‘I am.’
‘Not worried about the DST? About going back to the Land of Children's Jokes?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, and why's that?’ Gyggle supported the axle of his pelvis on the couch and peered down at Ian.
‘Because I don't think I'm going back. I think I've cracked it. You see’ — he blushed — ‘I met this girl — woman — and well, you see, we made love. And it didn't happen. It didn't come off.’
‘I do see,’ said the shrink, a smirk oozing out from behind the beard. ‘That is interesting. But there's a lot more to achieving full genitality, Ian, than the one apparently successful roll in the hay. You appreciate that, don't you?’
‘Yes, of course, that's why I'm here. I've got something to live for now, something other than products. I want to be one hundred per cent fit — ’
‘Rid of all the old bugaboos?’
‘Exactly,’ said Ian, grinning at Gyggle's use of language.
‘Good. I'll give you the pre-med then.’
There are many different ways of using drugs, many giddy variations on the basic theme of intoxication. Who can doubt that a vicar sipping a gin and tonic in the rectory garden isn't a million miles away from the urban crack head, searing his flesh with flaming acetone? Or that the psychotropic trances of the Sibundoy Valley shamans are not separated by many worlds of possibility from the monoxide-promoted drone of those who take the Silk Cut challenge? That being noted, The Fat Controller used drugs in the only way that really matters, to manipulate and distort, to retard and stunt, to cajole and control. He had a kind of drug-thing going in London. It was useful to him and it involved Richard Whittle, Beetle Billy and all the other no-hopers who hung around Gyggle's DDU. They were unruly participants, unsurprisingly. But that wasn't a problem, for he had one of his most trusted confrères in situ.
As Ian lay on the couch feeling Gyggle's Omnipom flood into him, Richard Whittle and Beetle Billy were coming out of the Tube at King's Cross. They found themselves bang in the middle of the wide-paved apron that runs in front of the station and along the Euston Road. It was covered in people, paper sellers, commuters, art students, immigrants, refugees, justices of the peace, articled clerks, nutritionists, cricket fans, loss-adjusters, cooks and junkies. Junkies singly and in huddles, junkies walking briskly on serious business and junkies idling, mooching along trying to appear relaxed, interested in their surroundings like ideal tourists.
Within twenty yards Richard and Beetle Billy were accosted by a short Italian with a knife-slash on his cheek and an English brass on his arm.
‘You lookin'?’ asked the Italian out of the corner of his mouth. He had the occupational skill of street junkies the world over, an ability to project his voice into another junky's ear from some distance, whilst remaining inaudible to the general public. Richard looked at Beetle Billy — the stupid car-repair man was wise to at least one event. His conjunctival eyes looked at Richard and filmed over still further.
‘Nah,’ said Richard.
‘Whassermatter!?’ the brass screeched after them. ‘Iss reely good gear an’ that.’ But they were already too far off.
They strode towards the corner. The Pentonville Road ski-jumped away from them, lifting off towards the Angel. On the other side of the road in front of the bookie's, there was a mêlée of low-life. Even so, the junkies were holding themselves aloof from the dossers. The dossers had no pride. They built lean-tos out of plastic milk crates, right on the pavement. Then they got inside and pissed themselves. No, those dossers had no pride. But those junkies, on the other hand, what a fine upstanding bunch. There they all were, wavering in a line, necks craned to catch the junk messages from the hot ether. A dosser stands out a mile but a junky is a member of the plainclothes division of debauchery. Officers in this elite echelon are trained to recognise one another by eye-contact alone.
Beetle Billy pointed at a figure in the line. ‘Thass Lena, man, she steers for one of those black geezers from the East End, less give her a try.’
‘You lookin'?’ asked the smallish blackish girl.
‘Yo’ where y’ at, girl? Don’ recognise me nor nuffin’. Iss me, Beetle Billy.’ The girl sighed. ‘Leroy ‘bout, girl?’
From nowhere — or so it seemed to Richard — an immaculately dressed, coal-black young man appeared. Without saying anything, just by little jerks and nods of his flat-topped head, he piloted them across the road and towards the Midland City Line Station. They turned right past the Scala Cinema, crossed the Gray's Inn Road and then dived down a side street.
The coal-black man started to talk. ‘Less get a ways off,’ he said. ‘There's a lot of bother an’ that around an’ I don’ hold wiv it. No, man, no way, no, sir.’ He turned to Richard flicking a penetrating stare. ‘I'm Leroy, man, I'm Leroy, Le-roy. Remember that name, man, because I am the original Leroy, man — don’ ‘cept no substitute an’ that — ‘ cause others may imitate but I o-rig-in-ate. Me come fe’ mash up de area — ’
‘Blud claat, Ras claat!’ exclaimed Beetle Billy. They stopped and gave each other five.
‘Now, what you want, boys?’ Just like that Leroy switched back from patois to Cockney. They were walking through a small estate of four-storey, red-brick blocks. Leroy drew them into a recess where huge rubbish canisters crouched on three-wheeled bases.
‘We just want a bag thanks, Leroy,’ Richard replied.
‘Hey, I like you, man. You remember my name, man, that shows some respect, y'know, you ain't dissin’ me an’ that.’ While he was talking a little white bead or polyp of plastic appeared between two of the gold rings on his hand. He proffered it to them. ‘There you go,’ said Leroy. ‘Thass why I like to get a ways off. So my punters can see what they're gettin’ an’ that, yerknowhatImean?’
‘I can't look at this, Leroy,’ said Richard. ‘It'll take me half an hour to get the packaging off. Why can't you guys ever put your stuff in a good old-fashioned paper bindle?’
‘Hey! You know why that is, man. Anyways you ain't buying the stuff on account of its packaging, now are you?’
‘No, that's true but every product has some kind of packaging and you could say that that effects its saleability — it may even represent added-value to the customer.’
The dealer paused for a moment, obviously taken by Richard's observation on the mechanics of his marketing. There was silence in the garbage recess, except for the faint ‘chk-chk’ noise made by Leroy's rings rubbing together and the distant grating of the traffic.
‘I hear you, bro’, said Leroy at length, ‘but a bit of gear ain't really a product as such. I mean it's not like a Custard Cream or a Painstyler, it's not an original created product. It's just — like — well — “gear”, innit?’
‘Yeah,’ Beetle Billy joined in. ‘Iss like a whatsit, a generik, innit.’
‘A generic?’ queried Richard.
‘Yeah, like an ‘oover. An ‘oover was just a product to begin wiv’. But now everyone calls any thingy thass like an ‘oover, an ’oover.’
‘I see, I see what you mean,’ mused Richard. Leroy shifted uneasily in his penny loafers, his expensively suited shoulders rubbed ‘shk-shk’ against the brickwork. ‘But, Billy, the Hoover was created as an individual product and then through its very ubiquity it became a generic term. Now this stuff’ — he pointed at the bead of heroin between Leroy's knuckles — ‘has a proper name but there are numerous slang terms that refer to it, neither as a product nor as a generic — ’
‘Of course it's a product,’ Leroy broke in. ‘Sheee! Someone grow it, right? Someone pro-cess it, right? Someone even im-port it, right? I know, sure as fuck that someone whole-sale it, right? Now I'm tellin’ you people,’ and here he paused and ran a fluttering hand around the space between the three of them, ‘that I am re-tailin’ this ‘ticular pro-duct. So if you want it — pay for it, an’ if you don't — say so, man, ‘cause I've got to get back out to the front of the store.’