PISSING IN THE WIND

27 March 2006

John Hirst has just read through what I have written so far. He though that what I wrote on the homeward-bound journey was a series of bullet points, that I should have gone into more detail about how it all went in Stockholm. He may be right, he may be wrong. I didn’t want my writing to sprawl and me go into all the stuff that did and didn’t work, about how the school one, COLLABORATE, worked out shite and why it was a musical non-starter and how we must try a different tack with it in the northeast of England come April/May.

There was another reason why that section ended up just bullet points. Right now for me writing about that is more interesting and pertinent than writing about how it went in Stockholm.  Maybe later I will go back to writing about Stockholm

I had retired to the ship’s bar, got myself a pint and found myself a table and started to write. There were not more than 50 words on the page when I was joined by a handsome, well-built man in his mid 40s. He was a sociable Geordie who started to regale me with stories from his life: his years spent in the Foreign Legion, the SAS, in various African wars as a soldier of fortune; how, although he had killed dozens of black men he was not a racist as he would have killed them even if they had been white; how all the wars he had fought in were just; how he was hired for his skills as a marksman; how to hold two pistols at the same time (he demonstrated) and how they always get that wrong in cowboy films; how he floored this bloke outside a bar in Poland who thought he was harder than him; how his dad was a bare knuckle champ; how he had fought with Mad Mick (remember Mad Mick the tabloids’ favourite mercenary?); how his dad had forced him to sign up; how he got married at 21 and had his only child, a boy, a year later; how he had the snip at the age of 24; how his wife had left him at the age of 25; how he loved his boy but could never tell him; and how he would love to have another child more than anything in the world.

I told him the snip could be reversed or at least there was a 70% chance of it working. He said his partner was ten years older than him and past the menopause; that he traded in Land Rovers; that his partner had chucked him out; that he lived in Malmo; that he was on his way back to Northumberland on Land Rover trading business; that he would floor anybody who touched his neck; and that he had warned his partner that if she ever touched his neck during love making he could not be held responsible for what happened next. Most of all he talked about fighting in all its manly forms for the best part of two hours. He never asked me what I did or even why I was on the boat. He was of course pissed, although he hardly took more than a sip from his pint in the whole two hours. He told me he never let’s anybody buy him a drink; it’s a principle of his. He told me he is a man of principle and his word is his bond.

He was just demonstrating to me how he could kill me with one blow when John Hirst entered the bar. The flow of conversation was interrupted. I made my excuses and headed down to the cabin, wrote up my notes, thought some thoughts, almost fell asleep and then headed back up to the bar. My friendly mercenary was now pissed beyond repair and was up on his feet dancing to the music, lost in his own myth.

The music he was dancing to was provided by Johnny Swank ‘our very own onboard troubadour’. Johnny Swank. What a great name, especially if the S of Swank is said as an apostrophe S after Johnny. Johnny was a man in his middle years too. He had been working the outward-bound journey when we came over two weeks earlier. He sat on his stool, a plugged-in acoustic guitar on his lap, a whole bunch of effects pedals at his feet and a repertoire of songs that seemed unlimited. He could do them all effortlessly: the guitar solos note for note, the intros, the middle eights, the outros like he was playing all the parts and doing all the harmonies. Jackson Browne, Creedence, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Eagles … in fact anything by a white bloke from the right decade(s). Nothing too new or by a woman.

He was taking requests and our soldier boy wanted one by Dire Straits. He got Walk Of Life. His dancing was more of a lurching and swaying to the beat. He tried to grab a couple of teenage girls as they passed. They escaped his clutches. He shouted at whoever might be listening that Mark Knopfler was from the northeast. He then tried to say something about Sting and Bryan Ferry and how Newcastle was the capital of music.

I wondered what the men he had killed in dirty little African wars would think if they could watch him now. What would the unborn son that he longed for think?

John Hirst requested a Tracy Chapman song. Johnny Swank told us that he would feel uncomfortable doing one of her songs but if we were ever in Charleston, South Carolina, we should look him up. His number’s in the book. I warmed to Johnny and what he did. There seemed to be an honesty to it, even if his politics were somewhat Southern. Here he was, a native of South Carolina, plying his troubadour trade on the North Sea. His inter-song banter aimed at us lot, ‘the lost and the lonely’, in this bar out on the sea, he informed us that he had 27 more days to go before heading back home, but he would be back come the Fall with his guitar, effects rack and suitcase full of songs.

Johnny was about my age, I knew every song he played almost too well.  He must have had dreams when he was a teenager and he got his first guitar. Dreams of writing songs, making records, getting written about in Rolling Stone, but here he was singing other people’s songs for men like me and our friend who could kill me with just one blow. I wonder when he gave up his dreams and traded them in for whatever this is he is doing now. I wonder what I could get for trading in my dreams. I reckon I would get next to nothing for them and maybe that’s why I don’t cash them in and carry on dreaming about The17 and Year Zero Now and all the other stuff. Without dreams there is nothing for me. And I wonder what our mercenary dreamed of when he was 15.

I should try to find some way of tying up in some way what fate has dealt these three men of vaguely similar years – Johnny Swank, the killer and myself – all pissing in the wind. Something life-affirming in a nihilistic way.

Maybe you can find something.