The Blackhill Poet
by John McGroarty
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: A writer looks back with remorse.
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The early mornings are the worst, you know, like, when you wake up really early and you have the whole day in front of you, all that time you have to fill, as if there was no human spliced change in the time continuum. Well, that’s the way it feels, that predawn, like as if there were no night, no day, no nothing, just one long existence. Ach, I don’t even know what I’m going on about. I just wish I had never upset Michael, wish I had never said anything, no, wish I had said something, something good, you know, like, something positive.
These early mornings were when I used to write, they weren’t the worst then, I don’t know how to describe, how to say what I want to say, now I always end up saying the opposite from what I mean, do you ever do that? You think it all out and you make a wee plan and then you make an arse of it, you just lose it, you know, you just lose the thread, it goes, leaves, it escapes you, so to speak. Aye, but I used to write nice things when Martha was sleeping, don’t ask me the exact time, I cannae tell you. She would be lying in the bed, I could hear her breathing, and sometimes turning over, or tossing and turning under the blankets and I would be writing down all those nice things and then later before she went to work Martha would sit down and read them. Like as if it was the morning paper or something. She would sit there at the table and read all those words. Normally she wouldn’t say anything, she would slurp her tea and crunch her toast and later I would have to wipe all the crumbs off the table, out of the words of the wee worlds that I had created in the early mornings when she was asleep under the blankets. When she wasn’t there, when she was somewhere else. Before she got up and got her clothes on and read my words and ate her toast and went off to work in that place that I know she disliked so much. No, I’m understating, that she hated so much. But she never said as much and, aye, she never said anything about the words, though sometimes she would laugh and once or twice she cried. I swear to God, she cried. No big sobs, it was more like wee gentle cries, like a wee weeping thing and I don’t know if it was my stories that made her cry or if it was something else and my words were just some sort of catalyst thing, you know, what set it off, like some sad bit in a film or a poignant line in a song.
Aye, the early mornings are the worst, all day, all of the future waiting for you. I think I’ll get ready and go for a walk and then I’ll go down to the library early and see if Michael’s there. If he’s no there maybe he’ll be down in the centre, that’s always where he goes, aye, down to Blackhill library and then to the centre. Oh aye, and some days he walks down Royston Road down under the motorway by the Royal and down to the pub for a lunchtime pint. That’s how he fills his time. And he’s right, keep yourself busy. That’s what keeps you from going loopy. A bit of discipline. I mean he’s read all those books in Blackhill library. Like a reading machine, gobbling them all up. I never read anything. I just go there to sit out the cold, to see Michael. To be near to Michael. That’s why I go. To watch him, aye, I swear I’m never going to drink again, I’ve spent so much time now on the drink, it’s all I do, I know, sit and look into space and drink and I don’t know but when I met Michael something happened, something came back, you know something inside me stirred. I think it was hope. I said that to Michael and he laughed, no maliciously like, and he said that was the worst, that that’s why it comes out of Pandora’s box last. I think it was something he read in one of those books in Blackhill library. Anyway, it wasn’t true because I was starting to feel good. Going down to the centre and doing things for people and that. I even rummaged in the cupboard and found that book, my book, aye, my book. The anthology wae one of my stories about being drunk in the city centre and trying to pick up enough wee douts to make up a fag, and aye, I suppose it was a metaphor like, though I didnae see it at the time, like when I was writing, when I had just moved in with Martha and I was getting all that shit out of my head, down onto paper, a sort of cleansing if you like. I read that story again, sat down there and then, and, Jesus, it was good. Well that’s why it was in the anthology of Scottish writers, because it was really good, it was like artistic, like the sublimation of my drunkenness into song. My vagabondage in two thousand words. A wee sad one about the impossibility of hope, about no being able to get enough fag ends to make a smoke for yourself, or something like that, Martha cried a wee bit at that one, I think it was that story that made her love me. She was a good person, Martha, she didnae deserve what happened to her but who can understand anything. Nobody can see the sense in it. Well that was pointless that. So I found another couple of books with the anthology, like in the box just sitting next to it. A couple of old chewed up ones from when I was a child, old dog-eared copies of German classics. And then I thought about my Da. When we lived in Strathaven, when we went for walks in the fields, I remember that day we found a dead cow, it was frozen to death, its legs rigid sticking out. I think my Da wanted to write a book, he never spoke about it, it was a secret project thing, well I never saw it. He gave me all those German classics to read, maybe that was his model or something, Hermann Hesse, Goethe. Ach, I don’t even know what I’m going on about again. Aye, about Michael and about