Junglist

by Two Fingas

  — I met her as I was leaving, her name’s Amanda.

  — White or Black?

  — Does it matter?

  — Sure bloody.

  — Why? Why does it matter whether she’s white or Black? If I’m attracted to her that’s all that matters.

  — I’ve already had this conversation with him. He’s set in his ignorant separatist ways.

  — You as a Black man should be going out with Black women, not lusting after white flesh. I ain’t into no bounties.

  — Best keep that shit to yourself. You know how I feel about that.

  — Well I ain’t gonna be two-faced and say one thing when you’re there and another behind your back. You just wanna keep that jungle fever in check.

  — What about Tanya? She was half-caste. You didn’t have any qualms about dealing with her.

  — She’s light-skinned, so what?

  — Why do you have to keep going out with light-skinned girls? I ain’t seen you step to dark-skinned girl once.

  — What about Erika? She was as dark as me.

  — So Erika was dark, that was an aberration. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve gone out with mixed race girls.

  — You trying to say I wanna fuck white girls.

  — Damn straight you do. You wanna fuck ‘em but you go for light-skinned girls ‘cause you can’t admit it. Me, I’m honest. If I want a girl it don’t matter whether she’s white, Black, Asian, Chinese, or whatever.

  — If being honest means fucking a white girl I’m gonna lie all my life.

  FIGHT GRAVITY

  Bright lights big city. London at night. Home of the brave, land of the free. They circle and wheel, spinning balls of light. Maelstrom of identity, slack and soft. Smooth and sweet. A city. The city. Never to disappear under the waves like Atlantis.

  Huge shimmering waves of grey and white slanting hard across the night sky. Transmogrifying into a dark cover of shadow. A duvet of inkiness. An inkwell poured across the sky. Lights winking. Red and white, emanating, reflecting, twinkling. Starlike, going supernova. A ball of heat and light. Light, angel bright, angel strong. Energy flowing forth over the night shape. Batman’s home. Dark, brooding, malevolent. A slanting leaning mass of concrete. Goliaths made of stone. Where is David to slay you? Slashing across the clouds carving through them.

  Killing them. Killing me. Killing you.

  Light life, hope. Under a blood-red moon, oppressing powerful, a bloodred moon for this heart that only makes war with thee. Crimson washing through me, mesmerising in its intensity. Fangs-out desire. Bare that throat to my teeth, sup of that elixir of youth. Throbbing in the veins. The throat paper-thin, translucent, supple and light. Never knowing, ceasing to care. Sky, stone, air. Elemental forces of nature. Never apart from, a part of. Nature entwined through you.

  Look up, see the clouds lit from beneath. Buildings just so many fingers pointing to the heavens. Stretching up, ever reaching. The heavens await. Ascension is upon us. Spiral upwards, DNA double helix, spiralling, turning. Compression of space, life. The city concrete heaven, glass hell. Driving, slanting, rushing claustrophobic centre of gravity. Can’t get out. Always drawn back in.

  No escape velocity. Ground zero, site of the blast. Event horizon spreading forever in every direction. Bending space, bending reality. But whose reality? Mine or yours? Individual states of being, expressions of reality. My reality: council estates, piss-filled lifts, youths roaming like packs of wolves, shapeshifters, life on the edge. Dark, dangerous, erratic. Flickering lights, whispering voices, harsh sibilants, syllables rolling off the tongue, sliding along the ear, catching in the air. Rolling through the air like a loud noise in the storm of a headache, dreams that melt into nightmares that slide into waking moments. Lucid dreaming as the day slips by.

  Look up, hear your name. Scream your name. Watch that clock tick away the time of your life. Twelve. Birth and death, hitting four, young immortal, eternal. You can’t kill me, you can’t bend me. Defiant. Scream your name.

  My reality, my reality. Grey, sombre, hard, sharp-edged. Unrelenting, unremitting. Never give up, never lie down. Reality spinning away, shuttle launch. Light escaping, no relating, no relation to life or time. Reality, false consciousness, false reality. Illusion. Nothing is real, nothing to hold onto, reality slips away like tears in rain. Like water through my fingers, running away. Mercury rushing away, not light and insubstantial but heavy and dense as lead. Thick and globulus, heavy and weighted. My reality, your reality. Time moving backward from death to birth.

