RIBS! £5, large size

Today

I woke up this morning with an idea that is not mine.
I can't really develop. That'd be immoral and I always shout down plagiarism.
In a Rabelaisian way.

I feel like that for a while. Then it passes.
Remember, remember all these weeks. About seven.

I think I have let myself down for a bit.
Not that I have chosen to do so. Not that I have willingly entered the world of the bizarre and the unknown. Not that I am that much bothered about my own peace. Not that. No.
I have dreamed my days more than I have seized them. I have hoped for a recovery.
And now, well, I am.
Apart from the occasional sneezing, the recalcitrant sock and the casual free-for-all on the tube, I am fine.
All these weeks, I tried to embrace the routine and the ordinary but felt invited in the world of a dispiritingly funny invalid rib-less character and somehow, perceived the environment very much like a Lam painting.

I have shadowed myself in the path of my habits.
I was not wearing clothes, I was just giving them a shape. I was not eating, I was entered by food. Cigarettes were smoking me. People were drinking, I was feeling drunk.

But I have perceived the environment differently. I touched something that was there but unknown until then. 
The stress of the crowd.
The brouhaha spoke to me. 
People.
The other.
I is an other.
Arseholes!
Sorry I meant marvelous.

What I am trying to say here, is clear to me but not necessarily to the rest. Like when you try to speak on the phone in the hall of a train station.
Too much hubbub.
It ain't easy to convey.
I mean, Indiana Jones, Jesse James or Arsène Lupin, they did not have to tell their story themselves, did they?
And yet.To me,
It has been an adventure.
I could have done without but I have done well. I think.
But I missed out a lot.
For example I have not been able to do much physical stuff, really. Like lifting things.
Six weeks without lifting things.
I mean, heavy things.
Like on a Saturday afternoon or on a Monday evening in those sweaty gym centers for anonymous alcoholics.
Barbells and weights.
Don't they call it dumbbells too?
Lifting dumbbells and dumb things used to be the fast track for work opportunities.
Like becoming governor of California.

But I digress here.

Breakfast and morning stretching.

The other day it was epic.
Croissant, Nutella, champagne and sunbathing.

Today, with the relics of broken ribs, on the boat, it is as normal as can be.
Coffee and italian biscuits.
Guava juice.
And one attempted sit-up.
With broken ribs exercise is not a priority, on a boat or anywhere else.

In these open letters, reluctantly ego-centered diatribes against my infuriating condition, I have been more successful with describing the italian little pleasures (the biscuits) than showing how I have walked out on yoga or any other form of modern organic physical bullshit.
I could not possibly describe it so today, I'd rather submit a drawing to highlight my position on the matter and enhance my point.
Proportions are somehow, almost accurate.

With time, pain becomes a friend. Like a cigarette becomes the girlfriend for those who don't have one.
But pain really, is more like one of those friends that are consistently annoying since childhood. Coming to your house to watch Tom Sawyer and eating all the Miel Pops, stealing girlfriends and smoking most of the difficultly acquired pack of rancid yellow Camel... but you can't do without them because they're from the same village.

I have been on a holiday with them once or twice.
Being on a holiday with them usually tends to be a bit like that...

None left to spare

 

Digression seems to be spying on me. 

So...

This chapter needs concluding.
A page needs turning.
A night cap needs drinking.
Like a little drink for the road and off you go onto the 38 bus towards Mare Street...
Bloody 38 bus. I miss the bendy ones.
My friend from Bilbao used to call it the 'social bus'.
The only alternative to save on the outrageous £2.40 fare (without oyster).
The new ones are not fitted with windows that can be opened.
I know I should not really mind. But since it is summer this week and next, here in London, it'd be nice to open a pair of windows.
30°C is a bit much on a simili wool seat.
And yet someone next to me feels that chips with vinegar is needed for the ride.

Better to jump on the bus than taking the car, after a drink or two though.
Drinking and driving is not good.
Unless you drive a narrow-boat. Apparently.

About that, there are different stories.
What is right and what is in the middle and what is wrong.

