TAPPING FOR WORMS

I’M SORRY

‘Excuse me,’ he said.
Just before Subway at the bottom of Montague Street after getting off the eighty-eight outside the House of Fraser - ‘You want this one or the next one?’ the driver had said - walking through the bus station, over the dual carraigeway where there’s no safe place for pedestrians to cross, I saw him coming towards me.
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘This is rather embarrassing,’ he said softly.
‘Ok.’
‘I’ve been busking my poetry and...’
‘...you’ve not done so well...’
‘...no, and I’m trying to get enough for a sandwich...’
‘...how much you need...’
‘...three quid,’ he said, paused slightly, during which I put my hand in my pocket, felt for change, and after which he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ I said opening my hand. ‘Here’s two-fifty...oh, and another fifty, that’s three, how’s that?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’

NEGOTIATING ON JAMAICA STREET

‘Fuck off,’ she said turning to the man walked behind her on Jamaica towards Stokes as we came up the lower end of Hillgrove on our way back from town.
‘Fuck off yourself,’ said the man.
‘You fuck off, leave me alone,’ she said.
‘I’m not doing anything,’ he said, took a drink from a can of Tenants, the blue one.
‘You’re pissing me off, is what you’re doing,’ she said.
‘Well fuck off then,’ he said.
I didn’t hear exactly what else they were saying to each other but it sounded like more of the same.

FUCKED

‘My life is over,’ he said...
I was in the new office down town drinking a double espresso ordered from an American woman said she knew what HP sauce was, she’d taken a case of it back home for Christmas. A man having a say nearby.
‘...I’m in a job I know I could do better than, better paid too, but how’m I going to get it? who’s going to employ someone like me? the things I can do and like doing more people do better and I’d never earn a living at it, shit, I had dreams and non of them I’ve managed to make happen, and the ones I’ve got left are disappearing down the pan, what a fucking life, why did I end up here? actually I know, I just didn’t give myself a chance and give it a go...’
He stared down into his cup of coffee, lifted his head.
‘...I’ve got stuff that if I did finish would help me out, the predicament I’m in, but I’m thinking, “what’s the fucking point?” you know? why bother? I’ve got no sense I can be anything different from what I am now which is someone can’t make things happen, doesn’t get things together...Christ, what a drag...I’m fucked...’
He fell silent, a lull in the office, shook his head said, ‘Fucked.’

KNOCK AT THE DOOR

There was a knock at the door. The postman?
I looked through the spyhole, saw one of the young men from the corner.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ he said. ‘Have you had any post this morning?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You know if there’s going to be one?’
‘I thought so, but I don’t actually know.’
‘Oh, okay,’ he said.
I closed the door and went back into the front room.
‘I think he must be waiting for a giro,’ I said.
‘Or a rent cheque,’ she said.

There was a knock at the door. Then another.
‘Does Irene still live here?’ said the woman.
‘Irene?’ I said.
‘Irene, who used to live next to Brenda.’
‘Brenda?’
‘Brenda,’ she said, getting agitated, leaning towards me. Risk assess, manageable. ‘She used to live there next door, and Irene lived here.’
‘I’ve not known anyone live here with that name, you got the right floor?’
‘Yes,’ she said slapping the door jamb, ‘it’s this floor.’
‘Like I said,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anyone with that name has lived here and I’ve been here ten years.’
‘Irene lived here and brenda lived there, they were neighbours.’
‘I don’t think I can help anymore,’ I said.


BUSKER WITH SIRENS

A SIGN

A LONG TIME

'Hello stranger,' she said when I walked into the laundry. 'It's been a long time since I've seen you in here.'
'Yes,' I said, acknowledging that indeed it had been a long time.

