The fear

I woke to find the kind of day that just broke
up all my schizophrenic minds. No wind, crystal
clear sky, bitterly cold despite the blazing
sunshine.

Perfect weather to drop some E, smoked some weed
and spend the day fighting the cold,
listening to an old Stax compilation tape playing
on the stereo over and over and over again,
eating the bits and pieces scavenged from the fridge,
before wandering down to Finsbury Park.

Turned out to be one of those perfect February park afternoons.
A few people about as I staggered along. Couples, families
with small children, dogs scampering about at their feet.

On the way home, I got the munchies. Visting a shop and stock
up on crap seemed wise. 

A packet of Wotsits, a meat pie and a seven up.
Yeah, any kind of meat, didn’t matter.

Some crisps and maybe a scotch egg too. A lion bar
and two cans of normal coke. Some aluminium.
Toilet roll too, I felt a biggie coming on.

A block of Cheddar cheese, if they had any.
Two packets of salt and vinegar crisps,
some M&Ms and a cherry coke.

I pushed the shop door open and went in,
but once inside, completely forgot what
I’d gone in for.

I was the only person in the place,
apart from the check out guy behind the
counter - a big black dude with a shiny
bald head reading a magazine.

He didn’t bother looking up. I just stood
there in the main aisle, hey wire clouds
of confusion drifting across my mind, staring at him. 

What was I there for?

The check out guy glanced up at me. I was still
staring at him. Rather self-consciously, I
averted my eyes and shuffled off into the shop,
wandering about in a daze down aisle after
aisle in sheer awe of the mind-boggling
array of goodies available to me. 

Shit, if I lived thousands of years ago in a
cave or something and I got an attack of
the munchies like this, I’d have to go out
into the night and hunt down a snack myself.
That was probably a very dangerous thing to
do in those days, especially in the dark and
being stoned.

And yet there I was in the twenty-first
century standing in a shop with thousands of
yummy treats just laid out for my consumption,
and all wrapped up in brightly coloured plastic packets too. 

Modern life couldn’t possibly be more surreal. 

I wandered down a street of crisps, spying several
family packs of Hula Hoops on a shelf off to my right.
Were there really whole families of Hula Hoops living
in those bags?

I zeroed in and picked one up, fumbling around
with it, fondling the fucker, sizing it up. I came
to the conclusion that noooo, there were far
too many Hula Hoops inside for me to eat all
by myself.

I put the packet back on the shelf. Must find
a smaller bag. Must find a smaller bag.

I wobbled off.

The bag of Hula Hoops I’d just put
back on the shelf toppled and fell to the
floor behind me, dragging two or three other
bags down with it.

I stopped and turned to observe the chaos,
but couldn’t be arsed to go back and pick ‘em up.

The check out guy just stood stock still
behind his counter, checking me out. 

The door burst opened and in poured a load
of energetic foreign boys talking ten to the
dozen - some fabulously gymnastic language
that put me right off my stride. I listened,
trying to work out what language it was.

Something eastern European.

Hungarian? Polish? Czech? I had no fucking idea.
Did the shop even accept cheques? 

Weird. 

I was lost in a thick mist of confusion, their strange
lingo only adding to it.

I passed a drinks fridge that triggered a
murky memory about my core mission in the shop.

Drinks! That was it. Cokes. Cherry ones or normal ones,
didn’t matter.

The fridge door was surprisingly hard to open,
but after an almighty tug, which almost sent me
spilling backwards to the floor, open it I did.
Rubbing my mits together, I bent down to
examine the beverages at closer quarters. 

“Hello babies.” I thought to myself.
“Come to daddy, you perfectly chilled little swine.” 

A couple of the foreign types nearby stopped
talking and looked my way, smirking. 

Shit, had I just said those words out loud?

(I shall now deploy some really great big writing to
emphasise my tale)

There was a more than high probability that I had.

But had they heard me?

Seemed so.

But did they understand what I’d said?

Did it matter?

I was a loon, talking to myself in a shop.

Sweet Jesus, get a grip.

I glanced over at the foreign types. They were still smirking. Perfect smirks they were, almost as though they’d graduated with top marks from an exclusive Swiss Smirking Institute. I checked behind me, to see if the smirks might be directed at someone else, but of course there was no one else in the shop, apart from the check out guy but he wasn’t in sight and therefore not smirk worthy.

No.

They were all smirking at me.

It was then I dropped the coke cans on the floor.

Big racket.

I watched helplessly as they rolled away in different directions. Funny. The normal coke cans rolled off in one direction to the left and the cherry coke went its own way off to the right. I sensed more smirking from the foreign types. Shit, they knew I was stoned.

Stoned?

I was hopelessly mashed.

