Skagboys Read Online Free Page B

gaunny dae wi the rest ay ma life?

I Did What I Did
    EIGHT BIRTHDAY CARDS arrived this morning: all from girly-wirlies, and that ain’t counting my mother and sisters. Sweet as you fucking well like. One from Marianne, with a sad ‘call me’ plea, after the desperate showboating of foxy love notes and kisses. Probably taking stock ay the fact that she’s becoming a crushing bore; aw this ‘come to my sister’s wedding’ guff. Dae ah look like Consort-at-a-Schemie-fest material? Still, she’s back in the fold, and therefore most serpently getting pumped with prejudice later.
    Of course, the upbeat mood is spoiled by a filthy brown envelope fae the dole, inviting me tae a job interview for the plum garage attendant’s post at Canonmills. Thrilled to bits they’re thinking of Simone, but I must respectfully decline, with a wee word tae my mate Gav Temperley at the dole office about this unwanted intrusion. Working chappies fail to understand the minds of men of leisure. I am not employed through
choice
, you fucking cretins; please dinnae mistake
me
for one of those hapless drones who wander around town in a trance, searching for non-existent labour.
    Garage attendant. Not in this fuckin life, Milksnatcher and Bike Boy. Get the Billionaire Playboy cairds up in your shitey offices, then I just
might
be interested!
    But the best present comes in the form of a phone call. Happy twinty-second birthday, Simon David Williamson; Cunty Baws has finally left the building! I’m taking the news, conveyed by my sister Louisa, in one breathless, gasping utterance, with a triumphant punch in the air. A quick look at the dictionary, it’s an ‘M’ day today, and I decide my new word is:
    MYOPIA, noun, nearsightedness. *lack of imagination, foresight or intellectual insight.
    Then ah’m heading right doon tae the Bannanay flats!
    Ya fuckin beauty!
    As ah hit the foot ay the Walk it starts tae pish doon; cauld, skin-stinging rain, but I crack a smile, stretching my bare, T-shirted arms out, and raising my head to the sky on this beautiful day, letting the bounty of the good Lord cool my skin.
    Tae the business at hand; ah get up tae the Williamson rabbit hutch on the second floor of this systems-built warren that dominates the old port proper, not the shite south ay Junction Street and Duke Street, which ah refuse tae acknowledge as
real
Leith. — Simon … son … my mother pleads, but ignoring her and Louisa and Carlotta, I immediately go tae the parental boudoir, tae check that the vain, posturing prick has emptied the jackets and shirts fae his wardrobe. A sure sign that he’s
genuinely
flown the coop rather than this all being a device for future manipulative leverage. My heart races as I pull the creaky door open. Yes! All gone! YA FUCKIN BEAUTY!
    God, after all he’s put her through, you’d think she’d be delighted, but Mama’s sitting on the couch sobbing and cursing the skanker that’s stolen his brass heart. — That hoor that’sa brainwashed him!
    Non capisco!
    She should be thanking the demented muppet for taking that dirty, slimy leech off her hands. But no: Lousia, my older sister, is sobbing with her, and my younger one, Carlotta, sits at her feet like a daft wee lassie. They look like an Amsterdam Jewish family, who’ve come back tae find the man ay the house carted off tae the camps!
    He’s only fucking well kipped up wi some minger!
    Ah sink doon on my knees beside them, holding my mother’s chubby hand, still wi his poxy rings on it, stroking Carlotta’s long, dark locks with my other paw. — He cannae mess us aroond any more, Mama. It’s the best move for everybody. No sense in being myopic here.
    She sobs into a hanky, displaying the grey roots in her inky-dyed and stiffly lacquered hair. — Ah cannae believe it. Ah mean, ah always kenta he was-ah sinner, she says in her halting Scheme-Eyetie accent, — but ah never-ah thoughta he’d dae this …
    Ah came doon here tae provide support,