London for ever - 19

One of these was the "black giant". 

He was a tall, thick Jamaican, always wrapped in a heavy gray coat; he was constantly turning the length of the square, scratching his curly, woolly head, or his back and legs and never saying hello to anyone. 

Once, and it  was the only one, he came up to ask me for an ice cream.

 I served him a cone with some cream on it. He maybe thought  I was expecting the money, because he attacked me with a load of arrogant phrases, in his incomprehensible Jamaican dialect. His eyes were red and swollen. 

After the first series  of insults he gave a tremendous bite to that poor ice cream, swallowing  almost half of it. Then, seeing that I had remained impassive, he still uttered some bad words, with less conviction than before and went away. 

I hoped so much that I never had anything to do again with that energumen, at least  for fear of his undesirables guests. 

But as I saw him, in the distance, resume his scratching all over his body, I realized that there was no danger: the fleas were very fond of him.

19. to be continued...

London for ever - 18

18.

And he ended up with another series  of insults, among which I distinctly grabbed a " to hell  all the clowns in uniform!" And while he was saying these last words he was already away, ready to resume his personal research, God only  knows of  what or whom.

The dormitory of these bums is outdoors, at the back of the underground stations: Charing Cross and Victoria Station are the most popular. They are wrapped in cardboard or in a sort of sleepingbag in order to protect themselves from the damp walls and the cold soil and from the icy wind that often blows from the nearby Thames. The lucky ones, however, come back to sleep in the suburbs, in some damp under-stairs flat or in some sordid little room, among rats and waste of every kind. 

Nevertheless, they preferred all this to public dormitories, for the truth not very numerous but certainly more comfortable, above all for the fact that such hospitality was subordinated to the acceptance of a general program of recovery and social reintegration that they, obstinately, refused to comply with.

There was also someone completely asocial, who even rejected the company of the other tramps and in fact it was always seen alone.

18. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 17

17.

Another distinguished member of  the group was "Old Jerry", one who boasted of having left a leg in what battle I did not know well and proudly displayed numerous decorations of the British Imperial Wars of which he had taken part. He always greeted me happily and was the only one who always drank but good brand of whiskey.

One day, after I had not seen him around for a while, he told me that he had escaped from the "shelter", where some of his relatives had him locked up. He told they  had stolen all his  money and did not even leave him a small amount for a drop of wiskey and hence, as long as he lived, he wanted to live free to do what he wanted, after so many had seen and survived from; and significantly touching the prosthesis, limping but cheerful, he reached his companions who already called him from the benches in front, foretasting  in the throat a sip of good branded whiskey.

More mysterious was instead "Colby", a Welsh still distinguished guy, despite his  vagabond life was going on  for several years. It was said of him that he was in the service of the "Metropolitan Police". One morning a band of the "Salvation Army" passed through the square, with great sounds of trumpets, drums and songs praising the Queen, the national heroes, God Almighty and Divine Mercy, with the chiefs leading the march in high uniform, strutting as general, and in the queue the women volunteers,  with an angelic and inspired face, with the hair gathered in a cap, like so many nuns and the chest of drawers hanging on the neck with the inscription "thank you".

Colby had noticed the arrival of the Salvation Army just as he made his way to his favorite benches in the center of the square. It must have seemed risky to expose him to the square, because, like a hunted prey he took  refuge inside the room, hiding  behind the ice cream machine. Not seen, from there, he made gestures to the  joyous and glorious  parade, moving the index and the middle fingers of the right hand from the bottom upwards and then crossing them by way of an oath and pronouncing outrageous and unrepeatable phrases in their  regards.

 - "The last time they put their hands on me" - he told me as soon as he saw the danger escaped - "they even tried  to convince me that milk is better than my slop; but I told them, you know, I'm tired of being imposed and I do not want to be redeemed by them! Furthermore those kind of generals in the front are a bunch of sexual maniacs and the women on the rear do not even serve to suck my cock! "

17. to be continued...