Goner [excerpt] – denoiser
November 2, 2020
ONE HOUR LEFT:
I hate this fucking pain.
Dread in the heart hole in my chest Killed and buried my one hope left Getting ready to IT Ready to give in now
Foot down out of time out of place stranded
Foot down thinking out of luck out of air
Stuck with me stranded in a stranger land Always a stranger anywhere
A wrong note Dead meat
Shut it and drive
Your line trilling
Hate
Out of hope
Shut up and head fucking north
Your line still trilling in my damn ear
I hate
Belly burning like a bastard Go north you got a fucking date with death up north
Out of tomorrows
Hate this fucking game.
6 DAYS LEFT:
INSANE SICK SHIT
Snort bad coke on a tiny sink, fucking drop some on the fucking floor filthy with piss and blood, catch your neon-lit dead face in the mirror.
Gone five, Edgware road, halal butcher
Get out the bog, meat stench in the face, the arabs yelling at the telly, match got gory while you away. Fucking lifesaving dosh you put on this one:
CLAP and BARK among them saudis, CLAP and – now what, your fucking nose bleeding on the shirt and the floor? Fuck – fuck the nose and the butcher shoving you out, arm on face blood on boots you watch the thai carnage thru the window and as the bell blows your fucking money away, bang a fist on the glass, spit on it, walk.
Fish the keys dropping coins and blood, get in the fucking smashed car. Rim filled with trash, cans and papers – rip a piece and put it up the nostril. Paki kid you got no clue of knocks on the window as you take a slug – he opens the door you turn the key and drive off whatever the fuck. Call from Croc now, take it, shut the fucking dented door and shift to third.
‘What.’
‘Sun shines back on you, you filthy ol dog, thas what.’
‘Put it all on the next race same shit.’
‘What! You pay now they wont dvown you.’
‘I said next race same shit!’
Shut it and down more gin. Fucking wet heat reminding of fucking Milan’s swamp in july.
Radio on, deadly accident down the M1, heat emergency in Europe, America still burning.
What’s the time. Head to the dogs, you got plenty.
Nose burning like a bastard.
Take the A2 and you there in forty, plenty of time. Lose the bloody shirt, push Faith No More in, turn it up.
Crayford Greyhound Track, Bexley
450 down. Just cashed a 300 shot but you still down.
You look at it. Hard with evil, white as the sun. A small harsh evil sun piercing your insides, your brains, kidneys and balls.
Look at it, stay in it, stay in it till it hurts, fucks your lungs and heart, your fucking nose and cock, your semistiff cock and your balls full of bad cum. It kills and saves you. It gives you answers. The answer. The number.
Suck on the pipe. Inhale the shit and push the number deep down, fill your damaged soul.
And now exhale. All out. Out. Yeah. Yeah. More, a new hit. Feed white sour cocaine to the fucking death trapped inside your aching chest. Plug your black hole heart.
And NOW feel it coming. Take and contain the shakes in your arms and legs. Here it comes. Rising, simmering. Hard with evil. White cold. Blinding white as death itself. Icy breath of death. In the white you feel IT, into the void you reach out and grasp it, in the absence of light time matter, absence of all, catch it and hold it.
Now open up and look at you placing a ton on it, IT – damn Bullet Bob. Winning 5 to 1. You know it’s him – will fucking win. The white hole in your head knows. It fucking knows.
You placing a cigarette in your mouth going back to the track, standing in your damp T-shirt and bloodstained jeans, watching the nobodies faces. Watch em go wild, turn red then black, sweat, spit, twitch, hope, hate. Death in their eyes. You like em, alike dying beasts. Crippled horses. Sick rats. You are them dead fuckers. Blank eyes.
Oh NOW you feel it again. Hard and white cold. Incoming. Fast as fuck.
Bullet fucking Bob. The dog wins you a full monkey. Bullet fucking fucking Bob.
Fast As Fuck cash in and call up while moving to the exit. Crying Croc picking up second ring.
‘What.’
‘Comin over with half of it, have the slip ready.’
Croc breathing in the phone.
‘Oi dumass! I’m coming over, you there?’
‘You betta not be fuckin avound this time, gianniboy.’
‘Not around, jus fucking your ugly wife, ese. See you in a bit.’
Shut it, cut thru blacks, pakis, limeys and chinks, get the fuck out and hit the muggy heavy breathing road and finally fire the fag up. Turn the tape, fucking Diggin the Grave, foot down westbound into town. To your bloody Tinder date downtown.
Portobello: shops and bars, bangla mosquitos, russian tourists, limping cadavers and running children, dogs, canes and strollers – whole fucking horror array.
She wrote Fuck it, lets meet then. You wrote We only live twice babe, sundown? She says fucking Portobello and here you are, soaked in Halcion, fighting your way thru fucking banglas, crutches, strollers, screaming moms and dead dads.
I sip and say
‘I say to her, nobody ever hurt me this much. And she grins. She grins and how I hate it, how I despise that smile of hers. She grins then says: like down in a love hole, we two down in a love black hole, all sucked in, all ceases to exist.’
I sip at her brown eyes.
‘Then she tilts her head, seeing thru me with smiling evil eyes.’
I let that sink in the silence. Drain the last drop from the glass. Watch her staring into me, watch her hands.
She goes
‘Luv black hole?’
I look at her blue mascara eyes, at her brown lips saying
‘We jus meh, I donno who o wha you uh, you tell me diss, luv black hole. Pretty hefty fo a firs date.’
In her profile she wrote:
Single mom, age is real. Judge me. I’m on this side of not dealin’ with your bloody cat. I fear. I fight for my piece of freedom. I am smarter than you.
She swallows what’s left of her drink, I say ‘I did cos I dont know you. You got nothing on me, I’m free to be me.’
She stares.
I stare back. ‘And I like you, the way you look at me.’
‘How do I look ut you?’
‘Like I’m a ghost.’ I smile. ‘I like that.’
She stares, goes
‘Hm. A ghoss. Scary ghoss?’
‘You tell me, ‘m I scary?’
‘Maybe. Yo eyes uh child, buh yo face, yo face is wolf?’
She then puts the glass down and goes
‘Other roun? On me.’
I nod, do not smile, say nothing.
‘So tell me, ghossman, whas yo business.’
I watch her eyes, she watches mine, not blinking.
‘I gamble.’
‘You gamble.’
Oh yeah.
‘Gamble how?’
You name it.
‘Horses? Casino?’
‘Yeah. And the rest. All the rest.’
‘All the rest.’
She nods, I sip at my negroni.
Yeah, all of it. My friends and colleagues, your family and fucking relatives. My heart, your heart.
‘How about you?’
‘Oh I do diffrent fings, got multiple jobs.’
She drinks by her new glass. My lungs, my liver, my bowels, my balls.
‘Like what.’ I smile again. Like caring somehow.
‘Like you don wanna know, believe me.’
We stay in our hard earned silence taking our poison out of our glasses. I want a smoke, have none.
‘You smoke?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Share one in the bleak hot dark out there?’
‘Shua.’
We get out, she hands me a cig, I watch her red hot nails, but. Shit awaits me out there in the black hot dark: I look up and see him in a parked car – he opens the door, I get back inside and run to the kitchen and the backdoor.
Nails me to the wall. Greasy wall, my fucking jacket glued with grease shit.
Breathes on my mouth, does not speak. The fuck stares me in the pupil pushing fish breath into me.
But I’m not scared, my heart drumming my throat and temples but I do not fear this man. My blood boiling and my hands shaking but this one’s harmless, I piss on this. I shit on this afraid dog playing tough cat.
‘Fuck you up, I ma fuck you up’ he eventually barks.
‘No you aint.’
He shows me his eye whites. Goes ‘You crazy shit, I’ll smash your fucking face.’
‘Not buying. Fuck away from me.’
My voice all broken, my tongue bone dry. But I aint fucking eating this weak bluff. I say
‘Tmorrow night, bring you the money tmorrow’
and lick his nose tip.
‘You insane sick shit!’ he bays. Lets go of my shirt, slaps me.
Bang. Four fingers – cheekbone and nose. It burns right off, whole face, a lighting up match. But his face’s redder. Toothless dog.
The bookie steps back and eyeballs me shaking like a child.
‘Tomorrow, fucking piece of sick shit! You, you insane shit man!’
I want to laugh, he walks out the kitchen.
I unstick from the wall, touch my face while looking at the two cooks pretending they’re not watching.
I fish the woman’s cig from the jacket, go there and ask for fire.
The younger chink hands me a lighter, I light up, blow smoke on his hair and put the lighter in my pocket.
The kid opens his mouth, I stare waiting. He looks at the mate, who resumes his big pot stirring.
I slightly slowly shake my head staring the shit out of the boy, he turns back to his wok.
I walk back to the bar and out. Woman’s gone of course.
My heart, your heart, my guts, your liver. My fucking true lies.
Get on and face what’s left of the night.
Streets dead crap. Fucking miserable town, tight stinky butthole. No one knows how to enjoy round here. Slaves to money, slaves to work, slaves to slaves, slaves to pain. Fed on false hope and fear of future.
But this place needs no hope, deserves no salvation. Won its fate a long time ago, oh it earned it indeed. Its bloody, painful, agonizing death. Carcass already. A dressed up grey, stinky carcass.
