KX

Kings Cross night out and I meet my beloved friend Michelle who is soft and dreadlocked. Beautiful and tough and brutal like the city she navigates daily. And we go with friends to the tit bar at the bottom of the Cally Rd — because this place has been upgraded too. It’s now a “scotch emporium”. Which we find hilarious as we enter. Laughing at the changes. Laughing as we drink and drink. (To which I protest as I’m on a ketone diet. But these people have no time for ketones as they bang down the vodkas and pretty soon my head’s swimming and we’re laughing and reminiscing and I’ve loved these people for decades.)

The atmosphere broods. This is old Kings Cross. Displaced and gentrified. Only the women at the bar who are tight and smiling remind us of the old days because they used to drink here naked. Their faces are lined and their hair is stiff. Only the younger women have a higher sense of currency than the rest, and they move and flirt like they know this.

Meanwhile their men only get angrier as they drink. The men’s faces are violent and turning inwards. Like explosions that never went off yet. You can see the veins in their skulls. Proper meathead territory.

And why the fuck are we here? Actually?

Watching the barman who is pure smarmy. So much smarmy it’s almost a turn on. In a weird and twisted kind of way. It’s like — here is a man who’s had sex with hundreds of women. Thousands maybe. There’s a sickness and an aura to his smile. It’s a pornographic smile. You can tell by his hands that he’s weak. That in spite of his scotch bar and in spite of his women he still wakes up every morning and finds himself hungry. Looks in the mirror and sees a starving man.

But by now Michelle is drunk and gets the vodkas in regardless. She’s even drunk enough to want to take on the meathead who pushes in front of her at the bar. She’s fired up to complain in an instant. Vodka quick. She pushes at the boundaries because danger is no problem now. And why the FUCK should she have to put up with his shit? She calls the younger barman. When he cowers, she calls the pornographic barman. WHY THE FUCK? Forgetting in her state that this barman is a man who’s made his living out of women for decades. That this is a man with no intention of heeding the call of a radical. It’s like feminism enters the strip joint and tries to finally, finally, call out the disease. But nobody here is having any of that.

So then Michelle is sitting down with us and she’s fuming and pointing at the meathead. And I’m like Jesus...

Michelle. Michelle. Michelle.

That is a dangerous man right there Michelle, I say to her. Get yourself a grip. But she won’t let up because she’s right and this is unjust and the atmosphere in this bar is ugly with fear. And the women are sucking in their stomachs and she is so right. That shit must not be tolerated, she says. It should be stamped out. And even as I agree with her I raise my eyes to the ceiling. Futile. Irrelevant. Because I’m just the middle class white girl in a posh coat from Upper Street. Because there’s nothing left for me to do now but down my last vodka and tell her how much I love her.

I love you. I love you.

And I stroke her cheek goodbye for tonight at least. As this is not my battle . And I’ve had enough of waging war with reality. So I hit the streets, adrenalin buzzing still. Thinking that was old Kings Cross. That was another era. That was an old Kings Cross that is deeply in need of a fight. For a culture shat upon. For the rape of a culture. For the millionaires buying in. And the gourmet coffee. The pristine fountains. The wealthy artists who study art degrees. And the once seedy spaces now patrolled by private security.

The streets pulsate like a heartbeat in my head, and I’m swimming through the lazy crowds, with vodka on my breath as an old man walks towards me. Coughs and throws up right there on the pavement there and then. Right before my shoes and I’m praying they’ve not been splattered and I’m almost running now. Home to the gates. Home to the comfort of wifi and espresso. To the triple locked door. Where my boys are sleeping soundly. And a thousand different worlds unfold just a few feet from one another. Unaware. A city unravelling. An immensity decaying. For we can no longer afford it. Even if we wanted to. Now. Anyway. All is lost. Kings Cross. All is beyond us.

We are already nothing more than whispers in your shadows. Kings Cross. No more than ghosts upon your grave.

https://medium.com/@julialally/kx-4b6e8c6a2d64

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This post was written by Julia