People talk to me, at me. Friends, family, fellow residents of the flats. Maybe it’s the way I look, or that I have little that others consider anywhere near as interesting or important to say as they themselves do.
The Godmother said, ‘...the auditor came round took one look at my kitchen and said, “you’re not going to let them pull all that out are you?” and I wish I hadn’t, what they’ve done to it, put a worktop along the wall below the window, I used to stand there, watch the planes go over the city, now if I want to I have to go stand on the balcony...’
The door to the laundry opened, JJ came in, stood between me and the Godmother, ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised to see you.’
‘It’s been a while,’ I said, wanting him to get out from between us, he did, put his laundry in a machine.
‘...they said it’d take four weeks, it was May when they started, came round beginning of April to measure up, finished it August, almost September...’

After she’d gone a caretaker had come in and he and JJ were talking about the laundry times JJ had printed and posted in the display case by the door.
‘They’re wrong,’ said the caretaker. ‘I clean here on a Thursday not a Monday.’
JJ said that’s what he’d been given so the error was there not with him.
Four came in and the caretaker left saying as he did,’ I’m retiring in the new year.’
Four said, ‘...people putting needles in their arse, I chased two of them off with an iron bar, two men it was, one just about to stick a needle in his arm, got the iron bar and hit him on his shoulder, not too hard but I hurt him, sleeping in the shute rooms...’
‘I’m glad you were here to take the rant,’ said JJ when Four had left the room. ‘Usually it’s just me on my own gets it all.’

JUST AFTER TWELVE

I went to Carbon’s in St. Werburgh’s for a Christmas meal. Seven of us, the usual and a woman I’d not met before lives in a truck was parked round the corner.
‘Is that hers?’ I said to Princess as we walked past the live-in vehicles parked in a line behind the industrial estate.
‘She said it was split level.’
‘Must be that one then.’
Along by Better Food, left up Sussex Place, five or six youths sitting on a wall by the roundabout at the bottom of the hill. Right at the top into Ashley Road through customers smoking spliff outside the Criterion.
Onto City Road, I heard a woman in one of the telephone boxes on the corner say, ‘I’ll bring it with me.’
Princess went down Deighton and I crossed over to avoid walking behind two men up ahead. Through the lights at the end of City Road, over Stokes Croft up Hillgrove crossed Jamaica second part of Hillgrove, two men and a woman talking French opposite the Bell.
Home, just after twelve.

SEX ON SKIN
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FIVE (171207)

1) Woken by her telephone ringing at ten-thirty this morning and missed the mornings work. Later when I phoned to apologise she said, ‘I was wondering what we were going to do so it was a relief when you didn’t turn up.’

2) Today is the first day of wearing my new scarf. I borrowed one of hers yesterday and said, ‘When people buy me things to wear they always get it wrong.’ She gave me a parcel, ‘It’s an early Christmas late Hanukkah present...YOU DIDN’T GET ME ANYTHING FOR HANUKKAH...’ ‘You never said anything this year,’ I said, ‘last year we had a party,’ remembering. In the parcel was a scarf, charcoal grey with thin stripes of dark green and blue and dirty white. ‘I like it,’ I told her. ‘You got it right.’ If you see me between now and early Spring, likely, let me know what you think.

3) Picked up six photographs were on the ground of the Pit as i walked through on my way into town.

4) Bought film at LCE on the Horsefair. ‘Three for ten or five for fifteen,’ he said. ‘Five,’ I said, because I’m serious.

5) Triple espresso, Starbucks, opposite Debenhams, (cf ENTRANCE, youtube). The photographs are publicity photos of characters in a Disney film. Each has a number in blue archaic script printed on its back: - ninety, fifty-one, ninety, fifteen, fifty-two, thirty-eight.

WRITING ON THE WALL

I stripped the hall of wallpaper.

Fishy Fishy Fish
eccentric goat
Errant Selfish Horrible (CAT)
eccentric laughable smelly hairball
Execrable Feline INCREDIBLE SCATTY HEART

England 0
Argentina 1

TRAFFIC

ANY COLDER

It was our last meeting so we said goodbye.
I set the alarm, locked the door, closed the gates to the car park, and walked along the towpath.
The train was delayed at the station.
‘Sorry about this but we’re waiting for the signal which appears not to be working at this time,’ said a male voice.
There wasn’t much room. One man huffed and puffed out the window, another opened the door, stepped up into the vestibule.
He was angry, ‘People trying to get on and you lot in the way?’

