The Acid House (20 page)

Garland wore a sad expression; he was a man more disappointed and hurt than angry.

— The worse thing, Brian, he told me, is that I took you for an intelligent and decent young man. I thought that you would prove a diligent and conscientious Park Officer.

— Yeah, ah suppose ah messed things up a bit. ..

— Is it drugs, Brian? Is it? he pleaded.

— No, it's more a kind of depression, you know?

The Shark was in attendance. — Depression my arse! He was zonked out of his bloody brains!

— That's enough, Mister Rutherford! Garland snapped. — Let Brian speak for himself.

— It's just that ah've been oan these anti-depressants. Some times ah go over the score, forget ah've taken the pills and take a double dosage, ken?

Garland looked thoughtful. — How can a young man who has everything to look forward to possibly be depressed?

How indeed. Working in a temporary job in the parks. Staying in a drab scheme wi his dad, who's just about to alienate every psycho that lives in it with an anti-drugs crusade. No seen his Ma since he was eight years old. Knocked back by his girlfriend. He's got the whole wide world in his hands ... everybody, join in . . .

— It's exogenous depression, the doctors say. Chemical imbalance. Comes on without warning.

Garland shook his head sympathetically. — You didn't mention this at the interview, this condition.

— Ah know, ah apologise for that. Ah just felt that it would by prejudicial to my employment prospects with the District Council's Recreation Department, Park Patrol Division.

The Shark's bottom jaw twitched. The union boy nodded solemnly. The personnel guy remained impassive. Garland took a deep breath. — You've given us food for thought, Brian. Leaving the job, though, that is a serious breach of discipline. If you'd kindly leave us for a few minutes.

I went outside into the corridor. I stood around for a wee while before Garland summoned me back in.

— We're going to suspend you for the rest of the week, with pay, pending a decision.

— Thank you, I said, and I meant it.

I went drinking with my mate The PATH that night. I checked my account. Whatever happened regarding this disciplinary, I was off to London.

I got back to my auld man's, carrying the portable telly I kept at the park. Deek was crashed out in my bed. What the fuck was he daein in ma bed?

As I went to shake him, I saw him appear at the door. Either there were two Deeks or it wasn't him in ma bed. Both propositions seemed equally plausible in my current frame of mind.

— What's this? I asked the Deek at the door, pointing tae the possible Deek in the bed.

— It's Ronnie. He wis looking fir ye. He's really jellied. Ah took him up here soas the auld man widnae see um. Ye ken how he is about drugs n that.

— Aw right, thanks. That useless cunt Ronnie. Ah'll let the fucker sleep it oaf.

Ronnie lay there for hours. I couldn't move him. When I was ready to go to bed I pulled him onto the floor and threw a blanket over him.

The next morning I packed for London. As I got ready, Ronnie was coming to.

— Heavy day yesterday, Ron? I asked.

— Fucked, he said, pointing to his head.

I was looking forward to London.

I've still got that out of it fae the night before feeling; or is it still the night before or what, but who cares cause Simmy's racked up the balls and ordered up one Guinness and one pint of bitter and auld Harry's saying: Fucking drunken Jock gits and Simmy's hugging the grumpy auld cunt then picking him up and sticking him on the bar and Vi's telling me that I was in some state last night, her sulky, mean doughy face propped up on her white flabby arms and I'm hating Simmy's automatic, arrogant, soap-dodging assumption that I want to play fuckin pool, as if it's just part of the natural order of things ...

Oh ya cunt ye

Fuck... I thought it was all coming back up there; that curry. I don't know whether to spit, swallow or chew and Simmy's split the pack, he's looking at my flushed, sweaty, uncomfortable face and is explaining the concept of:

— Momentum. Momentum big man, that's what it's aw about.
MO-MEN-TUM.
Wuv goat tae ride that wave, go wi the flow, take it aw as far as it'll go. Momentum. When it's workin fur ye, ye jist cannae ignore it.

Simmy's been talking to Cliff in the flat. Cliff reads
The Independent.
They use words like that; usually in the sports pages.

I send a stripe down the table into the bottom left-hand pocket. A fine effort. The butt of Simmy's cue thumps the lino appreciatively. — Nice wahn, ma man, Simmy says.

— Momentum ma fuckin arse, it's this speed we've been snortin and dabbin at for days now n see when ah stoap this, whin ah finally settle doon and say: beddy boys, it'll be fir days, naw, make that fuckin weeks, naw months, fuckin months.

Simmy goes: — Tell ye whit though, ma man, you n me up fuckin west next week. Straight oan that 207 bus doon the Uxbridge Road. No gettin oaf at Ealing Broadway or stallin at the Bush. Up west. Clubs n wimmin. No compromise. No surrender.

