by Tim Vine
Outside an altercation was building momentum. A baseball-cap-wearing gentleman in a shiny tracksuit was wildly gesticulating in the face of an XXXL greasy lady with his packet of Mayfair cigarettes, while loudly establishing the fact that she was a ‘fackin’ caaaaaaannnnt!’ Her much repeated response, delivered relentlessly at an even more elevated decibel level, was that the gentleman was also a ‘fackin’ caaaaaaannnnt,’ who apparently also had ‘got a fackin’ problem.’ As their discussion evolved slightly, their ugly muzzled dog wagged its ugly tail, before shitting on the middle of the pavement.
Inside, Peter was on a roll again with his teapot explanations, this time to four Aussie girls. At the table next to him, a gaggle of young friends were passing the evening taking turns showing each other ‘funny’ clips on YouTube. They would crane their necks to see a parakeet bobbing oddly on its perch, a chicken pecking on a keyboard or a dog playing with a kitten. This was all apparently hilarious, but these guys were in their 20s, not 15 or 16. It’s good to have a laugh, but a bit sad that the Art of Conversation appears defunct, Peter thought. The second pint of Becks Vier (clever . . . eins, zwei, drei, vier% alcohol) had gone straight to Peter’s head, and he was unusually animated.
‘You wouldn’t believe my Yixing pot, it’s just incredible . . . the colouring and craftsmanship are second to none. What you have to appreciate about each and every teapot that you acquire is its individual and specific quality, down to the efficiency of the actual pour itself, or the feel of it when you lift it up by the handle. It’s weight, glaze, and general look are all important factors, you know. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the rarity factor . . . how many were originally produced? How many are surviving in good condition, etc?’
He didn’t pause, in fact he gathered pace and his voice rose and gained slightly in volume as his excitement grew. ‘Where does it come from, this beautiful specimen? You look for the maker’s mark, you see, but they don’t always have one so sometimes you have to be a bit of a teapot Hercule Poirot! Or in your case, ladies, more like a young Miss Marple, I suppose!’ He snorted involuntarily as he chortled at this quip, even though the girls hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. His irritating habit of nervously tapping his right foot at speed was operating to its maximum, his white thigh mercifully covered by its nasty trousers vibrating up and down like a piston.
‘They are all deliciously unique and have their own quirks, you know. You’ll get some that might be absolute turkeys to pour but make up for it in their special styling . . .’ He waffled on, even suddenly springing up to the bar at one point to seek out pen and paper, before eagerly noting down teapot aficionado reference book titles and website addresses for the girls.
‘Hey, you’ve got to check out his shoes, guys.’ (She meant girls but these Aussie girls generally called each other guys). ‘Don’t they look like those weird Cornish pasty things the Brits eat, but stuck on his feet – have you seen them?’
The girls tittered as the Cornish pasties and their owner motored eagerly back to the table. They had no idea that they’d actually got off lightly thus far as he hadn’t even started digressing about his fascination with vintage ice-cream vehicles. ‘That guy has got to be a virgin,’ one of the bemused girls commented on their giggly stumble home later that night. ‘Paralysingly dull!’ added another. Neither one was wrong.
Peter was also somewhat on an expert on what he would label as jazz, but what is really cheesy, light jazz-soul. The girls were lucky on this occasion to have been spared his enthusiastic ramblings about his favourite groups: Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn or The Yellowjackets. He couldn’t grasp Charlie Parker, yet his eyes would well up listening to Kenny G’s moving melodies. John Scofield would give him a headache, but Lee Ritenour’s joyous tunefulness would restore a smile. He occasionally went to these types of concerts, and would avidly take notes throughout with a little well-sharpened pencil and his notebook. This is another topic the girls were fortunate to miss on this particular night: the importance of a fine pencil.
He may well have explained, if given the chance. . .
‘It’s the accuracy of the glide, the sheer beauty of the wood, combined with natural contact with quality paper. While others may look contemptuously as they play around with their smartphones, it feels great to be writing as everyone taps idiotically at their awkward tiny screens. This is also where an expensive notebook comes into play – it always gives one the impression that one is writing something important.’
Another similarly calamitous incident was the time that a predatory middle-aged and recently divorced woman decided that that she had found her prey for the evening, and she certainly knew what she wanted. Having found out that her mendacious husband had been having his way with someone at work, she had divorced him almost immediately and received a hefty settlement agreed upon through their expensive lawyers. The fact that it had been his secretary seemed so pathetic to her, what a cliché! Had the man she had married so long ago no more imagination? She had been enjoying herself this evening, celebrating her pay-out alone with a bottle or two of the pub’s very mediocre white wine, and was rapidly becoming dangerously wobbly on her unsuitably tarty high heels. Peter was genuinely scared stiff with this undesired and certainly unlikely attention, and he scarcely knew what to say as she perched herself down opposite him at his small table. After listening to her slurred tale of failed marriage and costly separation, with its new tale of a successful pay-out, Peter bought himself another pint to steady his nerves. She was ranting when he arrived back at the table, ‘And you see, dear, I always seem to attract the absolute bastards, wankers the lot of them. It must be a special skill I have, magnet for the rotten male, it’s part of my character. I’m not gonna candy-coat it, he’s an absolute dick. Look at this I just sent him, this’ll fuck him up.’ She held up her mobile phone, displaying a simple message: Love u xxxx.
