1
I wore a Two Cowboys T-shirt, ripped pale blue Wrangler jeans, and oxblood Dr. Martens boots. I had shaved my head before the performance. Thin lines of blood ran down my head, face and neck.
I shuffled, staring at the ground. Between songs I coughed into the microphone. I stared down at the crowd as we played Bite It You Scum, by GG Allin.
I had wanted everyone to hate us, but everyone loved us so much they asked us to play our set again, and we obliged. Afterwards, I could barely speak and could only offer croaks of thanks.
2
We travelled to London to record a two-song demo. We recorded in layers: drums, bass, guitars, then my vocals.
As each member took their turn recording, the rest of us played Grand Theft Auto III on the PlayStation 2 in the control room.
The sensation inside the vocal booth was almost total silence, as though you were floating in a vacuum.
I screamed, sang, and spoke the words of the songs. In between takes, the producer spoke calmly in my ear, asking me to repeat parts.
When I recorded the end of the second song, there was the same silence.
3
Our demo CD was played on BBC Radio One which had eight million listeners. They emailed to tell us when it would air, and John made us stay up and listen. If he hadn’t, I’d have slept straight through it.
We listened on my mattress on the floor, together. It was strange to hear my voice coming out of the radio. The DJ, Mary Anne Hobbes, talked about how much she loved our song.
John said it was brilliant and kissed me to congratulate me; but I was moody and pushed him away so I could finally go to sleep.
4
At the biggest show we had ever played, young kids were everywhere, drinking and smoking like a music video. Most of the crowd was outside, and I worried they were there for the other opening bands.
When it came time to play, the promoter screamed across the crowd and banged his fist against the venue wall. Everyone surged eagerly into the venue.
On stage, hundreds of punk kids were pressed inches from my face, smiling, sticking out their tongues and screeching with laughter.
As we burst into our first song, the crowd went wild, screaming and singing every word back.
5
One man abducted me during one of our tours, driving miles to his house in the next city over and promising my bandmates that he would return me in time for the next date.
His room was filthy, I didn’t like that there was no way to escape.
He had cut-outs of our band from magazines on the wall next to his bed. He was a ‘superfan.’
Whilst we were together in bed, I glanced to my right and saw a photograph of myself on stage: sleeveless T-shirt, black dyed hair hanging over my face, saliva dripping onto the microphone.
6
We had an important once-in-a-lifetime London show.
I got incredibly drunk at a gay bar before we played. I called London a grotesque, polluted hell-hole and the major record label scouts leeches. I asked if they saw reflections when they looked in mirrors.
I performed shirtless, rolled on the floor, and kissed the feet of people in the front row. I squinted against the lights. I couldn’t make out any one person, only a mass of faceless humans.
I looked at the microphone in my hand and at the mass of people watching me and wondered how I’d gotten there.
7
A band meeting was called in our local bar. I grabbed a beer on my way to the table where they all sat, looking serious.
They asked whether I wanted to reduce my drinking and continue singing in the band or if I wanted to quit. It was an ultimatum: binge drink without limits or stay in the band. They didn’t ask for total sobriety, as they knew that was impossible.
I let them quietly talk and then told them I chose alcohol.
As I left the bar, the guitarist shouted “Fuck” loudly, and I heard him smash a glass.
8
Clyde invited me to his dorm room. There was a party, but he didn’t want to go.
I watched him flit around, making everything perfect. He had bleached his hair and wore a white T-shirt and linen trousers. I pushed him into the shower.
The water cascaded down his back as he whimpered my name.
John noticed our absence at the party, and was banging on the door.
“He’s here!” exclaimed Clyde. I laughed and said be quiet, and that there was no way he could get in.
I kissed Clyde’s neck as John continued banging on the door angrily.
9
The summer after I left the band, I worked as a tree surgeon and became tanned and muscular.
A guy from school saw me and squeezed my arms and made a fuss.
