Ecstasy (25 page)

– Ye cannae admire people like that. That’s jist rubbish, thon.

– Ah
do
admire the guys. Massive respect from Lloyd here; Leith’s Lloyd, the one that never shagged his sister: massive respect tae they boys Richard and Robert fae Glesgie … dear auld Glesca toon …

– Thought you said ye didnae know them? Red Sandstone’s hurt face pouts out at me surrounded by a cacophony of clattering sounds and throbbing, pulsating lights …

– Ah know them as Richard and Robert; that’s it, mate. I’ve blethered wi the boys, in chill-oot zones n that. That’s as far as it goes … listen, ah’m fucked. Ah could be dying. Ah need tae get ma heid doon or something or another Sol …

The Sol and the Daiquiri and the Long Island Iced Tea are empty and ah cannae remember who drank them surely ah never ah mean

The boy goes to make up some of the tables in the front dining area. Ah climb across the sink, through some dirty dishes and just slide like an eel out of the open window, falling onto some binliners stacked with rubbish and rolling into a dry drain in this concreted back court. Ah try tae stand up, but ah cannae, so ah just crawl towards this green
gate
. Ah just know ah have to go, to keep moving, but I’ve ripped my flannels and torn my knee and ah can see the flesh wound pulsating like an opened-up strawberry and now I’m on my feet which is strange because ah can’t recall ever standing up and I’m on a busy main road which is maybe the Great Western or maybe Byre’s or maybe Dumbarton and I can’t see where I’m going and it should be home but that cannae surely tae fuck that cannae mean Stevo’s flat.

The sun rises up above the tenements. I’m just gaunnae fly intae it.

Ah shout tae some people in the street, two lassies. Ah tell them, – The sun, I’m just up for flyin right intae it.

They say nothing, and they don’t even notice as ah fly right up out of this world and its trivial, banal oppressions, right into that big fuckin golden bastard in the sky.

11 Heather

I suppose what attracted me to Hugh was his sense of commitment. As a student he had a tremendous sense of commitment. This changed, evolved, as he might say, through the years. How did Hugh’s commitment change?

Name: Student Hugh.

Committed to: the liberation of working people from the horrors of capitalism.

Name: Jobless Graduate Hugh.

Committed to: fighting to maintain jobs for working people but to changing the system.

Name: First-rung-on-the-ladder Professional Employee Hugh.

Committed to: defending and improving the services working people are entitled to.

Name: Supervisor Hugh.

Committed to: optimising the quality of services for the users of the services.

Name: Public Sector Manager Hugh.

Committed to: excellence in service delivery through increased cost efficiency and cost effectiveness. (This meant redundancy for many of the working people who provided these services, but if it was to the benefit of the great many who used them, then it was a price worth paying.)

Name: Private Sector Manager Hugh.

Committed to: maximising profit through cost efficiency, resource effectiveness and expanding into new markets.

– But we’ve moved a little since nineteen-eighty-four, Heather, he’d smile from behind his
Independent
.

Only the innocent have been changed to protect the names. For Hugh, the ‘final analysis’ became the ‘bottom line’. There is significance in the semantics. The banal slogans of revolution and resistance became the even more banal ones of business efficiency, accountancy and sport; bottom lines, moving goalposts, covering bases, level playing fields …

Along the way our dreams crumbled. The slogans of revolution may have been naive, but at least we were going for something big, something important. Now our sights are set so low. It’s not good enough for me. It’s all right for some; they’re welcome to it. It’s just not enough for me.

It’s not enough because I’m twenty-seven nearly, and I haven’t had a fucking orgasm in four years. For those four years he’s fired his wallpaper paste into me, consuming me as I lie thinking about consuming.

As he fucks me I make out my lists:

sugar

jam

bread

milk

beans

rice

herbs

pizzas

wine

tomatoes

onions

green peppers

… then I did something truly visionary: I stopped consuming for its own sake.

The fat started to fall from my body. It started to fall from my brain. Everything was lighter. Fantasising about getting fucked properly was the start. Then about telling them all to fuck off and die. It was the books I starting reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t.

When all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn’t, you get crushed. I’m not going to get crushed.

12 Lloyd

It took ays a while tae get back fae Soapdodge City. Acid, man, fuck that, never again, never until the next time at any rate. When ah get back, The Poisonous Cunt’s coming oot ay ma stair. – Where have you been? she says accusingly. The Poisonous Cunt is getting too fuckin possessive taewards me.

– Glasgow, ah tell her.

– What for? she asks.

– Slam night on the Renfrew Ferry, eh, ah lie. Ah don’t want The Poisonous Cunt knowing my MO …

– What was it like?

– Awright, aye, ah goes.

– Ah’ve got some mair ay they Doves for you to punt, but they’re back at mines, she says.

Great. Mair crap Es tae sell. Ma reputation will soon be so bad that people’ll rather buy their chemicals fae Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Ah left the other ones in Glasgow wi Stevo, who wasnae too hopeful, but who said that he would see what he could do.

– Right. Ah’ll come up the night, ah tell her. Ah just want to get in and make myself a cup of tea and a spliff. Then ah realise that I’ve left my blow in Soapdodge City, with those Es. – Have you got any blow? Ah need a fucking blow. Ah’m exhausted after that trip. My jaw feels like it’s been broken. Ah need tae mellow out. Even some fuckin jellies wid dae ays. Ah need some thing. Ah need, full fuckin stop.

– Aye. Ah’ve got black and soapbar, she says.

– Right then, I’ll chum you back to yours.

We get up to The Poisonous Cunt’s and Solo is in, as well as a couple of mates called Monts and Jasco. Ah was embarrassed as Solo
started
talking tae ays. Ah couldnae make oot a word ay it. It sounded like he was forcing his syllables out slowly through his nose. As The Poisonous Cunt went to the kitchen to stick on the kettle and get some blow, Monts stood behind Solo with a smirk on his face and pushed out one cheek with his tongue, in the cocksucker gesture. He and Jasco were like nothing more than two vultures circling over a large wounded animal. Ah found it sad, and ah felt sorry for Solo. It reminded ays ay a piece ay film ay Muhummad Ali ah’d seen oan telly, stricken from his articulate buoyancy by Parkinson’s, probably brought on by the fight game. The Poisonous Cunt, when she came in, reminded me of Don King, manipulation screaming through a smile of searing delight.

– You gaunnae take that gear doon tae Abdab for ays then? she enquired.

– Aye, ah told her. Abdab was an old mate ay mine down in Newcastle. The Poisonous Cunt was sorting him out with some shite and ah was delivering. It was a Paddy Crerand ah didnae feel like running. Ah only agreed to do it to see Abdab and his Geordie mates and have a night oot doon thair. Ah always liked Newcastle. Geordies are just Scots who can’t blame the English for them being fucked up, the poor cunts.

Jasco starts giein ays a hard time. Ehs normally a cool cunt but ehs been a bit nippy lately. Too much freebasin gaun oan wi the cunt. – Listen, Lloyd, if ah’ve goat a heidache ah’ll take some paracetamol.

– Eh? ah goes.

– And if ah’ve goat a bad stomach ah’ll take some bicarb soda.

Ah’m a wee bit too slow oan the uptake the day tae suss oot the cunt’s game.

– Git oaf eh’s case, Jasco ya cunt, Monts sais.

– Naw, listen, Jasco continued, – the point is, ah didnae huv a heidache or a sair stomach the other night. Naw. What ah wanted was tae git oaf my tits oan Ecstasy. So why did this cunt sell ays paracetamol and bicarb? He pointed at me.

– Moan tae fuck, Jasco, ah said defensively, – they wirnae brilliant Es, granted, and ah telt ye that fae the off, but they wirnae
that
shite. I kept it light cause it was like Jasco was in the mood where he
couldnae
decide whether or no he was bein serious or havin a jokey wee wind-up.

– Did fuck all fir me, man, he moaned.

– Hundred and twenty milligrams ay MDMA in them, the boy telt me, The Poisonous Cunt said.

That was bullshit. You were lucky if there was fifty mills in those Doves. You had to neck them two at a time for any buzz at aw.

– Aye, right, Jasco said.

– Fuckin wis. Rinty got them fae Holland, The Poisonous Cunt maintained. It was cool, her getting involved, because it stopped Jasco nippin at me.

– In ays fuckin dreams the cunt did. Scottish fitba clubs have spent longer in Europe than any pills youse cunts have been puntin, he grumbled at her.

Ah knew that the conversation would go on and on like this aw night and ah shot the craw as soon as it was possible. When ah got oot intae the street, ah saw this boy and bird gaun doon the road thegither, obviously really intae each other, no oan drugs or nowt. Ah thought, when wis the last time ah wis ever like that wi a lassie, withoot bein aw eckied up? In a fuckin previous life, that’s when. Ah kicked a stane and it bounced up and rattled, but didnae brek, the windscreen ay a parked car.

part two

The Over-whelming Ecstasy Of Love

13 Heather

He’s going to say something. Brian Case. Something like he says every other morning. He’s going to say something creepy.
Mister
Case. What am I going to do? I’m going to smile like I do every morning. Like I have a spoon stuck in my mouth. Smile. Smile, when you feel like you’re being stripped naked, exposed, held up for ridicule. No. I’m over-reacting. I have to take responsibility for how I react. I have to train myself to not physically react that way, to not physically cringe inside. To
not
do that. It’s my fault. I must control how I react.

– How’s the light of my life today? Case’s usual question.

I prepare to mouth my usual answer: fine, but something happens. – What makes you think I’m the light of your life?

Fuck. What am I saying? I can’t say this … why can’t I? Yes I can. I can say anything really. If he makes a strange, inappropriate comment I can ask for him to expand, to tell me what the fuck he actually means. What lies behind that comment?

– Well, seeing you every day certainly brightens up my life.

Try as I may, I can’t stop the bad Heather talking. She’s only been thinking before. Now she’s started talking. I’m schizophrenic and the bad Heather’s taking over … – That’s strange really, I mean the sheer imbalance of it all. Seeing you every day has absolutely no positive impact on my life whatsoever.

The significant moment; when something I couldn’t say becomes something I can not say. My rebellion has moved from inside my head to into my world. Yes! No! Yes! Fuck.

– Oh, he says hurt, it’s not pretend hurt this time, this wretched thing is actually genuinely hurt, – it’s like that, is it?

–
I
’m not sure what
that
is, I tell him, – it’s like I see it and like I feel it.

– Listen, he says with an air of concerned confidentiality, – if anything’s wrong you can talk to me about it. You don’t have to bite my head off you know. I’m not all bad, he says simperingly.

– How good or bad you are has nothing to do wi me. That’s for you to think about. Nothing’s wrong with me. In fact, it couldnae be more right.

– Well, you’re just acting a little strange …

I maintain a calm air, – Look, your behaviour towards me has been based on an assumption you’ve made that I actually care about how you think I look. It’s nothing to do with anything. You’re my manager in the organisation, an organisation which is concerned with getting the job done rather than aesthetics or sexuality or whatever. It’s none of my business and I don’t intend to make it my business, but if how I look brightens up your life in the manner you suggest, I’d take a long hard look at myself and ask how much of a life I had.

– Oh, well thanks for putting me in the picture, he sulks, – I was just trying to be friendly.

– Yeah, well it’s me who is apologising. This is nothing to do with you. By acquiescing to your childish and boring behaviour I gave you the tacit impression I approved of it, which was wrong of me. I’m sorry for that, I really am.

He nods and looks a little bit bemused but then he smiles bashfully and says, – Right … I’ll just get on then.

He smiles bashfully.
Mister
Case. Jesus Christ!

I sit back at my computer and feel euphoric. At lunchtime I stride into the East Port Bar and reward myself with a gin and tonic. I sit by myself, but I don’t feel alone.

I feel really high and happy that afternoon and when I get home Hugh has left a message on the machine: Honey, I’ll be a bit late tonight. Jenny and I are working on another presentation for the team.

14 Lloyd

Ah’d had a good one wi Abdab doon in Newcastle, but ah wis fucked. He’d gied ays mair than a few grams ay coke for The Poisonous Cunt and the packet burned a hole in ma poakit oan the bus up. It was come-doon para stuff but ah kept thinking aboot Nukes and half-expecting the DS tae come oan the bus at every stoap. It didnae happen. Ah goat hame and made some soup.

Later on that night ah went up tae Tribal wi Ally. Ah was just wanting tae crash but the cunt insisted that ah came along. Ah even had tae take a couple of my ain Es which was bad news. This batch were different again, like Ketamine or something. Ah was pure cunted, ah couldnae dance. Ah sat in chill-out and Ally spraffed with me. – How you feelin, Lloyd?