For nine glorious months, Valhalla was our home, and we were its sentinels. Day and night, we walked the halls, protecting them from the marauding hordes of squatters who never actually eventuated. It was our job to do it, to protect this mythical wonderland.
Property security, they called it – an honour bestowed upon myself, my friend, and his friend - the custodians of Valhalla. In return for our hawk-like eyes and relentless bravery, we would be granted certain freedoms, certain luxuries.
Free rent was the main one, but a close second was free power. There was free water too…
A free dungeon-esque basement ideal for the hiding of bodies…
Free room full of fire extinguishers to fire at each other whilst high…
Many came, many were extinguished.
Free network of air vents perfect for Bruce-Willis-style clambering…
Free helipad and open-air roof, free weird room converted into a club, free attics worth of strange and suggestive costumes, this place had it all I tell you, and all of it was free.
And surely such a bounty would be enough to satisfy us?
Surely, we wouldn’t sneak in an eye-wateringly expensive hot tub as well and then run it around the clock on the free power we’d been gifted? We weren’t there to exploit the place, were we? Asking for a friend.
I should probably set the scene, explain myself.
The location was an enormous run-down building in London. A building marked for demolition.
The Black Gate Opens.
We called it Valhalla because of its sprawling labyrinth of halls, and its Scandinavian gatekeeper named Olaf, who kept his one good eye trained on the ominous black gate.
The building beyond had two colossal wings, spread wide like those of an eagle.
One of them, the East wing, would belong to us…
The other would belong to our nemesis, the Dream Killer.
The man was a walking caricature, a thickset, ogre-ish creature who had inexplicably confused himself with a Mafia don. The Dream Killer began every sentence with the words “Listen, bro…” as if he were about to let you in on some clandestine, cloak-and-dagger shit that he and he alone was party to.
As the site manager, he was responsible for the place, and therefore, us. It was an unenviable position for the Dream Killer to be in. He had a plan, a simple one. Keep quiet, enjoy the freeness, and hoover excessive quantities of speed into the ever-widening abyss that was his nose.
Unfortunately, this conflicted with our plan - to do whatever the hell we pleased. The Dream Killer didn’t seem to understand why our graffiti artist friends had to decorate the East Wing, or why we needed to skill saw things around 2am at the bitter end of a time-pressured film shoot. We were forever greasing his palm, giving him weird gifts to offset whatever nonsense we were currently involved in.
We didn’t tell the Dream Killer about the hot tub. By then, we’d gotten greedy, fattened up on a diet of constant freeness.
We began making plans to exploit the place even further. Surely, it was our right as custodians of Valhalla to strip the building of copper and sell it for profit, or to bring in a hot tub and run it around the clock. What was the point of free electricity if you didn’t use it to run an array of power-hungry hot tubs? For us, it was a no-brainer.
We arranged for it to arrive in secret, concealed it in an unused room. Actually, the term ‘concealed’ might be a stretch. All you had to do was the open the appropriate door, and you could clearly see a massive steaming hot tub located within. However, you did have to be there to see it, and to date, there hadn’t been a single inspection.
So passed a golden few months of hot tubs, happiness, and games of Edward Winey Hands. Then, after a particularly celebratory night, with the place a shambles, the powers that be decided to swoop on in for a spur of the moment inspection.
The double doors swung open, and three bleary-eyed idiots, us, the so-called custodians of the site, retreated to our respective bedrooms. Here we hid and listened as the inspection unfolded. It was the owners of the building, chaperoned by the Dream Killer.
A loud clink rang out, then a clank as one of the party stumbled, punting a leftover bottle that rolled noisily through the halls of Valhalla, rolling all the way to our graffiti art installation, which the owners of the building were not particularly thrilled to discover. “We’re doomed,” my friend whispered.
By now, the Dream Killer was getting flustered, rushing around in search of rooms that we hadn’t thoroughly trashed.
“Honestly, guys! It’s not usually like this,” he stammered, the panic, the rage, clear in his voice.
Could be cleaner I suppose.
With each inspected room, they drew closer and closer to that particular room, the jewel in the crown of our piss-taking. We heard an exaggerated creak as finally, the door to that room swung open.
I like to imagine, at this junction, a puff of steam wafting from our covert and entirely unjustifiable hot tub. What we definitely did hear, was the Dream Killer screaming “WHAT THE FUCK?” as loudly as he could.
“Do you think he found it?” my friend whispered with a smile.
In an ideal world, the owners might have exclaimed “When in Rome!” before leaping into the steaming hot tub, arm in arm with the Dream Killer. I mean, they were paying for it after all - they’d be well within their rights to enjoy a quick dip.
Who knows, maybe they would find the experience so gratifying that they would install a slew of hot tubs, re-purposing the building into an open all hours, twenty-four seven hot tubbery, fulfilling the tubbing needs of an entire community. It might even become the eighth wonder of the tubbing world?!
Unfortunately, this was not what happened.
Instead, we heard an ear-splitting scream of “GUYYYYSSS!!” After a while, my friend sheepishly fronted up to receive the mother of all yellings, a verbal assault of biblical proportions. I, on the other hand, continued to hide, and to listen as it went on, and on, and on until the Dream Killer’s voice was raw and raspy.
Surprisingly, we were allowed to remain in Valhalla even after the hot tub incident. But from that day forth, the Dream Killer harboured a well-deserved grudge against us.
Now, at this point, with our reputation in tatters, it would have been madness to allow an eccentric street performer from Amsterdam dressed in full clown make up to wander the site unsupervised.
Oops.
When the Dream Killer came barrelling down the hall to reprimand us, he discovered the messy remnants of yet another music video.
It was then that he finally embraced his name, sending us packing, casting us out like dogs in the street. “That’s so unfair,” I told him. “You’re being completely unreasonable.”
Looking back, he wasn’t.
The halls of Valhalla were ours no more. Our dream of ongoing freeness, dead in the water.
Well… not entirely dead, and not beyond resurrection either, for there is still a spark, an idea that one day I will buy back that outrageous property, and build that extravagant hot tubbery, not for myself, but for the community maaaan, and as a fuck you to the powers that be, I mean, obviously, I’m a writer, so I won’t be able to pay for it up front or anything, but like… if you lend me the money, I’ll definitely pay you back! You have my word.
Love you all, particularly the money lenders.
Illustrations by the enigma that is Gelatinous grip.
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