The Squat

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Up until I was eighteen, I’d never seen a real-life squat. I’d seen squats on TV and in movies, and I had a certain image of what one was like – as anyone does who has never been in that situation and is a little naïve – but that was it.

I’d been CD hunting in town and was going through the stuff in my bag when someone said, “Hey, mate.” I looked up, expecting to see a friend or someone I knew. It wasn’t anyone I knew, it was a guy selling The Big Issue, and he looked desperate. Strangely, he was also smiling.

“Do I know–”

He stuck his hand out. “James?”

James? I didn’t know anyone called James. “I’m sorry,”I said, “But—“

He shook his head and raised his eyebrows. “James Ball, from school.”

The boy who was always in trouble, the boy who sometimes had a black eye. I did know James. Last thing I’d heard he’d moved away. That was ten years ago.

Turned out James had moved away, then he’d moved back. He’d fallen out with his parents and, after a string of bad luck happenings, moved back home. Now he was living in a squat.

“Want to see it?” he said.

I tried (and failed) to look like I wanted to see it.

“It’s not bad, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not.”

James didn’t know what I was thinking. If he had done then he’d have been as sad as I was.

I expected a dump, a converted self storage container, something like that. No lights, no heating, no nothing. It was anything but. We climbed in through the kitchen window and it was like climbing through a portal. Inside there were people working on the house, plastering the walls, cooking and hanging out. Everyone said “Hi”. It wasn’t a dump, it was a commune. I felt privileged to be called a visitor.

I never did see James after that day, but I’m not sad any more. The way he looked at me said I’ll be just fine, it’s you I’m worried about.