Heaven's Promise (2 page)

To be shamed in front of your peers for not owning a current hot tune that everyone is parlaring about always brought back that unwelcome feeling you got back in school, when your P&M couldn't or wouldn't buy you the latest gears and you walked around for days cut off from everybody.

You have to keep face and that is why heaven to a DJ is finding a record that no one else is onto and letting it loose upon the crowd you play to because, believe it, if it's a great enough tune, in no time at all it will be the record on everyone's lips and, what's more, your name is associated with it. That's what gives you the juice in this game and what you are always aiming for.

So to publicly doubt me, as Sandra had just done, was guaranteed to spark me off but before I could properly respond to her challenge, I have to say that I was thrown off course by the little smile that was playing on her mouth and starting to intrigue me, myself and I.

‘What tune is it?' I asked, acting bored while all the time slyly taking in the rest of her appearance which, I must state, was not an unpleasant experience given her large, dark brown eyes, the casual simplicity of her dress, smart white t shirt and faded Levis, and the languid movement of her legs as her and Jill made to walk away.

‘It's called “Nobody But You Babe,” by Clarence Reid,' she said over her shoulder.

It was a class request, no doubt on that one, but it was stacked away at my yard and out of sight.

‘I've got it at home, if that's any good to you,' I replied.

‘How nice for you, dear.' Sandra motioned to the dex behind me with raised eyebrows.

‘By the way,' she said, ‘the tune you're playing is about to finish.'

Turning to the dex in a panic, I hastily mixed in another tune, and not too badly either if I don't say so myself, for the dancers out on the floor, and there were some serious movers in the house that night, failed to notice the join and kept to the groove, thankfully not deserting the dancefloor in huge numbers, the nightmare that haunts every DJ who is playing out and one which the Brother P. once termed as the playing of the Moses Record.

That's when you play a tune that is so wack and wrong that the crowd out on the floor suddenly part like the Red Sea and leave you playing to a deserted floor.

When I looked back Sandra had floated away and I had two chances of spotting her, little and none. The Unity Club, let me explain, is a tight, dank venue where naked pipes run across all the walls and constantly drip-drip-drip, oozing condensation.

Behind my booth, there is a bar area with tables and chairs to rest upon. In front of me is the small sized dance arena where the people pack in tight, rubbing, touching, sweating and expressing themselves to the music. The faint smell of sex is everywhere and anywhere, and from my raised booth I can hardly make out the faces as they move through the gloomy light like ghosts, so I knew I'd lost Sandra swallowed up as she was by the darkness and the crowd.

She would either have to come over to me or I would have to wait for the last tune and lights up to locate her, so I put her out of my mind's frame and concentrated on my DJ'ing. This is a skill which I look upon as a true art form, although I know many people don't even think about the DJ, in the way you get on a bus and never check the driver until they do something mad like take a bend at 80, which is when you sit up and take notice.

But for me, myself and I, DJ'ing is one of the few things in life that really moves me. To be able to play your record collection to a crowd of people and see them respond favourably, is not only to have your taste vindicated but can actually, when the crowd is moving as one, be quite a moving sight.

My faves, and I don't mean to be unpatriotic and all that, are the Americans for I have heard bootleg tapes from New York and it's unbelievable what some of them cats get up to. I work off two dex, which is hard enough, but these dudes double that amount and you still can not hear them mixing from one record to another because somehow, they keep the beat steady and constant, and one day, when the cashola is there, I have determined to fly over and discover their secrets.

Switching my attention back to the job at hand, I decided to go into m y favourite mix, a musical concoction that I had put together at home on my two SL 1200 turntables and which featured ‘Raw' by Big Daddy Kane, ‘I Know You Got Soul' by Bobby Byrd, ‘Rebel Without A Pause' by Public Enemy, James Brown's ‘Stone To The Bone,' Sly Stone's ‘If You Want Me To Stay,' Cymande's ‘The Message' before heading back to the present with Eric B. and Rakim's ‘Microphone Fiend.'

