LET IT BLEED

by
Megan Hall

William Patrick Lofthouse,

The first time I saw you it was a Friday night and I was pulling pints for the barrel bellied Service Crew, shaven headed and pink at the cheeks.

They�d spent all afternoon at Elland Road, and adorned white doctor�s jackets with stethoscopes around their necks. Some were members of White Rose Stax, the northern soul scooter club where they would polish their Lambrettas on a Sunday, wearing black American styles from 1962, listening to Blue Beat Prince Buster records and comparing vinyl soul collections from Wigan Casino days.

It was one of those muggy summer nights, the smoke in the pub formed a ceiling carpet of smog that crept onto the nicotine stain artex roof. I watched the petty hooligans sup their �1.14 pints of Pils super strength lager, shouting, laughing; grabbing their crotches every time a girl walked past. One of them pushed a bag of pound coins into the slot machine, Utd losing had shifted him into a dead loss for the night. A man walks into the pub with a tray of cockles, and I wave him over to sign off his delivery. He sells whelks and prawns from the back of his van in the pubs around West Yorkshire on match days.

As he walks round the tables, Danny, the tallest and possibly the ugliest man in the town says to him, �Prawns? Fuck off you nigger cunt.�

A grand statement coming from a man who will only listen to black music, wears black fashion, and dances like a black man on sprung wooden dance floors across working men�s clubs in Yorkshire.

I can see the man turns away, and hangs his head low. He shuffles towards the door with his tray, not looking up, fixing his gaze to the patterned carpet. I�m halfway pouring Danny�s pint and I stop, put the pint down, and pour the contents down the sink.

Danny stares at me, I dazzle him back, he says �Where�s me fucking drink then? Ah just paid for that!�

Typical northerner. Drink owt. Say owt. Do nowt. Play owt. If ever tha does owt for nowt thee does it for thee sen.

So I cock me head to one side, push out my cleavage, stick out my ass, and curl up an eyebrow; �Go fuck yourself Danny you fucking racist cunt.�

The pub stops dead. His mates start sniggering at me as he clenches his fist, wiping the sweat down the front of his doctor�s coat.

�Wouldn�t fuck you if you were the last slapper on earth you fat fucking slag.�

I keep up the gaze.

�Bet you don�t call the black players at Utd nigger cunts do you?�

He laughs and spits his chewing gum out onto the carpet. �Well they�re different. They don�t count.�

I turn my back, cash off the money in the till, and feel the contents of Danny�s pint thrown across my shirt back. The pint glass smashes on the floor. A perfect aim from six feet away by the side of the slot machines.

Great. Back in backwater hell. Yet again. Get me out of this shithole. Let something land in my lap before I throw myself off the viaduct bridge.

I wipe down my sticky patent shoes, straighten my mis-shapen skirt, and see you there at the end of the bar, watching me hide the hole in my tights, checking my armpits for sweat rings under the spotlight.

You�re wearing ostentatious clothes, and have been on the sunbed again. There�s a wild flaming look about you, it�s the dark romany skin and expensive silk shirts � the profits of your �day job�.

There are lots of boys in the town who look like you � a regular sight dating back years to the caravans that nested on the ashen dust hillsides overlooking the town. From the way that you talk I know there�s not much going on between the ears. But that doesn�t matter for now. Because you�re handsome, loaded with drugs, a bad boy, with a nasty reputation, and tonight you�re going to be my trophy catch.

So you talk to me for a while, I fix you some drinks, and play some music that I think you�ll like. I�m right. I can see you nodding and telling me in lip sync that it�s a �right tune�. When my shift finishes, and I�ve dredged out the scum from the glasswasher I can see you waiting outside the door for me. This is so fucking easy.

You ask me �Fancy a spliff?� I say yes, and we walk through the bus park and sit on the fence watching gangs of boys and the Service Crew rejects beating each other up outside the kebab shop. We smoke it under the silver blue clouds, and snake up the lane to the snicket on the estate.

