Friday Flash - Yolanda (Part 1?)

Yolanda

Ever eavesdrop on a conversation that makes you so angry, you have to do something about it?

Here’s my advice: keep out of it. Look at what happened to me…

It starts in a coffee shop, one evening after work. Ten hours on my feet, with just a 20 minute break for lunch and nonstop earache from Victoria all afternoon, I’m ready to drop. But I don’t just want to go back to my lonely flat and slump comatose in front of another CSI repeat. I need a little human interaction, even if it’s only the brunette in Caffé Nero who always has time for a chat and stamps my loyalty card twice, with a wink. I actually thought I was in there, but of course that’s the night I arrive to find her stepping out with some Neanderthal in a Fred Perry top. As is often the case, I left it too long.

Now I’m way past wanting to be sociable, I just want my coffee. So I order my usual, Americano, black, and sequester myself in a booth as far from the counter as possible. See, people are generally lazy. They don’t want to have to walk to the other end of the shop to sit down after all those endless minutes (say, two) standing in line. And it’s pretty quiet in here tonight so the changes of anyone schlepping all the way over to disturb my sulk are slim. That’s the theory anyway. But it’s been one of those days, so my coffee’s hardly cooled to drinkable before these two huge emo arseholes have slung themselves into the booth next to mine, all Siouxsie Sioux make-up and black leather trenchcoats. I hate them on sight, and then they open their mouths.

“Broke up with Yolanda last night,” says the one on the left. He’s wearing a 30 Seconds To Mars T-shirt and drinking what I’m guessing is a cinnamon latte. Too much eye make-up and bandages all up his left forearm. “What a scene.”

“Aw, dude, I’m sorry,” says the other. He’s only got one eye because of his ridiculous fringe and his coffee’s iced. Never trust anyone who likes their coffee cold. That’s one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. “Yolanda was smoking hot.”

“Bitch went nuts,” says Bandage Boy, and my loathing plumbs new depths. Those bandages are obviously for show. I’d love to think of him carefully scoring that arm with a razor blade, but there’s only one kind of self-abuse this idiot specialises in. “How was I supposed to know it was her birthday?”

“Sheeeeit,” says One-Eye, sounding nothing like that guy from The Wire. He laughs and asks how long it’s been since they first got it together.

“I dunno, man,” Bandages replies, “feels like, four, five, six… thousand years or something." If his face was an email, it'd read LOL right now. "Who keeps track of that kind of shit? It was good while it lasted, but a man gets bored – you know?”

“Oh, I know, brother, I know…”

It’s the kind of situation makes me desperate to commit random violence. How such an utter dick can end up with a "smoking hot" girlfriend who he takes for granted, treats like utter shit, then crows to his mate about dumping her. And meanwhile, here’s me, 27 year old, a steady job, prospects, and I don’t even have the confidence to ask out the girl in the coffee shop before she hooks up with some fashionista simian.

I’m still fuming five minutes later as the men in black drain their cups, lick the foam from their lips, and bounce on out of there. I can’t even rejoice at their departure, they’ve made me feel so bad. And that’s when I notice the iPhone Bandages has left behind in the booth. Must have fallen out of his trenchcoat. Anyone else, I might have chased after him, but this oaf? I’ve half a mind to phone up some premium rate sex line in Bangkok and leave the call running till the battery goes flat.

And then the text noise goes off and I almost drop the phone... until I see her picture flash up on the screen. Yolanda. There’s no denying it: she is smoking hot. Not a phrase I would generally use without bunny ears, but this is a girl who knows how to wear eye shadow, juju beads, and fingerless indigo gloves. Her hair is an explosion, but it’s the kind of explosion you’d gladly throw yourself into, and she’s smiling in her photo – the kind of smile that makes me hurt inside when I think of her wasting it on a cock-end like Bandages. I click the envelope and read the message.

Guy – we need 2 talk. Cant leave it like we did. Meet me. Tonite. U know what I need. And I need it bad.

And that's when I lose it completely. It makes me so angry, I want to smash things. Bandages’ iPhone, my grande coffee mug (it’s empty now, I wouldn’t smash it if there was still coffee to be drunk), this stupid leatherette booth, the whole blasted shop. Nobody’s ever sent me a text like that. Even the girls who stuck around for a while, none of them have ever told me they needed it. Bad. But this heartless buffoon… this faux-emotional poseur… this Guy… from him, she needs it. She needs it bad.

My thumb hurries off a reply. It’s automatic.

I’m in Caffe Nero, by the station. Waiting. See you soon.

I detest shorthand. My texts are always written in complete, punctuated English. But as my thumb hovers over send, I realise Guy wouldn’t be quite so conscientious. I rethink, then rethumb.

Babe - Im in Cafe Nero by station. Waiting 4 u. C u soon.

Yes. Much more illiterate. I hit send, slip the phone in my pocket, and head back to the bar to order a second drink. This time I’ll sit nearer the door.

