CHAPTER 1: 11am (On Slacks, Psycho-Geography and Sex)
The fetid, decaying stench of love that he sported so unwittingly but which could never evade the psychic nose of womanhood, ensnared him. True love wouldn’t remain elusive for very much longer. She was out there. He would find her. His time would come and it would come soon. He could sense it. He checked the mirror…. Fuck ‘sense it’! You could fuckin’ SEE IT! Oh yes… he knew it, and they did too.
And if there was any doubt left in their pretty little minds, there was always the badge.
The badge said it all. Correction; the badge was all. His world view, his belief system, his heart, mind and soul. All hopes, dreams, passions, fears… Everything he knew to be true – the one truth, the only truth – hung there weightless on a two and a half inch bit of tin. Its Zen-like simplicity and beauty reminded of nothing less than his very essence, captured and woven into a silken tapestry of Haiku:
“SHAKIN’ STEVENS & THE SUNSETS – HETEROSEXUAL ROCK N ROLL”.
He checked the mirror again.
“Ah well….”
Undeterred, yet oddly emboldened, he adjusted his Chino’s, gave it a quick ready-reckoner on the ol’ knackers, and strode out purposefully into the morning sun. It was time for a pint. Within seconds he was aware of the attention he was attracting from strangers. It prickled his skin and quickened his breath. It was instinctive, irresistible and exercised a feral control over natural human behaviour; a Pavlovian ‘Stimulus! Response! Stimulus! Response!’ effect at its most base level. For sure, it was a physical thing.
To be fair though, the glare from his trousers could scorch the retina if approached head-on, and the ‘Stimulus! Response!’of yore swift became a ‘Swerve! Jerk! Blaspheme!’ manoeuvre, favoured by innocent passers-by who wished to avoid being reduced to the level of a D-stream numbskull in a solar eclipse. But truth is in the lie of the beholder, and if the badge were his Genie in the bottle, then the strides were his “mirror, mirror, on the wall”. He didn’t need telling though; he knew he cut a dash.
What he didn’t know was how to accurately define this elusive hue of light yet durable trouser, traditionally favoured by the residents of Torquay and that he now so elegantly fashioned on this glorious late summer morning. Stone? Too grey. Sand? Too brown. Cream? Too obvious. 3rd Generation Anglo-Chink? Too racist. Papyrus? Hmmm…Papyrus! Bostin’!
His inner dialogue caught up,
“It takes a particularly resilient breed of woman to avoid, nay deny a Papyrus Torquay trouser, Harry my boy,”
he lied to himself.
“They’ll be like moths ‘round a candle…or”
he chuckled triumphantly to himself,
“like a muff ‘round an ankle!! Oh yes, Harry son! Get in..!!”
He had to admit it, that was a good one. He made a mental note to remember it for the pub later that night. He could picture it now, that bangin’ part of the evening where the jokes and jibes are flowing thick and fast, and everyone seems miraculously possessed by a spirit of collective spontaneous creativity and inspired improvisation. Yes! He must remember to make it up again around then and drop it into the melee. A few times if necessary.
Y’see, theirs was a savage, cut-throat, pack humour that meant no malice, yet took no prisoners. Literate, sharp and often very cutting, they could prove intimidating without ever being elitist, and Harry was desperate to move from the periphery and be accepted by the inner core. And that was his first mistake, ‘cos nobody likes an arsehole.
For a start off, Harry wasn’t Harry’s real name but a nom de plum he adopted for himself after reading Hubert Selby’s THE DEMON and re-imagining himself as the novel’s amoral anti-hero, Harry White. Trouble was, his self-styled cultural rebirth coincided with Michael Caine’s HARRY BROWN hitting the screens, so while he was trying to project himself as a misanthropic cornerstone of the dark underbelly of modern American literature, everyone just took the piss out of him for paying homage to some septuagenarian, piss and biscuits DEATH WISH for the Plan B generation.
And it was funny really, ‘cos everyone knew it wasn’t his real name ‘cos he randomly started calling it himself one day. Before that, he used to make out he had “no need for a name” as he refused “to pamper to society’s false labels and anachronistic straight jackets.”
So everyone just called him ‘Jack Shit’.
Or ‘The Cunt With No Name’.
Both were applicable to be honest, ‘cos like ‘shit’ one was constantly aware of his unwelcome proximity, and like Clint’s ‘Joe’ one hadn’t got a fuckin’ clue who he was, where he came from, or what the fuck he was now doing in your town. He just turned up in some strange fuckin’ bar one day and proceeded to rub everyone up the wrong way.
