The morning has just ticked past five. I feel like shit. Like I am going to survive my own death.
My legs hurt, and both sides of my body - from the hip bone and running up under each arm - are bruised and swollen. For the past three days, with needles so blunt you couldn't pierce an ear with them, I've been injecting in the long veins that run up along the torso. I've hit nerves, tender muscle, cartilidge and bone. I feel down and beaten and I haven't even turned the light on yet.
Except from the glow of my laptop and a muted Harry Potter film (which has been looping away in the background for two days now) the room is dark. I can just see shapes - a tap, a fan, a doorhandle. There are things on the floor, probably clothes, probably shot through with blood. In my bed there are cigarette ends and ash and tobacco. The ashtray is piled high like some weird game of Jenga. (A moth has just flown by - it'll be dead soon. The heat of summer is already on the turn.)
There is also a smell. It smells like sickness - like everything does when one is down with the flu. It seems to be coming from my fingers, my hair, my nose, my skin. Cold water seems like the worst thing in the world. I am ill. I know it, but cannot feel it. If it wasn't for the methadone I would not even be writing. Sometimes I want to die - just for ten minutes, until the world rearranges itself into a better looking shit.
Cigarettes taste like death too. I've just lit one. Now I want a coffee. A coffee would be great. But the energy used in getting that coffee would take the pleasure away of having it. I would only suffer more. Also, I'd have to turn the light on and then I'd see the mess: needles and cups and blood and half eaten things and bread in the sink and rancid bowls of cereal and me...
#
When I am better I am going to enjoy life. I'm going to go to the park and watch things and feel all the little pulls and annoyances of nature on my skin. If it's cold, good! I need it. I want to smell and breathe and get exhausted and have some natural kind of calmants. To sleep because the day was so long and the ride home so hypnotic, like that day trip I once had to Brighton, where the motorway lights sent me to sleep on the coach. I want that and the sea and the world and the stars. But more, more than anything else, at 5.44am on Tuesday 31st August 2010, I want a clean bed. Light fresh sheets, proper pillows and a soft crumpled blanket that is cold at first and then warm and then unimaginably comfortable. To wake up in a new world where all those old songs no longer exist...
Won't you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs....
Tomorrow I am going on a three month break from this/heroin. That's my intention, anyhow. I will document each of those days in little posts. Whether it lasts one, two or ten, who can tell??? Going by previous records and my lack of resolve, I'll give myself three days before I'm back here again. Back fearing the morning light, cursing the first metro and dreading the sound of the bin men. Those who want to suffer or laugh along, feel free to pull up a chair....
(Posts will be written instantaneously. There will be no redrafting or spelling or comma checks. All faults are mine. Shane. X)
Hopping the Wagon: Day 1
Customs & Excise
Today I met a Goddess. She had no teeth, skin the colour of boiled and beaten fish, hepatitis A, B & C and probably HIV. She came all the way across town to rob me of 55 euros – I'm a lucky man. Normally she won't get off the toilet for less than a hundred, but today she must have been feeling extra charitable.
The Goddesses name is Sonia. That's her real name, no fucking around with her. She gives it straight. She tells you “You pay double and get half!” All I ask is that she don't dip into the 'half'. Nine times out of ten she does.
If it wasn't for Sonia I'd either be dead or sober. For the last two years, ever since David was sentenced to 4 and a half years in St. Joseph's prison, she has been supplying me in methadone and heroin. Only once has she ever let me down.
When I see Sonia, I see beauty. I'm blind to all her tricks and scams and cons. It's like I'm in love. I sit waiting for her for hours, send her desperate texts asking where she is and convince myself that she will stand me up. And then I see her. And she looks so wonderful and I suddenly feel whole again.
In france it is the custom to greet one another with a kiss on either cheek. Sonia and I don't care a fuck for customs. We do it with an old-fashioned hand shake. Sometimes we even say “hello.” Mostly though she just says “It's really small but strong!” Then she turns her back and is gone.
For the next 12 hours she is no longer a goddess, but rather a “fucking robbing junkie whore!” and someone “I'll never see again! Nah, that's it, I'm sick of that bitch... really, I'm fucking serious this time!!!” Come morning the smacks all gone and to feel only slightly shitty I swallow three times as much methadone as usual. Before I know it I am withdrawing money I don't have and paying my rent with a cheque that will bounce into orbit when the landlord tries to cash it. But so what, I've just hit the redial button and Sonia's phone is ringing. In just under an hour my Goddess will come, rob me again, and then I'll feel a whole lot better.
My fondest Wishes to All and a huge thanks to those who have sent mails and continued supporting Memoires through the rainy season. Something beautiful will surely be posted soon...
Until then, All My Thoughts, Shane. X
Memoires of a Heroinhead - Part 2
Memoires of a Heroinhead is changing. The past is over welcome to The Now.
Part 1 of MOAH concentrated more on the past and how I may have got to where I am today. There was no blame, no bitterness and no self-pity. Some things came my way by chance, others I walked into with full responsibility. I just detailed the the events.
Memoires of a Heroinhead Part 2 will focus more on Me today, my life as a 35 year old heroin addict in France. Posts will be much shorter, but more frequently written.
I thank All the people that have stuck by this blog, for putting up with my excuses and lies yet loyally coming back month after month. It didn't help me get straight, but it did stop me getting completely wasted. I don't think there's much more than that any of you could have done.
Until very soon, All My Love & Thoughts, Shane. X
PS: Longy, do you remember my challenge of the month? Well it was too long for a single post. Part 2 is dedicated to You. x
PPS: Stacy, thank you so much for the books & I promise to put a pic up soon. The final Part 3 will be for you. XXX
More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace
Helen Roberts opened the door of Hammersmith and Fulham social services and all four of us pushed in. She gave a hurried look down each end of the road and when sure we had not been followed closed and locked the door. “Is that it?” she asked, looking at the large bag my sister and I were holding. “Is that all you've got?” It was 1987 and we had just fled the family home.
“He's gonna fucking kill us, 'elen!” my mother slobbered. “That door won't stop 'im... You ain't seen 'im after a drink. He's a fuckin' dang'rous alcoholic... not fit to be around children!”
“Yes, although when we spoke to Mr Levene, he said it was you with the drinking problem. That it's you who's not safe to be around the children. That you're drinking in excess of two bottles of vodka a day.”
“Yeah, did he also tell you he fucks men! That he brings perverts and child molesters back with 'im!” my mother retorted. She tried to do that thing that women do where they say something clever and then pout their lips and slam their hands on their hips, but in her state she just kinda stumbled a few steps forward and stood there growling with a whiskey laden face.
Helen peered in at her with concern. “Come this way, we all need to talk.”
We followed Helen up some stairs and through a security door into a family holding room. There were bean bags on the floor, boxes piled high with grubby toys, and story books with every other page torn out. At the very back another door led into a room that contained only two wooden chairs and a table. Helen, our Social Worker of the last three years, used this room to speak to each family member in turn. Rachel, my elder sister, was called in first. Before the door even closed shut my mother was in her handbag unscrewing the cap from her half bottle of scotch. She took a few huge swigs then turned to me.
“And remember Shane, if she asks am I still drinking you say “No!” If not they'll send you back to that bald cunt!” She took a final swig from her bottle then circled her lips with her forefinger and thumb. She somehow thought that by rubbing the alcohol from her mouth that it would render her less drunk. Of course it didn't and a moment later she was sat lurched over on her side with a pee patch breaking around the crotch of her jeans.
For some reason my sister returned having been crying. Mum gave her an evil drunk look and then turned away in disgust. Rachel flopped down on a bean bag anf wiped her fringe out her wet eyes. She must have cracked and admitted to the horrors of what we were all living.
It goes without saying that I didn't crack. I was proud to lie, proud to be Mum's impenetrable boy. I repeated all I was told and sat there looking smug and disinterested.
“Shane, there's little use denying it, I can smell alcohol on her breath!”
