Hangover

100 \% PROOF?

S O R R Y A B O U T

L A S T N I G H T

Now I have had some legendary hangovers in my time but the promise of
this one, oh god, I'm crawling with tiny spiders, running in panic over
my donut glazed skin. This is a friendly warning .
The murmur of Monday morning traffic is punctuated with the sunny coo
of two pinkish wood-pigions, making light of my condition, tactfully
ignoring my starfish carcuss in amongst the hot cardboard. I am inside
out, wet on the wrong side and swinging wildly between joy and dread.
As I lie there considering the ostrich option of sinking back into the
security of my stupor, I become aware of a shadowy form moving slowly
through my crisp bag eyelids.
"W'appen Patreek? Y'allrieet ya dronken cont?
"Just dandy thank you Ray, are you fucking open yet?"
He offers me his knotty fist and I haul myself to the semi-standing
position. The blood collects in my feet and I go blind for a while. I
feel like a new born foal and surprised mother. My legs quiver like a
shitting dog, I topple forward, my legs work underneath me and I'm off
down the pavement at speed with Ray following at half canter. It feels
like the first time I rode my bike without stabilizers.
"Patreek, eeesy, tak it eezy man, cheel."
"Chill yourself, I need booze, my brain is hot, my hands are cold and
my shame has started, are you fucking open yet?"
"com rownd de back, keep it down, you owe me big time ya knaw"
"you know I'm good for it Ray, what comes around goes around and all
that shite. I'm nearly a success already."
"Successful fokin' pees artees, that's what I see, what you
'avin?"
"Stella, grouse large and a shot of that jamacian white poison with
the fucking weeds in it, oh, and whatever you're having barman."
We enter through the open back door of the Pig and Trough and into the
rich gloom of Ray's maroon draylon womb. The pub is lovely and cool and
our shoes crackle stick on the dried sugary piss of the lino as we pass
through into the front bar. The big plate window in the front wall has
been painted brown with a big brush from the inside and silvery threads
of light swim where jean-studs and coins have scraped through. In these
situations I always feel an absolute appropriateness to my context. In
this space and time I truly belong truly here and my words come from an
ancient script written before thought spoilt truth. This, I fear, may
be the drink talking. A lot of addicts talk this way. I should know, I
waste a lot of time listening to my friends talk themselves into the
dawn, onto the wagon, out of a job, into one for the road, the motorway
with no hard shoulder and no stopping, you either go all the way or
drive into a tree. It is not that we just need a reason for what we do,
it has to be the right reason. There is always a reason, but rarely the
one we want, so in order to survive, we invent, we create. The thing
that makes us sound mad is the thing that is keeping us sane.
I believe I belong here because I absolutely don't. I can remember when
it used to really tear me apart, all that what's the point in anything
debate. It stopped me doing anything and I was truly bewildered by the
industrious nature of our species. I was the last guardian of truth
with the thankless task of informing everyone on how ludicrous their
lives really were and for god sake stop it! I was one picnic short of a
sandwich board. Sometimes I still think I had more going for me in
those days. I could really pull then, christ I could pull. The girls go
wild for all that fanatical shit, I think that's why I started it in
the first place, it filled that gaping void that shyness leaves so
vunerable, open to abuse. It's all behind me now anyway, this soldier
has found his war and he's fighting it with all the gusto of a flat
shandy.

Ray was half way down his half of stout by the time I had drained my
medicines and I was about to inform him of the fact that the face of
Mother Theresa was making a brief appearance in the sliding residue of
his foam and he should freeze the glass ready to receive an orderly
queue of idol worshipers/ media folk when the trill of his slimphone
reminded us that we were not immune to the big smug shit of a world
outside. Ray picked up,
"Is FitzGerald there?" I heard coming from Ray's ear. His yellowy eyes
widened slightly as he clasped the receiver and silently shouted at
me
"Are ya 'ere Patreek?"
Now normally I would have thrilled at his invitation to such a
provocative question. What stopped me was that I recognized the voice,
the mood of it and the severity of the situation.