I phoned my dad when I got home and told him what I’d done, ‘I won’t see them again.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ I said. ‘I’ve told you, lots of times.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ve been eating my tea while I’ve been talking.’
‘I noticed.’
‘Well anyway,’ he said. ‘I want to go and finish my meal before it gets any colder.’

THIS COUNTRY AND THE LAKE

Driving an SUV. Not mine. Two teenage boys in the back, one of them the son of the owner of the vehicle.
‘I want to go to Lake Michigan,’ I said. ‘So if you see any signposts let me know.’
‘Why are we going there?’ said one of the boys.
‘You can fit one of this country in there, five times,’ I said.
We drove around until we saw a signpost. I put my foot on the brake but we didn’t stop, no matter how hard I pushed down on the pedal with my foot.
‘The brake isn’t working,’ I said then noticed that the owner’s son was pressing down on an accelerator located behind my seat.
We took the road to Lake Michigan, trying the brakes, spongy, still not slowing us down, until we reached the house on the shore.
The three of us got out.
‘Why were you pressing the accelerator when I was using the brake?’ I said.
‘Even though you want to reduce your anxiety it’s out of your control,’ he said.
‘Is that why I said this country could fit into the lake five times?’
‘This country represents your conscious mind,’ he said. ‘The lake is your unconscious.’
‘Is five the difference?’ I said.
‘Five is the number of digits on each hand.’

I SAW HER THERE

‘Hold it, hold it, hold it,’ she said locking the door was on the far right corner of the landing the lift had stopped.
‘Er, er, er,’ I said from the lift, looking at the buttons for the one to press. Then I put my arm through the door opening which always works.
‘Thanks,’ she said a quick glance toward me then running into the lift.
‘It’s a surprise when it comes so quickly,’ I said.
She nodded.
‘Usually you end up waiting for ages thinking you could’ve used the stairs, it would’ve been quicker.’
‘Hmm,’ she said. Not many people use the stairs. Mostly junkies have just scored. And I think there's a naughty step.
This woman’s mother lives in another of the blocks and her daughter spat twice in the lift the last time I saw her there.

DIRECTIONS

DIRECTIONS

Woman: Excuse me. Hiya. You don’t know where I can find an internet cafe?
Man: Where?
Woman: Internet cafe...
Man: Oh yeh, er...Through the underpass...you see that building over there, with the the fifty-one-oh-two?
Woman: Yes.
Man: You want to go under there...so you go...go up through here, you know up there, carry on up that road, er...right, you wanna...I’m just wondering how many there are, there are pedestrian lights but there at least two sets of main lights and when you hit the third there’s an internet cafe on the the corner, that’s the closest I know.
Woman: That the one near here...maybe...(laugh)
Man: Is that the one you mean, up Stokes Croft?
Woman: No, no, it’s just that, I travel a lot and everywhere I go there’s internet cafe, it’s strange, I can’t find one here...it’s
Man: Well, yeh yeh, well, there’s not much in here but up there, there might be one before but there’s definitely one up the road, alright?
Woman: Yeh

WHAT SHE WANTED

‘Channelle likes her new double D boobs,’ she said to her husband.
‘Do you want a read,’ I said pointing at the celebrity glossy behind the tray on the back of the seat in front of me.
I’d found the magazine under the same seat when I stretched my legs. ‘Yes,’ I said pleased I’d got something more to read which i did cover to cover.
Two-fifteen me and daughter caught the Leeds train from Hebden Bridge, where we’d been at the naming ceremony of the youngest member of the Family. Now it was eight, daughter’d got off at Sheffield three hours ago.
I knew the woman wanted a read, I thought about offering it to her but wasn’t sure how to, if there was a protocol to follow. Only when she said about Channelle to her husband did I feel it wasn’t innappropriate asking if that’s what she wanted.

THE PIT