  Born to die. Born to fly. From pillar to post in an aquamarine world. Blue and green merging, rainbow-coloured, shades of iridium swirling around. Do you know one reality from another, can you tell the difference? Past from present, future from past? Time, today, tomorrow. Tonite, tonite. A night, the night. How many times in the world’s history has night escaped from its cage? Caged and weighted down. The broken bars split at a molecular level, split molecules flying apart. The bonds constraining them ripped open. Night is abroad, running free, running close and sharp to the breeze, keen razor slick.

  Wrists held steady under the warm water, as it pools beneath. Swirling. Prick, pain, wrist action. Adapt, endure, let the pain flow away. Slicing through, shooting up to my heart. Thumping hard, move a mountain. Place your hands against it. Feel it strong and sure. My heart, the engine that drives me through this sea of inequity. Head going light. Fairies and sprites appearing at the edge of my vision, dangling before my eyes. Gleaming diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, rubies, precious gems, precious life. Crimson crystallisation, pooling in the water, fairies transforming into sirens. Scarlet sirens calling me to a place where hope is denied and the night has no dominion. Dominion. Domination. Domesticity.

  Deny it, deny the sirens, lost out. Sirens 2 Willpower 0. Lost out. Let the sun set no more, for I fear no man, woman or child. Deny my bestiality, clawing at my chest, trying to draw me back. Let it slide, let it all slide, and in the end, blood will out. Slip out like a limp penis. Desire sated. No more fighting, struggling.

  My reality is this event. This period of time, this moment of sacrifice. Let my hands run red and my blood slip away into infinity. Infinity never knew my name and I curse her even as I yearn for her. Infinity squared, infinity denied. Denial of self, girl, duty. Loyalty. Honour. Tears in rain. I gave up fighting gravity long ago, when my reality caved into yours and all I could see was a wall all the way around. No way out, no way home. No hope of anything at all. Deny everything. Abandon hope all ye who enter here, this maze of contrition. Absolutions not given. My reality has been twisted inside out and all I can do is watch and wait as my blood-red self churns in front of me.

  SPEED DEMONS

  — Hello! Yeah can I speak to Jerome? … Yeah, yeah, it’s Meth. How you doing Liz? … Fine, fine. Still breathing. … Yeah I’m out of blow, yeah that’s why I’m phoning. I’m going to this thing at the Ministry… Yeah nuff man’s on the guest list, can’t be paying twenty shekels to get in. … Yeah you know that. Listen tell him I want a quarter. … Yeah. I’ll be there in a little while. … Where am I? I’m in a friend’s car. … Yeah later.

  Pull myself forward, turn off my phone and hang my head between the two front seats. Let it hang there.

  — Take a left here.

  The Cortina screams its pain as it heels over, tyres screeching, rubber left on the concrete. My face mashes against the door. I roll across the back seat, just another piece of flotsam in with Q’s mother’s junk. Tissue boxes and covered cushions, travel blankets and crucifixes. Q’s sitting in the front, happy as a pig in shit, smiling, changing gear like a demon, the gearstick clutched loosely but surely in his fingers. Changing from fourth to first, his foot heavy on the brake — Look ma, one hand! — no stress on his face, just the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth. I feel like clicking my fingers behind my head, go on, work it boyfriend. But Q wouldn’t appreciate it. So I scrunch lower and brace myself, trying not to look at the head
rests, brightly coloured, rainbow-coloured, Hawaiian-shirt-bright in their intensity. They glow eerily luminescent in the dark, catching the glow from the instruments and reflecting it back.

  I hate driving in this car at night, everything about it conspires to make me feel uncomfortable. It feels as if ghosts are just lurking in the fabric of it, just waiting to spill forth and take over our bodies. Vessels for their nefarious designs.

  I can feel my fingers itching. Want to feel that quarter in my hands, look at it, looking like old dried chocolate. That quarter is calling me, a haunting melody running through my brains and along my veins. I can smell that sweet smell now, achingly familiar in the intensity of feeling it pulls from me. Can feel the smoke sliding down my throat, feel the roach in my fingers held tight as I slip further into the fog. Trying to pull the last effects from it.

  — Left here.

