you see, the therapist said i mustn't keep chipping at teh past, or even the future, like this. avoid the bad thoughts, avoid your blog, she said, after reading it, it's a bad place for you. i though tof selling my house and going to tibet or thailand and living on a beach (on on the side of a mountain, if it were tibet, obviously) but then the fucking recession is here, isn't it? so i'll keep the house, thanks.

teh silver lining was my mother, one morning, whilst slurring her way through last nights hangover or this morning's gin admitted that, although he had spoken to her and demanded she do it, she never actually changed her will, and if she "were to die tomorrow" she said, while tottering to fridge to drop some eggs on the floor, i'd get all that was my "due".

needless to say she didn't recall this later, and further needlessly i say i didn't inform my brother that i knew he was a living sham. perhaps he himself didn't know that she hadn't changed the will. perhaps she lied to him? i don't know. recently it's been moot anyway, i was in rehab, then therapy and i didn't feel like any hedonism, i didn't feel like anything. i was trying to recall the last time i'd ejaculated, never mind fucked, and the last time a sweet, soft, peaty scotch had passed my lips.

so, rather more needlessly i say, i got out of that. therapy and pills haven't made me happy, in fact the only thing that was making me happy was my unhappiness. it was a state of existence at least, unlike that bready limbo i was chewing on, bready, prosaically prozac, prescribed psuedo-wellbein. NEEDLESS to say i went out and got riotusly fucked up. wanna hear all about it? prehaps i'll tell. anyone at oxygen? see that pale naked guy being chased out of a tree by teh security. yeah. well.

Ha, ha, ha.

So sorry about that. I know i know, and thanks for the emails, but i was indisposed, as it were, indisposed in a short, but everso relaxing coma, which had the added frisson of erasing my memory for a while. it was idyllic. then i re-discovered my own blog, and on re-reading the exploits of my past, i yearn for the re-obliviating state of the coma. why was i in a coma, it's a long story, insofar as i recall. i'll impart details, some day. i've been recuperating since, and i'm just back from a stint on a greek island.

so. i'm back. only 7,000 more emails to get thru. i'll get to you, i promise.

My mother had taken me aside, after the dismembered scraps of quail had been sucked into my oblivion, and the dregs of the dinner wine sat knowingly in my glass, glimmering up at me, as we sat at the table, my brothers two oldest children fighting with one another, the youngest screaming, her mother, my brothers wife, sitting in repose at the end of the table, arm draped across her breast, holding the glass by the stem and gazing over it's rim at me, she whispered at me, while not looking at me, i in Prada, but topped off with a novelty paper hat from one of the hideous, yet expensive, crackers my brother had somebody buy for him, and said to me "i blame myself, i never loved you as a child". This would be a revelation, did i not already know it intrinsically, and it would have hurt were it not for the fact i'd been on seroxat for a while and couldn't care less about anything. and valium too, i had taken some valium, valiantly trying to get through dinner on one glass of wine, "i never loved you" she says again and turns to me, to face me, her small moon face, her downy skin covered in makeup, expertly applied, her mask; "that makes me an appalling mother, doesn't it?" she asks and her tremulous hand tips ever move wine down her face and onto the white table cloth, already a butchers floor of stains and incipient senility. She says it matter of factly, no, more than that, as if she was in some way proud of it. distanced from her own child, rarefied. "i didn't love your father either," she futher imparts.

This year, i am definitely killing myself.

For christmas, to make a belaboured point, i bought my brother a very expensive bottle of 50 year old Glenfiddich (pronounced Glenfidick, according to the sap on tv. Just like a gaggis now a gage-ia? Never) scotch, he took it, opened it with and smiled with a glee i haven't seen since awakening as a five year old to find him squirting his jip in my eye. "beautiful, beautiful.." he crooned, oblivious to charade. Prick. i was at least hoping for a nip, but he took it, and me, to his cellar (he has a cellar) where he showed me his whisk(e)y, where in he has a collection of 40 year old malts, many, if not all, conspicuously more expensive than the one i had bough for him. He wasn't doing it deliberately, no, not showing off or belittling my present, the opposite, letting me into his world, showing me his collection, allowing me to savour the tang in the air, the neat lines of old bottles, some adorned with antler, others unbecoming, glistening urine coloured liquid with a tattly label haphazard across the front. A bottle of Maccalan, distilled in 1936. My mouth is instantly dry, my knees shake. He’s taking it out, and showing me. I can barely hear him. “…… in 1982 for a few hundred pounds, worth about 5 grand now….”

Lets drink it I croak, but it comes out as a hiss, and he’s not listening. “this is a good one Hector, a real good one.” Her says, admiring my bottle. “see, booze, it’s about so much more than waking up to find your friend has choked on his own vomit” he continues, less than obliquely referencing Martin Greeflund’s untimely death in my flat back in the early 90’s. I would point out, I wasn’t there at the time. I was banging his wife over at his flat, in a a pretense of trying to talk her into taking him back, and thus stemming the inflow of various intoxicants into his knackered body. Anyway. My brother slaps me on the shoulder, and is grinning, like I finally get it. “shit, man” I say, “you don’t get it, you should have seen my cellar, back in the day…”

“whiskeys?”

“wines, mostly.”

He grins at me. Who’d have thought we’d bond over the very thing he’s trying to deny me. I feel very ill. The smell of potatoes and turkey as we walk back up stairs…

God, so little to report. i had jetlag for a month and i've been sitting in this office doing nothing. i negotiated the terms of my rehabilitation with my brother. i'm allowed some wine with dinner, but any trace of drugs, i'm nixed. Oh i've no time for that any more i lied. in the evening i go home and i eat and i drink and i watch tv and i go into work, and i sit and the secretary brings me coffee and i wonder at the wonder of it all. i'm still waiting for this random drug testing to take off. it's quite exciting in it's way. and in other, more real ways, it isn't.

Last Friday, however, i said, fuck this, and i went out. i had, craftily, the locks changed again, so even if he turned up on saturday morning, he wouldn't get in. You must be accountable for all times, he smarms. If you're not where you say you are, i'll want to know why. Ok, i say, that's fine. But i have to go to the garden centre this weekend. The garden center, he further smarms, and i smile, delicately. The artifice is gossamer. And of course on saturday there's a great raging at the door, locked of course. i see my brother out side, trying to climb in a window, tempted to smash it. funny bastard.

I'm back. I'm back in country and in job and i have a cupboard on the second floor of my brothers firm that looks out onto some overflowing bins and stinks of Chinese food, and i have a p.a. who's on a different floor altogether, and she brings me weak coffee every morning and then i don't see her again. there's no work, there's no sunlight. i can sit there all day wanking and flicking my jip onto the ceiling, and i might yet, were it not for the fact i'm convinced the room is bugged. i come in at 9, take lunch from 12 to, oh i dunno, 3? go home at five. sometimes i do some work, nothing interesting. at the end of the month i'll get paid, it won't be much, but it's good to work, says my brother, a man needs to work. I've discovered facebook. i've exhausted wikipedia. i've been here a week. i'm beginning to think i'd rather lose my inheritance than have to go through this to get it.

At home i allow myself a sniff of Jameson before bed. he can't deny me that can he? i suppose we'll find out when the random and surprise demand for some urine happens upon me. it's good to be back, to be among the wankers on the street, standing in the morning dampness waiting for the queue in starbucks to go down. Yep. 400 euro gaggia at home. and here i am, so polish bint squeezing brown water into a cardboard cup for me, so that i may sip at it's piping ness as i make my way through the throng of stalled traffic to the office. yeah. it's great to be back.

We’re standing at a junction.

It’s just here. We walk down, in the near distance the financial centre is busy leaning on itself. There’s traffic here, all over, the road doesn’t seem very wide. There’s this place then, the white fencing around a building site that seems huge. Other buildings peer sheepishly at it. Tourists align the fence, gazing at some pictures or literature there.

"It would make you dizzy to look," she says, and she points a hand at the clear blue sky. "I was up there, " she says. "All the way to the top. It was scary. I could feel it moving, you know, and I looked over and I wanted to get sick, really. Puke over the side. Jesus. It gave me a real headache as well. It’s … well. You have to be there. Paul was almost dancing on the edge, he terrified me. No, I didn’t enjoy that at all".

Yeah, I say. There’s builders in hardhats and hi-vis gear standing around. There’s city folk pushing by. There’s a grate in the road which spits up another wraith, briefly dancing with the traffic and disappearing. Imagine the ghosts here.

Lets go, she say. This is weird.

It fucking is, I say.

It’s summer, years ago, we’re in this room in a house that you live in. it’s a Sunday and there’s nobody moving in the house. Outside the sun glares in at us, and it touches the dust in the air. Dancing motes all gleaming all lit up and phosphorescent, hanging in the air, descending, like a constant curtain, like we were underwater and this is the consistency around us. I can see it, turning you into soft focus. You pull a light dress over your head, and it falls to the ground next to me. We are sitting on the the ground, our legs curled up towards us, there’s no music on, only the sounds of outside and our breathing. Your dress is on the floor next to me and I look at it’s pile, as if it were art or architecture, it fascinates me, how once it held your bones together. Kept your secrets intact. You’re nearly naked now, looking at me, the sun is coming through the window behind your head and your hair is illuminated around your face, as if you were painted there. As if you were art. I look at you, take you in, my hand reaches toward your breast. There’s no sound in the room, but for hiss of bated breath. I touch you like an implication. You say to me, what do you think you’re doing, and smile, but your eyes are lost behind your fringe. I’m looking at your body. I can’t think about what I’m doing, I say. I wouldn’t believe it was happening if I did. You’re a fool, you say. Okay, I say. I’m a fool. It’s summer, and quiet in the room.

