Schizo

“Number 1, can you come back into the kiosk now please” squawks the shrew inside the petrol station over the intercom. I’ve never heard the intercom before. Years ago my buddies and I used to tape over the number plates of our shitty Volkswagens and Citroens and make off with bags of charcoal and a tank of juice, howling laughter like we’d just robbed the afternoon stage. The intercom probably squawked to itself then for a while, like a lonely Dalek, as a cold breeze blew a Snickers wrapper around the sodium-lit forecourt. I don’t know if it did. Who cares? I go back into the shop and the tiny brown woman behind the counter, face as sharp as an ice pick tells me that I only gave her a 5 for a tenner’s worth of petrol. Her voice sounds exactly like it did over the intercom. That sounds stupid but what I mean is speakers tend to distort voices, making them harsher, adding 10 years of 30 a day. Not this old bird. She was pre-screeched. I scowl and switch the 5 and a box of cigarettes for a 20. The woman is glaring at me. I explain I haven’t had my schizophrenia medicine today and we’re feeling a little sketchy and glare back. She quickly sorts my change. The real reason I gave her the wrong money is because- hang on. Ok, wait. Wind back to Sunday morning, 2:47am. (It’s now Monday evening so that’s… carry the two… several tens of hours.) I’m asleep, fully clothed, stalking through angry dreams because my phone has crapped out of signal and I can’t get through to my sisters at a party in Birmingham or my buddy Steve, at that moment doing gram-lines with the billionaire guy we talked about the other day, also in Birmingham. I had decided to give the world the silent treatment and clearly it couldn’t hack it (Ha! Fuck you The World. You should know better than to mess with me by now!) because I get up to check on a noise in the street below and there’s a fucked-up looking black guy hanging off my balcony! When I calm down and stop trying to dislodge him like some medieval siege defence action I tell him more rationally to carefully climb down. The look of pure fear on the guys face when he looked past his feet to the black iron spikes of the walkway and the concrete 15 feet below made me take pity on him and I let him climb in through my window. Suddenly the frightening ogre sillouetted against the yellow street light is a tall skinny black lad of about 25, with a large pimple on his scarred cheek and a nice line in dumb jokes. He suggests we go next door, his original target and where his friends are partying. I agree this is a good plan and thoroughly beats being angry and unconscious. So we go and much fun is had by all. There are some pictures on my Facebook if you’re curious. I hear they’re going to make taking coke illegal in some pubs soon, but I really don’t mind coz doing loads of it at someone’s house is a tonne of fun, don’t you think? You shouldn’t smoke cocaine dust because unlike crack its boiling temperature and its ignition temperature are very close so you end up inhaling a load of particulates and combustion products instead of yummy goodness, but clearly these guys hadn’t reads the memo. As I wasn’t bankrolling the program I wasn’t complaining and we ended up with none pretty quick. If theres one thing that coke makes you want, more than beer or fights or girls or dancing to Duran Duran, its more coke. The following day we feel pretty rubbery and go get some more beers and hook up with Shwed’s buddies. And as luck would have it if they aren’t scary coke dealers! (The World, im sorry I wast speaking to you earlier, alls forgiven, k?) There are no pictures of them on my facebook if you’re curious by the way. This entirely favourable turn of events, coupled with the subsequent filthy amounts of drug and alcohol abuse going on generally leads to a richly convivial atmosphere, and I thoroughly recommend a relaxed Sunday afternoon in that mould to anyone. For a middle-class whitey fresh out of university it was like doing work experience with the Crips. A more eloquent, rye and thoughtful group of people I’ve rarely met, and they seemed to think the shitty jokes and uncomfortable furniture of this skinny posh weirdo before them were hilarious. I have the world’s shittiest couch by the way. Check the Guinness Book; I still hold the record for worst couch in the whole world! I sold one of the guys my black chucks for £7 (that’s depreciation of only 30%, better than most cars!) because his feet were sore and decked them out in a variety of hoodies and other skatewear that has somehow come into my possession over the years to ward off the morning chill. Morning rolls into evening somehow, and I wake up having crashed backwards over my living room table in a flurry of damp fag ash and tequila some time around 2:47am. I finish the rat burger Id bought on the trip back which I no longer remember and worm my way back under the covers, fully dressed. Surveying my pockets using only touch I find two little bags of pot and a five pound note. Nothing else. Still, should be enough to get me to work in the morning.