On gold-and-pink mornings he sits on his roof and thinks of the Beatles. There is an obvious Fool on the Hill reference here, but he prefers to think of his situation as pre-Lennon. Waiting it out. The inevitable acclaim.
His housemates don’t realise this. Beneath his iron perch they are ignorantly brewing tea and shaking cereal into bowls inset with fine cracks. Five bowls for five dollars at the Vinnies down the road. Mismatched cutlery set three dollars extra. Cornflakes with cold milk: priceless.
Four of them live in the old terrace house, showering in the endlessly foggy bathroom, wiping it repeatedly from the mirror and drying with towels that are never dry. Crowding into the lounge at night to watch the one channel they can get on the TV they inherited with the house, drinking wine from a communal bottle.
Up on the roof he picks at a hangnail and looks at the building opposite, fronting the street one over as government offices. Overnight, parachuting rats have appeared near the base of the wall, amateurish so that the paint has run. He looks at this poorly executed homage and the feeling that he is pre-Lennon intensifies.
He climbs down from the corner of the roof and through the negative space where the fence is falling to the side, away from its upright, brushing his hand over the rough paint flakes and wiping it on his jeans. He turns right and wanders toward the main street, jostling with people hurrying for buses and trains. Stepping across the urine pools draining stickily across the footpath to the gutter.
He swerves around a group of city commuters and several of them look him up and down, probably mistaking him for pre-Dylan. He smirks and keeps walking.
–Art by Joanna Jankowska
bridge media | Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG ‘University Blue’ — Ietp