this is illegal – Short Story series: Part 3

Part 3

Half running and half walking with pace, Alex cut a weave through the sidewalk. He flipped his red demin collar up to fight off the spitting rain, and smiled or stared at the young people in their own drunken Saturday worlds. A couple arguing over a cab here, a couple of men laughing and pissing against a wall there, and some tired people at a bus stop who were indignant about what happened without them. Then he realised that he was on the wrong road, heading away from the meeting point. He sent a text to the dealer and turned back to run on through a back alley and wet darkness, while trying to not let any hope dwindle.

Alex had been gone over twenty minutes when he reached the tube station, and he was astounded by how little he felt fatigue. Standing on the corner, his heart barely made a sound. He couldn’t remember what the dealer looked like and stared too long at people walking by. It was cold and the night was quiet – people were already too drunk to hope. There was a beautiful girl standing near the stairs to the station and he looked at the creasing in her tight jeans, seeing how it pulsated as she shifted her weight. How the lights from all around her played with the shadows on her fine legs. He fell into the curvature of her ass and everything was glowing, until it stopped. Air snapped cold and he looked up to her face where there was a rage that looking away wouldn’t dissolve. She yelled at him,

“What? What!? You fucking punks. You fucking asshole. Just another useless, tiny dick pervert. You look like a stick insect! Look away all you want but I am TALKING to you!”

Her handbag was dark pink and hefty, she stomped her way over to him and he actually smiled at her.

“Don’t you smile at me, don’t you even look at me sicko!” She flung the bag square into his face. It felt cold and dry and his stomach tightened as she dug a small fist into it.

“Sorry!” His voice was untamed and shrill. She tutted and said nothing but walked away and down into the station.

A little while later Alex saw a familiar face, though it was younger than he’d remembered. The guy walked on, then back half a minute later and told Alex to walk with him.

“It’s just sixty ok.”

They’d already agreed on the price, but Alex had not gotten the money out of his wallet. He started to say something about the handbag beating and abandoned it. He offered to walk into an alley with the dealer but he was told that was too suspicious and he just counted it out as they walked. All sixty pounds. There was only change left.

“Have a good night my man. You call me anytime, especially weekends yeah? I just need more notice if it’s later ok? Have a good night.”

Alex looked at his watch and nodded, biting his lower lip while he pinched the coke. It was wrapped in a balloon made from a plastic shopping bag that was melted closed. The night was getting on, but he still felt alive.

“It will be a good night.” He said to himself and took off in a run back toward the bar.

His energy waned and he stopped to check for a bus to save on time and sweat, but had to kick a metal post and swing his head back into the cold air, thumping into the pavement for twenty minutes. When he got to the final block he slowed up to seem casual as he passed the smoking area. Flashing his stamp eagerly at the bouncer with ambivalent eyes, he didn’t wait for approval. No one stopped him, but the two bouncers mumbled something as Alex rushed in passed the bar and toward his table.

His friends were still much as they were almost an hour before, as was his beer. John was deep in conversation with Olive and Jane was slouched in her chair muttering something to Diego. After he chugged half of his beer without drawing a look, Alex announced,

“I’m sorry I took so long guys, but I’m just gonna go to the toilet real quick, then we’ll really kick this night off! John? You with me?”

John looked up, smiled, and looked back at Olive. Sighing, Alex felt the strain that his lungs were enduring, but he also felt the bubbling in his upper chest that leads to good things like love or mutual orgasms. He felt the past few months of suffering, the proximity to poverty, the loneliness, the dark nights and late mornings where he begrudged every shower and every shave, not just because of the cold, but because of how quickly time and youth was passing. Then he felt it fall into nullifying, soapy water. The music from the DJ now was unironic hip hop that focused on synth and bass and making white people feel like they were dancing and rebellious. He breathed in histrionically, stood there in the dark din and felt everything around him pulsate as he tapped his pocket then spun around to find the toilet.

There was a doorway leading to pure concrete stairs, and it was down two flights with broken fluorescent lighting and kitschy posters in old frames that had the cold smell of bleach and incense peeling off them. The men’s room was extremely white, bright, long, and tiled like a hospital from long ago. In the corner as he entered, there was a short Asian attendee with redundant and oppressive colognes & soaps. A surprisingly short urinal wall was next to eight stalls in a long corridor. In the last one Alex slouched down to not have his head popping up over the wall.

His heart was erratic and the bag was there, lumpy in his palm and difficult to open. The brightness faded. The cold that was seeping into his back through the tiles of the wall meant nothing to him. He rolled the ball around, looking at the plastic scar where the ends of the ripped bag had been melted. He took it to his mouth and bit down, creasing his entire face and there it was, a small, numbing taste that slapped him in the corner of the mouth. Lowering his hand, he stared at the lines, the colours, the mixing and the swirling.

“What you got there mate!?”

Alex shuddered and yelled inarticulately. Above him was the bald, ferocious head of the bouncer with no more ambivalence in his eyes. Alex felt weak and vulnerable; under attack with no escape. His face locked up and in lieu of words, he slowly raised his hand up to the man. A few dribbles of white powder beside an orange ball on a greasy palm.

“Step out of the stall please sir.”

Alex put the bag back into his pocket, wiped the dribbles off his hand, pulled the door back and leaned a shoulder past the bouncer, toward the stairs.

“Sir, empty your pockets for me.”

The bouncer’s strong arm was effortlessly in Alex’s way and he was pushed back by the bouncer’s mere energy against the wall.

“Why?”

“We have a zero tolerance policy on drugs here, so I’m going to need you to hand over what you have to me.”

“No. Why?”

“Sir, I’ve just caught you doing drugs in this bar. We can have the police come down and take care of it if you like.”

“Fine, I get it, just let me leave and I’ll never come back. I… this cost… please”

“What you are doing is illegal.”

“This is illegal, but it’s not wrong.”

“If you do not hand it over, the police will come, and you will be arrested.”

“I don’t… dude…”

“We will not let you leave until you submit to a search. Do you want to be searched?”

Alex looked to the attendee and the two other security staff standing with him by the entrance. All of them were bored.

“I don’t see why I can’t just leave. Why the fuck do you want it?”

“We have a zero tolerance policy sir”

“You’re going to keep it for yourself. Aren’t you? You fucking… I know you are; yeah, yeah, there’s no way any of this is reported to the police, or to anyone.”

“Sir, you have ten seconds…”

Blood and adrenalin were gushing through his body and all he wanted was out of the powerful discomfort, and away from this man. He felt like everywhere he turned this bald face was beating him down into a white ball. Then he felt a spasm in his jaw and a twinge in his shoulders and he put his hand into his pocket. In less than a second he whipped his hand up to his mouth and swallowed the cocaine bag whole.

“SIR! Alright, lift your tongue. Now… Sir, LET me see your mouth!”

He stuck his tongue out and lifted it, closing his mouth in a smile and said,

“Can I go now?”

“That was stupid. Empty your pockets for me… do it.”

Alex felt a wave of pride and victory, mixed with tickles of the amphetamine slime dripping down his throat. There was only keys, gum, scraps of paper, a lighter and his wallet. Alex wanted to point out how little cash he had in the wallet because that bag had cost him almost everything he had for this week. Then he remembered that there was a small Ziploc baggy with two grams of marijuana in his coin pocket.

“Move your arms back; I need to make sure you’ve nothing else in your pockets.”

“What?”

The bouncer moved in close and shoved a hand in each pocket, then around to his back pockets, and finally he dug a couple of fingers into the coin pocket. He pulled nothing out and said,

“Ok, come.”

“Am I free to go?”

“We will escort you out, and you never come back.”

While his head pounded, his knees ached, and his jaw tingled, Alex felt no satisfaction; just reprieve and anger. Before they passed the last stall, the bouncer stopped and told him to stand aside. Then he knocked on the stall, immediately jumping into the adjacent stall and standing on the bowl to look down and repeat the scene with another young guy.

He was wiry and baby-faced, wearing a mock-vintage pattern shirt and excessively pointy shoes along with a corduroy jacket. He shat out a series of excuses about vitamin medication and allergies, which Alex believed for a second, then caught up, and saw the ornate wooden pillbox he was holding. The bouncer ignored his rambling. He emptied half a dozen large pills into his hand, examined them briefly by moving his hand to his side, out of his own shadow and told the kid to come with him.

“Can I have my pillbox back, please? It’s, special to me”

“What? Oh, fine”

Walking up the stairs the pillbox guy sulked and muttered “fuck” repeatedly. Alex turned to the bouncer and said,

“Your job sucks.”

“It has its benefits.”

Alex flashed with anger, and then wondered how badly the bouncer had wanted to pat his pocket full of ecstasy and who knows what else.

“You a fighter or something? MMA?”

“I kickboxed.”

“I need to get my jacket.”

“Fine.”

Alex picked up his jacket and the others barely looked up, even though he motioned to the odd posse that was behind him. He motioned toward the door and still no one said anything, but the bouncer slapped his shoulder, and he walked off.

“Why don’t you go into MMA, there’s gotta be good money – better than this.”

“I stopped fighting ‘cos I had my femur snapped in two. Now I have to stand up all night… We can’t all be pretty and have perfect lives. Get out.”

this is illegal – Short Story series: Part 2

Part 2

“There he is; the crazy geezer what dragged me out of bed, for all of this! What is this crazy fucking music, in what is, probably, the weirdest bar I been in for some time?”

When Alex and Jane went back into the bar, they saw that John had walked past them and up to island bar in the middle of a essentially a hall, with dance floor and bands to one side, tables and couches to the other. The area was ringed with people and the lighting was dim – coming from vintage vases and drink bottles dangling from the ceiling. John was fat but wore it well with a beard and smile. He had short wavy blonde hair curling around ear lobes with black plugs in them, and he wore everything with a new age gait despite consistently dark clothing.

“Oh fuck, you’re here? Yeah –”

“Hey buddy!” Jane jumped in for a hug.

“– It’s not a bad place, but I just wanted to see a live band… something different, I guess.”

“Yeah no worries bruv. I’ll get us some drinks, then we’ll chat eh?”

John eventually got the bar staff’s attention and bought them all a beer. In sitting down, Jane introduced him to Olive and Diego who were very happy to have Jane back, then she gave John the run-down of her month working part-time retail and going to fashion school. There was a big project that was due, and it was stressful. She knew John and Alex did not understand what designing entailed and preferred to talk about the men she had slept with. Alex tried to talk with Olive. She was from Amsterdam and just over for a few days to catch up with Jane, but wouldn’t say anything more. Her face had soured and she breathed uneasily then stuttered Jane’s name, but didn’t finish the sentence. Alex didn’t hear what she said and asked how long they had been friends. They had been friends for three years.

“So anyway, last night right… Al, you liss’nen? I go out with me mate Terry last night yeah? We’re just in Camden watchin some bands, drinkin a few cheeky ones out of the venue cos fuck the prices innit? There was a few classy girls inside, I’ll give ya that, but it’s getting on 10:30, 11 or something and we’re feeling alright. We see these two girls dressed way inappropriate for the weavah! I make a joke about em, thinking, I’ve got no respect for these girls, I wanna meet someone classy, intresting yeah? Girl wiv something to say for fucksake. But what? These girls take a liking to the two of us and start flirting with us. Wahey! I think, this might come good innit?”

“Did it?” Alex was trying not to lean in, but the background music and noise force him to slide to the end of the couch and lean in over crossed legs. John was sitting at a chair with the whole side of a table to himself, legs spread wide underneath. Jane was slouching and keeping a hand near enough for Olive to touch should she feel the need. She had a smirk on her face and flicked her hand in a welcoming motion to John,

“Yeah, go on. Get on with it big man. Did you fuck her?”

“Hahaa! You guys. So much more to the story than that! So, they ask us where BarFly is cos they’re s’poseda be meeting a friend there. I say, fuck yeah I know where that is, only managed it myself… well for one week then I found something better, but still. I knew the place and we escorted the lovely ladies there.”

“Now they’re ‘lovely’?” Said Jane.

“Show me some kindness or mild sexual interest, you become lovely. Anyway, as we’re walking over, I remember that there’s an entry fee, so I’m crossing my fingers they’ll remember me from last year and let me in for free. Fat chance! It’s a Friday and the door girl is a manager I know I worked with, but she totally blanks me. By this point though, I’ve flirted a bit and I feel I’m doing alright. Give a girl a few compliments about her tats and drop some hints about your being in a band… they loosen right up. And the legs, my god those legs!”

“But you said they were skanks?”

“Oh Christ Jane, that was before I knew they might want to fuck me. I didn’t realise how judgmental I’d been. These were lovely girls. Well no, you’re right but, that’s what I thought at the time innit?”

“They ditched you once you paid their entry?” Jane slumped back in her chair ready to laugh, almost choking it back.

“Nah, we got on for a while actually. But we also bought em a round each. I got friendly with the one I thought I was hitting it off with and then she just goes, ‘Um, sorry, I should like, tell you… I actually have a boyfriend… So, nothing can happen ok?’ I was like, ‘Bullshit!’ But whatever, I took the loss of cash and looked around for some fun. Came back from the bathroom though and she was fucking snogging me mate Terry. I thought, ‘Motherfucker! How did that happen?’”

“What a horrible bitch”

“Alex! A girl is free to make up her own mind about who she is attracted to. You can’t just call ‘dibs’, and then get mad at a girl for making decisions that suit her!”

“Settle down guys, it was no big deal really. I was glad for him, and Jane’s right; her decision and all that. Not all the girls like the extra padding I bring to the table… So, I just go to see if I can grab a drink off Terry cos fuck, he owes me that, but he shuts me down and then she’s all ‘Hey, can you look after Holly for me, I don’t know where she is, ok?’ I could fucking see Holly just a few feet away for fucksake. She was surrounded by horny, nerdy dudes an all. Pfft. I tap out and head upstairs.”

“What are you doing mate? You should have knocked those ‘nerdy’ guys outta the way and fucked her dumb friend. That’s how it works!” Jane was appalled but smiling with her tongue fierce and wet on her teeth.

“Hold on. I head upstairs, but Holly’s there somehow. She’d gone up the same time I did, and I’m just walkin behind her suddenly. I say hey and she’s all “oh hi, I’m just goin to the loo…’ I bump into another friend of mine, and I think ‘Yeah ok, this night aint so sad-lookin’. I chat with him for a bit and we’re talkin about getting to a house party or something after, maybe just smoke a joint in a bit. Holly comes back out, ignores me, whatever. A couple minutes later Terry calls me and I can’t hear, but he sends like three textx: ‘Get the fuck down here. Holly needs help getting home. She’s on a platter for you mate!’ Now, I’m not even that keen, remember?”

“But any port in a storm eh John?” Jane laughed.

“Nah nah, well… when I go down and see her, she is definitely looking shabby and I ask the girls if they’ve got anything to wake em up, sniff sniff… They say they know a guy if I’m buying… farrrking hell. Terry cuts em off and says that I should just take Holly home as it’s getting late, which is bullshit, he just wants me out of his hair and he’s a pussy. So I do the gentlemanly thing and lead Holly out the door. Her friend had told me they lived together and there was a bus nearby that took em straight there. I ask Holly where it is, and she’s got no clue, but says her bed is sooo comfortable and amazing. I can sleep there if I get her home, but that’s all. Blah blah, then she’s moaning that it’s cold this, and shitty wind that. ‘I want food’ she yells, and I’m like, ‘are you twelve years old?’ I get her a kebab, and I’m so drunk myself I wave the guy off when he’s trying to ask what salads I want. Just gives us a piece of pita bread covered in about 5 pounds of brown meat. She loves it though. Then I’m walking her around trying to find a bus stop with the route number she’s told me. I stop to look at a map and find out where it is. Only takes me a few seconds, but I look up and she’s wandering down the street, tiny black dress flapping in the wind an all, then I catch up to her and she’s stopped by like four blokes crackin on to her and she’s going along with it! They’re telling her to come to this bar with her, blah blah blah”

“Mate…”

“I know Jane. It’s feelin a bit… strained.”

“She sounds wasted”

“Yeah, but I figure, she’s a nice enough girl. I’ll get her home, we’ll chill out, maybe smoke a spliff or just have some water, jump into bed and cuddle till she sobers up a bit, then bam bam bam alright, thank you Holly!”

“A lot of effort dude…”

“That’s disgusting!”

“What? Well it didn’t fucken happen did it? I get her to the bus stop, we wait, she’s whining, whinging about the cold, and I’m holding in the thought, ‘Well wear some fucking clothes next time you 19 year old idiot! Check the weather before you go out dressed in a big sign that says I need a dick in me!’ I mean we had one fucking sunny weekend and they think it’s all 20 degree days and nights from now on innit?”

“I’m not complaining that hard”

“Oh, fucken… Alex, you need some bad, I can tell. Well, sure enough it’s only about two minutes til the bus comes, but it doesn’t pick anyone up cos it’s jammed full innit. I know what that means, and yeah, she starts whining as I’m trying to hug her and warm her up. ‘Get me a cab!’ She said it just like that. I think for fucksake, it’s not far is it, I’m paying for barely consensual sex, but I’ve got no choice now. I flag one down after another couple of fucking contentious minutes in the cold. I get in, tell him the vague suburb she gave me and turn around to see she’s fucking flirting with another couple of dudes walking by. They’ve even got a kebab in hand themselves. Right couple of pretty boys they are and I’m just yelling at this point, ‘Holly, come here. Get in the cab, I’m taking you home!’”

“Well congrats on that mate”

“Didn’t end there my love.”

“You fucking couldn’t even get her to fuck? Jesus John!”

“Jane, settle down little one. You’re all fired up, this is my sex life we’re talking about here. My poor decisions. OK? So, as she gets in the cab she’s putting one of the pretty boys’ phone numbers into her phone and saying to my face that she can’t believe how ‘cute’ they were. A few minutes go by pretty quiet and she’s almost falling asleep. I’m thinking ‘I hope this is no more than ten quid, and I wish I had some fucking coke or something to wake her up… Maybe I’ll grab her hand and start getting to it right now’ Then she whips out her phone and calls up some guy, I think, and tells ‘em, argues with ‘em, to meet her at ‘the bus stop’ for whatever reason in like ten minutes. At that point I start to sober up and get the feeling that she is not even going to let me crash at her place. That I’m not going to get the chance to be smooth and pursue this thing. I look over at her and try to smile with a bit of me old beardy charm, but she’s just dead eyes. Won’t tell me who that was on the phone. I look back, staring at the back of the cabbie’s head. She starts going off at him for driving past the road leading to where she lives. Then gets into an argument, yelling at him for trying to take us the long way. He cuts back that she never told him where she lives. He was just going in the direction that I had told him when I pulled the cab over, but she was too busy flirting with other guys. The cabbie is alright by me at that point, and I’m nearly laughing even though I’m the one supposed to foot the bill. Then it dawns on me. We’re not too far from where I live. We pull up to her house, I reach for my wallet and say, ‘Oh shit, I’ve just realised I don’t have any cash to cover this, do you have anything?’ Holly freaks out – high pitched whine ‘What? You said you had money! I don’t have anything, I’m just a student.’ So I go, ‘Ok, it’s no problem. Mate, sorry, but could you drive us back to a cash point, I think there was a gas station back there?’ The cabbie is cool with it, and parks right by one. The station is by the main road with a park behind it yeah, so I get out, walk calmly toward the cashpoint and then bolt past it and into the park, around a corner through some bushes, and I’m home within fifteen minutes!”

“What!?” Jane is mildly horrified.

“No shit? Why?” Alex is confounded and starts to smile.

“She was gonna ditch me!”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Corr, she’d been milking me all night for money, and from every indication, she wasn’t goin to hook up with me. If I did manage something, it’d feel a bit rapey anyway, and I didn’t even want to have sex with her. It was a dumb situation, so I just wasn’t going to be fleeced another fifteen to twenty quid for the privilege. She deserved to have to pay for something that night given the way she’d behaved. I’d never ditched on a cab in my life too.”

“Cos you can’t run very fast?”

“Hah, fucken cheeky Alex over here! Nah, I just suddenly had this epiphany that some women will attack you and gouge you just like a dirty filthy man would. Not all people have good in ‘em ya know? She could afford whatever it was, and I think it woulda ended up being over twenty-five quid by the time he dropped her home, so I feel good about that, I do. And yeah, bit of exercise and late night walk through the park to liven up my evening.”

“Mate, that’s sad.”

“Course you’d side with the girl wouldn’t you Jane?”

“Just, have some pride John. That’s… yeah, would you do that Alex?

“Oh and the best part of it was guys, Terry had hooked up with the other girl Sue, the one I started the whole thing with by hitting on, and she lived with Holly. They’d gotten in a cab about the same time as us. Why Terry was texting me I dunno, fucker was drunk and giddy with pride, I guess. So, I’m just chukin my clothes on the floor, knockin back a tinny I picked up at the off licence on the leisurely walk home innit. Terry calls me up and I just listen, don’t say anything cos I’ll start laughin eh. I can here him frantic, ‘John. Dude. John, you there?’ He calls again, “John? Mate, dude, this is… This girl here says you owe her money for a cab? I don’t… This is his number yeah. I’m calling him, alright? John!’ I can hear the girls in the background, yelling and trying to calm themselves down an the like. I put my phone on silent and chuck it on the floor. Today I heard from Terry that the poor bastard had been down to his briefs with little ole Sue on her bed when they heard a god awful banging and Sue goes off to answer it. She’s away a while and he falls asleep. He’s woken up by some big dude standing over him and Sue says it’s her boyfriend so he has to leave, but when he’s walkin down the stairs, Holly comes in, crying and starts lunging at Terry with her nails saying he owes her money. ‘Call your asshole fucking friend and give me my money!’ I don’t know how he got out of there alive, but I don’t think he chipped in any money on my behalf. Fucken wild one!”

“Seriously mate, that’s…”

“Jane, they had it coming. Come on!”

Olive finally grabbed Jane’s hand and looked forlornly into her eyes, flicked them toward John, then back,

“Are you okay? Are we staying here?”

John leaned over,

“Sorry, Olive was it?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t include you in that story, it’s not the best way to introduce myself I’ll admit, was you listening?”

“Bits, but Diego was telling me about working on a circus in Spain and Ireland, but I was just wondering what we’re all doing now”

“You’s from Holland right?”

“I am from Amsterdam, yeah”

“Fantastic, well look, Jane, I can see you’s a bit wary and there’s just a biiiit of tension right now innit? So, let’s all get some shots eh?”

Alex’s phone started vibrating and he answered it promptly when seeing the dealer’s name on the screen. He had to run to the bathroom hallway to hear but he managed to pin the guy down to a tube station not too far away in ten-fifteen minutes. The joint was hitting him and making things seem non-linear, or slightly disjointed,

“Guys. I’m out. Be back soon…” He smiled big, put a finger to his nose and slipped out through the crowd.

this is illegal – Short Story series: Part 1

Part 1

There was a hot stink of urine in the air, weighed down and wet with BO or just human weariness. The faded, sad, grey linoleum floor had seen too much and there was no ventilation, but something flickered like a dying fan. It was a hidden pocket within the filthy lines of the city’s hand; extended in supplication during the daylight, but closed into a fist at night. Alex Packer was drunk and high and trying desperately to hold it all together in a claustrophobic toilet stall. And things had started out so promising – sort of.

“I want to dance.”

“Yeah, I could dance. Just let me finish this beer and send a text. I think John’s coming.”

“Oh ok. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”

“He was away for a bit, I think.”

“Great. Are you guys thinking of…”

“We are gonna try and get laid yeah”

“Oh I’ll help you with that – I’m a good wingwoman.”

“Mmm…”

“But what about…?”

“He said that we should split a bit of coke, or MDMA, yeah.”

“Great. Which one? I haven’t had coke in ages… ah, no, I shouldn’t. I’ve got to watch my money and I have to make sure Olive’s having a good time; she doesn’t do drugs…”

“I don’t have a lot of money; it’s one paycheck.”

“Come on, it’s harmless fun. Do it! Make that call dammit” She laughed.

