I am cured I am cursed. You only put in an ‘s’.
The backpack was quite heavy and I kept having to shrug it up my shoulders. It was because I had brought so much home with me. A subconscious manoeuvre in case I did not return. Yet I brought the essays with me so I was as indecisive as usual. In a comedy programme on television the character shook his fist at the sky! I am warning you God, just dont you mess with me. Rain, sleet or snow. Dont you send that to torment me! Just who do you think you are?
I went online and saw the original script, and the original line was ‘Who the hell do You think You are!’ But the television station would not keep it in. The producer or whoever said they had to take it out. Because it was talking to God. Even ‘fuck’ would have been preferable. Not so much preferable, but acceptable, they would have allowed it, the BBC.
But ‘hell’! How could you refer to God as in ‘Who the hell do You think You are?’ It was too much for them, as if it would have been too much for God.
The very idea of God worrying about something like that, it was stupid. And also conceited, just so arrogant and in a male sense too, very very male, I could see that, and Jean-Paul Sartre: Rob recommended him. He was very difficult but worth it.
But this rain; and needing a piss I did need a piss, really, I did. Why had I not gone, so stupid, when I had the chance. A little thing but out of little things.
Thinking about sex. That was you, you got paid back with a punishment. Needing a pee was a punishment for thinking about sex. The explanation was straightforward. If you started going hard then soft then hard then soft no wonder you needed a piss. It was not a punishment. It was just natural, your body and bladder in a critical condition.
No point getting annoyed. Or depressed. More like depressed. The way stuff happens to one individual. Who else does it happen to!
Nobody.
Not quite true. Things do happen to other people. Me too. Some that happened recently were incredible. This was one more, one more I had to handle. I would handle.
Drizzle was not rain, it was like a sprinkling thing God threw down to help out the vegetables and plant-life, to give animals a drink.
Why was I talking about God all the time, given I was an atheist — agnostic at the very least.
Animals were out twenty-four hours a day, they did not have houses to go to and shops or cafés and even if there were shops and cafés they had no dough, they were completely rooked and could not pay for anything. That was me. Not quite rooked but nearly. Imagine being completely rooked! Not a sou, a penny or a cent. Nothing. What was fair about that? That was just so unfair. That was how unfair life was. No wonder people wondered. Some had fortunes, others had nothing. You did not have to be a communist to see that. I was not a communist and I could see it. Others did not. Celia only looked when I said it. Her family was not rich in her own estimation but actually they were loaded. Her mother was a doctor and her father was in business. Imagine saying that to my father: ‘Honestly dad, her family is really not rich at all.’ He would burst out laughing. What about mum, mum would just gawk, but she would smile too.
It was a different world. Down there people were rich. You did not know they were rich except eventually you came to realize it. An older student in Celia’s tutorial group was an aristocrat or else maybe a cousin to one. Can you be a cousin to an aristocrat and not be one yourself? She and Celia were friends. When the aristocrat visited they had lunch in a local bar. Celia went too, just to see. He was tall and skinny and hardly spoke but he smiled at people and was not standoffish. He worked in ‘the City’ which meant ‘stocks and shares and the movement of capital’.
Strange to think how this morning I was there and now I was here. Since it was after midnight it was not today but yesterday.
My parents did not have a big house but I still had a room and could coorie in for a few days; nobody to bother me; I could get on with the essays and just take it easy. I was quite looking forward to it. Maybe even I would stay in and not go out, not even bother seeing Eric or anybody for a beer. I quite sometimes liked essays.
At least I could relax.
Jees I was bursting and would have to find a place soon or else.
In my recollection this part of the city was hopeless. Even if there was a club bouncers were on the door, and they did not let people use the toilets; you had to buy something and be a customer otherwise ‘eff off’. It was too late for bars. And the problem too was over-21. Bouncers picked me out. But it was illegal, so it was not their fault; only annoying if they let other people through and they were the same age. It happened with Celia all the time. It was females, they got away with it. Bouncers just let them in. Then if you did it outside and got caught. It was a real problem. But that was it and across the street was a lane. I walked over and along.
People did not like this area. Even rapes against males. Males raping males. There had been an outbreak of that. Not just young males. One had been in his forties. Imagine a guy of forty being raped! What did that mean? Who ever would do that? That had to be a monster.
I did not like the look of this lane. Some lighting but not much, so dark and shadowy, but that was good for the police.
The usual bins and old rubbish stuff. People just dumped things. You were scared to look down at where you were walking. Shit was the best of it. Then a spot that was better and I was able to unsling the backpack, just taking the opportunity, and what a relief to balance it on the ground a minute. You do not realize how heavy it is until you take it off and lurch a couple of strides. The straps would have left imprints on my shoulders.
Nearer into the wall jees I was bursting. My boots crunching on glass, then another noise. I heard another noise. A real noise, sounding like a woman and she was moaning. That is what it sounded like: ‘oh no oh no oh no, no, no, no, oh no oh no.’ Muffled and not too close. I waited a moment but it came again. Not a scream but moaning. I finished the piss and stepped aside, facing in that direction, staying still and listening hard. By this time my eyes were accustomed to the dark. A shape appeared and it was a man walking, heading this way along the centre of the lane; not too fast, coming along towards me. I started walking, acting normally, just keeping going, not hesitating and not too slow either, so not intimidated by him. But not to intimidate him either. Just not anything. He was approaching now he really was and he really had seen me. A thick-set man, older, oh fuck really heavy-looking too like a mafia gangster or something you could imagine him, and on he came. I would not confront him. How could I? Not here anyhow. Did I even know for sure it was him? I did not. He might just have been a guy, just out strolling. Maybe he had seen something suspicious or if he heard her moaning. Maybe that was it and he just went up the lane to find out and here he was. On he walked down the centre of the lane, the crunching noise of his feet on the ground. Then he had passed. I wanted to look round to see him, to make sure he was not doing something behind my back. The way he had passed was like he had not even seen me. That was the way he acted, like he had not even noticed me. Even I was irrelevant. Maybe he thought that. Some older guys are like that, really arrogant the way they dismiss you. I kept on, walking in the opposite direction. I had to, that was what I thought. What else could I have done? It would have seemed completely strange. I could not look back. I would not tempt anything, although what could have happened? Nothing. No sound except my own. I would have heard, if somebody had been sneaking up. I would not have backed down. I had been in some bad situations in the past. I would not have backed down. I was not timid and nobody would have accused me of it, and not a coward, but not foolhardy and not silly brave. That was just stupid and helped no one. I was counting as I went, all to fifteen, and nothing, no woman, nothing. Maybe it was my ears. Ears play tricks. It was in all the books, your ears. Maybe they had. I was alert for anything yet nothing was there, all along the lane there was nothing. It was just dark.