The Hunger Read online

  —Leave me alone. I want to get some sleep.

  —Never! What makes you think you are worth anything, Lincoln, let alone a sleep from which you fully intend to wake up?

  I ignore him.

  —Answer me!

  I feel his cane fall across my back with a huge thud. I wince and stand up to face him. He is already behind me in the far corner of the cell, smiling with contempt.

  —Tell me, who would miss you, Lincoln, if you were carried out of this cell in a body bag? Who? Your mother? I don’t think so. You’ve hardly been a good son, have you? You’re not the son she wanted. She wanted a boy who’d keep his nose clean, stick around with her, drink more tea than alcohol. Not you, is it? And what about your son, Lewis? So you’ve paid a bit of maintenance and taken him to fun fairs as a five-year-old. Bravo! Do you really think he’d miss a Dad who doesn’t stick around for more than three days in a row? And your own father, well he had enough of you by the time you were a teenager, so he went on holiday to a caravan park in Kent and never bothered coming home . . .

  I kick the wall in fury over and over again until I think I can hear my bones cracking.

  — . . . And, oh yes, there’s your mates. Friends, I believe you call them. Well, let’s be honest, you’d be worth a drink to them, perhaps even a toast In Memory of Lincoln, but they will forget you before the first glass is empty. So what is your life worth, Lincoln?

  I am hunched up in a ball, rocking, crying.

  —Nothing, I’m not worth anything. My life is a piece of piss.

  Esurio roars, his voice echoing as it bounces off the cell walls:

  —Then end it! End it! End it!

  I put my hands behind my neck and pull my face down into my knees. I pull as hard as I can, waiting for my neck to break. I am worth Nothing. Not even to my mother, my father, my son. I promise, I deliver, then I stop delivering and promise some more, and so it goes on. I release my neck. I don’t even have the courage to break it.

  —How dare you defy me and continue to breathe! If that is your attitude, you will never rest again . . .

  I look up at Esurio and, as I watch him, great tufts of black hair force their way through his clothes, tearing the fabric to shreds. His limbs and torso change their shape and he drops onto all fours, lowers his face, and, when he lifts it, the transformation is complete. A mad, rabid dog – bigger, wilder than any wolf I have ever seen – stands a few feet away from me, clumps of saliva oozing from its mouth and falling onto the cell floor. I press my back against the wall. The creature moves forward, fixing me with its gaze. It barks and roars at me, hunching back as if it’s about to leap at me, before it withdraws and circles the cell, taunting me, waiting patiently for me to offer myself to its jaws. On all fours, it stands perhaps five feet tall and I wonder what it would be like to rush at its mouth and let it rip me to pieces. But I’m a coward, too weak to surrender, and so I sit, hour after hour, all through the night, helpless. At first, I shout at the door, hoping the cops might hear me. They don’t. I guess they can’t. And even if they could, what would they do? What is my life worth to them? All night it stalks me. It is perhaps about sunrise when I notice for the first time a bottle of vodka standing against the wall of the cell. Between the bottle and me, sits the creature. I get on my knees:

  —Please, please, just one mouthful, just one and I promise I’ll leave the rest . . .

  Then:

  —Fuck you! Let me have a fucking drink! I NEED A DRINK!

  This goes on for what seems like an eternity, broken up by moments where I am almost asleep. Almost. The creature watches my eyes close from exhaustion and, just as I am on the verge of passing into unconsciousness, it howls and roars and presses up so close to me I can feel the heat and smell of its breath.

  When the cell door opens, it is seven in the morning. Two cops come in. One of them says:

  —You were making a lot of noise in here last night. We looked in at you a few times and you were hunched in a ball in the corner. Is everything all right?

  —Does it look like it is?

  When they release me, they remind me I have been charged with assaulting a police officer. On the way out, Esurio smiles at me:

  —Quite a night, Lincoln.

  —There’s been plenty of them.

