8 March 2013
*This is a blog post.
*Strong language etc.
"Do not go gentle into that good night" (Dylan Thomas).
Smell. Perhaps one of our more overlooked senses. But today I’m grateful for it, as the unmistakable scent of my chaotic childhood creeps through my nostrils and hits the back of my throat so that I can almost taste it. It’s not the smell of flowers, ovaltine or sweets, but the unmistakable smell of turpentine.
Turpentine that as a young child of eight or nine on holiday, my cousins and I would pour over a fire as we threw in everything from old rags, to broken stereo parts that would sizzle, pop and explode as we teetered around the flames like a group of feral children conducting some sort of spiritual ritual.
A rare happy memory forms in my head before I’m sucked back into the reality of my existence by a cathartic cough. I look for the source of the sound to discover a man bent over a bucket. He seems to be attempting to paint a wall and gate, but has managed to paint most of his body in the process.
His worn jeans are covered in spatters of paint, some older than others. I curse the gods as he squats lower, revealing the crack of his bottom. He turns to me in surprise and grins, a toothy grin painted with specks of black and gold.
‘’Is sun today.’’ He says with a gravelly voice.
‘’Yes, I’ve noticed.’’
‘’is nice...You have spare cigarette?’’ He asks sighing and making a show of wiping imaginary sweat from his brow.
‘’Spare? No. But you can have one.’’ I throw him a cigarette and walk off wondering if it was wise to throw a cigarette into the hands of a man working with highly flammable substances. I glance back and he’s puffing away. I wonder if he’ll pop and explode like the things I once threw in to flames...And I feel guilty for hoping he will.
The day passes in a blur of the mundane and the more mundane, I haven't slept in three days, I'm aggravated and feel like a cranky man child. Later, I find myself in a record store verging on hipster, wondering how I got there. I spot Tom in a dimly lit corner of the shop flicking through a stack of records, eyes half closed and shaking his head slowly like an armless conductor.
A song I don’t know is playing in the background ‘’inside this place is warm....’’. I unconsciously match my walk to the beat of the unfamiliar but catchy song. I contemplate asking one of the staff what the song is, but I change my mind.
Some years ago a girl I knew played a song for me, her guitar awkwardly perched on her lap, she read from freshly inked paper. It was a great song..a really beautiful song. When she was done, I begged her to sing it again. And she refused.
She told me it was the first time she'd sang it and we would be the only two people who would ever hear it. And then she handed me the piece of paper on which she had scrawled lyrics with a leaky fountain pen. I took out a lighter and set it alight (yes I am well aware that I am starting to sound like a pyromaniac).
I know it would be incredibly romantic if I said I still hear the song in my head today. But the truth is, I can't. Wisps of it tease at my brain like a puzzle with missing pieces that I'll never find. But I do remember the moment...And that's enough.
‘’Vinyl man, told you the sound quality is so much better.’’ Tom says when I reach him.
I’ve heard that a lot. But in all honesty I can’t tell the difference, though I have always wanted a record player. Tom says I should put it on an online wishlist and hope someone will get me one for my next birthday/Christmas. But I hate the idea of wishlists, besides the best presents are unexpected...Like an album you never knew existed, or birthday sex.
A girl walks towards us, a CD of ‘just great songs’ in her hand. She has very straight, long blonde hair hanging over one side of her face and half tucked between an elfin ear, wet blue eyes set in slightly red eyelids and only half masked in makeup. She’s pretty, in a very conventional way. She places the CD on top of a stack of records Tom’s holding.
‘’This is Mia...My cousin.’’ Tom says looking at me.
I’ve barely had a chance to say hello before Tom drags me off gesturing with his chin to his chest high stack of records I know he will only half listen to.
‘’Let’s go pay.’’ He says, coercing me towards a ‘Pay Here’ sign with his shoulder. Once Mia is out of ear shot Tom looks at me, back at Mia and then back at me again.
‘’Don’t have sex with her.’’ He says trying to give me a forceful look that looks pleading if anything.
‘’.........’’
‘’I’m serious.’’
‘’Ok...But why not?’’
‘’Because, she’s my cousin. You can’t have sex with my cousin.’’
‘’Which one?’’
‘’Mia!’’
‘’Oh yea, don’t worry I haven't...And you have my word I won’t’’.
‘’Thanks....Wait what did you mean by which one?’’
‘’Nothing...Let’s Pay.’’
At the counter, Tom pays and I pick up some slogan stickers which include ‘white trash’, ‘part time vegetarian’ and ‘Gay & Proud’ (none of which apply to me).
