Bill Haley is not fucking boring, my friend, Barney says to him. We ripped the fucking seats out the place the time he played Belfast. Well, you were a fucking punk before your time, then, weren’t you? your man Del Brogan says. What you trying to say? Barney says to him. A punk means a fucking poof. No, it doesn’t, Tommy says to him. A punk rocker is a different thing entirely. What does it mean, then? Barney says to him. It means somebody what is anti-disestablishment, Tommy says to him. Exactly, your man Del Brogan says. The IRA is the biggest punk group going. Tommy and your man Del Brogan look at each other, and they nod. Then Mack pulls this little container out onto the table. Going to be a good night tonight, lads, he says. I told you this was going to be an initiation. Welcome to the future, my friends, he says to us, and he takes out these wee paper squares like wee postage stamps that have a drawing of a white snake, it looks like, coiling up around this naked woman with the big fucking tits. Fucking hell, Sammy, Barney says to me, that’s like something out your man Conan. Have youse ever heard of the LSD? Mack says to us. Is this fucking drugs? Tommy says to him. Aye, it’s fucking drugs, Mack says to him. Black Mamba. Black Mamba’s white, Tommy says to him. That’s right, Mack says. That’s cause of in the world of LSD, just like in the world of Northern Ireland, everything is inverted. I can see I’m gonna have to teach youse, he says. Have youse never tripped before? he says to us. I smoked that wacky backy, Tommy says to him. Como never sounded better. You think that’s good, your man Del Brogan says, try listening to The Clash on LSD. Will it get you wasted? Barney says to him. That’s not the point, your man Del Brogan says. This shite wakes you up. Wakes you up to what? Barney says to him. To fucking life, my friend, your man Del Brogan says. Who the fuck wants to wake up to life in Belfast? Barney says to him. Alright, Mack says. I’ll be honest with you, it gets you wasted. Good enough for me, Barney says to him. Hand them over. And he grabs a wee stamp off him and just gubs it, washing it down with a gargle of green. Let it dissolve under your tongue, Mack says to him, what are you doing, take it easy. But Barney just sits there. Nothing is fucking happening, he says. I’ve heard about these drugs, he says. They put fucking cat food and fucking washing-up liquid in them and all this shite. How the fuck can they put cat food into a piece of paper? I says to him. You need to let it get into your bloodstream, Mack says to him, let it go, then let it flow, into your brain. It’ll be a fucking tight squeeze in there, Tommy says. That’s probably why it’s not working. You need to give it time, Mack says, and by the time we gets over the road to the Clash show we’ll be fucking peaking, Fucking Peaking, FUCKING PEAKING … like this: