The Hunger Read Free

dragged him out. He went on his knees and said:
    —Sorry, Lincoln. Please don’t hurt me.
    I took the keys and left him, crying like a baby, on the side of the road.
    When I got back, Frank said:
    —There’s no one I have ever met with as little middle ground as you, Lincoln. You’ll end up in the gutter or the stars. I just don’t know which.
    The Boss, says:
    —Do you hear me, Lincoln?
    He points to the photographs on the walls. The biggest stars in the world look down on me. Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Willis, Elton John, Princess Diana. A
pantheon of celebrity with him at the centre of it. He carries on:
    —You can do what I did but not if you don’t clean yourself up. Now get out and sort yourself out.
    When I’m back in my office, George comes in. He is doing his best to appear calm. He says:
    —I don’t know how you hold on to your job. He’s never been like this with anyone in fifty years.
    —Because I’m good, George.
    —No one is
that
good.
    I smile. He is polite because he has to be. I know he wants to smack me in the mouth and I know I deserve it. I am good. I am probably
that
good. But work is just the skin of my life,
taking in enough money to feed the Hunger and that Hunger is the reason I stand on the face of the earth. Nothing else matters.
    The Boss said once:
    —I see a lot of me in you.
    And that’s how I survive. I am his mongrel child, a bastard mix of charisma and chaos, who looks as if I might just about make it until I fuck up and everything is wasted.
    Esurio walks in and rests his right hand on the ornate silver skull that sits on top of his cane.
    —We’re still employed then, and the day is young.
    —Give me an hour and I’ll be with you.
    —Make it sooner, Lincoln. You know how impatient I get.
    9 a.m. Two hours earlier
    I am back at the flat, my body glistening with sweat.
    The girls are still in my bedroom so I shower and leave. My hands are shaking and my head is full of shit. I try to look straight and fix on a point at the far end of Old Compton Street. I
can’t even hold my gaze. I need a drink. Some coke. A drink. A line. Anything to take this feeling away. I want to be sick. I have a meeting at The Club. I can’t let them see me fucked.
I catch my reflection in a window. I think I look better than I feel. Grey suit. Open-neck shirt. White handkerchief. All I need is a drink, a line, to make the suit sparkle. I can see Esurio
standing outside Cafe Boheme. He is holding the door open for me. I walk across the road.
    —Thanks, man.
    —My pleasure.
    I go downstairs into the toilet and pull a wrap out of the inside pocket of my suit. By the time I’m walking up the stairs I feel more like myself. I’m sure the day will be good.
Esurio is still standing outside by the door. When he sees me coming he pushes it open.
    —Better?
    —Yes, thanks.
    I walk across the road to an off-licence. Coke is good. Two shots of vodka will make it immense. As I leave the shop and make my way to The Club, I raise a bottle to Esurio. He raises his
hat.
    —Here’s to a beautiful day!
    I smile at him. I love him. I hate him. He is a pest. A parasite. He never leaves me alone. I try to remember how we first met. I can’t. It feels like he’s always been with me. When
I was a kid he was more ghostly than he is now. It was like I could see through him. There was the time when I was fourteen. A year after my Dad died. I was being bullied at school by a kid called
Mitch Walters. He was a tall kid, a boxer. No one messed with him. Before he died, Dad said:
    —No one ever pushes us around, Lincoln. No one.
    My Granddad Bob said:
    —We’re fighters. Hit him back. Just once. So he knows he can’t mess with you. Then leave him alone. He won’t touch you again.
    The next day I was at school. Mitch Walters was drinking a cup of hot chocolate. I snatched the cup out of his hand, threw the liquid in his face and punched him once.
    —Just once,