It’s fifteen below outside and there are fox tracks in the snow by the slider. The cats are incensed by the scratching noises emanating from the walls and ceilings – mice coming inside for the winter. At least I hope it’s mice. I’m withdrawing into my usual hibernation mode. I hate the cold. Portsmouth and West Ham are playing on telly but the missus is insisting on Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. So I’m in here tapping away and dreaming of the tropics. Dreaming of prehistoric Madchester and cradlin’ a Heineken and a cold margarita.
Now I’ve switched to Corona and tequila shots. I’ve spent most of today creating and studying a spreadsheet, describing the relationship between being an utter cunt and being a Liverpool supporter. It took me five seconds to make and five hours to accept. The fact is, this is an important season for us. It’s an even more important season for the vermin. They are the mice (or rats, if you must) and we are the cats. They know we’re on the trail and a special effort is being made. Question is, are our lads putting in the same? Either way it is immaterial to me. My house is rammed with a foot of snow and I have to go out and shovel it. Then I’ll come in and watch a compendium of United goals on YouTube. Do some beak, leather a bottle of tequila and get blasted like a teenager. I should probably slow down. There’s a recession on, apparently.
This alleged economic downturn has sent me and the boys sniffing around for extra beadage. We’ve even got on our bikes. Norman Tebbit would’ve been proud. I woke up in a strange bed in a strange hotel recently, with a plastic name-tag round my neck and one sock on. There were fourteen text and voicemail messages on my cellphone at least half of which were threats; my pregnant wife accusing me of playing away. It wasn’t pleasant, reading of my impending castration while viciously hungover. Italian women are like that. Very paranoid and malevolent.
As the mauve fog cleared, I remembered where I was, and why. It was the day after we’d played Aalborg at OT. I was with Danny and the Master in West Virginia. We were on a business trip. Initially we’d planned to return to New England the same day but I’d insisted on catching the United game somewhere. I knew ESPN screened UEFA Champs matches and it was standard cable fare. We settled on a hotel bar; a lousy game with Tev and Roon hitting the spot. Me going mental, ordering tequila shots and getting in a proper state. I had a cloudy recollection of the Master thrusting a key-card at me saying, “don’t drive, you’re too messed up” or words to that effect. Which was true; I hadn’t drunk that much booze since who knows when. So we spent the night in the Quality Inn with some of my wife’s imaginary supermodels (Christ, if I’d shagged half of these women in real life I’d be giving George Best a run for his money by now).
We’d gone down to West Virginia to buy up a load of cheap winches. Acquired from a Tractor Supply warehouse by a Scotch-Irish gang we sometimes drink with down there. We sell them to a fearsome maniac known as The Crusher. The Crusher broke his neck four years ago in a mental truck crash. Dan had called me at 3 in the morning with the bad news. Crusher was peeling out of a party in the wee hours, shitfaced. Got his supercharged pick-up to about a ton on a pitch-black dirt road but hit a tree stump. He was thrown sixty feet from the vehicle and admitted to Baystate Medical Center in a hurry. He made a miraculous recovery and was working with us on construction inside a few months. Crawling round in the dirt on his hands and knees. Sanding skirting-boards and rolling out the walls of the Master’s sister’s new house. Pumping iron in his garage. A real man, if I may say. He bears a fat red scar down the back of his neck from surgery. He’s not the same but it would have killed an average homo like you, you soft English cunt.
Crusher fastens our winches to the handlebars of local quad-bikes for extra income. Being superhuman, the Crusher easily manages to service ten quads per day, and that’s just on the weekend. His real job is supervising an aeroplane tool shop. The average quad weighs about 600lb and these winches are good for 3 tons. They have an electric cable that can be easily attached to a nearby tree in the event of a quad being swallowed by mud or quicksand. Comes in very handy in these parts. Everyone has a quad and uses it daily. The woods and swamps are endless.
