His Life Was His Gift

My friend would read Balzac and discuss philosophy in great detail. He would do odd things like take the last train to Birmingham New Street and then ring me and say 'we could spend our lives in love'. He was a fusion, it was amusing if only for a little while.

I hadn't known him very long, he was three years older than me and always quite cool at school.Hiding behind that floppy fringe of his. He had his first job before me digging graves in Finchley I think it was. He took his first sacking before I even had the chance to get in Francesca's knickers. He appears lost now, for a lifetime evaporated into some river of one of his minds that couldn't let go, he never could let go. You see that was his problem, 'where are you taking me'? I would politely ask, my lips pressed tight together. Oh, I forgot to mention, we spoke with our eyes.

He fell from the sky and has yet to land, yet to place his hat. He just utters very few words like 'Every 70's punk song has the answer', followed by 'I'll tell you in the morning'. The rags around his mind were torn forgotten guilts of youth cults, forgotten grooves, visions and unprintable politics with the odd comment on high art and Guardian film reviews. He had two main loves, Oscar Wilde and Aldershot Football Club. His life was his gift, his black leather bomber jacket was his anarchy. He was never a tearaway although I did witness him getting into a few scrapes on the terraces of his beloved.

He was as black as heaven and up until recently lived next to my Aunt Maggie in the White City Estate in a tenement presented so unlovingly like a knifegash in the sky headbutting the clouds. It reclaimed the colonies for the local benefits agency. From his window he could see Nottingham Forest's County Ground and as a child he would sit on the windowsill groaning with the roars from the crowds.

I recall once sitting in his flat drinking an arrangement of different tea's and he talked about Plato, the french revolution, the Notting Hill riots and Marks & Spencers. He knew a lot about nothing in particular. He took me to church then we went joyriding through Fulham in a dark coloured Peugeot. Speeding out of our ears he whispered 'It's quiet today on the roads' not audible above the Rolling Stones playing on the cassette player. I'll never forget the sweet sour smoke pumping out the perfume of Old Holborn clouding everything, re-arranging my brain.