it quick. I could. ‘A couple’ might be optimistic but five drinks was a good number to have in mind. Yes, five drinks was jolly but not silly. Five drinks was just
normal
. I could use the last of my money to hop on a bus the few stops into town, Tyler could pay for a cab home, saving more time, getting into bed Even Earlier – because I hadn’t been out all week. That was right, I hadn’t been out all week. I deserved a break. Also it made sense to get some input, some fresh inspiration, no one ever wrote anything good in a vacuum …
My phone beeped in my hand. A text.
THIS WINE IS SO COLD AND IMPOSSIBLY REFRESHING THE GLASS IS STICKING TO MY HAND AND I’VE GOT YOU A PRESENT
Here, kitty.
THE RETURN OF JIM
Thirst woke me. Thirst and Fear.
Oh fuck. Oh holy
fuck
. What time was it? My head pounded with its own globe-splitting seismic beat. I scrabbled for consolations. I was in bed. I had made it there. But I was meant to be going over to Jim’s and cooking a meal and giving him a hero’s welcome and on top of all that I was going to have to make myself stop smelling like a six-week-old bar towel that had been twice through the digestive system of a yak. My armpits were cadaverous. I liked smelling of myself but
this
– I took another sniff and boaked: sour booze and raving and not nearly, as always, enough water – this was pushing even my own tolerance. My hand found my phone, finger pressed it awake, eyes and brain interpreted numbers. 10 a.m. Jim was home at lunchtime, which meant twelve at the earliest, to be safe. Two hours. Doable. Just about. I could have a bath at his place once I’d put the food on. Yes yes, this was shaping up fine. Now all I had to do was work out how to move my limbs.
I’d arrived at the pub to find Tyler resplendent on a picnic bench with a bottle of wine in an ice bucket on the table in front of her.
‘GREETINGS!’ she shouted across the beer garden.
Oh god, I thought. She’s doing Christian Slater in
Heathers
. We’re there already, are we? I did a little wave and weaved between the benches. She poured me a glass of wine. I took a swig, felt the wine do its thing – the smacky whack hitting my stomach and brain simultaneously. Bliss. The promise of more bliss to come. Tyler was on the more already. Her wormhole pupils and tangible gravitas gave it away. Coke. Nothing else provided quite the same inflation; quite the same
Fuck all y’all
. I took another swig of wine and she grabbed my hand, pulled it under the table and shoved the wrap into my palm. My fingers obediently curled around it. No point asking how she afforded it. No point asking where she got it. Probably from ‘The Queech’ – a man with Dennis the Menace hair who’d locked us in his flat the previous month to wait for him (or rather the deal, drug-lust nullifying social niceties) while he went to buy milk to make us a cup of tea.
That
was an hour of my innocence I was never going to get back.
The Queech had two dice tattooed on his wrist and waved a fist-sized iron padlock at us as he left.
I’ll just be putting this on the outside of the door, won’t be two mins.
(He was thirty-two mins.) I’d looked at Tyler as the lock clunked into place and his footsteps receded down the hall.
I don’t even want a fucking cup of tea!
I don’t want a cup of tea either!
What are we going to do Tyler what are we going to do?
I don’t fucking know. How high are we?
I’m not high at all – what have you had? Is that why you went to the bathroom?
No, dick-head, I meant LITERALLY off the ground. Is it jump-able?
We got out of the lift at the NINTH floor, remember?
Fuck. I need more wine. I’m getting my sense of reason back. Any minute now I’m going to sober up and wonder WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING LOCKED INSIDE A DRUG DEALER’S FLAT.
Oh god oh god shall we check the fridge?
Well if he hasn’t got any fucking milk he’s unlikely to have any fucking wine, is he?
I guess not.
Hey.
What?
I’m
normal
. I could use the last of my money to hop on a bus the few stops into town, Tyler could pay for a cab home, saving more time, getting into bed Even Earlier – because I hadn’t been out all week. That was right, I hadn’t been out all week. I deserved a break. Also it made sense to get some input, some fresh inspiration, no one ever wrote anything good in a vacuum …
My phone beeped in my hand. A text.
THIS WINE IS SO COLD AND IMPOSSIBLY REFRESHING THE GLASS IS STICKING TO MY HAND AND I’VE GOT YOU A PRESENT
Here, kitty.
THE RETURN OF JIM
Thirst woke me. Thirst and Fear.
Oh fuck. Oh holy
fuck
. What time was it? My head pounded with its own globe-splitting seismic beat. I scrabbled for consolations. I was in bed. I had made it there. But I was meant to be going over to Jim’s and cooking a meal and giving him a hero’s welcome and on top of all that I was going to have to make myself stop smelling like a six-week-old bar towel that had been twice through the digestive system of a yak. My armpits were cadaverous. I liked smelling of myself but
this
– I took another sniff and boaked: sour booze and raving and not nearly, as always, enough water – this was pushing even my own tolerance. My hand found my phone, finger pressed it awake, eyes and brain interpreted numbers. 10 a.m. Jim was home at lunchtime, which meant twelve at the earliest, to be safe. Two hours. Doable. Just about. I could have a bath at his place once I’d put the food on. Yes yes, this was shaping up fine. Now all I had to do was work out how to move my limbs.
I’d arrived at the pub to find Tyler resplendent on a picnic bench with a bottle of wine in an ice bucket on the table in front of her.
‘GREETINGS!’ she shouted across the beer garden.
Oh god, I thought. She’s doing Christian Slater in
Heathers
. We’re there already, are we? I did a little wave and weaved between the benches. She poured me a glass of wine. I took a swig, felt the wine do its thing – the smacky whack hitting my stomach and brain simultaneously. Bliss. The promise of more bliss to come. Tyler was on the more already. Her wormhole pupils and tangible gravitas gave it away. Coke. Nothing else provided quite the same inflation; quite the same
Fuck all y’all
. I took another swig of wine and she grabbed my hand, pulled it under the table and shoved the wrap into my palm. My fingers obediently curled around it. No point asking how she afforded it. No point asking where she got it. Probably from ‘The Queech’ – a man with Dennis the Menace hair who’d locked us in his flat the previous month to wait for him (or rather the deal, drug-lust nullifying social niceties) while he went to buy milk to make us a cup of tea.
That
was an hour of my innocence I was never going to get back.
The Queech had two dice tattooed on his wrist and waved a fist-sized iron padlock at us as he left.
I’ll just be putting this on the outside of the door, won’t be two mins.
(He was thirty-two mins.) I’d looked at Tyler as the lock clunked into place and his footsteps receded down the hall.
I don’t even want a fucking cup of tea!
I don’t want a cup of tea either!
What are we going to do Tyler what are we going to do?
I don’t fucking know. How high are we?
I’m not high at all – what have you had? Is that why you went to the bathroom?
No, dick-head, I meant LITERALLY off the ground. Is it jump-able?
We got out of the lift at the NINTH floor, remember?
Fuck. I need more wine. I’m getting my sense of reason back. Any minute now I’m going to sober up and wonder WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING LOCKED INSIDE A DRUG DEALER’S FLAT.
Oh god oh god shall we check the fridge?
Well if he hasn’t got any fucking milk he’s unlikely to have any fucking wine, is he?
I guess not.
Hey.
What?
I’m
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