He starts whistling 'Derry's Walls'.

The cunt's broken my concentration and I fuck up on an easy ball into the centre pocket. Too busy trying to get position on the yellow.

It's that cunt who's always shitein it tae go up west, it's him that gets us lumbered in Ealing or the Bush, mashed out of our fuckin brains. That's okay for him; he's a fat, ugly, weedjie, soapdodging orange-bigoted, hun bastard with a small cheesy cock and a face disfigured by Indian ink, scar tissue, burst blood vessels, and he's got that frizzy hair that a lot of nuns seem to have which looks like it's been transplanted from somebody's pubes and he also has a gross arse which is prone to faecal leakage. All of which makes his chances of meeting a woman who doesnae look as if she could eat tomatays through a tennis racket highly improbable. How repulsive is he. The problem is, though, that the cunt's a hindrance tae me, in ma quest tae meet somebody reasonable, and he has the flat as boggin as he is with fish and chip wrappers and chinky cartons everywhere, plates piled up all ower the place, n as for his room, well, you'd have to get Rentokil in tae make that fuckin bed. Then there's that cunt Cliff, n his fuckin soacks, that lie in the lobby ootside his room, stinking the whole flat oot. Even they lassies that we've got tae ken fae ower the road, Nazneem, Paula and Angela, they'll no come over for a blow now, so how can I take anybody back there? It was me who got pally with them n all, going up to them wi ma classic chat up line: — I share the same birthday as Ian Curtis, Linda Ronstadt and Trevor Horn, you know Trevor Horn? 'Video Killed The Radio Star'? 'Living In The Plastic Age'? Big pop producer of the eighties, he wis. How could anybody fail with chat-up lines like that? But fail I did, thanks to ma association with that cunt. Now they don't want me coming over to their place because it encourages him to go over and make a nuisance of himself. But I have to go there to get out of our place because the smell of that cat's litter tray is overpowering, swimming with pish and shite. It's no the animal's fault, although the bastard sprays everywhere. Simmy should've hud it done; it rips the wallpaper n curtains n sofa tae bits but he just says that cats are hygienic creatures and they keep the mice doon ... I'd have been better off at my auld boy's, better off with the fuckin parks who didn't even sack me, at least it was a job . . .

— C'moan big man, yir sleepin . . .

I down two balls. Tonight I'll go over and see Nazneem and tell her that I'm in love with her. No. That would be a lie. I only want to have sex with her. I've had enough of cynical games now that she's gone, gone, gone, gone, and never wrote although the last time I saw her she says hopefully we can carry on where we left off once she's got a few things sorted out and that was months ago now and she's here, here in London, and I suppose that's why I'm here; as if it was possible to casually bump into someone in London, shopping in London, like on Oxford Street, like you can on Prinny. Perhaps I could run into her at a club, the Ministry of Sound or something, but I never shop in London, in CENTRAL LONDON, I never go to clubs, just pubs or late-night drinking clubs full of alcoholics Simmy describes as the salt of the earth, but who are just beaten, broken people with nothing to say, no insights, nothing. .. I'm on the black, auld Harry sniggers maliciously and a Scots guy from Greenford says: — C'moan mate, sort out this orange bastard, and he and Simmy burst into the mundane, tedious double-act of football and religious rivalry that passes for high weedjie wit and we're all supposed to fall around pissing ourselves and be interested and only the black ball stands between me and the humiliation of this fat hun bastard.

He silently lets me pot it.

— Sorry, big man, ma gemme. Ye didnae nominate yir poakit. Auld Harry nods sagely. The ranks are closing even before I start to protest. Simmy's never out of Greenford's Red Lion, I hate it here. They all take the side of the house rules and the avuncular chatty Glaswegian. How sneaky is that cunt.

— Hard lines, big man, nae luck at aw, he smiles extending his hand and shaking mine theatrically.

— Moral victory, the other Scots guy says, — cheated by masonic refereein. That's huns fir ye.

— Right, I say, — ah'm off. I said I'd meet Cliff down the Lady Margaret. I can't conceal my annoyance. Fuck Cliff, it's Nazneem I want to see; this woman who shares the same birthday as Barbara Dickson, Meat Loaf and Alvin Stardust.

— They east-coast punters. A few days oan the bevvy n that's thum fucked. Nae stayin power, Simmy laughs. — See ye back at the flat, big man.

I leave him holding court with the prospective victims of lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, alcohol-induced asphyxiation through vomit inhalation, chip-pan fires and domestic stabbings who inhabit the Red Lion at Greenford, Middlesex.

I go back home and try and read for a bit, but my head is buzzing and I can't concentrate, even on Marilyn Monroe's story.

When I go to Nazneem's and put forward the proposition, I get knocked back. — I don't have sex with people like that, she says. — I like you as a friend, that's all. She laughs a little then passes over the joint. Nazneem's room is all fresh, pastel, planty and feminine. I feel like staying here forever.

I suck on the joint. — Okay men, what about swapping gaffs? Ah'll stay here and you can move intae ma room, over the road with Simmy and Cliff.

This second proposition has, if anything, even less appeal tae her than the first.

— No, I don't drink that's on, she smiles. Then she looks penetratingly at me and says, — You're not happy in yourself, are you?

It hits me in the centre of my chest. I always thought I was. Maybe not though. — I don't know. Who is?

— I am, she said. — I like my friends, I like my job, like where I stay, like the people I live with.

— No, you need to be in love to be happy. Ah'm not in love, I tell her.

— I don't know if that's true, she says. Then: — You're a bit of a smart

NONONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOO

My brain involuntarily makes loud echoing, ringing noises in my ear, which drown out her words.

— Sorry, a bit of a what? I ask.

— A smart-alec. You think you know all the answers.

A smart-alec. A posh name for a smart cunt.

We spraff all afternoon and I go to the Ministry of Sound with her and some of her pals. It's a nice night, great vibes, great sounds, good ecky, nice people. We sit around and chill the next day. I pray for a bad road-traffic accident for Simmy. Later on that Sunday night I decide to face the music. I go across.

— Whair you been, big yin? Our company no good enough fir ye? Ye'll git nuthin sniffin aroond that wee wog tart, tell ye that fir nowt.

I got more from her in a few hours than I had from him in two months. Just when you think the gig's totally fucked, someone like Nazneem comes along and you think the world isn't so bad after all. As for Simmy, what was I doing breathing the same rancid air as that prick?

It was time I headed back up the road. On Monday I bought a one-way bus ticket to Edinburgh. On Tuesday I used it. It was near enough Christmas anyway. I'd probably be back after the New Year. Probably.

Our antipathy towards Blind Cunt had simmered away for as long as I could recall, but it fairly blazed once we broke that shared taboo of its acknowledgement. The taboo had been a fairly powerful one. After all, you are supposed to empathise with, and perhaps give greater social licence to, someone with such a terrible disability. Fate has been cruel to some people; you as a human being are expected to compensate. The arbitrary nature of this disability is striking; the attitude of there but for the grace of God go I prevails. Or should.

This attitude, though, is governed by self-righteousness and fear. Self-righteousness, as the sighted are able to appear superior and benevolent, or even worthier because they make a big thing out of treating people like Blind Cunt in exactly die same manner as they treat everybody else. Fear comes into this too: as well as the primitive fear that we will be struck down by an omnipotent force if we are not good, there's a more sophisticated one. It states that we are contributing towards defining what is acceptable behaviour towards individuals in such circumstances and if a similar fate befalls us, then we should expect to be treated decently.

However, being blind does not make you a good person. You can be just as much of a cunt as any sighted fucker. Sometimes even more of a cunt. Like Blind Cunt.

It was on the fourth pint in Sandy Bell's that the taboo was shattered. We were slagging people we disliked and Roxy eventually drew in a breath and glared at me over the silver frames of his glasses. — And ah'll tell ye one cunt who I fuckin cannot stand: that blind cunt that drinks in the Spider's. Tell ays he's no a fuckin pain!

I spluttered nervously into my beer. A chill briefly descended on me, only to be quickly supplanted by a glorious feeling of liberation. Blind Cunt. — That cunt gits oan ma fuckin tits, I agreed.

The following Thursday night me, Roxy and The PATH were up at Sidney's flat having a blow. It was a fucker of a night; icy roads, gale-force winds which had caused much damage, and occasional snowstorms. A night to stay in; but as it was a Friday, this was simply not possible. After we finished the blow, we braved the elements and struggled up Morrison Street to the pub.

— Fuckin Bertie Auld, The PATH said, as we staggered into the boozer, shaking and tramping the snow from our coats and boots.

— Fuckin brutal, man, Sidney agreed.

Big Ally Moncrief was at the bar, doing the
Evening News
crossword. I started moving towards him, but then I saw Blind Cunt's twisted face poking out from behind the big fucker. I stopped in my tracks as I heard Blind Cunt's high, jagged squeal:

—
CORRECKSHIN! HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN FOOTBALL CLUB PLC, AS THEY ARE OFFICIALLY REFERRED TO IN THE REGISTER OF COMPANIES!

Bobby from behind the bar looked at Blind Cunt as if he wanted to burst his mouth. Big Moncrief smiled tolerantly, then noted us. — The boys! What yis fir?