hope and about Martha and about fag ends and about friendship and about how you have to keep your head together somehow if you want to write down some nice words in the early morning. Oh aye and about all the books in the Blackhill library. Have you ever been in Blackhill? Oh man, what a place. It’s like a sort of mini Australia, where Scotland sent all its convicts. Only there’s nae kangaroos or snakes or that. That’s why Michael laughed when I spoke about hope, and that was the first poem that Michael let me see. I forgot to say that, didn’t I, that Michael was a poet. The Blackhill poet. I suppose he thought I was sort of a literary star because I had had a story in an anthology. Blackhill’s leaving it was called. Blackhill’s leaving, it’s heading for the stars, crushing up pills, shooting up, curing all its troubles, all its social ills, ach, I cannae remember any more but it was an angry young man’s poem. Well, he’s only twenty-four or twenty-five, Michael, and I mean who wouldnae be angry in a place like this? I didnae say much and I should have for I could see that Michael was waiting awe anxious like for my reaction, I could see that his waiting turned to disappointment but I didnae say anything. Well, I think that my no saying anything made him bolder and he showed me another poem, sort of gie it another go, and this time I did say something when I shouldnae have, that’s the thing wae me I always speak when I shouldnae and clam up when I should. Jesus, I just want Michael to be my friend again, I just want to go back down the centre and drink tea and do the Herald crossword wae old Dennis Whyte, that old survivor from Springburn’s glory, that old engineer from Saint Rollox, sharp as a tack, his whole body nicotine brown and smelling still of grease and locomotives. I’ve never been very happy I confess, just a few times, like with Martha or wandering through the frost, but that was one of the happiest times but I cannae go back now if Michael disnae forgive. It’s always the drink. I had been drinking a lot before we even met in the pub. I was full to the gunnels, man, and then we had another three or four, I’d got my giro the day before and I was on a roll, on a bender. And then Michael pulls out his wee book of poems and starts, this winter past I’ve felt my youth slip away and the Spring sun melt the ice to reveal the clay from which I was made a million years ago … well, he rattled on, that’s what it sounded like to me, rattling on, and then he stopped and he waited, and I laughed, and Michael moved a little nervous, and then shut his book and put it away. And then I said some no very nice things, no like the nice things I used to write in the mornings that sometimes made Martha cry. And then I steamed on and said that the song on the radio that was playing in the pub was pure genius, brilliant like. Poetic. And it wisnae. I just said that because I think I was jealous of Michael’s stupid poem, for it was good, no genius, no, but good, and I suppose I didn’t appreciate Michael as my friend, I wanted his admiration, how he treated me as that great writer that I had always been in my head when I wrote in the early mornings and made Martha happy and sad. And now, Jesus, I just don’t know what to do.
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: A writer looks back with remorse.
_____________________________________________________________________
The early mornings are the worst, you know, like, when you wake up really early and you have the whole day in front of you, all that time you have to fill, as if there was no human spliced change in the time continuum. Well, that’s the way it feels, that predawn, like as if there were no night, no day, no nothing, just one long existence. Ach, I don’t even know what I’m going on about. I just wish I had never upset Michael, wish I had never said anything, no, wish I had said something, something good, you know, like, something positive.
These early mornings were when I used to write, they weren’t the worst then, I don’t know how to describe, how to say what I want to say, now I always end up saying the opposite from what I mean, do you ever do that? You think it all out and you make a wee plan and then you make an arse of it, you just lose it, you know, you just lose the thread, it goes, leaves, it escapes you, so to speak. Aye, but I used to write nice things when Martha was sleeping, don’t ask me the exact time, I cannae tell you. She would be lying in the bed, I could hear her breathing, and sometimes turning over, or tossing and turning under the blankets and I would be writing down all those nice things and then later before she went to work Martha would sit down and read them. Like as if it was the morning paper or something. She would sit there at the table and read all those words. Normally she wouldn’t say anything, she would slurp her tea and crunch her toast and later I would have to wipe all the crumbs off the table, out of the words of the wee worlds that I had created in the early mornings when she was asleep under the blankets. When she wasn’t there, when she was somewhere else. Before she got up and got her clothes on and read my words and ate her toast and went off to work in that place that I know she disliked so much. No, I’m understating, that she hated so much. But she never said as much and, aye, she never said anything about the words, though sometimes she would laugh and once or twice she cried. I swear to God, she cried. No big sobs, it was more like wee gentle cries, like a wee weeping thing and I don’t know if it was my stories that made her cry or if it was something else and my words were just some sort of catalyst thing, you know, what set it off, like some sad bit in a film or a poignant line in a song.