In fact, everyone assumed he was a Cockney because he was odious, and they duly referred to him as one and, indeed, treated him as one, for they knew it wouldn’t be long before he regaled them with all the bullshit cultural revolutions he’d experienced (like the fuckin’ sixties), but had evaded them because they lived north of the fuckin’ M twenty fuckin’ five.
But no, he was from the Black Country, he was in his 40’s and despite it all, everyone put up with him; well it gave people something to write about I suppose….
To be fair, he weren’t that bad; he was just a deluded, egotistical prick, and us blokes shouldn’t really go around casting those stones now, should we?!
Harry quickened his step. It was a good job he was on his way to The Grapes really, ‘cos he needed that pint more than ever. As he weaved his way through these familiar, well-trodden back streets that always smelled of terminally-boiled Sunday dinners regardless of the day or hour, he dwelled upon his Black Country surroundings and it depressed him.
The Black Country.
Famously named after its once proud industrial heritage, the area was now decidedly monochrome. Harry looked around him and felt like he was an extra in some old, worn-out 8 millimetre film. Why, even the faces looked out of focus, scratched, grey, and when he tried to pinpoint famous landmarks, he realised that they too had now faded from the reel of his life. He remembered the rot setting in during the 80s and recalled an inexplicable feeling of loss when he looked up one day and saw that Dudley’s C&A had somehow turned into a Kwik Save. He knew it was a significant transformation that meant something poignant, but he didn’t know what, or indeed why he felt so genuinely heartbroken by it. He understood now though, and in turn he found himself also mourning the astute presence of mind that he clearly must’ve once possessed but had sadly long since deserted him. Yes, he was a product of his environment, and like his environment he felt exhausted by the absence of hope. How is one meant to grow and prosper in an environment that is a stunted, empty shell of its former self? How can an industrial landscape inspire any sort of belief or ambition in its populace when it’s been raped of its industry, raped of its history? And it was raped. When the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher closed Round Oak Steelworks it ripped the heart out of this part of the Black Country, and left the thousands who relied upon it and defined themselves by it feeling abused, betrayed, worthless and bereft. Whole communities never fully recovered. They plodded on of course, but the glint had died behind their eyes, the fire extinguished in their bellies…. They’d been raped, and they’d never be the same again.
He trudged up the two broken steps that led to the inner-sanctum of the ubiquitous Grapes, pulled on the sticky brass handle of the Saloon door and breathed in those old familiar of cheap cleaning products and stale beer that greeted the late morning drinker, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, dank surroundings of this home from home.
The Grapes was a single L-shaped room with fixed padded benches running the length of the walls, and the bar as its centre piece. Lager-soaked tables and rickety stools complemented the bijou ambience, and entertainment was provided by a battle-distressed pool table, a ‘50p for 3’ Black Sabbath-friendly jukebox, a wall-mounted tele broadcasting hooky Al-Jezeera sports channels, a framed poster of that tennis player flashing her arse cheeks, and the regulars, of whom Bert was, of course, the only one present.
Bert was sat in his usual place at the top corner, reading his usual copy of the Racing Post, draining his usual pint of Guinness, and welcoming Harry in his usual deep baritone with his usual opening gambit of,
“Just in time Jack, it’s your round…”
Harry leant on the empty counter and called through to the back,
“Quick as you like Ray, I’m spitting feathers here…”,
before doing a double-take at the well-dressed bloke he didn’t recognise, drinking pop at the bottom of the bar.
Ray thankfully appeared before Harry could make a complete tit of himself by trying to say something clever to the curious non-regular, slung a filthy tea-towel over his hunched left shoulder and proceeded to pour 2 pints of Guinness with neither verbal nor facial expression. He was a miserable old cunt was Ray. He used to be the quack-physiotherapist for the local Sunday League team; ‘Ralgex Ray’ they called him. Seems he figured the intolerable, searing heat of an anti-rheumatic spray was the perfect cure-all for any injury the football field could throw at ya, and to give him credit, nothing got a young prima (Mara)donna back on his feet as swift as a quick blast of instant blisters to the ol’ nads-sac. Fearless, he was. And then he went and hung up the old bucket and magic sponge – “Yikes!” – and traded it all in for a black belt in misanthropy and a career in brewing and hostelry that he evidently loathed.
“£3.78”
“Oh, and a packet of dry roasted please Ray”.
Ray sighed and turned begrudgingly to the Big D board.
“Can I have the packet that’ll expose the left nipple, please?”
“Fuck off. You know the rules, save the tits ‘til last. Here, you can have the elbow.”
He yanked the packet from its semi-pornographic display mounting with barely contained loathing, and tossed it onto the bar.
