I'm excited to share with you the opening of The Lost Boys of Ladywell by Aidan Martin, plus the artwork for Chapter 1 by the wonderful Scottish artist Mark Deans. There are 11 more equally fabulous illustrations that go along with each chapter.
xx Julianne
Chapter 1: The Sesh
Fuck knows what happened that night. Phil has been missing ever since. Lucas was off his tits and Mikey was gouching hard. I still don’t know how it got to this. All I know is my big cuz is gone. Not gone like he sometimes chooses to be. The way Phil loves to fall off the grid during a heavy drug binge. A self-sabotaging pity-party where he starts thinking about how shit the world has been to him. Not that type of gone where he disappears into a void of purple haze and vallies. This time he is GONE.
Before that moment, we were fuckin flying. I had the cash on me. Lucas had the coke. I think Mikey was still poppin his bird’s opiates. She’d done her back in falling off a horse. Stupid lassie still doesn’t know why her pills kept disappearing. And Phil. Phil was unusually quiet. Maybe because he was nervous about seeing Scott. Scott was his former partner. They weren’t into each other. They were DJs. A duo. Well they used to be.
Lucas: "Fuckin cheer up Phil ya miserable cunt!"
We flew down Carnegie Road with Tiësto blaring and Lucas at the wheel. We were on our way to Room At The Top, or what we always called RATT.
The car journey to the raves was part two of the buzz. There were four sections in total.
Part one: pre-rave sesh at the gaff.
Part two: taxi, or drink and drug-drive to the rave.
Part three: the rave.
Part four: the after party.
Part five was the unofficial and unspoken universally accepted section in the drug world. The comedown. But at part two, the drive, no cunt was anywhere near thinking about that. You dealt with the comedown when, and only when, it was strangling you into submission.
Anyway, Phil was in denial.
Phil: "I’m fine ya dick. You just drive cuz and geez a few lines back here so I can liven this prick up."
He nudged Mikey, cloudy-headed and chewing his gums already. He thought the rest of us were oblivious to it, as if we were a bunch of dafties. At certain points, we’d catch him staring into space, forgetting where he was, his mind wandering off into a plan to find more opiates. Sometimes his poor auld dear of a granny would be the first port of call for him to pilfer. She was a heavily medicated widow.
Mikey: “Am awrite Phil, fuck sake man, just lookin forward to the night. It’s you that’s needin livened up. Pure shitting it to see Scott again. And I cannae believe Snez is missing this tonight.”
Me: "I tried calling him all week, but he didnae answer."
Snez was our other mate. Our funny, ginger pal. He dipped in n out a lot. At the moment he had dipped out.
I was snorting lines in the passenger side next to Lucas, my big brother, who was flying, both literally and figuratively. My buzz was taking flight with missile-like-precision, but my thoughts were veering into less comfortable territory. Meeting Rab and Sunny in the middle of a trance night seemed both genius and ridiculous. Less chance of getting jumped there, I thought. Maybe I could sort things out with them. Maybe I could stop Lucas from pouncing on them. The fact Scott was playing this gig was just the way shit had landed. He was hoping to make things right with Phil. I worried Lucas might have other ideas though.
Lucas: "Nathan, dinnae be greedy, pass some lines to the schmucks in the back."
The music shook the doors of his blue Ford Fiesta. In fact the entire interior of the car vibrated so hard it felt like it was as buzzing as us. I took a fat line for myself, right up the tunnel of my twenty-pound note. Zooooop! Aaaaah. That fucking hit the spot man.
Me: "Here we go boys!"
The elation in my voice matched my eyes, like a children’s space hopper bouncing up and down.
Mikey: "So what’s the plan then lads?"
He was finally coming alive. Quality gear like that could bring even the likes of Frankenstein out of himself.
Mikey: "Like how we goin about all this?"
My brother Lucas always had simple answers:
"Deal wae they two cunts, then the DJ cunt, charlie, birds, party!"
Laughter erupted, like giggling clowns on speed.
Mikey: "Naw seriously man, I don’t trust that Sunny prick one bit like. I dinnae understand what his problem is."
Mikey gulped his MD 20/20. Truth was no one trusted them. Rab or Sunny that is. But we either sorted it out with them or things were going to kick off big time. My brawny coke buzz swung me in and out of reality. I had my window down and was sipping on the cold air rushing into the car as we sped down the motorway. The Mad Dog going around provided an extra edge.
When the next track came on, 'Ayla,' the DJ Taucher mix, the mood in the car changed instantly, like we all plugged in to one big electric socket. I bit my bottom lip, closed my eyes, and cut shapes with my hands. Tracks like this were travel guides for your dunt. Showing your dunt the fastest way to climax. No need for any luggage or baggage. Four dunts on a one-way excursion. Phil started cheering the way only a former DJ could.
Phil: "Yaaassss. Aww this fuckin tune lads. This fuckin tune."
Suddenly Phil was back. The worry gone from his face. The four of us were high as fuck, all suited n booted as if we’d just done a smash n grab at River Island. We lived for this shit man. It’s all we had.
Mikey was fully functional now, his need for an opiate top-up delayed for a few more hours. That charlie was proper strong gear like. He was kissing Phil’s head in the back of the motor, both of them laughing. I looked over at Lucas with a crazy unpredictable look on his face. His green rebel eyes and that cheeky smirk crept up his face. Just as the tune hit its peak Lucas screamed: "Yeeehaaaa fucksticks" and slammed his foot to the floor in that battered old Fiesta. With my stomach spinning and tossing with excitement, this was my favourite place to be. Right on the fucking edge alongside my boys.
It was November and that murky, Scottish darkness added to the ‘fuck it’ mood. We pulled up outside the club, seeing all the other revellers parked up in their ecstasy. It was like everyone was in love. The buzz from inside was drifting out. People were screaming with excitement. Lads piggybacking on top of their mates, acting like dafties, pure buzzing. Lassies screaming "wooooooo" bobbing their heads from side to side, holding tins of beer, high as fuck. Some were still in their cars drinking with their tunes blaring, smoking joints and popping eccies. Some were already on their bottles of water, streaming with sweat. We could feel the beat from the gig rumbling in the ground.
As we approached a rampant queue to enter, we polished off our Mad Dog and Stellas and Phil finished a joint. Lucas slapped his hands together with just the right amount of rage.
"Let’s fuckin do this!"
* * *
The release date for this book is 1 October. If you pre-order from Guts, we'll send your copy in early-mid September. You can also pre-order from Amazon (worldwide).
Please note, this is an excerpt (about 25%) not the full chapter, and you're in for a real treat when you find out what happens after the boys arrive at the rave!
Also, if you haven't yet read Aidan Martin's memoir, Euphoric Recall, with similar 'lost boy' themes, here's a link to get a copy from Guts: www.gutspublishing.com/euphoric-recall
If you'd like to subscribe to our blog, click on the Log in/Sign up button.
Comments