Leave it on the curb, get down, get in.
The Blackstock pub, Finsbury Park, one hour past closing time
Been here only once. Cigar smoke, bitch scent, liar reek.
No known faces, I pick a nobody and ask what the chip is.
Ten, mutters the bloke and this is easy booty night it seems.
I choose the four player table, all white – I want no Asia now, not feeling it.
All liars. They all lying.
Sit down, show the cash, take the nod, give the nod, take the cards, see em, focus. Visualize it. Focus on the vision of it. Like a sun. White with evil, fucking white evil.
Breathe down the belly and the gut, contain it, keeping the white in the middle of my mind, read the balls feel, wait, wait. Wait. Throat burns and here it comes. Catch it. Tame it. Fight the shakes down the legs, hold the hands still. Like that.
Now scan around, feel the table. Feel the liars, smell the lies stink.
Place the bet. All lying, they all lie.
See the play.
Got it. Yeah. Fuck yeah. On my way. Motherfuck sun of a bitch, bright hard with fucking evil tonight.
I feel like changing table now but aw. Some ugly faces show up now.
Gotta beat it, gotta run right fucking now, fore they spot me.
Cash in, stand up, walk the room up to the bog, thinking window: bog got a window, right? Window to where tho?
Go in, shut the door, look at it: fucking small and fucking high up. I get on the bowl, open the pane and hoist myself over and thru. Back alley, easy jump. C’mon, do it and fuck off.
I put on a knee then the other, turn, feet on the wall, look down, let go, land on heels. Easy fucking peasy, still young at heart, young in the cock. LIGHTS. Car shoots onto me, hood kicks me, floor knocks me.
Daylight wakes me that I’m on concrete. Wooden mouth, sandy eyes.
I crawl up grabbing at some bench. Where the fuck?
Ow. Temples. The back, the forehead, pounding like hell. Dried blood pulls my nose and upper lip, fresh blood drips down my eyebrow, my shirt full of it.
I walk by bent slides and broken swings, try to figure out where I’m at.
Check watch, 6 AM. Got beaten up twice in a night, new personal best. You need water and a bed now, fratello – find a fucking way to that.
Check the jacket, they left me an empty wallet and a phone full of troubles but no car keys. Took my Celica, the fuckers, my old beatup trap worth a kick in the balls.
I walk in the ugly sun by the burnt benches and the smashed rides.
Godforsaken northwestern no man’s land, that’s where.
Pain is cracking my skull, I touch the back of my head, bleeding.
Fuck I hate this fucking heartless city. Hate this smelly country. I hate it here, hate this filthy country almost like mine.
Damn I hate this. And me.
Sudden as powerful, now it hits.
I have to kneel down. It shakes me hard, I focus on the breathing, fight hard not to choke, choke and die airless.
It’s a fucking hard and painful one and it almost strangles me and this time too, no tears. I’m blind, I drool and I shake but no tears come. I quiver like some dying animal in the dirt, in the middle of a damn burnt down playground, my flesh, bones, blood, everything in me hurts – my blind eyes stay fucking dry.
ALMOST THREE MONTHS BACK:
FORSAKEN
Turn key, swing open, push shut, couch. Note on table, fall on couch.
Phone sings, throw the phone, see the note on the coffeetable.
Read it, crumple it, light a fag, the phone again.
Retrieve the note, read again.
She fucking left. She fucking left you alone and you deserve this. All of it.
Facedown you choke your howls, you cry like a tearless dog till you die in slumber again.
Morning. Late.
You stand up sweating and swearing. Couch and carpet. You barfed, retched gin and beer on your fucking couch and carpet.
You walk to the loo, your eye drops on the weights on the floor.
You pee and the fucking weights. Why in hell you lift weights.
You just a fucking jesuschrist fucked up forever, gone.
You gone. You’re gone and keep on randomly lifting dumbbells you dont even know how to grasp, two useless times a week or less. Laughable useless pile of crap with too long hair and a graying beard.
You wan. Look at that slant face of yours.
You ill. You dead. You not you anymore. You all wrong and askew. You gone bad.
Lifting random weights random days of the week. You make god laugh. You make death smile. You failure. You crap.
You walk out the bog and to the city map on the wall. To the figures and the circles, the arrows and names. Record of your losses, chart of your hunters. Map of your deaths and resurrections. You skim the names, the debts, the traps –
Now you remember.
The note.
You go back there and find it in the vomit mud. You unwrap it.
Fuck. She left for good this time. Fuck.
