Lockdown Day 41: Saturday 2nd May, 2020

Terry manicured the blankets with his typical attention to detail, smoothing them out from the centre towards the corners of the bed as far as he could reach,  showing great attention to camouflaging his wires, tubes and catheter in valleys of cotton.

Always start your day by making your bed. That means that no matter how shit that day is from then on out, you’ve always done one thing well.
In the background, the monitors silently charted his decline, supervising his vital signs and feeding precisely measured dosages of relief into his failing system as he tallied up for his last checkout. He slipped in and out of full consciousness as various drugs catalysed the potent melange. Silent lucidity evaded him mostly, as he played court jester to my  continued tragi-comedy. Sometimes he was there, alert and true, sometimes he spoke from within the tale tall and true, but mostly he wandered a personal mindscape, seduced by hypnotic celtic tones, following the money in Boston and Brussels, patrolling deep in bandit country, unsanctioned in the foothills of Colombia, drinking on Rush Street, adrift in the Gulf of Thailand in a rudderless powerboat, sinking in the mud of another glorious Glastonbury festival, good to go in suffocating desert, partying in Penang, penance in Maracaibo, millenium parties as centuries clashed. A shitload of living and dying and everything else in between.

  Now he was awake and alert, attentive and engaged in the moment.

  “You know my biggest wish. Wasn’t hard for you to guess I know, although now you know the kicker. But what’s yours? The obvious? For the cancer to be gone, to be whole again and not need the drugs and the tubes and the constant care?”

  “That’s the obvious one Trick, but no, that’s not it, not really, not any more. I’m past that now, I know what’s coming next. For so long that’s exactly what I hoped for, but the docs tell me there’ll be no remission this time. I’m up against the wall and the firing squad are lining up. No escape and evasion for me here. I may feel cocked, locked and ready to rock but in reality I’m crocked, blocked and about to get twocked.

  I tell you, I would have loved to head out East just one more time, one last frantic finale with Sue. The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong in tropical torrent as we party in Lan Kwai Fong. Weaving through Bangkok traffic in a skittering Tuk Tuk to chill by some rooftop pool with an iced Chivas Regal. Crunching the clichéd nutshell floor of the Long Bar at Raffles for an overpriced Singapore Sling. And, especially, most especially, basking on Chaweng beach drinking sundowners till daybreak with no cares in the world like the old days. Just like the old days.

  But it’s not going to happen. And I know that. I had intended to spend one last spring out there. I’d even booked the ticket and paid the deposit. But it’s not going to happen. Now I’m not even going to get back to Liverpool. This is it for me.”

  I turned to the window to stop my slipping mask betraying me, “Christ, Terry, are you hurting man? Is there anything I can do? Anything I can get you that the hospital can’t?
You know what I mean.” 

  “No I’m fine. I’m morphed to the max. I’m so stuffed full of meds there’s nothing that would have any effect. The staff here are great. I get everything I need. And there’s no real pain just now. They removed most of the tumour the last time I was sliced and diced. I can’t really feel anything to tell the truth. Dave and Paul brought me in some beers last week, but I couldn’t really taste it. You could get me some magazines or comics. Pictures of latex ladies with gravity-defying titties and louche guys in heroic stances. Nothing long and involved though, War and Peace I can do without. I don’t want to start anything I can’t finish, if you get my drift.”

  He paused. “How long have I known you Trick?”

  “As long as this isn’t a trick question, twenty years give or take. Since I was a youngster, fresh out my wildness and you were a few worldly-wise years older. Twenty years, seven cities, four continents, three careers, and one long party.”

  “Leaving aside that ridiculous crack about being beyond wildness, twenty years? Is that all? It seems a lifetime. I swear a couple of your madder moments seemed to last longer than that. Still, what I wouldn’t give for a wild night in the wasteland now.

  Talk to me some more, will you. I’m getting tired.”