I was just so so offended by some culturalist retard’s reaction to my little area, that I wrote the following. Actually the end result was much improved, an appropriate, lovely man is now looking after my flat, but at the time of this violation, I turned violet with rage. Hand to pearls, I was so hurt, I wanted to kill the below mentioned Kraut cunt.
Gay Times
February, 2009
Some Belgian sounding cunt that was supposed to drop by my top floor flat for a look-see, with the possibility of subletting, just called my cell.
“Yes, well, we’ve had a walk around the area, and we’re not impressed.” Apparently he has a girlfriend, probably a toothless concubine. “We did not want to waste your time, or ours.”
I wanted to yell, “Not impressed?! By what? The fashionable Brick Lane? Or the lovely Columbia Road Flower Market, five minutes north? Or the park I overlook? Why don’t you go back to whatever fucking off-ramp you drove in from, you chocolate promoting, language flipping, EU loving leeching piece of shit.”
However, because I’m middle class, I hung up on him and instead scribbled a lazy, slightly racist retort.
Look, I know Bethnal Green Road is the ugliest high road in Central London. From the defunct Walgreens to the beat up Tescos, and every browned fruit and wilted vegetable stand in between, the street looks like Wales. It’s grim and it’s shit. It has sixty – yes, SIXTY – sari shops between my front door and the tube, which is a seven minute stroll. I might be missing some, since I wouldn’t dare set my Paul Smith encased foot inside any of those narrow, terrifying little ‘malls’ that dot the long runway toward Liverpool Street. There might be eighty or a hundred sari shops nearby, but wouldn’t three be enough? It’s not like the fabric or styles change. Ever. Once you’ve seen one shiny white plastic torso wrapped in thin orange cotton, you’ve seen too many.
But the area has its charms. Pelucci’s, an old, camp Italian restaurant with ancient woodwork and a red neon sign that sometimes buzzes, is cheap and good and the food is prepared by a woman as gracious and old as – might I say it, although the comparison is silly, since this lovely lady cooks well and so offers pleasure – the Queen. And speaking of queens, the staff is as mincing as the holiday tin pies above the cash drawer.
After a hearty meal of chicken parts and tomatoes, if you’re feeling emasculated, you can stumble around the corner and buy steroids from any one of several beefy street vendors outside the last remaining “Rocky” inspired gym within thirty years. Whenever I see bloated sweaty mammoths barely jogging through Weaver’s Field, I know where they’ve been rubbing armpits recently, and that’s as reassuring as the warm pinkness of a stuttering local discussing, with austere respect, his first encounter with Reggie Krays.
“He stabbed my eye.” The guy lifted his fringed grey patch to show me the hole. It was late, I was in a pub called The Sun, which is dark and dingy and owned by an old queer, like so many of the pubs on BG’s strip. The hole left behind was more of a wrinkly cross. The type cartoon characters have when they’re intoxicated, which seemed appropriate.
“You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.” I was distracted, wondering where I could get more cocaine. The bartender was singing ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ with a tiny Moroccan near the Karaoke Machine. Everyone was smoking cigarettes, two years after the ban. It was like the Blitz, without the gay sex.
“Naw, mate. He needed me. I found him boys.”
Pause. Back up. Cancel previous remark.
“Did you ever have sex with him?” I felt risky. Bombs were dropping.
“Not here. In prison, but he broke my arms and legs after, to prove a point.”
Like the British economy, this guy was barely standing. The walls of The Sun were damp, they seemed to be leaking, and the music had morphed into an ABBA rant, so I buttoned up my cardigan and headed home, sure I could find a Bangladeshi groom from Whitechapel on line and desperate for a Valentine’s night blow job.
I watched several young Pakistani gentlemen bang their fists into a Barclay’s cash machine. Suddenly I heard a screech, and when I turned quickly (ish) I saw a D3 bus stop suddenly, hitting a stray dog so hard the canine’s head flew off and rolled to within two inches of my nearest gutter. Its tongue hung out of its head, and it smiled up, relieved I think to be spirited to a warmer, kinder place. A fast food employee took pity on the beast, and gracefully swooped its skull up with a blue plastic bag, disappearing into his work. The customers at the counter eyed each other warily, but ordered burgers nonetheless.