London is a conical spiral. I said London is a conical spiral. Do you understand what I mean or are you thinking about the Douglas Adams and Ford Prefect’s description of the universe? I am sliding down the grooves of the spiral at a pedestrian rate but the outcome is inevitable. Drop off like a stroganoff from the distended gut of an obese banker. Roll folds of fat until slapped in the face by the inevitable cold slap of pavement. Feet hitting and perpetuating the quaking ground, the empty sound.
London is cold in its denial of the facts. It allows the towering glass and steel to be intermingled with the crumbling pre fab, Victorian terrace and brutalist shell. From Valhalla to Hades in four short steps but which is which and can they switch?
London is endless repetition of drinks and bars and scars and cars. Placid conversations that snake through the walls as you move from place to place; Gina talks of skyrocketing rent in Battersea as Derrick picks up the thread two doors down of decreasing police visibility in Turnpike Lane. Rivers of shame that leak from the air conditioning filters of high rise office complexes. The encased employees sweating out last nights shame in the alcoholic vapour that is sucked into the vents. Down through the tunnel of ducts and piping that emit it back to the street. Returning swirling though the smog and C02 towards the bars and brothels from where it came from.
London destroys the weak and swallows the strong and pins them, dissects them and stretches them until the fissures that join them become weak and they can not stand anymore. They must bend and yield to the forces that act upon them. Faceless and mute they contain their confusion in capital accumulation and the excesses of service economy exaggeration. How small can that telephone be? How smooth can that puree become? Endless sieving and refinement until everything fits through the eye of a needle.
London is unequal but equality is subjective and as I float through these streets eating pizza bought by the slice. Leicester square garishness and the Mayfair diners look on I feel superior. I quash and pivot though the expectations of the constantly assembled constantly shifting audience. A mathematical experiment in performance art, perception of those who don’t even know they are in the best selling show. Sniffing coke at 16 and finding Bowie records and thinking those lyrics were written just for you because those lyrics were written just for you.
I have lost London because London is lost in me. Either resident, indigenous or immigrant, visitor casual or contemptible the city is a lost cause like those that inhabit it’s veins. Platelets of pikey b*****d blood cells beaming at the artery’s of gyratory systems with bellicose bloated grinning faces. Lost in the collapse of themselves as the infrastructure falls about their expensive deck shoes. They do not feel it they do not see it.
I am in London and I am taking drugs, I am selling drugs, I am hitting my girlfriend, I am walking to the off license and I am drinking cans not bottles, bottles and cans. My man walk to me, look at me like he can look at me, touch me, my man is speaking and eyes rolling and reading and looking for signal. My man is an empty vessel and devoid of traits, my man is ether. Why would you speak to me? What would give you the inclination that you can speak to me? I will crack your jaw and break your back snap for your chat as I snap chat the snap back so quick. My eyes glossy globes of hatred, can’t you see? Can’t you read? Are you uneducated? My man flotsam, my man eroded, my man sea floor, my man abyss.
London is an abyss, ocean shelf where the life has never seen the light of the sun, where the stark white skin can’t peel. My man, I will tell you what to feel.
I can’t be here right now, this arsehole of London. The semi-circle of the taxi rank fronts the illogical layout of the station building, the fork in the tracks. Last chance to get out before the doldrums of zone 3, those deluded f*****s who think that any of that s**t matters, who don’t understand London. The oppressive hoards breathing at the periphery, leaking in each day and draining out each evening and I need one of them. With their leather wallets given as a gift by their wife, gift wrapped from the counter and brimming with the symbolism of a life of capital exchange. The receptacle where it all rests is what I require so that I can continue with this day, so that I can follow the rote dance of my addiction. The actions are simple and remove the tedious problems of having to formulate an identity for myself. Empties the need for endless pondering of my social status, how I fit into the scheme of things, how I am perceived by others, all this can be jettisoned.
Limbering up to be filled, a nostril or a pill, the sweet release of excrement or vomit, the leaking of the eyes or the lightness of the skull. Which predilection to assign to which trauma? A slap to the face or a tap to the jaw is as good as a swine who lies on the floor. I am a perpetrator of domestic violence, a drug and alcohol (alcohol is a drug though) fuelled rage. You can feel it building up behind the eyes, I can rub them in some effort to release the pressure but my impotence is too strong, my limp coked dick inert between my thighs, as the tone of her voice increases to a pitch that bends in my mind. My mind one track as the images flicker and flicker and flicker.
The sky above Lewisham is bleached white, exposure too high. Needs editing, I am sedated and detached. I can see the commuters now gradually emerging into the beige lighting of the ticket hall. Soon as the heard separates they will begin to gather speed and disperse into the artery’s of the roads surrounding the station. Down the ramp past the graffiti, night crawler, known long since defunct. I must choose my victim but my head is drowsy, the reverb knob is being twizzled now, hazing and phasing, phase in phase out and I focus. Grit my teeth and wish that rain would begin the fall, some pathetic fallacy to bring my resolve against the innocent. I imagine a birds eye view, the red oblongs of the bus garage and the retail park beyond. I zoom down into my skull and step forward and begin to bump in between the black clad commuters, Marks and Spencer’s rain coats, office shoes and Office shoes. My focus leers from the back of one coiffured bob, then split ends and shaggy mops, hats and hats and hats. I want a woman but after last night, I can’t take anymore as my faded guilt gnaws at me, not another woman, not more violence against a woman. A man. But a faded man, a degenerate, weak in will and easy to manipulate. I need to muster the hatred, the masculine fury that was so easily accessible last night, in the perceived paranoid slights of my girlfriend’s words. Can’t say her name, not yet.