Name’s Aloin or something, belgian or french, known as Croc. Handles football, horse and dog bets, and the occasional illicit car race. I owe his serbian owners a fair amount but the geezer’s pretty tame when not high on benzos. So I say
‘Five on Forest.’
‘On fucking what? The poov bastavds cant even see the ball.’
‘Five hundred quid.’
‘Look mate. You got to pay yo fucking debts befov losing mov money. Get my english, ese?’
‘We no mates and I’m no ese, put my fucking money on Nottingham Forest.’
My woman left me, fucking shut up and fucking comply.
‘Well,’ he goes flipping thru his filthy scrapbook, ‘yov fucking death not mine.’
‘You bet.’
I end the call.
Fucking liar. They all are.
I doublewank and fall back down.
Midday and knackered. I lift up. Laganà wanting to see me, no fucking good.
Out there, shitstorm. Police and ambulances, firetrucks and ladders. Fucking flashing lights in the drizzle.
Me going thru the strobo frozen faces, thru the hungry vultures and the scared women, thru the crying babies and the angry dogs, the screaming cars and the blaring ringtones, the blinking headlights and the wailing alarms, the shattered windows and the smoking buildings – get in the car, push the radio on, fucking drive.
Me and you dancing. Fucking whore and a fucking idiot. I’m an idiot. Dancing on my condo’s rooftop at sunset – how bloody flatout romantic. I’m a stupid idiot and I love you. I swear I dont know how without you, fucking dont know how. Fuck no. Fuck answer. Answer me.
But she doesnt and I toss the fucker to the windscreen.
Fuck I’m fucked, fuck I’m over. Cant make it by myself and you know it. You heartless bitch. Fucking suv or van. Fuck I love you. Straight into me the cunt, my left side. I swerve braking, I know I fucked up one time too many I know but forgive me once more, it’s me baby, it’s still me, the fag flies off my lips and out the window, fucking suv – how I hate them bastard tanks, the pack flies out, light was fucking red you idiot, I hold the brake down, I skid and stop and you fucking wont answer ever again, I know.
‘Light was fucking red you shit!’
The white mask shouts from his WWIII tank.
‘Suck my asshole!’
I shout from my 1998 Toyota Celica.
We stay sat staring like two flesh dolls, neither of us opening the door, our frightened masks and damp clothes frozen in the blue strobos flashing round and round onto the buildings, the standing people, the scared faces at the broken windows, the flashing traffic lights, the puzzled dogs.
I look at my cigarettes laying on the black and blue pavement. The big man now finds his missing ball and jumps down his fucking juggernaut. Two fell out the pack – me and you, baby, fallen out. He walks here, I show him the fist. He gets around, grabs my shoulder, I grab the gin bottle, smash it on his nose, let the brake go and drive. Thru the death faces and the rain, thru the dead and the ruin, the blood and the mud and back into the storm.
Claremont rd, Brent Cross. Headteacher office, one pm. I shut the door, turn and face the boss.
He’s typing on his keyboard, sets his glasses on me for an instant, says
‘Take a seat.’
I execute and sit on the plastic chair in front of the desk.
Deputy headteacher Rodrigo Puerta on the chair beside mine. He dont even look at me, not even when I say hi Rod, so now I know how much fucked I am.
We wait watching Headmaster Laganà typing till he puts down the glasses and places a blank stare onto me.
‘I’ll cut to the chase, Rodrigo reported on your stunts. Some stunts I have to say.’
Blank stare.
‘Yeah?’
‘But I’ve finally found the way to get rid of you.’
Only now old Roddy bloody Puerta turns his head to me and my reaction.
‘No way you’re sacking me.’
Headmaster Fulvio Laganà, fucking apulian snake, smiles.
I stay put with my hands on my rain wet knees. Under the tracksuit pants I’m wearing boots, muddy texan boots bought somewhere in Italy. The gypsy-arab market off Cuoco square, if I recall right.
‘On what basis?’ I ask.
‘You’ll receive the papers by mail, now please vattene affanculo.’
I stay sat for the longest moment staring at the old fuck, then stand up and go slamming the fucking door.
Fucking masks. Fucking liars.
Down the silent hallway I try you again and again.
Down the stairs, call my man.
‘Morning, Jesus.’
Push the door open, say ‘Chelsea draws at Liverpool, do a share shot?’
‘Mm. How much.’
‘Half a grand. ‘
‘You high?’
‘Half a grand each.’
Push doors open, out into the courtyard.
‘You… seen it?’
No I havent.
‘It’ll be a draw. You in?’
Thru the gate and down the street. Leave the fucking premises in the cctv eye. For fucking EVER this time.
‘Yeah alright.’
‘Good girl.’
Pocket the phone, light the fag.
Time to cut the shit and come to you. Come take you back.