Piss
Written by Dean Lilleyman
It’s late. Billy can’t be arsed to go for a piss upstairs. He can’t even be arsed to piss into the kitchen sink.He just kneels by the stereo and pisses into the empty can.
He pisses too much and it runs over his fingers. He clenches his arse cheeks together and a jet of piss hits the stereo.
He jerks back, and he rips the headphones out of the socket. The Pogues rattle out of the speakers. Billy fumbles the jack-plug back in, and he knocks the can of piss over.
Piss, pisses out onto the shag-pile.
He snatches the can up, then stands it by the side of the stereo. He moves over a few feet, crablike on his knees, then drops back down onto his arse.
He fumbles his cock back in, and he feels it scratch against the zipper. He pisses a little more. He looks down to the small dark stain and rubs it with his right palm.
He reaches for the last can.
Billy cracks it open and drinks long. He closes his eyes and moves his head from side to side in rhythm to the bodhran.
It’s the last can.
Upstairs, Fran is looking up at the bedroom ceiling. The room is dark and cool. Turning to the clock, she reaches out, pressing the button to illuminate a quarter past three.
Twat.
Tomorrow morning she will make the sandwiches. Tomorrow morning she will see Daisy to school. Tomorrow morning she will not be able to wake him in time for work.
He will go in late, or not at all, and she will change his clothes, with him still laid out on the bed, if he makes it to bed. Which he won’t.
Twat.
She’ll give him another hour. She’ll give him one more hour before she goes downstairs, before she goes downstairs and deals with dregs: the lager, the wine, the whisky, the stinking rotten piss.
And then the CDs, and then the ashtrays, and then the twatting headphones off his stinking dead face.
And then, she will turn him over onto his side, slowly, carefully, and then the cushion under the head.
But no.
No blanket tonight.
Twat.
She turns over and closes her eyes. The closing of the front door sounds like an arrow hitting deep into the target. She cries without sound into the pillow, and she makes a promise. A promise she knows she’ll pour away with the night before’s piss.