…and Another Lost Weekend.

This last weekend passed by in something of a drunken blur.

Adam and Sam came over on Saturday and we all got stupidly drunk. I kept flirting with Sam as I always do; Adam kept flirting with Tanya as he always does. I remember laughing a lot, but I can’t recall why. I DO remember my laughter feeling somewhat hollow. I’ve often fantasized about getting Sam into bed, but I like Adam too much to destroy his family for him. I already stole one girlfriend off him, years ago.

Sunday it was my mother’s birthday, and to celebrate she took us all out to the pub for a meal. I dealt with the hangover from the previous night by drinking as much cider as I could in the couple of hours we were in there. I wasn’t embarrassing or brash or anything; im seasoned enough now to be able to get completely wasted while appearing stone cold sober. I’m very good at it these days. I don’t even need to make an effort. Some of the other customers in the pub were giving me strange looks but I don’t know why. Fuck them anyway.

Then when we got home after the pub I slept it off for a little while, but then Tanya woke me up to remind me that she was supposed to be going out for a meal with some workmates. They went for an Indian at a new place that just opened on the main road in town. We looked in there once but it was dead so we didn’t go in. Never a good sign. We finished a bottle of wine left over from Saturday night before she went out, and I got another to have to myself.

I put the girls to bed, read Ellen a story , and made her cry by talking about how one day she would find someone who loves her and she would marry and move away. I asked her to promise she would never forget about me. She said she wouldn’t. We cuddled for a long time, both of us crying softly.

When Tanya came hoe drunk at one AM, I was in bed, drunk, and angry about something which I can’t recall. We had a short, intense, but then ended up fucking like drunken animals until four in the morning.

I went to work the next day feeling…like everything was dead. My eyes are getting worse, and I’ve started to hear voices in my head. I think it’s a combination of the booze and lack of sleep. I’ll see how I feel as the week goes on.

Nothing more from Astrid. Nothing from Ulrika. I feel very lonely.

Eleven Minutes

I keep getting blurred vision, little bouts of it. Its not my eyes though, I’m pretty sure of that, I’ve been to get them tested and apparently my vision is spot on. I can only put it down to exhaustion from all the late nights, or to the fact that on almost every day now I’m either working alcohol out of my system, or putting it in again. Another alternative is that I’m so disinterested in life that I go around in a permanent world of my own, my eyes constantly glazed like they are when Tanya starts going on about what happened at work or what jobs need to be done around the house, or the state of her mother’s fucking knee.

I’m thinking about blurred vision and Tanya going on about stuff as I walk to pick up the car from the store again after I finish work.

If you remember, I mentioned that I rarely have any time, or the necessary peace and quiet to actually THINK about anything, and the other day I was inspired to time my reflective moments, and I discovered that they are broken down into segments of exactly eleven minutes, give or take a few seconds. I groaned aloud when I learned this. It’s just another headfuck I could do without. I made notes…

Home – Work (08:30 – walking) = eleven minutes.

Work – Home (12:30 – walking) = eleven minutes.

Home – Work (13:15 – walking) = eleven minutes.

Work – Store: collecting car from Tanya (17:00 – walking) = eleven minutes.

Store – Tanya’s parent’s to get the kids (17:03 – driving) = eleven minutes.

Tanya’s parent’s – home (17:20 – driving (with kids)) = eleven minutes. It should be noted that this does not count as thinking time; the girls bickering and bombarding me with loud chunks of information like they were hurling grenades at me from the back seat distracts me so much that I can barely concentrate on what’s happening on the road in front of me, let alone what’s going on inside my head.

These are just some examples and I’m sure there are more. It’s fascinating and a little scary. I’m going to do some more work on it, to try and make sense of it all. What’s the significance?? Now I think about it, I’ve not seen a seagull for days.

—

Writing this in the eleven minutes it takes me to walk to Charlie’s to pick up Lizzie. She’s full of attitude at the moment and almost every word she says is uttered with such venom towards me and Tanya it makes me want to give her a clip round the ear, or to put her over my knee and give her a good hiding like I’d have been on the receiving end of if I spoke to my parents the way she speaks to me. It makes me want to fucking scream sometimes.

I’m pissed off with myself for looking at photos of Ulrika. It does hurt, but I know that it’s for the best that we’re not in touch. Good news though: I heard from Astrid today!