I just shrugged “Well she ain't drinking. My mum don't drink.” And then I was set free.
Of course, it was obvious to everyone that mum was paralytic drunk. She was flopped down in the cushions with the world a blurred view through top and bottom eyelashes. In front of the whole family Helen bit the bullet and came out with it.
“Lesley, we need to speak about your problem with alcohol. I can understand why it is you may have felt the need for a drink today, but leaving home with the children entails a new kind of responsibility. There is no way we can let them permanently into your sole care without taking steps to combat this.”
At first my mother just sat there furious, looking off to her side and slightly nodding her head. When she realised the game was up she broke down crying. At first silent tears, then sobs, then shrieks between caught breath. When she finally finished mascara was dripping off her nose and chin. She looked like something which had come in from a storm. It was then agreed that mum would stop drinking, take up AA meetings and visit Helen once a week to report her progress. To show how earnest she was, mum gave Helen her almost empty bottle of whiskey and in another pathetic alcoholic outburst she bawled, “Take it, just TAKE IT!... I don't want it anymore: It's killing me!”
We must have been in the social services all day as when the police finally arrived to escort us across to a hotel on the other side of town the evening dusk was hanging low.
I remember that car journey well. Not so much the sights but more the scents: my mother's lipstick, leather jacket, chewing gum and whiskey. In a way it seemed perfect for what was passing us by outside - like a smell track to a film. Driving through central London's early evening bustle seemed almost unreal, like a magic world that only existed in books or dreams. It was exciting and beautiful, but somewhere I felt, even knew, it was probably the worst possible place my mother could ever be.
Surprisingly enough for a whole month my mother did stop drinking. She began AA meetings, met Helen sober once a week and got us enrolled back into school. She applied for grants to buy us new clothes, made the court custody appearances that had been proceeded by my stepfather and even started talking about taking us on holiday. And then one day I returned home from school and she was lolling naked on the floor pouring out a glass of Vodka. “I've started drinking again!” she stammered, “but I suppose you fucking knew that already!” Spread out on the bed, sucking on a B&H, was Tony, her AA sponsor and the person she was supposed to call if she was having a crisis. He just laid there looking shot and blowing smoke rings to the ceiling.
In the hotel we had two rooms: R104 & 105. The first was for my mother and the second for my brother, sister and I. I went into the adjoining room and joined my siblings.
“Have you seen mum?” asked my brother raising his eyebrows. I just nodded, sent my bag crashing to the floor, then sat on the bed staring at theTV.
From that point on life returned to how it was. The only differences being we were in a new borough, in a newt house and with no step-father to lay down the law. As a result my brother Daniel and I quickly started exploring Victoria and going to all the places we were told we shouldn't. Because of its links with prostitution and its proximity to London's sex district of Soho, Belgravia was advertised as a dangerous area for children. But for us the danger was exciting. We'd wander around in the dark evenings peering into bars, the social foyers of large hotels, and the ringing and flashing games arcades. It was not long before we met other kids who either could not or did not want to go home, and with them we sat around Victoria's main station smoking and mucking about until the early hours of the morning.
My mother's drinking only worsened. She quit AA, quit seeing Helen and quit trying to make one bottle of vodka last. By the time she met Caroline she was knocking back two full bottles a day.
Caroline was a young 18 year old prostitute. I have no idea how my mother met her, just one day she was there... living with us. Her 'thing' was being paid to shit on men; that's what she did. She said that some men like that. Laughing, she explained that the best thing to eat if she didn't want to hang around too long was spicy curry or Mexican. Like many prostitutes I have since known, she seemed to take an enormous pride in her hustle, saying that no-one could “drop a load” like her. But we were young and it was just a big joke.
Caroline lived and slept with my mum. She drank but never to the extent that mum did. In fact, I can not ever recall seeing Caroline obviously under the influence. As with all my mother's lovers (male or female) it wasn't long before violent arguments started bashing their way against the wall. The next thing we knew Caroline had moved into our room. She said mum “needed mental help”, that she “was fuckin' crazy.” And she was absolutely right.
By this stage we very rarely saw mum anymore. She hardly ever left her bed, even less the room. She just laid there as the piss slowly spread, occasionally leaning over and puking up milky lumps onto the floor. Then she started locking herself in, and this is where the climbing out the window began.
Our rooms were situated on the fifth floor of the hotel with the windows opening up onto the street. From window to window ran a small ledge just over a foot in width. With my mother's disposition for suicide, and having locked herself in, it was the only route into her room so as we could check on her. For that reason my brother and I took it in turns to crawl along the ledge and into my mother's room. Once there, we'd make sure she was breathing, nick a few cigarettes, unlock the door and leave. And not just once or twice. We carried out that manoeuvre multiple times per day. One slip and we'd have fallen to certain death. But we were small, fearless and agile. It was a whole different story when my mother decided to climb out.
“So you think it's fuckin clever coming into my room, stealing money and pouring my drink away, eh!" mum shrieked, looking at me with hatred. “Well, we can all play that fuckin game!” And with that she pulled the belt tight around her dressing gown and began climbing out the window. At first we started screaming and then Caroline clung onto her legs so as she couldn't get out. Mum gave a frenzied couple of back kicks and was suddenly free, out on the ledge and raising to a stand, 100ft over central London. Then she started to walk.
No-one moved. We were all in shock and had even stopped screaming for fear of distracting her. I closed my eyes and had scattered visions of blood, brains, teeth and blond hair. I imagined the panic that would strike me when she fell, the silent milliseconds before hearing her body hit the concrete below. I thought of the horror I would feel looking down to see if she had survived. Mums body smashed and broken and dead.
The room was dry crying. Just large terrified eyes looking desperately at each other for help, as if by showing such extreme fear the other could produce some kind of a miracle solution to stop the others anguish. Of course no-one could and mums drunken ranting and screaming was drifting in from outside.
“Don't worry.. I'm not gonna jump! Though you'd all fucking enjoy that!” And then she was back in view; crouching slowly with an unsteady hand on the ledge. Then sitting, with her pale legs dangling down, mum leaned back into the room and looked at us upside down. “Well fucking help me then!” she demanded, looking like she was holding back vomit. We all rushed forward and grabbed a hold off her. With our combined weight we pulled and dragged down. After a moment she fell in, banged her head and her right tit fell out. She lay on the floor looking concussed and spastic. Slowly turning her head, and focusing in completely the wrong direction, mum slurred, “Caroline, I want you out of here you fuckin' little bitch!” Then she stood up, staggered to the door and was gone.
Caroline never left and by morning mum had even forget she had climbed out the window. She just remained even more in her room, bleached white and withering away to nothing. Her hair became matted and dread-locked and now she even shuffled down to the off-licence in her soiled, bloody, vomit crusted nightgown. On the rare occasions we saw her she'd either be steadying herself down the hall (usually with bags of vodka) or sometimes with a saucepan of tepid soup. And then just as quickly as it had started, one day mum called us in the room, and laying there like a queen on her deathbed, she said: “I'm packing in the drink.”
That was the first time I saw mum withdraw from alcohol. “It'll take three days,” she warned us.
“On the first day I'll have the sweats; on the second the shakes; and on the third: DON'T LET ME OUT THE FUCKING ROOM!” She kinda gave a loving laugh. In relief and joy we laughed along too. Things were finally going to be OK.
That marked a new pattern in her drinking behaviour. My mother would now binge – stop – binge - stop - binge. She could be sober for 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months, no-one knew, not even her. And then one day she'd be drunk and it would all start over again. The only sure thing in it all was that she was always drunk more often than she was not.
That small period in Victoria was probably the most isolated of our lives. We had no neutral adults or grounding forces around and really had to fend for ourselves. We done our own washing, cooking and ironing. We put ourselves to bed and got ourselves up for school. When we got home we'd take it in turns to be on suicide watch. We were children looking after children.
