Bandwidth

Christ I feel rough.  And it’s not just the hangover, since I know that’s what you’re thinking.  I’m fucking heartbroken.  It is 10.33pm, I have to submit this goddamn thing before tomorrow, and all I can do is sit here struggling down a beer and listening to ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?’ over and over and over.  I don’t know why I ever agreed to this…

So a few days ago I go to the Bandwidth offices to meet this week’s ‘date’ whom once again, I have no knowledge of.  Johnny left a voicemail message saying he’s on business in Milan (what the hell kind of business could Bandwidth be doing in Milan?) and he hasn’t been returning my phone calls, so when I got there I was dealing with Paul.
‘How’s Johnny’s business trip going?’
‘What?’ he looks confused.
‘Johnny said he was going to Milan on business.’
‘Ha! That’s a good one.  Nah he just got the new Batman game for the Xbox.  He’s in his office playing it right now.’
‘Are you serious?’ [EDITOR’S NOTE: Hehe!]
‘Ian let me introduce you to Jennie.’  And my eyes just about popped out of my head.  ’My daughter,’ he added, and I quickly retracted my eyeballs.  I think God hates me.  I gave her a sweaty palmed, limp-wristed handshake and mumbled a hello.  This is my standard greeting for beautiful women,  but since Jennie was a lot more beautiful than most women I had to outdo myself.
‘I have to go to the toilet… to wee.’  That’s right, I said ‘wee’.  I disappeared into the john and cried in front of the mirror like a recently-hit-upon secretary from Mad Men.
When I came back she was texting and Paul suggested I take her to the Garden Gourmet thing at Botanic Gardens.
‘What?  What about the movie?’ I asked.
‘Oh you don’t always have to write about movies.  This will give you plenty to write about.’
‘But I wanted to see Gamer… it looks badass.’
‘She’s not old enough to see that anyway.’  17 years old.  God fucking hates me.

I tried to make polite conversation on the walk down.  I also tried really hard not to glance at her arse.  Neither worked.
‘So what are you studying?’ I asked.
‘Hold on a sec,’ she said, and went on texting.  That sec lasted all the way there and right up until, walking through Botanic Gardens dodging screaming children, I saw sanctuary.  Or rather, a big sign stuck to a tree that simply said ‘Bar’ with a big arrow.
‘Let’s get a drink,’ I suggested.
‘I’m not old enough to drink.’ Right.  Fuck.  Let’s look at some flowers instead.  We dandered around, in and out of tents full of flowers and vegetables and little pieces of cake with ‘Please do not touch’ signs, and she just kept texting the whole time.  The tents were mostly boring and crowded and I was confused as to what exactly I was looking at.  Why would I pay to see a plant in a pot?  Was exactly is the importance of this potted plant that it deserves pride of place on this table?  And who the hell is she texting so much?
‘Who are you texting anyway?’
‘My boyfriend.’  Boyfriend.  Of course.
‘Oh…’  I saw a stall offering roast pork baps, which got my interest up.  ‘You want a pork bap?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Well I do.’  And I joined the queue.  I’ll get her one anyway, I thought, she’s probably just refusing out of politeness.  I asked the guy for two.
‘I’m a vegan,’ she said.  The guy at the stall stopped loading a bap full of pork for a second and gave us a dirty look.
‘Where’s that?  Europe?’
‘It means I can’t eat anything that comes from animals.’
‘Oh it’s like a medical condition?’
‘No, it’s a dietary choice.’
‘So you don’t want the pork bap?’
‘No.’
‘Okay I’ll have two.’
‘That’s eight pounds please,’ said the girl at the stall.  Eight quid!? I smile and hand her the money.  The pork baps are damn good… maybe not good enough for four quid a pop, but good.
‘I bet you’d change your mind about meat if you tried one of these,’ I told her.
‘I don’t believe in eating anything that comes from animals.  It’s not just meat – that’s vegetarian.’
‘So you don’t eat eggs?’
‘No.’
‘What about milk?’
‘No.’
‘What about cheese?’
‘No.’
‘What about butter?’
‘No!’
I started trying to think of other foods that come from animals, and tucked into my second pork bap.  Then we passed a paella stand and I had a revelation.
‘What about squid!?’
‘No.’  I ordered one portion of seafood paella and we moved on.  The paella was way too salty and I didn’t finish it.  I was parched, and for some reason we were watching some kids entertainment act with shitty things like songs and dancing and audience participation.  Fucking CBeebies Live and Unplugged.  I had to get away.
‘I‘ve gotta go to the toilet,’ I said.
‘To wee?’ she smirked.
‘No,’ I said, and immediately regretted what that connoted.  ‘I won’t be long – you keep texting your boyfriend and I’ll meet you at the giant vegetables.’
‘Fine,’ she said, and I just about skipped towards the bar.

