The Acid House Read online

  Whair's it ye come fae, mate?

  Marchmont!

  Hi Skanko, the boy's fi Marchmont.

  Big hooses up thair mate. Bet you've goat plenty fuckin poppy.

  Naw? Bit ye stey in a big hoose bit.

  No that fuckin big!

  No that fuckin big, eh sais!

  You stey in a fuckin castle!

  D'ye hear the cunt? No that fuckin big.

  Whit's it ye dae, mate, ye wurkin?

  Aye, fuckin right ya cunt!

  Aye ... bit whit dis that make ye? Whit's it make ye whin yir finished?

  A fuckin Accountint!

  Hear that Skanko! SKANKO! C'mere the now. C'MERE THE NOW, YA CUNT!

  This cunt's fuckin tellin ays eh's an Accountint.

  Eh? What the fuck you sayin?

  Aye, right.

  Well, a trainee Accounting

  Trainee Accountant, Accountant, same fuckin thing; tons ay fuckin hireys.

  Naw.

  Naw, the boy isnae a poof.

  Ah jist thoat that, mate, ken wi you bein intae the rugby n that.

  Ye goat a burd, mate?

  Eh?

  Thoat ye sais ye wirnae a poof. Ivir hud a ride?

  Whit d'ye mean leave the cunt? Jist askin a simple question.

  Ivir hud a ride, mate?

  Either ye huv or ye huvnae. Jist a fuckin question. Ye dinnae huv tae git a beamer.

  That's awright then.

  Jist a question, see.

  Jist wi you bein intae rugby, ken.

  That's ma burd ower thair.

  HI KIRSTY! AWRIGHT DOLL! Be ower in a minute. Jist huvin a wee blether wi ma mate here, likesay.

  No bad, eh? Tidy, eh?

  Eh! You fancy ma burd, ya dirty cunt?

  Eh! You tryin tae say ma burd's a fuckin hound? You tryin tae git fuckin wide?

  Naw?

  Jist is well fir you, ya cunt.

  So ye like rugby, eh? Fitba's ma game. Ah nivir go bit. Barred fae the fuckin groond. Anywey, fitba's fuckin borin shite n aw. Dinnae huv tae go tae me game. Maist ay the action takes place before n eftir the game. Heard ay the Hibs Boys? The CCS? Aye?

  Take the swedgin ootay fitba, it's fuckin deid.

  Goan gies a song, mate. One ay they poof songs ye sing in the rugby clubs before yis aw shag each other.

  Jist a wee fuckin song then, cunt!

  Jist askin the boy tae gies a fuckin song. Nae hassle likes.

  Gies a song, mate. C'Moan!

  EH! SHUT UP WI THAT SHITE! Flower ay fuckin Scotlin. Shite! Ah hate that fuckin song: Oh flow-ir-ay-Scot-lin ... fuckin pish. Gies a real song. Sing Distant Drums.

  Whit dae ye mean leave urn? Ah'm jist askin the cunt tae sing. Distant Drums.

  Eh?

  Ye dinnae ken Distant fuckin Drums? No? Listen tae me, mate, ah'll fuckin sing it.

  I HEAR THE SOUND DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH OF DIS-TINT DRUMS

  DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH

  SING YA CUNT!

  I hear the sound of distant drums. It's easy. You're the cunt wi degrees n that. Ye kin understand that. I-HEAR-THE-SOUND-OF-DISTANT-DRUMS.

  That's better, hi, hi, hi.

  Skanko! Kirsty! Hear the cunt! Distant fuckin Drums!

  Barry. Right. Mine's a boatil ay Becks mate. The mate n aw. The burds ur oan Diamond Whites. That's Leanne, Skanko thair's burd ken?

  Cheers, mate.

  See Skanko, the cunt's awright. Sound fuckin mate ay mines, by the way.

  Whit did ye say yir name wis, mate?

  Alistair, right

  That's fi Alistair.

  Cheers, mate

  S'at you away now, mate? Aye? See ye men.