We were sitting in a cafe on 5th avenue, when she say to me OMG that's Ethan Hawke. and it was. he was sitting there, eating a danish and reading a book. the book was by Hans Günther and Ethan looked drawn into it. I never had him down as a racial purist, but when you look upon his near perfect cheekbones in the kind of proximity that only a Starbucks affords you, you begin to see the glimmer of the master race therein. I had a vision, fleeting, of me going over and killing him, smashing his head off the table, perhaps using a chair to cleave his beautiful skull open.
"i'm having dreams where i open the door," i say to her, "and blood comes out, like in the Shining"
"You're very fucked up, " she says, and she's know. We were married for 3 years before she went mental and got locked up. It wasn't entirely my fault, as a decade of physiotherapy will attest, but it was mostly my fault. so i traversed a continent searching for her, looking for absolution. it was really an excuse to get out of Dublin and the prying of my family. Now i must return, tell them my mission is complete and sit there, like some bovine cunt, waiting for the olde dear to pop her clogs. Sit there, working in my brothers firm, not drinking or doing any drugs, lest a random drug test catch me in an inexpedient cokefuddle and nullify my birthright, the rest of teh old mans money, hidden among the petticoats of my far-too-fucking-healthy mother. i could stay here. never go back. i'd have to, eventually, get a job and work for a living. be an ordinary citizen, a joe, getting the subway to work and chilling at home with a bud on my lap, my insane wife beside me on the chaise lounge, some kids ensconced in their rooms, idly surfing porn on their laptops, the hispanic maid on her knees in the kitchen, the guy from work showing me the murdered whores head in the trunk of his 4x4 at the company picnic upstate. it could be some life.
"come back with me" i say.
she smiles and looks down at the table top, sips her coffee. The coffee is alright. Ethan Hawke gets up to leave. "YOU NAZI CUNT" i shout at him. he flinches, the clientèle flinch, the guy behind the counter drops a cup of scald on his foot. there's an eerie silence then.
"you're insane." she says.

I was searching for the solace in forgetting. What I wanted was to be someone else, to try and take on life from a different angle, from a new perspective, on the opposite side of the country. There’s nothing necessary in it. There’s nothing I can fool myself with

I’m hungover when you wake up, but it’s ok, it’s meshed with the jetlag. It’s floating. The bed is empty but for me. Outside there’s a storm, it bellows with thunder and raps against the windows panes incessantly. I don’t need judgement, not even for myself.

Then we’re lost, slightly aren’t we. Too long we’ve been in this situation.

Terry’s is brightly lit. There’s about four people lined at the bar, only two are in conversation, the others watch the tv joylessly. The sound on the tv is down, some football is playing itself out in agonising allegory. So we put tunes on the juke box, and talk to the barmaid, sitting at the bar for now, waiting for the pool table to become free. I’m coughing and shaking and feeling rather vague. Didn’t sleep well again the night before and yet again woke at some extraordinary hour. I almost got up to watch tv, while the day had yet to break, in order to bore myself to sleep. I listened to some music in stead, got up, drank coffee, went back to bed, dozed, awoke again, sat on the edge of the bed and felt the floorboards tilt, and felt my weight shift as if I was sliding down the bed, toward the wall. The house is built on one of those idiosyncratic San Francisco hills, a practically vertical one, so this may not have been illusion.

I felt liable to take off most of the day, lacking ballast and balance in everything I did. I wandered around downtown, thick with shoppers, slick with rain.. All these people, huddled into themselves, weighed by bags. We stand under the awning of the pizza joint. Too full to go inside. The rain patters above and around us, the people walk by. Could be anywhere.

In Terry’s I’m attempting to feel awake. The booze will help, I’ve decided, because it worked the other night, kinda. Or at least after feeling like I was about to crash and die, I find myself up all night being heinous after a few tequilas. And these aren’t baby pours like we get at home. Seriously sized. They explain to me, we have somesuch tequila, I admit surprise that’s there’s a choice. Just gimme, basically. It’s a different drug over here. So I have a few of them.

Two weeks I’ve been here now, and it’s okay. The sky cleared and the sun cam out and on Sunday Marco dragged me to a yard sale, where he bought up someones vinyl collection, neatly packed in boxes. Some Supertramp, the Beatles, Elvis Costello, typical American Catholicism. They don’t seem so constrained over here, but then again, the diversity seems like either stupidly or conceit. I can’t decide.

My brother precipitated all this. It was an intervention of sorts. He came around to my door, and knocked and I didn’t answer because I’m not in the habit of answering my door. During the previous month I’d had a brief scare where Rhonda had moved back in until I sobered up and literally threw her out. I can still see her lace underware hanging on the breeze as it slowly descended to the wet ground. She looked up at me, with a bovine understanding. I said, that’s fucking it, I’m killing myself, so I took a load of valium and fell unconscious for about 2 days. They were all out of date so I don’t know if the effect was diluted, all I knew is that some cunt was a rat tat tatting upon my chamber door, and I was lying there thinking, am I dead. Before I knew it cold, slatey cold water was slapping me in the face. WTF?

“I broke in” he says.

“you prick.”

“get up and get dressed. You’re coming with me.”

We drove out to the country side, he said to me: “we know about you, we know you were sacked and why, we think that you need help and your inheritance relies on this.” Well, that’s the potted version. He’s convinced my mother to write me out of the will til I cop on. WTF. How long has she got live i blurt out. “What? She’s not dying”

“she better not die while I’m sorting myself out, cos… well…”

“look, we’re concerned.”

“why?”

He’s silent then. We drive on.

To some large hotel, where my sister, and my brother’s (second (pregnant)) wife are waiting, by an arched window hung with drapes that are older than me. Older than him. Older than all of us combined I’d wager.

And I sit there for three hours while they tell me all the stuff that’s wrong with me. All my past, half I just know is made up shit I’ve posted myself on the internet. They care so much they googled me and printed it out. My brothers wife leans her elbows on her knees and leans into me. She can’t be much older than me, though he’s 15 years my elder. “we just really care “ she says and alls I can see are the two massive orbs of her milky milky-white breasts, protruding from her dress. They’re calling out to me. Sucking me in. I have to avert my gaze. I’m being consumed. And the cunts won’t let me have a drink. Cunts.

My sister goes, all the terrible things you’ve done, and I sigh. Like fucking what? Well, she says, all prissy like, that time you went out with Karen. She, I said, dumped me. You told her you had AIDS!!

“uh,” I say. “I dind’t”

“you did”

“I said I had HIV”

“jesus”

“it was joke”
”it’s sick”

“well. I’m… anyway, what she did was worse. She called julie and told her I had aids and Julie freaked out and told Anabel and well, word got out and I had all these ugly scenes with all these exes phoning up crying and saying they’d kill me if they were in fected, in fact one of them was waiting for me outside work and she came up to me and started to punch me and og booo hooo, the doctor says I have HIV it’s all your fault you BASTARD, and I was all, hold on love, get your aids hands off me, I don’t have HIV, some other junkie gave it too you, and anyway. iT was a grim time.”

She starts to cry. Fucksake.

Anyway, here I am. Escaping. More later.

God, sorry about that. I was doing so well, but i had some kind of "overdose" say the doctors. Self medicating i was. Awash with pharmaceuticals and booze particles and with no particular regard to my being i was. it was a limbo, neither heaven nor hell. I've had worse times to be honest.

