Bebo

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	Chapter Two
	Friday 4:15 PM. My clock card springs back out of the machine at me with a joyful little click. It is covered with small lines of smudgy black numbers; my clock in/out times for the past week. Every arrival, departure, break and lunchtime is marked down here in black and white. This is how I’ve marked time for the last seven days of my life. The last entry, the one that has just been printed, is at this precise moment the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Fri-: PM. – 4:15. Freedom. Let the good times roll. My pulse is quickening and my spirit soars and flutters as I walk through that door out of the darkness and the stench and into the wonderful pale golden light of an early autumn afternoon. Something inside me feels as if it will burst as I bounce across the tarmac and into the canteen/laundry/locker room building. My meat-spattered overalls, still wet from cleaning down the burger machine, are stripped off in less than a minute. My boots, helmet and hairnet are stuffed carelessly into my locker, the door slammed firmly shut behind them. I breathe a long, slow sigh at the blessed relief of slipping my feet into a pair of trainers (something I have been fantasising about all day). I grab my bag and I am out of there, pausing only to sling my bundle of wet smelly overalls into the laundry wheelie-bin. I walk quickly towards the car park. It is pretty common for the factory managers to try and impose forced weekend overtime on their employees. It is a mark of how badly run this place is. They take on orders that they cannot possibly deliver on and expect their workers to fill them using shitty equipment which is constantly breaking down. When they can’t they are bullied into working long hours of unwanted overtime. The veiled threat is always that if you refuse to do overtime you will be sacked on some other pretext. Of course the cunts will never openly come out and say this. Benzies doesn’t allow a union, so there is fuck all we can really do about it anyway. The longest shift I have ever worked is seven in the morning until midnight. Seventeen fucking hours. Illegal? Probably, but rock the boat too much and you’ll lose your job, and I’ve got rent to pay and a life to live. Although admittedly, for five days of the week it’s not much of a life. None of that matters at this point though, because I can see the car and that means that I am well out of earshot of the factory. I always think that my car looks slightly unreal, sitting there exactly where I left it nine hours and fifteen minutes ago. It seems as if a lifetime has passed and yet, there it is, with the same tapes and empty fag packets on the dashboard. The growing wave of Friday elation has filled me to such a point that I am humming to myself, an old Pointer Sisters tune, as I settle into the drivers seat. “I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it, I know-I know-I know I want you, want yooooooooooooou!” I am singing at the top of my voice as I pull out of the car park. It has been a long week. Thank fucking Crunchie it’s Friday. Thank fuck. By the time I get home I am feeling unstoppable. This is the best feeling in the world. Better than any fucking drug. If someone was somehow able to isolate whichever chemicals or hormones or whatever the fuck it is the body and brain uses to produce this feeling and boil them all down to pill form, they could make millions. It would outsell ecstasy ten to one. No actually, scratch that, a hundred to one. In fact I am in such a good mood that I barely even notice that my wanker flatmate is in the living room with his girlfriend. “Alright Dan?” I call slamming the front door behind me. And then sticking my head round the doorframe. “Hiya Cally how’s it going?” She says hello and gives me a smile that gives me the sudden urge to take a cold shower. Very cold. “Going out tonight are we?” His tone of voice is faintly disapproving. “Yeah, probably just going down the Wanchor for a while then maybe up to Starski’s.” The Wanchor is a pub in the square, run by a bad tempered ex-football player, who, at the peak of his career had the distinction of spending about three seasons in the Greenock Morton first team. It is really called the Anchor bar but someone keeps painting a big black letter W at the beginning of the word anchor. Every time they scrub it off you just know that before the end of the week it will be back sitting smugly in place. No one knows who does it. Mike has a theory but it’s too stupid for words. If I ever meet the person responsible I will shake their hand and buy them a pint. “What are you two up to tonight?” I ask. Dan glances over at Cally who looks down coyly. “Oh you know, just staying in and watching a video or something.” What he actually means by this is. “Oh you know, just staying in and having sex with my incredibly gorgeous girlfriend whom I don’t deserve and who needs her head examined for going out with me in the first place…or something.” He gives me a repulsively smug little smile which makes me want to pick up his signed Famous Grouse rugby ball from the shelf above the stereo and beat him over the head with it until blood starts coming out of his ears. I seethe inwardly as I stamp off through to my bedroom and start pulling piles of clothes out of my chest of drawers. I am however, in too good a mood to let anything bother me for long. The phone goes just as I’ve found a clean pair of jeans and a decent T-shirt. I know who it is before I pick up the receiver. “Fuck head.” “Mike,” I answer, cradling the phone against my neck with one hand and pushing the living room door gently closed with the other. “How’s it going?” “Not bad, not bad. What’s happening tonight?” Mike insists on asking me this every week even though he knows I don’t have a fucking clue. “Combat, how the fuck am I supposed to know? I haven’t been home for more than five fucking minutes.” The cunt only does it to wind me up. “You want pills?” I lower my voice, the living room door is shut, but still. “That’s a fucking stupid question, what are they?” “Either brown speckled Mitsubishi’s or Crowns. I haven’t spoken to Maggie yet.” Maggie is the guy we get most of our drugs from. Like most small time dealers I know, he’s in it for the image. Maggie, with his baggy jeans and ever-present mobile, is a complete fuckwit. I remember him from school. He was one of those people with no social status whatsoever, now he thinks selling pills has made him somebody. He sells his fair share of pills, I’ll give him that, but drug dealing isn’t exactly quantum physics. Any moron can shift heaps of drugs, it’s not hard. The difficult bit is carrying it on for any length of time without attracting the attention of the authorities. Something Maggie has no chance of doing. I have personally seen him pull a bag of about a hundred Radiations out of the inside pocket of his jacket and start counting them out on one of the back tables of the Wanchor. He’s going to get caught. No two ways about it. There’s probably a cell somewhere, made up prison neat, ready and waiting for him right now. “I’m picking the Dead man up at eight, want me to come in for you first?” “Cool, Cool.” This is our usual Friday night procedure, we shouldn’t really have to talk about it but Mike’s phone call, like so many other things about Friday nights, has become a kind of ritual. I check in the fridge and am pleased to discover inside the makings of The World’s Greatest Sandwich (believe me it deserves the capital letters). To make The World’s Greatest Sandwich you need four essential ingredients. 1- The mango chutney they give you when you buy popadums from the curry place just down the road from my flat. 2- Honey roast ham. 3- A red onion. 