Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

‘ Daniel …’ Sick Boy went, palms upturned, ‘… what’s wrong? ’

‘ YOU! PEOPLE LIKE YOU! ’

They squared up, shouting at each other, faces inches apart. ‘You need tae git fucking laid!’ Sick Boy sneers .

‘ N you need tae treat people wi respect! ’

‘ Spare me the tired axioms .’

‘ Dinnae think ye can get oot ay it by usin big words,’ Spud screamed, his face florid and eyes watering. ‘Ah sais you need tae treat people wi respect! ’

‘ Aye, n it’s done you loads ay fucking good! ’

‘ YOU’RE IN REHAB N AW, SON! ’

‘ AT LEAST I NEED MAIR THAN ONE HAND TAE COUNT THE NUMBER AY RIDES AH’VE HUD! ’

‘ YOU’RE GAUNNY GIT YIR BIG MOOTH SHUT ONE AY THESE DAYS! ’

‘ N YOU’RE GAUNNY DAE IT, LIKE? ’

The palaver rippled through the centre’s wafer-thin walls and Len and Skinny-Specky burst in trying tae calm things doon. I was fucked if I was getting in between them: let them swedge away. Although a gentle soul, Spud can row when he has just cause and I’d wager he could take Sick Boy. It would’ve been damn fine sport tae see them exchange blows .

‘ This is not the way we deal with conflict, by shouting and making threats. Is it, Simon? Is it, Danny?’ Skinny-Specky ticked rhetorically, in her school-marm style .

‘ He started it!’ Spud squealed .

‘ Like fuck ah did! I came in here tae see Mark and you started shoutin the odds! ’

‘ Cause you wir …’ Spud hesitated, ‘… cause your wir sayin things aboot other people! ’

‘ You really do need tae git fuckin laid! ’

As Spud turned away and exited, I ventured, ‘I think we all do, that’s a general axiom,’ stealing the latest word Sick Boy’s obviously found in his trusty dictionary, lamely hoping that Skinny-Specky might get flirty, or at least humorous with me, but she pointedly ignored the comment. Poor Spud was seething but he’ll be apologising to Sick Boy for the next ten years, once the Catholic guilt kicks in. If you’re gaunny be saying sorry anyway, you should at least panel the cunt and make it worthwhile: an error of judgement on his part. Len followed after him, while Skinny-Specky looked at Sick Boy n me as if we were going to disclose .

We stood staring back at her. ‘It’s a domestic dispute, Amelia,’ I smiled, ‘a sort ay Leith thing .’

‘ Well, keep it in Leith,’ she snapped .

‘ Not that easy when half of Leith’s in here,’ Sick Boy observed, as Skinny-Specky looked piqued, then followed Len out .

Sick Boy looked down the corridor towards the departing Skinny-Specky. ‘Amelia, Amelia, let me fuckin feel ya,’ he said tae naebody, raising his brows and patting his crotch. ‘I reckon she’d go … if conditions were favourable ’.

Day 15

The racket-making birds are black, white and blue magpies, nesting freely in the tree outside my window. I’ve been here now just over two weeks, which seems like two years .

My senses are almost overwhelming. These smells from the past: the thick, rich aroma of Ma’s chocolate cake, the sharp ammoniac tang of Wee Davie’s piss that watered your eyes as you sat in front of the telly .

Sick Boy cracks me up, the way the cunt constantly changes his clathes. He dresses smartly in the evenings, as if he’s going to a nightclub, and he totally mings ay aftershave. During the day he wears tracksuit bottoms and T-shirts. We’re both at the washing machine a lot, because of the sweat. Saw Molly around there after breakfast, loading up some underwear. I dinnae like her but the sight compelled me to go back tae my room and batter one off. The carpet looks like Murrayfield ice rink wi aw the dried spunk .

Molly is in the meditation group, as is Sick Boy, who chips incessantly at her defences. ‘Ah’m finished wi guys after Brandon’, I hear her announce. He responds with; ‘You don’t have the right to say that. You have a heart and a soul, and an emotional life. You’re a beautiful girl, with so much to give. Some day the right guy’ll come along,’ he proclaims, holding that deep gaze of probity. It forces her fingers to her hair, whispering, ‘Ye really think so? ’

‘ I know so,’ he pompously declares .

It’s the process review group that reminds me of why I take drugs. We’re meant tae be looking at how we interact with each other here in the centre, but it generally descends intae shouting matches and name-calling, inevitably ‘resolved’ by insincere hugs instigated by Tom or Amelia. Nonetheless, it aw feels a bit like the Cenny, the Vine or the Volley at closing time. The positive feedback we’re encouraged to gie each other seems tae be little more than wishful thinking or damning wi faint praise. For instance, the best thing Molly can find tae say aboot Johnny in one ay their stagey reconciliations is that she likes his navy-blue-and-white-hooped jersey. Their main bone of contention is Johnny’s dealing, which he gets a fair bit of stick for. He eventually rises, announcing, ‘Fuck this. Ah’m no takin this shite. Ah’m gaun .’

‘ I want to go means I want to use,’ Tom entreats his departing figure. ‘Don’t do this, Johnny. Don’t run. Stay with us .’

‘ Aye, right,’ he says, walking out and slamming the door behind him .

‘ When we start taking ourselves away, using isolating behaviour, that’s when we risk relapse,’ Tom explains. The meeting ends in confusion and disarray. Tom thinks we’ve ‘made progress’, describing it as ‘healthy’ that such conflicts are coming out into the open .

To borrow the immortal words ay the White Swan: aye, right .

We’d been allowed tae make our own tapes up, to play in the recky room. Swanney, who we find sitting there on his tod following his exit stage left, has brought in a C45 featuring ‘Heroin’ by the Velvets, Clapton’s ‘Cocaine’, Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’, the Stones’ ‘Sister Morphine’, Neil Young’s ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ and some other belters. Side Two has ‘Suicide is Painless’ (the theme from MASH), Terry Jacks’s ‘Seasons in the Sun’, Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Joe’, Bobby Goldsboro’s ‘Honey’, and the Doors’ ‘The End’, among others. Skinny-Specky instantly confiscates it on the grounds of ‘inappropriateness ’.

I now spend most mornings out on the back patio. In a corner there’s a rack of hand barbells at different weights. The big biker, Seeker, is the only cunt using them, so I join him. It’s coldcauld, but after a while you don’tye dinnae notice because ye work up a fair old sweat .

Roast chicken for lunch. I eat it .

Wank and read for most of the afternoon. I’m just getting ready to go to my kip when Swanney, eyes wide like he’s wired, bursts into my room and sits on my bed ranting at me. I learn that Raymie’s in Liverpool (or is it Newcastle?) and Alison’s ‘gone straight and sold out ’.

‘ Polis came in and turned ower the flat. Lucky there was a drought on and aw they could huckle the White Swan fir was some percy and a wee bit ay speed. They offered us this shitey deal. It’s a smoking gun, Rent Boy,’ he says. ‘Ah cannae be clean. Ah hate it. Ah git too worked up aboot aw the shite ay the day withoot ma skag. Ah just need it! ’

‘ Ah ken what ye mean .’

‘ But some cunt defo spilled the Coco Steins. That polis raid, it hud aw the hallmarks ay a textbook grassin-up job, ah’m sure ay it. But who? ah thoat. Well, I ain’t in the biz ay naming names, it isnae they wey ay the White Swan, he prefers tae just gracefully cruise doon that river ay love n enlightenment; but who is the only cunt who’s been nicked lately n no goat sent tae the chokey or pit through here? ’