Jimmy Nukes
07-02-2013, 03:58 PM
REDUX
He’d taken the two weeks off work he had leftover from last year. Well, he hadn’t taken them so much as been given them.
“Sure where the hell would I be goin on holidays man,” he’d laugh and say to his co workers when they’d ask him why he loved the job so much he couldn’t take two week’s holiday all year.
"Holidays me arse," he'd say and laugh, though at the same time noting how they never invited him when they all went off to Ibizia or Magaluf or wherever it was.
His mother was glad when he told her he was heading down to Brighton then London for a stag and a meet-up with some of his old friends. She had been worried about him but didn’t know what to say to him really, as much as any mothers don't know what to say to an emotionally distant son.
“So who are ye seein down in Brighton, son?”
Before he could think of an answer she was off again, “Ye know, I was never in Brighton. I’d love tae go sometime. It would have to be soon though, eh? I mean I dony have too long left eh?” she said with a slight chuckle at the end.
“Watch that plate, dear, it’s a wee bit hot,” she placed the plate down in front of him.
“You’re only 63 Ma, jaes you’ve a while left. Sure your mam is still alive and she’s a hundred.”
“She’s 89.”
“89, there ye go. You’ve another thirty years left Ma. You’re as fit as a butcher’s dog. You’ll outlive me,” Rab said, shovelling a forkful of food into his gob.
“Don’t say that,” she said, her face darkening as she turned towards him. She was beside herself to have him back. Having the rumble of boots on the stair at night or the sound of a man pissing in the toilet gave her a warm feeling she hadn’t felt since his Da was alive.
“Ye know, Ma, I’ll take you to Brighton in the summer. Ye know, when the weather gets better.”
She had shuffled into the sitting room and couldn’t hear him.
“I will ye know,” he said, carrying the empty plate over to the sink.
These days she just looked on with a sort of mute sympathy, like she’d felt with his dad when he went about his life and it felt for her that she was observing him and life through the wrong end of a telescope, the roof above their heads being about the only thing they shared anymore.
He’d come and go and she’d tidy up after him and make sure his dinners were on table when he arrived in from work. They’d sit and watch the soaps together, comment on this thing or that, not saying anything really, then she’d head up to bed. He’d hand her a few quid on payday.
"Here, Ma," he'd say. "Don't be spending it on shopping for me. I'll get me own grub. Buy yourself something. Save the money for a holiday." But she never would.
She’d worry about him from morning to night, worry over how he was, where he was, if he’d be happy again. Her happiness had long been surrendered. She lived for her family, and now there were just her and him. That was their life. The detached symbosis of mother and son.
If only she knew, he whispered, as the train began to gather pace. If only she knew he was goin up to Brighton to meet a transgendered - well, almost - English girl he’d fallen in love with on a dating website. Holy ****, he exhaled.
Rab ordered a sandwich from the girl bringing around a tray, not because he was hungry so much but because of nerves he felt in his stomach. He waited a while til she got into the next carriage before he pulled out the bottle of gin he had in his bag. He pulled out a can of tonic water and a plastic cup and made himself a nice G and T. The cans were still cold, which made the drink chilled and refreshing, and he drank it down greedily.
He tried reading the paper he’d bought that morning but couldn’t concentrate on the words. They just weren’t sticking. It was like when he tried to read a book, no matter how hard he’d concentrate the words just slid off his brain and wouldn’t stick - like his brain was glass - and he couldn’t make sense of what it was saying. And then he’d feel humiliated, like he was in school all over again.
Thicko. That’s what he’d hear whispered down the back of the class when he was trying to read for the teacher. Thicko.
So he drummed his fingers on the table and stared out the window, daydreaming...What would they call him now? He know what they’d call him...Faggot. But it was worse than a faggot, wasn’t it? What was it then, going off with some bloke pretending to be a girl?...what would they call him? He didn’t care. They wouldn’t have to know. Fu<ksake.
He heard the noise of the cart thing with the sandwiches as the girl came back down. She smiled over to him as she went past.
The bottle of gin was empty by the time the train arrived in Brighton. When he got off the train the wind was so strong it started sobering him up. Rab checked his phone: “Waiting in the Blue Note...across the road xxx” it said.
************************************************** ********************************
A queue has formed from the train platform to the gate of the train station’s entrance as a rail man in an orange high vis vest stands checking the tickets of the people passing through.
