by David Louden
Taking “the pity” on me Don Johnson takes me by the arm and guides me backstage past the band and their respective groupies to the club’s Green Room where the club’s “best kept secrets” are stowed. Donna-Lou was a twenty four year old bottle blonde bombshell with an hourglass figure. She had a ridiculously wonderful onion butt and cannons parked under her TLGFYH tee so fine that only someone who had their mouth wrapped around them would be able to confirm whether the man upstairs or the man in Bel Air had a hand in creating them. Donna was well kept, you could tell by the 6 carats she was wearing on her wrist and her perfectly manicured nails that the most work she had ever done was keeping tabs on her checking account. I did however have it on good authority that Donna-Lou liked a bit of rough. Our conversation led to the bar as we toasted drinks and talked about her. Her dad was in retail, a designer importer I correctly guessed. She seemed impressed by my ability to point out that her designer bag was yet to hit the shelves, clearly I had absorbed more information from Jen that I had known. What she did I wasn’t quite sure, she didn’t seem to acknowledge what she did during the hours and nine and five but she did seem interested and sympathetic when I told her of how I came to know Don Johnson and found it funny that I called him Don Johnson.
The night and contents of my jeans was growing with promise and as we headed back towards the dressing rooms for a little bit of privacy I spoke of my great loss. How the Russian father and son combo had not only destroyed a piece of history but my good faith in all things Eastern European.
“I don’t think I know that one.” said Donna-Lou.
“1984…you know, the thought police.”
Nothing.
“Room 101?!”
Nothing.
“Big brother is watching?!”
“Oh I love that show!” She boasted.
Heaven help me. In years to come I will probably regret what was to come next after all hindsight and twenty-twenty and all those things but in that instance all desire to be inside Donna-Lou, tight, warm, wet, moving and being in unison evaporated from my body. I’ve never felt more of a snob in my entire life, but in that moment I saw her clearly. Yes she was a beautiful woman, she would certainly have given me a night that would keep the fire stoked but we’d have little to chew the fat over. “When has that ever mattered?” I screamed internally but the window had closed. Somewhere on my face I had the inner workings of my mind scrolling across for Donna-Lou to read. Her smile dropped from her tanned smooth cheeks. I saw in her eyes the asshole she perceives before her.
“Well it’s been lovely chattin’ with you Doug but I got to get back to my friends…” and with that Donna-Lou left.
It takes a special sort of personality to be able to bounce back from feeling like runny dog shit. I’m not that kind of personality, fortunately for me Don Johnson was and within the hour I was back on the party wagon he called his Audi and heading towards a house party in Santa Monica.
The morning would come quickly. The face, present, fading, gone. Don Johnson’s scenic front room’s black out blinds rose of their own accord at 9AM. “Flashy git” I thought to myself. Climbing out of the couch I execute my toga morning attire, carefully stepping over the Gone with the Wind battle scene floor in front of me that comprises of more naked and unconscious models of both genders that even Penthouse forum could imagine. I pour myself a black coffee from Don Johnson’s automatic brewer at his island kitchen and attempt to piece together the fragments of memory that are currently floating on my consciousness. Don Johnson appears from the long hall leading off the main living space, suited, booted and looking fresh.
“Don Johnson!” I feel his resistance beginning to wane towards my default greeting.
“Morning, you hook up last night?”
I check my pecker “Alas untouched by man or beast.”
“Next time…” he says, pouring himself a flask of coffee “I got to get to work but my sister’s coming round to borrow a few things. Would you mind lettin’ her in?”
“You trust me in your house?”
He smiles before throwing me his spare key, requesting I drop it through the letterbox before I go and as simple as that he’s out the door. Slowly the naked models wake one by one, dress and leave without coaxing. “They clearly know the drill” I tell myself. As the last one leaves I notice a silver camera on the floor, lifting it I set it on the coffee table and resist the urge of filling in the memory gaps. Finding my trousers I remove what’s left of my weed from the night before and roll myself a cone which puts me in the mood, crashed out on the living room couch I smoke my medicinal cigarette, flick through drunken and risqué self pictures the models left behind and give myself a life affirming jerk. A key turns in the lock as Don Johnson’s sister and the Nicaraguan maid suddenly enter the beach facing property. I barely have enough time to release my shaft before they reach the living room to be confronted by a pot smoking Roman Emperor with a serious trouser tent demanding attention. The maid mutters something in Spanish before hanging her coat up and making her way down the hall to deal with the Masters’ room. Don Johnson’s sister plants herself down next to me, her leather jacket covers the immaculate white vest which barely covers the braless breasts now requesting eye contact.
“I’m gonna guess you know my brother?!” she said.
“Don Johnson’s sister I presume.”
“Excuse me?” Her face racked with confusion.
“Long story, sorry. Doug…pleased to meet you.” I recover, extending my hand.
“Billie…” she says shaking my hand “you gonna give me some of that?”
