7The blue record player and the overdose

The blue record player

the practicing junkie

and a slight overdose

1981

The artist:- the stranglers

The song:- golden brown

The Band :- squeeze

The Song:- tempted

The band:- Stray Cats,

The song:-Rock This Town

ENTREPRENEUR

In sept of nineteen eighty one, shortly after my brush With window cleaning and the buzzing toy, followed soon after by the escapades of how the royal wedding led to myself and others cascading down the river 7seven in mid Wales on the hottest day of said year.

i decide that it was a career that I wanted, then I could settle down into some sort of life routine, I was after all sixteen years of age and been out of school and work for some weeks now, so I chose to delve into the world of paint and decorating,

i started a twelve month course studying the craft of paper hanging and paint application under the tuition of an old professional, it was a new scheme called the task force, and this took me into the land of the foreigner, but no not what you are thinking,

this is a term you give to a job you do on the side for cash in your back pocket, no questions asked, thus so avoiding the robbing bastards from the tax office,

you see I seemed to take to this painting lark like a duck to water, and straight from the outset my tiny little mind was workin ten to the dozen on how I can get rich quickly with my new found skill.

I also worked out pretty quickly from my new found mentor how easy it was to find people who wanted things done on the cheap,

my mentors name was Eric, he was a 50 something veteran of the paint brush,

and knew all the tricks of the trade,

and was only to willing to pass on his well earned knowledge, now this guy was old school through and through, I only ever saw this fellow in white bib and braces, with a checked shirt accompaniment, which was usually red,

He often had a pipe hanging out of the right side of his mouth,

he was always unshaven with white stubble which always covered his face right up to his eyeballs, or so it seemed in this fading memory of mine,

his nostril hair was unusually long and he seemed pleased with it, as it always looked as though he manacured it, and don't let me get started on his ears, they were like loabs of the forest,

his white hair was always emaculatly combed in a slick back Elvis look, full of brylcream, in fact I would say that was the mans favoured aftershave, as he stank of brylcream

Once you overcome the aroma of Eric, you find you have a jolly and witty straight talking man,

And it was while we had one of our daily chats that he gave me the idea to do some work on the side,

which would easily give me the money I craved,

he told me on one occasion to start with family and friends, as their always willing to help, and so, that was the avenue I went down, and I soon found I had more jobs than I could ever imagine I could actually finish,

but like a true professional I plodded on,

wading endlessly through the painted walls and rolls and rolls of wallpapers,

while at the dizzie heights of my new enterprise, an acquaintance of are kid approach me with an offer of a job, at mate rates of course,

What Ziggie (the lads name) wanted was the front room and stairs of his new second floor council flat painted,

an easy job for a fair amount of cash even at mates rates, Ziggie was a twenty one year old, ( which was quite old to a sixteen year old)

he was a practicing punk but looked more like a mod, heis usually attire were Fred Perry T shirt's, Harrington jackets drainpipe jeans and brogues, he was not a bad looking lad with blonde hair cut short with a side parting, the only unforgiving feature he had was the lack of teeth,

all his top front teeth had gone missing, he had just the two fangs with a very fucking big gap inbetween and this was probably due to the fact he was very much a practicing druggie, but a nice chap sometimes, with plenty of cash,

we sealed the deal with me loaning him my treasured blue single deck record player, which I had got the previous year for Christmas,

it was my first player and I loved it,

now don’t forget vinyl was the main source of sound and music in the heady heights of the late 70s early 80s and I loved my music,

but a sacrifice was made in the name of cash, and anyway it would only be a couple of days,

ROOKIE MISTAKE

Day 1

the music was blaring out of that blue record player as I prepped the walls of Ziggie’s front room, “what a cracking idea to loan him my treasured player( I did not have much of a choice in the decision)

I now get the benefits of my music while I paint” (I always seem to be talking to myself,)

Later I’m splashing on the emulsion without a care in the world, I’m half way up a pair of ladders Balancing several stairs up, some would say cutting corners and Saving time, I would suggest I was being enterprising,

I’m singin to myself wiggling my arse off to stiff little fingers, alternative ulster, when the ladder buckles and I am left at the bottom of the stairs, I land with my back against the front door, the ladders lay across my knees and I am wearing a very good coating of white emulsion dripping from my head and other body parts,

and after a poor attempt to clean up, I gave up and legged it from the property, with thoughts of how the fuck I’m going to get out of this utter fucking mess?

