must be fucking joking,” I suddenly cried, “I'm not getting in the back with that thing!”
“No?” said Lee, “then I suppose we'll see you back in London in about three days, because you'll be trotting home.”
“I don't give a fuck. I'd prefer to walk!”

Lee looked at me like you would a kid who just won't go to bed. Then his evil eyes gave way and he said I could budge in with Paul and Alan on the way home.

*

I slammed the back doors shut, tied them as tight as I could from the outside and then joined Paul and Alan in the double passenger seat. Naturally I was on the far left, squashed right up against the cold metal door and leaking, draughty window, last in line for the spliff as usual. I didn't mind. I was sitting wasted anyway. They could keep their puff, I just didn't want to lay in the back with a dead deer.

Lee started the van up and pulled off. We sat mostly silent, like we were grieving. Out the radio floated the voice of a weird talkshow host called Caesar The Boogieman. It made the journey seem fantastic and the world kinda sad at the same time. We stared at the blackness out the window, and then at a sign, and then there was a motor way – a huge concrete river that would take us home.

The ride back down the long stretch of motorway was monotonous and sleepy. All that changed was a joint was occasionally passed around and then we'd zone into the road again pondering the universe and imaging atmospheres that didn't exist. Crammed in the front, with the widows closed, the smoke went to my head and made me feel kinda hollow and strange. I didn't know whether to laugh or be petrified, or if reality was a fantastic dream or a hideous nightmare. I was wasted and didn't want to sit on it in silence as it crept up and turned me insane. I started getting lary with my older friends, saying crazy things, stoned things. The boys laughed along, but I don't think they were laughing at what I was saying.

“Skin up, you cunt,” I then said, staring at Paul. I got a slap around the head for that. Everyone laughed.
“I'm second on the zoot!” I demanded, “Don't want no skinny little roach this time!” They all laughed and the joint bypassed me anyway. Sucking on the roach of the joint I'd said I didn't want Lee looked across with red rabbit eyes and said, “What, you given up inhaling!” They all laughed. I had given up inhaling. I was too stoned. But I'd been caught and was embarrassed. I replied: “No, I could smoke the lotta you under the table. I'm not even stoned yet, just mellow!” They all cracked up again. Everything I said was one huge joke.
“Alan, you got any speed?” I suddenly asked. And now the older boys were laughing so hysterically that Lee had to pull the van over so he didn't drive it off the road. Now at a stop they all rolled up in true hysterics, laughing uncontrollably and squealing like pigs. I sat in my chair feeling hot, staring ahead with a childish smirk, feeling immature and out my depth. And then it flushed over me – pulled down like a sheet, my mouth was suddenly as dry as a desert and I thought I was gonna choke. My colour and strength drained like a bath with the plug removed. I was throwing a whitey and needed to be sick. And everyone laughed that little harder still.

After vomiting out the side door I sat there in silence sweating and praying a joint wouldn't be passed my way. Of course one was, a big fattie for me to spark up. I waved it away as my friends knew I would. Lee lit it himself, and with it sticking out his mouth like a parsnip he pulled out and drove on, soon joining the city ring road and looking for the correct exit.

By now the best part of night had fallen. It was still dark but the sky no longer had the depth of colour that it had an hour previous, and way over in the distance there was breaking light. By the time we came off the A road and landed in the city proper the joints had stopped passing and everyone was tired, dreading first light and was anxious to know what we'd do with the deer. Lee repeated that he knew a South African butcher in Hammersmith and that he'd be there now, preparing joints of meat for the day's trade. He said we'd go there, unload the deer, get paid and then get home. It seemed like a bit of a tall story, and I think Alan and Paul were with me in secretly wondering if the animal in the back could even be eaten (let alone sold), but it was worth the chance, and Lee did know some pretty dodgy people. Anyway, if the sale fell through we'd dump the thing and be home in just about the same time anyway.

Inside the city the rain had stopped but the air was still wet. It was almost 6am and now light, but kind of early morning light that is still dark and makes you think of hospital visits and bad things. There was a mist all over town and the street lights were on their last minutes of time. Lone people jittered away at bus-stops and steam poured from the tops of some buildings and drifted on out. Lee rolled up to the lights on Chiswick Highstreet. We sat there real drowsy, looking at the morning which had broke the night. And that's when all hell broke loose.

The Van suddenly started rocking and banging and scratching and thumping away, and making horrendous animal noises. Alan was thrown forward and we cracked skulls. Then what sounded like a team of panel beaters were at work on the sides of the van, but real angry panel beaters, grunting and crying in pain as they hammered out the frustrations and pains of their existence. I turned around, I think we all turned around, and the head of a deer came smashing against the grilled partition, a crazed retarded eye of an animal trapped looking through. The deer must have only been stunned and unconscious and had now come around and was trying it's damnedest to smash its way to freedom. This was its buckaroo for life.

I think our first thoughts were the police. It was 6am in a decent neighbourhood, on the highstreet, and our van was alone at the lights thumping and crashing and emitting horrendous screams that not even the damp in the air could muffle. All shook up and flustered we clambered to get out the van. The deer seemed hellbent on getting through the partition and stamping us all to death. Out in the street Paul reckoned we should just leg it and leave the van, but we didn't as our prints were all over the place, and in its two weeks under Lee's charge had been involved in a plethora of local crimes and robberies. Running away would beat the immediate problem but come 10am, when the police would have had time to apply for arrest and search warrants, we'd be fucked. So we didn't run. For a moment we didn't do anything. Just stood around in a panic as the van rocked and thumped and the back doors bounced to the tune of the trapped beastnside.

Lee rushed back to the driver's side door and searched behind the seat for something. He returned holding a length of lead piping. “Come on,” he said to me, “Come on!!!”

Round the rear of the van he handed me the lead pipe. “Take that,” he said, “and when I open the doors get ready and crack it on the head!”
“What? That thing will be all over me before I've even swung!”
“No it won't! It'll take it a moment to even realize there's an escape. Now quit stalling and get ready to hit the thing or we'll all be fucked!”
Well I couldn't, and I told Lee as much. There's no way I could bash the animals head in. It was maybe the most innocent thing in the world at that moment, and after its struggle didn't deserve that. I didn't have it in me to do. Death in a beast that size is something real and something serious, and when it isn't quick or doesn't work with the first whack it is something horrific and traumatizing. To kill a thing by brain damage is sick and I wasn't going to do it.

“You fucking pansy!” Lee said. “Give me the fucking bar and I'll do it. You open the doors.”
Ok, I could do that. I could open the doors. Secretly I thought Lee or anyone else had no chance of doing what he suggested anyway. As I moved myself in front of the doors Alan arrived alongside Lee weilding a hammer. Horrible thoughts of cracked skulls, shattered bone and animal noises went through my mind. I thought of the deer, and of rodeo ponies and of racehorses rearing up in the stalls, and then I untied the double back doors and in almost the same movement pulled them wide open and got out the way. And in that moment, in the shrill misty morning with London just waking up, there was a moment of sheer unadulterated natural beauty:

The deer burst forth out the van – a leap to freedom and life, a sleek tan flash. It landed in the road, skidded, turned real low to the ground like a motorcycle then came up straight, found its hooves and shot bolt off right down the high-street. Lee hadn't even time to think of swinging the lead pipe in his hands and Alan looked pathetic and weak and the hammer so small and insignificant against this furious and passionate piece of life that had just shot out the van. And we all saw the beauty in that, and in the same moment we knew the deer had more right than just about anything to live, and was glad for it.

In pure amazement we rushed around the van to watch the deer. It galloped across an empty crossroads, through a red light, onto the pavement, back out in the road. running like crazy.

“Fuuuuckiiing hell!!!!” is all anyone could say. Then: “Let's get the fuck outta here!”

And that's what we all wanted, but we couldn't move. We were grounded to the spot, all still staring down the road after the deer as it ran on, zig-zagged through the early morning cars, flared up then ran some more. The lights of the high-street went from amber to green and from green to red and back again, but we didn't budge, just stood there staring. And when finally the deer was out of sight we stared some more, at the calm of the empty road, at the lifting mist, at each other, wondering if it had ever happened at all.

Three Degrees of Loss

2011-11-17T02:03:00.014+01:00

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Three pieces about loss following the death of The Man I Called "Dad."
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#1
Nightmares

The nightmares began the day my father died. Harrowing, torturous things which come to me as soon as my eyes find sleep and leave my body contorted and struggling to wake. Sometimes they toss me around and leave me fighting all night and at other times I manage to pull myself from their grip almost before they begin. But they do always begin, and it's been so long now that it feels like they've been plaguing me forever.

The dreams are always different and the dreams are always the same: My father, dying, stretching out for me and pleading for help. Sometimes he is in a hospital gown in a hospital bed. The bed is in a room and the room is white. It is all that exists in the universe. There are no windows, but it is dark outside. You can feel it, an infinity of black nothingness stretching out into forever. We are deep into dreamscope.

I am standing either just inside or just outside of that room. I have a profile view of my father from the left. He is on his back, slightly propped up in the bed. A sheet covers his body up to his neck. He looks smaller than I remember, weaker. He looks dead. His face is drained of all tones but grey. Over to his right is a machine. A calm green ripple runs across its screen. It's the only real colour in the room. My father opens his eyes. The skin around his cheekbones stretches a little tighter. Without moving his head he shifts his eyes across so that they are looking at me. Like that he speaks, his mouth talking to the space above his chest. He always starts by using my name. His voice is normal but quivers with fear.
“Shane, is that you? Shane???”
“I'm here Dad,” I say. He becomes agitated. Not at my presence but because someone is there and not ignoring him.
“Shane, where's the doctors? Shane, why are there no doctors? Shane, it hurts. I think this is it. I can't believe it. Two hours ago I was fine and now I'm dying. Death's here. Shane, this is it. Shane, do I look bad. Shaaane?”
By now his upper body is uncovered. His face is stained in hard and ugly ways as he tries in desperation to reach an arm out towards me. He looks like an old religious painting. His eyes are straining so far in the corners to keep fixed on me that they're almost looking back in on themselves. He starts saying my name over and over....
“Shane... Shane.... Shane. Shane, I'm dying. Can't you do anything? Can no-one do anything? Shane, it hurts. I'm hurting. Living hurts.”
I want to tell him he'll be OK but it seems useless to say that, and I don't want to admit nothing can be done because that seems even more hopeless. And so I say nothing. I stand there and I want to run. He is reaching out to me with ever more desperation. I'm not sure if he wants help or human contact. Whatever, it scares me. I want to cry and I don't want to cry. I need to cry. But I don't cry. He's never seen me cry and to see my tears now will only terrify him further. I want to tell him I love him and have always loved him and that HE is my father, but I know if I tell him that now, here, like this, it will surely kill him. And so I do and say nothing. I stand either just inside or just outside of the room, watching the strain of his reach and the strain in his eyes. And though he doesn't know it, that look he is wearing, that perverse, twisted face of desperation, is the first manifestation of death in hs body, making it pull strange and ugly shapes. It's a real nightmare. And as my father struggles to live, I struggle to wake – we struggle together. I am somewhere between two worlds and for once I want the waking world.

In another dream my father appears out of a smoky distance. He's limping and in pain and looks like he's come home from a long hard war. His head is bandaged and there is blood, red on white, as he limps out of the dust of time. He's not old but more as I remember him as a child, as my father, invincible, The Man with Tattooed Hands, a gold tooth, and a square and solid jaw. There are tubes up his nose, black sensors on his body and a drip in the tender region of his wrist. He limps on in pain and he tells me it hurts and that I'm good with needles and could I remove the drip. He is deteriorating by the second and his lips have a faint blue/grey tint. He looks awful, kinda braindead, but he isn't – he's just scared. His eyes and cheeks are sucked in. It's like his body is eating him up. He's heaving and spluttering and a constant groaning is rising up from his chest. “Yesterday you was a boy and I was your age,” he moans. “Yesterday.” He says other stuff. I can't make it out but I know it's sad. He groans in pain but never stops to allow me to help him. He staggers right on past like he can't stop even if he wanted to. To stop is to die and to carry on is to die too – just a longer way about it. I don't fight his wishes, there's nothing I can do. He's not dying in a way which can be helped, and it's not his physical pain which is my nightmare. I watch him walk on. Trailing behind him are tubes, a leaking drip bag and wires torn from a machine. He is heading towards a shed, a shed which is an airing cupboard, the same airing cupboard that my mother's cat crawled into to die.

There are other dreams, a thousand different variations of the same theme. And in all these dreams, no matter how bad or ill my father looks, the worst thing is that he's always fully conscious of his condition. He is living through his death, aware that it is in him and taking a hold. That what only yesterday was an abstract thought is now here, conquering him. But my father is never conquered in the dreams - he never dies, just suffers on. And that is the real, real nightmare.

Each night, at the peak of my father's pain, my eyes shoot open and I wake exhausted sat up boltright in the bed. And in the dark of the night, with the aura of the dream still fresh, I light a cigarette and lay back down, blowing out smoke as warm tears run free and curl up behind my ears. And some nights I let out a squeak of pain and sob “Dad... Dad”, but mostly I don't. I just lay there in the dark, on my back, in silence, not wanting to sleep any more. So agitated I'm awake and up, writing or mopping the tiles or doing the dishes or arranging my bookshelf. When the sun comes up I'll bed down, I say, it's much more peaceful that way, and cooler. I tell myself it's the summer and that the heat is unbearable and that when winter comes I'll sleep much better and at normal hours. And I will. I believe that. It's just been a long hot summer.
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#2
60 Rosaline Road, Fulham, London, SW6

The house doesn't look the same any more. The door's been painted, the crumbling front wall fixed, the missing windows replaced and the weeds from the front yard pulled up by the roots. But the house is still there, and no matter what repairs it has taken it still faces the east, still takes the best part of the sun on summer days, and no doubt the back rooms are still dark and suffer from damp. I think often of that place. It's a good memory, even the bad times. We were all there, all young, all alive, and it was home, as tragic as it was. But a new family lives there now, maybe a happier family – I don't know.

When my father died early on this year he was no longer living in the old house. He'd moved out years earlier after my best friend had succumbed to a slow and suffocating death up in one of the top rooms. He said he couldn't bare living there after that, that death seemed to have a permanent presence in the place and was always on the prowl. He said he could feel it in the rooms at night, creeping in on him as he sat watching TV alone. By the end he'd moved everything down into the small front room that looked out onto the street, living there without visiting the other rooms in the house. Then he moved out, into a property opposite.

In a way, my father living across the road was even better. While visiting him I could then look out his window and stare over at the old ghost and reminisce of all the comings and goings, the tragedies, the fights and all the broken people and lives which had staggered to and from it over the years. Somehow, like that, it took on an even greater significance in my life. I suppose because I could no longer enter inside that it felt more like an encased chapter which could no longer be meddled with, or meddle with me. From my father's new place I could watch the old house and fantasize about getting back inside, taking a walk through the rooms and seeing how the new family had arranged them and if they'd discovered the loose floorboards under which I'd hid many young secrets. And while my father was still alive it remained like that, a presence across the road and something which housed an era of memories which seemed to grow dearer each year.

But my father is dead now and the council has taken back the property he died in. The name Levene has no residence or business on that road any more. To see the old house now I must specifically go there for that reason, and even then I could only pass by as slow as I can to try and savour the moment and remember how things happened and how we all used to be. If I go there now I'll be a wanderer; at home and with no place to go. When my father vacated his space something else went with him, but it's not quite clear what. That's when I started searching

60, Rosaline Road, Fulham, London, SW6. That's what I'd type into Google Maps. The address. I'd zoom right in and visit the street, walk down to the house and turn into the yard. It felt real. Other times I'd zoom in 400% on the house and look through the windows, examine the brickwork and guttering, searching for some trace of our old existence there – a name scrawled somewhere or a piece of brick I remembered knocking out. After I'd make my way up the street and think of how we'd play football out in the road all summer long and how we'd peddle our bikes to freedom around those streets. I'd go down to the opposite end of the road, the place where Josh's garage used to be, and imagine how my father used to look coming around the corner after losing all his money in the betting shop and with only twenty paces left to figure out how he'd raise money to feed us that night. Other times I'd follow the route I used to take to school and observe all the things that have changed just as much as all the things which have stayed the same. It seems like a different time now. Just invisible footprints and dead skin in a street I still think of as mine. And the weird thing is, after all that happened, after all the blood and years of life that was spilled in that house, if it came on the market tomorrow, and if I had the money, I'd buy it. I'd prise open that encased chapter and risk more tragedy. I'd move in, alone or with a lover or a dog, amongst all the old ghosts, visiting the little corners of the house where mighty things had once happened.

Sometimes, just for tears, I wish I could go back.
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#3
The Snail Bank

I think it's only normal. After the passing of my father I've been preoccupied with death: His, my own, and everything from bugs to plant life. Somehow death and dying seems more real, and at the same time, more mystical than before.

I pull a petal off a flower and look at it. “That's death right there,” I think. “It's in my hand... gone for all eternity.” At the bushes, across from the bench where I sometimes sit and smoke and read, I look at the symmetry of the leaves and try to work out what birth and life and family and death really is. I try to understand why the death and rebirth of leaves and flowers seem so natural and acceptable, and yet the same birth, growth and death in humans seems tragic and flawed. At home I stare at the dead flies and moths on the window sill and it seems impossible to believe that they can never be re-animated. That even given infinite time these things will never again Be. A fly – It's hardly made of anything. Why can't such a little thing be fixed? It's hard to understand. There is no understanding. One moment things have a conscious existence the size of their known universe, and the next, the lights are out are we exist no more.

From my bed, as I write, there is a bug making its way nimbly across the floor. It's a small black rain beetle. They get in here all the time, crawling in from out the cold and wet of the plant beds just outside. My instinct is to jump up and squash it flat. But I've given up killing bugs, instead I drive them into a glass and then rattle them to freedom out the window. The other night I even went outside and picked up all the snails which had slithered out after the evening rain. I carefully unstuck them from the concrete and moved them out of harms way so as they didn't get crushed by the evening crowds. Why? I don't fully understand, but I know it's because my father's dead.

- - -

Thoughts and Wishes to All, Shane. X

For The Drunks Among Us

2011-11-06T16:46:00.012+01:00

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I'm not sure if it's the booze which turns me psycho or if it just brings it to the fore. In any case it mattered little: It was a freezing December evening and I was nineteen and hanging off Leatherby's balcony - fourteen floors up, above a spiked metal railing with gravity and the weight of a gallon of beer and whisky conspiring to pull me down. And while hanging there like that, with the muscles and tendons in my arms stretched to snapping point, I realized I had gone out too far, that I was no where near strong enough to heave myself back up and over.
“So this is how it's gonna go down,” I thought, that I'll hang here until I can hang no more and then drop down to a useless, messy death below. So when they somehow managed to pull me up, a man wound tight around each wrist and tugging my arms out of their sockets, I collapsed back over the safe side of the balcony wall, clean cut sober, and promised: “I'll never drink again!”

They had no choice but to arrest me. Even if I hadn't have refused to come on out. An opportunistic play of sheer idiotic drunken lunacy: crawling under a police van as it sat quietly at the lights on Wardour Street. They at first must have thought I'd stooped low to pick something up, and when I hadn't resurfaced by the change of lights had sent one of the officers out to find out what the hell I was up to down there. He must have spied the back sole of my shoe or something, disappearing under the van, as next I heard his astonished voice: “Guv, you'll never believe what this fucking idiot has done! Fuck, we've got ourselves a right one 'ere!!”And then I heard the back doors of the Sherpa van push open, and looking out under the back axle I saw at least six black booted feet drop to the ground, and then four eyes were peering in at me and demanding that I come out. I refused. "I'm never giving myself up!" I screamed, “Fuck the Brits!” Over across the road I could now see an assortment of various other ankles and shoes, and further back down the road a man was down on his stomach, pointing my way and saying, “I can see him... I can see him!!!” Of the gathering crowd, brought together to watch my drunken 'non-protest', there seemed to be quite a healthy split of opinion: Some were urging me on, and others were a little less sympathetic, advising the police to run over me and invert my spine. They didn't. There was a much easier solution than that. Two of the officers knelt down, grabbed a hold of a foot a piece and tugged me on out of there – me trying desperately to claw into the tarmac and screaming all the while. When they finally had me out they cuffed me straight and then rolled me over for the big unveiling: an imbecilic young face, red and smiling with the drink and saying: "Go on then you bastards, beat me up!" They didn't. And I swore: I'd never drink again.

So it seemed like a dream when I found myself that Christmas Eve swaying on the edge of the underground platform, staring off with contempt into the pitch dark of the tunnel and praying for a tube train to come along so as I could chuck myself out in front of its thunderous rage. And as I stood there rocking like that, and sucking in the smell of carbon dust and electric current, the double rows of white fluorescents above seemed to glare and fade and glare and fade, pushing and pulling me in and out of some cynical world of self-hatred and bitterness. And I thought: "Fuck you!" to the sickly couple petting on the seats behind me, and “Fuck YOU!” to the young boys just over there smelling of Stella Artois and kebab and Xmas joy, and “FUCK YOU!!” to the sober Underground worker standing at the far end of the platform and looking down at me (or maybe just looking down). And sometimes the place seemed upside down and topsy turvy, and other times other worldly; the large pasted advertisements appearing ultra bright and ultra real and ultra evil like they'd been put there just for me. So then I'm laughing bitterly at some deranged thought which has passed through my head and before I'm even finished with that craziness I'm then dreaming of bed and imagining trying to stub out my last cigarette so I don't set the place up.

And then I felt a breeze. And somewhere far off into the black of the tunnel a spark shot out like a sharp elbow. Then came more cool black air and with it a low constant rumbling and I edged myself a little closer to the platform's edge. The rats scurried for safety well before the first bolt of electricity bandied down the tracks, and for a moment I wasn't sure if it was the drink playing tricks on my eyes or if the tunnel really was alive with blaring light and noise. But there was no mistake about it: a tube train was hurtling down the tracks and headed my way.

Since I didn't much fancy flinging myself out onto live rail, being electrocuted first and then decapitated, I knew I had to time this to perfection. I thought of toppling off the platform, not really jumping but kinda just relaxing and falling into the trains path. I reckoned that with the drink in me and the speed these things blast through at I probably wouldn't feel a thing. And barely was it decided that that was how I was going to enter history than my face was being blown back and I was growling and laughing at compartments full of people in their Christmas merry as they flashed by all blurred, the train inches from my nose. And I thought: "Fuck it, next year!" and then swore I'd never drink again.

And so I'm in a house in Chelsea with my brother and some weird girl who we'd met as we left a bar. We'd followed on behind as she danced off in front, bare-footed, screaming over and over: "I'm late, I'm late! The rabbits late! Follow Me.... " An upper-class, schizophrenic, problem child, left alone by her father and so she'd ventured out searching for bad boys like my brother and I. Well, she had found us. And the house, OH THE HOUSE, Jesus! Antiques and paintings and silverware and cameras and jewellery and now the trash of my brother and I acting as a counterweight against all that opulence. And with no talking, no discussion, not a single word at all, we'd been led in and straight up to her bedroom. And this crazy, unwell-bred girl, with a protruding forehead, pushed out by a deformed frontal lobe, was then showing us her forearms and tops of her breasts boasting how she cuts herself up with broken glass and sees a psychiatrist twice weekly. On hearing that I said to my brother: “We could be in here... I'll fuck her first!" And the girl heard. And now she was no dumb rabbit but Alice, on the bed, washing down a handful of psycho pills with red wine before pushing her trousers and panties down and laying there with her legs crossed but her muff out. And as planned I went first, though not as planned Madcap Alice was suddenly up on her knees, waving around a huge real psycho knife and warning me to stay back and not to rape her (all the while screaming that I HAD raped her). And then, when she felt she'd done enough to prevent me from violating her, she asked: “Are you boys hungry?” Said she'd fix us up a full Sunday Roast (from scratch) but after that we'd have to leave. Then just as quickly as she'd lost it, she lost it even more, saying that she needed DRUGS. Any DRUGS. So I said that this was Chelsea and that The Kings Road was packed six to a doorway with the homeless and that we could easily score DRUGS there. My brother found a bottle of Scotch, named it his, and we left.

Back outside and the night air was frosty and cut through with ice, but we were warm with booze and excitement and I had a hard-on and maybe my brother did too. And because I had mentioned the homeless and drugs and how easy it was Madcap Alice had then gone skipping and dancing up to a pair of beggars dressed in sleeping bags.
“Can you get me DRUGS!" she asked. And she wasn't even sane enough to know that there are different drugs, and that no-one in the entire history of scoring has ever tried to score just 'DRUGS'. So I pulled one of the beggars aside and said: “Look, the girl's completely cracked! My brother and I just wanted to fuck her a bit but she turned all mental and threatened to kill me. But tell her you can get 'DRUGS' and come on back. She's alone in her father's three storey house and it is packed to the top ceiling with every kind of shit that could probably help you guys out!"

And so Alice is once again out in front, leading us all back to hers, having started up with the rabbit nonsense again. My brother hands me the bottle of scotch like it's a relay baton and then goes dancing away too, trying to catch up with Alice and fuck her before I or the beggars do. I hang behind with the beggars, still dressed in sleeping bags and looking like winter caterpillars up on their hind legs. The beggars are either merry with the prospect of getting out the cold or they have realised that this is for real. As I stagger along sipping at the whisky, each one is at either of my ears asking again about the house and drooling and rubbing their hands together as I describe it over and over again.

We're in the Hallway of Madcap Alice's house. The beggars are staring up in astonishment at the low hanging chandelier.
“It's a reproduction,” says Alice, “everything's a fucking reproduction!” The beggars don't seem to mind though, and Me, I think: At least there'll be no trouble replacing everything then! Once again we're led up into the bedroom, only this time there's five of us. Alice is the only one who sits. The pills she'd swallowed earlier seem to be coming on strong as she's rolling her head around and laughing and saying weird things as if she's tripping. But she's not tripping. She just thinks that's how DRUGS make you behave. She's seriously whacked. Getting down to business one of the beggars asks: "OK, so how much DRUGS do you want?" Madcap Alice pulls out some notes from her jeans and says: “This much!” She's not got a single clue as to how much cash she's even produced. Still, as crazy as she is, she is not crazy enough to give the money to the beggars. Instead she gives it to me, maybe as payment for raping her, and that's even worse. I stuff the notes in my pocket, my brother now diving in and trying to take his half. I fight his drunken hand out my pocket and tell him: “Later!”

The beggars say that to get the DRUGS they have to make a phone call. Madcap Alice, really out of it now, flings a hand towards the door, as if to say: “It's somewhere through there.. I don't know!” With the Beggars now roaming the house (casing the joint), my brother and I collect a few select things ourselves. I take a fake Ming vase, a brass fire poker and a Toby Jug while my brother fills his pockets with Silverware. Now resigned to our fate – a wank in the dark before sleep – we decide to call it a night and tell Alice that we're leaving, and that the two beggars are ordering her DRUGS, but to be very careful as I think they're planning to rob her. But Alice isn't as stupid as she is crazy, and she realises that I've told her that but am preparing to leave with a body load of stuff myself. She says that my brother and I can keep what we've taken and just to go, that EVERYONE MUST GO! My brother and I agree, and so drunk to hell we head off, now with Alice firmly behind us making sure we go. As we make our way down the stairs and off through the open plan living room we pass the beggars who are on the phone. But it doesn't sound much like DRUGS they're ordering: "Yeah, bring the fucking van, mate... I'm tellin' Ya, we can empty this fuckin place!" And then I wake up on a night bus and I'm kicking to rouse my brother as it's pitch black outside and I think we've overshot our stop. And we have. And it's raining and it's freezing and we're walking the five miles back home, weighed further down with the odd and useless bits of antiques we have. And my head seriously hurts, and my ears and the base of my skull are frozen. And not only am I trying to hold myself up but my brother too, and if this walk doesn't kill us I promise: I'll never drink again.

So I'm trying to light a cigarette but I keep missing the tip and it looks like the flame and tip are aligned but they're not and people around are pointing and laughing. And then the cigarette is lit, but I still can't get a drag off the thing, and it's there I realize I've kinda lit it in the centre and it just gives up the game and falls apart. I fumble another one out the pack and try again. And that's when the thick end of a pool cue cracks me a good'un right around the side of my head, and the fat loud-mouth guy in the QPR football top who'd been my best friend all evening is now accusing me of having made moves towards his old lady. I hear the wrap of the pool cue off my knuckles as I raise my hands to defend myself.

And it's a black wet night and I can see the moon and a fist keeps punching me in the face. I don't even try to stop it, just walk on into it, undefended, telling the fist I'm sorry and to calm down for just a minute. And then the police are there, blue swirling lights and radios in the night, and I'm saying: “Nah, he's my mate... he was tryin' t'help. It was someone else altogether who did this.” And then the police are gone and My Loudmouth Friend has his arm around my shoulder, shouting a drunks' whisper into my ear : "Nice one for that mate! They would've 'ad me back in The Scrubbs! Fuuuuck!” And then I'm back inside, being paraded around the bar as some kinda “Stand-up Guy”, and that's really amusing as without my friend holding me up I'd be a dribbling drunken pile on the floor. And I'm smiling, a huge wide affectionate idiotic thing, as My Loudmouth Friend shows me off to each table: “Look how I fucked his face up and he STILL didn't rat me out!” And everyone is patting my back and shaking my hand and somewhere in the haze I take a drag of a cigarette and it's strong! So now my head is spinning and the room is spinning and sounds are far away and then real loud and every thing and everyone has this blurry halo of light around them and I feel detached and heavy-headed. And then I'm falling back down into my seat, across from HER, and I'm not sure what is real and what is not or what has happened or what has not. Then my friend is back, crashing a pint down on the table in front of me, an inch of beer jumping up and out over the lip of the glass, and it's the last thing I ever want to see. And I think I'm sliding down off my chair, like a piece of meat or a dogs exhausted tongue, flopped out and struggling to see and so I'm squinting or peering or doing something, over across to the girl who started all this trouble. I put a cigarette in my lips and let it dangle. I'm thinking of fucking her and I imagine I look pretty smoky and sexy and cool, but now, I'm not so sure I did. And certainly the beating was real. I can feel it in my face, a swelling numbness that normally only dentists dish out. But maybe it helped? Maybe my friend's punches saned or sobered me up, as his woman now looks quite different too: Older, fatter, stupider, more vulgar, less leggy, less sexy, less fuckable, unfuckable, unanythingable, and God. is that hair on her face? And I swear: I'll never drink again.

And then it's broad daylight, around eleven o'clock (maybe), and I'm staggering down the centre of the road of Kensington High Street and I've got my cock out and I'm pissing along the white centre divide line. Cars and buses and taxis are hooting me but I carry on regardless and I think I put my dick back inside my pants while it's still pissing. And I did. So I scream: “ROCK N' ROLL!!!” and swear, I'll never drink again!

And then I'm in France, and I'm at a companies Christmas do, and I'm not sure how I got there but I recognize three people and so suppose they must have invited me. And before we've even finished our starters I've started: throwing food about and having a great time. And I go to the toilet and return with the handle off the door, and we're all laughing except one boy who I don't know and who seems to have taken a passionate dislike to me. And as a drunk the most annoying, boring fuckers are the sober, and no matter how blind drunk you are you can always see a sober man: and this man was SOBER. So now my attentions are on him and I start up with clever quips and subtle insults until the entire table is laughing him down. And I'm knocking back the wine and peering at this shit through two scrunched up eyes, and someone is obviously enjoying my insanity as they keep topping up my gtlass – and every time it's topped up I empty it again. And it's soon that I straighten up after my latest throatful of Beaujolais to realize, once again, that I'm floating on a different plane to everyone else, and I'm suddenly not sure if the table are laughing at Him or Me. Then I realize it's ME! I'm being ignored, pacified, my insults waved away and HIM opposite is being told to ignore me. He's won! Even my automatic refill has stopped. So now I'm seething, staring at him through a haze of drunken hatred and planning his murder to the chip of cutlery on plate. And then the entire fucking table jumps and everyone is pushing back, except Him, who's now leaning right across with a fork to my eye and screaming something about me pouring wine and candle wax over his Foie Gras and that he's going to kill me! And then I'm being dragged crashing through the restaurant, over tables and through romantic meals, towards the exit where he's gonna beat the crap outta me. And I don't know if he does or not because the next thing he is over the other side of the road, at a bus-stop, crying and being comforted by his girlfriend. And now I'm crossing over to apologize, staggering around in the oncoming traffic, halting cars and apologizing to them too. All the while his girlfriend is warning me off, shouting at me to “Just leave it!!" and “FUCK OFF!” So I do. Home. But the walk is a turbulent one and I'm making it with my eyes closed. I've a vague feeling of having lost my jacket, keys and money. And then I realize: I have lost my jacket, keys and money. And I'm laughing about it, a caustic bitter laugh ringing out in the shrill night. Staggering forward is hard enough, so going back would be impossible. “Fuck You Jacket, keys and money... FUCK YOU!”

