SICK (audio version)

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Due to popular demand below is an audio recording of my text SICK. Unfortunately it's not the version of the reading recently performed in London with friend and artist Martin Bladh, but it is as close to a live performance you're likely to get at present. There does exist two small video clips of my London performance which I'll try to convert and upload at a later date.

Enjoy, and a new Memoires post will be with you very soon...

Shane... X




SICK


Sick. We were sick. We lay in bed, wrapped up in filthy blankets, smoking, sometimes fucking, doing animal things, you know... like being sick.

Sick. We were sick. Sick in bed. Sick in life. Sick by life. Sick. And we made each other sick.

Sick. Watching TV for days on end, sweating furiously but too bored to pull the covers off. Filthy feet. Filthy legs. Separated by a valley of cigarette ends. Stuffing our faces full of fatty, greasy foods. Shutters down. Apartment crawling with bugs. Toilet blocked. Sick. We were so fucking sick.

Sick. Not dope sick. Life sick. Diseased by pasts and visions and sounds and leather belts and erect cocks and murder. Sick. We were made sick by all these things. Sick. Sickened by cunt. Wet mushy drunken gang-banged cunt. Sick. We were sick. I was Sick. She was sick.

Sick. Locked in the apartment, blankets up against the windows, dust in the sunbeams, Repulsion looping on the DVD player. Sick, the room smelled of sick. Two diseased lovers with open welts, leaking abscesses, strange bumps and sores and scars. Sick. The days made us sick. Fresh air made us sick. We stopped answering the door, muted the TV, and silently gagged when the buzzer rang. Sick. We looked at each other in terror, sick, a mirror of ourselves, sick. And in the bed we lay, puking up milk and yoghurt in our sleep, choking to death on the trauma of the life we had seen. Sick. That's what we were: Sick.

And outside, the grimy, slick, lit up city became a hostile place. We concocted stories and plots, sick sick things, of a world of enemies encroaching upon us. Sick, we listened through the walls, eyed neighbours through the spy-hole: big, warped, looping faces, coming in, examining our door, the apartment bugged. Sick, the postman working for Interpol. Sick, police surveillance in the building opposite. Sick. We invented laws, sick laws, laws that said the flat couldn't be raided between 3 and 5am. So we'd rise, sick, in the early hours, cracking eggs and frying sausages and bacon and cabbage and bread; stuffing our mouths full of sandwiches dripping oil and ketchup, then, climbing back into bed and pulling the blankets tight around our necks so as we couldn't smell our own arseholes. Sick. The times were sick. We were sick. The hours were sick, and they dripped on by.

Sick. We slept like the sick: feverish, groaning and tensing up, our hair wet with sweat and stuck to our brows, mucus, dribble, crying through dreams, clenched fists and ugly faces. Sick. We were sick. Saying, “It hurts! It hurts so bad!” Drifting off into worlds of black, The Sins of our Fathers seeping out our skins. Sick. Ravaged by life. Sick. Sick to the bones. Turning grey. Fingers dark yellow. World shut out. TV on. Lines of bugs filing up the bin bags. Insane erections leaking watery cum. Tampons kicked to the bottom of the the bed with the socks. The flies gathering. Death getting near. Sick. We were so terribly sick.

Sick. 114 missed calls. 33 new messages, battery low, notes under the door, sick:

“Where R U?” [sic]
“Called to read lekky meter. return monday @ noon” [sic]
“Sis, Are You OK? Call me.” [sic]
“Your shower's leaking into our apartment!” [sic]
“24/7 Plumbing emergency services: need access ASAP!” [sic]
“Whats happening? Please answer phone. Getting vry worried!” [sic]
“Monday noon. Called, no answer. Please leave meter reading on door.” [sic]
'Domino's Pizza Wednesday Special. Half-Price. Free home delivery' [sic]
“Sis, I know your there. if you don't give sign will call police!” [sic]
“Ceiling and bathroom carpet ruined. phoning agency. It's raw sewage! PIGS!!!” [sic]

Sick. We did what we had to do: sent a text; pushed the notes back under the door; held our livers and crawled back into bed. Sick. We were made sick and we spewed it all out. On the floors, into bags, on the blankets, on each other, we were sick. Bright yellow bile, lumps of intestine, slithers of liver, black jellied blood. Sick, our kisses were sick. In the 69 position we were sick. Sucking and licking and bobbing like children, retching on each others pleasure. Sick.You tasted of curdled milk and fresh-smeared shit, and God knows what I was to you. Sick, our future was SICK. Our love was SICK. We were SICK, doing animal things, you know... like eating grass, getting better by being SICK.

I am in the emergency ward of the St Joseph hospital. My face is swollen to twice its size from an abscess in a back tooth. Because of my rapid heartbeat, because I've taken over 30 ibuprofen capsules in the last eight hours, I have been warned that if I leave the hospital the police will be called. To show how ridiculous the situation is, to show how physically well I am, I begin jogging on the spot. The stony faced nurse on reception who legally took me hostage, seconds after my disclosure that I am a heroin addict, asks me to stop. I carry on. I'm in tremendous pain but not unwell. As I jog on the spot I tell her the problem is my swollen face not my heart. She says that the face is a matter for the dentist or the plastic surgeon and that they don't deal with either emergency here. What concerns her, she says, is my tachycardia, a potentially fatal side-effect from an overdose of ibuprofen. She says I will be legally detained until a doctor is satisfied I pose no danger of collapsing and dying somewhere. I tell her I always pose that threat. She isn't amused, and I wasn't trying to raise a smile. She points to a waiting bed and tells me to take it.

 – How long must I wait? I ask, still lightly bouncing from one foot to the other.
 – Could be 10 minutes... Could be 3 hours, she replies.

It's not me she's protecting, its her - the hospital. She's thinking professional liability and malpractice, well, that cocktailed with a spiteful sense of revenge for me having destroyed my own teeth before staggering into the hospital, a lifetime too late, smacked up and begging for help. It's a donkey court and it always is.

In addition she also finishes her shift soon, I heard her say so:
 – I'm off in half an hour, make sure that one (her eyes sliding across to me) doesn't leave!

She finished with a weird amphibious glee pealing out from the corners of her lips, delighted at the prospect that some other poor soul will be obliged to stay under the the sallow fluorescent lights of A&E, amongst the ragtag of the public with bloody-DIY-bandages, burst bowels, vertigo and short tempers, while she does not. She likes that idea: someone else occupying her vacant hell for a while. That's who she is right there. No need to horrify you with any tasteless physical details, turn your stomachs with a nauseous description of her large, padded-arse preordained for flatulence, or describe the comfy, squeakless shift-shoes she melts down into, the flesh around her ankles spilling out and moulded obediently over the sides. They're just physical accessories to the real deal. Her real personage, her dire essence, the consequence of her twenty years fast trading in the 'care' industry was that which oozed out in her spitefulness, her scepticism and hatred of the sick and dying, the delight she took condemning another person to experience the torture of her daily existence... Someone she had judged undeserving of her or the hospital's services (which would be just about anyone still breathing) and who then merited a hefty spanner in their day's works.

Not long after and she's back, asking me how I feel: nauseous? Light-headed? I slide off the bed and onto my feet and begin jogging again.

 – I'm fine, look...

The nurse marks something down on a clipboard of information she's already started collecting on me and returns to where she came from, looking back with raised eyebrows to confirm she's never seen anything like this before. It's an insane thing I'm doing, but it's an insane place I'm in. An old woman leans across and whispers:

 – Young man, they'll section you if you don't stop. They'll say you need psychiatric help and you'll be up in the hills for 7 days. They can do that!

And I know they can. They did it to Mary's mother on the third time that week she was driven into hospital claiming to have suffered a heart attack. She didn't return home for over a month and when she did she was dressed like a whore, with a wig of red hair and a lurid smile painted across her face in cheap pink lipstick. Cured!

I think of my methadone at home, of the 3 grams of smack wrapped up in foil and left on my keyboard and I stop jogging. From the disgusted look that crosses the nurses face I know I'm the last patient in a stressful day and I'll wait every minute of the three hours she said it could take for the doctor to see me.

* * *

Being a coward, with an innate fear of hospitals, disease and doctors, I sit on the emergency bed comforted by one of two friends who'd accompanied me to casualty. I can't get my mind of the swelling in my face and the more I try not to think about it the more aware I am of its presence. I have thought of everything from deep vein thrombosis to a ruptured aneurysm as being the cause. Thoughts of blood poisoning and jaw and brain infections are whirring through my mind. I feel sick. My heart starts the mad beating again. I come over all cold. Then sweat. It must be the fever from the septicaemia. It starts of like that and then you fall into a coma. I'm in the emergency ward thinking of comas. If I lose consciousness and am dope sick on top I'd never survive and I know it. My heart pounds right through my head and I flush pale. I need the toilet. I don't want to be alone. The nurse arrives with what looks like bottle of gas attached to a coat stand.

 – Roll your sleeve up, she demands, let's check your heart again.
It's jumping out my chest, and gets worse as an expression of grave concern comes across her face.

* * *

It's an hour and a half and I've not been seen. From one of the drawn off rooms an old man in groaning somewhere between panic, pain and fear. There will be no good news from that room. I think of my stepfather and an atmosphere of tragedy and loss seeps into the hospital. It's quiet, like a great storm is sat in the sky. My heart calms and goes again and a terrible feverish chill goes through to the bone.

