RANDOM-AUTO
I remember the deepest conversation I have ever had, naturally it involves drugs but don’t let that fact detract from its significance. It was sometime in 2000, Crofty and I were doing a heady cocktail of drugs and even Keith Moon would have appreciated the severity of the mind-bending substances on show. To set the scene, we had stayed up for 3 days solid, sustained only by jazz and drugs. Crofty had an argument with his girlfriend Helen and she had either kicked him out or he walked out. He had arrived in the middle of the night in such a mood that we didn’t bother even asking. Dyce my housemate was working so he left us.
In order not to arouse any discontent Crofty had arrived fully stocked, his eyes bulged with anticipation of the binge. He stripped in the living room and stumbled up the stairs for a shower. While he showered I discussed with Dyce how to deal with the situation, he decided that since I wasn’t as close to him then I would tell him to leave. When he returned he said nothing and I feared that he had overheard us. He proceeded to the CD player and there I first heard “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. Crofty had an awkward gait that was sloping due to his skinny frame and this wasn’t helped by his drug intake. His eyes were hazel and always red due to the weed. His jaw was locked and skittish due to the pills. His skin was sallow but his character made it shine through.
I wondered how to approach him as I rolled the umpteenth joint, his mind was deeply engrossed in his mushrooms. He boiled them meticulously, like a science teacher teaching you how to separate complex compounds with just wits and a Bunsen burner. He wasn’t your average druggie; he knew all the chemical processes that your body underwent when high. Getting high with him was a science class; soon I knew words like serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and cannibanoids but I would barely remember the class in the morning so we would have the same lecture again and again. Miles Davis had been on the loop for around 5 hours; we had been watching TV for a couple hours when we realised the TV wasn’t plugged in. This merely reasserted the fact that the shit was really good.
I turned on the TV around 4.am but my vision was so blurred that I could process the images and I pulled the plug after failing to work the remote. I wish I remember what happened that night because when I sobered up I was merely offered a pill. “Euro-Star mate! It’s got a wicked buildup.” Said Crofty; in his strange accent that was a mix of London cockney and a Derbyshire drawl as per his upbringing. I took the pill and took advantage of the window of sobriety to roll another joint. This is when I realised that in my discombobulated state I had tried to roll several joints and had lacked the mental ability to complete the task. We must have talked about everything; the philosophical question of the day was WHAT IS REALITY? Who is reality? Can you be reality at the same time? This went around in my head several times as I wrestled with the question. The tunnel effect was coming on, choo, choo, choo! Like a train building up speed. Our argument escalated as we descended into anarchy. “I am reality, not you. Fucking dickhead! You want to be reality all the time. Why can’t I be reality?” Crofty was being intransigent, he had declared himself LORD OF REALITY and declared me non-existent. This riled me beyond measure; what right did he have to do that? I told him that if he didn’t declare my existence I would be forced to take drastic action. Despite my warnings he still persisted in this and then threatened to liquidise me. I ran for my life out the door and though my legs were like jelly I still managed to make some ground. I can’t remember where I was but I must have been gone for ages.
I came around and was laying in a playground with my head under a swing as it swung over my head rocking back and forth, that is when my mother appeared. She calmed me down and walked me back home despite the fact that she wasn’t there. When I walked back in Crofty apologised for threatening to liquidise me, I accepted the apology although I still held a slight grudge. Miles came back on the loop signifying another hour had gone by, this was the hazy time as we took out some deckchairs and watched the sun come up. The reefer was abundant as we debated the COMPLEXITY OF LIFE. WE TALKED ABOUT GOD. This went on all day as we went through it again. Dyce went to work and found us in the same spot, another late night smoke session culminated in several hours of Tekken while Miles still played on the CD. By now the album was speaking to us spiritually as we drifted in and out of reality. On the 3rd day I had the deepest conversation of my life; drugs are strange. In the first moments it gives you the utmost clarity, ironically removing your clarity, go figure. These moments are perfect; before the drugs take over every aspect of your life, they give you this moment. The moment your whole life has been waiting for, it is fleeting but haunts you like your shadow.
“Fuckin hell man!” I said.
