Ruin Nation

by Dan Carver

He doesn’t pause to think, just grabs the first glass and throws it down his tubby neck. The next two disappear in quick succession. There’s three gone before he realises I haven’t sugared them and his eyes take on a frogspawn cast. But he still bangs back two more. His last shot has an ominous air to it but, misery leading to consumption, he throws that in after.

  With eyes like jellyfish flesh, he staggers and sways. I picture his internals in my mind’s eye: all that wormwood coursing through his bloodstream; six shots of unsweetened rotgut dancing the Macarena in an already queasy stomach. I stand back because I’ve seen this before and it’s not pretty.

  “Just going to the toiloooo…” he starts. But the absinthe’s ready for a repeat performance, erupting into a mouth which, despite its Cockney origins, hasn’t the capacity to contain it. There he is, retching into a pint glass, then there he isn’t – nowhere to be seen. But a blind man could tell his location from the Wagnerian roar of projectile vomiting. I write ‘Result’ on my sheet of paper with an arrow pointing to a smiling skull. You see, I’m not big on sympathy either.

  Now I’ve got two absinthes left, I’m no great drinker and Freddy doesn’t do refunds – so I neck one, dip my finger in the other and start cleaning my watch with it. It stops ticking. That’s karma.

  Well, there’s a wailing wall in Jerusalem and I like to think there’s one in every pub. It’s called a urinal, and I know that as long as Elton’s wailing at it, I’ve got some peace and quiet. So I take advantage of the dim lighting and the isolation and sink back into the memories of my recently departed friend (the donkey, that is). I picture his heavy head lolling over the back of the horse truck and the heartrending look of betrayal in his eyes. And I feel afraid for him because, of the two domestic animal species left in this starving nation, he’s one of them.

  But God doesn’t like his playthings having time to themselves. In fact, he can’t like me at all because in comes Elton, wobbling all over the place and spouting sentences already – all inappropriate honesty and embarrassing personal detail.

  “You make me hate Jesus,” I tell him, but it doesn’t register.

  “’Er lips,” he says unbelievably, “So soft! So warm!” He pauses. “So…sensuwall!

  What trough of crap has he dredged this from? What the Hell’s he been reading? Considering Estuary English isn’t one of your great romantic accents, when he says ‘sensual’ as ‘sensuwall’, well, it’s just downright creepy. But the best (or worst) is yet to come. He scratches his shaven head and blurts:

  “An’ she said I was like ‘er knight in shinin’ armour. An’ she was me pwincess.”

  My head’s in my hands now. I can make a fool of myself easy enough. I don’t need this idiot to help me. But he’s gone and done it anyway.

  “Pwincess!” comes a raucous catcall – and I mean raucous, emanating from a six-foot-four man in a platinum blonde wig and platform high heels. “I’ll be your ‘pwincess’!”

  Now you’ve got to understand something about Dubious Freddy’s. The only kinds of people prepared to drink in a bar owned by an alcoholic Islamist-militant hypocrite dwarf with a face like a rotten apple and a metal claw I’m sure I’ve seen crusted with toilet paper, well, they’re going to be earthy. I say earthy, perhaps I mean rough. Well, now I’m really thinking about it, perhaps I mean dregs. No, let’s settle on scum.

  I like to think I’m a better class of scum. So it annoys me when the entire bar, including some half-dead octogenarian wearing a shit-brown, piss-stained suit is laughing at our expense.

  “Well?” the big creature screeches, cupping his fake mammaries, “what do you say, Honey?”

  I lean toward Elton. I’ve no choice but to brave his disgusting breath.

  “Don’t say a word,” I whisper. “Keep your mouth shut.” But Elton thinks he’s some form of wit.

  “Come back when you’ve... when you've had your balls cut off!” he shouts – or tries to, as the words come out in a drunken jumble.

  Oh God, I think to myself, as our inbetweeny friend stalks up to the table, hairy toes poking out the end of his platforms. He inclines his gristly torso toward Elton, his face lacquered in bad makeup, his teeth tombstone grey and hisses:

  “Come back when you’ve grown some, Honey!”

