a bristolian rose

1 4/1/2011

Mike Bridges: A Bristolian Rose

A Bristolian Rose

Chewing my face off in Jack’s flat with the TV blaring eyes rolling proper

thinking of mental shit that’s getting the buzz going. Put my head on the cold wall to

keep my thoughts in nice and white as my Girlfriend’s eyes up against the TV set

staring at the nose of that Simon Pegg, the scraggly ginger.

I’m really fucked.

Through gritted teeth hoping she understands what I’m saying not chatting the

usual trippy shit of thinking your mate’s sister is a gremlin.

Good shit?

Fucking wonderful.

I turn seeing she’s chewing away, about to ask her for gum but notice the

crinkled plastic of a bottle-top hanging from her mouth all contorted string. Invisible

in-head beats keep me static-raving for a few minutes or might just be seconds. Time

is a rubber band mein freund.

You alright dancing there?

Chomp chomp chomp watching her jaw move up down up down side to side,

she ain’t no cow chewing the cud. My pocket starts to vibrate. I touch around but find

no hard feelings; the repetition of Doctor Whooooooo AY! Doctor Who is playing in

my head - no -my pocket. I pull out the glowing phone bringing it closer then further

from my face, not to focus just raving with it. My eyes are clearer than most I sit here

contented with my cheese on toast. My roots are manoeuvring might try some

hoovering; wait it’s a phone call. Jack Rose calling.

Geeeeeeeeeeezer!

2 4/1/2011


You’re alright Vincent how you doing?

Lovely mate how are you?

Yeah not bad little bit fucked. Yeah what you up to?

At your place chilling. How’s Clockwork?

You’re at my place?

Suddenly realise he’s fuckeder than I. The G friend on the bed clocks my face.

Everything o.k.?

It’s Jack. He’s fucked.

Bring the phone back to my head to hear the big man in the little box.

What you doing in Bristol?

We were at Clockwork, remember? Kode9?

So you at mine?

Yeah, coming back?

Definitely mate.

The conversation ends and I throw the phone on the bed.

He’ll be back soon.

Me and the girlf rave to the tunes in our heads as the TV DVD thing keeps

chatting. Fuck listening though; don’t need that to let me think. The trains of thought

are leaving multiple stations. I’m the magic roundabout spinning connections and

adding content. Roundabout tea pot do a little dance Doctor Whoooo AY! Doctor

Who. Round-a-Doctor?

Your phone’s going.

I see the screen and it says Jack Rose, must be outside.

Aight breadbin?

3 4/1/2011



Yeah not bad; you on your way back yet?

Back where?

Your flat in Bristol. I’m waiting for you.

You’re in Bristol?

Yeah your flat. On your way back?

Definitely, be there in a bit.

Convo dies and it’s back on the bed. The TV mumblestiltskins for a few

moments. Do I care? Kind of feel a bit of love for it. The TV stuff don’t make me

vexed.

Jack again?

She spoke disrupting the Pegg on TV land.

Yeah. Should be back in a sec.

He that fucked?

Her wide eyes look to mine with wavering smile so I talk.

Freaking tipsy dodo and tinky land. Or whatever the corporations call them

these days.

I could wear a TV in my belly and walk outside to the Bristol streets. Chat to

the neighbours and let them watch my shining box of tum. Trek to the fountains and

dance in the water shining bright and milky - wait I’ll be lectrocuetipped. Balls to that

notion.

I wander round Jack ‘The Boy’ Rose’s room taking in his cave of crazies while

rubbing at a hole in my trouser seam, soft frayed and scratchy. Moving to his door-

hung chalkboard that’s scrawled in spider speak: Happy endings are a myth designed

4 4/1/2011


to make us feel better about the fact that life is just another thankless struggle. A

small doodle of a woman standing, head clean off; an ex in powder. Doctor

Whooooooo AY! Doctor Who. Jack the fucking wonderkid Rose.

How’s my little space cadet gwanin?


Not bad, you coming back yet?

To where?

Your flat in Bristol.

De Ja Vooooooo AY! De Ja Vu.

In Bristol?

Yeah on Corn Street. I’m waiting for you there.

Yep remember now. See you in a bit, just ringing mum.

Convo ends - his mum? In any other head I’d be ringing back shouting no but

a beaned up phone call to the mother hen might be nice. Unconsciously scrolling

down to Home on the glowing pad. Better not.

On his way yet?

Fook nose.

Tapping my conk for clarity. Pegg’s on screen staring me down in interview so

I get up to look down on the late night customers moon-munching their way through

pizzas at the Express and comedown clubbers getting out more money more money.

Card goes in cash comes out. Four digits from their possessions. Feel all Bruce Willis

in Die Hard, pull down the window and shout Welcome to the party pal! Did I do

that or dream it? The G F face suggests no but she might be world stomping through

her head right now hitting the 80s action clichés ten to the wonder dozen; life is just a

5 4/1/2011


thankless struggle. Doctor Whoooooo AY! Doctor Who.

Jack Rose. Jaack Rose. All alone in the world is a little Jack Rose.

You’re alright Vincent what am I doing?

I’m in Bristol waiting for you and your coming back to me.

You’re in Bristol?

Yeah with the beau.

In my flat.

In your flat babe.

Dancing on the spot doing a little jig. Half robot half … chicken?

Right be there in a sec.

I stand the phone on its base finding the balance point wondering if I can do

the same for the bookshelves.

Think his minds ticking over now. Penetrate the conscious put logic back in

his head.

Don’t think she’s listening. I scoot over to the bed next to my G, making some

twirls and rubbing my stomach through the shirt, waiting for my mates to get back for

the en masse hug. Jack is AWOL. He might not show and miss the hug. The brain

wont work such things. Worry aint in my moment as he wanders the streets talking

crapcilcles with the bins and bikes. Might go out and chat to the red and green men

myself. Rave to their beep-beep when criss-crossing the roads off Park Street. Jack’s

having a great time in his head thinking the shit over listening to his voices all garbled

talking and stuffs. Doctor Whooooooo AY! Doctor Who and it drops to the floor from

the windowsill. I answer on the fith doctor, the one with the celery.

Alright Vincent. I’m fucked. I’m in Bristol. I was talking to you. What am I

6 4/1/2011


doing?

You’re Jack Rose. You’re coming back to your flat in Bristol to see me.

You live on Corn Street and we love you.

Yes yes yes yes that’s fucking it. Be there is a sec.

Three and three quarter seconds later the flat’s buzzer buzzes and through the

speaker crackles the beautiful voice of Jack.

Buzzing you in buuuuuddy.

He runs up falling right through the door, garbling eyes all steamboat Mickey,

spinning like a helter-skelter on ice.

Aight Vincent Vincent aight?

He hugs me squeezing my ass before moving on the G F affiliate.

Oh hello. How are you?

The cross-wired man-mental.

Fancy skinning up?

Yeah yeah. No problem. Cool man. Cool. Got ma weed. Got my coat. Got

ma mam ma.

He starts grunting through his nose, rubbing his thighs and staring at the

ground, eyes wilding it up a bit. He looks up registering us. His eyes narrow and

focus.

Viiiiiiincent.

Jack?

Yeah?

Skinning up?

Are you?

7 4/1/2011


No. You are.

He darts backwards, and raising his hands shouts outwards: Oh yeah!

He rummages through his desk grabbing the weed and skins as I glimpse the

newly red tat. Words on his forearm The World Has Let Me Down. I don’t question

now; his mind’s too scrambled and he’s rolling the joint crumbling the goods all

lovingly.

Yeah see you know my dad. Yeah? We went to visit him, my brother and

him, and you know, we took his gun and buried it in the garden and there was a

picture of her face so, you know, we always have a memory?

This is what scares me with E. The love hugging and kisses the laugh the

cheers the trains of thoughts are don, but when your brain so full of shit like Jack’s

dead dad and the likes, crowding the unconscious mind, it’ll spew some shit up like

non-existent guns. Entrances to the REAL person. This is psychoanalysis. Fuck Freud

and the gibbering away on leather sofa. He and the Viennese women should have got

the MaDMAn out and hugged it through, listening to whatever silly bollocks emerges.

I’ve been in his state before. I remember the confused sodding faces around me as I

saw Queen Victoria in the corner of the tent. Chris Morris had a phrase for these: The

twisted brain-wrongs of a one-off man-mental. But our Jack in his fucked upness is

still rolling that joint.

See I’m the juicy dangler.

I haven’t paid attention for some time.

How was Clockwork?

Wha?

You were in Clockwork. Weren’t you?

8 4/1/2011


Was I?

The joint is being licked by his drying tongue; his eyes unusually focused. It’s

like they’re following me.

Yeah for Kode9.

Oh yeah. Don! Don’t know.

He takes the joint offers it to his disciples and says: Take this Vincent and

lighter.

Light her or lighter? I hand it back with the Zippo I found in his pocket. He

would have ransacked the place looking for that. He starts toking and I’m hoping for

his mind to keep track.

We smoke a few chatting balls waiting for the others to get back from their

night of bassy goodness. Pure gutted I missed out. Twelve quid for no feckin raison.

The buzz-buzz buzzes and me and the Jack and girlf clock our Mickey Mouse eyes

and move to the control panel in the mini-narrow hallway. Pressing the receiver we

speak in connected consciousness.

Hello?

How did we know we’d say the same thing.

Rosey! Where the fuck did you go?

We buzz in The Stan along with Ian the Mr Pie and DJ Duck. Mr Pie in a new

state of being, instantly learning Tai Chi in his collective head.

You o.k. Ian? I ask but the Stan answers.

He’s in a wonderful place right now.

Yeah Vincent, I’m good, I’m right there, I’m you know in it. I can. You

know?

9 4/1/2011


I do but I can’t but don’t say as I wont cause you know why? Ian the Mr Pie

stares at my keys on the desk.

Is that a Cubase dongle?

Yeah.

He pauses for effect. Still. Silent. Tai Chiless.

Vincent think about keys.

O.k.

I’m thinking of ninety-eight other things and two of them are quays.

Keys open things.

He’s clearly playing another ball game in a different park on another

comfort… I mean continent. Comfort. And I love him for it. His extreme removal

from my area of consciousness is the next love. You hug the close you hug the far you

hug the animate you hug the inanimate. This is the tree of life’s message.

But think about it. Your Cubase dongle is a key, but it’s a hardware software

key. It’s physical and electrical. It’s a key sitting on two sides of the key world fence.

It’s in two places at once.

Jack’s illogical gun burying is synapsing my brain to Ian’s logical key-isms. I

decide on tea of some description. Fuck it beer lager ale vodka.

Anyone seen diggidy Daaaaaaaan? Says Jack The Space Cadet Rose.

No. Shiiit.

Doctor Whooooo AY! Doctor Who.


Digg the fucking Dan. Where in the Bristol and Avon area are you?

a bristolian rose

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