Her spiteful cackle jumped out at him, followed by a brief flash of ugly smile. Peter was getting in a pickle. ‘It doesn’t seem fair, really, when it happens again and again. That’s why I’m hitting the Lady Petrol tonight.’ There was a momentary pause as she concentrated to pour herself a huge glass of wine, getting most of it in the glass. ‘It’s always about men. They always end up showing their true colours. That’s why these days I’m just after a good time when I can get it, if you know what I mean . . . I mean, fuck it, fifteen years of emotional and financial stress with very little sex in return . . .’ she bleated on, embittered in her rambling. Starting to sweat, he sat back down, which was the cue for the drunken women to start whispering over the table to him, sweaty bosom heaving and straining, suggesting things that Peter had never heard of before and certainly never tried. A confused and all-consuming concoction of alcohol, sexual arousal, ignorance and complete bloody panic swiftly seized him up and overtook his entire body and mind. He ran all the way home without stopping or even turning around after giving her the slip on the pretence of ‘going to inspect the plumbing – it must be all the beer.’ The only person he remembered seeing on the way back was a grossly overweight woman all alone in the Chinese all-you-can-eat-buffet-for-£4.95, opposite STARBURGER (where a gut-busting Dirty Burger will only set you back £3.95). She was so wide that she looked like she would fill a sofa in the way most mortals fill an armchair, and would probably rest stubby arms on the arm rests on either side. She was sporting a T-shirt proudly proclaiming I’m 99% Perfect. Peter was never to know how she had recently enjoyed a massive boost to her confidence since the removal of an unsightly wart on her upper left cheek, but he did notice how her outsized stomach appeared to start at her neck. Glancing up at him guiltily over her plastic tray, she discarded her binge-induced shame into the bin, along with a few grains of rice and sucked prawn tails that her chubby hands scraped off her plate, before her lonely waddle home past the horse hospital then right to the end of the road and up to her tiny flat above the sexual health clinic with the pale green logo.
Some graffiti on the side of some flats looked fresh, he’d not noticed it before . . .
If you don’t wanna die
walk
calm
He didn’t understand it – all he knew is that he was running and he certainly wasn’t calm. Was it meant for him personally? This troubled him deeply, emphasizing his panic and engulfing him with an intensely disturbing paranoia that was so strong it eclipsed any feeling he had ever experienced.
Knees weak with fear and in a cold sweat, he found himself trembling as he fumbled with the lock. The evening had been weird. Once back inside the familiar and warm safety of RonJoyce, he prayed to God for forgiveness as he cowered alone on the sofa with a lump in his throat, heart pounding against his skinny frame. He tore off his new Primark black, smart, going-out trousers that he had inadvertently pissed in slightly and went to put them in the washing machine, a silver Beko CY560 1200 spin, noticing at this point that he had gone out with loads of Elvis’ dog hairs down the left trouser leg. The label, he noticed, said DRY CLEAN ONLY. ‘At £8 it’d be cheaper to buy a new pair every time!’ he said out loud as he bundled them into the machine anyway. This was the point at which he gave up on the pub project, and indeed any other form of interaction out in the world in general. The language and filthy discussion that went on in such establishments upset him, and the experiment had run its course. He just wasn’t cut out for normal life, he decided. This was – without him realising it at the time – an important turning point in his Journey, it being the point at which his religious ardour suddenly stepped up a gear or two, dangerously altering from playing a significant part of his life to now becoming his obsession.
The dark prison gates eventually swung open unceremoniously, groaning under their own weight, following a lengthy exchange at the main security post. How many nervous and unwilling men had met their fate and followed this same path into the building, and listened with dread to that same ominous sound? Orange and white lights ahead enticed the van to gingerly creep into the building, and the unwelcome engulfing feeling of being trapped in an institution fell over them all. No-one in the band had ever set foot in a prison before and they didn’t really know what to expect. It was a lot less high-tech than Will had imagined, and seemed fairly straightforward and basic – tall walls, fences, a few windows, and grim buildings constantly being monitored by CCTV. A stark scene, certainly an odd venue for a gig. Will felt surprisingly calm upon entering the compound, and he thought that perhaps his shrink was right: he must attack and face any fears head-on. There then followed a routine that they would all soon become accustomed to after a few more prison gigs. Three wardens took them into a bright holding area with an exceptionally shiny floor where they were rigidly explained the search procedure. They were all to be patted down, sniffed by a drugs dog whether they liked it or not, followed by a walk through a scanner. Meanwhile, the van was undergoing a thorough inspection, as was the gear, which had all been unloaded. The wardens appeared especially ordinary to Will, who for reasons only known to himself was expecting some burly aggressive types. He felt quite silly that he’d even entertained such idiotic preconceptions, so changed his train of thought to question how the cleaners could have managed such an impressive lustre from the floor. There was a fair amount of hanging around, and Will pondered his life. He knew that it couldn’t be the guitar for ever, and that he’d have to try something else – perhaps his other passion, photography. Coffee-table photographic books enthralled him, and he had a few ideas up his sleeve for titles of his own: Washing Lines from around the Globe, The History of Buttons, Cheese Lover’s Selection: Vol I, Roundabouts of France, and Male Dwarves and their Wives: a Portrait, (with the potential for a follow-up: Female Dwarves and their Husbands: a Portrait). He’d have to have a more serious think about this, he decided. As for the gig, the drummer’s snare was tinny and tuned far too high, the bass player’s low E-string was audibly sharp, and the keyboard player’s amp was too loud, forcing everyone to endure bright polybrass patches and terrible Hammond B-3 emulations. Medleys should be illegal, and Bob Marley should never be covered. A few hours later – late that afternoon – as he indifferently replicated the funk guitar grooves on ‘Ain’t no Stoppin’ us Now’ and three hundred lucky inmates bobbed their heads to the band in the terrible acoustics of the gymnasium, Will considered that he’d achieved the zenith of the strangest moment of his life so far . . . and he’d certainly had some odd ones.
