Smoking Is Cool

By Andrew Moody

“Inside a mental institution, everybody fights their own private war. It doesn’t matter so much what the battle is for, but it is in there, inside everybody, including the doctors and nurses. Once you have been there long enough either you lose the will to fight and become a spoke, greasing the wheels of the system, or the battle takes you completely.”

Joe has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act of 1983 six times in four different parts of Great Britain. After fleeing from a mental institution in South East London, he winds up under section in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital with only a rudimentary grasp of what he has done to put himself in this situation, and pumped up on an almost terminal dose of Class A narcotics. But he is not too worried. He can handle crazy people. And by crazy people, he means the doctors. Joe is a writer, perfectly comfortable with the knowledge he can write his way out of any situation. Problem is, he is unpublished, he is getting older, and unless he gets published soon, he could wind up like the other over-medicated vegetables he has encountered in his five years in the NHS psychiatric system.

But it’ll be okay. He’s resourceful, he’s charming, he’s ‘desperately handsome’, and he can lie with the best of them. And maybe, with a bit of luck, he can escape the system once and for all. But he may not be able to run from the one thing he is most desperate to flee from... himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Moody
• Release date: Mar 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995763814

Book preview

Smoking

Is Cool

Andrew Moody

Published by Vougish Fiction

Paperback ISBN:

.epub eBook ISBN:

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All characters, places and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 Andrew Moody

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For Phil Osborne

Contents

Introduction

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty Two

Twenty Three

Twenty Four

Twenty Five

Twenty Six

Twenty Seven

Twenty Eight

Chapter Forty

Epilogue

Twenty Nine

Introduction

Smoking Is Cool was first self-published on August 11th 2009, and was in print for a little over four years, until some time in October 2013. The original book still appears on Amazon (an oversight by the well-meaning, sorely unprofessional, now defunct Authors Online), but it states that it is currently out of stock. I sold maybe thirty or forty paperbacks in those four years, roughly equating to one sale every six weeks or so.

The reasons I withdrew it from sale are many and varied, and to explain them all would take the length of a very long book. As this is a short book (thirty pages have been cut from the original version) I do not wish to go off on a ten thousand word tangent on all that happened between August 2009 and October 2013 (A great deal did; some of it has been covered, to the best and most accurate of my literary abilities, in my online blog, FixedDelusions. blogspot.com) and a whole lot more happened to me in the subsequent years Smoking Is Cool was out to pasture.

An introduction should neither explain nor psychoanalyse what is to follow, but it is time, I think, for the book to once more have its day in court. All I will say is that this was a book written about, in passionate (if a little vague) terms, the malaise and cultural depression of the Bush/Blair years and the very, very early days of the Obama administration. It was written years before Scotland voted to remain part of the U.K. It was written before I had a Twitter account, before I joined Facebook, before these things became the glorious monstrosities they are. I have rewritten the novel, added a few ironic references to keep it as cutting edge as I always intended it to be.

Now Obama is ending his tenure, England has left the E.U, and Trump has won the presidency, I wonder what my protagonist Joe would make of it all. I think about him sometimes, fondly, if a little in despair.

Andrew Moody @VoguishFiction

South West London, November 12th 2016

Nihilism denies that there is really any such thing as intrinsic moral value. People think that there are things that are intrinsically valuable not just as a means to something else: human life or the ecology of the planet or the master race or elevated states of consciousness, for example. But nothing can have that sort of intrinsic value- the very kind of value morality requires. Nihilism denies that there is anything at all that is good in itself or, for that matter, bad in itself. Therefore nihilism can’t be accused of advocating the moral goodness of, say, political violence or anything else.

– Alex Rosenberg

The degree of civilisation can be judged by observing its prisoners.

