More Pain

I felt it was a bit warmer last night, so I walked down by the Lagan as if I was going by Jordanstown. All the way out past the back of the markets, down past where the Obel Tower still hasn't been finished and on out past the Seacat terminal.

There was a cold breeze blowing in off the harbour and I sat and squinted out into the distance at the cranes, wondering who goes out there to work with them and how somewhere not so far away from a city be so desolate.

I pissed myself to keep warm and downed my drink quicker so I could pish more. It won't matter, I was washing the trousers that night anyway.

There was no rain or snow and I wanted some.

I went back to my house and had a long bath. I let it go cold and filled myself another one. Then I huffed some felt tips to make me feel sleepy and went to bed.

Pain

At the back of the carpark on Tomb St where sk8rkids huff paintball pellets and drink Solschenizyn (brown lemonade, schnapps and a dash of Fanta), was Rock and Roll Stephen, the Unicorn Girl and Clarence Pishflap.

"This isn't your usual place," I said to them. "Your gang don't roam here, what's the story?"
Clarence Pishflap spat and said to the Unicorn Girl that my mate Fabian Wildman was the one who broke her friend Betty Blue's heart.
The Unicorn Girl looked at me and said that I should maybe leave because she won't speak to friends who hurt other friends.
I told her I hadn't seen Fabian Wildman in ages and that I was a free man and could go round Belfast wherever I wanted.
Clarence Pishflap said that him and the Unicorn Girl were off and they left, Rock and Roll Stephen looked sad so I offered him some pink Champaigne.

He blew air out his flapping lips and said that he didn't need to teeth to tell me that Clarence was putting moves on the Unicorn Girl and that I was out of the picture.

I told him I hadn't seen or even thought about the Unicorn Girl in months and that my neighbours wore leotards all day long, and sometimes so did I.

"I know," he said sadly, and I remembered how he lost his teeth.

We sat in silence and I fell asleep, when I woke up he wasn't there. It was only me.

Tuesday Kid The Teacher - The Final Lesson

I was about to leave the house last night with my bottle of pink champaigne when the door went.

Standing outside looking worried and more haggard than a sixteen year old should was My Protege. I wondered if he was now on crack like I had been and I was wary of weapons he might be carrying.

"This is for you, can I come in? It's so cold," he said reaching out a Terrence Ternt D'arby CD to me. "I know all the gays like him."

I invited him in and told him that I wasn't gay and hadn't heard of Terrence Trent D'arby but I'd give it a listen. With song titles like Let Her Down Easy I'm in no rush.

He said that he'd been trying to change his ways since our last talk and he was sorry about what he did with the book I gave him but he had to act cool infront of his mates but he was trying to find new mates to be cool with, till that day he had to walk the thin line between how to be cool and how to true.

He tried to pull a profound face and I didn't want to tell him that to be true is to be cool. That would be my final lesson but it's one he should be taught by life, not by me.

I told him to go round to see Nanny Boo Boo because him and his gang had upset her with their wild boy behaviour. He said he would, I told him I'd be calling by from time to time.

He wandered off into the night to someday lick the bowl.

Good King Thumpo Has A Plan

Hangovers are becoming the norm for me, when I wake up in the morning without one I start to realise I'm not keeping up with myself. I was wandering about the lower Lisburn Road when all I heard was:

"Tuesday Kid lad, bout ye!"

I turned to see Good King Thumpo rolling up to me all happy and with a big rottweiller saying he was out to rid the streets of tramps and Ma-Mutt was helping him in the fight. It was all a bit much with my fuzzy head. I asked him why he wanted his mutt but bite the homeless and he said that he was training up the dog on tramps because no one misses them if you go too far.

Then he started to get really excited when he said that once he was rid of the tramps he was going to start on immigrants.

Then he went for a pish in one of the phoneboxes beside Charlie's coffee shop. He gave two fingers in the window and shouted "What you looking at?" at them.

Then he asked me if I wanted to go to this really high class brothel he knew about on Botanic? No foreigners apparently.

I told him no. He looked hurt and said that we hadn't hung out in ages and he'd missed our craic.

I told him that I didn't agree with his politics and he said that I didn't seem to have a problem with it when he was out breaking the other side's legs, just cause he's now into breaking black or yellow legs suddenly I'm saying it's wrong.

