Ugly Puggly 59

Seagulls squawked and fought aerial duels with each other outside before it got too dark to pick up a bin snack. I was getting ready to go out to a meeting. But I was getting sick of them. Only to be reminded by my sponsor, and namesake, that’s when I most needed them. I thought about going to meetings wearing a hat with earmuffs and a facemask. He didn’t like that idea. I didn’t like it much either. I changed out of my working gear.

Ugly Puggly bounded up the stairs and into my room. ‘You got any washin?’

‘Em,’ I glanced at clothes lying on the bed, under the bed and piled up on a chair. Some of it smelled fruity enough to make a decent alcohol. ‘Pretty much everythin I owned, I’d worn out. If it didnae smell too bad gie it another go. And stick it on again. If it’s past its sell-by date, I wear it to work.’ I picked up a pair of socks from the floor and sniffed them, before sitting on the quilt cover to pull them on. I knelt on the floor to look under the bed for my black shoes.

‘Lol,’ said Ulgy Puggly.

I turned my head, humph-backed and squinted up at him. ‘Whit’s that meant to mean?’

‘Lots of laughs, Ugly Puggly sighed. ‘Dave tends to use it a lot noo he’s a kid-on green politician. Everythin becomes ironic, or “LO”.’

‘Fuck,’ I squeezed my feet into my shoes. Unlike my clothes, they couldn’t get any blacker. ‘We used to dae that tae. Shorten hings.’

Ugly Puggly looked unconvinced.

I scrambled through my clothes, searching for my phone. ‘Or yeh just added a hairy O tae everyhin. Jacko, Earso. Psycho. Then you’d guys that did something and the name stuck wae them. For every Sheep Shagger or Poison Dwarf you’d huv one Fanny Licker.’

‘Suppose,’ Ugly Puggly said, but he sounded unconvinced. He’s talkin about gettin “Doxxed”, but I dunno whit that means?’

‘Fuck knows.’ I scratched at my back and used the side of my foot to push my working gear into the corner as if it was going to bite, before bundling it into a pregnant pile and lifting it. I handed it to Ugly Puggly, but a rogue sock fell to the floor. I picked it up before it started squirming and pushed it into the pile in his arms.

‘I suppose we’re jist gettin older.’ Ugly Puggly kept his back straight. He watched me as I scooted around the room picking up clothes at random and dashing back towards him and adding to the pile. ‘I mean we never hud the internet.’

I stuffed a stiff pair of denims into his arms. He didn’t seem to mind. It was like playing Kerplunk with my washing. ‘Internet, we didnae even huv phones, or fridges or anythin much. Naebody owned a car. And if you hud a cheque book, then, obviously, you were a teacher or a doctor. The only hing we hud was a telly—and you could hink yersel lucky—Jesus, I can’t believe I said that. I sound like my auld man.’

He tried arguing. ‘The internet was about then, but we didn’t know anything about it, a bit like global warming.’

‘No it wisnae. It wisnae on Dr Who.’ I reached for a streaky shirt and piled it up and over his face so he had to use his chin to balance the pile. ‘And here’s the clincher, it wisane on Star Trek. And I mean everyhin was on Star Trek. Mobile phones. Ready meals. Microwave ovens. Kung Fu and Klingons, even black women, but nae internet—that was far too advanced.’

‘LO,’ said Ugly Puggly.

‘It wisane that funny.’

He peered over the top of the washing at me. ‘No, “LO” was the message sent 400 miles from UCLA to Stanford on 29^th October 1969.’

‘You mean, they were in on the internet joke, even before we knew it was a joke?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah, it was short for LOGIN, but the computer crashed.’

My mouth fell open. ‘Jesus, that happened to me. I was trying tae download a picture of a naked woman, but it took that long, I was quicker goin outside and meetin up wae Agnes on the fly. I told her I’d never seen a naked woman before, but she never believed me.’ Thinking about her made me feel a bit down. ‘Fifty years we ve hud the internet and it’s still full of the same shite, but worse. Imagine the playboy no huvin a phone, he’d probably kill himsel.’

‘Every generation thinks the generation before them should toughen up.’  

‘Listen, I’m like you. I don’t know whit doxing is either. But if he things being bullied is somebody using capital letters. Then he should grow another pair of balls.’ I shook my head. ‘He’s probably had enough balls enough to play wae—does that no bother you?’

I could make out a smile on his face. ‘Not really. He should read Dostoyevsky. He recognised the innate cruelty in man for no other reason than a desire to hurt and control. The internet shows that up very clearly. The cruelty of the strong towards the weak. And the real, palpable, hatred of the Tories towards the poor. The more power the greater capacity they have to torment us. It’s a vicious circle, which leads to hell on earth.’

‘Sounds like my kinda man.’

‘The pursuit of sufferin for its own sake is never a good thing.’ He shuffled towards the door. I followed picking up washing he’d dropped. ‘And he offers an out. In that a Saviour will appear. And if he doesn’t, you must become the saviour.’

‘Jist gie me a break,’ I muttered. ‘I get enough of that religious shite wae the AA. It’s practically turned me intae an American evangelist. Don’t be too surprised if yeh see me oot votin for the moron’s moron and takin up arms, because I’ve became wan of them nutjobs.’

He tried to look at his feet as he waltzed from side to side with the washing down the stairs. ‘I’ll keep a beady eye on yeh. And keep yer passport locked up.’

‘I’ve no got one. I might end up in Rwanda.’

Then we heard the loud banging on the front door.