James Kelman - Not Not While the Giro

In the id of god.

Taking everything into consideration the time may be approaching when I shall begin regularly paid, full-time employment. My lot is severely trying. For an approximate age I have been receiving money from the state. I am obliged to cease this malingering and earn an honest penny. Having lived in this fashion for so long I am well nigh unemployable and if I were an Industrial Magnate or Captain of Industry I would certainly entertain doubts as to my capacity for toil. I am an idle goodfornothing. A neerdowell. The workhouse is too good for the likes of me. I own up. I am incompatible with this Great British Society. My production rate is less than atrocious. An honest labouring job is outwith my grasp. Wielding a shabby brush is not to be my lot. Never more shall I be setting forth on bitter mornings just at the break of dawn through slimy backstreet alleys, the treacherous urban undergrowth, trudging the meanest cobbled streets and hideously misshapen pathways of this grey with a heart of gold city. Where is that godforsaken factory. Let me at it. A trier. I would say so Your Magnateship. And was Never Say Die the type of adage one could apply to the wretch. I believe so Your Industrialness.

Fuck off.

Often I sit by the window in order to sort myself out — a group therapy within, and I am content with a behaviourist approach, none of that pie-in-the-sky metaphysics here if you dont mind. I quick-fire trip questions at myself which demand immediate answers and sometimes elongated thought out ones. So far I have been unsuccessful, and the most honest comment on this is that it is done unintentionally on purpose, a very deeply structured item. Choosing this window for instance only reinforces the point. I am way way on top, high above the street. And though the outlook is unopen considerable activity takes place directly below. In future I may dabble in psychiatry — get a book out the library on the subject and stick in, go to nightschool and obtain the necessary qualifications for minor university acceptance whose exams I shall scrape through, industrious but lacking the spark of genius, and eventually make it into a general sanatorium leading a life of devotion to the mental health of mankind. I would really enjoy the work. I would like to organise beneficial group therapies and the rest of it. Daily discussions. Saving young men and women from all kinds of breakdowns. And you would definitely have to be alert working beside the average headbanger or disturbed soul who are in reality the sane and we the insane according to the learned H. S. of Esher S. But though I appear to jest I give plenty thought to the subject. At least once during their days everybody has considered themselves mad or at least well on the road but fortunately from listening to the BBC they realise that if they really were mad they would never for one moment consider it as a possible description of their condition although sometimes they almost have to when reading a book by an enlightened foreigner or watching a heavy play or documentary or something — I mean later, when lying in bed with the lights out for example with the wife fast asleep and 8½ months pregnant maybe then suddenly he advances and not too accidentally bumps her on the shoulder all ready with some shite about, O sorry if I disturbed you, tossing and turning etc but I was just wondering eh. . And then it dawns on him, this, the awful truth, he is off his head or at best has an astonishingly bad memory — and this memory, under the circumstances may actually be at worst. And that enlightened foreigner is no comfort once she will have returned to slumber and you are on your own, alone, in the middle of the night, the dark recesses and so on dan d ran dan. But it must happen sometimes. What must fucking happen.

The postoffice may be seeking reliable men. Perhaps I shall fail their medical. And that goes for the fireservice. But the armed forces. Security. And each branch is willing and eager to take on such as myself. I shall apply. The Military Life would suit me. Uplift the responsibility, the decision making, temptations, choices. And a sound bank account at the wind up — not a vast sum of course but enough to set me up as a tobacconist cum newsagent in a small way, nothing fancy, just to eke out the pension.

But there should be direction at 30 years of age. A knowing where I am going. Alright Sir Hamish we cant all be Charles Clore and Florence Nightingale but at least we damn well have a go and dont give in. Okay we may realise what it is all about and to hell with their christianity, ethics, the whole shebang and advertising but do we give in, do we Give Up The Ghost. No sirree by god we dont. Do you for one moment think we believe someone should starve to death while another feeds his dog on the finest fillet of steak and chips. Of course not. We none of us have outmoded beliefs but do we

I cannot place a finger somewhere. The bastarn rain is the cause. It pours, steadily for a time then heavier. Of course the fucking gutter has rotted and the constant torrent drops just above the fucking window. That bastard of a landlord gets nothing done, too busy peeping through keyholes at poor old Mrs Soinson. I am fed up with it. Weather been terrible for years. No wonder people look the way they do. Who can blame them. Christ it is bad, the weather, so fucking consistent. Depresses everything. Recently I went for a short jaunt in the disagreeable countryside. Fortunately I got soaked through. The cattle ignored the rain. The few motor cars around splished past squirting oily mud onto the Imitation Crombie. I kept slipping into marshy bogs from whence I shrieked at various objects while seated. It wasnt boring. Of yore, on country rambles, I would doze in some deserted field with the sun beating etc the hum of grasshoppers chirp. I never sleep in a field where cattle graze lest I get nibbled. The countryside and I are incompatible. Everybody maintains they like the countryside but I refuse to accept such nonsense. It is absurd. Just scared, to admit the truth — that they hate even the idea of journeying through pastureland or craggyland. Jesus christ. I dont mind small streams burning through arable-land. Hardy fishermen with waders knee-deep in lonely inshore waters earn my total indifference. Not exactly. Not sympathy either, nor pity, nor respect, envy, hate. Contempt. No, not at all. But I heroworship lighthousekeepers. No. Envy is closer. Or maybe jealousy. And anyway, nowadays all men are created equal. But whenever I have had money in the past I always enjoyed the downpour. If on the road to somewhere the rain is fine. A set purpose. Even the cinema. Coat collar upturned, street lights reflecting on puddles, arriving with wind flushed complexion and rubbing your damp hands, parking your arse on a convenient convector heater. But without the money. Still not too bad perhaps.

According to the mirror I have been going about with a thoughtful expression on one’s countenance. I appear to have become aware of myself in relation to the field by which I mean the external world. In relation to this field I am in full knowledge of my position. And this has nothing to do with steak & chips

Comfortable degrees of security are not to be scoffed at. I doff the cap to those who attain it the bastards. Seriously, I am fed up with being fed up. What I do wish

I shall not entertain day dreams

I shall not fantasise

I shall endeavour to make things work

I shall tramp the mean streets in search of menial posts or skilled ones. Everywhere I shall go, from Shetland Oilrigs to Bearsden Gardening Jobs. To Gloucestershire even. I would go to Gloucestershire. Would I fuck. To hell with them and their cricket & cheese. I refuse to go there. I may emigrate to The Great Englishes — o jesus christ Australia & New Zealand. Or America and Canada.