Ditching Denny, Chapter 1

It had been one of those long weeks that seem to drag on like an endless dusk afraid of the light. At least, that is how it seemed to be. Every hour on the cracked screen of the digital alarm clock had passed by with a lazy click and it was only 5 o’clock. Sleep was always a remedy for the dragging on of time and it had often worked with excellent efficiency, or rather the lack of it, however, as tempting as the soft cotton of the pillow was, laying head to cloth would be a dangerous game to play. To risk lying for too long was not a choice, the bus would be there in two hours and to miss it would be to lose the serenity of escape. No drastic orison would redirect the eight-wheeled saviour and that was that.

Removing the cardboard holster of a record, he placed the crisp vinyl on the coal coloured record disc and pressed down on the needle. The gentle scratch cut the silence and suddenly the passing of time no longer lacked appeal. It was in these moments of solitude that John felt most content and free. Music has that effect on youths. Those four silhouettes on their field of yellow had created a masterpiece and he cherished it. The next hour passed by at a steady beat to the hypnotic guitar and lucid vocals of L.A Woman.

It was now 6 o’clock. Rising from the bed, he reached for a plain black t-shirt. After placing it over his chest, he lifted each sleeve and sprayed a cool, steady jet of deodorant under each arm. His grandmother had always insisted that no woman would ever be interested in a man with a poor odour; she also insisted that no woman would ever like a man who smelled better than herself. His jeans, pale blue and almost skin tight, were already on. Slipping into a pair of suede shoes he reached for his jacket. Once, he had been told by a loose-jawed student in the smoking area of a nightclub that the jacket resembled that of a great communist leader’s.  John relished the idea as he sorted the clean white cotton collar above the beige of the jacket. Looking towards the mirror, his lips mimed the immortal epitaph etched on a badge pinned on the collar:  Hasta la vivtoria Siempre.
After coming down from the final stair, his Grandfather shouted on him from his seat on the sofa in the living room.
“ That time again?”
“ Yes,” he replied taking great care to emphasise his vowels in an attempt to imitate the charming Irish accent that his family possessed and that he so wished to adopt, “It’s always that time, Papa.”
The pair laughed together as John picked up his keys from the shelf above the fire place and headed for the front door.
“Take care, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”
John thought to himself, “that leaves a lot more to do then.”
 
As the door closed behind him, he gazed onwards at the blood-red windows and cracked brick walls of the flats above. Each window was a screen, its own unique television. Sometimes the characters danced around in comedy. That however, was rare. Often the people in that housing were too concerned with bills and children to laugh. John never wanted children.
His own life was less spectacular than the acting actors’; more of a solitude audience than a leading role. Placing a desperate hand on the flaked paint of the fence gate, he wondered when the street had ossified or, if indeed, it had always been a street of bones in the carcass of a dwindling town.
Walking past poorly decorated gardens and crumbling mortar before reaching the end of the estuary street, he turned to face the pumps of the petrol station that stood erect like perfect headstones above the grass of the surrounding post-industrial landscape. The half- fixed street sign made him laugh: Paris Avenue. Somehow, he could not understand the connection.

The main road of the town seemed to camber away, rolling on through further dereliction for miles until reaching its mouth at the green pastures and open seaways of big-city life. The main roads of the town were name-sakes of larger towns and cities. John often felt that even the roads there wanted to leave.

The saving grace of the town was its main hall, the council house. The Victorian architecture of the building was beautiful, almost serene amidst the dust and clamour of working-class poverty. He imagined once that there had been notable men and women within its halls, dining on fine pastries and luxurious teas, engaging in intellectual discourse and exchanging ideas. How he longed to travel back there with them. A man was exiting through the large engraved doors, screaming down his mobile phone about a parking fine.

