by Ray Banks
So I wasn’t paralysed. That was something. Small comfort with the pain burrowing its way through my back, my hip flared.
I pulled myself to the edge of the couch as my gut flipped. It kicked me into a heave. I convulsed, belched, splattered the carpet with puke. I hung on there for a while, spit abseiling from my open mouth, more wind following. My eyes closed as the movie played on without me.
This wasn’t good.
I’d been sick before, had pain before, but it was Blue Square Premier compared to this. So I hung on, waited for it to pass, and when I thought it was safe to move, I turned and fumbled for the prescription bottle.
And found it empty.
Greg laughs now, which is about the usual level of sympathy I can expect from him.
“Fuck me,” he says, gesturing towards the widescreen telly in the corner of the room. “Talk about coincidence, I was just watching that, man.”
“Not a lot on, this time of night.”
“The Tingler,” he says, playing it out like Price. Gives me the wide eyes and spooky expression to go along with it, but he can keep them. I’m not in the mood for fucking impressions.
I nod slowly, run my tongue along the inside of my mouth. Still that vomit taste. I should’ve brushed my teeth before I came over here, but there wasn’t the time or the inclination. And this bastard’s never been in a hurry his entire life.
“Thought I’d seen it before,” I say.
“Fuckin’ classic, but a hell of a thing to watch when your back’s playing you up. That fuckin’ beast on the spine? Jesus, no thanks.” Greg ducks to the CD case, rattles off another line from Cat’s leg. Comes up, thumbs one nostril. “Shit, sorry, I forgot to ask — you want a line or something?”
“No, y’alright,” I say. “Just the usual.”
“Right. I get you. You need to ease down. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
I look at him.
“Codeine,” he says. “It’s a pain in the fuckin’ rear to get.”
A spike of panic. “You don’t have any?”
He jerks his chin at me. “You got a ciggie?”
I give him an Embassy. Greg pulls some gum from his combats pocket, starts chewing, then lights the cigarette. When he catches me watching him, he says, “Just smoked my last menthol.”
“You got any codeine or not, Greg?”
“Did I say I didn’t have any? I didn’t say that, Cal. Supposed to be an investigator—”
“You know I don’t do that anymore.”
“You should be listening to people when they say things. Otherwise you won’t be too good at your fuckin’ job. I mean, I know you got a trick ear an’ that, but, shit, open the other one, eh? All I said was that it’s a pain in the fuckin’ rear to get. I mean, fuckin’ codeine. You’re talking specifics there, man. You want painkillers, I can do you painkillers.”
“No,” I say, but it doesn’t matter. The coke’s kicked in. Too much chatter, the white stuff bringing out the bullshit and the barker.
“You sure? Diazepam — blues and yellows. I don’t do the whites ’cause they’re fuckin’ bobbins. But I got the blues and yellows, you want them. Valium. If you need Valium. Take a couple of them, they kick in nice, gets your muscles relaxed, that’s fuckin’ medical. Methadone—”
“Do I look like a smackhead to you, Greg?”
He grins, the Embassy twitching towards the ceiling. “You want an honest answer?”
“No. And I don’t want you slipping me methadone, either. I came here for codeine. I’ve got a medical condition. That’s what was prescribed, so that’s what I need. You keep the rest, sell it on to someone who isn’t so fuckin’ specific.”
“Alright, Mardy. I wouldn’t slip you nowt anyway. I don’t work like that. Shocked and stunned you’d ever say that to me, truth be fuckin’ told.” Greg gets out of his chair, smacks the gum. “Tell you what, I’ll have a butcher’s, see what I’ve got. See if I have anything close to what you’re after.”
“No,” I say. “Fuck’s sake, Greg, nothing close. Codeine or nothing.”
“Yeah, alright, okay. Codeine or nowt. No need to suck your pants about it.” He waves at me as he leaves the room. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I hear him thump about in another room. I look around. Make myself comfortable. That’s a joke and a half right there.
