Brass

by Helen Walsh

  When we walk in, or should I say when Millie walks in it’s like a scene from a Western. She brings the whole pub, which is mainly full of aul’ men, to a lull. Pints are suspended in mid air, smoke collects in layers above the bar and then slowly the talk starts up again. The Millie effect. Millie takes a pew in a dishevelled leather couch in a secluded corner. Above her a badger’s eyes are flickering orange from a roaring fire. I sling my coat over the couch and get the drinks in. The barman who I remember from the last time I was here has not changed one bit. Like everything else in this joint – impervious to time. I order a pint of Stella and a pint of Theakstons for myself and with the change I put a couple of songs on the jukebox – that Jamming by Bob Marley and Crystal by New Order.

  When I return, Millie is singing away, clicking her fingers and sucking hungrily on a cigarette. The pair of us are in a fantastic mood. We take a sup on our pints.

  ‘It’s great doing this, just the two of us. Like aul’ times innit?’

  ‘Old times? Don’t start all that memory lane gadgie stuff on me.’

  ‘You know that’s somet I were thinking on before. How I always use the past as a reference point for the present and you use the future.’

  ‘Reference point!’

  ‘Well, yeah, you always talk about the things we’re going to do or we should be doing and I always talk about the things we’ve done. I’m just like my aul’ man you know. A hopeless nostalgic.’

  ‘I’d say you’re finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that you’re about to wave goodbye to your twenties. You’re about to wave goodbye to a life.’

  ‘Eh you, you fucken ageist. You’re not long off twenty yourself and in bird years that’s ancient.’

  ‘I’m not arsed though. I’m actually looking forward to growing myself a big wild mot.’

  ‘I think you’re right though, la. I probably am going through some kind of premature mid-life crisis. All joking aside, I look in the mirror some days, and fuck, there’s no point deluding myself. I look fucking old Millie. I do.’

  I must admit. I’m half expecting her to challenge us but she don’t. So I fucken do look ancient then.

  ‘Mid-life crisis, it’s just a euphemism for sexual misery, you know.’

  She sparks a fag and runs an eye over us and I feel my neck ignite. I can hardly spit a vindication out fast enough.

  ‘Well, there’s no problem in that department, la.’

  And there isn’t. It’s just what with me doing all that overtime at the mo, and Anne Marie doing earlies, I’ve, we’ve just not got that burn what we had last year. That’s all. But there deffo is no problem.

  ‘Bastard. For all I don’t envy being resigned to one pair of tits, and she has got great tits your Missus, I’ll give her that, it must be ace having all that sex on tap.’

  ‘It’s not just about that though is it Millie hey?’

  ‘Nah. It’s about possession. Property. That’s what it’s about. Fucking ownership.’

  ‘You come up on that tablet yet?’

  She lifts her pint to her mouth and stares intently into its mattress of foam.

  ‘It’s a great analogy for the nature of relationships, sinking a pint you know?’

  ‘Oh aye, let’s have it.’

  ‘Well, you buy it, take it to your table and for a while you enjoy it. The first few sips are fresh, mildly intoxicating, the next few are comforting and then they lose their spark and fizz. Your tastebuds gets sluggish. You sling away the dregs and trade the empty glass in for a fresh pint. ‘

  I lean right into her and grin. She pushes me away. She always goes into a big mad one when she’s coming up Millie. Fucken things that lil’ head’s spewed out la!

  ‘I’m more like a yard of meths though me. I’d fucken kill you before you got chance to sling me.’

  She trails off, face stumbling into a reverie. Her brows knit together.

  ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘Meths. Ownership.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know where you are girl, but I’m in the Kings Head in Wales.’

  She sinks back into the couch and her face smashes wide open into a brilliant smile.

  ‘I’m going to write an essay on that. Get me a pen and pad now. I can explain the metaphysics of monogamy through the politics of methylated spirit.’

  Her eyes do one into the back of her skull and then lunge back demented and pure black.

  ‘Run that by us again,’ I say, creasing up.

  Her face expands and her jaw begins to tremble.

