Cafè Heartbreak

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It’s a small place out in the woods a good 35 minute drive out of town on a one-lane dirt track. Café Heartbreak. It opens well after dark and closes when it feels like it. The dusty road up there winds, thick with trees on both sides so you can hardly see three feet left or right. If you wind down your window you can hear owls hooting and creatures rustling. 

Eventually, a sole upright streetlamp rumoured to have been an original from London in the 1930s when they had real thick fog, but now its ultra-bright bulb is dull. Next, you notice the sign, even dimmer but in pink neon spelling ‘Cafe Hearbk’ with one or more letters flashing, as you’d imagine for a scene like this. 

The bar itself has a blue facade, faded and cracked with age, but discernibly blue. Blue is the theme. You can’t see inside, the panes are thick with dust but park your car and as you approach, the door will open. You’ll find yourself face-to-face with a huge unfriendly brute of a man, completely bald, with a very thick moustache and Italian features. He wears a huge black overcoat no matter how hot it is. This is Plato. He never smiles and you have to concentrate to make out what he’s growling, but you’ll be OK. Don’t be afraid of him, he’s got the biggest heart of anyone in that place. Softer than butter in summer. The exact opposite of Steve.

You’re on your own, well, you’d better be, because you can only get in if you’re on your own and - as the sign says - heartbroken.  Cafe Heartbreak is for the properly broken hearted. Those who are desperate, who can’t stand themselves but also can’t help themselves. You’ll feel it soon as that door creeks open. It seems to let out a sigh and you’ll taste the saltiness of tears on your lips as you approach. The sorrow embraces you like an old friend, and you’d better be in the right frame of mind to embrace it back, because if not, you’re not getting in.  

You don’t need me to tell you at this point, but I’m going to anyway - don’t try and fake it. Many, many have tried. Actors and chancers have put on the most mournful shows and Plato has spotted every last one of them before they’ve even reached the door. They all get turned away, and its for their own good. If they were inside Café Heartbreak without the requisite broken heart, they’d die of shame within minutes of exposure to the truly forlorn. Their sham laid bare would make them so sick, they’d be out the door in seconds.

Entry is $25, or £15, but its negotiable over the state of your suit and shoes, which are obligatory, or a dress if you’re a lady. If it looks like you’ve been living in your clothes three days and you already stink of whisky, lines of despair on your face, he’ll let you in for 10 or even 5. I told you Plato has a big heart.

He will show you to your table. Once you’re inside you hear his perfectly shined shoes clacking over the jagged black and red pattern on the floor and you’ll wonder why its so clean when everything else is coated in such a thick layer of dust? You can try and sneak a peek into the other booths, but you won’t be able to make out much more than hair colour, illuminated by the single lamp at each table. There’s no lighting on the ceiling, and you’ll never quite be able to make out where the corners are. Everything is thick with cigarette smoke. As your eyes adjust you’ll notice a partition dividing off the bar at the back wall and the lowly illuminated outlines of a man and woman sign over the toilet doors. 

It’s akin to a grimy post-war bar, where the gin used to be like petrol and your hand came off black every time you wiped your brow. 

The tables are tiny, hardly big enough to sit behind and with barely any space for drinks. Only one person can sit. A large black telephone with an old fashioned receiver and a thick, curly cord sits before you. Next to that is a bottle, which at some point years ago had a label on it. Also, a fine well-cut crystal whisky glass, which you’re about to find out is in complete juxtaposition to the contents of that bottle. The whisky’s there for you, feel free to pour as much of it as you like, but be warned, it is truly the most foul tasting, sour and disgusting stuff you’ve tried to soak down. God knows where they get it from - China is my guess - but it’ll have you heaving. I can’t say I know of any man who’s made it so much as halfway through a bottle of that paraffin, let alone finished one. Truly a drink only a brokenhearted man or woman could subject themselves to, and believe me, you will. 

Once you’re sat down and comfortable you’ll hear the music, you somehow never notice it straight away. It’s soft and creeps up on you. Gentle but weary strings, adagios and sonatas, played by the most mournful string quintet you could imagine. It’s a recording, but they seem to have hundreds of them, I’m no master of that sort of thing, but its said you can tell its the same quintet playing each one. They’re supposed to be from Mexico, a group of the most fierce-eyed women you’ll ever see, who all wear complete black aside from a deep red flower in their hair and who all lost their husbands in a fire at a notorious whorehouse. Their strings resonate with bitterness and resent but, above all, sadness, the engulfing sadness of the bar. Every now and then you’ll hear the record run out and click for a few minutes before Steve changes it. 

The telephone has a large and unusual circular dial with 21 numbers on it, zero to 20. Zero is for the bar. They’re not cruel enough to make you actually drink that putrid mess in the bottle, so you can order drinks. Everything costs five, but they don’t serve beer. Only cocktails, spirits and wine. Steve takes your order on the phone, but The Boy brings your drinks. He’s called that but he must be pushing 40 now, even if he still looks around 17. Wordlessly he’ll set down your libations and there will be a nod, that is all. I’ve never heard him speak. 

Now you’re sitting comfortably, its time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial a number - one to twenty. You’ll be connected to a table. They’ll pick up and, usually, just start talking. Oh, the stories you’ll hear. You won’t be able to stand them. You won’t be able to stand yourself. Mothers who have lost their sons in car accidents just days before. Fathers with daughters murdered by jealous husbands. And so many who have lost the great, great loves of their lives. Near-teenagers going through the gut-wrench punch of their first love leaving, widowers bereft after 60 years together. Stories to make the devil cry.  You’ll cry, you’ll cry and you’ll confess your own heartbreak, you’ll rain down the tears and push your angry misery back on them too. Its exhausting, it leaves you aching. The tears will roll down your cheeks and all over that floor (so that’s why its so clean!) The tears will flow forever and ever and you’ll lose yourself in sentiment, in self-pity, in loathing. The blubber and mucus congealing on your shirt, you won’t care. Your heart beating so slow and yet so hard, kicking your ribcage. Your shame at being so small and pathetic compared to the 88-year-old-man you’ve just heard wring his stomach out. More people in the bathrooms are retching the last little bits of love out of them than there are pissing. Nobody sits in silence, and the cacophony of wails alone is overwhelming. The music gets a little louder once all the tables are full, once everyone is sobbing away. 

Then there’s the bar. If you’re new, the other person has to ask, and people usually pair up. You’ll be talking to a 55-year-old lady and she’ll say “come to the bar with me, we all need a little company, huh?” and you’ll give her ten minutes to clean up, you’ll wipe the corners of your eyes and you’ll get yourself together, then you’ll meet her behind the partition. Here the tables are a little larger, enough to get two people around and no telephones. There’s only one rule, but its a strict one: First names only. 

Here you’ll catch your first glimpse of Steve. His icy-cold stare, a thousand yards and then some. His lips are curled at the edges and his hair dyed jet, jet, black, blacker than Elvis’, framing an old and deeply lined face. Steve hears everything, even if you murmur. He appears hateful but you will come to realise it is at best indifference, the only thing he has to shield himself against all the pity and hopelessness. 

There are rumours about Steve. That his left chest is criss crossed with a thousand scars, deep cuts above where his heart is or was. Others say there’s just one huge scar, where he stabbed himself through with a blade so deep it came out of his back, somehow he lived but the blade’s still in there, for if they removed it he’d die. Like Plato, his brother, nobody knows a thing about him. They look Italian but certainly are not, the language they occasionally utter to each other said to be Albanian or Hungarian, or an archaic form of Norwegian everybody else in the world has forgotten. Nobody knows how long they’ve been running The Heartbreak, but stories go as far back as my father in the 40s. 

If you’re at the bar you’ll get your drinks there and the price doubles to ten. As a gentleman or gentlewoman I’m sure you’ll buy the shrunken old lady in front of you the first one. Steve will be surly as he serves you, and don’t you dare make small talk. He’s a man of function, always in a dirty white shirt unbuttoned at the top, but not enough to see if the rumours are true. His eyes are circled black like he never sleeps. He grunts and stamps your drinks down, but mark my words, he’s on your side.

  

You’ll chat, more people will appear at other tables, and maybe you’ll even start to feel better. The night goes on and the music gets faster, but its still so awfully sad as to shake your bones. From there it depends how the night goes. It could all stop there, continuing until you’re so drunk you can’t see and you wonder how you even got home the next day. But if its a good night, if people really gel together in that atmosphere, suddenly a light will come on. A small pineapple shape will appear above a door you never noticed before. Everybody’s eyes will be on it, but for a while none of the 20 will dare make a move. The oldest person - always the oldest, as they are the bravest - will make their way over and open the door. Inside is the blue room. A regal room with lounge chairs and large, lush, blue velvet curtains, and a blue light. The music changes now, becomes more modern. The saddest songs of the 20th century, some the originals, some dreamy, breathless cover versions by bands who have never been heard of in this half of the world, in languages you only know the beginnings of: Latvian, Estonian, Khazakh. They play Don’t You Want Me, Stay, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Broken Heart, old Spanish polkas and Cossack epics.

   

Steve couldn’t possibly be DJing, and Plato is still by the door. Is it The Boy? Nobody knows, but now they can’t help but dance. The saddest songs you ever heard can make you feel something else. You won’t care who you dance with, but you’ll place your feet carefully, not wanting to spoil such a beautiful night, bathed in such mournful blue light. Will you feel better? Undoubtedly, but it won’t last long, especially after you leave. Everyone must leave, and depending how drunk they are, they usually start to file out at 4am. The thick night air will provide little compensation, but you’ll be glad for it as you step into the real dark. Do people leave together? Of course, but not often, and usually just because they can’t stand to be home alone. Plato drives everyone in a once-silver Rolls Royce, rusting around the edges and poc marked with dents from coming up and down that track. 

With so many people to drive, you have to share and you talk to people on the same route. At this point Plato can usually be coaxed into a few words, although nothing personal and he never discusses his own love life or heartbreak, whichever it is. If you took your own car he’ll move it to the bottom of the hill by morning, the other side of the chain stopping anyone driving up there in the day. 

You’ll wake up late and your mouth will be hoarse and taste of old leather. It’s all so surreal you’ll be convinced you have seen things you haven’t, a monkey with a tray of drinks or a pinball machine in the corner. You’ll believe you were playing the jukebox even though there is no such thing. You’ll be convinced you’ve heard things you haven’t, a certain Beethoven arrangement or an incredible version of Loomer which was never played. And the strangest thing - every person you’ve seen there, you’ll never see again. 

Even if you somehow take another person home you’ll be left in an empty bed by the time you awake. There will be a piece of paper with ‘Rose’ or ‘Tom’ on it, and a number with an out-of-area code, which is always - always - disconnected. 

You’ll start to think you were never there at all, but then you’ll be in the Post Office a few days later and you’ll hear a low murmuring, humming a song you’ve only ever heard in The Heartbreak. Or you’ll phone for a restaurant reservation and recognise the voice taking your booking, but they won’t give you their name and will never be there when you arrive. 

That’s the way Cafè Heartbreak is. You have to go with the enigma. Push too far and you’ll find yourself down a track you don’t want. Believe me, and don’t ask why. You take it for what it is, a place to indulge a broken heart, but a place to never ask questions.

One Night in Baker

It’s 115 degrees in a ten-mile Sunday desert traffic jam, the loathing of leaving Las Vegas. The part Hunter S. Thompson never wrote about.

A horde of hungover, newly broke people slewing back south, uncaring, impatient, distorted by the heat haze, crawling in front of us.

214 miles from Los Angeles. The ideal place for The Silver Bullet, my 12-year-old VW, to splutter out pathetically, muscled out by the newer cars which are still panting like mechanical dogs.

We rapidly reach a boil without air conditioning, but nobody gets angry. I think about Nic Cage for some reason. This never happened to him in Vegas. He just stayed drunk. Or married Sarah Jessica Parker, if you watched the wrong movie.

I grimace and choke the car hard until something sparks the last bit of life out of it and I can bully it onto the hard shoulder. A miraculous 15 minutes of the Bullet’s death throes get us clenched-jawed to the only refuge from the sun - Whiskey Pete’s. The first or last place you can gamble in Nevada depending on your direction of travel. Either way you look at it, a desperate place.

We shelter from the heat in a choking haze of cigarette smoke, in the dark, sad, last gasps of Nevada’s gambling problem. Hard to believe Vegas was originally a Mormon trading post.

My girlfriend and I eat small ice creams from McDonalds and make calls. Eventually a large, jolly man of about 24 with beads of sweat running down his face appears and almost wordlessly loads the car onto his truck. My girlfriend falls asleep in the back while I make awkward conversation. There are very few places to notice on the on the 275 mile drive between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, none of them remarkable.