As I was searching out the next tune whilst also thinking what a powerful force music is and how it can really help you deal with the stress and strain of Capital living by allowing you to let off big time on the dancefloor, I noticed a compilation LP I had just picked up on the cheap and which featured the tune Sandra had asked for, all present and correct on side one, track 4.

I pulled it out, mixed it in and within thirty seconds of the tune finishing, there was sweet Sandra standing beside me, saying, ‘I thought you said it was at home.'

‘It was,' I replied, ‘but I ran home to get it for you.'

‘Fetch me a bucket,' she said with a laugh that lit up her face.

‘Eddie Bo,' I replied.

‘What?'

‘Eddie Bo. He cut a tune called “Check The Bucket.” I forget which label.'

‘How absolutely fascinating. And I suppose that record is at home as well.'

‘Third shelf, on the left hand side. Where do you live?' Sandra hesitated for a moment. ‘North.'

‘Well, if you want to share a cab after, you can pop m and meet the great Eddie Bo.'

‘I think I can live without that dubious privilege,' she replied.

‘But we can share a cab if you like.'

This we did but if you're wondering what came next, let me tell you straight away, people, that nothing happened that first night except for some pleasant chit chat in the back of the cab.

It was the following night when it all went off. Sandra unexpectedly called round, (‘the friend I went to see was out...') and, after a couple of brews and a few smokes, I picked up the courage to pull the following stunt, taught to me, myself and I by the first number at our school, an Italian number called Enzo, to lose his cherry, much to our great consternation and extreme astonishment.

Now, believe me, I know the following yarn sounds a bit silly in the cold light of day but it does work so I'll put it down and you can make of it what you will.

‘What you do,' Enzo explained to a group of us hanging onto his every word as if he was the Messiah just descended, which to many of us he was as he'd just pulled off something that the rest of us could only think about, ‘is you sit on the sofa with her and about half way through the evening pick up her hand and say, that's a nice ring you're wearing. Keep holding her hand. After she's said, yes, so and so gave it to me, either she'll pull her hand away, in which case forget it, or she will let you hold on, which means you're in.'

Sandra let me hold her hand but the nerves between the both of us could have kept this town's electricity supply alive for a 100 years until, unable to stand the tension anymore, I made a move and we began kissing.

Sad to say but my first romp with Sandra was not the starry eyed experience that you always hope for when you couple up for the first time, but then how could it be when you consider that sex, nine times out of ten, only fires up after a real familiarity has been established, and you get to know each other and what is required, which is why I have to laugh everytime I go cinema and there, on the silver screen, the two leads fly at each other to a sound track of deafening moaning and groaning.

It's not the depiction that upsets me and far from it, because I'd much rather watch people loving it up than kicking ten shades out of each other any day of the year, but it's the obvious dishonesty of it all that bugs me, so much so, in fact, that if the keeper's of the nation's morals, Mrs. Mary W. and her army of knitting needles, were to campaign on this ticket, namely persuading the film numbers to depict how things really go down between people about to dip their feet in some of the deepest and strangest waters there are, why she'd have my vote each and every time.

As it was Sandra and I were fumbling and awkward with each other, failing badly to reach the fireworks stage and it struck me after, as I tried to drift off into dreamland and put behind me what had just passed, that the idea of sex with someone was sometimes far more of a kick than the act itself, and when you also considered the grief you saved both yourself and your partner, then may be that would be the best course for me to charter over the next few months.

The problemo, of course, stemmed from that vital piece of man known as John Thomas. That incorrigible organ tends to direct a man's outlook a lot of the time and if every boy and girl was wised up to his ways and manners at a very early age, then you'd have the smartest, not to mention the happiest nation on earth. True thing, people.

Contemplating these thoughts I slipped into darkness and when I came to the next morning Sandra had flown the yard to get to work, leaving behind a name and number which I used the next night to invite her down to The Unity.

