I leave my flat under the assumed weight of the
middle-class citizen, and now whipping off the disguise, I am set for an
itinerary which is perfectly adapted to the fashioning of epic days. Jailors
of spirit becoming a vague respectable presence and the kind of ghosts that the fetus of intellect does well to ignore.
I have consigned
my assumptions to the north sea and formed a partnership with a little silent tramp.
He wears a spotty scarf and a bowler hat square to his small frame. He smiles
his little smile and mostly stays on my left side. We sprint intermittently and
without warning or preparation, the packs grinding and unthreading on our backs,
our lungs making good torture for our minds. In the many pubs we drink in along
the way, I feel more like a junk-laden sculptor than a tramping frontiersman. But
the little mute with his big boots and confident head wear - for these parts- is
every bit the adventuring hobo.
At one
town along the snake paths of the North Norfolk coast, we witness the undoing
of a community. Young men in fits of shallow laughter, blat about the delicate rural
roadways and glare with subconscious homo-empathy in their eyes. They revere
the superficial and wear the reverence on their feet and hands and heads and
mouths. Famous people, all sad and gaunt for their lack of vision, consult the
young men through natty devises in mutually unwitting ways. Even more
tear-worthy is the calculated denial - by
better educated famous people - of the boundless depth to the visions of
the young.
More
youth about on the seaside high street and pub car-parks... Self-promoted young
women squander their sensual allotments amid blaring claxons of soulless TV, music
without melody and empty magazines; all promising inclusion and entrance into
the fame-lottery at least. These girls are clamoring for womanhood, seemingly unable
to halt and sit and realise the softness of their skin and how it can teach
tenderness to men.
Apart
from the raging crowds the tramp and I take photographs of us alone on the North
Norfolk beaches, smiling and listening to the world. Agreeing that the sea is
not so enigmatic after all. These photos are now hung in a cottage hallway for
purely economic reasons and depict us two as entranced by this craggy stretch
of coast. Its enduring sweet-shops and dignified railways, resplendent ales, enthusiastic
social calendars and stubborn sideburns on the ruddy cheeks of old men.
Between
crowded boulders and scrub offset by the vigorous long steps. Far off crumbling
sea-groins can be seen extending from cliffs-edge to water like overworked
arteries. An epidemic of yellow-petaled scrub, sways to the sound of shanty and
kisses the sea mist and looks prehistoric.
A
special pleasure in seeing uncommon users strap off their packs halfway down
the steps and contemplate failure, is almost sure to give us both short frissons,
but rugged men as we are, we climb to them, carry them down all bleary and
sick, down into the beasts cave as if attending to something there that pleases
him. He is built like an old tree and has a pot-belly. Teflon-tough grass grows out,
there are gashes down his eyes and cheeks. He was a beautiful child when he
first came to this coastal town. The trouble - he tells us - is that he lost
his looks by dint of a tinkers spell; Cast in a fit of spite whilst he play with
his twin brother on the edge of the hard surfaces. And more hurtsome than that,
his twin slipped in and was lost to the sea and the beast remains tragically
cautious of the waves and their popping foams and displaced shingle. Yet, Into
the soup is where he is desperate to be. Alone with his twin and their one
mind.
Once
the users are delivered and attentive, we see a vision in the smoky morning mist.
At least a hundred fisherman attend to the presumption of a beasts appetite, never
to forget him and his terrible ways, they invent shanties and stories to that
effect. Because of his beastness, they presume he wants prey. So they throw him
fish and hope the fish flap enough to allay his predatory instinct. Really, the
beast is just a mournful brother. He tries to convey this to the users and fisherman,
he asks them truly, pleads for their help in finding his dear lost twin. He
points to the horizon and the boats and then he wails, but his tongue is too
wild and they all scream at his grassy belly and molten eyes, and then the
fisherman continue to frantically fetch him more fish and the users scatter
into the night, all mystified and disturbed and packless.
Up the
cliffs to a pub the two of us go. Our packs hitched up and molded, the tramps bowler
hat straightened and proud. We ponder elucidation over the first beer, but It's
no good that we tell these young people around us of the beast and his
melancholy; how they should run to the beach and advise their fisherman fathers
to cast their nets for a beastly twin with half a mind. Search, rescue and
reunify the brothers. Break the tinkers spell and with it the dawn on this
North Norfolk town. Alas, the young do not see us or hear us anymore. We have
blinded them or allowed them to be blinded. We have blocked their ears or
failed to prevent the blockage.
After
half a skin-full we plod off up the coast to the next town or village. We hope
for more sweet-shops and railways, resplendent ales, busy squares and stubborn
sideburns on faces with time to chat. I ask the little tramp:
'How long before that beast is driven mad by
his inability to parley for his brothers soul?.. And how long until he tires of
flapping fish?'
The little tramp smiles his little smile and we walk
on.
not The End
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