Checkmate

Back at work. It’s Tuesday, bright, cold, and with some unusual pink cloud formations rolling across the sky to the south.

Passing people on the street on my way to the office, the same people I see every day, all lost in our own little worlds. I’m thinking about Ulrika and how, sadly, it feels like it’s really over. We’ve not communicated since my snotty email to her on Saturday. It’s the longest we’ve not spoken without having officially ‘ended it’, which we have done dozens of times but always found the pain too much and have been back in touch within a week. This time it doesn’t hurt, and I mean really, physically hurt like it’s done before, this time I just feel…regret, I guess. No news from Astrid either, but I’m not too worried about her; she said from the beginning that she wouldn’t be in touch every day because of her workload. I wonder if she’s waiting for me to surprise her one night like I said I would. Maybe that’s it! Her not contacting me could all be part of the game. I’ll have to think about that.

I know what I SHOULD do: I should try to fix my marriage; pay attention to the relationship I’m supposed to be committed to instead of lamenting the ones that I shouldn’t even have been involved in anyway. But I’m not that kind of guy. I know exactly what will happen. I will continue to have quick, sordid little sexual episodes with girls I don’t even know, one or two of them might develop into something more. I’ll get hurt, or I’ll be the one to do the hurting, it will all fail again like it did with Ulrika, and I’ll be right back here, the whole thing will start again and I’ll go round and round until the inevitable day when Tanya finds out about what her husband is really like. Then the family will explode, and I will have the excuse I need to finally destroy myself.

Spent about three hours helping Ellen with her homework when I came back from work. She’s learning about UK landmarks. She was copying and pasting loads of facts from the internet but not paying attention to what they were. I helped by testing her on a couple of facts for each landmark. It was fun, until Mari needed help with her maths too. Juggling them both, while getting progressively drunk, took a lot of skill, patience, and coordination, and produced in the the same adrenaline levels as those experienced by a Base Jumper. I’m Superdad, me.

Later James came over for a couple of joints and a game of chess. By this time Tanya had come back from work with a bottle of wine. When James showed up I’d had three litres of cheap cider and two large glasses of red. I had to try to act sober all night. After Tanya and the kids had gone to bed James and I rolled a couple of joints and smoked them on the bench under the lean to in the back garden. Needless to say he completely kicked my ass at chess. All the pieces seemed to be moving on their own.
Nothing from Ulrika. Nothing from Astrid. I’m giving up I think.

Bat out of Hell

I walk home from the pub. Everyone is in bed. I finish the bottle of wine and watch Rambo on TV. I sat in the pub for an hour and drank as much as I could, but Astrid never showed up. I check my emails and texts every few minutes just in case, but nothing…

All in all it’s been a pretty shitty day, with the only high point being that up until just now I’d completely forgotten that I’m not in work tomorrow. I gave myself a quiet little high five for that one. Don’t know what I’ll do with the day though. I have to bleed the radiators, look at the dishwasher which has started playing up again, and other mundane jobs the likes of which make me wish I had never been born. I might get drunk to make the day more interesting. I wish I had some weed around, though I know exactly what would happen if I did; I’d end up watching porn videos or live, webcam sex shows on my phone and lie on the bed wanking myself silly all day. I need some contact, some real human contact. I need love, I think.

At home, watching the film, I reflect on what I can remember of the day’s events. After lunch I drove to pick Tanya up from work. Outside her store there was the drunk guy I sometimes see when I’m wandering around. He has roughly chopped silver hair and a bulbous red nose. He’s so far gone he’s way past saving. He stinks of piss, and is wearing the same, stained green coat and baggy jeans I always see him in. He had an upturned cap on the floor in front of him and was drunkenly groaning out a pitiful version of Bat out of Hell; I could just about make out the words but the tune was shot to fuck. If I’d had any spare cash I’d have bought him a burger. I wouldn’t give him the money; that would do him no good. I couldn’t help but look at him and think about how all it would take is a nudge for me to find myself on the same road as him. Maybe I already am.

I’ve heard nothing from Ulrika all day. I think she must be pissed at me after the message I sent her yesterday. I feel bad about it. Maybe she didn’t mean to hurt me. I know when she’s drinking she gets a bit…blasé about stuff. Don’t we all? I think I’m just feeling hurt because I know that I don’t mean as much to her as I used to. She’s back home in Finland now; she left her boyfriend and is living in her own place. She says she doesn’t want anyone, that she still wants me, but there is no doubt in my mind that things between us have changed. It’s like they are broken now; irreparably damaged. The only thing I could do is leave here and go to find her. I keep thinking of doing that. It might be my only shot at being truly happy.