Whilst awaiting the custody hearing a temporary court order prevented us having any contact with dad (stepfather) and he was not allowed to come within a hundred metres of any place he knew us to be. As I'm sure it did my brother and sister, that hurt and saddened me. In a strange way I had grown to love him... to enjoy him for who he was. I had certainly never imagined that one day he'd not be there. That just kinda happened. Mum had asked us to make a quick-fire decision and we chose 'her'. 5 minutes after nodding our heads, Dad, the dog and the house were gone. It was a shock and none of us really thought through the consequences of that choice. It was only when we understood Dad could end up in prison if he approached us that it really hit home.
Our forced separation was sad, for us, but by far the saddest part was imaging Dad all alone. I was obsessed with that thought, of what he had done when he arrived home on the day we left. Did he find it strange the lights were out and the place silent? Did he at first call out? Sense a strange emptiness? Did he then realise certain things were out of place, missing? That Mum's room had been ransacked of a few important things? Did he then rush up into our room? See most our clothes and hand held electronic games were gone? Did he knock the neighbours up in a panic asking if they'd seen us? Did he break down and cry? As the weeks and months passed I became more and more preoccupied with what had become of Dad. If he was alright. And then I could take it no more... along with my brother we decided on a secret visit home.
It was a spring evening and the light was just on the turn. It was cold and wet and pale mauve. In a park barely 10 minutes walk from the old family home, my brother and I had just finished football practice. Instead of taking the bus home at the nearby stop, we decided to walk to the one a few stops further along the route, cutting by our old house to get there. “Just keep low and follow me,” I said to Daniel “if he's there we mustn't let him see us!”
Ducking down behind the cars on the opposite side of the road, I led the way. Like that we crept along until we were right opposite the old house. I raised myself just enough to be able to see. “All the lights are out. I don't think he's in.” I reported back “Shall we go across and have a look?” At my brothers nod we both came out of hiding and crossed the road.
The first thing that happened was Shandy, dad's dog, saw us coming and began doing back-flips at the window and licking the glass. We tried to calm him down but he just got more crazy, barking and whining. In the backdrop the place was a mess. There were bottles, betting slips and torn newspaper strewn everywhere. Down next to the fire was a grubby stained duvet and sleeveless pillows. “Try the bell.” I said to my brother “see if there's electricity?” Daniel pressed the bell and shook his head. “It must've been disconnected. He ain't paid the bill.” he said. “He's living here in the dark!” It was sad beyond words. Sadness of the like which can only ever be felt. Bending down, I lifted the letter box and peered through. The hallway where we used to play football and cricket in was now just a littered mess. There were clothes and books everywhere, unopened letters and boxes. A light switch hung by wires from the wall. Down through the kitchen I could see piles of dirty pans and dishes stacked high. But for a split box of economy teabags and a bowl of sugar the back cupboard was bare. The stairs leading up to mums old room had been stripped of their carpet; some of Mum's old clothes clung to the steps as if they'd been torn up and chucked down in anger. The bannister we used to slide down now had every other post missing or broken. Dads beige summer jacket hung at the bottom with the dog chain. It's strange because it wasn't like looking at home but felt more like looking back in time. Like in a museum, where behind glass they have created a scene from some bygone era or other. That's what I felt looking in. It was a reconstruction of a broken home.
By now the evening was almost dark. The house had descended into shadow and seemed profoundly empty. It no longer smelt like home but like the dust that settles on the top of an old box. It was a place of sadness and pain; a place where a man sat who had lost his children and didn't know what to do. A place where the owner didn't want to live there anymore. I let the letter box fall down and looked at Dan. “Come on, lets get outta here.” I said dejectedly, and without speaking a word of what we had seen we ran off and caught the bus back home.
We had now been in the Hotel five months, and mum, bedridden, soiled and dreadlocked took a turn for the worse... she got depressed! That on top of being suicidal was bad news. Now, for some unknown reason, she could no longer bare living in the Hotel and all we heard were sobs and wails trailing from her room. That and the sound of neat vodka glugging its way out the bottle and down her throat. Lucky for us good news would soon arrive and a week later we would be gone.
Of course that final week was a memorable one. It ended with Caroline leaving in tears, my mother going through the shakes and sobering up and an Indian tenant leaping to his death from a 4th floor window. The gypsies on the ground floor who caught his landing said his “head cracked open like a coconut and he bit his tongue off”. They also said he was “bollock naked”. Unfortunately all that was left when we arrived was the blood. A dark red stain in the shape of Ireland.
Two days after that we received a letter from the council saying they were pleased to inform us they had found us a home, albeit another temporary one, in Maida Vale, North London. Before the bottles and puke piled up it was the most fantastic and luxurious place we ever lived. Mum later told us what we already knew, that out of pure desperation to quit the hotel she had been fucking the manager Mr Patel, who in turn had written to the council nominating us as the family most likely to benefit from re-housing.
Benefit? Not really, no. The next seven years just brought more of the same. All that changed is we were growing up and growing wiser. We stopped phoning 999 after each fake suicide attempt and instead of tipping mum's drink down the sink we tipped it down ourselves. Soon we were just as wasted as her and twice as reckless. Mum would eventually lay her alcohol demon to rest, only to fall into the arms of crack and heroin addiction in the same year. But compared to alcohol abuse, crack and heroin are nothing... as it turned out, they were the best years of our lives.
Thanks to Everyone who has stuck through this blog and stuck through this post. As ever it is appreciated more than I can possibly say.
Love, Thoughts & Wishes, Shane. X
Cyber Dildo - A Wonderful Dedication
(I found this posted on another blog. A dedication from Anna Grace.)
Shane from France, Heroinhead is my cyberdildo
I think all of us who read HeroinHeads blogs are always excited to read a new one, and when he finally births a blog I have a little ritual that I do. Let me tell you all about it.
I have all Shane's blogs emailed straight to my yahoo mail. Every day when I check the mail I'm on pins and needles hoping and praying that one of HeroinHeads memoirs will be in my inbox. Even though he only blogs about twice a month I have my kit next to me everytime I login to my email. My kit you wonder, yes my kit.
First off my kit consists of a bag of works. Those of you few who read my blog and don't know what "works" are I will clue you in. Every junky has a bag of "works", which includes a spoon, a hypodermic syringe, cotton, and a tourniquet to tie off with. Even though I don't have Heroin, and am on Methadone, I still cook up some water and get ready to put it in my vein. Mainly because its like masturbation for me.
My kit also consists of KY Jelly, a red rose fresh weekly, my works, my laptop, privacy. I open the blog, and begin to read the words on the screen. I read thru the blog the first time fast, not taking it all in. Just getting the jist of it. The second time around, I can't help but be seduced by his words, and imagery. I read it slowly, sometimes reading aloud to myself imagining Shane telling me the story face to face, with a silver tongue. Since Shane lives on a different continent I substitute a rose for him.
His blogs never fails to give me the most intense cravings for Heroin, and the most intense sexual arousal my body will allow with a brain full of Methadone. After I've read the blog through and through, I can't help myself, I cook up the water, and get a shot of water ready to introduce into my veins, but before I inject I use the KY Jelly to masturbate, right after I come, I shoot up the water, and it almost feels like that heavenly rush of a nice shot of Heroin. No matter how dark the post, how much horror he tells about his past, or how funny. I always imagine Shane naked in his office naked, using his mom's bra as a tourniquet trying to find a vein when his boss pops in and finds him in such a perdiciment. This by far is my favorite blog of his.
Shane has three times as many readers as I do, and I totally understand why. His words are like the cum shot for a porno addict. I am in awe at how his mind works, and I don't even know the man. I never will know the man in real life, but in this cyber space on this voo doo screen Shane aka HeroinHead is my dildo.
Anna has long history of substance abuse and heroin addiction. She has recently just been released from prison and is currently keeping well with Methadone maintenance. She's an Angel, although a pretty fucking crazy one! She dreams of becoming a writer and looks forwrd to the day when she's back on smack. Go check her blog out.
