Watch the Wall my Darling while the Gentlemen Go By
Some time ago when my circumstances were altogether different from that of today I lived in a street whose circumstances had followed an oblivious downward trajectory over the years, similar to Charles Handy’s frog, but without the boiling water. At this time I had the good fortune to live within cruising distance of a brothel and a drug den. Not that I partook of any of their services you understand.
The drug den was a rather unassuming flat whose novel feature was a rather attractive globe in the front room. Obviously so as to educate clients from where in the world their purchases had come.
The brothel was a large mansion which had lost the grandeur of its former days. Paint peeled from the walls and the garden had become a vast wilderness, attracting only the neighbourhood cats, living out their fantasies of stalking gazelle in the Serengeti. The ladies of the night whirled and stumbled along its driveway back and forth at all hours of the day and night. The naive would comment that both houses were home to rather large families and those who knew better would say nothing, only give a weary smile.
One day there was a fire in the drug den and the local paper said that “flames shot up into the air”. However I watched the whole thing and there wasn’t much more than a puff of smoke and a couple of ladies standing in the street in their nightgowns. This is, you understand the same paper that on 9/11 led with the headline “Drug Dealer Jailed” and had a small paragraph entitled “A Bit of Trouble in America”* hidden away on page 10.
The nights were noisy. Door slammed, people shouted and someone once landed in my hedge. In the mornings strangely attired ladies and gentlemen would stumble their way to the corner shop to buy whatever they needed to bring them down from the night before.
Then one day the police were on the scene. Attempting to be unobtrusive but failing miserably, they made their presence felt. Cars were loaded up from first the brothel, then the drug den and driven away. “Oh that nice family have left” one elderly lady was heard to say. “Well their teenagers were a bit on the wild side” another countered.
And that was the end of the bohemian dream. The flats where the drug den had been were knocked down to make way for “executive” (ie very over priced) new build flats and a new family moved into the former Brothel. I wonder if they ever found out about its former existence.
I moved away. Things would never be the same again. The street was becoming a bit too up and coming for my sensibilities.
* This may not have been the exact line but you get the picture.
The drug den was a rather unassuming flat whose novel feature was a rather attractive globe in the front room. Obviously so as to educate clients from where in the world their purchases had come.
The brothel was a large mansion which had lost the grandeur of its former days. Paint peeled from the walls and the garden had become a vast wilderness, attracting only the neighbourhood cats, living out their fantasies of stalking gazelle in the Serengeti. The ladies of the night whirled and stumbled along its driveway back and forth at all hours of the day and night. The naive would comment that both houses were home to rather large families and those who knew better would say nothing, only give a weary smile.
One day there was a fire in the drug den and the local paper said that “flames shot up into the air”. However I watched the whole thing and there wasn’t much more than a puff of smoke and a couple of ladies standing in the street in their nightgowns. This is, you understand the same paper that on 9/11 led with the headline “Drug Dealer Jailed” and had a small paragraph entitled “A Bit of Trouble in America”* hidden away on page 10.
The nights were noisy. Door slammed, people shouted and someone once landed in my hedge. In the mornings strangely attired ladies and gentlemen would stumble their way to the corner shop to buy whatever they needed to bring them down from the night before.
Then one day the police were on the scene. Attempting to be unobtrusive but failing miserably, they made their presence felt. Cars were loaded up from first the brothel, then the drug den and driven away. “Oh that nice family have left” one elderly lady was heard to say. “Well their teenagers were a bit on the wild side” another countered.
And that was the end of the bohemian dream. The flats where the drug den had been were knocked down to make way for “executive” (ie very over priced) new build flats and a new family moved into the former Brothel. I wonder if they ever found out about its former existence.
I moved away. Things would never be the same again. The street was becoming a bit too up and coming for my sensibilities.
* This may not have been the exact line but you get the picture.