  —I have no doubt there will be many more. I predict this place, let’s christen it the Charing Cross Hotel, will become like a holiday home to you. The more desperate a man gets, the more his life unravels like a ball of string, and yours is rolling away nicely, Lincoln, very nicely indeed.

  The Charing Cross Hotel

  July–August 2010

  This is my Summer of Hate. I’m pounding more, drinking more, snorting more, running more, lifting more, than I ever thought possible. I’m heading for a World Record in Pointless Endurance and I’m certain that one day my heart will explode. This will be a heart attack unlike any other. I have visions of my heart bursting through my ribcage and spreading bits of flesh the length and breadth of Dean Street. During the Summer of Hate, I am angrier than ever, with my head full of images of what I would like to do to people who cross me, and my concept of ‘cross’ is VERY broad. Here’s a few examples:

  • A cyclist passes too close to me when I’m walking along the pavement on Wardour Street and I want to rip his head off and stick it on the spokes of his bicycle wheel.

  • A man collecting for charity on Leicester Square taps me on the head with a giant, inflatable banana as I walk past him. I grab him by the throat and threaten to hang him from a pole at The Club.

  • A newsagent on Beak Street short-changes me and later that day I go back and threaten to stuff every newspaper in his shop up his arse.

  • I try to withdraw some money from my Santander account and the hole-in-the-wall doesn’t work, so I go into the branch but I am too drunk to understand what the man behind the counter is telling me, so I punch the counter and when he asks me to stop I tell him I wish his face was the counter. Three security guards escort me off the premises.

  None of these incidents ends in a stay at the Charing Cross Hotel. These do:

  The Terminator Incident

  It’s about three in the morning and I’m coming out of The Club. A woman brushes passed me and distracts me, while a man grabs my wrist. By the time I notice he has stolen my Rolex, he is already running down the road. I’m drunk, so I take a deep breath before removing my jacket and shirt and handing them to the Wrap I am with. I begin jogging slowly at first, then gradually I speed up until I’m sprinting after him. He is younger than me, maybe mid-twenties, slim and fit, but he has never been chased by anyone like me before. I am relentless and, at first, I am maybe three hundred yards behind him. After a few minutes of running, it’s down to fifty, and I can see him looking over his shoulder at a topless maniac that he knows will catch him and kill him. He starts squealing from fear because his energy is failing while mine is getting stronger, so he turns back and shouts:

  —Look! Look! I’ll leave it on the corner here . . .

  He leaves it on the ground, keeps running, and looks over his shoulder to make sure I pick up the watch and stop chasing him. I do stop, pick up the watch, put it back on my wrist and then go after him again. He is now in a blind panic until he finds himself back on same road he started on, where he drops to his knees. I don’t know what he says because I don’t even slow down as I approach him, pull my fist back and knock him out with a single blow to the mouth. I am looking at my hand and wondering what’s embedded in it when I realise it’s one of his teeth. As I pull it out and throw it on the floor, a police car pulls up alongside me. It was parked on the opposite side of the road when I hit him. I collect my shirt and jacket from the Wrap and get a free lift to the Charing Cross Hotel.

  Length of Stay:

  4 hours

  Room Service:

  1 weak tea and a glass of water

  Bill:

  A caution

  Rating:

  ***
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  The Tea Towel Incident

  It’s one of those balmy summer evenings and I’m downstairs in the Archer Street Wine Bar with the boys where a DJ is playing a ’70s retrospective. For once, my mood is merely Dark as opposed to Pitch Black. That changes when a man slaps me around the face with a wet tea towel for no reason. Within seconds I have one hand around his throat and I am punching him in the stomach with the other. By the time the police arrive he is vomiting on the floor. This time I’m given a different room at the Charing Cross Hotel.

  Length of Stay:

  1 night

  Room Service:

  Three cups of nice tea and a biscuit.

  Bill:

  A caution

  Rating:

  ****

  The Transvestite Incident

  I round up three Regulars, an Occasional and add two Paid-Fors to make up the numbers. One of the Regulars, Noleen, actually has a real job as a make-up artist. After a few lines and half-a-dozen bottles of champagne, this is what she suggests:

  —Let’s dress Lincoln up as a woman!

  I think:

  —That’s a great idea.

  We go back to my flat and take a dress one of the Wraps left in my wardrobe and a long, blonde wig Suzie keeps in my flat for when she’s doing a shoot in the studios on Berwick Street. As Noleen puts the eyeliner and lipstick on, I actually begin to fancy myself. When I’m done, the Occasional offers to lend me her long coat and handbag and we leave for a party I’ve been invited to in the Marriott on Park Lane. We stop for an impromptu fashion shoot with the boys at The Office. In between shots I go to the toilets to pound and snort and, by the time we leave, another half dozen or so Wraps have joined us, together with Maynard, Steve and Daniel, the tailor.

  When we arrive at the Marriott, I am in the grip of A Great Madness. I am Invincible and Murderous. The doorman at the Marriott takes a look at my wig and the lipstick, which is now smudged all over my face and issues his own Death Warrant:

  —I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot let you into the hotel in your present condition.

  I ignore him and barge into him. As he falls against the wall, three bouncers appear from nowhere. I swing at them and when I connect with one of them, my handbag breaks open and a Lady Finger vibrator, some make-up and a box of tampons fall to the ground. The Wraps are screaming and one of the boys is shouting:

  —Lincoln! Lincoln! Stop! Stop! They’ll kill you!

  I can’t stop. Ever.

  By the time the police arrive I have taken two of the bouncers out and when I am carried, writhing and swearing, into the police van, I can hear a man pleading with them:

  —Take it easy, she’s a fucking woman.

  When I get to my room at the Charing Cross Hotel, a few of the coppers take pictures of me on their mobile phones. One of them shouts:

  —C’mon, Lincoln, give us a twirl.

  I rush at the bars of my room and tell him to fuck off. He laughs:

  —Time of the month, is it?

  After maybe an hour, I start shaking and wrap my coat around my torn dress to keep warm. It’s nearly midday when I wake up.

  Length of Stay:

  1 night

  Room Service:

  Two glasses of water and a fashion shoot.

  Bill:

  A caution

  Rating

  *

  The Stalking Incident

  About midnight on a Wednesday evening I come out of the Aqua Bar and walk down Great Marlborough Street with my friend Martin. I am hammered but my radar for potential violence is as strong as ever and I notice we’re being followed by a gang of six or seven blokes. One of them shouts at me:

  —Hey, baldy!

  My first instinct is to kill them. My second is to ignore them because they are seven and we are two, and I’m not sure how useful Martin will be in a fight, so it might be one and a half, or even one. Then he shouts it a second time and I turn and run at them. Martin follows behind, but long before he gets anywhere near them I have laid two of them out and two others saw what I did and ran away. Now it’s more even. To be fair, Martin has a go at one of them while I take on the other two. They catch me with a couple of blows but I know where to strike: the solar plexus and the side of the neck. When they’re both down, I begin kicking hell out of them when three cops jump on me from behind. In the back of the car on the way to the Hotel, one of them says:

  —Not many people could do what you just did. Then again, not many people would want to.

  Length of Stay:

  2 hours

  Room Service:

  Two glasses of water and one black coffee

  Bill:

  No charge

  Rating:

  ***

  The Battering Ram Incident

  Drink. Coke. Some cunt in the toilets at The Office then a short walk to The Box, a nightclub set between sex shops and peep shows on an alley called Walker’s Court. By an Act of God I cannot understand I am on the Guest List. I walk up the stairs to the main floor area. Simon Hammerstein, the owner and grandson of Oscar Hammerstein, is sitting at a table surrounded by Wraps in sexy white dresses with tight little arses. My favourite things.

  Terry is at the bar selling non-existent investment opportunities for the Cannes Film Festival to Georges, a Parisian hedge fund manager. They move to a booth. Perfect. I join them and nestle in the corner, snorting a few lines from a discreet little coke dispenser I bought in a sex shop on Broadwick Street. Esurio says:

  —That was a good buy, Lincoln, very handy.

