"Police, open the door!"
Nothing,
"It’s the Police, open the door!"
Nothing,
Crackle of police radio…
It seemed as if they had given up and moved on to the next room, but my stay of execution was brief, and the beasts were at my door once more, only this time they had the force of a hand-held battering ram to get their evil way. In the blink of an eye the door had been breached, and like a rabbit in headlights I watched as a dozen or so of Lincolns finest stormed into the room, two of them hurling themselves in my direction and pinning me down on the bed where they did not arrest or question me, they just held me. A stocky female policewoman with short spiky hair entered the room and assessed the achievements of her squad, she seemed very pleased. In fact, at this point I do recall noticing that they all appeared to be having a rather splendid time, as if this sort of affair is the police equivalent of a school trip. I was surrounded on all sides by gaggles of eager young police officers, gloving-up and awaiting the order to commence their search, like a pack of gun-dogs they awaited their command, all but salivating at the prospect.
The search began in earnest as the light of the dawn began to break through the curtains, and there I sat on my bed, hands cuffed behind my back and sleep in my eyes, observing the truffle-hunt going on all around me. I had not been arrested.
Communication between my captors and I was limited to me beginning to speak, and them telling me to keep quiet, it seemed that my participation in proceedings was not essential to the outcome. Things did relax after a while, and I was left in my room with one officer rummaging through my dirty washing pile, and one officer guarding the door. They seemed to get the idea that I was not going to try and escape and they loosened up a bit, feeling able to toss the occasional insult my way regarding the state of my room, or how unhealthy I looked, all in a smug self satisfied manner. It is how I imagine one must feel as a guest on the Jeremy Kyle show. It was as if I had invited them round and not tidied up, not at all that it was 6:15 in the morning and they had me cuffed to the bed in my boxers. The female officer even emitted a groan of disgust at the discovery of pornographic magazines in my bedside drawer, something that she would never have found had she not been looking for them; I could keep quiet no longer.
"If I had known you were coming I would have baked a cake" I said "You really should ring ahead you know"
This was a mistake; the police officer is not by nature a good humoured fellow, they take what they do very seriously, and make no interpretations of the law, they merely enforce it. I went on;
"Look, what is all this about? I haven’t done anything wrong, why am I in handcuffs?"
"Look, don’t piss us about, your wasting our time. Just tell us where it is and this will all be over quickly"
"I honestly have no idea what you are talking about; I just don’t understand what you want. What do you want by the way?"
"Come on, don’t play dumb with us, we’ll find it eventually you know"
I thought for a moment and said "So if I told you for example, that there was something in the kitchen, and there was, and you went and found it, would you pack up and go home? I doubt it; you’d just get the taste for more. I’m not playing."
At this juncture I had for the first time realised that the average bobby on the beat is an idiot, someone who spends such a large proportion of their lives dealing with the criminal element that they are no longer able to distinguish it from the lawful. Bullied at school and in search of respect, they are drawn to the profession for all the wrong reasons. Billy Connolly used to say that anyone who wants to be become a politician should by virtue of that very fact, be barred from ever becoming one, and I believe the same is true of the Police. We must question the motives of anyone who wishes to join the Police, and I think deep down in our hearts, we all do. (And I know a few of you out there will be thinking, ’thats a bit harsh, they do a very difficult job and I’m sure they are very nice, well adjusted people. For you I have just two words, ’Traffic Cop’. QED)
At this point a discovery was made in the upstairs flat, and a messenger arrived to convey the news.
"What’s all that upstairs then?" asked the female officer picking cautiously through my dirty linen.
"I don’t go upstairs, that’s Andy’s flat. I live down here, that’s why the door was locked and I’m in my pants."
"You’re still pissing us about sonny Jim; you’re not telling me you haven’t noticed the smell?"
Jesus Christ I thought, Andy hasn’t died up there has he? Oh Jesus fucking Christ no.
"What’s this then?" And in her outstretched hand, she held out before me a bag of yellowy crystalline substance.
"How do you explain this?"
