Squatting for Compliments

By Mark Hendy

A reflection on a generation torn between having fun/staying young, and knowing they should grow up and be responsible.

Both a distorted sub-culture tale about settling down, and a disturbing vision of a society that penalises diversity, Squatting for Compliments is original and intriguing. An energetic, ambitious and galvanising read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Hendy
• Release date: Apr 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311508751

Mark Hendy

I'm originally from Devon but I live in Barcelona at the moment. I work as a freelance copywriter. I am currently trying to grow up and be responsible.

Book preview

Squatting for Compliments

By Mark Hendy

Copyright 2015 Mark Hendy

Smashwords Edition

Contents

1. My Last Day on Earth

2. Squatting for Compliments

3. German Ibuprofen

4. Whaling with Vladimir Putin

5. Jeffrey Archer’s House

6. Advert for TESCO

7. Doggubbins

8. Aliens Landed in the Night

9. Pictures of Naomi Campbell

10. Richie Cunningham

11. Halal and Antihistamines

12. Fucking Hipsters and Beatniks

13. I am Deaf

14. Sony Doo-Dah

15. Apple vs Google Nuclear Anus War

16. Blobs

17. Sarah’s Vagina

18. A Crack in the M25

19. The End of the World

20. Blue Waffle

21. Unruly Homosexual Feelings

22. Tie Ski Whiff

23. The End

1. My Last Day on Earth

I’m pretty sure I’m going to die soon. I present to you – a way out. Maybe we could reminisce when this is all over and share photos and memories. Perhaps a tea cake, or two. A road trip with no end in sight, or a loving touch – a phone call. I have much to share – much to give I am told.

I have lost the structure I once had and now spend days wandering the streets, searching for a mighty purpose and cruising for kicks. The underground is just so, full of seedy business types in pin stripe, and malevolent scallies – faces blurred and cultures mix. I stand. I always stand. Why would I do otherwise – these people are fools to me.

My dwelling, my abode is fallen. A once proud public house on a violent corner, it keeps me safe and warm for now, but is not a place I regard as home. My movements are such that the idea of home is no longer valid. A distant apology – the desire to dream has disappeared. Alongside my damaged goods, my mind is shattered most of the time and my jokes of days breaking me are actually not jokes at all.

Sickness has been and gone, comes and goes as much as it does. It no longer irritates, displeases. It is a welcome change from the standard sights of toast, flooring. Accolades lay around, there’s little time for longing here. How I ever loved is beyond. So many searches that have left me here. My mind is tingly – just enough to upset. Just enough for me to feel like a fool.

There’re idiots on the corner. The screams the night before led me to call the pigs. Vans came, and 3 cars. All was done, they dusted. The men and one woman (from what I could make out) made the noise stop for a bit. But the problems remained. I played it cool and listened to Scott 3. The one before the one you’re meant to.

I sit in the morning with the light on my face, trickles of scenery, hints at the beginning of weather, temperatures. But never a real reflection of the day outside. It tricks me into thinking certain things.

Reasons I go over in my head. Reasons over and over again for why this is happening and these people are thinking these things. They must be mad.

I want to live your life. I think I want to be you.

Well, we’ll soon grow tired; tired of each other, tired of this life.

These words are not a diary, the people who read it should not worry. Yes, I fell deep, and yes in many respects, the doors are locked from the outside. But there is a control here that we can grasp back. There may be no master plan, but I am confident that we sail together.

Something like stormy seas, as we tether this one. We could be in the eye. Another set of questions, accusations and what ifs. Perhaps if you stop to look past the manipulation for a tiny while, you will slowly come face to face with some kind of primal truth.

We find ourselves awkwardly looking to the future with a growing arrogance, and the times we have felt bad are slowly becoming memories with which we tinker. Everyone deserves a voice it is said, and there are many that we relate to. This is no longer a beginning, or an end. It’s just a position, the times in which we reluctantly have become a part of. We’re too far in to be able to stop and we’re too far from our goals to be able to reach further. In many ways, this is the worst place to be.

The boss came to visit. He’s ready to take things further, as am I. We don’t know where we’re going - accept some things laid out in front, but whatever happens, I am sure that things will coast. Times and dates are noted. We Project and forecast well. We can’t be expected to raise a finger for this paltry sum. But the money, it keeps on coming.

I wake up early today. The night before was a messy one. My neighbours played foreign pop with gay abandon and I heard random shrieks and happiness in a language I did not recognise. I have earplugs, I used them. The dull thud of bass was awful present; I even heard the high hat up on the bridge.

