Christmas at Brownlow Street Hepatitis C (Hep C) Blog-Post

(A short fictional story from my youth!)

Christmas at Brownlow Street


I was walking my dog this morning, Jack Frost had been all over the place and I don’t know why but I started thinking about Christmas Day at Brownlow Street!

Brownlow Street was a house that a few of us had rented when I was going through my ‘teens’. We were all drug dependants and Heroin was our drug of choice, though in truth we would take just about anything we could lay our hands on. The house was the next best thing to a squat except we actually paid rent to live there, sometimes at least. There would usually be an assortment of waifs and strays ‘crashing', whilest they sorted themselves out; or they were just too off their head to make it home. Sometimes we’d have electricity and sometimes we didn’t, sometimes it was getting busted by the drugs squad or searched by law enforcers of some kind. It was certainly one of the most un-festive places you would ever want to be on a Christmas morning.

As we all got up to the whining sounds of Matt’s girlfriend, Sue, “Maaaat, can you just..."; I remember thinking, f*ck its Christmas and I’m hanging out! I wasn’t alone and we was probably all contemplating that daily grind of ‘how the f*ck are we going to score today?’ The fact that it was Christmas Day had no relevance or meaning to any of us, to us it was just another day.

I can’t remember how it came about but somehow we allowed Matt to talk us into going up to a dealers; Kev and his dickhead brother, fat Billy’s house in Tang Hall, to see if we could get some gear 'laid on', on account of it being Christmas an’ all.

We all set off, I can’t remember exactly who was with us; my memories from that period being somewhat hazy after all this time, (ahem) you understand. But most likely it was all the usual suspects, Matthew, Kecki, Taff, Benny, Me and inevitably Major, Matt’s trusty old dog out for his morning constitutional.

It was a frosty morning, like today, which is why I probably started thinking about it.

Of course none of us had any money, but Matt’s thinking was ‘as we’d supported our local dealer all year it was only fair that he should see us ‘right’ through the festive period and the like. We must have looked like a bunch of screaming zombie skulls as we trudged along, all quiet apart from Matt relentlessly practicing his pitch on us over and over again.

When we got there, we banged on the door several times but no-one would come, Matt, not taking ‘no’ for an answer, carried on banging on the door! Eventually Kev opened up and before we could say anything, he barked, “its f*cking Christmas, I’m not doing any gear today, we’ve got the kids opening presents and my misses is going f*cking crackers at you lot been here, now f*ck off!” She was too, we could hear her, and he slammed the door shut

Now any lesser man, me included, would have given up at that. But not a mad Scotsman who was starting to ‘cluck’ badly by now and he started banging on the door again, even louder than before! Eventually the door cracked open and 'dickhead Billy' stood there and growled “F*ck off Matt or I’ll smack ya!” “You can do that man, but tell Kev that’s not fucking right man, 'smack heeds' don’t get a day off man, just ‘cos its Christmas. That’s not right man, am fucking glad he’s having a very nice Christmas an’ all man, with all the money he’s made out of us man. A hope his kids are havin a f*ckin crackin' time......” and so he went on and on and on. Eventually Kev pulled the door back and bored into submission, handed us each ‘a bag’ “Ach, ya dancer! We’ve got no money man but...” Kev stopped him, “you can have that, Merry F*cking Christmas, now f*ck off and don’t come back till after Christmas!”

We'd won, more importantly we had all scored! As we all walked away we had smiles from ear to ear! I can remember that suddenly the hanging out feeling was not so bad after all! We strode on, laughing and joking, like we were brothers together going home, triumphant. This may sound crazy but it was like we were characters in some perverse Dickensian novel and as we walked back into Brownlow Street it seemed that it was no longer the cold stark hovel that I had left an hour or so before. It had been transformed into a warm and inviting home filled with jovial chatter as we recounted to each other, the story of our Christmas miracle. The kettle was put on and the tin foil passed round as though we started preparing our festive feast and soon, we gorged ourselves. Then, satisfied, we settled back on the sofas and armchairs, like any normal family would, and put the telly on for the Queens speech. It was Christmas and the season of goodwill had some meaning even for us!

I don’t miss that life I had back then but on that day, at that time, I wouldn’t have swapped places with anyone, and if you asked me ‘would I leave it out if I had my time over again’ then I would have to answer 'no' I would not. My time as a smack-head was not an easy time in my life and though there were many grave moments; it was all a rich experience and proof that you can find good in anything if you allow yourself to look.

Merry Christmas everybody, wherever you are.