I’LL BE FUCKED

I’ll be fucked if I don’t get back step out the lift and behind the glass separates the landing from the stairwell is a woman wearing only a bra and trousers no doubt having just scored shooting up...
...tapping her arm, syringe in her mouth then her hand, tightening a tourniquet with her mouth and then...the needle, she pushes, I see the blood rush into the dropper...

MACKIES

‘What happened to him?’ I said.
‘He died,’ she said, folded her laundry from the left dryer.
We were talking about the man lived in the flat on five by the lift. The door of the flat was open, a porcelain sink outside, plaster...
‘When was that?’ I said.
two weeks, then she said, ‘When he moved in he said he only had a few months to live, liver cancer you could see, that was nine years ago.’
she said his girlfriend died - they were junkies - he said they bought some gear and in the morning he woke up found her dead lying there next to him, he got arrested, they let him like he said she was dead when he woke up...
‘He had a band practicing in his flat,’ I said. ‘I saw them at Mackies.’

DYING

Shot by a stranger, I lay bleeding on the ground. People I knew stood around me.
‘I’m dying,’ I said.
‘We can see that,’ said a voice outside of me.
‘And it’s about time,’ said another.
I slipped quietly into unconsciousness glad to get away.

YOU GET THE COCK YOU WANTED?

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ he said as the lift started down. ‘I said, “Did you hear what I said?”’ he said when after the first time he spoke I looked at him, blankly.
Then the second time and I said, ‘You talking to me?’
‘I said, “Hold the lift,”’ he said.
‘You made it, didn't you?' I said.
‘I had to put my leg in,’ she said, her back to me, ‘in the gap, stop the door.’
The other man had a joint, drew on it, blew it out. My heart beat faster than usual, took a breath, looked down at the floor, top of my boots...
...wanted to stamp on the little guy’s head...
...they didn’t hold either of the doors for me on the way out, so more of the same.
Kuvuka, violence in my head, coffee, waiting for her I said, ‘Anyone down there?’ thinking, ‘Surely not after last time.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There’s a woman.’
He was counting money, she was sat on the comfy sofa facing the other way.
‘You get the cock you wanted?’ I said to her.

I’M HIS DAD

‘He’s flirting already. Giving them scraps,’ she said.
‘All of them?’
She said they all left coop leaving him, there on his own. Crowed four times the first morning. ‘Not too early,’ she said.
We compared angers, headed in different directions.
Cex has moved but the queues are as long.
‘You buying?’
‘Exchanging,’ I said.
I’m watching the DVD I got - Homicide:Life On The Streets.
‘You got some ID?’ said the Cexman. ‘You got to be eighteen to buy that,’ to a young man, red top dyed black hair fringe showing beneath a black hat. ‘Or get someone to buy it for you.’
‘I’ll buy it for you,’ I said.
‘It’s got to be a parent or guardian,’ said Cexman.
‘I’m his dad,’ I said.

THE DAMAGE A MAN CAN DO

she phoned and I said I didn’t want to do it anymore, she said why doesn’t she give me a call in the new year they’ve been working on something and were thinking to include me, I said to call, which is two different things I’m saying, I don’t have to be consistent, it’s so limiting...
she said, ‘I can let it go now I know it’s in a safe pair of hands,’ I said it’s a pleasure, asked if we could talk about it only later realising I hadn’t heard what she’d said...
soon as I finished talking to her I told him my decision, he said he wasn’t surprised all things considered...
whilst on the phone to her she called, ‘thanks for your faith in me,’ I said and she said it’d been repaid, that I must be very pleased...
next he called, ‘Can I pop round and then go?’ I thought a few seconds before I said he could, ‘why didn’t he ask me?’ he said sitting in the chair opposite, pushed it little further said, ‘You want to take it outside?’ when I said, ‘Now you’re laughing at me,’ a few minutes of chat more he said, ‘I’m not laughing at you...’

HAS ANYONE SEEN MY DAD?

A HIGH RISK ACTIVITY

The laundry, situated on the fifth floor of the flats, has two sinks, one for socks and dirty cloths and things, the other for handwashing those delicate items in need of personal care. There’s an accessible toilet, a room the caretakers use for storage and a cupboard houses the mains electric hub.
There are four Electrolux Wascator W75s washing machines; an Electrolux Wascator extractor; two Electrolux Wascator TT300 dryers.
The dryers are heated by a Worcester 35CDi gas boiler and powered by electric. I can sometimes smell gas when I open the dryers been on a hot drying cycle.
On the front of the left hand dryer, top left, is a sign says:

DANGER PLEASE NOTE
INTERIOR OF MACHINE GETS
VERY HOT WHEN IN USE.
ALLOW TO COOL DOWN
BEFORE OPENING THE DOOR.

Beneath the left of each dryer door another sign says:

CAUTION
REMOVE CLOTHES FROM DRYER AS SOON AS IT STOPS.
THIS KEEPS WRINKLES FROM SETTING IN AND REDUCES
THE POSSIBILITY OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

Doing laundry in the flats is a high risk activity.

THE CIRCUS

‘What floor you live on?’ she said having beckoned me stop the side of the road, corner of King Square Avenue and Jamaica Street, she crossed as I’s making my way home.
I told her and she said, ‘Front or back?’
She said it wasn’t me, then and I said, ‘What’s up?’
Apparently her balcony had flowers, plants and soil all over it, meant she couldn’t hang her washing out, and she thought it came from above.
‘Where abouts are you?’ I said.
‘Oh, that’s Jee,’ I said, ‘lives there. He’s alright,’ I said, ‘Approachable. You know who I mean? He’s short and he’s got grey hair?’
‘I’ve been up there knocked three times but no one answers so I took her from the maisonettes with me and she said she’d help me talk to the council you know I want it to go away...’
‘How you think it gets there?’
‘Between the netting and his balcony, he must push it or drop it down, but whatever he does I don’t know why he’d do it...’
‘Does seem odd,’ I said.
‘Anyway,’ she said crossing her arms close to her body indicating the cold, ‘I’m going shopping.’
‘The Circus?’

EASTON ROOTS HALLOWEEN FIRE

SEVERANCE

‘Oh hello,’ I said to the woman stood behind the counter I’d gone to with the hat I’d chosen after having tried on several styles.
‘Hello,’ she said adding my name which I will not be revealing at this time in my on-going attempt to maintain a level of privacy affording me the freedom to write with as little self-censorship as possible.
‘What you doing here?’ I said.
The last time I’d seen her was at a party after her departure from her character was mercilessly dissected to a point from which there appeared no return with only Her Indoors (for that is where she is right now) resisting the opinion I had some sympathy with. (As usual what gets lost is a person’s humanity, and, goodness, I’ve been judged by others I imagine both fairly and otherwise...)
She fumbled with the hat as we chatted.
‘I’m only here on Saturdays,’ she said.
She looked tired.
‘Been here long?’ meaning this morning.
‘Only a few weeks,’ she said. ‘It’s until Christmas, you know, a bit of extra money.’
...fumble...
“Do you want a bag?’
‘No thanks,’ I said having a bag-for-life.
She gave me the hat.
‘You got some scissors?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said and cut the plastic link between the label I held away from the hat and the hat itself.
‘Thanks,’ I said.