  I take a moment to think how smart I am when I knock my vodka tonic over Georges’s lap. I go to grab the glass as it falls on his crotch. I think I touch his cock. He thinks I touch his cock. I apologise. He accepts. With a smile. I don’t like that smile, so I look away at the main floor of the club. The Box is The Place to Be in Soho and when a club becomes the The Place to Be, it has to deliver even more than its reputation, which means:

  • More tits

  • More cunt

  • More madness

  The show doesn’t start well. A couple swallowing swords. No tits. No cunt. No madness. I take another line as the audience throw ice cubes at the couple. The girl runs off stage. The guy says fuck off and someone throws an ice bucket at him. Next on is a stunning-looking Wrap called Narcissister who strips then pulls a ringing mobile phone from her pussy. The audience roars. Tits. Cunt. Madness. Esurio floats onto the stage, picks up the phone and throws it at me:

  —Our time now, Lincoln, this is our time!

  I pull a dozen Wraps off the dance floor into our booth. Champagne shoots in all directions, flooding the VIP booth next to us. My cock is being rubbed. I follow the arm to the face. Not Georges. A Wrap. My mind is playing a familiar mantra: Drink. Coke. Cunt. Drink. Coke. Cunt. I am the Beast of the Box and my nervous system is feeding off an ancient madness that flows through me like electrified water. On the stage a rapper shouts:

  —Anyone want to hit this shit?

  We all do and we are all One as we dance and shout, an anonymous tribe wasting ourselves as the rapper drums a gangsta beat from the stage. My stage! I crush some gear between two coins and sniff the holy powder and I am the King of Kings and the message I bring is Chaos. I run towards my stage. In the wings, Simon is naked and runs onstage before throwing himself at the mercy of the crowd. I follow him and am about to offer myself to the mass of bodies, My bodies, when I feel a punch land on my left ear and I begin to hear strange, pagan voices. And Esurio:

  —That will hurt in the morning, Lincoln, very much!

  I run across my stage, down some stairs and into a big, fucking kitchen.

  There’s a door in the far corner and I knock it off its hinges. I’m in a room with ‘Buck Angel’, one of the star acts, a muscle man with a cunt. For a moment I am in awe of the ingenuity of Nature, then I’m running again until two bouncers pull me to the ground and I’m hitting them with a traffic cone full of sand and, when it explodes, sand sh
oots into their eyes. Esurio says:

  —You’re in trouble now, Lincoln, Big Trouble.

  I think:

  —I’m in trouble now . . . Big Trouble.

  The bouncers get up and jump on me and one of them puts me in a headlock. I’m wriggling and squirming and shouting and kicking and spitting as three more bouncers join them on the stage. Together they carry me through the seated area down some stairs until we reach the main entrance. The door is shut and a security guard is about to open it when one of the men carrying me shouts at him to leave it shut, and they lower me to waist level and use my head as a battering ram. The impact hurts but I manage to force it open first time. They drop me in the alley outside and take a breather while I groan on the ground and call them cunts. I have no shirt, torn trousers, no watch, one shoe, a black eye, a throbbing head, no money. I feel the boot of a bouncer in my ribs and I can hear sirens in the distance and I know men in blue will take me from The Place To Be to the Charing Cross Hotel and when I get back to my flat my heart will pound and I will burn with anxiety and fear and be crushed with loneliness and the only defence I will have against a Darker Death is another drink, another line, another Wrap.

  When I arrive at the Hotel I am beyond furious. I am in a Rage that is so intense it is off even my Scale of Fury. It takes five cops to get me into my room and I land at least four heavy blows on them as they do it. Once they get me in, they throw me on the floor and, as they leave, I rush up to the closing door and force my arm into the gap. They press the metal door against it until the pain is so great I can’t take it anymore and I pull it in. I scream at one of the officers through the grill: