Heaven's Promise (12 page)

‘He's only doing what he thinks is best for you,' I put in. but, really there was no need to articulate such a sentiment because Paolo knew that and, despite all the hot words and the raised fists, the stinging insults and the botheration, the fact remained that, deep in their hearts, they loved each other up fully and would always be there for each other if the crunch really came down.

Both knew it but both wanted to prove that love in different ways.

‘You wait until I make it, Papa will be so proud,' Paolo prophesied. ‘Don't tell him but a scout has already put in an offer for when I leave school. I was top scorer in the league last year.'

‘That's great,' Brother P. said. ‘Does Papa know?'

Paolo scowled. ‘These days, he refuses to come and see me play. I don't think he's seen me on the pitch for two years now.'

‘The fact of the matter,' Paolo continued, picking up his bag and collecting himself up, ‘is that I will make it, no doubt about it,' and, I have to say, it was hard not to be impressed by the boy's utter certainty in himself, for at a tender 14 years of age he already knew where he was going and few people twice his age, possessed that fact. Papa was not impressed with his departing son.

‘Marissa,' he shouted, ‘I'm going to see Father Espositio tonight. Perhaps he'll be able to to talk some sense into his stupid head,' and he stalked back into the kitchen, leaving me with the thought that maybe I would be better off with the priest's counselling, for the truth of the matter was that Sandra had arrived back from Trinidad some 10 months back, set on course for motherhood.

I had parlared with her on three separate occasions, the worst time being the first time we met up in mid July, to supposedly discuss if she was going to go ahead with the birth, this meet up taking place in a chainstore pizza parlour. Her stomach had now started to noticeably swell up and, when she finally walked in, after keeping me waiting for twenty minutes, the sight of her condition caused a rumble of rage to go off inside me. I tried to hold it down, bite my tongue and act civil.

‘Alright?'

‘Alright.'

She ordered garlic bread to be followed by ice cream whilst I settled for a cappuccino and, hopefully, the confirmation that she would soon be out of this condition and back to normal.

‘How was Trinidad? Your family okay?'

‘Oh, I had a great time.'

I reached for a cigarette.

‘I'd rather you didn't if you don't mind, I've given up.'

‘Sure.' A silence, and then, ‘So did you come to any decision while you were away?'

‘I'm having the baby, our baby. It's too late to stop now even if I wanted to.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well you can't get an abortion after 13 weeks.'

I felt the ground give way beneath me as it came to me how she had brilliantly bamboozled me.

‘You knew before you went away, didn't you? All that stuff about wanting to think things over. It was bullshit. You tricked me. You fucking well tricked me!'

‘Sorry,' was all she could say.

I stared at her in complete disbelief.

‘Can't you see that I'm not into this at all. Can't you open your eyes and see that. What is wrong with you?'

‘I don't care,' she coolly replied. ‘It's my body, my decision. That's it.'

‘Your body, our baby. Doesn't anything I say mean anything to you? It's like talking to a fucking brick wall. Don't you understand I want nothing to do with this? Can't you see it from my side of things? You'll be bringing it up single handedly. I ain't helping out. I want nothing to do with it. That's it. Final, finito, over and out, lovergirl.'

‘Why are you so scared of this?' she asked, not even raising her voice but coming like she was an interested doctor trying to coax things out of a wayward patient.

‘Why do you run away? Don't you want to see your own child grow up and be a part of it?'

‘Look,' I said wearily, ‘we had a thing going for a couple of months, alright? That was it. It was nice while it lasted, and all that good stuff, but all I know is that it didn't go the distance. One of those things and end of story. Now what point is there in prolonging it?'

‘So, I'm not good enough to bear your child is what you're saying. I'm okay to fuck for a couple of months but God forbid that I should bring your precious children into this world.'

‘Did I say that?'

‘You don't have to, dear. I know where you're coming from. The slightest problem and that's it, off and running.' Sandra gave out a cruel laugh and then sneered at me.

