Author’s Note:

 I had a friend once, his name was Gerald… I say once, because today I have received the tragic news of his demise. I felt moved to write this in tribute to someone who I had known for many years, well, a few years, and who I owe a fair debt to in this life. You’ll be missed Gerald. Shalom.

 

 

Gerald F. Cartwright

 

Born: May 3rd 1980

Died: October 1st 2004

Death shall not chain thee, only pull you down to let you rise once more.

 

 

 Gerald F. Cartwright was born to his loving (at least until they largely disowned him aged 19) parents, Miriam and Carl Cartwright, in May 1980. From what he told me over the years on those dark and drunken nights, he had a relatively comfortable childhood. There were mentions of half-remembered boating trips and something about a pony, more than that neither he nor I could remember. He lived somewhere around New Malden until he was ejected from his home for one too many meagre offences and forced into relatively squalid accommodation a dozen or so miles down the road from me.

 We first met in one of those miserable little back alley pubs that exist in a perpetual nicotine-stained half-light that serves to keep alive the impression that the barmaid is not pretty, but definitely cute. We’d both been drinking pretty heavily for the afternoon, him because of a bleak depression, me because of an alcohol problem. I had tripped over his foot as I returned to my table after fetching another scotch and, after being helped to my feet, he bought me another drink, two in fact. That was the kind of guy he was, helpful and better off than me. We naturally fell to talking.

 It turned out that while his parents had ejected him from their home they still chose to pay him a regular retainer in exchange for saving face with several rich but traditional aunts and grandparents. His folks stood to inherit a lot of cash and didn’t like the prospect of loosing out because granny disapproved of them turfing out her favourite grandson into a cruel and uncaring world. He wasn’t comfortable taking the money from them and so he spent as little as possible finding a place to live and put the rest of the money into an account he swore he would not touch until either desperation, or a clear conscience, let him retrieve it.

 

 I won’t bore you with the minutiae of our friendship, mainly we talked rubbish and consumed the inebriants required to grow a little fuzz on reality, the kind of situation where two people with little in the way of diversion will willingly spend drunken afternoons in a pub full of old men watching Queen videos. While I contributed what little money I could rake in he wordlessly fed me a little from his swelling cash-hump, never reminding me when it was time for me to fetch a round I couldn’t afford. We grew to be the firmest of friends and life was good… well, it was right up until that absolute fuckwad stole my woman. Yeah, well who’s laughing now Gerald you dead bastard? Who’s laughing now you’ve now got the kind of worms that can’t be forced out with powerful drugs? Who’s fertiliser now bitch? Let’s check the scores shall we? Women: You: 1 Me: 0. Life: Me 1 You: 0. I win on the away goals.

 

 Gerald was a kind and caring man, generous to a fault, giving to many charities and offering his spare sober time willingly to those in need. He would often empty his pockets of every penny and have to walk home just to help out a homeless soul on a freezing night. He would also donate his bodily fluids to my woman. That’s Gerald, generous to a fault. We shall look back and remember the happiest times, those of us who knew him, and we shall smile… Like that time on my birthday where his gift to me was to tell me he’d paid my rent for the next month, saving me from eviction, the time he first fucked her in the toilets of the pub. There was that time when he took all his friends away to Cyprus for a week to celebrate his 21st birthday. I think he fucked her again then. Let’s not forget Gerald’s moments of quiet humanity… Like the time he was the one to find me after I had slipped in the shower and, regardless of me being naked and bleeding, took care of me until the ambulance arrived. I reckon he fucked her while I was in the hospital, those sheets weren’t on my bed before I went in there.

 

 He was also an accomplished self-taught scholar. He held an Open University degree in Literature by the time he was 21, despite a crippling inability to remain sober long enough to do much work, and completed his post-graduate studies while combating alcoholism, drug addiction, and the crippling workload of fucking my woman on an hourly basis. His parents never knew of his struggle secret addictions and I fear that they would have cut him off without a penny if they had… I can only hope they can read this now and understand… and perhaps piss on his gravestone. We, his friends, did our best to support him through his heroic battle with being a lightweight pussy, and when he finally conquered his demons we held a low-key celebration to mark his achievement of becoming a whiny cock who we couldn’t get high around. Oh, but at least we helped him get over that whole impotence thing that was caused by the drugs, and he hurriedly got back to fucking my woman after a six month break. From the sounds I heard coming from the cubicle it was a relief to her, albeit a brief one… as I say, Gerald was a lightweight and should be torn apart daily by demons now he’s dead. Fuck Gerald.

 

 Let’s not forget his sporting achievements… Before his previously documented battle with addiction Gerald was a fine athlete, a masterful footballer, an exquisite spin bowler, and rapidly mastering the arts of hang-gliding, show-jumping, and being a worldclass backstabbing cockknocker. He was on the verge of being picked at county level in several sports before his parents ejected him and broke his spirit… That day England lost a great asset the likes of which have not been seen for many decades and will not be seen for many more… especially as the prick failed to knock that cow up due to having the droop… more on that later. Gerald was truly a master with leathery balls and an over-polished short length of wood who could rise briefly and then fall limply at the first fence. Oh, in case you forget, he’s dead as well, and I for one am glad. Fuck Gerald twice.

 

 Gerald was a fine artist, once again self-taught, and while his work with oils captivated with a stark naivety, his prowess in sculpture was breathtaking to behold. Yeah, the son of a bitch was a master of the art of pounding away at a cold lump of soulless detritus with his blunt tool. He was finally beginning to earn a little recognition in the notoriously hard to crack London arts scene at the time of death, something that had taken him much effort and time to penetrate, unlike a certain crack that is notoriously easy. Yet just as he was about to find both his niche and probably her G-spot, he was taken from us… and I for one think it’s about damn time.

 

 The tragic events surrounding my friend’s death are hard for me to relate, bringing me to tears every time I think of his terrible suffering and sometimes making me fall off the chair and roll about on the floor until my sides hurt. He had finally gained the confidence in himself to free his, now hefty, nest-egg from the clutches of the bank. I suspect a certain someone aided him in this. With his new and buoyant outlook on life he decided to journey to India with a travelling companion who will remain unnamed. From all accounts he lived the high-life out there, finding a spiritual peace on his travels, assimilating into the native culture, no doubt patronising the locals, dumping his seed down the proverbial drain, and exploring the beautiful flora and fauna. He had finally found his place and had finally cast aside the preconceptions forced upon him by his domineering parents. Sadly the fucking great tiger hadn’t cast aside the preconceptions placed upon it by its domineering parents and ate the prick. Go tiger, I hope you choked on my dear friend. I hope you then coughed Gerald back up and then ate him again. Oh, I think it then ate his travelling companion but I can’t be arsed to check, I might Google “tiger turds” and find out one day.

 

 So in memoriam to my dear departed friend, the possible departure of his travelling companion, and the successful rehabilitation to the wild of the highly trained tiger I bought off Siegfried and… er… wait, just ignore that bit… er… anyway… in honour of Gerald I offer this epitaph:

 

Gerald, you were my dearest friend,
and when you met your tigery end,

I felt the deepest, truest loss,

Er, wait, I did not give a toss,

Yep, so you got well bloody chewed,

And thus god, my faith in, renewed,

For as you passed through the cat,

I hope you finally realised that,

Sometimes you should be sure,

That your thoughts are truly pure,

And that you should not risk,

Your life for a fun, but brisk,

Attempt at banging other’s beaus,

I hope the fucker started at your toes.

 

 My final words to you Gerald are those that your body language obviously said to the tiger: Bite me