Pissing in a River

by Lorrie Sprecher

  By the time post-9/11 Christmas came around, my throat was sore from yelling at people with American flags waving out of their car windows. “You can take your flag and ram it up your ass!” I screamed inside my car. Nativity scenes were embellished with Christmas lights made into American flags, as though Jesus Christ had been born in the United States. My neighbor had a huge cross on his roof lit up in red, white, and blue, and I was mentally exhausted from having American flags shoved in my face all day long.

  People of Middle-Eastern descent were randomly attacked in my town, and I don’t mean my mother on her way home from synagogue. Jews existed in that murky borderland between “at least they’re not Muslims” and “they killed Christ.” I sewed an upside-down American flag on my sweatshirt and scrawled “God Bless Afghanistan” across it, as though I had a death wish. And it was no good thinking I would simply keep my opinions to myself. I’m the kind of person who keeps on talking long after someone with any sense and normal social skills would have shut up. I’d stopped saying the pledge of allegiance as far back as elementary school. And during the Bush regime, I didn’t just refuse to stand for the national anthem. Instead of sitting quietly, I threw myself on the ground and writhed with my arms stretched out in crucifixion position.

  I opened up the yellow pages and found the nearest boxing studio.

  TRACK 14 London Calling

  The worst part of boxing class was that I had to watch myself in the inescapable wall mirrors. I had negative stamina. Just getting into correct boxing stance and holding up my hands in blue, sixteen-ounce gloves was enough to almost kill me. We did pushups and stomach crunches, shadowboxed, and worked the heavy bags. When the teacher wore focus mitts and I had to punch him, I pretended he was President Bush. Eventually my stance became more fluid and my punches got meaner. I never did get the hang of jumping rope, though. There was just too much of me that had to land.

  I rolled the yellow hand wraps between my fingers, taping up my hands, and wrote “Sugar Rat” on a few T-shirts with permanent marker because I decided that would be my boxing name when I turned professional. After my third week, having no sense of proportion, I felt ready to take on anyone. I thought the already-in-shape people should have to wear weights so they’d have to work as hard as I did just to remain standing.

  As I hit the floor, having collapsed on my face while doing pushups, I realized it was time to get the hell out of America. I was in my thirties and had the stupidest job in the world. As Guantanamo Bay opened for business and the United States government fine-tuned its acceptable level of torture, I lay awake nights wondering when the American people would rise up against their fascist government. Now that I wasn’t completely exhausted from those debilitating, soul-crushing, unabridged mental breakdowns any longer, I wanted to return to England where my happiest memories and the voices in my head were from.

  Even though it was expensive, I wanted to be in London because that’s where the women in my head lived. I just had to figure out how to get there. And what to live on once I got there. And how to get my medication. I talked my psychiatrist into giving me prescriptions with six months of refills. But then, he said, I would either have to come back to see him or find another doctor to prescribe my meds. I called a cousin by marriage who was a doctor in Leeds. He promised to be a backup in case I had trouble filling my prescriptions, but under no circumstances would he write me out new ones when mine ran out or treat me as a patient. I wasn’t terribly worried because six months seemed like a long way off. I was sure I’d figure out something, and I had my doctor in the States as a safety net. In order to enter the UK, I had to purchase a return ticket to show I intended to leave when my six-month tourist visa was up. I wasn’t planning to use it, but I’d have it in case of an emergency.

  To raise money, I sold my car and a few guitars, including a battered 1965 Fender Mustang with a red tortoiseshell pickguard. I sold my TV, VCR, and stereo. Everything else I packed up and stored in my dad’s garage. If I lived cheaply, I could survive for six months without supplementing my income. I would earn extra cash by playing on the streets for money, never mind that I’d never had the nerve to do it before. I decided I’d be braver playing music in front of people in another country. I said goodbye to everyone at the boxing studio and promised my teacher I’d find somewhere to train in the UK. I could only carry one guitar with me on the plane, so I chose my white Gibson. My father promised to take care of the rest. Then I packed up my other most important possessions, my bootlegs. I had found someone from Britain with connections who worked in a local record store, and he managed to get me unofficial live recordings of concerts that we listed as “imports” when I purchased them.

