Meatspace

by Nikesh Shukla

  And hell, at least he doesn’t sit there and over-analyse for an inordinate amount of time. Except he’s still holding on and I’m worried the cab will leave without him and we’ll have to wait for another one and he’ll miss his flight and it’ll be because I didn’t let go in time. I pull away.

  ‘You better get your cab, dude.’

  Aziz smiles, crosses over to the chalkboard next to our fridge and changes 172 to 173. Damnit. I’ve been hustled.

  ‘See you man,’ he says.

  ‘Please take care and don’t do anything stupid with a bunch of strangers you found off the internet,’ I say, grimacing.

  ‘Read my blog,’ he says, throwing his hands out and waving them jazzily at me. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Come back with both your kidneys.’

  ‘Promote my progress on Twitter.’

  The cab beeps again.

  ‘Keep your passport in your pocket at all times.’

  ‘Blog comments are always welcome too.’

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘I love you very much, Aziz.’

  ‘I know.’

  The cab beeps its horn again and Aziz picks up his Eastpak and my suitcase and heads to the door. Instead of watching his cab pull away like a proper surrogate dad would, I go to the toilet and stare at myself topless in the mirror, trying to ingrain the new ‘me’ into my mind’s eye. I spend the next hour with my phone trying to take the best casual selfie of my tattoo for Instagram. Outside a car keeps sounding its horn before eventually leaving.

  aZiZWILLKILLYOU episode 5 Aziz vs Stalking Prey

  [posted 11 September, 16:10]

  Word up homeys, it’s your boy Aziz. Welcome to my new blog challenge – meet The Boy with the Bow Tie Tattoo – my doppelganger. So pay attention closely to the breakneck speed with which I do questionable things with questionable people. Because that’s what life’s about. Living questionably.

  I am revitalised, blaaads, like a bottle of mineral water or whatever. Revitalised. Revitalising.

  There I was, on the hunt for the Boy with the Bow Tie Tattoo. Just like that Swedish guy in that book where he’s looking for some stripper with a dragon tattoo or something. I don’t know. I never read. Well, I do – and my main man, Kitab has sent me off with some books, but I haven’t got time to read them. I am on one tip only. One mission. The Boy with the Bow Tie Tattoo.

  I’m gonna skip the part about the flight because who wants to know about what films I watched (Limitless aka Shittyless, and Rango aka No, Mate, Just Go – thanks for asking), what the food was like (I’m Indian, I grew up on thalis and plates with compartments, what can I say?) and how much I slept (not at all, man’s buzzin’!). But I will tell you one thing about aeroplanes … if you spend the departure lounge time eyeing up buff girls and hoping you get to sit next to them so you can be all like, ‘hey hey hey’ and they’ll be all like, ‘wanna meet me in the bathroom’, IT WON’T HAPPEN PEOPLE. You will end up next to some fat dude who is mister elbows and he’s borrowing your window, leaning over you and dipping his tits in your complimentary white wine, or some old lady who’ll take her shoes off and put her stinky feet up on the seat under her like it’s her manor. You gotta put that out of your mind and you will end up next to a horny travelling goddess. Trust Aziz. It’s foolproof. I know. Cos I ended up sandwiched next to some fat dude all elbows and wouldn’t let me borrow his window and some old lady who took her shoes off and tucked her stinky feet under her on the seat. Every now and then. I’d feel her big toenail catch on my jeans. My jeans! What the hell? Or WTF as you kids like saying.

  Acronymns. MIAWFOA. Man, it’s a world FULL of acronyms.

  So, I landed in New York, and I got through customs after having some LOLs with the customs guy. Because I like to put my terrorist face on, get all screwface and serious and see what he asks me. And the dude was like, Aziz, is that a Muslim name? And I was like, hell naw, man … Just because I appear to be from the Indian sub-continent that immediately makes me a Muslim? COME ON. Asia’s got more countries than America’s got states, check yo’self, racist fool – what? That is a geographic fact. And eventually he let me through.

