I’ve been feeling dizzy lately. Sometimes after dinner, but sometimes before dinner too. What does one expect when a person is stuck at home all day while the world spins around them with people living their lives? They say nothing happens unless you make it happen, but I can’t figure out how I “made” my constipation happen or how I “made” these hairs grow on random spots on my back.
The thing with casually mentioning you’re too dizzy to help wash the dishes is that everyone who knows you suddenly becomes a medical expert.
“Rowen,” my mother-in-law will say, sipping on a cheap lager so she smells like boozed-up mothballs. “It’s all that not working you do. Give a man an occupation and he’ll be too busy providing for his family to feel all spindly-windly.”
When I hear the advice from people who claim to mean well I think it should be the other way around. If I had my way, I’d be giving medical advice to them, and by jove they’d follow it.
“Zoe,” I’d say, eyeing my wife’s electric toothbrush. “If you don’t want coagulating toothpaste gathering at the base of the head, try rinsing and drying it after you use it. Those 12cm x 12cm Tesco cloths won’t use themselves you know.”
I’d make sure to say this in a feminine voice not just for the practice but to avoid any false accusations of mansplaining.
Of course I know exactly what’s causing the dizziness. Take the factors of unemployment, a kid to feed, a wife to impress, an addiction to online shopping, a yearning to step out of the body I’m in for the one I’ve always deserved, cravings for booze whose purpose seems to be to remind me how much fun everyone else is having, and no way to fix any of these things because it all comes down to money, a made-up thing which I simply do not have enough of. Put all these little ingredients together and you get an overflowing pot of stress. Who wouldn’t be dizzy trying to live this life?
“You should take more risks, Damien,” said Zoe last night. “If all you do is stay at home all day how can you expect to get things done?”
I didn’t bother asking what things. Were I out all the time taking what constitutes risks to her I’d be accused of being a drunk who whips his pants off in public just because he can.
She’s right though. I need to find a balance. The problem with avoiding risks is that your life suddenly becomes boring. Mind you, once you start taking risks is when you end up in places like prisons and cemeteries and bingo halls.
I decide to make some hot chocolate using full cream milk instead of my regular low-fat milk. Start with the small risks and reap their rewards first, then consider bigger risks like plucking the hidden ear hairs inside the canal with those little tweezers some Swiss Army Knives have. After that the world is your oyster and you’ll be sharing needles to mainline smack in no time.
While stirring my hot chocolate three times clockwise, then three times counterclockwise, my phone vibrates. You can mess with the settings until the cows come home and the cursed thing will still find a way to disturb you. Perhaps it’s a notification from the bank. “Sorry you lost that money through the shares you bought that we recommended to you, here’s a reimbursement, and then some!”
But no. It’s a message from Damien. At first I am confused, thinking what would the smart Antichrist child from The Omen want to do with me, but then I double-check and see it is from Damien McMillan. He even managed to spell his surname correctly.
I have to read the message a few times to see if I understand it correctly. I don’t. Vagueness was never my strong suit, but I get the general gist of it. Something about a job in a refrigerator to get cardboard goodness. All those guitar lessons when what he really needed was a simple grammar tutorial.
I sip my hot chocolate, wishing it was something stronger, and then reply in the affirmative. Like Zoe said, I have to start taking risks, even if it means meeting up again with that cunt.
The bar is surprisingly busy considering the time of day. The patrons are the ones you’d expect that are always at bars like this before noon. The old duffers with that cirrhotic sheen to their skin, the obligatory random couple drinking wine, the singles with their faces glued to their phones sending texts they’ll regret tomorrow. It’s always nice seeing the citizenry drinking so early in the day, far better than the sober-curious kombucha crowd who are hardcore dullards at the best of times.
I order my third beer and look out the window at the streets of Salisbury, wondering which one the steak comes from, when I see Damien in the parking lot. He’s on his phone walking back and forth, punching the air with his free arm as he speaks. To my disappointment he is still handsome. The wind ruffles his full head of blond hair and I immediately begin fantasizing about him losing it. I see him bald and toothless with acne scars like ruptured fistulas and nose hairs long enough to mop a kitchen floor with, when I realize all I’m doing is just thinking about a bald version of his brother.
How will Damien see me, I wonder. As a refined man gently cruising towards his fifties, carrying the weight of wisdom behind him?
