Right Away Monday: A Novel

1. Balls-deep on Duckworth Street

I says look here girl, I says, I’ll fuckin eat you alive I will.

And she blushes at that, goes right scarlet she do. Of course. Cause I’m far from stunned. I knows how to smile when I wants me skin. It’s all in the smile. I was crossin on the other side of Water Street when that gangly Philip fucker bawls out and waves me over. Skull-and-crossbones on the front of his girls-size tee-shirt. That pisses me off, cause you gotta earn the privilege to wear that particular badge and you can tell at a glance that he’s nowhere near worthy. Wavin like that, with his wrist, and I says to meself—who the Christ are you to go orderin me, Clayton goddamn Reid, across the street there fucko? Course then I spots her alongside of ’im, doin a little twirl on the barstool, sippin at something cold, and even though I aint out on the hunt and really do got better stuff to be at, I cant help makin a grand uproar cuttin across through the traffic, just to show ’em all that I dont give a fuck for nothing or no one. Cause I dont.

At the Gropevine, where the whole front wall is a window that the staff opens to the street in the good weather. Water Street drenched with the panic of the comin fall, all hands bailin back the shooters, tryin to make the best of the rest of the summer. Like we’re in fuckin Greece or something. But we’re not. No sir.

She there swivelling in them skimpy shorts and I knows fuckin well I seen her around the Hatchet the other night. Out back in the alley. Right, I minds that greasy Jane Neary introducin us in the middle of a dirty big draw.

—Clayton, this is Donna. She’s from the Battery.

Jane right fuckin singsong about it too, thinkin I’ll swallow the notion that there might be something in common between us just cause where Donna’s from, the precious Battery. Besides, I dont buy into that fuck-arsed matchmaker shit, cause if you hits it off with someone you’re after bein hooked up with, then whoever did the hookin figures they got some kinda claim over your love life, like they can pick around and ask questions and make fuckin suggestions. I says you’re better off fuckin around with strangers, easier to walk away when you have to. Cause when your buddies and her fuckin buddies are all tangled up with the skin situation, then it’s bound to fuck shit up when you starts lookin elsewhere. And we never really stops lookin elsewhere now do we?

There she is anyhow: tight white shorts and a store-bought suntan with her clean blond hair whippin around in the afternoon and that desperate screamin plea way down deep in the back of me head that wants me to please just keep hobblin on up the street with me head fully intact and me cock well tucked into me pants, not bothering no one, gettin on with what I should be at.

And I says I’ll fuckin eat you alive girlie.

It just pops out like that.

And she goes red like that and I knows I fuckin got ’er.

I tells her me name then. Fuckin right she remembers me from the other night, but she says she knew me from somewhere else before that too. I tries not to let on I’m as popular as I am. But then she’s gotta go and ask me if I’m anything to Valentine Reid. And I gotta say yes, cause he’s pretty much the only family I got, see, these days, and I loves him for it. But I aint no fuckin name-dropper either and sure I already got her, so…I mean, I cant help it that he’s all famous and shit. But I just sees him for who he is, and that’s a crooked old bastard half the time. But then, next thing, after she goes on a bit too loud and long about how much she likes Val’s songs, his older stuff anyhow, I finds meself sayin to her (and well within earshot of that glossy Philip dickhead, who sat there sippin his pissy Corona through a fuckin straw), I’m sayin:

—Well girl, why dont you come by and I’ll introduce you to Val sometime, how ’bout this evening?

And of course she says yes and wants to know if I got any draws. I shakes me head but gives her a wink to let her know I can hunt some down. She offers to buy me a beer then and me skull almost collapses with how easy it could be to just plank meself down and drink the whole goddamn lot of ’em under the table.

Slay the fuckin works of ’em.

Summertime, sun beatin down and the young ones strollin the streets in their tightest whites for one last August flaunt. Me there, perched on a barstool with the music on bust and me whole life ahead of me.

Christ come fuckin kill me.

It’s every ounce of energy in me soul to shake me head, to decline. She seems surprised. I stumbles back a bit then, where I got too much weight shifted onto me fucky foot. Then she wants to know what’s wrong with it, by the way. And while I’m writin down me address on her little tropical rum coaster I says:

—I’ll tell you in the morning.