  I could not wait to get to a wi-fi signal, so I could check in with Teddy Baker and see what was going off in this dude’s life. It was cold, man. Like cold-cold. And I was braving it with my jacket unzipped and my shirt opened just a little to show my badass bow tie. I can only wear shirts now cos they go with my fly-fly bow tie. Anyway, I keep getting away from it. I was bussing to get to a wi-fi. Plus I was ti-ti.

  #titi #wifi #azizinnewyork

  And then, it kinda just opened its legs and ejaculated all over me from a distance. There it was – New York, New York. And I was like, dude, this city is majestic. I love this place. It’s full of everything – tall buildings, vulnerable girls trying to make it in show business, Spider-man. I was on the subway next to some dude who was writing battle raps on a yellow legal pad and 2 girls talking about some guy’s choad and I got all excited so I grabbed my phone out and did a data dump. Eff you roaming charges, I am a man on a mission. Roaming this world, looking for the best adventures only your boy Aziz can have.

  So I did a data dump, and seriously, all my emails are about stupid fucking bullshit on Facebook – I have one Facebook mission, get my friend Steve’s mum to unfriend me. GET. THE. MUMS. OFF. FACEBOOK. Steve’s mum just likes everything I do and adds all these stupid applications to my wall about flowers and she has asked me a question about ‘my secret love’ and that’s all she does on Facebook. I met her once, at Steve’s engagement party and now she thinks we’re BFFs so she just adds an endless stream of bullshit to my Facebook. Anyway, so I checked into Twitter after my disappointing email scan-through and I see Teddy Baker’s account. I’m wondering whether I should start @-replying him stuff just so he can see me and get prepared for Aziz-ma-geddon. I might go to the Statue of Liberty and pose for the same photo as his now infamous avatar, but you know, Instagram it with the Earlybird filter, just to make it classy, and make it my avatar. Cos Teddy’s avatar on Facebook and Twitter is now just a picture of his face, and without the sunglasses and world-beating grin he doesn’t look as much like me, which is a bit disappointing. But it’s all about the tattoo, guys. You know? I’m all about that tattoo.

  His Twitter said that Teddy was at work but I followed through a conversation he was having with a Twitter user called @justiceforpigs and they were going to meet up at 7 p.m. at a bar in the East Village, and both had to bring things for the other, like Teddy owed @justiceforpigs a book and @justiceforpigs wanted Teddy to see this new outfit he’d bought. Who knows? Maybe they’re lovers. I will find out, blog fans. You know why? I’m going to some bar in the East Village at 7 p.m. Tonight. This is happening.

  There are 9 comments for this blog:

  Anonymous user: LOL

  Geraint365: SRSLY? You’re a stalker. WTF.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Yo, Geraint, if that is your real name, fuck off my blog if you don’t like it.

  Geraint365: Duuuude, I was joking, innit. Calm down.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Safe, blud. Strap in.

  Milky_Sorez: This is exactly the problem with the internet. Over-enthusiastic fuckwits like you who can’t write. Get over yourself hombre. This is shit. Who gives a fuck? Like, 2 people? And I’ve listened to your Mixcloud sets. Heard of dubstep? No, I didn’t think so. Seriously, this is worse than the worst thing on the internet.

  Anonymous user: LOLZ, AZIZ YOU LEGEND.

  Gustave_the_First: This point seriously puts human rights into question. Aziz, I’ve only just come to your site because I was alerted to it on Twitter. Legal issues aside (I’m a lawyer), you are a despicable human being and I hope you get arrested for harassment.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: WTF, CTFO, MIAWFOA.

  History:

  We Love Books Bitches – Google

  How to do public speaking – Google

  [291] – Twitter
<
br />   [12] – Facebook

  I’m walking down my high street and I allow myself to feel good. I never feel good. I never allow myself to enjoy anything. If something feels good, I worry about it going wrong or the next thing to go wrong. The worst thing I can do is feel optimistic, because that’s akin to arrogance.

  But today, I allow myself to feel good.

  Everything about this day smells of possibility and chance. A smell of breakfast takes me to a new café I’ve not noticed before.

  The newsagent stocks one vagrant copy of the New Yorker seemingly just for me. A girl smiles at me as she gets off the bus. I get a tax rebate. For the exact amount of the cost of a new pair of Nikes I saw on the internet. It’s going my way today. I catch myself in the mirror because once I get back to the flat, despite the autumnal chill outside, I wear a t-shirt and stick the heating on so I can see my tattoo.

  I’m doing a book reading later that night at a bar in Shoreditch. We’ve been asked to read our favourite party anecdote, so I’ve prepared something about a night I spent out walking the canals with Aziz where we planned to find freaky sex parties on boats and failed.

  I pack up what I need to read and some books to sell. I walk outside. It’s freezing. I am braving the cold so there’s more chance people can see my new ink, so no need to layer up. But it’s freezing. I crave hoodie. I crave thermals. I crave warmth.

  I walk down the high street, against the contraflow of returning commuters, victorious in their ability to survive another day at work. I wonder if they’ve achieved the same amount of work as me, except with shielded screens and covert clicking back onto spreadsheets: watched YouTube videos, snacked, clicked through every single social network available; replied to emails as promptly as possible to indicate work efficiency and manage a total concentrated work effort of 55 minutes or so. We all spend our working days looking forward to our next meal.

  My phone rings. It’s Rach’s number. I ignore it. She calls again. I let it ring in my pocket. Undeterred, she calls me again. This time, my impulses can’t let a ringing phone go unanswered. Must connect. I answer.

  ‘Can’t you speak to me now?’ She sounds pissed off for being ignored. The first time I hear her voice in 6 months and she sounds angry with me. Nothing has changed.

  ‘No, I’m out. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I say.

  ‘Out, well, that’s good at least.’

  ‘Glad you approve.’

  ‘No, I just think that’s a really good thing, you really needed to …’

  ‘Is that why you called, Rach? To have a go?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I was just thinking about you. I wanted to check you’re okay. I worry about you. And nobody’s seen you. I worry about you being on your own.’

  ‘Well, I’m not on my own.’

  ‘Oh. Good. Who …’

  ‘Look. I’m fine,’ I reply. ‘I don’t need your worry. I’m a fully functioning adult.’ I hang up the phone.

  I have an @-reply on Twitter. It’s from Hayley. It says: ‘See you in a bit. I’m running late. Looking forward to it whisky buddy.’

  I tweet her back: ‘Pre-pub-dutch courage. Join me if you can?’

  I reach the pub. Mitch is at the bar on his stool and nods at me. I salute him with 2 fingers to my temple. Mitch, reliably, is always finishing a drink when you arrive, meaning the first round is always on him.

  Mitch asks how my day has been. I tell him that my brother has gone on holiday and apart from that and the internet, I’ve achieved nothing. Mitch knows better than to ask about my second book’s progress and the first one’s fate. Both are constant sore subjects. I say nothing. Mitch can sense I’m not feeling talkative. I wait for my pint in silence.

  I have the jitters for my reading later. No matter how many times I stand up in front of a group of various strangers, I still get nervous. Which is good because complacency is the public speaker’s end game. Mitch asks me my thoughts on a few new novels he’s read recently. I give answers that would indicate I’d bothered to read them. Truth be told though, since Rach broke up with me, all I can stomach is bad American sitcoms and Tumblrs of arty shots of naked females. Being dumped has brought out the lazy reductive sexist in me. Nothing else registers. I can’t be bothered to read. It was out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting it. I expected routine from her. I expected us to hang out and eat food and watch movies and make fun of people we knew. I expected us to cuddle and talk about our days and make hot drinks for each other. But now she’s gone and it kills me.

  ‘I like it,’ I reply to a query about one such book. ‘The middle’s a bit long.’

  ‘You are so wrong,’ Mitch bellows. ‘The whole thing is a lazy hack’s version of metaphorism.’

  ‘Is that a word?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, your tattoo’s still shit,’ he says, smiling at me.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And you’re still an idiot …’

  ‘Why do you hang out with me, Mitch? You hate everything I say or do or tweet.’

  ‘I hang out at this pub. You join me. I’d say you’re hanging out with me. And I don’t know why you do that. Other than for the abuse.’

