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First Drink

It was in Millport that I had my first drink. I was only 14, but that’s quite late compared to the other folk that were around me.

When I first met all these people in Millport, I was the only one that didn’t drink. I didn’t like the state people got in when they were drunk back in Glasgow. They were a mess. They flopped about, they were half asleep, whereas I was hyperactive. I was like a fucking puppy, full of energy and excitement, and I wanted to keep it that way. I’d tell people that I didn’t have to have a drink to have a good time. I was full of that patter.

Then, one night, I decided to have one.

There was usually a big crowd of us, but all I remember from this time was that there were just the four of us. There was me, this lassie I knew, her boyfriend, and her cousin, who was this new lassie I’d just met. I was getting off with this lassie, the cousin. She was a nice person, with braces in her teeth. I think she was having a drink, and that’s maybe why I decided to have one, because if this nice person is having one, maybe I should have one as well.

I asked them what I should get, because I didn’t want to be flopping about, I didn’t want to get in that state. So they recommended three cans of Bud. That was my first drink. Three cans of Bud.

I drank them, and I liked them. I liked the taste. They were like cans of shandy you could get in a shop, not too strong.

I waited to feel something.

Then I started to feel it.

This glow.

I started to feel this happiness.

I remember the four of us sitting in the Ritz Cafe, with me smiling from ear to ear, telling them that it was the best feeling I’d ever felt. I honestly couldn’t stop smiling. I had this big smile and a sense of well-being. The other three were laughing at how much I was going on about it.

We went back to a house, where we just sat in the living room. Me and the cousin would get off with each other now and then, and the other lassie and her boyfriend would get off with each other on another seat. It’s funny how we’d all do that when we were young, get off with folk in the same room as other folk.

I think the cousin left Millport the next day, and it was time for me to head home as well. We didn’t swap numbers or addresses or anything, and I didn’t see her back in Millport again.

The next time I saw her was in Glasgow, about five years later. I was in George Square. And I was fucking steaming.

I was waiting for the late-night bus on a Saturday night. The place was busy with people trying to get home after being in the pubs and clubs and student unions, and I was by myself, drunk, and probably being all bitter. Then I saw her in the distance. She was with pals, pointing to a bus or taxi, smiling. She looked nice. She looked like a nice person, just like she did before. She was too far away for me to run over and say hello to, but I knew anyway what state I was in. Even in that state, I knew what state I was in. I’d be a slurring, slabbering monster. Remember me? Remember they three cans of Bud? Look at me now. Ta-da!

About five years after that, I was sitting in work with a hangover, the worst hangover of my life. A hangover that lasted the whole week. And it just so happened to be caused by a weekend trip to Millport.

I’d went fucking daft. I was steaming on the Friday, I was drinking all day Saturday, all day Sunday, I had the Monday off work so I drank all day Monday as well. Tequilas, the lot. Wrecked.

I was still drunk when I went in on the Tuesday, happy as Larry, in my golden hour. But by midday I was a mess. I had ‘the horrors’, as my dad called it. I was sitting in the office toilet, paranoid, thinking everybody was talking about me while I was in there. I had to get out of the toilet in a hurry, because I was starting to get the urge to just stay in there all day.

There was a new guy that had started, over from Belfast. He was about my age, and he was into a drink and going to clubs. He was a chilled-out sort of guy. I could tell he was one of the good guys. And I asked him to accompany me to the pub, because I needed a fucking drink. So he came along, and I told him all about my weekend. He told me I’d be alright.

That night when I got home, I don’t know what was happening to my body, but I thought I was going to die. Genuinely. One of my arms went all numb, for no reason. I wasn’t lying on it or anything. The eyesight in one of my eyes conked out for a few seconds. My insides were making all these sounds that I hadn’t heard before. It was like my body was saying, ‘Nope. Fuck this. Bye.’

The next morning, I didn’t feel that much better. I was ironing my clothes before work, and I felt a tickly feeling go down the back of my leg. I pulled down my joggies and had a look, and there was a light brown bead of liquid running down from my arse. I’d shat myself, and I didn’t even know it.

I went into work, with my scalp crawling and a feeling that I just wanted to vanish. So I asked that Belfast guy if he’d come to the pub with me again. He came along, and made everything alright once again. Like I said, one of the good guys. And he was like that all week until I got better.

It was a nightmare.

And to think it all started with three cans of Bud, because of that nice lassie.

But wait till you hear this.

See that Belfast guy? I looked him up on Facebook recently, to see what he’d been up to. I saw that he’d recently become a dad. I had a wee look through his pictures, and there was him and his wife holding their baby.

When I saw his wife, I nearly fell off my seat.