And she smiles again like that and goes right red and I knows I fuckin got ’er, that she’s been gotten, that I’m fuckin well gettin some.

I gets showered and swipes a decent shirt outta Val’s closet. I swabs a bit of polish on me boots, but dont bother to shine ’em up, just leaves ’em a nice dull black. Donna shows up at the door around nine o’clock, all dolled up with a suede purse and the makeup caked on like she’s off to some karaoke contest. Big loopy gold earrings I dont have much time for. But it’s alright. She looks pretty goddamn good, actually. I watches Val sizin ’er up, head to toe, right obvious and sleazy about it. Then he gives me the Nod right in front of her, a foolish attempt to rile a reaction outta me.

—Well done yourself Clayton my son.

Like I needs his fuckin approval.

—Yeah, thanks. This is Donna by the way.

Val’s in one of his better moods. He breaks out the guitar and rigs up a couple of hot whiskeys for himself and Donna. Val is into the Jameson and water these days, hot or cold, depending on the time of day. He reckons the clearer the drink, the clearer the next morning. And I says sure why dont you just drink vodka then? But he says vodka’s the last resort for the drownin alcoholic. Him with his nasal cavities on the verge of collapse.

—Want one Clayton?

—No thanks.

—Want one?

—No.

—You’re sure now?

He keeps diggin at me to take a drop, even sets one down in front of me with cloves and sliced lemon and sugar and all. The steam fumin up me nostrils, snakin into me heavy, heavy brain like that. Breathe. I takes the mug of whiskey and dumps it into a crusty cereal bowl left on the table since this morning. Val’s face drops. He puts the guitar away and turns off the kitchen light before headin upstairs. Me and Donna sittin here in the dark. She gives me a look but I dont know what to tell her. That’s just the way he is.

We heads down to the Duke for pool. I’m still scopin her out a bit, tryna make sure she’s up for a romp later on and not just lookin to snare me in for the long haul. Fuck that, she’ll be lucky if she gets tonight outta me. She tosses a scattered sly glance across the pool table at me and smiles like she’s sayin Let’s get the fuck outta here and go have at one another. Or at least that’s how I chooses to interpret things.

After a few clumsy games she goes back to the bar and when I scans the room I sees Val comin in through the side door. He takes a booth in the corner and I goes over to join him. He nods and smiles like he aint seen me in months. That’s how it is. He takes a clear glass vial out of ’is coat and taps a little mound of coke onto the table. He dont give a fuck who’s lookin, what with bein the Valentine Reid and all, living legend. He cuts a few lines and rolls up a five-dollar bill, snorts the works back, then slides a line across the table at me. And BANG! Me head reels with the pressure of a thousand possibilities: me and Donna wacked on coke and fuckin my headboard right through the bedroom wall. I plucks the fiver from Val’s hand, leans back in me seat to re-roll it. The end of the summer. Family. Skin lined up. Fuck it once more. I forces all the air from my lungs and leans in over the line.

—Hey? What’s going on over here?

Donna. She hands me a glass of soda water, like I asked for, and I’m floored with the insanity of how quickly the tables can turn for me, how easy I can fall when I aint watchin where I’m goin. I grabs the glass and slugs back half the soda water in one go. It erupts in me guts and burbles out through me nose. I tosses the bill back onto the table and tries not to look at the white stuff while I makes a straight cut for the downstairs bathroom. As I rounds the corner I hears Val say:

—Help yourself Miss Donna.

I stares at meself long and hard in the foggy bathroom mirror. It’s been two weeks. That’s the longest I’ve gone yet without a drink or a beer. Ten days last year. Me eyes dont look so tired and baggy. I aint so pale as I tends to get. I can remember where I was and what I was up to this time last night, and even the night before that. I conjures up all that old detox jargon, one day, one hour, one moment at a time. Me old man Randy throwin up blood in a bowl next to the woodstove, tryin over and over to keep the liquor down long enough for it to reach his bloodstream and regulate his nerves. And I knows how shit like coke and pills are just lubricants, how they makes your resolve all slippery, opens up the windows in your head, the ones that lets all the booze and subsequent madness flow in. I fuckin knows all this. Deep breath. Soda water. Smoke.

Two whole fuckin weeks Clayton.

