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I'd been receiving prank calls late at night. Well, nt prank calls, but calls that I didn't want to answer. Calls from a man called Dixie; a clown, a waster and a fool. A man that drank to the point of insensibility, that ued whatever drugs he came across, that believed his London accent and an ability to talk big made him a man of consequence. Thing is, when he was discussing brutality, or suggesting a robbery, or trying to arrange the ripping off of a dealer or runner, well, thing is, itwas always around more capable people; he wanted to be a big man and do big man things, but he was at heart a small man, a coward, someone that felt he had to impress wih his tales of terror. A nothing with a police owned phone, an unstable paranoid dedicated to an idealised mother.
He'd been calling me late at night. My friend Mick and I lived together, but he'd gone to his other place to receive a visit from Eva, his girl. Dixie had got our numbers mixed up. I killed my phone's ringer as a result when I went to bed. I awoke to 64 missed missed calls, 38 voicemails and more texts than I could count.
Eva was beautiful. She was a lovely girl, early twenties; pretty, kind, thoughtful, loving, polite. A really nice girl. In everyway. I thought she was wonderful. She was special. She was my best friend's girl, and she was an alcoholic. We were friends, all of us, and had forged a really close bond in rehab together. We were all on good form together, laughing and joking. Eva was particularly fun, ripping the piss out of both of us.
Mickey and I are ver very different, opposite in every way. He's black, I'm white. He is a seriously tough man, I'm not. We are friends though, very close, and with Eva we made a triangle. We were wearing maching hats, with pigtails on.
“Go on, kiss! You make such a lovely couple!”
Things were good, we were happy. One Friday I came over during my lunch break. Eva was playing cards, as always making up the rules as she went along, so that she was guaranteed to win; for her many good qualities, she waswithout a shadow of a doubt the most unscrupulous cards player I've ever come across. We were chaffing insults at each other, interspaced with kisses between her and Mick, and I left them to it. All was well with the world.
I got back to the flat a few hours later, after work, and Mick and I went out to do what we do. While out, I had a terrible reaction to something I'd eaten. I desperately needed the toilet, but nowhere was open. I eventually found a coffee shop, got a key to their outside toilet, and destroyed it. It was awful; the most terrible crap of my life. Usually, being a man, I take a certain amount of quiet pride when I produce a dreadful smell. Not this time, I was choking on my own fumes.
After a little while; a time of protracted burbling and splattering sounds, I began to clean myself up. A mammoth task taking whole minutes, but eventually I was as good as new. The toilet however wasn't. I'd somehow got shit all up the cistern, the seat, the wall behind it and the floor. I threw the key back to the shopowner, and ran. I thought that would be the story of the day, but it was trumped in the worst way possible.
We made our way home, with beer, and I left Mick to it with Eva, and went to my bed. The next thing, it was 9am, and I had a multitude of messages waiting for me. I looked at them, and the most recent simply said “Eva's Dead.”
I started to shake, and called Mickey repeatedly until he answered. He was busy, and I only got a quick chat, the gist of it being Get Here Now.
I ran to the fridge, shaking, and glugged down the little bit of cider I had left. I know it's weak, but I wanted a drink. It was a cold February day, a Saturday, and it was gloriously sunny. I sprinted the half mile between our houses and promptly found myself being interviewed by the police. They were convinced we were on drugs and that Eva had suffered an OD, but gradually that was disproven.
The next day was awful. What am I saying, the next weeks were awful. The post mortem, the funeral, all of it. The fallout when we found it was alcohol poisoning from some moonshine a neighbour had given her, when trying to take advantage of her, was violent and led to several people fleeing the city for fear of reprisals. I dealt with one of the others, and he's left town; the other Mick got hold of, well, he's vanished too.
Our lives were upside down for a while, and Mickey's still is; he went off the rails and is in jail. Mine, well, I think of her every day and miss her, and the friendship we all shared. It affected Mike and I too, but we survived.
It's what you get when you sign up to a life of substance abuse, be it booze or drugs. You lose vital people, and your life is never the same afterwards.