Because guess who it was.

It was her. That lassie. The cousin.

I kid you fucking not.

Slashing My Wrist

Millport was brilliant, but it was also where I slashed my wrist.

My mum and dad weren’t there this time, they reckoned that at 15 I was old enough to look after the place myself. So I invited my pals down from Glasgow. I had an empty! For weeks!

There were about six of us, staying in the caravan and the wee extension bit. It was fucking magic having them down. We’d all get ready and splash on the aftershave, then go and get a carry-out, and drink it with all the folk I knew. My mates were asking who was who, especially who the lassies were.

I wasn’t on the pull myself. There was this lassie from Greenock that I’d met. I really liked her, but she’d went home, and I was lovesick. And what maybe made it worse was that all my mates were pulling. There was all this joy around me involving lassies and guys, and I was in a world of my own, lovesick. Maybe I was jealous, fuck knows, but I think it was something else, something that wasn’t even about the lassie or my mates, something going way back.

And what made things worst of all was that I was drunk.

I was drunk, and I wanted to see her. I wanted to speak to her. So I phoned her. I’d phone her and hear her voice and everything would be alright.

I went to a phone box, and gave her a phone. I can’t remember much of the conversation, but I remember one thing.

I said to her, ‘I love you.’

This was a lassie I hardly knew. I mean, how long had I known her for? A week? A few fucking days? And we hadn’t even shagged or anything like that. We got off with each other a few times. We talked, though, we got on. I liked chatting with her, so I just latched on. I latched right on. And I told her I loved her.

I wanted to hear it back. I wanted to hear her say that she loved me as well.

But she just said, ‘Right.’

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

I said, ‘Do you love me?’

She said, ‘Em … I like you. I don’t love you. We haven’t known each other for that long.’

I was like, ‘But I love you.’

I started crying. My voice went all high. I was like that for the rest of the conversation, with me telling her how much I loved her and how much I wanted to see her. And there she was having to deal with this drunken fucking loony, having to let him down gently.

When we finished chatting I stayed in the phone box for a while, crying. When I left I bumped into my mates, and told them I couldn’t take it any more, and I was going to go back to the caravan and get a knife and kill myself. They said I was overreacting, but they followed me back. I went into the kitchen drawer, but I couldn’t find a sharp enough knife, so I took a fork.

That’s right, a fork. A blunt one at that.

I ran away, with them chasing me. One of them started crying, telling me that he loved me. I said I was sorry, but I needed to do it, I hated my life, I hated myself, I was a fucking joke. I probably spilled out all sorts of reasons why I hated my life, stuff going back to primary school.

I managed to get away from them, but I could hear them shouting for me. I liked it, in a way, but not in the way that put a smile on my face. I liked that I was making them aware of how I was feeling.

When I couldn’t hear them any more, when it was all quiet and dark, I just thought about myself. Just bad feelings. Bad feelings. All bad.

I took out the fork, and tried to do my wrist in with it. I pushed it and jabbed it against my wrist, hoping to break the skin, but it was like trying to slash your wrist with a chopstick. It was fucking laughable, really.

But then I found something better, an empty bottle of Merrydown cider. I smashed the bottle against the wall, and slashed my wrist with the broken bottle. I took a few swings at it, but I didn’t hit a vein. I couldn’t see or feel any blood spurting. But I could see that there was a big, dark gash. I’d slashed my wrist. Veins or not, I’d done it. I’d finally done something about it all.

I couldn’t really have wanted to die, though, because instead of having another few goes I walked down to a shelter at the beach, one where I knew people would be coming and going. Nobody was there at the time, so I lay on one of the benches inside and waited.

Eventually, somebody came along, some guy I knew. He didn’t see the wrist at first, so he was just asking how tricks were. Then he saw it and started going, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ He shouted on folk, and I was taken to the hospital.

I’d calmed down by that point. I don’t think I was numb, I think I was just calm. It was out my system. Whatever I was feeling before, it was gone.

The doctor checked me out. It was just me and him in this wee room. The hospital was this tiny wee place, because Millport’s tiny, fuck all happens there. It was this calm white place that smelled of a hospital.

The doctor asked me why I did it, while he stitched me up.

I felt embarrassed. I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve just got … I’ve just got problems.’

He laughed. He said, ‘Problems? What age are you?’

I said, ‘15.’

He said, ‘15, haha. Wait until you get to my age. You have a wife, mortgage, children. Then you will have problems.’

Now, you might think that’s insensitive. It’s maybe something a doctor would get sued for these days. But it actually helped. The way he just laughed it off as he was stitching me up. It was his accent as well, maybe an Indian accent: ‘Then you vill have problems.’ It was like he’d been through a lot more than me to get to where he was, and if he could do it, I could do it. Or something.