The alcohol content of my blood was still height enough that operating heavy machinery would have been frowned upon. It was my turn to appear confused as for a second I had forgotten I was smoking a joint so began peeling back the bed sheet to reveal, to this stranger, my throbbing erection.
“Ahem yeah I was talkin’ about this!” She says reddening as she reaches for my pot, removes it from my mouth and takes a drag.
“Sorry…” I’m now mirroring her redness “still a bit…”
“Yeah, ” she continues “something of a fucked up world you live in when you think a complete stranger’s lookin’ a go on your wild ride don’t you think?”
“He does most of my thinking…and who doesn’t like a wild ride?” I reply without thinking. I swim frantically to recover as she makes a move to get up “Which is how we say sorry in Ireland…sorry. Sometimes my smart-assery has been known to best me…sorry.”
I find myself following her down the hall towards her brother’s bedroom, though I catch myself on with enough time to opt to stand outside and communicate with her through the door.
“You can let me make it up to you if you like.” I say, intentionally pretending that I don’t see the maid shaking her head at my appearance.
“Oh yeah?” Billie answers “…and how would you do that?”
“Let me buy you a drink, maybe a light dinner? You like Armenian?” I jest.
“Mmmmm tempting.”
“And I might even…you know be fully dressed and not flash you my dong.”
“Who says I don’t want a flash of your dong?” She teased.
“It’s comments like that that shape the fucked up world I live in.”
Billie emerges from her brother’s room with two laptops bags and carrying what looks like an old 8MM projector. I offer to carry the projector for her which she accepts. We move out of glaring distance as we reach the front door.
“So what are you doin’ with all this?” I’d ask.
“Music video…fundraiser thingy.” Billie replied distractedly searching for keys.
“So what about that drink? Dinner? Dong flash?” I see a smile crack.
“Tell ya what,” she says “if you can get my number off my brother I’ll let you buy lunch.” I can see the thinly masked triumph behind her soft eyes.
“Challenge accepted Don Johnson’s sister…oh it’s on!”
&nbs
p; Loading up her bike she starts it with one swift kick before donning her helmet. She points a wave my way before taking off down the road with an eruption from the Harley’s powerful engine. Back inside I’m left as part of an uncomfortable foursome, just me, the maid, the joint and my boner. Finishing the last two off in the bathroom I get dressed and leave, depositing the key through the letterbox before heading back to West Hollywood by which time I was pretty confident The Snake Pit would be open and my stool, third from the can, would be awaiting me.
8
IN THE MIDDLE of the 1990’s I left the secondary school which housed my mind for five years, not as a drop-out like so many of my class but because my North Belfast Catholic school didn’t offer A-Levels. Even if they did they certainly wouldn’t have offered them in the fancy-pantsy, artsy-farsty stuff that I would end up pursuing. For that I had to relocate to the centre of Belfast and the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education or BIFHE – pronounced Biffy and a building commonly referenced to as “the Black Man”. It was while ducking out of classes at the Black Man that I met Marcy, a short but athletic girl from the west of the city who was made up of equal measures of opinion and humour.
A few of our mutual friends had commented on how we “looked” like a couple, “communicated” like a couple and all the other match making conversational buzz words that can only lead to no good. It was fruitless, neither of us saw it and even if we did we had shared too much information on our sexual conquests, likes and dislikes to feel comfortable making the beast with each other – most likely out of fear that a confidante would be found elsewhere by the other and our mad skills discussed. At the time she was heavily involved with someone from BIFHE’s Art building and I was in the process of attempting to conquer Germany in the form of Malinka a dental student who had moved to Northern Ireland to be closer to her mother’s side of the family post parental divorce.
In our second year Marcy’s friend Cherrie appeared on the scene and the sibling couple became a right royal threesome. Mornings would be spent fuelling up on coffee and getting the early morning psychology class out of the way with as little role play as possible. We would then spend the thirty minutes before licensed opening hours waiting outside Robinson’s bar before filing in to have the constitutional fry and Guinness lunch – this would all too often bleed into the afternoon much to the agony of our English Literature tutor. The last time I saw Marcy we were all crowded round a table in a hotel bar chain smoking, dressed in our finest frocks and ties. She was trying to talk sense into Cherrie who had fought and made up and fought and made up with a piece of work who had batted her around their apartment a few times. Cherrie seemed shaken by the prospect of breaking up with him. Marcy was her usual diplomatic self and I was trying not to get caught eye fucking Cherrie’s excellent cleavage.
“Who gives a fuck about him…fuck the fucker!” Dictated Marcy
“I know…I know Mar…”Offered Cherrie
“You think he’ll ever change? Fuckin’ cunt!” She continued.
