Ah think about this. Then something queasy moves in my stomach. I’ve had fuck all to eat in a couple of days bar Ecstasy, amphetamine sulphate and acid. Ah had one Lucozade Isotonic drink though, and a bit of a pear that Amanda had and of course, the cream cheese and the STRAWBERRIES. Time to go.

AH LEFT THE flat and bounced, yes bounced down the Great Western Road. Lloyd Buist, ah keep telling myself. It seemed important to remember. Leith. A party refugee. The most oppressed kind. Fight for the right to party; fuck diverting your energies into frivolous nonsense like food and jobs and the likes. Boring, boring fuckin boring. Party refugee Lloyd, stranded in Glasgow’s West End. Ah was lost in France, in love. Naw naw ya daft cunt. You are just on a simple message. A simple fuckin message

– Awright, big man!

Two young guys are beside me, breathing heavily and looking around, not meeting my eyes as they swivel their heads. It’s these boys … Robert and Richard, from that Maryhill posse. Ah keep running into these boys, at The Metro, The Forum, Rezurrection, The Pure, The Arches, The Sub Club … big Slam punters, naw Terry n Jason … Industria … – Awright, boys!

Their faces look distorted, and they are already moving away from me with great haste.

– Sorry, big man, cannae stoap, wi did a wee dine and dash … yuv goat tae fir fuck sake, know what ah mean, big man … ah mean ye cannae gie up the clubbin n that jist tae eat … Robert gasps out running backwards like a referee. That’s a good skill.

– That’s it, boys! That’s fuckin right! Good skills, Roberto! Good skills, Roberto my son! Ah shout encouragingly as they bomb off down the road. Ah turn around and this huge juggernaut is bearing down on me and ah tense up ready cause this mad cunt is gaunnae swing for me, going to attack the innocent Lloyd of Leith displaced person unaccustomed to your Weedgie ways but naw he’s off doon the road in hot pursuit of Richard and Robert who are heading towards the Underground at Kelvin Bridge and the bloated alcoholic will never capture the younger fitter men because their bodies are honed by dance and Ecstasy; these boys are as fit as fuck and the more weighty, beefy fellow (he’s no that fat) realises this and gives up. Our heroes escape, leaving their breathless pursuer panting heavily with his hands on his hips.

I’m laughing. The boy’s coming ower tae me but ah cannae stop. Flight Lieutenant Biggles is the name. – Where dae these cunts stey! he sort ay gasps and snaps. It’s like Lloyd of Leith, a good boy, a decent, hardworking Edinburgh merchant-school lad who plays squash and loves nothing better than attending big rugby internationals at Murrayfield is being lumped alongside Ricardo and Roberto, two schemies from a Weedgie slum.