Authors: Alan Bissett
‘Homophobic.’
‘No I’m no,’ she says, ‘but you are.’ Both girls are looking away now, one up at the stairs, the other smiling flirtatiously at someone in the bar queue. Both of these girls are achingly beautiful, as though they’ve just stepped through a curtain of rain from another dimension, not
seeming
to know, or care, that I’ve read, like, a whole Thomas Hardy novel, seen Citizen Kane twice, maybe three times.
so I buy myself a double peach schnapps, having lost the Lads somewhere in the dry ice, and down the drink, and thin figures are rising from the mist as I punt myself away from the bar into the dancefloor, into dazzling eyes, slim cheekbones, soft cleavages. I am in the final reel of Apocalypse Now with all its strange sounds and imagery and Brando mumbling
but you must make a friend of
horror
or it is truly an enemy to be feared
as the DJ, one of those wannabe Fatboy Slims, does theatrical turns on the deck and shouts, ‘Lemme hear ya say yeeeaah!’ (yeeeaah!) ‘Falkirk, the weekend has landed!’
Tanned legs and the smooth smalls of backs and fingers circling glass rims become unf
ixed the more I stare, dissolving into a chaos of loveliness, the floor tipping like a disaster movie. Tyra isn’t anywhere here. Disappeared into the mist like the Blair Witch. I search out her milk-white form, try to find her outline through the spectrum of lights that blink and
swan-dive
and rise, then I see
long has your mum been gone? son, this is important
the Lads like a cluster of barnacles in the far corner. I stagger into their communal space, shared with a couple of chicks Frannie went to school with. Their mascaraed eyes bear down on me like sharks and I feel a dull, lifeless pain at my heart and pick up a drink someone else has left and down it greedily. ‘Where d’ye go tay, ya wee rodent, ye?’ Brian asks, patting my ba
ck! ‘Ye find any babeular action on the floor there?’
‘Naw,’ I bray, my voice like Pinocchio’s turned into a donkey. A churning pressure in my gut. I slug another double and Dolby and Fran are telling the lassies about how
she’ll come back don’t you boys worry okay if your mum was drunk she won’t have an
arm locked round my neck, his fist gnashing my hair. I am released to breathe smoky air. Ceiling the colour of fireworks. The world explodes with lustful glances, glinting earrings, remixed house tracks. Tongues darting from lipsticked lips. Happiness spreading like a disease across the dancefloor. My mouth tastes sickly. I feel ill, unravelled, depressed. No-one can help me. I realise this. Things only end badly, otherwise they don’t end. The Cruiser said that in Cocktail, y’know.
Frannie and Brian fight for first slaggings of Dolby’s new name. ‘Thing is, right,’ Brian says to him, ‘we were sure ye were gonnay tell us ye were a poof.’
‘A poof!’
The school-girls have faded like lions into the black, afraid of our Lad-light. The four of us embrace, sloppy, pished. True love amidst all this
record your life will be better
your life will be better
your life will be life will be
decadence, and Brian going, ‘Dolby, man, nane ay us would mind if ye were a poof.’
‘I wid,’ says Frannie.
‘Dinnay listen tay him. Nane ay us wid mind. No me. No wee Alvin there. No that Orange cunt either –’
‘Aye I wid.’
Brian and Dolby lean boozily, pressing their foreheads together. ‘Disnay matter if ye decide ye were bent, straight, black, white, chinky, reptilian, or had yer arms and legs cut aff.’ He pauses. The music seems to fade. Their eyes locked, a meaning almost biblical transmitted between them. ‘You. Will always be. Ma best –’
whoooa
Dolby holds me up, leading me to a free table, my hand stretching for the unattended drinks, Dolby (Uriel!) slapping it away, ‘Alvin, ya skank, they’re no yours.’ Fran and Bri start dancing with a girl who resembles Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction but I’m sure she comes from Reddingmuirhead, Brian stiff and robotic as if on old, flickering footage. He dances like someone is threatening him with a knife. The music shuddering and a billion girls silhouetted against the party, against the world, but Tyra’s absence walks the room like a spectre. My stomach weeps, the booze staggering through capillaries to my head and Dolby (Uriel!) is saying, ‘Listen,’ his eyes bright, his tone demanding. I am dying, convinced of it, cos when I open my mouth this happens:
‘Yrr ma fckin best pal. Aw yese. Fckin lve yse gyys –’
‘Alvin,’ he’s barking, though the bass blasts most of his words away, ‘… talent, wee man, ken whit I’m sayin …’
‘Ken whit yer sayin,’ I reply, a (Becks? Miller?) stain seeping into my shirt, which I know won’t come out. ‘Loads fckin talent in here.’
‘Naw, that’s no whit I’m sayin.’ He slides his chair closer. ‘… listen tay me. You’ve got brains, man … get tay fuck away fay Falkirk … it’s deid! Ken whit I’m sayin?’
‘Naw, man,’ I protest, hugging him, ‘us frr will eywis be thegither. MeenyounBriannFran. We’ll fckin eywis be thegither …’ The love swelling beneath my shirt like a big cartoon heart.
‘… no listenin tay me,’ Dolby’s carrying on, ‘get studyin for yer exams, man … go tay university and marry some wee psychology student … want tay be a dick aw yer life? Ih? That whit ye want?’
‘Dolby, if you’d been a poof, I widnay’ve minded. No wan bit. I’m so happy, man. Yss are ma best mayss. Ow mfuckin life t …’
I tail off.
There is a moment of clarity.
The dancefloor is spread beneath like a menagerie. The beaks of vultures, dipping into Bacardi. Squawking lies at the bar. Everything is evil. One of the most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen turns to me and hisses, ‘Fuck ye lookin at, wido?’ Bodies, germinating, mummified in a wrap of brand names and
the horror
the horror
this is what I’ve been inducted into. Adulthood. The parallel universe behind the glass. I tap a girl on the back and ask if she’s read Clive Barker’s Books of Blood and she pushes me away. ‘Ye havenay seen the film Carrie either naw, jst checkin, jst checkin.’
remember reading somewhere about how sleepwalking starts in children as they become aware of their mortality and all the clubbers
here are shrunken and dressed in pyjamas dangling teddy bears and looking for mothers, padding single file into a vast, consuming
darkness
and
If we were young, we’d rise and dance
everything dead. And lovely. And dead. Pre-programmed dance moves. Youth risen for one last final oh-fuck-it-then rave before the whole charade collapses and when I turn I see a
ned at the summit of the stairs, being told the News by his big weapon mate. His face turns bad, like fruit in speeded-up film, his mouth hurling sounds into the thick air. Hair seeming to grow on his arms. Oh jesus, it’s Cottsy and he’s looking at us. The words ‘kill that cunt’ stab from his mouth and Cottsy has Dolby down on the ground and is trying to kick the shit out of him but Brian and Frannie are racing from the dancefloor and everyone is staring, appalled, and I charge into the fray like a super-hero, like Spider-Man, grabbing Cottsy’s arm, booting at his ankle, biting his elbow, and then
someone’s
hand closes on my shoulder and I’m
in the back of the taxi
headlights passing. Sullen shop windows, street names. Me slumped in the corner of the cab singing Animal Nitrate to myself, which is on
the first Suede album?
Dog Man Star?
anyway, the boy in the song, he’s just an animal and
My black eye pulses and my back hurts, my Mum on the corner of Montgomery Street, waving fondly, so I wave half-heartedly back (just
totally
can’t be arsed with her right now) but Shelley from Smith’s is in
the back seat next to me, stroking my hair, saying to someone on the phone, ‘Brian, how did you let this boy get in such a state?’ and
Shelley from Brian’s pub?
likes stuff from the Gadget Shop, her flat crammed with toking aliens, bottle openers in the shape of scarab beetles, inflatable chairs, lava lamps. She crosses the room, puts David Bowie’s Hunky Dory on, laughs at me trying to remove my shoes, as a chess set, with shot glasses for pieces, is brought out from a side cupboard, more Gadget Shop shite, Shelley filling one side with whisky, the other with vodka, and before I can protest I’ve lost a bishop and three of my pawns and Shelley’s lost her blouse, her socks, her earrings, the lobes burning a sexy red, her upper chest flushed with whisky, the CD jumping at Oh You
Pret
Pret
Pretty Things, and her bookshelf filled with fat Marion Keyes
paperbacks
(Rachel’s Holiday, Watermelon). ‘You’re next,’ I try to warn her, like that guy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ‘The whole world’s fucked,’ I say, but she doesn’t hear, drawing my zip down, down, without any fuss, and Shelley’s mouth touching the bruises on my neck, and she’s whispering ‘sssshh –’ and all I can think about is that line from Robocop which goes dead or alive you’re coming with
I wake.
The morning light twists in smooth, slow curves.
A dream about the River Ganges fresh in my head. Me and Robert DeNiro in a canoe, the soft sound of paddles in water, lulling. Nice dream.
The first thing that seems out of place is the duvet. It’s not mine.
My bed doesn’t usually have a woman in it either.
Shelley from Brian’s pub is zonked out next to me. Her hair plasters her face, Medusa-like curls. I lift the duvet cautiously. Look down the length of her body.
Yep, she’s naked.
making my way home is like scaling the north face of the Eiger with a head full of Nirvana b-sides. The Lads are ship shape in Brian’s kitchen, folding toast into their mouths and flicking through the Sunday papers, various cuts and bruises on their faces, and I can just about read one of the headlines through the slats of my eyes (a Rangers win) as they clock me and roar, as though I’ve knocked one in during the last minute of an Old Firm final. I crumple, wincing. Posh and Becks loom
apocalyptically
on the front of the News of the World.
‘Well then?’ Brian beams.
‘Ye shag her?’ Frannie beams.
‘Long did ye last?’ Dolby beams.
I can barely swing my head round to look at them. TLC singing No Scrubs on the radio and I feel yuk. ‘Just think,’ Brian seats himself next to me. ‘Everyone in that pub has been dyin tay dae what you did last night.’
‘Look, I’m sure she’s a very nice girl,’ I protest, ‘but –’
‘Nice-girl shmice-girl. Ye shagged Shelley. Be prouday it.’
and I can only groan at the stark sound of it. While they celebrate my virginity drying on the bedroom sheets, I press my face to the formica, where it’s nice and cool and nothing is demanded of me and Life’s Little Instruction Booklet lies innocuously open, saying
76. Remember, overnight success usually takes about five years.
77. Never indulge in lawsuits.
78. Always keep warm blankets in the boot of your car.
79. Avoid sleeping with barmaids you hardly know.
80. Forget about Tyra Mackenzie now, knobhead.
and I catch sight of the date at the top of the paper, just above Beckham’s fringe.
Happy birthday to me.
week later, Richard and Judy are featuring a slot called ‘Back From the Brink’, about suicide. Linda from Sussex, Eloise from Maidstone-
on-Kent
, Susan from Peebles all call up with heart-wrenching tales of shaking in the doctor’s surgery/being driven to drink/failed infertility treatment. I watch, transfixed, the tea in my hand cooling until I look down and find it’s grown a limpid skin.
‘An hour at a time, a day at a time,’ Richard says sincerely, ‘and reach out to the ones who love you.’
Dolby is beeping the horn outside, but I am slack-jawed, struck dumb by the level of grief in the voice of Susan from Peebles. I cannot move. Dolby continues to beep, the noise of a cartoon character
opening
and closing its mouth on the edge of a galaxy. I cannot face him. The possibility of movement. Richard and Judy are conducting a phone in quiz
What planet is named after the goddess of love?
What nationality are Abba?
Who is married to Brad Pitt?
creep to the window, kink the blinds and see Dolby looking at his watch, hear Belinda’s engine chug. The caller has won a cash prize. A rebellion seems to be occuring deep within me, then fading, then
resurging again. I nearly run out into the street in my socks to tell Dolby to step on the gas, collect Brian and Frannie from work (like in An Officer and a Gentleman) and drive, drive to Florence or Reykjavik or the Côte d’Azur, where we four can live in illicit comfort, sinking pink drinks and summoning ladies to show us their tan lines and
the lack of love from Tyra Mackenzie, like cold light from a distant star. In its beam I am hunched, riddled with evil (Dolby is still
beeping
) and if you’re going to force the issue – though please, for my sake, don’t – I remember this:
It is the beginning of the nineties. Everything is black and white, the furniture is angular. That is what is in. I am eight years old, and Mum is about to burst with fury, and Derek, tearful, is trying to subdue her. I am watching Children’s BBC. Mum has chain-smoked her way through a packet of Silk Cut, twitching, bird-like, with the effort of each sentence.
