Into the dragon’s lair

The other day, I mentioned that I was going on a trip to the local drunk’s flat because a friend had asked me to help him put a framed picture on the wall (my friend owns a gallery and does framing etc). Well, this is the story of that day.

You know how, when you have someone coming over to do something, like you know the gas man is coming to read the meter, you clear a space for him. Say it’s tucked in the far corner of the basement or somewhere awkward, you move some stuff out of the way so it’s easier to get to. Well, Mr Red Wine had evidently cocked a snook at that type of thinking and done absolutely nothing to make our visit easier. In fact, it looked like he’d thrown everything he owned onto the floor and bed and sofa, just before we arrived.

Confusingly, the front door didn’t open properly. It got a little way open and stopped. I now realise it was because he had the sofa right behind it. It was quite wierd because he had a space either side of the sofa that he could have moved it into, so the door would open properly. But he’d pulled it directly into the line of the door.

As we carried the frame into the flat, I had to open the kitchen door and go a little way into the kitchen, to allow us to manoeuvre the frame inside.

It was awful. Awful. Months old dishes were stacked in the sink and everything was slightly tinged with dried-on reddish grease and dust.

As we passed the sofa to get the picture inside, I noticed the one shiny grease-covered spot where he obviously sat, the rest of it was covered in mess. In front of the sofa was a long coffee table, every inch covered in mess and cigarette stubs.

We had to hang the picture on the wall behind the bed and, as he’d moved none of his mess to allow us to get near the wall, we realised we’d have to stand on his bed. We asked Mr Red Wine if he had something we could put on the bed to stand on, to save us standing all over his pillows etc. He got us his dressing gown and kind of threw it on the bed. To be honest, the dressing gown looked it had been used as a doormat so not the best thing to put on a bed but we didn’t question it. We just said thanks and got on.

It was so hot in his flat and I had foolishly worn a scarf which I then couldn’t even consider taking off because there was nowhere clean to put it down.

So onto the bed we go, which was a bit dirty and, wierdly, had a huge pink fish-shaped fairground cuddly toy on it. We were trying to hang the picture but it won’t catch on the hooks so my friend asked me to take the whole weight of it, so I dropped onto my knees and held the frame up.

At this point in my visit, I thought, where did it all go wrong? I was brought up well, I went to a good school, I’ve got degrees, I have a nice job and wonderful friends. How did this happen? How did I end up on my knees on the local drunk’s bed in his flat? Something has gone terribly wrong here.

It was at this point I also thanked myself for changing out of my open Crocs into a pair of closed laced shoes.

Once we had managed to hook it into place, we scarpered quickly, reeling from the experience, and sighed with relief as we went back to our normal greaseless, bedbugless lives.

And that is the story of my visit to Mr Red Wine’s house.

“Are these donuts?!”

The local drunk. There’s always one, isn’t there? Every place I’ve lived, there’s a local well-known face, who spends all their time drunk, on drugs or generally being out of control.

The local drunk near me is a shuffler. You know what I mean, he’s so drunk all the time, that he can’t lift his legs up to walk properly. His hair is straggly and grey and he tells the most amazing stories. Were we to believe him, he’s been a doctor (a psychiatrist to be precise), a law student, a life-saving neighbour and an artist. In fact, any time he hears someone talking about something, he says he’s done it.

He heard me talking about studying for my exams, asked me which exams, then said, “O, I used to be a lawyer… Studied law… Yeh, I studied law… Really interesting…. ‘Sgreat, all that… Yeh, I studied law too… ‘sgood, isn’t it, law…” Mumble mumble, he went, about the law, about how interesting it is.

Seriously, this man can barely walk, I’m not sure how he studied law. Well, clearly there was a time before he spent all day and night drinking, so maybe he did.

A lady was once saying her next door neighbours had a new baby and it was up all night crying.

Along he comes, we’ll call him Mr Red Wine, as that is his beverage of choice. So Mr Red Wine lumbers over and says, “Yeh, my neighbours have got a baby… They’ve got a baby too!… And it was up all night crying… I thought it didn’t sound well so I went over and told them to take th’baby to hospital… All night I sat up with it… All night!.. wi’th’baby … In th’ospital…. Baby cryin… All night…. ‘sbetter now though…” Mumble mumble mumble, nonsense nonsense.

So this one day, Mr Red Wine was shopping for red wine. In he goes, to the shop. This day, he was looking especially manic. His hair shot up and out at funny angles. His t-shirt had a rip in it. He smelled more pungent than usual. His shoes had holes in.

Four hours after entering the shop, he has climbed the two steps that greet him at the entrance. He has shuffled to the wine shelf and, in doing so, has passed the fruit shelf. On it, he sees some Spanish donut peaches. Peaches. Donut peaches. They’re small, they’re a bit flat, they’re yellowy orange and furry. Definitely a peach.

His eyes widen in shock. He leans toward them to get a better look. His mind is boggled. He can’t understand quite what he is seeing. Picking up a box of the peaches, he approaches the till. He has forgotten his red wine mission.

He puts them down and looks at the girl behind the till, eyes squinting in disbelief, and asks, in shock, “ARE THESE DONUTS!?”….

When the girl says they are not donuts, his eyes widen. He can’t cope with this information. He shuffles back out of the shop and off home to think about what has happened that day.

The girl at the till has not seen Mr Red Wine for a while. She thinks the donut peaches were too much for his brain to handle.

P.S. The girl is me.