I waited in all day for the man from British Gas who I had been told might arrive any time between 9am and 6pm to discuss my need for a new boiler. He arrived, typically, at 5.50pm, but then efficiently took me through my options and I signed on the dotted line and gave him my deposit, the first instalment of a tidy sum. But even though the new system won’t be installed for a couple of weeks at least, I still felt pleased to be getting it sorted. Let’s not think about the money.
I set out to my gig this evening, feeling content and sharp. My senses were heightened (not just because of the prospect of efficient central heating, I don’t think) and I was noticing things around me, in a way that I wish I could all the time. Being a good writer (and making a good Warming Up) is all about being observant and taking in your surroundings. Too often I just withdraw into myself for days on end and hardly spot a thing, but tonight I was feeling very aware of what was going on in the world, hopeful and confident. I don’t know where any of this was coming from and doubtless it will disappear again, but it felt like things had changed somehow.
On the tube I was sitting opposite a smartly dressed, slightly stocky lady. She had a posh black jacket and skirt on and an unusual purple flower or broach as her button-hole. I couldn’t work out if it was real or artificial, yet it was such an extraordinary shade of purple that I think it must have been manufactured by someone other than God. But what attracted my attention was her leg. She had a hole in the knee of her tights and a fresh wound on her knee, the blood on which had clearly only just congealed. It was a small detail that on another day I might not have spotted, but tonight it jumped out of me and I found it a fascinating glimpse into someone else’s life. Clearly at some point in the last two or three hours, this woman had had a fall of some kind, a nasty, though not incredibly serious one, and now though her knee must be stinging she was going about her day. Was she on her way to a function or on her way back? Did she fall over at a wedding or at an important business meeting? Or had she been rushing and slipped and was yet to get to her appointment and was late or had decided she couldn’t even go now, with a bloody knee and a hole in her tights. Somehow I just found this unimportant detail incredibly interesting, a window into the life of a stranger, that unless I was bold enough to ask her what had caused her injury, could only lead to idle, but entertaining speculation. At the very least imagining the moment of the accident of this sensibly dressed and thick legged lady was cause for slight amusement, even if she had been hurt and slightly humiliated.
The gig itself looked like it would be fun. It was up in Angel and the first half had been poets reading their work to a small crowd of 15 people. In my positive and heightened mood I was looking forward to a relaxed gig where I could just chat about stuff with no real worry of being barracked or any massive need to go for laughs. I thought I could have a go at talking about the scabby-kneed businesswoman and see if it led anywhere, or about my recent experience as a first date cuckold.
However, just as the second half started a very drunk couple came and sat in the back. The MC started a short poem, which had a slightly obtuse joke at the end. The drunk man loudly blurted, “What’s funny about that?†Suddenly my hopes of an enjoyable and life-affirming gig evaporated, as this unpleasant metaphorical smell in the corner permeated the room. The other patrons bristled with embarrassment. My heart slightly sank and then I was on.
I had barely begun just saying hello and commenting on the intimate nature of the occasion when the man at the back loudly and probably involuntarily sighed. I came back by remarking that that was always a good sign, when you were boring someone before you had even had a chance to tell a single joke. The other people laughed politely, but the tension was palpable and I later found out that the couple had made a nuisance of themselves through the first half too. You don’t really expect hecklers during a night of poetry and given the gig was just three pounds, these people who were more interested in drinking and canoodling might have made the sensible decision of leaving when they realised what was going on.
I pressed on and getting bigger laughs than one would expect from such a cosy gig, but was still getting these sarcastic and crapulous interruptions. I tried to incorporate the man, but it was clear he was too drunk to be put down or even realise that something slightly magical (by which I mean the gig, rather than my part of it specifically) was going on around him. He had decided that I wasn’t going to be funny and was too pissed to be able to concentrate and I am experienced enough to know there is no point in flogging a pissed horse, so I suggested he might like to leave. His girlfriend shouted back that surely the point of a comedy gig is that the audience heckle. This is not a position I agree with, though it is one that a small proportion of people seem to believe in. I argued that this might be the case if the heckles were amusing rather than just being a man expressing his own ignorance and stupidity when he isn’t even intelligent enough to understand a simple cock joke that everyone else is amused by. My ebullient mood was shattered and for a second I thought I was going to lose my temper, but I wasn’t going to let these cockwits ruin my night, nor the entertainment for the other dozen people who were having fun. So I offered the guy his money back – I have done this a couple of times before, once when
I paid a heckler to be quiet at Pizza Express (it didn’t work). But in this case I just wanted the man out. Although I only owed him six pounds for this service, I looked in my wallet and only had twenties and decided that I would overpay him for the service. It felt like an artistic gesture, making some kind of satirical point about the nature of commerce. Although he would certainly have gone for five I would give him more than that, make him think he was a winner, whilst actually the overpayment would be a sarcastic comment about him that would in my eyes belittle him. I wish I had said that I was giving him more in order to compensate him for what he was missing out on, my brilliant act, which is actually worth more than six pounds, but it only occurred to me later that by accepting the money he was potentially missing out on experience and possibly a happening, which in the long run is worth more than the two or three rounds he was going to consume at my expense. Would someone who had been paid to leave the Cavern in 1962 or a Bill Hicks gig in 1991 be happy in the long run that they had made a small amount of cash. They would actually have missed out. And whilst I don’t think I am as good as the Beatles or anywhere approaching Hicks in comedic skill, my point is that you don’t know at the time what you might be witnessing. And this man wouldn’t have known any better if Shakespeare himself was on stage, doing “To be or not to be†for the first time. And ultimately I knew the gig would only be good without him. And that the audacity of overpricing his departure would itself be a piece of theatre and fun for everyone else, who indeed were delighted that I was about to squeeze the human cold sore who was stopping us connecting. The man was so drunk that he nearly ruined the transaction by refusing to take the money from my hand, at which point I nearly decided to physically attack him, or at least go for him in the hope that the fear of pain would cause him to run away. But I kept it together, made him take the cash and he went out to the cheers and catcalls of everyone else feeling he had triumphed, only unable to view the world from a monetary position, yet I felt I had landed myself a bargain He had taken my fee for the night, but it was worth it. I felt more sorry for his girlfriend who thought she was better off drinking with this loser than listening to poets trying to make some sense of the world (not me, I hasten to add, even though I have the heart of the poet, but the mouth of a sewer rat).
And it did mean that I got to do a half hour of material to people who wanted to listen. I talked about the scabby kneed lady and
the flamenco dancer I had seen performing to practically no-one and my love of the world was restored. And I had given so much money to British Gas today that what did another twenty pounds matter.
I had to get a cab home so the night ended up causing me money, but some things are more important than money. And one day I might write about the concept of paying off hecklers in a newspaper or book and thus make more than my money back anyway!
The next day I woke up feeling good about myself. I hope the bloke woke up and realised what a dick he’d been and that the change from my twenty pounds felt heavy in his pocket. I suspect it didn’t and that he still thought he was brilliant, but he is wrong. He is just a puppet in my satire of a society that rewards stupidity with money (Jade Goody), but I am also a puppet in that satire as well, as I am amply rewarded for my own idiocy. So we’ve all lost and that is all that matters.
