Sitting here thinking to myself. Funny how some folk can pick up a guitar and it’s soulful. Some pick it up and apologise for themselves.
It’s Friday. The rain is falling softly outside my window. I’ve got tea, steroids for a chest infection, paracetamol, and a nice little temperature running. And Johnny Cash playing the old classics through to the American Albums.
Long Black Veil. 25 minutes to go.
A man and his guitar and that voice. When I was young, I used to go into town with Stuart and Dave. Stuart’s dad up front driving, and every time: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”
Full journey. Those songs, Johnny Cash and his band. Boom-chika-boom. And I’d be thinking, what the fuck is this? I need to hear more of this. From that day to today.
You find it on a journey when you’re twelve. Or in a taxi driver’s cassette. Or because some bastard wouldn’t shut up about it. Not because someone in a room full of nodding heads told you it was required.
They wear an executioner’s smile. I never listened to those people.
Rain’s still falling, I write in my notebook. Reminder to self. Don’t outsource your soul.
Sitting on the front step, enjoying some unseasonal sunshine.
A crow flies down and lands on the lamp post. I’m thinking that would be a great picture for those stories I’m writing.
Yeah, I know. Who calls their collection, even a short collection, “Death”? It’s hardly one for the impulse buyer. Nobody’s sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning thinking, I fancy a wee book called Death. Nobody’s browsing the library shelves or gets handed one by a pal saying, “saw this and thought of you.”
I like the title, there’s life, love, humour and passion in the collection too and some of my favourite writing including “Ten Pounds.”
The sun was setting behind the old multi-storey. He remembered coming through to town when he was young, walking down the thin corridor in the shadows between the car park and the shops and out into brilliant sunshine. The sun was setting now and there were a few folks coming and going. The line of taxis hadn’t really moved for hours.
Uncle Jim had been over to see him. He had his security badge from the bus station and that some big scraggly beard. He had slipped Andy a bottle of juice and a tenner and told him to get himself some lunch. The juice was sweet but he still had the ten pound note. You couldn’t give up the ten pound note just like that. That had to be invested carefully.
Two wee guys from the school had seen him on the bench and come and sat next to him. He hadn’t told them about the ten pounds or much of anything. They showed him a couple of videos of the science experiments they had been doing. This brought back memories, his cousin had been right into it and they had made little rockets on the spare grass round the back. No garden, it was communal. The Gillespies hadn’t liked it though. He remembered his mum calling them sour-faced miseries.
He missed his mum. And his cousin had got into uni up in the city. His dad said he had fallen in with a bad crowd and was drinking away his money and meeting women. That didn’t sound so bad. He remembered Jean from the support centre. She croaked like a frog and smoked like a chimney but they had some big laughs together.
After the boys had gone for their bus he had sat there on his own for a while. People coming and going and a swarm of pigeons nearly took him out. The postie came and sat next to him for awhile. Offered him half a sandwich. It was tongue and mustard. His mouth had felt like fire and the postie had given an apologetic shrug. “Takes some getting used to I guess big man,” he had said with a chuckle.
After lunch he was watching the pigeons, and down the way he could see that old statue of Burns keeping an eye on the town. He kept the bag between his ankles.
“Don’t let that bag out of your sight son, bring it with you.”
He sighed. What would he do with this ten pounds. He looked around. There was a newsagent with seats and juice and magazines. A couple of takeaway shops and the fishmonger. He didn’t like the smell of the fishmonger. And the fishes’ faces in the window gave him the creeps.
And there was that wee bookshop on the corner. Raising money for the heart charity. Heart Disease. Broken hearts. Like his mum’s.
He ran his teeth over the bottom of his lip and scrunched his hands into fists. Till he breathed in deep, his lungs filling, and then he breathed out slow. Something buzzed past his ear and he jumped. A wasp darted around his head. “Fuck off,” he shouted, and a few folk turned around but no one really paid him much mind. Couple of grannies and pappas chuckled and one said,
“That wee fella isn’t right in the head, never has been.”
The wasp buzzed his ear again. He scooped down and picked up his bag and moved, half stumbling and half rumbling across the pedestrianised square, past the fish shop.
He burst through the door of the charity shop and sent some papers flying. A woman at the counter said,
“Careful there, you’re making an awful mess.”
“S…s…sorry,” he muttered and moved slowly into the shop. Past a couple of folk trying on jackets and hats that looked like they were out of the pantomime. He made his way through to the back and there it was, two bookcases absolutely stuffed with books. All kinds as far as he could see. A complete history of World War 2 and a thriller by some American author he had never heard of.
The woman came over, her face softer now, and said, “sorry about that son, you gave me a fright that’s for sure, you in for anything in particular?”
He smiled and said quietly, “just browsing, thanks.”
He kept going along the book shelf, and then there it was. Billy Connolly’s Route 66. He picked it up from the shelf and held it in his hands. There was a sticker on it, £2, that took up most of the cover, but it was the book, that’s for sure. His mum had loved it. The Big Yin on his bike the whole way across America, breaking out the banjo in every wee town. She’d read him the funny bits with the old records on, laughing till she nearly burst.
He felt the book between his fingers, opened it and flicked through the rough pages. He turned back to the woman at the counter and told her firmly. “I’ll have this one please.”
She rang it up and he paid the money down. £8 back, and he put a couple of pounds in the box. For the hearts. He stepped back outside into the square. The light was different, the sun getting low in the sky.
“Andy, that you?”
He looked across. It was his dad. The same face set against the sun. The hair greying but he still moved with purpose, like nothing was ever going to stop him.
“Mon son.”
They met in the middle of the square.
“Have you got the bag?”
“Aye Dad.”
He opened the bag and his dad reached in and felt the urn for just a moment.
“I’ll carry it from here son. We’ll go and spread the ashes down by the river. You remember playing there when you were wee with your cousin.”
“I remember.”
They walked off together through the streets of this town.
Paul Andrew Sneddon 