And then I'm on the floor and the back wheel of a moped is spinning somewhere near my face and a boy who looks about ten is besides me in a helmet. And he doesn't hit me or anything, just rises and gets back on his motorcycle and scoots off. And the city lights are a blur above me and I'm not sure what are lights and what are stars or what is the moon. I try to rise but can't. I'm eating French pavement, and French pavement tastes the same as any pavement in the world. I feel sick. My leg hurts. I've lost my jacket, keys and money and home seems centuries away. And now my head is spinning, a vortex or noise and light and pain and liquid, all swirling around and pulling down and coming up. And as the vomit shoots and splutters out my nose and mouth I feel as if I'm dying. And I am dying. And every time I think I'm done another part of the evening comes rising up and spewing out. And now my eyes are open and once again I can see. The sick is all upon me and has collected in a sticky pool around the side of my head and in my ear. And it's bad, but it's better than before. And soon I'll pick myself up and drag myself on home, but before I do, and while I'm here, and once more just for fun: I swear, I'll never drink again!

*

A Song for The Drunks. Love to all the Dogs, Shane. X

The Remains of The Day - A History of Murder and its Aftermath

2011-10-20T23:12:00.015+02:00

.
It all started with a scream. I heard it from the top of the road as I made my way home from school. Somehow I knew it was my mother's pain. It was a scream from nowhere and of unbearable suffering. And it didn't stop. It was 1983 and my mother had just been informed that her lover, my father, missing for over a year, had been discovered: murdered and dismembered and stuffed in two black bin bags in the flat of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. It was an event that would blow lives apart. I was seven, and Hell was on its way.

*

My father, Graham Archibald Allen, was born on the 31st October 1954 in Motherwell, Scotland. He was a healthy, athletic child, raised in a stable home by two strict protestant parents. The youngest of two he grew with attention problems and failed miserably at school. The only thing he excelled at was football, at the age of fourteen making Motherwell's youth team. But Motherwell, not even the promise of professional football, could contain my father. By the age of 15 he had discovered Glasgow, alcohol and cheap prescription drugs. By 17 he was out of school, out of pocket and out of home. Having been laid off by the steel works in Motherwell and with nothing else for it, he made his way down south to London. It was there, 10 years later, that Graham Allen would one night meet another fellow scot by the name of Dennis Andrew Nilsen.This meeting would entwine these two Scotsmen together forever, and the events of that night would eventually go down in British crime and folklore history. One man would be remembered as 'the 14th victim', and the other for carrying out a string of macabre and gruesome murders.

My father arrived in London, penniless, in the late autumn months of 1971. He intended on finding labouring work with one of the many small building contractors who hired workers for cash-in-hand with no questions asked. Like many a young scot before him, Graham Allen hit the city only to find that the tales of easy employment had been greatly exaggerated, and that there were not jobs you could just step into straight off the train. To find employment would still take some effort, and what's more, it would also take a few quid. My father didn't have a few quid. He couldn't buy the early papers which advertised the latest jobs and didn't have the fare to travel to well known pick-up spots. Instead he walked his way into Central London, to the bright lights and the sex shops, a place notorious for runaways and a place where one could make a quick illegal buck and then move on to pastures new.

Whatever happened it didn't happen how my father had imagined it would. From the quiet industrial town of Motherwell, via the shit and pish of Glasgow, he was suddenly slumming it rough in London. Homelessness however wouldn't last long. After making a few contacts he was soon taking advantage of the lenient squatting laws of the time, living in abandoned buildings and stealing electricity from the mains supply. With a roof over his head, warmth and a few quid in his pocket my father suddenly had time to kill, and it wasn't long before he was sucked into the sleazier side of city life: Cheap strong booze and whatever pills were doing the rounds. This time though the pills weren't swallowed down with mouthfuls of beer but whacked up in syringes. It wasn't long after that heroin was on the agenda. Less than a year later, at eighteen years of age, Graham Allen was one of the city's many officially registered heroin addicts. He funded his habit through a mixture of government unemployment money, begging, stealing and robbing tourists around London's West End.

One of My father's regular drinking haunts, and one of the few places he was welcome, was the Kings Head pub in Leicester square. It was there where he met my mother, Lesley Mead, a blond haired blued eyed barmaid employed by her father who was the publican. Within weeks of meeting the two had fallen in love. But it wasn't simple. My mother was already in a relationship and had a child with a well-known local criminal, and so Graham Allen, the young Scot, became a badly kept and barely tolerated secret. But some secrets could not be kept hidden, not even badly, and in early 1975 my mother fell pregnant and nine months later I was born.

If my birth affected anyone it was my step-father. It was he who would raise and provide for me and he who I would call 'Dad' all my life. It was no secret I was not his by blood, but that didn't matter, he loved me with the same indifference as he did my brother and sister. What my birth did change however was home life. Graham Allen was then openly creeping in and out of my mother's bed and for all who knew them they were a sure item. Nevertheless, my father couldn't afford to support three children (two not his own), a woman, and a raging drug and alcohol habit. So more than anything else it was out of convenience that my half-surrogate-family stayed together. It was a fucked up situation for all, but it worked. Kinda.

In 1978 the squat in Liverpool Street where everyone was living was cleaned out. Due to having three young children my mother and step-father were officially rehoused into a two bedroom maisonette on the other side of London. They made the move and set up house together, though by this time their relationship was nothing more than a business arrangement. They slept in separate rooms and led separate lives. My mother's separate life was of course my father, and it was no surprise that this 'separate life' found itself in paying digs less than a hard-on's length away from the new family home. During that year Mum spent every available moment she could with her lover, and like that, with no-one even really noticing, my mother had flown the roost.

Living together in a single room, and without the fear of having to account for the bruises, my parents' relationship took a downward turn. It became very stormy, very violent and very unhealthy. There were substance abuses and infidelities on both sides which led to frequent violent quarrels and separations. For this reason my mother staggered in and out of two lives, returning back to the family home when her face had taken enough punishment or when she was sick of living in a single room with a volatile junkie who spent every spare penny on smack. Back home my mother could stay for minutes, hours, days, or weeks. No-one, not even herself, would know how long for sure. The only certainty was that eventually she'd leave and end up back in Graham Allen's arms.

My memories from this time are very diluted and hazy. I was very young and wasn't aware that these days were the calm before the storm. My memories of my mother are few and far between, and memories of my father are even more fleeting. Other than the night he disappeared I only have three:

1) Finding him unconscious and being taken away by paramedics after a drug overdose.
2) Playing football with him in the street and using dustbins for goalposts.
3) Slashing his wrists open with a meat cleaver during a violent argument with mum

There are a few other memories but they are very vague. I remember a Breton striped top, bleached denim jeans, thin legs, brown hair and a Scottish accent. I'm not even sure if those are real or implanted memories – descriptions of him which I claimed as my own. I just don't know.

*

During the last five years of his life my father was in and out of prison, in and out of rehab, and in and out of life. His living was hard and his addiction was harder – it was completely out of control. He was not just a drug addict he was a junkie. If that wasn't enough he was also halfway to becoming a chronic alcoholic, and with alcohol he got psychotic and even more violent than usual.

The 1980’s only brought more suffering to my father. He was in prison again on charges of heroin possession and was kicked off his drug program. To ensure he still had a heroin substitute to fall back on he took up the hobby of robbing chemists. With his drug habit unstable and drinking ever increased amounts of alcohol the relationship with my mother became ever more unhealthy and violent. On two occasions she ended up in hospital after taking beatings at his hands. The second time this happened was on Christmas day of 1981, when over Xmas dinner my father leaned across to kiss her and instead bit half her nose off. That act summed up their relationship. It was an intense melange of sex, violence and impulsive acts.

*

The night of my father's disappearance in 1982 brought more of the same. I remember him arguing with my mother and demanding money for heroin. He was drunk and cut and she had taken refuge inside the family house. His violent demands took place from outside, standing on the window ledge and shouting through the glass. He was hung up their like some perverse embodiment of Christ, black blood coming out his mouth where he'd punched his own face in, and screaming for my mother's purse. That was the last sight either my mother or I saw of him. Well, that and then finally climbing down before casually skipping the low garden wall and disappearing into the night. That image haunts my mother, and what haunts her even more were her very last words: “Fuck off... and NEVER come back!”

He didn’t.

*

During the year of my father's disappearance, my mother always believed him dead. This wasn't the first time he had disappeared, nowhere close, but it was the first time he had disappeared and hadn't made some kind of contact in the following days. That was a given. Even if it was just to say: 'I fucking hate you, You Cunt! PS: I'm in prison!' Or even worse: 'I fucking hate you, You Cunt! PS: I'm in Scotland!' But no matter where he ended up he always wrote. This time he never did. My mother just hoped that he had succumbed to a peaceful, painless death and had quietly overdosed somewhere and died alone. Of course, secretly she hadn't given up all hope. I know she hadn't. Somewhere inside her she would have been desperately hoping for her love to return, and probably she still is now.

It was during 1983 that news started breaking across the country of a “House of Horrors” in north London. A man had been arrested there after human remains were found clogging up the drains outside the house in which he resided.. As with the entire country my mother was gripped by this story and followed in shocked interest as the gruesome tale unfolded. It turned out that over a five year period, between two houses in North London, 16 young men had been murdered, dismembered, and disposed of. Of course, my mother never imagined for one moment that her future would be tied up in this bizarre event. The news broke, went from the front pages to the second, from the second to the third, and then faded away completely awaiting the big trial. It was one afternoon during this quiet period that all hell would break loose in my life. That day my childhood would end and something without description would take its place. And as I mentioned: It Started With a Scream.

*

I never did make it into see My mother that day. Before I was even in the front yard a neighbour had gathered me up and was leading me clear from the wreckage. All I saw was the police car parked outside, my open front door, and a view down the hallway and out back into the kitchen. Sitting at the table where my dinner should have been were two uniformed police officers, and standing just back from them were two men in suits. My mother was out of sight, just a piercing noise that cut through the next ten years.

Inside my neighbour's I was soon joined my my elder sister and my younger brother. We all sat there, in the late afternoon, in a living room which wasn't ours, and as our mother's world collapsed two doors down we stared blankly at depressing cartoons on the TV, waiting for news and to be given permission to go home and see mum. I don't know how long we stayed there. I don't remember too much more of that afternoon. My next memory is of waking up, it then being dark outside, and my brother and sister fast asleep on the couch. Sitting up I sensed something was broken. Maybe the night? It was open and alive with lights and noises and worried voices. The adults were up, and in and out: we were all waiting for something.

How long we remained at our neighbour's, or what state Mum was in when we finally saw her, I can't recall. I don't remember seeing her at all that night although I know I must have. I imagine that the adults took care of her, kept a close eye as she drowned out the pain with alcohol and waited until my stepfather finally arrived home in the small hours of the morning to sit with her. All I know is that in the morning my mother's bedroom door was closed and the house was a few tones darker. My mother had barricaded herself up inside. It was my stepfather who explained what had happened. He was in shock too. He wasn't Graham Allen's greatest supporter (he had lost his woman to him) but regardless, Allen had made up a part of his criminal gang and they had worked together robbing tourists in London for the past ten years. So my step-father told us the news, but not even he could tell us about Mum and how her world had imploded.

When I was old enough to be worth telling, or when mum was drunk enough to be able to tell it, she explained the day of the scream.

She was in the kitchen preparing our dinner when there was a knock on the door. She opened up to find two plain clothes detectives, a uniformed policeman and a police woman standing on the doorstep. They confirmed her name and asked if she knew a Graham Archibald Allan. Initially she thought he had been found alive and was in trouble again. She let the police in and led them out back into the kitchen where she began attending to the potatoes.

“So what's he fucking done this time?”

It was somewhere here that the police told her to sit down and then explained that a skull had been found and from the dental records it had been positively identified as that of her lover. It had been retrieved from Cranley Gardens: 'The House of Horrors' in Muswell Hill. My mother says she doesn’t recall anything else after that. I suppose that's when she began screaming and her noise drifted on up to me, wandering down the road home from school. During that time there wasn’t police counselling or shock support, and so my mother was told the news and then left to scream the pain away with only the neighbour left to try and calm her. How she didn't try to commit suicide that night or the following days is a mystery. Though soon she would. As time ate away at her and she dulled her brain with vodka and martini, death and the desire to die crept closer. Very soon suicide would be the House Speciality. My brother, sister and I would be the only forces to stop it. For a while we tried, and then we just didn't care.

That Fateful Night

We know what happened before the murder, and we know what happened after, but no one really knows for sure exactly what were the last few hours of my father's life. At the pick up and the actual scene of my father's death there were only two witnesses: One is dead, and the other doesn’t recall much. From what I can piece together they would have went something like this:

My father skips the wall and heads into the centre of town. He somehow gets money, scores heroin around Piccadilly, has a few too many drinks and decides to head home. As he wanders down Shaftsbury Avenue in Soho he is accosted by Mr Nilsen. Nilsen, seeing my father's drowsy state decides to try his luck. He offers him the promise of more alcohol, a warm taxi ride, a bed for the night and something to eat. My father, probably with sinister intentions of his own, accepts. They arrive at Nilsen's north London flat at around one o’clock in the morning. Here’s what Nilsen describes as taking place:

“the thing he wanted more than anything was something to eat. I had very little supply in but I had a whole tray of eggs. So I whipped up a large omelette and cooked it in a large frying pan, put it on a plate and gave it to him. He started to eat the omelette. He must have eaten three-quarters of the omelette. I noticed he was sitting there and suddenly he appeared to be asleep or unconscious with a large piece of omelette hanging out of his mouth. I thought he must have been choking on it but i didn’t hear him choking – he was indeed deeply unconscious. I sat down & had a drink. I approached him, I can’t remember what I had in my hands now – I don’t remember whether he was breathing or not but the omelette was still protruding from his mouth. The plate was still on his lap – I removed that. I bent forward and I think I strangled him. I can’t remember at this moment what I used... I remember going forward and I remember he was dead.... If the omelette killed him I don’t know, but anyway in going forward I intended to kill him. An omelette doesn’t leave red marks on a neck. I suppose it must have been me.”

Nilsen then undressed my father, masturbated over him (he denies having sex with the body) and then moved him to the bathroom where he laid his body in the tub. He left him there for three days. During this time Nilsen would continue to wash, brush his teeth and do his toilet in the presence of my father's dead body.

On the fourth day Nilsen removed my father's body from the bath. He laid a plastic sheet on the floor, dumped the body on it, and systematically dismembered it. First he cut off the head, and then the hands and the feet. Next he opened up the torso and removed the internal organs. With the insides removed Nilsen severed the body at the waist and removed the arms. He disconnected the legs from below the knee. During the following days he gradually diced the flesh and flushed it down the toilet. To dispose of my father's head he boiled it for hours in a large pot on the stove. The skull with the flesh boiled from it, and my father's bones, were placed in two black bin bags, tied and stored in the cupboard. And that's where they remained. Nilsen was apprehended before he had the chance to get rid of them, though not before he had the chance to kill one final victim. I suppose my father's post-mortem claim to fame is that it were his body parts which were discovered blocking the drains of Nilsen's apartment building and which led to Nilsen's arrest. It's not a great historical footnote, but it's better than most.

I have explained the death in detail not for shock value or to be crude, but to give some idea of the horrendous news which was forced upon my mother that afternoon. I know the relationship between My mother and father was violent and unhealthy, but it was still love, and as we know, love is often twisted and never a logical emotion.

*

The months immediately after the death are vague. I hardly recall a thing. I think my mother was shell-shocked and maybe only thoughts of revenge kept her alive. She stayed locked in her room, the house growing darker, and alcohol keeping her afloat. My next proper memories of the event come during the build up to the trial.

The case was all over the papers again and there were journalists coming daily to our door. My father was the only victim they didn't have a clear recent picture of and they were offering up to two thousand pounds for a photo. It was during this time that we really discovered all the facts of what had happened. It would be the catalyst which pushed my mother into the abyss.

The last sane thing, or the first insane thingmy mother did was to attend Nilsen's trial at The Old Bailey. She had been warned by journalists not to attend as there would be gruesome stuff on display directly related to her lover's death. Mum ignored all warnings. I think more than anything she was there to try and reconcile something in her head, that she wanted to see Nilsen, the monster who had done this, and at least be able to soothe herself with the knowledge that he was a complete psychopath and what had happened wasn't preventable. Only Nilsen wasn't the monster she had imagined. In fact she said he looked “plain and normal” that- staring at him gave no hint to what he had done. There was no reconciling what had happened with the man who had done it – Nilsen looked as normal and commonplace as the judge. It wasn't a monster on trial but a human being, and then it made even less sense. My mother never hung about for the verdict. She left halfway during the fourth day of the trial, after my father's skull and the saucepan Nilsen had boiled his head in were brought before The Crown as evidence. It would be more than twenty years later that her sanity would finally catch up to her.

Post-trial I remember my mother drinking suicidal amounts. Drunk she would do nothing but cry and sit on the floor alongside a small stereo listening to old love songs and staring at the tender of her wrists. With the story now out of the media the victims' families were left at home alone without even the small comfort of the nation's empathy to help absorb the event. There were no more journalists offering comfort as they scavenged the victims for scraps of untold story, and no more newspaper reports mentioning their names and telling of their plight. It was over. The murderer was in jail and other news was more important. The victims now only had the torture of solitude and silence to take comfort from, and that was no comfort at all. My mother's drinking and suicidal tendencies spiralled to a climax. She could no longer take it any more. She decided that The Blackout was for her.

*

It was one afternoon, during the summer of 1985 that I saved my mother's life. I was only young and I was only coming home for lunch and I was only just in time. Fifteen minutes later and I would have found her dead and then I don't know what I would have done. As it happened I found her worse than dead: I found her dying. And that is an even more brutal and traumatising thing to see.

I remember the house was dark. But a weird darkness, more a sense of it, like how you feel when a door is shut that should be open. There was also no smell of food and that was strange as well, as I was home to have lunch and then return to school. I peered up the stairs. My mother's bedroom door was closed and the the landing outside was in darkness. I called out but there was no reply. Hungry I dumped my bag and headed into the kitchen to make a sandwich. With two slices of bread spilled out on the table I took a healthy knifeside of Peanut Butter and began spreading it. As I did so I heard a noise. It was faint. I stopped what I was doing and listened. There it was again, drifting down from upstairs, and sounding like someone in the midst of troubled dreams. I laid the knife down and followed the sound down the hallway and upstairs. Outside my mother's room I stopped and listened. Coming from the other side of the door was the same murmuring noise, only this time clearer and with the added sound of wheezing air or something. I knocked on the door and called out to Mum. There was no answer, just the same groaning noises as before. I knocked once again and with no reply I opened the door and froze. Covering the floor was broken glass, empty Martini bottles and hundreds of dropped tablets. And then I saw her, Mum, sprawled out on the bed, her eyes faintly open, and bright white foam frothing up and out of her mouth. She wasn’t conscious. I knew that much. I didn’t call or touch her. I couldn't bare to. Laying there like that something disgusted me about her and scared me right through to the bones. That was my mother and she was hurting and not well and maybe even dead. I turned and scarpered, off to get some help.

I can't remember what happened or what I said after knocking on my neighbour's door. What I do remember is her pushing past me and sprinting off, two doors down, and into my house. Moments later she was back, passing me without a word, down her hallway and straight to the telephone. At that moment my step-father arrived. He had been in the betting shop and on returning must have seen me upset outside my neighbour's and her rushing from our house into hers. Having called an ambulance the neighbour came out to meet my step-father. She pulled him aside and frantically told him something. Together they rushed back to be with my mother.

I wasn't allowed upstairs. I was ordered to stay down and outside. My job was to wave the ambulance in just so they didn't drive by or do something silly like that. After more than an eternity the ambulance finally arrived. Three paramedics stomped in the house past me and up the stairs. There was some commotion, paramedics leaving and returning with equipment and a stretcher, but my mother wasn't brought out. I didn't know what they were doing. Ambulances were supposed to get people to hospital quickly. It turned out they had to pump my mother's stomach on the spot and fight to keep her heart going. After a while they stretchered her unconscious body down the stairs and out into the ambulance. I really thought she was dead. My last vision was of her laying in the back of the ambulance, just her head visible outside a thick red emergency blanket, and white foam still frothing out her mouth. Then the back doors of the ambulance swung closed and it pulled off, the sirens flashing and wailing as it went into the distance.

I wasn't taken home. Instead I was once again left with the neighbour while my step-father went to remove my brother and sister early from school. When he returned he dropped them off and then left to make a meeting he had for the evening. Once again we were left waiting with our neighbour, this time for news if mum would live or die. In the early evening we got news. Mum was extremely ill but would survive. The hospital said that if she had have been found just fifteen minutes later that she would have already been dead. It made us all cry. It was too close, and at that moment in history we all loved our mother dearly.

Mum passed five days in intensive care, and remained in hospital for almost three weeks. She had been pumped and resuscitated so intensely that her entire chest and stomach was one huge bruise. I remember the day of her release, us collecting her and being happy that she was sober and seemed clear in words and look. She was frail and so we took a short bus ride home. Her sobriety wouldn't last long. That same night she got paralytic drunk, fell off the toilet and split her head open. My brother sister and I dragged her body into the bedroom and pulled her up on the bed. That's when we knew that all was not fine, that there would be more ambulances and more anxious waits. Over the next seven years she would attempt suicide on at least ten occasions; twice very earnestly. It got so bad that we had to hide all the knives (and forks) in the house. We spent the next few years on permanent suicide watch.

That episode, and my mother's then chronic alcoholism, highlights some of the knock-on effects that the murder had in our household. It shows the secondary victims. It also shows what became of my childhood, and just how far the murder had affected my mother. For my part I hold no ill will towards Nilsen. I'm honestly not sure life would have been any less traumatic if my father was around. And anyway, we cannot spend our time pondering the butterfly effect of our own and everyone else's actions. If we did we'd never move an inch, and even that would probably hurt some poor soul. They're not my reflections as a conscientious adult either. I have never felt ill will towards Nilsen, and I’ve never blamed him for my mother's alcoholism and the hell which that conjured up. After everything, we still determine our own actions. My mother choose the bottle; it didn’t come to her. It’s the same with me: I choose the needle. We must live and die by our swords. We cannot blame our enemy for us taking up arms. That is a bitter and all consuming road to take.

My mother's repeated suicide attempts very nearly led to me, my brother and sister being taken away and placed into Council Care. If it wasn’t for the stability that my stepfather offered we would have surely been carted off, separated, and brought up by middle-aged religious nuts as their ticket into Heaven. Fortunately, just as much for them, that didn't happen. Another thing that didn't happen was mum looking after us. From that point on my mother would stop being a permanent fixture in our lives. She would spend the next few years drifting from bottle to bottle, from lover to lover, searching for a man who no longer existed. Each time she found escape in someone he would mistreat her. She'd return home skint, covered in blood, and with a big bag of rattling vodka bottles. For a while she'd stay and then without warning she'd be gone. Just like before, no-one knew where, and no-one knew if she'd ever return again.

My mother's behaviour followed me all the way through my young and teenage years. As I grew older I learnt how to cope with her better, but unlike my sister I was never able to ignore her completely. I always had that lingering fear that the day I did would just be the day she was for real and my punishment for turning her away would be to have her death on my conscience. And so I stuck with her, as did my brother, phoning ambulances twice a week after fake suicide claims. But it wasn't all bad. There were also some good times and some fun memories – like the time she punched out my least favourite teacher. In the midst of all the perversity there were still moments of love and joy, and even odd days where I could be a child again. They were precious days, and it's those that mean the most.

The Me-effect – The By-product of Murder

After the death of my father I was all that was left of him. In my mother's eyes I was him. My brother and sister were from different blood and as a result my mother's attentions turned mostly towards me. This caused jealousy between my siblings and our relationship secretly soured as my mother heaped her drunken affections my way. Little did they know, they were the lucky ones. My life had become horrendous. My mother would keep me besides her at all times. I would wrestle knives out her grasp, watch her drink her death, see her break down, attempt suicide, and watch her fuck her way through a myriad of different men. She would also call me to her room, and in tears claim she was dying from terminal cancer and had only months to live. It was all unwanted attention. I didn't want to be my mother's favourite. Still, I was a boy and I loved my mother and I would have defended her to death. She was untouchable, and she still is.

Concerning my heroin addiction the actual murder has little direct association with it, but the physical death of my father and his image I began to compete with did. I am the by-product of murder, but not the product. Some of the problems I have are the waste fluid from that event.

In many ways I have (unintentionally) given my mother back what she lost. I have recognised her needs and fulfilled them. I have become a cleaner, non-violent version of my father. I am him without his worst faults. I have become a more rounded version of the man my mother loved. Yes, I'm a heroin addict, but even that gave my mother something back which she had lost. I doubt she enjoyed seeing me sticking needles in myself, but in a way it was like having my father back and sitting there all over again... a confirmation that he still lived on in some physical form.

Heroin, and the kind of image that gives off, is a part of the reckless, wild side of boys which my mother has always fallen for. She has never praised me for taking heroin, but in her reactions to it and to the footstep's that led me there, I sensed an admiration. And it wasn't just heroin. My wilder acts have always gained my mother's attention. And though she would scold my actions, there was always a little sparkle in her eye. The way she would report the incidents to her friends told me she had secretly enjoyed them. She enjoyed my first cigarette, my first joint and my first whiskey. She enjoyed my first arrest and then watching me stand in the dock of the Juvenile Court reciting Oscar Wilde. She enjoyed my first trip, and my first line of speed. She enjoyed the fights, the late nights and the love bites – me returning home with some woman's passion tattooed up my neck. It impressed her. She was watching the return of my father, and I was willingly playing the part.

Of course, I am not my father. There are huge differences between us. From what I know he didn’t read, didn’t write and didn’t paint. He had no artistic or intellectual hobbies. He wasn’t into literature, philosophy, sociology, politics, film or chocolate. Nothing. Just junk, love, alcohol and violence. All that really connects us is heroin addiction. That's no small thing, but it isn't very much either. Still, in part I have given my mother back what she had taken from her. I often think if I hadn’t she would have been dead years ago.

But drug addiction, as with any behaviour, doesn’t stem from one event. I cannot tell you all the parts of this, but I can tell you it would have probably happened anyway. The truth is, the idea of using drugs first came about as a way to overcome shyness. After that there were silly, immature reasons for first trying heroin. More than anything else to live up to a certain image and to exude a certain recklessness. That was probably aimed at impressing not only my peers but also my mother. Of course it also pissed a lot of the right people off and that was just as rewarding. But drug use and drug addiction are two very separate things. I soon found that heroin gave ME something. Not my mother, not my father, not my peers or my image, but ME. It gave an inch to an unbalanced leg. It made me feel more stable. Up until then a strong fart could have toppled me.

This is why I don’t hold any ill will or shove the blame towards Nilsen. It is also why I equally hold no ill will towards my mother. I stuck needles in my veins for me. As an intelligent, stupid adult I took my decisions and I will live with the consequences of them. I will not do what others have done and portion the blame for their mistakes and problems to others. I will not become bitter with life or death. I accept it all, and it's all my fault: the good and the bad. I'd have it no other way. I am happy within my body, and every bruise, and every scar and every smile and suicide rescue has contributed to that. I am my own history; the answer to my own equation. I cannot regret the past, none of it, without regretting myself. And I don't regret myself. I'd not rather be anyone else.. not even You.

It is now 28 years since the murder. My mother is two thirds on her way to death and I am even further along the line. Nilsen is still alive and languishes in HM Full Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire. He is 66 years old. My mother is drink and drug free, finally kicking the heroin and crack habits that she picked up later on in life. She no longer is haunted by the murder and can talk freely of it. She continues to hate Nilsen with a passion and hopes he is never released. I on the other hand would one day like to see him free. I would take no pleasure from him dying in jail. My mother would slap me for saying that, but what's a backhander at my age? It's just something you wipe away.

My Thoughts and Wishes To ALL, Shane.X

Link: Guardian article on Nilsen from 1983.
Tags: Dennis Nilsen. Dennis Nilsen's victims. Serial Killer. True life crime. Mass Murder

The Killing Fields

2011-10-01T20:57:00.019+02:00

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During the Vietnam war a term known as fragging occurred. It involved the deliberate killing of bastard, abusive or gung-ho commanders and was usually carried out by a small group of soldiers during battle conditions so as the death would look like an accident. Initially it was done with grenade pins and later more surely with a nice quick bullet in through the back of the skull. These killings were fuelled by fear, young men sick of being harried out in front of machine gun fire or fed live down underground tunnels. Fragging was not a way out of fighting, if anything it was a collective reaction against an abuse of power. These men did not sign up for 'certain death' or ever agree to be a human Trojan Horse, but that's what they were used for. Fragging also happened during the very unique circumstances of war, a time when Men are the law, and walk not only with right of way but with the judges hammer and executioners pistol as well. In light of the nature of fraggings, and the circumstances wherein they came about, nothing much was ever made of them. They were mostly covered up and only one ever went down in any kind of official way.

Today another kind of 'fragging' exists, though very different from the killings described above. The fraggings I write of are not executed in far away places with high-tech weapons, are not collective decisions, and the death is neither a quick nor painless one. It also doesn't involve grunts killing seniors officers but rather scar-tissued addicts killing their foot soldiers. I suppose the only real similarity between the wartime fraggings is that someone is killed in very ambiguous circumstances and their death is brought about by fear – albeit a very different kind. These killings of junkie by junkie are also very hard to find any moral argument for. They are silent, secretive, selfish acts of humanity (yes, HUMANITY): a way not to die alone.

*

It was Marge who first tried to infect me with the HIV virus, and a few years later my best junk buddy John. How many others would also have tried to pass on their bad blood if they ever had the chance I dread to imagine, though not many ever had that chance. After wizening to this trick the first time I became something of a junkie recluse, only mixing with other addicts when I needed to, and only on very rare occasions fixing in the same room or toilet.

Of the two incidents mentioned above they each affected me differently. Marge's attempt left me angry and afraid while John's, because we were friends, deeply saddened and hurt me. But below any raw or seething emotions I could also kinda understand why they had done what they did – though understanding certain motivations did not in any way justify or make it easier, it only served to make it an even more terrifying thing.

As the years passed and I spoke to other addicts about what had happened, or explained it to doctors or drug workers, nobody was ever really shocked. Most addicts had similar stories, and most doctors had heard similar stories. Though by far the most disquieting feedback came via a friend called Bill who chaired an HIV support group twice a week in Leyton, East London. Bill told me that a huge number of the people in his sessions had confessed to intentionally trying to pass on the virus and those who hadn't could mostly still relate to another's motivations for trying to do such a thing. And then Bill calmly told me something which almost blew my socks off: he admitted that he himself had done the same just after being diagnosed. He told me how he'd then go out his way to pick up guys and harass them into having unprotected sex. He said it was never to coldly kill, that that would have been easy but pointless. He explained it was important that people couldn't blame him any more than themselves... that he took comfort in knowing that someone else suffered the same emotions and regrets as he did. Bill said that one of the initial reasons he had started up the support group was because it was a healthier way not to be alone with the disease. Really Bill only confirmed what I already knew. And after he had we both sat there in silence, in a bar in Hammersmith, staring out on a winter evening which suddenly seemed to bite more cold. These were sad, lonely and desperate times, and not even the rowdy City Suits and flashing, wailing slot machines could drown out the view from there.

To some it may still seem like two bizarre incidents blown up into something they are not, that I was just unlucky. But the real fact is that the fragging of junkies by junkies, the intentional passing on of Hepatitis C and HIV in IV drug circles is rampant and common practice. And though no junkie passing this blog will probably admit so much, may even deny it, it does exist and if you ever sit in on an HIV counselling/confessional group you will hear similar stories, though many not quite as fortunate as mine. It will come to pass that what I write of is much more than bad chance: it is murder on a time-delay fuse.