***

 – So tell me, where did this fear of diseases come from? My friend asks.

 – I don't know, I say, without even having thought of it. It's always been there.

He pulls a face and we fall quiet. But now I am thinking. Of those young days, laying on my bed, with Parrots disease or breast cancer, my heart flipping out and desperately wanting some reassurance.

 – You know, I say, I think in a way it comes from wanting my mother to return home. In a way it was always and only that which I waited for... To be told everything was alright.

He doesn't understand.

 – Why, where was your mother?

The atmosphere in the hospital is dense, like it is when waiting for bad news to filter through, like it is after death has visited some place, and reality and life and nature suddenly become nostalgic and full of immense sadness, and human comfort and warmth becomes a real and needed commodity. I look at the floor.

 – She drank, I say, a lot. She'd leave for week's or months at a time with some man or other and only return when she was either half beaten to death or sober. But I waited for her... God, I waited like I'd wait for love all my life.

My friend had drifted on the emotion of my words. The French was bad but there was something in my throat, in the gloom and finality of the hospital which made my words work. I am pensive, maybe sad too, maybe pitying myself in this place and thinking of my cold empty room and not wanting to be there alone once this is over.

 – And when she returned, your mother, did she calm you? He asks.

 – Always, I say, nodding. Without ever really trying to. Then she'd go and I'd imagine I was dying again and be miserable until she returned.

 – And your father, couldn't he soothe you?

 – My step-father? No. He was an intelligent, knowledgeable man but I didn't trust him. Something about his knowledge seemed fraudulent. I'd never have believed him if he had tried to calm me. It's about my mother. My fear of hospitals too. Even sitting here, in this foreign place, the smell's the same. I can remember the overdoses and the hospital wards and not being allowed to see my mother because she was still unconscious but knowing she was laying half dead just in the room opposite. Those things burn images into the mind. Then on her waking, hearing her describe how the paramedics had bruised her breasts reviving her, speaking like each bruise was a token of honour. There was something about hospitals and doctors surgeries from those days on. Even though they saved her I associated them with death and they scared the hell outta me.

We fell quiet. The late spring evening was coming to a close outside and there was no doctor in sight.

***

I am looking at an old couple across from me. The man is thin but with a huge bloated chest – probably lung disease. He is laying out on a trolley bed, fully dressed but with his shoes off. He has cheap white socks, grubby on the soles, that make him look unkempt. His eyes are to the ceiling and his Adam's apple juts up sharp out his taut throat which in turn is covered with specks of dark grey and silver stubble. Resting down by his stomach is an oxygen mask. He looks like he's waiting for the white tunnel we've been told so often about. The woman is sitting tight alongside the bed holding his hand. She has tears in her eyes. Sometimes the man shrugs as if life was life and life is over now. The woman squeezes his hand and tears betray him. I know what it is, the tragic realisation that the years have really gone, that already you are here, and yet it seems you only crawled out from the cocoon of youth just yesterday. I watch his socks and then the two hands entwined. Wrinkles, veins, interlocking fingers, a gold wedding ring. The man closes his eyes gently and it reminds me of something I can't remember.

***

I'm starting to get dope sick. It puts the world in context, and if not context at least prioritizes what's important. Staying in the hospital is not important, and having the police call for me once I've stashed my crimes not so much either. If I leave I need to get a quick hit, pocket a bottle of methadone and then make good the apartment.

I roll a cigarette in the emergency ward. My friend tells me: they'll never let you out. I reply: they'll never keep me in!

As soon as I stand and pat my pockets down for my lighter the old grunt of a nurse is upon me, waving her clip board with some squiggles on it which is apparently my heartbeat. I tell her no living creature could possible make such a pattern. She doesn't understand, and it's not a language thing. She says there's no way I can leave to go for a smoke.
1) in case the doctor arrives; and 2) in the event that I lose consciousness out in the street.

I argue the toss, but as the door is securitized and needs to be released by a member of staff I cannot leave by it no matter how determined I am. The only way out would be to rush into the staff area and leap out over the reception desk. I think of it, imagine the shocked expressions such an act would encourage, but sit tight. Then I spot my chance, a member of staff entering with a swipe card. He hesitates while swapping a few pleasantries with the girls at the reception desk. As he holds the door open I dart out. There's a confused noise, a feminine screech of annoyance and then the same voice calling "Monsieur?.. Monsieur???" I hold my cigarette up above my head and make for the exit, purposely lighting up a few steps while still inside the hospital.

I am smoking calmly, though caught in thought, when my favourite nurse arrives and stands staring at me. She hasn't got her hands pressed into her sides and she doesn't tower over me in the shape of a capital 'A', it just appears like that.

 – Put the cigarette out and get back inside! She says.

I tell her I will smoke and I have the right to smoke and I will come in once I've finished.

She warns me that if I disappear she WILL phone the commissariat and I WILL be taken against my will and I WILL be returned to the hospital. I tell her my bag is inside and I have no intention of doing a runner but I WILL smoke my cigarette... maybe two or three. She pierces me with a chilling stare of hatred, leaves, and then does a Colombo, spinning around and coming back at me.

 – Oh, and if you collapse out here and we don't get to you in time it WILL NOT be the hospital's fault!

 – I understand, I assure her, and if I collapse I'll make sure to do it inside.

She leaves again but incredibly she cannot. The Colombo is an overwhelming force within her; she needs the last definitive word. So she's back, this time warning me that if the doctor calls me and I'm not there then the wait will begin anew. I'm sure this is now what will happen. I could annoy her further but decide to allow her the victory of last retort. I continue smoking, light a new one with the remains of my last, and watch as she re-enters the hospital all bosoms, ass and calves, and a face that speaks of another victory and serves as a warning that no one else should try fucking about on her shift.

My God, I think, who needs the love of a woman like that.

* * *

The mild spring evening has fallen, the stodgy-arsed receptionist has gone home, an air of tiredness and reflective calm is manifest in the corridors of casualty awaiting the night-shift and all the blood and street life that that will soon start dragging in. Now and again from one of the various screened-off wards someone is wheeled or stretchered out and past me, up into the main hospital where they've earned their place for the night and maybe much longer. In this securitized heartland of A&E I am the only person not in a bed, on a drip, or being treated by multiple doctors. My face is horrendously swollen and so may give a false sense of urgency concerning my presence here, and even though I've been told I will not be treated I have still been needlessly leapfrogged over the poor souls in free-town, that side of casualty which is drop in or drop out whether you can bear the wait or not. In fact the wait seems more like a surreptitious filtering system designed to clear-out the patients who aren't strictly emergencies, and acting as nothing more than a sobering room for others. Now and again the police lead someone in and sign them over, cast a look over the wounded for any known criminal faces, and then leave.

Taking me by total surprise a young nurse approaches me and asks if I'd like to see a female Welsh doctor who works there.

 – Only if she's younger than 35! I reply. The young nurse looks at me strangely, bemused. Not even I know what I meant.

 – Whoever's the quickest, I say. Apart from my tooth and the pain I'm not in need of any urgent treatment and just want to be home.

The young nurse understands I'm really not an emergency, and that if I am irritable it's due to having been kept here when if anything I should be at an emergency dentist having my tooth and swelling treated. She asks if she may take my blood pressure and heart rate one last time. I look at her long delicate fingers, her slender flat figure beneath her light uniform and nod my approval.

 – The thing is though, as soon as you pump up that pressure band my heart is gonna rocket... It's always like that. It's why I did so miserably earlier. It's why my doctor always takes my pressure twice.

 – And why's that? she asks softly. There's really nothing to fear. Even a high reading isn't the end of the world and in most cases not serious at all. But it's nothing to be scared of, really.

By the time she's said that, and asked me: – How long have you been in France? she has inflated and is now releasing the pressure band. She is tricking me and I let her trick me, and I need to be tricked.

 – 7 years, I reply, and the language is still a nightmare.

 – But you speak French well. I understand everything... except the 35 year thing??? Maybe an English joke?

 – Maybe? I say and smile, Or maybe it's just a Me joke... Which hasn't any meaning and isn't funny.

Her trick has worked. Her hands are warm and her fingers delicate and caring as she loosens the pressure band from my bicep.

 – That's fine, she says. A tiny bit higher than average but still within norms.

 – And the heart, I ask, feeling it rise in tension and begin pumping what feels like thick blood up into my head.

 – Normal, she says, nothing worrying there either.

 – So I can go?

 – No. You must still wait the doctor but he won't be long now.

Not 5 minutes later a bespectacled, middle-aged, fair-haired, balding doctor arrives and calls out my name. As I jump up he looks at me with an air of horror and surprise.

 – But you, are YOU an emergency?

 – No, I say, I feel fine. It's my face... A tooth, but the receptionist said...

He shakes his head and cuts me off, beckoning me to follow “This way” into a small curtained off surgery.

 – OK, so you're not ill but you're here as a potential fatality sat in one of our our few emergency beds alongside your own emergency buzzer? Please do explain?

I tell him about my face and the toothache and the nurse, then about my heroin addiction, methadone treatment and the ibuprofen I've taken. Of course the only detail he hears is that about addiction to heroin and methadone maintenance, and not even allowing for me to finish he is laying it down very firmly that the hospital, not this hospital or any other hospital in France, gives out methadone to addicts.

 – That's impossible, he says getting angry.

I tell him I'm not there for methadone, that I have plenty and better at home. I tell him I am there because some receptionist-cum-nurse threatened to have me arrested if I left, even after telling her I didn't want any treatment for the suspected ibuprofen overdose it was obvious I wasn't suffering from.
 &nbsp- So if I'm here taking up valuable time it's not by choice and it's not to try and swindle a meagre dose of shitty methadone either!

Even after my words the doctor isn't having any of it. The way he speaks, the harsh fashion he tells me to strip to the waist and take the couch, the way he washes his hands and violently slings the water of his fingers into the metal sink, rubs a heap of tissues between his palms and let them fall free into the waste bin, and then the look of absolute vexation on his face when he turns to find me still standing there fully dressed.

– Listen, I say, I just want to be outta this place. I don't want any more blood pressure checks, no more heart monitors, no more looking down my throat or peering in my eyes and you're certainly not doing a fucking liver damage test or whatever it is you want to do. That's my right and I don't want to be touched or prodded any more. I just want to be left to go home. I came here 3 hours ago for my face and tooth, I'm in tremendous pain, you tell me you can't help me but keep me here for a treatment I don't want or need but will have to pay for! Well I don't need treating and I refuse treatment... I just want to get the hell outta here.

The doctor looks at me and with all his intelligence, all his ten years of study and fifteen years of practice, he says: So you are here just to try and get methadone?

I feel sad and I don't reply. I have no words and I do not want words in the face of such disastrous care. Words and language are useless when you come up against someone so stupid as that. I let my head drop. The swelling in my jaw and cheek is pulled by gravity. My face feels like it is falling off from one side. The pressure and throbbing rise and pumps around my head. I close my eyes and let the pain take hold.

* * *

It is almost 8pm when I finally step out of A&E, hurting more than when I entered, too late to find an emergency dentist and holding a prescription for antibiotics I don't need and which is to be exchanged at a chemists which closed almost two hours ago. On top of that I am now snivelling and yawning hard from dope withdrawal and am the best part of sixty euros out of pocket for my treatment. The money doesn't matter. If I'd have been treated for my actual ailment I'd have paid sixty and a whole lot more besides. I'll get them back at death, I thought... I'll rack up such enormous medical costs then fail out on life and all due payments!

The sun was then almost gone from the sky. It lay half below the horizon, an orb of light through shutters of evening cloud. The city was a silhouette of buildings in front of it, under a mauve sky darkening off in one direction. It was that time, on such an evening, where a beauty descends far out over the city and the shapes of a few migrant birds swoon off alone. In that descending light, with the crisp sounds of evening ringing out, a faint chill having us tighten our coats, I walked from the hospital with my two friends and we made light fun about my visit and the nurse and that ultimately I was fine and that at least my swelling wasn't the onset of a painful death. It was affectionate humour, a means to balance my very real panic about health and death and being alone. And one friend said he was going one way, and the second said she was going another, and I said I was going straight on, into yonder, into pain, into the ever decreasing, darkening light home.

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Thanks as ever for reading and a new text will follow soon... Shane. X


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Press Interview : Shane Levene on Dennis Nilsen

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Nilsen Through the Eyes of Victim's Son

3 page newspaper article printed today (Saturday 28 December 2013) in the Aberdeenshire Press and Journal. Interview carried out by Cheryl Livinstone.

Where did you live before your father was killed? 

Fulham, London

How old were you?

Seven

What do you remember about your father's death?

My mother screaming after being told. She says that wasn't her first reaction, but that's what I remember. I regard that as my birth; the moment I came into existence. Regarding the actual news of his death, it didn't really have any effect on me. At that moment he was only rumoured to be my father, and I waved those rumours away, desperate to share the same father as my brother and sister. I didn't want to be only half-something to them. And also, it wasn't like my father was always at home and then one day was not. Due to his drug addiction he was living in a separate place with my mother, and by the time we learnt of his murder he had already been missing for over a year.

How did you feel when it was discovered he was killed by Dennis Nilsen?

Honestly, more than anything, at that age, I kinda felt special that my father was one of the victims, that our family was somehow mixed up in the hideous events which were front page news the entire length and breadth of the nation. I couldn't wait to tell people.... to kinda distinguish myself. Of course, no one believed me and so eventually I stopped talking about that at all. But all my life I suppose I kinda enjoyed that fact. I mean if your father is going to be murdered who better to murder him than 'Britain's most EVIL killer'? That sounds strange, I know, and it'd be easy to lie and give you the kinda standard responses that everyone expects, but that's not how I felt. At that age, seven, when you're bustling and fighting to stand out, such things are used in a very different way than they would be if happening to you as an adult.

How do you feel about it now?

It's a part of my life and history and I celebrate all that has gone into the making of me (good and bad). The murder is one of the defining events (but not THE defining event) which formed me. Such events take on a kinda neutrality after three decades of living with them. Like other events it's just something which happened and which can't be changed, and though it was a hideous thing , it doesn't mean it has to have hideous repercussions. So I see it in a very forming and essential light: it is a part of the history to who I am today and I can't and wouldn't want it to be any other way.

Has his murder affected your life in any way?

Of course the event has affected my life, but not so much in an emotional way, more in a physical sense, in how it has often been the road on which I have met great people and had more exposure as a writer. The emotional effects, and there were many, did not arise from the murder itself but from the consequences the murder had on my mother: she became a chronic and suicidal alcoholic. Her reaction to the event, her coping mechanism, was where emotional hurt entered my life. And that there is the defining event of my life: my mother's reaction to the murder of the only great love of her life. So I class myself as a secondary victim of the murder, whereby the event didn’t effect me but what that event did to my mother, and her consequent behaviour, did. And although childhood from that point on was horrendous and my youth corrupted, I have no bitterness or regret over that. I saw a world and was dragged into an underclass of living that very few will ever see. It was horrendous and vulgar and perverted but gave me unique eyes and a unique insight into suffering and despair : a masters degree in the filth of life.

How do you feel about Dennis Nilsen trying to publish his autobiography?

As a writer I naturally understand that and find it quite sane. Who wouldn't want their life text published? It would be weirder to me (and a sure sign of insanity) to write a 6,000 page autobiography and NOT want it published. As a victim, if that's what I am, I would also like to see his writing published and would love to read his words, uncensored and honest – honest in the sense that those words were not written with parole in mind. It seems strange to me that when he writes from the heart and is openly blunt and forthcoming about his crimes that people want to suppress his words. But, when he says stuff which he obviously doesn't feel, for ulterior motives, then his words are all splashed around. So if his words are in every paper across the UK, well isn't that also him being published? There's a whole lot of hypocrisy and nonsense logic around this question. It's like the powers-that-be don't want to know his real feelings, they want to take away all the words which they don't want to hear and leave only those which give the impression that the criminal justice system and rehabilitation works. It's like Orwell's Newspeak from his novel 1984 where the only words left are what the government want us to say, and we can say no more.

How do you feel about people reading intimate details about your father’s death?

Oh, people were reading intimate details of my father's life when he was living, so what's the difference? In fact, after my birth my father disappeared out my mother's life for a year and she only got back in contact with him when his name and address cropped up in the local paper after he'd been up in court accused of stealing a clock from the doctor's surgery. So it doesn't bother me... and as I've probably released more intimate details of his life than anyone else, I can only say that.

  

How do you feel about the fact it [Nilsen's autobiography] has been described as glorifying his crimes?

By who? The press? No-one but Nilsen's lawyer and one or two close confidantes have read it (it's not published don't forget) so who the hell can say whether it "glorifies his crimes" or not? And even if it does, and that's honestly how he feels towards his actions, isn't that extremely interesting? Shouldn't the public and psychiatrists and forensic psychologists and criminal profilers be grateful for such a first-hand account and unashamed glorying of such a crime? To me such a book would be extremely useful and insightful to many people. So whether it glorifies the crimes or tries to explain them I think the book has every right to be published, and I think it's in the public interest to do so. For the argument that "it’s not in the victims' interest to do so” well, I don't believe that's true, but even if it were, I don't think a handful of bitter people (bitter for very good reason) should decide the fate of the nation. If the books published the victims have every right not to read it and the public has every right to boycott it, but it MUST be available. As my mother recently said: Why the fuck should he have his book published! Though yeah, if it were published I'd probably read it.

Dennis was recently quoted as saying:

“In the relative twinkling of an eye I will have to face my own death just like any other victim. I deserve to experience the same degree of pain suffered by my victims. Nothing less will suffice.

“Only my own death will eventually even the score and only at that point will I know that I am forgiven and am finally free of that burden of debt. In the intervening period in what remains of my life I will try to be worthy of it.”

How would you feel about what he is saying?

Dennis is old now and the death process has truly set to work on him. He doesn't have long left and like anyone, I suppose, he wants his freedom. He knows he'll never be released but he's human and he hopes against hope. Those words above came from Nilsen but are not from his heart. They are the words that society and justice force him to say if he's to have any chance of being released. It's clearly stated: You will not even be considered for parole without feeling remorse. Not whether you've served your time or are no longer a danger, etc. but you must feel remorse. So criminals have their arms twisted up behind their backs to be and act remorseful. And if by pretending to be remorseful halves your prison time or leads to freedom then of course they'll say or act it. I'd do the same. Truthfully, who ever feels remorse for their actions? Remorse seems to me to be an idealistic state, something that harps back to ancient times and has more to do with the sinner still getting a ticket into heaven than anything else. We are bullied and harassed to feel remorse as humans for all things judged immoral. But I think remorse rarely exists as a natural emotion, an unselfish emotion. Normally it takes punishment to feel remorse and when one feels remorseful under punishment and torture then it's a selfish emotion to save oneself, relieve oneself of suffering. So the words above of Nilsen I don't see as his. As we've already seen, his true words are suppressed and all that's left that he can have published are words of remorse.

