Chapter 35 – 198
RANDOLPH AVENUE
The early 1970s saw me back in London.
It was a great time to be there. London
seemed to be the centre of everything that was happening with the youth, at
least in Europe. It had started with the Swinging Sixties and continued to lead
the way in pop music, art, and definitely fashion. Carnaby Street and Kings
Road were the two most avant-garde areas at the time.
I was sharing a flat with "Mannix" and "Sonny", two other Gibraltarians, younger than I, but just as swept up in the atmosphere of that time. Mannix and Sonny were their nicknames, and prudence requires me to leave their real names out. Incidentally, the nickname Mannix came from a TV detective series at the time and Sonny was the other half of Cher.
All three of us worked in the King's Road. Sonny worked for Ossie Clark, a big fashion name at the time. Sonny was the brainy one between us and he worked his way up, up, up very successfully in that company. Mannix was managing a menswear fashion shop but its name escapes me.
I had just started as salesman for JUST MEN for the modest wage of £17-15 shillings and Sixpence (£17/15/6 in old money) a week. For some unknown reason the company policy was withholding the first week's wages from any new employee! We were all skint at the time, me most of all as it was my first week in the job, and hungry too. This makes for a bad combination when shopping for food. I remember that first week going to a supermarket in Kings Road (was it a Safeway?) with Mannix, him purposely looking a bit rough and me in a long raincoat. (Yes of course I had clothes under that!)
Mannix would walk around, stopping,
picking something up, looking everywhere, are then putting it back. By the
second or third time he did that, we could make out the store detective. He
would start shadowing him, convinced he was a shoplifter. These were the days
before close circuit tv.
Meanwhile, I, still not having grown
my hair very long and still shaved, looked less suspicious. So, with a touch of
elegance and a lot of cheek, I would fill the pockets of my raincoat with
enough food to keep us going till the pay-check the following week. I would
walk out with food and a guilty conscience. Mannix would walk out after buying
just a bottle of milk. And yes, the store detective would go back in, satisfied
he had scared away a dangerous shoplifter!!!
To this day I feel bad having done
that, but in the words of Arthur Daley,
"Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, old son!"
We lived at 198 Randolph Avenue.
Just one biggish room which served as kitchen, sitting room, dining room, smoking room and TV lounge. Bathroom and toilet were at the end of the corridor and shared by everyone on that floor. We bought a second-hand, black and white telly from Petticoat Lane Market for a fiver. That included the usual internal antenna which we took turns placing it in the best location to get the least fuzzy picture available, sometimes helped with a wire hanger too.
Use of the bathroom had to be perfectly timed. The only other tenant on our floor was a black guy by the name of Omar who had a liking for young white boys. We would need to go in very early or alternately after he had left to the modelling agency where he worked. Somehow the lock from the door of the bathroom ..... always seemed to malfunction when Omar was around! He was something of a silversmith as well. He augmented his income as a model, both fashion and nude, making tiny silver figurines, male and female, which could be linked together in any sexual position imaginable. He would sell these on his table stall in Petticoat Lane, and also give them to his "friends" whenever they visited him for a smoke or whatever.
Our haunts, Mannix, Sonny and I were two very well-known discos at the time, the "Purple Pussycat" in Finchley Road,
and "La Poubelle" (The Dustbin!) in Greek Street. Saturday nights were eagerly awaited. We would wash and blow dry our long hair, yes, I'm talking about the guys, trim our beards, polish our platform boots and iron out our flared trousers. Anyone remember "loons"?
These were still relatively mild days regarding drugs, even in London. The drug of choice, or affordability, was grass, shit, pot, Mary Jane, all natural and not mutated as is nowadays. At the disco, we would buy a pint of bitter which would last us most of the night, and laced it with a joint or 5, while dancing and hunting around looking for a nice girl to invite back home. Sometimes the tactics were successful, sometimes not. Sometimes we were too successful and the single room at Randolph Avenue became a rather crowded Moulin Rouge in our
weed-stoned minds.
