Arab Strap
"TRIPPY."


Ailidh phoned me at work at about half four. It's funny I don't even speak to her any more, she's a fucking wee cow. Better than everybody, ken? Doesn't speak to her mates or anything like that. Anyway, we got in at the time and she phones me up asked me what I'm doing tonight. I was only going to sit in and watch the telly as usual, wondering where everybody else was. So she said, come round to Rab's house and that, get some trips, ken? So I said I'd go round about six. I was about an hour late and I was knocking on the door and that, and nobody answered. And I thought, oh fucking brilliant they're away out without me and that, they'll be away up the town having a laugh. So I walk back round the road, 'cause I thought they were away out, and I phoned. Turns out they had still been there. They were that out of it, they couldn't even get to the door.

So I went back round. Everybody was fleeing as usual and I got handed my half. And I thought I'd just take it, ken? I'm working the next day, I better not go too far. But two hours later, nothing was happening. so I thought , fuck it. And I took the rest, which I'd been warned about already. Everyone was jumping about the front room as usual, and we were sitting giggling, having a laugh and then Cheg came and took us to the pub in his car. We told Cheg he should be our anchor, that was a fucking laugh. He kept telling us to calm down, as though he was our mum and dad and that, 'cause we were acting like weans and giggling and looking at the table and dropping our drinks all over the place.

We made it back his car, jumped in, and he took us back round to the house. Then he decided to pack it in and go home. So Malcolm and I get back in the house and suddenly someone's going on about Rab and how he's he's no fucking there and that, and he's away outside and he looks like he's in pain or something like that. He had to go and pick up some more stuff 'cause they'd used all this stuff for Glastonbury the next week. And somebody said he apparently took something when he was there, so he's writhing about in pain outside. So Malcolm and I walked out and he's was walking along the edge of road on the grass and that with his fucking stomach held in his hands and he's screaming and that. And then we lost him. He disappeared into the park and we didn't know where he was. So Malc and I were walking about and then we found him. But we decided we should stay back a bit, ken? In case he got a fright. So we followed him up into this park, as though that wasn't going to scare him anyway!! And when we did find him, he was there doubled up in pain, fucking screaming his eyes out, going on about how his stomach was knotted and he shouldn't have taken it, and it was a stupid thing to do. So he's sitting there on the hill and that with Malc and I on either side and all we can do is sit and giggle and look at the grass and take the piss out of him.

So we get him up on his feet and we start walking him about and he says he's alright. And we walk up to the garage and he's going on about his stomach. Then he starts shouting about how we should get away from him and that, in case something happens, in case he fucking dies or something. So he says he thought it was that bad, that's what was going to happen and he didn't want us to be involved. He always looked out for everyone else, ken? So we take him to the garage and he wants a bottle of Irn Bru and he's fuckin' downing this bottle of Irn Bru, talking about his fucking stomach and everything and how he's taken this thing and he has to get it out of his system and talking about how it's all in his bile, and he's desperately trying to make himself sick and he's screaming all the fucking time as well. And Malc and I are still laughing - we don't know what he's up to. He could have taken anything, I wouldn't know.

Nobody's sure yet about what he took. Fuckin', he could have injected something, he could have swallowed something, nobody knows. But he just stood there with his dirty fucking face, it's all black and dirty and brown, ken? He's halfway down his bottle of Irn Bru and he's being sick all over the fucking place. And a car went by, slowing down the road but he's just screaming all the time about how it was all in his fucking bile and how he wants to be sick. He keeps fucking screaming... then he threw up. So we walked him back to the house and he made us swear we wouldn't tell anybody. So he goes back to the house and he fucking tells everybody. He locked himself in his room and started eating a bag of sugar or something like that, while everyone else was talking about what a dick he was. I ended up at the park that night. Sitting eating Pringles with Paula and watching the wildlife. And the next day when I went to work I was still out of my face. I was pacing about on the stairs talking to myself and writing things and he walked in and stressed the point about making sure that no one would find out.