Cold sweat on a hot night

My hand shakes.

My hand shakes as I pull the cheap disposable razor down my throat

DAMNIT!

Now not many people know this but cheap disposable razors like the one in my hand all worship Dracula, no shit he’s their Patron Saint,

and like the Prince of Darkness they crave human blood.

They hunger behind their plastic safety guards,

and once pressed upon human flesh they give out a little prayer to their anointed toothy one.

Their lives are disposable,

it’s written in big letters on the packet,

but if the humble mayfly can love, shag and shit away it’s life time within 24 hours, now who is to say that those few minutes of unbridled freedom from their pre-packed tomb don’t feel like an eternity to the small orange vampire in my hand?

Who indeed?

I know what you’re thinking what complete and utter bollocks,

but it’s musings like that which give me brief respite from thinking about her,

and if these thoughts buzz around my head like insects then surely she is my flypaper.

DAMNIT! Nosferatu has left his mark and as I hurl his small plastic body in the bin he gives me a smile, but the smile she will wear is far more terrible.

For it is a tiger’s smile and when she sees my unsightly cut she will unleash it’s fury and make stray antelopes of my legs,

she will hold my heart between scarlet claws and squeeze it gently all the while.

I clean the cut the best I can, not that it makes any difference,

it’s just like another stitch on a patch work quilt.

I slap some of that expensive aftershave she bought me,

she likes the smell, can’t say I care for it much,

my dad caught a whiff of it once and told me I smelt like a tart’s bedroom

but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Time, time rolls on , in four hours I will see her,

four short hours till I do all those things she likes me to do,

the kind of things that make her sweat.

But four short hours can be an eternity for some,

and she will spend that short eternity getting herself ready for tonight,

she should not bother. She could wear a potato sack and cake her face in dog shit and I would still crawl across a sea of high street honeys just to kiss her.

Me I am far less high maintenance, in ten minutes I am booted and suited.

Time for a drink.

This town stinks!

it stinks of lust and danger and empty promises gone off in the night’s blistering heat. I sweat profusely in my black leather trench coat ,

but what the hell it makes me look cool, I look like I stepped straight out of the Matrix,

the Matrix one you understand, not two or three, they were shit.

 

I head towards the Ploughman’s Ghost.

You could say it’s my favorite haunt (drum roll please )

the pub is a lighthouse to lost ships like me ( yes I said ships not shits thank you very much).

It has been here forever, even in the blitz it stood its ground against the Hun while its neighbours crumbled into dust.

Now I don’t know if the rumors of the pub’s ghost are true but if any one in there is older than the elusive phantom it has got to be Uncle Stan,

now he aint a relation but the pub’s adopted O.A.P., the regular’s favourite, he’s part of the pub.

I have known him since I was a kid and he looked old then too but he is immortal in his ancientness,

it’s as though time lost count of how old Stan was and decided to leave him alone, now every night in the Ploughman’s he sits upon his favourite stool perched like a gargoyle on top of some old church looking down on all life as it passes him by.

I order a drink, the barmaid’s smile is as fake as her chest, in another life time I would have made a beeline for her but I get my honey somewhere different these days,

I go over and sit next to Uncle Stan,

we talk about the usual, my father and his business, the state of the weather. Stan tells me about global warming, he tells me Suzy my ex was in the other day he asks again why we split up, I tell him I wanted to be walking on sunshine and ended up walking on broken glass, I would have to have arms like Popeye to carry all her emotional baggage.

“But you know?” he croaks tapping a finger on his protruding nose

‘ what about the sexual chemistry?”

I spit out my beer

“sexual chemistry we did not even have sexual biology!”

this makes Stan laugh the sound is not dissimilar to a cat choking on a furball.

The more we talk the more we drink and suddenly the table is full of empty glasses, the booze takes its toll and I head towards the toilet,

I say toilet but upstairs sewer would be a more appropriate title.