Because there is no doubt in my mind that my browning teeth and crow’s feet make me look distinguished, like a man who’s experienced the world while drinking gallons of black tea under a hot sun.
Or perhaps he peers a little deeper into the abyss and sees in me that look of world-weary wisdom one finds in Kurosawa and Bergman movies. Maybe even in Ewan McGregor’s face as he progressed through the Star Wars sequels. The look of countless disappointments in a life not of one’s making. The look that says this has been a life better spent dead. That kind of wisdom. From stained teeth and creases by the eyes.
Most likely, though, he hasn’t changed and still takes pride in the maybe-fact that he outshines me in the looks department.
It’s not as if I mind someone having eye-catching features. What I do mind is when they shove it in your face. By making eye contact with you. It’s all so condescending. Like the rest of us chose not to be handsome because it would be too much of a burden upon ourselves if we were incredibly good looking.
If only we didn’t have to look at our friends. Or people who once were our friends.
He enters the bar and I am pleased to see that despite retaining his boyishly good looks his dress sense hasn’t changed and he still looks like he’d be first in line for the casting of The People of Wal-Mart feature film. That might just be the curse of our South African nationality seeping through. It wouldn’t matter if he was dressed to the nines and then some more nines too, because I always feel dirty being in the vicinity of fellow white South Africans, like their crudeness and inherent racism is rubbing off on me. Their auras are as contagious as the common cold, and their stilted accents are like the biological vectors of the tsetse fly, ready to give the listener a severe case of sleeping sickness.
I, through no will or desire of my own, am one of them and have consequently been trying to escape myself for decades.
My thoughts about my disturbing genealogies are cut short when he pulls up a chair, drink already in hand, and sits across from me.
“Good day, Rowen,” he says, his face neutral. There actually is a tangible aura about Damien because it’s coming from his pores. That scent of grandma’s medicine cabinet, the subtle hint of cheap pharmaceuticals that lingers in his wake like trailing spirits eager to pull him into the grave. The bags under his eyes hint at alcoholism while the enlarged pupils scream crystal meth. I remind myself to act in good faith and decide he probably just has a weak constitution, most likely suffering the ill effects of one aspirin too many after a sleep disrupted by osteoarthritis. Age catches up with the best of us and overtakes the worst of us after all.
“No ‘howzit’ then? Or have you lost the South African-isms?” I ask, curious as to why the head on his beer is much superior to the ones on the three I ordered.
“It’s better to maintain a professional demeanor at all times,” he replies, with not a hint of sarcasm in his voice. It’s a first all right. This is a man for whom the word professional extended to not sharing syringes with people he’d only known a few hours.
How far we fell back then.
I can see he’s amping himself up to say what he wants to say. I expect apologies, admissions of mistakes, and monetary compensation. All of which I will decline at first but then graciously accept. He did, after all, hurt my feelings decades ago.
He takes a lengthy sip of his drink followed by an exaggerated sigh before drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Probably looking for the right words in that vacuum occupying his cranium. For some reason this feels like a job interview and I want to get it over with. I am sure my sofa misses me already.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it,” I initiate, aware of how unintelligent such a statement sounds, but then it wasn’t me who contacted Damien out of the blue suggesting we meet in person to discuss some refrigerator plan.
He looks at his beer accusingly as if I’d dropped a laxative or benzo in it but this is no longer 1996 and I don’t share my medicinals so easily. Even laxatives are dear to me these days, what with the bowels and all.
“Yes,” he replies, then says nothing. I’m not going to wait until he’s suitably intoxicated enough to move past one-word replies. I’m already suitably intoxicated enough to string sentences with more than one clause together. Besides, it’s just common courtesy to be a bit chatty when you’ve invited someone you haven’t seen in donkey years out.
“Look, about that thing…” But I can’t complete what I’m about to say because he interrupts me. I can see that he still has to get the first words in. It was always a competition with him.
“You told people I was fucking my stepmother.”
“But you were!”
“I know! But it was meant to be secret, you bladdy cunt. Show some fucking decorum.”
I damned well knew it. Still retaining some of the Saffa slang. You can take the colonized out of the colony, but you can’t take the butchered English language out their mouths.
Two can play at this though. “You gave me an orange leaf when I was tripping balls on acid and left me in a parking lot for four hours while I stared at it.”
