Thursday, 21 March 2013






 
I wanted to say more
https://soundcloud.com/#rollcallrecords/on-an-on-i-wanted-to-say-more

Some days feel almost normal, but others are cloaked with the deepest sorrow. The sun rises but the light has changed; the edges are blurred. I float through it all hoping for clarity and some purpose, but perhaps I expect too much from my potholed existence. I watch my chickens scratch through their day and envy the simplicity of their lives. Being an evolved thinking mammal has many downsides, emotional pain being one of them.
The other day I saw an old lady on a tube train. She was tiny and nervous like a bird, her eyes flickering over the map with each stop.  I just wanted to cradle her and feel her shape against me, but instead I watched her intently as the train rocked to Euston. Tears are never far away but today their salt was laced with a fear that my memories of Doreen might fade. Every piece and trinket has become a holy relic and my house a cathedral to her memory.

 
Today I busied myself with holiday tasks but mum never left my side. I kept thinking about postcards that no longer need sending. She always loved to receive them and my first job in any city was to find and send one. I loved to see them sitting on the table next to her chair when I visited. Sometimes I wake up and my first thought is to call her; my brain short circuits, then realisation dawns. She is a casket of ash at the crematorium and her spirit has gone.

 
Excerpt from a memoir

Since being deflowered and dumped by Judith Chapman a few years before, I’d simply avoided any messy emotional connection. The options were a minefield of confusion so I stayed in no man’s land. Celibacy had become my frock of convenience.

At sixteen Judith had cornered me in the recess behind the school gym and women’s toilets. She lived in my village but I’d had little contact with her since making mud pies and playing house in the days before pubic hair. She wasn’t a conventional beauty, but I liked her and today she came fully armed with a pair of breasts that would have made Howard Hughes weep and Jane Russell proud. On the day in question she had dressed the burgeoning assets in a tight blouse which mapped out her curves and framed her nipples like targets.

‘Come here’ she said towering and teetering toward me in her six inch platform shoes, blonde hair floating in her wake like a flag of sexual intent; a bit like Britney Spears with a sneer. I was like the mud we’d moulded as the fleshy mortars spearheaded her Blitzkrieg upon my sex starved defences. ‘Give us a kiss’ and she was upon me like a stoat on a rabbit. My inexperience and embarrassment was no match for her confidence and the unflinching stare with which she nailed me to the rough pebble dash wall like a piece of leftover chewing gum.

I remember that the Avon lady must have been as she smelt sweetly of freesias. But her assault subsided to tenderness and as our lips met her tongue gently pushed and probed its way into my yielding mouth. She wanted me and I found myself unexpectedly aroused by her femininity and soft curves. In that moment I was oblivious to all around me and even her coterie of tartan clad Bay City Roller devotees whooping encouragement couldn’t pull me away from our bubble of intimacy.

Colin Bull & 1 - 1972 
Before Judith, I’d loved the company of women, but been oblivious to their sexual charms. My arousal gave me hope that I might be ‘normal’ after all. Most of my time had been spent suppressing reveries on John Darby’s meaty thighs, Gary Frost’s impossibly hairy armpits and Colin Bull’s enormous cock but now Judith’s basilica breasts joined the party. Having a kiss meant that we were now going out, and for a few months we were stuck together with a glue of hormones and bodily fluids. When she exchanged me for a greaser on a motorbike any dreams of picket fences and nappies were dashed and my confidence crushed. I felt abandoned and inadequate, convinced that the thunder clouds of secret desire had somehow come in the way and impaired my performance. From that moment if a woman did want more than a game of Scrabble, I’d run a mile quicker than Roger Bannister. It was simply easier to go without intimacy than to open Pandora’s Box (or anyone else’s for that matter) and confront my own particular fleshy demons. Instead I returned to the testosterone safety of day dreams involving hairy men with broad chests and thick cocks. Type Tom of Finland into an internet search and you’ll understand where I’m coming from. No one knew or suspected my secret and that’s just the way I wanted it. Nurturing the appearance of a hairy unkempt cherub with a weight problem also assisted the situation. I became the sexually invisible man.



The start of every day was pretty much the same. I was perpetually sleep deprived and sore around the ears from the late nights I’d spend with headphones clamped to my head like black teacups. My eyes would reluctantly open and after a yawn and stretch my right hand would find a home around my morning glory as if I were starting a car and reaching for the gear stick in readiness for the morning commute. With rampant hormones and unfulfilled lust, I was a loaded gun and took every opportunity to unzip and fire a few rounds. The act was quickly followed by a frenzied search for something to mop up the milky puddles resulting in cloudy stains on most of my clothing. Unless I had to get up, I would just lounge in bed until boredom forced me to throw on some sticky clothes and descend the stairs dressed in something brown and corduroy.

Like many adolescent boys, I had been caught in the act of masturbation. One day, one summer I was so deeply involved in my own brand of worship, that I hadn’t noticed Doreen calling me in for tea or the sound of her footsteps on the rough concrete path that led behind the garage. The space here next to the garden shed shrouded by Hawthorn bushes afforded an oasis which wasn’t overlooked and allowed me to indulge undisturbed and up until then unnoticed. On summer nights, I would drop my trousers and pants, let cool air circulate and stroke away as I fantasised about anything in Y fronts. There was nothing more freeing and liberating than letting it all dangle unhindered outside as nature intended.

 
 
Water Butt - March 1st 2013

I only noticed Doreen as she swung around the corner. There I was leaning against the water butt, trousers around my ankles, my cock magnificent in its adolescent prime at 45 degrees and close to climax. I can still see the look of shock on her face as she gasped ‘oh my God’ before turning tail and racing back down the path, her outsized slippers slapping a salute as she ran. It is hard to think of a more embarrassing moment in my entire life. I wanted to disappear or wake up from the most terrible of dreams. Instead I just stayed in my position of ecstasy, frozen but for my erection wilting like a day old Gerbera in a vase. How would I ever be able to face her again?

The thought of my tea getting cold and hunger encouraged me to come in from the garden. With my face flushing I gingerly walked the few yards to the kitchen door and anxiously peered in. There was mum, arms elbow deep in the sink.
 
‘Your tea’s on the table’ she said without averting her gaze from some belligerent pot stain. I took my place at the bright yellow Formica table behind her. I was happy not to have to face her eyes and with a muted ‘thanks’ sat down to eat the congealing Vesta Chow Mein which glistened in the harsh fluorescent kitchen light like a plate of worms. I finished quickly, trying not to slurp the noodles and then took my plate to the sink with a whispered ‘thank you, that was lovely.’ Doreen fiddled awkwardly and folded tea towels in the adjacent corner.  She said nothing as I crawled from the kitchen and took refuge in my bedroom at the back of the bungalow. Headphones on, I blocked out the trauma with some Led Zeppelin.

For days I crept about in a pall of shame, but despite my fears the incident was never mentioned.

 
11 Ansell Way - home until 1978

As I write I would like nothing more than for Doreen to be here and exclaim over tea ‘do you remember the time I caught you behind the garage masturbating?’ I’m sure she was secretly proud that she gave me a big one.

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/8V1PrCfXu84&source=uds&autoplay=1

The pain it is a glacier moving through you
And carving out the valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
Nursing the ground
With precious minerals and stuff
So don't you become paralyzed with fear
When things seem particularly rough
 
 


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