by Irvine Welsh
Teeth which could so easily be smashed.
– You shut your bleedin mouth, you wanker, or I’ll shut it for ya. No doubt about it, I am well pissed off with that cunt; pretty gel who ain’t got no bleedin arms, a crying shame in anybody’s book, that’s what that is. Her mate comes across to me, another looker, all pupils, E’d out of her nut.
– Sorry about her. Bad acid like.
– What about her arms then, eh? I shouldn’t really have said that, but sometimes things just sort of slip out. Best to say what’s on your mind though, I suppose.
– Tenazadrine, innit.
Shorthand has to stick his bleedin oar in at that. – That’s the smallest boozer in the world, innit: The Tenazadrine Arms.
– Shut it, you mouthy slag! I snap at the wanker and he knows what the stare I’m giving him means and he’s pissing off. Mate or no mate, that slag’s on a collision course with a good slapping. I turns to the Doris. – Tell your mate I didn’t mean to upset her none.
She smiles at me, – Come over and tell her yourself.
That sort of floors me, cause I get all sort of shy in front of a gel I really like. We’re not talking slags here, cause they’re ten a penny, but with a gel I like it’s really sort of all different. The Ecstasy helps though. I go across.
– Oi, eh sorry about starin at you n all, like.
– I’m used to it, she says.
– I don’t usually stare at people …
– Only ones without arms.
– It ain’t cause of the arms … it’s because I was getting a great rush off the E and I felt so good … and you … you just look so fucking beautiful, I just let it all come out, – I’m Dave, by the way.
– Samantha. Don’t ever call me Sam. Never. My name’s Samantha, she says, almost smiling.
Almost is more than enough for me. – Samantha, I repeat, – well, don’t you ever call me David. It’s Dave.
Then she smiles at that and something happens to me inside. This Doris is like a fucking white dove crammed full of more MDMA than I’ve ever had in my fucking life.
London, 1979
She sat in the Oxford Street branch of the fast-food chain with her chocolate milkshake, sucking the sugary liquid through the straw. She had elected to take the Tube into town after signing on down in Hammersmith. She couldn’t face being in the flat she was squatting in; a group of young Scots guys had recently moved in and spent most of the day sitting around drinking bottles of cider and arguing with pointless dogmatism about the bands they were into. The West End had seemed a better bet on this hot day, but her head was a soupy void, an opium party into which the odd unwelcome thought occasionally gatecrashed. She thought of another gig, another band, another face, another fuck; another mechanical, loveless fuck. She tightened the muscles of her vagina and let a shiver convulse her body. Feeling the onset of self-loathing, she forced herself to subvert this bad line of thought by contemplating the mundane scene of shoppers bustling into the ridiculously crowded eating-house.
It was at this point that she felt his eyes on her.
She didn’t know how long he had been staring at her. It was the smile she noticed first, but she was determined not to acknowledge it. Another fucking creep. The ones that wanted to talk about her disability, they were always the worst. There was the old fucker who told her he was a Church of England minister. She didn’t want any more of that shit just at the moment.
When he came over and sat down beside her, she felt a familiar shock of recognition. He was another punk. His hair was pink, and he wore a leather jacket, unimaginatively held together with safety pins. There was something sterile about his look: too pristine, too contrived. A total plastic. – Mind if I join you? he asked. His accent was foreign, possibly German. She noticed this, noticed the dress. With his jacket draped across his shoulders it took a little longer before it dawned on her that he was more like her than she had at first perceived.
– I’m Andreas. I would shake hands, he laughed, but somehow I don’t think that is appropriate. He shook off the jacket to expose flippers which, like her own, grew out of his shoulders. – Perhaps, he smiled, – we will kiss instead?
Samantha felt her jaw tighten aggressively, but she realised that this response had to compete with another; a nauseous, nervy, queasy rush of embarrassed attraction. – I don’t wanna fucking kiss you, she snapped, in a clichéd punk mode. It sounded as fake as Andreas’s gear looked.
