I'm writing this while I've still got the motivation to do so.
I'm sitting in the college library at about 20 past 2 in the afternoon, not thinking about anything in particular, and in the gentle lull of a Tuesday.
I've got this habit of not actually writing what I think in these, so now would be a good time. There's one other person on a computer next to me engrossed in what looks (at least) like work. Everytime I come in here, I come in to look intellectual, with some essay for the next day, that I somehow avoid writing. I sit here for two hours instead and bore myself into an early grave reading about the practical instances of Telekinesis, and why abortion is wrong/right.
But I digress. My name's Alex, I'm 16, and I'm a social retard. Hey - I'm a teen, that's what we do - right? I blame most of my hangups on my Dad, but to be brutally honest, I doubt it's got much to do with him. I've got shoulder length black hair that I insist on dying, a fairly average complexion and height, and a passion for being a rebel without a cause. So that's the boring stuff out of the way.
I live at home with my parents, (who recently - I've found out aren't quite so good models of parents, but it'd probably be best if I didn't go into it), and am hell bent on moving out when I can. Then again, unless I remember my pin number to the cosmic cash machine, that would involve me getting a job. I've been medically diagnosed by my parents as "work-shy". I've had 2 jobs so far, two pathetically easy jobs, one of which I've been fired from, and one of which I gave up after a week. First there was Sommerfields. I baked the bread for the store, and sat alone all day in the bakery at the back (no doors or windows) generally screwing about, and doing as little work as possible. Instead, I'd stare at the ovens and try and work out if reaching a constant state of happiness is possible, or just dream of Peaches (I'll mention her later). After a while, I finally saw why the words tedious, and job go together. I used to work 9 hours every Saturday and Sunday. I'd bake all the bread for the morning, and spend the rest of the time, as I said, doing nothing. Time dragged on, and like usual with me, I got lost in my own head. Only - I didn't confront anything, or resolve it with myself. I just thought on it. And that's what I do. The world seems to tweak itself around me to stay more or less stable, and I just go along with it.
Anyway- in about October the Manager stated that "You're a nice lad, I just don't think you're up to the job". That horrible and very familar feeling of inadequacy came back to me. I bring it on myself afterall. If I'd just given a shit, if I'd just done what they'd asked rather than being a protentious dreaming, I'd still be getting 370 quid a month. I'd still be blowing it on booze and cigarettes. Most people w0uldn't miss that. I did, and still do. Holding a glass of scotch and a cigarette in my hand is probably when I'm the most happy alone. I've got a long history with booze already. When I was 12 (around then anyway), I'd always been curious about the effects of alcohol. I'd had the odd drink, but no where near enough to feel even mildly different. My parents left me alone for the night and went to a friends. My mum, an expert wine drinker (She calls it her medicine) left a carton of it downstairs. About a bottles worth. Eagerly I ran downstairs the moment they left the house, and in a very sophisticated way (I think not), got myself a glass and the carton and sat down in the living room. After a few glasses I could already feel my head spinning. Anything after that is a blank. My parents came home to find me spewing into a bowl that I'd got from downstairs in my last few seconds of reasoned thought (since my stomach had started spinning) and lying in bed. And you know what? - they really didn't mind. They appreciated that I'd been experimenting, and left it at that. My dad thought it was hysterical anyway.
Years later, I found myself turning up late to a mini-party of my old gay friend, Matt's. My oldest friend Rob was there too, sitting round the table with Emma (I'd met her a few months earlier) and Tony. His real name was Dan, but some incident with Tony the tiger had christened him. I still don't really know what happened.
