A city like London cannot afford too long a summer season. The first signs of heat sees the decayed stir and simmer. The dormant offspring; the spawn of the most aggravating species of pests wait months for the warmth, incubating underneath in the subterranean levels of the ancient metropolis. Swarms rise from the sewer and the dead along with ‘em. The city’s compromised, far worse than the effect of any malicious tube strike. The city faces ruin every year, every summer. One of these summers will be too long in the tooth, and London will fall.
Saturdays are my greatest failures, next to Sundays. With ease and surety, a morning coffee’s followed by a midday pint.
“Just one”; an exercise in restraint.
On this particular Saturday, the local opened it’s doors a half hour late. We weren’t to know at the time that the good owner was in recovery. Not from cancer, mind, but a terrible bout with vices. His habitual, self afflicted state meant nothing to us then, but foreshadowed my own inner conflict later that afternoon.
I must make note to apologize to the good pub owner for the finger and probable drool marks left on his front windows from two dumbfounded, would-be patrons who arrived at noon sharp. We didn’t quite know what to make of a pub closed after the midday mark. We feared it was shut down. A number of likely scenarios involving unruly landlords or shady dealings came to mind. I’d just finished reading Irvine Welsh’s Porno, where the characters were filming their homemade efforts on the upper floors of their local pub; after hours. The enterprise eventually got ’em is some strife with local authorities. Of course that was in Leith, not Hackney.
That’d probably fly round here.
After the confusion subsided, unshackling us enough to move on with our lives, we journeyed to Kingsland to find an establishment who knew what time it was.
People watching from the stools of the main drag haunts can be a tad melodramatic. Apart from boosted prices, the lack of exclusivity of these venues stands as my only criticism. Some cases on Kingsland are almost too sad for comment; almost. But my roommate and I weren’t on a first date. We were two people who knew the prejudices and perversions of one another and were content in each others company.
Between us, the judgements were freely vocalised, flowing in abundance like Carling between paychecks.
Sipping the whit Hefenweizen nectar in the London sun on the porch doing not much was grand. It’s how Saturdays should be spent in adult life. Unwinding, so to speak.
Between the first divine sips and the moment when the Hefenweizer lingered stale in the glass was an unnoted transition. Remorse set in as if it were always there; the notion that all the unwinding I’d done-paid in honest pound-was ill timed. I was still one major shift in debt to my working week. I’d never worked a proper 9-5, and found it peculiar that I’d momentarily assumed I always had.
My housemate sat across with his despicable smug and goofy look upon his mug. He was still in the Saturday afternoon dream; the one that I’d just woken from. And rightly so, he had deserved it. We would meet on the Sunday morning and discuss our hangovers while devouring a moderately priced Turkish breakfast, probably at Red Art Café. I would talk of my grueling shift over the bar, and he would lavish over his lustrious Saturday night, spent outside my workplace.
Of everyone on Kingsland Road that day, he was the one I resented the most.
Could I do the 5th pint? Was there still time? There was still a half hour before I’d ideally want to be in the shower. The shower was a 10-minute walk away, which I could probably make in 7-8. The pint would take an easy 5 minutes to demolish. I figured £5 a pint meant I’d sip a pound’s worth a minute.
Reason, math and logic were too synonymous. All were out the window.
I could squeeze in one more, and would.
I stunted all hopes of a smooth transition into what the 9-5ers call “work mode”. I fucked up somewhere and found myself in the inevitable rush. The hangover came to fruition as I raced back to the ranch, perspiring in the London summer heat.
As the first drops of Thames top quality water trickled down my hop dispensing head – face slightly numbed from the alcohol – I contemplate a quick kip whilst standing. The frailty of the notion, once realized, added to further anxiety.
Towelling off my ever perspiring face, I conceded to the truth of sweat; ruining all aesthetic achievement. The perfection of a Saturday afternoon had long given way. The Saturday night followed. Work followed.
I had to time my arrival at Dalston Junction to mitigate my exposure to the Fragrances of London, amongst other confrontations. Black bugs circled the crudded up waste bins adjacent the Co-Op. I was unsure as to what I was inhaling; only a small percentage I’d assumed was breathable air. In an asphyxiated panic, I thought again of the Dalston subterranean; layers upon layers of what may’ve been the surface, centuries ago. Whatever dwelled underneath was unknown to humanity and knew the craft of stealing small children without incident.
Bus number 38 couldn’t’ve arrived sooner.
The sought after kip-righting all wrongs-would have to happen in transit. Time being the factor, how was I to wake before the stop? Do I rely on an alarm? I hoped that 15 minutes down the road would be time enough for a sufficient sleep and yet still be shy of my desired destination. At least long enough for me to come to terms with the outside world, my initial and most important conscious interaction being the pushing of the red stop button.
In my mind I framed up the beloved local pub I’d revisit the following day. It mattered not whether the doors would be open at 12 or soon after. I’d be at Turkish then anyways. I’d pickup where I left off on my stunted Saturday afternoon. The resented one, who’d have to resume his grind on Monday morning would come to resent me, with resonating contempt, as I’d probably still be in bed the following day while he suited up. I’d slumber well, knowing the circle was complete.
The hangover ripening to perfection as I walked through the doors, I hoped this was the thought that would get me through the shift.
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