It's not very easy to fall off the wagon and land on the horse, but I seem to have an inate ability at doing just that. In fact, I've even become quite good at it.
So my apology this time centres around the truth and that is I cannot type when my head is flat against my keyboard. All that ever produces is hundreds of pages of this:
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjnhhhhhhhhhhhkhjhjljljljljljljlè__èçàuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukkcxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx66666666664699999
And that's on a good night.
Still, there is a new post on the horizon, and with a bit of luck, the correct phones being switched off and the bank refusing me money, that should be with you sometime this evening.
Thanks for sticking with me...
All My Best Thoughts & Wishes, Shanddddddddjkkkmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnccccccccccccccccccccccccccccczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzmoijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjç
Apology between Posts #7: Off the Wagon & onto the Horse
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
Dennis Nilsen, Gay Porn, Two Bullets & a Book
Whether there is any truth in that tale I sincerely doubt. My mother told it to me after a bottle or two of Russian Perrier. She also took enormous gratification in being the intended rest home of bullet No.2 and from the fact that my grandmother's dislike for her was finally out in public and equalled her loathing of Nilsen. The story was never verified by my grandmother, I’ve never met her, but even if it is fiction, it still shows some of the hatred that existed for Nilsen around the country and especially amongst the few family members of victims which were found.
It’s now 27 years since Nilsen was sentenced and had his crimes hammered down into the history books of crime and justice. It is 27 years that have seen my grandmother die, my mother live and me left straddled somewhere in between. But it is two years longer than the 25 year life term that the trial judge set for Nilsen, and in theory that means that at any moment Nilsen could be released from prison.... could be ringing up the receipt as my mother passes tomatoes down the conveyor belt in Sainsburys. Many people have asked me what I think of that? How do I feel about Nilsen, his possible release, his demands for “gay porn” and his autobiography (“The History of a Drowning Boy”) which has been denied permission to be published. In this post I will try and answer those questions.
Before I go any further, and for those of you not so well briefed in this affair, here is a concise and probably inexact history of Nilsen since his arrest in 1983:
February 9th 1983 : Dennis Andrew Nilsen is arrested after human remains are discovered in his North London Flat..
February 11th 1983 : Nilsen admits to killing at least 14 young men and rattles of a startling confession which lasts in excess of 30 hours.
Early 1983 : After an initial hearing he is remanded in custody to Brixton Prison awaiting
trial at London's Old Bailey.
October 24th 1983 :The trial begins. Nilsen pleads "Not Guilty" to each of the charges.
November 3rd 1983 : The jury retires to consider it’s verdict.
November 4th 1983 : With 2 dissenters on each of Nilsen’s charges, the judge announces that he will accept a majority count. At 4:25, the jury returns a verdict of guilty on all counts with a 10-2 majority. The judge sentences Nilsen to life imprisonment and specifies he should not be eligible for parole for 25 years. He is taken to Wormwood Scrubs prison in West London. Nilsen was 37 years old.
1984: Transferred to Wakefield prison in Yorkshire.
1993: Nilsen is moved to Whitemoor Top Security Prison. Gives a televised interview from jail.
2001: Refused permission to receive an art book and male pornography into his possession. His appeal to the court of human rights ends in failure.
2001: The manuscript draft of his autobiography ‘The History of a Drowning Boy’ is seized by prison authorities.
2003: Nilsen brings a judicial review over a decision not to allow him to publish his book. He is still awaiting an appeal on this decision at the European Court of Human Rights
Since his sentence Nilsen has served in eight different prisons and is currently held at HM Full Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire... his autobiography still hangs in limbo. He is now 65 years old.
The first thing I will say is that I do not hate Dennis Nilsen. More than that I hold no ill will towards him. I neither blame him nor the murder for my mother's alcoholism nor for the broken childhood I endured, and I certainly don’t hold him guilty for my ongoing addiction to heroin. Yes, these things are all interlinked, but in that sense the world is connected to the world... blame never really resolves anything. But although I do not hate the man, I certainly cannot say I like him. I do not know him. Yet in a bizarre way I admire Nilsen as I admire artists and poets.When you read what he has to say of the killings it is clear that they were certainly not acts stemming from hatred. He expresses a sadness (not regret) in the actions he had to take to fulfil his desires and needs. I understand that... to have a deep need of companionship yet unable to find it in a conventional way. It's not the murders I can sympathise with (I cannot), it is the emotions that led to them.
Over the years there has been much debate concerning the murders and the real motive/s behind them. After Brian Masters' book it is generally touted that Nilsen killed primarily “for company” but I do not completely agree. I think that is a very sympathetic and self-comforting idea to try to project. It certainly had a role to play, but I think above all else they were sexual killings, and I think Nilsen got a bigger sexual kick from them than he has ever admitted.
Sexual impulse is one of the few psychological states that really take us out of ourselves and make the perverse and grotesque exciting and realisable. And as with many sexual fetishes after they have been fulfilled one feels disgusted, horrified and saddened by them... That is until the next time,of course. Also, for many of us our deepest sexual fantasies are extremely intimate and often embarrassing. Sometimes so much so that we cannot disclose them to anyone. I very often think that sex is a kind of base therapy.We are very, very vulnerable within it, and to disclose and/or admit our innermost desires reveals all the things about ourselves that we wish to hide. It gives away our histories, our complexes and our traumas. Sex reveals the soul.
But I am not here to unravel Nilsen... it holds no interest for me what was the real agenda behind his crimes. All I know is that 16 young men were killed and the murderer now languishes in prison being denied pornography, book deals and occasionally being on the wrong end of a beating.
Languishes???... So you think Nilsen should be released???
I cannot answer that...I do not have the authority. If he is any kind of a danger to anyone anymore no, I don’t think he should. Does his crimes entitle him to die in prison, possibly, but I would not like to see that. So oneday hopefully he will be released and will be free to breathe fresh air and own another dog. That prospect does not frighten, anger nor sadden me. I’d probably even visit Sainsbury’s a little more often if I knew he’d be there. But I do not believe that will ever happen.... I think he will die wearing prison slacks. I do not see a home secretary or parole board with the balls big enough to release him.
NILSEN vs “GAY PORN”
In 1993 Nilsen was famously denied access to “Gay Pornongraphy”. He took his case to the European court of Human Rights and lost (contrary to what the British tabloids reported). I’ve often been asked what I think about that.
Well, I’m not going to babble on about human rights but I would like to clear something up. Gay Porn??? Nilsen was officially denied access to “an art book” and a “‘top shelf’ men's magazine”. An art book... if the Prison Service describe it as that then that’s what they concede it is. Of course he should be allowed access to it. As for the ‘Top Shelf’ men's magazine.... well, it’s the junk on the bottom shelf that we must be more concerned about.... those tabloids that are spread out like cards on milk crates in every Newsagents across Britain. Nilsen protested against this decision asking: “Why is ‘gay porn’ forbidden when heterosexual porn is freely admitted and available around prisons?” Of course, he’s correct... we’d all make the same challenge. In a country where gay sex and porn are legal then what possible justification can exist in prohibiting it in prison? No, the only thing that is damaging here is the sexual repression.The Prison Service must know that by the number of prison rapes that occur each year. So yes, of course Nilsen should be allowed pornography as long as it satisfies the law of the land.
THE HISTORY OF A DROWNING BOY
Whilst doing his 27 year tour of Her Majesty’s Prisons Dennis Nilsen has written the first draft of an autobiography entitled ‘The History of a Drowning Boy’. This book is the focus of much controversy and legal wranglings. In 2001, on it’s way back to Nilsen from his Lawyers, the then Governor of Whitemoor prison seized it, believing it breached certain prison regulations. It was returned to Nilsen's solicitors thus preventing him from preparing it for publication. Nilsen made a legal appeal against its seizure. The presiding judge had this to say:
"We do not believe that any penal system could readily contemplate a regime in which a rapist or murderer would be permitted to publish an article glorifying in the pleasure that his crime had caused him."
In addition, the Home Secretary decided Nilsen's work did not consist of serious comment about crime, justice or the penal system, but was "a platform for Mr Nilsen to seek to justify his conduct and denigrate people he dislikes"
To this day the manuscript is still unfinished and still unpublished.