I leaves the bathroom then, finds Donna at the bottom of the stairs tryna coax some cigarettes outta the machine. She cant get no satisfaction out of it, says it ate her money, so I steps in and gives the machine a solid boot with me good foot like that fucker from Happy Days and holy fuck sure change and smokes goes flyin across the floor. I glances up the stairs and then drops to me knees and starts stuffin me pockets. I dont bother with the money. Donna giggling nervous behind me. One of the bartenders clomps down over the stairs so fast I havent got a chance to cover up the situation. He looks at the floor, looks back to me. I’m standin there with a load of smokes cradled in me arms like a newborn youngster, coins still drippin outta the machine behind me. He steps towards me but I’m so blinded now with the free smokes, me nerves seethin from the tease of the coke upstairs and the hot whiskey fumes back at Val’s and the cold, cold beer I didnt have not one goddamn drop of at the Gropevine earlier today, that just as he reaches a fuckin hand in my direction I shoulders him hard against the wall. He falls back and slops his leg into the scuzzy mop bucket. Donna grabs the hem of me coat. I turns and sees the look of fright and giddy panic in her eyes and we takes off up the stairs and out through the crowd into the night. Fuck Val I says. He’s big and ugly enough to look after himself. That’s me though, barred from the Duke I s’pose.

On Water Street I trades a pack of Craven A for a couple of hot dogs while Donna flags down a cab.

She’s in the process of movin into this bachelor apartment on Duckworth. All’s there is a mattress and some blankets. We lies down and goes right to it. But I’m feelin a bit low-minded, so we smokes a little pin joint from a bit I swiped outta Val’s jacket. I dont see nothing wrong with a little draw. I mean, I’m only workin on the booze, not goin born-again or nothing. It’s just mellow shit anyhow. Me and Donna chats quiet and listens to the radio for a while and then konks out. Next morning I makes up for it though. Yes by the fuck. And wouldnt you know but the two of us are carryin poppers? I’d sorta tucked mine away in the back of me head till I was in the clear with the booze and all. They crossed me mind earlier in the day when Donna was on her way to the house, but it’s always so much energy and fuckin around tryna convince someone to try ’em out, tryna get it through their heads that you’re not tryna poison ’em or render ’em brain dead long enough to rape ’em. So I cant hardly believe it when she whips out her own bottle, that I wont hafta go talkin ’em up like some door-to-door salesman only to have her humour me with a few little sniffs and not really get to experience the force of ’em.

She had her own.

Poppers gets a bad rap if you asks me. Cause people dont like ’em on their own, without the fucking part. All they knows is that they got messed up guilty feelings that one time they tried it at the bar. Well, dont do it at the bloody bars, hold out for the fuckfest.

Now, I s’pose it really is a bit peculiar to expect someone to try ’em for the first time in bed. So they typically has a first go at ’em out in some social setting, and gets all fucked up and writes ’em off as some sorta lowlife solvent shit. But see, they aint meant for bein fuckin sociable. They’re meant for hidin out, gettin lost. Worst thing you can do is take a huff out at some bar and then expect to carry on enjoying your beer. It’s too, fuck I dont know, it’s a different buzz, self-conscious. Numbs your mind and blows it wide open and it’s scorchin fuckin hot. Scorchin. Your heart pounds and the heat rushes to your face and them hazy yellowed blotches, like when you stares at a lightbulb too long, settles on everything you looks at.

I first came across poppers in a shady little porn shop near Harcourt Square in Dublin. Gothic little brown bottles labelled room incense. Legal, but not really. I was barely out through the doors of the shop before I opened a bottle and stuck it under me nose. Well fuck, like I said, the heat and the rush, and dont look at me cause I dont wanna be held accountable for your nightmares, dont you fuckin look at me while me eyeballs are explodin like this, just get outta the goddamn way and pretend like I never existed in the first place! I shambled right into traffic with me skin all pins-n-needles and me jaw clamped tight and tires squealin and me eyes to the ground with me whole fucked-up life bubblin up behind me eyelids like that and I thought alright, this is it, I’m never comin back. This is what they taught us about in school, how drugs can permanently fuckin alter you. I’ll never be the same again. Little Irish beeps and toots from all angles.

—Holy fuck. Ho-ly fuck.

