THIS INSANE LIFE WOULD MAKE A MAD STORY

1. ZAK VERSUS THE FUKKAS

"Wanker," some fuk said to him. In fact Zak very seldom wanked. He never had sex. He was trying to curb his desires. Celibacy was about the only category in which he scored any points in his quest for Buddhahood. And it wasn't as if he didn't get the offers. Nah, he didn't want the extra complications involved. He was a casualty of falling in love too easily. Casual sex disinterested him and he'd put his hand into the fire enough times to know that getting too close to anyone again would only burn him like those last times. Why was this fukka calling him a wanker then? Zak took this as an opportunity to practice his patience. He took a deep breath, counted to twenty three, then asked this person, "You speaking to me?" He didn't ask this menacingly- not like De Niro in Taxi Driver, but very calmly- casually even- out of vague interest. "Yes I'm speaking to you," growled this person now more resemblant to an ape, "So what are you gonna do about it?" Good question, Zak thought. He paused to consider his answer. This guy was big, and to be honest he didn't care to fight him. Sometimes in situations inaction was better than action, he realised. And so he answered, "Nothing at all." The guy looked baffled and had to take a brief pause in which to think things through himself before returning with, "What are you gonna do about this?" and a hard punch to Zak's face. Ow! His fist had impact, and Zak momentarily saw bright stars (Wow!) before stumbling backwards, falling- like in a dream (Far out...), and hitting the concrete floor with a thud. Just as he was coming to a steel toe capped boot caught him in his slowly opening eyes. And he passed back out into unconsciousness.

Days earlier Zak had been trying to make some money selling The Big Issue when he had encountered more hostility. If it wasn't physical aggression it was sneers and coldness. "Crazy person talking to himself!" he ended up screaming in frustration, "But he's also a human being trying to sell a magazine!" He'd given up after three hours with only one sale and two acknowledgments. Fuk this, he'd thought, I'd be better off robbing your houses. He would never really do this of course. He'd experimented with crime in the past but found this wasn't for him. Instead he would remain skint and be down about this- or rather the fact that one needed funds in this world when he had none. He wasn't up for shoplifting anymore and he had grown nauseous from blagging. At least he had a packet of Rizlas and a working lighter. He scooped a couple of cigarette dog ends up off the street. Man, I'm sick, so sick of this world, he thought whilst trudging back to his mouldy squat. He stopped to check the supermarket skips on the way to find that the thrown out food had been bleached and rendered inedible. Sick to death of this sick world, he continued thinking. The news awaiting him at the squat made him even sicker.

Dead? She couldn't be dead. It took a while to sink in. He'd kind of fancied her. But constantly denied it. She'd certainly been a good friend. And a squatting partner for almost a full year. "Who gave her the heroin?" were his first words when he could find any. The others shuffled about nervously- "Well we all got a load of it." Zak could not believe what he was hearing- "What were you thinking of? We all agreed: a no smack squat."

"It was a one off- you know- didn't expect this, like. Knew you wouldn't be into it."

"Well it has certainly proven to be a one off for Emily," Zak stated. The others continued to shuffle about nervously. For them- not Emily- life carried on. Was she really dead? Zak broke down and cried. He had loved her.

Love, not fear, thought Zak as he lay dying. Surely dying. His vision was blurry through his tears and his blood, and the sound around him was distorted. Was that tinny sirens? Was that paramedics coming through? Or more attackers? No fukkin' hell, it was aliens. The first to arrive was a grinning reaper donning a T Shirt with the slogan I Love Sirius who said "Zak, you're free. Your worst fear has been realised."

Earlier back still Zak had been very fearful. Ever since being told as a child that the superpowers that controlled the world had the power to destroy it at the drop of a hat. "How can this be?" he had asked his mum who had not known. "I don't know how this world has become the way it is," she had said to him. Most people had expected The Armageddon to have happened by now-1975 and the turning of the millennium two hotly tipped guesses for it. But no, life had gone on and on and on- Zak's own life as of not being allowed to be a child anymore a downward spiral into despair. He'd hated school- rejected the indoctrination- and resented his parents for forcing him to endure it. But with three younger siblings also present on the scene they'd probably been too busy putting food on the table to see what it was doing to him. He'd taken his anger out on them all the same (had to on someone!) and they had reacted to it in the only way that they had known (ie how they had been taught to react). This had been to punish him rather than seek to understand him and thus Zachariah their first born child had grown more isolated, more angry, and ever more fearful. He'd dreamed of massacring all the teachers and pupils in school assembly. He'd contemplated imaginative suicides. In college he'd discovered hippy drugs which had eased the suffering a bit (mellowed him out), but by the time he left there he was still fearful enough to be labelled an anxiety case and put on the sick. He wrote in the time on his hands- much of his writing a release. He'd made some friends by this time whom he could get stoned with. Things at home had not improved though. The connection between him and his parents seemed to have been severed. They loved him and he loved them, but (because of this probably) they had clashed like crazy. And so he had left the family home in London and moved to Brighton. Here he'd slept in carparks, shop doorways, and when it was warm enough, on the beach. He'd been hassled by drunken fukkas, fukkas that were fukkas without being drunk, her majesty's police force, and gay guys wanting to buy his arse. Luckily he had made friends quickly and found a bunch of good bods to squat with.

Drugs had always been prevalent in their squats, but the one drug they had all agreed to keep out of their home was heroin. In the five years Zak had been living in Brighton (these having flown) he had met more people than he could count on his fingers to have died and not come back from it. Others appeared to be dead whilst still breathing on it. Gouched out zombies hanging out for their next fix. It was an expensive escape, and some stole in order to pay for it. He'd tried it himself (both tooting it and jacking up) but found it wasn't for him. Now Emily, age nineteen, was the latest victim of it. She had not been a junkie. Her last had been her first time. "I'm sorry," mumbled Zak on shaking her father's hand at the funeral. The big man looked at him with tears in his eyes like he damn well should be. Zak felt like scoring some heroin himself afterwards, but instead settled for strong alcohol and cannabis. Drug psychosis was his latest label from the head shrinkers. They wanted him off the drugs he chose to take and only on theirs. The friends he knew who were on their ones were even more vegetablised than the heroin addicts- the life force stolen from them- clinically murdered. The most damaged of these had been institutionalised so the public couldn't see it. Zak had come close to being sectioned himself. Depersonalisation had been another of his labels. Apparently he was detached from reality.

He was being persecuted in his own home. OK it was a squat but he had been one of the people who had cracked it. Memories of Emily were sporadically touching him, then deeply paining him- and now he had this bullshit to deal with on top of it: Jordy and Thelma, the nutty neighbours, being religious again. "Give it a break will yas," Zak appealed to them halfway through The Book Of Leviticus, "I don't want you in my space right now."

"You damn me!" screamed Jordy, "Like I am Satan! But you are Satan yourself!"

"Leave me alone please," Zak begged of them. His head hurt. He did love both of them, but they could drive him too insane. They were sound when they had not been drinking too heavily, but most of the times he tended to see them they had been. "Forgiven for you do not know!" yelled Thelma, raising her can of Super Strength. "Forgiven!" agreed Jordy, raising his Tommy Cooper. "Come on people, you only live nextdoor! Please go there," Zak tried to urge them as his brain exploded. Again. The others in the squat would not allow this pair into their rooms. Zak did because of his love for all life's walking wounded. His love had certainly been tested in the latter part of his life. These two seemed to love doing this, but he put up with the headaches and put up with them. His parents had done the same of him. He tried to see all people as family. The Buddhists taught to perceive all sentient beings as Mother. One could substitute this with Sick Person or Child, he guessed. If all were Children the world would be a playground, he went on to think. "Don't be fukkas people," he said really nicely, and finally they left.

"You're dead," the extra terrestrials surrounding him informed him. "So how do you feel about that?" enquired Emily. "Alive. I feel alive!" exclaimed Zak. This was wild. "And so you should do for now you are in Heaven."

"Yeah?" Zak slowly rose to his feet. Glanced around. It looked exactly the same as the place that he had just been. The guy who had killed? him- this person had disappeared. Exited out of the scene. "What now?" Zak asked of Emily and the aliens. They laughed and disappeared as well.

Zak the Sick Person / Child had fallen in love. In learning not to he had done this a few times. This had been his most harmful addiction / affliction, far worse than any of the drugs. Falling instead of rising was where he had gone wrong. He had perceived himself unworthy of The Goddess. The Goddess had been the soul mate / other half who would make him complete / God. This couldn't be any girl that happened to like him- hell no. The girls that he had projected his Goddamned Goddess perception onto had generally been freaked out by this. Delusion had got him and whisked him around the cosmos imagining an amazing future with Her until finally shattering with the realisation that actually She didn't want to know him. Now he had given up wanting to know Her (or her). He'd wanted not to want.

Zak had often wanted to give up completely when life had been grinding him down. He'd known far too many friends (in addition to the heroin OD's) who had deliberately suicided. "Save the planet, kill yourself," one of these had once joked? "Life is shit and then you die? Then why live so long?" Zak had lived in hope of a new age of love. An end to Samsara- the cycle of birth, sickness, ageing, death. An end to life being shit. An end to inequality and the hierarchy. A dawning of Good. Alien instigated perhaps. An evolution into Them? Man, that fukkin' drug psychosis was the crazy shit that had kept him going. This and the love of his blood family and his friends. Part of his giving his parents such a hard time had been him wanting them to take back the fact that they had given life to him so he could off himself without feeling so guilty about it. But he had felt guilty about doing this instead. It was just as selfish. They had always been there for him. They had always loved him. They had long stopped punishing him- if they ever had at all. (If they had, and if punishing him had been a mistake, mistakes were made by all in ignorance.) The only person punishing him for his own mistakes now had been himself. And he had turned out to be the harshest judge of all.

The sentencing had been harsh, but now he was free! Zak was floating on cloud nine whilst walking on the ground. Blood was pouring down his face still but he felt no pain. What he felt was orgasmic- like being on good ecstasy. "Hey are you OK?" yelled someone, rushing to his aid. "Like being on the pills of ten years ago!" Zak answered happily. "You looking for the party?" this person then asked of him, "For if you are I believe it is in your head."

"Party party!" shouted the familiar voices of his squatting partners, these turning up now with Jordy and Thelma and many other friends in tow. Was that a thumping sound system that he could hear? Was this his much anticipated and willed Eternal Free Party? "It is whatever you make of it," Jordy informed him. "It always has been," added Thelma.

Zak came to again and risked opening his eyes once more, although they stung when he did this. Liquid poured from them. It took a while for him to focus and when he managed it he saw a hospital ward. A nurse was sitting by his bedside, and she was very cute. His mind flared up with fantasy imagination visualising her bellybutton. Zak had a thing about female bellybuttons. She had a beautiful face. "Well hello there!" she spoke to him (with a beautiful voice too), "You're very lucky to be alive!" Oh shit, he was falling- he fell right out of the bed into her arms. "I'm not your Goddess!" she snapped at him. And she let him drop to the floor.

He came to again and went through the same eye opening routine, this time focusing on the place where he had been previously- where he had been attacked. His friends weren't here, nor the attacker, nor any sound system. And fukkin' hell, he no longer felt like he was on ecstasy. He ached all over. His eyes were particularly sore- all swollen and puffy. Blood in them. Blood spilled on his previously fairly clean T Shirt. He dragged himself up holding onto the side of the wall and hobbled in the direction of his mouldy squat. They would be getting evicted from there soon due to Emily's death. He hoped that Jordy and Thelma wouldn't be visiting on a drunken religious one tonight.

 

2. A COUPLE OF DERANGED ANGELS

Zak woke up to Jordy and Thelma in his room in the mouldy squat- these on a drunken religious one as was most common with them. Who the fuk had let them in? He'd have to properly fix that front door catch. "Wake up! Wake up!" Thelma cried, dancing above him and spilling some of her beer on him, "For a New Age has dawned!"

"Hallelujah!" Jordy expressed his joy- far too close to Zak's right earhole. "Great, that's great..." humphed Zak, disgruntled and tired, rolling over. He still ached badly both physically and mentally. "Pah, let's tell some more folks!" suggested Jordy to Thelma, and the odd couple left the battered Zak in peace to go and enlighten the rest of Brighton. "Yeah whatever, just fuk off!" he heard some of his squatting partners shouting after them as they exited the building noisily. The time was 6 am.

"Good morning!" Thelma greeted the milkman outside the squat in such a high pitch that it was surprising she did not shatter any of his milk bottles. The seagulls feeding on the rubbish in the street were as startled as he was. Jordy offered him some Special Brew. "Wha'?" The milkman did not know quite how to respond. He looked at Jordy's crazed eyes, then the tin of Special Brew. "Er, no. Thank you," he said. Tried a joke: "Sticking to milk." Jordy cracked up at this and slapped him on the back. "Yup, I guess that's what I should do myself!" he exclaimed, "Except for the fact that I am vegan!"

"I'm a vegan too!" Thelma told the bewildered milkman. It was cold yet he was sweating profusely. "You know in The Dead Sea Scrolls Jesus says that all should be vegan, but I'm sure he'll let you off," she then winked at him. "I hope so," said the milkman, struggling to force a casual smile. "Hey have you realised that The Miracle has happened?" Jordy asked him. "Miracle? I dunno. All I know is milk," the bloke replied, "Talking of which, I'd better get on with my round."

"Yeah, you'd better do that," Jordy said to him, offended. There wasn't much age difference between the two men- both were approaching their fifties. Thelma was thirty two but looked just as old. She had been an alcoholic for half these years. "Come on lover," she said, pecking Jordy on the cheek, "lets head on down the beach and watch the sunrise."

Down the beach they held each other without the need for words, their verbal outbursts saved for when they were in public. The sunrise was a good one fully appreciated by both. Amen, thought Jordy, A fukkin' men. They sat for hours drinking, smoking fags and cuddling each other. And before long it was off license opening time. Jordy did the stagger there to get a big bottle of White Lightning, leaving Thelma to stare out at the horizon.

Jordy and Thelma's getting together was quite a story. They'd both experienced a lot of bad times before this and thus had both been damaged. Jordy had been out to suicide on the day that he'd met her. He'd been more of a druggie than a drinker then- a lethargic stoner. She had been the opposite- hyper and enthusiastic- albeit due to drinking vast quantities of alcohol. The booze, she'd found, kept her schizophrenia at bay. On the day she'd met Jordy she had been nine years into her alcoholism. They had met in a park in London in the pouring rain- both walking through there alone. Her happy, enjoying the water on her face- him fukking up, on this self destructive bender. Jordy had decided that day that he had had enough, and was going to put his fantasy of necking loads of LSD and topping himself in the park into practice. Nothing in particular had led him to this decision- nothing but everything. But then he had set eyes on Thelma, lying sprawled out in the centre of the wet grass lawn, just staring upwards- a big smile on her face. He'd looked at the handful of acid tabs he had been all set to pop, and put them in his back jeans pocket, deciding that this could wait.

"Hey!" the male called over to the rain drenched female, "Are you hoping to drown or what?" She picked herself up, the smile remaining on her face (whilst remaining cautious). "No," she beamed "I'm simply being insane in the rain." He laughed at this- "Excellent." It was the first laugh since he could remember, but he didn't register this. "I'm Jordy," he said, going forth to formally shake hands. She introduced herself- "I'm Thelma." They shook. She noticed he was shaky- wondered if this was alcohol DTs. He noticed that she noticed. "Yeah pretty bad shakes," he mumbled, "I do a lot of drugs." They sat down on a bench together. The rain continued to pour. "Do you live in the city?" he asked her. "Fraid so," she replied, "And you?"

"Not for long," he told her. "Oh, you're moving?" she said with interest. "Suicide," he answered. She laughed at this. "Yeah," he continued, "I'm gonna take twenty three LSD tabs, go completely crazy, and kill myself right here in this park." Thelma laughed again, and even louder. He'd never realised that he was so funny. But he wasn't offended. "I'm crazy already," she admitted to him, "I don't need no LSD."

"I'm crazy," said Jordy, seriously, "I'm a fukkin' headcase."

"But crazy's kinda cool," laughed Thelma crazily, "Just as weird is wonderful! Personally I like to freak!" Jordy was intrigued by her personality- he wondered was she a druggie like him? He asked her straight out, "Do you do any drugs?" She said "Not really. Booze is my vice. The occasional spliff." He took a pre-rolled from his pocket and sparked it up despite the rain. He took three or four lugs, then passed it on to Thelma. She nodded- Cheers- and toked on it. They sat and got stoned in the rain.

They'd remained in touch- both living in the same area of the city. Jordy hadn't bothered tripping out and checking out that rainy day after all. They'd met up- usually on a Sunday afternoon- in the park, which had always been empty but for them no matter the weather. They'd smoked cannabis, drunk alcohol and occasionally even gone normal, though Jordy had always been fairly fukt up anyway from the huge amounts of drugs he'd been consuming throughout the rest of the week. Thelma at this time had been managing her alcohol (and schizophrenia) very well. She hadn't been requiring so much since having made this new friend. But Jordy had carried on caning it never the less and in her company had sometimes drifted away. Other times he had babbled incoherent bullshit (speaking in tongues almost). It had taken him a while to realise that his worsening condition had started to freak her out. I've got to change, he'd told himself (once he finally had), or I will lose her, and she is Special. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to cut down on the drugs. When a Sunday had passed without seeing Thelma he had said to himself She must have a cold or something- I'll see her soon. But the following week again she had been absent from the park and his life. And the week after- and the week after that. She had had his telephone number, he hadn't had hers. "I don't have a phone," she had said, but a little unconvincingly he had reckoned now. He'd felt that he had justification to be paranoid.

With Thelma gone, Jordy contemplated the acid suicide idea again- but it no longer seemed so appealing. He didn't care about anything. He was drained of all thinking- even the inspiration to top himself. Oh what a slump he was in. In the mornings he would wake up and hope that he could get himself together, but by breakfast he would be drugged out of his mind again, and oblivious to everything. Thelma all this time was in a mental institution- unable to make any phone calls from her padded cell. And kept almost as out of it as Jordy by her daily pills and injections. She had even been threatened with ECT. She yearned to see Jordy- Jordy yearned to see Thelma- they both yearned to be free in the rain. They met again in Brighton some two years later- not far from where they were sat now on the beach five years (together) on from that now.

"Hallelujah," said Jordy. They had found religion on meeting again. The chances of bumping into each other again- and in Brighton- so incredible. Thelma's drinking had increased since getting out of the bin- her time in there plus years of childhood sexual abuse needing to be obliterated from her memory. Jordy had started drinking mainly because she did. He'd already calmed down considerably with the drugs. The religion kick, now that was the best one. And it bought their redemption. "Hallelujah," echoed Thelma, still looking out at the horizon. Each thought that they were the happiest person in the world. Time was getting on. It was already approaching midday. But there was no hurry to do anything for this was eternity.

 

3. TOASTS TO THIS LIFE'S PHYSICALLY DEPARTED FRIENDS

Emily had been alone surrounded by friends when she had turned blue and stopped breathing from her injected whack of heroin. She'd probably turned to this drug like she had tried most of the other drugs because of this feeling so alone. She had found some wonderful squatting partners who she had connected with, but not a lover- the guys in the squat were frigid, terrified of women. The ones she'd met that weren't in this life had tended to be arseholes. She'd dated some of these. She couldn't win. Dying had been a dream- gently gouching down the stream. Down the river to the sea on whose great shore she'd remanifested. A breeze had rustled her hair as she'd looked out upon the calm tranquil waves. Whilst the sea was calm, and as beautiful as ever, her mind became sickeningly turbulent. It grew like her tortured brain was constantly flashing from negative to positive and back again- this mind swinging beyond all control or conscious explanation. One moment she felt at one with the world, her situation, and the sea, but by the next she wanted to drown herself in it. Fukkin' hell, thought Emily, I'm so alone, so screwed up, so scared. And then she felt good again, kneeling down on the pebbles in a blissful gone coma. There were no people about, none that she could see, so no call for paranoia. This was a good stretch of beach that she had found herself at in that it was quiet and desolate. But perhaps this was only because it was early morning. Still, it would be early morning for quite some time. The sun ahead of her beamed down on the incoming tide, though to her right was the threat of fast approaching grey clouds. A contrast in weather like her previous feelings. Directly above her though- at least for now- the sky was a perfect blue. So she didn't care. And then she saw the merman.

She saw him just as she was about to leave. He called to her: "Hello!" She turned round and was instantly transfixed. There were things about this half boy half fish that made her feel warm inside- not just his looks (a hunk), but also the aura surrounding him. He was so warm himself- so genuine- and thus equally delicate and fragile. A little self conscious- a little hesitant- but he had summoned up the courage to call out to her, and for this she felt truly honoured. "Well hi," she answered him, her mouth turning to a grin. So powerful was his presence that in such a bizarre situation as this she did not flip out, but instead found communicating with a supposedly mythical creature from her bedtime stories as a child to be the most natural thing on earth. "So you're a merman," she said, stating the obvious- "What's your name?"

"I have no name," replied the merman. She continued to smile at him until he chose to speak again, and when he did, these were the words that he uttered: "I know your mind, I know you're troubled and I know you care. You worry about your depression, but your pain is natural."

"I can't take anymore," said Emily, "It's all too damned confusing. I never know what I am thinking. I don't know what I want from life."

"You want to be loved," the merman informed her, "And you want to love. But you hate aspects of yourself- I wish you wouldn't. You love other people- the other souls that you meet- and these ones you love, they love you back. But because the hate (for yourself) exists amongst the love (negativity amongst the positive) you continue to feel alone. You can never have invincible love until this hate is eradicated."

"I think I love you," stated Emily- a normally confined thought said out loud- just as the first drop of rain landed splat on her eyelid. "No, you can't love me. We are not compatible," he said. And he didn't just mean sex-wise. Ironically see, he hated aspects of his own persona also, thus getting close to anyone would just not work. He could try to dissuade other entities from hating themselves, but could not create any change within himself. He was also scared of embarking on something so magical as a love affair in fear of pinning all his hopes on something that could leave him heartbroken. Plus most importantly to him there was the other person to think about- he couldn't risk hurting someone he cared about. Emily smiled at him. He tried not to, but couldn't help smiling back. A crash of lightning suddenly lit up the greyed sky. She plunged forward into the cold sea and into his warm embrance. They hugged- the water splashing in all directions- the moment lasting forever.

"To Emily," said Jordy, raising his can of Bavaria 8.6. Out of the neighbouring squatters she hadn't had as much time for them as Zak but had been the least rude of the rest of them. "Yes to Emily," agreed Thelma, raising her Diamond White, "And to all the others who have gone on ahead of us."

"As above, so below," mused Jordy, slurredly, "We can have our Heaven here."

"I'll drink to that too," said Thelma, kissing him. For them they were in a New Age.

Zak believed he was in Hell in his mouldy squat. But at least he was alive. He'd taken a pounding from that maniac, but somehow lived through it. Now he nursed his injuries with the medication of music and marijuana- a nice batch of weed that Franky, one of his squatting partners, had cultivated with grow lights. He inhaled, exhaled- inhaled, exhaled. (Mmmn, and got high.) He'd thought that he had taken his last breaths. This weed was as sweet as the cherry picked by the guy in the Buddhist sutra hanging over the cliff top clinging onto the being nibbled away vine cord.

 

4. THE MOULDY SQUATTERS

Zak shared his mouldy squat with another four bods. They had a room each and a spare one now that Emily was gone. This otherwise empty building had been their home for ten months. They had improved the state of it, doing many repairs. The tragedy of Emily had brought the police to it however, and now they were being evicted. They had five days to get out of there. The house would fall back into neglect. Franky and Jojo were out looking for more empties. Zak sat with the other two, Chloe and Jenny. Chloe was The Sensible One amongst them, and Jenny The Least Suited To Squatting. Both were in their twenties- both of them were creative. Jenny was an artist, Chloe was a musician. Chloe was strumming away on her guitar right now. "What are we gonna do?" Jenny panicked over this, "I mean what if we don't find another place in time?"

"We'll find another place," Chloe assured her, stopping playing, and she rested her guitar against the wall.

"What if we don't find another place?" panicked Jojo. "We will, man," Franky the hippy chilled out the punk. Jojo was donned in ripped combat attire- he was body pierced, heavily tattooed- had half of his hair hacked off, but still he was a big girl's blouse. "You need the attitude to go with the haircut," he'd been told by his hair dresser, "And the look I've given you is fierce." But no matter how hard Jojo had tried to be fierce he couldn't be. He'd just ended up feeling stoopid. He'd tried to use this fierceness to tell Jordy and Thelma he didn't want to listen to their religious shit, but rather than be intimidated by this they had laughed at him. "Ha ha ha!" they had laughed on and on at him, driving him crazier than they'd managed with the religious shit. Girls too had all refused to take him seriously. Though this had always been the case. "Aha, an empty!" exclaimed Franky excitedly. The pair advanced upon the potential property.

"Squats! Together we crack 'em!" laughed Franky, returning to the present one, "We've got a new gaff down the road! Locks changed, Section 6 up already. We're now the legal occupants of two homes."

"Excellent!" squealed Jenny, running up and hugging him. Jojo prepared for his hug but one wasn't forthcoming. "Nice one chaps," said Chloe. "Yeah, good one," said Zak. "Who's making the coffee and who's skinning up?" asked Franky.

The new place was a bit smaller than the last, but a lot less mouldy. It had not been neglected for so long. It would not require as much work to make it habitable. Franky already knew where he was going to set up the grow lights that he had got out of the other squat, along with his plants and the rest of the drugs, before the police had got to there. "First dibs on the room with the oblique view of the sea," said Chloe- ie the room that you could just about see the sea from if you craned your neck out of the window. "Like it, like it," said Zak, very impressed. (He liked it.) And the electric was already on. They also had water. They moved their stuff in and started settling in. Zak had a spliff, a pray for Emily's soul and a meditate. Franky and Jojo argued over what music to play on the stereo. Franky won- Tekno! Never mind the punk bollox. Jenny started work on a technicolour wall mural in the living room whilst Chloe used the time to contemplate. She contemplated the big question of what she was doing on planet earth. She like most people believed she had got the wrong planet. Her life was surviving- this made a major struggle. She had it easier than the majority of the people in the world, but still she suffered. At least she had her music and her friends. And when it came down to it, her blood family. She had been meaning to get in touch with her folks again actually. Ever since Emily's funeral.

Jordy and Thelma soon discovered where their previous neighbours had moved to, much to all the squatting family's dismay. Even though they had a secure lock on this place they managed to push their way into it when a stoned Jojo answered the door to them unwittingly. "Drink!" screamed Jordy, being the first to spill beer on the carpet (and Jojo's shoes), "For it is a New Age!"

"New Age, Schnew Age," Jojo was unconvinced- "Schmoo wot?" Thelma asked him, giggling. "Way hey, people!" cried Jordy, finding the room the others were in, "Have we got news for youse!"

"New Age news again is it?" yawned Franky, "No New Age news is good news innit."

"No, this is even better! Honest!" Jordy promised them, then retracted this with, "Well, at least as good."

"What, you're leaving?" Jenny asked him, dearly hoping this. "The spaceships have arrived for us!" Thelma announced, "Just take a look out of the window!"

 

5. THINGS ALIEN

Everyone in the room went to look out of the window, but all seemed regular- there were certainly no spaceships. "Ha ha, gotcha!" Thelma laughed at them. Jordy pecked her on the cheek. They smiled at each other, then at the people they had pranked, and, still smiling, departed from the squat. Jenny returned to her mural, which was coming along nicely. It depicted lots of happy people in a dream bubble over a single person's head. This single person was half smiling and half frowning, posed like Munch's The Scream, and also quite alien like. Jenny had been into drawing as expression since she was a child and even more so after the innocence of this child was stolen from her by her older stepbrother. Years after this she had been raped again. This time by her uncle. She'd reckoned then that she had been cursed. The rest of her family had been of no support either of these times. For reasons of their own they had refused to believe her. Counselling had done little to ease her deep pain, but the art (and occasional poetry too) did help. She'd declined antidepressants on the grounds that they were tested on animals- when animal cruelty was another of the horrific things in this world that she was depressed about, and also because she had feared that they would drain her of her creativity. She had run away from home at the age of seventeen (a year after being raped by daddy's brother and called a liar by daddy and mummy who had still welcomed him into their abode). If she was to be homeless she would be homeless in a nicer place than Coventry, she'd decided, and so had headed south- towards the sea. She'd landed in Portsmouth first of all, but ended up in Brighton. She had spent unsettling nights on the streets, constantly fearful of everything. Her condition had deteriorated even further from staying in some nightmare hostels whilst Brighton council considered whether she was vulnerable enough to merit being given her own bedsit. She hadn't been able to hack this and had got out of these, thus making herself intentionally homeless. Anyone without a roof over their head is fukking vulnerable!, she'd despaired. But trying to explain such things to the council had been hopeless. She hadn't been able to hack being back on the streets either and had attempted suicide. Others showing concern over her bandaged wrists and taking her into their squat had stopped her trying it again. From here on (the past two and a half years) things had taken an upturn. She had remained The Least Suited To Squatting amongst them, but had been overjoyed to be amongst them. The squats- and the squatters- had changed over this time. (Chloe and Jojo of her current squatting family the two that she had known for longest.) All those she had squatted with had been her family. Her overall mental state had steadily improved in their company. She'd almost forgotten about having been so depressed- until Emily (her sister)'s death, and also Hank, a bloke she'd met at a party who she had thought she could trust as a friend and brother, starting to weird her out.

Hank was The Smiley Man. He meant no harm. But in spite of this he was pretty much a loner. A lone stranger, a strange loner. He didn't dispute his being strange. He had had a rough deal from life as well, and as a result believed that life would bring him a special saviour to keep him smiling. A female he could be with- and love and respect- just like Zak's perceived Goddess, only his term for Her was October Dawn. He wrote about October Dawn constantly. He knew that she was out there somewhere. (And coming to him.) This girl Jenny he'd met was dancing around in his mind. She was October Dawn, he told himself. Next to tell her. He'd write it- yeah, that's what he would do, since talking to her he would get tongue tied. He'd write it right now, then go and deliver it. He'd been to her place the other week.

"They've moved to seventy three mate," Jordy informed Hank cheerily, seeing him looking perplexed outside the abandoned last squat. "Thanks," said Hank. He recognised this character from somewhere. Maybe the psychiatric ward. He trudged on down the road to number seventy three's door where he hesitated before rapping on it three times. He was about to leave- presuming no one to be in and not wanting to leave his writing where it could be read by anyone- when the door did open and opened by none other than his love Jenny! She seemed freaked out and wanted to know how he had got the address. He put his arm round her to try and calm her. "Relax, your last neighbour gave me it," he was about to say, but she pushed him away from her. She was hysterical. Hank himself was sheer dumbfounded. He freaked himself and handed her the paper. "Here, I wrote this," he mumbled, "I'll be on my way,", and he backed away from her, hurting and not knowing why he had been hurt / rejected like this.