‘You men really are something else. You walk around like you own the world and everyone in it. Then something happens that doesn't fit into your little plans. Someone comes along and asks you to, and I really hate to use the word in front of you, take some res-pons-i-bility for your actions and you get shit scared. Pathetic, the lot of you.'

‘Not as pathetic as bringing unwanted babies into the world.'

The waiter had just arrived with the order and so had no idea why the slightly overweight woman he was serving, with one magnificent sweep of her arm, swept away everything he had put on the table, plates, cups, cutlery and food, and sent it all crashing to the floor, the deafening noise silencing the whole joint.

‘My baby is not unwanted,' Sandra screamed. ‘You may not want it but this baby that you helped to make is going to get everything in life, whether you're there or not. And don't you ever insult me like that again or I swear on my mother's life I will kill you.'

‘Not,' I said, standing up, ‘if I kill you first,' and then I walked, leaving her crying at the table, ice cream spreading slowly around her feet.

I spoke to Sandra twice after that unhappy occasion and both times the rows erupted like volcanoes, and so I simply blanked her. I left the phone on the answer machine, ignored her messages and threats and got on with my life. To be God's honest, and I know this sounds a little jittery, but I was far more interested in what was going on down at my place of employment, The Unity Club, than spending time and effort on this ugly business. For, without warning, the scene I had witnessed, and taken part in, down at that South London venue with Dillon, had been repeated all over the country. It took some time but the acid house kick had taken off in Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, and every other major spot in the country. The combination of house music and ecstasy had proved to be spot on, creating a brand new movement not witnessed since the punk days, and it was only right and proper that in a world where we have to recycle if we want it to carry on, the scene should be born out of a similar process with the attitude coming off a '60s vibe – peace, love and spiritualism – and the fashion recalling the '70s. It needed a drug to bring it to life and ecstasy fitted the bill perfecta. That small white pill gave you such huge energy, confidence and spirit that it forced you to shed all inhibitions, and in no time at all, the elitist attitude that had pervaded the Capital's clubland for years was gone, as a new breed of clubber came into being and turned the town upside and down.

Populist and addictive, clubs now thrived on a new energy that was electrifying. You would walk into joints and the music would be pounding away whilst the people stood on risers, chairs and tables and let off big time. In the prole parlance of the scene, a lot, and I mean a lot, got right on one matey and let loose some wild stories, that I now must relate.

A regular couple I knew from The Unity, a Greek guy and his English Rose of a gal, were caught by security guards, early one morning, loving it up in the Natural History museum toilets after a night on the pill.

A fellow DJ was offered a spot at a rave somewhere in the country and, for the first time, dropped an E, to get himself into the spirit of things, just as he reached the secret venue. He hung around the place for a bit and then went back to his car to collect his records. A search party found him an hour later in the back of his four wheeler, record sleeves scattered around him as he lay slumped, actually caressing his tunes and telling them how much he loved them up.

Again, in an after hours illegal joint, many of which had sprung up to cope with the demand for raving all night long, a fully E'd up guy, left the dancefloor in search of a leak. Stumbling into the urinals, he unzipped and commenced to relieve himself, until the screams and laughter of the people around him, informed him that he had not actually left the dancefloor and was now spraying those all around him. At that very club, another guy, eyeing up a particularly enticing Goddess, knelt down in front of her and requested that she spend the rest of her life with him. On receiving a stern refusal, as she played for the other team, he then started following her around on all fours, screaming, ‘I'm a love struck puppy for you, baby!' until a bouncer came in, picked him up and turfed him out.

Wild times, people, wild times, yet I have to add that this small white pill had other uses as well and made you realise why the powers that be have designated drugs as persona non gratis. Ecstasy not only threw a manic party but it brought with it a certain frame of mind that made people start to question everything around them. Not only relationships but how this country and the world operated, and that's when the greyers start getting nervous. Drink yourself stupid by all means because you'll only wake up with a hangover but start looking into the nature of things and that is the one thing the greyers can't handle.