  It’s not a particularly funny joke. Must be the delivery. Or fear of the deliverer. The bar erupts. Our new acquaintance is leaning back, grabbing his various bulges, asking Elton if there’s anything he like to see close-up, and I’m thinking, get me the Hell out of here. I’ve drunk with some pretty base company before, believe me, but I’m not going to spend the rest of my evening listening to the cacklings of something that looks like a disturbed child’s drawing of a woman.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking: two sad little homophobes scared of a man in a dress. Well, that’s your own prejudices showing. The fact is that it’s Big Tranny Dave’s Quiz Night and we’ve both paid a pound for the privilege of taking part. You can win your own weight in beer.

  But Elton’s talked through all the questions and the booze is long since won. Now all that’s left is Dave’s theatre of cruelty. It’s time for a strategic withdrawal. I have one last scrap of dignity and I’d like to retain it.

  “Well,” I say, patting Elton on the back, “looks like you’ve found a friend.” I bid Dave a “Good evening, Madam.”

  So that scrap of dignity I mentioned... forget about it. I go to make my move and the table and its tottering towers of empties move with me. I’ve got my bootlaces tangled like tendrils around the wrought iron table legs. One false move and I’ll be on the floor with an avalanche of glass on top of me.

  I’m bending down to extricate myself when I detect the presence of bosoms in my peripheral vision. There was nothing even vaguely female in the bar when we came in so, ten to one, it’s Dave about to subject me to some ‘humorous’ interference.

  Right then, you he-be-she-be swine, I think to myself, let’s see how you like it! And I charge blindly upwards, yelling “Hello, sailor!” or something equally crass, and grab man-crotch. Or what I thought was man-crotch. And, as glass after glass shatters around us, I realise I’ve just floored my own wife.

  Now, like I said, I don’t make excuses. I state facts as I see them. You can’t go wrong with the truth, I figure. Stupidly.

  “I thought you were a transvestite.” It’s not the best hello. Her cheeks turn puce. She doesn’t shout. She never shouts. She hisses, and her angry words hit cold air and come out cloaked in steam:

  “I wore this for you. This dress! And now you tell me I look like a man in it?! I don’t know why I... I don’t know why I bother with you! I... I...”

  She’s now speechless with rage – for which we should be thankful because, as her voice rises up the register, it’s a danger to the eardrums. And all I’m thinking is, I’ve never said anything about the dress; I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the damn dress. And who are you? And where have you hidden the woman I loved? But I’m a married man and our thoughts don’t count – as anyone, either side of the gender divide, will tell you.

  “Elton,” I begin, “allow me to introduce Rachel Jupiter. Or Rachel Bactrian-Jupiter when she likes to remind me she married beneath her. But, whatever convoluted combination of our names she’s using today, she’s my wife. Darling, this is Elton, from my old division. I patched up his intestines. Couldn’t fix his brain, though, and now he works in television.”

  “We’ve met,” she growls. “Many times. But you’d be too drunk to recall.”

  In fact, perhaps I do remember. I have a brief recollection of introducing someone as The Queen of The Damned and saluting. She turns to Elton.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Elton snaps to attention in a passable imitation of sobriety and, suddenly, I look like the drunk.

  “Not long,” he says.

  “So why’s he... why’s he acting up?” And she turns that gorgon gaze upon me. “Child,” she whispers under her breath.


  “I don’t know,” he says, the traitorous bastard, pointing his bleary eyes in my direction, shaking his head. “Don’t ask me,” he goes on, “’E’s been in a funny mood all day!”

  Rachel harrumphs once or twice, indicating all chance of reconciliation is over and that it really is time for a divorce. And some old cove in the background’s bemoaning young people, saying that it’s a shame they can’t behave themselves these days. And suddenly I’m aware that the whole bar’s looking at me. And they’re all shaking their heads.

  “I…” I start, but it’s useless. Because there’s nothing I can say. And nobody likes a whinger.

  That’s enough of me for now. Let’s head back to 10 New Downing Street:

  Faded wallpaper with a disturbingly symmetrical flower pattern – peer closely and it looks pleasingly like a vagina; dim, dusty bulbs in ornate brass up-lighters; an aspidistra plant on a marble plinth; a man being drowned in a turquoise washing-up bowl; a highly polished mahogany table and, reflected in its surface, the fine features of Humboldt Bactrian.

  Bactrian is all you could ask for in a Prime Minister: his words are true and his heart is stout. His handshake is firm. He has a winning smile and a charming personality. He’s also everything you can deplore in a human being, for his true words are often brutal words and that stout heart is as black as coal. His hands have killed. His dick has whored. His ego is colossal, as is his size. His affability and enthusiasm are chemically induced and he sweats accordingly. His plummy vowels drip poisoned honey. And the fact you can’t dislike him makes him very, very dangerous. He holds the most powerful position in the country but, strangely, has no power at all. He’s the mouthpiece for Malmot’s Military junta.

  Malmot is rapier thin and bent two feet shorter than his allotted six foot four by years of conspiratorial whispering. His eyes are red-rimmed and repulsive. His hair recedes in a sharp arc like a shark’s fin and its presence causes equal concern. His body, as mentioned, is bat-like and makes no sense head-side-up. His personal life is minimal, his hobbies are horrible and he lives by the Rule of The Three C’s: conquest, control and cash-bought concubines. His speech is eloquent and educated but the tonality downright weird. His personality? Borderline autistic. His past is as murky as his sexuality and when he isn’t paying women to manipulate him, he’s manipulating the Prime Minister’s image. His foot is on a man’s neck. The man’s head rests in the aforementioned turquoise washing-up bowl. The man is dead. Malmot looks up.

  “Three minutes fifty,” he says.

  “Good lungs, that one,” says Bactrian with a rolled up bank note protruding from his nostril. “Elevenses,” he offers by way of explanation.

  “And twelveses, too” reproaches Malmot. “Like a greedy child. Finish up!”

  Bactrian unrolls King William’s face, flattens the bank note on the table and replaces it inside his fine, red leather, monogrammed wallet. There’s a picture of a woman in it. It could be his wife. Only wives don’t dress like that. And they certainly don’t do what she’s doing. With a horse.

  Malmot holds a thin sheath of paper. His wrist flicks with a jarring click, the papers fly and Bactrian catches. He sighs, flicks over the cover sheet and locates the first line with his fingertip. He takes up a red felt tip pen, clears his throat with an almighty glottal growl and reads:

  “Society is created by the actions of man…”

  “Better put ‘and woman there’,” Malmot interrupts. It’s clear where he’s obtained the thought. He’s reading a pornographic magazine. “Better still, put ‘its inhabitants’.”

  “…And though we would all like to believe that society comprises of sane and sober taxpayers…”

  “Harrumph.”

  “…It must be remembered that there are still unpleasant elements out there, and their actions…”

  “Make a note to pronounce ‘and their actions’ bombastically.”

  “…Also contribute to what we can expect from our day-to-day existences. So… to cut a long story short…”

  “Like the sudden informal tone.”

  “…Let me tell you…”

  “Ooh! Dramatic pause! I like it!”

  “The unpleasant elements are taking over! And why are they taking over? Do you want the simple answer? Do you? … Drugs! … Drugs! Drugs! Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!”

  “Bang your fist with each syllable. They’ll lap it up.”

  “Cocaine, Heroin, Bang bang, Jack-up juice, the Ming Ming – not to mention Skunk Pussy and a thousand other death sentences wrapped in tin foil and sold outside playgroups! We know the names! We’ve done our research! Insidious, invidious, creeping rots, eating away at the oak-beamed rafters of Good Ol’ Blighty; threatening to enslave our children and subjugate the decent people of England! These are the names that, if the pushers have their way…”

  “Do quote marks with your fingers when you say ‘pushers’.”

  “…Will be on your child’s list to Santa! I’m not exaggerating…”

  “Hah!”

  “…I’m not scaremongering to take your minds off the ridiculous rumours that we might be an inadequate political power!”

  “[Sounds of choking]”

  “…I’m simply warning you…something it is the duty of a responsible government to do!

  “The degeneration of Britain’s inhabitants into a mindless pool of protoplasm is an imminent occurrence! Do you want to regress back to the primordial soup we struggled so hard to crawl out of, so many, many millions of years ago?! Do you want to?!”

  “Do I get a bread roll?” Malmot enquires, but Bactrian continues unabashed.

  “…And do you know what the sickest part of this misbegotten situation is? Shall I tell you? It’s taxpayers that’ll pay for it!”

  “That’s the soundbites. Drop the volume now; take them into your confidence.”

  “Now I know you don’t want tax hikes. No one does. I certainly don’t!”

  “Liar! Boo!”

  “But what would you rather have: a small increase now, to pay for the police officers so vital to our war against drugs, or a series of massive increases to pay for the inevitable epidemic?

  “Law and order or atavistic descent? Dilettantism with dealers or decency? The choice is yours!”

  “Cross out ‘dilettante,’ says Malmot thoughtfully. “It sounds like an artificial penis.”

  “I thought it was.”

  “That’s a ‘dildo’. Like in that picture in your wallet.”

  “No, that’s a pony.”

  “Other end. Now you’re to learn that speech by heart.”

  “Like a good little hypocrite.”

  “Indeed. [Laughs] …Like a good little hypocrite.”

  He turns and fixes Bactrian with those evil red eyes.

  “You see, you and me... Well, it’s a matter of breeding. We can handle our vices. But the vast majority… they can’t. And they need handsome examples like us to tell them to behave themselves.”

  Bactrian catches his reflection in the paint-spattered window.

  “Am I handsome?” he asks.

  “When not in close proximity. But my point is this…” and Malmot snorts, “I just can’t bear to see the scum enjoying themselves.”

  “Heh!”

  “Now, this fellow here,” he says, kicking the drowned man. “We’ll give him a blood test and, if he’s clean, well, we’ll have him roasted in garlic and cayenne pepper. ...And now to our last piece of business…”

  “The breweries?”

  “Yes, and the compulsory purchase thereof.”

  “You know my feelings on this.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister, but fortunately you have no say in the matter. I do, however, and I’m placing alcohol production under State control.”

  “And there’s a theory behind this, isn’t there?”

  “Yeees,” comes Malmot’s patronising sigh. “As you well know, England is a nation of drunks. And, if you keep people drunk in a ditch, well, they d
on’t bother you. And if people die of liver disease, well, you don’t have to feed them. This leaves more food for the military. Feed the military and starve the proletariat and the proletariat enlists. The result is more soldiers and less useless eaters.”

  “And all because of the booze.”

  “The targeted distribution of alcohol. Butcher the weak and disenfranchised and arm the strong and dependent. It’s simple economics.”

  “I like economics.”

  “No. You like prostitutes.”

  “You’re right. Let’s get some.”

  “Let’s.”

  You’ll have noticed many strange things about modern day England. You’ll be wondering what happened to democratic political process. Why ‘New’ Downing Street? It might also strike you strange that a starving country is awash with alcohol. And what are people eating?

  Well, like every other major civilisation, from the Mayans to the Romans, we became decadent; we got complacent and we fucked up. We stopped fighting for the Empire and fought for our right to party instead. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. I will say that measuring success by the amount of brain damage you can inflict upon yourself on a Friday and Saturday night is misguided.

  For years we’d been moving all our people into service industries and middle management positions, stigmatising manual labour and forcing ill-equipped teenagers into nonsensical celebrity-culture college courses. Craftsmanship dwindled as practical skills died out. Soon all our nation was fit for was pushing paper and punishing cheap alcopops. Anyone with a brain moved abroad.

  A series of badly conceived military actions blighted our popularity on the continent and throughout the world in general. Further acts of political stupidity and arrogance sealed our fate. The French sealed the tunnel and the Russians cut off our oil. The Germans enforced a no fly zone but there was nothing to fuel our planes with anyway. We had no means of importing food and our love of concrete office blocks left no ground for growing any.

  We’d been self-infantilising for years. Now we were truly helpless.

  Riots broke out across the North West. Gangs ripped up the paving slabs to plant vegetables. But our officials preferred bureaucracy to logic and arrested our would-be farmers for the contravention of planning laws. It soon became known that our ruling bodies ranked neat block paving over human life. Manchester declared nation status, followed by Liverpool. When the troops rolled in to force reunification, the terrorism started.