I still feel a bit bad about the weed, you know. The dealer I’d found through some ever-student buddies was a pretty good guy. Friendly, smiley and chatty. Luring him away from our arranged meeting point and then pulling a knife on him wasn’t very cool. He’d said so himself. But I’d spent a big chunk of my cash on that tent and I knew I’d probably have trouble sleeping until my body got used to a less pampered life.
Sure, I’ll be back in Belfast some day, no doubt. I’ll repay him for the insomnia medication somehow.
So, my backpack contained some clothing, the knife, a lot of weed and some other useful odds and ends. The tent came with its own wee tote bag. Barely weighed a thing. I tied it to the backpack for handiness. Totally self-sufficient, to a point.
I had to sweet talk a van-load of neo-hippies to smuggle me onto the boat. Met them at a dockside pub while I was nursing a pint and wondering how I could get on the ferry without spending the last of my cash on a ticket. They’d missed their boat and were waiting for the next one. I introduced myself and spun them a story about the man getting me down. Didn’t get too far. Looked at me like I was talking a different language. So I offered them some free weed and promised that I wasn’t interested in chatting up the girls in the group. I was only temporarily separated, after all. Showed them how I still wore my wedding ring.
They had a VW van, of course, and I was able to hide in the back under some hippy detritus. The hippies were nervous about the whole affair until I talked them into getting a bit stoned. I was cool and calm. You see, I’d taken this particular route to Scotland a few times and knew that a cursory look through the windows of a vehicle for a headcount was pretty much the height of security. Unless you were a known criminal. Then you got some hassle. Plenty of those coming and going to Old Firm matches so I knew a bunch of hippies would get an easy passage.
And they did.
It was a little rough for me, though. They didn’t want me to risk leaving the van in case I got caught and we all had to walk the plank or something. The time passed pretty quickly anyway. I got extra-super high and had a root through their belongings. Found a cracker iPod stuffed with music, some of it half-decent. One of the hippies wasn’t fully committed to the lifestyle as the others, it would seem. Suited me, though.
They were a wee bit annoyed when they came back to find I’d turned their vehicle into a cannabis hot-box, but we didn’t get stopped on the other side, so all was well. Only their driver, the least stoned of the gang, kept going on and on about it. We could have got caught. Enough weed to be done for dealing. It’s not one bit funny. Wah, wah, wah.
I threw the iPod at the back of his head.
It barely glanced off his dome. I’d forgotten to pull the headphones out and the lead fucked with my trajectory. Still, the point was made. And guess what. These hippies weren’t even pacifists. Fuck me, like. You can’t even expect a hippy to eat shit these days. The world gets tougher and tougher.
Just a few hundred yards from the ferry terminal and I get dumped on the side of the road with what I suspected was a bruised rib and some extra lumps and bumps on my head. But they had the decency to sling my bag out after me, at least, weed and all. Good thing too. I’d have called in their number plate if they hadn’t. We don’t tout where I come from, but I’m pretty sure I’d have a clear enough conscious about it. I was in Scotland, like. Different country, different rules.
Scotland, yeah... Not my final destination, but a start. At least I’d crossed the Irish Sea.
Now I was headed South. Could you call that downhill? Seemed less of a big deal when I thought about it as free-wheeling or coasting or something, you know?
I walked for a while.
A good long while.
Not a lot of people are into picking up battered hitch hikers these days. I was within minutes of reeling in my thumb – although in fairness, I’d no idea about what to do after I’d quit hitching – when a seven-seater pulled into the hard shoulder. My legs were screaming for a break and my mind was numbed by weed and the monotony of tramping the same tarmac for way too long. Somehow I managed to up my pace and hobble-jog to the family wagon. I grasped the handle and heaved open the passenger door. The stench of body odour hit me like slurry fumes. I almost toppled. But I just couldn’t be fucked waiting for the next highway Samaritan.