Off my tits, fumbling about like a buffoon. 

They could tell. 

It was that obvious. 

I was entirely overcome by paranoia, The Fear, call it what you will. It’d been creeping up on me stealthily all afternoon and now it had trapped me in a vicious headlock.

I had no choice but to leave the shop immediately.

But hang on. I had over two hundred quid in my wallet. What if those foreign fucks came after me? They were aware I was stoned and wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Maybe they’ll follow me, beat the shit out of me and nick my money?

I’m useless in any physical confrontation.

I left the shop and broke into a slight jog, looking back over my shoulder every few yards to see if I was being followed, but of course I wasn’t.

Eventually I slowed up and saw the amusing side of my own paranoia and came to a halt by the bench, staggering about, laughing manically.

Ventriloquist threesome

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Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup...

It's Valentines Day, but do I think of the cast-aside Zosia, my ex-squeeze Mimi? Tallulah the mad chick guitarist sex-pest?

No.

I think of a pub, a pub with a beer garden, an old fashioned wooden slide, a swing. Animal heads and antlers of sizes big and small on the walls inside...glass display cases everywhere, stuffed wildlife; fox and badger, stoat and weasel, bird stuck on a bit of twig and branch...tatty full-sized grizzly bear on hind leg in a corner, a country and western song filling the void...a generous coating of dust, the place not cleaned for years.

The landlord: head, LARGE, face round and flushed, wiry clouds of grey hair, huffing and puffing. Brown corduroy jacket, light green check shirt, royal blue silk tie and maroon tank top size too tight for fat body. I ask why. He hiss don’t be rude.

Four regulars; eighty-seven year-old Rosie, smells of Tweed and urine, a bag o' bones in big armchair by fire, nursing a Babycham, mumble crap all night, emptying and refilling white leather handbag (dozens upon dozens of disposable cigarette lighters?) and three men call Dave who drop in most evenings.

Two Daves work on a city farm. Other mechanic. Huge, russet-faced brutes all three.

Maggot, mangy, flee ridden dog belong to one Dave also spend evening in pub dozing, breaking wind at master’s feet. The dog bottom so prolific most nights, fart dispatched, silently, once every seven minute. The dog doze on oblivious. Fill main bar area with rancid smell of rotten meat and boiled cabbage. Drive landlord distracted.

“Sorry Dave, I’m going to ask you to take him outside and tie him up. I’ve got my other customers to think about.”

But Dave love dog so much he take the blame for farts himself.

Sometime, the odd stray stumble in to pub, be met by cessation of bar conversation, hostile stare from everyone, overbearing scent of loose dog arse. Most turn, leave immediately.

Occasional night, fourteen or fifteen pints of ale, three Daves go sozzled, ruined to skittle alley for few rounds. They bribe me with promise of tenner to stand at far end of alley be ‘sticker upper’. I don’t want, but Daves force me. They play skittles take a run up, bowl ball over arm. Landlord give me crash helmet for birthday.

In summer, beer garden get infested ants. I point out to landlord, but he say shut fuck up, do nowt. One Sunday, customer complain at landlord.

“Excuse me. I just went to the toilet and came back out to find a battalion of ants eating my sausages.”

“Well, erm, there’s not really much I can do about that, I’m afraid...”

“Not much you can do!!??” He incredulous, raise voice. “I want replacement sausages. Now!!”

I fetch lanlord, he tell angry man he get new food.

He storm to kitchen, all a flap and a fuss. Give me slap round head on the way, out of frustration.

“This ruddy beer garden is going to be my ruddy downfall,” he rant. “All my profit for today has just been eaten up, quite literally, by those ruddy ants.”

Me arrive for evening drink at pub, see the three Daves grin like idiot.

“What are you three so happy about this evening, then?” I say.

“Ain’t you noticed?” say a Dave, snigger.

“Noticed what?”

“We renamed the pub in our honour.” Other Dave say, snigger too.

“Oh right. And what’s it called now then?”

“Go outside and see for yourself,” the third Dave he say, nod toward the door. I go outside, look up.

Sign swing gently in evening breeze above pub’s door. Featured coat of arms and normally read ‘The Kings of Wessex’.

Three letters painted out.

Now read ‘The Kings of sex’.

Incident at The Blue Boar

Charlton Heston and Brad Pitt stumble laughing into the crowded
Blue Boar, plainly out of it on a drink and drugs cocktail of their
own invention.

Heston leaves Pitt and staggers to the toilet.

Pitt sidles up to the bar and perches on a stool. The bar
man approaches.

What would sir like to drink?

Pitt recites a carefully rehearsed tone poem about his
inability to swim.

The bar man hands him a chicken in a basket, pours
paraffin on the chicken and lights it.

Heston exits the toilet, his clothes now tattered and
torn, whore red lipstick smeared about his face, 
the word ‘Slag’ now scrawled across his forehead
in bright metallic blue paint.

He looks around.

   
“Ou est le beef curtains?” he hollers out loudly. 

Getting no response from the room, or
indeed the people in it, he walks over to join Pitt
and slumps on a stool at the bar next to him.

Pitt motions for the bar man to bring his
compadre some sympathy.

The bar man asks Heston how much he
would like.

A hush befalls the bar. Everything hangs on Heston’s word.
He spins on his bar stool, giving everyone the evil eye.

He draws a gun...on a napkin and very badly, because he's
crap at art.

Everyone else draws guns too, on their napkins.

There’s a tense stand off about who's drawing is best,
before Heston pulls a real gun and opens fire,
hitting a midget standing in the corner by
the jukebox.

An intense gunfight breaks out. All but Pitt and Heston
are fatally wounded.

Heston turns, reaches across the bar and grabs the
bleeding (and by now, dead) bar man by his lapels.

“I don’t know who I am.”

Pulp Friction

It was dark when I regained consciousness. I was alone and naked, apart from my clothes, sprawled face down between several large rubbish containers down a narrow cobbled alley. A blanket of snow covered the ground. The silence was deafening.

I sat up shivering and looked around. Nothing seemed familiar. Was I still in Berlin?

I had no idea.

Great thoughts of solitude welled up inside me, then gently dissipated, like hot silent farts in the darkness.

I got to my two feet and began walking with both them at the same time, nowhere at first, then everywhere desperately in search of, well, I wasn’t sure what. I felt a nagging, imprecise longing for something. Warmth, I think you call it.

After the riled Belgian had struck me with his iron fists, my legs had failed, I remember that. Lurid images exploded in my head; troupes of pretty blonde all-American lady soldiers wearing red, white and blue uniforms with short miniskirts and no knickers rollerskating up hill. Swamp creatures too horrible to mention.

Since then, everything had been a blank.

I walked on, emerging from the end of the alley. I looked a-right. I looked a-left. I looked a right mess, and decided to go straight ahead.

After a few crunchy strides I stopped and counted the footsteps I'd left behind in the snow. There were fifty-five in all.

My special ops training kicked in. It was to be hopping the rest of the way. If that Belgian thug was foolish enough to follow me, he would think it was not me he was trailing, but a one legged man.

Eventually, just before I arrived, I got there.

A door opened in the street ahead of me, spilling yellow light across the snow-covered ground. It remained intriguingly ajar. I approached, hopping cautiously.

A woman whose name I knew not, but I imagined would be Frau Marlene Schmidt, stepped out.

“Ja?” she hissed.

“Help me,” I mouthed silently, the ghosts of my words visible, hanging as steam in the frosty air.

She didn’t reply.

Slowly, it was all happening too fast. The woman crouched down low, apparently listening to the ground.

“Who sent you?” She hissed again, looking up at me.

“Albert?” I replied.

“Albert who?”

“Yes, that’s him. Albert Who.”

“I don’t know any Albert Who.”

“Neither do I.”

“Are you alone?”

“Very.”

At that she relaxed, grinned and got up off the floor, stretching up to her full height.

It was only then that I realised she was both bigger than me and slightly smaller at the same time.

She relaxed and leant sideways against the doorjamb, sizing me up openly, admiring my nakedness as she drew deeply on her unlit cigarette.

I noticed with considerable pride how her eyes lingered for several minutes on my exposed man-wand.

Flicking the cigarette away into the snow, she sighed.

“Vell, I'm afraid my dear, zat life isn’t all just about ze buttoning and ze unbuttoning.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but feeling colder than I’d ever been before and sensing her verbal nonsense might be some sort of secret code, the correct response to which would gain me access to her warm abode, I nodded.

The woman opened the door wider.

“You’d better come in.”

Once inside, the woman stepped forwards, right up close, her warm sour breath tickling my nostrils. She rubbed her cheeks against mine, enjoying the roughness of my stubble against hers, then reached down and placed both hands over my chap.

“Despite the chill, you have a big penis, let that not be denied. But I…”

She let go of my parts and ran her bony fingers seductively up her dress and under the curve of her own sagging breasts.

“...I have some sorrowful sprouts zat remain unwashed.”

Winking suggestively, she closed the front door behind her and with a surprisingly girlish giggle, skipped gaily through some gaudy multi-coloured plastic beads hanging in a doorway off to one side.

I paused for a moment, just to see what a pause at that precise moment would feel like, decided it didn’t feel that great and stepped forward through the beads myself to find her waiting.