Peter sliced his hand open viciously as razor-sharp metal slipped suddenly and flew upwards. He hadn’t been concentrating on the task, his mind wandering as it had been uncommonly preoccupied lately. Thick fishy oil and sardine pieces scattered across the kitchen floor, their oblong tin coffin skidding quickly over the linoleum, only coming to a halt as it bashed into the skirting board. He wished that he’d gone for the figs with bread option instead (he’s had a long-standing love/hate relationship with figs), but today he wasn’t interested in the little slimy fruits. Now thin luminous blood gushed generously from the fresh deep gash, cascading off the tips of his fingers and dripping down dramatically, spattering the floor. Serenely he waited at the sink for the bleeding to abate, before calmly clearing up the stinking mess, deliberately and meticulously wiping and cleaning until all traces of fish and blood had gone. Only after this task had been dealt with did he turn attention to himself. For the next ten minutes he busied himself with bandages, creams and pain. Then he reached up to open a cupboard and pulled out another identical tin of sardines from the neatly stacked arrangement, but this time – as he had done so many times before – he managed to successfully fork its contents onto a few of his favourite dry biscuits without further injury. A Simpsons mug full of strong instant coffee sat steaming on the sideboard, as – despite his teapot collection – Peter was a regular coffee drinker. He weakly tugged open the fridge to search for the milk that he was sure wasn’t there, only to be confronted with the bleak scene so well known to many – the Bachelor Fridge, full with space. Butter-replacement spread (only a few scrapes left), some tragic dregs lining a ketchup bottle, mysterious and ancient chutney items, an old humble onion (a most underrated vegetable), and was that mustard at the back, there? No milk. Glancing up, a lonely shelf offered just the one tin of baked beans, an untouched bottle of Irish whisky nestling behind it apologetically. Peter was missing a housewife, he often thought to himself, or were they called housemakers these days? Trundling through to the living room with his modest snack, his nerves jangled, his thoughts in constant turmoil, and he felt shaky and unsettled. A brain fog swept over his troubled mind as he slouched into the familiar sofa. Why was the bombing, occupying, torturing, killing and maiming with drones carried out by the Christians around the world eating away at him so much? For the last few weeks now he had sat for hours on end at RonJoyce with the TV telling tales of horror from faraway lands, and he had not been able to sleep properly. CNN, Sky News, BBC . . . he dived between them all, even often enduring long worldwide weather broadcasts, mainly as he’d grown to love the smooth jazz guitar bedding music that accompanied them. He spent most of his time carrying out his new research, as a plethora of constantly accessible media information had just been opened up to him by way of his recent internet connection at the bungalow. Sensing that the floodgates had kindly been opened for him from a Higher Place, he would either learn through his internet findings or intensely pray, finding an unknown joy in both activities never before experienced to such an acute degree. While feeding avidly off the TV every day and surfing websites all day and much of the night, Peter’s renaissance was unfolding at an alarming rate, without any deliberate effort on his part. It seemed that he had suddenly found something deep down that he had unwittingly been searching for all this time over many years, and he now felt that he didn’t have a second to waste. He had created an air of expectation around himself – for himself – and he felt enormously energised and invigorated. Now sitting down in the musty liv
ing room with his modest fishy snack, he stared at the screen, he stared at the pretty blonde newsreader who had just followed on from Plasticman the Anchorman. Now, was she a journalist or an actress? Whatever her personal career history, she was unexpectedly cut off – a violent juxtaposition of intense war scenes and images of despair and devastation filling her place. The pensive man sipped at his scolding hot cheap coffee. His appetite abruptly deadened, he pressed the bandaged hand until it smarted angrily, then he pressed some more, now rubbing it aggressively until acrid tears of agony were pulling themselves down his face, blood freshly leaking and dripping onto the floor. He continued to watch as the images blurred through his tears, the pain giving him a pronounced kick of satisfaction. This somehow made him feel purer following the TV’s spilt poison spewing into the room and dirtying him. His mood lifted, the tears stopped.