The Hunger (19 page)

—You’re in fucking trouble now, sunshine!

More cops rush down the stairs into the bathroom and the cop whose nose bled on my cock turns me face down and two, maybe three, other cops begin dragging me feet first up the wooden stairs.
With every step my head thumps against the wood. I’m screaming, kicking, spitting, shouting, as my head bangs harder on the stairs until I hear it crack. I think my skull is about to split
open when I’m dragged through a door back into the bar and lifted so high in the air by the cops, my face almost touches the ceiling. I am borne above the crowd, a
Martyr to
Nothingness
, my cock swinging in the light like a Holy Staff, until I feel the cold night air on my face and I’m thrown into the back of a meat-wagon. Bound by my hands and feet, I writhe
like a fish on the floor of the van, waiting for my air to expire and I’m released only when I am placed in a cell at a local Police Station. As soon as the cell door shuts behind me, I rush
at the door and pound it with my shoulder. I force bits of my face out of the small barred area at the top of the cell door:

—Fuck you! Fuck you!

The door opens and three cops enter. I rush at them, fists flying. They jump on me and keep me face down on the floor of the cell and, when I think I’m going to pass out, another cop
enters, his hands and arms gloved up to the elbow:

—Strip him! I’m going to search him for drugs!

I am instantly quiet and sober. I raise my hands in a gesture of submission. I say:

—Please don’t. I’m sorry, I’ll be OK now.

The cops back off. They look stunned, convinced some benign
doppelgänger
has taken over my body, and the new cop with the gloves looks at me and backs off. They leave me alone in the
cell. I am shocked that I stopped, that I was
able
to stop, that some remote part of my unconscious mind was still capable of processing enough information to get me to act on it. I assume
it must be something primal in a man, the thought of a man’s hand up your arse, a
hostile
man’s hand, pulling at your insides, that reminds you there is more to life than death.
There is the humiliation that precedes death and that is the greater horror.

I lie down on the bed and look up at the bare ceiling. I am about to fall asleep when I hear a tapping on the cell floor. I turn over, thinking it will go away. It gets louder. I sit up and
Esurio is standing before me, banging his cane against the wall above my head.

—You’re a coward, Lincoln. Losing your fight like that. I’m appalled at you.

—What did you expect me to do?

—I expect nothing of you anymore, Lincoln, absolutely nothing. How many people do you think I know intimately, very intimately, as if they were my own flesh and blood, that have found
themselves in positions like this, and they would have died in this cell,
died
rather retreat in fear?

—Leave me alone. I want to get some sleep.

—Never! What makes you think you are worth anything, Lincoln, let alone a sleep from which you fully intend to wake up?

I ignore him.

—Answer me!

I feel his cane fall across my back with a huge thud. I wince and stand up to face him. He is already behind me in the far corner of the cell, smiling with contempt.

—Tell me, who would miss you, Lincoln, if you were carried out of this cell in a body bag? Who? Your mother? I don’t think so. You’ve hardly been a good son, have you?
You’re
not the son she wanted. She wanted a boy who’d keep his nose clean, stick around with her, drink more tea than alcohol. Not you, is it? And what about your son, Lewis? So
you’ve paid a bit of maintenance and taken him to fun fairs as a five-year-old. Bravo! Do you really think he’d miss a Dad who doesn’t stick around for more than three days in a
row? And your own father, well he had enough of you by the time you were a teenager, so he went on holiday to a caravan park in Kent and never bothered coming home . . .

I kick the wall in fury over and over again until I think I can hear my bones cracking.

— . . . And, oh yes, there’s your mates. Friends, I believe you call them. Well, let’s be honest, you’d be worth a drink to them, perhaps even a toast
In Memory of
Lincoln
, but they will forget you before the first glass is empty. So what is your life worth, Lincoln?

I am hunched up in a ball, rocking, crying.

—Nothing, I’m not worth anything. My life is a piece of piss.

Esurio roars, his voice echoing as it bounces off the cell walls:

—Then end it! End it! End it!

I put my hands behind my neck and pull my face down into my knees. I pull as hard as I can, waiting for my neck to break. I am worth Nothing. Not even to my mother, my father, my son. I promise,
I deliver, then I stop delivering and promise some more, and so it goes on. I release my neck. I don’t even have the courage to break it.

—How dare you defy me and continue to breathe! If that is your attitude, you will never rest again . . .

I look up at Esurio and, as I watch him, great tufts of black hair force their way through his clothes, tearing the fabric to shreds. His limbs and torso change their shape and he drops onto all
fours, lowers his face, and, when he lifts it, the transformation is complete. A mad, rabid dog – bigger, wilder than any wolf I have ever seen – stands a few feet away from me, clumps
of saliva oozing from its mouth and falling onto the cell floor. I press my back against the wall. The creature moves forward, fixing me with its gaze. It barks and roars at me, hunching back as if
it’s about to leap at me, before it withdraws and circles the cell, taunting me, waiting patiently for me to offer myself to its jaws. On all fours, it stands perhaps five feet tall and I
wonder what it would be like to rush at its mouth and let it rip me to pieces. But I’m a coward, too weak to surrender, and so I sit, hour after hour, all through the night, helpless. At
first, I shout at the door, hoping the cops might hear me. They don’t. I guess they can’t. And even if they could, what would they do? What is my life worth to them? All night it stalks
me. It is perhaps about sunrise when I notice for the first time a bottle of vodka standing against the wall of the cell. Between the bottle and me, sits the creature. I get on my knees:

—Please, please, just one mouthful, just one and I promise I’ll leave the rest . . .

