The Essentials
No its not a 90's R&B album its a students shop in Leeds.
65p potatoes. Sainsbury’s are having a laugh at the working class and all of those that pass past us in the aisles of the local 24 hour shopping centre. Hummus is a new taste of mine but all I can see is the difference between luxury and necessities. 40p noodles and 90p bread bought a few hours before it’s going out of date because fuck it, it’s on sale and I need all of the change that I can keep with me at the moment. Trying to shrug off the bloke as he hounds me for any going spare as I step out of the shop. The wind hits harder than the rain as it hails down like bullets on the Northern Front. This is our war I heard people say during the pandemic and I can’t see how much has changed since it first struck. I’m still scared to go out of my house incase I get hit with an item that costs the shrapnel in my pocket.
A couple of 20’s and 5’s clash as I walk back to the damp house that me and some mates call home. Damp, in the kitchen and the cupboards stink of it as I put the potatoes away. Trying to find the driest space for them to stay fresh for longer. The heaters only just started to work properly and I’m getting a sore throat from the going in between the hot and cold atmosphere of Leeds. I search for a cigarette to stem the hunger in my stomach for a bit but everyone’s on scraps, dust. I didn’t know that it could settle on these surfaces or grease and slugs. I go upstairs to test the water in the bathroom. Ice cold water sputters out and I can feel thespian on my hands tighten around the bones. All I can see is malnourishment when I look in the mirror. The only sight that I can face when I know that my bank account is screaming in the same painful tones. I’m waiting for someone to put it out of its misery. Everyones in the same boat. Head pounding I kick the shit on my floor across my room as I make my way to my bed and bury my head deep into my pillow. Unchanged sheets for a bit more that a week now, because well who can afford washing detergent in this climate. I close my eyes and hear the rats scuttle about over head. The sound the size of a cat. I hear the feet tap. Fuck that I think to myself but probably scream aloud.
“You alright mate?” a voice asks from behind my door.
“I’m not even sure anymore.” I’ve got a habit now of thinking out loud. “I’m just stressed, I’m bare skint and can’t do anything about it, mum’s got enough of her own stuff to worry about and landlords keep getting onto me, bills are being taken from my account as soon as any money touches it and I can’t even afford anything from Sainsbury’s anymore let alone the pub”.
“Same mate we should just go to Aldi from now on” This suggestion gets made every other day and has been said for the past few weeks since my housemate has been back.
It’s a valid point but one that in my minds eye sees me tracking for 40 minutes by foot to spend money on food that will be eaten much sooner than it was bought because I haven’t eaten anything other than potatoes and Morrison’s savers pasta in over about three months. I relay this onto them and they offer to pay the bus fare there or the Uber back. I’m on sure on this one. Hand outs are only things that I seem to accept when it comes to things such as pints or cigarettes. I guess there’s less honour in that that the prior but something about someone buying me a bus ticket doesn’t quite sit right with me. Theres something shameful about someone not having the £1.40 to afford getting a bus to the town centre for them to buy some food.
“I dunno” I say “I don’t think that Aldi’s is much better, what you saying though, what are you up to?”
“Not much just playing FiFA and got some work to do. I’ve got so much to do it’s giving me a headache, I’m so stressed out and all I do is sit in my room and get takeaways because I don’t have enough time to go to the shop to go and get food. I’m gonna do the dishes”
“Give me a sec and I’ll give you a hand”.
We make our way down stairs.
Theres piles of dishes, pots, pans and the rest of the kitchen appliances stacked up on the sideboard. Everything’s there but the fairy liquid and clean sponges to wash it up with.
“———— Isn’t working class enough” my housemate jokes after I propose the question of why didn’t anyone add some water to the last of the liquid.
A trip to the local corner shop is taken. Bin liners and toilet roll is also bought. This is a luxury. Some of my housemates have had to make do with magazine pages for the past week or so because they can’t afford to pay for it themselves. I can’t either, my housemate sticks it all on his card. A student account and a summer job paid for that stuff. The essentials.
To strapped to offer out another cig, he’s given me enough as it is. I think that he told me and my other mate that we owe him £50 between us.
“I’m not paying for a single pint in January” he laughs.
Fair enough I can’t really argue with that one. I’ve been getting the locals cheapest ales since I’ve been back and he’s been paying for most of them as much as that pains me to admit it to a sheet of paper let alone other people.
I had a job you know, before uni I mean. I sound like one of those old boys that I used to serve in the working man’s that I had worked at but I did. Honestly. in fact I had two. One as a lifeguard in the morning and one as a bartender in the evening. I used to go on nights out and have a decent life. I used to make money, I used to eat. You may find this funny but to me and my mates this is some serious shit.
I’ve got one at the moment in fact working at Leeds United. Serving pints that I myself could never afford to pay for but my white shirt and smart black trousers doesn’t give off that impression, neither does my London accent for that matter. Another Southerner up north. I can see it in their eyes what their thoughts are. I’ve heard it enough from their mouths anyway to know what they’re thinking.
I work with some people form all over the country some from the south and some from the north though most are from the local area just trying to make some extra money whilst they study at college or school. It’s a weekend job that me and my mates balance around uni. I guess that it works in that way but the money doesn’t go along way. I’ve somehow managed to blag us a Team Leader/ ‘Supervisor’ position there. God knows how, I think that the Agency manager just took a liking to me and saw that I was good at my job. I don’t know how he saw that he was else where when I did my first shift there. It’s not a bad job. Nah I get free food on shift and it’s something to do so that I don’t have too think all day about how hungry or stressed I am about the other 100 things that seem to be going wrong for everyone at the exact same moment.
