Ten

I.

BEER

I stand in the alcohol section looking at a 12 pack. It is a bad tasting beer, but it is cheap. I feel that by buying the cheaper beer I am punishing myself. There is a Wu Tang Clan song playing on the store radio. The guy behind the counter is watching me with my cheap beer. I nod and exit the store. He chases after me. He is faster. He beats the shit out of me and demands I either pay for the beer or he calls the police. I pay for the beer.

II.

APARTMENT

My apartment smells funky. I sometimes feel like I should clean it. I don't. I sit watching TV and think it would be good to clean my apartment. I don't. My friend comes over and tells me he hates me, he takes some of my beer and leaves. I'm not entirely sure he is my friend.

III.

CRACK

In Kreuzberg, Berlin, a girl offered me crack. I smoked crack for the first time in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Someone told me crack is addictive. I don't think it is. I have not smoked crack since Kreuzberg.

IV.

WAVING YOU PREGNANT.

We stare at each other from our apartments. You smile and wave. I smile and wave. You are now my girlfriend and you are now pregnant.

V.

BAD ASS HIPSTER PUNK

I am sitting wearing skinny grey jeans, white converse and a ripped black t-shirt a size too small. I feel like I'm iggy pop or some 70s punk. I should leave the house and chat up some hipster chicks. I think they will like my attire.

VI.

WORK

At work today I moved some boxes. The boxes made me feel sad. It was like I was evicting them from their home. From the back of the warehouse. I put them in the cardboard recycling dumpster. I wonder if I get evicted if the landlord will come and throw me in the dumpster out back. I hope he does, I belong there. I should save him time and just move into the dumpster before he evicts me. After this thought I go back to work where I have to get a 42” TV for a customer. Frank helps me.

VII.

BAR

I have a sickening feeling in my stomach. I drink beer to make it better. I watch sports to numb it out. I piss in the urinal because I've drunk too much beer. A man speaks to me. I feel awkward. I ignore him and leave the bathroom. I drink more beer. The man at the bar tells me I have had enough. I have had enough. I leave. On my walk home I follow a homeless man. He tells me God is his son, and that he is a problem child, God, not the homeless man.

VIII.

COLLEGE

I dropped out of college at the end of my second year. I took a 'gap year'. It wasn't a gap year. I worked at a sports store. I went back to college for the final two years. I got a third. My mother cried. My father called me a waster.

IX.

HOTEL ROOMS

I got into a fight with a bellboy. He wanted a tip. I spat in his face. I threatened to eat his fucking nose. He called his boss. I was not allowed to return to my room. I did not get my deposit back. That I night I quit drinking for the third time.

X.

BEING POOR

Being poor is not so bad. Being alone is not so bad. Being me is good. I am good. But that is not the main thing here. The main thing is: YOU ARE GOOD.

XI

CHAPBOOKS

“I have a collection of chapbooks in my garage. They are water damaged and yours for £2 the lot.” I post this on facebook. No one replies.

Puking and Crying.

You are so upset you are sick.

You are pathetic.

Your mother is ashamed of you.

Suicide would be too good for you.

Someone calls the police because they think you're dead.

You're just drunk.

Passed out on the floor of a discotheque.

Hoping people will stamp you into the ground.

Hoping, but realising even shit dreams don't come true for you.

You wish to be your younger self.

When miserablism got you laid.

The Irn Bru Hipster.

You can fit a glass bottle of Ginger in your skinny jeans back pocket, and this makes you happy.

My suicide note

would probably consist of lyrics by The Smiths.

I wish I was bi-polar

at least then I could be happy sometimes.

But I probably won't kill myself.

You have come to the conclusion there is something missing from your life.

You fill that space with drugs because at least they can cheer you up.

They don't cheer you up and only your eventual suicide will do that.

But you won't kill yourself, you even say 'But I probably won't kill myself' when referring to how doomed you are.

You get a text saying hopefully an awkward situation won't make things awkward.

You lie, say that it will not.

It will.

The garbage man came today and you wanted him to throw you in the trash compactor.

He refused, said 'you need help bro, you crazy'.

'I don't need help, I need to be one with the trash'.

He does not believe you and moves on.

You will try again next week.

Super suicide smash funzies!

Realist chick flicks

That grapefruit destruction
 
Bean eating contest

Fighting giant pink robots from outer space.

