James Kelman - The Burn

The film would soon be done, thank God. It was a murder picture, it was about a guy that was a mass-murderer, he kills all sorts of folk. A good-looking fellow too, handsome, then he goes bad and starts all the killing, women mainly, except for a couple of guys that get in his way, security men in the hostel, it was a nurses’ hostel, full of women, and a lot of them fancy him, the guy, the murderer, he gets off with them first, screws them, then after he’s screwed them he kills them — terrible. And no pity at all.

But sometimes you could feel like murdering somebody yourself in a way, because people were so fucking awful at times, you helped them out and nothing happened, they just turned round and didnt thank you, just took it like it was their due. His landlord was like that, the guy that owned the house he stayed in, he was a foreigner, sometimes you helped him out and he didnt even thank you, just looked at you like you were a piece of shite, like you were supposed to do it because you stayed in one of his fucking bedsits, as if it was part of your fucking rent or something.

He was sick of the coffee, he leaned to place the carton on the floor beneath the seat. He grimaced at the woman. She didnt notice, being engrossed in the picture. To look at her now you would hardly credit she had been greeting her eyes out quarter-of-an-hour ago. Incredible, the way some females greet, they turn it off and turn it on. He was going straight home, straight fucking home, to make the tea, that was what he was going to fucking do, right fucking now. Hamburger and potatoes and beans or something, chips. He was starving. He had been sitting here for two hours and it was fucking hopeless, you werent able to concentrate. You came to the pictures nowadays and you couldnt even get concentrating on the thing on the screen because

because it wasnt worth watching, that was the basic fact, because something in it usually went wrong, it turned out wrong, and so you wound up you just sat thinking about your life for fuck sake and then you started feeling like pressing the destruct button everything was so bad. No wonder she had been fucking greeting. It was probably just cause she was feeling so fucking awful depressed. About nothing in particular. You didnt have to feel depressed about something, no in particular, because there was so much of it.

The bar of chocolate in his pocket. Maybe he should just eat it himself for God’s sake! He shook his head, grinning; sometimes he was a fucking numbskull. Imagine but, when he was a boy, leaving all these dowps lying vertical like that, just so somebody passing by would think they had landed that way! It was funny being a wean, you did these stupid things. And you never for one minute thought life would turn out the way it did. You never for example thought you would be sitting in the pictures waiting for the afternoon matinée to finish so you could go fucking home to make your tea, to a bedsitter as well. You would’ve thought for one thing that you’d have had a lassie to do it for you, a wife maybe, cause that’s the way things are supposed to be. That was the way life was supposed to behave. When you were a boy anyway. You knew better once you got older. But what about lassies? Lassies were just so totally different. You just never fucking knew with them. You never knew what they thought, what they ever expected. They always expected things to happen and you never knew what it was, these things they expected, you were supposed to do.

What age was she? Older than him anyway, maybe thirty, thirty-five. Maybe even younger but it was hard to tell. She would’ve had a hard life. Definitely. Okay but everybody has a hard life. And she was on a diet. Most females are on a diet. She wasnt wearing a hat. Most females were these days, they were wearing hats, they seemed to be, even young lassies, they seemed to be as well; it was the fashion.

The more he thought about it the more he started thinking she might be on the game, a prostitute. He glanced at her out the side of his eye. It was definitely possible. She was good-looking and she was a bit hard, a bit tough, she was probably wearing a lot of make-up. Mostly all females wore make-up so you couldnt really count that. What else? Did she have on a ring? Aye, and quite a few, different ones, on her different fingers. She shall have music wherever she goes. Rings on her fingers and rings on her toes. Bells on her toes. She had black hair, or maybe it was just dark, it was hard to see properly because of the light; and her eyebrows went in a high curve. Maybe she was on the game and she had got a hard time from a punter, or else somebody was pimping for her and had gave her a doing, or else telt her he was going to give her one later, if she didnt do the business, if she didnt go out and make a few quid. Maybe her face was bruised. Maybe she had got a right kicking. And she wouldnt have been able to fight back, because she was a woman and wasnt strong enough, she wasnt powerful enough, she would just have to take it, to do it, what she was telt, to just do it. God Almighty. It was like a form of living hell. Men should go on the game to find out what like it was, a form of living hell — that’s what it was like. He should know, when he was a boy he had once went with a man for money and it was a horror, a horror story. Except it was real. He had just needed the dough and he knew about how to do it down the amusements, and he had went and fucking done it and that was that. But it was bad, a horror, a living hell. Getting gripped by the wrist so hard you couldnt have got away, but making it look like it was natural, like he was your da maybe, marching you into the toilet, the public toilet. Getting marched into the public toilet. People seeing you as well, other guys, them seeing you and you feeling like they knew, it was obvious, him marching you like that, the way he was marching you. Then the cubicle door shut and he was trapped, you were trapped, that was that, you were trapped, and it was so bad it was like a horror story except it was real, a living hell, because he could have done anything and you couldnt have stopped him because he was a man and he was strong and you were just a boy, nothing, to him you were just nothing. And you couldnt shout or fucking do anything about it really either because

because you were no just fucking feart you were in it along with him, you were, you were in cahoots, you were in cahoots with the guy, that was what it was, the bad fucking bit, you were in cahoots with him, it was like you had made a bargain, so that was that. But him gripping you the way he was! What a grip! So you had to just submit, what else could you do. You had to just submit, you couldnt scream nor fuck all. Nothing like that. Men coming into the urinals for a pish, no knowing what was going on behind the door and him breathing on you and feeling you up, and grabbing you hard, no even soft, no even caring if he had tore your clothes. What the wonder was that nobody could hear either because of the rustling noises the way he had you pressed against the wall and then you having to do it to him, to wank him, him forcing your hand and it was like suffocating, forcing his chest against your face and then coming over you, no even telling you or moving so you could avoid it it was just no fair at all, all over your shirt and trousers, it was terrible, a horror story, because after he went away you had to clean it all up and it wouldnt wipe off properly, all the stains, the way it had sunk in and it was like glue all glistening, having to go home on the subway with it: broad daylight.

For a pile of loose change as well. How much was it again? No even a pound, fifty stupid pence or something, ten bob. Probably no even that, probably it was something like forty pee, he just stuck it into his hand, some loose change. What did prostitutes get? what did they get? women, back then, nine year ago. It was probably about five quid if it was a short time; a tenner maybe if it was all night. That was enough to make anybody greet. But you could spend your life greeting, like his fucking sister. Because that was the thing about it, about life, it was pathetic, you felt like pressing the destruct button all the time, you kept seeing all these people, ones like the woman, the old dear at the end of the row, plus even himself as a boy, you had to even feel sorry for him, for himself, when he was a boy, you had to even feel sorry for yourself, yourfuckingself. What a fucking joke. A comedy. Life was a comedy for nearly everybody in the world. You could actually sympathise with that guy up on the screen. You could, you could sympathise with him. And he was a mass-murderer.