– That makes me sad, Andreas said, and he did look sad. – I sense that you are a very angry person, yes?
– You what? she said, genuinely upset, yet intrigued, at this continuing intrusion.
– As I thought. This is good. Anger is good. But when it goes on for too long it can become bad, yes? The badness inside. I know all about it. But what is the saying: do not get angry, get even. Do you know that?
– Yeah.
Samantha had met other Tenazadrine kids before. It had always been an embarrassment. A topic of conversation, their deformity, was staring them in the face. How could you ignore it, how could you not ignore it? It hung over every casual conversation like a black cloud. There was more: part of her hated them. They reminded her of how she looked, how she would be perceived by the rest of the world. Someone with a deficiency: a deficiency of arms. And once people pinned the label of deficiency on you, they tended to make it a universal one, applying it to all areas; intellect, luck, hope. Andreas, though, he inspired none of that sense of awkwardness or loathing. There was no sense of deficiency here, despite his physical form. All he radiated was a staggering impression of surplus: she could feel the confidence ooze from him. While she had learned to cover up her fears with sneers, she saw in him someone who would take on the world exactly on his own terms.
– Are you going to The Vortex tonight?
– Might be, she found herself saying. She didn’t like The Vortex, hated that crowd. She didn’t even know who was on.
– 999 are playing. They are a pretty poor band, but one is much the same as the other if you are full of the speed and the beer, yes?
– Yeah, that’s right.
– My name is Andreas.
– Yeah, she replied curtly, then, giving ground to his raised eyebrows which made him look slightly bizarre, – Sam. Not Samantha, right? Sam.
– Samantha is better. Sam is a man’s name, not a lovely girl’s. Do not let them shorten you, Samantha. Do not let them do that any more.
She felt a small bolt of fury rising up. Who did he think he was? She was about to react, when he said: – Samantha … you are very lovely. We must meet at The Ship pub in Wardour Street at eight o’clock. Yes?
– Yeah, well, maybe, Samantha said, knowing that she’d be there. She looked into his eyes. What she saw in them felt strong and warm. Then she thought that they looked ludicrously blue against his pink hair.
– Did you break into London Zoo or something? What you doing with that fucking flamingo stuck on your head?
Andreas looked at her quizzically. Samantha thought she saw a cruel anger briefly suggest itself in his face, before it settled back into a calmness so complete she felt that she must have imagined it. – I see … a flamingo. Samantha has made a joke, yes?
– Aintcha got a sense of humour or what?
– You are very young, Samantha, very young, Andreas observed.
– What you talking about? I’m the same age as you. We must have been born within weeks of each other.
– I too am very young. The issue, though, is substance.
She was about to give in again to a surge of anger, but Andreas was rising in his chair. – Now I go. But first, I have that kiss, yes?
Samantha didn’t move as he bent down and kissed her on the mouth. It was a tender kiss. He lingered briefly and she felt herself tentatively responding. Then he moved away. – Eight is good, yes?
– Yeah, she said, then he was gone. She was left by herself, of which she was painfully conscious. She knew what they were all
thinking: Two Tenazadrines, kissing.
Well, Samantha thought, at least he can’t be after my compensation money.
She left shortly after this, walking aimlessly down Charing Cross Road, then cutting through to Soho Square, lying in the sun with the office workers. Then she moved through Soho’s streets and walked up and down Carnaby Street twice until exasperation set in and she took the Tube back to the Shepherd’s Bush squat she shared with a group of other young punks whose personnel changed intermittently.
In the kitchen, a painfully thin, red-haired young Scots punk with bad spots, called Mark, was eating bacon, eggs and beans straight from the frying pan. – Awright, Samantha? he smiled, – goat any speed oan ye?
– No, she said curtly.
– Matty n Spud are away intae toon. Ah couldnae move this mornin. Fuckin wrecked last night. This is jist me gittin breakfast now. Ye hungry? he nodded at the food congealed in the grease.
