Indie Boy

He always took things too far, the headphones that he was wearing,
were supposed to be connected to the outside world; to the endless
requests for P.U.C's (personal unblocking codes), but this time he had
pressed the offline button. He was listening to track 6 of his
metallica CD. I swear Jo is gonna get his calling card soon.

"Good morning, Vodafone Pay As You Talk, how can I help you?" I
mumbled, drearily.

"G, day, M'am, this is the Vodafone Pay As You Talk Customer Services,
how can I help you" boomed, this deep Australian voice, which sliced
its way through the stifled air of surrounding apathy.

First day I bet!

I looked over and through the rows of call centre workers who were
selling their souls to a mediocre existence for another holiday
abroad.

I zoned in on his sound, like a blood thirsty bat on its next kill. He
was wearing a silver piercing through his eyebrow, which accentuated
his forlorn brow, his nose creased up everytime he spoke and he had one
of those goatee beards which was growing a lot better than the hair on
his head.

After a few weeks, me, Jo and Tom were a group and the Metallica
collection was expanding. Every Wednesday night we'd go to our West End
dive which played everything from Placebo to Green Day.

Our meeting point was the left hand speaker and whoever got there first
bought the first round.

Tom always wore his green T-shirt which had a star displayed on the
front and his belly sticking out below it. I love the way he dances, he
just catapults into the air, like a kid that jumps up and down on your
bed when they're meant to be asleep. When he lights up his cigarette,
the butane gas lingers in the air for an extra minute, and I want to
bottle the smell forever.

One night, we all went back to his flat, well, me, Tom, my mate Maria
and his sister Mazzy. We mixed up some kahlua with milk, the dude's
drink from the Big Lebowski, and opened up mazzie's wardrobe of wigs
and bohemian dresses. Maria tried on the pink wig and tiara, I had the
purple one, Mazzie the boa and Tom, well he just got down to his boxer
shorts.

We danced all night and all morning and when I woke up, I was in Tom's
arms, he was crushing me like a polar bear. The nickname stuck.

I didn't want them to take away his packed boxes, I didn't want to keep
his zippo lighter and I didn't want to buy a ticket to Oz. But we
couldn't fight our legal systems and we couldn't save our love.

We drank a double shot of whiskey each in the airport lounge, eagle eye
cherry setting the backdrop with "save tonight, save the break of dawn,
cos tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone".

And when he raised his hand up to me at the departure gate, like a
contestant on "Stars in your eyes" just before changing into someone
new, I realised that he wasn't coming back.

Well...not just yet....?