4- French’s American yellow mustard (the kind that comes in a squeeze bottle). Got all that kids? Good, then we can begin. First you butter two slices of bread (the kind you get in Tesco that you have to slice yourself). Then you take your mango chutney and spread a thick layer onto one of your slices of bread (you will probably have to make do with any old mango chutney because without knowing where my flat is it’s pretty difficult to find Kismet’s house of curry). Next you chuck on loads of ham, place thinish slices of red onion on top of that and smother the whole fucking lot in French’s yellow mustard. Top it off with some iceberg lettuce and Robert, as they say, is your mother’s brother. I sit on the edge of my bed drinking a glass of milk, munching on this culinary delight and watching the night’s happenings on Ramsey Street. Neighbours is a strange addiction. It’s unbelievably shite but everyone in the country watches it. As far as I know no other country in the world subscribes to this bizarre phenomenon. Even the Australians, who invented it, avoid it like the plague. I mean, what interest do I have in Toadie’s antics or Karl’s endless whining? Why is it important to me that Harold has lost his fucking tuba again? Why do I care what improbable money making scheme Lou has cooked up this time? Why in fact, as a human being does any of this matter do me at all? The answers to all these questions elude me, and there I am at five forty every weekday, like a lemming, throwing myself off some sort of shit television cliff. I take a long hot shower and use Dan’s fancy shower gel as a minor act of unspecific revenge. As I am making my towel wrapped back to my room I meet Cally in the hall, obviously on her way out to get something. She smiles all dark hair and big brown eyes. “Want anything from the shops?” she asks. “Nah, I’m ok thanks.” I reply. She smiles that smile again. “Well ok, have a good night then.” “Cally, why are you going out with the king of the assholes?” One day I will actually ask this out loud. One day but not today. “Yeah you too.” I mumble. And then with a slam of the door and the sound of receding footsteps down the stairs she’s gone, leaving behind only a slight trace of lingering perfume. Combat Mike arrives at seven thirty resplendent in a T-shirt that says, Mister Motherfucker, on it in great big letters. “Is she here?” is the first thing he asks as I open the door. “Is who here?” I ask evenly. “Her royal fuckability. Who do you think?” “If by that you mean Cally, then yes, but so is Dan." "Oh," he says, as if he wasn't then she might leap on him in an uncontrollable frenzy of lust. "Want to go through there and shoot him with an air rifle?" "Mike," I reply. "Nothing could be dearer to my heart but I'm afraid this flat is without an air rifle." He throws up his hands and rolls his eyes in disgust. "Jesus Christ shit head, I can just about let you off with not having a dish washer, but this, this must be punished." To make clear his disapproval at my lack of firepower he rummages through the fridge and comes out with a can of Budweiser, pops the ring pull, gulps down a great swallow and belches loudly. Almost as an afterthought he adds, "Want one?" The Buds are Dan's but I take one anyway. Odds on I won't see him again until Sunday night. I grab the weekend essentials (cash, fags, lighter, chuddy) from my bedside table and stuff them into my pocket. I mentally debate whether to wear my old jacket or my new green and white Firetrap one, which will by Sunday doubtless be Swiss cheesed with fag burns and bomber holes. "Fuck it," I mutter under my breath and grab the Firetrap. Style, after all is more important than practicality. Mike slags my jacket out the front door, down the stairs and all the way to the car, until I am finally forced to tell him that if he says that it's a tosser’s jacket again, I will stab him. He smiles and nods happily at this. In the car I attempt to ask him about Maggie but I can't contend with The Chemical Brothers playing at the kind of volume that would vaporise a buffalo, so I save the question until later. A middle aged man digging his garden in an ill fitting blue T-shirt glares our way and turning his head follows our multi-decibel progress. Backwithanotheroneofthoseblockrockin' BEATS. Just then, with block-rockin beats kicking in at full volume, driving recklessly fast down the high street, windows down in a shite bucket old Vauxhall Nova, something inside me clicks. For the first time in almost a week, I feel like me again. I'm back, I think to myself. Yes fans, I am one hundred per cent truly fucking back and ready for action. Combat Mike probably wonders why I'm laughing but the music is too loud for him to ask. Stevie Dead lives with his mum in the middle of nowhere, a good five miles out of town. His house used to be a worker’s cottage attached to the nearby farm until, I suppose, tractors and combines came along and the farmer didn't need his workers anymore. Stevie’s Dad bought it for his new wife to move into when they got married. It was a good job really that it was all paid for by the time Stevie’s Dad did a runner, or Mrs D (Stevie’s last name is Docharty) would really have been in the shit. He was some kind of bigwig salesman as far as I can make out; Stevie doesn't really talk about it. Mike reckons he was probably fucking his secretary and I'm inclined to agree with him. Of course he would never say this in front of Stevie. Callous as he can be, I'm sure even he realises that this would be overstepping the mark. The yellow light which floods out into the dusk as Stevie’s mum opens the front door has a welcoming homely quality which almost brings a lump to my throat. It reminds me of my Grannie’s house and home baking. "Alright Mrs D, how's it going?" Mike asks. "Ah hello there, he's upstairs, come in, come in, would you like a cup of tea?" She moves aside ushering us in with sweeps of her hand. An old woman, old for a mother anyway, with grey hair and a soft Dublin accent. "No thanks Mrs Docharty," I answer. The night is young but we can't afford to dally. "Well up you go then, up you go." She motions us through the kitchen with more long sweeps of her hand, always smiling. There is something not right about Stevie’s mum, in the head I mean. It's the way she's always so content, smiling and nodding at whatever you say. I don't think she ever got over the shock of her husband leaving her like that, so suddenly and out of the blue. It's like there's something missing inside her. She's a nice woman though, she's one of the dinner ladies at our old primary school, always used to give me extra chips. In fact the only time I can ever remember seeing Stevie (possibly the most placid person I have ever met) get really angry was when some snotty little kid (well I suppose he would have been a big kid to us then) in the year above us said that her custard tasted like horse spunk, and that she probably wanked off the horse herself. I swear, to this day, I have never seen anyone's nose bleed like that. Stevie got suspended but no one ever so much as mentioned his mother's custard again. We can hear music drifting from the end of the hallway, coming from the trapdoor which leads into the attic. Since the cottage has only one bedroom Stevie lives up there. "Hey, Deadboy!" Mike shouts. After a few seconds the music turns down a bit and Stevie’s head appears upside down in the hatchway, mop of brown hair hanging around his head like an uncombed halo. "Alright?" he says and grins. Stevie, who works on the local golf course, also has that Friday feeling. You can always tell. He lets the ladder down in a series of clanking jerks. We clamber up, Mike confidently, me gingerly. I've hated ladders ever since I fell off one when I was little. We