Pure Angst

by Stephen Scarcliffe

  “Mon then tubs!”

  “Drop the chair an let’s go then!”

  Davy dropped the chair and slipped behind the bar before coming back up with a shotgun, that he promptly backed George off with. Davy rose in stature, grinning, as George reluctantly backed away.

  “Get the fuck outae ma boozer before Ah do somethin Ah might regret.”

  “Shitebag. Fuckin shitebag!”

  “GET OUT!”

  40

  The following day Dougie turned up at the bookies, having already checked at The Gunner. As he approached the doorway deep in thought, he didn’t notice his older brother walking briskly towards him until it was too late. They collided with each other. An envelope stuffed with notes fell to the ground. Dougie looked on as Davy knelt down, picked it up and rammed it inside his brown leather coat, snatching up a couple of twenties that had fallen out.

  “You wantae watch where yer goin.”

  “What’s wae the envelope?”

  “Just some cash Ah lent tae Bob a couple ay weeks ago.” Davy carried on walking hastily.

  “Why the rush?”

  “Ah’m a busy man Dougie, just like yersel.”

  “We need tae talk, pronto.”

  “Later. That son of yours wants tae watch his temper by the way.” Davy jumped into his motor and started the car, grinding the gravel underneath the wheels into a cloud of dust that drifted past Dougie as he watched it disappear down the street.

  When he opened the door to the back room of the bookies he caught a glimpse of Bob with his head in his hands looking deeply distressed. The moment he saw Dougie he straightened up and threw on a false looking smile. “There he is. Wasn’t expectin you, Dougie.”

  Bob straightened up and started moving things around the table, clearly trying to act busy, but Dougie wasn’t fooled for a second.

  “How’s things with you?”

  “Fine. Yersel?”

  “Ach, cannae complain, ye ken how it is.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Bob stopped what he was doing and looked back at Dougie. “What dae ye mean?”

  “Well obviously I don’t know how it is if yer havin to take loans off ay Davy waeout comin tae me first.”

  “Aye, Ah wis gonnae tell ye about that.”

  “Well. Now’s yer chance.” Dougie folded his arms and waited.

  “It’s just a bit ay cash tae help out wae the weddin an that.”

  “Ye’ve been savin up fer that fer aboot two year. Ye made it clear ye didnae want any loans, fae me or anyone else. Christ ye’ve been knockin back nights out left right an centre.”

  “Aye, but Ah kept on havin tae dip intae ma savings fer expenses an that.”

  “Well, why didn’t ye come tae me if ye needed extra dough?”

  “Ah jist didnae wantae bother ye wae it Dougie.”

  “So ye bothered Davy instead? A man who’s had a vendetta against ye ever since he got ootae prison. Doesn’t make sense, Robert. Elaborate.” Dougie moved closer and sat on the edge of the table. He stared a hole right through the anxious expression Bob was uncomfortably wearing, watching him squirm and wriggle, fiddling with his hands the way he always did when he was telling a porkie. Was one of the benefits of working closely with someone you knew inside out. You knew instantly when something wasn’t right.

  “Och it’s jist, ye’ve been so busy wae everythin that’s been goin on an...”

  “Bob listen tae me. Ma patience is wearing thin here. Ah want ye tae stop stutterin like a prick, cause yer no makin any sense, an Ah want answers. Now.”

  “Ah had nae-one else tae turn tae, Dougie.”

  “Ye had me!” Dougie stuck a thumb against his chest. “So Ah’m gonnae ask ye again, Robert. An this time Ah want the right answer. Ah want the truth! Why has my brother just walked outae here wae an envelope stuffed full ay cash!?”

  Bob sat down on the chair, nearly losing his balance as he did. His head fell into his hands, as that same distressed expression broke through again.

  “Spill it. NOW.”

  He broke down, the tears streaming down his scarlet face. Reminded Dougie of all the times he had had to bail him out in high school when he was in over his head with other kids.

  “He’s been robbin us Dougie! He’s been robbin us fer weeks and weeks! When you telt him ye were wantin a cut eh everything he made on his loans he flipped out. Fuckin mowed me down in broad daylight wae his car! Telt me Ah’d have tae front up his end every time you asked for money, outae the safe. Started off payin um ootae ma weddin fund, an then...”

