Meatspace (28 page)

‘My dad’s from New York, upstate. My mom, she’s from Pakistan.’

‘Jeezus, that solves a few mysteries, why didn’t you say that before?’

‘Cos she’s whiter than me.’

‘Oh, right. Why do you think Detective Alverton told me to be careful of you?’

Teddy Baker stopped walking at the subway entrance and faced me. ‘He said what now?’

Yes, I shouldn’t have said it, but sometimes you want to know that bit of information so bad you end up splurting shit you’re not supposed, you know?

‘I thought they said that incident was irrelevant,’ he said to himself and then shut down, big time.

Teddy Baker looked crushed. He just stared at me and then walked down the stairs to the subway. At the bottom he turned back to me and gestured for me to catch up.

We didn’t talk for the rest of the subway journey to Brooklyn. We didn’t talk when we got to Bob’s house. We didn’t talk as I gathered my stuff. And we didn’t say much beyond ‘laters’ when we said goodbye.

I got back to my hotel at 3 a.m. and fell asleep. As I lay in my hotel room and thought about all the crazy shit that went on tonight and the person who it all thundered around, I knew that the next day I had to see Teddy Baker and get to the bottom of who this guy is. Because we still had a journey to go on, him and me. It’s beyond our tattoos. We’d started something. Something nuts is in the air and it’s pulling us together. I felt it as we both ran along that train platform up the stairs – I felt changed, people. I felt it as he and I were carted away in cop cars. I felt something.

All my life I’ve been waiting for the greatest adventure and right then, I felt like I was only at stage 1 of it. I’m being unfair, I was shot at last night. Maybe stage 4 or something. I don’t know. But look, right, here’s the thing – I’m addicted to this shit. I spent the night trying to think about what my mum, god rest her soul, would have said about this all. They would have called me nuts. But there you go, you live and you definitely don’t learn.

All these nuts scenarios passed through my head as I watched the flicker of various chat shows on the mute television in my hotel room. What if his Pakistani mother actually recruited him for a terrorism thing and that’s why I should stay away? Maybe he stole Detective Alverton’s girlfriend once and that’s why I should stay away? Maybe he’s just a deviant and this was all part of some ploy to get into my pants and that’s why I should stay away? Does Detective Alverton know this guy? But mostly importantly, do I want to know him beyond the weird week we’re having?

Either way, there’s more to be discovered with this guy.

There are 18 comments for this blog:

Anonymous: too funny. new york city pigs eh?.

Gustave_the_Great: Just one thing: why would that detective tell you all those things? sounds like you made it up. surely he can’t tell you those facts. They’re part of an ongoing investigation.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Well he did.

Gustave_the_Great: Oh really? Because I did some Googling and I couldn’t find any reference to this case. I spoke to a buddy of mine in a law firm in New York and he couldn’t find any reference to this case. Certainly no reports of trains getting shot at. Are you so sure this actually happened?

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Just because it didn’t get in the papers, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

df232: Hey Aziz, it’s Della. We met in Whole Foods. Call me.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Yo, Della, I’m flying back soon. Next time eh?

df232: I just found you on Facebook. I’m coming to London in the spring. Let’s hook up then.

BrightStar: Just found this blog on StumbleUpon. It’s too dope man. Hilarious stuff.

Gustave_the_Great: All I’m saying is, if you’re writing non-fiction, there’s 2 rules: 1) Make it real. 2) Make it good. You’ve achieved nothing. Why don’t you come and read my blog: www.alexdoesfood.wordpress.com. I got loads of stuff on there that would put this turgid shit to rest.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Wait, so this entire time, you just wanted me to look at your blog?

Brightstar: Hey man, so, I sent this to aLL MY FRIENDS. Can’t wait to happen next.

NB_Tony: Hi Aziz, mind giving me an email on [email protected]. I think we can talk about taking this blog to the screen.

Gustave_the_Great: What the fuck? This guy? SERIOUSLY? You people have no fucking idea. I work everyday as a lawyer and I spend hours writing this food challenge blog and this cunt gets a comment from someone at a television station? Fuck you Aziz. I’m going to stab you if I ever see you.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: I’ve just forwarded that comment on to the police my friend. Trolling can be tolerated. Death threats? You gots to go.