I answered my phone one day and it was Cathy, calling form a number that neither i, nor the nokia, recognised. "private number calling" the phon la-de-dahed to me. I answered it anyway, cos drug dealers usually avail of that service. There was Cathy.
"i'm not angry at you" she hums into the phone. Her voice has a particular grate that i had hitherto failed to note, or rather, it was one of those things i hated noted i didn't like about her that was going to facilitate my hate-sex and wilful dismissal of her feelings until her non-reciprocation caused certain brain-spunks to backfire and rewrite it all as a kind of adolescent fixation.
"that's great" i sighed.
"but hector, i've missed 342 calls from you in the last month"
"missed?"
"Hec, i couldn't answer.. i was. Busy"
""for a month?"
"I'm not accountable to you."
"What were you doing?"
"Hector please, i'm asking you. Leave me alone"
342 eh? most in the funky haze of a benders apex, as it sloughs off to fuggy morn. "i only remember calling, uh. Eight. Eight times."
"342"
"must be a broken phone"
"what did you want?"
"i thought maybe you saw my fountain pen?"
"Hector, i've gotten a new phone, but now you must leave me alone. I'm trying to be happy"
Oh how damning is that. Trying to be happy, as if one's default is unhappy. And as if i would be some kind of contra conductor to happiness: which makes utter sense. and i couldn't deny her her attempt at her insipid inscience. Not me. Anyway, when Brendon finally starts talking to me again, i'll get that dvd off him and we're laughing. i won't need the real thing any more. And that makes me happy all of a sudden and i say "lets go get some gelati, it's summer! i'll pay."
"i'm worried about you"
"me? ha ha ha ha ha."
I hang up. It's raining out and it has been for two months, it's drilled a wet hole into my head and rusted up some cogs and when i move my joints creak like rusty gates and things in the middle distance swim in and out of focus. there's this line of dancing lights that plays around the edge of my periphery and last week i spent 15 hours a day asleep. This perma winter is making me nest, when i should be out. I sit at home drinking fine whiskeys and smoking, and watching dvds, until gert pulls me out of the fug for the party of Laurence Clid who i briefly toured with back in 92 when we played with Laura Nih before she turned up the dial on her heroin problem and ended up in rehab and writing poetry as a way of dealing with her, like, pain, man, and the poetry was shit, but back in the day she had a voracious appetite for, well, self destruction, in the greatest traditions of rock and roll, and me and Clid and Theo Rend were all hand picked to play with her cos of our haircuts and likeminded approach to self harm and liquor intake and the tour was hard work, cos it ain't easy being cool and hatefull and drunk and trying to remember the nuances of 27 different tunes that all sounded the same but we rehearsed for all of five minutes, and inevitably it fell to pieces, gigs ending early, Laura riding the crowd on the stage, theo shooting up on the bus, all the rest of it, and i found out, years later as the tour manager and agent were going through rehab of their own and fessing up as part of the program that what they really wanted was someone to die on the tour and make a legend of the whole thing, and frankly they didn't care which one of us, even Laura!, that it was, but they just
reckoned one of us would, but they reckoned not with the indestructibility of the young body and the legendary amounts of drug goulash we were already renowned for and the fact that it was Laura herself who wigged out and went missing and i just went home to sleep for about a month, so with all this in mind i got me a nice big bag of oh-oh is it legal, it isn't and off to the part for me, and if Clid doens't know live in a big house with his two kids and he works for a software company and he's doing "really great" and it was "really great" to see me, but when i tried to press him to reminisce, you know remember the one eyed no legged prostitute in amsterdam that he vomited over his face goes blank, and his chablis-hand wobbles, so i go to his nicely appointed jacks and hoover up a bit and say, do you remember when the drug dealer stuck his pen knife in your ear til it bled cos you'd sneezed all his junk across the room, or even that time that Theo had cut some nice big lines on the back of a Q magazine on the bus and you came in and went, is that the one with Bowie on the cover and lifted it up and the room was suddenly thick with nose dust float in the air and Theo was crying and trying to snort the floor and off to the jacks with me again, with the clean surfaces, although evidence that i'm not the only columbian lover at the party, and Clid pulls me aside when i go back, nad spills Chablis on my sleeve, "fucking Paul Fucking Smith, pal" and he's all, give it fucking over. Those days are over, and, like jesus man, it was only 15 years ago, man, "so, mister loves the fucking past, "he hisses at me, and his teeth has all been fixed, "where were you at Theo's funeral?" "theo's dead?" i say, "downer, " and he's looking at me and holding my lapel and i shoo his hand away "Paul fucking Smith, friend" and he says "i want you to leave" and i wave my baggie, my knapsack, of coke at him and he shakes his head, so i say, i'll go, fuck you, i'll go, and he's looking at me, and at the bag, and at me, and at the bag "i have three kids now" he says, "so does my drug dealer" i say and five minutes later the pair of us are locked into the jacks snorting like there no tomorrow til his wife starts hammering on the door and he opens it up and say "maeve, i fucking hate you" and he clocks her right on the nose, she falls backwards, onto a painting on the opposite wall, and God help me i start to laugh raucously till blood spills from my nose "Paul FUCKING Smith" i shout at my self, scooping a little heap of coke into my pocket and i start to run from the party, vaguely away of this space trail in my wake, anointing all i pass with a film of white, tripping over Maeve, prone and Crying, blood on her hand and Clid is all Rage above her "and i'm fucking sick of your sisters kids, and i've been fucking Louise behind your back, and can't you do something about that mole on your..." "great fucking party, dude," i say "but i gotta slip out" my vision swims, and there's blood all over my Paul FUCKING Smith and i fall out onto the pavement and my head is throbbing and the bleeding won't stop and doens't, for days and days and days and the taxi driver is horrified, not in my fucking cab, he says "i was mugged!" so instead i walk, no trot into town, hit Dorans for a late one, they don't mind if you're covered in blood there, it's almost a pre-requiste "myself and Shane McGowan," i start to some gilr sitting beside me "once drank for 72 hours straight in this place" the bouncers have to throw me out "PAUL FUCKING SMITH" i shout, i hear threads ripping, bastards

the streets are wet, and it seeps into me

So Jason Cleck released his new album. i met him in the pub and he showed me the album cover and it was fairly typical fare. a couple of pictures of him, a few pictures of a juno and some other vintage gear, and i laughed at him. musicians, eh, they end up just making music for one another, not the punter. does the punter care that it's a 1973 Stage Rhodes, or that that pedal you're stomping on is the same Tycho Brahe one Zappa used. Who cares, only another sap musician. Oh, look at that cunt, he has some vintage gear. I'm the same, aren't i? I have some old shit too. it's a badge of honour. But imagine you were a software engineer and you came in with a spectrum or something. do you think your colleagues would be"oh, look at this vintage shit!". Some journalist going to croke Park with a 1920's typewriter... a surgeon with a hack saw...muso wankers, and i should know, we're obsessed with the past, even the music. nothing is new any more. Except angela. she's insane.

I was feeding ducks in the park. It was quiet enough, a drizzle was falling, keeping the plebs away. It’s been raining non-stop for a months now. I think it’s making us all mad. I was realising some stuff. Mainly that I am bored. I miss my job. How ridiculous is that. I went to mine and Gerts office, where Gert is stuck nearly everyday, running the minutiae that keeps our empire together. It’s been agreed that that’s what he does. For a wage. In essence he works for me. After twenty minutes he kicked me out. I was getting in the way. This is my business empire, I didn’t say. Gert was busy arranging some bands for some piece of shit tv special. Every band, three bands removed from talking head, but all sounding like talking heads. Taking their lead from a band that’s ripped off a band that sounds like Talking Heads. I was glad to see it all working. Until I realised that it wasn’t, was it. GreyArea Promotions was taking a backseat to Gerhardt Andreas Beckers GABB! Promotions. Am I paying the opposition? I asked. You’re not paying me, he says. These things take work you do fuck all. Well, I says, I’m a man of leisure now, I’m gonna come in and make this work. Don’t bother, he says, your name is worth fuck all. I’m getting somewhere, tho. Uh huh, I says. Really? Yeah. Well. I’m paying rent on this office. Oh it’s about the fucking office is it? I’ll go sit on the bench in the park if it makes you happy, he shouted. FUCK YOU, I said. I’LL SIT ON THE FUCKIGN BENCH.

And here I am.

I’ve decided that I need a crises to galvanise myself. As a child, in secondary school, I made a ‘bomb’ from the innards of and old phone, a digital watch and some playdough. For further fun I hid it in the school and phoned in a fake bomb alert. We Irish were all into bomb making and bomb alerts. I didn’t claim to be the IRA or anything, although I did put on a comedy Norn Iron accent. The school was closed, the suspect device was destroyed, the brothers we’re apoplectic with a righteous rage. I had enlisted no help for my japery. No lieutenant to rat me out. No coadjutant to crumble under the heavy questioning and half rape the brothers were renowned for. Nope, just me. Keeping my mouth shot. The veil of suspicion didn’t even cover me, as it fell upon so many. Eventually the stitched up some poor cunt for the job. Poor kid. Probably a drug addict now.

And what with the fun occurring across the water, oh, tonight they’re gonna party like it’s 1974, with burning cars full of turbans crashing into public transport, and Brazilians with backpacks eking life onto the footworn floor of public transport, I dreamed of all the opportunity to redeem with one selfless act of heroism. I see myself, sometimes, as the guy on the bus who takes command as it topples over, or explodes, or, less likely, finds itself inexplicably in another dimension, where dark betentacled things caress the windows. Whatever. The women love a man who takes control. I want to be that guy. Mister in control. Mister rugby-tackles the arab. I want to be that hero. So I wonder, how can I save these people? Me, with mt toy bombs? What I need is a real fanatic. Or a real bomb. I look out across the park, across the pond. It’s wet, my hair is no adhesed to my head.

Gert calls.

“maybe you should work for me?”

Sigh.

have I FUCK!!!

I've been thinking a lot about spirituality lately.

Here’s some ground rules, to learn if you happen to be on the Lig. The “rock-star” and their indulgence is your meat and drink here. Well, lets be honest, your drink.

1. One thing the “rock-star”, even the simian gumps from cock-flagellators Cringe or Japanese Crying Eye don’t want to hear you say “I prefer the older stuff.” No, your disarming honesty isn’t a breath of fresh air, put that back in it’s box pretty sharpish, or you will find yourself so far removed from even the free bottles of Becks that have been languishing in the cellar, decades out of date, that the snowy tops of Class A Mountain that the cool fuckers are paying homage in the ladies will be mere chimera to you. Always insist that the new stuff is their best yet. In fact, it may well the music you’ve been waiting your life for. Don’t go nuts. Remain cool. “dude, the new shit is pretty fucking hot”. That kind of thing. Not “dude, the new shit, yeah. But why didn’t you play…”. Good god. Not that.
2. no musician, especially if they are still aglow with the stage sweat wants to hear the word “you know what you should do……” as a prefix to anything, from changing that minor to a major to calling their mothers. Utter these words and the party in Spirit where the Russian girls with their tits out carry the silver platters covered in coke will be CHIMERA to you.
3. Even if the once respected the musician is past it and now all he does is write moribund cock-fodder for the Swedish model he went out with for 3 months that’s just dumped him for another (more successful) musician, is slurring his words and pissdrunk back stage, even if he played nothing from the first 10 albums, even if every chorus in a 3 hour set went “I want you back, uuuuuuuulllllllllrika..” even then do not say: “you know what you should do, play the old stuff….” Or the gaggle of semi-naked mostly drunk girls that will be tagging on and that he will be too drunk to fuck, even those sad groupie tarts will be CHIMERA TO YOU.