She came closer, panting, staring into my eyes at point blank range. I could've sworn she whispered the word helium. She undid the buttons on her dress and let it fall to the floor, revealing nothing.

I placed my arms around her waist bin, bringing my by now stiffening upper lip hard up against her abundant public harmony.

She gave out a little moan of corruption. I went to kiss her, but before I could, she gripped my cheeks roughly between her neatly manicured thumbs and forefingers and jerked my head backwards against the wall.

“Tell me," she whispered. "Is it true what ze CIA say about me, zat I go around wearing a pained expression?”

Trained not to give anything away too soon, I gave everything away immediately.

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened. She was clearly angered. Her grip on my reddened cheeks intensified. But then, just as suddenly, it dissipated.

“Well, never mind all zat,” she said, patting my cheeks. “You are about to have ze physically demanding sexual intercession viz me. Have you come prepared?”

I coughed, stuttered, spluttered and coughed. And with that, all doubt was apparently dispelled from the woman’s mind.

She loosened her grip on my cheeks completely, stroked them softly and smiled. Then she stood high on tippy-toes to lick my forehead, purring as she did so.

I purred too.

“Ah, ja, I know all about you,” she said presently. “And I know you’ve been ze very, very naughty boy.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because I have my spies!” She snapped back, before slapping me extremely violently across the face...

Worms and beginnings

Today, like child, I've stuck my words to your computer screen on cut-up white strips of paper. What do you think?

So, worms. Interesting creatures...

The question is, which end is the beginning? Or which end is the end? Or which is the end of the beginning?

I’m not sure.

Perhaps it's the bit in the middle of the worm that counts, the bit between the beginning and the end? Or the end itself, except right in the middle?

Thinking about it, maybe it's the part of the worm at the beginning which still hasn't ended yet, you know the bit that's near both ends or both beginnings after the beginning of the first end ended?

I don’t fucking know.

Fowl play

Hey, what about that massive fire in Camden Market? Very suspicious. I suspect foul play. Or fowl play? Could a fire like that be set off my a bunch of geese, ducks and shit messing about with matches?

I'm still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I saw Mimi yesterday. I thought I was over her, but no - the mere thought of her pert breasts over my toast this morning still induced a distinct twitching in my privates...not the thought of her pert breasts hanging over my toast. That would be weird. Just the thought of them, full stop.

So, after breakfast I decided to go down to the basement to find the photo album with all her pictures in it, an album I hid away in the darkest recesses of the basement about a year ago to try and stop myself staring at it for hour upon stoned hour, bringing myself to maudlin tears over the injustice of losing such a wonderful creature to...well, to a yoga freak with a name like a fucking clown.

I thought hiding the album away would cure me of the awful longing I felt for the gorgeous bitch once and for all (and stop me constantly 'whacking the monkey' over the topless shots from our holiday together three years ago).

And let's face it, until yesterday it worked.

Unfortunately though, I hid the album so well, it was nowhere to be seen. Probably because when I hid it I deliberately made sure I was totally out of it, so I wouldn't remember where I hid it.

Does that make any sense?

One good thing though - when I was down in the basement, I clocked a tape measure slung loosely over some boxes in the corner and decided to measure myself right there and then for the suit I need for Tom’s wedding, starting with my chest.

Of course, it’s manly and large, like Vin Diesel’s, only smaller.

My neck, thick, like Mike Tyson's, only not nearly as thick as his.

Arms? Well, just long enough to reach my hands.

Legs. One of them touches the floor and the other one that doesn't when standing on one foot.

And the waist. A couple of wees and a big splatting poo after breakfast.

My mobile rang on the long dejected trudge up the basement stairs. Tom, pissed out of his mind somewhere.

“You mean spirited child of the cold, dark industrial wasteland," he yelled at me. "Be warned, I say. The devil is among you, the devil is among you...”

And with that, he was gone. Daft fucker.

I fixed a monster bong to try and forget about Mimi and, well...women in general, really.

When I was younger, I didn't have such woes. No, dived head first into the pool of outrageous excess. Playing in a band meant a regular supply of teenage and some not so teenage girls attracted by my interesting haircut and funny accent. They didn’t really care about me as a person, they just wanted to take advantage sexually. And of course I was only too willing to let them.

But now?

Now I've become susceptible. Now the little mixes are capable of seriously distrubing my equilibrium.

And as I sat on the sofa, watching Sky News broadcast the same old news 15 every minutes, I decided that from now on I’ll limit my relationships with women strictly to the platonic kind, or more optimistically, to the platonic kind mixed with a soupcon of no-strings-attached sex.

No more will I open my heart and let a woman chew me up and spit me out like Mimi did.

I will remain forever an independent spirit.

A one-man island...like Marlon Brando.