it, the stubble along it when he pressed his face to hers or tickled her belly with it, making her squeal with his raspberries. And then she remembered his song more clearly, and the tra-la of the girl in the ring, over and over in her mind. This is fucked up.
Moe walks even faster and she spots the row of sleeping bags under the bridge. And there’s an acid stench, all piss and shit and burnt wood. The traffic vibrates the ground beneath her Uggs and she stops, feeling it in her toes and all the way up her legs. There’s a flutter along her shoulders with the swooshing tires overhead, and for an instant she has wings.
“We have provisions,” Moe says to a groggy man at the entrance to the encampment as a few of them emerge from their sleeping bags. Olivia knows they leave the camp early and head to the carpark at the Southall Sikh temple, where sometimes they get selected for casual work. Olivia slips her heavy knapsack off her shoulders and brings it to her feet. She unzips the large compartment and takes out some of the tins, the bread, squished now, but hell, better than anything she sees around her: plastic bags of rubbish, rotting food, socks. What’s with the socks? She takes out the bottles of water. They don’t have long. Once the sun comes up the neighbours will be poking their heads out and adding her and Moe to their list of complaints, until that list is long enough that the Home Office and the police do something and get rid of these damn homeless, jobless illegals—even though that’s not even the case for all of them. Some had visas, but they can’t find work and now they can’t go home or stay here either. Some were sold false papers back in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh; some stay here all day and drink and piss and shit.
A siren chirps into the underpass and now there’s all kinds of stirring and moving and mumbling from beneath the blankets. A police car parks beside the camp and two officers get out and slam their doors, all TV-like, and Moe walks towards them. Moe is well-sick when it comes to talking to police, on account of his Americanness and the fact that nothing scares him. Moe would take someone like Granddad and say,
Sir, with all due respect, anti-miscegenation laws in the US were repealed on the 12th of June 1967 by Loving v. Virginia. The British created what your daughter tells me you call half-castes in every port that a cargo ship docked in across the colonized world
. And to extend the point of this long continuum of inter-everything, Moe would say,
Sir, gaymarriage is becoming legal in one territory after the other. What in Abraham Lincoln’s name is your problem?
Moe would point out to Granddad that his very own flesh and blood was
really, I mean, really, sir, as you can obviously see, a very simple emblem of the future
.
“You need to be moving along now, please,” the officer who is barely older than Moe says to him, shooing his arms towards Moe who has gone into slow motion now, nodding and pausing with something on his mind, and taking up all the officer’s patience before he says, “We’re British citizens, sir, and we’re helping out some people here.” Moe turns to Olivia and nods, which she takes as her cue to make sure the tins and the water are handed out. She digs deeper into her sack and takes some beans, peas, and sweetcorn tins and begins to walk towards the sleeping bags.
“Miss,” the other officer says. This officer is older, with one dark fucker of a unibrow. She turns towards him. “That’s enough. You have to leave,” and his voice is not as polite as the young dude’s. She looks at Moe, but Moe is nearly smiling. She realizes that maybe Moe doesn’t blaze as much as she imagined; maybe Moe appears stoned when he’s in his highest power. She turns towards the men at the sleeping bags who have all been watching this as the sun comes up behind them under the lip of the bridge. She sees only heads in silhouette, at different standing,
Moe walks even faster and she spots the row of sleeping bags under the bridge. And there’s an acid stench, all piss and shit and burnt wood. The traffic vibrates the ground beneath her Uggs and she stops, feeling it in her toes and all the way up her legs. There’s a flutter along her shoulders with the swooshing tires overhead, and for an instant she has wings.
“We have provisions,” Moe says to a groggy man at the entrance to the encampment as a few of them emerge from their sleeping bags. Olivia knows they leave the camp early and head to the carpark at the Southall Sikh temple, where sometimes they get selected for casual work. Olivia slips her heavy knapsack off her shoulders and brings it to her feet. She unzips the large compartment and takes out some of the tins, the bread, squished now, but hell, better than anything she sees around her: plastic bags of rubbish, rotting food, socks. What’s with the socks? She takes out the bottles of water. They don’t have long. Once the sun comes up the neighbours will be poking their heads out and adding her and Moe to their list of complaints, until that list is long enough that the Home Office and the police do something and get rid of these damn homeless, jobless illegals—even though that’s not even the case for all of them. Some had visas, but they can’t find work and now they can’t go home or stay here either. Some were sold false papers back in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh; some stay here all day and drink and piss and shit.
A siren chirps into the underpass and now there’s all kinds of stirring and moving and mumbling from beneath the blankets. A police car parks beside the camp and two officers get out and slam their doors, all TV-like, and Moe walks towards them. Moe is well-sick when it comes to talking to police, on account of his Americanness and the fact that nothing scares him. Moe would take someone like Granddad and say,
Sir, with all due respect, anti-miscegenation laws in the US were repealed on the 12th of June 1967 by Loving v. Virginia. The British created what your daughter tells me you call half-castes in every port that a cargo ship docked in across the colonized world
. And to extend the point of this long continuum of inter-everything, Moe would say,
Sir, gaymarriage is becoming legal in one territory after the other. What in Abraham Lincoln’s name is your problem?
Moe would point out to Granddad that his very own flesh and blood was
really, I mean, really, sir, as you can obviously see, a very simple emblem of the future
.
“You need to be moving along now, please,” the officer who is barely older than Moe says to him, shooing his arms towards Moe who has gone into slow motion now, nodding and pausing with something on his mind, and taking up all the officer’s patience before he says, “We’re British citizens, sir, and we’re helping out some people here.” Moe turns to Olivia and nods, which she takes as her cue to make sure the tins and the water are handed out. She digs deeper into her sack and takes some beans, peas, and sweetcorn tins and begins to walk towards the sleeping bags.
“Miss,” the other officer says. This officer is older, with one dark fucker of a unibrow. She turns towards him. “That’s enough. You have to leave,” and his voice is not as polite as the young dude’s. She looks at Moe, but Moe is nearly smiling. She realizes that maybe Moe doesn’t blaze as much as she imagined; maybe Moe appears stoned when he’s in his highest power. She turns towards the men at the sleeping bags who have all been watching this as the sun comes up behind them under the lip of the bridge. She sees only heads in silhouette, at different standing,
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