Alvy_CHickenz: Yo, Aziz, you make me sound like a chump in this. Douchebag! Email me back. Alverton, son!

df232: AZIZ! What the fuckkkkkkkk?

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: one more instalment my friends. Get ready. Especially if you’re wondering what happened to Bob.

History:

Track lost phone – Google
How to stop identity theft – Google

I get 100 metres down the road in my outraged stomp before something hurtles into my back and sends me crashing to the ground, chin first. I feel the tarmac graze down my face at high speed.

It lands on me and starts pounding my back like a massage gone wild. I fling myself from side to side and eventually shake it off. I flip round to find it’s Kitab 2, half-dressed, trousers in his hand, no underpants on. He throws more punches and I fend them off in a way Mr Miyagi would have been proud of. Wax on. Wax off. He isn’t deterred and throws harder punches. I catch one wrist, then the other, like a ninja master, and I push him off me. I try to pull myself off the pavement without the use of my hands. It’s harder than it looks. I struggle up to a crouch, consider a sucker-kick to his unhindered groin, but rise to standing instead.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I say, letting go of his wrists, hoping he has calmed down.

‘Dude, why did you ruin that?’

‘I didn’t ruin anything.’

‘You did … you did. I was going to have sex with a girl. Now I’ll never have the chance. You ruined it. You ruin everything.’

‘Of course you will. Man, calm down!’

‘You get what you want. You always get what you want. This was for me. This was my thing. You were winging me, dude.’

‘I didn’t want any of that,’ I say, as Kitab thrusts his wrists at me and I bat them away.

‘No, but you got it. What did I get? They all laughed at me. All of them.’

‘Sorry man. You were just so …’

‘So what? So Indian? So bud-bud-ding-ding? You hate your own kind that much?’ I feel dizzy. I’m surrounded by fresh air. Where’s my phone? I need to live-tweet this.

@kitab: ‘My doppelganger just punched me in the face.’

‘No. It’s nothing to do with that. It’s you. Me. We don’t know each other. Kitab, man. Look … you embarrassed me by even going there in the first place …’

‘Whatever, dude. You got everything. I got nothing.’

I check in my pocket for my wallet to give Kitab 2 some money to go away.

‘No. No way,’ I say. Kitab 2 holds something up. It’s my phone and my wallet. I forgot to pick them up after they threw Kitab at me. They’re usually the first things I check I have.

I lunge towards him but he dances back.

I run towards him.

He socks me in the face and sprints back towards the sex cul-de-sac. I watch him run off, stunned. I consider chasing after him but I’m tired. And I can’t run anymore. I rub my face where he punched me. I’m screen-less. It doesn’t feel right.

I then decide maybe I should get the tube, so duck into a train station. I have my Oyster and keys still. I hobble into the station and limp down the stairs to the platform. I wait 3 minutes before a train turns up. 3 minutes of dead air. No internet, no music in my ears, just my thoughts. I sit down in a train and realise my chin is cut and I’ve bled all over my nice jeans. A necessary sacrifice to the god of self-preservation. If you could call 2 wimps brawling in the street that. If you could call it brawling. That’s if we’d even qualify as wimps. All I have left of my identity is my Oyster card. I live through the journeys I have made in the past. I am laid bare.

Have I just created a nemesis in my own name?

The train journey is painful as it waits at all the stops for longer than necessary, and it takes me an hour and a bit to do a 30-minute journey. I walk down my high street, up my road to my house. I call my dad from my landline as I enter the flat. It takes me a few minutes to get used to pushing buttons again, so used am I to touchscreens.

He answers on the second ring. ‘Balasubramanyam speaking.’

‘Hey Dad.’

‘Kitab-san. Where have you been?’

‘You know, just hanging out.’

‘At sex parties, I see. Do you have to make them so public? Actually, you are lucky you did this time because I was thinking of going. Don’t want to go to the same ones as your children, eh?’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Is it any good?’

‘What?’

‘The sex party.’

‘No, Dad,’ I say curtly.

‘You okay? You sound down in the dumps.’

‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

‘Want a drink with me? My treat, kiddo.’

‘No. I just want to watch something crap on television and go to bed. I’ve been out too much recently.’

‘Fine. So … what’s your new book about?’

‘I don’t know, Dad. Not yet.’

‘Maybe you should write about a writer. Write about a writer doing things out of his comfort zone.’

