Running From Twenty Four

By Shem Douglas

Sometimes life isn’t all unicorns puking rainbows when you’re young, free and single in London town. Sometimes life is hard when you’re trying to keep up with everyone else. Sam tells the story of five friends unexpectedly brought together under tragic circumstances. A Sunday evening in Soho spirals into poor decisions influenced by grief, lust and the idea of escapism. Follow the party of five as they embark on an unscripted night out after the death of a new acquaintance.

Running From Twenty Four is a fast paced tale of friendship, finding humour in heartbreak, and coping with life as a twenty-something year old. A night of fun and frolics, where morals and common sense are lost in a cheap bottle of vodka.

Why be painfully dull when you can be awesome instead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shem Douglas
• Release date: Feb 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310812873

Shem Douglas

A 30-something year old Brit, with roots in the Caribbean living in Dublin Ireland. I have a penchant for fruit beer, bedroom dancing and being overly dramatic with my hands.

Book preview

Running From Twenty Four

by Shem Douglas

Smashwords Edition

http://www.mouthopenstoryjumpout.com

Copyright 2015 Shem Douglas

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter One

I would buy the milk myself. There was no point placing false hope in my elusive flat mate to do it. So I shoved my feet into my battered trainers, grabbed the front door key and headed to the shop at the bottom of my road. It was raining heavily but I refused to wear a coat, not because I loved the sensation of sideways rain on my skin but because right there and then my mind was occupied with something bigger. Instead I pretended my hoodie was magically waterproof. It wasn’t, at all. Not even a little bit. My soaked T-shirt was irritating my chest, and I scratched at the saturated cotton. Hugging myself, I dodged the puddles with their floating cigarette butts, as though that would make a difference.

Refusing a carrier bag was another big mistake. Huge. I’m a massive advocate for saving the planet but not when I’m trying to open the front door with a carton of milk in one hand and my mobile phone ringing to the tune of Sexual Healing in the other. The ringtone was hilarious two weeks ago but today I wanted my 99p back. I had just missed a call from Jason. Odd. He never really called me, except for when he was drunk and trying to convince me to have sex with him. It was just harmless tomfoolery, because he knew there wasn’t a hope in hell I would ever let his penis anywhere near me.

Closing the fridge door and kicking off my trainers into the hall, I dialled Jason’s number. I would simply get this last call out of the way and then pick up from where I had left off. He answered instantly, so I knew something was very wrong. I ignored my instincts and laughed down the phone, expecting to be confronted with incomprehensible slurring and explicit instructions detailing how to find a woman’s G spot as he tried to navigate his way home. But this time he was much more subdued. He was certainly drunk but not boisterous or trying to barter with a shopkeeper for a packet of cigarettes he was too smashed to smoke. There was a long pause and I assumed the line had gone dead. Jason interrupted the silence with, Sam, I need to see you. My dad died this morning.

I didn’t know if it was a nervous kind of thing or an insensitive asshole kind of thing, but I often laugh at heartbreakingly tragic moments. A situation could scream the exact opposite of hilarity, but I seemed compelled to giggle or to make highly inappropriate comments. One of my best friends had just told me his father had passed away and I was chuckling as if the awkward silence was the punch line. What a dickhead. Another fine example of why I was heading straight to hell. Screw it. At that stage in my life being a bit of a dick was just a case of go hard or go home.

I composed myself for just long enough to ask Jason where he was. He was calling from a bar the other side of town and I had about twenty-five minutes to get my shit together before I missed the last train. No time to change. What I was wearing would have to do. This was an emergency and I was pretty sure my T-shirt with a hologram of a bikini-clad woman on the front would be fine. I clocked myself in the mirror in the hallway and tried to rearrange the shape of my Afro. My eyes fell down to my T-shirt again. Better zip up my hoodie just to be safe. It was a Sunday after all, so Jesus was probably lurking somewhere, judging me.

I love living in the suburbs, but damn living in the suburbs at the weekend, with no direct Tube line into town. The whole point of moving south of the river from the attention-seeking East End was to experience the leafy streets, the beautiful, expansive parks right on my doorstep. I wanted to be able to go for bike rides without feeling like I was entering a suicide pact with the rest of London’s cyclists. And the big city was still just a fifteen-minute train journey away. Today, however, the journey was a little more complicated trying to run for a train when I never run for anything. Life was already far too fast. Slow and steady is how I liked it. I jumped the last four steps descending from the station’s pedestrian bridge and threw myself breathlessly into the carriage. My acrobatics were entirely unnecessary as the train continued to sit at the platform for a further five minutes.

I stood for a moment, trying to discreetly stretch my groin after my impressive display of athleticism, and then hobbled to the nearest seat. Pulling out my phone I instinctively began to text my flat mate, Owen, Bad news with Jason. His dad has died :( On way to see him now in town. I bought some milk. I then flicked my phone onto silent, as nobody needed to hear my Sexual Healing ringtone.

Owen had met Jason only once and I think once was quite enough. It was a night spent drinking and dancing in the living room until 5 a.m. A quiet Tuesday evening that had spiralled into a session of male bonding over sweet and sour chicken balls and copious cans of cider. I was drifting in and out of sleep in the next room and by 1 a.m. I was furious because they were so loud and I had work in the morning. But I was envious, too, because they seemed to be having so much fun. Either way, my cries of Shut the fuck up for the love of all things decent and holy! fell on deaf ears.

Owen didn’t usually have time for my friends, who would often visit me/use our flat as a youth hostel when passing through London, but he had a lot of time for Jason. Jason would like to think that was because they had a funny-lad-banter connection, but it was mainly down to how his arse looked in the pale blue skinny jeans he wore that night.

Owen, my love, he’s straight, I said.

But Owen just smiled and tilted his head slightly. Not in those jeans, he’s not.

Before I had a chance to put my phone back in my front pocket it vibrated way too loudly to be considered silent. It was Owen.

Shit. That’s awful. I’m already in town, just finishing work. Let me know what happens. I’ll come and meet you if you need me.

I smiled. The boy refused to buy essential groceries but he was always Mister Reliable when you needed him.

The train doors snapped shut. I hadn’t thought things through since talking with Jason. I had no idea what I would say to him. He was one of my best friends but our relationship was based on rude jokes and drinking until we fell over. We were not the deep and meaningful kind of buddies who went around singing kum ba yah and talking about our emotions. But I was going to have to do just that. Shit. I fumbled at my phone and googled bereavement, but the page wouldn’t load as the train headed through a tunnel. I was going to have to wing this meeting and pray that I didn’t get it wrong. But I was 90 per cent sure I would get it wrong, and was relying on alcohol for the remaining 10 per cent.

Chapter Two

It wasn’t so much that I hated people. I mostly just hated the slow-walking morons who felt the need to suddenly stop in front of me and then expected me to apologise when I bumped into them. Perhaps screaming I hate people! as I scuttled away from the man with an oversized suitcase may have been a little dramatic, but for the love of God, MOVE! London Bridge station in rush hour is usually populated by young professionals who think they have the right of way just because they’re in a suit, power walking and clutching a coffee cup in one hand and a gym bag in the other. But on a Sunday night