Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

I have to confess that I did find something mighty fetchin about her little performance, and I weren’t shy about lettin her know it. — Don’t worry, ma’am, as we say back in Texas, this ain’t my first rodeo.

She slapped her thighs and I tried not to stare at the seismic activity that followed, as she burst into uproarious laughter. — I’ll bet it ain’t. You got that look in your eye! You’re gonna ask me about Glen in the sack… right?

— Ma’am, I would never presume… I protested, then I conceded, — but seein as you mentioned it n all…

And as those words fell from my mouth, I swear that, there and then, I could feel the extent of my betrayal. What in hell’s name was I doing? This was one of the great masters of American independent cinema. Up there with the likes of Cassavetes or Sayles. I wanted to write a tribute to an important, admired, and inspirational artist who’d help drag me from the sleazepits and here I was indulgin in the kinda smut I thought I’d escaped five years ago. When I was shootin those porn flicks from that San Fernando Valley lockup, just to pay the bills.

Two long years in the Valley wrecked things between me and Jill. I recall her sayin to me in one of our lush discussions, — You spend so much time shootin pussy, you don’t wanna fuck it no more.

Poor gal was only half right. Cause I certainly did, but the problem was that that shit was on offer all day long. By the time I got home I guess I’d had my fill of it, but I could always use another drink. That might be oversimplifyin the matter somewhat, but I do believe that there’s something about being around all that meat and sweat that sucks the soul right out of a man. I know that there are some people who can work in that industry a long stretch and just wash its stink off every night, but I certainly wasn’t one of them. On the plus side I sure learned how to light a set and frame a shot.

But there I was in the Valley, a stupid, still youngish guy who should have been like a kid in a candy store, but I was miserable as a coyote with hemorrhoids and two bust back legs. Then, durin some downtime, I walked into a fleapit cinema on Hollywood Boulevard where I took in The Liars of Ditchwater Creek , Halliday’s portrait of a West Texas town similar to the one I grew up in. That was it. I was hooked. Walking out from that ol picture house exhilarated, I wanted to do what Halliday was doing. Still do. It was both my salvation and my torment.

— Glen was fine at first, a real Texan bull as I recall, Yolanda grinned a little then let her expression dissolve into a wry smile. — But like most men it didn’t last.

I didn’t reckon that she was diggin me out; at that point I’d told her little about my own life, but I guess it was hard not to hear echoes of Jill’s bitter asides of the latter months in her voice. I tried to remain impassive and waited for her to carry on.

— I didn’t have no luck with men, she told me in a sad lament, her mood evidently mirrorin my own. — Humphrey Marston, he was a lot older than me, but he was about the only one of them who left me with anything other than bills. This is his place, sat right on this big aquifer.

That word again. I looked a little dumbfounded, and it must have showed as she raised her eyebrows at me. — Ma’am, excuse my ignorance, but I’m gonna have to ask you what an aquifer is. I’m figurin some kinda underground lake?

— You got it in a nutshell, she explained, topping up her drink. — The developers were always knocking on our door with big checks in their hands, but Humphrey reckoned the water was an asset worth keeping. Twenty-odd years ago, before they brought the stuff down from the mountains, there was enough of it here to keep a few new housing developments and a golf course going for years. But their money didn’t interest Humphrey. So the developers and the state fought dirty; tried all sorts of ways to get their hands on it. Humphrey was a very gentle fella, but he could be as stubborn as a mule; took em all the way and whopped their asses in court every time.

— Good ol Humphrey, I smiled and raised my glass to toast him. I was likin this ol boy more all the time.

Yolanda reached over and clinked glasses with me, killed her gin and refueled. With her back to me, I watched the dimpled hams spill out from under that one-piece as she poured. I looked away as she turned around, drink in hand. — He inherited the place from his father who wanted him to work it. But all he was interested in was animals, she explained. — He took his bachelor’s degree in zoology…

She pointed at the stuffed cat, mounted on a plinth. I noticed it was caught in that classic cat sitting pose, its hind legs tucked under it, the forelegs extended, looking up as if expecting a feed. — This is what he did, this was his work.

I guess I was pretty impressed by this. Most taxidermists I’d seen, and there was a lot of em in the big hunting states, they tended to go for action poses, even in domestic pets. — I like the way he got that ol boy in an ordinary cat position, rather than leapin on some invisible prey.

— Yes, Humphrey studied compulsively so that his compositions would be anatomically correct. She pointed over to a wall full of certificates and a cabinet stacked with trophies. — He was the best in the state. I used to assist him. I was so damn squeamish at first… Her expression went coy as her hand waved away a phantom objection or compliment.

In spite of myself, I was getting plenty curious. — What happened with you and Humphrey, if you don’t mind me asking?

Yolanda looked sadly at me, then grimaced in a caustic smile. — Nothing with me and him, just him . I came home from the mall one afternoon and found him dead in his workshop. He was stuffing a raccoon when he had a massive coronary. Darned if I didn’t find him right there, bent over his subject, as lifeless as that poor creature he was working on, she told me, brushin at a tear as if the loss was just yesterday. — I reckoned it was those constant battles with the developers and the state that took it all out of him. Her expression turned bitter as her incisors flashed. — Even if you beat those bastards, you always pay a price.

I couldn’t disagree there. It struck me that ol Humphrey was like a hero in a Glen Halliday movie; an ordinary Joe standin up to those moneyed assholes and power trippers, just cause he could, and hell, because it was the right thing to do.

— It just made me all the more determined that I would never sell up. She shook her head emphatically. — They said that I was cutting off my nose to spite my face and that the canal waters would soon be rolling in from the mountains and that I should cash in while I could. And sure enough, it eventually did come flowin down, but not before some of those miserable rat bastards who had tried to take my Humphrey’s water went bust sittin on their useless adjoining land!

And she talked on and on about ol Humphrey and I was darned if that ol gal didn’t have tongue enough for ten rows of teeth. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. She was upset and I had to let her go on. She told me how she’d met Humphrey at a pageant when she was Miss Arizona, and, how in contrast to the others, he was a real gent who always treated her like a lady. It sure was a strong love, no doubt about that. So I learned a lot about Humphrey and taxidermy, and while I admired this kindly ol guy who just sat on his land, stuffin animals, developers and the state, he wasn’t Glen Halliday. It took me a long while to get back there and when I did I could tell it was mighty disappointin for Yolanda.

— Glen Halliday lived for his work, she said ruefully. — We got together as friends first, then got married in a whirlwind. After six months he was a lousy lay. I didn’t see enough of him. He was always running off onto the set of one film after another, or hiding out in bars, she grinned at me in conspiracy. — If Glen had a grande passion , then, honey, I certainly wasn’t it.