Concerning the book there are 3 main arguments against it’s publication:
1) Is the book in the public interest?
2) Does it shed any relevant light on the crimes that nilsen committed?
3) Profit from any sales. In the UK convicted prisoners are not allowed to profit from their crimes. (Nilsen says all money will go to charity.)
I am not going to brilliantly argue for or against each point here, that would take us into realms very far from this site and post. I will give just a few brief words on each point.
1) Public Interest. Well what is that? With all the shit that clogs up our bookshops and libraries, I think it is more in the public interest than the majority of that pulp. I also think anything so controversial IS in the public interest. Maybe the real question is this:Is it in the public SECTOR interest?. Almost certainly not. From what I understand the book also serves as an indictment of the UK penal and prison system.
2) Does the book shed light on the crimes Nilsen has committed? That has been judged as “NO”, but it is only the first draft that has been read, and anyone who writes or knows anything at all of the writing process will understand that a draft very often has very little to do with the final work. It is in the redrafting where vague ideas are clarified and proper retrospection occurs. If writers sent their first drafts off to publishers it would incur the same result:“no”. So forgetting publication for a moment, I think Nilsen must first be allowed to finish the work before ANY judgement is made. My thoughts will not change though...no matter what he produces it should be allowed to be put into print. If consumers then want to boycott it, then let them do so.
3) Profits from sales. As the law is that convicted offenders CANNOT profit from sales, I don’t see what the argument is. If Nilsen cannot receive money from any sales of his work then he cannot. The revenue must be handled and controlled by a third party who decides what to do with it. Ultimately someone or some organisation will gain from Nilsen’s crimes... as already happens. Again, my view is I really couldn’t care less where the revenue goes or if Nilsen profits from it. If it allows him to buy an extra toothbrush or pouch of tobacco, so what. He’s still in prison... he’s still in a 12 x 12 cell... he’s still 65 and dying... and even if he buys a Rolex who’s he going to flash it off to? So I’m also passionately for the publication of his book.
There is one final and important point that is always considered in these cases and that is the sensibility of the family of the victims. Well you’ve heard my view, but I really doubt that will reflect the view of (m)any others.My mother would certainly be against the books publication. It would anger her tremendously. But I also know that if I bought and wrapped her a copy for Christmas she’d bloody well read it. That also says something about its worth. It’s also important to remember that because of the category of men that nilsen accosted and murdered, there are not very many close family members about . So at the most, we’d be letting 20 bitter (with good reason) people decide the fate of the nation. No, it’s not correct and even if it may hurt someone I dearly love,I cannot sacrifice my principles... not this time. PRINT IT.
So there you have it, MY thoughts on Nilsen, his crimes, possible release and book. I know some of you will leave this post bewildered, thinking how can I hold such views towards “Britains most twisted killer” and the man who done such barbarous things to my own father. Well I can answer that in many ways, but I will leave you with this: I do not believe in monsters and I do not believe in demonizing people... underneath all our savagery and behind all our perversity's there is always a human being. We all feel, hurt, love and bleed... Nilsen is no exception. When I look at him, like myself, I see just another lonely man.
My Best Wishes To All...
Shane. x
Skye Wesney R.I.P - An Urban Legend
Apology Between Posts #5
As frequent readers of this blog will have noticed a disturbing pattern has slowly formed itself and probably says as much about my life as anything else. That pattern is this: Post - Apology - Post - Apology - Post -
This is a place where promises are broken and advertised "next posts" never materialise. But in my defense I have a bellyful of good excuses... unfortunately I've used most of them up now and so this is probably the last "Apology Between Posts" that will have any grain of truth or justification behind it whatsoever.
And so wthout further a-do here is this weeks excuse:
Yes, in absence of any friends or family to blame I lay the full responsibility for my dismal lack of output on my (new) SmackTop. She is 14 months old and has the following credentials to her name:
8 missing keys
3 additional keys that do not work
A touch pad that seems to have suffered a stroke and is paralysed down it's right side
22 Cigarette burns (2 more than my shirt)
Ash, debris and dog-ends littered over the keyboard
DVD player retarded
26 start-up programs blocked
1 broken speaker
1345 viruses (35 of which I am informed are deadly!)