The smallest is Baker, a collection of mobile homes and fast food outlets willed into existence on the very southern edge of Death Valley around 80 years ago by a fairly unremarkable prospector. It was originally a railway stop.

People call Baker a town, but officially it is merely a ‘census designated place’. Nobody from a city stops for more than an hour or recognises anything past the bleached junk food signs.

The ‘Worlds Largest’ thermometer, Baker’s sole tourist ‘draw’, reads 99 degrees, even though it’s now completely dark.

Behind us the hum and lights of the sluggish funeral-like motorcade toward Los Angeles continues, the only sound - no crickets, no cicadas. Who would live here, but those running away, or with something serious to hide?

On the edge of this place there’s a hastily erected pound, a chain link fence keeping in the rusting remains of cars the desert is trying to claim. Some of these metal hulks spill onto the front by the side of the road, some sort of invite.

It’s the only garage open and, by that virtue, the only place busy. Three gnarled mechanics ignore our presence as I push the car into the pound.

There are a pair of stranded teenage sisters on their way back to San Diego and a wild eyed computer game developer waiting for their cars to be fixed.

I watch the mechanics - one a burly, black-haired greaser with a mean pair of eyebrows and blue overalls at least ten years old. He looks incapable of anything above a grunt, but is enthusiastically trying to get the girls back on the road. It’s costing them though, I note.

A sulky boy in his early 20s with dirty brown hair in no particular style and freckles lurks at the back, pretending to busy himself with some equipment.

The third guy wears a short-sleeved shirt which appears fairly clean. He must be the gaffer, and he seems friendly. Mechanics are never friendly. He looks like your friend’s dad would if he’d been left in the desert for twenty years. Truly, men without women.  

His name is Marc. There’s small talk as he sizes me up, then he gets me to start the car, which it now does, as if nothing had ever happened, a cruel trick it has played before.

He checks the alternator then lazily decides the problem must be the fuel pump. Seeming satisfied with this, but by no means checking the part, he declares the work can be done first thing tomorrow. $100 advance Of course. You’re in the desert now, boy. The hotter the place, the slower the pace.

There’s one motel in Baker. Run by people who don’t speak English, but they’re cheery enough. The room’s clean and has a big fan, but offers little shelter from the sweltering desert. The cold tap spews hot water.

Outside is a huge flatbed truck with Idaho plates, repainted in a badly applied matte black. It looks like a huge wreck, as big as a whale. As we step outside to go eat I notice a pair of beady eyes. A tweaker - what else – in the driver’s seat. Around 5’ 2”, bulging muscles and a huge, burly, badly tattooed chest. He’s breathing heavily and fidgeting wildly. He’s not really watching us, or anything that exists but he’s watching. He’s shaking a little and twitching, but mostly harmless. Tweakers breaking in and steal stuff from hotel rooms. The lock on the door is little more than a catch. Of course there are only three rooms occupied in the whole motel so they put us right next door to the tweaker. I take my important things with me.  

I look longingly at the slowly moving streak of colour blurring down the interstate. Maybe the car would make it now? But its late, and we’ve paid for the room.

We eat, get water, no beer, and I phone my boss and make my excuses for the morning. I get ice from a freezer in reception. The lady behind the counter is brushing her teeth when I walk in. She smiles nicely. The tweaker is around, just out of sight. I can sense him twitching. He follows me back to our rooms, but doesn’t go into his, preferring his car.

We watch TV. I hold my girlfriend tight, precious to me today. We fall asleep.  

I dream of bandits breaking the door down and casually pointing guns at us. Of the tweaker and a group of other zombies smashing in the place and setting fire to the room for no reason. Of the sandstorms drawing in and my mouth drying out, the whole of me swallowed by the desert.

At 4am our neighbor is shouting. His silhouette was frantically pacing and smoking outside of our room and making threats into a mobile phone. He was badly attempting to blackmail the parents of the mother of his children. Hopefully the children are with their mother in… Idaho? He swung between aggression, pity and pleading, a sorry sight from the bottom of the desert.

We left the motel about 10, of course the garage wasn’t open, so we found ourselves wrapped in a 114 degree blanket with nothing to do. We sat in Denny’s. In the morning Baker didn’t want us anymore. Its nowhereness had set in, stark and hot and I could feel the resent of its legitimate residents.