– No … no thanks, Mark, Samantha forced a smile. She could feel the spots starting to form on her face, just being in the vicinity of Mark’s frying pan. The Scots guys in the squat were only sixteen, but they were a pest: filthy, loud and naive about the music. They were friendly enough; in fact the problem was that they were too friendly: they panted after you like a litter of enthusiastic puppies. She went to the room she shared with two other girls, Julie and Linda, and switched on the black-and-white set and clockwatched constantly until it was time to go out again.
She arrived at The Ship ten minutes late. He was sitting there, in the corner. She went over to the bar and bought herself a pint of cider. Then she sat down beside him. It seemed a long walk to the seat, and she felt that every eye in the pub was on her. It was a surprise that, after she returned his smile and looked around nervously, nobody seemed to have noticed them. They drank steadily and dabbed at some speed she’d had but told Scots Mark she hadn’t.
That night at the club, the band thrashed through a set as Andreas and Samantha pogoed unselfconsciously. Samantha felt a freedom and a lack of inhibition unlike anything she’d experienced before. It went beyond drugs and alcohol: it was Andreas and his liberating, infectious confidence and enthusiasm.
She knew that she was going home with him. She didn’t want the gig to end, and she did, all at once.
On their way down the road, Samatha felt her paradise being lost as they were confronted by a trio of drunk and whistling skinheads.
– It’s a fucking freak show! one shouted.
– Leave em be, another said, – it’s a bleedin shame. You wouldn’t like it.
– She’s got a nice pair of tits though! Giz a feel then, darlin! The first young skin moved towards Samantha.
– Fuck off! she shouted. Then Andreas was standing in front of her, blocking his path.
The young skinhead’s face was briefly tentative and quizzical and, for a crucial few moments, it seemed that he was frighteningly aware of the power of events to move outside of both his expectations and his will. – Get out my fucking road, you freak! he hissed at Andreas.
– Get away, Samantha said, – I don’t need anyone to fight my battles!
Andreas, though, did not move. He looked his would-be-tormentor steadily in the eye. He moved his jaws around slowly, languidly. It appeared as if he was almost enjoying this distraction; he seemed in complete control. He appeared in no hurry to speak, but when he did, it was in a slow, uniform monotone. – If you do not leave us alone I will bite your fucking face off. Understand this: you will have no face left.
He held his gaze. The shaven-headed youth’s eyes started watering, then twitching. He began to shout, but even as he was doing that, he seemed only partially aware that he was simultaneously moving away.
– C’mon, Tony, fuck that Kraut freak, let’s get out of here before some filth come by, his friend said.
They screamed further abuse as they departed, but in the manic, desperately defiant way of the humiliated and defeated.
Samantha was impressed. She was fighting against being impressed, but she was more and more impressed by this German. – You got some bottle.
Andreas nodded to one side. A finger from the stump that was his hand tapped his head. – I am not a fighter. I do not have the reach, he smiled, – and that is why you must use the head. This is where I win and lose my battles. Sometimes it works, other times … it’s not so good, you see. He shook his head with a c’est la vie smile.
– Yeah, but you really psyched those bastards out, Samantha said. She realised that the skinheads were not the only ones psyched out.
She realised that she was in love with Andreas.
Mouthy Slags
We talked for ages, just bleedin talked. I ain’t never rabbited so much in my life, not to skirt at any rate. Thing is, I didn’t even feel embarrassed. It wasn’t like talking to skirt; not skirt in the normal sense of the word, as I would usually mean skirt. I talked about me, Bal, and the yard; my mum and the old tosser; The Slag and the little fellah; but most of all about the Firm, about the rucks we had been in and the ones we was planning and how I was going to sort out that Lyonsy geezer from the Milwall. Sort the cunt out for good.
I couldn’t stop looking at her face though. I was even talking like some queer-beast. – Mind if I touch your face, I asked her.
– No, she says.
So I couldn’t stop touching her face. I didn’t really want to do nothing else, well maybe like hug her for a bit. Not like shagging or nothing like that, just like, being together with her. I was thinking like some fucking great poof-house. It wasn’t, I mean, it was like … love or something, weren’t it.
