I love to smoke.

I mean I really fucking love it; the rituals of rolling a fag, the head rush from that first morning drag, clearing a tight chest with a suffocating and hearty cough. They all fill me up with a pleasant feeling that you don’t get off people.

Love amongst the dog piss

I love to smoke.

 I mean I really fucking love it; the rituals of rolling a fag, the head rush from that first morning drag, clearing a tight chest with a suffocating and hearty cough. They all fill me up with a pleasant feeling that you don’t get off people.

It’s a pleasure and a luxury.

I’m talking about tobacco here, not puff. Puff is fine once in a while but my inclination is towards paranoia so I tend to avoid it. Haven’t had any fer ages. No point in letting nature fuck up a good time. Also the whole Bob Marley hippie drivel tends to put me off most people who smoke green. Lazy fuckers most of them. Although I have to say it makes me as horny as a Jack Russell surrounded by granny’s legs. Not that it helps me here. You don’t tend to get much on the streets.

It’s not too often I have enough cash fer a pack of tobacco and papers, but it does happen. Fag butts suffice enough, but a fresh bine’s the fucking choice thing.

I usually lurk around Shepherds Bush tube station but you probably haven’t noticed me sat down with me hand outstretched fer cash amongst the Indian sellers, kebab shops and dodgy fucking Turks, a torn shirt and unkempt beard.

But I am there.

Sometimes I hang around with another fella, his name’s Mad Chris. He’s a good mate but I don’t know his real name.

Don’t need to.

He’s Mad Chris and that is that.

When I first came down here, y’know, when I first took to the streets, he helped out a lot, showed me the ropes as such. Where to sleep, what you need and what you don’t, where to look fer fag ends, he showed me how to survive. Like a rat.

Mad Chris has had a helluva life, I’ll fucking tell you. He used to be a Marine Commando, has seen seventy odd countries (but he reckons he only saw the insides of their whorehouses) and he spent a while in Northern Ireland and the Gulf War. He’s a good friend, he is. Always full of a story. Never tried anything on, either, which is more than I can say fer most of the cunts here. He left the Forces and just couldn’t get his head around people and life anymore. It was all wrong fer him. Shopping and settling down and working fer a boss that doesn’t care if you’re there tomorrow as there’s always someone else to replace you.

He’s a handy fucker to have around too. Seen him demolish two suited twats who thought a night of tramp baiting was fun. One of them won’t be walking fer a while, I can tell you.

One night we was sleeping in corner together down off Brick Lane . We had our cardboard and there was heat coming from a vent underneath and it wasn’t that cold an April night, so it was as comfortable as it could be. It was spitting with rain, I remember that. Nothing’s perfect though, is it? I remember waking and turning over then sitting up. Chris was lying next to me, almost touching. Jesus, he smelt like dog piss. I instinctively grabbed a fag butt in me pocket and got one of the last of me matches to light up and drew the smoke inside me. It dried my throat right up and I’d kept the smoke inside me so long that nothing seemed to come out of me mouth when I exhaled. It stayed down deep inside me, colouring me black.

I licked me chapped lips, tasting blood and I was enjoying it when I began to smell something burning. At first I thought the cherry off me cig had fallen off and the cardboard had caught fire. I leapt up and brushed meself down, waking Chris in the process. He wasn’t too fucking happy, I can tell you.

“Wha…! What th’ fack y’doin’?” he bellowed.

“Somethin’s burnin’, mate! Thought it was th’ board!” says me.

“Well, is it?” he asked again, he was still lying down on his side.

“Nah, but can you smell it?” I asked.

At this he sat up, sniffing the air. Only a man with no sense of smell could have not smelt the smoke and fumes that were blowing down the street.

“I’m gonna go an’ take a quick look, alright?” he spoke gruffly, I nodded, taking the very last drag on the butt end.

“An’ don’t touch any of me stuff, ya cunt!”.

I nodded again and sat down. It was force of habit. What the fuck did he need manners for? He put his hands through the holes in his pockets and took off down the road and I watched him head towards the corner where the smell and smoke seemed to be coming from. In the distance I heard a low scream of a siren, it was getting higher with every passing second.

Suddenly, Chris came tearing back around the corner.

“Come an’ look!”

He leaned down and shouted right in me face, so close I could feel his spittle mix in with raindrops.

I got up and walked with me friend around the corner. There was a building on fire. It was all ablaze and everyone was there looking at it and so were we. The flames and the smoke were all mixed in, flowing together, consuming wood and plastic and mortar. It was a grand sight, quite beautiful. I noticed that Chris was laughing. He was laughing and doing a little dance, it was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

This huge man, his face moving orange in the light, casting shadows on a tarmac floor with fag ends and old packets. He was spinning and turning and stopping and raising his fists. I asked him what the show was about. He pointed at the building and it was only then I noticed what the building was. It was a school. Somebody must have broken in and torched it.

“It was my fackin’ ‘igh school!” he sang “I’d fackin’ forgotten it was ‘ere!”.

Then I understood and I grabbed his arm and we did a little jig, kicking the puddles as we went.

Jason Michel has been turned on, tripped up and stumbled over all around the world on a ten year self imposed exile. He currently lives in France and now wonders if that was such a good idea... He has had work and will have work published in remark, scarecrow, dogmatika, zygote in my coffee, triptych haiku, faux pas magazine and straight from the fridge... 

Last update : 16-09-2007 10:22

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