I sit on the arm of his threadbare couch. Probably an antique, could be worth something if it wasn’t for the fact that the stuffing’s been knocked out of it and it smells vaguely of wet dog. A long strip of wood threatens to split my arse in two. I shift position, but there’s no relief. Still feeling the itch and the burn. Better than the pain, but only just.
I promised myself I wouldn’t act like a junkie in front of Greg, but it’s getting harder with each visit. Because each time I’m leaving it longer — or it feels like it — so I’m normally a wreck by the time I get round to his flat.
Up until recently, I’ve been able to rely on overworked and stressed hospital staff for my painkillers. Got myself a repeat script when I fucked my hand on Mo Tiernan’s skull and they weren’t too bothered when I kept coming back — a hospital has more important people to worry about than a bloke with a bandaged hand.
But I could only push it so far without questions, and I wasn’t about to start messing myself up on purpose just to get a prescription. So I came to Greg. And talk about right under your nose — he lives just across the way.
Greg’s not a proper dealer, though. I mean, it’s not his only job. He’s also a croupier on George Street. Legitimate, yeah, but his job’s turned him snowblind. The constant rattle of Mah Jong tiles and heavy roulette games took its toll on Greg a while back, but seeing as he’s a clever lad, he reckoned he could deal pills as well as the games. The money keeps him in his habit, and he never sells from his own stash.
Because Greg’s small-time. I made sure of that. He isn’t about to play Tony Montana, despite all the white powder. Working in the city centre, he knows who’s who, knows better than to tread on anyone’s toes. As long as he stays like that, remembers his place, everybody’s happy. Most of all, me.
Now all I need to do is pop out onto the walkway, see if there’s the glow of sixties kitsch in his window. Like the old song, Greg’s is the light that never goes out. He keeps cokehead croup hours — 24/7.
The CD pauses, then kicks in again from the beginning. The title track, and the rhythm of Cat’s ode to the working man is too fast to keep me seated. I get off the arm of the couch, grab the hi-fi remote and fiddle with it until the volume drops. A whiff of ash and kebabs as I replace the remote by the CD case. Turn around and look at the posters of Johnny Cash flipping the bird and Hot Fuzz on the walls. A couple of consoles on the floor by the telly, a load of ex-rental DVDs.
I’m about to go through the movies — anything to keep my mind off the itch — when Greg comes back into the room. I try not to snap to attention. Take it slow, act like I don’t need what he’s carrying.
He frowns, a bag of pills in his hand, the cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. Smoke rising into narrowed eyes, he says, “What happened to the tunes?”
“It was doing my head in.”
“That’s Yusuf’s best work you’re fucking around with there.”
“Cat,” I say. “He wasn’t—”
“Man’s a genius, I don’t care what name he’s using or who he’s praying to.” Greg picks up the remote, changes the track to “Hummingbird”, which throws my mind for a loop.
“Greg—”
He puts a finger to his lips. “Say the man’s a terrorist, I’ll slap you. Listen to the music. It’ll calm you down.”
It doesn’t. “Can we get on with this?”
“Fine.” He sits down, flicks ash into a mug. “Getting harder to come by this stuff, y’know.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“No, I mean it’s really hard. Nobody’s dealing this.” Greg moves the CD case out of the way, starts counting out the p
ills.
“What? That your subtle way of jacking the price on me, is it?”
Greg frowns. “Fuck me, you’re in a mood.”
“You want to charge more, Greg, just come out and say it.”
“Would I do that to you, man?”
“No, Greg, you’re salt of the earth.”
I turn my back on him. Can’t stand to watch him take his time with the pills, and I wish I didn’t have to keep this conversation going, but I’m supposed to be all cool about this. I’m sure the fucker does it on purpose, just to see if one night I’ll crack. But I can’t afford to look too needy. Part of the reason Greg’s so willing to have me come round is that I don’t look like the rest of them. I’m not bringing any attention his way. So I try not to look too desperate. Besides, salt of the earth or not, a needy punter is a punter about to be fucked over.
“You working much?” I say.