I couldn’t explain it, I had no idea what it was, but I had seen it before, once; during a clandestine trip up the stairs in search of tobacco. All hell broke loose at this point and all caution towards my personal belongings was thrown to the whistling wind. Two more officers joined the search in my room, and reinforcements arrived to search the kitchen and communal areas. At regular intervals I would be pulled into neighbouring rooms to explain suspect items, items that on the whole would prove to be entirely innocent, but you try telling that to a pig with a hard-on. And so it was that I found myself explaining the difference between white and black pepper, the origins of my house-plants, the presence of aspirins in the bathroom cabinet and the contents of empty plant pots. It became Python esq in its absurdity, and anything that bore the slightest resemblance to anything even remotely illegal was bagged up and taken away for testing. The white pepper of which I spoke was even in its branded packaging, and the aspirins in their blister packs, but the plant pots however, were a mystery to me as much as them. They were in the north room of the top flat, and I was taken to them to explain their purpose. As we stood and looked at the pots in the blue light of the morning, I could see no good reason for them being there, but I saw nothing suspicious in the fact that they were, unlike my uniformed friends, who seemed to see in them something worth investigating.
"I have no-idea what they are or what they are for" I said
"So if we have a look in that soil, were not going to find any… seeds?" Came the sarcastic reply.
"Well you might." I said "Is that bad?"
By this time, the invaders had run out of rubber gloves and bags, which considering the volume of useless crap they had confiscated was not surprising. I watched as the un-gloved officers sifted the soil in search of illegality, slowly crumbling each handful of earth with meticulous care.
"Why is the soil wet if you’re not growing anything?"
"I didn’t say I wasn’t growing anything, I said they are not mine and I don’t know anything about them"
On they searched, determined to find that which they believed to be there.
They found nothing in the pots, and they found nothing of enough substance to justify arresting me on the day. So they packed up the vans, and disappeared into the morning sun, leaving me sat amongst the chaos caused by their visit. All areas of the building had been ransacked, and the contents tossed into the centre of rooms - as one would do before decorating, only with much less care and attention - and every door in the property was hanging limp off its hinges.
I never saw my white pepper again, and it felt more like a burglary than anything else I have ever experienced. That yellowy crystalline substance turned out to be exactly what they thought it would be; it was Amphetamine Sulphate, or Speed. It transpired that Andy from the mysterious attic flat had been manufacturing large quantities of the stuff up there and selling it around town. A few weeks previous, the police had put an undercover officer wthin Badgers to keep an eye on his movements, and Andy did not disappoint. Not only had he apparently been knocking the stuff out in a hopelessly indiscreet manner, but he had even tapped up the undercover officer for custom, and at that point that his fate was sealed.
Ever since this event I have viewed the Police through suspicious eyes, I am reluctant to report crime and want as little to do with these power crazed Nazi’s as is humanly possible. They lost my support on that day, and they lose hundreds more every day of the week with their heavy handed and slap-happy execution of business. In the ten years since this event, the respect that people perhaps had for the police force has dissipated so much as to render any relationship between the enforcers and those they enforce upon moribund. The lack of respect between them and the community at large is down to the laws they are enforcing and the way that they are enforcing them. They prowl the streets in pairs looking for easy collars to bump up their statistics, and anyone of us could be next. The targets that the government have set the Police mean that policing has now become a numbers game. Did you know for example, that if a Policeman stops a chav in the street, and discovers a spliff about his person, he can write him a fixed penalty notice slap his hand and send him on his way, and that counts in the statistics as a solved crime. So you can see that it’s much easier for an officer to hang around the town centre on Friday nights catching people relieving themselves down ally’s, than to get embroiled in any of that tedious solving of crime. Combine that with our already draconian drug laws and what we have created is a nation that feels constantly under suspicion, criminalised by their lifestyles or any foolish act, and once you have pointed the angry finger of suspicion at someone once, you will have forever lost their trust and respect...
Epilogue
There is a ray of light at the end of this story which allows me to look back on this event with a wry smile, and I suppose a sense of revenge. Do you remember the plant pots, the ones that were inexplicably wet but contained no seeds? Well I later discovered their purpose; they had been placed there as an aid to self relief. You see, Andy found it quite a trek to the toilet from the top of the building, and had devised a way to store large quantities of urine without any of the smell. He would fill large plant pots with soil, and when the need arose, he would piss into them. The soil soaked up the moisture, and some organic process or other dealt with the smell, every other week he would change the soil and start all over again, and it is that which makes me smile as I write this. The image of Lincolns finest on their hands and knees, sifting the urine laced soil with un-gloved hands...some feelings my friends, are beyond description.
Leeson
]]>I had been invited to my first eviction party on Victoria Terrace in the West end of Lincoln. The sort of event legend said had the potential to get a out of hand. The general premise of an eviction party, for those of you not familiar with such occurrences, is that the hosts have for one reason or another been asked to leave their dwelling by some tyrannical landlord demanding rent or other such outrage, and said landlord has now been deemed a worthy target for some kind of vengeful act. So, the word would go out that an eviction party was to be held at the address, and that all comers were welcome to help themselves to any of the furniture, fixtures and fittings that may take their fancy. There were also very few rules regarding the guests, and any of the other goings on that were to occur. In fact the general idea was to bring as much chaos and destruction upon the property as was reasonably possible by human hand, and it was in this capacity that members of the Freelancers Bike Club had been invited on this occasion.
Now, I had had experiences with the freelancers on a few previous occasions, as they were staunch regulars within the Badgers set, and could often be found upstairs after hours amongst the mayhem and the calamity of the early hours, very often being at the centre of both. I recall one particular event with crystal clarity, as it is etched into the synapses of my memory. I had retired to my room after a nights excess, when from the kitchen across the landing I began to hear the strangled noise of sexual activity. I sat for a moment in my bed-sit room, contemplating the sounds of some other mans success, and I became curious. The girl seemed to be shouting something in an excited manner, over and over, something I could not quite make out. I moved towards the door, but still couldn't quite make it out, so I decided to walk in on them in an accidental manner, just to see if she was alright you understand. I felt responsible for the goings on in my kitchen, I am the same to this day, I like to know where things are and so forth. I took with me a mould filled mug to give the impression that I was in search of a beverage, and I stormed in through the large oak door, and was immediately confronted by a scene of such jaw dropping obscenity, that I became paralysed with shock.
Stretched out before me on a hastily prepared pasting table, set up over an antiquated twin-tub for stability, lay a naked party guest, surrounded on all sides by a group of horny hairy Herberts, each of them wanking furiously while the aforementioned party guest screamed "I love the Freelancers! I love the Freelancers!"
I have no deep metaphorical reason for burdening you with this image, I simply use it as an example of the kind of debauched anarchy that one can expect when mixing with some of the biker gangs. I would like to tell you that the mug fell from my hand and smashed on the floor, shattering the silence. But it didn't, and there was no silence, they just carried on, with pirate-like grimaces on the thier faces.
As I arrived at Victoria terrace that evening, I was greeted by the sight of a party that was spilling into the street. There seemed to be plenty of nonsense taking place already, which is always a good thing in the circumstances. I snuck down the side passage, and round to the kitchen door. Kitchens have always been the engine room of a party, for reasons that I have never fathomed, this is where the best of things take place, and this party was no exception. Bubbling away on the stove was a gigantic saucepan of mulled wine, being dolled out to all and sundry by a strikingly tall ginger haired Goth girl, and everybody had a cup. I drafted a few of these brews and began doing the circuit of the rooms, seeing where the fun was to be had and what the lady's had to offer. Everywhere I went some sort of DIY vandalism was taking place, for which the Freelancers had come prepared. They could be seen knelt down beside any fixture or fitting with all the tools required to remove it in a usable condition. All of these retrieved items were then transported to a waiting trailer in the street outside. As I climbed the stairs they were extracting the banister rail from its housing and passing it down the line to the trailer, and they seemed to me to resemble Goblins or Trolls, scurrying about with their ill-gotten booty and grunting at each other in exited tones.
At the top of the stairs there was a room to the right that had not yet been stripped containing a double bed and nothing else, I went inside and lay down. My head was spinning with ideas, and the alcohol was making me dizzy. I began saying out loud to myself all the things that were swimming round in my head, and I would put on silly voices as I did so. I didn't feel right that was for sure. After what seemed like an age alone in this room, with it's bare light bulb and peeling wallpaper, I had worked myself up into a panicked frenzy. Convinced that I had drunk to much booze and that I would never be sober again, I had come to terms with the fact that I was in fact dying, up here in this lonely room. It came as a great relief when at the doorway there appeared the face of a friend. "Larry" I said "Come and hold my hand, I'm dying you see"
He dutifully did as asked, and as he sat cross legged at the edge of the bed, he let me talk my confused talk, just listening. Then, when I had finished, he calmly explained to me that I was having a bad mushroom trip.
It turned out, that the yuletide brew that was on offer in the kitchen had been laced with liberty caps picked that very day on the south common. If I had known I would have understood what was happening, maybe come to terms with the effects better, but I had not been expecting a magic carpet ride that night, I thought it was all real. As soon as I realised I felt invincible, I was in control again, and just then the Goblins arrived with their tool-kits in hand to strip the room. When they realised they had a shroom virgin on their hands they were ecstatic with joy. They started buzzing round me like bee's and whispering in my ears to try and get me spooked, but now I knew the truth I was safe. I have never had a difficulty in distinguishing the effect from the reality, and I simply used the intoxication to my benefit, I just zoned out and hallucinated myself to distraction.
This seemed not to bother the Trolls, and as they grew tired of teasing me they devised themselves a game. They rolled me up in the mattress from the bed, and took turns hurling me against the wall. I forget the finer points of the game, and am not sure how the points system worked, as I was having the time of my life. Inside this mattress cocoon was actually quite a safe place to be, and I have often wondered if this was something of a tradition in biker circles, and that the mattress was always employed in this capacity as a safety device. Anyhow, the practical upshot of which is that my first experience of mind altering substances was one of unrivalled absurdity. I don't remember what went though my mind exactly, but I can say without a hint of exaggeration, that I was flying that night…
Leeson
]]>His first words to me were, "Is this your fucking cheese?"
He was wearing only his pants as he knelt down in front of the fridge, and as he stood to face me, I could see that he was holding two forks, between which he had impaled a block of Co-Op Everyday Cheddar.
"Is this your fucking cheese?" he asked again, more despairingly than angrily.
"Yes, that's my cheese" I said, "Would you like some?"
"I don't eat cheese" he replied "And I don't have it in the house"
"Fine" I said, "Look, I'm sorry if it's freaked you out, I didn't know. I can live without cheese, its fine"
And with that he had opened the sash window with his foot and was throwing the Cheddar, forks and all, out of the window. I ventured further into the kitchen and joined him at the window, looking forlornly down at where the cheese had fallen. Cheese was a premium item to me in those days, and my sudden loss had hit me rather hard, where was my mum I wondered, she'd know what to do. Bellow us was a sealed courtyard, but not sealed as in locked up, rather non-accessible due to the hotchpotch way that buildings had sprung up around it. If you fell from this window, the only way back would be if someone threw you a line from this window. I made a note not to fall out of this window, and offered my housemate a light for the roll up stub that hung from the corner of his mouth.
We talked for a while at the window, me in my battered leather jacket, army boots and fetid dreadlocked hair, and him in his pants and a flat cap. I remember I thought he had the look of a naked Andy Cap about him.(an 80's character in the comic Viz) His teeth were rotted to mostly brown stumps in his gums, only occasionally making a brief appearance from behind his tight lips, and once the pleasantries were dispensed with, he disappeared back up to his top floor hideaway, and I to my single bed-sit room on the 1st. Hours later, I found myself out of tobacco and in need of a smoke. Remembering that roll up stub between 'Andy's' lips earlier that day, I made my way to the attic flat, and in the darkness I crept carefully, and one at a time I made my way up those unfamiliar steps, always running one hand along the wall in search of the light switch.
"Andy? No reply
"Andy?"
No reply… But I had no idea of the layout of the upstairs flat, and the sitting room could well have been out of earshot, so I pressed on into the shadows until I reached a door around which there was a halo of light emitting from the room within. Taking a deep breath I knocked confidently on the door and waited. Nothing, so I pushed lightly at the handle to see if it might pop open lightly enough to seem accidental. No joy…
I was just about to give up, when I noticed light streaming through a fine crack running horizontally across the grain of the door, and I pressed my nose to the gloss finish, and peered inside.
I could make out a brightly lit room with heavy low wooden beams, and around the walls of the room I could see the furniture, seemingly pushed back to make room for some sort of activity. Something messy I thought, as it all seemed to be wrapped in a protective layer of cling-film. Sofas, bureau, fire place, book shelves and coffee table, all coated with a hastily prepared layer of food wrap. Odd I thought.
Then, from a blind spot in my view of the room, there emerged a figure, naked except for some pants, a flat cap, and a pair of large padded headphones, the cord trailing behind him like a demons tail. He proceeded with caution towards the centre of the room, tentatively carrying a package at arms length. More cheese perhaps? Sitting down on the floor facing the door through which I was spying 'Andy' began to unfurl the bundle in his hands, and before long he was carefully moving the wrapping to one side leaving only a considerable pile of yellowish crystalline substance. My head was spinning as I considered the possibilities, and I began to make my way back down the creaking steps towards the landing. How many more terrors lay in wait for me in the dark corners of my new home I wondered, and what on Earth is this yellow stuff that requires the furniture to be covered in Cling-Film? There were secrets within these walls, in which I would soon become complicit. Though I did not yet know it, I was soon to be experiencing an entirely new and alien way of life, and I was never to be the same again because of it…
Leeson
]]>First we hit upon the idea of removing the floor-boards in my room to gain access to the bar below, and hence the beer fridge. Alas, we feared that the skills needed to execute such a manoeuvre were beyond us, so we turned our attentions to exploring the darker recesses of Badgers itself. Our first target was a mysterious cupboard with a locked door that, by our calculations, must have been about 4 meters by 4 meters in area. What could possibly be in there we thought? Something drinkable perhaps? A few hefty nudges later and we were inside, and my friend commenced the search of the interior.
Returning from within some moments later, my boredom crazed compadre was now sporting a Rabbits head, of the kind rented at fancy dress outlets. I was surprised and appalled, as the head was all but bald from mildew, and softened with decay. It was a truly horrific sight to behold, and as my friend stood there, with this rotting costume over his head, I caught sight of movement under the fabric of his T-shirt. As I noticed this, he began to convulse and contort as if in the throws of an epileptic siezure, only a seizure this was not. And as if in slow motion I began to notice many tiny insect-like creatures scurrying from the base of the rabbits head, and all the while my comrade frantically tried to pull the fetid artical from his head, sceaming at this primeval terror he had unleashed. Finally he pulled the smelling helmet from about his person and flung it the length of the landing, padding down his clothes as his breathing began to return to normal.
We retired to the kitchen to take stock of the situation.
What had we disturbed in there? This was afterall an old building, with rumours of the hanging corspe of a previous landlord once found in the celler and dodgy goings on in the attic flat. So armed with deodorant cans, fly spays and tightfitting clothing, we ventured out onto the landing once more...to meet the neighbours.
Upon returning to the cupboard, we became convinced we could hear the rustling of insect limbs against the walls and the floors, a sickly pulsating wave of alien noise, and our hearts began to pound faster against our heaving chests. Slowly, and with infinite caution, we rounded the corner and faced our fear...
The sight that greeted us was one of total infestation, the bowls of an ancient central heating system were torn open before us, and a hive of what could only have been tens of hunderds of cockroaches teemed within, like a moving sea of brown shimmering wing casings they lay before us, writhing in the darkness. Out-numbered and ill equiped, we slammed shut the door, forcing shattered pieces of door frame under the gaps between the floor and the door. Desperatly we tried to put this horror out of sight and out of our minds, but eveywhere we looked that night we saw a scuttling flash of shimmering brown, just out of sight, and on the periphery...
Neither of us wanted to retire to our beds that night, beds which we now knew lay only meters away from a hive we had so unwittingly disturbed. And so darkness finally fell on Badgers that night in 1997, leaving all the residents disturbed in one way or another...
Leeson
]]>