Jerusalem

by Alan Moore

  “Ahahaha! Did you see that? ’E just stood up like ’e’d got piles. ’E’s cross because a load o’ little blighters just come in.”

  what now oh Jesus get me out of here he’s got me stuck here up this corner and he’s what’s he doing now he isn’t looking at the stool beside him and he’s not looking at me he’s giggling into the smoke oh fuck how many aren’t there here that I don’t know about it’s not

  “You can’t come in! Yer under age! What if the landlord asks to see yer death certificates? Ahahaha!”

  laughing his head off shouting at thick air nobody paying him the least bit of attention can’t they hear what’s going on they must be used to him a regular or they can’t hear above the BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP I don’t know what’s going on myself and for a moment I look off in the direction that he’s staring but there’s nothing there’s just some bloke’s arse and all the smoke and I look back at him and everything about the Boroughs that can make your skin crawl it’s there in his voice his laugh his eyes you can’t tell if he’s sad or happy I’m just gaping at him I’m just

  “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand you people.”

  listen to yourself “you people” there’s nobody here but him you sound as cracked as he does oh God when he said that bit, running across Marefair to put the wind up me he can’t have meant no that’s just bollocks no people don’t have each other’s dreams I’m not I can’t I just can’t think about it now Benedict Perrit look at him craning his neck and laughing holding one hand to his ear like he’s pretending that he’s eavesdropping on someone or perhaps he’s

  “I can’t ’ear ’um. Even when they’re right up next to yer they sound faint, ’ave yer noticed? Ahaha.”

  it’s

  it’s only this moment just occurred to me that this is just what it would be like this is what ghost stories look like in real life BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP in real life there aren’t any ghosts and it’s just somebody who’s mad, and I mean that’s upsetting in itself, it’s somebody who’s mad and otherwise there’s nothing no one there and there’s no ghosts there’s nobody there’s nothing but an

  absence

  an accusing absence, as if

  let me out oh Jesus let me out of here this pub this corner this pissed lunatic tonight how has it gone so wrong so horrible so fast I’m swallowing my pint down necking it and next to me he’s laughing fit to bust his throat’s a lift-cage going up and down stuck between floors why did I come in here it’s like I didn’t have a choice I didn’t have a chance and next to me, what now, he’s pointing through the hanging smoke towards the door he’s

  “There they goo! Ahahaha! All ayt the door like ashes up the chimney.”

  but the door’s not moved the door’s not open what’s he seeing what’s he seeing in his schizophrenic seizure that I’m not finish my pint and clink the empty glass down on the table

  “Benedict, I’m …”

  “Ahaha! I know! Yer lookin’ fer a way out, but there’s not one. We’re all stuck ’ere wi’ no end in sight. Blood on the straw and fish guts up the corner. I’m still tryin’ t’get further in. Ahahaha!”

  stand up I can’t say anything can’t even say goodbye what can you say, a situation like this, as if there was such a thing as if there was a situation like this struggling around the table with its hard edge juddering against my thighs there isn’t any space to move there isn’t any wiggle-room and all these people packing out the place I didn’t notice them come in “Excuse me … can I just come through, yeah, cheers … excuse me … sorry mate” stop saying that stop calling people mate they’re not your mates there’s no one down here who’s your mate and BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP and behind me I can hear him laughing whinnying like a carthorse with the barn on fire I stumble over someone’s feet and hear the word cunt bubbling from the acoustic blur but then I’m finally I’m by the door and pushing at the hard glass through its useless little skirt of lace and then the air outside it’s cold and clean and big the air outside in Regent Square the night slams into me and there I’m free I got away from him I got away from it I got

  what

  what was that, that

  stuff, that atmosphere it’s gone it isn’t here now and that’s how I know it was here like a noise that you don’t notice till it stops the sudden silence what just happened what just happened to me nothing nothing happened you just it’s just mental illness you just had a run in with it obviously it’s disturbing but there wasn’t any need to panic not to run out of the pub like that I must have looked a proper wally nothing happened calm down nothing happened everything’s alright everything’s normal for a minute the old heart was banging like a dustbin lid but I can see now I was being stupid letting it all get to me like that I don’t know I don’t know what I was thinking, that the world, reality, it had just I don’t know just broken and I felt like I was falling down the cracks but look at it I mean it’s fine its Regent Square its Friday everything’s okay there’s

  traffic lights like freshly sucked fruit pastilles and

  an ice mosquito biting on my neck the threat of rain with

  couples young chaps striding and not staggering it’s early yet I’m

  walking in a daze towards the crossing that will take me over to the top of Grafton Street the dark sluice running down into the valley there that’s what I mean it’s not like I made a decision or at least not consciously yet here I am I’m toddling across the road the pelican tweets chivvying with its emerald wink as if I’ve chosen to go home this way and not up Sheep Street back the way I came I don’t remember choosing anything it’s just my feet I’m at the other side now and they’re taking me along what’s left of Broad Street one brown shoe and then the other and it’s not of my oh fuck me what’s the word volition not of my volition it’s like every step’s already set in stone and nothing I can do about it like it’s all predestined but then there’d be no such thing as oh watch out I nearly swerved and fell into the road casino lights up on my right I’m walking like I’m drunk but how can that be when I only had a pint a pint up at the Bird in Hand there with

