Alcoholism

5. (Something Like Life)

~ Matthew Roys ~ Leave a comment

Something Like Life.

I lie in Madaline’s bed and stare up at the poorly plastered white ceiling. The room is no bigger than the one I’m borrowing from Steph, but unlike mine, this one is filled to bursting with clothes, bottles, photographs and cheap memorabilia from holidays abroad. Madaline is laid next to me, her back facing me and a good foot of bed between us. 

The night had been purely business. It usually is. People crave emotional connection and often try to fill that void with physical intimacy. That’s my theory anyway. A moment of pleasure to ward off the numbness of life for a few blissful minutes. I know it, and Madaline knows it too. 

My head is pounding and my throat’s dry. I groggily weigh up my options. Water is priority one. Slowly, I slide from the bed and scan the gloom of the room for my clothes but can’t spot them in the sea of Madaline’s clothes. It looks like she could wear a different outfit every day of the year and still not have worn everything she owns.

I decide that it’s likely still too early for any of her flatmates to be up, so I risk opening her door and, after seeing that the coast is clear, stride stark bollock naked toward the kitchen. The place is a tip. Cans, bottles, and half eaten food litter every surface. That’s not my problem though, so I pay it no mind. It takes me a while to find a clean glass. I pour myself a drink from the tap and sip the water reflectively.

Gradually, I begin to feel more human, not that that’s a good thing. Now that higher brain functions are returning, I have to consider what my plans are for the rest of the day. Drinking is out of the equation, so I’m left with the prospect of wandering around the city or returning to Steph’s to sit alone in my room. That’s the option I should choose. To get back on the writing horse and be productive. To start a new story or something. Neither option fills me with much joy. On the other hand, I’m currently in a moderately attractive young woman’s home. It could prove to be a pleasant enough morning, if I play my cards right.

Playing my cards right means being kind to others for entirely selfish reasons. The thought triggers my inner gamer. That’s all role-playing games are: Solve puzzles to help people help you. Thankfully, this is much easier than fighting through a dungeon or the like. Today’s quest: Breakfast in bed.

I’m no cook, but I do like to think that I’ve mastered toast. I look around the kitchen until I finally find everything I need. It’s a good thing that I don’t want to try anything fancy to impress Madaline because there’s jackshit in her cupboards or fridge. Student life is a glorious thing.

My secret is to butter the bread before putting it in the toaster, then make sure that the heat isn’t set too high. The results are usually a warm, soggy slice that slides down your throat like fresh escargot. Perfect for dealing with that dry feeling you have just after waking. I slap on some Nutella, since it’s the only spreadable I can find, pour out two glasses of orange juice, load them all up onto a tray, then begin a careful walk back to Madaline’s room. 

She’s still asleep. I clear enough room on her bedside table to fit the glasses then waft the plates near her nose before gently rubbing her cheek. Mascara has run down her face during the night, giving her a dark eyed appearance and black tear steaks that look reminiscent of the tryhard emos of my youth. I’m somewhat partial to the style. Maybe it’ll help me lie to myself that she’s somebody else.

She stirs, makes a cute little grunt, then slowly opens her eyes. I watch the subtle stages of her thoughts through her bloodshot eyes. First there is pain, the pounding head and jumble of scant consciousness, compounded by a complete dryness of the mouth and eyes. Then comes the understanding. Memories of alcohol, that this is the price paid for a good time. The eyes focus, looking past the inner thoughts to the outside world, and to me specifically. A moment of softness, replaced almost instantly with fear, then a jolt of memory as my identity is pieced together. Finally comes acceptance. This is her life. She is here, I am here, and more importantly, food and a soft drink is here too.

We eat without much talking, and once the toast is gone we just lie there and dwell in our own private thoughts as the breakfast works its way through our abused system. It isn’t an awkward silence, but neither is it a comfortable one. It just is. After a while I turn to her with a smile.

“I’ve got to head off soon. If you’re feeling up for it, fancy another round for the road?”

Her eyes assess me and she shrugs. She doesn’t speak, but her answer is clear enough as she slides under the covers and I feel her warm breath against my inner thigh.

We share half an hour of fun, then I dress and leave, jotting my number down and handing it to her before I hop through the door into the pissing rain of another grey day. I wholly expect to never see her again. That’s the way things usually go. We’re all just passersby on the oppressive motorway of life, everyone looking for the first convenient pit stop to refuel at before continuing on to the inevitable cliffedge that awaits us. 

