SCHLEPP

‘I’m not going to schlepp it all the way up to your place,’ she said.
I said, 'okay.'

360 DEGREES OF BATH
the birdsong caught my ear

FLOCK

I was scared stood next to my bike before starting the journey home. I thought what might happen...
- get mugged...going through the alleyway even;
- get shot at from a passing car...
- get a puncture and have to walk home...
...it was largely uneventful...
- I rode over pieces of a broken green bottle on St. Marks Road...
- no cars too close...
- few people walking the streets...
...an unpleasant smell in the flat turned out to be the bleach I’d put down the toilet when we called earlier in the day on our way to watch starlings flock near Glastonbury.

BISCUIT WITH PIGEONS

ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES

1
Seen him on Stokes Croft and given him money.
‘Er, excuse me,’ he said.
‘How much do you want?’
‘Well,’ he said opening his hand showing the coppers in the palm, ‘I need eighty-five pence for a drink.’
A quick look at what I had in way of change and I gave him enough for a drink.
‘Thank you,’ he said.

2
Down the left side of Stokes Croft on the way in to town a woman walked past me and said as she did, ‘excuse me, you got fifty pence...(slight pause)...a pound?’
I sighed and she heard.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s embarrassing. Sorry.’
I gave her a pound coin and as she walked away I said, ‘don’t spend it all at once.’
She looked back and waved, ‘I won’t.’

3
A man came up to me as I was standing near Sebrights and said, ‘can I ask you as nicely as possible a favour of you...?’
His face was red, scab on his chin and another just above his left eyebrow.
‘I haven’t got any money,’ I said.
For a moment it seemed we were the only two people on Stokes Croft. Then he walked off and caught up with a woman, from the back, could’ve been the woman who’d tapped me for the pound earlier in the afternoon.

A CASE OF IDENTITY

1. He was talking to a man as I passed through the subway at Temple Meads.
2. I didn’t overhear anything he said that sounded familiar.
3. I turned round and went back to where he and the man he was talking to stood.
4. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’
5. ‘What’s it fucking got to do with you?’ he said.
6. It was a relief I don’t mind telling you.

THE SAME MAN

‘Did you see the glass’s been broken again?’ he said.
‘Again?’ I said.
‘Yes. You know it was done on Saturday last?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I got back just after he’d finished and they’d got him in the back of the police car.’
‘Well, you know, they patched it up with that plastic?’
‘Yes. I saw it getting done Sunday morning.’
‘Well he did it again,’ he said.
‘The same man?’
‘They repaired some of the windows and he smashed them again from the fourth floor down.’
‘He did it from the tenth on Saturday,’ I said. ‘That’s what I saw from the outside, you know, from the bottom.’
‘Well, he did it from the fourth floor this time,’ he said.
‘Maybe he’s losing heart,’ I said.
‘They should lock him up.’
‘He should try harder.’

I’LL TRY MY FLOOR

The bottom lift’s been in service barely two weeks since modernisation and when I got back from town this afternnoon it was on three. After I’d pressed the call button I heard from above Lift Voice saying, “Doors opening. Doors opening...” The lift didn’t come down.
I banged on the door then walked up the stairs three flights to see what was going on and if needed to remind someone other people use the lift not only them.
“Doors opening. Doors opening...”
The door was open and seemed, trying to close, was behaving like it was caught on something it couldn’t pull itself away from. A man came out of the flat just in front of me to the left.
‘Can you hear that inside?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s the first I knew of it.’
‘You haven’t phoned it in then?’
‘No,’ he said.
“Doors opening. Doors opening...”
We approached the lift. Looked up. Saw the wheels and belts of the door mechanism moving no more than a few centimetres one way before springing back the other. Something somewhere was jammed.
‘Mind your fingers,’ I said when the man from the flat put his hand in the gap between the shaft and lift and pressed a lever that didn’t seem to make anything happen, not anything of use to us right then.
“Doors opening. Doors opening...”
‘The door’s angled,’ he said.
He pushed the door back into its hide a couple of times and Lift Voice stopped.
We stood quiet. Waiting. Then he made to press one of the floor buttons.
‘Hang on,’ I said getting into the lift. ‘I’ll try my floor.’

DOORS OPENING

ABOUT SOMEONE

He has Aquarius Rising.
The person writing this is over six feet tall.
He is wearing boots. He doesn’t wear shoes...ever...oh, he did once, when he had a gun to his head but that’s another story.
Blue is not the colour of his eyes.
Couple of days ago he walked out of a group before the scheduled end.
There isn’t a television in his flat.
He is not a family man.

‘It was easier to give up than keep looking, wasn’t it?’ she said.
‘How did you know?’
‘I went to the cafe.’
‘You still got to eat.’
‘That’s true,’ she said.
With his fingertips he traced the letters carved in the arm of the chair where he’d been strapped the scene earlier.
‘You’re distracted,’ she said. ‘Something’s going on.’
‘I can’t talk about it right now.’

