The Knives of Brixton

I live a stones throw away from Moorlands Estate and Southwyck House, AKA the "Barrier Block" or "The Prison" (as it is ugly as sin and resembles a penitentiary), so I was a little shocked to hear some poor 17 year old kid got stabbed there the other night. That's just one of them though: there have apparently been 7 other stabbings in the area in the last 10 days. Not to mention a rape.

I read a statistic recently that said this borough has the highest domestic violence numbers in the country, along with one of the highest poverty rates. I didn't really know any of that when I moved here, obviously. I knew it could be rough, but not "8 stabbings and a rape" rough. That's a whole new means of measurement to me.

I remember a scared Polish woman that stopped in where I worked just for a place to sit down and feel safe while she waited for her train. She said she'd been harassed several times just walking down the road to get to the station. She couldn't get back on a train and out of the area fast enough. I took it as a typical response to someone first visiting the area and being paranoid (and wearing weird tights up to her cooch that no doubt brought attention), but she explained to me how she was studying to be a lawyer and was in the courts all day sitting in on trials, and then rattled off some statistics. Something like how 1 in 5 people here were below the poverty line and living on council estates (ghetto housing), etc. I noted that I lived in the area and I didn't think it was all that bad, even if people were poor. She tried to awkwardly back pedal: "Well, of course I don't mean you!" but I just laughed it off. The area really just doesn't seem that bad. Then you look at the statistics and wonder. Maybe I've just been missing it all?

A couple of weeks ago before I lost my job at that very crapshack (AHEM - don't go to the café at Loughborough Station, it's shite - AHEM), there was another stabbing just down the road from me, near the old house we used to live in. My friend/ex-flatmate was visiting me and he ran around the corner to get a cigarette from one of the local night shops as I closed the café. He had to sort of side step a few teens that suddenly took off chasing after another guy.

Apparently they hit the victim right as he ran through a doorway. He survived, but his bloody jacket was left lying on the floor of the place for all to see. It was across from the "The Hole" that we both used to live in, near our favorite chicken restaurant and at the door of the convenience store we used to frequent nightly... Not something we expected to see, but some how not really surprising at the same time. It's not the nicest looking area, but it was our ugly little area for a little while and we'd never seen that happen. We ended up getting a ride in a police car, which I did not like, and my friend had to give a statement. It made the night interesting. Well, for me, anyway. He's Mexican, so I'm sure he's used to stabbings and police. I've heard his stories.

A couple of months prior to that little event, I ran outside of the café because I heard broken glass and screaming. I ran over to the Chinese restaurant next to us and saw the door had been smashed in and a couple teenagers were running around inside. I flagged down a police van (funny how many of those are around), thinking they were robbing the place and maybe hurting the Chinese woman who was screaming her head off, but in the end it was just another fight. One of them apparently had a knife. Days later on a way to give a class, Marine saw a guy being chased and yelling for help. I kind of wonder if that was just the beginning to all of this.

The thing about it is that I don't feel weird walking out alone at 2AM into Brixton or anything. Most of these rapes and stabbings are gang related, most of the gang members being teens. People like me don't really exist in their world. We're just the people who look on, confused. Still, there's a reason most people don't go walking alone in large cities in the middle of the night -- it's because there are weirdos out there. When you go out into a now silent city that was bustling earlier in the day, you are playing Weirdo Lottery. The witching hour and all that.

The other night I wanted to run out and buy something but it was too late. The local shop with the asian owner who talks like a rastafari was closed, much to my chagrin, so I had walk a little further than I wanted to. On my way back I encountered a man in a life or death fight with a road barrier. He was using karate, so I don't know who won, but I made sure to cross the street before I let him use it on me. I'd made the same walk several times before in the dead of night, the streets eerily empty, and was fine. That night though, if I didn't divert to the other side of the road I may have been viciously beaten by karate construction crack man. You just don't know.

There are a lot of good things about walking around the Brixton streets, though. You never know what you might see, or hear, and some times that's a good thing. Marine and I were introduced to the tunes of Dennis Brown by walking past one of those incredibly loud music shops that sell pirated CDs. That will probably be one of my lasting memories of living here... walking home from the market with my wife through the smell of incense and deciding to buy whatever great album was being played. It was a good decision:

And there's the Brixton Village. There's The Cabana (giant steak & rice & beans mmmm), Ms. Cupcake (giant cupcake mmm), London Fast Food (best fried chicken in London mmm) and of course all the other things that aren't edible. Music shops, market stalls, couple nice parks, a diverse mix of interesting and crazy people. It's just the ones with the knives that give it a bad name. Hopefully the kids doing this shit will live to grow up and realize an entire world exists aside from this place and the problems it does have, like poverty. Because you can't enjoy cupcakes or steaks or chicken if you're poor as fuck and have nothing else to do. I can understand that. Unfortunately, the response seems to be "send in more police" which is like par for the course when any trouble happens over here. Maybe the local councils or government could focus on why these guys feel like they need to attack each other and get to the root of it or something. But what do I know

Caffè latte Loco

During one of my first weeks of work at the coffee shop, I had my first, and last big tip. I was pretty nervous working a new job since I hadn't really worked in a public setting in a long time and it probably showed. Maybe I looked a little unhappy.

I was sitting on a leather bench that ran the length of the wall having a break. A large and rather talkative black woman with giant locks of hair sat across the room from me drinking a coffee I had made her.

"Come here, darlin'!" she said.

That's not a common request. Usually people just want to know where the sugar is, or they want a napkin.

"Sorry?" I said.

She repeated herself, and so with my fellow employees watching I sheepishly stood up and walked over to her, unsure of what to expect. She started to reach in between her enormous breasts as if she was going to pull one out as a gift, and I stood ready to accept, as it would be impolite to refuse. Rather than a giant nipple popping out to greet me, however, came a 5 pound note that had just moments before been neatly tucked into her cleavage. She handed it to me and said, "I want you to have this. You deserve it."

"Oh no, that's too much!" I said, looking confused.

"Take it, baby."

So I took it.

Every once and a while after that I'd get a one pound tip and I'd be thankful, but never again did I receive a 5 pound cleavage bill as a form of thank you. Not even a regular 5 pound note. I don't think I ever will.

Interacting with people in such a busy place meant there was always something interesting that could happen at any given moment. Most of the time, they weren't good things, though. For example, on a different day I was, again, sitting down taking a break (this does not reflect upon my work ethic) when a skinny Sarah Connor-lookin' woman ran past me towards the bathrooms. It took me a second to realize that she had 3 butcher's knives in her hands that had passed inches in front of my face. I looked up at one of the owners as if to ask, did you just see that? I stood up, thinking maybe she was going to hurt herself and we should do something, but then she stuck her head out of the bathroom and began screaming about how her boyfriend was just shot and how they were going to kill her too, "But don't call the police!" She popped her head back in. This went on for some time. I remember nervously pacing the floor when a woman approached me and kindly asked if she could use the bathroom. I kindly told her that a woman had just run into the bathroom with a set of very sharp knives and that maybe now would not be the best time. "I think I'll go somewhere else then," she replied.

My landlord/boss decided that he'd let her be, because "If you do something for one of them [lunatic or drug addict], they will do anything for you!" he laughed. Which sounded psychopathically messed up: he literally meant it as in, if you help out a desperate person who can use them later. He was the type of two faced, narcissistic person that would do anything to have anyone like him for that very reason, so it wasn't surprising. Me, I went and found a cop car, but by then she'd run off.

Crazy is crazy, but crazy with a knife or three changes things. Only weeks before, a woman in London had randomly ran into a shop, grabbed a knife and stabbed two random people, so I think I had reason to be concerned.

Then there were the crackheads who demanded chicken sandwiches and tea "Not too hot! I'm a crackhead, you know!" as if I was supposed to know what that meant in terms of hot tea. All free, of course. I gave it to them, until the day one of them kissed me for a pizza. Kind of threw me off the whole charity thing.

And finally you get your 7 foot tall giants showing buttcrack who politely order their lattes, sit down, and begin talking to themselves, making you and the rest of the staff (my poor wife) incredibly uncomfortable ("American? Yeah well fuck off back to where you came from. That panini looks good. Yeah, it does. I do like New York, though."). Between him and the guy that came in and demanded 5 pounds, sat down and started talking into his mobile phone as loudly as possible to no one, there could have been an actual conversation going. Organize your days, guys.

Worse than any of that though, was the woman who requested a "Babycino". I don't know who invented that word, but it instantly made me understand some of the random knifings going on in the world.

So let's all give thanks that I do not have to put up with requests for that or anything else any more. So long, Loughborough Junction. Stay classy.