Speakers Corner 10am

I left the doss house after breakfast that morning and went along Oxford Street to harvest my dog ends. Since they’d banned smoking from the upstairs of buses the glut around bus stops was well worth the effort. I could not be arsed to ask people for cigarettes, their rebuttals were often laced with venom. I could never really figure out why such uneducated rabble thought they had a right to speak to me as if I were filth.

By the time I reached Marble Arch my tin was bulging. I then turned left and walked across to Hyde Park, by Speakers Corner, and sat down for a brief while on a bench to break open the dog ends, and get the tobacco out. A man was stood on a box shouting.

“Workers of the World Unite all you have to loose are your chains! Black and white Unite and Fight!” It was strange how chains kept coming into my life. Speakers to draw attention to them selves that they might be the great breakers of our chains, always seemed to invoke cages and chains at every verse end, and yet never realised the chains they themselves were fettered to. I could not help thinking of the political and sociological arguments around the concept of freedom.

All I knew is what little I had, had been taken away quite legally and replaced with a vicious cruelty and dehumanising experience not worthy of this so called great country that this man was trying to summon. I mean where was his revolution, if not inside the heads of all of us?

Nobody will give me a helping hand or a second chance. I cannot run with wolves through the deep forests of Pennsylvania! Nor bend back my head under a full moon and howl like the wild fucker I was becoming. My heart was stabbed with the daggers of so many others. What gives them the right to do such things?

I am pestered by the miserable existences around me; they seemingly want to infect all of those who are not yet infected. They bring down beauty and freedom to such a level it becomes hardly noticeable.

I seldom hear words of kindness directed to me. When I do I am so eternally grateful I want to kiss the hand of the person that bears such words.

I pressed on towards the Serpentine. Looking back over my shoulder I saw through the trees the Grosvenor House Hotel where I had stayed with Toni. I’m sure that in the cloud formations above the roof there was a fat, round face, laughing.

The arse hung out of my trousers. I was hungry and dirty. I was making my way to the Gallery by Kensington Gardens not to see some exhibition by the fascist, Salvador bleeding Dali, but to rifle my way through the dustbins at the back, where if you were lucky it was possible to get food that had been ditched from the cafeteria. It was sometimes still warm. Only last week I had found a virtually entire cherry pie with lickings of cream still on it, and not an ant in sight. The bane of my life those ants and the bastard’s bite, pity they’re not edible, unless coated with chocolate, then I could bite them back.

It is essential to keep going, to keep moving. If I do not stop too long in one place I seldom attract any attention. The masses of visitors in Green Park and around the Palace take little, or no notice of me. I can move among them begging without too much friction, holding an old washed out tin from the dustbin, into which they can drop their money. Some look pitifully at me and nod their heads.

Today I can see the Standard flying above Buckingham Palace. The Queen is home, and part of me is glad that she is all right. I see now what the government means about her being good for the country, because without all these foreigners gawking, I wouldn’t be able to get by.

Round about noon, I begin making my way down to the Salvation Army at Victoria. I want to secure a room for the coming night. The dormitories are different there because they allow you to have a little privacy by dividing a larger room into smaller rooms, and they give you a key to lock yourself in, which makes me feel secure.

I like one of the officers; she always comes and sits with me in the canteen, and holds my hand, and says a little prayer. I can remember once telling her some part of my life to her, and she started crying. It was strange really, seeing her cry. I thought that was supposed to be me.

I do not know where my life is going now. I drift around from place, to place, seldom conscious of where I am. For some reason it does not matter. I want to punish myself to show them what they have done to me. With my long grey hair, and beard, and my shabby appearance I could probably walk past my sisters, and they would not recognise me. I am tickled pink by the thought of asking them for money.

Some days I can hardly find the strength to carry on. I cannot believe in the future that is a luxury only afforded by the well off. I have no long - term shares in any expectations. I don’t really understand what it is I’m supposed to do or be. All I know is Descart, ‘I think, therefore I am.’

The Salvation Army is kind to me. I slept well last night after having a hot bath, which helped me relax. This morning Maureen, one of the officers is going to cut my hair and trim my beard, and for some reason I am excited by the idea. There is talk of a small job going in the kitchens, helping to wash up and keep the place tidy. She said that if I get myself cleaned up there is no reason why I should not be able to earn a few bob on the side.

I have been out of prison now for six months. It has been hard adjusting to the rigours of just simply living. At the moment I am trying to concentrate on filling my life up once more. There is so little substance to grasp hold of. I cannot get my head around what these motions of living are all about.

I see people hurrying over bridges in the City. Going one way in the morning, and rushing another way at night. I usually sit on a bench down by Blackfriars Bridge observing my fellow creatures, saddened really by the severity on their faces, and the seeming lack of any form of enjoyment.

I suspect there is very little gladness in any of their hearts. I cannot help wondering why they do it, when it so obviously upsets them. What grasp does it have on their mind that makes them go to the same building day after day in such a miserable condition?