I had stumbled across the party, although I do it a great service with that word. The launch..uh..gig. the soiree. the gettumtogether. Miffy Bastine was standing outside Galleria 29, waving her cigarette around her head in that floridly inarticulate way of hers, and I was walking down the road, half dazed, having just spend a not insignificant amount of severance moolah (oh that was nice) on a pair of Kenneth Cole shoes and a smashing new pinstripe Paul Smith suit (currently being altered) and a deep dark brown Zegna shirt. Laden, and feeling better, I missed her initially and she caught me off guard. OH MY GAWD. I haven't seen you in loike, aaaages. "it was like ages," I say, "but unfortunately, not quite."
"hawr hawr hawr"
"why am I here?"
"oh you simply must..." she says and ushers me into the Gallery, "Simon Musew is having a show!"
"Simon.."
"Musew!"
"Is.."
"You simply MUST."
I entered, a glass of chilled, yet poor, chardonnay is thrust into my hand. I see what they've done. they've chilled it so that you can't taste it's paucity. Notes of, perhaps, a Zombies kiss, hints of paint stripper. I quaff, and make my toward the bar. The bar.. I of course mean the table with the bored art student. In front of him regimentally lined up, glistening piss coloured glass warriors.
"Wine sir?"
"could I have a bottle?"
"uh. Ok." He corks the brine. "Glass?"
"neck is a-ok"
"sure."
"tell me, what is this shit on the wall?"
"Musew."
"Who is this cunt?"
"Um. I have no idea."

The canvases, raped and disfigured, are further dotted with red. Sold. who buys this shit. Gavin Friday is in the corner combing his head. Bono probably sent him. "Buy me some aaaaarrt," probably bought the lot. That or Musews mother, who's probably rich enough to have indulged her talentless phenom to the point of self belief overload. I'm aghast, standing there, swigging this lymphatic cock residue. The art bares the hallmark of education, and appropriated taste. this line over there, this half reference there. Bollocks.
"he's going to be a star" it's teddy Frayne next tome. He owns the kip.
"Teddy, hi" he smiles and offers me his hand. I have to shunt the bottle under my arm, or put my bags down on the ground. I do neither. I look at the hand.
"um"
"Eh," he says. "Teddy Frayne"
"I know."
"ah." planets die, species grind to a halt, a civilisation murders it's young in a bout of chagrin. time passes.







"and you are..."
"Hector Ignacious Grey"
"AH. Young Hector!"
"Yes."
"And how is Old Hector?"
"oh he's been dead, night on five years"
"AH."
"Indeed."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"yeah." I swig from the bottle. it's nearly gone and the wine has crept to my temples. "it was a blessing, really"
"oh. Um. Was he in pain? was he in a lot of pain? Um?"
"No. he was an utter cunt."
"Um."
Moons orbit planets, comets crash into the waves, fish develop feet. Aoens shift.
"your mother..is she...?"
"she's great."
"Great!"
"So, where's this Musew from, and why haven't I heard of him?"
"Oh, Simon’s very enigmatic. We know next to nothing about him. He might be Czech.”

God, I hate this cunt already. “His art is similarly enigmatic.”

“oblique” I say.

“Exactly” he says, and bows his great fluffy head to me, as if I were Clement Greenberg. “Um,” I um. He smiles, and sidles off as if he were on a conveyor belt. I hear “TEDDY!” from some arsehack in the corner.

Alan Staines says to the girl next him, as I gaze up the evisceration on the wall that someone has paid 15,000 euro for, “Imagine we had ipods when we were children.. imagine, you went around to your best friends and left with his album collection in your pocket.”

“God, that would be ggggreat,” says the ingénue.

I say: “where would the fun be?”

“fun?”

“in finding stuff out for yourself.”
”Surely you know music isn’t about fun. It’s about being in the know. If I could go back in time and take one thing with me. The ipod. Wouldn’t need never know anything about nothing ever again.” The girls smiles.

Wouldn’t need never know nothing about anything ever again… the phrase terrifies me.

“I have to…um……” I stumble backward, some Greek spills his harsh wine down my leg :”sorry, matey”

I push against people trying to find the door, and sweet sweet air, and soon. I can feel it rising… vomit and bile and acid wine and I’m nearly there, nearly at the door, nearly at the sweet sweet fuck fuck fuck fuck and I weave, with an artists flair, a multicoloured brocade of belly broth, in expressive swathes across the Donna Karens and Kate Millen’s and one pair of manolo on my way out.

Wouldn’t need never know nothing about anything ever again

Terrifying.

There’s an act to waking up, or rather a play, in a few acts. In act one we’re introduced to you, and you’re enigmatic to say the least. We’re concerned at this stage that the narrative is not all we had expected. In act 2 you’re more coherent and you’ve had a smoke and a shit. By act 3 you’re all grown up, with a cup of Costa Rican in one hand, a cigarette in the other, a crisp white shirt and a Paul Smith tie on. By act four you’re standing at some traffic lights wondering what would happen if you just stepped forward, or fell, used your momentum to arc in front of the oncoming indifferent traffic, how this act of self vandalism would affect your fellow city dwellers. In this we are presented our dramatic ending. Your ever repeating inner videologue of your own death. And sometimes it doesn’t even seem important. We’ve learned something about ourselves here, about the ambivalence of society. Of the soulless sojourn.

Follow the trail of breadcrumbs, that's the thing. piece it all together bit by bit.


I was around in Bredon's, oh, a week ago, a month ago? Brendon was sitting in his office, surrounded by empty cartons from Starbucks, or Coffeworld or what ever similarly bland coffeterias he frequents. Hundreds of cartons, stacked neatly, one in the other, crushed, full of cigarette butts. I wondered would he not have saved himself so much money if he'd just invested in a decent Gaggia. Four hundred quid the one at home cost me. Ten coffees a week is gonna cost forty quid. 10 weeks later, it pays for itself. but then again, it's the interaction isn't. the subtle brothel of the broth. He doesn't care that he's drinking bland piss water squeezed out of a diabetic Colombian, he wants to be there, among the tendrils of steam, the hiss, the Spanish and Polish girls who don't speak English and fuck up your order. Bostons greatest hits in the background. The sense of empowerment a man with a hot carton of coffee, carefully inserted into the heat-dispersing cardboard condom. A man who must drink his coffee ON THE GO is a man to be reckoned with. A man who has time to scratch his balls and do the crossword while his gaggia coughs in the background. well that man. that man has no job.

Brendon is busy editing some scenes for a documentary on Steven Glass, who was in the Frames for a few years but left to teach fine art to African kids in Gambia. It's about how he got aids or something. it looks dull as fuck.
"it's like this," i say. "the dvd you gave me. i lost it."
"ah. fuck it. i suppose whoever finds it will have a laugh."
"oh they'll laugh alright"
"did you see it? before you lost it."
"well actually, i did. and it's not lost, but neither is it the dvd i wanted"
"ok. jesus, sorry. what was it."
"you fucking some bird"
"ha ha. JESUS. god. fucked up. Was it Cathy?"
"was it what?"
"no, Jesus, it wouldn't be..."
"what was it... who?"
"Georgina was it?"
"i didn't watch it."
"she nicked my wallet the little bitch. did you see that?"
"i didn't... what about Cathy?"
"fuck me, man oh man. Sorry about that. No brother needs to see that, eh?"
Brendon is laughing, well, chuckling to himself as he fishes out another cigarette, as the one he just chucked into the dregs of his coffee is still hissing. HE stops, momentarily, before starting to laugh again. His chair arches back, he find the edge of his desk with his feet, adidas roma, non vintage, and scatters a minaret of discarded coffee coupons. i could do with a drink. i'm thirsty, and the room is thick with the brume of ancient smoke.
"sorry."
"yeah. i, eh. I don't.... what's this about Cathy?"
"i can do you up another."
"Of Cathy?"
"Ha ha ha, sorry. Jesus. Fuck. NO, the girls. Sorry, you're horrified."
"hey man, i ain't no square."
"it's really.. there's some funny bits."
"good. i've paid for it, right?"
"sure you did. sorry mate. fuck i'll buy you a drink. i'll give you Georgina's phone number."
"no thanks, she didn't look all that."
"ha ha ha"

We sit there, diaphanous wisps of smoke hang in the air as if placed there, unmoving, light dissolving. Brendon turns back to the pc. I need a drink. i can feel it in me, the taste of booze remembered on my tongue, it's fingers down my throat. Brendon turns back to his mac, clicks on something. makes a note. This meeting is finished.
"i better head"
"hey, look, hope that didn't freak you out. Fuck me, how dumb is that, eh? i'm such a fucking idiot. Really, really sorry." Brendon smacks his own head.
"it's cool, just don't send t to your mother."

I walk to the door, turn, brendon is hunched down, watching his screen. "eh..."
"yo?"
"nothing."


Outside i try Cathy's number and it rings out. I try again. and again. i head to the nearest pub, which happens to be Fallons, and order a big whiskey, and a velvety sexy pint of guinness and i try her number again. the sun has come out, vaguely, and hangs in the room like some gossamer blanket. i order another round. five more attempts on Cathy's phone. i leave one message that is me gulping. i take the phone and call one more number.

"Brendon? it's me. look. how much do you want for the one of Cathy? hello?"


Twenty five minutes later he calls back, and names his price.

So, so very slowly, put it all back together. That's the way. I tip toe around the issues. That’s the way. I am a beacon of normality, which in it’s own is is deeply weird. Cian and Noleen come around, with Rachel, who’s single again, and Matty Vein from Syros, who’s briefly back in the country, Gert, Evelyn O’Brien. I’m throwing a party, a rehouse warming. No reason but nothing else to do. I cork bottles and I make a dinner of rack of summer lamb with lambs liver, sweetbreads and garlic cream. It’s soothing, in it’s way. It’s regimented, yet improvisational. The guests arrive, and I’m feeling the effects of a few Stolichnaya’s on top of the Amarone. I’m very Amarone these days, tho I got some Chablis in for the ladies. Gert is all smiles, he palms me the stash I asked him for as we stand in my kitchen. The kitchen is alive with steam, and the tang of thyme. It’s warm and I have the back door open, although rain patters off the awning and pools on the seats of my cheap patio furniture. The garden is in, eh, disrepair. Now that I’m awash with time, shouldn’t I be fixing this. I stand there looking out, thinking, Gert sips wine.

