Author: maleghast (Page 6 of 35)

As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of ‘sorry’ and ‘terribly sorry’ and ‘oh do excuse me’ to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by.

When I finally reach the train’s buffet, after three carriages of offences against the peace and tranquility of my fellow passengers, I am greeted by a smiling face that already I can tell is softening me up for a disappointment.

“Could I have a coffee, please?”

The smile broadens, and the eyes widen in an almost undetectable act of supplication;

“I’m sorry, sir, but we are not currently able to serve any hot beverages.”

For a moment I consider launching into a comical rant about the fact that there is no one on the planet who uses the word beverage apart from the people who work in transport-centric catering, but in the end the poor woman’s visible anxiety encourages me to forbear. I nod and turn on my heel, plunging back into the morass of the three carriages between there and my seat.

As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of ‘sorry’ and ‘terribly sorry’ and ‘oh do excuse me’ to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by.

When I finally reach the train’s buffet, after three carriages of offences against the peace and tranquility of my fellow passengers, I am greeted by a smiling face that already I can tell is softening me up for a disappointment.

“Could I have a coffee, please?”

The smile broadens, and the eyes widen in an almost undetectable act of supplication;

“I’m sorry, sir, but we are not currently able to serve any hot beverages.”

For a moment I consider launching into a comical rant about the fact that there is no one on the planet who uses the word beverage apart from the people who work in transport-centric catering, but in the end the poor woman’s visible anxiety encourages me to forbear. I nod and turn on my heel, plunging back into the morass of the three carriages between there and my seat.

“Sorry, did you just say that you don’t like pizza?”

She nodded, a mischievious glint in her eyes and a crafty smile on her face; she knew that this was going to mark her out for special attention.

Daniel stopped for a moment, marshalling his wit, and meeting the gaze of his audience, each of them in turn, preparing them for what was to come.

“You actually have the gall to claim that you don’t really like pizza? I must say that I applaud your honesty and bravery in this company, madam! Even so, despite my quite genuine respect, I must say that as the indigenous master of the great flat food it is my sacred duty to challenge your position, and indeed show you the very grave nature of your error.”

The room errupted in peals of laughter and pockets of impromptu applause, and Daniel rose to his feet, and bowed deeply before starting to speak once more;

“Since the dawn of time, or at least since the nineteen-sixties, people of taste and learning from across this sceptred isle have known the joy of pizza in their lives.

“Put out your hand!”

The brand was glowing white hot; I didn’t need to put out my hand to feel the heat coming from it. I reached down within myself, searching for the resolve to endure, and endure without showing weakness. Slowly I pushed my hand forward and uncurled my fingers, willing myself to accept the pain that was shortly to follow.

I finished preparing myself for the moment when thought and reality would collide and I would find out the hard way whether or not I was right to be fascinated by the idea of marking my body with super heated metal, then nodded to him that I was ready.

There are no adequate words for the pain of a white hot brand searing its way into the palm of your hand. In the moment it happened I can actually say that I felt no pain, but the brand has to be held in place for a little more than 5 seconds in order to achieve a clean scar from the relief on the tip. I have never experienced such a long five seconds; the last four were so painful. Still it did not disappoint as an experience.

“Buy me a drink”

I had not even seen her sit down; I was staring into my beer, minding my own business, trying to work out how to get out of my contract. No one believes me now, but meeting women had not even been on my mind when I left work and headed straight to Dane’s.

Anyway I looked over, and unashamedly checked her out; after all she had just commanded me to buy her a drink. It seemed only fair. She reminded me of a young Janeane Garofalo; her sleeve tattoos left me wondering whether or not they continued under her crop-top. Now you can say it was low that I decided I liked the look of her, and so I was sold on buying her a drink, but it was more than her look. Her look was important for sure, but the gall to sit down next to a stranger and demand a drink added to the way she looked and with her overall demeanour as well, she was compelling.

I waved the barman over;

“Yeah, can I get another beer and whatever she’s having, please, man.”

He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow;

“Black Jack on the rocks.”