The others in the squat were sampling the latest hash of Mad Mickey, their twice a week visiting drug dealer. "Top squat lads-" Mickey said to them, "Oh, and gal. Oh by the way, I've got some mental pills in at the minute. Jacksys a piece."

"Wicked," said Franky, "I'll have a couple off you on giro day." (This for him was two days away.) "I can tick 'em to you right now if you want them," offered Mad Mickey. "Great," said Franky. And he was handed two. "So are you gonna tell me who sold you that scag then?" Mad Mickey then asked him seriously. He hated heroin and he hated the fact that Emily had been the latest he'd known to have died off it. "I can't," said Franky, "It wasn't the dealer's fault." He knew what Mad Mickey was capable of doing to this person should his identity be revealed. "Why are you protecting the fukka?" Mad Mickey asked agitatedly, rubbing his itching sovereign ringed fist. Mad Mickey kept his head together a lot of the time, but when he got Mad he got Really Mad. He had a lot of anger that he could only get out of his system by smashing fuk out of people he reckoned deserved it's faces or sometimes his own flat. When he smashed his flat up he would play Pink Floyd's One Of My Turns. He would always spare his stereo. He'd never hit his missus. Sometimes she would hit him. She was carrying his child. Or so he reckoned anyway. He was something of a masochist. He tried to be a good person. He loved his missus Even Madder Mandy no matter what. "Try some of this Mickey," Franky said, passing him a spliff of homegrown. "Yeah, whatever," grunted Mad Mickey. Maybe it would calm him down.

Hank's writing was weird and only confirmed Jenny's fears. He was an obsessive. A fiend. A psycho stalker. He'd seemed quite safe when she had first met him- a little simple, like a child, but now (from reading his words) she saw that he had clearly lost it. She didn't know whether to tell the others about his writing to her or not since he had not actually interfered with her. But she'd been raped twice already in this life. Would not be able to handle this happening a third time. "You alright?" Chloe asked her, walking into her room. But she didn't look it. She was sat on her bed shaking.

"Who is this cunt?" Mad Mickey demanded to know. His fist was twitching again. And his mind was bubbling. He liked these people- They were hippies. Unlike himself. He sorted their drugs and wanted to see them happy on them, not getting screwed up like he had been. Emily was dead and now this Jenny was being stalked. "Yeah who is he?" asked Jojo, trying to sound half as fierce. Jenny was regretting having told Chloe already. "Well he hasn't actually done anything," she tried to explain to them. "Hasn't done anything!" yelled Mad Mickey, "I don't believe you girl! If he hadn't done anything you wouldn't have told Chloe here about it! If this creepoid is giving you hassle I can sort it out for ya. Just gimme his name and if you have it, his address." Franky was the only one who seemed unconcerned. He was as high as a kite on Mad Mickey's hash and his own homegrown.

Hank was not The Smiley Man. He was The Mutant Clown. He'd hidden behind the smiley, and managed to do this for some time. His council property was decked out in smiley posters and wall hangings. But really he was screaming. Really he was in agony. He'd tried to be a smiley person- tried to be light and good- but had found it hard to be accepted. Brighton had proved to be more open a town than any of the other places he had lived, but still he found it hard to socialise from past bad experience. He'd made it out to a party a few weekends ago- the one at which he had met Jenny. She had seemed so light and good herself that he had instantly fallen for her. He'd thought they'd got along well and that she had shown interest back in him. She had invited him back to her squat afterall. He hadn't stayed long because of the other people there having unnerved him.

"Well you met him a few weeks ago," Jenny later told Chloe in (sworn) confidence, "After the party. He came back to the squat."

"Not that guy wearing the smiley shirt!" Chloe exclaimed, "He did seem creepy! Jen, I reckon we ought to do something about this."

"About what? All he's done is given me some strange writings," said Jenny. "Very strange writings," said Chloe The Sensible One. "I mean look at it!" she went on, flicking through these right now, "October Dawn, his salvation, has come to him in the form of a nun like earthling!? He's got a screw loose! What kind of person writes this kind of weird shit and then gives it to someone he purports to love?!"

 

6. THINGS GETTING TOO DARK TO SEE

Hank sat before a blank sheet of paper with a mug of coftea beside him and a spliff that he was too stoned to smoke the rest of still burning in the ashtray. Coftea (black coffee and tea in the same mug) was a double beverage he had originally come up with to be different, but on top of including the extra caffeine kick he'd also found it to taste quite flavoursome. He took another glug of it now whilst the paper before him stayed blank. How could he unwrite what he had written and given Jenny? He realised now that he had made a big mistake, and that projecting his fictional October Dawn onto anyone real was no good for anyone. It wasn't as if he hadn't made this mistake in the past. He'd done it far too many times in fact. Only this Jenny had seemed to be the strongest October Dawn yet. He'd had to act on intuition- and attempted communication through his writing was the only way he semi knew. Unfortunately this way of doing things might have seemed weird to Jenny, and his writing over the top. (He wrote much in metaphor.) The only way that he could make up for the last batch was to write her some more. He drew a smiley face on the sheet of paper, below which he wrote: A Brief Apology.

Franky, Zak and Jojo sat shooting the breeze with other Big Issue vendors in the crowded people and dogs filled Issue office. "What do you do if you see a spaceman?" Franky asked Big Derek. Big Derek shrugged. "Park in it, man!" Franky cracked up. A cocker spaniel was chewing on Jojo's already ripped combat trousers. He kicked the little fukka off. "Ere, watch my dog," Big Derek warned him with menace. "Get it to watch it with my trousers," said Jojo. Big Derek chuckled- "Ha ha, he's gettin' fierce,", and Franky started with another joke: "How do you know when you've passed an elephant?" But at this point an hysterical woman entering the premises smacked him hard around the face. "Found you you little paedophile!" she screamed at him. He staggered backwards- ears ringing- vision flickering. "You thought you would get away with molesting my daughter did you?" She punched and kicked him. Franky cowered. Big Derek dragged her off of him. "Easy lady, calm it."

"He molested my eleven year old daughter!" she insisted. Her partner entered the office and also tried to calm her down. "Brenda, Brenda, are you sure that this is the guy?" he asked her once she had stopped kicking. "Of course I'm sure!" she spat foam at him. "What's going on?" was all the staff leapt over the counter to deal with this could say. Which was what everybody wanted to know. "He molested my daughter!" screamed Brenda, pointing at Franky, "And he is going to pay for it!"

"You've got the wrong person lady," said Big Derek. "Either way you can't take the law into your own hands," said one of the Big Issue staff. "Either way?" exclaimed Jojo, "This is Franky the hippy she is accusing here!"

"Franky the hippy who molests eleven year old girls whilst trusted to babysit them and leaves them mentally scarred for life?!" Brenda exploded. "I think the police had better be called to deal with this one," suggested another of the Issue staff. "I think this woman needs psychiatric help," commented Zak. Franky was shaking. In need of a cigarette. Zak handed him the rest of his roll up. "Cheers," said Franky, taking a deep inhalation of it. Brenda and the spouse restraining her glared at him with hatred. "Fuk this," Franky said (to the floor), "I'm out of here,", and he made for the door, but a shaking his head Big Derek barred his way. "Nope, I reckon we're best getting this matter cleared up," he spoke. "Let him go. He doesn't have to put up with this!" shouted Jojo. "If he's innocent he's got nothing to worry about," said the member of Big Issue staff who had suggested calling the police, heading to the phone to do this himself. "If he's innocent!" Jojo said, incredulously.

Three hours of bullshit later Franky was out of Brighton police station and telling his friends about this bullshit back at the squat. "Although to be honest I'd rather forget about it now and get stoned. Just hope that woman's OK. Maybe I do look like the guy." There was a knock at the door. Chloe went to answer it. The caller was Mad Mickey. "Social visit," he said, "I ain't carrying no wares. Just need a break from Mands. She's doing my nut in."

"That's women for ya," said Franky, passing him a spliff. "Boom shanka hippy," Mad Mickey said, taking it. "Are you feeling better?" he asked the stoned Jenny, she also getting stoned to forget.

Hank trudged down the path. He paused, then knocked on the door. Chloe answered it. "Is Jenny in?" he enquired. "You! You stay away from here! You're a twisted fuk!" she hissed at him "Giving Jenny shit like that- You're really disturbed!"

"Shit like what?" asked Hank, "I have some writing for her-"

"More twisted shit. I'm telling you once!"

"Give her this. Please." Hank handed her the paper. And Chloe tore it up. "You go or you'll get a hiding!"

"Who was that?" Jojo asked. "Oh, no one," said Chloe. Jojo thought about this a moment, then said "No one?"

"No one of importance," Chloe reiterated. "All are Buddha nature," said Zak- on a Buddhist one, "All are equal- equally important- for all are One." He could be as annoying as Jordy and Thelma on their New Age one. "That would make good and bad equal then innit," said Franky "Like if there was no duality and all was this One..."

"Hippy bollox!" Mad Mickey spluttered, "Great!" (This what he was having to listen to in his time off from the missus!) "I respect you people for managing to be chilled out and that, but you don't half weave some fukkin' yoghurts! No such thing as good and bad! Of course there's good and bad! You gonna tell me that something like mugging an old dear or noncing isn't bad?"

"Hassan Al Sabbah said Nothing is real so everything is permitted," offered Jojo. "Well he was some idiot then cos life is real!" Mad Mickey snapped at him. "Franky got accused of being a nonce today," Jojo said, stonedly. "Yeah?!" said Mad Mickey. He turned to Franky. "Yeah, I even got hauled down the pig sty," Franky mumbled, "Some crazy woman came into the Big Issue office and started laying into me. Mad or what?"

"Why would she do that?" Mad Mickey wanted to know. "Maybe I look like the guy?" suggested Franky. "Look at me," Mad Mickey said, "Look me in the eye."

"Leave it out Mickey," Jojo said. Mad Mickey's fist was twitching. "Look me in the eye," Mad Mickey repeated to Franky. Franky did this. Mad Mickey asked him, "Did you do it?"

"Mickey-" Jojo appealed to him, but "Shut up Jojo," Chloe silenced him. "Yes I did it," Franky said. All of their worlds collapsed.

"Nonce!" Mad Mickey screamed at Franky as he kicked his head in. And he probably did deserve it. Should never have interfered with that young girl (a little daughter, a future mother)...

Hank had really not meant to freak Jenny out. Or freak himself out either. But he'd thought whilst deluded that she might be flattered by the writing he had given her. OK, so he had been wrong...

Mad Mickey was making a bloody mess out of Franky. What were the others (Franky's squatting family) supposed to do? They all had their own problems- they hadn't sexually abused children... Jenny had herself been abused...

Hank realised that perhaps inadvertantly he had mentally invaded Jenny by giving her such over the top scribblings...

Franky had been getting no willing sex from females. No love...

Nor was Hank now. Why did he have so many hang ups? It wasn't like he had been sexually abused. He'd existed in a sexual relationship with a girl who had been (several years ago). Had he loved her? Yes- he still loved her...

He regretted that he had caused her pain...

He regretted wanting sex. The fear of sex was contained in Hank's fear of love...

Love? / Hate? Mad Mickey appeared to be killing Franky... How should Zak the Buddhist react to this? he wondered. He had two little sisters. All were his brothers and sisters! But- Franky had crossed a line. This was surely his karma. Yeah teach him a lesson, Zak thought, feeling the energy being emitted through the extreme violence...

No!

God damn it. He had been the judge. One of hate and non forgiveness. The blood- the guilt- was on his own hands. For lack of love... Franky was his friend. Franky was a brother. Franky was a Sick Person / Child himself... He too was of the one consciousness. He had just made a big mistake...

He hadn't been acting in malice but he had been selfish. He'd thought of himself. He hadn't thought about her...

I'm sorry if I've caused you pain Jenny, thought Hank...

Once he'd started he hadn't been able to leave things alone...

And once Mad Mickey had started booting Franky's head in he hadn't been able to either...

Four people remained living in the new squat. Franky was in the hospital.

 

7. MESSY AFTERMATHS

"Got you some grapes," said Zak, dropping the large bag of them on his bedside. Franky was out of his coma, but still totally mangled. "Why?" he asked this vegetable before him, "...How?" But he would get no answers. Who's in the coma? this question too haunted him, Who's still waking up, learning, working it all out? Jeezus! thought Zak, I'm hearing voices now! This will require a new medical label!

Another squat was in jeopardy due to emergency services having been called out to it, and the bod who had cracked this (and their last place) was the latest casualty. The others were all reeling from having witnessed his severe battering, plus from what had brought it on- this hippy that they had lived and got stoned with for the past year and a half's admission that he had molested an eleven year old. Zak refused to believe it- he figured it was part of the joke. Jordy and Thelma are right, he told himself, It is a New Age. Everything is pure and any reality contrary to this must be illusion. It was up to him to see through it and free himself and subsequently everyone. Jojo on the other hand now hated Franky. He also hated himself for holding so much hatred. He was finally getting fierce, but the fire of this deep rage was burning him. Chloe The Sensible One had gone into silent retreat. Jenny (still on edge from Hank having written to her as well) submerged herself into her artwork.

Mad Mickey was perhaps the worst affected out of them all (Franky included), heavily hitting the alcohol for the first time in four years. The booze was what had put him in prison on three occasions, but he needed it now to get through this rock bottom depression that he had plummeted to. "Mands, another bottle please," he called to his beloved missus Mandy from the wreckage of his freshly trashed flat. "Get it yourself!" she bellowed at him, "You make me sick!" Sick was how he felt. He couldn't focus or move. "You make me wanna puke!" she carried on deafening him. "Mands, give it a break love, will you, please stop, honey..."

"I ain't your honey!" she screeched at him. "I'm da father of your unborn babby," he reminded her. "You reckon!" Even Madder Mandy shrieked. Mad Mickey chose not to hear this.

The world had stopped, but Zak was still buzzing, wired on speed and E still in another squat party's aftermath. It was 9 pm on a Sunday. He had jumped the last train up to London the previous night (Saturday) and found the party in Hackney by 3 am. A quick mathematical calculation worked out that he had been hardcoring it for eighteen hours! He was a pursuasive drugs blagger. He'd had a thoroughly enjoyable eighteen hours, but he still wanted more. It had only ended now because the police had cut the electricity. For eighteen hours he had danced, laughed, shared spliffs and lines with party people, grooved on the eye food backdrops and tekno Goddesses. For eighteen hours he had found release from the daily grind. He had got out of his mind. All good things must come to an end though, some fukka dictated. He did not wish to return to the so called real world or face the skint drugs comedown ticket inspectors avoided train journey to his cosy bed. Fortunately another delay from having to arrived however in Bob, a mate of his, finding a big bag of drugs. "Sort us a snort," said Zak, but he did not have to ask- Bob was already chopping up some fat lines. "What is it? Speed?"

"That, cocaine or ketamine." The powder in question turned out to be ketamine. "If it's good enough for horses it's good enough for me..." Zak slurred on realising that it was this (an hallucinatory disassociative horse anaesthetic) that they had just snorted. "You know normally I stay away from the old donkey dust," Bob said- his voice tinny, "but they say you should never look a gift horse tranquiliser in the nostril."

"...Huh?" Zak said to this- aeons later. What the-? Suddenly he found himself in the K hole, not caring what he had said, "...Huh?" about several more aeons ago. His brain, forced into a vaccuum where it was deprived of all senses, was busy creating its own world from his memories, dreams and fantasies. "Hey chew on this acid," Bob said. Where the fuk did he come from? His voice was barely audible. Zak saw a tiny paper sweet in his hand and ate it.

Mad Mickey felt like he was tripping without any acid. He couldn't handle LSD. Nor could he handle the alcohol. Which was why he had quit both. "Mands, another bottle please," he said through tightly clenched teeth. His fist was stinging like hell from what he had done to it on Franky and later his doors and walls. "Didn't you hear me fukwit?" his missus Mandy tormented him, "I said you're not the baby's father!"

"Get me another bottle!" Mad Mickey screamed at her- Aaaaaargh!!!- throwing the one he had finished most recently through the screen of his already kicked about television.

Wow, the meltdown- Zak crumbled in ecstasy. The last few people packing up the sound system were turning into aliens. Their ears were turning Spock like, this accompanied by a soft hissing sound. Aliens like the grinning reaper he had encountered on his own physical beating the other week. "You're dead," these extra terrestrials had informed him then. He remembered this again right now. Was this it then- the mass evolution into such light beings? The shedding of the human masks? The butterflies emerging out of their sleep coccoons? Was it not a party but an uncivilised civilisation that was being packed up here? The inhuman humans dying out for the spirits to live on. He was a spirit being like the rest. He and everyone always had been.

 

8. EMILY AND OTHERS DOWN THE LINE

Forever had lasted a moment, Emily was then thrown to the lions to be eaten alone without her precious merman. What was spat out was then transformed into a beam of light and transported back up to the star...

Man, Zak felt like the universe was consuming him- like he was being chewed up by ravenous lions. He stared at the floor of the train carriage, alienated- not in a good way, but completely isolated from the other frightening commuters. He was taking the last northbound Jubilee Line tube to Wembley, where his estranged blood parents lived in the same (semi detached) house. He was heavily tripping still, though now he didn't want to be. Why was he taking the last northbound Jubilee Line to Wembley?! he suddenly asked himself. He'd promised the folks he wouldn't turn up on their doorstep in such wretched states, but here he was doing it again. He punished himself for it. What a fukka. How had he got himself into such a wretched (altered) state this time? Too much acid. Too much ketamine. Too much pain in life. His life had been intensified on the drugs, and the life he knew at present (and a lot of what he had experienced before this) hurt. He rung their doorbell, shaking, puffing on a cigarette made from dog ends. He felt unbearably vulnerable. Frail and hyper sensitive. Paranoid also, thinking that there was a neon arrow pointed at him reading Prodigal Son Returning To His Family Home Off His Face On Drugs Again. His mother answered, saw that he was off his face on drugs again- was clearly upset to see this, but never the less gave him a great big hug. Zak burst into tears.

Jenny had reread the initial writing that Hank had given to her, and on this second reading of it not found it to be so terrifying. Bits of it were even kind of nice, she reckoned now. He too had originally seemed kind of nice before going weird on her. He'd become more shy than menacing when she thought about it... She wondered if perhaps she had misread him. But Hank had given up thinking about her. He'd moved on. He sat drinking a coftea pouring his heart out onto paper over a new October Dawn.

Mad Mickey grabbed a hold of the missus that had so brutally condemned him, who was seven months pregnant with a child she'd said was his but now said wasn't. He held her- and this baby inside her- close to his self scarred chest and sobbed "Why are you killing me, love?"

Love The Destroyer had also almost ruined Jojo and Chloe's friendship- and them. These two had been a couple when they had started squatting together three years ago. Chloe had got drunk one night and fukt another bloke they had been squatting with- not made love to him, but Jojo had got jealous all the same and not been able to handle it. He'd bottled his anger up inside of him instead of saying anything though. At this time he had been following the crowd of those he was hanging around with in trying to be a mellow hippy. Eventually this bottle of anger inside of him had smashed to smithereens however, and he had gone on a bender, shocking all those he had been so mellow amongst by getting wild and crash and burning. He'd wound up in a few police cells, got registered on the sick like his friend Zak, and taken a long while to recover from the crazy thoughts and intuitions plaguing him. The best medicine he'd found for himself had been to rebottle the anger, but this time in a bottle with a hole in it so that in its own time it could all seep out. He'd got mellow again- but not as mellow as he had been. This was when he'd first started having allusions of becoming fierce. He had still been two years off from having the fierce in appearance at least haircut that he now had, but the original idea was to toughen up and not get hurt by his feelings again. Neither Chloe nor Jojo had been in love with anyone else since their splitting up. They both felt lucky that they could still be such good friends.

Franky in Brighton hospital, like Zak in Wembley, London, was slipping in and out of different states of consciousness. You've been punished for your sins, but you will come through, the loved ones sat around his bedside willed for him and for themselves also. "Got you some grapes!" yelled Jordy, dropping a huge bag of them next to the untouched large bag Zak had left for him. "And some good news too!" yelled Thelma- louder, "A New Age has dawned!"

"Ungh," groaned Franky, "nurse, get 'em out of here." His condition was miraculously improving...

 

9. THIS INSANE LIFE CARRIES ON...

Chloe, Jojo and Jenny were staying at their new drug dealer Big Derek's house, Big Derek OK with putting them up on a short term basis as long as they were willing to skin up, make the coffees and occasionally sit the house. This sitting the house involved sorting out the punters that called round when he was out with their paid for- always paid for, never ticked- hash. Sometimes uppers (amphetamines) and downers (temazepam) also, but his supplies of these tended to be far less regular. Big Derek dealt to cover his own hash habit. His roof was paid for by the council. He was a man who didn't ask for much- just to be constantly stoned. (He also had to feed the dog- his cocker spaniel he had named The Dog.) He was prone to stress even when under his calming medicine of cannabis, but deprivation of this herb would really drive him up the wall. His gaff was constantly full of people- punters, lodgers, visitors. He had no woman. He reckoned he needed a woman. He needed his own space. Luckily for him these latest lodgers had realised this for themselves. "We're gonna have to get out from under Big Derek's feet," Chloe said "Or else he might be liable to schiz out again." They had already been staying at his for close to three weeks. They had been looking for squats, but without much luck. Their enthusiasm to find a place had faded with their last two fast evictions. Emily of the other three they had been squatting with (up until as recently as a month ago) was dead. (From a first time heroin overdose.) Franky had been revealed to be a sex offender, and beaten into a coma for it. He was making a steady recovery in the hospital, which the others were pleased about- although they would never squat with him again. Zak had not been able to hack staying in Brighton after all this (especially not in squats or on the streets) and after another nervous breakdown (perhaps his worst to date) had returned to his family home in London.

Two mentally scarred casualties of an unjust society, one in his twenties, the other much older, had met on a train bound for Victoria out of a sunny day in Brighton. Gerald, the older guy, barely able to talk- Zak, the younger, speaking very shakily. They begun their ill communication when Gerald bought Zak a coffee. Both had been sleeping rough the last couple of nights, Gerald kicked out of home by his uncaring family in Ireland, and heading for a night shelter in Soho- Zak, the evicted squatter, returning to his fortunately caring family in Wembley. Zak and Gerald found they had a lot in common. Good stuff as well as both being broken. (Both were labelled mentally ill by their doctors- Gerald with schizophrenia which Zak thought he merited too.) If enough people are crushed together will they form a new, bigger, stronger person? Zak had often wondered. These two shared some light with each other. By East Croydon they each craved a cigarette, especially with the coffee (a natural cigarette accompaniment) and Zak's new anxiety of having been told there would be someone waiting for him at Victoria for not possessing a ticket. He worried because he had showed the ticket inspector his ID and a computer check would show that he had another twenty three unpaid fines. But he had no money- he had nothing- so what could they do? He'd told the woman his predicament- it was self-evident- but she hadn't seemed to care. Gerald went to smoke half a fag in the train toilet and returned relaxed enough to talk down Zak's worries. The situation of two schizophrenics chatting offered the possibility of multi-personality debate, but this was more like one sane mind thinking aloud. They spoke of life, the problems and possible solutions. They reached Victoria. There was no threat waiting there. (The barriers were easy to jump.) The ticket woman had lied. They shook hands, extra shakily of course, and wished each other luck. "Hey-" added Gerald as they broke apart. "Yeah?" Zak listened up. "Don't play on the mental illness," said this man at least double his age "That was something you went through."

Zak was recuperating at his folks' house (like Franky was in Brighton hospital), but knew that he could not stay here for long (like Chloe, Jojo and Jenny couldn't stay at Big Derek's). His siblings too had flown the nest. His mum and dad did not get along, and had not done for years. Now that the children had grown up and moved out they were finally splitting up. His mum was adamant on finding her own separate place, and soon. His dad would take some time to adjust to this. (Although he had already had over a decade to prepare for it mentally.) For now they ate their last meals together on opposite sides of a big table. His mum was still doing all the cooking.

Hank prepared himself a meal of pasta, tomatoes, kidney beans and potato waffles on peanut buttered toast with a pinch of Happy Shopper mixed herbs thrown in for added flavour. He was a 21st century man. Independent. And he prepared such a fine banquet as this for himself every day. He washed this particular one down with an umpteenth mug of his non patented but personally discovered hot drink coftea (black coffee and tea in the same mug), a drink that, like many of his food preparations, was quite unique. Another uniqueness of his, that alas, girls had not responded favourably to, was his getting obsessed with someone, putting her up on a pedestal and sacrificing himself below this- doing this with written words and offering these to her. It worked like a bad luck charm every time in ensuring that he remained single. Forever single and misunderstood. His dying for her was his giving himself to this person he thought he loved, but she never wanted him. Never got the chance to know him cos he always scared her away first. Joanne, the latest, she really was The One. His meant to be partner October Dawn. Or at least this is what he reckoned now anyway as he sipped his post pasta, tomatoes, kidney beans and potato waffles on peanut buttered toast with herbs coftea. Jenny, the girl before Joanne, had also seemed like The One. And The One before her, and The One before her, etc. He reckoned a large part of his wishing to be understood by one of these Ones was so they might give him some insight into himself. For he (and his continual self sacrifice) remained a mystery to this self.

Mad Mickey was also something of a masochist. A masochist now drinking heavily again after an abstinence of four years. He had decided Fuk the water wagon and returned to the booze after almost killing a hippy he'd thought he'd known who had turned out to be a nonce. Alcohol was what had got him in police trouble for violence before, but on this occasion he had been sober. Even when he'd been a deranged drinker / street fighter those four years ago (and for the many years before this) he had never mashed anyone up anywhere near this badly. This bloke he had battered (Franky) was lucky to have come through out of his coma. The cops were making serious enquiries. The squat lot who had witnessed it- and the victim himself- would never grass on him. His missus, Even Madder Mandy, had threatened to however if he didn't stop with the restarted drinking. She found his drinking pathetic. She had often found him this. Yet she wanted him around in a state where he could support her. She was off her head naturally- well, without the need for booze. She was also seven and a half months pregnant with a kid she now claimed wasn't Mickey's. But Mickey stuck with her and her continuing abuse because he was Mad (he guessed). He loved the woman and he did wish to support her. He just wished she'd help and support him a little bit. He told his drinking partners Jordy and Thelma all this over a shared crate of Special Brew. This was his treat since he still had money. This money was running out like the fast being guzzled down gold tins. He wasn't investing what he had in drugs to sell and doing his rounds anymore, but pouring it all into the alcohol. (He'd passed his good customers on to Big Derek.) Jordy and Thelma were long time alkies also into religion. They were happy alkies now, believing all to be living in a New Age. Others (such as Mad Mickey) could not see this. They continued perceiving only what they had learned. "Don't believe a thing," said Jordy. "Nudge, nudge!" laughed Thelma, "Reality might be pulling your leg!"

"I hope so. I fukkin' hope so," hoped Mad Mickey. He took a glug from his current tin of Special Brew.

Spesh was also the drink of choice for Zak at this time, drinking lots of it to keep the voices he had been hearing quiet. It wasn't that they weren't speaking sense to him, it was just that hearing them when surely they weren't really there was disconcerting. He hadn't told his parents about these. He had worried them enough. He was laying off all other drugs. He aimed to ease off the Special Brew gradually. For now he drank a can of it on a rain soaked tube station platform on the outskirts of London. A train pulled into the station and he got on. Lowering his head as soon as he was sat on his seat, he refused to look at any of the other passengers, tried to think of something to think about. Outside the weather suddenly turned sunny. He got off three stops down the line to be met by a dazzling rainbow, and an even more dazzling sun that stung his bloodshot eyes. "Good to see you Zachariah!" his gran exclaimed when he turned up on her doorstep. "Good to see you too," he answered. He was still hungover. She asked him if he'd like a cup of tea, but he cracked another beer. "No thanks gran, I'll stick to this,", and he took a mighty swig. "So what have you been doing with yourself?" he was inquisitioned, "Have you got yourself a ladyfriend?"

"No gran, love is a lie," he answered dryly. "I've made some biscuits for you!" she announced, rushing to the kitchen to fetch them. They played a game of Scrabble and he ate the biscuits, washed down with the Special Brew. He loved his gran, but she could talk a lot. Van Goghing was a term he had heard for someone talking one's ear off. He edited the news that he talked back to her so as to cause her minimum concern. She insisted on taking a photo of him, even though he looked a complete wreck. He could not smile. Then they were on to a second game of Scrabble. And a new tray of biscuits. "Are you eating well?" she asked him. He had a mouthful of biscuit. "Yes gran," he said when it was digested. "You're looking awfully thin," she continued, so he reached for another one. He didn't really like sweet things, but he wanted to please her. So he stuffed his face full of her sugary biscuits. "Great biscuits gran," he said. He had the word vomit in Scrabble. The doorbell sounded and gran shuddered. "That might be trouble. A lad's been coming round and using foul language."

"What?!" said Zak "I'll fukking kill him! Oh, sorry gran, pardon my French." Gran opened the door- to her friend- "I've come round for a social visit."

"Come back later Nelly," gran told her, "My grandson is visiting." They resumed their game of Scrabble and he questioned her about this lad, but she assured him that he wasn't a threat. "Just a cheeky monkey with a blue tongue." Two hours later Zak departed, saying "It's been a nice afternoon gran." She gave him a fiver as pocket money- "Not for drink or drugs,"- and they hugged- and then he was on his way. He anguished about this kid maybe giving gran aggro. At least Zak himself hadn't caused her any alarm. Usually he did with the state of his mind, but today he had been OK. He smoked a roll up on the way to the train station, stopping en route at an off license. At the station he got on a train and stared down at the floor.

When he got back to his parents' house they were sat on the opposite sides of their big table, mum marking some of her school childrens' exams, dad slurping tea, chomping a slice of toast. He rose noisily when his eldest son entered the room and after clearing his throat spoke to him this: "I have some important marking of my own to do as of next Monday." This translated meant Zak had to be out of the house so he could concentrate by then. OK, so it was back to the chaos...

 

10. MEANS AND MORALS

For years Zak's father had insisted upon having a quiet house in which to concentrate. He had become an over worked and over stressed college lecturer, doing a lot of his work at home. Now he was to be left with this quiet house to himself. The magic had died with Zak's mother too long ago to remember it properly. They both had changed. They'd had four children- all of whom he dearly loved- even Zak. Though Zak had given him a lot of additional stress in his rebellion against noise (or any other) restrictions. Zak was on the train back to Brighton, pissed off about the fact that he was having to return there, when he first ran into Abel.