Nick

Any time something remotely sentimental comes on the TV, I burst into tears.

I had to leave the house when we were watching Modern Family. There is always a moment at the end of each episode when one of the characters reflects on something meaningful. Its not that, but its the accompanying music that always gets to me. I send myself a text.
“Oh,” I say, “Nick’s just asked if I fancy a quick pint. That okay with you?”
Tanya shrugs.
“Yeah I suppose so.”
I can tell she’s not impressed, but I don’t really care. She and the kids are watching Sunday night TV, something about which I don’t give a shit, so I grab my coat and head out of the door.
“I won’t be long,” I call over my shoulder.

Nick is a guy I know from work. He’s very similar to me; we like the same music, watch the same movies, both like cider and whisky, and aren’t averse to the occasional exotic substance now and then. Like me, Nick has had problems with alcohol and drugs in the past. He’s had relationship issues. He’s not married but lived with a girl whose daughter from a previous relationship is still close to him. He treats her like she’s his own. He’s a nice guy but, like me, can go a bit crazy sometimes, especially when he’s had a few. Whenever I go out for an evening, I usually end up crashing at Nick’s place. He’s always cool with it, and Tanya, even though she’s never met him, can sleep easy knowing that I’m with him. She knows him well enough through all the tales I tell of what he gets up to in the office and when we’re out on the town. Nick’s a great guy. He’s also a total fabrication. I’m going to meet him in the pub tonight. Maybe Astrid will be out too. I’m a little worried. I’ve not heard from her in a week.

Late Night Shopping

I never used have much in the way of self-esteem or confidence. Many hours of self-analysis and introspection have led me to understand why that is. I’ll tell you about that another time. I got my confidence back a little when I met Ulrika. She said things to me that I had never heard from ANYONE.

I’ve been checking my email every five minutes all day to see if she replied to my last message to her. I said ‘I LOVE YOU’, like that, in capitals. Its true. She knows it, and she’s said the same to me before. We’re Soulmates. How cruel life is, sometimes; making two people find each other who, even though they are so clearly meant to be together, have an impossible number of obstacles between them. It makes me want to end it all sometimes.

But tonight, im walking to the shop. Tanya has bribed me, saying that if I go out for hummous and pitta bread then I can have more wine. Of course that sold it to me. I can resist anything but temptation. Its freezing out. The alcohol and the cold making me type some strange stuff on my phone.

I get to the store. It’s busy. A taxi pulls up and a guy gets out, bringing a sickly cloud of aftershave with him. I want a fight, but nobody meets my gaze, even the big guys. Id be prepared to take a kicking if it just meant I could feel like im alive. No hummous in the store. I wander around but still can’t find it. I call Tanya to ask if she knows where it is. There is no answer. I call again; still no answer. I ask the guy. He finds the hummous in 4.5 seconds. Tanya calls. I don’t answer. I grab some pitta from off the shelf and then head for the wine. A petite, pretty blonde girl walks by. She smells amazing. I stare at the wine, browsing bottle after bottle but I’m not really paying any attention to what’s in front of me, all that’s in my head is the scent of the blonde girl. All I can think of is sex…thats all I want: sex, alcohol and drugs, that’s all I care about it seems. Will someone help me? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME????

I walk out of the store after paying. I see my reflection in the plate glass window because it’s dark outside but bright in the store. I almost take a photo of myself with my phone, to show you, my audience. But i can’t quite bring myself to do it. I’m supposed to be anonymous. I do it anyway. I will edit the picture when I get home and attach it to this post. It’s almost as if i want someone to recognise me. Its a cry for help. I said my soul was gone but right now it feels very much present, and its screaming. Its screaming so loud i can’t hear myself think.

I was asked if I write fiction. Every shameful word of this is true.

Electricity

It’s Saturday lunchtime, everyone is out. I’m drunk and about to start messing around with electricity. I need to rewire the kitchen lights, and then the electricity supply to the boiler upstairs. I’ll turn the supply off though, don’t worry. I’m not ready to die, not yet.

