Mon 5th March 2012

Me, my new business partner and his girlfriend, are down the pub to discuss the details. I'm dreading this. How will I afford it? -- isn't paying for anything, neither is --. How can I take money off the gorgeous sexy poor girls, who are my friends (the biggest compliment I can give anyone)?

I walk round Wilko, chemical scents advertised as natural, to while away the time till one o'clock. What am I getting myself involved in? His contact has been convicted for murder.

We went down the pub. I was conscious of my hands and what they might say, but it gradually eases. He rings his contact up and calls him a black bastard, a twat. It's all chatty and banterish. He passes the phone to my old classmate from Heysham. "Hello you black bastard," she says, with a broad smile on her face. We three get on laughingly, attracting the poorly secreted attention of the pub, who know we're up to something.

New Business Partner can't really handle his drink. Switches like that after two bottles, but wants a third. She talks him out of it. I want to talk to her. She's into jazz-funk, like me, and mentions a Wilton Felder track, the citing of which makes me sit up. Not many women know who Wilton Felder is. They get into a bit of a domestic. I'm off to the loo to let it fizzle out.

When I come back he's gone. "Where's he gone?" I say. "He's just fucked off. He's got no keys," she says. "But he won't be able to get in," I say. We talk for a bit. "He takes it all out on me. In public, he's friends with everyone." I wonder whether he hits her.

We sat together and had the best ten minutes of the afternoon. She finished her wine and me my beer. "I'm going to get off now," she said, "because otherwise I'm going to end up sleeping with you."

We kissed with exactly coded decorum, on the cheek. "The thought has fleetingly crossed my mind," I said.

Me and new mate are off to Nottingham on Friday to meet a murderer. But I'm sure he's a very nice man really.

Oooh, 16 comments!

16 comments

Comment from: twisted scottish bastard

My goodness, you do live an interesting life, but be careful, I get the feeling that if you screw around too much with this one, your life may become embarrassingly short, as may a portion of your anatomy.

Mon 5th March 2012 @ 17:02

Comment from: looby

A certain part of my anatomy is already embarrasingly short, but women are tolerant creatures. And if I died tomorrow, I'd have had a happy life.

Mon 5th March 2012 @ 17:11

Comment from: isabelle

blimey, it all sounds a bit cloak and dagger and thrillingly dodgy.

Mon 5th March 2012 @ 21:35

Comment from: looby

The frisson of sexual attraction and the certainty of ending up with some slightly damaged limbs if we ever act on it makes it even better.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 00:11

Comment from: daisyfae

most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

or not...

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 02:27

Comment from: Furtheron

Somehow I can't help reading all this with a tone of a court room drama with phrases like "The accused claims..." and "M'Lud I must protest" popping in here and there ;-)

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 09:28

Comment from: readers

I've met a murderer. Two actually. One was a patient and a very nice man.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 11:13

Comment from: readers

That comment above was from nursemyra. don't know why I keep coming up as "readers"

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 11:14

Comment from: looby

Nursey, check your email. Sorry about this.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 12:33

Comment from: isbw

I've met a couple of murderers in the course of my work. I wasn't scared of either, but they were profoundly unhappy in entirely different ways.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 15:59

Comment from: twisted scottish bastard

Oh, I forgot to mention that the nicest bloke I knew when I was a mature student in Dundee was a convicted bank robber, who did the Royal Bank in Edinburgh with 5 mates with sawn-offs. He was a semi-reformed character who could tell the most amazing jokes, and he had two very large knife scars across and down his face, looked VERY menacing, but he was great to have in a pub, because as we walked towards the bar, everyone elso took one look at him and rapidly got out of the way, so we always got served very quickly. Lovely bloke.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 18:03

Comment from: looby

So basically, I'm just catching up with my readers. You dodgy bastards.

Tue 6th March 2012 @ 23:34

Comment from: The Unbearable Banishment

I'm a terrible drunk as well. Never built up any resistance for the drink. Many a date has drunk me under a table. Quite embarrassing.

Not many men know who Wilton Felder is, either. Just saying.

A murderer of what variety, pray tell? Like, he's really boring and will kill your time?

Wed 7th March 2012 @ 03:57

Comment from: looby

Yes, I was thinking whether I ought to have made that non-gender-specific, but then I'm not really interested in men who like Wilton Felder, whereas a woman who does will arouse my interest.

In a way, I hope Friday is quite boring. I'm not looking forward to the journey either. Being in cars makes me tense.

Wed 7th March 2012 @ 09:44

Comment from: Jonathan

Looby, I can't help thinking TSB up there has a point in his usual forthright manner. This sounds seriously fucking dodgy. Which I realise you know already. But I feel bound to ask you, is it not too late to reconsider the stress-inducing car-ride and err instead on the side of that life of quiet desperation? This all might be edge-of-the-seat stuff for us all to read but if it ends up with you being fitted out with a pair of concrete boots and dumped unceremoniously into the Lune (and it could be just for being too friendly with his girlfriend from the sound of things, never mind the, er business) then... well, you know what I'm saying, right?

(Sorry if it sounds like I'm being a bit prim and proper about this, God knows I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life, but you've got me a bit worried here...)

Wed 7th March 2012 @ 23:06

Comment from: looby

It'll be alright. I'll keep my hands to myself, and I've arranged to text someone with the address I'll be at on Friday, and to expect a text on Friday night and to ring me if I don't send it.

Thu 8th March 2012 @ 09:27

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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

M / 48 / Lancaster ("the Brighton of the North").

Drinker, father to triplet girls. Bits of editing, proofreading and generally picking fault with others.

WLTM literate woman, 30-63. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.

There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic

I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008

The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek

I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon, and it’s about sharing with each other a certain oral tradition, ultimately.
Jeremy Wagner

La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes

One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010

The working man is a fucking loser.
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