“I was helping you open your mind,” says Damien. “And I didn’t go around telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry about it.”
“Fuck me, man. Everyone I knew who knew you knew about it,” I shoot back, knewingly. “And at least it let people know you weren’t a virgin. The only other option for that was getting an STD, but then you’d have to walk around with a doctor’s certificate to prove it to people. I did you a huge favor and you know it.”
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“One of us had to not be a virgin,” he says. “What on earth did people think about us back then?”
“Probably nothing.”
“Probably nothing,” he repeats. “Yeah, that’s right, because we were nothings. But now we have a chance to be somethings.” He looks me up and down. “Yeah, you’ll fit all right. It’s a good thing you haven’t gained much weight besides that mass of blubber on your stomach, otherwise we’d have to find someone else.”
Arms like chicken legs, that’s me. “You mentioned a job in your message. It’s wrapping up refrigerators in exotic cardboard to ship out as Secret Santa presents, isn’t it? Tell me it is. I’m right, aren’t I? What line of work is that?”
“A straight line to something we would have killed for back then.”
“A vagina?” I say, but he signals for another drink and a waitress appears at our table. No wonder the booze costs so much here if they can afford to have waitresses, or is it servers? Sounds disrespectful really, too close to serf. I’ll stick to waitress. I see the couple nearby glancing at us. They must have heard our conversation. Perhaps even recorded it. It would be nice to go viral instead of being viral. All these illnesses that accompany older age and harder living.
The waitress is young and chubby and consequently very, very cute. I should come here more often. Or would, were it not for my unemployment situation. And liver issues that the doctors deny but I know are present. Despite that I order another drink as well. A stronger one. Who stops at one when there are so many more to be had? Go all the way I say.
Damien returns to the conversation. “Except for Desmond. He didn’t know.” Fucker can never drop anything. I remember being on E, what they call “mollies” these days I think, wasted out of my skull and out of the blue he’d bring up something that was said months ago and would want to resolve it then and there. Never anything of significance either. Who remembers that shit?
“Right,” I say, attempting to placate him. “But look, it slipped out. I thought he knew.”
“Why would I tell my younger brother that? It would have destroyed him.” He turns his head away from me. Not a spot of dandruff on the nape of his neck, the bastard. “And it did.” I notice his hooked nose still twitches at the end when he speaks. I used to be jealous of that, that profile and that cute little quirk. Perhaps I still am.
I take a big sip of my gin and tonic, then another. I need it to stabilize my thinking because he’s changed but is still the same. Of course, this is the aging process, but I am trying to fit him into a category so I can read him better. Manipulate him even. I need to be in control here. His being older than me does not matter at this age and I need the upper hand.
It’s clear the second drink calms his nerves and I have a feeling he’s been on the same path as me, from drug problems to alcohol problems. I wonder if he pukes up bile in the morning and I find myself hoping that he does.
Funny how we both ended up on heroin but not together. Somehow we started it without the other one knowing and I am not sure how or why that happened. Such a blur that past is but maybe seeing him again will refresh my memory. I down the rest of my gin and tonic and wave for another one. I wish I looked like this waitress. I wish I were her.
“So how are you, Rowen?” he asks, and I feel the sincerity behind the question. I hope he doesn’t puke up bile in the mornings. Maybe just a bit of whatever he last swallowed.
“I’m good. Surviving, you know? All we can do, really.”
He nods and talks about the business he started up, how he “had it all, if only it weren’t for those fucking bankers and their debt collection” and mentions working for an upper-class twit of the highest order in a job that drains his soul with every meeting he has to attend. It’s all very regular and very depressing because I can relate to too much of it. I figured he would be more successful than me, as everyone else seems to be, but the weight of the world has proven to be too much for his shoulders as well. There is a desperation in his eyes and I feel that finally we are getting to the gist of this conversation.
Halfway through his third drink he says, “We had fun back then, huh?”
At first I don’t know if he is referring to the Friday nights we spent playing Tragic: The Butthurting at his place or the Saturday nights we spent getting fucked up at clubs trying to get laid.
It’s in his eyes though. Those evil little green orbs above that hawkish nose. I see that familiar competitive look in his eyes and know he is talking about the Tragic nights and then he hits me with it. He talks and he talks and there is a scheme and it is fucking stupid and fucking crazy and fucking fucked and I don’t know if he is serious but the more he talks the more I want in.