‘Sounds like a cliché.’ I fire up my laptop. I wonder what I’ve missed online.

‘Well, if you haven’t got any other ideas, I will give you that for free. Just dedicate your book to me for a change.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ I don’t know if he can hear it, but there’s a lump in my throat stopping me talking at a normal pitch.

‘You know, I love you, son. I may not show it and I may be preoccupied with my own life, but you know I love you, kiddo.’

‘I know.’

‘Death, it forces us together in a way that isn’t natural. If they were around, we wouldn’t be meeting up and talking about sex parties and social lives, you know? But we’re forced to because we’re scared of death driving a wedge. I love you. That’s all you need to know.’

I miss Aziz.

‘Me too, Dad.’

I need Aziz around. I feel formless without him.

‘Come home soon. I miss you. Maybe we can watch cricket.’

He hangs up the phone. Against my better judgment I have tears in my eyes that sting because I let them linger longer than they should. I wipe them on my jacket and take it off, falling onto the sofa.

I tweet.

@kitab: ‘I should have listened to my dad more in life. Maybe I’d have been punched in the face less.’

I go on Facebook to see what Kitab 2 is doing. Nothing, so far. He has been quiet since he checked us both into Wilmington House and said we were there for Party Orifices. 68 of his friends and mine ‘like’ the check in. I try to work out how to de-tag myself from it but manage only to share it on my own Facebook wall. I try calling my phone again but it goes straight to voicemail. It’s the first time I’ve used our landline in months. I nearly fall over walking away from the receiver, forgetting it’s corded. I leave him a message asking him to call me. I message him on Facebook. Time to clear the air, I think. I need my wallet and phone back. A day wasted furiously pushing buttons, clicking, trying to fix my life through a screen, I keep seeing myself in my mind’s eye sweeping the laptop off the table onto the floor and stamping on it. I don’t dare tease out that impulse. On a loop, like a pixellated gif, me sweeping my laptop onto the floor till it smashes, the subtitle reads ‘I can haz meatspace?’

I notice, just before I fall asleep, that Hayley has updated her relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’. I also see she was checked into Nandos with her agent earlier.
It’s complicated …
I pretend I hope she’s not thinking about me. Aziz would have a field day. Consummate relationship material, he always calls me. He jokes that the second date is always the moving truck date, even though I’ve never lived with anyone but him, a long-term girlfriend and my parents. I fall asleep where I fell, on the sofa, in my clothes and wake up late the next morning from a nightmare where Kitab 2 is standing over me, straddling me, with his penis in my face, laughing and tweeting from my phone while squeezing my neck tight. I sit up and check for my phone. It’s still gone. I reach for my computer and work out how to report it stolen.

It takes a surprisingly long time.

The damage Kitab 2 has caused to my online reputation gives me cause to re-evaluate the point of having one. I only joined up to Facebook to keep tabs of photos and events in friends’ lives. I only joined up to Twitter for the attention. Neither satisfied me. A few hours later, I find myself 1000 words into something new, with ‘delete account’ windows open on both sites. I stare at my email, at the many unattended-to messages and notifications. I only exist in other people’s ability to reach me. The 1s and 0s of our personas. I stare at the delete account screens and old pictures of Aziz and me arsing about. I look through Kitab 2’s Facebook account and his tweets. I have assimilated him in my mind. I know exactly who he is. Who we are.

Flicking through my emails, I see that there are 4 that have been marked as read even though I haven’t seen them. A couple are from my dad, forwards of cheeky messages from girls, they’re unanswered. One is from Hayley. It’s an email from her asking how I am and where I am and whether I want a drink.

According to the reply I don’t remember sending, I’ve written, ‘Dude, am thirsty. Let’s get a drink and then some dick-time. Where you wanna meet?’

Hayley hasn’t responded to that. I send her an email saying, ‘Ignore that last email. It’s not me. Will explain.’

It’s a bit weak, but how else do you explain the situation succinctly when you don’t have a phone and people don’t read long emails anymore?

The email after that is a Google calendar request about an afternoon event round the corner where I was supposed to be reading from my book at 12.30 p.m. It was paying, too. £25. Plus beer and food. I’m late. It’s 1.30 p.m. I grab a book, put my shoes back on and rush out of the house.