Paul Andrew Sneddon

Election Season

Ah, fuck.

It’s election season.

That means our lesser-spotted representatives will be turning up in the neighbourhood. Only time you see them.

I’ve put the old boy’s socialist sign back in the window.

There’s a knock at the door.

I look through the blinds. There is a guy standing there. All flash. New suit. Hair short and neat.

He spots me.

Ah, fuck.

Does he not know there is a football game on?

I go to the door.

“I’m no wanting to talk, alright?”

He starts talking. And he barely stops for a breath.

Christ, he’s still talking on and on.

Fuck’s sake.

Does he not know I’m watching the football?

“…I’m nae like those other politicians. I’m on your side. In fact, I wouldnae even call myself a politician. I’m more like your local pal or helper.”

He flashes a toothy grin, like he is just back from Turkey.

He’s drawing back another breath like a fucking helium balloon about to take off. I go to speak but that’s when I notice her. Opening up the garden gate and walking up the path. She’s gone for what the Yanks call a pant suit. A Hillary special.

Looks a little out of place on the streets of Kirkentoun.

She’s waving a hand.

“Douglas! Douglas, honestly!”

A clipped, brisk voice that cuts through the air.

He looks a little embarrassed.

“Douglas, we’re due at the community hall in five minutes. The Kirkentoun Herald are already there and I’m not standing about like a spare part.”

“Two minutes love, I’m just talking to… er… oh… it was Brian, yes?”

“Davey.”

“Oh, of course. So, if you plan to vote this time, can I count on your vote, Brian?”

I hear a roar from the living room.

Fuck’s sake, is that a goal?

I close the door right in his face.

Back into the living room. Replays. 2-1 to them. Them. Fucking hell.

I hear a knocking at the door and raised voices.

I look out the window and the wife is dragging Dougie down the path. There’s a couple of photographers taking his picture. Not exactly the best photo opportunity. He looks over at me at the window and I flick him the V’s.

I point to the socialist party sign in the window.

Fuck off, Dougie.

I sit back down. Open a can of Tennent’s and take a sip. Right, let’s fucking go.

2-1. 25 minutes to go. Long enough for a comeback.

I’m just getting comfy when there’s a loud thud. Something hits off the window. And again. I run to the window. Look out through the blinds. It’s his Mrs. She’s got the suit jacket off and she is launching clods of earth at the windae.

What the actual fuck.

I grab the socialist party sign on my way to the front door. As I open it, another clod of earth lands right in front of me.

I look over at her. Her face is turning red. Redder.

“Bloody socialists!” she is shouting.

A small group of neighbours and passers-by are gathering round. Watching her absolutely lose it.

The photographers are still here.

Every clod of earth she launches gets a cheer. I raise the sign for the socialists and start batting them back at her. This only makes her more angry.

She seems to be shouting something at no one in particular.

“This is ridiculous! We came here in good faith and you’re behaving like absolute children!”

She grabs another clod of earth.

“Douglas, do something! These people don’t even want to be helped!”

“I told the party this area would be a waste of time, but no one listens to me!”

I pick up the hose from the path and turn on the tap.

She starts shouting,“Don’t be ridiculous. Put that down right now.”

The crowd is cheering, voices swelling. “Do it, do it!”

I switch on the hose but I point it at the ground.

“Last chance. Get the fuck out of my garden.”

“Fine! Fine. Enjoy yourselves. Honestly, I’ve never met a street so determined to stay exactly where it is.”

I bring the hose up and the water hits her right on the stomach.

The crowd cheers, the press snaps. Dougie is halfway up the garden path, pointing a finger at me like, “Ho, you!”

I give him a quick shot, right between the eyes, and then I turn it off.

The place is going mental, the crowd is cheering.

I go back inside, sit down and watch the football.

Two Doors Down

‘Two Doors Down’ is a song I wrote a few years ago now. I was thinking about the song when I wrote this story the other day.

Content note: This story includes mild violence, crime themes, and adult references.

