Fuckin John Lewis.
JOHN LEWIS STORE GUIDE: LADIES’ FASHIONS
I’ll maybe get something for Carole. Something nice. A Christmas Carole.
I can’t hack this though, the crowds and all that shite. I do another big line in the store bogs.
I’m still losing it outside because I’m standing alone (can we stand any other way) and they’re flying past in all directions those shoppers in John Lewis’s those eyes everyplace but mine just please look at me and one bitch in leather troosers does then averts her gaze to the OTHER GOODS heading for HABERDASHERY KNITTING WOOLS CUSTOMERS COLLECTIONS DRESS FABRICS DRESS PATTERNS . . . I say madam, go one floor up just past CARDS and LOST SOULS
Then I see it: £2.35 for a black, paper gift bag to put small gifts into . . . gifts . . . gifts for gifts . . . better to give than to receive . . . still to come . . . the fact, sweating midget spitting tersely into his mobby . . . the vacant procession of sheep up the escalator . . . the big cow you want to just scream GIES A FUCKIN SHAG at or even just look at me please police please please look at me
And I feel the hand on my arm and somebody’s asking if I am alright sir and I pull away and whip out my ID and snarclass="underline" – Police! please me like I please you . . . and then I move away through the house of the lord this great temple of worship to our God of Christian givingness spendingness consumer expenditureness business competitiveness shop and cheat deathness and into the street where the excluded jakeys beg for pennies . . . last night I said those words to poor Ray Our Shirt she reckons you’re a crap lay fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off please police me oh yeah like I police you
I’m fucked and I’m away hame wi nae fuckin presents expect my Man At C&A’s flannels.
Nae presents.
Naebody tae gie them tae anyway.
No way will I sleep. No way. I chop out a line and watch some porn. I’m unable to raise a wank though and it depresses me. I put my decomposing prick away and watch some of the Saturday night programmes I’ve taped. Jim Davidson’s Generation Game. Davidson’s a good comic. He keeps the trash in their place but the ponces at the BBC don’t let him show his full range. It passes the time until the twilight comes and it’s safe for me to crash.
Not Crashing
But I couldn’t crash.
So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun . . .
Some might be, but others, we have work to do. These OTA 1–7 forms won’t complete themselves, worse luck. So I’m out, bright and early, with Gus Bain and we’re cruising deserted streets, looking for a bit of action. The wide cunts will never ease up for something as trivial as Christmas, so neither do we.
It’s no difficult to find your fuckin fly-boys in this city. You’ve got the Leith ones, the Gorgie ones, the South Side ones and the Tollcross ones, although the latter two are fewer now thanks to the redevelopment of the city centre. Theatre and student types have colonised the South Side, with business sorts doing the same to Tollcross.
Ignore the Schemies: these cunts are a law unto themselves. As long as they stey oot ay the city centre, they can kill each other as much as they like on cheap bevvy, fags, drugs and high-cholesterol food. Zero tolerance of crime in the city centre; total laissez-faire in the schemie hinterlands. That’s the way forward for policing in the twenty-first century. Tony Blair’s got the right idea: get those jakey beggars out of the city centres. Dispossessed, keep away . . . we don’t want you at our par-tay . . .
Gus and I are both early birds. I couldn’t kip so that was me. If only I could sleep, but I get the voices in my heid at night and then I start thinking of that thing inside me, eating my guts out. Too many anxiety attacks at night. I wish it was daylight for twenty-four hours. Gus seldom sleeps as well, less so now that the promotion is on the line. We both want to be seen in early. I sometimes leave my car in the car park just to give that illusion. You don’t need to do fuck all, as long as you’re seen to be in early and to leave late. This tactic paid handsome dividends for Toal who was known as an incompetent officer. Look at that cunt now though. But he’ll fuckin well ken.
The first thing Gus said to me on this dull, cold morning was: – Merry Christmas Bruce.
– You n aw Gus.
Christmas Day. Gus wants to start early and finish early for the family dinner. I want to start early and never fucking finish.
– What’s yir plans fir the day then Bruce? he asks.
– The usual family stuff Gus. Yirsel?
– Aye, me too. Edith’s cooking a huge turkey. She’s got Malcom’s wife, Sarah, helping her oot. They’ve got the two wee ones. Then Angus and Fiona are coming over. They’ve just got the one wee lassie. Edith’ll be makin that mulled wine ay hers. We’ll aw be a wee bit tipsy this afternoon. I thought, best just get oot fae under everybody’s feet until it’s aw ready.
I nod knowingly.
I mind of Edith, Gus’s wife. I’ve met her a few times. A cheery soul. Her and mister big-cock Gus wi their family Christmas. Nae wonder the auld hag’s always got a dopey smile on her face. Any hoor gitting that length ay Gus’s fuckin well would. See her mind you: stinking carrion dressed as mutton. I almost feel sorry for auld Gus. It’s nae good huvin the biggest widdin spoon in the kitchen if you’re only using it tae stir the same auld fusty pot ay broth that has long since gone off the boil. So sayeth Bruce Robertson.
Anyway, we’re checking on a morning opening bar doon Leith. One part of the bar is full of polis from the Leith cop shop. Same rules apply in the early opening salons, Christmas fuckin Day or no. They’re mostly uniformed spastics who’ve just knocked off, therefore not worth talking to, but it’s fun to dish out the odd terse, serious nod which makes them para that there’s some internal investigation going on and some of the more corrupt cunts finish their drinks quickly and move on. We dismisseth them. I recognise a couple of faces from the craft; one cunt who I never even knew was polis.
We’re looking over at the other side of the bar which is populated by the criminal classes. I recognise one face at the pool table straight away. A Begbie, definitely. I’m not sure which one, Joseph or Francis or Sean or some other filthy pape name. They all look the same. I think it’s Francis, the worst one. A nasty piece of work. The bastard looks up, then turns away back to the table. That bastard’s so paranoid that if you were to casually ask him in a boozer if he remembers where he was when John Lennon was shot, he’d say that he was playing pool up The Volley and he had loads of witnesses.
But there’s no sign of my pal Ocky. Tisk, tisk, tisk, as they say in the comics. – Maybe get a bit of brekker in, Gus, then hit the spastic’s gaff. See if he’s still stoatin-the-baw.
– Right Bruce, Gus smiles.
Yep, auld Gus is a good old boy. A grandfaither who dotes on his grandchildren, but still one of the most feared interrogators in Christendom. That’s the great thing aboot cunts like Gus, it’s no just a job tae them. He’s a churchy guy and genuinely hates crime and law-breaking. His problem though is he can demonstrate a bit too much Christian compassion at times.
We hit a greasy spoon, a place we know down by the docks. Again, it’s always open, Christmas Day or no. Thank fuck for those places. – What do you think of Ray Lennox putting his name forward for the job? I ask.
– Well, I can see young Ray’s point: it marks his card for the future.
– To me it shows lack of respect for the likes of us Gus. It’s his way of saying he doesnae rate us.
– You reckon?
– I thought that you’d be mair fucked off than anyone: a classic recruitment tactic to narrow the field. If you’ve a choice of three it’s harder than a choice of two. So it was me, you or Arnott. Forget Inglis. No way they’d take a pansy on.
Gus nods intently, concern starting to show in his eyes.
– Now Lennox goes and throws his hat intae the ring. What do the cunts on the board say? They go: It was bad enough with a choice of three, but now it’s four. So the standard tactic is to take the youngest and the oldest and knock them out, just don’t consider them, soas you only have to choose between two. I should be thanking the wee cunt, he’s just eliminated the favourite, that’s you, I point at him, raising my eyebrows in a baleful expression.