They'd already started drinking. Sambuca. Urgh. They were setting it on fire in one glass, and pouring it into the next, putting the first glass down on the table and waiting for the liquid in the second to cool. You'd down the glass with the liquid (disgusting and warm, the closest I can come to describing it would be to say it "warps" in your mouth) and suck the vapours out of the second with a straw. The whole thing was called "Ed's Gas Chamber". Rob had picked it up from some bar in France. Rob has always been the most "manly" out of all of us. Always the most reasoned, but always the most tolerant to drugs and alcohol. He won't go ballistic about anything, but he'll down a bottle of vodka and still be fairly conscious. Anyway, time passed, and we all ended up incredibly drunk. The whole routine of "I love you, you're my best friend, OHHH I've got so much to tell you" suddenly materialized in the room. In my drunken state, I found Matt's parent's alcohol cabinet, and stole a bottle of Dooley's (a little like Irish cream) and went to sit by myself in the kitchen.
I can vaugely remember slumped against one of the cabinets with the bottle in my hand, my face contorted, and my mind elsewhere. Emma walked in. She saw me and burst out laughing. I got up, and was suddenly violently ill into the sink. The other three had gone out to the shop near the house to stock up on food in their drunken state. I've always been the one that overdid it. If I don't have a hangover the next day, and kidney pains, I didn't drink enough the night before. As I said, I was emptying the contents of my stomach into the kitchen sink. I vividly remember Emma stroking my back saying over and over "It's ok, it's ok, it's ok". It was more comforting than she realised. I remember the plugging up the sink with whatever I'd eaten a few hours ago, and realised the water wouldn't drain, so I stuck my fingers in, trying to fish out whatever it was. I kept looking behind me saying "Don't look, please don't look" so disgusted by what I was doing. That's the last memory I have of that night. Apparently I passed out cold. They opened my eyes - both were looking in different directions, I'd gone very very pale - so they put my on the sofa and left me there till the morning. I woke up to see Rob walking into the room, laughing at me and saying "you might want to have a wash". I looked in the mirror. Vomit was down my face, in my hair, in my fucking eyebrows.
I was fixated with a girl called Hayley at the time. I affectionately branded her Miss H, and Miss H she will always be. I’ve been playing the cornet since I was very young, and we both ended up in a brass ensemble. We met, and realised (or decided, rightly or wrongly at least) that we saw something in the world that no one else seemed to. It’s the teenage condition – isn’t it? The feeling of horrific loneliness – and the irony is that everyone seems to have it. She came round every weekend for a few months. We’d watch weird French dubbed films, and talk about why the world was so cruel. Then Easter hit. My parents had gone to visit some distant relatives, so she turned up on my door. I was still enjoying the new skills alcohol had given me, so I grabbed two glasses and a bottle of wine from downstairs. She looked at me laughing and I said just “So - let’s get drunk”. She was very thin, and quite a lot shorter than me, so after half an hour, she was blown away. I was getting there, and finally reached the peak of too many glasses of wine. Through the months I’d started to notice her ‘smell’. It was feminine, it wasn’t pretending to be anything, it wasn’t a perfume. It was hers. Now drunk and open minded, her scent crept into me, invaded me. I’d been obsessed with this girl for weeks, and here she was. Drunk on my floor with me, us both laughing about nothing in particular. Pretending we had some unique understanding of the universe between us that no one else could see. And finally, we kissed. It was inevitable, I guess – it’d been building up to it. Nevertheless, after hours of not talking about it, she eventually left and things returned to normal. We didn’t have a relationship after that, it was just something that we apparently both felt.
I started going to the alpha course with her (a course at a church nearby for kids that might’ve had an interest in Christianity), and met her friends and what not. I’d known her all these years, but never this side of her. I’d been a devout atheist since I understood what God and Father Christmas was, but talking about it every week, hearing about some great guy that was going to always be there for me, alleviate all suffering really drew me in. I always asked annoying questions about the infinity of God, and how he could perform finite actions that the leaders never wanted to answer, but still went. On my second visit, I stepped outside with her into the night, waiting for her mum to pick her up. There was a crescent moon in the sky, the stars were gently rippling through the clouds, and it was the cliché romantic moment. We hugged, but she tugged on my coat sleeve, and we kissed once more. There was something scarily delicate about it, something teenage and youthful. It blew me away on the long walk home alone. I had my MP3 player on me, and spent the time listening to Simon and Garfunkel the Beatles. I’d become a caffeine addict at the time as well, putting about 7 teaspoons of coffee in a cup at a time, and was always bouncy and in a good mood because of it. These new sensations and connotations of love intermingled with the good feelings of caffeine overdose and she became even more irresistible.