 I notice that greyness keeps popping up in my thoughts and I can’t tell if that’s the way the world is, or if my jaded existence simply casts everything in dulled tones. You’d think that being jaded would be to see the world in green, not grey, but here we are. 

It’s not been twenty minutes since I had a pretty girl wrapped around me and I can already feel the misery bleeding back in with every step closer to Steph’s house. I take a winding path since I’m already soaked to the bone, but I can only delay for so long. Eventually I bite the bullet and trudge up the gravel path to her front door, unlock it, and step inside. 

There are voices coming from the living room, one belonging to Steph while the other was the deep voice of her current partner, Pete. It sounds like an argument that trails off as heavy footsteps approach the living room door. I try to speed past to the sanctuary of my room but don’t make it before Pete steps out into the corridor.

“It was too much to hope you’d decided to grow up and stop pulling your family down.”

“And it’s too much to hope that you’ll drop dead.”

Pete represents everything I hate. He’s tall and tidy, his expensive clothes always neatly ironed, his designer glasses always smudge free, and his hair styled like a movie star. He’s a manager at the accountancy firm where Steph works, and is the type of person that can’t function unless he has control of every little detail in his life. 

“Stephany has more sentiment than sense, putting up with you. Can’t you see the blight on her life that you are? When are you going to grow up and move out?”

“Fancy giving me a job, or offering a place with reasonable rent? No? Then fuck off.”

I edge past him and retreat to my room as fast as I can without running. I’d long since learned not to push past him, as he always pushed back harder. Despite the suit, Pete was a man always looking to lash out. I’ve spent time with a lot of rough people in my life, and found myself face to face with guys who’ll beat you half to death for a pack of cigarettes, but something about Pete scares me.

Even before my door closes I can already hear his raised voice berating Steph to kick me out. I try to ignore it, sitting down at my desk to distract myself with some work. My laptop is old but it’s my most valued possession. Inside that plastic shell are all my hopes and dreams given form within the digital pages. 

As always, my first step is to open up my emails. There’s the usual bundle of spam, and buried amongst them are the kernels of hope that I cling to. Three emails from jobs I’d applied for and two from literary agents. I’d seen more than my fair share of these emails recently and had learned to tell the tone from the preview sentence alone. I still check them on the odd chance that I’m wrong, but I’m not. 

Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection.

The word echoes through my head. I’d like to say that I’m numb to it, that my carefully constructed cynicism shields me from any emotional backlash. It doesn’t. Neither does it shield me from the following spiral into misery that is scrolling through pages of recently listed jobs. This is the point that I usually turn to the spirits to help, but I’m all out.

I know I should start writing, but there’s something haunting about the blank page I load. I try to think of words and anxiety hits me like a truck. Writing used to be my escape but now even just the thought of it reminds me of all the rejections and wasted time. I’d never admit it, but I realise I’m scared. Scared to open myself up to the creativity and effort only for it all to hurt me again in the end. Each time chips away at my sanity, at my soul, and I don’t know how much more I have to lose.

Eventually I can’t take any more and tab onto a porn site instead. I click through a few pages to try and find something that catches my eye but I’m not feeling it. I realise that I’m going through the exact same motions as on the job site, and don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’d blame the morning’s activities, but in reality it’s an ever more frequent occurrence. 

In the end I close the lid and collapse onto the bed to watch shitty Youtube videos on my phone until I inevitably passout. Even such a simple plan as that is ruined though by the appearance of a rhythmic thudding noise punctuated by muffled groans from the next room over. I turn up the volume but the sheer knowledge of events is enough to traumatise me. The crashes of the Blitz would give me a better chance of sleeping through it.

True to form, two minutes hasn’t passed before the nightmare ends with a shrill noise reminiscent of a stuck pig. I long for a large amount of whisky to knock me out.

Previous – 4.

Next – 6.

4. (Something Like Life)

~ Matthew Roys ~ Leave a comment

Something Like Life.

We finish up our drinks then head out into the cold gloom of the British evening. Corgi is directing us using a map on his phone, and leads us in the wrong direction three times before I snatch the phone from him and lead us the wrong direction twice. Larry ends up loading his own map, and in a matter of minutes we arrive at the right address.

It’s a terrace house with a small, gravel front garden that’s overgrown with weeds. I can already hear shitty rave music pumping out through the windows and wonder how much the neighbours currently hate our host. Then again, it was a street of mostly student digs, so a quick invitation to anyone close enough to be disturbed might be enough to avoid trouble. It’s what a courteous person would do. Frankly, I’d just tell anyone with a complaint to go fuck themselves, but then, I don’t like people and people don’t like me, so the issue of social gatherings never really became an issue.

