And they have him, these days, these moments of misrule; possessed of them he is quick and entire in his thin, zinging skin, alive, real, on the planet. In them and of them he stirs on this earth, connected to others and himself also in a peril formed from his own forcing, spun from his zinging skin. Better this mess of a life than a life so pointless. Better this botch of a life than one so drab.
Sheepshagger
, 2000
Charlie Hall
The Box
I
COULD HAVE
said some kind words before I went to sleep, but my travel anxiety was already bubbling and the coke kept me awake, so I smoked a spliff. As I got back into bed, she curved herself into me and it made me feel like I was made of crystal and I was afraid I’d shatter. Jesus, I’d only got back from the Complex buzzing a few hours before. I’d spliffed up with the boys and they’d gone and I was left with her, so I went to bed and lay listening to her wondering if she was awake, the tension throbbing in the air, words on my lips. I could have just said something. Her hot legs on mine, I was so jittery I wanted to punch her but the spliff calmed me down. I managed a half-hearted cuddle which made the words want to come out more. Just as I was drifting off, the alarm went.
We’re all gazing up at the screens like obedient schoolkids. The flight number comes up and we race off with our trolleys. Like I’ve any confidence my boxes will come bursting joyously first in line on to the carousel! On the other side of the rubber curtains, I can hear the handlers chatting to each other as they sling the bags on to the belt like so many corpses. Here they come: battered suitcases; chirpy rucksacks; sleek executive walk-in wardrobes.
Just about everyone lunges forward at the luggage and then hesitates. ‘No, wait a minute. In this light I’m not sure. I thought mine was bluer?’ They glance around, harassed. The dilemma, ‘If anyone grabs it then it’s theirs, but if it’s mine and I hesitate then it’ll go back through the rubber curtains and the handlers will have carte blanche to tear it open, squirt toothpaste all over my underwear, nick my . . . Oh fuck it, it’s mine, it’s mine . . .’
I tough it out, trying to look unconcerned, just wanting a fag. If this was Italy we’d all be puffing away, leaning up on the ‘No Smoking’ sign, which is always situated by an overflowing ashtray. But this is Sweden where you get nicked for smoking in the street.
I hardly know her. Usual story – arrived at the club that night whenever it was (last week? last month?) and I saw her again. We’d sort of been on each other’s case here and there. You know, a bit of back-room flirting in the Ministry; skinning up together as I waited for David Holmes to finish his set at Final Frontier; plenty of laughs out in the garden at the old Full Circle. We’d had our eye on each other, both thinking maybe we knew each other too well. I used to get home from a night out, lie in bed and she’d come to mind. I’d still be awake with the drugs slowly draining through my system, tweaking the last synapses and I’d want to call her. But I wanted to be good, didn’t want to make it all just a wank. I wanted to be fair.
I had been on a roll the night we finally got together. High summer and for once London was kicking. You’d come out of a club and there’d be people standing about in the street messing around. The atmosphere was stupendous and everyone was there. Good times to be a DJ.
I had DJ bookings stretching through till October and I was as high as a fucking kite. That night I was playing for a mate in a sweaty gaff in the basement of a kebab shop on the Edgware Road. The vibe was perfect: underground and mellow. The boys on the gate were super-chilled and you could puff if it was done discreetly.
I had a few beers and socialised a bit, trying to stay straight-headed. If I tuck into too much skunk or bugle before I get on the decks all sorts of chaos is likely to follow. It’s a question of getting locked into the groove. The ideal night is one where the first mix goes right. There’s a surge from the crowd as they sense new energy on the decks and you go with it. After that, you can stuff yourself with what you like – even done it tripping a few times, which is quite a challenge. I’ve heard a couple of DJs who brag that they play best on a trip. So do I, but it’s a social one, tense with the anticipation, keeping an eye on my watch.
It was one of those nights you dream about, when everything falls into place. All the right records were at my fingertips as soon as I dug in the box. Then, halfway through my set, I saw her best mate giving it some shimmy. So she was bound to be here! My senses tightened and I concentrated on the set. The records kept on coming, the heat was building, the vinyl grew hazy with condensation as soon as it came out of the sleeve.
The heat was outrageous. I was throwing beers back. We had to cane all the charlie before it sweated up. People were starting to lose it, but they kept right on dancing. We were all locked in together, a rare and utterly fucking wondrous moment: pure ecstasy. More coke, more beer, more T-shirts pulled off, more skunk in the air, and when it seemed like there wasn’t any further to go, the buzz just kept building, bodies sliding against each other to the music. It was so hot, so scary, everyone was laughing in amazement. They were shrieking, hollering and whistling when it seemed like there just wasn’t any more air to even draw breath.
I play house. When I first heard it, I was into reggae and funk and a mate came back from America with a bag of tunes. We had already developed a boys’ club – trainspotting Fred Wesley, Maceo, the deep dirty funk from America’s East Coast and the crazy Latin boogie from Los Angeles. Washington threw out mad go-go beats that had us all sweating our arses off, speeding things up. Then came dark, marijuana nights down in Melon Road, Peckham, with Jah Shaka giving us pumping acid dub. We’d stay out until the break of dawn, dancing all night, fuelled only by ganja and Red Stripe.
That was then. And with the help of a few little pills and a bit of understanding, THIS is now.
I play house. I keep it fat and I keep it funky. I want to convey that happy sexy vibe I got through funk, as well as the moody weird shit and the trippy frequencies of dub – like when you realise that you’ve been dancing for two or three hours just to a rhythm. I want people to feel what I feel. I want them to feel the simple joy of dancing, the release of losing the plot in a little room with a couple of hundred other people who want to do the same. Shit, I love dancing!
Then she was there and we hugged each other, bursting with a simple feeling of happiness and we held each other tight. I could feel her body pressing against mine in the heat. With sweat streaming down my face, I kissed her mouth and she kissed me back and at that moment I was the fucking king of everything and this was RIGHT.
We stayed up until Tuesday: hanging out in Full Circle, then round someone’s house, then off to Strutt, then off to someone else’s gaff. We were full of each other, in fucking LOVE, mate, buzzing, drugged-up with Es, spliff, charlie and more charlie . . .
Got me thinking about that coke. I should get rid of it before I hit customs. They might have a dog, like in Naples. I’m sure that dog isn’t a drug dog, it snarls and lunges at everyone. You can see the handler making stupid secret noises and twitching the fucker’s leash so he goes for me (it’s the BOX). I was clean. They gave up when I was down to my Calvin’s. So what to do? Go and do it now and risk my boxes getting raped by the handlers when they go back through the rubber curtains unclaimed . . .? Or wait and squeeze into that toilet over there with all my boxes and trolley . . .?
WHAM!!! Ah, that’ll be my boxes, last as usual. There’re couple of nice Swedish girls watching me now, a bit of the old DJ mystique. They look furtive and almost interested but I can see they’re not ravers, they’re just curious in an anthropological way. My first box, a big steel fucker, has KO’d one of those sad anonymous blue Samsonite copies and scarred the corner and there’s a sort of fluid seeping out on to the rubber. My boxes are hardly scratched (I’m always amazed they let these through with regular luggage, it’s senseless violence!). The bag’s owner, herself a bit of a dented old bag, looks at me with a beaten look on her face like she’s used to it and my victory is diminished sizeably.
The toilet’s great – typical Scandi hygiene. Loads of shiny, gleaming, sweet-smelling surfaces. Perfect. I’m scooping the gear out and as my eyes sweep the interior of the cubicle I notice a little flash of colour right down behind the toilet bowl.
Curiosity drives me and I bend down. I pick up a wrap and it’s FULL. The powder twinkles, maybe a little too much, but it’s got that right crystalline tweak to it, the overhead lighting glancing off it in wide beams. I take a dab. ‘OOH! It’s bitter-as-fuck. Yoinks!’
I start off with the rest of my gear, which perks me up and then I cut out a gleaming sexy curve of the new stuff. A quick double-check. It’s not ketamin, smack or speed, and it’s free. Greedy old me. ‘If she wasn’t sure it was me on the phone, then who did she think it was?’ I think. A sharp lancing snap of suspicion in my belly and then gone.
The light outside has improved when I step out of the cubicle. It has a kind of twinkling property that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s a little bit stuffy but that’s bound to be partly down to the drugs. It’s weird, the muzak and people’s voices blend and then jar slightly.