  “Then what?”

  “He got greedier an greedier. Started off just comin round now an then. Then it wis every other day. Ma weddin fund ran oot an Ah had tae start geein um money oot the safe. He demanded it, said he wanted your money, wanted one over oan ye. Dougie, Ah’m sorry! Sharon’s left me!” Bob dropped his head face down on the table, sobbing uncontrollably. “Ah wanted tae come tae ye Dougie, but he telt me he’d murder me if Ah did!”

  “How much? How much money is he intae us fer?”

  “Must be aboot twenty grand by now. At the least, probably more. Ah’m sorry Dougie there was nowt Ah could dae! He’s been a livin nightmare!”

  Dougie felt his whole body go stiff as a feeling of dread washed over it. Bob looked up at him with those desperate, dog-like eyes, searching for pity that he didn’t find as Dougie smacked him straight on the cheekbone with a solid open handed right, sending his head flying backward with such force it nearly hit the wall. On its way forward again he grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him off the chair. He sprawled across the floor as Dougie began kicking him furiously in the ribs with the point of his toe.

  “Gies the key tae the safe. GIES THE KEY TAE THE FUCKIN SAFE!!”

  Bob fumbled about in his pocket for his keys whilst trying desperately to cover up with his only free hand. Bob threw the keys down in front of him.

  “Please Dougie, please. He said he’d murder me if Ah didnae carry on givin um the money. He said he’d shoot me Dougie, Ah swear!”

  Dougie unlocked the safe, and threw it open. “COME HERE!!”

  As Bob crawled over on his hands and knees like the stupid mutt he was,

  Dougie grabbed him by the hair and rammed his head inside the safe before slamming the door against the side of his face. Bob let out a high pitched yelp, as it smashed into his jaw with a sickening crack. Dougie pushed Bob’s head back further inside the safe and began forcing the door against it with all his might.

  “Ye think Davy al kill ye, but Ah winnae!? Eh!? What am I, a fuckin SOFT TOUCH!?”

  Bob tried to force out some words as drool began leaking out. Dougie leaned harder and harder on the safe door, furious, eager to force the point home that he was the brother to be afraid of, lifelong friendship or not. As he noticed Bob’s neck changing colour and his left hand starting to fall limp, Dougie let go and stepped away. Bob dropped to the floor gasping for air, his body shaking horrendously. Dougie sat down, trying his hardest to cool off as he looked down at his own trembling hands. He walked over to the sink and poured Bob a drink before placing it on the floor in front of him. Dougie sat down again and lit up a fag as he rubbed at the stress lines etched into his forehead.

  “Thirty odd years we’ve been friends Boab. Thirty years, an ye feel like ye cannae come tae me when yer in danger?”

  Bob sipped some water through the uninjured side of his mouth, as he clutched the other side. It was obvious his jaw was badly broken and would likely need wired up. “Ah was scared Dougie,” he said, forcing the drooling mumble out with serious difficulty. “Ah didn’t know what to do. The last few months, they, they’ve been a livin hell.”

  He pulled himself up against the wall as his body continued to shake, his eyes wide with shock. “He said he was gonnae shoot me if I telt ye what was goin on, an he meant it. Ah swear on ma Mother’s grave Dougie, he showed it to me in here. Put it tae ma heid one time, laughin, while Ah counted his
money. He’s a fuckin psycho, Dougie.”

  “Aye well dinnae worry about Davy anymair.” Dougie stood up and sighed before pulling a roll of notes from his back tail. He looked down at his broken old pal, feeling some sympathy breaking through the walls of his hardened heart. “Get yersel tae the hospital. Tell thum ye goat mugged in the street by a gang, an knocked oot. That ye cannae remember what happened efter the first dig.”

  41

  Sean woke with a start, drenched in sweat, heart pounding. Just a few seconds earlier he had been walking side by side with Willie on a hot summer day past Inverleith pond during school lunch hour. Laughing, joking, slagging off trench coat wearing freaks as they passed them by, looking about for a victim to push into the water.

  Next thing he knew Willie had tumbled in, causing him to panic. He’d reached down to try to help him up but instead of pulling him out he’d found himself pushing him down kicking and screaming, deeper into the water until he stopped struggling.