  Benedict Perrit

  fuck that must be it I must be still in shock but that’s ridiculous it isn’t like he

  raining a bit harder now and I’m not really dressed for it you know it was so nice when I came out I’m going to get soaked through if I’m not careful for that matter I’ll get soaked through if I am, another bloody stupid saying all that business in the pub no, no I’m better off not dwelling on it one brown shoe and then the other slapping on the shiny pavement wet now puddles gathering where the reflections of the sodium lamps perform a yellow shimmy one brown shoe and then the other not of my volition but then there’d be no such thing as free will there’d hold on what was it I thought earlier it was quite funny I was going to put it in the column it was oh yeah I remember it’s free will or free Will Shakespeare no on second thoughts it doesn’t sound as funny now too difficult explaining it the point still stands though, if this was all scripted in advance and for all that I know it might be then we’d all be actors no one would be innocent or guilty and well I suppose that if that was the way that things turned out to be we’d all get used to it in many ways it might be a much nicer world with no one questioning your ethics all the time no reason to feel rotten over anything you might have done some bad decisions that you might have made some time ago a while back a long while back I’m not talking about me now obviously but there’s people who are sensitive who are in torment over things they’ve done and if there’s no free will well you can see how some of us, people like that, it would be like the slate wiped clean and no more bad dreams no more sleepless nights over the other side of Broad Street the dual carriageway there’s just the top bit of the old Salvation Army fort the other one the one that hasn’t been pulled down yet actually I think it’s listed just the top bit of it you can see where it pokes up above the fencing upper windows like it’s looking at you trees and undergrowth around
it looking at you from across the fence as if it’s an old dog penned up and left to die it doesn’t understand it doesn’t know what’s happening here’s the Mayorhold coming up it’s

  pissing down literally spattering on the carriageway the paving slabs on me “I’m gunna catch me death” that’s what they used to say down here that accent like

  Benedict Perrit

  talking to thin air laughing at nothing nothing’s the last thing you want to laugh at nothing’s the most dreadful thing of all after you’ve gone I’m in my sixties now I don’t believe in hell or all the rest of it I mean it’s just the end death isn’t it that’s how a grown-up looks at it but then Benedict Perrit in the Bird in Hand the cackling and his painful eyes and all the people that were only there to him and yet

  and yet I mean the ghosts even if only he could see them in a way they’re still there aren’t they even if he’s mad then they’re ghosts that are in his mind all of his memories of the neighbourhood dead people all of it ghosts that are running through his mind and if you’re sitting there up the pub corner next to him you can’t help almost seeing what he’s seeing well not seeing ghosts but seeing how he sees the world so that it almost makes it real to you as well just for a moment I think that’s his house below me on the right one of the ones in Tower Street I don’t know which one it almost makes it real to you as well, the ghosts and everything, so that you feel as if it’s you as if it’s me who’s being haunted and not him as if the district and the dead were talking through him to me passing on a message why do I keep feeling as though this place hates me after all I’ve done for it how did he know my dreams that awful cellar and with no way out up on my left the Mayorhold’s knotted guts are growling with nocturnal traffic, with strangled monoxide farts ahead of me down Horsemarket there’s noise one of those howler monkey conversations young blokes who don’t know don’t care how loud they’re talking like they’ve got their headphones lager headphones on I think I’ll take a right down Bath Street cut up through the flats and that way it looks quiet enough no one about how did he know my dreams

  and that’s another thing isn’t it if there’s no free will then why has this place got it in for me giving me nightmares giving me Benedict for fuck’s sake Perrit I’ve done nothing wrong you name me one thing I’ve done wrong and if there’s no free will then there’s no wrong no right no sin no virtue nothing everybody’s off the hook away and on the right that place it used to be the drill hall for the Boy’s Brigade I wonder Bath Street’s dead tonight I wonder if there’s still a Boy’s Brigade no but the free will business if nobody’s done anything wrong then why should anyone feel guilty when nobody had a choice and if there’s no free will then we’re all really free and by that I mean free of feeling bad and free of dreams and drunks and madmen you could smell ghosts on his breath we’ve none of us done any wrong and that’s objective fact objective scientific fact except

  for it to be objective fact there’d have to be some sort of outside some sort of observer and

  there isn’t one there’s only us just us seeing it all subjectively and

  so

  to us

  to us there’s wrong we think we’ve got free will we think we’re doing wrong so the morality I mean that’s just the same free will or not we think we’re doing wrong and we can’t get away from that but that’s worse isn’t it the worst of both worlds no free will but there’s still sin there’s sin to us and we’re the only ones it matters to what’s that the Muslims say it’s something like “a saint may slay a million enemies and be without sin unless he regret but one” it’s that it’s the regret free will or not that doesn’t go away we’re trapped then aren’t we all of us trapped in our lives trapped in all this in Bath Street in the world the Boroughs everything it isn’t fair it’s