With all that in mind maybe you can understand and forgive me for being a little slow in posting... maybe you'll be astonished that I ever posted at all? Sometimes to get the letter 'e' to work, I have to enable the Voice Recognition System and do it that way.
The greatest shame of this whole event is that my SmackTop has just exceeded it's 12 month guarrantee and so I am no longer able to exchange it for a new one... though I'm not sure that the warrantee covers the abuse that this poor thing has endured. If it was a dog I'd certainly be in prison.
Anyway, there's my latest apology (God knows what I'll use next time) and a new Memoires of a HH post will follow shortly, I promise... la di da di da
Best Wishes All & take care through this Suicide Season...
Shane. x
The Poverty of Hope
During the weekend I got involved in an email exchange with one of the ghost readers that frequent this Blog. That exchange almost turned into a question and answer session and became so relevant to the Blog that it has earned it's place as a post in its own right. It concerns my ideas of Memoires, why I write the posts I do, and what thinking if any goes into the tales I relate. I thank you all for the wonderful comments you left to the last post (we nearly reached 100!!!) and of course I thank Madam X who contributed her time and questions in order to make this post possible.
If the post misses a bit of tragedy and despair, well I apologize for that and promise that I will make ûp for it in the next entry... even if it means jumping off a building with no rope...
I hope you All enjoy.
Email from: MadameX
To: Myheroinhead@gmail.com
Hiya Shane,
I’ve been reading your blog silently for months now and it seems (at least to me) that there is something much more going on than just tales of addiction or drug use. It seems that the posts are a part of a puzzle...that together they say more than the initial story. Can you tell me more about that?
Also it seems a reoccurring theme, friendships and what became of these people after your ways parted and each went down a different road to ruin?!
Love and thanks
X
PS: The idea for a new post you mentioned to Y seems it would suit your blog.
Email from: Myheroinhead@gmail.com
Email to: MadameX
Hiya Madame X,
Thanks for you mail.
Everything in my life would suit the blog... I suppose that's why it makes some sense... why it is even believable.
It's not just the ‘Road to Ruin’, that is only the destination. It is the reason for that journey, the tragedy (if it is a tragedy) of it. It seems to me that in this life there are many broken and lost souls, and just as we find companionship life seems to conspire to part us for good.
So, you are right, the blog is not just about addiction.. that is just a common linking theme. I have lived around heroin or drugs and alcohol for so long now that many things which have passed bare some relation to that. So as a theme it works well for me. But the Blog, that is not really about addiction... or it is, but it is equally concerned with many other things. It's also about poverty, but not just poverty of money, more the poverty of hope*... having nothing but yourself to enjoy or destroy, because where I am from, self-destruction is a form of expression. Not in an artistic way (though it can be) but in a rebellious way. Very few have the education or the contacts to express themselves in an accepted fashion and so it is done through vandalism, violence, drugs or self-destruction. People are rebelling but they do not know what that are rebelling against... they are expressing a social problem but are ignorant of what that problem is. So they express themselves, their inner frustrations and angers. They leave their blood on the wall.. spray insults in huge letters at unknown enemies. They self-destruct because they cannot bloom... there is no space to do it.
That is really what the posts try to show. These people are not monsters or mentally ill, they are the manifestation of the problems of where they are from. That is how we must see it. If I was born in Chelsea to a middle or upper income family, the chances are I would never have come into contact with the likes of Simon, or Alan or Lloyd or Wardog. My friends wouldn't have taken the Road to Ruin... they wouldn't have needed to. So it is a statement of certain conditions... and hopefully I am the person from there who kept enough sense and was aware and observant enough to express it in other ways. I can, because for years I expressed it in the same way as them... I used myself to show what society was invisibly doing to me. In a sense I still do. But through art (writing and painting and music), I have found another valid way to express that.
Thanks once again for your mail...
My Thoughts & Wishes, Shane. x
*A title for a future post: The Poverty of Hope. ;)
Email from: Madame X
Email to: Myheroinhead@gmail.com
Shane,
Yes... I think that "outlawdom" or self-destruction do also have a psychological background or a personal, biographical one. On a more general level it probably only takes different forms depending on the environment you grow up in. Speaking in stereotypes, if you grow up in a Californian mansion with an alcoholic father who regularly beats on you or your mother, your form of escape and self-destruction might be partyhopping, sedatives and anorexia. I think it all might depend on what we see, what we know and what we learn from others.But of course, also from what or what not our money can buy. There might be different forms of expressing a hurt or a hopelessness, and according to that different causes that led to a trauma or a perspectivelessness... I just believe that the feeling of loss and having no vision (be that career, love or whatever) is universal and not restricted to a certain class.
Again, what is different between "the classes" is the way you express that, and also who you express that to. The Californian girl might tell her stories to her psychiatrist, the London kids write in on the walls . But there are similarities?!
I still like the image of the "road", a road on the fastlane, roadkills, a ruined road that starts as one and then splits... into different roads to ruin?
Email from: Myheroinhead@gmail.com
Email to: MadameX
But the Road to Ruin is an old rock n' roll cliché, and I don't necessarily believe it is the road to ruin. I don't believe that becoming a drug addict and dying early is a road to ruin. Maybe it’s just a road... maybe they're all 'roads to ruin' because they all lead to the same place. What does it matter if one dies at 35, 50 or 90???
No, loss and having no vision are not universal. Of course that exists in all classes and races, but it is not epidemic. These things come from a lack of opportunity, options, possibility. It has a lot to do with economic situations. There is a reason why kids with nothing enjoy destroying property. There is a reason why so many drunks will lay out in public, dirty and humiliated, advertising themselves to the world. They just don't realise why.
And I'm not talking about a hurt or a trauma... we all have them. I am talking about when LIFE is the trauma... when it is so big you cannot even see it; you can only express it.
When I talk of lack of opportunity, I often use my schooling as an example:
My school was St.Marks. In my class were 30 children. Of those 30 no-one amounted to anything. The best someone became was a school teacher. Only 20% even went into further education.
Down the road was London Oratory. But most kids left there and went on to university and became Lawyers, doctors, or politicians. 80% went into further education.
We were born with the same brains, the same scope of memory... so what happened? Why did one set degenerate into violence, drugs and vandalism, whilst the others ended up treating, defending or arresting them! Why did one set start voting at 18 and the others became apolitical (though without even knowing what the word means).
There is a poverty and a frustration behind what I write about. Yes, it does exist elsewhere, but it is not epidemic. I've met addicts from all backgrounds, from all social classes and of all creeds and colours. But the majority, the same as the majority of kids that wear balaclavas and head out at night to vandalise property, they come from a place of hopelessness and nothing. They are hitting back at the world... they just don't know why.
Also, if you grow up in that Californian mansion you mentioned, you're escape might be the attic... the piano room... the library... the credit card! Something else that makes the situation less hopeless. If you grow up in a small flat on a rundown council estate, where is the escape? where is
another hope? There's not a library to lose yourself in... there's not a credit card that can compensate for absent or fighting parents. All there is is nothing. How can you escape a room when it is the only room.? Well, you escape it psychologically. And how do you express all this frustration? When you've never read a book in your life... never learnt how to write... have no access or money to painting materials... and didn't even leave school with the vocabulary needed to express it. Well, then it's expressed in different ways... anti-social ways, self-destructive ways. It's a huge scream for attention, but nobody is listening.
That's a little of what I think... when I'm writing a post for Memoires of a Heroinhead these thoughts go through my head. I do not explain that on the blog (though often in the comment section I do) as that gets very dull to read. I prefer to show the people and explain where they are from and what they do and how they live or die. People can then dwell on that, or just enjoy the post as a story and forget about it. But I believe that if you word things correctly, and give memorable sentences of expression, then that is the biggest protection against your words being forgotten or dismissed. But yes, there is something more than just tales in what I write... there has to be something more because stories are so very boring.
