Well, I didn’t kill myself – if that’s what you’re thinking. Like I would do anything as foolish or selfish as that. Haven’t got enough self left to be selfish.

Oh no. I didn’t top myself off on a rooftop in the East End. What waste that’d be. Just because my novel’s crap, doesn’t mean I haven’t any promise.

I’m great. Do you hear? Just great. To hear the New York Times tell it, I’m practically Dorothy Parker reincarnated. Oh no, never! And so modest, too! Isn’t she just darling?

Oh, yes. There’s that writer broad from America. She’s such a doll. Call her over; she’ll give you some time, if you know what I mean.”

“Hey doll. What’d’ya say to you and me and-“

“I’m terribly sorry sweet thing, but I’m off to see a man about a horse.”

The worst thing about London, and I mean the absolute worse, is the amount of bloody American men. They come over to diversify the gene pool a bit, and then they have the audacity to drool all over any home grown meat. Well, I’m sorry fellas, but you shouldn’t have bothered to leave the nest.

What cards they are. I honest to God wish that we’d been kept under British rule, if only to save me this distinction.

We head out, us musketeers, as we amiably call each other – clambering through a washroom window. The washroom’s clean and stately and I feel a pinch of sorrow about leaving it; knowing full well where we’re off to.

This mess that we’re in.

The air’s a bit thinner out here, on this teetering London rooftop. Oh, no, never mind silly ol’ me. I’m just drunk, that’s all. We make a toast. To each other, to our fame (this mess. This horrid mess), to our great, giant can-you-please-widen-the-door egos.

We follow the procession from London rooftop to London rooftop. Johnny does a handstand across, and we all hold our breath in dread. He teases us, dipping his body downwards and up, rest assured in his drunken haze. After he accomplishes this staggering feat, there’s rowdy applause and everyone clicks heels and yells ‘step in time!’

There’s talk of robbing a bank. There’s even louder talk of buying an island living there with shoes – hardening our soles and never returning to civilization.

The air’s got a brisk, sobering whip to it; a cold current in the midst of this balmy, smoggy, summer. It stings and my eyes begin to water. I sit down, the cement’s chilly through my jeans. I watch as the troupe descent to the next roof and then down the front façade, using a fire escape for assistance as they known on the window of twelfth floor smoking club. It opens and the musketeers enter to cheers and cat calls. The window snaps shut with certain finality – and here I am.

Alone. On a rooftop. How bitterly typical.

I wonder what rooftop I’m on. It’s not like it matters, really. But if I decide to say here forever, which seems plausible, I would like to know what sorts will discover me. If I happen to be on top of a law or accounting office, it could be a big to do.

What a lot of talk. Sebastian always did what he said, even the things he never said or even conceived off he did. What absolute cads they all are. Sebastian was more of a fop, and I can’t decide if that’s better or worse.

Probably worse. Oh how I hate that man. Boy. Peter Pan, Odysseus, the Pied Piper – whatever. I hate him more for being here, in my thoughts, on this tenement (and needles…oh it’s not about…)

I hate poetry and I hate the people who write it. For the life of me, if I ever write a poem – just shoot me, will’ya? One bullet, straight between the eyes. I’ll never utter another sonnet. That’ll fix it.

I should’ve been Annie Oakley. Fastest draw in the West, meeting at dawn, banging things out in saloons. No one on that Wild West Frontier would veer fall into this pitiful existence. A writer. Hah.

Oh, they’re coming. I clench my stomach and squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop them. Here we are! Here we are!

Despots and despondents…

Travellers, goblins, thieves…

Wake, melancholy mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend - oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Oh, that Percy Bysshe Shelley. He’ll get his own soon enough. Here I am, in the land of Chaucer, quoting the fool- when I gave myself specific instructions not to, no less.

Oh hell. I’m throwing in this towel. It’d be a blessing if I wake up with no memory at all. One of those wiped clean slates. Wiped clean with a cool wet rag from the pump outback, they sort they would’ve used in ‘I Capture the Castle’. May be with a vague scent of pine detergent. That’d be the ticket.

Well, the ticket isn’t going to happen sober – y’know. And I’m clear sober now.

I stand up in determination and march- with the air of a marked man, towards the next roof over.

The window slides open, smoke and jazz spilling out into the night.

“Oh, hey! The gang’s all here!”
Comes the refrain from inside.

Part One – Napkins

I'm playing the pronoun game again. This He who occupies my mind, my time - and it's not God. Oh, goodness, not by a long shot. He hops in and out of my life at his leisure. He who snuggles up close and tears tiny holes in the fabric of my being, snipping away at me and making off with the bits to far off places in the world. Squirreling them away in all the four corners and eventually he’ll give me a quizzical looking map and send me off on a scavenger hunt for them.

