A Thousand Days Like Sunday (4)

I can hear the grass growing.

Almost.

It's slowly getting on top of the tinnitus like background hiss in my head, a residue of the rage and fury of the week just passed. I only notice this sound when I'm out here, up on my hill with just the crickets and the wind for aural accompaniment........... It's blissful purity as long as I don't do anything other than look at the deep blue sky above me. I don't want to see hedgerows or houses or trees, anything with physical form, not right now anyway. Only me, the ozone and the odd wisp of cloud meandering lazily past my line of vision. I shift myself drowsily backwards in time by about five days and remember the vile scenes in the pub on Tuesday night..........................

We were in some flash dump of a style bar near closing time, one of those joints with the comfy sofas and faux fireplaces that can't quite hide the fact that it was an evil rip-off wank hole owned by the sort of people you would cross a six lane motorway to avoid. One of the guys in the group, someone I barely knew, possibly a friend of a friend took it upon himself to drunkenly flirt with a couple very attractive young ladies sitting at a nearby table. I say flirt but what I really mean is slobber, letch and leer. I'm sure in his mind he was some kind of Clooney/Cassanova hybrid. He didn't have much time to ponder the comparison though and within five minutes of him propositioning the obviously bemused and slightly repulsed women, he was on the floor having his face hoofed in by three black clad Yule Bryner doppelgangers. I sat and watched it all unfold and felt somehow like I'd missed several lectures on 'the way of things' and wanted desperately not to be there.

.............And then I wasn't.

Here's a thing. The pollen some people frequently complain about and the resulting hay fever it brings on, well it's never bothered me. I can snort it in and blow it out all day long. I always feel a bit bad when I call on someone I know who suffers from this horrible affliction and ask them if they fancy coming out on a walk on a warm late-summer day like this. I only want their company but I'm sure they think I'm a total bastard. Like most of my mistakes, it's not carried out with malice, just a general lack of thought. It's that kind of day though, the landscape wobbling and vibrating ever so gently in the mid morning heat haze as I climbed the hill to my favoured spot.
I turn over on my front and rest my head on it's side on the grass. It's still a little cool and as such it's fairly pleasant to lie there, closing one eye and then the other alternately, changing the perspective as I watch two tractors below, ploughing their furrows and slowly working their way towards each other in the middle of the field.

Vision blurs and the noise returns.........

The subway train burst into the station in a brief storm of light and echoing abrasive clatter. The gusts of stale subterranean air being pushed through the tunnel in front of the tube train blew my paper in on itself and forced me to give up on any hope of re-organising it any time soon. The carriage was sparsely populated and dimly lit, a faint urine smell wafting under my nostrils as I took a seat near an elderly woman. It seemed like the constipated look on her face was probably a permanent fixture, but I doubted the ever increasing stench permeating the caboose was helping matters. At the end of the carriage lay the slumped figure of a middle aged man, passed out drunk with a Special Brew can clutched in his left hand. A puddle of piss that had formed at his feet was running down the grooves on the carriage floor towards the rest of us. At first I hoped it was spilt beer but a glance at the dark stains on his ill fitting cheap blue denims told me otherwise. That and the smell..................
I needed out before I puked, but the other carriage was no option either. A group of aggressive looking teenagers in offensively coloured shirts were busy using it as an impromptu play-room ahead of a night on the town, a night they would doubtless spend trying to get into pubs and nightclubs with very little success. I needed that even less. I thought of Karen, waiting in the freezing cold outside the subway. I was already late and she had sounded distinctly offhand when I'd phoned her as I made my way out of the office. I felt sure that if I got off at the next stop and waited on another train she'd be long gone, but I was in need of fresh air more than sane human company at that moment in time.

Two minutes later I was on the platform watching the red glow of the trains tail lights disappear around a bend in the tunnel. I pulled out the crumpled paper from under my arm and set about putting it back in order. It was going in the bin anyway but I needed something to keep me occupied until my new carriage arrived..............

Things come back into focus again and I'm three hundred feet in the air instead of forty feet under ground. Thank Christ! The two tractors are now parked either side of each other in the centre of the distant field. I imagine the two drivers admiring each others work and maybe having a crafty fag or two before setting off back to the farm. It looks like a private steading, maybe they're brothers, maybe father and son, maybe husband & wife. Who cares? looks like fun from here anyway.

I'm sitting up for a while now, observing the crows circling the fields to the south. It's an insane avian choreography, rising and falling and circling continuously against the green and gold and brown of the patchwork landscape. They land for a while and then start over again, their coarse croaking caws only a faint disturbance at that distance. I pray the fuckers don't decide to come and roost up here. I also pray that time stops and the sun halts in the middle of the sky. It's not a big ask, is it?

Tomorrow all this will be washed away. No longer the minor deity observing his kingdom from on high. It won't exist. All memory of it will be submerged in the motor-hum of the city, the flash of glass and steel, the chatter of voices and the squeal of brakes.

And the buzzing in my ears that never quite went away will return to sing me to sleep at night again.

