The Burn by James Kelman Page A

was it was it a fucking footfall he felt like
bellowing, bellowing the fucking place down, it would show them it would show them it would display it, it would display how he was and how he could bellow his laughter in the face of the fucking
hidebound universe of them, fucking moribund bastirts – was it the gaffer? He pulled the brush in, held it like an upright musket of the old imperialist guard, India or Africa yr
Lordship.
    Carol thought it was all dead and buried. She did, she truly truly did. His eyes were shut and his lips now closed, the nostrils serving the air channels or pipes, listening with the utmost
concatenation of the earular orifices. Not to scream. Not to make a sound. Another minute and he would go, he would move, move off, into the greying dawn.
    He was safe now for another few minutes. It was over, a respite o lord how brief is this tiny candle flicker. Peasie Peasie Peasie. For this was his nickname, the handle awarded him by the
mates, the companeros, the compatriots, the comrades: Peasie.
    It didni even matter the profit but this was the fucking thing! Maybe he got there and the newsagent turned out to be a grocer for god sake how many cartons of biscuits can you plank out in some
backcourt! Fucking radio rental yr Lordship. Mind you the profit was of nay account, nane at all. Neither the benefits thereon. If there were benefits he didni ken what they were. He shook his
head. Aright, aright me boy, me lad. There was a poor fucker lying on the grun ahead. There was. Peter approached cautiously. It was a bad sign. It was. If the security forces martialled, and they
would, then they would be onto him in a matter of hours, a couple of hours, maybe even one; he would need a tale to tell. Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea, that saviour of the working classes. He had to go to
the loo and spend some several minutes, maybe thirty, unable to leave in case the belly ructured yet again. But the body was a bad sign. Poor bastard.
    Peter knelt by the guy. He was still alive, his forehead warm and the tick at the temple, a faint pulsing. But should he drag him into a close-mouth No, of course not, plus best to leave him or
else
    but the guy was on his back and that was not good. Peter laid down his brush and did the life-saving twist, he placed the man’s right arm over his left side, then raised and placed his
right leg also over his left side, then gently pulled the left leg out a little, again gently, shifting the guy’s head, onto the side: and now the guy would breathe properly without the risk
of choking on his tongyou. And he would have to leave it at that. It wisni cold so he wouldni die of frostbite. Leave it. You’ll be alright son, he whispered and for some reason felt like
kissing him on the forehead, a gesture of universal love for the suffering. We can endure, we can endure. Maybe it was a returning prophet to earth, and this was the way he had landed, on the crown
of his skull and done a flaky. He laid his hand on the guy’s shoulder. Ah you’ll be right as rain, he said, and he got up to go. He would be though, he would be fine, you could tell,
you could tell just by looking; and Peter was well-versed in that. Yet fuck sake if he hadni of known how to properly move the guy’s body then he might have died, he couldve choked to death.
My god but life is so fragile; truly, it is.
    And he was seen. The pair of eyes watching. The gaffer was across the street. The game’s a bogie. He looked to be smiling. He hated Peter so that would be the case quite clearly.
    Come ower here!
    Peter had walked a couple paces by then and he stopped, he looked across the road. Guiseppe Robertson was the gaffer’s name. Part of his hatred for Peter was straightforward, contained in
the relative weak notion of ‘age’; the pair of them were of similar years and months down even to weeks perforce days and hours – all of that sort of shite before you get to the
politics. Fucking bastirt. Peter stared back at