The toilet seat stares up at me,

a dirty halo resting upon an unforgiving abyss,

an electric chair would be more inviting,

I spend a good few minutes wiping off the golden signature of a previous user,

some people are animals.

Once my arse is suitably rested upon the tainted throne I stretch my legs out so my boots become a makeshift lock,

no one should disturb a man about his business,

I spend the next five minutes reading the graffiti on the toilet door,

there’s still my name that I carved into it fifteen years ago and oh look “oral pleasure £15” followed by an undecipherable phone number,

but the jewel in this collage of filth has to be the legend

“Big Moogie’s Beefy Badger”,

now I don’t know who Big Moogie is or what exactly is a Beefy Badger but it gives the cubicle an air of mystery which distracts from the smell,

I then spend the next five minutes losing a tug of war with the toilet roll dispenser.

Now that’s made some room in my stomach,

so I make my goodbyes to Uncle Stan and head off for something to eat.My pocket vibrates, it’s a text from her, I try to reply but unless I have suddenly invented a language

only we can understand I guess it won’t make much sense, the Da Vinci Code would be easier to crack. I decide against phoning her, she would never let me go and I need more drink before I can face her. This town is so Goddamn hot tonight, 

long shadows stab the pavement and crawl up the walls,

revelers spread across the street like fire ants,

I stagger towards Lorenzo’s takeaway one foot not knowing what the other is doing, once inside I try to ignore two ugly teenagers feasting upon each other faces as I await my kebab meat and chilli sauce,

once it arrives I devour it greedily,

the sauce leaves a clown’s smile across my lips so I wipe it off with my sleeve,

I catch a glimpse of myself in the window. I look like dawn of the Dead the original you understand although the remake had its merits.

I head towards Dexters to see what a mess they have made of it,

Dexters is another old haunt of mine,

I have a lot of history with that bar,

I lost what little innocence I had left one summer in its car-park to a girl whose name I can’t recall,

Damnit I can remember the names of all the magnificent seven but I cant remember hers.

Memory is like a river free flowing and gentle but beware it has hidden depths go too far and you could drown in it.

I turn the corner and a big rock is thrown into that river creating deep dark ripples, Dexters or Babylon as it is now called awaits me,

its once black frame work now a gaudy pink,

two bouncers guard the gilded gates neither of them are tall but they make up for it with

 

width. One Cerebus stares intently at me, typical I’ve been trying to avoid this place now I am not going to be able to enter when I get curious.

The bouncer jerks to one side, as he let’s me in his face seems familiar,

my puzzlement disappears as I enter to be greeted by a full scale assault on the senses, the dance floor has been replaced by a podium where tanned stick insects gyrate with all the finesse of a cat in a washing machine,

the soul has been ripped from this place,

they have tore out a piece of my heart and replaced it with candy floss.

I work my way through a sea of suits,

she would not like it here, it’s full of nobodies who think they are somebodies,

she never could abide lies,

I finally reach the bar, all the barmaids wear tight t-shirts it probably distracts from the prices,

I just saw a bloke pay a fiver for a double vodka with coke,

I wonder if can remortgage my place as I want a treble,

I am next in line when I am elbowed aside by a sweaty looking youth with a duck’s arse for a fringe,

the fucker seems to order the bar all the while joking with the bleach blonde barmaid, finally as he turns to depart with six drinks tucked under his chin I stick my foot out he goes down quicker than a groupie at a Red Hot Chilli peppers gig,

I know I am a stinker but karma works too slow these days.

I won’t be coming back here again it’s lost all its charm,

I don’t belong here this is a different world,

God when did I get so old? Nah it’s not me it’s just the way of things, every thing is just a

cheap diluted version of the past.

Shit it’s getting on,

I neck the rest of my vodka and head to the toilet,

I feel as though I am in Buck Rodgers as I enter the shitter everything is silver and blue, I find an empty cubicle which thankfully has a lock on.

