"Choose life." "Choose a job." "Choose a career." "Choose a family." "Choose a fucking big television." "Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, electrical tin openers." "Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance." "Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments." "Choose a starter home." "Choose your friends." "Choose leisure wear and matching luggage." "Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics." "Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning." "Choose sitting on a couch watching spirit-crushing game shows stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth." "Tommy, goal!" "Choose rotting away at the end of it, pissing your last in a miserable home nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish fucked up brats that you've spawned to replace yourself." "Choose your future." "Choose life." "But why would I want to do a thing like that?" "I chose not to choose life." "I chose something else." "And the reasons?" "There are no reasons." "Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?" "Goldfinger is better than Dr. No." "Both of them are a lot better than Diamonds Are Forever." "A judgment reflected in its relatively poor showing at the box office." "And in which field, of course, Thunderball was a notable success." "People think it's all about misery, desperation and death, and all that shite which is not to be ignored." "Fuck off!" "Jealous cunt." "But what they forget is the pleasure of it." "They're all dead." "You prick!" "Otherwise we wouldn't do it." "Do you want me to?" "Yeah." "Pure as the driven snow that shit you done." "After all, we're not fucking stupid." "Well, at least we're not that fucking stupid." "Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it." "It beats any meat injection." "And it beats any fucking cock in the world." "When you're on junk, you have only one worry, scoring." "When you're off it, you're suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite." "Got no money, can't get pissed." "Got money, drinking too much." "Can't get a girl, no chance of a ride." "Got a girl, too much hassle." "You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never wins about human relationships, and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit." "I'd say, in those days, he was a muscular actor." "With all the presence of someone like Cooper or Lancaster but combined with a sly wit to make him a formidable romantic lead and closer in that respect to Cary Grant." "The only drawback, or at least the principal drawback is that you have to endure all manner of cunts telling you:" "No way would I poison my body with that shit." "All them fucking chemicals." "No fucking way." "It's a waste of your life, man, poisoning your body with that shit." "Every chance you've had, son, you've blown it." "Stuffing your veins with that filth." "From time to time, even I have uttered the magic words." "Never again, Swanney." "I'm off this gag." "Are you serious?" "Yeah." "No more." "I'm finished with that shite." "Well, that's up to you, man." "Gonna do it right this time." "Gonna get it sorted out, get off it for good." "I'm sure I've heard that one before." "The Sick Boy method." "It really worked for him, eh?" "He's always been lacking in moral fiber." "He knows a lot about Sean Connery." "That's hardly a substitute." "You'll need one more hit." "No, I don't think so." "For the long night that lies ahead." "We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit." "Of course, I'd have another shot." "After all, I had work to do." "Relinquishing junk." "Stage one:" "Preparation." "For this you will need one room, which you will not leave." "Soothing music." "Tomato soup, ten tins of." "Mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold." "Ice cream, vanilla, one large tub of." "Magnesia, milk of, one bottle." "Paracetamol, mouthwash, vitamins, mineral water, Lucozade pornography." "One mattress." "One bucket for urine, one for feces, and one for vomitus." "One television and one bottle of Valium which I've already procured from my mother, who is in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, also a drug addict." "Now I'm ready." "All I need is one final hit to soothe the pain while the Valium takes effect." "Mikey." "Aye, it's Mark Renton." "Look, I wondered, could you help me out?" "This was typical of Mikey Forrester." "What the fuck are these?" "Under the normal run of things I'd have nothing to do with the cunt, but this wasn't the normal run of things." "Opium suppositories." "Ideal for your purposes." "Slow release, bring you down gradually." "Custom fucking designed for your needs." "I want a fucking hit." "That's all I've got, man." "Take it or leave it." "Are you feeling better now then, eh?" "Oh, aye." "For the good they've done me, I might as well have stuck them up my ass." "Heroin makes you constipated." "The heroin from my last hit is fading away, and the suppositories have yet to melt." "I'm no longer constipated." "I fantasize about a massive, pristine convenience brilliant gold taps, virginal white marble, a seat carved from ebony a cistern full of Chanel No. 5 and a flunky handing me pieces of raw silk toilet roll." "But under the circumstances, I'll settle for anywhere." "Fuck." "Yes, a fucking dancer." "And now now I'm ready." "The downside of coming off junk was