I look down to check my bags. All present and correct and they look fucking ace: gleaming steel boxes, tools of me trade, mate. I’m the Lone fucking Ranger, blown into your town so strap yourselves down ’cos I’m-a-comin’ in! I’m the hired gun with his pistols packin’ blazin’
HOUSE MUSIK!
Come one, let’s have you!! I’m itching to play. I square my shoulders and stride on. Fuck me, this gear’s the business.
The victim’s wobbling ahead of me, the liquid still oozing out of her bag. It dribbles on to the (fantastically shiny, sort of like when you look at a deep pond and you can see the surface, but you can see the dark depths as well) brown linoleum floor. It looks like a beautiful glittering cord. Her feet splatter through it. We’re going through customs. I’m cool and totally clean and buzzing like a bee. Just then the old woman notices the brook of gunk and starts squawking. I swerve round her, expert in my trolley-handling, but the incident has been enough to get some unformed twit out of his office. First thing he sees are my boxes.
‘Pssst!’ goes the official and nods in the direction of the counter. I follow him. His trousers are neat and pressed and halfway up the crack of his arse. His hair is cut neat, halfway up his red neck.
‘Passport!’ He holds out his hand. He looks at my passport photo and back at me, like I’m a wanted criminal, narrowing his eyes. He’s either on a highly sophisticated wind-up or he’s so fucking dumb he doesn’t think I’ve seen all this before. Off comes the immaculate cap and he puts it on the steel counter and gently smoothes his pink hand over his blond hair.
‘And what is your purpose for coming to Sweden, Mr . . . S . . . m . . . ithhh?’ He fixes me with another of those killer looks. Well, now, with those record boxes, I wonder what I could possibly be doing, for fucksake?
‘I’m over here to DJ . . . Mr . . .’ I say and peer at his name tag, but the letters seem to be dancing around. ‘Yeh . . . Mr.’
‘Your bag?’
‘Yes, they all are, mate.’ I reply. I’m not going to pass it straight over to him. He’s going all the way so I may as well go with him to see how long it is before he gets fucked off with it. He looks up sharply, now he knows it’s ‘Game On’.
‘Your bags, please. Up here!’ He slaps the counter. I move faster than I’ve ever moved before and in one gorgeous fluid movement I twist round in a kind of t’ai chi (crane gets angry at monkey picking nuts from tree) move and my heaviest box smashes with a crash on to the counter. A crash that’s only partly softened by his cap taking the first hit. He’s so gobsmacked at the speed of my move, he hasn’t even noticed the cap.
‘Open please.’ I twist the box round, grinding his cap and smiling. ‘There! My records! Help yourself!’ He’s a bit confused. There’re almost two hundred tunes there. Is he going to go the whole hog? Go on, I dare you! I think. If he does he has won, because he doesn’t actually have to put them back. This is one chance to wind me up.
I got into this business through house music, which is all about understanding and togetherness. OK, so we all took drugs too and people have got fucked up, but on any journey there’re casualties. The upside of the house movement was amazing, but now commercial interests have elbowed their way in: big-time drug lords, crap clubs, stupid records. More people go to clubs now and with the growing market the quality of drugs is lowered, so more people get sick and the witch-hunt begins. And who is it who gets it in the neck? The most visible members of the movement those of us marked out by our metal boxes. It’s like we’re the drug dealers.
If I was going to be smuggling drugs I’d scarcely be doing it with a couple of record boxes. I bet that old lady had half a kee of coke in her doffed-up suitcase. It’s a battle that I’m used to. It’s like the border guards used to be like when you were travelling abroad for the football. One false move and you’d be straight back home, so you had to bite your lip while they treated you like vermin.
He puts his fingers on the records, where to start? I’m just looking at him in a totally unthreatening manner, which will make it worse for him. He’s hesitating. I can feel his mind clicking away. Shit, I can feel it, it’s a kind of rapid tremble like a small dog shakes when it wants to do something but is held back. He looks up at me, his eyes have still got some fight in them.
‘Come on, mate!’ So he goes to my holdall, rips it open, throws all my clothes around in a frenzy, thrusts and pokes his thick, clean fingers in corners, but he’s moving slowly and missing loads. He goes back to the box and scoops about thirty records out. I notice the beads of sweat on his head. He looks through those records, quite thoroughly, bless him.