Oh God, The Day After!

Or in my case, the day after the day after.

OK, this wasn't me last night.  This was me in Angolan Intensive Care about fifteen years ago but you get the picture.  Note the walls free of Super Bugs, clean bed linen and all the expensive monitors.

It has taken two days and finally a plate of hot food but I am slowly beginning to recall exactly what I got up to on New Year’s Eve that left so many people, including Marcia, strangely reluctant to talk to me.  Indeed, some locals (clearly of Middle Eastern origin) wished me a Happy New Year by throwing rocks at me.

Apparently, I got into a fight.  Not unusual I hear regular readers cry but this time it was with a dog.  A big mangy critter that terrorizes the neighborhood and I happen to detest.  And then I had an altercation with some bloke who was upset about his dog having a sore throat.  All I know is that I woke up bursting for a slash,  covered in blood, couldn’t find my truck and appeared to have lost my girlfriend.  Note the priorities there.

Dominic and I had spent the whole day loading wood up onto the truck and then taking it off again on Rico’s beach to build a bonfire.  By the end of the day we were pretty filthy and I was exhausted.  By then our guests had arrived, Rodrigues (Roddy) and his wife coincidentally also called Marcia. Roddy used to work for me but he was so cool that I helped him start a security company and now he is of independent means.  It was hilarious when we first met and I heard him talking to ‘Marcia’ on the mobile in a way that made me so unreasonably jealous I ordered him to stop the car so that I could have it out with him on the side of the street.  A sort of Mano e Mano thing.  It was so unfair.  For a start he hadn’t a clue why his new boss was at his throat and, being a decent and loyal employee, he was reluctant enough to defend himself as convincingly as his manly bulk might suggest thereby giving me the edge.  Oh, how we laughed about it afterwards.

I had showered and changed and since Roddy and his Marcia had arrived late, I took my Marcia and the boys over to Rico’s place and that’s when the dog appeared, jumping and scrabbling up the side of the truck in an attempt to sink its teeth into my arm.  I decided to run it over and that is how my truck ended up bogged down in the middle of the beach.  But it didn’t end there.  Having subjected my passengers to a hair raising ride then leaving them stranded, I leapt out of the cab, chased after and caught the dog and then tried to strangle it.  Now dogs are very tough, especially maniac dogs like this one, and don’t take kindly to having their throats crushed.  Since clearly the gloves were off between me and him, he had no hesitation in raking me with his nails and biting the shit out of me.  As I hung on with grim determination and squeezed with all my might Dominic, ever the reasonable one, came up alongside and said, ‘Dad, I think you have made your point.  Can we go to the party now?’

Only a few minutes before, I had been immaculate (I do scrub up nicely).  Now I looked as sartorially elegant as a Robinson Crusoe who had been dragged by a homemade boat over a coral reef and nipped by a few sharks on the way.  I hate to be a party pooper so I told them to make their way across the sand (Marcia did quite well in her cocktail dress and high heels) to the party while I went home to change.

With the truck all but buried on the beach, I was on foot and cursing myself so I didn’t notice the guy hurrying towards me, frothing and shouting a bit until he was on top of me.  Why do ALL fishermen carry a knife?  OK, on the boat, fine, fill yer boots.  But Chef’s don’t walk around Knightsbridge at midnight tooled up with a fileting knife, they leave the tools of their trade at work.  So me and him had a little discussion during which he made his point about me trying to kill his dog spilling a bit more of my port and I showed him just how comfortable sand can be as a mattress before continuing my weary trudge home.  I was going to celebrate that night alright.  I couldn’t wait to see the back of 2000 and effing 12.

We are still living in the sixteen square metres that will be our restaurant kitchen so it is bedroom, withdrawing room, reception all rolled into one.  It also does not have a lock on the door so when I barged in I was treated to the sight of Roddy’s Marcia naked and toweling herself down.  Man, she is a work of art.  In all my years of screwing around I have never, ever touched another man’s wife but I couldn’t help drinking in this vision of heaven.  She, on the other hand, had suddenly found her privacy violated by a wild eyed, blood soaked maniac and reacted as one might expect.  Roddy sorted it out.

Last thing I remember was burning my cottages and loosing off all the pyrotechnics.  Actually, that is a lie.  I recall the photos Dominic took and I posted yesterday.  Dominic did tell me that I won a bet when I managed to hit that blue and white plastic caravan of the seas boat on my land with a Pains Wessex parachute flare but now that I have managed to peel my eyes open I see it hasn't burnt to a crisp so I will settle for a recuperative G&T award for good marksmanship instead.

It has taken me two days to recover.  I slept in a tent rather than the matrimonial bed (not by choice but my Marcia was decent enough to give me a pillow and a sandy, high heeled kick in the teeth in lieu of unbrideld sex) and Dominic swabbed the wounds I'd somehow collected throughout the evening.  He’s only thirteen but would make an outstanding EMT.  Marcia, may not be talking to me but she did feed me lunch today so I suppose that’s encouraging.  Best I don’t tell her that I dreamt about Roddy’s Marcia last night.  Thinking about it, best I don't tell Roddy either.  Nice Paul came over today, sank a few and told me that it was safe for me to swing by Rico’s and dig my truck out as Wesley, the manager, had locked Rico’s hunting rifle in his office (there’s still some gaps here that may never be filled, I just hope to Christ I never made a pass at Rico's wife).  It can’t all have been bad though because Nice Paul went on to say that if I hauled a cable over, Rico would connect me to his generators.

They say that dragging cables and hauling trucks is a sure fire hangover cure.  Think I’ll give it a try before the sun goes down.