I spent my free time reading in bed whilst listening to instrumental post-rock and electronic music, as well as birdsong from my open windows. The air would begin to smell and feel different as the sky gradually shifted into dusk and then night.
I had as little to do with people as I possibly could, and I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquillity as a result.
10
I met Kyle on New Year’s Eve.
I was interested in his friend, but at the stroke of midnight, Kyle flung himself onto me and kissed me.
He was blonde and slim. I only saw him on Saturdays; he’d arrive with his olive skin freshly shaven.
I’d tell him not to wear any underwear, and he’d travel to my apartment without any. The second he got in the door, I’d immediately push him onto the bed while he giggled and I remained silent.
I’d mount and finish inside him, his arms bent behind his back, just enough to hurt him.
11
I decided to become a barman.
It was easy. All you had to do to be a good barman was not be overweight, be well groomed, and listen to people while remaining polite.
I helped myself to drinks and was also bought shots by customers.
Once, a girl beckoned me to whisper in her ear. As I leaned down towards her, she grabbed my necklace and yanked it, snapping it and sending the St Christopher pendant to the floor. She wasn’t trying to steal it, she just wanted to see it break.
Afterwards, she stared vacantly at me while smiling.
12
I met René at the new bar job.
All my co-workers thought we were a good match.
One evening, when I was the manager, I sent everyone home, didn’t let René leave, and locked the door. I dragged him up to the top floor and placed him in the window so he could look down at all the drunken customers, now spilled out onto the street below.
I pushed all of his long hair over one of his shoulders so I could bite his neck, while he made clammy hand marks all over the windowpanes, and then he was mine.
13
I’d lie in the garden, drinking neat spirits until I fell asleep in the sun and woke a deeper shade of olive; I never burnt.
I started hurting René more during sex out of nothing but boredom.
Then, René decided we should move to Liverpool to be closer to his mother.
He asked me how much money I thought I’d be able to save for us, and I told him lots. He smiled and said, “Yay,” then nuzzled me.
Sometimes I’d catch him crying in bed, and he’d ask me if I’d always love him. I would tell him yes.
14
We went on a last holiday to Greece before the move to Liverpool.
I became obsessed with snorkelling and woke up early so I could go down to the beach and snorkel while René slept. I watched the tiny colourful fish dart in and out of the reeds.
During a religious festival the locals threw flowers into the sea as a boat with a giant painting of a saint slowly drifted to a church island. There were church candles lit along the ancient stone walls of the promenade.
I was overwhelmed by it all, and felt jealous of their faith.
15
In Liverpool, I worked as a barman and René worked in a care home.
I bought a punk and black metal record label that gained a cult following. I started dressing entirely in black and wearing a balaclava with a Norse death rune to shows.
I spent time in squats and dive bars with crust punks, heroin addicts, and vegans.
René never came with me to the city centre and preferred getting straight into his pyjamas after work and watching DVD box sets. The black metal scene scared him, and he sometimes asked me why I dressed so evil now.
16
René’s attempt to fix the relationship was to buy a baby chameleon.
It required a great deal of care: one light to simulate sunlight and another to provide warmth.
It only ate live insects and had to be sprayed with water periodically. Sometimes I had to rush home on my break to spray it.
After we broke up and I moved out it grew enormous and hissed loudly whenever René tried to handle it.
He became afraid to be in the same room and had to find someone online willing to adopt the over two-foot-long, screaming leviathan it had become.
S E V E N T E E N
I sat on a bench in the park. The thousands of shades of green rustled in the gentle breeze. I smelt the damp bark and wet soil. I felt like I was inside of a Monet painting. The colour of the sky was a vivid blue. The slightest sound beyond the ambience of the trees felt deafeningly loud.
I sat there for a long time. I snapped out of my daze and looked at my phone. I had multiple missed calls and texts from a new guy I had met. I assured him I was okay and left the park.
E I G H T E E N
During my café shifts, I’d often drink a can of soda, which I had secretly half-filled with rum.
