On the tiles with Leon - Part 1

As I get older I worry about things I never thought I’d find myself concerned by.

Things like my humanity. Something I’d always taken for granted. Something I’d assumed, by default, that I was a part of. But the older I get, the more detached from the rest of mankind I feel. Older… certainly no wiser… but sometimes feeling less like I ‘belong’ with every day that passes.

I wonder whether I’ve missed my opportunities for growth by now. Perhaps I should have found myself a wife. Perhaps I should have spawned. Perhaps this would have made me a good and productive member of society. Perhaps it would have drawn my attention away from these dark things…

Perhaps I would still be this boy in a man’s body, simply burdened by other cares, other responsibilities – a wife, a child… mouths to feed, people to provide for… People to keep safe.
Something I can barely do for myself.

But there is no way of knowing and still it tugs at the back of my mind that perhaps I’ve disappointed the people that made me… the mother I hardly knew, the father that died before he could teach me to be a man.

It’s times like this that I wonder about these things - standing in the middle of dancefloor, jostled by the drunken youth I used to consider myself a part of, feeling utterly disconnected from everything around me.

Leon snorts at me, tells me to shut the fuck up, that at least I’m still in my twenties, that I, at least, still have time. Then he tries to tell me I’m at odds with these people because half of them are off their heads on a variety of drugs – ecstasy… cocaine… ketamine… speed… any cocktail thereof… who can tell? All pupils look the same when they’ve dilated, engulfed the iris, darkness taking over the eyeball like some expansionist dictatorship – and I’m simply drunk. And then he tries to convince me to pop a pill of some unknown and unknowable variety. I decline – too many experiences turned bad.

But perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I’m not operating on the right pharmaceutical levels.

Or perhaps it’s just too soon. My own internal chemicals are still all shot to hell.

“It’s been weeks, dude,” Leon says, doing his best to dance in miniature. “You’ve gotta get past it, man. Fuck her. Live your life.” Then he can’t hold it in anymore and he’s off, weaving, jerking his body to the beat, every pounding moment expressed through a convulsion of his spine or a wave of his arms. And he’s gone, dissolved into the dancing mass.

I shrug it off, struggle my way to the bar. I can’t believe that the fact that I haven’t taken anything is why I feel so at odds with the revellers around me. These people so clearly having fun… flaunting it in front of me… All I can summon up is irritation – jostled by idiots that spill their drinks on me… tread on my feet… barge into me without a word of apology… look at me with hollow expressions that judge me…

I so desperately want to feel a part of this, but I don’t. And I drink steadily to numb this feeling of isolation. Even though this drink is probably what has driven this wedge. Or maybe this drink. Maybe this one. Maybe each and every one.

I check my watch and can't quite work out where the last few hours have vanished to but the collection of empty beer bottles racking up on the floor next to my chair may hold the key.

This last bottle is almost empty and I’m readying myself to leave when my phone buzzes in my trouser pocket. A call from Leon. I put it to my ear and jam a finger in the other. I can still barely hear him but it sounds like he's whispering, "fuck… Pynch… fuck… help me…"