1. hobbies and interests
2. games
3. gambling

Oh Yeah And Yeah Again
A Short Story by Brendan McLaughlin
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I must be stupid right enough, eh! Imagine even thinking I could’ve been a gambler
when it’s pretty effing bloody clear that what I am is a chronic loser. Naw; let’s get it
right; a compulsive loser. Suicidal in fact! Pitting yerself against the impossible.
That’s always been me since I was yon height. And not even the slightest clue why.
And, by the way, don’t think I’ve not tortured myself with endless questions about it,
because I have. But I’ve never been able to get any further than a pair of jokers with
that one. In fact, I kind of came to the decision years ago that there can never be such
a thing as a genuine conclusion to anything. The way the world changes all the time?
Ye’d need to be Einstein on ecstasy or something like that just to keep up with it.
Christ, it’s hard enough to think of a decent question never mind come up with an
acceptable answer. I mean, it’s almost impossible to know what to think after
spending yer whole life listening to the guff ye got from teachers and preachers at
school and the church and that. Respect yer elders? Better off standing on yer head in
a bucket of shite if ye ask me. And yer mother and faither as well! They were always
too busy trying to demonstrate how grown up and in control they were when the truth
is they were just big weans themselves trying to work out what it all means, and how
to impress on the big weans who’d brought them up that they didn’t need their
approving nods any longer. Great isn’t it; with the auld parents and that, breaking
away from them. All ‘mammy daddy’ one minute then ‘Don’t you tell me what to do’
the next. Mind you, ye always get the picture eventually when ‘you’ yerself’ve been
through the same ambushes and booby traps of sex and marriage and bringing up a
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family. What a nightmare that can be if ye find yerself yoked to the wrong person.
Like taking a good turn for the worse if ye know what I mean!
But so many folk have just got no luck at all. Getting buffeted from one disaster to
the next till they’ve got a toxic chip on their shoulder as big as a potato famine and go
in a permanent huff with the World. A real shame though, when such bad luck has
kicked ye in the teeth so often that ye wouldn’t be able to sniff good fortune if it
poked itself up yer nose. Or if someone gave ye a good thing ye’d hit them wi’ it out
of suspicion they were trying to set ye up. But, heh, some folk don’t deserve any luck
anyway, the way they spend their whole lives clumping along at other peoples’ heels.
And then they want sympathy and understanding when they get a kick on the chin. It
might seem like an unkind thing to say, but accident prone isn’t something ye’re born
with. If ye’re honest wi’ yerself, it’s a condition ye need to learn, something ye’ve
almost got to abandon yerself to. A kind of performance. I know all about that kind of
stuff like the script had been specially written for me. But it’s still a personality thing
so ye can’t blame people for being like that. Confidence is such a mystery, isn’t it?
Like living yer life on a cloud. If ye believe it’ll carry ye along then it will, but if
ye’ve got any doubts about it at all, whoosh, straight to the ground ye’re bound to fall.
At the end of the day, it really is fate that determines yer life. The way we all turn out
and that, it’s definitely kind of beyond our control. Ye can only go wi’ the deck ye’re
dealt with. Nobody gets to choose their cards!
Maybe that’s why I’ve always gambled. Never having been able to just blindly
accept the hand I was trumped with at birth. Ye’re born into this or that way of life so
ye’ve got to settle for it? Aye right? I’ll call the bluff on a duff deal like that every
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single time. In fact, d’ye want to know what I think? I’ve always thought ye should
try to learn a deeper understanding of the cards ye’ve been dealt instead of just
accepting what the game tells ye ye’ve got. Just metaphorically speaking of course.
Whether yer head’s buried in a book or bursting in the bookie’s, I’ve always believed
that ye’ve got to learn how to take a chance if ye want to dance to yer own tune.
Maybe it’s because I was fourth born out a family of seven; and most of them lassies
by the way; that I tended to follow my own fandango. It was almost like being the
non mollycoddled idiot in the middle. A kind of loner who always felt I had to do
things different from everybody else just to get noticed. And, by the way, anyone
who’s been cursed with that kind of solitariness will know what an in-growing
gremlin it can become as ye grow older. The need to be always pushing beyond yer
abilities to justify yer existence. And the compulsion to shine at everything ye get
involved in even although ye’re naturally shy and know anyway that ye belong to the
‘B’ team stream. Man, the effort ye’ve got to put in just to keep the candle flickering.
Murder polis at times I’ll tell ye! Spending yer whole life trying to keep up with
yerself never mind everybody else. Like a physical tourettes syndrome. And when it
comes to conversation or that? By the time yer tongue’s caught up with what other
folk might find it difficult to call yer intellect, nobody can understand what ye’re on
about. Especially if ye had a st’stammer like mine. A real problem I can tell ‘you!’
Esp’pecially with the g’girls! Christ but, did I find it difficult talking to them? Still do
in fact! So there was me when I first turned into a teenager, away wi’ the birds but
never getting one because I was always dismissed in the house for being the only boy.
The young brothers and that, they came too late to make a difference. I got treated like
I was a nutcase; the ‘daftie o’ the faimly’. Growing up feeling like a witless wonder
even although ye knew ye weren’t. Trying to be invisible when anyone important
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came close enough to force ye to prove ye weren’t an eedjit. Getting paralysed with
self consciousness if they did. But doing somersaults to pretend ye couldn’t care less.
That ye don’t give a for instance. They talk about extroverts being bammy in a kind of
life and soul of the party sort of a way, but I can tell you from painful experience it’s
not always like that. It’s just as often the outward signs of inward disgrace clawing at
yer confidence, yer excruciating introversion.
Ach fuck it! I don’t know. I might just be a down right contrary person. A natural
born fearty of being the colour canary; know what I mean. But there’s nothing the
matter with refusing to be afraid of what ye think there’s nothing to be scared of, is
there! Despite what the pochle merchants of morality say about ignoring yer natural
instincts. Toe somebody else’s line. Obey yer so-called betters. Aye, and so I will so I
fucking won’t! Gawd sake man. Ye don’t have to be a philosopher of fanny to know
that’s about nothing else but damning people to permanent self doubt and stirring up
storms of uncertainty to keep them lashed to the steering wheels that control their
lives and keep them down. More like roulette wheels if ye ask me. And the house
never loses.
But that’s not me saying being a gambler means ye’re tough or that! In fact ye
could claim it’s the opposite. It makes ye soft with superstition and cynicism. Forever
looking for signs to guide yer hunches and always cursing fate when the results don’t
go your way. But never taking responsibility for yer own decisions. And even
although ye choose to rush around swerving anything that might resemble an anchor,
ye can’t help looking through eyes that are fixed on the same ambitions as everybody
else. Happy wee family. Nice wee house. Great wee life. But ye kind of deny it
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because ye just can’t see a way to accept the creeping and crawling and self
corruption that’s required to get there. I suppose it’s a kind of... Yeah, a kind of
isolation. Like a maverick. And I don’t mean being a trickster or anything like that.
Nor all that heroic and cool way like ye see in the movies. But more headlong and
harum-scarum. Riding life bare-backed and strictly unbridled to yer own wee focused
way of looking at things. And even although ye know yer hard-eyed horizon can only
be oblivion, ye don’t saddle up and join a posse to huddle away in paddocks of
passive self-preservation. Ye choose to live beyond everybody’s pale. And if yer heart
was to fail at the first fence, ye wouldn’t want to get carted off wrapped in the false
dignity of a loser. Ye’d want to go out in a storm of ‘what the fuck’? Win or lose,
there’s no fun, no pain; just an endless game that’s got no conclusion but to end when
yer chips are finally cooked in a cremation chamber or flung into a hole in the ground.