On the third chorus of “fuck him he’s a wanker” Cherrie would take to her feet and rush from our group’s company in the gold tinted lobby bar. Marcy, giving me a look, would send me after her. In between the hotel and the office block next door Cherrie and I stood next to industrial bins as I placed my suit jacket around her shoulders and talked her down from the shivering nervous mess that Marcy’s drunken intervention had created. I gave her the insight I had on domestic violence, being as I was from North Belfast and son of a manual labourer who was more than partial to a tipple and a knuckle sandwich delivery. Pulling her black hair back from her cute flushed face she seemed more assured that it was the right thing to do. I don’t know whether it was the fact that it was someone speaking from experience or simply someone who wasn’t her best friend dispensing the same advice that came with each male disappointment, but Cherrie had calmed and agreed. It had felt good to do some good. She repaid me with a kiss. The kiss, tender at first then static electricity as her unfamiliar soft lips and tongue brushed against my own.
When we returned to the bar Marcy was gone, she stopped coming to class and changed her phone number after that. Cherrie and I would continue to study, drink and fuck together until we both left BIFHE in separate directions for University at the end of that year.
It only took a couple of months for the stir crazy to set in amongst the memories of our former Stranmillis love shack. Packing up my belongings in an afternoon I told the landlord he can kindly keep the rent and deposit in exchange for me getting the fuck out of my contract as quickly as possible. Aside from DVDs and books the only thing I take that isn’t clothing is my armchair. The walls spoke late at night of days past. Many of which held no significance at the time yet, all of a sudden, became moments I had regretted not savouring. Our first two months in Stranmillis could have done with an Oxfam appeal in our names. We had very little play money after paying rent on the two bedroom luxury pad. Not enough money for a bed so we slept on a mattress in the living room. We couldn’t afford a couch either so we would practically live on the mattress. On Saturday mornings Kelly would run along the Embankment while I lay on the floor smoking cigarettes and watching old episodes of Kolchak the Nightstalker. More often than not she’d come home sweaty and with a question about a cat. Once I got up early to go look at a bed I had seen online when I brought it home I found Kelly and a ginger tabby sitting in the living room. The cat looked slightly desperate for a bit of space as Kelly petted, cuddled and squeezed it as though she was trying to teach it to absorb love.
“What’s occurring here then?” I asked, though I knew.
“I see this cat every weekend. I think she’s a stray.” Kelly offers between long strokes.
“It’s not.”
“It’s so thin though.” She mused.
“Kel it’s not a stray.” I’d state patiently.
“You don’t know that.” She insisted between coos.
“I know that you want it to be…but we can’t keep it.”
“You’d honestly throw out Miss Kitty Fantastico?!” She pouts looking wounded on behalf of the cat. I had to laugh, she’d already named it.
“I don’t think Miss Kitty Fantastico’s her name.” I say trying not to smile.
“Yes it is.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Cos I just named her it…cos I’m her mummy now!” She turned her attention to the cat “ain’t that right Miss Kitty?!”
We kept the cat in the apartment for a day before the ‘Lost’ posters went up in the neighbourhood. I felt bad about having to point them out to Kelly but she ran that route every day, she’d see them eventually. Miss Kitty went home with a wave. She’d be back soon enough, I’d catch Kelly laying snacks across the residents’ car park to lure Miss Kitty in for a few hours of petting.
A few months later I noticed Kelly sneaking off into the spare room when she thought I wasn’t looking. Twenty minutes of quiet and rustling a day. I became convinced it was my birthday present, it was obviously my birthday present…how wonderfully egotistical. I lay napping on the couch one afternoon watching old Roscoe Arbuckle movies, Kelly had gone to Bangor to go shopping with her mum and Janie. Seizing the opportunity to rummage without the risk of getting caught I was in the spare room before the car was out of South Belfast.
The bottom drawer of the antique chest Kelly had been left by her Nana contained an Irregular Choice shoe box with three holes bore in it. As I raised the pink ornate box to my face several slight squeaks emanated from inside. The lid slid off to reveal a bed of straw, and a dainty saucer that had caught Kelly’s eye in a charity shop the previous week. Beside the saucer filled with what looked like mashed-up food were seven tiny baby mice. To this day I have no idea where they came from, she never told me, because I never asked. She had hid them in the spare room because she knew that I’d take issue to mice in the apartment. I knew all too well the trouble one could bring, let alone a gang of seven.
But, they were tiny and unable to fend for themselves and she was incapable of seeing them – knowing they would only become weaker and die without help. So she hid them in order to take care of them and I let her get one over on me. It made me smile. It made me love her, her and her great big heart. I almost felt sad for the apartment. It had been party to such great times, it felt like we had let it down.
Free of the restraints from no longer living in the shell of a dead relationship I took up residence in the spare room of a five bedroom apartment in an old and character-filled Georgian house just off the Lisburn Road with a few friends. It was in this tree-laden quiet haven, which could have given Douglas Sirk a boner, where I got the first decent nights’ sleep in a while. And from where I begin sifting through the pieces to see what part of me could be salvaged and what needed to be dumped.
To keep the cost of living down I took a second job in a pizzeria, surviving on deep crust each night. I also spent my time on MySpace arranging accommodation-free holidays by hitting up old friends who have long since fled “Norn Iron” in favour of shorter working weeks and kinder weather. It becomes, in itself, a third job. This is much to the disgust of my room mate Danny who is horrified I’m never “checkin’ out porn on that thing”.
