running away and together

The thin country roads are winding ahead, the car churning down them, taking turns, slowing down here and there, a roundabout, a red light, a green light, and it’s all in slow motion, and then before I know it we’re in Bristol eyeing up the others heading out for a night of revelry at their chosen haunt. We haven’t talked a lot since Will turned up at my pad and I got in the car, just a few over-excited menialities. It’s not that I’m ignoring the bugger, just that I can’t think of anything much to say to him. It’s been a while you see, and I think he feels it just the same, we just ain’t on the same track yet. That’s what tonight’s all about; seeing if we’m really as close as we used to be; if we still agree on our tastes in music, if we still chase after the same girls, if we still hate each others footy team, and if we can still take the shit we throw at each other. If we can still rely on each other for the mutual understanding we used to share.

That’s me though innit? Over-sentimentalising every bloody thing. Get all mushy over nothing, I don’t know what it is makes me, but I cry always, at weird times, like if I sings a song on my own then I can hardly help shedding a tear or two. And don’t give me a film with a soppy ending for Christ’s sake. Will, he’s a little bit more solid that me in almost every way. He props me up when I’m low, when I’ve lost the plot or am acting like a twat for whatever reason, when I ain’t got a tight reign on my emotions. I’ve never had anyone do that for me before him, it’s why he’s such a good mate. He was there for me when I got a little deep into the old billy base and started selling all of my shit and acting like sketchy sod, he stood by us, didn’t let it affect what he thought of me. He was just all supportive through the whole strangeness, never nagged at us to quit, the one person who wasn’t at that point, he was like a breath of fresh air then; all I had. So when the time finally came when I chose to knock it on the head, I hung out with him, we went on the razz together, it took my mind off it. He was a diamond then. I’ll never forget that shit.

He deserves every good thing that happens to him, and I stand by his every selfish move if he gets some happiness out of it, because he hasn’t had it easy. I hear people ragging on his name now and then, and I always stick up for him. Some mutual friends of ours are saying that he’s gone a bit sideways of late, a bit on the darkside ever since he started seeing his mistress Cecile. This bitch has her claws in apparently, bleeding the poor sod dry, taking him to some dark places. But I say he wouldn’t let himself get played for no good reason, he isn’t one for taking things on the chin like. I’ll leave off the subject tonight, I’ll drop some hints, try and coerce it out of him, but if he wants to keep shtum, I’ll at least know.

Just a random gig tonight then at our old favourite little venue in good old Bristol town. I’ve missed the place if the truth be known. It’s not the same up north, not a big divide but this is home. This is where the magic happens for me. This is Avalon, the south-west. It’s King Arthur and his nights of the round, it’s the pastoral, it’s Wordsworth, it’s bloody sweet as. We drive around for ages trying to find a parking place, all the usual spots are full because it’s a Friday, but eventually we chance upon a space right on the river side, right by the docks and literally around the corner from where we’re headed. I skin up and we smoke the spliff talking about music we’ve been listening too recently and the band we’re seeing tonight. It’s one we’ve both been looking forward to, a proper ska revivalist group, brass sound and breakbeat man, couldn’t fit me better at this point. Appeals to the mod part in me. My dad was a hippie throughout the seventies and eighties before he integrated within society properly, but I never got the whole Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Jackson Browne thing, when I was younger the only rceords of his I liked were the Who and the Specials. So this lot tonight really tickled my fancy. Not the newest sound in the world, but gets me going.

We smoke up and I get really dopey and zoned out until we get into the pub and I recover my senses like. Will goes over and orders two pints and lumps them down saying he’s spied some keen totty my the bar. Says she gave him the eye. Wouldn’t say no he says. I look over to where he says she is and it’s this girl I used to know. Mary or Mable or something. I worked with her for like two days a while back in a sandwich place by Broadmeads. She always blanked us in the street though. Fucking bitch in my opinion. She looks alright in all fairness. All black eye shadow and hair and baggy black jeans. Skater chick like. Looks like she’s gurning too. I don’t tell Will I knows her and just swig me beer and nod. I note to meself that he can’t be all that serious about this Cecile if he’s still checking out the local skirt. Maybe it’s a front. Who knows.

