Dark Days Drift

Dark Days Drift ' Summer 2000

ONE
We were in the pub, as usual. "Ah, the nichts are fair dra'in in anoo, I said, in the none-more-Doric Buckie style. I'd noticed the evenings coming in quicker, the dark descending upon us. Tom and John laughed, in between supping their pints and drawing on their Malboro Lights. Also, we were on magic mushrooms and everything seemed quite funny ' both funny-ha-ha and funny-strange. But that was how things mostly were then, at that point in our lives.

I'd come back to live in Aberdeen after finishing uni. I had worked for the summer in Buckie, in a pishy temporary job sorting out a building company's warehouse, and had moved in with Bob into quite a nice flat on Constitution Street. Quite how I was going to pay the rent I wasn't sure ' I hadn't found a job in Aberdeen or anything. However with my good qualifications I was sure I'd get a Good Job soon enough.
I'd moved back at the end of August, just in time for John's birthday. I took through six tabs of acid ' two each for myself and John, and one each for Tom and Ian. When I got to John's I decided to take both at once, just to get things moving along quickly, whilst the others took one. We smoked a few joints and then decided to go up to Duthie Park, where there was apparently some "beer festival on; I was agreeable, as the park would be ideal to trip in.

When we got there, there was fuck all on except a small beer tent and some stalls, with some small rides for the kids. We had a pint, and then lay about watching the world go by. Everything was gradually becoming more striking and strange, even small things like kids throwing a ball about. Of course our smutty minds tended to make things seem ridiculous anyway, but there was a sense of things becoming unusual and out of the ordinary, in the way that things which go against your expectations are, like meeting someone you didn't expect.

We didn't stay long, and went to return to town. En route, Tom found he had a pill in his pocket from somewhere, and so he and I took half of it each. "Why not? we chuckled to each other, as we always seemed to. There was never any reply to that. We headed for Archibald Simpson's, it being large, cheap and full of seats, where we would hopefully be inconspicuous. However that day there was an Aberdeen football match on which had just finished, for now the pub was teeming. But we had walked all the way there so we were going to have a few, at least! Of course we were all skint, none of us had a full-time job, so John decided to get a jug of vodka and Red Bull on his plastic. The pill was coming on fucking strong for me now and it was kicking the acid into gear, being a stimulant, so whatever effect the acid was going to have, it would now be in overdrive. I hadn't really considered this¦ So now Tom and I were feeling pretty fucking manic, and as we were sitting round a small table, we were totally bouncing off each other.

John came back with an extremely worried look on his face. "I don't have enough credit on my plastic to cover this, I need some money! I could tell the levels of paranoia and anxiety surfing through his mind, but I just wanted the problem away, so I dug into my pocket and gave him whatever I had there. That seemed to solve the problem, for he came back shortly afterwards with the drinks - yet another stimulant to make us completely buzzing in a straight-peg boozer at five of the afternoon. But grim malevolent portents were lurking in the corners of our consciousnesses and sight, because we must have been getting some looks towards our table of gibbering babbling chimps.

We decided to head back to John's, to smoke some pot and chill out. Once I'd climbed the stairs, though, the Heavy Breathing had truly kicked in. This is where your body is saying "Enough!, and you feel incredibly weary without feeling physically tired. I struggled on, whilst in the flat we were all just on different tangents of existence and hardly able to communicate and hold a conversation, as acid makes everything defamiliarised and appear new to the eye. In controlled situations this can be fantastic and revelatory; when it's just an excuse to get wrecked it's a Bad Thing, because there's none of the camaraderie of alcohol or pot or pills, you are completely on your own, in some private bubble of existence. And things were getting weird¦
The others decided to go out, as there was no music and the TV was shite as always, but I was now feeling fucked and needed some chill-out time. I said to them to just go on, that I would chill for a bit then catch up with them. Acid also makes you incredibly introspective and so this was taken rather personally, not that it made them angry but that they felt guilty, and I then felt Ashamed and guilty at having seemingly told them to fuck off. This bounced around my head uncomfortably for ages, and I couldn't chill because of it, so I got up and headed for home, where I met Bob and had some food.

I joined back up with them in Drummonds about two hours later. They'd kept on drinking and got a grip on the acid, but now Tom was coming down from the pill and had the Heavy Breathing, barely able to hold himself up against the wall. I was way behind them in my drinking, and with the music on felt a little uncomfortable, as there were people dancing. Even Tom started, albeit looking completely out of it. Somehow we decided to leave and met up with Sally who persuaded us to go to O. Henry's. We were walking up Union Street, and by now John had a big alcohol kick on and was exuberant, whilst Tom, Ian and I were struggling along, not feeling quite up with it. I could also see that the acid was now into the introspective gear on Tom, so that whatever was said to him he took very personally, seeing his underlying motivations and feeling exposed, as happened to me earlier. So John was going, "C'MON PEOPLE! LIVEN UP! whilst we were going, "Yeah, yeah ...