Dialogues

"ah wrote a chapbook"
"Did it sell?"
"Never tried"
"What?"
"There still in a bawks in ma shed"
"Water damaged?"
"Probably"

***

"The last time we were here ah threw up"

"Last time ah wis here we made oot"

"Mind that mogwai gig here?"

"Naw"

"Me neither, ah got trashed"

"Me anaw"

"Mind amber?"

"Aye. Did she no kill hersel?"

"Aye?"

"Aye. I'm sure eh it."

"ah wonder why she hudnae been around in months"

"Too much Cariasa's weird"

"Not enough beer"

"Not enough beer"

***

"Ah watched hibs at Easter Road fir the first time since college."

"Ah remember we use tae go to all the home games."

"Use tae be the shite wi all the middle class English kids at uni"

"Oh aye. 'real fucking working class lads these two' they would say"

"I saw Chelsea the eir day"

"Did she acknowledge ye?"

"Naw, she was in a suit and shit, ah wis in pissed jeans"

"Cunt"

"Aye"

Samuel Beckett told me in a dream to write a play about nothing.

House lights lower, spotlight centre stage, curtains open. An empty stage.
Curtains close, spotlight lowers, house lights come on.
[fin]

I owe Jesus money.

But I spent it on booze so he is going to have wait a little longer.

When it gets raw

I was evicted from my apartment today. I had to collect my stuff from the landlord who let me into the apartment to get it.

I'm in the back of a taxi with a black bag of books, a crate of records, a bag of clothes, and a turntable. The taxi driver is listening to MF Doom. I ask him to turn it up, but he pretends not to hear me. He makes a comment about the bags but I ignore it.

At the storage place the clerk tells me it will cost me fifty to store my shit for the month. I give him a fifty and he gives me unit 342. It takes five minutes to find the unit. The clerk helps me with my shit. I thank him, take my key and leave.

I start heading south, in the direction of my best friends house. I kick a can as I walk and a kid with a hockey stick stops it and smashes it at his friend who I assume is goalie judging by the two sweaters making the goals. The kid laughs at it smashes his friends skull. I continue walking down several streets. I pass a MacDonald's think about going in. I go in.
I ordered a double cheeseburger and coke and take the only seat available, next to a kid colouring in a picture of Ronald. The kid looks at me and tells me I stink. I think about punching the kid, but instead tell him Santa clause isn't real and leave. I feel bad, I go back in, the kid is crying. I tell him Santa Clause is real, I was joking. An older guy, probably his father glares at me. I leave again.

Siobhan isn't home, this is good. I had sex with Siobhan so she would say no to me staying over. Chris is home, but he says no to me staying over. He says he'll give me a lift to my parents if I need it. I tell him I've got mad stacks, and public transport is cheap (I don't have mad stacks). He smirks and says that Siobhan hates me coming round, and she'd 'shit a duck' if I was staying over. I tell him it's cool. I use his bathroom, and I steal a book from his shelf as I walk down the hall.

I head back out to the street and call Jason. Ask him to meet me at the bar down the street from Chris' house. Jason agrees to meet me.

In the bar I have a rum and coke while I wait on Jason. Jason is writer I met online, he writes poetry and short stories. He's been published in several magazines and has a short story collection out on a New York Press. I have written many poems, plays, short stories. I have been rejected from many magazines and have never attempted to get a short story collection out on any press. I wasn't planning on asking Jason for a place to kip, merely, I wanted to get drunk with someone who I liked getting drunk with.

Jason arrived 20 minutes later, sporting an ironic moustache and skinny jeans. He sits down and gets up, heads to the bar, comes back with a rum and coke for himself, and one for me.

“I heard your homeless” he says sipping his rum and coke.

“Word travels fast in the cool circles”

“yeah? I wouldn't know. Is that why you called me?”

“Nah, I just wanted to get drunk”

“Good, because I'm sleeping in Joanna's polo”

“Volkswagen seats comfortable?” I ask jokingly

“No.” he sighs “Joanna threw me out for sleeping with Sara

I didn't know how to reply so I shook the glass as a signal for another drink.

Next Level

Two men in a bedroom. One is on the bed, the other is spread out on the floor. The guy on the floor is rubbing his stubble covered face.