The guests arrive, we sit to eat. I make uneasy conversation with Noleen, while Cian bombasts with his tales of recent travails. He keeps punching me in the arm, in that familiar way of his. After a few glasses he’s draped over my shoulder, regaling me, direct to lughole, about some jape or other we two were apparently involved in. Even for him, he’s hyper, and the coke is in my pocket, I haven’t even offered it too hi,

Plates pile up. Gert is homing in on Rachel. Matty and I talk shop in the kitchen, Cian rolls a joint. Shorty thereafter Matty leaves the party. There’s another, far more glamorous do in the morrison, courtesy of parlphone or some such. He’s stick us on the lsit, if we think of making it later. For some reason, this doesn’t appeal to me. I sip Stolichnaya, straight form the freezer. It’s cold and thick and coils down my throat. Cian hands me the joint.
“not interested in the party, eh?”
“oddly, I’ve gone off parties.”
“gone hermetic?”
“working on the scrip”
“how’s that going, do you still have that guy?”
“the guy in California?”
“yeah that guy”
“yeah, there’s guys interested. You know”
“this is good grass”
“it’s okay, “ I exhale. “woody”
“you’re right. It’s shit”
“it’s not shit”
“you’re right. It’s okay”
“it’s got notes of summer, a hint o..”
“she’s pregnant”
“what the fuck?”
“noleen.”
“that’s great.”
“is it?”
“isn’t it?”
“is it?”
“uh. Yes?”
“ok.”
“yeah, it’s great.”
“yeah, I can afford an aupere, right?”
“sure.”
.........
“uh..how long”
“oh, it’s not yours man”
“uh..what?”
“hey, it’s cool, we’ve been buddies, what now?”
“twenty something”
“thirty years”
“twentyfour or something”
“you’ll babysit?”
“I’d probably kill it.”
“ha ha ha. This is good shit.”
“it’s reasonable. That’s why noleen wasn’t drinkin,” I say, scratching my chin like holmes. “I should have noticed.”
“she’s drunk most of that Chablis.”
“oh. She has”
“fuck it. Drunk baby. So what”
“I thought, you know she couldn’t......um”
“whaddya know? Any coke.”
“sure”

I clear some plates, Gert is sitting on the couch, under the soft light from the dimmed bulb. I can see shimmers on saliva on his face. Grrrrrrrrrreat party, says Noleen, and sidles up to me, trailing his fingertips off my thigh.

Cian’s back, with mad eyes. “Lets play a fucking game”
“what game?”
“a fucking game”
Oh bollocks.

So in the end it was simple. Isn't always? Gert, clearly fed up with all too often finding me on his couch, concocted it over a joint and some beer as we watched Greys anatomy and ate (yet another) terrible take away from Spice and Rice, which seems to comprise all of Gerts diet. It was a good plan, i liked it. I was as enamoured of the couch dwelling as he was, after all, and i'f i'm paying a mortgage on a perfectly good dwelling, well. why not live there. This is all indicative of your impending mental breakdown, he philosophized as the plumes of bud smoke rose. You're not wrong i thought, and simultaneously, said.

The next day Gert took my keys. HE, not having the fear of Rhonda, marched right n there. By all accounts, there she was, sitting there, in front of the tv, wearing ,my clothes. He said to her, we have to talk, put your clothes on. she complied, and why not. it's not as if she's a bad girl or anything. Gert said: i'll take you for a few drinks. Will H be there? she apparently asked, eyes a glow in expectancy. Yeah, sure he said. I was waiting in Gerts car across the road, and watched them leave. With me was young Michael Bean, who's a locksmith by trade. In we wnet, quick as a jiffy, changed the locks in 20 minutes. I paid Michael, texted Gert, got out the rubber gloves.

Oh man. firstly the empty bottles: Château d’Angludet, 2003, 3 bottles, gone. " of my finest Amarone, 1 bottle of Huzzar left from a party about 13 years ago. Who drinks huzzar? 2 Jameson. All though, i may very well have drunk them myself. Misiones de Rengo Reserva Chardonnay. just the one, like. who drinks chardonnay. kept for the ladies. a few other i had lying around, some Masi, bottle of port i picked up in Lisbon last year that i was going to give to my mother as a present before she disowned me. Oh boy. There was take away cartons and the bitch had scorched the bottom of two of the le Creuset's. So i scrubbed, picking the tiny bits of doritos from the carpet. Scrubbing off the wine stains from the couch. opening all the windows to deodour the place. as i sat down to drink of my private stash (ah ha) later that evening, and to contemptate the general weirdness of it all, there came a tapping upon my door. I'm sorry the little voice said, let me back. Let me in. Oh i know what she's like, that wiley wench. I can't. i can't go near her. she is a deep, dark pool that i cannot help but skinny dip in. Please, she patheticises outsite.

Not a fucking chance.

Where has the last month go.

With nothing better to do, I holed up in the flat. i sat around, initially tinkering with the script, even further, and half heartedly making some notes. It was difficult to muster any energy, indecently enervated by my recent excursions and my recent disengagement from the twinkling towers of Cunt and Cunt, solicitors. AS if I should, as I should really feel that I am suddenly without focus. My god, it freaked me, perhaps that job, at which I was, at best, mediocre, defined me in some way. I suppose, in may ways, it was like a bad break up, an unresolved break up, and I’ve had many of them. The coping mechanism kick in. the booze, the hair cuts.

It didn’t help that Rhonda had moved in. apparently. After that night she was there the following day. That night she made pablum fare that insulted the very utensils she used, and tyrannised my weary bones, with as much dexterity as a paedophile on a swing. I couldn’t stop this horrowshow, au contraire, I was in it’s thrall, like some stupefied pointyhead, sitting agoggle with a carton of popcorn on my lap. Ah Rhonda. My initial attraction to her was that I was repelled by her. She has a linp personality and when she gets naked she looks like a bag of spuds wrapped in a shower curtain. But I couldn’t get enough of it, besotted by my utter disdain for her. It’s a worrying trait, and after two weeks of poor food and too much booze I had an epiphany.

I’m just going out for a pack of smokes, I said.

I’ve left home. Can I ever go back? I’m hoping that now, after a week or so, alone in MY home that she’s taken the hint. But every time I call the phone, she fucking answers. What am I to do?

I went away for my birthday, just there. i needed out of this place, i needed away from everything. there's this oppressive heaviness in Dublin. it's new, it's all part of the new Ireland, it's all faceless architecture and recreational drugs, and recreational sex, and recreational music. nothing is real, or interesting. i went to Vienna for it's marble halls and indulgent prostitutes and because i share a birthday with mister Hitler. To be great is to be misunderstood, ruminated Elvis once, possible while having a shit, and to stand in the shade of one of the leviathan marble arches in Vienna you would think it were built by supermen. so unlike Dublin, built by poles, the very men Adolf sought to oppress. his failure is our gain. the circle of life continues. I walked around the streets, lashed in sunshine, central Yurp stylee, and sat and drank beer in the twinkling afternoon. The old ipod is a god send isn't it, as one takes in a park or a Danube side stroll to the sounds of The Rites Of Spring followed by something gauche and middle aged like sting. ha ha. rofl.

Nights were spent noshing on eastern pharmaceuticals in the many dingy clubs til i could take no more and took myself to the coast, down aways on the Adriatic, in a sleepy Croatian town of no little beauty and no drugs. the food was good. i got burnt in the sun. i drank beer. there wasn't even any whores. It wasn't so bad, i suppose. anyway, it worked i cam home slightly refreshed. i was ready to put in some work on the things that mattered.Or, to be precise, put in some work on finding out what really mattered.

So the symetary, in coming into work to find my desk cleared. WTF?

The boss dudes called me in, into their sombre boardroom. we've had it up to here, etc, you're being let go. Oh, i says, oh really? i wonder what my father would think of that. Well, we've indulged his wishes and memory as much as we can, they say, and on clicks the plasma at the end of the table wherein i am, a little grainy (ha ha) and in monochrome, but it's me no doubt. Working my ass off, Christmas just gone. you can see me typing away, throwing stuff around looking for something. taking a drink from a can of fanta, and the snorting a couple of lines right off the desk. like duh. i'd clearly stopped going to the jacks at this stage.

"i see," i say. The dudes look at me. "well then sirs, i'm surprised at you all, but the truth be told, i was ready to take my career to a new level, outside of these walls. " they just look at me. "i mean, the label is about to take off, and i have more than one studio into teh script, so, you know, fuck it" again, silence. "Roger Phelps had sex with his secretary on his desk. do you have a video of that?" silence. then...

"actually, we do...."
"but he still works here??"
"yes. so does she."
"you pricks"
"well, the security will see you out. your stuff is packed."
"cool"


i stroll out, there's Jerry from downstairs. "ah, fuckit" he says, "they never said it was you"
Jerry used to be able to source some real nice grass, but his wife won't allow him anymore since she got knocked up with triplets.
"it's cool, fucker" i say. "i'll buy you a drink and tell you about it."
"i heard you were shooting up in the jacks"
"i'm impressed.... actaully, it was cos i was riding Roger Phelps' secretarty and he found out."
"that sounds about right, yeah"

Jerry offers to carry my box, i buzz briefly over to Cathy's desk. "i'm off," i say. "had it. meet me later for a drink" she looks at me, big eyes
"where've you been?"
"around, come on, it's my birthday. have a drink with me?"
she nods.

Jerry and me stand out side, just by the park, the sun is out, it's warm, people mill by and buses cough egregiously, billowing wispy bile. "tough break" he says. I light a smoke. "look around you pal. don't feel sorry for me" a bicycle courier crashes into a pregnant woman "you fucking DUMB BITCH" he shouts. i fucking hate couriers.

