Too Dead for Dreaming

My eyes are closed like my mouth is closed like my fists are closed. Clenched at my sides, white-knuckle tight, I stand in the middle of the room, mentally daring anyone to come touch me. A hint of skin and I’ll lash out, dangerous and ferocious.

Someone blasts a song. Too theatrical. It sounds like galloping horses. Must be Maiden. I feel a twinge of patriotism, even though the lot of them are too southern and Harris has got a massive stick up his bum when it comes to lyrics.

A hand, on my arm. Before my eyes even open, I’m poised to swing my right fist like a steel-belted scream, but she says, —No.

Full fucking stop.

Just, —no.

Like an apparition, a woman is standing in front of me, eyes dark as night, lips blood red, dark skin flushed. She holds a cigarette between her fingers and it’s the daintiest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.

The song changes. It’s my favourite American lads, singing sultry and rough, they could be here in this room, this house, this town that’s north of middle-of-nowhere and just south of you’ve-never-heard-of-it, in the entirely wrong country. Crooning. It sounds like encouragement.

I’m grabbing her hand, pulling the cigarette from her fingers, breathe it in like I want to do her, all consuming. Breathe out. Her thumb moves across my wrist, the world is slow

Touch my gun, but don’t pull

She’s pinned me against the

my trigger

Her shirt is rough, like brush bristles against my raw

Reach down low

It’s hot.

Was it…
For you

My eyes are closed.

Mouth open wide,

Did you fire this round?

xxx

I wake up with a film of despair clouding my eyes, but I manage to spot a note on my night stand. I fumble for it, nearly falling out of bed. Fucking hell. My head pulsates viciously. The paper crinkles too loudly as I open it and my eyes scan my own handwriting, scrawled and messy.

Starting my own paper trail, one good-bye note at a time. Except this one is just a list of tasks for myself.

Wake up. (Bloody miracle, that one.)
Shower.
Get dressed.
Get to work.
Steal Ben’s bottle of whatever the fuck he has.
Ask Sam for something to take the edge off. (I refuse to beg that twat for anything. ‘Ask’? More like fucking tell him to give me shit. Fuck asking.)
Blast Megadeth. (I can barely tolerate Metallica some days, I must’ve been out of my blooming box to want to play Megadeth at work. Not bloody happening.)
Look alright.
Look alive.

The last one is underlined three times, because I need reminding. Too right, dis-eased Danny.

I manage to get through the next few tasks easily enough, but only because Joe or Ryan, one of those scrotty fuckers, left behind a bindle of something magical for us in the bog.  No need to bother giving Sam orders, as there’s enough left over for a few more hits after the initial bump wears off. Assuming he even shows up to work; dealing is lucrative, it must be. I’ve spent more money scoring than I’ve made, giving other tossers a nice little income.

Whatever was in the bindle sorted me well out. I can see the stars even through the typical English overcast skies, even though it’s just before noon. I feel like walking fire and with bravado, I strut into work, puffed up and proud, because there is no bloke in the world like me. What others call their strengths, I name as weaknesses. 

—Your hair doesn't look like a knob-head job, good work, Worsnop, is Ben's greeting. Of course. Swinging from a bottle of trusty Jack, good lad. 

—Well, your girlfriend had enough strength left to fix it for us this morning. Glad you like her handiwork. I'll let her know. 

—Cunt, he hands over the bottle with a grin, heading back to work.

Another task down.

I watch him stack albums and move crates around, admiring his ethic. I can’t be arsed to help him out when I’m coasting on this high. I feel like I can set the entire world aflame just by breathing in, breathing out. As if I didn’t already put the cock in cockiness. I finish off the Jack, feeling infinitely warmer as the whiskey settles at the bottom of my stomach, lining my organs evenly. I can feel it in my veins, replacing the pulsating hangover I woke up with.

After a quarter of an hour, he’s done and there’s not much left for us (for him) to do, so we faff about on the instruments the bosses keep around, trying to maintain the record shop’s ‘cool’ rep, although it doesn’t have much of one. Ben’s going to town on this beautiful six-string with feminine curves, and I’m crossing off the last two items of my list as I sing along.

Look alright.

Look alive.

We’re playing a Poison tune as a joke when these two birds pass by the shop, smiling lithe slags who bat their eyelashes coyly when they walk into the shop, hips swinging. We should’ve been singing Warrant, what with these little slices of cherry pie walking in, but I wouldn’t want us to be too transparent.

One of them, a tidy red-head with curves similar to the guitar, sizes me up with her big blue eyes, and it’s not long before I’m leading her to the back and we’re taking a bump from the bindle in the loos. In minutes, her tight jeans are scrunched on the floor, blouse precariously on the edge of the toilet seat. We’re snogging like it’s the end of the world, her breath is hot and moist against my skin, and she moans, —slide it in real slow.

I swear I’ve heard that phrase before, a few weeks ago, or last night, although it’s not rare for a bird to moan that in my ear just before I ignore them and shag them however I bloody want. Silly tarts, thinking this is about them or about us as a cohesive unit. No. But it’s really cute that they think so.

She comes just before I do, although I had no intentions or concerns about her orgasm, just my own. She smiles as she kisses me one last time before bending down to pick up her clothes.

I’m annoyed. Annoyed that I shared my drugs with her, that I had to help her take off her jeans, that her hair got in my face as I took her from behind, that she thought it okay to come before me. I spot a potential idea for retribution and with a smirk, I bump into her body lightly and she stumbles onto the toilet, her blouse falling in.

—Sorry, love, I’m a bit discombobulated.

—Fucking hell, she sobs, and she sounds like a child, and on top of being annoyed, I’m slightly disgusted with myself. She probably is a child, with a fantastic set of tits. —I’m not fishing that out, you get it.

—Yeah, right, I scoff, zipping up my own trousers. I pull out the bindle and snort the rest of its contents. She’s still whinging about her blouse and what’ll she wear out, and there’s bile rising up at my throat, although I don’t know if it’s because the bird is getting on my nerves that much or because of the magic bindle, but either way. I shove her unceremoniously out of the toilet and promptly chuck all of the Jack I drank earlier onto her blouse in the shitter.

—Now you’ve gone and fucked it up! She screams. I yank my t-shirt over my head, nearly ripping it in the process and toss it to her.

—Can you fuck off now, you little scrubber? You’re really getting on my goat and I don’t have to tolerate you, you ain’t my girlfriend. Take your little friend out there, too, unless Bruce isn’t done with her. I spit out a bit more bile. I should really start eating again.

Her face crumples before she storms out of the bathroom, although she’s probably going to be a big girl about it and gossip rather than cry. Not that I give a single flying fuck.

I wait a few more beats and emerge. The girls are gone and Ben’s back to pounding that guitar, a stupid-looking smirk on his face as he runs his fingers along the strings.

—Need a t-shirt? Ben asks with a laugh. —We’ve got a couple ratty ones in the backroom. I don’t think the world is ready to see that much of Danny Worsnop.

—I could not care less if the world is ready or not, I say, although the usual bite is gone from my words. The crash is coming too fast for my liking, this high lasted all of ten seconds, not nearly long enough to keep me satisfied. Or keep me away from reality, as it were. Whatever. I can’t think straight, I can’t process what Ben’s saying to me, something about the girls? Or some other girl, probably, there’s been so many bints in my life and only a handful have meant anything to me.

—Danny.

The heels of my hands are digging into my eyes and suddenly I’m so tired, so very tired. What was in that bindle? Why do I feel like hell?

I need to pull my note out of my pocket and re-write those last two lines.

Look alright.
Look alive.

—Danny?

—Sorry, mate, I didn’t get much sleep last night.

—Go home, dude. You look like shit. That girl really took a lot out of you.

—Soul-sucking incubus, what can you do. I’m not going to fight him about me leaving early, but I ain’t looking forward to having to take public transit home. I decide to ditch the tube and take a bus; nowhere near as putrid-smelling as the train. The ride is smooth enough and it almost lulls me to sleep, but there’s a gnawing hunger at the pit of my stomach, which I’m probably going to fill with strong tea and stronger gin.

Joe opens the door as I’m struggling with the keys and he’s smiling at me, which is a genuinely terrifying vision. The guy hardly ever smiles but it’s like he’s actually happy to see me, though if I didn’t see him for years, I’d be equally as happy.

—Alright, Dan? I don’t say anything in response. —Some girl stopped by, left you a note. He holds the door to steady himself. Maybe the bindle was Joe’s and he’s just happy, but not about me. It’d make a hell of a lot more sense.

—Girl? Was it Ren?

He shakes his head slowly, —noooo, she was tall and tan and dark and lovely. Young, too. His eyelids flutter closed. God, what a nonce. He hums the rest of the song as he goes off into the flat and I head to my room, wishing I was out of my mind, out of this flat, out of this country. Typical litany.

My vision is just as blurred as it was this morning when I open the note up. It’s just a heart, sloppy and large, coloured in with lipstick kisses. The heart is shaped like a bracelet I’ve seen on someone. Was it a bracelet, or something else?

Fuck if I know.

I toss the note aside, thinking of which bird could’ve possibly stopped by and left me a lipstick note, bright red lipstick, but I can’t think of anyone. It’s a new mystery to solve for the mystery gang I’m not a part of, so I sleep instead.