“Wild weather,” a man in front with his wife and wee kid says. The man’s about Rab’s age.
Rab looks at the kid as he fiddles around with some kind of toy aircraft, lifting the hood and closing it again, making these funny spaceship noises that kids that age make. He stands there lost, distracted by the kid, who would be about Rab’s son Gary’s age, not answering the man, who stares at Rab, as much to say, are you alright, mate?
Sensing this, the woman, the wife or whoever she is, grabs hold of the truck the kid is flying through the air with his hand. The spaceship noises stop and Rab snaps out of the daydream.
“Shocking weather,” she shouts to Rab, smiling despite the rain which is falling – no, pelting - so hard it makes her squint.
“Oh, aye. I don’t reckon I’ll be on the beach this weekend,” Rab gets out
The couple laugh at this. That could have been Rab and the missus. Any couple really.
“Think I’ll be in the boozer the next few day eh?” Rab adds.
The couple nod their assent, buoyed by his sudden chattiness.
Rab says: “And tonight Matthew, I’ll be...” he’s about to say knocking the arse off some bird with a co...but he stops short, seeing the couple are already laughing, and he starts laughing himself, a nice happy laugh with the nice wee family.
He feels the warmth of the gin come back, spinning its magic around his body, loosening him, making him not give a ****.
“Are you meeting someone down here then,” the man ventures.
“Oh aye, an old pal,” Rab says.
The queue moves forward and Rab gives the couple a wave as he passes them and goes out through the doors onto the street.
The wet is dripping off him when he enters The Blue Note. The bar is dark as **** except for a few neon signs which glow from behind the counter to give some kind of aspect to the shape of the room. As he draws up to the bar he sees a white arm raised over in the corner, his vision starting to make sense of the place. He starts to make out her face in the darkness, from where he’s standing, a big smile spread across her face, bright clown-red lipstick, the cascading chesnut hair which falls past her shoulders. A whore’s lipstick, he thinks to himself. This gives him a deep sensual jolt of energy and he feels warmth, the warmth of the gin and his hormones gushing around his body. He smiles back and begins to walk towards her.
“Jesus Ava,you are looking great. I just cannae believe it really. That wee camera on the computer dosnae do ye justice love, i swear,” he says giving her a warm kiss on the mouth.
She’s wearing a black woollen jumper and a tight pair of blue faded Lee jeans. She’s tall, about the same height as Rab. She looks well, Rab thinks to himself. The face, she a million dollar face. And her hairstyle, full, long and wavy brown heaped to one side. There’s volume there in the hair, like an eighties hairstyle. A dozen times cooler than any of the stupid girls he sees down at his local on a Saturday night, dolled up like bloody tarts with their make up, fake tan and false nails and whatever. State of the tarts.
Her face looks softer than it did when they video called each other on skype. and there isn’t the shadow of facial hair on her jaw like the one he’d seen in her photos. He deleted that photo anyway.
As he sits down at the table the barman brings two pints over.
“Smoke?” she says, offering him one.
“Nah, I gave them up. Thought I telt you that no?”
“Yeah you did,” she says in her faintly cockney accent, “but you said you still take a smoke if you’re drinking.”
“Aye?”
“Yes. You told me you gave up the fags ‘but you still smoke sometimes with a drink’ on one of our chats one night after you came in from the pub.”
“Oh aye, I did an’ all. Go on then,” he smiles and takes the cigarette from her.
“Does he not mind you smoking?” Rab says, nodding over to the barman.
She shrugs, “I used to work here ye know. He doesn’t mind.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Rab, what do you remember about me?” she says in mock seriousness.
“I’m only kiddin,” Rab says, blowing a stream of smoke towards her. He looks into her pale watery-blue eyes and feels likes he’s tottering on a cliff for a second.
“Well, I don’t think we chatted with you sober too often,” she smiles. “But it was still fun.”
Rab scratches the back of his head. “It was fun,” he says.
He is feeling insouciant from the drink, isn’t feeling any nerves at all. It’s the gin. The way it gives him that deeper sort of relaxed drunk feeling, where you’re still in control and you just sit back and take in everything around you, a bit like being stoned but without the brain goin like ninety.
He says, “Mind that squaddie up there at the bar? Do ye get many them in here?”
