Going to the chapel….

Yup. How did I know it? All those good intentions……

Had been thinking that perhaps going part time at work wasn’t such a good idea – all economy beans and no oomph. Oh how wrong I was. It means there ain’t no bounds, every week is easter, your sleep pattern gets fucked, and so do you. Shitting hell, this could be fun…….

I had an aimless Monday waiting for the fucking moody delivery man to hand over my hoover, and after a feebly unconvincing writer’s hot chocolate in the bitter wind, flailed about waiting for seven o’clock, when I was to meet the coke dealer at the church.

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Yesssssssss, did I mention the strange sequence of events leading to this fucked-up pseudo date?:

In one of my mid-year, mid-life crisis pushes, I googled ‘dance’, as that’s what I do, innit. Usually various adult education sites spring up full of women who piss themselves much better than they move, or anything else for that matter.

But what’s this? A dance agency is arranging dance events all across the south! Excellent (but shitely advertised). So off I samba, then dive into a flashmob, then in the rehearsal space bump into an old stinking techie dude I went to college with. He gives me free tickets to the BBC Big Band. Awesome, old Derek from the Bond films on the screaming trumpet, a gaggle of misshapen misfits who know how to honk. I was there with my wife, so I asked her on a date for Monday. It’s a gospel concert advertised in the local rag – yes, I really have been truffling through the pamphlets as a substitute for cock.

She can’t come with me cos she’s committed to spending the evening watching Ferris Bueller with a bunch of Chinese kids, but suggests this guy we know, who isn't exactly ideal material for the house of God. I refuse refutedly.

Hmmmm. This is a guy who shared a maisonette with me in 2006. Me upstairs, him down. My monkey of a flatmate screaming abuse at him to keep the music down, me scoring the odd opportune bit of green from him.

And he’s cute, but by no stretch sane. So no, I should not invite him to a gospel concert, even though he’s an avid fan of the stuff, and a right old chrisso to boot.

But clip-clopping it back from the big band we scuttle past an old haunt we both avoid due to varying ill behaviour. And who should rush out yelling my wife’s fair name? yup, mr gospel himself. So the wife forces me to ask him out and he accepts. Fucking brilliant.

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“There was I, waiting at the church
Waiting at the church, waiting at the church
When I found he'd left me in the lurch
Lor, how it did upset me!”

(sorry, for war widows everywhere)

Anyway, yes I had to wait and he honed up with a minute to go in a cab – he lives down the road. Been up for 48 hours apparently. Jolly good.

We enter the chapel, the lord does not strike me down. I wince at the vicar and gulp guiltily. We find a shitty seat at the side. And there’s the choir……sorry for the slander guys (they’re from Atlanta, they’ll probably sue after they’ve claimed for all the other accidents in their lives).

The choir do not look good. Well, one of them does. She’s a purty blonde. The drug dealer says he’ll try and chat her up later. I spot her silver ring thing and glum expression and say it ain’t likely. And apparently it’s her birthday. Cheer up love, there’s a few maccie Ds in this town. When the ringleader, with a curiously British accent, addressed the audience to ask if anyone knew whose birthday it was today I got my line in.

‘Jesus’.

My date is horrified, I feel that beautiful warmth oozing through me. Blasphemy. Yum.

So this is a bunch of outsiders. Plump shining women with protruding fringes beam and shuffle. The gayest man alive perches at the front like a wounded chipmunk waiting for some nuts. A big, glorious fat man in the middle is the best attraction. He loves his church, yes m’aam, and though the joy is deluded, I focus on him.

They all wear ill-fitting black polyester trousers that sag at the crotch, and matching red polo shirts; sponsored by Nike of course. Fresh from KFC.

The backing track strikes up. I’d say thunders in, but it was a limp and puny sound. An overhead projector splays clipart graphics out of sync with the vanilla synth.

And they start up. Good god, THIS IS NOT GOSPEL! This is fricking torture! Apparently, however much we welcome in the lord there will not be room for him?! What? This is the whitest music I’ve ever heard, and I can’t stand it. My date pretends to be kinder, but when they sing a song about salvation I can’t restrain myself from yelling ‘masturbation’ to complete the rhyme….