But, d’ye know what I really think? Gambling’s about feeling so powerless against
the hugeness of the universe and the impossibility of understanding the world ye live
in, that tumbling the dice is like a wee personal rebellion. A deliberate challenge to
reality because yer brain is all ye’ve got and ye don’t understand a thing about it.
Like raising the ante to get more cards on the table so that ye can get the chance to see
life a bit more clearly. I mean in yer head? The most important, and quite often only
genuine asset ye’ve got and ye’ve not got a clue of from whence it came or where it’s
going to end up. And it’s unfair in too many ways, and ye want a better deal, and ye
know ye don’t have the means of getting it. People too often try to escape such mortal
manacles by surrendering their gumption to some godhead or other. Or gravity
challenging, self dispensed pharmaceutical dream induction. But whatever high they
help ye achieve, it’s always down it ends up. True, ye can’t avoid getting sucked now
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and again into a happy hollow. But it’s usually only at times of the likes of births and
weddings or that. Feeling good for someone else rather than yerself. And even if it is
indeed yerself who is boosted to the highest point of feeling good about something, it
can often be the very thing that lets ye know the distance ye’re likely to fall when the
party is over. As any poet might put it, ‘Happiness is but a flutter in a stutter of time.’
Almost always finishing up with ye being down and dumfooner’t and fed up again.
That auld black bile bubbling away in yer hypochondrium. And by the way, knowing
about all that kind of stuff’s important when ye’re trying to teach yer own children
how to deal with life. Even although in the high-tech trivial world they live in and the
awfulness of what they see everyday on television, no one knows that better than
them. It would be like trying to teach yer grand-weans to suck... Ach, who knows
what they suck these days. All they really need to know is, ‘don’t bully or be bullied!’
Ye know, do unto others as ye would have done to yerself! Blah blah blah…
I would never fall out with anyone about whether or not people have choices in life
or that. Ye know, all that ‘free will’ nonsense ye get from priests and politicians and
all sorts of other badged-up blowhards. But ye can’t deny that folk can sometimes, I
suppose ye’d need to call it, give themselves permission to cut about beyond the
ordinary. And I’m not on about murder and mayhem or any of that kind of stuff. I
mean... Ach I don’t really know what I mean! But see choosing to be a gambler, it’s
like selecting to live as a practicing atheist without a thimble to help ye thread yerself
into a decent pair of thermals to keep out the cold in the black hole ye’ll find yerself.
Where redemption doesn’t exist and chance is more powerful than choice and the
only voice ye can depend on is yer own. Aye alright, maybe the tipsters too, but that’s
a simple day to day thing, never a religion. The ol’ rigmarole of winning and losing
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being the root and manifestation of yer disbelief. Lurching between certainty and
doubt. Flushed with fantastic expectations one minute, crestfallen and crushed the
next. It might sound like some sort of hell to ordinary Jessies and Joes, but far from
it. It’s exciting, exhilarating and exhausting, but by Christ ye know ye’re alive. Diving
and ducking, bad and good lucking. Man, it’s a rollicking rollercoaster. And ye
actually get to recognise patterns of the ups and downs of it all and build in little
tricks like betting on account and using the old plastic to place yer bets with time to
pay if ye get beat. And buying valuable, tradable goods for insurance when luck’s
with ye and cashing them in when it’s a non runner. And that’s you, happy as a breeze
in the morning air living on yer own personal wits without having to involve any
nearest and dearest to count the consequences. Q.T. and quite content to keep yer wee
addiction to yerself. Only taking the humph when ye get ambushed in the pub by
some politically correct sobhead. Ye know the out of sort saddo’s I’m on about,
always complaining about getting passive palsy from anything that’s fun to do. Who
never miss the chance to say, ‘I can’t for the life of me understand why people should
want to gamble!’
A clichéd question so exhausted with the moral load it implies, it’s a miracle the
eyes of its mouthists don’t get gleefully gouged out more often with bookies’ pencils.
Just as well for them gamblers are too busy looking for the miraculous elsewhere. Or
as they say in Glasgow on a Saturday night, miroculous; because ye’d need to take a
bit more than a good drink sometimes just to get from one thought to the next when
yer space gets polluted wi’ half-boiled, half-wits like that. I would wager my whole
wad that if ye asked the people in the street to look back at their lives, most of them
would tell ye the whole thing’s been a gamble. This direction, that direction? What
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kind of can and can’t, can ye count on? Should I or shouldn’t I? Will she or won’t
she? It’s what the history of the world’s been built on.
I remember talking to a pal of mine years ago, just before he had to go on the
Torremolinos trot to escape the polis and the moneylenders. It was the strangest
conversation I’d ever heard. I mean, the guy was a well known hustler and hard-man
himself, and yet there he was hiding in a pub, pouring his heart out to me. I was quite
youngish at the time; and still living in the yippee years of my life ye could say. Ye
know, the beautiful house, gorgeous wife, two wonderful weans, and working for
myself in a cracking wee coin turner of a business. A weekend earner that gave me
more money in two days by the way than I ever got for a whole week working my
hin’ end off for somebody else. And by the way too, me chucking work and going
into business on my own was the biggest gamble I ever took. By far! At least I can
say I made one bloody good bet in my miserable life. Anyhow, in the pub yon time
with that pal; he said he’d got the jail after getting caught on some real dodgy cheque
book scam he got involved in so’s he could pay off the money he’d borrowed on the
alternative lenders’ market to buy some hot merchandise and square up the polis for
being deaf and dumb about for a wee while at least. ‘Aye, aye, and what have we not
got here then.’ D’ye know where he landed up? In the same remand block as his main
creditor. Mister big dealer himself who was in Glasgow’s famous, so-called gangster
garage, Barlinnie Prison, for mollicating a fellow moneylender. Strange that, isn’t it.
Ye get in trouble with the polis trying to keep out of trouble with the gangsters, and
end up in trouble with the gangsters trying to keep out of trouble with the polis. A vile
vice versa with a capital ‘V’ if ye ask me. But he told me how luck licked his slate
that day because no sooner had his eyes been met by his nemesis in the jail when the
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nick of time whisked him off again to be arraigned for something else he was set up
for at the Sheriff Court in the city where he managed to abscond by climbing out the
toilet window. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him at the time when he said he
abseiled out the building and down to the street by knotting all his charge sheets
together. Been on the run abroad ever since as far as I know. I suppose he would say
he got away with it. Exiled but free. An old, sad story of one long life sentence to
avoid a couple of years in the nick. And d’ye know what else he told me, about
Barlinnie; the vast majority of inmates are in for not paying the pile-up fines they get
for being poor souls with everyday coping problems and poor hearts with no homes to
go home to take them to for a wee hug maybe.
Anyway, he called gambling the ‘Willende Syndrome’ after that auld eighty year
old tight rope walker, somebody or other with the name of Willende, who refused to
retire until he fell off the end of his tether trying to walk between two buildings in
New York and wrote off some poor cab driver’s vehicle and livelihood on the ground
with the impact his ragabone body made on its roof. He was broadcast live on
television immediately before it, telling the whole world that two of his sons had
already died doing the same thing, and that he had no regrets about it. Saw it myself
on the news. I suppose ye could say a big yellow taxi took away their old man, eh.