“4.38”
Harry passed him a crisp £5 note, carried the pints over to Bert’s table and returned for the change and the nuts. He figured it was a better use of his time than just standing there being glared it. He sat on the stool opposite Bert, opened the bag of nuts fully down the seam, and placed the packet on the table between them.
Bert finished his swig, smacked his lips and put his pint down. He had to use two hands.
“Cheers”
“Cheers”
Harry liked Bert, but it was well-known that conversation with him could be difficult at times. Not that he was awkward or unpleasant or anything… far from it. He was a lovely bloke, quick-witted, intelligent, interesting but…. quiet; the type of bloke who kept himself to himself, spoke only when entirely necessary and somehow managed to get through most days on a benign smile and pints of Guinness bought with other people’s money. And Bert wasn’t Bert’s real name, but an affectionate handle he’d had bestowed upon him on account of his startling physical proximity to that tufty, monobrowed homosexual off Sesame Street. He didn’t mind though. He was a good bloke. Harry tried to think of an ice-breaker. He could ask him if he’d got any hot tips but he knew fuck all about the horses, wasn’t really interested in gambling, wouldn’t have had a punt anyway and Bert knew all this already, so what was the point? He decided to broach his other great love,
“I see this month’s Escort’s got a DVD with it, Bert”
“What’s it called?”
“Errm… ‘Shagging 9’, I think”
“That was last month”
“Oh”
Harry supped his Guinness. Bert continued,
“Escort’s shit anyway”
“Oh, right”
“You want to get yourself a copy of Voluptuous”
“Oh… ok”
“One with Alexis May in it”
“I’ll look out for it”
“Bostin’ set on ‘er, Alexis has”
Bert took a gulp of his pint. Harry sat silent
“or at least ‘er used to have. Think ‘er got into the smack though. Let ‘erself go”
“Oh dear…”
Bert smiled his benign smile,
“Dirty cow an’ all”
Harry returned his best conspiratorial smile whilst trying to conjure up an image of this big-titted dirty cow on smack that his friend seemed particularly taken with. Bert helped him along,
“D’you like a heavily-freckled girl, Jack?”
“I…I don’t really mind…. Yeah, I suppose…”
“I do. She’s got loads”
Upon which, Bert returned to his paper and his pint and Harry popped some nuts and hoped and prayed that somebody else’d turn up soon.
And then Sal burst in.
The fetid, decaying stench of love that he sported so unwittingly but which could never evade the psychic nose of womanhood, ensnared him. True love wouldn’t remain elusive for very much longer. She was out there. He would find her. His time would come and it would come soon. He could sense it. He checked the mirror…. Fuck ‘sense it’! You could fuckin’ SEE IT! Oh yes… he knew it, and they did too.
And if there was any doubt left in their pretty little minds, there was always the badge.
The badge said it all. Correction; the badge was all. His world view, his belief system, his heart, mind and soul. All hopes, dreams, passions, fears… Everything he knew to be true – the one truth, the only truth – hung there weightless on a two and a half inch bit of tin. Its Zen-like simplicity and beauty reminded of nothing less than his very essence, captured and woven into a silken tapestry of Haiku:
“SHAKIN’ STEVENS & THE SUNSETS – HETEROSEXUAL ROCK N ROLL”.
He checked the mirror again.
“Ah well….”
Undeterred, yet oddly emboldened, he adjusted his Chino’s, gave it a quick ready-reckoner on the ol’ knackers, and strode out purposefully into the morning sun. It was time for a pint. Within seconds he was aware of the attention he was attracting from strangers. It prickled his skin and quickened his breath. It was instinctive, irresistible and exercised a feral control over natural human behaviour; a Pavlovian ‘Stimulus! Response! Stimulus! Response!’ effect at its most base level. For sure, it was a physical thing.
To be fair though, the glare from his trousers could scorch the retina if approached head-on, and the ‘Stimulus! Response!’of yore swift became a ‘Swerve! Jerk! Blaspheme!’ manoeuvre, favoured by innocent passers-by who wished to avoid being reduced to the level of a D-stream numbskull in a solar eclipse. But truth is in the lie of the beholder, and if the badge were his Genie in the bottle, then the strides were his “mirror, mirror, on the wall”. He didn’t need telling though; he knew he cut a dash.
What he didn’t know was how to accurately define this elusive hue of light yet durable trouser, traditionally favoured by the residents of Torquay and that he now so elegantly fashioned on this glorious late summer morning. Stone? Too grey. Sand? Too brown. Cream? Too obvious. 3rd Generation Anglo-Chink? Too racist. Papyrus? Hmmm…Papyrus! Bostin’!
