2. The Dealer

Omar knelt before Liam, his hands clasped together tightly in supplication, and attempted a smile. Framed within his bruised, tear-streaked face the smile came across as insane. In a string of incoherent, incomprehensible and jittery half sentences he pleaded for his life.

Liam looked around the room. Damp wallpaper hung from the walls in pendulous, fungus flecked strips, the floor – covered in plastic sheeting for the purposes of this clandestine meeting – consisted of carpet-less floorboards splintered with dry rot. Over the years this room had been home to atrocities that ranged from rape, through to torture, through to murder and mutilation; this room had seen just about every act of human depravity in the five years that he had used it. And now Omar would be added to the roll call of unfortunates who made the mistake of crossing Liam. But Omar still begged to differ. “Please. Don’t. No. Don’t kill me, please.”

Omar’s entreaties fell upon deaf ears; Liam was having none of it. His searing rage couldn’t be assuaged with pleas for clemency and protestations of innocence. He had been good to Omar, and in return he had been royally shafted. “Omar, I really don’t want to hear it. You know what I do want to hear, don’t you?”

“Look. Look. Look, man. Look. I didn’t do anything. I’m sorry!”

“Then why are you sorry?”

This had Omar confused. “What?” he sputtered meekly.

“If you didn’t do anything, like you say, then why are you sorry?” asked Liam, his voice thick with rage.

Omar shook his head and looked up at his captor with a blank expression, his eyes then scanned the room as if in search of the correct answer, a smart remark he could pluck out of the ether to save his neck. None was forthcoming. Instead, Omar offered the slightest of shrugs. Liam chuckled without humour. “Cat got your tongue, Omar?”

Omar’s silence served only to amuse Liam. It seemed ironic that in circumstances where the outcome wasn’t important Omar’s loquacious barrage of stories and patter had lit up party nights from Clifton to Portishead. But when his life depended upon them words had failed him.
Anyway, Liam wasn’t interested in any words Omar had to say unless they were the right ones. For instance, the reason why he had been adding additional cuts to Liam’s Heroin over the last couple of months. Of course, Liam knew why he had done it; he just wanted to hear Omar say it.

****

For several months Liam’s regular customers had been complaining that the shit he was selling them was getting weaker.

Initially, Liam ignored them. After all, lies were a junkie’s stock in trade; they were natural chisellers who lied to all and sundry, especially to themselves. They lied to get money out of family and friends, they lied to other junkies about the amount of smack they had in their possession, they lied to the authorities at the drop of a hat, and they lied to themselves about their addiction - which they often denied was an addiction - even when they could see their own hollow-eyed, substance ravaged faces in the mirror. Liam knew the nature of their lies only too well, so when a few regulars started voicing their dissatisfaction with the quality of the shit on offer his automatic reaction was to ignore them. As far as he was concerned the Heroin got tested when it was purchased and Omar always put the same cut on the raw product. It amused him that the junkies had found yet another angle to play.

The complaints continued for a while and then began to die away. The problem was that his custom was dying away too. They were disappearing in their droves, the junkie union had voted with its feet: the bastards were buying from somebody else. He collared a few of his regulars who told him the news: a new guy was in town; his junk was better; and it didn’t cost much more than his watered down product.

Liam’s initial reaction was that Omar was putting an extra cut on his product. That assumption was quickly discarded; he and Omar went back years. Their friendship was older than their adventures in the drugs trade and if he could trust anybody it was Omar. But the thought simmered at the back of his mind whilst he pursued other angles. It wasn’t often that his intuition failed him.

Liam decided to do some investigating. He sent one of his foot soldiers out to get a sample from his latest competitor. The foot soldier returned with the sample and a few nuggets of information. His sample had been bought from a wiry, shaven-headed dealer named Spike. The foot soldier was sure he had seen him before but he couldn’t ascertain where or when. Spike ran his operation from the back of an old transit van and drove it to where the junkies congregated, which meant that he knew both the geography of the place and he had knowledge of the area’s junkies. Once he had sold off his stock he took his winnings and got the fuck out, pronto, meaning that he could be anywhere. Spike had got away before the foot soldier could collar him, so he didn’t know he was being scouted. Yet!

