I remember that Steven has a ferry booked at 10pm tonight back to Dublin and so I’m wondering if he made it to Holyhead. I left him around 3pm at Lime St station on the platform bound for Chester. He was heading back to Codonnelly or something like that, I asked him to spell it for me but he doesn’t read or write much and tells me he’s been in a man’s centre for the past 8 weeks. The ‘man’s centre’, his words not mine, is on Sheil Road in Liverpool and he was trying to get back to Ireland to be with his kids he says.
Steven is in a wheelchair because he has one leg. I caught ear of a conversation he was having with a police officer after I bid a friend farewell at Lime st station. His accent was thick, he sounded gypsy barely intelligible. It was Southern Irish I later learnt, wherein Southern Ireland I don’t know because I couldn’t get him to spell it and neither could I make out what he was saying.
You see the man’s centre he was referring to was the Men’s Centre, Google says it’s a homeless shelter where he was probably drying out in. He mentioned how strict it was for phone calls and Jesus this, Jesus that, whilst pulling out his Bible for kids from down his pants. He tells me he’s learning to read scriptures and I’m happy for him temporarily. He also told me, he once injected wall paper paste into his groin by mistake thinking it was heroin, he reckons someone was trying to kill him.
The police man found out where he needs to go and I offer to take him down to platform in the lift. It strikes me just how vulnerable he is, it gripped me. He has tattoos over his hands and neck and shook my hand twice. A sorry state, his wheelchair was battery operated flashing red, his crutches balancing on his lap and belongings in a clear bag.
Well that was Steven, hope he got to Holyhead and is boarding his ferry tonight. When I emerged from underground the air was so still in Liverpool I had to admire it a while. The sky had been blue all day and the sun was setting behind the city tower as I sat in front of St Georges Hall taking a minute silence.
I have made it, I thought to myself.
I start walking but a man in a wheelchair catches my eye as he’s joined by another man walking on tip toes. If you are a addict, walking on tip toes seems to be a tell tale sign, there’s a nervous excitement in their gait that only an addict gets on their way to score.
I follow them.
It wasn’t Steven but another one legged man. His companion had a perfect bald patch taking up about 5/6 of his head and then long hair growing out of the other1/6 of his head. It wasn’t the baldness so much that stuck me but the age of them, younger than me I thought as I continued to follow them. They stop out side the Everyman theatre and stop to talk to another group of zombie looking men. Another tell tale sign of an addict is a loud voice, they shout. There is a man who walks on tip toes and shouts “Ay, y’alright girl?” at me on my street.
The men I’m following pass through the loose group of about 5 or 6 men, its clear the man in the wheelchair’s reputation exceeds him and something bad occurred in the recent past because they all eagerly shout to one another.
“What drugs you do?” he is being asked.
“Im never doing that again” replied wheelchair.
“whatcha do”?
“Chem, spice chem.”
Google said it’s a synthetic cannabinoid. The young boys all looked hooked, it was hard to look in their eyes, very disturbing to see the youth in their stained tracksuits and grey coloured faces. So I sit on a bench and listen in on them, half the group continue on up London Rd with the man in the wheelchair. One boy, shifting from one foot to another grips me, he is in his twenties. I have lived in Liverpool for almost 20 years and have learnt to ignore men like this, but I can’t today, nor can I do anything about it, I get angry, (which means I’m sad).
So I just sit and look on at St Georges Hall with its huge banners and poppies laid. The indefatigable compulsion to remember those who died only made me determined not to forget those who are alive and suffering still.
For Steve.
I’d gotten completely lost in the stillness of the air, remembering Steve and the faces of those boys. The indefatigable stories I’d heard and the frightening effects of addiction. Lest we forget the fallen soldiers I’m told while I’m haunted by the walking and wheeling dead. I made it home in time for dusk to walk in the graveyard where I feel safer and my favourite dead
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