And in his case, ye’d also have to say that gambling doesn’t just run in the family, it
walks too. Boom boom and more than a bit bloody banal I know, but heh, what a way
to bring up yer children! Is it not obvious that ye don’t teach yer weans the same
indulgences as yerself. Whether yer tightrope is drugs, drink, or dreeping off the
moon, ye don’t encourage yer weans to do the same because they’ll always take it that
bit further to impress ye.
Well, auld Willende’s boys did end up leaving an
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impression. And he seemed to worship the ground they landed on. See if I could spell
misanthrope, that’s what I would call that auld tightrope tosser.
Yon pal but, who escaped out the Shriff-Court window, he was all that serious
way, going on about how sinister and psychological it was. Something to do with
needing to constantly create danger and uncertainty in an otherwise stable and
successful life. A fundamental dissatisfaction with what ye’ve not got even although
ye’ve got everything ye could possibly want. A guilt trip with a built in tilt for ye to
dangle yer demons from. He said he was the same as Willende except his rope wasn’t
between skyscrapers in Manhatten, it was between scams and scary moments round
every corner. I had to laugh when he said that most people live beyond their means
but his whole crusade in life was to live beyond other peoples’ means. He said
remorse never comes into it because all the hustles are against hustlers who tell you
themselves never to use your own money when you can lose someone else’s. I
suppose he was more interested in joining the debt-set than just being the alternative
entrepreneur. His favourite saying was, ‘Ain’t no fun getting rich unless you can
hitch a ride to hell now and again on someone else’s bank-roll. Maybe they are not the
actual words he used, but that’s the way I heard them.
I can still see his point. History’s full of greedy people trying to con greedy people.
But I suppose there are also those who enjoy having a genuine square go with fate at
the same time even although the pernicketiness of pot luck has never shown a lot of
sympathy to losers as they queued up through the years to challenge the nature of the
quick buck quid pro quo. The tick tack toe, tit for tat with fate that can leave even the
most clever of them flat bust broke without a poke to puke in. I suppose those who do
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succeed in the fight of all against everything would toast themselves as being bold
buccaneers who’d never break sweat for anybody but themselves. Yet I’ll give ye
odds-on that none of them ever imagined their own obsessive insecurity might
become the slave driver they thought they’d never work for. I’m not saying for a
moment all heroes are insecure, or they need rewards for their ‘daring do’s.’ I know
many of them act on an instinct more to do with honour than what they can gain. But
see in the modern physical world where most things have already been measured, too
many of the strong muscled and strenuous minded are gold-grabbers who are never
happy till they’ve outdone everybody else at everything. Oh yeah and I’m only alright
Jack if I can steal your juice too. Like since the beginning of time, no matter how you
believe it all started, the need to be the wealthiest and most powerful has always been
the biggest insecurity of all! I don’t suppose history’s heroes would admit to that, but
in the end that’s what it is. Those who delude themselves that it is they who need to
mind the store for everyone else and get paid much more than them for doing it are
most often manacled to their own material minded malevolence. Just like that old
parable ye read about in the bible if ye’ve got no other cartoon comics to divert yer
indifference to the gawd struth about the blazing obvious. Of the ‘ten talents’ being
distributed equally to ten gallants whose human instincts described the precincts of
where, how and when to use them. And after they’d all done their own thing and the
day of reckoning had come, it was reported back to the court of count yer chickens
that while some of them had variously, buried, sat on, shared, gave away or wasted
theirs, others had gone all mental and experimental and used their head to invent ways
of getting the others’ ‘talents’ for themselves. As old Karl Marx said, just a wee bit
too late to stop it, one would end up owning the lot and using the other nine against
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each other to protect their biblical begotten gains. The midden! I don’t mean Marx, I
mean the ‘ten talent’ tout.
It was that same pal from the pub by the way, who, when I asked him why he was
leaving his wee daughter behind on his flight to ‘Costa del keep yer heid doon,’ said
no child was more special than any other. He gave a spirited argument about how the
family children are born into determines their fate in life, and can very often be the
biggest danger to any future they might have. Just like the family map he was brought
up with led him inexorably to where he is today; still running away from rather than
moving towards any sort of contentment. And then he went on about how selfish
people are with their own kids while nobody gives a flying for instance about the
thousands of children who die every day across the world from famine, disease and
war. He said it was simple ‘chance’ that his wee girl was born to him and that she
would be better off without his shady shenanigans poisoning her life. And that his
wife was a cracking looking woman who’d easily find a new man to look after them
both. I was like that, shaking the auld head, giving it the big ‘heh, haud oan a wee
minute’. But d’ye know this, that discussion has stayed with me ever since; something
about the natural inequalities of fate, and being tethered to other peoples’ foibles and
failures by that invisible umbilical cord. Even so, I made the statement at the time,
and have stood by it to this very day; my children are special to me no matter what
the philosophers or the fanny merchants say. And anyway, I’d love to meet him again
so’s I could bawl into his face what I never thought to at the time; that every child
who dies from famine, disease and war are given a huge fuck about, by their fucking
family’s for fuck sake! Children! I mean ye can’t get better. There is nothing more
precious in the whole universe! There is no more powerful emotion!
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Aye but, the gambling. I was always cursed with beginners’ luck. First seriously
real game of cards, I cleared the school. I was the message boy in the local Cooperative at the time. The boss and his manager pals from other shops met every
Friday night for a big game. They thought I was just a young fifteen year old eedjit,
an easy touch; and invited me to lose my wages. But I’d been playing serious enough
cards up the town since I was thirteen and a half. So I joined their card school and
skint the lot of them. Nothing to do with skill by the way, it was just the way the cards
fell; and I suppose the kind of obstinate fearlessness ye have when ye’re not old
enough to know any different. It’s true, when ye think about it, fear is something else
ye need to learn. It soon gets knocked into ye alright, but I must’ve had a carefree
enough childhood myself because I don’t remember experiencing fear till well after I
was married. Being head over heels with someone really does yer confidence in
eventually and ye can’t stop it no matter how hard headed ye think ye are. It’s tue, ye
love someone so much that ye live yer whole life in their shadow, always worried
about getting the chilly cheerio. And then, when the weans are born? Help mah hoots,
if ye didnae hae yer doots afore, ye’ve certainly got them noo. Ah mean, eh! Tae
fuck.
And my first punt on the cuddies. The Grand National. Hundred to fucking one
man, not kidding ye. Foinavon, it’s name was. Nearly all the other horses fell and it
was left miles in the lead. What an uproar. But heh, was I not everybody’s best pal
that day. It was just a matter of time till I put on my first Yankee bet. I didn’t even
know how to write out the line; had to get one of the older men do it for me; but the
four horses bounced at good prices. Worked out nearly two hundred and fifty to one
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the odds. And then of course, the biggest gamble of all. The Wife. First female I ever
really chatted up. Caught like a kipper in a microwave oven; spluttering’s not the
word for it. The best looking bird in the scheme and I managed to get her fingers in
such a fankle she ended up with my ring on one of them. Okay. She had a bit of a
history, and it turned out her past wasn’t completely behind her yet. But wow, what a
bonny lassie! No wonder I thought about taking up permanent membership in the
winners’ enclosure. But when I lost the wages a couple of times in the bookies not
long after we got married, she soon made it clear what a scumbag scallywag she
thought I was. And even although I never gambled with the wages like that again, she
treated me forever more like I was some sort of disaster waiting to happen.
Deliberately distancing herself from the danger. Affection no more y’a bass. Not that
there had been much in the first place. It was like she’d been handed the moral excuse
to give me the perpetual knock back; using her power of rejection as a tool to avenge
herself for what I never really could work out. And destroy my confidence at the same
time. Aye, and it didn’t half work! Ach, it was so stupid, I loved her too much
anyway. I was told later by so many close friends and family that I had always put her
on a pedestal. That she ruled me with a raised eyebrow. But I’m not all that sure I
believe such a thing. I always saw her as being a wee bit shy and doubtful about
herself.