The plastic nametag was another story. It came from a conference being held in the hotel the night we collapsed there. It was a New Age cult. Fuck knows what they called themselves. After the match we just kind of drifted in. There were diagrams of Zodiacal Ages on easels. Aquarius and Leo, Mayan pyramids and Russian shamanic symbols. I approached the velvet rope and delivered a bullshit introduction as to who we were. I was awash with United’s European triumph (such as it was) and we were welcomed to the freak show. It could have gone either way; Dan resembles a hippie but the Master looks and sounds like a young “Big” Pussy Bompensiero. Unfortunately I don’t mix well with pseudo-scientists. I quickly found an argument to get into. I don’t remember it but the guys told me I’d successfully convinced a gaggle of weirdoes that Atlantis was very likely the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and not some sunken mystery off the Azores, as they’d spent their lives trying to prove. I’d based my claim on the concentric arrangement of the Aztec capital as described by Plato in his Timaeus and Critias dialogue. But that’s not important. What is important is that those fucking Scouse bastards are at the top of the league and we’re not. Those two games in hand better be winners or we’re fucked, simple as. The Aalborg game had angered me and the Aquarians caught the brunt of it. I went to bed in a massive huff, thinking about Scousers and hippies and what a lot of shithouses they were.
On the way back from Virginia I explained to the lads the significance of Manchester. I was horribly ill and procured a four-pack of Boddies from a Maryland liquor store to regain sanity. Then I told them. About United and the triumph of hard science over superstition and magic. How our fair city had dragged Europe out of the Middle Ages and introduced important mechanisations which led to vibrators, wanking machines, United Road cantilever and, ultimately, Wikipedia.
Back in New England Dan got stuck on the Crusher’s driveway in a snowbank when we delivered the winches. Ironically we had to winch him out of there. The Crusher had some bad news; his cat had been killed by a fisher cat. Fisher cats are giant martens that live in the northern states. They can attain a length of four feet. Huge claws and high intelligence makes them the most feared critters in town, even worse than coyotes. They love this cruel tundra. There was some good news; the Crusher had crippled the fisher with a gunshot to the back legs. Then he’d poured petrol on it and set it alight. According to Mrs. Crusher, he’d whooped with joy as it pulled itself round his back yard engulfed in a fireball, the horrible little cunt. I love animals but as a cat owner I heartily condone the torture and mutilation of fishers. They are evil bastards. Worse than Scousers and almost as ugly and slippery.
It’s New Year’s Day, the Ultimate Sunday. I detest Sundays but New Year’s Day is the cumulative pressure valve of an entire year, whatever day it falls on. It’s the day when we’re forced to scrub up and have an early night in anticipation of the workday that inevitably follows. Personally I’m gonna stay up till dawn tonight and drink myself silly, but I’m special and hopefully you are too. Fuck turning off the fairy lights and the illuminated wreaths. I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on the drum all day.
As I finish writing this one of my cats has dragged a mouse from under the baseboard heater. Its guts are hanging out and she’s gone straight back down the basement for her second course. I’ve just put it in a plastic bag in the kitchen bin and wiped the blood off the oak floor with a Clorox tissue. That’s what we’ve got to do to Liverpool these next few months. Wipe the floor, trash them and obliterate all trace of their gay little sleigh-ride. We can do it.
Dan just called. He’s sober tonight. Hasn’t touched a drop. He’s been plastered every night for at least 8 months; beer, vodka, pot, you name it. He’s still alive. Obviously the doctors are very wrong. By their calculations Dan should go into seizures tonight and very likely die a horrible death. In fact, he’s merely suffering some very bad palpitations and a lot of anxiety. Not helped by the fact his husky fell down the steps today and fucked its legs up. That stupid fuckin’ mutt. Dan’s going to work tomorrow morning at eight. I’m gonna still be up from tonight at that time tomorrow. I’m special. I think that’s gonna be my New Year’s Resolution: Remember You’re Special. I’ve just checked the fridge and I have a shitload of ale and tequila. Olivia Newton John has just come up on my I-Tunes and I’m letting her rip. Xanadu. Reminds me of a red-haired Scouse bird I nemmed a long time ago. I’m staying up all night, so fuck you and a Happy New Year. You special cunt.
