THE TRIP
by Chrissie Glazebrook

My name is Michael Kane. No, stop it. Did I say it with a Sarf London accent? It�s my real name, I�m the original and best, unlike that impostor, that Maurice Micklewhite, the guy with the hooded eyes from �The Italian Job.� My name�s spelt differently, anyway. K-A-N-E. I come from a long line of Kanes � now, that sounds like a row of runner beans. Irish, we are, from Dingle in County Kerry. Him, that one, he�s just a jobbing actor who got lucky. Me, I�m an assistant in the hospital histopathology lab. Was. Before all this started.

Is this Wednesday? Is it? Not that days matter any more, they all morph into one. Except Wednesdays. I bloody hate Wednesdays. That�s when we have to go out, familiarise, acclimatise, socialise. Today�s a biggie � Northumberland Street. We�re going into town, gan doon the toon, to mingle with shoppers, crusties, office types, religious loonies, students and bunk-off schoolkids, every one a potential hazard, stinky-breathed and crawling with germs. They call it a privilege. I call it an ordeal.

It�s muggy outside. Inside, too. My head�s full of brainfuzz, like it�s been injected with fog. It�s the medication, see, it�s a cosh they use to stun you. They ought to be done for GBH: Grievous Brainal Harm. It�s supposed to even out the moods, stop me being too high or too low, but all it does is flatten me. Sometimes I can�t speak, even if I know what it is I want to get across. The messages from my brain don�t connect with my mouth and before I can push a sentence out, it disintegrates. All this unspoken communication, all these spontaneously aborted words � where do they go? I�ll tell you. They get broken down in the mouth by salivary enzymes, then travel down the oesophagus by peristalsis � that�s a bunch of rhythmic muscle contractions � into the stomach, where they get swirled around in gastric juices. Then, when they�re reduced to complete gibberish, like so much pulverized alphabetti spaghetti, they enter the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. They then enter the jejunum and then the ileum, which is the final part of the small intestine, where they get zapped by bile, pancreatic enzymes and other digestive enzymy stuff. And off they whiz into the large intestine where they get the crap kicked out of them. Well, water and electrolytes. The crap comes later. The first part of the large intestine is called the coecum. The words travel upwards in the ascending colon, like they�re on the manic phase of a white-knuckle ride. Then - wheee! They travel across the abdomen in the transverse colon, go back down the other side of the body in the descending colon, and then through the sigmoid colon. That�s where the crap comes in. My words have become solid waste, and that�s where they stay until they�re excreted.

So next time you hear somebody going on about eating their words, you�ll be au fait with the process.

Today, after we�ve washed, more than the usual perfunctory cat-lick because we�re going to be seen in public, we�ll haul our asses into the minibus and be driven by Fat Joanne into town, dropped off with our minders � our carers � and left to hang around trying to act as normal as we can while they � the paid staff, the hired help � do a spot of shopping and have lunch at the expense of you, the taxpayer.

�Get your backside in gear, Michael,� goes Ray, snorting like he�s said something funny. He�s trying to chivvy me up but he�s on to a loser. I can�t get going this morning. My shoes feel weird, the wrong size for my feet, as if they belong to someone bigger than me. I�m not allowed those whatsits, what are they called - Traces? Graces? Can�t remember � those things you tie shoes up with, because (a) I�ve got a tremor in my hands � thank you, Lithium - so my fingers don�t work, and (2) I might be tempted to top myself. As if. As if I�d try to hang myself with a piece of string. How exactly would that work? No, if I was going to end it all I�d make sure it was a crowd-puller, my personal 9/11, something spectacular, a televisual event. Like I�d tip off the Tyne Tees newsroom that this one-time-only gig was going down on the Monument steps, then, after they�d done a sound check, got the cameras ready to roll, I�d stick a tyre over my head, douse myself in petrol, flick the Zippo and whoosh! Conflagration. Self-immolation. Michael Kane, human inferno. That�d work. But bits of shoe-string? Death by necklace? I don�t think so.

At last my kit is on. My backside is in gear. I�m decked out in a Slipknot T-shirt that used to be Leo�s, only he lent it to me a couple of days before he was discharged and I never gave it back; and these baggy-but-not-supposed-to-be jeans. The clothes I came in with, they all hang off me now I�ve turned into a skelly, now I�ve turned into one of the Undead, or Unliving.

Joanne heaves her hippo�s body into the driving seat. She�s in that tracksuit again, the one that makes her look like three tons of shit in a two-ton sack. Puffing and wheezing, she is, because she�s morbidly obese and a smoker. The authorities shouldn�t let her drive us about � she could have a heart attack at the wheel, slew the minibus into the path of an oncoming juggernaut and we�d all be maimed, or worse. That wouldn�t look good for the Home. They�re supposed to be rehabilitating us, not turning us into roadkill.

Here�s Sid, smelling a bit sweeter than he usually does, and Graham the twitcher, and by that I don�t mean he�s a bird-watcher; they�re still experimenting with his dosage and until it�s properly calibrated he has a repertoire of tics and jerks that make him look like a demented marionette. I�m sitting right behind Ray, our senior support worker, who reminds me of the ugly Kray twin with his monobrow, specs and air of barely suppressed menace. Jesus, I�m going to have to stare at that boil on his neck all the way into toon. I�d lance it if I had a scalpel ... oops, I forgot. They�re making me use the plastic cutlery until I can be trusted after that incident with the pork chop.