I kind of knew there were dark shadows in her past; when she was a wee girl.
Something happened. I know it did by the way she turned off at certain times, but I
could never figure out the connections. Nor could I ever be certain if it was fear, or
aversion; or simply; this is my body and ‘you’re’ not getting a shot. I don’t know. By
the way, what a gorgeous wee lassie she was; ye want to see the photographs; still had
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the same cheeky face when we started going out. That’s the way I still picture her and
it makes me really sad when I think about it. But I’ve always thought that folk are
entitled to their privacy and felt it was better to let her tell me in her own time. She
never did! So I was left forever guessing about the reasons for her bed time huffs. But
listen, I was just happy to have her close; and I did get a wee tickle now and again. In
fact I got to be able to tell when it would happen; to do with her monthly cycle or
something like that. But if I missed that one night, that was me fucked; or should I
say… Ach ye know what I mean! But I’d have to wait a whole month to miss it again.
I suppose even the thought of it was enough to keep me going. It was worth it just to
be able to share the same house with her. The fragrant privilege of living with such a
beautiful woman. And things did get better over the years. In fact, I’d have to say, a
lot better!
But then she just flipped and fucked off as soon as the weans were up and the
house was paid for. With one of her best pals’ men too. A mealy mouthed midden if
ye ever met one! And I’m not kidding ye, a right sleaze bag when it comes to women.
And she knew it! She’d watched it with her own eyes. Even talked about how rotten it
was that he could so casually two-time somebody as nice and kind as her friend, his
long unsuspecting partner. Three or four-time more like, we all found out later. The
number of young lassies he had flings with. Aye and then some, with a question or
two attached. And now that my ex-wife has managed to turn a blind eye to all that
and become his latest live-in bit of fluff, she doesn’t have to line up behind all his
other hairies and harlots. But ye know, it was like she’d planned the whole thing. The
cold, efficient way she went about it. I was so devastated when she left, I don’t
remember too well what was said, but I think she did mention that it was always her
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intention to leave me when the weans were old enough. I can’t remember exactly
when she started going on about how I had neglected her over the years; accusing me
of always being out drinking or chasing after lost causes and that; but it seemed like it
began all of a sudden. As if it had just popped into her head that it was serious enough
to give her the excuse to leave me for it. To end our marriage for fuck sake! I mean,
yeah, she was right about the pub playing a very large part in my life. And it’s true
that I was always involved in causes and street politics and that. But the campaigns I
got involved with, they didn’t have offices to meet in so we would always end up in
the pub because that’s where the business was done. At the end of the day but, I’ve
got to hold the auld hands up to the gods of guilt for being out too often. And yeah,
the huge regret of how I neglected to take proper care of the most important thing in
my life gets heavier each day I wake up. But d’ye know this, if she could ever again
be really honest with herself, she might recognise that it didn’t become the huge issue
she makes it out to be till she’d started loosening her rusty old ‘stays’ and letting
perves like him into her tights. But honesty like that takes courage!
And I’m not joking about this, I think she had a secret bank account all set up. In
fact I fucking know she did because I found her wee red note-book. I could probably
tell ye roughly what was in the account; how much she’d stolen from her family. Very
clever timing though. Thirty odd years together making lucky decisions, and whether
she likes it or not, taking a couple of major gambles that paid off, then getting great
rewards for working hard when we recognised the opportunities they carried. A grand
house, big bank account and a great future. Then she’s off with half of it all and
everything else she could swindle; which she did ruthlessly and with some delight to
pay for her new life of Delilah with a toy boy much older than herself. Well, she was
16
always a bit different. And he’d been on the look-out all his life for somebody as daft
and different as her. Rich and oven ready for him to feast his slevery appetite on for
the rest of his parasitical days. He certainly found one! And she did too, and, as a
close friend said, she better hope she doesn’t lose her looks or he’ll be looking for
someone else.
But anyway, that was me flummoxed and flucked. Lumbered with a wee business
that was struggling because of the disruption it all caused while she was off with most
of the money we’d built up over the years and almost all the security we’d worked so
hard for. Plus what I had to surrender to square her up for the house and that. I’d no
choice, it was the only way me and the weans could stay together in the family house
they’d been brought up in. I mean, she didn’t want them getting in the way in her wee
shag pad did she! Then she lumped me up for all the legal fees and everything. I don’t
know if it was a maniacal, menopausal moment, or if he really had put a spell on her,
but she changed from the most beautiful person I’d ever known into the most
disgraceful human being I’d ever met. I remember asking her how she could’ve
deserted her own children and she said they were old enough to look after themselves.
Oh yeah, eighteen and twenty one years of age! “Happy coming of age and key of the
door, I’ll not be here no more, so you’ll just have to look after yourselves my little
darlings; cheerifuckino”! Jesus, were they shattered! I felt so sorry for them. I mean,
when ye’re just a wee wean, dependency on yer mother is passively biological. But
see when ye get older; especially a lassie; the decisions ye make can have a lifelong
effect and ye need yer mother more than ever to share yer problems with. But this
cold hearted mother a’ fuck wasn’t interested in anyone but herself. She was gone just
like that. The only comfort I was left with was that she got the stains and I still had the
17
weans, and being pals with my kids is more valuable than any amount of money she
could’ve stolen off me. No wonder they call it filthy lucre. Aye, and no surprise either
that it rhymes with hooker!
But that was a right few years ago and I’ve managed to kind of sort myself out
since then. The weans are away in their own flats now, and I got out the business just
in time, with enough and no more to get my life back together. But ye know, it’s no
real comfort in being just alright. It feels like a kind of triumph having managed to get
through such a long and hard struggle, but it leaves ye raging that this is the time of
life when ye should be enjoying the rewards of all those years of hard graft with the
one ye loved and dreamed of growing old with. Nah, come on, it’s much more than
that, isn’t it! It’s the person ye need to grow old with, because only two people
who’ve lived together for so long can understand the unique strengths and weaknesses
of how each will cope with the fears and uncertainties old age will bring. Christ, the
shape ye can find yerself in after ye get the pensioners’ package. Every move ye make
and every breath ye take from there on in confirming yer seat on that final slow train
to who knows where. The ravaged state ye can end up in. Love has got to have dodgy
eyesight so it doesn’t notice the reddening eyes and the wrinkles. And have a great
long term memory because the old daily recall becomes... Eh... Ach ye know what I
mean. Others might see ye as old and wasted and just waiting for the big off, but a
couple can draw from a lifetime together. They might notice the repeat prescriptions
multiplying and the cerebral slowing up, becoming the scared to go out, but they’ll
always be able to see one another as the boy and girl they married. Indeed, me and her
were still a right good number of visits to the doctor short of the final shuffle and had
so much to look forward to. Indulging each other. Eating out at restaurants; weekends
18
away; holidays abroad whenever we felt like it. And being able to help out with others
in the family when it was needed. And maybe, who knows, grand-weans! All the little
luxuries and look-backs that make being middle aged a glorious time to be alive. The
well earned dividends of a lifetime of mutual emotional investment. And then she
eff’s off and hands it all over to some fucking gold digger who’d spent his whole life
touting for a free loader’s ticket to a toil free retirement.