Over and over I said it. And then it was over. Two or three minutes, tops. The fog lifted and I came back, like I was never away. And like the fool I did it again that night at a bar in Clontarf, near where I was livin. Five or six of us passed the bottle around. I was the only one new to it though, and soon as I took a haul I had to get up and leave and they all laughed at me. But I just couldnt sit still with the echo and the heat. I floated over to the toilets and ducked into a stall and hung on for dear life till it went away.

—Never again. Never a-fuckin-gain.

And then I was back. And ten minutes later I did it again. But that’s the only way I used ’em for the next four and five months cause it’s a cold day in Hell and a hefty-size ring on ’er finger before you’ll have an Irish girl go down on you, by fuck. It’s all money over there nowadays, so if you got none to flash around you’re pretty much fucked for skin.

Course, when I got home from Dublin the women were all over me cause they liked me accent. But a lot of people gets all pissy when you comes home with a nice accent, says you’re puttin it on for show. And I’m sure some do. Some people fucks off on vacation over there for a couple of weeks and comes home soundin like they just crawled outta the bogs of fuckin Mayo. But if they comes home from Alberta or Toronto sayin eh at the end of every sentence, nobody bats a fuckin eye, they just thinks it’s such a sin. Because us crowd, Newfoundlanders, fucks off to Canada and nobody under-fuckin-stands us, we have to slow everything down and pronounce everything proper. Overseas though, we can talk as fast as we like and there’s no need to dumb it down. We’re allowed to relax into it. And besides, I comes from the Southern Shore and we still all got the black fuckin plague in us up there. So it was just a matter of gettin back to me real way a talkin, the way me own grandmother fuckin talked. Granted now, I will admit that I could turn it on and off when it suited me, but still, I lived and drank and worked and fought with Irish fuckers for six goddamn months, I was bound to cozy up to the accent. And fuck anyone who says otherwise.

And, I reckon, maybe the women were sniffin around too when I first got home, simply because I was outta town for so long. Truth. It’s like this: what’s the quickest way to get your skin around these parts? Leave town for a few months.

Me first two weeks home I holed up at the General’s Inn on Elizabeth Avenue. And listen here, I never had one lonely night. I even had two on the go one night. Not the same time, but fuck, I barely had one out the door before there was another one knockin. Mostly Hatchet and Ship girls though. Never a Gropevine girl, where if they gotta pay for their own cab they’re slummin it.

But by Christ the poppers, the sex part, I had no clue. This girl named, ahhh, this missus comes around one night and we were hot and heavy for a while there, but then it got kinda awkward so I whips out the poppers and starts sellin ’em to her, how they’re s’pose to be good for doin the wild thing. I’m kneelin there with me cock goin soft inside ’er. She gives the bottle a little sniff, then says fuck it and takes a giant huff and closes her eyes. I takes one then and holds it in for as long as I can. I’m fully expectin to go off me fuckin head but then the sweat breaks out on ’er forehead and she starts breathin heavier and pushin at me and then I’m hard as a rock and everything else in the fuckin universe fades away except the walls of her cunt. And I knows that sounds crude but it’s fuckin true, there really was nothing else, like our bodies were one and the same. Not like we had some connection of the fuckin soul or that kinda shit, just that we were both in the same place at the same time with the heat and the hearts poundin and the sweat and the smell of hungry, rabid fuckin primal sex.

Never laid eyes on her after.

So this first morning with Donna, that’s the fuckin business alright. She wants me to put on a safe first. We tries it out, but it’s like washin me goddamn hands with cotton gloves on, so when it slips off we just keeps right on. Fucking. She wants it every which way too, and she dont need no coaxin. I’ll just be gettin a good pace up and the next thing I knows she’s flat on her belly with the poppers under her nose and her two hands on the cheeks of her arse tellin me to take me pick of where I wants to put it. I aint long makin up me mind either. That’s a rare one, I’ll tell ya. Loud too she is. Fuck.