“What?” He said.
“Time and space. D’you know what I mean?” I said.
“Yeah. Well deep.” He said.
TIME AND SPACE that’s what I’m all about, it is what art and science is about. It was my first ever question. I was taken to one of the most enlightening days of my life. In was 1988, a perfect year in my book. I was in Kampala, in one of the better districts in the dusty sprawl of Uganda called Makindye. I was starting to recover my good spirits after a year of deep depression where I had withdrawn into myself and created my imaginary world, complete with countries, cities and landscapes. My depression was compounded by missing my mother; which is why she popped up in all my trips in later years. I had started to settle in to school at Nakasero after a dismal year at Molly and Paul at the bottom of the road. This school was not my idea of a school; most of the kids had jiggers and lice. I was one of only 3 kids in my class to wear shoes; this brought a lot of animosity upon us. The bullying got worse as I was a Foreigner, being Rwandese and far worse a snob.
My best friend was also my bully, which was the solution to all my bullying; get a bigger bully and give him the exclusive right to bully you and that way all the others are vanquished. Looking at Vincent at the time he wouldn’t have struck you as a bully, he was half a foot shorter than me but this didn’t change the dynamics of our friendship. During the last year I had grown a foot taller and while I thought this would help my plight it only made it worse. Vincent demanded that I stoop low whenever he castigated me; which made for a comical sight. In Europe Bullying is determined by size or numbers; in Africa it is determined by age. Whereas a big 12 year old can bullying elder kids in Europe; an African kid will cow down to a child ten minutes older than him. Therefore I found my growth spurt did little to change the situation, I was told that the only way around it was to find some younger rascal and dish it out for a change. This was thwarted by my gentle demeanour and nobody took me seriously when I demanded their money. My world was taking away all the hurt, in this world I was king, I was in control but the price was detachment from other kids.
It was very rare to meet a kid with similar interests; I was into reading, writing, and actually stimulating my brain whilst other kids seemed to want to play mindless games. One such example is when I was sitting in my room and heard a voice, it was Fred. “Hey, are you coming? We are going to go throw stones at wild dogs.” This I had to see, I dropped the Hardy Boys book I was reading and ran down the stairs. It turned out to be a let down as we ran away in terror upon seeing the rabid dogs. This taught me not to pick on ravenous dogs with rabies as it could be a health risk. I had gone to the Catholic church at Kabuye to say my confession, it was something I did idiosyncratically, for comfort as much as absolution. My trips to the Priest had become more frequent due to puberty; my rap sheet included several counts of indecent thoughts and “self-pollution” as it was called. On my way up the hill I bumped in to this boy; his name escapes me now but for one day he was the best friend I ever had.
He was walking purposefully up the hill with a bundle under his arm; I asked him what it was.
“A random atomiser!” He said and carried on.
“A random atomiser?” I asked.
‘It rearranges molecu…..” He explained but I butted in.
“I know what an atomiser is?” I was holding him up and he was dismayed to have this delay.
“Then why did you ask?” He was already on his way up again.
“I just wanted to see if you knew, that all.” I replied curtly to conceal my ignorance. “What are you going to use it for?” I persisted.
“What do you think?” He was now angry.
“I don’t know; maybe I could help.” He was now fully stopped and losing his momentum.
“It’s hard to build a time machine on your own.” When I said this he dropped the atomiser, which was actually a shock-absorber spring.
“How do you know about that?” He said as he chased the spring that was now rolling down the hill, he caught it and ran back up.
“I know about these things.” I now distanced myself as he followed up the hill. He was now out of breath.
“What do you know about time and space?” As he pulled my shirt to retain my attention.
“I know everything, I’ve read Einstein, hitch-hikers guide and I’ve seen Back to the Future like 20 times.” This amazed him.
“Do you have a power source? The first thing you need is a power source.” I had the upper hand now.
“No, I wanted to use wind power.” He said sheepishly.
“You can’t build a time machine with wind-power, are you mad? You need a more reliable power source. I have a car battery in my garage.”
