It was barely 8am when I cracked open that first one. I’ve taken to those fucking craft beers recently, hipster shite. Half the size, poofter artwork, for all the other office-goers know it’s a fucking can of pop.
I’m a bit like Bukowski, you see. Although I need to get on top of my addiction, own it. Except Bukowski wouldn’t call it an ‘addiction’. He probably wouldn’t even address it; too busy fucking or gambling or fighting. Like a real man.
Nothing makes me feel more like a man than exercising my right to put it the fuck away, get mental, do some serious fucking rounds with the boys, fuck a slag, never talk to her again.
“It’s okay, it’s genetic.”
Legend
Fuck a prostitute, maybe spitroast one.
“They say it skips a generation.”
Fuck a bloke because why fucking not, a legend is someone who pushes boundaries, it’s 20-fucking-20, I’ll fuck anything that’s sentient.
“I know it’s not something you can help.”
Grade-A lad. In fact, you’re probably telling yourself: this guy must have had a threesome.
I’ll fuck anything that’s not sentient, for fuck’s sake
Get Rustlers, nought to fucked in 70 seconds.
“It’s getting tiresome, though.”
Nothing makes you feel manlier than peeling yourself off a piss-soaked mattress in the morning.
The Don. Big man
Nothing makes you feel more masculine than leaving her wanting every night.
“You need to talk to someone.”
Wanting compassion but you don’t know she’s there.
I pork so fucking much they call me Lad the Impaler
Absolute player
You don’t know you’re there.
Wanting you but your cock is as shrivelled as your liver.
Legend
Fucking. Absolute. Legend
On my way to that first morning beer, the one I was talking about before with the poofter artwork, I sat down on a bench for a bit first, just sat, not really doing much.
Probably scanning for clunge, as a legend does
And then cried.
Always on the lookout. Legend with a capital fucking L
Passersby were looking at me.
What do you get when you cross me with me? Legend fucking squared is what
“You’re at serious risk of brain damage.”
I had a lot of built up mucus from the crying so I spat it at a pigeon.
“Please talk to a therapist.”
Men, as in, men, especially those of legend status, do not need therapists, love. Therapists deal with emotions, mine over which I have complete control.
Fucking top boy
Not that I have any to control.
Bro-do of the fucking shire of clunge
“It’s okay to ask for help.”
Favourite Metallica song: Lad But True
Yes, if you need help, but I fucking don’t, and why is that, you ask?
Favourite film: I Am Legend, and I don’t even need to watch it, I think we all know who it’s about.
“Because you woke up this morning covered in your own urine and then cried in public?”
Exactamundo, my friend, because I am a fucking top lad, a legend of the ages, I can drink with the best of ‘em, I can put you away for a start and I’ve been going since 8am, not because I needed to, I just felt like it, did you know I once did a Russian bank robber in a drink-off, he was just out of the nick, we were in a crackhouse, fucking christ my legendariness knows no bounds and nor fucking should it, and I didn’t fucking cry in public, it was a nasolacrimal malfunction, besides if anything my eyes were crying because they were afraid of my fists, and no surprise considering my knuckles are made of ladamantium, yes I said it, I am so fucking hard that I scared my own eyes, I was at the doctor the other day, woman, blonde, tasty legs, proper fit, eyes like my mother’s, they haunted me for days, woulda slipped her one but I was too hungover, she tells me “this is chronic alcoholism,” I said, get this, I said, look, what can I say, I’m a chronic fucking lad is what I am, addicted to the fucking game, she calls me back a few months later, probably for a shag, “it’s throat cancer,” she says, I said, look, love, I’m flattered but I’m a bit out of your league, don’t you think?
“You have two weeks, max.”
I said, it’s not Max, it’s Maximus, father to a murdered son, owner of a grade-A cock.
Lad-iator
Top film.
Rory Hughes is a journalist for underground music zine Astral Noize; published short story writer, not-so-published novelist and guitar teacher.
Angel Rust 