Heaven's Promise (3 page)

It was getting warmer as I headed towards the tube and as I slipped off my white Levi's jacket, Digger suddenly loomed into view from out of a doorway that is set back from the betting shop, this being the local drunk who spends his days walking up and down, up and down, the Stroud with a constant runny nose and a can of Special Brew that his long skinny fingers clutch tightly.

His cheeks are hollowed out and his hair has turned white. You can see he is still relatively young but streetlife survival has aged him twenty years at least. Shabby clothes cover his skinny body and he slurs his words into an indecipherable accent, a linguistic style which proved totally troublesome to moi on my very first encounter with him when he blasted, ‘SLIVEUS SLOME MONEY,' directly into my face one rainy morning.

It took me 60 seconds in the pouring rain to translate his demand as, ‘give us some money,' a fair enough request given the burden he has to bear, and I handed him some coinage over, as I have been doing ever since I took up residence in this part of the world.

Since we are on this tip, I must explain that several acquaintances of mine often reprimand me for such actions, telling me, ‘that kind will only drink it,' as if someone like Digger can beg up enough cashola which will one day enable him to walk into an estate agent's, spread it all out on a table and grab a nice little semi out in the suburbs with the rest of the mortgage brigade.

Extreme I know but such attitudes often make me wonder about my fellow countryfolk for when it comes to feeding people who live thousands of miles away in a Godforsaken desert, living a life that you and I can't even begin to imagine, the British prove themselves each and every time.

No doubt about it, as soon as the call comes through and the TV screen is full of starving children and desperate mothers, they're up and away, raiding their hard earnt bank balances to give over to people they probably didn't even know existed the day before. You have to tip your hat to them because that kind of spirit speaks volumes and should always be celebrated.

Yet ask them to do the same for someone living on the street but 200 yards away from their doorstep and you suddenly start walking into remarks like, ‘well, it's their own fault,' as if the folk in question had chosen that life as a kind of perverse career move and had now triumphantly achieved their ambitions in life.

When the stench of another's nightmare gets too close, we smell ourselves and run away in horror, but that is no solution and so before Digger had to ask, I reached into my pocket and handed over the loose change. Thank God, I thought for the perverse warm weather for it might just make today a little easier for Digger and his compadres and, passing that thought, I soon found myself at the tube station.

Walking down the long snaking tunnel to the grey dirty platforms, I passed numerous people out and about on their business and somehow the scene livelied me up somewhat, especially as the busker on the morning shift was a young, dude coming on strong with a nice selection of Bob Marley tunes. I went to give him a coin as I do anyone who is not playing the obvious songs for my rule on buskers is a fair one. Nothing at all against The Beatles or Bob Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel, because they've all done their bit, but if I hear one more crooner singing ‘Yesterday' or ‘Knocking On Heaven's Door' then I will have no option but to immediately report them to the nearest authorities for gross public misconduct, and that especially applies to ‘Theme From The Deer Hunter.'

This morning's musical selection featured Marley's ‘One Love/ People Get Ready,' and was sung with such conviction that you couldn't help but be moved by both singer and song.

Yet despite my good mood I soon found it to be temporary. Boarding the train to take me Westward Ho, the Sandra business reared up in my HQ and immediately took me right down. What hi t me first, as I struggled to make sense of this morning's unexpected and unbelievable events, was that, without a doubt, all future missions, such as a stay in New York to crib off those DJ masters, were going to have to be put on ice until this crisis was sorted, one way or another.

That was for sure but there was something else starting to bug me out and that was a growing feeling that suddenly, I had no control whatsoever over my life. It was as if, like a terrible dream you have to wake yourself up from, I had become a lead character in a film I had no desire to be in and the director hadn't even told me the plot and dialogue and I was left to improvise like John Coltrane to make sense of it all.

Perhaps, I mused, that was precisely what life was, a huge mega budget epic with God directing us all purely for His own amusement, the biggest joke being that all us poor souls have been led to believe that we are somehow in charge of how the film starts and finishes.

No doubt about it, as the great Sam Cooke knew, a change was going to come and I would have to bend with it or lose badly and that was the truth, Ruth.

Only I didn't want to make that move and not when my runnings had finally started to come together. I had living quarters, cashola, a job which I could use as a springboard to the next level if I was sharp enough, but above all I had a certain kind of freedom which allowed me space in my life, a space that far too many are forced to give up the day they walk out of school and start taking orders from the bosses.

