Glass Cow Town
There was a knocking at the front door and my heart about jumped into my mouth. Water sloshed, leaping in a soapy tsunami over the sides of the tub. I’ve always been nervy about doors knocking and telephones ringing. If a cupboard door bangs three streets away, I’m straight under the table. The hangovers don’t help. I’ve been like that since I was a kid- every day my terrified feet hammering the stairs of the dark close, convinced something was following. I’ve never been able to relax. I can only sleep when I pass out.
I contemplated calling to enquire who was there, but then remembered the landlord and decided not to. I heard the mail-flap creak then a voice, harsh like the squawk of a rusted gate.
“Dan, it’s me. Let us in. I’m on my own.”
Andy. Andy was a dealer once but had given up a few years earlier. He had never been much of a dealer anyway, being more interested in opening minds than making cash.
There was a sharp snap as the spring-loaded flap slammed.
“Jesus Christ my lip!”
I climbed out of the bath and pulled a rough, bebobbled towel round my waist.
“I’m coming. I’m in the bath.”
I tried to wrap the towel securely and left the bathroom. My hands were too wet to open the latch.
“You better not be empty-handed,” I said fumbling before wiping my fingers on the towel, and opening the door.
Andy was sharply dressed as ever but the big cow face was ruddy and unshaven and his eyes bloodshot and yellow around the blue. A dot of fresh blood on his lip gave his legendary grin a vampire-like quality which, along with his slim-cut vintage suit suggested that he might crumble into bones any second in the dusty sunlight of the landing,. His expression was gleeful.
“Nice and clean are we, Daniel?” he asked.
I pulled the towel up and opened the door wider, gesturing at the carrier-bag resting at his sharp shoes.
“Comparatively, Andrew. Collecting ginger bottles are we?”
Those uneven, snaggled teeth cracked out from his face and he laughed like a mechanical digger tearing down a school. Full of phlegm and character, the laugh turned to a coughing fit then gasps for air and curses. He bent double, shovel hands slapping his knees and when he talked it was a croak.
“Am I getting in then?”
“Enter.” I swung open the door.
“Good to see you big chap,” he said as he bustled into the hall, bags rustling and clinking as he changed them from hand to hand to give me a handshake. His face now had the usual earnest handshake expression. Andy’s face is hard to describe but, when you see that big bovine head balanced on his gaunt frame for the first time, it’s startling. You could be forgiven the notion that the rock carvers of Easter Island had used Andy as a life model. His body was incongruently whippet-thin, maintained through yoga, speed, and a diet of brown rice, raisins and booze. His hand wavered in front of me.
“Andy, I’m not being rude but if I shake your hand, this curtain will fall and you’ll spend the rest of your days feeling inadequate.”
He grinned like Stonehenge and moved, chiming into the lounge. I went into the bedroom and pulled my trousers from over the sideboard and grabbed a shirt, shaking it vigorously. I dressed and clove the dusty comb through my hair, pulling another few loose and went through. A bottle of cider and two smeared, glasses waited. I went to the window. I had never cleaned them and birdshit smears cut the grimy glass like comets. Below was the dirty road lined at the far side with decrepit shops in an uneven row, like rotting teeth in a bovine jawbone.
“So what’s for breakfast, Andy?”
Even from here, the folk walking below looked poor.
“Full Scottish breakfast, Danny my man. Full Glesga breakfast,” he said.
Glesga. I looked down on Glasgow like a jaded god. Glass Cow Town we had called it for a while, inspired by an American’s mispronunciation. Glass Cow Town; it felt like the whole world. I’d lived other places but was always pulled back, and in twenty years we’d still be here, milking the drink from the glass udder. No peace in Glass Cow Town- just perpetual nervous energy and thirst.
“Although if you’re hungry I’ve got raisins; helluva good for you.”
“Nah,” I said- far below a skinny mother with thin-looking clothes slapped her little boy’s hand twice, sending out echoing cracks as he twisted, feet stamping-“I cannae eat on an empty stomach.”
I turned away from the window. Andy poured drinks and threw the bottle cap over his shoulder.
“I met wee Anne round the corner. She’s got a dug now,” he said
“What type?”
“Golden Labrador. A beautiful big black one. I brought a tape.”
I sat and Andy put on his music. We supped the tepid cider and talked.
Some hours had passed. I had dozed off, finally relaxing, during a moment of reverie when something prompted me to open my eyes.
The photograph, blurred and smeared with fingerprints landed among the debris on the table. It was a photograph of a dead woman; of Myra.
I looked from the photograph of Myra to John. Andy must have let him in. My gaze took John in; the torn trousers, the stained shirt, the damp stubble, and those eyes. If a thousand lovers died, it wouldn’t match the grief in those bloodshot windows. A sob bubbled from his pursing lips; drool, tears and snot spilling as his face crumpled into a pattern of random wrinkles. His hands clutched his balding head as he slowly fell to his knees, folding and shrinking until his forehead touched the carpet.
I remembered Myra last time I had seen her over at John’s house. She was wasted and Andy had been frantically arguing with John about communism. Myra had been shaking her bloated face from side to side, her eyes rolled back. All she could say was ‘Gie me peace, Andy. Gie me peace-’ over and over.
Myra’s liver had eventually given up. I thought about the hospital when she finally slipped away, that night, John clutching her cold hand, alone there, alone everywhere. I should have visited but it was her liver so she was done for. I couldn’t handle it.
I bowed my head, looking at the debris on the table while I thought of something to say. Andy decided to speak first.
“Look John, Myra’s gone,” he paused, searching for something. “Have a drink.”
John rose to his knees, pulling a quarter-bottle of whiskey from his inside pocket and, without taking his eyes from Andy, he unscrewed the lid and gulped the contents down, pausing only to half-retch. He rose, staggered slightly and collapsed heavily on the couch, a red-faced painted puppet, his strings severed by God.
It was too much. I got to my feet and after a search, found my scuffed shoes. As I left, John attempted something like a smile through the contortions of grief, which I tried to return but faltered. I felt haunted as I made my way down the close.
The unease lingered as I crossed the road outside and I looked back across at the tenement. I saw Andy’s face peering through the top window, brow wrinkled as he searched the street below through the dirty glass. I waved and his eyes found me. Those epic teeth burst from his face and he gave me a thumbs-up. He looked nothing like God from down here but then again, this wasn’t Easter Island; it was Glass Cow Town where there was no peace- just nervous energy and thirst.
I joined the poor folk walking below.
James McIntyre is a writer based in Glasgow.