A girl saw me concocting this secret half-rum, half-soda cocktail in the middle of the day once, and burst into tears. Her father was an alcoholic. I didn’t know what to say to her.
A thin, bald man brought me a book on alcoholism and handed it to me discreetly while I was working. I threw it in the bin, tied off the garbage bag and took the whole thing out to the back before anyone had any idea what had happened.
N I N E T E E N
I took on a second job in a cocktail bar and sold the record label to a friend.
The owner of the cocktail bar had a black van with blacked-out windows. He let me use the van to deliver the entire contents of the record label to the store I had run it out of.
A few of my friends were there, and they said it was surreal to have a black van, driven by a stranger, pull up and drop off the stock of the label. As they picked through it they said it felt like I had died.
T W E N T Y
One guy I slept with lived in a gigantic mansion.
I’d wake up to a huge vanity mirror ringed with lightbulbs, like something from a fifties movie set. On the bedside table lay a wedge of notes, thousands of pounds, crudely bound with a rubber band.
His house was so big that I would struggle to find my way out, and when I finally did, the walk to the closed community’s front gate was daunting. I think the gate only opened for cars, but I was on foot, so I just hurled myself over it, like a robber in reverse.
T W E N T Y O N E
Someone went missing overnight.
At first no one knew what had happened to them.
Then there were rumours about someone in the area called ‘the Disappearer’. If you went for a drive with him, you didn’t come back. He frequented both the café and the bar and hardly spoke a word to anyone. Whenever he was in a room, the tone immediately shifted. People stared at their phones and avoided eye contact with him.
On one of my night walks, a man attempted to rob me by asking to use my phone. I just said no and crossed the street.
T W E N T Y T W O
In the middle of the night I convinced myself I was going to be disappeared, violently. I played out scenarios in my head: abducted after passing out from drinking, then taken to an abandoned factory where I’d be tied to a chair and tortured. I would be beaten to death and dumped in the river by the Disappearer.
I’d never be found; forgotten by all but my close friends and family. My name becoming just a footnote in a soon-forgotten family history. I would exist only in old photos, hidden by their owners.
Of all of this I was sure.
T W E N T Y T H R E E
I dressed all in black, packed as much as I could carry, and left to catch the next train to London. I darted through the streets, hiding in the shadows. I avoided any security cameras I saw, convinced they were feeding images directly back to the Disappearer himself.
I saw black helicopters and bright lights in the sky. I ducked into alleyways, my heart was beating out of my chest, my hands shaking.
I made my way to the train station, bought a one-way ticket to London, and boarded the train planning to start over far away from the Disappearer.
T W E N T Y F O U R
Grey tower blocks fell away, replaced by endless green fields. A changeover at a small station felt like something from an Andrew Wyeth painting: no houses, no shops, nothing. Just a single platform, with a bench and a white picket fence.
I slept on the bench and dreamt that I was standing dressed in a three-piece suit at the platform. When the sun shone, I took off my hat, and when it rained, I raised my umbrella. Then I realised I was made entirely of tin, like an antique children’s toy.
I awoke to the train I needed to catch.
T W E N T Y F I V E
The following summer, back in my hometown, I met an older guy named Nate. We liked the same things. He was the first partner I let be in control.
One day I made cocktails. We drank them in his garden before stumbling through overgrown fields of wildflowers, jumping into people’s gardens to stroke their cats and kissing against ancient stone walls. He took photos.
When the photos were developed, they looked like they came from another universe. The sun painted everything gold. And there we were, smiling in vintage sunglasses, hiding in the tumbling greenery and peeking at each other.
T W E N T Y S I X
I’d sit and stare at the fireplace, just a whiskey in my hand, staring into the flames, the dry logs popping and hissing. Nate would joke that I was obsessed with the fire.
One night I cheated on him with some guy who had latched onto me at a house party, who had been crying about Alan Turing. The second I took his hand he stopped crying and was immediately happy.