His inner dialogue caught up,
“It takes a particularly resilient breed of woman to avoid, nay deny a Papyrus Torquay trouser, Harry my boy,”
he lied to himself.
“They’ll be like moths ‘round a candle…or”
he chuckled triumphantly to himself,
“like a muff ‘round an ankle!! Oh yes, Harry son! Get in..!!”
He had to admit it, that was a good one. He made a mental note to remember it for the pub later that night. He could picture it now, that bangin’ part of the evening where the jokes and jibes are flowing thick and fast, and everyone seems miraculously possessed by a spirit of collective spontaneous creativity and inspired improvisation. Yes! He must remember to make it up again around then and drop it into the melee. A few times if necessary.
Y’see, theirs was a savage, cut-throat, pack humour that meant no malice, yet took no prisoners. Literate, sharp and often very cutting, they could prove intimidating without ever being elitist, and Harry was desperate to move from the periphery and be accepted by the inner core. And that was his first mistake, ‘cos nobody likes an arsehole.
For a start off, Harry wasn’t Harry’s real name but a nom de plum he adopted for himself after reading Hubert Selby’s THE DEMON and re-imagining himself as the novel’s amoral anti-hero, Harry White. Trouble was, his self-styled cultural rebirth coincided with Michael Caine’s HARRY BROWN hitting the screens, so while he was trying to project himself as a misanthropic cornerstone of the dark underbelly of modern American literature, everyone just took the piss out of him for paying homage to some septuagenarian, piss and biscuits DEATH WISH for the Plan B generation.
And it was funny really, ‘cos everyone knew it wasn’t his real name ‘cos he randomly started calling it himself one day. Before that, he used to make out he had “no need for a name” as he refused “to pamper to society’s false labels and anachronistic straight jackets.”
So everyone just called him ‘Jack Shit’.
Or ‘The Cunt With No Name’.
Both were applicable to be honest, ‘cos like ‘shit’ one was constantly aware of his unwelcome proximity, and like Clint’s ‘Joe’ one hadn’t got a fuckin’ clue who he was, where he came from, or what the fuck he was now doing in your town. He just turned up in some strange fuckin’ bar one day and proceeded to rub everyone up the wrong way.
In fact, everyone assumed he was a Cockney because he was odious, and they duly referred to him as one and, indeed, treated him as one, for they knew it wouldn’t be long before he regaled them with all the bullshit cultural revolutions he’d experienced (like the fuckin’ sixties), but had evaded them because they lived north of the fuckin’ M twenty fuckin’ five.
But no, he was from the Black Country, he was in his 40’s and despite it all, everyone put up with him; well it gave people something to write about I suppose….
To be fair, he weren’t that bad; he was just a deluded, egotistical prick, and us blokes shouldn’t really go around casting those stones now, should we?!
Harry quickened his step. It was a good job he was on his way to The Grapes really, ‘cos he needed that pint more than ever. As he weaved his way through these familiar, well-trodden back streets that always smelled of terminally-boiled Sunday dinners regardless of the day or hour, he dwelled upon his Black Country surroundings and it depressed him.
The Black Country.
Famously named after its once proud industrial heritage, the area was now decidedly monochrome. Harry looked around him and felt like he was an extra in some old, worn-out 8 millimetre film. Why, even the faces looked out of focus, scratched, grey, and when he tried to pinpoint famous landmarks, he realised that they too had now faded from the reel of his life. He remembered the rot setting in during the 80s and recalled an inexplicable feeling of loss when he looked up one day and saw that Dudley’s C&A had somehow turned into a Kwik Save. He knew it was a significant transformation that meant something poignant, but he didn’t know what, or indeed why he felt so genuinely heartbroken by it. He understood now though, and in turn he found himself also mourning the astute presence of mind that he clearly must’ve once possessed but had sadly long since deserted him. Yes, he was a product of his environment, and like his environment he felt exhausted by the absence of hope. How is one meant to grow and prosper in an environment that is a stunted, empty shell of its former self? How can an industrial landscape inspire any sort of belief or ambition in its populace when it’s been raped of its industry, raped of its history? And it was raped. When the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher closed Round Oak Steelworks it ripped the heart out of this part of the Black Country, and left the thousands who relied upon it and defined themselves by it feeling abused, betrayed, worthless and bereft. Whole communities never fully recovered. They plodded on of course, but the glint had died behind their eyes, the fire extinguished in their bellies…. They’d been raped, and they’d never be the same again.
He trudged up the two broken steps that led to the inner-sanctum of the ubiquitous Grapes, pulled on the sticky brass handle of the Saloon door and breathed in those old familiar of cheap cleaning products and stale beer that greeted the late morning drinker, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, dank surroundings of this home from home.