sit on the threadbare sofa (there is quite a lot of room up here) and listen to Pete Tong on Radio One as Stevie finishes getting ready, pulling on a jumper and raking around for his keys, all the while taking the occasional toke on the joint which is burning in the ashtray. When it is about half finished he passes it to Mike. Mike passes it on to me and I take a long draw and hold it in my lungs for what seems like a long time. It's almost properly dark by the time we get going. I am only able to see what is picked out by the headlights as we drive away from Stevie’s. Everything else is a black silhouette against a sky painted blue-gold by the death-throes of the day. High above, the first cold stars of the night are scattered like lonely diamonds. Mike drives far too fast. Most of the time I can cope with it but there's this one particular corner that really scares the hell out of me. It's a sharp right-hander on the road from Stevie’s house back to town. Every time we go round it, Mike, foot flat on the boards, grinning like a maniac, I grip white knuckled onto the door-handle, close my eyes, grit my teeth and wait for the end. And then suddenly it's past in a tingling burst of adrenaline which leaves me slightly breathless. Stevie hands us a Tenants each from the plastic bag at his feet. A Basement Jaxx tune is playing on the radio as the orange lights of the town become visible in the distance. When we arrive at the Wanchor I notice two things. Firstly The Wanchor has metamorphosed into the plain old Anchor again, but I'd be willing to put money on it that the W will be back up there before the weekend is out. Also there is some really fucked kid sitting on one of the outside windowsills. He looks up at us with red eyes as we pass and asks if we want any Vallies. Maggie is waiting for us at one of the back tables. I'm surprised by how quiet the place is. There are only a few people here. The jukebox is playing Why does it always rain on me by Travis. I wave to some girl standing at the bar who I vaguely know from somewhere. Her checked shirt and Kickers wearing, gelled haired boyfriend gives me the evil eye. The barman, morosely polishing glasses, thinks I am waving to him and he gives me a stern nod, which I think is supposed to convey friendliness coupled with a no nonsense attitude. Stevie nudges me, smirking, as we approach Maggie’s table. He is wearing a big puffy Diesel jacket which was probably very expensive. From the breast pocket, despite the fact that it is dark outside, hang a pair oval lensed sunglasses, the letters CK are clearly visible, embossed on the legs. Maggie (who drives a brand new Ford Focus) would dearly love you to think that all his expensive clothes/trinkets are paid for by his dealing. The fact that his dad is an oil company executive and his mum is a solicitor might have more to do with it than dirty money earned in Scarface style drug deals. "Good evening party people, what can I do you for?" "Twenty," Mike says without preamble. We have already discussed it in the car and given Mike all the money. "What are they?" I ask. Maggie grins. "Quality merchandise my friends, quality merchandise." Told you he was a twat didn't I? "Twenty it is then." With a quick glance to make sure no one is looking, he starts counting pills out on the table. I notice as he does it that they have the little three diamond Mitsubishi logo stamped on them. I'd have preferred Crowns but Mitsu's will do. When Maggie is finished Mike pockets the pills and hands over our crumpled little wad of notes. "Well," Maggie says getting up and stretching. "Nice doing business with you but I've got things to do, I'll see you later on. If you want any more party prescriptions just come see Dr Maggie." We all make wanker signs behind his back as he leaves the pub. Mike shares the pills out into our cupped hands, five for me, five for Stevie and ten for himself. Me and Stevie only buy personal but Mike always buys enough so that if he sells half he will have got his for free. I stash mine in the yellow egg bit from the middle of a Kinder Surprise which I always keep in my pocket at weekends. It keeps all your drugs together and intact, rather than having to hunt through the bottom of your pocket for a semi crushed pill at four o'clock in the morning. It is also easy to grab and get rid quickly should the need arise. The old saying, There's no such thing as paranoia, they really are out to get you, comes to mind. I light a cigarette as Mike goes to the bar to get the drinks in. By about ten the Wanchor has filled up, mostly with noisy groups of young men with their girlfriends in tow. I sit watching them sipping on my third beer, which is not going down at all well. I've got that fidgety, shaky, butterflies in the stomach, pre-neck feeling. It's as if your body knows what's coming and it's scared. "Why?" Mike says suddenly derailing my train of thought. We look at him. "Why what?" Stevie asks eventually. "I mean, look at these fuckers. Why?" "Mike, what the fuck are you talking about?" "Look at the people in this bar." We look. The bar is a sea of Ben Sherman checked shirts and Teddy Smith jumpers. I swear, the wankers in our town are at least ten years behind the rest of the world. I see them every week at Starski’s, staggering around on the dance floor with their arms around each other singing Angels by Robbie Williams at the tops of their lungs. Filling in time until they can go outside and pick a fight. "Yeah what about them?" Asks Stevie. "What have they got that we haven't?" "A space where their brain should be to keep their loose change, I don’t know Mike help us out here." "Women, girlfriends, fanny." He gesticulated in the direction of a big cunt on the pool table called Martin Neale. "I mean look at him, he's a fucking troglodyte. A big, stupid, violent, insensitive, sexist, racist, sack of shit. All the things we are constantly told that women find unattractive and offensive in a man, and have you seen the girlfriends he's had?" He continued, counting off names on his fingers as he said them. "Amy Shaw, Nadia Daily, Carol McDowell, Karen Campbell. Every one of them intelligent and stunning, and yet they all still went out with captain fucking caveman over there. Why? Why do girls go for wankers?" He paused to swallow from his bottle of Bud. "Why don't women want anything to do with us?" He’s looking at me as if I should be able to come up with some magic answer for him. "Mike," I say, " If you want to improve your relations with the opposite sex you might like to stop using, Hello little girl, want to see what's in uncle Mike’s hairy sack of magic, as a chat up line." He stares at me, narrow eyed. "What do you mean?" "Just a thought." I say. We neck the first pill of the night at about half past ten. Starski’s stops letting people in at eleven, we're going to have to make a move soon. As soon as it's swallowed away in a mouthful of beer the nervous tension subsides, it's done now, for better or worse, no turning back, no aborting this mission. If this is to be the one that kills me, fatally damages my brain or my liver, then so be it, we are now at the mercy of whatever gods there may for recreational drug abusers. At the bar I get talking to some sketchy looking guy wearing a Celtic shirt and a pair of those stupid Adidas bottoms with the poppers up the side. I buy three wraps of speed off of him and lock myself in a toilet cubicle where I neck them one after another, wincing at that horrible chemical-catspiss taste but carefully licking each wrap paper clean all the same. After a long swig from my bottle of apple Hooch, rinsed around my mouth to get rid of the taste, I crumple up the wrap papers, flush them down the toilet and make my way back to our table. Combat Mike and Stevie Dead