  ‘Jeeeez! I’m up. I’m fucking up there Jamie’

  It takes a bit longer for us to come up, and I just sit back and laugh at her. I’d forgotten that it always hits her three times as hard as anyone else, little waif that she is. Should’ve just given her the half to begin with. When it does kick in, I’m hovering over a urinal, shaking the dregs of piss from my dick. It doesn’t crawl up on us, no warning signs or nothing. Just pure batters fuck out of us. Swipes all thoughts and memory from my head so I don’t even know who I am. Just a blank being with two tons of pure lead euphoria charging through my legs and up towards my groin and my guts and my chest – exploding in a kaleidoscope of unbelievable sensations in my head.

  Ecstasy, la.

  Fucken love it!

  Seems like ages before I’m able to make sense of where I am and what’s happening. My body’s paralysed. That’s what’s happening. Can’t move. I’m standing here with my dick in my hand, which feels fucken lovely if the truth be known, unable to do up my kecks. On top of the world I am.

  A man comes in, has a piss and leaves.

  Just a blur.

  And another one.

  Absolutely on top of the fucken world.

  My surroundings veer into focus and my limbs begin to feel lighter and lighter ‘til they are suddenly springing me over to the sink where I do my trousers up and splash cold water on my face. I gaze into the mirror and my reflection vaults across it and right back again.

  I can’t remember whether I’ve pissed or not. I try and piss in the sink but my dick is hard and can’t make it’s mind up.

  I stay in the toilets for a while longer and get my head together. I wait for the euphoria to abate. I’m always like this me, coming up on an eckie. It just knocks us clean out for the first twenty minutes or so and then I’m fine. And I’ve figured that the best thing to do is just sit back and hand yourself over. Don’t try and fight it, or control it or it’ll mash your head to pieces. Sit back and enjoy it. It’ll tune into your body’s natural rhythm when it’s good and ready and when it does there’s fucken nothing like it in the world.

  Ecstaseeeeeey!

  I need to be with Millie. I’m so looking forward to walking out of those doors and seeing Millie’s face. I love her I do. I fucken love that girl to bits.

  There’s no one I’d rather be with, if the truth be known. Even Anne Marie. Nar, would not be right her seeing us like this – all loved-up and with my emotions running amok and that. Thinking of it almost sends us on a downer.

  I forget where I am.

  I remember.

  The toilets are situated at the other end of the pub and I find the journey back a task and a half. I have to walk past the bar which is mad busy with ruddy-faced chaps in flat caps, and concentrate on being straight and not knocking into people like a prick, but everyone seems happy enough. Maybe they’re all eckied up too. Millie is sat there with a stupid lockjaw face, tearing a gutted cigarette packet to bits.

  ‘Jesus Jamie! Thought you’d done one. You been spieling your whole life story to some farmer.’

  ‘Had a bit of a mad one in the toilets, but I’m fucken sound now.’ I sit down opposite her. ‘Are you on to that by the way?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just slide your head round there and tell us if I’m seeing things. But it looks like the whole pub is eckied up.’

  Millie cranes her neck round and surveys the bar
through shuddering eyes.

  ‘I can’t see Jamie. Everything’s just liquid. Everything’s just perfect.’

  We sit there for a while, indulging each other, smiling, smoking, barely lifting our glasses and I’m floored by a big swell of love.

  ‘Fucken love you, you know, Millie and I’m not just saying it cos I’m on one and that, you’re my soul mate you. D’you know that?’

  She smiles harder and raises a thumb likes she’s too made up to speak or somet and then Crystal floats out the speakers and a terrific rush thrashes through us, overwhelming us, disorientating us.

  ‘I fucken told you la, the whole fucken pub is on one! I mean, why the fuck would they have put this on? This is a State tune? D’you remember it?’

  The sensations get stronger and stronger, and my head goes all fuzzy and when I look round I see that the whole pub is sliding to and fro. People jutting in and out of their tailbacks wearing crazy clown faces.

  Whoah!

  Everything snaps back into focus.

