Depressaholic: Part 1

One Saturday lunchtime, the Luggins family sat around the dinner table, eating sandwiches and drinking tea.

‘Did you hear about that footballer who got caught snorting coke with a lap dancer?’ said Adam, boyfriend of Michelle Luggin, with mild interest.

Yes’ replied father Luggin mildly, sensibly, ‘the papers are going to reveal his identity tomorrow I think.’

‘Who do you think it is?’ said Michelle, calmly, with interest.

To Anthony Luggins, twenty-two, these words saddened and crushed his youthful, innocent soul. A lap dancer. A footballer cheating on his wife and paying huge sums to have fun with a lap dancer. Snorting coke. Apparently from off the naked breasts of the girl. He saw it all in his mind. The naked girl, her breasts exposed. The footballer slavishly bowing down and snorting the coke. Bowing to the breasts, to the coke. Giving in, yielding to the power of both. A look of profundity, of death-like ecstasy transforming his face as he snorted back the coke. The lap dancer looking on, looking down at him, grinning, happy, pleased by her power. So he saw it in his mind.

Then the tabloids getting a hold of the story. The whole thing caught on camera. The lap dancer shamelessly selling her story to the paper, revelling in the publicity and taking the money.

It crushed his youthful, innocent little soul, and he felt like lying down on his bed, crying and going to sleep forever. The world was so horrid and sordid. It upset him. Yet what confounded his hurt and made him confused and lost, was the reaction of his family in just casually talking of it over dinner.

They were all good people, sensitive, educated, polite. In fact Michelle, Adam and his father, who discussed the whole matter with such ease, simply eager to know who the mystery man was, were all school teachers, decent and respectable people essentially. His pure, sad little soul couldn’t fathom how they could so easily take an interest in and then talk about such issues over dinner.

Anthony’s soul had been spectacularly shattered as he’d become an adult, and even now, at twenty-two, he had not really recovered. He was nervous, upset by life, unsure. He felt like an alien in this world, surrounded, he felt, by people who seemed perfectly at ease with a world that, according to what he’d been taught when young, seemed soulless, Godless and run on principles contrary to everything good and true. On account of all this he was reticent and kept himself apart and was often lonely, out of sorts and depressed. He had few friends.

The tabloids seemed to typify and capture all that was ill in this world and they held his soul prisoner, intimidating and scaring it. His soul raged in opposition, he loathed and hated them, he was in an agony of torment against them. Yet all the same he succumbed to them, curious and desiring to know, not only of how ruthless, cruel and horrible life could be, but also, fascinated and bemused to see how journalists and papers could be so callous, soulless and Godless in reporting all the shocking things in this world.

The Sun was the worst of these, and induced in him feelings of deep hurt and anger. They reported in such a heartless and inhumane manner, singling people out and bullying and humiliating them. Of course by and large these people were justifiable targets in some way or form, criminals for example. ‘It’s prison for rat face’ was a story about an ugly-looking, working class man, his picture for all to see, convicted of down loading child pornography. ‘Terror trio get life’ a story of how Muslims had apparently planned to blow up innocent civilians. ‘Mother of two kills husband’ the story of how a mother had stabbed her husband of ten years in a domestic row. The reporting seemed so harsh and cruel. Perhaps all concerned were guilty; perhaps they deserved to be so humiliated. What if the people involved were innocent of their crimes; or at least, what if there were mitigating circumstances? Perhaps the Muslims had only been talking of doing things; perhaps the authorities were trying to look in control. The mother of two had committed a crime of passion, and must now be going through utter agony. All the perpetrators were put through the humiliation of being photographed, treated like animals, dismissed, without anyway of countermand, by ruthless journalism.

It so angered and crushed him. The whole ethos of the paper was so cynically simple in its bias. The weak were singled out and punished. The strong, the powerful, the beautiful were in the right. The men were men, they loved footy and a pint, the women were women, they loved looking beautiful and buying shoes. It’s outlook was narrow minded, common and partisan. It was racist and nationalistic. Mainstream was right, deviants were wrong. But what made this ethos so unpalatable, was that it was done with such cynicism. Had it have been done in innocence that may have been forgivable.

He felt anger and rage, and in fact sympathy for the paedophiles, terrorists and criminals. If a man was a paedophile, so he thought, then surely he needed help? If parents wanted their children to be safe then surely it would be a good idea to try and cure these people, to deal with the issue in a sensible, grown up way. Instead the whole issue was off limits, paedophiles should be locked up for life, that was that and the papers and the parents joined hands, demanding blood. Meanwhile any beard wearing, religious, intellectual Muslims who voiced their anger at the state was a terrorist; scapegoats, as if they, and only they, couldn’t cope with the western world and wanted to destroy it; whilst ‘our lads’, ‘our boys’ the good, old, honourable British troops did everything to stop them; the good old English soldier, who liked his pint and his footy and his woman.

