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Sober Life
by Sinclair Newton

BODY


 
Sober Life

The ex mother in law was straight onto me with an email within minutes of Ibiza History Culture going out all over the world on Saturday.

She wanted to know if her daughter had ever really been a lap dancer and I sort of coughed in an English kind of way and said it was just a bit of harmless fun really and anyway what was she doing up and online so early in the morning in the Nevada Desert?

Evelyn was the original legend in her own lunchtime. She was a chorus girl in Las Vegas when she was nineteen and later joined the Johnny Weissmuller Water Show touring Europe as a formation swimmer. Younger readers may wish to know that he was the original screen Tarzan. She’s the sort of person who should have ended up running the most successful bar in San Antonio with Tarzan as her doorman.

She’s given up the six-packs now and so we can talk to each other without interrupting all the time.

She said she had been thinking about friendship and about the ones who just go.

Being American, she keeps getting lots of mushy poems from the Raggedy-Arsed Multitude (RAMs) who invade AOL and think they are hip with computers. You know the sort of saccharine-sweet little nothings dripping with kittens, hearts and smiles?

So I said why don’t you write a poem yourself that really expresses how you feel and see how long it takes to get round the world. She did. In ten minutes flat. Without cracking a single can. And here it is:

“Friend…

When you are sad, I will get you drunk and help you.

I will also assist in plotting revenge against the bastard who made you sad.

When you are blue, I’ll try to dislodge whatever it is that’s choking you.

When you smile, I’ll finally know you got laid.

When you are scared of something, I’ll keep going on about it. Whatever it is. Over and over again.

When you are worried, I’ll tell you horrible stories about how things could get even worse and how.

When you are confused I will use little words so you can make out what I’m saying.

When you are sick, I want you to stay away from me so I don’t catch what you’ve already got.

When you fall, I will point at you and laugh myself silly.

THIS IS MY OATH I PLEDGE TILL THE END

WHY? YOU MAY ASK – BECAUSE YOU’RE MY FRIEND!

Then she said everyone should be instructed to send this poem to ten of their closest friends or else they will have bad luck and go to Hell and get depressed because they will realise they only have two friends and one of them is not speaking to them right now.

By the way, I have my own postscript to Evie’s Ode to Friendship:

A FRIEND WILL HELP YOU MOVE… A REAL FRIEND WILL HELP YOU MOVE A BODY.

Sinclair Newton

sinclairnewton@ibizahistoryculture.com