The day took a deliquescent air as it disappeared into the fug of one after another of the capitals caliginous beer gardens. i made some calls, cited birthday blues. for a wednesday, i got some takers. we settled in O'Briens, with the big screen for the match. Gert, Brendon, Clive, a couple of the guysh from work. Cathy. Edel. Rhonda, with the big eyes and the abecedarian air. Rhonda's been there for me in the past, when i've needed to spooge. she believes me. "friends," i say "today i cast off the surly bollocks of the office." the match is shit, i quaff some more. Rhonda is umming and awing, she has to go and meet some friends round at the village. sounds fucking cool to me. Lets go i say. Cathy is standing next to me, all : wtf happened? you know. I've had it. Gert has gone, clive. rohan never turns up, so i'm drugless. it's a pretty poor show really. i say to Cathy, that wasn't my video. i mean, you could tell it wasn't me in it. Why did you have it so, she asks. "well, it was a mistake. he obviously didn't mean to give it to me. did he"

then that starts off a whole thread in my head. what if he did. he hasn't batted an eyelid at me all day. look at him over there, resting his slim figure on the bar, elbow cocked, talking to the girls. i make films. look at me. god i hate him. no, stop. i hate everyone right now. more drink.

the night finishes. we're outside. Rhonda and her mate, Abigale, are holding onto my arms, cos i promised them drugs. Oh, rhonda, as if her body wasn't awash enough. but who am i to refuse, i'm benificent and horny and it is my fucking birthday. i have much booze back home, i say, and we'll swing by rohan and get the snow, i go. Rhonda is chattering at me, prolix with problems, men and work, and family. i don't think she should drink so much while on the meds, but what am i a fucking doctor.

there's no taxi's so we walk all the way to Ratmines to Rohans. Rohan used to play keys, way back when. we toured europe with An Ample Change back when we were the Viddys. We were still young, teens, and this was new, squalid, banal, exciting, boring and drunk. we discovered drugs in a club in Nottingham, acid, we'd never had it before, it was a happening. i was lying on the bed of this gimcrack guest house, watching the whorls of the light fitting become dragons and relay this epic battle infront of mine very eyes, while Rohan had his cock in his hands, pulling vigorously, till it turned into a dragon too, and spat molten fire in my face. we don't talk about that anymore, he just supplies me with the drugs now.

with Rhonda, having difficulty keeping her feet, and abby, obversley inable to shut up, i bound up the old stairs to Rohans, and ataptap loudly on his knocker. after a goodly minute or two he opens up. "i brought friends. feed us snort, i say."
"for fucks sake," he says, "you stupid cunt." he grabs my lapels. "you woke up the fucking kids. don't you ever, ever call around here again with you... bitches." the fucker has my lapels, and by jimminy in normal circumstances i'd clock the fucking head off him... but jesus.
"when did you get kids? "i ask, incredulous.
"fuck you" he says.

Christ.

I had Cathy around for dinner, after work, last week. It wasn't easy to ask, i felt like a tool. it seemed unnecessarily formal. would you like dinner in my place? My place is ok, and i can cook. She turned the corners of her mouth up gamely, and gave in to me. Ok, she said. Do your worst. Ha ha, I laughed, and shuffled some papers. She’s been increasingly gamely these days. Ever since I heard about her and the cunt(lets call him Chester). I had to do some digging and it turns out, I hear from the chorus down in the kitchen, that her boyfriend, nay, fiance, if you don’t mind, was caught in flagrente with her best friend, or sister, or something banal. Cathy is in the throes of a sexual reinvention, sure we all do it. I tried it after my marriage broke up. Except it was different, as my wife was a bonafide schizophrenic, I was being promiscuous just by being with her. Ha ha. She’d love that it she heard it.

Anyway, I sensed a weakness, and I also sensed that she may be working her way through the office. I wasn’t going to miss out, for reasons I can’t really testify to. Perhaps, ultimately, I’m lonely. It’s been known to happen. The brief, fleeting, thrill of flesh. As Joni says: “You settle for less than fascination, A few drinks later you re not so choosy”

I’ve prepared noisettes of lamb with Lyonnaise potatoes, and she turns up on the dot at eight, clutching a bottle of wine. It’s a Saturday, it’s sunny, I’m lazy. Cathy has hair in a bob, I picture it luxuriant and long before she caught her swinging lover in the sack. I imagine all the changes she’s forced on herself. I say, great come in, and plonk her on the couch while i open the wine and make sure dinner's alright. Give me five minutes, i say, i have to check the food. watch tv, i say, and hand her the remote. wrong one tho. i hand her the dvd remote. She's not a turnip so she manages to work it out, and i come back from the kitchen 20 seconds later, and there's Brendon on the screen with that lass he was tailoring.
"what's this?" she points at the screen.
"eh" how to play it? lie? cool? "that's Brendon. He does some work for me." man that was a bad choice.
"work?"
"eh"
"He likes you to watch his videos. Does that girl know she's being videoed? Is that what you do? you swap dvds of yourselves fucking girls?"
"not quite. he gave that to me by accident, you see.."
"No, save your pathetic excuses. IS that what you thought, oh Cathy'll be easy, i'll get her in the sack. is that what you thought"
"eh" answer quicker fool, i thought to me self. i was still standing there with two glasses of wine in my hands as the pictures on the walls rattled from the force of her exit.

So i downed them both, the rest of the bottle, and another i had lying around, then I watched Brendon's dvd again, and had a big wank. it was weird

Oh Glimn

So I Gert around the afternoon of the Wales games (fuck, I had when sentences start with SO…). The idea being genius in it’s simplicity. We watch football, have some food, watch DVD of that Brendon gave me, have some beer, make some note, get on with our stinking life. The game was shit, so, in order to dull the pain, we moved onto the whiskey by about half 4. After the match,(which was fucking horrendous, and let me add my voice to the ongoing din, fuck off Delaney) we stuck on the video, in the hope that some of these girls will be amusing enough to make us laugh at the very least. Needless to say, our expectations were pretty low, having actually been there on the day.

So it was to our immense surprise, and indeed joy, that within 5 minutes of the start, we were rolling around on the floor laughing our asses off. For it wasn’t the DVD of the auditions at all. Oh no. it was a private sex video of Brendon and some brown haired girl I haven’t met, with a tramp stamp tattoo on her back, which was very visible as she upped and downed on Brandon’s fairly prostrate form. Eventually he turns her around, inexpertly trying to get her to face the camera which, it becomes increasingly more apparent, she doesn’t know is there. Half way through the phone starts ringing, and Brendon starts grunting, as is caught in two minds, phone or sex. The answering machine kicks in. who’s voice s it? Mine. Jesus we laughed.

The piece de resistance was yet to come however. Brendon eventually, audibly, empties his gravy bag, and the camera keeps rolling. About five minutes later, after some grumbling conversation, Brendon goes to the jacks (we we’re shuffling thru it at this stage, not watching the whole fucking thing) yer one fishes out his wallet and nicks about fifty quid. Me and Gert laughed our asses of.

Afterwards though I felt really fucking horny. I couldn’t hardly wait til Gert fell asleep on the couch at about eight o’clock. I was on youtube uploading within minutes, and xtube unloading within seconds.

Sclee

We we’re rehearsing the other day, and Angela had these songs she’d written. The other two lads were being quiet and antsy. I got the impression that didn’t mix with girls too well, well, what would you expect, little lads, full of hormones, and they were a bit pisses off that I withheld the payment, that is to say, the cider, until after we did an hour or two. They sat and grumbled and blushed when Angela started to sing. It was powerful. Real PMT music. I was impressed. The poor fuckers couldn’t keep it. I had a word, I said, sure you think it’s really embarrassing to be around someone when they’re like that, it’s like looking at them having a shit or something, but remember, you’re pro’s and this is performance. They grumbled some more so I just gave them a couple of cans and we tried to work on a song. Angela’s brother is coming down next week. He plays keys. I get the impression he’s dark too. Cool, I said. Cider? Angela said no, she doesn’t drink. To listen to her howl, you’d think maybe she should take it up. I really need to knock this band into shape, cos she could really be something. Reminds me of yer one who sang in that band N that I saw back in oh..98 maybe in the funnel. They were shit but she sang like it was birth or something. I remember it cos we all headed back to this guys house after for a party, and the pills were free flowing, as they were at the time. If you were there you’d remember. Anyway, I remember waking it up and finding myself lying on the bed in some darkened room, my pants down around my knees and I looked around, blurrily, to see the drummer from M, a lumphammer of a man, snapping a condom onto his engorged member. Our eyes met. “what” he said. “I was gonna use a Johnny.” Well, I was indignant. I got up, pulled up me pants. “what?” he says again. I got him back by fucking his girlfriend a couple of years later. I think she gave me the clap.

Brendon calls, the dvd is ready, with the clips of the girls. It’s old hat now, but there might still be enough in it to at least vaguely amuse some dinner part if I ever get one together. I drop into his office after work one day last week, can’t remember which, and the place, is as ever, a mess of equipment, dvd’s, note books. He’s on the phone when he buzzes me up and I sit down flick thru a magazine til he’s finished. “good fuck” he says “deadline, fast approaching, then receding”

“I know the drill” I say, “I’ve missed a few myself” he’s scratching his head and clearly going slightly bald. Um um, hold on he says, rummaging round. Here it is.

He hands me an ordinary dvd case, it has my name on it. I wrte him a cheque. We shake and agree to go for a drink later in the work, to discuss possible videos for the new band.

