To Hell And Back............timo


I don�t remember what day it was. You get like that when you�re homeless. Things start merging into one long pain in your head. When you can�t eat and you can�t sleep properly and you�re always cold or wet or filthy and nothing changes for days on end then you lose track of time, not just what day it is but even what time of day or night it is. When you suddenly wake up with a start somewhere dirty and smelly and it�s dark and you don�t know where or even who you are for a few moments it�s easy for the panic to set in. It�s like suddenly being born, fully grown, into a world you know nothing about. It�s especially hard if you�ve been dreaming a nice dream, like I had been. There were scenes from my childhood and warm summer sunshine and familiar faces and, above all, that sense that I was somebody, that I belonged, that I was loved.

I woke in the panic unable to see anything. Reaching out wildly to grasp and feel at my surroundings brought my hands in contact with unnamed textures damp and gritty, a musty smell began to register in my nose, my eyes searching the area wildly for any trace of light or shadow. Then...THERE...I saw something...who am I...it was a sliver of deep purple sky with a single star shining in it...where am I...is this death? There it was again, my eyes growing accustomed to the dark. A window, boarded up, a bit at the corner missing. Something the size of a fist moved along the wall over the broken glass beneath the window. I was in a room of some kind...yes, that was it. A room of some kind. Shit, I�m starting to remember and get my breath back. I think I�ve been sleeping in an old building or somewhere, that thing moving by the broken glass must have woke me...what the Hell was it? A rat? A giant spider? Oh fucking GOD it�s not true is it, I�m not homeless and sleeping in some vacant building am I...

In the city there�s only one time of night when there�s truly no noise. It happens at about four in the morning, hours after the last drunk has sped home through the wet backstreets in some shitty old car, long after all the cats have stopped fighting with each other, when even the jets creeping by in the distance seem like they�re trying to be a little more quiet, as thought they know you were sleeping down there and for just a little while the world takes a break from grinding you down. At that time of the morning even a place like THIS can be serene. Except that it wasn�t. It was a broken down building that I�d been sleeping in and it was Hell.

Everything had the stench of wooden decay and layers of ancient dirt. I was so cold. I�d been sleeping under a thin jacket on a bin liner that held a dirty pair of army trousers and two or three old shirts, my belongings. Not enough padding to make a decent bed on the floor of broken glass, old newspapers, rotten wood and antique linoleum. My body was sore, I stood up and pulled my coat on. Outside the silence roared at me, inside the darkness screamed at me. I went to the boarded up window to stare at the star. It was beautiful. I was so fucking hungry. Somewhere in the distance a murder was taking place but I didn�t hear it. There�s always a murder taking place somewhere in the distance...I don�t remember when, but I went back to sleep I guess.

The sound of squealing bus brakes and angry commuters honking and shouting at each other woke me again when the sun was up. Everything in the room was sepia coloured. Hoards of people were trundling by outside, secretaries going clip-clop in fashionable shoes and squeaky clean necktie types in baggy trousers and greasy hair. Builder blokes with cups of shite tea and a copy of The Sun sticking out of their back pockets. There was a train rumbling by somewhere, it made the appropriate creakings and horn blowings for a packed commuter train full of even more brickies, bastards and bitches.

I should have been up hours ago. I must have fallen into one of those rare sleeps of the dead for a few hours after being up and down from the cold all night. I didn�t want anybody to see me coming out of this building. It�s so soul destroying when they know you�re that down and out. They stare at you but try not to, they move away from you but try not to be obvious about it, but sometimes they�re just all too obvious about it. Sometimes they point and laugh, they make crude remarks as the tails of their cheap suit jackets flap in the wind and an idiot necktie flails about like an eel trying to escape. I really hate these people.

This type usually comes in twos, on their way to some office job. Usually youngish and loud in their bravado. They want the whole world to know how much they despise you and they broadcast their disgust loudly, for all to hear and see that THEY have suits on, that THEY are going to work, that THEY are so much better than ME. I want to kill these types and given any chance I would, so long as I could get away with it undetected. But if you kill a necktie the whole world will be after you demanding satisfaction, no expense would be spared in the tracking down of the murderer. But if I�d died last night in this vacant building, surely an act of social murder, no one would even care. My rotting corpse would one day get discovered and discarded without a question. And all the murderers would go free, their neckties waving defiance under the sneering faces of evil.