I remember when I was younger sharing some cheap coke in a cubicle with Billy Watson in this very building,

we used a bendy straw from the bar to vacuum it up to our greedy nostrils,

when we came out a middle aged bloke shot us a dirty look and called us puffs,

we laughed for so long and so hard that the bouncers kicked us out.

I still see Billy from time to time,

he’s now married with kids,

when I see him in the street he looks the other way avoiding eye contact,

can’t say I blame him,

times change.

I head to the sink,

an immaculately dressed black man squirts soap into my hands and turns the tap on,

I quickly rinse my fingers only just noticing they are still red from the chilli sauce,

I really must be going,

I am going to be late. The attendant passes me a paper towel,

I delve one hand into my pocket and give him a few pound coins,

I help myself to a lollypop from his bowl he stares at me blank faced

“cheer up mate!” I slur, “There’s far worse jobs”.

I leave Babylon never to return I think if I looked back I would turn into a pillar of salt,

 

I look at my phone,

four missed calls she’s gonna be mad,

it’s getting dark,

I swerve erratically across the pavement ,

my legs are on auto pilot ,

yes I am pissed! mission accomplished! I am so very pleased with myself.

My self satisfaction turns into revulsion as the lollypop surfs out of my mouth on a wave of vomit,

I can taste kebab it tastes better coming out than it did going in,

my eyes fill with tears, I retch again and something amazing happens I look down upon my sick and the shapes within it move like the luminous blobs in a lava lamp to form a picture,

a pattern,

reveals everything to me!

Who I am,

who we are,

and the very meaning of life itself within this bayeaux tapestry of diced carrots.

It is a rorschach test for the damned,

a map for the truly lost,

a blueprint for life,

a magic eye for the blind you get my drift,

I am on the verge of contemplation when I hear a voice singing,

it’s Stevie Wonder he’s singing ‘I just called’,

hang on it’s my fucking phone. It’s her! She purrs down the line at me,

“two minutes” I gasp,

 

I am suddenly aware I am staring at my own sick, no answers lie within it.

The moon harshly glares at me as I reach her door way,

her door is ajar,

I try to creep in but there she is at the top of the stairs twice as big as the Statue of Liberty,

she’s wearing a new black dress that’s so short and tight it would make a monk forget his vows,

her legs are an airstrip to a body that is pure LasVegas,

green eyes stare out from under a black bob, she curls up her cherry red lips and growls;

“ You’re late and drunk again!”

“I aint legless!” I slur.

“Not legless!” she laughs “I have seen snakes with more legs than you! Honestly you’re lucky that you’re the best at what you do, you can get a shower before you touch me!’

I crawl my way up this stairway to heaven,

this creaky wooden Everest she takes my hand in hers,

our eyes meet, I am not afraid any more,

my head feels clear,

my back straightens up,

I am ready to do it.

She opens the door,

my eyes blink from the light and begin to focus on him,

he’s hard to miss,

Charlie stands in front of me, God was not stingy when he made Charlie boy.

He crouches slightly to avoid the ceiling, he aint built like a brick shit house more like a brick shit mansion,

he stares at me eyes full of tears,

an enormous shovel of a hand is clasped to his ape like face,

blood drips between Cumberland sausage fingers he is desperately trying to keep his nose together.

“fugging basford! Ort im out!” he splutters

She is at the other end of the room now,

she pulls back a black velvet curtain that divides the room in half,

sat there tied up is a small but muscular man with bleach blonde hair and a lot of bad tattoos,

his mouth is bloody,

the tip of Charlie’s nose is by his feet,

he grins a manic smile at me.

“This is Joe!” spits my love. “Joe has been very careless with Mr Viconti’s money and is been very unco-operative, just ask poor Charlie, Joe is a very inconsiderate man!”

She looks at me I can see the excitement in her eyes,

she flashes me a little girls smile,

Joe strains at his ropes,

he looks a real hardcase there is a twinkle in his eyes,

it will have to go,

I wipe the cold sweat from my forehead and take the scalpel from my pocket,

my hand never shakes once.