While driving a boat, some tends to say that the allowable percentage of alcohol in the blood is higher than the one allowed for driving cars while intoxicated.
Others seem to milk the idea that boaters on boat below a certain size are permitted to drink alcohol, as long as it is not in excess.

How about that!

Let's note the occurrence "a certain size" here.
It seems that the old adage about size is wrong and that size does matter. I believe so. Size does matter. It's whether it is big or small that does not matter, innit?
As long as it is certain.

I would also like to focus a second on "as long as it is not in excess".
In my experience, it should read "as long as it is not in excess, especially if the driver is an orange corny fairy".
I have to say, on a personal note, that the tacky pixie who drove her boat right into mine yesterday, attempting a manoeuvre against the wind, something only a drunkard fool, or Dick Dastardly and Muttley maybe, could have thought of as doable, is a right bitch and I am sorry if I am offending anyone here but finding most of my crockery and flowers splattered all over the floor has driven me into the last corner of a possible outpost of patience. And the fraudulent goblin, deceitful narrow-boat driver and dipsomaniac in her spare time, did not stop the killing game there and has had my red lilies falling off the roof onto my neighboor's boat, resulting in one of them being beheaded.
It is difficult to think of anything more likely to arouse my ire and drive me to intimately search my home for weapons.

I did not see it but J'accuse!

Even with cracked ribs, I have managed to maintain a home where all is order and beauty, luxury, peace and pleasure*.
Even with no cracked rib to begin with, in my suspended garden, I managed to fall elegantly and sacrificed the thorax rather than the red lilies.

People. The crowd. They break things, they start a fire on you and they walk away while everything is burning.
Me, I don't break.
Things, I mean, since I had to come to the conclusion that I am somehow breakable.
Well...
Maybe I broke one thing.
But it was not mine. **
Same old story. 

And then

 

I guess I feel a bit fagged out... sharpish, resonant and strident. A bit like the TING TING of the cyclists on the towpath.
About that, while I am at it, I read this passage in Ian Sinclair's book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: 

Cyclist should slow down, ring with Two Tings and let other users 

through the bridge before continuing. Never pass a pedestrian or 

another cyclist underneath a bridge. The waterways and towpath have

many historic structures and important wildlife habitats. The Regent's Canal 

has been designated a Site of Metropolitan Importance

(Sinclair, p.20,  2009)

Dismounting is the key word. 

The other day, with this extract in my head, I cycled from King's Cross to Hackney Central, spry and alert.
I have been on my bike three times only, since the rib situation. 

I followed the canal towards Islington Tunnel, went up and found my way through a mazy Caledonian Road estate. I got onto Tolpuddle Street and turned right onto Liverpool Road. Toward the Angel.

I saw the Angel. 

It was a big grey and aggressive combination of breeze blocks, cars and stuck up traffic lights. I saw myself cycling onto Upper Street for a very short distance, before diverting onto the pavement, ready to dismount.

The weather, the freedom of cycling again, the beauty of not being late for my meeting, made me do the mistake, which proved to be fatal. 

As I unstraddled my right leg, I caught myself enjoying the image of me, elegant and angelic, gliding on one leg, almost heroically. 

Not so much to the liking of the pair of police community support officers who stopped me unprecedentedly. 

-Come here my friend!

-Pardon me?..

-I said stop and come here my friend! 

-Well, I am not a friend... surely not yours.. I am a.. euh.. a citizen!..

- Right! This is how you want it to be? How about Sir? You like Sir? 

-Yes, I think that's a good start. Then I can call you Officer..

-Sir, you have been stopped because you were cycling on the pavement. This is an offence to the...

-I know, I am bad. Euh, you are going to fine me, so can we get to it, please? I need to be somewhere...

-So you don't contest? 

-No..

-You have been caught infringing the law so I have to ask you if you have a comment to make about the offence? 

-Yes, I know I am an offender.. Can you fine me please, I kind of have to go..

-So you are not contesting?

-Do you find it that surprising?

-Well...No! Can I have your I.D please? 

(looking for the pieces of my driving licence)

-There you go..

-... Which one is your last name? 

-That one.. No, Don't write 'NOM', that means 'name' in my language.

-Ok, ok... Do you have an address in the UK? I can only see an address in France. 

-Yes, I know, this is when it gets a bit funny you see. I don't have an address, I live on a boat. 

-Ok. So what is your PO box then? 

-... no, I don't have one either, I live on a boat, without a fixed address. 

-I see. I am going to have to run a check on you. 

-How much is the fine anyway?

-£30

-OK, look, I have a tenner here and there is a cashmachine right there. I leave my bike to you, as an hostage, and I go and get you the money so we're done.

-This is not going to be possible I am afraid.

-Why? 

-Because Police officers cannot take money from people in the street.

-... isn't it what you are doing right now?  

-No.

-Ah.. so how do we do this? Can you not just make an exception, I give you the money and you sort it out later, find a vacant address, something... I don't know.

-I am afraid this is not going to be possible. 

(a name check later)

You don't seem to have an address in this country. Do you live in this country permanently? 

-Yes, I do. On a boat (I almost wanted to add "with a cracked rib" but that might have been lost in translation).

-I need some kind of address to fine you, if not I will have to take you to the police station.

-Look... look at these, my house keys. See the key ring? It is two cheap prosecco corks. Do you know why?

-No.

-So that if my keys fall in the water, they float. 

-...

-Do you think I would have such a key ring if I was not living on a boat?

-People sometimes tell us they don't have an address. 

-Look, what if you stick with the French address and you trust me and I'll send the money soon. Or get Interpol on the case, I don't know...

-You will have to pay the money because if not, next time you leave the country and try to come back, your name will flag up and you may be arrested. 

-Right. I already have problems with my passport. They don't like the picture they say.

-I don't know about that.

-Don't worry, that's a story in itself. So, shall we do that?

-I don't think I have a choice here.

-We always have a choice, officer..

-Ok, here is what I will do. I will issue you the fine and you have now 28 days to pay it. Failing to pay it and you could be prosecuted. It is a serious offence. 

-The cycling on the pavement bit or not paying the fine?
-Both! I need now to fill in your details on this.

(He starts writing; my name is quite long to write. Five minutes later). There you go.

-Thanks. So can I go now? 

-You are free to go Sir.

-Thank you. So, on my bike and off I go?

-... No, push your bike a little further, my colleagues are over there, you don't want another ticket. 

-... Right, thanks for everything, you've been great. Bye

-Bye

Unbelievable. £30 pounds!
But a priceless conversation. 

Later in the afternoon, I thought, back on the boat, that I should be a little more cautious.
A little less cynical about people and about boat drivers and cyclists in general. I am not better than them in certain situations.

Charity begins at home.
I should not boo the cyclists on the towpath too much. I should not boo the troll trying to stir a boat.
 

Maybe these seven weeks have taught me that there is more to learn about myself than I thought I could possibly see.
But there is only so much a man can do.
And even less with cracked ribs. 

This might be now the beginning of a new era.
I am getting over what happened with not so much psychic tolls of ordeals and an awful lot of questions. 

On a boat with the relics of a cracked rib, with the summer which has finally arrived, I feel I could spend an afternoon climbing onto the roof again, trying to figure out answers to my questions; hoping that they won't make the questions disappear as Sixto would say.
And sunbathe.
Taking a bit of height and a bit of sun, the breeze and the empty space below, that opens onto the glistening water, mostly due to oil and diesel leaks.
Giving me the impression that I can now climb mountains again and not be afraid of falling,
and not be afraid of...
That, however, is still on my mind...
And there we are, left at a cliffhanger. 

I shall leave with this one

B.

* Thank you, Charles B.

** a beautiful vintage oil lamp has inopportunely met the trajectory of my arm while searching my neighbour's boat for a lighter or a sander machine. 

If anyone had a glass part to lend me, similar to this one below, I could replace the thing and my neighbour would be, as ever and again, a happy man.