Irvine Welsh - Filth

– Because we care, that’s why. Because we stick together! The t-shirt spits out.

– Stick together! Ha! Youse cunts are in and out of each others’ hooses with each others’ property all day long. Show the fucking professional ghouls in that city something to mourn and they’ll be out in force. That Boys From The Blackstuff shite . . . you bastards are glad that there’s nae jobs, n that, cause it gives you something to act so fuckin tragic and hard-done-by! The biggest tragedy though for you cunts was that the Lockerbie disaster happened somewhere else. Imagine the fun youse cunts would have had if that plane came down on some shitey Liverpool slum estate! It would’ve kept youse greeting and snarling in front of the camera for years!

– You’re a fuckin sad case . . . I’m out of here right now. If we weren’t on friggin oliday I’d have you outside you fucking toss, he snaps, throwing back his drink.

– Oooohhh, I’m scared shitless.

Bad tidings

Santa Robbo

Yo ho ho ho ho

– Leave im Derm, he ain’t friggin worth it. Leave im to his fun-packed life, the sad, lonely cunt. I knew what you were like straight away. I thought, naw, we’re on oliday, chat to the poor sad case on his own, this wide cunt smiles sarcastically. – We’ll just leave you here then, with all your mates. C’mon lads.

I’m not taking this from a piece of shite, this piece of fucking red scum. – Go back to your hotel room and fuck each other ya fucking scouse queers!

One guy comes at me, but his mates pull him away and they go, uttering curses.

– Inadequates, I shout to the barman. – Ah ken their type. They get their kicks noising up hoors and banging on windaes in the red-light district. Then they go back and screw each other. That’s scousers, big fuckin drama queens! I blame the Beatles, they’ve got a lot to answer for! We’re still putting up wi that auld troll that does the bag-off programme on telly cause ay them! Ever since these cunts and Liverpool FC’s success in Europe – a success built by Scotsmen: Liddell, Shankly, Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, etc. – scousers all think that they’ve got talent. They’re nothing! Nothing!

He turns away aw frosty as if it was me that was the fuckin freak. Cheeky bastard. I down my drink and head outside. Ambling down the narrow street in the cold I’m aware of someone alongside me and as I turn I feel a crack in my face and my head snaps to the side. I try to react, but another guy advances and boots me in the balls and I feel the sickness rise up inside me. I fall down on to one knee and throw up over the cobblestones.

– You fughin twat! the guy shouts.

Where’s the fuckin back-up here . . . I’m fuckin polis! Where’s the fuckin cloggie polis! Fuck sakes!

– C’mon Dermot, let’s get friggin movin! I hear one of the scousers say, and they’re off down the road.

I sit for a bit, my head pounding and my eyes watering. The sickness has abated slightly, remaining just under the level where you want to vomit. Eventually I’m helped to my feet by a smelly fuckin hippy. – You English, always you are causing the trouble man. Mellow out man, this is Amsterdam, he says.

– I’m no fuckin English, I tell him, and move off down the road. I want to get out of here. – Cowardly scouse bastards, if I see those cunts again . . .

I cross over the road and a tram just misses me. My nerves are shot to pieces. I’ll get these cunts back

I’ll

I go into a bar and smoke hashish and drink some beer. It’s a dimly lit touristy place. After a few drinks and smokes I feel better. The side of my face is swollen.

– I got mugged by some fuckin scousers, I tell an Irish guy. – They took eight hundred guilders off me. Three of them.

He just nods in a neutral way. I didn’t expect anything more from a criminal. All the Irish are like that, except the Protestant Northern Irish, our brethren.

I buy a phonecard and call Bunty.

– Awright Boontay loove? Ow are yaw?

– Leave me alone! she shouts, slamming the phone down. I’ve got a stiffer, so it’s over to the red-light district.

I try to get it on with a black hoor, but my nuts are so sore after that kicking that I can’t get it up. The scouse cunts have spoiled my day’s hooring; a few hours OT wasted. I go and do some more hash, but I hate this stuff. It’s powders I need. I get in tow with these Dutch guys who are going to a party in a houseboat. When we get there the place is full of scum, just like these Sunrise fuckers at Penicuik, but the cocaine I get is the best I’ve ever had. I tell this to one of the cloggites with skin so clear, so like a doll’s you just want to taste it and she just says, – But of course. This is Amsterdam.

Anyway, I get fucking wrecked. I remember getting asked to leave. When I get home Bladesey’s still up. He’s been out and he’s bought a bottle of malt whisky by way of an apology for his shocking behaviour the previous night. We arse the lot and then clean out the mini-bar in his room. I stagger back through to mine and crash out into a pulverising sleep.

‘ . . . the essentially depraved nature of the creature that she married . . .’

I wake up in the night with a shuddering spasm; it’s as if I’m falling through my own body. I’m sweating and trembling. There’s no hoor by my side but my baws are red-raw. Objects start to come into focus through the dark. It’s the hotel room in Amsterdam. I think of Carole and a crushing pain almost rips me apart. It’s only a reaction to my loss. My mouth feels like it’s been blowtorched and had the skin from my scrotum grafted onto it, but when I go to the mini-bar and down a soda water it only succeeds in turning my guts over. I lurch back to bed as the light comes up. The light. I’m safe again. I get a good bit of kip in.

I wake about lunchtime. My calendar on my watch tells me that it’s the fifteenth of December. Christmas is coming. I get showered, the side of my face still swollen and tender, and I dress and head next door. Bladesey’s still asleep. The cunt sleeps deeply. He’s half-blind withoot his specs. There they are on the bedside table.

I pick them up.

Leaving the hotel I take a stroll over by the canal streets and I spot a likely corner café for a late breakfast. En route, I pull the specs out of my pocket. These lenses are so thick. I put them on and lean over the green balustrade and watch a distorted tug go down the canal. How could any cunt wear those?

Thick though they may be, in a contest with the grinding, seg-ridden heel of Bruce Robertson’s shoes, there was only going to be one winner. I twist, grinning at the satisfying crack they make on the cobblestones. Then, with a piece of footwork so deft that it would have Tom Stronach hitting the rewind button on the VCR in appreciation, I flick the broken specs into the Herengracht and watch as its still waters claim them.

When I get back to the hotel Bladesey’s in a hell of a state, sitting on his bed. – Bruce . . . is that you . . . I can’t find my glasses . . . I don’t know what I’ve done with them . . . I had them last night . . .

– You were three sheets last night, I tell him.

– Yes, but I had my glasses . . .

– Listen Bladesey, come to think of it I dinnae mind ay ye having glasses oan last night. . .

– Oh my God . . . I can’t see Bruce . . .

– Never mind Brother Blades. Bruce Robertson will be your eyes. Ah’ll pick the hoors for ye son, dinnae you worry. Premium minge.

– But . . .

– The only butts that come intae it are the ones we’ll be fuckin doon that red-light district. Now fling that coat oan and let’s paint the toon red. It’s oor last day!

I’m leading Bladesey over to the red-light district. The hurdy-gurdy wheezes out some atmospheric Dutch music. The guy that winds it up has his hat out for change but he’s wasting his time with me. Every red cent is designated hooring and drugs money. Even grub is a luxury at the moment. I turn away from the outstretched cap and scramble to avoid an approaching bike as we’re standing in the cycle lane, but Bladesey’s too slow. It rams him, though not at force. The Cloggie cunt starts shouting at him: – Klootzak! Asshole!