For AXM Magazine, April 2006
So I’m taking the plunge. I’ve decided to buy a flat in London. This chunk of money I earned doing careless stand up on TV is idle in an account, and I thought property would be a good, guilt-free investment.
Or maybe not. As I stroll through Bethnal Green, looking for the leafy part, I grow concerned about a homeless guy. Why do I deserve to own, when so many wander the streets, pale and malnourished? Oh God, that’s not a homeless guy, that’s a comic named Lee something, and since comics never leave their sofas for any reason other than work, seeing this skinny geek means there’s a comedy club nearby. That’s discouraging. I was hoping to live in the one part of central London that doesn’t have loud, drunk cunts demanding chicken in a basket with dick jokes every Friday and Saturday.
Why is that lesbian staring at me? I like her jeans. Wonder if she bought them at that second hand Buddhist clothing store across the street. Do Buddhists wear Diesel? Will I ever find soy milk on this end of the Central Line? Maybe I should continue renting in Queen’s Park. At least Americans live there, so the public toilets are clean, and the veggies are organic and not in wheel chairs, like around here. It’s odd so many cripples live in an area that’s so discarded and crumbly and clearly not crip-positive.
I dash to meet Adam, the real estate guy I emailed. Findaproperty.com connected us, so if this guy’s a cock, I won’t have my parents to blame. Adam is cute, he’s small, ambitious and he has a car. He whisks me off to an ex-council bock with a flat on the second floor, overlooking a park. Not Victoria Park. This park is the park you stumble to when you can’t bother walking to Victoria Park.
Amateur footballers are traipsing about the field. I watch them from the smaller bedroom as the afternoon turns to dark, wondering if I can buy a place for just myself. Isn’t purchasing property something only couples do?
“Nice view,” Adam says, coyly. He’s standing beside me, the top of his head no higher than my right shoulder, and he giggles. “They play here almost every day.”
A gay bell rings in my head, and I’m annoyed it’s taken me so long to realize little Adam is queer, but it’s so hard to tell with the English, they all seem homosexy to me, especially if their ears are in proportion to their head. Adam has tiny ears, with very round, shiny earlobes, like little Italian grapes. A footballer slides into a mound of muddy players, and I wonder if the only reason English men play sport is so they can finger each other.
The flat is big and quiet, but smells like someone shit in the living room. There is broken furniture and dirty rags and garbage everywhere, as if the former tenants were escaping a crime scene.
“They were a family.” Adam says.
“Why is the fridge in the hallway?”
“Malaysian.”
The kitchen is the size of, well, Adam, but he’s big on suggestions.
“You can take this wall out here, and extend the counter three feet into the living room.”
“I could also buy a flat with a bigger kitchen.”
“You’d probably change it anyway. A place like this, a place that needs work, gives you a chance to fix it up and make it your own.”
My own. Only for me. I’ve never felt lonelier.
When I was a kid, my Dad left after he broke my mother’s back, leaving her with a body cast and a house payment she couldn’t afford. She sold and moved us three out of the suburbs and into the big city. At least that was her intention, but this was 1966, and single women were considered unreliable tenants, even in San Francisco.
Mom finally found an apartment, with big, hairy neighbors who’d been in the military, and not in a hot way, but it didn’t matter, we were still together. Don’t get me wrong, I hated my bullying brother, and my sister’s buckteeth embarrassed me, but I wasn’t forgotten.
What if I buy this place and get a dog, and I pass out? Will my dog eat my nose? Will my cat eat my eyes? Cats are cleverer, they always start with the moist parts. Empty spaces and isolated little closets make me feel like I’m unnecessary and abandoned. I suppose I could get in a lodger, but he’d probably smoke, secretly, like my last two roommates, and then I’d have to kill him. Or date him, which must be the same thing since I’ve been single for five fucking years!
I consider asking out Adam, but I’m twice his size. Having sex would be more of a comedy sketch than a sensual act.
“If you buy this, we’ll be neighbors. I love the buzz of the east.” He points north. “I live there.”
I live nowhere, and I promise myself, someday, I’ll find my home.