I know damn well where the bastard’s been, but I ask him anyway, just for shits and giggles. He tells me to take a short walk off a long pier—idiot, stinking of another man’s piss and strawberry nudy-bar incense. He’d sat in his car getting blotto before going inside. I know because this particular club only serves soda. What a ridiculous image: a carpark full of man-children rubbing premature hard-ons while sucking down whiskey or beer, and snorting snow off of steering wheels. I wonder how many make eye contact with their fellows as they walk across the pavement, and enter Titty McGee’s.

Hate is a strong word, and only suitable for a wretched fool.  Earlier that evening, whilst going through a drawer, I blew the dust and little balls of melted cotton from my thigh-highs and looked at them through the diseased light of a yellow lamp.  They hung…