Skip to main content

From a work in progress...Brad, Brad Washington speaks..

GTF Editor writes; Don't normally do much in the way of fiction.  Here's a wee story that's part of a bigger whole.


Brad, Brad Washington speaks....

“My name is Brad, Brad Washington” is the line. “I fly helicopters”.

The man warms to his theme.

“Meaning I earn a lot of money and in the eyes of all the women in the Spirit Level I have a glamourous well paid profession.

Being Kenny, a turner from Bellshill just isn't the same attraction. Sending money back to keep the wife and kids and family back home just isn't what my life was meant to be.

And so I turned myself into a work of art. I became my own creation.

My shagging life as performance art.

And why not? If loyalist killer Michael Stone can burst into Stormont while armed to the teeth to assassinate politicians and then in mitigation at his trial claim it to be performance art, why can't I?

Like every artist I have my creative eras and periods. The “Brad, Brad Washington” period marks my mature period I think. Never before have I enjoyed this level of deception, of creation, of re-invention, of becoming. In other times I have created other personas. Brad, Brad Washington is my finest expression of merit, my finest work.

Like those guys from Dundee who pretended to be Hip-Hoppers from California in order to get a record deal. This is a deception with an end.

And that end justifies the means. I become someone that someone wants. I stop being someone that is not someone someone wants. The shags are often nice as well.

Every artist needs dedication. Application, perspiration, learning, my art is no different.

Doesn't mean that there aren't highs and lows. Highs and lows. Lows are hanging out in hing-oot bars in Aberdeen picking up women who are also works of art. Who perform like me.

In all the dozens of women I have taken back to hotels and flats, not one of them has ever asked why my hands are the hands of a turner and not a pilot. In all the dogging sessions I have attended, all the livecam sex sessions I have participated in no-one has ever challenged me about this persona.

My American accent is almost pukka Boston. Like Lloyd Grossman. Took research, learning and practise. Much practise. And research. Maps of Boston. But also a younger life full of travelling and rootlessness.

My daddy flew Helicopters in the US Army.

All part of the life. I flew helicopters in Iraq and Kuwait. Adds to the dangerous charm.

Everybody in the scenes I hang out in has a need to hide something. Being outed as an enthusiast for outre sexual practices in public is still a guarantee of social and professional oblivion.

If I was rich and privileged in real life, this would make me a sex addict in need of treatment and rehab. I am not rich and privileged in real life. 

Well, I work twelve hour shifts as a turner in specialised engineering here in Aberdeen.

I slog my guts out in heavy manual labour requiring skill, knowledge and strength. I clear eighty grand a year, most of it overtime. It still makes me an outcast though. I am and will always be seen as scum, if I try to better myself, I'm an upstart.

I'm not a sex addict, I'm a mad shagger. I'm excluded.

I'm in internal exile. Remitting money back home like a Turkish guest worker in Germany. Sending the dough back to the wife and kids.

Everyone needs a hobby don't they? My hobby is making a life. Making a new me. Making a me which is so different from the real me, whatever that fucking is.

Does this make me a bad person? I can make Brad, Brad Washington as kind as I like. Don't know about Kenny. Kenny is nearly 60. Brad, Brad Washington is 46.

Kenny is as much the creation of Brad, Brad Washington as the creator. Living the part-time life of Brad, Brad Washington changes Kenny too.

Who am I? Who am not-I?

Why do you want to write about me? “







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Way the World Is Run

One of the striking features of late capitalism is its inability to meet any challenge except with savagery.  The former socialist states transformed themselves almost overnight and by and large bloodlessly into (more or less) liberal democracies. One cannot comprehend the reverse transformation without mass killing. Let’s take a brief look back in history, less than a blink in time… I recall watching the TV news during the 1980's Miners strike in “Britain”.  One evening I watched with disbelief a report of a protest by striking miners in Poland. Busloads of miners had driven up from the coal mining regions of Silesia to make their demands re pay and conditions to the central government in Warsaw.  Fascinated, I watched as the Polish miners sat down in the street and blocked the traffic in central Warsaw.  I waited with anticipation, sure that the police would come in with batons swinging and break a few heads.  No such thing happen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dirt on the streets of Aberdeen

Today saw 20 members of the National Front protest in Aberdeen against the building of a mosque in the Seaton area of the city. They were countered by 200 Aberdonian Anti-Fascists opposed to such dirt.  Dirt is the best word for such white trash.  It is indeed the good Doric word for those and such as those. The National Front local chief is a guy called Dave MacDonald.  This creature used to be in the British National Party.  Until a little matter alleging the thieving of party funds came about. I have no way of knowing if any of the more lurid allegations of the British National Party in the matter have any basis in truth.  Certainly they are not at all flattering to Mr MacDonald's reputation, even if that reputation could survive public identification with the National Front that is. Be that as it may, nothing salubrious ever seems associated with the Fascist cause in Aberdeen. Even historically, this seems to be the case.  Aberdeen's Fascists ...
7 comments
Read more

Remembering Angus Neil...

I first met the artist Angus Neil in Glasgow in the early 1980s.  I was living in Garnethill and married with a family and gainfully unemployed. This was the height of the "Thatcherschina" and times were hard, particularly in Glasgow.  Nonetheless Garnethill was a wonderful community to be poor in. There was a diverse mix of people from a great variety of ethnic groups, The clergy were simply crawling all over the place, with a convent, a buddhist temple, a chapel, a synagogue, a free presbyterian mission and a host of other faiths.  My stepson went to a primary school where thirty three languages were spoken at home. The Glasgow School of Art was the most imposing building in Garnethill, in a close contest with St Aloysius' School.  The Art School ensured a continuing connection with Bohemians from an earlier age.   Bill MacLellan and Hamish MacQueen were prominent in these circles. One very dark and dull day it was a signing on day and as usual the day...
6 comments
Read more