As our plans to go to Wales fell through at the last minute, SiC and I had to resort to our default plan of getting wasted in Kilburn all weekend. Saturday was a friend’s birthday party – SiC and I made only a perfunctory appearance because I really am getting too old for house parties, especially the kind they throw in Kilburn that tend to last for several uninterrupted days.
This one was no exception: the following afternoon, upon waking up from my afternoon nap (severe hangovers make me revert back to being a toddler, including having temper tantrums and requiring a bib to eat), I went to the Good Ship to watch Man U and Chelsea battle each other on the football pitch and (I hoped) both be destroyed in a tragic stadium explosion. While this regrettably did not occur, I was entertained by the spectacle of several of the partygoers from the night before, none of whom had slept yet. The birthday boy was unable to answer simple questions or speak in sentences, but expressed his delight at seeing me by clinging to me like a baby possum. The others amused themselves by putting shoes in the bar dishwasher (hygienic!) and seeing how many of them could squeeze into the cleaning cupboard (HILARIOUS!). Committed to film, the lot of them would have made a highly effective anti-drug advertising campaign.
After the match, and a hangover-beating curry break, I ended up sitting at the bar next to a sort of rockabilly-looking chick, purportedly a friend of Aussie Barman’s. We got to chatting, by which I mean she detected the proximity of a receptive human being and unleashed an unstoppable verbal torrent in my direction. She told me about how she didn’t do drugs anymore because they made her wear her heart on her sleeve a bit too much, but that she liked to drink, but only white wine – no beer or spirits; she told me about how she’d grown up in Yorkshire and her dad – well, actually her stepdad – was a renowned hard man and bare-knuckle boxer and that just mentioning his name got her into any club in town, which she liked, because it made her feel safe; she told me about her night on the town in LA with Lemmy from Motorhead, who was like shocked that she didn’t do drugs and had no tattoos and was so innocent; she told me about how her boyfriend would give her shit if she came home drunk – they’d been fighting a lot recently, but they were still close, you know? and anyway he’d lost his dad three months ago so obviously she was dealing with someone who was grieving, so they’d either come through it or, like, they wouldn’t? but they’d been together for two years and they were really strong; she told me about how she really wanted to get a job at the Good Ship, because she was sure she could handle it and it was a good place and everyone was really friendly…and so on, all without stopping to take a breath. I began to become afraid that if her terrible eldritch verbosity didn’t abate soon, I would grow old, die and wither into a desiccated corpse without ever again leaving my barstool. Heroically, SiC switched seats with me in a slick Indiana-Jones-style move and took some of the brunt before my face melted off from boredom.
Good thing, too, as the band that evening was truly awesome, featuring a broken megaphone strapped to a mic stand and a bloke with one bare foot and a party hat playing the ukulele. Hooray for hillbillies!