"Hey, another biblical name!" this Abel said. Abel had approached the ticket inspector hassling Zak and paid his fare. "Yeah, I'm actually Jewish," Zachariah stated, "though aside from some of the Cabala, more into Buddhism." Abel was a man who hated this country and its sick system. He had returned for a woman from where he had been doing legitimate work in Spain. But being all domesticated in Bognor Regis had not been for him, so he had left, and moved along the coast to Brighton where he had survived off his crime again. Abel was a criminal in the eyes of a society that told the lie that more was better. Ironically he didn't look for more, but just his moderate getting by. A smoke of hash and a few beers were what kept him happy, that he could share with friends. He was always generous. He'd been to prison for burglary but was good at what he did, having been taught the ins and outs of it by a professional mentor who had shown him a wad of money one day and told him how long it had taken him to earn it. But wasn't stealing from others wrong? Zak's family's house had been burgled. "Nah," said Abel, "the ones I pick are all insured, and claim loads more back than they lose. Everyone's happy!"

"Thanks for paying for my train ticket," Zak said to him. "It's nice to be nice," Abel replied. He went on to tell him how he was returning to Brighton now with two hundred pounds cash and a few credit cards and looking for human company to get wasted with.

"This is Abel," Zak introduced his new friend to Chloe, Jojo and Jenny, "Derek will be able to sort out the hash."

"How much do yer want?" Big Derek asked, miserably. He was down about one of the visitors he had trusted into his home having ripped him off. "Muddafukka," he mumbled of this person, but he couldn't be sure who it was. He really hoped it wasn't Chloe, Jojo or Jenny. That would be heartbreaking. "Hope ya don't mind me bringing Abel round," Zak carried on- "No, that's OK," said Big Derek, "How much do yer want?"

"Well," said Abel, producing the two hundred pounds cash in ten uncrumpled twenties, "we can get the booze and food with the credit cards so um, how much dope will this buy?"

Two hundred pounds bought half a nine bar (four and a half ounces of dope). "Rule number one: never rob off your own," quoted Abel, passing a ridiculously fat spliff. "No, that's shitty," agreed Big Derek, receiving it. But if all is one who isn't one's own?, Zak's voices questioned. Those robbing one of this oneness by imposing their consume and die realities are still a part of this One. To harm them would be to harm oneself. But one shouldn't be harmed by material loss, another of Zak's voices reasoned. He and his family should not have reacted so badly to having had material things stolen. People shouldn't hoard it in the first place, keeping it to themselves, with some having more than others can afford. Not with others struggling to meet their basic needs. They should share. There was more than enough to go round. Big Derek passed the spliff on to Chloe. Since the majority didn't share, Abel took. He was free from conditioned morals. For him all was what he said (quite frequently): "A means to an end." And property was theft after all. Those that restole it could be Buddhas. "I ain't no Buddha!" laughed Abel (like reading Zak's mind / hearing his voices), "But I ain't no Demon either! I just am!"

This non Buddha and non Demon was a likeable chap. And he even sorted Zak and his crew out with a squat. He had spotted a few empty buildings on his late night / early hours prowlings and the first of these he showed them had an open window. He himself had been sleeping (in the daytime) on an acquaintance of his's couch, seldom seeing the bloke (who worked) but never the less paying him a hundred pounds a week rent. When told (by Chloe) that squatting was legal, this came as a surprise. He decided, with the others' approval, to move in with them. At night he went thieving- taking it easy what with the reduced living expenses, and mostly only robbing garden sheds to pay for the essentials. Yeah, with human company he could happily rough it a while. In the mornings Zak, Chloe, Jojo and Jenny would wake up to all sorts from hedge trimmers to power tools to bicycles cluttering up the new squat before it was all taken to Cash Converters and exchanged for money. Every evening Abel provided food, drink and hash, but never money- "Money corrupts. I won't give you that," he told them. He'd give food, drink and hash to other homeless people (Big Issue vendors and beggars). But still he swore he was no Buddha.

Big Derek got two whole nights with his house empty of lodgers after Jojo, Chloe and Jenny left for their new squat. But then a ruined Mad Mickey called round, late on the third one, just as he was about to make use of the rare privacy and have a rare masturbate. His knocking was persistant so Big Derek zipped up his trousers and went to tell whoever it was to fuk off, shop was shut, it was late. But seeing the sorry state of Mad Mickey, he had to let him in.

Hank approached the lovely Joanne outside the local shop, going as far as to comment upon the potato waffles protruding out of her shopping bag. "I find them particularly tasty with pasta, tomatoes and kidney beans on toast with a light sprinkling of mixed herbs."

"Really? I might try that," Joanne humoured him. "Chew on this too," Hank said, reaching into his jacket. Joanne panicked, but all he produced from there was sheets of paper. "Words for you," he said, and handed them to her. "Thanks?" she said, startled. He just smiled at her. (Hank The Smiley Man.) She was relieved to get away from him and chill with a spliff and her friends Jojo and Chloe at their new squat. "This sounds like the same freak who was bothering Jenny," commented Jojo. "Yeah, let's see if what he's written is the same," said Chloe. They looked at what Hank had written, but it was different. It started thus: The lost soul destined to walk the earth until being found had confused his precious October Dawn with another female whose earth name started with the same letter... "This guy's seriously fukt!" exclaimed Jojo. "Sounds like he just wants to be loved," thought Joanne, also saying it.

 

11. THE STORY GETS EVEN MADDER

Even Madder Mandy had trashed Mad Mickey's gaff even worse than he had, even the stereo, which he had always spared. Now this was kaput. Even his Pink Floyd cassette! He had done himself in- with the booze and razor blades, and she had cut him too. Called him worthless. Provoked him to hit her. But he never had. She was ruthless with her tests, constantly testing his love. But surely just taking her bullshit was failing. She hadn't tired from hurling this at him- along with smashed bits of his flat. She'd even told him the baby she was carrying was Big Derek's. "Is it true?" a haggard Mad Mickey now asked Big Derek's eyes. Big Derek spluttered the spliff he was smoking out of his mouth at the mere thought of ever having sex with her. "No it isn't! Even I wouldn't go near that!"

"You what?" said Mad Mickey, not having caught all this. "No it isn't," said Big Derek, not repeating the rest of it. Mad Mickey was satisfied with this. Even Madder Mandy had not always been so mad, but like so many of the other characters in this mad story she'd seen a lot of mad things. She'd stopped caring about her own outer appearance a long time ago. Mad Mickey had taken her under his wing when he had heard that the bloke she had been seeing had been beating her. When this bloke had come round to try and reclaim her he'd beaten the fukka to a pulp. And Even Madder Mandy had been with Mad Mickey ever since. She'd only started abusing him in the last few months. "You can't be putting up with that," said Big Derek, "You're welcome to stay here for a few nights." Even Madder Mandy stayed on at Mad Mickey's place, chain smoking cigarettes (some of which she would burn herself with) in the debris.

Zak was spending more and more time with Abel, who'd soon got bored of robbing sheds and had returned to robbing houses. The extra money left from all the food, drugs and drink was being saved- "For getting us out of this shit country."

"Us?" said Zak. "You're my friends now," Abel beamed at him, "My squatting family! And thus I gotta look out for youse. I can't leave youse to rot in this soul destroying dung heap. Great Britain! Hah!" He shook with laughter. Zak liked the idea of travel- of adventures- of anything different to the monotony of his daily life. Since he refused to work (apart from selling a few Big Issues when desperate) and be exploited at the bottom of a social hierarchy to pay for travel, he'd just been getting stoned. But getting stoned was getting boring... "Ain't you fed up of struggling to survive when surviving is what? A couple of beers and a smoke- at best. Day in, day out."

"Sure I am," said Zak. "Sure you all are," said Abel, "It's why you're killing yourselves and probably why this girl Emily you say OD'd in your squat did." Yeah, Zak thought. He'd been thinking a lot since meeting Abel. The drink and drugs had become all- the quick fix from the boredom and despair of having no realistic aims or goals. He was dissatisfied with his own life, and settling for this had to be self sacrifice. Complying to the laws and morals of an inequal society was what kept this society inequal. It was this inequal society- the hierarchy- that was criminal! Abel's means to an end was no less immoral than paying for one's reality and ensuring that every one else had to also. If all was free (or perceived as One) there would be no such thing as theft. "Every being deserves whatever they want," Abel told Zak, "but it is up to them to take it." He also mentioned how having a look out on his night goings would get the money needed in order to get away quicker. Zak had dabbled in a bit of choring before turning Buddhist. And been tempted to rob peoples' houses when getting blanked by them trying to flog Big Issues. He listened to Abel and his voices and decided he would do it.

Hank had left out the peanut butter in his potato waffles, tomatoes, kidney beans and herbs on toast recipe, and that (for him) was the most important ingredient. He hoped that Joanne would enjoy it anyway- even if she tried it without the peanut butter. He was sat hoping this when his doorbell sounded. This startled him for it was seldom. He was even more startled when he saw who it was who had rung his doorbell- more startled than this person had been herself when he had approached her with this peanut butter neglected food suggestion and some personal writing earlier on in the week. "Alright there," said Joanne, winking and waving a bottle of wine at him. Hank turned to mush. Joanne pecked this mush on the cheek.

 

12. STEALING BUDDHA'S PURE LAND

Whilst Zak chose to embark on adventures in thieving with a self justified cause Chloe, Jojo and Jenny chose to stick with their regular lives. Abel and Zak hoped to finance their group break from Brighton all the same. Zak found being the look out to be exhilerating. And he'd been got a new pair of boots because his original ones squeaked. They would do a couple of places every night. Abel would go mainly for cash, jewelery and credit cards. They also borrowed a couple of cars for quick spins.

Hank couldn't believe it- what he had always wanted to believe would happen appeared to have finally happened. October Dawn- The One- having come to him. The other girls he had dated (many years ago now) had not been Her. Joanne was a girl that he could love who would accept this love- and even offer him plenty of her free love back. She had a bubbly personality and was a total stunner, lusted after much of Brighton. But after reading his words she had chosen him. "I'm intrigued by you," she said, slipping her hand down his trousers. But suddenly he thought about Jenny. Hank had spent quite a long time believing that Jenny was his One. What if she was and this Joanne wasn't?

Robbing with Abel provided Zak with an adrenalin rush, his brain perceiving it to be a game. The idea that anyone could be harmed, when everything was a dream, had to be but more illusion. Zak didn't know what to think when flicking through a freshly stolen personal diary for bank details however, and seeing appointments marked in for psychologist and DSS and yoga and meditation. This was too much info- he didn't like to think that victims existed- not real people- part of the collective consciousness- his own. He wanted to help people, not harm them further. The walking wounded walking all over each other seemed barbaric. Inhuman. But such thinking wasn't constructive to what he was doing. He had taken this path now. Of his own choice. Abel paid no bother to it- or the wedding photographs they stole from one place- dumping anything that couldn't be changed into money in the morning dew (to naturally erase the fingerprints). All this activity was indeed a means to an end, but Zak wanted to believe in a happy eternity for everyone. England was definitely dead like Abel reckoned it was though. Zak's feet were itching. He needed out of the country. And when the police found one of the cars (that Abel had stolen and parked around the corner from the squat) before he'd had a chance to wipe off their fingerprints, Abel, a known crim, needed out more than Zak did.

 

13. A BREAK FOR FREEDOM

Big Derek and Mad Mickey both felt they needed out too, but had no ideas on how to achieve this or where to go. Mad Mickey was still staying on at Big Derek's gaff. Even Madder Mandy was still at his. Things were still going missing from Big Derek's (mainly money and hash) even with Mad Mickey helping to keep an eye out. This upset Big Derek and sometimes he took it out on The Dog, kicking it. He'd make up for this afterwards by buying it treats.

The plan now that the cops were looking for Abel in Brighton was to flee to Ireland and rob a few houses over there to fund the trip round the rest of the world. Abel had a connection in Dublin. Zak had never been to Eire. They asked the others in the squat if they wanted to come along, but Chloe, Jojo and Jenny all declined. "Watch what you're doing Zak," Chloe advised him. "But doing that I will miss everything else," he responded to this.

Jordy and Thelma were still visiting Franky in the hospital each day. Since he was making a stable recovery the others had felt OK with forgetting him. They couldn't look him in the eyes knowing he was a child abuser. They didn't want him to suffer. Just didn't want to see him. Emily they chose to remember. They wondered how her spirit was getting along. Franky lay in bed frustrated that he could not move from there, looking at a star out of the window.

OK, it was a new morning. Zak and Abel left Brighton for London- in a car reclaimed from Abel's missus in Bognor Regis. They dumped this car in Wembley- with the keys left in it- near Zak's family's house- who they visited for Zak to say his goodbyes to. In the weeks that Zak had not seen his parents, his mum had found a flat that she would be moving to. They got a coach and ferry to Dublin. (Arriving on Irish soil before they knew it.) Throughout the journey Abel told Zak about his contact Paul- "a bit of a gangster so I've heard". One of the first things this Paul said to them, when Abel mentioned some stolen cheque books he had, was "Well ya know, I'm not a gangster." But he was a connection who had connections, he reckoned. He took Abel and Zak out on the town where there was a possibility of running into some of them. The people they met all seemed friendly. The girls were gorgeous. They got ridiculously drunk on the Guinness and their company. The next morning was another new morning, begun with hangovers. Paul, who'd been unable to help them shift the cheque books, drove them to Galway in his truck, with U2 blaring from his stereo. In Galway they sussed out places to rob- in spite of people here possessing guns- and more importantly, everyone met in Ireland having been so nice. They didn't t rob anyone- in spite of all their money having been blown in Dublin. Instead they opted to get by on nowt. They set up tents in Galway and found a Simon community project that provided free food. (Being vegan, Zak could eat the bread and fruit.) Paul returned to Dublin. Being without drugs or alcohol was not a problem for either Abel or Zak. Both felt free. Even rain and the tents flooding could not dampen their spirits. They had made it out of Brighton and the lives they had been dissatisfied with.

 

14. THE CRAIC IN IRELAND

Abel was quite glad of a break from the robbing. They went to Cork next, hitching some good lifts. Again, everybody they met was friendly. One guy bought them cigarettes, and others gave them money. The road looked after them. A builder even let them stay a night at a house he was working on. Days blended into one another. They headed for Cool Mountain (because it had a cool name and because apparently there was a travellers site there). They travelled the south of Ireland lifted by the beauty of the country and the peoples friendliness. At Cool Mountain however they received their first hostility- from an Englishman who didn't like tourists, and from the local village people who didn't like this Englishman or any of the other travellers. They set up camp and Zak went down the hill to rob the supermarket, filling up a carrier bag with bread, crisps, biscuits, fruit, and returning with this. Abel was no good at shoplifting. Only robbing homes and businesses. They met some cooler people from Cool Mountain who got them beer and drove them (drunk themselves)- in a car wth a Buddha on the dashboard- into the town of Bantry. Here they got them more drinks in the pub- and got them stoned- and they appreciated this- a bonus to the food and shelter they had come to see as being so precious. They met more people- all this merriment a good craic. But then their lift left, and those they had met with them, deserting them here- with their tents miles away. Zak and Abel walked back- quite a mission whilst this pissed- and found a load of duty free goods on going round the back of a house for water. From having had nothing at the beginning of their trek they got back with two hundred Marlboro Lights and a bottle of whisky. They sold a few packets of the cigarettes for money for chips.

In these few days that Zak's life had taken such a change of pace, Hank's too had undergone a major transformation. He'd found that he could not handle being loved by his October Dawn. She'd even named him her November Sun. Joanne wanted him both physically and emotionally, and his brain unused to this just could not get to grips with it. He told her he couldn't be with her. He didn't write this. "Why?" she asked him- "It doesn't feel right," he said, before adding "I was born single."

"I thought you thought you were born single to be found by your soul mate."

"Are you my soul mate?" he asked her. "I could be," she answered him. The doorbell sounded. Startled by this, Hank went to answer it. He would be startled even further when he saw who it was this time. "Hi Hank," said Jenny, "Can I come in?"

"Hi Jenny," said Joanne. They sat and smoked a spliff together in Hank's living room. "Why are you here?" Joanne finally enquired of Jenny. Jenny looked to Hank, but he too wanted to know. The last he'd known he had been rejected by her and threatened by her friend Chloe if he tried to go near her again. "I wanted to see how you were doing," Jenny now spoke- to him, "I've been thinking. I'm sorry I was so sharp with you."

"Well you were quite sharp..." Hank mused. Joanne couldn't help but smirk. Suddenly the doorbell sounded again- What the fuk? thought Hank. He answered it- to the spitting image of his long deceased grandfather, only this doppelganger of him was TV licencing. "Do you possess a television set?" this guy croaked. "No I don't," said Hank, truthfully, going to shut his front door. "I have to be sure of that," this bloke croaked on, "May I advise you, Sir, that possessing a television set without a licence-" Hank managed to shut it. Blah! Blah! Blah! this old feller continued to croak through the letterbox. Hank returned to Joanne and Jenny, ignoring the croaking and the doorbell. "I love him," Joanne was saying to Jenny, "You turned him down." She quietened down when she saw that Hank was standing beside her. "Hi, honey," she said to him, taking a hold of his hand. "I'll be on my way," said Jenny, getting up. "Would you leave too please," Hank said to Joanne, "I need some time on my own."

"Mands!" Mad Mickey screamed, leaping up off Big Derek's sofa in the middle of his thirteenth night staying there. He hadn't seen his pregnant beloved in two weeks! He had to see her- had to see her immediately. He got a cab to his place. What he found there was not a pretty sight. He vomited, then phoned for an ambulance. He'd got there just in time for them to possibly save her. But she had succeeded in killing the baby.

"Mands!" Mad Mickey woke up from this same nightmare again. He got that cab over to his.

"I wonder what's happening in Brighton," Zak wondered aloud (with a mouthful of chips), looking down from Cool Mountain. "I wonder what's happening around the rest of the world," said Zak, "We need some dollars." This contact Paul was staying out of crime. He'd had his fingers in various pies, but such malarkey was now history. He hadn't recommended burglary in Ireland because of the guns. "We're gonna have to do a few jobs back in England," said Abel, "but to get back there we'll have to do some jobs here." They started back hitching towards Dublin again- aiming to do their robbing along the way. That night they ended up stranded in Skibbereen. It was cold and rainy, and the cars here wouldn't stop for them. Both tents had started leaking so badly they were hardly worth putting up. Both Abel and Zak had caught flu. A bushy bearded farmer who looked like Santa Claus saved them this time, putting them up in his trailer. He was a lonely man in his late forties named Malcolm who lived with his mother. They were given plenty of opportunity to rob this Malcolm, but of course they couldn't. Instead Zak resorted to phoning his dad (reverse charges) the next day and asking him to transfer the money for their return through Western Union. When they got back to Wembley, London they found the car with keys in it where they'd left it, and drove it to Zak's family's house.

 

15. END OF THE ROAD?

Mad Mickey held the incoherent Even Madder Mandy in his arms and tried to comfort her, soothing her like she was a baby. It was lucky she hadn't been sectioned the state she was in, especially with all her loud wailing. She hadn't damaged herself too badly (just a couple of burns on her arms), but it looked like she hadn't eaten in days. Mad Mickey felt terrible about having abandoned her- even though she had forced him to. He hadn't been able to put up with the amount of abuse he had been getting from her. "Come on lover," he said to her "are you able to walk, Mands? We'd better get some food in you, then nip down the hospital and check that the babby's alright."

"Leave me to die," sobbed Mandy, "Leave the both of us here to die."- before continuing with the nonsensical rambling.

"Your father says you can stay here a few nights but not your friend," Zak's mother told him. Zak's father had sussed Abel as a bad influence on his son, steering him off track and towards imprisonment. Zak saw having to stay on an unfulfilling track to be imprisonment. Abel didn't care to be judged. "Look, your old man's pissing me off," he said to Zak, "He's got me labelled as a no good criminal. That doesn't leave me with much scope to get on with the guy, and he's your dad so I can't knock him out." So what he proposed was that he took the car up to Nottingham, where he had done work before (and been arrested- called a Robin Hood in the local papers). Zak could stay on and rest at his folks house whilst he did this, his flu from Ireland having got worse. Another reason Abel burgled houses- as well as it being a means to an end- was to get back at the people who labelled and judged him. The authorities labelled him a criminal when they arrested him for his first act of necessity- and peoples attitude was Once a criminal, always a criminal. The more they judged and sought to punish him, the more he would rebel. The more he would react against the whole system. Zak was hallucinating with his flu. He was revisited by aliens. And they spoke to him with the same voices as he had been hearing lately. "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

"Love is the law. Love under will."

Zak willed for an Eternal Free Reality, not for one of struggle nor having to resort to thievery. The aliens continued to quote Aleister Crowley at him.

Mandy persisted with her rambling- worse than Jordy and Thelma on the drink. Mad Mickey was sober for her- well, he was stoned, but not pissed. He'd calmed it with the drinking whilst staying at Big Derek's, his bender on booze ending when his money did. He walked Mands across the road, heading towards the cafe where an ex dope punter worked whom he hoped he would be able to blag two free breakfasts from. They passed Jordy and Thelma, who waved cans of Super Strength at them and called over something about a New Age. One of the houses they walked past contained a confused Hank. And another (closer to the cafe) contained an equally confused Joanne. Joanne and Hank were both confused by Hank having fallen for her, Joanne having been game, and Hank having then backed away. She wondered if maybe he was gay... But Hank wasn't gay. She wondered if he was still in love with Jenny... Well he was wondering this himself. He had been thinking about her... But maybe the reason he wasn't with Jenny or Joanne was because he was scared of happiness with either of them. Scared of melting. (Scared of being consumed by love...) If he melted he figured he would no longer exist.

Zak had melted. What he was experiencing was like LSD. But the melted lucid self was still in his sick bed. Around his sick bed he envisaged a raging party- although the bleeps that people were dancing to were those of a hospital heart monitor. He recognised the girl dancing furthest away from him- her name was Kaz. He had been trying desperately to no longer think about her. She was dancing next to The Grinning Reaper, who grinned inanely at him, his eyes unblinking. Kaz- she didn't grin at him, but glared at him with disdain. Then he was back in a hospital ward with Jordy and Thelma bringing him some grapes and a pissed off (but beautiful even when she was pissed off) nurse telling him that she was not his Goddess.

The only thing Hank could be sure of was that he was unsure of everything else. He certainly didn't know how he felt about Joanne. He'd thought she'd been his soul mate, but thought the same thing of Jenny. And a string of other October Dawns before her. Joanne had been the only one of these he had fancied to be his soul mate to have shown interest back, but she wasn't October Dawn. Anymore. He did love her- but not in that heart melting way anymore. Had he loved her in that way at all, he now questioned, or merely imagined he had? He reckoned he'd felt the heart melting thing stronger with Jenny than he had done with Joanne- or any of the others- but then denied this when Jenny had seemingly not wanted to know him. His perceived reality prior to this had suggested that he and Jenny were meant to be. But he had had to let go of this or else it would have driven him more crazy. How did he feel about Jenny calling round to see him then? Were they meant to be still? Did he still love her?

How did Jenny feel? Like Joanne and Hank- confused. She'd got to believing all Hank had written to her about him seeing her to be special. She had been flattered by this. After the initial shock of it. But he had moved on to Joanne pretty fast. Seemingly making her just as special. Now once more she didn't know what to make of him. Blokes were a constant let down.

Big Derek woke up earlier than normal and stumbled through the living room to the kitchen in order to make himself a strong black coffee. He was surprised to find a folded note on the sofa in place of the expected Mad Mickey. Gone to Mands it read on the inside. Great. He'd have himself a morning wank with no danger of anyone walking in on him. No sooner than he had unzipped his trousers did some fukka pound on his door though. Great! he thought again, but this time not happily. Whoever was calling round at such an ungodly hour as this (9 am) could fuk off. He wasn't going to answer. No way. Whoever it was was persistant with the banging however. "This is the police!" a voice shouted, somewhat dramatically, from behind the door.

Zak and Abel were arrested too- in the latest hot car Abel had picked up (to carry his haul of other stuff) in Nottingham. They were busted in central London two days after his return, whilst driving round in circles, lost, looking for a squat party. "We're nicked," Abel said on seeing the blue lights. Oh dear... Zak was released- from a cell in Nottingham- thirty hours later- for merely being a passenger. He was given back a bottle of whisky that had been bought with the stolen money. He needed this. His head was in a mess. Abel's was as well of course. He was remaining in custody. Zak had to get his into a worse mess. This was how his voices said to deal with it. He had a blazing argument with his parents on the nearest pay phone, smashing the receiver when his dad said "I could have told you so." He was worried about Abel and worried about himself. Having lost his friend and travelling compadre, he was directionless again, and damn near suicidal at the prospect of a return to his Brighton stagnation. He stared at rail tracks, but didn't jump on them in front of an oncoming train- instead he jumped one of these trains that if he'd made another decision, might have splattered him, from Nottingham to nearby Loughborough. His sister Zarika was living in Loughborough with her boyfriend Henry, in a caravan that had enough room for him as long as it was only for a short stay. In Loughborough, when he was not with them, he drank alone in dull pubs where the locals talked about rabbits and cod, and made repeated phone calls to try and find out what was happening with Abel. Eventually he had to go somewhere else. This turned out to be his parents' house in Wembley, London again, although he resented them for having resented Abel, and because he needed people to resent and take his frustrations out on with the fukt upness of the situation. It soon became clear that the place wasn't big enough for him and his dad. It wasn't big enough for his mum and his dad, which was why his mum was leaving him. She was set to move into her new place within a couple of weeks. Shit! His mum was leaving his dad. His parents were splitting up! As ever he'd been so absorbed in his own problems he'd neglected to think about what was going on in their lives. They'd lived together all the time that he had known them, and soon they would be living separately. And what was he doing? Giving them extra stress as usual! Aaargh! That was it. Zak was suicidal. You should have offed yourself years ago, the voices said to him. He returned to Brighton with the intention of doing a Reginald Perrin, walking into the sea until he drowned (or died from the pollution). But when he saw the water, and the vast beach- such a contrast to the tiny police cells he had been restricted to in London and Nottingham- and the dingy pubs were people had discussed cod and rabbits in Loughborough- he started to feel alive (and appreciative of this life) again. It was unlikely that Abel would be seeing a beach again for a considerable time. He had already been locked in jail for stuff like this before. If the police connected him with the car and other theft done in Brighton he would probably be looking at a ten stretch this time.

 

16. BACK AND WORSE

Zak's elation was short lived- he soon felt lousy again- especially with no word still from Nottingham police about Abel. His own life was as it had been before he'd escaped from it- like he had disliked it. He was back in that prison. He was staying with Chloe, Jojo and Jenny in the squat once again. They were getting stoned non stop cos they saw little else to do. Jordy and Thelma were still drinking and annoying everyone with their biblical readings and New Age news. Zak felt nauseous. He hadn't felt this bad before. Now was much worse.

Franky, in Brighton hospital, felt surprisingly good. He was making rapid recovery and would be out of there in no time.

Big Derek was out of his police cell, but on bail until court where he was being done for possession and, pretty likely, supply of several ounces of cannabis. He found it suspicious that Mad Mickey happened to have gone out just before the time of the bust, but he didn't like to be thinking like this. He didn't like to be kicking The Dog.

Mad Mickey was reunited with his Mandy. The baby was due within a month. He was back in business punting out cannabis (his initial investment of this bought out of a DSS budgeting loan). He had plenty of customers now that Big Derek had stopped serving.

Hank was torturing himself for being so mixed up. For not understanding life or his feelings. And most of all, for having confused Joanne and Jenny. These had moved on with their own lives soon enough though- Joanne starting to show interest in an almost as amazed by this Jojo, Jenny concentrating on her artwork. "What do you make of that Joanne?" Chloe asked Jenny whilst she was painting. Jenny paused, her paint brush poised, then shrugged: "I dunno."

"I think she's a tart," Chloe voiced her opinion, "Although you know that I don't like to judge." Nor did she like feeling jealous about this Joanne in question making a move on her ex. But Jojo was proving to be as scared as Hank to take her up on her advances anyway.

Walking along the seafront one morning (several after Nottingham) Zak ran into Abel, who was on his way round to the squat. He had been sent to a bail hostel, absconded from there, and spent the last few weeks lying low in Ireland with Malcolm the lonely farmer they had met in Skibbereen. He said the rozzers hadn't linked him to the car found in Brighton yet, but they would in time. He had major plans-The adventure was back on. He'd stay at the squat and go robbing in the nights again. Zak told him that he now wished to stay out of this- not because of the threat of imprisonment, but because he had had time to think about it and now believed it was bad karma creating since it had victims. Abel accepted and understood this- even respected it. Zak would get some money together himself like Mad Mickey had done with a social loan. The nest egg Abel was collecting he was entrusting with a jeweller friend until he was all set to leave. He was going through the process of getting an illegal passport. But getting things sorted was stressful and he was starting to flip out.

When the jeweller holding his cash decided to double cross him, Abel snapped. There was a scuffle, during which he took some punches, but beat the guy up worse. He didn't get his money back though. His head got worse and worse. He considered driving one of his stolen cars full speed into a brick wall. Then he met Joanne- who'd not been getting anywhere with Jojo- who gave him some needed zest again. They had a few good days together, being in love, then he got nicked again- in another car- this time with her. He reckoned he could have lost the police in a chase, but he stopped because she asked him to. He wouldn't be getting any further bail deals.

 

17. KAZ

Kaz was Zak's obsession- his October Dawn (to quote the personal terminology of Hank). She was a girl he had met at the London squat parties over a year ago who he had never told how much he had come to care for her. What was it about her? At first it had been her smile. And then her losing of this- She had confided to him that she just wasn't happy. She had been squatting with some heroin users at the time, a time when his friends in Brighton had been dropping like flies from the stuff. He hadn't been able to bear the thought that she might be next. (As it turned out, one of his own squatting partners, Emily, was.) He had arranged to meet her one to one out of the party environment and travelled up to London on a Wednesday one week. But she had blown him out. He'd waited for her for three hours. Still he had pined after her, wishing that he could somehow save her. Or was he really wanting her to save him? This thought is what kept him silent (ceiled up his feelings) from here on. He'd doubted that his love for her was pure. As a result of this, this love in question had got polluted and he had gone weird on her- been rendered unable to talk to her. Resentment of her standing him up plus the new found concern for himself had transformed him into a freak who could only watch her from afar and on trying to communicate verbally with her, always come out garbled. He'd resisted the feelings he had for her seeing her in person. Like Hank, he had tried to make sense of these privately in writing. Hence Kaz had become a Goddess on the written page. He'd loved Her there but wouldn't allow himself to to her face. He'd had visions of her smiling again- visions that he loved- which he'd experienced in dreams, his writing and on LSD. Since Zak did most of his acid at London squat party raves, Kaz was usually on the scene, and on one occasion everything had melted and he had hallucinated that she loved him back. His mind had imagined that she was playing / also in denial, and he had crumbled in ecstasy, waiting for her to make a move. Unfortunately Kaz hadn't made a move, but left. Downtrodden, he'd cursed the world, and with this world, himself. He had abused himself by abusing drink and drugs (bender self justified), and worried his family and friends that loved him some more. His parents had taken the worst brunt of this- he had punished them for his being alive and in pain on planet earth in the first place. The pain had lasted most of the past year until subsiding to new pains such as Emily's death and Franky being revealed to be a sex offender. He had continued to keep it at bay by keeping his distance from Kaz- avoiding London parties. (He did not see her at the one he attended just after Franky was beaten into his coma.) Then Zak had been glad to leave the country that contained Kaz (yeah, block her out) on his adventures with Abel. Although now Abel was in jail- these adventures were postponed- and he had time to think again. No! His head could not deal with that. He closed his eyes and wished for the world to stop.