I know you�ve got a girlfriend, and we�ve become friends too. We sit together on the bus every day. She wears too much make up and idolises you. You�re a pair of thickheads together. All exterior, all show, like the gypsy posh and becks on the wrong side of the bridge. I keep you talking, make you laugh, don�t flirt too much, let you tell me how much you like me. We don�t mention her. We don�t care. Not now, she doesn�t matter, not one bit even as you throw me over the fence to the sewage works.

As I look at the stars and the silhouette of the copse trickling out into the starlights I feel you tear my tights to the knee. You breathe into the back of my neck, pulling up my shirt and grabbing the flesh from my scaffolding bra.

�You�re a right dirty bitch you are.�

I agree. You pull out your belt and pull me round so I�m on my knees with your cock in my mouth.

It�s totally wrong. I know that. But I just can�t help myself. Got to have what I cannot have. The morals of an alley cat. Why should I care? I don�t. Just want the trophy. Setting myself short term goals to relieve the boredom.

Next time I see you we go back to your mum�s house. We fuck in your 80s boys bedroom with Spiderman wallpaper. Again, it�s an understanding. We just fuck because we need to. This time you smoke some brown afterwards; out of the bedroom window dribbling tinfoil down towards the drainpipe. It�s detached fucking. A mutual agreement. Fulfilling the need.

I was never in love with you Liam. But the day you smashed your vein open with broken glass in a funeral wake fight after 13 hours drinking, as I cleaned off the blood from your shuddering hand, sellotaping the cut back together, I looked in your eyes and I knew there was something there. We laid on the sofa, listening to records, a smack den on Harold Hick Court, bodies gouged out on the floor and the beds. I wake up and you�re not there. So I open the kitchen door, and you�re hooking yourself up with my best friend from school. The floor is black and sticky, and the three of us sit cross legged as you release your fake Versace belt from your arm. �I�m sorry, you didn�t have to see this.�

You were ashamed that I knew that your needles were dirty, you were sharing them with friends that should have known better. But curiosity kept me coming back for more. Like a moth to a flame I couldn�t stay away, the light was too bright. Watching you shooting up switched on a part of me, it was the nihilism, the final fuck you; your girlfriend never knew about me, the heroin, or the needles. We kept it safe. Out of harm�s reach.

Now I write to you, years later, all the wiser. I remember the call distraught from your girlfriend, telling me you�ve had an overdose, with five minutes to live. I walk up the hospital corridors with her, and stand at the foot of your bed, watching you twitch and shudder, naked but for a chain of St.Christopher round your neck.

The priest swings the beads over your body, reading you the last rites, as your mother cries like a wailing pig. Nobody in the room knows about us, it�s our secret, but I�m worried to the gut that you might not make the day.

The soft bags and drips run into your puckered veins, as you scream at the nurses wiping your dribble away, and part of me thinks �thank fuck you�re not my responsibility�.

I walk away from the room, on the reflective Dettol floors, and walk away from you forever.

Ten years later I see you again. On the high street with clothes like a wino. Thought you might have got out of it, but no, you don�t even know who I am. You�re a ghost, a shadow of your former self. Your teeth are rotten, and your hair is matted with bruises and scratches running over your hands.

�Can you lend me 20p? Me Mam�s had a heart attack and I�ve got no change��

Yeah right. Course she has. So I give you my last fifty pence and you look at my sister as if to say haven�t I seen you somewhere before?

The fucks, the drugs, nights under the purple blanket were nothing to you but a moment in time. Wasted and lost, like the whole of your life, until the day that you�re 6ft under, meeting an early death. Like your fathers, cousins, and sons that will follow you; long nights and sheltered days only to be spent in the pub, robbing houses, drinking vodka and pinning the leftover littered skin to your overworked veins in the car park toilets.

Liam I hope one day your angel comes along. Pulls you of the rut, flushes out the bad blood. Reignites the cock of the north. But I�m glad that it wasn�t me you chose, almost happy that you didn�t recognise me that day in the street. A forgotten time that I�m preserving for you, in these words, on this page, a reminder forever, of the man you used to be.

Megan

� Megan Hall
Reproduced with permission

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