On the way there I passed a dude wearing this crazy wooden rig that was about ten feet tall.  At the top it had a little puppet clown, which he controlled using strings.  The clown kept doing little flips and jumps and dances and I honestly entertained of enquiring with the guy about how I might go into his line of work.  Then I saw a kid with his face painted like Gene Simmons, eating a bag of mini donuts. [EDITOR‘S NOTE: How do you paint a face to look like Gene Simmons eating donuts?]  I asked him where he got them.  He gave me surprisingly accurate directions to the donut van and I got two bags.  One for me and one for Jennie, as a gesture of good will.  The donuts were frigging awesome and I finished the whole bag by the time I got to the bar, so I had one out of Jennie’s bag, knowing she wouldn’t know the difference anyway.
‘Gimme a pint of something strong and German and delicious please,’ I said to the girl at the bar, feeling good for the first time since I’d left the house.
‘All we’ve got is Harp or Guinness.’
‘Make it a Guinness then.’
‘You got I.D.?’  Oh fuck off.

She gave me a pint in a plastic glass [EDITOR’S NOTE: Plastic glass?  Lolz!] with a head that looked like it had been sprayed on with an aerosol.  I took a seat next to Captain Clean Up – a man wearing a costume of big blue foam muscles – who I guessed was there to encourage the kids not to drop litter.  Being the only other person at the bar he recognised me as a kindred spirit and looked up from his pint to give me a nod.
‘One of those days?’ I asked.
‘One of those days.’ He agreed.  He was having trouble drinking because his massive fake biceps prevented him bringing the glass to his mouth.  I took pity on him and bought him his next drink.  That was how it began.

When Jennie finally tracked me down I was five pints in, and had left her on her own for around two hours.  She wasn’t pleased.  I was in no state to care.
‘Hey babe, I’ve missed you,’ I said.  I introduced her to the Captain: ’Captain, this is my date Jennie.  Jennie, this is Captain Clean Up.’
‘Damn, she is hot,’ he said.
‘Told you,’ I grinned.
‘I’m leaving,’ is all she said.
‘What?  Don’t do that.  I got you some donuts.’  I gave her the bag and she looked it over.
‘These have dried egg white in them.’
‘Oh for fuck sake what can you eat?’ I asked.  She stormed off, and I guessed that was my cue to follow her.

Her boyfriend pulled up on his motorbike and the fact that he looked like Gerard Butler didn’t help at all.  It also reminded me that I missed Gamer to do this.  My depression set in as I watched them zoom off into the distance.  I decided to head back to the bar but the beer had made me sleepy, so I stole a motorised wheelchair and drove myself there.  That’s around the last of the lucid memories until…

I was awoken by park security at closing time, still slouched in the wheelchair.  I tried to pass it off as my own and leave with it, but they insisted I leave the chair and get out immediately.  ‘That fucking paella sucked!’ (smugly pronouncing it ‘pie-ay-ah’, rather than ’pie-ella’) I yelled, since it was the only legitimate criticism of the day that I could conjure up.

Waiting for the bus home people kept giving me strange looks, even though there was a crazy old lady there who was far more interesting than me.  She was slouched at a strange angle and at first I felt really sorry for her, assuming she was disabled in some way.  Then she got up, leaned way back to correct her balance and shambled around behind the bus stop so all I could see were her feet.  And the vomit splashing the pavement in front of them.  She was drunk off her ass!  An old lady!  At 6.30pm!  Fucking disgrace.  Everyone just ignored it and kept staring at me, and I made a mental note to use the incident as some sort of genius metaphor for my day.  You know, like how you can meet the girl of your dreams on a sunny Sunday afternoon but life has a way of making sure that you end up cold and drunk and alone and even if you get sick people will just pretend not to notice.  But while I was thinking that I caught a reflection of myself in a bus window and realised my face was painted like the Star Child from Kiss, and it hit me hard and fast that I was kidding myself.  I’m just not a genius metaphor kinda guy.

** Author’s Note / Apology: I realise this is my third post in about seven days.  I’m not trying to hog the limelight, it just kinda worked out that way.  Hopefully from now on you should only hear from me once a week, probably on Fridays.

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