 

18. THIS INSANE LIFE HASN'T STOPPED YET

Zak's parents were living in different houses (well, his dad in the same house and his mum now in a flat). At least they had split up fairly amicably- his dad even having helped his mum to move. They'd lived in each other's space without being in love- arguing with one another- for over ten years. Zak never wanted to risk getting himself into a situation like that. In Ireland he had tried to erase Kaz out of his mind. He had been trying this for months. Why? Because he was so unsure of himself- and love. Because he believed she deserved someone better than him. He had fallen for her the day he had met her (introduced to her by Bob, who at this time had also fancied her). Emily dying, Franky being exposed as a paedophile and put in a coma by Mad Mickey, plus his spell of criminal activity with Abel had all helped with keeping the memory of the smile she had had on her face that day at the back of his mind. But now it was back again. It had been pure Happiness. It tore him up inside that she had not had such a smile on her face since. Maybe she only no longer smiled around him. (Or at least hadn't done the last few times that he had seen her.) Abel in Ireland had listened to him spill his heart out about Kaz. Abel had dug the fact that he was a romantic. "Don't kill yourself over women though," he'd advised. Some further advice had been to "Fuk them off without showing you are too interested and if they're meant to, they'll come running." But "Surely they need to know that there's some interest there or they won't bother," Zak had said. His problem (on too many occasions) had been not being able to show just a little interest, but going over the top. Pouring that heart of his out onto the table and saying Stamp on that! Girls had generally obliged. Assuming that Kaz would have done the same, he had struggled against allowing himself to do this with her. He had tried to remain her friend and brother. But his denial of deeper feelings towards her had alienated the both of them. Last time he'd seen her she'd blanked him altogether.

Hank had blown things with both Joanne and Jenny, but found comfort from this and his other woes in a spliff and cup of coftea. October Dawn has gone- it is mid November, he wrote in his poetic journal. Joanne had moved on to Jojo, who had been as scared of her affections as Hank, and then Abel, who had subsequently been arrested and sent down for up to ten years for a scroll of illegal activities. She too had been arrested with him. He'd asked her not to write or visit. Jenny had been avoiding relationships and sticking to her artwork, although she had shared a moment with Jojo recently where their eyes had met and they'd seen into each other. She had been squatting with him and Chloe for the last couple of years before this strange and wonderful thing should happen. Chloe had been with him longer. Chloe had been partnered with him. Chloe, like Jojo, had remained single since they split up (carrying on squatting together). She'd found herself getting pissed off by Joanne making advances towards him. When she started noticing the new chemistry between Jenny and him she didn't know how to react- for these were both close friends. Jenny and Jojo had both formerly been scared of love.

Mad Mickey and Even Madder Mandy were together again with Mandy eating weirder foods than Hank and (not surprisingly) throwing up every morning. She was bursting out of her clothing and set to drop their sprog at any time and had even quit the drugging and drinking. Mad Mickey had calmed this down too in solidarity, though had to smoke dope still since he was dealing the stuff. Big Derek was being off with him- ever since his drugs bust- as if it was his fukkin' fault. The Dog had been taken off him by the RSPCA. He was looking at a possible jail sentence for the found cannabis. The only people that visited him now that he no longer dealt smoke were Jordy and Thelma, who he could never get to leave. Jordy and Thelma had kept on visiting Franky in the hospital too, although now Franky was out of there.

Knock Knock. Jenny answered. Franky smiled at her. She froze. She couldn't see the Franky she had squatted with anymore. "Ur-" she murmured, paralysed. "Who is it?" Chloe's voice called. "Ur-" Jenny uttered again. "...How are you?" she asked him once she'd stopped her Ur-ing. "Much better thanks," he answered, "You?"

"Ur-" she started in with the Urs again. "You look well anyway," he spoke. How could she possibly in such a state of shock? "Jenny, who is it?" Chloe's voice called again. "It's Franky, Chloe," Jenny managed to reply this time. "Franky?" Chloe rushed over, with Jojo in tow. Franky smiled at these too. Neither of them smiled back at him. Jordy and Themla, Zak and a couple of members of his blood family had been the only people to have visited him in the hospital. Mad Mickey, their dealer of the time- who was now their dealer again- had been the person who had put him there. "What do you want?" Jojo asked bluntly. He asked it with fierceness. Franky The Hippy held out a Winston Churchill victory sign and said "To make my peace." He had squatted with them for over a year before he had admitted having interfered with an eleven year old. They must have smoked a million spliffs together. "What are you gonna do?" Chloe asked this figure on their doorstep- none keen to welcome this figure in. "I dunno," Franky shrugged, hopelessly, "Start afresh somewhere new I guess?"

Abel had started afresh in Her Majesty's Prison Lewes, where in his first weeks he had already made plenty of enemies. The screws and the inmates were all out to fuk him up. These and the cage had soon turned him into an animal. He'd asked Joanne, the girl he'd started seeing, not to keep in touch, and soon he asked the same of Zak. He wanted them to remember the cheeky crim, not the imprisoned beast. Big Derek was likely to be joining him soon. His court case was less than a month away.

Big Derek was caning the speed to cope, but getting increasingly paranoid. He had become convinced that Mad Mickey, who he had been putting up at his, had first of all stolen off him, and secondly set him up. The guy had had nothing when he had started staying at his- he'd blown it all. And now all of a sudden he had everything. Now it was Big Derek who had nothing. For Mad Mickey had taken it. "The bastard grassed me to the pigs," he realised out loud to the walls. He couldn't- wouldn't- stand for that.

 

19. ONE IN, ONE OUT

"Push!!!" the midwife screamed. Mad Mickey stood back in awe. Mands was in agony, but she was determined to give birth to this thing. This thing was his thing- his babby- she had promised him this. She'd only said differently to test him, and he knew that he should never have doubted her. Even Madder Mandy had been faithful to him, as he had been faithful to her. Even if it had been another bloke's kid, Mad Mickey reckoned he would have stuck by her and fathered it. "Push!!!" the midwife screamed again. Their little person arrived feet first.

The pigs appeared to be tailing Big Derek whenever he left the house. And he was pretty sure his place had been bugged and all. "That bastard Mickey grassed me to ya didn't he, eh?" he spoke in a threatening tone to the probably bugged walls.

The baby- or babby as Mad Mickey called it- their mini alien- was utterly beautiful. More beautiful than either of them could ever have imagined or hoped. Even Madder Mandy had never been so happy. Suddenly she felt different. She couldn't remember ever having felt this clear. "Lover," she said to Mickey, "I'm sorry I've given you such a hard time." She hugged both him and her child. Felt really positive and optimistic.

Lovers' happiness never lasts, thought Zak, thinking about his parents and all he knew. Though some at least get to be in love, then lose. It was better to have been in love and lost than not to have been in love at all- apparently.

Mad Mickey had only just seen the birth of his baby, Mickey Junior, about an hour before he was jumped by Big Derek on his doorstep. He was going back there from the hospital to get some stuff for Mands. Big Derek caught him unawares with a baseball bat to the head and just kept hitting him with it until he was a bloody mess. "This'll teach ya to fuk with me!" the deranged Derek screamed. He didn't run. He waited for the police to get to him. By this time Mad Mickey was no longer breathing. Big Derek had killed him.

 

20. DEPARTED DEALERS

This insane life had stopped for Mad Mickey, and his spirit was going on to another one. Big Derek was in prison for having taken it. The drugs possession was now a minor additional charge. Even Madder Mandy was madder than she'd ever been. Her newly born baby had been taken away from her. She'd been thrown into an institution where she was getting pumped full of sedatives. It had to be a nightmare. This couldn't possibly be real. The others who had known Mad Mickey, Even Madder Mandy and Big Derek were all reeling again.

"Mum, another friend's dead," Zak told his mum on the telephone, "Another's in jail. And another's in psychiatric."

"Are you gonna be long?" a junkie hanging out to call his dealer pressurised him. "Give me five minutes here!" Zak hissed at him. "...Yeah, guess we should have stayed in Ireland," he continued speaking to his mother, "Being back in Brighton is shit." His mum listened patiently to all that her first born son had to say, although she really could not understand his lifestyle. When she was young the friends she hung around with weren't dying, getting put in prison or sectioned. At least not on such a regular basis. "There are voices chatting to me," he admitted to her, "I think I'm going more crazy myself."

"Then stop taking so many drugs," his mother told him, firmly. He sighed, waiting for her to suggest that he should get a girlfriend. "Come on mate!" the junkie outside the phone box appealed. "OK, OK!" he said, "Mum, I gotta go."

"Lay off the drugs. Eat a proper diet. Get eight hours a night sleep."

"OK, OK! Mum, laters. I love you."

"I think I love you," Jojo told Jenny. He kissed her lips. A magnet had drawn them together suddenly after a long term of being platonic squatting buddies. The horrible business with Mad Mickey being killed by Big Derek had brought everyone closer, especially them. "I think I love you too," Jenny said, smiling at him. Chloe, sat next to them on the beanbag, scrunched her face up. "I think I'm going to vomit," she stated. Jordy and Thelma strolled in, each carrying a big carrier bag full of alcohol. "Door was open," said Jordy, "Heard about the tragedy."

"Yasss," slurred Thelma, "but all iss not lossst. For we have the holy worrrd, the bible..."

"Not today, thanks," Jojo said to them. "And we can pray for all involved," Jordy suggested.

Mad Mickey found his released from the body spirit being directed to Heaven as willed by so many good people on earth going to the trouble of praying for him. He'd seen his life flash before him, but it had all happened in actual time, and this had been his forty two years' life. The last bit he wouldn't have minded rewinding since it had happened so fast. Although he had managed to make out that it was Big Derek who had ended it for him. Big Derek, his friend. (Having done too much amphetamines.) It had been one of the worst possible times to kill him, what with his kid only just having popped. Young Mickey would have to go through life not knowing his father. Or his mother. He couldn't hold bad feeling towards Big Derek over it though. He'd fukt up. Everyone did. (Especially when overdoing drugs like speed.) Instead, he prayed for the sick Derek, and now that he thought about it, the sick Franky the hippy who he'd mashed up as well, just like folks were praying for him. (This praying for these others probably the reason he was getting to Heaven.)

Wow, Heaven looked just like his Brighton gaff. And that woman- that woman was his Mands. "Hi honey," she said. She had their baby with them. Mickey Junior! He hugged them both. He no longer had any scars.

Even Madder Mandy, in her strait jacket, was in this Heaven too.

Jenny was happy to be with Jojo. She felt comfortable with him. He was a sweety, especially when trying to be fierce. She'd been raped twice in this life and suffered even more hurt, but now this guy who cared for her had eradicated the lot of it. Jojo was glad to be with a girl again after such a long time (since Chloe). Chloe didn't want to be with Jojo but didn't want Jojo to be with Jenny. Jenny was her friend. And so was Jojo. She didn't want to lose either of them, especially not the both of them to each other. "Hey there's a free community art space setting up down the road," Jordy mentioned. "Tekno blasting out of it," added Thelma.

 

21. NEW HORIZONS

The Sporadic Arts Installation was the brainchild of X, a cosmic magician and founder member of the infamous tekno outfit Know Real Threat. It consisted of live sets, sculpture, graphics, painting, DJs, video projections, alternative films, performance poetry and multimedia theatre. It was more than a party or general community space in other words- it mutated and evolved. This current one, in a squatted pub, was its sixth since starting out. The falling apart building had been transformed by a hardcore crew of artists before being opened to the public. The idea was for it to be added to with further sculptures, paintings and psychedelic backdrops along the way. Within a few hours of opening plenty of people power (enough to avoid instant eviction) had already been gathered, these bodies sat around chilling in the two main rooms or out the back in the leafy former beer garden. Four of these bodies belonged to Zak, Jojo, Jenny and Chloe, these brought along here by Jordy and Thelma. "This is pretty good," said Chloe, well impressed. Jenny dug it too, what with being so into art. "The revolution," stated Jordy. "A New Age," said Thelma. "Spliff?" a green painted staturesque mime artist broke his silence and stillness, offering Jojo a bifta, "It needs a light."

"Nice one, man," said Jojo, taking it. The statue froze again, grinning. X ambled over himself, smoking a joint as well. He was in his early thirties, his muscley arms covered in more art (lots of black tattoos). He had a Buddha on them, and Ganesh the elephant God, also various occult symbols. "Welcome to the future," he said, clearly stoned. "A New Age," repeated Thelma. "Yeah!" cried Jordy. "The setting for The Big Finale," X spoke directly to Zak, "Where it all begins."

X had full faith in his Master Plan working. He had seen it all work out in a vision. Already he and his crew had hosted Sporadic Arts Installations in Southampton and Portsmouth, but Brighton was where they were going to concentrate on. The town turned city recently was full of creative people- and party heds- who could help to make it happen. A free space was needed here where these people could get together and celebrate their free life. He had enlisted friends from many of the tribes within the international underground to start putting it into action. This current space- a pub- was guarded by a great big metal sculpted robot, and there was a strong bolt on the front door for if the rozzers decided to arrive in unfriendly numbers. If one or two came, they would be welcome to browse around. The mascot robot had been fluffyfied by a plastic smiley face necklace having been added onto it. The place was safe for children- it even had a creche, and vegan food was served for affordable donations twice a day. Propaganda and information could be picked up from the Know Reality stall, whilst Know Real Threat sound system provided the music in the main arena. Various other rigs were taking turns in guesting upstairs, with live bands, open mic and the cinema up there also. The whole of it was an art gallery. Zak loved it as much as the rest of his squatting family the moment he first walked through the door. "If I can help with this in any way," he was soon saying to X, "I've got nothing but spare time on my hands." Jojo, Jenny and Chloe offered their services also. Jenny started work on a large mural.

Hank checked out The Sporadic Arts Installation on its third day (in this venue), smiling upon seeing the smiley on the robot. He stuck some writings of his on the walls. He was pleased to see people stopping to read them, this was great, even if they appeared to be perplexed by them. He noticed Jenny putting the finishing touches to her mural. He noticed the mural. "Man, that's fukking excellent," he told her, honestly. It was of a sunset and a charred figure watching it. She backed away from him. "Jeez!" he said, "I ain't gonna rape you!" She backed away even further. Fast. "I'm with Jojo," she said to him, with panic in her eyes. Maybe she was saying I'm with Jojo but don't want to be- please save me from him. "Relax," he calmed her, "I'm not coming on to you. Just commenting on your wall mural."

"What's going on here?" asked a passing X, showing concern. "Just commenting on her wall mural," answered Hank.

Zak had found some cosmic literature at the Know Reality stall- a pamphlet produced by a group calling itself The Lucifer Liberation Front. Alarm Call it was called, and this was Issue 23. And it seemed to be written by the same voices that had been speaking to him. Memo: Don't forget that The Armageddon has already happened, its cover read- thus ending all restrictive 'concepts' such as money, time and the hierarchical Babylon system. The New Age / Eternal Free Party / Heaven On Earth is right here 'now' as soon as one chooses to wake up to it.

Big Derek woke up in his prison cell from a dream in which he had hung himself and been willed to Heaven by the entity he had killed to end up in this cell. His Heaven had been an isolated room in which he could masturbate in peace. Unfortunately he shared his cell. His cell mate didn't mind masturbating here himself, but for Big Derek, it was something he had to do in private. He didn't appreciate this cell mate wanking in his small living space, but the guy was even Bigger than Big Derek was and insisted upon it.

"Did you write this?" Zak had to ask Jordy and Thelma, what with the Lucifer Liberation Front's references to a New Age Heaven on earth. "No," they said, but were interested to flick through a copy. He asked the SchNews lot if they knew about it. "No," these people involved with Brighton's weekly direct action newsletter also said. "Do you know who wrote it?" Zak then asked of X. "Extra terrestrial intelligences probably," X replied. Extra terrestrials! Zak kept forgetting- or refusing to believe- that he had met these recently.

The party side of The Sporadic Arts Installation kicked in properly by Day Five with thousands of people flooding in and somehow all managing to fit. Dealers sold their wares openly, shouting "Pills! Acid! Ketamine!" It was Zak's order book day. He figured he would get blasted.

 

22. WASTERS LOSING TIME

Wow, Zak's head was spinning out of control. The data scattered everywhere meant that it was a jumbled up mess that he was perceiving. He had been rushing- experiencing bliss flowing throughout his body and mind. Buzzing on the Es and speed and LLF literature. But alas too much ketamine had fuzzied his clear thinking. Now thoughts came at him from all angles, and a lot of these painful ones. The undecipherable ones the worst, tying his brain into knots. Aaargh, you're going crazy, the voices told him. And crazy's bad- you might as well kill yourself. Hank, also at the party, was in a similar state, punishing himself too for being so fukt up. He had written the story he'd stuck up on the wall whilst as fukt up.

The story was all about his resumed hankering for Jenny, even using her real name. It was very personal- too personal for most readers' liking. It was sad, but at least it was well written. In it he described how he had been charmed by her, and how he had deceived himself that she was interested in him back. Also how he had believed that she was his cosmic partner October Dawn and how his being blown away by this had made him clumsy and fearful and unable to talk directly to her without crumbling. As a result he had alarmed her, and it had taken him a while to realise this. He had messed up both of their heads- his worse than hers (he sincerely hoped). He wrote on about how he had then wanted Joanne to be October Dawn, but how October Dawn was still (and always would be) Jenny. Yes, that was in black and white for all to see on The Sporadic Arts Installation's wall.

The Armageddon has already happened, Zak continued to ponder... "You're dead!" the aliens had told him. This was madness! He felt like testing it- What should he do? Dive off the top of a tall building? Slash his wrists? "Reality could be pulling your leg!" Jordy and Thelma often said. These two also believed that they were living in a New Age. Zak wanted to believe that he was living in a New Age where each person was a God or Goddess, but to be a God himself he felt he needed to have found a Goddess. In another reality Zak had told Kaz straight away and in straight forward fashion that he was in love with her- that he saw her to be The Goddess. That if she wanted, then he would be there for her. And he'd be true. That his love for her would flow effortlessly and continuously and be unconditional. In this imagined reality she had accepted it. In another still she had said that this was bollox.

Without knowing that Jenny had drawn a mural reminiscent to Edvard Munch's The Scream recently, Hank saw both himself and her in this famous painting. He'd wanted to put his arm around her and help her stop screaming, not make her scream even more. It really hurt him that she was so wary of him still. He loved her- he did love her- thus he did not wish to upset her. Jenny reckoned she would give happiness a go with Jojo. Like she had said to him, she reckoned she loved him. Neither she nor Jojo were happy on reading Hank's story. Jojo tore it off the wall. He felt like tearing Hank up as well (he got fierce), but Jenny dissuaded him. "I'll talk to him," she said, a little uneasily.

"You're one of us int ya," Jordy buzzed excitedly to X. X smiled at him and winked- "We're all One."

"Another light bringer!" exclaimed Thelma. "Hallelujah!" cried Jordy. "Don't tell everyone," whispered X, lighting up another joint. "What's the agenda then?" Jordy asked, "What's happening? What is our mission here on earth?"

"The mission here at The Sporadic Arts Installation is to mutate and evolve," X spoke as if he were at a press conference.

"Mannn..." gasped Zak. He felt like he was mutating and evolving. Dissolving even. Melting again. Everything was spinning now- not just his head. All was luminous. He was returning to The Vortex. Suddenly he saw. Once more. But he could not put words to it.

Whilst Zak and various others were expanding their consciousness at The Sporadic Arts Installation a bloke not far from there was beating another bloke to shit. Troy was a maniac. He hurt people to hurt his own fist. He provoked upset with people by calling them Wankers. Troy himself did masturbate quite frequently. (Well, it was something to do between the mindless violence.) Tonight he was on a particularly bad people mashing self hate fuelled bender. He wanted to kill someone to kill himself.

"Can I have a word please?" Jenny approached Hank with apprehension. "Sure," Hank beamed at her, "You can have a whole story."

"It's that I want to speak to you about," said Jenny, "We've taken it down off the wall."

"We have?" Hank asked, raising an eyebrow, "You mean the collective We?"

"I have," Jenny spoke (despite it having been Jojo). "Fine," shrugged Hank, "I'm sorry if you don't like it. I'm sorry if you don't like me."

"Look," said Jenny, "I do like you. I'm just not in love with you."

"Fair enough," Hank snorted. But it didn't feel fair.

Joanne, also mentioned in Hank's story, luckily didn't get to see it or else she too would have been nonplussed. She'd gotten over his losing interest in her after their having sex, but wouldn't have appreciated this information being presented for all to read along with his regrets on having bedded down with the wrong girl. Joanne was growing fed up of geezers in general. She had turned her attentions to Melanie, a lesbian. "Good party innit," she said, nodding her head to the music. "Line of coke?" Melanie asked her, offering this.

Zak snorted an umpteenth line of ketamine. He sensed another storm alooming. "A shaman is someone who has seen the end," he heard X's voice saying. He saw Kaz the girl that he loved in his mind. The girl he had killed himself over.

"Wanker," was the last word that Zak recalled. Last thing he saw was stars. He'd returned to the star, but then come back again. He'd found himself surrounded by the aliens, observing him in their long white coats. He'd been strapped down. They had injected him. He'd guessed he was their experiment... "What the hell's going on?" X panicked, rushing over. This was happening around his fallen body but he was also with the aliens... "That psycho started calling him a wanker and just laid into him," said someone. Kaz? "Watch who you're calling a psycho, bitch," snarled this psycho, "or you'll end up the same way."

"That isn't gonna happen," X said, sure of this. "Oh isn't it?" Troy swung out with a fist. Blows were exchanged- Troy tried to claw at X's face, but X floored him with a power packed left hook. The girl- not Kaz- was in tears by Zak's fallen body- "I think he's dead!" she screamed, mortified. "No I ain't dead," announced Zak, fairly sure of this. Before drifting out of with itness again... Things had happened fast- in acceleration. He hadn't been able to take it all in. Hadn't wanted to take it all in because a lot of it had been unpleasant. Oh well, that was over now. Zak woke from sleep. "How are you doing?" Chloe asked him, standing over him. He appeared to be at a quietened down Sporadic Arts Installation. He thought he caught a glimpse of Kaz in the old beer garden, but no, she wasn't there.

Joanne had been there for Hank, but he'd returned to wanting Jenny. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted her either if she had wanted him. He hadn't meant to hurt Joanne's feelings, but he couldn't be in love with her. The sex had been enjoyable, but he didn't see this as enough basis for a relationship. He'd sought to please her back sexually, but his heart had not been in it.

Zak couldn't shake being in love with Kaz. The soppy git loved his memory of her smile. He had barely thought about having sex with her. He had wanted more to hold her hand. But he had weirded her out, a little like Hank had weirded out Jenny. His main mistake had been not telling her how he felt about her straight away. But hell, it had all been a test- a game- a bit of multiple perceptions fun. He'd seen this many times- awoken to it- yet still he'd returned to taking things seriously. This insane life was too insane to possibly be real. (Though it would make a mad story.) He figured he would do a rewrite- change his own character- reprogramme himself, and look out for this reprogrammed entity. Considering this new self a best friend instead of a sacrificial lamb or enemy would be Step 1. Or better yet he could look out for all of his selves, taking all his split personalities around with him wherever he went and looking out for them all . His family and his friends looked out for him. They clearly loved him. In whole. It was about time he did also. Whilst still loving them in whole as well. New start- New beginning- He and his selves would love all others' selves as One Self and play the game for fun (Playing with One Self)-

"Wanker," Troy said to him. Bizarre de ja vu. "Maybe so, but if all is one illusion then all sex is also masturbation..." Zak answered. "What the fuk?" said Troy. I don't know, thought Zak. (One of his voices had spoken this.) "Don't I know you?" Troy said suddenly, "Haven't I mashed you up before?"

"Yes you have," said Zak, shuddering at the memory. "Well I guess I'm gonna mash you up again," Troy informed him, "and this time even worse." OK, thought Zak, Fuk it. He was ready to leave this world where One couldn't escape duality.

 

23. ROUNDED PSYCHOSIS

All the drugs he had taken in his life seemed to kick in at once. Or was that Troy giving him his final beating? No, Troy hadn't started yet, but Zak was aware of the impending threat. Allowing himself to be intimidated, he shrunk to nothing. What's my fear? he questioned. Death would be a release from this world of fear. Pain? He lived the beating to death with a baseball bat that Mad Mickey took. And experienced the battering Franky got (from Mickey) that he had formerly merely watched. He experienced all manner of violence- strangulation, stabbing, etc- but through this realised that of course, like everything, all such pain was transient. He realised that this menace calling him a Wanker could not actually harm him and so he decided to call him a Plum. "What the fuk did you call me?" Troy asked him, "Huh?", but he asked it with a grin on his face. Suddenly they were friends and laughing together: Troy's manifestation having been one of many sent to immunise him from fear of death and scare him to life. "Are we dead already?" Zak asked his new friend. "You're alright, wanker," Troy laughed, slapping him on the back. "Zak-" said a voice he recognised. He turned round to see Franky. "Hey you're out of hospital. Excellent!" exclaimed Zak. It was excellent to see him back on his feet again after the coma and everything. "Jordy and Thelma say they have been joking about it being a New Age and that this actually starts tonight," Franky informed him. Jenny approached. Franky smiled at her, but moved away. "Has Hank been bugging you?" Zak asked her. "Well, a little," she said, shrugging, "but he's OK. Do you know he put a story about me up on the Art Space walls! But I think he has now got the message. I'm giving things a go with Jojo. I've told Hank he'll have to find another October Dawn."

"Looks like he already has," Zak said, noticing the mentioned Hank snogging a winged angel in the centre of the dance floor. "Good for him," said Jenny. And good for her and Jojo. Good too for the angel by the looks of it. All around him people suddenly seemed to be in love. Joanne was feeling up Melanie the lesbian to their mutual pleasure. A couple that looked like Mad Mickey and Even Madder Mandy (and even had a baby with them!) were also getting intimate. Jordy and Thelma were spilling alcohol in their drunken embrace. Good for everyone, thought Zak. And then he saw Troy again- a fellow loner. Not in love.

Troy was bugged out about his not being in love. He expressed this by smashing his head hard into an uncovered bit of wall. The red that splashed on it created quite a trippy psychedelic effect. "Bollox! All bollox!" he screamed, continuing to smash his split head into the wall. "Stop!" screamed Zak louder, rushing over, concerned. Troy stopped with the head smashing but continued to utter the word "Bollox." Zak sat with him for a while, but on getting no other response, eventually left him with a spliff and moved on. He went to the top floor where people were clambering out of the window to get to an additional music area that had now been set up on the roof. This pub was a tall building, and from its high rooftop, Zak considered the mess his body falling at high velocity would have on impact with the ground below. A friend of his, Raymond, actually went through with this current fantasy some years ago, but Raymond was sat there now on this rooftop smoking a chillum. A Zen smile spread across his meditative face, his dreadlocks flapping gently in the breeze. Zak didn't dare to speak to him, but gave him a nod of recognition. "Hey Zakster!" someone shouted to him, and he turned to see Bob, his mate from London, grinning wildly. "Look what I have manifested this time!" he yelled, and he produced a bag containing more drugs than he had ever found in one find before. "Fat lines?" he asked as he began to chop up the powder that appeared to be coke, "Yes of course fat lines!"- and he and Zak both laughed. Bob explained how he had jumped the train down after hearing about the Sporadic Arts Installation happening in Brighton on the party line- and found this bag of drugs on searching the train carriage for a valid ticket (which he also found). "I don't believe it!" gasped Zak, "How do you do it?" Bob offered him a rolled up fiver and told him to get his nose round it. One snorting each later the two of them were both feeling the effects. It was coke. It was exceptionally good coke. "Bob, I'm still in love with Kaz," Zak then confessed to him. Ruining it. "Jeezus!" sighed Bob, clearly disappointed in him. Or maybe suggesting that he was crucifying himself? "Can't help it," said Zak, "There is something special about her." Here we go again! thought Bob. "But you know that!" Zak continued, "I need her to be my friend at least. Is she really pissed off with me?" Bob appeared to be really pissed off with him. He took the rest of his found drugs and left. Zak returned downstairs where Troy had resumed his head smashing again. Blood was pissing down his face- he was raging. Zak sought to calm him down. Listening to himself- his own voice- not conflicting voices- he guessed he would have to follow his own advice and not create pain for himself either.

He had created his own pain by clinging on to Kaz. By telling himself that someone was missing from his life, and making this someone her. The girl who had smiled at him once, but who no longer did. "Have you got yourself a ladyfriend?" his gran asked every time she saw him- No. Just worsening mental health and more drug addictions. That fukt up drug love was the worst. That had right done him in. Kaz had been the object of his for a long time denied love, which after being realised had been dwelled upon for too long. The Fay Wray to his King Kong- the Esmerelda to his freaked out Quasimodo hunchback. The beauty that had killed the beast. This King Kong having fallen for Her. She stumbled upon the dance floor- Yes it was Her. She was here!- her split combat trousers flapping against the ground. Getting bustled about by the more energetic party heds. She staggered in a beautiful slow motion. "Kaz!" he had to cry out to her. She scowled at him and hastily moved away. Zak's instant reaction was to punish himself some more. But then he remembered what he had just been telling himself (via Troy) about quitting hurting himself. He would simply stay away from her. Easier thought than done- he kept bumping into her everywhere. And she wouldn't speak to him. "Bollox is it a New Age," he said to Jordy and Thelma, "Kaz still hates me." But then he thought, Fuk it, well then that's her problem.

