Children of the Abyss

Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine, the song goes. I hope it's right, ‘cos right now I want my sins more than ever. I’m nothing without my sins. I’m nothing anyway, but I’m less than nothing without my sins. My sins make me who I am. They define me in a way nothing else does. If I didn’t have my sins, I’d be an empty face.


We join our hero on his way home from a night in the pub with his girl, hungry as fuck. Can’t go home on an empty stomach: I’ll puke all the drink up over my bed.


G-L-O-R-I-A!


Gloooria!


I have to sing it at her all the time when I’m pissed. I think she’s tired of it by now, but she always says nothing.


Is that a penny on the ground? No, a button. Probably good luck anyway. I pick it up and put it in my empty pocket. She looks at me sideways. For luck, I tell her. No such thing as luck, she says. I know that, but I don’t give a shit now.


G-L-O-R-I-A!


Fuck off, she says.


Gloooooria!


She walks on ahead. I dance down the street after her and stand in a puddle of piss. Shit.


I catch up with her, scraping my shoe on the ground to get off the piss.


Where we going to eat, then? Kebab?


Sick, she says. Chips.


Chips it is.


Some bloke puking in a doorway. Put it away, man. He looks at us as we pass, drops of sick on his chin. His shoes splattered. Mess.


Come on, she says, leave him.


I finger the knife in my pocket. Could probably stab him and run away and nobody would give a fuck. Just once in the kidneys. Or across the belly, Jap-style. Spill his guts into his own pool of sick. I shiver. Could get away with it and all. Nobody around, street’s empty. Nothing to pin it on me. Wouldn’t find DNA or nothing in that mess. My own gut growls. It doesn’t like that.


The street’s suddenly very long and very empty. His sick groans follow us. We don’t talk for a while.


G-L-O-R-I-A!


Stop it, she says. I hate it when you do that.


You have the same name as the song, though. Nothing I can do about that.


Just stop.


Right.


Chips.


I light a fag to make me forget there’s nothing in my stomach but Guinness and bacon fries. The night’s so cold the smoke makes little crystals in the air. I feel like a dragon, blowing my smoke all over the place. Protecting my treasure, my Gloria.


I trip and fall onto the street covered in piss and shit and puke. I roll onto my back. Her head comes over me upsidedown.


Get up, will you?


Out of the way. Come, look. It’s a shooting star.


It was and all. She looked up and gasped.


After it burned out, she grabbed my hand and pulled me up.


Look at that, she says. Big lump of rock out there in space.


Flying through nothing.


G-L-O-R-I-A!


She sighs and laughs this time. She pulls me to her and kisses me.


Something stirs downstairs. Hello, friend.


Chip shop. At fucking last.


We stand outside while I finish my fag. Some fucking junky stumbles over the railings of an empty building across the road down the street a bit, carrying three litres of cider. He disappears into the basement, probably looking for somewhere warm for the night.


I could go in there after him with my knife and slice him up tidy. Wouldn’t fucking see what’s coming. Nothing in a junky’s head but fucking junk. His body on the floor. I roll him over. Gasping for breath. Knife in his ribs. Drop trou, one leg either side. Squeeze them out. One, two, fucking three. Shit on his head. Empty myself right over his fucking junky face. Nothing the cunt can do about it.


Chips, she says.


Glooooooria!


We order our chips and step outside for another fag. There’s some smoke coming from that house the junky was in. Bit of flame creeping out the window. The fucker’s set the place on fire.


We go back in to get our chips and tell the chipper bloke to call the fire brigade.


Back outside, some burly middleaged wanker is trying to break down the door nextdoor. There’s a face in an upstairs window. An old man looking out. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. The middleaged friends start shouting Fire! Fire! at him. Old bastard hasn’t a clue. The poor fucker’s gonna burn.


The fire brigade arrive in a fanfare of fucking sirens. Lights everywhere. Axes and hoses. A hero’s fucking weapons. They break all the windows. Now I remember wanting to be a fireman as a kid. You get to smash windows for a fucking laugh.


There’s a crowd gathering now. Nothing like an emergency to bring city folk together. They forget for a minute that they’re all supposed to be shitheads to each other.


A pack of scumbag kids is in front of us, laughing and joking. I want to tell them it’s not a fucking laughing matter. There’s an old man up there, you fuckers. Fucking kids.


Gloria and I stand outside the crowd watching, eating our chips like popcorn at a fucking film.


She grabs my hand and squeezes. Some skaghead rolling towards us, eyeing us up. Probably the same one as lit up that house. Probably not, though. Can’t mug us anyway, mate, we’ve nothing worth taking.


He rams my shoulder and slurs something that sounds like someone shoved a bag of pebbles up his arse.


Gvs fyg ll?


Sorry, man, I don’t smoke.


He pulls a knife.


Ghvs fkhn fwn thn.


Fuck off, you’re not getting my phone.


Fkhn ryd fkhn brd gvs wn byb ll?


Stay away from her.


She squeezes my hand tighter. I drop my bag of chips. I put my other hand in my pocket for my knife. Nothing. Fuck, that’s the one with the button, but the button’s gone. There’s a bloody hole in my pocket. There goes my good luck.


Fkhn fwn brd ryd y?


Fuck off.


I break from Gloria’s grip and pull the knife. Into his neck like a shot. Blood everywhere. Emptying his veins.


Kkkhhhghjkhyghk.


Cunt.


He drops.


Self-defence. Can’t do anything. Only a fucking junky anyway. Nobody cares.


Funny how nobody will notice a junky getting killed when there’s a fire and flashy things to look at.


Gloria screams.


G-L-O-R-I-A!


C’mon, I say, let’s do the watusi.


I boogie down the street, dancing to the rhythm of the flames and the fire engines’ flashing lights.


Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.