  As we drove to Los Angeles International Airport, I couldn’t believe I was actually returning to England for an extended stay. I couldn’t visualize what the future held for me in London, and with my OCD, uncertainty and instability were especially hard on me. But I couldn’t visualize any happy endings for myself in the United States either. I was nervous but excited as I headed for international departures. I kept looking back and waving at my dad as he stood behind the security checkpoint. As I walked into the open mouth of the plane, I felt like a whale had swallowed me whole.

  B SIDE

  TRACK 15 Wimpy’s Are Shit

  I was living in a bedsit in the East London borough of Hackney. It was a cheap, furnished room in Stamford Hill with a loo, kitchenette, and faded gray-and-green wallpaper. Even though the women in my head remained reticent, the gray sheets of rain seemed to promise all good things. When I’d first arrived, I had agonized over playing in the streets for people’s spare change. But if I were going to stretch out my stay longer than six months, I needed to make extra cash. Of course, according to the stamp in my passport, I was only supposed to be in the country for six months. But I didn’t think that would be a problem as long as I paid my own way, committed no crime, and didn’t work illegally. I didn’t know exactly how immigration worked, but who would notice one extra person living in such a large city?

  The first time I tried busking, I’d been so nervous I felt like horses were galloping in my stomach. Across from Dalston Kingsland railway station, I stood meekly in a corner of the Ridley Road Market, amid flower and banana stalls, tentatively plucking out chords and singing in a very small voice. I was too intimidated by the crush of people to make the requisite noise. Soon I packed up my gear and went home with less money than I had when I started, as I’d bought a Coke. The next place I tried was the Seven Sisters tube station, and that went a little better. It took me two weeks of busking to achieve my optimal volume.

  Now I wasn’t disconcerted by people slogging past as I stood in the mouth of the Victoria tube station. I had my white Gibson SG with the Kurt Cobain and ACT UP stickers on it, a Fender Ampcan that ran on a rechargeable battery, and my orange DS-1 distortion pedal. I strummed a weird rhythm off A and B chord variations and sang “Working for the Jihad.”

  Muhammad’s fifteen

  gonna be a suicide bomb

  Johnny’s fifteen

  goes to school with a gun

  A few people dropped copper 1p and 2p coins into my guitar case, and I nodded at them. I figured they’d like a song by an American that mentioned the gun control issue. Yes, it’s true, I thought. We are all crazy over there.

  Muhammad flew up

  to heaven on a white horse

  Johnny’s locked up

  says he feels no remorse

  I switched into the ringing, open minor chords of my chorus.

  We are martyrs one and all

  what does it matter anymore

  we are martyrs in this war

  we are martyrs one and all

  it could be so beautiful

  can’t you hear the jihad calling you

  Two kind people clapped then moved on. I’d written a heavy, melodic bass line for t
he song and wished I could find someone to play it. As it started to drizzle, I stood in the doorway of a Wimpy bar and played “Capitalism Is My Friend.” The song had a ska-like beginning that needed a rhythm section.

  If only I could find a friend, I thought, and teach her the bass lines. Of course we’d have to find a bass and some gear. I wondered where to get those things cheap. I was thinking ahead of my reality. In reality, I was being asked to vacate my semi-dry spot by the Wimpy bar manager because I was blocking his customers from going in and out.

  I put the pedal inside the pocket of my green army-surplus jacket and carried my guitar and amp into the rain. I went to the Piccadilly tube stop. There was an underground entrance to Tower Records there, and I figured that the musically inclined would pass by with leftover change. I played for about four hours, until I’d made enough money for a few days of eating and tube fare, which was expensive, then caught a bus back to my room.

  TRACK 16 Catch Us If You Can

  I got an ancient VCR and an even older ghetto blaster for cheap off someone flogging them in the Ridley Road Market. My room came with a bed, bed linens, comfortable chair, small settee, desk, wardrobe, and a small color TV. I also had a little two-hob cooker and mini-refrigerator. The compact bathroom had a toilet, basin, and stand-up shower. I bought a TV license and charged up a blue plastic electricity key for the pre-pay meter that supplied me with heat. And there I nestled against the warm radiators off the Amhurst Park Road among the Hasidic Jews. This area of Hackney was less rough than further south toward Dalston and Clapham. I was lucky that the building where I lived mostly housed Orthodox Jewish yeshiva students. I didn’t share space with the usual mice and dysfunctional blokes. None of the flats were being used as crack houses, and prostitutes and curb crawlers didn’t do a high-volume business on our street. I still heard the police sirens and helicopters every night but felt safe in my cosy bedsit.

  I kept mostly to myself even though I secretly desired a modest social life, isolation being a common symptom of OCD. When I isolated myself, I wasn’t involved in anxiety-provoking situations with other people that over-stimulated my brain and gave me hours of agonizing over every interaction and every little thing I’d said to anyone, wondering if I’d done something wrong. Constantly needing reassurance, that’s another one.

  On Sunday afternoons I stayed home religiously to watch the omnibus edition of EastEnders, my favorite soap opera. Sometimes I walked to the Video Exchange on Stamford Hill Road to rent videos. I found a boxing club nearby and went twice a week for four quid a session. And I did enjoy walking around London wrapped up in thoughts about the women in my head, always keeping my eyes open for them.

  Now, on a drizzly afternoon, I wrapped my enormous green-and-white Exeter University scarf around my neck, buttoned up my coat over my gray, hooded Jam sweatshirt with the blue, white, and red mod circles large like a target on my chest, and went for a perambulation. I love rain on red brick and, after growing up in a postcard-pretty town—see how far that gets you when you don’t fit in—filled with rich white people, I enjoyed the shabbiness and ethnic diversity of Hackney. I had hated living in a town that was so much prettier than I was. Of course London could be beautiful, but it didn’t make me feel like I had to be perfect in order to live there.

  I passed the turquoise “1 Nation” graffiti and went down Vartry Road, a sea of red and brown brick terraces with white lace curtains. In the background, council tower blocks rose into a white sky. I stopped for a Coke at the newsstand, then rounded the corner by the British Rail line. I went up Amhurst Park Road to the shops on Amhurst Parade where the Hasidim hung out in long, black coats. I liked the small shops in this indentation off the main road: the Hebrew Book and Gift Centre, Tasti Pizza, which delivered kosher pizza, a grocer’s, kosher sandwiches, and an off-license. At the end of the parade, the windows of the flats above the shops jutted out with their pale, thin curtains. Opposite Amhurst Parade was a Turkish grocer’s that always had gorgeous smells emanating from it. At the corner of Stamford Hill and Amhurst Park was the massive, dark-brick Safeway. Its letters glistened bright red in the rain. Orthodox women in headscarves wheeled their prams down the aisles. Across the big intersection between Amhurst Parade and Stamford Hill was the Boots Chemists. On Stamford Hill, I got takeaway from Spicy Wok Chinese Food/Fish & Chips, and Uncle Shloime’s.

  I jumped on a red double-decker bus and, even though it was only a short ride to Dalston, climbed to the upper level. I always tried to sit on one of the two front seats so I would have the most expansive, unobstructed view of the streets below. It was hard to miss the old Rio Cinema, a large, clunky-looking art-deco building on Kingsland High Street. The cinema specialized in foreign films, and I saw a depressing Iranian one called The Circle about how hard a woman’s lot could be in post-revolutionary Iran.

  Outside in the soft, blue neon glow, people sloshed briskly past me. I felt invigorated by the cold, soggy weather and walked up Stoke Newington Road to the Due South for a quiet pint. I was soaking wet by the time I reached the dark blue pub. The silver letters above the front window glittered and blurred between raindrops as I squinted to look up at them. I settled myself at the window with a warm—well, really room temperature—pint of bitter.