“Somtimes,” she says. “I seen him in here before, when he finishes his tours or whatever they get time off, I think. To be honest I don’t know, or care. Any uniform is a badge of slavery to a state or corporation, whatever, doesn’t make a difference. They’re just someone else’s little minions. It would sicken you... if thought about it much.”
This sort of talk excited Rab. She knew all about things Rab never even thought about; like the uniform thing, and the poetry that she wrote, stuff that was alien to him. The way she opened up his mind to these new worlds of thought, new perspectives, left him stunned. Rab always listened carefully to her, so he wouldn’t miss anything.
“You know, you are the most interesting person I ever met,” Rab says.
“Really?” she snorts.
“Ah well, ye know me, eh?” he stubs the cigarette out, then exhales a cloud of smoke. “ Ah’m not the best at expressing maself.”
The two of them smile to each other.
“But, eh, it feels ok being with you. Ye know, it feels sort of...right.”
“Thanks.”
“And I do love your sarcasm too, by the way,” Rab says, a smile spreading across his face.
“You know,” she says, about to laugh, “sometimes your face, it looks so innocent. But then a stream of bad language comes out in a heavy Scottish accent and spoils it.”
He reaches over and puts his hand on hers. Their eyes lock and for the first time in ages Rab feels something stir in his slow tortoise heart. He feels relaxed for the first time in a long while too. He leans in across the small table and meets her mouth halfway, tongue against tongue, big wet tonguey kisses. Her mouth is a moist, warm sanctuary and her lips are thick. When she sucks on his bottom lip he gets an erection. fu<king glorious, he thinks to himself. A wee bit of heaven. He hears a faint sound of laughter coming from the bar, and he pulls his head back.
“Ye want another one eh?” he says, motioning to her near empty glass.
“You’re letting the side down, Scotty,” she says, nodding towards his pint, which is nearly full.
“Oh i am and all,” Rab picks up the glass and polishes most of it off in one draught. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.
“That better eh? How’s the side now?” he laughs. “Ye want a wee gin too?” She nods, declines.
“Aye, sound,” he says, going up to order the drinks.
“Hey,” he turns to her, “I better take it easy with the drink. It turns me into a fu<king right anarchist by the way. I’m liable to do anything.”
He’d taken the two weeks off work he had leftover from last year. Well, he hadn’t taken them so much as been given them.
“Sure where the hell would I be goin on holidays man,” he’d laugh and say to his co workers when they’d ask him why he loved the job so much he couldn’t take two week’s holiday all year.
"Holidays me arse," he'd say and laugh, though at the same time noting how they never invited him when they all went off to Ibizia or Magaluf or wherever it was.
His mother was glad when he told her he was heading down to Brighton then London for a stag and a meet-up with some of his old friends. She had been worried about him but didn’t know what to say to him really, as much as any mothers don't know what to say to an emotionally distant son.
“So who are ye seein down in Brighton, son?”
Before he could think of an answer she was off again, “Ye know, I was never in Brighton. I’d love tae go sometime. It would have to be soon though, eh? I mean I dony have too long left eh?” she said with a slight chuckle at the end.
“Watch that plate, dear, it’s a wee bit hot,” she placed the plate down in front of him.
“You’re only 63 Ma, jaes you’ve a while left. Sure your mam is still alive and she’s a hundred.”
“She’s 89.”
“89, there ye go. You’ve another thirty years left Ma. You’re as fit as a butcher’s dog. You’ll outlive me,” Rab said, shovelling a forkful of food into his gob.
“Don’t say that,” she said, her face darkening as she turned towards him. She was beside herself to have him back. Having the rumble of boots on the stair at night or the sound of a man pissing in the toilet gave her a warm feeling she hadn’t felt since his Da was alive.
“Ye know, Ma, I’ll take you to Brighton in the summer. Ye know, when the weather gets better.”
She had shuffled into the sitting room and couldn’t hear him.
“I will ye know,” he said, carrying the empty plate over to the sink.
These days she just looked on with a sort of mute sympathy, like she’d felt with his dad when he went about his life and it felt for her that she was observing him and life through the wrong end of a telescope, the roof above their heads being about the only thing they shared anymore.
He’d come and go and she’d tidy up after him and make sure his dinners were on table when he arrived in from work. They’d sit and watch the soaps together, comment on this thing or that, not saying anything really, then she’d head up to bed. He’d hand her a few quid on payday.