* * *

Marge was a 6'3, lanky blonde haired transvestite. For the first 12 years of adulthood he had been the lead dancer for the Royal Ballet company, only leaving after his tits got so big that they hindered his performance and his crack and smack habits got so big that they hindered his ability to travel and stay away for long periods of time. His dancing partner was his lover who had died from AIDS way back in the early days of the disease, though Marge was always adamant that he himself had been lucky and tested negative. Now in his late forties, with just as many years of severe junk dependency behind him, Marge's ballet days were over, condensed down into three scrap-press-books of reviews and newspaper snippets intermingled with cut-outs of The Queen and Channel No.5 perfume adverts. Nowadays Marge made his living in less stretching ways: sitting down along the Holland Road with an array of pastel artworks laid out before him. He sold each one for two quid – though there was the option to haggle. Of course his artwork's aren't what funded his drug habits. They were his excuse to sit out begging and not feel like a beggar. People would buy a painting for double and tell him to keep it in the bargain. Many would disregard the scribbles completely, preferring instead to get straight to the heart of the matter and toss coins at him. Marge would at first eye the coins in disgust, then the moment the philanthropist was out of sight he'd scoop them up, count them, and then moan at how tight fisted the British were!

When Marge was especially hard up I'd lend him cash to right himself and then join him sitting outside for the evening as the coins rolled and bounced our way. I wasn't there to beg or because I needed money, I accompanied Marge as he wouldn't work the evenings alone yet needed to to repay me. So I was there as a kind of lowly guarantee that he wouldn't be assaulted or have his drawings kicked and stomped into the ground. Not that I ever stopped much. I only sat out with him maybe ten times and most of them we were spat at or a bottle would shatter against the wall behind us. Only once were we physically attacked. Marge freaked out and pulled a dirty syringe on one of the drunken yobs and ended up getting arrested. The truth is I wasn't there to protect Marge, or I was, but only so as he remained healthy enough to beg what he owed me. I knew if I didn't escort him out and babysit him I'd never see my money again. I'm not sure if Marge ever realised that I was the lead ball weight on the end of his chain. If he did, he never objected.

During that time I was still a newcomer to the needle and Marge was one of a group of new users I had gotten to know from the needle exchange. But Marge wasn't like the rest. He was well-spoken, cultured and had a kind of nurtured intelligence (which means he had been taught how to eat properly). For those superficial reasons he didn't scare me half so much as the people who lingered around him. God, these were some serious C.H.U.D'S*, only they lived uptop with us and were slightly more deformed. Some would sit down in the street behind Marge and I screwing blunt needles into leaking abscesses. Others would lower their trousers in a doorway and quickly ram a needle into their femoral artery. These users scared the shit outta me and I didn't like being anywhere near them. There was something so dirty and hazardous about the needle in those early days – even my own used works would trigger panic attacks. Marge however didn't scare me; he just alarmed me. Especially his behaviour around syringes. He seemed to be obsessed by them. He had this thing where he'd act like Mummy-nurse and remove and cap needles from nodding junkies bodies. He'd also accept needles full of pre-cooked dope in the street and bang them up without a thought (skin pop them right in through his jumper). It was scary business, and was the first thing which made me question why anyone would be so carefree around other's spikes' and blood. Some nights as we sat out in the dark I would watch Marge and wonder where he'd be now if things had have gone right? Probably an alcoholic... he had that kind of a face, and his nose was a wine taster's wet dream.

I think looking back I wanted a friend. I was scared of what I was doing and wanted someone alongside me crazy enough to do the same, yet sane enough to be responsible. Marge seemed like that person... and he was interesting. He could talk about whatever the subject turned. I suppose I thought we were alike. That the only real difference was that Marge had been stewing in the shit longer. But really Marge and I were not alike. Marge had been twirling with the devil so long now that he had become confused over who was who. He was your friend if you bought him a beer and your lover if you bought him a hit. But if you sat besides him and had nothing you was suddenly an irritating inconvenience. He'd get all bitchy and use his knowledge to damn your interests and pick holes in your favourite author's or artist's works (as well as pick your pockets). He used that old junkie con of warning you of every trick and scam in the book while performing them on you. That I had caught Marge stealing off me the first ever time we met didn't help me trust him much. I never pulled him for that theft, preferring instead to watch him as he talked and smiled, and stole small scoops of brown whenever he thought I wasn't looking.

It was during my second month of intravenous drug use when our relationship soured and would never be the same again. Marge, the great opportunist, would try and rob something from me which I wasn't so fond of at the time but was trying desperately to keep: life.

It was a bright Sunday morning in the middle of Autumn. I had woken up to find myself clean out of new needles. The only place I knew I could get any on a Sunday was the Boots chemist on Kings Street – though they closed at 1pm and it was already past the hour. I was stuck at home with heroin, citric, filters but no clean needles to whack my morning fix up with. But it wasn't a tragedy and wasn't the first time I'd been caught out like this. I was still relatively new to this side of heroin use and wasn't organised in making sure I always had what was needed to have a fix. I was always lost for something or having to run to late-nite chemists for extra works or Vit C. So that morning, with no official needle exchange open, I gathered up my equipment and headed off to Marge's to see if he had any fresh spikes he could give me.

Marge lived in a little flat connected to the Lime Grove hostel: one of West London's major drug wash-up shores. Most addicts in the borough would end up being filtered through there at some point or other. And it wasn't a bad deal: free board and food and a cell check twice a day! It was packed to the tiles with mostly long term, mentally ill addicts who'd wash their smack down with Tenants Super and whatever downers or sleepers their stench had forced the local GP to prescribe them. Marge wasn't in the hostel proper but had somehow managed to wrangle one of the permanent flats on its premises. That was kinda like everyone's dream in those days: to get one of the self-sufficient Lime Grove flats. They were the after-junk-life paradise offered up by the God of the Hostel. The only catch was that to get one you had to be either sober or dying, and that's why for there only being five flats up for grabs the hostel was able to 'permanently' rehouse 50 people a year. That its success was based on its rate of eviction no-one seemed to care about. Housing and evicting fifty people were better statistics than housing only five. Anyway, these little apartments sat just below, down where all the hostel residents could see and drool over them. There were no throw out times, no bars on the windows, no sign-in desk. It was freedom for the lucky few; a place to secretly kill yourself in peace. Only for the lucky few who had ascended to Hostel Heaven it wasn't so much a paradise as an open hell: a den of addicts all cohabiting and thieving off each other. As everyone had once dreamt of getting out the hostel now they dreamt the same of this place. Only this was permanent and there were only two ways out, and neither was a very attractive proposition. So it was a dream turned to shit, and this is where Marge lived and where I knocked him up that bright autumn Sunday afternoon.

The noise that came down through the intercom wasn't static. It was Marge's rattling lungs and groans of pain which let me know he wasn't well. Then there were some crashing sounds, a posh “fuck”, the intercom bouncing off the wall and hitting the floor, another groan, and then Marge buzzed me in. I climbed the flight of stairs to his flat and followed his tall frail and aching body down the little hallway and into his bedroom.

“You've caught me without my make-up, Darling,” he groaned, painfully easing himself down on the bed and pulling a loose cover up and around him. “Oh I'm sick... Poor ol' Marge is sick... not even a fucking filter since last night. And that wig is useless! Just makes me sad.”

I followed Marge's gaze down to a blonde hairpiece on the floor. It was sad. It was cheap and sad and I could imagine him tearing it off and having a breakdown because there was no gear.

“And, er, what message have the Gods sent with Thee?” asked Marge, this time sounding pathetically cunning.

“Needles, Marge. I'm all out. D'you have any fresh spikes?”
“Ah needles... Well I'm certain I do if you have a teeeny bit of gear for me, Oh yes!”
“Yeah, I got a fix for ya... I'll even split the bag. I just need some needles.”
“Oh YUMMMEEE!” he exclaimed like a big posh baby, now springing to life and catching a touch of his usual theatrics. “Now that's a good wake up call! Ok, needles....”

Marge looked around in a small cupboard near his bed. As he rifled through bags and packets of shooting equipment he asked some questions about how I was getting on with the needle. I explained I wasn't organised yet and that injections still took a while and I'd without fail leave huge marks and still had trouble hitting even the huge veins, though I did always manage. Marge closed the little cupboard. I saw him pull a face. Then he was up and rifling through what would normally be sock drawers. “Oh Fuckery, I was sure I had some,” he cursed, “let me go upstairs and get one of Bill. Bill always has needles... and no gear!”

When Marge returned he was empty handed and fidgety. “Can you believe it, Bill's not fucking there? Fuck. He's always there!”

“Listen Marge, it's OK... just leave it. There's a couple of others I know. Someone will have one.”
“Yes, no doubt.... after all this is Shepherds Bush: The Horse's Stable! And what about splitting the bag?”
“I have to sort myself first, Marge. It'll be the same deal with the next man. If they give me a spike they'll want a hit for it or start crying! I'll leave you a small hit, enough to put you right, then I'll pass back around later after I've got sorted and scored again.”

For a moment Marge looked distraught and pissed. I saw the Bitch had entered him. Then he composed himself and said: “OK, look, I've got one needle that I was saving for me, but I'll let you have it... I've still plenty of half-decent used ones. But don't forget this... It's very rare someone gets my last works!”

I smiled, but my mind was already on Marge. I could see what was happening. And like a fool I watched as it unravelled, convincing myself that no-one would be that mean... that I must be wrong.

“Ha, got it!” cried Marge, holding up a needle and throwing its packet back into the cupboard he had previously searched.. “My last one! OK, get the gear out and lets make ourselves pretty.”

I got out the small bag of gear but my thoughts were now on the needle Marge had produced yet kept a hold of. Not only was I concerned it may not be a fresh spike but was also worried because Marge had laid it down next to his own dirty needle. I wanted to be absolutely sure I got the supposedly clean one and that there would be no bizarre mix up. Into my spoon I emptied a 'junkie's half' of the bag. The rest I gave over to Marge. Together we cooked our hits to liquid.

“I'm ready, Marge, give me the needle.”

“Ready already? Now who's a Hungry Henry!”

Marge handed out the needle and then paused. He withdrew it. I had been waiting for it... this is how I knew it would go down. I somehow knew that needle was never intended for me to hold (and inspect). “Look, roll your shirt up,” said Marge, “ I'll show you how quick and easy it is!”
“Oh, that's OK... I want to do it myself... I prefer that.”
“But you'll be here all afternoon Shane, Darling... and I can't get myself well till you're finished. I need to soak my feet in the tub to get my knackered old veins up. Please, I'm sick. It'll take me seconds to pop fresh veins like yours... seconds.”

Marge knew what I was thinking. He knew what I was thinking because he knew what he was doing. “You're worried about the needle aren't you? God, I wish I'd have let you open it now. It's clean, Dear... you saw me throw the packet away.”
“Yeah but it's what I didn't see. I didn't see you take it out the packet....”
“Look, it's a fresh spike!” He said holding it up, “Now stop being such a drama queen and get 'em out!”

The needle looked clean, it did, but so do many of mine if I get a clean hit or have to transfer the gear to another needle for some reason. And of course now Marge had plucked off the orange cap and broken the seal which is the only other means to verify it by once it's out it's wrapper. It was too late. My situation was this: half my bag of heroin was in a needle I had doubts about, and the rest of the bag was in Marge's syringe which was 100% dirty. The gear was gone. I finally convinced myself I must be wrong and rolled my sleeve up and stuck my arm out. Without even using a tourniquet Marge looked over my arm. He was in a hurry. “Ah, there's a nice fat vein sitting up right there... I'll get that without even tickling ya!”

Marge put the needle against my forearm and made to insert it. That's when I cracked. I pulled my arm away but not before the needle had scratched my skin. Marge jumped with fright.
“But Darling what are you doing! I would have had that!”
“Marge let me see that needle... I want to see it!”
“Oh Gawd, I thought we were over that! It's a fucking brand new spike.”
“Then give me it... I'll cap it and do mine later. That way I won't keep you. Hand it over...”
“But Shane it's clean, let me ju....”
“Marge give me the FUCKING NEEDLE!” I screamed.

If nothing else Marge was a coward. When I shouted he kinda lost all coordination of his body and became flustered, caught between doing something drastic and doing nothing at all. Finally he put the needle down on the bed besides me. I picked it up. It was perfectly clean on the outside, but right down inside, where the needle enters the barrel, was a tiny dot of dried black blood. The needle was dirty. It had already been used.

Now I was panicked. I hadn't taken the shot, the needle had not even been in me, but the very top of the spike had pierced my skin and brought blood. It was enough. I called Marge a “Cunt” and hurled the needle at him in disgust. He could have it. If slipping someone a dirty needle is where he had got to then he could have it – on me! But I wanted no part. No excuses, no “you're wrongs.” I just wanted to leave and be alone.

At that point it was the dirty trick to get a fix that annoyed me. I wasn't aware then that Marge was HIV+. He had previously spoken freely of the disease and while admitting his lover had died from AIDS he was always adamant that he hadn't contracted the virus. He didn't seem to care about the stigma of the disease and so I reckoned: Why would he lie? I told myself that that concern was fine, that his crime was being afraid to lose his get-well fix and nothing more.

It was five months later when I realized it was something more... Much more. Over that time I still saw Marge about but I never spoke to him anymore. Something too intimate and unwanted my side had almost passed and there was something that disgusted me about it. Even in his face I now saw shades of something else, something ferociously selfish which I couldn't stomach. So I avoided him. But on this day in question I couldn't avoid him. He came stumbling out a building and almost crashed right into me. We both swapped a cold “Hello” and Marge asked how I was as he tried his best to move me along down the street. His behaviour was the same as it had been the afternoon he'd tried to spike me up with a dirty needle. I looked around wondering what he was up to that he didn't want me to see, and there it was, the building from which he had come from: The Terence Higgins Trust: group therapy for people living with HIV and AIDS. I almost fainted. And if I didn't regard Marge as such a piece of shit at that moment I would have held onto him to steady myself.

“Marge, what are you doing here... In there?”
“Er, Oh there... just meeting a friend.”
“So where is he?”
“Good question... though it's not a 'he'. But come on, let's go.”
“What you're not gonna wait?”
“I can't and anyway she's not there. Come on.”

I didn't say anything, just followed Marge down the road and feeling panicked and caught for breath. As we walked I kept asking Marge the question in my head but could never get it out. It seemed like a pointless thing to do. Marge would only deny it further. Finally I did ask, just as he made his excuse to turn off down a road which took him in the opposite direction to where he was going.

“Marge, are you HIV positive?” I asked. He stopped, raised his head and looked me in the eye. He didn't deny it; that was his answer.

I felt sick. I wanted to cry and run at the same time. I also wanted to lay an uppercut right on his jaw and stamp him into the ground. But I did none of those things. In one of the stop situations of my life all I could do was raise a weak voice and say: “What about the needle Marge... what about the needle?” Marge kinda threw his hands out, like he had no answer. And what did I expect him to say? And even more: what did I expect him to care? Humans are intrinsically selfish. Our first care is usually of ourselves. As I asked Marge about the dirty needle all my care was for Me. I couldn't give a fuck that He was maybe dying; I just hoped I wasn't. And sadly that's just how it is.

Heroin changed after that moment. I saw a danger and a dirt within it that I had never seen before. Of course I knew about the diseases and the risks before, but I figured as long as I didn't share I'd be fine. I never for one moment reckoned or planned against the chance of someone intentionally trying to infect me with HIV or Hepatitis. That was low, but it had happened. Not even two months into injecting and AIDS was a real and serious issue.

I didn't sleep that night. I laid awake thinking of Marge and that needle and the little prick of blood it had induced. I wondered if Marge had killed me and if the disease was in my body. I imagined pink and blue things swirling about in my blood, attaching to things and duplicating themselves. I thought of those terrifying adverts from the mid 80's that was my generations equivalent to the thought of nuclear warfare. At gone 3am I was up and in a real state. At that lowly hour I called my good friend Verity and sobbed down a phoneline what had happened. Verity, a one time nurse, couldn't do much right then but arranged to come and meet me in the morning. Until then not even huge amounts of smack could calm me – my mind couldn't be subdued on this one. Me, a severe hypochondriac at the best of times. Even when healthy I was convinced I was dying of cancer, and now I'd been given good reason to believe I was really dying. Well, that was too good an opportunity for my body to turn down. And so it panicked away... all night fucking long.

With the light came Verity and with Verity came hope. We met in a lousy café on the Goldhawk Road and over scalding coffee and and endless chain of cigarettes I went through what had happened. Verity asked me loads of questions. She was especially interested in the needle and how old it was. From pure calculation we was able to be sure the needle wasn't used in the last twenty four hours and was probably much older. Verity told me that the chances of me being infected was very very slight (for HIV at least). She said there was a bigger chance I could have contracted hepatitis C but even that was quite doubtful. She asked how long ago it happened and I told her five months. “Well, you need to get tested... it's the only way to be sure. It'd show up now if you've caught anything.”

To be tested scared me. In ways I didn't want to know and yet so badly needed to. What I wanted was a kind of low risk gamble, and so I kept questioning Verity over and over, trying to get her response down to a suitable level. It was only when she told me that she thought I had less than a 1% chance of being infected did I like the odds and agree to take the test. Though I made it clear that if the test came back positive that all romance was dead and I'd kill myself that same day. And I meant it.

To cut it short I got tested in a little clinic in Hammersmith. I had to wait 48 hrs for the results and two days later I was given the all clear. Verity was sitting besides me as the doctor spilled out the good news and gave me my test results. On hearing the news Verity began crying and I began thinking of Ace and wondering whether his phone would be on yet. What a great day it would be if after all these months of worry I could score early and get back home and sink into oblivion properly. Now that would be perfect! After having my life saved it was only right that I risk it again... if not what would be the point in having it back? The thought and the day was temptingly delicious in its coldness. The doctor babbled on some more but I never heard a word. Before leaving he referred me back to The Needle Exchange for a session on safe injecting practices. Of course I never went. I wouldn't need to. From that moment on I never ever shared a room with someone injecting again, and only on a handful of occasion ever had someone inject in my presence. The life scared me, and the people even more.

The next time I saw Marge was two years later. He was on crutches and looked like he had a stroke. His head had been cracked wide open from the base of the skull and circling across and round down to the ear. He was out of drag and had lost all sense or care of appearance. As he hadn't finally done me any damage I went over to gloat about testing negative and to ask how he was. He told me he had his skull fractured, that another addict who we both knew called Mick had walked up to him in the street and hit him in the head with a mallet. Marge had been in hospital for the past 8 weeks, was clean, though was scoring as he spoke. I kind of REALLY enjoyed knowing someone had done that to him. Had fucked him up for the rest of his days, permanently affected his head, speech, sight and walk. He was a dirty thieving cunt anyway, though it was harsh dues for that. Normally we just let it pass.

A few days later I saw Mick and asked what had happened. “Did the fucker rob you, Micky?”
“Kind of,” he replied.
“What d'you mean 'kinda??? Did he or didn't he?”
“He gave me AIDS.... on purpose. I tested positive three months ago.”

I couldn't believe it. What Mick told me was almost an exact replica of what Marge had done to me. Only with Mick it was worse as Marge had been slyly giving him dirty needles over a period of time and pretending they were from the clean pack. Where I had wizened to the trick Mick hadn't and had unknowingly been shooting up with dirty needles every time Marge was about Aghast I told Mick my tale. That's when it went really strange. Rather than wishing he was me, I saw he wished I was him. That it wasn't fair I'd escaped with my health and he hadn't. And in his eyes was a look of revenge. One less violent and more calculated, and one I suspect he will exact on someone other than Marge.

John

It was years later when my best junk friend John tried to infect me. In reality he was nowhere close and his pathetic attempt would never have worked anyway. At that stage I was too wary of other users to ever do anything silly. But he still tried and that's the thing, and that's what made me sad.

I had known John for about two years. I met him one day when there was not much gear about and he scored for me. He was a tall, stick thin Dubliner with water coloured eyes and a beautiful thick accent. He reminded me of past people and we became friends – mostly because whenever I'd bump into him I'd buy him a rock of his choice or put a score in his pocket. Our friendship was that. We never met up socially, or had a meal together or anything like that. We passed on the dope scene and I often helped him out. That was it, though we bonded never-the-less. He earned my respect by only once in two years ever calling my phone and asking for money. Even when he was ill he never used me as an option, and there's not many who'd be that precious with something. From that I took him as a loyal, decent person. And he was: John was a good man.

As the months passed I had an inkling that John maybe had HIV. There were weird happenings which I couldn't explain through junk logic. Like how I'd arrange to lend him money until he got his government payment, and on the areed day I'd turn up at his hostel with the cash only to be told he was in hospital. A week later he'd turn back up, clean of crack and heroin, and give me some fanny about a muscle problem, or a lung infection. I never doubted the reasons he gave, just the way he shrugged them off as if they were everyday and nothing serious. But I knew it was serious. Anything that would have a junkie laid up in hospital half sick is VERY serious. God, I've seen addicts with limbs hanging off through gangrene who wouldn't go to hospital for fear of not getting out the same evening and being sick or subdued with inadequate amounts of methadone. So for John to be in hospital on the day he was to get money was bizarre. When it kept happening I marked him down as one of the many 'closeted' HIV'ers on the injecting dope scene. John never did tell me and so it was only ever speculation.

My penultimate morning in England was a grey affair. It was a biting cold march day and I was to meet John to say goodbye. When I met him he was in the middle of some weird methadone sell whereby he'd earn £180, and so our last morning together was spent trawling around Shepherds Bush trying to track down a one legged addict called Jack The Peg. When we eventually found Jack – slopping down a free breakfast at The Great Commision Ministry Church – he told us through a mouthful of soupy porridge that he needed to cash his sick benefit before he could buy John's methadone. All together, walking at the pace of a man with one leg and two rusty crutches, we pigeon stepped it (Jack in the singular) down to the Post Office and queued up behind the dead, the pregnant and the insane.

Jack was in front leaning his weight on his walking aids. John and I towered behind him. As we got up to next to be called Jack spun around and through a mouth still mouldy with milky cereal, said: “I 'ope ta Christ they accept me facking ID! If it's Vijay ee'l refews fer'shure! Made me walk all t'way ta Hammersmith last fortnight... Me, wiv a missin' fackin' leg!”

John seemed unmoved by the news. He must have been used to all the piss around himself and took it as normal. But me, I was in a rush and could never bare such fucking around anyway. We should have already scored and been home by now. Who the hell 'Vijay' was I didn't care; I just hoped it wasn't him who was calling us forward.

When Jack turned around and shot us what would have been his teeth if he'd have had any left we knew that his ID had been accepted and the cashier was fingering off crisp twenty pound notes from the small pile to the left. Once given his money Jack held the notes up above his head and delighted shook them in the air. It meant nothing to John or I, but to the others in the Post Office it meant he was now going to go and blow the lot and get extremely fucked up on the tax payers expense. And that's exactly what he did. Within thirty minutes. Same as us.

“Who ya's scoring offa?” asked Jack.
“Ritchie,” said John.
“White City Ritchie?”
“Aye.”
“I'll have ta hide then. I owe 'im a score.”
“What you're after scoring yerself are ya Jack?”
“May as well, fack it! what's an extra twenny?”
“I'm gonna get of Ace,” I said, briefly entering the conversation.

John knew what I meant: let's drop this annoying cunt and get sorted. But he kinda pushed me back against my belly and made a sign to quieten down. As we walked on John pulled me ahead.

“With Jack in we can earn. One of each, sure as shite... Now dat roight d'ere'll be our little goodbye treat.”
“Fuck that, John... I'll pay the extra myself just to lose him!”

But John was an addict used to scheming and scamming, and turning down a couple of free bags wasn't possible for him. This was like finding a little sparkle of Klondike gold – even if it meant hauling a cripple up a steep mountainside to get it. It was another little make for John and he was thinking of tomorrow and I wasn't. Tomorrow I'd be gone. In a place where money couldn't help. John would still be here, fretting about the days to come and how to avoid having to regret selling his entire supply of methadone.

It would have been a long slow trot to Ritchie in White City had it not been for Jack the Peg pulling up lame halfway and waving John and I on ahead saying he'd catch us on the return run down to collect his bags. John and I rushed off, made the call and met Ritchie without any fuck around. Sorted we headed back down to where we'd left Jack and dropped him his bags off. Now John had his little gain safely in his pocket he couldn't give a shit about Jack any more, or get away fast enough.

“You don't wanna be anywhere near the loikes 'a him while carrying. Sure enough da feckin' police stop and search him every other day if dey don't! If you're within pissing distance an' dat happens, well, you're just as likely fooked yerself!” That was John's justification on leaving Jack behind so suddenly. Me I just didn't need justification. He walked too slowly and that was it.

As we hot-footed back to John's hostel John said excitely through mouthfuls of March mist: “Dat bag we made d'ere, da B, it'll be our parting fix for all dis shit man. You'll come'on up ta mine, ya will, we'll spoon and share it, sure... loike sharing a drink. A proper farewell, ya know?”
“What? Are you talking about sharing a spoon or a shot? I won't do either, but I hope you're talking about a spoon.”
“To hell wiv all dat bollix for a day, Shane. Fook! You're leading da fooking countree, man... ya gotta say a propa goodbye, now... Sure ya can dis once share a little fix wi' me?”
“Oh No, I won't. We don't need that to say goodbye...”
“Well at least ya'll come on up? We'll draw ta'gedder. Ya can do that at least, will ya?”
“John, please,” I said, not wanting to argue or fuss over something so insane on this last morning, “let's just separate the bag and that'll be our goodbye. You've bought my last fix outta this place. That's a nice enough memory, no? Our goodbye we'll say in words or a hug.... not blood.”
“Ah com on ta fook now Shane! We may neder see one another again, man. You've gotta at least draw up wi' me... ya gotta.”

I didn't argue the point, just told John “no” over and over. It got so much that I even told him he could keep the entire bag. That we'd say goodbye like everyone else, and then he'd go up to his room in the hostel and I'd traipse on home to mine and through time and space we'd raise a needle to friendship and history. John wasn't happy with my snub, but he got to keep the entire bag of smack and I think that's what bought him.

“And d'your really leaving? Ya phone won't be on after tomorrow?”
“Really, John. Tomorrow morning I'm outta here. The plane's booked and I've transferred my script to a hospital over there. If I stay I'm even more fucked than if I go.”

As I hugged John goodbye he cried. Just like a baby, he held on tightly and cried.

“What'll become of us, man?” he asked through tears. “What da fuck will become of us?”

I hugged John back and told him to take care and that one day I'd return and take him back to Dublin. And then he cried even more, and now he couldn't stop.

*

John's tears are the last visual memory I have of him. I never saw John again after that, though I did hear from him.

It was over a year that I had been in France. I had gotten clean and then gotten dirty again. So it was good news one day when my mother phoned.

“Shane, there's a little surprise coming over your way! That fucking Irish John has just been around here, bought me two rocks of white and left twenty five quid to get you three of choice and post over. And you ya little bastard, you never told me he 'ad AIDS! An I've been sharing my fuckin' crackpipe with 'im!”

I didn't say anything for a moment. It was a shock. AIDS and I heard it in capital fucking letters too.

“What, he's HIV?”
“Worse... full blown! Been put on full incapacity benefit and so he was around here fuckin celebrating! He was all hugs and smiles saying he feels rich! When I asked how he got full incapacity, because I'm only on half, he told me that he was HIV+ and had now gone full blown!”

“Well I didn't know!”

“Well he says you did 'cause I fuckin' asked 'im! And you know the friendly way he talks, he said: yeah, I told Shane... he knew!”

I told my mum that I really didn't and then told her of him insisting on sharing a fix with me on the morning before I left. How even knowing he was HIV positive he had really tried twisting my arm into sharing a needle with him. My mother cursed him and called him every kind of a cunt. It didn't stop her having him around though. Why would it? Nothing bad had finally come from it and John bought her rocks of white. What crackhead but a very bad one would turn that down? I wouldn't either. Two months later though and John was history. Not dead... Robbed my mother and disappeared.

After discovering John was with AIDS I was at first sad and then extremely angry with him. I also had mixed emotions of fright and nausea knowing that it was once again that close. I started imagining silly scenarios of what could have happened and worked it up that it was a narrow escape. It wasn't really, but maybe there was a part of me that did want to toast a goodbye with someone. Have a friend that close that I felt comfortable to do such a thing with. When my emotions settled down I was still angry, and then that passed and I remembered how John had cried when I left and how the memory of his home town had cut him in two. After that I started to recall snippits of things he had told me and how he so badly damned the needle but not heroin. It now made complete sense why. Heroin hadn't killed him; sharing needles had (or being duped into sharing a needle, who knows?) John felt hard done by. I then remembered him cursing his cousin with a vengeance, saying that he was the cunt who first pinned him up and got him on the needle. I also remember him saying his cousin had died from septicaemia. I suppose then that not only was it his cousin who had introduced him to the spike but had probably also infected him with HIV. I suppose, like Marge, John wanted someone else to experience the fear and hardship of what he was going through. That he didn't want to be all alone with what he had, but travel the road with another who was the same. But it's cruel. Humanity is cruel. And make no mistake about it what Marge did first and John did later, were human behaviours that are shocking and selfish but not incomprehensible or uncommon. They were just living up to the animal.

The thing is we suffer terribly alone, and a little less in company. It's why support groups kinda help. But no matter how many people we have around us when we die, when death comes every man must face it alone. In the hospital bed, or laying flapping on the kitchen floor: it's a dire lonely place. A man will never be as lonely or out on a limb as the moment he dies. I know, I've seen it, actually seen death enter the body and come out the other side. The fear and loneliness which that brings about. That's our fate. That's what it all leads to. No matter how much we run, or how many we drag along with us, when death comes it corners us, and every man will die alone. It's the only destiny we have.

My Love and Thoughts to ALL...

Shane. X

* C.H.U.D = Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller

Poems of the Underclass......

2011-09-24T04:43:00.004+02:00

(This post is for Subscribers ONLY. It does not appear on Memoires.)

Poems of The Underclass

Free verse poetry from Shane Levene

It's time to make a little history....

The Classifieds: Wants & Needs

2011-08-07T23:57:00.007+02:00

There are some things I want to say and some things I need to say. There are some things I'll never manage to say and others I'll never try to say. The differences are immense. What follows is an introduction of sorts to a new series of posts which I have planned for Memoires. In its nothingness it explains a lot... maybe even why I needed a break from this place and maybe why I couldn't write here even if I had wanted to. Tonight, for the first time in months I wrote my way through the death of an evening. The words I wrote came out something like this...

I want to write of dark hair, strange perfumes, obsessions, orgasm and death. I need to write of these things. Of tragedy, and violence, and poverty and tremendously poor love and even poorer lovers. I need to write of the rooms I've killed myself in, and the people who've watched me die for entertainment because we'd sold the TV. I want to write of the pillows that I've wet with tears, the beds I've burnt with cigarettes and passion, the walls I've decorated with paint and blood. I need to write of why I'd be a terrible father and why I'd be a great father and why I'll never be a father. I want to write historical love letters and explain to beautiful people why sex made me vomit and it was ME and not them. I want to tell the world of the little shop owner and how he orders chocolate just for me, and how my French is good enough to get what I need and bad enough not to get the rest. I want to write of why I painted the bookcase orange, and then black and then pink all in the same day... Of why I loved my shoes this morning and hated them this afternoon. I need to write of why I say "I wouldn't change a thing" and then change them all the time with words. I want to report back the people who'll misunderstand that last sentence, who with all their two thousand years of collective stupidness will confer and declare my life a scam. I want to tell you of the young, almost beautiful Albanian beggar girl who sits out on the Rue des Augustins, and how every forty five minutes a man visits her, changes the baby over and empties her of money. Of how when he thinks no-one is looking he'll turn a good twist of whiskey down his throat, and how when he thinks no one is really, REALLY not looking he'll land a solid kick around the back of her ribs. I want to tell you of the automat video machine and how the perverts come early in the morning so as they can rent films without the annoyance of having to shop for porn with someone peeking over their shoulder. How that happened to me once and I ended up arriving back home with 'Finding Nemo' and wanking over a fish. I need to write of all those crazy things I do, stuff that makes me certifiably insane and then argue just why I'm not. I want to explain why I sometimes piss in the shower and why my computer is full of viruses, bad writing and watersports porn. I need to write of why I cry for London and how I have reoccurring nightmares of my mother dying and me never having got back to see her. I need to write about life. I want to talk about death. I want to draw words with wings and let them fly away...

-----

Memoires of a Heroinhead Part 3... The Deaths Head Moth...

A new series of posts

Coming Soon... X

The Heroin Agony Aunt / Letters to the Editor

2011-07-18T22:27:00.022+02:00

.
Come gather 'round my pretty punks...

Memoires of a Heroinhead has a new page!

It is here and is essentially a select collection from the private emails I've received over the past two years asking for advice on issues around drug use and addiction. In their own way these correspondences are as interesting as anything else on the site, and as with everything posted here they translate into an enormous amount of time invested - my own, as well as that of the readers and senders. These mails, and the effort that goes into then, touches on an important yet unsung part of Memoires: that even if posts are often few and far between, the site is just as active as ever behind-the-scenes (mails and comment replies taking up ten times the volume of word space than do the posts themselves). That being the case, I've decided to bring some of this unseen material to light.

For the moment I've concentrated on the advice mails, but I've huge amounts of interesting stuff in my mailbox and so will also be running a Letters to the Editor section on the same page. These Letters will be mails sent in which posed simple questions which made me think and as a result either made me expand upon, clarify or revise my thinking on certain relevent subjects which make up the heart of what Memoires is about. Often that is not drug addiction, but politics, poverty, literature, child abuse, philosophy, etc. My real agenda is to expand Memoires so as in years to come it will sit as a huge body of my work and give answers to much more than I ever intended.

This is for the future.

-----------------------------

Here, once again, is that new content: Aunt Agony

Keep your eyes peeled on the sidebar for future page updates, and yes, readers can email me their problems or questions, although please keep in mind that only very select correspondences will be posted on Memoires and they will have everything to do with my replies, and nohing to do with the questions (no matter how well put or genius they may be).

Hope you All enjoy...

My Love and Respect as Ever, Shane. X

The Sinner's Eye - The Culture of the Needle

2011-06-26T19:21:00.005+02:00

The first time I ever saw a needle I was five. It was being pulled out of my father’s arm by my mother as he lay slumped and motionless on the floor. We had found him like that one evening when my mother had care of me. I remember her slapping and rubbing his face before frantically running off in search of help. I stood outside in the warm dark night, petrified and alone, looking into the distance for my mother to return. She soon did, her distressed silhouette picked out the dark by ambulance lights. Twenty years later I too would be laying slumped on floor, and in a hideous repetition of history my mother would also be withdrawing a needle from my arm.

In the following post I will detail my own romance with the needle, why I did/do that, and the places and people it has led me to. In my travels I've seen and experienced an underbelly of city life in all its perverse glory. It was never beautiful, often sickening, yet always fascinating. This is the story of The Needle as seen through The Sinner’s Eye.

Like the majority of injecting drug users I did not start off that way. For me it was an economic decision I took one year into my heroin addiction as a means to keep the job that was funding my habit. My first dalliance with the needle took place one blustery autumn afternoon in a homeless hostel in West London. It was a place with anti-suicide bars fitted to the windows and emergency alarms in each room. I had gone there in search of a beggar girl I knew named Katy and had burdened her with the responsibility of fixing me up for the first time. With intent junkie eyes she would hold the syringe up to the fading light and flick expertly on the barrel. Seconds later she would slide it painlessly into my mid-arm and press. That plunge would send me down a one way street of self-abuse and would be the precursor to over 50,000 (and rising) shots of heroin. But I do not regret the needle and I neither damn nor curse it: as it killed me, so it saved my life.

After that first shot I wandered home with the remaining needles of the pack. I had closely observed Katy and had questioned her as how to cook up, hit a vein and inject oneself. Later that night, after an entire evening deliberating over it, I decided to have a go myself. I was petrified. But not at the prospect of overdosing, more of the inknown, of what lay beneath my skin that I could hit, tear, puncture or damage. Still, I went ahead, cooked up a fix and then naively tried to inject it. Oh, it was a disaster! What had looked so straightforward in the hostel and at someone else’s hand, now seemed ridiculously difficult. Every time I tried to hit a vein I only managed to puncture it and leave large blue bruises in my trail. Even in my hands, with veins the size of a thick bootlaces, I could do nothing but damage and bloat them double. Finally I gave up and for the last time in my life I smoked myself to sleep.

Come the following morning I tried again. This time I did manage to hit a vessel, but each time I pulled back on the plunger I also pulled the needle out the vein. On about the twentieth attempt I succeeded in drawing blood and in an awkward amateurish manoeuvre I repositioned my fingers and emptied the syringe into my bloodstream. For a few seconds after, surprised that my fist hadn’t bloated up, I sat in shock and kind of moved my eyes from side to side, up and around registering things. When I was absolutely sure I was still alive I relaxed... and then it hit me. Up my arm and itching through every small blood vessel in my head. My pupils contracted as the pressure built and suddenly I was there, nodding over onto the table without even having time to withdraw the syringe. But that wasn’t the end of my injecting debacles... it went on for weeks before I could get a clean quick shot and months before I had experienced all the little lumps, bloating and swelling of missed and bad injections. But no matter how terrifying or hairy it got, I somehow enjoyed the process. And more than that I enjoyed the marks that I was imposing upon myself. It was a thrill, and finally I had some visible mark for the invisible pain I was trying to tame.

But being on the needle entails a lot of work. That is if you intend to stay alive. One of the first things you then learn is where you can pick up free, clean needles, vitamin C and filters. This invariably leads to the local Needle Exchange or some equally anaemic, bleached and sanitized place. I turned up at mine (The Old Coach House, Devonport Road) on the second morning of my IV life. I registered and went through the rigmarole as a soft spoken counsellor masquerading as an ex-user went through the perils of shooting and gave me a leaflet on safe injecting. He also sat me down and with picture cards of the venal system pointed out where the body’s main arteries and nerves ran. He said I must NEVER inject around those areas. He explained that if I was ever unlucky enough to hit an artery, and supposing that I survived, I would wake up sick in hospital with limbs the size of tree trunks. Of course, more than anything this freaked me out and my hypochondriac brain suddenly (and against my desire) jumped to attention. In a few nervous seconds I had blinked and memorized every image into my head and it seemed that just about every site was loaded with potential peril. For the first few weeks I poked around gingerly convinced that I would hit the nuclear button. Of course, I never did and since then I’ve stuck a needle in all those dangerous places, every junkie has. And thats another thing you learn, injecting isn’t quite as hazardous as it is made out to be.

The local needle exchange was open 3 days a week from 9am to 5pm. During that time users could walk in and collect up to 50 clean works a day, sterile water, vit c and small yellow returns bins with the bio-hazard sign printed menacingly on the side. That is the idea of the ‘exchange’. One is supposed to fill his/her small bin and return it. In ‘exchange’ he/she gets to take home new needles. In reality, not many addicts make use of this service and the exchange program doesn’t strictly enforce it. What they are more concerned about is having users not share. Like most addicts I know, I never really made regular use of the return bin either. Instead I’d let the needles pile up until my place was stacked with boxes and containers of syringes. Three or four times a years I’d have a clear out and overload the returns bin. Other than the Needle Exchange, addicts can also pick up clean works in chemists or some clinics. Chemists usually have a limit of 2 packs (20 needles) a day, and disgracefully often don’t have ANY in stock. The Needle Exchange, Chemist and clinic schemes are all free. However, if really desperate or if the chemist is out of free needle packs, you can also buy them. That would cost £2 for a packet of 5 1ml insulin points.

But needle exchanges and pharmacies, although not unpleasant places in themselves, do give the first hint of what lays in store for the intravenous user. I remember sitting waiting in the needle exchange one day with two skeletal junkies sitting opposite. Both were as pale as chicken skin, both looked crippled and both were covered in cuts, rashes and sores. They were resting head to head and drifting somewhere very far away. They looked like something you’d find slumped in a mass grave. It was only when one opened the eyes and drooled: “Have you got a cigarette, mate?” that I realized it was female. Her hands shock as she took the cigarette and she stood outside in the cold, sucking in huge lungfuls of smoke and looking like the future didn’t exist. It was a small thing, but something which stuck in my mind and scared me. I had not seen such people amongst my smoking friends. They had all been younger and fitter and frankly, more alive. This was something else... a different kind of addict altogether. And though it repulsed me, such people would soon replace my old smoking crowd and make up my circuit of friends and contacts.

There are a couple of reasons for this, but probably the most relevant is that the smoking addict and the injecting addict are two different types and clash too much. For example, the smoker may be sickened or disgusted to have someone inject in close proximity to him/her. The injector sees smoking as sacrilegious and cannot bear watching plumes of smoke disappearing and wasting into the atmosphere. Also there is the message that injecting gives out... that you are not only addicted to drugs but self-destructive and reckless in its pursuit. It is almost as if there is no hope after heroin and so you kill yourself before it kills you. But no matter what the reason, my smoking friends were soon all gone. They passed by me as if on some conveyor belt into history. With their hands over their mouths they receded into the distance and as they watched me advance to the place we’d promised we’d never go they cried: “Oh, Shane... how could you!”

Well I don’t know? I just could. That’s all. And very quickly I discovered that the universe of the intravenous user was a world apart from those which I had served my apprenticeship with. The haunts were darker, the misery worse, the addicts older and more pronounced. Everything was 2 shades darker black. I suddenly found myself in a place full of mirth, dirt and disease. For the low of heroin I would journey to and through that darkness. I would meet the diseased, the dead and the dying and have numerous acquaintances go down with AIDS and hepatitis. Amongst the army of junkies that I would cross would be the armless, legless, toothless and reckless. I would see men injecting in their penises and women bent over, peering through the legs into a mirror in order to hit a vein on the back of the thigh. In one homeless shelter I would sit and watch as half a dozen groaning addicts cooked up in a single spoon and then all poked their blunt dirty needles into the same cotton filter and drew up and shot together. They would look at me in bemusement when I would shake my head at the offer of joining in.

But by far the worst place I ever had the misfortune of entering was a junkie squat on St Stephens Avenue. It was a second floor flat in a partly demolished building and was literally held together by needles in a twisted ongoing sculpture that all the users living there collaborated on. One could not take a step without having to dodge an open spike and blood and blood graffiti sat an inch thick on every wall. It was inhabited by such a squalid bunch that the consequences of even stepping foot in there would terrify me. Unfortunately, these people were my friends... well, kind of. A typical household would be something like this: Firstly there was Nick. A tall, medium built addict with horrendously crusty skin. He had thick black greasy hair which showered dandruff in the light beams. Nick would take an obscene pleasure sticking and twisting needles recklessly into himself. He had such a crude injecting method that the tracks on the rear of his forearm were huge purple scars the thickness of an index finger. Next there was Grace. Worryingly thin with the skin on her face stretched taut over the skull. She had taken on a kind of translucent jaundiced appearance and made her way around with the help of an old walking cane. A 25 year dope veteran, it took her up to three hours to get a fix. Two weeks after me leaving London she died of liver cancer. Then there was Scamp the resident amputee. He was as grey as the London pavement -. only much dirtier. His left hand had been removed after a huge abscess had all but eaten it away. He now had a useless, half-paralysed and withered left arm which hung down like something that shouldn’t be there. He was HIV positive. Along with Skamp, wrapped up on the same filthy mattress, was his HIV buddy John. This man was so dismally wasted that he resembled but bones vacuum packaged in skin. He was forever in and out of hospital falling foul each week to a new debilitating infection. Miraculously he is still alive... well in theory anyway. Finally there was Jo, a Portuguese addict with not a single tooth left in his head. His mouth resembled a clenched anus that was attempting to suck all his features in. He had the greenish yellow tint of a depressing bar. A paranoid schizophrenic he would eventually be imprisoned for beating his girlfriend to death. Of course many more passed through the house or stayed a night or two but these were the regulars. On a good night this crowd would sit around a syringe strewn table with a huge mountain of melted wax burning away in the centre. In the low light they’d shoot dope and squirt their blood sizzling onto the flames. It was one of those rare occasions where the people were scarier than the shadows they cast.

And that was just one small group of addicts in one West London squat. But the more I got into the injecting side of heroin the more such users became visible. At one point it was all I could see. Ghosts which had once skulked by unnoticed were now everywhere. Bus stops, doorways, street corners, parks... I couldn’t walk five minutes without passing some distressed type with swollen bloodstained hands and looking like Death with the flu. The city became like a Kirchner painting: long, dark, oblique shadows lurking and hanging ominously against walls. It was a nightmare town. And then I’d traipse home, shoot up, and scrutinize my own face in the mirror looking intensely for any signs of disease or decay. But don’t get me wrong, not all injecting addicts look as I’ve described. And for everyone that does there is another that shows absolutely no obvious signs of drug or needle abuse at all. I don’t quite fall into that camp, but if I keep my mouth closed, and wear a nice pressed shirt, only my mother and lover would know.

No, the diseased emaciated junkie is a consequence of lifestyle and what he/she is forced to do to maintain a habit. And the junkie collective that I described earlier were all just that. Their lives and addictions were very hard on them and only by pooling their money, scoring and using together were they able to keep themselves supplied in heroin. There was literally no money for anything else. They ate what they found and smoked from the butts they’d collect in the streets. They usually used clean needles, but if they didn’t have them at hand they’d be all too quick to pick up the gun and wager their lives on shooting a blank. Whilst sticking needles in their groins, armpits and necks they all slurred the junkie spiel of getting clean, getting washed and getting a job. But they talked with infinite sadness and there was not hope in one syllable of any word they said. I think they knew they were The damned and getting clean and talking of what they’d do had like everything else become a little part of their fixing ritual. In truth, the strain of getting clean would probably have finished them off even quicker.

Still, regardless of how squalid some of the people and places were, or how much it appalled me, in different ways I was just as trapped within it. Ok, I did not live like that and I’ve never shared a needle, nor a spoon, but my needs were the same and even if my arms were cleaner I was still sticking the same needles into them 5 times a day. And it was that which kept me a familiar face amongst these crowds. Against any genuine desire to become friends I kept a contact and a presence amongst other users for very certain reasons: they were good contacts and as an addict you can never have enough numbers. But there was one other reason, and that wasn’t half so callous or calculated: sometimes I just needed a little company... another human besides me so as not to feel so hopelessly alone. Sometimes it was just a pleasure to fall asleep and wake up with someone else in the room. And that is why, no matter how dirty some places were, or how foul and rotten some addicts seemed, at least they were there. They understood without question and had an agenda more or less the same as mine.

But intravenous drug use goes further than clinics and junkies and palaces of needles. It even goes further than the administration of drugs. That’s its primary motivation but it also touches upon issues of self-harm, obsessive compulsions, and needle fixations. As I got more experienced with the needle I started to realize that I actually enjoyed inflicting these marks and scars upon myself. That outside of getting heroin quickly into my bloodstream I took other pleasures from it. Often I’d be standing on a bus or train, holding the overhead rail and leaving my shirt sleeve fall down to reveal an armful of tracks and bruises. On occasion I’d even jab a needle into myself a few extra times just to highlight the harm. I know some addicts who even when clean continue keeping their track marks fresh and visible. But this self-harm is not a call for help, it’s more a call for recognition... for the world to recognize you’ve been hurt, punctured and broken. It’s a cry for attention without the tantrum, the tears or the breakdown. I know very few injecting addicts who are ashamed of what they do... on the contrary, they are proud of it. And I understand that, because in that act, in the marks and scars it leaves behind, there is a bizarre sense of fulfilment and achievement. In it the addict has found a means to show a hurt or trauma that is not expressible in words.

It’s now almost 10 years that I have been living life on the needle. During that time I’ve shot up in parks, cars, toilets and on buses. In addition to my arms, legs, stomach and chest, I’ve also injected in my fingers, toes, palms and forehead. I’ve hit nerves, arteries, joints and bone, and have suffered every imaginable lump, bump and swelling. I’ve poisoned myself 4 times with ‘dirty heroin’, had abscesses the size of golf balls and I’ve Od’d twice. On my entire body I have only one visible vein left. In my determination to self-medicate I’ve lost family, friends, lovers, two Cockatoos and a dog. My bank is in the red and so after 34 years I have less than nothing.

As I write this it is 24 hours since my last injection and that seems a long time. Previous to that it was 72 hours and previous to that 7 days. The longest I’ve ever been heroin or needle free is 5 months. But I do have some qualities and I use them to convince the few people left around me that I’m changing... that I’ve finally seen the light. And as I sit there with my perforated escape plan laid out, I busk and dance my way around all the awkward questions. At one point I even promise to stop smoking and cut down on the chocolate. It’s then I realize I’ve gone too far, that I’ve said too much. The place kind of deflates with disappointment and without even looking up I know what they’re all thinking, “He’s not getting better... he’s getting worse!” And I can’t blame them for that... I’m thinking exactly the same myself.

Thanks as ever for reading...

Thoughts & Wishes, Shane. x

The Light Lost Light

2011-04-28T12:47:00.003+02:00

The light lost light and darkened. It felt like there was a great storm sitting overhead and I knew he was gone. I closed my eyes and listened, but for a moment the world was quiet with me. I thought of schoolyards, and dinner bells and distant summers and better days. I heard the engine of a plane, and then the motor of the fridge, and then I cried.

Mr Raymond Paul Levene

12 September 1943 - 28 April 2011

The Greatest Influence I Ever Had.

Love Me Tender in the Ghetto - part 1

2011-03-31T00:38:00.007+02:00

“No twos, no threes, no lugs!” That's what we used to say when sparking up a cigarette and not wanting to share it. Thirteen years old and preparing our lungs for coughing up tar. Billy with his wonky eye, looking off-centre and smiling at things which didn't exist. Beautiful, sad days... sun soaked west London with hopelessness spread out to the horizon. An eternity of orange tiled rooftops and the occasional spluttering chimney.

In the forecourt there'd be grubby gypsies stripped to the waist, banging and bashing away to give some worth to the worthless. Someone suddenly taking up an old fashioned boxing stance, sweat glistening off his chest as he jabbed and hooked away at unknown forces. The sun cooking pale Irish skin red, engine oil bubbling with the tarmac, the heat rising and the world wavering through it the other side.

A face over the balcony on the fourth floor. Darren Brown, eyes all pupil and jittery as hell, keeping dog of the non-existent police teams creeping up the stairs to bust him for his last remaining crumbs of crack. Two months later entering the only successful rehab clinic there is: the morgue. Flattened on the Westway. Splattered to death trying to get back home to his pipe quicker than humanly possibly.

I saw the blood. A dark shadow of scarlet which went nowhere in all directions. There were flowers too. A single bunch. “How Romantic the poor are,” I thought, “or maybe somebody got married?” I Laughed. The end of Darren Brown! That evil cunt who had taken me at knifepoint and forced me to commit robberies to fund his habit, sending me into a wild Africans home while he was still there. Me chucking half defrosted fish at him as he lunged towards me like a huge bear with yellow teeth. I made my escape: a 20ft drop from the back window, landing on Daniel Kinsella who was sucking the entrails out of a roach he had picked up from somewhere. A pair of Adidas Samba's catching him in the bristle of his adolescence. An horrendous tough jaw, twisting out of shape and his fists instinctively clenching because something had hit him. A dull thud in my ear, the side of my head red, throbbing sounds from bust eardrums: “God, I'll never hear the sea again!” I thought, as we legged it back to the relative safety of the Estate, pursued by a clucking, screaming, knife wielding crack head.

“Did you get the camera!” Darren hurled, collaring me in the underpass, the sharp end of his blade pushing to pop my eyeball. Oh, I was so glad he got splattered. No one deserved it more. I hope it was a Skoda that hit him. They were so uncool back then. For a moment I did believe in karma, then I thought about myself, blowing up frogs in the Greyhound Park, and hoped not.

Sometimes, as the sun went down, we'd sit around in the cool shade of the back, listening to insects and the sound of wind rustling through wild trees. We'd hand joints around and burn the dried grass down to stub. After a while we'd lay back and stare up at the slowly changing sky. Sometimes it'd be shot through with pink clouds, warning us that tomorrow may not be so great. Someone would always talk. A slow, stoned, drawl of hope and mystery. Some of us had dreams, but others were too clever for such things. I had no dreams. I wanted nothing but the very moment.

At around eight, or whenever dusk was, the dogs would come out. Thin, scabby things that looked like they'd been vacuum packed in their skin. Sniffing and pissing on dandelions, or crouched down and snarling amongst broken bin bags. As the day disappeared completely behind the flats the grass would tone dark and then go black. Faint breezes would start up and the grass would push out and ripple like thousands of little legs. The city smelled like magic and would make us cry. With the right light and sounds behind it, life seemed so worth living. Just after that the illusion would be broken. Lightbulbs would flick on in the apartments showing up silhouettes of the despicable things living inside them. Thin straggly women with knives or bottles or both... beer bellied men raining punches down on unknown things. For many of us they were the shapes of things to come. It was bad, and those were the good years.

“What are you looking at, Billy?” I asked
“Time,” he said
“Can you see time?” I asked
“I can feel it,” he said, “time to go home.”
“Do you want to go home, Billy?” I asked
His wonky eye now settled on me and a feint, tragic smile spread across his lips.
“Do you?” he said, as a question to the question.

It was now just the two of us. Laying out in the dark of the back, the night bringing in a chill, and the milky summer grass then damp and cold beneath us. I emptied the last cigarette out the box. “No twos no threes no lugs!” I blurted, as my only answer to the long forgotten question. Then I struck a match and lit up the hell around us. Billy smiled anew, it was just something we said. The night was down upon us. Soon the bars would spill out and our lives would be ruined again. Love me tender in the Ghetto. Billy would get his 'twos'. I could taste the sulphur in my mouth. The sweet end of the match

****

A little one for the archives, or maybe just something to proove I'm not also in the only successful rehab. Take Care All... Life about as mocking as ever, but sweet with it. Love and Thoughts, Shane. X

Tony O'Neill - The Junkiest Writer in Town

2011-02-20T14:01:00.004+01:00

It's not a great time for great literature. Our libraries are potted out with dustbins for a good reason. But there are a few writers who are on the offensive, who are making words dangerous, exciting and readable again. Amongst that lot stands a poet... You'll spot him by the eye-brows: His name is Tony O'Neill.

Tony writes about junk. That's the blurb anyway. He does, kinda, but more than the junk of smack, Tony writes about the junk of modern life: those who are left behind with the free Nokia phones, and the fucked diseased livers. The kind of new age grime that limps into the linoleum waiting rooms of methadone clinics... that finds itself entwined in dirty sheets... that's coughing blood before it's even thirty years old. The junk that wakes up in crumpled blood-splattered suits... that goes to Las Vegas to lose... that marries into hell... that escapes one ghetto for another.... that is surveyed by airport security... that flings dead cats from apartment windows... that masturbates to celebrity doctors... that Hollywood cannot make worse... that rehab cannot make better. McDonald's, Methadone clinics, Sunset Boulevard, Murder Mile, piss drenched stairwells, underpasses, alleyways, waiting rooms, healthcare, deathcare, no-care, porn shops to pawn shops, sodomy, overdrafts, lobotomies, botox, detox ... all shot through with rotten, broken dreams and .5ml of amber coloured hope. A mix of the real and the hyper-real-surreal. A black comedy of the truth, and so not a comedy at all. When you read Tony O'Neill, that is what you get... that is the real junk of the junkiest writer in town.

Still, for all of the above it doesn't make anyone a writer. At the very most it can just give you something to write about. And many people do. Pens for syringes is not a new or original escape plan. There are untold crappy authors out there who spend their days writing about injections they took twenty years ago, boring us to death with the history of how they almost killed themselves, trying desperately to rework the mess into something huge, coherent and meaningful. It's almost as if they think that their story alone will sell them. But it's never really the story that sells, it's the words, and even more – the poetry of the soul: that which cannot be bought, taught nor stolen. And it's there where Tony rises with the greats: his words become bigger than his subject... bigger than the influences that are forever mentioned alongside his name. So today, just because somebody has to, I'm going to be blasphemous:

Fuck Burroughs!

Fuck Bukowski!

Fuck Dr Hunter Thompson!

Things have changed, and things are changing. Smack's the same but the world we escape from when using it is a whole different place. It has come about that there is more to be said than even the greatest could say... That voices do get old and tiresome once a new one makes itself heard. Tony O'Neill is a new voice, and he is saying new things in a new time: our time. A time even more fucked up than before.

So do yourselves a favour and go and track down some of Mr O'Neill's work. Buy, borrow or steal his books... it doesn't matter... it's that urgent. This post is not an advertisement and is even less about selling hard copies. It is about passing on the word. And the word is Tony O'Neill. And the word is out.

War Every Day - Songs from the Shooting Gallery

Down and Out on Murder Mile

Sick City Signing

Tony reading at the KGB BAR

http://www.tonyoneill.net/
Tony O'Neill Wikipedia
Two short shorts: 'Hammersmith' &'Live bed Show'
Short Story: Notes from a shipwrecked harbour
Tony O'Neill books on Amazon

Brutalists

PS: For those of you who are already familiar with Tony's work, please take a moment to leave a small review over on Amazon (or some other like place). Just saying "Fucking Brilliant!!!" would be enough... You can even copy and paste if from here.

Take Care All, and a new Memoires post will follow shortly...

Shane. X

The Dry Season

2011-01-24T19:19:00.009+01:00

In far away places men were being killed. I watched it on the TV as I cooked up smack, fell asleep to journalists embedded in a war zone that was safer than their home streets. The biggest risk was friendly fire. It was 2001 and Afghanistan was smoking and choking on democracy.

In the streets of London there were marches every day. The mosques had become underground bunkers where rallies and demonstrations were organised. Inside, you could even keep your shoes on – that's how pissed off Islam was. As I wormed my way through the crowds, en route to meet a dealer, I would read the banners: “Stop The Afghan war!” “Troops Home NOW!” Sometimes I'd even shout a cliché myself. But I didn't really care, or had stopped. The Morning Star was then just a paper I held so as not to look too inconspicuous while standing at disused bus-stops. Politics had become a luxury, and came (if at all) at the end of a long line of other more pressing matters. Out of touch, my thoughts were not of black oil or corrupt foreign policy, but rather of a light brown rock that I knew only in 'theory' came from the same place.

During the first two weeks of bombing, as mighty Allied Forces took cities fighting back with catapults and stones, heroin on London's streets was rampant. It was so rife that it was actually easier to score junk than to buy the Vit C needed to cook it down with. And then one day, without warning, I received a call from a friend asking if I had any numbers, that she was having problems scoring. That call was the first hint that the war was actually going to effect me, and by seven o'clock I was half sick, frantically redialling the numbers of the twenty or so dealers I had, only to find every phone turned off. The single response I received beeped through in text: No Bisto bro. Gravy drowt. shld b bk on in day or 2. He never was.

In a dingy, one bedroom flat, dark forms sat huddled against the walls, jittering and waiting for time. Every so often I would rise and answer the knocking on the front door. From out of the cold, in would crawl another sweating junkie, eyes struck wide open and cursing. They'd all ask the same: “Anyone on? Anything?” Murmurs and “fucks” would rise up around the room, and then sniffling and groaning. As phones clipped shut, the latest corpse would flop down and join in the aching. But apart from Grace none of us lived there. It was a flat that had turned into our own bunker, the place we had gathered to rack our brains and kill our phones - to try and find a score in London.

I never did get sick that night, though only thanks to two dirty tricks. One from me, and one from the person I scored from. It was another user, a user who hadn't yet got wind of any supply problems. I phoned him and asked if he had a bag he could sell me, that I'd pay double. Seeing a quick profit he said he had two bags he could sell. I met him and he sold me the last of his stuff, unaware that the money I had given him may just as well have been fake, that he would make no profit this time, that there was no-one to score off. His trick was when I opened the bags they were triple wrapped and a third the size. But it was gear, and it was enough, just, until the next day.

The next day I was ill. We all were. Twelve of us laying around in Grace's living room and kitchen, cursing the world and trying to find a comfortable second in the discomfort. There were junkies stripped naked and laying on the bathroom tiles, others wrapped up in blankets and huddled against the wall, Grace thrashing about on the bed, moaning and hurting and cursing how bad it was. The rooms were full of mucus, shit and tears... our disease was seeping out our bodies. We were all down with the same flu and the real fucker was this: our pockets were full of cash. It got so bad I even heard Portugese Jo praying, either that or cryng. There's not so much difference.

“There must be one fucking dealer on!” someone would moan. On that we'd all try our phones again. “It's ringing!!!... shssh!” another would start up excitedly. We'd all sit hushed, hanging on with bated breath. We'd hear: “What, just White? Ya got no B?” Then we'd all deflate and sink back into our own individual hells until a new thread of hope arrived. Ideas would come and fade and old names of old dealers would surface and become important for the first time in years. Even the rip-off merchants hawking light weights of God-knows-what were worth considering, but no one had anything, rainy old London was dry.

On the third day, three hundred mil of methadone between the lot of us, we got wind that there was smack knocking about in Ladbroke Grove. We put in together for a taxi and four of us hobbled into the back of a beaten up Ford Sierra, wiping our snot on our sleeves and pointing out the quickest way to get there. “It's just a fucking red light!” we'd scream, “ignore it!'

On the way we passed the usual scoring haunts down Uxbridge Road and around Shepherds Bush Green. Far from being empty the meeting points were chock full of addicts, hanging around, all as sick as dogs. They were not waiting for their man though, just standing there because somehow it felt less hopeless - in and out of phone boxes, living to the redial button and the “We're sorry but the mobile you have dialled is switched off.. please try ag.....” And then the receiver would be walloped into the cabinet as more money rattled down BT's throat and clinked into the belly of the beast.

In Ladbroke Grove we were served by a small west Indian dealer with a violent kind of beauty carved into the left side of his face. He came cycling into view with a whistle and we followed his back wheel as he carried on past us and turned off into a small alley. The bags he was selling were half size, half heroin and twice the price, but it was something. Anything to get well - get well and give us eight hours of health to track down something better. That was the deal.

After scoring we didn't return to Grace's flat. It would have been too cruel, and the junkies who had wanted no part in the risk of the deal would soon change their minds once they saw our illness recede and heard our voices start to draaaaawwwwl. But then there would not have been enough, and there was no more from that source. What we had just bought off Ritchie had put his phone out the game too. So we split up and went off on our own to escape heroin sickness and have at least half an hour relief before the panic started again.

That evening Mikey phoned me. Everyone knew Mikey but I had a good relationship with him and so enjoyed the privilege of knowing he was holding first. Thinking only of myself, I told him immediately I would buy every bag he had. I did. He turned his phone off as I stood with him and said he didn't know when he'd reload, that heroin into the country was not getting through. Other than that he didn't know why, just his man higher up the chain was also on the sidelines, also waiting for the call. We were all waiting for the call.... just it never really came.

The gear Mikey sold me was the worst I'd ever had. It cooked up red and left a weird furry black residue in the spoon. It had no effect, but stopped me getting ill and so the teeniest quantity of heroin must have been in it. It got me through the next three days and I was sure by then phones would start coming back on. They didn't.

Over the following days and weeks junkies and dealers interests were put into finding out the reason as to what was causing the heroin shortage on the streets. It turned out that US troops on the Iran and Pakistan borders had accidentally blocked off one of the main arteries of traffic, and so the smack due for England was kinda going through a heart bi-pass operation. There was heroin, tons of it, a 'bountiful crop', 'huge surpluses', but it was being rerouted around Asia and Europe and no-one really knew through where or how long it would take. It took more than three days, I know that, as on the fourth day I crawled home from work sick, found all my numbers off again and this time didn't even have the reserves to go and join the junkie coalition who had pooled their nothingness and sat moaning and wailing around Grace's. Instead, I crawled into bed and cried. I was ill and so out of sorts I just cried at the world, and for the first time really cursed the fucking war, and even more passionately than the humanitarians, I wanted an end to all the bombing and devastation. But my tears were not for humanity, they were for me. And personal tears are always more genuine than any others. All tears are personal. Really.

After discovering a possible cause of the drought and why my life had been so abruptly gatecrashed and turned over, I started paying much more attention to what was going on overseas – at least the part of overseas that affected me. I became a firm supporter to have the US troops out of Afghanistan... at least away from the fucking Pakistan border. These arseholes weren't even blowing up the poppy fields, they were just loitering, fucking everything up without even trying. That's how bad America had become: they could fuck the world up by just being in it.

During the proceeding month heroin was almost impossible to get. Now and again bits and pieces would filter through, but it was so inconsistent that one could not hang a proper habit on it. Sometimes the gear was rushed through and hit the streets at dangerous strengths, other times it got through cut with dangerous agents. But mostly gear got through because it was bash, no smack in it at all, and so was more or less legal traffic. It was a truly horrendous time. Junkies were scoring twenty four hours a day. Buying a bag here, finding it was shit, travelling there, making calls, receiving estimates, going to the next man: the same. The next: the same... and so on until we either found a gouch or bankruptcy. It was a time of huge frustrations and desperation, and was made even harder due to the hike in price that the fake dope was going for. Most dealers had tripled prices and cut the weights, and to top it all they were selling gear which we'd have returned at any other moment in history. But we couldn't just stop and wait, that's not an option when you're full on smack. Waiting is illness, that is why the addict is very vulnerable in many ways. He is always against the clock and if someone holds out long enough they'll get what they want for the price of a bag – because a bag can be worth as much as a man puts his health at. Bags are health. Bags are measures of life. That is a proper junkie fact.

