Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time. This week, I delve back into the fictional word of my old mate Reece and share the first chapter of a new short story - no name yet but he’s going on holiday with his girlfriend. Story below
If you’re out and about tomorrow in London, I’ll be with the Poetry Takeaway in Covent Garden writing poems for anyone that wants one.
Then of course, two weeks today, Friday 27th, I’ll be doing a solo set at Poetry and Poppadums at Karamel, London.
Have a banging weekend
Paul
Reece on holiday - chapter 1
He needs to liven-up. I only want a pint. Just one. One pint, mate. That’s it. It’s gone from four pints, to three and now I’m reduced to one. One, mate. You’ve broken me. I’ve imposed austerity measures on my hopes, impoverished my joy. I’m desperate.
Flight is taking-off in forty-five minutes and this prick is taking his sweet time. Podgy, nonchalant, nonce-looking slag. Pouring drinks and processing payments like a docile Labrador occasionally getting up to sniff something and then flopping back down again. I’m meant to be going on holiday. This cunt is on holiday.
We were late getting here. Of course, packing and re-packing. Security was long and the missus was fannying about in Duty-Free, sniffing all the smelly stuff. Everything is a distraction. She picked up, fingered and eventually bought a book in Smiths that she’ll never read called Speak Your Truth. If I spoke mine, I’d ruin her holiday. Little does she know, that she’s contributing to the ruination of mine. Her and this ball of Playdoe that’s spent too much time on the carpet; who has no care for who is next nor any sense of urgency. Never a truer word not spoken.
There’s not a lot that frustrates me more than this. Waiting at a bar. The impatience, the randomness, the anxiety, the inefficiency, the nonchalance, the in-attentiveness. My toes are tapping like a junkies twitch and I’m making beats on this beer-soaked counter with my hands. My neck aches from looking-left and right everytime this Moomin makes a move. Eyes are tired and unable to focus on anything for more than a few seconds. Strip lighting burning the whites.
This is the bit I was most looking forward to. This bit, mate. The pre-pints. The now. Not Lanzarote. The sun. The sun-beds. The boat-tours. The Old Town. No, mate. It’s this. The pre-match warm-up. This is where I feel it. That feeling of being alive. Sinking a couple of cold-ones to fuel-inject my adrenal glands and numb me to the inevitable stress and disappointment that lies ahead. This is holiday-mode, mate. Now. It’s fleeting. Those taps could churn-out the dregs of the barrel, some nasty-watered down student-union fare, it wouldn’t change it. No way. Nothing would. It will taste amazing. It always does. This bit is the holiday, mate. This bit. My window of bliss is shrinking by the second.
Some family just bowled-up and got served. I should say something, I’m gonna say something. I say nothing. I’m fuming. I could say something, I should say something. Nothing. I do nothing. It shouldn’t be on me to kick-off just to get server. The brass of this family too. It’s a complex order, they’re changing their mind. Calls go back and forth between the seated members. They don’t know their table number and Candice now wants a J20. The pain. They don’t know the pain they are causing.
It’s the not-knowing if and when this is gonna happen. It’s the paranoia that they’re all toying with me. Teasing me. The joy is right there in front of me and I’m reaching out with a stretched arm to grab that joy and embrace it like a winning-lottery ticket but it’s slipping away from me and it’s not my fault and my ribs are hurting. I’m being torn. The future will hurt even more. I know it will, trust me. From here, it’s all downhill, mate. It always is. Lergies. Sunburn. Getting ripped-off. Third-world accommodation. Unexpected charges on hotel-bills. Tired feet from dull-walks on cobbled streets. Disappointed missus. It’s inevitable and it’s all coming at me, dressed in a larey-shirt and wearing a sombrero, doing a lines of chang on the rails of a party-boat. I didn’t want any of this, it’s for her, all of this is for her. This bit is the trade-off, the concession and the compensation and they’re taking it away from me. Of course I can’t say that any of that, can I. This is for us, apparently. Speaking your truth seemingly comes with a lot of terms and conditions.
On-cue she walks in. Ladend with duty-free tat. I’m foreseeing weight issues for when we return. She says we’re boarding. We need to go. As in now. It’s over. A shrinking-ship on the horizon. Then gone. I take one last look at that lethargic cunt behind the bar. He’s pouring someone else’s joy, now. He looks up and catches eye-contact. Dead-eyes. Nothing. Robot. Not even a twinkle of guilt. The killer of dreams.
If I knew how to inflict a curse, that prick would be getting multiple-pricks in the pin-cushion. Him. The family, security and the missus. All in cahoots. They ruined my holiday. All of them. That’s my truth.
