BC Pires

The Scot­tish au­thor of the ground­break­ing nov­el Trainspot­ting is in town for the NGC Bo­cas Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val (and, at 4 pm to­day, will be in the Na­tion­al Li­brary AV Room, chat­ting about his life and work with one BC Pires).

As a small trib­ute to him, I've imag­ined re­plac­ing the prin­ci­pal char­ac­ters of his new book, Sk­ag­boys (the pre­quel to Trainspot­ting) with lead­ing mem­bers of the Trinidad & To­ba­go Cab­i­net in to­day's col­umn deal­ing with the dra­mat­ic res­ig­na­tion last Sun­day of for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and ex-Fi­fa Ex­Co VP, Jack Warn­er.

Be­cause its open­ing pages might be the most mem­o­rable of any book ever to emerge from Scot­land (with apolo­gies to Rob­bie Burns) I've bor­rowed the first line and oth­er words from Welsh's most fa­mous book, though a lot of the col­umn is in the Tri­ni rather than what the Amer­i­cans call the Skad­dish. (Reg­u­lar read­ers ken my Tri­ni di­alect columns writ­ten as "Y'Boy.")

In my ver­sion, be­low, Mark "Rent Boy" Ren­ton is Jack Warn­er, Si­mon "Sick Boy" Williamson is Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and, al­though Fran­cis "Gen­er­al Fran­co" Beg­bie has a clear lo­cal dop­pel­ganger, in view of the li­bel laws, I leave it to the read­er to as­sign iden­ti­ty. Be­cause of lim­it­ed space, the rest of the T&T Cab­i­net all be­come Spuds which, of course, is what they start­ed off as–but I have giv­en Spud's most mem­o­rable mo­ment to my Sick Boy; lit­er­al­ly, it ap­plies telling­ly.

The words I've tak­en di­rect­ly from Trainspot­ting are ital­i­cised. In­stead of head­ing to Moth­er Su­pe­ri­or to score, my char­ac­ters be­gin on their way to Cab­i­net: dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions, same ob­jec­tive. This in­tro­duc­tion is in dan­ger of be­com­ing longer than the act it­self, like les­bian fore­play, so let's get on with...

PORNO-SPOT­TING BAG BOYS

Kicks­ing–The Bag Boys, Fi­fa and Yuh Moth­er Can't Help She­self

The sweat wis lash­ing oafay Sick Girl but I wasn't study­ing she at all-at all; mankind' mind was set like la­glee on what Y'Rent Boy could do to ex-cape the net draw­ing een round him like seine trap­ping fish in Man­zanil­la Bay, but Y'Rent Boy just cyar risk beat­ing up like cav­al­li.

Even af­ter all these months of Fi­fa, the Eng­lish press and the PNM pes­ter­ing him, Y'Rent Boy have to lie down qui­et like a cock­roach in a plate of pelau when some­body turn on the kitchen light. Eef Y'Rent Boy on­ly move, some­body go see him and pelt a slip­per; and Y'Rent Boy down to he last de­fence now, he hardy ex­oskele­ton.

The on­li­est chance Y'Rent Boy have now is eef he could stay still-still-still in­side the seine and hope they emp­ty the net in the boat in­stead of on the beach; be­caw, in the boat, Y'Rent Boy could come back to life and flip he­s­elf back in the sea. And swim to firetruck away.

As we walk­ing through Rien­zi Com­plex car park, one set­ta jour­nal­ists start to swarm round him like 'bun­ta and Y'Rent Boy stom­ach start to bub­bli­cate and he fright­en he cyar make it through the whole Cab­i­net meet­ing with­out a trip to the la­trine. Same time, Y'Rent Boy sight a Parc Dis­pos­als. It might have ex-cape route in­side there. Y'Rent Boy dodge a mi­cro­phone and jump een the portable toi­let. Some peo­ple does have thing up they sleeve; Y'Rent Boy have some­thing some­whey else...

Tra­di­tion­al Sun­day Cab­i­net Break­fast Meet­ing

Oh my god, where the firetruck am I?... I was stunned... Please don't let this be hap­pen­ing to me. I woke up in a strange meet­ing in a strange room cov­ered in my own mess. I had pished the Cab­i­net. I had puked up in the Cab­i­net. The Cab­i­net is a to­tal firetruck­ing mess. I wrap them to­geth­er, the pun­gent, tox­ic cock­tail in the mid­dle. All them oth­er Cab­i­net mem­ber and them in a se­cure ball, with no sign of leak­age. I point to the Cab­i­net in a bun­dle at my feet–ah made a bit of a mess of the Cab­i­net.

The jour­nal­ists in Rien­zi Com­plex car park made a grab for the bun­dle... got a good grip and pulled against me. The Cab­i­net flew open and a pun­gent show­er of skit­tery shite and vile pish splashed out across the me­dia. I made a pa­thet­ic ef­fort to mop some of the mess back in­to the sheets. The na­tion shot me a look of loathing and dis­gust. I can't see our re­la­tion­ship de­vel­op­ing any fur­ther now. I just want out of here.

The Glass Red Her­ring

Tae get the na­tion's at­ten­tion, Beg­bie smash­es an el­bow in­to par­lia­men­tary dis­trac­tions with such fe­roc­i­ty it would be con­strued an as­sault, were it not be­tween Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion par­ties... Then it hap­pens. Aw the me­dia did wis put a ques­tion about Sec­tion 34 in front ay Beg­bie. He takes one po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fit oot ay it; then he throws the emp­ty is­sue straight ow­er the heads of the UNC par­ty faith­ful in a ca­su­al, back­hand no­tion...

The is­sue crash­es doon oan this na­tion's heid, which splits open as it faws tae its knees. The race-based, trib­al po­lit­i­cal par­ties as­sume bat­tle stances n one ay them charges ow­er. Beg­bie's oan his feet, n rac­ing around the East-West Cor­ri­dor and Cen­tral Trinidad. – NAE BODY LEAVES HERE UN­TIL AH FIND OOT WHAE FLUNG THAT FIRETRUCK­ING IS­SUE!... Out­side the Par­lia­ment... Beg­bie... turns tae look at us and, fir a minute, ah think he's gaun­nae pan­el us. It's like he does­nae recog­nise us.

Then he goes–Rents, nae body firetrucks with the UNC. Thuv goat tae firetruck­ing learn that.

�2 BC Pires is a pla­gia­rist with the Guardian but at least it ups his word rate. E-mail your Porno im­i­ta­tions to him at bc@carib­surf.com