These Dead Trees Bear Fruit

Hattie Atkins

It was Johnny who started it. I'd said I wanted a cheap, quiet New Year's down the local, for old time's sake. Three or four pints, four or five pints, sniff if you have it but don't go out your way for it, mind. But it was Johnny who’d started it proper, bumped into someone, an old friend from donkey’s, who’d gave him a bump then sold him a bag for good measure. It’s madge Johnny said, no ket he’d said. Make up your mind, we’d said, it can't be both. But the lad was half cut already, half fucked already, I could tell by his left eye the one that half closes when you're half cooked already, I’d said. It went for the first time when we were fourteen and we couldn't tell our arse from our elbows, mum reckoned brain cells dead by sixteen, ridges all smooth like a koala's.  

I'm getting the cross-country coach in the morning, I’d told them. Early it is, mind, so I'll only have four or five pints, five or six pints, for old time's sake, I'm only down for five or six days so it would be rude not to. But now it’s light out and I don't remember how I got here, coach moving on speed, sat on my arse, motorway everywhere, blue blue lights, head on somet cold. I check my pockets for fags and a lighter but Johnny’s stolen my lighter, the cheeky bastard, and I probably shouldn't smoke on here anyway, not whilst there are kidders out front. I look up that way, assessing the scene, and parents are unwrapping limp sandwiches for their kids, smushed-up-looking sandwiches, all marge and no ham, I remember it well kidder, cling film like oily skin. I definitely shouldn't smoke. The ban’s been in place for years but I can’t remember what year we're skidding into, can’t tell it from my arse or my elbow. They're all the same, every New Year. It’s always Johnny and Ed and me down the local for old time’s sake, but old time is present time it’s my time it’s about time I fucked them off and did something with my life. 

I look behind me – not to the past but to the back of the coach – and there’s my lot, too, oldies crusties loners heads in their hands-ers, cursing the cunt who's probably called Johnny too, it’s always the cunt called Johnny that takes it too far. I'm getting riled, restless knee off on one. Soothe yourself, I say to soothe myself. Go on, we're on the way. Glasgow calling.

Glasgow’s calling, I'd told the lads, the coach is leaving early, so I'll have a bump if you have it but not a baggie Johnny put that back in your coat pocket. Oh, can you hear the bagpipes they’d said like the bells the bells, Quasimodo, they’d said, laughing an all. They think they're funny calling me Quasimodo. We were year sevens when Mister Porker had started calling me Quasi to get the heat off himself. Porker by name porker by nature, in’t that right, lad. Well, he didn't like to be reminded of his nickname either, did he, it’s Reece he said it’s Reece, and he went flying waltzing twinkle toes-ing in my direction and I can feel it now, the pouch around my eye socket, baggy like a rolled-up sock. Sore to the touch and black and blue too, I’d guess, blood vessels burst like tiny drainpipes. Porker had started coming to our New Year’s not long back, him and Johnny are good pals now, apparently, their missus’ good pals first, apparently. There’s always a revolving cast of characters but I’m not arsed about them and I’m not arsed if Porker or who else thinks I’m too big for my boots, not arsed when they say Quasi’s up in Glasgow and now he thinks he’s somet.

I feel for my phone in my pocket but it isn't in there. Fuck all in there, in fact: only a torn tram ticket and a Milky Bar wrapper and a sling of chuddy. Stand up lad, go on, sort it out. The woman across the aisle is looking at me all offended, all snooty like, nose like a beak, when I stand and I stumble. Well she can fuck off an all, like Porker, like the rest of ‘em. I never liked ‘em in school. They always took the skin off me teeth, obsessed with bullshit never wanted to talk seriously about fuck all. Never left our hometown, jobs with their uncles and dads from seventeen, married to their sweethearts, knocked up and divorced, swings and roundabouts, you win some you lose some. Not me, I'd say. I'm getting out. Glasgow calling. City of culture. Anywhere but this dead end. 

I'm up searching, snuffling around, a rat in the wiring, but my bag isn’t on the rack. People are staring but do I care do I fuck. Let ‘em stare. I bring down a bag that could be mine but Beaky stands up saying oi get off and calls me a wanker for good measure, well I've had worse love, I've had Quasimodo for twenty years, skin's thick as brick me. 

Thick as shit, more like, Johnny had said, handing me the bag. You know you want to.

Fucking prick, Beaky says, going for her bag. It’s not mine I realise but it could well have been, yeah, we have the same Love Island water bottle, and no I’m not taking the piss love. Just leave it someone says in my periphery but when I turn I can’t see who, just eyes, eyes, eyes instead, in rows like potatoes, poking from the ground. 

I sit down and rack my brain and stand up to rack the rack but it’s empty as sin as mum would say, you'll find fuck all in that head of yours. Outside there’s nothing but motorway and cars and dead trees and houses in the distance. You won't find your bag out there, you're thick as shit Quasimodo, ugly fucker an all now I can see you proper in the reflection, all red skin and black eye and dirty stubble. My mouth tastes like soil and I'm craving something fresh like potatoes from the ground like eyes eyes eyes like fruit so sweet it’s rotten like six or seven pints but no more mind, I’m up early in the morning, Glasgow’s calling. 

Six more hours and I'm home, says my phone, and I realise it’s been in my hand the whole time. My bag’s in the stow an all, I remember it now, how I’d chucked it into the bowels and banged my head on the metal teeth blue blue lights a split second split like an apple lights like an ambulance. I touch the spot and my head splinters. It's your own fault, mum would’ve said. You’ve never known when to stop you'll have no sympathy from me and I'm thinking she's right knuckles aching skin split head splitting like a piece of fruit. Get your act together lad mum would’ve said, I won’t have it I just won’t have it, and she never meant that till she did and there I was out on the street, taking off to Glasgow a city of culture not this dead-end back-end shit hole of a town. Well, mum, who’s laughing now.

Went back to the old house last night but she'd gone. Johnny offered to put a brick through the window. Fuck off, I’d said, some poor old bastard's probably sleeping up there, it's gone eleven the lights are off. Never grown up, Johnny and Ed, always been like this. Well, who's stunted now who’s Quasimodo now you thick fucks, I’d laughed, who's still running the streets like we're not nearly forty, and I’d laughed again. Give over, he’d said, alright, I’d gave in, I’ll have one more bump for old time’s sake.

Shutting time passed. Pub closed up. When was the countdown when was midnight when were the bells the bells? Fuck's sake. I always fuck it. Let's get another bag in then lads fuck it why not. I find it in my pocket now like a dream like a nightmare, but when I stick my finger in it's gone, it’s all dust on the wind all fag ash but it can't be that either cos Johnny’s nicked me lighter. My mouth is dry like fag ash, too, and I’m craving fresh sweet rotten fruit and before I know it, I'm in the aisle again bus rocking like a boat head swimming blue blue lights. Ey, I'm saying to Beaky, ey, do you have anything to eat and she's looking at me all horrified like, eyes wide, and I taste iron, fingers on lips, red blood turning purple under blue blue lights. 

Leave her alone for fuck's sake. It’s the eyes speaking, the rows of potatoes, the jury of spuds sat down the long aisle.  

And I'm sat again, hunched over stomach caving head splintering. God I've fucked it, I've fucked it haven’t I, and I remember wide eyes saying leave her alone leave her alone down that wet dark alley, Johnny you fucker leave her alone staring at his hands or was it my hands Oh God Oh God I've fucked it again. 

I try to focus. Look elsewhere. Shivering all through me, the future calling me like a bright light. Come on Quasi, hold it together. I look outside and there are only dead trees and bare branches, the soil turned to fag ash the apples on the branches rot and dust and white powder an all. I lean out to grab one, still craving somet sweet, but it's just out of reach.

Mum let me stay with her last New Year’s, so there was no coach for me, no Glasgow calling no bells no bells. I’d told her New Year’s day I wouldn't do this again, I'd sort myself out, it's Johnny and Porker and Ed they lead me astray to the ends of the earth. But someone had said another bump lad just one more and you should follow Johnny he’s going outside going AWOL going down that dark old alley with his hands outstretched and blue lights pulsing, head splitting ribs splintering open like someone stamping stomping opening the bark of a dead old tree. Four or five men, five or six men, on top of him and on top of us, leave her alone, wide wide eyes, potatoes, fruit, mouth dry as fuck, head empty as sin, that's what mum said and she was right O God O God she was right. I’d follow Johnny to the ends of the earth that old fucker and he’d take me there. He takes me there. If it weren't for Johnny starting it proper and Porker winding me up and Ed and the rest of ‘em I wouldn't be here, none of this would’ve happened, and no I don't want a sponsor I want a fag and a kip but I'm wide awake still coat pockets empty coach on speed speeding through the years. 

Lights up in the club and a suggestion is on the air, kebab or the strip club or Ed’s for afters. I imagine travelling back and meeting myself there before the alley before bag number two, eyes wide and black and bloodshot and I scare myself to death mind, but I reach out anyway, take the lighter from Johnny’s pocket, thieving bastard, and take myself by the shoulders or the man who looks like me who acts like me who thinks like me but isn’t me, irreparable like a cored apple, and take him back to mum’s old house circa 1992 before the bells, the bells, the Glasgow calling. Fruit’s still in the fridge but time’s running out, apples blue with mould, and I force myself through ‘em, so sweet in their rot, better than I expected. Take what you can get in life lad, that’s what mum would’ve said. So I take what I get and I run with it. 

It’s getting dark on the outskirts of Glasgow but the apples are shining on the dead branches like blue blue lights and if these dead trees bear fruit then I might still too.

The coach drops us at the bus station. I wait for the kidders and the crusties to get off first but no I’m not waiting I'm sat petrified in my seat, I can admit that now. Only dead old trees around the gates, no beacon of light no sign of life. 

No sign of life at least until my phone buzzes in my empty pocket and it’s Johnny and, Same place next year? he says.