ROBBIE
2004-01-25 15:10:44 UTC
A couple of years ago Bob returned to South Norwood from an extended
saturnalia in Thailand and Sri Lanka with nothing worse than a sticky case
of impetigo round his mouth. He then decided to sample some of Darren
Parchmore's heroin and promptly caught Hepatitis C off the shared needle.
Bob already had a mahogany liver as a result of 30-odd years of serious
bibbing, and his fondness for cheap white cider had previously resulted in
ascites: Bob turned yellow and had a stomach bloated to the size of a beach
ball; distressing condition for anyone, but a shocking sight on Bob's skinny
5'2 frame; he caught the bus to Mayday Hospital- had to stand up as he could
not fit into a seat- and had more than a gallon of fluid drained off his
peritoneal cavity.
Once he contracted Hepatitis C his liver was in serious trouble and he
very nearly died. He was told never to drink again and now looks thirty
years older than his fifty years. He chooses not to attend the out patient's
clinic and spends most days watching television, smoking hashish and
drinking cans of Stella Artois: the quotidian round of many Britons no
doubt, but not recommended for one such as Bob.
He also suffers from depression and is as doddery as a Ypres veteran.
On Saturday evening last he was in Maria's flat as I arrived with a late
30th birthday present for her. She was drinking with Bob and her next door
neighbour Derek, a ruined, defrocked accountant and sometime drug smuggler,
who first saw the Stones in '64 and began a long, prodigious, and rational
disordering of all the senses soon after; he has kept the quintessence of
his poisons as well: he's half mad and ascites has pumped his stomach up
before now.
We drank whisky and then beer; smoked weed and listened to a bootleg CD of
the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert: Bob perked up and slurred along to
'Sympathy for the Devil'.
'I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight mate,' Bob announced suddenly in
his soft, Coventry accent; he always tells me this, and always tells me this
as a new fact, and I always respond with surprise.
'Really?' I say, 'That was the year I was born. I'm thirty-three. Ready for
the cross.'
'That's not old,' Bob says mournfully and then, after another drag on one
of Maria's lethal-looking 'strongies', falls into a doze.
'I remember,' said Derek in measured, public schoolboy tones, 'seeing a man
masturbate on the stage in front of 300,000 people whilst we were waiting
for the 'Stones to come on-stage at Knebworth in 'seventy-six.'
Derek hasn't vacuumed his damp, basement flat for seven years: it is a
wondrous grotto of filth and disorder, with a to-die-for collection of rare
records, magazines and first editions, all quietly mouldering away. He even
has an original programme from the Woodstock Festival in 1969 foxing away
down there, un-regarded in a corner.
Mindful of his liver, or perhaps his ability to move, Bob decided to go
home, to his own flat down the hill, behind Selhurst Station.
It takes twenty minutes for Bob to put his shoes on, and Maria, now drunk-
having moved onto guzzling white wine- has to tie his laces for him, with
one eye shut.
Derek and I had a short, yet paradoxically rambling debate about Karl
Marx, who Derek rather admires.
'Basically, I believe in the innate goodness of people, and you.don't,' he
said rolling a cigarette.
He left soon after, in spite of Maria offering him a large slug of
Jagermeister and me requesting him to sing Tell Laura I love Her, his party
piece:
'No, no thanks Maria,' Derek replied carefully (Maria is easily offended and
her temper is rapidly inflamed by alcohol) 'got to think of the stairs.'
Derek fell down the stairs to his flat several years ago in the middle of a
smack jag and broke his arm in three places; it was repaired with steel rods
and is the reason he cannot get his right arm above his head; it is also the
reason he hasn't had a bath since 1998.
I left around 7pm, after Maria had fallen head first against the wall
whilst trying to put Janis Joplin's Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz
on the CD player. I helped her boyfriend Leon, the perma-stoned mute, drag
her through the kitchen and put her to bed.
The next morning Maria rang to tell me that Bob had been mugged on his way
home by two youths who pushed him over backwards at the bottom of the hill.
He'd cut his head and had sixty-five pounds of his benefit stolen, plus five
cans of Stella, a small bag of weed and a copy of TV Quick magazine. He
crawled from the scene of the crime to his flat only to find the door kicked
in and a large black man sitting in his lounge holding a carving knife and
Bob's Incapacity Benefit order book and rent book.
'You don't live here no more,' said the intruder.
Bob then began a long evening with the visitor. Somehow, later on, he
managed to alert the police, via a phone call to a friend, that he had a
madman in his dwelling and on realising this the intruder left rapidly,
still clutching Bob's carving knife and social security documents.
In the morning some men from the council arrived and put new locks on the
front door and Bob announced to Maria and Derek that he is never leaving his
flat again- and that he is applying, via a letter from his doctor, to be
re-housed because two crimes in one night is too much. The following morning
Bob awoke to find that the intruder had posted his rent and order book back
through the letterbox.
