A Distraction

I don't want to leave London man.

        I've been here since August 24th, 2014 – I remember the morning I got off the bus from Edinburgh at Victoria Station and walked, with everything I owned in the world in two backpacks, through Hyde Park to the Brazen Head pub/backpackers near Baker St, and set that everything down in the bar rather than store it somewhere more convenient, because I was scared I was going to miss the free breakfast.
        It's been almost two years since then, and now, in... Jesus Christ... 70 days. In 70 days I have to leave.
        Back to Australia, which doesn't even feel like home any more, just a place I used to live.

        Honestly, I wish people would stop asking me about it.
        I don't mean to be rude, or sound bitter (even though I am), or act like I'm not grateful for people's concern, I just wish that all the people who show their concern for my situation every day didn't express that concern in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. Like word for word, the same questions, every time. I've almost got the answers down verbatim now, so I can rattle them off and change the subject as quickly as possible so I can sidestep the undercurrent of impotent anger that runs through every answer, every insistence on my part that yes, it really is that hard, yes even though I'm Australian, “I know right? Your Queen on our money! You'd think wouldn't you! That it'd be easier!? But IT ISN'T!! IMAGINE!!!”

        But it's my fault too, me in my vanity, always talking about myself.
        “Hey, I'm a comedian, I'm from Australia, I've been here for almost two years... yeah actually my visa runs out soon, yeah I'm pretty bummed about it. Have I thought about the options? Well....”
        Fuck.

        But 70 days is a long time to spend on bitterness. That prospect alone is daunting.

        The other night I was walking home from the station around midnight while listening to a podcast, but about five minutes from my house I realised I still had 20 minutes of podcast left. I knew as soon as I walked in my front door I'd get distracted, and never end up finishing it, which would be a shame because it had thus far been lovely, so I decided to take a long detour through the park near my house, and ended up on the playground.
        I only mention all of this now so that I can tell the rest of the story without having people wonder what I was doing, at night, on a playground. All connotations of sexual deviancy and whatever other funny inferences people like to make aside, I'll tell you what I was doing at night on the playground last Saturday night.
        I was playing.
        Duh.
        Like, actually. I went down the slide and everything.

        So I wandered around the playground for a bit, having a go on all the different things, and somewhere in between the merry-go-round and the climbing wall (I know right they have a CLIMBING WALL ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!) I found, sitting on a bit of wooden edging between paving and sand, a toy car.

        It's a van actually.
        Specifically, a 1979 Matchbox 'Super Kings' Dodge Van, with two cartoon guys walking in joyous strides across the sunset, and the phrase 'It's Only Rock n Roll', in peeling paint on both side panels. One of the guys is playing the bass guitar.
        I've decided to call it The Rocker, because of the 'It's Only Rock n Roll' thing. Also because the suspension is fantastic, and although everyone who I've shown it to in the last week (plenty of people don't you worry) have commented on the suspension, I don't think anyone has really enjoyed the tenuous sexual innuendo that calling a van 'The Rocker' presents us with as much as they should be. So there's that too.

        Huuuuuunngghhhhhwwooooooohhhhahhhhhhhhhh... okay, I already feel a little bit better.

        I've been trying to write about this van for the entire week since I found it, because I knew it was important, but I couldn't figure out how or why. I thought for a little bit about writing a story about it with all characters and shit – like imagine if the driver of the van (absent, because that's how Matchbox cars are made, without a driver), imagine if HE was actually The Rocker, and I was trying to find him – “Who is he? Where did he go? Is anyone trying to find him!?” – and then at the end of the story I realise that actually I'VE BEEN THE ROCKER ALL ALONG!! Or maybe, like, we're all The Rocker, you know?

        I laughed at that awful idea for a while, and then I had the idea that maybe I could give the car back to the kid that I assume it belonged to until it was left that day on the playground.
        I'd have to get posters printed and stick them around the playground, but make sure I wrote them to specifically address the parents of the kids, rather than the kids themselves, and put them at Adult Eye Level and put pictures of the van, maybe even pictures of myself to show how fun and non-threatening I am and...
        ...the odd thing about considering how to pre-emptively convince people you haven't met yet that you're not a paedophile, is that it makes you feel an awful lot LIKE a paedophile, because only a paedophile would spend time doing that.
        I'm not a paedophile, you guys. I promise.

        So this is the idea now. I don't want to leave London, but I have to, that's the premise – a difficult fact that I am gradually coming to accept.
        But I found this fun toy ca..VAN! (a Van is not a Car) I found this toy van, and I'm going to take pictures of it, and of my life, for the next... 70 days. God damn it... breathe, breathe, breathe, it's going to be okay.

        I'm going take pictures of this van in the places I travel to and with the people I meet in the time that I have left before I have to leave London. Because I need a distraction. And whenever my inevitable narcissism turns conversations towards the fact that I have to leave, I can cut the lonely tension by telling people about this.
        And I can show them some pictures of The Rocker on a hill in Newcastle, and a windowsill in Glasgow, or next to some empty cans in the street in London. It's just like everyone's always said, the best way to cope with an impending, strangely-inevitable, death-like experience is to distract yourself by taking pictures of a toy van on bridges.

        That's kind of what leaving London feels like: impending death. So now, in the next 70 days, I'm going to live.

        HAH!! Nailed it.

        But seriously, 'The Rocker'. THE R-O-C-K-E-R!! Like rocking back and forth... like if it was a van that people were having sex in, you know? THAT'S why it's funny, cos it's like, a tiny little sex van. Hahahahaha sex.

Peace, Taco.

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