The plight of the mother affected him. Surely the last thing that she or her family could want at such a tragic time was to be given the centre stage, yet that’s what happened. That the tragedy must have been soul destroying for her family and children especially, was not brought into consideration. She was treated like an animal. And when Anthony saw clips on the TV of the mother being taken into custody and watched as photographers stood in front of her – as if she wasn’t there – in order to get a shot of her, intruding disrespectfully on her life, at this woeful time, he was so full of anger he felt like killing the photographer.

It was so barbarous, the whole press, The Sun especially. No-one, utterly no-one seemed to be able to stand up to it: it was free to be as bad as it wanted, and the worse it was, the less likely anyone was to stand up against it. Anthony couldn’t understand why nobody was willing to condemn it for its all too evident ills. But more than that he wondered how it was that people never ever said that they too, like him, found it all so inhumane. But then he wondered if it even affected others at all. They seemed so oblivious.

Angered, he had often thought of direct action: bomb the Sun building. But then you ruined your own life and denied yourself everything that was magnificent in this world, as well as killing the tea lady. Added to which it was an irresistible force, a cockroach surviving a nuclear holocaust. Even if he succeeded in killing some of them, enough would remain to put his face centre page, write him up as a madman and lunatic, humiliate him and his family; and that was if he succeeded. If it all went wrong, he would be derided and scoffed at all the more.

The worst thing about the Sun though were the page three girls.

They were delectable. Beautiful young women, slim, sleek and slender. Kittens. A different one everyday as you opened up. Their beautiful naked breasts; their sweet little faces, looking puppy like at the camera; lovely eyes, lovely long hair, big eyelashes, nails like claws; their skin so soft and supple and tanned, so young and taught, their stomachs thin and crispy, their thighs well-toned. They held your soul in torment. It was hard to know which was more beautiful their breasts or their loins. The luscious naked breasts, pert, fleshy, not too big, not too small, sitting firmly on their chest; or the tight, slender, knicker-covered loins. The slim little waist above, the peachy, soft little backside behind, and in front, hidden, temptingly, alluringly by the little panties, the sensational vagina. All the contours of her beautiful body, running, tapering to this point of focus. The little panties, perhaps white, perhaps black, perhaps turquoise. Cammy knickers, so small, yet serving such a vital function. Covering the loins, so that the imagination was in ecstacy. The cute, tantalizing, minxy mid-region. Magic.

Of course you knew that these girls, in their heart, mind and soul were in no way better than anyone, and most likely worse. Hollow, empty and vain. Shallow and common, tacky, coarse and vulgar, mindless, thoughtless and uneducated. They seemed to espouse the very ethos of the paper, apparently hating terrorists, paedophiles, lesbians and feminists, egg heads, professors and all those weirdoes, loving the lads, the boys, the soldiers, the footballers. They were real women and they liked real men.

All of this then was crushing for Anthony. He hated the girls, but looked at them all the same, irritated to be subject to their power, yet unable to do anything but yield, knowing fine well they were hollow and vein, that they weren’t really looking at him, and that they didn’t care for him, but only for the power it gave them and the money they got for it. It was such a dualism, to be simultaneously so attracted and repelled by these girls. His soul was imprisoned, like a mouse in a trap, unable to resist the cheese. In fact the Sun itself was one big trap: it so agonised your soul, that you fell irresistibly into it; and just like a meteorite falling to earth, you fell toward it, unable to avoid it, your soul eventually burning out as you fell, until it left you cool and hardened, passionless and spent.

He had been brought up in a loving family. He had first seen a naked woman in the Sun, when ten. He had been thrilled to see her for himself. Yet the thought of his father reading it, having it in the house, as other fathers did, looking at the naked women, when his mother was about, sent his soul in trepidation, equally as if his father had run off with another woman. Thankfully his father had never read it or brought it into the house. He loved his mother. They loved each other. They were good, sensitive people.

Yet for all that it didn’t seem to trouble their souls to discuss lap dancers over dinner. He was hurt and upset.

Likewise his brother and sister, also sensitive and intelligent, appeared alien to him, happy and at ease with the world. His brother had photos of attractive women on the walls, read lads magazines, and he’d been to a show to see a dead man dissected in a live autopsy. It seemed so sacrilegious to Anthony, but his well-fed, content older brother had gone along with his fashionable, sassy young girl friend, and satisfied his curiosity, he and his girlfriend spellbound to see a dead man cut to pieces. His sister too was incredibly mainstream, reading piles of gossip magazines, looking endlessly at pictures of celebrities, absorbed in all the hollow gossip. Yet his brother and sister were good people. If anything he was the bad one.

Both his brother and sister loved the TV programme Big Brother, and talked about it endlessly. It sent him bezirk to see how they lapped it up. At best it was boring, dull and mindless, as you watched ordinary, boring, young people, pointlessly waste their time; at worst, for example when they had sex under the covers it was soul-destroying. He hated it, but his siblings loved it and would talk happily about it over lunch.