He said that he needs a side to belong to but he isn't the one picking the teams.

I asked him what he was talking about and he waved a copy of some shite local tabloid. Then he made his dog sniff it and told it that it would know what was tasty when it met it.

Ma-Mutt woofed excitedly and Good King Thumpo pulled his nicest face:

"I love you too Ma-Mutt," he said.

Hot Leotard Porn Scenario Number 1

I arrived round at the Leotard Girls house yesterday with my tool box and full of excitement at the prospect of hot leotard girl sex.

Unfortunately they pointed me in the direction of their fridge which was making this fucked up clicking sound from the back. Apparently there had been a party last weekend where it got knocked over and it hasn't been right since.

I was well out of my depth but pretended to fiddle around with it and check stuff. After about half an hour I told them that they should contact their landlord because it was his responsibility.

"But what about the parties?" shouted Princess Cheetara. "We have parties here all the time, we don't want him to know."

"Lie," I said.

I was a bit fucked off at not being invited to their cool parties, even if they were attended by headbutting dickheads. This isn't fair. I would have burst into tears if it wasn't that they started talking all frantic about Cheryl Cole and Ashely Cole splitting up, they would have thought I was crying about that.

"I think my heart is broken," I said fighting to keep the tears in.

Then I realised they thought I was talking about Cheryl and Ashley too, so I let the tears flow freely.

In the end I picked up my toolbox and sulked out of there without even so much as a cup of tea or peck on the cheek.

First Day Out On The Town

It was nice to get off the sofa and out of the house today. I walked down to Victoria Square and milled about for a while slurping on a big Cafe Mocha in Costa, they do the nicest coffee in Belfast.

I'd hoped that I might sniff some residue of Lady GaGa having been here yesterday but everywhere I looked for her trace was a dead end.

I sniffed the breeze hoping to pick up her scent but in the end I left with empty hands.

Coming home I met Princess Cheetara from the Leotard Girls at the bottom of the street and walked home with her. She said that she'd seen the wee fellah (Rock and Roll Stephen) who was nutted by Napper and he had a big gummy mouth and even though it was funny she felt bad for him because he wasn't a bad looking wee fellah before.

She said that her and the Raven Princess Spandex were having trouble with their fridge and they needed someone to come and have a look at it. I told them I used to fix fridges, which is a complete lie but I was getting horny walking up the road with her and this sounded like a start to my own private porn scenario. I'm going round later and I hope to fuck it is.

Cross your fingers for me.

Wino Jo hits the road

wino Jo came into the livingroom and spoke to me this morning. He said that he was going to go and visit the Fruitarian. I told him I was sick but when I was better then yes. He said he was going to go today.

He's going to stay long term at the Fruitarian's it'll be nice him sitting eating rotten bananas and tofu. I know he can't stand it but he takes what he's given (he's polite like that) and he knows to go when the money runs low, good old Wino Jo, fucker.

Sitting Sick on the Sofa

Sitting on the sofa with a big violent dog and a television allows you to take a different perspective on things than you normally do.

Today I observed:

T4 tends to pair white boys with ethnic girls for its presenting teams (I'm sure it's just been one big coincidence).

Stacy Slater killed Archie (shock horror!? Who the fuck was Archie?! I haven't watched Eastenders in years) and she makes Battle Cat try to hump the sofa.

The Canadian Bob Sleigh team had a nasty topple at high speed and headbutt the wall incident that they walked away from unharmed.

Curling is a sport for millies and their mothers (judging by the GB team), and for people who want to say "I brush ice for a living."

Early repeats of Friends remind us that 90s fashion only seemed okay because it came after the 80s.

Pop Star to Ringo Starr

My time spent sitting on the sofa has turned into convalescence (the last big word Book Boy ever taught me sniff sniff). I've been happed up with a blanket and me and Battle Cat have been watching shit like Pop Star to Opera Star, and trying to work out why Darius Danesh is now called Darius Campbell. I think they should make a show called Pop Star to Ringo Star where failed pop stars have to learn how to play some Ringo tracks on drums, read Thomas The Tank Engine stories and end it all by recording a big "Peace and Love" message saying they were retiring from showbiz.

Hot Baby Roy and Wino Jo have been acting weird and Hot Baby Roy isn't spending every night in the house anymore, I think he's going to fuck off and scab off another better off friend.

