Retrospectre by Die Booth

[mad_docs_of_lit]

Way back whenever, Bobby would say,
“You can’t make a future without breaking tradition,” in the smug tone of voice that his mum would use when she talked sagely about omelettes and eggs and cooks and stuff. It made everyone laugh. Bobby’s little sister Rosie was only about ten at the time and she laughed extra loud to make up for the fact that she didn’t really understand and this only set us off worse, until I could’ve wet my pants. Well, a lot of stuff’s funny when you’re stoned.

In 1969, in Bobby’s mum’s front room, we all sat round and smoked and talked rubbish, pretending that we weren’t just pretending to be hippies. I was still only eighteen when the decade of love ended, and I hadn’t got properly started yet. It left me with a kind of hangover, like I was trying to live out what I had just missed for the rest of my life. At least I’d managed a few curls over the collar and an Afghan jacket by the time Manson killed the 60’s and I ain’t talking Marilyn. Bob wore the same outfit for years. A brown cardigan with a popcorn texture and leather patches on the elbows which grew progressively more disgusting as the months scrolled past, a fastidiously maintained short-back-and-sides and his mum’s slippers: Bob didn’t give a toss.

As ‘Sugar Sugar’ by the Archies hissed and popped on the wireless in the kitchen, we’d lure Rosie into our den (Bob’s room) and tried to get her stoned for a laugh. She used to clamp her lips together into a decided little line and shake her head, infuriated, so we’d order her to push off again and get the dog stoned instead to the tune of ‘My Generation’ on the portable suitcase turntable in the corner.

Right up to 1969 when we all parted company more or less, Bob sat for days in the same spot on his bed. Nobody ever sat next to him, except the dog, whose name I can’t remember. Whenever Bob sat on the bed, he skinned up, which was pretty much constantly. Bob skinned up from 1966 to 1969, with a steady stream of friends visiting him in shifts. I presume he kept going after that. I know I did. But we didn’t do it together.

One night before most of our directions diverged like tributaries off the lazy river that was me and Bobby, Bob turned his goofy beam of a grin my way, focusing through me with his heavy lidded, Union Jack eyes: red, white, blue. He carried on rolling, automatically, his hands working independent from his spacey brain. Bob said,
“Man, I smoked so much dope, man…” and he paused for giggles which did not give way to coughs back then. “I smoke so much; when I die you could roll me up and get high. You could smoke my ashes, man.” Then he laughed harder and then he started to cough.

Last month, Bob died of lung cancer. I went to the funeral to see him cremated: up in smoke at last, smoked in life, smoked in death. It was a beautiful summer day; a lovely day for a funeral said his sister Rosemary, predictably. Stupid thing to say. I gazed around the Church at faces from the past, mine and Bobby’s collective past: I guess he didn’t progress much after the 60’s either, as I recognised most of the faces from our youth. Well, I say ‘recognised’. The familiar kids lurked behind uptight, middle class exteriors, all gone respectable. They checked me out, too, but covertly, like they were afraid I’d catch them nosing and want to talk to them. The church was hellish hot, in a way that made you certain that it was probably so cold in winter you’d stick to the pews - you know, like when you get your tongue stuck on an ice-lolly when you’re little. I watched this old, fat woman, who I recognised with a start as an alluring gypsy-esque maiden I’d pursued for an entire summer when we were about seventeen. She was wiping her perspiring face with a lace hanky like the doilies Bob’s mum used to use under the sponge cake at birthday parties, pretending she was wiping away tears of mourning, not sheets of sweat. I had to smile. When it came time for the eulogy, the vicar stuttered over Bob the pothead’s lifetime achievements.

After the wake, I stayed behind and helped Rosie clear up. I shifted plastic trays of dip and nibbles, which all looked like stuff you could paint and sculpt with, not eat and I wondered what was wrong with a bit of pineapple-and-cheese on some cocktail sticks. What’s wrong with a few mini sausage rolls? Everyone else had thought the same, judging by the amount that got left. And everyone had left, leaving Rosie on her own to clear up the mess again. Bob had been a bit of an embarrassment, not fitting into the middle aged, middle class scheme of his once mates. I was the only other embarrassment still left cringe-making, so I guessed Rosie was kind of my responsibility now. Their parents had died years ago. She really was on her own.