Put out before me this morning is a list of things I just retrieve, adequately complete before another day comes round tomorrow. There is a plan on the horizon, and that plan is to relocate. Change everything for the sake of children. Bill Drummond, and stupid animals that make you feel better when you pet them.

So with this haunting flair, I am set to go. Eager to change court with the naughty boys from the old guard. I’d like to see what happens when you stop on the lights, turn and direct the shields away from the men, the coats they wear are yellow and luminous. I imagine they’re wed, or need some lovin’ sometimes. It’s sulky and dim, I want to see what happens when the veins in the neck have nowhere left to go. The bag on the head, and all that stuff. I tremble as I look forward and ponder on all the nice possibilities, make a side-step around those that feel troubling. For there will be many bad times but this is something I am prepared for.

My work is done. I crawl out of my pit at an ungodly hour and make my way to the trail to the office. I work in tandem with a hotch-potch of faces – all eager to dismiss their own futures and settle for less. I mock them gently and then make amends at lunchtime. I work, such as it is, for a Government agency. This is what I tell the folk that care to ask. I am a post boy, sniveling round the depot in the early hours before the proper drones begin their day. I sort and shovel through the letters and forge documentations sent through – blimey - I think, every day. Bruce leads us. It’s always been this way and that is fine. He is old - much older than me, and I fear for him.

The place in which I live has no living quarters, and the sleep I try to attain is taken in the same messy box in which I eat my food and entertain my girls. Without this easy distraction, I know not what I would become.

After the clock strikes eleven in the morn and we have finished our tasks, I break for a cigarette. I often have two, and banter with the women – they love it. I drag my frame across the car park and into town and this is where I spend the rest of my afternoons (often). Sneering into shop windows and making light with my awkward phone. Messages will come in and I will answer them appropriately, sometimes meeting my friend Raj. We go down to the Holloway Road and sit in a café for people from New Zealand. We talk of our day so far and what the next could bring.

Our trades are not yet our own. We are apart - this thing we have is sometimes wrong (this is wholly untrue). He knows all about it. With the onset of incense, he leaves and argues with Essex dogs. He shines and makes invites seem pretty easy. He will ask me to come, to meet others and sometimes I do but often I will not, choosing to remain seated, or go back home and try to be artful. Endless are the sketches in my head and mirrored, the pages on which I draw.

I have time on my hands; I bumble, I stumble. I fall back into my safe house – it’s equally messy and I set my own world alight. No one else gets it and that is fine. My sketches sometimes make it, but this is private – a secret. If anyone wants more, they can take it up with the management, but there’s no compliance. My work will sit staid, and I will continue to grip onto my sanity with all I have, and all I have is her.

The night time comes at five these days – sometimes before. I exhaust my options fast and speed hard on the underground ‘til Kings Cross. I stop and change to the black one, and realign at Angel. I pop out of the beeps, thralls of revelers and men with clean shirts and haircuts talk and sniff around young girls. Lines of charity shops look dead, and people give others ideas on cards.

My evening is not planned and I have no problem. I walk past the Club and pontificate, see them familiar faces – many. I nod and rinse forward, walking the passage. The bar ahead already looks exciting. I go in briefly, cheers as goals are won. J Mac calls me over and I offer my hand. We’re up to what – we share a beer and I smoke 3 cigarettes. He tells me his news, it’s interesting to me.

A man I am supposing he knows enters the space and thumps J Mac on the back, saying something funny about the game. He leaves and Jay guffaws, shaking his head and making a face. I will not stay here longer than an hour. He suggests a film and points across the road – the crew are away, it’s a good idea I tell him. But I have other plans. I want to get laid and my girl is waiting for me across town.

I walk with stale breath and a sweaty head onto the Caledonian Road and find my footing to the door of the new beau. I’ve fucked her once before. We don’t get on, but that’s fine by me. I don’t stop to think - apart from the desire I have - there is little I can offer. Some filthy gin in my belly, and my mouth engages nonsense. It’s playful, this state.

I text, then enter, grabbing some drink from the downstairs pantry. She grumbles that it’s late, my arrival a shock, I’ve ruined her night. I dismiss these words and grab her, following her up to her smelly room.

After sex, she gives me gin and we watch a film on her bed. I stare at my reflection instead of the film, looking past the screen and back onto us.

Do you love me?

