The ‘monster’ the other night was that big biker gadgie, Seeker. Cunt doesn’t look any better in the daylight.
Sick Boy’s been chatting up that hostile Molly lassie. ‘Love’s the most dangerous drug of all,’ he solemnly declared, eyes full of seriousness. Of course, she’s falling for this garbage, nodding away. I was too fucked to enjoy his shite and Spud was rabbiting in my ear, about how detox isn’t so bad. ‘Ah jist keep thinkin thit it’s barry somebody cares but, Mark.’
As I left the table I heard some smirking cunt, probably Swanney or Sick Boy, referring to me as Catweazle, after the crazed jakey on telly. With my straggly hair and beard and stooping gait, I sense that’s exactly how I look. I’m happy and relieved to get back to my room.
Get assessed again by that Dr Forbes, who came in from the community drug clinic. He basically asked the same shite questions as before. Couldn’t stop looking at his head; it’s too big for his body, the Gerry Anderson puppet look.
More Coco Pops for dinner, before retiring to my suite. Happy days. Len comes in and talks for a wee bit, mainly about music. We have a half-hearted Beefheart discussion on the merits of Clear Spot (me — a barry record) versus Trout Mask Replica (him — a shite album). He tells me again aboot the guitar in the recky room.
Day 8
At breakfast I had a wee bit of porridge. With salt. Skinny-Specky made some comment about salt in porridge (she took sugar in hers) and we playfully derided her English habits. She insisted that she was Scottish, but Ted and Skreel told her that posh Scots were, to all intents and purposes, the same as the English. I mentioned that there were actually working-class people in England, and social class supplanted nationality as the parameters of our discussion. (Fuck sake — check the student cunt here!)
The Tom gadgie listened intently, as did Seeker, and a new, dark-heided, pointy-jawed, blue-eyed lassie who was introduced by Skinny-Specky as ‘Audrey, from Glenrothes’, as if she was a contestant on the Generation Game.
NOICE TA SEE YA, TA SEE YA, NOICE!
Audrey has replaced Greg ‘Roy’ Castle, who was the first dropout of the rehab programme. Apparently, he couldn’t handle it and opted instead for residency courtesy of Her Majesty at Saughton. Audrey gave us a fretful nod, then sat in silence biting her nails. I felt for her, just shakily emerging from the detox cocoon of her room, the only lassie but one in the group. She looked even worse than I felt, rattling like a bairn’s toy.
‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy here, Audrey,’ Swanney said, sarcasm trickling from his tongue, then added, ‘You don’t have to be addicted to hard drugs to stay here, but it helps!’
Day 9
I take in another dull, fearsome morning. Outside, the white of the daisies on the dewy lawn, and crocuses, yellow, white and purple, spreading like a wave along the bottom of the stone wall. It’s not so bad.
I’m sitting here, writing this shite and wondering why — probably because there’s fuck all else to do. The folders we’ve been issued have two sections; a diary, with one page for each of this forty-five-day programme, and appendices where there’s what they refer to as a ‘journal’. Skinny-Specky explained that this is for ‘developing any themes from the diaries that we may want to explore further’. Apparently the diaries are for our eyes only, and we can put anything into them. The journals we can elect to read out in the forthcoming group sessions. But nobody is going to write a fucking thing (at least not anything important); there are no locks on the doors here and nothing is secure. The fuckers that run this facility haven’t got a clue as to what the cunts in here are like. Keep a private diary when Sick Boy and Swanney are lurking about? Aye, right!
All I can think of is: why the fuck are we here? How the fuck did I get here?
Day 12
WHAT THE FUCK DO THESE CUNTS WANT FROM US?
Day 13
‘Honesty,’ skinny-Specky says, when I raise the issue at breakfast. A runny egg and toasty sodjirs. ‘You’ll understand more when you join the process review group.’
Well, that’s me telt. I must have flashed a soor pus as she adds, ‘That’s what the diaries and journals are all about.’
But when I get back to my room, I immediately start scribbling. If every other fucker’s writing nothing (as seems to be the consensus) then I’m going to get everything down.
Skinny-Specky pops round and tells me she’d like me to join the meditation group. I agree, just basically to spend more time in her presence. We’re sitting cross-legged on the flair, as she puts a tape on and takes position in front of us. I’m ogling her small breasts through her tight, elasticated black top, awed by the way she stretches out, catlike, arching her back before getting into position. She gives us breathing exercises, and instructions to tense and then relax various muscle groups in our bodies. We should shut our eyes, but I’m watching her, then I see that Johnny has his lamps trained in the same direction. He gives me a collusive sex — fiend wink, so I close my eyes and breeeeaaaattthhhhheeee …
After the session, I chat to her for a bit. She’s telling me that by learning to relax our muscles, we can therefore subsequently reduce agitation levels. I don’t trust any theory that inverts cause and effect, and show little enthusiasm for what she’s saying, but when I get to my room, I try the exercises again.
Keezbo has left us. Spud tells me after lunch, as I’m sitting reading Joyce, looking out the window. The Fat Fort Felly was due to finish detox, but they’ve taken him to the hospital, due to supposed ‘medication complications’, whatever the fuck that means. They say he’ll be rejoining us soon. Fat Jambo cunt’s probably already sitting in the Village Inn with a cold pint of lager now that he’s chemical-free.
‘Is that a barry book, Mark?’ Spud asks, looking like he’s formulating something in one of the more intriguing chambers of that labyrinth inside his skull.
‘Aye.’
Then he’s off, and I’m back at the desk. What to write about? Our feelings, says Skinny-Specky. How do I feel? Well, I feel horny as fuck. I can tell that I’m detoxing, not just because I’m by turn depressed and miserable, then anxious and excitable, but because the only respite is my increasing carnal obsessions. I think about Lesley in the bed at Sully’s at New Year, wishing I’d licked her oot, had rode my cock between her heavy tits or even got a gam off of her. It now seems like an opportunity missed and I feel foolish and weak, eaten up with self-reproach — another chance blown. YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT.
Later in the afternoon I masturbated about Joanne Dunsmuir.
Other than Joyce and jerking I keep quiet, detoxing, doing my time.