When I broke it off with Nate, he took it poorly. He screamed and threw a glass water bottle at my head, which smashed against the wall behind me.
T W E N T Y S E V E N
A rich guy took me to Amsterdam to watch Nine Inch Nails. He paid for everything. I was drunk on Heineken the entire trip.
There were lots of men with long hair, trench coats and military boots, many of them with tattoos and self-harm scars. I wore a Fred Perry shirt and had a fresh skinhead.
On stage, magnetic tape was draped all over the amplifiers, which reflected the explosive strobe lights. The last song they played was Hurt. As soon as it started, grown men around us burst into tears. Everyone in the stadium screamed along with every lyric.
T W E N T Y E I G H T
I was homeless and couch surfing between the bar I worked at and the flat of a guy I was sleeping with. I wore combat trousers, army boots, and a hooded sweatshirt that had once belonged to a local heroin addict. It was black once, but had turned a pallid grey, riddled with large holes.
I stood on the kitchen counter after drinking a bottle of whiskey, playing Saint Pablo by Ye on repeat, screaming along to every lyric. When the guy I was sleeping with tried to turn it off, I batted his hand away and screamed at him.
T W E N T Y N I N E
My friend arrived in the car park of the bar where I was having my last drink and messaged me. She was there to take me to her flat in Bath to dry out. I didn’t see the message, as I had dragged a young blonde barman into a cubicle.
Then I was alone, walking towards my friend’s car, the only one with its lights on in the car park.
I sang and screamed along to Speedway and Life is a Pigsty by Morrissey at the top of my voice whilst sobbing and hanging out of the passenger side window.
T H I R T Y
My friend filmed me limping down the road due to spasms from alcohol withdrawal, crying and swearing I was going to get better. I was eating an ice lolly, as my body craved sugar without constant alcohol. In the footage I looked like a maniac.
I shared it on social media, where it went semi-viral. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Random people started commenting, wishing me well, and recounting their own sobriety stories.
I hadn’t been sober for a week. I deleted the video and I told my friend to stop filming and taking photos of me.
T H I R T Y O N E
Quitting cold turkey, as I did, was considered dangerous. Initially, I walked around with a four-pack of strong beer, a bottle of whiskey, and some diazepam in my black Eastpak backpack. The diazepam had been prescribed by a doctor in case I started having seizures.
The alcohol was partly for necessity, partly as a personal test. I didn’t touch either the alcohol or the diazepam, and eventually stopped carrying them with me.
Moving through the streets of Bath without the cans and bottle on my back felt liberating, as if a weight had been lifted. The clouds were baby pink.
T H I R T Y T W O
I visited a church. I knew it was time.
I entered a prayer room. I knelt, clasped my hands together, and spoke to God, the same way I had as a child, every night in bed, inside my head.
I apologised for leaving it so long since I last spoke to him. I admitted that I was embarrassed to return, especially as I was about to ask him for something.
I asked him for the strength to stop drinking. I admitted my sinful nature, my desire for chaos and violence, my spiteful behaviour, my heathen practices.
And then I wept.
T H I R T Y T H R E E
Back in my hometown, I briefly attended Alcoholics Anonymous.
An older woman there was overly fond of me, more fond than she should have been, as per the meetings’ unofficial rules. The unofficial rule was that you should stay single and celibate for the first year of your sobriety.
You were apparently vulnerable when you first arrived. It was considered unethical for someone with twenty years of sobriety to prey on someone with twenty days.
This woman, who stared at me intensely and suggested evening beach barbecues, just me and her, obviously had other intentions.
I stopped attending shortly after.
T H I R T Y F O U R
I quit being a barman and got a job as a chef.
I met a guy called Gabriel at the new job. He was ten years younger than me and did yoga.
I knew I was in trouble when co-workers started commenting on what a cute couple we’d make. I caught him staring at me like a puppy.