I knew I'd need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness." "It was awful." "They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them." "Take Sick Boy, for instance." "He came off junk at the same time as me not because he wanted to, you understand, but just to annoy me." "Just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle." "Sneaky fucker, don't you think?" "When all I wanted to do was lie there and feel sorry for myself he insisted on telling me once again about his unifying theory of life." "It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life." "What do you mean?" "Well, at one point you've got it, then you lose it, and it's gone forever all walks of life." "Georgie Best, for example, had it, lost it." "Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed." "Lou Reed, some of his solo stuff is not bad." "No, it's not bad, but it's not great either, is it?" "And in your heart, you know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite." "So, who else?" "Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley." "Okay, so what's the point you're trying to make?" "All I am trying to do, Mark, is to help you understand that The Name ofthe Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory." "What about The Untouchables?" "I don't rate that at all." "Despite the Academy award?" "That means fuck all." "It's a sympathy vote." "So, we all get old, we can't hack it anymore and that's it?" "Yeah." "That's your theory?" "Yeah." "Beautifully fucking illustrated." "Give me the gun." "Do you see the beast?" "Have you got it in your sights?" "Clear enough, Miss Moneypenny." "This should present no significant problems." "For a vegetarian, Rents, you're a fucking evil shot." "Without heroin, I attempted to lead a useful and fulfilling life as a good citizen." "Good luck, Spud." "Cheers, cowboy." "Remember:" "If they think you're not trying, you're in trouble." "A hint of that and they'll be on to the DHSS, "This cunt is not trying."" "And your Giro's fucking finished, right?" "Right." "But then again, try too hard..." "You might get the fucking job." "Exactly." "Nightmare." "It's a tightrope, Spud." "It's a fucking tightrope." "See I just get pure shy with the interviewer cats." "I get all nervous and I can't answer any of their questions like I'm a footballer and I get nerves on the big occasion." "Try some of this, Spud." "Yeah, a little dab of speed is just the ticket, man." "No, I went to Craigie, Craignewton." "I just put down Royal Edinburgh College to help get the job." "There's too much discrimination in this town." "Cos they're both schools, right?" "We're in this together, and I wanted to put across the general idea rather than the details like, people get hung up on details." "Which school did I go to?" "How many 'O' grades did I get?" "Could be six, could be none." "It's not important." "What is important is that I am, yes?" "Mr. Murphy, do you mean that you lied on your application?" "No!" "Well, yes." "Only to get my foot in the door." "Showing initiative and that, like." "But you were referred here by the Department of Employment." "There was no need for you to get your "foot in the door" as you put it." "Yeah, cool." "Whatever you say." "Sorry, you're the man, the dude in the chair." "I am merely here." "Like, well obviously, I'm here." "Mr. Murphy, what exactly attracts you to the leisure industry?" "In a word, pleasure." "My pleasure in other people's leisure." "Do you see yourself as having any weaknesses?" "Oh, yes, cos like, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, actually." "Yes, I am." "See, for me it's got to be the best or it's nothing at all." "Like, if things get a bit dodgy, I just cannot be bothered." "But, hey, I'm getting good vibes about this interview thing today, though." "Seems to me like it's going pretty well, eh?" "Thank you, Mr. Murphy." "We'll let you know." "The pleasure was mine, man." "Spud had done well, I was proud of him." "He fucked up good and proper." "You had to hand it to Spud." "Picture the scene:" "The other fucking week there down the fucking Volley." "Me and Tommy playing pool." "I'm playing like Paul fucking Newman by the way." "Giving the boy here the tanning of a lifetime." "So it comes to the end, the last shot, the deciding ball of the whole tournament." "I'm on the black and he's sitting in the corner looking all fucking biscuit-assed when this hard cunt comes in, obviously fucking fancied himself." "Starts staring at me looking right fucking at me as if to say, "Come ahead, square go."" "You know me." "I'm not the type of cunt that goes looking for fucking bother but at the end of the day I'm the cunt with the pool cue and he can have the fat end in his puss anytime he fucking wanted, like." "So I squares up, casual like." "What does the hard cunt do?" "Well, the so-called hard cunt shites it puts down his drink, turns and gets the fuck out of there, and after that well, the game was mine." "And that was it?" "That was Begbie's story." "Or at least that was Begbie's version of the story." "But a couple of days later I got the truth from Tommy." "You always got the truth from Tommy." "It was one of his major weaknesses." "He never told lies, he never took drugs, and he never cheated on anyone." "It was Wednesday morning." "We were in the Volley playing pool, that much is true." "But Begbie is