Mum comes back into the house, dusting off her hands like she’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has just taken care of sixteen notorious vampires single-handedly. Yes, well done, Mum. You sure showed that evil bag what happens to Louis Vuitton imposters. Our giant Doberman, Zeus, comes in behind her and gives me a quick sniff of acknowledgement before strutting over to Dad and directing his giant face toward the cocktail. And, of course, Dad gives him some. Seriously, are there any sober members of this household?
I’m about to
make a snappy comment about it when suddenly there’s a loud rumble and the
whole ceiling begins vibrating. This pounding is soon followed by the
ever-so-articulate-and-classy Mickey Avalon song, ‘My Dick,’ booming through
the walls of the whole house, and my parents glance at each other with a combination of
embarrassment and annoyance. This can only mean one thing.
Little
brother, Arthur Macxis, is home.
I grin at my
parents as I move toward the stairs, and Mum shouts after me, ‘tell him to turn
that rubbish down! We shouldn’t have to hear it three floors below.’
As soon as
she says it, the song changes, and I follow the sound of angry reggae music up
to the loft which Mac took over years ago and converted into a studio/smoke
room. The studio element is for painting. Mac’s a brilliant painter. He never
wants to show his work anywhere though, and every time I ask him about it, he
gets grumpy and dishes out elegantly worded clichés like: ‘I would rather not sully my
art by letting the fuckheads of the world rub their minging hands and opinions
all over it.’ The other element of his loft—the smoking element—is because he’s
a pothead. Surprise!
Let’s
just say, he’s lucky Mum and Dad are rich, otherwise he wouldn't be able to just exist in their loft,
getting high, and living by his stupid artist-against-society mantra of painting
pictures for no one to see but him.
I climb up
and find Mac working on a giant painting of what looks like a tube train
bursting upward out of a covered tunnel and through the torso of a giant devil-man.
The devil-man has his mouth wide open like he’s releasing the mother of all
deranged cackles and his snake-like tongue is flitting out, reaching off the
edge of the canvas. Across his eyes, Mac’s painted the London Underground sign
for Piccadilly Circus station.
‘What’s
this?’ I ask, lowering the volume of Damian Marley on his sound system. Mac
replies with a sort of grunt and keeps painting. I wait for him to finish off
the red Underground symbol and then watch as he throws down the brush, drops into
the swivel chair behind him, spins around to face me, and puts his feet up on
the workstation.
‘It’s
called Piccadilly’s Circus,’ he says
with a grin, adjusting the red bandana he’s wearing to keep his hair out of his
eyes. But when I say hair, I actually mean dreadlocks—a big, full on head of
them. I’ve never asked him if they’re purposely done—like if he goes to a
specialist dreadlocks barber or buys special wax on dreadlocks.com or
something—or whether they’re just the result of years and years of neglect. I’m
tempted to lean toward the latter. They’ve grown a lot longer since I last saw
him. It’s so fucking unfair. I mean, here I am, terrified to do anything new or interesting to
my hair because of the massive bad-haircut risk (since my hair grows at a
phenomenal speed of, maybe, 0.2 millimeters a month, meaning I’d be stuck
with my bad haircut for virtually the rest of my twenties). So I just keep my
hair long and boring—and by long, I mean mid-boob, because once my hair reaches
that length, it seems to think it’s done its part and can go on sabbatical
until my next trim. Then there’s Mac, who has fucking dreadlocks, and gets to have hair
that grows at least two inches a month. And it's now reaching a point (especially with that red
bandana) that could earn him a job as Jack Sparrow at
Disney World.
‘I
see that, Captain,’ I reply, ‘are you angry at Piccadilly Circus?’
‘Fuck
yeah I am,’ he says, as though this is some sort of general conviction all of
humanity shares, ‘fucking Piccadilly and Oxford Circus—more at Oxford Circus,
to be honest. Made the mistake of changing there yesterday.
Christ, it was a bloody nightmare. More than the normal nightmare too. This was
like an absolutely-fucking-mental nightmare that only a deranged schizo in a
straight jacket could have come up with. I don’t know how all those people fit
down there without spewing onto the tracks.’
He
pauses to lean down and pull out his box of blunt-rolling materials from the
bottom shelf of the workstation, followed by a giant bag of weed.
‘So,
after I fail to fit on the next two trains,’ he continues, spreading out his
rolling paper and sprinkling the weed with a perfection that is second nature,
‘I accept that there’s no way in hell I’m getting to Liverpool Street by tube
this century, so I bail and go for a taxi. Now get this—I’m not fucking around
when I say it took me fifteen bloody minutes, squashed inside a herd of people
to the point that my bones started crushing, to walk up the ten bloody steps to
the exit.’
After
lighting the blunt, he inhales deeply and releases a smoky exhale. Then he
extends it out to me and says, ‘hit?’ with a stupid grin. I know he’s laughing
about Ted and Ruth’s ruby wedding anniversary.
A
few years ago Mum and Dad decided to throw them a party. They
reserved a huge ball room in the Savoy and hired caterers and waiters, and both
a DJ and a swing band. Of course, my
brother and his dumbass pack of stoner goons had to show up as soon as they got
the munchies for pâté and chocolate mousse in mini port glasses. And of course,
they had to convince me that it would be a good idea to take “a few hits with
them” round the side of the building. Not being entirely aware of what kind of
monster these “few hits” would turn me into, I went ahead and did so.
Regrets.
I
don’t remember all of it (since I was actually quite drunk to begin with), but
I do know that I decided it would be a great idea to have the DJ play ‘In Da
Club’ by 50 Cent and then proceed to jump on stage, snatch the mic from the
swing band, and rap the entire song for all the guests. I can still see myself
pointing directly at Ted and shouting how I didn’t give a fuck it wasn’t his
birthday. At the time, I was confused about why no one was singing along or
grinding on the dance floor—but, now I know, it was probably because I sounded
satanic. Arthur Macxis and his knobhead-potheads were hysterical, as well as the only
ones who applauded for me. Obviously.
Dad
had grabbed me by the arm after my number and pulled me over to the side where
Mum was waiting to interrogate me.
‘Have you
been smoking herbs?’ she had snapped, taking over the firm grabbing of my arm
from my dad.
Mac followed
us and said, ‘my fault, I picked some Thyme from the garden and rolled it into
a blunt for her. I thought it was virgin, but I guess I was wrong.’
‘You’ve been
smoking Thyme?!’ Mum gasped, as if this was a synonym for meth-crack-cocaine
wrapped in a heroin sandwich.
‘You’re the
one growing it in the garden,’ Mac replied, a grin tugging at the corner of his
lips, ‘and stop acting like you didn’t live through the sixties. We’ve seen the
photos, Lady John Lennon.’
‘How many
times do I have to tell you that was a fancy dress party?’ Mum whispered
fiercely.
‘Fancy dress
parties don’t last for two years,’ I pointed out, and Mac and I laughed
obnoxiously.
‘Well I
certainly wasn’t smoking Thyme,’ she responded, tightening her grip on my wrist
as some form of punishment.
But then confusion
hit me and I began to think that I had smoked “time.” The drama of it all was
too much for me to handle in my state and I got so terrified that I screamed,
‘You’ll never take me alive!’ and ran from the ballroom. They found me later,
sitting in the car singing Alanis Morisette.
If I’m
lucky, the rest of my life will go relatively nothing like that.
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