We didn't get in because of out trainers, so for some reason we decided to go to Bexx Bar, perhaps to meet someone Sally knew, whilst Ian headed home. At the door Sally persuaded the doorman to let us in ahead of the queue to have a look, but for some reason didn't let Tom in, so whilst Sally, John and I had a look around, Tom was getting pelters from everyone in the queue. In his acid-sensitized state this was probably the worst possible thing that could have happened. We came back out a few minutes later to find Tom had disappeared. John phoned him and found Tom raging, going, "I WAITED FIFTEEN MINUTES FOR YOU'S AND WAS GETTING FUCKING SLAGGED TO FUCK! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!

I was now getting a taste for alcohol so for some reason we then headed to Bugsy Browns, probably because Sally could get us in for free. So in we went and drank ourselves into an approximate state of chemical normality, getting the acid buzz out the way. I was totally into trying cocktails ' all those pretty colours! ' which shows I wasn't all that together, but after earlier events it was a lot more controlled¦ After a while of that Sally and I went back to Ian and Sally's, to find a mellow, bespliffed Tom and Ian, whilst John went home, as he was starting his new job the next day! We had some hash, as always, and chilled out. That was some fucking mental day, a ridiculous roller-coaster of drug-induced emotional turbulence. Quite fun, though.

TWO
I'd moved through and got a flat, with enough money to pay the first month's rent, expecting that I would find a job easily enough. This wasn't so. Somehow my degree counted for fuck all as I'd little "real work experience, and my degree was in the ever-useful subjects of English and Politics. I registered with recruitment agencies, filled in numerous applications, and bought the Press and Journal and Scotsman every Friday for the job sections. As I'd always read and always been told that you had to go to university to get a "good job, it was utterly baffling that I couldn't find a job, bafflement which curdled into vast raging resentment. Signing-on felt utterly humiliating, seeing all the schemie plebs I felt myself so superior to in the same position as me ' me, in the same position as them! Also it only gave me £80 every fortnight to live on. The P&J never seemed to have any decent jobs in the same way that the Scotsman did; administrative jobs which in Edinburgh required three years experience OR a degree, in Aberdeen demanded three years experience. Jobs for the new entrant to the job market were few and far between. I called and called the recruitment agencies, to no avail ' they never offered me one stony interview. All of this was immensely frustrating. I'd come to live in Aberdeen because there was no chance of my getting a job in Buckie, but to fail to get one in Aberdeen¦ what on earth was wrong? I had a good degree, excellent Highers, had been Dux of my school, had strong extra-curricular activities (from when I was in school), all that stuff which was supposed to get employers pants wet. None of it seemed to make any difference. It felt like I was being cheated; I'd done all I should have, kept my side of the bargain, and now I was getting shafted.

I did get a few desultory interviews. Two were low-level administrative jobs, and both times I felt like the token bloke being interviewed; both times I was asked how working in a primarily female workplace would affect me. I wonder if it's even allowed to ask the reverse. Neither application was successful. The worst one was a job in Edinburgh ' as the job market in Aberdeen seemed so dreadful I was now applying for jobs in Edinburgh. The advert had asked for "trainee management, no experience necessary, so I phoned up, to be asked down for an interview. I borrowed the train fare from the long-suffering Bob and made my way down Leith Walk to the plush offices. I was interviewed very briefly, with questions about my qualifications and the like, and then told that if I wanted I could come back tomorrow and give it a go. I understood the job to be 'marketing and PR' so I was highly keen for this; it seemed a good match for my media-savvy, highly-literate, New Economy sense of self. Visions of plush Edinburgh flats and swanky three-piece suits danced excitedly around my brain. I got a friend in Stirling to put me up the night and came back through for 9am.

Once in I met a female fellow applicant and two potential colleagues (a guy and a girl) who, the always smiling manager intimated, was to show us what was up. That day we were to go to Dunfermline and "cover that area. Minor alarm bells began ringing ' weren't we to be in meetings, discussing the signification of logos and brands? We bussed up Leith Walk to Waverly and took the train to Dunfermline, where us two wannabe's had small-talk with the other two, Paulently avoiding the question of what we were going to be doing. I was disconcerted however to learn that the pay was commission only. The alarm had reached Code Orange.

In Dunfermline we divided up, the guy ' an Australian in his early twenties - taking me. He explained that companies paid our company to undertake promotions for them. We were doing a promotion for some gas company, the one which delivered the actual gas to the other companies and which was now selling it straight to customers, which meant it could pass the savings onto customers. He consulted a map and took us to a street, where he knocked at the first door. He introduced us, saying "We're not as bad as we look, and gave the woman who answered the same spiel as he'd given me. She wasn't interested. Massive alarm bells rang through my head; this was Code Red; this was DOOR-TO-DOOR SALES. He knocked on the next door. No one answered, to my relief. The next door; the woman answered; he introduced us, saying, "We're not as bad as we look, and gave the speil. No joy. At the next door which answered he introduced us, but this time through the ball to me, and let me give the spiel. I was nervous and bumbled through it, and was glad when she declined our kind offer.

