CRACK HOUSE ON FOX HILL (2000-2001)

After three years of Leicester, I finally got it together enough to move to my sister's in Bath. She had a good job at the time in publishing and I thought maybe she could help hook me up with something. Besides, after visiting the place on and off for a couple of years, I was falling for its Regency charms.

My sister had insisted in advance that staying at hers would be strictly for as long as it took me to find work and digs and I assured her that I would want to get out of her hair pretty quickly also. Her wrath, when aroused, could be a downright scary thing, and her spare room was already fit to bursting with her boyfriend's records and decks and Star Wars figurines.

My mum and step-dad drove me down with my stuff. We were starting afresh after not talking for over a year due to a letter I had written and posted, whilst on acid, in which I had formally resigned from being her son. 

I had had my reasons. 

Helping me move was a goodwill gesture and I was a happy beneficiary, free at last from the smoking factory chimneys and chav bars of the East Midlands.

My first job was a non-starter: freelance travel writer for some internet start-up that folded in its first month. Then an agency called me with a two-week booking answering the telephone and giving some spiel at a mortgage brokers. I said yes.

The weekend before I started, one of my sister's ne'er-do-well friends- Mad Rachel- talked me into bleaching the grade three haircut I had been giving myself ever since getting hold of some clippers. It would make me look more distinctive, she said. But everywhere I went, strangers would point and grin, saying "Fucking hell, it's Eminem!"

* * *

The first morning of my mortgage job, I was shown up to the enormous open-plan goldfish bowl office of the mortgage brokers by one of the case handlers, who turned me over to the MD who chained me to a desk not far from his. As he gave me my brief, I was aware of being the focus of most of the staff's attention.

"What's Eminem doing here?" I heard one say.

I sighed. It would be a long two weeks.

The MD filled me in. Management buyout. Hadn't trained sufficient staff to handle the calls. Wanted me to take a few details. Tell them I wasn't advising, but Halifax had the best rate and if they wanted to look at it I'd get something in the post. Nothing too strenuous. Not after ringing up harrased IT managers for eighteen months and trying to engage them in a chat about floodwiring.

Turned out the MD was listening in on my calls. Soon the Sales Manager took an interest, then the Sales Director. Within three days they had asked me into a private meeting.

"How is it that someone with your obvious abilities is temping?" the MD asked.

"I've just moved here," I said.

"Would you be interested in something permanent?" the Sales Director said.

"It's good for morale- having Eminem on the team," the Sales Manager said, chuckling.

"Sure. Why not," I said. It would get me out from my sister's.

* * *

The interview was a joke. The Sales Manager leaned back in his chair with his arms behind his head and his feet on the table.

"Yeah yeah. That's cool. That's cool," he said. "We reckon you could sell ice to the Eskimos."

"Innuit," I said.

"Sorry?"

"I said 'I know it'"." (I didn't want him to twig at this stage that I was a smart arse.)

"Just one last question," he said. "It's a formality, really. I don't suppose you've any dodgy credit history? Unpaid bills? That sort of thing."

I told him I'd need a pen and some paper. A4 size.

They got back to me the next day with a printout from Experian. No record of my defaults, which was a real surprise.

"But we can't have you giving financial advice, I'm afraid," said the SD. "Company rules."

"Instead we'd like to offer you a marketing position," said the MD. "Execution only. You chase up the leads the advisors aren't interested in."

I said ok. What else could I do?

* * *

My sister was delighted and so was her boyfriend. Finally, he'd have room to display his Death Star. I bought some shirts from Marks & Sparks and threw myself into house-hunting.

I hadn't thrown myself very long or far (just to the nearest pub) when my friend Orange said there was probably a room going at the house he was staying at.

"How do you mean- probably?" I asked.

"Well, it's the landlord's room but he says he's moving out."

"Sounds good. When can I see it?"

By divine providence, the landlord was in the same pub at the time. Which shows even divine providence can be a crock of shit.

His name was Barry. He was a chubby and cheerful black guy who spoke with a strong West Country burr and worked as Art Director for an aviation magazine. He grinned and grinned, clapping his arm around my shoulder and saying "Welcome to my home. We're one big happy family, isn't that right Orange?"

"Err. Yeah," said Orange. "I'm just going to the bar."

* * *

The next day found me in front of Barry's poky semi on Foxhill, ringing the doorbell while my sister's boyfriend waited in his car with my stuff.

The door was answered by a mouth-breathing gangly youth with a vacant look about him.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Rick."

"Right..?"

"I'm moving in."

"Are you?"

"Yes. I spoke to Barry earlier."

"Oh. He's not in."

"Yeah, I know he's not. I phoned him. He said someone would be at home."

"Oh. Right."

He stood in the doorway shuffling from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do next.

"So can I come in?" I asked.

"Oh. yeah. Right. Sure."

He stepped aside.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Alan."

"Nice to meet you, Alan. So- where's the room?"

"What room?"

"To put my stuff in."

"Err." His glaze blanked over.

"Okay, tell you what. I'll put it in the kitchen till Barry gets back."