Aye, the early mornings are the worst, all day, all of the future waiting for you. I think I’ll get ready and go for a walk and then I’ll go down to the library early and see if Michael’s there. If he’s no there maybe he’ll be down in the centre, that’s always where he goes, aye, down to Blackhill library and then to the centre. Oh aye, and some days he walks down Royston Road down under the motorway by the Royal and down to the pub for a lunchtime pint. That’s how he fills his time. And he’s right, keep yourself busy. That’s what keeps you from going loopy. A bit of discipline. I mean he’s read all those books in Blackhill library. Like a reading machine, gobbling them all up. I never read anything. I just go there to sit out the cold, to see Michael. To be near to Michael. That’s why I go. To watch him, aye, I swear I’m never going to drink again, I’ve spent so much time now on the drink, it’s all I do, I know, sit and look into space and drink and I don’t know but when I met Michael something happened, something came back, you know something inside me stirred. I think it was hope. I said that to Michael and he laughed, no maliciously like, and he said that was the worst, that that’s why it comes out of Pandora’s box last. I think it was something he read in one of those books in Blackhill library. Anyway, it wasn’t true because I was starting to feel good. Going down to the centre and doing things for people and that. I even rummaged in the cupboard and found that book, my book, aye, my book. The anthology wae one of my stories about being drunk in the city centre and trying to pick up enough wee douts to make up a fag, and aye, I suppose it was a metaphor like, though I didnae see it at the time, like when I was writing, when I had just moved in with Martha and I was getting all that shit out of my head, down onto paper, a sort of cleansing if you like. I read that story again, sat down there and then, and, Jesus, it was good. Well that’s why it was in the anthology of Scottish writers, because it was really good, it was like artistic, like the sublimation of my drunkenness into song. My vagabondage in two thousand words. A wee sad one about the impossibility of hope, about no being able to get enough fag ends to make a smoke for yourself, or something like that, Martha cried a wee bit at that one, I think it was that story that made her love me. She was a good person, Martha, she didnae deserve what happened to her but who can understand anything. Nobody can see the sense in it. Well that was pointless that. So I found another couple of books with the anthology, like in the box just sitting next to it. A couple of old chewed up ones from when I was a child, old dog-eared copies of German classics. And then I thought about my Da. When we lived in Strathaven, when we went for walks in the fields, I remember that day we found a dead cow, it was frozen to death, its legs rigid sticking out. I think my Da wanted to write a book, he never spoke about it, it was a secret project thing, well I never saw it. He gave me all those German classics to read, maybe that was his model or something, Hermann Hesse, Goethe. Ach, I don’t even know what I’m going on about again. Aye, about Michael and about hope and about Martha and about fag ends and about friendship and about how you have to keep your head together somehow if you want to write down some nice words in the early morning. Oh aye and about all the books in the Blackhill library. Have you ever been in Blackhill? Oh man, what a place. It’s like a sort of mini Australia, where Scotland sent all its convicts. Only there’s nae kangaroos or snakes or that. That’s why Michael laughed when I spoke about hope, and that was the first poem that Michael let me see. I forgot to say that, didn’t I, that Michael was a poet. The Blackhill poet. I suppose he thought I was sort of a literary star because I had had a story in an anthology. Blackhill’s leaving it was called. Blackhill’s leaving, it’s heading for the stars, crushing up pills, shooting up, curing all its troubles, all its social ills, ach, I cannae remember any more but it was an angry young man’s poem. Well, he’s only twenty-four or twenty-five, Michael, and I mean who wouldnae be angry in a place like this? I didnae say much and I should have for I could see that Michael was waiting awe anxious like for my reaction, I could see that his waiting turned to disappointment but I didnae say anything. Well, I think that my no saying anything made him bolder and he showed me another poem, sort of gie it another go, and this time I did say something when I shouldnae have, that’s the thing wae me I always speak when I shouldnae and clam up when I should. Jesus, I just want Michael to be my friend again, I just want to go back down the centre and drink tea and do the Herald crossword wae old Dennis Whyte, that old survivor from Springburn’s glory, that old engineer from Saint Rollox, sharp as a tack, his whole body nicotine brown and smelling still of grease and locomotives. I’ve never been very happy I confess, just a few times, like with Martha or wandering through the frost, but that was one of the happiest times but I cannae go back now if Michael disnae forgive. It’s always the drink. I had been drinking a lot before we even met in the pub. I was full to the gunnels, man, and then we had another three or four, I’d got my giro the day before and I was on a roll, on a bender. And then Michael pulls out his wee book of poems and starts, this winter past I’ve felt my youth slip away and the Spring sun melt the ice to reveal the clay from which I was made a million years ago … well, he rattled on, that’s what it sounded like to me, rattling on, and then he stopped and he waited, and I laughed, and Michael moved a little nervous, and then shut his book and put it away. And then I said some no very nice things, no like the nice things I used to write in the mornings that sometimes made Martha cry. And then I steamed on and said that the song on the radio that was playing in the pub was pure genius, brilliant like. Poetic. And it wisnae. I just said that because I think I was jealous of Michael’s stupid poem, for it was good, no genius, no, but good, and I suppose I didn’t appreciate Michael as my friend, I wanted his admiration, how he treated me as that great writer that I had always been in my head when I wrote in the early mornings and made Martha happy and sad. And now, Jesus, I just don’t know what to do.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years. His acclaimed long short story Rainbow is a McStorytellers publication.