Larry goes to knock on the door but I stop him.

“Jesus, dude. This is a young woman’s party. What’s she going to think when she looks through that little peeper there and sees your ugly mug. She’ll be like, ‘Why is there a bald forty year old paedophile knocking on my door? He must have the wrong address. I’m eighteen and the nursery is on the next street over’. Let Corgi do it. He radiates pity.”

“I’m twenty four.”

“Look, birth isn’t kind to all of us.”

“Why am I friends with you?”

“I always assumed it was because nobody else wanted to be.”

We are interrupted by Corgi giving the door a polite knock. I shake my head disappointedly. 

“Corgi, you hear that deep bass music, right? That thing that sounds like a giant spider that’s high on acid and is trying to toss off with all eight arms at once? Your love taps aren’t going to cut through that. Be assertive!”

Corgi gives me a look of uncertainty then knocks slightly harder.

“No! Like this.”

I saunter up to the door and slam my forehead into it with enough force to make the frame wobble, repeating the action three times in a row. I can see stars, and a dull ache tells me that it had probably been really painful. Still, I can hear someone on the other side of the door. I step back and allow the full force of Corgi’s puppy dog eyes to dominate the scene. 

The door opens and a woman stares at us. She is pretty unremarkable. Brown hair, brown eyes, a few years younger than us. It’s clear from her expression that she has no idea who we are, and, to be honest, I realise that I have no idea what Tink’s brother’s girlfriend’s cousin is called, let alone what she looks like.

“Madaline, happy birthday!” 

Toto greets her with a characteristic smile that somehow seems genuine. I don’t know how he does it, but somehow Toto’s smile is like a Swiss army knife of emotion without ever seeming to change. 

“We are Johnathan’s friends. Here.” 

He reaches into the plastic bag he had been carrying and passes her a bottle of almost fluorescent pink liquid.

“Are the Miller brothers here already?”

“Yeah.” The girl nods as she accepts the alcohol, returning Toto’s smile drunkenly. “They’re in the kitchen. Come on in.”

She steps further into the house and beckons us inside. The place is already packed tight with people, the smells of sweat and alcohol hanging thick in the air. Sex, drugs, and uninspired auto-tune. I’d forgotten how much I hated student parties, but then free alcohol is free alcohol.

Madaline pointed us in the direction of the kitchen. She returns to the living room where she immediately begins to swig from the bottle Toto had given her. I watch her thrust her body around in a rough approximation of dance. I see a little part of myself in her, and have to shoot down the sexual innuendo that pops instantly into my head. It’s in the eyes. In far too many of the eyes around the room. They don’t want to have a good time. They just want to escape their own meaningless lives for a few hours. It’s like an anaesthetic. Numbness is always preferable to pain.

It isn’t hard to spot Tink. The kitchen is tiny and Tink is a good foot taller than almost everybody else. His younger brother, Tommy, or Po as I like to call him when he isn’t around to hurt me, is standing at his side. Po is five years his junior, but is already a tank of a man. Give it another few years and he’ll have outgrown his brother, which is exactly why I try to stay on his good side.

I ignore them for a moment as I make a b-line to the fridge and pull out a few cans for everyone. I hand them around. Then, my act of charity done for the day, I begin to drink.

“Have you guys heard the good news?” Tink asks us as we try to find space to stand. He knows we haven’t, and if we had we wouldn’t have listened, but Corgi feigns interest and spurs on the conversation. 

“Tommy has passed his training. You’re now looking at one of Her Majesty’s finest.”

We offer a round of congratulations and raise our drinks in Tommy’s honour, not that we needed the excuse. Tommy nods his head at us and smiles, but his eyes always seem cold. I can never get a read on the kid. I can’t help but feel that he looks down on us, and honestly I can’t blame him. He’s got brains, looks like a Greek god, and has a solid career path planned out. His dream of being a soldier is about as far from our drunken, petty lives that you can think of. And it isn’t a dream anymore. The kid is going places. The places he’s going are active war zones though, so who’s really the fool?

That said, Po’s a sound lad. He never minds when we tag along to events, and he buys me the odd drink. Tink almost worships him despite being the older brother. I think he sees the shit that everyone else is sinking in and knows that Po has the best chance of escaping it. Maybe it’s too late for Tink, but he’ll move mountains to keep his brother’s head above the torrid brown waters.

“So I guess you’ll be heading off soon?” Larry says. “On to bigger and better things.” 