I looked around the car’s interior and saw that the other six seats were empty. Shrugged and dropped my arse into the seat, slapped the dash in a friendly manner and thanked the driver for his kindness. A face that was more sweat, pockmark and frown than anything else kind of scrunched up at me. I pretended the guy wasn’t as ugly as sin, forced a smile, and rubbed at my nose; snorted air through my fingers to try and filter out some of the stink. It didn’t work.
The guy asked me not to slap his car. He was polite about it and all, but I was a bit narked by his fussiness. His armpits were humming like. That muskiness would be a lot harder to remove from the car than my fingerprints on the dash. But I pulled the sleeve of my jacket down over my fist and rubbed away at the spot I’d touched. That seemed to work some of the tension out of his face.
And what a face.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not normally a shallow person. You look a little goofy and I might actually warm to you a little quicker. I mean, pun intended, let’s face it; I’m no oil painting myself. But rather that than the kind of oils that were slicking up this dude’s face. Maybe I should have been choosier after all.
I asked the guy to let me out.
He told me we weren’t there yet and I reminded him that I hadn’t told him where I was going. Then the guy made a small error in judgement.
He grabbed a hold of my crotch.
I pushed the driver’s hand away and told him politely that I was a happily married, straight man. All I was interested in was getting from A to B and it looked like we’d just about passed B. He called me a C. I laughed. Asked him if he wanted some weed.
Get this.
The dude actually called me a junkie.
Fuck me, like. A bit of weed!
Actually, don’t fuck me. That was in poor taste. You know. Considering.
I gave the dude one more chance. Offered him a few quid for petrol money. Literally a few quid, mind you. Like I said, funds were low and I don’t think we’d even made it a mile down the road from where he’d picked me up. He told me to shove my pennies up my hole. They were fucking pound coins, like.
So that was that.
I punched that ugly motherfucker until not even his own mother would want to fuck him anymore.
Know what I did wrong, though? Didn’t wait for the shite-bag to hit the brakes. The details are a bit fuzzy from here, but the car definitely went upside-down a few times. And I’d forgotten to put on my seatbelt. I didn’t go through the windscreen, though. Ended up in the backseat. Not a scratch on me, would you believe, though my balls were a wee bit tender from the manhandling. My manhandler was a mangled mess. Stuff bent the wrong way and whatnot. I saw his last breaths in the form of a blood bubble that expanded and contracted then didn’t so much as pop as fall off his lips. There’s a Neil Young-type metaphor in that image, but my head’s not straight enough to figure it out. Maybe when they take me off the blue pills...
But anyhow. Next thing I know, the back door’s been yanked open and there’s this priestly looking dude staring in at me. He wasn’t catholic, though. His collar was white all the way around and he wore a wedding ring. Plus he didn’t grab my balls, thank fuck.
Ach, come on. Sometimes you have to go for the low hanging fruit. And no, that pun wasn’t even intended.
You’d think I was a homophobe or something, wouldn’t you? Just a wee joke, man.
Anyway, the vicar, or whatever he was, reached into the car and I grasped his wrist. He asked me if anything was broken before he moved me and I told him that the car and the driver were probably beyond fixing but that I was feeling pretty solid. Thank God, he said to me. I told him I’d get a run d
own to the chapel ASAP.
The vicar led me to his car – even carried my backpack – and I asked him if he had a phone. Saintly dude that he was, he snatched it out of his hip pocket and pushed it towards my face. An old school clamshell design. I waved it away and told him he’d be needing it himself. He looked confused until I relieved him of my backpack and reached inside. I drew out the knife, waved it in front of his face and asked him for his car keys. He told me they were still in the ignition and I bade him farewell. You know how nice that vicar was? He said he’d have no choice but to phone the cops but he’d give me fifteen minutes to get a head start.
No idea what the guy saw in me, but I’ll tell you this; not all those religious types are wankers. Just like not all accountants are boring, I guess. Especially not the midlife crisis ones.
