Chapter 14. People Spit in My Pram

‘Planets form from dust and gas in discs around young stars. When a star is born it is born with a disc of gas and dust around it. This dust starts sticking together. First into pebbles. Then into boulders. Then into planets.’  Astronomer Karin Oberg. Purposeful Lab.

Last week:

Day 1. We ignite our star, by 8-station mind-mapping our original gas cloud for the last time. Listening for a title. Applying 12-words.

Day 2. We collect the gas and dust that surround our star — our existing 12 chapters.

Day 3: We read it to get a feel for the gas and dust's mass and chemical composition. We quickly note discoveries as we read.

Day 4. We isolate 8 discoveries. Then, 8-station mind-map them.

I choose to isolate the last sentences of each of the 11 narrative chapters (2 chapters, 9 & 10, are explanatory only). My reasoning:

1. My subconscious is heading there.
2. The last sentences are the end of an epoch.
3. They are masking deeper stories.
4. They talk of cycles.
5. Transitions.
6. Blame.
7. Coincidentally, there is a lot of death — ghosts — dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
8. End sentences are dust about to stick to more dust.

I eliminate the 3 endings that don’t speak to me.  I arrive at: 

1. Chapter 1. But Ivan is dead. Stabbed through the chest by Pauline. I ask for the week off to have my 6-month abortion. I never go back.
2. Chapter 2. I flick through the Rolodex of my homes. It is true. None of them have a decorated bedroom. They are all derelict. This will be my first.
3. Chapter 3. He's buried in a new handmade black cashmere suit beneath a hand-painted Last Supper. To keep his tantrum at bay. 
4. Chapter 4. Angie is sat up on her deathbed. Her arms in the air. Stiff. Beseeching. ‘She was asking, ‘Where’s me mum?’ ‘Her mum died 3 months ago.’
5. Chapter 5. Week in week out. I love my journey to the library. I have no idea I am swallowing resentment. I have no idea they will never let me in. To the worlds I now admire.
6. Chapter 6. ... Linda’s Enterprise. A 45-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no Moss Side girl has gone before. To the door of the Whitworth.
7. Chapter 8. Pam is screaming in my dad’s face. In my dying dad’s face. (This is the exception. It isn’t from the end.)
8. Chapter 13. And the Gods hold him by the legs, stationary on their chess board, immobile, immovable, and say, 'Tell us what he is like as long as he is like this and we will give you a leg up in the arts.'

Day 5. We 8-station mind-map a couplet derived from our 8 discoveries.

I determine my couplet is:

2. Split Rectangle (Change/Transition)

Colliding with

6. The World (Equator, Capricorn, Cancer, Ozone = Emotional Climate)

2. Chapter 2. I flick through the Rolodex of my homes. It is true. None of them have a decorated bedroom. They are all derelict. This will be my first.

Collides with:

6. Chapter 6. Linda’s Enterprise. A 45-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no Moss Side girl has gone before’. To the door of the Whitworth.

I hear the title:  People Spit in My Pram

Object: Pram

12 Association

1. My pram
2. Flag
3. Husband and wife
4. Grafton St
5. Old pubs
6. Hulme
7. Big pipes
8. Triangle
9. Dead zones
10. Am I in denial?
11. Never as pretty as a white girl
12. Going to war

12-words: I must include my object, 12 associations, under my title in 20 mins.

People Spit in My Pram

People spit in my pram on Grafton St. Or so my mum tells me. I think she’s lying. Until I excavate the Reno. We don’t talk about such things in the Reno. Well, some do. Some of the Knights who have been to prison, get educated there. Soledad Brother is one of the titles I remember. I also remember them coming home. Lost. A relic. Things are moving on quickly in the 70s. I’m not a major player. I marry a major player. I swap my half-caste-ness for his coolness. We are each other’s SOS. Like my mum and dad. But fuck off, I ain’t gonna fall for love again. Tom is completely intelligent. In way I have no idea exists. He talks about God. He’s looking for God. Not in the way you look for the white bearded guy in a church. Or on top of a mountain. Or on a throne. But in a way that makes a bird that doesn’t have to be afraid of how it is gonna get fed. It is gonna get fed cos a kind universe has made it. It it part of the universe that makes it. It is intrinsic. I am intrinsic. He is intrinsic. We are all intrinsic. The elements from the stars are the same elements that make the bird and make me. We walk in the park. Tripping. Magic mushrooms. Peyote. Acid. I am always scared when I swallow it. At first. I can’t get it out of me. But I know Tom will look after me. He will always look after me. I’m not even his girlfriend yet. I am his friend. His patronage starts in the semi-circle that the Prouses are leading. It isn’t one of their cruel moments. It is one of their funny-as-fuck moments. But I am the butt of the joke. My spliff roach has come out on my bottom lip. Like most things I do in the Rene, it is copying someone else. I am not a natural. I am not naturally cool. I am not in the know. But Tom knows I am intelligent. He has been watching me. Like a cheetah watching a frail gazelle. Jesus. Slightly separate from the pack. When the pack begins to laugh, Tom whispers in my ear, ‘They are all masquerading.’ I still give it 10 out of 10. It slings me into the film The Masque of the Red Death. Vincent Price. They are all in a palace. There is the Black Death. But they are hell bent on being decadent. I look around. At the semi-circle. Yeah, they are all masquerading. Not me, they’re thinking. Whatever you do don’t aim the next blow at me. I begin to not believe, to reject, the next blow. These people are immature. Terrified. Tom is the crow in 1984. Watching. Watching. I am its sidekick. I ditch the pencil skirts, court shoes, the entire feminine look. I begin to follow the androgynous girls. The girls Tom admires for not being weak. The girls who hold their own. Who can build a cracking spliff. Who don’t give 2 fucks about eyeshadow. We might never be as pretty as the white girls. But the fucking white girls can never be as cool as us. Even in a check shirt. In fact, defo not in a check shirt. I scour second hand shops for my look. We scour them together. For our look. Cheese-clothe mine. I think I’ve got Amish in mind. Flak jackets on Tom. Part of the Reno Knight’s uniform. If the shit hits the fan, these are the fuckers who will sort it out. But even here he customises his look by taking the collar off. I customise mine by not ironing anything.

My dad looks at me with disgust. Tom even protects me from him.

‘Who are you?’ He demands in our street. When Ivan is dead.

Without skipping a beat Tom replies, ‘Who are you?’

My dad then takes him to the Robin Hood to fuck him up with drink. But Tom doesn’t drink then. By the time they come back they are the best of friends. Tom can do no wrong.  A white guy. Who can travel through Hulme as easily as Moss Side. Hulme. A dead zone to us. A triangle of doorways we never enter. Full of old pubs. Full of big pipes. Transitioning. Waiting to be pulled down. Full of waiting for the ambulance on the concrete steps of Boundary Lane. Ivan isn’t bleeding much. Pauline is nowhere to be seen. Oddly, my heart is going out to her. Not to him. Running. Hiding. Nowhere to go. In a city. Nowhere to go in a city. A city. I am more concerned with where she is than with what is happening to him. We aren’t holding hands. We aren’t saying anything. The blue lights turn up. Backs up. Makes noise in the quiet.

His stitches are like Frankenstein’s. From the top of his chest to his belly button. I am in the chapel. Don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die. Please God don’t let him die. And then when he is dead, I’m glad it is all over. It is over. It is all over. Like a heroin addict. If suddenly all the brown and the poppies disappear.  Tom listens to me. He knows them both. Had a fight with Ivan who he slaughters. Such a little guy. Such a lion-heart. We walk in the park as if going to war. There is always a feeling of going to war. In the trenches. At this moment it is for his soul. For my soul. For the Reno’s soul. And then there is the moment that is a red flag.

He is sat in the middle of the stairs in the Reno. Only Tom can sit in the middle of the dirty stairs in the Reno. He doesn’t care about his clothes. He doesn’t care about what the others think of him. His mushroom hat and his long curly hair and his designer Jesus sandals say this. He is the epitome of I don’t care what I look like. He is mad about something. I can’t remember why he is mad or what he is mad about. He flicks his lit roach down the stairs in a temper. I’m not sure if it is at me. Or am I in denial?

It takes 18 months for us to become husband and wife. I am my mother’s daughter. Whereas it’s a 12-seater table she needs to survive, I need to be welcome at the Knight’s table. The top 3 tables are already sorted by the Prouses. I’ve got epaulettes on both shoulders.

Planets Form from Dust and Gas in Discs Around Young Stars

When a star is born it is born with a disc of gas and dust around it. This dust starts sticking together. First into pebbles. Then into boulders. Then into planets.’  Astronomer Karin Oberg. Purposeful Lab.

First Pebbles

On Day 5 our dust began to stick together. Now we are going to form the first pebbles. By repeatedly sticking dust together.

Day 1. Sacred hour. Sacred space.

• Note 8 vital discoveries you made in last week's day 5 12-word narrative.
• 8-station mind-map them.
• Note 8 discoveries. It is easier to do while the mind-map is happening, or is fresh. Your subconscious becomes opaque again when you let it cool.

Day 2. Sacred hour. Sacred Space.

• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 3. Sacred Hour. Sacred Space.

• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 4. Sacred hour. Sacred Space.

• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 5. Sacred hour. Sacred space.

Isolate the couplet:

1. Fallen Angel (The Protagonist)

and

5. Split Rectangle (Change/Transition)

8-station mind-map couplet 1& 5. Exhaust the discoveries. Listen for a title. What tangible object do you see?

1. Title
2. Object
3. 12 associations.
4. 12-words. 20 mins. You must use your object, 12 associations, under your title.

• Type it up — don't change anything.
• Pair it with its mind-map.
• Create a file — log it there.