Wino Jo has been talking about where he's going to go now. I haven't told anyone I'm kicking them out but they both just want to fuck off now the good money is gone. I think I'm going to get Battle Cat to bite them, he's still young but he's big enough to chow down.

A Nice Day on the Sofa

This morning I broke the bad news of my firing to Hot Baby Roy and Wino Jo, they both started shouting at me about how could I do this? And how I couldn't go back on the dole. I reminded them that they both were on the dole and that maybe now they could stop scabbing off me and go out and find jobs and treat me to the spoils of their hard earned jobs.

They both started shouting again and I just went back upstairs and had a snooze. When I woke up neither of them were in the house so I went down and sat on the sofa with Battle Cat. I told him that I was fired but I wasn't going to stay on the dole long because I want money. I just want a better job than the shit one I had.

There was fuck all on TV so we watched a Chuck Norris DVD were Chuck stares down a bear. I don't know why everyone goes on about Chuck being all hard. I'd slap the ginger wee pishflap about with my big toe.

Back to the Bad Old Dole

I slept all day apart from waking up occasionally to boke or cough up nasty green shit (not so much red so yey). Anyway it finally hit home about an hour ago that I'm going to be back on the dole again and it was no fun before. Being on the dole and working shit jobs are really two sides of the same coin, basically having no money and having shitheads hassle you about bollocks. Is there any way out of the cycle?

Sometimes I think I should just quit Belfast and go live in the countryside and all that but it'd probably end up being like one of those bad movies about how the city fella moves to the country and he thinks the culchie folk are dicks and they think he's the dick but they both end up learning that they each know stuff the other doesn't - bollocks. I'd go back on the crack in no time and end up running bollock naked through the mountains killing fish with a homemade bow and arrow.

That or I could go back to live in Larne but that's where old people go to catch arthritis and throw their marbles in the sea. No that's not for me.

Back on the Dole and Dreams of Cheryl Cole

Sitting shivering at my desk yesterday and coughing so much I had to keep putting customers on hold, London Girl came over and said that I was spending an unacceptable amount of time on calls. I told her all about my cough and she said that she had noticed how much I'd been spitting in the bin and how this was unacceptable too.

I turned to my screen and spat on it a nice big green and red phlegm bomb.

She walked away all startled and Little My said "yer pure fucked naw."

Then a call came through on my phone and I said "You're not getting your money back," and hung up.

I braced myself as I saw Truffle Shuffle and The Huffy Tortoise coming waltzing across the floor with London Girl all startled and teary eyed.

The Huffy Tortoise waved his fingers at me to come here, I waved two fingers back at him to go away.

Then they said that I was to hand over my security pass and leave the building. I repeated my two fingered gesture and Truffle Shuffle grabbed my top.

"I told him if he didn't get his hands off me he'd be getting sued like the fat squaddie mutherfucker that he was."

The trio waltzed away again like a gang of mutherfuckers and five minutes later someone from HR came in and told me that I needed to leave or they'd be sending security to shift me.

I asked her when was I getting this months money and she said that I'd be paid on the normal date.

I stood up and went to make a rousing speech about how call centres are the modern day work factories that killed Victorian children but instead of us losing arms or legs these places took our souls! But I coughed and boked my ring up and slid all across the floor on it before these burly security guards ran into the room and grabbed me and fucked me out of there.

I stood out on the street and shouted that I'd be back with a snooker cue to fuck them up but when I got home I felt relieved that I was no longer in work and fell asleep having a sly wank to Cheryl Cole at the Brits, she'll be back on the market soon after Ashley has been exposed as a cheating scumbag. She wasn't wearing her wedding ring, maybe I could put one there.

How to Make The Tastiest Pancakes

This morning I was coughing up chunks of green stuff. It's all the walking about drunk in the cold, Wino Jo says, he says he's an expert in this stuff. It seems his being back on the drink was a temporary thing as he's not been drunk since that night.

There were streaks of red in the coughed stuff and I'm not sure if it's blood or colouring from the pink champaigne. Either way none of the others in the house seemed too bothered and I just struggled out of bed and made my way to work via the off-licence and custom house square. I'd hoped that some pink champaigne would give me strength to get through the day but I've been sitting shivering in the disabled bogs since I came in.