The sun is out now and a small sparrow is bobbing along the wall by the river. I leave a few crumbs of bread and watch the bird pecking very quickly at them, before flying off to the rooftops nearby. Further down the river I can hear the long, mournful, bass note, of an ocean going liner, as it heads through the thin, morning mist, and out into the open sea.

Where I sit the riverbank is empty. I look across the water to the far embankment, and see the tops of the tall red buses showing above the walls. I watch the trees swaying and rippling in the wind. Behind them a myriad of windows bank up to the heavens.

It is a city of shapes that band together, and seemingly re - arrange them selves in an all - consuming never-ending sculptured stockade that stretches from Canary Wharf, to Westminster. It is big and frightening, and I want to know where my strength has gone. I have had so many hours of need. If I were religious then I would be on first name terms with the Lord. I have gone too far to the other side, and I cannot get back.

Occasionally I hear voices inside my head. Not loud ones, but whispering voices. It’s as if I’m stood on a street corner on a windy day, and around that corner people are talking, and I can’t quite catch what they’re saying. I sometimes think I hear my name being called, but then again I’m not certain. But what would I do if I heard my name? Where would I go to tell somebody that they just called my name, and really who are they?

I’ve seen the wino’s performing on many a night down by Waterloo Bridge. Strutting their stuff so to speak, except a lot of them are ill. I mean really ill. At sunset on most days, one man comes to attention, salutes, and starts marching up and down playing the instruments of a brass band. Inside his head he’s out there man…

“By the centre quick march! Boom! Boom! Boom!” he shouts and sings at the top of his voice… “Some talk of Alexandra and some of Hercules, of Hector and Lysander and such great names as these, but of all the worlds great hero’s there’s none that can compare with a tow row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadier! Three cheers for her majesty! Hip, hip! Hooray!”

Bodies laid in cardboard boxes peer from their crevices at the knee bending man, as he swings round to the right for the march past. One minute he his playing the trombone, the next the big base drum, and every so often he his drum majorette. I would laugh if I only could, but the tragedy is too great. I cannot help but wonder what as happened to him.

Last night I was walking down Horse Guards Road in the early hours. There was not a soul about. My footsteps were making a noise bouncing off the buildings, muffled steps across the causeway. When I stopped for a moment the noise of footsteps continued for a further four paces. I looked, but there was nobody. Nothing was moving. Under the moon - light I carried on in silence. I stopped suddenly again, and once more the steps continued for a short while. 1 – 2 – 3 – 4.

The shadows were following me. The oak trees were marching. Saint James Park was coming alive. The flowers in formation, red tulips to the fore, came around the corner like grenadiers on parade. I came to attention and took the salute standing on a bench in Horse Guards Parade. A platoon of white geese waddled by squawking among them selves, not taking the slightest notice.

'The day was sultry and overcast, and I knew that above this bank of heathen cloud lay a pure virile day of sunshine, where a man could breathe more easily if only we could escape the plain, and get to the hills. We pressed on in the clinging dust clouds that stuck to our bodies like shit to a blanket, and like shit, a million flies must be right, so we ate it, we had little choice.

The command chopper was hovering at a thousand feet, out of range of any small arms fire, and in my head - phones I could hear young Captain Swartz giving out co – ordinates to B Company who were down by the wadi. “Roger so far Seagull. Keep pressing on, you are approximately two miles from said oasis…is that a roger? Good man! Keep going we must wind this up soonest. Come in ten three. Can you hear me? Ten three, this is your Sunray calling…over.”

I had the strangest, most thrilling kind of illusion there, looking at those hills and thinking about the death and mystery that was in them. And in my head over and over played The Magical Mystery Tour, “It is waiting to take you away, dy-ing to take you away…coming to take you away.” Maybe the hills take everybody away. How many armies have they taken away? Fuck man! I was there, only I was here.

“Kill everybody! Every fucking thing!” It was Swartz in my head. “Kill! Kill! Kill the fucking lot…shoot them pigs” There was gunfire. Rapid- fire off to my left. B Company were taking shit or giving it out. Then an old man broke cover and was limping towards me out of a clearing. He was carrying a young baby in his arms…
”Johnny, Johnny please! Help me Johnny!”

Nobody had their safety catches on. I see the sweat…I could feel the ground shaking. Artillery was thundering in, smoke was rising from above the trees everything is on fire. ‘Help me to my knees. Can you not smell the burning?’ Paint it black!

Then it is night again. I can hear the pop, pop, pop, as magnesium flares are fired above the perimeter. They burn slowly, igniting the sky before dropping to the dark earth. Where was the world now that you needed it?

The earth was a parasite, sucking the blood, feeding off the blood of everybody out there…and there isn’t anything you can do about it. Fires are eating at everything. Trees on hillsides miles away are on fire. Nobody can sleep. In the dull chilly dawn of the misty morning I can see the dead bones of the old man. A few yards away the unwrapped, blood red baby, lies asleep…'