This is the time when amazing art and music will be created my housemate said to me the other day. He’s not wrong and we all know it. There’s something in the air. You can feel it pulsing through the atmosphere of every artistic cafe or local bar where gigs are played. It’s not spoken about and if it was there would be a bloody revolution like the one in Paris in the 60’s. Absolute anarchy. I feel like I can hear the Sex Pistols screaming and shouting as those rats continue to scatter and scutter above my head. A train of thought as I lay in bed.
“The Essentials” by John Gilroy.
About the Creator
John Gilroy
I'm a writer from London, now based in Leeds. Anecdotes, trians of thought and poems are what I write.
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Being Vegetarian
Sometimes I ask myself why I am vegetarian. I question the effect that it has on my body. My mum is South African and when I think about the ideal diet I can’t help but think about how meat might help me. I think about the protein of steak and eggs. How when I was in what I believed and still sometimes believe to be the peak physical shape that I was in I feel that I am missing out on my mainly plant based diet. At university for a time when I was struggling with money I was turning to dairy products for calcium and energy. Though I swear off of eating eggs on their own or as part of a dish I was drawn to eating cheese with bread. There was something survival based about that. I think about the scene in 1917 when the two soldiers are on a farm and they use the milk left by a cow for energy. Their is an image in my mind of the cows maternal instinct to feed its calf and how the fables of the past often refer to children being raised by wolves. The idea of a child surving by sucking on the breast milk of another animal when their mother is not there. This is the idea when I don’t have access to the food in my mums shelves back at home. It’s an idea of survival to live off of the discounted cheddar that comes in packets that are mainly made for that of packed lunches. Bars that are only a little better packaged than that of the baby bells targeted for children. I pair it with bread that it on discount I often think about the time when I paired it with bagels that were being sold on discount for 90p. This saver meal kept me going for a few days. Enough energy to get me to work were I would eat vegan food on my shift or keep me going until I could use the last of my rice and pasta for an evening meal. There is a guilt that sits with me when I try to enjoy this food. Though sometimes I wonder how my body would look and feel has I stuck to the diet of meat and dairy that I used to have. I compare myself in my mind as I have a shower. I work out often as a form of habit to battle the depression that seems to seep in when I don’t. I don’t do it for the aesthetic side of things but one can’t help to be inclined to that thought process. I am not overtly strong but nor am I weak. My muscles are lean and my skin tight to them. There was a period of time when I grew self conscious of myself and worried that when I looked in the mirror I was weakening or a shell of the man that I used to be. That is my thought process. It’s still toxic. I grew up around boxers and working men. My mother was a fitness instructor. My uncle a boxer. I was a lifeguard for years, boxed and have always had an active lifestyle even in my leisure activities of boxing, basketball and extreme sports such as BMX and skateboarding. I was having these thoughts of self recession around the time of halloween and summer. In the summer I hadn’t eaten much and to work out it almost seemed like a self punishment. I would be burning more body fat that what I could afford to spend because from previous knowledge I didn’t have the funds to acquire the food needed to refill the body energy that had been produced for a work out. I didn’t want to be skinny ripped. I didn’t want to work out and rise to my feet again with a head rush feeling as though I was about to faint. I had done that enough times to know that it was bested to reserve my energy. Near the end of summer I was getting ready for a new job. I had to wear a smart white shirt and trousers. The only shirt that I could find was a tight, slim fitting one that I had got with my partner as a set form M&S. I don’t mind wearing women’s clothing. It was a nice fit. I came out to my garden where my friend and his friend was sat, they looked at me and said that I looked really good. In that time I felt it. As time went on Halloween came around and I was wearing the same shirt again. It was part of our costume for the night. Me and my friends had decided to go as the characters from reservoir dogs, so white shirts were a must. We were at house party sat on the counter tops of a kitchen when I was talking to someone and my house mate said that he needed muscles like mine. He said it to a girl. She looked over for a moment and then carried on talking. It was strange. I didn’t think that I had muscles anymore. I compared myself to other men in society. Anyone that I deemed bigger or more aesthetically pleasing than myself. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been eating properly that these insecurities had set in, either way they had. Though I probably had the most energy than what I can ever remember at the start of my vegetarian diet, I at the time also had the money to back it up with takeaways and food in abundance. Now I compare myself to others that have the needs and means to make themselves look like Greek gods. I forget about my situation and my own worth. It’s a vain analogy though one that is true. That same friend tells me how he wants to look like me. He wants to dress like me and have my hair. My face etc. I don’t see why a lot of the time. I often find myself boring. Fake. Unnatural. Often beating myself down. I don’t talk about it to people. I don’t see the reason to. On nights out my friends say that I’m the man though do not know how much I respect the people that tell me the same thing as what they might want to hear themselves. I do not say anything I observe quietly. Smiling at the awkwardness of the compliment. It’s as simple as that. This chapter holds more than just dietary requirements but also ethics, masculinity, self image and self respect. I often question everything that I put into my body. The masculinity of it all. The strength of my character and my mind. Weakness is something that I can not tolerate in myself so I try everything that I can to push it out. I try; writing, painting, talking, reading, fucking, smoking and working out. I try everything that I can to feel strong again yet still feel weak. I worry about money, religion, my mental peace and god knows what else that can fall under the sun.
By John Gilroy3 years ago in Psyche
Society Often Teaches Us to Suppress Our Sad Feelings, Branding Them as Negative.
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