King of the Day
Pink light of an autumn afternoon, we play tennis and between the courts, upright but staggering, here he comes, the leatherjacketed drunk with a six-pack in a plastic bag. Here he comes, the drunk who likes to wander among us, up and down the courts, asking for a light.
He likes to be one of the players, he likes to feel he’s included and to be greeted in recognition. Don’t look at him, I tell my tennis partner. Don’t make eye contact. The Indians next to us have to suffer him; he asks them whether they have a light; he admires their tennis and shouts his approval. Then children on bikes call out to the drunk. He ignores them, and they set themselves up at the other end of the courts and shout at him.
The children shout at the drunk, the drunk at the Indians; we’ve been put off our tennis; it’s begun to rain and the court is slippery. Time to leave. The drunk leaves with us, and I see he is young, though his face is ruddy and hard. He does not speak to us, but to himself, beatifically; he is content; to himself, he has been watching the lads play tennis, he was one of the lads, one of us. One of us, and with a crowd of children around him. He was the king of the day and we, the tennis players and the children, were his subjects.
My Friend the Drunk
Later that evening, what usually happens when I plug my phone in and keep off my dialup connection happens again: he phones, my old friend, the drunk. He must phone me several times a night, for I am rarely there, and when I am, rarely accessible. Now, because it has been two or three weeks since we spoke, he is polite. ‘Have you got a minute?’
We shared a house for many years. It was a dry house; there wasn’t a drop of alcohol there. Before he moved in, I used to pass him in the streets, the drunk. I’d pass him as he went round the off-licenses in the morning. He liked red wine; I think he still does. He always drank good red wine. I used to meet him in the streets, he smiling, but vacant. He would talk to me about Massive Attack remixes. About the Mad Professor. We spoke; it was a ritual; I went out each morning for my coffee, and he went out to buy good red wine.
When I moved into the house in Chorlton, I took his room, which was still full of his things. The plays he’d tried to write. The journal he kept. He had been drinking again, and had been evicted. Drunk, he had bothered the tenants in the flat above the house, had wandered up there one night and scared them. He went; I took his room next to that of another alcoholic, another drunk who was trying to give up the drink and would lapse himself, a few months later. He, in turn, had taken a room of the drug addict who had set himself on fire. The addict’s pretty face was burnt to charcoal; the tip of his nose was missing – it is the hardest thing to restore in burns victims, said the plastic surgeon. He was gone; someone else moved in just as I moved in.
The drunk, who would become my friend, used to visit my landlord. Without compunction, and knowing where the money would go, my landlord would give him a a couple of twenty pound notes. Then he would go, the drunk, through the back door through which he came. Sometimes the drunk would find himself in another city, lost and without knowing where he was. He’d phone and my landlord would arrange a hotel room for him. Of course he would move in again, the drunk, we all knew it; a year later he brought all his stuff around, determined to give up drinking.
At that time, the house was nearly empty. Another drinker who had relapsed had been expelled. It took us two weeks to evict him, he was well built, violent, a man used to fist fights and intimidation. He scared us. Every morning he would rise and drink a few cans in the garden and then stagger off to the pubs. Sometimes I would go out to find him in the evening and he’d be bothering other drinkers in the pub, swaying, beatifically but absently, entirely given over to the happy streaming of drunkenness. Then he left one morning, still drunk. His room was empty; I took it, and later my friend the drunk took my room.
He arrived with a mess of possessions. He had joined the Hare Krishnas recently and been expelled. He had joined the Buddhists and been expelled. He was a seeker, he said, an environmentalist. A documentary had been made about him on Dutch television: there he was, bearded, a young Adonis speaking about the turtles he was trying to save on Greek beaches. But now he was with us to dry out.
Two twenty pound notes came my way. Take him out, said my landlord, so we went to the Chinese restaurant and he ate meat for the first time in years. That night he said he had decided to become a yuppy, to shave his beard and wear a suit. So he bought a suit and shaved; he was handsome; he never looked like a drunk; his olive skin was clear and unlined; older than me, he looked younger, bright and strong and handsome.
Months passed. He moved to the flat on top of the house. Now he was away from us, away from the household who would always eat together every evening, he began to drink. Soon, he never came down during the daytime. Only at night would he venture downstairs. At night, at three AM, to sit out in the outhouse to have a smoke. I barely saw him, but we would speak on the phone. Each of us had his own phone; the rule of the house was that no one should knock on the door of anyone else. There were phones, and if someone was trying to call you for dinner, you were phoned, not called down. For there was no shouting, no calling, but there were telephones.