The whole of mainstream society upset Anthony. After being brought up on a diet of TV, he hated it now per se. He avoided everything worldly, newspapers, celebrities, films, popular music, just like the plague. Yet more than these abstract things, people in real life upset him.

He couldn’t comprehend his fellow youth. In sixth form and at university he had watched on as his peers went out to party after party, got needlessly drunk, were lazy and slovenly with their work; he couldn’t understand what made them tick, their seemingly shallow interests in parties and girlfriends and boyfriends, buying new clothes, looking fashionable, getting a part time job, so that they could earn a bit of cash in order to waste it all on alcohol, flushing it down the toilet on drink, or being so elaborate as to spend it all on a fancy hair cut; never appearing to care a crumb that half the world were starving, and that so many people in this life were suffering the cruelest of fates one way or another. Even such things as his piers obsessions with mobile phones, music players, the latest gadgets and gizmos, sent him wild.

For himself his tastes were incredibly eclectic, for example he loved classical literature and classical music. And almost as a statement against the world, he always dressed in dour clothing, never combed his hair or took an interest in his appearance.

He always needed lots of sleep, and his family would chide him for this. In fact sleep was always a solace to him, he found it such a beautiful escape from the real world and all its problems, it was magnificent to dream. But he always had trouble getting to sleep, because, he thought, his mind was so active: it took him a while to wind down. Whereas his father and brother, would just watch TV, and gormlessly, without thought, drop off to sleep, until they were snoring loudly and obliviously. Occasionally, when he watched and observed his family, and saw how unconscious they sometimes were, he felt there to be a resemblance to a group of primates.

Though upset and angry in his heart, he never made the fatal mistake of opening up his mouth or soul in public. He kept them both shut. But on occasion, angry and bitter, he would rant to himself.

‘The majority of people, what a bunch of slaves they are. What a mentality they have. Where anyone who likes Shakespeare, or Bach, or who reads poetry is considered a weirdo. But it’s worse than that. Anyone who doesn’t own a TV, people who go for a walk in the countryside, or someone who spends time reflecting and alone is considered to be very, very strange. As is anyone who believes in God, or doesn’t drink ten pints a day.

‘And people think I don’t like TV because I’m boring and stuffy and a kill joy, and not actually because it’s dross or because TV dramas are so dreary and undramatic, so poorly written, poorly acted and poorly put together, not in anyway enjoyable, scary or exciting. They all rave about such and such a show, what an exciting drama it is, and think I don’t like it as I’m boring and uncool, but actually that drama isn’t cool at all; it’s limp and insipid and couldn’t surprise or shock anyone with half a brain. It’s actually a big pile of shit. How stupid they are to think that they, watching the sludge of Saturday night TV are cooler and more alive than myself reading the classics. They think anyone who has classical tastes is too boring to appreciate common entertainments, but the reality is that we were all brought up on that garbage and people like me simply got sick and tired of it.’

He hated being considered weird. He prided himself on his independence, and loathed the fact that the majority of people seemed to view this trait, of being by yourself, as being exceptionally odd. One day he had been sat alone in the cafeteria of his university, sitting and meditating, after his lunch. A girl, fairly handsome and intelligent looking had also sat alone, eating her dinner, and seemingly lost in thought. Anthony had been impressed by her; lonely as he was, he was always on the lookout for a female companion. They’d exchanged eye contact. Was she looking at him? He felt flattered. Perhaps she was the sort of independent woman who liked an independent man. Then her friends arrived.

‘Oh God! Thank God you’re here!’ she said ‘I was just about to get up and go. I’ve been sitting here like a Billy no mates, feeling terrible.’

In that one sentence and in the tone of her voice Tony’s disillusion had been shattered, and he was simultaneously embarrassed and enraged, realising not only how simple, basic and robotic the girl was, in her herd mentality, sheepish way of needing to be in a group; but also it was clear that she thought Tony the strangest man on the planet, a weirdo for sitting there by himself, and that she had looked on him not in admiration, but with contempt, and that her feelings of isolation and distance from the herd had been doubly intensified by seeing Tony adjacent to her and being in his presence. He was so angry.

So was Tony Luggin. He saw what a cruel, soul crushing world it was, the rat race, the greed of people, celebrity, pornography, how nobody really believed in God and wondered how it was that no-one could step forward and denounce it all, condemn it as going against the grain of humanity, against decency, against morality and the Christian ethic. Yet in his heart he knew exactly why no one stood up and condemned it. Take for example the page three girls. They were a moral outrage for sure. But he was a slave to them. Only a fool would denounce them, no one was strong enough to resist them, no one. Fact of life. They were tantalizing, scintillating, all a man could want; and as one side of your soul repulsed at the mere thought of them, rebelling awaywards, the other side was magnetised and attracted, yielding desperately to their temptation, spell bound, so that your soul was torn apart. And, like a criminal on the wrack, stretched, you were kept in that state of agony. Because there was no way in the world you were ever going to get near them, let alone sleep with them.