“Well, it’s been a shitty day …”

“And if you’re bored and shitty, you won’t meet anybody and my horrible streak will drag on.”

“Christ!”

“Alex, you’re in a bad slump, but you’re a nice, good looking guy, so you’ll be fine, now dance with me.”

“You know, I almost broke it –“

“What, last week? Yeah, that was just a stupid night. But I am seeing that guy again.”

“Of course you are”

“I can’t help it that I met someone and you didn’t!”

“I love that you’re proud of meeting a guy at a bar. You’re pretty and twenty-two. If I leave you alone for five seconds, a guy will hit on you. All you did was pick the first one.”

“He bought me a drink”

“And you fucked him?”

“Hey, we create our own destiny mate.”

“I… Just don’t ditch me straight away tonight, ok?”

“He was kind of lame in bed if that helps. Small dick and didn’t know how to kiss”

“Alright, let’s dance. I hear James Brown.”

Alex hadn’t finished his beer, but threw his head back and slammed the table with a hand that, in the same movement, waved to Olive and another random friend of Jane’s whom he’d just met. They stayed huddled in the dim light trying to talk naturally while squinting and leaning in to each other without desire to soothe the situation. It was a large bar with too much space to fill and all that air tempted people to call the venue pretentious, but certain people called it ‘pretty’. There were graph designs that shocked your system but not your sensibilities. Brickwork was exposed and the concrete plaster had unplanned hues of green, yellow, grey, and black. Jane said something with a minute display of concern for Olive, then being intentionally dorky, she hop-stepped to the dance floor.

Olive was a small blonde with the kind of dress and jewellery that imitates high end sophistication but her means are far below that, and what she is left with is that generic stink of fake tan, bitter perfume and dyed blonde hair with no life in it. Jane was half Chinese but had never left England except for the usual obsequious holidays to warm European islands, picking up tattoos and strange jewellery on the way. Her weight fluctuated because of an impulsive junk food diet and heavy drinking that would go on for months on end before she slipped back to eating only fruit and hummus while going to yoga classes for a few weeks. Next to Alex she often looked ridiculous because she was barely 5’4” and he was over six foot tall, with a narrow build and dark black hair. His face had sharp features and he wore rings without meaning on his fingers. Striding over to the dance floor, he weaved exaggeratedly in between the few people in his way. It was a decent cover of that James Brown song everyone knows, and it transitioned into that Stevie Wonder song everyone knows.

Ten minutes later Alex and Jane had to sit back down because there comes a point when you run out of moves and if you’re sober enough, you do the decent thing and leave the floor. If they were together, they would have squeezed in closer and made sex movements to the music until the energy needed somewhere else to go. Since they weren’t together, but just out of shape, they acted bored to cover up the sweat appearing all over their faces and sidled back to the table.

“You should have joined us Olive.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Ahh, the band’s good. We were dancing…”

“No. No, it’s fine.”

He sat down a little away from Jane and the other friend who reminded him his name was Diego. Alex shrugged and dove into the beer again. Jane swung around the table,

“She doesn’t dance.”

“Huh?”

“Olive; she hurt her back a few years ago, so she can’t dance anymore, it hurts her ya know?”

“Oh. Well I was just…”

“Yeah, this isn’t her scene really. We were supposed to go to Mayfair, but you invited us out and there was… I haven’t seen her in ages, so I just want her to have a good time.”

“She’s not having fun? Maybe we can turn that around…” He winked and combed his hair with his fingers. The wax stuck and he wiped the hand on his jeans.

“Oh, she doesn’t like drugs.”

He sighed but still looked confused, or hung up on a thought.

“You already told me that…”

She sipped a beer and choked slightly while swallowing before her next sentence,

“And like, you’re not her type so, ya know. I’m sorry.”

“Well, fuck. Older guys huh?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“She’s not my type either but… What is it with twenty-two year old girls and guys in their forties?”

“I d–”

“No, doesn’t matter. I know what it is anyway… Fuck it; I’ve got a message from my guy here.”

“Is John coming?”

“He said he’d just gotten up from a nap and would need some ‘powder’ to keep him going, so I dunno when he’ll get here. But it doesn’t look too promising with this dealer either…”

She leaned in close to his face and made an exaggerated duck face, pushing her lips as far out as possible then said with stifled laughter,

“You can have a good time without drugs… Get high on life! But no, keep trying dammit. Try another guy if you have to… for me ok, please?”

She stroked his face and pinched his chin. He looked at her without reacting for a few long seconds, holding his breath while deciding how to respond. Should he react naturally, or in a way that would benefit her feelings, their mood, and the feel of this part of the night? His mouth hung while he touched his tongue to the upper left canine, then whipped it to the right and pursed his lips.

“So anyway, tell me about this new job. You like it?” Jane said.

“Nope. Hate it.”

“What? Aren’t you doing something good?”

“Trying to raise money for charity, on the phone, is not good. It’s sometimes a good cause, but doing it is bullshit. Working class and struggling middle class, or retired people shouldn’t have to mop up after asshole governments wasting money on wars to secure resources we don’t need!”

“I couldn’t handle working in a call centre. Isn’t it gross there? I bet it’s all sad middle aged, fatties and guys with long, greasy hair. Acne and… ugh!”

“No, it’s… Call centres can be fine, but I wouldn’t do this kind of work if I had a better option. It’s in a shit part of town, but it’s good to learn about the good charities and saving people in disasters, getting care to sick people, or disabled people, and torture survivors–”

“Ew, that’s so depressing mate”

He flinched and held back from sighing, but there was tension in his chest. On top of everything, it annoyed him how she called him ‘mate’. Maybe it was the way she said it in her accent, or because it felt like a constant, overused rebuff that she didn’t see him sexually at all.

“That’s not depressing; being told to fuck off for asking people to help is depressing. Men are usually forceful if they won’t give, but women can be mean about it. Today was all just old women telling me off for asking them something so simple. I’d make perfect, reasoned arguments, give a good solution for what they can do to help, and they’d tell me to fuck off one after the other, because they didn’t like the tone of my voice or something…”

“Yuck, just get out of there. Work at a bar or something. Jeez”

“I can’t. I needa have nights free so we can rehearse and gig. I don’t really have enough restaurant or bar experience either.”

Her eyes tightened and she touched him on the shoulder,

“Mate… You are gonna be fine. It’s Saturday night! Ok? It’s going to be a good night.” She’d tapped into a loving, concerned tone of voice for a second, but by the end of the sentence her thoughts had moved on to the possibilities of another wild London night and handsome men showing her things of beauty and their delicious cocks. Warmth filled her up.

“Want to go smoke a joint outside?” Alex said with a little optimism.

“I’m not really into smoking at the moment, but I will have a cigarette with you, yeah.”

“Ugh. What about Olive?”

“No, she’s not really into drugs or anything.”

“Not even pot? Why did you… Ok.”

“Hey, she’s lovely. Be nice to her.”

They stood outside in a small crowd huddled inside a barricade. The East London streets were buzzing slowly but and at the edge of the barricade they were out of sight of the bouncers so Alex hunched down to blend in and slyly stuff broken up bits marijuana into a cigarette of rolling tobacco. It was an awkward, but efficient job finished in less than two minutes, and no one seemed to care about it. Jane had a pack of Marlboro Lights and she had already started smoking one. A man with an ironic cowboy hat on asked if he could buy a cigarette from Jane. She hesitated and he pulled out a 50p coin, waving it like it was silver and irresistible currency on the ole frontier.  His friend was dressed in a business suit with a sweater-vest and admonished him for offering money for cigarettes in a way only a gay man can. Jane said it was fine and just offered him a cigarette. The coin fell on the other side of the barricade and Alex looked sharply at it. Jane laughed it off, while the two men said it was hers if she wanted it, and then laughed as the cowboy lit his cigarette.

With the joint in his mouth, Alex deftly climbed over the fence to fetch the money and amble back inside. With a couple more puffs, he stubbed the joint out just before a bouncer walked around from the entrance and asked him what he was doing. He was only 5’10” but powerfully built, with a shaved head, dark skin, and ambivalent eyes.

“I was inside; I was just grabbing a coin I dropped.”

