'Probably.' I looked at my barked knuckles.
Drink is bad for you. It's a drug. A poison. Of course I know that; don't we all? It just so happens it's legal and available and accepted and there's a whole tradition of enjoying it and suffering the consequences, even boasting about the consequences, and that tradition is especially strong here in Scotland, and especially in the west, and especially in Glasgow and surrounding areas...
I drink too much but I enjoy it, and I've never once woken up needing a drink; water, orange juice, something fizzy like lemonade, yes... hundreds and hundreds of times, but never the hard stuff. If I ever do I just hope I can catch it there and stop it going any further. All the best alkies start out this way, I'm sure.
But of course I'm different.
Ah, dear God... many a good man ruined by drink...
The only person I ever saw ruined by drink was my father, and he wasn't a good man in the first place.
'Your YTS scheme finished, or what?' I asked Tommy. He'd been providing cheap labour for a furniture manufacturer over the past few months.
'Aye; finished early. Got ma cards.'
'How come?'
'Ah, Ah was sniffin the glue, ye know? This foreman caught me in the bog wi a plastic bag over ma heid.'
I shook my head. 'You're a mug.' I tried not to sound too much like just another adult.
'Aye, yer right; wiznae even the right glue.'
'What?'
'Water based, or sumthin. Ah'd been there sniffin for about an hour. Ah got sumthin at first like; a sort aw buzz, ye know? But nothin spectacular. Ah'd wondered how that wiz; Ah'd a big enough tin a glue. Smelled horrible too.'
'Water based...' I shook my head, and felt too much like an adult. What had I been like at his age?
'Ach, ye've got tae try these things, ye know?' Tommy told me. 'Ye never know.'
'You know/ You never know' ... no, it wasn't worth mentioning. I marvelled at Tommy's attitude. When I was his age I was paranoically careful. I used my flatmates as guinea pigs, I sought out people who'd been using drugs for years and carried out my own covert psychological examination on them, I even read medical journals to find out what the side effects of the most popular drugs were. Tommy seemed to approach things from exactly the opposite direction; when in doubt, try it out.
I'd survived, but would Tommy? I could just hear him: 'Strychnine? Aye, gie us a wee dod a that...' Holy shit. Babes and innocents.
Little ding bat had even tried smack. I'd surprised him when he told me that; I took him by the collar and pushed him up a wall and told him if he touched the stuff again I'd shop him to the polis. Didn't mean a word of it, but it seemed to impress him. 'Aye, okay then big yin, don't get in a fuss. Ah like glue better anyway, apart from the headaches.' (To which my reply was 'Oh, for God's sake...')
Oi! These kids today!
But was I just jealous? H was about the only drug I'd never tried; the one substance I was genuinely frightened of, because I knew I had an addictive personality and one taste might be too many. Crazy Davey had tried it and given it up, though not without a struggle, and not without losing Christine for a while, but I didn't think that I'd be able to stop. So, did I envy Tommy his experience? I didn't know.
And what was I supposed to say to him? Don't try all the things I've tried? Stay off grass and cultivate the weed? Holy shit; there's logic for you.
Peddle one of the least harmful drugs humanity's ever discovered, and you get twenty years. Peddle something that kills a hundred thousand a year... and you get a knighthood.
Hell no, I don't know what to say to kids like Tommy. It wasn't until I talked to him I even knew what sniffing glue did. You hallucinate, is it, basically. A cheap, nasty, short-lived acid substitute that gives you pounding headaches.
This is progress?
The dog looked up from a dry and empty ashtray, and growled. 'I think he's wantin another one,' Tommy said, digging into one black trouser pocket.
'Nothing for me,' I told him as he got up, taking the ashtray with him. The dog watched him go, then lowered its head onto its paws again. 'When's it his round?' I shouted to Tommy.
'It's his next,' he told me, quite seriously. I looked at him. 'Naw, really; ma uncle gied us a tenner tae buy the dug's drink while I'm looking after him.'
'I bet he leaves before it's his shout.' Tommy brought the ashtray back full of beer and put it down in front of the dog. It sniffed at the beer then looked up at him silently. 'Hmm,' Tommy said, scratching his head. 'Doesnae eem to want it.'
'Maybe he wanted a clean ashtray.'
'Aye... it's a fussy beast sometimes.' He knelt down and risked his right hand again, chuckling the dog under its chin. Its jaws looked like a fur-lined mantrap. 'Yer a fussy beast, aren't ye, TB?'
The door opened and McCann came in, looking a little grey.
He looked down at Tommy on his way to the bar. 'Ma Goad, Tommy, Ah've seen ye with some right dugs in here, but that yin takes the biscuit.' He winked at me. ' Aye, big yin, how's yer heid? ... Mornin, Bella; usual, please.'
'Hi, Mr McCann.' Tommy is strangely deferential to those older than me.
'My head's fine,' I told McCann. 'How's yours?'
'It'll be better by the time I get this down me,' McCann said, bringing a pint of heavy and a whisky to the table. He shifted a canine leg out of the way with his foot as he sat down opposite, and ignored the resulting snarl.
'Hair of the dog?' I suggested.
'Just maintaining an even strain, James; just maintaining an even strain.' He supped his beer. Wee Tommy sat down again. Sounds of lapping came from under the table.
McCann drained half of each drink, then looked under the table. 'That your dug, Toammy?'
'Ma uncle's,' Wee Tommy said. 'It's name's TB.'
'Disnae look ill...' McCann said, looking puzzled.
'Whit were you two up tae last night then?' Tommy asked McCann.
'Ho, you no remember, big yin?' McCann winked at me.
'Dancing in the road,' I said. ' And I know we went for a take-away.
'McCann started laughing. 'That aw?' He found this highly amusing. 'Dancing on a "road"! Ho ho ho!' He finished the whisky, shook his head. 'Ho ho ho!'
'It's Santa,' I said to Tommy.
'Ye remember leavin here?' McCann said.
'... not exactly.'
'Ye made a date with Bella.' He smiled widely to show us his yellowing teeth and much more healthy-looking falsers.
'Oh,' I said. 'Well, she'll understand.' I looked for her at the bar, but she wasn't there.
'We went to the Ashoka; remember that? But no for a takeaway. Dae ye remember sword fightin with the manager?'
'What?'
'Ye dinnae, dae ye?' McCann's grin widened to take in his farthest rear molars.
'McCann, if you're making this up...' This was serious. The Ashoka was my favourite Indian. A swordfight?
'Ah, it wiz only with kebab skewers; Ah think ye'll get back in. Ye were havin a laugh.'
'Yeah, I'll bet I was, but was he?'
'Aw, aye.'
'Thank God for that.'
'Ye remember dancin on the... "road", aye?' McCann winked at Tommy.
'Vaguely.'
'D'ye no remember whit bit a road it wiz?'
'Not exactly. Wasn't outside the police station, was it?'
'Naw.' McCann winked at the grinning Tommy again, then took a long, slow drink of heavy. I waited.
'How about do in the striptease?' he asked, stage-whispering.
'... Oh dear...' I said.
'Ye still no remember?'
'No,' I said miserably. Was that what had happened to my clothes?
'Ye know,' McCann began slowly, leaning forward over the table to me and Tommy, 'the sawn-off flyover?'
Tommy was silent for a second, then sniggered loudly into his vodka and lemonade. I gazed in horror at McCann. I could feel my eyes bulging. McCann's smile threatened to lift the top of his head off.