"Wimmin are no good," said a familiar voice behind him. Zak turned round to see Abel. He had Big Derek, another who was supposed to be in prison, with him. "We've escaped," they announced. "Hey what are you saying Women are no good?" a girl who looked like- who was- Emily asked Abel. "Well you aren't are you?" Abel said to her. As the two began to engage in an argument, Mad Mickey offered Zak a bong. Zak took a mighty blast on this- "Hey, don't Bogart!" yelled Emily when he went to take another. "Bloody humans," tutted a fully remoulded from the melt (evolved) alien. "Bollox is it a New Age," he heard Kaz commenting to X. He turned and saw that she had a conspiratory smile on her face.

THIS INSANE LIFE WOULD MAKE A MAD STORY 1. ZAK VERSUS THE FUKKAS "Wanker," some fuk said to him. In fact Zak very seldom wanked. He never had sex. He was trying to curb his desires. Celibacy was about the only category in which he scored any points in his quest for Buddhahood. And it wasn't as if he didn't get the offers. Nah, he didn't want the extra complications involved. He was a casualty of falling in love too easily. Casual sex disinterested him and he'd put his hand into the fire enough times to know that getting too close to anyone again would only burn him like those last times. Why was this fukka calling him a wanker then? Zak took this as an opportunity to practice his patience. He took a deep breath, counted to twenty three, then asked this person, "You speaking to me?" He didn't ask this menacingly- not like De Niro in Taxi Driver, but very calmly- casually even- out of vague interest. "Yes I'm speaking to you," growled this person now more resemblant to an ape, "So what are you gonna do about it?" Good question, Zak thought. He paused to consider his answer. This guy was big, and to be honest he didn't care to fight him. Sometimes in situations inaction was better than action, he realised. And so he answered, "Nothing at all." The guy looked baffled and had to take a brief pause in which to think things through himself before returning with, "What are you gonna do about this?" and a hard punch to Zak's face. Ow! His fist had impact, and Zak momentarily saw bright stars (Wow!) before stumbling backwards, falling- like in a dream (Far out...), and hitting the concrete floor with a thud. Just as he was coming to a steel toe capped boot caught him in his slowly opening eyes. And he passed back out into unconsciousness. Days earlier Zak had been trying to make some money selling The Big Issue when he had encountered more hostility. If it wasn't physical aggression it was sneers and coldness. "Crazy person talking to himself!" he ended up screaming in frustration, "But he's also a human being trying to sell a magazine!" He'd given up after three hours with only one sale and two acknowledgments. Fuk this, he'd thought, I'd be better off robbing your houses. He would never really do this of course. He'd experimented with crime in the past but found this wasn't for him. Instead he would remain skint and be down about this- or rather the fact that one needed funds in this world when he had none. He wasn't up for shoplifting anymore and he had grown nauseous from blagging. At least he had a packet of Rizlas and a working lighter. He scooped a couple of cigarette dog ends up off the street. Man, I'm sick, so sick of this world, he thought whilst trudging back to his mouldy squat. He stopped to check the supermarket skips on the way to find that the thrown out food had been bleached and rendered inedible. Sick to death of this sick world, he continued thinking. The news awaiting him at the squat made him even sicker. Dead? She couldn't be dead. It took a while to sink in. He'd kind of fancied her. But constantly denied it. She'd certainly been a good friend. And a squatting partner for almost a full year. "Who gave her the heroin?" were his first words when he could find any. The others shuffled about nervously- "Well we all got a load of it." Zak could not believe what he was hearing- "What were you thinking of? We all agreed: a no smack squat." "It was a one off- you know- didn't expect this, like. Knew you wouldn't be into it." "Well it has certainly proven to be a one off for Emily," Zak stated. The others continued to shuffle about nervously. For them- not Emily- life carried on. Was she really dead? Zak broke down and cried. He had loved her. Love, not fear, thought Zak as he lay dying. Surely dying. His vision was blurry through his tears and his blood, and the sound around him was distorted. Was that tinny sirens? Was that paramedics coming through? Or more attackers? No fukkin' hell, it was aliens. The first to arrive was a grinning reaper donning a T Shirt with the slogan I Love Sirius who said "Zak, you're free. Your worst fear has been realised." Earlier back still Zak had been very fearful. Ever since being told as a child that the superpowers that controlled the world had the power to destroy it at the drop of a hat. "How can this be?" he had asked his mum who had not known. "I don't know how this world has become the way it is," she had said to him. Most people had expected The Armageddon to have happened by now-1975 and the turning of the millennium two hotly tipped guesses for it. But no, life had gone on and on and on- Zak's own life as of not being allowed to be a child anymore a downward spiral into despair. He'd hated school- rejected the indoctrination- and resented his parents for forcing him to endure it. But with three younger siblings also present on the scene they'd probably been too busy putting food on the table to see what it was doing to him. He'd taken his anger out on them all the same (had to on someone!) and they had reacted to it in the only way that they had known (ie how they had been taught to react). This had been to punish him rather than seek to understand him and thus Zachariah their first born child had grown more isolated, more angry, and ever more fearful. He'd dreamed of massacring all the teachers and pupils in school assembly. He'd contemplated imaginative suicides. In college he'd discovered hippy drugs which had eased the suffering a bit (mellowed him out), but by the time he left there he was still fearful enough to be labelled an anxiety case and put on the sick. He wrote in the time on his hands- much of his writing a release. He'd made some friends by this time whom he could get stoned with. Things at home had not improved though. The connection between him and his parents seemed to have been severed. They loved him and he loved them, but (because of this probably) they had clashed like crazy. And so he had left the family home in London and moved to Brighton. Here he'd slept in carparks, shop doorways, and when it was warm enough, on the beach. He'd been hassled by drunken fukkas, fukkas that were fukkas without being drunk, her majesty's police force, and gay guys wanting to buy his arse. Luckily he had made friends quickly and found a bunch of good bods to squat with. Drugs had always been prevalent in their squats, but the one drug they had all agreed to keep out of their home was heroin. In the five years Zak had been living in Brighton (these having flown) he had met more people than he could count on his fingers to have died and not come back from it. Others appeared to be dead whilst still breathing on it. Gouched out zombies hanging out for their next fix. It was an expensive escape, and some stole in order to pay for it. He'd tried it himself (both tooting it and jacking up) but found it wasn't for him. Now Emily, age nineteen, was the latest victim of it. She had not been a junkie. Her last had been her first time. "I'm sorry," mumbled Zak on shaking her father's hand at the funeral. The big man looked at him with tears in his eyes like he damn well should be. Zak felt like scoring some heroin himself afterwards, but instead settled for strong alcohol and cannabis. Drug psychosis was his latest label from the head shrinkers. They wanted him off the drugs he chose to take and only on theirs. The friends he knew who were on their ones were even more vegetablised than the heroin addicts- the life force stolen from them- clinically murdered. The most damaged of these had been institutionalised so the public couldn't see it. Zak had come close to being sectioned himself. Depersonalisation had been another of his labels. Apparently he was detached from reality. He was being persecuted in his own home. OK it was a squat but he had been one of the people who had cracked it. Memories of Emily were sporadically touching him, then deeply paining him- and now he had this bullshit to deal with on top of it: Jordy and Thelma, the nutty neighbours, being religious again. "Give it a break will yas," Zak appealed to them halfway through The Book Of Leviticus, "I don't want you in my space right now." "You damn me!" screamed Jordy, "Like I am Satan! But you are Satan yourself!" "Leave me alone please," Zak begged of them. His head hurt. He did love both of them, but they could drive him too insane. They were sound when they had not been drinking too heavily, but most of the times he tended to see them they had been. "Forgiven for you do not know!" yelled Thelma, raising her can of Super Strength. "Forgiven!" agreed Jordy, raising his Tommy Cooper. "Come on people, you only live nextdoor! Please go there," Zak tried to urge them as his brain exploded. Again. The others in the squat would not allow this pair into their rooms. Zak did because of his love for all life's walking wounded. His love had certainly been tested in the latter part of his life. These two seemed to love doing this, but he put up with the headaches and put up with them. His parents had done the same of him. He tried to see all people as family. The Buddhists taught to perceive all sentient beings as Mother. One could substitute this with Sick Person or Child, he guessed. If all were Children the world would be a playground, he went on to think. "Don't be fukkas people," he said really nicely, and finally they left. "You're dead," the extra terrestrials surrounding him informed him. "So how do you feel about that?" enquired Emily. "Alive. I feel alive!" exclaimed Zak. This was wild. "And so you should do for now you are in Heaven." "Yeah?" Zak slowly rose to his feet. Glanced around. It looked exactly the same as the place that he had just been. The guy who had killed? him- this person had disappeared. Exited out of the scene. "What now?" Zak asked of Emily and the aliens. They laughed and disappeared as well. Zak the Sick Person / Child had fallen in love. In learning not to he had done this a few times. This had been his most harmful addiction / affliction, far worse than any of the drugs. Falling instead of rising was where he had gone wrong. He had perceived himself unworthy of The Goddess. The Goddess had been the soul mate / other half who would make him complete / God. This couldn't be any girl that happened to like him- hell no. The girls that he had projected his Goddamned Goddess perception onto had generally been freaked out by this. Delusion had got him and whisked him around the cosmos imagining an amazing future with Her until finally shattering with the realisation that actually She didn't want to know him. Now he had given up wanting to know Her (or her). He'd wanted not to want. Zak had often wanted to give up completely when life had been grinding him down. He'd known far too many friends (in addition to the heroin OD's) who had deliberately suicided. "Save the planet, kill yourself," one of these had once joked? "Life is shit and then you die? Then why live so long?" Zak had lived in hope of a new age of love. An end to Samsara- the cycle of birth, sickness, ageing, death. An end to life being shit. An end to inequality and the hierarchy. A dawning of Good. Alien instigated perhaps. An evolution into Them? Man, that fukkin' drug psychosis was the crazy shit that had kept him going. This and the love of his blood family and his friends. Part of his giving his parents such a hard time had been him wanting them to take back the fact that they had given life to him so he could off himself without feeling so guilty about it. But he had felt guilty about doing this instead. It was just as selfish. They had always been there for him. They had always loved him. They had long stopped punishing him- if they ever had at all. (If they had, and if punishing him had been a mistake, mistakes were made by all in ignorance.) The only person punishing him for his own mistakes now had been himself. And he had turned out to be the harshest judge of all. The sentencing had been harsh, but now he was free! Zak was floating on cloud nine whilst walking on the ground. Blood was pouring down his face still but he felt no pain. What he felt was orgasmic- like being on good ecstasy. "Hey are you OK?" yelled someone, rushing to his aid. "Like being on the pills of ten years ago!" Zak answered happily. "You looking for the party?" this person then asked of him, "For if you are I believe it is in your head." "Party party!" shouted the familiar voices of his squatting partners, these turning up now with Jordy and Thelma and many other friends in tow. Was that a thumping sound system that he could hear? Was this his much anticipated and willed Eternal Free Party? "It is whatever you make of it," Jordy informed him. "It always has been," added Thelma. Zak came to again and risked opening his eyes once more, although they stung when he did this. Liquid poured from them. It took a while for him to focus and when he managed it he saw a hospital ward. A nurse was sitting by his bedside, and she was very cute. His mind flared up with fantasy imagination visualising her bellybutton. Zak had a thing about female bellybuttons. She had a beautiful face. "Well hello there!" she spoke to him (with a beautiful voice too), "You're very lucky to be alive!" Oh shit, he was falling- he fell right out of the bed into her arms. "I'm not your Goddess!" she snapped at him. And she let him drop to the floor. He came to again and went through the same eye opening routine, this time focusing on the place where he had been previously- where he had been attacked. His friends weren't here, nor the attacker, nor any sound system. And fukkin' hell, he no longer felt like he was on ecstasy. He ached all over. His eyes were particularly sore- all swollen and puffy. Blood in them. Blood spilled on his previously fairly clean T Shirt. He dragged himself up holding onto the side of the wall and hobbled in the direction of his mouldy squat. They would be getting evicted from there soon due to Emily's death. He hoped that Jordy and Thelma wouldn't be visiting on a drunken religious one tonight.   2. A COUPLE OF DERANGED ANGELS Zak woke up to Jordy and Thelma in his room in the mouldy squat- these on a drunken religious one as was most common with them. Who the fuk had let them in? He'd have to properly fix that front door catch. "Wake up! Wake up!" Thelma cried, dancing above him and spilling some of her beer on him, "For a New Age has dawned!" "Hallelujah!" Jordy expressed his joy- far too close to Zak's right earhole. "Great, that's great..." humphed Zak, disgruntled and tired, rolling over. He still ached badly both physically and mentally. "Pah, let's tell some more folks!" suggested Jordy to Thelma, and the odd couple left the battered Zak in peace to go and enlighten the rest of Brighton. "Yeah whatever, just fuk off!" he heard some of his squatting partners shouting after them as they exited the building noisily. The time was 6 am. "Good morning!" Thelma greeted the milkman outside the squat in such a high pitch that it was surprising she did not shatter any of his milk bottles. The seagulls feeding on the rubbish in the street were as startled as he was. Jordy offered him some Special Brew. "Wha'?" The milkman did not know quite how to respond. He looked at Jordy's crazed eyes, then the tin of Special Brew. "Er, no. Thank you," he said. Tried a joke: "Sticking to milk." Jordy cracked up at this and slapped him on the back. "Yup, I guess that's what I should do myself!" he exclaimed, "Except for the fact that I am vegan!" "I'm a vegan too!" Thelma told the bewildered milkman. It was cold yet he was sweating profusely. "You know in The Dead Sea Scrolls Jesus says that all should be vegan, but I'm sure he'll let you off," she then winked at him. "I hope so," said the milkman, struggling to force a casual smile. "Hey have you realised that The Miracle has happened?" Jordy asked him. "Miracle? I dunno. All I know is milk," the bloke replied, "Talking of which, I'd better get on with my round." "Yeah, you'd better do that," Jordy said to him, offended. There wasn't much age difference between the two men- both were approaching their fifties. Thelma was thirty two but looked just as old. She had been an alcoholic for half these years. "Come on lover," she said, pecking Jordy on the cheek, "lets head on down the beach and watch the sunrise." Down the beach they held each other without the need for words, their verbal outbursts saved for when they were in public. The sunrise was a good one fully appreciated by both. Amen, thought Jordy, A fukkin' men. They sat for hours drinking, smoking fags and cuddling each other. And before long it was off license opening time. Jordy did the stagger there to get a big bottle of White Lightning, leaving Thelma to stare out at the horizon. Jordy and Thelma's getting together was quite a story. They'd both experienced a lot of bad times before this and thus had both been damaged. Jordy had been out to suicide on the day that he'd met her. He'd been more of a druggie than a drinker then- a lethargic stoner. She had been the opposite- hyper and enthusiastic- albeit due to drinking vast quantities of alcohol. The booze, she'd found, kept her schizophrenia at bay. On the day she'd met Jordy she had been nine years into her alcoholism. They had met in a park in London in the pouring rain- both walking through there alone. Her happy, enjoying the water on her face- him fukking up, on this self destructive bender. Jordy had decided that day that he had had enough, and was going to put his fantasy of necking loads of LSD and topping himself in the park into practice. Nothing in particular had led him to this decision- nothing but everything. But then he had set eyes on Thelma, lying sprawled out in the centre of the wet grass lawn, just staring upwards- a big smile on her face. He'd looked at the handful of acid tabs he had been all set to pop, and put them in his back jeans pocket, deciding that this could wait. "Hey!" the male called over to the rain drenched female, "Are you hoping to drown or what?" She picked herself up, the smile remaining on her face (whilst remaining cautious). "No," she beamed "I'm simply being insane in the rain." He laughed at this- "Excellent." It was the first laugh since he could remember, but he didn't register this. "I'm Jordy," he said, going forth to formally shake hands. She introduced herself- "I'm Thelma." They shook. She noticed he was shaky- wondered if this was alcohol DTs. He noticed that she noticed. "Yeah pretty bad shakes," he mumbled, "I do a lot of drugs." They sat down on a bench together. The rain continued to pour. "Do you live in the city?" he asked her. "Fraid so," she replied, "And you?" "Not for long," he told her. "Oh, you're moving?" she said with interest. "Suicide," he answered. She laughed at this. "Yeah," he continued, "I'm gonna take twenty three LSD tabs, go completely crazy, and kill myself right here in this park." Thelma laughed again, and even louder. He'd never realised that he was so funny. But he wasn't offended. "I'm crazy already," she admitted to him, "I don't need no LSD." "I'm crazy," said Jordy, seriously, "I'm a fukkin' headcase." "But crazy's kinda cool," laughed Thelma crazily, "Just as weird is wonderful! Personally I like to freak!" Jordy was intrigued by her personality- he wondered was she a druggie like him? He asked her straight out, "Do you do any drugs?" She said "Not really. Booze is my vice. The occasional spliff." He took a pre-rolled from his pocket and sparked it up despite the rain. He took three or four lugs, then passed it on to Thelma. She nodded- Cheers- and toked on it. They sat and got stoned in the rain. They'd remained in touch- both living in the same area of the city. Jordy hadn't bothered tripping out and checking out that rainy day after all. They'd met up- usually on a Sunday afternoon- in the park, which had always been empty but for them no matter the weather. They'd smoked cannabis, drunk alcohol and occasionally even gone normal, though Jordy had always been fairly fukt up anyway from the huge amounts of drugs he'd been consuming throughout the rest of the week. Thelma at this time had been managing her alcohol (and schizophrenia) very well. She hadn't been requiring so much since having made this new friend. But Jordy had carried on caning it never the less and in her company had sometimes drifted away. Other times he had babbled incoherent bullshit (speaking in tongues almost). It had taken him a while to realise that his worsening condition had started to freak her out. I've got to change, he'd told himself (once he finally had), or I will lose her, and she is Special. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to cut down on the drugs. When a Sunday had passed without seeing Thelma he had said to himself She must have a cold or something- I'll see her soon. But the following week again she had been absent from the park and his life. And the week after- and the week after that. She had had his telephone number, he hadn't had hers. "I don't have a phone," she had said, but a little unconvincingly he had reckoned now. He'd felt that he had justification to be paranoid. With Thelma gone, Jordy contemplated the acid suicide idea again- but it no longer seemed so appealing. He didn't care about anything. He was drained of all thinking- even the inspiration to top himself. Oh what a slump he was in. In the mornings he would wake up and hope that he could get himself together, but by breakfast he would be drugged out of his mind again, and oblivious to everything. Thelma all this time was in a mental institution- unable to make any phone calls from her padded cell. And kept almost as out of it as Jordy by her daily pills and injections. She had even been threatened with ECT. She yearned to see Jordy- Jordy yearned to see Thelma- they both yearned to be free in the rain. They met again in Brighton some two years later- not far from where they were sat now on the beach five years (together) on from that now. "Hallelujah," said Jordy. They had found religion on meeting again. The chances of bumping into each other again- and in Brighton- so incredible. Thelma's drinking had increased since getting out of the bin- her time in there plus years of childhood sexual abuse needing to be obliterated from her memory. Jordy had started drinking mainly because she did. He'd already calmed down considerably with the drugs. The religion kick, now that was the best one. And it bought their redemption. "Hallelujah," echoed Thelma, still looking out at the horizon. Each thought that they were the happiest person in the world. Time was getting on. It was already approaching midday. But there was no hurry to do anything for this was eternity.   3. TOASTS TO THIS LIFE'S PHYSICALLY DEPARTED FRIENDS Emily had been alone surrounded by friends when she had turned blue and stopped breathing from her injected whack of heroin. She'd probably turned to this drug like she had tried most of the other drugs because of this feeling so alone. She had found some wonderful squatting partners who she had connected with, but not a lover- the guys in the squat were frigid, terrified of women. The ones she'd met that weren't in this life had tended to be arseholes. She'd dated some of these. She couldn't win. Dying had been a dream- gently gouching down the stream. Down the river to the sea on whose great shore she'd remanifested. A breeze had rustled her hair as she'd looked out upon the calm tranquil waves. Whilst the sea was calm, and as beautiful as ever, her mind became sickeningly turbulent. It grew like her tortured brain was constantly flashing from negative to positive and back again- this mind swinging beyond all control or conscious explanation. One moment she felt at one with the world, her situation, and the sea, but by the next she wanted to drown herself in it. Fukkin' hell, thought Emily, I'm so alone, so screwed up, so scared. And then she felt good again, kneeling down on the pebbles in a blissful gone coma. There were no people about, none that she could see, so no call for paranoia. This was a good stretch of beach that she had found herself at in that it was quiet and desolate. But perhaps this was only because it was early morning. Still, it would be early morning for quite some time. The sun ahead of her beamed down on the incoming tide, though to her right was the threat of fast approaching grey clouds. A contrast in weather like her previous feelings. Directly above her though- at least for now- the sky was a perfect blue. So she didn't care. And then she saw the merman. She saw him just as she was about to leave. He called to her: "Hello!" She turned round and was instantly transfixed. There were things about this half boy half fish that made her feel warm inside- not just his looks (a hunk), but also the aura surrounding him. He was so warm himself- so genuine- and thus equally delicate and fragile. A little self conscious- a little hesitant- but he had summoned up the courage to call out to her, and for this she felt truly honoured. "Well hi," she answered him, her mouth turning to a grin. So powerful was his presence that in such a bizarre situation as this she did not flip out, but instead found communicating with a supposedly mythical creature from her bedtime stories as a child to be the most natural thing on earth. "So you're a merman," she said, stating the obvious- "What's your name?" "I have no name," replied the merman. She continued to smile at him until he chose to speak again, and when he did, these were the words that he uttered: "I know your mind, I know you're troubled and I know you care. You worry about your depression, but your pain is natural." "I can't take anymore," said Emily, "It's all too damned confusing. I never know what I am thinking. I don't know what I want from life." "You want to be loved," the merman informed her, "And you want to love. But you hate aspects of yourself- I wish you wouldn't. You love other people- the other souls that you meet- and these ones you love, they love you back. But because the hate (for yourself) exists amongst the love (negativity amongst the positive) you continue to feel alone. You can never have invincible love until this hate is eradicated." "I think I love you," stated Emily- a normally confined thought said out loud- just as the first drop of rain landed splat on her eyelid. "No, you can't love me. We are not compatible," he said. And he didn't just mean sex-wise. Ironically see, he hated aspects of his own persona also, thus getting close to anyone would just not work. He could try to dissuade other entities from hating themselves, but could not create any change within himself. He was also scared of embarking on something so magical as a love affair in fear of pinning all his hopes on something that could leave him heartbroken. Plus most importantly to him there was the other person to think about- he couldn't risk hurting someone he cared about. Emily smiled at him. He tried not to, but couldn't help smiling back. A crash of lightning suddenly lit up the greyed sky. She plunged forward into the cold sea and into his warm embrance. They hugged- the water splashing in all directions- the moment lasting forever. "To Emily," said Jordy, raising his can of Bavaria 8.6. Out of the neighbouring squatters she hadn't had as much time for them as Zak but had been the least rude of the rest of them. "Yes to Emily," agreed Thelma, raising her Diamond White, "And to all the others who have gone on ahead of us." "As above, so below," mused Jordy, slurredly, "We can have our Heaven here." "I'll drink to that too," said Thelma, kissing him. For them they were in a New Age. Zak believed he was in Hell in his mouldy squat. But at least he was alive. He'd taken a pounding from that maniac, but somehow lived through it. Now he nursed his injuries with the medication of music and marijuana- a nice batch of weed that Franky, one of his squatting partners, had cultivated with grow lights. He inhaled, exhaled- inhaled, exhaled. (Mmmn, and got high.) He'd thought that he had taken his last breaths. This weed was as sweet as the cherry picked by the guy in the Buddhist sutra hanging over the cliff top clinging onto the being nibbled away vine cord.   4. THE MOULDY SQUATTERS Zak shared his mouldy squat with another four bods. They had a room each and a spare one now that Emily was gone. This otherwise empty building had been their home for ten months. They had improved the state of it, doing many repairs. The tragedy of Emily had brought the police to it however, and now they were being evicted. They had five days to get out of there. The house would fall back into neglect. Franky and Jojo were out looking for more empties. Zak sat with the other two, Chloe and Jenny. Chloe was The Sensible One amongst them, and Jenny The Least Suited To Squatting. Both were in their twenties- both of them were creative. Jenny was an artist, Chloe was a musician. Chloe was strumming away on her guitar right now. "What are we gonna do?" Jenny panicked over this, "I mean what if we don't find another place in time?" "We'll find another place," Chloe assured her, stopping playing, and she rested her guitar against the wall. "What if we don't find another place?" panicked Jojo. "We will, man," Franky the hippy chilled out the punk. Jojo was donned in ripped combat attire- he was body pierced, heavily tattooed- had half of his hair hacked off, but still he was a big girl's blouse. "You need the attitude to go with the haircut," he'd been told by his hair dresser, "And the look I've given you is fierce." But no matter how hard Jojo had tried to be fierce he couldn't be. He'd just ended up feeling stoopid. He'd tried to use this fierceness to tell Jordy and Thelma he didn't want to listen to their religious shit, but rather than be intimidated by this they had laughed at him. "Ha ha ha!" they had laughed on and on at him, driving him crazier than they'd managed with the religious shit. Girls too had all refused to take him seriously. Though this had always been the case. "Aha, an empty!" exclaimed Franky excitedly. The pair advanced upon the potential property. "Squats! Together we crack 'em!" laughed Franky, returning to the present one, "We've got a new gaff down the road! Locks changed, Section 6 up already. We're now the legal occupants of two homes." "Excellent!" squealed Jenny, running up and hugging him. Jojo prepared for his hug but one wasn't forthcoming. "Nice one chaps," said Chloe. "Yeah, good one," said Zak. "Who's making the coffee and who's skinning up?" asked Franky. The new place was a bit smaller than the last, but a lot less mouldy. It had not been neglected for so long. It would not require as much work to make it habitable. Franky already knew where he was going to set up the grow lights that he had got out of the other squat, along with his plants and the rest of the drugs, before the police had got to there. "First dibs on the room with the oblique view of the sea," said Chloe- ie the room that you could just about see the sea from if you craned your neck out of the window. "Like it, like it," said Zak, very impressed. (He liked it.) And the electric was already on. They also had water. They moved their stuff in and started settling in. Zak had a spliff, a pray for Emily's soul and a meditate. Franky and Jojo argued over what music to play on the stereo. Franky won- Tekno! Never mind the punk bollox. Jenny started work on a technicolour wall mural in the living room whilst Chloe used the time to contemplate. She contemplated the big question of what she was doing on planet earth. She like most people believed she had got the wrong planet. Her life was surviving- this made a major struggle. She had it easier than the majority of the people in the world, but still she suffered. At least she had her music and her friends. And when it came down to it, her blood family. She had been meaning to get in touch with her folks again actually. Ever since Emily's funeral. Jordy and Thelma soon discovered where their previous neighbours had moved to, much to all the squatting family's dismay. Even though they had a secure lock on this place they managed to push their way into it when a stoned Jojo answered the door to them unwittingly. "Drink!" screamed Jordy, being the first to spill beer on the carpet (and Jojo's shoes), "For it is a New Age!" "New Age, Schnew Age," Jojo was unconvinced- "Schmoo wot?" Thelma asked him, giggling. "Way hey, people!" cried Jordy, finding the room the others were in, "Have we got news for youse!" "New Age news again is it?" yawned Franky, "No New Age news is good news innit." "No, this is even better! Honest!" Jordy promised them, then retracted this with, "Well, at least as good." "What, you're leaving?" Jenny asked him, dearly hoping this. "The spaceships have arrived for us!" Thelma announced, "Just take a look out of the window!"   