are arguing about something when I arrive. "Mike," Stevie says, exasperated, "no matter how many times you tell us it doesn't get any more likely. In fact it's possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I think I know what they're arguing about. "I'm fucking telling you," shouts Mike. "Barry (The disgruntled ex-Greenock Morton superstar) goes out in the middle of the night and paints that W on himself and then every few weeks he scrubs it off again. It's like a gimmick, gives the place a bit of character and intrigue. Brings a bit of extra business in. Think about it, it makes sense, you know it does!" Mike is getting a bit angry at this point so I decide to try and calm him down. "It's Ok Mike, everyone is entitled to their opinion. It's just that yours is, well, wrong. That's all." I turn to Stevie. "Better get a wiggle on," I say, as much to stop me having to listen to Mike’s reply as anything else. We stand up to leave, and pausing only to steal a couple of unattended drinks from a nearby table, (which we hide up our sleeves) make our way towards the door. Just as we are about to make our exit, Barry leans over the bar clutching the phone in his hand and red faced, bellows, "PHONE CALL FOR DEAD." Stevie raises a sheepish hand. "Here," he mumbles. Stevie is not talking for long, long enough though for Mike to lose two quid in the gambling machine. His swearing provides a soundtrack as we make our way through the door and out into the frosty night air. "Who was that on the phone?" I ask, taking my fags from my inside pocket and offering him one. "Andy 'n that. He was wandering if we were going up to Starski’s." Good, I think. At least there will be some alright people there. As we walk along the road drinking our stolen Millers we become part of a procession. Young people making their way up from the town’s pubs to catch the doors at Starski’s. I recognise almost all of them. In a town where everybody went to the same secondary school this is a fact of life. People are talking and laughing, intent on having a good time. There is a nice vibe in the air. In a few hours time this will reverse itself. The procession will stagger its way down the road instead of up, away from Starski’s towards the twenty four hour BP garage at the bottom of the high street. Alcohol induced violence will hang heavy, like a bitter odour in the air. The good vibe gone sour. As I walk my body begins to feel as if it has been kicked up a gear, my internal accelerator floored, my system beginning to rev. A spiky sweat breaks out on my back. I fumble through my pockets for chuddy and light another cigarette, my third in about ten minutes. I am talking rubbish to Stevie a mile a minute, jabbering on and on about football and music, among other things. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye for a moment then laughs and asks me where I got the speed from. I smile, laugh and offer him a fag and a piece of chewing gum. I talk to this guy Kev who was in my maths class, who I haven't seen for ages. Deep in my guts I can feel the first little shifting tingle of the pill coming on. The bouncers at Starski’s are pricks. Fortyish, fat and ugly. They seem long ago to have taken a dislike to Combat, Dead and me. Every week without fail we know we will get searched, every week without fail they find nothing. Standing in the cue I pull the Kinder Egg from my pocket and surreptitiously, pretending to scratch the back of my neck, transfer it to the zip up pocket bit in my collar where the hood folds into. At the head of the line I can see Andy, Wild Thing and The Discopistol getting searched. Wild Thing catches my gaze and raising his arm throws a big over-enthusiastic wave my way and then mimes necking a pill. I nod my head and give him the thumbs up, he returns the gesture with a big cheesy grin and then it's his turn for the rummage/fondle/frisk that passes for a search in this dive. By the time I'm halfway down the queue my skin is starting to feel clammy and I feel a little dizzy and unsteady on my feet. By the time I'm two from the front my head has taken on that floaty feeling that tells you the come up is on the way. I hand the guy behind the kiosk my fiver and one of the two bouncers, who haven't searched anyone since Andy, The Discopistol and Wild Thing, says sternly, "Just a minute there, empty out your pockets." I pull out the contents of my pockets and place them carefully on the counter. Suddenly I start to feel queasy. I gag once as the bouncer begins to pat me down. The thought arrives in my head like a freight train. Oh my god, I'm going to be sick right down the back of his collar. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply through my teeth. Oh dear god, they're going to beat the living shit out of you, my mind gibbers at me. And then suddenly, with no warning, just as I'm prepared for the worst, I am through with an unfriendly pat on the back and a gruff. "On you go then." I head straight for the toilets. Everything is too bright, the light has a weird quality, white porcelain and grey toilet cubicles. Everything seems remarkably peaceful and still and quiet. The music from the dance floor seems distant, robbed of all its vitality, reduced to a far off thumping throb. I lean against the sinks for a while, drink a little water until the sick feeling passes. When I look in the mirror my pupils are huge. I grin broadly at myself in the mirror. It feels as if I'm walking on little fluffy clouds as I make my way back into the club, although calling it a club is an insult to proper clubs. It actually has a neon sign outside which flashes the legend. - STARSKI'S NITE SPOT. On off, on off in a horrible garish pink. Except of course when it rains then it says - S ARSK ' NITE OT. By the time I am finally able to force my way to the bar I realise I am mashed out of my face. The effects of ecstasy are referred to in different ways across the country. Eckied, pilled-up, etc, our particular regional variation is mashed. As in to mash. Are you mashed? Are you mashing tonight? I don't know how widespread this particular name is but if you call it something different then you'll just have to put up with it. I know it's a bit of a stupid name and if it bothers you that much well… let's just remember whose story this is, ok. I order a Smirnoff Ice and a double vodka and coke from a good looking young barmaid who takes what is supposed to be a friendly smile the completely wrong way and glowers at and then overcharges me. I don't give a fuck though. I weave off to find Mike and Stevie. They are sitting at one of the corner tables against the wall with Wild Thing, who is speaking to some blonde girl in a manner which suggests they will be very well aquatinted before the evening is over. I can see Andy and The Discopistol in the cue for the bar. I flop down beside Stevie and ruffle his scruffy mop of hair, he pats my arm and I shout in his ear. "Mashed?" "Eh." "Are you mashed?" He looks at me, pupils huge, dopey grin on his face. "Fuck aye!" I hug him and the bird sitting with Wild Thing gives us a weird look, obviously clocking the state of our pupils, I just smile and give her the thumbs up. Wild Thing leans over and taps me on the knee. "Who's got pills?" he asks. I pass him on to Mike. The horrible, no taste wanker of a DJ puts on, I feel like a woman, by Shania Twain. Almost all the women in the place totter onto the dance floor on their platform shoes, dragging their mates by the hand behind them. I take this opportunity to lean over and steal four something and cokes from the table nearest us. Wild Thing takes a sip of his and pulls a face. "Tastes like fucking Malibou," he shouts over the din and hands it back. I down them both, one after the other in quick gulps. This pill is kicking