Gay Ray's
Even before it had begun, it had seemed obvious enough to the Pink Psychiatrist and I that this must be a night given over entirely to ephemeral pleasures of intoxication. It must be a night of debauched ribaldry; one suffused and animated by a spirit of riotous decadence. Some nights will tolerate nothing else.
The uncomfortable tension that had weighed heavy on the flat as we washed, dressed and sweated in the stifling heat of London's sudden summer found its relief in the cans of Tenent's Super Strength that we had bought for the walk into town. The tramps eyed us suspiciously as we passed with their ambrosia in hand, winding our away across the bridge and up the Charing Cross road, to the gates of the Citadel. We met the Frog and the Hanuman as planned and were, all four of us, carried like so much detritus in the streams of Lethe through the baking bars and streets of Soho; pushed and pulled on a tide of Leffe down through the gutters and the drinking dens of Wardour street; and washed up with starry-eyed wonder at the archway of Heaven itself.
The Frog helped us find Adam and Adam - as ever - brought Clarity to the proceedings. The lights were bright and the music intense. Hanuman swayed heavily under the burden of his too-powerful perspicacity. Speeding rhythms rattled around the room and The Pink Psychiatrist, that pryer into minds of madmen, wondered and wandered internally about the reason in their ravings. I kissed the Frog for perhaps an eternity, perhaps a second amidst the roaring torrents of coloured light that whirled all about us. Time flew and in it we all did too; until time was all used up and an end had come.
We harried and egged ourselves on into a taxi that sailed through streets lit by a hundred halogen suns with their cold and spindly light, until at length it drew up by a towering house and left us there in the cold of the night. Adam, exhausted, had taken leave of us and Hanuman marked his passing by becoming a little less Parky and a lot more sarky.
The door swung open and the Queen drifted into the hole it had left. With his plucked eyebrows, mascara and sparse, wispy hair, I had always thought the Queen looked much like a cancer patient in the early stages of chemotherapy. I saw no reason to revise that opinion tonight. 'Oh hello,' he said with some surprise, as if it had been a shock to find that a knock at the door actually meant there were people behind it. He was evidently 'proper chemist' (as the vulgar beauty of Northern tongue would have it). 'You got any drugs?' he continued at length; 'Nah,' we replied, pushing past him and, languidly, he gave way.
The other guests were scattered sparingly about the house and in the back garden. Something ambient and unobtrusive drifted out of the stereo and trickled down through the open patio doors out into the garden below. Hanuman found his bubbly consort, Lord Shani, draped over a beanbag in the lounge, from which he eventually rose with some difficulty to greet us. 'Have you met Gay Ray?' he drawled, waving a limp hand slowly to the left of him, 'it's his thing.' The Frog and I turned to pay our honours to the old soak who was already in the process of offering a Kit Kat to the Pink Psychiatrist in return for a kiss. The old man's dry and eager lips were not disappointed and the Pink Psychiatrist came up with a bump. 'Drinks!' exclaimed Gay Ray, reanimated by the success of his proposal, and set about pouring from the bottles arrayed on the side. Into one tumbler went a 50/50 mix of gin and vodka; another two received only vodka as the first creation had exhausted the last of the gin. He regretted insincerely the lack of mixers while clearly distributing his handiwork so as to try and ensure that his previous kiss might not be his last.
I ushered the Frog out into the cool of the garden, leaving the Pink Psychiatrist to the more healthy pursuit of some young ingénu who lay semi-collapsed on the couch. From the darkness, a haughty and agèd poof with a malevolent stare appeared suddenly. I retracted instinctively under the force of his regard, wrapping myself defensively in the warmth of the Frog's sinewy torso. He was a 'consultant' psychologist - a fact which did not surprise, but did much to explain the origins of the axe he appeared to be intent on grinding. His inquisition, interspersed with sniping attacks on the medical establishment (which, I presume, he hoped somewhat naively to be something I might take personally), seemed to last an age but was finally terminated when some kindly HIV consultant from my own hospital identified himself as a more reactive target by interjecting against some inviolable point that the 'consultant' psychologist was busy making. The Frog and I saw our chance and stole away into the night.
Hanuman bounced around in his new found enthusiasm for the great Beyond, something which, it seemed to me, would be more likely a hell than the Heaven we had just left. Not for me; not tonight. I waved my congratulations to the Pink Psychiatrist who, having made a welcome of initial indifference, was now intertwined with the ragdoll on the couch. My fingers found the small of the Frog's back and guided him gently, through the door, down the steps, and all the way home, hand in hand, through the silent streets of a sleeping city.