From an early age I had determined that I wanted no part of that nine to five scam and so, on the day I dumped my blazer where it belonged, I had put my all in to becoming a DJ, dedicating all my spare hours to acquiring equipment and learning how best to use it, sharpening my skills so that I was not answerable to some greyer of a boss who would take delight in making your life a misery because his was so utterly sad.

To achieve that end I devised a routine that involves constantly tuning in to the pirate radio stations scattered all over town, cluing up on various magazines for tip offs, visiting record shops at least three times a week, (except on Sundays when I head for record fairs or car boot sales) and forever using my HQ to put together various mixes in my head which I then try out at my yard where no one is looking.

Consequently, I am on first name terms with a lot of shop owners and fellow DJ's and many hours are spent talking over music, artists, name producers, record labels, new releases, old tunes discovered, clubs, musicians and anything else connected to this vast and rich world that I so delight in being a part of.

If others can't check for these lengthy conversations then they are deemed irrelevant although it must be stated that, on the whole, women are the exception to the rule. Gals like music a lot but the majority of them use it differently, and without the obsession.

It is of little interest or juice to them how a record came to be. If, for example, you tell them how Berry Gordy didn't want to release ‘What's Going On' by Marvin Gaye, or that Sly Stone covered ‘Que Sera Sera' because the papers thought he was loving Doris Day up, their eyes tend to glaze over and their minds wander of as if they had somewhere better to be.

Gals never check for such details but they certainly move in other mysterious ways which is why I was now bound Westward Ho, to seek urgent advice on the latest development in Sandra's life.

To be sure, I much prefer tube travel to any other and the reasons for my preference are many. It is easily the quickest way, barring delays and the like, to scoot around town, allowing you to travel to all points with relative ease.

On the tube you have time to get up to all kinds of things that you put off at home, such as reading or thinking or even listening to tunes on your walkman, and before you know it, there, you've arrived at your destination.

I know that most prefer cars but I have seen so many of my links go from happy to mad within five minutes of driving in this city, with its crumbling roads, huge traffic jams and Mad Max drivers, that I wish to steer clear of such distress.

Of course, the tube is not perfect by any stretch of the HQ and it's even worse come the rush hour p.m. and the people cram in, just as they had to that morning, their exhausted pissed off faces as eloquent a testimony to the cruel nature of work as anything else.

Yet come the weekend it's slightly different because then most of them are travelling for pleasure and so I wasn't too surprised, as I pulled out Sam Selvon's ‘The Lonely Londoners,' to hear a loud West Country accent assail me with an, ‘Easy Mr. DJ man, how's your percentage of life?' and realised that it was none other than Sammy The Foot who was addressing me.

This is a character who I am on speaking terms with, such as I am with The Sheriff, Stinga or Jasmine, through my position at The Unity Club, and whose yard is in close proximity to mine.

Sammy The Foot frequents The Unity but the location of most of our meetings has been at clubs where jazz is the only music played and which always attracts a small but dedicated crowd who are normally some of the best movers in town.

Sammy The Foot is no exception, a jazz dancer of real excellence, capable of busting the kind of athletic and gracious moves that make you ashamed to be within ten yards of him on the dancefloor as he goes into his routine.

When Sammy The Foot and his comrades, some of whom come from as far as Manchester to indulge in their passion, take to the floor, you know it is time to discreetly retire because that space is his true home and although he and his friends never flash it in a look-at-me-I'm-so-great manner, it is still best to simply pull back and watch, rather than compete in any way.

Furthermore, such is Sammy's love of jazz and dance, that his gears are all old style such as you see in fading pictures of various jazz musicians and their audience, his public attire of ten consisting of such items as large caps, zoot suits and brown and white spats, all of which give you the impression that Sammy just left The Cotton Club in Harlem and waltzed into the present. Today was no exception with Sammy sporting an eye catching grey pin striped baggy suit, a small flower in the left lapel of his double breasted jacket, white shirt and flowered tie, a walking stick and two tone shoes. On his head, tipped at an angle, was a large trilby. Sammy looked every bit the celebrity that he aspired to be and this desire, so legend had it, was first nurtured in him many years ago when he made his first TV appearance, albeit unwittingly, as a little kiddiwink.

