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

After a bit, the owners come into the ring with their dogs, a Rottweiler and an Alsatian. They hold them in different corners behind scratched lines, where they look at each other like boxers. Apart from a skinny man with slicked-back hair, who is presumably the referee, they are the only other bodies in the ring. The atmosphere is becoming murderous. The faces on the men in the barn are uniformly demonic, and I feel like I’m in the middle of a strange nightmare. Lara looks fascinated, yet as horrified as I feel. The referee suddenly barks: — Release your dogs!! And the animals charge towards each other, converging savagely in the centre of the pit, in a snarling, tumbling flurry.

A cheer goes up and the crowd scream rabid encouragement at the demented beasts. But there seems little action; it’s a strange impasse where it’s as if the dogs’ faces are superglued together. Then a chant — ‘fanged, fanged, fanged’ — starts up, gaining in volume and velocity. Monty puts his big face in between Lara’s and mine and explains, — When one dug bites through the other yin’s lip, they become fanged. Stops aw the action.

It didn’t stay stopped for long, as the handler came into the ring with a stick and puts it into the dog’s mouth, prising its jaws open. — The handler’s goat tae work the brekin stick intae the dug’s mooth tae brek the grip, Monty gleefully explains.

His muzzled dog is very disciplined and shows no reaction to the carnage in the ring as it stands by his side on a choke-chain leash. — Kenneth here’s a face dug, no a throat dug. A bonus, he explains with obvious relish. — Very few throat dugs are quick enough tae go for the kill and rip a throat oot. Some that git lucky might be able tae make the other dug pass oot if they kin git a guid grip ay its throat and cut oaf the oxygen supply, he explains, looking contemptuously at the dogs in the ring. — These urnae proper fightin dugs, he explains, — A pitbull worth its salt wid dae baith ay thaime at once.

Separated, the dogs charge again, converging into one snarling beast and whacking the door in front of our legs with force. They separate again and charge, the Alsatian seeming the more aggressive. After this exchange, the Rottweiler’s face is ripped and it whines horribly. I want to cry ‘Stop’. — See, Monty says triumphantly, — thon Rotty’s goat a grip three times stronger thin the Alsatian, but the cunt’s nae fuckin hert. Maist throat dugs git one shot n aw they git is a moothfae ay fur. Once the face dug starts rippin up thir coupon thir bottle jist goes n that’s thaime beat. It’s like a boxer wi just one punch, tryin tae land that big right aw night, but gittin picked oaf wi the jab n the combos. Pit bulls are the real fighters; the rest is just exhibition stuff. A freak show, he laughs, — we’re the main event. This is steeped in tradition; the rules have been set for years. It’s sport, jist like bullfightin in Spain, he says grandly.

Lara shudders. — I think it’s horrible, she says, and then looks at him and smiles. — But kind of fun, too.

The Alsatian has the whining and fretful Rottweiler in a grip in the back of the neck. The poor creature is paralysed with fear and just shivers and whimpers and cowers low as the Alsatian stands over it growling through its nose. One old guy, demented, scary, raising a half-empty half-bottle of whisky, roars: — Kill the cunt! A big guy with a shaven head and heavy black Stone Island jacket greets Monty and passes a ridged mirror to him. It has lines of cocaine chopped onto it. He takes one and passes it to Lara, who passes it to me. I decline, I want to get high, but not with these fucking people. I notice that Klepto takes a line.

— I think that’s the way it’s gaunny go the next round, Monty sneers.

Eventually, the owners pull the dogs apart. The Alsatian is muzzled and the Rottweiler’s owner looks at the dog in disgust. What I take to be some kind of disgraced vet, but I realise is actually the drunk with the whisky, is tending its wounds with some dark stuff from a bottle which I assume is an iodine solution. He applies it while the owner holds the dog’s face.

— Cunt cost me five hundred quid. Bastard, Stone Island moans. — Ronnie’s patter’s shan. That fuckin dug couldnae fight sleep.

— Eywis bet wi the puss dug, Mike. See how you fight whin yir face is gittin ripped oaf ye! Monty says.

I’m enthralled, even as the cold seeps into my bones and the shivers pulse with strobe light-like regularity through me. Lara, emboldened by the cocaine, now seems to be enjoying the carnage. — That was great, she says. Then she looks at me, and says, — What? That’s what they’re born to do. Like horses are meant to run and jump and be ridden, those dogs are born to fight. I don’t really see the problem.

— The problem, I start, dropping my voice and whispering urgently in her ear, — is not the dogs. It’s the people here, and as I study the faces of the men around me, one across the ring snaps into recognition. It’s my father , talking to a small, bald man! Thank God he hasn’t seen me! I step back in panic and pull Lara aside.

— I have to go. Now.

— Why? Wimping out, Ms Cahill? she asks smugly, — Monty’s dog’s fighting next!

— It’s not that. My dad’s here! I don’t want to see him!

Lara grinds her jaw and raises her eyebrows. — Well, I’m staying. This is fun.

— Don’t tell him I was here, I say, stepping back a bit more.

Klepto looks at me. — That’s your faither ? Tam Cahill?

— Yes! I hiss. — Please, don’t tell him I was here.

The colour has drained from his face. — There’s nae danger ay that!

I push through the crowd. Somebody gropes my arse. I turn around to see Stone Island’s bullet head skewing with a saucy wink. I push on and an old guy laughs and says, — Aye, it isnae Crufts, hen! I get outside and into the car. As I drive off, I can see my father’s 4x4 is parked alongside some other vehicles, on a tarmacked forecourt on the other side of the barn. I head away from that terrible place, getting on the road back through Dunfermline towards Cowdenbeath. The drizzle has turned into a downpour.

I’m so glad to be on my own. I’m thinking about my dad and the dog. Oh my God. Surely not… Ahead, there’s a solitary figure standing half in the gutter, lurching into the road. Astonishingly, outside of Dunfermline, somebody is thumbing a lift. It’s a girl. I pull up and stop as she comes running towards me.

But it’s not a girl. It’s a guy dressed up in woman’s clothing and I know him!

I wind down the windscreen. — Why are you dressed like that? What are you doing out here?

He wraps his arms around himself. He doesn’t have a coat! — It’s a long story, could we mibbe no discuss it in the motor?

I open the front passenger seat. As he gets in, all I can think of is how womanly his legs look, in their soaked tights. I feel a wave of jealousy, my own are so shapeless and chunky under those jeans.

— Where ye been? he asks.

— Seeing friends, I say quickly. — More to the point, where have you been?

Jason looks at me with these almost permanently startled eyes of his. I consider, with a chilling realisation, that it was his name I used to try and get myself off the hook with that pervert. It was the first one that came to mind when he asked about my boyfriend! And now he’s dressed as a girl. — Ah goat involved in amateur dramatics. Ah wis playin a lassie in this drama. Up at rehearsals in the Carnegie Hall, likes. Aye, n ah went fir a wee swallay, n one became several, n ah goat masel locked oot! Thing is, aw ma clathes n cash were locked in the dressin room! Could only happen tae me, he smiles woefully.