Cocaine Trash A Novel

The taxi soon starts moving, and I try desperately not to throw up any more. I know I am going to later though- it's inevitable after a mix of hard drugs and alcohol- but I'm trying to postpone it. I'm trying, in a kind of etiquette, not to throw up in this cunt's taxi.

I'm out of the vehicle now, and I'm heading straight for my flat. Everything's spinning out of control; my balance is fucked, and my vision is deeply grainy in the murky nocturnal atmosphere. Once I'm inside, I collapse onto the floor in the main room and start chucking up loads of bilious vomit again. My stomach's ejecting it involuntarily now, and I have lost all control, all ability to stop it. I can feel my face become soaked in the thick, slimy substance. My mouth tastes like pure saline, and my eyes ache unpalatably as they press uncomfortably into the floor. Grimacing, I close my eyes and try desperately not to think about the oncoming headache.

I'm in a fucking jungle. A fucking jungle. I've always hated jungles: they've always given me the creeps; I've always had a nasty phobia of snakes, big ones or little ones, and tarantulas and piranhas. This is the one place I don't want to be.

I'm roaming through an abundance of green, and I can hear these fucking hissing noises- up above, down below, everywhere. Fuck. I've also got this immense thirst, and it's making me more afraid of my surroundings. It's like a swamp, this jungle; and it's dry, wet, damp, everything, with a particularly nasty, searing warmth surrounding me.

Then, as I root through the fleshy green leaves, a big fucking snake falls down out of the sky and hits the ground just in front of my feet. Oh fuck! It's a big one, a big, thick black and yellow patterned one about the size of a tree trunk. I run, I fucking run; it's the only thing I want to do right now. I'm sweating so fucking badly, and all I can do is run, is fucking run man. Then another snake falls from the sky. It's one of those white, yellow patterned ones, and it's much thinner than the other. I stop right in front of it, and it starts hissing vehemently. Oh fuck me, oh fuck, fuck, fuck me!

'Ahhhhh!' I suddenly bellow, and my surroundings soon turn black.

I'm conscious, and I'm sweating. I'm sweating profusely. I'm thirsty too. I'm so fucking thirsty. Looking around, I see that I'm in a dark room, my bedroom. Past the two turquoise coloured curtains, I can see the small round orange lamp outside emitting its usual tangerine glow out onto the street. I gaze at that glow for a moment as I try to calm myself down from my unpleasant nightmare. Then I look down at the mattress I'm lying on. It reeks of noxious mould; but it's a smell I recognize all too well. I can see that the sheets are soaking wet, drenched in my profusion of toxin heavy sweat. 'A bad dream,' I think. 'A bad fucking dream.'

Gently, I lay my head back into my pillow and try to relax. I know I should really head off to the bathroom and drink some tap water to hydrate myself, but I feel too fatigued to do so, way too fatigued. I just rest my head back in my pillow and close my eyes.

I'm in another jungle, another fucking jungle. I'm pretty sure it's the same one as before. I look around and see that I'm surrounded by hundreds of big black tarantulas with big dangling legs sprouting from their ghastly abdomens. I'm sweating, badly. I want to move but can't. All around me are these big fucking black spiders. Then, as I stand there succumbing to my cowardly fear, a huge, pillow sized tarantula comes dangling down on a big, cloth like web that resembles one of my bed undersheets. It stops in front of my eyes, and I stare at it in utter trepidation, my face drenched in sweat. As I gaze at its big almond like abdomen, I notice the cluttering of thick, black hairs all over it. Then I stare at the vile thing's many eyes which surround its hideous, unsightly head. It's terrifying, truly terrifying.

I open my eyes and scream.

GLASS TABLE ANTICS

Corey's in his bathroom, freebasing. He's been in there for about 20 minutes now while I, Louis, and David have been snorting lines off a rectangular shaped glass table. Man, the buzz. What a fucking buzz. I take my 4th line and watch my surroundings flicker manically in my mind like a fucked light.

David's proper fucked by now, but he keeps going, he always keeps going when he shouldn't. His tolerance is high, but you can tell he's fucked himself up. His face always has this purple touch to it now; his black pupils have turned somewhat cat like in appearance; and I swear his once blue irises have faded into a bluish green colour.

'Fuckin' Kerry, naggin' at me, bitch,' he says, moving his eyeballs about and rubbing agitatedly at his face.

'Don't let her get to you, you're the man. You're the fuckin' man,' says Louis, slowly sucking up a line with a rolled up, torn piece of card from a packet of proplus.

'Yea, I tell her just that. I tell her that I'm the fuckin' man, and that she's the fuckin' slag around here, but she don't listen, the stupid fuckin' bitch. Always tellin' me what to do, tellin' me to get a job and to stop fuckin' stealin' shit. And I tell her "shut the fuck up bitch." Sometimes I just want to hit the bitch if she gets on me nerves too much. I swear, fuckin' cunt better start layin' off me, or she's gonna get hurt.'

I'm starting to get really fucking irritated by David going on about his disgrace of a girlfriend. He has a habit of pissing me off; in particular when I'm trying to enjoy the pleasure of a couple of lines. He drones on about shit that is irrelevant at times like this; this is a time for getting high and off your rocks; and not having to hear about somebody's fucking personal affairs on the domestic front. The last thing I want to hear about right now is his fat bitch of a girlfriend, Kerry. Fuck man, the last thing I want to hear.

I finish my current line, and everything's expeditious in my mind. It's like my vision's flickering with the voices around me seeming strong and uncannily intense. I glance at Louis and watch him take his time snorting his line. 'Louis man, you should fucking snort that up in one go,' I tell him. 'It's a better buzz believe me.'

Louis glances up at me and smiles with one of his really fucking irritating looks; it's like a sardonic jeer, and it fucks me off immensely. 'Ah, you got to go slow if you want to really appreciate it,' he replies.

I'm about to arrange another line from the small heap of coke on the table when suddenly Louis' words register in my mind with high frequency. 'No, you got it fucking wrong Louis,' I say, somewhat outraged by his preposterous ideology of cocaine snorting. 'You got to go fucking fast man. Fucking fast if you want that buzz. You're doing it all fucking wrong Louis, you know that? All wrong. You're gonna end up with fucked cartilage the way you're doing it.'

Louis nods his head (his way of telling me to shut the fuck up) and resumes snorting his line at the speed of a slow truckin' snail. Meanwhile David, having taken a break from his own line, is staring at the opposite wall while continuing to ramble on about his corpulent fucking girlfriend. I feel like saying, 'David, shut the fuck up about Kerry. Nobody wants to hear about that fat fucking monstrosity of a wretch right now. Keep your trap shut for 5 fuckin' minutes about her, will ya?' But I don't; I keep my trap shut, try to blank out David, and get back to snorting some seriously good shit of my pal Corey's.

As I take the rapid sniff of the exhilarating shit that we've all been sorting out with our NatWest cards, Corey comes out of the bathroom. I hear the door slam violently back against the wall in one clamorous thud, and, deeply perturbed by the noise, I look up and glance over my shoulder. There, with misty smoke floating freely about in the air, I see Corey; he's frozen by the door in his Class A, freebase high, and he's looking ropey as fuck. 'Good shit?' says David, also glancing over his shoulder at Corey.

Corey smiles, his eye balls appearing rather low in his face, and nods in a complete fuddled daze. Then, slowly moving his legs, he walks over to the side of the room and crashes with one thunderous thump into a wooden library case.

'Fucking hell Corey!' I say, relieved that he didn't crash anywhere near me. 'Fucking try to control your coordination man, for fuck sake.'

'Sorry mate, sorry mate,' mumbles Corey, jerking his body about like an oxygen deprived fish on top of several books. He pulls one out from underneath his head and runs his eyes over the front cover in a drunken, stupefied fashion before dropping the book on the floor and attempting to lift himself up. 'Does anyone else feel like their gums are on fire?' he says, digging his front teeth disconcertingly into his lower lip.

'I don't feel that at all,' I say, working out my glossy reflection in the glass table; it's incredible how dilated my pupils look, even without the potent black in the translucent surface.

'Fuck, I must be fucked man,' says Corey.

He definitely looks pretty hot with huge oily trails of perspiration all over his rancid face; it's almost an obscene sight, like a sweaty, fungal infected rash. 'Have a fucking gin and tonic,' I say, pushing my face closer to the table, mesmerised by the reflection of my large, disc-like pupils.

'I think I fucking will,' says Corey. 'I think I fucking need a gin and tonic.'

Corey gets himself halfway up and, after swaying for a bit, staggers over to the fridge in the kitchen compartment at the very right of the room. 'I fucking need a gin and tonic,' he repeats.

The sound of bottles and plastic clanging together emerges as Corey opens the fridge. I glance to my left at him and watch in envy as he takes out a can of Gordon's and Swepp's. It looks chilled and refreshing, and in no time at all he's clicking it open and is taking a large, hearty swig. 'Fuck, what a drink,' he says, licking his lips with his wet tongue that looks like a piece of severely undercooked steak.

'That's a good fucking spirit man,' I say. Now I'm feeling that strong, yielding urge to consume a gin and tonic. 'You got another one in there?'

'You'd be a lucky cunt if I do,' replies Corey. He turns around and opens the fridge back up. 'Ah, you lucky cunt, got a couple left.' Taking another one out, he chucks it at me, and I catch it in my left hand, not hesitating for a second to open that shit up.

Corey looks at David and Louis and points sternly at them both. 'David and Louis, I ain't gonna give you two any, caus you're both a pair of cunts.'

'Oh you cheeky cunt,' says David, sounding genuinely outraged.

'Ah, only joking mate.' Corey takes out another can from the fridge and throws it at David who catches it. He then takes out another one and throws it at Louis who just manages to catch it in his puny little hands. I'm wondering if Louis, by any chance, has smoked a lot of weed today as his demeanour seems really doped out; even so, though, the coke should have at least some kind of stimulating effect on his cognitive processes.

We all take a temporary break from the coke and enjoy the refreshing taste of a good, cold gin and tonic, Corey leaning back against his fridge, and I, David, and Louis on his comfortable brown leather sofa.

'So, David, tell us about what's going down with you and your missus,' says Corey.

'Oh don't get him fucking started,' I say; I'd just managed to get the image of that obese monstrosity out of my head.

'Shut your mouth,' says David, slapping me lightly around the back of my head. 'I'll tell you about me fuckin' missus,' he says, pointing his chunky finger at Corey. 'She's a fuckin' smacked up tart who should stop fuckin' naggin' at me and leave me be. The fuckin' bitch.'

'She needs to lose some fucking weight man,' I say.

'Oy cunt, that's my girlfriend you're talking about,' says David. 'But yea actually, she has gotta fuckin' lose some weight hasn't she. Fucking fat bitch. I tell her. I say, "Bitch, lay off that fuckin' mayonnaise will ya?" But the bitch don't listen.'

'You should get her on that Hellmann's light stuff,' I say.

David's about to say something when he stops, looks at me, and shakes his head in resentment. 'Cheeky cunt.'

'Doesn't taste as good as the original though does it?' says Corey, looking at me, genuinely absorbed in the topic of Hellmann's mayonnaise.

'No comparison,' I reply.

'Hey, enough of the shit about Hellmann's mayo alright? I'm tryin' to tell you about all the grief I'm gettin' from me missus.'

'Alright mate, go on then,' says Corey.

'Right,' says David, building up to saying something that he thinks is going to be deep and profound. 'Oh fuck it. Just fuck the bitch, just fuck that fat bitch.'

We all laugh. 'Wayhayyyy!' I say, clapping, the gin and tonic still clasped in my hand.

'Fuckin' bitch she is, I tell ya,' says David. He takes a large swig of his drink, a bit worked up and rubicund in the face.

'Let the gin and tonic do its effect mate,' says Corey.

Swigging on his drink, Corey takes a long hard look at Louis. I can tell by his jeering smile that he thinks, like me, that Louis is a cunt. 'Right there Louis? You seem a bit quiet over there.'

'Haha, just working the buzz,' says Louis, looking down at his still relatively intact line of white powder.

I know that he's not working the buzz, far, far from working the buzz.

'That's right, you work that buzz Louis. You enjoy the complimentary coke that was not fucking easy for me to get.'

'You still stealing cars man?' I enquire.

'Nah mate,' says Corey; 'I've given up that shit. There's nothing to be made from stealing cars anymore. Nout. No, actually, I'm making cash from dealing Es and ketamine. I'm bringing in 600 a week from selling that shit.'

'What, you robbing stables now are you?' I say. For some reason, I picture several large stallions roaming about a field in a fog of hashish smoke.

'Nah, someone else does that for me. A guy named Gary. I rip him off big time and sell it for double what he sells it to me for.'

'Wise sales moves,' I say. 'I should do the same.'

'Fuck yea man. It's better than that dole shit. You still on that are you?'

'Yea, they pay me rent,' I say; 'but I'm doing a bit of robbing on the side for the drugs and escorts. I was also thinking about getting into selling antiques.'

'Antiques,' says Corey, a little jeeringly; 'check out David Dickinson without the orange tan.'

I laugh a little, even if I am taking the piss out of myself a little too self deprecatingly.

We're all getting leisurely through our drinks when a couple of loud, abrupt knocks emerge on the front door in the other room.

'Fuck man, who's that?' I say, suspecting the worst and picturing two pink pigs in uniforms standing on the porch.

'I don't smell bacon,' says Corey. He puts his can down on the kitchen side and, seeming relatively unperturbed and nonchalant, moves over to the other room.

