“THE BOOK”
un drafted
un edited
un real
London is at its most exotic in winter.
I found that’s its horribleness, it’s icy wind tearing away what human warmth remained after the murderous glances of strangers, made it more of a destination.
Anyway that’s where we were on a January day, somewhere in the north of London, near a tube station called Wood Green. It goes without saying in London, but Wood Green was neither woody nor green.
We were in a fried chicken shop that doubled as an internet café. Polish and Turkish 20 – 30 somethings variously chatted quietly on Yahoo or cruised internet dating sites, whilst Pakistanis sold them chicken, the grease of which created a Vaseline like film on the keyboard and mouse in front of us.
“Why don’t you type for once?” Em asked.
“No way I’m touching that while I’m eating.” Conclusively I told her as I bit the gristle off my second spicy drumstick.
“No one else worries about it.” She replied, a bit too loudly, looking in the direction of an African youth leering quietly at what might have been a music site.
He’s an African youth on a music site. OK, so what, I can here you ask. Who am I? And who’s the chick your making touch the filthy, greasy keyboard?
My names Ben and I want to be a writer. That’s why I’m trying to do these purple words. Give you the picture like a Steinbeck intro. Welcome to the valley, it’s a sunny place with lot’s of fun loving bum’s and pro’s that are really angels and all that stuff.
Hopefully you’ll spot a bit of Hemmingway too. Let the characters say it you know. Use dialogue.
But I can’t do it. This isn’t about me being a writer anymore. This is about telling you the story, which has become so fucked up that I’ve just got to get it out, get it down, before I go mad or get killed.
And to all you neo-modernists out there sitting in your deco lounges and pretending to plough through Joyce whilst your eyes sink into the lingo and you happily meditate on how fucking cool you are – well you can kiss my arse if you think I’m unreliable. I’m fucking reliable! I’m a fucking reliable narrator so fuck off!
We’re aussie and in our 30’s. Been going out since new years 2000.
We’ve been travelling a lot, not a real lot mind you, but about six months or so through South America.
To people who don’t travel – that sounds like a life time. But compared to some people you meet, six months could be compared to the first night of a three week Kontiki tour. Certainly long enough to get laid, make a few friends and see some old buildings, but really just a taster for the longer trip.
Take this Italian couple we met in Bolivia. Trendy types who could speak the language.
This guy he pissed me off ‘cause he insisted during a tour we went on to the mines in Potosi, that the guide spoke in Spanish. Everyone spoke English. The guide spoke English. The Italians spoke English. But every time we stopped in the heat and the mud and the carcinogenic dust that is the mines of the worlds highest city, we had to go through this linguistic pantomime.
Fuck me! Put up your hand if your in the I’m too cool to speak English club? I suppose it includes that wanker of a French president who set off all those nuclear bombs in our Australian backyard. Who could blow up a place called Bikini?
Anyway they’d been travelling for about 7 years or so. Wow! I mean that’s a long time. Must have done some wicked stuff right? Probably. But two days after the tour of the mines we saw them in Sucre sitting in a park. Not talking to each other. Not reading or looking around. Just with this blank, bored look on their faces. About five times that day we crossed that park and always they were still there with that look. Like they were waiting for it to get dark so they could go to sleep or waiting for ten years to tick over so they could go home and start meaningful lives and wear their decade of travel like a bandana of respect at hippy festivals.
Sorry, I’m off the point. I’m getting looser aren’t I? I guess you have to make some effort to tell a story.
Now we’re in a freezing suburb in north London, trying to find somewhere to live.
“Where’s Tottenham?” Em asked after surfing the Gum tree for a while.
“Dunno. Supporters are wankers though.”
Even as I said this I had a feeling. Something like this place must be a real destination, a place you could tell a story about.
“Look at this. “She demanded with a note of obviously being impressed. Instead of the usual two or three lines of share house jargon, there was a series of beautifully taken pictures that faded in and out from soft focus to magazine clarity. They showed a truly lovely modern house with a fuck off widescreen telly as a centrepiece.
“Nice” I said.
And he answered his phone when I rang.
Thinking back now I believe that all of his character was revealed in his voice. I had a picture of him from that moment and when we met an hour later, the picture in my head shook my hand and offered me a beer.
This is where Hemmingway would write that clever talking and you’d hear this guy and you’d know him. But I’ve just gotta tell the story, as I say, while I can.
We caught a bus up crowded streets with Turkish shops and bars and got off somewhere near White Heart Lane footy stadium. It seemed just like Wood Green but harder to get to. We walked up this little street. Rubbish blew around a kind of wild west landscape with council flats on one side and a few barricaded shops on the other. Some sad, cold and maybe angry looking youths lurked on either side. It all seemed threatening.
“It’d have to be good, wouldn’t it?” Said Em.
“It’d have to be really fucking good.” I replied.
(If you enjoy this – click on Chapter 2 above to continue the adventure)