The Grapes was a single L-shaped room with fixed padded benches running the length of the walls, and the bar as its centre piece. Lager-soaked tables and rickety stools complemented the bijou ambience, and entertainment was provided by a battle-distressed pool table, a ‘50p for 3’ Black Sabbath-friendly jukebox, a wall-mounted tele broadcasting hooky Al-Jezeera sports channels, a framed poster of that tennis player flashing her arse cheeks, and the regulars, of whom Bert was, of course, the only one present.
Bert was sat in his usual place at the top corner, reading his usual copy of the Racing Post, draining his usual pint of Guinness, and welcoming Harry in his usual deep baritone with his usual opening gambit of,
“Just in time Jack, it’s your round…”
Harry leant on the empty counter and called through to the back,
“Quick as you like Ray, I’m spitting feathers here…”,
before doing a double-take at the well-dressed bloke he didn’t recognise, drinking pop at the bottom of the bar.
Ray thankfully appeared before Harry could make a complete tit of himself by trying to say something clever to the curious non-regular, slung a filthy tea-towel over his hunched left shoulder and proceeded to pour 2 pints of Guinness with neither verbal nor facial expression. He was a miserable old cunt was Ray. He used to be the quack-physiotherapist for the local Sunday League team; ‘Ralgex Ray’ they called him. Seems he figured the intolerable, searing heat of an anti-rheumatic spray was the perfect cure-all for any injury the football field could throw at ya, and to give him credit, nothing got a young prima (Mara)donna back on his feet as swift as a quick blast of instant blisters to the ol’ nads-sac. Fearless, he was. And then he went and hung up the old bucket and magic sponge – “Yikes!” – and traded it all in for a black belt in misanthropy and a career in brewing and hostelry that he evidently loathed.
“£3.78”
“Oh, and a packet of dry roasted please Ray”.
Ray sighed and turned begrudgingly to the Big D board.
“Can I have the packet that’ll expose the left nipple, please?”
“Fuck off. You know the rules, save the tits ‘til last. Here, you can have the elbow.”
He yanked the packet from its semi-pornographic display mounting with barely contained loathing, and tossed it onto the bar.
“4.38”
Harry passed him a crisp £5 note, carried the pints over to Bert’s table and returned for the change and the nuts. He figured it was a better use of his time than just standing there being glared it. He sat on the stool opposite Bert, opened the bag of nuts fully down the seam, and placed the packet on the table between them.
Bert finished his swig, smacked his lips and put his pint down. He had to use two hands.
“Cheers”
“Cheers”
Harry liked Bert, but it was well-known that conversation with him could be difficult at times. Not that he was awkward or unpleasant or anything… far from it. He was a lovely bloke, quick-witted, intelligent, interesting but…. quiet; the type of bloke who kept himself to himself, spoke only when entirely necessary and somehow managed to get through most days on a benign smile and pints of Guinness bought with other people’s money. And Bert wasn’t Bert’s real name, but an affectionate handle he’d had bestowed upon him on account of his startling physical proximity to that tufty, monobrowed homosexual off Sesame Street. He didn’t mind though. He was a good bloke. Harry tried to think of an ice-breaker. He could ask him if he’d got any hot tips but he knew fuck all about the horses, wasn’t really interested in gambling, wouldn’t have had a punt anyway and Bert knew all this already, so what was the point? He decided to broach his other great love,
“I see this month’s Escort’s got a DVD with it, Bert”
“What’s it called?”
“Errm… ‘Shagging 9’, I think”
“That was last month”
“Oh”
Harry supped his Guinness. Bert continued,
“Escort’s shit anyway”
“Oh, right”
“You want to get yourself a copy of Voluptuous”
“Oh… ok”
“One with Alexis May in it”
“I’ll look out for it”
“Bostin’ set on ‘er, Alexis has”
Bert took a gulp of his pint. Harry sat silent
“or at least ‘er used to have. Think ‘er got into the smack though. Let ‘erself go”
“Oh dear…”
Bert smiled his benign smile,
“Dirty cow an’ all”
Harry returned his best conspiratorial smile whilst trying to conjure up an image of this big-titted dirty cow on smack that his friend seemed particularly taken with. Bert helped him along,
“D’you like a heavily-freckled girl, Jack?”
“I…I don’t really mind…. Yeah, I suppose…”
“I do. She’s got loads”
Upon which, Bert returned to his paper and his pint and Harry popped some nuts and hoped and prayed that somebody else’d turn up soon.
And then Sal burst in.
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