'YOU'RE COMING TO A CROSSING, BE CAREFUL'
Having just emerged from a genderless entertainer's door, at dawn, in light drizzle, crystalline, full of the joys of spring, I made my way home, perfectly calibrated, neither walking too fast, nor too slow. I was, in short, the perfect citizen, albeit at dawn, in light drizzle.
But that crystal...it was the drug that made me realise what a load of rubbish crack is. If only I'd been fast-tracked to crystal meth at the start of my career, I could have saved a hell of a lot of money, time, and misery. Crack, two minutes high for a fiver, crystal, six hours high for fifty quid or so. It was a no-brainer. You didn't need to be a chartered accountant to work that out.
But what a high, for the desperate, lonely man, with a contorted sense of entitlement, and a sex-life still thrashing about in isolation, like a wounded serpent in the humid, cruel jungle of adolescence - fierce, full of desire, bloated, bursting with it.
Lucky I wasn't doing anything the next day...
Twelve hours gawping at porn, frantically forwarding various vignettes to their denouement, scrolling down images as if stalking the perfect pornographic image, never finding it, but enjoying the search all the same. But oh, it was as if my hand was glued to my penis, and I wouldn't allow myself to come, to free myself from this prison of beautiful anticipation - it was as if I knew that would mark the end of the affair, and therefore, potentially, reflection, even remorse, a return to that meek, seemingly outgoing, but knotted-up guy the world normally knew. No, I wouldn't, I couldn't stop. Hour after hour, scroll, scroll, forward, forward, cheer, jeer, salute, watch again, but never arrive, never, never arrive...
It was like, 'Well, now I've put down crack, I can settle down, resume some kind of normalcy...' But then they went and invented a new drug, apparently higher up the league than crack, and that had to be for a reason. So I had to try it. One hour in a genderless entertainer's boudoir, and twelve back at mine, one hand on the mouse, the other frantically fending off flaccidity somewhere below the keyboard.
Then, after a few sweats and chills came and went, and a strange phase that felt like the back of my brain had been removed, I gently sensed I was getting just a little bit tired. I was running out of images to click on, pop-ups everywhere, and my tabs a tawdry grid of unrequited decades, compressed into a day's worth of torrid surfing, even I was thinking of rest, sleep even, rather than more of this by-now pasty concoction of stimulation, and simulation.
Wanked out, to no avail, I went to the medicine cabinet, and took something to direct me towards sleep, and lay me down.
Slept like a reclining aristocrat on one of those stone plinths you get, and woke with a slight start, still strangely empty, ten or so hours later, a part of me still in the chase, but at least not bankrupt, at least not utterly bereft of serotonin, as crack would have left me. I even got up - went for a coffee - did some shopping - even bought a candleholder - clearly I hadn't become some fiend.
Then, as I left the charity shop, I came to a narrow road when an old Irish lady said, seemingly for no reason, 'You're coming to a crossing, be careful.' Ok, I carry a white cane, but I can see a bit, was walking along quite happily, it was crowded, there was no obvious hazard in view, or reason for her warning. But, all the same, I took her advice, and still am.
Haven't written much music lately, but have bought software that allows me to upload it more easily now, which, for me, is like landing on the moon. So, just in case you have a spare 1 minute 42 seconds, here is one of my songs: Get Out Of My Room - until next time.
Thank you for dropping by.
Trust the Irish...
ReplyDeleteOne evening, in my youth, walking fast through the back streets of Covent Garden, I met with a much older Irish man. He said, "don't be going to Oxford Street tonight, my love." Good job my destination was Tesco, because a bomb went off that night, on Oxford Street.