Straight

Straight -- a Eulogy
By Gary Kemble

Firstly, I'd just like to say how honoured I feel to be speaking on
this sad day. For those of you who didn't see Chet in his final years,
I hope I can bring some peace into your lives, and offer you the
comfort of knowing that he died doing something important.

The first time I saw Chet, I was sitting in a cafe on Oxford Street and
he walked past. Simple as that. I'll be blunt and say he looked no
different to the scores of beggars we see every day on London's
streets. And yet, and I'm not just saying this, there was something
else to him. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but it grabbed
my attention as sure at a slap in the face. I can remember watching him
shuffling up the street in his dirty rags, his worn-out shoes, bringing
one hand up to his mouth every now and then to take a drag on a
cigarette butt someone had tossed in the gutter. He was one of those
people you didn't want to look at because you're ashamed of what you
have and scared that they'll take it from you.

I know I'm not painting a very flattering picture, and I know they say
you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But I also know that Chet valued
truth and order more than anything, and he'd have wanted me to tell it
like it was.

Have you ever noticed that if someone starts talking about BMWs, you
start seeing more of them on the roads? Well, that's how it was with me
and Chet. I had my lunch at that same cafe for five years and I'd never
noticed him before - and I'm a journalist, so I pride myself on being
observant. Yet after that day, I couldn't help but notice him,
shuffling down that pavement. I began to wonder how I could've missed
him. I noticed small changes. Mangy off-white trainers replaced what
were once smart leather business shoes. Cuts, bruises and cold sores
passed across his face, fading and returning, mirroring the seasons.
Chet aroused my journalist's curiosity. Where did he come from? Why was
he here? Why wasn't anyone taking care of him?

I know there are many of you out there today who still wonder the same
things. Why didn't he ask for help? Why didn't he come home? And others
who knew him while he was still MD of Dotcom.com, and still can't
believe that the smartly dressed executive they addressed memos to is
the same man I knew. The same man I wrote my feature about. The same
man who was so brutally cut down in the midst of his battle against
chaos.

For those who haven't seen Chet since his school days, I'll backtrack a
bit. Chet didn't have a harsh home life. He was lucky enough to go to
university. He rode the Internet boom and became one of Soho's most
sought-after web designers. That's right -- the same man. The same man
you saw in the newspaper photographs, with his ratty clothes and dirty
face. As we know, the Internet bubble burst, just like that. Chet's
company went bankrupt and his colleagues, some of whom are out there
today, went home. But Chet didn't. The last his wife Sam and daughter
Carly saw of him was when he left for work a little over eighteen
months ago.

Chet walked out of his office on Poland Street and walked up to Oxford
Street, turning right to head for Tottenham Court Road station. He was
in a daze, trying to work things out. It's a big thing, riding a wave
and then getting dumped. You come up spluttering for breath, finding it
hard to know which way is up. And that's what Chet was doing that
afternoon, walking along Oxford Street, when he noticed something.
Something that changed his life and also, in a roundabout way,
shortened it considerably. No-one was walking in a straight line.
Everyone was ducking and diving, weaving and wending, bumping into
people, skipping around people. It was chaos. And Chet decided, right
then, that if he could control that chaos a few other things might fall
into place.

That might sound crazy to you but, when you think about it, it's
amazingly clear reasoning from someone who has just had his world
collapse around him. And think about this. If each of us took some
responsibility for the chaos that is blossoming around us -- the
graffiti, the unloved kids with hate in their hearts, the pollution,
just the general uncaring attitude we've adopted by proxy -- wouldn't
this world be a much nicer place?

So that was when Chet decided to go straight. He started walking a
straight line, along Oxford Street. When he got to the junction of
Tottenham Court Road he thought about it and turned around -- there's
only so much one person could do. That became his life's work. From
Tottenham Court Road down to Bond Street, mainly during the lunchtime
and evening rush hours, Chet was trying to impose some rationality on
the world.

This went on for eighteen months. Chet never left the street. He walked
up and down, sleeping in doorways, scavenging in bins for food. It's
amazing what we leave behind. There's a whole class of people out
there, surviving on what we throw away. Makes you think. Sam called the
police, like any dutiful wife would, and the police did their job as
best they could, but they couldn't reconcile the dishevelled man on the
street with the successful web designer. And even if they had, it
wouldn't have made a difference.

When I wrote my story, Chet had been out on the street for more than a
year. He was perfectly coherent when I spoke to him. He'd had a few
teeth knocked out in a fight but he knew what he was doing, and he
wasn't ready to go home. His feet were covered in blisters but he was
used to it, and he wasn't going to give up when he felt he was finally
making some progress. Up and down, up and down. He didn't even want to
stop for the interview. It was only by offering a meal at the cafe that
I got him to take a break. And even then he couldn't stop looking
through the window, judging the sea of people, pointing out how they
were walking much more straighter than this time ten months' ago.

In my mind, Chet was a rational human being, trying to operate in an
irrational world. Which was why I agreed to withhold his name, and use
silhouetted photographs. All I can say now is how sorry I am I didn't
give Sam and Carly one last chance to see Chet -- the chance my story
could have provided -- but I'm glad Sam asked me to speak today. I'm
honoured, and I thank her for her forgiveness. I don't think this is
the time or the place to go into the gruesome particulars of Chet's
run-in with the white van man -- I'm sure you all read about it in the
papers -- but I'd like to assure you that Chet died doing something
that he believed in. And how many of us, if we died right now, could
say the same thing?

Thank you.