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One

I think it is January. Five or six years ago, before any of this began, I went to Stonehenge for the Summer Solstice with a couple of mates. We were loaded up on beer, skunk and poppers, hazily following the crowds through the dawn towards the monument. It was only when we got to the plain where the stones were situated, did we realise that we could actually touch them, get inside, act like ancient druids. I took a belt of the poppers, felt my face expand, my forehead burn, hit with a mad crack of the crazy giggles, counting on two hands the fifteen year old hippies tripping on acid and crying. There was this one girl, maybe twenty, in a bright white dress, swaying to the beat of the drums that some smart thinking wag had brought along. The drummers were perched on top of the flat roof stones, it was like a nightclub, the same frenzied atmosphere, maybe not the same drugs, but close enough, just that little bit more fraught with danger. I mean there were no bouncers and shit, these guys could have slipped and cracked their skulls open on the stones, one false move and BLAMMO! Also, some of the hippies, real farmer types, were swearing and yelling taunts at the girl in white, all the while holding hands with their wives, girlfriends, whatever. I mean it was sort of scary. I remember Oz rolling a joint on the grass while we offered some of the poppers to some wasted guy and his mates. I was, as usual, talking about my book.

When I’m published, I said, It’s HD televisions and supermodels all round. Which one do you want?

Which what? Oz asked, battered, as the sun started to peak above the horizon, as the crowd bayed to the bacchant frenzy.

Supermodel, idiot.

Uh, I think I’d prefer Jenna Jameson, she’s pure filth. I saw one movie she did where they hooked up a car battery to her cunt.

Oh yeah? I said.

Yeah, she loved it.

I’m going to make a film of my book and I’m gonna star in it and write it and direct it and produce it and make the soundtrack and win five Oscars all at the same ceremony. Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Song.

Yeah, he grinned, and Best Actress.

There was a pause. I took another hit of the poppers.

And I’m gonna fuck the Queen, Oz said. I’m gonna run away with her and she’s going to abdicate and when they go to write a history of the twenty first century I’ll be the most famous man to have ever existed.

You really think you could fuck the Queen?

Seven inches of steel baby… he smiled, lighting the joint, which had gone out. He took a drag, passed it over.

Y’know, I said, I’m not really a psychopath.

Oz nodded, smiled. No?

"I’m probably more of a sociopath." I said this too loudly, as a gang of kids, maybe eighteen, nineteen, stopped walking, gawped at me and started laughing. I blushed. Later when we were walking back to the car, we passed theirs and they were tapping the window, still laughing, pointing, making faces. Please note that not one of them was brave enough to actually step out of the car.

* * *

Have you ever smoked a cigarette? I ask, adjusting my sunglasses.

What do you mean, Joe?

It’s a simple yes or no, I reply, sighing inwardly at the way psychiatrists always answer a question with a question.

I don’t think I’m going to answer that.

Why?

I don’t think it’s particularly relevant.

I’d like to speak to a lawyer, please.

Dr. Finlay smiles. That’s interesting. Are you feeling paranoid?

No.

Then why do you need a lawyer? Because of the bloodstains on your hoody?

It’s not my blood. And I need a lawyer because whilst I tolerate homosexuals, I don’t like them.

What do you mean?

Well, I say, just to look at you, cheap, short sleeved blue shirt with a red bow tie, beard, slight lisp, the way you treat everything like it’s a fucking game, I mean you’re just…well…I don’t want to incriminate myself. I’ll talk to you with a lawyer present from now on.

There is a pause.

"You don’t know me," he sneers quietly. I smile.

"And you don’t know me."

"But four impartial psychiatrists do, Joe."

Everybody has an agenda, I say, and then I get up.

Where do you think you’re going?

I glance at his shabby office, at his diplomas on the wall, down into his beady little eyes.

For a cigarette, I reply.

Out in the corridor I see an ugly skank wearing a hospital gown eying me with desperate terror. She cowers behind a big, dumb looking nurse, built like a Brick Shithouse, I think he was the one who finally sedated me last night.

Excuse me, I say softly, could you point me in the direction of the men’s room?

Brick Shithouse stops. Takes out a small plastic jug.

We’re gonnae need a urine sample, son, he says. I take the jug from him. He points me in the direction of the toilets, and I wander over, glancing back at him once. My shoulder blades are still aching from where they restrained me in a stress position to administer the depot injection. In my mind I have him chained up in a chair and I am wearing a bunny suit and in my hands are a pair of pliers and a blowtorch, and I push open the door and hear a dull, wet smacking sound and groaning. There are two cubicles, in the first I see an overflow of diarrhoea blocking the bowl. I push open the next cubicle door, see an old man, maybe in his seventies, jerking off. He looks up. Stops jerking. Screams, pulls up his trousers, scrambles past me and out into the corridor. I push up the toilet seat, undo my flies and start to piss into the jug until it is about half full, then aim the rest at a fly crusted to the side of the bowl. All the while I am whistling a tune that seems oddly familiar, which I realise is Riz Ortolani’s theme from Cannibal Holocaust. What a troubled soul I am. I finish pissing, take the jug and rest it on the side, wash my hands, check my hair. Then I go back out into the corridor, see Brick Shithouse, hand him the jug.

Don’t drink it all at once! I grin, walking past him and into the smoking room. The smoking room is bigger than the one on Pynchon Ward, but, this being an N.H.S hospital, still just a shithole. I take a seat next to a hyperactive looking guy in his fifties, wearing a cheap green sweater and no socks. I pat myself down for fags, realise they have taken them, sigh. The guy grins, hands me a Dunhill, lights it for me.

Yis went fuckin crazy last night, he says. I smile.

I am crazy, I reply. In the corner a haggard, haunted looking woman is fiddling with the CD player, and eventually Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson starts to play. She begins to cry.

Mary, says a fat looking guy in his thirties with razor blade notches up and down each arm, ken ah’m watchin telly?

Dinnae yis ken, ya bastard! she says between sobs, Ah’m havin E.C.T tomorrow, gottae calm masel!

Ten minutes passes. Brick Shithouse walks back in.

Joe?

Yes? I reply.

Yis tested positive fer cannabis, ecstasy, speed, ketaymine, acid, cocaine an crack cocaine, he says.

Yeah, I sigh, taking a drag of my cigarette, exhaling, it was one of those nights.

He walks back out, closing the door. I see him enter the adjacent nurse’s office, pull up the blinds, start to stare into the room. Tamzin, I’m thinking, I am going to get you for this…

Two

The television, opiate of the masses, is spewing a rerun of the X Factor final. Alexandra Burke is trying to suppress her embarrassing sycophantic praise during a duet with Beyonce. Beyonce looks a little uncomfortable, smiling professionally as Alexandra forgets the words and weeps uncontrollably. The fat guy with the razor blade notches laughs contentedly. Perr wee cunt, he smiles.

We don’t have heroes anymore. What we have now is stars. We see them everywhere. They are on billboards and TV screens and plastered on the front pages of tabloid newspapers revealing their secrets of happiness, or their drug shame and how the healing power of Jesus saved them from the abyss. In between articles about how to eat right and exercise for a celebrity body, toned and sleek and unimaginably sexual, we read about their daily activities, their motivations for the summer blockbusters that will thrill us out of our anomie, we worship these stars like the Gods of Olympus, praying that one day we will join them high in the heavenly hills of Hollywood.

I observe the room. E.C.T Mary is still crying, there is a youngish Asian guy praying on a prayer mat, a fat, elephantine woman is watching me, her eyes narrowed with some kind of glee that I can’t quite place, and two pikey looking teenagers are playing chess. I turn to the guy who gave me the cigarette, searching for ballast.

What’s your name? I ask.

Oh, aye, Davey, aye, he says.

I’m Joe. Would you like a coffee? I tap some ash into one of the metal ashtrays on a table covered in fag butts. There is a battered looking copy of HELLO! there too, proclaiming:

JORDAN SPEAKS: MY MARRIAGE HELL!

Oh, aye, white, five sugars eh? He giggles, and for a second I think I am going to vomit, but it passes. I stub out the cigarette, take a breath of second hand smoke and get to my feet. As I approach the door, Brick Shithouse pops his head from the office and says: Whair diyya think yis gaen? I consider the question.

