Trivial Tales Of... Life In The Slow Lane

Tabula Rebellus RobertKH238 Gran, you know gran, would sometimes mention a former tenant, a woman who 'had stuck her head in the oven.' Her cooker was gas too. The same one for all I knew. I always felt there was more than a hint of grim satisfaction in her tone each time she mentioned it. She would never elaborate and I never asked, probably slightly repulsed by her tone, which was just as disturbing to me in its way. For a moment I wondered if she had known her, that maybe the unfortunate woman had done something to foster such apparent resentment. But it was before she herself had lived there. I probably doubted my own interpretation at the time, but intuition stayed with me as it does with kids, and on some level I knew she was as nuts in her way as most every other adult I knew. My mother seemed to have much the same attitude of a friend of hers who had done the very same thing some years back, only she had a more bitter tinge or slant, mentioning it only to remind us she very well might do the same thing one day. The implication was always that we were partly or as much to blame for her feeling like this and saying it as well as if she ever carried out her ambiguously veiled threat. In the meantime she could have us believe, however subconsciously, that whatever we did, or I did, was already there, driving her to what may well be a foregone conclusion. It was all very clever and twisted, impossible for me to articulate or articulate the mixed and conflicting emotions it aroused in me, as intended, even if I'd wanted to. But gran flattered me. The very fact that she seemed to look on me and treated me as sensible, responsible, made me feel I had to live up to that image she had of me. I suppose I knew by then at the age of twelve or thirteen, that she was still a child in her way. I felt closer to my brother as always, only eight or so. Ours was a more 'streetwise,' humorous, and vastly more informal world of constant adlibs and ready observations, riffing off each other, usually instigated by me, and often at her expense; this partly because we knew she wouldn't 'get it' and would be hurt or offended if she knew what was going on. A realization that served only to reinforce the generational gap. The humour was how we interpreted the real world as we saw it. Living in an out of date dream-world of sorts was her lookout. That was the basis of the jokes as I understood it. And also a way of amusing ourselves – literally; otherwise the option was semi-boredom. Intelligence had to stay at its own level, and express itself. Nor were we intimidated by her in the way we were by our mother and her ways. I say 'we,' but I mean me, when violence was still very much an option for her. Life was a serious business around her, the acceptance of guilt, of being always in the wrong for no reason, a given. I was a non-person, my personality a cipher, as personalities are in the face of tyranny; only, as I had only a vague idea what the word meant, I'd never have thought to apply it to my own situation – or hers, come to that. But as it was a way of life, I must have experienced it as a like a holiday when we were dumped on grans' for a while. The constant humour was a reflection of my high spirits, stemming from an unacknowledged sense of relief and freedom; that and natural ebullience along with my younger bro's. We could have some fun. That it was sometimes at gran's expense was as much a way of dealing with her silliness, idiosyncrasies and quaint, 'old-womany' ways. She was still in her fifties. Otherwise it was all a bit dull and depressing, or would've been. In later years it would grate on me. But right now we were alone and free agents to an extent, and still too young to let anything truly get us down, or of it had, I'd survived and gained from it. There was too much to live for. I had my comics and the bro and he had me, nor could I imagine life without him, or imagine him going through life without me. He was surrounded by crazy people. We both were. We needed each other. Or that's how it seemed to me. Perhaps I couldn't control the sense of guilt or the feeling my personality was negated in their presence; my mother and other crazies and guilt-trippers, but as soon as they weren't around

and I was alone or with my brother, I could enjoy my own thoughts again, revelling in how inventive the mind could be; more morose speculations and considerations I could keep to myself, and explore in moments of leisure and quiet. I loved my brother. Laughter came naturally. Sometimes I would even try and have our gran enter into the spirit of things, bring her into the fold so to speak, of my makeshift world, where everything could be light-hearted, fun, real. But it never took, so to say; a form of wishful thinking, as was my relationship with bro, but it was a happy fantasy. He was a microcosm of the whole world; the world as I felt it should be. The foil for my most ingenious and convoluted wit, a blank slate of sorts on which I could try and express the best part of myself as simply as I could, and humour was the way to go, my natural expression. To have taken advantage of him intentionally, treated him badly, would have shattered the connection I had made in myself with him, and coloured everything I thought and said or did. He symbolized my ideal relationship with the world. To undermine it would be tantamount to betraying my only real connection with it. Everything else was abstract. It was true I sometimes felt an odd connection to a deeper reality, through reading, and especially music, but as a kid, life was dominated by apparent outside forces, routine, demands for my time and attention, and when it wasn't I'd have my face stuck in a comic or was out exploring the world or as far as I dared, making mischief. I wasn't up to seeing the patterns in things yet and putting them together. Life was to be experienced, however inexplicable or exasperating, and my younger bro was an indescribably poignant and invaluable part of that experience, as was everyone else I knew, to varying degrees and I wished my gran could be a part of it, because it was obvious she loved us, or believed she did, only the temperamental difference seemed to belie it; almost that if she really did, then we'd be