Spaceman

The Villa vs United football scores were being shown on the bars fuzzy television in the corner. Villa had beaten United 3-1 and were now on top of the ladder. If I was a football fan then I’m sure that would have meant something to me but I was more interested in raiding the jukebox. Someone had put on, out of all things, 10cc’s ‘I’m not in Love’ and whatever you think of the song, its place is not in a run down pub. You expect AC/DC’s Back in Black or Welcome to the Jungle from Guns ‘n’ Roses if you were from that side of town but not this. Granted, it’s production value is still fantastic for a song produced in the mid seventies but still, no place for a drinking hole. If you indeed need to get your fix of 10cc they will be appearing at Retrofest, August 30-31. There will be no more mention of 10cc in this tale ever again.

The end of the song was coming up so I made my way over to the jukebox to start selecting. It was unfortunate therefore that I found out that someone had put two dollars in the jukebox to give them three songs, not one. I flipped through the jewel cases on display to find CD’s that were once popular in the grunge movement of the early nineties and some obscure pop compilation from 1996. One of the songs was Bablylon Zoo’s ‘Spaceman’ and I thought about how popular one song can get for absolutely no reason. I put in my dollar and picked the song for a bit of a laugh.

I walked back to my table passing by a person who looked out of place in this particular establishment. He was wearing a black suit jacket, white shirt and skin tight black jeans which were gripping onto his ferociously skinny legs. He had wavy blond hair up to his shoulders and a two day stubble. His face was chiselled like an American soapy TV star and he had seemed to smoke half his pack of cigarettes in the bar according to his ashtray next to him. He seemed out of place since he wasn’t watching the football, wasn’t hanging out with his work friends and he wasn’t just people watching like I was.

It was more then that though. He seemed to be drinking at a rapid pace. His pints of beer were merely lasting him half the time they should have been and he was only getting quicker. Another cigarette lit, another pint down. Another cigarette lit, another pint down. It was mesmerising. The Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley was now playing on the jukebox. Dark jacketed man had now begun to quietly sing the lyrics to himself with even more enthusiasm for his beer. This enthusiasm that I speak of was not one of glee, joviality or merriness. No. This man was drinking to forget something that had happened to him not long ago. Ioju’s brain began to calculate. I began to believe that the last few song choices were inspired by this very man. Looking into his eyes I started to understand that was had just happened to him was the pain of loosing someone that you love.

Or the fantasy of it. Most of us have come up with some conclusion in our minds from all the fairy tales that we see as children and all the books that we escape ourselves in as grown ups that we are born to find our Mr Right or our Sweet Princess. That somewhere out there in this world we will find someone that will magically go ‘click’ together with you and make everything that was bad seem all right. The notion of love is a fairytale. You will find people that you are attracted to and that you want to be with it. That is nature’s course and chemistry. They are purely biological reasons to continue our existence as human beings. There is no such thing as love. It’s a myth, which shouldn’t be told anymore although I wasn’t about to say all that to the gentlemen smoking and drinking away right this very minute.

Nor should you think that this comes from someone that is bitter and twisted about ones own loneliness. Alas, Ioju is not like this. In fact, you may not be aware that I do have what you call a girlfriend, Samantha, who I enjoy her company very much. We are six months in and doing quite well thank you. I met her one day when she was doing her own bit or people watching at a café down the road from this bar. Once I noticed what she was doing I wrote down on a napkin ‘Stop watching the people I’m watching, there’s enough people to watch between the two of us’ and gave it to the waiter to give to her. The rest is history.

Samantha and I see each other about three times a week. It’s enough time away from each other so we don’t feel too bored of each other. You may judge that as a relationship that will not work but we have never had a fight and we genuinely LIKE spending time together. Why meddle with something that works? There is no pressure from her to say ‘I love you’ as we both have discussed the meaninglessness of this comment and that makes me happy and comfortable. Enough said.

Where do I think things will go with Samantha? I don’t know? How can you tell? ‘Don’t you want to spend the rest of your life with her, Ioju?’ How can you answer that? We as human beings change from day to day. I like Samantha right now and she likes me right now for exactly who we are right now. I can’t say the same for two years time because I don’t know how I will be in two years time. Can’t you see that making such a leap of faith in a partner, that by letting them know that you love them, by telling them that you will be together forever and ever is a promise that you just can’t keep due to the nature of our evolving beings, which brings us to this little mess of our friend who likes 10cc and Jeff Buckley.

‘It must have been love’ by Roxette was his final song on the jukebox. His eyes were weltering up and seemed ready to burst but this chisel-faced buck was not going to let go so easily. He had mustered enough courage to sink five pints and a pack of smokes away in world record time. This is a fact that he should relish in! He turned to my direction for an instance. It was brief but we connected. I tried with all my mind to tell him telepathically that he had done a heroic job on the beer and the smokes, that there is no such thing as love, that there is a woman out there that will like you for who you are right now, that I feel his pain but now that he knows that love is false he can go out there in to the world and be happy. Be happy! And no Roxette, you were wrong about it must have been love. Annie Lennox, you should no better. My man with the suit jacket, it mustn’t have been love and how fucking good does that make you feel!

Spaceman began to play as my friend was about to leave the bar. Weight fell of his shoulders as he stood and he turned to me again and nodded at me. I nodded and smiled back. Nothing needed to be said. Let Spaceman be the soundtrack to your day JacketMan. Let it be your rocket to fuel you into your new world. He left The Monkey House with a smile. I don’t remember if it was during the normal part of the song or the really sped up bit but I don’t think that really matters.