At which point a tight-lipped young oppressor decides to eyeball me till it burns. I look at her, laughing. This is not funny, it seems. I pretend to behave for another godawful number reminiscent of a failed audition for atlanta’s got talent.

The girl is still screwing me up. Do not mess. It’s time to show her the glory of the lord. I turn to her and stare. And stare. And she shrivels into a flushed mess. Feel the power of the lord, feel it.

And with that it was time to exit. My poor date had full-on coke paranoia and didn’t fancy the trek across the pews, but I wasn’t waiting for my mellow birds at break time.

He’d already casually slipped in that we could go back to his flat and he could play me some REAL gospel. I remember trying to make a face that said ‘yes, that sounds normal’, not ‘yes, that sounds dangerously close to fucking to me’.

So off we scroddled. I shoving in an egg mayo sandwich for the ride, him politely shifting through the streets avoiding various punters.

So we get to his, and we have an innocent glass of wine and a bifta, and he puts on some hideous clonky ‘gospel’ music. I spot a drum kit in the corner. An expensive electronic one. He spots me spotting it and offers me a smash. I gladly accept, at which point a customer pops in.

Now, this is weird, I haven’t spent too much time in the lairs of dealers, luckily, I usually steal drugs, but this girl seemed really nice – is it a friend? Is it a random person looking to score? No, it’s that third category, the random trying to score pretending to be a friend. That classic way you have to be. Y’know, you can’t just USE these people, they have feelings as well as a stash.

Anyway, the geetar comes out, so does the lesbian stand up comic, and so do the drums.

It’s also only 9pm. I supposed to be in a church politely watching some saints singing. It’s a Monday. It’s my first week of going part time. I no longer am waiting for the hoover delivery man, I’m getting a bit trashed in a flat with a man I used to have ASB matches with.

But hey ho, must this virtuous girl always feel guilty, even before she’s done anything wrong?

We slope off to the pub so he can dine. He wants the beans and chorizo. The Polish no-nonsense straightened-hair barmaid does her best to humour us, but it ain’t funny. It’s his hood. I just drink wine, and tell him about my long lost lover overseas. He says it’s a bit odd that he’s chosen to go to war-torn countries. But then, it could be worse – he could join the army.

He did try and join the army. His mum wouldn’t sign the form……

So me and this kid are getting on well! Somehow, against my better judgement, we move on to a pub with freestyle jazz playing. I bump into the most introverted man you’ve ever met that I spent some time in India with. Then I bump into an ex-employee. And all the time telling my dealer date ‘I’m not allowed out, especially on a Monday’.

And he gets me. He tells me I’m not allowed out…ever. Because if I go out I’ll realise I’m mad, and I’m not letting myself be. Lord, I needed those vodkas after that. We hook up with a random pretty thing and a scary beardy monster, who facades as a lovely chap, then pounces in with the rape lines. And I’ve given him this blog address. Hi. How did the triple heart bypass go?

It’s back to the flat. Now I know I’m living on borrowed time. Everyone I meet eyes me suspiciously, then I gabble at them so they can’t make head nor tail of the threat I pose to them, and they love me. I spot a double bass player I’d been stalking on the internet and forced him to give me his set list, as I was going to steal it anyway. He obliges, the dealer typing the song names into his drugmobile begrudgingly.

Back at the den it’s more wine, spliff, speaking French with a bunch of randoms, avoiding the rancid perv who tries to force my fricking address out of me, and chatting up a ‘man’ that I later found out was born in 1987. This grooming has got to stop.

The drum kit interests me, it’s got carious buttons that play different styles, but in my state I think I’m playing along to itunes. An hour later I turn, exhausted but satisfied. And I meet rapturous applause. Apparently I’d been controlling the music and drums in an idiot savant fashion. Marvellous.

Now I know it’s time to go, or the legs won’t go where the face is heading. But before I do, the dealer whisks me into his bedroom and slams the door. Oh shit. There’s a beautiful bed, various gadgets, and I just can’t cope.

‘whatever it is you’re about to do, don’t!’ I squeal/dribble.

And he laughs, turns around and shows me a line of the good stuff. Oh no, no fucking way, I’m off. At the door he yells after me,

‘In three months I’ll read your blog about me, and we’ll take our relationship from there!’

Is it October yet? If so, where the fuck am I? Tha-a-ank you lord for this fine day…..just another manic Monday x