Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE

66. Hotel California (Orbitally Ambient Mix) by Jam on the Mutha 

LEE AND Mark both liked boozing, but that's where the similarity ends. 

When I first met Lee, we'd drive to remote areas and dance topless to S'Express on his car bonnet. Or punch the air in surrender to Erasure in the rougher boozers in Shaw. Like me, he was a bit of a clown. He became a postie and went from being dead chatty to totally remote over the course of a few short years. I was too young to realize unsociable working hours aren't for everyone. 

He was humiliated by the regulars who stripped him naked and threw him out of the local boozers window after his behaviour had got more bizarre, as he sadly lost his faculty to communicate. It was sad to see Lee's demise, and I later felt tremendous shame that I was too apathetic to at least attempt to force some conversation out of him. I could see clearly he was worse than unhappy. 

By 1994 I could see myself spiralling and becoming more like him, who, by this point, was sadly no longer with us. After a failed attempt at self-poisoning, I moved away. Best thing I did until I met the missus.     

I first recall seeing Mark through a police car window. I was being driven off, and he was intrigued as teenagers are. A year later, he was taking LSD with us on the local playing field. I was aware of his young age and despite going through the massive fits of laughter stage; I felt a responsibility to be there for him as the more intense stage kicked in, which it already had with me. We must've walked around that field two hundred times, and Mark never once stopped laughing. 

He still hadn't stopped laughing throughout the nineties. Or, after a trip to Ibiza, where my mate thought it would be a good idea to knock back brandy and coke in the departure lounge with him. Mark returned home in hysterics as my mate languished in a Spanish cell for two days. 

I recall being round another mate's house and Mark putting Hotel California on. A permanent pub jukebox record, but it made sense to me during a particularly scrambled session. Obviously, I prefer this Orb version, which he would say is shit. Mark, with the same wicked twinkle in his eye as his dad Terry, was definitely more of a ladies' man. 

When the Queen died, I saw him for what would be the last time. Predictably laughing until King Charles spoke on the telly and he became furious that the guys playing pool were, well, playing pool. He eyeballed me, half expecting me to break the silence he had now orchestrated, but out of respect for him, I kept quiet. I'm now glad I did. Lee didn't get the outpouring of social-media love Mark has rightly received. He would have in today's age. That love still needs to translate into a better understanding of one another.

God bless you, Lee and Mark. Your lights shine bright.