I was told to stay there overnight, which I was happy to do. I woke up the next day in the hospital bed. It was a bright morning, with sunshine pouring through the windows. I was told that my dad would be coming from Glasgow to get me, and I’d be going home that day, so I was just thinking about what I’d say to him and my mum when I saw them. I felt relaxed, though.

Eventually, people started turning up. My mates from Glasgow turned up, and they were smiling and calling me a mad bastard. I said sorry for everything, and they told me not to worry about it. Then they went away and some more people turned up later. That went on for a while. I liked it. It was embarrassing, though, like I felt the need to slash my wrist because I’m special and I’m deserving of special attention. But I did like it. If you’re feeling down, I definitely recommend it. No, I’m joking.

My dad and brother turned up, and they were shaking their head, asking what I did a stupid thing like that for. I told them I got drunk and I didnae really know why I did it, I just felt down. We drove back and didnae talk about it, we just talked about other stuff like it hadn’t happened. When I got home, my mum was the same way as my dad and brother. The conversation about it must have lasted no more than a minute. My mum and dad weren’t into big conversations about feelings, whereas I’m the type of cunt that can go on about them a bit too much. As you’ve maybe noticed.

I was taken to a counsellor, a one-off meeting where I said I wouldn’t do it again, and the counsellor said okay then, and away I went.

As for the lassie from Greenock, I met up with her, in Glasgow. We hung about for a day, just fannying about, chatting. I don’t even think I got off with her, it was all quite friendly. Then we didn’t meet up again. I can’t remember if we decided we were just pals, or if we just didn’t bother getting back in touch. Either way, I was fine with it. I had a pretty easy-osey attitude about it all, considering I’d slashed my wrist a month or two beforehand.

Fucking Up School

About halfway through fifth year in school I decided to move from Hillpark Secondary to Shawlands Academy. It was right in the middle of me doing my Highers, and because of that I ended up failing them. Failed the lot of them.

Now, why would I go and do a thing like that? Why would I move school and risk failing my Highers? Was I being battered in Hillpark or something?

No. It was because I was loved up with this lassie from Shawlands Academy, and I wanted to be with her all the time.

This is like the third time I’d fucked things up because of a lassie. This is the final part of the trilogy. First the drinking, then the wrist, then this. It wasn’t their fault, obviously, and I would have fucked things up anyway. In fact, this lassie was only part of the reason I moved school.

It was mostly because the people at Shawlands Academy had better clothes.

I’m not joking.

Remember I said that I was a bit of a tramp when I started secondary and that I was mostly interested in doing well and proving myself. Well, it was kind of the opposite by fifth year.

Me and my mates were right into all the designer gear. We were all from council estates, but we’d save up our monthly £30 family allowance and blow it on one John Richmond Destroy T-shirt or a Junior Gaultier top or something else that made us look a bit better than we were. We’d go to the under-18s like Fury Murray’s and the Tunnel and Tin Pan Alley and rub shoulders with all these other youngsters from better areas, dripping with money, these 15-year-olds with posh accents and £500 John Richmond jackets. We couldn’t keep up, but we did our best to look the part. We’d also do our best to sound the part. If a lassie asked me where I was from, I wouldn’t say I was from Carnwadric. I’d say I was from Thornliebank. Things like that.

I started noticing that a lot of these trendy folk went to Shawlands Academy or St Ninians, whereas none of them went to Hillpark. All my mates were Catholics, so they were at St Ninians, making me about the trendiest cunt in Hillpark at the time. I’d sometimes wear some of my gear into school, almost to show off, to make up for feeling like a tramp back when I started. Some folk would have imitations of the designer gear I had, like I’d have Junior Gaultier and they’d have Benzini Junior, and they’d slag me off for having what they believed to be a rip-off. And I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, you just don’t have a fucking clue, man.’ Really making up for my trampy period, really enjoying my superiority.

Anyway, this lassie.

I met her during the summer holidays before fifth year, and we really liked each other. She was into all the gear, she came from a better area with a better house, and she had a posher voice. Plus she went to Shawlands Academy. I felt like I’d pure moved up in the world.

When I started back at Hillpark and I was seeing less of her, I missed her. We’d meet up and she’d tell me what she’d been up to in school. The more I thought about her school, the more it felt like a better scene. It just felt like where I belonged. Fuck Hillpark, man. I’m out of here.

So I managed to move school about halfway through. Fuck knows how I convinced my mum and dad to let me and what my reasons were. I think I just said I was dead unhappy, and they shrugged and made the phone calls.

I met all these new folk, folk that I’d seen in the clubs. It was all fresh and exciting. People were wondering who this new guy was, I felt all interesting. The teachers didn’t seem to take a liking to me, though. I think they thought I’d be a problem, having to get me up to speed with their class. And they were right.

I couldn’t catch up with what they’d been doing. I felt myself fucking it up, and I started to just let it happen.

Me and that lassie drifted apart, until we broke up. We more than broke up. I went to speak to her one day and she said, ‘I’m not talking to you. I know what you said about me.’ I didn’t know what she was on about, and I still don’t.

I started losing interest in all the fancy clothes. I just started wearing plain gear – denims, a band T-shirt, a denim jacket. It felt better.

Then I did my exams, fucking clueless. And during summer I got the results through for the four Highers that I’d taken. Failed the lot.

What a silly boy.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do.

Cutting Myself Up

I maybe should have spoken to that counsellor more, that one from when I slashed my wrist, because I started cutting myself up. I’d get a wee bit of glass, or I’d fold an empty can of lager in half so that it was pointy at the sides, and I’d cut up my forearm. Nothing too deep, but I’d cut it enough to hurt and make a mess.

I really can’t say why I did it, exactly. It was a mix of things. I had these feelings that I couldn’t express. I hated who I was, I was pathetic, I was this incomplete person, something wasn’t right with me, everybody else seemed to take things in their stride but it felt harder for me, I wanted to send a message to people, I wanted to send a message to myself, I wanted somebody to help me, I wanted me to help me, but there was no reason for me to get special treatment and I was sorry for everything and I was angry, angry at myself and angry with people and angry with how things were, but it wasn’t normal anger, it was something else, it was a sad type of anger. I didn’t know what it was.

So I’d cut up my arm.

By doing that, it was like I didn’t have to put my feelings into words. I didn’t have to write it down in a diary, or write a letter to somebody and somehow find the words for what I was feeling, because fuck knows how I would begin to do that. So I’d cut my arm. It would be sore, and I’d like it. It was a relief. I’d see the cuts and the blood, I’d see this horrible thing I was doing to myself, and it just made sense. That there, that mess I was making of myself, that’s how I felt.

I don’t know why I was like that, I don’t know why I’ve always been a bit like that. All bottled up. I remember being like that in primary school. I remember this one wee incident in particular.

I was in primary one or two, sitting at my desk, doing a drawing. It was around Christmastime, so we were all doing drawings of Santa and things like that, while the teacher put tinsel up.

I was drawing away, when the teacher walked up to me and put some tinsel around my neck. I didn’t know what she was doing to begin with, then I saw what it was. She was smiling, she was a good teacher, maybe my favourite. But I didn’t like it.

Everybody turned around and looked at me, and some of them started laughing. They weren’t all pointing and pissing themselves, but they thought it was funny. And my face went bright fucking red. I didn’t know what to do.

I pulled at it to get it off, but my teacher had tied it in a double knot. I tried pulling it over my head, but it was too tight. And the class was laughing.

I pulled it really hard against my neck to try and snap it, till it started to hurt. I saw that the teacher looked concerned. So I kept pulling it against my neck to show her I was hurting myself, to show her how much I didn’t like it.

I didn’t know how to just ask her to take it off, or how to handle any of it. She rushed over and cut it off with scissors, and asked if I was alright. But I just went back to my drawing, embarrassed.

That was like my first instance of self-harm, if you like. Maybe I’ve always been like that, or maybe the tinsel incident planted a seed, fuck knows.

I remember my last instance. I remember when I stopped.

I stopped because there was this lassie I was going out with for a few weeks in school, a while after breaking up with that lassie I moved school for. One day she asked me back to her house during lunchtime, because it would be empty, and I was scared that she wanted me to shag her or something. I went back with her, though, but we just talked. I didn’t even get off with her, just in case it led anywhere. I was scared of being intimate. I just couldn’t shake off that feeling from earlier in secondary school, that low self-confidence, and that feeling that went all the way back to primary school where I felt out of my depth. I just couldn’t break through that barrier, as much as I wanted to. If I was drunk I could have a go at it, but not when I was sober, no way.

So I started cutting up my hand. I didn’t do it there and then or anything, but later in the week. It was partly for self-loathing reasons, but partly because I wanted her to spot it. She did spot it, and asked why I did it. I don’t know if I said why. I probably didn’t even know myself at the time. It was maybe a way to get some intimacy, through her worrying and talking to me. Maybe she could work everything out.

One night, she said she wanted to show me something. She took off her glove, and she’d cut up her hand. It was all scratched, like mine.

And I just fucking stopped.