Airport Posting

By 11 o’clock I‘d had enough of the portacabin, it was roasting, my shirt was plastered to my back. I’d checked and rechecked the email again, marvelling at internet access was so shit hot in such a banana republic…better than Gatwick. Why is that I wonder? Still too early to Skype the family and too damn fed up to jack off with Miss February. I leafed through the calendar again. I hadn’t seen one like this since 1972, a kid at the bar buying peanuts, the more you buy the more boob revealed. That’s all gone now, but not here, it’s a time warp. Speaking of which I can smell smoke, a sweet lazy draft, cannabis. Guido’s back, moving the bins. I go outside with difficulty ducking and edging through the splintered hole that was the door frame. Jeez,  it’s like an over out here. The gritty breeze across the runway just moves the heat round, a rotisserie of hell.

Guido nods, his hair greased back like Elvis. Blimey he’s good looking. My daughters would love him. He could earn big bucks in the U.K as a model or singer. Good enough for Abercrombie and Fitch they’d say, though a bit dark and probably too ethnic for them, corporate bastards.

I wave, desperate for company. Guido uses this as an excuse to leave the bins and saunter over, wiping his hands on a rag tucked into his loose jeans.

Guido and I speak two different languages; no make that four including youth versus middle age. Now and again we share a joint but Guido probably gets a pittance so I try to leave what he buys to him. As he moves through the heat waves his feet hover above the buckled tarmac, like a slo-mo pop video. I have an idea. I remember the CD the girls gave me to keep me company. They bought it last minute at the airport. I don’t think they know what to buy Dad apart from the obvious socks and Christmas autobiographies; another smug B-lister shares their wisdom and airbrushed photos with humanity.

It’s a floppy band, young boys, floppy hair no talent just karaoke-cute. I decide to retrieve the CD with some difficulty from the pile of debris in the corner. Since the mystery vandal or vandals turned the portacabin over in the night, I‘ve not tidied up. It is on its side now. I just moved the chair, nothing was broken. It just seems better to expect it to happen again. Guido nods. I flourish the plastic case. He comes closer smelling of fresh sweat. His faded blue shirt matches his eyes. What a waste sweeping the airport; he should be at college or at least get a modelling job. He looks at the picture. I tap the faces and explain for some reason in pigeon English to his fluent Creole, Spanish, Arawak, Carib? He could be like them. He gazes at the boys. They look like prats to me now. One even has a Che Guevara beret and clenched fist. Bloody hell I’m so desperate for company I’ve gone mad. Maybe Guido will think I’m some old pederast grooming young men with cheap western gifts. This is the sort of country where they lock you up, kick the shit out of you and then make you swallow the key.

The locals keep a low profile; impassive faces, mostly leaving the best tables in any café or bars for the “security forces”. Even the dogs here walk on egg shells.

 Guido takes the CD, nods puts it in his pocket, gazes at me for a minute, he is slightly stoned after all then saunters off.

It wasn’t a present I want to say. I retreat clambering back into the portacabin's now horizontal door.

God I wonder what sort of music he listens too? I have my pride and an extensive vinyl collection back home. That band is shite, still what does he know; he’s young, probably listens to shit every day.

The next day everything is the same hot, boring; quiet except those wacky funsters have returned in the night and now the portacabin is on its roof. I rearrange my desk and chair and calendar. Miss July today, you have to keep up professional appearances after all. This is an outpost of the British Empire or was.

 I can see Guido near the terminal, more a hangar really, listening to a pretty girl in khaki trousers and shirt. She looks like she is off to do some sort of national service. She is very, very short and looks very, very cross, like a red ant.