White Elephant.

I met Lucinda in town - in a coffee shop - and there was a fat American with her, sitting at her table and he was going through photos with her... sitting beside her and showing her photo after photo after photo.

I watched from the outside.

They weren't talking much. When I came in the fatman jumped and guiltily started gathering up the pictures... I couldn't really see what they were off but there were a few of him. Long unwashed slightly bushy hair, a black beard, glasses... over weight... he looked like he'd spent too long playing a foxy elf princess on World of Warcraft...

'This is John".

"Oh hi John."

"Hi" Californian... confident... slightly nasal.

"he's an old friend of Barney's"

"Oh yeah I didn't think he had any."

John laughs... it sound like a small cavalcade of horsemen riding over a tin bridge.

"Have you seen him of late?"

"No" stimulus response.

"Well, Cornelius' let me know if you do see him... well let Lucinda know... I've got some news for him."

I didn't like that. He left. I liked that.

Lucinda went into denial mode, John had recognised her from a photo of Barney at some festival a year back, is an old freidn, she doesn't know what he wanted with him...

She's lieing.

I look in her bag when we got home, I had a feeling that she'd taken a photo when John was laughing.

She had.

It was of this.

Crap. Isn't it?

The artist.

The artist visited today. I was nearly done with the job - the figure stands at 8ft. I've grown fond of him.

The artist arrived and walked into the garage. He's in his thirties. Dense Dutch accent. He looked at the figure closely - it's yellow with a green torso and red legs. As requested.

The artist came in unannounced. He was with Josh, but for once Josh didn't seem to be there. I think... I think he didn't care for him... I mean care about him. He didn't care if he even existed.

In fact I kind of felt as if he had come to see me. To check me over after he had checked the Lego man.

He me up and down and smiled and then we looked at each other in silence.

"Thank you" he said.

I smiled.

And then he shook my hand and pull me into him... close... intimate. I could smell him - a sour smell - or cheese and loneliness.

"Flickerman est doof"

"Pardon".

"Ah-ha-ha-ha", and he winked, tapped his nose, and left.

Josh looked embarassed.

That isn't normal.

Josh... just Josh... and Lucinda... and me.

Josh turned up in a new Italian designer leather coat today. All brown soft leather and a fur collar. Like he didn't take a cut on this job... like he didn't take a cut...

He sits in the back of the garage I'm building Lego man in - constructing and shaping him from layers of resin - and Josh just sits there smoking rollies and chopping up lines on an old chess board I stashed in there...

This isn't like Josh, he's normally so... engaged. Off other places doing his things and making moves and being important and now here he is getting wired in the oily air Russel's garage and telling me how to build an outsized children's toy...

What happened to him?

He was always the focal point, the one who had, the one who you wanted to know...

I met him at the same time I met Lucinda - outside a party in Camberwell - in London. We spilled onto the pavement outside the venue, it was actually a kind of sex party, well that was the way it had been sold to me - a kind of leather fetish event - actually it seemed consist of a random bunch of caners in their mid 20s getting twisted in a middle of the room surrounded by a salivating pack of middle-aged S&M sleaze creatures - praying on the young - waiting for one of them to make a slip or stray too far from their group - and then they'd strike and lead the little drugged up away to be toyed in the sub-urban dungeons.

So we stayed close and protected each other - even though we were strangers. Josh was there at the centre - dishing out pills with an air of assurity - he was the one who has - he always like to be the one who has.

The night ended and we spilled outside - into the streets - we had survived and were united in our victory over the drool sprayers inside. We milled around, "where next? where next?", it was 2am, a Saturday, we had managed to avoid being drug raped and now we were asking each other "where next?"

And Lucinda pointed at me and said "I don't know where, but I'm going where ever he's going".

And I thought - "this doesn't happen to me" - and I looked at her - and that was it.

I'd like to pretend that we went off that night, but I was too munted and Josh was being an attention hoover, sucking the energy of everyone there towards himself, and I couldn't work out where there was space for me.

But I got her number and called her later that week.

Bravest thing I'd ever done.

Yeah, I'm afraid it was.

And now she lives with me. And Josh... Josh has bloodshot eyes, he doesn't shave, he's smoking and is doing a couple of grammes a day and I'm wondering what has happened to us...

How did this happen to me?

I'm meant to be a gardener - well that's what I was onel of the things I was meant to do. I've got the van, the wheel barrow and the web-site.

So how come I came to be employed building Giant Lego men out of resin for a Dutch artist - whose name I have never heard.

How come that has happened to me?

Because of Josh that's how come... he met the artist at a party in London and you can picture the scenario can't you? Do I need to fill in the gaps? The bullshit that was passed between them? The egos massaged? The lines chopped out?

I don't have to fill in the details do I?

The only thing you need to know is that Josh turned up at our flat on Monday and explained to me that what with it being Autumn and everything and CZ Gardens not doing so well and the glop-house DJ sets not really paying the rent... would I like to build a giant plastic Lego man for his mate... who was an artist and was Dutch.

No, he didn't know why he wanted why he wanted to giant plastic Lego man.

No, he couldn't buy one off Lego.

No, he wasn't taking a cut for any work I did.

So I've got a month, some plans, a lot of resin and vinyl and Josh sitting in the back of Russels garage watching me as I figure out where to being...

That's why I'm online now...

Researching...

How did this happen to my life?