John

 

 

 

 

The sun came down in a stream on his face, heating it, bringing him to consciousness, making the hangover worse. He rolled over and felt the pounding in his head, now become crystalline, as though his head was made of glass and was liable to completely shatter. He dragged a skinny arm across the covers and felt the stinging in his bladder, knew that he couldn’t take it much longer, that eventually he was going to have get up and piss; that was, if he wasn’t going to piss in the bed. He hurled himself over, falling out of it, felt the world spinning, crawled his way to the toilet, managed to get to his feet, and just in time, released a bright yellow stream, then stumbled back into the darkened room and fell back to sleep.

When next he woke, it was dark. He rolled over and looked at his alarm clock. Red digits said 6pm. He threw the cover off and managed to stand, went back to the toilet, used it and flushed it, and felt, for one second in time, at least partially human, then stood and looked at himself in the mirror, got a shock to see how old he looked. ‘Like death warmed up’, he mumbled to himself, and turned the light off and made his way to the tiny kitchen. He turned on a fluorescent light, opened the fridge and pulled out bread, put toast on. These hard nights were starting to take their toll, but try as he might he didn’t seem to be able to stop, didn’t want to, anyway. People would say ‘hey, man, you need to start getting to meetings,’ but what the hell did they know? The toast snapped up and he buttered it and took a bite, felt his stomach processing it, then remembered the doctor’s stern face. If he wasn’t lying then nobody was. The pristine irises and neatly brushed hair, the pasty skin behind thick glasses, staring at him, the mouth moving as if in slow motion: ‘You’re going to have to have a look at it, John.’ And he would look back at him, like a scolded child, vowing to do something from within the surgery, every time, but always, once out into the day, would change his mind. And the strange thing was, he, himself, didn’t, for the life of him, even know why. Why, after all, did he drink?

It was a question that he himself didn’t even have an answer for. One thing he did know, though, was that, he wasn’t about to start attending meetings. They, after all, based all of their convictions on the fact of a God. And that was one thing he couldn’t abide by, not now, not ever. He put on more toast, snapped the light off and walked back into the lounge, sat and watched the dark outside, then fell back to sleep on the couch. When next he woke, the phone was ringing full ball and wouldn’t seem to stop. He sat up and picked it up off the hook.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hey, you wanna meet?’

‘Alright, where?’

‘Don’t be daft.’

The phone went dead and with effort, he stood, got his jeans and a shirt on, made it out the front door and out into the night, made it out onto the road, passing strangers in the street, walked passed the same prostitute that would hang around at the same time every night, wished that he was still young enough to have a piece of her. Her long hair blowing in the wind like a dressmaker’s wig, good legs. But she would ignore him every night, and he would wonder about her, how her life had come to this. He passed other strangers, couples in the night, came to the sex shop, went inside. The woman smiled at him, long hair cut into a bob around her shoulders, porcelain skin, lipstick the right colour.

‘Hey, Mary.’

‘Johnny! We been waiting to see you, how you been?’

She leaned forward on the glass, showing her tits off, drawing his eye for the millionth time.

‘I’ve been ok, Mary, hangin in there. You?’

‘Oh, you know, not too bad. Had to pay for someone to look after my little boy, so I could come in. You know how it is, being a working woman and all.’

‘Right.’

‘Oh, you’re looking for Dave, aren’t you; I’ll get him. He’s just out the back. Stay there, beautiful, I’ll be right back.’

She turned around and walked back to behind a black curtain, giving him a good view of the shape of her a*s in her dress, like two watermelons placed side by side. And then, she was gone, always making him wonder what was back there, and then, Dave, his so-called mate came out. Dave, wearing his oversized glasses, and, in his curly hair, looking more like a geeky college professor than anything else. How did these people get into drug dealing? But then, who really knew what went on in anyone’s lives?

‘Alright, Johnny, I got some good stuff here, it’s the latest batch, they call it shot-gun, pure hydro. Be careful with this stiff, it’ll blow you’re head off, I’m telling ya. Some guys told me they’ been smoking weed for years, but this stuff actually made them paranoid.’

‘Yeah, yeah, how much?’

‘For half an ounce, I can do it for 50.’

‘Alright, give me three.’

‘Whoah, Johnny, wait up! I told you, this stuff, it’s lethal, man!’

‘Stop calling me a p***y.’

‘Alright, man, but don’t come crying to me, when you get into paranoia.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

He looked back at him and couldn’t decide whether he hated the guy or loved him. Kids these days, they could be really reliable, even if they did have all their morals screwed up with progressive politics; still, what the hell was he gonna do about? Answer: nothing. He left the shop and stepped out into the cold night air, glad that he had at least made the trip, that he had got out of the house for a while, but then, what was the point? What was the point in anything? He cast his mind over these things, but as always, it came to nothing, and, for the first time since he could remember, that fact actually started to bother him, for, to Johnny, suddenly life seemed altogether pointless, and that fact was starting to upset him, more and more these days, like an itch that was crawling up his back and, year by year, was getting worse. When once it was booze and sex that motivated him, now it was mostly the booze. Every now and again, he could get it up, but only every now and again. Now, it was only ever the calling of booze, and the hit of a good dose of pot every now and again that really did it. He kept walking, thinking about these things, looked around at the road, at the houses in the dark, at the neighbourhood, then stepped into the bottle-shop. The same old kid at the counter. He walked to the back and picked up the bottle of vodka and paid, stepped back out into the night.

