Blind Desire - Part Two
If you haven't already read it this story begins right here; Part One
London 1968 was happening and I was way out of my league. Everyone was so hip, so polished, so dressed. I was a Chicago street kid feeling like a hick off the farm. What was worse, it turned out that although the government said I could work, the unions were another matter. Thank god, Liz got a break right away. She met the head of the makeup union, charmed him, and went to work on a TV series. We moved into a basement flat in Chelsea, got a car and I became her driver taking her out every morning to Shepperton Studios. Then I was free to wander the streets aimlessly, watching life happen all around me, just out of reach.
I learned the parks of London then including Battersea, the loneliest. In those days it was a sprawling empty expanse with its abandoned power plant looming overhead. It suited me then to be there breathing the air of uselessness and decay. I spent my days sitting on its benches and wandering its paths, killing the hours. I was miserable, worse than miserable, I had lost my identity. Without work, without being part of a group, without a beautiful wife by my side, what was I? Not much it seems. For a long time afterward, I described myself as a doughnut, all outside and nothing in the center. It’s important to have a center.
