Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

park with empty swings and empty seats, scratch cards and empty beer bottles littering the ground, and we stepped up to the door of the first high-rise.

Harry rang the buzzer.

We waited.

“Hullo?”

“Hey, Gary! It’s me, Harry.”

“Harry? Harry Anderson?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, fuckin hell! Come on up mate. Know which number it is, aye?”

“Aye, be right on up.”

Chapter 32

T he door buzzed and clicked and Harry held it open. The lift was broken so we made our way up the piss-stinking stairs by all the black bin bags discarded outside the doors. An ice cream tub on one of the doorsteps contained a bunch of needles. Harry didn’t even blink, but a wave of nausea washed through me.

I followed him up two, three, four dark and dingy flights, each floor imagining another boxful of human beings piled up one on top of the other. This is what we are, I thought. Rats. The year two thousand and ten and this is how much we value ourselves. Jesus, all those politicians who come from riches and shield themselves from all this. This is where they should be. Any self-respecting, honest politician should be living in these areas, working to sort all this, stop all this miserable way of life and poverty.

We reached the tenth floor and from the hall window I could see right over all the orange lights of the dismal, apocalyptic-looking city. At that moment I would have been quite happy for a bomb to go off and kill us all, for America or China to fire a wayward nuke down upon us, because that’s the only way I could see an end to all this.

Harry stood outside the wooden door and knocked. A couple minutes later a dull, thudding noise came towards us and the door opened and a man with a tense, pock-marked face stood in the doorway. His anxious eyes studied Harry, glanced doubly nervous at me, then looked back at Harry again. All of a sudden the tension in his face disappeared and he smiled wonky teeth and in one quick movement threw out his arms.

“Mate! It’s been a long time, man!”

Harry let those arms close around him, bare in a white t-shirt and almost as skinny as his own. He returned the embrace and slapped him on the back. “It’s been too long, Gaz. How you doin?”

“Nae bad mate. Nae bad.” Gary stepped back and looked at me. “This is Aisha,” Harry introduced. Gary held out a wiry hand, the nails on the slim fingers long and uncut. I put out my hand and he shook it quickly then swooped back around in the same swift motion, “C’mon in, guys,” He said.

Harry stepped in and I followed along the flimsy, faded-green carpet past two closed doors and into the living room. It was sparsely furnished. Just a TV, a small coffee table separating a two-seater couch and a chair, and a little wooden desk in the corner that was full of little marks and indentations. The dark green walls were bare. Behind the TV, the only window looked right out over the city.

“Take a seat, guys. Yous wan a cup a tea?”

“Yeah, please.” said Harry.

“Yes, please.” I said.

Gary padded away and I sat down in the partially ripped brown couch. Harry slumped down next to me and sank his back into the leather. He draped his legs across the floor and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m fucked.” he said, as if I couldn’t already tell from his baggy eyes and knackered expression. He unwrapped the scarf from his neck and dropped it on the floor and that grizzly scar glimmered red and purple under the houselights. It was the first time he had looked older than eighteen.

“Me too.” I replied.

“Harry, you the usual mate?” Gary called from behind the wall.

“Yeah, please, man.” Harry shouted to the ceiling.

“What about your mate?”

“Two sugars and milk please.” I said.

Harry pushed his weight into his tennis shoes and sat back up, and we waited, listening to the spoon tinkling away in the kitchen. On top of the desk there was a few framed photos of Gary and three young boys that looked like him. In one of them he had his arms over their shoulders, and they were all smiling brightly in front of a green pond-filled background that looked like Kelvingrove park.

Gary came through and handed me my cup.

“There you go, mate. Whit’s your name again?”

“Aisha. Thanks.”

“No worries.” He handed Harry a cup and sat down in the other chair with his own. His thin arms were almost hairless, appearing extra-long because of the undersized white sleeves.

“Some view you’ve got here.” I regarded.

“Aye, it’s no bad mate. No much good for the kids though, especially when the lifts broke.”

I nodded absentmindedly. The city looked just like any other in the night; silhouettes amongst darkness, and little ant lights swarming along trails in the same directions.

“Gary looks after his wee brothers.” Harry clarified.

“Orite, cool.” I nodded.

“So, Harry, how you been, man?” Gary said enthusiastically, smiling those wonky teeth again. His long thin hair hung loosely over his receding brown hairline.

“Aye, not bad mate. What about yourself?”

“Same as always man. Ah’m doin fine.”

I inspected a yellow stain on the couch as the two conversed either side of me. I took another drink and focused back out the window.

“What about the kids? Howz wee Davy doin?” Harry asked; a stronger, slightly harsher accent slowly taking over his speech.

“Och, they’re all brilliant. Davy’z doin’ away fine. Paul’s really into his football the now.”

“Orite. Very good.”

“You still in the trade?” Harry inquired.

Gary grinned. “Aye, got three surround-sound tellies in the other room to get rid of.” He nodded towards the wall and Harry burst into a sudden laugh that filled the