Of course we tried to score methadone in that period, but that was hopeless also. All the addicts who usually sold theirs to fund heroin habits were now drinking it themselves. You could could buy green water or piss, but neither served any useful purpose, not even to cheat a urine test. We were all clean anyway. Some junkies tried desperately to harass the substitution clinics for methadone, but that was even more useless than phoning dealers. They'd fall in the clinics ill, cry, beg, vomit and shit themselves, but methadone maintenance clinics don't care for defecating or dying addicts, they want redemption. They want you to walk in and dump your rotten soul on the table and tell them you're giving up smack because it's killing you, not because there's none to kill yourself with. Even the most caring MMT nurse is unmoved by real junk sickness, unless it was brought on by their words – their sadistic means to have you proove you're serious about quitting by forcing you to turn up sick. But the real option of walking in sick and being treated is not an option at all – not even for those addicts who found God when their last tenner went up their arm. Even if you turn up at hospital, in a condition that would put anyone else in intensive care, you'll be kicked out. You would die before anyone in healthcare would give you so much as a fucking codeine pill. So you sit it out, and the tragedy is this: the dealers will always get to you before the system. They are better organised and certainly more caring. At least they gain something from you, and so stand to lose if they don't kiss your pains better.

During the second month of serious drought the situation improved, though without ever returning to normal. Every other week there would be word of “drought.. drought” but at least one of my twenty or so dealers would then always be on, and holding half decent gear. There would be no more days spent laying around in Grace's squalid flat, pooling resources with the sick and dying and muttering prayers to a God which none of us believed in. Once again, We were all flying solo.

It was almost a year later when things finally returned to normal. Afghanistan had been set up with a new dummy government - which wasn't quite as westernized as everyone thought - and as military presence dropped in the area US forces accidentally unblocked old supply routes and once again Britain became swamped in smack. Prices returned to normal and then continued the pre-war trend and dropped to record lows. On the streets there were now more junkies than ever, and the bumper crop which the Foreign Office had told us about soon began arriving by air, sea and mail. Methadone maintenance clinics did not have any significant increase in enrollment, and the small rise which there was remained just a statistic, as once the streets were playing the correct tune again the addicts who had applied did not even turn up to their first initiation meeting.

And so it is, nothing ever really changes and certainly not by accident. Drug traffic and supply is a circle which turns and is just as monotonous and regular as heroin addiction itself. But it is in that habit, that monotonous revolution of the wheel, where lies its true strength. To stop anything we must change, and change is a very scary and destabilizing thing. When that change involves the loss of dollars and when the world is run by dollars, change is almost impossible. It's not the junkie who needs rehab; it's the world. A blue planet floating in an eternity of shit.

As you read this Britain and Ireland are once again in the midst of heroin drought, and this time there seems no end in sight. 2001 is horseplay in comparison. Have a thought for all the lost souls who are at this moment even further away from themselves than ever. Junkies or not, there's a heart behind the hand that holds the needle, and it's very often broken.

Take Care All,
My Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. X

Online Independent - Heroin Drought 2011 (with Yours Truly)

The Songs of Memoires

2011-01-11T00:43:00.006+01:00

The appalling things I uploaded last week and had the good humour to call 'songs' are now here:

Out of Time, tune and hope - The Songs of Memoires

If five weren't enough to scare you away for good, well there's now been a few more added... and more are on their way...

Leave comments below or just send me a turd in the post...

All My Thoughts, Shane. X

ps: New Memoires post to follow very soon...

Hope for the Hopeless

2011-01-04T12:47:00.000+01:00

“It's gonna be a good year.”
I say that every year
while laying in bed
with a dead laptop
making love to myself
and dealers
of certain cards
Surrounded by walls
breeding dry-rot

But this year IS gonna be a good one
for somewon
We've a one in seven billion
chance
Nothing's ever guaranteed
No matter who
your daddy is

For 2011
I'm betting the lot
Taking the SP
Doing my bollocks on
the gammiest legged
laziest eyed
outsider in the race

The horse I'm hanging on
they don't even bother to shoe
or shoot,
anymore

In 2011
the drought
of life and lonliness
will end

In 2011
The world is gonna pay
double.

Hey everyone, if you've made it through the Suicide Season, well done... keep well and keep healthy and keep hope.

Love & Thoughts, Shane. X

And The Rain Came Down

2010-11-08T14:44:00.011+01:00

On the first day of spring 2003 the rain came down. I was running, across the road, past the Halal butchers, up Percy Road, over the curb at Haydyn park, past the school. Splodge, splash, slap and an inch of rain would burst up from under my sole. I was drenched through, and cold, but getting warm. Just up ahead there was a boy, hooded and marching off briskly in the drizzle. I slopped up to him and grabbed a hold of his shoulder. “Ace, sorry man, the rain came down and we got stuck under a fucking shelter!”
“Tchah! Fuck off, b'fore I open up ur face, geez! Making me wait around with hotrocks in muh pockets for nuttin'. Nah! fuck off away from me, tchah!”
“Ace, I'm sorry......”

At that, Ace turned around and we both stopped . His fist was clenched and I could almost feel the dense slap of it hitting me in the face, the blood falling in the rain, bursting open like an ink splodge and being washed away.
“I fucking warning you, yeah, you junkie cunt, stay away and don't call me no more! There's ten junkies to every fucking dealer, I don't need to be a waiting for no one.” And then he brought up a huge lumpy gob of phlegm, spat it on me and moved on.

Still not wanting to let the deal go I followed, silently, right up close. As he made to turn the corner he caught a sight of me behind him, turned around and stood up tall.
“You fucking following me now, geez!!! You want me ta put ya down on da floor? RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW!!!” Ace was up against me, pushing me back down the street with his chest. I reversed with him, wanting to get away but knowing it was too late. He didn't even punch me, just kind of smashed his palm into side/top of my head and knocked my hat off into the rain. I stumbled back, then scrambled clear. Ace didn't pursue. Instead he put his hands in his anorak pocket then bounced off in the wet, hollering insults and bobbing from side to side like the little gangster he thought he was.

The rain is relentless. It is now coming down in big cold blobs. I am running again, back to mum who I left waiting for me outside KFC. She couldn't keep up the chase to get to Ace and so I had gone on alone. On my way back I am fumbling in my pockets for loose change. The streets look slippery. London has never been so wet. A cold, irritating sweat is running off my skin with the rain.

“Did ya get it?” my mother asks as I hurry into KFC completely sodden. I shake my head. “Wot? He wouldn't serve ya? Ya fuckin' joking me ain't ya Shane?? He didn't give it ya? The Cunt!”
“Come on, we'll have to see Ritchie”.

Ten minutes later Mum and I are are pulling our jackets tight under a dripping 207 bus stop. I am peering out into the downpour down the road and mum is looking up. We keep seeing Ritchie but when he gets close it's not him.
“Where is this cunt?” I ask mum
“Phone 'im Shane, it's well over fifteen minutes! Tell 'im it's fucking pissing down!” I look at her.
“If he doesn't care we're fucking dying I'm sure a bit of rain won't wet his conscience.”
“Well fucking tell 'im we're sick, that we'll go somewhere else!” We had our moan, the same moan we always have, the same moan every junkie has, and then we bottled our anger and waited some more.

It is almost noon. At least five buses have splashed by and unloaded their charge. Ritchie still has not arrived. I pick out some loose change and try to dry it. My mother looks extraordinarily angry. I must look the same. “I'll go and phone him.” I say. Mum doesn't even reply.

“Shane, bro, listen up, you're not gonna believe this, but I'll be 'arf an hour, bro, tops! I'm just cutting da ting up. Serious. Take a coffee, dry off an' I'll beep you in thirty and give you a little bump for free, yeah? I know you like d'em big rocks!”

That I came walking slowly back told mum that not much would be happening soon. She screwed her face up, “''Ow long?”
“Half an hour. He says it's definite and he'll bump the rocks up.”
Mum's face looked as broken as the sky, kinda grief stricken.
“Come on, we'll get a coffee and wait.” I said
“He should fucking pay for it!” She replied

The rain is still coming down. It is not beautiful. The water in the gutters is over-flowing and rushing its way to drains like wild rapids. We are in the railway tavern café dripping wet. My socks are soaked because of the splits in the soles of my shoes. Mum is sipping a cup of scolding hot coffee and staring out into the mist. From every straggle of her blond hair rain drips and seeps in under her jacket. She looks so uncomfortable and makes me feel ten times worse. I turn and stare out into the downpour too. Occasionally we ask each other: “How longs it been?” Thirty minutes pass like an eternity. Cars splodge by and the occasional person runs for shelter. There are two thin girls, shivering, laughing and dripping wet, now taking cover just outside the window. They are blocking our view. A thin, vulgar arse in bright pink leggings - God, my life has led to this. My phone beeps. Text message: I'm around,T.

“Was that 'im?” Mum asks, jumping to life with the phone.
“Nah, it's Trooper, he says he's around.”
“Well lets fucking go to him then! Fuck this waiting shit. That fucking Ritchie won't be fuckin half an hour anyway, fat fucking chance!”
“Nuh, we've ordered. I'm not doing that. We'd have no fucking dealers left if we worked like that. Anyway, by the time we've phoned Trooper, got to him and waited, we'll have probably seen Ritchie and be home. If he's not here after 30 we'll leave” I rolled mum a cigarette. We kind of used them as timers. After about the tenth mum asked me the time.

“That's 45 minutes, shane. This cunts taking the piss!”
“Ok, fuck him. Lets go see T, hey?”
My mother nods.

We're both squeezed in a phone booth. It smells of urine and stale alcohol. Mum's wet hair is in my face as she tries to listen in down the line.
“Yeah T, we want three and three.”
Mum pulls an urgent face and holds up four fingers.
“Hang on, Four... Three B, FOUR W... yeah, four.”
“Be at Da Barrier in ten.”
“T, make sure you're there or text, I've no credit on my phone?”
“I be d'ere.”

Again we are splashing through the wet. Mum is running and I'm walking very quickly. My socks are squelching and my feet feel heavy. Every now and again mum stops to catch her breath. I frantically check the phone not wanting to miss the meet. The rule is addicts wait but dealers never do. They circle once and if you're not there they leave. If that happens the chances are they'll refuse to serve you again. Occasionally you'll get a call “Where are you, bro?” But that's as loving as they get.

When we reach the barrier there is a man there with only one arm. His face is jaundiced, almost flourescent. “You waiting for T?” I ask. He nods. We look at a bench nearby but it is soaked through.
“Whatcha after, the B?” he asks sniffling and nodding.
“Both.” I reply
“Both huh? Nice. Er, Mate, if I give ya two quid d'ya think ya could sell us a couple of hits of the white? Even just a pipe?” I lie and tell him it's not for me. He flattens his hair back using the rain as gel then starts jittering and fidgeting about. He's annoying the shit out of me. He's jabbering away talking nothing just to pass the time. Half of what he says is not even to me.
“It's fuckin hot here. I don't like meeting here. Got pulled 'ere once. Known T long? Fucking hot cunt. D'ya live round ere? D'ya have a phone?” I tell him I've a phone but no credit. He says something about pressing the hash key, dialling sixes, fours, asterisks and plus signs and like that you can make free calls. “That's what I do.” he says. I don't even ask why he hasn't got a phone. Same as I don't ask why he hasn't got an arm. I know. I know it all. There's only a few stories in this part of town. We stand together in the wet waiting for Trooper to show himself through the rain.

As Trooper rifles through counting the notes I have given him, water is hitting his dark brown hands. “It's too much!” he laughs “You must be fucked, geez!”
“What you talking about? Four and three = sixty.”
“Four and three? Whatcha chatting, Bro, I only have two and one! Thats what you ordered, man?”
“T! Come on!!! when have I ever seen you for that? When? You got nothing else?” T shakes his head “Nuh, I'm all out, gotta reload, bro. Two, three hours.”
“Fuck! The two? What are the two, white or brown?”
“White”
“Give us that. Will you defininitely be back around later?”
“Yeah, jus call me bro, call me.”
I take his crumbs, give him mine and the we both head off in opposite directions.

Mum knows something is wrong. The deal had taken too long and she must have seen Trooper handing me notes back. She looks at me like she's on the verge of a breakdown. “Don't tell me he didn't have no fucking white! Please don't fucking tell me that!”
“There's white, but only two.” I say
Mum's disappointment serves her well. Where she had panicked imagiining there was nothing now two sounds like heaven. Normally she would have had a full grand mal seizure because of that. At a quick pace we splash off home. The rain doesn't matter any more. Fuck the rain. Who cares about a little rain!

§

It's just gone two. The crack is all gone and I've one small hit left from my bag of smack. We're standing out in the open of cathnor Park. The place is being lashed and blast cleaned by the deluge. This time we are waiting for Dan. Normally we only see Dan when we're desperate, want small deals, or just to keep contact, but this afternoon he was the nearest dealer who would come out in the wet and so he picked up our business.

“Why does he want to meet us near the fucking swings when it's pissing down!”
“I don't know??? This is where he meets people... he thinks it safe.”
“Safe? Two adults hanging about in the rain near a fuckin childrens playground! Silly Cunt!”

As I'm already soaking wet I go and take a seat on the rubber swings. I sway gently back and forth. Mum gives me a horrible look then wanders over and jumps on one too. She looks at me and kind of screws her face up so as not to laugh. In the rain we start swinging. At first slowly and then faster and faster and higher and higher, mother and son, laughing, off our heads on crack cocaine, waiting for a two bob dealer to appear from God knows where and keep us happy. Just as I'm about to go right over the top bar I see a dark shadow slinking past over by the far side of the railing. It's Dan. He looks horrified and completely pissed. I jump off the swing and go and meet him “What da fuck, bro!” he screams “You're hotting the place up wiv dat shit! Fuuuuck!!”
“Yeah, and you're late AND it's raining AND it's even hotter two adults hanging around a kids park in the rain. That's hot Dan. What's the B like? Your last stuff was shit?”
“Pfff, 6 outta 10, so so from all reports. But the white's kickin'! Honestly. My phones red for that shit!”

Dan gives a sly little down turn of his hand, slips me the bags and takes my notes. He doesn't count them but puts them straight in his pocket. I clock that, knowing if I'm ever short I can meet him light and he won't realise until later. I sort the little blue bags (heroin) out from the white (crack). The white is ultra small. That's why he said it was good. Whenever a dealer says it's 'good stuff' he's preparing you for a small deal. He notices me feeling the size of the bags and the puzzled look on my face.
“They're point three, bro, bang on.”
I knew that was bollocks, but so was arguing. You pay your money and take what you get.

Mum must have seen the deal ending and had gotten off the swing. She is now walking slowly up ahead waiting for me to catch her up. “What's the size like?” is the first thing she asks as I join her.
“Small, but he says it's good stuff.”
“ ” she says nothing, and I'm thinking the same.

I'm looking out the window, the rain isn't letting up but getting worse. It is settling in for the day. The afternoon is dark and oppressive. I suck in a huge pipe of crack and nearly choke. My throat burns. Before I can say anything mum comes wandering in: “That's fucking shit! It's all fucking soda! God this'll be good. I knew we shoulda waited for T to come back around.”

I load up an extra big hit and suck it down. It makes me feel sick. 'Shit' doesn't mean it's not crack, just it's weak. It still gives enough to settle us down. If it wasn't actually crack there'd be a riot.

Not even an hour later mum is fidgety and irritable. She looks wired sad and sits down pretend watching the TV. I look at her. “D'you want a bit of the B?” She shakes her head. I look at her again. Then at the TV. Then the floor. “Are you thinking the same as me?” I ask. She nods, then says;. “D'you wanna phone?”

We scrape together more money. I probably give mum advance rent for the next year, and then we are pushing our arms into jackets and walking at a fast pace down towards The Church on St Stephens Avenue. The rain has not let up and now the evening is pulling in. The city smells of wet concrete and supper. We stand under the stone arch of the church and wait. A familiar black shadow comes floating by, it's Trooper.. “Just one of you” he says out the side of his mouth. This time Mum slips out I remain waiting. Every five seconds I check to see if she's coming back. Then she is back and looking amazingly happy.

“Everything ok?” I ask suspiciously
“Yeah, OK!” She replies handing me my two bags of heroin “The whites all in one, in a fucking piece of tissue, we'll have to divide it at home.”
“Did he give you extra?” I ask, knowing her sudden happiness has all to do with what came out off Troopers hand and nothing to do with life or the world.
“Did he fuck! I'd tell you if he had.” I don't press the issue. There's no point.

It's almost midnight, my crack is all finished and I've just taken a fix of smack. In the bedroom I can still hear my mother's lighter flicking and then her pottering around rushing from the hit. I'm pissed off. Her crack lasts a full hour longer than mine. “Just taking it slow tonight,” she lies “d'you wanna do my recycle?”

I make the inevitable mistake of doing that. Taking her days crack pipe, filling it with half a centimetre of acetone, swirling it around, pouring it out on a ceramic tile, setting the liquid ablaze, and then scraping up the brown residue that's left with a razor blade and getting four extra pipe loads of recycle. Of course, that overrides the effect of the smack and thirty minutes later I'm wired again and cooking up another fix.

It is just then that mum comes in. Her eyes are wide as saucers and she begins pacing around as though she's committed some awful crime. I look at her. I am feeling the same and have my wrist tied off and am jabbing for veins in my fist. “Er, Shane, d'you think there'll be anyone on?” she asks.
“There's always someone on,” I say, “Sinbad'll be on.”
She nods slightly and stands there looking at me with the needle. The she looks at the TV. Then at the floor. “Shane, are you thinking what I'm thinking?”
This time I nod and say “yeah,” pressing my needle down millilitre by millilitre. “We'll have to go out though, Sinbad won't come to the door.”
Mum walks over to the window. She pulls the curtain back to reveal a deep black night. The wind is blowing about and the rain is still falling relentlessly, being picked out by the street lights. There is nothing out there but wet and cold. The city is asleep... almost. We make our call, slip into wet jackets, then scurry downstairs and out into the night.

On the second morning of spring 2003 the rain came down. I was running, down Uxbridge Road, past the burnt out postbox, under the bridge, across the lights, onto the grass. My shoes were sinking down in the mud and I was slipping to meet my man. Sinbad. Shepherds Bush Green. Two and Two. The last dance of the night.

Hope Everyone's well... the post is a bit scrappy in places but I'll edit it over the days... Love & Thoughts as ever, Shane. X

**Note 1: B = brown. Heroin; W = white. Crack**
**Note 2: What is described in the above post is an exceptional day. From my experience (in London), scoring is simple and straightforward. 90% of the time it is done and dusted within 30 minutes. Most my dealers had cars, bikes or little scooters. It'd be one call and 10-15 minutes later the bell would be ringing.

The Consequence of Living

2010-10-09T05:17:00.005+02:00

God, we were cruel kids. But battered and beaten at such a young age in life, what else could we have been? What chance did we ever really have? When life tramps and kicks wearing 21up Steel toe-capped DM boots, what else can one do but kick back? And so we kicked back, but not at an invisible life that as yet we had no concept of, no, our return blows were directed against people, objects and possessions. We kicked, smashed and bottled our way through tender years, and in our wake we spilt blood, teeth and glass. More than just delinquency, vandalism and violence, this post is about friendship and escape. It is about what happens when young kids are united through abuse and face that world together. In a way it is about hope, in another about hopelessness. It is as much about death as it is of life. For as we live so we die, and in those days we died so much. This post is dedicated to the lost and the broken... this one is for Simon & Shelley... As always, this one is for You.

* * *

Simon & Shelley Maudlier were my best friends. It had been that way ever since I punched Darren Marsh in the throat for going “Urrrgghhh” when the Mayor kissed Shelley after she handed him a bouquet of flowers in front of full school assembly. In what should have been her proudest moment she stood there crying as the school jeered her presence - laughed as the Mayor kissed a greasy-haired girl who smelled of stale urine and burnt wood. As Shelley was led of the stage in tears, a pair of oversized brown corduroy trousers sat down beside me and a grubby nail bitten and scabby hand was placed upon my kneecap. That was Simon and it was the beginning of the first friendship of my life.

Like me, Simon & Shelley were the produce of alcoholic and drug addicted parents. For the first six years of their lives they had travelled Britain and Ireland going from flop house to flop house, from one social service unit to the next. Every time they were on the verge of being taken by the authorities the family would flee, until finally settling down in London. It seemed that from the womb all they knew were vile beatings, social services, alcohol and abuse. At least I had had half an hour of innocence before being hit by life. But not for them, they were born straight into the shit. It was all they knew and it had only ever gotten worse.

At the age of eight they were forced by a drunken carer to have sex with each other. This practice had continued over and beyond that, and for the years I knew them they engaged in sexual activity together. It was in their bedroom one day, whilst we were playing, that they confided in me what they did together. I remember Simon touching Shelley, then Shelley kissing him almost as a token of acceptance for what he had done. They fell back on the bed laughing, both looking at me with dark brown eyes. They showed this to me. They were proud of it. Not proud of the sex, but of the adult behaviours they were mirroring. At the time I laughed along with them. I saw nothing wrong with it. It was almost the same as badly smoking a cigarette or knocking back a teacup full of vodka - it was that kind of naughtiness and nothing else. Now it’s a memory which I can’t ever forget, and it’s sad, because they showed me this and then Simon retook up his Space Invaders game which hung around his filthy neck and Shelley returned to playing imaginary families with her collection of cheap naked dolls which she'd pulled from dustbins. And that image of us on the bed, of the broken innocence that it relates, forever reminds me that this is a cruel and unrelenting world, and that our place within it is a hazardous one. But at the time, it meant nothing. Sure, we knew what sex was - the physics at least- we had seen it all our lives, but we didn’t understand the intimacy or the morals... we had no oversight. All we knew is that adults and animals did it and there seemed no laws concerning where or with whom. It was a reflection of innocence, that is all. But innocence cannot always be understood or accepted, and the events of those years would be a 10 year timebomb between brother and sister that would explode and blow them both off the edge of the world.

After Simon & Shelly's confession and me realising that what was going on in their house was the backside of my own mirror, we became inseparable. Our days and evenings were spent together toughening ourselves up, bonding and preparing our offensive. Our first decision was to join a boxing club. We were weak targets for the bullies and in order to walk the streets and parks untroubled we needed to learn how to throw decent right hooks. So one Wednesday we joined Chelsea Boys Boxing Club and on Thursday we knocked each others teeth out. The three of us taking it in turns to square up to one another and direct our anger and pain towards a physical body. But we never hurt one another: we toughened each other up. And as we lay in the park, on the grassy hill with black eyes and busted noses, we joked and laughed as love and friendship throbbed and stung upon our young bodies. We felt tough not just against the other children, but against the adults too. The same adults who had heaped abuse upon us ever since we were born. We were fighting a force much more twisted and perverse than our immediate peers, we were fighting our homes and our histories. We were fighting ourselves.

Not many people realise just how violent Britain is. It’s a cruel, cruel place, especially for a kid in toeless shoes. There is no sympathy and little escape. If you can’t impress with a pair of £150 trainers and a half decent phone, then you’d better be able to impress with something else... and that ‘something else’ is usually violence. So violence became an everyday fixture for a while. Almost every evening we’d return home with some cut or other. Shelley as well. She kicked and punched and bit just as hard as any boy, and aftern when it was finished, we licked our wounds and celebrated our victories together.

Our friendship was an honest and equal one. It wasn’t based on toys or videos or clothes. It was based on understanding and comfort. Apart from that we didn’t have much else to trade. We had nothing alone and even less together. Between us we had half a parent, two pairs of trousers and a dress. My shoes were football boots with the studs removed, Simon’s were leather strapped sandals and Shelley went barefooted - soaking up all the piss, shit and spunk that South West London had to offer. On and off we would spend almost five years in each others company. Five years of escaping the hell which we were born into. With our six fists and our scarred and beaten bodies we used violence and delinquency as a means of escape... as a means to unprise life which had taken lockjaw around our necks. But in escaping one hell we started replicating another: stealing cigarettes and beer and vodka and imitating the actions of our elders. In a certain way we escaped our lives by joining it - we became a part of the hurt and the world that had made us. Instead of fleeing it we copied it, but in our replica world we were the kings of the castle... the abusers and not the abused. We became the enemy.

In the following year we took the beatings but fought back. We’d raise with bloody lips and swollen cheekbones and rally for more. We built up a reputation of recklessness, and if we couldn’t win with our fists, well, there were always cricket bats. There were kids stronger who hit harder, but our relentlessness scared them. When someone screams “Fucking stay down!” it means they’re scared, that they know eventually it will be them running. And we never stayed down. We had mouths and angers that could not be shut. Eventually we instilled fear and terror into those we saw as potential threats: those other cruel kids, with other problems, who were also looking for escape. If we were not strong we would be it, punching bags, the buffer that soaked up our peers domestic problems. We would have become the escape route not only of our parents and their problems but also of the other kids, and that would have been one hell too many. We were on the offensive from a very young age. The bottles and bricks which made up our homes now became objects to throw at the world. And my god, did we throw them.

We threw them at bus stops, policemen and ambulances. We chucked bricks on the motorway and through car windows. We vandalised vending machines, ticket machines and shop shutters. We set fire to post boxes, telephone booths and elevators. We pulled up parks and gardens and demolished garden gnomes. We roamed the streets inciting violence and bloodying the noses of anyone who so much as looked at us. We robbed the more fortunate kids and destroyed the toys of the rich. we done it all. Then we went to bed, woke up and done it all again. We didn’t care for nothing or no-one. Not the living, not the dying not the dead. Everyone and everything was fair game, and that is how we escaped our lives. That’s the exit we took. We were cruel kids preparing to die.

Our lives meandered on like that for the best part of two years and then one morning on going to see Simon & Shelley I received news that they had been carted off by the authorities and placed in a foster home.
“My kids... they’ve taken ma fucking kiz!!!” Bridgette slurred before throwing herself around me and breathing a mouthful of vomit and whisky fumes into my face. And that was it, they were gone, taken away by unknown and distant forces - the kind most children are only ever threatened with. I strolled back home alone and waited for news. I asked at school, I asked my mother and I asked Simon's mother, but no one seemed to know anything. Yes, they would be coming back, but when? well, that was anyone’s guess. Three months later they were back, and the first thing we did was scheme escape plans in the event it ever happened again. And it did happen again. Later in that same year they disappeared once more.

Simon remembered our plan. Within the week a letter was delivered to my house carrying their new address. I was ten at that time and along with my brother we boarded a train to the address just outside London. On finding Simon and Shelley we skipped the wall and all made the journey back to London. We stayed missing for two days, passing the time at a friends house in Shepherds Bush. On the third day we were apprehended by the police on Uxbridge Road and were all taken into custody at Hammersmith Police Station. My brother and I had been reported missing by my stepfather and Simon and Shelley by their foster parents. I wasn't beaten much by my stepfather as a child, but arriving home that day I took ten years in one sitting. I was so bruised they did not send me to school for over a week. I’ve only ever curled my body up to kicks once in my life, and that was it. But of course, in my family that was an expression of love. It was because he loved me that my stepfather kicked my ribs in.

In the following year Simon and Shelley returned, disappeared and returned again. They didn’t seem to mind too much as away from home they enjoyed proper meals, proper baths and proper clothes. We still remained friends but the separations took their toll and as I left lower school and approached my teenage years we slowly drifted apart and spent less and less time in each others company. The final break was when my own family split up and we left west London and was put in hiding from the hands of my stepfather. We were reallocated to the other side of London and Fulham was out of bounds. Contact with Simon or Shelley was impossible and it would be more than twelve years before I saw either of them again.

In that time we had all changed considerably. Our young accepting minds had started examining things, processing all those behaviours we saw, heard and done. Youthful innocence developed into an illness that plagued and ate away at us. We were all sick, suffering from memories and actions that had been forced upon us. With the end of youth and the coming of our real sexual awakenings we realised we had been corrupted... that certain fantasies and shames had been branded into our minds forever. We each tried to eject these, to vomit up our pasts, to reject history, but vomit leaves a very specific taste in the mouth and is a memory all of its own.

So it was, that the events that formed us also repulsed us, and when one cannot reconcile one's history with ones present then the only option left is to split, and that's what we done. But not just friendship and kinship, we split internally: we divided as people and as adults. Shelley became a young prostitute, Simon found his way in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and I ended up trailing them same old streets searching crack and smack and dreaming of the Black House. In the end our youthful hooliganism and cruelty had served for nothing. It was just a natural reaction to a life that was putting the boot in. All it done was deflect the blow - absorb the shock of the impact and delay the consequences for a later day.

More than anything else that is what this blog is about. It’s not about heroin or addiction or murder or abuse, it’s about consequence. But not always consequence of a good or bad decision, more the consequences of independent and external forces which we have no control over. It’s about history and the equation of all our yesterdays... it’s about who we are at this exact point in time. It’s about the consequence of living.

* * * * *

In 2002 at the age of 27 Simon Maudlier finally found his peace. It seems he died as a result of huge amounts of alcohol on top of prescribed medication. He was buried in a communal grave in Fulham without ceremony. As far as I know Shelley is still alive and as late as 2006 was still working the streets of West and Central London. Neither of them, nor myself have any children, and that is probably the greatest gift we can offer this world.

As always, I wish You all well and thank you for reading and making it all worthwhile. My next post will concentrate on my feelings towards Dennis Nilsen, his continued imprisonment and my thoughts concerning his controversial and as yet unpublished autobiography “History of a Drowning Boy”. Until then, take care & take heart, Shane. x

The Man Who Looks Like Life

2010-10-02T12:24:00.009+02:00

And then you are down. And you realise you’ve been hit. There is warm blood trickling from your nose. And then someone is pushing your face in the gravel while another puts the boot in. Hard, brutal, ruthless boots to the head and stomach. And then your ribcage rattles and all the oxygen in your body bursts out your mouth. You are defenseless, choking for air as a flurry of blows knocks your head this way and that. And then you lose a tooth... And then your sight... And then consciousness. Only when all is black does the pain stop. And then you wake up. Your assailants have gone - just a white van driving off in the distance. The skin from your knuckles is scraped raw from the struggle. You sit there, in the wet and cold, the cuts and blows stinging more than when you took them. And as you push the blood away and dust yourself down, you ask yourself: “Why? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve that?” And then it comes. You remember. Once again, you had broken all the rules.

My time in France is coming to an end. Five years here have taken their toll. I have lost one tooth too many and the invisible sculptor who chisels with a scathe has began hollowing out the flesh from below my cheekbones. The history that I have tried so long to hide is now unhideable. I’m beginning to look like The Man who looks like life.

But that has not always been the case. In London I was vibrant and full of energy. My face was clear and youthful and sweet. Sometimes I even charmed myself. But looking in the mirror now I feel unrecognisable to the man I was then. And not just physically. I feel something has changed below the skin. I feel I have died a little more.

France has not helped. In fact she has accelerated my decline. My existence here has been a constant struggle. There has barely been a week passed without some kind of drama or worry. If it wasn’t the police knocking down my door, or days spent waiting for my dealer, then it was relationship troubles, exploding ovens or apartment fires. Only the other week I was knocked up at 11pm and informed that my then partner of six years was in hospital after swallowing a belly full of her mother’s Xanax. It seems that life can never just pass, she always insists on leaving a calling card.

Two weeks ago I commiserated my 34th birthday. For the occasion I received one card and one death threat. That put my life here into perspective and I’ve had enough. Enough croissants, enough pain au chocolats, enough random police searches, identity checks and bureaucracy. I am tired of the language, the people and the bars. I can no longer queue quietly for an hour to buy tobacco on a Sunday. I can no more hang around for eight hours in stairwells scoring obscenely cut heroin. I am sick of it all. It’s five years that I have been here, five years that will not tick into six. I am preparing for the exit, ready to flee the country and flash my arse at the last copper I see.

But it’s not time to moon at the law just yet. I am in no position to do it. I’ve barely enough money to put a roof over my death, let alone flee the country. There are also medicaments and repeat prescriptions to think of. Until I can either transfer my script elsewhere or reduce and stop my medication altogether, I am once again constrained to my immediate environment - bound on an upside down cross. Even without the drug worries, five years leaves a lot of attachments. And so before I make my exit I must make certain things good, or at least plug the holes.

One of the latest holes to plug and something which has now become critical is finding a new apartment. A broken relationship and a wandering heart have left me with less than a month to find a place to stay. My habit of not protecting myself and trusting in others humanity has shot me in the foot again. My decision never to officially put my name to the joint property we shared has left me at the whim of another. And that is not a good position to be in, especially when that ‘other’ spends their days wishing upon you a violent and painful death. I should have learnt by now that humanity disappears with love. That if one goes west, one goes west alone. But I suppose I do not want to believe that. The world becomes too sad if that is the case.

