Lloyd 1.2 (So many Feels)
The dickhead next door.
1.2
“Lloyd can I trouble you for a second Pal”.
Alex from next door had jogged past the driveway with his wet pepperami-ponytail
and his sweat soaked G-star raw jumper before stopping to bend over and stretch his stupid hamstring. As Lloyd shoveled snow away from the parked Luton Van he could see steam rising off his head. Hot bread. How was it even possible to go running at this time in the morning?
The man unsettled him, so as a coping mechanism he liked to put his right hand in his pocket and press his thumb against his middle and index fingers. If he concentrated on that instead of Alex’s smug face, inner peace didn’t seem quite so remote.
“Really busy at the mo Alex, I have to get this driveway clear and get to work”
Catching his breath and stretching his right quad by pulling his ankle up towards his bum, Alex replied with
“Oh it’s no trouble, it’s just a quickie”
Just. Fuck. Off.
Before Lloyd’s mother had died properly, Alex visited a few times to drop off gifts and cards from the congregation. He visited every day (five minutes at a time) for about a week, reading the odd parable of the bible in his low baritone voice. He knew that was the bare minimum he could get away with to appear altruistic and superior and clearly thought Lloyd owed him one because of it.
Out of all the people in the ministry Alex was Lloyd’s mother’s favourite and she always said it was ‘a blessing that his family lived next door.’ Admissions like that went some way to help increase an already inflated sense of entitlement.
His position as the secretary and treasurer (and arts director apparently) at the “Back to the Bible Church of Praise” gave him almost celebrity status in the eyes of Janice cornerstone. Lloyd sometimes got the impression that she would have preferred Alex as a son instead of him.
“…Our passion of the Christ play is coming up very soon; just over a week to go and we’re all very excited”
Hacking breaths,
“…We’re looking for people like your good self to get involved. I remember you expressed an interest the last time we spoke?”
He bent to touch his toes, panting.
“And well… we have a couple of positions up for grabs… due to sickness… and I think that you’d make an excellent Roman soldier!”
“Oh yes, I remember. I’d really love to do it this year Alex, but I don’t think that I could commit to rehearsing at such short notice. I’m working a lot of overtime just now, you see?”
“That’s quite alright Lloyd could I put you down as a maybe in case anything changes? Rehearsals will continue right up until Easter Sunday and even having you on standby would be most helpful. It’s very enriching you know, acting in front of all those people and spreading the word of our lord at the same time”
Shut up
“Yes I bet. I remember you saying.”
Clearing the last of the snow, Lloyd thought he may as well be shovelling shit. His gaze wandered, noticing Yep paw the interior living room window.
“If I can, I will. You can count on me”.
“Bless you Lloyd.”Alex made his way next door in his Velcro “Lacoste” trainers. Who did he think he was anyway? Brian Cox? If Alex ever had a legitimate emergency situation, Lloyd would help him, sure. That’s what neighbours were for, so long as it was menial. He didn’t have the time to act in a church production about The Passion of a Christ. He’d seen the film. Just no.
He left the church stuff to Jess. It was a way to stay connected with the community by proxy. They weren’t friends anyway, him and Alex, he wasn’t his pal; just because the glory hunter had brainwashed his wife and turned up at his house a couple of times when his mum was sick…
One day at school, a long time ago, the cool clique turned on Lloyd. Either out of boredom or cruelty the ring leader Sam Burtenshaw decided Lloyd had been punching above his weight for the last few months and ribbed him on his (his mothers) choice in trainers, before walking away with the rest of his posse, leaving Lloyd in the middle of the playground on his own, counting wet globs of chewing gum on the asphalt. What was so wrong with Hi-Tec squash shoes anyway? (he’d thought). They had excellent grip in the wet. He had felt so alone and then suddenly Alex was there.
Alex floated In and out of social cliques like a cross-pollinating bee of goodwill. He was handsome, studious and had a heart of gold, apparently. Everyone liked and accepted him. He was the brainiest kid in Lloyd’s class and was respected by teachers and pupils alike, later going on to be crowned Head boy in his final year. If you didn’t like him it was you that had the problem.
Lloyd would proudly walk into school behind him every day; follow him to his house for dinner; playing Tennis to him on the weekend and serve him with his lines for drama class whenever the opportunity presented itself. It felt good to have a friend that was revered by others when you felt like such a non-entity, but after time, Lloyd realized if he made a new friend, said friend would meet Alex and like him more; if he met a girl, she’d more than likely prefer Alexander the great, and if he struggled to get a B in school, well… Alex would get an A.
Alex had been slowly dismantling Lloyd’s identity, rendering his life meaningless.
Trying to distance himself from his next-door neighbour without appearing too rude was hard. People got older, grew apart, and old friendships became exactly that (old friendships). That was a given in evolving society, but it was hard to ignore someone when they lived only a few feet away.
Facebook:
They saw very little of each, but there was no way of de-friending Alex from Facebook without causing some kind of ill-feeling or retaliatory inquiry. With such close proximity he’d be on Lloyd’s case about it from the get go, unable to fathom why anyone wouldn’t want him in their life. Facebook exacerbated Lloyd’s already fragile state of mind and raised the following questions on a daily basis:
One) Why If Alex bought a new car that Lloyd chose to ignore, did he then have to receive photographs of it from every conceivable angle on his Facebook news feed?
Two) Why did Lloyd have to get a notification every time Alex’s (currently 1347) Facebook friends count increased by one new member?
Four) Why did Alex’s Facebook friends — the ones that actually bothered to write on his wall — have to be so blatantly in awe of him; highlighting the fact that Lloyd’s meager 97 acquaintances never wrote anything on his. The only thing Lloyd could get his ‘friends’ to do was to occasionally “like” a funny Photo of a socially retarded animal or “like” a quote that he had nicked from someone else’s status page; such was the reluctance to go out on a limb and say what he really thought about the world in case no-one cared.
Eight) Why was Lloyd so obsessed with checking the page of someone that made him feel rubbish?
….16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096
As Lloyd eased out the drive in as high a gear as possible he noticed no one else in the street with bins out and gritted his teeth at the pointless sleep-loss. The roads were quiet because lots of people had decided they couldn’t be arsed. It was ‘the norm’ to just give in to the elements. He felt a growing sense of superiority he’d went the extra mile but that feeling soon diminished.
Oh yeah, you can my book LLoyd on Amazon for £1.80 GBP or $2.99 USD
An absolute steal. Should be charging more really.
Anyway, Just type ‘Scott Lundrigan’ into the Search Engine… Or ‘Lloyd’.
Cheers.
Bye.
