Walk Home

His mother encouraged him to catch the bus home. But on fine Autumn afternoons he enjoyed the long walk. As soon as he was out of school and into the park he felt different. More intelligent, more attractive, more powerful, more ruthless. Held in place by his warm fleece hat were a pair of headphones through which he drank in the nourishment of noise. This music (converted into MP3 from the CD) was more real than school. It put him in touch, on a deeper level, with similar people. Strong people with clear idea and a taste for the extremes.
The band was called Kinesis. The sleeve notes were full of quotes from a man called Ivan Illich – calling into question all sorts of systems, including school. The music was fierce and tight. The singer raged about infringements of liberty over bass-lines that fused the solidity of masonry with a shark’s fluidity of movement. The drumming was both punctuation and demonstration, making the lyrics irrefutable. Within all this, guitar lines flowed like the free movement of thought. Creativity forcing unmapped courses through the three-dimensional complexity of the brain. Pulling preconceptions apart and working things through anew from basic axioms – freedom, integrity, self-expression, compassion.
There were always beggars in the park. One – an old man with a charming air, saluted him and although no sound could penetrate the cocoon that Kinesis has woven around he head, Jason could easily lip-read the familiar refrain:
“Could you spare us a bit of change, lad?”
Jason fumbled in his pocket and stuck a £1 coin that would have been bus-fare into the man’s hand.
“God bless you, sir!”
My compassion is manifested through an intense hatred towards many of my fellow-humans. If the sight of this man’s suffering could move me to tears, it could also spur me to destroy those who cause such suffering, myself for being unable to prevent it, or him for allowing it to continue. When faced with our shortcomings and weaknesses, might it not be better that we all be destroyed. Perhaps another Noah – some saint or the solitary sane man – would rescue enough life to recreate – no, to begin again on higher principles.
Jason was striding out now, taking huge gulps of the sharp evening air which tasted faintly of bonfires. He came down off the park and cut though Woodhouse. A lot of students lived round here. He watched them – shaven headed or decked with multicolour dreadlocks. As he walked past the Primrose he saw a girl whose face sparkled with surgical steel. He smiled without conscious intention. She gave him a withering look that suggested his clothes, the uniform, marked him out as a class-enemy, someone to be hated, or (worse) pitied.

*

At the end of Buslingthorpe Lane, Jason turned left – up towards Chapel Allerton where he lived. Walking up though Scot Hall Road always gave him a little tremor of fear. He quite enjoyed it. He knew his uniform marked him out as well off. Most of the families who lived along here were not. He lengthened his stride as he ascended the hill, watching a guided bus shudder up its concrete trench on his right. He turned and looked down at Leeds on his left. It was a great view.
On the fields by the police station he could see some kids from the Scot Halls, playing some weird version of golf. Jason always found this amusing – that they chose to play such a middle-class game. But they only ever had one club and they just bashed the ball around with no apparent purpose. Jason crossed the road, bringing him nearer to the golfers. They had noticed him, and briefly he imagined them taking the golf clubs to him, battering him with them. However, there was not much chance of that with the huge cop-shop so near by.
Jason avoided eye-contact and carried on walking.

*

Despite walking home, Jason still got there before his mother has returned from work. He went in and put the kettle on. He was hungry so he got some crisps and munched them loudly. He made himself a strong black coffee and went upstairs to his room.