The strange numbness that surrounds you like a shell is, in a strange way, comforting. You walk down the street no longer caring if you�ve got the right hair or the latest fashion in attire. Your face shows no emotion at all. It�s been drained away from the surface ages ago and now all the turmoil and anguish that thunders away inside of you is so far down inside of you that nothing shows on the outside, just a blank stare, an expressionless face, a mask of living death. Soul death. Cold lifeless eyes set in a strangely familiar face stare back at you from reflections in shop windows. You barely recognise yourself. Is that vile hulking beast in the reflection really the same man who laughed and loved and once called himself you? Now he is a stranger. Don�t stand there staring in my window, says the man in the shop. Go away. Get out of here. I wasn�t even looking in the shop, I was just straining to see deep into that shadowy reflection, trying to see if I was there anymore.

Without having anywhere to go I just walked around. Aimlessly crossing the street sometimes just to look like I had some purpose even if it�s all too obvious that I have no money. I�ve learned that in the city one of the greatest crimes is to stand still. If you stand still then people run into you and glare at you like you�ve committed some great sin, if you�re motionless you are a target for thieves, if you don�t keep moving along people get suspicious of you. They know you�re not actually going anywhere and this implies you are unimportant, pointless, unemployed, low, disgusting and sinister. You don�t fit in. You don�t play the game correctly. If you stand still people get frightened of you. Stand still long enough and the police become involved. To stand still on the streets of the city is suicide. So I just kept moving, going nowhere, wasting time and getting hungrier. Even if you find a park bench or a spot beneath a tree, to sit there too long draws unwanted attention. This is the city. It�s for people who go places and do things, for people who don�t have time to sit around. Time is money, money is God, God is dead. Ever watch really old people in the city? They become disoriented, frightened and lost very easily. They stand out like weak prey to the predators, their faces frozen in that expression of perplexity, looking around like they�re lost or have forgotten who they are. They don�t last long.

The old church that some charity now uses to hand out day-old sandwiches and thin soup to the homeless is still many miles away but it�s not yet noon and they don�t open their doors until six this evening. You have to get there early, though. The line of stinking, alcoholic, insane violent beggars grows rapidly just before opening time and when the doors finally open the most violent ones push their way through and begin stuffing sandwiches in their pockets while poor little charity helper women keep saying �Only ONE sandwich per person! There�s not enough to go around!� only to be met with shouts of  �FUCK OFF� and such like from big, filthy, hairy brutes. Yes, my good ladies, only one sandwich per person, but these are not people, not anymore. You mean well but you don�t know what the fuck you�re doing.

The place will, again, be short of food for everybody who turns up which is why it really pains me to witness the greedfest exhibited by the more violent homeless who are always there. This place is, for many (like myself today), their only source of food. Some come many miles just for a free leftover shop sandwich a day. Get there late and all that�s left is lukewarm tea. The weak are always pushed aside, to the back of the que, the last ones in, and the weak just get weaker. Then, eventually, one day you notice they don�t turn up for free sandwiches anymore and you wonder where and how they died and if anyone�s even found them yet.

The Stanley knife that had just sliced through some guy�s face was still being waved around by a screaming alcoholic Paddy when I picked up my sandwich from the tray by the door. There was a lot of confusion, shouting and blood. No one was looking so I grabbed two more sandwiches and stuffed them down my trousers. I poured some grey soup with a piece of corn in it from a ladle into a stiff paper cup and headed for the far corner of the room, away from the raving Irish cunt brandishing his knife. I recognised a few of the faces from the last time I was homeless. Seems like some of these people linger on for years and years seemingly at death�s door. I recognised the face of the insane W.W.II vet who still wore his uniform and babbled to himself all the time. I recognized the faces of disgusting drunken beggars I hated and filthy old homeless bastards I hated even more. I recognised the face of the 1960�s clock that still hung on the wall high above the reach of the homeless where the building still looked like a church. I don�t think anybody was going to recognise the slashed up guy�s face ever again. He just lay there on his back moaning and bleeding profusely while two or three men grappled with the stinking Paddy bastard who�d cut him up. Other people just sat around in plastic chairs staring and eating their sandwiches or leaning against some wall, a couple were conversing, someone was burrowing for clothes in the mountain of rags by the stairs. The police were pretty quick to show up. They were used to this sort of thing. So were we.

