The foam party was as per usual a frustrating disappointment. I wonder how many times I have forgone an experience of truth and substance in favour of a pound fifty spirit and mixer, a flash of leg, a glimpse of a hotel room, a sniff of an innominate powder and a newly single runaway granny with a face like a bag of chisels? Anyway, the only thing I managed to pick up at the foam party was a cold, I think Foam parties should come with warnings, especially in this country, Bring spare set of clothes otherwise you might catch a cold which, in this day and age, as we are constantly being told, could lead to an early grave. My associate, a film and documentary maker, the lesser known nephew of Michael Cimino (you know Michael, he did the Deer Hunter?) yes, well his nephew is also a film maker (well, I say that, but he makes films much in the same way that I write books, as in they only exist in his head … but (lest he be reading this as we speak) that does not make them any less valid. What Obsello Parcellus Scandalburg is however (his name, the only thing left to him by a long since deceased relative, the distinguished remnants of what was once a substantial family inheritance), an incorrigible and devastatingly unsuccessful flirt, and together we are like a little and large of awkward and unseemly male abhorrence.
So, it was with a certain amount of acceptance of my extravagantly dismal showing on these distant shores that I paid my two pound entry into the Brixton Bar and Grill at five in the morning last Saturday, I would like to say now I was already very, very drunk. There was no grill, discounting its misleading name it’s very nice, they open at four, it’s small, intimate, full of lone men doing the usual dancing, standing, sitting, watching thing, the odd man in the corner smoking bone; and they play some sort music called jungle? It’s nice.
From the moment I had stepped through the door we were off to an auspicious start. The lady in the booth noting my mestizo complexion stopped me in my tracks and said,
“Hey hun but where are YOU from?”
“Mexico City” I replied as nonchalantly as possible, similarly noting her husky North American rasp that always seems to me to ooze high levels of promiscuity (sorry, but it does).
“Ahh por eso que eres tan guapo. ” she said as her hand shot out from behind the booth and started to caress my face, “I’m from Puerto Rico baby, hablas espanol?”
Her hand still stroking my cheek, a massive neon sign flickered in my head that read something along the lines of hang on I’m in here …and I haven’t even set foot inside yet. Caloo Callay! My left eyebrow arched involuntarily almost reaching over my shoulder, as my nostrils flared and I fixed her with the thousand yard ‘Daniel Craig posturing in silly little hot pants’ stare.
“Si, Por supuesto que hablo” I said, my voice scraping an unfeasibly low register. The stare had its desired affect.
Her hand slipped down and now her fingers, firmly massaging the back of my neck, pulled my head down and closer towards her. “God, You’re so hot.” She said rather too aggressively I thought for my liking, her breath scorching my chin, but fuck it. By Jove she was right, girl had eyes to see did she not? Yes, she did, hot stuff I am, a veritable sexy kinky catch as my ex-conquistas will tell you (although a recent consensus revealed the average opinion to be a slow lamentable shake of the head, a deadness in the eyes, and a woeful utterance. But in my defence you can’t have a good day every day). With a flick of my hair and feeling like a million dollars I turned and walked into the club. I prowled on the dance floor, drained drinks, swaggered to the urinal did the works and upon leaving, the girl slipped her number in my back pocket and with a squeeze sent me stumbling into the street.
I waited the mandatory two days, Going to work buoyed by the sudden ego boost of almost certain sex (judging by the reply to my earlier text “Hola Papi, Quiero verte! Mi amor cuando?”) with this Puerto Rican lady of questionable morals. There I was, doing the big bollocks walk, giving the girls at work the amorous sleazy heart eye with lecherous abandon. Oh joy, Ramon was truly back.
I replied in kind (lo mas pronto possible nena) and suddenly there was a rapid increase in the rate of texts, six in an hour say, and then in the midst of it all a phone call. Wow, I thought, is it conceivable that my sexual puissance had actually driven the girl mad with irrepressible lust? Yes it seems.
“Hola Papi, Como estas?”
“I am okay thank you, how are you?”
“Bien bien papi gracias sooo you wanna meet up?”
Gosh, how very forward but hey ho there is no accounting for how crazed women act when driven desperate with desire for a man as obviously virile and vibrant as myself. She has evidently allowed herself to lose hold of all her senses and I can’t be held for responsible for the consequences.
“Oh okay, yes. Err when, where do you live?”
“Sorry, but you can’t come round here baby, because of the kids,”
“Kids?”
“I work as an au-pair”
“Oh I see, how lovely.”
“But I have a secret that nobody else knows and you can’t tell anyone.”
“A secret?”
“Yes a secret.” She whispered. “Do you like secrets?”
A nubile Puerto Rican au-pair, with a secret? What’s not to like? Wonderful, and being an enormous gossip I love secrets!
“Tell me your secret” I half whispered half exclaimed.
As she unravelled her preciously sad tale I got to thinking .
We are constantly re-evaluating, remaking, and re-imagining that which we are, where we have come from and where we are going; the value of things, the value in that which we do, the worth of others and our worth in their eyes. What we would ideally like to be and that which we inexorably will become. Like a thousand page book that we didn’t like much the first time round and yet through stupidity or just because we have forgotten what happened at the end, we read and re-read over and over again. The limitless possibilities of coincidence counterbalanced with the sheer and ruthless bloody-mindedness of a man’s perceived destiny, bound in that ephemeral dream that we cannot clearly distinguish and yet never really forget called life. Man, woman, or alternatively, such a bloated pampered ego that I don’t so much as believe my own shit but inhabit it. In all seriousness my head is so far up mine own arse that I get all existential and upset because I spilt my tea down my top, boohoohoo. I wonder how many times I have forgone an experience of truth and substance in favour of a… What was it again? Aaah fuck it. Her confession had come to an end. Pause, then a deep breath.
“Post op or Pre?” I asked.
