somewhere between Bukowski and the Dalai Lama

The duty-free rum is flowing, as am I. Sitting on the sofa with a work laptop astride my increasingly infertile thigh region. The screen is bright. I just caught a glance of myself in the lounge mirror and saw my bloodshot and narrowed eyes, looking much like the boxers in the 12th round of KOTV classics currently playing on the television. The term brow beaten in it’s truest sense, the pugilist’s noses are flattened, their prowl purely a thing of training and condition; each one just ready to go home. I’m tired, easily distracted. It’s been a long couple of away days. The highlight of which was throwing up excellent whiskey and fat from pigs knuckles onto the pristine white sheets of a king size bed in a five star hotel room, five hours prior to meeting my ‘client’, I additionally forgot to clean my teeth in between the two appointments. I didn’t even smell the vomit myself until I spoke to say “Good Morning”.

My employers haven’t learnt to stop sending me away. I’m probably only three business trips away from needing legal advice on foreign bailing procedures. Needless to say though, on this occasion I pulled through and from the client’s perspective it all went great. They never saw the condition of the hotel room they paid for and that’s why they bunged me some currency to say ‘thanks’ which I then transferred into more booze at the airport.

I dislike flying in aeroplanes, it’s not a fear of crashing, although that is ever present whilst confined and strapped to your itemised seat. But then I naturally presume every train or car I ride in is going to be involved in an accident or incident. When you expect every road crossing to culminate in windscreen body surfing, being a few more thousand feet in the air offers neither an increased fear or acceptance of death. As always it’s that need which I have been conditioned to put above all else, my own welfare that saves the day. Despite it being utter bullshit and the root of all evils we can’t get away from ourselves, not who we are but who we see ourselves as. After all if I’m going to be happy, successful, secure and solve all the problems I create in my attempts to achieve it, I’ll need to avoid being in a plane crash. Self preservation is top of most people’s list who have been conditioned by this world similarly to me. Rarely do people walk away from plane crashes, I’m presuming this is a fact. Instead of all the ‘emergency exit’, ‘securing your own mask first’, ‘blowing in the tube’, ‘safety card/video’ rig moral delivered by undeserving authority figures, they should just say “Welcome aboard, if any thing goes wrong we’re all fucked and pretty certain to die.” That’s basically what you sign up for. Instead they treat it like you’ve just boarded the EA136 to the moon – or better yet an ecologically sound form of time travel.

Tonight though it was a place to sit for two hours drink more gin than usual and read the Bukowski book I bought at the airport on the way out. I had the excuse to buy it since my current selection of the dharma was packed in my already checked-in case. Perhaps I should jut take my suitcase on as hand luggage, as seems to be the trend, with the selfish business travellers of the world. Again the airports need to wipe off even more gloss. Instead of those basket and sign combinations you see at check in they need a banner…“Fucking off the fact it’s got wheels on the bottom of it, how long can you actually carry that monstrosity for? Are you really too important, impatient and attached to your belongings that you can’t stand next to a baggage belt for ten minutes?” The extra gin came from a clumsy flight attendant who dropped miniature bottles whilst passing me my quota; I retrieved and consumed them without removing my seat belt. It has, like the duty free rum, settled into the system nicely but what with the plane delay it’s half two and I have a train to crash on in the morning.

But nobody’s perfect, except me. Or rather, expect me. I do, but I’m learning the error of my ways. The exterior I purport and cling to through life is so different to the person staring back at me from the mirror, I sometimes don’t recognise myself. Further to learning about the false hoods of my own conditioning and lifestyle, this period is one of self-discovery also. I’d always been waiting for someone to come find me. That’s what ‘they’ do isn’t it, move in, abuse the talent and the take the money. But there isn’t a ‘they’ because there isn’t any money and perhaps not even talent. Everything is practice, perfection is just there to keep you at it. So as usual it’s just me in the middle of the night with one of work’s laptops, loaded on rum, gin, weed, fatigued from work and attempting to live a life somewhere between Bukowski and the Dalai Lama. I am cancelled out.

“How’s the novel going?” they’ll ask. “Well, I was up all night writing twaddle, so I’ll probably end up fucking it off tonight A page of shit for a tired day at work? Yeah, I’ll take that. I need ice and the OCB’s. Life is more about the giving than the living, but you can’t have the former without paying occasional attention to the latter. I think the heat of the laptop has killed my sperm now, another one of life’s potential pitfalls gladly avoided, excellent. Nine hundred and seventy six words or the chance to have your own kids and be the perfect family man? Yeah, I’ll take that, too.

I’m uploading this now in case the train crashes. That way I’ll be prophetic and dead. ‘They’ love that.