Maverick Renegade.

The price of freedom.

The first few seesaw days around this place
Unwind mechanically; what to do?
Why, what you’re told of course! He says with glee.
Write in a rhyme scheme, and stick to the plan.

One day, I trudge under a sky weighty with rhinocerous-grey contents, and for the first time in a week’s worth of journeys I notice the pub.
And I would kill for a beer.

I turn to ask my father if he fancied a pint, but he was no longer there.
His ghost said no, and tried to strangle me for my sins and my impudence, but his hands passed through me as a banker would a slum. He was no longer there.

I went in that pub a pawn, and came out if not a queen, at least a bishop. I was born-again!
New blood flowed like a plot as two grand old decades of careful house-training began to crack and splinter under the sheer weight of hormones turned loose upon the world - father, what have you done? - and I saw.

Out with all of it! Bite your thumb at the stagnant institutions that hand out anthologies willy-nilly, insisting, vehemently denying that the lexeme “fuck” has any place in poetry. These are the same scholars that didn’t notice the first few lines of this fucking thing were in iambic.
Viva La Revolution!

Of course, it was around here that my swollen pate began to droop under the heady burden of my self-esteem, as I confess to a stranger that in fact, it was my darkest secret that I couldn’t find Cuba on a spinning globe.
As I dropped into a barroom slumber, the likes of which not seen before my iron spurs kicked asunder the double doors of that saloon, I did concede that I was probably getting a bit ahead of myself.

But, free people of the world, know this; in a world where a man of age can order a pint at half past ten in the morning, anything is possible.

Great expectations.

And sometimes when I lie alone, suppressed

In a blanket of my own creation,

I’ll consider that which led my eyes to yours.

You attack your cigarette, you wage war

Upon it, dragging the embers away.

Full lips pucker, the notion of your eyes

Open skies, let their bounty drench me.

The concept of your laugh, the very thought of

The pen behind your ear is far too much.

But during idle conversation, then

I’ll see that your vice has stained your nails.

Your shrill giggle dislodges the pen, and

It falls into your drink, it’s nothing new.

But I was better off with the thought of you. 

Callow.

“You know, I believe this is the first time you’ve ever really been here after the refurbishment”. I watched Callow take a swig of wine. He knew I was studying him; his heavy-lidded eyes were languidly closed as he savoured the drink. He smacked his lips and continued. “I’ve been inviting you to tea for the best part of the month!”

“I’ve been meaning to call you” I shifted in my chair. Callow, intent on topping up my glass, pretended not to notice. “Benson keeps me very busy at the office. In fact, he’s the reason I was late tonight.” I lied with ease. Callow swirled the dregs of his wine as he considered his next move.

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that, dear boy. Punctuality is the thief of time, don’t you know”.

“Dorian Gray” I said.  He gave an involuntary smirk. There were no teeth in that smile; the movement was so small, so lacking in theatrics, that I could tell I was leaving an impression on him. This was rapidly becoming an actual conversation and both he and I knew it.

“Besides” I continued, flushed with Dutch confidence, “Most of what I’m doing at the office is tied up in the house and the rest of your businesses. I’m sure you could handle missing a few dinners, at least when it comes to your affairs”.

“That’s what I love about you lawyers, Stephen. While never anything less than convincing, you do, you – excuse me” He turned away and coughed into a handkerchief.  I was shocked to see a spot of red wink at me before he stowed it away. He went on “Anyway, you’re so intent on the paperwork that you forget to join the party. It’s a necessary blind spot for a man in your line of work, but still” – He grinned – “I find it endearing. Prising a lawyer away from his desk is the labour of great men”.

“Are you putting yourself on a pedestal again, Mr. Callow?” I laughed. The sound was swallowed by Callow’s booming chuckle. This was much more like it. The man could talk for hours without saying a single word of meaning. He knew it, he loved it, and for that I found him endearing. Living in a circle of lawyers meant rubbing shoulders with an awful lot of liars; tricksters, emotionally detached con artists of the worst sort. Callow fed the world this grand theatrical persona and sold it with Shakespearian vigour. He was the only honest liar I have ever known.  His chuckling subsided, he sighed, allowing a moment to compose himself.

