Junk - Melvin Burgess [8]
The thing was, if I spent my money on ice cream I’d have to go into town and beg in the pedestrian precinct – the Dust Bowl, they call it – so I could get something to eat that night. And begging is so grim. There’s no way you can do it nicely. You just put your head down between your knees and you hold your hand out and try to pretend it’s not happening.
It was so stupid. As if I had to have money to feel good about Gemma coming to see me! I knew it was going to happen, I knew there was just too much shit about to let me feel good for more than a second. The moment gathered itself up and jumped up into the air… and I was left on the ground watching it go…
And then I noticed the dandelions.
They were on the grass verges along the road. It was a solid mass of yellow, bright, golden yellow. I’d been standing there thinking about daffodils somewhere else and all the time here were the dandelions – wild dandelions, not put there for me to look at but there because they wanted to be there. All along the grubby street it was ablaze with yellow and everyone was walking up and down without even noticing them.
I must have walked past them a dozen times. I walk about without seeing, sometimes.
I know it sounds stupid, but it was like the flowers had come out for Gemma.
I stood there for a bit and I felt like I was soaking up that colour. I love yellow. It’s the colour of sunlight. When all this is over and I get myself sorted out, I want to go to art college. I want to be a painter or a designer. I really think I’m good enough.
I stood there staring at it, and I had an idea for a painting. A dandelion – just one huge bright dandelion. The background was all black and the dandelion was all the bright yellows and oranges, every petal a long yellow triangle. It would be a big painting. I was going to do it and put it on the wall of the squat for Gemma when she came.
And that big happy moment came swooping down, and I reached up a hand and caught hold of it and off I went. I picked a big bunch of dandelions and went off back to the squat. I felt great again.
I say squat. It was more of a deny really, but I’d been trying to clear it out a bit the past day or two.
The first couple of nights I slept out in doorways. The very first night I tried to go to sleep in my bag in the doorway of a small supermarket but it was too cold. I ended up wandering about all night. Towards morning I saw people crowded together in a subway, all wrapped up in cardboard boxes, and I thought, That’s how you do it! And I wandered about some more till I found some cardboard in stacks outside a shop waiting for the binmen. I wrapped myself up in that, and that was better. But you still keep waking up all night. You never seem to get a decent night’s sleep on the street.
I slept like that for a couple of nights, but I didn’t like it on the street. The thing is, you’re in public. People can see you all the time, even when you’re asleep. Sometimes at night you wake up and the police are shining a torch into your face. I hated that – the thought of people examining you while you’re asleep, all those strangers. I began to feel like something in a zoo. So when I found this row of derry houses, I thought, Right. This is gonna be home.
I found a little room with a door still on it. The first night I kept getting woken up by people banging in. It was pitch black so they couldn’t see me till I called out. It happened about five times that night. I was really scared the first few times, but after a bit I realised it was just people looking for a place to sleep. I shouted out, ‘It’s taken,’ and they left.
The next day I made up a little sign: ‘Do Not Disturb.’ And I wrote, ‘Property of Hotel d’Erelict’ in little letters underneath.
Everyone had to find their way about with matches or a torch, so they all saw my sign and I never got bothered after that. Just a couple of times some drunks came charging in without seeing my notice. Sometimes they thought it was so funny they’d wake me up.