Escape

I had got to the stage where I could think no more. Last week I'd spoken to D as he stood in a dark rain lashed wood, the noose slung over the branch. I bet the timing of my call seemed ridiculous or made his situation seem ridiculous. Through the gulping of tears I got the rough idea. Another friend had asked me to ring and I did until my pay as you go credit ran out but it was long enough and he is still fighting his demons today. The thing was, I was also in a war torn state of mind. The distraction of anothers suffering is the greatest cure for self pity. Perhaps I am being hard on myself; my brain was scrambled and had been for many days. I had become non functional and had sought medical advice. My counciller is great but the speed of communication in the system, once a poor or inexperienced doctor puts a spanner in the workings slows the proccess into a Kafkaesque trauma of journeys to chemists and hospitals till finally a doctor bold enough to write a take away script permits the freedom of escape.

I felt a cunt to leave my dog, even for a few days as his days now are few and his needs a burdon on anyone and certainly harsh on someone I love in equal need yet I am broken and of no use to anyone till repaired.

I slept a few hours, got up, dressed, grabbed my bags then took Tex for a walk or a drag as he was tired and confused at the break in routine then on to a coach where I slept all the way to London.

Hours spent traipsing round the city, finding corners to read, have a drink and finally another long trawl up north in a coach too cramped to do anything but read. The most mundaneof books becomes great in its abillity to transport you anywhere but the confines of space and time.

Arrival isn't easy as explanation is beyond the few words time permits. Gradually my story will no doubt unfurl. I can express the mechanics of desperation though not the tools that brought me down. My weakness is the real culprit but I can't escape who I am without resorting to that which brings me down. A catch 22.

Help is something to be asked for, not something to be continually offered. It can drill in to your brain, that constant projected offer of what you might want.

My first sleep was one of pure exhaustion like anaesthetic dream free non being and a headache for breakfast. This was washed away by the sea, never fails to put you in to some sort of perspective. I talked and bits come out, snippets, post it notes of history.

The next sleep brought old friends back. Fred was working and kind of dissappointed with me, Berin and some girl I didn't know were telling me what I was like these last 5 years have been some dream and reality had returned. This inversion was quashed by my phone ringing and C, upset as her surrogate mother and freind is dieing. Each piece of news since she turned up from Inverness suffering dementia and bleeding brings the inneviteable closer. Ms' brother had rang her at 8am so her time may be short. She is breathing again, unaided, no oxygen mask though what this means ultimately, I don't know.

It feels like all those of us who chose to try to live a different way, children of LSD, children of the road are dieing or finding deep unhappiness. It was never the LSD that harmed, bar a few unstable ones but the cannabis, the alcohol, all the other gateways and escape routes, every tunnel to a new kind of self understanding or self delusion that ruinned a generation. Drugs damage the rich as well as the poor though the options for entertainment are greater when you have money. My generation came out into a recession and it took us three years or more in our northern cities before we began working, some were already too scarred by this to ever find a career, trade or profession, some never even found a way to work. The environment isn't a true excuse, many, myself amongst them did find things to do but some never had the tools to explore the possibilities there for them. I saw the recent riots and can see a far worse future for the offspring of this recession. The riots may not have been political though there was physics involved. As a boy I could even see it. Black kids, in their reservation, Chapeltown in Leeds, where if they strayed too far the police were sure to give them a kicking, even white kids, I had a good hiding for nothing. Buisnessmen would drive from the suburbs through Chapeltown in their Mercedes and BMWs on the way to work, or curb crawling the prostitutes that lined Spencer Place at the bottom of our street. People are even buyable. Or rich kids, come down to buy ganja from the blackman. I used to think, if I were a black kid with little prospect of ever owning one of those BMWs maybe I would be tempted one day, to just take one. While a business man was in a seedy room with his white dick being sucked by someones daughter, just get in his car and drive like a rich man for a day. You can only show off your wealth for so long before someone will try to take some off you. And who is the crook? Theft always takes as much from the theif as his victim yet, with a limited pool of substance, it has to come from somewhere, each pound going to the top is one taken from the bottom.

I have chosen not to steal, on the whole, but to work. Money stolen is never real, just a mimic. The only money I have enjoyed has been hard earned. Finding myself in such a position with my business hurts. All I wanted was a clear breif. Throwing money at me with no clear plan was misguided. I design and make furniture. Someone may like what I make. They want a table. I draw a table, even make a model, this I usually do for free. Once the client agrees on a design and a price they send me half the money for me to buy materials and other overheads. I make the table then deliver it. Generally it is much better than anything they have ever bought, then they pay me the other half. I don't have much interest in making to other peoples designs as they are usually poor and I think that they ought to make their own designs just as I polish my own shoes.