After that he said, "Are you sure you want to do this? I said not at all, this wasn't in the slightest what I had expected. I had done telesales the year before and utterly despised it. "The advert said 'trainee management', not door-to-door¦ He gave a rueful smile; evidently this wasn't the first time he'd heard that. "You have to work your way up first. He gave me the train ticket and I strode off, enormously disgruntled, dreams dashed and £30 wasted on train tickets. I went back to the office to get my bag, and resisted temptation to knock over and smash the water cooler. The manager had evidently heard. "Not fancy it then? he grinned, in a way that told me there would be many more suckers for him to exploit. "No, I hrummphed. "Oh well, then, best of luck to you, he said, putting forward his hand. I turned away in petulant disgust.

Eventually I felt it better to be working in some capacity than not at all, so I got a part-time bar job at the place I'd worked the summer previous. It was about ten hours a week, and would come off my dole, but perhaps my unemployment was putting off some employers. I couldn't find a full-time bar job, as I was overqualified.

THREE
Of course being skint didn't stop me going out. I think it was still quite early on after having moved back that Claire had her birthday. We met up in the Wild Boar, and as the plan was to go the Pelican and dance like maniacs, we bought some pills. They were an unusual yellow, but this didn't stop us, or even make us wonder about what was in them. I can't remember if we took them in the Boar, but as I was hyper as fuck as soon as we arrived in the Pelican, I probably did. I'd felt the need to pull before going out too, so I hoped that pilled I would be chatty and friendly, the way that it felt to be pilled ' wanting to reach out to mankind, especially the attractive portion. I recall standing at the bar and saying "Hello to some haughty alluring angel, who ignored me completely. Then I returned to the dancefloor, which had a low roof, and I was totally bouncing up and down off it. The next thing I remember is us leaving. I went with Claire and co, to a party just across the road on Market Street. At the party I was totally fucking gibbered. Fortunately there was someone else in as bad a state as me ' Marcus, the guy who owned half of Eskobar ' and so we formed that companionship of the most wrecked, peculiar to parties. Also, when I joined some group of people, they seemed to wander off, for some reason. But the piece de resistance, the crowning glory of that night is that I was setting on a nest of glass tables, and they smashed under my weight.

I staggered out of there at fuck knows what time, probably once I noticed that no-one was taking me on if at all possible. I woke the next day not feeling too bad, as I'd probably had relatively little to drink, but unable to remember almost anything. Fortunately my friends were glad to clue me in later. In the Pelican I had been coming on to girls massively, trying to kiss them, in particular Laura and Hannah, who had had to keep pushing me away. I had also taken a tab of acid, god only knows where or who from. In the early days of taking pills I never mixed it with anything, unless it was hash for the comedown, because the thrill of the drug itself was quite enough. But by now it was just about getting out of my face as often as possible. Still, things could have been worse ' I learned that Marcus from Eskobar had once pissed himself when passed out on a bed with a bunch of people around him. I still had some way to go.

FOUR
We were always smoking hash, normally in my case because Tom was dealing and there was always some on the go, even if I didn't have any (which, because of my money situation, was most of the time). Everyone I knew smoked, except Bob, who had probably noticed the way we were going. As Tom and I were both only working part-time, we often met up and smoked the shit at each other's flats, listening to music and setting the world to rights. I'd just been to sign on and phoned him up. He was just up but said to come round. I got in and moaned resentfully about not being able to find a job. He sympathised, skinning up a doobie. The fact that my £200 rent was due in a few days time and that I'd only about £150 left in the bank wasn't mentioned but floated about my consciousness, an unsettling piece of mental flotsam.

A guy came round to buy some hash. He offered to skin up, to be sociable, but none of us had any fags, so we used the small bong to smoke it. This of course hits you harder because you're just smoking the hash directly, not diluting it with tobacco. The guy left, leaving Tom and I to sit, watching TV or listening to music or whatever. Bonging or smoking hash in a pipe stimulate the mind that much harder; the buzz comes on quite harshly, compared to the slow sensuous hum of a joint. I couldn't stop thinking about my rent and that I would have to pay it in a few days and I didn't know how. I obviously couldn't borrow it from Tom, as he had the same amount of money as me, fuck all. Ian and Sally, ditto. John, ditto. I couldn't borrow from Bob, as he'd lent me money for that useless trip to Edinburgh. What would I do? What would I do? The thoughts bounced around my head. If I'd been able to articulate what I was worrying about that would have been a bit better, but because I'd had that strong blast of hash I felt stoned and unable to talk, thoughts whirring through my brain but my body lazy and stupid.

This mounted up and up. I noticed Tom looking the same. I got up, just do something, and made coffee for us. Tom came through, looking rather stressed. "Fuck man, I'm just totally stressing about my rent, I said.

"Fuck, me too, I don't know¦

We could barely look each other in the eye. In that situation, when you need a bit of stability and support, both of us were as wrecked as each other. There was no point hanging about making things exponentially worse, so I got up and said, "I've got to head, man, this is too much. I walked home via the carpark off North Street. At the top I was tempted to throw myself off and just end all my fucking problems in one go, but thankfully decided not to. I resolved not to smoke hash that way again, to stick just to joints. Of course I was never going to stop smoking hash.