Not really. She frowns and flicks ash on the floor.

You’re a sad girl. I switch the film to music and we listen to Vaughan Williams as the night enters into another day. I trance out on this crap.

I try to leave but I am stopped. We talk for a while and my belly begins to ache with mischief. What will become of us?

If we were to marry, we would be happy.

Will you lounge around smoking, drawing - and writing profound thoughts all day? I’d bring you tea and rub your shoulders. It’ll be grand.

I’ll catch your eye, and it will make me angry.

I’ll become distant and feel alienated by your work. I’ll start to resent your Remington. You’ll start to hate me for distracting you and you’ll become waifish, refusing to eat the onion soup I so lovingly prepared.

I will become aware of your mood and pretend for a while that everything is fine but I will know that things are not like they used to be. I will act inappropriately.

I will call you a philanderer and throw cups at your head and suspect your every move. We’ll hate each other more as the days grow short.

I’ll remain calm and ask you what is wrong, but I will know what’s wrong. This, in time will be our undoing.

She is too forgiving. She used to be overly trusting and wishes these days were back. Instead, she lays jaded and broken. She makes me sick. I can bare less of this than before, I quiver inside and dodge a verdict – we kiss.

You’re a trickster, you. A devilry of dastardly deeds. An alimony of awful alliteration. I smile at her outburst and show my intent, leaving soon after. I doubt I will see her again.

I stumble back to my flat, cold and reeling. My bones are sticking through my palid skin and the sweet smell of sex still lingers on my clothes. My shift with the drones begins in a handful of hours, and my mind demands rest. I watch the box in bed and smoke a joint, clammy and disgusting – in need of refreshment and fruit, vitamins D and C are distant memories. An argument ensues above me, I clamber round my room and in others too, deciding on whether to make the call. The heartless line to the person in charge that says I will not be in work as I should.

I am 28 years on this earth and I run from all I see. Those that once I considered to be my friends are settling down – and for mediocrity. I fall from grace as I consider my cause better – more valid, more urgent. My sickness rapes my confidence and all that remains is my hatred for those in sight. At my feet lay my latest secret offerings, pictures of worlds that would no doubt be better than this if they were to exist in any form close to reality.

I upload and share and with great malice, people glance at my work and this brings me solace, some kind of petty squabble and dibs for the first past the post. What coalitions bring, we still don’t really know.

Raj finishes his thing at lunch and I break from my post. A new boy started today, although I already knew him. A familiar face from the past, we talked after the shift. I have yet to sleep and I am still drunk, or unhinged. Either way, I feel nasty. He played me tunes on his portable box as we worked, and I learnt about German techno. My delicate state was soon remarked upon by older, more stable workers. I nervously laughed as my eyes sunk deeper into my face. The sign off that comes with today’s appraisal is here, we wait – polite as the formal introduction is made. Too much work for this to be an immediate gesture, the seven horrible hours of not knowing forced upon him before the hands begun to meet.

He dives into his own for the afternoon – as do I. Back to Holloway – more beans. We buy rounds, and start to buzz. Raj has dressed up – I fail to comment. His tales today are of patience and intrigue.

Here, consider this a proposition. Or, perhaps, merely indicative of shared trust.

He slides a key across the table and I put it swiftly in my coat pocket. I nod and comment on the versatility of marmalade. My stomach thanks me for the croissant, a stillness is finally upon me, regardless of caffeine. I am hanging on. I’ve not forgotten all the drugs I have taken. Man, I need someone.

Marmalade is versatile; I like it with cheese, and chilli.

I cook hams with marmalade. Ham is salty. Blood is salty. I could be the next Heston Blumenthall.

And revamp Little Chef. You could revamp Wimpy and I would write the menu in the style of Jack Kerouac, just a free flow of expression.

Tell you what, give me a copy of On the Road and a Wimpy Burger, and it would be a toss up as to which one I’d rather eat and which I’d rather read, each is as unappetising as the other.

We quaff cake and sup on brown sludge.

Christmas is coming, and I plan to spend time alone. The fools have given me a choice but I somewhat crush this opportunity. The weekend is near, just one more morning to sort the lopes and put the files in the gaps. The fourth man who stands by the holes will bring me drugs. We exchange monies for goods as bags are prepared for the offices across town. I will need plenty of drugs to see the two day break through. The brown envelope – my very own! This will heed my call for my medication and I salivate at the prospect of its arrival. A sleepy time is on the horizon, or perchance he will have some tasters of new substances (ones which I will become equally reliant on). My addict’s brain is hungry and they know all this.