No fucking pancakes. Book Boy says it's just a commercial holiday and that the marketting ploy that starts every year after Valentines Day is sickening. He was near in tears when he said it but I think that's because he doesn't have a sweetheart or anyone to make him pancakes either.

Bottle of Pink Champaigne for My Lonely Travels

Last night I took my bottle of pink champaigne and went down to the Lagan Meadows, I wandered far, farther than I've gone with Battle Cat, out past Drumbeg.

I was lonely drunk, crying sporadically and shouting out insults because I knew no one could hear me, only the occasional bat flew past my face.

Then the bottle emptied and I knew it was a long walk back to Stranmillis for more, I could hear people down the meadows all the way back, people in the distance laughing, or the odd shout between friends, but all the miles I never met anyone. I never met anyone.

Valentines Day and No Cards.

Valentines Day on a Sunday isn't so bad because you can say you got no cards because there's no Sunday post. But we all know if we were going to get any they would have come yesterday. None of us are speaking in my house but I know that Hot Baby Roy and Wino Jo were up particularly early yesterday and both looked really upset last night at having got no cards.

Me I'm not so bothered, there's no one I really wanted to get one from so until I have a proper sweetheart these heart throb points aren't worth collecting.

I walked down the Lagan tow path out by Central Station yesterday and bumped into Rock and Roll Stephen sitting beside it weeping. I feel really sorry for him now that he's got a big gummy face. He had a big red face from crying and he was saying that he's no longer the rock and roll pretty boy of Belfast and he hated it. He had no Valentines this year and it was so embarrassing because he'd booked a photographer to come and take pictures of him playing his guitar surrounded by the Valentines and the girls who'd sent them.

I offered him a hug but he refused I think it was more to do with how Battle Cat was snarling and barking at him from the moment we met. I think Battle Cat can sense Rock and Roll Stephen's less likable qualities but without his teeth and rock and roll heart throb status he might be undergoing a change towards a more admirable disposition.

Rock and Roll Stephen did offer all us cardless unloved types a bit of consolation, he said that girls aren't buying so many cards because of the recession and that they're showing their love in different ways, like laughing at you.

It's something to cling to.

Pink Champaigne and the Pleasures that will be Mine.

I've taken to sitting at the masonic compasses at custom house square now in the mornings before work, as you know. I've also taken to downing a full bottle of pink champaigne before I can face going in. It makes things just bareable, though I had tried vodka the first morning and all I did was stagger to work (falling a few times) and spend the morning boking in the disabled bogs. I was sent home, I said I had food poisoning. In a way I suppose it's the same thing.

Champaigne isn't cheap though I buy the cheapest bottle I can find. I like it to be pink, it's tastier and it is a soft colour that reminds me there are things in this city that aren't bleak and trying to slap you into your place, wherever that is.

I'm staking a claim for my home now, so sometimes in the morning I sit in the bath and have a shave, whether I need it or not, and snuggle up to foamy bubbles and a bottle of pink champainge. If I have it in the morning then I don't drink one at the masonic compasses.

I will one day drink this pink champaigne in a bath full of lovely ladies and the radio blarring Snoop Dizzle, for now it's all I can do to keep from falling asleep in it, that's why I never drink a second bottle in there.

A Good Old Scrap

Hot Baby Roy is back on the booze. I found him last night sprawled on his back with a big smile on his face and a bottle of Scrumpy Jack cuddled in his arms. Hot Baby Roy was lining his dick up with his nose (Hot Baby Roy's dick, Wino Jo's nose) and trying to take photos of it. Hot Baby Roy looked startled and he'd every right to be because I was going to kick his arse out of the house for that.

Then Hot Baby Roy's old pal Clarence sprung up from behind the sofa telling me that he had been taking lessons in chinese gung-fu and was going to whoop my ass for what I did to him last year.

He tried some big Jean Claude Van Damme roundhouse and managed to knock a potted plant flying just before I slapped his pussy ass all round my living room.

With Clarence booted out on the street I couldn't be arsed telling Hot Baby Roy to leave, him or Wino Jo but I'm thinking that I should just tell both of them to get out to fuck.

Eamon and Lost Chances at Love

Do you ever think about Eamon, I've been thinking about him a lot recently. He came along talking about this girl that dissed him, and he wasn't going to let it rest where it rested. And he didn't! He wrote this song, and it called her a hoe (like a bad girl) and he was telling everyone that she had been nasty to him. I could believe in that.

