London Fields is lovely this time of year. One drawback though. It's absolutely teeming with cunts.Armed with my camera, a notepad and a Thermos of minestrone soup I board the train heading east. I've planned a day of cunt tourism. Or cunt anthropology if you prefer. My reasoning is this: unless one gets amongst the cunts, tries to experience a day in their lives, observes them, studies them and perhaps even talks to them then one cannot fully understand what it means to truly be a cunt.
Inwardly I make a mental note: this day trip better be worth it, there were many better things I could've done today - stayed in bed hungover watching the lunchtime kick off, clipped my toenails, or simply masturbated all day. Instead I've dedicated myself to academic fieldwork. These cunts better appreciate my efforts.
The train pulls through the backs of terraced houses, occasionally crossing bridges with views of bleak litter-strewn streets. Rudeboys and rudegirls get on and off. Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington, Rectory Road, Hackney Downs, London Fields. No ticket inspectors, no barriers. Free journey. Fuck you National Express East Anglia.
I walk onto Mare Street. Not quite as fucked up as it was when I was a kid - when Hackney was a no go area - but still fairly fucked up. An Irish drunk and a stoned rastafarian discuss horse racing outside a betting office. I'm not having a good time yet.
I pass The Dolphin - great jukebox in there featuring Del Amitri's 'The Last To Know'. I pass The London Fields pub which the landlord has, perhaps unwisely, decided to decorate like a cross between a public library and a smack-ridden brothel. Turning the corner I see the large expanse of grass that Martin Amis once wrote about.... he's a bit of a cunt isn't he, Martin Amis?
It all looks quite pleasant. Quaint, Victorian, tranquil, well kept.
Then I see a cunt walking towards me...
At first I freeze, gripped by panic. How will I walk past this dick without chinning the cunt?The cunt looks at me. Something deep inside me, something primal emits the words: "Don't look at me!!"
The cunt slinks away, possibly scared. I watch him walk away. Then another walks by, within metres of me. I recoil, fighting the urge to flee. He's wearing the season's Cunt outift of choice. Big sneakers, shorts just above the knee, a checked shirt worn under a chunky knit sweater with a dog's face on it, wide-peaked baseball cap (like this cunt has ever watched baseball) and thick-rimmed glasses. In his right ear, one of those big wooden circular things that cunts jam into their ear piercings, contorting the earlobe.
I feel afraid. A stranger in a foreign land. As Sting once said, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien...
....he's a bit of a cunt isn't he, Sting?
Now I know how Conrad's Charles Marlow felt in The Heart Of Darkness. Or how Columbus felt upon first sighting an Amazonian native. This is The Heart Of Cuntness. I shiver.
Then something makes me get a grip of myself. I'm here to explore. This is a holiday. There's no point feeling afraid or alienated. They're not savages. They're just cunts. I have to try to engage with them.
"Excuse me" I call to a freak. "Yes you with the skin tight jeans....I'm not familiar with this place, I wonder if you'd be so kind as to show me around."
The cunt, whose name is Henry, turns out to be quite affable. He talks about The Old Blue Last and a mix tape he's putting together for VICE magazine. I tell him to shut the fuck up. He doesn't seem to mind.We walk across the grass to where some of his "friends" are sitting. I say "friends", really they're just some divs he met in The Dove, pissed out of his mind and high on ketamine three weeks ago. Henry's been hanging out with them ever since.
I look at the two girls and a guy sitting on a bench smoking thin cigarettes.
"You know these people?" I ask him, horrified.
"Yeah man, these are my mates and stuff."
"But that girl's wearing a bra as a top. And this one's got a pair of ripped stockings on with a suspender belt and corset."
"Yeah..."
"Are you sure they're not prostitutes?" I say
"No man that's like, they're look."
"They've got undercut hairstyles," I continue "that wasn't even a good look for Mike Patton in 1991"
Henry shrugs. I feel a moment of clarity and realisation dawning upon his rich, upper class, Hampstead toff brain. He looks at me, then looks back at his "friends". He utters something quiet, almost inaudible.
"You'll have to speak a bit louder" I say. I take out my notebook. Whatever he's got to say could be interesting.
"Am I.....am I.......am I a cunt?" Henry asks, looking down at his red braces and pointy brogues, fingering his handlebar moustache.
"Yes, Henry" I say "I'm afraid you are."
He bursts into tears.
I take a few photos of his "friends" and their associates (for the purposes of visual documentation), then inform them that they should a) put some clothes on if they want to avoid a sexual molestation and b) text their mums to come and take them home.
Take me away from these people Henry" I demand. "And stop blubbering, you'll be ok now, you've done the hard part. You're no longer in denial. Oh and text your mum. I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear from you."
In The Cat and Mutton I buy Henry a pint of mahogany-filtered pomegranate cider and peruse the menu:- Fillet of Hedghog with a jus of Apricots -
- Confit of Magpie in a Bovril sauce -
- Deep fried Seahorses on a bed of Tulips -
For Dessert I order Henry an anchovy muffin in balsamic custard. He looks like he needs it.
He points across the road to a bric-a-brac shop. "That's where I bought an original 7" copy of Hall and Oates's 'Maneater' for £75."
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I thought it was cool!"
He bursts into tears again.
"And down there..." he sobs "...on those clothes rails that act as an outdoor jumble sale, you can buy second hand Gola tracksuits."
"I got beaten up for wearing those when I was nine."
"I wasn't even born then..." he weeps into his pint.
Taking out his phone he calls his dad in Tufnell Park.
A trio of dickheads cycle by the window on what appears to be a three-wheeled Tandem-cum-tricycle. A man in a silver-sequined jumpsuit gets off his skateboard smoking a rolly. A girl in a very expensive looking 1940s vintage dress made in occupied France sucks on a lollipop. Alexa Chung walks into the pub wearing wellies. It's not even raining.
"Dad..." Henry cries down the phone "...I'm sorry I've been such a cunt."
"Good lad" I say "tell him to come and pick you up, I'll help you pack your stuff."
Later I stroll past the bistros and the bookshop selling classic 1970s Dutch porn mags. A cunt wearing Speedos and a rain mac tries to converse with me but retreats when I threaten to call the police.I survey the scene one final time with a wry smile and a sigh. "What.a.bunch.of.cunts" I mutter, to nobody in particular.
Then I bunk the train fare home to reality.
[All names and photos have been changed. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. ....They're still cunts though, obviously.]