I’m not too sure I’d go. I’m probably better off without them.

My friends sigh in exasperation at the mention of his name. I try to break it up into bits, insignificant sounds, when I’m infuriated with him. And when I’m enamored, I try to eroticize the bits. Lo. Lee. Ta. Se. Bast. Yin. It never works out quite as well, I’m no Vladimir Nabokov. His writing grips my sensual, erogenous zones and squeezes and nips. Sebastian’s name just rolls around in my stomach or runs a chill up my spine.

He.

This two-letter word that occupies such personal space. My capitalized reverence of Patrick Sebastian Huxley. He. Him. His. The pronouns that bury themselves deep in my brain, sending little electric shocks straight to my nervous systems. The bastards.

Of course, a beginning would be a place to start. I’m not going to hand out drivel but eternal lovers, soul mates- what shit. Oh, we’ve met in past lives. In supermarket aisles and charmed each other with Yeats and Keats. We played coy in the frozen foods, made out by the oranges. We’re not even lovers. Sure, we’ve got a great romanticism to us. An Elizabethan tragedy and we’re chock full of noble ideas and desperate acts.But we’re not lovers. And we’re certainly nothing to aspire to.

I’m saying this so you don’t get the wrong idea when I throw our beginnings into the mists of pre-history, which I’m about to do.

I don’t remember when I met Sebastian. You rarely do with the pivotal forces in your life. There was no cosmic finger prodding my insides, no disembodied voice whispering in my ear. It was like getting old. You don’t notice. Suddenly, there he was.

I’ve tried to replace him. But my tongue goes heavy and tingles with sleep. The phonemes come out in a garbled tone, an alien voice. My body lurches as I try my best to upset this Great Chain of Being.

A pebble clacks against my window pane. Once, twice, thrice. His aim’s perfect. It should be, he’s only two feet away balanced precariously on a tree branch. I know this, because he’s an awful marksman.

I roll my eyes and open the window. Shaggy hair, scruffy shoes, 501s, blazer. I haven’t decided yet if I’m mad at him or not. So I lean against the window frame, cross my arms, and say:

“You have a key you know.”

His blue eyes, incandescent in the moon and the street lamp glow, scrutinize me a bit. I work hard on composing my poker face, try not to be such an open book – for once.

“But where’s the fun in that? This is sneaky, grande, secret. What greatness is made of.”

I don’t bother to mention it’s also what Saved by the Bell is made of.

“Where’ve you been?” I always ask this. It doesn’t matter if it’s been an hour or a month, in either time frame he could’ve been to India and back, or just down the road at Zelda’s. Having a wildly debauched time at both; he fancies himself a poet, you know.

“At sea.” He replies. I step back and he clambers his way into my room. “I visited ports and wore pantaloons and was swallowed whole by a giant whale.”

I sat back down at my desk and continued with my arithmetic homework, intent on ignoring him the best I could.

He continued in his fashion. “The same one Baron Munchausen encountered. He was still there. It was nice, we played cards.”

I giggle in spite of myself. It didn’t if he was lying, heaved fact and fiction together so perfectly that you could never find the seams in order to unravel. You just accepted it as a whole. This is Sebastian

He takes this moment to move closer; leaning over my shoulder; breathe tickling my beck.

“You should’ve been there.” He said casually.

“You should’ve invited me.”

His hand covers my text book and I groan a bit in irritation. Opening my mouth to tell him to move his bloody hand, his head bows down and his lips slip across mine.

But we’re not lovers. Not even close.

***

I woke up with Sebastian in my bed. The light from the window spilled over his features, highlighting the curve of his nose and the dip of his chin. The room reeked, so I opened the window. The outside world sounded like a war zone; birds were squawking and chirping like mad and that dumb tree was dropping acorns like carpet bombs all over my roof. What a mess. Thank the gods that we’ll never return to Thomas Hobbes’ natural state.

He wakes up, two fluttering eye lids opening to sleepy blue.

We tug on clothes and walk down to Zelda’s for breakfast. The waitress, Marie, greets us cheerfully and brings a coffee and hot chocolate straight away. The owner, Zelda, is sitting at another table doing paperwork and slurping espresso. He nods at us in acknowledgement as we pass on our way to the patio.

Sebastian regales me with tales of his last two weeks. He gets arrested, retraces jack Kerouac’s steps, steals from the Louvre, is given the key to London.

