Fool's Company

Here he goes again, complaining about the food.

“Oh, it’s not as good as back home,” or “Why can’t they speak our language?”

He’s the most annoying person to take anywhere on vacation. You know the type. Has to speak slowly in English, thinking the locals will understand him. Even ends some of his words with the letter O, like that suffices as speaking their language.

“Excuse me, can you-O tell me-O where the nearest bank-O is… O?”

He’s so behind the times.  Refuses to use electronic payments – instead, opting to wear a Bum Bag or “Fanny Pack” as the yanks more colloquially call them, to carry wads of cash around. I’m sure if our friends over the pond knew what we referred to as a Fanny, they would start calling them bum bags. But they have probably already looked at that, when naming the things. I guess Fanny Pack sounds better than Ass Sack.

I use the term, Friends over the pond loosely, because the only time I took him to Florida, he got us kicked out of Disneyworld for getting so drunk, that he threw up on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ride. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t need to be drunk to throw up on that spinning monstrosity. Anyway, if we’re supposed to make people and influence friends, he monumentally failed to do so in the USA. Almost got us thrown in jail when asked at immigration the reason for his visit. He quoted some idiotic line from the movie, Scarface – referring to his little friend - while reaching into his bag for his passport.

That was the first and only time I’ve had a gun drawn on me. I had to sincerely apologise for his actions and tell them some excuse about him being between being on the Spectrum and being a total tool. After a strip search and a dressing-down from some supersized official, we were finally let into the country. If they had known him at all, they would have put us on the next plane home, where he could empty the crew’s stock of miniature vodka bottles and complain that the in-flight entertainment was crap.

He never did embrace technology. Watching the live video of the flight’s journey across the Atlantic for nine hours plus, was his interpretation of in-flight entertainment. It was an awkward moment as we were about to land, when the flight attendant told him to replace his tray in the seat in front and to return the headsets. He kicked up such a tantrum, yelling he wanted to see the end of the movie and find out if the plane landed. It was all I could do to get some tranquilisers in him to calm his outburst.

I sincerely wish I could get away on trips without him tagging along. I’ve never extended a single invitation to him to holiday with me, but I’ve known him since birth. You could say, we are joined at the hip, but that would infer some physical ailment, and there’s nothing physically wrong with him at all. It’s all mental.

For once, I wish we could see eye to eye and just simply bond when we’re away. It would make the whole time worthwhile. But he always has to go and do something that ruins it for us. Like the time he invited himself to join me for a week in Turkey. There I was having a great meal in a local restaurant. It was like our own private lock-in for the night. One price for all you could eat and drink through each course. Local music enchantingly accompanied a couple of belly dancers to add to the atmosphere, making it a great cultural experience. But when the quail arrived looking like it had just been plucked, gutted and roasted all in one go, Idiot Face – and he was off his face on cheap wine at that point. Idiot Face picked up one of the small, cooked quails, held it by its featherless wings and began to make it dance to the ambient music, all over our table, across the floor, then onto the bar, where he propped it up against an empty glass and ordered it a drink. At first, the staff laughed, thinking he was just drunk, but things quickly turned sour when he spotted an old photograph behind the bar of a coastal view of the sea meeting a large hill with the words Gallipoli written on it.

“My Great Grandfather fought there. Probably killed some of your relatives, Abdul,” he insultingly blurted out to the barman.

As we sat on the cobblestone ground outside the restaurant - after being ceremoniously thrown out, any sliver of remorse was lost to the wind by him saying, “Well, we got a free meal out of it, didn’t we.” He was correct. The staff didn’t demand payment. They just got their compensation frustrations out on us with a few blows to the rude tourists’ heads, before kicking us out. During the assault, the barman told us in excellent English, that his great-grandfather had started the very restaurant that we had just exited from, and that after he died at Gallipoli, in his will, he left the business to his son, who carried on passing it down another generation. The barman was the fourth-generation owner. So, Idiot Face had been inadvertently correct on both counts. But two rights do not make everything okay, so for the remaining five days of our trip, I ignored him. That was the best five days I’ve spent with him over all our trips away together. I just wish I had learned my lesson, then. Ignore the idiot and he’ll behave.

Over time, we seemed to drift apart. I got a new job, found a girlfriend, got married, and settled into domestic bliss. However, in the space of one single day, a lunchtime team building exercise at a local pub, he ruined everything by making an uninvited appearance, drunk as anything.

Thinking he was being funny, he told my boss that I fancied her and if she ever gave up being a lesbian, he wouldn’t mind having a go himself. As much as I denied any intention on my part of seeking some form of relationship with my boss, I was put on gardening leave. That’s where companies send employees surplus to requirements in the corporate world. To compound my troubles later that day, he followed me home and told my wife that I had been having an affair with my boss, and then he posted a link on social media of some fake photographs of me and her together. It was all very convincing, and it ultimately cost me both my job and my marriage.

I was absolutely livid with him. Told him I didn’t want to see him ever again and banished him from my life. However, in my depressed state of mind, I was lonely, without friends, without love, and without motivation. So, I offered up an olive branch to Idiot Face and invited him to join me on a trip within our own borders. I chose a castle in Scotland that had a spa, outdoor activities, counselling sessions, and no access to alcohol. I needed to get my life back on track and he needed to understand this. If we could just bond one time, then trips away from home would be so much easier and he might even be fun to spend some time with.

The week started out great. Mind therapy sessions, hikes in the hills, and relaxing Jacuzzi dips after swim sessions in the evening; had me feeling refreshed, restored, and renewed. But that lasted all of three days, until he found a small village pub and got lashed to the mast, like a drunken sailor late back to his ship from shore leave.

He woke everyone in the castle when he returned stumbling, weaving, and falling down, singing “I’ll take the high road.” Then, he proceeded to urinate in the swimming pool, puke in the jacuzzi, and loudly shout obscenities with a thick, fake Scottish accent – calling them all Northern fatherless sons.

The next morning, we were called to the administrator’s office, who gave us a royal Scottish dressing down, then had security escort us from the premises, while I professed my innocence. I can only presume that in Scotland, you can be guilty by association, and it’s either all in or all out. Unfortunately, we were the latter and found ourselves walking to the nearest town to find transport for the long journey home.

That was the final straw between me and him. I stopped taking his calls for attention and completely blocked him from my life – never to return to me.

Months have drifted past since then. The problem I now face is the miserable return of loneliness, a strong sense of isolation, and a yearning for friendship. My therapist told me to plan a trip and go away on my own. Learn to live with my own company. But as I told her; “That was easier said than done,” because he is still in my head every night when I lay down to sleep.

I hear his asinine voice waking me from my dreams every morning. And his face, his Cheshire cat grinning face, continues to smile back at me every time I look in the mirror. I crave a drink. Even a glass of beer, but I know that if I give in to his desires, my life will be a living hell, and I just couldn’t live with the embarrassment any longer. I may be a fool for company, any company, but I am no idiot’s friend.

My own company is what I now keep. Shorter trips abroad carry less risk of over-staying a welcome. So, I’ll just sit here sipping an espresso in this foreign café and complain to anyone listening that it’s nothing like back home…