in bigstyle now. I want to go and dance but it is against everything I believe in as a person to dance to Shania fucking Twain. As if reading my mind Mike stands up and shouts. "What is this filth? We can't fucking dance to this." And then, jaw protruding unnaturally he strides purposely off in the direction of the DJ box. I watch his head as it makes bobbing progress across the dance floor. When the D.J turns the volume down for the bit that goes, "Man… I feel like a woman,” so that everyone can sing along and wave their hands in the air, Mike turns, catches my eye, points at the headphone wearing dick in the box and mouths the word wanker. I nod. I offer a cigarette to Wild Thing and his new-found lady friend (whose name turns out to be Debbie). We sit and talk shit for a while until Andy and The Discopistol finally return from the bar walking very slowly, carrying about eight drinks each. From the way The Discopistol is walking, it is clear that he has not yet become The Discopistol: he is not swaying from side to side, and is carefully side-stepping his way through the crowd instead of stumbling his way through with all the grace and decorum of a wildebeest in the depths of the mating season. Perhaps I should explain. The Discopistol’s given name is Eric Gerard. He works as a cashier in the Royal Bank of Scotland in the high street. Small, neat, quiet, with quietly combed black hair and glasses. The kind of person your mum cites as an example when she scowls and says why can’t you be more like your friend …… Get the picture? For five days a week Eric is a nice boy, a good boy. But, when he has more than four drinks, a horrible transformation begins to take place. Usually it takes between six and eight drinks before the change becomes complete. And then just like in the cartoon when Eric eats a banana he is BANANA MAN. When Eric has a drink he is the DISCOPISTOL. What you have to bear in mind is that Eric and The Discopistol are two entirely separate people. Whereas Eric hardly ever swears, The Discopistol is possibly the most creatively foul-mouthed person I have ever met. Eric only ever intends to go out for a few quiet drinks, The Discopistol has an almost unnatural hunger for alcohol. I have personally witnessed this clean-cut young man with his white shirt and glasses standing on a table, double vodka in each hand screaming, “Ahhhhyaaafuckincunts, I had a fist up yer sister ya fuckinwanks. Up yerrrrr siiiister.” This was shortly before the bouncers escorted him from the premises and some guy smacked him in the mouth. This happens to The Discopistol a lot, he brings it on himself. People don't tend to react very well to someone claiming to have a video of their girlfriend fucking a donkey. Andy sits down beside me and shouts something in my ear which I don't catch. I don't get to ask him to repeat himself however because just then I am distracted by Mike standing on the edge of the dance floor waving his arms and making a horrible noise at me. "Duchemmmmichhhaaalhers!" he appears to be saying. He grabs my arm and pulls me, feeling decidedly rubbery out of my seat. "What?" I scream at him. "C'mon duchemmmmmicalhhhers!" He insists. I am about to tell him that he should sit down, when the D.J (with astounding lack of skill) mixes in the next tune. Suddenly it sinks in what he means. As the opening bassey kickdrums of Hey Boy, Hey Girl by the Chemical Brothers kick in I claw myself upright. "C'mon," I scream at Stevie "Duchemmmmmmmmmicalhhers!" The fact that Combat got any tune that's not by Steps or Britney fucking Spiers played is amazing enough, but the fact he got a tune of this quality on is nothing short of a miracle. Ok, ok it's crap and cheesy but none of us are in the mood to be picky. Beggars cannot be choosers. Within seconds we're all right in the middle of the dance floor jigging about like idiots. Everyone is there Mike, Stevie, Andy, Wild Thing, The Discopistol and me. I also recognise some guy I think is called Jimmy or something and a few of his mates that I sort of know. Sound fucking people. There are also a fair few people I've never seen in my life before but I decide they're my kind of people anyway. I'm doing my usual dancing, ridiculously over the top footwork and minimal arm movements, which I always swear come Monday will never see the flashing lights of another dance floor. Quite a few of the checked shirt brigade, and most of the more dressed up girls are looking at us in disgust from the sidelines. It doesn’t fucking matter though because at this precise moment I'm the lord of all creation. As Mr Jim would have said, I am the fucking Lizard King, I can do anything. Fuck them, what the fuck do they know about having a good time or anything else. They stand there at the side of the dance floor too fucking scared of someone thinking they look stupid to dance. Fuck them and what they think. We know that we're cooler, better, freer people than they'll ever be. I'm laughing as I grab Stevie and hugging him hard I tell him that I love him. I dance my way through the next three songs even though they’re shit. By the time I leave the floor I’m sweaty, weak-kneed and shaking. I know this feeling only too well. I check my watch. One o’clock. The dunt from the first pill has begun to fade. That feeling that you wish would never end has cranked itself down about three notches and you know that although you’ll spend the rest of the weekend chasing it, no matter how many more pills you force down your throat, you’ll never properly get it back. Part of my brain briefly considers going home and trying to sleep, spending the rest of the weekend resting so I don’t feel as awful as usual at work on Monday. The other (and more assertive) part of my brain starts laughing hysterically and propels my hand into my pocket where it starts rummaging for my pills. I feel pretty dehydrated so I stumble (the co-ordination in my legs has gone slightly) up to the bar and ask for a pint of iced water. While I’m waiting I look at my reflection in the big mirror behind the bar. My jaw is protruding, eyes hooded, huge pupils peering from under heavy lids, beads of perspiration standing out on my forehead and upper lip. I realise that I am grinding my teeth so with some difficulty I manhandle a piece of chewing gum out of its packet and cram it into my mouth. When the snotty barmaid returns she raises an eyebrow at the state of me but she doesn’t say anything. I go back over to our table and flop down into a seat. A bit of surreptitious pocket fumbling and there are two pills nestling in my cupped palm. The first one nearly sticks in my throat, that foul chemical taste flickers briefly before it is drowned by ice-cold water. I bite the second one in half and swallowing the big piece stick the remains back safe in my Kinder Egg. I hand the water on to Andy who takes a deep and grateful swallow. It gets passed around until it’s all gone, then we fish out an ice cube each and stick it in our mouths. At this point in the night most of the people round the table have lost the ability to string a coherent sentence together. The Discopistol leans over and puts a matey arm round me. “Yer a good fuuuuuckin cunt so ye are, any day, any fuuuuuuuuuukin day.” He slurs in my ear. I thank him kindly, even though I don’t really understand what the fuck he’s on about. He leans over and throws an arm around Stevie and starts slobbering into his ear instead. Time to go. I make a break for the bar intending to get another drink in. Somebody bumps into me from behind as I’m fiddling with my wallet. “Oh Jesus sorry.” A female voice says. She’s small and pretty with black hair, sort of piled up on top of her head. Her name is Michelle. She crashes a fag from me and I buy her a vodka and coke. I am absolutely