Self-portrait, aged 24

By Paul D Robertson

Available For Sale

Charcoal paper, 50 x 35 cms.

Drawn while I was still studying fine arts at University, and while I was still drinking. I could not foresee any place in the world for myself, could not imagine what it would be I would do when I had finally finished my degree. Of course, I wasn't to know that I would sober up.

I managed to get through my degree without dropping any units, ,and with a distinction average. Just.

10 years ago; I drew this... (Written on the 20th December 2007.) Almost to the DAY. I was drunk drunk DRUNK; I looked older than I do now. My eyes were yellow in the corners, my skin sickening in turn and colouring. Liver damage… jaundice HURTS… I had lost my license for three years; totalled my 1976 Honda civic. This also entailed the end of my job delivering pizzas.
I spent four hours a day on public transport, refusing to give up; to fail or bail on even one unit in my degree. Sweating glazed nauseous.
Yeh.
I was so lonely I would go and stand near other students. To be near someone. Anyone.
I was trying to be healthy, any way I could. I was a lot more heavily muscled from weights in those days. I dunno why they thought that was funny. They made fun of me a lot. I smiled sick. Took it. I don’t think I replied in those years before I quit. I don’t know. But I don’t think so. I can’t remember… and i can’t imagine it now.
I Stuttered. I stood still. Stayed.
After I sobered up I couldn’t believe that I didn’t feel sick all the time. I would get a shock every morning… I am NOT in physical PAIN?
And there were more gifts. After two months my face had completely changed shape. The subcutaneous fluid retention – the swollen cheek and uncertain jaw – the bicycle tire of tummy that had plagued my thousands of workouts. They were gone. I aged backwards, fast.
And I craved.
After three months, sudden colour surged fiercely bright to my startled, clear eyes. So BRIGHT! The wild saturated breaking point of surreal. Verdant and intense, so intense.
I swear at that moment. I could hear a low buzzing and hissing from the colour; in sibilant, sympathetic resonance… synesthesia? Nah. Shock. I stared. I stared.

When I came back, sober, for the final year of my degree… I remember the nastiest of the girls who had ridiculed me stalked up to me with her coterie already giggling in anticipation. They were ak carefully so carefully dressed and rehearsed; each one.
‘Oh look it’s – ’ she began, her full pretty lips curling as she pointed to my crotch. Her voice gaining volume as she warmed to one of her favourite impotence jokes.
‘WOAH!’ I said, jumping out of my seat and knocking it over.
‘WOAH! Crystal! You look SO MUCH like Ricky Lake! Woah… Christ. I am so sorry… So sorry.’ I patted her arm and turned away, biting a knuckle. She really did look like Ricky Lake. And I really had not noticed until that point.
She said nothing, her mouth open. She looked like a still of Ricky in Indy punk parody.
The coterie cackled… ‘Oh gawd Crystal someone else noticed!’ a goth sweating in her blacks and face paint hiccupped after her bray of laughter.
‘You c*t.’ Crystal hissed to me.
Three months later I found myself in bed with her. Had I learned nothing?

I craved. I fantasised… the perfect drink, the mania returning. Sweet succulent forgiveness. An absolution of numbness. A raw promise in a few drops.
The welcome of the sharp ethanol BITE. (“A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep and I could laugh! I am light and heavy. Welcome!” – Shakespeare. I don’t think he meant a DRINK somehow.)

I crave. I still crave. Sometimes.

That warmth.
The guilt teased slowly outwards warmed and fooled… etiolated.
And, for that doomed moment, bearable.
At times, I ache for it. Nights that are hard and long. Sporadic; brutal want.
Still.
Yes.