If you could speak to Dennis Nilsen or ask him anything, what would it be?

How are you? Health, well-being? Do you need anything? Can I help you in any way?

- - -

A new Memoires post proper will follow very shortly.... ... ...

Four to the Power of Zero

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 I'll tell you now how heartless the world had become: I put powdered cat litter in his dope and sat and watched in delight as he chased his first toot, almost choked and said: There's something fuckin' weird in this!

Mine looks fine, I Said, And a nice big bag to boot.

Big??? You fucking kiddin' me?

I scooped out a fix worth of smack and poured it in my spoon. Sitting up, atop the duvet on the double bed, he measured out another dose too. I heard his hit the foil, the crinkle as he manoeuvred it into place, his lighter lighting, then a kind of sputtering cough as he inhaled the smoke and struggled to keep it down. I didn't look at him. Just listened.

Nah, there's fucking brick dust or summin' in this... It dont run jus' burns up black! There's B in it ... there's definitely B, but there's some other shit too.

I heard him ripping off a fresh piece of tin foil and emptying the content of his bag onto it. He had a pen or something and was pushing the smack around, sorting through it, segregating the small harder rocks and saying all the while : Not evn the same fuckin'colour... not fuckin' gear! Then he screamed like someone who would be violent if the right weakling were sat in front of him: It's a third of the fucking bag... Wot the FuuuucK !!! Finishing by letting out a coarse, barbarous sound of rage, back-heeling the wooden base of the bed and screaming “fuuuuck!!!” once again.

I ignored him. I was sat cross-legged on the floor. I cooked my dope and carefully placed the spoon down on a book in front of me. My first two injections would be on that Cunt. Kinda. Kinda as two nights previous my morning bag had mysteriously disappeared and even more mysteriously reappeared, three hours later, with barely anything in it. After having turned the room inside out multiple times it was finally the Cunt who found it: sat there on the table under our gaze all the while.

Found it!!! He cried. Panic over!

W-what??? Where?

Right there, on the fucking table, he pointed, his mouth hung open in mock disbelief. How the fuck did we miss that?

I stared at him with a hatred in me that I could not and did not want to veil – his cool, insincere friendly face, the flushed guilty demeanour manifest in his eyes and mouth and oozing out of every filthy pore in his deceitful fucking head. It was the look which had outed every thieving junkie since the dawn of time. It was more than circumstantial evidence; it was the embodiment of guilt itself. And it wasn't even with the honesty of primal greed. This wasn't tearing a strip of meat off the carcass first. It was a manufactured selfishness, a Frankenstein behaviour, something that doesn't exist in the wild.

Neither of us had 'missed' the bag. The Cunt surely couldn't be stupid enough to have forgotten we'd already cleared and upended the table thrice (me first and then him and then me again). It was all but impossible the bag had remained there, defying gravity and the scrutiny of four keen junkie eyes. No. Stupidity had nothing to do with it. The Cunt's motivation for returning my heroin was borne from the exact same impetus that had had him steal it in the first place. He'd already tried giving me the slip once that evening, halfway down the stairs and almost out the door when I shouted: "Er, Sean.... have you seen my bag that was on the table?"

The Cunt must have froze in terror, knowing that if only I'd realized seconds later he'd have been out the door and away. Instead he traipsed back up, looking way too innocent for anyone with a foothold in this junk life, and said: "Well, if it was really there then it can't be far... it'll turn up. It can only be in the room! Let me know tomorrow where you find it.

What dyou mean IF it was really there? You fucking know it was!

Um, was, he said, smiling. You sure you din't do it? You was pretty well gone for a while!?

Fuck off! I snarled incredulously. And in that moment I knew, without a degree of doubt, that my bag of heroin was sitting in one of his pockets or inside his sock. I also knew that if I allowed him the opportunity to worm his way out of mine that evening then my gear and morning well-being would be leaving with him.

Used accidently!!! I repeated. When was the last time you or any other fucking addict 'accidentally' used their morning bag? Acci-fuckin-dently!!! No, it’s not been used. It’s fucking here somewhere, and if you're any kind of a friend you’ll not want me getting sick either so will help search for it until it’s found…. Even if it takes all fucking night! Bags are not gonna start fucking disappearing here!

I said that with just enough of a hint of violence about it that he understood the situation had the potential to get ugly. The problem now was that after having been so close to slipping out and away with my smack he'd then taken mental possession of it, had envisaged a morning free from the rigours of shoplifting and even now still held onto the hope that he could help search for the missing bag for a while before throwing his hands up in the air, flummoxed, and then leaving. But tonight he was trying it on with someone who knew the ropes a little too well, who knew every move light-fingered addicts like him were fixing to make. I knew it would take a while for him to mentally unclench from the idea that the bag was his, and so we both played for time and I knew I had more than him.

It took three hours, the both of us searching, the both of us aware we'd not find it as it was sitting in the bottom of one of his pockets. It was only when he was in need of a hit himself, after he had realized that searching till it was found was no joke, that he disappeared into the kitchen and then the bathroom searching out a workable solution. That solution was splitting the bag 70/30 in his favour then arriving straight out the toilet, without the slightest care for credibility, exclaiming: Found it!!! I settled for being partially robbed, content my ploy had been successful enough to keep me well until the following morning when the dealers phones would start switching on.

70/30... So, in a way, now, I wasn't getting anything free just getting something even: having today what I was robbed of yesterday.

Back to the cunt on the bed, moaning like his world is gonna totally collapse, miserably separating what he thinks is brick dust out his gear.

Look, he said, look at all this weird shit in the dope! You gonna shoot that?

He asked that in a strange way, like he wasn't really expecting me to say no, like he was beginning to question something else. I didn't reply just sucked my smack up out the spoon and flicked the air to the top of the syringe. I felt him looking at me. That was obvious. I concentrated on looking as guilty as hell.

Giv'us a sprinkle of yours, he asked, with a slight arrogance attached to his words. I wanna see if the same shit's in it.

Fuck off! I'm not wasting my gear burning it... you crazy or what?

You'll not fuckin' waste it! I'll give ya a trace of mine in return!

And what if mines not like yours? I'll have swapped good dope for bad and you'll still be left with yours anyway. How does the quality of my gear help you? All it can do is make you feel even worse.

You're not worried what you may be shooting, no?

Fuck knows what I shoot, I said, what anyone shoots. Even clean dope's cut dirty. I'm more scared of what I've already shot... The shit which cooked up but wasn't dope. If its brick like you say it won't cook down so on that score it's safer.

Well you seem pretty fuckin' cool about it s'all I'm sayin'. I know you, if you seriously thought there was summin in the gear, even a suspicion, you'd be all over it... studying it, shitting yaself of getting a dirty hit!

Then maybe that tells you something, I said. Mine cooked up clean, not a trace left in the spoon... actually looks like a pretty decent bit of kit. I could even smell it during the cook... and it's not often that happens.

The Cunt visibly smarted with anger. He cast a look down at his pathetic measure of heroin which would barely last him even if he quit. He looked like he was going to cry. I could see him going through his options, making the fated decision:

1) wrap the gear up now and pass a mildly uncomfortable night thinking of it until he could smoke the remainder in the morning.
2) smoke what's left immediately and at least get a nod and pass a sleepless night of mild withdrawal dreading having to go out grafting in the morning half sick.

Of course the logical decision, the one that would affect him the least was the former, having one evening of restriction so as the cycle of physical addiction was kept up. But junkies think short term, they take the immediate relief and deal with tomorrow only when it's there. The Cunt struck his lighter, gave one last cursory thought to what he shouldn't do and then did it anyway: his deplorable face chasing around what was already the last of his bag, secretly disgusted by my presence and driven crazy by the amount of heroin I still had left and which I had purposely left open to his full view. He blew the smoke out like it was the last of the air in his lungs.

Out the corner of my eye I saw the Cunt's neck and arms relax and his upper body collapse half a foot forward. I heard the foil touching down on the bed and crinkling up. For a moment he'd nodded out. I waited just until he was on the precipice of his nod, his body bent over in an impossible way, all his anguish and worries left in the world he had momentarily vacated, the smoking tube fall from his lips.

Can't be that BADLY CUT, I said, raising my voice to wake him, to cut short the only nod he was good for.

He came to with a start, looking angry, annoyed with me for waking him yet even more annoyed with himself for nodding off and losing any sympathy he'd built up about how useless his smack was and what a hellish evening and night he was in for.

Just tired, he said. This fucking life is beginning to exhaust me! I'm bored with it all. Everything! This shit fucking gear and these CUNTS ripping you off!

'These cunts' meant me. That's why he'd stressed it. But he knew it was pointless accusing me out right, same as I knew it would have been useless accusing him two days ago. The junkie rule of plea is you only ever admit a crime when caught absolutely bang-to-rights, and often not even then. Regardless of damning evidence, logic, probabilities, lack of any other possible culprit or alibi all must be denied with a passion: "I don't know how it happened... I know I was the only one here, but I it wasn't me... It wasn't fucking me!"

For the first time since robbing him I now looked him square in the eye. I gave him my smug face to hate, I needed him to hate me, to see himself in me and despise what he saw.