He was living with an ex-boyfriend, but made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that the relationship was over and that it was only a convenient living arrangement.
I relented and let him into my new quiet and sober life.
T H I R T Y F I V E
Gabriel had self-diagnosed with autism and ADHD, which he used as a licence to act as he pleased. He was impossibly self-involved, redirecting every subject back onto himself.
One time, we spoke on the phone for two hours, during which he ranted about himself, his problems, his everything, and I just listened. I interrupted him, after checking the call length, to tell him he had spoken about himself for two hours non-stop.
He fell silent and apologised, and we ended the call. I didn’t hear from him afterwards, and I’m certain he would have phoned someone else to continue ranting.
36
Gabriel was vocal about an alleged sexual assault claim involving a much older local celebrity weatherman. Gabriel had, however, previously been openly seeing him while working for him.
People had seen them dining at restaurants, walking hand in hand, and flirting playfully.
He remained adamant, however, that something terrible had happened, and brought it up whenever it suited him. It was used as an excuse for not wanting sex, for winning arguments, for avoiding the same bed as a man who snores, for fear of triggering PTSD from the older weatherman’s snoring.
It apparently justified everything. The list was endless.
T H I R T Y S E V E N
A new, handsome younger guy started at the place we worked. Gabriel hit it off with him straight away, and tales of their flirting soon reached me.
When I was there, they wouldn’t even make eye contact.
At a work party, I was extremely curt with Gabriel as he awkwardly interrupted a conversation I was having. I pointed out that he wasn’t the subject of the discussion, however hard he tried to make himself so. He walked away silently.
I left the party when everyone got too drunk. Gabriel messaged me, appalled that I’d dared to leave without saying goodbye.
T H I R T Y E I G H T
A few days later, the supposed abusive older celebrity weatherman dined at our workplace. Gabriel had a meltdown and ran out the back, crying.
I went out the back to the storeroom and found him huddled in a ball. I rubbed his back through his dungarees, which made him seem like a toddler. He rocked back and forth, crying and saying nothing.
Then he stopped, and we sat together in silence. He lifted his head from its downward position and looked at me, pathetically. For just a brief second I knew that he knew that he had made everything up.
T H I R T Y N I N E
I messaged Gabriel to ask whether the older celebrity weatherman was the true monster in his story, or if, in reality, Gabriel himself was.
One day, I arrived at work and found him proudly wearing the new guy’s hooded sweatshirt. He bounded up to me and cheerfully asked if I wanted a coffee in it.
I worked my shift in silence. I messaged my boss at the end of the shift, telling him I could no longer work in the business alongside Gabriel.
I freed myself from what might have turned into a long, drawn-out campaign of revenge from Gabriel.
F O R T Y
I told my therapist that I hated Gabriel and no longer viewed him as a human being. I told her I would lie awake at night, fantasising about torturing him.
She asked me to tell her one of them, and I told her I thought about grabbing Gabriel by the scruff of his hair and repeatedly slamming his head into a wall, breaking his nose and blackening his eyes. Then I’d lick the blood that dribbled from his nose through his moans of pain.
She asked how I eventually managed to get to sleep, and I told her I masturbated.
F O R T Y O N E
I walked in the countryside with a weighted backpack. As the sun shone through the tall grass, light flickered across the path. The only sounds were birds chirping and the crunch of ancient stone beneath my military boots. Flies buzzed lazily among the wildflowers.
Suddenly, a giant white stag leapt out of the hedgerow, startling me. It sauntered to the middle of the path. I stared at the beast in silence. It stood, breathing softly.
The beast bowed its head to me and then bounded into the growth, where it vanished as though it had never been there at all.
Oliver Land’s work has appeared in Hobart Pulp, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Expat Press, Apocalypse Confidential, Spectra Poets, and Burial Magazine. He is the author of the novella-in-flash Dissolve and the poetry collection White Light Fades. He serves as the editor of Plague Circus Press.