LOVE STORY



NOT DEAD, MEETING

‘Did you kill that pigeon?’ she said.
Standing up from a crouch I turned to see her with a young man assumed to be boyfriend. I was on the centre by some of the fountains. Filming a live pigeon strutting around a dead one. There was a small patch of blood near the body. I wondered how the dead pigeon died.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Did you kill that pigeon?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘I saw it here when I passed and then the other one came over so I filmed it.’
Boyfriend uneasy, looking at her, his mouth moved, like he was talking. She wore black, grey and black stripey top, she had gelled spiky black hair, had black eye-liner.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit disrespectful,’ she said. ‘It being dead?’
‘I know it's intrusive,’ I said. ‘But I am being respectful. I wasn’t getting in the way.’
‘How would you like being photographed when your dead?’
‘It wouldn’t bother me to be honest.’
‘Well I think it’s disrespectful.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can hear that...’
...boyfriend looked at the ground...
‘...but I am being respectful, I’m a witness, I’m recording it because it’s interesting...and I’m a witness...’
...she watched me...
‘...it’ll be on youtube later.’
‘What’ll you call it?’ said Boyfriend.
‘I don’t know, “Pigeon - Dead Not Sleeping,”’ I said, then, ‘no, not really, I won’t call it that, I don’t know.’

TWO BIN LINERS ON STEPS DRINKERS SOMETIMES SIT

THE NUMBER ONE TRAMP

He dropped us off at the corner of Ashley and Cheltenham Road after we’d been to see Rita and Jasper at The Old Fox, a biker pub up the Gloucester Road.
‘I’m on a wealth walk,’ was a man’s voice behind us as we waited to cross the road at the lights.
He followed us over talking the while and said, ‘I’m not after your money,’ the only thing I remember.
I said to her, ‘stop and let him pass.’
We stopped and turning as he passed he said, ‘I’m a tramp, the number one tramp in the world, that’s what I’m saying.’
‘Oh yeh?’ I said.
‘I don’t want your money...’
‘You said.’
‘...but if anyone tells you they’re a tramp and the number one top tramp in the world, it’s not true,’ he said. ‘I’m the number one tramp, you tell them...’
‘Okay,’ I said.
She said, ‘bye,’ and I did too as we started up Ninetree Hill.
‘I’m the number one,’ he said, ‘don’t forget,’ as he walked on down Stokes Croft.

BROKEN GLASS

‘We don’t have to go all the way up there, do we?’ she said, ‘now that the lift’s working.’
When we got near to the block we saw two police cars outside, then pieces of broken glass on the ground by the front door, and in the car park by the corner of the block four men standing at the back of a car. We went over to them and saw that all the windows of the car had been smashed and there were pieces of glass on the body of the car and lying close by on the ground. One of the men was talking on a mobile phone.
‘What happened?’ she said.
The man furthest from us pointed up to the side of the block and said, ‘look, he did all that.’
From about the tenth floor down we could see holes and cracks in the windows of the stairwell.
We talked a short while with the four men commiserating the damage done to their car before saying, ‘goodnight,’ and then going through the entrance of the block and seeing that all of the windows there and in the foyer had holes in them and glass lay scattered on the floor.
‘They look like bullet holes,’ she said.

COP IN THE LIFT

We got in the lift with a tall policewoman wore her hair fastened in a bun at the back of her head and had followed us through the front door of the block.
‘What happened?’ I said.
‘Someone came down the stairs and smashed each of the windows with a hammer,’ said the policewoman.
‘Glad to hear it wasn’t a gun,’ I said.
‘You got him?’ she said.
‘Yes, but your eyes might feel a bit sore,’ said the policewoman, ‘we had to use CS gas to restrain him.’
‘You know why he did it?’ I said.
‘Not yet.’
The three of us got out the lift on my floor. I started to unlock the front door of my flat and the policewoman went towards the door leads to the stairwell.
‘He must’ve been drunk or on crack or something,’ she said when we got inside.
‘Maybe it was a deal went wrong.’
‘I wonder if he lives here.’
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘But what they should do is put him in some stocks outside the front so we can all see who he is did such a thing...I’d like to know.’

HOLES IN GLASS



TRANSCRIPT

‘Yeh, we turned up just as he’d finished it,’ I said.
‘Oh right.’
‘Just as they’d nabbed him.’
‘Oh, you see him did you?’ he said.
‘We didn’t see it happen but we saw the...’
‘They tear gas him?’
‘CS gas, yes, yep...’
‘...and there was the car,’ she said. ‘Did you see the car?’
‘We weren’t down here. I don’t know I just got a call this morning, look...’
‘...smashed the car...all er, every window on their car, a new car sitting there...’
‘What’s he got beef with then?’ he said.
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘He, he came down the stairs...’
‘...yeh...’
‘...with a hammer, smashing every window as he came.’
‘Then he.........the car...’ she said.
‘..............the motor.’
‘...every window of the car, yeh, th-they were gutted.’
‘Yeh,’ he said, then, ‘not nice is it?’
‘Aar, it’s out of order,’ I said. ‘Anyway thanks for doing it.’
‘..................make it safe,’ he said.
‘For sure,’ I said, ‘yeh...cheers.’
‘Cheers.’

