BOY
One night, I reached the centre of town
It was like discovering a whole unknown tribe
People awake at night
Like me
Going about their business in the middle of the night as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world
While everyone I knew was asleep in bed
All the rules were turned upside-down
Drink, drugs, visions and sex were everyone’s serious business
While the business buildings, the government offices, the gallery, the museum, slept like dark forgotten giants
There were lit up places floating like boats on the city darkness, and in them were pirates and ruffians, girls with smudged eyes and bare flesh, drinkers staring down into wells of alcohol, fat hairy men in black leather, women in bowler hats, people with cigarette holders and rings on their fingers
It was like seeing through the skin of the city down into where it had always been like this, century upon century
It was like seeing the hidden life now visible and glowing, everyone decked out as the self of their dreams
I didn’t know who I might see lining up to the bar
Christopher Marlowe
The Queen of Sheba
I’d never seen a floor with so much dirt on it, the dirt of centuries
Fag-ends in drifts
Grit piling up against the skirting boards
And people slopping drinks as they passed, calling to each other across the noise
The air was at saturation point with alcohol, smoke and sweat
The place felt ready to burst into flame
It was here
Whatever would make me real
I was in the room with the animal
I could see its rolling eye, its velvet mouth, its foam-flecked shoulder, its huge flank
I could feel the heavy stumbling of its hooves in the straw
I loved it