  Mitch walks with me to the Book Doctor, a hipster bar near the pub that has nothing to do with books despite its name. Their official Twitter handle is @welovebooksbitches. I walk down the steps into the exposed-brick basement, wave my way past the pretty middle-class white girl handling the door and I enter the venue. I get a Twitter notification. Someone called @HannahBananaMonana has just tweeted: ‘@kitab is in the house. Spicy.’

  Because all Asian guys are spicy. We all smell of curry.

  There are about 20 people in the room, mostly writers and the odd publishing person, an agent or a publicist. The rest are girlfriends and boyfriends and the odd actual fan of people standing up in front of rooms full of people and telling stories in that slow soporific voice.

  I greet the people I know with a mixture of pleasantry and aloofness so I can work my way to the organiser, May, and keep the supply of beer flowing. I’m being paid in beer, which is fine because what else would I be spending my money on. I kiss May hello. She says I look different. I amiably ask what’s changed. She smiles. I smile back. There’s something between us. Definitely. I sit with the other readers, a couple of people I’ve met before and one I haven’t. One of them is the beautiful Hayley Bankcroft.

  Today she shows me more attention than ever before and I think, Hmmm, this is interesting – what’s different about today? There is something. There is a new energy in her greeting. I haven’t seen her since I broke up with Rach. Whenever I was with her at events, I would get the jittery stomach, fluttery sentences and the inflamed skin of a man with a crush on someone other than his girlfriend and a girlfriend called Rach. Now I’m single. And I’m pretty sure she’s still single. There is pressure now.

  Once we got drunk after I’d done a reading and I asked her why she was single. ‘Because I’m in mourning that you’re not,’ she replied, looking pretend-serious, though I could tell she was serious. We didn’t mention it afterwards, probably consigning it to drunkenness in our heads. My memories of interactions with her, real life ones too, are stacked with little moments like that, that could have gone too far, that didn’t because I was with Rach. Like the other time when we were walking through the park near my flat. Rach was at work. I had the day to myself so I suggested to her that we go for coffee, and as we walked, she linked her arm in mine and we walked with her head on my shoulder. A casual observer would have assumed we were together. The way my heart was pounding, it’s like we were a new couple. And then, there’s the time we kissed goodbye, again drunk, because all my stories with Hayley involve boozing, when a cheek-kiss was misfired and our lips definitely touched. I ran home with the energy and fizziness of a schoolboy that night.

  Now I’m single, these are now moments to take advantage of. Although, now, there’s a pressure to make moments like that happen on purpose.

  ‘You�
��re a beautiful man,’ she’d said last time we were together. She was joking about my vanity, because I was wearing a new shirt Rach didn’t like and needed compliments, stat. I’m pretty sure she was joking.

  ‘I know you’re placating me, but I’ll take it,’ I replied, watching her face for any sign of truth behind the sarcasm.

  We take our seats. Hayley sits with her cross-leg pointing towards me and her naked arm touching mine. She leans in.

  ‘Alright chico,’ she says, using our usual names for each other.

  ‘Chiquita, it’s good to see you,’ I reply, with more bluster than I’ve achieved before. Confidence towards women. This is a new side effect. ‘It’s been tiiiime …’

  ‘I heard about you and …’

  ‘Rach …’

  ‘That’s the one. A real shame. She was so … organised.’ She sips on her drink and widens her eyes. She smiles into her glass.

  ‘So where have you been hiding yourself? Have you been writing something new?’

  I grimace.

  ‘Well, you look good,’ she says, knowing that it’s bad luck to ask a writer what they’re working on, especially between first and second novel. It’s like yelling ‘Macbeth’ in an actor’s face.

  ‘Thanks, same ol’ jeans and shirt combo.’

  ‘There’s something different. I dunno what. Anyway, sorry about the Telegraph thing.’

  ‘What Telegraph thing?’ I say. Hayley pauses.

  I’m only pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about because that’s the aloof thing to do. No one needs to know about my thorough Google Alerts. I know the Telegraph refer to me as ‘One of those new writers with nothing to say but the pretence of all the style in the world. A fleeting blip in literature’s great history of ethnic authors.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a humblebrag of sorts,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, who cares?’ she replies, diplomatically after a careful pause to consider her options. ‘What have you been up to?’