Ugly Puggly 19

The newsagent asked how my wife was doing, which put me on a downer. I guessed I was being racist, thinking Asian folk shouldn’t be trained to read and write several languages at an early age, be as nosey as Scottish folk and speak better English than us. He should just get some exercise writing people’s names in his tick book and not burn excess calories smiling like the distant glare from a fridge door left opened.

‘Fine,’ I stuffed my purchases into a blue plastic bag without giving a damn about killing the oceans and baby whales better than any would-be Moby Dick with rocket-propelled harpoon. ‘She’s daeing just fine.’ I jutted my chin in that Scottish way, where even innocuous statements drip with menace and ambiguity.  I tried slamming the door, when I left his too cheery shop to make sure he got the message, but it didn’t even bounce.

I was tempted to turn back and buy a packet of fags and a litre of Vladivostok. But being a Sunday, he wouldn’t have sold me the alcohol. I could choose to smoke myself to death but not drink myself to death.

When I returned home, I got down on all fours and searched under my bed for a can of lager that might have rolled and been hiding from my nightly grasping.

I went into the kitchen and dropped the bag at my feet. Dave and Ugly Puggly were sitting at the kitchen table, leaned into each other, their foreheads almost bumping. ‘Fuck sake,’ I growled. ‘Get a room.’

‘I’ve got a house and I’ve got a room,’ Ugly Puggly gave me a look. ‘You’ve also got a room—in my house, member?’

‘Aye, I member that too well. You got any booze? Even that cheap shit you use for cooking.’

‘You drank it.’

‘Did I?’ I scratched at my chin. ‘Aye, that’s cause it’s Sunday.  It was all the fault of religion.’ I searched under the sink for the frying pan to cook my sausages. Pulled it out and banged it down on the cooker. ‘You want any?’ I was cooking another breakfast to give my hands something to do.

Ugly Puggly shook his head. He didn’t trust me cooking even an egg.

‘No,’ Dave piped up. ‘I’m vegan noo.’

‘Fuck sake. Gie me a break. You probably hink that’s somethin to dae wae Star Trek.’

‘No, he is,’ said Ugly Puggly.’ We discussed it. I filled him in on battery farming, chickens stacked head to toe and fed antibiotics and growth hormones. So that if they were fattened up to live and die in such a short period of time that if they were human they’d be twelve-feet tall wae knobbly knees and die by the time they were seventeen.’

I buttered a roll. ‘I know lots of folk like that. Only a tad smaller and fatter. We went to school wae some of them, but they’re deid noo.’

‘And how the lungs of the planet, the Amazon loses a football pitch sized chunk every second of every day to feed cows. How the run-off from their shite pollutes rivers and fresh drinking water—’

‘Geez a break,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a sore heid listening tae yeh.’

‘Aye, but there’s nae Planet B,’ said Dave, smiling like an Asian shopkeeper.

‘Fuck off. Where’d yeh get that from the bottom of a milk carton?’ I pointed the buttering knife at him. ‘Remember the adults in the room were talkin about a waxwork figure of Rabbie Burns, and you asked who Rabbie Burns was? And if he wasn’t made out of wax, whit was he made of?’

‘Aye, but I didnae mean that,’ he said.

‘Great poets are judged by their words—no their hairstyle, pal.’

‘But you don’t read poetry,’ said Ugly Puggly when my back was turned.

I flicked on the kettle. And turned to face him, my bum pushed against the sink. The squeaking sound of the windmill, a background noise.  ‘True.’ And I recited from school memory Burns’s existential cry. ‘ “Wee courin timourous beastie, aw whit a panic in thy breastie.”  I don’t know anythin about the Masons. But I agreed wae yeh, that without their funny handshakes, their’d be nae Rabbie Burns. And without Rabbie Burns, there’d be nae tartan. And without tartan, there’d be nae shortbread-box Scotland. And without  short-bread -box Scotland, there’d be nae Ally McCloud to convince us that we were gonnae win the World Cup—that’s whit Sundays are for. Selling newspaper and talkin shite.’   

Sausages sizzled in the pan. I turned the cooker off. I couldn’t face eating them. ‘I gee up. I’m goin back to my bed. To pull the blanket oer my heid.’

‘Maybe yer depressed?’ said Dave.

‘Nah, I’m happy as fuck—and I’m just waitin for the right time to express it to yeh.’

I turned and tripped over his rucksack. Flinging my arms out.  I banged the side of my forehead on the unit. I turned my head from side to side slowly to work out how bad my injuries were.  

‘You alright?’ Ugly Puggly stood half-crouched above me.

‘Aye,’ I sat up. Wiped at the blood from the gash with the back of my hand. My wrist hurt. ‘But I’ll probably need to go on the sick.’

Dave behind him, avoided meeting my eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ouch,’ I cried.

‘Whit was that?’ Dave asked in a teary voice.’

‘That was me practicin for when they ask me how long I’ll be off on the sick for? I’d be thinkin six weeks, maybe mair on full pay. Who knows? These heid injuries can be awful hard to work oot whits up or doon. I remember my Uncle John got a head injury in the army. And every morning, he used to go to the toilets with a bit of cane, wae a bit of string on it. And kid on he was fishin. One of they officer types came in and gave him what-for. Shouted in his ear that they knew he was at it. There was nae fish in the lavvy pan. And my Uncle John said he looked at him, pulled his rod out and stared at it and said, “He must be usin the wrang kind of worm”’.  

Ugly Puggly stuck a hand out and helped pull me up.

‘That’s fair cheered me up. Let’s go to the pub. My treat.’

‘But it’s too early,’ said Ugly Puggly.

‘Let’s stick Song of Praise on then. Or Ian Paisley, the shouty Reverend, giving us “No Surrender” on a loop. I’ll nip oot for a carry-oot.’