  As he stood up the water rapidly turned to ice, encasing Willie's lifeless body, eyes gone, staring back at him. As he looked up the trees at the top of the grassy embankment surrounding the pond began shrivelling up before his eyes, shedding themselves of all colour. He looked around to see that he was alone now, cold and vulnerable, alone with the guilt. He looked down at the ice right beneath his feet and watched as it began cracking all around him, until he plunged into the water himself, feeling himself dragged down kicking and screaming until he woke.

  He clutched his tight chest as he tried to catch his breath, whilst instinctively grabbing hold of the steel bed frame, wary of toppling onto the floor. The nightmares were a daily occurrence now, well, on the days he actually managed to get any sleep that was.

  Sean knew he had lost control. It wasn’t like him. He had always prided himself on his ability to stay on point and composed when everyone around him seemed to be losing their heads, but that was gone now. He was freebasing frequently. His life had turned into a hazy blur of cocaine, women and hangers on. His vices were now consuming him.

  He looked down at the slender frame of his latest conquest, as she lay face down. Didn’t know what her name was, couldn’t even remember how or where he’d met her. Kim had left him the moment she had found out he had a flat on the sly where he took all his bits on the side. Just so happened that since the wheels had came off the rails he had been using that flat a lot more. Didn't matter a fuck, the only women that meant anything to him were out of reach on the other side of the world, and oh how desperately he needed them.

  He stood up and walked unsteadily over to his dresser, feeling spent. There was a Safeway bag full of coke that was spilling out. Who knows how much of it they had done. Sean would never normally leave all this shit lying about his flat. Used to give Willie pelters for leaving bags of gear lying about. Now he was the reckless one.

  As he approached The Gunner doorway later that afternoon he was met by a sight he wasn’t prepared for. Simon Lockhart skulking his way towards him. His Nike baseball cap was pulled down covering half those piercing reptile-like pupils, with his hands stuck inside his shell suit pockets in a manner that suggested he was ready to pull a blade on any passer by that happened to look at him the wrong way.

  Since Ryan’s incarceration for kidnap and attempted murder a couple of years earlier, Simon, being the second oldest and naturally next in line had taken it upon himself to assume the mantle of number one Lockhart. Simon had made his bones a year or so earlier by delivering a horrific Chelsea Smile to a local dealer who had been cutting Dougie’s product in order to increase his share. This was a signal of his dedication to the cause that had endeared him to Dougie’s good graces.

  He had been instrumental in luring Willie away from Sean and into the clutches of other like minded jakies, and now both he and his younger brother Colin had assumed main control of the area’s smack trade, as decreed by Dougie since Willie’s demise. This meant that whilst Sean still ran the hash and speed for Dougie, he no longer got a piece of the lucrative heroin trade that both he and Willie had controlled for years. Instead this piece of shit that not too long ago would have stabbed his granny for some gear was now the main heroin dealer in the area, and that grated on Sean. The way he now swaggered around Muirhouse with a stink of pride and conceit, as if he now ran the show.

  “Awrite Sean mate?” said Lockhart as he leaned against the wall, sparking a rollie between his dirty fingertips. For all the cash he was now making it hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference to his appearance.

  You’re no fuckin mate pal...

  “What’s happenin?”

  “Ach fuck all, ye ken me, just dodgin away gadgy. Was wonderin if yer auld man’s havin one ay his card games the night?”

  “How come?” Sean squinted his eyes at Lockhart with paranoid suspicion.

  “Why dae ye think mate? Want in on the action don’t Ah.”`

  “No the night Simon.” As Sean tried to manoeuvre cautiously past Lockhart he stepped in front of him. They were now nose to nose and Sean could see his rancid yellow teeth, and smell his stinking breath. He felt his heart pounding again. This was the last fucking thing he needed.

  “Sure aboot that? Yer no palmin me off are ye?”

  Sean looked down his nose as he clenched his sweating fists and responded. “Naw Simon. Course no. Mate.” Sean held his glare for several seconds, feeling the bitterness building within his cramped stomach.

  Simon grinned and sniggered like he was part of a joke Sean wasn’t in on.

  “Crack on, eh.” As he stepped aside, still grinning, Sean cautiously moved past, feeling the paranoia tearing right through him, wondering why Simon Lockhart was nosing about so deviously.