Liam puzzled over this, particularly the fact that this Spike character seemed both smart and well organised. His knowledge of the few dealers who had been unwise enough to set themselves up in competition with him was that they were invariably idiotic. They talked too loud, made bold gestures, never protected themselves well enough and always died screaming like little girls. They were never smart enough to stay silent, never smart enough to move around and never this proactive. Without having to say a word Spike had done his operation serious damage. Soon people would start talking. In a community trusting enough to share needles word spread as quickly as Hepatitis. They would tell tales of his demise around the Bunsen fire! And as quickly as that he would be over. One day very soon Liam would awaken to find one of his loyal foot soldiers standing over him with a knife whilst he gurgled and choked upon the blood that poured from his slit throat.

As worried as he had been up to this point, the results of Spike’s sample worried him even further, sending his already paranoid mind into overdrive. Ostensibly, Spike’s product and his were the same. The proportion of the cut was identical; the substances that it had been cut with were identical. In fact, they were identical.

He had failed his intuition. It was Omar!

****

Omar had been uncooperative. Despite a crushed nose, several broken teeth and a couple of shattered ribs he had remained adamant in his innocence. Despite this, the truth was quickly established. A simple test of strength had revealed that Omar had added another cut Liam’s smack. The crafty bastard had taken a portion of the original cut, added another cut on top of that so that the amounts looked the same, and when he had built up a decent stockpile had passed it on to this Spike character. If he weren’t so angry Liam would have admired his chutzpah. However, he was angry. Every fibre of his being screamed for bloody vengeance, vengeance on a grand scale, vengeance that let the smack-heads know that normal service had been resumed. Liam wanted to hear an admission of guilt from Omar before he killed him in a grand, operatic and bloody manner. “Where’s Spike?”

“Who the fuck is Spike?”

“Your partner.”

“I don’t have any partners.”

“Your loyalty’s admirable. It’s a shame you couldn’t have been that loyal to me.”

“Christ, I have been loyal,” insisted Omar vehemently.

“So this is your own work then?” asked Liam.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Of course you haven’t,” said Liam with faux sincerity. “It’s all my imagination, right? Only it isn’t, is it? You must think I fell off a fucking banana boat or something.
“I mean, suddenly, out of the blue, my fucking product gets weaker. At the same time this bald cunt in a fucking transit van appears out of nowhere. The funny thing is that his stuff is fucking identical to mine. Identical. The strength is the same; the stuff it is cut with is the same. It’s you Omar. So just admit it.”

Omar’s expression was blank. It was the perfect poker face, thoroughly unreadable. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice tinged with hopeless sincerity.

“You’re a good actor, Omar, I’ll give you that much. You ought to be on stage with that shtick. But I tell you what. Before tonight’s through you’re gonna tell me what I want to know. The fact is, if you don’t talk, I’m not going to let you get away clean. Firstly, I’m going to torture you in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine. Secondly, we’re going to visit your sister and bring her and Natalie here. Once here, we’re going to gangbang her and then we’re going to kill her, and after we’ve finished with her we’re going to turn our attention to little Natalie. I’m gonna cut her fucking head off. Thirdly, you’re going to get a front row seat for the performance.”

For the first time that evening Omar’s mask slipped. His jaw muscles tensed, his eyes clouded over momentarily, and he exhaled heavily, as if sighing with resignation. Liam sensed that he was about to crack. “Talk to me, Omar. Tell me what I want to hear.”

“You promise not to kill them?”

Bingo. As elated as Liam was at breaking Omar’s resolve he was angry at himself for not thinking of using Omar’s family as a bargaining tool earlier in the evening. “I promise,” he said truthfully. He had no intention of killing Omar’s sister and niece.

“It was me.”

“And Spike?”

“A mate of mine from London.”

“Where is he now?”

Omar sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. Once he started selling your smack he began moving around. I have no idea where he is. When he’s ready to move more stuff he contacts me. We split everything fifty-fifty.”

“Bullshit, you must know where he is.”