And what fun are they. We’re rehearsing, and I brought in some songs on cd that I said we had to learn. Seventeen by the Pistols, Elected by Alice Cooper and Eloise by the Damned. Well, the damned version. The lads hate them of course but I tell them all that as musicians their palette is EVERYTHING. Prejudice is for the dweebs on the street. They’re not too pleased, but they’ve no songs on their own so what are we gonna do. I buy them a tray of cans to lessen the blow of having to do some fucking work. Jesus. We still need a guitarist. That guy down in Galway didn’t work out, even tho I took him to the strip club next door and bought him a lap dance. He fancied the idea of moving to Dublin, but didn’t want to leave his ma. Your ma? I asked. Listen, this is a rock band, so forget it. Anyway, I just wanna put colm and Kristo through the mill here, see if they can hold together a song. I’m convinced that there’s a bassist in Colm, cos there sure as fuck ain’t a guitarist. Nice guitar tho… hum.

Anyway, our singer, Angela, is coming in next week. She’s 19, which is good, and very angry about just about everything. She tells me she has a few songs already wrote, which frankly terrifies me, but I’m keeping and open mind.

Meanwhile this new cunt in work. We went out for a drink on the Friday just gone. I’d been up the last few nights trying to work on the script and probably drinking too much of the whiskey, again, but I felt that I was making good work, so after a day in the office I had that itch at the back of my throat that only a beer or ten could scratch. I knew Saturday was ruined, but I didn’t care. He and I, and some other suits went local, started on the booze at about 5 of the clock. Being the generous type, and the man in the position of superiority here, in oh-so-many ways, I bought the first round for the boys. They sat around scratching their crotches and talking football. I suggest that we get in a round of shorts, get things moving. I’m paying so the lads aren’t going to refuse are they. Out comes the plastic, a few swift Jagers. Couple of hours later our boy has the rosy cheeks and he’s cracking poor jokes like there’s no tomorrow. Our table is covered in crisp packets, our dinner, and glasses accumulate only to be removed by the hot polish girl with the arse like Kirk Douglas’s chin. You’d almost drink just to keep her coming back. “I would to take that girl home,” I say. There’s a general nodding in agreement. Our boy has ebullient beads of sweat on his forehead, taken with the effort of keeping up with me. This young buck in his Guineys suit. “fucking fine arse on that alright he says” too true, I whisper. Them poles, you know what, they like it rough, I say and his eyes are lit up like the front of a stupid bus. I wink. Eh?

We’re outside having a smoke, it’s dark now, and chilly but we’re in our shirt sleeves, emboldened by booze. So I start on him. What about that Cathy one. Would ya? He raises an eyebrow at me and gives me a grin Oh yeah, I says? She’s a pistol alright.

I have a vague plan fermenting in my head, but I’m not sure what it is, only that we need to get drunker, possibly drugged up and most importantly elsewhere. I suggest we head down Harcourt to dicey’s first of all, cos of the beer garden, then maybe coppers. Jesus, it’s a nightmare, but fuck it, it’s Friday. We lose some of the goons on the way, sure that’s alright. The bouncers love us in our suits and red faces, knowing we’ve knocked off work with thirsts that only eight hours in the stultifying dryness of the over warm office can give you. I’m tipsy a bit, but the prick is clearly getting into it, making eyes at some girls over in the corner, some slag party of parts foreign, dressed as if we were mid summer, and a good two decades younger. We’re sitting outside, having some beer. I’ve stopped buying the rounds, slowed down a bit. I’m an old hand at this.

Next we go to coppers, it’s dark down by the dance floor and the music is fucking rotten. Place reeks of b.o. and red bull. I picture my Jameson at home. Being drunk is the only way to get over this. The jacks floor is covered in piss, the smell has changed to that of sweetened vomit. When I get back, there he is with two Scottish girls, sitting at their table. He winks at me. I sit down. He makes introductions, both girls are called Kristine. I smile. They talk. I can’t hear them over the din, I cant understand what they’re saying anyway. I can feel sweat trickling down my back. He buys the round, I sit there drumming the table. I need a smoke. Kristine leans over to smell, to shout something in my ear. I can feel her breath, so warm, like a chiffon duvet is being dragged across my neck. It’s inviting, it’s like being coaxed into a sarcophagus. She has bad skin and smells, but I’m horny. He comes back, I wave me smokes at him, just need a quick fix ladies. The lay into their vodkaredbulls like coyotes.

Outside, mercifully chill. I dunno about them, they’re kinda rough he says and laughs. I grin at him, I’m pretending to make a call. I casually drop Cathy into the conversation. I thought she was gonna come out tonight, jesus, I’m glad she didn’t, ha ha. Just us guys, you know.

“I fucked that” he says

“what?”

“cathy”

“I meant, who…” I say, but I wasn’t expecting him to say that. My vague plan was to catch him admitting it, record him on my phone, saying, oh I’d love to ram one into her, in oreder to show what a dodgy cunt he is, and instead I’ve got him saying this, recorded for posterity, and it’s making me feel hairy inside my brain, and feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts and I’d like a real big and long shit and why? Why? Why do I care. I don’t like careing.

“not bad, nice fucking tits.”

“yeah, you can. Eh.”

“these two are game and all”

“what?”

these two scot birds. They’re fuckin dirty, those scots.”

“sound” I say. I’ve lit another smoke, he’s started in. “I’ll follow ya” I say.

Fuck.

The new guy is sniffing around, he comes in, and leaves a slice of cake on cathy's desk. a slice. of. fucking. cake. why doiesn't he leave a bottle of rohypnol and a box of johnnies? the freak. the next day he legs out of here with a bunch of flowers and his knob in his hand. while he was gone i had a quick pedal in the jacks, and came back in to the office with a palmful of my finest spunk. i dabbed it on the mouthpiece of his phone. and all over his desk. cunt.

So anyway, the next day while he's off talking to the boss, or giving him a blowjob or what ever, i have to move in on C. So, she's coming over to my place for dinner. i get her game, she's definitly playing us off one another, but i won't lose. i don't lose.

Looks like i'm playing bass in this band. Gert says i have to lose weight.

Messga from Bendon on teh phone, got the dvd of the girls auditions. i'll see if it's usable.

You see these people who post on their blogs all the time, you know the type. every day they're updating and letting you into the minutiae of their lives, you know the type. these people have no lives or they wouldn't be able to update all the fucking time. I've been busy, not Kofi Annan busy, but busy. I've been all over, looking for a singer. looking for a quick buck, getting on with it. that's life, baby.

There's this new cunt who started in work a few weeks ago, making the eyes at Cathy. Laughing at her jokes. Bringing her coffee. Bringing her a muffin. that cunt's gonna die. perhaps today... i don't know.

i'll be back...

I was down the Music Centre, with Gert and Trigger. We were borrowing Triggers drums for the audition. He’s played with a few groups, some were ok. The Swert and Facehugger were the better two. Trigger reckons he’s called Trigger because of the speed of his drumming, but it actually because he’s as thick as shit. Our new Boy, who wants to be called Kristo and not, you know, Christopher, has brought his mate, Colm, along to play guitar. Colm has the look, a fringe the length of my arm, and a B.C. Rich Bitch that belonged to his brother when he was in a Slayer tribute band back in the nineties. Doesn’t need it anymore, works for an investment bank. Has a takamime and some Burt Jansch cd’s. I’m playing the bass, an old Fender jazz I had lying around. They don’t know any songs I know, and I don’t know any they know, so we do Anarchy in the UK by the pistols cos everyone knows that and ask the singers to do what they want over it. Sing, scream, rap. We’re a big open book, I say.

Kristo has been soliciting among his cronies, so there’s a fair few waiting to give it ago. In fairness they don’t have to go very far. Trigger is pretending he can do the sound and passing comment after every audition to me and Gert. “didn’t like him. That kid can’t play.” Etc. fucking hell…..I can’t tell him to fuck off, because it’s all his gear. Kristo like the kit too, and he can’t half play. I’m impressed, little arms pounding away on him. COlm ain’t so hot, but he has a look. I could turn him into the bassist if I wasn’t the type who despised that kind of shit. A bassist should be able to play, you know, but not ostentatiously. Keep it simple, but be ready to turn whatever corner you come against. Some cunts, they pluck, and hold, and walk. And that’s it. No. but maybe COlm has enough chops in him to be turned from a mediocre guitarist into a fairly ok bassist. It’s a muddler. I’ll think about it.

There’s a couple of kids who can sing, but I want a Danzig, and then there’s this girl. She’s shy looking and dressed appallingly, and could well be a munter under that greasy lank hair, but she screams like Patti Smith and it actually chilled my bones. There’s potential for something in there, and I don’t know what. She was playing an acoustic guitar and a song she wrote, really average strummy crap, a minor, g. then she starts to wail, like Diamanda Gallas on the blob.

My one mistake tho, was paying the two lads, in advance, and worse yet, in cider, but by the time Kristos timing has gone all cockways on us, enough has been done. Obviously I’m gonna have to toughen these kids up, but the potential is there, and that’s promising. Playing with these two teenagers is the best craic I’ve had in weeks.

Recently I haven’t even been bothered going out, I’ve been working on the script at home. I really feel that I’m coming to a head with it, an epoch in my own development. Words are falling into place, and I’ve no idea how. I sit there, with some Jameson and twenty Marlboro and type. Jesus, smoking is like some kind of fucking muse, like my Sylvia Plath. Except, ironically, I’m the one killing myself. No, that metaphor is all over the place. Sorry, a bit tipsy.

I got a 12 year old single malt down in the whiskey shop. The guy looked at me like I had a canister of AIDS in my hand and my own shit smeared over my face, but when I started to buy some expensive drams, he liked me well enough. Whiskey’s my new thing. Whiskey and Whisky. It takes you deep. Deep in there. Where words are formed, primordially.

I’m creaking into work, a bit hungover, and finding it hard to keep up with my caseloads. Nothing new there, but I had given the old lads too false a hope with that burst of insane activity over the Christmas period. Ah well, they knew it wouldn’t last, and it’s not as if I do anything important, not really. I know where I stand in their estimations. But what can I do? I was hampered. Pampered.