I think that ends it... don’t you? ;)
Shane. X
The Fall of Innocence: A Month of Memories
Autumn has always been a very special time for me. I remember London in October: The city full of burnt wood and magic; the cold creeping in off pink skies; the warm evening traffic crawling slowly into nowhere. There is something so sedated and calming in this time. I breathe it in. And with each intake of burnt air a memory drifts into my head.
As a young boy I remember walks along the mansions near the river. It would be just as the light fell, as the parks and public spaces were chained and locked, and mellow winds chased the scents of the freshly dead summer around. Overhead the last flocks of migrating birds would twist and dive by. The final distant calls of nature would sound out and then fade with no reply. So many such evenings I would wander mesmerised down shadowy west London avenues, staring in amazement at the illuminated stained glass doors, the homely hallways behind them, and through large Victorian windows, family get togethers in the living room. I would watch young girls play piano, or peer through huge open plan rooms as families sat and ate supper in the distance. I loved those little walks. The tranquility as the light gave way, as the street lamps rescued the city from darkness, and as life and nature and all things living and dying settled down for the night. For a few brief moments I felt as though I was a part of it all, that I was watching a lost film roll of my own family life. It was with a longing sadness that I dragged myself home, my young footsteps echoing a loneliness that only I could understand.
Later on in autumn, as the evenings darkened ever earlier and cool winds cut chill and whistled through stairwells and lift shafts, I remember being sent on errands to the Fish & Chip Shop. In fear of strange shadows and pursuing footsteps, I would run back home, holding the bag of hot food against my stomach. But in my house a fish & chip supper did not signal a weekly treat whereby the day's food budget had been abandoned in favour of succulent golden battered cod, spiced Jamaican patties, pickled eggs and chips soaked in onion vinegar. No, they were sad events: suppers which signified that my stepfather was absent and my mother, due to the intake of several litres of cheap vodka, was incapable of cooking. Often my mother would use my short absence as an opportunity to gather up all the tranquilizers and sharp knives in the house. I would return home to find her sitting on the side of her bed, wearing a sagged and evil clown face, and either chewing on mouthfuls of pink and green capsules or running a sharp potato knife menacingly up and down her wrist. More often than not the fish would end up splattered against the wall and the chips tramped into the carpet or vomited up into the toilet. On very special nights I’d be hit in the head with the hot bag of food, and then sent off to call for an ambulance on another false suicide attempt. In the early hours of the morning my stepfather would return twelve pints of beer heavier, and finding the house empty, he’d stagger back out knocking up the neighbours until he found the one who had taken us in and saved us from police cells, or worse, the Social Services. I’d hear his deep dangerous voice asking of details and then he’d lead us home, a small rabble of sleepy heads, blankets and teddy bears. But that’s not a autumn memory, not really... that’s just a memory, a timeless reminiscence of days long gone.
Autumn is also the build up to winter, to crystal brittle skies and a silver sun whose distance fails to penetrate the cold. It’s a mid-time, a halfway house between two extremes, a time of beauty and romance and reflection. So I reflect. I send myself to sleep with past images and memories. As the leaves start to bruise and prepare to fall, and as goalposts replace cricket boundaries, so once again I get lost in memory and return to lands that no longer exist. This post was brought out by the season. It is born from changing times and lost and forgotten loves. On the winds of this new autumn, under fading October light, I deliver another piece of myself: The first 31 predominant memories of my life.