  A really cute punk woman with spiky, medium-length black hair was sitting at a table near me with some mates. I felt immediately drawn to her in a way I didn’t understand. It was more big-sisterly than sexual. But she had definitely grabbed my attention. She was wearing Doc Martens, black trousers, and a blue Nirvana T-shirt, a picture of Kurt Cobain kneeling down holding his black Strat with the “Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock in a Cop’s Face” sticker on it that he’d smashed in Paris. The black leather jacket that hung over the back of her chair was peppered with metal and blue-jeweled studs and had a large, black-and-white fabric back patch that was a picture of the Clash up against a wall with their hands up like they were getting nicked. For some reason, she seemed familiar. Was she someone I’d gone to school with? No, she seemed too young for that. But she looked tough, in that cool, Chrissie-Hynde-like way. She looked like someone I’d like to know, and I wondered, post-revelation about animal rights, if her jacket was real leather or some cruelty-free synthetic substitute.

  I wished I could say something to her, but I didn’t have the nerve. I couldn’t walk up to a strange woman in a gay pub and say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” It would sound like a chat-up line, and I didn’t want to pick her up. I just wanted to meet her and possibly be her friend. I tried out introductions in my head. “Hi, I love your jacket.” My American accent sounded so obscenely pronounced in my own head I couldn’t bear it. “I have that same Nirvana shirt.” Why would I tell her that? Did I think she’d stolen it? “Oi, wotcha, can you tell me where the bog is, mate?” Yes, do tell me where the toilet is so I can flush myself down it. Phony English accents are nauseating. “Hi, my name is Amanda, and I don’t know anyone socially here in London. I’ve selected YOU, yes, lucky you, to be the first person I meet.”

  It was only after the punk woman had left with her mates that I realized she reminded me of the younger woman I saw inside my head. Shit! My mind went numb. I felt like my heart had jumped into my throat and I was going to choke on it. I left the pub and started running, but I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I didn’t know what to do. The rain had stopped. It was a big-mooned, freshly washed night. Because it was late and I was hungry, I walked back down Stoke Newington to the Istanbul Iskembecisi, a Turkish restaurant that stayed open until five in the morning. I passed a twenty-four-hour garage, a grocer’s, then reached Aziziye mosque. It had two silver domes and marble tattooed with intricate blue-and-turquoise designs like flowers. The blue mosque also served as a Halal butcher, restaurant, and supermarket. I liked this part of Hackney with its synagogues and mosques. It could be dodgy late at night with gangs, guns, and drugs, but I felt safe on the main roa
ds, which were well-lit and had lots of traffic.

  I ordered falafel, chips, and a large Coke to take away. While I waited, I noticed the Kurt-shirt girl and her mates getting up from a table. When they brushed past me, I couldn’t make myself say anything. I watched them from the window as they stood outside talking. Then the others went in one direction and Kurt-shirt went on alone down Kingsland High Street. I didn’t know if I should charge out after her without my food and introduce myself. I froze.

  When my food was ready, I splashed salt and malt vinegar on my chips and rewrapped them, the whole time thinking, why are you wasting time? But I knew if I caught up with her, I wouldn’t know what to say. “Am I mistaken, or did you used to visit me inside my head?” I walked in the direction she’d gone even though it was the opposite of where I lived. I told myself I was going to get a bus on Dalston Lane and wasn’t really going out of my way. But she had already disappeared from view.

  I never got aggression on the High Street. The Turkish men’s cafés were open all night with people sitting outside drinking coffee. Sometimes I got verbal hassle, but it amounted to nothing. I wouldn’t have gone on any of the side streets. Many of those weren’t even lit because the Hackney council said it had no money to buy replacement light bulbs.

  I was almost to Dalston Lane when I heard what sounded like a scuffle off the main road to my left down a cut-through to the bus stop. It was safe to use during the day. There was a vegetarian restaurant that did a lot of business. But I wouldn’t walk there after dark. I stopped at the mouth of the dirty, narrow side road and thought I heard somebody cry for help. Part of me wanted to run away and get help. But I knew that even if I found someone willing to come back with me, I might arrive too late. The image of the Kurt-shirted girl flashed through my mind.