Chapter 1
I never wanted to be part of anything you’d call a scene.
There was one around town, they’d frequent the cooler pubs, and I’d see them whenever I’d pop into one of them. I didn’t really have a pub that’d call my own, I was on nodding terms with lots of groups of people and that was alright with me.
A couple of the pubs had live bands on, local ones would do the time honoured thing of the circuit, everyone knew someone who was in a band of one sort or another but I never really fancied it, I played guitar and had been at it for about five years when I got my first flat in town.
There’s no getting away from the fact that I’d been kicked out of home at 18, I’d started slowly, fifteen a the time of my first night out, a house party that I surprised a few people by attending, the often repeated phrase ‘I didn’t expect to see you here’ even a that age I’d established a nodding terms attitude to life.
Before that big social debut I’d been content to sit in my bedroom with a tv and a stereo and my guitar, I caused no major ructions, only the occasional railing against the house rules but once I started going out it was a flick of a switch, like life was running at double speed and to hell with the consequences.
It was booze that did it for me at first, the bedroom guitarist in me needed a few drinks to come out and those were the nights when there’s a bright, tight something in the air and being at that age and at that time and place is just right.
Being so young a lot of us didn’t know how to moderate, as the parties and places changed people would drop out, work would take a few, education and careers too and others, well, they just fizzled out. I’d seen the teary, beer-soaked confessionals of relationships that had crashed and burned or someone having too much and doing something regrettable causing gossipy ripples throughout whatever group of people were involved.
It’d happened to me, of course it had, you don’t go through life avoiding drama, I’d made mistakes, overstretched or just been blind, blackout drunk and it caused friction at home, I was pushing the boundaries and getting them pushed back, things were tense for long periods of time.
I’d get my older, more straight edged siblings pulling me aside to try and talk their sense into me and most of the time I’d nod and try to take heed but it was futile and I’d start to push again until I pushed myself into a corner which faced the door, which I was soon on my way out of.
I’d got a job, producing and packing washers in a factory and the day after I got kicked out, after spending the night on the sofa in my friend’s living room floor after ringing him in a semi panic and rocking up with a bag, a guitar and 8 cans of beer. I had to tell the office not to bother posting my wages cheque to my parent’s address as I wasn’t living there any longer. The answer I got back was that without an address to forward the cheques to, no matter if it was an antiquated system when just about every other place got paid direct into the bank, I couldn’t be their employee.
Cunts.
I had a deadline of the following Monday, it was Thursday and our working day stated at eight and ended at five and I didn’t have anywhere really to go after my shift finished, my mate had told me I could stay for a couple of days, we tied it on that evening, I didn’t get back to his until past one and by the time we’d burned some toast but eaten it anyway I didn’t see my improvised bed until at least three, and I had to be up at seven.
Somehow, I made it in, painkillers and orange juice were purchased on the way into work at the twenty-four-hour garage on my route in, I was feeling decidedly deathlike, I puked in a hedge near a park trying to be discreet as the morning traffic and workers passed me by.
I found someone looking for a house share on the Saturday, the day I’d spend going between pubs with whoever I bumped into in town and when Monday came around, I was able to tell the boss’ mum, the haughty old bitch in the office where she could send her cheques.
And that’s where the rock and roll years began, the first house share was all friends, a mixture and an almost continual party until all that fell apart, renting anywhere around us was a nightmare, there were a few landlords but you’d hear whispers about dodgy flats and rent rises and harsh rules so I continued to share houses with varying groups of perople.
So, when I got that first proper bedsit after being around people for so long for a time I just wanted it to be me and my guitar.
I’d still go out most nights and return alone in various states, not even making it as far as the bed in my single room often with my head spinning with whatever I’d shoved down my throat that evening.
