Two men stride towards me out of the gloom of a railway bridge.
I can dimly make out their silhouettes. I can tell they are big men with loud, joking, confident voices. They are on the other side of the road. I try not to catch their attention. I speed up.
“Hey!” one shouts, already leaping into the road and waving both arms wildly as he comes right at me.
I’ve just been to the Asda. In my bag I have a bottle of wine, a jar of olives, some hummus and a French loaf.
I tighten my grip on the bag. I’m ready for them.
I’m taking the shortcut home, through a trading estate of empty car parks, windowless sheds and shuttered entrances.
Nobody around.
The only time you ever hear of a place like this there’s usually a photograph of swathes of police line do not cross tape strung between street lamps and a headline bearing the word “incident”.
A couple of days ago I passed this same spot and there was an ambulance and a couple of paramedics trying to deal with an obviously injured bloke who was raving and refusing to put down a dirty blanket that was wrapped around a bloodied arm.
The only other people you encounter here are customers for whatever the black BMW parked around the next corner is purveying. Those guys are no worry. You just pretend you don’t see them.
This place is bad news.
“Hey!” the other guy walking towards me yells, “Can we ask… do you think much about God?”
White shirts, sober ties, neat haircuts, broad smiles… These guys are Mormons!
Sweet relief.
I’m being missionarised.
I relax my grip on the shopping. Thank heavens I didn’t weaponize the Merlot! That would have been too embarrassing to contemplate.
No one ever got mugged by a Mormon.
“At my age you think a lot about the non-existence of a supreme being,” I replied, “the eternal silence of those infinite spaces, it’s pretty terrifying when you think about it.”
The Mormon lads grin immaculately.
I’m absolutely useless when it comes to a fist fight, but give me a pointless, irrelevant and ridiculous point of metaphysics and I’ll happily quibble all day. Someone once told me I’d have made a good medieval monk. It’s true. I like nothing better than to dispute the number of angels doing a Busby Berkeley routine on the head of a pin, so talking to Mormons is a particular joy.
I find the best way to counter their conversion attempt is to go on the offensive. You know that at the earliest opportunity they’ll invite you to embrace The Lord Jesus Christ down at the local Church of Latter Day Saints, so try to strike a deal; you’ll give the saviour a go if they agree to accompany you to the City Varieties. Or better still, the Live Arts Bistro (sadly they just missed the gender roadshow. I would have loved to get them along to that.)
My Mormon chums hadn’t heard of Live Arts Bistro. And when I outlined what went on down there they gave me a look that they must have seen on the faces of everyone from Yorkshire they’ve ever given a copy of The Book of Mormon.
“What do you think of Armley?” I said. Diversionary tactic.
The guys were from Utah and Norway. You don’t get more diverse than that around here.
“Golden,” said Elder Erikson, “Armley is golden.”
Golden? Armley?
I looked around at the corrugated warehouses, the broken tarmac and the thick encrustation of pigeon shit under the railway bridge. This guy from the land of fjords and fir trees and fresh air just spoke the words “golden” and “Armley” in the same sentence…
“We’ve just been to the York Shire Dales and Mall Ham Tarn,” said the other chap. You have to imagine this spoken in a Salt Lake City accent, with the stresses falling gloriously in all the wrong places and the vowels stretched like warm toffee.
They invited themselves round to my house. Obviously I declined to accept their invitation to invite them, so the Norwegian fellow wrote his number on his business card.
“The Mormon lads,” he said, “we’re the Mormon lads. Ring us anytime for a chat.”
I laughed and politely lied to them about my intention to take them up on their kind offer.
Then I bade them farewell and wound my way home, past the drug dealer, past the burned out fence of the old person’s bungalow, past the half- eaten takeaways and smashed vodka bottles in the tiny park beside the primary school, and past the endless, ever present, pungent piles of fresh dog shit.
I unscrewed the cap of the wine bottle, poured myself a generous glass, and gazed out of the kitchen window.
Golden.
Armley is golden.