astounded when she doesn’t fuck off. To my utter amazement I seem to be getting a vibe off her. We talk for what seems like ages. She asks me if I’m going to Julie’s after. I don’t have a fucking clue who Julie is. Before I can ask she points over to Andy and Wild thing at the other end of the bar. “She’s invited your mates,” she says. If this girl knows who my friends are then presumably that means she knows who I am. I’m still trying to work out whether this is a good thing when she puts down her glass. “Well,” she says. “I hope you can come. Bring the rest of them if you like.” And with a little smile she’s gone. I am singing My Michelle by Guns ‘n’ Roses in my head as I swagger back towards my seat. Mike and Stevie brush past me heading the other way. “When you’ve quite finished grinning like a twat,” Mike yells in my ear. “Don’t you realise what time it is?” I glance at my watch. “Fucking hell!” I shout. It is five minutes to closing time. The best part of the night. The last two tunes of the night are always the biggest floor fillers. The slow number and the last big number. Usually these are both Robbie Williams tunes. Angels and Let me entertain you. Almost everyone who is capable of it crowds onto the dance floor. The bar staff use this opportunity to collect up the glasses and the undrunk drinks lying around on the tables. This affords a bunch of drink thieving cunts such as ourselves the perfect opportunity to swipe almost unlimited free booze. We make our rounds of the tables, ignoring pints, too much liquid not enough alcohol. Instead we target the short glasses. Jack Daniels and coke, vodka and lemonade, Tequila slammers, some weird green shit that tastes like mouthwash. It’s all good. By the time the bouncers are ushering us out of the door I think I might be on the point of vomiting. Wild Thing and Andy (who is supporting a swaying Discopistol) give us directions to this Julie girl’s house, which turns out to be in the middle of fucking nowhere. There are too many of us to fit into Mike’s car so Andy and Wild Thing say they will get a taxi. As they are trying to walk/carry The Discopistol towards a waiting taxi for no discernible reason he raises his head and shouts. “DOG COCK!” Before lapsing back into his semi-stupor. Andy looks back at us smiling and shaking his head. It has gotten colder and plumes of steamy breath hang in the air like halos, strange and beautiful in the streetlights. The car park glitters with a million twinkling points of frost, a mirror of the wide open night sky above. People mill around talking all at once but saying nothing, swearing at the lack of drink and fags, asking where the parties are, discussing what kind of sandwich they will get from BP. It should be a pleasant friendly scene but it isn’t. There is a bad atmosphere. Even I, in my pill-blissed state, can sense that. It will not be long before the fights start. And sure enough we do not have long to wait. It happens as everyone is walking down the road which connects Starski’s to the high street. It’s a dark little back alley with no streetlights apart from one halfway along. At the far end of it you can see the high street like the light at the end of a tunnel. In the pool of light thrown by the halfway streetlight I can see a young guy walking, holding hands with a girl. I can see what is about to happen with painful crystalline clarity as if it was an episode of a T.V show I’d watched before. The young man behind him is walking fast, arms locked stiff, chest puffed out, hands curled into fists. I can’t see his eyes but I know they have that glazed intense look, zeroed in exactly on the point on the head he’s going to hit. Except he doesn’t hit, instead he shoves, hard, in the small of the back. The guy goes down, almost but not quite saving himself with outstretched hands. The girl is whirled half round by the force of the shove, in other circumstances the expression on her face could almost have been funny. In other circumstances. Her screaming is unable to drown out the sound of the first punch landing. Something like a cross between a thump and a crunch, it sounds just like when one of the butchers drops a heavy slab of meat on the cutting table at work. People surge forward to watch the fight like vultures that smell carrion. The prey just a crumpled pile now, playing dead in the hope that the hyena will lose interest. Because that’s what these people are. They’d love to think of themselves as big cats but they’re not. They’re scavengers, living off reputation and the safety of the pack. Preying only on the weak and vulnerable, those who pose no threat. The bloody foetal bundle of arms and legs on the ground makes no move but Dinnet (the name of this particular hyena is Dinnet) hasn’t had his fill yet. He begins to stamp on the arms covering the head, shoving the girl who is trying to pull him off away with a rough hand. I can see the guy’s head bouncing hard against the concrete, hear the cracking thuds. After four of five of these the predator moves away accompanied by the members of his pack. One of them stops to put one last boot in, drawing a final shriek from the sobbing girl now huddled over her bleeding boyfriend. By the time they reach the well-lit main street they are strolling and laughing. Secure in the knowledge that the poor fucker on the deck will no more press charges than anyone who saw it will give a statement. They have tested this hypothesis countless times. Fear of the pack keeps the antelope in check. Now that it’s all over some people go to help, the same people who stood and watched it happen. Most however just keep on walking. Another Friday night, another piece of street theatre. It is clear right away that this poor cunt is going to need an ambulance. His face is covered in so much blood that you can’t see the cuts it’s coming from. He keeps mumbling. “It’s alright. I’m alright, let me up.” Over and over again. As he says it I notice that both his front teeth are missing and there is a big chunk bitten out of his bottom lip. Some guy (who I presume is his mate) has a gentle hand on his chest and is wiping his face with an already blood saturated paper hankie. One of a group of concerned looking girls lends him her mobile to call an ambulance. The girlfriend is crying shocked tears into her cupped hands, panda eyed with mascara, two black tear lines run down her bloodless cheeks. Stevie picks something off the ground and hands it to the guy. “Here,” he says. “You probably want to keep these.” He drops two front teeth, soiled with mud and blood, into the guy’s hand. There didn’t seem to be anything else we could do so we fucked off down the road. No way did I want to get roped into giving a statement. In the end we are just like all the rest of them. Antelope who don’t want to attract the attention of the pack. We walk in silence for a while. Stevie especially looking a bit queasy. I don’t imagine he’d ever had to pick someone’s front teeth off the pavement before. Eventually Mike breaks the silence. “That was fucking well out of order. The poor bastard was just walking along minding his own business.” We both look at him grateful that someone has said something. “Yeah,” says Stevie, “I hate that fucker Dinnet.” Dinnet was two years above us at school. He was the school hard man. Even then he was surrounded by a group of cronies. You know the sort, lesser nutters and wannabes, the kind who gravitate around people who they imagine have more power and status than they do. Dinnet doesn’t look like much, in fact he’s quite a small fucker. What he does is live off his reputation and his back up. What Dinnet does have though, that his Neanderthal friends lack, is leadership qualities. In a cut-rate small town Mafia that counts for a lot. He is a kind of frontman/figurehead