9

Good howdy there, blog fans – or <i>blans</i>, as you’re known in the trade – and welcome to my Sunday morning, write-a-little-bit-so-I-can-say-that-it’s-done. Sorry I haven’t been very busy in the blog world – <i>blorld</i> – I guess I haven’t been adventuring/thinking that much of late. Also, seems like my writing energies are more devoted to these ongoing short stories for the book I’ve mentioned. Also, India seems to have thrown me through a bit of a loop, and I’m only just recovering from that – as well as Christmas – and once the habit goes, it’s so easy for it to disappear. But habit’s something I’ve been trying to cultivate of late – you would not believe, but I’ve so been getting into planning ahead, trying to work to a schedule, think more than a few hours in advance, etc – and it’s actually been working out quite well for me. Indeed, I like it.

Today, though I want to talk about money. A year ago this week I received a cheque for the three thousand pounds I won on <a href=http://youtube.com/watch?v=-7pESRAmf5Y>BrainTeaser</a>, which I promptly earmarked for several things: buying a Mazda MX-5, buying a laptop, sending some money to this charity shop in America whose window I accidentally drove through in 1998, and giving about a grand to a band whose guitars I nicked in ’97. I did the first three (the last one has proved thus far impossible, despite extensive efforts to track them down) – but even though I probably blew about fifteen hundred quid on the dear, doomed Mazda, I still had about four grand left in the bank by the beginning of December and it was starting to play on my mind. The thing was, I’d always harboured this idea that I might <i>need</i> it for something, and was sort of saving it for when that something arose – except it never did. It was a bit ridiculous, really. I mean, I don’t buy anything much, and it was just sort of sitting there waiting, and growing, despite my miniscule wage. Finally, I started to blow it – a nice new laptop, a trip to India, several hundred quid to charity, a couple of fines – until I was left with about two and a half grand. Now I just sort of want rid of it. I mean, how nice it would be to start again! And how nice to be able to feel that I couldn’t afford something, rather than I just didn’t want to pay for it. Except I’m just not very good at spending money on myself.

One thing I’ve thought a lot about over the last year or two is this guitar shop I worked for when I was eighteen and nineteen; when I was fired from there, in May 1995, I had two of their guitars and, naturally, I never gave them back. I’ve often wondered if I shouldn’t do something about that; often felt a sense of guilt over it (which has sometimes entered my dreams). Thing is, though, I’ve never brought myself to do it, perhaps thinking, like I said, well, I might need that money for something else, and, also, that I’d paid for it in other ways (I bought an old band-mate a two hundred quid amp; I lent another band-mate a seven hundred quid guitar – neither of them paid me back; another guitar dealer owed me a five hundred-quidder; or that time I had two thousand dollars nicked out of my car; etcetera, etcetera) – but I’m not sure that ever really swung. Just lately the feeling had grown, and coupled with the realisation that this something that I thought I was waiting for was never gonna happen, I made a resolve.

I went in there on Friday. I felt absolutely unable to approach the boss, and the man who fired me for various other misdemeanours, not able to face him, nice chap that he is, so I went to see my old workmate, Chris, to see if he could help me out. I was pretty nervous, but relieved to have the feelings, a bit curious at my hitherto lack of remorse, wondering if that absence of emotion was another sign that it shouldn’t be done. Feelings, though, were strong – shaking, getting hot, preoccupied with my task while he tried to make small talk, the whole catching up and where have you been sort of thing.

“Listen, Chris,” I said, kind of cutting to the point, “I need you to do me a favour.”

I hastened to explain that it wasn’t the kind of favour that was really going to require anything of him.

“Basically, when I worked here, I had some guitars belonging to the shop, and when I was fired, I never brought them back. I’ve been thinking I should pay for them. I want to pay for them now.” I pushed my credit card across the counter to him. “Do you think you could run this through your machine and charge me?”

He took the card. “Sure,” he said, “how much?”

“Eight hundred quid.”

His face dropped. He left the card. “Bloody hell,” he said.

A few minutes then, with him going back to the small talk, and me trying to hint at the card, and him saying, “are you sure?” and, “that’s a lot of money,” and, “how about seven hundred?” – and me reassuring him I wanted to do it, with that amount, and eventually getting him to put card in machine, digits pressed, and, receipt in hand, job done.

It felt good.

We did catch up some more, and now it wasn’t small talk, it was happy talk, because I was feeling happy and good. After some time I left the shop, and re-entered the city, and the happy feeling stayed with me. It stayed with me all day; I was on a high. I walked and dwelled and replayed the scene, and thought about it some more, and thought also about other wrongs I’d done. I thought, God, I should repay them all – for what a wonderful feeling is this – and, as well, what right did I have to withhold that money – <i>their money</i> – which was, after all, rightly theirs. It seemed silly that I’d pondered it so long; rationally, all I was doing was giving back what wasn’t mine in the first place.

So what, then, of the tenners I used to siphon off from my dad when I worked for him? A hundred and fifty quid should cover that – and even though he’s been a bad man, and stolen/<i>acquired</i> far in excess of that, should that really stop me? And what of Joel Hayes’ guitar, which I sort of trashed at school when I was maybe fifteen, for God-only-knows-what teenage boys’ reason? What of the school guitar itself – that beat up old twenty quid acoustic I walloped over a chair one day, inspired by my Jimi plays Monterey, a massive whole in the side and adolescent titters? What else have I done wrong?

Sure, I could pay for all of these – and more. If only I could find that band! I have enough to cover all these debts – and while I can’t expect that it’ll make me immune to the karma of these wrongs I’ve wrunged (all things must be paid for), nor should I expect that the things that are owed to me by others will miraculously come (of course, how silly of me to think that they would ever be paid, when I was myself unwilling to put right my debts) but just perhaps it might put a little something right, and might relieve some of the deeply hidden burden on my mind and heart, even if I barely feel it in my day-to-day, in my remorseless and happy waking world. But, oh, what a grand feeling it was! And, oh, how blessed the day when I feel it – the righting of my previously caused wrongs – again! Why, I might almost be sad when I run out of people to give money to!

In other news: the sun is shining; Leeds is magic; I live in a house now with five other people (four jolly nice; one who’s probably nice but I’m not too keen on) and no longer my secret location, nest among the shoes and books; I went go-karting this week; it was amazing; and I played squash for two hours and ten minutes on Friday – a new personal best, the beatest, most bruised-up game ever: bloody knuckles, big bumped knee, bright red craters left by balls smashed to head and back and arse, racquet to mouth, full length dives, bare chest sweat – marvellous!

I also sold my ice skates.

A tout!

Rory