Rosie came and stood in the doorway and glowered at me as if she’d rather I would leave her alone. She was wearing this nice beige suit with shoulder pads that made her look completely rectangular and it all made me wonder when I’d turned my back for long enough to let her stop being ten and start being forty. Rosie said,
“I suppose I’ll put the kettle on,” in this uncertain, surly voice. Then she turned very slowly and went into the kitchen.

I sat in the front room. With Bob. The canopic jar of his ashes commanded the mantelpiece at his dying request because he knew that it would be the last thing his family and acquaintances would want. Maybe in time it’d stop being so noticeable, but at the moment, boy, it could have been ten feet tall. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It’s black and plain, about ten inches high, shaped bulbous like a little ginger jar. Bob’s full name and dates are engraved round the rim, and the lid is disturbingly loose. It sort of looks like a bowling trophy, maybe. I tried to convince myself it was a bowling trophy. I shouted to Rosemary if it was OK to roll a joint. Touchy subject. She called,
“I suppose so,” in a voice just oozing forced tolerance.

I stuck the skins together and found myself thinking about what Bob had said on that night long ago. Smoke my ashes, man. Holding my lighter under the lump of rocky, I jumped at the sudden sting of my fingers burning; I’d been staring at Bob’s jar so intently that I forgot for a moment where I was and what I was doing. The smell of burning resin and my fingertips all sore, I wondered – what’s it like, to burn? To be ashes? And I couldn’t help myself; I got up to take a peek in his jar.
The lid was loose, ridiculously so considering that it could easily be knocked off if you were dusting or whatnot, but the jar itself was heavy and I wouldn’t think easy to tip over by accident and inside wasn’t loose ash like I’d been expecting, but a plastic bag. It made me almost chuckle, that – it looked so cheap somehow, so supermarket. When I dipped a hand in to check the bag was sealed, the plastic felt thick and slippery between my fingers. The sort of plastic that makes fumes when you hold a lighter flame to it, just to check and burn a little hole in one corner of the bag. When I’d got that far, it seemed right to take a pinch, like choice snuff, before I sat back down. I tipped Bobby’s ash into its cradle of papers. It was slightly greasy, brindled grey through black, like my hair is now. As Rosemary came back in with a tray, I was wrapping the joint up. I twisted the end off, and lit it.

The first drag pulled blackness down, bang, like a weighty metal shutter. Domino runs of lights flicking off complete with dancing, falling white spots. Gradually, the murky afternoon light phased back in. I was floating buoyantly towards the ceiling, grabbing onto the coffee table in a frantic effort to stay down, my panic caused mostly by a horror and embarrassment at the impropriety of the situation. Rosemary poured the tea, with a steadying finger on the lid of the pot, chattering discontentedly. I started to giggle like a maniac, bobbing around the room as if filled with helium, pushing slow-mo off the walls like a swimmer kicking off the side of a pool. Rosie gabbed blithely away, whinging about the corner shop closing down. In the gilt-framed mirror opposite the bay window, I saw Bob winking at me and making a thumbs-up gesture. He chuckled,
“Smokin’!”, and we both laughed, like the old days. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rosie cram a whole Bakewell tart into her greedy gob, thinking we didn’t notice. Bobby jabbed his thumb at her, then pushed his nose up with one finger, piggy, which sent me into fresh spasms. The whole thing seemed a lot funnier than it should have seemed. Bob said,
“Take care of yourself, Ronnie, man. See you next year.” I snapped out of it, then, with a shudder. Rosemary looked sharply up at me, still guiltily munching the last crumbs of cake. She grumbled, between sips of tea, her lips pursed together, puckered like a cat’s arse,
“You were miles away there, Ron. Drink your tea, it’ll perk you up.” A pause, then,
“I’m not surprised you’re tired, smoking that rubbish. Stuck in the 60s you are, it’s childish is what it is. It killed our Bobby and it’ll be the death of you too, if you don’t watch it.”

“The cancer killed Bobby, not the weed,” I said, noticing the whine in my own voice and wondering why I was trying to justify myself to Bobby Bond’s baby sister. “The weed kept him young, right until the end. He killed himself to stay alive.” Rosemary sniffed, and said,
“There’s not much point being alive if you’re dead.” I didn’t ask her to clarify that one. I looked down at where the joint had burnt itself out between my fingers. A few dark, oily flakes of ash had drifted onto the knee of my only pair of non-denim trousers. I rubbed them into the fabric, thinking. Then I reached for the matches to light up again.


Copyright

Die Booth

"Retrospectre"

© 2011, Die Booth
Self Published
die.booth[at]gmail.com