Tired? Ha! You was having a right good nod more like it, I said, trying to further wind him up.

It's not the quality of the heroin that's the problem... it's the fuckin' quantity!!! All that other shit crushed into it!

Maybe it was his last bag or something and he was trying to stretch it out? I suggested knowing it was implausible.

Yeah, right! Said the Cunt. And it was just my bad luck to get THAT bag?

Well one of us had to get it. 50/50 isn't bad luck, its equal chance. 1 in 50 would be bad luck.

Hmm... Even fucking chance!He said. When a junkie comes straight in from scoring holding his stomach, desperate to shit, and bolts himself in the toilet with the bags, it's not fifty-fucking-fifty... Its odds-on!

I did need the fucking toilet, I said, what you trying to say?

It's cat litter, he said.

What's cat litter? What are you talking about?

In my gear, it's not brick dust it's cat litter. He wasn't angry. He said it in a fatigued, doleful way as if he was always on the shit end of everything, like I had done this many times before and had now completely and finally broken his spirit.

There's cat litter in my gear, he repeated, quietly and then he lay down, looking at the wall and silently crying, pretending his tears were derived from healthy emotions and not the abandoned and hideous self-pity which he knew they were of.

I pretended I hadn't noticed his sadness and sticking the knife in further I said, Oh well, if you're gonna have a lie down I may as well take an extra shot and join you. At that point he sat himself up and looked over at me, at my heroin as I scooped another fix out. He watched for a moment and then flopped back down, supine, staring off at the ceiling.

As I prepared my second injection I could sense the Cunt eyeing me. The room was heavy with his being, his conniving thought processes, his anger and self-pitying sadness. He was battling with himself, I could tell, wanting to keep his self-respect, hating me, hating heroin, blaming just about everyone but himself as to why he was laying their so morally weak and on the point of degrading himself even further. To him this was about power, his weakness as an adult male under my dominance, my superior strength and success: having heroin when he had none. It was a disadvantage you can't help hating the other fellow for. The Cunt didn't last out long. He swallowed his pride, prepared some murderous plans in case I refused him, then looked my way once more.

D'ya think you could spare me a trace until tomorrow? He asked, as if to no-one, as if it wasn't even a question.

I ignored him though we both knew the words had been said. He waited a while, squirming, impatient, until the reverberation of his words had stopped sounding and all that was left was an uncomfortable silence, playing more on me than on him.

So whadj'ya say? He asked. Have ya?

I shouldn't have but I felt sorry for him. His words, and the emotions which fuelled them, seemed so genuine. They reminded me of a humanity I had once known, a suffering I couldn't fail to respond to. And I would have responded if it would have come from any other heart but a junk filled one. In the Cunt's request was a self-centredness and a weeping self-pity that sickened me, that made me despise him more for even asking. Come on, don't ask me that, I implored, it's not fair and you know it! I've just another four fixes here myself and am lucky I even have that as my bag was so BIG.

The cunt didn't reply in words but I felt him flush pale at my words before his heart found itself again and began furiously thumping litres of blood through his body until his head throbbed in shame and humiliation and murderous hatred. I was almost out-of-breath just sensing his deflated disappointment. Now on his face was a spiteful dejected look, the Cunt driven half crazy by the number four as it echoed around in his head: four to the power of ZERO; how much better four was to nothing; how four was a lot; how four wasn't fair; how four was just crushingly sad and overpowering; how four was what his existence had come to; how four was my advantage over him; how four and why and therefore.... and then he was on the bed, looking at the wall, trembling and blubbering and wailing like a small child, like he'd had his life and dreams and heart smashed to pieces. He boohooed on about life and what hell it had been and how he didn't want to live and never had. He cursed out every one from dealers to junkies to his own mother. He cursed his cousin for first introducing him heroin and bawled out something about his social security money not having been paid. It all came out in an almost incomprehensible tirade of tears and bubbles and snot and dribble. And when he was finished the only clear thing was that he was the victim, that he'd ALWAYS been the victim and it just wasn't fair!

I took immense joy listening to the cunts performance, and delighted further knowing that once he'd had a fix and straightened up that he would never feel comfortable in my company again, that he' would always know that his reckless junkie demeanour had cracked wide open in front of me and revealed a sobbing and pathetic man of 35 who had become so ruthless in life that he was totally alone and despised by the one person who would still sit in the same room as him. He was a ruined and spent force who would naturally evade my company once this was over, go off alone again until he found a new junk buddy he could recreate his myth to. I think in that moment, from the pleasure I took in his distress, that I’d never despised anyone quite as much. I wrapped my gear up, put it in the tight little pocket of my jeans and stuffed tissue in on top to protect against crafty fingers while I nodded.

When I next came around it was to the crinkling of foil and a lighter flicking anew. I looked across at the Cunt briefly thinking he'd somehow got my gear out my pocket. Sitting on the side of the bed he was now trying to smoke the cat litter, saying “there's maybe some gear in it after all”. Of course there wasn't and the powdered grain either just smoked or did nothing at all. When he realized he was just as sober as he was before he started he gave up and tossed the foil and its contents down on the floor. He looked over at me. I stared him square in the eye and let the faintest of smiles break out across my lips. He saw it and nodded in acknowledgement.

Well basically that's me fuck'd, innit? He asked.

Like I was the yesterday morning, I replied

Oh, so that's what this is all about.... Revenge?

Revenge? For what?

You fucking tell me, he said, I've never stole from you or done bad by you.... EVER. Whether you believe me or not that's the truth... I never did anything!

I didn't believe him. HE didn't believe HIM!. He was still trying to save himself only now in another way. And he would save himself.... just. He had but another two hours to wait first, another two hours of punishment, sentenced to his own company, to himself and who he had become and was.

I watched him through the evening, his distress at being fully conscious and having to deal with his own thoughts. He sat there in a kind of sulk, constantly shaking his legs so as his tormented existence didn't go unnoticed for a second. It was well after 10pm when I finally put him out his misery.

Sean.. give me your foil, I said.

At that he was up and alive, all the misery and contempt leaving him in an instant. I put enough smack on his foil to give him a smoke through the night and a good boot to get him up and out in the morning. He thanked me mercilessly and said he'd never forget it. He said that apart from himself I was the only other junkie who still had a heart. Not affording himself time to become any more emotional he heated and chased the heroin down the foil and sucked up the smoke. The night had come down and he'd survived. For a moment there was a peaceful silence, the silence of junk fiends having blocked out the world. The TV was on and the voices it emitted seemed homely and cosy and warm. In our downed mood we both watched the box, our eyelids getting heavy and sometimes closing over completely. I was glad I had gotten the Cunt well and I was even kinda glad he was there, if only as a presence in the room.

You know, it wasn't me who stole your gear, he said after a while. Honestly, it wasn't me.

I heard his words, nodded, but didn't reply.

You don't believe me do you? He asked. I'd never leave another addict sick, know too well what its like myself. I'd never put someone else through that! Fuck knows what happened to your bag the other night but I swear to you, on my life, it wasn't me!

And for the last time that night I heard his words and didn't reply again.

_ _ _ _

Thanks as ever for reading, Shane. X

Don't forget ---> BOOK LAUNCH: Reading and performance

BOOK LAUNCH/Performance: DES - Martin Bladh

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First Thursday of December, The Last Tuesday Society will host the official UK launch of DES, third book by Swedish artist Martin Bladh published by Finnish label Institute Of Paraphilia Studies.

DES collects a variety of artistic meditations on the case of Britain’s most notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen, ranging from the artist’s correspondence with the killer, staged photographs, drawings and interviews.

The book launch will include an exhibition, readings and a performance by Martin Bladh and special guest Shane Levene (the son of Nilsen’s 14th victim Graham Allen).

.......................................

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martin Bladh (1976-) is a Swedish artist of multiple mediums. His work is dark, visceral, hypnotic and disturbing, laying bare themes of violence, obsession, fantasy, auto-eroticism, self-mutilation, domination, submission, narcissism. Further beyond that, there is also a tribal, base, essential quality to his work, a kind of saving grace which grounds his art and makes it rare and valid. Martin is also a founding member of the post-industrial band IRM, the musical avant-garde unit Skin Area and the publishing company Infinity Land Press.

http://www.martinbladh.com/

CONTRIBUTORS

Karolina Urbaniak (1982 - ) is a visual artist, graphic designer and professional photographer based in London. Manager of Pond Street Studios and cofounder of publishing company Infinity Land Press.

http://karolinaurbaniak.com/

Shane Levene (1975 - ) is an English writer currently dying in exile in France. His work is not in bookshops anywhere but can be found on various squalid and disreputable internet sites. His main place of stay ishttp://memoiresofaheroinhead.com/ where he creates and disappoints his own myth in equal measures. His words have been compared to the best illiterati of our times.

http://memoiresofaheroinhead.blogspot.co.uk/

Mikael Oretoft (1977 - ) is a media/culture producer and musician based in Stockholm, Sweden. He works in a variety of different media: sound design and production, photography, graphic design, and video. He is also a member of the Post-industrial band IRM together with Martin Bladh and Erik Jarl.

........................................

For more information about the launch contact Karolina: desbooklaunch@gmail.com

To order contact: fanimal@cfprod.com & www.cfprod.com/fa

https://www.facebook.com/FreakAnimalFinland?fref=ts

A new Memoires post to follow very-fucking-soon (and if you hold out much hope for that, well, you've obviously just joined this bleeding band of the Very Nearly Departed...) X

On the Autumn Blows

Sometimes on the autumn blows, when it comes through like this, when the evening air has just a faint idea of chill about it and the first musty tangs whip up in the first of the fallen leaves, I remember a life entire and it makes me sad and ecstatic in turns. And on the autumn blows, when the colour of your greatest bruises are back in season, when the scars from old love re-open and weep, when childish tinklebells of happiness ring through from the lost of time, I am compelled to write because this is the parallel universe of which I inhabit and in which I see the flawed and tragic beauty of this world. It is on the autumn blows that I cry for life and all the pleasures and pain therein, thereof and theregone. It is on the autumn blows that death terrifies and offends me and remains something to avoid at all costs.

I dreamt of her again last night... And of her pharmacies. The neon green cross flickering on its last legs, a dying beacon of sickly light for the junkie to wash-up in before smashing into the rocks further on. Askew road. Opposite the public library. The chime of the bell as I enter. Standing there in that pharmaceutical smell of pomade, baby powder and surgical stockings; the evening dark and suspicious outside; the last of the days addicts blustering in with their sniffles, bad lungs and lack of time. And it ends the same: watching myself recede down Hadyn Park Road with my works, the street lights on but the sky not yet quite night above, my form becoming smaller and darker until finally I'm no longer there at all. That was London and that was the autumn there and it only exists in dreamscape now. On waking I am slow to emerge. I don't move. Just lie there. A profound longing weighing me to the bed; the dream fresh in me for some moments yet. I am weeping but it's not sadness. It's a base emotion not contrived at all. I rise and I dress and the day is fresh to the cold outside. October is in me then.

I spent the better part of the morning sat alone outside the L'étoile brasserie watching the carousel turn in the square. The sky was dull full of clouds above, stretching off into the forever. Out across was the river, running parallel to me, huge sycamore trees potted along its course, leaves faded for the change in season, balding and baring through. I topped my coffee up with my morning dose of methadone and stirred it in good. The bartender saw me, made out he hadn't, wiped his cloth across a couple of tables and then came and placed a round glass ashtray down in front of me. I thanked him a Merci and asked that he bring me another cafe au lait. He gave a nod, looking at me intently, determining if I was sober enough to stay, and if so, would I likely be topping up every coffee with controlled substances. I guess he ruled in my favour. Standing a way off to my left he took a long searing drag from his cigarette, inhaled, then blew the smoke out as he peered a painful look over towards the river and at something out there which only he could see. He seemed to ponder profoundly on life for a moment. Then he smirked and gently nodded, a sad despondency in him then, like he'd figured out that it was useless and nothing could be done about it anyway. I looked over to where he'd been focusing, at the same blankness. It was another day in our lives and the city rolled on, and in a thousand years time it'll still be the same and out there I spied the insignificance of our lives when faced with the infinite spectre of history.

The methadone was coming on. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a warm hollowness stirring around, a sudden compulsion to be involved in life. I sat preoccupied by the carousel, lit up and turning around through the drabness of the morning, the wurlitzer music sounding so out of sorts with the yield of the day and yet so perfect in the discordant and contradictory spirit of the time. On the face of it the music was upbeat and carnival but drifting out in low tones, unfurling and seeping up through its heart was a timeless melancholy, some tragedy stewing away below. I watched the few people turning around the ride, the smiling faces, the waving and laughter as they passed their loved ones on the periphery, completely oblivious to the tragic spectacle they were making up a part of. And then it hit me, what that tragic spectacle was: it was what carouselled around the carousel: the timeless melancholy was life.

Morning the colour of cloud. A moistness in the air like very fine drizzle, but no rain to be had. I finished my second coffee and felt lonely but strangely suited for it. I imagined all the beautiful people I'd sat opposite to in cafés over the years, of the time I stole Mary's cup as I wanted a memento of where her lips had been. That was autumn too. In the hotel that night, as we lay kissing on the bed, her suddenly shoving her hand into my pocket to feel out my cock.

“What's that she cried?” Her face ruffled in surprise, looking ugly for the first time. I knew what it was and tried to squirm free. I gripped her wrist so as she couldn't remove her hand.

“It's nothing,” I said, looking ugly for the first time too. “Just a spoon!”

“A spoon??? What?”

She was laughing without laughter, her face frozen on the brink of it... Or on the brink of crying. I was angry, trying to mask it; trying to think. How dare someone go for for my cock, especially in my left pocket! I held her wrist tight and stared without blinking into her eyes. She looked deceived for the first time. Then she looked sad, but that had happened before. Sensing she was never going to get the spoon out my pocket she let go. I pulled her hand out and began licking and kissing her fingers, passionately, removing all trace of the black carbon from them before she saw, before this turned into a real tragedy. As I kissed the last black soot off her fingers I said: “It's your spoon... from the cafe. I stole it. I wanted to save the moment. I stole your cup too. Go look It's in my bag! I collect mementos... I never wanted the day to end.”

Hope returned in her for the first time. That quick all consuming hope that only lovers of addicts, gamblers and the consistently unfaithful are ready to buy into. For a moment a nightmare had nearly shattered all her new dreams, like had happened to her/to me/to the entire world before. But that autumn night would not be the one where her world would collapse. It would be another full month later before she would learn I was an addict and didn't really have gastro-digestive problems; that I was in the toilet so often and for so long as my needles and vit C and heroin were wrapped in a succession of plastic bags and stashed in the cistern.

I laughed now. It seemed sweet. I would live that again if I could, if it meant we could all be young and hopeful again. I looked out over past the carousel, past the river, over to the Fourviere Hill making up the backdrop of the city, the Basilica sat atop it, the huge gilded Virgin Mary looking out over us, breaking through the faint mist at just-past-eleven, protecting the city from pestilence. But the pestilence is here, thriving, only it looks nothing like the plague. It's hard to believe I'm here, making up the history of this foreign town, walking a part of my legend around streets so alien to where I'm from. It's hard to believe it's 2013 and we've mostly all made it this far and the world hasn't really changed at all.

It was time to go. The morning had warned up and lost its bite and other phantoms of life now blew in over from the river and called me off to some place else. I left a note and more change on the table for the two coffees. As I passed the door of the Brasserie I signalled to the bartender that the money was on the table. Taking no chances he rushed out to check before I was gone, out of sight. Taking advantage of not having rung the order through the till the bartender picked the note out the litter and saucered the change into his pocket. When I next looked back he was gone. He had cleared the table and it was hard to believe I had been there at all.

It's true, sometimes when the sun breaks through, when great sheets of architectural yellow light escape between parting clouds, when the river gently laps on the turning tide, when a swan drifts by, we can disconnect from the dirt of living, from the epoch, from the constant fear of death, and for just a moment be equals in that wonder and awe; be equals in that fleeting understanding of mortality.

So once again the greatest season of all is breaking out across Europe. The light summerwear has been chucked back to the moths, the blithe fragrances replaced by scents much heavier and darker and obsessive. It's the time for taking sanctuary in someone, rip undressing as you clatter through the door, the desperate and breathless fuck in the low of the corridor, sperm shot up the inside of a thigh, across coutured lace and woven trims, tears of joy and horror at the realisation of how far you could lose yourself in someone, entire days spent in bed, holding and healing and catching up on a lifetime of good sleep as the wind and skies growl wild outside.

And on and on the autumn blows and winter will be here real soon, and fuck me if I'm not still enamoured with this ghastly fucking world.

Dennis Nilsen Book

Russ Coffey:

Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's most evil serial killer

Latest addition to the literature on mass murderer Dennis Nilsen written by friend and journalist Russ Coffey (including several pages of extracts written by yours truly).  

300 pages on the life, crimes, imprisonment, psychology and future of Dennis Nilsen. Pulled from Coffey's personal correspondence with the man, privileged access to Nilsen's still unpublished autobiography (History of a Drowning Boy) and interviews with various first and secondary victims, Coffey's book is a worthwhile addition to the literature available  on Nilsen. With the benefit of 30 years of hindsight and the aid of the now mountainous archival material which exists on the killer,  Coffey's book is in a much better position than any other to give a more balanced account of the man and his crimes and to show up false arguments and contradictory statements and ideas which have surfaced concerning (and by) the killer himself. With that in mind it is just possible that Coffey's book will shed new light and new found ideas on the psychological make-up of Nilsen and give deeper insight into the complex and often conflicting  reasons which fuelled his crimes.

An in-depth review of the book is not needed here and I am not the best person to do so even if it were. I will just add  that my involvement was totally free and willing even though (and I knew beforehand) the author's views fly in the face of  my own personal feelings towards Nilsen. For the record I don't believe in demonizing people and I wholeheartedly DO NOT believe that Nilsen is an evil man and do not believe anyone is inherently evil (certainly not in any context outside of what we're naturally capable of as animals/ human beings). Furthermore I would one day like to see Nilsen released and am passionately in favour of the publication of his now voluminous autobiography.

For those interested in the writings here, and with the means, please order a copy of Russ Coffey's book. For all close friends and longtime followers of my work I would like to share my copy with You and so those interested in wanting to form a reading-chain please contact me via email (though be careful to note after reading it'll be your responsibility to post the book onto the next reader.)


Until very soon....
All
My
Best,
Shane...

A new Memoires post will follow very shortly... X

A New Season of Tragedy

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Dear Tony... Your last mail found me broken. The ravages of heroin are nothing compared to the ravages of love. A broken heart will leave you looking like death overnight... I'm on my fifth day. God, I wish I had religion now. I've been wandering around looking for tall buildings to throw myself from. I seriously don't know what to do or where to go. My body reminds me of her.... that apartment and the city too. I'm living in a torture chamber. Words are utterly useless now.

My Wingless Love... I am walking through the remains of our city and war and remembrance and beautiful summer days blown apart by allied bombs are all in the air.  Round the back, from some hall, floating through this strange mystique of time there comes music from another age. Happiness seems somewhere here, My Darling, but it's just out of reach. It always is. Your beauty is everywhere and is inescapable. God knows how I will survive... Or if I want to. I wanted to stroll around with you forever. I wanted a lifetime of your comfort and sexuality and kindness. It is the 12th of July 2013 and once again I am in ruins.

- - - -

...and tragedy is unpreparable, she gives no advance warning or sign. The birds don’t scatter from the trees and the dogs don’t cower or run for cover. No, when tragedy arrives she blows in on a calm and silent wind, and it’s very similar to the one that's blowing right now...

The Drunken Boat is back....  

Tragedy Comes on a Calm Wind Part 2 will open the summer prospectus of tragedy.... 

Soyez prudent mes amis, this world is a cruel and merciless place. X

The Bay of Naples

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It fails me now the quarter in which we were staying, Pedro and I, but we headed out from there. We passed the prostitutes under the flyover, cut through the throbbing perversity of the traffic, then slopped through the fish market. Into the ghetto Espagnolé, mothers scrubbing kids in tin baths in the street, toothless grandmas shelling peas on doorsteps, insults and curses and fights ricocheting from windows up and around: a poem of southern Italy. Past the concrete football pitch. Weeds growing up from the cracks. Bin bags and trash piled twelve foot high around the far perimeter. Refuge strikes. Rats strolling about freely. Cock-roaches the size of almonds. Out from the tall shaded third world into the sun baked thirder first world. Illegal Nigerians and Malians. Odd shoes, socks, rags, DVDs, video cassettes, saucepans, books, electrical gadgets, fabrics, blankets, broken toys, board games, cutlery... All splattered out along the pavement. Screaming pushing grabbing haggling fighting. The dribbling arsehole of the common market. Up Head, the bag snatchers on Vespers. Weaving in and out the traffic. Up on the pavement, whizzing by, arms reaching out, whether they're making a snatch or not. Piazza Garibaldi. The junkies of the central station. Those who've copped marching off like snivelling storm-troopers. A junkie girl. Bare bruised legs and flip flop feet, holding onto her man. Laughing. Life is sweet and it's just about to get sweeter. A poem of love in the South. Vacant stares on wastrel faces. A memory of the future. Down now, into the city proper. Syringes in the dustbins, packets of prescription drugs in the gutter, stains of human life in the doorways. The new wave punks sold on anarchy and printed slogans. Graffiti. Torn flapping posters. Leaflets. Flyers. A call to arms. Whistles and screams ringing out from manifestations. Police motorbikes parked outside cafés. Traffic cops staring out at the noise and heat and bustle over small espressos. Onto the main street. The sickening and universal smell of commerce turns out from revolving doors. Leather, perfume, polished floors, brass adornments, tailored shirts, fetish heels, gold trimmed bags, designer sunglasses, gold watches, rings and pearls and ground roasted coffee beans. The Vespas ever present. Smelling blood. Zipping by for the idiot girl who carries her bag road side. The homeless and the trash hosed away, back down to the station with the niggers and the whores and addicts. Up now. Climbing. The roads widen out and there's a haze in the near distance. Palm trees plotted along the central divide. They shake and whisper through faint breezes in the baked day. Huge rectangular advertising boards. Sun cream, breasts and bikini lines. The sea front. Salt and sand and sex and slime. A host of gay bars along the front. Pushed out to the very edge of the city. High class men of a certain fashion with strong jaws and designer stubbles. They sit outside looking like they're doing nothing but must be doing something. The weak lira smells strong. We climb now. The lira climbs with us. Up sea side inclines. Fantastic slanted houses and shops drunk on the hills. Transvestites and leather and sexual perversions in the safe damp of unfindable places. House whores. A Clandestine class. Studded motorbikes, piercings, industrial metal, open windows, reclusive artists working away in dark interiors. Paintings out in the street to dry. Streets getting so narrow now. Buildings trying to kiss as they lean forward. Mediterranean air. The roads wind up higher and become narrower. Little expensive cafés and bistros tucked away. A bar owner slops out a bucket of floor water for the sun to suck up. So hot. Humid. Condensation dripping from window sills. People in just shorts and sandals and sun glasses and cream. This is where they sigh all day and curse the world and heat. Where the evening arrives like a jewelled oasis. Up so high now and in front of me I can see the city, a steaming shit of ghettos and waste, of noise and pollution and history as as it eats itself up. Squalor, poverty, death, disease. It's all down there, rotting away in the streets and doorways. And Pedro exists. And he's running. His laugh is dreamy and it seems like he's in one of those tragic videos that I'll watch my entire life. And I watch him and he calls me, in Italian, soft contours. And this could be love and it should be love. I watch out from myself, drunk on the romance of a city of sadness and trash. And he's in the cool now, past the last bar on the highest point of the city. He's staring off over a wall and the air is rushing through his hair and I can smell the soap off his skin and something magic too. I climb the last step of hill and the shade and cool hits me like all of Italy is loving me at once. And for a moment the world goes quiet and the city behind me drifts silent and only the smell of the sun and of Pedro's image remains. I join him. And he says nothing, just stands there like a ships head looking out and full of breeze and something more than joy. Out in front of us is the Bay of Naples, an expanse of deep green sea with Vesuvius smoking away to the left. On the water is a single fishing boat and we can see the shadows of fish from here. And I say nothing to Pedro's silence. It's all feeling. And it's a great beautiful sad moment in our lives and our death talk of yesterday figures none. And we know, we both know, there is hope in this godforsaken world.... and in that moment, while the sea sat still and the city lay mute behind, we really and honestly had escaped the trappings of men.

Dark Shadows of Existence

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At this point I shall not suppress a sigh. There are days when I am haunted by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy -- contempt of man. And so as to leave no doubt as to what I despise, whom I despise: it is the man of today, the man with whom I am fatefully contemporary.

Nietzsche – The Antichrist 

 The Last Days of Sober Living

 The last year of sober living was a romantic time. I remember evenings spent sat beneath Westminster Bridge, the party boats just along down, moored in the high tide, the lights of the Southbank centre lit up across. I remember the last days of that infernal summer, where somehow dark obsessions came in on the floral evenings and magic and horror both lay in the distance. It's like it was another world, like the place a poet must see before being condemned to the page and the word. And when the summer was done that last sober autumn, crisp beneath my feet, walking so far and getting so lost and so far away from home. In the distance, rising up, the old industrial areas of Wandsworth, places I'd gone with my father and where we used to research Roman fares and Victorian bottle dumps and dig them up to hopefully find treasures. In the last evenings before the great turbulence of adulthood I read Oscar Wilde and James Joyce and Yeats – the Irish in me for the fight to come. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the great Russian writers accompanied me as I travelled London, a kinda farewell tour before going underground. I visited museums and galleries and walked around Soho in the pouring rain, miserable and seeking out drug contacts. I wasn't needing a contact just then but was planning ahead. I wrote my first short stories through that winter with the windows out, no heating or money and having to warm my hands with a hair-dryer.

 It was an insanely beautiful time, the memory a bruise blossoming in the sky now. But coming in on the back of the year was a great storm. I had been watching it build for years, darkening tones and swirling shapes in the sky which I didn't understand. I was too young to chase storms at that time. God, I didn't know which way it'd move or what course it'd likely take. So I sat and watched with a fatalistic horror and delight, kinda thrilled that the world was gonna come down on me, imaging the eroticism of my struggle and how I'd kick and fight and die. I watched the storm engulf the sky and come up over the bridge. The river darkened and weird ripples and eddies crashed about below. The cheers from the riverside bars now sounded like screams, like the whole world was screaming. There was talk of a meltdown. That was the night they set the river on fire and welcomed in a new thousand years. And all the while I was at home, laying in bed, shivering and crying and imagining gunning down the crowds. It was on that night there that the wound opened up and the poet crawled out: I was fundamentally at odds with my world.

In the dark of the night my brother said, “Shut up!” And I don't blame him at all. I chased the smack down the foil, but not even that made life bearable. It wasn't one thing. It was a lifetime of things. Twenty five years of tragedy. I watched the fireworks go off, exploding in the sky, Chinese Dragons and Roman Rockets and War and Blood and Bubblegum sparks... “HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Happy New Millenium!!!” They screamed.

 The last drunks staggered home; the celebrations turned angry in them now. It's just the same; nothing changed; and there's work tomorrow. Outside one of the discontented beat up a dustbin, scattered its guts all over the road. I looked at the back of my brother's head and wondered if he was asleep, if he was still breathing, if he'd survive this night. I used to do that when we were young, creep about in the dark, feeling for his breath. I hope he breathes. I hope he sees the morning. He deserves it more than me. I thought back to when I was ten and Robbie Rudge's granddad said that his goal was to reach the year 2000 as he'd then be exactly one hundred years old. I thought of him, if he was breathing. Probably not. I hoped not. We were seeing in a new era of tragedy, but this next thousand years will not be a history of collective tragedy like the last, but of personal tragedies : it will be the single man and woman who will get it this time. The next holocaust will be indiscriminate.

