A homeless man’s cry for help. 找9月初可入住的房
Part One

28th August 2006

Woke up this morning bathed in cold sweat.. hands shaking and my mind wandering… images of me sitting outside a Tesco with a wee card board round my neck that read POOR ASIAN HOMELESS MAN.... SPARE SOME CHANGE FOR FOOD AND RENT.. flashed through my hung over yet deranged mind ( am closing in on the worlds longest lasting hangover.. am on 63 hours, got another 28 to go though).

Having being stood up AGAIN ( I never learn do I .. the whole fuckin world does that to me .. but no, I refuse to learn… I hope that SOB ex flat mate of mine burns in the deepest darkest ebbs of hell) by a close friend I suddenly found my self running out of options, the whole of last month was spent nerding and oding on law, which entailed that I had no time to go house hunting, so here I was this morning, almost homeless (83 hours to deadline) and paranoid.

Options… I had a few… my tent... my ol’ trusted tent and me could move to the Highlands where I could freeze to death… or I could… hmmm just sit outside a Tesco with that board and wait for a beautiful Scottish woman( really there aren’t any.. Angie... don’t worry ya a quasi Scott) to take me home.( knowing my luck I was sure it was going to be a hairy gay man… ) thus weighing the pros and cons ( frozen to death or a hairy gay man fantasizing about me).. I decided they just weren’t worth it and I had to come up with a plan B.

Frantic… I got online… logged onto to one of those sites built to help guys like me (homeless and lazy)... and lo behold!!!… found two flats that seemed decent enough and more importantly affordable.
The first one was to be shared with a film maker and the other with a gay dude ,

The next ten minutes were spent on a borrowed phone, (I still aint got no credit in that shit they call my phone…now ya know people, why I never text back or bother calling) and I had my self two appointments. 1 pm with the film maker and 8 pm (hmm what was he thinking... a date?) with the gay dude.

After having studied the details of the said houses it only seemed pertinent that the gay dudes home seemed like a more favorable option , not like I am gay... or want to be one ( though some of ya might think I am almost there, especially with the hair band... and Dave and Viviane I aint pitching or catching so lets not even go there).. it’s just that the house seemed to rock.. had everything I needed and more, plus all gay men have hot women friends, so this suddenly seemed like an option I didn’t wanna miss out on.

The rest of the morning was spent talking to people about my dire condition of homelessness and discussing the options at hand.

I left home at noon.. all set to reach the Gorbals and meet the film maker and see the first house. Now, the Gorbals… well was once considered to be the most dangerous area in UK,( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbals ) unemployment and poverty had drowned it in a sea of crime, but I didn’t care a flying fuck…. I was old enough to handle myself and having lived a year in Wadarwadi( the crime capital of Pune) where fights, a couple of stabbings here and there and domestic squabbles ( my personal favorites) were the call of the day, I was sure the Gorbals was nothing compared to the hell back in Pune, and for crying out loud after living all my life surrounded by crime this had to be a joke right? ( damn I was just convincing my self wasn’t i???)

I was in the Gorbals by half 12 and was a wee lost( nothing new about that.. i sometimes get lost in my own room), my almost out of control hair looked like an over grown bush of weed, I was surrounded by newly constructed buildings which looked a wee odd and totally out of place , it seemed more like the city Council’s hasty attempt to bury all the filth and the crime that surrounded or connected it self with the place. There were scary NEDs( Non educated delinquents) all around me.. staring at me like I was fly on their food, ( I so wanted to fade to white and have a Celtics Tee on), right about then a car pulled up to me… Was Mehak going to be stabbed? Was he going to be kidnapped and raped my the NEDs….. read on……….

As I stood there…the car came to shrieking halt… barely missing me by a couple of inches, I was pretty sure this was the end, all my dreams of getting killed in Africa while on a secret UN mission seemed to be going up in smoke

Out jumped three NEDs…towering over my wee frame, “ Mate…want a beer mate?” (what!!!!) "Ya want a fuckin beer mate?"... like really, that’s just what I wanted… bloody drunk imbeciles ( look who is talking) I just smiled and walked away( thank god I can still get killed in Africa).. I was still alive but suddenly i wasn’t so sure about this neighborhood, no one back in Wadarwadi ever offered me beer.

It seemed centuries before I found the house and met the film maker, it wasn’t all that bad, the room was small and looked more like a match box, but I was desperate and could have settled for it …. I walked out of that house with the gay dudes house on my mind ( people trust me it was just the house)… the king size bed… the DVD player , the flat screen TV… the works… and all at an affordable price.. but there had to be a catch to it… Naaa… I was just being paranoid.

Came back home to be greeted by Captain Pink( who is still writing his dissertation at my place and now a victim to the common yet deadly cold.) and a whole hoard of emails warning me about moving to the Gorbals, apparently it was the murder capital of Glasgow and some of my worried friends wanted to know my new address so that they could send flowers at my funeral ( how sweet of ya guys)

I took a train to Govan at 8 in the evening, the sun was slowly but surely going down and the evening breeze had a fresh nip to it, locating the flat wasn’t an issue and soon I found my self staring at a lounge right out of one of those catalogues ya look at and go.. hmmm.. wow…I want that place, it was stunning, immaculately clean and just to my taste, nothing too loud with the right lights in all the right places ( right maybe I was turning gay.. maybe for a house like this turning gay would not be such a bad idea)

We shook hands( trust me just the hands), and sat on his expensive leather couch, he sat facing me in his silk night robe ( damn !! I hadn’t noticed it till then.. and now this was spooking me out).

The music was just right ( did I just write that??)… we talked about the house.. the offer seemed awesome and I was all set to say yes ( to the house but of course) and pay the wee deposit, till he dropped the bombshell… and hell yeah it was a bombshell aright… “ Mayhaak( they can never get my name right) I hope ya don’t mind the fact that I am a nudist”… WHAT THE FAAAA??? “ I really hope you will be comfortable with me walking around the house in the nude…( silence… long painful silence). I think my jaw fell at some point and my face turned white… images… through my head…. NOOO STOP… ERASE… PLEASEEE.

I ran… and I ran.. and I ran.. and I ran straight home( actually I took the train )… no ways was I moving in with that weirdo… no ways was I gonna wake up to naked man reading his news paper while sipping his coffee… and no way in hell was I going to bed after having a meal with a naked man…. ( I know I am desperate.. but hells yeah it aint that bad…Highlands here I come......

To be Contd......