Discipline begins in the home, said Tim, looking directly at me. Or not at all. Tim was licking the gummed edge of his roll-up. He smiled. It was you said it.
Me?
Aye.
What did I say?
Ye would punch fuck out him. Yer boy, if he went to the hooligan games.
Well so I would. When he was that age. Know what I mean, it’s a long time since he was a teenager.
Tim smiled again, eyes closed and shaking his head. He had a habit of doing that. It was fucking annoying, like ye had said something daft. Why not come out and say it, if that was how he felt. I saw him gie a wee look to Arthur but I didnay say nothing. Him and Arthur could gang up on folk. We were all mates but some were matier than others. It was like that in this world. Since time immemorial. It gied ye a pain in the neck. If ye let it get to ye. I didnay. We cannay be everything to everybody. Nay point trying. I learned that a long time back. It was just that I talked too much. Sometimes I wished I didnay, I wished I could shut up, just shut my fucking mouth.
Nicky Parkes was like that. He hardly said fuck all and was the better for it.
Tim had made him a roll-up as well as one for himself. He got the light from the fire. He didnay have to because him and Tim both had lighters. But it was good using the fire. Same with me if I had smoked. It saved ye lighter fuel as well. But it was more than that. Ye just liked doing it. And then the smell, I aye liked the smell of fires, even auld yins; the smell on yer hands.
We watched Nicky Parkes getting the light. He tore a page out a newspaper and folded it lengthwise. Lengthwise! That made me smile. And it was very tight the way he folded it; ye might say crisp. Deep and crisp and even. When he had it burning he held it for Tim. Tim had to draw his head back in case the flame burnt up his nose and eyelashes. That was close! he said.
Once they had their lights Nicky Parkes dropped the paper on the fire and we watched it flare up then settle; burnt out, the ash blowing. There was a wee swirl of draught roundabout this place, and ye felt it. I did and so did the other three. Auld age; the blood gets thin. Too many fucking aspirin. Imagine the chemist firm that made them went bust, and they stopped manufacturing the cunts: half the male population of Glasgow would collapse with heart attacks. I was going to make a comment on the subject but couldnay be bothered. Tim started telling us about an auld cunt that froze to death. It was in the Evening Times. Nayn of the rest of us had read about it. Froze to death in Scotland! It was hard to believe. All kidding aside, he said. It was a gaff in Miller Street.
There’s nay gaffs in Miller Street, I said, nay cunt lives in Miller Street. No nowadays, it’s all shops and offices.
We’re no talking nowadays.
All I’m saying is naybody lives in Miller Street.
Right enough, said Arthur.
Tim sighed. I’m no gony argue the point. It isnay me saying, it, it was in the Times. They found the auld guy deid; they had to batter down the door and it was a tenement building down Miller Street
A tenement building down Miller Street … I shook my head at that. I thought they were all offices.
They are all offices. Was it upstairs or down? said Arthur
Tim glared at us. How the fuck do I know.
It matters.
Matters fuck all, yez are just being stupid.
It matters if ye’re trying to work it out, said Arthur, that’s all. I’m no trying to get at ye.
Tim sighed.
Did they say where they found him?
I dont fucking know, wait til I phone them.
Naw, said Arthur, likely it was a basement; down a dunny. They auld tenements are full of dunnies. That’s where the auld yin will have been staying. The same round the Clyde walkway. It’s all manholes and dunnies along there. The homeless go down at night; they’ve got saunas and fucking tv lounges down there. Know what I mean, they homeless cunts, they’ve got better conditions than us, better than Barlinnie. Maybe the auld yin done the same, climbed down a manhole and got lost!
Shoosh, I said, I cannay go this right-wing shite.
What d’ye mean? Arthur grinned. It might be shite but it isnay right-wing.
Of course it is: Hate the Homeless week yet again.
Gie us a break.
It was a joke, said Tim.
Aye joke the coalman.
Tim shook his head and dragged on his roll-up, blew out the smoke. He gazed across to the back of the shops. There was a big black dog sniffing about at a pile of bricks. Some size of a dog, he said.
Nicky Parkes was looking at it. I’m fucking starving.
Dont tell me ye’d eat the dog? I said.
Fucking right.
I wonder how come it’s sniffing about there? said Tim. Probably a deid body buried under the ground.
Think so?
Oh aye.
Mind you, said Arthur, it is feasible.
I turned and spat a gob into the fire. It sizzled a moment.
Arthur said, Careful.
What do ye think it’s going to put the fire out?
I didnay mean it like that.
Aw, okay. I nodded, but in a sarcastic way. Arthur annoyed me. He knew he annoyed me. The cunt could-nay make a fire and here he was taking control.
It was me and Nicky Parkes made the fires. Tim helped but no that much. But it didnay matter. I liked making them anyway. I am no saying ye have to be special to make them. But what I will say is: some folk are good at it.
Same when I was a boy. We used to set fire to fields and all sorts, middens and what have ye. We set fires everywhere. There was a rubbish pit no far from our street and we dragged stuff from it. I am talking childhood days, the bygone era. Ye learned about fires. Leather furniture for instance, ye learned about that. Some stuff is dangerous. Motor-car tyres. Rubber. If that lands on yer wrist ye know all about it. Burning rubber; I once got it on my legs. There is more to fires than people think. Nicky Parkes was the same. I knew it the way he built them. And ye have to build them. Fires, I said.
The other three looked at me.
Ye’ve got to build them. I’m talking if ye want them to last.
Oh aye … Tim glanced ower at Arthur.
Nicky Parkes was shaking his head. No at me. He was away thinking about something else. He was even staring in another direction. He was a rude cunt at times. Ye were standing with him but he was away someplace else. How come he palled about with ye? Ye wondered. I liked him but. I dont know why. But I did. He drifted in and out of company. Now ye see him now ye dont.
Like the auld guy, him that died; freezing to death inside a cold tenement building, nay heating or fuck all. What a life. Ye thought ye were doing okay and then ye werenay, ye woke up fucking dead, a block of ice. Poor bastard. Probably he had grandkids too.
The auld yin? said Arthur.
Aye.
Arthur nodded. That’s what I was thinking.
Poor auld cunt.
Heh Tim, what did the headline say?
Man found dead.
Man found dead, it hardly fits the bill. No for something like that, said Arthur, fucking tragedy.
Tragedy’s right, said Tim.
I said: Scandalous. Scandalous is the word I would use.
Nicky Parkes was watching me, he was expecting me to say something more. What? What was I supposed to say? There wasnay a single solitary word. Poor auld cunt, what a way to go. It just wasnay fair. That was the world for ye.
I stepped sideways and edged some burnables into the fire. At least we had a fire. Unlike the auld yin. The truth is I didnay like Tim’s story. I was even half-prepared to know his name. Almost like I knew I would. I asked Tim. Did they gie ye his name?
Him that died?
Aye.
Tim thought about it. Naw, he said.
I shook my head. There was just something about it, some familiar thing.
What do ye think ye knew him?