Where Does The H Go

Well then. The other day when I was out and about – when I was getting the kebab I mentioned in that cover letter, no less – I decided to bring my laptop. You'll recall the adventures I had in M&Ms World! recording precisely how awful it was. That was the most energetic I've felt about writing something in quite some time, and I really felt like trying my hand at that again. So I just whipped out the old laptop and sort of went for it. Results lie ahead.



Between a discount second hand bridal wear store and a miniscule pc repair tech dungeon/fireworks shop sits another kebab place. It's the same as all the rest, really. That's what you want in a kebab, after all; stoic, consistent, reliability that you'll be able to get a gob full of hot greasy meat with enough chili sauce to put hairs on your chest.

Still in a daze from another sleepless night spent wasting time watching bad science fiction serials, I stumble in feeling groggy. I've had the same wrinkled old tux on since the day before and I haven't shaved in too long, not to mention stinking of cigarillo smoke, so I fit in perfectly with the rest of the clientele.

The grizzled, intensely manly staff understand my needs entirely, and comply with commendable speed for men who clearly do not want to be there. Unfortunately for me, all of the seats are occupied. Dazed and ornery enough not to care about the consequences, I set off down the street for the first available surface I can see.

In moments, I spy a rickety old table leaning on top of a broken fan. It's standing, for a given value of stand, outside of an abandoned shop. There are clear signs of fire damage on the buildings, so possibly it's one of the few pieces left over from the riots that's yet to be cleaned up. In any case, I collapse right down on the table in a pile.

Everything is still for one perfect moment as my face is buried to my nose in grease. The world is quiet here. People walking past stare at the strange man masticating his meal like a starved walrus. If only they knew my bliss.

The deed is done, and with relish I wipe myself off with a half dozen serviettes. I pause briefly, to just sit for a while and stare at nothing in particular. The cool breeze on my face is liberating and refreshing – there truly is a sense of freedom in the air here, despite the burned down shop.

After a short while passes, it's time to get to work. I pull out the laptop and start typing out what you see before you. Life, while writing like this, feels right, like I'm doing something. I stop to light another cigarillo, and I look up to see a young Asian woman standing in front of me staring.

She looks young. Young enough not have any concerns at all about approaching a strange man sitting in a burned down shop typing on a laptop and smoking. Quizzically, she asks me what I'm doing. I stare at her with a mad toothy grin and reply “writing.”

Laughing, she sits down on the other side of the table and asks me why I'm writing here, of all places. It's a pretty reasonable question, all things considered, and it actually takes me a little while to think about an answer to it. The best that I can come up with to say is that it's like how sketch artists like sitting down in front of people and drawing their faces right there instead of just imagining a face.

Brushing her hair back, she introduces herself, Miss A. I smile. Today, I'm the man in the cream boots. I turn back to the laptop and begin typing again. We sit in silence for a time as she stares off into the same nothing that caught my eye earlier. Then she asks why it is I picked this particular spot. Well, why indeed.

There's a naked man sitting on a park bench with his friend. They're both drinking from bottles in crinkled brown paper bags. He's so hairy I question for a moment whether or not he's wearing a shag rug. As I walk past he looks at me like I'm an awful person for daring to even think to myself “why is that man naked right next to a school, and getting drunk at three in the afternoon?” This is South Tottenham, and these are the noble personage that reside within.

Even just going down the high street you can still see the ripples of destruction left over from the recent riots here. Broken windows, barricaded shops, abandoned buildings – although picking apart which of these are due to the riots and which are just the local colour shining through might take some time.

It's an area heaving with two factions; Jews and Jamaicans/Africans. Even just going out the door you'll see a legion several hundred thousand strong of men in frock coats and big hats, each with a larger family than the last. They all dress well, have good hygiene, are polite, and apparently have a good enough income to support a half a dozen offspring, so why they've resigned themselves to live in a somewhat less than sterling district remains somewhat of a mystery.

At the traffic lights an older Jewish man in his robes and hat turns to me with the same smile all dirty old men across the globe have and asks me if I like girls. With a toothy grin I tell him that yes, I do. He laughs a deeps belly laugh, slapping me on the back as he asks if I have girl. Enchanted by his way with words I respond in kind, saying no, I not have girl. At this point he winks and mumbles something. I can't tell if it was Yiddish or just the universal old man mumble, but he wandered off somewhere into the sunset, presumably to survey yet more citizens on their girl ownership status. God's speed, sir.

They have their own specialty shops, as most larger factions do. Jewish opticians seem in no short supply. Why that is, I couldn't say, but each of them seem to have a smiling man in a kippah. There are the kosher grocers, of course, each shelf with something more moist and disgusting than the last. Then there are the bakeries, another source of confusion for me. Is there something bad in normal bread? Is yeast not kosher? Or do they just have recipes from the old country that other places don't do too well? Whatever the case, they might know their way around dough well enough, but they can't make coffee for shit.

The people are polite, and more than happy to serve you, but there's always that distant, vague notion in the air of “you don't belong here.” A slight pause before they ask if they can help you, an ever so brief surreptitious glance at you before they smile, a slight cough when you ask a question... always visibly thinking “why are you here?” Maybe it's prudent, maybe they've got their reasons, hell, maybe they've had run ins with looters, rioters, and all the other undesirables you'd care to name, I don't know - but whatever it is, it's left a cloud of discomfort in the air, making it a difficult place to feel at ease.

On another ritual, directionless wander through town, I see a younger, scrawny Jewish lad struggling with a few boxes. He manages to lean them up against his car, but he can't move to open the boot. I rush up to help him, and he slides the boxes onto the ground and recoils like I've run at him with a gun. Once he realises what I was doing the relief visibly washes over him as he exhales and laughs nervously. Helping him pick it all up, I shake his hand before walking off and wondering to myself exactly what it was that happened to him in the past to make him like this.

Then there are the Jamaican/African aspects. Chicken shops dominate their streets, popping up anywhere there's space. There are thousands, some of them not two doors away from the next. They all have the same menus, too, and the same prices; it'd be optimistic to hope that they don't share suppliers, too. How they stay in business with each other I have no idea. Maybe there's just that much of a heaving desire for take away chicken in the area. There doesn't really seem to be any other eateries on these streets; no coffee shops, no restaurants, no fish and ship shops, just chicken, chicken, chicken.

There are, of course, their groceries as well. All with alien fruit collections out the front of varying colours and shapes. I'm not brave enough to venture in further, but it looks like there's always a bestubbled creature clad in old jeans leaning on the counter laughing with the shopkeep in each one. Possibly there exists some kind of bestubbled network of comrades, hiring members out to each grocers in an attempt to appear more amiable. In short; unsuccessful.