Full script of RoughtTime by Trish McAdam
based on conversations with five men who had experienced homelessness.
used for improvisation during shoot.
1. Nothing was comfortable to me growing up. I was born in the wrong place, mistrusting everyone around me, mistrusting their systems, mistrusting their structures.
2. I wanted to ask questions, to understand the wheels and cogs behind things, to work things out by myself.
3. The voices in my head, the images I saw in the clouds at night, all told me I was exceptional, I could know it all.
4. It was May when I left home. I was sixteen. I don’t blame my parents. It wasn’t their fault. I lied to them. I needed to know something they didn’t know.
5. It wasn’t scary, it was exciting, like a journey for me, it gave me the same butterflies as if I was going on a plane to Timbuktu.
6. I did a bit of begging, I wouldn’t use the cup, no, I thought I was a master practitioner, a brilliant psychologist and a great philosopher. I didn’t need to go and rob someone or put a knife to somebody’s throat or jump over a counter and rob the till. I could talk, I could manipulate people, I could pull their heartstrings. The tone of my voice, a certain look, a little lie would bear fruit in softer hearted people, people with a conscience.
7. I’d watch the office types in their work mode, walking around with their briefcases, cutting through the city crowds, oblivious to anyone else, rushing to where ever they had to be.
8. They’d taught themselves not to see me, with their brisk walk, the fiddle with the earphones, the couple of steps to the right.
9. In the beginning I was very clever, I’d walk back out to suburbia ever night, stay in a nice park or back garden. I wouldn’t stay anywhere around the city centre because it was a lot more dangerous.
10. I’d say to myself, this isn’t bad. It is just a different place to sleep. The cold would wake me up in the morning before anyone knew I was even there.
11. I didn’t have to give a shit about anybody and that’s the way I wanted it.
12. The drugs were just a tool for me to find another level.
13. I was in control.
14. I was always on the move; I had to be walking all the time, that’s where the thinking was done, think, think, think, walk, walk, walk, a maverick, walking in the footsteps of all the other mavericks, right back through time
15. I wore the same clothes, I don’t know how long I’d worn them for, they were soaking wet from rain or soaking wet from sweat, evaporating all the heat out of me, horrible. It was exhausting.
16. It got to the stage, it was like, I just gave up one day, total, mental, physical collapse. I couldn’t walk around anymore, asking for money, being manipulative, I just sat down on the bridge, put the head down and held out a cup.
17. You’re very vulnerable at that level. People like someone to look down on. Kids taunting me, throwing things at me, people spitting in my cup or knocking it out of my hand altogether. It was worse when I tried to sleep, huddled in some doorway, too tired to walk to my nice park anymore, drunks pissing on me, police moving me on, being robbed.
18. I did have funny moments as well, I really did. Messing with people, or girls when they were drunk wanting to take me home, nurses in particular, the mammying thing in them. I’d get something to eat and have a shower and stretch out for a few hours. It was a bonus if anything happened after that.
19. But then, there was the monotony of it all. Every day being the same and killing myself slowly. That’s the bullshit of it and the bullshit that it doesn’t have to be like that. A terrible state of mind. Like there’s two armies going to war in your head, a complete fucking cosmic battle all in the space of one person
20. I tell you, we’re all closer to the animal chain than we like to think.
21. One day, call it an awaking, call it what you like, I just felt I had gone far enough.
22. I didn’t get the answers I was looking for but I began to understand my selfishness, that I was wallowing in self-pity.
23. I lost about five years but I have tremendous self-awareness, I know that deep, deep down there’s an inner self that is private, that is the whole of the soul, that no other human is ever going to be in. But I have to learn to trust some people, to tell right from wrong, accept that nothing is permanent and there are no guarantees.
24. It’s breath taking when you start to consider the possibilities of your life and where things can go. I’m hoping to achieve a couple of things but the main aim is the peaceful mind.
25. Only yesterday I stopped in the middle of the street, I just stopped, I don’t know why. It was lashing rain but I stopped and you know that’s a sign of something, that I can stop now, I don’t have to be constantly on the move. I can find a little place to rest.
based on conversations with five men who had experienced homelessness.
used for improvisation during shoot.