We spoke; he slurred, just as he did last night. By the time he was evicted again, he slurred so badly I couldn’t hear what he said. He couldn’t form a word. He used to leave slurring messages on all our phones. I visited him. His new flat stank of piss. He had lost control; he slept in the sofa in his lounge and wet himself. The flat stank – he could barely talk, he mumbled to himself, day and night were the same for him; when he phoned he just moaned, not a word could form itself.
For a long time, that’s how I knew him: answering machines full of moans from my friend the drunk. Months passed, then a whole year, and we heard very little. He moved again; he was arrested several times and, since he’d given our house as his address, the police visited us. We said there was nothing we could do, and so my friend the drunk spent nights in the cells. Months passed; we had other tenants, other adventures. Everything happened; nothing happened.
Why did we let him move in again? We knew he’d drink again; my landlord knew it would happen, I knew it would happen, but he was our friend the drunk. Sober, he was funny and intelligent and gentle. He was a Chorlton celebrity; for a while, he dressed like a dandy; he wore red crushed velvet trousers and spent his money on beautiful suits. He was handsome; everyone admired him; he was gentle and funny, but when he drank, the temper would come upon him. The temper would come and he would take the car and drive long miles on the motorway, looking for vengeance on those he blamed for his drinking. Where he could he finish but in prison?
He asked me to send him FHMs while he was inside. They were a prison currency, he said. All day he would lie in his cell, smoking dope. He was tough, he could look after himself, and when he got into crack cocaine, he found he won respect for his drinker’s courage, passing easily among the drug dealers of Moss Side. After a long and violent night he found himself at dawn in Platt Park with one of the biggest dealers, a man feared and admired. My friend the drunk had saved him that night, smashing a rival dealer armed with a machette with his bicycle U-lock. How do I get out of this life?, the dealer asked him that morning, but my friend the drunk wanted to get into it.
Now they would hang out, watching films together and taking puffs on the crackpipe. They visited the crack houses of Levenshulme, smoking with others. He was liked; he was generous; he would buy crack for everyone and they would watch University Challenge and he’d get all the answers right. One prostitute took a shine to him, sitting on his knee and telling him about the paintings she liked. One day she brought him one round to show him. It was by Stubbs, of all people. Was it an original?, she asked.
Stubbs
I’ve long since moved away, but my friend the drunk still rings me. Write down my exploits, he said, I want it all written down. He intended to write himself, he said. Have I read Trainspotting?, he asked. We spoke about Burroughs; he loved Kerouac and for him Leonard Cohen was the greatest of all drunks. Then he turned to the music he had loved as a child when he lived with his divorced mother. They would listen to Kris Kristofferson and the Highwaymen. Now when he phones he sometimes holds the phone to the speaker. Not a word except, listen!
Last night, he was meek. He had no friends left, he said. No one rings him. Instead, he has to ring them, and he knows they don’t trust him. We speak of our great mutual friend. She doesn’t trust me, he says. It was 11.00; I was tired. You don’t want to speak to me anymore, he said. Alright, I’ll just go. I said, it’s good to speak to you, I’ll give you a ring sometime. He said, yeah in six months or something. I put the receiver down and he is still speaking, half-resentful, half-aggressive. And I’ll come and see you, he says.
He speaks of the woman in the burkha next door. She has beautiful eyes, he says, but it’s not enough. He plays cricket with her sons and sometimes she invites him in. It’s not enough, he says, but her eyes are beautiful. Write that down, he says, everyone should know about me. He always asks for that – for his life to be recorded and for me to record it. One day he will write it all down, he says, but in the meantime, I should record it and share it with others.
He speaks about himself, his business. It’s always about to fail, but there is always hope. He speaks about golf, and then football in which he knows I have no interest. He speaks about music, and finally, just when I show signs of leaving, he asks me about myself. But he’s not interested; he cuts in, he becomes aggressive. You think you know everything, he says, but I’m pretty clever. I may not be as clever as you, but I have a great general knowledge, he says. Then a name I don’t recognise. Do you remember that name?, he says. And then, it was from that game of Trivial Pursuits we played, do you remember? The pole vaulter.
I was a legend, he says, and I’m still a legend. Are you going to remember, he says, are you going to write this down?, he says. I’ll write it down eventually, he says, like Burroughs, do you remember that line, "Me and the Sailor were working the yard", he says. You should keep a record, he says. Do you remember when we went out to that restaurant when I first moved in, he says, when you made me eat meat? You should write it down, he says. Do you remember how we used to dress up, he says, and go out to the cafes? Do you remember the party at X.’s? You should write it down, he says, it would make a good story. Someone should write it down, he says, it’s worth remembering. You think you’re so clever, he says, but you should try and live my life. Go on, write it down. That’ll give you something to write, he says.
You wouldn’t last a minute inside, he says. X. (the dealer) respects me, and do you know why?, he says, because I’m hard. It goes back to when I was inside, he says, I handled myself. I used to trade cigarettes and FHMs, he says. They respected me, he says, the lads. I used to trade cigarettes with them, he says, they were so stupid. Write it down, he says, you should write about real things, he says. I’ll give you something to write about, he says. You wouldn’t last a minute in the crackhouses, he says, but they respect me. I talk to crack whores about Stubbs, he says, what do you think of that? Write it down, he says. You should write about real life, he says. I’ll tell you about real life, he says.
Did you think crack whores like Stubbs?, he says. She didn’t know it was Stubbs, he says, I told her it was Stubbs. She showed me a painting and I said, it’s Stubbs, he says, and they were really impressed. They had this painting and they thought it was an original, they thought it was a real Stubbs, "is it worth anything?" they said, he says. So I picked it up and looked it over very carefully and I said, I – think – it’s a copy, he says. But they were very impressed, he says. I always buy enough crack to go round, he says. We all smoke it, he says. It’s not like you think, he says, actually it’s not that addictive, he says. Not like drink, he says.
You should write this down, he says. Real life, he says. Not middle class life like yours, he says. And I’ll tell you what, they were so tight in that house, he says. They wouldn’t buy proper Coke, only Panda cola. They used to buy Panda cola because it was cheap, he says, it was really funny. I told them to buy real Coke, he says. It’s the real thing, I told them, he says. They didn’t know how to take it, he says. They’re not used to having the piss taken out of them, he says. You couldn’t have got away with it, but they thought I was okay. They trusted me, he says. I’m quite hard, he says. You know me, I can handle myself, he says. One day I’ll write it all down, he says. Have you read Trainspotting?, he says. Like that, he says. You wouldn’t understand it, he says, it’s in Scots. I love bagpipes, he says, they make me cry. They remind me of the old country, he says. You never cry, do you?, he says. You don’t know anthing about life, he says, real life. It’s going on under your nose, he says, and you know nothing about it.
Stubbs, he says. "Me and the Sailor were working the hole", he says. It doesn’t give you enough, the burkha, he says, you can only see her eyes, he says. But she has pretty eyes, he says. But it doesn’t give you enough, he says, you can’t see what she’s like, he says. I play cricket with her lads, he says, and she makes me dinner, he says. She likes me, he says, but then I’m a good looking bloke, he says. Always was. Not that you aren’t good looking, he says, but I was the good looking one, he says. It’s because I’m tall, he says. Women like tall men, he says. Can you hear that?, he says, it’s Leonard Cohen, he says. The greatest drunk of them all, he says. Can you hear that?, he says. It’s Kris Kristofferson, he says, Sunday Morning Coming Down.
No one trusts me anymore, he says. You don’t trust me, do you?, he says. I have been drinking a bit, he says. Business isn’t going too well, he says. Haven’t worked for months, he says. Been playing golf, though. You have to play golf for business, he says. Anyway, he says, I’ll let you get on. I know you don’t want to hear from me, he says. You’ve never rung me. How many times have you rung me? Twice?, he says.
Stubbs, though, he says, I knew you’d like that story. Write it down. I’ll write it down one day. I’m reading again, he says, I knew you’d approve, he says. Vonnegut, he says. Have you read him? he says. Hilarious, he says. And I know you don’t like Kerouac, but Dharma Bums, it’s great that, he says. "Me and the Sailor were working the hole", do you remember that?, he says. Burroughs, he says. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it, I’ll let you get on, he says, I can see you want to go. What are you doing? Turn the television on, he says. It’s Dylan, he says. He’s great, Dylan, he says. Shall I tell you who the new Dylan is?, he says. Shall I tell you?, he says.
You don’t know anything, he says. I’ve got the answers, he says, I’ve lived, he says. I’ve seen life, he says. Stubbs, though, funny that, isn’t it?, he says. But I won’t keep you, I know you’ve better things to do, he says. You never want to talk to me, he says. No one wants to talk with me, he says. I know I ring too often, he says. Three times a night? Yes, sometimes, but I just want it to be like the old days, he says. Do you remember?, he says. No one has a sense of humour anymore, he says. The Highwaymen, he says, listen!
So my friend the drunk. So my sketches for My Friend the Drunk.
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