“Fine. Next time walk around.”

The bouncer sniffed the air lightly and walked away.

Children are the future…

Children ARE the future, which is terrifying.
You can look everywhere and see that today we have more learning available. You can see more potential for global connectivity, as well as respect for ourselves and our planet. Art and beauty abound, yet we go further into a spiral of violence and abuse and selfishness because of a short sighted, bigoted system where people cannot learn how false their hatred is; where they almost can’t help but be “evil” in the face of a desperation inflicted upon them simply to maintain the basic functions of a home, food and the pursuits of happiness.
The “evil” corporate leaders are bigots and pessimists who seem to believe that there is NOT enough for everybody, that some people deserve less than others. They believe a myriad of selfish, cruel and ultimately short-sighted fallacies, while maintaining a trust in themselves that they are good, honourable people looking out for what matters – themselves and the tiny fraction of the population that matter to them personally. But, they are older, mature, and simply afraid of what anyone would be – death and insignificance.
The children? The youth of today? If they are our future, then we need to galvanise every single young person we can. To eradicate the fundamental lies and false comforts they will turn to in justifying a destructive path through their lives, and STOP this cycle which fights against love and global progress, which fights against all of the beautiful movements seen over the last ten, fifty, hundred, five hundred years.

The escalating economic and social horrors of the 1980s were initiated largely by the same generation that gave us the infamous social and artistic movements of the 1960s, proving that there lies potential evil in every generation. While the streets were alive and freedom seemed finally to be gaining it’s true recognition as a currency in itself, there stood in plain sight, the arbiters of unimaginable oppression and destruction, such as we can see today. While the young of today excite us with the potential for progress, we cannot forget what has happened before. It is time to shift the focus from flailing puppets that lead the way today, towards the root of tomorrow’s oppression: the young.
If you encounter an old bigot, forgive them. If you encounter a young bigot, vilify them.

Tube Closure on the Hammersmith, Circle and District lines – Short Story

Carmina – Part II

It’s funny, the mix of light. You never know where you are, down in the underground, somewhere. Is London, but is another world… aha hahaa! Sometimes, is just as noisy as it was at the bar, and on the streets, just different – less of a hassle down here. I can drink in peace. None of those people giving me shit; giving us shit, such shit. We don’t need no shit, we are just young and trying to have a good time because it is shit enough out there, no? It’s ok. I have my beer and my fingers don’t hurt so much wrapped around that beautiful bastard.

I don’t know where I am, and where is this train? London, obviously, but whatever. It’s all so silly sometimes. I am sitting, almost lying down on this bench thing but is getting crowded again. Poor woman with baby, who has a baby with that cart… a pram! A mother with a pram at this hour? Fine, I’ll give her the seat of course. My legs can stand, it’s good. People are pretentious here – they won’t even look at you, and we are all just the same kind of people, no? We are all riding deadly boxes to our homes, yes? I don’t have a home anymore. I don’t need one, after tonight. She is dumb and she can keep it! I am a big man: out here. And look, aren’t we ok, Carmina? Pffft. The floor is just like, “what?” Standing is harder than I thought, hahaa.

There’s a funny ad for that kids’ charity. I feel for them you know, because it was hard being a kid, here it seems tough, but in Italy… the English don’t even know. What was that shirt that dumb dickhead wearing? ‘FCUK’? So stupid, just be honest, you want to have a shirt or whatever, you want it to say ‘FUCK’, so just say it.

“It stands for French Connection blah blah…”

I know what it does for. It’s just stupid. You want to say fuck, so say fuck. It’s just a word. Everybody thinks they’re sooo clever. And you grow up, and people don’t care anymore! Horrible shit. But at least we have beer. That floor just really wants me though, doesn’t it?

‘Hahaaaha. I’m not coming to you. No no now, whoop. Nah, not nearly.’

Weak boyfriends. I can’t stand ‘em. They tag along to the bar, and they just get in the damned way, boring everybody. Especially the girlfriends!  We take advantage of them, and right there, we can feel the dark, hot need they have; it’s so silly. Whatever dumb world they all thought they had before things got black, or purple and smelly, like beer that’s never cleaned away from the floorboards – there is only this. We’re young, and I love it. Beer is so good, isn’t it? I need some music. Unite the people and let everyone know it is no good to be afraid. No good to be alone.

Just when I was feeling a little hot, not with beer, or the sweat of a woman, but with just, like, heat… wind comes whooshing in.

‘Thank you!’

I’m near the entrance and it’s like, the mouthpiece for that. A train comes soon, I think. Oh, I have to watch out for big group of people. They know something I don’t? It’s good, is not so quiet now, you know?

There’s my woman, a woman, I mean. She’s nice. She checks her phone and looks sad. Bored? Her neck, her throat, is a long pale arch with strong lines. The whole world is boring to her, I know. I like those glasses, they are too big for her face but it makes her little nose and chin all pointy, and mwuah, mwuah – a pointy pout!

‘I could kiss you woman.’

Ahh, she sees me. I don’t know if I still look as good as I should. My curly hair, and my dark beard – they are maybe oily, a little,

‘I haven’t shaved in a week, but I am clean. I promise you that!’

She is shy,

‘I won’t look at you, I will look at this poster for the children because you can see, I care about the world ok? You keep looking at me my woman. Your legs are so tight together with your tight jeans…’

She must be warm. It’s not a quiet night, no. I feel like dancing here, show my woman, how to go with the warm fire… but my legs are too lousy. I feel nice leaning against this wall. She looks again, I can see, my eyes peripherally. She thinks I am cute. I know she is seeing the fire in me, I know. She want me? I can’t believe it.

Whoosh. The train is here, at last! Such a nice blow of wind. I will sit beside her, to let her know it is reciprocated. My god, my legs were so like jelly now. I hurt my bum sitting so hard on this seat. Look at my legs, they are shooting straight out. But I will look at her now, I can smell her too. Now it is real, now the air is burning and alive. I can see us together in some beautiful bedroom. Her smell, her shampoo, her scent, it is swirling through my head loudly and playing my whole chest like a harpsichord. She is inside of me strumming my ribcage with porcelain fingers.

‘You are so close to me now’

I think she is older, like thirty-five something, but I love that. She looks like a librarian, with that wild, maybe Italian hair, something like Arab even, but she has that English pale skin, is like ivory or something. I want to coat it with my cum and see which is more white, ha ha! She is wild, I bet. Maybe I’ll play with her tight butt? I will have her naked and face down, but all I can see are the two mounds either side of a pink, dark crevice, and beyond there is only dimples in a pale and perfect landscape, dominated by her black curly hair. I’ll pull her tight and pinch my elbows at those hips, massage her cheeks and I bet they are ripe mangos, giant, ripe mangos that I pull apart and I see it, her little hole shimmering with juice. I will not bite it; I will nibble and blow my burning lusty, maddened breath into her. I’ll lick her, I’ll pinch her lips in my teeth, and she’ll beg for more. She’ll dribble onto the pillow, or the floor. I’ll make her cry. I’ll make her stand up, shove one knee up into her little titties,

‘You hug it my woman. You hug it while I stretch your vagina and anus. Bam bam, pussy and butthole, one-two, again and again and your one leg is getting so, so weak with the pain. You love it my woman, don’t you? Whimper for me. Whimper like staccato, gun fire ow how how wow, then cry out long and hard and look into my eye. I will lift you from you one aching leg and crash down on top of you, then ARGH… into you!’

She is squirming in her seat she wants it so bad; I knew it! Can she read my mind and knows that we are on the same page? We can even just cuddle, I do not care. I want her beautiful soul with me. She’s looking across at this guy. He has glasses too, big deal! I have glasses also, but I lost them. Now, I can see nothing very clear up close, it’s ok, but torture because I know she is sooo beautiful, and I only want to be up close with her. But this guy? With his silly hair? He is a pretty boy, and look at his sneakers, they are dirty. Just cos he read a book? I could read a book, from far away now, but I do read a book many times. Fine, I have a beer, isst not even open yet.

It sprayed a little bit. I, sorry forgot it has shaken up so much. Is just beer. We are young you know, this night is young! I think that guy is looking at me; does he know who I am? He can see the blood in between my fingers, not all wiped off. I think my face look fine, but.