To be continued...?


*********************

This week's #fridayflash wasn't meant to come with a "To be continued..."

I knew exactly where it was going and could probably have found time to write the second half... but then I hit a natural stopping place. Rather than rush the ending, I thought it might be fun to allow it a little more space to develop.

I dunno... what do you think? Let me know if you'd like to read part two next week. I'll take stony silence as my cue to come up with something different.

More importantly... where do you think this story is going? I'm intrigued to know whether the plot thus far suggests a predictable resolution. No, I'm not just scrounging around for ideas... in fact, if someone does suggest the ending I have in mind, it'll probably discourage me from taking this any further. Think of me as M. Knight Shyamalan, stopping at the end of the first act of The Sixth Sense, and asking his audience... so? If anyone says "Bruce Willis is a ghost", I promise I won't take this any further.

The Good, The Badly & The Ugly

In which I end up walking out of a gig after a blazing row over a mobile phone...


You know how most gigs start out a bit rubbish, with a lacklustre support act, then gradually improve as the artist you've come to see plays all their new songs before working up to an amazing greatest finale hits finale that sends you home on a high?

Friday night was a gig in reverse.

It began with the best support act I've seen in donkey's ages, The Candle Thieves, just two young lads with guitar and keyboard, yet they filled the venue with their quirky, Eels-influenced-but-poppier, songs and their big-hearted bravado. For one song, Stars, lead Thief Scott McEwan unplugged his guitar and walked around the quarter-full audience, singing as he went. After that, the Candle Thieves had us. I bet they sold a lot of CDs from the merch stand that night; I certainly bought one.

After this, the headliner had a lot to live up to. Badly Drawn Boy's whole act however is one of ramshackle can't-be-arsedness. This is amusing for a while, and certainly on his opening acoustic set wherein he played a number of his biggest songs (occasionally accompanied by his 10 year old daughter, which even I found sweet) he looked liked he was going to deliver the performance we'd all been revved up for. The problems began when he invited on the rest of his band. The whole "they'll wander on and start playing as they feel like it in the middle of the song" routine felt contrived, and the band brought little to his act. The new album is a slowburner, but too often its delicate tunes just turned to mud and even Mr. Gough himself seemed unhappy with the way it was sounding, eventually calling for a half-arsed "fag break" interval right when any other act would be switching up a gear to the show-stoppers. Maybe they came back on and tore the roof off... I'll never know.

Because, midway through BDB's act, I became distracted by the woman next to me who was having a long text conversation on her phone. I mean, a LONG text conversation - it went on for over two songs by the time I'd finally had enough. She had one of those phones that double as lighthouses when you switch them on and her texting was illuminating the whole row.

Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I turned to her and, polite as I could manage, asked if she wouldn't mind switching her phone off as all I could see was the light.

"I was just sending a very important text to someone who's in hospital," she tried to explain. I shrugged - if it's that important, why not take it outside the auditorium rather than disturb everyone else and disrespect the performer? - but as she acquiesced and turned the phone off I said nothing more and carried on watching the show. As far as I was concerned, the matter was settled.

I've watched enough Curb Your Enthusiasm to know things are rarely that simple...

As BDB called fag-break, we took a moment to stretch our legs and use the loo. On returning to our seats, the woman with the phone decided to have her say.

"You were very rude to me," she said, "are you going to apologise?"

I explained that as far as I was concerned it was far more rude to spend ten minutes lighting up the whole venue with a phone...

"It wasn't ten minutes."

"It was over two songs!"

"It was two songs. And I explained that I had to send an important message to someone in hospital. And I apologised. But you were rude and you didn't apologise."

I began telling her I didn't see how I had anything to apologise for...

...which is when her son turned up.

"Is there a problem here?"

"There's no problem," I told him.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR OPINION!" he shouted, pointing an aggressive finger in my face, at which point they both started on me.

So we left. It seemed the easiest option, rather than trying to argue my case. It was after 10 and Badly hadn't built up enough good will for me to want to stick around and put up with this abuse. I was furious...

...but afterwards, I started to wonder: was I in the wrong? As hostile as he'd acted, I couldn't really blame the son. He'd come back in to see what he thought was me having another go at his mum. He wasn't to know that it was her who'd started the exchange. If I saw someone having a go at my mum, I'd probably have been similarly incensed. But did this woman really deserve an apology? I'd restrained my original request to a polite "would you mind...?" rather than the "TURN THAT FLIPPING THING OFF!" I'd been feeling, and I'd made no more of it after she finished her texting. She may well have been worried about a relative in hospital - but not worried enough to cancel her evening out, or even to step outside the auditorium to send her messages. And I wasn't the only one getting annoyed by the light from her phone. But should I have said nothing? Or should I have dropped to my knees in supplication at the very mention of a sick relative? Is it just me? Do you think I was in the wrong?