for their imagined gangster credentials. If the truth were told, several of the wankers he hangs about with could easily kick the piss out of him. Danny Steele and Morgan Brewster in particular are built like trolls. Dinnet though, maintains the myth by working ceaselessly to keep up his reputation as someone not to fuck with. The innocent victims who have been on a wrong end of a kicking from that cunt are countless. It has landed him in prison twice, something he wears like a badge. I don't think I have ever even seen someone hit him back. The sad truth is that everyone is scared of him. Dinnet understands this, his role in our little society, perfectly and he thrives on it. Given the amount of uppers we've consumed though, it is impossible to stay sombre for long. The incident is not forgotten exactly, more like it has passed out of out immediate sphere of consciousness. It doesn't take long before we are laughing again. It is fucking Baltic by the time we get back to the car. Mike (after pretending he has lost his keys for five minutes) opens the doors and we pile in, grateful to be out of the cold. I slump back into the seat, my body, my eyelids, heavy, vision blurred around the edges. I listen to Mike fumbling about with the keys while Stevie leans over from the back and flips the radio on. I stretch out listening to the tunes as Mike pulls away from the town, immersed in chemical contentment. The car is a warm dark cocoon, lit only by the diffuse glow of the headlights reflecting from the scenery as it slides past. We realise that nobody actually listened to Wild Thing and Andy when they told us how to get to this girl's house. But it's ok Stevie thinks he knows. I reach back and stroke the side of his face, he squeezes my hand in response. It's ok, I think to myself. Everything is beautiful. I neck another pill. The house, when we find it, is a big villa like thing, set well back from the road. "Must be loaded," remarks Mike as the car crunches to a halt in the gravel driveway. I have to agree. The door is answered by a spotty, pissed off looking girl with huge tits. This, I assume, must be Julie. "Eh, Michelle invited us," I say lamely. Luckily for us at that moment Michelle appears behind her in the doorway. "Hiya! I was beginning to think you weren't coming," she says giving me a big hug. Well, well, well, my Michelle, Axl Rose sings in my head. There are quite a few people here. "Take your shoes off," Julie snaps. I notice Andy's white Nike trainers on top of the pile. A little judicious digging turns up Wild Things Airwalks and The Discopistols brown Kickers. At least they're here. There is nothing worse than walking into a house full of people you don't know. As we're on our way to the living room I glance through the open kitchen door and see Maggie talking to some young guy who is skinning up on the kitchen table. I only catch a tiny bit of their conversation but it's enough to let me know it's the usual Maggie bullshit. "……….half ounce…….contacts……." I tug Mike's sleeve and nod in the general direction of the kitchen. He groans and rolls his eyes. "That's all we fucking need." Andy is in the living room. When he sees me he leaps out of his seat and wraps one muscular arm around the top of my head. "Fucking finally! I thought you cunts had crashed! You never let fucking drunk and useless here drive did you?" He gesticulates at Mike, carrying on because he already knows the answer to the question. "You’re mad if you ask me, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, eh?" I would estimate that he's probably on his third or fourth pill of the night, some coke too by the looks of it. He probably got it from Maggie. I wonder briefly if it might be worth going and propping up Maggie's ego for a while, see if he feels like dishing out a free line or two to prove how big time he is. I come to the conclusion that I have more pride than that. Plus, Michelle is looking at me and patting the empty space on the sofa beside her. We sit and talk for a long while, she's sitting with her legs sort of curled up under her cat fashion, knees facing me. She is actually listening to what I am saying. This makes me a bit nervous, because I have to think of interesting/funny things to say. In a fit of panic I tell her the interrupting sheep joke. You know the one… "Knock Knock." "Who's there?" "Interrupting sheep." "Interrupting sheep w…" "BAA." She looks at me like something has just crawled unannounced form one of my nostrils and my heart freezes. But then thankfully, just as a gloating little inner voice is telling me that's what I get for trying to be a smartarse, she bursts into uncontrollable laughter and I can breathe again. Jesus Christ, I think, and this is supposed to be enjoyable? At some point I go to take a piss. I look at myself in the mirror as I'm washing my hands. I don't look as wasted as I did earlier. In fact, I look positively perky. "Must be because you've stopped drinking," I tell my reflection. As I am closing the bathroom door I notice that at the end of the hall there are a pair of glass sliding doors leading outside. There are moving, people shaped shadows cast on the blinds by an outside light. I decide to investigate. It turns out to be Wild Thing, leaning against the wall taking occasional pulls from a bottle of gin and watching The Discopistol throwing up into a flowerbed. "It's alright, he'll be able to start drinking again in a minute. This is his." He said offering me the gin. "Fuggin mine!" said The Discopistol from somewhere near ground level. "Yes, yes," said Wild Thing soothingly. "And you can have it just as soon as you've stopped being sick for five minutes." I took a swig, it tasted disgusting. "Got any fags?" he asked hopefully. I produced my packet. There were two left. We both lit up and watched the smoke drift and eddy in the cold air. "We're going to have to get Mike to go on a fag run soon," He said wistfully, still looking at the pretty patterns in the air. "What happened to your bird?" I asked. He shook his head slightly seeming to snap out of it. "Oh, she's inside. I'll see her later. I had to get him sorted out first didn't I." "…..qua?" said the Discopistol from the deck. Wild Thing nodded. "Oh all right then." He said and handed him back the bottle. Back in the living room Stevie was on his hands and knees raking through Theuglyjuliegirl's (as Mike had taken to calling her whenever she left the room) CDs. Step On by The Happy Mondays was playing. Stevie shrugged up at me. "It's the best I could find." "That's ok, I can live with this." It doesn't take much persuasion to sell Mike on the idea of going on a mission to the all night garage. He seems bored and fretful at having been in the same place for so long. I check my watch. It is quarter past four. Stevie has to get a pen and paper from the kitchen to write down the clamour of orders for fags, sandwiches and bottles of banana milkshake. It takes fucking ages to get everything sorted out, what with mashed people changing their minds three times a minute and everyone getting all confused over money but eventually we get going. It feels good to be on the move, to have a mission, a purpose. As I am hunting for my shoes in the pile in the hallway Michelle comes out of the living room and gives me a knowing smile. "Don't be gone long." she whispers. She winks and turns and then she is gone. I stand very still for a moment and smile very slightly. Mike and Stevie emerge noisily from the living room. Mike squints at me as he fumbles for his shoes. "Why have you got that fucking dopey look on your face?" he asks. The crunch of gravel beneath out trainers seems unnaturally loud in the breath held quiet of the night. Mike sticks his Doors tape into the deck and turns the volume up