I am hesitant and wary but I know I want to do it. I want to travel with him from the UK to the stupid country of Sweden to steal someone’s Tragic: The Butthurting collection.
Sorry, I said stealing. That’s a dirty word. It’s “Deserved Relocation.” After all, it’s those with the least who deserve things the most. As we no longer own Tragic cards, that qualifies both of us. It takes a strong brain to perform such intricate mental gymnastics, but thankfully mine is up to the task.
Except for the having to be in Sweden part, this sounds like a wonderful idea.
I’m back home on my couch and Zoe’s rummaging in some bags in the kitchen.
“Do you want some of mine and I’ll have some of yours?” she shouts.
Good god, not again. No more intestinal disruptions.
“I don’t want any Yang’s Dumplings!”
“Fine! Then I won’t get you any in the future!”
My stomach churns just thinking about the stuff. If it were once a month, it would be fine. But this near-daily obsession with getting Yang’s is overwhelming my delicate bowels, and it’s not just my stomach that hurts, because like a set of vintage Tragic cards, I’m getting old. Except I don’t seem to be aging too gracefully, having more in common with the shitty “Poor” cards in the discount box than the pristine “Near-Mint” cards filling up the folders.
Of course, I used to be young once, and younger as well. My favorite part of being young was no back pain. I take great care to avoid exerting myself by spending extra hours on the couch every day but obviously diligence and discipline mean nothing to the vertebrae of the spine because here it is.
My back hurts, simple as.
I am, as they say, 44 years old. The twilight years, and a very complicated age. Too old to be young and too young to be old. To my little daughter I am ancient and to teenagers I am old as fuck while to twenty-somethings I’m a has-been hightailing it to Geriatric Town but swear to god if I died tomorrow everyone would say I died young.
“Jessica,” I say, summoning my daughter while tapped out on the couch. “Jessica.” Like an obedient dog she runs over to me, but only after I’ve caught her attention by crumpling the big bag of chips I’ve been hoarding since I returned from the bar.
“Jessica, daddy’s back go ow ow.”
“Ow ow! Ow ow!”
“Yes, good. Ow plus ow equals ow ow. Stop taking my chips. Just two, Jessica, okay fine, take five then. Jesus, come on. Leave some for me. Now listen. Daddy’s back ow ow. Can you go to the fridge, yes, fridge, brrrr! Go to the fridge, and get daddy three beers? Daddy thirsty, need yum yum in tum tum.”
She grabs the bag of chips and runs in the direction that is furthest away from the fridge. Train them as hard as you can and receive a bundle of disappointment in return.
Groaning as my back clicks I get up and reward myself with a Jack and Coke for the extra effort. I stash the bottle of Jack behind a box of Coco Pops and remind myself to top the bottle up with tea when I’m done with it, just in case Zoe or Jessica suddenly get any funny ideas about drinking whiskey for breakfast. Drinking in the morning is my thing, not theirs, so they’d deserve getting tepid tea instead of booze for trying to steal daddy’s thunder.
It’s while I’m nursing my Jack and Coke on the sofa and thinking about reigniting my perishing passions such as Tragic card collecting that Zoe walks in.
“Why do you keep giving Jessica junk food like chips?”
“‘Give’ is a word that gets thrown around far too much in this household. She stole them from me. I tried wresting the bag away from her but you know what toddler strength is like.” I idly recall some of the rarer Tragic cards I used to own and look them up on my phone.
Zoe eyes the glass in my hand and her expression changes. “Is that whiskey?”
“It’s Jessica’s fault. She wouldn’t get me beers so I had to reward myself for standing up.” I start by looking at Redevised Drool Glands. Fucking hell, why are Butt Bayous more expensive than Slag Savannahs now?
“She can’t even spell her name and you’re asking her to get beers for you?”
“Three beers. One plus two is three. It’s high time she started learning arithmetic.” No one wanted to play acid green/black bile decks back then, no one. Except me. That was my thing.
“Rowen, I don’t want you going overboard with the drinking again.”
“Don’t worry about me. In fact, it looks like I have a job coming up. We should all be drinking. To celebrate.” I see the price for an Anti Aquariums Candelabra of Thorn Hos and wish I were dead. I practically gave that thing away. I’m basically the Pope, except all benevolent and shit.
