The Schizo-Stroller

I’ve joined a creative writing group. Here is a sample. The remit of the exercise was to create a character you find morally reprehensible and write about him/ her sympathetically:

I fall out of the pub, the breath of fresh air waking me from the thick fog of smoke caused by the fact that the landlord is too scared to stop anyone smoking. I hear Mandy shout after me ‘Fuck off you bastard!’ I laugh, fucking slag! I wouldn’t have her anyway she’s probably got something off someone in there; I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole. She’s got lovely tits though.

I stagger a bit then get my bearings. That way! I walk to the left, nooo! That way! My legs get in control again and I start heading up the hill. I feel pumped, alive and pissed. It feels good. I see some Chinese or Japanese, students across the road, I leer over towards them ‘Engerla-and! Engerla-and!’ They look at me confused. What? Can’t they fucking speak English, wankers! What do they come here for if they can’t speak English?

I carry on up the road; a group of kids come down the road toward me, gangly little fucks. I tense up, they’re taking up the road, I’m not fucking moving. I brace my shoulders, push my chest out and stick my chin up. I’m not budging for these little shits. I stare the biggest one out but he’s not looking at me. Look at me you bastard! I try to will him, but he’s talking to his friend. Look at me! None of them are looking this way, they’re oblivious, look at me you cunts! I scream in my head, but they don’t care, they’re too interested in each other. They’d better notice me; if they bump into me I’ll fucking have ‘em. Come on, come on! I’m going to have yaaa! At the last moment they see me and part like the Nile. That’s right, make way, ya fucking pussies, they know a hard bastard when they see one. Ha Ha! I walk down the street chanting ‘Eeeasy! Eaeeasy!’ In my head.

I lurch a bit more, steady myself and then throw up. That’s better, I feel clearer now, purged. The gentle breeze feels cold against my face, my hands feel clammy. I must have been sweating. The hill is getting steeper, I must be getting unfit. I put my hands out in a Jesus pose, tilt my head back, breathing in the air. It feels good to be alive. I stagger a bit again and then shout ‘Wankers!’ at the blank houses with their lights on and curtain pulled. I’m out here you fuckers. Come see me! And I’ll see you.

I see a couple walking towards me, the man sees me and pulls his girlfriend closer to him. What’s he do that for? Am I some kind of cunt or something? He’s checking me out, he tenses. I start salivating, a grin coming to my face. Check out this wanker. I walk towards them in the middle of the pavement, watching them. They’re not going to have enough room to get by; I’ll see what they do. We get closer to each other; they’re practically on top of each other trying to squeeze past me. As we go past I shoulder barge him. ‘Motherfucker!’ I hear him mutter. ‘What did you fucking say? Cunt!’ I wheel round, snarling. ‘Nothing’ the guy says eyes wide. Everything speeds up. ‘What? You think I fuck my mother do you. Well, I’m going to fuck you now!’ I feel metal in my mouth, I’m shaking hard, I have no control, I watch as my right fist slams into his face just above his right eye. I think, try covering that up with sunglasses tomorrow you fuck! My left fist moves straight out in front of me, slamming into his nose, a splatter of blood sprays over his upper lip. My right foot comes up and slams into his leg just above the knee. He falls to one knee, crying out. I grab his hair, and pull his head down as I raise my knee to meet his face, fast. He falls completely to the ground and rolls up into the foetal position, covering his unprotected vulnerable parts. I become aware of a loud screaming. My hearing comes into focus like your ears pop when you take off in a plane. I look up. The girl is screaming at me ‘Stop it! Stop it! You bastard! Leave him alone!’ I step over the fallen man and lurch towards her, I stoop over her; she stops screaming and looks at me, trembling. ‘What you with him for? eh? You want a real man!’ I lean over her waiting for an answer, the semblance of a thought coming into my head. I turn away thinking better of it. I’m in enough trouble as it is. I kick the prone man in the back as I walk past. Moving away, my pace getting quicker, muttering ‘cunts, fuckers, cunts’ under my breath. My hands are clenched at my sides, my arms pointing straight down as I march up the hill. My steps getting faster, as my muttering gets more frenetic. I can feel blood rushing through my veins, the sound of my heart beat beating in my head. Da Dum Da Dum. I turn the corner into my road, as I get to the steps of my house, I’m not sure if I trip or fall. I’m on my knees, choking. I feel something wet trickle down my cheek. I get up, taking the keys out of my pocket. It was his fault, you saw the way he was looking at me, I say to that omnipresent witness. He was asking for it. I couldn’t have done anything else. He said I fucked my mother. I never fucked my mother. How dare he, the bastard!

I get the door open and go inside. The cat comes up to me, I pick it up to stroke it. It bites me. ‘Fucking shit!’ I cry, throwing the cat against the wall. It howls and runs away to cower somewhere in another room. I collapse.

I have a moderately large record collection. In my more idiotic moments I imagine bequeathing my collection to my as yet unborn son. Amusingly enough had my child been sexed as a girl I had fantasies of her becoming a famous philosopher like Hannah Arendt, in fact there is a high likelihood that she would have been called Hannah (yes, my partner agreed to the name although not for the same reasons). However it is most likely to be a boy and although I am perfectly aware of the fact, and in all truthfulness, need for a child to find their own path, I have a sneaking desire for him to become a music lover.

I am a vinyl junkie, but without the funds I would desire for hoarding a vast collection, I get most of my music by downloading, on the proviso that if I come across something that I’m really taken with, I’ll go out and buy it on record or CD. Yes I still buy vinyl, yes you can still buy new releases, no, not mainstream artists, yes that could feasibly make me a music geek, but if that’s the case I’m proud of it. I find vinyl particularly amenable, not just in a fetishist way, I’m not trying to reify it here, but I find for the most of the music I like, rock or some guitar based music being the exception, the sonic qualities are superior. Reggae, hip hop and dance especially it is for the warmth of the bass, it seems somewhat innocuous that I listen to electronic music, music that has been made digitally, on vinyl because its analogue nature makes it warmer. But what is not innocuous is that desire for a warm musical sound perhaps stems from an escape from the alienation of the rawer, mechanistic sounds of life that seem to be more prominent on CD. Ironic as electronic dance music is perhaps the musical form of modernity.

            So, hold on, the more observant may ask, why on earth are you downloading? Mp3s are such poor quality, by their very nature they are compressed thus automatically poorer in quality, if you crave the warmth of music surely they are harsher? Well the answer is yes, that is all true and the short answer as to why I am downloading is I am an addict, with all the connotations of consumption that entails, and to fund my addiction I am stealing. The long answer is somewhat more complex. I am doing it for ideological reasons. Seriously.

            I’m from the pre-Generation X generation, those called Thatcher’s children and as much as the nations taste mongers would have us believe that doesn’t all mean blind consumers, strikes such as the current post office one were prevalent, protesting wasn’t cool but it happened just as much, except we weren’t anti-globalisation protestors we were the loony left. And we remember the warnings plastered across the much prized albums we ran home with after school: ‘Home Taping Is Killing Music’ resplendent with a skull and cross bones in the form of a cassette. Yet that is how we found out about music outside the official music press, home made fan-zines were another way just as music blogs are today. We passed each other compilations made carefully on tapes as well as copying each other albums, what was called by the legal establishment as pirating, yet so common place it seems quaint to call it such.

            So what’s the difference between that and downloading? Well other than that it is possible amongst a far larger and more geographically vast community, nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. However the ideological bit comes along when we understand that, Adorno aside (and I’m a big fan), music has always been dictated by the rich. Mozart, Beethoven, their funds came primarily through commissions from well-off fans, other artists had rich patrons, as avant-garde as these patrons were it was still the taste of the propertied, the vernacular was folk music and for a long time it wasn’t recorded. The mechanisation of music via the record was a revolution music was available at home to anybody theoretically, although again in practice to those who could afford the music systems. But it did democratise things for a while, until the instrumental rationalisation of the market took over again and advertising took over and popular music was no longer a taste but a form. We were sold music as opposed to choosing it from an aesthetical point of view. In fact what has kept the breadth and diversity of musical forms alive has been the illegal exchange of music, combined with strategic buying of those forms we most like. The underground free improvised noise scene still exchange tapes, but for those not predilected to avant-garde deconstruction there’s downloading. Perhaps it can improve the aesthetics of our collective music tastes.

As for my vinyl collection, as more and more pressing plants close down due to economics I fear I will be leaving it to my son as an historical document. Unless of course there are some guerrilla vinyl pressers out there.

So Gordon Brown has followed Cameron’s policy and got rid of inheritance tax for the majority of voters. To be perfectly honest I’m quite happy about it, although it’s long overdue, not because I want to leave my son an inheritance, I don’t yet own a home, I don’t earn enough to get on one at the moment. In fact it would take getting an inheritance to help me afford one, although, and this is the crux so often avoided, that would entail someone close to me dying, not exactly a rosy prospect, so right now I’m happy renting. No, the reason I’m happy about it is now they can get on with actually coming up with some policies that might do some good. It always was a vote grabber when the Conservatives came up with it, it’s a vote grabber now Labour has done it, but now they’ve levelled the playing field. So let’s be done with it and come up with some solid policies.

            I was joking with a friend the other day, he said the reason British people don’t riot was that we own too many cars, it creates a docile society always trying to get ahead of someone else. I disagreed, I blamed home ownership, it’s a stabilising influence, if you are mortgaged up to the hilt the last thing you want to do is create a fuss, challenge any authority, you’ll lose the investment the largest you’ll probably ever own, nor challenge the economy, the house price might fall, what will you leave your children, the unreal ‘state of the world’ becomes less of a worry than that very real state of your mortgage. Look at France I said homeownership there is only 54% compared to the 69% in the UK. What’s more cars make great barricades in a riot.

            I’m interested in what policies do come about now that Gordon Brown has delayed an election and the battle of inheritance tax is over, result: a draw. I’m still not sure who to vote for if at all, I say if at all, as I am stuck in the quandary of who exactly represents me. We’re a representative democracy so surely someone who you vote for should represent you, but I am a true floating voter in the sense that I feel no party represents me, yet I believe as an exercise of political power, a vote is at least a statement. And so it has got me wondering, if you want to vote but no-one represents you, rather than not voting, where your statement is marked down as apathy, or spoiling your vote, again the intention is not clear, surely we should have a little box at the bottom that you can tick that states: ‘None of the above’. None of the above represents me. And if the vote winner, the first past the post, is just that then we should have a re-election with different candidates and different policies. Sod the cost, arguments that put economics above our democratic rights, it’s unworkable if everybody chooses that it would cost too much. If nobody represents us, then something is wrong that economics hasn’t solved. Although surely, economists are always talking about incentives, I can’t see a better incentive than the realisation that nobody wants to vote for you, perhaps we would get more representative policies.

            If I want to leave something for my son to inherit, then I think a government that would represents his interests is far more important than a house. And to be quite frank, if the government truly believes it represents our interests, then what does it have to hide?

As do many expectant fathers I wonder what world my new baby will be born into. What world are we creating with present fears such as climate change, GMOs, third world poverty, consumerism, the super-rich, as well as joys including greater global communication, the possibility of an increased knowledge of one anothers culture whether it be that of someone in Siberia or the Sudan, or your next door neighbour’s music taste or of one another’s beliefs whether religious, spiritual, post-metaphysical, political or fashion conscious.