We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night

1) "What’s going on Johnny?

Come on, whatcha doing? How are ya? Poor Johnny. Touchy Johnny. In this mindset. How you are? Imagine. How’s our John-John doing? How’s he makin out, comin along, doing for himself? How’s he keepin? Fuck. Slung halfways out the window for a haul, cause that’s what this piss-arsed place is come to. Imagine that, tumbling out onto the street for the sake of a stale Number 7 cause where he might pollute his own room. Where he sleeps alone. Poor old Johnny."

2) "She’s just Madonna. She’s just a girl that turned, got scared, got talked into talkin. And she’ll show up in court lookin like she do, prolly wear that pink thing she’s got, and do her eyes that way she does em. That’s Johnny then, done for. As good as gone. But Johnny aint done for now is he? Not yet. No not yet. What have they got on him? Just, just . . . ahh fuck it."

3) "He fucken knows where Shiner’s been. And so much of it makes sense all of a sudden that none of it does, and for a moment Johnny feels an ecstasy and a white-hot blinding surge of righteousness that sees him reaching across the table for a crusty metal fork left over from Shiner’s plate of Ches’s that he didnt even bother to offer Johnny a fucken chip from."

4) "A plaid, greying man in his late forties holds open the door to the coffee shop for his perky teenage daughter and when she passes through the doorway Johnny hears her say Well then, if not there Daddy, how about my bellybutton? Just fucken kill me. Or give me something innocent to destroy. Johnny eyes the brick wall again, gives his cheek a little squeeze, realizes the skin on his face is as numb and dead and useless as his legs, realizes he’s well stoned out of his gourd, and feels better straight away."

5) "Next thing the pigs are gonna be swingin by lookin for some ID. RCMP too, out this way. Whole different kinda bastard. Not that Johnny’s got nothing to worry about. There’s the record, yes, but nothing outstanding, no conditions no more. Nothing no one can say. Travelling. Here’s my dead girlfriend’s ashes, right here. Yes sir officer, gonna scatter em into that other ocean, on the other side."

6) "Johnny feels the gin do that nauseous churning devil’s dance as it passes his stomach and scurries on into his parched veins, down to his smouldering shins and feet, waits for it to hit his battered brain, only to realize it likely hit there before he even had the bottle to his lips."

7) "What do I remember? This is what they wants to know. Tell us what you can remember . . . Since when? Since that lanky Reeves fucker? Caul’s? The hoof of a moose? Since fucken Kingston?

I dont.

I do.

Remember.

Too fucken much I remembers. That look she gave me, headed up over the hill with the blood spilling down her forehead. Madonna. Youre so fucked Johnny. Yeah I know girl, I knows that. Aint we all? And I knows that no matter what went down or how it happened, what kind of spin you put on it all, you just needed a way out. Cause where was any of it going? Feeding off each other’s misery. I knows what that look meant. It meant Goodbye Johnny, this is my ticket out. And I cant hardly blame you. We’re all lookin for a change of scenery, at the very least. We’re all lookin for our ticket. Who’s not lookin to claw their way out from under what they’re tangled up in? Who’s not, underneath it all, desperate to let go of what they’re hangin on to? And what’s really worth hanging on to anymore? Fuck you, that’s all I have to say."