This is the very personal story of the year I spent in Australia. Many years have passed, I am now a Dad and I'm married and I haven't looked at these words for years...
For a large part of the trip I was homeless, hungry, in love and pain. It was a life changing experience and even though I'm not a writer, I've never really tried to be, in 2015 I decided to dedicate a week to drinking loads of red wine, smoking loads of weed and recording my memories on paper in perhaps the same poetic energy of my favorite writers. I'm not trying to hide these comparisons and they are fucking cringy at times, the descriptions too are often hard to read, a tad embarrassing and the whole book is incredibly personal. The hero of my trip was Jimmy a life long friend I met in this story. He is the only person to have read it and he loves it, so I'm publishing it in peices on here. If you do read, please leave some feedback positive or critical or constructive, I'm keen to hear all your thoughts.
GUMSUCKERS - 001
A friend once said to me ‘The funny thing about Airports is you can be whoever you want to be’. Now, when I read it back on paper it doesn’t make any fucking sense, but at the time it was the most profound thing I’d ever heard.
It was nice thought, but for me the departure lounge was a cold waiting room for inevitable death. There is no time for pretend. I’m always too busy battling paranoia and intrusive thoughts. I stand at the big glass windows common to every shite airport around the world and helplessly gaze out at the planes. These flimsy fickle death machines always look beat to shit; retired achievements of human engineering, old horses that nobody wants to bet on. Ready for 'El Scrapo'.
I always watch the Captain and his co-pilot in the cockpit, applying their fake tan, fumbling with the knobs and switches, they look like two kids getting ready for Halloween, it’s all a big game to them, they’re babbling gibberish to each other, perhaps debating about whether the air hostess is up for giving out a hand job. Some travellers of the fearful kind, like me, feel reassured when the pilot makes their announcement, I dunno... Once I’ve boarded and I’m comfortably strapped to my seat, belt cutting off the circulation of blood to my legs, all my electronics switched off because the placebo effects of following these pointless rules keeps me calm. The basics. I sit and patiently wait for the pilot to welcome me onboard, always secretly hoping it will be Bruce Buffer.
All pilots sound unsure to me, unsure of the weather, unsure of the altitude, unsure of the destination or why the flights been delayed. Almost certainly hanging from a night of wild shagging, wild staff nights-in at expensive hotels. They speak in that monotonous warm tone; half-hearted words of welcome and thanks whilst the flight attendants float up and down the aisle making sure the irrelevant procedures are in place, with their hauntingly fake smiles of hospitality.
I have to watch their facial expressions before, during and after take-off, it helps me relax. My reasoning here lies largely on the assumption they've flown a million times; familiar with every click, crack and bang like a brain surgeon recognises every tiny nerve. It's always a nice thought, ahhh a moment of nirvana... Then poof, "hello paranoia, your late today" and there you have it. Completely convinced in a split moment there’s something seriously wrong, the planes going down for sure, the engine doesn’t sound right, not at all, the brain surgeons slipped and cut the wrong vein and there’s blood and gasoline pouring out all over the place, muscles start to tighten, jaw clenched, teeth grinding back and forth until my cheekbones ache and my throat turns to sand. It's probably powered enamel... great and I’m yelling “I need a glass of fucking water over here!” and only then... if the flight attendants are still laid back, not in a great hurry to serve me, still chit chatting, this that, who fucked who last night “that little whore, that old sleeze bag”, only then can I relax and start breathing again.
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To be continued...
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I hope you enjoyed and come back for part 2.
Cotton.