Dusty Laptop Interlude #2

Dusty Laptop Interludes is a weekly digression from the usual Hairybones content. Each Sunday will bring a new installment from an offline journal found on an old laptop running a Windows 95 operating system. There is no internal floppy drive and the external jack is shot, so the only way this story can get out is by way of me re-typing it.

It follows a twenty-something’s journey to find himself, truth and true love in a city that can bury all three in a heartbeat.

Episode 2: Firecracker night-shiver

My meeting with the potential flatmate was a let down after the high of Columbia Road. He was a shifty Turkish bloke that ran a dirty local café and lived in an apartment with décor my grandma would have been proud of. I made my excuses and headed back to the Royal Oak in the hope of re-igniting some the emotion from earlier in the day. It didn’t.

I hadn’t felt positive about anything in months and he’d killed it. I blamed him and felt the anger rise up in me before it subsided to give way to the familiar dull ache of disappointment. I ordered a double JD and a beer to soften the fall. I let a few gay guys flirt with me and buy me beers to take my mind off everything. They started talking dirty, so once again I made my excuses and left.

My ipod played Galaxie 500 tracks in random order on the train and I heard explosions during the walk home from Ladbroke Grove station to my apartment.

I‘m home in a home that won’t be mine for long. I have to find a place to live. I write down what happened today and hit the wine rack and hash stash. I polish off two bottles of cheap Australian Shiraz, a few joints and play air sax to Coltrane. I consider going to bed before grabbing another bottle and heading up to my roof-top to investigate the bangs and flashes going on outside. I sit down too heavily on my rotten deckchair as a rocket sweeps up from my left periphery and arcs over my head. The explosion fails to jolt. The way I’m feeling now, nothing could. I’m in a triple bubble of Shiraz, jazz and hashish with a meniscus an inch thick.

Then I get it. Guy Fawkes. Bonfire Night. All of England celebrating a renegade who tried to blow up the British Parliament, while most of them are gripped in fear as another, more intangible force threatens to carry out the same symbolic act – anytime, anywhere. The irony of this vapourises, but there is no escaping that London looks resplendent…if under siege. I suppose this is what the Blitz must have been like. The muffled base-boom thuds both near and far, patches of the vast urban expanse lit up by sporadic flashes, the smoke and its acrid tang hanging heavy in the cold night air.

I’m going to miss this rooftop. I love the view it affords me of this mean but addictive city. Anybody who has lived here knows how it can close in on you, consume you and bear itself down on you so you feel like there is no escape, no room, no air to breathe.

Up here on this rooftop I replenish my take on my existence with a heavy dose of perspective. Up here I am above it all. I can see the city and all of its chaos at arms length. Its topography and its patterns begin to re-emerge and I regain some semblance of understanding and direction. I have air to breathe again and can see the way out…even if, for reasons still beyond me, I never choose to take it.

I open the Shiraz and above the surrounding din still manage to relish the sound of the glig-glig-glug as I pour it into the glass. I slug back half my glass and sling my head back and gargle, savouring the sensation as I let the overflow run down my cheeks and chin and all over my shirt – taking the vampiric pleasure I normally feel driniking such blood-like liquid to some crazed new high.

I sink into my chair feeling the wind cool the spilt wine against my chest. John Cotrane’s sax is wailing out of the speakers behind me and I watch the fireworks dance their graceful dance, their randomness loosely syncopating with Coltrane’s soaring and dipping ramblings.

Looking at things through Shiraz tinted glasses, life isn’t so bad really. This rut I’m in is a mere temporary setback. I mean, this here is a hard city. It takes time, hardwork, conviction and luck to make an impact.

I reach for the bottle and the legs of my chair give way. I land on my side and catch the bottle just before it spills its contents. I look up at the sky and a firework does a lame imitation of a parachute as my lids get heavy…like weighted drapes…

Read Episode 1