We sit at table for about an hour before the upstairs opens up and the rest of the pub rush to get dibs in the queue. We wait until it thins a bit and then chug our third pints each and wobble our way up. The room is mobbed. There’s barely room to squeeze in cos it’s so tiny, but we show our tickets and the doorwoman rubs this pen over the back of our hands and we go in. After ten minutes we have our bottles of beer and the support act starts up. Now we see why there’s so many skater kids knocking about tonight; cos this band look just like them, and a few people in the crowd start mental clapping and whistling and shit and calling out the band members names. Obviously a lot of friends out to support the talent then. But the band are lame at best and sound like a bored Rage Against the Machine covers band. So I nudge to Will and tell him I’m off to the bogs for a line. Liven me up a little hopefully. So in I go and take the cubicle and there’s piss all over the shop, bloody stinks too. I consider going downstairs but decide against it and just clean off the back of the seat with some toilet paper. I cut two small lines and quietly hover them both. One in each. And I’m off.

My face is numb but my head is way clearer. I slip the charlie into Will’s hand and he goes off too. Comes back five minutes later with a big smile on his face and puts his arm round us and swigs his beer. He’s loving it bless his heart. He looks around wide eyed, scanning the place, taking it all in before catching up with the beat of the band and he starts jumping up and down, way more energetically than the rest of the crowd, misses the tempo by a few bars, skipping ahead of himself. So I light a stogie and take a few tokes and pass it his way. He gladly takes it and it puts paid to his dancing for a few minutes. Coke always does this to him. Goes off his loop on the stuff, gets really bolshie sometimes. And he gets into strife when he goes that way because he’d a skinny kid, weighs about 9 stone. Can’t fight to save his skin but will always start shit. That’s where I’ve come in before; to fend pursuers off his back, taken a few on the chin for him too. Will do in the future I ‘spect.

He’s on the level though and we’re melling in the crowd quite nicely. This one girl I was checking out at the bar is stood in front of me, and she turns around very intentionally and smiles at me in a very obvious manner. I’m not quite sure what to discern from it but Will notices and looks at me with this Cheshire grin stretched across his pan, saying nothing, then raises his eyebrows with a wry smile. Thinks he knows me the sod. The girl’s sweet defo, but she reminds me too much of this neurotic girlie I used to see, not a memory I would ever pursue to be honest. So I decide to play safe and ignore the girl. But Will starts chatting away to her mate, could make things real awkward this. I go over to his ear without looking at the girl and tell him I’m off to the bar for a brew. But the bugger decides to introduce me to the girls, don’t know what he’s playing at. I’m polite and shake hands with them; Francis, and the one who seems interested in me, Sarah. They’re nice enough in truth but I’m a little miffed at Will for missing the point completely and I slide off to the bar.

I stay at the bar for a while and Will doesn’t seem to notice. I see him getting on really well with the two girls, hanging on his every word they are now, he has that way about him when he gets going, a real charmer, charm the spots off a leopard he could. I decide to buy the barmaid a drink as she looks so woe begotten, or just bored out of her wits. I try to start a conversation then by asking her how she got a job in the coolest bar in Bristol. She takes the bait and smiles, saying almost glumly that she didn’t know if it’s the coolest, not a qualification she liked to make, it’s not what it used to be, bunch of twats that come in here now. This throws me a bit because she looks well young, and I asks her when she first started working here, when she thinks it was better. She tells me that she’s been coming here since she was very little, her step father owns the place she says, so when she was little she had to come here all the time. I’m well interested by this point and we keep nattering away for a while about her past and she’s well up for divulging to me. I say I don’t mean to be nosey but she says I seem trustworthy enough, so she doesn’t mind.

By the time the main act comes on me and the barmaid, whose name’s Pauline but likes to be called Polly, after Polly Styrene from X-Ray Spex, are firm friends. The two young girls are pretty much doting on Will now and he’s loving it, I can see something about him and Cecile from this. It can’t be serious. He looks over and gives us a wink and I opt to stay at the bar with Polly to see the band. They come on and look cool as fuck. The singer leading the way with all black Fred Perry polo and wicked jeans and loafers, they look proper ska man. I’m well impressed. The bassist even has the Jerry Dammers shades on. Strait off they start into this wicked skank tune, all punky and fast and the guitarist is jumping all over the stage. The crowd aren’t too impressed right away, they look a little dated for the skate kids maybe, but the tune is wicked and soon everyone is bouncing up and down. This is sweet. I am feeling this.