My search for an apartment began full of hope and confidence. Me believing that within the same afternoon I’d be in a new place with my own keys. But France doesn’t work like that, there are no simple transactions here. “Six weeks, minimum,” I was told, “that’s the timeline you should realistically plan to.”

"Six weeks! No, that’s impossible. I’ve money for rent and deposit and have an income. How can it take six weeks?”

Eight weeks later I am still nowhere closer to finding a place. In fact, I am even further away friom it. My deposit I blew on four weeks in a hotel and 15 grams of heroin.

But I don’t regret that, money wasn’t the real problem. The real problem is that France is a country of bureaucracy... your money counts for nothing if you don’t have the correct papers. People live in fear of it. There’s no screwing up your payslips and overarming them into the bin here. That would be tantamount to administrative suicide. No, in France people tiptoe down the halls of bureaucracy, praying to all 5495 Gods that they have the correct papers. But you NEVER have the correct papers. And if you do, they’ll invent another one just for you. It is soul destroyingly frustrating, and if you are as disorganised as me, it’s impossible.

So, I didn’t post my dossiers off, I didn’t even fill them in. Instead, I holed myself up and spent my time numbed by opiates, telling myself: “something will turn up... a solution will come, it always does.” Well, that solution hasn’t come yet and now I am in the position where I have three weeks left at my current abode and then it’s shop doorways and pillows under the sky.

But it’s unfair to blame France for my woes. She is another country with a different language, protocol and laws. It’s me who is at fault, refusing to do the things that are demanded of me and trying to busk through the unbuskable. It’s me that will quote laws that do not exist and then stand there to a shaking head and the words “Well that’s not the information I’m in possession of Monsieur. Desolé.” All the little tricks that I had perfected and relied on in England do not serve me here. It seems impossible to get what I want, even what I need. And it’s now too late to backtrack. It’s too late to fill in the dossiers... too late to put my applications through. I’m down to the cardboard, burning my lips on the roach.

The time for property agencies, guarantors and carefully worded contracts has gone. That takes too long and is too long term and legal. No, what I require now is an unscrupulous businessman, someone with absolutely no morals and a nose for money. A person who’ll take my readies and then put me in a rat infested hole that is only worth a third of it’s price. I need that. This is no time for flat hunts and cosy apartment views. It’s a time for handshakes and notes in the top pocket, the oldest contract there is.

And that is me... that sums it up. Nothing is ever quite legit, but always on the edge. I sneak along the line of illegal activity, always something in my pocket which could get me into trouble. I break the rules and I take the consequences for doing so. And the consequence is stress and worry which leads to heroin which leads to sacrifice, unpaid rent and bank loans. This in turns instigates relationship failings, brothers, white vans and bruised ribs. And this, all of it combined, is the real consequence, because it shows on the face and under the eyes. It marks you for life with life and leaves one looking like the Prime Minister after eighteen months in office.

And that is the debt I pay to be able to write these words. They are not just there... they are not free of charge. I acquire them at a 50% interest rate. I will die closer to forty rather than eighty. I have surrendered more than just a few teeth. The truth is, the marks I wear are not the marks of living but the marks of dying, and that is the paradox of The Man who looks like life.

Take care All... Thanks and Best Wishes, Shane.

Pieces of Meat - Tindersticks

2010-09-19T14:48:00.006+02:00

Tindersticks...

I killed myself to this band.

They made up the soundtrack to my London, the broken hearts, the deaths and the late night emergency calls.

On vile winter evenings, it was them playing in my headphones as I rushed around pharmacies picking up clean needles. When I suffered a mild overdose it was my mother's tears dripping over the Tindersticks that I came around to.

But this post cannot be about words... at least not mine. So all I will further say is that I discovered the Tindersticks during a storm, that Stuart Staples is an absolute poet, and along with The Smiths, they have played out my days for the past 15 years.

OK, without any more fuss, Mesdames et Messieurs, je vous donne Les Tindersticks.....
*

(May take 30 seconds or so to start.)

Stuart Staples and David Boulter

Stuart Staples

Tindersticks... It was worth all the dying just to have heard them.

Links:

http://www.tindersticks.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tindersticks

http://www.myspace.com/tindersticksofficial

Pieces of Meat - David Lynch

2010-09-16T16:12:00.012+02:00

After numerous failed attempts at competently writing my love of Lynch's cinema, and getting across what he means to me and how his work has affected my life, I done what I should have done from the start and interviewed myself. Here's the result...

How and where did you first become familiar with David Lynch's work?

I first discovered David Lynch through falling asleep to a screening of his debut feature film 'Eraserhead' at London's Riverside Studios. I remember the opening scene, then some kind of furry-faced woman dancing on falling wormlike foetuses, and the closing credits. He was just another in a long line of great directors who had sung me to sleep. Of course, it was really the smack, but not always. I think I was around 25 then.

Over the following years I caught bits and pieces of his newer films, but it was not until I came to france and had a dope free period that I really became familiar with him. In that period I fell in love with film. It acted as my escape and there was no better escape than David Lynch.

I think I saw Wild at heart, Lost Highway, Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive, Twin peaks (series), Twin peaks (film), Blue Velvet, Dune, The Straight Story, Inland Empire – in that order.

Then of course I separated what I considered his great films and watched them multiple times over. At 2pm I'd pull the curtains down on the day, close the world, and sink off into Lynch's universe... a universe that became mine just as much as his.

Explain to us a little of what Lynch's art does, the process of understanding his films, and why they mean so much to you?

Firstly, I don't think you can understand a David Lynch film, at least not past it's very simple pretext: a man doesn't love his wife (Lost Highway); A woman loves another woman (Mulholland Drive). I think anyone who tries to make complete sense out of, or intellectualize Lynch's films are wasting their time. David Lynch is an artist that goes past intellect. His is an intuitive art; you feel it – often reciprocating the actors emotions, before they have even acted them out. It is an experience.

So Lynch does that to me, he sucks me in to his chamber.

In Wild at Heart there is a scene where Sailor finds Lulu in a hotel room and there is a lumpy yellow vomit on the floor... Just sitting there. You can smell it. A beautiful young girl, clean, and vomit on the floor – it kind of doesn't make sense. But in that moment something really strange takes place and all of a sudden you are in Lynch's world.

And it works like that. There are always entry points to Lynch's show. He brings you in intentionally. It is not chance.

A camera crawls along a lawn, or zooms into an ear canal. The screen goes completely black. When the picture resumes someone is saying something normal in a really strange way, like they are acting badly or speaking words that do not quite fit their lips. And we're back. Music drifting in, and the world suddenly seems dreamlike and melancholic and scary and dangerous. It is not wonderland where Lynch takes us, but somewhere else. A place where we meet our own fears and complexes, a place where strong men break down and cry for absolutely no reason. And we never know why. All we know is we did. There really are no answers to great art.

Ok, you've kind of badly answered your own question, so here's one you can completely revel in: What is your favourite David Lynch scene, movie and episode of Twin Peaks? That's actually not one but three questions, please answer them all.

My favourite scene is Club Silencio/Llorando from Mulholland Drive. This scene is not only my favourite Lynch Scene, but my favourite scene of all time. It brings me to tears and almost leaves me paining for some reason I cannot explain. It feels like my past, present and tomorrow all merged into one. The hopelessness of the future sung out and echoed through time. But it's beautiful. You can watch it below.

(Silencio/Llorando works much better in the context of the movie. Nevertheless, as a three minute clip on Youtube, it's still an hypnotic piece of film.)

My favourite David Lynch film is either Wild at heart or Mulholland Drive. I can't quite decide.

My favourite Twin Peaks episode: No.14: Lonely Souls. For me it is one of Lynch's great pieces. There are scenes in there that will break you in two.

Finally, and just to force you to end on a negative note (maybe), are there any David Lynch films which are not Master pieces?

Oh, there are – three of them. And I'll go even further: of the three there is one that is absolute shit.
The shit film is Dune, which is not even worth watching. The other two are: Elephant Man and The Straight Story. Those two are both well worth watching, but would never have built him a legacy. The three I class as his money films, commercial endeavours he took to fund his real projects.

Ok, well that's it I suppose. Unless you've anything else to add I'm afraid you're going to end on a minus sign. Can you change that?

Sure, I think so. You wouldn't have asked me otherwise.

I WOULDN'T FUCK HITCHCOCK BUT I 'D FUCK DAVID LYNCH.

The End.

Links:
Lynch Imbd
Lynch Wikipedia
A lot of interesting Lynch stuff here. Collected interviews a treasure trove.

Pieces of Meat - Notes from Underground: Dostoevsky

2010-09-12T19:45:00.002+02:00

I first discovered Dostoevsky just as I was getting into junk. His book Crime and Punishment, with its anti-hero Raskolnikov wandering the slums of St Petersburg, I transferred to the streets of London where I was trudging around looking for dope in a coat that no longer worked.

Whilst waiting for dealers at bus stops or down alleys, I would think of murder and morals and ethics and warmth. I was unshaven and distracted – preoccupied with thoughts of what would become of me.

Two years later, in the midst of addiction, on the needle but stable in my habit, I found Notes from Underground. I picked it up for 50p or something in a Cancer Research charity shop. I was looking for pin-striped jackets.

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts. But actually, I don't know a damn thing about my illness. I am not even sure what it is that hurts.¹*

And in just that opening paragraph the world seemed to make a little more sense. I somehow felt that my existence had been validated. It was the key which unlocked a certain part of me, permitted me to be able to externalize an internal dialogue I had struggled with all my life. It also set in motion a feeling of rhythm... rhythm for words and how they should be arranged and strung together. That the book was only a translation of the original didn't matter. I had never read such poetical prose before. Without one swear word, or shocking event, it felt edgy and subversive and dangerous.

I travelled centuries with Notes from Underground. Discovered a poetry within it which I had been searching out for a long time. A chain of thought that was solitary and severed from any political or social ideas that were out on offer. With Dostoevsky I lost politics and found philosophy, a more personal kind of politics with no social agenda, just ones understanding of the world and ones place within it.

Come now, can a man who has presumed to seek out enjoyment even in the very sense of his own degradation have any amount of self-respect?¹

Notes from Underground, aside from any other facet of its brilliance, is a book that constantly poses questions – important, petty, sometimes nonsensicle, often unanswerable questions. With each paragraph there is a universe of stuff to think about: an accusation, a dilemma, a lie. This book forces one to think, to delve into oneself and others. To question motives, philosophies, structures, codes. In 153 pages (a long short story by today's standards) it is an enormous work. It is a work condensed to bursting point. It is a work that can force some to pick the pen up and others to throw theirs away.

I don't profess to understand Notes from Underground, well, not as it was probably intended anyhow. But I don't think I've ever understood any artist or work of art, not really. All I understand is what the book meant and continues to mean to me, what it taught me and what it inadvertently showed me. And that was....

Well, I don't know.... I never quite figured that one out.

Read Notes from Underground here

Free e-book download: Notes from Underground

Reviews of Ginsberg's Notes from Underground

¹ Translation copyright © 1974, Mirra Ginsburg. Bantam Books.
* Ginsburg's translation is the best I have come across. In terms of the original, I can't say, but certainly as a book in English it is by far superieur to the free download.

Another change of plan...

2010-09-06T22:22:00.000+02:00

I'm sick of this Hopping the Wagon shit, really. I can't even bear typing that out anymore and I really hate this nonsense of diaries of withdrawal. Actually when I started this blog I promised myself I would never do daily posts like that, for no other reason that it's just boring junkie addict crap. It makes me cringe! I really don't care about getting clean, not to that extent anyway.

So I'm stopping these posts and stopping thinking about how many days, hours and minutes since i last used. It only brings it closer to mind and only makes using even more attractive.

I've more interesting things to talk about than that... I'd rather tell you about the woman on the 5th floor of the apartment building across the road and how at 3am each morning we raise cigarettes to one another and blow smoke rings to the heavens. You'll learn more about life through little stories like that than crappy journals about quitting which really just repeat themselves every day. I just can't continue writing that kind of garbage.

All My Love & Thoughts Shane. X

ps: If anyone is wondering where today's earlier post went, I deleted it. It wasn't even worth the virtual space it was written on.

Hopping the Wagon: Day 5

2010-09-04T22:07:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow arrives so slowly when you want the world to end. I think that dying must be like time torture. But I don't want the world to end, just this brief part of it to pass. Though I suppose picking and choosing what I like best and what I want to ignore got me here in the first place.

I'm sweating. For the second time in four days heroin is coming out my body. It's too much. It's too exhausting. Heroin cannot be a halfway house. One must either do it all the time or not at all. Trying to straddle some middle road is eternal damnation. No junkie can be happy having to economise like that, it's the worst thing in the world.

My friend Katy once told her imaginary drug counsellor that the thing that would make her better was two £20 baggies a day. If the system could give her that she'd be fine. Her reasoning was correct but two bags would only have helped her for a time and then she'd have needed three. But what she was saying was that she wanted some kind of predictability, some insurance policy that allowed her to plan and regain her proper self and emotions. Living for the giro cheque and begging to maybe get a bag every two or three days was tearing her apart.

A week later, out of pure frustration, she bashed her head and face open on the sink in her bedsit. I found her wandering down Uxbridge Road with glazed watery eyes. People were veering and staggering out her way. It was like she was war and famine and disease and was here for the kids. She told me that she wanted to die, that she needed a fix. I said "I've got a fix for you!" She hugged me and cried and then she was the happiest girl in town.

Katy died a little after that - heroin overdose. That's what the street corner said anyway. I didn't really mourn her, I didn't know how to mourn someone like that. I suppose you do it with a tourniquet and a spoon and an extra strong hit. I don't know. Anyway, as usual, when street corners speak they speak bollocks. A year later I found Katy sitting outside a courthouse rolling a cigarette and making little sketches. She was up on heroin possession and supply charges. That's how she took what she needed from the system. And then they took it back. She got two years and I never saw her again.

All these people that pass by are history. I remember them like that, like their faces represent a certain amount of time or a season or a sky. Their words and clothes and actions define a time. We're all history, that's for sure.

Tomorrow is Day 6. Not really but for us it is. I must catch up on my emails and mop the floor. Nothing too exciting there, but once when I was mopping the floor I found a small chunk of heroin. It must have shot off from a larger rock and sat there for god knows how long. Since then I don't mind soaping the tiles... the dishes, though, forget it... there's absolutely no future in washing dishes.

X

Hopping the Wagon: Day 4

2010-09-04T00:13:00.002+02:00

Day 4 followed in pretty much the same manner as the second half of Day 3. It's nothing serious. I have got a black-eye though. I nodded out in the bathroom and slipped and caught my eye on the corner of the little shelf which holds the shower products. I'll put up a photo tomorow.

No poetry today, so if you need a daily dose of that go here:

Chemical Addictions & Revelations

Heftman boasts that his words aren't brilliant. Heftman is a liar.

Until tomorrow (even though it's tomorrow already!), Love & Thoughts, Shane. x

Day 3: I think this means I've relapsed

2010-09-02T21:05:00.001+02:00

Still, it wasn't bad and and two days is better than no days...

XXX

Hopping the Wagon: Day 3

2010-09-02T17:41:00.005+02:00

Imagine skies of pink candy floss stretching out into forever. The city is bathed in a strange warm light, which feels like some peculiar weather pattern is on its way. Over there, great industrial chimneys bellow smoke, and down there, men are hosing down the streets and sweeping cola tins and empty packets of Gauloises cigarettes into the gutter. That's what Lyon was like this morning as I sat looking out the window at the bar owner on the corner as he set out his tables for another day of business. I know the old saying, that we'll reap havoc for the beauty of a pink morning, but as of now the day has remained unspoiled by nature or desire.

I actually feel surprisingly well. I only slept three hours because I kept having these vivid nightmarish dreams, and rather than close my eyes on visions of my body dying I sat typing random words into Google and seeing what it came up with. Mostly it was just porn, then I disabled 'safe search' and it was all porn. Then I took care of the hard on that had been irritating me all day. It felt like the greatest wank of my life... certainly of the last two weeks.

It's strange, but I always masturbate when I'm ill or in pain. It's nothing to do with pleasure and pain, but more about creating a sensation greater than the one I am suffering from. It's a kind of momentary and pleasurable escape. When I'm depressed my dick is very rarely out my hand, and when I've got toothache, well, I'm just a public nuisance.

Right now I'm off to buy some methadone. As it's from the same girl I score smack from I think there's probably a 90% chance that I end the evening tying my wrist off with a tourniquet. What even more makes me think that is today while I was out shopping I mysteriously decided to check my bank balance. When I do that, there is only one reason behind it: I'm thinking of scoring. I kid myself it's not... but it is. It's like when I draw out money I don't need. I tell myself Oh, it's just to be safe... just in case there's a n unexpected problem with the card or something. Before I've even finished the transaction, my dealers phone is ringing and I'm willing her to answer. Addicts may lie to others, but it's nothing compared to the bullshit they tell themselves. I'm no different. Constantly having internal dialogues with myself convincing the junkie in me that this will happen and I can do that, and if I use it like this and save on that it'll be fine - that I can afford another 5 grams. But it's all bollocks. Once you even begin to think like that it means you cannot afford it, that something or someone else is going to suffer for your excess.

Day 2: 13h21

2010-09-01T15:49:00.005+02:00

Just woke up.

Someone once lovingly referred to me as the "hunchback of eternal pain" and that's what I feel like.

Swallowed 40ml of methadone. No coffee so had heavily sugared tea. Checked my emails and letter box. No death threats or court orders.

Outside still looks like winter skies. The season is definately on the turn.

Rubbish piled up near the door and fruit flies in the bathroom. I feel like I did the first time love gave me a low blow and disappeared down the road with her things: nostalgic, sad and happy. Two futures going off in different directions, and for the better or worse, things will never be the same again.

France is not a romantic place to be - it's not even a nice place to be. People say it is, but the daily details are the same and the lonliness is the same and the people are the same only they make no sense. I'd much rather be back in some West London ghetto, watching the rain extinguish burning cars and people punching phone booths because their dole cheque never arrived. That's beauty to me. Not really, but from a safe distance it is.

The last time I heard an accordian was in London. A gypsy wedding reception that spilled over into violence once the bar tab ran dry. The bride got glassed and the men stripped down to their vests and headed over to the park for some bare knuckle bonding. Gypsy weddings always end like that, it's half their fun. Divorces are even better.

I'm getting divorced, did I tell you? My wife of three days (Mythical Darts & Broken Darts), after ten years of quiet, surprises me with an email (a divorce petition). But that's another story...

x

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1 - Why?

2010-08-31T21:01:00.005+02:00

Kympton:
shane

Where are you going, and what is your motivation for your actions..Is someone going with you, I truly hope you succeed..But...and be honest now....do you really want to stop or do you feel you need to stop...I,d love to know

Reply:
Kympton, no, no-one is going with me... there is no-one to go with me. I'm alone here. i've no friends and the only people I know are junkies from the needle exchange or dealers. That's nothing new, even in London I wasn't one to have rooms full of friends. I prefer to be alone or with one person.

My motivation... I'm not really motivated, but the reason is writing. I've been writing a lot (away from here) these past few months. I've been scratching out ideas and getting on with a couple of books. I had planned Christmas as a deadline I could have something ready by, and 2011 set aside for publishers or agents to post my work back with "fuck off" scrawled on it.

Over the last month, getting pregressively worse, my writing has fallen with increased drug use. My schedule is falling behind and it's something I'm passionate about. If I don't tide that flow now it wilI spiral out of control and everything will turn to shit.

One of my other writings consist of a persons wait for somebody. He is waiting for the return of someone/something he once had. That is written daily and stops making any sense when posts are missed, or important events hurried over because I was stoned and missed the day. And that keeps happening. That book is three quarters finished and if i carry on with heroin at this time it will remain like that, as another work that almost materialised but burnt out.

Also, I don't think living life as an addict is any worth on it's own. It can be interesting and useful and insightful only if one's observations from within it are gotten down and out. Apart from a heroin addiction I also have an urge to pass on my observations of the world, to write the things that no-one ever wrote for me. To explain from a strange place what I saw and why I saw it. To never have my books finished, ideas down would be a tragedy. Death is nothing. Death by heroin is no more tragic than death by old age. What is tragic is if that drug use consumes you to the point that you miss your own life. that it passes you by and only when death is sucking in at the cheeks do you realize that maybe you should have lived a bit... done something else.

If that sounds like regret, it's not. It's just saying that being a junkie is as hopeless as not being a junkie and having no dreams or ambitions or wants or desires.

So, I feel I need to stop for other passions in my life. Do I want to stop? Not really, no. If I could write and create and not quit I'd do that, but it doesn't work like that for me. Sure, I can scribble the odd poem under the influence or write a small post, but to invest the time to do something a little better, no, I can't on heroin. That's not a mental can't, it's a physical thing. I'm not awake long enough and have to spend far too much time searching veins and scoring and picking up needles, etc, etc. So, for 10 years (17 if we take into account my subutex addiction) I've given my days to opiates. Apart from this blog I've never given anything back from that. 17 years to get over 17 years, that's fair. But now it's time for something else.

Oh, and I'm skint.

That's it Kympton. Figure out for yourself what is the important sentence in that lot and if it holds good tidings for a successful break. I doubt it.

Shane. x

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1, 15h55

2010-08-31T18:52:00.002+02:00

It is a cold day. It feels like there's ice outside. The sky is bright blue but fragile. It always feels like this when junk is seeping out your body. It's as if all the evils of all the world are hanging about outside waiting to descend upon you. Wind, noises, rain, smell, light. It is all there and all intrusive, like the the unwelcome touch of an unwanted lover. Coming off heroin feels like rape.

I haven't cleaned up yet, but I did scoop all my needles and little aluminium cups into a box. Not because they tempt me, more, if I'm truthful so as the filters don't get soiled and I can reuse them if I'm ever really desperate. I tried to ignore the mess as I stumbled around but I couldn't help thinking I'd never get my deposit back on the apartment. I think in eight months I've caused so much damage as it will need to be completely renovated. I've not tried to do that, door handles and shower curtains just fall off when I touch them. Since I've been here there's been one fire, one flood, an explosion, broken door, two sparking radiators, the shower unit has ripped out the wall and the light above the hob has melted. The bathroom units are all burnt where I've left cigarettes burn down as I either struggled to find veins or stood gouched over the sink thinking of removing the needle. What was a few months ago a fresh start is now just as stale as any other end in history. The place reeks of heroin, it is everywhere. I don't think it can be cleaned up.

Physically I feel better than this morning. Methadone takes about two days to get completely in the system and to work away all the little aches and pains. Those two days are not horrendous but uncomfortable. Make no mistake about it, what I will be describing in these posts is not heroin withdrawal, it is about the transition from two drugs to one. I am stopping heroin for a moment and sticking solely to my methadone script. If this were cold turkey or proper withdrawal there would not be a post for weeks. Any addict who says they wrote under withdrawal (as it happened) I don't believe. It is a crippling condition and does not leave you the luxury or poetry to describe your own dying. Imagine laying in some war zone with your guts spilled out and the good side of your head ripped off. How ridiculous would it be to ask for a pen and piece of paper? Not even the most narcissistic person in the world could get away with that... not even an Englishman.

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1

2010-08-31T07:01:00.013+02:00

The morning has just ticked past five. I feel like shit. Like I am going to survive my own death.

My legs hurt, and both sides of my body - from the hip bone and running up under each arm - are bruised and swollen. For the past three days, with needles so blunt you couldn't pierce an ear with them, I've been injecting in the long veins that run up along the torso. I've hit nerves, tender muscle, cartilidge and bone. I feel down and beaten and I haven't even turned the light on yet.

Except from the glow of my laptop and a muted Harry Potter film (which has been looping away in the background for two days now) the room is dark. I can just see shapes - a tap, a fan, a doorhandle. There are things on the floor, probably clothes, probably shot through with blood. In my bed there are cigarette ends and ash and tobacco. The ashtray is piled high like some weird game of Jenga. (A moth has just flown by - it'll be dead soon. The heat of summer is already on the turn.)

There is also a smell. It smells like sickness - like everything does when one is down with the flu. It seems to be coming from my fingers, my hair, my nose, my skin. Cold water seems like the worst thing in the world. I am ill. I know it, but cannot feel it. If it wasn't for the methadone I would not even be writing. Sometimes I want to die - just for ten minutes, until the world rearranges itself into a better looking shit.

Cigarettes taste like death too. I've just lit one. Now I want a coffee. A coffee would be great. But the energy used in getting that coffee would take the pleasure away of having it. I would only suffer more. Also, I'd have to turn the light on and then I'd see the mess: needles and cups and blood and half eaten things and bread in the sink and rancid bowls of cereal and me...

#

When I am better I am going to enjoy life. I'm going to go to the park and watch things and feel all the little pulls and annoyances of nature on my skin. If it's cold, good! I need it. I want to smell and breathe and get exhausted and have some natural kind of calmants. To sleep because the day was so long and the ride home so hypnotic, like that day trip I once had to Brighton, where the motorway lights sent me to sleep on the coach. I want that and the sea and the world and the stars. But more, more than anything else, at 5.44am on Tuesday 31st August 2010, I want a clean bed. Light fresh sheets, proper pillows and a soft crumpled blanket that is cold at first and then warm and then unimaginably comfortable. To wake up in a new world where all those old songs no longer exist...

Won't you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs....

Tomorrow I am going on a three month break from this/heroin. That's my intention, anyhow. I will document each of those days in little posts. Whether it lasts one, two or ten, who can tell??? Going by previous records and my lack of resolve, I'll give myself three days before I'm back here again. Back fearing the morning light, cursing the first metro and dreading the sound of the bin men. Those who want to suffer or laugh along, feel free to pull up a chair....

(Posts will be written instantaneously. There will be no redrafting or spelling or comma checks. All faults are mine. Shane. X)

Customs & Excise

2010-07-29T01:15:00.006+02:00

Today I met a Goddess. She had no teeth, skin the colour of boiled and beaten fish, hepatitis A, B & C and probably HIV. She came all the way across town to rob me of 55 euros – I'm a lucky man. Normally she won't get off the toilet for less than a hundred, but today she must have been feeling extra charitable.

The Goddesses name is Sonia. That's her real name, no fucking around with her. She gives it straight. She tells you “You pay double and get half!” All I ask is that she don't dip into the 'half'. Nine times out of ten she does.

If it wasn't for Sonia I'd either be dead or sober. For the last two years, ever since David was sentenced to 4 and a half years in St. Joseph's prison, she has been supplying me in methadone and heroin. Only once has she ever let me down.

When I see Sonia, I see beauty. I'm blind to all her tricks and scams and cons. It's like I'm in love. I sit waiting for her for hours, send her desperate texts asking where she is and convince myself that she will stand me up. And then I see her. And she looks so wonderful and I suddenly feel whole again.

In france it is the custom to greet one another with a kiss on either cheek. Sonia and I don't care a fuck for customs. We do it with an old-fashioned hand shake. Sometimes we even say “hello.” Mostly though she just says “It's really small but strong!” Then she turns her back and is gone.

For the next 12 hours she is no longer a goddess, but rather a “fucking robbing junkie whore!” and someone “I'll never see again! Nah, that's it, I'm sick of that bitch... really, I'm fucking serious this time!!!” Come morning the smacks all gone and to feel only slightly shitty I swallow three times as much methadone as usual. Before I know it I am withdrawing money I don't have and paying my rent with a cheque that will bounce into orbit when the landlord tries to cash it. But so what, I've just hit the redial button and Sonia's phone is ringing. In just under an hour my Goddess will come, rob me again, and then I'll feel a whole lot better.

My fondest Wishes to All and a huge thanks to those who have sent mails and continued supporting Memoires through the rainy season. Something beautiful will surely be posted soon...

Until then, All My Thoughts, Shane. X

Memoires of a Heroinhead - Part 2

2010-06-10T23:52:00.001+02:00

Memoires of a Heroinhead is changing. The past is over welcome to The Now.

Part 1 of MOAH concentrated more on the past and how I may have got to where I am today. There was no blame, no bitterness and no self-pity. Some things came my way by chance, others I walked into with full responsibility. I just detailed the the events.

Memoires of a Heroinhead Part 2 will focus more on Me today, my life as a 35 year old heroin addict in France. Posts will be much shorter, but more frequently written.

I thank All the people that have stuck by this blog, for putting up with my excuses and lies yet loyally coming back month after month. It didn't help me get straight, but it did stop me getting completely wasted. I don't think there's much more than that any of you could have done.

Until very soon, All My Love & Thoughts, Shane. X

PS: Longy, do you remember my challenge of the month? Well it was too long for a single post. Part 2 is dedicated to You. x

PPS: Stacy, thank you so much for the books & I promise to put a pic up soon. The final Part 3 will be for you. XXX

More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace

2010-05-28T17:15:00.008+02:00

Helen Roberts opened the door of Hammersmith and Fulham social services and all four of us pushed in. She gave a hurried look down each end of the road and when sure we had not been followed closed and locked the door. “Is that it?” she asked, looking at the large bag my sister and I were holding. “Is that all you've got?” It was 1987 and we had just fled the family home.

“He's gonna fucking kill us, 'elen!” my mother slobbered. “That door won't stop 'im... You ain't seen 'im after a drink. He's a fuckin' dang'rous alcoholic... not fit to be around children!”
“Yes, although when we spoke to Mr Levene, he said it was you with the drinking problem. That it's you who's not safe to be around the children. That you're drinking in excess of two bottles of vodka a day.”
“Yeah, did he also tell you he fucks men! That he brings perverts and child molesters back with 'im!” my mother retorted. She tried to do that thing that women do where they say something clever and then pout their lips and slam their hands on their hips, but in her state she just kinda stumbled a few steps forward and stood there growling with a whiskey laden face.

Helen peered in at her with concern. “Come this way, we all need to talk.”

We followed Helen up some stairs and through a security door into a family holding room. There were bean bags on the floor, boxes piled high with grubby toys, and story books with every other page torn out. At the very back another door led into a room that contained only two wooden chairs and a table. Helen, our Social Worker of the last three years, used this room to speak to each family member in turn. Rachel, my elder sister, was called in first. Before the door even closed shut my mother was in her handbag unscrewing the cap from her half bottle of scotch. She took a few huge swigs then turned to me.
“And remember Shane, if she asks am I still drinking you say “No!” If not they'll send you back to that bald cunt!” She took a final swig from her bottle then circled her lips with her forefinger and thumb. She somehow thought that by rubbing the alcohol from her mouth that it would render her less drunk. Of course it didn't and a moment later she was sat lurched over on her side with a pee patch breaking around the crotch of her jeans.

For some reason my sister returned having been crying. Mum gave her an evil drunk look and then turned away in disgust. Rachel flopped down on a bean bag anf wiped her fringe out her wet eyes. She must have cracked and admitted to the horrors of what we were all living.

It goes without saying that I didn't crack. I was proud to lie, proud to be Mum's impenetrable boy. I repeated all I was told and sat there looking smug and disinterested.
“Shane, there's little use denying it, I can smell alcohol on her breath!”
I just shrugged “Well she ain't drinking. My mum don't drink.” And then I was set free.

Of course, it was obvious to everyone that mum was paralytic drunk. She was flopped down in the cushions with the world a blurred view through top and bottom eyelashes. In front of the whole family Helen bit the bullet and came out with it.
“Lesley, we need to speak about your problem with alcohol. I can understand why it is you may have felt the need for a drink today, but leaving home with the children entails a new kind of responsibility. There is no way we can let them permanently into your sole care without taking steps to combat this.”

At first my mother just sat there furious, looking off to her side and slightly nodding her head. When she realised the game was up she broke down crying. At first silent tears, then sobs, then shrieks between caught breath. When she finally finished mascara was dripping off her nose and chin. She looked like something which had come in from a storm. It was then agreed that mum would stop drinking, take up AA meetings and visit Helen once a week to report her progress. To show how earnest she was, mum gave Helen her almost empty bottle of whiskey and in another pathetic alcoholic outburst she bawled, “Take it, just TAKE IT!... I don't want it anymore: It's killing me!”

We must have been in the social services all day as when the police finally arrived to escort us across to a hotel on the other side of town the evening dusk was hanging low.

I remember that car journey well. Not so much the sights but more the scents: my mother's lipstick, leather jacket, chewing gum and whiskey. In a way it seemed perfect for what was passing us by outside - like a smell track to a film. Driving through central London's early evening bustle seemed almost unreal, like a magic world that only existed in books or dreams. It was exciting and beautiful, but somewhere I felt, even knew, it was probably the worst possible place my mother could ever be.