The air is cold out in the street; it cuts into my face as I walk out. No one back home ever believes me when I tell them that it gets cold in The Mission. everyone back home in England thinks that California is like the SoCal beaches in Baywatch, but the Bay Area is not the OC. March in San Francisco is cold by most Californian standards, and windy evenings on 24th make leaving Carlos’s less appealing, but I have to get home.

Since Lottie moved out I have been staying later at Carlos’s, or The Phoenix, and it’s starting to show at the office. Being the ‘token Brit’ means that the State Department are ever present, their agenda unambiguous. If ever I was a candidate for “Visa Loss” then it was in the last three weeks. Greg is a cool guy, he knows I’m hurting. Still, I have to stop turning up at the office hung-over, unwashed and in dirty clothes.

As I head off down 24th towards my place, opposite the Francis Fountain Diner, I pull my jacket closed and almost walk right by her; she’s stood under a street lamp.

“What the Hell is going on in there?”

I was pointing into the tent, where getting on for five hundred people were dancing, in the half-light, to absolutely nothing.

A stereotypically dismissive teenage boy tutted under his breath and shook his head before saying;

“You never seen a silent disco before?”

This was the first time that I was made to feel old during my visit to Guilfest, but I am sorry to say that it was not the last. My companion – who shall remain nameless at her own request – indicated that she was in no way interested in discovering the secrets of the silent disco, so we agreed to meet later on and I wandered into the sea of silent dancers.

There are no words to describe how odd it is to see a large group of people dancing to unheard music, and clearly not the same music, in a large tent. Every now and again one sees someone dancing to their iPod, but nearly five hundred people dancing to headphones? It’s just odd, there is no other way to put it. I put some headphones on and fell into the groove.

I looked up from my coffee as he spoke to me;

“Are you going to stir that forever, Keiron?”

I smiled at him and shook my head slowly. He deserved answers, I knew that, but I was so conflicted. I tapped the spoon on the edge of the thick espresso cup, two short taps as I always did, and then the quiet clatter as I let it drop on the saucer. I pulled a cigarette out of his pack, lit it, knocked back half of the sweet, dark coffee and then tried to look him in the eye.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Paul. Do you want to hear that I love you? Do you want me to promise to come out, for me to tell you that we have a future together? Are lies what you came here for?”

His face is all the punishment I will ever need, the pain and indignation in his eyes and the tears starting to run down his cheeks are all knives to my heart, but it is better this way.

“So it was all pillow talk? You meant none of it?”

I shook my head and dropped my gaze, to show him shame and hide my own pain. He needed to hate me; I owed him that.

“Is this seat taken?”

I looked up from my book to see a flustered looking woman, loaded down with bags. She had that slightly desperate look on her face, you know the one that seems to beg for the seat. Luckily it was not my brother’s seat so I offered it up.

“No, not at all. Please…”

She visibly relaxed then struggled to put her bags up on the overhead rack. After a lot of huffing and puffing she managed to get all but her handbag up on the rack and then she slumped down into the seat with more relief than one often sees over a seat on a train.

“Thanks.”

Her smile was delightful, and I realised that her voice was not what I had been used to hearing for the past few weeks, since we had been in the States.

“No problem. You’re British, right?”

She smiled and nodded;

“Yes, yes I am. I’m from a little place called Manchester, and not the one in New Hampshire, I’m from the original one.”

I consciously dropped my faux mid-Atlantic;

“Me too, me an’ our Kid, ‘e’ll be back wit’bevvies any minute.”

I love the memory of her face.

It had got to that time of night. The music loud, the drinks many; at least one person had seen an ex and cried or stormed off. Now the bar is just a little bit uneven where once the floors had been flat and the walls straight.

There is no justice in the world, but the simple truth is that this is the moment when the person that you most want to impress in the world walks into the place looking for a late drink and some friendly faces, and that is what happened to me.

Jessica was the coolest girl in college. I and almost every other guy in our year had been staring at her from across rooms, and the bars in town that would let us in on lunchtimes. Of course not a single one of us had ever had the nerve to talk to her. Now here she was, next to me at the bar, on my birthday, remembering my name, and of course I was dribbling drunk.

“Heya, Jess… You look fantast-t-tic!”

She smiled. I wasn’t sober enough to see it, but she actually did that smile, you know, the ‘Oh my God’ smile. I know because someone took a photo.