Partly because I couldn't get with certain girls that I wanted, and I know that was cheap, but also because these girls went with total assholes, and in later years I thought to myself that this wasn't on, and I'm always coming back to Eamon.

I only saw the video for the first time the other day when I went on youtube thinking about how I couldn't get the girls I wanted or how they wanted some lesser guy (it's okay ladies I'm not overqualified for your love). The video is nasty. Fucking Eamon throws a pizza on the floor that he's supposedly sharing with the girl, and you can bet she had to pay for the fucking thing, what a nasty bastard, wasting food, embarrassing a girl and telling people nasty raps about her.

I'm glad she wrote a song back, at the time I viewed it as what nasty girls said to get away with being nasty, but now I'm starting to see that Eamon wasn't speaking for all men; Eamon was speaking for Eamon and his limp wang.

Fuck him.

How to Know if Your Balls Have Dropped

I'm stuck in an endless conversation. I don't know where it began or what it's about or even who it is with. Or even if my contributions are all that relevant.

I spend my mornings before work sitting at the Masonic compasses at custom house square staring out over the Lagan at the Odyssey Complex. Thinking about goths and satanists, and crackheads and alcoholics, and my puppy dog that depends on me, nights of smokin' hot heavy metal rock and roll vomit parties and if I'll ever get them back? and if I'll ever get out of the call centre before it shuts down anyway? And if I do will I get somewhere I want to go? And will I ever get a sweetheart of my own before I too turn to stone?

The little bit of okayness I gained from sneering at Captain Cool Bastard has trickled away like the last dribble of pish on the toilet seat the morning after a humungus bender.

I can see it, there's something of what I loved still there but I don't want it back, because it would't be enough.

Captain Cool Bastard Doesn't Live up to his Name

Today it's nice and bright and I'm on late shift so I'm a wee bit happier about everything, I've sent off a load of job applications and though they're for shit jobs I'm sure the change of scenery will be nice, so yeah I'm being all upbeat and possitive and part of that is because I've a new person in my life to look down on:

Captain Cool Bastard.

I think Captain Cool Bastard thought up the Captain Cool part of his name himself. He's been telling stories since I got in at 11. They've all consisted of fights he's won and girls he's fucked. None of them are from Belfast even though he's lived here his whole life (as Book Boy managed to worm out of him). But by all accounts he's fucked more than Cassanova and there's sure to be loads of Captain Cool Bastard Bastards running around Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and anywhere else the Dublin Airport Bus stops at. Captain Cool Bastard says he goes down there once a month at least looking for sex and he always gets it. I sounds seriously more like some sort of rapist confession than anything else but Captain Cool Bastard says it always happens in hot steamy nightclubs like in that Usher song - Love in this Club.

I asked him why he never pulls in Belfast and he says that he likes Exotic foreigners. By this he means Irish Girls.

Fat Mo and Hoors Bastard have already taken a shine to him and the three of them have agreed to go on a rape (sorry pulling) spree at the end of the month.

Three Sisters Who Fell Into The Mountain

I'm wandering about Belfast feeling miserable more and more in my time off, because Hot Baby Roy and Wino Jo are huffing with me so it feels like that song that says "it's not my home, it's their home and I'm welcome no more." I think it's by The Smiths.

So I walked down by the city centre and it was all a bit nothing, everyone is all running around feeling cool about not being skint this month. I shouldn't resent them it's just I'm miserable.

I thought that when I got a job things would start to move forward and they haven't. I don't have any friends for work that I hang out with when I'm not working. I spend most of my money sorting out my brother and Hot Baby Roy and the only friend I have that doesn't scrounge off me is Nanny Boo Boo.

Last year when I was going to lots of heavy metal vomit parties was a lot of fun but now no one from that time wants to know me. I remember seeing this troll on a TV show (it was an animation) and the troll was all going on about how he wanted a sweetheart and he asked these girls who came wandering into his cave (the came one by one at different times, but it just so happened they were sisters), the first two said no and so the troll turned them to stone (this may have been a metaphor for what they did to the poor troll's heart) and the last sister said yes, but it was only a trick to fuck the troll up worse. In the end she got her sisters free and the troll turned into a big stone mountain. I know how he feels (metaphorically), still.