As for me, myself and I, well, I had to put a brake on swallowing that magic pill for many reasons. To kick off with, it began interfering with my work and ruining all the best laid plans of my carefully constructed mixes. I would forget certain records or play the mix in completely the wrong order. Some nights, I was too boxed to cue the tune up correctly, or I would have to spend the whole night trying to resist the urge to leave my booth and shake it down with the rest of them on the dancefloor. Plus, no one had any true info on the long term affects and I certainly didn't want to carry on dropping until the judgement was in on that particular matter. I mean, it stood to reason that, such was the high it gave you, an experience which had some numbers dropping as many as five in a night, (‘five! I've done five!'} that there had to be a kickback which I didn't particularly want to stay around and meet.

This world is run on a balance and as that old saying goes, what go up must come down, and ain't that nothing but the truth. On the occasions that I went AWOL from this world, the big comedown happened and without fail. What's more, it wasn't always the following morning that you hit rock bottom, as you do with other relaxants, but, by and large, the shutters really came down days later as you were overwhelmed by feverish nightmares and a hefty dose of vicious insomnia which kept you up until the morning sun, swearing you would never touch it again.

Six months after it came to these shores, you started bumping into medical scare stories that told of paralysis of the spine or Parkinson's disease, accompanied by smug knowing expressions which lended even more credence to the scenario.

The other matter that bugged me out were the dealers you did business with, particularly those lonely, and for good reason, individuals who would engage you in conversation as part of the payment, when all you wanted to do was hand the cashola over and split.

The next night, sober as a Lord, the pusherman would spot you and make his way over to carry on the talk like you were bosom buddies, whilst you stood there looking for any chance to split. At the time, one of my main regrets was that Brother P. never enlisted in pill service. He wanted nothing to do with the chemical factor and was always quick to remind me that I too was once of this notion.

‘Yeah,' I would reply, ‘but we all change. Anyway, it's not like I'm addicted or anything. You should try it for the experience.'

‘Jesus,' he sneered, ‘you sound like Timothy Leary.'

Matters came to a head one night when I dropped a half down at The Unity and, taking a break from my booth, waltzed into the manager's office and belled him with the news that I really dug him and our link together. That very night, at about four in the morning, he showed up at my flat. I was still up, smoking and playing tunes.

‘Hey, P. come in.'

‘No, I won't. I just want to say that if you have anything to say to me, you say it without that shit in your body, fucking your head up. You understand me, boss?' Then he split into the night and I didn't hear from him until three days later, by which time I had resolved to ease off, and told him so, adding an apology.

‘Seen,' he said and, like the friend he is, never brought it up again. It was this bump, plus another incident, that I will now relate, which truly caused me to ease off.

I had arrived at The Unity for the nightshift one night and, in a slightly reckless mood for I had been dwelling on the Sandra business, checked in my tunes and proceeded to drop an E. J.J., my warm up man still had an hour to go and I figured that by the time I was due on, I would be over the rush that can buckle your knees and leave you speechless, and firin' up on all cylinders.

Swallowing the bitter pill, I made for a dark corner and, sure is sure, twenty minutes later it was lift off time and I was off, feeling groovy, spending the time just checking out the few dancers that had arrived and digging the scene as the music filled my head, and that warm glow suffused my body.

No one paid me any mind until I felt, once more, that magical surge of power and energy take a hold of me. I badly wanted to DJ, now that I was filled with an unstoppable enthusiasm, whose pull I could not resist, and an unquestionable belief that I was the best DJ around, and no one there was to touch me. I felt as if I was walking on the clouds as I made my way to the booth to start playing and, giving J.J. a brief hug, which caused a look of slight shock to cross his face, I pulled out a current fave and true classic, Frankie Knuckles's transcendental ‘Tears', and mixed it in, aiming to follow it up with Doug Lazy's ‘Let It Roll.'