I turn round and see Polly and she’s not dancing at all. Back to leaning her head on her hands and staring off into the distance like when I first came over. But I smile at her and she smiles back a really friendly smile and shakes her head and then nods it to the music. The best I’m going to get out of her for a while. I ask for a beer and she hands one over and I go to pay but she waves me off. Free beer. Sweet. The band are warming to the crowd now and the crowd are beginning to believe too. The atmosphere enlivens a bit and now song after song everyone is getting more and more expectant and the break between songs is minimal and everyone is just loving this. Every song sounds like a classic now and we are writing history, the songs are part of us and mean so much. The few of us that know some of the words are singing along with glee and everyone else is just dancing their socks off.

I see Will over at the side of the dance floor with the Francis girl with his tongue in her mouth and I sense trouble. I’d gathered by now that him and Cecile weren’t married to each other but this is pushing it a bit. They’re still lovers, according to some far flung distortion of the word. I’m never up for cheating see. I’ve never done it, quite likely because I’ve never had a steady girlfriend for any amount of time, but still I know deep down that it’s not on. I want to say something but it’s not like I can interrupt. It’s still not my place to take those kind of measures. Me and Will are still supposed to be warming to each other after so long apart. So there’s little I can do except leave them to it. The music storms back into the whole of my attention when they start playing ‘Concrete Jungle’ by the Specials, and that is my song man, no one can get to me when that one’s on the radio. So I’m off on one then. Everything fits into place and I dance my ass off, taking long swigs on another brew Polly hands me.

By the time the band ends, after two encores, the crowd are exhausted but energised, and nobody really looks ready to sleep so to speak. The lights come on and the illusion is cleared. Everybody wakes from the dream hole they’d just been minutes before and they look impressed, happy that they came. I see Will sidling over to me and before I get a chance to rebuke him any he’s asking me for the chang cos he feels like having a line before we leave. It’s fair play and I was pondering the same course of action but am pretty sure I’m already fine, so I hand him the wrap and he’s off, slapping me on the shoulder as he leaves. I turn to talk to Polly but just as I do I spy two huge bouncers coming through the door to see that everybody leaves, at the exact moment they see Will going to the bogs. I ask Polly if I’ll be alright to hang on a bit and she nods and calls over to one of the bouncers and says I’m with her. She’s tidying up the bar and I’m asking her what she’s up to afterwards, if she fancies moving on to a club or something, and she tells me about a house party she might drop in on, and if me and my mate wanted we could go with her. I say sure, but just at that moment Will comes tumbling out of the door of the bogs pushed by the bouncers, and he’s got water or something all over his side.

We have to leave sharpish after that. Chucked out on our arses more like. Will had been trying his damnedest to cut his line in the cubicle but was too pissed and couldn’t focus. I hadn’t seen the bouncers go in but they suspected he was in there doing coke so they rapped on the door and threatened to bust it down, so Will had panicked and fallen over on the piss soaked floor trying to sort himself out. He’s covered in piss and a bit fired up now and Francis’s trying to calm him down, stop him from shooting his mouth off at these bouncers, but she seems like she’s about to ditch him. Polly thought it was well funny him falling over in the bogs, said she’d meet us out here in a half hour if we wanted. I think I like this girl so I convince Will to stay and wait with me but he’s not happy. I really need to calm Will’s temper some. He’s ranting a bit and his rancour hadn’t leveled off yet; the mix of alcohol and coke taking hold of his emotions and egging him on. So I lead him over to the bridge and we sit on the side and watch other the people hanging on after the gig slowing filtering away.

Will isn’t sure about this waiting lark and Francis is getting bored, she wants to go back with her mates but Will keeps telling her to stay, that we’ll be going somewhere soon, and that she can come with us. I think it’s a really good idea that this girl leaves. I don’t have a clue what Will is playing at. This is well weird, like why he’s getting her to stay on. I still haven’t said anything, but I almost feel like I should intervene here. He’s taking this infidelity thing a bit far. But I somehow know I can’t say anything because it’s his business end of the day. I don’t know the details. Maybe him and Cecile are over. I’d like to ask him, to get this out in the open. Francis has had enough now though, and her friends are calling to her to come with them. She takes Will by the hand and says she can come back with her to her place and they can get cleaned up, she has some clothes he can wear. She’s being well nice and I urge him to go with, say I’ll wait here for Polly, I’ll phone him later and meet up then. He agrees and they go off holding hands.