I ask Cathy for lunch, and the pair of us got some wraps from nude and walked through the park. It was cold, but clear, dry, crisp I suppose you’d say. She asked about Christmas, all that family bollocks.

“they’re dead to me now” I said.

“oh come on, your family?”

“fucking dead. And the sooner the better. There’s a lot of money to be made… “

she looks at me, goggle eyed, as if she can’t believe for a minute a man would talk about his family like this. “my cunted brother made this about money a long time ago.” I throw my wrap into the lake and even the ducks wouldn’t go near it. I’m angry again. “I hate vegans,” I say, inexplicably. Well, explicably enough, just, apropos of what exactly. Cathy is cold so we walk on in a kind of silence. I think she thinks I’m weird now and I’m running my chance. Certainly, being so debilitated when I get in because of last nights drink is helping my cause with anyone, but fuck it. The work Is good. They’ll all see.

I haven’t been eating well either. Yesterday I ate polenta cos it was all I had left. Fucks sake.

This band I s going to be huge tho, you’ll see. Myself and Gert are driving down to Galway to see some band at the weekend, and rob their guitarist.

Christmas was a washout, much as I expected. I’ve never really done it, I totally didn’t do it this year.

First the sister phones up saying that she and mum had been invited to my brother. Well, I sucked on my teeth and mumbled and said, well, I’ll come, but he’s a cunt. And she starts to um and aw and go, eh, you’re not invited. I says, huh? I’m not invited? Well fuck me, but that’s a bridge too far, I’m afraid. I’m after getting you and the kids a load of presents, I lied, because, as per usual, I’d bought nothing, and ha no intention of hitting the shops til Christmas eve. Well, she muses, you could send. Maybe. I could in me fuck, I reply, they’re going to saint Vincent de Paul, and I cannot believe you’d take his side over mine. Oh, it’s not about sides, she says. I know what it’s about. I said. Don’t lets, she says and I have to hang u-p. fucking gutted by my own sister. Him I can understand, we’ve never liked one another and he is an unutterable cunt, but her. Disappointed I was by her attitude, but in truth vaguely happy that I was gonna miss the rigmarole.

I called my mother.

“what’s this? Do you condone this?”

“hector, he’s told me about you”

“what has he told me”

she likes to go silent, the old bird. I think she forgets she’s talking to someone most of the time.

“did he tell you he wants you in a nursing home so he can flog the house. He’s trying to muscle me out, always has been”

“now hector, she says, “I know about the girls and the drugs”

of course my heart stops, because how could she know, how could he know. It’s all nonsense.

“so I’m getting kicked out of the family”

“hector, you’ve blown your inheritance.”

“I fucking have not. He blew his investing that golf course in Tenerife.”

“oh no, it’s lovely out there.”

“when the fuck did you go to Tenerife?”

“hector, I don’t like the f. you know that.”

Fuck this.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to let that cunt get me down, and as groucho says, I wouldn’t want to be part of a club that would have me, so I’m happy enough.

Saved me a fortune in presents.

I was mooching in work, cos there was nothing else to do when Cathy started on at me, “got the shopping done”

“no one to buy for” I said, probably a little too gloomily. Well, who likes rejection, even if I thrive on it. “aw” she says with a theatric face, like I was a five year old covered in paint.

“what?”

“just….it’s Christmas. What about the family?”

“they’ve let me go”

she laughs. I must break you, I think, I must have you first and then break you. I feel effervescent with rage again. Cunts.

I don’t bother with Christmas day. Stay in bed most of the day, have all that stuffed partridges for my dinner, and smoke some grass til I conk out. Nothing on tv, utter waste of time. FFS.

So I have nothing to do and everyone has gone into hibernation or something, so what did I do? I came into work to do some stuff. All I had was my motivation and a huge bag of coke. After 3 days I’d caught up on everything. That’ll impress the boys no end. They’d love to sack me, but they can’t, cos the old man used to be on the board. Then off on a three day bender, including a party in Gerts for new years. I don’t know, I lost count of how many pills I popped, but it was a good gig altogether. We cracked open some bottles of Moet at the moment, and there was a girl there called Emma who’s from Derry and has a voice like a razor blade being dragged across a mirror, but I stuck my tongue down her throat anyway. She didn’t seem to mind. She tasted of smoking and redbull. I think I vomited, I can’t remember.

For new years, I took up smoking. Thought I might as well.

Bottles

Busy,

Busy is the word.

Gert finally got back in touch, and I was going to kill him. He called about Thursday I think, and I was sitting there drawing pictures of the hanged man on my notebook, studiously avoiding work. “dude” he says “those girls aren’t going to work out” man I was angry.

So anyway we met and I had to laugh at him. His face was a mess, he’d already gotten thumped to bits by someone. Turns out of the girls one had a boyfriend who took exception to Gerts technique of audition. Gert got the slaps and apparently the girl didn’t do too great out of it either. The other one could never sing to begin with, but by Gerts accounts he talents didn’t lie there. We had a drink and I laughed at him, his beating basically saved him from a beating, you know, but I had to say, that’s it, girlband, no. and to his credit he agreed. “you were right all along”

“I know”

“the problem with a girlband, is the girls. They’re nuts”

it’s true. So crooner boy band? I mean, for the young girls and the gays. The gays have nothing else to spend the money on. Gerts eyes narrowed.

“well, I’ve been thinking, hanging out in temple bar, looking at the kids, watching MTV. My Chemical Romance are fuckin huge, and why? Why? Because as much as the kids want to be horny, they also want to be miserable.”
”I’m listening…”

“we need to put together a metal band, like my chemical romance… we check out the kids hanging around on a Saturday, and we put them together. You film it, we’ll write some songs… it’ll be a doddle… it’s just we’ll need a good singer. That’s the key.”

Well, I had to think for a second. It’s write up my street. I thought I’d give writing pop songs a lash, and well lets be honest, it’s all samples isn’t it. I mean look at the sugababes, you rip off are friends electric and call it your own? I thought that ould be a doddle. But this… guitars and bass… I can do. I can produce. These kids would be a lot more interesting to film, you know, much more depth than vain girls who can’t sing. I nod my acquiescence, and a sly grin plays across my face.

“I knew I picked you for a reason, Gertie. “

“don’t ever call me Gertie”

“ha ha ha”

At the weekend I headed down to temple bar to check out the kids. Even given the weather, which was inclement, there’s enough of these black clad, bad makeupped, miserable middle class kids standing around to give me an idea. I do a quick vox pop “what music are you into” and I get a picture. No one listens to stuff from my youth, not one Bauhaus fan, no-one’s into Metallica. One guy claims to love Slayer. Oh yeah, I say. I saw them in the top hat 88, best gig ever. Kids impressed. Two years before he was born. “Lombardo is king,” he says. That he fucking is, I muse. “do you drum”

“yeah man.”

I get the kids number. His girlfriend is there and she starts calling me a pervert. We’ll have the last laugh, I say to the kid, when we’re topping the billboard 100, eh? My heads brimming with ideas as I walk off. “pervert” yer one calls again.

“can you sing?” I ask?

I had Nolenne and Cian over for dinner in the week. I made seared scallops with a sweet potato cake and I’m really into my Amarone at the moment, so I have a few bottles of that lying around. Cian has brought over some grass he picked up while he was away in Amsterdam the other week. He’s laughing his face off telling about all the whores and stuff and Noleene is all like, jesus, Cian, you know with the serial killer on the run in Ipswich and all… and Cian say, listen the whores gotta eat, don’t they. Cian bellows, he always has, it’s his utter middleclassness. We both went to the Rock, of course, and Cian was (oh sweet irony) a great hooker in his day, but he always had this garrulousness that came with just being moneyed, a confidence that bred confidence. Bourne of nothing. I mean, yeah an aright hooker with the ball, but he hated to tackle. He was dropped for the SCT, the time I was made captain, and of course he didn’t care. It’s the measure of the man. Cians hero is Bono.

The grass is good, but soon Cians asleep and drooling at us. I tell Noleene about my new band project. “once we get the label up and running, we’re laughing. I have investors. I have money”

“it’s a far cry from girl bands… I mean, from girl bands to hip hop metal or whatever it is…”

“It’s all the same, manufactured ideals for teenagers. Music is less about music, more about lifestyle these days. It’s about look.”

She shrugs. “Cian hasn’t fucked me in 6 months.”

“this is good grass”

“six months”

“maybe if he wasn’t stoned all the time”

“oh don’t you worry, Cian’s getting some alright”

“ah well then….”

“I want some,” she says.

I’m not so concerned about the morality of fucking your oldest friends wife while he sleeps like a baby on the couch, more it’s just that I’m not all that attracted to Noleene. She has a horsy kind of chin and he skin seems slightly glowing orange. I take her on the kitchen table so I can keep an eye on Cian, I don’t know why. She makes these guttural grunt, that reminding me of my old mans phlegmy coughs before he died. She has a jerking style, that favours one side, and she’s grinding her left hip into me at such and angle that my cock is at a ninety degree angle. I close my eyes and grit my teeth and surprise my self by envisioning Cathy. That gives me some impetus, and I just hammer at her for a minute or so, and that seems to be enough. She neighs like a horse and I withdraw just before I ejaculate, and manage to get to the sink just in time. I don’t mind if you come in me, she says. I’m barren. It’s all a background hum. My cock looks too red. I look at her and she’s sitting on the edge of the table, surrounded by the debris of dinner, slurping the last of the Masi from the bottle. Anything stronger? She asks. Cian’s on the couch, snoring away, but I’m sure, and it could just be grass-paranoia here, sure I saw one of his eyes flicker open.

I dig out the Jameson. “oh good man,” she says.