ABSTRACT
We’re guilty of dice, of teletype and needles. We spread true rumours and wrote false receipts. On game-shows we cheated and on quiz shows we lied. We lay at home with the ’flu and a hangover. We made the heartbreak face and then we smiled. We stank of chlorine and fists fell on us like the rain. We made a mockery of justice and a mockery of the American/English language. We doctored photographs, carefully erasing figures and substituting stonework, pillars and curtains to make it look like George Michael had stood on the balcony all alone. We sacked the town, we painted it red. We slipped through customs at Nairobi International, without even being seen. We were exiled kings, useless princes. We revamped our image, we were really working class. We made the crowd blush, we were driven by demons whose names we couldn’t even spell. We were white-collar criminals, haunted by our pasts. We told Mrs Gamble that Helen was with us when she wasn’t. We were ex-cons trying to go straight. We thought that Freud was probably right about laughter. We had no moral compass, or if we did have one it had been badly damaged during the frequent electrical storms. We’re guilty of heresy and hearsay, of turning our backs to the wall. We saw Arthur Scargill’s blue movie cameo. We lied when it would’ve been easier to tell the truth. When we broke the law about satellites there was no one to stop us or care. We sent death threats by fax machine and kept a list on a computer of the people we were going to kill. We put the bop in the bop shee wop. We loved each other too much. We held each other’s hands. We spat in the beer when no one was looking. We’re guilty of murder, arson and theft. We crashed the spaceship on purpose. We got drunk too often, we nobbled horses, we made each other bleed. We knew that a professional foul inside the 30-yard box could lead to a penalty but in the 83rd minute we felt there was no choice-some of us went one way and I went the other, sandwiching the bloke and bringing him down hard-the referee was a Hungarian and never saw a thing. We were cold callers, scared of kryptonite. We were class traitors, cry-for-help shoplifters, we were murderers of sleep. Everything was a movie to us. We hacked and hoodwinked, we wounded with intent. When the food-aid arrived in the lorries we started shoving and pushing. We had nose jobs, chin jobs, eye jobs, tummy tucks and bum sucks. We were bloody fools. We’re guilty of that look people have sometimes when they daren’t speak their minds. We confess to radium, railways and romanticism. We were jealous of Helen Sebley’s personal transformation. We never made the rendezvous. We were deathless, never fading. We ate pet food straight from the can. We dipped our toes in the water and we got our fingers burned. We had a truce on Christmas day. In the last years of our rule we deteriorated both physically and mentally-we planned to eliminate even our most loyal supporters. We went to Blackpool and got caught in the act. We stuffed the ears of men with false reports. We confess to oil rigs and pylons. We’re guilty of landslide victories and throwing in the towel. We looked at pictures of rare
skin diseases. We got drunk and got tattoos. We cut to the quick and were frozen to the bone. We read books to avoid conversation. We confess to the dimming of streetlamps on long tropical nights. We thought thuggery was better than common sense. We didn’t like modern Britain. We thought modern art was a load of shit. When we started to go bald we grew our hair long in one of those Bobby Charlton hair-cuts, with a very long very thin strand of side hair plastered all over the bald bit at the front. We were cowards, strictly black market. We became nocturnal, inward-looking, scared. We set men a new standard by which to measure infamy and shame. We lived on a diet of speed and chips. We fell off the earth. We cut off the hand of an evil-hearted pirate called Captain Hook in a fair fight; we threw his hand to a crocodile which had also eaten an alarm clock. The crocodile so enjoyed eating Hook’s hand that he followed the pirate around all the time, hoping to get a second helping-but the tick tock tick from the alarm clock he’d swallowed always warned the pirate of the crocodile’s approach. We made false economies. We were one of those double acts from way back-on-stage it was all love and laughter-offstage we never spoke. We pissed on the flag. We made a soap for black people. We told long boring anecdotes. We worked for £2.90 an hour. We gave Helen 15 minutes to pack her bags and get out of the house. We never thought; we never danced at weddings. They invented a new classification of lunatic just for us. We wrote biographies without bothering to research or ask permission. We lost the front door keys. We dressed Geisha and looked ridiculous. We did that Sharon Tate. We used laser treatment on hapless immigrants. We stood outside the prisoners’ doors all night and whispered nonsense so they couldn’t sleep. We sang the songs of streetlamps and paving slabs. We kept a boyfriend in waiting. We dug a few graves in the football pitch and buried the bodies at night. We were not quite at home in the world. We made a film called AMERICAN BONDING CRAP-it was mainly for boys but some girls liked it. We invented a TV channel called THE MONEY CHANNEL-24 hours of nothing but long fingers handling money-it was a hit all over the world. We blazed the trail, set off rockets and yelled from rooftops. We were small-minded, rusty after too many years. We were wankers. We were loons. We staged long and titillating fights between Good Barbie and Bad Barbie. We held our savings in Deutschmarks, under a bed. We confess to autumn leaves, to fatherless children and shift-work, we were regrouping fighters, looking for somewhere to sleep. We served up the beer in cups made from human skulls. Our trade was to traffic in human misery. We sold the records that we’d bought in our teens and which were no longer fashionable. We were bored of the poor. We killed the first daughter of all English greengrocers in an attempt to avoid any unfortunate recurrences of the last 10 years. We confess to intercoms, faxes and prohibited places. We are guilty of arsenic, poor-laws, pass-laws and slightness in the face of adversity. We said we were the best there’s ever been. We fucked around.