A new HH post to follow...
Shane. x
Apology between Posts #7: Off the Wagon & onto the Horse
It's not very easy to fall off the wagon and land on the horse, but I seem to have an inate ability at doing just that. In fact, I've even become quite good at it.
So my apology this time centres around the truth and that is I cannot type when my head is flat against my keyboard. All that ever produces is hundreds of pages of this:
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjnhhhhhhhhhhhkhjhjljljljljljljlè__èçà uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukkcxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx66666666664699999
And that's on a good night.
Still, there is a new post on the horizon, and with a bit of luck, the correct phones being switched off and the bank refusing me money, that should be with you sometime this evening.
Thanks for sticking with me...
All My Best Thoughts & Wishes, Shanddddddddjkkkmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnccccccccccccccccccccccccccccczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzmoijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjç
Tale of a Petty Thief
My step-father was a bizarre person. He was a conman and a heavy drinke, a compulsive gambler and an ex-boxing champ. When I was 6 he left my mother for the arms of a man we only ever knew as 'The Ball Squeezer' and earned his money doing just that: dressing up as a school headmaster and squeezing the balls of his companion for £12 a session. During the remainder of my formative years he was in and out of police cells and courts, charged with everything from robbery to tax evasion, GBH and breach of the peace. Still, this was the man I called “Dad” and even with all his eccentricities and faults he was the most stable thing within miles.
With a nose that had been flattened and busted twelve times, a six inch chib mark running down the left side of his face, and both hands and arms daubed in prison tattoos, he was a young family’s hope... he was all we had. When my mother attempted suicide, or worse survived, it was him that would feed, clothe, and bathe us. But my stepfather was no ordinary man, he was a true eccentric. It was only as I grew older and looked back that I realised something crazy had blown through and coloured my life, and in turn, affected me in many subtle ways. Here is the story of The Man who gave me Wilde.
“God isn’t he ugly!” were my stepfather's words when he saw me for the first time raw and premature in the Royal Free Hospital. “He looks like a little old man!” Of course, I don’t remember him mouthing those words, but that story was repeated to me so often that it stands as my first false memory.
The next memory I have is of him holding me by the ankles and lowering me down into a tomb. “Thats death!” he’d say, peering in over my feet, “Can you see anything?” If he wasn’t holding me down graves or telling me hideous bedtime stories about ghouls, perverts, decapitations or diseases, he’d be inside doing the ironing in a dress. In summer he would spend his days sitting out on the dustbin in the front yard reading Orwell or Darwin and slurping away at huge cups of sugary tea. Every Sunday at 3 pm he would set a table up on the pavement and sit there alone wolfing down a full Sunday roast. More than once he was accused of indecent exposure. He was such a spectacle that the Estate Agents paid him to stay inside whilst they were around taking photo’s. It was the 1980’s and property prices in Fulham had shot through the roof. The last thing Foxtons wanted was a bald, semi-dressed gay man, with an exposed ballbag being the backdrop to 'an exquisite victorian maisonette.'
Besides many other things my step-father was also a fitness fanatic. More than any other man I have ever known he took an obsessive interest in his body, and the shape and contours of his muscles. Standing in front of the curtainless front windows he’d be lifting weights, squeezing his Bull Worker or doing star jumps. Whilst walking us to school he’d often drop to the floor and begin doing pressups. “One... Two... THREE..” we’d hear him blow. Passing under scaffold he’d invariably leap up and do 10 or 15 lift-ups, the veins in his neck pulsating and his face looking like it was about to explode. “I just love exercise,” he’d declare, “nothing feels better than the pain of a good work-out!”
My stepfather was also a ‘gleamer’. That meant he gleamed from the streets, picking up and dragging home anything which could be used. Many an evening and weekend he’d drag me along to help haul an old carpet or mattress back home. As he rummaged through skips I would constantly wander off, petrified that a school friend may pass and see me. But it was not just furnitures that he gleamed, it was gold and money too. Convinced he was in possession of magical powers he would dowse city maps with a ring on the end of a string, believing it would guide him to the city’s treasures. “Gold... gollld.. golllllld” he would repeat spookily with his eyes half closed as if in some kind of weird trance. Walking down the street he would suddenly do a U-turn and without a word and march derangedly back the direction we had just come from: “I’ve got that feeling!” he’d say “my toes are all tingling... I'm gonna find something!” And he did, he found a lot of stuff, but not because he was gifted or had any magical powers, but because he walked with his nose in the gutter seven hours a day, everyday. If a wallet or a note was dropped in West London, the chances are it would be him that would find it. He never saw the days he returned home empty-handed. But we did, and what's more, we felt them.
When my mother finally disappeared from the house for good we were left to his sole trust. Working nights in Soho he had no option but to lock us in the house from school and then go out and pray we’d still be there when he returned. Mostly we were, but on odd occasions he’d have to come and collect my brother, sister and I from the police cells. Finding a note stuck on the door he’d turn up at the station at 1am steaming drunk. Swaying and incoherent they’d chuck him in the cell too and then we’d all wait until he sobered up or until a neighbour arrived and acted as guardian. It was here that the Social Services were first introduced to the family. Initially my step-father despised them, but when he realised he was stable enough to keep us, yet unstable enough to receive their free Christmas and Easter hampers, he used them as he used everyone: to procure benefits or money to fund his gambling, social and drinking habits.
Though a heavy drinker (11 pints a night) my step-father was not an alcoholic. Ok, medically, statistically and practically he was, but in the sense that he had to drink, needed to to exist, no... he was not of that ilk. And unlike my mothers drinking his did not darken a generation or lead to multiple forms of abuse. My Stepfather was a happy drunk and more than anything he drunk to work.... he drunk 'Dutch courage”. And God, doing what he did he needed courage - anyone would. He was a con working the streets of Central London. That's how he put the bread on the table. These cons would involve multiple schemes and ploys, all designed to turn a tenner into a fifty or a pint into a wallet full of US dollars. And for every hustle there was a name:
The Trust Game: this involved working in pairs to befriend a tourist, get him drunk, and finally walk out the bar with his wallet full of cash. After a few drinks, one of the two men would demand the tourist’s wallet in a test of his “trust”. Taking the wallet he would leave the bar only to return seconds later celebrating the fact that he could have disappeared but didn’t. He would then have the punter count his cash and testify that it was all still there. Having had the wallet and now sure the client was worth the drinks they were supplying him they’d repeat the “trust” process a couple of times. Finally whoever was acting as ‘the runner’ would disappear with the wallet and not return. The other (the sitter) would wait with the punter until the police came and give a statement of what happened, claiming that he too had only just met the thief.
Swicking: Pschological trick to get change of a larger note when paying with a smaller one. This would involve buying a round of drinks and offering up a £50 in payment. Every time the barman goes to fetch the order my stepfather would suddenly ask for something else, ALWAYS with the £50 held up like a name card. When convinced the barman has registered the fifty note, it would then be swapped (swicked) for a tenner. More often than not change would be given for the fifty. My stepfather was infamous for this little scam and known and barred from all but three West End bars for it.
Tipping: Loitering around betting shops pretending to have insider knowledge on a trainer/horse. My step father would choose the horse most likely to lose, but convince a punter that he had inside info and the horse had been trained up for the race. He would find someone willing to wager £20 on it and would take their money but only wager a bet for £2. On the carbon copy receipt he'd add a nought and give it to the punter. As the race started he would then sneak out the betting shop just in case the horse romped home... which happened many times.
Pressure Dealing: Selling bum gear to drug users. Either hash that was made from ingredients at home or amphetamine that was baking powder, my father would set up a small drug deal. Supplying a little genuine stuff as a taster he’d conclude the deal with his home made recipes. On the point of handover he’d suddenly scream “Fuck, there’s the police!!! Stash that and get away!!” By the time the buyer had a chance to eye his wrap it was too late. Unfortunately my stepfather came unstuck twice with this hustle. The first time it nearly cost him his life and the second time his freedom.
Rolling: Posing as a homosexual, and then robbing the client either before or during the act. (Sometimes it was old-fashioned Sex for Money with no ‘rolling’ involved.)
Picking: Classic game of trying to remove jewelery or wallets without being detected.
Collecting: Travelling the subway and unblocking the ‘returned coins’ slot of vending machines which had been blocked days in advance.
These cons would start off at 3pm and go on until last orders were called. There was a little team of seven or eight and they all worked together. At the end of the night they’d meet up and pool, then divide the earnings. My real father was also a part of this little crowd, but because of his heroin problem he was not much liked and even less trusted. In absence of being arrested my step dad would fall in the front door and crawl the stairs between midnight and 1am. Reeking of beer and with sweet and sour sauce dripping from his chin he’d wake us up relating the stories of how he had got the money and/or jewellery that was sprawled out on the floor. I enjoyed these tales and literally hung off his every word and description. But mostly I enjoyed hearing about the fights... how my stepfather had fought himself free or knocked justice into one of the crooked crooks. He once told me that he had lifted a man off his feet with an uppercut and then hit him 21 times before he came back down!
But although often involved in altercations he was not domestically violent and only beat me on a handful of occasions and my mother a little more. More than his “love” & “hate” tattooed fists, it was his voice that instilled fear into us. It was the same voice I had heard when he screamed at Mr Evans and then threatened to pull away the jack from under the car if he didn’t remove himself and take the punches that were banked for him. He had a very definite way to let people know that anger had curled his hand into a fist and if they didn’t relent would soon be involuntarily punching away at their face. In every way my stepfather was full of confidence and very often this manifested itself in very weird ways.
With 40 odd years of unquestioned authority behind him he seemed to have acquired a very peculiar and particular notion of self image. He was extremely vain, but not the type of vanity where he was in the least concerned with public opinion. His was a different kind of self-consciousness, a perverse vanity that played to his fantasy of who and what he was. With absolutely no fashion conscience and solely interested in a garments comfort or practicality he would adapt and wear them to his own needs and desires. But not in any sane way. Rather he would tear the arms of his shirt as he queued to buy it, or roll up his trouser legs to the knee. He’d pull the silk lining out of expensive jackets because it made them “too small and constrictive”. In summer he’d cut the toes out his shoes and walk about with his thick yellow feet poking out the top. And it wasn’t just his clothes he’d do that to. I remember being sent to school in a pair of football boots with the plastic studs sawn off: “They’ll do...” he said “No-one will ever know”. Of course the world knew. We were eight year old kids with heads full of football results and the latest trainers. These weren’t even Adidas football boots, but some dodgy German rip-off with about eighteen stripes! And my excuse: “Oh there just to play football in!” didn’t cut the ice, because with no grip I could barely walk without falling, skidding or sliding like a new born deer. That they were also 3 sizes too big and shaped like pre-EU banana’s just added to the misery. I think it was the only day of my youth that I actually sat still.
But my stepfather was not a mean man, and though on multiple occasions I died with embarrassment in his presence, I would in time learn to respect him and even admire him for the way he was and what he indirectly passed on to me. He was crazy, but he was not insane and his eccentricities were not unhealthy ones. He just did not come from a normal mould and had survived, formed and shaped himself.
At the same time he was the hardest, cleverest most stupid man I had ever known. He read Darwin but got it all wrong.... attributed quotes to Conan Doyle when they were from Lewis Carrol. He would surmise and give political solutions to problems after reading just half a paragraph on a subject, and in his life he would pass himself off as a gangster, writer, poet, artist, sociologist, anthropologist, antique dealer, chef, lawyer and professor. In truth he was a little of all those things without ever genuinely being either one. He was a composite of many great parts, but he was not a great man. He was a petty thief and called upon certain characteristics or knowledge in an attempt to wheedle a few quid out of someone’s pocket. He learnt that a literary bore will be more likely to buy you a drink if you can at least listen to his ramblings and stay awake... that another criminal will help you out a tight spot if you show you “know the game.” Instead all these great parts merged and resulted in a man walking around the streets pushing a shopping trolley full of scrap metal. In the summer he done this in his pants, in winter donning a womans fur coat. But it was all those parts that were to fire me into action.... that would push me on the hunt for knowledge myself.
My natural reverence and competition to my father (step), my desire/need to better him, prove his arguments wrong, would lead me into libraries, bookshops and places of learning. In that sense he has only ever had an influence on my intellectual life, and is the only person from my upbringing without the slightest connection to my drug life.
If I started reading Oscar Wilde at 13 it was to understand what it was he was chortling away to. If I then moved on to Orwell and then Dostoevsky it was to argue these books out with him. When I got into politics it was just to outsmart him, to have him back down in the face of real knowledge... to collapse at the realisation of his own shortcomings. Of course he never did... he never felt inferior to anyone. In 1997 he defended himself in West London’s Magistrates Court against attempted robbery charges and stood rattling in front of the judge as though he were a top flight lawyer. He pranced and strutted around the courtroom with all the gestes, pauses and smiles... pulling up thousands of contradictions in the prosecutors claims. And he’d probably have gotten off with it, had he not done it all bare chested and with a neck strung with thick gold chains. But that was him. He felt superior inside... and not just superior, more clever... smarter. He could not be taught, he could not be lectured. He knew it all and more and in no way could he be drank under the table.
With this realisation I no longer tried to bring him down. Instead I sat in silence as he unleashed mouthfuls of ignorance, admiring his prose yet inwardly snorting and smirking at the ludicrous things he was saying. And it was there that I realised he did have one great ability and one that I would never have: he had the ability to sound like he knew what he was talking about... to have you believe that he was a true authority on his subject. In that sense he was a genius and it is probably the reason he was such a successful conman: As for impressing him I never did. The closest I got was when I returned from a weeks school holiday and told him I had fallen in love with another boy. And for 5 minutes he was impressed and for a little less he even believed that maybe, after all, I really was his son.
Now, 2010, he is in his 67th year. He’s stopped hustling the streets and now does it on ebay with first edition books and antiques. But these days I have very little to do with him. Since my best friend Ewan died in his house 10 years ago we lost contact and never really regained it. Soon after he moved out as he felt ‘The Spirit of Death’ was somehow then a part of the place. He also threw me out as a possible prevention against having to find me like that next. He is completely aware of and comfortable with my heroin addiction yet he is very distanced from it. He sees that as too much a reminder of my mother and more, my real father and his one time friend. In a sense I am his living nightmare, a constant reminder of his impotence where women are concerned, a definite confirmation of his lack of real masculinity.
Of the three kids my mother doesn’t attribute any 100% to him. She says my sister probably is his (or Scotch Peter’s) and my brother, well... he’s just a mystery. It was reported that at his birth she asked “What colour is he?” But my stepfather can play blind to these queries and if he doesn't look too deeply he has two certain offspring's. But with me it’s different. Since the age of 8 it was out and in the open that I was not “his” and so looking at me he sees all that I am not. But the truth is I am more him than any of my siblings... I have more of him in me than he’ll ever know. His influence has been great and positive and pushing, but it has never been daunting or dark. I only ever celebrate him and take pride in those traits that he has passed onto me. He’s another hero, and along with two dead drunks is the third poet in my life. Without him I would have no Wilde, no Orwell, Steinbeck or Dostoevsky. Without his stories and descriptions I would surely never have taken a love for words and literature or celebrated all the things that were not worth celebrating. And without that, and without the words I use to recall them, I’d have only heroin and an early death to keep me amused. And if that were the future then it would be so very dismally bleak. No, he may not be my biological father but the fact remains and is indisputable: without him I’d never have been born.
My Love, Thoughts & Wishes to All
Shane. X
The Fairytale of a Modern Day Pen-Pusher
.
When my manager sidled over to the director and muttered “...and he’s wearing a bra!” I knew I had lost my job. Bare-chested and smeared with blood I reclined in my office chair staring at my inbox as emails filtered through about despatch errors. On my desk besides me was a blackened spoon and a needle...a bra was hanging off my arm which I had used as a tourniquet. In pulling on a classic Burlington sock over a stabbed and needle marked foot I made a small attempt of gaining a modicum of self-respect. For some reason sitting there with only one sock on and a dirty foot was humiliating. GG entered the office with his director, both standing and looking down on me like the twin towers on the verge of collapse.
“We’ll need the keys, please Shane.”
“..and his phone,” said the director, no longer looking at me but out the window at a pile of rotting broken pallets. “We’ll contact you... Oh, and there’s also huge discrepancies in the accounts.”
“Yeah, I see where this is going,” I said, buttoning closed my shirt, “as long as I’m paid I don’t give a fuck. I’m suspended yeah? That’s the procedure, suspended on full pay?”
“Well, yes.. until you hear from us.”
“I’ll be contesting ANY decision, so just as long as I’m paid it’s no problem.”
“You’ll be paid. Now get dressed and leave before we call the police.” Then GG whispered something to the other tower who just shook his head and closed his eyes as if he just wanted that plane to hit him.
“Can I make one call before I leave?” I asked “It’s to my solicitor... I think I’ll be needing him.”
“Yes, but be quick,” GG said bluntly “You shouldn’t be here!”
Of course I had no solicitor, but I needed someone to bail me out and so I dialled one of the 20 or so eleven digit numbers I had relegated to memory.
“Trooper it’s me... are you about? I’ll be around soon... I want 3 and 3*.”
“Um's good. Phone me when you at Allieds. Laters”
“Ok, Laters T!”
And with that I half-slipped into my shoes and left as quickly as possible terrified that I might miss my meet. Well, that meeting with my most ancient heroin dealer led to a separate spate of bizarre happenings, but here I will stick to the former and how on Tuesday 25th January 2005 at 13h36 I was busted shooting heroin in my mothers bra. For that I need to take you back to the start...
The Start: November 2003
“Hmm, LEVENE, so you’re Jewish....one of The Tribe? Hmm. Well I’m not promising anything... I can’t you understand? It’s really not down to me, but I’ve a pretty hefty pull in such things, hmm.” GG said shaking my hand in both of his. “Oh, and could I borrow this?” he asked, holding up a copy of Tony Benn’s latest memoirs.
“Yeah, take it. If you’ll only excuse the cigarette burns in the cover.” I replied, glad he’d seen it as I’d left it laying around specifically for his piggish eyes. Flicking through it at home he’d also discover a book mark from some North London Synagogue or other. Not that I’m Jewish; I’m not. I’m less Jewish than Saddam Hussein, but I needed the job, especially on £30,000 per year, company car and bonus. I escorted GG downstairs and watched him waddle over to his car. He strapped himself in, gave me a wide thin grin and then pulled away the car wobbling off the premises in the same manner as his large fat arse.
One week later, sufficiently doped up and with my sidelocks twisted into ringlets, I signed my new contract in front of GG and his director Mr. West.
“Well Shane, we’ve decided to take a chance and trust you. However, we do have one major reservation: you’ve never been in control of a budget before. So for the first 6 months all expenditure will be passed through GG. He will “Ok” them, and sign off all the invoices before sending them to accounts. But no, erhm yes, I think we’ve put a good man at the helm,” said Mr West, looking at GG for reassurance. And with that and one last “hmm” from GG I left with my new contract, 2 vans, the keys to a London warehouse and an annual budget of £750,000. In effect, I left with a huge amount of trouble. They might as well have given me the keys to the prison... It would have saved time.
I first officially opened the warehouse as manager two days later. I travelled in early and read through the company mails detailing my position, the role I was to play and the expectations they had of me. At 7am my colleagues/staff arrived. At 9 the phone was constantly ringing, and by lunchtime I’d received two enquiries about pay increases, had one boy go down with an epileptic fit, had a worker pull a knife on another, and felt the tremors when a 40ft lorry backed into the warehouse knocking all the downstairs windows through. And it never stopped... not for one moment. Whatever force had blown me into the managers chair was also wafting its curse all over the place. It was a strange mix of atrocious bad luck, bizarre occurrences, comical tragedy and shambolic paperwork. But I never lost direction, and my main agenda was to lessen peoples hours and physical exertions while simultaneously cutting costs and reorganising working procedures. “It will be like no other warehouse in the country,” I promised Samir. Then I gave him permission to have each Friday afternoon off to visit the mosque and he realised that I was quite unlike any kind of manager he had ever known.
And Samir wasn’t the only one to benefit; we all would. To most I gave free holidays, another the company car I couldn’t drive, another the van to use as he liked. Iuriy (recently evicted from his home) was given the warehouse keys and so lived there, and I also cut an hour off every working day and extended the breaks. Having stopped the need for most overtime we kept that to ourselves and I still marked down the workers with 20 or 30 supplementary hours per month. I raised as many salaries as I could. But it was all fine, offset by the savings that I made. In the first six months warehouse costs had been cut by £60,000. Everyone was delighted, not least my directors, who celebrated me and started inviting me down to board room meetings and business lunches. I was handed control of the budget and total freedom to negotiate all contracts and employment concerning the warehouse. Other warehouse managers from around the country were sent down to see what I was doing, and though at first slightly dumbfounded because of my appearance and attitude, they all left with a feeling that I was really treading new ground and taking management onto a new level with fresh ideas. I was, and it was a fresh idea that would be the start of the end. An idea that would involve me employing two non-existent South Africans, hiring my AWOL girlfriend as secretary and setting up a company that I subcontracted the toilet cleaning and lightbulb changing out to. It was an idea that at first was to get me through a hard month, and then as I got more and more used to the extra money something which I couldn’t stop and eventually relied upon. And not just me. The money was also keeping my mother and stepfather in a healthy supply of crack cocaine, and when the pyramid of cards eventually fell, my family would split into three.
Of course during this period I was right in the midst of a huge heroin and crack cocaine addiction myself. It had been that way for almost 3 years. I had joined the company as a box-packer after being paid off from my previous company when they found syringes in my bag. It wasn’t easy at first, the days were long and come finishing time I’d be snivelling and in the early stages of withdrawal. But as I gained more responsibility, and with it more freedom, it arrived that I could find reason to disappear for 15 or 20 minutes and slink off to the toilets and fix up. There was no suspicion. I was clean, happy, always first in and last out. I was never absent and always clear minded. I learnt every aspect of the business and took on extra responsibility unpaid. But it wasn’t for fun that I done those things, it was for the freedom. After a year I was promoted to supervisor which gave me the liberty to disappear at will. Being made manager just made life as a working addict even easier. I had the sole key to the spare toilet and would turn off the phones and lock myself in there for 30 minutes at a time, stripped naked and jabbing for working veins in the cubicle. As time passed and my veins began to seriously collapse, fixing became horrendously difficult. By the time I eventually left London it was taking on average two full hours to hit a vein. I would start in the toilets and after 45 mins reallocate to my office where I’d hang a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. Being unsuccessful I’d turn the phones on for five minutes, answer any urgent mails, and show my face in the warehouse. Then it was back to the toilet/office... toilet/office, until I finally managed to hit a vein. Once whilst cooking up a hit in the toilet one of the temporary staff entered shouting my name: “I’ll be with you in a minute!” I cursed.
“Yeah,OK!” He huffed. Two weeks later and after days of him coming in to work at any hour he pleased (if at all) he tried to blackmail me. I had called him upstairs to discipline him with a warning and it was just what he had been waiting for:
“Are you sure you want to give me that?” he asked, throwing the warning letter on the floor. “You was cooking up heroin in the toilets the other week!”
“Heroin? Are you crazy? Heroin??? What are you talking about!”
“I know! I know the smell. I’m not stupid. The other day when i came in the toilets I smelled heroin, you was in there cooking up. My brother does the same! Not only do I not want the warning I want a full-time job, AND be made supervisor. If not, well...”
Well, I was knocked off balance for a moment and in one instance I considered admiting it all and trying to come to some arrangement, but I knew it wasn’t possible. I had someone in front of me with a huge chip on his shoulder and who had already tried to use this to get his own way. And so rather than give in I stood tough and bluffed it out to the hilt. I went into managerial mode.
“What you’re saying is very, very serious and if you believe what you say to be true then you have a duty to report that to my superiors. I will give you my managers name and details and also the main directors and you can put an official complaint down. Though the dilemma is this: if you do decide to do that I’ll have no choice but to ask the agency to replace you as we cannot work together with disciplinary action between us. Now what’s it to be?”
“You can’t suspend my contract! It’s illegal... I’ve rights!”
“Yes, you’ve rights with your agency but not here. You’ve no contract with us and I can end your presence here without notice or justification. It is then up to your agency to find you other work.”
“Give me your fucking manager's name and details... I’m telling!I’m not taking this shit!” And with that he left, but not before making a tour of the warehouse screaming: “Shane’s a junkie! I caught him shooting up in the toilets!” Of course it was so unbelievable that no-one took any notice, though it did stick in peoples minds and a year or so later when I was finally booted out it all made a little more sense.
A complaint was duly filed and I responded with utter amazement refuting the accusations and almost laughing with my director as he read it out to me. After I told my director the lorry driver had also been accused of trafficking drugs in from Bulgaria, my director waved him off as some kind of confused and fantastic nut, dreaming up stories of drug traffic and usage. My refutation was passed back to Jamel, and we never heard anything else. But it was out. My life was overflowing into my work and for anyone with a sharp eye towards drug abuse it was evident.
“Where are all the fucking spoons!” I’d here the workers cry at tea-break, “They’ve all gone again!” or “Shane, I think the lorry drivers a junkie... there’s an empty syringe packet out here!”
“Fuck,” I’d say, “keep a good eye on him boys and don’t let him in the warehouse alone!” One evening I left at 6pm and laying in my bed at midnight I suddenly thought: “Did I clear my box of needles away after my ‘leaving fix’?” This was serious. The cleaner came in every morning at 5am and my office was one of the rooms she was contracted to clean. After an hours dilemma I decided I couldn’t risk it and took a 1am taxi ride into work. Lucky I did, as opening my office door the box was sitting opened on my chair with over 200 used and dirty needles poking from and through it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” It was all getting very lapse, very open and very hot.
More often than not when my colleagues came to see me they’d have to nudge me awake. “Shane, are you ok???”
“Oh, just tired... was burning the midnight oil. We’re very busy at the moment”But no matter what I seemed to do noone ever thought of drugs. Meanwhile the warehouse was still running extremely efficiently and my name was more celebrated than ever.
What were once 45 minute imaginary meetings now escalated into two hour long conferences. I’d open the phone lines so they rung engaged, hang the “Do NOT disturb sign” on the office door and then strip down naked in my office probing for veins. Occasionally, if my director mailed, I’d answer that, just to show I was still there and still alive. But my colleagues were becoming frustrated. They had work to do, and very often they needed my advise. I would hear their footsteps come halfway up the stairs and then hear them descend and blowing to the waiting crowd, “No, he’s still in conference!” Once, my supervisor ignored all warnings and burst in the office anyhow. On two scores I was lucky. Firstly my pants were still on and the syringe was in a small vein in my wrist, and secondly he tried to enter by the locked door first, giving me just enough time to gather my wits and hatch an impulsive plan. .
“Yes, it was confirmed today,” I said tearily into the phone, “Mum’s got bowel cancer.” I lookd up at Marius and when he made to leave I lowered the phone against my chest and said, “There’s no need. What do you want?” He pointed to an old pile of despatch notes on my desk and I nodded him permission to take them. As he walked around to get them I could feel the syringe dangling perilously from my wrist and just prayed that it wouldn’t slide out and fall on the floor. With Marius gone I finished up and then reopened the business. In future I’d have to be more careful, I thought... much more careful.
The trouble is that once you acquire the confidence of getting away with something you eventually forget you are getting away with anything. And no matter how hard you try, you become more cocksure and ever more lax. And each time you bluff it out, it just makes you think how easy it is... how stupid people are, and that makes you go even further. And like many an idiot before me that is what I done. I thought I was invincible and at the point where I should have quit and left with my winnings I stayed and tripled the stakes.
I was now 10 months into my job and apart from a few minor hiccups was still flying high. The third quarterly budget showed savings in excess of £80,000, overtime had been cut by two thirds and morale was high. However, there was one concern: the burgeoning petrol costs for the vans. This I explained away by saying we had begun running our own deliveries and pick-ups rather than using expensive courier services. We had, but it was not account books or exam results that the vans were picking up and delivering: it was heroin and crack cocaine. In order to get gear into work I had friends and family score for me and when they phoned to say “all’s good” I’d send one of the drivers down to collect it. In a book sized box would be heroin and crack, clean needles and vitamin C. It would carry some phoney address and ‘IMPORTANT’ scrawled across it. Sometimes both drivers would be off at the same time collecting these boxes and then jumping red lights to be back in the warehouse before the post left. Very often when friends had trouble scoring I’d have to leave work and go to buy myself. In these instances I’d have a driver take me to Shepherds Bush and then park up while I disappeared. If they were suspicious they kept it to themselves, but I sincerely do not think they were suspicious... it was a world too far, yet so close to their existence for them to ever entertain such an idea.
It was immediately after the 2004 audit that I first got a whiff that certain persons in the company were beginning to scrutinize warehouse operations. The audit was all in order, but the final quarterly budget, although confirming huge savings also showed up some abnormal expenditure and rising costs... especially in “temporary staff”. According to the books I had employed three agency staff for 11 months solid. That wasn’t the problem though, the question first raised was: “Why employ three agency staff for a year when you could have employed five permanent staff for the same amount?” Still, I talked my way out of that one and was just relieved that no-one asked to actually see these “temps” as only one existed, and she was in France, suicidal and not talking to me. That was January and as I faxed the time sheets through to the agency I promised myself: “This is the LAST time... it really has to stop.”
I remember the day well. It had been snowing and the 15 minute walk from the underground to the warehouse was an arduous journey. London whistled out a barrier of wind that froze through the cold and penetrated the bones. The gale was so ferocious that walking up hill it was almost impossible to breath and one had to turn around to catch ones breath. The freeze stung the face and ears and then ran cold out the eyes. Though the weather records don’t support this, it was the coldest day there had ever been. My fingers were so frozen that I had trouble opening the padlock to the large galvanized security gate and even more trouble fingring the code for the alarm. After warming myself up I turned on the computer, opened my mail and began running orders off the printer. One email was from the director of accounts and was red-flagged with importance.
From: Accounts@xxx.com
To: Shanelevene@xxx.com
Subject: Budget Analysis/Query
Shane,
There are some abnormalities with certain warehouse expenditure and we would like to meet and clear this matter up as soon as possible. Therefore we request your attendance in a fourway meeting to discuss this. Besides myself, GG & Mr Pennington will be in attendance. Please confirm that you are available and will be attending.
Kind Regards
Rachel Simmons
“Fuck, that sounds serious!” I thought. And though a thousand things crossed my mind, and though I knew I had been busted, I convinced myself otherwise, reckoning: “no, if it was that they’d sack me immediately... they certainly wouldn’t warn me and leave me still sitting in charge of operations”. One other final thing that convinced me otherwise was a second mail that I opened from the main shareholder of the business. It was a company wide mail raving on about the wonderful work I had been doing and how I should serve as an inspiration to all. That mail would be one of his last, as in response to the stupidity he felt when I was finally revealed he had no option but to swallow the cum and resign.