playing absolutely fucking gash." "He's got a hangover so bad he can hardly hold the fucking cue never mind pot a ball." "I'm doing my best to lose, you know, trying to humor him." "But it's not doing any good." "Every time I touch a ball, I seem to pot something." "Every time Begbie goes near the table, he fucks it up." "Oh, fuck's sake." "So he's got the hump, right." "But, finally, I managed to set it up so all he has to do is to pot the black to win one game, to salvage a little bit of pride and maybe not kick my head in, right." "So, he's on the black, pressure shot." "Then it all goes wrong, big time." "Fuck!" "He picks on this specky wee gadge at the bar and accuses him of putting him off by looking at him." "And could you believe it, the poor wee cunt hasn't even glanced in our direction." "Fuck off!" "He was gonna chib him, I tell you." "And then I thought he was gonna do me." "The Beggar is fucking psycho, man." "But he's a mate, you know." "So what can you do?" "Can I borrow this?" "What indeed could one do?" "Just stand back and watch, and try not to get involved?" "Begbie didn't do drugs either." "He just did people, that's what he got off on." "His own sensory addiction." "The lassie got glassed and no cunt leaves here till we find out what cunt did it." "Who the fuck are you?" "Lizzy, It's so good." "I'm coming." "As I sat watching the intimate and highly personal video stolen only hours earlier from one of my best friends I realized that something important was missing from my life." "I read it in Cosmopolitan." "It's an interesting theory." "Actually, it's a nightmare." "I've been desperate for a shag but watching him suffer was just too much fun." "You should try it with Tommy." "What, and deny myself the only pleasure I get from him?" "Did I tell you about my birthday?" "No, what happened?" "He forgot." "Useless motherfucker." "What are you two talking about?" "Football." "What are you talking about?" "Shopping." "The situation was becoming serious." "Young Renton noticed the haste with which the successful in the sexual sphere, as in all others, segregated themselves from the failures." "Heroin had robbed Renton of his sex drive, but now it returned with a vengeance." "And as the impotence of those days faded into memory grim desperation took a hold in his sex-crazed mind." "His post-junk libido, fuelled by alcohol and amphetamine taunted him remorselessly with his own unsatisfied desire." "Dot, dot, dot." "And with that, Mark Renton had fallen in love." "Excuse me, excuse me." "I don't mean to harass you, but I was very impressed with the capable and stylish manner in which you dealt with that situation." "And I was thinking to myself, "Now, this girl's special."" "Thanks." "What's your name?" "Diane." "Where are you going, Diane?" "I'm going home." "Where's that?" "It's where I live." "Great." "What?" "Well, I'll come back with you if you like, but, I'm not promising anything, you know." "Do you find that this approach usually works?" "Or let me guess, you've never tried it before." "In fact, you don't normally approach girls, am I right?" "The truth is that you're a quiet, sensitive type but if I'm prepared to take a chance, I might just get to know the inner you:" "Witty, adventurous, passionate, loving, loyal." "Taxi!" "A little bit crazy, a little bit bad." "But, hey don't us girls just love that?" "Well, what's wrong, boy?" "Cat got your tongue?" "I left something..." "Are you getting in or not, pal?" "Do you understand?" "I expect you to be a considerate and thoughtful lover." "Generous but firm." "What?" "Failure on your part to live up to these very reasonable expectations will result in swift resumption of a non-sex situation." "Right?" "What?" "Shut up!" "Wake up, Spud." "Wake up." "Sex." "Casual sex." "Tommy, let's put the tape on." "Now?" "I want to watch ourselves while we're screwing." "So, let's see what I'm missing." "Not much." "There's the captain, Archie Gemmill, picking it up from the outside." "I think he wants to go himself." "I'm certain he's got a goal." "He's going all the way." "And he scores!" "What a magnificent goal!" "Gemmill at his very best." "What a penetrating goal that was!" "I haven't felt that good since Archie Gemmill scored against Holland in 1 978." "Right." "You can't sleep here." "What?" "Out." "Come on." "No argument." "You can sleep on the sofa in the hall or go home, it's up to you." "And don't make any noise." "Jesus." "What do you mean, "It's gone"?" "Where has it gone, Tommy?" "It'll be here somewhere." "I might have returned it by mistake." "Returned it?" "Where?" "The video shop, Tommy?" "The fucking video shop?" "So every punter in Edinburgh is jerking off to our video?" "God, Tommy, I feel sick." "Hi." "Hello." "Come in and sit down." "Like some coffee?" "Aye." "You must be Mark." "Aye, that's me." "Are you a friend of Diane's?" "More a friend of a friend, no?" "Right." "Are you her flatmates, like?" "Flatmates?" "I must remember that one." "'Morning." "Good morning, Spud." "'Morning, Gail." "Mr. Houston." "Mrs. Houston." "'Morning, Spud." "Sit down and have some breakfast." "Sorry about last night, by the way." "That's all right." "I slept fine on the sofa." "I had a bit much to drink, had a bit of an accident." "Don't worry, son." "These things happen." "Does a man good to cut loose once in a while." "Only this one could do with being tied up once in a while." "I'll put the sheets in the machine just now." "No, no..., I'll, I'll..., wash them." "There's no need." "It's no problem." "It's no problem for me, either." "I'd rather take care of it myself." "Honestly, it's no problem." "Really, no!" "Spud, they're my sheets." "I don't see why not." "Because it's illegal, that's why not." "What, holding hands?" "No, not holding hands." "In that case you can do it." "You were quite happy to do a lot more last night." "Yeah, and that's what's illegal." "Do you know what they do to people like me inside?" "They cut your balls off and flush them down the fucking toilet." "Calm down." "You're not going to jail." "Well, that's very easy for you to say, Diane." "Can I see you again?" "Certainly not." "If you don't see me again, I'll tell the police." "I'll see you around then." "Now what?" "We go for a walk." "What?" "A walk." "Where?" "There." "Are you serious?" "What are you waiting for?" "Hey, Tommy." "This is not natural, man." "It's the great outdoors." "It's fresh air." "Look, Tommy, we know you're getting a hard time off Lizzy but there's really no need to take it out on us." "Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?" "It's shite being Scottish." "We're the lowest of the low." "The scum of the fucking earth." "The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization." "Some people hate the English, I don't." "They're just wankers." "We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers." "Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by." "We're ruled by effete assholes." "It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy." "And all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference." "Sorry, man." "Sorry." "No, I'm sorry." "I appreciate it, Tommy." "At or around this time Spud, Sick Boy and I made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on heroin as soon as possible." "Took about 1 2 hours." "It looks easy this, but it's not." "It looks like a doss, like a soft option but living like this, it's a full-time business." "Ursula Andress, the quintessential Bond girl." "That's what everyone says." "The embodiment, right, of his superiority to us." "Beautiful, exotic, highly sexual yet totally unavailable to anyone apart from him." "Shite." "I mean, let's face it, right if she'd shag one punter from Edinburgh, she'd shag the whole fucking lot of us." "Yep, I knew he was gonna do that." "Lizzy's gone, Mark." "She's gone and fucking dumped me." "It was that videotape." "And that Iggy Pop business and all other sorts of shit." "She told me where to go and no fucking mistake." "I said to her, I said:" ""Is there any chance of getting back together, like?"" "But no way, no fucking way." "Honor Blackman, a.k.a. Pussy Galore, right?" "What a total fucking misnomer." "I mean, I wouldn't touch her with yours." "I want to try it, Mark." "You're always going on about how like, like, it's the ultimate hit and that." "Better than sex." "Come on, man, I'm a fucking adult, I can find out for myself." "I've got the money." "Personality, I mean that's rwhat counts, ight?" "Personality, I mean that's what keeps a relationship going through the years." "Like heroin." "I mean heroin's got great fucking personality." "Swanney taught us to adore and respect the National Health Service for it was the source of much of our gear." "We stole drugs, we stole prescriptions or bought them sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them." "Or traded drugs with cancer victims, alcoholics, old-age pensioners AIDS patients, epileptics and bored housewives." "We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclizine, codeine, temazepam nitrezepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine buprenorphine, dextromoramide, chlormethiazole." "The streets are awash with drugs you can have for unhappiness and pain and we took them all." "Fuck it, we would have injected vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal." "Pardon me, may I use your bathroom?" "Thank you." "Stop, psycho." "Now then, boy." "You fucking skag." "But the good times couldn't last forever." "I think Allison had been screaming all day, but it hadn't really registered before." "She might have been screaming for a week for all I knew." "It'd been days since I heard anyone speak." "Surely someone must've said something in all that time." "Surely to fuck someone must have." "Allison!" "Help me, please!" "Calm down." "Everyone's gonna be just fine." "Nothing could have been further from the truth." "In point of fact, nothing was gonna be just fine." "On the contrary, everything was gonna be bad." "Bad, I mean everything was gonna be even worse than it already was." "My God!" "No, my God!" "Fuck!" "Please, please!" "It wasn't my baby." "She wasn't my baby." "Baby Dawn, she wasn't mine." "Spud's, Swanney's, Sick Boy's, I don't know." "Maybe Allison knew, maybe not." "I wished I could think of something to say." "Something sympathetic." "Something human." "Say something, Mark." "Fucking say something, huh?" "I'm cooking up." "Cook us up a shot, Rents." "I really need a hit." "And so she did, I could understand that to take the pain away." "So I cooked up and she got a hit." "But only after me, that went without saying." "Well, at least we knew who the father was now." "It wasn't just the baby that died that