Always Read the Label Chapter 5 Popping Out

I finally fell into a sleep by drifting off to the feeling of being fanned by palms in the jungle. While lying on top of a Fiat panda. Luckily the roof wasn't too hot to lie on. Or the fanning palms were very effective.
Washing away the remains at the sink, I start to remember flashes of what happened last night. Each of these brings either a giggle or a clenching fear. Not the usual groans of 'what did I do that for?' as I pretty much embarrassed only myself, so no one to apologise to outside of the mirror. Best to just get on with it and remember to stick with just a half next time. Bath, then something to eat.

Downstairs I find Tommo and Johnnie, who's wrapped in a duvet like some giant caterpillar, watching that film again. The wire from the video to the remote is sat in between them on the sofa. Tommo seems to be in charge of fast forwarding as the caterpillar has no visible arms. It has a voice though – and grunts a sort of hello. I'd rather get some breakfast together than join the Film 89 panel. It's too early for the postie to have been so best to keep busy. Plus I can't face seeing people who live nearby on the screen again.
Everything seems a bit slow this morning. The grill takes ages to brown the bread, the kettle takes forever to boil. Even the drizzle seems to be falling slowly. I won't point this out to Johnnie in case he suggests a way to speed it all up.
Finally breakfast is served. Or taken through to our film buffs (or is that buff film buffs?) who haven't moved an inch. The tea goes down well but the toast isn't getting many takers. I have to tell them to turn the film off as its too much in the morning. They look at me like I'm a parent, but grudgingly press stop. Must remember to take the film out of the machine.

'What's happening today then? Soon as I've been to the post office I'm up for anything'.
This doesn't provoke the stream of endless ideas that I'd hoped it would. It just draws a longer silence that says 'were quite happy to sit here and rot watching the film until it gets dark and we can go out again'. It's gonna be a struggle to get them off the settee today. At least they haven't got any hash to make it a complete write off.

The postie walks in front of the window and like a dog seeing a bone I dive to the door. The brown envelope's there on the mat and with it a reason to get out of the house. It'll take too many protests to get the other two moving, so I just grab my coat and leave them to it.

I get to the Post Office just as the drizzle ceases its go-slow and dive inside to see the same old faces, not just behind the counter, snaking silently towards the glass shutter. Not many of this crowd are buying the birthday cards and wrapping paper on offer. Just signing the small green slip and dribbling as the money gets counted. All will be back at the planned reunion in a fortnight's time. For what we are about to receive let us be eternally conscious it won't last. Like me, they'll all head straight to the Spar next door for the bare minimum of what they really can't do without. Usually milk, bread, bog roll (or toilet tissue if you're working) and fags. A combination that won't bite too heartily into the pittance that has no hope of lasting another 14 days. I'm determined not to let this thought eat away at the temporary joy of actually having as I walk back in the drizzle. It's helped when I remember I've still got some of the money from working with Vinny. Supplementary benefits to add to the supplementary benefit.

I'm in a good mood by the time I get back, good enough to overlook the fact that the film is back on and they're both in exactly the same position and state as when I left. I turn the TV off.
'We have to do something. Anything. Come on.'
There's a stirring beneath the protests and the caterpillar sheds his duvet skin. A metamorphosis occurs. Tommo simply lights a fag to help him sigh in acknowledgement that he'll be forced to move soon. An acknowledgement also confirmed by his folding up the paper.
'Lets go see Zoey and Kenny.'
The suggestion goes down better than expected, especially as they realise I'm buying this weeks draw after the earlier trip to the Post Office. Johnnie stumbles into yesterdays clothes straight from the duvet and declares himself ready after finding his car keys next to the alarm clock that spent most of the night sat on his head. I'm sure I hear him growl at it before heading for the door.

