Marks of the beast
It was one of those mornings where the rising sun had painted the sky with orange hues redolent of a painting by Turner. The city streets were haunted only by the handful of business people wandering to and fro between trendy espresso bars and the train station, and the bin men gliding past on their trucks disposing of all of our yesterdays.
Oh, and of course there was me, with my tattered sleeping bag pulled tight beneath my neck and a cup of milky tea, four sugars, by my left boot. Integral to the scene and yet as invisible as the street furniture, the litter bins and the pigeons. Except — perhaps I'm being unfair, people notice the pigeons. Interact with them. Feed them.
I carry in my soul the eternal flame of whatever providential force put us here, but I also carry the mark of the beast. No need for numbers on the forehead when you have track marks on your arm, each one a morbid story of ritual and remorse. The lighter flame licking the underside of the spoon, paradoxically suggestive of a beneficial warmth. Everything looks better by firelight, even the business end of a sharp.
People can sense it on you. If I drew a chart showing how many interactions I've had with people, and their tone, it would start off almost normal and get progressively lower along with my access to a razor and a washing machine until it bottoms out the day I first fell into the waiting arms of the beast.
I remember the second day I was on the streets. I was avoiding the shelters because they're full of drugs and I was desperate to avoid the spiral. I slept by the entrance to the gallery and had a lengthy chat with one of the visitors. It was going to be different. I would get back on my feet, it’d take a couple of days but she needed space and we'd end up together again and things would be okay. They bought me a McDonald's. Full meal too, not just a burger.
It took three days before I was too damn cold and craving a night in the shelter. I took it. As if you wouldn’t. Two addicts had a fight in the room, vicious enough that if they weren’t already so emaciated it would have probably ended in death rather than ignominious ejection back onto the street.
They didn’t want drugs there, the staff were desperate for the place to be clean, but you can’t drain the ocean with a teacup. Later that night a tall lad from Hartlepool shared a little in exchange for a slightly threadbare hat I’d had for years.
Here I am. 18 months later. My former self a spectre that my battered body can no longer animate, a suit of clothes I can no longer fill. The more lucid I am the more depressed I am. The more clearly I remember my old life, my career, my marriage, the boy, the more viciously I grieve its loss. The beast is my medication against a pain I cannot carry. A sudden rush of breathtaking euphoria, my mind free from the shackles of the sleeping bag, but every time the come down is worse.
I’m not thick. I understand this process. I’ve been on the other side, giving a greggs sausage roll to a homeless lad and feeling like I was acting out the footsteps of the messiah. It couldn’t be me, my sympathy never made the required extra miles to empathy.
And so I sit and itch, and wish I could finally crap. I plead for money from passers by. I fix them in the eye and with absolute integrity beg that they’d help me finance a bed for the night. I might be an addict but I’m no liar. In the moment of the ask, all of my thoughts are a warm bed and a bowl of soup orf whatever will be provided.
Mostly I get another hot drink, or a bloody sausage roll that I haven’t got the appetite for but that warms my hands a bit. But some people are kind. I don’t know if they know the cycle but still have compassion, or if they’re just innocent, but they give and I gratefully thank them.
As I gather a few quid I’m reminded that a moment of release is now within my reach. And my actions give the lie to my words and there’s always somewhere to get a high and to escape again for a little while longer. To float away, at the cost of my bed for the night.
I’d used last night, enough to get away and drift off, knees tucked up under my chin in the entrance to this knackered old church. I woke in the night and drifted in and out of consciousness until the moment I felt his hand lightly pressure my arm.
A collar. The last thing he’d want to see was a man possessed of the beast, stinking of his own piss, curled up in his porch. We’ve all made our choices and taken our sides. I didn’t volunteer for the bad lot but I still got drafted.
He smiled, which took me back. He was saying something, under his breath. “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
Mistaken identity, I thought. But he unlocked the door, held it open for me and invited me to come in while he found a new coat and some shoes.
“I’ve been waiting for your return, son,” he said, with a smile.
I didn’t recognise him, but I know now why they call them father.
This story was originally published on my own website.