  The old man was parked at the end of the bar with a whisky in hand laughing away. Carol Hunter, who had grown into a Gunner regular since she and Davy had become an item, was sitting next to him, screaming like a banshee at Davy’s every joke. Sean wiped a layer of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his light grey Harrington as he approached, feeling his senses taking a pounding from Carol’s verbal onslaught.

  “Dad. A word in private please?”

  Davy gave Carol some money to stick in the jukebox before leading the way through the back. Sean pulled a fag from his packet with his shaking hand and stuck it between his teeth as he began to pace restlessly.

  “Ye look like shit Sean.”

  “Aye cheers.”

  He was right though. His nerves were on end, his brain was racing, he was wracked with anxiety at every turn and he could feel it spilling out of him. He needed the coke just to keep him on a level, even if it was a big part of the problem.

  “What’s eatin ye? Is it what happened the other night wae yer cousin?”

  “What the fuck is Simon Lockhart daein askin if yer havin a poker game the night? Ah mean first George turns up unannounced, now we’ve got that fuckin waster nosin aboot askin if he can get in on the action. Somethin’s up an Ah don’t fuckin like it, Dad.”

  “They're fishin aboot fer something, clearly.”

  “Could it be Willie? They’re ontae us aren’t they? Fuck.”

  “Listen!” Davy rose from the wooden stool with a stiffened frame and gritted teeth forcing Sean to squirm backwards. “If Ah hear one mair word aboot fuckin Willie, son, so help me God you will feel the back of my hand an then some. It’s done, ok? Over! Ye need tae get over it an pull yersel the gither. Fuckin gettin oot yer brain oan that shite twenty-four seven isnae helpin any cunt ye hear me?”

  “It’s no that though Dad, if they know aboot that or the coke we’ve been sellin behind their backs, or worse both...”

  “Then what? Eh? Ye gonnae run an hide?” Davy sighed. “Listen. They might have their suspicions aboot Willie but that’s all they are, fuckin suspicions. Can’t prove shit. And as fer the coke, tell me why is it we’re havin tae sell coke? If he had cut us both in on the smack rather than lettin the inbreds take it over would we even need ta
e be daein that? Naw, so fuck him, an fuck his suspicions.”

  Sean double drew the last part of his fag, leaving nothing but filter showing, and bounced it off the stone floor. He looked round at the old man who was now pinching his bottom lip, clearly deep in thought.

  “Let Lockhart come.”

  “Eh?”

  “Ah say let that fuck come. We strike first.”

  “What dae ye mean.”

  “Ah think it’s about time we sent a message. Ah’ll get word oot tae um that he’s invited along. Then we’ll show Dougie what we think about his little regime change. Do that bastard good an proper.”

  “Dad, if we do Simon Lockhart it will be like shakin up a hornet’s nest. We’ll have that whole family tae deal with, they’re fuckin cut-throats. Ah’m goin oot ma way here tae keep stability, keep a war fae breakin out, keep business movin along, an you’re just wantin tae turn the area intae the Wild West wae us on the front line. We don’t have the back up. We cannae rely on folk fae Glasgow that might no even wantae get involved. If shit hits the fan we’re fucked! Dae ye no get that?”

  Davy launched himself at Sean, catching him by surprise, lifting him over the keg and wedging him into an uncomfortable position, his feet dangling in the air. Sean tried his hardest to struggle free, itching to fight back but he could only watch on as the old man snarled.

  “Listen. Ok? Listen, an listen good, son. We’ve tried it your way. We’ve tried tae fly underneath the radar an keep the peace. Keep everythin nice an smooth, maintain the status quo for the greater good of family. But first Ah’ve got the son comin doon here tae tryin tae shout the odds. Now I’ve got Simon fuckin Lockhart threatenin tae invade ma card game, no doubt lookin tae raise some kind of hell. Now I didn’t do fourteen years an come out the other side tae fly underneath the radar and accept the crumbs fae ma little brother’s table wae a bowed head an a humble heart. I want what I deserve. An if he won’t give it tae me, I will fucking take it, ye hear me? I’m responsible for his supply, and I will do everything in my power tae lift it from right underneath him if need be. An you, my son, are either with me or against me. No middle grounds, no straddlin the fence anymore, no grey areas! Just black and fucking white.”