The Difference Between a Greengrocers and a Nightclub
Where I begin: 8 essays ago, the Science and Industry Museum (SIM) email me. We meet. Excerpt from The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,
SIM, ‘You do know the Guardian is built on the enslavement of ...’
Me, ‘No surprises there.’
SIM, ‘They want to do a … As an act of reparation...’
I’m listening. And I’m not listening.
SIM, ‘We weren’t allowed to go to their clubs. So, we built clubs of our own.’
Me. (Thinking.) That’s a fucking lie. It’s a lie. We did not consciously or unconsciously think them bastards won’t let us in their clubs so let’s make a club of our own.
I know it is a lie. But I don’t know what the truth is. So, I set off to unearth it by excavating Audre Lorde’s wonderful statement in 8 x 8-station mind-maps, plus the 12-word narratives they ignite.
Last week, I freeze-frame station 8, in Julie’s living room upstairs in her off licence. I don’t know why. It has that same feeling as catching the ball when I am a kid. It is pure intuition. I let it ferment. Yesterday, I re-start the reel.
Title: The Difference Between a Greengrocers and a Nightclub.
Object: Shine’s carriage
12-associations.
- Brewery
- Alec Rd
- Princess Rd
- Princess Park
- Boundaries
- Hulme, Whalley Range, Rusholme
- Metropolis
- Bed
- Tripe
- Smoke and devastation
- You can’t turn the clock back
- Denmark Rd
Last week I stop the clock on my brother bad-mouthing the Reno elite. I can picture Frank in his African top — they are getting into their roots. I’m not sure if he is with Stan or Steve. They’re sitting with those knees-open, arm-wide-behind-them on the top of the sofa look. We are lying belly down opposite them. Me, the elder, and the younger Prouse, and my brother. We have cushions. Cos we’re stoned. We’ve made a barricade like kids make tents. It isn’t high. A demarcation, a boundary, between us and them. This is partly what is making them laugh; we are so mash up we’ve lost the fucking plot. We are so mash up we don’t give a fuck. We’ve never laughed like this. ‘Beg I take out me dagger and jag you to death.’ Younger Prouse is into yellow. Anything yellow. Even her perfume. Kiku. Yellow bottle. They both wear — her and my brother — monkey boots. Twins. They’re egging each other on. The elder Prouse will just be fancying one of these eligible bachelors. We will get the story later by the copper Cannon fire in the front room that their mum makes available for them and their friends — giving them status. If you own the den, you have the status.
Julie owns the den we are all in. But she doesn’t really have the status. Her act at this moment is figure skating. She has to appear cool to us; cos we hold the cards when Frank and his sidekicks are gone. We can make her journey, her stay here, hell. Like when we keep throwing the plastic bins against her window. You can’t tell me she doesn’t notice the miniatures and the halves that go missing and we’re pissed in Princess Park instead of being at work. Sometimes. Most times we do turn up. I always turn up; I’m a goody-two-shoes by trade. I even clean her off licence. That’s why Julie slaps me on my legs when she finds the scrunched-up Flake wrapper on the floor and me looking caught. But I don’t complain. I won’t complain. Cos, I’ll be on the outside and they’ll be on the inside. Outside. Inside. A shorthand for status.
Greengrocers just sell fruit. Our local on the next corner, sells it cheap when there is a glut. Before the supermarkets take their status, Moss Side is a proper metropolis. If I look out the window behind Frank sitting with his arms on the back cushion, on the posh linen cushions on the posh sofa, there is Floods. The best fucking toy shop in Manchester. Better than anything in town. People travel here to get the best toys from Floyds. She’s about 110. Her mum and her dad die in the First World War. Our story. ‘She’s as old as the hills,’ My mum’s tone suggests something else. Like, ‘The fucking Corcorans are nobodies. Who do they think they are? Fucking bogtrotters. Like she’s something.’ We love Mrs Corcoran. Our Moss Side Lana Turner. Her big swish hips. Her daughter Christine is going that way. The smaller one Josie is like Jo in Little Women. She’s not as pretty, but she has a destiny. Like little Carolyn Connelly who is casting her cap at the son in the dry cleaners. She’s going to become Mrs Spencer. She’s making sure of that. Never hanging out with us. We respect that. We respect her. She’s escaping skin the colour of margarine. She’s escaping her dad kicking in the door when he can still lift his leg. And his son smashing his face in when he’s pissed too — now nursing a septic finger. ‘That will never heal,’ according to my mum, ‘laying his hand on his father.’ That Julie tries to mend. Her crate carrier, now lying in bed in her back box room away from his old fella. Julie hasn’t got the status here. Not in her den.
They think they’ve got it. Frank and Stan, or is it Steve? But they haven’t got it either. We’re not white like her. Or posh like her. But we can see right through their costume. We’re still young enough to see the newly stitched seams. And their seemingly unintentional, intentional lines. Like our mums’, ‘It’s never gonna dry in this weather.’ They are boxing themself in. They are institutionalised. Yes, Moss Side is an institution. They originate in them huge Moss Side houses, made into tenements, that were never renovated; with a bathroom on one of the 4 floors for each of the 8 families to share. We are Moss Side middle class. We own our terraced house. We have higher status. And you know that.
We are not bound by Hulme along Princess Rd. We are not bound by Rusholme along Lloyd St leading onto Denmark Rd where once you bought Dinky toy cars in Denmark Rd Market. Our parents are not tenants — they are owners. We are not bound by Alec Rd from entering Whalley Range. Our parents have jobs. Our parents have mortgages. Our clothes come from C&A, and M&S and Lewis’s. I have more respect for Shine on Julie's doorstep with his delivery from the brewery. His mixed-race daughter, ordinary clothes, beside him, in his black carriage. Shine doesn’t care if you like him or not. All he cares about is you give him your buck. His status is in his bearing. In his honesty. In the tripe he buys for his family from the butchers on the Graeme St to Great Western Street block.
The Difference between a Greengrocers and a Nightclub. One sells fruit. The other sells status. The fruit goes off. Their status is imperishable — stored as loyalty points — accumulating since their Denmark Rd Dinky toys, as long as they frequent the Reno — its currency diminishes in town. The Reno isn’t 4 walls, or music; it is relationships they have been building and cultivating for a very long time. From the inside out. Dinky toys that become Frank’s Rolls Royce.
Lost in the 1981 smoke and devastation along with Dixons, the Wycliffe, and Barries. You can’t turn the clock back, though we tried for a long time.