The closer we get to town, the more agitated I�m becoming. By the time we reach Sandyford, my knee�s rattling like buggery because my heel refuses to lie flat, and I�m sweating like a rapist. Sid sparks up a tab and I get this murderous feeling as hot bile rises in my throat. I daren�t look out the window but I know they�re there, secret agents speaking into their cuffs, spooks with poison-tipped umbrellas, government hitmen disguised as �Big Issue� sellers. A slick of sweat turns to ice on my forehead. The minibus lurches as Joanne hangs a left at speed, the mad old biffer.

�Here we are, lads,� she screeches. Her voice is like a fire in a pet shop. She hits the brakes hard. Whiplash all round. �And remember, NO NICKING.� She says this in capital letters and italics. �Pick you up here at two-thirty. I�ve got some shopping to do so behave yourselves for Ray. Go on then � move it!�

There�s a bit kerfuffle at the front as Sid drops his fag. He�s on his knees scrabbling around, copping a feel of Joanne�s beefy shins, then he finds the tab end, squeezes it between his fingers and tucks it into his pocket to smoke later. It must be a good, what, three-quarters of an inch long.

This is the part I hate. Getting out of the minibus. The bloater�s parked it next to a pizza place and there�s people sitting in the window staring at us, nudging each other, making sarcastic remarks, sniggering. There�s no mistaking us for a boy band on a tour bus. It�s there for all to see, emblazoned on the side of the vehicle: Cedar Barn Farm, with the NHS logo underneath. Whoever named it � a client more than likely - needs shooting. There�s no cedars anywhere, the place isn�t a barn or a farm, unless you mean funny farm. That�s what it is - a loony bin, or a �stand-alone nine-bedded inpatient sub-acute unit�, if you want its technical description.

So Sid clambers out and immediately starts scavenging for dog-ends in the gutter, doing his street hobo act, shouting at dustbins and roaring at passers-by, followed by Graham jerking and twitching and curling his lip in an Elvislike tic.

�Come on, lads, let�s go for a tootle round Dixons,� says Ray, like it�s some kind of treat. �And if you�re good we might have a shufty in HMV. Michael, stop acting the fool and get out of the van.�

I can�t, can I? We�re in the city centre, it�s full of busy, hundreds of people milling around so you can�t tell which ones are after you. Danger! Red alert! Beware spies, Feds, terrorists, neo-cons, Illuminati, shape-shifters, the world�s a mass of people out to get you. Madmen with Uzis lurk around every corner. Suicide bombers masquerade as buskers outside Markses, animal rights protestors hand out flyers, pretending they�re about vivisection but really they�ve got a picture of me printed on the front. Me, disguised as a monkey with electrodes in its head. Fraught, distraught, distressed, distorted, disturbed, deluded � the tape in my head�s zooming on fast-forward, the voices chirping and crackling like a cacophony of badly-tuned radios. Silence. I pray for silence, for brain-peace, some respite from the dinning inside me. Please God, Buddha, Allah, Lord David Icke, don�t let me go off on one.

Somehow - I don�t remember how I got here - but somehow we�re in Dixons. Ray - who�s supposed to be responsible for us, remember � is checking out the handheld PDAs. Sid�s wandered off to the mobile phone section, picking them up and jabbing numbers into them, hoping to hit on a hotline to his mother who�s been in her grave the best part of twenty years. Where�s Graham? Ah, follow the crowd. There he is, doing his robotic dance, his set of involuntary muscle spasms, accompanied by the Kraftwerk track that only he can hear.

It�s a madhouse. I can�t take any more. The walls are closing in on me. It�s too hot in here, all these so-called shoppers, plain-clothes coppers, gallop stoppers, bubble poppers, dream choppers, head toppers � enough!

I make my getaway, past the DVDs, the MP3s, the plasma screens, the fax machines, digital cameras with tripods, minidiscs and Apple iPods, woofers, tweeters, mini speakers, scanners, walkmans, printers, webcams, DVD Rewriter drives, laptops with Intel inside, organisers, calculators, so long loonies, see you later ...

Forcing an elbow-path through a gang of lads, I lurch through the plate-glass doors into the street. My eyes are wild, staring, and I�m pitching around in an unco-ordinated zombie stagger. I hoover in a lungful of air. My feet kick out and hit a baby buggy some stupid wife has steered into me. She starts screaming and flapping so I flash her the evil eye. That shuts her clack. Shoppers scatter in front of me, some bloke � some have-a-go hero � grabs my elbow but I swat him away like a fly.

I am unvanquishable. I am God. I am the devil. I am Osama bin Laden, Justin Timberlake, Samuel L Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger. My name is Michael Kane and I am invincible.

� Chrissie Glazebrook
Reproduced with permission

---

Your first name:	Your URL:
Use the box below to leave messages for Chrissie. Begin message: For Chrissie Glazebrook