Filth

Christmas Shopping

Cuntybaws Lennox, having dropped the bombshell that he’s trying to take my fuckin job, then has the audacity to all but chuck me out into the snow as he’s off to the paternal home for Christmas. Fuck’um: I need to Christmas shop anyway. They’re open late tonight. I have a pint in Alan Anderson’s old boozer, then repair to the bogs where I chop up a huge line on the cistern and snort it back. I need it to brave this shopping hell. I get down to the St James’s Centre. I have to use the coke energy to shop. Christmas fuckin Eve. Need tae get something for the bairn . . .

C&A’s catches my eye, as I need to get some new flannels. All my others are getting a bit smelly and I refuse to wear jeans as it’s the mark of a schemie. I grab a pair of fawn ones which look like my size, twenty-eight waist, medium leg, and I shakily hand over my credit card. The Visa credit limit is fucked, and I face up to the humiliation of the rejection. I pay it by Switch, and get the fuck out of here, loudly announcing as I go, – Cash flow, that’s all. Professional. Not a schemie. Man of wealth! Man of wealth!

But the vultures are circling. I can’t face that fucking Toys Я Us place. Where now . . . where now . . .

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 snarl: – 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.