Part 4: The Death Of Mr Harrow

I’ve walked through this alley a million times. Surrounded by the flats of a real big size. Souls inside with a million sighs. Sleeping next to the ‘help with this murder’ sign. It was Tracey’s kid but it could have been mine.

I don’t believe in races stereotypes, but they hanged him from the laces of his banged up Nikes. Black boys out looking for a fight. When he gave it he paid the ultimate price. He was a good guy, always nice and polite. Stood up for himself and his friends in life.

I’m standing just by the flats where they killed him. It was knocked down soon after replaced with a council building. It used to be a derelict hut that the kids used to go in. Smash up the windows with stones, record noises on their phones and set them as their ring-tones.

As I walk up to near my house, I see a gang of black boys in the distance. Them coming towards me can pause me. My own subconscious can force me to believe that I foresee the beef, foresee these thieves, foresee the reefs by my coffin as my mum weeps. I can face this. Walk away and I’m racist. Step a few more paces, I know what this place is. Know the way out of all the mazes. Haven’t played man-hunt in ages but know where the cage is.

I can feel them breathing on my tongue. It’s not too late I can turn around and run. But I keep on walking, get closer I can hear them talking. Screeching and laughing. Preaching and barking. Tense up, prepared for them starting.

But they walk past me. I don’t look back and I carry on my journey. Get home early.
Thinking about how I judged them too easy. A black gang and alarm bells rang. That’s bang out of order. I’ve got black mates and ought to know better. Check in on my mum in the kitchen someone’s upset her, she’s on the phone bitching. I look at the cinema listings Chips & Dips on a friends date, Orange Wednesday. Forget what people in the ends say. I did the right thing, brought her back in. Had to so I knew what was happening.

I didn’t believe it, hope that you read this. The epiphany was our kiss and your picture. And she needed to be in the game so you could see that I picked ya. Jokingly ripped ya. Wanted you to fall for me but never wanted to trip ya. Never wanted to trick ya

She’s now offering me everything I wanted back then. But life has happened and things change. She was a chapter but I’ve turned the page. No weakness or shame. Hate or blame. In my head only one face one name. Every night. Every day. I can be hurt by the truth but not killed. Only events that are not real kill me. Don’t waste my time and life keep it real really. Not listening to you were mine nearly. Never meant to be clearly.

But Social net-working is hurting. See the girl flirting with *******. Facebook, Twitter I’m certain. Let it go Mr Harrow. Walk away, narrow escape. Have you got what it takes not to get your heart raped? Be a mate. You got bigger things on the horizon. Look her in the eyes and be wise now. The time has come to say your goodbyes now.

[Every time I look into the mirror I think to myself. This is it. This is your face my friend. Don’t pretend to be another guy. Those wrinkles and the twinkles in your eye. How you mingle and are the single most funniest soul on the go. Are they laughing at you? Or with you? If you were gone would they forget soon or miss you? At your funeral hand the girls a tissue. Wish you were dead. Was the last thing we said to him. We’ll always remember him. Did he live? He lived some kind of life alright, but different I guess. Always realised he was just a guest and never owned anything or any person. Did he get everything off his chest knowing there’s no reversing. No time machine for maybes. Take risks. Tick off the boxes on the things to do before you die list. Embarrassed? Don’t go red if you fail. Are you cringing? Start the engine this is finishing.]

[This is the fucking cunt that I’m talking about, out here in the world. Ask some questions give suggestions. This happened because of that. Or can stereotyping save a life? The broken bones are here from when I was young, that blood on the curb is from my knee. I didn’t go to the hospital I just let it bleed, and made sure the girls could see me. Put on a façade so I could look hard but I was in agony. I’ve got the scar here for you to see. The right leg. Ask me. That spray painted goal on the wall is my art, my name scribbled into a love heart. That’s me in your sheets. That is also my face in your photograph, can’t smile nor laugh on cue. I’m laughing here because I was with you. Who?]

This is me in my best coat, it’s well old and you know. The same jeans because I only have one pair. I don’t like jeans. Surprise surprise another crime scene. Get out of the way for the ambulance but it doesn’t beep me. Creepy old man standing on the edge of the street looks right through me at the kid who does a skid on his feet. Check my watch and I’m running late. Police have cornered of the alley great. Try to slip through without making it bait. Sweet as a nut they haven’t clocked. The policeman hasn’t looked. Should make it. Check my watch again but it’s the same time, must be broken I hate it. Here’s my phone take it? What?