you see I knew for a fact that Ziggie has just had that hall and stairs carpet laid,

and I know for a fact that I have made a school boy error in not putting any sheets down to cover said carpet,

another fact is i should have used a plank and not balanced a ladder on stairs,

and I knew for a fact it is gonna cost me not just in money but probably in teeth and looks, because although Ziggie was an aqauintance and a fairly reasonable guy he was also as I said a practicing junkie punk and certainly had some unsavoury mates and he can definitely hold a grudge,

so I’m thinking New York sounds good this time of year, but since i was a spender and not a saver I did not have any capital to be going travelling,

so hiding in my bedroom was the next best thing, I think I was hiding under my covers in my bed for a good couple of hours, when I thought to myself, fuck this, I gotta date with the borough arms at six pm,

there’s a great group doing clash covers playing tonight and i’m not about to miss it

now this could be a suicide mission as Ziggie frequents the same establishment from time to time, or a blessing in disguise because if he is there I could buy him a pint talk him around maybe with some kind of fantasy story, so i have just got to come up with a good enough story to fool the man

lets hope he’s had his quota of substances for the day,

The evening day 1

HELP NEEDED

“Hey Ziggie good night isn’t it, do you fancy a pint? I’ve a funny story to tell you, this will have you in stitches, you are not gonna believe it mate but... what’s that, you said, oh your three mates over there are thirsty too, wow there big big lads aren’t they” oh steroids is it” oh and they work out at the gym, and they go every day do they, how interesting” “yeah I can see that, they have thighs bigger than me,”

“what’s that they don’t really want to hurt me,”

“aw that’s nice to know”

“you say they will though if they have to, now that doesn’t sound so good, I’ll be fine yaou say, aw I feel so much better now”

“What! as long as I pay £150.00, Christ on a bike that’s three months wages,”

“instalment will do, oh really thanks, i really appreciate you taking my money on a weekly basis,

“there’s little jobs to do for you as well is there, well I’ve certainly got it made haven’t i”

“Sorry what’s that? shut the fuck up with the back chat before I get a slap,”

“got it, consider me mute”

and with the finger and thumb of my left hand I drew a zipper across my lips and threw away the key, I sat across the room from Ziggie and his boys for the rest of the evening, although I was still having a great night out with the lads, I was also pondering on ideas of how the fuck to get out of this situation,

idea one

Hire King Kong to defeat them big dudes in a battle, interesting,

Idea two

Send my dad around, but I’d just end up an orphan

Idea three

Let myself get trashed by the 3three apeman that were with Ziggie, then have them all arrested

Fuck that I’m too pretty and I have a great set of teeth

Idea 4

Pray they all get hit by a bus on the way home tonight,

Never gonna happen unless I can quickly pass my test, find a bus to hijack and reroot it to coincide with the four fuckers leaving the pub?

gives me less than an hour before closing time? Possible

I think I’ll sleep on it, every thing always looks rosier the next day.

Day 2

THE BLUE RECORD PLAYER

I woke early,

well i couldn’t fucking sleep anyway, too much shit rolling around in the old brain,

and some of the shit rolling around was the idea That I should pop round to Ziggie’s and try to sort this mess out once and for all,

and that’s exactly what I did, I jumped on my pink chopper, revved the baby up put it in gear with the shift stick in the centre of the cross bar just between my legs, just where it should be, and I peddled off,

Twenty minutes later and I’m at the corner of Ziggie’s road, but that is where I put on my breaks and come to a sudden stop, I gasp at the sight I’m looking at, a couple of hundred yards up from me there is a hive of activity,

there are two cop cars, an ambulance, and the whole fucking area is cornered off, and from the position I am in I can also see one of Ziggie’s goons being escorted from Ziggie’s flat, the next sight I see was the two ambulance men, a stretcher and what I can only assume to be a body riding on it,

and as I cannot see this as being some sort of an elaborate robbery featuring men in fancy dress uniforms, unless maybe in-fact Ziggie is a drugs baron livin under the radar?

In any case i don’t hang around any longer, I needed to get the fuck out of there, so I turn myself around and peddled fuck out of that chopper, back at home it was time to deliberate, so no work for me today and no trying to wriggle of the hook for now, so there’s only one thing for it, off to the pub,

And it seems back at my local watering hole is where all the action is, there is only one topic of conversation on everyone’s lips that afternoon

and that is the death of a practicing junkie and the arrest of a man monster with muscles on muscles

It transpires the death of Ziggie arrived that morning, and a couple of his friends disappeared never to be seen in this town again, well as far as I was concerned anyway,

and one man monster was certain to go down for drug related charges, and this news although very sad indeed, did help with my own health and looks no end,

It also kept me in pocket money for awhile at least, so the drinks were on me that afternoon,

and then it hit me, like a slap in the face, like a grenade in the brain, like a kick in the balls,

for fucks sake I screamed inside, my treasured blue record player was gone, it was still at the flat, sat there on the rotting sideboard where I left it all alone gathering dust with all of Ziggie’s possessions, never to been seen by my sparkling blue eyes ever again,

I cried that night, music died that night, never will there be anything invented that could produce the dulcet tones of my music on my old blue record player,

R.I.P