Always Read the Label Chapter 9 Waterfall

It wasn't just the much repeated walk home along that same old road that made me pack up my troubles in my old rucksack and move away. It had been brewing on an unwatched hob for a while. I think it was just the walk gave me the space to let it seep into the front of my mind with its very own neon sign flashing 'you have to do something'. I knew there was more and what was just about keeping the dogs at bay wouldn't hold them back for ever.

I don't think it was a need to grow up: I'd seen enough people do that, but always following the local recipe: Marriage, a small house, kids, a slight promotion, a bigger house, disenchantment, arguing, divorce, back to square one. It wasn't all like this, but enough to make it not much of a prospect. But where do you look when you only have a local map to guide you? Especially one that's been written by biased tour guides. I didn't reject everything that surrounded me, just that it added up to such a little pile I could see over the top. And the grass looked greener. Or at least better cared for.

I still had a regular fluorescent holiday every weekend. But no matter how bright, it had faded by Monday morning. Leaving just the shadowy glow of a candle burnt at both ends. Not the ideal lighting to find your way round a house where you've outstayed your welcome or a job you've been telling lies to the DHSS about. The interviews about 'getting you back to work' had just started to get more uncomfortable and I'd been forced to miss 3 days work as I was frogmarched onto a course that consisted of some woman misspelling everything she wrote on a whiteboard and threatening to have me kicked off the course ('and you'll lose all your benefits') if I kept pointing this out to her. At the first break when we all slipped out for a fag I got advised to just shut up and let her look stupid 'cos you don't want them asking questions when you're trying to hide the answers, do you?' It became obvious that most of us there had work we were missing. It was a talking point at every break and a chance to share ways to avoid future intrusions on our working week. And that was the only use it had.

To make it worse when I got back home I was being given the silent treatment. An unwelcome guest who wouldn't be asked to leave but was finding it less and less comfortable to stay. It was like the dole and my mum had agreed to collaborate in moving me on.

I'm pondering this conspiracy as the joint burns my fingers and snaps me back to the luxury of a Hackney tower block. I put the roach in the ashtray, which manages to set a screwed up rizla on fire and get up to grab a glass of water. I managed to convince Paul and Mini that I really couldn't make it out this weekend so find myself sitting in front of a settee, looking off into the distance and wondering what I'm going to do this afternoon. I'm guaranteed work for a few weeks so have that nagging dilemma of getting both rest and fun at the the weekend. Last night it was a few drinks after work then a desperately needing a piss journey back to the flats and a few pints in The Unicorn, our local. Leo Leo was in there so I bought him a couple of pints, before popping up to get Simon from the flat. We rolled out of there late, reckon I needed to shove two fingers up at early starts, after getting locked in the bar with a rapidly animating cast of scary characters that just made me clam up. All I can remember on the way back was saying goodnight to Leo twice and thinking he'd sussed I was taking the piss and having to stand at the side of a nasty pool of sick in the lift. I was in no state to walk up 13 floors so shared the still dry edges with Simon as we looked up and held our noses to block it out for the journey.

It had gone this morning when I went down to get milk and bread, which is nothing short of a miracle as I've never seen a caretaker round here. Mice and rats can't eat it can they? The thought of it is making me heave. I'll ask Simon when he surfaces. Until that happens I decide to get some fresh air on the balcony. Our very own 6ft by 2ft garden in the sky with shaky railings. To the left is the park which I'm planning to visit later this afternoon and to the right are the now empty football pitches which are filled with shouts of injustice and at least one visit by an ambulance every afternoon of the weekend. Straight down below is the road the bus makes it escape down on its way towards the pathetic row of shops at the turning. One pulls up and dumps a fair few passengers, all laden with bags, onto the pavement where they wait for it to move off before attempting to waddle across the road safely. It's mainly families with kids roped in to help carry the shopping back home. Which is a weirder sight than it sounds, as I haven't seen or heard any kids while I've been here. Imagine growing up without having somewhere to play. Or being a kid bursting with energy in a flat this small. We haven't got much furniture and have all our energy sapped by getting stoned, so imagine what its like for kids running about in a normal home.

Simon finally emerges and comes to ask me what I'm doing on the balcony. I start to tell him 'wondering how kids manage to grow up here...' but decide to start a little more lightly by asking if mice and rats eat sick. He screws his face up and asks why I want to know and I have to tell him about the disappearing sick I didn't see on my way down to get milk and bread. The only bit of the explanation he hears is the 'to get milk and bread' which sends him into the kitchen with an 'I'm starving', emerging eventually with a pile of toast and a tea that block out any answer he might have had to my question. I know he's nearly finished the toast when he asks me to skin up.

After building I ask him about his plans for today. He hasn't got any beyond what he's sucking with his lips, so I suggest we nip over to the park have a look about. It doesn't seem to make any sense to him – its a park - there's nothing there except the sort of grass he's not interested in. I tell him I saw loads of girls heading over that way while I was on the balcony and he seems to get a bit more interested. I hope there's a cottaging area then I can send him in on his own. Anyway there's a glimpse of hope that we might actually do something, as I head back out to the balcony with the Bogarted joint. Greedy pig.

