London Life

Coming back from Israel was a bit of a shock. I ended up exiting St Pancras around midnight, no more trains direct to the safe haven of south London, and faced with a walk across town to a night bus. Now, I don’t really do central London – maybe once every month or two, and never at night – so it’s always a bit of a shock. Especially in the early hours, when the streets are filled with what I suppose we like to term ‘revellers’ – but what to me looks more like the early stages of a zombie apocalypse. Revelling evokes images of happy times, party times – but there’s no happiness written on the faces I see this night.

Empty eyes, empty smiles. Drunks stumbling and slurring and acting like fools. Acting like retards, if I’m brutally honest: for a long time I’ve come to see alcohol, intoxication, drugs as a sort of temporary voyage into the realm of the mentally handicapped. And the more I think about it, the less ridiculous an analogy it seems. Drunks can’t speak or walk properly. They have no sense of propriety. They can’t think straight. And they wet themselves. A few months ago I was listening to someone tell a story about taking ketamine and they’d said that, at the time, they’d thought they were saying great and interesting things and for the hour they were ‘high’ they’d felt pretty good. Except in this instance they were being recorded and the playback revealed that, rather than spouting eloquent and smart, they were mostly going, mmuurrrrgggghhhhrrrrmm and drooling. Not unlike a retard. In fact, pretty much exactly like a retard. They were shocked by this and it sort of put them off. But also found it funny. And I found it funny too – as well as interesting. ‘Cos it sort of made me think that maybe it’s not so bad being retarded – I mean, how can it be if able-bodied people pay good money to simulate the experience? – and once more reinforces this view. Which obviously makes me feel superior and more together myself – not really a good thing – and at the same time makes me weep for others and for the things that they do to themselves.

I look at drunk people sometimes – stand there while they slur inanities and talk their stupid, foul-smelling shite – and I feel so overcome with sadness. I see them with their half-closed eyes and stumbling legs, faces worn and beat and ugly – drunk faces are usually pretty ugly faces – and then I see them too as they were when they were babies, bright-eyed and innocent and pure. I think, what have you become? Why are you doing this? It doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look fun. It really doesn’t look like a good time at all. But I suppose it gives the impression of a good time, the way it screws with time and perception and inhibitions and such. And I guess that’s enough to keep people coming back. But – oh! – it makes me sad.

I remember particularly this one time at a university ball in Leeds: everyone was on the bus going there and dressed up lovely and excited for the night to come, smiles and giggles and fresh faces and beauty. And then they got there, and then they got drunk, and several hours later, when it came time for me to leave, I saw them again, crying and arguing and staggering and vomiting, this time the bus filled with frowns, with scowls, angry silences and bad heads and tired expressions and nothing left of the glow and health and optimism of the outward journey. It was like a life lived backwards: it should have been the opposite way around.