Some stuff for your eyes.

The Terminus

Oh god, home. Home… Safe, with food, comfort, warmth, sex, love, media, escape, sanctuary, romanticism, alcohol and quiet to deliciously indulge myself in. The comfort is enormous and I shuffle my way back to 14 South Street, a bedraggled zombie but with soul intact, while that voice soothes away the occasional suspicion that everything is futile. “That thought,” the voice confidently reassures me, “is too enormous for this wet Friday evening, almost definitely unfounded, and cannot possibly benefit its thinker. Just hurry home, hurry home, hurry home, where your dinner, your jazz records and your girl are waiting. Hurry home, Hugo, and drown yourself in their comforts, and these ideas will slide away.” My head nods numbly and I get on the train, as the mental baggage of a week’s work grudgingly slips away into the darkness of the tracks, promising only to return.

Home to my sweet Helen’s where I’ll go. She’ll be there like always with her inner peace and happiness radiating from her warm face, having been blessed with some natural immunity to the shocks and hardships of the nine to five. Thank god for Helen. The face of every rat on this train, drained and damned to do this again next week, wet from the rain, is a million miles from her. I’m a million miles from her. Maybe they all have Helens too.

Brisk and silent off the train and out into the station, no one’s around – but then I notice him. Sat cross legged on the ground and in neat parallel with the wall, well dressed, junky needles all about him.

“You alright?” I ask hesitantly.

Silence. He lifts his head so that I can see his face, shadowed by a bowler hat. We stare at each other. I tell him, “You shouldn’t do that” and gesture to the needles.

More silence and more staring. He’s winning just by looking at me. Well, fuck you. I have my Helen and you have your heroin. I glance down at my watch, more as an excuse to leave this disquieting man than to check the time.

“You shouldn’t do that” he says suddenly, in a wheezing death-rattle. And then starts laughing. A quiet, self satisfied chuckle at first, but quickly building into a full-blown, sneering, throaty laugh. I stride away into the rain, resisting an impulse to run.

“You shouldn’t do that, Hugo!” he cries after me through fits of machine-gun laughter and the now massive, blasting rain. Fuck this shit. Fuck. I run home. I run home through the rain to safety, food, warmth all that shit and, Helen.

I practically burst through the door showering the cat with cold water to her disgust, and she runs away hissing. The lights are off and the usual tones of Joanie Mitchell are darkly absent. I walk into the front room a little dazed.

There she is. My raison d’etre. Sprawling naked on the floor. And there he is. My best friend Martin. Sprawling naked on the floor. Next to Helen. Ridiculous looking ornate bong next to them, the house stinks of weed, doesn’t take a genius. Surreally, none of us have said anything yet.

I say calmly, softly “What the fuck is going on?” and I surprise myself because there’s no crack in my voice.

Helen looks as if she’s about to say something, her beautiful mouth is opening to explain everything and she’s going to put Joanie Mitchell on and we’ll have sex and I’ll go to bed and have no dreams and she’s… giggling. Martin joins in. They’re laughing. They’re laughing at me. EVERYONE IS FUCKING LAUGHING AT ME. These motherfuckers have fucked me what the fuck is going on SHIT. I’m going to kill them. There’s a hammer in the shed I’m going to kill them. Don’t fucking kill them. They’re still laughing. Today is real funny. Oh yeah today’s real funny. Fucking cu-

The door slams shut behind me but I don’t hear it because of the ringing in my ears. Rain washes some blood off my hands and shoes. I can hear my name being called somewhere. At first it sounds like it’s from home – my old home – but now…

By the time I get back to the train station I’m drenched from head to toe, which I’m relieved about because that way no one can see that I have cried my eyes raw. Not that anyone is here. The man in the bowler hat has gone. I don’t really know why I thought he would still be there. I sit down in a puddle and I don’t care. Then I notice a piece of paper on the wall, where the man who knew my name had sat.

Dearest Hugo,

You got off more than one train today. Don’t deal with the fuckers anymore. Meet me at The Honest Lawyer inn, bring your head.

Love, Me.

PTO

Strapped to the back of the letter was one of his junky needles, full up and shining in the street lamp-light.