I was in my studio playing a little guitar when, from across the gardens at the back of the house came the smell of a barbecue and the sound of something called ‘we’ve got friends round’.
I pressed on with figuring out Chelsea Hotel #2 until it got harder and harder to concentrate what with the uber volume of football talk/latest fashion talk and the smell of 300 sausages rocking their skins off on a grill.
I sat there for a while with Bess on my lap and tuned her up again while half listening to the conversation.
I guess stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason. A bunch of guys talking about the game and a bunch of girls talking about their dresses. Not the amazon burning down, not Christmas, not what books they were reading or even the weather. Football and dresses.
Maybe that’s why we never have barbecues or friends round - because we don’t have the necessary social skills to pull one off with any grace.
Then again, I would have been straight over there if words had come sailing over the fence about how much everybody thought the latest Bosch novel was better than the last or how one of them had rummaged out Albert Finney’s Wolven and was doing cartwheels because it was as good as they remembered it to be.
Anyway, I persisted with Bess for a while and then called it a day because the smell of those sausages had set off that thing inside me that says I too must eat - but first I figured I’d have a cigarette with my dog at my feet.
Down at the other end of the garden, I could see the barbecue party in full swing over the fence and I guess it’s relevant at this point to say that the guy who lives up the street is a fireman. At least I think he’s a fireman - something like that - and all of his buddies over for sausages? They appear to be firemen too.
Either that or they’re all members of The Avengers.
Gym. Check.
Running. Check.
More gym. Check.
Football. Check.
Multiple fighting arts. Check.
Tops off.
Tops off? Jealous? Me?
I can’t remember the last time I went out in public with my top off. I’ve been swimming now and again but aside from that the last time I can 100% remember having a naked torso in public was 1989 at a party.
I’d left my cigarettes downstairs and for some reason, couldn’t find my clothes (best not ask why I was naked in the first place) and went down to get them with nothing but a sock on so as I didn’t scare anybody… hey, it was a long time ago and a rock n roll party. I guess parties like that don’t happen anymore unless you’re a bunch of middle-aged swingers or something. So far as I can tell from my kids, parties in 2019 consist of sitting around with a few beers and looking at Facebook on your phone - ironically, something I’m pretty grateful about.
Anyway, I’m giving it some side-eye over the fence and there are all these firemen in nothing but shorts looking fine, fine, fine. I must have hit my head on something because there’s women there too, but there I was looking at firemen.
“You’re jealous!”
Yep. That’s what the voice in my head told me and I couldn’t find a single rung to stand on in my own defence. I’ve never looked like those guys in my life. The only reason I had the grit to go downstairs naked at that party was because back then, a Space Raider sandwich a day was as good as it got when all your other money went on cigarettes, books and pyro for your band. Total calories a day? About 200. I wouldn’t recommended it as a healthy diet but it worked.
And it’s not like I’ve spent my whole life sitting on my ass either. I’ve joined gyms, martial arts training (even fought a guy from Russia in a competition once who looked like Dolph Lundgren and made it out in one piece), walked one hell of a lot of miles but still… I have never, ever looked like a fireman (or whatever it is those guys at the barbecue do).
I closed the curtains and stripped down to my pants. The dog is wondering what the hell I’m doing because standing in front of the mirror in your pants sure as hell doesn’t look like heading out into the hills.
It could be worse. It could be a lot worse - but it could also be better. I look like a man on fire not a fireman.
Do I even know this person anymore? Maybe the sock would be the only thing that still fits me from back then and that’s probably wishful thinking as well.
I need to do something about it. I don’t think I’ll ever look like a fireman and maybe I don’t need to because I have no intention of carrying people down a ladder in the middle of the night, hacking down a door with an axe or making a calendar for charity, but somewhere inside my head there’s a little voice saying ‘figure it out before it’s too late’.
Then again, I have got more hair than all of them put together, a dog that doesn’t fit into a handbag and come midnight, I won’t be wondering how to get rid of everybody from my garden because I want to read a book either.
Gratitude. I’m working on it.