Wrecked by Tony Black

Author:Tony Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Chapter 24

We were well and truly through the looking glass. Up was down, left was right, and taking offence seemed to be a national obsession. This was my little considered opinion after five minutes scanning the Current Bun. Someone had left behind the paper as I sat outside Manna Mia waiting on a coffee. The hipster had sent out the tatted-up chick to take my order but from where I was seated I could see he’d dumped the badge I’d taken the piss out of.

Half of the population hated the other half of the population. We couldn’t even agree on the meaning of words any more. Everyone anyone disagreed with was Hitler and no-one could keep it together. The paper told me feminists were now rounding on trannies for not being real women. Lefties were rounding on Muslims for not having their five-year-olds taught about anal sex. Drag Queen Story Hour in nurseries was a thing.

None of this ended well. Everyday it seemed people’s mouths were writing new cheques that their brains couldn’t cash. The world was an insane asylum and somebody, surely, was about to start rounding up those of us who needed corrective electro-therapy. I knew I’d be front of the queue. Would stick out a mile.

A coffee cup clattered down in front of me. Got the look, one that says, ‘Drink up and fuck off, dickhead.’

I ventured, ‘Thank you, now.’

Thought I might get the finger in return but was slipped the sarcastic smile instead. I made a note to start scoping for a new coffee shop. It would have to be one that hadn’t quite caught up with modernity yet, think I could live without my avocado on toasted artisan cobbler anyway.

Was on my third red top when Mac appeared.

‘You look like a man who lost a pound and found a penny,’ he said.

Like I’d argue that. The artist Wyndham Lewis had once been described as being like a man who was relentlessly pursued by the Furies—I knew the feeling.

‘Let’s just say now the drugs don’t work.’

Mac pulled out the chair in front of me and sat down. He was stealing one of my tabs when he spoke again, ‘No they don’t. They just make things worse—find that out last night did you?’

‘Woke up this morning with the mother of all hangovers and worse, Amy playing at Our Lady in the living-room.’

‘No way.’

‘Way. Seems like I’d ran away at the mouth all night. Fair put a scare on the girl. I have to sort myself out, Mac. There’s no way I can go on like this.’

He was courteous enough not to say I told you so. If he were playing hardball he’d have listed the times and places where he’d seen the worst himself. Maybe I’m being too kind, maybe he’d just given up on me—fuck knows I wouldn’t blame him.

I told Mac about Amy’s jaunt to Gladstone’s. About the fact Stella had been temping there and how Amy hoped to feed back what she found out.

‘It’s as good a plan as we’ve got,’ he said.

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