magically on the same wavelength, just as I was with my bro, or the comics and novels I enjoyed, whether Voyage To The Moon, or Doctor Doolittle. My mother lived in another world entirely, emotionally and psychologically alien to me, or so I believed. When I was with her, it was her world, while mine would seem to shrink, along with myself. All of which was subconscious. I would never have thought of describing it in terms of my self, but I knew all wasn't well with my world as it wasn't well with the world when I was around her. The problem was I wasn't sure whether what was wrong the world, my world – my perception of it, was due to me or to her. Oh I knew she seemed intent on making me miserable, but as she was so adept at turning it on its head, making me to be the cause of her apparent misery, I was seriously confused and split on the issue. Which partly explains why my younger bro came to be so important to me, a lodestar of sorts, a lifeline to sanity, and a direct link to the world; someone I could interact with without fear, of betrayal, of ridicule, of being a cause of more confusion in me. The split with my mother, and due to her, was that on some level, I knew that she was anti-life, even unreal somehow, yet in everyday terms, all too real, oppressively so. Gran looked on me as the responsible one, as I was the oldest, the surrogate guardian for my brother, an ally of sorts with her, in unspoken collaboration against my mother, and, for all I knew, in case she screwed up, or got the blame, as an 'old' woman might.. We weren't even allowed out alone, except to send me to the local newsagent, McColls or some other close errand. It was absurd. But McColls was an Aladdin's Cave of comics. Naturally, I would stay out as long as I thought I might get away with, as if I had never been in town before. The contrast was in being able to nip out as if I lived there rather than getting there from uptown where we lived. It felt oddly exciting to be able to walk straight out into the busy street. Union Street street was thronged with shops, pubs, and a nightclub at the top of the street. There was The Rendezvous directly across the road that did cabaret. An unknown and impossibly adult world to me. Even being sent to the butchers for sausages was interesting. It was all a break from home and the usual routine, a change of scene, and for all the noise and congestion, almost claustrophobic in a way, hemmed in as Union Street was, by old,

high tenement blocks, it was exhilarating, compared to the relative dullness of Gardiner Street where the nearest shops were the ones on each corner at the end of the street. And Union Street had the wide road that centres of towns do. The knowledge that we were surrounded by as many thronging streets and business' made if feel like the centre of the world and to all intents and purposes it was, as provincial-minded as my gran could be. Wherever I was I prefered to get out and wander, explore. Sometines just me and the world. It may be an incomprehensible and often exasperating mystery but that didn't negate enjoying the experience of it as often as I could. That meant exploring anywhere and anything I could get away with, whether literally or metaphorically, but I never took the risk of trying to steal anything locally such as comics, when we stayed with her over the weekend, as I knew my mother would find a way for it to reflect badly on gran who'd have felt hurt and betrayed for that reason. And anyway we'd have some money, or she'd give us some and we'd spend it one of the rags for us kids by D. C. Thompson such as the larger format Topper or Beezer. I was well into the UK editions of Marvel comics by now, but the locals were cheaper and amusing; perfect reading for the distractions of gran – she never really 'switched off;' none of them did – and anyway, I would buy the Marvels' closer to home and that's where they stayed. I could open up Topper and Beezer, stretching my arms out as if reading broadsheet newspapers. When she asked what they were called she'd repeat the titles, amused by them, then strategically repeat them. 'It's a Beezer, she'd say. 'It's a topper.' Not brilliant, but she had a sense of humour. It was an experience of semi-normality I would usually only experience at school or with aquaintences. And my brother of course, It was possibly in these moments I liked her the most. Because there was momentary feeling of being on almost the same wavelength, however illusory. At the back my mind there was always the thought of what the world would be like if we all understood each other and did live on the same wavelength. It seemed a natural enough feeling and it was no mere speculation. It could eat away at me. Of how the natural order of things would be if everyone liked what I did and found it just as interesting or amusing, rather than feeling constantly separated by skin and bones and a small-minded outlook. My happiest moments were when the illusion of separateness seemed to be dissolving or falling away. One afternoon she said she was going out to the shops and wouldn't be long. It was understood I was the one in charge, responsible for keeping the fort, reliable and sensible in taking care of my younger bro and not doing anything stupid. That she never remotely criticized, in the way my mother did and put her trust in me instead, virtually guaranteed I would try and live up to this slightly fanciful image of myself she had of me in her quaintly innocent and somewhat naïve old woman world. She was right of course; I did care about my brother, nor would we run amock or throw stuff out the window or set the place on fire. Or even find a way for either of us to fall down the centre of the stairs on the landing outside like the young paper-boy had, way back when. As we were on the top floor, what we did do as soon as she was safely down the stairs – all eighty steps (I watched from the top until she passed by the gap between the small section at the bottom, to turn left into the close and the main door) – was make a beeline to the flimsy old door just outside the flat, behind which a small staircase led up to the roof. I undid the latch and went up first while my brother waited at the foot. The wooden boards felt hollow beneath my feet but were solid enough. There was only the light from the landing, so I was in semi-darkness until I pushed at the trapdoor above me. It was light and opened easily. I had almost expected it to be inaccessible somehow but there we were, the stairs now bathed in sunlight, dust hanging in the air, feeling as if I had liberated Dracula's Castle. What fascinated me was the combination of the age of the building and that we were where I knew we shouldn't be – out of bounds. There were fewer things more exciting. Life was for living and living was for investigating, not behaving like