“Are you sure? You’ve said this so many times now.”
“I’ve course I’m sure. It would require me to travel to the stupid country of Sweden though, but only for a few days.” Holy shit, this is insane. Look at the price for a Black Potus! Sure, it’s rare and something we will most likely never see again, but everyone deserves their own Black Potus, don’t they?
Zoe walks to the fridge and returns with a beer. Why can’t she teach our daughter such important life skills?
“Well,” she says, taking a sip, “I suppose I could take care of Jessica while you’re gone.”
“Atta girl. You would have been the first person I’d have asked, what with you being the person who gave birth to her and all.” Ah, here it is. Some things never change. Muck Buttwater is still the spokesman for the game, and still blabbing on about how they can’t reprint cards that are on the Redeserved List. Liar liar pants on fire, Buttwater, you doofus cunt.
“Well, don’t forget to pick Jessica up tomorrow.”
“Who?” If only the creator of the game, Reachhard Barfyield, were still in control of things. Mind you, then we’d never have had superior games like Vampyre: The External Snuggle and Nutrunner.
“Your bloody daughter, Rowen! God, what’s wrong with you?”
“Yes, that sounds great. You too.” This Power Nine and a Half is going to look good in my hands. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sell them.
“I’m going to put Jessica to bed, Rowan. I don’t think you should be near her in your condition.”
“Yes, a great conversation. Good night.” But then if I don’t sell the cards, how can I afford the operation I want?
Damien said the guy has full playsets of all the early sets except the very first one, Alfalfa Edition, but who has a full set of that in any case? You only need the Buttlicka cards anyhow to win the admiration and respect of Tragic players the world over. And by admiration and respect, I mean jealousy. Just the idea of getting one copy of each card from every set blows my mind across planes. Two Black Potuses each (one with a black border, one with a white border), two Titty Twisters, two Titwalks, two of each Moxie, and so on.
Of course, I sold my collection. Thankfully Damien and Desmond did as well. It would too much knowing they still had their cards while I didn’t have mine. You always want others to be in a less favorable position than yourself, it’s the only way to feel good about yourself. That is why I checked to see if Damien still smokes. Like the keen-eyed eagle on its mountain perch I am always looking to see if the other person is worse off, be it their health, economic situation, love life, all those things that mean so much to us because we have the ability to think. That is how we thrive. By comparing ourselves to others, otherwise how would we know if we’re doing well or not? And of course the turd nozzle quit years ago. Could no longer afford the habit most likely.
I look at my pack of Camel Blues on the shelf next to the couch. They were called Camel Mild back then, and not only has that name changed but the name of the Tragic formats has as well. Of particular interest is that the most popular format is a multiplayer one called Commando. The sitting around in one’s boxers while playing always has appeal. If I were to play a multiplayer collectible card game though, I’d rather play Vampyre: The External Snuggle or Shadowfistings. The best games are never the most popular ones, just like everything else. I read a bit more about Stand Hard and Modem, but I am not so interested in how the game and its formats have changed as I am in the vintage cards we used to play with.
Overcome with nostalgia, I start looking other things up. Like action figures I used to have. Other collectible card games. Roleplaying games. Warhammer minis. Metal LPs. Metal CDs. Metal cassettes. Comic books both mainstream and underground. Lego sets. And the guitar I sold to Damien. That ridiculously thin Ibanez, but what model? Thanks to the power of the internet 30 minutes later I have my answer. There it is, an Ibanez Saber, cherry black, with three separate toggle switches as the pickup selectors. What I’d do to have that twanger back.
While taking the Coke out for another drink I think back to what Damien said. All I have to do is sit in a refrigerator until it’s on the stairs leading to the basement, at which I point I smash a window, go inside the guy’s place, and open up for the rest of gang. Doesn’t sound too complex to me, and then I get the most rewards for the least work, the creed of all office workers the world over.
Desmond, that sly cunt, coming up with this scheme. No, not a cunt. Even worse. A poes.
I end the night with another stiff Jack and Coke and by opening another browser where I look at plastic surgery procedures before moving on to clinics that do breast implants. This time I won’t be selling my cards for a drugged-up worse version of me but rather an improved version of myself. Before going to bed I delete my history even though my computer is password protected. The missus can’t find out about this now. Not yet.