“He was in Clifton. He isn’t there any more. The moment he started selling he figured if he was always on the move you’d find it difficult to catch him. He suspected something like this might happen. And even if I did know I wouldn't tell you anyway”

“You silly bastard. Just when things are about to take off you try and fuck me. Why?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

It seemed like a good idea at the time? Years of friendship cast aside on a whim. Liam had always taken care of Omar – he was paid good money, got his share of the best women and was generally indulged – and this was how he was repaid; in nonchalant betrayal. Liam turned away from Omar in disgust; he should have felt vindicated with this admission of guilt, but he didn’t. Omar’s indifference appalled him. Liam didn’t quite understand why he felt such revulsion. It wasn’t as if he was a beginner with aspirations to be dashed; aspiration had been discarded years before, once the mundane realities of survival had set in. Years of looking over his shoulder had given him a crick in the neck and an innate understanding of his business. He knew betrayal and crime went had in hand and that honour among thieves was a lie that old criminals peddled to keep the young from slitting their throats once their usefulness had long since ended. There was no camaraderie, no old boys club – at least not for those struggling on the lower rungs of the ladder, barely feet above the stench of the sewer – and no pension; you either made it to the top or you were discarded. And in his business it was worse: with one hand he fought off his competitors, who were at least stupid enough to make basic mistakes so he could see them coming; with the other he tried to avoid the inevitable knife in back from his own people, often smart enough to sneak up on him in silence. And then there were the suppliers who tried to sell him short measures or weak product in the vain hope that he wouldn’t see it. The junkies were just as bad, and many had made the mistake of trying to rip him off over the years. And then there were the police; who either got their (small) slice of the pie or were too legitimate to be bought off and pursued him with every means at their disposal. Two hands were not enough; he needed to be a fucking Octopus in this business. But Omar was new to him. Omar was a friend, a confidante, and had been so long before Liam had made his first tentative steps on the criminal ladder. And the pain of his betrayal smarted, particularly the insouciant way he had perpetrated it. Liam turned away from the wall and looked back at Omar. “How good an idea does it seem now?”

“I’ve had smarter.”

“And Spike?” asked Liam.

“His supply’s dried up. And sooner or later he’s going to realise I’m not around to top it up. He’s not likely to hang around. You don’t need to worry about him.”

“I wanna know who he is?”

“Afraid not, old bean,” chirped Omar sarcastically.

And suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, the truth hit him. Omar was gay. The women, the stories, the attitude; all of it was a lie. It was the only answer for why Omar wasn’t willing to give up Spike. After all, years of friendship had not prevented Omar from betraying him. And once you have the taste for betrayal it becomes a regular dish. But here he was, ready to withstand torture for a business partner. Nobody, no matter how hard they were, did torture for a business partner unless there was a deeper emotional connection. Omar had seen the torture that Liam had inflicted upon those who had crossed him, he knew how painful and prolonged it was. And still he was prepared to go through with it. Liam smiled and shook his head. “You’re his fucking boy, aren’t you?”

Omar remained silent, but the flexing jaw muscles told Liam that his assumption was correct. “You threw away half a million for a piece of arse?” Liam spat with disgust. He shook his head; he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier. Omar really was a good actor. “Was he worth it?”

Omar remained silent. Several of Liam’s foot soldiers shuffled uncomfortably, Omar’s act had thrown them too. They had heard his stories, shared his homophobic jokes, and seen him pull women at parties. They too were taken aback, Liam could read it all in their faces. He could also see that they were hankering to torture Omar. “So, you gonna tell me where your boyfriend’s likely to go in London?”

Omar smiled and shook his head. Liam gritted his teeth, put his hands in his pockets, turned and looked at his men. “There’s no point in delaying it then. Lads, he’s all yours.”

1. The Debtor

At moments like this Kandinsky wished he had never laid eyes upon a fruit machine.

He watched as the reels turned, helpless to do anything other than observe his last pound coin disappear. In situations this tense Kandinsky’s only response was to gnaw at his fingernails with ravenous abandon, a nervous habit that had been with him since childhood. His nails were now as frayed as his nerves. Gradually, after what seemed like hours, the reels slowed and came to a halt: Bar, Orange and Seven. Nothing!