'Decency prevails!' as Derek's text to my mobile phone declared, later that
afternoon.
saturnalia in Thailand and Sri Lanka with nothing worse than a sticky case
of impetigo round his mouth. He then decided to sample some of Darren
Parchmore's heroin and promptly caught Hepatitis C off the shared needle.
Bob already had a mahogany liver as a result of 30-odd years of serious
bibbing, and his fondness for cheap white cider had previously resulted in
ascites: Bob turned yellow and had a stomach bloated to the size of a beach
ball; distressing condition for anyone, but a shocking sight on Bob's skinny
5'2 frame; he caught the bus to Mayday Hospital- had to stand up as he could
not fit into a seat- and had more than a gallon of fluid drained off his
peritoneal cavity.
Once he contracted Hepatitis C his liver was in serious trouble and he
very nearly died. He was told never to drink again and now looks thirty
years older than his fifty years. He chooses not to attend the out patient's
clinic and spends most days watching television, smoking hashish and
drinking cans of Stella Artois: the quotidian round of many Britons no
doubt, but not recommended for one such as Bob.
He also suffers from depression and is as doddery as a Ypres veteran.
On Saturday evening last he was in Maria's flat as I arrived with a late
30th birthday present for her. She was drinking with Bob and her next door
neighbour Derek, a ruined, defrocked accountant and sometime drug smuggler,
who first saw the Stones in '64 and began a long, prodigious, and rational
disordering of all the senses soon after; he has kept the quintessence of
his poisons as well: he's half mad and ascites has pumped his stomach up
before now.
We drank whisky and then beer; smoked weed and listened to a bootleg CD of
the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert: Bob perked up and slurred along to
'Sympathy for the Devil'.
'I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight mate,' Bob announced suddenly in
his soft, Coventry accent; he always tells me this, and always tells me this
as a new fact, and I always respond with surprise.
'Really?' I say, 'That was the year I was born. I'm thirty-three. Ready for
the cross.'
'That's not old,' Bob says mournfully and then, after another drag on one
of Maria's lethal-looking 'strongies', falls into a doze.
'I remember,' said Derek in measured, public schoolboy tones, 'seeing a man
masturbate on the stage in front of 300,000 people whilst we were waiting
for the 'Stones to come on-stage at Knebworth in 'seventy-six.'
Derek hasn't vacuumed his damp, basement flat for seven years: it is a
wondrous grotto of filth and disorder, with a to-die-for collection of rare
records, magazines and first editions, all quietly mouldering away. He even
has an original programme from the Woodstock Festival in 1969 foxing away
down there, un-regarded in a corner.
Mindful of his liver, or perhaps his ability to move, Bob decided to go
home, to his own flat down the hill, behind Selhurst Station.
It takes twenty minutes for Bob to put his shoes on, and Maria, now drunk-
having moved onto guzzling white wine- has to tie his laces for him, with
one eye shut.
Derek and I had a short, yet paradoxically rambling debate about Karl
Marx, who Derek rather admires.
'Basically, I believe in the innate goodness of people, and you.don't,' he
said rolling a cigarette.
He left soon after, in spite of Maria offering him a large slug of
Jagermeister and me requesting him to sing Tell Laura I love Her, his party
piece:
'No, no thanks Maria,' Derek replied carefully (Maria is easily offended and
her temper is rapidly inflamed by alcohol) 'got to think of the stairs.'
Derek fell down the stairs to his flat several years ago in the middle of a
smack jag and broke his arm in three places; it was repaired with steel rods
and is the reason he cannot get his right arm above his head; it is also the
reason he hasn't had a bath since 1998.
I left around 7pm, after Maria had fallen head first against the wall
whilst trying to put Janis Joplin's Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz
on the CD player. I helped her boyfriend Leon, the perma-stoned mute, drag
her through the kitchen and put her to bed.
The next morning Maria rang to tell me that Bob had been mugged on his way
home by two youths who pushed him over backwards at the bottom of the hill.
He'd cut his head and had sixty-five pounds of his benefit stolen, plus five
cans of Stella, a small bag of weed and a copy of TV Quick magazine. He
crawled from the scene of the crime to his flat only to find the door kicked
in and a large black man sitting in his lounge holding a carving knife and
Bob's Incapacity Benefit order book and rent book.
'You don't live here no more,' said the intruder.
Bob then began a long evening with the visitor. Somehow, later on, he
managed to alert the police, via a phone call to a friend, that he had a
madman in his dwelling and on realising this the intruder left rapidly,
still clutching Bob's carving knife and social security documents.
In the morning some men from the council arrived and put new locks on the
front door and Bob announced to Maria and Derek that he is never leaving his
flat again- and that he is applying, via a letter from his doctor, to be
re-housed because two crimes in one night is too much. The following morning
Bob awoke to find that the intruder had posted his rent and order book back
through the letterbox.
'Decency prevails!' as Derek's text to my mobile phone declared, later that
afternoon.