  I take a sup of my drink and stub my fag out which I’ve sucked all the way down to the filter. I light another, take a bang on it, and sit back. The sensations abate a little or maybe they don’t, maybe my body’s just acclimatising to the eckie and that, but whatever it is, I feel more in control. But only for a few seconds, cos then the chorus kicks in and scrapes the skin from the back of my neck and I have to clutch my ears to stop my skull splitting in three. It’s too strong this time. I don’t like it. Doesn’t feel right. It’s poisoning my brain, solidifying my blood. Mashed I am. Pure fucken mashed.

  * * *

  I’ve got to get out of here, get my head together. Get out of here before I lose it completely.

  My kite must be exhibiting the full extent of this nightmare cos Millie’s suddenly on her feet isn’t she? Still grinning but looking right into us analytically. I can’t summon the words to tell her how I’m feeling. Mashed, is what I want to say, but I can’t. The word is buried deep down in the pit of my throat and will not come out. She squats down in front of us, face blurring over and she asks us if I’m all right.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say but immediately regret saying it. Like it was my last fucken chance of coming clean before I completely lose it. Ah, but this has gone too far now. There’s something serious going down with my wiring and my ticker, la. Fuck, I can’t die. Not like this. What would our Anne Marie say? And my lovely Mum? Ah fuck James, lad – you soft fucken cunt. You hear about it all the time though don’t you? On the news and that – about people who’ve done tabs for years, think they’re immune to everything and then one day their body throws a big mad paddy and just shuts down.

  Serial Killer

  Club drug claims yet another young life.

  Jamie Keeley, 28, of Admiral Street lost his struggle for life, four days after slipping into a coma caused by cerebral haemorrhage. His death is believed to have been caused by the drug ecstasy…

  I can see it now, front page of the Echo. My Dad coming in from work and finding his son’s face sticking out of the letterbox. It’d kill him that. His firstborn. A druggie. And my Mam bawling her eyes out as she goes through my stuff in my room looking for that will I made when I was eighteen and my donor card and then finding all my mags and vids and the dildo I bought Anne Marie for Valentine’s Day but were too embarrassed to give her and then she shows my aul’ fella and they think it belongs to us. Their first born. A druggie and a fag.

  I try to pick my head up from my lap. Millie’s hands are suddenly upon us, massaging my thighs, easing my fears and giving us a brilliant lob on but then the music stops and the panic thrashes right back.

  I need to get out.

  ‘Just sit down, don’t panic Jamie’ she says, pushing me back down.

  ‘No, I need to get the fuck out of here, Millie. Done in girl.’

  ‘You’ll be fine in a few seconds. You’re going through exactly the same as what I was going through before. Just sit back and enjoy it. Don’t repress it.’

  ‘Honestly? Were you really feeling like this back there or are you just saying this to stop us going into one?’

  ‘Yes! And you’d fucked off to the toilets. I thought I was going to have to climb out of that window up there cos I couldn’t handle walking past the bar! These are really pure tablets, that’s all. They’re how tablets should be. Just enjoy it baby.’

  The panic thaws a little but as soon as I sit down and start concentrating on how to get my head together, I go to bits again. Right, that’s fucken it.

  ‘I’ve got to get out of here Millie. Please. Get us out of here.’

  ‘Jamie? You’ll be fine. Here, I’ll get you a brandy, that’ll sort you out.’

  ‘IF YOU’RE A FRIEND, YOU’LL GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!’

  The air is cold and sobering and snaps me from the eckie stupor. We get in the car and recline the seats to their full extent and sledge for a while. Millie’s eyes have started to roll a little as though she’s about to slip off on one again, but it doesn’t seem to bother her when she loses control. I remember in The State, always having to pick her up from the floor and drag her to the dancefloor to stop her from sledging. She would’ve quite happily’ve spent the whole night slumped under some table, having her neck massaged by some sweaty hopeful.

  She squeezes my hand and mumbles something. I squeeze it back and close my eyes, abandoning myself to the gorgeousness of it all.

  She squeezes again, harder.

  ‘Put some music on,’ she pleads.

  I haul my hand from my lap which is like a slab of lead and flick the radio on. The car is suddenly filled with a rabble of angry Welsh voices. Millie bolts up and shrieks.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  She clutches her chest and I roar with laughter.

  ‘Dick head. You’ve brought us right down. Put some fucking music on before I have a heart attack.’

  I laugh even harder.

  ‘Jamie, put the fucking music on. I’m having a heart attack.’

  I pull an aul’ Ministry album from the dashboard and feed it into the stereo and watch with awe as her body responds to the onslaught of beats. Her kite swoons in dizzy appreciation. The beats acquire a melody and all of a sudden I have a big mad yearning to drive. Into the night. No particular destination. Just snaking through the landscape with this music lunging though us.

  My hand’s on Millie’s lap. I’m rushing madly. The moon’s a blue-tinged smudge in the nocturnal pastures of the sky. To the left, Wales speeds past the window. Sheep-strewn fields leak into the silver-blue gulf of the horizon. Turn a bend. Tummy swoops. To the right, ploughed corduroy fields bunch together and hare towards the huge mountains whose asbestos tips are shimmering, melting, sliding beneath the diluted moonlight.

  Limbs like liquid.

  Eckie love roaring through me. Euphoria sliding this way and that way. No direction. Rudderless desire.

  Face suspended in hardened glee. Thoughts enter my head and erupt into fragments of colour. Piano breaks thump the car. The beat kicks in. Pleasure finds a rhythm. Euphoria abates a little. Turn the music up. Massage the melody into Millie’s thigh and the throb from her heart slides down to meet it. Beautiful sensations thud through us, pounding our bodies as though we are one.

  A main road with cars throbbing in and out of focus. The pleasure is less intense now. The music has detached itself from me so the melody pounds from the speakers and not from my chest. I can’t feel my tongue. I pull down the mirror to see if I’ve bitten it off. It’s still there. Millie is awake, her eyes dilated and completely black.

  ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘I’m back,’ she says, ‘From where though?’

  The music becomes a part of me once more, layer upon layer of melodic pleasure mounting in my groin, exploding and solidifying, liquefying and snapping.

  Millie is proper out of it now. Her eyes are closed. Eckie dreams flicker her eyelids. She grinds her teeth and clutches my hand, dips in and out of h
er dream world. A different beat or direction of melody and she’ll leap out of her seat, wide eyed, confused. She’ll remember and her face will rip into a big lucid grin. She’ll enjoy the way music sounds with her eyes open, she’ll enjoy the way colour and melody interact in the throes of their altered states. And when the feelings get too intense, her jaw will start to rattle. She’ll fight to keep her eyes open but the weight of the euphoria will force them shut once more.

  Millie is touching herself. Down there. No two ways about it. She’s got her hand in her jeans. Doesn’t know she’s doing it in all honesty. I try to ignore her which is a task and a half cos this eckie has given us a massive lob on which materialised miles before she started messing with herself by the way but her sitting next to us, doing that, does not help. Not one bit. It’s pure agony in fact. I’ve been dying for a wank ever since we left The King’s Head. I might have to pull over under the pretext of taking a slash in a minute. This is agony. I’m about to explode down there.

  I slacken my seatbelt and undo a couple of buttons and I hear my little fella almost sigh with relief. I slip the music up a notch and try and just lose myself to the eckie but I can’t stop myself from stealing little looks at her. Ahh, this is fucken sick la. It’s incestuous almost. That’s as good as my sister sat there. It’s YOUR SISTER FOR FUCKS SAKE. The realisation sobers us, brings us right down and I forget why I’m feeling so last with myself but then next thing I’m back up again, falling deeper and deeper into a lagoon of deep blue eckie love where everything feels pure and honest and next thing I’m staring at the jut of her collar bone and the soft milky dip beneath her throat and her tiny pianist’s fingers working their magic underneath her kecks which kisses my dick back to life. I badly want to reach across and touch her leg so she can feel as beautiful and perfect as I do but then the music ends suddenly. Millie has propped herself up and is staring right at us with a frightened face. My dick sinks shamefully into my lap.

  ‘Where are we?’ she says, clutching my arm, but before I’ve got time to answer her face yields into a terrific, terrified smile and she’s pointing out of her window towards the sea which is black and immense and shimmering under the moon.