Creative Drinking

The teacher fella said you should write about what you know. This is what has got me thinking and, quite honestly, I’m finding the whole thing quite depressing. My whole life, I realised, was geared precisely not to think about things at all; not serious things at any rate. Horse-racing, getting a bevvy, having a laugh with mates, maybe getting a bird to shag; that’s been my whole life, really, and I’m really beginning to regret starting this Creative Writing class at the local ‘centre’. I was trying to give up the drink and saw the brochure in the library; I’ve always fancied I was a good letter writer so I thought why not; at least it’ll keep me occupied.

But, write what you know about? Failed relationships? He wasn’t the sort of bloke to have ‘relationships’. He shagged women, he even showed them affection more than occasionally, he even fathered children by them – five weans, five grandchildren though one was half-caste, a grandchild, not one of his own – not a bad total that. He went with the sort of women who demanded to be hit; asked for it. He wasn’t above head-butting them too if they got wide, and they could get plenty wide. Feral, cunning women not used to soft men.

Building sites, bookies, nights in the pubs, carry-oots, a kick in the haw-maws and a sore face, a few weeks in pokey and the delight of shagging a bird when they let you oot.

In my early days (even these days, if truth be told) it would be a wee bit o’ speed and a spliff. Got nicked once walking down the road wi’ ma big mate Jackie to Joe McSkag’s for a coupla tabs of acid. Outstanding child-support or fines or some such shite. Just as well I wasn’t walking back; especially if I’d swallowed one. Imagine gettin’ lifted just on the cusp of a whizz-bang trip on the old LSD? Fucking nightmare. Anyway; three weeks in Pentonville for ma sins and Big Jackie stayin’ wi’ ma burd in oor wee bedsit in Walthamstow. Hope he knows to behave himself, I remember thinking. Wouldn’t trust ma mad nympho burd as far as I could chuck her, which wouldnae be far, the fucking heffer.

Prison was tough and lonely as it was my first time (been in again since like!). I had to make a stand with the screws and refused to go in my cell until they’d given it a good mop and a clean as it was rank wi’ the smell o’ pish. They acted tough but they could see I wouldn’t budge, and I was a mad looking bastard back then, ‘like a fucking Jacobite’ my big mate Jackie would tell me. I wasn’t really sure what he was on about, but it seemed to suit my big frizz of red hair and beard and, though not fearless by any means, I’d never back down. Still won’t.

The main focus of my life without any doubt has been drink. Everything I’ve ever done whether it be work, signing-on, palling aboot wi’ chums, all centred around drink. My whole life has been drink.

Me and Big Jackie met in a pub up the High Road here and became bosom pals overnight. He’d nowhere to live at the time and we were baith blootered so he ended up coming back with me to the wee bedsit I shared wi’ the burd. He insisted on sleeping on the floor but with drunken generosity (and possibly because it was his tax rebate that we were pissing up the wa’) I told him to get in the bed wi’ me and her. No funny business you understand, although once or twice I’d climb on her bones while he pretended to be asleep.

But, it’s all been about the drink. Still is, though I sometimes try to get on the wagon. So difficult though, unless you just live with yourself all the time; stay in every night, watch the racing by yourself. The greatest thing is to be with a group of lads on the bevvy, so I always give in to it. I can understand that Gazza fella perfectly. He’s chasing past memories of glorious nights out with his friends, but I don’t think he’ll ever find them again.

I’m not a completely stupid man, though. I was, for quite a while, a manager of a Mecca bookies. Magic as a settler I was, could count them up in my head, trebles, accumulators. Got sacked in the end for ‘borrowing’ a little too much from the till. Was always gonna pay it back but it just got a little out of hand. And, what was the money for? You guessed it.

I don’t have much contact with my brother, Sammy, anymore, though he only lives up the road there with his bird, the most boring woman who ever drew breath. The main reason I don’t see him is because he’s stopped drinking. Biggest bevvy-merchant in London oor Sammy until she said it’s me or the drink. I know which one I’d have chosen but he told me he saw his future as a lonely drunk and shat it. Maybe, deep down, that’s why I cannae face seeing him, apart from huvin tae put up wi’ droopy drawers and him there sookin ehs sweeties, maybe I’ve become what he feared.

When we both bevvied we had some spectacular fights which I would always, always win. He was a gemmie wee fucker and sometimes I had to mash his cranium with a kettle or whatever was handy to stop him. One time I heidered him right doon a flight of stairs and the wee bastard still got up for more. Big Jackie was like Harry fuckin’ Gibbs trying to calm us doon and keep us away from the burd who was pregnant at the time wi’ wee Jason, my eldest. But, he didn’t understand what it was all about. Brothers need to fight because deep inside, brothers hate each other and they have to get all this bile out so that they can love each other again. I liked Big Jackie a lot but he was a fucking poof when it came to fighting.

I don’t have much connection with ma weans and grand-weans. There’s nothing really I can give them. The odd time I’ll chip in, if it’s an important birthday or anniversary, but other than that I’m not really interested. I had one ‘ex’ who tried to get me done for non-maintenance and that got pretty nasty, but I sorted her out eventually.

Noo I’ve just got the horses and the drink and I’m hitting sixty next month. I’ve got a load of pals (so long as I keep drinking) and a fair bit of respect around this wee community in north-east London. Last I heard Big Jackie was some sort of teacher fella in a ‘university’ up north, though he was always telling porkies. He used to say he’d done time in the Bar-L, but had he fuck!

So, if this creative writing bloke wants to read this, then this is what I know about. I’ve no regrets, really. I’d maybe have liked to be still managing a bookies but it disnae keep me awake at night. I’d have been sacked ten times by now. I don’t miss Scotland and I don’t get all soppy about no’ seeing my family and weans. I do things the way I think they should be done, everybody has to look out for themselves in this world, you live it as you see it. I’m no alcoholic, it’s just that my chosen life-style – pubs, banter, cards, pool, racing – includes the bevvy at its central core and, without it, none of the rest is worth a candle. My gravestone should say…

“He drank when he could and never cried about it”

But, Im no feart o’ death, though I kind of know it could be slow and painful, but I’ll still drink and have a fag if I’m able.

Hopefully, I’ll drap doon deid in the street.

That would be best…..