“At the club?” Greg sniffs. “Yeah, still got some shifts. Not doing doubles anymore, like. Don’t need to.” Another sniff, I don’t think he realises he’s doing it half the time. “Couple lads from Corrie came in the other night.”
“Which ones?”
Greg looks up, surprised. “You watch it, do you?”
“No.”
“Then it won’t make a difference, will it? Anyway, they come in, ask where they can score. Like they’re all set for a long night out and reckon of course I’m going to know where they can get something to keep their eyes open. Don’t know me from Adam, like, so I could get offended. Anyway, these two might be as discreet as pillheads get, but they’ve got cash, so you know how it is. Way I see it, if they get fuckin’ stupid about the situation, it’s their jobs down the drain.”
“Or going great guns as soon as they’re out of rehab.”
“They’re not Pete Doherty, these lads. They fuck up, they’re not going to get the column inches.”
“Right. And how d’you class me, Greg? Pillhead?”
He doesn’t look at me. “I sell you pills.”
“Oh, right. Cheers.”
“But you, Cal, you’ve got a medical condition, right?”
I don’t like his tone, but I’m willing to let it go. “We doing the same price or what?”
“This one time, I don’t see why not. Next time, I might have to hike it all to fuck, mind.”
“Cash good for you?”
“Always good,” he says, bagging and twisting. “Never took a cheque in my life and I’m not going to start now.”
“Thought you’d have gone chip-and-pin.” I dig out my wallet, hand over the cash, take the bag.
“Chip-and-pin’s fuckin’ insecure, you didn’t hear about that? And the people I deal with — present company excepted — I’m sure they’d find some way to fuck me over.” Greg slips the cash under the CD case so he can get a good look at it as he goes down on the next line. “Anything else I can do you for?”
“Nah, I’ll let you have the rest of your night.”
He nods, then asks, “You’re alright, though?”
“I’ll be good.”
But as I leave Greg’s flat, hand in my jacket pocket, fingers in a tight claw around the pill bag, I reconsider.
And reckon I’m pretty fucking far from being good.
6
Air from outside has wafted the puke smell all through the flat, but these pills need transferred sharpish. Greg might have been taking the piss with the whole “medical condition” thing, but I’m the one still on the codeine so for all intents and purposes it is a medical condition.
Technically.
It’s not my fault my GP’s a vindictive prick and he can’t get his head round one stolen prescription. Never darken my doors again, be fucked. It was desperate measures and, Christ, it’s not like I’m popping them like sweets. I only take what I’m supposed to take. I might up the dosage in proportion to the pain, but it’s not like I’ve graduated to heavy-duty opiates or anything.
I could’ve taken the harder stuff. Easily. Before I hooked up with Greg, there were a couple of seriously bad nights, thought I was well on the way to shaking hands with St Peter. But edging into methadone territory, that’s a line I’m not willing to cross. As soon as my back gets better, as soon as it stops crippling me, I’ll kick the pills into touch. Methadone — that’s another beast entirely, and I know how hard it is to pin the fucker. My brother’ll tell me all the gory details of his long, slow trek to recovery in between the protracted silences of his monthly catch-up call.
Which reminds me, there should be one of those due soon. There’s something to actively avoid. Not that I don’t like my brother, I just don’t like feeling I have to talk to him. And he’s on a forgiveness kick at the moment, must be one of the steps they taught him when they were urging him to kick the habit. He keeps telling me to come up to Edinburgh, the pair of us can go over to Shotts to talk to my dad.
Spend quality time in prison with my father, and not just any prison but fucking Shotts? That place is home to Scotland’s nastiest: the coat-hanger pimps, the paedos, the killers, the serial rapists. Whatever my dad did to deserve a cell there, I don’t want to go through it with him. Mind you, knowing him, the bastard probably requested Shotts. He wouldn’t be seen dead in an Edinburgh nick.
So somehow I don’t see that happening, but Declan can’t understand why I wouldn’t want to go into the type of place that used to give me nightmares to see a guy who did the same.