“Yeah. I’ll be leaving next month. Probably won’t be back down here for a while.” Po answers in his usual slow, methodical tone. He offers us a small smile that doesn’t seem to fit his already intimidating features. “You never know, I might come back and find some of you being productive members of society. Though I’d hoped for that when I went of for basic training.”

“Mate, you went to Richmond, not Narnia,” I tell him dryly. 

“Forget all that,” Corgi begins. “This is cause for a celebration. Let’s drink to Tommy’s future, and party it up as it might be the last chance we get for a while.”

It’s rare, but once in a blue moon, Corgi does speak sense. I drain my drink and return to the fridge for a refill, but the only cans left are some indie dark ale. If things get desperate then they’ll do, but my tastes are generally sweeter. 

I slip through the crowd in search of a more favourable drink and spot a few bottles of spirits on a table in the cramped living room. The music is physically assaulting me almost as much as the tightly packed mass of swaying bodies and thrashing limbs. It takes me far too long to cover the short distance to the table. At least the selection of alcohol makes the effort worth it. I reach out for a bottle of Jack but someone else beats me to it.

I trace the offending arm up to the smug face of the birthday girl herself. It takes me a few moments to rake my brain for her name. Madaline. That’s the one. She takes a big swig straight from the bottle then hands it across to me. Despite everything, I don’t usually have my drinks neat, but I wasn’t about to back down and be beaten by a younger woman. I follow suit and drink deeply, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

“So who are you again?” she asks as I drink.

“Me?” I start, trying hard not to gag. “I’m nobody. Going nowhere. Doing nothing. A leech hanging onto the charity of young Po.”

“Po?”

“You know, big guy with a buzzcut. Tink’s brother.”

“Tink?”

I realise I’m getting nowhere. More alcohol is needed for this whole socialisation malarkey. I match the thought to the deed and take another drink of whisky and point through to the kitchen where Tink and Po were clearly visible over everyone else.

“Them two lanky cunts. The younger one is Po, er, Tommy. His lass knows you or something. The little fat one is Corgi, the scary black fellow is Toto and then the one who looks like he has a restraining order on him is Larry. To be honest, you don’t need to know, or remember, any of them.”

She laughs then stares at me with that strange intensity that comes from far too much alcohol. 

“Your friends all have weird names.”

“Well, they’re all weird people, to be fair.” 

I shift uncomfortably under her stare and have another swig before offering her the bottle. She takes it and starts drinking.

“I like giving people names,” I say absently. “It’s like with pets, isn’t it. Names give a sense of ownership or something. They’re utter fuckups, but they’re my utter fuckups, you know?” 

God, what am I saying? The alcohol must be hitting me harder than I thought. All that sentimental shit is a sign that the very immediate future will contain vomit and blackouts.

“They’re good names,” Madaline laughs, oblivious to my dread.

“Bollocks they are,” I snap. “Tink is a big fucker who was wearing a purple shirt when I first met him. I thought he looked like Tinky-Winky from The Teletubbies. His real name is Dean. How Tink stuck I’ll never know. Corgi is called Chris Wolff and wanted to be called Wolfie, but I’ll be damned if that little shit gets such a cool name. He’s small, fat, and overly excitable, so sticking with the canine comparisons, Corgi was really the only pick. Toto’s name is even worse. He’s called Alexander Campbell, but he’s black, and so is Dorethy’s dog in The Wizard of Oz. Then there is the song Africa by the Band Toto. He isn’t even African. The bastard is of Jamaican descent. All of the names are awful.”

Madaline seems genuinely amused by my ranting. Poor girl. I blame the cocktail of poisons she’s been drinking. She hands me the bottle back then steps closer to me, almost tripping over her own feet in the process.

“I like them. How come you never gave the other a cute nickname? That Larry?”

I blink at her slowly, my mind trying to process her question.

“Larry is his nickname.”

“It is?”

“It is.”

I think about it for a moment. 

“Huh. I don’t actually know what his real name is. I never asked. He just looked like a Larry.”

“You don’t know his name? How long have you been friends?

“Er, six years I think.”

This was apparently hilarious. She drapes herself across me as she laughs, as though she needs my body to keep herself standing. I’m barely standing myself. It affords me a nice view down her top, which I quickly try to ignore. She notices my glance and tries to grin seductively. It comes off more goofy than sexy, but then I’m in no position to judge. I smile back and she gives me a subtle little flash of her chest. It’s as subtle as a sledgehammer in reality, but I’m not complaining.

“This’ll be a big mistake.”

“What isn’t?”

I consider her response and shrug. She isn’t wrong.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Previous – 3.

Next – 5.