5. THINGS ALIEN Everyone in the room went to look out of the window, but all seemed regular- there were certainly no spaceships. "Ha ha, gotcha!" Thelma laughed at them. Jordy pecked her on the cheek. They smiled at each other, then at the people they had pranked, and, still smiling, departed from the squat. Jenny returned to her mural, which was coming along nicely. It depicted lots of happy people in a dream bubble over a single person's head. This single person was half smiling and half frowning, posed like Munch's The Scream, and also quite alien like. Jenny had been into drawing as expression since she was a child and even more so after the innocence of this child was stolen from her by her older stepbrother. Years after this she had been raped again. This time by her uncle. She'd reckoned then that she had been cursed. The rest of her family had been of no support either of these times. For reasons of their own they had refused to believe her. Counselling had done little to ease her deep pain, but the art (and occasional poetry too) did help. She'd declined antidepressants on the grounds that they were tested on animals- when animal cruelty was another of the horrific things in this world that she was depressed about, and also because she had feared that they would drain her of her creativity. She had run away from home at the age of seventeen (a year after being raped by daddy's brother and called a liar by daddy and mummy who had still welcomed him into their abode). If she was to be homeless she would be homeless in a nicer place than Coventry, she'd decided, and so had headed south- towards the sea. She'd landed in Portsmouth first of all, but ended up in Brighton. She had spent unsettling nights on the streets, constantly fearful of everything. Her condition had deteriorated even further from staying in some nightmare hostels whilst Brighton council considered whether she was vulnerable enough to merit being given her own bedsit. She hadn't been able to hack this and had got out of these, thus making herself intentionally homeless. Anyone without a roof over their head is fukking vulnerable!, she'd despaired. But trying to explain such things to the council had been hopeless. She hadn't been able to hack being back on the streets either and had attempted suicide. Others showing concern over her bandaged wrists and taking her into their squat had stopped her trying it again. From here on (the past two and a half years) things had taken an upturn. She had remained The Least Suited To Squatting amongst them, but had been overjoyed to be amongst them. The squats- and the squatters- had changed over this time. (Chloe and Jojo of her current squatting family the two that she had known for longest.) All those she had squatted with had been her family. Her overall mental state had steadily improved in their company. She'd almost forgotten about having been so depressed- until Emily (her sister)'s death, and also Hank, a bloke she'd met at a party who she had thought she could trust as a friend and brother, starting to weird her out. Hank was The Smiley Man. He meant no harm. But in spite of this he was pretty much a loner. A lone stranger, a strange loner. He didn't dispute his being strange. He had had a rough deal from life as well, and as a result believed that life would bring him a special saviour to keep him smiling. A female he could be with- and love and respect- just like Zak's perceived Goddess, only his term for Her was October Dawn. He wrote about October Dawn constantly. He knew that she was out there somewhere. (And coming to him.) This girl Jenny he'd met was dancing around in his mind. She was October Dawn, he told himself. Next to tell her. He'd write it- yeah, that's what he would do, since talking to her he would get tongue tied. He'd write it right now, then go and deliver it. He'd been to her place the other week. "They've moved to seventy three mate," Jordy informed Hank cheerily, seeing him looking perplexed outside the abandoned last squat. "Thanks," said Hank. He recognised this character from somewhere. Maybe the psychiatric ward. He trudged on down the road to number seventy three's door where he hesitated before rapping on it three times. He was about to leave- presuming no one to be in and not wanting to leave his writing where it could be read by anyone- when the door did open and opened by none other than his love Jenny! She seemed freaked out and wanted to know how he had got the address. He put his arm round her to try and calm her. "Relax, your last neighbour gave me it," he was about to say, but she pushed him away from her. She was hysterical. Hank himself was sheer dumbfounded. He freaked himself and handed her the paper. "Here, I wrote this," he mumbled, "I'll be on my way,", and he backed away from her, hurting and not knowing why he had been hurt / rejected like this. The others in the squat were sampling the latest hash of Mad Mickey, their twice a week visiting drug dealer. "Top squat lads-" Mickey said to them, "Oh, and gal. Oh by the way, I've got some mental pills in at the minute. Jacksys a piece." "Wicked," said Franky, "I'll have a couple off you on giro day." (This for him was two days away.) "I can tick 'em to you right now if you want them," offered Mad Mickey. "Great," said Franky. And he was handed two. "So are you gonna tell me who sold you that scag then?" Mad Mickey then asked him seriously. He hated heroin and he hated the fact that Emily had been the latest he'd known to have died off it. "I can't," said Franky, "It wasn't the dealer's fault." He knew what Mad Mickey was capable of doing to this person should his identity be revealed. "Why are you protecting the fukka?" Mad Mickey asked agitatedly, rubbing his itching sovereign ringed fist. Mad Mickey kept his head together a lot of the time, but when he got Mad he got Really Mad. He had a lot of anger that he could only get out of his system by smashing fuk out of people he reckoned deserved it's faces or sometimes his own flat. When he smashed his flat up he would play Pink Floyd's One Of My Turns. He would always spare his stereo. He'd never hit his missus. Sometimes she would hit him. She was carrying his child. Or so he reckoned anyway. He was something of a masochist. He tried to be a good person. He loved his missus Even Madder Mandy no matter what. "Try some of this Mickey," Franky said, passing him a spliff of homegrown. "Yeah, whatever," grunted Mad Mickey. Maybe it would calm him down. Hank's writing was weird and only confirmed Jenny's fears. He was an obsessive. A fiend. A psycho stalker. He'd seemed quite safe when she had first met him- a little simple, like a child, but now (from reading his words) she saw that he had clearly lost it. She didn't know whether to tell the others about his writing to her or not since he had not actually interfered with her. But she'd been raped twice already in this life. Would not be able to handle this happening a third time. "You alright?" Chloe asked her, walking into her room. But she didn't look it. She was sat on her bed shaking. "Who is this cunt?" Mad Mickey demanded to know. His fist was twitching again. And his mind was bubbling. He liked these people- They were hippies. Unlike himself. He sorted their drugs and wanted to see them happy on them, not getting screwed up like he had been. Emily was dead and now this Jenny was being stalked. "Yeah who is he?" asked Jojo, trying to sound half as fierce. Jenny was regretting having told Chloe already. "Well he hasn't actually done anything," she tried to explain to them. "Hasn't done anything!" yelled Mad Mickey, "I don't believe you girl! If he hadn't done anything you wouldn't have told Chloe here about it! If this creepoid is giving you hassle I can sort it out for ya. Just gimme his name and if you have it, his address." Franky was the only one who seemed unconcerned. He was as high as a kite on Mad Mickey's hash and his own homegrown. Hank was not The Smiley Man. He was The Mutant Clown. He'd hidden behind the smiley, and managed to do this for some time. His council property was decked out in smiley posters and wall hangings. But really he was screaming. Really he was in agony. He'd tried to be a smiley person- tried to be light and good- but had found it hard to be accepted. Brighton had proved to be more open a town than any of the other places he had lived, but still he found it hard to socialise from past bad experience. He'd made it out to a party a few weekends ago- the one at which he had met Jenny. She had seemed so light and good herself that he had instantly fallen for her. He'd thought they'd got along well and that she had shown interest back in him. She had invited him back to her squat afterall. He hadn't stayed long because of the other people there having unnerved him. "Well you met him a few weeks ago," Jenny later told Chloe in (sworn) confidence, "After the party. He came back to the squat." "Not that guy wearing the smiley shirt!" Chloe exclaimed, "He did seem creepy! Jen, I reckon we ought to do something about this." "About what? All he's done is given me some strange writings," said Jenny. "Very strange writings," said Chloe The Sensible One. "I mean look at it!" she went on, flicking through these right now, "October Dawn, his salvation, has come to him in the form of a nun like earthling!? He's got a screw loose! What kind of person writes this kind of weird shit and then gives it to someone he purports to love?!"   6. THINGS GETTING TOO DARK TO SEE Hank sat before a blank sheet of paper with a mug of coftea beside him and a spliff that he was too stoned to smoke the rest of still burning in the ashtray. Coftea (black coffee and tea in the same mug) was a double beverage he had originally come up with to be different, but on top of including the extra caffeine kick he'd also found it to taste quite flavoursome. He took another glug of it now whilst the paper before him stayed blank. How could he unwrite what he had written and given Jenny? He realised now that he had made a big mistake, and that projecting his fictional October Dawn onto anyone real was no good for anyone. It wasn't as if he hadn't made this mistake in the past. He'd done it far too many times in fact. Only this Jenny had seemed to be the strongest October Dawn yet. He'd had to act on intuition- and attempted communication through his writing was the only way he semi knew. Unfortunately this way of doing things might have seemed weird to Jenny, and his writing over the top. (He wrote much in metaphor.) The only way that he could make up for the last batch was to write her some more. He drew a smiley face on the sheet of paper, below which he wrote: A Brief Apology. Franky, Zak and Jojo sat shooting the breeze with other Big Issue vendors in the crowded people and dogs filled Issue office. "What do you do if you see a spaceman?" Franky asked Big Derek. Big Derek shrugged. "Park in it, man!" Franky cracked up. A cocker spaniel was chewing on Jojo's already ripped combat trousers. He kicked the little fukka off. "Ere, watch my dog," Big Derek warned him with menace. "Get it to watch it with my trousers," said Jojo. Big Derek chuckled- "Ha ha, he's gettin' fierce,", and Franky started with another joke: "How do you know when you've passed an elephant?" But at this point an hysterical woman entering the premises smacked him hard around the face. "Found you you little paedophile!" she screamed at him. He staggered backwards- ears ringing- vision flickering. "You thought you would get away with molesting my daughter did you?" She punched and kicked him. Franky cowered. Big Derek dragged her off of him. "Easy lady, calm it." "He molested my eleven year old daughter!" she insisted. Her partner entered the office and also tried to calm her down. "Brenda, Brenda, are you sure that this is the guy?" he asked her once she had stopped kicking. "Of course I'm sure!" she spat foam at him. "What's going on?" was all the staff leapt over the counter to deal with this could say. Which was what everybody wanted to know. "He molested my daughter!" screamed Brenda, pointing at Franky, "And he is going to pay for it!" "You've got the wrong person lady," said Big Derek. "Either way you can't take the law into your own hands," said one of the Big Issue staff. "Either way?" exclaimed Jojo, "This is Franky the hippy she is accusing here!" "Franky the hippy who molests eleven year old girls whilst trusted to babysit them and leaves them mentally scarred for life?!" Brenda exploded. "I think the police had better be called to deal with this one," suggested another of the Issue staff. "I think this woman needs psychiatric help," commented Zak. Franky was shaking. In need of a cigarette. Zak handed him the rest of his roll up. "Cheers," said Franky, taking a deep inhalation of it. Brenda and the spouse restraining her glared at him with hatred. "Fuk this," Franky said (to the floor), "I'm out of here,", and he made for the door, but a shaking his head Big Derek barred his way. "Nope, I reckon we're best getting this matter cleared up," he spoke. "Let him go. He doesn't have to put up with this!" shouted Jojo. "If he's innocent he's got nothing to worry about," said the member of Big Issue staff who had suggested calling the police, heading to the phone to do this himself. "If he's innocent!" Jojo said, incredulously. Three hours of bullshit later Franky was out of Brighton police station and telling his friends about this bullshit back at the squat. "Although to be honest I'd rather forget about it now and get stoned. Just hope that woman's OK. Maybe I do look like the guy." There was a knock at the door. Chloe went to answer it. The caller was Mad Mickey. "Social visit," he said, "I ain't carrying no wares. Just need a break from Mands. She's doing my nut in." "That's women for ya," said Franky, passing him a spliff. "Boom shanka hippy," Mad Mickey said, taking it. "Are you feeling better?" he asked the stoned Jenny, she also getting stoned to forget. Hank trudged down the path. He paused, then knocked on the door. Chloe answered it. "Is Jenny in?" he enquired. "You! You stay away from here! You're a twisted fuk!" she hissed at him "Giving Jenny shit like that- You're really disturbed!" "Shit like what?" asked Hank, "I have some writing for her-" "More twisted shit. I'm telling you once!" "Give her this. Please." Hank handed her the paper. And Chloe tore it up. "You go or you'll get a hiding!" "Who was that?" Jojo asked. "Oh, no one," said Chloe. Jojo thought about this a moment, then said "No one?" "No one of importance," Chloe reiterated. "All are Buddha nature," said Zak- on a Buddhist one, "All are equal- equally important- for all are One." He could be as annoying as Jordy and Thelma on their New Age one. "That would make good and bad equal then innit," said Franky "Like if there was no duality and all was this One..." "Hippy bollox!" Mad Mickey spluttered, "Great!" (This what he was having to listen to in his time off from the missus!) "I respect you people for managing to be chilled out and that, but you don't half weave some fukkin' yoghurts! No such thing as good and bad! Of course there's good and bad! You gonna tell me that something like mugging an old dear or noncing isn't bad?" "Hassan Al Sabbah said Nothing is real so everything is permitted," offered Jojo. "Well he was some idiot then cos life is real!" Mad Mickey snapped at him. "Franky got accused of being a nonce today," Jojo said, stonedly. "Yeah?!" said Mad Mickey. He turned to Franky. "Yeah, I even got hauled down the pig sty," Franky mumbled, "Some crazy woman came into the Big Issue office and started laying into me. Mad or what?" "Why would she do that?" Mad Mickey wanted to know. "Maybe I look like the guy?" suggested Franky. "Look at me," Mad Mickey said, "Look me in the eye." "Leave it out Mickey," Jojo said. Mad Mickey's fist was twitching. "Look me in the eye," Mad Mickey repeated to Franky. Franky did this. Mad Mickey asked him, "Did you do it?" "Mickey-" Jojo appealed to him, but "Shut up Jojo," Chloe silenced him. "Yes I did it," Franky said. All of their worlds collapsed. "Nonce!" Mad Mickey screamed at Franky as he kicked his head in. And he probably did deserve it. Should never have interfered with that young girl (a little daughter, a future mother)... Hank had really not meant to freak Jenny out. Or freak himself out either. But he'd thought whilst deluded that she might be flattered by the writing he had given her. OK, so he had been wrong... Mad Mickey was making a bloody mess out of Franky. What were the others (Franky's squatting family) supposed to do? They all had their own problems- they hadn't sexually abused children... Jenny had herself been abused... Hank realised that perhaps inadvertantly he had mentally invaded Jenny by giving her such over the top scribblings... Franky had been getting no willing sex from females. No love... Nor was Hank now. Why did he have so many hang ups? It wasn't like he had been sexually abused. He'd existed in a sexual relationship with a girl who had been (several years ago). Had he loved her? Yes- he still loved her... He regretted that he had caused her pain... He regretted wanting sex. The fear of sex was contained in Hank's fear of love... Love? / Hate? Mad Mickey appeared to be killing Franky... How should Zak the Buddhist react to this? he wondered. He had two little sisters. All were his brothers and sisters! But- Franky had crossed a line. This was surely his karma. Yeah teach him a lesson, Zak thought, feeling the energy being emitted through the extreme violence... No! God damn it. He had been the judge. One of hate and non forgiveness. The blood- the guilt- was on his own hands. For lack of love... Franky was his friend. Franky was a brother. Franky was a Sick Person / Child himself... He too was of the one consciousness. He had just made a big mistake... He hadn't been acting in malice but he had been selfish. He'd thought of himself. He hadn't thought about her... I'm sorry if I've caused you pain Jenny, thought Hank... Once he'd started he hadn't been able to leave things alone... And once Mad Mickey had started booting Franky's head in he hadn't been able to either... Four people remained living in the new squat. Franky was in the hospital.   7. MESSY AFTERMATHS "Got you some grapes," said Zak, dropping the large bag of them on his bedside. Franky was out of his coma, but still totally mangled. "Why?" he asked this vegetable before him, "...How?" But he would get no answers. Who's in the coma? this question too haunted him, Who's still waking up, learning, working it all out? Jeezus! thought Zak, I'm hearing voices now! This will require a new medical label! Another squat was in jeopardy due to emergency services having been called out to it, and the bod who had cracked this (and their last place) was the latest casualty. The others were all reeling from having witnessed his severe battering, plus from what had brought it on- this hippy that they had lived and got stoned with for the past year and a half's admission that he had molested an eleven year old. Zak refused to believe it- he figured it was part of the joke. Jordy and Thelma are right, he told himself, It is a New Age. Everything is pure and any reality contrary to this must be illusion. It was up to him to see through it and free himself and subsequently everyone. Jojo on the other hand now hated Franky. He also hated himself for holding so much hatred. He was finally getting fierce, but the fire of this deep rage was burning him. Chloe The Sensible One had gone into silent retreat. Jenny (still on edge from Hank having written to her as well) submerged herself into her artwork. Mad Mickey was perhaps the worst affected out of them all (Franky included), heavily hitting the alcohol for the first time in four years. The booze was what had put him in prison on three occasions, but he needed it now to get through this rock bottom depression that he had plummeted to. "Mands, another bottle please," he called to his beloved missus Mandy from the wreckage of his freshly trashed flat. "Get it yourself!" she bellowed at him, "You make me sick!" Sick was how he felt. He couldn't focus or move. "You make me wanna puke!" she carried on deafening him. "Mands, give it a break love, will you, please stop, honey..." "I ain't your honey!" she screeched at him. "I'm da father of your unborn babby," he reminded her. "You reckon!" Even Madder Mandy shrieked. Mad Mickey chose not to hear this. The world had stopped, but Zak was still buzzing, wired on speed and E still in another squat party's aftermath. It was 9 pm on a Sunday. He had jumped the last train up to London the previous night (Saturday) and found the party in Hackney by 3 am. A quick mathematical calculation worked out that he had been hardcoring it for eighteen hours! He was a pursuasive drugs blagger. He'd had a thoroughly enjoyable eighteen hours, but he still wanted more. It had only ended now because the police had cut the electricity. For eighteen hours he had danced, laughed, shared spliffs and lines with party people, grooved on the eye food backdrops and tekno Goddesses. For eighteen hours he had found release from the daily grind. He had got out of his mind. All good things must come to an end though, some fukka dictated. He did not wish to return to the so called real world or face the skint drugs comedown ticket inspectors avoided train journey to his cosy bed. Fortunately another delay from having to arrived however in Bob, a mate of his, finding a big bag of drugs. "Sort us a snort," said Zak, but he did not have to ask- Bob was already chopping up some fat lines. "What is it? Speed?" "That, cocaine or ketamine." The powder in question turned out to be ketamine. "If it's good enough for horses it's good enough for me..." Zak slurred on realising that it was this (an hallucinatory disassociative horse anaesthetic) that they had just snorted. "You know normally I stay away from the old donkey dust," Bob said- his voice tinny, "but they say you should never look a gift horse tranquiliser in the nostril." "...Huh?" Zak said to this- aeons later. What the-? Suddenly he found himself in the K hole, not caring what he had said, "...Huh?" about several more aeons ago. His brain, forced into a vaccuum where it was deprived of all senses, was busy creating its own world from his memories, dreams and fantasies. "Hey chew on this acid," Bob said. Where the fuk did he come from? His voice was barely audible. Zak saw a tiny paper sweet in his hand and ate it. Mad Mickey felt like he was tripping without any acid. He couldn't handle LSD. Nor could he handle the alcohol. Which was why he had quit both. "Mands, another bottle please," he said through tightly clenched teeth. His fist was stinging like hell from what he had done to it on Franky and later his doors and walls. "Didn't you hear me fukwit?" his missus Mandy tormented him, "I said you're not the baby's father!" "Get me another bottle!" Mad Mickey screamed at her- Aaaaaargh!!!- throwing the one he had finished most recently through the screen of his already kicked about television. Wow, the meltdown- Zak crumbled in ecstasy. The last few people packing up the sound system were turning into aliens. Their ears were turning Spock like, this accompanied by a soft hissing sound. Aliens like the grinning reaper he had encountered on his own physical beating the other week. "You're dead," these extra terrestrials had informed him then. He remembered this again right now. Was this it then- the mass evolution into such light beings? The shedding of the human masks? The butterflies emerging out of their sleep coccoons? Was it not a party but an uncivilised civilisation that was being packed up here? The inhuman humans dying out for the spirits to live on. He was a spirit being like the rest. He and everyone always had been.   8. EMILY AND OTHERS DOWN THE LINE Forever had lasted a moment, Emily was then thrown to the lions to be eaten alone without her precious merman. What was spat out was then transformed into a beam of light and transported back up to the star... Man, Zak felt like the universe was consuming him- like he was being chewed up by ravenous lions. He stared at the floor of the train carriage, alienated- not in a good way, but completely isolated from the other frightening commuters. He was taking the last northbound Jubilee Line tube to Wembley, where his estranged blood parents lived in the same (semi detached) house. He was heavily tripping still, though now he didn't want to be. Why was he taking the last northbound Jubilee Line to Wembley?! he suddenly asked himself. He'd promised the folks he wouldn't turn up on their doorstep in such wretched states, but here he was doing it again. He punished himself for it. What a fukka. How had he got himself into such a wretched (altered) state this time? Too much acid. Too much ketamine. Too much pain in life. His life had been intensified on the drugs, and the life he knew at present (and a lot of what he had experienced before this) hurt. He rung their doorbell, shaking, puffing on a cigarette made from dog ends. He felt unbearably vulnerable. Frail and hyper sensitive. Paranoid also, thinking that there was a neon arrow pointed at him reading Prodigal Son Returning To His Family Home Off His Face On Drugs Again. His mother answered, saw that he was off his face on drugs again- was clearly upset to see this, but never the less gave him a great big hug. Zak burst into tears. Jenny had reread the initial writing that Hank had given to her, and on this second reading of it not found it to be so terrifying. Bits of it were even kind of nice, she reckoned now. He too had originally seemed kind of nice before going weird on her. He'd become more shy than menacing when she thought about it... She wondered if perhaps she had misread him. But Hank had given up thinking about her. He'd moved on. He sat drinking a coftea pouring his heart out onto paper over a new October Dawn. Mad Mickey grabbed a hold of the missus that had so brutally condemned him, who was seven months pregnant with a child she'd said was his but now said wasn't. He held her- and this baby inside her- close to his self scarred chest and sobbed "Why are you killing me, love?" Love The Destroyer had also almost ruined Jojo and Chloe's friendship- and them. These two had been a couple when they had started squatting together three years ago. Chloe had got drunk one night and fukt another bloke they had been squatting with- not made love to him, but Jojo had got jealous all the same and not been able to handle it. He'd bottled his anger up inside of him instead of saying anything though. At this time he had been following the crowd of those he was hanging around with in trying to be a mellow hippy. Eventually this bottle of anger inside of him had smashed to smithereens however, and he had gone on a bender, shocking all those he had been so mellow amongst by getting wild and crash and burning. He'd wound up in a few police cells, got registered on the sick like his friend Zak, and taken a long while to recover from the crazy thoughts and intuitions plaguing him. The best medicine he'd found for himself had been to rebottle the anger, but this time in a bottle with a hole in it so that in its own time it could all seep out. He'd got mellow again- but not as mellow as he had been. This was when he'd first started having allusions of becoming fierce. He had still been two years off from having the fierce in appearance at least haircut that he now had, but the original idea was to toughen up and not get hurt by his feelings again. Neither Chloe nor Jojo had been in love with anyone else since their splitting up. They both felt lucky that they could still be such good friends. Franky in Brighton hospital, like Zak in Wembley, London, was slipping in and out of different states of consciousness. You've been punished for your sins, but you will come through, the loved ones sat around his bedside willed for him and for themselves also. "Got you some grapes!" yelled Jordy, dropping a huge bag of them next to the untouched large bag Zak had left for him. "And some good news too!" yelled Thelma- louder, "A New Age has dawned!" "Ungh," groaned Franky, "nurse, get 'em out of here." His condition was miraculously improving...   9. THIS INSANE LIFE CARRIES ON... Chloe, Jojo and Jenny were staying at their new drug dealer Big Derek's house, Big Derek OK with putting them up on a short term basis as long as they were willing to skin up, make the coffees and occasionally sit the house. This sitting the house involved sorting out the punters that called round when he was out with their paid for- always paid for, never ticked- hash. Sometimes uppers (amphetamines) and downers (temazepam) also, but his supplies of these tended to be far less regular. Big Derek dealt to cover his own hash habit. His roof was paid for by the council. He was a man who didn't ask for much- just to be constantly stoned. (He also had to feed the dog- his cocker spaniel he had named The Dog.) He was prone to stress even when under his calming medicine of cannabis, but deprivation of this herb would really drive him up the wall. His gaff was constantly full of people- punters, lodgers, visitors. He had no woman. He reckoned he needed a woman. He needed his own space. Luckily for him these latest lodgers had realised this for themselves. "We're gonna have to get out from under Big Derek's feet," Chloe said "Or else he might be liable to schiz out again." They had already been staying at his for close to three weeks. They had been looking for squats, but without much luck. Their enthusiasm to find a place had faded with their last two fast evictions. Emily of the other three they had been squatting with (up until as recently as a month ago) was dead. (From a first time heroin overdose.) Franky had been revealed to be a sex offender, and beaten into a coma for it. He was making a steady recovery in the hospital, which the others were pleased about- although they would never squat with him again. Zak had not been able to hack staying in Brighton after all this (especially not in squats or on the streets) and after another nervous breakdown (perhaps his worst to date) had returned to his family home in London. Two mentally scarred casualties of an unjust society, one in his twenties, the other much older, had met on a train bound for Victoria out of a sunny day in Brighton. Gerald, the older guy, barely able to talk- Zak, the younger, speaking very shakily. They begun their ill communication when Gerald bought Zak a coffee. Both had been sleeping rough the last couple of nights, Gerald kicked out of home by his uncaring family in Ireland, and heading for a night shelter in Soho- Zak, the evicted squatter, returning to his fortunately caring family in Wembley. Zak and Gerald found they had a lot in common. Good stuff as well as both being broken. (Both were labelled mentally ill by their doctors- Gerald with schizophrenia which Zak thought he merited too.) If enough people are crushed together will they form a new, bigger, stronger person? Zak had often wondered. These two shared some light with each other. By East Croydon they each craved a cigarette, especially with the coffee (a natural cigarette accompaniment) and Zak's new anxiety of having been told there would be someone waiting for him at Victoria for not possessing a ticket. He worried because he had showed the ticket inspector his ID and a computer check would show that he had another twenty three unpaid fines. But he had no money- he had nothing- so what could they do? He'd told the woman his predicament- it was self-evident- but she hadn't seemed to care. Gerald went to smoke half a fag in the train toilet and returned relaxed enough to talk down Zak's worries. The situation of two schizophrenics chatting offered the possibility of multi-personality debate, but this was more like one sane mind thinking aloud. They spoke of life, the problems and possible solutions. They reached Victoria. There was no threat waiting there. (The barriers were easy to jump.) The ticket woman had lied. They shook hands, extra shakily of course, and wished each other luck. "Hey-" added Gerald as they broke apart. "Yeah?" Zak listened up. "Don't play on the mental illness," said this man at least double his age "That was something you went through." Zak was recuperating at his folks' house (like Franky was in Brighton hospital), but knew that he could not stay here for long (like Chloe, Jojo and Jenny couldn't stay at Big Derek's). His siblings too had flown the nest. His mum and dad did not get along, and had not done for years. Now that the children had grown up and moved out they were finally splitting up. His mum was adamant on finding her own separate place, and soon. His dad would take some time to adjust to this. (Although he had already had over a decade to prepare for it mentally.) For now they ate their last meals together on opposite sides of a big table. His mum was still doing all the cooking. Hank prepared himself a meal of pasta, tomatoes, kidney beans and potato waffles on peanut buttered toast with a pinch of Happy Shopper mixed herbs thrown in for added flavour. He was a 21st century man. Independent. And he prepared such a fine banquet as this for himself every day. He washed this particular one down with an umpteenth mug of his non patented but personally discovered hot drink coftea (black coffee and tea in the same mug), a drink that, like many of his food preparations, was quite unique. Another uniqueness of his, that alas, girls had not responded favourably to, was his getting obsessed with someone, putting her up on a pedestal and sacrificing himself below this- doing this with written words and offering these to her. It worked like a bad luck charm every time in ensuring that he remained single. Forever single and misunderstood. His dying for her was his giving himself to this person he thought he loved, but she never wanted him. Never got the chance to know him cos he always scared her away first. Joanne, the latest, she really was The One. His meant to be partner October Dawn. Or at least this is what he reckoned now anyway as he sipped his post pasta, tomatoes, kidney beans and potato waffles on peanut buttered toast with herbs coftea. Jenny, the girl before Joanne, had also seemed like The One. And The One before her, and The One before her, etc. He reckoned a large part of his wishing to be understood by one of these Ones was so they might give him some insight into himself. For he (and his continual self sacrifice) remained a mystery to this self. Mad Mickey was also something of a masochist. A masochist now drinking heavily again after an abstinence of four years. He had decided Fuk the water wagon and returned to the booze after almost killing a hippy he'd thought he'd known who had turned out to be a nonce. Alcohol was what had got him in police trouble for violence before, but on this occasion he had been sober. Even when he'd been a deranged drinker / street fighter those four years ago (and for the many years before this) he had never mashed anyone up anywhere near this badly. This bloke he had battered (Franky) was lucky to have come through out of his coma. The cops were making serious enquiries. The squat lot who had witnessed it- and the victim himself- would never grass on him. His missus, Even Madder Mandy, had threatened to however if he didn't stop with the restarted drinking. She found his drinking pathetic. She had often found him this. Yet she wanted him around in a state where he could support her. She was off her head naturally- well, without the need for booze. She was also seven and a half months pregnant with a kid she now claimed wasn't Mickey's. But Mickey stuck with her and her continuing abuse because he was Mad (he guessed). He loved the woman and he did wish to support her. He just wished she'd help and support him a little bit. He told his drinking partners Jordy and Thelma all this over a shared crate of Special Brew. This was his treat since he still had money. This money was running out like the fast being guzzled down gold tins. He wasn't investing what he had in drugs to sell and doing his rounds anymore, but pouring it all into the alcohol. (He'd passed his good customers on to Big Derek.) Jordy and Thelma were long time alkies also into religion. They were happy alkies now, believing all to be living in a New Age. Others (such as Mad Mickey) could not see this. They continued perceiving only what they had learned. "Don't believe a thing," said Jordy. "Nudge, nudge!" laughed Thelma, "Reality might be pulling your leg!" "I hope so. I fukkin' hope so," hoped Mad Mickey. He took a glug from his current tin of Special Brew. Spesh was also the drink of choice for Zak at this time, drinking lots of it to keep the voices he had been hearing quiet. It wasn't that they weren't speaking sense to him, it was just that hearing them when surely they weren't really there was disconcerting. He hadn't told his parents about these. He had worried them enough. He was laying off all other drugs. He aimed to ease off the Special Brew gradually. For now he drank a can of it on a rain soaked tube station platform on the outskirts of London. A train pulled into the station and he got on. Lowering his head as soon as he was sat on his seat, he refused to look at any of the other passengers, tried to think of something to think about. Outside the weather suddenly turned sunny. He got off three stops down the line to be met by a dazzling rainbow, and an even more dazzling sun that stung his bloodshot eyes. "Good to see you Zachariah!" his gran exclaimed when he turned up on her doorstep. "Good to see you too," he answered. He was still hungover. She asked him if he'd like a cup of tea, but he cracked another beer. "No thanks gran, I'll stick to this,", and he took a mighty swig. "So what have you been doing with yourself?" he was inquisitioned, "Have you got yourself a ladyfriend?" "No gran, love is a lie," he answered dryly. "I've made some biscuits for you!" she announced, rushing to the kitchen to fetch them. They played a game of Scrabble and he ate the biscuits, washed down with the Special Brew. He loved his gran, but she could talk a lot. Van Goghing was a term he had heard for someone talking one's ear off. He edited the news that he talked back to her so as to cause her minimum concern. She insisted on taking a photo of him, even though he looked a complete wreck. He could not smile. Then they were on to a second game of Scrabble. And a new tray of biscuits. "Are you eating well?" she asked him. He had a mouthful of biscuit. "Yes gran," he said when it was digested. "You're looking awfully thin," she continued, so he reached for another one. He didn't really like sweet things, but he wanted to please her. So he stuffed his face full of her sugary biscuits. "Great biscuits gran," he said. He had the word vomit in Scrabble. The doorbell sounded and gran shuddered. "That might be trouble. A lad's been coming round and using foul language." "What?!" said Zak "I'll fukking kill him! Oh, sorry gran, pardon my French." Gran opened the door- to her friend- "I've come round for a social visit." "Come back later Nelly," gran told her, "My grandson is visiting." They resumed their game of Scrabble and he questioned her about this lad, but she assured him that he wasn't a threat. "Just a cheeky monkey with a blue tongue." Two hours later Zak departed, saying "It's been a nice afternoon gran." She gave him a fiver as pocket money- "Not for drink or drugs,"- and they hugged- and then he was on his way. He anguished about this kid maybe giving gran aggro. At least Zak himself hadn't caused her any alarm. Usually he did with the state of his mind, but today he had been OK. He smoked a roll up on the way to the train station, stopping en route at an off license. At the station he got on a train and stared down at the floor. When he got back to his parents' house they were sat on the opposite sides of their big table, mum marking some of her school childrens' exams, dad slurping tea, chomping a slice of toast. He rose noisily when his eldest son entered the room and after clearing his throat spoke to him this: "I have some important marking of my own to do as of next Monday." This translated meant Zak had to be out of the house so he could concentrate by then. OK, so it was back to the chaos...   