We pulled into the driveway slowly but too fast for my liking. The building was pristine, clean red brickwork and surgical PVC double glazing. Carefully planted flowers arranged in symmetrical precision around the entrance. There was a sense of contrived calmness about the place. A studious attempt at serenity. As though lots of money had been spent on achieving this. A carefully constructed picture of order intended to impose itself on my disordered mind.
“Cunts!” The word sprang into my mind. Whoever did this was clearly sick. This was done intentionally. It was a clear message. “Hello and fuck you”. “Well fuck you back” I thought.
“We’re here”. The calm Jamaican fellow declared.
“I think that is fairly fucking obvious”, my head replies
“Thanks mate”, I say
The words coming out my mouth rarely matched those in my head – thank God. I would have been dead a long time ago if they did.
I get out the car, shaking. I was fucked. Properly fucked in every sense of the word. Physically I was a wreck. My hands are shaking despite the litre of whisky I’d been slamming down my neck on the journey. It wouldn’t go down fast enough and the effects wouldn’t come up quick enough. I was sweating. It was a hot day but that didn’t matter I was always drenched. My feet had ballooned up like inflated pig skins. Every part of me hurt. I feel my organs groaning and twitching and complaining. The light smashes through my retinas like angry sparrows pecking angrily at the mangled mass of neural offal in my head that passes for a brain.
Emotionally I wasn’t great. The days of me thinking had long gone. Thoughts ruled me now, controlled me. They ran rampant through my head like demented banshee’s, wild and free. Whirling dervishes cackling and hissing and vanishing before they finished. They were in control. Someone had kicked down the doors to Arkham Asylum and out they came. Straight to me. Like flies to shit they came and what they found they liked and took up permanent residence. Momentarily they have slowed down, paused, cautious…. observing. Unsure. Like children clinging to the sides of my optic nerves peering out over the side. What’s this…this wasn’t in the script. Where are we. They’d be back soon enough. Nothing stopped them.
Spiritually I was dead. I had no spirit. That went years ago along with hope. Like a fickle lover, sensing the end of the romance, it had packed-up and fucked off well in advance of the pending storm. There was no God and if there was he was a cunt too and I had no need of him. I’d long ago stopped looking in the mirror. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well mine had shutters on them and they had been closed for business for a long time. I had no business looking in there. That wasn’t my game.
The front door opened and some ridiculously tall, healthy grinning twat emerged with his hand outstretched. “Welcome to Primark Lodge, you must be Darren”.
“Must I? Wanker! Maybe I’m Alfonso Cerletti, a mafia hitman, come all the way from the mean streets of Palermo to put one in your smug fucking brain”. Yes, that sounded good. Fuck him. I can be whoever the fuck I want to be.
“Yes, that’s me”, I muttered quietly.
“Welcome. This is the first day of your new life”
The calm Jamaican fellow came over and hugged me. We were friends. I’d only known him for a few hours but I knew from that brief time that he was a good man. Even through the fog and shit in my head I could see he was one of the good guys. He’d driven me here. We’d spent a couple of hours talking about life and love and dreams and in that short time I felt a strong connection to him.
“Goodbye and good luck”, he said
I didn’t want him to go. He was my friend. This grinning fucking idiot in front of me wasn’t and yet I had to go with him. That’s not fair.
“Bye mate”
And he turned, got in his car, reversed out and was gone.
“Follow me, we’ll get you sorted out” said the grinning idiot. I scowled at him and we walked inside.
Inside it was cool and dim and smelled sterile. There was a reception counter with a slim fit-looking young woman in lycra stood behind it who smiled at me with big white American teeth. There was a cool charcoal grey corner sofa with a big plant next to it. Everything was white and neutral. A picture on the wall shouted at me to stay calm. I realised I was pulling a suitcase. I let go of it. My hand jerked violently and started shaking. It had been alright when I had something to grip but now it was free it resumed its twitching and so I let it wander to my pocket to find some sanctuary.
A grim looking man came and relieved me of my possessions. I emptied my pockets, money, keys, phone. It will be put in a safe place he said and I signed a form. I was allowed to keep a packet of cigarettes and he led me down a corridor.
At the end
was a small canteen with some tables. People sat around fingering plastic cups. They looked at me. I looked back and felt nothing. They were strangers and I was strange to them.
I was sat down in the corner and told I would be fed. A plate arrived with sausages and mashed potatoes. I looked at it unimpressed and picked up a fork. My hand was shaking so badly I couldn’t get the fork and sausage to connect which was fine. All I wanted to do was push the sausage as far away from me as possible, to the other side of the plate. Was that a metaphor? Probably. For what? Fucked if I know.
A girl came over and told me her name. She had a pretty smile and dead eyes. She hugged me and told me it would be OK. “Thanks”, I said, surprised that my head had let that one slide. I normally hate do-gooders. She might be useful later.
The grinning idiot returned. This time he had his demonic side-kick with him. A grim-faced psychopath with a menacing presence. Deep down there was a connection and I knew this fucker would be trouble. I gave him the respect of my full attention. Dark black hair, Narrow forehead, heavy eyebrows that nearly met in the middle, deep set angry eyes. Skin indicated middle-eastern heritage and his skin was marked with scars from acne and bad life choices. He was well built and wore black. I approved of that.
“Hello, my name is Johnny” he spoke with an accent and no charm.
“I am your case worker”
You fucking what? A case worker! For me? Are you kidding. I looked at him cautiously. Clearly, he’s suffering delusions of grandeur. I checked his eyes. He at least believed he was telling the truth. It’s OK, I’ll park it for now and put him straight later. Best not to get off on the wrong foot.
“Nice to meet you”, I said. He looked back at me with soulless cold eyes. I decided then that I hated him.
“I’m going to show you to your room and show you the facilities”
“Right, OK”
He walked quickly out of the room and up some stairs. He was almost skipping up them. Bastard! I was struggling. Each step was an effort and I was breathless just standing up. “Come on, it’s the third floor” he yelled. Of course it fucking is. Cunts! They saw me and though right, lets stick the fat bastard right at the top. Fuck them, I’m not complaining. I won’t let them know I give a fuck. So up I went, slowly and resentfully. I paused briefly to allow my head to play a small mental video of him tripping up and breaking his neck as he hurtles past me to his death. I smile and carry on up.
“This is your room”. I looked in, he was right. It was a room. A small one with two single beds and two wardrobes and no charm whatsoever. The windows had bars on them and they had put a tree outside to torture us. To remind us that we were separate from this thing of beauty.
“You will be sharing with Danny”
“Right”
“Now I show you the treatment rooms…… they are downstairs”
Great that was fucking worthwhile, dragged up three flights of stairs to show me a fucking empty room and then drag me straight back down. Brilliant. We went downstairs.
As we trudged round the centre, I thought back to the trip here, it’s been 30 minutes now and I haven’t had a drink and no one seems to have acknowledged that yet. It’s a big elephant in a small fucking room. Don’t they get it, I am not fucking interested in the ‘facilites’. I want drugs. They promised me that. It’s the only reason I came and yet it’s now half an hour in and no one has even broached the subject. DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS. I WANT DRUGS. Is this some kind of game. Are they testing me? Do they perhaps think they can get away without giving me them?
I think I can feel the alcohol being processed and dispersed in my body. I visualise my liver as a benign creature munching happily on the little alcoholic bubbles like Pac man. It doesn’t know yet that the endless line of little yellow dots is not going to be renewed this time and I don’t want him to know. He will get very, very, very angry if he finds out. I know this can’t actually be true but I’m sure it is. Each minute that passes engaging in this bullshit is a yellow dot closer to the last dot. Is this a rehab centre or a fucking Butlins camp? If nobody says something soon I will have to take action. Maybe they have never met someone with a real genuine problem before. Probably full of fucking rich kids who had one to many G&T’s at the Rotary Club diner and made a twat out of themselves. Maybe rehab looks good on their CV’s – validates them as a human being instead of some soulless corporate prick which is the inevitable result of the path down which they will head.
...”and this is the gym”. I looked up, we had been in and out of various small rooms with seats and tables and boxes of tissues.
“Christ!” Do I look remotely like I am in any kind of shape to get on a fucking treadmill? He is taking this piss now. This is for sure. No doubt. I stare into his ugly grey face and try and see if he is winding me up. It’s impassive. Emotionless. A true fucking psychopath. I’ve had enough.
“When do I get some drugs”. It comes out straight. Unfiltered. Unplanned. Desparate. No niceties. I didn’t plan it, it just happened. He doesn’t bat an eyelid Totally unphased. I really hate this prick.
“The doctor will be in this evening”.
This evening?. “This evening”. I’m shouting now. “I’m fucking sick you cunt, I can’t wait until this evening” …
For the first time I get a reaction, a brief flicker of annoyance on his ugly mug. Kerching!!! Me - 1, psychopath – nil. I’m winning again.
“Yes, this evening. As in half an hour”, he replied
“Oh”. “Oh…right”. Bastard he knew I was fucked-up and had no concept of time. He did that on purpose. Playing mind games with me. That’s not fair. It’s not a level playing field. Why couldn’t he just say it was half an hour. Me and him are going to have a problem if this is how plays the game.
I was dragged around a few more rooms, stood in front of white notice boards with things stuck to them and told what I can’t do and what will happen if I do. Finally, I was taken to the garden and told I could smoke.
I lit a cigarette. It was a nice garden. It had grass and high walls with CCTV and a gazebo with seats in it. I sat in the gazebo and took a long drag on my cigarette. As the nicotine hit my brain so the craving hit my gut. Fuck, I need whisky.
A miserable old man came out and sat opposite me. I looked at him and he looked back. Arsehole, not even a hello. We both smoked our cigarettes in silence. He left and I lit another one