  Look out into the assault course. The adventure playground looming out of the darkness. Bright colours bright no more now, faded into an amorphous brown. The street lamps casting their orange glow far and wide. Beacons, sentinels, guardians of the night. They flicker on a level beyond human perception but I can feel them, beaming their subliminal messages into my brain. Direct link into my cerebellum, up through my receptors, pushing through the gate into my frontal lobes.

  — I know this place, the old dear’s got a friend who lives round the corner. Used to bring me with her and I’d beg her to go and play on the adventure playground. She’d never let me though.

  — Never?

  — Nah, she’d keep me in, locked up in the flat with her friend’s daughter. Wasn’t too bad.

  — Just pull over here. Yeah, that’s fine.

  The door, the damn fucking door won’t open. I’m pulling at it like a mad man, cursing it, fighting it, foaming at the mouth. The shit door never opens from the inside. I’m winding down the window, spinning the winder in my palm, bicep bulging, forearm flexing. Pull it all the way down and pop the door open from the outside. Damn fucking child locks. I’m twentyone years of age and I still can’t decipher a child lock. Out the door and down the path before I remember and spin back.

  — You coming?

  Q pulls himself out slowly as if he’s loath to come, while Biggie is all ready and willing to dive into the smoke-filled interior and get blunted. I chugg up to the door and hug Liz as she steps out, swinging her around. Glad to see her, she’s had her head shaved since the last time I saw her. Gone all Tank Girl, but without the little swirl of hair at the front. Bright eyes and a breathy voice all soft and whispery. A voice that conjures up images of sweat-stained sheets and passion sated for the moment. But she’s not mine, not that any person’s a possession, especially women. But I know I don’t want to lose her as a friend. I’d love to lust after her and sometimes I slip into dog mode. Pinch my nose between thumb and forefinger and blow. Equalise the pressure, that feels better. Liz is away and through the door. Q and Biggie come up the steps, stopping at my shoulder, breath whispering against my ear.

  — Whose she?

  — Liz. Jerome’s girl. Went to school with her.

  — Honey and a half.

  — Best believe it.

  First impression of Jerome’s den is of a huge space with a low fluffy ceiling. Lamps pushing out spinning coloured light onto the fabric-covered ceiling. Low fat cushions cover the floor, with rugs covering the space that isn’t covered by the cushions. Nothing is above head height, everything’s low and squashed, candles are everywhere supplementing the light of the coloured lamps. The candlelight flickers as a soft breeze drifts through the room. It took Jerome ages to find a parachute for his ceiling. He’s lying on the floor — where else could he lie? He doesn’t have a bed — across four cushions, neck bent at an impossible angle, arms spread crucifixion-like, mouth open catching flies. A strange warbling like birds in the morning echoes around his head.

  Liz drops down over by the system and tweaks the volume up a bit and Anita Baker’s soaring vocals swell and roll around the room, rushing from the speakers hidden behind the canopy, making the erotic Eastern sexual positions painted onto the walls as huge murals come alive with passion; they seem to dance in front of my eyes as if only by the activation of Anita’s voice can they come to life.

  I kick Jerome’s bare foot and watch him jerk awake. A slow grin spreading across his face. Jerome’s all elastic and dipped in honey. Sticky and slow. Not lethargic, just mellow. As if he could move fast if he wanted too but just doesn’t want to. He’s got a delicate air about him that makes his movement slow and gentle as if he’s engaged in a constant bout of tai chi. His eyes glow with recognition and his whole face lights up.

  — Meth!

  He stretches wide, white teeth, glowing softly. Bull ring swinging in a slow mesmerising arc — back and forth, back and forth — as he rolls forward into the lotus position. Pulling his scales out of a mass of cushions, dull brass gleaming, rubbed soft and hazy. He starts measuring as I flop forward.

  — Jerome I’d like you to meet my friends Q and Biggie.

  — Hey, nice to meet you guys.

  — How’s things Jerome?

  — Good good. My sister, she’s coming back from Amsterdam tomorrow.

  — How’s her cafe going?

  — Good, good. You know Paulette, everything she puts her mind to she does well at. Me I just take things easy.

  — True, true.

