On the Couch off the Couch…
So there I was … a young man…
My companion slash sidekick slash minion slash comrade in debauchery and I had just fled a town on the east coast on New Zealand where we had worn out our welcome through the diligent application of ourselves to the wearing out of welcomes.
So the silver beat up shit box putted down the thin black pot holed highways particular of the place. Iron Maiden rattling from the tinny stereo we gunned along at a good even 70.
Arriving at his mothers place in Wellington: the Arts and government capital of the country.
It was in a bay along the coast of the windy city.
A quaint rainy gray little bay at that, and the house was a quaint damp gray-yellow little house. With an overgrown back yard and shed containing a sack of old out of date dial telephones and a large 10-liter steel paint tin of good quality marijuana secreted under the floorboards.
I put on my best meeting and talking with a parent demeanor, one of many that would assist me in dealing with parents when I was to work at a private school six years in the future.
I was in. For 50 dollars of my 180 dollar weekly dole “payment” I had a cold little fridge of a room at the end of the house and meals…consisting of Wheet Bix, Toast and over boiled sparse dinners.
My friends mother was a Harried woman with a 7 year old devil child whos father was proably only a sad story. She was very kind to the coughing bearded strange teenager her son brought home.
We settled into a good solid routine.
Wake up 2: 00 pm
Lie on the couch, eat the food that was brought to us, smoke bowl after bowl of spirit crushing mind numbing dope and watch “sky TV” (the eight cable channels you could get in NZ for 20 dollars a month).
6 :00. Go for a walk down to the beach and around the rocks and smoke dope.
6: 45. Back to the couch.
10:00. Crawl to our respective rooms and black out.
On Friday we would venture in to town and wander about seeking hidey places to look out at the world from and smoke dope in. Commenting on people while refusing to interact with anyone but shop keepers.
Some times we would go to Pizza Hut then to a movie.
Life was simple.
I was not to last forever though.
We refused to listen to the well-meaning advice of his mother, about how we should do some higher education (excuse the pun) or perish the thought get a job. We ignored her and if she was interrupting a program my friend would get up form the couch in a rage and force her out the door of the lounge, while I stared mullet like at the Box.
After about three months of this she told on us to her huge and angry brick layer brother who took it upon himself to burst through the door one night (in the middle of The A team too).
“Stand up!” He yelled at our degenerate zombie like forms. We burst up off our respective couches like there were snakes on it, and were standing at attention is seconds, while he battered us with an angry verbal tirade that tore tattered holes in the fragile belief system we had for our way of life. Within 3 minutes we had promised to go to the cities polytechnic and learn our selves up on some sort of skill that would facilitate our smooth transition off the couches and into the real world of people living gainful productive lives.
He had given us a simple choice, a 180-degree life change, forsaking our warm cozy numb lives of 8 hours of being “awake” per day or being beaten like the insolent children we were and then dragged out onto the street not necessarily in that order.
Even for us in our degenerate dream state it was not a hard decision.…