docile or dumb animals happy and contented in our ignorance. An inquisitive nature was normal. Most of the roof was flat, covered in a tough black substance, probably tar I thought. Asphalt. It was all pretty solid enough. The first thing to do of course was walk over to the main road side of the roof. My brother stayed back a bit while I did my usual 'semi-kamikaze' skirting too close to the edge of the building. It sloped down, as seen from the street. And felt odd to see the two bedrooms of gran's flat from the side. I imagined what it would be like to try clamber or crawl down the tiles to get to the window of one of the, A risky business, though there was a large ledge. The windows were closed from the inside anyway, in case we were tempted to open them and lean out. These were centre of town buildings, not your average city block tenements. When I was younger I'd had to crane over the sill to see the people in the street. They looked even smaller from the roof. Periodically I would nip down the stairs to see if there was any sign of gran. I wasn't really thinking ahead, too interested in what we were doing. Inevitably she got there first, just I had decided we'd been there long enough. As the bro reached the bottom of the small flight of stairs, I heard her voice, a tone of consternation, asking him 'what he was doing up there,' then asking where I was, while I stayed back out of sight in the semidarkness as she shouted my name up the stairs. Then listened as she put the latch back on the door and they walked into the flat. I was almost expecting her to come straight back out again but she didn't. Bro already knew I wanted to deal with it in my own way. Either that or he wanted to see how I'd get out of this one. A virtual impossibility on the face of it as he knew. And if I had to give up and knock on the door to be let out, I'd give the game away for him too. He was trusting me, probably assuming I'd find a way to undo the latch. I had no idea. It was impossible, unless you were Houdini. There was always the possibility he might get outside again and gain enough time to open it without her noticing. But there was even less reason for him to go out by himself as there was for me. I was stuck. It was a problem without a solution. I was very reluctant to let gran know her trust in me had been misplaced, almost irrationally so. I knew, at the back of my mind, I would never hear the end of this, however 'subtlety.' She and my mum weren't so different, they just had different ways of making you feel guilty. It was guilt that kept me there, sitting on the wooden stairs, mulling over my options or the lack of them. The jig was up. There was no way out, round, or through this. My cover was blown. Now the Gran Universe would be even more out of whack than it need have been. I felt as angry at her in a way. For being so intractable, so myopic, so unimaginative in her outlook. In short, so judgemental. The stairs, the roof, it was all only a harmless part of the world unless you were completely stupid, Was I likely to somehow fall of the roof? Or let my brother fall off? But I didn't have time to think about all this. The longer I stayed there the more anxiety I would put her through. Perhaps I felt that was partly her own fault in this comedy of unnecessary errors. Then she could stew in her own way just as I was now, until I could come up with a solution. There was also the thought that the longer I let it go on without coming up with one, the harder I was making it for myself, all of us. Time was off the essence. I had to either come clean or get moving. I got up and and turned back up the stairs and opened the trap-door and stepped out again, closing it quietly behind me. Now the balance had shifted. It really was an adventure of sorts. The game was afoot. I was literally an outlaw until I sorted this out or gave up the ghost; a wanted man, if only by gran at the moment, though I knew my brother must be just as pensive, if less concerned. Out was out, it was no big deal. True, I was stuck outside on the roof and behind a locked door, but where was the danger in that? I'd just have to go through the minor humiliation of being caught out. Not the conscientious and responsible bigger bro at all, that gran had assumed me to be. Life had its small amusements. Maybe I thought she'd tell my mother. Or I wasn't sure. Or felt under too much pressure to think rationally. But the truth was I didn't want to let her down, as

I say; to be found out. I knew she wouldn't tell - 'your mother,' as she called her, as my mum would hold it against both of us separately, make a meal of it. And that would place a wedge of mistrust between my gran and me. Not, like I say, that I sat there and thought all this out. But the situation was absurd, in more ways than one. It looked pretty 'hopeless.' And yet I was determined to see my way through it, though right now I couldn't see how. At least I could enjoy my temporary freedom and wander afar or as afar as was possible. Perhaps I could even walk along the length of the street, roof wise; maybe even turn the corner right at the top of the street. Where would it all end? I felt wildly excited over the possibility. Of how potentially dangerous it could be. And wrong. Probably illegal. I couldn't wait, my thoughts about my gran's anxiety forgotten in the moment; tossed aside morelike. The mad idea was soon nipped in the bud when after I clambered over a raised part of the roof, flat and black also, then saw that the block of old chimney''s facing me on the other side, stretched from one side to the other. I'd been assuming there would be a gap on either side, or one side. Looking across at the flats opposite again, envious of the imagined freedom of those