Elton has been trying but now all he wants is a rest. These are his qualities: sharp intelligence, fidelity to his friends, a cynical humour that isn't bitter and open-heartedness. In our little community he is the soul of love. He has dreadlocks to his waist, and on his fingers voodoo rings, a silver skull, and long curved nails.
And oh! he can dance. We turn on the music after our members' dinner, the mike passes round, and Elton moves: like smoke from a campfire, whipping and reaching from the savage element, all one wild coherent work of art. He takes the mike and sings an old Tracy Chapman song—"Last night I heard the screaming / Then a silence that chilled my soul"—and the grunting young freestylers nod with respect.
But he is tired now. He had to move last year because his mother went back to St Lucia, so he settled with the mother of one of his kids. He is 45. It hasn't been easy, the change, the pressure.
He was wanted at court this week for some complex mixture of infractions: non-payment of fines, non-attendance at community service. First he went to the wrong court; the hearing was rescheduled, but to a sunny day. He'd probably had a few by the time it came to go (the special: snakebite and Pernod) and he has his reasons… in the end, down deep he just decided not to bother. Six weeks he'll get, and if he causes a bit of trouble inside he'll get a cell to himself, and some peace at last.
We beg him not to go to prison on purpose. But his sicknote is about to run out (wound up by a woman, he punched a wall and broke his hand). While he's inside maybe the council will find him somewhere of his own to live. Going to jail will clear his fines, and cancel his outstanding community service, and give him a break.
He really has tried, these last few years, but it's all got too much. At the time of writing he's still free. He was going to go down and turn himself in today, but it was raining.
