TOMMY, THE CITY AND ME Taken from Behind The Wall
Walking out of the flickering shadows of the High Level Bridge, I head to the ‘Bridge’ bar and tappy-lappy down the cobbles to the Quayside and face the new pubs and clubs with taxis devouring customers at the beginning of the month. Ships are missing; the smell of the past has gone. Its Newcastle now and the Millennium Bridge, a barred half-moon, drapes the river. Looking back at the Tyne Bridge, a bunch of Geordie lasses scream at the sky. I see him, near the Guildhall, a bag of rags; blind, empty-eyed and so foul-mouthed it’s painful, ‘Tommy on the Bridge,’ hitting the present. He scrounges tabs from the young lasses before they throw him out of the ‘Crown Posada,’ the smell of dry piss too much for the early doors, two pint drinkers.
Stag night lads knock Tommy’s hat and it slops on the ground as he throws his stick at them and they caw at each other, cling together, throwing coins he gathers in his buckled hands. I leave him turning over the money, trying to make sense of it. Outside the Baltic sun glazes the metal tables and Tommy makes me a shadow, standing in front of me, smelling of shit and beer. I ask who he is. He spits at me, knowing only too well my game,
‘Ye’ll see us for aa bit but we’re aalways heor. Don’t forget that mister. Put that in ya story.’
He kicks my chair and it rattles as if I am in a cage. In the 1880’s Tommy Ferens would stand on the Swing Bridge, straddling the line between Gateshead and Newcastle to avoid being arrested. He was at it again: not in one place or another. The young manager of the Baltic bar asks him to leave; Tommy walks away with all the pride he can muster, farting so loud the entire bar laughs. I followed him to the Millennium Bridge and then looked upstream at those wonderful bridges and felt a heart bursting pride. Sentimentality rose like sap and I began to cry and stood transfixed. I held the moment as I retraced my past: the Down Beat Club, Club A’ Go Go, with the Animals; Mayfair and Cavendish. The music was so loud in my head I had to sit in the Literary and Philosophical Society Library and drown in whispers as bass lines began to fade and whining guitars became background music.
I walk into the Mining Institute and the past erupts, blood seeps from books, miner’s amputated arms and legs tangle with their widows, round and around the corridors and I have to leave as Stephenson hands me a lamp and shows me the way out. I am bedazzled by light at the bottom of Westgate Road.
I head to Dobson’s Central Station, excited and afraid as a child and I just stop myself from getting on the Metro to the end of the line. Tommy is behind me. I smell him before I see him. I am being stalked by a dead blind man. Tommy died in 1907, collapsing in snow at Gateshead.
Here I am: Central Station to my left, dressed in muffled announcements, diving through traffic heading towards Stowell Street, Chinatown and down the back lane, passing the Morden Tower, buried in poetry and the arse end of restaurants. His heavy breathing’s behind me as I fly out of the cobbled lane and pass the Irish Centre with Saint James’ Park bending to me. I tried to lose him but he is wise to my every move and with the Haymarket Bus Station and Newcastle University before me, his sickly breath is fresh and strong on my neck. I run down Northumberland Street and head to Shieldfield and Byker: he is running me out of town. I stand and eye the bedraggled sky on Byker Bridge, my breathing sharp as a razor and know the past has me. Tommy’s harsh voice ringing in my head, ‘Th’ past’s not deed. Put that in ya story mister.’
Tom Kelly
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