Meatspace (17 page)

We then tried to live-tweet a bank robbery. But after people started tweeting us stay safe tips, alerting media tweeters and worrying about us, the game was up. It had lost its thrill.

Walking back home along the canal today, I get a pang of homesickness. I’m alone. I have to come up with solutions myself. I don’t have Aziz around to advise me, tell me the wrongest thing to do in order to make the right one seem so clear. The canal looks nothing like our inventions and when I get home, I trawl through his old blogs, emails and texts, hoping there’ll be a message from the past telling me what to do and how to do it, and then I’ll know what the right thing to do is.

I get distracted by how much trouble he appears to be in. I phone him and it goes to voicemail. He hasn’t changed his voicemail since he was 14. I’m doing the backing vocals. ‘Yo-yo-yo-yo it’s Aziz [one time]. I’m busy killin’ em softly [2 time]. Leave a message [one time].’

aZiZWILLKILLYOU episode 9 Aziz vs Guys Who Wanna Change Your Life
[posted 14 September, 14:09]

Bob was an intense dude. You’d best describe him as a cop on the edge, a maverick who played by his own rules, a red-faced sizzled douchebag. He had terrible pockmarks and dirty fingernails – the hallmarks of a deviant. He had no swag. Teddy Baker called him his ‘favourite motherfucking city-dwelling redneck’. I shook his hand and Bob just kinda nodded at me. Teddy Baker ushered us out of the bar and we went into the flat above it. Inside it was this empty exposed floorboard crack den chic kinda place where there was no furniture, only a sofa and a chair and a mattress that all looked like they’d been at the business end of a stream of piss. ‘Right on,’ I said. And they both laughed. Inside the flat – sorry, the apartment – was cold and empty. No one lived here. But Teddy Baker walked over to the cupboard by the door and opened it. Inside there were 3 long costumes hanging up. He grabbed them and threw one to me.

‘Put that on,’ he said. I asked what it was. ‘You’ll see,’ he said and winked.

He stripped down to his meat and stood in front of me, cock swinging for all to see. Let me tell you homeys, right? If Aziz is the guy with the ample length to arm himself with a billy club then this guy has a weapon of mass ejaculation down his pants. He pulled at it and I was thinking, what the hell is this place? Some kind of weird swingers doggers furries bears circle jerk empty flat? Was I about to get myself killed? Now, peoples, you know I don’t mind a bit of stranger danger but this is weird. He started putting on his outfit and it was an all-in-one wetsuit spandex monstrosity. It was black and grey with silver shoulder blades, and … yes, a cape.

‘Are you about to murder me, Teddy Baker?’ I asked. Bob and Teddy Baker looked at each other, then towards me and laughed their cocks off, both swinging in my direction.

‘No, dude. We’re not going to murder you.’

‘Coulda did that in the bar,’ man of few words, Bob, said.

‘Tonight you join us in the fight for justice. We need numbers.’

‘You guys crime-fighters or something?’ I’ve read comics. I know the ruckus. They both nodded sheepishly, like they were ashamed of it. Crime-fighter Aziz, I think. Fuck it. I’ve been fighting crime since I was a youth. Might as well do it properly. I stripped down to my meat.

‘You can keep your boxers on if you want,’ Bob said. ‘Teddy here likes to swing free.’

‘Yeah,’ Teddy Baker said. ‘You haven’t lived life if you haven’t kicked a purse snatcher in the face with your big balls flying through the air.’

‘What if someone whacks you in the nuts?’ I asked. They both shrugged.

As I slipped my spandex costume over Big Aziz, I realised there was protective padding around the nuts. I was a bit unhappy cos my suit is mostly gold sequins. I looked like an Egyptian god.

‘What’s your handles?’ I asked.

‘Like what?’ Bob said. Dude was so aggressive.

‘Like your superhero names?’

‘This ain’t a comic book, buddy,’ Bob said. ‘I’m Bob. He’s Teddy. You’re ZZ.’

‘Aziz.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Yeah, dude,’ Teddy Baker said, coming back from the mirror in the bathroom. ‘We’re just fighting on the side of righteousness so we don’t hide behind any names.’

‘Oh, okay. Why is my costume so gold?’

‘That’s for our lady, Mika. She’s this Japanese student who studies Egyptology. That’s her suit.’

‘Where is she tonight? Dead? In the hospital?’

‘Nah, dude. Period pains. Women eh?’

For the record, #azizlovesallwomen. I ain’t down with all that subjugation talk.

