The Dreams of Max & Ronnie by Niall Griffiths

speak twiddles his index finger at his temple and whispers to the man closest to him:
    â€“ Man’s lost it, he has. Leave this to me.
    Max turns. – What?
    â€“ Just saying, mun, saying we’ll split up like so’s we’ve got a better chance. We’ll look everywhere, maan. Anywhere there’s women, we’ll look. Won’t stop neither till we’ve found one. Only-a best for yew, brar. Haven’t yew looked after us all these years?
    â€“ You know I have.
    â€“ Then we’ll do what needs to be done. No bother, bruv.
    They drink and snort. The boys wait for Max to go to the toilet but he doesn’t and as the powder and potions start to work he insists that they go to Rome which they do and it is too noisy in there to talk out of Max’s earshot but two of them find a way, out on the fire-escape used as a smoking area.
    â€“ Yew believe this shit, maan?
    â€“ Telt yew. Cunt’s proper lost it. His mind’s pickled. He’s off his bean. This could be the easiest wedge we’ll ever make. Yew get out there, find a woman, classy, like, tell her you’ve got this rich fucking brar who’ll pay her to be his missus like and split the wedge with her. Cos he’s gunna reward yew, maan, yew find him the woman he wants. And yew and the bird take the money and leg it or no, even better, get her to get access to his bank account or something, nick a load of his stash, whatever. The man’s proper lost it and them boys from the north are gunna move in so we’ll be better off out of it. Gunna have to exploit the sitch somehow, brar. Cos the man’s fucking lost it and he ain’t getting it back. Got to look out for ourselves here. Too right we do. Starting tomorrow. Look for a woman who’ll do this.
    â€“ Where, tho?
    â€“ What?
    â€“ Where do I look?
    â€“ Fuck, maan, I don’t know. Clubs, bars, wherever. Other cities. I don’t know. Use yewer fuckin imagination, boy.
    And the next day they do precisely that: they visit bars and clubs and even brothels in the city, street-walker areas too, in which they approach women and outline for them their proposal and listen to responses ranging from I’m married to don’t be daft to sounds dangerous to me to fuck off , this last the one most heard. Two of the boys trawl cyberspace but there are no takers even there, in that realm of the lost and lonely. Their proposal reeks of peril. They are thought kid-nappers, rapists, perverts when they make it. Fine to meet up solely for physical fun, no-strings-attached like, but this ? Meet a man, befriend him, rob his plastic and cash? What kind of suggestion is this? What’s going on? The boys meet indifference, hostility, mocking laughter. One beautiful woman in the chill-out zone of an exclusive club, skirt up to here, boobs nearly out, a face to make fathers weep with worry, listened with gorgeous and seemingly-serious intent to their proposal then stirred her drink with a swizzle stick and roared with laughter. On your own, boys , she said, and that about summed the entire situation up. Hopeless hopeless hopeless.
    After about a week of this they returned to Max’s flat. There was Max, dressing gown, hair grown out of his usual number-one crop into sordid hedgehog spikes, skin grey, eyes insomnia-red, a stink coming off him the boys can barely believe. This is Max: the man whose shit smells of CK One. And here he is walking around in a cloud of his own BO, a fetid forcefield of pong. Not right, this. Proper lost it. They keep their distance, discreetly of course, breathe through their mouths and have no news to give him when he eagerly enquires.
    So Max’s sadness deepens. Part of his mind knows that there should be some anger being shown here, some rage like, but it’s as if that boiling geyser inside him from where such emotions spring has dried up. He lacks, now, sharp edges. This pain in him has chipped away