The Diary of Manny Swindle (part One)

London, UK - a disturbed young man - Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 : goo

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My urinary tract infection has not gone unnoticed by my healthcare worker Alan. Alan hasn't said anything. He never does. I'm not sure whether it's because he's afraid to; or whether it's just that he

doesn’t give a fuck. It’s a shit job after all and he is a cunt. The birthmark just below his right ear the shape of Papua New Guinea provides momentary distraction. It's one of those ever-so-noticeable birthmarks. Crimson. He caught me staring at it although I should imagine that he is accustomed to this.

It was a mere a routine check up. They call people like me in every now and then. Next service in twelve months or 12,000 miles, whichever is sooner. Truth be told, if I were a car, Alliance and Leicester would write me off on the spot. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.

"Your cheque will be in the post first thing Monday morning Mr. Swindle"

"You are henceforth consigned to the scrap heap of life to live out your days slowly rusting until reduced to a mere ferrous oxide particulates carried on a pungent wind of misfortune, neatly inhaled and lodged gently in the nostrils of your misspent youth."

Fortunate for me it is then that our crumbling National Health Service is slightly more compassionate. I attend the clinic, because I have nothing better to do on the second Tuesday of each month. Alan is always there. He's been G.U.M. Support Worker for the last four years. Alan never looks pleased nor displeased to see me. Alan is somewhat indifferent in everything he says and does. Alan wears a lot of grey and speaks in a monotonous tone. Alan is my semi-friend. An acquaintance if you will

I have to take these pills twice daily, before meals. I don't eat twice daily. I told Alan this. Alan sneezed and scratched his nose.

She came round again last night. Nonchalantly answering the door, I was met by the buxom Carla in her famous sky-blue rollneck sweater. It fits her like a glove. It was a cold evening and it showed. Carla doesn't wear a bra. I told Carla her now perky breasts will be hanging pendulously by her waist by the time she forty. She just laughed and pushed past me.

It appears Carla knows my local healthcare professional; In the biblical sense. It's a small world. Alan is a very dull man. Carla agrees, though apparently he has other talents.

I left school without qualifications, spending my late teens and early twenties on a drug fuelled roller coaster of good times and filthy piss stained bad shit, visiting the highest of highs and the lowest depths of thorough despondency. My week long ether binges would have surely put and end to the story of Manny Swindle if it hadn't been for that kind hearted baglady, Carla McDermott.

The medication is making me feel drowsy again. I spent all day today staring blankly into the shadows of my dimly lit mock-georgian hallway from my vantage-point abreast a comfy armchair. The seams are coming asunder as the stitching begins to perish. Rotting, deteriorating, decomposing as we all do; every minute of every day. There is a patch on one of the arms, perhaps hiding a errant cigarette burn or wayward tear. The threads of my consciousness spiral backwards, un-picking themselves as we head toward an earlier, happier time. A time when I wasn't afraid. Wine, women and song were the order of the day. Fear was a concept foreign to me.

My mind jumps in fits and starts. I am experiencing what you might call flashbacks. If this were a movie the picture would be rippling fading from one scene to the next. My awkward sense of selfless pity, insurgently spinning out of control. Hurtling toward another abstract cataclysm, in which I am the only casualty. Two seconds to impact and it's my eighteenth birthday. I wake to find a large Samoan gentleman shouting at me. Agitated. Something about his daughter's honor. I feel ashamed as my dreams slowly trickle into the bed sheets. I remember the way my father used to beat me with a rusty steak hook till I was bruised and bloodied. My promiscuous mother sobbing into her morning coffee as she brushed away the dried tears and semen from the night before. It felt good killing him.

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