day." "Something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned." "It seemed he had no theory with which to explain a moment like this." "Nor did I." "Our only response was to keep on going and fuck everything." "Pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile." "Then squirt it into a stinking, purulent vein and do it all over again." "Keep on going, getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over." "Propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong." "Because no matter how much you stash or how much you steal, you never have enough." "No matter how often you go out and rob and fuck people over you always need to get up and do it all over again." "Sooner or later this kind of thing was bound to happen." "Because shoplifting is theft, which is a crime and despite what you may believe, there is no such entity as victimless crime." "Heroin addiction may explain your actions, but it does not excuse them." "Mr. Murphy, you are a habitual thief, devoid of regret and remorse." "I'm sentencing you to six months imprisonment." "My only worry is that it will not be long before we meet again." "Mr. Renton, I understand that you have entered into a program of rehabilitation in an attempt to wean yourself away from heroin." "The suspension of your sentence is conditional on your continued co-operation with this program." "Should you stand guilty before me again I shall not hesitate to impose a custodial sentence." "Thank you, Your Honor." "With God's help, I'll conquer this terrible affliction." "What can you say?" "Well, Begbie had a phrase for it." "It was fucking obvious that cunt was going to fuck some cunt." "Well, hope you've learned your lesson, son." "My son, I thought I was gonna lose you there." "You're nothing but trouble to me, but I still love you." "You'd better clean up your fucking act, sunshine." "Cut that shite out forever." "You listen to Francis, Mark." "He's talking sense." "Fucking right I am." "See, inside, you wouldn't last two fucking days." "There's better things than the needle, Rents." "Choose life." "I remember when you were a wee baby." ""Mama's little baby" ""loves shortening, shortening" ""Mama's little baby loves shortening bread"" "I'm sorry, Mrs. Murphy." "It was not fair, Spud going down and not me." "Well, it's not our fault." "Your boy went down because he was a fucking smack-head." "If that's not your fault, then I don't know what is." "I was the fucking cunt that tried to get him off it." "I'll get the fucking drinks in." "I wished I'd gone down instead of Spud." "Here I was, surrounded by my family and my so-called mates and I've never felt so alone." "Never in all my puff." "Since I was on remand, they've had me on this program the state-sponsored addiction three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack." "But it's never enough." "At the moment, it's nowhere near enough." "I took all three this morning." "And now I've got 1 8 hours to go till my next shot and a sweat on my back like a layer of frost." "I need to visit the Mother Superior for one hit." "One fucking hit to get us over this long, hard day." "What's on the menu this evening, sir?" "Your favorite dish." "Excellent." "Usual table, sir?" "Why, thank you." "Would sir care to pay for his bill in advance?" "No, stick it on my tab." "I regret to inform, sir, credit limit was reached and breached quite some time ago." "Well, in that case..." "Hard currency, that'll do nicely." "Can't be too careful when we're dealing with your type, can we, sir?" "Er, would sir care for a starter?" "Some garlic bread perhaps?" "No, thank you." "I'll proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please." "As you wish, sir, as you wish." "Perhaps sir would like me to call for a taxi?" "Open your eyes." "Wake up." "Come on." "Wake up." "I don't feel the sickness yet, but it's in the post, that's for sure." "I'm in the junkie limbo at the moment:" "Too ill to sleep." "Too tired to stay awake." "But the sickness is on its way." "Sweat, chills, nausea, pain and craving." "Need like nothing else I've ever known will soon take hold of me." "It's on its way." ""You've got green eyes you've got blue eyes" ""You've got gray eyes" ""And I've never seen anyone quite like you before" ""No, I've never met anyone quite like you before"" "We'll help you, son." "You'll stay here with us until you get better." "We're gonna beat this together." "Maybe, er..." "Maybe I should go back to the clinic." "No!" "No clinics." "No methadone." "That only made you worse, you said so yourself." "You lied to us, son, your own mother and father." "You could bring us some jellies." "No!" "You're worse coming off that than you are with the heroin." "Nothing at all!" "It's a clean break this time." "You're staying here where we can keep an eye on you." "I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do, but I just need one more score, like." "Just bring me one more hit, please." "I need one more fucking hit." "You fuck." "Shit." "Well, this is a good fucking laugh, ain't it?" "You sweat that shite out of your system because if I come back and it's still here I'll fucking kick it out." "Okay." "God!" "Question number one:" "The human immunodeficiency virus is a?" "Retrovirus?" "Retrovirus is the right answer." "It's a mug's game, Mrs. Renton." "I mean, I'm not saying I was blameless myself, far from it, but there comes a time when