Snuff, published in the volume Scottish Shorts

Davey Anderson

WHO    Kevin, Glaswegian, his exact age is unspecified, but we assume early twenties.

TO WHOM    Billy, his friend.

WHERE    A small room in Kevin’s high-rise flat in Glasgow.

WHEN    Strictly speaking, around the time the play was first produced in April 2005. However, the speech is still applicable to the present day.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED    Kevin lives in a housing-scheme flat in a run-down Glasgow tower block. At the start of the play he is watching a video. It is an interview he has recorded with his sister Pamela. He is the interviewer. He is questioning her about where she got her new clothes from, and, as he becomes increasingly aggressive towards her, Pamela threatens to get him ‘done over’. She says she will tell ‘Billy’ what he has done to her. Kevin retorts that Billy is not around and that he has been away for two years. At that moment there is a knock on the door. Kevin turns off the video and answers it. It is his old friend Billy, a soldier, back from Iraq. Billy asks where Pamela is, and Kevin tells him that Pamela’s dead. Billy assumes that Kevin is joking. As the two men try to catch up, there is an awkwardness between them. They share some reminiscences, but it is clear that Kevin has become increasingly paranoid of the outside world. He has surrounded himself with piles of videos that he has taken. He tells Billy that it is a private project that he is working on. He takes a Polaroid picture of Billy and writes Billy’s name on the back. He explains to Billy that he just needs one more subject and then the project is done. The speech follows directly after this.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

•	Both men are at war. Billy’s was a real-life war. Kevin’s is in his mind.
•	Kevin feels abandoned.
•	He feels invaded.
•	The kind of poverty and paucity of expectation that prompts young men like Kevin to adopt racist views and to display violent behaviour.
•	Read the play to discover how Billy becomes Kevin’s last ‘subject’.

WHAT HE WANTS

•	To give vent to his feelings of frustration. ‘Naebody fucking telt me.’
•	To find someone to blame.
•	To shame Billy for not having been there.

KEYWORDS  mad  mental  demolish  doom

Kevin

Ye want tae know something, Billy? See since you left, this place has gone tae the dogs. Swear tae God. All the decent folk moved oot. Got transferred doon tae the new flats by the river. Most of the flats were empty. So they started boarding up all the windaes and the doors. The only people left were the junkies, the hardnuts, the perverts and the freaks. Turned intae a madhoose, this place. A big, damp, concrete, mental asylum.

The coonsil telt us they were gonnae level this block, ye know? Blow it up. They gave us six month. They says, as soon as we find ye somewhere else tae live, we’re gonnae demolish the flats. So we waited. Nothing happened. Six month passed, still nothing. And I thought, well, this is it. They’re jist gonnae demolish the flats, junkies and all. Bury us alive in a mountain of ash and rubble.

I wis quite looking forward tae it, tae be honest. Jist kind of resigned myself tae the fact, ye know? Jist got used the idea of inevitable doom.

Then wan morning this truck pulls up doonstair. These guys come oot and start unloading. Furniture. Fucking sofas and tables and beds and that. Loads of them. I wis like that, oh aye, whit’s this all aboot? And they start taking all this stuff intae the empty flats. Opening the doors, fixing the windaes, getting them ready. I says tae wan of the guys, whit’s gon on? He’s like that, oh we’re jist moving the furniture. I says, aye, but who’s it for? I dinnae ken, that’s nane of ma business, I jist get paid tae shift the furniture.

And see when they arrive, it’s the middle of the night. These two coaches drive up tae the flats. I hear the engines. It wakes me up. I goes tae the windae, looks doon. I cannae see too well. The street light’s flickering. But something fucking weird is going on. All these people are getting bundled aff the buses, wae carrier bags and that.

And they’re all stauning there. And no a single wan ae them has a white face. I’m like that, fuck me.

I sprint doon the stair. The whole car park’s swarming wae fucking foreigners. Where’s the driver? Naebody’s listening. Where’s the fucking driver? Some of them look at me but naebody speaks. Fuck’s sake, dae nane of yous cunts speak any fucking English?

Then they all start piling in the door. Up the lift and up the stairwell. Stopping off at every flaer tae fill up their new luxury apartments. I’m trying tae block the entrance, but there’s too many of them.

Why the fuck does somebody else no wake up and see whit’s going on?

If only Billy wis here, I thought, he would help me. He’d be doon here in a flash. We could take them on, jist the two of us. Dae a bit of kung fu and whip all of their black asses. We’d drive them oot before they could say Osama bin Laden. We’d fucking show them.

But you wurnae here. You were away. And it wis jist me. I couldnae stop them on ma ain.

Next thing ye know, all the doors slam shut, the buses drive off. Silence. I’m left stauning there in the pissing rain. Freezing my bollocks off. No a fucking thing I can dae aboot it. I shouts up at the flats, naebody telt me!

That’s the worst of it. It all jist happened like that. Naebody fucking telt me.