We leave, walking down the now dim streets, Tom in between Mia and I as I try to avoid pedestrians who seem to be walking with a mixture of urgency and purpose. I turn my torso left and right like a real life Neo from the matrix until I mess up and drive my shoulder into a man walking towards me at full speed (turns out I'm not the "one").
The man, a tall, built black man with wayfarer glasses and a full beard makes a noise of annoyance before quickly shuffling around us. I lean backwards to glance at Mia, hair shields the side of her face. I vaguely remember Tom mentioning a cousin whom he barely knew visiting for a few weeks, her dad had recently passed away after a series of heart attacks or some other heart condition. ‘Well that explains the wet eyes’ I thought.
I guessed she’d been crying at some point today. I wondered if she did it in secret? I’d seen her cousin Tom cry several times during breakups and exam results, just as I had seen many others cry. I on the other hand, grew up around a mutual and unspoken agreement that if you were a guy and you were about to cry, you would run away and hide in a distant cave somewhere until you were dry eyed, you certainly did not cry in front of each other...And if it could be helped, you didn't cry at all.
We headed to a half empty bar and sat in a curved, distressed leather sofa. Heavy sax and trumpet jazz playing from the ceiling, decor oozing innuendo was plastered haphazardly to aged walls. Tom and Mia gulped down fluorescent cocktails as I sipped on a popular brand of whiskey. I looked at Mia and she stared back straight faced, not hostile, but not friendly. Tom had a conversation with himself about horse meat . I’m not much of a dancer, but I asked anyway.
‘’Mia...Would you like to dance?’’
‘’Ok.’’
We took to the small, mostly empty dance floor which held about five or six people who would have been standing still had their heads not been bobbing. I did my best version of the modern Charleston as Mia kept up, apparently unembarrassed. She spun around, her floral dress billowing around her and her hair whipping across my eyes. I winced and she laughed revealing a dimple on her left cheek. I was just starting to enjoy our clumsy dance when I spotted a self absorbed, bigoted, narcissistic douchebag sitting next to Tom. Omar... whom Tom and I had known for about five years.
I took Mia's clammy hand and we walked over. I stood behind Omar and gave him a firm pat on the back with my open palm. He turned and looked at me, smiling as his big chin protruded from his fat plasticine face. I wanted to push my fingers into his face and mould him in to someone else.
Tom stood up to let us pass and I scooted onto the sofa besides Mia.
‘’Hey Omar. What are you doing here?’’ I asked.
‘’I was around when Tom just messaged me.’’ He said in a strange accent, I forget where he came from. America? Denmark? Wherever it was, he always made a point that wherever he was from was way ahead of the UK.
I glared at Tom and rested my now sweaty head on Mia’s shoulder. I wanted to rest my head in her lap and have her run her fingers through my hair, and then I would fall asleep for ten years and awake a man with amnesia, no memory and...No troubles.
Tom pulled me back towards him and I almost collapsed in his lap before he sat me upright.
‘’Can I get you a drink Omar? Jaegerbomb? Lambrini?’’ I asked only half sarcastic.
‘’Na not staying, got a date with a hot piece of office ass.’’
'Office ass?' That’s new I thought.
I’m not a violent person but I used to wish that Omar would give me an excuse to punch him in his fat face...But so far nothing. Omar is one of those guys who recites lines from the financial times in an attempt to make those around him look stupid. Despite this, I once tolerated Omar, until I grew tired of his gossip and bullshit. Tom still liked Omar despite him once screwing Tom out of a job. But yes, I disliked Omar for these reasons (most of all for what he'd done to Tom) and it was no secret that Omar hated me because...Because I was me and equally capable of being a rage inducing dickhead.
But now looking at Omar whom I still believe to be an idiot abroad...I feel more amused than annoyed.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Omar gave each of us a limp handshake and got up to leave. I wiped my hand on Tom's sleeve and we watched Omar make his exit. As he turned and walked, I smiled at the ‘’Gay & Proud’’ sticker he was wearing on his back.
"That's really mature." Tom said hiding a smile.
"No but it's fucking funny." My response, as the three of us laughed hard, unattractive laughs.
Not long after, we left and went our separate ways. Tom to a night of Facebook browsing followed by a comatose like sleep.
Mia to a bed not her own in an unfamiliar house.
And me, destined to spend the next day in a world full of Omars' as I slowly, gently make my way closer into that good night.
Into The Flames • Opuss № I