you have to turn your back on that nonsense and just say no." "Just say no." "Oh, my God, she's dead." "Question number two:" "HIV binds to which receptor on the host lymphocyte?" "Which receptor is that?" "CD4." "CD4 is the right answer." "Better than sex, Rents." "Better than sex." "The ultimate hit." "I'm a fucking adult, I can find out for myself." "Well, I'm finding out, all right." "Tommy." "No!" "Is he guilty?" "Or not guilty?" "He's our son." "Don't!" "Dawn!" "Stop!" "No!" "No!" "Not to me!" "Stop!" "Mark." "There's something you need to do." "Come alive, 35." "Box of tricks, 66." "Mark, you've got a house." "For goodness sake, Mark." "It seems, however, I am really the luckiest guy in the world." "Several years of addiction right in the middle of an epidemic surrounded by the living dead." "But not me." "I'm negative." "It's official." "And once the pain goes away, that's when the real battle starts." "Depression, boredom...." "You feel so fucking low, you want to fucking top yourself." "Tommy, it's Mark, man." "You all right, mate?" "Getting out much, Tommy?" "No." "Following the game at all?" "No." "No, me neither, really." "You take the test?" "Aye." "Clear?" "Aye." "That's nice." "I'm sorry, Tommy." "Got any gear on you?" "No, I'm clean, man." "Well, sub us then, mate." "I'm expecting a rent check." "Thanks, Mark." "No bother." "No bother." "None at all." "Not for me, anyway." "Still it's easy to be philosophical when it's some other poor cunt with shite for blood." "What do you want?" "Are you clean?" "Yes." "Is that a promise, then?" "Yes, it is, as a matter of fact." "Calm down." "I'm only asking." "Is that hash that I can smell?" "No." "I wouldn't mind a bit if it is." "Well, it isn't." "It smells like it." "You're too young." "I'm too young for what?" "You're not getting any younger, Mark." "The world's changing, music's changing, even drugs are changing." "You can't stay in here all day dreaming about heroin and Ziggy Pop." "It's Iggy Pop." "Whatever." "I mean, the guy's dead anyway." "Iggy Pop is not dead." "He toured last year." "Tommy went to see him." "The point is, you've got to find something new." "She was right." "I had to find something new." "There was only one thing for it." "Lifestyle Letting Agency." "Yes." "It's a beautifully converted Victorian town house." "Ideally located in a quiet road near to the local shops and transport." "This one's two bedrooms and a kitchen/diner." "Fully fitted, in excellent decorative order." "Lots of storage space." "All mod cons and it's going at 320 pounds a week." "I settled in not too badly and kept myself to myself." "Sometimes, I thought about the guys, but mainly I didn't miss them at all." "This was boomtown, where any fool could make cash from chaos and plenty did." "Tell you what I've got." "I've got a beautifully converted Victorian townhouse." "I quite enjoyed the sound of it all." "Profit, loss, margins, takeovers, lending, letting, sub-letting, sub-dividing cheating, scamming, fragmenting, breaking away." "Who's got the keys to Talgarth Road?" "There was no such thing as society." "And even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it." "For the first time in my adult life I was almost content." ""Dear Mark, I'm glad you found a job and somewhere to live." ""School is fine at the moment." "I'm not pregnant, but thanks for asking." ""Your friend Sick Boy asked me last week if I would like to work for him." ""But I told him where to go." ""I met Spud who sends his regards." "Or at least I think that's what he said." ""No one has seen Tommy for ages." ""And finally, Francis Begbie has been on television a lot this week." ""As he is wanted by the police in connection with an armed robbery..." ""...in a jeweler's in Corstorphine." ""Take care." "Yours, with love, Diane."" "Francis Begbie." "Oh, no." "Armed robbery?" "With a replica?" "I mean, how the fuck can it be armed robbery with a fucking replica?" "It's scandal." "Well here, look." "Supposed to be fucking solid silver, it's fucking garbage." "There's young couples invest all their fucking hopes in that stuff, and all." "It's a scandal, Franco." "Too fucking right it is." "How about the wee Pot Noodles by the way?" "I'm fucking Lee Marvin." "Hey, Rents." "Begbie settled in, in no time at all." "I've got no fucking cigarettes." "It's me." "Rents." "Yeah, the guy's a psycho." "But it's true, he's a mate and all, so what can you do?" "Pop down the bookies and put a line on for us." "Can you not go yourself?" "I'm serious here, I'm a fugitive from the law, and I can't walk the fucking streets." "You go." "Doncaster. 