A perfect storm...

For those that are new - the beginning...

The me-of-today rummages through the fucking drawer discarding bits of now all over the bed and floor.

It's gone.

Perhaps it was never here.

The picture was of Cecilia and me on a train, together holding up a hitching sign that read 'London or bust?'. Me green haired, her still blond. Had that been the day she had bought the pink dress?

But the photo is not here now.

And so, until I find it, you will have to believe my infatuation was truly worthy. When you read of her you should imagine the most beautiful creature in the world - for that's what she was to me. She was my perfect.

In those two girls I found everything. Claudia was funny, wise, worldly, crazy, eccentric, inspirational, optimistic and strong. I loved her like a big sister even though we were only a matter of months apart in age and I the older. I sensed she was more than me.

Cecilia offered me something exquisite though. As I cast aside all the qualities of myself that could be perceived as likable to the opposite sex, I now claimed her as the parts of me I would no longer need.

This love was perfection, for it would be never tainted by the physical.

I could adore her from both afar and near; admire her beauty and watch others watch her as they once watched me. I could hold her like a piece of delicious candy bait for all men that might have abused the prettier me and strike them down with venom and anger as they neared her. She knew her strengths. Paraded them. I was coming to know mine.

'Mum' screamed Claudia through the letter box, trying to be heard over the loud classical music that poured from the kitchen. 'Open the fucking door!'

The woman was average height with a little too much weight round her middle and brown bobbed hair. She dressed sensibly and surprisingly drably for the mother of these two girls. We pushed past her in a line. Claud first, then Ceci, then me.

'This is Claire.' Offered Claudia. 'She doesn't usually look this crap but some nigga just beat her up and she's lost some teeth.'

'Not whole teeth.' I grinned 'Just bits of them.'

'And she's getting a black eye so we need some ice.' Claud pushed Ceci onto the sofa in the kitchen. 'And some food for Ceci, cause she is taking shit loads of speed and not eating and she is practically anorexic. Aren't you Ceci?'

'I'm not hungry.' Said Ceci. Perfectly.

'Make her a burger or something.' Claudia smiled at her Mum but I couldn't place why. 'Or don't you give a shit that your model daughter is getting too fucked up to eat.'

'I'm off out.' said the oddest Mother in the world. 'I am sure that you will find everything you need. Bathe. Don't use all my fucking Radox though.' And then she mumbled something about the local Harvester restaurant before heading out the door.

'Well thank fuck for that.' Smiled Claudia. 'Let's cook and then jack up vodka and LSD.'

Excellent.

We found peas for my eyes and some nasty supermarket ready meals in the freezer for dinner. This house was a two storey mid-terrace. The ground floor comprised of a kitchen and family lounge, a formal lounge, a hall and a large cupboard under the stairs with a freezer. The upstairs had three bedrooms (two large, one small), a toilet and a bathroom. There could have been more but I don't remember.

Claudia and I hungrily ate the shitty processed meals with several rounds of buttered bread and marmite. Cecilia decided not to eat and instead went to bathe in her pink rubber dress and kill two cleaning birds with one bathing stone. After my meal I went to the bathroom to join her. She lay there in a mist of Radox bubbles, pink rubbery nice bits just emerging above the water line. Her hair held up in a messy knot, she washed the city grey from her skin and dress. I sat on the sink and watched.

'Don't fucking stare its rude.' She said. So I took a toothbrush from the cup by the sink and cleaned my teeth in the mirror, viewing her from there instead. How I loved her and what she was.

'Fucking asshole fucked up three of my teeth.' I surveyed the damage, aware that Yang Dog had joined us and was now feet to bath, drinking the bubbly water around my girl.

'Your dog's sick' she stood to get out 'You should take him to the RSPCA. To the vet.'

'Tomorrow.' I thought and said. Then I waited for her to leave before I undressed and jumped in the water. I lay there content and wrapped in thoughts of where she'd been. I thought of her and how cold the night air would be on my clean and homeless skin. Its a fact that you are warmer dirty when homeless.

'You look dumb clean' Said Claud. "I'm gunna smear shit all over you as soon as we get back on the street.'

I couldn't figure if I cared.

Laid out on the kitchen bench were three syringes of vodka. Beside the syringes were a spoon, a lighter, a cigarette and a small plastic bag tied in a knot containing black dust.

'Microdot cocktail anyone?' said the Claudster. And I joined her at the bench.

Microdot LSD usually came sealed inside a strip of sellotape. One dot per centimeter, ready to be cut off and sold to the curious. This however was a score indeed. A dealer that we knew had given us the bag in which he had stored the dots before they were sealed in tape and the bag now contained the dust that was left over.