To make a coffee. There is a painful silence. Eventually he steps back into the office, but not before he says: "Ah’ll be watchin son, dinnae think yis can pull the wool over ma eyes…"

Curiouser and curiouser. I decide it is better not to ask him where the coffee maker actually is, but to utilise some basic detective skills. I look up one corridor, see the pay phone and a set of stairs leading down to God knows where. There is a nervous looking nurse sitting nearby. I must be on the fourth or fifth floor of the hospital. Down the next corridor I look leads to the psychiatrist’s office, with dormitories on either side, and then I look down to my left, and realise that I am standing next to the kettle. I fill it up, wait patiently as it hisses, clicks, and am overwhelmed with happiness when I realise that they have caffeinated coffee. Pynchon Ward banned it months and months ago. I pour two coffees, add five sugars for Davey and two for me, stir, and bring them back into the smoking room. Oh, aye, Davey says, handing me a cigarette. I have correctly gauged that Davey is the principle port of call for nicotine. First impressions? Standard immature male, sexually ambiguous, maybe abused as a child.

Ken, he says after sipping his coffee, ah niver wept when ma ain father died.

Oh.

Ah’m glad yis here Joe, he says.

Thanks.

The fat guy with the razor blade notches leans over, whispers into my ear:

Eh, yis goat any skag?

He pulls back, an expectant look on his face. I notice that his pupils are as dilated as an eclipse.

Umm, no, I say.

When are yis gettin some, eh?

I adjust my sunglasses. When in Rome, I think.

I’m getting some Black Tar heroin in from Thailand the day after tomorrow, I say. And don’t worry, I’ll sort you out. Don’t worry about the money. What’s your name?

Carsten, he replies.

I’m Joe.

Pleased tae meet yis, eh?

I scan the room, looking for a fresh source. I spot the Muslim guy on his prayer mat. I smile inwardly. Manipulating schizophrenics is like shooting fish in a barrel…

Three

I sit there smoking cigarettes that Davey keeps giving me. I am still buzzing from the drugs I took last night. Speed comedowns are the fucking worst. Everything is hazy still, the room looks like it’s vibrating, but I’m getting a trip from Mad World by Gary Jules which E.C.T Mary has now played at least seven or eight times. I guess she’s the ward DJ. It is dark outside. I think it is January. Davey gets up, says: Yis want a coffee?

Double espresso, I say, and then: Just kidding. White, two sugars.

Aye.

The elephantine woman in the corner, still with a gleeful look on her face, stands up, falls back down in her chair, grabs a walking cane next to her, gets up with difficulty. She plods over toward me, then sits down in Davey’s vacated chair. She leans over to me, raises a hand, strokes my face. I feel the urge to vomit again, but slowly remove her hand.

Ah can help yis, she whispers.

Oh yeah?

Diyya believe in Goad?

I’m a Stoic Gnostic, I say.

Sae yis noat sure?

No. I mean I believe in the exoteric Outer Mysteries and the esoteric Inner Mysteries.

Ah’m Born Again, she says. Ma name is Linda. Ah can help yis.

Maybe you can, I sigh. Why don’t you explain further.

Yis English, she says, Ah can tell. Ah’ve goat psychic powers. Goad gave them tae us.

Wow, I say, taking a drag of my cigarette. That’s amazing.

Ah wis cursed by a friend ay ours, but then ah wis saved. Goad made the world in seven days. Ah can save yis.

"Six days, I say, adjusting my sunglasses. He rested on the seventh."

Linda the Elephant Lady smiles. Aye. Yis a good lookin boy. Goad sent yis here to save me. Ah can tell. Goad tells us that Adam an Eve wis cast ootay paradise fer eatin the apple ay the serpent. Yis gottae watch oot fer the serpent. The serpent comes in many forms.

Until the nineteenth century, I say, carefully, "very few people imagined that the first chapter of Genesis was a factual account of the origins of life. For centuries, Jews and Christians relished highly allegorical and inventive exegesis, insisting that a wholly literal reading of the Bible was