I FUCKING HATE MY JOB

Things are bad in the call centre, there's talk of the client pulling out, and much as I'm wanting to leave anyway I'm starting to suss that there's not much else out there.

It's shitting all over me. I'm due in next on Saturday and I'm ringing in sick because this is just fucking horrible. Today was horrible, fucking asshole the Huffy Tortoise came down and sat with us because he wants to see how we're working. He started with our team and of course Little My was making points here and there about how everyone was doing stuff fucking wrong the wee bitch. The Huffy Tortoise just sat and made all these bullshit points that futtered away up his own arse about all the little things people were doing wrong. I wanted to ask him if he'd like to speak to someone screaming down the phone at him but I couldn't. He'd fire me on the spot and I'd be back on the scummy dole. I can't be arsed. WOULD SOMEONE GIVE ME A JOB WHERE THE BOSS ISN'T AN ARSEHOLE!

I'm not Crying, It's just Raining

Work is pure balls today, it's pissing down outside and all anyone seems to want to talk about is Alex and Jordan. I said that Alex and Jordan were no Peter and Jordan and Little My said that it was time to move on. She has a point, the only person who's been here longer than us now is Book Boy and I don't know how he even ended up here in the first place.

We've some new starts today and Hoors Bastard is among them, seems he came back and fought the good fight and has earned a prize job (balls). He keeps talking about this guy who was in training with him called Captain Cool Bastard. Apparently Captain Cool Bastard is pure lethal craic and he's going to get up to all sorts while he's here. Hoors Bastard compared him to Bolton from Heartbreak High and Little My left a wee wet patch on her seat. I asked Whoors Bastard who Bolton was and Little My said:

"Away you back to sleep."

This is apparently some craic when she says it when she's out with her millie friends. Speaking of millies, neither Hot Baby Roy nor Wino Jo caught on that they've as much chance of pulling the Leotard Girls as they do of pulling my bar.

They both secretly blame me for putting them off the Anfield Rap and they say they're going to bring it out at the next party. They'll lose more teeth than Rock and Roll Stephen if they do, who by all accounts is now a gummy bastard.

The Disabled Bogs Are Flooded

The disabled bogs in work is where most people go for humping and pumping or self congratulations, but not today.

When we all got in this morning the disabled bogs were flooded, crying because Kissy Boy had left, Little My said, but everyone looked at the floor embarrased for her when she said this.

Truffle Shuffle and The Huffy Tortoise (who owns the building) were all parading about outside looking angry as fuck. The Uselss Arm Pit (the owner's brother and all round building handy man) was salivating and kept shouting "DON'T CALL THE POLICE!" They did of course and we were all ushered into our work cubicles. Here speculation was rife that Kissy Boy had fucked them up majorly when he went, no one could be sure but London Girl came in with a face like her heart was breaking and said:

"Kissy Boy flooded the disabled toilets," as if he'd done a turd on her living room carpet and rubbed her face in it, which he couldn't because London Girl is ex-TA and could put his head through a wall if she wanted.

Everyone was saying I told you so, and though it probably was him it could just as likely have been everyone else who hates working here. They've no more proof that Kissy Boy flooded the bogs than they do that he licks his own balls, and he's a lucky bastard if he can.

I think The Useless Arm Pit was wanting to go round his house and beat him up but I don't think he could bear himself in a came of Who Comes First?

Bye Bye Kissy Boy

Today was Kissy Boy's last day at work. He said he was fed up with the place and that we should try to get the fuck out of there. Call centres are a dying profession he said. In the future robots would do the work for us and we'd lay around all day getting suntans and working on our beer guts.

Then with a quick fuck you to Truffle Shuffle, he said he was going to say it to his face but he only said it under his breath, Kissy Boy was away, breaking the hearts of every girl on the floor. Kissy Boy said he didn't care because they all looked like they'd been born here and would, hopefully, he nodded at Little My, die here too.

She snuffled a laugh like she thought he was joking but he was dead serious. He has a point, not really about Little My, but about getting the fuck out of here. I don't want to be call centre cannon fodder. Our job is basically a buffer zone. No one ringing in to complain can actually get to speak to anyone who will do anything for them and we are expected to get them off the phone as quickly as possible. It stinks.