We walked up the hill and discussed our plans. Perhaps we should have done more research but we figured this would only slow us down, we needed to be quick. We got to my garage and were shocked to see the car battery I had promise my friend wasn’t there. Then I remember my Dad had switched batteries and sent the other for recharging, Phillip would have one but he lived 4 miles away. Vincent would be too nosy and want in on the deal, Ronny would want some kind of payment. So I arrived at the conclusion that John; Vincent’s cousin was a safe bet but could he be discrete?
“What do you want a car battery for? Have you got a car?” Asked John
“No we just need it. Ok?” I was firm.
“Wow you guys have a car! Let me tell Vincent.”
“No, you can’t tell him. Ok? This is a secret. We need a battery.”
“What for? I want to drive. If I give you the battery then I have to drive first. Ok?’ John was a serious bargainer.
“It’s not even for a car, we are building a machine.”
“What kind of machine?” John was already disappointed.
“Just a machine, damn!”
“To do what?” He stared at both of us and we both hesitated.
“A time machine.” I said mumbling
“What? Like a watch or clock?” He was even more perplexed.
“No. A machine that totally alters space and time.” Said my friend; he was now irritated and wanted to leave.
“Why do want to do that? Why don’t you just wake up early? That’s what I do. What if you change space and time and can’t put it back? Why are you messing with God’s plan?”
I thought back to my earlier childhood and why I had been so fascinated with time. I remember coming back from Sunday school in Malawi and I asked my Mum the following question.
“Are there hamburgers in heaven?”
“Yeah. All the hamburgers you can eat and you never get full, you can just eat all day.”
“Is there soda in heaven?”
“Yeah, they have lakes of soda, with fountains of milkshakes and mountains of ice-cream”
“Do they have music in heaven?”
“Oh loads of music. And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on……..”
I have always woken up in cold sweats when I think about that. How can time go on forever without end? That is one of the reasons I have never fully accepted Christianity; the concept of heaven being endless. Even eternal happiness is depressing. However there was a pressing matter of a power source, John said our plan was outright dangerous and wanted nothing to do with it. Luckily he gave us free reign over his garage, which was a veritable goldmine of parts. We must have taken a tonne of stuff with everything from video parts, to what looked like a gramophone and even a communication aerial.
We absconded to my back yard, which was mostly overgrown but a space was made to accommodate our wizardry. The first thing was to check the battery; I hooked up two wires to the terminals and pressed them together to make a spark. This was thoroughly amusing and we each took turns amusing ourselves with this promethean spark. Luckily the spark trick became less amusing with time and we were able to concentrate fully on the matter at hand. The video worked as a control panel, this was hooked up to the random atomiser, the atomiser would break us down and transmit us as sound down the gramophone, the gramophone was connected to old turntable and spin us round until we disappeared into time itself. Indeed once we put our minds to it we had it done in about half an hour. We were worried that these things should take longer but concluded that our genius was a mitigating factor in our speed, but soon creative difficulties began to emerge.
The first problem was where to go; he wanted to go back in time while I wanted to go to the future.
“First we must go back, I have to find my mother before she caught AIDS and warn her, and in fact I will warn my father as well.”
“You can’t change that. Besides what if you went back and she caught AIDS anyway?”
“I miss her. I have to warn her. When she died I wished that I had warned her. Everyone says my Mum was a whore coz she died of AIDS, I have to save her.”
“What if it was destiny? Bibawo (it happens) there nothing you can do.”
“What? Are you telling me that my Mum was meant to die and why is yours alive?”
“My mother is alive, but I don’t know where she is. Even with this time machine I wouldn’t find her.”
“Where is she?” He was now crying.
“I don’t know she is, maybe in Canada or UK or USA. I saw her last year and she said that one day she’ll come and get me. I want to forward to that day.”
“See? At least your mother is alive. If my mother was alive I wouldn’t care if she was in America as long as she was alright.”
“She is alright. She is in heaven.”
“Do you know that for sure? They say that people with AIDS go to hell. So my mother is now in hell. I have to go back and warn her even if she doesn’t listen. I don’t want her back; I just don’t want her to go to hell.” By now he was shivering with grief and any attempt to console him was making him angry. He walked off and was never seen again.
