Bullet in a maggot – my Easter story

[WARNING. This is not a eulogy but the avoidance of writing one]

Billie Joe Armstrong on the DVD cover

Before it all started going south, I was just going to watch Green Day’s 2005 European tour on DVD and simply go to sleep to the lullaby of Wake me Up When September Ends. Either the trusty old DVD player had gone cranky or the medium itself, an original DVD that my worthy friend Paul Kukubo once gifted me at a rather arty media store, had suffered irreparable damage at the hands of my beautiful brat pack who must have tested its quality label to the outer limits with their hair-raising air guitar parties – that, of course was before they became Smartphone Air Guitarists and left the poor antique cellulite product to go to rot.  

Anyway, instead of the brilliantly timed opening of  American Idiot  that I had expected, all I got was maggoty little images oozing into and out of focus. 

I was about to call one of the Smartphone Air Guitarist brigade when my own Smartphone - inherited from the oldest of them who had left us and gone to Air Guitar Heaven in December (May her lovely soul rest in peace) - beeped.  It was a WhatsApp from Besty, my most favourite brother in the diaspora. 

Betty Caplan has kuffed.

Thanks Besty, I forgot to text in reply.

Journalist & Teacher Betty Caplan - picture curtesy of Standard
Digital

Kuffed, FYI, is an endearing word created by an old friend of mine called Pam to avoid referring to the demise of her dearly departed mum by its real name. My family and I have ever since adopted that meaning as our own, extending it to cover all loved ones, of course.

Even before I could relate to this terrible news, beep! went the phone again. This time, it was my celibate young lawyer friend – let’s call her Judy – texting to ask me to describe a picture.  

By text? Can’t I just send it to you electronically? Isn’t this the age of live now before it changes into something you’d never comprehend?

And that, decidedly, was the moment things must have started going south. Choosing, for some reason the path of least resistance, the mind played tricks with me. Instead of dwelling on all the good things I could remember about my dearly departed friend, it chose to respond to my living friend. I know, right? Escapism. Delay dealing with death and cheat it of its sting, I thought gallantly.

 “It is,” I typed out, “about how Easter Eggs are made.” I hit send.

Beep.

“And how pray, are they made?”

“The picture shows a white wabbit humping a brown chicken.” Send.

Beep.

“Lol! Not far from what I imagined.”

“Now go make.” Send.

Ping!

“Go make?”

“Yes. Eggs.” Send.

Ping!

“Alone?”

“No, get the bunny and the chicken first, stupid!” Send.

Ping!

“The hen is readily available, where’s the bunny?”

“Do today’s lawyers always take things that literally?” Send. 

Wonky Wabbit makes an Easter Egg - Literally

So things were going south; clearly.

And so, in keeping with the mood, I turned to matters of my recently diseased friend. I owed it to myself and to her spirit to at least find out a few things; which I did. So after shedding a few hot tears (where do they all come from!), I went to Facebook and wrote a fitting tribute to my late friend; which quickly gathered a plethora of comments, likes and OMGs. Unfortunately, the post and its comments made the sms chatter from my young legal eagle - the one we earlier agreed to call Judy - even worse, for it now took on a greenish hue.

“Was she your favourite, Lloyd?”

“No, Judy,” I replied. “She was one of my very few good friends.”
Seriously though, my life truly sucked big time right then, I must admit it still does. Out of no choice of my own, my theme song had quickly degenerated to Boulevard of Broken Dreams and I was slowly sliding into  a mood so low that even Tre Cool's drumm riffs wouldn't have helped. 
And contrary to popularly held myths that writers write best when their lives suck the most, I have been reduced to doing almost nothing to make money. 
If you don’t believe me, go here and start making money too - and I surely hope you have the Time of Your Life!