My costume, made for a Japanese student, kinda groaned around the Aziz bulk. It was properly tight. Even with the protective padding, you could make out every vein and contour on Big Aziz, which was cool if purse snatchers were fit. But they were probably just idiots with beanie hats. Not my style.

Once we were suited up, Teddy passed round some camouflage paint to wear on our faces. ‘Aren’t I brown enough?’ I said. They both nodded.

‘Where you from?’ Bob asked, like it would be a problem whatever I said, unless I said the Good ol’ US of A.

‘I’m from England,’ I said.

‘I know where you live,’ he said. ‘But where you from?’

‘Oh. London.’

‘Not India. Taliban?’

‘Nah, mate. Hindu.’

‘So, Muslim.’

‘Fucking hell, you really don’t know the rest of the world, do you, chief?’

Bob stared at me hoping I’d explain the difference but I let it hang and turned to Teddy Baker.

‘You look Indian, Teddy. How come? Swarthy parents?’

Teddy Baker looked up and rushed towards me, trying to grab me by the neck but Aziz knows self-defence so I batted him away and put up my dukes.

‘No one asks about my parents,’ he said. ‘No one.’

‘Yeah, cool, man. No worries.’

What a strange and mysterious reaction. He’s got issues there. In the last 24 hours, though, I’d added him on Facebook and when he accepted me, I went through all his friends and family. He had his whole family listed there. His sisters Rita and Anita, and his mum wrote ‘lol x’ on every status he made and his dad worked for a hospital. The things you can find out online, eh? His mum’s name was Rupa and his dad’s name was Tim. I think I get it.

Now we were suited up, we all looked at ourselves in the mirror and despite the stinky atmosphere – not only was it awkward, but it smelt of dead cat faeces in this place – we all looked suitably bad-ass.

We headed out into the night.

And what adventures we had, dear reader. You have no fucking idea. Here’s a spoiler though: Bob remains a douchebag throughout.

There are 15 comments for this blog:

df325: Wow, Aziz, you are the coolest.

KJAYSAYYAY: Dude, this is amazing. I knew you were a superhero.

Gogo Girl 322: Aziz, What DId You Guys Do?

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: @Gogo Girl 322: patience my Padawan apprentice

GerryMander: Fuck you, this is bullshit. I was with you till that superhero bullshit.

GustaveGrime: Exactly. It’s just all bullshit. No way this happened. This guy is a fraud.

GerryMander: Why are we reading this?

GustaveGrime: I’m keeping a Tumblr documenting the death of the internet. And this is one of my case studies. Bullshit people write to make their lives sound better. Fake blogs. Constantly updating people on a life you don’t lead. The pointlessness of our existence. Fucking hell, Aziz should kill himself.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Yo, Gustave, why don’t you go troll someone else. You know why? I WILL KILL YOU.

GustaveGrime: If this is an actual threat, I am reporting you to the authorities. Remember: I am a lawyer.

GerryMander: Chill Gustave, it’s not that bad.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: All I know is, you love me too much to ever just let me get on with it. Why don’t you fuck off? You don’t have to read it.

GustaveGrime: But I do, mate. This is exactly the opposite of why the internet was invented. You are ruining our world. One blog at a time. There’s Wikileaks. There’s Guardian Comment Is Free. There’s NetMums. Then there’s you. Right at the bottom of the pile, trying to get everyone’s attention with your bullshit. If the world was just, I’d have this blog shut down in a second and you reported to the European Court of Human Rights for crimes against art.

AZIZWILLKILLYOU: aaaaaaand … blocked.

df325: I love the suspense. When’s the next one up?

History:

Kitab Balasubramanyam penis – Twitter
Kitab Balasubramanyam cock – Google
Kitab Balasubramanyam nude – Twitter

I’m having breakfast with Hayley the next day when I start wondering why she’d texted me late last night to request a meet-up over bacon and eggs and freshly cooked hash browns in my local organic café.

Maybe she thinks she’s seen my penis. Surely, otherwise she’d never want to hang out. Maybe she saw something she liked. In someone else’s penis. Because she’d never just ask me out just to ask me out, would she?

We’ve only ever seen each other at events. We’re each other’s go-to emotional crutch when the room is filled with publishing types and ‘aspiring’ writers.

‘I hate other writers,’ she’d told me once. ‘All they want to do is talk about writing.’

We’d been having a discussion about what roles we would take in the zombie apocalypse. I had decided that based on my skill set, I would be in Comms, tweeting zombie locations, but in reality, in a dystopian at-war society, we would need soldiers more. ‘I’d have to gun up and hit the front line, right?’