The coffee wasn’t being refilled anymore. I tipped a decent amount, but we were still pushed out.

At the garage an unknown lady was now sitting on a stool in the middle of the shop floor. She was next to the fan with a goofy grin of cracked, bad teeth. She had large fake breasts, spilling out over her particularly tight, short top.

“Say, come here - she’s got a story for you,” said Marc.

The lady proudly offered her hand, which appeared to have a computer memory stick in it.

“They got the cameras all over the house. They got me filmed and they’re coming for me, so that’s why I had to get out. My husband isn’t who he said he was when I married him. He’s part of it, they’re going to get me,” she garbled with a childlike, dumbfounded grin on her face.

Another deserted druggie. I told Marc about our friend at the motel.

 “Yuh,” he said, adding, “he was here yesterday. Wanted to trade that rusty thing in and take a car. Says he’s got to get to Vegas, his mother is going to wire him money.”

The lady was a different matter. She had been deliriously wandering around in the heat near the garage when Marc appeared, so he had taken her in, given her a bottle of water and placed her under the fan. A slither of tenderness or paternity, I noted. Marc must be a family man after all.

Of course, these distractions don’t get my car fixed, and the part hadn’t come in yet. Of course. It never would.

Two more hours passed with us watching flies in Dairy Queen, observing the inhabitants of Baker. There’s as much to do on Monday in Baker as at any other time: Eat bad food, stare at the road or nothing.

Marc came back with the bad news. They’d bought the wrong part. It was going to take longer and he started to talk in hundreds of dollars. I had other ideas.

He would give us a lift to the nearest place to hire a car: Barstow, a real town. I’d come back for mine when it was fixed.

As Marc moves some cars around, the younger mechanic rolls in, sour faced, from having been sent to fetch something. The surly, brooding, bad-attitude mechanic is in the shadows at the back of the garage. I catch the end of Marc telling the young one “…don’t let Danny get to you. C’mon, chin up.”

We load in and reverse. As we leave the rusting garage and exit Baker, it all comes out. Now, Marc’s not going to take us out into the desert, take our credit cards and dig a hole, no sir. He’s going to educate us.

He starts, waving in the direction of the boy we’ve just left: “See, he’s a good kid. My son. Mixed up in drugs. He got into heroin and then that’s all he can do. He’s been in rehab, up in Oregon, but didn’t finish. Now he’s here and there’s nothing here. Nothing. Just rocks and sun. I hope he doesn’t go back to it, but he will. Nothing out here to do.”

Then came the whole sad story. Marc had been planning to become the King of Barstow, or the mayor at least. Big plans. Started running weed over the Canadian border in the 70s and did time for it. Five years. Undeterred, he grew a horde of pot plants back in SoCal, and business had thrived. He then owned a gold mine and was prospecting.

But mining for precious stones didn’t work out and the only other thing around was cars. The garage had originally been in Barstow, but all the trade was from Vegas anyway, so to head the other mechanics off at the pass and bought the only garage in Baker. He hated Baker and it was too hot to work in, too hot to think in, and too hot to live near, but that was how things were. 

Danny was his brother. Danny had issues though. He wasn’t a nice person, and wasn’t one for messing around. He never suffered fools, or customers.

There were astronomical figures given about money gained and lost, and how Marc knew heroin because he’d bought a few grand worth and done it all himself. He’s not got addicted because he’d refused, things like that were “all in the mind.”

He liked folk-rock on the radio, but liked to talk a lot more. The plan was to buy out Barstow as a businessman. Instead he’s overcharging people in Baker.

Then there was the paranoia. Marc didn’t like cities, he didn’t like masses of people, he was sure the government is up to something. The army is out on manoeuvres in the desert, he said. They’re training up hundreds and hundreds of troops for something. They’re embedding troops into everyday life, into normal communities, to spy on us - the man who shines your shoes, who serves your food, who drives the bus. This continued. I liked Marc. He didn’t listen when I talked or gave opinions, but he was kindly enough. He wanted to be friendly, but why I couldn’t tell. The further we got from Baker the more normal he became.

We got back to LA and continued with our working week. I personally bought the part for my car and sent it to the garage. Promises were made and not kept, money went down the drain, the sands shifted around Baker, but the Silver Bullet never moved an inch.

Friday we got up early and drove back up there, in my girlfriend’s car. Marc was the only one there. It was fixed. He refused any tip. Said he didn’t need the money. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that one bit.

