Hackney Central 90s K
For the better finding out such citizens’ dwellings, shops, pubs or occupations, without impediment, molestation, or interruption to their heirs or successors
Night was falling hard and merciless over the borough of Hackney.
Row upon row of grey, crumbling, half-dismantled houses stood jammed against one another like the set of some grainy black-and-white photograph taken in the early nineties a surreal, catatonic vision of urban decay.
On the battered gas stove, the metal dish balanced on top of the water pot had begun to rattle and blubber in rhythm with the bubbles rising furiously from the boiling water below. Buck sat very still, eyes locked on every movement Mark made.
“This is Golden Cap Indian,” Mark said, voice low and almost reverent. “The best. You won’t find anything better on the market right now. Forget those weak trips where people talk about ‘hallucinations’these are real hallucinations.”
He unscrewed the cap of the small bottle and began slowly pouring the dark liquid onto the waiting dish.
At that moment Nicholas the trash bin junkie materialised out of nowhere. His voice carried the familiar mixture of defeated repentance and brittle, pointless excitement, the kind that never promises anything good and never delivers it either. Good mood was nowhere in the room.
“You promised two syringes of liquid for me and Buck, remember?” Nicholas said.
From the flat upstairs came the sudden brutal thud of gabber hardcore, pounding through the ceiling like a second heartbeat. Somewhere in that noise a blonde girl with dreadlocks and a heavy-set Italian woman were cooking porridge. Mark Khaos was in the house.
Buck thought to himself: Fuck. So that’s why they call him Chaos. Now I get it.
Nicholas had already flickered across the room teleported, almost to the familiar archaeological mound of bin bags, filthy clothes, crumpled aluminium foil and broken glass vials. He returned almost instantly holding two 2.5 ml syringes, the plastic barrels cloudy with age and reuse.
Mark stared at them. His face twisted into something between despair, frustration and sour amusement. Without a word he picked up one of the syringes, plunged the needle into the bottle and drew the liquid up slowly.
Buck watched the dense fluid climb the barrel.
“Is that clean?” he asked quietly. “I mean… can you actually inject it?”
“Intramuscular,” Mark answered with flat, practised sufficiency, as though the question itself were slightly stupid.
The gabber continued to hammer from above. The dish on the stove kept shivering. And the night outside pressed its cold, indifferent face against the cracked windows of Hackney.