It wasn't until I had finished stacking everything in the kitchen that I noticed something odd about its ceiling. Specifically, a huge gaping hole with the bottom of a bath poking through. I told myself that living here was going to be strictly short-term.

Around six, Orange showed up.

"What's going on with the bath?" I asked.

"Yeah, Barry says he's getting it fixed," he replied.

"Which room's mine? I haven't been upstairs yet."

"Okay, I'll show you."

As we climbed the stairs, Orange said, "Now, technically the room's yours but Barry hasn't moved his stuff out yet. He's still looking for accommodation."

"So where's he going to sleep?"

"Dunno. Sofa probably. You'll have to ask him."

"How are you finding it here, Orange?" I asked.

"Oh, it's okay. Barry's cool. Just one thing I didn't mention."

"What's that?"

"Well, Barry's a great guy. Just one detail I forgot to tell you."

"Which is?"

"Well..."

We were in the room by now and Orange lowered his voice so that Alan, downstairs, wouldn't hear. "He's got a massive problem with crack cocaine."

"Oh. Great."

* * *

About eight, Barry got back. I was sat in the living room with Orange and Alan, watching Eastenders or some such crap, when he walked in.

"Alan!" he shouted. "Why's the washing up not done?"

"Oh right. Sorry," Alan said, cringing as he slunk off to the kitchen.

"Rick!" he beamed. "You moved in all right?"

"Yeah. Well, my stuff's in the kitchen."

"Right."

"I didn't know where to put it. There's all your stuff in the wardrobe and cupboards."

"Only temporary." He flopped down on the sofa. "Soon be on the move. I can clear some space."

"Okay, that's cool," I said.

"In the meantime, I'll crash on the sofa at night. Is that okay with you two?"

"Sounds fine by me," I said.

"Sure," said Orange, nodding his assent.

"Alan!" shouted Barry out to the kitchen. "Make us all a cup of tea!"

Turning to us, he gave a conspiratorial aside. "Nice lad, but a bit dim."

I asked what Alan's story was. Barry told me he had found him sleeping rough, a situation he had been in for three years since running away from a foster home. He has spent some time on the streets of London before hitch-hiking to Bath, hoping to meet up with an old friend of his. Only trouble was that he didn't have his friend's address and hadn't run into him, so he had ended up alternating between sleeping in a homeless shelter and under a railway arch, which was where Barry had spotted him.

"He's just a kid," Barry explained. "I didn't want him getting mixed up in drugs or anything, so I took him in."

"That's a kind thing to do," I said.

"Sometimes, mateys, you gotta do the right thing. Incidentally, you don't have your rent money on you by any chance?"

"Sure."

"Only I've a friend coming round I owe some to, and I'm a bit short myself at the moment."

"No problem."

"Alan!" roared Barry. "Where's this cup of tea then?"

* * *

At half nine, the doorbell rang.

"Right, that's my mate. Alan- go to your room."

Alan got up and left for his room- if that's what you can call the cupboard under the stairs that houses the electricity meters. Barry opened the front door and showed his guest in.

"This is Zee," he said.

"Hi Zee," I said.

Zee grunted and sank into the armchair, where he sat moodily picking his teeth.

Barry said, "Look, guys, I've got something personal I want to talk to Zee about. Do you think you could go upstairs for a bit?"

Orange and I got up and left.

* * *

In his room, I asked Orange about Zee.

"Jamaican yardie. Barry's dealer. Only we're not supposed to know," Orange said as he mixed two house tunes together.

"I didn't get a good vibe off him."

"No-one ever does."

About five minutes later, Barry was knocking on the door. I let him in. He was carrying a crack pipe.

"Look, here's the story," he said. "Zee has offered to give us a rock each for free."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah. Good of him, right?"

"I guess."

"So, just one house rule. Alan's not to know about any of this. Nor anyone else in town. I've a reputation to keep."

"Your secret is my secret," I said.

"No worries," said Orange.

"Good," said Barry, fiddling with the pipe. "And as a little house warming, I want you to have first lick."

* * *

The mechanics of crack are that it's instantly addictive, but for that night only. You can go to bed and forget about it the next day- if you can go to bed. Its nature means that as soon as you exhale it, you're wanting another hit. You watch the pipe being passed around, wondering irritably when and if you're going to get another toot.

Zee's free stone was nothing of the sort. As soon as it was gone we pooled our cash and gave it to Barry to go down and get more. And when that was gone we were ordering a taxi to drive us down to the cash point.

* * *

The next evening, as I painfully climbed the three uphill miles from work to Foxhill because I didn't have the bus fare home, I meditated on my financial foolishness the night before.

It was some mantra.

* * *

Life at Barry's was pretty surreal. His brother was a respected drum & bass DJ and producer who never visited. Instead, his brother's ex-girlfriend came round twice a week to make sure we were all eating properly. Barry would cook jerk chicken, which we'd have with red wine out in the garden.

Twice a week also, Zee would pay a visit which he spent sat watching TV and communicating in grunts while Alan was banished to his cupboard and the rest of us to Orange's room. Various friends would visit on these evenings until it became a regular full-blown crack session.

