Trainspotting

Mark wakes up in his childhood bed. He has overdosed at Johnny Swan’s and ended up in the infirmary. Now, he’s at home. His mom is there and wants him to stay there until he gets clean: “Ah’ll help ye son. Ah’ll hep ye fight this disease” (189). His father is also there. They insist that Mark get clean at home, going cold turkey instead of heading to a clinic where he will simply abuse methadone.

Miserably, Mark agrees: “I am tae be under house arrest” (192). His father even locks him in. His father also wants Mark to take an HIV test. Withdrawal is, as it always has been, terrible: The narrative devolves into a wild stream-of-consciousness to reflect Mark’s delirious state:

Every cell in ma body wants tae leave it, every cell is sick hurting marinated in pure fuckin poison

cancer

death

sick sick sick

death death death

AIDS AIDS fuck yis aw FUCKIN CUNTS FUCK YIS AW SELF-INFLICTED PEOPLE WI CANCER (194).

The chapter continues in this vein, with Mark continuously waking with nightmares. He repeatedly thinks he’s bitten off his own tongue. At one point, he thinks he sees Dawn, the baby who died, in his bed: “The bairn has sharp, vampire teeth wi blood drippin fae them” (196). It turns out to be his own pillow.

Eventually, Simon visits him. He warns Mark that after the first terrifying symptoms of withdrawal subside, he will become deeply depressed. Simon appears to be doing fine. He tells Mark he’s clean and wants to stay that way. He plans to stay away from the other boys. He’s met a French girl, Fabienne, whom he plans to go on a holiday with.

As Simon predicted, Mark’s pain gives way to depression. He can barely move; like his disabled brother Davie was, he is now catatonic. As a distraction, Mark’s parents take him to a local bar one night. To Mark, the scene is unbearable: family friends, bad oldies music, and stale beer. The cherry on top is when he goes to the bar to get another round and a former classmate of his and Simon’s, a girl whom Simon once slept with, says hello. Mark goes out of his way to mention that Simon is now a pimp.

Chapter 27 introduces an unexpected issue: Mark’s brother Billy has been killed. Mark must concentrate as he helps his father and uncles lower his brother’s casket into the ground. The entire family is there, including Nina, the cousin introduced in Chapter 5. Mark notes, inappropriately, that she is good looking: “Ma cousin Nina looks intensely shaftable” (212). Mark even hits on Nina later, only to have his Uncle Charlie intervene.

Billy was killed by an IRA bomb three weeks before he was to return home. Mark’s family on his father’s side from Glasgow are unionists, and they speak about Billy in patriotic terms, saying he died a hero.

Mark finds this rhetoric ridiculous, and it angers him. In his view, Billy was just a pawn for some higher-ups. As usual, in Mark’s world, it comes down to issues of society and class. He almost gets into a fight with Uncle Charlie but another relative, Uncle Kenny, intervenes, encouraging Mark to think of his mother.

Mark goes to the bathroom to cool down and runs into his brother Billy’s widow, Sharon. The two of them have sex in the bathroom, which is difficult because she’s far along in a pregnancy. When relatives bang on the door, Mark claims that Sharon’s ill and throwing up. Mark ends up leaving the funeral with Sharon, who tells him that Billy beat her regularly. The chapter ends with Mark reflecting that he wants a hit.

Mark has relapsed following Billy’s funeral. He notes that he needs increasingly more dope to achieve the same quality of high as he did in the past. He references Dennis Ross, who overdosed on heroin and whiskey. Reflecting on his relapse, he concludes: “Thir’s nivir any real dilemmas wi junk. They only come when ye run oot” (223).