In the blink of a fuckin eye then, two or three weeks is after rollin by and I’m still knockin around with her. However that happened I’ve no fuckin clue. I helped her lug in what furniture she had, set up the bed and stereo, slapped on a fresh coat of paint. Everything good and laid-back too for a while, nice place to lay low, watch a bit of porn and eat and fuck. Course, then I shows up one evening and she got all this crowd in for drinks and draws, that greasy Jane Neary, who hooked us up and seems so fuckin proud of herself for it, that shiny Philip dink and a few other faces from the Hatchet. Battered and twitchy Jim McNaughton, older than everybody by at least two decades, sittin there noddin along and smilin in his own world and cant peel his eyes away from Donna’s tits. Have a good gawk Jim, I knows I’m s’pose to give a fuck but I dont. I really fuckin dont. Everyone’s talkin politics and fuckin art and treatin me and Donna like we’re some cute little item. Donna with a pack of smokes and a half dozen non-alcoholic beer in the fridge for me, fuckin Molson Exel, and has to go announce it to me in front of everyone, like she wants to make bloody well sure they all knows she’s lookin after me or something. And so I barks at her:

—I got fuckin smokes girl. Think I cant fend for meself or wha?

I yanks open the fridge and sees there’s a load of beer, real beer, and wine on the bottom shelf alongside the Molson Exel. Molson fuckin Exel. Same slop old Randy use to cart home every time he’d take the pledge. He’d guzzle cases of it for about two weeks, then slip over to a light beer for a while, then on to the good stuff again.

Molson Exel. Lord fuck. Like I aint allowed now. Like I aint to be trusted around real beer, like I havent got no mind of me own. If I wanted to drink that fuckin bog water I’d fuckin well hunt it down on me own.

Thinks she knows me now do she? Thinks she got it all sussed out.

I stands at the counter and demolishes five Black Horse in ten minutes flat. Fuckin flattens ’em. One after the other. The second one hits me head like a shot of fuckin morphine and I has to laugh at how foolish I’ve been to be puttin meself through such stresses. Cause if there’s one fucker who can handle his drink it’s Clayton goddamn Reid. Donna watchin me outta the corner of ’er eye, askin no questions. I turns John Lennon on crank and then I gets all bloated and saucy with Philip till he fucks off for fear of his teeth. When he’s gone everything goes right quiet. They’re all starin at the floor and sippin their wine like fuckin youngsters caught at something they shouldnt be at. Too shitbaked to look at me, so I fucks off too, cause I’m in the mood for a good old-fashioned dust-up.

I swipes a near-full bottle of wine from the kitchen counter and closes the front door soft behind me. Never even says goodbye.

Down to the Hatchet then, shit-faced. Open mic on the go. I keeps gettin up singin Bob Dylan and the Doors and gettin free beer. Donna shows up at some point, all pissed off at me for bein a prick and spoilin her little fag-fest. I cant stop laughin at her, with the fuckin gold earrings danglin and the bright red blowjob lipstick and that starved and battered need just drippin from her eyes. She grabs me by the sleeve and tries to drag me out the door, but I breaks away and climbs onto the pool table, keeps jabbin at her with the pool stick so’s she cant get near me. Next thing I knows I’m arguing with Mike Quinn while he’s shovin me out the front door.

Last goin off I’m out in the back alley smokin a big dirty draw with Petey Thorne, the chunky fucker hostin the open mic, and I’m tellin him about me own songs, how I useta have a band, and he’s just noddin at me like I’m some kinda shithead wannabe.

And then someone’s pullin us apart.

I wakes up on the floor in me bedroom at Val’s with blood on me elbow and the knee tore outta me jeans.

Val with one of his demos on bust downstairs. I can smell that fishy coffee he makes, with the steam and the milk. I was never much on coffee. We only ever had the instant shit in the house growin up. Tea was it and it still fuckin is. The bottled coffee was only kept on hand for townies. Anne-Marie, me old man’s missus, always made a big sarcastic deal of it when she offered someone a cuppa tea and they said they wanted coffee. But that’s the way up the Shore, ask for anything outta the ordinary, like a cup of fuckin coffee or skim milk, and run the risk of havin yourself labelled a snob, stuck-up: That one thinks her shit dont stink like the rest of us. Honest to fuck, wouldnt know but you’d put in a request for broiled lobster or caviar or an eight ball of coke or something. Anne-Marie. Fuck her. She knows nothing, perfect match for the old man.