I certainly didn’t ever imagine growing old on my own, that’s for sure. But how
d’ye find someone new to live with when ye’ve been left with yer head in yer hands
and the auld heart like a burst blancmange after being with the one woman for so
long? It’s not easy to find another person to share yer life with when ye’ve been head
over heels since ye were a teenager like I was with her from the first time I clapped
eyes on her. And, unfortunately for me, truth be told, probably still am. Aye but,
maybe that’s because I got so many knock backs from the perfect partners’ page in
the Evening Chimes. Ach I’m only kidding ye on so I’m not. But I do remember
trying the auld lonely heart singles-nights a few times with some buddies who were in
the same nae-love-boat as me. I stopped going after a couple of tries because it felt
like I was stuck in a queue of broken souls looking for any old lumber among a bunch
of other broken souls also on the constant look out for the same. Everyone seemed to
be somebody else’s somebody else waiting for somebody else to come along and save
them for real. Eff that for a gemme of wounded soldiers. I’d rather cook my own
cornflakes. It’s not that I’ve not been out with other women since she shot the craw,
but I always find myself making comparisons with what I had before. It’s not fair on
them, nor me, so I don’t try as hard as maybe I should to get somebody else.
19
There was one special woman I’d went out with for a while, and although it’s true
that sometimes I thought heh man this is it, I had to eventually admit to myself that it
wasn’t. Meeting two people in the one life time that ye love enough to betroth yer all
and everything would be like winning the lottery twice. That’s one of the big
problems ye have in my predicament, keeping yer distance from the curse of kidding
yersel on that something is when it isn’t. Ye know, the clock racing and you facing
fuck-all so ye grab what ye can and convince yerself that it didn’t just fall off the shelf
in front of ye by accident. Well I don’t even do the lottery so the only time my
number’ll come up is when I get hit by a bus or a train or something like that. I might
get chuffed to bits with that result, but I don’t imagine it would ever make me happy.
Ye might think it’s strange, me not doing the lottery and that? But that’s not really
gambling is it. I mean, tens of millions to one! Accepting odds like that is just the
same as believing in some sort of secular religion; delivering yerself up to some
daylight deity or other. As my auld man always said …Ye can stick yer lottery ticket
up yer keep it I don’t want it.
Anyway, the special woman turned out to be too expensive for me and the
inevitable happened. And I’ve not been out with another woman since. Not even for a
bloody cup of fucking tea for goodness sake. No matter how nice or good looking
they are, I just don’t seem to get interested. It’s not that it’s too late for me because of
my age or anything like that. I can still get it going easy enough. It’s just the absence
of that total feeling ye get when ye’re with someone ye love or really really fancy.
When the receptiveness is a whole body and soul feeling. That wonderful flush of
emotional surrender rushing through you, slowing everything else down to a complete
recognition of time and place and the certainty that this is the person you are meant to
20
be with. Ye know what I mean, when a demented crocodile couldn’t put teeth marks
into it. I suppose, when the whistle’s finally blown, I probably rate romance much
higher than sex. But in this emotional midden of a world, women my age are
constantly told that romantic men are nothing more than patronising piss takers. And I
know it’s not just me that’s been batted on the mouth with that argument. In these
days of the menopausal, mature woman with her mounds of magazines stuffed with
advice on how to target her inalienable, inner spirituality, many of my friends have
been dumped by their wives for new lives; often with new men. Ye should see us in
the pub. Ye notice the bewilderment in the eyes. Especially when those that are still
married go home early. The rest of us sitting there till closing time because there’s no
one to go home to. Getting all sentimental and soor-faced as we shuffle up the road
like a crowd of penguins with piles.
And, by the way, what the befooking jaysus would we do without the pub, eh? A
sanctuary for lost souls when it comes to me and my pals I’ll tell ye. What a laugh we
have at times talking about all our ailments and ills and the pills we‘ve got to take.
One of the guys never lets up about the need for us all to question the doctor about the
numerous wee chronic conditions we’ve got maybe having more to do with illnesses
we could’ve caught at work. The rest of us are sitting like that, just letting him ramble
on about most of us having been tradesmen and that, and how the number of workers
suffering from industrial diseases like asbestosis, and industrial deafness and all the
rest of it is shooting through the roof. If ye ask me, I always thought his real game
was about claiming higher benefits and compensation for himself and that. I know
there’s people dying that never died before, but, I mean, with us the diagnosis would
be more likely to do with industrial dafteness than anything else. And with all the
21
talking that goes on about it in the pub, ye’d think we all had full blown irritable
scowl syndrome. Mind you, it turns out yer man might not be so far off the mark after
all when it comes to getting poisoned at work with the stuff were all exposed to. It’s
funny that eh; before he started talking about it, nobody was bothered enough to even
consider such things. But see now ye’re aware of it, ye see it in the newspapers and
the television all the time. Aye, and just a wee while ago I got caught rotten by an
attack of breathlessness; and it’s still there; and they labelled it asthmatic. And it
doesn’t feel anything like asthma? It makes ye wonder though, eh! Sometimes it’s
hard to keep the head when it comes to yer health, but it’s keep the head ye have to,
regardless.
Aye well maybe the auld heart isn’t as robust as it used to be, but the heartache of
being dumped by the person ye most respected and trusted all yer life, without the
basic courtesy of an explanation, still cuts like an autopsy knife. Christ, the feeling of
rejection and worthlessness! And by the way, it was the first time in my life I had to
live on my own. And I get really angry at times when I think of how she put me in
such a miserable mess. And that rat she ran off with getting away with it because I
could never condescend to his rancid level to take revenge. And, anyway it wasn’t
him who created the devastation for us all. We’d watched him do the same thing
umpteen times before. I mean, he wasn’t inclined to cloak his intentions, or be mister
discrete, looking for the elite liaison. He was a sad, lonely, low life who’s compulsive
shagging was his identity which he wore like a dick on his forehead. Kidding on that
he was shy and respectful with women and certainly never one to take advantage,
when in fact it was his prize pursuit. I suppose ye could say he was a kind of tongue in
cheek chanty rassler. Anybody’s fucking cheek. And more than a few other places
22
too I’ll bet. But oh yeah, and yeah again, it was her to blame for destroying our lives!
It was she who invited him in with his nicotine stained fingers. It was she who said
over and over again to herself about her wee family, ‘Get it up the whole lot of ye
because I’m away with the world champion shagger of Scotland.’
Nah, revenge is
still out the question…… Too heavy for the weans. And yer friends and that, they’ll
always say, ‘Well ah know what I would do if I was in your shoes! But they don’t!
And if I did do what they think they would, they’d see me differently for the rest of
my life. And plus, it might change how they view anything half decent I might’ve
done in the past. Folk are aye suspicious of people who do things for nothing and
would be quick accuse anyone they think turns private complaints into public causes
for ulterior motives. Maybe because they probably know they should be doing more
about the unfair and unjust things in life themselves.
D’ye know this but, I’m actually jealous of him. I mean, the most important person
in my life giving up so much to the point of deserting her children to perv off with
him. Fuck me, if that’s not obsession, then what is! A self centred sumph who cut
about all his days in and out different vulnerable families not giving a curse about
whose life he fucks up, getting loved with that intensity by the one I love probably
even more. Him pottering about in that hoity house she bought with our money,
perhaps even considering religion in order to thank the Lord for letting him win the
jackpot and not giving the show away that it was all a set up; that it’s nothing more
than an outrageous scam to score an early pension and get looked after by a rich,
pixilated woman. Maybe when ye’re too young to bother, a guy like that would be
someone to look up to. A cool dude compared to the rest of us. Forever on the hunt
for a hole in which to fly his flag of conquest and always finding it. But see as most of
23
us get older, we can see folk like that for what they really are, snakes slithering
around other peoples’ weaknesses. Licking away at their lives until they become
festered and fall apart. D’ye remember those kind of scummy uncles that hung about
every family; chocolates for the women, sweeties for the weans. Ay, if ye believe in
that Lord above fellah, he’s got a lot to answer for letting predators like that get off
scot free to live happily ever after often as not right next door to decent citizens.
Anyway, revenge and envy are perversions, and I don’t think it would be a good thing
for me to pervert what’s left of my life by avenging myself on a slug like that.
And d’ye know that she’d been having an affair with him for at least a year and a
half before she admitted it. At least that’s all she owned up to, but I suspect it went a
lot further back than that when I think of all the incidences and absences which were
never really explained. Fuck me, how blind must I have been. But then, no one knew!
What lengths they must’ve gone to conceal their activities? What levels of deceit did
they invent! Looking back, although it happened right under all our noses, I think they
got away with it because we all lived in such a close and trusting community that
we’d never believe it possible. I mean, our families were involved with each other all
the time. And the friends we had went way back to schooldays. Affection and mutual
respect had been cultivated and nurtured through experiencing one another growing
up, getting married and having children; and helping each other out in times of crisis.
New friends who came through marriage and work, or the many social gatherings that
took place, marvelled at the strength of friendship we all shared. And she was such a
central figure and so precious to us all, it was simply unthinkable! It’s too easy to say
on reflection that it was obvious. And if someone had told me at the time that my wife
was having an affair with anyone never mind him, I would’ve had to sign them into
24
the hospital for the hysterical, or maybe just cut their tongue out and stuffed it up their
bahookie.
Heh but, wait till ye hear this. She actually told me that it was all my fault for not
noticing anything was going on. For letting her build up feelings for him because I
didn’t say anything about what they were doing. Fuck me man, if I’d known what was
going on, I’d’ve done a lot more than say something! Isn’t it amazing how people
who know what they’re doing is wrong and will hurt those closest to them invent all
sorts of excuses for their behaviour. Their victims are doubly victimised by being
blamed for this and that to suit the cynical amorality of the situation. That pal of mine,
ye know the one who had to eff off to Spain; the one that was aye on about the
Willende syndrome and that; when I told him what had happened on a wee visit to the
Costa del do yer head in, he said she was obviously a slack headed slag and if I don’t
forget all about her and start giving it serious effort to meet another woman, I’m
gonny end up being one of those sad old single men who waste away with loneliness.
Ye know the type; from pillow to pub to bookies every day till ye’re pished then it’s
the fish supper and up the stairs to collapse into bed again. But I’m like that, ‘I can’t
help it if ah canny be bothered chasing other women just for sex. I’ve never shagged
anybody in my life and I don’t intend to start now. It’s always been love with me.
And anyhow, I told him nobody comes near to what I had with her. I mean, ye can’t
alter the way ye feel about somebody just because they change their mind about you,
can ye. And by the way, that’s something she should get clear about too; the real
reason she fucked off. I know her bent for him is her business, got absolutely nothing
to do with me, absolutely sweet effing fuck all, but she should be honest with herself
about how a damaged damsel like her could fall for a dangerous dipstick like him!
25
That’s probably my worst nightmare though, ye know, ending up on yer own.
Being ‘that’ poor auld man next door. Shuffling up and down from the shops. Face
like a burst balloon. A walking jumble sale. Smelling like a well raked midden.
Frightening the weans in the street. I’d worked with alcoholics and down and outs
years before, and there was always some reason why they had let things go and ended
up making a sewer out of the hard shite that happened to them. A lot of it was down to
mental health problems, but a least as much was due to marital and family breakdown.
I mean, ye need to concentrate to stay cool and not lose concern for yerself, and that’s
one of the first things to go when ye find yerself thrown to the dawgs for any reason.
Concentration then memory, then, eh… What the fuck…
It is hard but, to look back and know ye saw it clear as day but never actually
recognised what was going on. Christ, I remember one time we were at a charity
dance. There were so many of us that we took up about three tables, and it did occur
to me at the time to wonder why she and him sat together as far away as they could
from me and his poor unsuspecting partner. I couldn’t help noticing how close they
were. Heads together the whole evening laughing and giggling away. As if they’d
decided to pick that very night to start not giving a flip who noticed them. The band
was so good that everyone ended up dancing. We’d been out in the same crowd
dozens of times before and neither she nor he would ever dance. But that night, they
were up on the dance floor for ages, and wow, was she dancing. Twirling and twisting
like she’d never done with me all the years we’d been together. Ach, I can remember
loads of other incidents now that should’ve shouted me into what was going on, but
26
hindsight just holds yer imagination to ransom if ye let it. So c’est la fucking vie y’a
couple of fegin begulstegarts!
But see when she went, know what really done me in, she left everything behind.
Like she was only away for a wee holiday or something. Me wondering when she’d
see sense and come back. The abject cruelty of it all would take yer breath away. Her
clothes in the wardrobe, just hanging there like carcasses of façade. Mocking me. Her
scent still clinging to them And fuck me, her underwear all neatly folded in the
drawer. The fragrance of fabric softener on the delicate material. Most of her personal
things and the presents from me down the years. The ear-rings and necklaces she kept
for special nights out or that, they’d been left in the wee jewellery box I’d got her
years ago. I think all she took was her engagement and wedding rings, and the
emerald and gold ring and necklace set I’d got her for our twenty fifth anniversary. It
still gives me the shivers to think she went on a silver-wedding-second-honeymoon
with me even although she’d been shagging him for the best part of a year already. At
least! How much more treacherous can ye get? I remember her leaving me at the hotel
pool every day to phone home. I’d said she didn’t have to check on the kids so much,
that they’d get annoyed at not being trusted to be in the house on their own. And oh
yeah, once again so stupidly obvious now, it wasn’t the weans she was calling at all;
was it.
See when I think about that second so-called honeymoon we had! What a change
in her behaviour. Not kidding ye. Walking about topless in front of everyone and
drinking away like lager had just been invented when she’d spent her whole life being
almost teetotal and getting undressed with the lights out. And even in bed, she’d
27
always been so distant from me it was like she lay in a state of thermal chastity. But
then, with a drink in her! I was like that, wow, change of life right enough! But I’d
already noticed a difference in her demeanour over the previous year or two. She’d
suddenly started speaking her mind about this and that and anything else that annoyed
her. When I’d never heard her give an opinion about anything in her life before. And
it was quite disturbing that a lot of it was kind of narrow and intolerant. And music,
I’d never once seen her click her fingers to a beat nor show the slightest interest in a
song never mind express a preference, and yet she’d become obsessed by classical
music. In the car, the house, everywhere; Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi gie’n it laldy day
and night. But she wasn’t bothered about the real stuff like the Unfinished Requiem or
the Definitive Keyboard or the Solo Concerto, that required a more informed interest
than she was prepared to give it. No, she listened to the cliché, classical-pop pish like
it took her somewhere else, somewhere as shallow as herself. Somewhere more
preferable than being with her family! She’d never been passionate about anything
since the day I met her, and yet there she was, totally transported to another world by
something she knew nothing about. The magic of music eh. Probably took her back to
the ‘E’ flat where she’d first blown his trumpet. The bafuckinstardos the two of them.
