Love at first feel
Frog and I were listening to AC/DC in my car.

I need to write that sentence again. The word "Listening" indicates a prolonged continual stage in the past through which Angus and Scott played loud rock music and we pay them the rapt attention that they deserve. That was not how it was.

So, I start this story at that particular moment in time where our conversation stopped, after a few variations on the theme “I wonder what ever happened to/ Do you remember the time”. We upped the volume after 4 great songs had passed us by, to a bluesy, slower number. And then, we did what we actually did best in the past we seemed to be so fascinated by: we listened.

“You know… I am sure AC/DC was a blues band at heart”he said.

Those were my lines. He had beaten me to it, stolen the speech bubble away before the words could form. In the days of my youth (and his) we did this often to each other. It spooked us. It screwed up our heads.

“They have the most inane lyrics ever and they get away with being absolute crap.” I said. I was trying get back at him, feeling a little peeved that he had stolen my great rock insight moment.

“...And you just love them for bringing it all down, tearing it down to some core unintelligent rock and roll essence and that’s so cool!” said Frog.

And then, we shut up. The bass line pounded the woofers on the back of my car, making my rear view mirror do wondrous leap tricks to the cars behind us. Angus and Malcolm traded great lines with each other. Frog was reading the booklet in the CD pouch, smiling at the ridiculous cartoon inside featuring Angus and some big and busty Flora and Fauna.

The rain had stopped and the parched dusty lands of Delhi seemed to have sponged away all traces of such an event. We didn’t realize it then, but I was driving way too fast for those slippery roads, their dirt and craters hidden by the last remains of the treacherous warts of small mud brown pools. It was the music that was making me do it. Who am I fooling? It was just a sheer sense of recklessness that I was trying to channel through his presence there in that car.

"What now?” Frog asked me. He was rotund now, with fat around the cheeks, chin and belly- something that age and hard drinking seem to produce in all males. The neat curve of his head which gave him that boyish look from a distance, was grey in most parts. I had seen him last when we I was twenty five and now six years hence,  here we were pretending to each other that little had changed

"We can go get drunk somewhere”, I suggested. That didn't sound right. I was hoping that he would propose something else and help prolong the illusion I was constructing so well in my head-of times when we could be eccentric, cool and fun, needing no additives or artificial flavors. Liquor had been our first step towards this relentless, slow, frustrating process of aging; our collective renunciation of innocent madness and embrace of the mundane and non essential. Now that we both needed it to continue our lost myth, I realized that I was just kidding myself. My wisdom though lasted for five minutes. The guitar was far too loud and my driving, far too angry, for any wisdom to last leaving traces. I drove towards Roxotica –a pub in a near by shopping complex with live rock concerts on Fridays.

That was when the car in front of us decided to swerve right without warning. ThI made a dash to the left to avoid the collision. Our car hit the road divider and bounced. I rolled down the windows and Frog shouted out an obscenity with a series of clenched thumps in the air aimed at the driver. He had to do it at the top of our voice to be heard above the last track on the album.

The other car turned back in to the road and started speeding. They made to dash our car sideways. The driver had two companions in the back seat, all round, dark, with red eyes and drooling mouths. They wanted us to stop. They screamed abuses in Hindi which were beyond our common knowledge and cultural grasp. I, much to Frog’s disappointment, jammed the accelerator to avoid the confrontation. They were faster than us. They cut in. We stopped. This seemed to release the maniac within Frog. He reacted like lightning, opening the door and leaping out before I could make up my mind on what was the reasonable way of handling said situation. The three men were walking towards us with unsure, slow, drunken menace, their white shirts clinging to their paunches and gold chains. I got out. It seemed the perfect way to round in this great story of youth recaptured.“What’s your problem?” I asked. They did not like English. They were displeased terribly at the use of this alien tongue. They wanted to know, who it was that I had exactly in mind, when I cursed some one’s mother in their general direction.

“You of course", proclaimed Frog helpfully.

The slimmest of the trio, spat at my face and missed. One of the not so slim ones grabbed my collar and attempted to land a slap on my head. Frog intervened. I blustered. I admit that I was terrified. The last time I had been in a fight was in school- junior class. I plunged in, screaming tears and vengeful survival lust. My first wide swing told me that this was not going to end well. His dark, sweaty body, moved away with little effort and he with his breath smelling of alcohol and tobacco, hit me in the stomach, hard. I was initiated thus, into the rite of the violent pain, to feel a corporeal presence that was me, brought suddenly into existence through the awareness of death. I wanted to scream but it came out as tears and a muffled “Aargh!” that seemed to convey blood thirsty intent and not surrender to those men of murder.

I am sure that the friend of mine must have chipped in some where, but I seemed to draw all the attention. I had hit the pavement hard, flipped over on my back, somersaulting in the air, much to Frog’s later amusement and derision. One of them held my neck and dashed my head against the road, the hard small protrusions of the surface tearing the skin on my face.

Frog escaped unscathed, almost. That forehead of his that so unfairly made him look so much younger than I, had a deep long cut, that would need to be stitched up. I was immobile. I had landed on my head. My left elbow was definitely broken. I felt a deep pride within that I had managed to make two of the fat ones bleed. They had made me wish death on myself with strong grapple holds and unrepentant knocks to the head. The thought made me rage uselessly. There was no shame though. Not at us, valiant men of small might.

I couldn’t drive. He opened the door of my car and I flopped over, as if I was drunk. I felt the pain but numbed myself. I can remember some one saying “the biggest balls of them all”. Brian. No Scott. Fuck Knows. I passed out.

-----------------------------

We are here now in some hospital bed, washed white with dirty yellows and cream, smelling of shit, piss, antiseptic and damp air. I am drained and can hardly write. No one knows that we are here. Only Frog does, who told them I had tripped down two entire floors of unending concrete steps. They bought the story or they weren't bothered.

I don’t know how long I have been lying here. I am writing this tale to remind me of what I am doing here in the first place. They seem to have got me in a daze with dripping medical aids and regular shots up the ass. One of the nurses is cute and could have starred in any porno she chose. That’s not my opinion- that’s Frog’s. He tells me I am having nightmares all the time. I can’t remember any. The only ones I remember feature me sleeping or being bored or being beaten to pulp by a hard breasted school teacher with fangs. He puts his cool hands on my forehead-I don’t think we’ve ever touched except through slaps on the back and the occasional male friend signifier of hand on the shoulder. He says he has called my cousin. I don’t who he refers to because I can’t think of any. The hot one, he winks. I feel guilty because my mind tricks me with an image of a girl I dated when I was sixteen. He says my condition reminds him of a song. I know. I know!

The nurse tells me I shouldn’t write so much. She really is hot. I am giving this up to Frog. He will complete it when he thinks fit.

I sign out.