Yes, come to think of it, we also had a turntable and amplifiers and a fantastic selection of LPS. On a good weekend, Saturday night would roll into Sunday day, then into Sunday night and we'd wake up in a panic on Monday morning trying to find our clothes to dress up and rush to work on time on a ….Monday bloody Monday!
The Purple Pussycat was a great disco,
but like La Caverna, here in Gib years later, the regulars had already staked
out their partners for the night and for me at least it was slim pickings. La
Poubelle was different.
I never thought I would be grateful to
Brother Murphy (affectionately known as Malva Loca) my French Language teacher
at the Grammar School. Having survived his rather boring lessons and read his
"Le Journal de France" ....and replied to his weekly questions:
"Que pensez-vous de la situation international?" in my stuttering
French, it all proved very handy at La Poubelle. It was the favourite haunt of French-speaking
girls, au pairs and others. Even my basic French was far better than that of most
other English guys around trying to score!
Ahhh those wonderful days how long ago,
but I still bask in their memory .... what else is left?
It was there, in the Randolph Avenue
flat, that I first tried LSD.
Sonny had scored and he and Mannix had
tried it before.
I was a total virgin, in fact a very scared one too, when it came to LSD.
"Try it, man ... it's great ...
here, try half a trip"
Sonny carefully tore up a small square
of blotting paper and gave it to me.
"Just put it on your tongue and let it dissolve with your saliva."
I did ...and ... nothing happened…..
for a while.
But when it did happen..... boy did it happen!
The music playing on the turntable
gradually took up London Symphony Orchestra proportions. The joss sticks
burning on their stand smelled divine and the curling smoke from their tips was
creating amazing designs as it reached the full height of the ceiling above.
And that is when I saw the Hoover!
It was there in the corner, it was
always there, but had never really looked at it before. It could even have been
only the second Hoover vacuum cleaner I had ever seen. The first one belonged
to an Aunt of mine, lovely lady but rather severe in her attitudes. While my
mind travelled along its own weird and unfettered paths, it brought out the
image of my Aunt Anita!
There she was, standing behind her Hoover, admonishing me for dropping acid,
haranguing me till I could stand it no more.
What was she doing here anyway?
I ran out of the flat and onto the
street. I had to get away. There in the middle of the road, I felt a cooling
rain that was washing away all the wrong things I had done by dropping acid. I
saw beautiful lights in blue and red and pink and blazing white, all coming
towards me. I heard bugles blaring all around. But I could not move away. The
tarmac had melted and my feet we're stuck on the burning tar!
It was then the Mannix and Sonny
rescued me from the middle of the road. They dragged me back to the flat. I was
soaked to the skin from the rain, but lucky to be alive. The beautiful lights were
the headlamps of the cars that thankfully avoided me as I stood .... stuck in
the melting tar of Randolph Avenue... or
so my frazzled mind was telling me.
They gave me 6 or 8 “Mandies” (Mandrax
Sleeping pills) to knock me out of this terrible trip I was in.
It was my first and last acid trip. It was so, so scary losing complete control
of my mind!
On another night, a Friday night as I left Maida Vale tube station to return home from work...
"Hey Man!"
I turned. There were two black guys,
one of whom I vaguely knew.
"Hey Spike" I hi-fived
"This is my brother, Lenny"
Second hi-five.
"Lenny here has this terrific
suit he wants to sell."
It was tip top fashion. Burgundy
needle cord with wide lapels, squared shoulders, slim fit and very wide bell
bottoms. I had to use a suit for work every day and a second one would come in
handy. Wouldn't you just know it there was exactly my size, 36 chest, 30 waist!
(oh to be 30 waist again!)
"What are you asking for
it?"
Lenny looked Spike ....
"£20"
I hummed and I hawed trying to bargain
him down when Mannix arrived.
"Spike, you tryin' to stitch up
my friend David here?"
"Nah Bro ... straight up ... take
a look ... fresh from the back of a lorry this afternoon!"