10. MEANS AND MORALS For years Zak's father had insisted upon having a quiet house in which to concentrate. He had become an over worked and over stressed college lecturer, doing a lot of his work at home. Now he was to be left with this quiet house to himself. The magic had died with Zak's mother too long ago to remember it properly. They both had changed. They'd had four children- all of whom he dearly loved- even Zak. Though Zak had given him a lot of additional stress in his rebellion against noise (or any other) restrictions. Zak was on the train back to Brighton, pissed off about the fact that he was having to return there, when he first ran into Abel. "Hey, another biblical name!" this Abel said. Abel had approached the ticket inspector hassling Zak and paid his fare. "Yeah, I'm actually Jewish," Zachariah stated, "though aside from some of the Cabala, more into Buddhism." Abel was a man who hated this country and its sick system. He had returned for a woman from where he had been doing legitimate work in Spain. But being all domesticated in Bognor Regis had not been for him, so he had left, and moved along the coast to Brighton where he had survived off his crime again. Abel was a criminal in the eyes of a society that told the lie that more was better. Ironically he didn't look for more, but just his moderate getting by. A smoke of hash and a few beers were what kept him happy, that he could share with friends. He was always generous. He'd been to prison for burglary but was good at what he did, having been taught the ins and outs of it by a professional mentor who had shown him a wad of money one day and told him how long it had taken him to earn it. But wasn't stealing from others wrong? Zak's family's house had been burgled. "Nah," said Abel, "the ones I pick are all insured, and claim loads more back than they lose. Everyone's happy!" "Thanks for paying for my train ticket," Zak said to him. "It's nice to be nice," Abel replied. He went on to tell him how he was returning to Brighton now with two hundred pounds cash and a few credit cards and looking for human company to get wasted with. "This is Abel," Zak introduced his new friend to Chloe, Jojo and Jenny, "Derek will be able to sort out the hash." "How much do yer want?" Big Derek asked, miserably. He was down about one of the visitors he had trusted into his home having ripped him off. "Muddafukka," he mumbled of this person, but he couldn't be sure who it was. He really hoped it wasn't Chloe, Jojo or Jenny. That would be heartbreaking. "Hope ya don't mind me bringing Abel round," Zak carried on- "No, that's OK," said Big Derek, "How much do yer want?" "Well," said Abel, producing the two hundred pounds cash in ten uncrumpled twenties, "we can get the booze and food with the credit cards so um, how much dope will this buy?" Two hundred pounds bought half a nine bar (four and a half ounces of dope). "Rule number one: never rob off your own," quoted Abel, passing a ridiculously fat spliff. "No, that's shitty," agreed Big Derek, receiving it. But if all is one who isn't one's own?, Zak's voices questioned. Those robbing one of this oneness by imposing their consume and die realities are still a part of this One. To harm them would be to harm oneself. But one shouldn't be harmed by material loss, another of Zak's voices reasoned. He and his family should not have reacted so badly to having had material things stolen. People shouldn't hoard it in the first place, keeping it to themselves, with some having more than others can afford. Not with others struggling to meet their basic needs. They should share. There was more than enough to go round. Big Derek passed the spliff on to Chloe. Since the majority didn't share, Abel took. He was free from conditioned morals. For him all was what he said (quite frequently): "A means to an end." And property was theft after all. Those that restole it could be Buddhas. "I ain't no Buddha!" laughed Abel (like reading Zak's mind / hearing his voices), "But I ain't no Demon either! I just am!" This non Buddha and non Demon was a likeable chap. And he even sorted Zak and his crew out with a squat. He had spotted a few empty buildings on his late night / early hours prowlings and the first of these he showed them had an open window. He himself had been sleeping (in the daytime) on an acquaintance of his's couch, seldom seeing the bloke (who worked) but never the less paying him a hundred pounds a week rent. When told (by Chloe) that squatting was legal, this came as a surprise. He decided, with the others' approval, to move in with them. At night he went thieving- taking it easy what with the reduced living expenses, and mostly only robbing garden sheds to pay for the essentials. Yeah, with human company he could happily rough it a while. In the mornings Zak, Chloe, Jojo and Jenny would wake up to all sorts from hedge trimmers to power tools to bicycles cluttering up the new squat before it was all taken to Cash Converters and exchanged for money. Every evening Abel provided food, drink and hash, but never money- "Money corrupts. I won't give you that," he told them. He'd give food, drink and hash to other homeless people (Big Issue vendors and beggars). But still he swore he was no Buddha. Big Derek got two whole nights with his house empty of lodgers after Jojo, Chloe and Jenny left for their new squat. But then a ruined Mad Mickey called round, late on the third one, just as he was about to make use of the rare privacy and have a rare masturbate. His knocking was persistant so Big Derek zipped up his trousers and went to tell whoever it was to fuk off, shop was shut, it was late. But seeing the sorry state of Mad Mickey, he had to let him in. Hank approached the lovely Joanne outside the local shop, going as far as to comment upon the potato waffles protruding out of her shopping bag. "I find them particularly tasty with pasta, tomatoes and kidney beans on toast with a light sprinkling of mixed herbs." "Really? I might try that," Joanne humoured him. "Chew on this too," Hank said, reaching into his jacket. Joanne panicked, but all he produced from there was sheets of paper. "Words for you," he said, and handed them to her. "Thanks?" she said, startled. He just smiled at her. (Hank The Smiley Man.) She was relieved to get away from him and chill with a spliff and her friends Jojo and Chloe at their new squat. "This sounds like the same freak who was bothering Jenny," commented Jojo. "Yeah, let's see if what he's written is the same," said Chloe. They looked at what Hank had written, but it was different. It started thus: The lost soul destined to walk the earth until being found had confused his precious October Dawn with another female whose earth name started with the same letter... "This guy's seriously fukt!" exclaimed Jojo. "Sounds like he just wants to be loved," thought Joanne, also saying it.   11. THE STORY GETS EVEN MADDER Even Madder Mandy had trashed Mad Mickey's gaff even worse than he had, even the stereo, which he had always spared. Now this was kaput. Even his Pink Floyd cassette! He had done himself in- with the booze and razor blades, and she had cut him too. Called him worthless. Provoked him to hit her. But he never had. She was ruthless with her tests, constantly testing his love. But surely just taking her bullshit was failing. She hadn't tired from hurling this at him- along with smashed bits of his flat. She'd even told him the baby she was carrying was Big Derek's. "Is it true?" a haggard Mad Mickey now asked Big Derek's eyes. Big Derek spluttered the spliff he was smoking out of his mouth at the mere thought of ever having sex with her. "No it isn't! Even I wouldn't go near that!" "You what?" said Mad Mickey, not having caught all this. "No it isn't," said Big Derek, not repeating the rest of it. Mad Mickey was satisfied with this. Even Madder Mandy had not always been so mad, but like so many of the other characters in this mad story she'd seen a lot of mad things. She'd stopped caring about her own outer appearance a long time ago. Mad Mickey had taken her under his wing when he had heard that the bloke she had been seeing had been beating her. When this bloke had come round to try and reclaim her he'd beaten the fukka to a pulp. And Even Madder Mandy had been with Mad Mickey ever since. She'd only started abusing him in the last few months. "You can't be putting up with that," said Big Derek, "You're welcome to stay here for a few nights." Even Madder Mandy stayed on at Mad Mickey's place, chain smoking cigarettes (some of which she would burn herself with) in the debris. Zak was spending more and more time with Abel, who'd soon got bored of robbing sheds and had returned to robbing houses. The extra money left from all the food, drugs and drink was being saved- "For getting us out of this shit country." "Us?" said Zak. "You're my friends now," Abel beamed at him, "My squatting family! And thus I gotta look out for youse. I can't leave youse to rot in this soul destroying dung heap. Great Britain! Hah!" He shook with laughter. Zak liked the idea of travel- of adventures- of anything different to the monotony of his daily life. Since he refused to work (apart from selling a few Big Issues when desperate) and be exploited at the bottom of a social hierarchy to pay for travel, he'd just been getting stoned. But getting stoned was getting boring... "Ain't you fed up of struggling to survive when surviving is what? A couple of beers and a smoke- at best. Day in, day out." "Sure I am," said Zak. "Sure you all are," said Abel, "It's why you're killing yourselves and probably why this girl Emily you say OD'd in your squat did." Yeah, Zak thought. He'd been thinking a lot since meeting Abel. The drink and drugs had become all- the quick fix from the boredom and despair of having no realistic aims or goals. He was dissatisfied with his own life, and settling for this had to be self sacrifice. Complying to the laws and morals of an inequal society was what kept this society inequal. It was this inequal society- the hierarchy- that was criminal! Abel's means to an end was no less immoral than paying for one's reality and ensuring that every one else had to also. If all was free (or perceived as One) there would be no such thing as theft. "Every being deserves whatever they want," Abel told Zak, "but it is up to them to take it." He also mentioned how having a look out on his night goings would get the money needed in order to get away quicker. Zak had dabbled in a bit of choring before turning Buddhist. And been tempted to rob peoples' houses when getting blanked by them trying to flog Big Issues. He listened to Abel and his voices and decided he would do it. Hank had left out the peanut butter in his potato waffles, tomatoes, kidney beans and herbs on toast recipe, and that (for him) was the most important ingredient. He hoped that Joanne would enjoy it anyway- even if she tried it without the peanut butter. He was sat hoping this when his doorbell sounded. This startled him for it was seldom. He was even more startled when he saw who it was who had rung his doorbell- more startled than this person had been herself when he had approached her with this peanut butter neglected food suggestion and some personal writing earlier on in the week. "Alright there," said Joanne, winking and waving a bottle of wine at him. Hank turned to mush. Joanne pecked this mush on the cheek.   12. STEALING BUDDHA'S PURE LAND Whilst Zak chose to embark on adventures in thieving with a self justified cause Chloe, Jojo and Jenny chose to stick with their regular lives. Abel and Zak hoped to finance their group break from Brighton all the same. Zak found being the look out to be exhilerating. And he'd been got a new pair of boots because his original ones squeaked. They would do a couple of places every night. Abel would go mainly for cash, jewelery and credit cards. They also borrowed a couple of cars for quick spins. Hank couldn't believe it- what he had always wanted to believe would happen appeared to have finally happened. October Dawn- The One- having come to him. The other girls he had dated (many years ago now) had not been Her. Joanne was a girl that he could love who would accept this love- and even offer him plenty of her free love back. She had a bubbly personality and was a total stunner, lusted after much of Brighton. But after reading his words she had chosen him. "I'm intrigued by you," she said, slipping her hand down his trousers. But suddenly he thought about Jenny. Hank had spent quite a long time believing that Jenny was his One. What if she was and this Joanne wasn't? Robbing with Abel provided Zak with an adrenalin rush, his brain perceiving it to be a game. The idea that anyone could be harmed, when everything was a dream, had to be but more illusion. Zak didn't know what to think when flicking through a freshly stolen personal diary for bank details however, and seeing appointments marked in for psychologist and DSS and yoga and meditation. This was too much info- he didn't like to think that victims existed- not real people- part of the collective consciousness- his own. He wanted to help people, not harm them further. The walking wounded walking all over each other seemed barbaric. Inhuman. But such thinking wasn't constructive to what he was doing. He had taken this path now. Of his own choice. Abel paid no bother to it- or the wedding photographs they stole from one place- dumping anything that couldn't be changed into money in the morning dew (to naturally erase the fingerprints). All this activity was indeed a means to an end, but Zak wanted to believe in a happy eternity for everyone. England was definitely dead like Abel reckoned it was though. Zak's feet were itching. He needed out of the country. And when the police found one of the cars (that Abel had stolen and parked around the corner from the squat) before he'd had a chance to wipe off their fingerprints, Abel, a known crim, needed out more than Zak did.   13. A BREAK FOR FREEDOM Big Derek and Mad Mickey both felt they needed out too, but had no ideas on how to achieve this or where to go. Mad Mickey was still staying on at Big Derek's gaff. Even Madder Mandy was still at his. Things were still going missing from Big Derek's (mainly money and hash) even with Mad Mickey helping to keep an eye out. This upset Big Derek and sometimes he took it out on The Dog, kicking it. He'd make up for this afterwards by buying it treats. The plan now that the cops were looking for Abel in Brighton was to flee to Ireland and rob a few houses over there to fund the trip round the rest of the world. Abel had a connection in Dublin. Zak had never been to Eire. They asked the others in the squat if they wanted to come along, but Chloe, Jojo and Jenny all declined. "Watch what you're doing Zak," Chloe advised him. "But doing that I will miss everything else," he responded to this. Jordy and Thelma were still visiting Franky in the hospital each day. Since he was making a stable recovery the others had felt OK with forgetting him. They couldn't look him in the eyes knowing he was a child abuser. They didn't want him to suffer. Just didn't want to see him. Emily they chose to remember. They wondered how her spirit was getting along. Franky lay in bed frustrated that he could not move from there, looking at a star out of the window. OK, it was a new morning. Zak and Abel left Brighton for London- in a car reclaimed from Abel's missus in Bognor Regis. They dumped this car in Wembley- with the keys left in it- near Zak's family's house- who they visited for Zak to say his goodbyes to. In the weeks that Zak had not seen his parents, his mum had found a flat that she would be moving to. They got a coach and ferry to Dublin. (Arriving on Irish soil before they knew it.) Throughout the journey Abel told Zak about his contact Paul- "a bit of a gangster so I've heard". One of the first things this Paul said to them, when Abel mentioned some stolen cheque books he had, was "Well ya know, I'm not a gangster." But he was a connection who had connections, he reckoned. He took Abel and Zak out on the town where there was a possibility of running into some of them. The people they met all seemed friendly. The girls were gorgeous. They got ridiculously drunk on the Guinness and their company. The next morning was another new morning, begun with hangovers. Paul, who'd been unable to help them shift the cheque books, drove them to Galway in his truck, with U2 blaring from his stereo. In Galway they sussed out places to rob- in spite of people here possessing guns- and more importantly, everyone met in Ireland having been so nice. They didn't t rob anyone- in spite of all their money having been blown in Dublin. Instead they opted to get by on nowt. They set up tents in Galway and found a Simon community project that provided free food. (Being vegan, Zak could eat the bread and fruit.) Paul returned to Dublin. Being without drugs or alcohol was not a problem for either Abel or Zak. Both felt free. Even rain and the tents flooding could not dampen their spirits. They had made it out of Brighton and the lives they had been dissatisfied with.   14. THE CRAIC IN IRELAND Abel was quite glad of a break from the robbing. They went to Cork next, hitching some good lifts. Again, everybody they met was friendly. One guy bought them cigarettes, and others gave them money. The road looked after them. A builder even let them stay a night at a house he was working on. Days blended into one another. They headed for Cool Mountain (because it had a cool name and because apparently there was a travellers site there). They travelled the south of Ireland lifted by the beauty of the country and the peoples friendliness. At Cool Mountain however they received their first hostility- from an Englishman who didn't like tourists, and from the local village people who didn't like this Englishman or any of the other travellers. They set up camp and Zak went down the hill to rob the supermarket, filling up a carrier bag with bread, crisps, biscuits, fruit, and returning with this. Abel was no good at shoplifting. Only robbing homes and businesses. They met some cooler people from Cool Mountain who got them beer and drove them (drunk themselves)- in a car wth a Buddha on the dashboard- into the town of Bantry. Here they got them more drinks in the pub- and got them stoned- and they appreciated this- a bonus to the food and shelter they had come to see as being so precious. They met more people- all this merriment a good craic. But then their lift left, and those they had met with them, deserting them here- with their tents miles away. Zak and Abel walked back- quite a mission whilst this pissed- and found a load of duty free goods on going round the back of a house for water. From having had nothing at the beginning of their trek they got back with two hundred Marlboro Lights and a bottle of whisky. They sold a few packets of the cigarettes for money for chips. In these few days that Zak's life had taken such a change of pace, Hank's too had undergone a major transformation. He'd found that he could not handle being loved by his October Dawn. She'd even named him her November Sun. Joanne wanted him both physically and emotionally, and his brain unused to this just could not get to grips with it. He told her he couldn't be with her. He didn't write this. "Why?" she asked him- "It doesn't feel right," he said, before adding "I was born single." "I thought you thought you were born single to be found by your soul mate." "Are you my soul mate?" he asked her. "I could be," she answered him. The doorbell sounded. Startled by this, Hank went to answer it. He would be startled even further when he saw who it was this time. "Hi Hank," said Jenny, "Can I come in?" "Hi Jenny," said Joanne. They sat and smoked a spliff together in Hank's living room. "Why are you here?" Joanne finally enquired of Jenny. Jenny looked to Hank, but he too wanted to know. The last he'd known he had been rejected by her and threatened by her friend Chloe if he tried to go near her again. "I wanted to see how you were doing," Jenny now spoke- to him, "I've been thinking. I'm sorry I was so sharp with you." "Well you were quite sharp..." Hank mused. Joanne couldn't help but smirk. Suddenly the doorbell sounded again- What the fuk? thought Hank. He answered it- to the spitting image of his long deceased grandfather, only this doppelganger of him was TV licencing. "Do you possess a television set?" this guy croaked. "No I don't," said Hank, truthfully, going to shut his front door. "I have to be sure of that," this bloke croaked on, "May I advise you, Sir, that possessing a television set without a licence-" Hank managed to shut it. Blah! Blah! Blah! this old feller continued to croak through the letterbox. Hank returned to Joanne and Jenny, ignoring the croaking and the doorbell. "I love him," Joanne was saying to Jenny, "You turned him down." She quietened down when she saw that Hank was standing beside her. "Hi, honey," she said to him, taking a hold of his hand. "I'll be on my way," said Jenny, getting up. "Would you leave too please," Hank said to Joanne, "I need some time on my own." "Mands!" Mad Mickey screamed, leaping up off Big Derek's sofa in the middle of his thirteenth night staying there. He hadn't seen his pregnant beloved in two weeks! He had to see her- had to see her immediately. He got a cab to his place. What he found there was not a pretty sight. He vomited, then phoned for an ambulance. He'd got there just in time for them to possibly save her. But she had succeeded in killing the baby. "Mands!" Mad Mickey woke up from this same nightmare again. He got that cab over to his. "I wonder what's happening in Brighton," Zak wondered aloud (with a mouthful of chips), looking down from Cool Mountain. "I wonder what's happening around the rest of the world," said Zak, "We need some dollars." This contact Paul was staying out of crime. He'd had his fingers in various pies, but such malarkey was now history. He hadn't recommended burglary in Ireland because of the guns. "We're gonna have to do a few jobs back in England," said Abel, "but to get back there we'll have to do some jobs here." They started back hitching towards Dublin again- aiming to do their robbing along the way. That night they ended up stranded in Skibbereen. It was cold and rainy, and the cars here wouldn't stop for them. Both tents had started leaking so badly they were hardly worth putting up. Both Abel and Zak had caught flu. A bushy bearded farmer who looked like Santa Claus saved them this time, putting them up in his trailer. He was a lonely man in his late forties named Malcolm who lived with his mother. They were given plenty of opportunity to rob this Malcolm, but of course they couldn't. Instead Zak resorted to phoning his dad (reverse charges) the next day and asking him to transfer the money for their return through Western Union. When they got back to Wembley, London they found the car with keys in it where they'd left it, and drove it to Zak's family's house.   15. END OF THE ROAD? Mad Mickey held the incoherent Even Madder Mandy in his arms and tried to comfort her, soothing her like she was a baby. It was lucky she hadn't been sectioned the state she was in, especially with all her loud wailing. She hadn't damaged herself too badly (just a couple of burns on her arms), but it looked like she hadn't eaten in days. Mad Mickey felt terrible about having abandoned her- even though she had forced him to. He hadn't been able to put up with the amount of abuse he had been getting from her. "Come on lover," he said to her "are you able to walk, Mands? We'd better get some food in you, then nip down the hospital and check that the babby's alright." "Leave me to die," sobbed Mandy, "Leave the both of us here to die."- before continuing with the nonsensical rambling. "Your father says you can stay here a few nights but not your friend," Zak's mother told him. Zak's father had sussed Abel as a bad influence on his son, steering him off track and towards imprisonment. Zak saw having to stay on an unfulfilling track to be imprisonment. Abel didn't care to be judged. "Look, your old man's pissing me off," he said to Zak, "He's got me labelled as a no good criminal. That doesn't leave me with much scope to get on with the guy, and he's your dad so I can't knock him out." So what he proposed was that he took the car up to Nottingham, where he had done work before (and been arrested- called a Robin Hood in the local papers). Zak could stay on and rest at his folks house whilst he did this, his flu from Ireland having got worse. Another reason Abel burgled houses- as well as it being a means to an end- was to get back at the people who labelled and judged him. The authorities labelled him a criminal when they arrested him for his first act of necessity- and peoples attitude was Once a criminal, always a criminal. The more they judged and sought to punish him, the more he would rebel. The more he would react against the whole system. Zak was hallucinating with his flu. He was revisited by aliens. And they spoke to him with the same voices as he had been hearing lately. "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." "Love is the law. Love under will." Zak willed for an Eternal Free Reality, not for one of struggle nor having to resort to thievery. The aliens continued to quote Aleister Crowley at him. Mandy persisted with her rambling- worse than Jordy and Thelma on the drink. Mad Mickey was sober for her- well, he was stoned, but not pissed. He'd calmed it with the drinking whilst staying at Big Derek's, his bender on booze ending when his money did. He walked Mands across the road, heading towards the cafe where an ex dope punter worked whom he hoped he would be able to blag two free breakfasts from. They passed Jordy and Thelma, who waved cans of Super Strength at them and called over something about a New Age. One of the houses they walked past contained a confused Hank. And another (closer to the cafe) contained an equally confused Joanne. Joanne and Hank were both confused by Hank having fallen for her, Joanne having been game, and Hank having then backed away. She wondered if maybe he was gay... But Hank wasn't gay. She wondered if he was still in love with Jenny... Well he was wondering this himself. He had been thinking about her... But maybe the reason he wasn't with Jenny or Joanne was because he was scared of happiness with either of them. Scared of melting. (Scared of being consumed by love...) If he melted he figured he would no longer exist. Zak had melted. What he was experiencing was like LSD. But the melted lucid self was still in his sick bed. Around his sick bed he envisaged a raging party- although the bleeps that people were dancing to were those of a hospital heart monitor. He recognised the girl dancing furthest away from him- her name was Kaz. He had been trying desperately to no longer think about her. She was dancing next to The Grinning Reaper, who grinned inanely at him, his eyes unblinking. Kaz- she didn't grin at him, but glared at him with disdain. Then he was back in a hospital ward with Jordy and Thelma bringing him some grapes and a pissed off (but beautiful even when she was pissed off) nurse telling him that she was not his Goddess. The only thing Hank could be sure of was that he was unsure of everything else. He certainly didn't know how he felt about Joanne. He'd thought she'd been his soul mate, but thought the same thing of Jenny. And a string of other October Dawns before her. Joanne had been the only one of these he had fancied to be his soul mate to have shown interest back, but she wasn't October Dawn. Anymore. He did love her- but not in that heart melting way anymore. Had he loved her in that way at all, he now questioned, or merely imagined he had? He reckoned he'd felt the heart melting thing stronger with Jenny than he had done with Joanne- or any of the others- but then denied this when Jenny had seemingly not wanted to know him. His perceived reality prior to this had suggested that he and Jenny were meant to be. But he had had to let go of this or else it would have driven him more crazy. How did he feel about Jenny calling round to see him then? Were they meant to be still? Did he still love her? How did Jenny feel? Like Joanne and Hank- confused. She'd got to believing all Hank had written to her about him seeing her to be special. She had been flattered by this. After the initial shock of it. But he had moved on to Joanne pretty fast. Seemingly making her just as special. Now once more she didn't know what to make of him. Blokes were a constant let down. Big Derek woke up earlier than normal and stumbled through the living room to the kitchen in order to make himself a strong black coffee. He was surprised to find a folded note on the sofa in place of the expected Mad Mickey. Gone to Mands it read on the inside. Great. He'd have himself a morning wank with no danger of anyone walking in on him. No sooner than he had unzipped his trousers did some fukka pound on his door though. Great! he thought again, but this time not happily. Whoever was calling round at such an ungodly hour as this (9 am) could fuk off. He wasn't going to answer. No way. Whoever it was was persistant with the banging however. "This is the police!" a voice shouted, somewhat dramatically, from behind the door. Zak and Abel were arrested too- in the latest hot car Abel had picked up (to carry his haul of other stuff) in Nottingham. They were busted in central London two days after his return, whilst driving round in circles, lost, looking for a squat party. "We're nicked," Abel said on seeing the blue lights. Oh dear... Zak was released- from a cell in Nottingham- thirty hours later- for merely being a passenger. He was given back a bottle of whisky that had been bought with the stolen money. He needed this. His head was in a mess. Abel's was as well of course. He was remaining in custody. Zak had to get his into a worse mess. This was how his voices said to deal with it. He had a blazing argument with his parents on the nearest pay phone, smashing the receiver when his dad said "I could have told you so." He was worried about Abel and worried about himself. Having lost his friend and travelling compadre, he was directionless again, and damn near suicidal at the prospect of a return to his Brighton stagnation. He stared at rail tracks, but didn't jump on them in front of an oncoming train- instead he jumped one of these trains that if he'd made another decision, might have splattered him, from Nottingham to nearby Loughborough. His sister Zarika was living in Loughborough with her boyfriend Henry, in a caravan that had enough room for him as long as it was only for a short stay. In Loughborough, when he was not with them, he drank alone in dull pubs where the locals talked about rabbits and cod, and made repeated phone calls to try and find out what was happening with Abel. Eventually he had to go somewhere else. This turned out to be his parents' house in Wembley, London again, although he resented them for having resented Abel, and because he needed people to resent and take his frustrations out on with the fukt upness of the situation. It soon became clear that the place wasn't big enough for him and his dad. It wasn't big enough for his mum and his dad, which was why his mum was leaving him. She was set to move into her new place within a couple of weeks. Shit! His mum was leaving his dad. His parents were splitting up! As ever he'd been so absorbed in his own problems he'd neglected to think about what was going on in their lives. They'd lived together all the time that he had known them, and soon they would be living separately. And what was he doing? Giving them extra stress as usual! Aaargh! That was it. Zak was suicidal. You should have offed yourself years ago, the voices said to him. He returned to Brighton with the intention of doing a Reginald Perrin, walking into the sea until he drowned (or died from the pollution). But when he saw the water, and the vast beach- such a contrast to the tiny police cells he had been restricted to in London and Nottingham- and the dingy pubs were people had discussed cod and rabbits in Loughborough- he started to feel alive (and appreciative of this life) again. It was unlikely that Abel would be seeing a beach again for a considerable time. He had already been locked in jail for stuff like this before. If the police connected him with the car and other theft done in Brighton he would probably be looking at a ten stretch this time.   16. BACK AND WORSE Zak's elation was short lived- he soon felt lousy again- especially with no word still from Nottingham police about Abel. His own life was as it had been before he'd escaped from it- like he had disliked it. He was back in that prison. He was staying with Chloe, Jojo and Jenny in the squat once again. They were getting stoned non stop cos they saw little else to do. Jordy and Thelma were still drinking and annoying everyone with their biblical readings and New Age news. Zak felt nauseous. He hadn't felt this bad before. Now was much worse. Franky, in Brighton hospital, felt surprisingly good. He was making rapid recovery and would be out of there in no time. Big Derek was out of his police cell, but on bail until court where he was being done for possession and, pretty likely, supply of several ounces of cannabis. He found it suspicious that Mad Mickey happened to have gone out just before the time of the bust, but he didn't like to be thinking like this. He didn't like to be kicking The Dog. Mad Mickey was reunited with his Mandy. The baby was due within a month. He was back in business punting out cannabis (his initial investment of this bought out of a DSS budgeting loan). He had plenty of customers now that Big Derek had stopped serving. Hank was torturing himself for being so mixed up. For not understanding life or his feelings. And most of all, for having confused Joanne and Jenny. These had moved on with their own lives soon enough though- Joanne starting to show interest in an almost as amazed by this Jojo, Jenny concentrating on her artwork. "What do you make of that Joanne?" Chloe asked Jenny whilst she was painting. Jenny paused, her paint brush poised, then shrugged: "I dunno." "I think she's a tart," Chloe voiced her opinion, "Although you know that I don't like to judge." Nor did she like feeling jealous about this Joanne in question making a move on her ex. But Jojo was proving to be as scared as Hank to take her up on her advances anyway. Walking along the seafront one morning (several after Nottingham) Zak ran into Abel, who was on his way round to the squat. He had been sent to a bail hostel, absconded from there, and spent the last few weeks lying low in Ireland with Malcolm the lonely farmer they had met in Skibbereen. He said the rozzers hadn't linked him to the car found in Brighton yet, but they would in time. He had major plans-The adventure was back on. He'd stay at the squat and go robbing in the nights again. Zak told him that he now wished to stay out of this- not because of the threat of imprisonment, but because he had had time to think about it and now believed it was bad karma creating since it had victims. Abel accepted and understood this- even respected it. Zak would get some money together himself like Mad Mickey had done with a social loan. The nest egg Abel was collecting he was entrusting with a jeweller friend until he was all set to leave. He was going through the process of getting an illegal passport. But getting things sorted was stressful and he was starting to flip out. When the jeweller holding his cash decided to double cross him, Abel snapped. There was a scuffle, during which he took some punches, but beat the guy up worse. He didn't get his money back though. His head got worse and worse. He considered driving one of his stolen cars full speed into a brick wall. Then he met Joanne- who'd not been getting anywhere with Jojo- who gave him some needed zest again. They had a few good days together, being in love, then he got nicked again- in another car- this time with her. He reckoned he could have lost the police in a chase, but he stopped because she asked him to. He wouldn't be getting any further bail deals.   