THE DATE

The Date
She walks in like she owns the fuckin place. Make a quick calculation, can I just slip into the bogs and do the through the window thing? Reckon the window will be too small and anyway they have that stipled stuff on the sill to stop the coke choppers chopping and my new strides will obviously get covered in shit, gotta go with this then. She smiles like a fuckin torturer as she spots me at the bar sipping a pint of the dark stuff. I’ve had two, not quite there yet but one more should do it. Problem is two more and I’ll slip into the pre-down blues when you know the bad times are a-coming. So I climb off the seat and pace towards her taking in her bat wing sleeves and big hair. Big as fuck like a fucking animal. Whats the band? Eighties power ballad shite? Yep that’s her, fuck. She says you look like your photo, I say cheers and reply in kind although I’m thinking she must be a wow with the fuckin photoshop. What you fancy I say. She hmms and fucking arrs like it’s a major decision. She settles on a half cider and black. Fuckin hell this is surreal / unreal what the fuck am I doing here? It was a drinking thing. Suddenly I’m sat in this shit hole with an eighties spandex God wondering if I’ve been bad in a past life. She begins the conversation with a have you been waiting long? Then talks me through her day which was a frenzy by her account. Her car wouldn’t start, she was late for her work and the dog had shit all over the kitchen while she was out. No wonder she seems so keen to stay with me. She keeps leaning in like a conspirator, I keep leaning back and suck on the Marly Reds I bought at the corner shop on the way here. She doesn’t smoke (surprise sur-fuckin-prise) but doesn’t flinch at my desperate drawing on the marlys. Do you want to eat she asks. Can’t think of a way out now apart from just telling her straight but I haven’t the energy and she would no doubt stalk me to the next bar anyway. She orders a salad and I a burger. Shit food but it stays the conversation awhile. She tells me about her ex-husband and her kids, I wonder if she does blow jobs in the big fuck me shoes she has on. Another pint or two and I’m now on the way down but can’t claw my way back up, she has me now and she fuckin knows, I try to imagine the early morning paranoia and self loathing but can’t get the shoes out of my fuckin head. In the morning I contemplate suicide.