And then she went on a diet and got her hair died. It was amazing how she got to look
almost like she did as a girl. She’d always been such a quiet person, and I was so
happy for her to become more outgoing and that. I already knew how hard it was to
deal with shyness because I’d been wrestling with it all my life. And maybe it was the
case that some of the wee personal problems we had with each other were down to a
clash of bashfulness. But it had gradually become clear that her’s was now more to do
with disinterest than being shy. It leaves me wondering that maybe the marital
problems we had through the years might have been down to her indifference and my
28
lack of confidence because of it. It’s frightening so it is; to think that all yer efforts to
make things work out better were considered by her to be nothing more than a
pathetic pantomime. And that’s something that will stay with me forever!
Yeah but, treacherous isn’t the word for it. Just how much did I not matter to her
anymore? To what degree had I become dispensable? D’ye know I could tell ye a
million degree truth that she or he or they got someone to sabotage my van so that I
would crash! But I’m not going to tell ye because ye’ll probably not believe me, even
although the wheel came off on the motorway near the border with England. Me
lurching all over the road, sparks flying everywhere. Other vehicles swerving all over
the shop, veering abruptly away from me as I failed to stop the van from tumbling
into a field of ready to be harvested hay. A lucky soft landing that left me sitting
behind the driver’s seat on the van’s battery which I didn’t know had been damaged
and was leaking acid till much later when I felt the ambulance man’s hand on my bare
bum as they lifted me out the wreckage. The insurance’s engineer said it had been
done deliberately and the company only paid out after I got a police report. And I
don’t mean about the para-medic tickling my bahookie. But, as I said, no point going
on about it because it’s too unbelievable. But that’s how dismissible I was!
It’s shocking to think someone could change so much. Rocks reality to bits so it
does! Faith no more in nothing ever again. Emerald and gold but.
I’d always
promised myself to buy them for her some day to go with the sparkle in her eyes.
Och man, those eyes but! And oh boy too, ye could drown in them and think ye’d
went to heaven. They seemed to change hue all the time depending on what kind of
mood she was in. Like a rainbow depends on the weather. I’m not kidding ye man,
29
that’s what they were like! I could never make up my mind exactly what colour they
are. Basically green but so often… Ach fuck it, who cares now! I actually called her
Paddy Puddles when writing her birthday cards and valentines because her eyes
looked like deep pools of forty shades of green. It’s so ironic that I picked our silver
wedding to give her the auld emerald and gold, when the sparkle had actually died. I
hadn’t bought her much fancy jewellery over the years because didn’t want me to.
She just wasn’t into being glitzy or wearing makeup or that. But I splashed out then
and it really looked great on her. I still wonder why she took them when they must
have meant so little. She left almost everything else didn’t she! I think she’d actually
already built up a new wardrobe for him; new underwear that he probably bought her;
new personal things. But strangest of all, it was her shoes that got me the worst. She’d
always worn beautiful shoes. Never to do with fashion, nor trendiness, just practical
and perfect for her. When we were out at night she’d wear ones with little heels that
made her the same height as me, but normally she wore flat shoes that looked like
they had been sewn up specially for her. She was only a couple of inches shorter than
me but they made her seem petite. I’ve never known a woman who appeared to
change so completely with the clothes she wears; and always classy looking with it.
Whether it was jeans and sloppy-joe or a fancy frock for a wedding or that, she
always looked just gorgeous. And what she was like under her clothes…well that’s
none of my business anymore, but delicious is the only word that comes to mind! Her
shoes though. Every pair was scuffed just behind the big toe by the way she walked.
And aw naw, that walk! I remember when she first came to the shop where I worked
as a message boy. The last thing I was thinking about was girls. Playing football,
scooting about the town, learning how to get drunk without falling over yerself. Just
marvelling at being nearly sixteen, that’s what I was into. But when she walked in!
30
I’m not kidding ye, she reduced everything else to total stillness. The way her hair
swung down past her shoulders; the shine on her face from the fluorescent lights on
the ceiling; that beautiful smile; the cheeky wee gap in her teeth. Man, it was scary
how my insides tumbled. But when she walked; wow, those legs; fucking hell and
help my crivvens! She was like one of those models. Not exaggerated like they do.
Just natural; completely non-showy and unselfconscious. Yeah, I was really upset
when I had to bag the shoes along with all her other things and eventually dump them
in the garage. She’d been away for over a year by then. It had taken me that time to
finally realise that she wasn’t going through some midlife crisis or something of the
sort. That she was actually away for good. The lady really had effing eff’d off!
It was a good few years after that before the pain eventually dulled to an ache. And
heh, don’t laugh, because it is pain. Real, debilitating pain. Paralysis! White hair.
Permanent nausea at the thought of it all. Looking like an anorexic scarecrow. All the
sisters and the pals’ wives fussing about how no’ well I looked. No wonder, when ye
think how she behaved throughout the whole sordid charade. And not only that, had I
not to go through that auld beginners’ luck nonsense again. I’d eventually managed to
get the money together to pay her off but she’d slunk off with her new slime ball beau
on a long around the world binge without saying where exactly she was going. Five
fucking months she was away. And on her return she refused to communicate, even
with her own lawyer. Eventually some financial advisor, target tramp at the bank
started pestering me that I shouldn’t leave the money just lying in an account getting
no interest when everyone else was out there cashing in on the technology boom. So I
bought some penny shares in a brand new computer business involved somehow or
other with the National Lottery. And just like the main company that runs it was
31
making obscene profits, the new firm hit the zoom immediately. Heh, I thought to
myself, here we go; no wonder all those bastards are so rich. But fuck me, how more
wrong could I have been! After cashing in the penny shares at ten to one my money, I
acted on professional advice about taking the risk factor out of buying shares by
listing with a broker from the biggest and most reputable Bank in the City of London
and the world. And what every granny who still remembers the banking blowouts of
the nineteen thirties’ depression and can still serve the boiled ham raw could’ve told
ye without even being asked, the market collapsed along with the big ‘Dot Com Con’
in the U.S.A. which pulled down everything else with it, and sparked the excuse for
the Iraqi invasion and who the fuck knows what else the Over Excited States Of
America will do next to the rest of the World.
And what did it mean for me? Like all the other ordinary folk who got conned into
getting involved in the Stock Market, I lost a lot! But not everything, and some of the
shares are still not dead. Where there’s hope and all that kind of stuff! Ye know but,
what fucking eedjits we are, eh! It should’ve been so obvious when that multi
millionaire mob invites you to join them in an investment, ye know ye’re just getting
used because they’re too tight to risk their own ill-begotten wealth because they know
the market’s dodgy because they made the fucking bastartin market dodgy! What a
prize effing diddy I am! Invited once again to lose my wages with the big boys, but
this time it wasn’t just the cooperative cowboys, it was the corrupt accounts cavalry
from the financial forts and towers of New York and London. And I walked right into
it like a clown, just like that auld Willende guy dropped out of it trying to fly foot
across the same kind of lofty towers.
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I was forced to sell the family house and move into this flat I’m in the now. But
it’s not really that sad I suppose, because it’s a great wee place with heart stopping
views over the city that redefine the word spectacular every time ye look out the
window. And even although I’ve now got so much time to reflect on what happened, I
don’t think I’ll ever understand how or why she turned into such a horror human
being towards me. I mean, out of all the scumbags, scroungers and degenerates she’d
tolerated in her life, why did she pick me out for such savage dismissal and emotional
mutilation? I feel that my whole existence has been negated. I don’t remember much
about life before her. It’s like we grew up together and she stole my childhood too
when she fucked off. Oh yeah, she knew she was taking much more than just money
when she left me! Those Hank Williams songs of heartache and pain suddenly
became a hell of a lot more poignant. Love poems and portraits of pathos now a
tortuous reminder that although I’ll always agree that art is probably the only activity
that can bring about peace in this crazy World, it can never bring peace of mind. Quite
the opposite in fact! The emotional coma but, that’s the hardest thing of all to escape.