I don’t pretend to know what’s going on in that kiddies head. It’s been two years since we really spent much time together, and the only person worse than me for keeping in touch is him, so I’m not all that clued up on his life anymore. I know he’s driving buses for a living though, has done almost since he graduated from university. On the side he still works at the tattoo parlour, still does his mental designs, designed my tattoo he did, he got the same one but smaller, it was meant to be the cement in our friendship like, but things turned out quite different to how we thought it would. From tonight it seems like we’m still got a lot of catching up to do, but I’m living in the area now, with my new job and all, so we’ve got plenty of opportunity to. I’ve always thought about him when I was away, thinking what he would say about certain things, but he was just this image in my head then, growing like a dream you forget when you wake up.

Polly trundles out and sees me strait off. She’s well pretty man. I never really pinned that about her before. She’s got wonderful eyes. Shit I shouldn’t stare but, she’s smiling at me, and I’ve seen that kind of smile before too. I don’t want to fuck this one up. She tells me we have to get the bus to this place and that I should follow her. She asks me if I feel alright about getting on a bus with a relative stranger going to a random place, and I’m drunk and trying to make sense and say I like being spontaneous, just like my friend does. She laughs and asks if he’s alright. I shrug. I start telling her all about what tonight was supposed to be, a kind of reunion, harking back to how we were before, but it seems like we can’t get ourselves of the tracks we’re both on, that are set in different ways, so for now he’s going his way and I’m going mine.

We pay the bus driver and I follow her to the back seat of the bus. She sits by the window and I sit next to her. The bus starts up and I’m looking out of the window not knowing what to say. I look at her and smile and see she’s looking at us and I go to say something but am silenced as she puts her hand to my cheek and leans over and kisses me. First it’s on the lips but she opens her mouth and I let it happen and we kiss and it’s beautiful until she pulls back and we stop. I look at her a bit flabbergasted and she smiles at me, takes my hand and conveniently the bus stops and she says it’s us and we hop off. I start to reconsider where I’m being taken. Maybe we’re just going strait back to her place, but I see this isn’t the case when we turn into a residential area heading for a house that is clearly containing a party. We get spied by a few neighbours who’re poking their noses out from behind their curtains, probably too afraid to ask them to turn the music down.

It’s an old three story Victorian house, one of those designed for fairly well-to-do families, the place is packed of people in fancy dress, and in the front room there’s a guy in a big afro wig and Roy Orbison glasses behind the decks playing all these old soul and Ska tunes mixed with techno. It sounds pretty cool and Polly flags down a friend and leaves me while she goes over to talk to him, saying she’ll be back soon. I whip out my phone and quickly text Will to let me know he’s alright. The music is well loud so I don’t bother trying to talk to anyone, I just stand by the door and watch all the people dancing. Polly sees me and skips over taking me by the hand into the garden where it’s a bit quieter. She seems right happy and it’s like we’ve cemented something, and I think this could go places. The night is cold but the sky is clear and bright and we sit underneath this blanket and I skin up, when I spark up she comes squeezes up to me and when it’s finished she turns around and we kiss again.

This has turned out to be a sweet night. I’ve met this lovely girl and I’m excited, but I keep thinking about how Will is, I know deep down I shouldn’t’ve left him to go as he was. And lo and behold, before I know it my phone is beeping and it’s Will calling. I say I should take this and she looks peeved, but I shrug because I do have to take it, so I answer and he’s telling me he’s pretty close to Park Street and he wants to meet me, asks me if I can come down. He says he got chucked out of Francis’ place because her flatmate started on him, and he just into another fight and he’s in a bad way. It sounds serious so with a heavy heart I tell Polly I really have to go and see what’s what with old Will. She looks at me puzzled and shrugs when she sees I’m telling god’s honest truth and we walk through the house and to the bus stop. I take both her hands and tell her I will call her, that I really want to see her again, and to trust me, that might’ve been a tad rich, but she accepts it and we kiss just before I get on the bus again. There better be a darn good reason for me doing this Will you sod, you don’t know what I just gave up for you.