inside as well as those in the street below. They had their troubles and obligations I thought, but they weren't trapped on the roof through guilt or misplaced obligation. I think it was students' that lived there. Once when I was at the window in gran's bedroom I saw a girl, more a young woman, walking into the room on the top floor almost directly opposite us, her life a mystery to me, another unknown world. Another time, a young man came in briefly and collected somethng then went out again. I imagined an independence, a semi-privileged lifestyle and upbringing, picturing his ease with woman and envying him. Or was he gauche and awkward like me, a bag of complexes and self-doubt? I'd recently discovered Freud through popular psychology books and read them avidly. I wished I could jump across the huge gap, like Spider-man. This situation was for the birds. The wall of chimneys was inaccessible, far too high to scale in any way. The bedroom windows were out as the sloping roof was far too close to the street and potential oblivion, as well as that I couldn't imagine getting in quietly enough even if a window had been open, That, and I knew how creaky those old floorboards were in the small lobby that led to the main door and gran had hearing like a tracker Indian. I'd be lucky not to be caught fumbling at the lock. Did she keep the mortice locked with a key also? I couldn't recall. Better to keep my distance, risk life and limb to save embarrassment. Anything to avoid the shame and emotional blackmail of the guilt that would be laid on me if I came clean. It felt weird to creep along the raised section of the roof of the kitchen knowing both she and my bro were almost directly below. I found it impossible to picture the scene, what might be going through their mind, especially hers, The problem was still in need of a solution. There was a curious sense of unreality to the situation. I felt a subdued desperation. It was clearly impossible. And it was partly due to knowing that, that gave it its quality of semi-unreality. And that I felt a whole mix of feelings; partly anger, frustration at the silliness and unnecessariness of it, as well as an equally subdued undercurrent of exhilaration at still being where I shouldn't be, along with the that there seemed to be nothng to be done. I would have to admit defeat, wimp out. And behind all of this the dim realisation, that however indirectly, they themselves brought about the last situation they would claim to want. There was a narrow lane on the other side, the length of the whole street. Works and offices. And Draffens, a large store. It was teatime now; the offices were empty; everyone had gone home. Just as well I thought, in case some busybody, some good Samaritan called the cops. I never called the police 'cops' but I thought of them as cops, just like in the comics, though it was probably the 'villains,' the bad guys who called them that...'Let's scram, it's the coppers!' No consolation here. The odd seagull flitting by at a distance, eyeing me with relative indifference. Too big to eat. My gran once told me that when put out bread sometimes, one would turn up early and tap on the window with its beak until

she fed it. Maybe I could do that, and sneak in. For a moment I thought if I could get down the sloping tiles on this side, to the side of the window – the whole section jutted out from the sitting room – then I might see what was going on inside, where it was she was sitting if she was siting at all, and wait until she went through to one of the bedrooms for something as she sometime did, or even if she went to the toilet. (An apt description, as there was no bath or shower, just an old washing machine that didn't work. It had been there longer than I could remember, along with a coal bunker. Quite a hike to the top of the stairs for those guys a while back. The coal office was on the corner of the street). But it was obvious this was even more impractical as she was even more likely to see or hear me than if I had tried to get in from the back. I was grasping at straws. The toilet window was out too, mainly because I completely forgot about it – a small time, small town tragedy in the making, but again, the latch would be on or I'd make too much noise anyway. I moved off carefully to explore the rest of the roof. The chimney stack was just as big as the other one but a good bit further away. Once again I made an assumption, this time that the roof covered the whole area, no unexpected holes, but as I walked along the black wide surface – reminding me of an asphalt football pitch out in space, I came to a large, square gap; a sheer drop, with windows on one or two sides part of the way down, along with adjacent pipes that led to the bottom. For some reason, probably wishful thinking, I was the first window, a good ways down, was the back of the public toilets of Draffens.' I was convinced. Yet Union Street was separated by the lane running down the back. There was no connection between them. During my 'plunking school' – truanting, I had often helped myself to a tin of herring from their seafood area -it was within the food section as a whole, and eaten it in the Gents, sitting on the loo, usually with a book, my salvation. Life would be nothing without books, and yummy tinned fish was a bonus, a free gift to myself, a consolation of sorts, for how I felt life was treating me...the potential superdelinquent in the making. I already felt like a fugitive. Being stuck on the roof and contemplating climbing down the pipe to get into the toilets looked as though it might be just the solution I was looking for. But the more I considered the prospect, examining the pros and cons, it was obvious the pipe was just too far from the window. The risk was too great. I did take risks but they were considered ones. Fifty/fifty was never an option when it was about the possibility of imminent death. The possibility was always there but that didn't mean one took chances that would make it any closer to a probability. If you couldn't picture yourself making it if it had been four feet off the ground, then that made it a certainty you wouldn't be attempting it at one hundred feet or even twenty feet. And even if I had and had made it, Draffens' and I still wouldn't be where I thought it was., but somewhere else entirely, trapped very probably in some other building and in even bigger trouble, and anyway, 'Draffens' would be closed by now, and I'd be even more stuck and in actual trouble. If less of a predicament than potential death. It was time to look over the lane and buildings at the back. It was generally always quiet as it was closed to traffic, being too narrow. I rarely ever even saw a bike; the centre was too busy. Just the occasional bloke. Women were more rare. And, if I'd thought to ask, how many dumb kids had got 'stuck' on the roof? A whole lot less I'd bet. And how many people had landed a sorry mess at the bottom? It was the perfect suicide opportunity once you got on the roof, but then that was the same for any high building. I remembered my mum talking about a woman who had thrown herself off a multi-story in town. 