FIVE
Music was a big part of those days; none of us were big TV watchers, and it was always much more companionable to be sitting listening to music and chatting whilst smoking hash than sitting absorbed in the diminishing wash of the goggle-box. It seems though that the music we were all listening to had a peculiarly dark flavour to it. We all favoured more left-field and alternative styles, so the artists we liked included Death In Vegas, Primal Scream, Leftfield, Sonic Youth, Moby, Massive Attack, Spiritualized and Radiohead. I think Death In Vegas' "Contino Sessions was the critical album of the period, certainly for me. They combined the rock power and distortion of the Velvet Underground with the electriconica and effects of Moby, but in a far darker way. "Death Threat was a brilliant example. It had this amazing grinding sound at the core of it, and was incredibly ominous, portentous like thunderclouds full of deadly electricity, a sound like deadly energy crossing throughout the later parts of the song. It absolutely sounded like a death threat. Similarly, Leftfield had recently released a far more stripped down and brooding sequel to "Leftism, with the enormous rhythmic attack of "Phat Planet and the slow-burn defiance of "Swords.

None of these songs were particularly grim or depressing, like "The Wall or Joy Division. But they seemed to capture the moment (our moment, at least) so effectively. The hedonistic thrill of drug-taking had gone, the excitement and novelty had gone, our optimism and can-do spirit had gone. There were no more care-free afternoons in Duthie Park making daisychain wristbands and playing Frisbee. We had placed ourselves outside the mainstream and were now finding the consequence, that we had to fight against the majority of the population just to keep going. Whilst it meant we felt superior to other people, we has to keep going on down the same track to sustain this difference. As hash had been joined by acid, mushrooms and pills, I wondered where we were going, what was to come next.

SIX
As we had little money, when it came to mushroom season we were glad ' a chance to get wrecked, for free! The others had taken them the year before, but I had been in Stirling and missed all the hi-jinks. The stories sounded funny so I was keen to give it a go. Plus I'd no money and the things were out there growing! It would have been foolish not to.

The first time I took them was at Ian and Sally's. Paul and Tom were also there. They cooked up a brew in the kitchen and we drank down a cup each grimacingly, except for me, who (contrary as always) actually liked the taste. We sat playing Tekken, or rather Ian did, being a super-sonic Kung-Fu master on it, whilst the rest of us sat spectating. The game quickly began to seem peculiar, the grim death-filled backgrounds obvious malevolent portents, the characters bizarre ogre-ish mutants or paedophile-arousing Chinese girls, the game itself a strange battle of frantic manual dexterity conducted through the medium of a grey box. Tom and I picked up on the vibes and went through the kitchen to make tea and coffee, giggling away at some cosmic joke, shortly joined by Paul and then Sally, who noticed that we were in some trippy mushroom way; she had stopped taking drugs, I think, by that point. "Is this the funny mushroom room? she enquired, which set Tom off into hysterics.

We returned to the living room, where the Tekken was thankfully off and the music on. Due to the arrangement of the living room, most of us were on one side whilst Tom was on the other, all of us facing him. This made him very self-conscious, and we had to re-arrange the seating. Then he was sitting by the door, and felt like the door was expanding to fill the right side of his vision. Peculiar¦ Gradually the consensus grew to go out; on mushrooms (and acid) no-one likes to stand out, so nobody can take charge, so deciding to actually do something takes time, like an Ent moot. So Ian, Tom, Paul and I decided to go up to Duthie Park, as it would be dark and shadow-filled which, they told me, were good conditions for mushies.

In Duthie the trees were swaying slightly in the still-warm autumnal breeze, encircling the park. We walked across the grass towards the bench next to the boating shed. As the streetlights from all over Aberdeen cast an orangey glow to the sky, it wasn't fully dark, which made the park filled with shadows and half-lit objects. Just walking over the grass was fantastic, as looking down I was convinced (in a non-convinced way) that I could see mushrooms everywhere. Looking at the trees, I could empathise with them, could understand their vegetable consciousness, dimly swaying there in the light breeze. Even better was when we sat on the bench. The boating shed area was surrounded by trees and so was darker than the other parts of the park; a tree extended over us, branching out over our heads towards the pond, like an enormous hand sheltering us; and a large branch was on the ground next to us ' if you looked at it indirectly, out the corner of your eye, you could imagine it was a Komodo dragon. Whilst acid defamiliarises and estranges everything and makes you see the world with new eyes, until you are agog like a baby, mushrooms are organic and let you understand the world of plants and the vibrant growing earth all round you.

We began smoking hash, as always. I didn't have any with me, being perpetually skint, and so had to wait for the joints to be passed to me. This made me uncomfortable, as I began to feel that the others could feel me waiting for the hash and so that I was being grasping and cadging. As the occasional silence descended, I felt this ever more strongly, that they were waiting for me to make conversation, or that if I did make conversation, it would be an obvious attempt to curry favour to get the next joint passed to me first. I think all of us began feeling something similar, as we all seemed to start talking at the same time, babbled ridiculous conversations trying to avoid the crazy voice gibbering away inside our heads. There can be remarkable self-consciousness when tripping, if you let it build up, as your senses are stimulated; they need something to focus on, which then becomes intensified and distorted. If this is an uncomfortable situation, it is vastly worse than normal.