Kandinsky muttered an unintelligible string of expletives under his breath. How could he have been so fucking stupid? This morning he had been the proud owner of two crisp twenties; a token offering that he hoped would buy him more time with Tim Priest, a loan shark to whom he owed three grand. Now all he had in his pockets were some grotty hankies, coppers and fluff, and the only thing he had to offer was his charm. In other words he was fucked!

Kandinsky glanced around the bar. It was an all-wood affair that had been designed with care and attention, a nice counterpoint to the random assortment of alcohol-rouged losers who frequented the place. At the bar stood the bartender, Michael, a permanently bored, balding man who gave the impression that serving customers caused him physical distress. Judging by the lifelessness on display in the bar during that dark, rain swept lunchtime he had little that would distress him too much. Kandinsky shook his head and turned his attention back to the machine.

One more credit!

If he could get the machine on a roll he might be lucky enough to salvage twenty quid. Hell, if he was really lucky he might get back the full forty. Kandinsky grinned; he had a feeling that this was the moment his luck turned. After all, his current run of bad luck couldn’t last forever. This was it; this was the moment his shitty existence would improve.

Actually, he was wrong.

Orange, Orange and Seven. And that was that!

Kandinsky’s stomach turned as the bottom dropped out of his world. A cold sweat formed upon his back as the urge to vomit overwhelmed him. He gritted his teeth with such force he could almost feel the enamel crack. Why? Why was this happening to him? He didn’t deserve this run of shitty luck. He had gone through all his usual superstitious habits in order to avoid queering his luck and still the Gods fucked him! And he knew exactly what would happen the moment he stepped away from the machine. On the way to buy a round, and with little more intention than to pass the time, one of these desiccated old fuckers would play this machine and win every penny of Kandinsky’s money. He gritted his teeth even harder at this thought. Words could barely describe the sheer ferocity of his rage, but he punctured the silence with a few choice ones, “You absolute fucking cocksucker.”

Now he would have to find some new words: the kind of words that might soothe and placate an angry loan shark.

****

Tim Priest shuffled in his seat, ran a hand through his thinning hair, and grinned without humour. He had not been placated. His dark eyes, blazing with barely disguised rage, were fixed upon Kandinsky, who wisely kept his gaze upon his feet. “Why don’t you just unzip your fly and piss in my fucking face?” said Tim with unfettered bitterness.

“It’s not like that.”

“So what is it like, cunt? What the fuck is it like?”

“I dunno!”

“Oh, I doubt that. I really do.
“My patience is wearing thin, boy, it really is. I have a limit to the amount of bullshit I’ll put up with from pricks like you.”

Kandinsky glanced up momentarily. “I had it. I really did.”

The loan shark’s scrawny, rat-like face turned crimson as garbled words struggled to escape his throat. “You fucking. You fucking gambled it away. You didn’t even have it. You had some. Fucking some. I let you get away with a half payment and you put it in a machine! I should. I should smash your fucking head with a fucking tire jack, I really should. Don’t you think?”

Kandinsky had little to say in his defence and instead offered a brief shrug. Priest shook his head and said with little relish, “Instead of waiting for Dove to open the office you went around the corner and played my fucking money away. That was my money. And I can’t turn a blind eye to that. Not any more.”

Kandinsky’s stomach knotted, he knew what the loan shark meant. He was due a beating. And, if he was brutally honest with himself, he had been due a beating for some time. For over a month he had been fobbing off Priest with sporadic or non-existent payments, during which time his gambling problem had increased exponentially. Initially, the only thing that had saved him from a beating was the fact that Priest considered him a “nice, middle-class white boy” who had fallen on hard times, and was probably good for the money. Kandinsky played upon this image, palling up to and brown-nosing Priest whilst listening intently to the loan shark’s stories of violence and intimidation upon the “dregs” out in St. Paul’s, Easton and Hartcliffe. At the time he had stupidly thought that Priest was telling these stories as one middle-class white boy trying to impress another. In fact these stories were warnings designed to frighten, a litany of broken skulls, kneecaps and human misery, and if Kandinsky had been smoking less dope he might have realised this. But he didn’t. He didn’t equate the life of a single mother, raped because of a missed payment, with his own. If he had he probably wouldn’t have allowed himself to reach this stage. But reach this stage he had. Through a combination of insanely ambitious and expensive gambling - tales of which were sure to have filtered back to Priest – he had managed to fuck up what little advantage his upbringing had given him. And now, with the 20-20 clarity of hindsight, he had realised the error of his ways. But it was too late. He was in deep shit!
Kandinsky wanted to curl into a foetal ball, withdraw into himself and escape the cruelty of the world and the people around him. In the few seconds it had taken him to comprehend Priest’s words, and what they meant, he had imagined every violent scenario possible, and hoped that the reality was less unpleasant than his imagination. He swallowed visibly as fear twisted his stomach into knots; he took a deep breath and somehow found the courage to drag a few croaked words out of the void, “So. What. Now?”

Priest looked up at his two enforcers, Dove and Charlie, and smiled. “You get a minute of the man dance with these two.” Kandinsky followed Tim’s gaze and fixed his eyes upon the two burly men blocking an easy route out of the office. Kandinsky had seen Dove and Charlie many times before, lurking around the office or wandering the streets in badly fitted suits, but this was the first time he had really noticed them. They looked as if they had been hewn from granite, so inhuman was their appearance, and created to serve one purpose only – hurting people. Kandinsky wondered what they would do if he cried. He imagined they would laugh and use it as inspiration to beat him harder. Mindless brutality was their only occupation and they looked like men who took pride in their work. Dove stood at six feet one and looked almost as wide, the term stocky could have been invented solely to describe him. A network of knife scars crisscrossed a face that resembled cubist portraiture. His blank, glazed eyes seemed to deny the existence of intelligent life behind them; eyes that were right now locked upon Kandinsky. Charlie stood two inches taller than his partner. He was slimmer than Dove, but that was only because there was barely an ounce of fat upon his gym-honed physique. His nose had been broken and flattened by one fight too many and was framed within a face that launched a thousand nightmares.

A minute with these two psychotic looking specimens was about sixty seconds too long in Kandinsky’s opinion! The prospect of imminent violence churned his stomach, and it took all his willpower not to vomit. He turned back towards Tim and offered him an obsequious smile that he hoped would placate the loan shark. “Look, I fucked up, but couldn’t we discuss it?”

“Frightened?”

“A little.”

Priest roared with laughter at this. Kandinsky prayed that this signified a change in his immediate prospects. The loan shark offered him little hope of that. “A little? Right now you look like somebody hoping that the ground would open up and swallow him. And so you should. These fuckers can do a lot of damage in a minute. You should be thankful that it’s only a minute. By rights I could have given them carte blanche to tap-dance across your skull. You’re lucky I like you.”

Lucky? With bile rising up his oesophagus and body tremors that would measure on the Richter scale Kandinsky felt anything but lucky. “Look. Let’s discuss this,” he squawked.

“Let’s not. You owe me three fucking grand, boy. Be a man, take your fucking beating!”

Kandinsky was insistent. “I’ll pay it back.”

“How? You’re a degenerate fucking gambler. Every time you have money you fucking fritter it away.”

“I’ll find a way,” said Kandinsky.

“You could sell your car,” stated Priest helpfully. “That should more than cover me, and you’ll walk out of here with barely a hair out of place.”

“My Dad’ll kill me.”

Priest smiled. “No he won’t. He might excommunicate you from the family fold. Hell, he might even beat the shit out of you, but I guarantee you he won’t kill you.”

“You don’t know my Dad.”

“And I don’t wanna know him. I just want my fucking money. How are you going to pay me back otherwise?” asked Priest. “I’ve given you numerous opportunities to gamble your way out of this and you’ve fucking blown them. Face it, you’re not a very good gambler. And if I don’t get my money soon my boys are gonna do you some serious fucking damage. Are stupid enough to risk traction for a fucking car?” queried Priest.

Kandinsky knew that he was right, but that didn’t change his objections to the idea. The car had been his twenty-first birthday present and was barely four years old. He would rather kill Priest than sell it to fund a gambling problem that he felt was controllable. “I need that car to get around.”

“You also need legs to get around. Apparently, legs don’t work properly when the kneecaps are shattered. And that’s where you’re headed, boy.”