Zoey (her choice of spelling) and Kenny live behind the Post Office and will probably be heading there themselves today. They're at home now though as can be heard from the road in the blast of Velvet Underground above what sounds like a hoover. A combination that means we have to knock twice before there's a peep from behind the ever-closed curtains. Kenny lets us in with the enthusiasm expected of someone who has been smoking spliffs since being woke up by his daughter Storm, or rather Zoey and someone long-departed's daughter, at some ungodly hour. He offers tea though, along with a half finished spliff. Storm is sat next to the fire, with the now silent hoover and a well beaten set of bongos, playing with some dolls, while Zoey sounds to be upstairs with a hairdryer as company. Which is confirmed as she shouts down to ask who was at the door.
A few minutes later a clanking on the stairs announces her descent to greet her visitors personally. She seems surprised to see us despite knowing we were here, but not as surprised as we are at her bright red hair.
'I've just finished dyeing my hair – what do you think?'.
Well it's certainly colourful. Perhaps a bit too eagerly we all answer with various forms of it's wicked / really suits you / looks good. Except Storm who starts crying at her mum's technicolour head, forcing Zoey to pick her up to offer reluctant reassurance. Kenny comes through with the tea and hands them out before sitting down in the one remaining seat to skin up on a CD case. After a few well-drilled twists, he lights up and asks what we've been up to; receiving a shortened edited summary of last nights adventures. He laughs knowingly at the stupidity then asks if we have any tabs left. I'm eager to get rid of them and soon agree a trade for some of his oily dope. My turn to skin up then after he's cut, scaled and adjusted a decent chunk from his block and handed it over. Trying to watch Football Focus on Grandstand makes this take a bit longer than is deemed acceptable by Zoey who urges me to get a move on while I try to take in the days fixtures. QPR away today. Surely? I throw Zoey the spliff to shut her up. After a few tokes she hands it back and gets up to reach a plastic container on a shelf . When she opens it, the unmistakable musty smell fills the whole room. Poppers. About a pint of it. I think the instant attack of the stink shocked her as she closes it quickly, as if trying to get a genie back into a bottle.
'They're making loads of it round the corner. They do it a bath full at a time and knock it out really cheap if you want some.'
I think I've just had some, thanks. By 'they' I know not to ask who she means. I'll probably be able to work it out of I ever walk past them though. That's if they can still stand up with a bath full of that stuff in their house. I'll stick to a few more spliffs this afternoon, thanks. We're still following this plan when a knock on the window comes from behind the curtains to interrupt. Kenny pops his head round the edge and lets on to someone while announcing their name 'Kev'. I know Kev slightly and expect us all to be ushered out as he'll be bringing supplies for Kenny. He's the dealers dealer. One step higher from the bottom but still plenty of flights away from the top. The only visible distinction is he has electronic scales rather than the fold away ones in a purple fur-lined box, with half the weights missing, beloved of those at Kenny's level. They both head for the kitchen while us mere mortals just nod greetings as they pass and carry on with what we're doing. Which is not much by now.

They return a few minutes later and Kev actually joins us, sitting on the floor, until Kenny tells Tommo to swap his seat on the sofa with him. The mood doesn't exactly darken but the conversation becomes more stilted through a mix of the macho silence of Kev and the keen to impress babble of Kenny. A new round of spliffs levels this out a bit and halfway through them Zoey stands up to grab the jar of poppers again, asking Kev if he wants some as she sits back down.
He says yes in a way that suggests he never usually says no to anything and she hands him the jar. He looks at it briefly while we all start to look at him. Then he peels the lid off and puts it to his lips to take a sip. The pause that preceeds the noise of 5 people shouting 'no' simultaneously comes about at the disbelief he is trying to drink it. As soon as he smelt it he should have known. The shouts make him jump and spill some down his front in his haste to stop pouring it into his mouth. Zoey speaks first.
'Jesus. Spit it out, quick in the kitchen. Don't swallow any'.
His eyes suggest she might be a bit late with that advice and he pushes the door to the kitchen open with his colourless cheeks bulging. A coughing sound followed by a tap being turned on too hard carries through as he reaches the sink and an exchange of disbelief passes between us all as Zoey goes through to see him.
'Burning' is all he croaks as Zoey hands him a cup of water.
'Don't swallow the water, just keep rinsing your mouth with it for now'.
The sound of rapid spitting keeps time with the still splashing tap and Tommo starts to laugh, before being silently advised that its best not too. At least not yet. Kenny decides the best medicine is the type rolled on a CD case and concentrates on this particular prescription. I catch Johnnie's eye and nod my head towards the door, to which he shakes his head and mouths 'wait'.
The tap and gargling eventually finish and Kev's transparent face leads him back through the door, where he sits down in troubled silence. He doesn't speak until he gets handed the spliff Kenny has been smoking.
'That was horrible. It tasted vile. I can still taste it now. I've never...' there's a slight pause as he tugs the burning end nearer to his fingers, '...had poppers before. Wasn't that impressed.'
He hasn't quite caught on that he wasn't meant to drink it. I guess the lifestyle of endless joints isn't exactly sharpening an already blunt knife. I'm in a spongy slightly slower place, once removed from the real world after only a few hours here, he does this for a living 7 days a week.

'Have you seen my bongos Kev?' asks Kenny as he reaches over Storm, who has been quietly forgotten as she plays in the corner. It's really time to go now. Or we'll be treated to some badly translated Mo Tucker rhythms. Pounding for pound, there's nothing worse.
'Shall we get off then?' I ask trying not to let any pleading shine through.
'I just need to go to the bog' announces Johnnie as he stands and reaches beside Tommo for the paper. The reading type not the toilet type. Although he may have to improvise if they've not been to the shops yet. All the indications are it's a sit down job which will leave us the captive audience at the building bongo frenzy. A glance at Tommo's face shows the shared realisation of this has spread rapidly.
'This is a wicked beat' shouts Kenny over noise we have no option of avoiding.
I'm sure what he hears in his head and is trying to play, isn't punctuated by a 'hang on' in between the frequent stops and starts as he fails to translate it.
Please hurry up Johnnie. Before Kev has a go at playing.
'Pass 'em over Kenny, I can really make them things sing'.
Kev must have read my mind. I hope not. What if he has? Thinking this means it's time to say no to the spliff Zoey is now handing round. How do you make drums sing? Kev's now banging away at the uncomplaining bongos to let me know. It feels like I'm in a box and someone with rhythmic dyslexia is banging away on the outside, giving the noise an echoey trailing edge. I can just about make out the sound of the toilet in between the bangs. Which is a relief for me and, I guess, Johnnie.
Saved by the flush then as Johnnie comes back into the room and picks up his keys. A round of 'see you later' fails to break the hypnotised drummers' concentration but brings a wave from Storm as we head out to the car with the noise chasing us into the street. The light is like when you go to the cinema in the afternoon and get so lost in the dark you can only blink in disbelief to deal with the immediate re-invasion of the day. Confusing, especially as the sun has come out. But not as confusing as trying to put the keys in the car is proving to be for Johnnie, which he eventually does, starting the engine while he states, 'I'm starving'.

It's a Pavlovian statement that sets free the repressed need for munchies we'd ignored. It will have to be answered, but first we need to argue about where to eat. Well not really where, as all the options are in the parade of shops, more what: Chippie or Spar. Chippie wins with its appeal of ready made and no washing up afterwards. Plastic trays and forks win by a unanimous decision. It does however mean crossing the line back to more everyday normality. A step best taken with as little give-the-game-away interaction as possible.
Which makes us stand out a mile as we stand waiting silently in the small queue to order. Tommo has to be asked twice what he wants by the lady serving before responding with his request for 'piechipspeasandgravy. Andabutteredmuffin'. The speed of which leaves Johnnie and me still giggling when it's our turn to make slight variations, I think a sausage is involved, on this wholesome meal. And in Johnnies case add the essential bottle of Dandelion and Burdock.

We emerge pretty unscathed though after paying for the neatly folded hot paper covered packages that demand respectful balance all the way home, before being ripped opened to consume us with silence as we race to consume them. It's such an urge that there hasn't even been a pause to put the film back on.

'Put that film back on then' coming from Johnnie lets me know he's the first to finish eating. The shockingly intrusive burp that follows announces that he's drinking the pop as he waits for his request to be met.