It was at this stage of the walk that he could remove his earphones from his pocket, plugging one end into his phone and gently placing the soft white buds in to his ears. Pressing play was a luxury. He could not have listened to music for the few minutes earlier out of respect to the neighbours. One might speak to him, a possibility he both loathed and feared, and he might not hear them; only to come home later that night and be told by his grandparents how rude he had been to ignore the old women shouting over to him from her poorly decorated garden.
Even his music taste was shunned by much of; almost all the community, fixated on anything with half a pulse to dance to. This pleased him however, he liked the alienation. The first song to muffle the sound of the passing busses and work vans was ‘ Luchenbak Texas’. The opening lyrics made him laugh inwards, satirically:
“There’s only two things in life that make it worth living and that’s guitars that tune good and firm feeling women.”
He chuckled as he walked past a row of kebab shops and hairdressers, he thought:
“If only I could play guitar.”
 
Apart from the odd dimly lit café and the unfathomable number of pubs for such a small town, Denny had little to offer. Once a bustling town of industry, mainly steel and paper works, the small central Scottish desert was void of fortune. Its life had been purged by a decade of Tory policies that shut down industry and turned the people there hard as ice. The soul of the town had died, and with it any sense of community. People stuck together in little, ugly groups. There was the drug users and abusers, all situated in the same streets with relatable family backgrounds and nothing more in common than depleted nostrils and hollow, often violent, regrets. Then, there was the drunks; alcoholics with no motivation other than ethanol and forgetful nights outside of their respected pubs. You see, even the groups split into sub-groups. Pubs require faith in Denny. Faith and football determine each individual’s right to drink in a certain establishment. There are a few pubs for the Catholics and a few more for the Protestants. John drank in the only neutral bar there that he knew.

There are multiple more groups of dwellers in Denny, the students, the goths, the gamers, the skaters and bikers, the very young and the very old. He had a part of all of them in him, so he would never fit in to any group. Instead, he found friendship elsewhere, out of the town. He hated his friends fiercely, yet loved each one of them unconditionally; they were all he had in life. They were all different; yet all the same. A group of enigmas that brought their own individual flaws and greatness to the clique. A smile darted across his face as he thought of them, walking along the bastardised Parisian streets to the bus stop.

The old, rancid tenement flats that scraped through the sweaty fog had recently been expelled. Now, in their place, was the new town centre; an epicentre of modern approaches. A new pharmacy, next door to a bakers:
“ Chemistry and cholesterol,” he thought.
A cupcake shop, anything to ice over the rotten sponge of the place. To him, worst of all, was the library. So many books, virgin pages never to be opened. Covers to remain dusty for decades, only to be touched during the town’s next regeneration. Perhaps it was better this way; he could never make up his mind. Was it better to be left unharmed by dirty hands and cruel eyes or to perhaps be a catalyst for greatness? It had been the pages of books and the lyrics of music that had forged John’s identity, jealousy writhed inside him like a cancer when he thought that someone else from the town might share this union. Then, looking at the fresh graffiti on the barber shop wall, he realised that this was unlikely.
 
Crossing over from the library, he entered the local Co-operative shop. His routine in the store had become a daily occurrence, finetuned to the exact degree. Through the automatic doors, then a sharp right turn to the fridges. Today had been a warm day; too warm for his liking. The roads had a glue-like sheen to them and the air smelled like rot and jungle. The cool fan of the fridge was delightful, he looked along each row of bottles and cartons carefully wondering what hid behind the plastic sheathes. This was all frivolous of course, he knew exactly what he was there to purchase. Fanta, Lemon.

The time was 19:12 and the bus that would take him away for a few hours was due in seven minutes. He took out a cigarette and lit it with the laziest of flicks. Its taste aroused him, filling his lungs with heavy smoke and burning away the impurities. Exhaling slowly and licking his lips, his mind danced off to the flavours of heavy beers and strong whiskey. The bus arrived in time for his cigarette to die in the air and he boarded.

 Sitting down he placed the ticket inside his brown wallet with a sweaty hand and looked at his student identification card. There was his face, narrow and slightly tanned. His hair was brown and his eyes were the crispest of blue. A poorly dressed quiff and a stubble peppered chin. His name was there like a cattle-brand; John McDermott.

As he sailed away on the bus he thought, “Is that really me?”

 As the bus rolled away from the town his hands grew damper and his stomach began to turn with a menagerie of wings. She was going to be there tonight. He subtly lifted his right arm and quickly inhaled the scent. If his Grandmother had been correct, then he had found the perfect balance.