Zelda’s is an odd place. By day it’s a coffee shop, at night the tables are pushed back to make way for drag queens performing numbers from antique musicals. It’s got a bit of the Peter Parker syndrome to it. Oh, it looks so quaint and lovely right now. Iron caste fencing, abstract art on the walls, comfy chairs on the inside, pewter on the patio. Then at night it all gets shoved to the side and the blue and yellow twinkle lights come on and, well, you know how twinkle lights can change a place from quaint to seedy…

The sign hanging outside the entrance is antiquated; wooden and swinging and worn. It doesn’t read Zelda’s but Wright’s Insurance. I like to imagine a right old Scrooge used to occupy these premises. I would’ve liked him: bitter and mumbling humbug and focusing on being very, very rich. How wonderful a cynic he sounds.

I light a cigarette and blow smoke at the passer-bys, only half listening to what Sebastian is saying. He’s not nearly as great a story-teller as he thinks; his ego is greatly bolstered by girls who think he’s pretty.

Actually, Sebastian is a very good story teller. In fact, he’s excellent. Even fantabulous. I just like to take him down a peg or two when necessary. He deserves it, he’s rotten.

“You’re rotten.” I tell him.

“Let’s go sailing.”

“Alright.”

***

We step out again, heading north to the marina. I’ve got a proper sail boat there. It even has that silly slap-stick bit (the thrust?) that throws everyone overboard in Charlie Chaplin movies. It used to be my dad’s, but we reclaimed it: painting a sloppy Nicholas Nickleby on its side in red and christening it proper with a bottle of root beer, as the off-license was closed.

The boats got a phonograph and we waltz about the deck in attic style dress up clothes. They smell like mothballs, predictably. I’ve got a cardigan and mismatched even gloves on, white and pale blue. He’s wearing tails.

I imagine us in grand, sweeping, silhouette form. Moonlight and fabric softener.

A sea monster and five penguins, like five extremely independent digits, erupts from the water. The boat (sail boat) rocks and we hold onto each other.

Oh, how horridly cheesy, I think. Sea monsters. What a tale.
I bop him around the nose with an umbrella. Sebastian, ever the hero, throws a couple pebbles found on deck at his disappearing scaly hump and yells, drunkenly: ‘and stay out!’

I’m ripping the pages right now. What drivel. What shit.

I’m just upset at how utterly shite this is. Worst novel/notebook/journal/life. I don’t live in a Nicholas Spark’s story, for god sakes.

Things are different. Dirtier, grittier. I’m painting Sebastian with such a rosy brush. I’m awful. I’m just rotten.

Possibly the most uninspired words in the English language are contained within these leather bound pages. It runs the wide gamut of every cliché in the book.

How horrible. How perfectly awful.

This great mind, dragged through the negro streets at down. AN angel headed hipster looking for that angry fix.

I take my champagne glass in hand, drawn up like a sword from its sheath. I brandish it at the city lights, teetering on the ledge of my window sill.

“Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland!” I cry – arm gesturing dramatically to the audience. The silent empty band shell plays a silent, empty, tune to my left and, on my right, the orchestra pit, the devil on the other shoulder, is raucous and loud – making an awful grind noise, two metal frames being unsuccessfully banged together.

Oh, how pitiful. How sad. I sound like Michael from Disney’s production of Mary Poppins. The bird lady and I – we would’ve been great pals. We’ve loads in common. If I ever came across her, I’d just sit down right then and there and have a chat. I’m sure we’ve loads to say, to empathize. “Oh dear” We’d say to each other, crossing arms to breast and shoulders. “I’ve been there. I know”

My champagne class slips from my grip. Silk evening gloves don’t make for the bets of traction, you know. I watch as it hurtles downward; splattering spectacularly on the sidewalk.

I spit on it. That’s it.

“That’s it!”

Patrick Sebastian Huxley, kid, we’re through.

Prologue
I decided to start off this diary, erm, journal, nooo, novel, story...whatever the fuck it is, with a list of Things I Need to Survive.

Obviously I'm not talking about anything like breathing or food or shelter, because that's just obvious and it'd be a really daft list because everyone knows.

So, hold your breath peoples, because here it is...

Things I Need to Survive:

1. Napkins
2. Science
3. A dictionary (this is not questionable)
4. Doo-wop (this is questionable)

There you have it.

Actually, I could be better off on certain occassions without those things. But whoever said being happy, being restful, is better off? It's the expect wisdom, but I'd rather be smart.

My problem is that I hold the whole wide world in contempt.

If I was going to be honest with myself, the actual list would be this:

1. Napkins.

What can I say? I like being clean, and I'm an awfully messy eater.