Tom was feeling the mushrooms rather strongly too. He and Paul had gone crazy on them the year before and his resistance to them had been shattered. They had concocted literally litres and litres of the brew, and sat downing it for hours, reaching some mental state I can't even imagine. Sally had been living with them at the time and literally thought they had gone insane. So when we got back to Ian and Sally's, Tom was feeling totally buckled, that he'd had far too much, even though he'd only had a cupful. I felt fine enough, apart from my earlier paranoia, and when I got home started re-reading "The Lord Of The Rings as I suddenly understood where Tolkien had come up with the Ents.

However the last time I took mushrooms I definitely had problems. John, Tom and I had had a cup at John's and then went to Archibald Simpson's where we sat admiring the light glinting off the brass lighting fixtures, the ornate cornices, and feeling the flush of autumn in the air, the rich reds, gold's and browns and the crisp feel of the air. This was decidedly pleasant, perhaps helped by the fact that I'd only had half a cup and so had a mild kick on.

I can't quite remember what we did the rest of the day. I think we might have gone back and had another half-cup, as I know that I was still tripping when heading to Tom's later on. My landlord phoned me on my mobile, obviously about the overdue rent ' a few days had elapsed, and I was no nearer to getting any dough. I was in no state to be thinking about dealing with any of that so just switched off my mobile. When tripping all of the outside world becomes an unwelcome intruder, a prowler amidst the super-sensitized perceptions of the mind. I knew I'd have to deal with all that later but just tried to forget it.

We got to Tom's flat. Claire was in, and Ash away to come round, fresh back from doing Camp America over the summer, so Tom brewed up another batch of mushrooms. When Ash came in we all had a cup of the potent brew, and of course joints were going round, as always; if there was time to be sitting down, there was time for someone to be skinning up. Initially it was rather pleasant; we all glided into some dreamy headspace, where patterns, such as on the wicker chair, gave almost physical pleasure, where music seemed 3-D, occurring at unusual spaces around the lounge, rather than emanating from the CD-player. Tom got a call and had to go and pick up some hash; this obviously stressed him, as it meant dealing with outside and venturing out of the warm, safe cocoon. I offered to go with him but he just wanted to get it over with and went off. Claire, Ash and I sat enjoying the trip. They were both rather quiet and dreamy whilst I sat commenting on what I was appreciating about the trip, pointing out colours and patterns which were pleasing. Claire joined in with me, but Jenny was feeling the effects too strongly; she had just come back after four months drug-free and was feeling sorely out of practise. Feeling self-conscious and awkward, she went for a potter around the flat to try and get rid of whatever uncomfortable thoughts were bouncing around her head. Tom came back shortly afterwards too, clearly glad to have got "outside out the way.

But then "outside appeared again, as two guys came round to buy some hash: a big Samoan and a guy with the worst teeth I've ever seen. We sat trying to chat normally, which Claire did managed, whilst Ash hid away, slumped into the couch. The guys were interested that we were tripping, as it's so hard to explain to others what it's like, and you hear all this ridiculous stories when at school about seeing flowers walking about or trees talking to you. They didn't stay too long, and let us get on with tripping. Tom skinned up some joints and they went round. However, by now I was starting to feel it, as of course hash is a stimulant too. Funny/peculiar things started happening: Tom and I both started to talk at the same time and then stopped at the same time, which was freaky as fuck at the time. Sounds became distorted too, a buzzing white noise when you spoke, rather than clear tones. When you spoke, soon after you weren't sure if you had spoken or just thought it. Tom actually said at one point, after sitting saying nothing, "Did I just say that..? And at this time my thoughts started veering down uncharted paths of weirdness. When we'd both spoken, this got me to thinking about our similarities, and then I started to wonder if I "really was Tom. Were we two aspects of the same person? (I'd obviously seen "Fight Club, but this was more like "Performance where it's less about projection and more about being doppelgangers and being two examples of the same person). Questions of identity and what makes you "you really are too much and I left, realising now how mushies can be bad for your mental state; and walking home had the final dreadful thought ' what if I looked in the mirror and I had Tom's face? I actually started feeling my face to make sure it felt like my one, as I walked down Union Street, and yeah, there was my big nose and bad teeth, which were a reassurance for once. When I got in I checked in the mirror nervously, but there was my familiar ginger-topped phizzog. Something of a relief. But at the same time I'm glad I've overdone mushrooms because otherwise how could I know all about them ' including their downside? The roads of excess lead to the palace of wisdom, as the saying goes. But it's hard-won knowledge, as I was to find out.