17. KAZ Kaz was Zak's obsession- his October Dawn (to quote the personal terminology of Hank). She was a girl he had met at the London squat parties over a year ago who he had never told how much he had come to care for her. What was it about her? At first it had been her smile. And then her losing of this- She had confided to him that she just wasn't happy. She had been squatting with some heroin users at the time, a time when his friends in Brighton had been dropping like flies from the stuff. He hadn't been able to bear the thought that she might be next. (As it turned out, one of his own squatting partners, Emily, was.) He had arranged to meet her one to one out of the party environment and travelled up to London on a Wednesday one week. But she had blown him out. He'd waited for her for three hours. Still he had pined after her, wishing that he could somehow save her. Or was he really wanting her to save him? This thought is what kept him silent (ceiled up his feelings) from here on. He'd doubted that his love for her was pure. As a result of this, this love in question had got polluted and he had gone weird on her- been rendered unable to talk to her. Resentment of her standing him up plus the new found concern for himself had transformed him into a freak who could only watch her from afar and on trying to communicate verbally with her, always come out garbled. He'd resisted the feelings he had for her seeing her in person. Like Hank, he had tried to make sense of these privately in writing. Hence Kaz had become a Goddess on the written page. He'd loved Her there but wouldn't allow himself to to her face. He'd had visions of her smiling again- visions that he loved- which he'd experienced in dreams, his writing and on LSD. Since Zak did most of his acid at London squat party raves, Kaz was usually on the scene, and on one occasion everything had melted and he had hallucinated that she loved him back. His mind had imagined that she was playing / also in denial, and he had crumbled in ecstasy, waiting for her to make a move. Unfortunately Kaz hadn't made a move, but left. Downtrodden, he'd cursed the world, and with this world, himself. He had abused himself by abusing drink and drugs (bender self justified), and worried his family and friends that loved him some more. His parents had taken the worst brunt of this- he had punished them for his being alive and in pain on planet earth in the first place. The pain had lasted most of the past year until subsiding to new pains such as Emily's death and Franky being revealed to be a sex offender. He had continued to keep it at bay by keeping his distance from Kaz- avoiding London parties. (He did not see her at the one he attended just after Franky was beaten into his coma.) Then Zak had been glad to leave the country that contained Kaz (yeah, block her out) on his adventures with Abel. Although now Abel was in jail- these adventures were postponed- and he had time to think again. No! His head could not deal with that. He closed his eyes and wished for the world to stop.   18. THIS INSANE LIFE HASN'T STOPPED YET Zak's parents were living in different houses (well, his dad in the same house and his mum now in a flat). At least they had split up fairly amicably- his dad even having helped his mum to move. They'd lived in each other's space without being in love- arguing with one another- for over ten years. Zak never wanted to risk getting himself into a situation like that. In Ireland he had tried to erase Kaz out of his mind. He had been trying this for months. Why? Because he was so unsure of himself- and love. Because he believed she deserved someone better than him. He had fallen for her the day he had met her (introduced to her by Bob, who at this time had also fancied her). Emily dying, Franky being exposed as a paedophile and put in a coma by Mad Mickey, plus his spell of criminal activity with Abel had all helped with keeping the memory of the smile she had had on her face that day at the back of his mind. But now it was back again. It had been pure Happiness. It tore him up inside that she had not had such a smile on her face since. Maybe she only no longer smiled around him. (Or at least hadn't done the last few times that he had seen her.) Abel in Ireland had listened to him spill his heart out about Kaz. Abel had dug the fact that he was a romantic. "Don't kill yourself over women though," he'd advised. Some further advice had been to "Fuk them off without showing you are too interested and if they're meant to, they'll come running." But "Surely they need to know that there's some interest there or they won't bother," Zak had said. His problem (on too many occasions) had been not being able to show just a little interest, but going over the top. Pouring that heart of his out onto the table and saying Stamp on that! Girls had generally obliged. Assuming that Kaz would have done the same, he had struggled against allowing himself to do this with her. He had tried to remain her friend and brother. But his denial of deeper feelings towards her had alienated the both of them. Last time he'd seen her she'd blanked him altogether. Hank had blown things with both Joanne and Jenny, but found comfort from this and his other woes in a spliff and cup of coftea. October Dawn has gone- it is mid November, he wrote in his poetic journal. Joanne had moved on to Jojo, who had been as scared of her affections as Hank, and then Abel, who had subsequently been arrested and sent down for up to ten years for a scroll of illegal activities. She too had been arrested with him. He'd asked her not to write or visit. Jenny had been avoiding relationships and sticking to her artwork, although she had shared a moment with Jojo recently where their eyes had met and they'd seen into each other. She had been squatting with him and Chloe for the last couple of years before this strange and wonderful thing should happen. Chloe had been with him longer. Chloe had been partnered with him. Chloe, like Jojo, had remained single since they split up (carrying on squatting together). She'd found herself getting pissed off by Joanne making advances towards him. When she started noticing the new chemistry between Jenny and him she didn't know how to react- for these were both close friends. Jenny and Jojo had both formerly been scared of love. Mad Mickey and Even Madder Mandy were together again with Mandy eating weirder foods than Hank and (not surprisingly) throwing up every morning. She was bursting out of her clothing and set to drop their sprog at any time and had even quit the drugging and drinking. Mad Mickey had calmed this down too in solidarity, though had to smoke dope still since he was dealing the stuff. Big Derek was being off with him- ever since his drugs bust- as if it was his fukkin' fault. The Dog had been taken off him by the RSPCA. He was looking at a possible jail sentence for the found cannabis. The only people that visited him now that he no longer dealt smoke were Jordy and Thelma, who he could never get to leave. Jordy and Thelma had kept on visiting Franky in the hospital too, although now Franky was out of there. Knock Knock. Jenny answered. Franky smiled at her. She froze. She couldn't see the Franky she had squatted with anymore. "Ur-" she murmured, paralysed. "Who is it?" Chloe's voice called. "Ur-" Jenny uttered again. "...How are you?" she asked him once she'd stopped her Ur-ing. "Much better thanks," he answered, "You?" "Ur-" she started in with the Urs again. "You look well anyway," he spoke. How could she possibly in such a state of shock? "Jenny, who is it?" Chloe's voice called again. "It's Franky, Chloe," Jenny managed to reply this time. "Franky?" Chloe rushed over, with Jojo in tow. Franky smiled at these too. Neither of them smiled back at him. Jordy and Themla, Zak and a couple of members of his blood family had been the only people to have visited him in the hospital. Mad Mickey, their dealer of the time- who was now their dealer again- had been the person who had put him there. "What do you want?" Jojo asked bluntly. He asked it with fierceness. Franky The Hippy held out a Winston Churchill victory sign and said "To make my peace." He had squatted with them for over a year before he had admitted having interfered with an eleven year old. They must have smoked a million spliffs together. "What are you gonna do?" Chloe asked this figure on their doorstep- none keen to welcome this figure in. "I dunno," Franky shrugged, hopelessly, "Start afresh somewhere new I guess?" Abel had started afresh in Her Majesty's Prison Lewes, where in his first weeks he had already made plenty of enemies. The screws and the inmates were all out to fuk him up. These and the cage had soon turned him into an animal. He'd asked Joanne, the girl he'd started seeing, not to keep in touch, and soon he asked the same of Zak. He wanted them to remember the cheeky crim, not the imprisoned beast. Big Derek was likely to be joining him soon. His court case was less than a month away. Big Derek was caning the speed to cope, but getting increasingly paranoid. He had become convinced that Mad Mickey, who he had been putting up at his, had first of all stolen off him, and secondly set him up. The guy had had nothing when he had started staying at his- he'd blown it all. And now all of a sudden he had everything. Now it was Big Derek who had nothing. For Mad Mickey had taken it. "The bastard grassed me to the pigs," he realised out loud to the walls. He couldn't- wouldn't- stand for that.   19. ONE IN, ONE OUT "Push!!!" the midwife screamed. Mad Mickey stood back in awe. Mands was in agony, but she was determined to give birth to this thing. This thing was his thing- his babby- she had promised him this. She'd only said differently to test him, and he knew that he should never have doubted her. Even Madder Mandy had been faithful to him, as he had been faithful to her. Even if it had been another bloke's kid, Mad Mickey reckoned he would have stuck by her and fathered it. "Push!!!" the midwife screamed again. Their little person arrived feet first. The pigs appeared to be tailing Big Derek whenever he left the house. And he was pretty sure his place had been bugged and all. "That bastard Mickey grassed me to ya didn't he, eh?" he spoke in a threatening tone to the probably bugged walls. The baby- or babby as Mad Mickey called it- their mini alien- was utterly beautiful. More beautiful than either of them could ever have imagined or hoped. Even Madder Mandy had never been so happy. Suddenly she felt different. She couldn't remember ever having felt this clear. "Lover," she said to Mickey, "I'm sorry I've given you such a hard time." She hugged both him and her child. Felt really positive and optimistic. Lovers' happiness never lasts, thought Zak, thinking about his parents and all he knew. Though some at least get to be in love, then lose. It was better to have been in love and lost than not to have been in love at all- apparently. Mad Mickey had only just seen the birth of his baby, Mickey Junior, about an hour before he was jumped by Big Derek on his doorstep. He was going back there from the hospital to get some stuff for Mands. Big Derek caught him unawares with a baseball bat to the head and just kept hitting him with it until he was a bloody mess. "This'll teach ya to fuk with me!" the deranged Derek screamed. He didn't run. He waited for the police to get to him. By this time Mad Mickey was no longer breathing. Big Derek had killed him.   20. DEPARTED DEALERS This insane life had stopped for Mad Mickey, and his spirit was going on to another one. Big Derek was in prison for having taken it. The drugs possession was now a minor additional charge. Even Madder Mandy was madder than she'd ever been. Her newly born baby had been taken away from her. She'd been thrown into an institution where she was getting pumped full of sedatives. It had to be a nightmare. This couldn't possibly be real. The others who had known Mad Mickey, Even Madder Mandy and Big Derek were all reeling again. "Mum, another friend's dead," Zak told his mum on the telephone, "Another's in jail. And another's in psychiatric." "Are you gonna be long?" a junkie hanging out to call his dealer pressurised him. "Give me five minutes here!" Zak hissed at him. "...Yeah, guess we should have stayed in Ireland," he continued speaking to his mother, "Being back in Brighton is shit." His mum listened patiently to all that her first born son had to say, although she really could not understand his lifestyle. When she was young the friends she hung around with weren't dying, getting put in prison or sectioned. At least not on such a regular basis. "There are voices chatting to me," he admitted to her, "I think I'm going more crazy myself." "Then stop taking so many drugs," his mother told him, firmly. He sighed, waiting for her to suggest that he should get a girlfriend. "Come on mate!" the junkie outside the phone box appealed. "OK, OK!" he said, "Mum, I gotta go." "Lay off the drugs. Eat a proper diet. Get eight hours a night sleep." "OK, OK! Mum, laters. I love you." "I think I love you," Jojo told Jenny. He kissed her lips. A magnet had drawn them together suddenly after a long term of being platonic squatting buddies. The horrible business with Mad Mickey being killed by Big Derek had brought everyone closer, especially them. "I think I love you too," Jenny said, smiling at him. Chloe, sat next to them on the beanbag, scrunched her face up. "I think I'm going to vomit," she stated. Jordy and Thelma strolled in, each carrying a big carrier bag full of alcohol. "Door was open," said Jordy, "Heard about the tragedy." "Yasss," slurred Thelma, "but all iss not lossst. For we have the holy worrrd, the bible..." "Not today, thanks," Jojo said to them. "And we can pray for all involved," Jordy suggested. Mad Mickey found his released from the body spirit being directed to Heaven as willed by so many good people on earth going to the trouble of praying for him. He'd seen his life flash before him, but it had all happened in actual time, and this had been his forty two years' life. The last bit he wouldn't have minded rewinding since it had happened so fast. Although he had managed to make out that it was Big Derek who had ended it for him. Big Derek, his friend. (Having done too much amphetamines.) It had been one of the worst possible times to kill him, what with his kid only just having popped. Young Mickey would have to go through life not knowing his father. Or his mother. He couldn't hold bad feeling towards Big Derek over it though. He'd fukt up. Everyone did. (Especially when overdoing drugs like speed.) Instead, he prayed for the sick Derek, and now that he thought about it, the sick Franky the hippy who he'd mashed up as well, just like folks were praying for him. (This praying for these others probably the reason he was getting to Heaven.) Wow, Heaven looked just like his Brighton gaff. And that woman- that woman was his Mands. "Hi honey," she said. She had their baby with them. Mickey Junior! He hugged them both. He no longer had any scars. Even Madder Mandy, in her strait jacket, was in this Heaven too. Jenny was happy to be with Jojo. She felt comfortable with him. He was a sweety, especially when trying to be fierce. She'd been raped twice in this life and suffered even more hurt, but now this guy who cared for her had eradicated the lot of it. Jojo was glad to be with a girl again after such a long time (since Chloe). Chloe didn't want to be with Jojo but didn't want Jojo to be with Jenny. Jenny was her friend. And so was Jojo. She didn't want to lose either of them, especially not the both of them to each other. "Hey there's a free community art space setting up down the road," Jordy mentioned. "Tekno blasting out of it," added Thelma.   21. NEW HORIZONS The Sporadic Arts Installation was the brainchild of X, a cosmic magician and founder member of the infamous tekno outfit Know Real Threat. It consisted of live sets, sculpture, graphics, painting, DJs, video projections, alternative films, performance poetry and multimedia theatre. It was more than a party or general community space in other words- it mutated and evolved. This current one, in a squatted pub, was its sixth since starting out. The falling apart building had been transformed by a hardcore crew of artists before being opened to the public. The idea was for it to be added to with further sculptures, paintings and psychedelic backdrops along the way. Within a few hours of opening plenty of people power (enough to avoid instant eviction) had already been gathered, these bodies sat around chilling in the two main rooms or out the back in the leafy former beer garden. Four of these bodies belonged to Zak, Jojo, Jenny and Chloe, these brought along here by Jordy and Thelma. "This is pretty good," said Chloe, well impressed. Jenny dug it too, what with being so into art. "The revolution," stated Jordy. "A New Age," said Thelma. "Spliff?" a green painted staturesque mime artist broke his silence and stillness, offering Jojo a bifta, "It needs a light." "Nice one, man," said Jojo, taking it. The statue froze again, grinning. X ambled over himself, smoking a joint as well. He was in his early thirties, his muscley arms covered in more art (lots of black tattoos). He had a Buddha on them, and Ganesh the elephant God, also various occult symbols. "Welcome to the future," he said, clearly stoned. "A New Age," repeated Thelma. "Yeah!" cried Jordy. "The setting for The Big Finale," X spoke directly to Zak, "Where it all begins." X had full faith in his Master Plan working. He had seen it all work out in a vision. Already he and his crew had hosted Sporadic Arts Installations in Southampton and Portsmouth, but Brighton was where they were going to concentrate on. The town turned city recently was full of creative people- and party heds- who could help to make it happen. A free space was needed here where these people could get together and celebrate their free life. He had enlisted friends from many of the tribes within the international underground to start putting it into action. This current space- a pub- was guarded by a great big metal sculpted robot, and there was a strong bolt on the front door for if the rozzers decided to arrive in unfriendly numbers. If one or two came, they would be welcome to browse around. The mascot robot had been fluffyfied by a plastic smiley face necklace having been added onto it. The place was safe for children- it even had a creche, and vegan food was served for affordable donations twice a day. Propaganda and information could be picked up from the Know Reality stall, whilst Know Real Threat sound system provided the music in the main arena. Various other rigs were taking turns in guesting upstairs, with live bands, open mic and the cinema up there also. The whole of it was an art gallery. Zak loved it as much as the rest of his squatting family the moment he first walked through the door. "If I can help with this in any way," he was soon saying to X, "I've got nothing but spare time on my hands." Jojo, Jenny and Chloe offered their services also. Jenny started work on a large mural. Hank checked out The Sporadic Arts Installation on its third day (in this venue), smiling upon seeing the smiley on the robot. He stuck some writings of his on the walls. He was pleased to see people stopping to read them, this was great, even if they appeared to be perplexed by them. He noticed Jenny putting the finishing touches to her mural. He noticed the mural. "Man, that's fukking excellent," he told her, honestly. It was of a sunset and a charred figure watching it. She backed away from him. "Jeez!" he said, "I ain't gonna rape you!" She backed away even further. Fast. "I'm with Jojo," she said to him, with panic in her eyes. Maybe she was saying I'm with Jojo but don't want to be- please save me from him. "Relax," he calmed her, "I'm not coming on to you. Just commenting on your wall mural." "What's going on here?" asked a passing X, showing concern. "Just commenting on her wall mural," answered Hank. Zak had found some cosmic literature at the Know Reality stall- a pamphlet produced by a group calling itself The Lucifer Liberation Front. Alarm Call it was called, and this was Issue 23. And it seemed to be written by the same voices that had been speaking to him. Memo: Don't forget that The Armageddon has already happened, its cover read- thus ending all restrictive 'concepts' such as money, time and the hierarchical Babylon system. The New Age / Eternal Free Party / Heaven On Earth is right here 'now' as soon as one chooses to wake up to it. Big Derek woke up in his prison cell from a dream in which he had hung himself and been willed to Heaven by the entity he had killed to end up in this cell. His Heaven had been an isolated room in which he could masturbate in peace. Unfortunately he shared his cell. His cell mate didn't mind masturbating here himself, but for Big Derek, it was something he had to do in private. He didn't appreciate this cell mate wanking in his small living space, but the guy was even Bigger than Big Derek was and insisted upon it. "Did you write this?" Zak had to ask Jordy and Thelma, what with the Lucifer Liberation Front's references to a New Age Heaven on earth. "No," they said, but were interested to flick through a copy. He asked the SchNews lot if they knew about it. "No," these people involved with Brighton's weekly direct action newsletter also said. "Do you know who wrote it?" Zak then asked of X. "Extra terrestrial intelligences probably," X replied. Extra terrestrials! Zak kept forgetting- or refusing to believe- that he had met these recently. The party side of The Sporadic Arts Installation kicked in properly by Day Five with thousands of people flooding in and somehow all managing to fit. Dealers sold their wares openly, shouting "Pills! Acid! Ketamine!" It was Zak's order book day. He figured he would get blasted.   22. WASTERS LOSING TIME Wow, Zak's head was spinning out of control. The data scattered everywhere meant that it was a jumbled up mess that he was perceiving. He had been rushing- experiencing bliss flowing throughout his body and mind. Buzzing on the Es and speed and LLF literature. But alas too much ketamine had fuzzied his clear thinking. Now thoughts came at him from all angles, and a lot of these painful ones. The undecipherable ones the worst, tying his brain into knots. Aaargh, you're going crazy, the voices told him. And crazy's bad- you might as well kill yourself. Hank, also at the party, was in a similar state, punishing himself too for being so fukt up. He had written the story he'd stuck up on the wall whilst as fukt up. The story was all about his resumed hankering for Jenny, even using her real name. It was very personal- too personal for most readers' liking. It was sad, but at least it was well written. In it he described how he had been charmed by her, and how he had deceived himself that she was interested in him back. Also how he had believed that she was his cosmic partner October Dawn and how his being blown away by this had made him clumsy and fearful and unable to talk directly to her without crumbling. As a result he had alarmed her, and it had taken him a while to realise this. He had messed up both of their heads- his worse than hers (he sincerely hoped). He wrote on about how he had then wanted Joanne to be October Dawn, but how October Dawn was still (and always would be) Jenny. Yes, that was in black and white for all to see on The Sporadic Arts Installation's wall. The Armageddon has already happened, Zak continued to ponder... "You're dead!" the aliens had told him. This was madness! He felt like testing it- What should he do? Dive off the top of a tall building? Slash his wrists? "Reality could be pulling your leg!" Jordy and Thelma often said. These two also believed that they were living in a New Age. Zak wanted to believe that he was living in a New Age where each person was a God or Goddess, but to be a God himself he felt he needed to have found a Goddess. In another reality Zak had told Kaz straight away and in straight forward fashion that he was in love with her- that he saw her to be The Goddess. That if she wanted, then he would be there for her. And he'd be true. That his love for her would flow effortlessly and continuously and be unconditional. In this imagined reality she had accepted it. In another still she had said that this was bollox. Without knowing that Jenny had drawn a mural reminiscent to Edvard Munch's The Scream recently, Hank saw both himself and her in this famous painting. He'd wanted to put his arm around her and help her stop screaming, not make her scream even more. It really hurt him that she was so wary of him still. He loved her- he did love her- thus he did not wish to upset her. Jenny reckoned she would give happiness a go with Jojo. Like she had said to him, she reckoned she loved him. Neither she nor Jojo were happy on reading Hank's story. Jojo tore it off the wall. He felt like tearing Hank up as well (he got fierce), but Jenny dissuaded him. "I'll talk to him," she said, a little uneasily. "You're one of us int ya," Jordy buzzed excitedly to X. X smiled at him and winked- "We're all One." "Another light bringer!" exclaimed Thelma. "Hallelujah!" cried Jordy. "Don't tell everyone," whispered X, lighting up another joint. "What's the agenda then?" Jordy asked, "What's happening? What is our mission here on earth?" "The mission here at The Sporadic Arts Installation is to mutate and evolve," X spoke as if he were at a press conference. "Mannn..." gasped Zak. He felt like he was mutating and evolving. Dissolving even. Melting again. Everything was spinning now- not just his head. All was luminous. He was returning to The Vortex. Suddenly he saw. Once more. But he could not put words to it. Whilst Zak and various others were expanding their consciousness at The Sporadic Arts Installation a bloke not far from there was beating another bloke to shit. Troy was a maniac. He hurt people to hurt his own fist. He provoked upset with people by calling them Wankers. Troy himself did masturbate quite frequently. (Well, it was something to do between the mindless violence.) Tonight he was on a particularly bad people mashing self hate fuelled bender. He wanted to kill someone to kill himself. "Can I have a word please?" Jenny approached Hank with apprehension. "Sure," Hank beamed at her, "You can have a whole story." "It's that I want to speak to you about," said Jenny, "We've taken it down off the wall." "We have?" Hank asked, raising an eyebrow, "You mean the collective We?" "I have," Jenny spoke (despite it having been Jojo). "Fine," shrugged Hank, "I'm sorry if you don't like it. I'm sorry if you don't like me." "Look," said Jenny, "I do like you. I'm just not in love with you." "Fair enough," Hank snorted. But it didn't feel fair. Joanne, also mentioned in Hank's story, luckily didn't get to see it or else she too would have been nonplussed. She'd gotten over his losing interest in her after their having sex, but wouldn't have appreciated this information being presented for all to read along with his regrets on having bedded down with the wrong girl. Joanne was growing fed up of geezers in general. She had turned her attentions to Melanie, a lesbian. "Good party innit," she said, nodding her head to the music. "Line of coke?" Melanie asked her, offering this. Zak snorted an umpteenth line of ketamine. He sensed another storm alooming. "A shaman is someone who has seen the end," he heard X's voice saying. He saw Kaz the girl that he loved in his mind. The girl he had killed himself over. "Wanker," was the last word that Zak recalled. Last thing he saw was stars. He'd returned to the star, but then come back again. He'd found himself surrounded by the aliens, observing him in their long white coats. He'd been strapped down. They had injected him. He'd guessed he was their experiment... "What the hell's going on?" X panicked, rushing over. This was happening around his fallen body but he was also with the aliens... "That psycho started calling him a wanker and just laid into him," said someone. Kaz? "Watch who you're calling a psycho, bitch," snarled this psycho, "or you'll end up the same way." "That isn't gonna happen," X said, sure of this. "Oh isn't it?" Troy swung out with a fist. Blows were exchanged- Troy tried to claw at X's face, but X floored him with a power packed left hook. The girl- not Kaz- was in tears by Zak's fallen body- "I think he's dead!" she screamed, mortified. "No I ain't dead," announced Zak, fairly sure of this. Before drifting out of with itness again... Things had happened fast- in acceleration. He hadn't been able to take it all in. Hadn't wanted to take it all in because a lot of it had been unpleasant. Oh well, that was over now. Zak woke from sleep. "How are you doing?" Chloe asked him, standing over him. He appeared to be at a quietened down Sporadic Arts Installation. He thought he caught a glimpse of Kaz in the old beer garden, but no, she wasn't there. Joanne had been there for Hank, but he'd returned to wanting Jenny. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted her either if she had wanted him. He hadn't meant to hurt Joanne's feelings, but he couldn't be in love with her. The sex had been enjoyable, but he didn't see this as enough basis for a relationship. He'd sought to please her back sexually, but his heart had not been in it. Zak couldn't shake being in love with Kaz. The soppy git loved his memory of her smile. He had barely thought about having sex with her. He had wanted more to hold her hand. But he had weirded her out, a little like Hank had weirded out Jenny. His main mistake had been not telling her how he felt about her straight away. But hell, it had all been a test- a game- a bit of multiple perceptions fun. He'd seen this many times- awoken to it- yet still he'd returned to taking things seriously. This insane life was too insane to possibly be real. (Though it would make a mad story.) He figured he would do a rewrite- change his own character- reprogramme himself, and look out for this reprogrammed entity. Considering this new self a best friend instead of a sacrificial lamb or enemy would be Step 1. Or better yet he could look out for all of his selves, taking all his split personalities around with him wherever he went and looking out for them all . His family and his friends looked out for him. They clearly loved him. In whole. It was about time he did also. Whilst still loving them in whole as well. New start- New beginning- He and his selves would love all others' selves as One Self and play the game for fun (Playing with One Self)- "Wanker," Troy said to him. Bizarre de ja vu. "Maybe so, but if all is one illusion then all sex is also masturbation..." Zak answered. "What the fuk?" said Troy. I don't know, thought Zak. (One of his voices had spoken this.) "Don't I know you?" Troy said suddenly, "Haven't I mashed you up before?" "Yes you have," said Zak, shuddering at the memory. "Well I guess I'm gonna mash you up again," Troy informed him, "and this time even worse." OK, thought Zak, Fuk it. He was ready to leave this world where One couldn't escape duality.   23. ROUNDED PSYCHOSIS All the drugs he had taken in his life seemed to kick in at once. Or was that Troy giving him his final beating? No, Troy hadn't started yet, but Zak was aware of the impending threat. Allowing himself to be intimidated, he shrunk to nothing. What's my fear? he questioned. Death would be a release from this world of fear. Pain? He lived the beating to death with a baseball bat that Mad Mickey took. And experienced the battering Franky got (from Mickey) that he had formerly merely watched. He experienced all manner of violence- strangulation, stabbing, etc- but through this realised that of course, like everything, all such pain was transient. He realised that this menace calling him a Wanker could not actually harm him and so he decided to call him a Plum. "What the fuk did you call me?" Troy asked him, "Huh?", but he asked it with a grin on his face. Suddenly they were friends and laughing together: Troy's manifestation having been one of many sent to immunise him from fear of death and scare him to life. "Are we dead already?" Zak asked his new friend. "You're alright, wanker," Troy laughed, slapping him on the back. "Zak-" said a voice he recognised. He turned round to see Franky. "Hey you're out of hospital. Excellent!" exclaimed Zak. It was excellent to see him back on his feet again after the coma and everything. "Jordy and Thelma say they have been joking about it being a New Age and that this actually starts tonight," Franky informed him. Jenny approached. Franky smiled at her, but moved away. "Has Hank been bugging you?" Zak asked her. "Well, a little," she said, shrugging, "but he's OK. Do you know he put a story about me up on the Art Space walls! But I think he has now got the message. I'm giving things a go with Jojo. I've told Hank he'll have to find another October Dawn." "Looks like he already has," Zak said, noticing the mentioned Hank snogging a winged angel in the centre of the dance floor. "Good for him," said Jenny. And good for her and Jojo. Good too for the angel by the looks of it. All around him people suddenly seemed to be in love. Joanne was feeling up Melanie the lesbian to their mutual pleasure. A couple that looked like Mad Mickey and Even Madder Mandy (and even had a baby with them!) were also getting intimate. Jordy and Thelma were spilling alcohol in their drunken embrace. Good for everyone, thought Zak. And then he saw Troy again- a fellow loner. Not in love. Troy was bugged out about his not being in love. He expressed this by smashing his head hard into an uncovered bit of wall. The red that splashed on it created quite a trippy psychedelic effect. "Bollox! All bollox!" he screamed, continuing to smash his split head into the wall. "Stop!" screamed Zak louder, rushing over, concerned. Troy stopped with the head smashing but continued to utter the word "Bollox." Zak sat with him for a while, but on getting no other response, eventually left him with a spliff and moved on. He went to the top floor where people were clambering out of the window to get to an additional music area that had now been set up on the roof. This pub was a tall building, and from its high rooftop, Zak considered the mess his body falling at high velocity would have on impact with the ground below. A friend of his, Raymond, actually went through with this current fantasy some years ago, but Raymond was sat there now on this rooftop smoking a chillum. A Zen smile spread across his meditative face, his dreadlocks flapping gently in the breeze. Zak didn't dare to speak to him, but gave him a nod of recognition. "Hey Zakster!" someone shouted to him, and he turned to see Bob, his mate from London, grinning wildly. "Look what I have manifested this time!" he yelled, and he produced a bag containing more drugs than he had ever found in one find before. "Fat lines?" he asked as he began to chop up the powder that appeared to be coke, "Yes of course fat lines!"- and he and Zak both laughed. Bob explained how he had jumped the train down after hearing about the Sporadic Arts Installation happening in Brighton on the party line- and found this bag of drugs on searching the train carriage for a valid ticket (which he also found). "I don't believe it!" gasped Zak, "How do you do it?" Bob offered him a rolled up fiver and told him to get his nose round it. One snorting each later the two of them were both feeling the effects. It was coke. It was exceptionally good coke. "Bob, I'm still in love with Kaz," Zak then confessed to him. Ruining it. "Jeezus!" sighed Bob, clearly disappointed in him. Or maybe suggesting that he was crucifying himself? "Can't help it," said Zak, "There is something special about her." Here we go again! thought Bob. "But you know that!" Zak continued, "I need her to be my friend at least. Is she really pissed off with me?" Bob appeared to be really pissed off with him. He took the rest of his found drugs and left. Zak returned downstairs where Troy had resumed his head smashing again. Blood was pissing down his face- he was raging. Zak sought to calm him down. Listening to himself- his own voice- not conflicting voices- he guessed he would have to follow his own advice and not create pain for himself either. He had created his own pain by clinging on to Kaz. By telling himself that someone was missing from his life, and making this someone her. The girl who had smiled at him once, but who no longer did. "Have you got yourself a ladyfriend?" his gran asked every time she saw him- No. Just worsening mental health and more drug addictions. That fukt up drug love was the worst. That had right done him in. Kaz had been the object of his for a long time denied love, which after being realised had been dwelled upon for too long. The Fay Wray to his King Kong- the Esmerelda to his freaked out Quasimodo hunchback. The beauty that had killed the beast. This King Kong having fallen for Her. She stumbled upon the dance floor- Yes it was Her. She was here!- her split combat trousers flapping against the ground. Getting bustled about by the more energetic party heds. She staggered in a beautiful slow motion. "Kaz!" he had to cry out to her. She scowled at him and hastily moved away. Zak's instant reaction was to punish himself some more. But then he remembered what he had just been telling himself (via Troy) about quitting hurting himself. He would simply stay away from her. Easier thought than done- he kept bumping into her everywhere. And she wouldn't speak to him. "Bollox is it a New Age," he said to Jordy and Thelma, "Kaz still hates me." But then he thought Fuk it, then thats her problem. "Wimmin are no good," said a familiar voice behind him. Zak turned round to see Abel. He had Big Derek, another who was supposed to be in prison, with him. "We've escaped," they announced. "Hey what are you saying Women are no good?" a girl who looked like- who was- Emily asked Abel. "Well you aren't are you?" Abel said to her. As the two began to engage in an argument, Mad Mickey offered Zak a bong. Zak took a mighty blast on this- "Hey, don't Bogart!" yelled Emily when he went to take another. "Bloody humans," tutted a fully remoulded from the melt (evolved) alien. "Bollox is it a New Age," he heard Kaz commenting to X. He turned and saw that she had a conspiratory smile on her face.