Mannix invited them to our flat, for a
smoke while we argued the price. He had just scored big-time and was feeling generous.
Back at the flat, I tried on the suit and it was a perfect fit. We finally agreed
on a price of £15, almost all my weekly wage, but that was less than half the
price of it at "Take 6" or "Lord John" which label was hand
stitched on the inside pocket.
Then we relaxed put on some good
music, rolled some good joints and shared a wonderful paella which Sonny had
cooked, all washed down with the cheapest white plonk chilled in the fridge. I
can't remember much of that evening, neither could Mannix or Sonny. Spike and
Lenny had left at some point during the night and in the morning, we proceeded to tidy up the
place.
"Where's my shit?" Mannix
"Where's my new needle cord
suit?" Me
"Where's my wage packet?"
Sonny
We had been cleaned out!
We were furious. Spike and Lenny had
taken advantage and when we had zonked out, had all taken it all.
"They have a flat in Soho"
"Yeah," said Sonny ... "pero quien es el guapo que va a
ir ahi?" ("who's got the guts … which one of
us… who'll go there?")
Lenny and Spike hung out with a crowd
well known for their instant aggro.
None of the three of us had an Arnold
Schwarzenegger build, but Mannix had the "righteous anger" of Samuel
L Jackson in Pulp Fiction of later years. He grabbed a kitchen knife and his
coat and off he went.
"David, you go with him, man, you
can't let him go alone...."
"Me?"
"Yes, you are older, you can
handle the shit...."
When had I qualified for that?
"I'll stay here and clean up,
just in case ...."
Just in case ... what? Didn’t I tell you Sonny was the brainy one!
I too grabbed a knife and ran after
Mannix.
Mannix on weed was passivity itself.
Mannix riled was a little wiry tornado capable of standing up to anyone, any size.
I was doing a balancing act. Trying to calm Mannix down to a manageable level,
trying to diffuse his anger and thinking how to handle a situation I was not
ready for:
"WTF am I doing with a knife on
my way to a fight with two black guys in Soho?" I remember thinking to myself.
We found the place and walked up three
floors of a narrow staircase building, redolence with aromas of Jamaican cooking, pot and sweat.
"SPIKE!" Mannix called out,
banging on the door of his flat.
Lenny open cautiously....
"Man, whadda ya doin' here?"
Mannix did not give him time. He
shoved the door open, pushing Lenny to the floor. I followed, shutting the door
behind me, not wanting anybody else to join the party.
"Where's my shit?"
"Where's my suit?" I
followed, seeing there was only Lenny in the flat. He was actually dressed in
my suit pants and just the jacket on top, no shirt, no t-shirt, just the
jacket, and it was obviously been sleeping in it too.
Out to came Mannix's knife. I thought
of taking mine out too but what was I going to do with it? You know, once you
take out a knife, or a gun for that matter, you’d better be prepared to use it.
You're almost forced to have to use it
if necessary.
"'S'ok, s'ok ... here have the
suit back ...."
Lenny stripped and gave me back my £15
burgundy needle cord Lord John suit.
"Where's my shit?"
"Mannix, we smoked it, man ... we
smoked most of it in your digs ... and the rest here...."
"What about Sonny's wage packet?" I asked in a tough guy voice ...or at least what I thought was a tough-
guy voice....
"Spike's gone shopping with that
money now, man...."
There was not that much we could do.
Mannix realised it too.
"Tell Spike I'm taking these LP's
to listen to at home" Mannix told Lenny, grabbing 6 or 7 LP's lying
around. "He can come for them when he returns my shit and Sonny's
money!"
With that, we left in a rather
undignified run.
So, no shit (weed) left, no wage packet for Sonny that week ... and the suit???
Can you imagine what that jacket smelled like after Lenny had slept with it on?
Well, at least our flat was nice and
clean when we returned.
Sonny felt he had to show us how he kept up his end by sprucing it up as best
as could be expected.
Comments
Post a Comment