I figured if the man was going to give me fifteen minutes, I’d be sure to park up his motor safe and sound somewhere along the way. It was a nice wee thing. One of the new VW Beetles. Say what you want about pissing on the classic design, that thing was a comfortable ride. After testing the car’s stability a few times with a wee handbraker or five, I did a mental calculation based on police response times back home. And I figured I’d a few hours to get as far South as I could. The vicar’s Slipknot CD passed a lot of the time. I shit you not. Or slip you knot, if you prefer.
I was expecting The Proclaimers. Tried to shoehorn the five-hundred mile chorus into every Slipknot song that played. Couldn’t get it to work. Those mash-ups aren’t as easy as you’d think.
As I exited bonnie Scotland, I realised that the Beetle was running on diesel fumes and I was running out of patience with the driving. My head was sore and I’d puked out the driver’s window at one point. The glass was streaked with swollen raisins. When did I eat raisins? Felt like another good boke was on the cards. So I pulled in at the next picnic area I could find. Fired up and fiddled with the sat-nav suckered to the windscreen. Found out that I’d actually managed to bypass Newcastle. By quite some distance. Looked like I was on my way to Harrogate.
So far as I knew, I’d no business in that town. I like the odd bottle of Old Peculier, like, but other than that it didn’t feel like the right place at that point in my life. Besides, I was avoiding beer. Watching my figure since I’d be getting the marijuana munchies with more regularity if this adventure continued. Unless I could find a wee bottle of vodka somewhere, a toke or two would do well.
I skinned up a handful of joints; fat as fuck mind-blasters. Then I shouldered the backpack and tent, figured a snail’s life probably wasn’t so bad, and abandoned the car. I left the little picnic area and headed towards a line of trees. There’d be good shelter from the wind there and I could pitch my tent, start up a wee campfire and send myself on a spiritual journey from the comfort of my new home. Time to get back in touch with nature. Become one with my environment.
I lit the first joint before I found my clearing. Figured it’d hone my senses a little. Big mistake. All it did was put the heart in me sideways. Thundering pulse, jitters, paranoia.
It was around that point that I realised the pop-up tent didn’t come with a pop-up sleeping bag.
Oh fuck.
I should have cried. Managed to giggle instead. And lit another doobie.
The green goodness would make everything all right. Convinced myself that paranoia was the correct state of mind for a man embarking on this kind of life-changing experience. And then the fear was gone. Just like that. I’d made it. Connected with nature. It was time to spark up the camp fire and sing hallelujah. Not literally, though. That song’s been fucked in the ear so many times that it’d lost its magic. I wasn’t going to flog that dead horse with another terrible rendition.
Besides, I’d probably angered God enough. Or Gaia. Or whoever the fuck rolled all this madness into a spinning marble whipping around the sun.
I put my energy into collecting twigs and leaves and anything else that looked like it’d be good for kindling. Made myself my own wee stone circle to contain the flames. Safety first, like. Then I smoked some more weed. Figured I could take a few draws then leave the remains of the joint in the middle of the twigs and leaves. Let the embers grow.
Grow.
Grow.
Crow!
Was that a crow or a raven or just a big bird that looked black because it was way too fucking dark in the woods already?
My fire didn’t light. Waste of weed. Fuck sake.
I needed some of those funny-smelling fire lighters that we used to use before getting the oil in. What do you call them? Firelighters?
I decided to leave the woods. Maybe find a shop where I could splash out on firelighters or lighter fluid and try again. Packed up my unpopped tent and found a handy pocket in the backpack for the remainder of my joints. Didn’t want them getting squished up and sweaty in my fist. Since it was dark my ears had gotten as sharp as fuck. I could hear traffic in the distance, figured that’d be the best way to walk. As the crow flies. Or the raven. Or whatever it was. In a straight line, anyway, instead of the zigzagging path I’d cut through the trees on the way in.