4:40." "5 pounds to win." "Bad Boy." "Fucking buy some fucking beer and all." "Come on, Bad Boy." "Come on, son." "Come on, son." "Come on..." "Yeah!" "Bad Boy." "Came in at 1 6-to-1 ." "And with the winnings, we went out to celebrate." "Diane was right." "The world is changing." "Music is changing, drugs are changing, even men and women are changing." "1 ,000 years from now, there'll be no guys and no girls, just wankers." "Sounds great to me." "It's just a pity no one told Begbie." "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "If you ask me, we're heterosexual by default, not by decision." "It's just a question of who you fancy." "It's all about aesthetics and it's fuck all to do with morality." "Fuck!" "But you try telling Begbie that." "Look, I'm not a fucking buftie and that's the end of it." "Let's face it, it could have been wonderful." "Fucking listen to me, you piece of junkie shit." "A joke's a fucking joke, you mention that again and I'll cut you up." "You understand?" "Since I last saw him, Sick Boy had reinvented himself as a pimp and a pusher and was here, he said, to mix business and pleasure setting up contacts, as he constantly informed me for the great skag deal that was one day gonna make him rich." "Good chips." "I can't believe you did that." "I got a good price for it." "Rents, I need the money." "It was my fucking telly." "Oh Christ, if I'd known you were gonna get so humpty about it, I wouldn't have bothered." "Fucking rented anyway." "Are you gonna eat that?" "Have you got a passport?" "Why?" "I met this bloke runs a hotel, brothel." "Loads of contacts." "Does a nice sideline in punting British passports to foreigners." "Get you a good price." "And why would I want to sell my passport?" "It was just an idea." "I had to get rid of them." "Sick Boy didn't do his drug deal and he didn't get rich." "Instead, he and Begbie just hung around my bed-sit looking for things to steal." "I decided to put them in the worst place in the world." "But of course they weren't paying any rent." "So when my boss found two desperate suckers who would Sick Boy and Begbie were bound to feel threatened." "Lots of storage." "All mod cons, 320 quid a week." "And that was that." "But by then we had another reason to go back." "Tommy." "Tommy knew he'd got the virus, but he never knew he'd gone full-blown." "What was it, pneumonia or cancer?" "No, toxoplasmosis." "It's like a stroke." "How's that?" "He wanted to see Lizzy again." "She would not let him near the house." "So he bought her a present." "He bought her this kitten." "But Lizzy told him where to stick it?" "Exactly." ""I'm not wanting a cat," she says, "Get to fuck, right."" "So there's Tommy, stuck with this kitten." "You can imagine what happened." "To those of us gathered here today Thomas McKenzie filled a number of different roles in our lives." "Thomas was a son..." "The thing was neglected, pissing and shitting all over the place." "Tommy was lying about, fucked out of his eyeballs on smack or downers." "He never knew you could get toxoplasmosis from cat shit." "...a loving man who had a great lust for life." "Neither did I. What is it?" "Fucking horrible." "It's like an abscess in your brain." "Fucking hell!" "Then what happened?" "He starts getting these headaches, so he just uses more smack, for the pain." "Then he has a stroke." "A fucking stroke." "Just like that." "He gets home from the hospital and dies three weeks later." "He'd been dead for ages before the neighbors complained about the smell and got the police to break down the door." "Tommy was lying face down in a pool of vomit." "He has gone from us, but we have many things to remember him by." "The kitten was fine." "Would you all please rise now for the committal?" ""Do you think I would leave you crying" ""When there's room on my horse for two?" ""Climb up here, Tommy, don't be dying" ""I can go just as fast with two" ""When we grow up, we'll both be soldiers" ""And our horses will not be toys" ""And I wonder if we'll remember" ""When we were two little boys"" "Did you tell him yet?" "On you go." "What?" "There's this mate of Swanney's." "You know the guy, Mikey Forrester." "Aye." "He's come into some gear." "A lot of gear." "How much gear?" "About two kilos." "So he tells me." "He got drunk in a pub down by the docks last week where he met two Russian sailors." "They're fucking carrying the stuff." "For sale there and then, like." "So, he wakes up next morning, realizes what he's done gets very fucking nervous." "He wants rid of this, right?" "So?" "So, he met me and I offered to take it off his hands at a very reasonable price with the intention of punting it on myself to a guy I know in London." "We've just come back from Tommy's funeral and you're talking about a skag deal?" "Aye." "What was your price?" "4 grand." "You haven't got 4 grand." "We're 2,000 short." "Well, that's tough." "Look, Mark, every cunt knows you've been saving up down in London." "I'm sorry, boys, I do not have 2 grand." "Aye, you fucking do." "I've seen your bank statement." "For fuck's sake." "2,1 33 pounds." "Two kilos." "What is that, ten years?" "Mikey Forrester, Russian sailors, what the fuck are you boys on?" "Spud, you've already been to jail." "What's the deal, you like it so much, you want to go back?" "I just want the money, Mark." "If everybody keeps their fucking mouth shut, there'll be no cunt going to jail." "There were a lot of possibilities running through my mind about what might happen in London." "Things I didn't want to talk to anyone about." "Ideas best kept to myself." "What no one told me was that when we bought the skag some lucky punter would have to try it out." "Begbie didn't trust Spud and Sick Boy was too careful these days." "So I rolled up my sleeve, I spiked my vein, and I did what had to be done." "It's good." "Oh, it's really fucking good." "Yeah, that hit was good." "I promised myself another one before we got to London." "Just one like, for old time's sake." "Just to piss Begbie off." "This was his nightmare." "The dodgiest scam in a lifetime of dodgy scams." "Being perpetrated with three of the most useless and