If you met anyone as whiny, as disobliging and egocentric as the average narrator of a novel in real life you’d find them unbearable. You’d give them about five minutes before you excused yourself to get another drink, or moved to a different carriage, or asked to be transferred to an alternative department so you didn’t have to work with them any more.  

I’m not like that.   

I love life. I love being alive.  

Sometimes I don’t. That’s not unusual. You don’t always love being alive. Nobody does.  

I’m an actor.  

That’s just something I wanted to get out of the way at the beginning.  

It is also why I will speak to you in the present tense. The silliest tense. And also the closest we come to talking directly to God.  

I will have little choice over what I choose to include or omit.  

I will be completely known.  

At the moment, for instance, I am waiting to cross the road to meet my friend Claudio at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Indigo Mood. I am unable to cross because a double-decker bus has stopped directly in front of me and I am anxious in case, by the time I have negotiated the length of the bus to slip between it and a black sports-utility vehicle, the traffic will start moving and I will have to hold my hands up in apology as I dash across, possibly into the path of an oncoming van in the next lane. The more I hesitate the more likely this becomes.  

To skirt over my present reduced circumstances: I have not had a paid job in three months, and that was a murder-mystery dinner show (jazz age champagne-factory owner). I am a month behind on my rent and while I have found a way to pay this month’s, the month in arrears squats on my shoulder and grins like a gatepost dragon. I am behind on most utility bills. I have measured out my life in coffees I cannot technically afford.  

So when Claudio offers to buy me a falafel in Indigo Mood, a restaurant selected for its proximity to his flat, I accept.  

He runs a hand through his curly black hair and tells me it’s good to see me. It’s been too long.  

I tell him I know what his schedule is like.  

Nah, fuck off, says Claudio. That’s no excuse. I don’t want to lose touch like that again. I need you to keep me human.  

I’m not sure I’m the best person to do that.  

Yeah yeah, he says. You’re the most human guy I know.  

Claudio and I get on well because we have known each other since the age of seven, which is to say thirty years, and we have, at some base level, no respect for one another: we do not fall for one another’s hasty renovations of character or revisionist sophistications; we are not convinced by one an-other’s adult selves. Before he found his place in the world, Claudio was, for me, a point of endlessly reassuring compar­ison: I may not have made much of my potential, but then there’s Claudio. I may be useless with money, but then there’s Claudio. I may have an addictive personality, but Claudio has literal, bona fide addictions.

I imagine he still sees me in exactly the same way: as a seven-year-old. And, being finan­cially if not culturally very secure, he likely sees the very same flaws in me that I do in him. Claudio. The Cloud. His mother was Portuguese.  

How much do you think one of those costs? I say.  

What?  

I point to the chilled counter, dressed salads and swords of raw meat under glass, glistening bottles of fizzy drinks.  

How much does a commercial chiller cabinet cost? says Claudio. I don’t know? A couple of grand? Why?  

I have found myself obsessed with how much things cost. I have become obsessed with money, I tell him.  

Oh man, says Claudio. That’s rough. That’s not for you. You should be focusing on the life of the mind.  

How long would it take me to even make the down payment on a chilled sandwich counter? I say. And then several years to pay it off, by which time it would have become obsolete and leaky and wouldn’t keep things at the correct temperature and I’d have to find the deposit to buy another.  

The thing is you don’t need to worry about that, says Claudio. You are never going to be in a position to need a commercial chiller cabinet.  

That’s probably true.  

I take a bite of my wrap. The tahini, the fresh mint leaves, the granular, yielding texture. The wrap has been assembled with such pride it almost brings me to tears.  

Look, homes, these random fixations sound to me like generalised anxiety disorder, says Claudio, caused by the condi­tions inherent to late capitalism. If you’d let me loan you some money—  

I could get you through this patch and you could concen­trate on your work.  

Ha, I say. You’d be like my patron.  

I could be your patron, says Claudio. Think about it.  

Claudio, at the beginning, had many patrons, but now he makes enough through ad revenue that he’d probably be okay if they abandoned him.  

I could be your patron, baby, he sings.  

I am not too proud to accept Claudio’s generosity. I have never turned down a drink. But I do not borrow money from friends; it messes things up. Especially when you think it won’t.   

Actually, though, I say, I am on my way somewhere.  

Work?  

Yes.  

You got a part?  

An audition.  

That’s great! Stage?  

More site-specific. About climate change.  

This is really good news, says Claudio, and he means it, god bless him, and takes a bite of his wrap. Things are looking, how you say, up?  

Things are looking, how you say, up.