That day, she’d taken me and Derek down to Falkirk to buy new clothes for school, when she’d bumped into a couple of old schoolfriends, now doing well – why they were planning to buy their house, where you should really go for your holidays – and Mum’d been hesitant and clipped, her nerves sucked down to the filter. Me and Derek made faces at each other, monkeys and donkeys. Falkirk had newly opened the Howgate shopping centre, heralding a bright new dawn for the local retail economy. Mum dragged us in and out of Poundstretcher and What Everys. She moved us with the agitation of a cat. Derek didn’t like the the shoes he was fitted with, couldn’t he have Nike or Adidas like everyone else at school? I’d whined at the scratchiness of the shirt, imagining who might have worn it before me, gripping the guard of an electric fire when Mum tried to pull me over to the trousers. Grey and flannel. Me and Derek stopping at the
paradisal
window-fronts of John Menzies, Woolworths, Toys R Us,
awe-struck by towering blocks of Gameboys and Nintendos. Can I get that, Mum Mum, see when Dad gets his wages, can I get that Can I get! Can I get! Mum repeated, trying to haul us onto the Hallglen bus, Aw I ever hear fay you pair is
can I get
. Into the house and the TV switched on and Derek in a sulk and Mum’s voice peppering the cartoon soundtrack, ordering me to get that turned down and stop diggin intay they fuckin Coco Pops, ye’ll spoil yer tea. Whit is it for tea, Mum? Ye’ll get whit I fuckin make ye. Aye, but whit is it? Is it stovies, Mum? Mum, is it stovies? Is it Mum? I hate stovies! Mum, I hate stovies! Tough. Ye’ve ate them afore, ye’ll eat them again. Weans these days have got awfy fancy stomachs. Mum, I’ve jist goat a normal
stomach
, but I still hate stovies. I’m no wantin stovies. Mum clattering with the pots and Derek with a petted lip in the corner and the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles blaring and I’m wailing about the unfairness of stovies, following Mum round the kitchen to tell her this. My bare feet cold on the black and white tiles, chipped from things being dropped, thrown. Derek, tell her, eh we’re no wantin stovies? Mum, dinnay pit stovies oan. I’ll just pit some oven chips oan fir Alvin. Yese arnay gettin oven chips, yese are gettin fuckin stovies. Yer Dad wants stovies, so I’m makin fuckin stovies. I’ve no goat the time tay make four separate dinners, Derek, noo get oot the road tay I get the ironin board doon. The starved horse of the ironing board clanks to the floor. Mum
sweating
, the dinner erupting in plumes from the hob behind her. She kneels to my level. I wish I could remember her eyes, even their colour. Alvin, son, d’ye ken whaur I keep ma crabbit pills, upstairs at the side ay the bed? Can ye go up and bring me wan doon? Will ye dae that for me? I wid, Mum, but that wan I got for ye earlier was the last yin. There’s nane left. Mum stands, sighs, runs a hand through her hair, covers her eyes. Derek is peering over the top of the ironing board at me, making more monkey faces. I laugh; Mum swats him away, lifting the iron,
muttering. The water hisses a steamy tantrum. Me and Derek play furniture Olympics, an assault course of coffee table, sofa and drinks cabinet. Empty drinks cabinet. Will you pair fuckin shut up through there? I’m tryin tay make the dinner and iron yer Dad’s shirts and ma period’s due and I’ve nay crabbit pills till I can get tay the doctor’s the morn. Mum, he kicked me! Shut up, ya wee clipe. Mum, I did not kick him. Mum, Derek kicked me! Will yese fuckin shut up the pair ay yese. Mum stomps towards the drinks cabinet, finds it is empty, clutches at her own ears and squeezes closed her eyes. Bastard never even left me a drink. Mum, Dad says ye’ve no tay have ony mair drink. He telt us it’s bad for ye. Aye, well, yer faither disnay need tay pit up wi you pair aw day, wi yer fuckin can I get and yer I dinnay want that an will you fuckin stop jumpin on that couch, there no enough holes in it awready? Mum? Mum? Ye dinnay make holes in a couch by jumpin ower it. Aye well, jist quit it. Aah! He’s kickin me again! Mum! He’s twistin ma arm! Mum! Aah! Muuum! Will yese fuckin shut up I swear tay Christ yese are drivin me roon the bend, ye’ll have me in fuckin Bell’s Dyke before the year’s oot. I’m tellin ye, if it wisnay fir you pair an yer faither oot at work aw day an I’ve nay fags whaur’s ma drink go an get ma crabbit pills the fuckin doctor’s is shut I’ll no be able tay get them tay Tuesday ma fuckin heid that’s ma migraine startit an I’ve the claes tay finish an the dinner tay iron an the dishes tay buy an the messages tay be washed afore he gets in will yese fuckin just gies peace Bell’s Dyke ya wee bastards that’s whaur I’ll end up will yese just sit soon an I canny cope I canny cope I canny fuckin–