But the weeks went by and she got bored. We’d talk and meet up less, and the conversation began to die. I blamed myself – of course I did. It’s what I’d done before, and what I generally find a more convincing argument. About three weeks later when we were still going to alpha, I came out without saying goodbye to her, and walked past the village centre, and found myself by the library. I sat and thought for a while. Please, God, please if you do exist, let something happen. Let me meet someone new. I got up and carried on walking pessimistic and depressed. I heard “Alex!” through my earphones. I turned and saw Becca, Roxie and a few others by the skate ramp in the field near the library. The ramp where a load of us to go when we had nothing better to do over the summer holidays. It generally involved a lot of booze, and a lot of dope and a lot of police officers. Nevertheless, it was about half nine, the stars and the moon had been blocked out by the blanket of clouds, but I still knew it was Becca’s voice. I made my way past the tennis court, and ran up onto the ramp to join them. And there was Roxie. I’d never really spoken to her properly before. She’d gone out with Rob years back, but I’d never really regarded her with any like/dislike. I was still thinking about Miss H, so we slumped down into the dip of the ramp, and chatted about it. She seemed genuinely interested, asking me how I felt about the whole thing, quizzing me about aspects I hadn’t thought about at first.
Anyway, the weeks rolled by, and things disappeared completely with Miss H. We more or less lost contact. I was heartbroken. We didn’t argue, we just mutually accepted that it obviously wasn’t going to work. I’d started smoking roll-up cigarettes, so every evening I’d walk to my favourite bench in the middle of an empty field under some power lines, and light up listening to “America” by Simon and Garfunkle, and think of Miss H. Eventually, I started to realise that this place had some magical meditative and tranquil quality, and told Rob about it. For months, we’d go every night to the same bench, smoking and talking about the universe, about emotion and how much we fucking hated everything around us.
At the end of the summer holidays, I found myself at a party of Emma’s, with Rob and Graham. We’d cycled there, and were sweating disgustingly. Nevertheless, we got in, sat down and I adjusted to the surroundings. More and more of ours friends turned up with booze and cigarettes. Graham and Becca was kissing on the sofa next to me, and I passively averted my innocent eyes. I envied them. Nevertheless, I poured myself a large vodka and sat down chatting to everyone there. When I’m drunk, I step out of myself, and become philosophical and outgoing. Philosophical to me, anyway. I started to lose my grip on reality, and roll into something funnier. Drunken Alex. I was walking around like a nut, with my coat on one arm explaining how my coat was all matter in the universe, and all matter and energy was exactly the same. No one got it. I didn’t really understand it myself at the time. I stepped outside for a smoke with Alli and a few other friends. I was about to walk back in when Roxie appeared. She sat down on the doorstep. I knelt in-between her legs, and she said very bluntly, very factually, “Kiss me”. So I did without thinking. We spent the rest of the evening together, and I eventually fell asleep with her in my arms. I woke up the next morning and she was elsewhere. For some unknown reason, I carried on drinking, and was fairly sloshed once again.
Roxie’s Mum christened her “Peaches Wildfire” for reasons we still don’t understand, so forever more she was Peaches to me.
Anyway, most of us joined the same college, and that’s the story so far.
In the last few days, Peaches and I have contracted the same flu from someone (probably one of us gave it to the other – the occupational hazard of being intimate) and we’ve both been moping around and feeling like shit. My head’s still spinning and my stomach’s still churning. Later tonight, I think Peaches is sleeping over, and we may well be getting quite sloshed with Amy and John. The teenage condition. Anyway, until I write a slightly smaller blog,
Stay cool,Redshift.