WHAT I HEARD

‘You started it,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t me,’ said Dread. ‘It was him,’ pointing at Back To.
Back To not turning round in his chair said, ‘it wasn’t me, she started it.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, ‘I just told you.’
‘Just because you said you didn’t start it doesn’t mean you didn’t start it,’ Dread said.
‘What is this?’ she said. ‘What’s going on? Do you know what’s going on?’ she said to me.
I was sat at right angles to her so a slight turn of the head by both of us was enough to be facing each other.
‘I heard that you started it is all I know,’ I said.
‘That’s what I heard,’ said E sat next to me.
‘It wasn’t me,’ she said. ‘It was him,’ pointing at Dread.
‘Don’t you start,’ said the woman was introduced as the only one among us making money from her songwriting.
‘She’s already started,’ I said.
‘Yeh, but I didn’t start it,’ she said.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ I said.

A MAN WALKS INTO A LAUNDERETTE...

SOME PEOPLE

‘Some people sell their key fobs,’ he said. ‘They go to the housing office say they’ve lost their fob, buy a new one for a fiver then sell it on.’
‘Who too?’ I said.
‘Someone, anyone needs a place to crash for the night.’
‘Hmm, seems a lot to pay for a chute room or the stairwell,’ I said. 'Then again, you can use the fob again and again once you've bought it.'
He looked at me, well, just past me, like right through me...he never looks straight at me.
From where we stood I could see the Fremantle car park.
‘Not many cars parked in the car park,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s not being used as much the lift not working.’
‘Some people sell their car park cards,’ he said.
‘That makes more sense,’ I said. ‘Somewhere round here to park all day for free...gold dust for the buyer you’d think...not so much the seller though.’
‘Ask for a new one every few months then sell it on.’
‘How much can you make doing that?’
‘Some people think it’s worth it,’ he said.

THE WICKER CHAIR

HERE’S A THING

The tall caretaker carrying a mop and bucket, got in the lift on the floor below the one I had.
‘Alright?’ he said.
‘Hello.’
‘Where you going?’
‘Up,’ and I said the floor.
‘That’ll do me.’
One up and I said, ‘you any idea when the front lift’s going to be done?’
‘Now there’s a thing,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I keep asking and I get a different answer each time.’
‘They said a couple of weeks when I asked a week ago.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said.
When the lift stopped at my floor the man in the corner was waiting to get in and me and the caretaker got out. The caretaker held the doors either end of the corridor open for me.
‘Thanks,’ I said each time.
He said, ‘you’d think the time they spend here they could clean up a it more,’ and picked up an empty plastic water bottle had been there a few days that I’d noticed and not done anything about.
‘Whorr, it stinks of urine,’ he said from the small room houses the rubbish shute.
‘That always smells,’ I said.
He seemed pissed off as he moved the bits of the shelf unit’d been left there throwing them into one corner from another.
I unlocked my front door and went in the flat without saying anything else to him.

FROM THE WINDOW OF A BUS




IRRITANT

‘Look,’ she said, ‘that car’s got a flat tyre.’
I’d heard the car go past as we stood at the bus stop and saw it take a right down The Pithay.
‘Is that funny?’ i said.
‘Yes it is.’
‘I’m going to write that down,’ and repeated what we’d said so she could hear as I wrote it in my notebook.
‘Are you going to be irritating all night?’ she asked.
‘Have you forgotten who I am? Do you not recognise me?’ I said using a look to emphasise my point and after a short pause, ‘of course I’m going to be irritating all night.’

A BORING BIT

‘I’ve had a problem with my clutch,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve been reading about it, your on-going car troubles.’
‘Think I might’ve gone on enough or too much about it,’ he said.
‘No, no, it’s really interesting...and anyway who am I to criticise the reporting of life’s boring bits...’
‘...that’s what I’m doing and life’s like that...’ he said opening the door on his way to the toilet.
‘...exactly, and, like I said, “who am I to criticise...” when I write, “I got in the lift and said, ‘hello,’ and he said, ‘hello,’ and the lift went down,”?’
‘Exactly,’ he said.
He left the room.
I went into the kitchen, put the kettle on for a herbal for him, ‘well if they’re both the same, I’ll have the organic,’ and a black tea (bag left in) for me.

TREMEDOL PLUS

I moved the bags and clothes from the rocking chair and put them in an Ikea bag that was on the floor.
‘You okay?’ she said.
‘It’s my neck,’ I said. ‘It’s stiff and the angle I have to turn and face you isn’t helping.’
‘I’ve got drugs,’ she said. ‘Morphine type drugs.’
‘Say more,’ I said.
‘How about this one?’ picking up a small blister pack from the table, was covered in boxes, pens, and foodstuffs, that she’d earlier said she’d lost control of.
‘What’s that?’
‘Tremedol,’ she said. ‘You can take it with Co-Codamol if you like and want to be out of it for theday.’
I took two 50mg, supplemented when I got home with three Nurofen Plus and two co-codamol 30’s, and true to the sell spent the rest of the day in an opiated float.

LIFT OVERLOADED