My woman is looking but again, she won’t just look at me,

‘I am right here, juss 30cm away from you my woman. I get some beer on you? I’ve got another one…’

Maybe she wants wine? Classy older lady my woman… On the surface only!

‘I know an off-licence that’s open late? We’ll go together and you take me into your world and we run away from the daylight together, so warm together! You will sit on me baby, my dick jutting up into you, but you will juss grind, back and fortha like circles too, digging into my pelvis but I can’t feel anything but my dick so throbbing in you. Hmmn? Whap, I sink into the bed and pull it out. Slam back in. I will shove you up, up, up, yes lean back and bend my fucking dick. Can you tighten that librarian pussy around my helmet? Hold it and tease it like you will never let it go, and wham!’

She is shy and looking away but I am looking at her this whole time. This guy. She is looking at this guy and she wipes the beer; it was just a little spray on her jeans. Beer spills, so what, life’s beautiful, right? No, I feel bad,

‘I didn’t mean to get it on you my woman. I can fix it’

It felt so firm, and it burned even. I felt her! She is shy so she pulled her thigh away so fast. Does she not want me to touch her? She has to. She doesn’t move now. We stop at another station, and she is still here, but too many other people get on. I have someone on the other side of me now, and I can see some loud girls, they sound Spanish. I hate Spanish girls. Their flabby big asses and always excited about something stupido.

‘No, I’m not Spanish too, I am Italian!’

I burped, it was loud and it juss snuck out, but fuck them all, ok? Yeah, I feel good now.

‘You girls smile and blah blah blah, I will smile at you, but you cannot get in thee way of me and my woman here!’

Foreigners are so boring. I really hope my woman is an English girl. I want a good English girl. Simple. Ok, maybe these new people are not so bad, even this pretty guy. My woman is so serious, it is getting me down. She won’t look at me, but I am right here? Cahmon, what is this teasing that you want with me, then…

Look at this, some crazy guy with a guitar just like, where did he come from?

“I hear the train a-coming.
It’s rollin’ round the bend.
And I ain’t seen the sunshine,
since I don’t know when.
I’m stuck in Folsom Prison,
and time keeps draggin’ on”

Hahaa, it IS a party! I can look away from my woman for this. I can even belieeeve this. Hahaa. This guy has a, what a shirt. I get it, American country music style. I even like, I know this song. Johnny CASH! This is what I was talking about, it’s the night so young. Fuck it, I’m going to dance to this. We’ll all dance to this; it’s like a bar again.

‘I know an off-licence we can go to people. I don’t need a home! Hahaaa’

Oh it’s so easy to get up. Yeah!

“Well I know I had it comin’
I know I can’t be free.
But those people keep on movin’
And that’s what torrrrrtures me.”

Aww, he does the solo, like, we can all dance to this,

‘Look everyone, you damned dumb squares, it’s all alright! I know the words here, lean in man, and we can do like a duo and get this thing going…’

“If gey feed me… Fullgam Prizooown… ggerr I hey”

I guess I don’t know the words, hahaa. That’s funny. The song is over. Itsh hard to dance or even stand, this stupid fucking train is shaky. The guitarish is asking people for money and they won’t even give him nothing. What, no more songs?

I sits back down, and is sore. Things are blurry now. More beer is needed, I think… My woman is gone!

I fucking. Man. This guy sitting there. So sad. But look, these Spanish girls are still smiling and talking. They are not as sexy as my English woman, but maybe they are alright.

“Wha staschion ease thiss?”

“Huh?”

“Ah theenk am lost. I wash poseda meet… myee fren”

“I’m sorry?”

“No, I, where ma fren, I should fonda myee… cos we were together, itsh night… I should change trens. Soon.”

“Oh, kay”

Fuckingah, Spaneesh girls, I bored with them. Too longer now, all lot of time already wasted with Spanish! Carminaaaa… I don’ know whatta do, but I don’ feel so warm anymore. The night feels… old. This guy opposite me. He laughed when I cracked my beer, he keeps reading his book, but he listen to headphones too, what he thinks so special? I think my woman wanted him. He’s maybe a good guy. We should have made a party out of it! I don’ mind. Yeah, I like this guy.

We are at another staschion. And he is getting off? I’ll follow him, and I think he’s drunk too; the way he was all tap tap taping his crazy little foot to thee musick. Yeah, man, good guy he is. But, he walks so fast, I don’t… where is to go? Did he leave? I can’t leave the station. I’ve no home.

Oh there he goes!

‘Where you go my friend, guy?’

This a nice tube line. The platform ees so open! Look, three babes right there, an they surround him, man! Who ees thish guy? He can stand, thass fine, I’ll sit. Those stairs were… ugh. I have enough beer left here, but iss like I don’ evend feel eet. I’ll go over in a bit. I wink at him. He’s still pretending to read. Such a funny guy.

Look at that girl! Leather jacket, yess, I know what that means. Red lips, are they even real? Red and blonde, yesh that is a mix! And those tights, are slimsy things; I love a woman in a skirt. Itsh decent but sexy and playful together! Jeans are not even… jeans, my god. I will write her a poem. Her legsh are there, ittle bulges. I want her to stand on my chest, so I can feel her power and look up from littler toes, soft skin ees delicut! All those bumps and grooves in the muscles of shiny legs. And I look up all to the glory into her pussy.

There is something more to her, I know it. She has never been in truly love. Knows that we have so mucha pain in thish worle, and all we supposa do is be kind, and dance – maybe she’s a dancer, or a singer – and want to live in the sun and the whole thing. Be kine together, to each other, yes?

I will go down on her. That is all I want, she can be so hot for me that she burns my tongue, but I will not give eet to her, no, I juss want to squeeze those legs and devour her pussy so much. I’m so thirsty! Ha haaaa, she looked at me too, I show a smirk, like she know what I’m thinking, what I can do for her. I must tell her, I will speak in poetry!

‘I want to take you to a mountainside and we can pick berries, swim in the lakes under blue air. The coming moon and her beauty and our youth. We will find a way to stop the captulist, empty theengs from destroying love for these world! We can see the deep orange light through very old curtains hitting hard wood floor stained with dust and wine. I will play the piano when silence is all we have around us. And we smell, we smell, that pure water, because we are so free. Young and in love!’

I am walking over, it’s so hard. Maybe I am nervous? My head is soo fuckinga silly. My legs, my god my legs. She is doing this to me, she is an angel.

‘No need to be alone.
No need to bee-ee alone.
It’s real love, oh it’s reeeeal.
Oh it’s real love, oohhhh it’s reeeeal…Love

Fuck, she’s not seeing me; she’s walking to this other guy? Who is he? Oh, she want to stand by the pillar, like he does, that’s good. I want to lean on something too. Ok, I will tell her a poem about her beauty and the soul I know she has inside of her,

“Jou loo I see yeask uhh.” I said. I am nervous, I think.

“Will you go away?” She said, so quiet. She afraid. It… god, why can’t I? I thought she had fire, and love in her. Why?

“Uh kaym.” I said, and drooled back to the seat.

Less get this stupid fucking train when it comes an nothing will ever happen, ever, for anything. Be alone…

The train comes. Me, and the funny guy get on. That blonde girl was stupid and mean. I can’t see very well, this train is cold. There’s music or something again… yeah, party! Maybe I feel, no I still, so heavy insides me. Two silly girls singing whatever, these song I don’ know. Like “Essex girls”, I don’t wanna… with them, is impossible amount of make-up, icy eyes, they make my stomach hurt like they tear something out from me. Yeah they know it. They are jussh prudes and boring bitches anyway. Looking for rich middle aged fucking bastards with coca and cars and pink shirts! They next to my guy though, he knows how to pick em. Such a funny guy!

They all get off, he’s going with them? Un fucking believable. He left me! No, he’s… walking back? I’ll get off too… No, he’s getting back on. I need to sit down. Look at thissh, a little Chino-Japo-Koreanese girl with a suitcase. I do not know which she from, but if I juss say Asian, that is racist, I do not know. She so thin, but long thin. The bag is too big for her, hahaa.

‘I don’t have a place to stay either, world travellers the two of us!’

I can feel her, she’s not hot like the other girls, she’s cool, and her pussy would taste like sushi. No that’s silly. Oh my god, what would it be like? Her mouth is so wide, those cheeks bones are vicious and poignant like, she would look like a perfect creature biting these long, thin lips, I, I, I, I, is the sound she makes, and maybe she somehow musters up a growl, deep inside and I feel the reverberation in my cock as it squeezes deep inside of her? She looks fashionable; I don’t like fashionable people, like, but arts ok. She would know poetry, Yoko Ono was a poet. I’ll touch her tiny thigh to get her attention and ask her what she feels.

‘I’m here. Who are you?’

She freaks the whole train out and takes her bag to stand at the door. Jesus, she shot out of that seat like the cum from my thirsty little penis! And now she stands next to thish guy! What is with him? He gets off at the next stop, but the little crazy fashion girl doesn’t? Fuck it, I’m going to follow thish guy, I think. She fucking getsh in the way an makes a baby, deadly squeal only dogs could hear. It hurts, and dammit, I fall over. Damn her, she is no good for me. That ground had been waiting for me and it finally got me! Hahaa, no, nobody help me? Fine.

I can’t see the funny guy. What station is this? Itsh a small one, ok, he must have left. I’ll get back on a train. I know a good off licence somewhere. Sleep? Hah. I’ve got nowhere to sleep. Hey look, another girl, she can help me, hahaaa, help me with my penis! Yeah. I’m standing, I think. Ugh, she is so fast. Some dude ish in my way – what a drag. Is that my funny guy? It gets bright really quick.

Now it’s so dark, and I can’t move these stupid, lousy legs. I think I’m gonna be sore in they morning! Hahaaaa, I fell over? Fuckinga floor! Thishish stupid. I am trying to get up, but iss hard, in my back. I fell down, onto the fucking tracks, ha haaa. Fucking, I am going to be in trouble if the guards find me! I juss hell myself up then, huh? No one wan help me?

‘Yeah ya, ‘allo. You just stand up there looking’

Fucking people.

Where’s the bus, Charlie? – Short Story

I was looking down the street for the nearest bus stop because I didn’t know which way it would be, right or left, and I wanted the closest, quickest one. There were a large group of rudely pretty women gathered outside a building and concerned about something. It’s a normal sight for a weekend, but this was Tuesday, so what right did they have to look that beautiful and full of life and concern?

A young white man, dressed uninterestingly, yelled at me from the opposite direction with self-assured authority, “Stay away from ‘em. Those girls. You leave ‘em alooooone!”

I looked at him, felt mad, but caught out in  exactly what I was thinking. He walked on and I went back to looking down the street for the bus stop, and again at the girls. Then I assumed that I must’ve been in the middle of the stops, and might as well walk in the direction I was heading, which was away from the girls.

The next stop was not nearby and a minute later, I found the young white guy leaning over a homeless man wrapped up in a sleeping bag in a shopfront. This was a main street and not at all prime real estate for homeless bedding down. This young guy leaned in and his face was now red, yelling at the greasy, sad man,

“You get a JOB. That’s how you get money! You should get a job you bastard. I’m not gonna give you my fucking money…”

He was drunk, I was drunk, the homeless man might have been drunk, but this guy was an asshole. He had yelled at those women, he’d yelled at me, he was yelling at this man. That was his life: He yelled at the world, and I wanted to do something about it all.

I had a full, unopened bottle of wine in my hand. I started to think of just telling him to leave the homeless man alone. I was good with words, and I could offend this guy or even reason with him; I was good with words and understood the drunk. Then I started to think of how to attack the guy, because I had a weapon and he was distracted. I was drunk and maybe not in the best shape to get into a fight. I wore glasses and had an expensive phone on me. Then another young white guy walked past me and stood beside the yelling young man. I wanted to ask him if he knew this yelling guy, and to get involved in stopping his pointless yelling. The other guy said nothing, but stood close enough that he had to know the yelling guy. I hated them both, but I couldn’t attack two guys. I was not a fighter really, I was good with words.

I had to walk on and shoulder this as a silly memory, but privately, it was another painful and crude example of my ineptitude in the face of challenge, as well as my overall dullness of character. What the fuck is the right thing anyway, and who is a good man?

I looked back and shared moments with the other good men by my side who felt disgust, and hatred, and sadness for the whole world we had to live in, for lack of options. I thought about what I should have done, and maybe, just maybe, could still do. But, every time I looked back the other guy seemed more and more to be the yelling guy’s companion and fighting partner. I was only in fantasy now, a sweet violent reverie about what I could do with that bottle of wine. I could switch grips on the neck and whip it brutally down on the back of his head, maybe knocking him out, and then run off into the night. If he was not unconscious after my blow, I could throw my boot into his stomach and try to get him down to the ground and find his liver or kidneys for a devastating shot. Maybe I could have walked a little further and, out of his periphery which was already degraded by his pre-occupation for hateful speech, from behind and at an angle, dig a boot-heel sharply into his knee. It’d bring him to the ground no doubt, and then I’d whack the full bottle of wine into his head at whatever angle it was. Maybe it was his temple, which would just hurt him a lot, if it was his nose, it would shatter and spew blood, if it was his jaw or the base of his skull, it would likely knock him out. If he was still not out or overcome with blood and pain, I could dig my boot into his kidney while he was on his knees, bring him to the ground and pummel his spine, get him on his back and step on his guts, and for good measure, if I was feeling an excess of energy, and a lack of empathy, I could even stomp his balls. Maybe I’d step on his hands or feet, because I’ve heard they are extremely hard to heal.

I spasmed with muscle tension and testosterone teases as I walked to that bus stop. I didn’t do any of those things I saw in my head; he kept on being an asshole, and the girls kept on having to deal with it because they were pretty and dressed to show that off, along with their youth. What right did I have anyway? I had been standing in an alleyway on the other side of that main street for an hour, trying to imagine as real and viscerally as possible, my own suicide.

I’d finished a bottle of cheap wine, and felt the pinch of cold rain more than my tired despair so I bought a new bottle and headed home. It was a fine time to go home: I had some wine, I had no lust to worry about, and I was good with words. I knew what beauty was; what it meant. It just fades so much fucking quicker than ugliness. That stuff seeps into your clothes and your dreams, and your bus rides. At every damned turn it is people like this yelling young white guy who have anger and anger and anger, because it is easier to not know and to yell than to know and to love. Any decent person feels that it’s too hard to go on, or to be optimistic. Many have no one to go home to, no beauty or job skills, nor any damned purpose, but… I had a full bottle of wine and I was good with words. I could stand in the street and be ignored by a thousand billion better dressed better organised, better loved people and yell with a smile and wine in my teeth,

“I am Charlie Dorr, and I can be an asshole and I can’t do many things you need of me, but I have love in my heart for you all, so forgive me and roll over baby!”

My life would be shit and dull and ugly, but stupid, hopeless bastards would read about it many nights after this one – multiple times, with drink in their minds and hope in their crotches! So that’s something. Just don’t get me wrong, I’d trade whatever that hope amounts to for the comfort of your total beauty right now and some unrelentingly sweet fucking pussy wrapped around my face and all the self-assured boring normalcy of your lives.

Stay Away From The Riff-Raff – Short Story

My name is Charlie Dorr, and I need to tell you about my father. I want to tell you about myself, but I made a promise to Dad once, and he’s dying now. If I do it well, I’m a writer, like everyone else telling their father’s story. If I don’t, I’ll apologise to my mother, a lot.

Dad, Carlyle, or Carl to his friends and wife; my father, was someone I thought I completely understood because I kept being told I was exactly like him, usually when I did something bad. As he drifts into senility now and I shake off the sheltered childhood he made for me, I can see that I don’t understand him at all – I probably shouldn’t write about him then, but I’ll just make some stuff up if it gets a bit too “real” (I don’t want to end up learning about myself, do I?… woah! Fuck off, hand me a beer and put on some music).