I tumbles down the stairs, hopin against hope there’s still a few codeine left in the cabinet, and there she fuckin is, Donna, gigglin over some shit Val’s fillin her head with. She looks at me then. Fine fuckin sight, first thing in the afternoon. And she all dolled up again.

—Well mister. Did you get it out of your system or what?

Outta me system? Fuck do she know about what makes me tick? Thinks she got me pinned already. Think again little miss. Val lookin at me and shakin his head and smilin, like he got the inside scoop on my fuckin life when he barely knows what’s goin on in his own.

—Fuck are you doin here?

Right hateful I says it, and she’s not expectin that. She goes red and stops smilin and drops her eyes to the floor. Val gets right cuntish with me and I tells him to fuck off and he laughs, cause he gets a kick outta how I dont take no shit from no one. Cause I fuckin dont. Then she starts laughin and we all has a little draw and that brings me head right around to what I went and done. I was almost five weeks this time. Not a drop. She gets yakkin about the way I got on at the bar last night and the sauce I gave to that sparkly Philip fucker. I starts to turn a bit shy, even guilty, because she seems so delighted with me. And even though I wants her gone, gone now out of my life so I can start again on me own where I belongs, I cant help but notice the way the sun catches on her neck, that soft spot beneath her earlobe and how her stretchy top hooks across her nipples that way. How you can almost see right through them little white shorts and I reasons with meself that maybe she’s alright after all, that I just might hang out with ’er for another bit.

—Want to go out for a bite or a drink Clayton? On me.

Fuckin hell, see how they lines up against you? Forces. Go out for a drink. Easy as that. But I dont want to anyhow, cause she had to go and say, right in front of Val, that it was on her, like I cant find me own dinner or something, or like the only reason I’d go anywhere with anyone is if I didnt hafta pay. I dont answer her. Val gives me a sharp and sadistic poke in the small of me back with the neck of his guitar. It fuckin hurts. I feels like snappin the guitar in half only for he told me I could have it whenever he kicks the bucket. He might be kickin it sooner than he thinks, if he dont fuck off.

—First two rules of rock-and-roll Clayton: never turn down a free lunch, cause there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

—Well now Val, that’s only one fuckin rule isnt it?

—What’s that?

—Well, if I wrote it down on paper, it’d only come out as the one sentence, one rule.

—Fuck off Clayton.

Me and her went down to the Hatchet then. Me stomach too delicate for anything more solid than a pint of Guinness. Game of pool and a straightener. Or a primer I should say. On her.

2. The Lobster Complex

Been crashin at Val’s for near on two months now. I had nowhere else to go after they gave me the heave at the General’s Inn. Val insisted I move in though. Massie, his wife, my elusive aunt, is after takin off to Corner Brook with some painter. Val, on his own in the big empty house. He didnt give a fuck about rent and shit like that.

So I said why the fuck not?

Val lived in Vancouver for years and then he got all screwed up with his record company and came home. I was livin in Town nearly six months before I knew he’d moved back. I saw his old snarl on a poster downtown and I showed up at his gig that night and introduced meself. He knew me, but he didnt really. He fuckin well called me Clarence first. I mean, I knew him on and off over the years. He’d show up at the house like a fuckin tornado and leave weed all over the floor and the counter, bang away on the guitar for me. He was around a lot after Mom’s accident, come to think on it, maybe cause Randy was so fucked up. They’d stay up and have a few beer. Sometimes they got pretty loud and nasty with each other and I heard shit I knows I prob’ly shouldnt have. Just Randy all stroppy and spoilin for a racket after a few too many, always lookin to point the finger at anyone atall other than himself. Diggin at Val I s’pose just cause he’d gone out into the world and made something of hisself. I never heard many good things about Val over the years. Anne-Marie always sayin to me that he was fucked up and his head was all swole up. I s’pose that’s the price you pays for gettin on the cover of the fuckin Herald. One time he came up the Shore to play at the folk festival and asked some dickhead to turn off his video camera. Of course they all had to go make a big stink about it, but Val was only lookin out for the bootleggin thing. I asked him about that a few weeks back and he says:

—You dont want tapes out there Clayton, especially amateur video, with that shitty outdoor festival sound that gives people the licence to verify what they want to believe about you anyhow: that your success is unwarranted.