Declan left home earlier than me. He doesn’t know how bad it got after he was gone.
So, fuck forgiveness and healing old wounds, whatever the fuck he has to do as part of the rehab he’s doing.
Last month, he said, “How’s your back these days?”
“Fine,” I told him.
“Still on the painkillers?”
“They’re still being prescribed.”
“Right.”
And I told him right then: “Settle down, Dec. Not everyone in this family has to have a fuckin’ addiction.”
He didn’t say much after that.
One day at a time. That’s the mantra. Except right now it’s one pill at a time, because I can’t trust myself with more than one, not with my hands shaking this much. My knee twitches as I pick pills.
One of them slips out of my fingers. I panic, slap it against my leg.
Cold sweat on the back of my neck.
Concentrate.
I don’t want to drop one and have to go scrabbling on the carpet to get it back, especially if it goes into the puke. Drop a codeine in there, talk about a dilemma.
So I keep the ritual going, don’t think about the vomit on the floor or my brother or my father, just the slow transfer from bag to bottle. The label’s started to wear off the plastic, the prescription’s barely legible, but this little brown bottle represents a legitimacy that Greg’s plastic baggies don’t. It makes me feel better, too. This way, the stuff I’m taking, it’s still prescription medicine. I just don’t get it on prescription.
I save the last two pills, hold them in the middle of a sweaty palm. Slap myself in the mouth and wash the pills with some water before I swallow. I lean against the kitchen counter, take deep breaths, wait to see if my stomach’s going to be a good boy and let the codeine digest. A small gurgle just above my belt, and I think I’m going to be okay.
I give it to the count of ten to be on the safe side, then grab a cloth and the washing-up bowl, get to work on the puke.
7
The sound of progress also happens to be the sound of Galaxy FM, and the summer morning brings out the best in the Lads’ Club renovations.
I get out of the car, walk to the double doors. Someone’s propped them open with a couple of fire extinguishers. Sunlight glitters across new paint and a slight breeze pushes plaster dust out onto the street, crap dance music thumping hard after it. The smell of the paint hits me as soon as I step inside the place, gets right up into my sinuses. Paulo’s painters are hard at work, which is weird, because I hav
en’t seen them do anything in the last month.
Paulo’s standing in the middle of the club, the calm eye of the storm. He sips from a Starbucks cup in his hand. Things must be looking up if he’s gone to the coffee shop for his morning brew. That, or the kettle’s still packed.
“You look busy.”
He turns and grins when he sees me. “Callum.”
“You want to move those fire extinguishers, mind. Inspector’ll have a fit if he sees that.”
“Health and Safety’ll have one if I don’t. We’d have this lot passing out from the fumes. Besides, inspector’s been around already.”
“And?”
“Right little wanker.”
“The whole ’fire kills in minutes, smoke kills in seconds’ bit?”
“Had pictures of burnt-up dollies, Cal. Made me sick.”
“Apart from that, how’s it going?”
“It’s going,” he says. “And that’s all that counts.”
“How long till you open?”
“Way it’s going, Friday. That’s what we’re aiming for, anyway.”
“Thought there was more work to do.”
“Nah, it’s mostly smoke damage, so it’s a lick of paint — primer, another coat, whatever that bloke said to me before — and then we just need to move the new equipment in.”
I look at him. “You’re replacing everything?”
“All the stuff that was in here, it’s black, Cal. Had to junk it or punt it on. Even if I could bring it back, I wouldn’t want all that old shite making the place look untidy.” Paulo moves away from me, opening his arms, a kid about to show off his imaginary new toys. “Let me give you the guided tour.”
“If you feel you have to.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he says, and gestures towards the middle of the gym with his coffee. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Right, two new rings over here — a nineteen-foot championship AIBA one and a sixteen-footer. Can’t be big enough. You’ve seen the lads coming in here, they’re fuckin’ monsters. Must be something in the water. We’re also going to have another floor ring, like fourteen foot, for training purposes.”