Surprisingly enough for a whole month my mother did stop drinking. She began AA meetings, met Helen sober once a week and got us enrolled back into school. She applied for grants to buy us new clothes, made the court custody appearances that had been proceeded by my stepfather and even started talking about taking us on holiday. And then one day I returned home from school and she was lolling naked on the floor pouring out a glass of Vodka. “I've started drinking again!” she stammered, “but I suppose you fucking knew that already!” Spread out on the bed, sucking on a B&H, was Tony, her AA sponsor and the person she was supposed to call if she was having a crisis. He just laid there looking shot and blowing smoke rings to the ceiling.

In the hotel we had two rooms: R104 & 105. The first was for my mother and the second for my brother, sister and I. I went into the adjoining room and joined my siblings.
“Have you seen mum?” asked my brother raising his eyebrows. I just nodded, sent my bag crashing to the floor, then sat on the bed staring at theTV.

From that point on life returned to how it was. The only differences being we were in a new borough, in a newt house and with no step-father to lay down the law. As a result my brother Daniel and I quickly started exploring Victoria and going to all the places we were told we shouldn't. Because of its links with prostitution and its proximity to London's sex district of Soho, Belgravia was advertised as a dangerous area for children. But for us the danger was exciting. We'd wander around in the dark evenings peering into bars, the social foyers of large hotels, and the ringing and flashing games arcades. It was not long before we met other kids who either could not or did not want to go home, and with them we sat around Victoria's main station smoking and mucking about until the early hours of the morning.

My mother's drinking only worsened. She quit AA, quit seeing Helen and quit trying to make one bottle of vodka last. By the time she met Caroline she was knocking back two full bottles a day.

Caroline was a young 18 year old prostitute. I have no idea how my mother met her, just one day she was there... living with us. Her 'thing' was being paid to shit on men; that's what she did. She said that some men like that. Laughing, she explained that the best thing to eat if she didn't want to hang around too long was spicy curry or Mexican. Like many prostitutes I have since known, she seemed to take an enormous pride in her hustle, saying that no-one could “drop a load” like her. But we were young and it was just a big joke.

Caroline lived and slept with my mum. She drank but never to the extent that mum did. In fact, I can not ever recall seeing Caroline obviously under the influence. As with all my mother's lovers (male or female) it wasn't long before violent arguments started bashing their way against the wall. The next thing we knew Caroline had moved into our room. She said mum “needed mental help”, that she “was fuckin' crazy.” And she was absolutely right.

By this stage we very rarely saw mum anymore. She hardly ever left her bed, even less the room. She just laid there as the piss slowly spread, occasionally leaning over and puking up milky lumps onto the floor. Then she started locking herself in, and this is where the climbing out the window began.

Our rooms were situated on the fifth floor of the hotel with the windows opening up onto the street. From window to window ran a small ledge just over a foot in width. With my mother's disposition for suicide, and having locked herself in, it was the only route into her room so as we could check on her. For that reason my brother and I took it in turns to crawl along the ledge and into my mother's room. Once there, we'd make sure she was breathing, nick a few cigarettes, unlock the door and leave. And not just once or twice. We carried out that manoeuvre multiple times per day. One slip and we'd have fallen to certain death. But we were small, fearless and agile. It was a whole different story when my mother decided to climb out.

“So you think it's fuckin clever coming into my room, stealing money and pouring my drink away, eh!" mum shrieked, looking at me with hatred. “Well, we can all play that fuckin game!” And with that she pulled the belt tight around her dressing gown and began climbing out the window. At first we started screaming and then Caroline clung onto her legs so as she couldn't get out. Mum gave a frenzied couple of back kicks and was suddenly free, out on the ledge and raising to a stand, 100ft over central London. Then she started to walk.

No-one moved. We were all in shock and had even stopped screaming for fear of distracting her. I closed my eyes and had scattered visions of blood, brains, teeth and blond hair. I imagined the panic that would strike me when she fell, the silent milliseconds before hearing her body hit the concrete below. I thought of the horror I would feel looking down to see if she had survived. Mums body smashed and broken and dead.

The room was dry crying. Just large terrified eyes looking desperately at each other for help, as if by showing such extreme fear the other could produce some kind of a miracle solution to stop the others anguish. Of course no-one could and mums drunken ranting and screaming was drifting in from outside.
“Don't worry.. I'm not gonna jump! Though you'd all fucking enjoy that!” And then she was back in view; crouching slowly with an unsteady hand on the ledge. Then sitting, with her pale legs dangling down, mum leaned back into the room and looked at us upside down. “Well fucking help me then!” she demanded, looking like she was holding back vomit. We all rushed forward and grabbed a hold off her. With our combined weight we pulled and dragged down. After a moment she fell in, banged her head and her right tit fell out. She lay on the floor looking concussed and spastic. Slowly turning her head, and focusing in completely the wrong direction, mum slurred, “Caroline, I want you out of here you fuckin' little bitch!” Then she stood up, staggered to the door and was gone.

Caroline never left and by morning mum had even forget she had climbed out the window. She just remained even more in her room, bleached white and withering away to nothing. Her hair became matted and dread-locked and now she even shuffled down to the off-licence in her soiled, bloody, vomit crusted nightgown. On the rare occasions we saw her she'd either be steadying herself down the hall (usually with bags of vodka) or sometimes with a saucepan of tepid soup. And then just as quickly as it had started, one day mum called us in the room, and laying there like a queen on her deathbed, she said: “I'm packing in the drink.”

That was the first time I saw mum withdraw from alcohol. “It'll take three days,” she warned us.
“On the first day I'll have the sweats; on the second the shakes; and on the third: DON'T LET ME OUT THE FUCKING ROOM!” She kinda gave a loving laugh. In relief and joy we laughed along too. Things were finally going to be OK.

That marked a new pattern in her drinking behaviour. My mother would now binge – stop – binge - stop - binge. She could be sober for 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months, no-one knew, not even her. And then one day she'd be drunk and it would all start over again. The only sure thing in it all was that she was always drunk more often than she was not.

That small period in Victoria was probably the most isolated of our lives. We had no neutral adults or grounding forces around and really had to fend for ourselves. We done our own washing, cooking and ironing. We put ourselves to bed and got ourselves up for school. When we got home we'd take it in turns to be on suicide watch. We were children looking after children.

Whilst awaiting the custody hearing a temporary court order prevented us having any contact with dad (stepfather) and he was not allowed to come within a hundred metres of any place he knew us to be. As I'm sure it did my brother and sister, that hurt and saddened me. In a strange way I had grown to love him... to enjoy him for who he was. I had certainly never imagined that one day he'd not be there. That just kinda happened. Mum had asked us to make a quick-fire decision and we chose 'her'. 5 minutes after nodding our heads, Dad, the dog and the house were gone. It was a shock and none of us really thought through the consequences of that choice. It was only when we understood Dad could end up in prison if he approached us that it really hit home.

Our forced separation was sad, for us, but by far the saddest part was imaging Dad all alone. I was obsessed with that thought, of what he had done when he arrived home on the day we left. Did he find it strange the lights were out and the place silent? Did he at first call out? Sense a strange emptiness? Did he then realise certain things were out of place, missing? That Mum's room had been ransacked of a few important things? Did he then rush up into our room? See most our clothes and hand held electronic games were gone? Did he knock the neighbours up in a panic asking if they'd seen us? Did he break down and cry? As the weeks and months passed I became more and more preoccupied with what had become of Dad. If he was alright. And then I could take it no more... along with my brother we decided on a secret visit home.

It was a spring evening and the light was just on the turn. It was cold and wet and pale mauve. In a park barely 10 minutes walk from the old family home, my brother and I had just finished football practice. Instead of taking the bus home at the nearby stop, we decided to walk to the one a few stops further along the route, cutting by our old house to get there. “Just keep low and follow me,” I said to Daniel “if he's there we mustn't let him see us!”

Ducking down behind the cars on the opposite side of the road, I led the way. Like that we crept along until we were right opposite the old house. I raised myself just enough to be able to see. “All the lights are out. I don't think he's in.” I reported back “Shall we go across and have a look?” At my brothers nod we both came out of hiding and crossed the road.

The first thing that happened was Shandy, dad's dog, saw us coming and began doing back-flips at the window and licking the glass. We tried to calm him down but he just got more crazy, barking and whining. In the backdrop the place was a mess. There were bottles, betting slips and torn newspaper strewn everywhere. Down next to the fire was a grubby stained duvet and sleeveless pillows. “Try the bell.” I said to my brother “see if there's electricity?” Daniel pressed the bell and shook his head. “It must've been disconnected. He ain't paid the bill.” he said. “He's living here in the dark!” It was sad beyond words. Sadness of the like which can only ever be felt. Bending down, I lifted the letter box and peered through. The hallway where we used to play football and cricket in was now just a littered mess. There were clothes and books everywhere, unopened letters and boxes. A light switch hung by wires from the wall. Down through the kitchen I could see piles of dirty pans and dishes stacked high. But for a split box of economy teabags and a bowl of sugar the back cupboard was bare. The stairs leading up to mums old room had been stripped of their carpet; some of Mum's old clothes clung to the steps as if they'd been torn up and chucked down in anger. The bannister we used to slide down now had every other post missing or broken. Dads beige summer jacket hung at the bottom with the dog chain. It's strange because it wasn't like looking at home but felt more like looking back in time. Like in a museum, where behind glass they have created a scene from some bygone era or other. That's what I felt looking in. It was a reconstruction of a broken home.

By now the evening was almost dark. The house had descended into shadow and seemed profoundly empty. It no longer smelt like home but like the dust that settles on the top of an old box. It was a place of sadness and pain; a place where a man sat who had lost his children and didn't know what to do. A place where the owner didn't want to live there anymore. I let the letter box fall down and looked at Dan. “Come on, lets get outta here.” I said dejectedly, and without speaking a word of what we had seen we ran off and caught the bus back home.

We had now been in the Hotel five months, and mum, bedridden, soiled and dreadlocked took a turn for the worse... she got depressed! That on top of being suicidal was bad news. Now, for some unknown reason, she could no longer bare living in the Hotel and all we heard were sobs and wails trailing from her room. That and the sound of neat vodka glugging its way out the bottle and down her throat. Lucky for us good news would soon arrive and a week later we would be gone.

Of course that final week was a memorable one. It ended with Caroline leaving in tears, my mother going through the shakes and sobering up and an Indian tenant leaping to his death from a 4th floor window. The gypsies on the ground floor who caught his landing said his “head cracked open like a coconut and he bit his tongue off”. They also said he was “bollock naked”. Unfortunately all that was left we arrived was the blood. A dark red stain in the shape of Ireland.

Two days after that we received a letter from the council saying they were pleased to inform us they had found us a home, albeit another temporary one, in Maida Vale, North London. Before the bottles and puke piled up it was the most fantastic and luxurious place we ever lived. It later transpired that out of pure desperation to quit the hotel, mum had fucked the manager Mr Patel, who in turn had written to the council nominating us as the family most likely to benefit from re-housing.

Benefit? Not really, no. The next seven years just brought more of the same. All that changed is we were growing up and growing wiser. We stopped phoning 999 after each fake suicide attempt and instead of tipping mum's drink down the sink we tipped it down ourselves. Soon we were just as wasted as her and twice as reckless. Mum would eventually lay her alcohol demon to rest, only to fall into the arms of crack and heroin addiction in the same year. But compared to alcohol abuse, crack and heroin are nothing... as it turned out, they were the best years of our lives.

Thanks to Everyone who has stuck through this blog and stuck through this post. As ever it is appreciated more than I can possibly say.

Love, Thoughts & Wishes, Shane. X

Cyber Dildo - A Wonderful Dedication

2010-05-16T03:40:00.004+02:00

(I found this posted on another blog. A dedication from Anna Grace.)

Shane from France, Heroinhead is my cyberdildo

I think all of us who read HeroinHeads blogs are always excited to read a new one, and when he finally births a blog I have a little ritual that I do. Let me tell you all about it.

I have all Shane's blogs emailed straight to my yahoo mail. Every day when I check the mail I'm on pins and needles hoping and praying that one of HeroinHeads memoirs will be in my inbox. Even though he only blogs about twice a month I have my kit next to me everytime I login to my email. My kit you wonder, yes my kit.

First off my kit consists of a bag of works. Those of you few who read my blog and don't know what "works" are I will clue you in. Every junky has a bag of "works", which includes a spoon, a hypodermic syringe, cotton, and a tourniquet to tie off with. Even though I don't have Heroin, and am on Methadone, I still cook up some water and get ready to put it in my vein. Mainly because its like masturbation for me.

My kit also consists of KY Jelly, a red rose fresh weekly, my works, my laptop, privacy. I open the blog, and begin to read the words on the screen. I read thru the blog the first time fast, not taking it all in. Just getting the jist of it. The second time around, I can't help but be seduced by his words, and imagery. I read it slowly, sometimes reading aloud to myself imagining Shane telling me the story face to face, with a silver tongue. Since Shane lives on a different continent I substitute a rose for him.

His blogs never fails to give me the most intense cravings for Heroin, and the most intense sexual arousal my body will allow with a brain full of Methadone. After I've read the blog through and through, I can't help myself, I cook up the water, and get a shot of water ready to introduce into my veins, but before I inject I use the KY Jelly to masturbate, right after I come, I shoot up the water, and it almost feels like that heavenly rush of a nice shot of Heroin. No matter how dark the post, how much horror he tells about his past, or how funny. I always imagine Shane naked in his office naked, using his mom's bra as a tourniquet trying to find a vein when his boss pops in and finds him in such a perdiciment. This by far is my favorite blog of his.

Shane has three times as many readers as I do, and I totally understand why. His words are like the cum shot for a porno addict. I am in awe at how his mind works, and I don't even know the man. I never will know the man in real life, but in this cyber space on this voo doo screen Shane aka HeroinHead is my dildo.

* * * *

This post was written by Anna Grace over at 'I Hate My Face, I Hate This Place & I'm Strung Out Again'
Anna has long history of substance abuse and heroin addiction. She has recently just been released from prison and is currently keeping well with Methadone maintenance. She's an Angel, although a pretty fucking crazy one! She dreams of becoming a writer and looks forwrd to the day when she's back on smack. Go check her blog out.

A new HH post to follow...

Shane. x

Apology between Posts #7: Off the Wagon & onto the Horse

2010-04-19T15:22:00.006+02:00

It's not very easy to fall off the wagon and land on the horse, but I seem to have an inate ability at doing just that. In fact, I've even become quite good at it.

So my apology this time centres around the truth and that is I cannot type when my head is flat against my keyboard. All that ever produces is hundreds of pages of this:

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjnhhhhhhhhhhhkhjhjljljljljljljlè__èçàuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukkcxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx66666666664699999

And that's on a good night.

Still, there is a new post on the horizon, and with a bit of luck, the correct phones being switched off and the bank refusing me money, that should be with you sometime this evening.

Thanks for sticking with me...

All My Best Thoughts & Wishes, Shanddddddddjkkkmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnccccccccccccccccccccccccccccczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzmoijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjç

Tale of a Petty Thief

2010-04-04T03:34:00.005+02:00

My step-father was a bizarre person. He was a conman and a heavy drinke, a compulsive gambler and an ex-boxing champ. When I was 6 he left my mother for the arms of a man we only ever knew as 'The Ball Squeezer' and earned his money doing just that: dressing up as a school headmaster and squeezing the balls of his companion for £12 a session. During the remainder of my formative years he was in and out of police cells and courts, charged with everything from robbery to tax evasion, GBH and breach of the peace. Still, this was the man I called “Dad” and even with all his eccentricities and faults he was the most stable thing within miles.

With a nose that had been flattened and busted twelve times, a six inch chib mark running down the left side of his face, and both hands and arms daubed in prison tattoos, he was a young family’s hope... he was all we had. When my mother attempted suicide, or worse survived, it was him that would feed, clothe, and bathe us. But my stepfather was no ordinary man, he was a true eccentric. It was only as I grew older and looked back that I realised something crazy had blown through and coloured my life, and in turn, affected me in many subtle ways. Here is the story of The Man who gave me Wilde.

“God isn’t he ugly!” were my stepfather's words when he saw me for the first time raw and premature in the Royal Free Hospital. “He looks like a little old man!” Of course, I don’t remember him mouthing those words, but that story was repeated to me so often that it stands as my first false memory.

The next memory I have is of him holding me by the ankles and lowering me down into a tomb. “Thats death!” he’d say, peering in over my feet, “Can you see anything?” If he wasn’t holding me down graves or telling me hideous bedtime stories about ghouls, perverts, decapitations or diseases, he’d be inside doing the ironing in a dress. In summer he would spend his days sitting out on the dustbin in the front yard reading Orwell or Darwin and slurping away at huge cups of sugary tea. Every Sunday at 3 pm he would set a table up on the pavement and sit there alone wolfing down a full Sunday roast. More than once he was accused of indecent exposure. He was such a spectacle that the Estate Agents paid him to stay inside whilst they were around taking photo’s. It was the 1980’s and property prices in Fulham had shot through the roof. The last thing Foxtons wanted was a bald, semi-dressed gay man, with an exposed ballbag being the backdrop to 'an exquisite victorian maisonette.'

Besides many other things my step-father was also a fitness fanatic. More than any other man I have ever known he took an obsessive interest in his body, and the shape and contours of his muscles. Standing in front of the curtainless front windows he’d be lifting weights, squeezing his Bull Worker or doing star jumps. Whilst walking us to school he’d often drop to the floor and begin doing pressups. “One... Two... THREE..” we’d hear him blow. Passing under scaffold he’d invariably leap up and do 10 or 15 lift-ups, the veins in his neck pulsating and his face looking like it was about to explode. “I just love exercise,” he’d declare, “nothing feels better than the pain of a good work-out!”

My stepfather was also a ‘gleamer’. That meant he gleamed from the streets, picking up and dragging home anything which could be used. Many an evening and weekend he’d drag me along to help haul an old carpet or mattress back home. As he rummaged through skips I would constantly wander off, petrified that a school friend may pass and see me. But it was not just furnitures that he gleamed, it was gold and money too. Convinced he was in possession of magical powers he would dowse city maps with a ring on the end of a string, believing it would guide him to the city’s treasures. “Gold... gollld.. golllllld” he would repeat spookily with his eyes half closed as if in some kind of weird trance. Walking down the street he would suddenly do a U-turn and without a word and march derangedly back the direction we had just come from: “I’ve got that feeling!” he’d say “my toes are all tingling... I'm gonna find something!” And he did, he found a lot of stuff, but not because he was gifted or had any magical powers, but because he walked with his nose in the gutter seven hours a day, everyday. If a wallet or a note was dropped in West London, the chances are it would be him that would find it. He never saw the days he returned home empty-handed. But we did, and what's more, we felt them.

When my mother finally disappeared from the house for good we were left to his sole trust. Working nights in Soho he had no option but to lock us in the house from school and then go out and pray we’d still be there when he returned. Mostly we were, but on odd occasions he’d have to come and collect my brother, sister and I from the police cells. Finding a note stuck on the door he’d turn up at the station at 1am steaming drunk. Swaying and incoherent they’d chuck him in the cell too and then we’d all wait until he sobered up or until a neighbour arrived and acted as guardian. It was here that the Social Services were first introduced to the family. Initially my step-father despised them, but when he realised he was stable enough to keep us, yet unstable enough to receive their free Christmas and Easter hampers, he used them as he used everyone: to procure benefits or money to fund his gambling, social and drinking habits.

Though a heavy drinker (11 pints a night) my step-father was not an alcoholic. Ok, medically, statistically and practically he was, but in the sense that he had to drink, needed to to exist, no... he was not of that ilk. And unlike my mothers drinking his did not darken a generation or lead to multiple forms of abuse. My Stepfather was a happy drunk and more than anything he drunk to work.... he drunk 'Dutch courage”. And God, doing what he did he needed courage - anyone would. He was a con working the streets of Central London. That's how he put the bread on the table. These cons would involve multiple schemes and ploys, all designed to turn a tenner into a fifty or a pint into a wallet full of US dollars. And for every hustle there was a name:

The Trust Game: this involved working in pairs to befriend a tourist, get him drunk, and finally walk out the bar with his wallet full of cash. After a few drinks, one of the two men would demand the tourist’s wallet in a test of his “trust”. Taking the wallet he would leave the bar only to return seconds later celebrating the fact that he could have disappeared but didn’t. He would then have the punter count his cash and testify that it was all still there. Having had the wallet and now sure the client was worth the drinks they were supplying him they’d repeat the “trust” process a couple of times. Finally whoever was acting as ‘the runner’ would disappear with the wallet and not return. The other (the sitter) would wait with the punter until the police came and give a statement of what happened, claiming that he too had only just met the thief.

Swicking: Pschological trick to get change of a larger note when paying with a smaller one. This would involve buying a round of drinks and offering up a £50 in payment. Every time the barman goes to fetch the order my stepfather would suddenly ask for something else, ALWAYS with the £50 held up like a name card. When convinced the barman has registered the fifty note, it would then be swapped (swicked) for a tenner. More often than not change would be given for the fifty. My stepfather was infamous for this little scam and known and barred from all but three West End bars for it.

Tipping: Loitering around betting shops pretending to have insider knowledge on a trainer/horse. My step father would choose the horse most likely to lose, but convince a punter that he had inside info and the horse had been trained up for the race. He would find someone willing to wager £20 on it and would take their money but only wager a bet for £2. On the carbon copy receipt he'd add a nought and give it to the punter. As the race started he would then sneak out the betting shop just in case the horse romped home... which happened many times.

Pressure Dealing: Selling bum gear to drug users. Either hash that was made from ingredients at home or amphetamine that was baking powder, my father would set up a small drug deal. Supplying a little genuine stuff as a taster he’d conclude the deal with his home made recipes. On the point of handover he’d suddenly scream “Fuck, there’s the police!!! Stash that and get away!!” By the time the buyer had a chance to eye his wrap it was too late. Unfortunately my stepfather came unstuck twice with this hustle. The first time it nearly cost him his life and the second time his freedom.

Rolling: Posing as a homosexual, and then robbing the client either before or during the act. (Sometimes it was old-fashioned Sex for Money with no ‘rolling’ involved.)

Picking: Classic game of trying to remove jewelery or wallets without being detected.

Collecting: Travelling the subway and unblocking the ‘returned coins’ slot of vending machines which had been blocked days in advance.

These cons would start off at 3pm and go on until last orders were called. There was a little team of seven or eight and they all worked together. At the end of the night they’d meet up and pool, then divide the earnings. My real father was also a part of this little crowd, but because of his heroin problem he was not much liked and even less trusted. In absence of being arrested my step dad would fall in the front door and crawl the stairs between midnight and 1am. Reeking of beer and with sweet and sour sauce dripping from his chin he’d wake us up relating the stories of how he had got the money and/or jewellery that was sprawled out on the floor. I enjoyed these tales and literally hung off his every word and description. But mostly I enjoyed hearing about the fights... how my stepfather had fought himself free or knocked justice into one of the crooked crooks. He once told me that he had lifted a man off his feet with an uppercut and then hit him 21 times before he came back down!

But although often involved in altercations he was not domestically violent and only beat me on a handful of occasions and my mother a little more. More than his “love” & “hate” tattooed fists, it was his voice that instilled fear into us. It was the same voice I had heard when he screamed at Mr Evans and then threatened to pull away the jack from under the car if he didn’t remove himself and take the punches that were banked for him. He had a very definite way to let people know that anger had curled his hand into a fist and if they didn’t relent would soon be involuntarily punching away at their face. In every way my stepfather was full of confidence and very often this manifested itself in very weird ways.

With 40 odd years of unquestioned authority behind him he seemed to have acquired a very peculiar and particular notion of self image. He was extremely vain, but not the type of vanity where he was in the least concerned with public opinion. His was a different kind of self-consciousness, a perverse vanity that played to his fantasy of who and what he was. With absolutely no fashion conscience and solely interested in a garments comfort or practicality he would adapt and wear them to his own needs and desires. But not in any sane way. Rather he would tear the arms of his shirt as he queued to buy it, or roll up his trouser legs to the knee. He’d pull the silk lining out of expensive jackets because it made them “too small and constrictive”. In summer he’d cut the toes out his shoes and walk about with his thick yellow feet poking out the top. And it wasn’t just his clothes he’d do that to. I remember being sent to school in a pair of football boots with the plastic studs sawn off: “They’ll do...” he said “No-one will ever know”. Of course the world knew. We were eight year old kids with heads full of football results and the latest trainers. These weren’t even Adidas football boots, but some dodgy German rip-off with about eighteen stripes! And my excuse: “Oh there just to play football in!” didn’t cut the ice, because with no grip I could barely walk without falling, skidding or sliding like a new born deer. That they were also 3 sizes too big and shaped like pre-EU banana’s just added to the misery. I think it was the only day of my youth that I actually sat still.

But my stepfather was not a mean man, and though on multiple occasions I died with embarrassment in his presence, I would in time learn to respect him and even admire him for the way he was and what he indirectly passed on to me. He was crazy, but he was not insane and his eccentricities were not unhealthy ones. He just did not come from a normal mould and had survived, formed and shaped himself.

At the same time he was the hardest, cleverest most stupid man I had ever known. He read Darwin but got it all wrong.... attributed quotes to Conan Doyle when they were from Lewis Carrol. He would surmise and give political solutions to problems after reading just half a paragraph on a subject, and in his life he would pass himself off as a gangster, writer, poet, artist, sociologist, anthropologist, antique dealer, chef, lawyer and professor. In truth he was a little of all those things without ever genuinely being either one. He was a composite of many great parts, but he was not a great man. He was a petty thief and called upon certain characteristics or knowledge in an attempt to wheedle a few quid out of someone’s pocket. He learnt that a literary bore will be more likely to buy you a drink if you can at least listen to his ramblings and stay awake... that another criminal will help you out a tight spot if you show you “know the game.” Instead all these great parts merged and resulted in a man walking around the streets pushing a shopping trolley full of scrap metal. In the summer he done this in his pants, in winter donning a womans fur coat. But it was all those parts that were to fire me into action.... that would push me on the hunt for knowledge myself.

My natural reverence and competition to my father (step), my desire/need to better him, prove his arguments wrong, would lead me into libraries, bookshops and places of learning. In that sense he has only ever had an influence on my intellectual life, and is the only person from my upbringing without the slightest connection to my drug life.

If I started reading Oscar Wilde at 13 it was to understand what it was he was chortling away to. If I then moved on to Orwell and then Dostoevsky it was to argue these books out with him. When I got into politics it was just to outsmart him, to have him back down in the face of real knowledge... to collapse at the realisation of his own shortcomings. Of course he never did... he never felt inferior to anyone. In 1997 he defended himself in West London’s Magistrates Court against attempted robbery charges and stood rattling in front of the judge as though he were a top flight lawyer. He pranced and strutted around the courtroom with all the gestes, pauses and smiles... pulling up thousands of contradictions in the prosecutors claims. And he’d probably have gotten off with it, had he not done it all bare chested and with a neck strung with thick gold chains. But that was him. He felt superior inside... and not just superior, more clever... smarter. He could not be taught, he could not be lectured. He knew it all and more and in no way could he be drank under the table.

With this realisation I no longer tried to bring him down. Instead I sat in silence as he unleashed mouthfuls of ignorance, admiring his prose yet inwardly snorting and smirking at the ludicrous things he was saying. And it was there that I realised he did have one great ability and one that I would never have: he had the ability to sound like he knew what he was talking about... to have you believe that he was a true authority on his subject. In that sense he was a genius and it is probably the reason he was such a successful conman: As for impressing him I never did. The closest I got was when I returned from a weeks school holiday and told him I had fallen in love with another boy. And for 5 minutes he was impressed and for a little less he even believed that maybe, after all, I really was his son.

Now, 2010, he is in his 67th year. He’s stopped hustling the streets and now does it on ebay with first edition books and antiques. But these days I have very little to do with him. Since my best friend Ewan died in his house 10 years ago we lost contact and never really regained it. Soon after he moved out as he felt ‘The Spirit of Death’ was somehow then a part of the place. He also threw me out as a possible prevention against having to find me like that next. He is completely aware of and comfortable with my heroin addiction yet he is very distanced from it. He sees that as too much a reminder of my mother and more, my real father and his one time friend. In a sense I am his living nightmare, a constant reminder of his impotence where women are concerned, a definite confirmation of his lack of real masculinity.

Of the three kids my mother doesn’t attribute any 100% to him. She says my sister probably is his (or Scotch Peter’s) and my brother, well... he’s just a mystery. It was reported that at his birth she asked “What colour is he?” But my stepfather can play blind to these queries and if he doesn't look too deeply he has two certain offspring's. But with me it’s different. Since the age of 8 it was out and in the open that I was not “his” and so looking at me he sees all that I am not. But the truth is I am more him than any of my siblings... I have more of him in me than he’ll ever know. His influence has been great and positive and pushing, but it has never been daunting or dark. I only ever celebrate him and take pride in those traits that he has passed onto me. He’s another hero, and along with two dead drunks is the third poet in my life. Without him I would have no Wilde, no Orwell, Steinbeck or Dostoevsky. Without his stories and descriptions I would surely never have taken a love for words and literature or celebrated all the things that were not worth celebrating. And without that, and without the words I use to recall them, I’d have only heroin and an early death to keep me amused. And if that were the future then it would be so very dismally bleak. No, he may not be my biological father but the fact remains and is indisputable: without him I’d never have been born.

My Love, Thoughts & Wishes to All

Shane. X

The Fairytale of a Modern Day Pen-Pusher

2010-03-22T16:44:00.010+01:00

.
When my manager sidled over to the director and muttered “...and he’s wearing a bra!” I knew I had lost my job. Bare-chested and smeared with blood I reclined in my office chair staring at my inbox as emails filtered through about despatch errors. On my desk besides me was a blackened spoon and a needle...a bra was hanging off my arm which I had used as a tourniquet. In pulling on a classic Burlington sock over a stabbed and needle marked foot I made a small attempt of gaining a modicum of self-respect. For some reason sitting there with only one sock on and a dirty foot was humiliating. GG entered the office with his director, both standing and looking down on me like the twin towers on the verge of collapse.

“We’ll need the keys, please Shane.”
“..and his phone,” said the director, no longer looking at me but out the window at a pile of rotting broken pallets. “We’ll contact you... Oh, and there’s also huge discrepancies in the accounts.”
“Yeah, I see where this is going,” I said, buttoning closed my shirt, “as long as I’m paid I don’t give a fuck. I’m suspended yeah? That’s the procedure, suspended on full pay?”
“Well, yes.. until you hear from us.”
“I’ll be contesting ANY decision, so just as long as I’m paid it’s no problem.”
“You’ll be paid. Now get dressed and leave before we call the police.” Then GG whispered something to the other tower who just shook his head and closed his eyes as if he just wanted that plane to hit him.
“Can I make one call before I leave?” I asked “It’s to my solicitor... I think I’ll be needing him.”
“Yes, but be quick,” GG said bluntly “You shouldn’t be here!”
Of course I had no solicitor, but I needed someone to bail me out and so I dialled one of the 20 or so eleven digit numbers I had relegated to memory.
“Trooper it’s me... are you about? I’ll be around soon... I want 3 and 3*.”
“Um's good. Phone me when you at Allieds. Laters”
“Ok, Laters T!”

And with that I half-slipped into my shoes and left as quickly as possible terrified that I might miss my meet. Well, that meeting with my most ancient heroin dealer led to a separate spate of bizarre happenings, but here I will stick to the former and how on Tuesday 25th January 2005 at 13h36 I was busted shooting heroin in my mothers bra. For that I need to take you back to the start...

The Start: November 2003

“Hmm, LEVENE, so you’re Jewish....one of The Tribe? Hmm. Well I’m not promising anything... I can’t you understand? It’s really not down to me, but I’ve a pretty hefty pull in such things, hmm.” GG said shaking my hand in both of his. “Oh, and could I borrow this?” he asked, holding up a copy of Tony Benn’s latest memoirs.

“Yeah, take it. If you’ll only excuse the cigarette burns in the cover.” I replied, glad he’d seen it as I’d left it laying around specifically for his piggish eyes. Flicking through it at home he’d also discover a book mark from some North London Synagogue or other. Not that I’m Jewish; I’m not. I’m less Jewish than Saddam Hussein, but I needed the job, especially on £30,000 per year, company car and bonus. I escorted GG downstairs and watched him waddle over to his car. He strapped himself in, gave me a wide thin grin and then pulled away the car wobbling off the premises in the same manner as his large fat arse.

One week later, sufficiently doped up and with my sidelocks twisted into ringlets, I signed my new contract in front of GG and his director Mr. West.
“Well Shane, we’ve decided to take a chance and trust you. However, we do have one major reservation: you’ve never been in control of a budget before. So for the first 6 months all expenditure will be passed through GG. He will “Ok” them, and sign off all the invoices before sending them to accounts. But no, erhm yes, I think we’ve put a good man at the helm,” said Mr West, looking at GG for reassurance. And with that and one last “hmm” from GG I left with my new contract, 2 vans, the keys to a London warehouse and an annual budget of £750,000. In effect, I left with a huge amount of trouble. They might as well have given me the keys to the prison... It would have saved time.