'That took some guts.' she'd said almost enviously, I thought. She would say something like that. I felt sorry for her as she did, whoever she was, but didn't see the point of making a virtue out of death and despair. I felt obscurely she that was missing something. That surely it was more worthwhile to think about all the things that were worth living for, as I felt there was. And if she respected her so much in her way, that implied she didn't have the guts to do it herself. What if it

wasn't a matter of courage -whatever that is anyway, but a form of cowardice, or if not cowardice, then just taking what seems to be the easy way out? What perturbed or niggled me about her remark, and the apparent compassion on her part, was the awareness, if obscure, that she felt secretly superior over the thought that someone had it worse than she did; that it made her feel happier about her lot in life and this was her way of rationalizing it to herself, and better still, she still had life while that 'poor' woman's was over, left to face oblivion. A fear as powerful for her I think, as any thought of ever ending it all. I couldn't be sure of that the woman's decision to kill herself wasn't justified. That it was possible she felt so trapped in some situation or let herself feel so overwhelmed by guilt over something, that it made her life impossible to go on with. But I felt that even then there must be a possibility of escape, of getting a breather, a moment's thought, another opinion even, where she could look on the situation differently, whatever it was. Naïve of me in one sense, but important all the same. My mother seemed to be determined, some of the time at least, to dump everything she felt about life that made it not worth living, on to me. I was lucky she hadn't thrown me out the window herself. If she could without getting into trouble for it she would have. Little had changed there. I knew on some level it was the fact that I had my whole life ahead of me she resented.. No pun intended and this might be her lucky day. That she literally resented the life in me. As if my very existence were a personal insult to her, a slap in the face. Rather than feel flattered by any talents and intelligence I possessed that might reflect positively on her, they were a cause, an excuse only for further resentment, as if any more were needed. One way or another it seemed, she was always there at the centre of everything. This situation; if it weren't for the thought of her there in the background, spreading guilt like a pestilence at every opportunity there would be less problem in admittingg to my gran I had betrayed her trust in a sense, but hadn't meant anything by it, and was always careful my bro never came to any harm. If anything I cared more about him than any of them assumed they did. The situation was stupid. They were stupid. Only they behaved as if I were the stupid one. That was the maddening obtuseness of it and of them. It was all too much hard work. Simpler to solve it in my own way. Such obtuseness only made things worse. Again the obscure suspicion that all it did was contribute to bringing about the very situations they supposedly didn't want. Though if they didn't want them why did they seem to revel in them so much? Why was it, as I knew, I would be forever reminded of it if they had known about this situation, and in my mother's case, worse, make a meal of it for all concerned? That she would make a petty-minded melodrama out of a potential catastrophe; mine. As if she genuinely cared. I would bypass it all in my own way somehow, only I wasn't quite sure how yet. At the moment I was still in a state of semi-denial. I knew I was going to get off the building in my own way, and that barely bore thinking about. Perhaps it was an expression of feeling sorry for myself, of my own pent up anger. And feling sorry for myself. That if I made it, good, but if I didn't, well it would be all on their own head or rather, her head. Not that I looked on the possibility of my death as a reality. Oh it could happen, because I knew I was going to get down somehow, and this height was no joke. I had zero chance of survival if I screwed it up, miscalculated. And anyway, I cared too much about my brother to screw it up, and not least my gran. At the moment I felt the most compassion for her as she would get the most stick if the unthinkable happened. She really would never hear the end of it and would probably blame herself. Or being blamed for it also, along with my violent demise would be enough. It would kill her. Maudlin thoughts. Not that I thought of any of this in any methodical or consistent way. I didn't have to. It was all there at the back of my mind. I knew what the situation was and what the odds were or had a good idea. That, and that the repercussions were incalculable. Or would be. Most of all I knew I had no intentions of dying. Unlike them and their bonkers crazyapeshit mindset, the

situation had calculable odds. It was a challenge. In a very real way I felt, I would be outmanoeuvring them, my mother, and her guilt trips, and her not quite secret wish I were dead. It was a challenge in a way, if an unspoken one, one she would never know about. Through her I was looking death in the face again and not for the first time. As long as she tried to undermine any sense of place or trust in the world I might develop, I would counter it by establishing my dominance over my environment in any little way I could. But it was really dominance over my own self, the small self and its fears and uncertainties. By risking my life through climbing, mastering self-chosen obstacles, I could gain a general sense of control however fleeting, as if by association it might also gain me some control over the variables that were beyond my conscious volition such as my mother's unpredictable temperament and erratic behaviour. It was the same with challenging any individual, stealing, reading etc. I sought out clarity and any means I thought might give me it or increase it in me. Girls, like my mother, like adults, most adults, were unpredictable, an unknown quantity. I was far less concerned over putting life and limb at risk than I was at the thought of talking to almost any of them let alone trying to take anything any further. Clearly, fear could be relative, irrationally so. It originated as much from within, but it was the inside, the unconscious I had so much trouble dealing with and no conscious control over at all it seemed Buildings, the things of the world were inanimate. They had no personal opinion of me. They never made me feel self-conscious, or embarrassed or envious or ashamed or put me down. The world was neutral. It was people that were the problem. As always. If only they would piss off and leave me alone and let me enjoy the world in peace.... But I needed them for everything that I enjoyed in the world. Books, music, comedy on TV I liked, eating and drinking, comics. If only something could be done about the stupid, crazy ones... But they were also the clever ones, that was the problem. They had me tied in knots; trussed up like a Xmas turkey. Yet here I was, literally on top of the world, if symbolically so, in my element. The world was my obstacle. That, I could handle; probably. There were few things more fun than being where I wasn't supposed to be, even it it wasn't solely my choice in this instance. I could look at the world, my immediate environment like an explorer, or an alien, and both felt like accurate descriptions in a way. The paradox was that the world, 'inanimate' things, were or could be more 'alive' than these people and every other self-centred arrogant idiot who seemed compelled to torment others. The world wasn't anti-life, it was impartial, even in earthquakes and other disasters. These were just accidents, the catastrophes inherent in an imperfect world. It was nothing to do with God or 'God's will.' Half the shit laid on me was due to these lunatics believing they were doing God's work on his behalf, pre-empting His worthy intentions. My mother wasn't punishing me, God was. And 'God' had decided, clearly, that I was more deserving of guilt and condemnation than love. Just as he had decided the same for Her previously. Now she could get back at Him through me, by dumping all that shame and fear and guilt on to me. Not that I knew that then. Opposite me, across the lane was a fire escape for one of the office buildings. And under it, a short drop, the flat roof of a building. A view I'd often looked upon from the kitchen, recently just under my feet. A thought: If I was on that fire escape I could make the drop to the roof easily enough, and solving the problem of getting down from there would be substantially less of an insurmountable problem than getting down from where I was right now. But first I had to get across to the other side. As ludicrously unrealistic a prospect as getting down from where I was. Only, for the moment, it seemed like an exciting prospect, a good idea, because it was fresh, a new idea, and any possibility gave me hope. I wished there was a connecting building over the lane between the main block and a works. Just my luck. But then why would there be a works connection to a block of flats? A stupid regret. But there was reason for optimism, or so

it seemed. Fortuitously, a length of black plastic or rubber covered wire – I assumed it was wire; anything else would surely be pointless – stretched directly over the lane to the side of the fire escape near the top. It seems remarkable to me now, ludicrous, that I seriously considered the suicidal high-wire act. I'd never heard of The Flying Wallendas but this would have been even more ill-considered than the netless effort that brought an abrupt demise to their act or one of them. Again, it wasn't only the question of the height but of whether the wire would support my weight. I surmised it probably would but one of the wall attachments at either side might not. There was no way of being sure. I'd still have to climb partways down this buildiing to reach it. Scratch that idea. There was nothing for it. I knew what the answer was. I was procrastinating. Or, to give myself some credit, envisaging the my options from the most idiotic or risky, first. It was staring me in the face as I looked down into the lane from the top. A scarifyingly intimidating height. I'd have to climb down the side of the building. To consider any further impossibility was just more procrastination or plain stupid. I'd been dramatizing myself. If I wanted to get down in one piece or have the best chance of it – without having to tell anyone about it, that is, this was the way to go; straight down. And preferably not head first. I'd already had some practice climbing pipes due to my reluctance to admit it when I'd lost or mislaid my door key. At one point I had it on a string around my neck. My mother's idea, or so I assumed. A piece of old folky wisdom that had dragged on too long, morelike. But all it meant was I had to remember to do that every morning before I went to school (or as was eventually the case, pretend to go to school). And if I could do that, why have it on a string at all? Did I forget one day, then also forget where I'd last put it? Did the knot on the string unravel, and so I lost the key? All I had to do was leave it in my coat pocket, then I'd always know where it was, or should be, unless anyone went through people's pockets in the cloakroom. A possibility, but unlikely, or a smaller risk than going through this ludicrous key on my neck rigmarole. But I was in the habit of losing it - them. Everything took its place in the lexicon of guilt; a means to an end, and a possibility that never