SEVEN
Having no money and no job to speak of, I was casting my net further afield than just Aberdeen, despite my earlier experiences. One day I saw an advert for a warehouse person in Edinburgh, and having worked in one earlier that year I phoned the agency and was asked to come down for interview. I suited myself up and spent my last £30 on the trainfare. At the agency I was interviewed by a lass, and told about a job which would involve working with financial accounts and amending information they held. This was different to what I had intended, but it was a JOB, a real job - in an office too! It was temporary, to last until February, but as it was now September this didn't bother me. She asked where I'd live and I said I would commute in from Stirling (I hoped a friend could put me up at his parental home, as his mum had had a lodger before). She said I'd got the job and would start on Monday, giving me the address. I didn't know Edinburgh, so "Bankhead Road, Sighthill meant nothing to me.

I returned to Aberdeen. This was the first job I'd been offered and I felt obliged to take it. I had no money to be getting a flat, no money to be paying my next month's rent on my flat in Aberdeen anyway, hardly any money to survive on in Edinburgh to begin with, but I felt I had to take it. What else could I do? So once more I borrowed some money from Bob (who had an allowance from his Dad), and tried to get a hold of Mike in Stirling. I managed to do so on the Saturday night, when I was planning to go down on the Sunday. He said it would be fine, his mum was agreeable on having a lodger, and so on Sunday afternoon I trained to Stirling.

The house I was lodging in was a plush large-roomed house in Bridge of Allan. Mrs Findlay said she'd charge me £55 a week rent, which seemed fair. The next morning I up'd early and headed to Edinburgh, with not a clue where Sighthill was. I got off at Haymarket (a lucky guess) and asked directions. After a worried hour of walking and stress-sweat, I eventually found the offices, in a "Trainspotting-esque area, a light industrial estate near the Napier uni campus universally known as "Shitehill. There was a crowd of people starting that day, and we were shown around the grubby offices and assigned places to work. The actual work was tedious ' data had been transferred from microfiche to PC and we had to check all the information was right, which sometimes required a little thought, as accounts sometimes split, merged and took on different owners and addresses. But generally it was mind-numbing, and I felt sorely tempted that very first day to just chuck it. I saw it through and started to get to know the guys at my table who were very sound guys, except for one who was too NME-reading/in-a-band cool to do more than acknowledge my presence.

I returned after the first week to give my notice on my old flat. The month's rent I didn't have, of course, and so there went my deposit, and with it any chance of getting a flat in Edinburgh quickly. Commuting through quickly got to be a massive pain, due to the expense ' as I travelled early in the morning railcards weren't eligible ' and the time it took ' leaving at 7.30am, arriving in Edinburgh at 8.30, getting a bus through Gorgie to Sighthill for 9. It also meant I generally didn't do much overtime, as finishing at 6pm meant I wouldn't get back in until 8, which left practically no time for making tea or doing anything that evening. Not that there was a great deal for me to be doing. I had made very few friends whilst at Stirling, and those who I had known were practically all gone anyway. I did pop up once to acquire hash, and quickly felt glad to be out of that whole situation.

However, paying out money for rent, trains and buses meant I'd very little leftover for food or enjoying myself. At the weekend I just smoked hash and walked about Bridge of Allan, which is very pleasant as it's an extremely nice suburb of Stirling, and looked spectacular with the tree-lined streets in a thousand shades of gold, red and brown. There was a pleasant poetically melancholy solitude to it, which after the social excesses of the summer made a good contrast. But when coming home to find I'd only time to make tea, read a bit and smoke a joint, I felt much less agreeable to the situation. I felt this most keenly shortly after the rail network had gone into meltdown with the Hatfield rail accident. Due to this I had to get the bus to work, which just added further to my disgruntlement. My discontent festered within me, with acrid acidity. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. I'd kept my side of the deal; I'd worked hard at uni, got my degree, had all the qualifications, had been Dux of my school for fuck sake, but there I was, with a pishy office job, not even my own flat, having to bus back and forth. I really felt cheated out of all the things I'd thought would come to me. Whilst in my fourth year of uni I had been interviewed and came close to getting good jobs, with the National Audit Office, and Deloitte and Touche. The proximity to that wealth and power were intoxicating. Here was a lifestyle, cultured and moneyed, that I lusted after. Oh, to have an expensive well-appointed flat, to have my own car, to dress in smart suits and silk ties and pure-wool coats, to have private medical care and gym membership, to no longer subsist but to self-develop as fully as I desired. These alluring phantoms haunted my imagination throughout my final year. But there I was, with barely enough money to buy food. It was utterly galling.