Summer is the worst season for me. It is when us British get our stab
at a new lifestyle and stab at it we do. Plastic chairs are put out to
melt with the dog shit as dad hyper-ventilates into the tit valve on
the paddling pool. People do funny things in the shock of the sun. Take
me, I've lent myself to the mass hysteria of beer garden culture and
thick mothy evenings on the sticky Pimms patio of my neighbours dreams.
Other countries have had the lifetimes of many generations to perfect
this art of embracing the outside and letting it run free through their
lives. We get a couple of weeks every year to demonstrate our love of
life, real life that is, the life we didn't invent for ourselves. Not
the shutting out of life, the damp proof membrane double glazed
insulated roof spaced acoustically cladded party wall sort of existence
that is written into our building standards and life regulations. Le
Corbusier's machine for living has a spanner in its works. How does a
machine work when none of its cogs interconnect? Now don't get me wrong
here, I can honestly say that I'd rather be British (or perhaps Irish)
than any other nationality, but that is what I am. As a product of the
soupy morality and confused logic of this sheltered island. I am
perfectly happy to maintain the status quo. Don't rock the boat when
there's nowhere to swim to, better to shoot the rocker and charge the
bill to the sea sick. It's like my drinking buddy Lance the copper
says,"Did you hear, Lady Diana is dead?"No Guv, I didn't even know we
had her in custody.
That gun shot of a phone call took up all the available plate of my
inebriated present. It was a cinema 360, no peripheral images, no
escape. It wasn't so much a surprise as a confirmation of a something I
had hoped was a neurotic response to an imagined scenario. A daydream
that crept too far. I was now swimming in a bubble of fear.

Suddenly everyone else was so lucky and happy and organized and I
wanted to beg for their strength. Ray's mouth moved but his words
didn't get through the fizzing panic spilling from my ears. I
remembered the same thing happening when the nurse came to give me the
eye injection. She must have been saying things like "Now this may hurt
a little." Or " You may feel a little prick"

I didn't hear a thing for the fizzing panic spilling from my
ears.

It didn't matter how many times I corrected Ray, my name would always
be Patrick in his mind. We started with FitzGerald two years ago, then
came the Irish poof jokes, Gerald fits Patrick and Patrick fits Gerald,
followed by Ben Doon and Phil Mc Kavity. To everyone but the Celts, the
Celts are all one big backward cousin fucking sword wielding community
of pagan poet drinkers. Not a bad reputation I will agree, although
totally inaccurate. Then it was Fitzpatrick for a while. After
correcting this to FitzGerald each and every time (there was no point
doing this occasionally), it was deemed incorrect and shortened to
Patrick, or in Ray's thick Jamaican drawl " Patreek. Ray is a pillar of
the local community.
St.Pauls has a reputation as a bit of a rough spot in the social
fabric of Bristol. I am neither for nor against this opinion as I enjoy
fighting with the taxi drivers when they refuse to enter the area on a
Saturday night. They are far more likely to receive a kicking from me
(as a form of social justice), than they would ever be from the people
who inhabit this area of the city..
Ray has introduced me to this world of secret dance clubs, keeping your
mouth shut and after hours drinking. The sex down here is suitably
cleekish as well. You can get laid by who you know or what you don't
say, it's an art, a game of verbal strategy. Bring your Queen out too
quick and you've lost the game .You learn stealth, guile and the
ability to talk deeply on any matter to any lunatic who may try to fox
you with an obscure angle. I've met a few true geniuses in the herbal
fog of the blues clubs. Awesomely clever talkers, these guys could have
wiped the floor with any courtroom lawyer, defence or prosecution,
whatever they felt like on the day. They're not all like that though.
You get your aggressive little fuckers who want their justice, you ask
what for and they stop making sense. Ray usually steps in when things
start to look terminal, with his culture, people still have respect for
their elders, fuck knows why, but Ray is sixty four and has always had
the advantage over any of my potential throat-slits, so far. Like most
Afro Caribbean men, Ray has weathered incredibly well. He is thirty
five years older than me and in better shape. I could have him, but
then again, I could have most. I'm a dirty bastard in a fight, it's a
skill I learned from God. I wouldn't fight Ray, I wouldn't let it
happen. The night I moved into Montpelier I strolled into the Pig and
Trough with the romance of the move still reverberating in my confident
soul. Ray took me on as a local, guided me through the minefield of
explosive violence, greedy whores, ruthless arse rapists and charming
pushers, only to steer me out the other end unharmed. I owe him a life
and he owes me a liver, two girlfriends, one of which he actually
fucked, and possibly an explanation. As I floated out of the Pig on a
cloud of terror, I sensed Ray's worried eyes drinking my form, even if
he wasn,t I could sense it anyway. I couldn't tell him what I was now
so irreversibly part of and he knew that, it's part of the code,
protect your friends by telling them nothing. He knew I knew he knew.
Bristol is a great big village. Forget hiding in Bristol unless you
want to live the rest of your life in a wall cavity. I can't tell Ray
for two reasons, one, "The code" and two, I would have to tell him
about the fire.