  someone guns his engine takes off with a screech down in the dark ahead of me sounds like he’s in a hurry and the rain’s not letting up across the street off along Simons Walk somebody playing well I wouldn’t say that it was music playing something anyway how did he know my dreams and then you’ve got the little pocket park there lonely and deserted in the night and hulking over it the towers and like I say at least that’s space for social housing I was able to preserve if someone makes a profit that’s just business that’s how business works duh, what, would it be better if nobody made a profit and they’d pulled them down and we’d had that many more homeless on the streets oh I don’t think so I’d like to see Roman Thompson justify that argument who’d be the wanker then it’s like Iraq somebody has to be prepared to shrug off all the liberal bleating and do something proftical no practical to help all these poor people someone has to be prepared to get stuck in someone who isn’t fussy about getting their hands

  dirty

  turn left up the walkway of St. Peter’s House the Bath Street flats there’s nobody about tonight but sometimes well you have to watch yourself it’s lit up with the lights under the balconies so you can see what’s what somebody told me that the kids the rap kids come down here and do the hip-hop all of that to tell the truth I’m not much bothered one way or the other I mean all the dregs that have been stuck down here over the years I don’t see how some fucking kids who talk too fast to understand are going to make much difference frankly crackheads mental cases prossies that one with the stripy hair I’m sure she lives down here what would it be not that I ever would what would it be like I bet they’d do anything, it be like doing it with somebody like, anyway, the rain feels like it’s letting up a bit now that I’m nearly home wouldn’t you know it and the gravel path’s all shiny like the shingle at the seaside and what’s that it’s ugh it’s dogshit people shouldn’t have dogs if they can’t clear up behind them look at that fucking disgusting it looks like somebody’s stepped in it already glad it wasn’t me look there’s the grid of someone’s trainer-sole pressed into it it’s like a little model of New York made out of shit and in the rain and the electric light it’s wet and glistening it looks fresh oh God that turns my stomach shit I hate it I suppose I’ve got a thing about it if I hadn’t spotted it in time if I’d just put my foot in it you track it everywhere you go and it stays with you, everywhere you go you’re thinking what’s that smell and there’s your shitty footprints over everything you bring it home with you you get it everywhere all over everything I’m

  labouring up the ramp to lamp-lit Castle Street there’s sirens somewhere I expect town centre’s kicking off it’s probably a good job I’m home early before any trouble starts but what was that then in the Bird in Hand what was it if it wasn’t trouble I don’t know I don’t know what it was it was a fluke a meaningless fluke incident forget about it put it from your mind think about something else look at the brickwork on these walls they put these flats up nearly eighty years ago said they were temporary housing when they built them I mean technically a word like temporary just means “for a period of time” but I’d have thought that eighty years was pushing it I mean considered up against the lifespan of the universe the sun is temporary everything’s temporary St. Katherine’s House across the road there that’s as temporary as fuck one kitchen fire one B&H dropped down the back of the settee the fire services condemned it but we, they, they still stick people there and if there was a fire I mean they built tower blocks like this all up and down the country in the ’60s and if there’s a fire the central stairwell all these flats these type of flats it’s like a chimney people trying to get down while all the smoke and flames are going up I shouldn’t say this but I hope that Labour’s out of office if well more like when there is a fire the people that they stick down here I mean they’re at risk even if the place they live in isn’t burning down teenagers fresh from care homes mental difficulties everything you name it there were those two old dears that I saw a week or two ago, well, I presume they live there they were standing in the forecourt of St. Katherine’s just looking up at it rubbing their hands and cackling most likely they were care in the community you get them all down
here all the abnormals and from what I hear it’s always been like that Benedict Perrit all of them how does this district turn them out it must be something in the water something in the soil and downhill to Chalk Lane the rain’s stopped

  on the corner there the little nursery something in the window poster of some sort oh I remember Alma Warren someone said that she was going to have an exhibition down here just a one day thing a Saturday I think they said I’d thought it would be in a week or two but who knows it might even be tomorrow Alma Warren there’s another one another freak show boiled up from the Boroughs wasn’t she in the same class as him at school Benedict Perrit I’ve made overtures tried to be friendly but I just get the cold shoulder I don’t think she likes me acts like she’s a law unto herself as if she’s not on the same world as everybody else I think she’s vain thinks she’s superior morally superior to everybody else she’s got some sort of complex you can see it in her eyes and when she’s talking then she’s smiling and she’s saying funny things and being likeable it’s all an act she’s smiling and her spidery eyes are twinkling but it’s like she’s trying to disguise the fact she wants to eat you it’s an act it’s a performance if she’s so fond of the Boroughs well then why doesn’t she live down here like I do I hate people like that people who pretend to be straightforward when you know you know that everyone’s got secrets everyone’s pretending something it’s an act not like with me with me it’s what you see is what you get I’m sorry but that’s how I am why don’t these people like me why don’t why the fuck should you care why the fuck should you care if a load of chavs and dead-end cases like you or not you’re the alderman the one with the accomplishments the one with the CV why do you always come back to these same things these same thoughts you’re like a hamster in a wheel just round and round for fuck’s sake just get over it what everybody else thinks doesn’t matter but