Work went on, a tolerable tedium. The folk there were quite fine; mostly young graduates scuffling to earn a living, like me. The table of guys I sat with were all into good music and the conversational level was quite high: "A History of Britain was on at the time and often led into interesting talk. There were a few Spaniards, a few girls who felt themselves Queen Bee, a Muslim guy hardly anyone talked to, a real nerdy English guy, and so on. The nerdy guy, Matt, had the obvious hots for an Australian girl Alison, who had the hots for a guy on my table called Dave, who had a girlfriend. It was all so painfully banal that I ignored all the gossip and just got on with it. All of us used to talk about what we really wanted to do, about the bands we were in or postgraduate courses we were going to do or the writing we were doing or the proper jobs we were going to get, whereas of course we were just office temps.
Matt, however, always used to ask when I was moving through to Edinburgh. I said that I was struggling to save as commuting was so expensive, and he said that if I just stayed in a hostel for a bit I'd save money that way. This didn't seem practicable, but then after about three weeks of lodging, I came back and Mrs Findlay said that she was putting the rent up to £75 a week, as she'd thought I was just going to be a short-term lodger. Quite why that meant the rent had to go up I didn't understand, but I couldn't really afford that, and thinking that I'd save money quickly being in a hostel and not having to pay out for commuting, I phoned round a few in Edinburgh and found one near Haymarket. I gathered my belongings into my rucksack and checked in on a Sunday.

The hostel was nice enough, as far as hostels go. It cost £10 per night so my "rent was now just under what it would have been in Stirling. But now I was faced with the nightmare of not having my own space at all, sharing a dorm with others, of being one step off homeless, of being surrounded by others in a similar situation (who I detested, obviously just projecting my anger at the situation), of not having any cooking facilities and so having to get chip-suppers for my tea every night. I can't convey how horrible it was. Edinburgh, that had seemed so appealing before, now seemed to be excluding me from all those niceties I'd craved. Poverty and isolation in a city is so bad because of all the golden glowing commercial opportunities dangling in front of your face, tantalising and soul-crushing. Just washing my clothes at a laundrette used up all my spare cash, which was never a great amount. I was barely any better off in the hostel financially, and the living situation was far worse than I'd anticipated, and I grew utterly depressed. No matter how I tried to do things, everything just seemed to be getting worse and worse. Practically my only solace at the time was hash, which Tom kindly used to send me. I had to skin up in the toilet and smoke it in the streets around the hostel, feeling madly frustrated at the splendour of the book-lined lounges I could peer into, houses of academics, lawyers and the comfortable classes I yearned to ascend into. There was one time when I hadn't locked the door to the toilet whilst I skinned up, and a girl walked in, which made me briefly terrified that I would get thrown out and actually be homeless.

EIGHT
Whilst in the hostel I was flathunting. I used to buy "The List and check the flatshare adverts. Some rooms were going for £150 a month which was about all I cold afford and so I'd ring them up, often to be told it had gone already, more rarely invited to view it. I had no deposit or anything, but hoped I could pay that over a few weeks. I viewed two rooms, both times being pretty humiliating. The first one I was shown by a stocky Irish guy, having wandered about for ages trying to find the fucking street, then spending precious cash on a streetmap. The flat seemed nice, the room of course a box room but decent enough, and the guy sound enough, so I said, "I'll certainly take it if it's available. The guy frosted over, albeit politely. "Well there's still other people to view it, so I'll be in touch with you. I knew then that I'd never hear from him again.

The other one was with a flat-full of girls. They hadn't mentioned this in the ad, for I guessed I'd no chance with them taking me on as a flatmate. And so it proved; as they showed me the flat, the sense of disinterest from the girls was palpable, only one of the four of them even looking at me when I asked all the usual questions, trying to show what a nice flatmate I'd be (I said I enjoyed cooking). They showed me out, saying "We'll let you know, though for all intents and purposes they already had. I felt like the guy in "Shallow Grave, humiliated and way out of my league. I just couldn't seem to do anything to improve my situation, I was trying and trying to do things which would make things better, but each time a door of opportunity seemed open, it would abruptly slam in my face.

NINE
The only way I could think to have a good time was taking drugs. I had no grip on the city at all and it was certainly the easiest way. Tom was aware of my plight and came down to visit one weekend, taking some pills with him so we could have a good night out. I met him at Charlotte Square and took him back to the hostel so he could book a room for the night. After yet another chippy supper we went out on the lash, meeting with Mike, a guy from work, briefly and going to various bars before heading to The Venue, where there was some banging techno on that night. I got in, went to the toilet to get the pill out of my sock and necked it. We stood at the bar surveying the scene. It was a small club, with a bar and a dancefloor closed off with white sheets, not many people, probably about twenty or so. We just got a drink in, waiting for the pills to kick in. Then all of a sudden I felt that euphoric surge of vitality which propelled me, taking Tom by the hand onto the dancefloor and slamming it down for the next several hours. The rest of the night is a blur. We trekked back to the hostel, god only knows how.

The next thing I remember is coming to, in a corner of the room, pissing and shitting myself. My body must have carried me in the search of a toilet, and got only so far. I managed to stop and went through to the toilet to get an enormous wad of toilet roll and mopped up the mess. No-one in the dorm seemed to wake up (it must have been about 5am) although maybe they just didn't say anything. In the morning I woke up, fully aware of what I'd done and feeling utterly self-disgusted. It seemed like things were just completely out of control ' that I was out of control, that my life was a spiralling mass of fuck-ups.