Slick enough. Gotta look out for your own interests I s’pose, cause no one else will. People’re just jealous anyhow, cant stand to see one of their own get ahead in the world. That’s that whole lobster complex: soon as one makes a break for the top of the tank, the rest gives it their goddamn best to drag ’im back down. But I still always looked up to him for doin what he did. What he does. I had a poster of one of his albums on me wall when I was in high school and I ’members Randy belchin at me about gettin suspended and tellin me I’d end up in jail if I didnt straighten out. I points to the poster of Val and says that that’s what I’m fuckin into, that’s where I wants to go. And ole Randy clicks his teeth and says:

—Yes now, and fuck over everyone in your path to get there? Some life.

But that’s the way you gotta go old man. Let yourself get bogged down with the bullshit, fuckin relationships and money and education, and then where’s the goddamn music? Fuck that. I’m goin for it. Not the music part, not no more, not now, but maybe I’m thinkin I might write a play or a movie or some such shit. Dont seem to be much to it. I got a few ideas, I knows a few stories. Just needs to get meself rigged out.

Like I said, I tried the band thing for a few years. Me and a bunch of fellas from the Shore had a decent little setup for a while. We did mostly cover songs at first, but after a while we sorta weeded ’em out and wound up with about a dozen of our own. I did all the writin of course. I’d just kinda be walkin along the roads in the night time and I’d hear a song in me head and I’d start singin it and comin up with the words right there on the spot. It’s like that shit is waitin there in the back of your head all along. Course, I could never get the hang of the guitar. I mean, I knows a bunch of chords and a few little riffs, but I could never manage to sing and play the one time. So I’d basically end up bringin a song into the band and singin the melody and then Corey, cousin fuckin Corey, he’d just work out the music parts and Mark’d shove a bass line to it and then Jason’d just come in on the drums. At the end of the day we sounded pretty good. But more often than not it wouldnt turn out to be the song I heard in me head first goin off, and we had a few rackets. Good fun though. We played our first show at the Horseshoe down in Cape Broyle. Teenage dance. Packed. People starvin for it, goin cracked dancin and drinkin and fightin out behind. Some shithead grabbed the mic stand and banged the microphone off me front teeth. I booted him in the guts and then the owner came down and told us all to turn it down a bit. We made nearly seventy bucks each and we were delighted with that. Grand laugh it was. We called ourselves the Lost Weekend, after John Lennon’s infamous tear in San Francisco where he smashed that fucker’s head in with a cigarette case.

The band was good. I can say that much. I sent Val a demo to his address in Toronto but he never did remember gettin it. The Lost Weekend. And I reckon we coulda done alright in Town. We even got bumped up in the battle of the bands on George Street. But everybody was always off at something more important and we could never get it together to have a jam and there was more drinkin goin on than was necessary. I fucked off to Dublin then, to save me own life. And when I got back the b’ys had a new singer, some flimsy fag-boy from Mount Pearl, a CD in the works. They were called the Cold Shoulder, one of the possible names that I was after comin up with when we first started out. Fuckin loyalty for ya. Here I was, fresh home, with all kinds of new ideas and songs and nothing goin on in me life and rearin to start singin again, but they were just a bunch a fuckin detached pricks. Corey even told me that he’d sell me a CD at a discount when it was finished. Me fuckin cousin and everything. I wanted an explanation, to know what they were all bein so cunty about, but they couldnt come up with a proper excuse, said I was too hard to handle and that there was too much tension all the time and that I was a bastard with everyone when I wanted to be and that I’d just fucked off overseas and left everybody hangin. But sure they had no clue about the stress and the strain I was under. I saw that program in the paper advertising for Dublin and I knew that if I didnt go for it, I’d die. Had to go, had to just get the fuck outta town. I was livin on me own then, in a little deathtrap on Mullock Street with no fire escape and a bunch of psychos and retards on all sides. Me girlfriend was just after havin a so-called nervous breakdown and she was all the time screamin at me to love her and be there and then her grandmother died so everything got worse. I blew me student loan on booze and had no way to pay the rent and I was drinkin night and fuckin day.

I swiped a bike one night on Hayward Avenue and rode it up to the university parking lot and went round and round in circles till I fuckin collapsed with the tears rollin down me face and no one in the world to talk to. The next day