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Showing posts from August, 2018

Legend Tripping

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  1. Most of the children of Carlin High School were engaged in the usual playground activities, girl gossiped rapidly sounding like a thousand busy typewriters; youthful first years laughed and chas ed each other around the yard, burning off energy; older kids from the rough end of town hid behi nd the toilets, smoking weed. Steven was sitting alone, perched on the fence like a hawk, watching all the normal mayhem when he spotted Simon Anderson take a nosedive onto the concrete. The boy just went white and dropped, and even though the other kids were making a godawful din, Steven definitely heard Simon’s skull crack like a heavy egg as it smashed onto the ground. The noise was a sickening, hollow sound that made his heart jump in his chest. He immediately jumped off the fence and rushed to see if the older boy was alright. In the seconds it took him to move to where Simon was, there was a large crowd around Simon, some girls were screaming, an older boy was shouting, “Get a tea
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Gross Domestic Product: 7

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Chapter Seven. Morag looked down at the thin scrawl on the betting slip and gulped. Again, she checked the previous day’s results against it. A f ive horse accumulator, all winners. e leven to one, e ight to one, s ix to one, fifteen to o ne, nine to one, on a fifteen quid stake. She checked the calculator again. The horrifyingly large figure came out the same, over 1.8 million. She looked out across the counter at the pale, sickly girl who stared at her, unblinking. The young girl’s eyes regarded her with such an icy, dispassionate intensity that her gaze chilled Morag to the bone. Morag gulped again. “I… uuh… this looks fine but gimme a minute, doll. I jist need tae get this confirmed wae the manager, haud oan.” The girl didn’t move or respond she just kept staring. Her eyes following Morag as she got off her chair and pushed open the door into the back where her boss Jimmy Callen was sitting at a table reading the morning paper. Callen, a tired looking chubby in an
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Gross Domestic Product: 6

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Chapter Six Pete felt sick as he sat in the underground carriage. He felt like the rushing, rumbling, roar was about to consume him, as if it might vibrate his atoms apart and turn him into dust. The painful lag of reality was seeping into him fast now but he tried not to rock back and forth, he was in a bad enough state as it was. The cold sweat seemed to be the only thing stopping him from falling to pieces. He needed to go and shoot up somewhere, perhaps that tunnel in Kelvingrove would do. Later, he needed to use some willpower, he could get wasted later, he had a job to do. For the second time in two days he got off at Hillhead Station. It was busy this time of morning, the plague of students skipped off in front of him chattering excitedly about expensive worthless shite, no doubt. There were so many of them, he suspected most of them would end up with crap jobs, even he, Daft Pete, knew the more you had of something, the less it was worth, except money. E
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Gross Domestic Product: 5

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Chapter Five. The weak dawn light struggled its way in through the greasy cracks of the window pane. The feeble rays illuminated the stoor that hovered languidly in the stale air. At some point Daft Pete found he’d been watching it for several minutes, his awareness returning by degrees as his numbing, narcotic, bliss thawed. The room smelled like a bad hangover, reeking of flat lager, fading nicotine and burnt matches, which tickled his taste-buds. He needed a cigarette. Brian was still on the filthy carpet, sprawled out amongst the pockmark burns, empty cans and fag ends. He was still on the nod Pete realised, as he looked around for a packet of smokes. The coffee table had puddles of grey wax on it replete with a needle-thin blood spray stain, a few syringes, a blackened spoon, some bags of skag, and over to the end, a pack of Camels. He stretched over with a groan, slowly, as pushing himself through an invisible gel and grabbed it. Empty. “ Fuck!” he declared in an i
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Gross Domestic Product: 4

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Chapter Four. Back at his unkempt office, Rupert Baird unpacked his new possession and after shoving several books out of the way placed it upon his desk. It was a remarkable piece. The curves of the gold base and setting looked almost organic as if it had melted and ran into such an exquisite shape, which just so happened to fit the dozens of odd gemstones that make up the main body of the Ghost Light. The complexity of the gems was fascinating. Each one was a small milky rhombohedron about the size of a thumb, slotted together like an intricate puzzle. The result of this feat of artistry and engineering was that the crystals rose up in strange but pleasing curves, a repeating pattern which reminded him of plants, with small pointed blooms at the top. If it had been hung upside down it would have looked like a spectacularly ornate chandelier. It was a magnificent, mysterious piece. While he had heard about Ghost Lights, even seen Hebbert’s drawings of the one owned by
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Ring Bang Skoosh

So what you do is get a 60a bus over to Duke Street from the City Centre. Keep going right along Duke Street until you get past the remaining houses and the industrial park. The bus will eventually take a second right at a large roundabout. You'll not be able to miss it. It's beside another industrial park. You'll want to get off the bus at the next stop and then wait for the 257A. They're not common, one every half an hour (if you're lucky) and only between 8 A.M. and 5.30 P.M. If you've missed it and have to wait you could do worse than Babs Café across the road. Go get something delicious to eat. Don't get me wrong her cuisine is part of the cultural dietary pandemic that's reduced life expectancy in the areas of the east end to that of cavemen, but her deep fried pizza slice on a roll with chips is well worth the fucking risk. Anyway, once you're on the 257A you'll head south east along an empty area for about three quarters of a mil
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Gross Domestic Product: 8

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Chapter Eight. It took the taxi almost half an hour to get through the West-End and up through the north of the city out into Milngavie. Some roadworks at the switchback had left the entire end of the town in one long traffic jam, according to the driver anyway. Pete was not impressed, not one bit. By the time he stepped out he’d stumped up twelve quid and his skin felt like it needed massaged by a crazed acupuncturist. The cold hurt was becoming too real for him to bear but he knew he’d just have to tough it out. He’d con Baird, or failing that, rob the place, get that stupid lamp and then he could relax, shoot up and have a nice long gouch. After that he’d go to Allerdyce and before long have another five grand in his pocket. That would give him nearly ten grand, enough to solve his problems. Enough to propel him out of Glasgow’s moribund gravitational pull once and for all. He just needed to keep it together for another hour or two. The house he stood outside looked
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The Scheme

Nineteen eighty nine, a number, another summer; sound of the funky drummer ubiquitous on the radio. Gordon Harper drummed his fingers against the wheel in time to the tune. It was a nervous staccato, no doubt about that. As he sat parked on Casgairt Road he wondered if he should just bolt. He'd a couple of grand left in his savings, and could be on the next flight to Chilé or Singapore, could be anywhere but here. He threw his cigarette butt out the window and immediately lit another. This was going to be a bad job, that became apparent as soon as Skinny's name was mentioned. When Dunkie mentioned that nutter he should have said “I'm out.” He didn't. No, he didn't want to look like a shitebag in front of the big boys. If he had any real stones he would have told Dunkie to take a fuck to himself. Instead he was sitting with a fucking shotgun under his seat waiting for that nutjob Willie Barr. Total... Fucking... Nightmare! Once more he sucked on th
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