Floor guy: [looks at the guy on the bed] Think Christmas will come early this year?

Bed guy: [Getting up off the bed] Yes. But I don't think you should get excited. [he grins] you're getting coal bitch!

The guy on the floor gets up and walks to the window he looks outside at two kids playing street hockey. He lights a cigarette. And passes one to the guy who was previously on the bed.

Floor guy: When I was younger my mother told me I was getting coal. I didn't get up on christmas day with the zest other kids did. I feared that I would get coal. When I finally got up my parents were sat in the living room surrounded by presents.

Bed guy: [interrupts] You didn't get coal?

Floor guy: [toneless] No. [long pause] I got empty boxes because I wasn't even worth the coal.

Bed guy: That's harsh. What did you do?

Floor guy: I killed my parents.

Bed guy: [lays back down on bed, puts the cigarette in his mouth, lights it, inhales] Sounds reasonable.

The guy who was on the floor opens the window, leans his head out and watches the kids playing hockey.

Hot and Spicy Chicken Noodles.

My facebook is depressing. There is no notifications involving me. There hasn't been for days. There hardly ever are. On the front page there is interactions between friends talking about hanging out. My friend is coming back from America and is contacting everyone about it. I have no notification. I get bored. Close the laptop and head out.

*

I'm in a Noodle Bar. It has mediocre noodles, but it serves beer too. It seems less depressing than sitting in a pub alone. I'm eating hot and spicy chicken noodles. I check my phone a lot even though I am not expecting a text. I have a copy of The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose. I am not reading it, but then, it is also not a fashion statement. I doubt people would be impressed. I'm listening to Johnny Foreigner. A guy complains that I have my music too loud. I remove my headphones and say that if I can hear him, they aren't loud enough. He moves further down the bar. I finish my noodles and order another beer. A guy I went to college comes in and sits next to me. He makes small talk about what I'm doing now, what he's doing now. I make up a few lies. Tell him I've been writing some stuff for magazines here and there. I haven't written in months. He leaves. I leave soon after.

*

I get into my house. My room mate is in the living room. He tells me he got a new record today. I say that's cool. He agrees. I to to my room. I go to sleep.

What's up bitches!

I started work this morning feeling shitty. I got really drunk last night and slept in the bar. I often sleep in the bar. My apartment is cold and my room mate hates me. We both came to age in the early 00s. Everyone that came to age in the early 00s hates each other. We were kids in the 90s, broken homes and joblessness was high. Then Nu-metal came along and made my generation angry, really angry. For no reason other than it felt good to get angry. Nu-metal was a bad invention. It wasn't very good music and made my generation angry. Fred Durst should release an official apology to my generation.

An excerpt from my untitled, probably never going to be finished 'detective' novel.

I sit in Denny's drinking coffee and eating a French toast breakfast.
The guy I'm watching is eating the same. But not drinking anything.
I pretend I am reading a book. Tao Lin's Richard Yates.
The man gets up and leaves.
I get up and follow him.
After walking for 3 minutes I get bored and go home.
My room mate asks me how the job went.
I told him good and then went to my room and lay on the floor.
My room mate comes into the room and says he made egg.
I ask if he flipped it.
He did not.
I don't want a non-flipped egg.

Lies I've been telling people all day.

I'm going to spend my days and nights in the pub reading through Cicero's The Insurgents, The Human War, and Best Behaviour, and then I'm going to read Pink's Person, Hurt Others, The self-esteem Holocaust, and No Hellos Diet, and then I'm going to huff paint, smoke cigarettes, get completely tanked and write the greatest British Alternative Lit novel. FUCK BEN BROOKS, nah, he's cool. I'll settle for being best Scottish alternative lit writer. I wont even quit my day job because fuck that!

A silly dream sequence.

Characters:
Detective Giddens - A thirty something detective wearing a 30s PI coat and trilby.
Pauly Shore- A washed up 'comedy actor' Wearing a long black jacket
Matt - a twenty something male, clothes unknown.

Act-1: Int. Unknown office. Matt's Viewpoint.

It is dark, except for a small red dot from the front of a cigarette, a silhouette can be seen attached to said cigarette. He is behind a desk. The desk is covered in old books, a magnum and a small rectangular sign with the words "Detective Giddens" written in italics. Matt walks forward.

Detective Giddens: [Leaning forward on his chair, angrily] HALT! What the fuck do you think this is, a doss house? Go home Junkie.
Matt: Woah there stranger. [Enter Pauly Shore from behind, walks past Matt, approaches detective.]
Giddens: [Still leaning forward, hands on desk, cigarette dying.] What's going on here, are the brothels closed?
Pauly Shore: [Hand moves into his jacket, what he removes is unseen] You told me Andy Dick was not getting work.

There is a confrontation between Giddens and Shore, Giddens is on the floor.Matt  walks forward, shore moves quickly past, sound of door shutting behind Matt. He examines the other side of the table, a dead Giddens and a kipper fish covered in blood.

The sound of ringing.
[Wake]

I have thoughts of suicide when I wash the dishes.

It started when Emily left the house. It was early, 3 maybe 4 in the morning, no one knows really. Not even Matt, who was in her bed. She got up, he awoke asked where she was going. “Just downstairs.” He fell back asleep. She left out the front door and got into her car. She drove to the town of Leven and she jumped into the Firth of Forth. Or, that is what is believed to be the case by Fife constabulary. Her car was found parked, still on. There was no note, but the headlights shinning on the Forth.
  The second to take their life was Matt. Who after a night of drinking at Emily's procession, believed it was his fault Emily left the house, early in the morning, between 3 and 4. He left the procession and walked through the dark streets of Methil looking for anyone willing to cause him bodily harm, failing to find anyone Matt walked to the docks. He looked over the edge into the murky water, took a deep breath, said fuck it and stepped off.

  The third, Frank, was out of boredom. He kicked a can down the street and reached an old antique store. He saw a old shotgun in the window for sale. He had an inner shrug and entered the store. He was found in the park across from the store, his skull missing half it's flesh and bone.

  Jordan read in the paper that suicide rates had fallen that year. He didn't like this figure as it meant his friends who killed themselves, were negative statistics. He did not like this thought. He hanged himself from the ceiling fan. His housemate found him a day later. Sara, she took her life using pills and alcohol the day after the medics removed the body.

  Ben couldn't get a hold of his friends via text, facebook or other forms of messaging. He eventually called Matt's parents. They told him that while he was in San Francisco Emily, Matt, Frank, Jordan and even Sara killed themselves. All within the 2 week period. Ben did not kill himself, Ben flew back to Scotland.

[Guest Post] 3 pieces by Frank Black

Frank Black is a person. He writes good and does other stuff good too.
He can be found at The Steak Manual


Play

A living room in a dark flat, sparsely furnished.
Frank sits in an armchair. Claire, Frank's acquaintance sits on the IKEA sofa. A small television flickers in the corner of the room. They are watching a VHS of Watership Down.

FRANK: I want to go to a fucking beach and skim stones.
[Pause]
Escape everything.
[Pause]
I feel like I'm fucking trapped inside a Francis Bacon triptych.

CLAIRE: I feel empty.

FRANK: I want be feral.

CLAIRE: Je suis Frank; I'm a fucking wolf-child.

FRANK: Fuck you, Claire.

CLAIRE: You're a waste of valuable resources, Frank.

FRANK: I know.

Poem

Delicate amber;
Liquid ambrosia.

Quench the unending,
relentless,
insatiable,
thirst.

I lack the restraint,
and the willpower,
to believe in moderation.

Prose

Frank hauled his bedraggled body from his futon, shambling through his ramshackle of a flat, meandering towards the kitchen. Frank grabbed a clean looking mug and turned on the tap. It slowly and loudly sputtered to life, gushing at an unnecessary pace. Returning to the room; he carelessly dropped onto the mattress, splashing and sloshing water around the room. Opening a drawer of the bedside cabinet, he removed a small box. Frank took a co-codamol and ibuprofen with the water. Frank listens to Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service. Frank thinks of Harold Shipman. Frank is soothed to sleep.

I get paid by the vowels (but not Y). I made 180 pence (£1.80)

In my last poem There are 38 a's. There are 5 b's. There are 16 c's. There are 10 d's. There are 53 e's. There are 9 f's. There are 29 h's. There are 20 i's. There are 5 k's. There are 27 l's. There are 14 m's. There are 25 n's. There are 40 o's. There are 8 p's. There are 28 r's. There are 24 s's. There are 42 t's. There are 19 u's. There are 3 v's. There are 16 w's. There is 1 x. There are 20 y's.

We Can Play Doctors Like We Once Did.

stab my face with love you sexy
beast or I will cut you
we can play doctors and nurses
you can stitch me up good


we can skip school and play dead at
your house, in your kitchen
wait for your mum to come home from
her work and find us there


let her tell me I am an arse
let her throw me out the
house and call my parents to say
how I can not see you


we will meet in the blackness of
the old football pitch that
the homeless use to piss at night
when they think they are alone


then we will both runaway very far,
esoterically
very far until we grow apart from each
other naturally

I wanted to write a play for Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon Levitt to act in.

Inside Handlebar, Wicker Park, Chicago. A couple sit at a table facing each other. The male has a tuna steak sandwich and a pint of beer. The female has only a glass of wine.

Female: Alternative lit is dying. Noah Cicero released The Human War almost 10 years ago. Tao Lin came to prominence almost 5 years ago. It will be dead within the year and you have written nothing but a mediocre short play and a chapbook of poetry. You will not be remembered.

Male: [looks down at the sandwich, voice chocked up]It will come back again Amy and you know it.

Amy: In ten years maybe. You'll be 35 Scott, 35. Are you planning to still be here, drinking yourself dead at a shithole bar? Are you?

Scott: [Swallows a gulp of beer] I don't know what you want me to say.

Amy: You said it Scott, you just said it. [She finishes her wine and gets up]

Scott: [getting up after her] Where are you going?

Amy: Away Scott, away. [Exits the bar]

Scott:[sitting back down, looks at sandwich]Fuck you tuna.

A statement:

I feel like no one is blogging anymore. Like, not even just blogging about stuff they like.
Are blogs even relevant anymore? Is alt-lit even relevant?
I want to do cocaine, but would rather get drunk.
I don't want to do anything anymore.

I'm not dead.

I'm just in a coma.

When shooting yourself in the face

It is always best to use a shotgun.

Kele from Bloc Party was the Last voice I remember before passing out.

Wendy's Bar opened at 11 am. We arrived at around 10:50. The plan was to get our regular seats. We weren't alcoholics, we still aren't. We just enjoyed the atmosphere. When you live in fife there is little to do but drink. It's either drink, sell drugs or kill yourself. The drug idea didn't appeal to me because I wasn't the right build that I could protect my stock against would be thieves. The killing myself idea floated around, but I abandoned it for the more socially accepted act of drinking until my liver and lungs slowly shut down.

   The football was today but we couldn't afford tickets because drinking took precedence. We decided to watch it on the pubs big screen anyway. During the match there was a heated argument between Dean and some other guy. I suggested Dean smash a bottle of his head. Dean reclined to do so. The argument quickly ended. Dean and the man he had dispute with were now drinking together. I, as usual was left alone. This did not bother me. I enjoyed drinking alone in a room filled with people.

   Anna came in around 5 o'clock. I was already in a very drunken state by then. She had just finished her job at the local bookstore.

   She sat next to me and said “So when will I see your book grace my store?”

   “When I'm dead and the Hipsters who saw the movie of my books that no one bought come in to buy it so they could pretend they read it before they saw the movie”

   “That'd be a pretty depressive movie”

   “It'd be a pretty depressive book” I said, then motioned the signal for 'another drink?'

   She said “Yeah, I'll have a JD and Coke. And books are allowed to be depressive.”

   When I returned with my Corona and a shot of Morgan's and her JD and Coke. I asked “how so”

   “Writers are depressed, lonely people”

   “I'm not lonely, I have a bar full of friends”

   “Do you have love? What happens when the bar closes?”

   “I go home, sleep, get up, shower, pub, repeat.”

   “Such a depressive life you lead.”

   “It's my life. Don't you forget. It's my life. It never ends”

   After this short conversation Anna gets up and says she's going to mingle. She leaves me alone in my corner of the bar again. Now that the weekend drinkers are starting to arrive the bar begins to play music. Wendy's is pretty much an indie bar for white kids with art majors or students of the social sciences. I wonder if the sociology majors ever sit and take notes about us regulars. The ones who come here day in, day out. I wonder if they know we spent Christmas day drinking in here. I wonder what they did on Christmas day.