AFTERMATH: ASBO SALLY

As you may know, the first 22 episodes of this blog, from Jan to April 2013, are the text of my book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which is available on amazon, as an ebook, so as not to waste paper.  From that point on, the blog is the daily, or near-daily musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green, raconteur and repressed metrosexual.  And here are today's reflections...

ASBO SALLY

She's good at what she does, but what she does is bad.  There goes ASBO Sally, copper-topped and damaged, by the market where I met her.  If I'm over the road, trying to slip into the station, unseen, she'll often bellow over, 'Dan, Dan, it's Sally...Dan!'  Cos she's like that.

Saw her today.  I was sidling by the market, on my way to an interview at Chicken Cottage, and she caught me.  Her gruff salute seemed to invoke a stickiness of tongue, and I, flylike, tumbled in.  It was all ok, though, because, somehow, now when I'm presented with the opening approach, the freakwave Discovery speak of, I see calmer waters beyond.  I also feel the sickness of the initial drowning, the sopping deck, rainsoaked trawlermen depressed and agog on gleaming boards, knowing they have come out too far, taken too much, but must dredge deeper, harder, further, faster, reflecting how they used to be casters of nets, but turned, with too-slow warning, to marionettes...

...which kinda helps.

And that, you may be relieved to know, is all I have to say today.

I once wrote this song, about maritime issues...


AFTERMATH: Nocturne

As you may know, the first 22 episodes of this blog are the text of the book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013).  From that point on, it is the inimitable musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  Today's entry is possibly a bit surreal, so I promise you that tomorrow's thoughts will be really realworld and incisive, the kind of thing you'd like to hear from a wise'n'experienced drug-worker, or the normal person in a twelve-step meeting.

NOCTURNE

One good thing about not using so many drugs is that I'm getting my teenage vocabulary back.  I can begin blog entries with words like 'Nocturne' without feeling too guilty about it.

It's ok to imagine a wheelchair-bound harlequin parked up at your window, whispering old weather-forecasts in various tongues.  It is also fine to imagine the harlequin rising from his throne of wheels and skating forth on slats of Dairylea, seemingly produced automatically as his feet touch the ground.

Of course, you'd think the Dairylea would lack solidity and slickness to function as a ski-like means of self-propulsion, but we as a race have much to learn.  One thing I do know is that Laughing Cow would not work, so please do not imitate the harlequin under any circumstances.

On another note, we who have nurtured our impatience with various quick fixes to the slow break of our lives, know well the virtue of slowness.  The harlequin outside my window was once as plain as an envelope, but now, either rolling around in his throne of incapacity, or skiing on his Dairylea slats, is always seeking the next big thrill, the next big-top to awe with his own inimitable brand of gaudiness.

His whole act is mime, which makes you hate him before he's even opened his mouth, which he never will.  He gestures, flat-handed, at panes of glass that aren't there, juggles grenades invisible flawlessly, smokes transparent cigarettes until he mock-dies of complications.

Then, years later, at a minor-celebrity paraphernalia auction, two rancid squares of Dairylea are put up for sale in memory of the much-missed Grenadier of Gaud, the debilitated harlequin.

And that's pretty much all I have to say today.

AFTERMATH: Afternoons

Thanks for dropping by.  As you may know, the first 22 episodes of this blog, from Jan to April 2013, are the text of the book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can buy on amazon, if you stoop that low.  From that point on, under the bitter banner of Aftermath, you will find the near-daily musings of your author, the last living baronet in Shepherd's Bush.  I hope you enjoy them.

AFTERNOONS

Every friend of compulsion knows the mystic force of early afternoon, money in the bank, days of anger banked up like unmeltable snow, and a wish for something more, but not necessarily a noble more, like that bowl of gruel Twist requested, but a borderline more, one that comes with a hung parliament of whisperers and silhouette spectators, all with an opinion on whether to sit it out, or proceed.  And when proceed translates as advance, it sounds more advanced, even though it hasn't yet.  But when the boulder of self is shouldered through the foliage, a dark momentum gathers, and birds either go quiet, or perhaps are just more easily ignored.