'Who knows how much LSD is in this fucking baby!' Exclaimed Claud. Rightly proud of her trophy.

We sprinkled some of the dust, who knows how much of the fucking dust, into the curve of the spoon and then squeezed out some of the vodka to make a liquid soup.

'How long do we heat it for?' I asked.

'I don't fucking know.' She held the flame to the bottom of the metal 'Don't know anyone else that's injected microdots before.' The flame licked and made the liquid sizzle and spit 'Or Vodka for that matter. It's all a bit experimental. You can go first. If you die I will tell everyone that you died for the sake of humanity. To answer the important question of just what the fuck happens if you inject alcohol and non-injectable drugs in a cocktail. It's a worthy fucking cause.'

I ripped off a small piece of the cigarette filter and dipped it in the liquid. Stuck the point of a needle onto this pad and pulled the plunger back to the half way point.

'That should do it.' I surmised. What it should do though would be anyone's guess. My experience of injecting drugs was as great as Claudia's. Fuck all. We had tried that time in the dealers apartment, sticking needle after needle after needle in our speckled arms but never successfully found a vein. That day we had eventually resorted to drinking the syringe contents and I predicted that today would end with similar success. At least I hoped. You couldn't get too fucked up drinking blood clots and crap could you?

Claudia switched on the television. The horror film Carrie had just started and Ceci curled up pink and delicious on the sofa whilst I perched beside her with the old school tie pulled tight around my upper arm. In shock I watched the red flood back in the barrel of the syringe and spill into the clear of its contents. 'I got a fucking vein!' I exclaimed. Both shocked and annoyed.

It burned.

Not a little but a lot. I put pressure on the plunger and squeezed just a small amount of the liquid to test if it would burn too much.

It burned a lot. But one big breath and a 'Who gives a fuck later' and I was left pulling the empty needle from my arm.

'Anything?' Asked Claud, as she joined us in front of the telly.

I searched my brain for impending somethings. My vision for colours or twists.

'Oh.' The floor length curtain that hung behind the telly blew inwards a little too much and spoke of a change.

'Claire?' said Claudia, syringe in one hand and the other waving in my field of vision 'Do we have a green light to go?'

But I couldn't articulate another word until they joined me on this plane of drugs and then the words were senseless. Beautiful, but senseless.

I am aware of the white of snow falling softly around me. Powder white puffs that smell like babies settling then shifting then settling again. Cecilia moves around the room shaking the white and making me love her. I think again of her perfection. No one will fuck her up. She's safe now in this little world of ours. I think of teeth and then back to snow again. Of pink, of her, of the drifting white that comes in droves and shakes and makes me cough and wonder. The girl on the television becomes splashed with red and looks as beautiful as my girl wrapped in pink. Claudia fetches more potions from the bathroom and blows Radox bubbles to dance with the white. We are happy here.

I could have stayed forever, but this reality was not for us as it was not for Claudia and momentarily she leads my world.

That evening we share laughter and tears and occasional fears and we seal this friendship and I build a family.

In my head I build us stronger.

I build my tender red.

Mine?

For those that are new - the beginning...


Six months later and I have new fucking friends and together we roar.

Claudia and I are now so close I dream her family.

This new girl that stands before me though, Claud's sister, could be so dangerous as to destroy me. I think her perfect in every way. She is a model. Tall, slim, blond, pale, yet dangerous. I saw it on the first day that we met. Her name is Cecilia. She will bring new colour to my world

I am sat on the floor of the tiled subway that leads to Piccadilly Underground station. Claudia is beside me and together we draw vodka from the bottle into the syringes, which we then cap and throw to one side. Cecilia wears a pink rubber dress with a flower in her hair and she stands before us, smiles at the passers by, and makes them wonder. For they no longer wonder about me. This is London and the unexpected is harder to find. Yang Dog is stretched out on a dirty jacket. He is panting, his breathing laboured and panicky. He leans his head backwards and with an awkward flex vomits.

'Your dog just puked on Sydney's coat.' Pointed out Claudia as she filled the last syringe. 'You can wear it now.'

I watched as a man entranced with Ceci's beauty walked past and turned his head to see some more.

"You couldn't fucking afford it you wanker.' I called out, then poked my tongue. Not his.

Mine?

Then I patted Yang Dog, promised we would get him to a vet soon and lifted him off the jacket.

The jacket said 'Fuck Politics Lets Party' in painted letters on the back and 'My dog ain't well' in vomit on the front.

