Memorycemetery

 Today I received a letter from my friend. He wrote: I’d love to write something for MemoryCemetery, but memories are boring. Let me disagree with that. Memories are boring, for sure, on the condition they are of a boring and unimaginative life. A few years ago I wrote a short novel, called ”A girl from Taliban, Coca Cola and the last days of my creation”. As you could probably see from my other posts, I’m interested in black holes. So this story (or at least parts of it) set in a black hole. This world also should like a black hole from the other side, right? Though the novel’s plot was generally made up, it was partially based on my memories and experiencies of living in London. My life is not so eventful these days, as it was back then. I broke my toe few days ago though, in the place there it was broke before. I remembered writing about this experience in the story, and  it happened again just a day after I wrote about memory loops and loops of memory. No wonder it looked like a loop for me, so I took out my old dusty harddrive and refreshed in my memory what actually happened 4 years ago. Here’s this accident account, and I swear it’s all true. The story goes like this:

…Few years back I was about to paint a portrait of D. Beckham, as he is a national hero, cultural phenomena and looks like a nice guy, even if he spends a lot on the staff I probably wouldn’t. It is not my business what he makes of his life. I do not care what he does with money either: he can as well burn them. I wouldn’t mind. My wife once met another herself in a dream. So I wonder if D.Beckham has met any of himself. I see at least ten people a day wearing a T-shirt with his name whenever I go out. They call it “replica” shirt. For one Beckham there should be at least ten millions “replicas” in the world. Imagine all of them gather together at a football pitch the same time… Which one is original?

I painted maybe five or six replica Beckhams with pink or acid green bodies and different haircuts. I still can draw him with closed eyes. Beckham usually looked like this: 

Illustration 1. Usual replica Beckham. 

But, this time I wanted to paint the “original” Beckham.

So I decided to make one more, the “final” Beckham. That one was meant to be the last one as I got bored of him. The final replica Beckham was supposed to be small, of pocket size, so someone could easily carry his Beckham with him, as the original already achieved iconic status. The final Beckham was black and without a ball. The original Beckham is not just a football player, but  a role model, so I wrote “ M O D E L “ on the top of the paintingand started to draw Beckhams’ shape.

-Oops! – Suddenly my hand made one of the Beckham’s legs bigger then another, just slightly bigger then 3 legs if you will put them together.

 - What has happened now? – Thought I. – Why does the last and final Beckham has such a thick leg? - There should be a reason for that. And what should I do now? As an explanation of abnormality I quickly draw some bandage around. My mother worked in a hospital so I have seen a lot of them before. See illustration:

Illustration 2. A person in bandages.

 I knew exactly how do the bandaged legs look like, so I fixed his leg in a painting. Now it was better. The painting and Beckham were OK. In a couple of days my housemate being aware of my interest to original Beckham, and replicas of his images,  brought a newspaper, “The News of the World”, as I remember. Apparently D.B broke his foot – the same one as in my painting. He had to stay at home for a while and was not capable of kicking a ball. I felt guilty. Insurance company probably went bankrupt. Nevermind, the story goes further.

The following day I was drinking with various friends in “The Royal Exchange”. This pub is famous for its tolerance to smoking marijuana and the colourful mix of the cream of the scum and the scum of the cream, which makes it a highly recommended place to visit. I was with my unicycle there, after having fun around all day long. Sometimes I could spend on it whole day. My speciality was slalom among clerks in smart suits in City, especially when the streets are busy.

We were drinking in “The Royal Exchange” with Carlos, a guy from Peru who came over to London to make a film. Carlos is a film maker. He would go to Tokyo or New York, make one, sell it to TV channel and on this money go somewhere else. He stayed in London for 6 months on his way to Mexico. Carlos is probably the most charismatic guy I’ve ever seen. He also has the strangest voice I’ve ever heard, as his throat was slit somewhere few years ago. I am not surprised. It was so him, what I never asked how it happened: it happened naturally. Such guy as Carlos certainly might have a cut throat. A bit later there came  a guy from Brazil, Rodrigo. I didn’t see him for a long while. So he decided to show me some of his new tricks. He stayed on his hands head over table for a minute. He  also could support the weight of his body only by one hand, his body in parallel with pub’s floor. He could juggle with an apple, a knife and an ash-tray. That day he was hyperactive. He set his mind on teaching me capoeira or selling some hashish, preferably both. The last one proved easier. We smoked few joints and Rodrigo said: - It is not the superior quality. Everybody agreed. It was time to leave. I could hardly speak or stay on my feet. Carlos caught up with a curvy Marilyn Monroe-look alike blonde. Rodrigo had to go too. He asked me if I could do some tricks on unicycle in my turn, to show what I can do. I said: yep. We went outside. There was quite a high border which separated the pavement from the road. I said: - Look, now I will close my eyes, turn 180 degrees around and jump backwards on the road,- and with these words I jumped and heavily crashed. Life is all one big trick and it is only a matter of time when you loose your balance. I couldn’t keep it after the jump as I was fucked and drunk, so I smashed my toes over the asphalt. Even if his staff was not of the superior quality, I definitely was. The landing was hard. I could hear dry crack sound and there was a hell lot of pain. I couldn’t stay on my feet, leave alone the idea to unicycle home. Not only my foot, I was broke too, as I spent all I had in the pub, so there was not much to do as to come back to “The Royal Exchange”. I’ve managed to make it back to Carlos. He was buying a drink for the blonde. I said: - Hey, Carlos. I broke my foot. Can you help me to get to a hospital?  Carlos turned to the girl, who was unbelievably sexy and already all over him and told her: My friend broke something. I am going to help him to get to a hospital. This is what I call friendship. He managed to find a sensitive guy in the pub, gave him a tenner and it was enough to take us to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. It was a scene, I bet – Carlos pushing me through the emergency entrance in a push chair with a bag of ice from “The Royal Exchange” over my foot, which was as red as boiled shrimp, and already badly swollen. On my lap I held the unicycle. It was a rare minute of triumph. We defintely drove some attention. I felt myself like a fallen gladiator or toreador who just survived an attack of an angry bull. Carlos said in his deep low voice: - It was a funny evening. On the change fished out from our pockets we had four more beers outside to reduce the pain and celebrate friendship while waiting for doctors’ call.

I saw the doctor 5 hours later as the nurse who wheeled me away, leaving Carlos and my unicycle in the waiting room, took me to the wrong place and forgot me there. After the time passed and all the iced in the bag on my foot completely melted, I reckoned I was just around a corner from X-ray lab. I helped myself. There I told my story to a doctor again. After a short examination he asked:

 - Do you play football?

- No, why? – I did not expect he would offer me a game.

 - You broke the big toes and fractured 2 others in the same way as David Beckham did.

I doubt if they brought the Original Beckham to The Royal Free Hospital somehow. So I didn’t expect we had the same doctor. How he knew about how exactly the Original Beckham broke his toes is still a mistery for me. Probably, keeping in mind his status, his X ray was published in a newspaper.

When I told this story to one friend of mine, he said it’s a case of boomerang theory. So let it be. I guess if you don’t catch a boomerang first time, it will make another circle.

Boris Kislitsin

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