I do not remember being born; not many of us do. But I do remember being fed. That is my 1st memory, being held to my mother's breast as she lay on a blanketed bed feeding me. My 2nd memory is of being scolded for knocking over a glass full of Martini... my mother pushing me off my tricycle and onto the floor as she sponged up the wet. My 3rd is the year 1980. I had returned home after my first day at school with that nugget of knowledge: “It’s 1980. Mum, the year is 1980!” My 4th memory is watching my father open up his veins with a small meat cleaver after a violent argument with my mother. I watched from behind a long pleated skirt as my stepfather fought and wrestled him out the house. My 5th memory is a camel ride in London Zoo. Red top, Wellington boots, and beige Rupert the Bear trousers. My 6th recollection is my mother's scream, an unbearable sound that pierced my life and brought me fully into existence. My 7th is learning that my father had been murdered, dismembered, boiled, diced and flushed down a toilet. My 8th is finding my mother choking to death on the froth of an overdose, pills and broken glass littering her room. My 9th memory is of the hospital ward where she laid for a week - bruised, unconscious and full of tubes. My 10th memory is taking a beating from my stepfather and then having my head shaved. My 11th is a dark room, nighttime radio, the glurping of neat alcohol being poured from bottle to glass, burning cigarettes, LED’s and tears. I remember the touch of pubic hair as my mother rubbed herself against my little legs. My 12th memory is realising that my brother and sister had rejected and distanced themselves from me after it was properly understood that I shared a different father. My 13th memory is my mother turning up drunk on my birthday and smashing all my new toys. My 14th is falling off my bike and losing consciousness. I remember pulling a wheelie, a pair of spinning handlebars, approaching concrete ground and then nothing. I came around grazed and bloodied on a public bench with a pair of watery grey eyes peering into mine. “You ‘ad a bit ov a fall young man... you’re Ok though!” My 15th memory is the Black House*. My 16th is my mother spraying perfume in my stepfather's eyes and then his hands, tattooed with ‘Love’ & ‘hate’, smashing into her jaw. My 17th is breaking my collarbone and laying in unbearable pain for 3 days before being taken to hospital. My 18th memory is being hit by the sperm of one of my mother's lovers. My 19th feeling the force of adult fists and kicks. My 20th is my stepfather doing the ironing in a dress. My 21st recollection is being arrested and detained in Hammersmith police station after throwing a grapefruit through Mr Brownhead's window. My 22rd & 23rd are of my mothers repeated suicide attempts. My 24th is being summoned to my mother's room and her declaring that she was dying of cancer. My 25th memory is being hit in the side of the head by a large bunch of keys. My 26th is fleeing the family home with my mother, brother & sister. A secret car ride across London and hiding from my stepfather. My 27th is the window ledge of Hobb's Hotel in Victoria, my paralytic mother swaying on it 70ft above the ground. My 28th is Christmas 1988, my mother's lesbian lover trying to strangle my sister to death. My 29th is White City Estate. No furniture, gas or electricity. It was cigarettes, stolen cars and my mother's final, yet unsuccessful, suicide attempt. My 30th memory is throwing a world globe out off the geography room window and being permanently excluded from school. My 31st memory is starting off on my first days building work at the age of 15. I realised on that day, as i returned home absolutely exhausted after 8 hours of soul destroying work, that I was no longer a child, that the burst-balloon-sponge-cake party was over. I also realised that hell was not an obligatory place of stay and I was not there on her Majesty’s service. There were roads which led to hell and if I was ever to return there again it would at least be in consequence of my own footsteps. In a sense that sums it up. From the fall of my innocence rose my independence, a passionate and dangerous independence that flirts with hell without quite descending into it. But maybe that’s not really a choice? Maybe I am just a blessed and lucky sod?
Anyway, that’s my month of memories... as many reminiscences of my dead youth as there are days in October. But contrary to what it may appear, I have never thought of my young years as a broken or traumatic time. Far from it, my overriding recollections of those years are the memories that do not exist but those which litter and fill in the gaps. The childhood I remember was one of joy and escape... of exhilarating bike rides, hard schoolyard walls and dusty football marathons. I recall late evenings, staying out playing as one by one the other children were called home and finally I was left kicking my ball down dark streets alone. So, in tune with the new season, that is how I see my youth: it was a bruised but not a battered time. It was an autumn and not a winter. And as the new season imposes itself proper and mornings and afternoons sweep cold, my eyes can only blink heavy through golden tones and I can only ride high as once again the scent of burnt wood wafts through another European city. In a way, the combined beauty of 33 autumns is the answer to my unknown equation. The present can never be more wonderful or less hellish than it is right now, because after everything, and before anything else, this is all that there ever really is.
Take care Readers and thanks for sitting out the drought...
My Thoughts and Wishes as Always and Ever, Shane.x
*Read relevant blog entry