  Distant Drums, eh mate!

  What a fuckin nondy cunt! Hud the daft cunt singin that auld song.

  Distant fuckin Drums, ya cunt.

  Becks then Skanko. Jist cause ay the the boy gittin yin, disnae mean tae say you dinnae need tae. Short airms n deep poakits this cunt, eh Leanne?

  Cheers! Tae rugby cunts; fuckin poofs bit here's tae thum!

  THE ACID HOUSE

  Something strange was happening over Pilton. Probably not just Pilton, Coco Bryce considered, but as he was in Pilton, the here and now was all that concerned him. He gazed up at the dark sky. It seemed to be breaking up. Part of it had been viciously slashed open, and Coco was disconcerted by what appeared to be ready to spill from its wound. Shards of bright neon-like light luminated in the parting. Coco could make out the ebbs and flows of currents within a translucent pool which seemed to be accumulating behind the darkened membrane of the sky, as if in readiness to burst through the gap, or at least rip the wounded cloud-cover further. However, the light emanating from the wound seemed to have a narrow and self-contained range; it didn't light up the planet below.

  Then the rain came: at first a few warning spits, followed by a hollow explosion of thunder in the sky. Coco saw a flash of lightning where his glowing vision had been and although unnerved in a different way, he breathed a sigh of relief mat his strange sighting had been superceded by more earthly phenomena. Ah wis crazy toe drop that second tab ay acid. The visuals ur something else.

  His body, if left to its own devices would tend towards rubber, but Coco had enough resources of the will and enough experience of the drug to remember that fear and panic fed off them-selves. The golden rule of 'stay cool' had been mouthed by wasters down the decades for good reason. He took stock of his situation: Coco Bryce, tripping alone in the park at roughly three o'clock in the morning, lightning flashing from a foreboding sky above him.

  The possibilities were: at the very least he'dbe soaked to the skin, at worst he'd be struck by lightning. He was the only tall thing around for a few hundred yards, standing right in the middle of the park. — Fuck sakes, he said, pulling the lapels of his jacket together. He hunched up and stole quickly down the path that split the massive canine toilet which was West Pilton Park.

  Then Coco Bryce let out a small whisper, not a scream, just a murmur, through a soft gasp. He felt his bones vibrate as heat surged through his body and the contents of his stomach fell to displace those of his bowels. Coco had been struck by something from the sky. Had his last vision before he let go of consciousness not been one of the concrete path rising to meet him, he might have thought: lightning.

  Who What When How WHAT AM I?

  Coco Bryce. Brycey fae Pilton. Brycey: one ay me Hibs Boys. Coco Fuckin Bryce, ya radge, he tried to shout, but he had no voice with which to make himself heard. He seemed to be blowing limply in a wind, but he could feel no currents of air nor hear their whistle. The nearest he could approximate to any sensation was that of being a blanket or a banner, floating in a breeze, yet he had still no sense of dimension or shape. Nothing conveyed to his cauterised senses any notion of his extent; it seemed as if he both encompassed the universe and was the size of a pin-head.

  After a while he began to see, or sense, textures around him. There were images alright, but there was no sense of where they were coming from, or how they were being processed, no real sense of him having a body, limbs, a head, or eyes. Nonetheless these images were clearly perceived; a blue-black backdrop, illuminated by flickering, sparkling shapeless objects of varying mass, as unidentifiable as he was himself.

  Am ah dad? Is this fuckin deid? COCO FUCKIN BRYCE!

  The black was becoming more blue; the atmosphere he was moving around in was definitely getting thicker, offering more resistance to his sense of momentum.

  Coco Bryce

  It was stopping his movement. It was like a jelly, and he realised that he was going to set in it. A brief panic gripped him. It seemed important to keep moving. There was a sense of a journey needing to be completed. He willed himself on and could make out, in the distance, an incandescent centre. He felt a strong sense of elation, and using his willpower, travelled towards this light.

  This fuckin gear isnae real. Eftir ah come doon, that's it, that's me fuckin well finished!

