2-jersey Sunday

I finally – finally – got both my jerseys back:

Jersey 1:

This jersey was discarded 10 days past, into the back of Ross’ car, once I'd had enough tequila to be impervious to cold. I failed to even consider its existence when we dropped the car off at somewhere or other – time, space and consideration were being… flexible – and hopped into a different car. Its value in my life didn’t surface into consciousness the next morning at breakfast. Nor later, when I took my leave of Ross and the general neighbourhood in which his car was parked. I think someone slipped some denial into my hangover.

This jersey was retrieved from Mike & Tia’s bedroom cupboard this morning while they lingered in bed, happy in their acknowledgement that, beneath their covers, they were nekkid as dolphins in the seaweed.

Jersey 2:

This jersey was discarded as too sodden to be of further use, on Friday afternoon, on Bronwen & Darren’s sunroom couch. In the calamity of gathering 6 people together to leave for a wedding, it failed to be packed away into my bag and carried with me. My jersey and I also failed to reunite at 2am the next morning when I returned to the house to deliver a sack of Rob: I realised after Rob had been tucked in, and the back door closed, and the garage door closed, and the lights turned off, that I wouldn’t be calling Bron to ask if she could quickly open up again so I could get my jersey… and so it proved a sad, wet and chilly trip home on the scooter for me. Oh how I missed my jersey as the rain sliced through my thin black dress-shirt like the fingernails of Odin’s mistress spurned.

This jersey was retrieved this evening from the very same couch. It hadn’t been moved or rearranged at all. I feel sure that many thoroughfarers had glanced at it – brown, limp and undistinguished – and given it a berth. Not a wide one – it is just a jersey after all – but a berth nonetheless.

And so this Sunday evening, when I finally rode home, I was wearing my scaffy, striped Liberty’s jersey, my black ribbed jersey which had shared cupboard space with Tia’s dresses, and my brown zip-up polarneck which had lain unwanted on the sunroom couch. I was toasty, like a Sunday morning crumpet. I was warm, like a fuzzy-wuzzy in a tumble-dryer. I was cozy, like a guy who’s run out of hugs and is ready for bed.