“Cool chain dude; Medugorje rocks.”

Bono must have played there.

A new off-license had opened, the budget had been announced and. .. the price of booze was lowered.

In a country devastated by alcohol, they were encouraging us to drink. It was state of the art premises and even offered loyalty cards! And brews you’d never see ordinarily so I stocked up on my favorite hard-to-get brands:

Shiner Bock,

Blue Moon,

Asahi,

Sam Adams.

I’m an alkie, I’m hurting, I’ll drink anything, even aftershave, and have done so.

Though I suggest you avoid Old Spice.

But as Derek Raymond said, in The Crust on Its Uppers, I can be a beer buff.

What this flashy new place showed, though, deep in recession, we were not only drinking as mad as ever, but with some discernible taste. I got back to my apartment, anticipating a blast of Blue Moon and twenty minutes of Johnny Duhan’s new album. I had a wad of cash in my jacket, new DVDs, the literal blessing of a good nun, and a new case. Laura would soon be coming from London.

How good can it get?

I don’t do happy.

But I was real close then.

Wouldn’t I just love to be the poster boy for Prozac, have a kickarse smile perpetually in place, plaster my face on those Prozac bottles, with the logo,

“We Rest Our Case.”

But my past was too littered with the wasted and the wounded. Ever hear Marc Roberts sing “Dust in the Storm”? Listen and weep.

I’m not a total eejit, I’ll grab the moments of peace, fleeting though they be, when they deign to appear. That’s how I was feeling. Opened the door of the apartment, a ton of junk.

I’d won ten million in the Nigerian Lottery, got a voucher for a free pizza from Papa Joe’s, an appeal for orphans, till I came to a small tightly wrapped parcel.