“Perhaps, dear boy, perhaps. Who can resist thinking we are better than we’ve been led to believe? I’m sure your mother told you how special you were. It’s probably why you work so hard” That wry little smirk appeared again. I was unsettled by the sincerity of it. “No, Stephen, it seems not even I can resist that pleasure. I’m only mortal, after all. Now, I want you to come with me into the parlour. Biggs and Wedge will be here in a moment and you’ve simply got to meet them. I’ve never met a man with a sharper mind than Biggs.” He started to rise from his chair. “Other perhaps than your – yoursel – “

His performance was finally cut short by a thick gurgling sound. I could hear it gestating – it began deep in his chest, clambering up into his throat as his face flushed. He fell back into his chair as I sprung from my seat, racing around the table to help. I shouted for the manservant while Callow clawed at my chest, gargling, like a child would to try and pick out a tune.  I suppressed an odd urge to laugh. His face was getting redder and redder. Still no sign of the manservant. I shouted again and forced him over the arm of the chair as he threw up. There was no mistaking the blood this time; it was prolific, revolting. I could smell the musk of it among the vomit. I eased him up. His throat rattled as precious air flew back into his lungs. The sound was horrific, raspy and unsettling, but at least it was regular. It was some time before he felt the need to talk again.

I had the manservant phone Biggs and Wedge. After cleaning up Callow and settling him down, I found myself wandering back down the drive. I don’t remember saying goodbye. I could still see long fingers of the odd shadow in the window, thrown out of proportion by the fire. Of course he wouldn’t put the light on. As I left he simply sat there in his fresh robe with a brandy, staring into the fire as his own mortality flickered and danced in front of his eyes. I can imagine what was going on in his mind; I’ve been to plenty of dark places on lonely evenings, finding solace in the bottom of a bottle. Life is a brawl. It is short, brutal, a sudden burst of raw emotion and chaos theory. You only have time to choose one path, and Callow chose decadence. The first half of his life he spent in pursuit of money in order to make the second half more comfortable. And that night, he had discovered that his life’s work had been stripped away from him by some arbitrary lottery of misery. He had no wife, no kids. I stood there for some time on the drive, surrounded by grandeur, watching the flickering light in the window. Had I known that I would never see him again, I would probably never have left.

Just wrote myself into a corner on the first few hundred words.

That’s what I get for writing without a plan. Where the balls do I go from here?

“I never believed in love at first sight”

That’s a common saying, isn’t it? He’s a cynic, a loner. He scoffs at love. Until along she comes, with her perfect dark hair, aquiline nose, and her flowery sundress a month out of season, because she doesn’t care what she looks like and wearing sundresses makes her feel light and frothy and she can forget about her past. She’s got a seventies haircut. In a good way. And with her, and with this magical, one-in-a-million indie chick that doesn’t care what she looks like, comes this great barrelling epiphany that hits him like a freight train. Love is real. They probably meet in a park. Little pockets of wind gather up the autumn leaves, frolicking around their feet at the thought of two souls wordlessly drawn together by some gorgeous cosmic secret. For the first time in a thousand years, man notices the birds in the trees. The smaller the bird, the happier it looks, have you ever noticed that? The tiniest bird in the world, barely the size of its own egg, will flitter and flutter and scramble to the bottommost branch of a tree now bare and open its little heart and begin to sing, rejoicing in the fact that although so much goes wrong in the world, here are two wonderful timelines that destiny has intertwined, forever connected by the thinnest of threads are these two photogenic twentysomethings that probably listen to the Smiths.

I believe in love at first sight. I really, really do. Consequently, I’ve never really, really loved anyone. I wanted to, but how can you possibly invest your heart and soul in a relationship when the next girl that comes round the corner could be her? She could be sitting in the next coffee shop I walk into, perched on the counter, latte in one hand, The Importance Of Being Earnest in the other. Those perfectly-timed pockets of wind would be at it again, teasing and tugging at her sundress and lifting her voluminous seventies hair and generally painting a bloody big sign that says “HER” in foot-high letters above her adorably ditzy head. How could anyone settle for average when they believe in love at first sight? When Miss Right (soon to be Mrs) is always just around the corner, forging relationships of my own has proved much trickier than anticipated. No, this is most assuredly not a story about the adorably ditzy Miss Right. This is a story about me.

“This is a story about me” without an actual story in mind. I write like a chump.

• EDIT: I’ve written myself out of it. It’s still in the first person, but it’s not about the narrator. I’ll post a bigger chunk when I’ve worked it out properly.

Bad Ideas.

I have a friend. Actually, I have several friends, but I’m talking about one in particular and he has a saying. He insists, on every remotely applicable occasion, that “bad ideas are good ideas”.

He told me once that his father was extremely well-behaved, all throughout his teens and well into his twenties. He never drank to excess, saved a sensible amount of money and lived in a stable world of his own creation, where everything made sense if only the rules were followed. Like Bilbo Baggins before Gandalf came knocking, he never had any adventures or did anything unexpected. Consequently, he has no interesting stories to tell his son.

There’s obviously a line that has to be drawn somewhere. But if you’re tossing and turning in the dead of night, unable to sleep because of a really, really terrible idea, it’s probably a good idea to go out and do it. And after you’ve woken up on a spontaneous ferry to Calais (one of those really bad ideas that we’ve yet to carry out) give me a ring and tell me the story. I could use a good laugh these days.