The Sunday is the outing, the office party to bring on the festive cheer. We will drink a plenty, and eat like we probably always should. Starters and brightly coloured decorations, some laughter I should imagine. I return home and sleep until it’s time to work. I am told in the crisp morn that the next time I work, I will be across town away from the sorting. Packaging and parcels need my attention. I shall be logging and giving people bigger things than envelopes – boxes and the like. Splendid I think. A change of course will revamp my darkest thoughts after the inevitable crash of the party.

On the Sunday I take the zoom zoom to the scene of the gash – a tacky fun restaurant on the outskirts of Camden Town. My promise of making efforts falls down as I turn up apparently disheveled – charmed I’m sure. Drinks are spilled and we have a right laugh. I tell my boss woman about a drink I claim to have invented. It goes a funny colour because the liquids are blue and orange. I call it green, and everyone joins in. Someone’s sick in the back room and a dumpy lady retreats from the table looking vile. Stevie returns from the bar with water over his groin area, and a good time is had by all.

Talk becomes foolish as funny looking drinks are gulped down gullets and at one point, two ladies fart. The food is grand and piled high. I splurge my way through the masses, and take care to straighten my comical yellow hat that now has a slight tear, bloody careless. A mind truck arrives and disposes its heavy load over the food adventure. The boss talks of the future and people get silent, but then talk again. Concerns of pay and procedure deafen some of the fun, but people relish in the new tide. Splish Splash, everyone has something to say.

People finish and go dancing. I join them for a bit and show them my moves. All the men and women are impressed. One of the workers attempts to kiss me, but I hold them back without any thought. I then woop, and leave. Behind me are lights and things, and it goes on. I walk out of Camden, I try to go North but my weary drunk feet take me West and I stumble across the zoo. By the wishy washy canal, there is a long boat with people on it drinking and laughing. I wave, and they woop and wave back. I light a cigarette and jolly myself down, I can see the zoo to my left and the animals must be sleeping. I stop now and again and look for them.

I wake up at 7am at Little Venice. I can’t remember how I got here but my feet ache and I’ve pissed myself a bit. I haven’t been sick but I smell like I have. Perhaps some chump splattered my attire. I find a young man who has a tea with me and we chat for a while. I then hop on to the chug a lug at Warwick Avenue and make my way back to bed.

How old do you think I am? The boy is still with me but I will lose him soon enough.

14?

Yeah, I’m 14.

2. Squatting for Compliments

Some dear on the other side left me half a crown, but much more than that. It sits in a building across town and I can look at it and hold it if I want. I don’t tell people this, for yes it would stop those who ask – but golly what a change it could bring. I deserve less, but left my mark apparently. A fake auntie, and she had real nephews – my name was mud for years.

And so when probate was granted, and the executor spat out my name on the second hour, the others scowled, my cause not worthy. But still I work, and yearn. I could dance, and buy from catalogues, make it all square and invite the new breed round for a dinner with lashings of mint and forgo the expense, and perhaps I’d have different friends. P’raps to anyone else this would be a ticket to somewhere nice, but this notion confuses me, upsets a little. That family; they still sweetly bring scorn to my door, but that’s the law, and I abide.

Raj arrives at my abode with bags of stuff. The mood sometimes takes me, and today I spill the beans. His fast words cumber by ideas - taking over companies, making people pay. He owns Mr. Shankleys, a rumble tip of a store that sells books and records to hipsters and beta boys. He works there on Tuesdays, on Wednesdays too.

I sit out back when I’m there, eagerly rummaging and sometimes foraging, forgetting my place and suggesting awful things and big big changes. Most people like the notion of progress but I find it despicable. Dusty covers and smelly words on equally pungent paper hastily thrown amongst shiny sellers – the best of the best! These will sell I tell my friend – these will not. My judgement never questioned but barely noticed, we together mock the choices other people make, and then have a cup of tea. Lapsang, or Barry’s. The hustle bustle of the Holloway Road is imminent, and Raj invites me to another lazy afternoon in the bosom of Mr Shankley. Gosh, what fun we could have.

Three days until the change where I can become a different drone in a whole new world. I know these newbies – I curse them for their incompetence – they bring biscuits and fancy cakes and share more than the other lot. There’s a kitchen there – they reheat packages and sometimes chips. Often fancy wine is supped if managers say so. The