unreliable fuckups in town." "I knew what was going on in his mind." "Any trouble in London, and he would dump us immediately." "One way or another, he had to." "If he got caught with a bag full of skag on top of that armed robbery shit he was going down for 1 5 to 20." "Begbie was hard." "But not so hard that he didn't shite it off 20 years in Saughton." "This was to be my final hit." "But let's be clear about this." "There are final hits and final hits." "What kind was this to be?" "Did you bring the cards?" "What?" "The cards, the last thing I told you was to mind the cards." "Well, I've not brought them." "It's fucking boring after a while without the cards." "I'm sorry." "Bit fucking late, like." "Why didn't you bring them?" "'Cause I fucking told you to bring them, you doss cunt." "Christ." "These are your friends, right?" "These are the guys I told you about." "Okay." "Well, is he here?" "Yeah, he's here." "You didn't get followed, did you?" "We didn't get followed." "Okay." "All right." "Hi." "Straight away he clocked us for what we were:" "Small-time wasters with an accidental big deal." "Excuse me, gentlemen." "How much would you like for this?" "20,000." "Well, I don't think it's worth much more than 1 5,000." "This was a real drag to him." "He didn't need to negotiate." "I mean, what the fuck were we gonna do with it, if he didn't buy it?" "Sell it on the streets?" "Fuck that." "Well, 1 9,000." "Terribly sorry, I can't go to 1 9,000." "Well, fucking 1 6,000 then." "Okay." "Well, fucking 1 6,000 it is then." "These, gentlemen, are 2,000 pounds bundles." "That's two." "That's four." "We settled on 1 6,000 pounds." "He had a lot more in the suitcase, like, but it was better than nothing." "...make eight." "Thank you very much, gentlemen." "I'd like to say it's been a real pleasure haggling with you." "Fucking, you'd better be." "Okay?" "Yes!" "Just for a moment it felt really great." "Like we were all in it together, like friends, like it meant something." "A moment like that, it can touch you deep inside." "That doesn't last long." "Not like 1 6,000 pounds." "So, what about you, Spud, like, any major investments on the horizon?" "Gonna buy yourself a wee island in the sun?" "What, for fucking 4 grand?" "One palm tree, a couple of rocks and a fucking sewage outflow." "I don't know, man." "I'm gonna get something for my ma." "Get some good speed, no bicarb." "Then get a girl, take her out, treat her right." "And shag her senseless?" "No, man, true love." "True love." "But I could really handle some hot sex with a Jewish princess tonight." "You daft cunt." "Or a Catholic." "If you're gonna waste it on a bird, you might as well leave it all to me." "Now get the drinks in." "I got a round already." "I got the last one." "It's your round, Franco." "Okay." "Same again?" "Right." "I'm off for a piss." "See when I get back, that money's still here, okay?" "No, the moment your back's turned we're out the door." "Yea, I'll be right fucking after you." "You'll never catch us, you flabby bastard." "By the way, see you, when I get back" "We'll be halfway down the street with the money." "I'd fucking kill you." "I thought you might, Franco." "Thought you might." "Are you game for it?" "What?" "Well?" "Are you serious?" "Don't know, don't know." "What do you think?" "Still here, I see." "Aye, well we wouldn't run out on a mate." "Why not, I know I would." "Where's Franco?" "For fuck's sake!" "Sorry, mate." "I'll buy you another one." "You've ruined my fucking suit, you fucking idiots." "I'm sorry." "I didn't mean it." "Sorry is not gonna dry me off, you cunt." "Cool down, Franco." "The man says he's sorry." "Not sorry enough for being a fat cunt." "Fuck you." "If you can't hold a pint, you shouldn't be in the pub." "Now, fuck off." "No, Frank, don't do it, man." "Oh, fuck's sake." "Fucking nice one, Franco!" "Shut it." "You cut me, man." "You were in my fucking way." "Help!" "Anybody else want to get in my fucking way?" "You?" "Hey, Rent-boy." "You bring me down a fucking smoke." "I think we'd better go." "I've got to go to the hospital, man." "You're not going to any fucking hospital." "You're staying there." "You bring me down a fucking cigarette." "And the bag." "Now I've justified this to myself in all sorts of ways." "It wasn't a big deal, just a minor betrayal." "Or we'd outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing." "But let's face it, I ripped them off, my so-called mates." "But, Begbie, I couldn't give a shit about him." "Sick Boy would have done the same to me if he'd only thought of it first." "And Spud, well okay, I felt sorry for Spud." "He never hurt anybody." "Bastard!" "Open up now!" "Bastard!" "So, why did I do it?" "I could offer a million answers, all false." "The truth is that I'm a bad person." "But that's gonna change." "I'm going to change." "This is the last of that sort of thing." "Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life." "I'm looking forward to it already." "I'm gonna be just like you." "The job, the family, the fucking big television." "The washing machine, the car, the compact disc, an electrical tin opener good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three-piece suite DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, 9:00 to 5:00... good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters... getting by, looking ahead the day you die."