So we were thus sucked into the company of Ally Moncrief and, as Blind Cunt had been enjoying the big bastard's sponsorship, that of the visually challenged vagina himself.

We had to put up with Blind Cunt's pedantic asides for most of the evening. It didn't bother Sidney or The PATH, they were both really stoned, but Roxy and I had worked up a fair steam of hate and loathing for the fucker in Sandy Bell's the other night, and he was quickly reactivating it.

The crunch came when The PATH, Roxy and Big Moncrief were discussing some seventies revival programme that had recently been televised.

— The classic clip though, Roxy enthused, — was that Roxy Music one from the Whistle Test.

A few nods followed, but I thought: well, Roxy would say that, being a Roxy Music freak.

—
CORRECKSHIN!
Blind Cunt snaps. —
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST TO BE PRECISE,
jabbing a ped antic finger in the air.

After this Roxy and I extracted ourselves from the company, making the excuse that we wanted to talk to Keith Falconer, who was sitting down the other end of the bar. We sat blethering to Keith for about an hour. When he made to leave, we talked to a couple of guys we didn't know, rather than go back up beside the others.

After a bit, The PATH waved his hand and shut his eyes as he and Sidney staggered past us, out into the snow. The last bell had gone. Later Big Moncrief, obviously drunk, slipped away, quiet and stoical, into the blizzard. Blind Cunt was left alone at the bar.

— That Blind Cunt, Roxy said, pointing down the bar at him, — ye check oot the size ay his wad there? Tell ays he wisnae fuckin flush.

— Naw.

He looked at me, treachery filling his eyes. — Something tae think aboot but.

We managed to get another beer out of them before we braved the storm. It was horrible, the snow driving into us at force, my face numb and throbbing, my head splitting in no time. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. We could make out one slow, ambling figure holding onto the black railings, however.

— There's Blind Cunt! Roxy shouted.

At that point, a slate dislodged from a tenement roof, crashing down a few feet in front of us. — Fuck sake, Roxy gasped, — that could've taken our fuckin heids oaf! Then he grabbed a hold of me, his eyes charged up in realisation and anticipation. He picked up the slate and hurried down the road. Standing a few feet behind Blind Cunt, he hurled the slate like a frisbee. It flew past his ear, but in the racket the driving snow and gale-force winds made, Blind Cunt heard and, of course, saw, nothing.

— Ah'll gie the cunt
CORRECKSHIN!
Roxy snarled. He picked up another slate from the snow and ran up behind Blind Cunt. Two-handedly and with great force, he brought it crash ing down over his head. Blind Cunt staggered forward and hit the deck. Roxy whipped the wallet out of his coat pocket. I kicked a pile of snow in his face, for no reason other than malice, and we departed in silent haste along the road, bouncing mirthfully up the subway to Fountainbridge as Roxy extracted the notes from Blind Cunt's wallet, throwing the empty purse over the graveyard wall. We got a number 1 bus which struggled up to Tollcross where we went into Tipplers for a late drink.

Blind Cunt did have a fair old wad. — Christmas shoapping dosh, ah bet, Roxy said gleefully. — Try telling ays that's no fuckin sound! Two hundred odd sobs!

—
CORRECKSHIN!
I snapped. — Two hundred and sev enteen pounds and thirty-four pence to be exact.

Roxy was intae a fifty-fifty split, but I was happy with eighty bar, as he had taken all the risks, such as they were.

The next day we were back in the same pub for a lunchtime drink. We were soon joined by Big Moncrief. — Ye hear aboot last night?

— Naw, we said in chorus.

— Ye ken what's his name, the blind boy, likes? The boy we hud a drink up at the bar wi last night?

— Aye, Roxy said, with a fake concern.

— Died last night; brain haemorrhage. The poor bastard died in the snaw at Dairy Road. The council gritters found urn last night.

— Fuckin hell! We wir jist wi the boy the other night! Roxy said.

I was too shocked to admire his front.

— Fuckin sin, Big Moncrief snarled, — a harmless cunt n aw. Ye ken what? Some rotten cunt dipped ehs poakits. The perr cunt's lyin in the snaw dyin. Did they phone an ambulance? Did they fuck! Some cunt jist goes, aye, aye, what's this then? Instead ay phonin an ambulance, the cunt's dipped ehs poakits, took ehs wallet. They found it empty in the graveyard.

— That's fuckin terrible, Roxy shook his head. — Ah hope they find the cunt that did it.

— See if ah goat ma fuckin hands oan thum .. . Moncrief growled.

— How bad is that? I said timidly, before changing the subject. — What's everybody fir?

Poor Blind Cunt. No a bad punter n aw. Wish I could mind ay his name but.