As I got closer to the sound of the traffic I started to doubt myself. Was that really the hum of engines zipping by in the night?
Nope.
It was a river.
Ah jeepers.
But I kept moving towards it. I had to see the water with my own two eyes before I could accept the fact that I was well and truly lost.
Then I started to hear voices.
Not in a schizophrenic way, though. I can hear your brain whirring right now, like. Oh, he’s been on the wacky backy for too long. It’s fucked with his brain. Now he’s crazy. You do know that the link between cannabis and schizophrenia hasn’t been proved, right? Google it. Government propaganda, yo.
No, this wasn’t inside my head. It was outside. Like the difference between a good set of headphones and a shitty set of speakers set to mono. Especially if said speakers are in another room and there’s a river running through your house.
This time I was more cautious. I held my breath while I listened. Turned on my heel three times. Slowly. On the third rotation I stopped about three quarters of the way round. The river was to my right. My mystery voices burbled down from upstream. I was certain it was more than one person. Probably as many as three. Though I couldn’t make out the words, I could decipher tone and speech rhythm. Then I felt as if I was imagining it. That was the weed intruding. Had to be.
I could have called out, I suppose, but I was worried that I’d scare them away. What if they were wood nymphs or something of that nature? Supernature. Fuck that. I know leprechauns have the monopoly on pots of gold, but a nymph has to be worth something, right? Even barrel-chested male ones, as the deep cadence of their murmuring chitchat suggested.
I crept. Took each step on the tippiest of tiptoes. Made sure nothing snapped underfoot that would spook the quarry. I managed to tread so lightly I was almost tempted to test my gait on the surface of the river. But I wasn’t that high. Stuck to the crest of the riverbank.
Then I could make out the words. Mostly chat about shitty luck. I’m not much of a fisherman so I couldn’t tell you if it was salmon season or if they even had salmon in this neck of the woods. Pretty sure you’ll always rustle up an aul pike in this sort of water, though. You just needed a sturdy line, a net and a damn sharp killer instinct for when the nasty bastards tried to snap at your fingers.
Closer still and I could distinguish an accent. I started to wonder if maybe I was high enough to walk on water. There was an Irish lilt in the chatter. Certainly there was some English in there too, but not from any region I could pinpoint. Were they...?
Fuck.
Travellers.
Irish travellers.
Poaching Irish travellers.
And as soon as I’d gotten close enough to see that there were indeed three different voices, all three owners of said voices turned to see me snigger.
At first
they were as confused as me. I’d taken them for supernatural beings. Maybe they thought the same about me. Some sort of river guardian. Certainly, they didn’t take me for a warden. The size and shape of these men. They’d have taken care of any lone official without a second thought.
I announced myself as a friend, but then, a foe would, wouldn’t they? So the travellers didn’t rush to greet me with open arms. They reeled in their lines and laid their rods on the bank. Then there was some cursing and pushing. I held my hands up as I was pinballed from one set of callused hands to the next. There was little fear in me, if I remember right. I suppose the murder I’d committed earlier had a profound effect on me. My foot upset a tub of writhing maggots and one of the men slapped my ear. That was the last straw. I popped one right in the face and skipped away from the clutches of the other two.
The traveller I’d hit laughed. So did I. The other two withdrew slightly and laughing boy wiped a line of blood from his stubbled upper lip. The quick movement created a sandpaper rasp.
His name was Big Joe. I know because one of the other two asked if he was going to go easy on me. Big Joe told his mate that there was nothing to worry about. He’d just have a little fun with me. Then he raised his fists in a boxing guard.
Oh shite.
It’d been a long time since I’d danced in the square ring. I was pretty sure this would be the end for me. The thing about a lot of these Irish travellers; they can box. They. Can. Box. Usually with bare knuckles. Some people consider it a brutal aspect of their culture. I’d always thought of it as quite a dashing and honourable characteristic. What can I say? Some people like ketchup on their fries and others like blood in their eyes.
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