James Kelman - Greyhound for Breakfast

But now here I was. And could it be described as good, this lack of damp, not being chilled to the bone; even a sensation of warmth. All in all I was wishing I had kept a hold of the shells and that striped one of a crab, and I would then have been very content indeed, simply to remain there in the cave, knowing I would only have to travel such and such a distance back to the cottage.

What I fucking do is wander about the place, just going here and there. I’ve got my pitches. A few other cunts use them as well. They keep out my road cause I lose my temper. I’ve got two mates I sometimes meet up with to split for a drink and the rest of it. Their pitches are out the road of mine. One of them’s quiet. That suits me. The other yin’s a gab. I’m no that bothered. What I do I just nod. If anybody’s skint it’ll be him. He’s fucking hopeless. The quiet yin’s no bad. I quite like the way he does it. He goes up and stares into their eyes. That’s a bit like me except I’ll say something. Give us a couple of bob. The busfare home. That kind of thing. It doesnt fucking matter. All they have to do is look at you and they know the score. What I do I just stand waiting at the space by the shops. Sometimes you get them with change in their hands; they’ve no had time to stick it back into their purses or pockets. Men’s the best. Going up to women’s no so hot because they’ll look scared. The men are scared as well but it’s no sexual and there’s no the same risks with the polis if you get clocked doing it. Sometimes I feel like saying to them give us your jacket ya bastard. It makes me laugh. I’ve never said it yet. I dont like the cunts and I get annoyed. Sometimes I think ya bastard ye I’m fucking skint and you’re no. It’s a mistake. It shouldnt fucking matter cause you cant stop it. There’s this dog started following me. It used to go with that other yin, the quiet cunt. It tagged behind him across in the park one morning and me and the gab told him to fucking dump it cause it must belong to somebody but he didnt fucking bother, just shrugs. One thing I’m finding but it makes it a wee bit easier getting a turn. But I dont like it following me about. I dont like that kind of company. I used to have a mate like that as well, followed me about and that and I didnt like it. I used to tell him to fuck off. That’s what I sometimes do with the dog. Then sometimes they see you doing it and you can see them fucking they dont like it, they dont like it and it makes them scared at the same time. I’d tell them to fuck off as well. That’s what I feel like doing but what I do I just ignore them. That’s what I do with the dog too, cause it’s best. Anything else is daft, it’s just getting angry and that’s a mistake. I try no to get angry; it’s just the trouble is I’ve got a temper. That’s what the gab says as well, your trouble he says you’ve got a fucking temper, you’re better off just taking it easy. But I do take it easy. If they weigh you in then good and if they dont then there’s always the next yin along. And even if you dont get a turn the whole fucking day then there’s always the other two and usually one of them’s managed to get something. That’s the good thing about it, having mates. What I dont understand I dont understand how you get a few of the cunts going about in wee teams, maybe four or five to a pitch, one trying for the dough while the rest hang about in the background. That’s fucking hopeless cause it just puts them off giving you anything and sometimes you can even see them away crossing the street just to keep out the way, as if they’re fucking scared they’re going to get set about if they dont cough up. It’s stupid as well cause there’s always some cunt sees what you’re up to and next thing the polis is there and you’re in fucking bother. What I think I think these yins that hang about in the background it’s cause they’re depressed. They’ve had too many knockbacks and they cant fucking take it so what they do they start hanging about with some cunt that doesnt care and they just take whatever they can get. If it was me I’d just tell them to fuck off; away and fuck I’d tell them, that’s what I’d say if it was me.

I sit here you know I just sit here wondering what to do and my belly goes and my nerves are really on edge and I dont know what the fuck I’m to do it’s something to think about I try to think about it while my head is going and sometimes this brings it back but only for a spell then suddenly I’m aware again of the feeling like a knife in the pit of my guts it’s a worry I get worried about it because I know I should be doing things there are things needing doing I know I know I know it well but cant just bring myself to do them it isnt even as though there is that something that I can bring myself to do for if that was true it would be there I would be there and not having to worry about it at this stage my muscles go altogether and there’s aches down the sides of my body they are actual aches and also under my arms at the shoulder my armpits there are aches and I think what I know about early-warning signs the early-warning signal of the dickey heart it feels like that is what it is the warning about impending strokes and death because also my chest is like that the pains at each side and stretching from there down the sides of my body as if I’m hunched right over the workbench with a case of snapped digestion the kind that has dissolved from the centre but still is there round the edges and I try to take myself out of it I think about a hundred and one things all different things different sorts of things the sorts of things you can think about as an average adult human being with an ordinary job and family the countless things and doing this can ease the aches for a time it can make me feel calm a bit as though things are coming under control due to thinking it all through as if really I am in control and able to consider things objectively as if I’m going daft or something but this is what it’s like as if just my head’s packed it in and I’m stranded there with this head full of nothing and with all that sort of dithering it’d make you think about you’ve got it so that sometimes I wish my hands were clamps like the kind joiners use and I could fasten them onto the sides of my head and then apply the thumbscrews so everything starts squeezing and squeezing

I try not to think about it too much because that doesnt pay you dont have to tell me I know it far too well already then I wouldnt be bothering otherwise I wouldnt be bothering but just sitting here and not bothering but just with my head all screwed up and not a single idea or thought but just maybe the aches and the pains, that physicality.

I had landed in a position of some authority offering scope for advancement. A storekeeper. I kept records of food for the stores of food I had authority of. The Foodstore was a fairly large smallroom. I had no assistants. Those in superior positions held little or no authority over me. I was belonging to the few able to match figures on paper with objects on shelves and was left alone to get on with it.

Members of the kitchenstaff came to obtain grub and it was down to me to check they were due this grub. If so I marked it all in a wee notebook I kept hidden in a concealed spot. The chap I succeeded was at that moment serving a bit of time as an effect of his failure to conceal said notebook. He left the fucker lying around for any mug to find. And eventually someone pulled a stroke with cases of strong drink, and this predecessor of mine wound up taking the blame.

The kitchenstaff consisted of females most of whom were Portuguese but though I found them really desirable they seemed to regard Scotchmen with disfavour. And the rest of the British for that matter. They spoke very little English. I could manage La Muchacha Hermosa in their own language but it got me nowhere. Alongside them worked a pair of girls from somewhere on the southeastern tip of England, one in particular I was disposed towards. The other was not bad. I had to carry on the chat with both however because generally speaking this always transpires in such circumstances viz when you are on your tod and have nobody to help out in 4somes. Obviously I had no desire to escort both on a night out. But neither did I wish to ask one lest the other was hurt. What a mug! Never mind. It could have gone on for ages but for the intervention of the Portuguese. At long last they successfully conveyed to me that a certain girl from the southeastern tip of England wouldnt take it amiss if I was to dive in with the head down. Joan was her name; she seemed surprised when I asked her out but she was pleased. We walked down to the local pictures after work. The Odeon. People considered it a dump but I didnt; it showed two full-length feature films while the flash joints up west were charging a fortune for the privilege of seeing one.