Rinse tundra special
Welcome in. A new journey and a new guise: meet me, Filthy Bastard, in my mid-phase, Soaking Wet Princes. A musician that doesn't make any music but writes books, or an author who doesn't write and just makes music. Here's the diary of my debut single/novella/concept - FB's and Professor Tiny Cat's journey East, to Polska, to Never-Never Land.
Getting close now. All my pressure has been tucked away in the box, all my grievances stored and stashed. Just one mantra. Untruths are better when they're told. Gloss on the cavernous losses. The stifled air is bursting - leady grey cauliflowers. Closer closer closer. Suddenly. We are in the zone. Ready for the Smash.
Waiting forever and getting my face saturated in really thick, bad pollen. Clouds not yet ready to drop their ash. I've got a lovely build-up burn going off around the area of the stomach. Again, a Scouse-bus fails to materialise. I'm staring at Tesco Express thinking if I should run over and use the cashpoint. But might be late at the airport if I do. Wait another few minutes, gazing straight at rows and rows of moving cars. The rain's really going to fuck up these new trainers and the shelter's massively inadequate. Where is this bus? The Professor will be waiting for me at John Lennon. Hate making him wait, hate waiting myself. He's texting me - what's the hold up? Text back. Gonna be very very late. Eventually jump in a taxi and hope for the best.
The Professor stands on the forecourt. Smoking. I shake his hand: finally there. He's got a grin on him through the acrid plume of Marlboro. I'm panting, bleary-eyed, pissed-off stubble face, cursing and shaking my fist. But it's OK. Still time. The Professor and I scythe through the terminal's Division One football stadia fascia and burrow a big deep one until pockets have been emptied, bottles bagged and metal checked. All clear. Really glad I made it, though. Those drizzle-specked moments had my weary heart pounding. In Boots, the Professor gets a Snickers and Wine Gums, I go for chicken triple, orange juice and pfefferminz.
Somewhere over central Europe: we spy a small aircraft, like a black airborne dog, radar slowly across cotton cumulus just below our vessel.
And then we touch down to brand new sights and smells and sounds. It's funny how foreign countries always hit you in that way, sudden immaculate changes in small things: toilet freshener, deodorant, shampoo, chocolate, car seats. Apple sun barracking its way onto our backs. The human face of our apartments, Michael, stands with a grin ushering us into Europe. His smile tells us a great deal, yet I pick out just a single thing that remains. This is that we will be made very welcome here. We are kings who deserve the very best of what is on offer. Michael, scraggy shoulder-length hair, cranks up the large people-carrier (containing just me and the Professor), thundering down rural humid lanes. There's crazy shoe-box farms or houses distinctive by their bright red roofs. It's wonderful. Unfamiliar Eastern yellow road signs pave the way over the strikingly flat, Wimbledon green landscape. Michael lunges into a breathless spiel about the local customs, drinking and heritage. Mentions something about Kitsch, something about a great club called Shadow. The Professor swooshes a glance at me and it's hard not to break out into a giggle with our friendly chauffeur wittering on in his quaint Americanised English.
Scared. Having left these endless comical dwellings which nestle and crowd among a massive countryperfect expanse, Mike begins to decrease the speed. Decreasing it in what appears to be the slum-side of an ever-enveloping city. Diamond seethrough fences. Grubby basketball courts. The odd smashed window. Scruffy garish graffiti spells out 'WISLA WISLA WISLA'. Yet it feels good, this peek at the underbelly, we are teasing the unknown, touching at a hieroglyphic force field. The air still clings on us. Sticky time. Luckily for us, the Sodispar apartments unerringly mock the less plush surroundings.
© Copyright 2016 John Maher