Harry BawBags Blurt

Thats what I think happened to me … or at least something similar.

I had an episode of this in my early twenties also … One minute I was pissed of at my mothers Highland home – the next I knew I was coming out of an eight month bender in Blackpool. Even today my memory of what happened during that time is sketchy … I sometimes worry about it and all of a sudden I get a flashback which sends me reeling away from wanting to remember anything about it at all. In effect I became a different person. Freaky eh. Perhaps some form of hypnotic regression will reveal some awful truth about myself and forever be haunted by my actions. The stuff of nightmares eh. Cold sweats and eternal regrets. Bawbags is caught up in his own wee Kafka novel at times.

Anyhow…

These things I am sure of … It was the highways and byways for me. I remember toying with the idea of bunking up at my brothers in Glasgow for a while. I threw that notion out of the window quickly when approaching Glasgow on the M8. Him and his wife have just had their second baby …they had their first one 3 and a half years ago. I had still yet to visit them. In fact I hadnt seen him in eight years bar for one family funeral. My Brother, His Wife and my two Nephews … All strangers tae me. The longer time passes the more difficult things become. And how would it look, BawBags turning up at those strangers hoose with all his worldly possesions in tow … the phrase fuckin brass neck would apply. Nah, it wasnt for me. I bypassed Glasgow & continued my merry way south over the border.

Time passed but it was measured in miles per gallon not seconds, minute or hours. I remember often thinking “Ahve no been there!” on seeing a road sign directing me to a town … and I would just follow it. If I had kept a list I wouldve been feverishly adding to it it like some trainspotter. But I wasnt that together and I didnae have a kagool either. I wasnae well if the truth be told. I slept in the car mostly. Blackpool was visited and I remember driving along the Golden Mile and feeling sick to the stomach. I slept in the massive sand dunes at Lytham St Annes for three nights in a row. There I was approached by a man in his 50s and he may have propositioned for some kind of sex … I may have murdered him … or just ran back to the safety of my car. I think the latter is more likely but the former more desirous.

At some stage I bought a TomTom in a service station on the M6. On the way out of the shop I felt a huge wave of tiredness wash over me and sat on one of those massaging chairs that you put money in the slot and it soothingly vibrates your worries away, allegedly. I didnt care what anyone thought – it was very early in the morning and hardly anyone was about. I fell asleep instantly. I awoke with a jolt after an indeterminable amount of time to discover I had wet myself. Oh Fuck. I bolted and sped away a la The Professionals. It was 50 miles down the motorway when I remembered about the TomTom. I had left it in the bag beside the seat. Dear oh dear … I wrote it off with a mental note not to try and piss myself again. It does nothing for ones dignity.

Manchester, Sheffield, Lincoln, Skegness.

I caught site of a weird looking bloke in a shop window … it was me and I almost yelped with horror … fuck me I was hairy!

Other places were visited and my cars back seat began to sag with all the sleeping mass it was accomodating. On the M25 one sunny afternoon I realised I was gravitating towards London. Fuck that. I eat an unbelievably large all day breakfast in either Reading or Staines which sustained me for almost two days as I meandered west. I washed up in Weymouth where my Halifax Cash Card refused to allow me to withdraw 50pounds, then 40, then 30 but gave in at 20. Shite. So that was that account dried up. I sat under the clock tower on the front and had an ice cream and considered my options. Almost a month had past since waving goodbye to Mr Patel. Ach well … that was mad, was all I could think.

So there you go … One month, a nervous episode, illicit propositions and pissing myself in public … all in 444 words – Beat that, Jack Kerouac.