Helping Philip

There was a German guy called Philip who lived here, I met him on Tuesday. On Friday he told me that he was moving out the next day and I offered to help him. I don’t really know why I did this; we have little in common and don’t really get on amazingly well. He is very different to me, he dresses like an American, talks like a gangster but criticises people who do both of these things. He taught Yan-San the phrase “hot bitch” and when he talks he turns his head slightly away from you narrows one eye and raises the corresponding eyebrow. This gives him the expression of someone trying to look suave and cool, either that or he had a stroke and lost control of one side of his face.

It was 2 in the afternoon on Saturday when we left with his stuff. In return for helping him he gave me an umbrella, some washing powder, treated me to a mug of coffee and a really nice chocolate bar that I vow to have again before I pass on. Lumbered with his stuff we slowly inched our way to the subway station. On the train we got seats and he happily swore loudly in our conversation. “Last night,” he said, “I dreamt I had two dicks. It sounds good doesn’t it, but then I was trying to piss and it was coming out of both. I couldn’t control it, there was piss everywhere. I think be careful what you wish for.”

His new home is just a short walk from a subway station but the route contains a certain obstacle. “There is this old man always dressed in white with a white beard,” Philip warned me, “he stands around shouting, kicking things and starting fires in the station, we have to watch out for him.” Along a particularly narrow bit of road we heard a man shouting. It was an old man dressed in white staggering down the street drunkly, shouting and kicking things. The people walking and cycling by ignored him, swerved around him as best they could. I saw him pick up a can and throw it towards a man walking on the other side of the road. It didn’t get very far, maybe rolled up to the foot of its target, but the intention was there. We made our way passed him, not looking just walking straight forwards. “So that was the crazy man you mentioned,” I said to Philip when it was safe. He looked at me with his one eye and one eyebrow and said as if I was stupid, “No, he didn’t have a beard.”

I looked at the sky. You can make any expression you like to the sky, it does not mind and no one ever sees.