A Thousand Days Like Sunday (3)

The tatty old pier seemed to have emptied of all human traffic mere seconds after he arrived. He had actually been leaning against the barrier at the end of the pier for about an hour but he had a habit of going into trances and losing all track of time. Two years in this place had brought him nothing but grief and boredom. The pier was where he went to switch off. A distant and only vaguely remembered aunt had bequeathed him a small house in the town and he had jumped at the prospect of leaving the grimy confines of his home town and his miserable night watchman job. He hadn't banked on the insular, suspicious natives, nor had he imagined how hard it would be to make a living in such a place. He knew now. His current job was every bit as crappy as his last. He worked in Mr de Giacomo's ice cream kiosk during 'high season' and worked in the old man's chippy during the long, cold rain lashed winter months. There was little to choose between the jobs as far as was concerned. His desire to spit on every ice cream cone he made for the mewling little brats that queued up on saturday mornings with their pocket money was equalled only by his desire to piss in the vinegar bottle in the chip shop. In fact, he had done just that one friday night. None of the loud, boorish drunken fuckers that came in during his shift had the slightest clue that their suppers had been drizzled in urine. He had laughed about it to himself at the time. He was literally pissing on their chips, as much as they were metaphorically pissing on his. He had nobody to share the joke with though and his sense of triumph wore off alarmingly quickly. Staring out to sea as the sun finally began it's evening descent, he realised that he had two choices. Get on the train and go back to the hole of a town he grew up in, back to his sadistic father, valium and gin addicted mother and his deranged sex offender brother or stay put and count his blessings. Even getting out of the family home and into a flat wouldn't be enough to drag him back. The local hard men knew who he was, knew who his brother was, would ensure he didn't get a nights sleep ever again. Every memory he had of home consisted of a shroud of grey filth and dullness. Even sunny summer days were shit and when you got home it might as well have been pissing down with rain for all it mattered. There was no contest really. He turned finally and wandered back along the sun dappled walkway towards the promenade. His existance was shite, a trial, endless boredom. It just wasn't life threatening anymore.

I Really Should Get Myself A Saturday Job

Fragments of a weekend

.......................Friday 6pm...............A never ending hike around the the West End of Glasgow looking for a cash machine that works. Then buying stupid amounts of booze. I always tell myself in these situations that it's to last the weekend. Yeah, sure................Saturday 9am...............The inevitable consequences are never pleasant at any time of day, but they are positively vile this early in the day. Pop some Nurofen and sleep for what I hope will be the rest of time..................Central Station 1.30pm............... I realise I've missed the last train to Dumfries and the next one will get me to the game just as it's finishing. No bad thing given the end result.....................The Necropolis 3pm ...........................Fine views but the light is rotten for photography. All I manage are standard issue silhouette shots of grave stones and mausoleums. The enormous statue of John Knox watches over the city and I scuttle off before the weather closes in..................Sunday 4.30pm...............Aimlessly walk through Hyndland and Partickhill. It's better than the usual toddle through the Botanic Gardens but not much.......................5.30pm.................... Feel clammy, grimy and unwashed so I don't make my usual refreshment pit stop when I'm out this way. Not in the mood for conversation either.....................8.45pm.........................Watch small man crash a giant rocket powered roller skate on TV. Definitely the highlight of my weekend........................

Blurry

Once again, The Ill Man gets ahead of himself a tad by having his hangover on a Saturday instead of Sunday when he has a bit more use for it. Anyway, I'm tired and can't be arsed right now. Heres some shots I took today and a link to my this place instead.

Nightnight!

The Great American Album

Ok, I've not given this one much thought of late, but I did pull out about forty or so CD's to whittle down, so I might as well follow it through. Some of you may remember I made a post a few days ago asking people for their 'Great American Albums'. Well, here's mine......(Oh joy!)

My list is a bit pish, I have to state. It's maybe a little too modern compared to Alan and Bock's lists submitted in the above link. This of course might raise the odd eyebrow and provoke reactions such as "Who the fuck is Sufjan Stevens?" It's also entirely subjective, as these things ought to be. So there....

If I've missed anything obvious, feel free to let me know.

In no particular order....

GP - Gram Parsons
Marquee Moon - Television
Fables Of The Reconstruction- REM
Ease Down The Road - Bonnie Prince Billy
Our Endless Numbered Days - Iron & Wine
The Trials of Van Occupanther - Midlake
Underfed - Plush
Smile - Brian Wilson
Deserters Songs - Mercury Rev
Under The Western Freeway - Grandaddy
Greetings From Michigan(The Great Lake State) - Sufjan Stevens
The Blue Moods Of Spain - Spain
American IV: The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash
Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain - Pavement
Music From The Big Pink - The Band
Cold Roses - Ryan Adams
Through The Trees - The Handsome Family
Whatever Mortal - Papa M
Songs About Buildings & Food - Talking Heads
The Black Light - Calexico
On The Beach - Neil Young
Forever Changes - Love
Song Cycle -Van Dyke Parks
Highway 61 - Bob Dylan

A Bottle And A Friend

"Here's a bottle and an honest friend
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man;
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes no ay when sought, man!"

Robert Burns

I Didn't Know My Mother Had Such An Evil Sense Of Humour

................ Or that she has a sense of humour at all..........

Seven thirty yesterday morning and I'm in that lovely Never-land between being asleep and being awake. Then the phone goes. Cursing a bit I stumble to the phone labouring under the mistaken belief that it may be a call of some importance.

It's mother, calling from deepest, darkest East Lothian wanting to know if everything's Ok. Bloody Hell!

"Are You Up?"

"Evidently"

"Good. I'm just having my morning tea"

"Lovely!, couldn't this have waited until tonight?"

"No!" (laughing)

I hear my father in the background grumbling about wasting money on calls to shiftless sons at ungodly hours in the morning. I take this as my cue to wind up the call.

It went again this morning but it seemed to be some automated voice telling me I had a message waiting. Text message maybe? If I'd bothered to find out it would probably have read:

"It's your mother. Time you were up! Have you done a washing? Make sure the dishes are done by saturday.

Crazy thing is, she'd be 100% correct.

Where's the Acdo?