When the music died I had to ask her to come into town with me. The thing about her was that she was interested in all of this, she was interested in me. Even when I talked about all the aggro n all of that, she seemed really fucking interested.
I borrowed a motor from one of the security geezers I knew and we drove into Bournemouth and spent the day together. I never felt this before. I felt like someone else. Someone different.
Then we was in this caff, still having a proper old chinwag, we was, and when we came out these three geezers were just all sort of standing there, staring and sniggering at Samantha. At my Samantha.
– Wot you fucking staring at? I says. One of the geezers, his bottle just crashes.
– Nothing.
– C’mon Dave, Samantha says, – they weren’t doing anything.
– Oi, what’s your problem then, eh? this other slag, the mouthy type, says. Well, blow me if I’m having any of that.
At times like this I always go back to them old Bruce Lee films. All that Kung Fu is a load of old bollocks, but there was always this one thing that Bruce Lee said, one bit of advice that he gave which has always stood me in good stead. He said: you don’t bleedin well punch some cunt, you punch through them. This geezer with the mouth, all I could see was that orange brick wall behind his face. That was what I was going for, what I wanted to demolish.
The next thing I realise is that I’m standing looking at this other geezer sayin: – Who’s next then, eh?
They just stood frozen, looking at this arsehole on the deck, who seemed in quite a bad way. A few nosey parkers were sticking their oars in, so I thought it was best we headed back to the Smoke, as Samantha stayed over in Islington, quite near me, which I was chuffed about. That little incident, though: proper spoiled our day, it did.
– Why did you do that? she asked me in the car as we got onto the dual carriageway.
She didn’t seem too angry, though, more sort of curious like. She’s so fucking beautiful it don’t bear thinking about. I could hardly keep my eyes on the fucking road. I sort of felt like I was wasting time whenever I wasn’t looking at her face.
– They was having a fucking go, not showing you proper respect.
– That’s important to you, is it, that people don’t bother me, that they don’t hurt me?
– It’s more important to me than anything in the
world, I told her. – I ain’t never felt this way before.
She looks at me, all sort of thoughtfully like, but she don’t say nothing. I’ve been saying too fucking much. It’s the chemicals, I know it is, but it’s only what’s inside me and I don’t give a toss.
We drove back to her place. I felt a bit funny when we were there cause there was a picture of her and this geezer. It was when they were younger. The thing was, he was like her, with no bleedin arms.
– He your boyfriend then? I asked her. I couldn’t help it.
She laughed at me. – Just because he’s got no arms, he has to be my boyfriend?
– Nah, I didn’t mean it like that …
– He’s a German guy I know, she said.
A bleedin Kraut. Two World Wars and one World Cup, you cunt. – So is he then? Your boyfriend?
– No, he’s not. He’s just a good friend, that’s all.
I felt a glow in my chest and I even started to like the bleedin Kraut. I mean, poor geezer, no arms n all, can’t be much bleedin fun now, can it?
So we talked for a bit more and Samantha told me a few things. Things about her past. Things which made my fucking blood boil.
New York City, 1982
For someone who was where he wanted to be, in a well-appointed office in a midtown Manhattan building, Bruce Sturgess was being persecuted by a line of awkward, persistent thought. He looked out of the north-facing window at the splendid view which took in Central Park. The magnificent Chrysler and Empire State buildings towered above, looking contemptuously down on his great height like disapproving nightclub bouncers. There was always somebody looking down on you, he thought with a rueful smile, no matter how high you climb. They were extraordinary, those buildings, particularly the art-deco Chrysler. He thought of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly turning the city into a massive set of props in A Night On The Town. Freedom, that was what New York epitomised for him. It was clichéd and predictable, he thought, but never less than the truth. The view, however, failed to obliterate the wincing images of deformities that burned relentlessly in his mind. This was the worst he had been. It led to him dialling Barney Drysdale’s number in London. There was something about Barney’s voice, its untroubled, gruff positiveness, which always calmed Bruce when he was troubled in this way.