Then:

—Fuck you! Let me have a fucking drink! I NEED A DRINK!

This goes on for what seems like an eternity, broken up by moments where I am almost asleep. Almost. The creature watches my eyes close from exhaustion and, just as I am on the verge of passing
into unconsciousness, it howls and roars and presses up so close to me I can feel the heat and smell of its breath.

When the cell door opens, it is seven in the morning. Two cops come in. One of them says:

—You were making a lot of noise in here last night. We looked in at you a few times and you were hunched in a ball in the corner. Is everything all right?

—Does it look like it is?

When they release me, they remind me I have been charged with assaulting a police officer. On the way out, Esurio smiles at me:

—Quite a night, Lincoln.

—There’s been plenty of them.

—I have no doubt there will be many more. I predict this place, let’s christen it the Charing Cross Hotel, will become like a holiday home to you. The more desperate a man gets, the
more his life unravels like a ball of string, and yours is rolling away nicely, Lincoln, very nicely indeed.

July–August 2010

This is my Summer of Hate. I’m pounding more, drinking more, snorting more, running more, lifting more, than I ever thought possible. I’m heading for a
World
Record in Pointless Endurance
and I’m certain that one day my heart will explode. This will be a heart attack unlike any other. I have visions of my heart bursting through my ribcage and
spreading bits of flesh the length and breadth of Dean Street. During the Summer of Hate, I am angrier than ever, with my head full of images of what I would like to do to people who cross me, and
my concept of ‘cross’ is VERY broad. Here’s a few examples:

None of these incidents ends in a stay at the Charing Cross Hotel. These do:

The Terminator Incident

It’s about three in the morning and I’m coming out of The Club. A woman brushes passed me and distracts me, while a man grabs my wrist. By the time I notice he has
stolen my Rolex, he is already running down the road. I’m drunk, so I take a deep breath before removing my jacket and shirt and handing them to the Wrap I am with. I begin jogging slowly at
first, then gradually I speed up until I’m sprinting after him. He is younger than me, maybe mid-twenties, slim and fit, but he has never been chased by anyone like me before. I am relentless
and, at first, I am maybe three hundred yards behind him. After a few minutes of running, it’s down to fifty, and I can see him looking over his shoulder at a topless maniac that he knows
will catch him and kill him. He starts squealing from fear because his energy is failing while mine is getting stronger, so he turns back and shouts:

—Look! Look! I’ll leave it on the corner here . . .

He leaves it on the ground, keeps running, and looks over his shoulder to make sure I pick up the watch and stop chasing him. I do stop, pick up the watch, put it back on my wrist and then go
after him again. He is now in a blind panic until he finds himself back on same road he started on, where he drops to his knees. I don’t know what he says because I don’t even slow down
as I approach him, pull my fist back and knock him out with a single blow to the mouth. I am looking at my hand and wondering what’s embedded in it when I realise it’s one of his teeth.
As I pull it out and throw it on the floor, a police car pulls up alongside me. It was parked on the opposite side of the road when I hit him. I collect my shirt and jacket from the Wrap and get a
free lift to the Charing Cross Hotel.

The Tea Towel Incident

It’s one of those balmy summer evenings and I’m downstairs in the Archer Street Wine Bar with the boys where a DJ is playing a ’70s retrospective. For once, my
mood is merely Dark as opposed to Pitch Black. That changes when a man slaps me around the face with a wet tea towel for no reason. Within seconds I have one hand around his throat and I am
punching him in the stomach with the other. By the time the police arrive he is vomiting on the floor. This time I’m given a different room at the Charing Cross Hotel.

The Transvestite Incident

I round up three Regulars, an Occasional and add two Paid-Fors to make up the numbers. One of the Regulars, Noleen, actually has a real job as a make-up artist. After a few
lines and half-a-dozen bottles of champagne, this is what she suggests:

—Let’s dress Lincoln up as a woman!

I think:

—That’s a great idea.

We go back to my flat and take a dress one of the Wraps left in my wardrobe and a long, blonde wig Suzie keeps in my flat for when she’s doing a shoot in the studios on Berwick Street. As
Noleen puts the eyeliner and lipstick on, I actually begin to fancy myself. When I’m done, the Occasional offers to lend me her long coat and handbag and we leave for a party I’ve been
invited to in the Marriott on Park Lane. We stop for an impromptu fashion shoot with the boys at The Office. In between shots I go to the toilets to pound and snort and, by the time we leave,
another half dozen or so Wraps have joined us, together with Maynard, Steve and Daniel, the tailor.

When we arrive at the Marriott, I am in the grip of A Great Madness. I am Invincible and Murderous. The doorman at the Marriott takes a look at my wig and the lipstick, which is now smudged all
over my face and issues his own Death Warrant:

—I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot let you into the hotel in your present condition.

I ignore him and barge into him. As he falls against the wall, three bouncers appear from nowhere. I swing at them and when I connect with one of them, my handbag breaks open and a Lady Finger
vibrator, some make-up and a box of tampons fall to the ground. The Wraps are screaming and one of the boys is shouting:

—Lincoln! Lincoln! Stop! Stop! They’ll kill you!

I can’t stop. Ever.

By the time the police arrive I have taken two of the bouncers out and when I am carried, writhing and swearing, into the police van, I can hear a man pleading with them: