The crack den across from my flat is finally up for demolition.
Walking past it this sunny evening, I observed a variety of different objects in its front yard.
To begin with, my eye was caught by the simple yet complex beauty of the spring-fresh flowers blooming in the overgrown yard, daisies laughing towards the sun and butterfly bushes flopping dozily at passersby.
The grass, largely concealed under the rubbish, was long, electric green. Nature knows not the concept of “wrong neighbourhoods”.
Among duller items like an unused roll of bubble wrap or a castaway glass coffee table, lay a kick drum from the nearby gospel church and a long pink wig, possibly worn by the sex workers – or were they slaves? - who had been using the building for their business. Or was it someone else’s business?
I half-expected to see human excrement but it may have been buried under the well-fertilised lawn.
The demolition men had set up a conference table and chairs just outside the entrance door, through which I recall watching members of the underworld passing day in and day out for various nefarious purposes.
On the day the developers had boarded it up, I remember hearing local junkies gossiping about it in their unmistakable, aggressive tone: “how are people supposed to get in there now? All their stuff’s in there!”
I wondered whether junkies really were constantly on edge or if, like the Russian language, simply sound pissed off to those who don’t speak it.
There was a tinge of humanity to that man’s exclamation of sympathy for the squatters who had lost access to their home. But they hadn’t lost access, they were just being more discreet about it. One of the doors was left uncovered and people were using it carefully, albeit more nefariously. I’m pretty sure I saw an old man accompanied by a younger one sneak into that yard one night for a blowjob.
One morning some men in balaclavas came out of there, body language hyper as could be. Upon hitting the high street, I walked through a small gathering of men of which one spoke on the phone: “phwoar man, it’d been months since I had some pussy … fifteen!”
The last word ominously echoed through my mind as I reached the train station unscathed.
I also once saw a hooker with a Picasso face walk angrily out of there with her large Polish client, clearly having been thwarted by the newly concealed entrance.
Another image that springs to mind was that of a man easing a rubbish bag, evidently filled with his belongings, through the first floor window on a string down onto the lawn days after the boarding-up. I was out on my porch smoking a joint that night, and I caught his eye. He glared at me and I nervously waved, to which he disappeared into the depths of the room. The paranoia that swept through me that night… well, I imagined only the worst – he knew I’d made them board up the building, he knew where I lived, he hated the comfortably homed, he’d vandalise my flat or beat up my partner or rape me …
What had driven me to the police for the first time in my life was waking up one morning to a furious crackhead screaming someone’s name and throwing rocks through the windows. He had been pacing like a wild animal in his black tracksuit and cap, aiming accurately at every single pane from 6 to 9a.m. as I shivered in fear that my building would be next. The angst of having purchased a flat so ill located next to such feral inhabitants wound my innards ever tighter.
Anyway, now they’re gonna pave paradise, and put up a parking lot.
