Trainspotting

by Irvine Welsh

— FRRRAAAANNNK! she shouts as ah git ootay the fuckin door. Ah wis thinkin tae masel, it’s like the fuckin advert fir Harp lager: ‘Time fir a sharp exit’; that wis me awright.

wir jist near Portybelly whin the cunt’s awready made a big fuckin dent in it.

Ye ken Lexo, a statement likesay, no a question.

but it’s mobbed oot the day wi these Orange cats fi the wild west, who’re through here for their annual march and rally at the Links. These cats, it has tae be said, have never really bothered us, but ah cannae take tae them. It’s aw hate, likesay, ken. Celebratin auld battles seems, likesay, well, pretty doss. Ken?

Some huv Scottish, others English, or Belfast accents.

It’s no that easy whin they start singing: ‘Aint no black in the union jack’.

Ah hear some Glasgow boy sayin that these guys, likesay, urnae real Orangemen, thir Nazis n that, but maist ay the Orange bastards present are lappin these cunts up, encouragin them, likesay.

— Kill that Fenyin bastard!

sordid

prolific

imperialist

lackey.

dogmatic

cretin,

Renton lying there like a dildo on a large skateboard.

dour

fitful

Surreptitiously,

futility

A girl came into the room. As he watched her, a coldness came over him. She was the double of Dianne, but this girl looked barely secondary school age.

sanctimonious,

tacit

collusion

They talked aboot Ralphy Gillsland and his brother Colin, who, Renton found himself pleased tae hear, had committed suicide,

Renton smiled, glad for the first time, for reasons other than sexual ones, to have shagged this man’s daughter.

It was amazing, he decided, how things like sex and Hibs, which were nothing to him when he was on smack, suddenly became all-important.

Moan in, he said, wondering how easily he’d be able

Richard Hauser of Des Moines, Iowa, USA,

Zappaesque

We float ootay the pub n cross over tae the Meadows.

— Leave it man. Squirrel’s botherin nae cunt likesay! Ah hate it the wey Mark’s intae hurtin animals … it’s wrong man. Ye cannae love yirsel if ye want tae hurt things like that … ah mean … what hope is thir? The squirrel’s likes fuckin lovely. He’s daein his ain thing. He’s free. That’s mibbe what Rents cannae stand. The squirrel’s free, man.

Fahk aff! You’d shag the crack ay dawn if it hud hairs oan it, Rents said.

— Dinnae you start talkin! You couldnae git a fuckin ride in a brothel wi yir cock sandwiched between American Express n Access cairds.

pragmatic,

deference.

custodial

condone

Deadpan’s

tack.

simpered

advocacy

placatory

Ah felt sickened at what he’d come tae, what we’d aw come tae, and

laldy.

Ah can move. It has been done before.

The guy thinks ah’m gaunnae batter the dug’s nut wi the bat, but that would be like sending Renton or Spud tae sexually satisfy Laura McEwan.

Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.

The Sick Boy is going round tae Marianne’s the night for some sick fun. Doggy style must certainly be on the menu, if only as a tribute to Shane. I am as high as a kite and horny as a field of stags. It’s been a fucking beautiful day.

catatonic

oedipal