There was on Old Firm game on that day, so Tom and I went to the pub to watch it. (Celtic lost 5-1). Then we went for a wander up the Old Town, for a coffee, then along Princes Street. As we were walking along I spotted a joint on the pavement and picked up. Finally, were the gods smiling at me? Neither of us had an hash and we'd craved a smoke after the pill. So we went back to the hostel to re-skin it. I noticed that the hash looked like a fine brown powder, but thought that this was just ground hash. There was also a wet bit on the end of the joint, whatever that was. Tom had to leave shortly so we walked up the road to Charlotte Square smoking it. I remember thinking that it was rather smooth compared to hash, which often has an acrid taste. Then as we were walking up the road conversation petered out, both of us going "Ho-hum, little asides just to keep things ticking over, as I started feeling rather self-conscious somehow. Then I started thinking about what I was seeing being crumpled and torn, the actual vision of what I was seeing just being the surface to some deeper reality¦ Both of us seemed to catch on at the same time, and we both went "Whoa..!

"Oh fuck, I said. "That wasn't just hash¦

"Yeah¦ Tom agreed. "It's like acid, fucking trippy.

So it was. The light from the streetlights looked really tinny, metallic, and my mind was going into frenetic overdrive, worried at what I'd just taken (could I OD on it?), what I'd do (no choice, I'd no money and had work in the morning), and feeling this acute self-consciousness, so bad that I could barely look at Tom. We walked along, trying to reassure each other, to Charlotte Square. At the bustop I sat down on some steps, and had one of the most frightening feelings I've ever had, like my mind was going down into my body. I jumped back up quickly, probably looking a fool but not caring. Tom kept saying things like, "Well that was a surprise¦ a cheeky little number, but I just felt totally freaked out. Each sensation started off some manic tangent of thought which jabbered unpleasantly in my ear. It wasn't remotely pleasant being there so I just departed, saying "I've got to walk this off. See you.

As I walked back to the hostel the utter bleakness of the situation hit home with great force. The initial buzz of what must have been liquid acid in the joint was now being overtaken by a feeling like there was a small hole in my stomach through which cool air was whistling. This made me realise that the brown powder (duh!) must have been smack. So there I was ' living in a hostel, in a job which looked away to end quite soon, with no money (I'd overspent that weekend so I'd have to phone home and beg), no friends, none of my creature comforts like music or books, I'd shit myself the night before and now I'd just taken smack. It seemed a fitting end to the way that things had been going, a downward spiral I seemed powerless to stop, and was just making worse though my stupidity. I tried to console myself with thinking about others who had taken smack ' John Lennon, William Burroughs, Irvine Welsh ' and come through it. It didn't wash.

At the hostel I had some coffee and went to the dorm where I lay reading "Lord Of The Rings and shivering. For some reason acid and mushies make me feel cold, so I lay fully-dressed in bed. The trippiness wasn't wearing off either; occasional surges rushed through me, making me look into the middle-distance as some mounting feeling surged through me horribly, despite my best efforts. I also wrote a bit, deciding to lay off drugs (except hash, of course). I just did not want to go to sleep as I feared what would happen to my subconscious when asleep but with the acid still tampering with my brain. But I had work the next morning, and of course I couldn't afford not to go. Eventually I did nod off, with incredibly vivid and unpleasant dreams disturbing my night.

The next morning I toddled of to work as per, checking my consciousness and thinking I felt fine. On the bus, though, it quickly became obvious that things weren't right, as I had a couple of these horrible rushes where everything suddenly became too intense and I had to stand up or do something to dispel the feeling. But I couldn't sign off work, not having worked long enough to earn sick pay and of course needing the money. So in I went. At the time I was involved in the data entry of the corrected files, which meant sitting at a PC all day. It quickly became obvious that this as going to be a real struggle, as the trippiness had not fully faded. As acid is a stimulant, focusing on the same thing for hours was awful; at times I felt I would fall into the actual monitor, end up in the PC sort-of-thing. Weird. But worse was looking out of the window. Like when you are in pitch blackness and you see lights flashing in front of your eyes, which basically just checks that your wiring is okay, I had "things" flashing before my eyes as I gazed into the distance, like seeing invisible angels in the distance, shapes shimmering like mirages in the skywards horizon. It was completely fucked up. Worse was the surging horrible rush feeling, everything suddenly feeling too intense and making me stand up, do anything, just to dispel the feeling, which probably got me some funny looks. It was so horrible. But worse was that the feelings did not fade away as I expected, I continued to feel as fucked up for literally months afterwards. I can never truly convey how utterly dreadful it felt; but imagine having the circuitry of your brain fried by a sudden-shock of an intruding current, leaving you with damaged circuits and wires, some shorted, some burned out, some occasionally sparking into life. Then add to that mildly tripping for several months, never feeling "normal"... and being prsactically homeless and penniless.

TEN
Staying at the hostel was of course a severe bummer, a ghastly situation. I decided that I had set my heights too high and went for the cheap bedsitters etc that Edinburgh had to offer. Ater perusing the ads in the Evening News, I saw a room for about £60 a week off Leith Walk. Off I went, mind still agape, like having a hole in my head through which outside could pour itself freely into my consciousness without the usual deflector-shield of sanity.