I first officially opened the warehouse as manager two days later. I travelled in early and read through the company mails detailing my position, the role I was to play and the expectations they had of me. At 7am my colleagues/staff arrived. At 9 the phone was constantly ringing, and by lunchtime I’d received two enquiries about pay increases, had one boy go down with an epileptic fit, had a worker pull a knife on another, and felt the tremors when a 40ft lorry backed into the warehouse knocking all the downstairs windows through. And it never stopped... not for one moment. Whatever force had blown me into the managers chair was also wafting its curse all over the place. It was a strange mix of atrocious bad luck, bizarre occurrences, comical tragedy and shambolic paperwork. But I never lost direction, and my main agenda was to lessen peoples hours and physical exertions while simultaneously cutting costs and reorganising working procedures. “It will be like no other warehouse in the country,” I promised Samir. Then I gave him permission to have each Friday afternoon off to visit the mosque and he realised that I was quite unlike any kind of manager he had ever known.

And Samir wasn’t the only one to benefit; we all would. To most I gave free holidays, another the company car I couldn’t drive, another the van to use as he liked. Iuriy (recently evicted from his home) was given the warehouse keys and so lived there, and I also cut an hour off every working day and extended the breaks. Having stopped the need for most overtime we kept that to ourselves and I still marked down the workers with 20 or 30 supplementary hours per month. I raised as many salaries as I could. But it was all fine, offset by the savings that I made. In the first six months warehouse costs had been cut by £60,000. Everyone was delighted, not least my directors, who celebrated me and started inviting me down to board room meetings and business lunches. I was handed control of the budget and total freedom to negotiate all contracts and employment concerning the warehouse. Other warehouse managers from around the country were sent down to see what I was doing, and though at first slightly dumbfounded because of my appearance and attitude, they all left with a feeling that I was really treading new ground and taking management onto a new level with fresh ideas. I was, and it was a fresh idea that would be the start of the end. An idea that would involve me employing two non-existent South Africans, hiring my AWOL girlfriend as secretary and setting up a company that I subcontracted the toilet cleaning and lightbulb changing out to. It was an idea that at first was to get me through a hard month, and then as I got more and more used to the extra money something which I couldn’t stop and eventually relied upon. And not just me. The money was also keeping my mother and stepfather in a healthy supply of crack cocaine, and when the pyramid of cards eventually fell, my family would split into three.

Of course during this period I was right in the midst of a huge heroin and crack cocaine addiction myself. It had been that way for almost 3 years. I had joined the company as a box-packer after being paid off from my previous company when they found syringes in my bag. It wasn’t easy at first, the days were long and come finishing time I’d be snivelling and in the early stages of withdrawal. But as I gained more responsibility, and with it more freedom, it arrived that I could find reason to disappear for 15 or 20 minutes and slink off to the toilets and fix up. There was no suspicion. I was clean, happy, always first in and last out. I was never absent and always clear minded. I learnt every aspect of the business and took on extra responsibility unpaid. But it wasn’t for fun that I done those things, it was for the freedom. After a year I was promoted to supervisor which gave me the liberty to disappear at will. Being made manager just made life as a working addict even easier. I had the sole key to the spare toilet and would turn off the phones and lock myself in there for 30 minutes at a time, stripped naked and jabbing for working veins in the cubicle. As time passed and my veins began to seriously collapse, fixing became horrendously difficult. By the time I eventually left London it was taking on average two full hours to hit a vein. I would start in the toilets and after 45 mins reallocate to my office where I’d hang a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. Being unsuccessful I’d turn the phones on for five minutes, answer any urgent mails, and show my face in the warehouse. Then it was back to the toilet/office... toilet/office, until I finally managed to hit a vein. Once whilst cooking up a hit in the toilet one of the temporary staff entered shouting my name: “I’ll be with you in a minute!” I cursed.
“Yeah,OK!” He huffed. Two weeks later and after days of him coming in to work at any hour he pleased (if at all) he tried to blackmail me. I had called him upstairs to discipline him with a warning and it was just what he had been waiting for:

“Are you sure you want to give me that?” he asked, throwing the warning letter on the floor. “You was cooking up heroin in the toilets the other week!”
“Heroin? Are you crazy? Heroin??? What are you talking about!”
“I know! I know the smell. I’m not stupid. The other day when i came in the toilets I smelled heroin, you was in there cooking up. My brother does the same! Not only do I not want the warning I want a full-time job, AND be made supervisor. If not, well...”

Well, I was knocked off balance for a moment and in one instance I considered admiting it all and trying to come to some arrangement, but I knew it wasn’t possible. I had someone in front of me with a huge chip on his shoulder and who had already tried to use this to get his own way. And so rather than give in I stood tough and bluffed it out to the hilt. I went into managerial mode.

“What you’re saying is very, very serious and if you believe what you say to be true then you have a duty to report that to my superiors. I will give you my managers name and details and also the main directors and you can put an official complaint down. Though the dilemma is this: if you do decide to do that I’ll have no choice but to ask the agency to replace you as we cannot work together with disciplinary action between us. Now what’s it to be?”
“You can’t suspend my contract! It’s illegal... I’ve rights!”
“Yes, you’ve rights with your agency but not here. You’ve no contract with us and I can end your presence here without notice or justification. It is then up to your agency to find you other work.”
“Give me your fucking manager's name and details... I’m telling!I’m not taking this shit!” And with that he left, but not before making a tour of the warehouse screaming: “Shane’s a junkie! I caught him shooting up in the toilets!” Of course it was so unbelievable that no-one took any notice, though it did stick in peoples minds and a year or so later when I was finally booted out it all made a little more sense.

A complaint was duly filed and I responded with utter amazement refuting the accusations and almost laughing with my director as he read it out to me. After I told my director the lorry driver had also been accused of trafficking drugs in from Bulgaria, my director waved him off as some kind of confused and fantastic nut, dreaming up stories of drug traffic and usage. My refutation was passed back to Jamel, and we never heard anything else. But it was out. My life was overflowing into my work and for anyone with a sharp eye towards drug abuse it was evident.

“Where are all the fucking spoons!” I’d here the workers cry at tea-break, “They’ve all gone again!” or “Shane, I think the lorry drivers a junkie... there’s an empty syringe packet out here!”
“Fuck,” I’d say, “keep a good eye on him boys and don’t let him in the warehouse alone!” One evening I left at 6pm and laying in my bed at midnight I suddenly thought: “Did I clear my box of needles away after my ‘leaving fix’?” This was serious. The cleaner came in every morning at 5am and my office was one of the rooms she was contracted to clean. After an hours dilemma I decided I couldn’t risk it and took a 1am taxi ride into work. Lucky I did, as opening my office door the box was sitting opened on my chair with over 200 used and dirty needles poking from and through it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” It was all getting very lapse, very open and very hot.

More often than not when my colleagues came to see me they’d have to nudge me awake. “Shane, are you ok???”
“Oh, just tired... was burning the midnight oil. We’re very busy at the moment”But no matter what I seemed to do noone ever thought of drugs. Meanwhile the warehouse was still running extremely efficiently and my name was more celebrated than ever.

What were once 45 minute imaginary meetings now escalated into two hour long conferences. I’d open the phone lines so they rung engaged, hang the “Do NOT disturb sign” on the office door and then strip down naked in my office probing for veins. Occasionally, if my director mailed, I’d answer that, just to show I was still there and still alive. But my colleagues were becoming frustrated. They had work to do, and very often they needed my advise. I would hear their footsteps come halfway up the stairs and then hear them descend and blowing to the waiting crowd, “No, he’s still in conference!” Once, my supervisor ignored all warnings and burst in the office anyhow. On two scores I was lucky. Firstly my pants were still on and the syringe was in a small vein in my wrist, and secondly he tried to enter by the locked door first, giving me just enough time to gather my wits and hatch an impulsive plan. .

“Yes, it was confirmed today,” I said tearily into the phone, “Mum’s got bowel cancer.” I lookd up at Marius and when he made to leave I lowered the phone against my chest and said, “There’s no need. What do you want?” He pointed to an old pile of despatch notes on my desk and I nodded him permission to take them. As he walked around to get them I could feel the syringe dangling perilously from my wrist and just prayed that it wouldn’t slide out and fall on the floor. With Marius gone I finished up and then reopened the business. In future I’d have to be more careful, I thought... much more careful.

The trouble is that once you acquire the confidence of getting away with something you eventually forget you are getting away with anything. And no matter how hard you try, you become more cocksure and ever more lax. And each time you bluff it out, it just makes you think how easy it is... how stupid people are, and that makes you go even further. And like many an idiot before me that is what I done. I thought I was invincible and at the point where I should have quit and left with my winnings I stayed and tripled the stakes.

I was now 10 months into my job and apart from a few minor hiccups was still flying high. The third quarterly budget showed savings in excess of £80,000, overtime had been cut by two thirds and morale was high. However, there was one concern: the burgeoning petrol costs for the vans. This I explained away by saying we had begun running our own deliveries and pick-ups rather than using expensive courier services. We had, but it was not account books or exam results that the vans were picking up and delivering: it was heroin and crack cocaine. In order to get gear into work I had friends and family score for me and when they phoned to say “all’s good” I’d send one of the drivers down to collect it. In a book sized box would be heroin and crack, clean needles and vitamin C. It would carry some phoney address and ‘IMPORTANT’ scrawled across it. Sometimes both drivers would be off at the same time collecting these boxes and then jumping red lights to be back in the warehouse before the post left. Very often when friends had trouble scoring I’d have to leave work and go to buy myself. In these instances I’d have a driver take me to Shepherds Bush and then park up while I disappeared. If they were suspicious they kept it to themselves, but I sincerely do not think they were suspicious... it was a world too far, yet so close to their existence for them to ever entertain such an idea.

It was immediately after the 2004 audit that I first got a whiff that certain persons in the company were beginning to scrutinize warehouse operations. The audit was all in order, but the final quarterly budget, although confirming huge savings also showed up some abnormal expenditure and rising costs... especially in “temporary staff”. According to the books I had employed three agency staff for 11 months solid. That wasn’t the problem though, the question first raised was: “Why employ three agency staff for a year when you could have employed five permanent staff for the same amount?” Still, I talked my way out of that one and was just relieved that no-one asked to actually see these “temps” as only one existed, and she was in France, suicidal and not talking to me. That was January and as I faxed the time sheets through to the agency I promised myself: “This is the LAST time... it really has to stop.”

I remember the day well. It had been snowing and the 15 minute walk from the underground to the warehouse was an arduous journey. London whistled out a barrier of wind that froze through the cold and penetrated the bones. The gale was so ferocious that walking up hill it was almost impossible to breath and one had to turn around to catch ones breath. The freeze stung the face and ears and then ran cold out the eyes. Though the weather records don’t support this, it was the coldest day there had ever been. My fingers were so frozen that I had trouble opening the padlock to the large galvanized security gate and even more trouble fingring the code for the alarm. After warming myself up I turned on the computer, opened my mail and began running orders off the printer. One email was from the director of accounts and was red-flagged with importance.

From: Accounts@xxx.com
To: Shanelevene@xxx.com
Subject: Budget Analysis/Query

Shane,
There are some abnormalities with certain warehouse expenditure and we would like to meet and clear this matter up as soon as possible. Therefore we request your attendance in a fourway meeting to discuss this. Besides myself, GG & Mr Pennington will be in attendance. Please confirm that you are available and will be attending.

Kind Regards

Rachel Simmons

“Fuck, that sounds serious!” I thought. And though a thousand things crossed my mind, and though I knew I had been busted, I convinced myself otherwise, reckoning: “no, if it was that they’d sack me immediately... they certainly wouldn’t warn me and leave me still sitting in charge of operations”. One other final thing that convinced me otherwise was a second mail that I opened from the main shareholder of the business. It was a company wide mail raving on about the wonderful work I had been doing and how I should serve as an inspiration to all. That mail would be one of his last, as in response to the stupidity he felt when I was finally revealed he had no option but to swallow the cum and resign.

January was always a traditionally slow period for the company so we were working lates. At 9 am staff arrived as usual. Iuriy, our main driver came straight to the office and closed the door behind him. This was the same Iuriy who I had let live in the warehouse for three months and had also illegally employed his son for a small period when he had first moved to England from Bulgaria.

“Shane... there was yesterday a big meeting talking about the warehouse. Did you know about that? GG asked me some questions yesterday afternoon and asked me not to let you know, but what to do? What to do??? I’m telling you... don’t forget that.”

“A meeting???” I repeated agape, “no, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me. I won’t forget, you know that. Oh, and here...” I sat down at my computer and quickly typed of a letter giving Iuriy a £1000 annual payrise. “And you, don’t forget that,” I said, signing and giving him the letter. As Iuriy skipped down the stairs his keys jangling and whistling, I looked around the office and cried. The place had became corrupted, and the saddest song in the world was drifting up the stairs.

It was during lunchtime that I closed my office door, unwrapped my dope and cooked up a fix in my office draw. Outside the winds had calmed but the snow was still petalling down and staring out for long enough it seemed almost like an hallucination. Sucking up a needle full of smack I rolled up my trouser legs, removed my shoes and sock and started jabbing for veins. With no luck I took off my jumper and shirt, feeling softly all over my arms for any springy tissue that often means a concealed vein. As the time passed and as each attempt proved fruitless I became bloodier and bloodier. I would try wiping it away but it just smeared and bled more and so I just left it. At some point I went into my bag and removed my tourniquet. It was actually one of my mother's old bras which she had given me because she was tired of me using her scarfs and tights and towels. The bra with it’s elasticated band worked pretty well and I strapped it around my left bicep and began tensing and flexing my hand in an attempt to raise the dead.

I did not hear the car pull into the forecourt, nor the footsteps coming up the stairs. I do not remember what vein I eventually hit, but I did hit one as when the door opened I was in heroin slumber with the very top of my head almost flush on top of my keyboard. At first I saw just a pair of polished shoes and black trousers and thought it was the police, but as I jolted to a start and reclined back into full vision it was the cold rubberish face of GG that I saw. He was peering in at me like a doctor announcing the time of death.

“Err Gabriel...” I said. That’s all I said... nothing else would come and I suppose there was really nothing more to say. Sometimes the situation says it all. Caught in the toilets with a porn mag and your dick in your hand... what more can words explain? And when the eye sees the truth, not even a conniving junkie can wriggle his way free. And that was my situation.... worse, because although being caught wanking is very embarrassing it does not amount to gross misconduct and so theoretically once you’ve pulled your pants up you can go back to work. That option wasn’t available to me... or was it??? Ok, I’d been caught half naked and fixing up heroin, but this was Gabriel, ...alone. Fellow Jew... always supported me... gave me the job and wouldn’t want this embarrassment leaking out??? Hmm, my thoughts started to clear. That’s when Mr Pennington stepped in holding my ‘Do NOT disturb sign’ up to GG before balling and dropping it into the bin. “A word please Gabriel... outside.” was all he said.

Sitting alone I was mortified. And though a million thoughts and worries should have been passing through my head they didn’t, I was almost completely blank. Instead I laid back in my chair and stared at my inbox withholding a sad impulse to open and respond to my new mails: ‘Despatch error 069875’... ‘Despatch error 102875... Despatch error...

And that as it, and I knew it. There was no escape, no worming my way out. These were serious people with serious glares and even if sometimes their hardness crumpled in the face of historic blood ties, they didn’t get to be driving Mercedes and wearing solid gold watches for nothing. Their hearts cannot be melted with doe eyes or sob stories... they cannot be penetrated by everyday emotions. They only card I had left to play was of no use. And it was in that thought that I looked down at my bare and stabbed and dirty foot and felt myself shrinking in humiliation. Not only was I only half their size sitting in my chair, but I was totally exposed. Because that foot, the marks and the tracks down it’s inner and across it’s upper. The jammy dirt that covered and blackened my sole, the picked and cut skin on the heel, and the weeks old blood dry and flaky on my ankle, it revealed another soul.... gave away the secrets of a life that I was covering with clean ironed shirts and sleek Burlington socks.

Of course, that humiliation didn’t last long, something more pressing entered the agenda: my need to score, and how to arrange that with no phone and two ‘would-be’ policemen towering above me. Well, once again addiction has no shame or face and when desperation stakes are low you fall with it and abandon yourself to that level. And so I made some pleading excuse to get the company phone in my hands and with no care if GG or Mr. Pennington understood what I was really doing or not I openly arranged to score. Then I felt better and looking up from the wreckage I suddenly saw the light and had my own good reason to leave. “Well if we’re done here I’ll be going?” I motioned.

And like many a junkie before me I left hurriedly dressing on the move. I was still trying to tuck my shirt in and fit into my shoes as I hit the air and snow and was buttoning up my jacket and pulling the collar around my neck as I walked at double pace out the industrial estate and towards the underground station. And every twenty strides or so, or when the vile winds let up enough I’d slip my wrist an inch out my pocket and eye my watch. “Fuck, I'll never make it!” I cursed “unless the tube is straight there and then I get a bus immediately. Yeah, that could work... or a cab. Could be... could very well be. Straight down the A40 and I’m there ...20 mins max. Just hope the snow hasn’t blocked the route!” And I passed the walk like that, making rash and improbable calculations on how I could possibly get back home to score quicker than was physically possible.

And as the cab pulled out and cut across three lanes of beeping traffic and then passed through one red light then another, I knew I had the correct driver... that hell was postponed for at least another day. And as I gave him a 20 pound note for a £12 fare I made my way hurriedly down the road and of to the phone box across from Allieds. And as I dialled the number and waited anxiously through each ring I looked up at the falling snow and started reciting the Junkies Prayer: “Answer the phone T... just please, please, PLEASE answer the fucking phone! ”

Take Care Everyone & I hope you enjoyed...

Until next time, All My Best Thoughts...

Shane. x

Apologies between Posts #6: Obsessions by Joseph Mills

2010-03-19T13:58:00.001+01:00

Joseph Mills - Obsessions

Hiya Everyone, maybe it would be more accurate to say "post between apologies" but this one isn't about me (or my fault!). The latest delay in posting I lay at the feet of Joseph Mills and his wonderful book 'OBSESSIONS'. Here's a little about him and links to his site and works:

Joseph Mills is the author of the highly praised novel Towards the End and his short stories have been published in several anthologies, including The Ten Commandments, The Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories, and The Picador Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction. He has also contributed to various magazines among them Gay Times and Queer Words. He lives and works in Glasgow.

Joseph Mills is also a regular reader and contributer of this blog and probably without him ever realising it he brought a whole new audience here with his comments on Dennis Cooper's blog.

In return I thank him tremendously for that, and outside any friendship or personal feelings I recommend and urge that you ALL click on the links and buy his books... multiple times if you like!

Anyway, here's the links again and there will also be a permanent one in the sidebar:

Josph Mills Site

Joseph Mills - Obsessions

Joseph Mills - Towards the End

Oh, and before I forget...

...a new Heroinhead post will follow shortly, maybe even tomorrow...

All My Best, Shane. x

I have not been paid or asked to write this post. Memoires of a Heroinhead remains an advert free space, though I will ALWAYS break my principles for the correct person or cause.

The Cyclops - A Reoccurring Dream...

2010-03-07T22:47:00.001+01:00

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where I am shot in the head after witnessing a bank robbery, and for a few seconds, just before my eyes close to the big blackout, life suddenly seems worth living and fighting for.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where a gun is pressed so hard between my eyes that even firing a bullet now seems horrendously cruel. The one where I see the joint of the forefinger turn white as it pulls back on the trigger and then two men running off into the distance. The one where ambulance sirens are too far away.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. That one where I am fighting with all my might to survive each second. Where any bit of strength I have is taken away with the knowledge that a bullet has been shot at point blank range into my skull and that I cannot possibly survive. That dream where I had stared a millisecond too long at one of the gunmen and had turned from a shell shocked onlooker into a prospective witness.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. The one where I want to say: “I won’t tell a soul! Can’t you tell that from my eyes? I’m on your side!” The one where thick blood already congealed oozes from a hole between my eyes. The one where I leave my being, watch my own dying and then reunite for death. That dream where fear and panic are paralyzed and silent in a tormented body.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where my mother looks in horror at her executed and dying son and then shouts “You’ve ruined my fucking day!” The one where I become a dead witness to two crimes. The one where I am cordoned off by the crowd who stand in for blue and white police tape.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. The one where I am helpless and in my final moments noone still moves in to offer up help or comfort. The one where I end like a beggar laying spent upon the sidewalk. The one where fate and instinct turns a stroll up the Highstreet into something very ominous and sinister. That dream which seems so real and so realisable.

Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where I am turned into The Cyclops. The one where I realise you can smell in dreams. The one where the cries of seagulls carry me free from the pain.

Last night I had that reoccurring dream... tonight I will dream that dream again....

Hope you’re all well... My apologies for the wait and a proper HH post will follow very shortly...

Until then...

My Thoughts & Wishes to All,

Shane. x

Dennis Nilsen, Gay Porn, Two Bullets & a Book

2010-01-10T07:38:00.006+01:00

My thoughts on The man who murdered my father, his possible release and the suppression of the publication of his autobiography.

During Dennis Nilsen’s 1983 trial it is said that my grandmother made the travel from Motherwell down to London with a loaded gun. Her intention was to shoot Nilsen dead in the witness box. So the story goes, she was refused admission to the court as it was packed out and she could not definitively prove her identity. Outside alone, with London biting into her neck, she walked along from the court, down Black Friars to Victoria Embankment and fired two shots into the Thames. One was for Nilsen and the other was for my mother. As she held Nilsen responsible for the murder of her son, so she held my mother guilty of leading him there. As my Grandmother said in print: she was [my mother] “A southern girl, with southern morals.”

Whether there is any truth in that tale I sincerely doubt. My mother told it to me after a bottle or two of Russian Perrier. She also took enormous gratification in being the intended rest home of bullet No.2 and the fact that my grandmothers dislike for her was finally out in public and equalled her loathing of Nilsen. The story was never verified by my grandmother, I’ve never met her, but even if it is fiction, it still shows some of the hatred that existed for Nilsen around the country and especially amongst the few family members of victims which were found.

It’s now 27 years since Nilsen was sentenced and had his crimes hammered down into the history books of crime and justice. It is 27 years that have seen my grandmother die, my mother live and me left straddled somewhere in between. But it is two years longer than the 25 year life term that the trial judge set for Nilsen, and in theory that means that at any moment Nilsen could be released from prison.... could be ringing up the receipt as my mother passes tomatoes down the conveyor belt in Sainsbury’s. Many people have asked me what I think of that? How do I feel about Nilsen, his possible release, his demands for “gay porn” and his autobiography (“The History of a Drowning Boy”) which has been denied permission to be published. In this post I will try and answer those questions.

Before I go any further, and for those of you not so well briefed in this affair, here is a concise and probably inexact history of Nilsen since his arrest in 1983:

February 9th 1983 : Dennis Andrew Nilsen is arrested after human remains are discovered in his North London Flat..

February 11th 1983 : Nilsen admits to killing at least 14 young men and rattles of a startling confession which lasts in excess of 30 hours.

Early 1983 : After an initial hearing he is remanded in custody to Brixton Prison awaiting
trial at London's Old Bailey.

October 24th 1983 :The trial begins. Nilsen pleads "Not Guilty" to each of the charges.

November 3rd 1983 : The jury retires to consider it’s verdict.

November 4th 1983 : With 2 dissenters on each of Nilsen’s charges, the judge announces that he would accept a majority count. At 4:25, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts with a 10-2 majority. The judge sentenced Nilsen to life imprisonment and specified he should not be eligible for parole for 25 years. He is taken to Wormwood Scrubs prison in West London. Nilsen was 37 years old.

1984: Transferred to Wakefield prison in Yorkshire.

1993: Nilsen is moved to Whitemoor Top Security Prison. Gives a televised interview from jail.

2001: Refused permission to receive an art book and male pornography into his possession. His appeal to the court of human rights ends in failure.

2001: The manuscript draft of his autobiography ‘The History of a Drowning Boy’ was seized by prison authorities.

2003: Nilsen brings a judicial review over a decision not to allow him to publish his book. He is still awaiting an appeal on this decision at the European Court of Human Rights

Since his sentence Nilsen has served in eight different prisons and is currently held at HM Full Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire... his autobiography still hangs in limbo. He is now 65 years old.

* * * * *

When I’ve spoken about Nilsen in the past it was rarely ever from my own personal viewpoint. I always done so with the consideration of my mother’s feelings and saying the things that would least upset her. I did and do not want her having to relive anything of that crime again... I would not want her to hurt or suffer any more than she already has. But my mother is not online and so here I will give my views... my thinking on the man that strangled, drowned, dismembered and boiled my father. Many of you will not be able to understand these views, even less will share them. Some will think it’s all a front. It’s not, these are my honest feelings and I can only type what I feel, nothing else is possible.

The first thing I will say is that I do not hate Dennis Nilsen. More than that I hold no ill will towards him. I neither blame him nor the murder for my mothers alcoholism nor for the broken childhood I endured and I certainly don’t hold him guilty for my ongoing addiction to heroin. Yes, these things are all interlinked, but in that sense the world is connected to the world... blame never really resolves anything. But although I do not hate the man, I certainly cannot say I like him. I do not know him. Yet in a bizarre way I admire Nilsen as I admire artists and poets.When you read what he has to say of the killings they were certainly not acts stemming from hatred, he expresses a sadness (not regret) in the actions he had to take to fulfil his desires and needs. I understand that... to have a deep need of companionship, yet unable to find it in a conventional way. It's not the murders I can sympathise with (I cannot), it is the emotions that led to them.

Over the years there has been much debate concerning the murder and the real motive behind them. After Brian Master’s book it is generally touted that Nilsen killed primarily “for company” but I do not completely agree. I think that is a very sympathetic and self-comforting idea to try to project.It certainly had a role to play, but I think above all else they were sexual killings, and I think Nilsen got a bigger sexual kick from them than he has ever admitted.

Sexual impulse is one of the few psychological states that really take us out of ourselves and make the perverse and grotesque exciting and realisable. And as with many sexual fetishes after they have been fulfilled one feels disgusted, horrified and saddened by them... That is until the next time,of course. Also, for many of us our deepest sexual fantasies are extremely intimate and often embarrassing. Sometimes so much so that we cannot disclose them to anyone. I very often think that sex is a kind of base therapy.We are very, very vulnerable within it, and to disclose and/or admit our innermost desires reveals all the things about ourselves that we wish to hide. It gives away our histories, our complexes and our traumas. Sex reveals the soul.

But I am not here to unravel Nilsen... it holds no interest for me what was the real agenda behind his crimes. All I know is that 16 young men were killed and the murderer now languishes in prison being denied pornography, book deals and occasionally being on the wrong end of a beating.

Languishes???... So you think Nilsen should be released???

I cannot answer that...I do not have the authority. If he is any kind of a danger to anyone anymore no, I don’t think he should. Does his crimes entitle him to die in prison, possibly, but I would not like to see that. So oneday hopefully he will be released and will be free to breathe fresh air and own another dog. That prospect does not frighten, anger nor sadden me. I’d probably even visit Sainsbury’s a little more often if I knew he’d be there. But I do not believe that will ever happen.... I think he will die wearing prison slacks. I do not see a home secretary or parole board with the balls big enough to release him.

NILSEN vs “GAY PORN”

In 1993 Nilsen was famously denied access to “Gay Pornongraphy”. He took his case to the European court of Human Rights and lost (contrary to what the British tabloids reported). I’ve often been asked what I think about that.

Well, I’m not going to babble on about human rights but I would like to clear something up. Gay Porn??? Nilsen was officially denied access to “an art book” and a “‘top shelf’ men's magazine”. An art book... if the Prison Service describe it as that then that’s what they concede it is. Of course he should be allowed access to it. As for the ‘Top Shelf’ men's magazine.... well, it’s the junk on the bottom shelf that we must be more concerned about.... those tabloids that are spread out like cards on milk crates in every Newsagents across Britain. Nilsen protested against this decision asking: “Why is ‘gay porn’ forbidden when heterosexual porn is freely admitted and available around prisons?” Of course, he’s correct... we’d all make the same challenge. In a country where gay sex and porn are legal then what possible justification can exist in prohibiting it in prison? No, the only thing that is damaging here is the sexual repression.The Prison Service must know that by the number of prison rapes that occur each year. So yes, of course Nilsen should be allowed pornography as long as it satisfies the law of the land.

THE HISTORY OF A DROWNING BOY

Whilst doing his 27 year tour of Her Majesty’s Hotels Dennis Nilsen has written the first draft of an autobiography titled ‘The History of a Drowning Boy’. This book is the focus of much controversy and legal wranglings. In 2001,on it’s way back to Nilsen from his Lawyers, the then Governor of Whitemoor prison seized it, believing it breached certain prison regulations. It was returned to Nilsen's solicitors thus preventing him from preparing it for publication. Nilsen made a legal appeal against it’s seizure. The presiding judge had this to say:

"We do not believe that any penal system could readily contemplate a regime in which a rapist or murderer would be permitted to publish an article glorifying in the pleasure that his crime had caused him."

In addition The Home Secretary decided Nilsen's work did not consist of serious comment about crime, justice or the penal system, but was "a platform for Mr Nilsen to seek to justify his conduct and denigrate people he dislikes"

To this day the manuscript is still unfinished and still unpublished.

Concerning the book there are 3 main arguments against it’s publication:

1) Is the book in the public interest?
2) Does it shed any relevant light on the crimes that nilsen committed?
3) Profit from any sales. In the UK convicted prisoners are not allowed to profit from their crimes. (Nilsen says all money will go to charity.)

I am not going to brilliantly argue for or against each point here....that would take us into realms very far from this blog and post.I will give just a few brief words on each point.

1) Public Interest. Well what is that? With all the shit that clogs up our bookshops and libraries, I think it is more in the public interest than the majority of that pulp. I also think anything so controversial IS in the public interest. Maybe the real question is this:Is it in the public SECTOR interest?. Almost certainly not. From what I understand the book also serves as an indictment of the UK penal and prison system.

2) Does the book shed light on the crimes Nilsen has committed? That has been judged as “NO”, but it is only the first draft that has been read, and anyone who writes or knows anything at all of the writing process will understand that a draft very often has very little to do with the final work. It is in the redrafting where vague ideas are clarified and proper retrospection occurs. If writers sent their first drafts off to publishers it would incur the same result:“no”. So forgetting publication for a moment, I think Nilsen must first be allowed to finish the work before ANY judgement is made. My thoughts will not change though...no matter what he produces it should be allowed to be put into print. If consumers then want to boycott it, then let them do so.

3) Profits from sales. As the law is that convicted offenders CANNOT profit from sales, I don’t see what the argument is. If Nilsen cannot receive money from any sales of his work then he cannot. The revenue must be handled and controlled by a third party who decides what to do with it. Ultimately someone or some organisation will gain from Nilsen’s crimes... as already happens. Again, my view is I really couldn’t care less where the revenue goes or if Nilsen profits from it. If it allows him to buy an extra toothbrush or pouch of tobacco, so what. He’s still in prison... he’s still in a 12 x 12 cell... he’s still 65 and dying... and even if he buys a Rolex who’s he going to flash it off to? So I’m also passionately for the publication of his book.

There is one final and important point that is always considered in these cases and that is the sensibility of the family of the victims. Well you’ve heard my view, but I really doubt that will reflect the view of (m)any others.My mother would certainly be against the books publication. It would anger her tremendously. But I also know that if I bought and wrapped her a copy for Christmas she’d bloody well read it. That also says something about its worth. It’s also important to remember that because of the category of men that nilsen accosted and murdered, there are not very many close family members about . So at the most, we’d be letting 20 bitter (with good reason) people decide the fate of the nation. No, it’s not correct and even if it may hurt someone I dearly love,I cannot sacrifice my principles... not this time. PRINT IT.

So there you have it, MY thoughts on Nilsen, his crimes, possible release and book. I know some of you will leave this post bewildered, thinking how can I hold such views towards “Britains most twisted killer” and the man who done such barbarous things to my own father. Well I can answer that in many ways, but I will leave you with this: I do not believe in monsters and I do not believe in demonizing people... underneath all our savagery and behind all our perversity's there is always a human being. We all feel, hurt, love and bleed... Nilsen is no exception. When I look at him, like myself, I see just another lonely man.

My Best Wishes To All... and if you chuck any bricks my way, please make sure to shout first.

Shane. x