Friday Night, Going Home

Everything has a wet sheen to it from the day’s rain. It reflects the night lights of London and meshes them into a blurry mess that makes everything look like a Manet. Even more so now because I am incomprehensibly fucked on cheap lager.

In the game of life it was one-nil to me – a cracking goal to open the night’s proceedings. Although I knew the world would get the equalizer and then the winner in the coming hours. I was happy to bask smugly in my short-lived winnings for now, though. Yeah, I am a king. I smile broadly, on the verge laughter.

Cheap lager silences all the senses one usually hosts in day-time sobriety and thus here I am, waiting in the shadow of Horatio for the number 3 back to Crystal Palace. If you ever wanted to know what eternity feels like, come to Trafalgar Square anytime after 8pm and wait, like a plum, for this infernal double-decked red devil. It is shit personified.

This part of the whole fucking farce is far more tedious than the hangover will be, that’s for sure. Bitter experience has taught me this. I curse the number 3 out loud “Lucky, my arse!” I remind myself that this is why my rent is so cheap. The boil reduced to a simmer.

I squish my hand into my jeans’ pocket and withdraw my phone so I can check the time. It falls on the floor.

“Fuck.”

I say it out loud. Life is now an unfair burden and it has pulled back that inevitable equalizer. The European tourists who’ve been staring at me since I arrived shuffle themselves a few feet further away, pulling their tired and confused kids behind them. Jesus, I’m just a drunk bloke who wants his bed, no need to martyr yourself as a human shield.

Arseholes.

My anger builds again, like the froth in a boiling pan of pasta. It’s about to spill all over the Italians when the bus arrives. Its headlights shine over me as it turns the corner towards us, cleansing me of my anger. My smile returns.

My warm, cosy, soft bed with its clean sheets, plush duvet and the all-goose-feather pillow envelopes all previous thoughts. I imagine Heaven feels a lot like this.

I let the tourists on before me. I feel like a knight once more. Drunken and glorious. I take the lead again, from a beautiful, indefensible set-piece. A cracking goal, if I say so myself.

In celebration I pay the fare. Climbing the stairs up into the light my body slumps down on an empty seat, settling against a window drenched in condensation. Within minutes, the efforts of my patient endurance check out and my head begins to bob up and down with a heavy fatigue, whilst my eye lids match its slow beat.

In an effort to keep myself awake long enough to prevent me from missing my stop I blast John Mayall’s “Bare Wires” into my eardrums like a water-canon at a protest.

It’s only moderately effective. I even mumble along to the words, out loud. Thankfully the other passengers don’t pay me much notice. Gawd bless Britain’s love of silent judgment. Who knows, maybe they’re just as ruined as I am. I hope so.

This feels fucking great.

The bright, medical lights of the upper deck illuminate the insides of my eye-lids, giving everything a hot-red glow. I slowly twist and turn my head to get away from it. This is obviously impossible. I should know that this technique doesn’t work and that this is all just the fore-play before I fall asleep but I continue the game nonetheless.

Resistance is futile. I imagine the half time whistle blowing as I tumble over the edge and into a deep sleep.

I snatch my eyes open on the up-swing of my bobbing and quickly look out the window.

We are now pulling into Crystal Palace Bus Depot, John Mayall has finished, the driver receives my slurred thanks, and the temperature suddenly changes from the balmy Saharan heat of the bus to the very real embrace of this frigid South-East Winter. The slap of reality reinvigorates me and on the spur of the moment I decide to sprint home, so my bed and I can be together sooner.

The street lights and other drunks blur past me, The Human Concorde.

In no time whatsoever I am in bed and it seems that I scored the winner after all, thankful that at least for tonight, three is my lucky number.