'What that jacket needs.' Smiled Claud, 'Is some shock value.' Then she stood up and stuck a syringe through a button hole on the front.

'What Myra fucking Hyndley needs...' I retorted, referring to her T-shirt, 'Is this...' and I spat a huge green glob out my mouth and onto the face of the child killer.

'Fuck Myra weren't nothing. Brady's the man.' She laughed, pulling out her T-shirt front and examining the sticky mess. Then she spat her own green right in the middle of Brady's face.

Still Ceci smiled and posed and people stared, sometimes at her, but sometimes at us with disgust on their faces, just as we hoped.

'Time to go.' Claud offered, so we gathered up our things and headed for the tube barriers. It was a matter of timing. You had two choices. The first was to push behind someone with a valid ticket and force your way through the electronic barrier. The second was to lie on the ground and slide underneath it. To the disappointment of the crowds, Ceci chose the former and Claud, Yang Dog and I the latter. Yang was not well though. I wondered if he would die.

The Northern Line train rattled and jumped its way to Angel Islington tube. Claud and I knelt on the floor smearing the black sooty dirt that filed the wooden grooves onto each others faces and arms.

'You're fucking filthy.' She astutely observed as she spat on a finger and wrote the word 'Fuck' in the dirt on my forehead.

'Like your Mum?' I laughed back. But I was entranced by Cecilia again who now sat twisting her long white hair around a finger. Then I noticed the boy. A group of black teenagers were moving up the train and making a line for Ceci. I watched. Waited. Looked up at them and at her from the floor.

'What's your name girl?' Said the boy that stopped before her.

Ceci didn't answer. She looked at Claudia and I and we stood in preparation for what might come.

'Fancy coming out with us?' He asked. Still not aware that she was ours.

Mine?

I couldn't bear it. 'That's my fucking little sister. Leave her alone. She's only 14.' I lied about the relationship but not the age.

The rest of his group laughed at the sight of Claud and I but the boy at the front did not. He just stared. Mostly at Ceci, but sometimes at us.

'She look like a whore.' He turned and kept his gaze fast on me now, 'What your Mum let her dress like that for? She gunna get raped.'

I moved a little closer. Me. The syringe. The dog vomit. Yang Dog strained on his string a little but was mostly too sick to care.

'Leave, my sister, the fuck, alone!' Then there was complete silence on the train for a second before the two of us flew at each other and his fist landed firmly on my teeth. I can't describe the fight, I can't tell it true, because I now remember little more than spitting out bits of teeth in the police station interview room shortly after.

'What's your name love?' Asked the uniformed man with more smile than we deserved.

Ceci sits sexily posed on a plastic chair, Claudia smokes a cigarette given to her by the police officer and I have a moment of perfect realisation. This life is starting to become something I can never turn back from. This girl that I see today in the Police Station mirror, her scars are moving from the inside to the out. The fragments of white, broken bits of me that now lay in puddles of dribble and blood in my filthy palm - they are to be the first permanence of this evolution. I am no longer the Claire I was before.

Claudia thumbed the discarded ticket, a Cheapday return, before looking up and smiling thick.

'She's Cheapday. Cookie Cheapday.' And with the twist of the end of a word, Cookie Cheapdate was born.

Continued...

Of the middle...

'Just wait a moment whilst I set up the camera.'

Withdrawal twitched my veins.

The room contained a white board and two uncomfortable chairs. Bruce sat in one with a camera in his hand and gestured me the other.

So I sat.

'Right. Camera's rolling. Say your name, your age, then tell us a bit about you. Anything you want. Just try to stay looking at the lens.'

I smile.

'I'm Claire. I'm twenty...six. I'm a junkie. A homeless junkie.'

I smile at Bruce and not at the lens.

'I'm a junkie with aspirations. I am fascinated with serial killers. I want to be one, I visit their houses. Interview their neighbours. I can quote verbatim, every word of the poetry of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. I write to Myra Hindley. Shoot the shit with her. I am borderline dangerous. I hate men. I want to kill them, cut them up and watch their corpses rot. I am working towards this goal but its difficult because I hate the smell of rotting meat. I am vegetarian you see. I have practiced with pig's heads from the Dalston meat market, but I vomit. I have a feeling that I will manage better with human corpses. After all, I don't want to eat the pigs.'

I wipe the black of a dirty hand across my mouth and feel the abscess pop.

'What else do you want to know?'

Continued...

BLOG THE SECOND - BEGINS...

SHHH. TYPING.

SHE IS CHEAPDATE

HEAR HER ROAR.

Continued...



BLOG ONE