Snakes hide under logs, until you're on your journey home.

And they are my thoughts for the day.

AFTERMATH: The World Owes Me £2

Hi, thanks for dropping by again.  The first 22 episodes of this blog (from Jan to May 2013) are the text of my book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can buy on amazon if you do that kind of thing.  After that point, it's the almost-daily musings of me, your faithful author, and local antihero, so happy reading...

NORMA WANTS £2

It's a blistering hot day here on Goldhawk Road, which means you're more likely to get begged at or mugged, or both, if the first doesn't work.  As a local dignitary, it's hard getting past the market without being assailed in some form or another.  Because it's hot, you can sit on the pavement with impunity, and see if you can bleed a few quid out of those who come and go.  I am so stoical and heroical that I, now a venerable ex-user, have to tread a line between identification and non-judgemental sympathy whenever I hear the cry, 'Yo, B, gimme some change.'  One of my favourite accosters is Norma, bloated and furious, can in hand, and often to be found by the fruit-stall.

A year or so ago, it was a quid she wanted, but now it's gone up to two, which is in no sense in line with inflation.  I nearly always say I don't have it, sometimes because I haven't, but mostly cos I don't really like her, and anyway, it would surely only go on another can of fizzy petrol, or possibly a can of lighter-fuel to clamp down on and inhale every five or ten minutes, until a better offer comes along.

But Norma gets very angry when I deny her, however polite I am.  'I know you've got money, y'bastard,' she explains, 'I just saw you come out of Tesco.'  'Yes, I had to leave Tesco because I had no money,' I might rejoinder.  'You get more money than I do,' she says, aware, as she has been for a while, that I receive a higher band of disability benefit than her, despite her best efforts to appear mentaller and more decrepit than she actually is.

So I swan by, moneyed, gloating inside that I now have a slightly smaller overdraft than I had when I was using, with her, or whoever I happened to stumble on, or be stumbled on by, at any given time.  Monstrous the curses that spill from her slack'n'flaky lips as I saunter by with a secret sovereign in my chinos.  Once she even tapped my pockets to see if they rattled, and, when they did, she almost went purple, but I assured her falsely that what she heard was the jangling of my keys, but she thankfully fell short of delving in, where she would have found at least £3.40, and maybe a note.

Sometimes, there might even be a secondary scavenger, a kind of para-parasite, hoping to feed off what meagre crumbs Norma might drop, not knowing that those bulbous clutches only unclench when there's something coming straight back in.  But the sidekick might back up her claim, or even undercut it, hoping I might perhaps have £1.50, even just a quid, to proffer it.  It is always tempting to throw a coin into the air and watch them scramble for it, scratching and clawing each other to death in a battle to snatch the guinea - this would not only mean one less unfortunate on our streets, but also keep the economy ticking over in these times of tight belts.

And that is all I have to say today.

AFTERMATH: In The Midst Of Debt

Thanks for dropping by.  The first 22 episodes of this blog, from January to May 2013, are the text of the book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', by me, which you can get on amazon, if you're that way inclined.  From thereon in, it is the live and living thoughts of me, post-crack, pre-apocalypse, and so forth, for example...

IN THE MIDST OF DEBT

There's no better feeling than dragging your keyboard, cumbersome as a child, into your local branch of Cash Converters.  Like an elephant's graveyard behind reinforced glass, hi-fis, cameras, phones, televisions, and other state-of-the-art artefacts, try to explain the patchwork of their route there.  'I was brought in by Tiger,' explains a forlorn-looking camera with a faulty flash that no one knows about.  'I'd been a bona fide birthday present, until Tiger was having a smoke-up with Angel, and removed me on exiting discreetly at dawn.  He tried to palm me off on the Green, but no one had the cash, or trusted him - then, when this place opened, he brought me in without a falter - and here I am, gleaming dully next to the phone with a slightly cracked screen, brought in by Bernadette, found on a table outside Nero.'  A mute camcorder resents the camera's candidness, scowls on through tinted filter.