I’ve walked through this alley a million times. Surrounded by the flats of a real big size. Souls inside with a million sighs. Police have put up a ‘help with this murder’ sign. I look down at the body and I realise, that I’m looking deep in to my… own eyes.

Valentines Day

The opening line of this piece of writing is going to be ‘My brother is upstairs having sex with his girlfriend’. So if you are of a nervous disposition or reading this while tucking into your Rice Krispies then I apologise now if you choke them up all over your computer screen.

My brother is upstairs having sex with his girlfriend. I’ve just had a vision of myself making a confused face as dust from the ceiling sprinkles on to my head, just before the whole thing comes crashing down on me. Picture it? It’s 2 O’clock in the morning on Valentines Day. I’m sitting here talking to one friend on Facebook, watching the news and cooking sausages. I feel a bit, of what appears to be the ceiling, crumble and softly float and land on my head. I wipe it off. I then put my hand out, and catch some of this floating rubble as it sprinkles down on to my laptop. I make the confused face. I look up. The ceiling caves in and I’m left buried underneath my naked brother and his girlfriend.

This is what I’ve become Ladies and Gentlemen. My younger brother is upstairs having sex, while I’m sitting downstairs holding my sausage watching the news. If my conquests could only see me now. Me, the Alfie of Harrow, sitting down on Valentines Day all alone, not even bothering to try and get some random girl around my house to fornicate with. If the 16 year old me could see the 22 year old me now, he would of definitely beaten me up and put a concoction of toothpaste and beer all over my face while I was out cold. Then topped it off by covering my corpse with Minnie Cheddars and a selection of different flavoured crisps. God I was such a laugh.

It’s either wisdom, or laziness that now prevents me from going out on Valentines Day with anyone but the main person that I want to go out with. Forking out my hard earned money on someone that I’m only being seen in public with because I can’t go out with girl that I want to most. No Thanks. I know what you’re thinking ‘James Gunn can’t get the girl that he wants!!!?’. And you’re right, there must be something wrong… with THEM.

I’m buying into Valentines Day though. It’s a good day. I like dishing out a rose or two every year to put a smile on someone’s face. Nothing wrong with participating in an occasion that’s put aside to celebrate something as nice and beautiful as love. I’m not purchasing into the idea that it’s just a commercial money-maker. Neither am I getting involved in self loathing. ‘Oh I haven’t got a girlfriend, this is the saddest day of the year, someone shoot me in the mouth’. Give me a break.

It’s not ‘I hate my life day’. There’s a scale that goes from Zero to Zero of people who care about your poor me Facebook status. Especially boys, just lay of the gimpy status’s about how Valentines Day is going to be crap. Get off your computer and do something about it. ‘Ohhh Valentines Day is so crap when you’re not in a couple, I’m going to kill myself’. Kill yourself then.

This day doesn’t have to be overlooked just because you’re not going out with someone. It should surely be enjoyed. Get somebody a rose, or a packet of love heart sweets. Give them to anybody you love, a family member or a friend. Let somebody know that you care about them. I’m not going to do that, but it’s an idea for you. I’ve got much better things to do. Like go out clubbing and annoy girls until they have no choice but to get with me. I mean a good annoying though. Not like a rape annoying.

I could babble on about all these cringing people who have a different boyfriend or girlfriend every year and still throw around ‘I Love You’, like it’s a paper aeroplane. Easy to make but when it gets going it comes apart and you start to make a new one. No-one ever rebuilds the one that crashes do they?

We all know those girls who have waited their entire life to have a boyfriend, and as soon as they do they get to work on acting like every other girlfriend that has ever lived. They’ve always wanted the flowers, the attention, to be able to write ’I love you baby’ as their Facebook status. They’ve always wanted to behave like everyone else has done while they have had to stand by and watch. Their time has come to be the girlfriend. So let them.

Or I could annoy myself by talking about all these people in phoney relationships. With boyfriends cheating on girlfriends and girlfriends only going out with boyfriends because they’re lonely and can’t get the person who makes them happiest. Relationships based on sex & not truth and the clichéd couples who do everything that they were once told to do by a book or a couple they once watched live a life. Or the boy that is quite happy to know that his girlfriend doesn’t think he’s the best but he doesn’t care because he’s so in love. Or the girl who feels safe…but never laughs. I won’t talk about them, because they already know who they are.

I’m going to enjoy this day. It’s sunny out. I’m going to buy a rose aswell, like I did in the days when I didn’t take everything so seriously. I might not be brave enough to give it to someone and say ‘here, here’s a rose I bought, but it has more meaning behind it because I like you, and this symbolises my feelings’. But I’ll give it to someone and say ‘here, have this rose, because you’re fit and I want to get with you’. Or ‘here, have this rose, just because, you were around me and I can’t be bothered to hold it anymore, and you look like you would be quite happy walking around with it’. There’s so many reasons in my head right now why I could give someone a rose today, that I’m going to have to go down the road and buy loads of them. Although I have a terrible feeling that I’m going to end up looking like one of those Bulgarian pikeys that bug you outside nightclubs on holiday.

Not The Man I Am

I’m not even going to bother asking if you know about those times when you’re casually browsing Facebook or Twitter and you see something that makes your spine shiver with sadness. The paranoia at someone’s status or a wallpost. Or the worst of the worst, when some you like is tagged in a picture looking far too close to someone else. Or the worst of the worst of the worst, when some you like is tagged in more than one picture looking far too close to someone else. Or the complete heartbreaker. When someone you like is in the background of a picture that they’re not even tagged in, looking far too close to someone else.

I have to laugh at this. I know it happens. I swear I must have been a victim before. I might be a victim of this right now, and it has led me to have to write about it. But victims we all are. Our own inability not to look for sadness makes me laugh. Because don’t get it twisted. When you go browsing, you want to find something that is going to make you sad. You’re not looking for a picture of nothing going on. You’re not looking for a picture where you can’t create some kind of story in your head that is going to make you upset. So you’re actually looking for sadness!

I know you all love when I do ask you if you ‘know about those times’. So here goes.

Who knows about those times, when you’re on Facebook or Twitter & you see a status or a Tweet from the person you like, and you think it’s about you. Or maybe deep down you know it’s not about you, but you want it to be. Why do you want it to be? Because your status’s and tweets are always directed at them? But in your heart, you know that their lovey dovey moany status is about someone else. And that can hurt. Can’t it? You tell me.

Or those times, when you see on Facebook or Twitter that the person you like has actually mentioned the persons name they like in their status or Tweet. And you sit there, looking all glum, and just think ‘THAT IS SO CRINGE’. Then you think to yourself, actually, you do that in your status’s & tweets about them. And it is cringe.

You ones hiding behind a pillow reading this are the people that know what I’m talking about. When you have one stupid off the cuff joke or moment with the person you like. AND BANG. It goes in your status. They probably don’t even think your conversation or moment was that big of a deal. But because it means so much to you, it gets blown out of all proportion and before you know it, you’ve gone and written a bloody status or tweet about it.

I know, it must be hurtful sometimes, to think that you’re on Facebook chat, or texting the person you like, and they’re taking ages to reply. As you sit there, having boring, pointless chats with other people, you really just want the person you like to message you back. Then you realise, to the person you like, you’re just the boring pointless chat that they’re having, and they’re sitting at home waiting for the person they like to reply to them.

It’s a never ending circle of sadness, and craziness. I can see it. And I grin. We all have those people who we know like us. And we keep them around, and we will text them and humour them. While we’re getting the same treatment from the person we like. We act like a prick to the one who loves us and we love the one who acts like a prick to us.

It’s complete and utter madness. But it is life and we wouldn’t have any other way. We would be bored, if there were no emotions. If we were never sad, then how are we going to know when we’re happy? Everyone does the same thing. We all play those games. ‘Lets use the person who likes us to make the person we like jealous’. They’re not going to be jealous. They don’t like you in that way. You’re the one they use, to make the person they like jealous. It’s that never ending circle of sadness and craziness. You’re in it!

You can use Twitter & Facebook as your sanctuary to let your emotions out through status’s and song lyrics that relate to your situation. But Facebook & Twitter are dangerous. They allow you to create a personality for yourself. You can become the person that you’re not. Even this blog, has turned me into not the man I am. People read it and think that this is me. It’s just words written down. It’s not a person. It’s not a soul.

Who knows about those times, when you care about somebody, and you think, as long as you live you could never care about someone as much as you do them. Then one day, it changes. Somebody walks into your life, and does something or says something that makes you happier than you ever were before. Then that’s the time, when you think, I could never ever ever care, about someone more than I do this person. Until you realise that this person doesn’t feel the same about you. What you going to do now? Surely if you couldn’t possibly care about someone more than them, then who ever you meet from now on, will always be second best. But then you remember. You thought that once before didn’t you? You’re always going to be wrong. Until the day when you’re not waiting for a reply on Facebook, or sitting at home holding your phone wondering why there’s no text message. Until the day when you haven’t got time to realise that other people like you, and until the day when you realise you haven’t been browsing Facebook or Twitter because you’ve been far too busy being happy.