Dan Daiquiri

Wanting a bit of an escape, I knew I needed a holiday. Something to take the edge off, somewhere to sit and bask in the sun to try and figure out my life and my next big life move. The holiday itself was amazing and really helped me through a tough time in my life and my recovery through grief. The journey was just beginning in the long road but this was a little bit of a reset. I realised at the end of the holiday that my inheritance was diminishing quicker than my happiness, a scary revelation. The final blog in the series, now it’s time to love in the present.

I remember when my new passport arrived, the feeling of excitement and limitless potential, I could do anything. I could travel the world, hike the Himalayas or go on a cruise around the world.

-Yeah right, like that’s going to happen.

It was a step up from my last passport where I was a striking fucking image of my aunt Moira, I could have been her twin had it not been for my youthful face. A face of innocence, before the decline into adolescence and years of self torture.

I knew I needed a holiday so my sister had offered me to tag along with her on holiday to the canaries where we went all out on an all inclusive holiday for two weeks, this was my chance to unload some pent up sadness and attempt to unravel my mind.

We spent the first few days very wavy, utilising the red band around my arm and drinking everything in sight. It wasn’t long before I started to make friends, despite my internal struggles I never found it difficult to talk to strangers.

I had befriended an English gent and two Irish girls in a British pub- it was the perfect start to a joke. By day we drank and at night we went down to the beach, swimming in the water and lying on the sands as we took in the obsidian sky peppered with glittery speckles. when they left is when I found the local cocaine dealer- I could always find a source, a talent I still possess to this day in being able to sniff out where to find that glimmer of escapism. A shoddy deal behind the resort shopping centre secured the goods and before I knew it, I had a little bag in hand. Surrounded by overflowing bins in a dark lane is exactly the kind of place where I imagined this kind of transaction would happen, it was almost a stirring piece of irony.

Over the days, I befriended the dealer and was on first name terms becoming a regular. It wasn’t long before I was going directly to his house to pick up the gear, as he slowly began to trust me he let his guard down.

Despite it being only thirty euros a bag, I knew it was fine. Not amazing by any stretch but certainly not the worst to ever grace past the entrance to my nostril. Very council by standards, I’d surmise an approximate 60:40 split cocaine to cut. It’s funny that over the years your palate expands and you begin to know the flavour profile of all drugs, each with it’s own taste and texture as they are ingested and begin to warp your brain. a bit of a non pure connoisseur.

I woke up in my room, swimming in sweat and blinded by the sun beaming through a small slit in the heavy set hotel curtains. A deep dehydration from the AC and lack of water, croaky throat from the cheap cigs and eyes sensitive to light, piercing through my soul or what was left of it- those drinks really added up last night as did my cocaine tab, I’ll worry about that later. In this moment I wanted to die, unable to comprehend any semblance of happiness as my brain tried to imagine anything different from my grim existence in this almost tropical paradise. I knew I had to fully utilise my all inclusive band, I was not missing breakfast as I needed something in my stomach- something to throw into the deep void within and hope it’ll help.

Breakfast is always absolute carnage on holiday and here it was no different, a horde of folk all clambering for food and cutting in front of each other for strips of blackened bacon and underdone translucent eggs, deafening chatter everywhere and the inevitable feeling that people are silently judging you. It felt like they knew the deprived shenanigans from the night previous, they knew how fucking intense my paranoia was. My anxiety has always been very skilled at internally singling me out from every other person in sight.

My eyes darted about as I shovelled pastry into my mouth, I was overstimulated by everything happening around me, a buffet feast of dried bacon left under hot lights for a tad too long slowly smoking, congealed goats yoghurt wobbling in a pool of whey with swathes of English tourists in tight polo shirts all huddling around the toast machine talking about football as their bright red noses and cheeks either spelled out sunburn or early onset rhinophyma.

On leaving breakfast with a stomach full of food and an imminent turtlehead poking out from the vitamin C and caffeine dunt. I unloaded and thought to myself

-Just the one, hair of the dog? Why the fuck not, I’m on holiday right.

As I bobbed in the sky blue pool under the intense heat with a Baileys in reach. I reflected on life and concluded that it really can’t get much better. A creamy beige iced baileys whilst swimming, ideal. A brief moment of panic followed as I reached for my ear lobes.

-Where the fuck are my tunnels?

My ear jewellery at the time was very lightweight, a solid white plastic hollow plug in which they could be opened up and screwed shut on a thread. This watertight contraption was also my cocaine hiding spot and currently I had two grams on me, one in each ear. Somewhere in this pool were two small white treasure chests brimming with aggressive substances. I had to find them before a child did.

I placed my Baileys on the poolside and strapped in for a deep dive, a scuba mission with an almost overbearing urgency. The issue with wearing glasses with such a high prescription is that when swimming it’s almost impossible to see, add in the chlorinated water filled with pish and your eyesight is beyond breached. I swam in the murky depths not considering the five drinks I’d had since breakfast. I thrashed about as I frantically searched the pool bed, Tiny white tiles were speckled throughout which only hindered my search. Looking for a small white circle in a bed of tiny white squares whilst mostly blind and slightly tipsy is harder than it looks. Luckily I figured out, if I brushed the floor with my hand I’d find them sooner or later, hopefully before they were victim to the pool suction cleaner.

Twenty minutes and four near death experiences later, I emerged from the pool with what I could only explain as an internal standing ovation. I was ready to bow and await the applause but as I looked around me it was evident, nobody had seen my ordeal. Thank god they never, I need to get out of here. I checked my tunnels, they were still airtight and the insides dry. A wander down the beach should sort me out and calm me down.

I’d left the hotel and walked down to the beach, a decent distance down over seven hundred steps vertically. The heat was intense and I’d already managed to sweat out yesterdays toxins whilst simultaneously topping them back up with microdoses of Baileys at the pool. I arrived on the beachfront strip and passed the off licence, it had an old school looking fan inside blowing a cool wave of air all around so I entered and had a browse. In amongst the sea of different brands of alcohol: luminous absinthe, sambuca and a million different Spanish beers, a familiar sight peeked out from behind them, I dismissed it at first and turned away in awe as I tried to comprehend what I’d just seen.

Can it be? Surely not, they wouldn’t sell Buckfast here… Would they? I walked back into the aisle trying not to get too excited, worried that any excitement would be quashed like fresh grape skins being pressed for it’s juice. It was Buckfast right enough this is ground-breaking, The delightfully yellow label shined at me brighter than the beaming sun hovering over the waterfront. The purple grapes on the front protruding out and almost bulging, looking fit for a Greek emperor with the all familiar text on the front:

-The name tonic wine does not imply health giving or medicinal properties.

I’ve now confirmed it’s Buckfast, but will I buy it? I know that chaos always follows and I lose all control of myself however it has been refrigerated and appears to have almost an icy jacket, the kind of jacket I wish I was wearing now to cool me down and stop this torrential storm of sweat.

-Holy shit, that looks refreshing.

I’d made my way back up the stairs, to the comfort of my hotel room with Buckfast in hand. I felt like a kid on Christmas as I opened the balcony door. I took a deep breath in and cracked the neck of the bottle. Our balcony overlooked the whole valley- it was quite the picturesque moment, poetic of sorts. The deep blue sky overhead with no painted marks of white at all, the only white being trails left by aeroplanes bringing holidaymakers to this sun drenched paradise, whilst others were banished back to the doom and gloom of reality. The air was warm all around me, tingling almost. It was a radiant heat which draped over me, a light wind every few minutes helped cool me as I took in the panoramic view of the bay. Surely nobody was allowed to be this happy, now I had my bottle of wine in hand I don’t think I could have ventured any further into rapture.

I took that first sip and as soon as it touched my lips I felt the caffeine coursing through my body, the delicious fortified grape juice coated my mouth and made me hyperactive. I was very excitable but felt a deep stirring subtle undertone of aggression peppered throughout. It wasn’t long before I was starting petty arguments with anybody who crossed my path. The classic tale of insecurity written throughout my fragile ego, it screamed loud.

Staggering throughout the whole resort I was on a path of destruction, now a distant memory but at the time very much a reality. Entering every bar on the strip and drinking my body weight in booze broken by an occasional snort. When my brain quelled at 7am, my conscious attention returned and I recall being in a very strange nightclub on a table fully undressed on my upper half. I had to get back to the room and make amends. I’d hate to blame God for this, but his men of the cloth made it and it can’t possibly be my fault that I flew off the handle. Never again… Until next time.

-I never did pay the dealer back for those last few scores.