The Gloucester, Gloucester Place

"Look," says Drew. "A penguin."

"What?" says Scuff, looking around, puzzled.

"A penguin!" "Where?" "Over there."

Scuff sees the bird. "Oh, you mean a pigeon."

"Yeah."

They are both very drunk indeed. Tuesdays Drew comes over from Littlehampton to go out with Scuff. He usually brings a litre of Frosty Jack to get them in the mood. Tonight they had two. It’s the sort of drink where have to hold your nose if you want to get it down. Then, like every Tuesday, they went to the Gloucester for the music and the pints of snakebite and black.

They emerged late from the heat of the club into a clear frosty night. Scuff couldn’t be bothered to walk home to Kemptown, it was too cold, so they made their way towards the London Road cashpoint for a tenner for the taxi.

The journey took a little while. On the way, feeling friendly, Drew found a telephone box, picked up the handset and dialled the operator. "How are you?" he asked. "What’s your name?"

It is after that, Drew notices the pigeon. What is a pigeon doing up at this time of night? At this time of night even seagulls are in bed.

Disapproving, Drew suggests, "Let’s chase it."

At the time, it seems like an idea; so they do, running after it down the pavement. But every time they get close the bird

flutters a little way off and stands, looking at them stupidly.

Scuff makes a lunge for it, but tonight it’s a hard frost. There is ice on the pavement. Scuff slips, his leg twisting backwards. He falls awkwardly.

The pigeon eyes him. Scuff returns the gaze, laughing. The quantity of alcohol he has drunk deadens the pain.

Drew isn’t greatly sympathetic. He continues chasing the pigeon which is now luring him out onto the road. Scuff lies

on the cold pavement watching as a car hurtles past Drew, missing him.

Two days later when he finally gets to hospital, they will tell Scuff he has broken his fibula, writing drily on his notes: "Broke leg chasing pigeon."

"You’re like the crocodile in Peter Pan"

Alongside the new food outlets, Bill’s and Wagamama, catering for Brighton’s newer middle-classes, a few older tattoo shops remain. Blue Dragon Tattoo, 96 North Road

In the Blue Dragon, Adam leans forward in the chair; the needle buzzes. Jason concentrates on the face of an angel. He’s fixing up the shoddy work of another tattooist.

Adam’s a born-again Christian. He wouldn’t have anything like naked women or a skull-and-crossbones. "Nothing against people that have got them," he says. "I just wouldn’t myself."

Jason eyes the fuzzy ill-defined faces. "It upsets me," he says. "There are people who don’t take care. You can see it’s just been rushed." Two angels, both curvaceous, one good, one bad, kneeling either side of the crucifix.

People can go one way, or the other. Adam could have been one of those down the park, drinking White Lightning. Before he was born again, he smoked a hell of a lot of cannabis. Hasn’t touched

it since.

"Not that taking drugs automatically makes you a bad person," he philosophises. His back red from the needle. It doesn’t hurt that much: "To be honest though, once you’ve had your sternum broken and your heart cut in half this isn’t going to hurt that much."

The cross on his back was made by a needle, the cross on his chest by a scalpel. At 21 doctors told Adam he’d be dead if he didn’t have the operation.

"My dad didn’t know I had any tattoos until I had surgery. I was shitting myself. When I woke up I asked my sister, ‘What did he say?’ She said, ‘I can’t believe you were worried about your tattoos’."

"What was it you had done?" Jason asks.

"I had to have my aortic valve replaced. The valve is made of titanium. You can hear it."

"Yeah?"

Adam tells him to turn off the electric needle. The buzzing stops.

At first he can’t make it out, but when he puts his head near Adam’s chest Jason can hear the tick tick tick of the metal valve; it’s like an old clock. Jason, eyebrows raised, says, "You’re like the crocodile in Peter Pan."

"I can hear it all the time," says Adam.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 713