The uncomfortable tension that had weighed heavy on the flat as we washed, dressed and sweated in the stifling heat of London's sudden summer found its relief in the cans of Tenent's Super Strength that we had bought for the walk into town. The tramps eyed us suspiciously as we passed with their ambrosia in hand, winding our away across the bridge and up the Charing Cross road, to the gates of the Citadel. We met the Frog and the Hanuman as planned and were, all four of us, carried like so much detritus in the streams of Lethe through the baking bars and streets of Soho; pushed and pulled on a tide of Leffe down through the gutters and the drinking dens of Wardour street; and washed up with starry-eyed wonder at the archway of Heaven itself.
The Frog helped us find Adam and Adam - as ever - brought Clarity to the proceedings. The lights were bright and the music intense. Hanuman swayed heavily under the burden of his too-powerful perspicacity. Speeding rhythms rattled around the room and The Pink Psychiatrist, that pryer into minds of madmen, wondered and wandered internally about the reason in their ravings. I kissed the Frog for perhaps an eternity, perhaps a second amidst the roaring torrents of coloured light that whirled all about us. Time flew and in it we all did too; until time was all used up and an end had come.
We harried and egged ourselves on into a taxi that sailed through streets lit by a hundred halogen suns with their cold and spindly light, until at length it drew up by a towering house and left us there in the cold of the night. Adam, exhausted, had taken leave of us and Hanuman marked his passing by becoming a little less Parky and a lot more sarky.
The door swung open and the Queen drifted into the hole it had left. With his plucked eyebrows, mascara and sparse, wispy hair, I had always thought the Queen looked much like a cancer patient in the early stages of chemotherapy. I saw no reason to revise that opinion tonight. 'Oh hello,' he said with some surprise, as if it had been a shock to find that a knock at the door actually meant there were people behind it. He was evidently 'proper chemist' (as the vulgar beauty of Northern tongue would have it). 'You got any drugs?' he continued at length; 'Nah,' we replied, pushing past him and, languidly, he gave way.
The other guests were scattered sparingly about the house and in the back garden. Something ambient and unobtrusive drifted out of the stereo and trickled down through the open patio doors out into the garden below. Hanuman found his bubbly consort, Lord Shani, draped over a beanbag in the lounge, from which he eventually rose with some difficulty to greet us. 'Have you met Gay Ray?' he drawled, waving a limp hand slowly to the left of him, 'it's his thing.' The Frog and I turned to pay our honours to the old soak who was already in the process of offering a Kit Kat to the Pink Psychiatrist in return for a kiss. The old man's dry and eager lips were not disappointed and the Pink Psychiatrist came up with a bump. 'Drinks!' exclaimed Gay Ray, reanimated by the success of his proposal, and set about pouring from the bottles arrayed on the side. Into one tumbler went a 50/50 mix of gin and vodka; another two received only vodka as the first creation had exhausted the last of the gin. He regretted insincerely the lack of mixers while clearly distributing his handiwork so as to try and ensure that his previous kiss might not be his last.
I ushered the Frog out into the cool of the garden, leaving the Pink Psychiatrist to the more healthy pursuit of some young ingénu who lay semi-collapsed on the couch. From the darkness, a haughty and agèd poof with a malevolent stare appeared suddenly. I retracted instinctively under the force of his regard, wrapping myself defensively in the warmth of the Frog's sinewy torso. He was a 'consultant' psychologist - a fact which did not surprise, but did much to explain the origins of the axe he appeared to be intent on grinding. His inquisition, interspersed with sniping attacks on the medical establishment (which, I presume, he hoped somewhat naively to be something I might take personally), seemed to last an age but was finally terminated when some kindly HIV consultant from my own hospital identified himself as a more reactive target by interjecting against some inviolable point that the 'consultant' psychologist was busy making. The Frog and I saw our chance and stole away into the night.
Hanuman bounced around in his new found enthusiasm for the great Beyond, something which, it seemed to me, would be more likely a hell than the Heaven we had just left. Not for me; not tonight. I waved my congratulations to the Pink Psychiatrist who, having made a welcome of initial indifference, was now intertwined with the ragdoll on the couch. My fingers found the small of the Frog's back and guided him gently, through the door, down the steps, and all the way home, hand in hand, through the silent streets of a sleeping city.
posted by The Venial Sinner at 3:27 pm
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