I check the street behind me. So many faces, but none I recognise. The city has its own rhythm. People are spilling out of the bars onto the streets. The restaurants are packed. On the street, there’s an easy vibe, but there is something bubbling beneath the surface. Always is.

I cross the alley and duck into the side door of the hotel. Someone has used a fire extinguisher to jam the door open. I duck through the door and along a dusty corridor past the kitchen, where someone is listening to the radio. Weather Report. No end to the hot spell.

I climb the stairs and into my room. Room 135.

It’s not the same room I had before, but I bet they are all the same. It hasn’t changed much. Same furniture. Same places we stashed the cash. Still in need of a paint job and some new carpet.

I didn’t pay a lot, but it still feels like too much. I lay the guitar case down on the bed and place the bottle of whisky and my wallet on the table. I walk over to the window. It’s open, but you would never guess. The hot air stands.

Eight p.m., but the mercury must be pushing 30. It’s the same heat out there as it is here. I can hear the hotel’s neon light hum.

Looking out the window, the streets are still busy. Groups of people on a night out. Couples, hand in hand, arm in arm, kissing in the corner in the headlights. Some people scatter as a police car tears up the road, sirens loud and lights flashing.

I remember her.

She waited in the car, usually with some takeaway while I went in. Grab the money and we’re out of there. She could drive. Fast.

She didn’t say much apart from, “Shut up and let me drive.” Talking about her brother. Or: “When’s the next job?” “Let’s go steal a car.”

I can see her there by the bed, sleeping in that old Rancid t-shirt. Said she always had a thing for Tim Armstrong. Bundle of cash like a pillow. Irritable in the summer heat, drawing on a cigarette.

I pour a drink. Cheap whisky. Burns on the way down. Just what I need. I can almost hear her voice. “Christ, you pour whisky like my grandmother. Just drink the damn thing.”

I remember she whispered, “I’ve got the truth,” as she had poured it over her chest.

The locks click as I open the guitar case. I lift it out and hold it in my arms, sitting at the end of the bed.

Fifth string. Slide from E to D. And back again. Down the scale to the low E.

Blues. Steady. Pulse. Sings. Two doors down. Two doors down. Singing my blues.

I grab the receipt for the room. Scribble it down on the back. I can see it. Like an old movie. The money. Banknotes all over the bed. The bathtub.

Her whispers. “Hey now, babe, won’t you stay a little while?” The wall. She kept her boots on.

I breathe out, slow. I took the money. Left her the bill. Guess her brother isn’t getting that operation.

There’s a knock at the door. Her perfume drifting in like a ghost. “Tell me that you’ll be here… when it all comes down.”

I open the door. She smiles. “I knew you’d be back.”

A shot rings out. Gunsmoke curls up. An acrid chemical smell.

She walks away in those boots. Doesn’t look back. She’s muttering the lyrics to Roots Radicals, I can hear the sound of her boots, and the sound of the street.

Fading out.

This is the song, recorded at home on an old tascam 4 track I’ve still got somewhere.

Moments

This is the companion to ‘Shelter.’
Music breaks the silence.

I sit for a while and just listen to the music,

They are playing a blues in A. Bobby points to another guitar
and to me. I pick up and put the guitar strap over my shoulder.I touch the strings; it’s mic’d up. Through a little distortion
pedal.

I’ll be where the music is playing.

This is no game.

No joke.

Fuck that.

Buried beneath the city,
Buried beneath the ground.
Buried inside us.

The world steals.
Dignity.
Hope.

Life.

Fuck that.
Fuck off.
Fuck you.
Fuck.
Fuck.

Bobby nods at me, and I play that guitar with every ounce of life that I ever had.

I run up from the G on the E string, up to the high string… I feel
them… the strings… every note.

We’re in a moment.

The world stops.

The noise stops.

And we are alive.

I hit the strings till my ﬁngers bleed.

I remember the little room where I ﬁrst picked up a guitar.

Nights alone.
Playing.

John Lee Hooker
Springsteen
Steve Earle
Rancid

To here:

Life.
Love.
Connection.

I nod at Bobby, and I play the chords as he takes a turn, and he
can really play. A blizzard of notes and then nothing but soulful,
bluesy bends.

Then Rachel comes back in.

We can take a place.
A moment.
These guitars,
And make a place of our own.

The little crowd cheers. Someone shouts from the bar.

“Here, yous can fucking play!”

I thank Bobby and Rachel.

They invite me down to the open mic and I of course say I
will be there. I get back to my seat and for a moment I just
breathe.

I ﬁnish my drink and walk outside.

It’s fucking raining.

Of course it is.

Shelter

A coffee.
Rain on the roof.
A quiet moment by the sea.

I sit in the shelter with my coffee.

Black.

The rain is my company as it is falling steadily on the shelter
roof. I can see one guy walking out on the beach with a dog
running loops around them, but there is no one else here.
You come down here in the summer, and you can hardly move.
BBQ and music, ice cream and slushes. Barely an uncovered
piece of sand. So many Glaswegian accents it reminds me of
home.

No one’s taking the BBQ to the beach today. The coffee is
decent, but it used to be good and half the price. The lassie at
the cafe had even written my name on the side and passed it to
me with a smile.

I half expected it to say ‘Prick’ on the side, but it just said

Ed.

She was cheery; I’m probably the ﬁrst customer that she
has had for an hour or two.

The pace of life is a wee bit different.

It’s got that seaside town vibe, but you don’t have to look
too hard to see people carving out a life. It’s not exactly a job
hotspot, you know. I look out across the water. I think about the
people who have been and gone.

Old school friends, neighbours. Christ, some of them barely had
a chance.

Danny splitting his last cigarettes with me on the walk up
the road. Or the two of us sitting up on the wall by the graveyard,
drinking vodka and singing old Tom Waits songs. Hit by a
fucking car stumbling up the road after a night out.
We got the call the next morning. I was holding my son, 3
months old when my brother called.

Danny’s gone.

I didn’t understand.

All here and gone. Too soon. Too fast.

Who am I to sit here and squander what some have lost. A
couple walk by and offer a little smile.

“That’s a cracking dog you’ve got,” I say.

“He is a cheeky wee rascal,” says the woman.

“I bet.”

I look back out. I wonder how far you’d get on a boat out
there; the water doesn’t look too rough. Sounds easy until you
realise you’d probably wash up on Arran or the Mull of Kintyre,
or Ireland. And then what?

Well, maybe a pint.

But I don’t want to run.

As I’ve got older, I ﬁnd myself sitting up, crying in the wee
hours alone on the couch. Not full-blown waterworks, you
understand, but just enough.

I remember one of my ﬁrst girlfriends when I was just a wee
guy. 11 years old. I heard she passed. I couldn’t stop thinking
about it.

I hadn’t seen her for years.

I don’t doubt that I’m a fool.

I’m a romantic.

I still believe in life, love, music, and how a song, a lyric can
change your world. I’ve crashed and burned a few times, but I
swear I’m going to break this grey.

Maybe that doesn’t mean much.

Maybe no one gives a fuck.

But it means something to me.
Here.
Now.

In this shelter.

21st Century Revival

I was playing guitar earlier, trying to finish a song I’d been writing. Got the notebook open. Chords written down. Something not quite working.

Frustrated.
Breathe out.
Take a break.

Sitting on the couch.

Switch on the TV.
Flicking through videos.
Can’t settle.
The talking heads, the influencers and the product placements, the endless twenty-first-century noise.

Too much.

The screen goes blank and then there they are.
Jeff Tweedy and his band appear on the TV. Alll of a sudden and without warning.

Guitar, mics.
The band look at each other.

The beat hits. The bass.

The song hits me, wakes me up.
Before I realise it, I’m moving around the living room, shouting to the missus,

“Have you heard this song?”

She’s laughing at my best moves. We’re dancing close. The guitar hits, and we’re jumping around like we don’t care if anyone is watching.

She says, “What’s that one called?”
“Lou Reed Was My Babysitter.”

I hit play again. Jeff Tweedy and his band appear on the TV. I feel better already.