The Last Weekend of Summer

We were practically thrown over the barstool, sipping on some watered down Mojitos in a cocktail glass served with a straw. Around us girls walked in short skirts, and strapped vests, showing tanned and peeling shoulders over strong perfume and the clap clop of broken heels. It was the seventh time I had looked at my watch- an almost impulsive reaction- and it was also the seventh time I had remembered that the bastard had stopped sometime between 11 and 2:30 and I had no idea what time it really was.

In front of me I had a charade of poor jokes and sexist comments, I tried to smile but I had cut myself shaving after a mosquito buzzed past my ear as the razor landed above my lip. Nobody could notice, but it annoyed the hell out of me. Everything around me annoyed the hell out of me. It was the last weekend of summer, and you could sense the nostalgia in the air, and the forced intentions to try to make the night special, when in fact, it had been dire.

This guy called Joe, who had refused to tell me his real name because it was “too difficult to pronounce”, he just stood there staring at the girls, the tackier the better, the kind of girls who wore yesterday’s shirt and drowned the sweat with deodorant and hairspray, his eyes widening.  Every now and then he would prod me with his finger and say, “three o´clock” or “six o´clock”, and I would discretely, or not so discretely, turn and find a busty Russian girl with sex doll lips, sipping on some fruity alcopop and pouting like there was no tomorrow. As I would turn back, he’d be nodding like some sex mad pervert at me, his thumbs up and his grin wrapped around his face like a towel. “Spectacular”, I would lie, and he would resume his bird watching notifying me that he would “keep me informed on any new arrivals”.

The other guy, Phil, he is talking non-stop about who gives a shit what. It makes me feel guilty at times, the fact that he is opening his heart and telling me his life, his insecurities and his dilemmas and that I am paying no attention to it, but then my common sense gives me a kick in the balls, and I remember that he has no heart, just a puffed up chest, full of feathers made so that he can strut around like a champ.

“So, she thinks she can tell me what to do, but in the end, she always calls me crying man. Always.  I can treat her like shit, I tell you, but she will always come back crying. That is the effect I have on women…”

The effect he has on certain types of women, I ponder, the ones who I would rather avoid. The vultures, likes the ones perched around me. These girls, they don’t look at your hair, your expression, or your sense of humour, these girls go straight for your car, your shoes, your watch. They check to see with what kind of notes you’re paying with, and what your wallet looks like. They know brands you have never even heard of, and I’m not referring to Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace or Christian Dior, they know if your watch is a Chaumet, a Cartier or a Brequet and all those names send signals down their spine and down towards their libido. They wouldn’t care if Phil was one metre sixty five, had a beer belly and tended to gel his hair back to try and hide his first bald patches. All they knew was that he drove a Jaguar and that he loved himself.

“…they adore me. Ed, you reach a stage in your life, when you have done so much and earned so much money, that you literally shit on everybody else’s life. I don’t give a fuck about these people around me, because I will always be more respected than them, I have a good life. Suzanne, she knows that, and I have her trapped because of that.”

My head wanders off again, I don’t need to hear this anymore, he just carries on and on, and even when I try to give him some feedback he halts me with his hand and says “wait, wait,” and continues spraying shit out his mouth. Every now and then, I feel a prod on my side, and a murmur of “oh my God, look at eight o’clock”.

These girls, they don’t see that Phil has a disgusting tendency of picking his ear with his little finger and smelling it. Or that his breath smells like dog fart. They just admire the confidence in his stroll, the efficiency in the way he sells himself, I mean, in a different way, he had also sold himself to me. To what extent are women this way? Are men really the superficial ones? If Phil’s words were true, is civilization doomed?

The lights flicker out in the port bar; the only lights surrounding us are on the trail to the lighthouse. Sparklers begin to ignite on the centre stage, where before an Arab dancer had tried to woo the crowd, and some dumb jock had tried to sing an Usher song, they quickly spread throughout the dance floor and near the bar. A waitress walks up to Phil and asks him if he wants to hold a sparkler, he looks in repulse and says “I don’t want to hold anything”. The waitress, she smiles at him and says “ah don’t be so grumpy”. Joe’s mouth is wide open at this time. Meanwhile John Lennon’s Give Peace a chance is boosting around us.

The music is too loud for Phil to resume his dialogue, and so I am given some peace. I look at the crowd around me, waving the sparklers to such a tune, most of whom probably don’t even know what the damn song is about, and I wonder how long left until I leave this place. How long is this limbo going to last? How long must I repent for my sins, and when will I be freed from them?

The summer sun has long faded, the sunshine is weaker and the days are starting to get shorter. True, it is only September, but I swear I have felt stronger sunshine than this in previous years. The wind is sharper, the night is jagged, how long do I think I can last without a jacket? How long until the scarf makes its return? How long until I wake up feeling new? How long do I need to give importance or be affected by people who should already be out of my life? Forgive me for I have sinned, but give me a new chance and let me get out of this shithole.

The beaches are emptier, kids don’t run around them anymore, and the people who are brave enough to swim in the water do so with the sadness of saying goodbye for another year. They play with the waves and let the water trickle through their hands. The walk out slowly and stroke the sea, and when they leave the shore, they look back. It is always sad to depart, especially when times have been great, but I refuse to look back.

The sparkles have flickered out, and I see Phil turn to carry on talking and I prepare to hold my breath. Back in limbo, will someone wake me up? And just then I feel a prod as Joe confirms to me that there is a hot go-go at eleven o’clock.

Summer...it's over, man.

Still Waiting…

Still waiting. For a rush I don’t even know how to explain. A sense of wonder to turn things around. Breathless and overwhelming, inside my days, inside this routine that has long gone off course. I slumber around torn in pieces, trying to shed my skin, layer upon layer, the depth of what I have become is too much. What lies beneath? Only dust? Will the Light just disappear? I mean, maybe all this is just a dream, and when I wake I am two years back, and the warmth is still around me, and I am there present in everything, I hear the breath of life in the streets outside, and I haven’t faded.

I live inside the same day, yesterday was like today, the only change might be the weather, and my eyes no longer tell the difference between one and another, like two strangers whose face you soon forget, and everyone moves on, but I still stand staring through the years.

I could just be stalled, and I am saving myself for the moment, to prove all that I have to prove, as the years pass and I get older, my spirit grows colder and I lose to fate and luck yet again.

It was you that brought this to me again, tore me a little bit more, saw my eyes beginning to rust, my breath choking in the dust, it was true that time has little empathy on those who stand and watch it pass by.

Will I be leaving soon? I want to hold my life by the reign and make a move that proves its worth and not the nothingness I see in misty reflections; to live a life and dance with shadows, to not fall apart in o the depth of despair and wishful thinking of things that will never even be there. To disappear and come back new, sharper, brighter, to not depend on what others are doing, I think it’s a change I need.

The strangest thing is that good things come slowly, without noise, when you’re alone and no weight is upon you, and all of a sudden a smile appears upon your face. The strangest feeling, a boost that no one will understand but you, and you dare not let anybody spoil it. That rush, that hope, that hidden fate, I long for it, I loathe those who have it, I sit in darkness and confusion. I sit and wait.