David, myself, and Louis sit there on the sofa and listen with burning curiosity to the sounds of Corey unfastening the chain off his front door. 'Who the fuck could it be?' we're all wondering.

The door opens, and a woman's resonating voice is immediately heard. I close my eyes when I recognise the voice to be that of David's girlfriend, Kerry. 'Corey, is David in?' comes the voice; it actually sounds rather sensitive and caring, and this really surprises me.

'Oh for fuck sake,' says David, slapping his forehead hard. 'Fuck, how did she know I was here? I didn't tell her that I was here.' He looks at me. 'Did you tell her that I was here?'

I shake my head.

'Did you?' he says, looking at Louis.

Louis shakes his head.

'Fuck sake,' says David, banging his head back against the sofa.

I hear Corey from the other room. 'Yea, he's just in the main room,' he says; 'would you care for a gin and tonic?'

'Oh fuck!' exclaims David, now banging his head repeatedly back against the sofa.

Before David can even try to come to terms with the situation, Kerry's large, vociferous feet come stomping into the room.

'There you are you fucking cunt!' she bellows, staring menacingly at David, her face appearing round and chubby with a miniature staircase of flab below her chin.

I stare at her. Her body looks even fatter than I'd remembered it to be, and her face is just so fucking round. She's also got these ridiculously black painted-on eye brows that match her grimy black hair. She is like the ultimate life form of Shrek, and fuck is it disturbing.

'Oh this is what you're doing! Taking drugs while I'm at home trying to sort out your fucking jobsearch for Friday. You mucky cunt!'

'You shut your fucking mouth bitch!' says David in retaliation, standing abruptly up. 'I'm with my mates, and we're having a quiet drink and some coke.'

'Oh you're chillin' are you!? Well good for you! Good for you, you useless fucking cunt! Don't bother trying to find a way of finding a job ay?'

'I've got a means of making money.'

'Oh stealing and dealing shit to people!?'

'Yea, that's right! I sell that shit to them, and they fuckin' love it!'

'Well good for you cunt! Good for you!'

'Yea, very good for me bitch, very good indeed.'

'Wanker fuck face prick cunt shithead!'

'You silly fat tart.'

It's just then that Kerry, leaping her obese self forward, grabs David's gin and tonic out of his hand and splashes it over him.

'You fuckin' bitch! I'm drenched now. I'm fuckin' drenched, and I've lost me gin and tonic.'

'Here, have another one,' says Kerry. Out of the blue, she snatches my can out of my hand and proceeds to pour it all over David. I watch as the liquid splatters over him like a pregnant woman's waters breaking.

'Fuckin' bitch! Look at me; I'm soaked to the bone!'

'Good! I hope you fuckin' are cunt!'

With the same vociferous footsteps as before, Kerry turns around and storms out of the room. We're all pretty fucking relieved that her hideously monstrous presence is no more in the room. 'Cunt!' she roars, slamming the front door behind her.

David, looking like he's just come out of a swimming pool, shakes his head. 'Deirdre fuckin' Barlow. Can you believe that shit?' He looks at us all, expecting sympathy and not getting any.

'You need to get yourself a new bird mate,' says Corey.

'You're right there Corey my son, you're fuckin' right there,' says David. 'Fuckin' hell man. That was a good gin and tonic as well.'

'So...' says Corey, 'what now?'

'I think I need a fucking line of coke after that,' says David.

'Yea, me too,' says Louis. 'She was fucking horrific.'

'Fuck off mate, that's my bird you're talking about.'

Suddenly, we all start laughing, David the most.

10 seconds later, a thick line of coke goes up David's nose like a henry hoover sucking up dust.

STACY 'STINKIN' CROTCH!

I walk on through the two doors of the job centre entrance, which have now been replaced after, the other week, a claimant, a fucked off claimant, drove his car through the entrance and caused over £2000 worth of damage. All I can say is, 'Good for you son, good for you.' Anyway, I walk on through the doors, and I'm greeted, with as much hostility as the fucking cunt can give me in one gaze, by a security guard who is shorter than me, fatter than me, and just plain nastier than me.

Once I'm past that prick, I walk over to the blue and red, rectangular shaped sofa and sit down next to some geezer in army trousers who keeps staring at me in a rather pugnacious way. I know right away that the guy's a cunt, and that he very probably thinks I'm a cunt too; but hey, the feeling's mutual my job seeker friend.

30 fucking minutes later and this fucking ugly bitch of a woman with red manky hair and a loathsomely freckle-cluttered face calls my name. 'Mr Speck,' she says in her whiny, oscillating little voice, typical of many thick British women.