January was always a traditionally slow period for the company so we were working lates. At 9 am staff arrived as usual. Iuriy, our main driver came straight to the office and closed the door behind him. This was the same Iuriy who I had let live in the warehouse for three months and had also illegally employed his son for a small period when he had first moved to England from Bulgaria.
“Shane... there was yesterday a big meeting talking about the warehouse. Did you know about that? GG asked me some questions yesterday afternoon and asked me not to let you know, but what to do? What to do??? I’m telling you... don’t forget that.”
“A meeting???” I repeated agape, “no, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me. I won’t forget, you know that. Oh, and here...” I sat down at my computer and quickly typed of a letter giving Iuriy a £1000 annual payrise. “And you, don’t forget that,” I said, signing and giving him the letter. As Iuriy skipped down the stairs his keys jangling and whistling, I looked around the office and cried. The place had became corrupted, and the saddest song in the world was drifting up the stairs.
It was during lunchtime that I closed my office door, unwrapped my dope and cooked up a fix in my office draw. Outside the winds had calmed but the snow was still petalling down and staring out for long enough it seemed almost like an hallucination. Sucking up a needle full of smack I rolled up my trouser legs, removed my shoes and sock and started jabbing for veins. With no luck I took off my jumper and shirt, feeling softly all over my arms for any springy tissue that often means a concealed vein. As the time passed and as each attempt proved fruitless I became bloodier and bloodier. I would try wiping it away but it just smeared and bled more and so I just left it. At some point I went into my bag and removed my tourniquet. It was actually one of my mother's old bras which she had given me because she was tired of me using her scarfs and tights and towels. The bra with it’s elasticated band worked pretty well and I strapped it around my left bicep and began tensing and flexing my hand in an attempt to raise the dead.
I did not hear the car pull into the forecourt, nor the footsteps coming up the stairs. I do not remember what vein I eventually hit, but I did hit one as when the door opened I was in heroin slumber with the very top of my head almost flush on top of my keyboard. At first I saw just a pair of polished shoes and black trousers and thought it was the police, but as I jolted to a start and reclined back into full vision it was the cold rubberish face of GG that I saw. He was peering in at me like a doctor announcing the time of death.
“Err Gabriel...” I said. That’s all I said... nothing else would come and I suppose there was really nothing more to say. Sometimes the situation says it all. Caught in the toilets with a porn mag and your dick in your hand... what more can words explain? And when the eye sees the truth, not even a conniving junkie can wriggle his way free. And that was my situation.... worse, because although being caught wanking is very embarrassing it does not amount to gross misconduct and so theoretically once you’ve pulled your pants up you can go back to work. That option wasn’t available to me... or was it??? Ok, I’d been caught half naked and fixing up heroin, but this was Gabriel, ...alone. Fellow Jew... always supported me... gave me the job and wouldn’t want this embarrassment leaking out??? Hmm, my thoughts started to clear. That’s when Mr Pennington stepped in holding my ‘Do NOT disturb sign’ up to GG before balling and dropping it into the bin. “A word please Gabriel... outside.” was all he said.
Sitting alone I was mortified. And though a million thoughts and worries should have been passing through my head they didn’t, I was almost completely blank. Instead I laid back in my chair and stared at my inbox withholding a sad impulse to open and respond to my new mails: ‘Despatch error 069875’... ‘Despatch error 102875... Despatch error...
And that as it, and I knew it. There was no escape, no worming my way out. These were serious people with serious glares and even if sometimes their hardness crumpled in the face of historic blood ties, they didn’t get to be driving Mercedes and wearing solid gold watches for nothing. Their hearts cannot be melted with doe eyes or sob stories... they cannot be penetrated by everyday emotions. They only card I had left to play was of no use. And it was in that thought that I looked down at my bare and stabbed and dirty foot and felt myself shrinking in humiliation. Not only was I only half their size sitting in my chair, but I was totally exposed. Because that foot, the marks and the tracks down it’s inner and across it’s upper. The jammy dirt that covered and blackened my sole, the picked and cut skin on the heel, and the weeks old blood dry and flaky on my ankle, it revealed another soul.... gave away the secrets of a life that I was covering with clean ironed shirts and sleek Burlington socks.
Of course, that humiliation didn’t last long, something more pressing entered the agenda: my need to score, and how to arrange that with no phone and two ‘would-be’ policemen towering above me. Well, once again addiction has no shame or face and when desperation stakes are low you fall with it and abandon yourself to that level. And so I made some pleading excuse to get the company phone in my hands and with no care if GG or Mr. Pennington understood what I was really doing or not I openly arranged to score. Then I felt better and looking up from the wreckage I suddenly saw the light and had my own good reason to leave. “Well if we’re done here I’ll be going?” I motioned.
And like many a junkie before me I left hurriedly dressing on the move. I was still trying to tuck my shirt in and fit into my shoes as I hit the air and snow and was buttoning up my jacket and pulling the collar around my neck as I walked at double pace out the industrial estate and towards the underground station. And every twenty strides or so, or when the vile winds let up enough I’d slip my wrist an inch out my pocket and eye my watch. “Fuck, I'll never make it!” I cursed “unless the tube is straight there and then I get a bus immediately. Yeah, that could work... or a cab. Could be... could very well be. Straight down the A40 and I’m there ...20 mins max. Just hope the snow hasn’t blocked the route!” And I passed the walk like that, making rash and improbable calculations on how I could possibly get back home to score quicker than was physically possible.
And as the cab pulled out and cut across three lanes of beeping traffic and then passed through one red light then another, I knew I had the correct driver... that hell was postponed for at least another day. And as I gave him a 20 pound note for a £12 fare I made my way hurriedly down the road and of to the phone box across from Allieds. And as I dialled the number and waited anxiously through each ring I looked up at the falling snow and started reciting the Junkies Prayer: “Answer the phone T... just please, please, PLEASE answer the fucking phone! ”
Take Care Everyone & I hope you enjoyed...
Until next time, All My Best Thoughts...
Shane. x
Apologies between Posts #6: Obsessions by Joseph Mills
The Cyclops - A Reoccurring Dream...
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where I am shot in the head after witnessing a bank robbery, and for a few seconds, just before my eyes close to the big blackout, life suddenly seems worth living and fighting for.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where a gun is pressed so hard between my eyes that even firing a bullet now seems horrendously cruel. The one where I see the joint of the forefinger turn white as it pulls back on the trigger and then two men running off into the distance. The one where ambulance sirens are too far away.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. That one where I am fighting with all my might to survive each second. Where any bit of strength I have is taken away with the knowledge that a bullet has been shot at point blank range into my skull and that I cannot possibly survive. That dream where I had stared a millisecond too long at one of the gunmen and had turned from a shell shocked onlooker into a prospective witness.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. The one where I want to say: “I won’t tell a soul! Can’t you tell that from my eyes? I’m on your side!” The one where thick blood already congealed oozes from a hole between my eyes. The one where I leave my being, watch my own dying and then reunite for death. That dream where fear and panic are paralyzed and silent in a tormented body.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where my mother looks in horror at her executed and dying son and then shouts “You’ve ruined my fucking day!” The one where I become a dead witness to two crimes. The one where I am cordoned off by the crowd who stand in for blue and white police tape.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream again. The one where I am helpless and in my final moments noone still moves in to offer up help or comfort. The one where I end like a beggar laying spent upon the sidewalk. The one where fate and instinct turns a stroll up the Highstreet into something very ominous and sinister. That dream which seems so real and so realisable.
Lately I’ve been having that reoccurring dream. The one where I am turned into The Cyclops. The one where I realise you can smell in dreams. The one where the cries of seagulls carry me free from the pain.
Last night I had that reoccurring dream... tonight I will dream that dream again....
Hope you’re all well... My apologies for the wait and a proper HH post will follow very shortly...
Until then...
My Thoughts & Wishes to All,
Shane. x