1. Nothing was comfortable to me growing up. I was born in the wrong place, mistrusting everyone around me, mistrusting their systems, mistrusting their structures.
2. I wanted to ask questions, to understand the wheels and cogs behind things, to work things out by myself.
3. The voices in my head, the images I saw in the clouds at night, all told me I was exceptional, I could know it all.
4. It was May when I left home. I was sixteen. I don’t blame my parents. It wasn’t their fault. I lied to them. I needed to know something they didn’t know.
5. It wasn’t scary, it was exciting, like a journey for me, it gave me the same butterflies as if I was going on a plane to Timbuktu.
6. I did a bit of begging, I wouldn’t use the cup, no, I thought I was a master practitioner, a brilliant psychologist and a great philosopher. I didn’t need to go and rob someone or put a knife to somebody’s throat or jump over a counter and rob the till. I could talk, I could manipulate people, I could pull their heartstrings. The tone of my voice, a certain look, a little lie would bear fruit in softer hearted people, people with a conscience.
7. I’d watch the office types in their work mode, walking around with their briefcases, cutting through the city crowds, oblivious to anyone else, rushing to where ever they had to be.
8. They’d taught themselves not to see me, with their brisk walk, the fiddle with the earphones, the couple of steps to the right.
9. In the beginning I was very clever, I’d walk back out to suburbia ever night, stay in a nice park or back garden. I wouldn’t stay anywhere around the city centre because it was a lot more dangerous.
10. I’d say to myself, this isn’t bad. It is just a different place to sleep. The cold would wake me up in the morning before anyone knew I was even there.
11. I didn’t have to give a shit about anybody and that’s the way I wanted it.
12. The drugs were just a tool for me to find another level.
13. I was in control.
14. I was always on the move; I had to be walking all the time, that’s where the thinking was done, think, think, think, walk, walk, walk, a maverick, walking in the footsteps of all the other mavericks, right back through time
15. I wore the same clothes, I don’t know how long I’d worn them for, they were soaking wet from rain or soaking wet from sweat, evaporating all the heat out of me, horrible. It was exhausting.
16. It got to the stage, it was like, I just gave up one day, total, mental, physical collapse. I couldn’t walk around anymore, asking for money, being manipulative, I just sat down on the bridge, put the head down and held out a cup.
17. You’re very vulnerable at that level. People like someone to look down on. Kids taunting me, throwing things at me, people spitting in my cup or knocking it out of my hand altogether. It was worse when I tried to sleep, huddled in some doorway, too tired to walk to my nice park anymore, drunks pissing on me, police moving me on, being robbed.
18. I did have funny moments as well, I really did. Messing with people, or girls when they were drunk wanting to take me home, nurses in particular, the mammying thing in them. I’d get something to eat and have a shower and stretch out for a few hours. It was a bonus if anything happened after that.
19. But then, there was the monotony of it all. Every day being the same and killing myself slowly. That’s the bullshit of it and the bullshit that it doesn’t have to be like that. A terrible state of mind. Like there’s two armies going to war in your head, a complete fucking cosmic battle all in the space of one person
20. I tell you, we’re all closer to the animal chain than we like to think.
21. One day, call it an awaking, call it what you like, I just felt I had gone far enough.
22. I didn’t get the answers I was looking for but I began to understand my selfishness, that I was wallowing in self-pity.
23. I lost about five years but I have tremendous self-awareness, I know that deep, deep down there’s an inner self that is private, that is the whole of the soul, that no other human is ever going to be in. But I have to learn to trust some people, to tell right from wrong, accept that nothing is permanent and there are no guarantees.
24. It’s breath taking when you start to consider the possibilities of your life and where things can go. I’m hoping to achieve a couple of things but the main aim is the peaceful mind.
25. Only yesterday I stopped in the middle of the street, I just stopped, I don’t know why. It was lashing rain but I stopped and you know that’s a sign of something, that I can stop now, I don’t have to be constantly on the move. I can find a little place to rest.