We're both a little bit too relaxed for a rickety balcony this high up, something I prove by making Simon jump with a simply effective 'Boo'. He grabs the railings, realising how useless they are as he does. I find this a bit more funny than he does and have to work hard to stop him going off and sulking to The Cure. I ask him if we've got any bin bags and he reckons there's some under the sink. I drag him with me to find them and unroll one of the two we have left and head towards the bathroom. I put the bag in the bath and turn on the cold tap. The bag starts to fill and I hold the edges to keep the water from spilling out. When it gets a bit fuller I have to ask the gawping Simon to grab the edges too. He can't figure out yet what we're doing, which is fine as it's stopping him objecting. When the bag's nearly full I tell him to grab it from underneath and I'll hold onto the top, which I twist to close. I back us out of the bathroom, with the surprisingly heavy bundle and over to the balcony. I think the penny drops for Simon as we open the door and lift the bag onto the railings, keeping a tight hold on the twisted top as it balances there.

Down below us a guy on his own turns from the road and starts to head across the paved area to the middle of the estate. Its just to our left, which I work out is within easy range. I wait for him to get a bit nearer and then push the water bomb off the balcony. It looks massive as it thickens fighting the gravity on the way down, which seems to take ages. My thoughts of how long would it take us if we fell off here are interrupted by a massive bang then a wavey sound as it hits the ground. I instinctively duck but can see that the ground below is much darker where the water has spread. It must have spread out a long way if I can see it over the top of the railings while I'm crouched down. I know it's soaked the guy through and I have to resist the urge to have a look just how wet he is. I look at Simon who looks petrified and mouth 'stay down'. He doesn't really nee to be told this, but I tell him anyway as I lift up just enough to peep over the railings.

As I do I hear someone shout and can see that they're pointing up with a dripping hand to exactly where I am. They're stood just off the centre of the pattern the water has made, with the ripped and now empty plastic bag about 3 foot in front of them, where the paving meets the grass. Someone has joined them from a dryer place and they seem to be counting the floors to where we're now not very well hidden. There's something being shouted in what sounds unlikely English, but with the universal accent of threat. I look at Simon and we crawl in through the door with the loudest shout yet propelling us through it. I head to the kitchen where I know the angle of the window will let me to see down without being seen. I can see the much darker soaked floor and a very wet guy showing the two dry guys next to him which balcony the downpour came from. From this angle it doesn't look like he's made a mistake. They start to move and I jump back from the window realising that we're sitting ducks for what's coming next. Simon's fucked off in to his room, so I go and grab him and tell him to stay quiet.

In the hall is my tool bag and I grab a hammer for me and the biggest chisel I can find for him. We seem to wait for ages before the vague murmur of the lift opening is followed by shouting, bangs on the door and the letterbox being slammed. I'm shitting myself and gripping the hammer like my life depends on it. Which at the moment I'm convinced it does. I poke my head round the corner, to where the door is still being kicked and jerk it back as I see the letterbox open to be filled with a mouth that shouts 'Bastards. You pay for this. Come out'. Followed by more banging. The sound carries really far as there's no furniture in the hall to soak it up, so it bounces off every wall. I pop my head back round when I hear the letterbox close and the banging move to the wood of the door, which is barely managing to stay closed with the force of the blows. The bottom jumps in to show a gap between the door and frame each time it's hit. The shouting's a bit more muffled until it returns to the letterbox, causing me to jump back out of view. I can see Simon just inside his room. He's starting to laugh. I can't quite get infected, having seen how flimsy the door is under this attack. There's a rattle of the letterbox and a shout of 'I be back', then a silence that makes me listen harder. Simon's pissing himself laughing, which just pisses me off. I sneak to the door and push the letterbox up a tiny bit to see that the lift doors have closed. I open it a bit more and can see only an empty landing. As I breathe a sigh of relief, the letterbox is kicked shut from outside. I duck down and hear a voice scream above me 'come out, coward bastards' and a renewal of the banging bounces the door above my head.

I sit like that for ages when it finally stops. Simon comes and finds me with a spliff he's rolled, but I'm too shook up to take it. I don't think he's as bothered as I am by their threat to come back. They seemed angry enough to lynch us just then. I'm all for packing up and fucking off to God knows where. I need to get out of here whatever happens. Through the smoke Simon realises I might be right, so we grab our coats and sneak out to press the button for the lift and then run back inside. When the lift opens we dive in and skid on the wet floor, preying that the doors won't open onto someone armed for revenge. About halfway down it stops and a mother with a little girl holding her hand get in. The child tugs her mothers arm and asks what the water is. I just shrug while Simon smirks as the doors close to seal us in for the rest of the drop. We skip out the main doors turn right and head over the soaking bit of ground we made, just about managing not to run. There's no bus in sight as we approach the bus stop, so I tell Simon to keep walking. Just as we reach the next stop along a bus comes into view. On we get and off we go, to as far as it can take us. The getting away proved easy, but what are we gonna find when we return?