 My brother was asleep now. His chest didn't move and the night was now deadly still around us. I clicked my lighter and as quietly as I could chased the last beetle of smack around the foil, blowing heroin out into the new year. “Night Night, Dan,” I said... “looks like we've made it, Bro.... looks like we've really fucking made it.”

 2013 

 I don't think I'm going to last out the year. I can feel death and weakness in every move I take. The eclipse of bad health is nearly complete. My lungs rale and wheeze through the night. I am breathless on waking. My first half an hour is spent coughing up the settled phlegm in my chest and smoking cigars to replace it. I feel tired all the time. Not physically tired, but a tiredness that hangs in my face and has a physical weight. I've started getting piercing headaches and have a weird second heartbeat in the extreme left side of my chest. Every so often, twice a day, my entire chest will cramp from the middle as if some force is trying to pull my breast plate apart. My feet are brown from over 10,000 injections per foot and bad circulation. My ankles and shins swell up after each fix. If I pick a scab I scar. Stairs almost kill me. I can manage no more than a flight without getting out of breath. And it's been like that for a while, but now I'm starting to feel really ill with it: old ill, like I'm an old man. If I have to predict how I'll go I'll say my heart will give out. I do believe I'll die alone in this room in France and will not be found for at least a week.

 I never wanted to die and I never wanted to hurt myself. I only ever wanted to tame the pain and be happy. I am happy. That's the contradiction. I was never really sad anyway. I guess when you're young and feel so strong and offended by death that you think you can do just about anything and get away with it. Nothing effects youth but time. Then one day, suddenly, the stitching's all undone. My only hope now is that I really am a hypochondriac.

Rebels should not take Drugs

 Rebels should not take drugs! That is NOT taking up arms! That is NOT the good fight! That is getting in bed with the enemy. Rebels should not drink OR smoke! That is NOT rebelling: that's conforming! Rebels should not pay homage or get high on pussy or arsehole... that only leads to heartbreak, antidepressants and the psychiatrist's couch. Rebels should NOT write! Rebels should NOT march! Rebels should NOT lay down in front of bulldozers! Rebels should NOT sit in French cafés reading clandestine newspapers! That's what rebels are supposed to do!

 People have always said I am a rebel. But I'm not a rebel. I'm the opposite of a rebel: All I've ever wanted was to be accepted and loved.

 Rebels should NOT need love.

 I Have no regrets, but... 

I have no regrets, but...

 That's not a rock n' roll thing, just how it is. I don't look at life for what has passed but only for what is here infront of me today. That's not to say I'd do everything over again. But it is to say that if I could alter history, yet without knowing what consequences that would have on my present, I wouldn't dare change a thing. I have no regrets, but...

 That old man I saw on the metro: how fresh and wise and vibrant he looked. Sitting there with a head of brilliant silver hair, a soberness in his face like you'd maybe acquire from reading thick volumes of law books, his eyes pale and clear, alive and responsive, his skin not sagged or mottled, but thickened perfectly to sit on the collar of his fresh pressed shirt. But there was something else within him, a kind of contentedness with the world and his place in it, something very straight and honest, a kindness of living that only those in good health can have. Somehow he exuded life, as if all the comfort in the world was within him, completely respectful of his own mortality; like every minute was one to savour; like even the discomfort of a morning wash and shave was a pleasure; like waking to a new day was a gift and not a chore to get through until bedtime. I eyed his face again, could almost see the years of him slapping aftershave across his jowls, eager to get out into the world. And he sat there like that, his hands crossed over one another, the right gently clasping the left, taking warmth from his own existence, completely submissive to life, not waiting for the next blow. I unclenched my fists and let my own hands hang loose.

 Between Saxe Gambetta and Bellecour, two quick stops, I glimpsed that man's entire life in my mind. Or maybe not his life, but the life I imagined I'd never have. And as I watched him more, I thought: I wouldn't mind being like that, being him... getting to that age. That wouldn't be too bad.

 I have no regrets, but...

    ...in the dark window of the subway train I glimpsed at my reflection. And I thought:

 God... what the hell have I done.

 Capitalism is:

covering up the waste underneath, the needle pocked flesh, the brown feet, the huge abscess scars, the frightening capillary veins that pop and spread out like fungi, the raling lungs and wheezing chest, the heart palpitations, the shortness of breath, the emphysema, the bloated liver, the early onset of diabetes, the methadone fat, the filthy elbows, the dirty neck, the suicide scars... all covered by nice shirts and jumpers and trousers and socks and shoes.

 When Tescos began selling books like Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' I knew we were fucked. A system so sure of itself that it even sold me it's own anti-propaganda, advising its customers to boycott almost every product it sells.

 Capitalism is ME. I see it all too clearly now.

Home: A Love Letter to London #257

Behind the wall, in the shade, on the weeds, I know the black and orange caterpillars that are found there. Through the park, behind the swings, in the bushes, I know the human shit and trodden porno mags. Along the river, on the bank, with the tide sat out, I know the stench of the sunbaked mud. In Shepherds Bush, down St Elmo's Road, in first spring days, I know the Cherry Blossom snow. Around the church, on broken graves, under the elm, I know the damp of summer shade. Beneath the cars, where the eye can't see, I know by default lies what where:

The taste of bus windows; the underside of benches; the stuff stuffed down behind the green BT junction boxes; the muck of squashed vegetables after market; the hard school walls; the anti-climb fences and black grease; the smell of the public telephone receiver; the smoked brown wood of telephone poles; the acrid taste of motorway berries; the oil pools on the tarmac after the neighbours fixed his car; a sparkplug caught in the drain; the white enamelled bricks in latrines; the grubs that burrow in the window boxes; the insects that come in on summer nights; the mosquitoes in the back yard; the softness of the back seat in taxis; the taste of bus windows; the rain in shopping bags; the stains the beggars leave alongside the cash machine; the brown furry pollution that clings to the disused power station on Lotts road; the smell of train journeys out of town; egg and cress and mayo sandwiches; wet dogs; house cats; the smell of Superdrug bathsalts; brewery alleys; Adidas aftershave; four pints of beer and an ashtray; sausage and beans; fresh air dried laundry; corner shops full of the morning news; carbon betting slips; the afternoon soup kitchen of the Goldhawk Road Methodist church. That's my home. A million memories of all I am and everything I'll ever be. A deep sadness of a city that horrifies, saddens and brings me to beautiful tears... caught somewhere in years gone by and going by. That there is my home. She rises west from here and sprawls out like you wouldn't believe. She rises and settles like a mushroom cloud; the snake of the river slithering through her heart. London Town.

My city rips me in two. There is nothing I am more passionate about than home. It acts upon me as a melancholic gravitational pull. I cry for London Town. I did another Google Map walk through her streets last week. I broke down crying for the city I know so intimately, for my exile from her, for all that is me and is lost here. Cut off from London I am dying, but I am too gutless to return. I suppose I'd rather live in pain than face the music. But as my father and mother and brother and sisters die I will be taught one almighty lesson: I will be brought to my knees and dragged screaming through these foreign streets.

France is not my home. It's not even a home from home. Maybe on my death bed I'll be nostalgic about my days here, maybe she'll become a part of my history proper, but just now she weighs me down and makes me unutterably sad. I don't know this city or the people like the integral way I know the people of my own city. The little nuances that distinguish everyone – a slight accent, a fashion of accentuating words, the choice of words. I don't know this place and it doesn't know me. I have become a 37 year old blank. I didn't grow up here. I didn't clamber over her walls and graze my knees, camp in her undergrowth, go insect spotting in her forest. The streets are not the same curbs we sat on as kids, poking at the gutter life. The walls are not the same brick I drew and sprayed my name on, was gripped up upon. Even the barbed wire is a different cut and leaves different scars. I once wrote that 'the pavement tastes the same no matter where you are', but that was just poetry, a throwaway line that sounds true but isn't. The pavement DOESN'T taste the same, it's just the same things that knock you to it.

 The Dark Shadow of Existence

I walked around followed by the dark shadow of existence. It fell in front of me when the light was behind, moped behind me when the light was in front, and submerged within me for the high noon sun, only to re-emerge, inch by inch as the light went down, out into the evening, until it stretched so far ahead of me it was all there was. And when the natural light of day was done, my dark shadow of existence multiplied and split, unsure of which debauched route to take through the city night. The lights from street lamps and sex shops and bars and arcades tugging at my soul.

Behind my dark shadow of existence I live in fear. I creep around like one of the mentally retarded, grinning at perverse acts and watching the elephant men and woman of the city balance their lopsided lives in dubious ways. I stand in the grime of shooting galleries, watching and imaging nightmare scenarios. I watch young boys in the station toilets perfecting the eyes of lust they'll give to old men as they suck their cocks and rifle through their pockets. I help put sex cards in the phone booths for dying smack and crack whores. I sit in the room, waiting for the crack man, fronting the money and loading the pipe till she's finished out back and can join me. Sometimes a client wants a proper moment and she'll rush out in vile filthy knickers, her death in the low light, holes in her groin, sucking down a rock of crack before scampering back to her trick. The curtains are drawn and it's not even 2pm.

My dark shadow of existence is there when I wake, staring forward at the naked, nicotine stained walls, the blood on the floor. It raises when I do, before the sun is even up.