&nb
sp; * * *

  Rory Weston's hands shook as he put the receiver down. He could hear the screams and shouts coming from the other room. For a moment, no more than a few seconds, Rory wished he wasn't occupying this particular space and time. How had all this happened? He began to trace the sequence of events that led to this, only to be disrupted by another violent shriek from through the wall. — Hang on, Jen, they're on their way, he shouted, running through towards the source of the agonised cacophony.

  Rory moved over to the swollen, distressed figure of his girlfriend, Jenny Moore, and crushed her hand in his. The Parker Knoll settee was soaked with her waters.

  Outside, the thunder roared on, drowning out Jenny's screams for the neighbours.

  Jenny Moore, through her pain, was also thinking about the cumulation of circumstances which led her to be in this condition in this Morningside flat. Her friend Emma, also pregnant, though a month less advanced than Jenny, had caught sight of their waddling figures reflected in a shop window in Princes Street. — God sakes, Jen, look at us! You know, I sometimes wish, looking back to that cold winter's evening, mat I'd given Iain that blow-job instead, she exclaimed.

  They had laughed at this; laughed loudly. Well, Jenny wasn't laughing now.

  I'm being torn apart and this bastard sits over me with that stupid fucking expression on his face.

  What did it take out of them physically? It was just another fuck for those bastards. We had it all to do, but there they all were telling us how to do it, controlling us — gynaecologists, fathers to be, all men; together in a sickly pragmatic conspiracy . . . the scumbags have already disengaged emotionally from you; you're just the receptacle to carry the precious fruit of their sweaty bollocks into the world, through your fucking blood. . . But you're being hysterical darling. . . it's all those hormones, all over the place, just listen to us, we know best. . .

  The bell went. The ambulance had arrived.

  Thank god they're here, the men. More bloody men. Ambulance-MEN. Where the fucking hell were the ambulance WOMEN?

  — Easy Jen, there we go . . . Rory said with what was meant to be encouragement.

  There WE go? she thought, as another wave of pain, worse this time than anything she had known, tore through her. This time the thunder and lightning of the freakiest freak storm to hit Scotland simply couldn't compete. She was almost blacking out with the pain as they got her on the stretcher, down the stairs and into the van. No sooner did they start up than they realised they wouldn't make the hospital.

  — Stop the van! shouted one of the ambulancemen. — It's happening now!

  They stopped the van by the side of the deserted Meadows. Only the flashing bolts of lightning; strange, persistently luminous and following awkward, uncharacteristic trajectories, lit up the starkly darkened sky. One of these bolts struck the ambulance parked in that deserted road as Jenny Moore was trying to push the offspring of her and her partner Rory Weston out into the world.

  * * *

  AW THIS IS NOWT TAE FUCKIN DAE WI ME

  COCO

  COCO BRYCE

  BRYCEY

  COLIN STUART BRYCE

  I N STUUUUUAAAAAAARRRTTTT T T T B R COLINSTUARTBRYCE

  Colin Stuart Bryce, or Coco Bryce, the Pilton casual, as he perceived himself to be, although he could not be too sure anymore, floated in the heightless void of gel, toward its white luminous centre. He became aware of something racing toward him at great speed, approaching from that far-off central point he had sensed. While the now thick and solidifying gel had begun to constrain the life-force that was Coco Bryce, this other energy source negotiated it with the ease of light travelling through air. He could not see this, only gain a notion of it through some strange, indefinable conglomeration of the senses.

  It seemed to sense him too, for it slowed down as it approached him, and after hesitating, shot past him at speed and was gone, vanishing into the indistinct environment around him. However, Coco had a chance to sense what it was, and it was like nothing he d witnessed before, an elongated blue, glass-like, cylindrical-shaped force, yet in a bizarre way it felt human; just as he, Coco Bryce, still considered himself to be human.

  He felt elated as the light grew closer, more powerful, beckoning him. He felt that if he could get to it, everything would be all right. Hopeful, he willed himself on through the rapidly thickening gel. Propulsion, achievable purely through the exercise of will, was becoming increasingly difficult. No idea of where he was, of his shape, size, or his senes in the discrete categories of sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, these seeming obsolete, yet him somehow able to experience the exploding kaleidoscope of colours beyond the gel that engulfed him; to feel the movement and the resistance to that movement.

  It was growing darker. As soon as that awareness hit him, he noted it was pitch black. Coco felt fear. He had slowed down completely now, grinding to a halt. His will no longer served as a driving mechanism. The light was closer though. The Light. It was upon him, around him, in him. LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHTLIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHTLIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT

  LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHTLIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT DARKER DARKER DARKNESS

  Heaven or hell, wherever this is, ah'm fuckin closin in! Thir's gaunny be some changes aroond here, ya cunts! Coco Bryce. Pilton. Distinguished honours at Millwall (preseason friendly), Pittodrie, Ibrox and Anderlecht (UEFA Cup). Coco Bryce, a top boy. A cunt that messes is a cunt that dies. See if any cunt. . . if any cunt gits . . . if any cunt. . .

  His thoughts trailed out insipidly. Coco was frightened. At first the fear was an insidious quease, then it became brutally stark and raw as he felt great forces on him, crushing and pulling at him. It felt as if he was in the grip of a vice while simultaneously another power tried to tear him from its grasp. These forces, though, enabled him to define his body for the first time since this strange journey had begun. He knew he was human, all too human, too vulnerable to the powers that crushed and wrenched at him. Coco prayed for a victor in the struggle between the two great and evenly matched forces. The torture lasted for a while, then he felt himself being torn from the void. He had only sensed THE LIGHT before, but now he could actually see it, burning through his closed eyelids, which he could not open. And then he realised there were voices:

  — It's a beauty!

  — A wee laddie for ye, hen, eh's a wee cracker n aw.

  — Look, Jen, he's wonderful!

  Coco could sense himself being held up; could sense his body, where his limbs were. He tried to shout: Coco Bryce! Hibs Boys! What's the fuckin score, ya cunts?


  Nothing came from his lungs.

  He felt a slap on his back and an explosion of air within him, as he let out a loud, wrenching scream.

  * * *

  Dr Callaghan looked down at the young man in the bed. He had been comatose, but now that he had emerged into consciousness, he was displaying some strange behavioural patterns. He couldn't speak, and writhed around in his bed, thrashing his arms and legs. Eventually he had to he constrained. He screamed and cried.

  Cold.

  Help.

  — Waaahhh! screamed the youth. At the foot of his bed he had a nametag: COLIN BRYCE.

  Hot.

  Help.

  — Waaahhh!

  Hungry.

  Help.

  — Waaahhh!

  Need hug.

  Help.

  — Waaahhh!

  Want to pish, shite.

  Help.

  — Waahhh!

  Dr Callaghan felt that, through his screaming, the youth was perhaps trying to communicate; though he couldn't be sure.

  * * *

  On the ward Jenny held her son. They would call him either Jack or Tom, as they had agreed, because, she considered with a sudden surge of cynicism, that's what people like them tended to do. They were located in an eighties English-speaking strata where culture and accent are homogenous and nationality is a largely irrelevant construct. Middle-class, professional, socially-aware, politically-correct people, she reflected scornfully, tended to use those old proletarian craftsperson names: ideal for the classless society. Her friend Emma had announced her intention to call her child Ben, if it was a boy, so the choice had been narrowed to one of two.

  How's my little Jack, Rory said to himself, his index finger touching the baby's doughy hand.

  Tom, Jenny thought, cradling her son.

  What's the fuckin story here then, ya cunt?

  * * *

  Over the following few days the family of Colin Bryce became resigned to the fact that their son seemed to alternate between the vegetative and the rambling lunatic states after the accident. Friends testified that Coco had taken not one, but two tabs of acid, Supermarios to boot, and the press seized onto this. The youth in the hospital became a minor celebrity. The newspapers posed the same rhetorical question: