Fuck, I hate the Germans.
Benji looked at me through the pint glass in mid slug. He paused, swallowed and laid it down again. His features had gone from a sedate, bovine boredom to a pinched accusatory scowl in jig time. I had grown to enjoy the expression of outrage on peoples faces in the past year. I wasn't sure if it was my rite of passage into premature middle aged cynicism , or a perverse delayed reaction to my mother's death. I was not filled with much hope for the progress of humanity or my own good self. Maybe the two parties could meet up some day and hold a cheese & wine, swap children & talk about our wives.......
Or something like that.
Benji's still a touch aggrieved, God rest his soul. Didn't realise he was so ethnically sensitive. Must be that Bavarian blood on his fathers side, the part of his soul that dresses for his girlfriend in lederhosen & a string vest. He wants to know why I have it in for the Germans. I could tell him I'm three sheets to the wind and have no control over what comes out of my gob, but settle on telling him I'm of militant Belgian stock and will never tire of berating the descendants of men in funny helmets who twice invaded my nation from the east.
It felt good rubbing this kitty against the grain of his fur.
The truth is a slightly more elusive beast. I hated nobody, except maybe loud precocious children, salesmen & laid back 'don't give-a-fuck' types who make a living kicking yr arse for not giving a fuck.
I hated those pricks!
Well, I don't really hate the Germans. I just hate it that they gave so much work to town planners in this country......... Have you been to Clydebank?
Benji was ignoring me now. He was fidgeting away with some vile social communication device that might as well have been a fucking Tri-corder from Star Trek for all I knew or cared. I had lost all trust in mobile phones since they had gone 'on-line'. I had just got used to Internet being the new TV, without having to deal with mobile phones being the new Internet. Maybe it was a straight fight now between Ouijja Boards and tin cans on strings to be the new mobile phones and we'd soon all be playing jungle drums to order a Chinese takeaway.
Then Benji was gone. I had barely noticed him leave, I had been so absorbed in my own thoughts. This is what happens when you socialise with folk you really don't like that much in the first place. You dread their company and actually feel your soul corrode when they're sat in front of you verbally defecating on you from a great hight for what feels like the remainder of your life. When the topics of discussion are as banal as those discussed in your average weekly womens supermarket magazine, it can be hard to tell when the spell has finally been lifted and the hopeless pricks have fucked off.......
I scanned the bar and hoped I'd find someone new to annoy. Girls in frocks their Grandmothers would have rejected as deeply unfashionable on VE day, cunts in oversized NHS style designer specs, skinny 3 & 3/4 length pastel coloured 'slorts' and espadrilles, and ....................My father.
Sweet Gene Vincent!
The thought of going up to the old man and asking him why he was hanging out with a bunch of tadgers in a West End bar never occurred to me. Instead I slunk gracelessly from my table and made for the door, hoping I failed to attract any attention and that the cold winter air would revive me enough to take stock of the situation. In fact, the sharpness of said winter air took me by surprise. There had been a nip in the air when I parked my arse with the purpose of getting banjoed three hours earlier. By 9pm, it was positively fucking Siberian. A clinging frost held to all objects stationary for any longer than an hour. Parked cars, window panes, lamp posts, pavements and possibly a number of beggars that had failed to find refuge from the permafrost in time, as it spread like a virus cross the city.
Things had been going badly for a while now, but I was in a new rut of despondency. As usual in these positions, I began to think of Elaine and started missing absolutely everything that was no longer in my life. If feeling sorry for yourself had been a Government subsidised Olympic sport, I'd be a national hero.
Sadly, It wasn't. I was of interest only to those whom I owed money.
No comments:
Post a Comment