Indeed, the romping started to gear up between us but if truth be told it never hit full swing and that was down to me and the fact that I was still carrying a torch for the First Lady of my life, a state of being that I have only just come to terms with, although Sandra sussed it almost straight away.

On our third night together, she said, ‘There's someone else isn't there?'

‘No, there isn't,' I said, taken aback a little. ‘There is, I can tell.'

‘I promise you Sandra, I'm not checking anyone else.'

‘Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there,' she said cryptically, and not, I have to add, a little sadly.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' I quickly said and then reached for her. She just sighed and now as I muse on it all I am left wondering if that was the night we created human life.

I •shook the notion out of my head and glanced at the clock.

10.53 a.m. Time to get busy.

I moved into my small bedroom and perused my gears which hang on a rail that takes up one side of the room. I should explain here that gears, the art of acquiring an item and then presenting yourself to the world in an eye balling fashion, is a lifelong habit of mine and although the choosing of how best to dress for the day is one of my morning's better moments, that consideration for today, at least, was out of the window. Within two minutes I was dressed, gathering up my essentials for the day, which means cigarettes, keys, walk ma n, tapes, all of which are placed in a small bowling bag, and heading out of the door.

My yard is in North London, above a newsagents in fact, on the Stroud Green Road, a stretch of tar and pavement with a rambling selection of shops and dwellings on either side. As you might expect for someone of my limited means, my yard is small as there are but three small rooms to which I can keep myself and my belongings, the biggest space being taken up by the countless tunes I have gathered up over the years.

You will no doubt have sussed by now that for me, myself and I, music is one of the few reasons why I find existence on this earth so enjoyable, the simple reason being that not only is music capable of placing a lot of folk in a very cool mood, and that applies to each and everyone whether it be the sound of a church bell in the early morning mist or Miss Nina Simone testifying, but it can actually transcend normal life and take you out of yourself to a place that is unbelievably wondrous and inspiring.

Music can give you such a boost that from where I'm standing no drug has yet been invented to match it and that's why every day I go in search of a fix. It is also the reason why the walls of my yard are filled with pictorial tributes to those God given talents, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Donald Byrd, Donny Hathaway, The Isley Brothers, and many more, whose work will always ring down the decades, touching every guy and gal for as long as the world keeps turning.

In fact, after Sandra's call I had toyed with the idea of placing Miss Nina Simone's heartaching ‘Little Boy Blue' on the turntable to push me down so I could rise up higher, but instead, anxious not to be late, I rushed out of the yard and onto the concrete just as the Stroud Green Road was coming to life.

Saturday morning shoppers filled the pavement and buses, packed to the gills slowly manoeuvered between the parked cars, carrying some of the locals to the tube and a day in the West End. An array of colourful plastic shopping bags flashed in front of my eyes like a surreal painting as the street started to stretch itself for the long day ahead, announcing its waking amidst much noise and bustle.

I have to say that this is a really cool area to be plotted up in. Uno, most of the street is really wide, such as you see in pies of cities like Rome or New York, and I likes the breathing space that gives you. Due, there's all kinds of shop business happening here to suit all tastes and fancies. Record shops, books, bakeries, car showrooms, supermarkets, newsagents, florists, electrical goods, and even an old Gentleman's outfitters where, when you buy something, they write you out a receipt, ring up the price on an old wooden cash till and generally behave towards you as if you were Top Boy in a Noel Coward play.

Walk ten yards either side of this quaint bastion of a Britain Forgotten and you will come across a Chinese supermarket to the South and a Mauritian fish shop to the North, whilst if hunger should strike on your journey, you can, if funds are of a sufficient nature, mangare on Italian, Polish, Chinese or West Indian grub of the highest quality.

Throw in the different snippets of language that fly like birds up and down the road, mix in the assortment of tantalising smells that emanate from all corners and which must whisk up so many memories for the people living and working around the way, and consider the undisputed truth that within this area there is rarely trouble or tension in the air, just a shared sense of living on the balance, and you'll understand my goodwill to the area and the fervent wish I harbour that such streets should be duplicated all over this green and pleasant land.