My Dinosaur Era Chapter 2

 

the ten years in between left me in tatters

my mind enfeebled daily by the shit I consumed

great beers to bad porn, they ate away at my carcass

I lay down and let them

I drifted around the place, from damp flats in dagenham to damper ones in the hills that overlooked brighton

I fled each container, looking for safety in a new box

 

tucked in behind a public golf course, the first brighton flat felt like wet paper that would collapse on me when I slept

that slugs might rise up from the skirting boards

lick my ears as I lay hungover on filthy sheets

I felt like a plague was taking me in those days

my will terrified to intervene

my eyes wide open yet seeing nothing. 

 

when the shower stopped working, I packed a rucksack and went to gatwick on the national express

cheap flight to bilbao

I sat by the river eating pintxos

tipping luscious rioja wine down my throat

wandered around the guggenheim

marvelling

took a bus to san sebastian

sat on a sandy beach

a different species to the stones of brighton

 

the flat was seeping still

I imagined it underwater, shoals of fish swimming through broken windows

a frog sat in the sink, I never went back to that place but I did leave spain

the money ran out

so did the thrill of cosplaying a holiday when I was just hiding

 

I stayed with my sister in Hove, her sofa so deep and kind

she hated me being there, just for a couple of weeks I promise

I lied, knowing nothing more than where I might be in an hour. 

 

I took a job selling shit to people who rarely wanted to accept that particular gift

plugged into the grid by means of a headset that gripped you tight

even when you took it off at half five

 

one bloke went to the pub at lunchtime with it still on

gulping pints with a wire clanking against his glass

not sure anyone else even noticed or maybe, like me

they thought it best to keep quiet

 

I had to pretend that I knew about finance to trick people into taking another call about some made up thing that they could put their money in

it should have sickened me more than it did.

 

but you’d have to be a greedy fool to fall for that

so my conscience sat quietly in the corner whilst I dribbled down the line

the worst thing was

I was good at it

they believed me

                

after seven months

I went to the pub with my headset on and never came back

they billed me fourteen ninety nine from my wages for not returning equipment 

I earned enough to rent a new flat that was above sea level

ninety two stairs up, regency splendour sub let to the poor

from the balcony I could see the battered old pier

its remnants struggling to stay in place with each gust of wind

 

a flatmate, samantha

never call her sam

her daughter, whose name I forget now, 

who screamed in the night,all smiles in the morning

washing machine on the whole time, washing up almost touching the ceiling

 

I started growing mushrooms in a cupboard in my room

jars of dark matter hidden from view, I had the heating on too high

arguments about the gas bill, spending each day peering into the space

hoping that a wee cap had emerged from the blackness

punching the air when one morning a big bastard appeared overnight

or maybe I missed a few days

    

drying them in the oven, cooking them too much

wasn’t doing it right

I was new to this

should have put them on a pizza

 

walking along the seafront lawns

the grass flashed purple, the pier waved at me

even though my mushrooms were overdone

high enough to look down, not too high to fall off.

until

sam found the shrooms and I had to leave

never had her down for a such a stickler

my daughter though, my daughter

she cried

at the fungi

I packed my bags

I clutched my jars on the bus

I munched a mushroom, raw, tasted like fresh soil

washed it down with  a can of gin and tonic

a horrendous belch emerged from within me

a woman looked round and wondered what I had said

the air filled with juniper and substrate. 

 

back to my sister’s, just a couple of weeks

I pleaded again, her

worried that I’d fart on her john lewis couch

spill red wine on the fifty quid a metre carpet

 

after a month, she left me a note

she was going on holiday for a week

I had to be gone before she was back

we were never close

each of us recalling our childhoods with different filters

growing apart each year

until we were strangers all over again

 

I went to ginny’s place for the first time in two years

not even sure if she was speaking to me at the time

I need somewhere to stay I said as she opened the door

 

not here, she said

you can stay with jane, you'll like jane