I saw the matte black whale the tweaker had been driving in the rusty lot. Marc said the short, stumpy man had been back. He’d got money. Marc had shown him a car, and before he could even get the title for it, the tweakshow had bolted. He’d been in touch with the guy’s mother, who had sent the money down. Where he got her number from I was unsure. 

She said her son had driven to Vegas and crashed the car. He’d left it wherever it crashed, in the middle of the street. He’d been found by some bad people who he owed money to, probably for drugs. He’d been badly beaten and was taken to hospital. Once he decided he was feeling well enough, he’d also fled the hospital. That was the last anyone had heard of him, family, Marc or otherwise. Nobody mentioned his kids.

The tweaker woman had been escorted back to wherever she had come from by a local part time sheriff. Marc’s son was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t want to say where he was. Danny, in his malevolent blackness, wasn’t there.

And that left us. I was happy to be back in the Silver Bullet, and it roared into life. We headed East toward Joshua Tree and around 100 miles later my car spluttered out again, exactly the same, in a tiny two street place in Johnson Valley.

(Written October 2015)

Cans on the train

Necking rosé out of mum’s fridge but not too much like she’d notice, waiting for Riz. He’s always fucking late. Anticipation, heart beating, adrenalin, wiping hands again, fidgeting. Eventually he’s here. 

“Alright you ginger fucking monkey, you ready then? The big fucking taaaaaaaarn!” He smiles, sneers, through browned teeth. Why does he never clean them? 

He’s wearing a hat and a new shirt he’s obviously been saving, sort of untucked, his jeans tighter than mine, big belt buckle, unclean shoes he’s probably been wearing all day. Now he’s here I feel better, because he’s done it before, all the way to London. Shoreditch. Dalston. Whatever. 

So plan is go over there, drink somewhere/thing cheap, get into a club and see what we can score for pills, stay there until its light, then only about an hour to kill for the first train back. Or better, of course, get a girl. A student or something - hopefully one who has a friend – and stay there, back tomorrow, whenever. Could stay all weekend, nothing here in Southend. Riz said it was easy last time. Nobody we know was with him of course, so he could be saying anything and probably is. 

“Come on and we can make the eight forty,’ he excitedly bleats as I fumble with my laces. We have to run for the bus but make it with plenty of time for us to go in the Co-Op and get four tins each and a RedBull, none of that cheap energy drink shit tonight. Riz picks up one of those small cans of vodka and lemonade as well and starts nudging me. 

“Yeah, yeah -I get it,” I tell him, I can tell he’s overexcited cos he’s jabbing me so hard. The cow in there looks at us as dirtily as ever and insists on seeing ID even thought she knows we’re both 20 and serves us pretty much every time we go in. Still Riz gives her a cheeky wink and a grin.

Carriage is near empty apart from an old fucker and some loud teenage girls at one end. We crack a can each and start to down em, and soon as we’re past Westcliff Riz is straight down the other end trying to talk the schoolgirls into having the vodka lemonade. They shout and whine poking fun at him, but they’re having fun really. I sit where I am. 

The fucking slow train. It fills up, lots of people piling on to go big in town tonight and the whole carriage is banging. Some of them are townies, wides, with their immaculate designer clothes, all stinking of perfume, boys too. Some of the girls are tasty though, you can see all sorts bulging up front of em. 

“Oi, quit staring, you wanker,” says Riz, elbowing again and motioning to three girls who have sat a couple of seats down. He goes to get up, but I don’t follow – he’ll give me the nod if it’s happening, I’ll look after the seats.

Fuck knows what he says but within two minutes he’s handed the now lukewarm vodka to one of them! I get over there sharpish, as we’re about at Barking so time’s running out. 

I talk to Sarah, who works in a petrol station and has big eyes with severe liner around them and a ring in her nose but after about five minutes she tells me she has a two-year-old back home. I start trying to make eyes at the spare one, who has really curly hair and looks a bit shit from here, but Sarah won’t shut up. Ah well, it was just a warm up. Fuck knows what Riz is saying but the girl he’s talking to is laughing plenty. 

We get off at Fenchurch Street, and I realise I’m a bit pissed after all the cans. Riz brushes off that bird, turns out she also has a boyfriend, so she was cock teasing as well. He’s a bit lairy now, more boisterous than before and keeps making eye contact with people on the streets and as we go into the tube station and shouting “nob” really loud at them. 

We get on the underground, which is cramped and all of a sudden stiflingly hot, but just for one stop up on the red line.

“This, is Bethnal Green,” announces Riz like he’s been here thousands of times before. Looks like a shithole, and the first pub we go in - The Salmon and something - is. The next was alright, and we started talking to this pair of birds, but then two lads walked in who they knew and they just seemed more bothered about them.. I’m not doing a lot of talking now, cos I’m quite pissed, but I’m putting effort in. It’s all going a bit skewiff, and I can see Riz isn’t walking straight when we get back on the street. It’s started spitting with rain, and I notice all the gum on the pavement all of a sudden. The slabs seem dirtier than in Southend somehow, and there’s fucking people everywhere. I want to go to Brick Lane, but Riz is adamant it’s a load of shite and he knows a decent pub but it’s up some ridiculous shortcut through some dodgy housing estate. 

To be fair to him, the place is pretty good, one of those old East End jobs that’s still got quite a lot of the fittings but has been hipsterised. All the people in there look scruffy, but purposefully so, and half the cunts got moustaches. But they’re alright, and the girls look cheap in a good way. 

We’re sick of pints, so we have a tequila each and buy a bottle of rosé, and that starts going down too easy. 

There’s a band on which we go to check out, but they want five quid each for it, so fuck em. 

Back upstairs, I realise we’re having a fucking great time - this is brilliant. London, we’re on it! Riz tries to chirpse some birds, there’s one with a pink top, bright red lipstick and tattoos on both her arms, but she’s well out his league, I find it laughable, but I admire his front. He’s such a nob, so obvious the way he goes in on girls, but I guess it works for him. Well, he says it does. 

We stick around and have another bottle of Rosé and its starts thinning out a bit after 11 as people start to go to the clubs. We’ve got these two chairs next to each other and are just wondering where to go next when Riz spots this girl who’s sat down opposite. Kinda small, blonde, watery eyes, cheap fake leopard skin fur coat. Do-able, definitely. 

He’s over there instantly laying it on, the dirty rotter, what a fucker! Then I notice this lad coming back with a pint and a girl’s drink, uh oh! Riz is fucking killer though, and diffuses the whole thing, no hassles. Starts talking to the fella like he’s a mate. He cocks a look at me, and I can tell he’s planning something. The guy’s older in some denim shirt, but doesn’t look like too much of anything. Skinny, no aggro. 

I go over for support and we’re all talking. Riz goes off and gets everybody a shot. I realise I’m actually really pissed at this point, and shooting tequila doesn’t help. He’s talking to the girl about music, squabbling about some indie bands, and the guy starts asking me stuff, which is a bit of a fucking pain, as I’m finding it hard to remember and talk properly. I start to tell him about the bakery and what an arse it is starting so early and I think its making sense and then… well, then it goes fucking south. 

Out the corner of my eye I see something, but don’t quite register what, then I clearly hear Riz shouting “you dirty,” something. It doesn’t all quite come out though, before the fucking guy next to me has somehow bolted out of his chair and socked him one right in the fucking face. WHACK. 

My guts have me up on my feet as he’s landing another couple – fuck knows what Riz must have done to that girl, but he’s not looking so clever – and I gotta get in. I jump up to grab the lad but as my hand goes for his shoulder, he turns around n thrashes for me. He doesn’t get very far though, as the bouncer gets him. He just grabs my shirt, which only goes and fucking rips right down. No time to think about that either, as there’s a yank and all of a sudden some huge fucking bruiser has grabbed ME and is roughhousing us out of there, as I struggle and scream. 

Unceremoniously, I find myself on the wet fucking pavement outside of that shitheap fucking pub. I can’t really see for a second, but my vision starts fading in. Sickly, sick as a dog, so I crawl a few steps and start to puke everywhere. Fucking hell, fucking rosé. 

Uhhh, then I turn over and sit. Obviously, I don’t realise I’m half sat in my own puke at the time, but I’m sitting, head spinning and nobody around. Must be at the back. I stumble around to the streetlights, down a little alley, which is completely empty, and I can see Riz on the street. He’s sitting on the curb, head in his hands. 

“Fucking what happened?” I ask. 

“I don’t fucking know,” he replies

“You hurt?” I say

“Yeah, well my eye’s bled all over me new fucking shirt, and I can’t really see for shit,” he says, pissed off.

I look and wish I hadn’t. Was that guy wearing a ring? There’s a nasty cut and his eye is rapidly swelling, fucking purple and the normally golden skin around it now blue. 

“Fuck. You look like shite too,” he says. 

I’m aching at bit, say I’m alright. I didn’t really get hit, just thrown by the bouncer. He stands up and we try and straighten ourselves out. He’s covered in red wine and bits of blood, all of which stand out on what was a pale blue shirt. My own shirt has most of the buttons ripped off the front and my trousers are covered in sick. “Ugh, you stink,” Riz offers, helpfully. 

We do look like shit, which is shortly confirmed by our reflection in a shop window.

“What did you say to her anyway?” I ask.

“Oh, I dunno. She was saying something about women and rights and then about fucking books or some shit. Giving me aggro and I just called her a stupid bint or something, then she just fucking went and chucked her fucking drink all over. I didn’t even see the guy come at me. He was a prick, as well.”

I sighed. This isn’t good. It’s only 11.40. Club time. Looking at us, we’re going to need some sort of miracle to get in anywhere. And it’s starting to rain properly now. 

I’ll spare you our miserable trudge around for the next 40 minutes, refused entry to everywhere, Riz’s eye swelling up more purple by the minute. At least with the rain the smell of sick faded a bit. One bouncer asked Riz about his shiner, another almost laughed us out of the doorway. 

The only place with where we could sit inside was McDonalds. I had two double cheeseburgers, but getting socked seemed to have dampened Riz’s appetite. He wasn’t saying much, his usually ever-present enthusiasm faded. 

“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” came a voice, a girl in the process of sitting her lardy arse down opposite. 

Alright, well she was a little big, but to be fair, not butters. Her face had something about it. Cute, I guess. 

“Ha ha ha. You a comedian then?” Replied Riz, sounding slightly too bitter about it.

“Cheer up, Bruce Lee,” she said. 

She was called Sonia. Was out with her gay mates, they were still in line. She’d come to sit down cos her shoes were hurting her. They were en route to somewhere on Hackney Road I’d never heard of it. She invited us with a little giggle. We were nonplussed, so she explained it was a gay bar. 

I was still eating but Riz started to spin a yarn about his eye, claiming he had stepped in when some bloke was shouting at his missus and looked like he was going to hit her, then his mate had jumped in and we’d had to fight them both off. Sonia looked impressed. He then started giving her all sorts of shit about him working in a bank, making out he was rich, that also seemed to strike with her and she started asking all sorts of questions, flirting noticeably. Her mates had got served but they sat in another part of the restaurant, one of them giggling and looking our way. She winked at me and said she could probably try and fit me up with one of them. I told her to fuck off, I wasn’t in the mood now, just tired and wanting to get home – although, fat chance, another couple of hours for the first train.

Sonia convinced us to walk over to this gay bar with her mates, saying they may be able to sweet talk us our way in, one of them knows a bouncer, all that. I notice Riz and her are already holding hands by this point. He’s such a smooth operator, what a bastard. 

We get there though and there’s a big queue, loads of people, all blokes, and fuck me they’re weird. I’m fidgeting, nervous. What happens if they pinch my arse? Or try and kiss me or something? Fucking weird place to be. I can tell Riz is the same, right out his comfort zone. Then he only goes and plays his fucking joker.

“Tell you what, this aint my scene - but you, babe, are great. How about say you and me jump in a taxi out of here?” To my disbelief she says yeah, why not, as long as we shout the cab. See, easy - like he said! 

“Your house, OK?” he asks, adding: “Course, we’ll have to take gooseberry here with us, can’t leave him here to suck cocks all night,” while giving me another of those jabs in the ribs. 

So we hail a black cab and jump in, me fingering the tenner I have left and wondering if I’m gonna have to give the whole thing up for this ride. I hope this girl lives close. 

“Where to then?” the cabbie asks, already sounding gruff and pulling off up the street, even though he hasn’t got a destination yet. 

“Well, I was going to stay at Ash’s tonight, but we can all go back to mine if you want. It’s a way though,” says Sonia.    

“Yeah. Well. Er. Well, how far exactly?” asks Riz. 

“Southend,” she says. 

“Fuckssake… Pull over mate,” he barks.