But d’ye know, the biggest thing I’ve learned through it all; accidents and mishaps
occur all the time, often to the point of disaster, but what stops them becoming full
blown tragedies is how people react to them. I’m quite proud that I kept the head and
ignored what the auld heart was saying to me; especially after that sabotage job on the
wheel of my car. Shoving that to the back of the hot plate was probably the hardest
thing I’ve ever done but when ye’re in the middle of such an emotional inferno, the
worst thing ye can do is infuriate the flames with phosphorous revenge. I mean,
there’s not much ye can do if ye’re in the jail or lying dead under an R.I. effing P. sign
can ye! I only hope it went some way to minimising the pain and disruption the weans
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were forced to go through and helped them get over it all a bit quicker. The trust thing
but, how are they gonny believe in that again when everything they understood about
it has been flushed down the lavvy pan by the very one who taught them. How will
that affect their notion of how a relationship should be? Has the way their mother
fucked off done in their chances of settling down with someone? I certainly hope not,
because it’s not much of a good life living on yer own. Especially when ye’ve been
with a family all yer life. It’s just; ye know… It all seems so empty and that. And it
can’t be healthy being lumbered with yer own company when ye’re a self doubting
dunderhead like me. Ach, who gives a blink about such bliddy nonsense, I’m sure
they’ll be alright. And anyway I’ll always be here in my wee hoose if they need a
sanctuary for a while or a hand with anything; or just want a different view of the
World.
And there’s so much I still miss about the other house. It was our dream home.
And it had lovely gardens that got the sun all day long. That’s where we raised our
beautiful kids with the confidence that happy children usually become contented
adults. Fuck me if that doesn’t sound like a child psychologist spiel, but ye know what
I mean; happy within themselves so that when fate decides to have a go at them they
might have the dig to defend themselves. And when they realise just what a wilful
world they live in, they don’t run away and hide from it or have the blind greed to join
in the plunder or rush off to join the junkies of doom.
Me and her had often talked about growing old there together. Spending summer
evenings watching the sun drift away towards the coast. I still miss her with an ache
that I wake to every day. But, ach, fuck it! And fuck her too! That’s life man.! Where
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the biggest certainty ye could ever bet on is the guaranteed uncertainty of the finishing
line no matter what race you choose to run in. But don’t worry about me, I’ll get my
head together again soon. Put yer money on it! And heh, maybe I’ll even find another
wee woman to look after me. And I’m not talking about someone to clean and cook
and look good sitting by the fire watching the racing on the television. I mean a lady
who’ll bring that much lamented fragrance and grace back into my life; cleanse my
soul; tickle my heart and be my pal. Needless to say, maybe a bit late, but I don’t
gamble at all at all anymore; unless of course it’s too good a tip to miss, if ye know
what I mean! Anyway where’s the harm in putting a wee line on now and again! And
what would a Saturday be without the racing on the T.V.? And during the week; man
ye’d be banjaxed wi’ boredom if it wasn’t for the punting. Meeting the boys in the
pub every day to work out the winners then doing yer bookies runner between the
races helps ye exercise yer mind and body at the same time. And other than going up
the dancing to chase yer chances of getting a lumber at the over the hill hoe downs,
it’s about the only physical exercise ye give yerself. Well it’s better to be over the hill
than under it I’ve always said, but before ye give me a slap on the gub for that pun a’
mince, it is allowed because it’s the truth. And anyway, at my age, staying fit and
sharp enough to cut the cards properly is crucial if I’m to achieve my life’s dream of
dying young; as late as possible. So there ye are, a government health warning;
‘gambling keeps ye young’. Just another problem for the over pochled pension funds.
And it keeps ye optimistic too. It’s true. The older ye get, pessimism picks on ye
like a school bully. But if ye’re a punter, optimism bubbles through yer veins every
morning and ye can’t wait till the bookies opens. And ye never worry about what the
future’s got up its sleeve for ye because ye live yer life’s last three or four furlongs in
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the here and now of immediate gratification. Well there’s yer proof then, as I’ve
always said, gambling has never really been about the gambling at all. It’s always
been to do with something, ye know what I mean, something else. I was gonny say
spiritual or cosmic. Or maybe something to do with destiny. But that would be me just
conning myself into making it more important than it actually is. At the end of the day
a gambler’s just the same as a mountain rambler; looking for that perfect peak where
ye can sit and take stock and a well earned rest while looking back on the journey that
got ye there. And a wee punt every day? Well, as long as ye use the head and keep
the bread and butter and jam coming in. And anyway, it’s never too late to let yerself
go a bit for yer own entertainment. But serious gambling? Nah, never again! What I
managed to rescue from the ruins of my marriage, the remnants from that wee
business I had, and selling the house, I’m keeping. Oh yes, ye can bet yer tank on it.
That’s my pot and I’m the only one that’s gonny stick it in my pipe and smoke it!
By the way, guess what I saw the other day when me and the boys were coming
out the bookies? Two of them, and I’m not joking ye, running along the pavement
across the road from us like a couple of disneyland rejects. We were all like that,
‘Heh hen here’s men’ and all that stupid stuff ye shout when ye’re half bevvied, ‘You
in the blue you’ll do. You in the red me and you in…’ Ach ye know what I’m talking
about. Pure mental man. But d’ye know, what a shock I got when I tippled who they
were. It was her pal I recognised first then slowly it dawned on me. It was her, my exwife, running slower than walking pace looking like a headless chicken trying to
chase its tail up the terrace where I live. I don’t know what she was doing there but
fuck me if she wasn’t all decked out like a packet of sweeties. Body like a beer barrel.
Jogging for fuck sake. Two middle aged lumps clumping about the streets like hippos
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on heat oblivious to the hilarious spectacle they were making of themselves. I was
like that, hoping none of the boys would recognise her. But yon big mate, d’ye know
the one who’s always going on about industrial diseases and that, he just turned to me,
shaking his head, talking out the side of his mouth, ‘Fuck sake wee man!’ Going on
with one of those ‘told ye so’ chuckles in his voice, like the words tickled his tonsils
or something, ‘Just goes to show ye, once ye start running away from yer problems
ye end up running forever.’
But what really left me wondering, and maybe a lot more hopeful for the future,
how can ye be broken hearted about someone ye can’t even recognise anymore. I
mean, it was her pal I noticed, not her. And honestly, she didn’t look like someone I
could talk to never mind live with. And it is no small comfort either to remind myself
again of the words that friend of mine said when she fucked off, ‘let’s hope for her
sake she doesn’t lose her looks, because if she does, he’ll be away in a puff on the
hunt for another bit of fluff.’ And by the way, remember all that stuff I was saying
about growing old together? With that lump of withered womanhood? I don’t think
so! Oh no, nup, and not on yer nelly. She can go and raffle her doughnut somewhere
else! Ye know, I might just call up that gorgeous Paisley woman I met the other week
to see if she’ll let me kiss her feet and forgive my stupidity for not asking her out
sooner. And allow me to treat her like the darling girl she appears to be. At least she
doesn’t look like a born again bampot or an emotional lump of wood like that ex-wife
of mine. And she definitely looks like a cheeky wee stoater who knows that good
times and dignity don’t ever have to be at odds with one another! Yeah, I’m just
gonny do that, ask her to go out with me. I’ve got a couple of tickets for Lou Reed at
the Armadillo. And I know she’s right into funky music.
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