I walk past the Colston Tower and it’s just after two. Down behind the fountains are a group of homeless people gathered around a soup stall, eating perhaps the only decent meal they’ve had all day. One of them is laid passed out on the floor with his polythene cup of soup sat next to him, and his mate is making sure nobody nicks it, looking out for his friend. I start up Park Street and call Will to see where he is, and he’s all groggy saying that he’s sat just down one of the turnings about half way up. I walk as fast as I can because I don’t know what’s up and when I see him from afar he looks a total state. Sat against a wall and it looks like he’s pissed himself, but it’s dark and I can’t tell. He must’ve had some more drink since is saw him last. I smile and say we should get moving and he just refuses. Says he’s too fucked. Says he needs an ambulance. I think what the fuck, but then I look him over again and realise that he hasn’t pissed himself at all but he’s bleeding from some cut on his leg. And, holy shit, there’s a lot of blood man, it’s trickling down the pavement and into the gutter, collecting in a puddle then dispersing along the cracks in the pavement.

I get all frantic in my drunkenness and I start firing all these questions at him. He’s called an ambulance yes, but they’ll take ages, he only told them he was bleeding, he didn’t say he was bleeding to death. So I call again and start demanding that they send and ambulance right now otherwise he’s going to bleed to death, and the lady asks what happened and I say I don’t know. I look at Will and he mutters, ‘got mugged, got stabbed.’ I tell her he’s been stabbed in the thigh and it looks like he’s lost a lot of blood. This wakes her up and she says an ambulance will be dispatched soon, but that I should apply a tourniquet. I’ve seen this shit before, and I rip part of my shirt, and tie it tight around his leg above the cut. It shits me up a bit because it pisses blood at first, but then it seems to stop, and I’ve done all I can. She says to make sure he stays conscious until the ambulance arrives. This is going to be tricky cos he’s already drooping off, so I tap him in the face and tell him to open his eyes. He grumbles and says he’s cold, but I don’t have shit apart from my shirt, so I take it off and drape it over his limp body.

I start talking to him, tell him he has to stay awake, so I go for broke; I ask him about Cecile, what the deal is between them. He moans again but perks up a bit, opens his eyes and he struggles with himself a little. ‘I’m trying to get away from her mate,’ he says, ‘it was all about coke mate, coke and sex, but I want out of that life now, she dominated me and I’ve had it up to here with that.’ It’s too dark down here all of a sudden when the nearest street light starts and flickers and dies on us. I suddenly think that the ambulance won’t be able to see us, and I know I can’t leave Will here so I tell him we have to walk up to Park street and wait there. He’s dead against it but I pull him up and we start half walking, half falling our way along the street. I tell him I heard things were weird between him and Cecile, and that he should get rid of her if he’s not happy. ‘But it’s like an addiction mate, I keep going back to it, and she knows I will, that’s why I’m trying to find something else, someone else, I need to put her firmly in the past, but I can’t.’

I want to help him now, I know he needs my help more than ever, but I’m holding him up now and he keeps falling, his legs are giving way beneath him and he’s too heavy and I have no grip. But I manage to get him onto Park street and lean him against a shop window before by strength gives. He’s really fighting sleep now. There’s a trail of blood lining the route we just took, and I just know it’s dire straits. I slap his face and tell him he has to stay with it, that I’m going to help him get back onto his feet, that I’ll help him out whenever. But I’m losing him and the blood is still coming out of his leg onto my hands and I wipe them on my jeans and slap his face but he’s gone, he’s passed out. The ambulance arrives right then though and I run over telling them to hurry up, he’s just passed out, to please help him.

The paramedics rush over and start fussing over him and I think he’s going to be alright. Me and him are going to be just fine and dandy. Tickety-boo. There’s nothing to worry about now. Let divine providence do for us. I answer all the paramedics’ questions and they’re not pleased that he’s pissed, that won’t be in his favour they say, but I’m not worried, I know I’m here for him, with him all the way, till death do us part. And I know Polly is there for me, waiting for me to pick up the pieces, and it’s all good, everything in it’s place. I’m looking out of the back windows now, the journey home if you will, and the roads are winding behind and away from us now, the lights and cars disappearing quickly into the distance already passed. We go past the fountains at the bottom of the hill, and I look over at the group of homeless people again. The drunken bloke has risen finally and his mate has his arm around his shoulder while he lets the steam of the coffee evaporate into his face. Alls well that ends well then, or so they say. Me and Will are going into the turns blind again, the only clarity is in what’s behind us.