  He’s measuring out my quarter, moving the little weights back and forth with the mounds of herb resting in plastic bags, a little Häagen-Dazs taster spoon moving quantities between bags. I’m watching, mesmerised, until I drag my eyes away and look for the board, lifting it out from under my butt. My face level with the dressing table covered with candles, the accumulated wax making a wave, dripping down the sides, frozen and still. Scoot around so I can free the jack knife from my back pocket and open it with a flick of my wrist. Hear its oiled click as it locks.

  Jerome hands over the bag and I spill it onto the board and proceed to chop, doing my best chef’s impression, fingers over the blade as I dice my herb into even smaller chunks. Retreating into a tunnel with only chopping at the end of it. When I sit back and slide the contents of my board into a bag, Jerome’s got this spliff burning and hanging Hilda Ogdenstyle from his lower lip. Inhales deep, blowing out a shifting plume of smoke, a writhing dragon. Leans forward and hands it to me, a grin splitting his face.

  — Try before you buy.

  I grin back and take it, put it to my lips and inhale quickly, taking it down smooth and slow, nice and easy, feel it run across my chest. Hold it there and then push it out in one long breath. Head goes light, eyes feel heavy. He must have made it out of pure grass. My eyes feel red already. I’m pulling on it again, blowing my head off in a mellow explosion of sensation. I hand it to Biggie slightly bereft already, but joyous inside. Dig into my pocket and start digging out my cash. Rumpled notes spread out in front of me as I take a very long time peering very closely at them to see which ones are which. Pick out a twenty and a fiver, lay them flat and try to unwrinkle them. I do have some pride.

  — Twenty-five big ones.

  — For you, Meth, fifteen.

  — No. Jerome, take my money.

  — No. Fifteen and nothing more.

  — Liz isn’t pregnant, is she?

  I turn to her and shout whisper.

  — You’re not pregnant, are you, Liz?

  She laughs that soft laugh she has, hides her mouth behind her hand and shakes her head as the laughter takes over her.

  — If she’s not pregnant, why you being so generous?

  — Because I can and my sister’s bringing me over a very big plant tomorrow, so I’m not worried about losing out on a tenner.

  — OK. Who am I to argue with my dealer, fifteen.

  I hand over the cash and stagger to my feet, giving Jerome a big hug before following Liz out, giving her another hug at the doorway and feel the cold breeze rip into me trying to pull my st
oned feeling away from me. Trip down the steps checking my pockets to see if the gear’s still there. It is. Pull open the door and flop onto the seat to wait for Q to start driving.

  THE BURIAL

  Q pulls away from the kerb and down the lit street, charging up to 90 in a 30mph zone. I’m stoned in the back with my chin stuck to my chest and I’m ready to go. I just need something to jump start my energy level. I lean forward, stretching, reaching, fingers clawing at the air as I try desperately to turn on the radio. I’m a fake-ass wrestler trying to make a tag, having been beaten on for the past ten minutes, as I stretch closer and closer, with my opponent close, breathing down my neck. Find a massive spurt of energy and dive forward into the tag. I hit the knob with my forefinger and spin it on. The car jumps a beat as the music comes in. I fall back, released. Slumped in the back, eyes half closed, head nodding on the beat. Dance to the bass, close my eyes and slip away.

  A crystallisation of thought and sound. Crystal forming, pressurised, crushed flat. Broken. Pressure exerted, new forms created, faceted mirrorlike. Reflection of reflection of reflection. Eyes caught, iris wide, attraction, sensation, rub along the palm, brush light, gasp. Dry throat from a sunbeam to a sunray. Flooding, illuminating. Wind, wave, colliding, collapsing. Breaking down. Watch it roll, high peak. Flowing trickle like water.

  53 inches above sea level, 93 million miles above these devils, soaring, punching through the atmosphere into the clear inky jetness of space. Tumble frozen. A statue in motion. Contradiction of self and space. No weight, but momentum carrying me forward. Vacuum. No sound, purgatory. Median. Space between.

  Fall backward. Heat, force. Tumble. Fall, fall. Icarus. Clipped wings, flight curtailed. Flesh burning, searing, scorching. Ripped from me in strips, flowing behind me. My cloak, my form. Fall forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Eternity waiting below me. Eternity covering me.

  Slip through time — past, present, future.

  Whose future? Images within my skin curling forward, wrapping around me. Images, my skin tattooed with light, with form. Fall, fall. Lights around me, angels calling.