ghosts & admissons: I’m stoned in love, just not with you.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

I’m stoned in love, just not with you.

My friend just came back from Australia, he did a lot of the same thing I did.

I’m defeated by my nostalgia; I have tones to do, yet can’t get my mind off that heavy bass line I heard that one night. I remember the shivers as a phone number was drawn on my arm, I remember the struggled to decipher the smudged lipstick the next morning. My unused drink ticket, the upset and opportunity that options provide, the ever present sense that what I’m doing is wrong. I had time to run back to the hotel and rescue that girl, or I could catch up with that girl from Vancouver-- I hadn’t really seen her since we fooled around at the cab stand, or I could return to the red couch where perhaps the most interesting prospect, regardless of the outcome, awaited me. I wanted it all; selfishness abounded, in a fit of hedonism I choose all three. I couldn’t get the image of that poor girl with the knocked out teeth out of my mind. I helped her and her baby just last night, how could I be a bad person? My heart raced as I crossed into the street, my friend lay crumpled against the wall, sputtering as she puked. My head swam as my plan had been altered. I picked her up, her friends had tried to wheel her to the bar in a shopping cart, she never made it. I threw her into a cab and headed back to sherbourne next to Captain Cook backpackers. I told the cab driver to wait as I dropped her on her side on the couch, a bucket by her face. I headed back downtown and as I got out I saw my other flat mate from Leeds at a bus stop with a middle aged man. She never made the right decision and we both knew it, I pretended to be her boyfriend and cock blocked the guy. Back in the cab she grabbed my crotch and begged me to fuck her. I lived with her boyfriend, but not for long, I was leaving, ever since Danni’s new b/f showed up we had been fighting, and anyone can tell you that if you’re from northern England there’s no such thing as too drunk. Still I couldn’t do it; we kissed as I struggled to get her through the door, past our other drunken room mate gurgling on the couch, I lay her flat on her back on top of her crumpled blankets. She kissed me deeply and tried to pull me on top of her. Lucky for me she passed out with in seconds. Back in the cab, I headed back to Sports Bar, as I arrived the girl on the red couch was gone, the girl in the smoking room with the lipstick was gone as well, damn these English girls all look the same, and who knew where that Triny girl went. I ran back into the street, nervously I panned the streets teeming with swaying party goers, I swung around and there she was, smoking by the entrance, watching me in my frustration she smiled. In her heavy carribean accent she told me her friend was at the Tropic, her eyes were barely open as she spoke. Earlier in the week I took her roommate home and I felt bad like I was responsible for her, she gave me the hotel room and I climbed in a cab to grab her. I was instructed to circle the block a few times to buy her time, for what I wondered? I dashed into the bright lobby of the hotel. I climbed the stairs and searched for the room, no response when I knocked. I decided to check the club in the basement, and there she was, bathed in blue light dancing by herself on the empty dance floor, her belligerent gangband squad off in the corner laughing at her gross level of intoxication. I grabbed her and dragged her back to Sports Bar where her friend waited. I left them there, they were there for at least another week, and that was a lifetime in cairns. It was 2 o’clock, at that time everyone moved from Sports Bar to the Woolshed. It was there that I met up with Larissa; she was dancing on a table like we all did on Thursday nights. She was a local girl and I couldn’t believe she bought into the novelty. The place was always over run with tourists and the locals considered us annoying. She seemed indifferent at the time, didn’t she remember that I was Canadian and she loved my accent? Didn’t she remember how funny I was when we spoke on the red couch? I thought all was lost when she left for the washroom. I leaned against the wall and laughed at those who got bit by red ants while they played with the palm fronds attached to the wall. I had gone to the municipal dump and collected them this morning, they were always infested. Then when Larissa walked out of the washroom I grabbed her arm and she immediately snogged me. I would be lucky for this in the weeks to come as she eventually became one of the most important people in my life. She looked like JLO, and I liked her from the moment I saw her even though I couldn’t understand her townie accent. It was only then that the night truly began for me.