occurred to me at that time. From a 'latch-key kid 'at primary school – not that I minded that aspect; I was oblivious to the term – she had turned keys, no pun intended, into a symbol of guilt and terror from then on, though they had less potency now; but the excuse for putting a big guilt trip on me was as chronic, as potent as ever. And naturally I did it her way, too keep the peace, to give her less of a pretext, and to not lose them, but invariably I would. It was partly how it was set up, overcomplicated. So rather than admit it when I'd lost the door key again, I would climb up the pipe that went from the bottom to our bedroom at the top floor. Even she didn't bother locking the windows as only an idiot or an acrobat would risk their lives to climb up to that height. And people in council flats were relatively poor, so why bother? Sometimes I would come home at lunchtime – 'dinnetime' - with Mark, who lived directly opposite and he'd wait at the top of the stairs until I let him in. One afternnon there was a melon in the cupboard so I set to it with a kitchen knife and we scoffed the lot. Funnily enough my mum never said anything about it, unusual for her. She'd have seen the peelings in the bin, so she knew it wasn't wasted, that at least it had been eaten. Had she thought I'd eaten the whole thing by myself? Maybe she'd thought her Bo might have eaten it and didn't want to say anything as he was a temperamental fucker. Or was it possible she already knew I didn't have a key and was leaving it to me to own up. Ever the fatalist, it was unlike her to not keep an eye on things even when they were going okay.. But it would be equally unlikely for her not to quiz me if she'd known and had thought it was me. Some things will forever remain a minor mystery. What about the possibility she knew I was climbing into the flat from the bedroom? A neighbour could easily have told her. And by that, I mean some busybody watching from the council flats opposite, 'concerned,' while just willing me to drop.

But if my mother had already been told.... Still, if I was dead or injured, who was to say I hadn't been repeatedly warned? And anyway, I was an inveterate liar... I couldn't be trusted, and by extension, neither could anything I said. A situation she had contributed to herself to the point of a subtle programming through constant intimidation and subtle little set-ups. Necessities became pretexts for a convenient and selective from of private terrorism. She had it down to a fine art of sorts. That it was successful was reflected in the extent of the guilt I felt, reinforced and compounded over the years. It was a methodical programme of psychological destruction. But it became as clear her good guy Bo, the life and soul of the party, everybody's pal, Mr false Bonhomie, precticed the same on her. It was also just as possible her Bo knew about the key and had instructed her to not say anything about it and wait and see if I did: i.e.; wait and see what happened. They were two of a kind, in hatred, only he could be as subtly sly as she was. All of which could be adeptly and expertly obscured by dumping it on to me. Now I was the 'sleekit' one, the liar etc., especially when he'd had a few drinks. A potentially volatile situation. But in essence there was little difference between them, except that he knew better to disguise his deeply unpleasant side when sober. Sometimes my mother might go through the motions of standing up for me, or maybe she could for once see how it looked to an outside observer. As for the latest key being lost, chances are she didn't know anything about it at all. But I can't recall her ever asking about that either. And that's far too easygoing for her. But it's possible she was preoccupied with other things. And here I was, locked out again. Or faked out again. Or, depending on how you looked at it, locked in. It came to the same in the end. Taking silly risks for the sake of avoiding having childish adults feel bad about themselves and me. Would the horseshit ever end? The pipe stretched an impossibly long way to the bottom and solid ground below. Looking at it, I was feeling something almost akin to nostalgia. As if there was something almost familiar about it. Not deja-vu; I knew what that was, if mainly only as an idea. But as foolish as what I was about to do was, it seemed just as silly to think I might not make it. That something could go wrong. I could slip. The answer to that was not to. That meant paying absolute attentionm to each footstep, every move. It was all matter of concentration, of focus. And being absolutely certain in the knowledge I wanted to make it to the bottom. That I was worth the effort. The pipe jutted up from the top then curved out into a half U shape. I bent down carefully and sat on my backside, then edged over until my legs dangled over the side, the top of the pipe to my left, as I was left-handed and that was what the focus of my effort would be with; not that it was a concious decision; it came naturally, as I imagine the focus on the right comes to a left-handed person. (though I still don't understand why we hold cutlery in the same way; it seems natural to me to focus on the fork while the knife is secondary, similar to playing a left-handed guitar; but that's not imprtant right now). There couldn't be any half-measures. I couldn't change my mind halfway through. That would only bring me back to square one. If I made it. It was a given that when I began I had to finish. And first I had to get on to the pipe to climb down. That meant grasping it as firmly as I needed to, as well as not doing anything untoward such as holding on too tight from anxiety or semi-panic once I let myself slip off the roof to swing around in an arc to face the pipe then bringing on cramp long before I was near the bottom. It was an unnerving few moments, but my little Tarzan swing went without a hitch. If it hadn't, the adrenalin would've killed me before I hit the ground. I'd made sure my hands were dry before I began, giving them a wipe on my chords trousers. No spitting on my hands and rubbing them for good luck here; not that I ever did. I'd have slid off that pipe like... a slippery thing. I felt more confident, if cautiously so, once I had begun; happier that I'd made a decision.