I emailed Ulrika last night. She mailed me back. I told her that even from a thousand miles away she still has the power to make me smile just by thinking about her. She said I made her smile too. I cried again.

I spoke to my dad this morning. It’s his birthday tomorrow. He’s not well, and is having to deal with a whole load of drama that a 67 year old man shouldn’t have to deal with, thanks to my fuck up sister.

I’ll tell you more about that later. Now where the hell is my screwdriver?

Best Friend

For some reason, maybe seagulls, maybe thunder, I’m sending a text to my best friend. I haven’t been in touch with him since his birthday a couple of weeks ago, and even then we didn’t speak, just made vague arrangements to meet up which then, conveniently for both parties, were subject to ‘unforeseen circumstances’. I’ve invited him to come over for a game of chess next week. Hopefully he’ll bring some weed with him. We were both best man at each other’s wedding, and are still officially best friends, though both of us hang out, and would rather spend time with, other people. We both know it, but we don’t admit it to each other. It’s like, by communicating, we’re fulfilling some kind of duty; an obligation.

My official best friend’s name is James; my unofficial best friend’s name is Adam; my REAL best friend’s name is Ulrika. I can’t talk about her. It hurts too much.

Best friends are supposed to share things, but I never heard about James’s affair until it was in its death throes. He doesn’t know about any of mine. He and his wife like to paint themselves as the perfect couple; professional, affluent, one, blonde haired little girl called May who is spoiled to the point that she runs their whole fucking house. They’re nothing like us; their house is spotless, prim, sterile, everything in its place, we live in constant, complete chaos.

James’s wife’s parents are very successful, with her father running a big hospital down in London. Her dad would kill him if he knew about the affair. They always thought that he wasn’t good enough for their daughter, so he’s spent the last eighteen-odd years trying to live up to their standards. In the process he’s become a completely different person to the guy I used to get stoned with when I was younger. I’ve matured, sure, but I’m still the same person inside; at least I think I am. He’s been bodysnatched, I’m sure of it.

I’m writing all this from the floor of the bathroom. The shower is on. It’s hot and steamy, like a sauna. Ulrika is a Swedish Finn (or is it a Finnish Swede?), and her mother has a sauna at her home. But here, in grimy north west England, I can hear the kids arguing downstairs, the rush of the water almost drowning out the noise. I like it here. It feels like I’m back in the womb or something. In a minute I’ll get in the shower and toss off, while I watch online porn videos on my phone. I hope the steam doesn’t damage it too much.

I don’t know when I started behaving like this. It feels like it was long, long ago.

My Padded Cell

Home for lunch. There’s a blue sky for the first time in ages. I look up and see a lone seagull hanging in the air, its feathers ruffling slightly in the wind.

My wife is at home this lunch time, so I won’t be making any videos today. Instead I email Astrid from my phone, and ask her if she’s free at the weekend. She’s beautiful. Dark hair, brown eyes, and a brilliant smile. She’s from Argentina. She was born in Buenos Aries but her mother’s family are from Germany. I am curious about this, and wonder if her grandfather might have been a Nazi who fled to South America after the war. Astrid is over here studying law – we have a big university here and town is always filled with students, many of them foreign. I met her in the pub a couple of weeks ago and I was instantly smitten. She wasn’t keen at first but I managed to charm her, I think. It won’t be long before we’re in bed together. She’s 21. I’m a good listener, and she tells me about her boyfriend back home. He treats her like a princess, puts her on a pedestal, but she’s not into all that. She likes to be treated rough and is into BDSM; nothing too heavy, just playful stuff. She likes role play. I told her of she wanted I could break into her student flat and jump on her, tie her up and force myself on her. She said she was interested and would think about it. I told her it was refreshing that someone so young had such clear ideas on what turns them on. She’s in classes today. I’ll probably hear from her later.

I’m at home and my wife has made lunch: tortillas with Mexican chicken, salad and mayo. They’re delicious. She takes good care of me, and deserves much better. Her name is Maggie, but she goes by her middle name of Tanya because she thinks it sounds younger. We met at work nearly twenty years ago. She is 5′ 6″, has a full figure and large breasts which attracted me when I was twenty three but now I would rather not even think about. Three kids, and gravity, have taken their toll on her body. This makes me sound like a bastard, I can already hear some of your thoughts, but by now you will have already gathered what kind of person I am.