I stood and ate my sandwich and sipped my little cup of gruel, it tasted like salted water with dirt in it. I watched the dead and dying, many with shaking hands and few teeth, eat their sandwiches and wash it down with weak tea. Some of the more violent types were walking around, their pockets bulging with sandwiches, trying to scare others into giving them cigarettes. One rather large smelly beast with wild black hair, bloodshot eyes and a leafy beard walked up and demanded tobacco from me. I didn�t have any but didn�t say so. I just said nothing. I�ve learned that in this sort of environment if you ever give anything away they�ll never leave you alone and if you show fear they�ll bully you relentlessly. I just stood there eating my shit sandwich slowly, saying nothing. I was afraid he was going to go for me but in the end he just went away to bother somebody else. A smelly old Scottish drunk was arguing with the little charity ladies who�d tried to make him leave his can of Special Brew outside.

They�re amazing, these little women who do this. They look like the housewives and grandmothers who work in little shops far away in twee villages where nothing ever happens but here they are in the thick of Shit City dispensing sandwiches to deranged psychopaths. The blood, vomit, gore, shit, piss and abuse seems to have no effect on them. I went up and got a cup of tea from one. There weren�t any more sandwiches and arguments were inevitably to begin, just like every fucking day here. Chairs will fly, heads will get beaten in, and tomorrow the same lot of human rubbish will again be waiting outside the door, except for the ones who didn�t make it through the night.

Outside in the grounds of the dead church I saw an old man I recognised sitting on a bench by a gravestone looking at the ground about ten feet in front of him. He didn�t look well at all. He was grey skinned and seemed to be having a hard time breathing. Looked like a heart attack to me, but he�d probably been like that for ages. Not knowing his name, I just said something like �Okay there?� but he didn�t answer. His mouth was agape and his chest was heaving. I went over and stood by him, he didn�t look up. His leathery brown skin was wrinkled and creased with the wear and tear of his shit hard life. I�m sure he�d been wearing the same clothes the last time I�d seen him. His eyes had at some point in his life been beautiful blue and speckled and even now with the red bloodveins and infections were quite captivating in a strange way. I could tell he hadn�t been in for sandwiches yet and it was far too late for food now. I just stood there and he just sat there gasping. For a while we were silent, only the noise of traffic, squealing bus brakes, shouting and horns honking as commuters barged their way home in extreme agitation.

�Here� I said as I laid one of my stolen sandwiches on the bench beside him. �You might want this.�

For a moment he didn�t move but then, without looking up, he slowly felt around with a leathery brown hand until it rested upon the sandwich wrapper. He patted it a couple of times, then his claw-like fingers grasped it in a gesture of desperation, not hard enough to crush it but more like a stiff corpse hand around a gun in some old black and white movie.

�I think there�s some tea left...if you want I�ll get you one.� I said to him. He didn�t move. He just kept staring at the ground with expired eyes, clutching the sandwich. The city traffic just kept stinking by. The haze of exhaust fumes was thick The air smelled like diesel and hurt the back of my throat. He just sat there wheezing. I knew he needed something to drink but I was afraid to go back in. There was some sort of rule about not being allowed back in when you left but nobody ever paid any attention to it. I just didn�t want to go back in. It was Hell in there. Hell in an old dead church. I put my half cup of warm tea down on the bench next to him and walked away.

Out on the street the city was at it�s worst. Rush hour, they call it. It lasts from about three in the afternoon to about eight at night. Even the jets overhead sounded angry. The walk back to my vacant building took longer than I wanted it to. I felt more tired now than when I first started out. It was hardly worth going all that way just for a free sandwich. But I had to do something. I can�t get any social services help so I�m pretty much fucked. At least I had one left for later tonight if the cold woke me up again.

It was almost dark when I pushed the bit of tin aside to gain entrance to the old building I had been sleeping in. Inside it was even darker. Something wasn�t right. Just more of a feeling, really. I felt uneasy. It was too quiet, too still. It was suspended animation. Absolute silence, the silence of deep space. Deafness. Nonexistance. Something didn�t seem right. I crept softly down the short, littered hallway in the near darkness, half feeling my way along, eyes wide trying to see in the dark. My arm brushed against a chunk of peeling plaster and wallpaper sending a shower of dust and gravel-sized bits of wall cascading down around me. The floor creaked loudly underfoot. It seemed like the whole building suddenly erupted in little noises to announce my presence. I heard a non-decaying building sound, almost human, like a deep sigh mixed with a slight moan. My skin crawled. I stood perfectly still, listening.

When my eyes became more used to the gloom around me I could see the doorway to the room I�d been sleeping in, the only room in the place not piled too high with rubbish or open to the sky. I thought I saw something in the room but it was too dim to tell what, just a vague shape not where it should be, but not moving. I edged a little closer to the doorway. Then ...

�Fuckzat.........unh?.........oozat.........oozat�

It was a voice, intoxicated, half mumbled in the effort. I just stopped still. Moments went by. I could smell something. The dank air was carrying some new stench upon it. A lighter flicked somewhere in the room and in the brief glare I could see that there were a pair of naked black male legs laid out on the floor. Then darkness again. That smell...

I edged a little more closer, silently, my hand in my coat pocket on my flick knife. The red glow of a cigarette being drawn flared momentarily lighting the walls with a pale orange glow. My eyes became more used to the dark and now I could see a completely naked, still male figure face down on the floor. Obviously this is not who had flicked the lighter or was smoking. There must be at least one other in the room. Oh no, that smell...surely not...I was still in the corridor just outside the room.

As quietly as I could I slowly drew the knife out of my pocket and opened it. The unmistakable smell of human shit was now well in the air. A little wisp of smoke curled out from the top of the doorway. I heard the shuffling sounds of someone moving in the room in the darkness, then another cigarette glow. I was petrified. I was not alone. Little though it was, this had been my sanctuary, my shelter from the vileness that is life, and now there was someone else in it. I wanted to run, but was afraid of making noise. I was afraid I�d be chased by the fag smoker. I didn�t know it was or what he�d do. The smell of human shit was overwhelming now, I didn�t want to breathe. I wondered if the naked body on the floor was alive or dead, had I stumbled upon a murder? What could I do...I inched a little closer, knife in hand, trying not to breathe or make a sound.

The siren in the distance was, at first, just another background noise of the city at night, mingled with the jets overhead and the constant noise of traffic. But as it got closer the siren�s wailing seemed to fill the dead building like a crazed ghost, screaming from one room to another, bouncing off walls, building ever louder. An ambulance flew past, all sirens and lights. For a few seconds there was an alternating beacon of coloured light getting through the gap at the corner of the boarded up broken window, light bouncing around the room in a weird fashion. In the strobe effect I saw the other man with the fag in his mouth. He was in a squatting position by where my bin liner of clothes was, wiping his ass with something.

That moment when our eyes met in the flashing ambulance light was terrifying. I was looking into the face of a man smoking a fag, stunned in mid asswipe, eyes wide in an expression of horror. What must he have seen with wild hair brandishing a knife in the doorway? I can not even attempt to describe the surreal and horrifying scene we had unknowingly become each a part of. We were stunned, frozen to the spot, each unmoving in terror of the other for the incredibly brief time it took the speeding ambulance lights to fade away from the walls of the room. Then in that next instant of darkness all Hell broke loose.

The noises that came in the darkness as I scrambled in my retreat would have given Edgar Allen Poe nightmares. I was bellowing and screaming sounds of such a demonic and loud nature that I would not be at all surprised if it could be heard many streets away. The bizarre yelping sounds and other noises coming from the room can not be described. He seemed to be throwing the entire contents of the room (think about that) at the doorway where I had been standing. His terror was obvious. Had he thought he�d seen a ghost? Did he think I was about to leap in and attack him? Paper and wood and shit and broken glass and fuck knows what came exploding from the doorway where I had been as he shrieked out in extreme fear. The guy on the floor never moved. Dead or what?

I burst out through the tin that had been over the entrance of the building at a full run knocking it completely from its nails and sending it banging loudly into the night. I was still running wildly with a knife in my hand, and I kept on running for a short distance around the corner before stopping to pant out of breath by a tree. Somewhere along the way I�d lost my other sandwich.

I didn�t sleep that night. I just kept walking around waiting for the sun to come up so I could get warm. Waiting for the day to waste away so I could go get another sandwich. I don�t remember what day it was. You get like that when you�re homeless.
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