I was feeling more like myself again, if experiencing a new level of tension. But also of control. Which increased the longer I went on. But there could no letting up on concentration. And what was a few minutes of pure attention when your life depended on it? No stray thoughts or fascinating musings here. No dwelling in the past or mulling over the future. Just one intense, focused present, a continuous now. Nothing else sufficed. I let myself feel a slight relief as I approached the halfway point, still far too high to survive, I knew, if I dropped. Then finally increasing relief combined with a tentative exhilaration as I knew I was decreasing my chances of serious injury with every second, every foothold (I always kept the soles of my shoes as far inside the pipe as possible but not enough so as to get one stuck or jammed in there. Practice again). Then, down to fifteen feet, then twelve or so – definitely safe unless I was still unfortunate enough to land on my head – then the cobbles of the lane now eight, six feet below, then four and I let go as I flipped casually from the wall and landed lightly, feeling, incongruously, as if I'd just scaled a short height, but also hugely pleased with myself, the exhilaration growing now unchecked as there was nothing to stop it. I almost couldn't believe I was on solid ground again. That I'd done it. I'd solved what had seemdd an insurmountable problem. I was so excited by this, by the sense of meaning, of implications I couldn't quite grasp, there on the edge of consciousness – that it seemed pointless to waste it by going straight back around to the front of the street and to the main door, of no.40; gran's. So much so that I took off uptown a bit and walked along the Overgate, still exhilarated by the abrupt contrast between my previous and apparently hopeless predicament and now here I was, strolling along on solid ground again in the centre of town on a sunny afternoon still, surrounded by people, the 'normals', the unadventurous. They had no real conception of how interesting life could be. But I felt a sense of kinship with them anyway, most of them. We were all in this together. It had taken only a few minutes to climb to the bottom of the block of flats. All the fear, the trepidation, had been in the contemplation of it. Or a lot of it. It seemed obvious that almost any obstacle could be overcome with enough determination - combined with a judicious snese of caution if need be. And if there was ever to be any obstacle I couldn't surmount, then I would have to accept it philosophically or stoically, and accept that life meant well by me whatever happened. That there was no need to confuse it with the stupidity of people and their small-minded acts and intentions and silly self-deceptions. I wondered why I had ever taken them seriously, any of it. But what I wanted most of all was for this conviction to last. That the was the fear, the nagging doubt that lay at the back of my mind, as always. To know for a certainty I would never be discouraged again. To know that that would always be a miscalculation, a passing 'mood' due only to discouragement. 'Dehumanization' I knew something about. I had yet to learn the experience of demoralisation and how that could seem to seep into ones very bones. But, however unintentionally, – or for unconscious reasons, this had been the goal all along. I didn't quite know it yet. But the realisation was slowly sinking in. Too slowly. In the meantime I knew it was all a matter of degree, of gaining clarity and keeping it by holding on to it. By never allowing oneself to be taken in by repeated, negative thoughts and emotions, from oneself as much as others. There would always be something to be said for 'snapping out of it,' taking positive action. Giving into passivity and despair could never be the answer. That was the queer thing about anger – and determination. Sometimes it was a way of cutting through the shit, that only though habit had I allowed myself to put up with it. On the face of it, nothing at all had changed, except that I was still around. My circumstances were exactly the same. I'd have the same old crap at home and school with the usual fear behind it all that it could get a whole lot worse; the fear of the future unknown does that. But at least now I knew I needn't take it at face value if I didn't want to. When it came ot it I could through caution to the wind, and sod the consequences; let them deal with it. I

had tried doing things their way and all it led to was unnecessary complications, further insanity. Do it their way, and these people would be the death of me. Even the best intentioned of them could'nt interpret the world, a situation as I might need to. Somehow, subtely, almost imperceptibly in a way, they tricked you into a kind of madness, of idiot choices, and stupid acts. That was my mother's mantra after all, forever instilling in me how stupid I was and different from every one else. And not in a good way. All the more to convince herself her life wasn't the desperate, despairing, sorry mess it was. That she didn't have a clue who she was, what to do, or where she was going. Guilt and blame came to be adult, 'mature,' things, the stuff of the 'real' world, without a belief in which, survival was, apparently, impossible. Having me feel guilty, unworthy, constantly ungrateful was, it seemed, what being a responsible, conscientious adult, at home in the world, was what it was all about. They all did it. I had still to see through the lie. And that anger was only a step in the right direction; beyond that, true clarity came with forgiveness; of myself as much as of her. Easier said than done. I didn't get a hard time from gran either. She was probably relieved to see me. Maybe my bro had told her I was on the roof and she'd called for me. Steve didn't seem much surprised. Maybe he had faith in me. That he knew I'd solve it in my own way. Jiggle my way out thought the latch. The funny thing is, if it had once ever occurred to me while still on the roof that this was an old building and a part of the pipe could easily have been loose, I'd never have attempted it. I'd have spooked myself out of it. Fortunately that possibility never crossed my mind. And anyway, I was slim and comparatively light, and kids' are forever climbing all over things.