You can get sick of Glasgow and I was. They were knocking it down flat to let the motors through. Whole roads and houses were just disappearing. It was noisy. Eric suggested we try an Edinburgh club. Just turn up unannounced. He reckoned with his blues and my fingerstyle were bound to get us a gig for money. His caliper got sympathy as well. We'd share his guitar. He'd have his invalid car - the batmobile. We'd blow them away. We'd meet for a pint in Paddy's bar and head about seven.
He was late, a bottle inside his cape. He'd been gigging in Falkirk the night before and had entertained a small woman in his car thereafter. He milked it for laughs and we got oiled. She'd invited us to a student party in Leith that night. I remembered I'd one for us in Glasgow as well.
We found the batmobile and wiggled in. It was wee. 'Positively no passengers' but fuck it. One big lever seemed to work everything which was fine till a bend when I had to lean out the open door, my arm round the back of the one seat, to let him haul back on the handle. Ach, at worst he could slow down and I'd walk round the corners. He slugged his Four Crowns, driving one-handed. I rolled a few joints for my specs case.
This club wasn't ready for us. As we blagged our way down the stair a fat woman was up, her hand round her ear, howling. I found the bog for a toke while Eric looked for someone in charge. I rolled back to the bar and a guy wheeshed not to talk while there was singing. I mimed for two Guinness, getting annoyed and ready.
The singer puttered and forgot the words. Eric dived for the guitar but she dirged off into another one about the ancient unjust English then lost her words again. A bald man stood up clapping to the rescue and introduced us off a bit of paper, eager to get us over with.
Eric went first. Scurrilous and loud. Untuned. The punters had been ugly all along but now they got expressive. I dug out my emergency whistle, played my three polkas and traditionalised them again. Eric drawled into his country song and they resigned themselves. It was me was getting fed up with it.
We came off, to mutual relief, and resumed at the bar. Come ten o'clock closing we couldn't wait what with the party so I snuck an inhalation while Eric went back upstairs to nose out the bald guy. But no. No chance of a gig, this was a civilised club, we weren't due anything and who invited us in the first place? I commandeered negotiations while Eric muttered helpless cripple fucks.
Then he fell down the stair. His bottle was ruined and there might've been blood but it was the way his good leg bent that worried me. Baldy ran to the phone and Eric got louder with the fucks. I knelt down and saw he was looking worried as well. I shouted up to get a move on with the ambulance when Baldy came back down with a fiver and lots of apologising.
Once we'd unhooked his foot from his cape pocket and left Baldy uncalling the ambulance and calling the police, Eric was well perked up. We three-wheeled down Leith Walk singing.
The well-fed girls giggled at the pattering boys but nobody was pleased to see us at their party. The Falkirk woman took one look and erased herself. Then a couple caught me going through the coats and took the huff. Eric found a piano and got tore in but too late and too easy to fling us out now, that-pished we were, so they did. We cuddled each other, slowly turning round on the street looking for the batmobile. He'd knocked booze. I got an alarm clock.
We found the car and wove down the road to Glasgow. We'd been arguing, him convinced we were headed to Musselburgh and me sure no way, when a squad car picked us up. Somehow he talked us out of trouble, shut up and drove as straight as Scalextric while they tailed us. Then they turned off.
I hung out the door as he pulled hard across the central grass into the oncoming headlights. They hit us square and over we rolled, too quick to care about. None of the bottles smashed, the alarm clock didn't go off. Just a moments freefall to settle upside down, rocking.
After a minute I said, How you doing? Not bad, he said, How's yourself? We were giggling when the Cortina guys found us. You two been drinking? said Eric when they bent down to drag us out. It didn't go down that well. They righted the car and went. Our heads bled.
What with holding the bent door shut, forcing my head down under the caved-in roof and freezing in the wind whipping in through the smashed windows, I didn't have much to add the rest of the way. The petrol cap had gone and I wasn't sure we'd enough left to reach Glasgow but we did.
The demolitions were disorienting. He decided we were Musselburgh bound again. I grabbed the alarm clock and dived out. He heaved on the big handle, heading solo through the air where once was a ground floor, and bounced north, a red and white pole balancing briefly on the bonnet.
I made it to my party, sliding smiles through what-happened-to-yous, greedy for soapy hot water. The bruises I hadn't seen in the sodium street light weren't too bad in the bathroom mirror. Tea and buffet scraps helped.
I set the alarm and fell sleep under somebody's bed, wondering where I'd left my whistle and who was that having sex above me.
A recent email from Eric: "A few years ago I was playing the Bungalow Bar in Paisley when a guy came up to me and said 'Is your name Eric?'. 'Aye'. Turns out this guy is Canadian. 'Are you the same Eric that drove from Edinburgh to Glasgow pished, smashed your car up on the freeway, then drove into the side of a police car?'. 'Aye, how did you know that?'
'I was at a Billy Connolly concert in Vancouver and he told that story on stage.' "
