Cover

AIDAN TRUHEN

Aidan Truhen lives in London. He worked in commodities of one sort or another until he was thirty, which is an age when a man wants his positive achievements to outnumber his acquittals. He’s trying to reinvent himself as a writer. We’ll see how it goes.

Also by Aidan Truhen

The Price You Pay

Epigraph

When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.

—Sergio Leone

This book is dedicated to everyone who still believes in more than that. You people are idiots, and if we didn’t have you, we’d all be even more screwed than we are.

[The first I…]

THE FIRST I KNEW IT WAS ALL GOING WRONG was when Evil Hansel came running out of a pastry shop and stabbed me in the leg, and that was really just the best thing that happened that day. If you do not get stabbed in the leg by a nine-year-old once every so often, then that is nice for you. Hi I’m Jack hi and this story is about me and I am the kind of person who has enemies who know nine-year-olds who will run out of a pastry shop and stab you in the leg, not because they think it is a game but because they are commercially minded fucking psychopaths and that is the world.

Hi.

I did not know that Evil Hansel was called Evil Hansel at that point and indeed it is not his actual name. Evil Hansel was a little Sound of Music–looking motherfucker in actual lederhosen and a white frilly shirt and he came out of the pastry shop like he was about to break into song and then he stuck an oyster knife into my thigh so close to the femoral artery that I can still feel it in my sphincter. If someone cuts your wrists, you have quite a long time before the problem is irretrievable. The femoral is like if you are a balloon animal.

Sploosh.

And that’s it.

Happily, Evil Hansel is left-handed and I carry my billfold in my right-hand pocket so what the little fuckhead actually stabbed was about a thousand Swiss francs in twenties and fifties, which is totally appropriate because money is your sword and shield here, although I guess in that case Evil Hansel should have stabbed me with a hundred and he did not. He used an oyster knife. I did not have quite enough money in quite the right denominations so the knife did absolutely pierce me in a tender region and I was very unhappy.

Doc said: “Do not touch the knife.”

I did not touch the knife because I am not a fucking idiot.

I said: “What the fuck ow you little what the fuck?”