Now, I'm a sober, respectable and upstanding guy and what had started as a novelty was quickly becoming a royal pain. My walks up the hill had developed a depressing regularity that the stunning scenery did little to dispel. Particularly with Foxhill as my destination.

The house Barry was moving to fell through and soon all talk of him moving out was a memory. What didn't fall through, thankfully, was the bath in the kitchen ceiling- although its angle had shifted alarmingly over time. Water collected in the far end from the plughole and only the brave or foolhardy would countenance anything more than the briefest of showers in it.

Alan got a job at KFC which made Barry happy as it meant more money for rocks. Then he lost it due to incompetence, which sent Barry wild.

He had been taking more and more time off from his job at the aviation magazine- justifying it at first by saying he had a great team under him and they could all cope on their own now and then, that things were flying high. When he got a final warning, however, it was clear that his autopilot had been knocked out. He was now entering a terminal descent phase.

I had problems of my own at the mortgage brokers. They thought I was a right weirdo.

"Some of the advisors think you're a right weirdo," laughed the Sales Director in a private room. "Not me of course. Ha ha."

"I'm just different is all. I'm not so money-motivated," I said.

"So what the bloody hell are you doing working at a mortgage brokers, then?"

He had a point. All the directors of the company- the ones who had bought it out- were worth over ten million pounds each. The Chairman was worth a staggering 140 million, made by taking a cut from the investments of others. Weapons and oil stocks mostly.

The guilt he felt from this, together with his relaxed schedule, gave him the time and moral incentive to get into green campaigning. Together with Greenpeace, he set up the Stop Esso campaign (Exxon Mobil in the US), which was ironic because there was an Esso garage right next door to the office where most of the staff filled up on sandwiches and petrol.

I sent him an email congratulating him on his Stop Esso venture. I said I thought it was a great idea. I said I had signed the petition (I didn't have a car, so it was no great shakes). I said I was proud to be working for someone with morals. I suppose he could afford them.

After that, he made a point of coming over to my desk pretty regularly for a chat about green issues or organic farming, something that didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the staff. I covered my space with anarchist slogans and peace signs. I installed an Eminem screensaver. Fuck it.

My direct marketing campaign was beginning to go very well. I chased and chased and chased even the smallest lead, practically guaranteeing they would sign. We didn't charge them. It could only save them money. We knew the best deals at any given time. The bank (whichever was flavour of the week) got a new customer, we got 250 quid from the bank.

Then mutters of discontent from the advisors reached my ears. They wanted to know what the bloody hell I was doing to convert so many leads.

It was simple really. I was just calling people back. The advisors, by contrast, were so lazy and money-grubbing that they wouldn't bother shifting for anything less than a million pound mortgage. They'd send the pack and that would be that. The pack would hang around the prospect's in-tray or mantelpiece for a week or so before being chucked in the trash. That's how it is. I followed up each and every one of my leads and got a success rate double that of almost all of the advisors. It wasn't hard to see what was coming.

Rates settled down. It became unfashionable to switch mortgages- far better to settle into a long-term fixed rate. Calls into the company started drying up.

There was a big meeting to which I wasn't invited where the advisors demanded all the leads I was working on.

"Sorry Rick," said the Marketing Manager. "It's above my head."

"I understand that."

"Also, as we were building towards a three month pipeline and the project has been pulled after eleven weeks, I'm afraid we can't give you any commission for the leads you've generated."

This is how directors get to be so rich, I suppose. Crapping on the little guy.

I got given a new role as Buy-To-Let Assistant to a guy who didn't want or need my assistance. He preferred to be stressed out on his own.

I was told to just sit at my desk and keep myself busy. It was about then that I developed my surfing habit. I learnt about the NWO, the Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and Schnews and grassroots activism. I ended up going on a march to the G8 conference in Genoa. I felt I was doing my bit. Meanwhile, the advisors were all busy whingeing about having all these shitty leads to chase. Some people are never happy.

* * *

One night I got home to find Alan alone in the house, in the living room, in the dark.

"Hi Alan. Why's it so dark?"

Alan looked startled by the revelation that it was, indeed, dark.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It happened so slowly I didn't really notice."

He looked lost. I turned on the lights. Then I turned on the TV.

"Yeah, right," he said. "That's better."

Soon after Barry got home. He looked both furious and scared, which is no mean feat.

"Sorry mateys. The house is being repossessed," he blurted out.

It turned out he had been spending the mortgage money on crack.

"And I've been fired."

He started to say something else, but the sound was obliterated by the most almighty crash from the direction of the kitchen. The ceiling had finally given way under the weight of the bath and the gallons of water in it that nobody had bothered to bale out.

Barry shuffled out of the living room in a daze, Alan and I following behind.

Plaster and wrecked building materials lay everywhere and dust fell thickly through the gaping hole. now kitchen-sized. Water was pissing a cascade down the wall.

Barry didn't say anything. He seemed to have lost the capacity for words. I broke the silence.

"The latest in open plan living, eh?" I said.

"Does this mean I have to move out?" asked Alan.