I’m sitting at the counter in our kitchen at home, eating my wraps while Tanya gets ready to go to work. Her head, which I’ve started to notice is actually, physically quite large and made to seem even larger by all the hair, appears, disappears, and reappears around the kitchen door every few seconds, her voice like an ice pick…

“Oh, I managed to get the dishwasher working this morning.”

I nod, grunt some approval, and try to listen to the news on the radio.

“Oh, I’m taking the car so you’ll have to walk up to work to pick it up before you get the girls.”

I nod, and turn up the volume on the radio a little. I look out of the window and can tell from all the litter being thrown violently around the back garden, that it’s blowing a gale outside. The radio tells me that more people are being killed all over the world for reasons I don’t think I will ever understand.

“Oh, when do you think you’ll be able to have a look at the lights in here?”

We both look up at the kitchen ceiling.  Tanya took them down when she painted at the weekend, then when she put them back up they wouldn’t switch on, the boiler stopped working, and miraculously the light in the back porch which hadn’t worked for over a year, suddenly flickered on. I shrug.

“It’ll have to be at the weekend. I can’t do it when I get in from work; got my hands full with the kids.”

“Okay,” she says.

I finish eating my wrap and rest my face in my hands.

“Oh,” she appears again, “did I tell you mum needs a walking stick now, because of her knee?”

“Does she?” I mumble into my fingers.

She pauses.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

I’m not interested in any of what she’s telling me. I want her to talk to be about art and literature and philosophy and history and politics and religion, but she knows hardly anything about any of it. All she wants to talk about is the house, her job, the kids, money, family…it’s sending me crazy, I’m certain of it. How could I not have seen all those years ago that we were so incompatible? She loves life’s trivia, the small things, the unimportant details. I’ve realise lately that these are exactly the things in life that I despise. I’ve started to feel like I’m in a cell, padded with the love of my family which, to my shame, I don’t appreciate to the point I wonder whether I even want it at all. I’m walled up in a windowless room; encased in a coffin, buried alive and slowly suffocating.

McDeath’s

I lied to my wife again today. She said “I love you,” as we lay in bed this morning. “I love you too,” I said. This was the lie. It’s getting so I can’t stand the sight of her. We’ve been married fifteen years. I can’t leave though. As much of a bastard as I am I don’t want to leave the kids, regardless of the fact that most of the time I want to (and often do) scream at them.
I am a born liar. I find it easy. I’ve been lying to people ever since I can remember. It must be something to do with my mother calling me deceitful when I was a kid. I know all the tricks to avoid getting spotted too; eye contact, but not too much, where to look, where not to look when I’m bullshitting. The big trick it to believe the lies yourself, and I mean really believe them. That way your body language won’t give you away without you realising it.

It’s lunchtime and I’m sitting in McDonald’s finishing my Large Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal. The place full of people, washing around me like I’m a rock stuck in the middle of a river. They’re all moving. I’m going nowhere, just slowly being eroded until I disappear.

I see a young couple come in with a toddler. The kid’s face is grubby and smeared with snot. The guy, who I assume is the father, is short, looks a little overweight, and has an arrogant, sneering expression. Already I want to punch his face and I’ve seen it for less than a minute. He’s wearing expensive looking, trendy clothes, and a pork pie hat. How he can afford them I don’t know. I’m being judgemental but I guess from his manner and appearance that he doesn’t work. Probably claiming benefits and maybe doing a little bit of cash in hand work on the side. He looks around the place with a scowl, then he, his girlfriend and the kid join the queue to get served. His girlfriend is skinny, too skinny, with a drawn, pockmarked face and tired blue eyes. She looked pissed off that she has to queue before she can eat. She looks my way, her eyes widen for a second, she smiles. I smile back. I want to fuck her. Not that I am attracted to her in any way. I just want to fuck her. She wants me too. I can tell. Her boyfriend is staring up at the glossy, brightly lit menu above the counter so he misses the brief moment between me and his girlfriend. If he spotted he would want to fight me…wait, no he wouldn’t, for some reason nobody wants to fight me. I’ve never had a fight in my entire life. Perhaps when potential enemies look at me they see something that makes them think twice. Who knows?

I suck up the last of my Coke and stand up. I take my rubbish to the bin and leave, then walk across the road back to the office, fantasising in graphic detail about taking the girl into the toilets and screwing her.