By the time he made it back to his home, the stairs were a struggle. He made it up, unloaded the bottles, took one and walked into the lounge and poured himself a shot, and then another and one more after that, and kept going well passed he could remember, and then remembered the marijuana that he had bought from that kid, then remembered his mate that lived around the corner, and that it was Friday and that they usually hung out around about this time; hr picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey.’

‘Hey, you wanna come over?’

‘Sure. Hey, you want me to bring something?’

‘Whatever you want.’

John hung up the phone and within thirty minutes his mate was there sitting next to him: Dave, one of the other weirdos that worked on the community paper where he volunteered. Sitting looking at him, John felt nothing less than disgust. Dumb s**t didn’t want to work, had all the credentials but couldn’t be bothered using them. If ever there was a miscreant, here was it, sitting there like some overfed Mumma’s boy, which was exactly what he was. Soon, disgust turned to contempt, but he was lonely, and in moods like this, any company was better than none.

‘Looks like a pretty good pizza.’

‘It is, hey, you want some?’

‘Maybe just a slice.’

He got up and took a piece, brimming hot in hand.

‘You want some coke?’

‘Nah, I’ll just keep going with what I got here.’

As was their ritual, they watched the tv - the football, then some late-night movie, and as per usual Dave stood and left around 11, leaving him with more time in solitude and he sat and that was when he had the first of a series of heart attacks.

The room had started to spin and he looked around and tried to find some goal post, some sort of stabilising force to hold onto but there was nothing, and then, all of a sudden, everything seemed to go lop-sided, and he fell on his knees and banged his head on the oven, stayed there in a kneeling position, aware of the irony, then felt, searing pain run throughout his body from his legs to his torso, and then, it was as though he there was hard plantlife growing inside of him, a gnaeled and powerful tree with spiky branches that were twisting and turning, wrapping themselves around his organs and crushing them. He looked down and could feel it moving up his body and approaching his heart and he knew in that moment that he was going to die. The pain was exquisite, in these, the last moments, and he suddenly realised that he loved life after all and then it all went black.

In what felt like the next moment, he woke as if from a long sleep, looked around and saw that he was in his kitchen after all and suddenly, all the pain had gone away. He stood up and looked around and got a shock to see that he was now staring at his own dead body lying on the floor, and he gripped himself, bracing himself for the usual pain that wracked his body but there was none. He looked around the kitchen and the apartment, and it seemed to him, all of a sudden, as though time had stood still, and then he saw a body lying on the floor. A skinny old man lay there, wearing clothes and a haircut that were suited to a far younger person, inert and not even breathing, like a wax sculpture of itself. He bent done to touch the body, and then everything inside of himself told him not to, but he tried anyway, watched his hand moved toward it as if belonged to somebody else and the hand itself somehow didn’t look as old as it used to, and he couldn’t believer what he was looking at - his hand reaching out to touch his own hand, and he got a shock to find that the hand itself, sunk right through, as though there was nothing there, as though the body itself was a hologram and then he turned around and tried to touch other things in the room, reached over to touch the stove, but the same thing happened, his hand past right through. And then, he looked down at his feet and realised that they weren’t even properly touching the floor. He then turned around and looked around at the kitchen, at the walls, then down at the floor and started walking and couldn’t work out what was propelling him, and, for that matter, how he was existing at all, in time and space.

He walked out into the lounge and sat on the couch but couldn’t feel its surface then stood up again and realised that he couldn’t feel anything at all, and that was when the truth suddenly dawned on him, the realisation crushing him, some exquisite cruelty that he couldn’t begin to fathom, some supreme justice that was perfected, some long ago in the making that he couldn’t see, didn’t want to see. He walked out into the hall, then realised that he couldn’t if he tried, open the door, then realised that he was possibly free enough to walk right through it, tried it, and in the next second he was on the other side and standing in the common hallway of the apartment block.

He kept walking, came to the stairs and waked down them, still not sure how his body was doing what it was, or even what he was. He walked through the security door, and saw that he was standing on the driveway of his building block, and that it was early in the morning. The sound of a car behind him. He quickly turned around to get out of the way but the car simply passed right through him, and, for a split second, he had a strange view of the driver, the woman, and then the interior of her body, blood vessels and veins and it wasn’t without its horror. The car drove off and he looked out at the day, at sun coming over the horizon, then looked around at the apartment block where he lived, or used to live, and nothing made sense anymore. He decided to keep walking, and suddenly realised that, for him, everything had changed, and wondered what that meant as well, but there were no answers, not pain, no comfort, nothing, just a void and this world that he could no longer touch.

He came out onto the main road and watched the sun coming up on the horizon and kept walking, walked passed the old church, looked at the building, as if seeing it for the first time, the broken concrete steps, the wooden door slammed shut, and there suddenly seemed to be an irony somewhere that he was almost aware of and yet couldn’t quite find, and yet, it was only that and nothing more, just a crumbling old building.

He walked past the café, and the saw the ugly face of one of his acquaintances: Chris: how many times had they had coffee together? Suddenly, there were so many things that he wanted to do but apparently couldn’t, and there was a horror to it. Chris’s smiling face. He looked at it, and for a moment, could have sworn that he saw recognition on it, but then it turned around and he only saw the back of his head, the curly matted hair going down his back. When was the m**********r finally going to get a haircut?

He crossed the road, no longer bothered by the prospect of being hit by a car, in fact, no longer bothered by anything, except where the hell he was going to end up, and what the hell was going on. He walked through the door and into the café and looked around and saw all the old faces, people he knew, sitting together, slouched over their meals, and suddenly, he would have given anything to be one of them.

He watched Arwen, the owner, who he had had a secret crush on, walking to Chris’s table and deliver his breakfast, watched her bend over, and realised just how fetching she actually was: shapely legs in leather pants; but he felt no quickening inside of himself, in fact, he felt nothing, nothing, except a dim, all pervasive sadness that he was no longer a part of it all.

He spotted Dave, sitting opposite Chris, and saw that he was looking particularly glum, more in fact than usual, his face drawn down. He came to the table and sat right up close to them, close enough so that he could have touched them, but of course, that was now impossible, seeing as he was now a ghost (was that what he was?).

‘So, how’s work going, Dave?’ Asked Chris.

‘Yeah, it’s ok, well, sort of. I guess I should be grateful that I’m getting a bit. Hey, have you seen John? I haven’t heard from him in the last couple of days.’

‘Can’t say as I have; still I’m sure he’ll turn up; he always does, right?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

A solemn look came over his face.

‘C’mon, Dave, it’s not that bad, is it?’

Dave looked up at him for a moment.

‘Sorry, Chris, it’s just, sometimes I get in these moods. Sometimes it seems as though nothing is going right. It’s like I try my hardest but still don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Do you ever feel like that?’

‘I used to, but then, I gave that up as well.’

‘Gave what up?’

‘Comparing myself to others. It’s a bad habit Dave, one that I was happy to discover that I needed to be rid of, so I did it.’

‘Right. Well done to you.’

‘Look, I’m not trying to pull your leg on this, really, I’m not; it’s something you need to recognise within in yourself. It’s a habit, one that you can change.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s a sure-fire way to misery, Dave, take it from me.’

John watched the two men and laughed out loud. What idiots they were, sitting there, with their stupid conversation, as though either knew what the hell they were talking about. He watched the two of them and leaned in in the midst of their conversation, and started yelling.

‘Look, he’s an idiot, Dave, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s just making it up as he goes, you don’t need to listen to a single word he says, it’s all pantomime! Get it! He’s just showing off to impress Arwen, who’s incidentally married, in case you didn’t realise Chris!’

‘Look, man, you need to learn how to meditate, get away from all of it, a bit. It’s all about breathing patterns, that’s the big secret.’

‘He’s talking out of his arse again, Dave, why don’t you just tell him to shut up!’ Yelled John.

‘Breathing patterns?’ asked, Dave.

‘Yeah, breathing patterns, it’s one of the great karmic secrets of the universe.

‘He’s talking s**t again. Why don’t you just tell him to shut up!’

John gave up and sat back in the chair, (or rather hovered?), and watched the two idiots converse, then turned and watched the rest of the café and had to marvel; all these idiots leading their pointless insignificant lives, and what in the hell was the meaning of all of it, anyway? And then he thought about his own situation, and felt a dark cloud of apprehension fall on him. He suddenly remembered his Sunday school classes when he was a kid; an attractive woman with glasses pointing to a blackboard, telling him and the other children that Jesus was the way, and that those who hadn’t found him in life were going to end up in a place they wished never existed. The two men kept talking and then, all of a sudden, Chris called an end to it, stood and wished Dave well, and went and lined up to pay for his meal; John leaned in close.

‘Look, he means well, but he doesn’t know anything. What you needed was my help, a bit more tutoring, some confidence building exercises, stuff like that - it’s your background - it’s all a mess, but you can overcome it!’

Dave looked around, as if he had heard something, all of a sudden, then went back to sipping his coffee. John looked at him hard, tried to touch him, tried to touch anything, stood and started screaming at them all but no-one noticed. He got up and left the café, walked through the door and came out onto the road. A row of cars lined up, one splashed water onto the road. He kept walking, passed his neighborhood, further, into the city. How long this was to be his existence, he couldn't tell. Still, there was comfort in not knowing.