loud. The music kicks in as we turn left and pull away down the main road. The baseline to Roadhouse Blues hammers its way out of the speakers, giving a demented rhythm to the forward motion of the car. The long dead Jim Morrison howls and moans like a demon far from home. Oh keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel. The greatest fucked driving music in the world. The Doors were the greatest rock n roll band ever to walk the earth. In the religion of substance abuse, Jim Morrison is Jesus Christ, nailed forever in our hearts and minds to a chemical cross. There are no other cars on the roads, we are alone in this star hung cathedral of darkness, the gentle yellow cone of the headlights our soft insulation against reality. A rabbit skitters out of the way of the car and I wonder where he’s going, what he thinks about. Grass most probably, and shagging. But then again maybe he’s a family rabbit, off back to his burrow to snuggle up to his rabbit wife and kids. Watership Down, good book, I think incoherently. I’ll have to read it again. This strangely comforting train of thought about the secret life of rabbits occupies my mind until we hit town and the streetlights begin to ooze by like neon ghosts. The garage is deserted apart from the bored looking cashier standing, fat arms folded, grumpy faced behind her till. We are forced to squint as Stevie grabs a basket and consults his crumpled list. This harsh strip lit environment is hard on the eyes after the fuzzy darkness of the car. I buy a mango and starfruit health shake (which turns out to taste like chicken soup), a packet of green extra and twenty Embassy No1. Mike doesn’t buy anything, instead he stands in front of the magazine rack, shifting restlessly from foot to foot and gazing up at the pornos. The grumpy woman seems to deliberately take ages to scan all Stevie’s stuff as if she were pissed off with us for arriving unannounced and cutting into her precious arms-folded moody staring time. We stop outside Mike’s house so he can go and steal some drink. Mike lives with his parents in a largeish, tasteless, mock-Scandinavian villa, set a little way back from the road behind a huge green hedge to keep out prying eyes. We sit, Stevie and I, in the dim interior of the car passing a joint back and forth and talking in lowered voices. Why we feel the urge to whisper is unclear. Surely we cannot think that Mikes sleeping parents will ignore whatever terrible, crashing about at five o’clock in the morning, I’m stealing your alcohol, noise Mike is making down stairs and be wakened by our voices. But still we persist. It just seems like the right thing to do I suppose. Entering into the spirit of things. Mike won’t let us switch the radio on while the car isn’t running, he claims it will flatten the battery, and given the shit state of his car I have to admit he could well be right. I amuse myself for a little while by writing MIKE IS GAY in the condensed film of breath which has formed on the windscreen. Steve has been looking pensively out of the side window for a long time. I look back at him, his face in shadow, the outline of his curly hair silhouetted against the velvet glare of the streetlight behind us. “You ok?” I ask, concerned because he looked so still. He doesn’t answer at first but instead lets a long moment slip by. Eventually he stubs out the joint in the ashtray in a glimmer of quick dying red sparks. He turns his face towards me so I can just about make out the highlights of his features. “Are you happy?” he asks, the question so blunt and sudden that I have to grope for an answer. “I don’t know. What do you mean?” “Are you happy, you know, with your life.” I have absolutely no idea how to answer him. Nobody has ever asked me anything like that before. I just sit there my mouth opening and closing like a drowning fish. Before I can even begin to frame an answer in my head there is the brisk squeak of trainers on wet tarmac and Mike is yanking the car door open, climbing inside and handing me a bottle of rum. “What the fuck are you two looking so serious about. Stevie proposed at last?” Without waiting for an answer he starts the car and drives away into the night. I look back at Stevie’s pale features framed in the rear-view mirror. His question still seems to hang in the air. Are you happy? What a fucking question. Am I? We are approaching the town square, en-route to the country back-road which will lead us to Theuglyjuliegirl’s house, when I notice something strange about the front of the Wanchor. There is, or at least there appears to be, a ladder leaning against the front wall. I rub my eyes and as we begin to draw closer. I can make out a figure now, muffled in a thick overcoat, something square and heavy looking dangling from its right hand. I grab Stevie’s wrist so hard he yelps out loud. “Look!” I hiss. “Look!” From this distance the object can be clearly identified as a pot of paint. Stevie sort of half scrambles over the back of my seat to get a better look, his eyes huge, his mouth agape. Mike slows as we draw closer and the hooded figure on the ladder turns to face us. The eyes in the white, shocked looking face, which lock with mine belong to Barry, the pub owning, disgruntled ex-Greenock Morton superstar. As we flash past we can clearly see his lips form the words ‘Oh fuck’. He scrambles back down the ladder dropping his pot of paint in the process and makes a run for it. From out of the back window a large black W in wet paint is clearly visible. Stevie and I turn our heads towards Mike in total flabbergasted disbelief. He just smiles and gives us a told you so shrug. We are still in total shock as the lights fade away to nothing behind us. We return to the party like conquering heroes, bearing our plastic bag of fags and munch and our bottle of rum like trophies won on some distant battlefield. We distribute Dairylea Dunkers, cans of Irn Bru, tuna salad sandwiches and sausage rolls to a chorus of, Cheers and Sound as fuck. Best received though are the fags. We have been gone for precisely forty minutes, a long time for a house full of fucked people to be without smokes. After I have handed out the last twenty deck of Regal and finished basking in the glow of thanks, I head (with what I have to admit is probably a pretty dopey grin on my face) through to the living room looking for Michelle. She is lying on the sofa, head cocked to one side and Maggie is on top of her. By an amazing coincidence, the precise moment I chose to walk in, was the moment he chose to slip his hand slowly up her top. I turn around and walk, stiffly to the bathroom and lock the door. I lean, eyes closed against the sink and take a deep slow breath. The porcelain feels cold and unpleasant under my palms. There is pain. A great formless swelling pain born of hurt and rejection and worthlessness. It feels as if someone is sticking a knitting needle between my ribs and up into my heart. I feel like crying, instead I sit weakly on the edge of the toilet seat and smoke a fag. I sit motionless like that for a while, occasionally flicking the ash into the sink. When I have regained my composure a bit I stand up. There is of course an answer to feeling like this. “Mike,” I shout over the general din in the kitchen, “where’s that fucking bottle of rum?” By the way he hands it over no questions asked I assume he has been in the living room. I look at the way the dark liquid moves beneath the glass for a little while, then I open it and take a small fiery swig. Stevie comes over and stands beside me. “Fuck it,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulders. The ghost of a smile touches the corners of my mouth. “Yeah,” I say, “Fuck it.” And take another, longer drink.
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