The Acid House by Irvine Welsh Read Free Book Online

there was a bang at the door and although it held firm, after another couple of thrashes the frame split from the wall and the whole thing tumbled inwards. Two guys stood in the doorway with sledgehammers. They looked so mental I was almost relieved when a group of pigs stormed in and swarmed all over us. I watched the expression of disappointment on the face of one seasoned DS fucker. He knew that had we been holding it would have been a race to the lavvy to flush the gear away, but none of us had moved. Nobody was holding. They ritually turned the place over. One cop picked up my works and looked sneeringly at me. I raised my eyebrows and smiled lazily at him. — Let's get this rubbish down the fucking station, he shouted. We were bundled out of the flat, down the stairs and into a meatwagon. There was a loud crash as a bottle hit the top of the van. It stopped and a couple of cops got out, but couldn't be bothered giving chase to the kids who probably threw it from the balcony. They crushed us between their bulk, muttering the occasionally dark threat.
    I looked at Don sat opposite. The car whizzed past the Lower Clapton Road cop shop, then past Dalston station. We were going to Stoke Newington. A name station. The name on my mind and almost certainly on Don's was Earl Barratt.
    At the station they asked me to turn out my pockets. I did, but dropped a set of keys on the floor. I bent to pick them up and my scarf trailed on the ground. A cop stood on it, just pinning me there helpless, bent double, unable to lift my head up.
    — Get up! another one snapped.
    — You're standing on my scarf.
    — Get your fucking sick junky arse up ere!
    — I cannae fuckin move, yir standin oan ma scarf!
    — I'll give you fucking scarves, you Jock cunt. He booted or punched me in the side and I toppled over onto the floor, collapsing like a deckchair. It was more from the shock rather than the force of the blow.
    — Get up! Get fucking up!
    I staggered to my feet, blood soaring to my head, and was pushed into an interview room. My brain felt hazy as they barked some questions at me. I manage to mumble some weak replies before they threw me in the drunk tank. It was a large white-tiled room with perimeter benches and an assortment of foam and vinyl mattresses on the floor. The place was full of piss-heads, petty criminals and cannabis dealers. I recognised a couple of black guys from the Line, at Sandringham Road. I tried not to make eye contact. The dealers up there hate smack-heads. They get hassled by the racists pigs for skag when all they deal in is blow.
    Fortunately their attention is diverted from me as two heavily-built white guys, one with a strong Irish accent, begin booting fuck out of a one-eared transvestite. When they feel they've done enough they start pissing on his prostrate figure.
    I seem to be there for an age; getting sicker and sicker and more and more desperate. Then Don gets flung in, sick and hurting. The polis who bundles him into the tank can see that the one-eared boy on the deck has been well fucked over, but he just shakes his head contemptuously and bolts the door. Don sits beside me on the bench, his face in his hands. At first I notice blood on his hands, but then I see that it is coming from his nose and mouth which are quite badly swollen. He'd obviously slipped on something and fallen down a flight of stairs. This tended to happen in Stokie police station to black punters. Like Earl Barratt. Don is shivering. I decide to speak.
    — Tell ye, man, ah'm a wee bitty disappointed wi the crimi nal justice system of this country, at least as locally administered here in Stokie.
    He turned towards me, showing the full extent of his kicking. It was quite healthy. — I ain't coming out of here man, he trembled, his eyes wide with fear. He was serious. — You heard about Barratt. This place is known for it. I'm the wrong fucking colour, especially for a guy with a habit. I ain't comin out alive.
    I was about