‘See? That’s why I love you, Kit,’ she’d said. ‘Writers are desperate to debate the death of the novel and you’re the only one brave enough to acknowledge the threat of zombie apocalypse.’

It had been one of those moments where we could have kissed. I was holding my phone the entire conversation, and a picture of Rach was my background.

My phone stays in my pocket this time. I’m so nervous about breakfast I don’t dare bring it out. I want to plug in. But I can’t. This is the first time we’ve been alone together. It feels more intense than usual. I have to work hard to be like I usually am with her when there’s other people around to be a counterpoint to.

We talk about the trials of being jobbing writers. She sighs. ‘Every fucking day I’m contacted to write something, usually for free, about my favourite handbag, or where I get my hair cut. Have these people not heard of the Women’s Prize? Do they not follow Caitlin Moran on Twitter?’

‘As a feminist, you’re above handbags and haircuts?’

‘Well, of course not,’ she says, cupping her tea in 2 hands. ‘I love a handbag and I love a haircut. But does no one want my opinion on the welfare cuts? On how bad the new Mumford album is? It’s so boring. You must get it too, being, you know …’ she stage-whispers, ‘an ethnics. I used the plural on purpose.’

‘Yeah, of course. I get asked in online Q&As repeatedly what my parents think of my work. Who gives a shit what they think? Also, if I get one more email from
Esquire
asking me to review my top 5 curry spots in the city, I’ll lose my shit.’

‘Literally?’

‘Literally. I’ll be like, “Hayley, I’ve misplaced my shit. Can you help me find it?”’

‘“No, Kitab, that’s just disgusting, but where did all that shit come from?”’ Hayley throws back her head and laughs.

‘“I reviewed all these curry spots and now I can’t stop shitting …”’

‘We’re just avatars, Kit,’ she says, sipping on her tea to illustrate a point well made.

‘Everything your Twitter bio tells the world about you, that’s what people want to know. Gender, ethnicity, likes.’

‘I think it’s more than that … I think we’re at a stage where no one cares what authors think. We used to be spokespeople, opinions for hire,’ Hayley says, looking over my shoulder to see if our food is coming. ‘When did we get boring? When did people stop caring what we thought and asking footballers instead?’

‘When Cantona became a poet …’

‘When middle-class people swapped paperbacks for season tickets …’

‘Classist.’

‘How can I be a classist when I support Leyton Orient … team of the people, Kitab, my lad?’

‘If I see one more picture of a footballer leaving a club with a blonde girl …’

‘Speaking of pictures,’ Hayley says, getting her phone out. ‘Is this your cock? Cos if it is, then it’s very embarrassing.’

She shows me Kitab 2’s penis, its messy manscaping ingrained in my brain for ever more.

‘I got hacked.’

‘I figured. It seemed a bit too brash for you. I imagine you’re the flowers, dinner and a movie type, right? Before anyone gets to see anything.’ Hayley leans forward and taps me on the arm. I let her hand rest there.

‘You have to really romance me,’ I reply. My voice is dry and I cough over my words, nervously. It’s rare we’re by ourselves, chatting, not surrounded by others. It feels more intimate than I can cope with.

‘Who hacked you?’

‘It’s a bit of a weird long story. Remember that Indian guy I was with at that book event?’

‘There were 2 Indian guys, at a book event?’

‘Yes, well, the other guy …’

‘What was he called?’

‘Kitab.’

I let the answer hang there.

Hayley smiles. ‘Right.’ She laughs to herself.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘It’s just … I dunno. You spend all this time not wanting to be defined by your ethnicity and then you’re saying some Indian guy with your name rolls into town and puts your cock on the internet.’

‘His cock.’

‘Well, it’s weird,’ she says, laughing.

We’re surrounded by yummy mummies. We’ve gone for breakfast in the post-school run at the only time you’d see artists eating breakfast. We’re the jobless paid. We eat after the rush hour and before daytime television gets going. We eat between the first of the morning coffee and the pre-lunch coffee. Before we take meetings about abstract projects at abstract art venues that want us to channel our inner-douchebag. The yummy mummies coddle their babies and coo to each other about their spawn’s achievements, from first steps to first words, from bon mots to hilarious ‘kids say the funniest things’ anecdotes. They bray and guffaw at each other like seagulls fighting over seaside scraps. I hate this awkwardness. It’s the first time Hayley and I have done anything away from other people, just us, not at an event. I don’t want it to be awkward.