Waking up on another wet, dull Friday morning on April 17th, 2009, I feel a bit out of step today. My Giro cheque from the Benefit Agency has yet to arrive in the post.
I’m not using my bank account and have no income to honour my creditors, totalling £25,000. Penniless, hungry, cupboards empty and dry, at 1 p.m., it was time to go to the benefit line.
I got dressed and grabbed my laptop, which I never leave behind. I wanted to publish my blog of the day, which I did in a café on the way to the job centre.
If anything, in my mind, I’m saying, I could get a counter payment.
The weekend was here, and waiting until Monday to buy some food was too long.
I won’t get into the politics of being attended to by a civil servant who is as smug as a bug in a rug. They are impolite, have bad manners, disrespect you, are not courteous, and are very unhappy when doing their job.
Their unpleasantness rubs off, creeping up your back, depressing one’s day like a cold red rash when I’m generally chirpy, never grey. I had to wait for ages to be seen.
After speaking to a staff member, I was reluctantly informed, ‘I have to wait until Monday before I can report the cheque as missing.’
I had to leave with nothing.
As I walked home, I thought, What can I do? How do I survive without food?
Heading towards home, the hope of a Saturday post kept my stomach in. As I walked up the slope on Matthias Road, I thought, Patience is the best solution.
Approaching closer to my home, I could see my friend, Sarah Smith, also known as the princess. She’s a lot more than that.
She has a heart of gold, but like most of us in this area and around the world, having been beaten and battered as a young mother, she’s had her share of so-called bad luck.
It isn’t easy for an English cleaner to get work at a rate that one can live on. It is demanding work.
As we got closer, we greeted one another with a hug and a cosmopolitan kiss on her rosy-red cheeks. I was happy to see her, but not satisfied with myself.
**Control of Rage**
We said our hellos, and Sarah added, ‘There are a good few policemen on Green Lanes; it looks like something major.’
I suddenly felt so much rage flowing through my body. This feeling was a new experience.
The need to demolish someone’s face, wanting to harm another, but the feeling was not towards Sarah. I wanted to punch a police officer; the urge to act on it was great.
With her sentence said, there was a sense of urgency. I just turned away from her, and like an Olympic speed walker about to win a race, I walked furiously at a rapid pace towards the incident, which was in the same direction as my home.
I could hear Sarah’s voice in the growing distance, along with the busy, bustling traffic of city life around Newington Green, shouting, ‘Fitzroy, Fitzroy, Fitzroy.’
I wasn’t interested in what she said; I intended to get that copper and smash his face. Luckily, I escaped my dark thoughts and regained my senses before encountering an officer.
I stopped in my tracks, turned round, and went to the bus stop. Feeling in such a way as to want to harm someone was not the right emotion to be expressing when just walking down the road.
I felt the need to see a doctor.
As a result, I got on the 73 bus to A&E at Euston General Hospital.
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