“It’s a fucking Beamer for Christ’s sake,” said Kandinsky quietly and to nobody in particular.

“Then you’ll have some change from my three grand, won’t you?” said Priest.

“I’ll need some time.”

“You’ve got two weeks. And you’ll accrue interest during that time.”

Kandinsky’s jaw dropped as tears of rage welled up instantaneously. He shook his head furiously in an attempt to prevent an embarrassing display of waterworks. Right now, he wanted to open up this loan shark’s head with a judiciously placed stamp of his right foot. His stomach muscles contracted painfully as he fought a battle to control his rising temper. And even then it wasn’t quite under control. “I don’t fucking believe this shite.”

Priest shuffled in his seat. He was attuned to the undertone of anger in Kandinsky’s voice and visibly bristled with indignation. He slammed the palm of his hand down hard upon his desk. “Listen, you prick. I’ve been fair with you. I could have these two fuckers arse rape you for the trouble you’ve caused me. The fact that I don’t is a testament to my good nature. I’ve given you plenty of chances to sort out your life and pay me what I’m due but you’ve given nothing but excuses, so fuck you.
“If you want interest free then you have to do something for me. I want you to amuse me.”

Kandinsky sat forward in his seat. He was prepared to listen to this prick’s offer. If he had to sell his car he wanted as much stake money as humanly possible. Maybe, with a little help from Lady Luck, he could win his money back. “How?”

“A deal.”

“What sort of deal?”

“If you want interest free then you’ll have to work hard for it.”

“How?”

Priest laughed. “One minute in exchange for two weeks. I think you see what I’m getting at.”

Kandinsky could see exactly what he was getting at. The loan shark had been looking forward to watching him take a beating. And if losing out on eighty pounds worth of interest was what he would have to pay to do it, then it was well worth it.

In Kandinsky’s eyes the pull of saving eighty quid was stronger than the pull of being potentially hospitalised. Suddenly, a minute with Dove and Charlie no longer seemed quite as frightening. Of course he was still afraid but, viewing it pragmatically, he figured that Priest had no desire to do him any permanent damage; after all, if he were in traction or the morgue then the debt would not be repaid. And, violent or not, like all good loan sharks the money was more important to him. So Kandinsky figured that punches would be pulled. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he was planning to make it easy for them, and he was well equipped to put up a decent struggle. He only stood five feet nine in his bare feet but he was stocky and strong. He was also deceptively fast; fast enough to restrict the damage to a few bumps and bruises. Kandinsky wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he could get out of there unscathed, but he had enough self-belief to think he could get away with only surface damage. He could live with that. Hell, even if they did overpower him it was only one minute. “Just one minute?”

Priest smiled. “I’ll stopwatch it if you like.”

“And no interest, right?”

“Not a penny.”

“Then fuck it. Let’s do it.”

Priest looked down at his watch, an expensive looking designer chronometer model, and pressed one of the buttons at the side. He looked up at Kandinsky and stated quickly, “We’re set.”

Kandinsky nodded his assent. “Let’s go.”

Priest shook his head and gave Kandinsky a broad smile. He seemed barely able to comprehend the stupidity of what Kandinsky was about to do. “It’s only eighty quid you crazy fuck. They are going to hurt you, you know. It isn’t too late to back out.”

And lose eighty quid’s worth of stake money? Kandinsky had no intention of giving Priest any more than he absolutely had to. It was a point of principle. Plus, he was also looking forward to gambling with what was left. “Let’s get it over with,” he said, through gritted teeth, crouching low in readiness for the first attack.

Priest started his stopwatch. “Lads!”

Charlie moved first and made a two-handed grab for Kandinsky, who ducked low and stepped aside in one smooth move. Charlie, following through from his grab, lost his footing, stumbled, and fell against the onrushing Dove. Kandinsky spun quickly and saw Dove brush Charlie aside; he braced himself for the next attack. His next move was a mistake.

He went low, figuring that Dove would grab like his partner. He didn’t. Instead he swung an uppercut of such speed and precision that it barely registered upon Kandinsky’s retinas before it slammed into him. Dove’s fist drove into Kandinsky’s soft solar plexus with such brutal force that it expelled the air from his body as it lifted him off his feet. Kandinsky came down upon his knees, slamming them into the linoleum covered concrete floor. Ignoring the searing pain in his knees, Kandinsky tilted his head back in order to gasp for air. Dove followed his body shot with a right-hook to the jaw.

The impact made Kandinsky’s head recoil, setting off a screaming torrent of white noise that drowned out Priest’s cackling and the thunderous footfalls of the two heavies, it made his usual bouts of tinnitus sound like a whisper in comparison. A second blow to his jaw caused Kandinsky to bite deep into his own tongue; the acrid, coppery taste of his blood revived him for long enough to see Dove’s meaty fist blur before it struck the point of his chin. Nothing seemed real any more, and as his world faded to black Kandinsky realised that both heavies were raining blows down upon him.

TO BE CONTINUED

And so it Begins...

Here is my first posting. Don't say you haven't been warned. I present for your delectation the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo novel: The Gamblers.

Let me know what you think...or don't. I don't think I want to hear. After all, I'm writing this thing at an unnaturally fast rate, and I know for a fact that I'm probably making basic grammatical, syntactic, and structural errors.

But in a perverse way I'm enjoying it. So fuck it.

Fuck fuck fucking computers!!!

Still writing, still behind schedule, and still trying to get my cocksucker of a computer to do what I ask of it!

Now my fucking CD Rewriter has decided to take issue with my laptop. I know how to sort the problem but it means that I absolutely will not be able to publish any of my novel until the weekend.

Absolute Bastard!

As for the writing. I'm making slow progress. I managed a thousand words last night. A thousand words of shit!

Basically, I need to amend and reword some of what I wrote last night as well as bashing out an additional 8000 words over the weekend in order to get myself back on target. Tonight is out of the equation because I will be at my girlfriend's place doing my boyfriendly duty! So, 8000 words in two days! It's do-able, but I'm aware that if I miss out on this target I probably won't manage the full 50,000. So, this weekend it will be a real case of quantity over quality.

Fuck it. No guts no glory!

Fucking Computers!

I am still writing, still behind schedule (though I aim to make that up this weekend), and still trying to live a life outside of writing too (as in training for the Nike 10K run at the end of this month). However, what I haven't been able to do is put up any of my writing because my fucking floppy drive no longer works. I now have to put all my writing onto a CD-RW disk and do it that way, which is a real pain in the arse because it is a BIG external drive. But, this weekend at the latest, I will give people their first taste of my novel; whether or not you'll like that taste depends upon how well I am writing.

Life would be so much easier if technology wasn't subject to Sod's Law!

I am Writing. Honest!

The lack of Novel postings is not due to my inherent laziness but the fact that I am having some trouble transferring my magnum opus from my laptop to my blog. My computer currently has no internet connection and I need to transfer my files to floppy disk, and I am having trouble with my floppy drive.

Regardless of this I am behind schedule. I figured that I need to write about 1667 words a day to reach my target. Right now I am currently sitting on 1600 words. So I am 3401 words behind my ideal figure. I'll have to write like a fucking demon tonight.

The problem is that I knew how to start the story but not how to write it. After a decent ending, beginnings are the most difficult thing to write. Do you go verbose? Do you go minimal? Do you fall somewhere inbetween? I have made the decision to go minimalistic. You will see what I mean once I have got the postings up and running. If I need to fill in gaps I will do so after I complete the manuscript. But, reading back over what I have written thus far, the story has started better than it has any right to.

Rude Awakening

Right all, this is my attempt to write a novel within a month. For years I've procrastinated, laboured, re-jigged, tweaked, and generally fumbled my way through various writing projects which have - a few short stories excepted - never been completed. Christ, if Faulkner and Kerouac can write brilliant novels in the space of a few weeks then I can at least finish one of my shitty efforts within a month. Watch with horror as I mangle the English language in an attempt to mould a half-hearted plotline into a novel. Will I suceed? Will I crash and burn? Will you give a fuck?

Regardless of all this I'm going to give it a go. Whatever I write that day I will post last thing at night. Oh, and don't forget to read from the bottom upwards, this ain't fucking Hopscotch, otherwise you will be reading it backside first.