The Acid House by Irvine Welsh Read Free Book Online Page A

to try and calm him, but it seemed that he wasn't far off the mark. Three black guys came over to us. They'd been watching and listening.
    — Hey brother, you hang around with this trash, you get what comes around to you, one guy scoffed. We were on a kicking. The guys started on about skag and dealers, working themselves up to unleash their fury on us. The kicking the whites had given the one-eared transvestite had obviously whet ted their appetite.
    It was cops to the rescue. As they grabbed us and crudely pushed us along, I thought about the frying pan and the fire. We were taken back into separate interview rooms. There were no chairs in the room so I sat on a table. I was made to wait for a long time.
    I sprang up as two pigs came in and joined me. They brought in some chairs. A silver-haired but still fresh-faced pig told me to sit down. — Who gave you the stuff? C'mon, Jock. Euan, isn't it? You ain't a dealer. Who's knocking this gear out? he asked, his eyes filled with lazy tired compassion. He looked like a sound guy.
    THEY'VE GOT FUCK ALL ON ME.
    Another cop, stocky, bull-like and dark-haired with a kind of pudding-basin haircut snapped, — His fucking nigger friend. Old jungle-juice boy through there, innit, Jock? Well, you had better speak up, my son, cause we got the world's first black canary chirping away twenty to the dozen next door, and you would not, believe me, not like the song he is singing.
    They kept this up for a while, but they couldn't get to the place in my head I'd crawled into.
    Then one of them pulled out a bag of white powder. It looked good gear.
    — Little kiddies over in the school been using this gear. Who's been giving it to em, Euan? Silver Dream boy asks.
    THEY'VE GOT FUCK ALL ON ME.
    — Ah jist use now and again. Ah'vc no goat enough for masel, nivir mind any cunt else.
    — I can see we'll have to get a fucking interpreter in ere. Any cunt on duty tonight speak Jock? the black-haired cunt asks. Silver Dream Machine ignores him. He carries on. — That's the thing about you fucking scumbags. You all fucking use, don't you? Nobody sells it. It just grows on fucking trees, dunnit?
    — Naw, fields, I said, regretting it instantly.
    — What did you fucking say? he rose, knuckles white on the table.
    — Poppy fields. Opium. Grows in fields, I mumbled.
    His hand goes around my neck and he squeezes. He keeps squeezing. It's like I'm watching some other cunt being choked to death. Both my hands grab his arm, but I can't break his grip. Silver does. — Leave it, George. That's enough. Get your breath back, son. My head pounds remorselessly and I feel as if my lungs will never fill up to full capacity again.
    — We know the score, son; we've prepared a statement for you to sign. Now I don't want you signing something you're not happy about. Take your time. Look at it. Read it. Digest it. As I said, take your time. Anything you want to change, we can change, he cooed soothingly.
    The dark guy dropped the hostility from his tone. — Give us the wog, son, and you can walk right out of here with this. The best pharmaceutical gear, eh Fred? He waved the skag tantalisingly in front of me.
    — So they tell me, George. C'mon, Euan, make it easy on yourself. You seem a decent enough sort, underneath it all. You're in way over your head here, sunshine.
    — Jocks, Englishmen, don't matter none, does it? We're all white men. Do time for some bleeding Congo? Wise up, Jock. One more fucking shit-skin gets banged up, wot's he to you, eh? Ain't exactly a shortage of em, is there?
    The Met. The cunts with me white shirts. They did over Drew, down from Monktonhall to Orgreave for the '84 strike. Now they wanted Donovan. Wrong skin colour. They're fitting up the daft cunt as Mister Big. This statement reads like Agatha Christie. Don and I have crossed swords but he's alright. In fact he's more of a brother than I've ever had. But what was he saying about me? Solidarity, or was he talking me down the