"Here, Ma," he'd say. "Don't be spending it on shopping for me. I'll get me own grub. Buy yourself something. Save the money for a holiday." But she never would.
She’d worry about him from morning to night, worry over how he was, where he was, if he’d be happy again. Her happiness had long been surrendered. She lived for her family, and now there were just her and him. That was their life. The detached symbosis of mother and son.
If only she knew, he whispered, as the train began to gather pace. If only she knew he was goin up to Brighton to meet a transgendered - well, almost - English girl he’d fallen in love with on a dating website. Holy ****, he exhaled.
Rab ordered a sandwich from the girl bringing around a tray, not because he was hungry so much but because of nerves he felt in his stomach. He waited a while til she got into the next carriage before he pulled out the bottle of gin he had in his bag. He pulled out a can of tonic water and a plastic cup and made himself a nice G and T. The cans were still cold, which made the drink chilled and refreshing, and he drank it down greedily.
He tried reading the paper he’d bought that morning but couldn’t concentrate on the words. They just weren’t sticking. It was like when he tried to read a book, no matter how hard he’d concentrate the words just slid off his brain and wouldn’t stick - like his brain was glass - and he couldn’t make sense of what it was saying. And then he’d feel humiliated, like he was in school all over again.
Thicko. That’s what he’d hear whispered down the back of the class when he was trying to read for the teacher. Thicko.
So he drummed his fingers on the table and stared out the window, daydreaming...What would they call him now? He know what they’d call him...Faggot. But it was worse than a faggot, wasn’t it? What was it then, going off with some bloke pretending to be a girl?...what would they call him? He didn’t care. They wouldn’t have to know. Fu<ksake.
He heard the noise of the cart thing with the sandwiches as the girl came back down. She smiled over to him as she went past.
The bottle of gin was empty by the time the train arrived in Brighton. When he got off the train the wind was so strong it started sobering him up. Rab checked his phone: “Waiting in the Blue Note...across the road xxx” it said.
************************************************** ********************************
A queue has formed from the train platform to the gate of the train station’s entrance as a rail man in an orange high vis vest stands checking the tickets of the people passing through.
“Wild weather,” a man in front with his wife and wee kid says. The man’s about Rab’s age.
Rab looks at the kid as he fiddles around with some kind of toy aircraft, lifting the hood and closing it again, making these funny spaceship noises that kids that age make. He stands there lost, distracted by the kid, who would be about Rab’s son Gary’s age, not answering the man, who stares at Rab, as much to say, are you alright, mate?
Sensing this, the woman, the wife or whoever she is, grabs hold of the truck the kid is flying through the air with his hand. The spaceship noises stop and Rab snaps out of the daydream.
“Shocking weather,” she shouts to Rab, smiling despite the rain which is falling – no, pelting - so hard it makes her squint.
“Oh, aye. I don’t reckon I’ll be on the beach this weekend,” Rab gets out
The couple laugh at this. That could have been Rab and the missus. Any couple really.
“Think I’ll be in the boozer the next few day eh?” Rab adds.
The couple nod their assent, buoyed by his sudden chattiness.
Rab says: “And tonight Matthew, I’ll be...” he’s about to say knocking the arse off some bird with a co...but he stops short, seeing the couple are already laughing, and he starts laughing himself, a nice happy laugh with the nice wee family.
He feels the warmth of the gin come back, spinning its magic around his body, loosening him, making him not give a ****.
“Are you meeting someone down here then,” the man ventures.
“Oh aye, an old pal,” Rab says.
The queue moves forward and Rab gives the couple a wave as he passes them and goes out through the doors onto the street.
The wet is dripping off him when he enters The Blue Note. The bar is dark as **** except for a few neon signs which glow from behind the counter to give some kind of aspect to the shape of the room. As he draws up to the bar he sees a white arm raised over in the corner, his vision starting to make sense of the place. He starts to make out her face in the darkness, from where he’s standing, a big smile spread across her face, bright clown-red lipstick, the cascading chesnut hair which falls past her shoulders. A whore’s lipstick, he thinks to himself. This gives him a deep sensual jolt of energy and he feels warmth, the warmth of the gin and his hormones gushing around his body. He smiles back and begins to walk towards her.
“Jesus Ava,you are looking great. I just cannae believe it really. That wee camera on the computer dosnae do ye justice love, i swear,” he says giving her a warm kiss on the mouth.
She’s wearing a black woollen jumper and a tight pair of blue faded Lee jeans. She’s tall, about the same height as Rab. She looks well, Rab thinks to himself. The face, she a million dollar face. And her hairstyle, full, long and wavy brown heaped to one side. There’s volume there in the hair, like an eighties hairstyle. A dozen times cooler than any of the stupid girls he sees down at his local on a Saturday night, dolled up like bloody tarts with their make up, fake tan and false nails and whatever. State of the tarts.
Her face looks softer than it did when they video called each other on skype. and there isn’t the shadow of facial hair on her jaw like the one he’d seen in her photos. He deleted that photo anyway.
As he sits down at the table the barman brings two pints over.
“Smoke?” she says, offering him one.
“Nah, I gave them up. Thought I telt you that no?”
“Yeah you did,” she says in her faintly cockney accent, “but you said you still take a smoke if you’re drinking.”
“Aye?”
“Yes. You told me you gave up the fags ‘but you still smoke sometimes with a drink’ on one of our chats one night after you came in from the pub.”
“Oh aye, I did an’ all. Go on then,” he smiles and takes the cigarette from her.
“Does he not mind you smoking?” Rab says, nodding over to the barman.
She shrugs, “I used to work here ye know. He doesn’t mind.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Rab, what do you remember about me?” she says in mock seriousness.
“I’m only kiddin,” Rab says, blowing a stream of smoke towards her. He looks into her pale watery-blue eyes and feels likes he’s tottering on a cliff for a second.
“Well, I don’t think we chatted with you sober too often,” she smiles. “But it was still fun.”
Rab scratches the back of his head. “It was fun,” he says.
He is feeling insouciant from the drink, isn’t feeling any nerves at all. It’s the gin. The way it gives him that deeper sort of relaxed drunk feeling, where you’re still in control and you just sit back and take in everything around you, a bit like being stoned but without the brain goin like ninety.
He says, “Mind that squaddie up there at the bar? Do ye get many them in here?”
“Somtimes,” she says. “I seen him in here before, when he finishes his tours or whatever they get time off, I think. To be honest I don’t know, or care. Any uniform is a badge of slavery to a state or corporation, whatever, doesn’t make a difference. They’re just someone else’s little minions. It would sicken you... if thought about it much.”
This sort of talk excited Rab. She knew all about things Rab never even thought about; like the uniform thing, and the poetry that she wrote, stuff that was alien to him. The way she opened up his mind to these new worlds of thought, new perspectives, left him stunned. Rab always listened carefully to her, so he wouldn’t miss anything.
“You know, you are the most interesting person I ever met,” Rab says.
“Really?” she snorts.
“Ah well, ye know me, eh?” he stubs the cigarette out, then exhales a cloud of smoke. “ Ah’m not the best at expressing maself.”
The two of them smile to each other.
“But, eh, it feels ok being with you. Ye know, it feels sort of...right.”
“Thanks.”
“And I do love your sarcasm too, by the way,” Rab says, a smile spreading across his face.
“You know,” she says, about to laugh, “sometimes your face, it looks so innocent. But then a stream of bad language comes out in a heavy Scottish accent and spoils it.”
He reaches over and puts his hand on hers. Their eyes lock and for the first time in ages Rab feels something stir in his slow tortoise heart. He feels relaxed for the first time in a long while too. He leans in across the small table and meets her mouth halfway, tongue against tongue, big wet tonguey kisses. Her mouth is a moist, warm sanctuary and her lips are thick. When she sucks on his bottom lip he gets an erection. fu<king glorious, he thinks to himself. A wee bit of heaven. He hears a faint sound of laughter coming from the bar, and he pulls his head back.
“Ye want another one eh?” he says, motioning to her near empty glass.
“You’re letting the side down, Scotty,” she says, nodding towards his pint, which is nearly full.
“Oh i am and all,” Rab picks up the glass and polishes most of it off in one draught. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.
“That better eh? How’s the side now?” he laughs. “Ye want a wee gin too?” She nods, declines.
“Aye, sound,” he says, going up to order the drinks.
“Hey,” he turns to her, “I better take it easy with the drink. It turns me into a fu<king right anarchist by the way. I’m liable to do anything.”