R e d S a i l s

It Has Been Emotional ~ Randy Ortiz

In the interstitial slumber hour; the hour that hangs between his last pee and full awakening; he wanders why nobody believes themselves to be anything but one of the good guys.
He surmises that the problem lies in the definition of good guys.
The Judeo-Christian good guys who define us all as either good or bad and decree our destination as heaven or hell?
The Empires of good men who find themselves on the side of the mighty and are thus automatically deemed to be in the right?
The freedom fighters forced to take the lives of the bad guys by acts of unspeakable violence?
The children of rich men who find themselves entitled to do whatever the fuck they want; or pay someone else to do it for them; and still believe they are good guys?
Whoever woke up and considered the possibility that they were not the centre of the universe?

There’s a fine drizzle breezing through Lewisham’s peaceful reign. We’ve passed through the border, descended from Blackheath to cross the A20, visibly patrolled by TakDogs. They know us here, and while the terms are not always friendly, we are on the same side it seems.
There’s been a new wave of refugees from the gentrified wastelands and they are being settled in the high-rises around the now defunct train station. These have become the staging points for resettling, for those who will stop here to be separated from those who will journey further; to the Kent farms or to the coast and beyond to the meagre hope of Europe.
Our meeting is held at the house on the Quaggy; they’ve taken over all of the apartments and knocked them through to house their operations centre.
We’re here to deliver on a trade promise made when the forces of Lewisham and Catford agreed to ride shotgun on our barges.
Meeting over we need to take care of Naz’s body demands.
The visceral pleasure of opening the MagLev up to full blast down the empty A21 into Catford; a rushing run with the helm removed and the warm wind in his face; followed by a short slow zigzag through the backstreets until Naz sweeps the bike to a halt down the side of the Council kitchen’s redbrick wall.

Sometimes he thinks he’s been running forever with the wind of time blowing hard at his back; his destination ever closer.
From Future Legend’s opening lines: the first song on the first album he ever bought:
…and in the death
To the year that the future became the present and the world was presented with the prospect of indecipherable tomorrows.
Sometimes he thinks himself a fool; too self-aware; too sensitive to the eddy currents of everyday life that threaten to become the torrent of the future; information overload means the only signals that will get through are those permitted by the machine.
Sometimes he thinks that to have reached these tarnished golden years is to have been cursed, eyes forced wide open like Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange, to endure the bleak reality of the now swiftly passing years.
Sometimes he wishes he could just fade away.
Sometimes he thinks he thinks too much.
The mattress is thin and the room is cold enough to discourage rising, even though he can hear the calls of the cats demanding morning’s feed. You’d think they’d be content with the rats. The charity handed out through the back door of the Council kitchen creates its own economy.
The restaurant at the intersection of that economy feeds at least a third of Catford, and the scraps from that restaurant scrap meals result in there being no rats within a mile radius.
Summoning the will, the old man casts the duvet aside and fumbles to relieve himself once again before climbing into his clothes. He splashes his face with cold water from the sink and in the mirror washes wet fingers through the startling grey mane that has developed around his forehead, eyes and nose.

Through the wall we can hear Hector cajoling his wife and son in the kitchen above the rattle of pots and utensils. The old man is out feeding the cats as we lock the bike and duck under the patchwork of awnings that shelter the restaurant from the incessant showers, Naz’s gait means that, with the helm hanging upside down from his fist, I have to spend an inordinate amount of processing power continuously correcting visual input in order to record events to ARChive standards.
“How’s the pain today old man?”
“Pain’s manageable; it’s the boredom that’ll get me in the end. Didya get those spices for me laddie?”
Naz sits at the bench under the menu which reads:

If We Got It, You Get it
If you don’t like it, you ain't hungry

He withdraws a pouch from his backpack and puts it on the table.
“There’s some personal in there too. For the pain”
“I’ll get you some breakfast”
“Don’t be mean with those spices now old man”
“I’ll do the cooking; you’ll do the eating laddie”
The rain cuts itself off abruptly, the sound of the waterfalls between the ill-matching awnings slowly abates to singular drips and plops.
The customers begin to arrive as the smell of meat on the fire advertises the prosect of an upcoming meal.
Many come bearing trade, items valued often merely by the fact that they exist: pieces of wood crudely carved; tins of various things and pieces of electronic gadgetry of various ancestry; clothing made from scratch and attaining various levels of wearability.
Some come bearing nothing but the indignity of the charity that will be bestowed upon them.
Most of the trade that takes place at the restaurant has nothing to do with the food that is on offer there, but everyone is fed.
Eventually.