Darryl

Everyone’s got a mate who fucked up

Mine was Darryl
All nasal and pessimistic
his hope backed up in his sinuses
masochistic
with cartoon rain cloud over cropped ginger head
and above his monobrow a mole like a baked bean
my baked bean. If I wasn’t me I’d think me repulsive too
He was like a ginger version of Pepe le Peu

We first met when we were six.
He showed me round at my new school
Fond of saying ummm and I’m telling on you
that early awkward bond is crystallized
Preserved like a laminated scratch
We’re shoulder-to-shoulder in our first school photo
My pigeon-chested slump and crew cut squint
versus his goody two shoes straight backed grin
taunting me with his good behaviour
I look defeated as grey as a graveyard

Darryl lived with his Nan.
His mother dead before he knew her
But he was a happy little man
He didn’t question the rules
we drifted at school
And then he was moved
And our paths didn’t cross
Until puberty knocked

Then he moved into my street
He became convenient company
when my weekends got bored
By then his two good shoes were scuffed
and there was teenage rage brewing beneath that ginger tuft

We were all told that Darryl was no good
A negative influence. Bad egg. Trouble.
But his wild bullshit stories were Friday night fun
Down the rec wrecked on hooch smoking fags that we bummed

He told bare faced lies that could well be true
Because this was Darryl and Darryl was stupid enough
To do the stupid things you would never do

I glassed a swan
I invented French kissing
I went out with Ozzy Osborne’s daughter

It was him who keyed cars new year’s eve ninety six
It was him who sniffed poppers until he was sick
It was him that stole the vodka we drank by the bypass
And that night it was him knocked down in the car park

Oh no, don’t get me wrong- he wasn’t hurt.
He just walked into a stationary car
Just my luck to get run over.
Darryl - you weren’t run over –
you walked into a stationary car
Oh yeah. I’m such a loser.

We weren’t like, best friends.
Darryl mostly hung out with a guy called Joe Gray
Who had a face like a cheap sausage
that’s been grilled for thirty minutes
Rippled and waxy, shrunk and dried out
And a brown bouffant balanced above bringing out his pout
Joe Gray
who’s voice broke over the space of seven long years
And who’s older brother took the cherry of a girl I liked

Oi luke - you know Katy?
My brother pooned her.
And she loved it!
Hah hah hah Gutted.

Yes Joe was a cock.

But Darryl, just damaged
You see aged twelve
the dead mother had turned up
Not so dead after all – just didn’t give a fuck
And like a coke can his straight back had collapsed

I thought you were dead
Turned out he’d been lied to since he was one
She played mummy for one month then she was gone
Oh curse my trusting ginger head

Course at the time we didn’t know this
Found out years later from gossiping mothers
Keen at last to tell you all that you’d missed
Like a director’s cut of your own life
That made sense of all the strange bits

And so to us Darryl was just someone to hide behind
Mr Vicarious
To send clattering through boundaries so we could peak beyond
And our mums were so pleased that it wasn’t us
Who broke our wrists trying to force open a bottle of bud

No one actually wants to wash their hair with lighter fluid
And then spend all night desperately trying to rinse though it
As bigger boys chase you around with their precious clippers
We just wanted to see the effects and then nip home for our dinners

And that was Darryl all over - an impotent Rasputin
For all his playing up there was no dramatic conclusion
He just wandered into static traffic until it finally moved on
We all sorted ourselves out, passed exams and were gone.

He passed from mate
to acquaintance
Then quaint anecdote
With a touch of schadenfruade
A cruel party piece to conjure up

Everyone’s got a mate who fucked up

You might see them skulking around the bus shelters they frequent
like a scribbled on picture book. Like pocket money spent

Darryl became just a character to me
last I heard he was banged up
GBH. And yes, I’m worried that tonight he might turn up

And I don’t know what I should do
About the spectre of Darryl that remains in my mind
The poet in me wants to carve up the meat, spit out the rind
And state: others fail so the rest of us don’t have to

But the man in me is not so desperate to prove the lesson he’s supposed to
Just wants to say sorry to the ginger kid in the photo