The story has it that Sammy was but seven years old when a general election was called and the local Conservative MP returned to Sammy's home base of Yeovil for the first time in years, a camera crew in tow with which to capture him on the campaign trail routine of kissing bambinos, cuddling old folk and blaming everyone but himself and his party for society's ills.

Sammy's folks are Nigerians and you don't get too many of them to the pound in the British countryside. In fact, you don't get any so when the aspiring MP spotted Sammy and his mum out and about, innocently walking the High Street to get the shopping, he saw a unique chance to do something for race relations in this country.

‘Hello, young man,' the MP boomed, picking up Sammy much to his astonishment, ‘what part of the world were you born in?' The camera zoomed in expectantly on a bewildered Sammy and the old smiling politico who, no doubt, was expecting the name of some far off exotic country that the British had ‘civilized' not so long ago to drop from Sammy's lips.

‘Yeovil,' Sammy said. ‘I come from Yeovil.'

The MP, momentarily stunned and bewildered, froze and then quickly put down Sammy saying, with a smile as transparent as water, ‘Yes, of course you are. Now whose this pretty little girl over here?' and marched off, praying no one noticed his burning cheeks of embarrassment.

The whole sorry incident was briefly shown on TV that night but with the commentator's voice running over the film so all you saw was the MP cuddling Sammy and you never heard his words. Through it, Sammy became something of a cause celebre in his hometown, with all the kids at his school treating him as a major figure, ‘because he was on telly,' until three weeks later the MP was returned to Parliament with an increased majority and everyone forgot the incident and got on with their lives. No doubt the bug of holding centre stage had been planted in the young one from that point on because whenever you saw him you couldn't help but be overwhelmed by his ability to walk in to any public place and have everything revolve around him and not vice versa, which is how it runs for the majority.

‘Easy Sammy,' I said, putting away my book, ‘how goes it?'

‘Not too well Mr. DJ man,' he replied, sitting down next to me and smiling ever so graciously at the lady opposite who was obviously taken with his attire and demeanour.

‘The Loved One is on my case again.'

‘Trouble with your gal?'

‘She tells me that I pay more attention to dancing than I do her and soon she will walk if I do not change my ways.' He shrugged his shoulders.

‘But she'll come round. I knows it.'

What's fascinating about Sammy is that the man's true vocation is not really dancing, although God knows he is a right little Nureyev when he gets going, but it is the art of acting that he has truly mastered. This is his main strength and the reason for my take on him came one night when, in an unguarded moment, he led me through the rhyme and reasons of his life. When Sammy quit Yeovil in his teens, the only offer of a job being at the helicopter factory, he arrived in the Capital knowing neither friend or foe, a major problem for a lot of faces who descend from the hinterlands looking to escape the dull local action of pubs, fights, marriage, mortgage, kids and death. In Sammy The Foot's case, the idea of hosting a TV show had grabbed him the strongest, a wish no doubt stemming from the infamous MP incident and with that view in mind, Sammy quit home and made for the Capital.

Shocked and troubled at first by the impersonal nature of this city, Sammy spent his first few months in a miserable bedsit, signing on and aimlessly wandering around town looking for a friendly face, going to bed at night not a little scared, until one day it dawned on him that if London was not to come to Sammy, why then, he must go to London and grab it by the scruff of the neck. Jazz music being his first love, a condition brought about by his mother's pre-occupation with be-bop, Sammy sought out the underground jazz clubs and spent hours leaning against a wall, memorising the moves he witnessed on the dancefloor. Nighttime, at home, he would, much to the annoyance of the neighbour below him, practise these moves for hours on end whilst during the day he scoured the Oxfam shops for suitable gears, knowing full well that when he made his entrance into the life, his eccentric gears style would instantly set him apart. He would also, he recognised, have to hide that part of his nature which was shy and retiring so that he would always exude poise and confidence, qualities that everyone is instantly attracted to if only because they wish some of it to rub off on themselves. Come the day that Sammy The Foot took to the dancefloor, it was with such style and grace that within weeks people were checking for this strangely dressed but brilliant mover and gravitating towards him. Sammy The Foot played his part, coming on mysterious, whetting people's appetites and all the time building up contacts. In no time at all, he had secured a relationship with a well off gal from the Surrey countryside and moved in with her but his constant drive towards fame meant that he spent a lot of time ‘at work,' as he called his lengthy stay in club after club, and that had started to bug out his lady.