So, I know he had a lot of hate whenever he spoke, although he’d learned to soften it as disdain around most people. The hate was tiring more than terrifying to me because it was so constant and commonplace. Until I was twelve I assumed that racism was the natural state of things, and until I was called a racist for repeating his views at my first week of high school, I had no idea it was a bad thing to be, let alone a word. Racism was undeniable and powerful for a kid like me. All over their different faces was proof that the world was bigger than I could ever understand or cope with. And sometimes they smelled funny and spoke too strangely to understand at all. If this was how my Dad felt, then it made life easier and I loved him. This was something we could have in common; if it wasn’t hurting anybody. It also felt ridiculous anyway because my mother had dark olive skin and black curly hair. It was something we always ignored because she was from two Irish parents just like him. Her maiden name was O’Connor, and her mother’s maiden name was also something Irish, but I can’t remember that – let’s say Flynn. At some point someone told me that there was probably Spanish blood in her because the Spaniards and Irish had a strong connection over hating the English and being Catholic.

He also hated poor people and gays, but I didn’t understand or care about them because they never entered into my life. I knew that he hated poor people because he and my mother both came from rural poverty and were powerfully prideful of the suburban excess they made for us. I didn’t like money and didn’t want to think about it. Someday I’d be rich too, really rich, but only so that I never had to worry about it. TV taught me that he hated gays because he was old.

He was forty-five when I was born, and having nothing good to say about much of his life before my mother, he rarely mentioned it. That is another reason that I don’t know or understand him; in another fifteen years maybe I’ll begin to. Having a much older dad makes you worry about, and misunderstand the frailty of your father. In fairness to him, he held on to his strength, vitality, and dark brown hair until well into his fifties.

As a teenager I didn’t notice the aging until he began suffering from heart problems at sixty. We were sat at the kitchen table, dinner may have been coming or going or not there at all, I just remember sitting in that part of the house, with him leaning forward over the table and the window behind him. He’d just been in the hospital for a few days. He hated hospitals and was only a patient in them 3 times in my life (it may be more by now, but I haven’t kept in touch a lot). Every time, he’d blame the staff and say the whole thing was ridiculous, that they treated him like crap and didn’t really know what they were doing. It stank too. I think he just got scared, and mad that he wasn’t allowed to drink while he was in there.

By now, I’ve learned that we all act a little differently when we become the victims of physical breakdowns – looking at death is nothing compared to suddenly feeling it inside of you. He was ruffled by this last visit, sixty meant enough as it is for him and this really did hurt him. The last of his kids had just finished primary school and he must have felt weaker than any monstrous hangover or bout of flu could have ever done to him. He was stronger than anyone, he had a hundred stories ready to rattle off about being strong and able and smart on construction sites going all the way back to the reckless days of teenage labour in the 1950s, where worker safety wasted valuable profits. I didn’t know any of that was happening to him, all I knew was that other people seemed concerned about this, but I didn’t think he was worried or affected even, until he said,

“Well Charlie…” He always said my name in a booming voice, slightly louder than any other words he was saying. “The heart works like this…” He held out his thick fist, opening and closing the fingers, “To pump blood through your body. What makes it pump in a steady, measured rhythm, are electrical signals that are sent from somewhere in there.” He pointed to his chest. “My signals, are just firing at irregular intervals. So, I need to take medication to correct that, so that the blood keeps pumping properly, and to thin my blood a little so that there’s no strain.”

I’d heard of pacemakers, and knew vaguely about the electrical signals, but it didn’t make sense for his situation, “Ok. How long will you have to do that?” I was asking when he’d be alright again.

“I’ll have to take these pills… for the rest of my life.”

The rest of his life. Then he’d die. He was going to die, and how soon that was could be measured as simply as that. It’s a simple enough thing to have to do something for the rest of your life, but you don’t say ‘I’ll have to wear these glasses for the rest of my life’ or ‘I’ll have to shave these whiskers for the rest of my life’. Taking medication ‘for the rest of your life’ equals illness, and it sits you down with death, and death won’t let you leave the table.

His death weighed on him, maybe even more than it did on me. For him, there were unprompted comments about the futility of life and the “nothingness that awaits us.”

“Ok Dad, shut up, we’re watching ‘Friends’. It’s a repeat and I’ve only seen it once.”

It was like my father had cancer, but he actually didn’t, I was just paranoid and uninformed. I saw the idea of his death more than I saw him. I saw, I dreamt, I feared wholeheartedly, that he would die on me. He’d do it without telling me how to live, and how to deal with my faults, because they were his too. I still didn’t know so much. If I was like him, why wasn’t I strong and tough like him? How did he trick people into thinking he was such a tough guy? He had to be soft like me. He had to actually care about other people. He had to have more love than he could manage, didn’t he? I had the time to ask, because he was busy, but he was there. I could have asked and he might have answered. He looked at me differently than my brother and sister, I know he did. It was our secret, that the two of us were separate from the others. They didn’t know the bond we had, and neither did I, not literally.

He wanted to talk to me, but whenever he tried, I didn’t understand most of the things he said. We were so much the same, but too far apart in age. He would go off on long tangents about things I was too young to understand, and saying everything as though it were something I should quote him on.

So we settled down, the two of us and death. High School got more intense, as it does, and as much as I thought about my father being close to death or what that meant for my own need to live life fast and make him proud, I thought about love. Sex was always there throughout any day and night, but that was an impulse which wasn’t connected to my world yet. Love was easy, and lasting. I could jerk off and be completely enveloped in that ecstasy with not one other thought in my head, then it would sag in a white flash and everything would seep right back in – the acne, the bad grades and shitty teachers, the guys who gave me shit, and the lack of hope in anything. All the while, my Dad could see the rest of his life in prescription slips, and I might never know him. But love was the real goal (someone tell the songwriters of the world).

It was love that bothered me and threw me around. I was depressed and mad because I wasn’t in love. Worrying about Dad became too much, so I put everything about him aside in dealing with love and sex. He seemed to be doing fine and staying strong, so I had to be my own man. Then, a few years later, I was all full of youth and being my own man when I saw him change in an instant. It was just like it was with the heart problems. In that same room. School was over and I lived in the city, drinking, trying to womanise and getting into trouble that wasn’t really trouble – if the cops don’t chase you, you’re just being assholes, not criminals. I had come back to visit. My parents lived alone now with their dogs. Dad sat on the couch as Mum and the little dogs rushed over to hug me when I walked in the unlocked front door. Mum then went back to the kitchen or whatever else she was doing for the time being, and I looked down at Dad on the couch. He had a white moustache, flimsy waves of light grey hair and his arms and legs were now obviously thin compared to his barrel of a chest, but the skin was marked here and there by age spots while it had the horrifying texture of tissue paper. He didn’t say anything to make me see him like this, I was just looking at him now, because I needed him. He told me to grab a beer and sit down with him. I grabbed one and coming back he held up his wine glass,

“Top me up will ya Charlie? There should be an open one in the fridge.”

He asked me how I’d been, I summarised my life in short sentences which said nothing of how I felt. The truth was that I was fighting depression and loneliness every single day, barely scraping by, doing nothing interesting and developing an obsession with drinking. If I told him that I hated to be around other people, but I felt so bored and sad by myself, he might have understood the feeling, he might have told me that was the curse we both shared, or he might have just told me that he loathed most people too, and that I was like him, better than other people. We didn’t need them, he’d say.

He talked over what was on the TV, exaggerating the dumb things dumb people said, surprised by them and disgusted, but never choosing to watch anything actually smart. This was how it went at every visit. We’d watch documentaries and he’d switch channels as soon as he couldn’t outsmart the narrator, or he’d moan about a country and the race of people there.

“Stinking hot there, disgusting place. They wipe their asses with their hands!”

“America! Gone to hell, full of those damned…”

“Look at that China! Ought to cut the balls off the lot of ‘em.”

If I had just asked him about it, he’d have gone on about his long life and how far he’d travelled, while his whole family along with all of the people he knew in his youth had never done anything, or been anywhere. But not him, he’d say. Not him. He struck out and did this, or that, saw this, touched that, drank here, there anywhere, talked to them, or them and told him to fuck right off. But, he never really truly told me what he had done or who he had been. We just watched dumb TV, and he asked me if I wanted another beer. I said sure.

“Top up the old man will ya, Charlie?”