And here am I, with another animal for this menagerie of desperation, lopsided in my clutches at the thick-glass counter, my £800 keyboard, upon which numerous songs have been written, albeit sporadically, over the past few years.

But now, the coal-eyed raven, encased for his own security, is waiting to take.  He negotiates a figure, I accept, on buyback, naturally.  He comes round, opens a side-door, and takes it in.  I pretend to be glad of his trade.  In goes the keyboard, and then, when he's reappeared at his window, he shoves under the agreed amount.  By now, my head is ten minutes in the future, and I'm round the corner, making the call.

And that is all I have to say today.

AFTERMATH: The Angry Text

 

Hello, thanks for visiting the blog.  The first twenty-two episodes, archived below, are basically the body of the ebook, available on amazon, called 'How To Become A Crack Addict'.  The following entries are daily thoughts as the days, weeks, months, and maybe even years pass by, and I hope you find them of some interest.  For example...

THE ANGRY TEXT

I receive an angry text at around 8.40 in the morning.  It is from Carolyn, a character not mentioned directly in the book.  She is very cross, because 1) I hadn't replied to a text she sent a day or two before, 2) that meant I hadn't saved her the credit of ringing me, and 3) why did I always do this?  And then, after a brief preamble, something involving the cat, no doubt to draw me in with fables of furriness.  There was a sandwiched sentence telling me her parents had no lecci (that's electricity, just in case you didn't know).  This was designed to draw me out my door, and down Goldhawk Road to their peeling door.  I had no wish to do this, because it would lead to her asking for twenty quid, which I can ill afford to give out at the moment.  I also was suspicious as to whether her parents were really out of lecci, so I took action, got on the bus, and a few stops down I called on them (they know me, it was no cold call) to check they were ok.  The father said they were fine, and said they also had food and electric, which I can only believe, because it was a sunny morning, so no electric bulbs were blazing away in the hall.  I asked if they wanted any shopping, was told they were fine, and made my way home, glad to have proven that Carolyn's little tickle of my moral bone was a hollow one, and determined to blank any further calls from her that day.

She'd asked for a tenner for her parents, and a tenner for herself, which makes one crack, one heroin, if you ask me.  But the relationship has always been so full of trickery, undeclared facts, and sheer lies, that taking anyone on their word is a pretty foolhardy act, unless you wanna be duped out of twenty quid, and then be enmeshed back into the next trawler-net that gets wafted your way.  I, a minnow in this ocean of recovering creatures, can avoid most nets, and slip through some, but swimming near them is always a risk, so keeping your distance is the wave that pays.

But these nebulous approaches, half-hello half-gimme, tribal barterings on the fringes of our postcodes, spark up thoughts of using in my mind, with them, or with someone else.  It can leave me feeling very shaky, 'Mm, maybe I could slot in a use-up tomorrow, then go to bed for a few days, no major appointments coming up...' - then re-emerge, financially wounded, yes, but alive, the boil of desire lanced, for the time at least.

Then would kick in the clawing around my brain for any remnants of serotonin, scraps of dopamine to latch onto, just to feel a bit less irritable, depressed, and prone to uncomfortable mood-swings.

No, it's not really worth it, but, short of moving completely away from where you used, the people you used with, you have to negotiate the borderlines, if there are any, that exist in your own head...who do I answer calls from, who do I call, do I go down that street knowing they might be there, or I might feel drawn to their front-door like a lone iron-filing in search of a magnet.  Recovery, not that it's a word I especially like in this context, is made of many things, will, bloodyminded, home, luck, input, good and bad, and hopefully a sense that, gradually, over time, you begin to recognise yourself again, a self that can begin to see addiction from a different vantage-point, one on the edge, looking in, but not being drawn in.  Addiction doesn't really change, so any change has to unsettle it.  Sometimes you have to outwit yourself to win this game.

And they are my thoughts for today.