Shuggie Bain (CH 1 – 11, pp 3 – 136) by Douglas Stuart
1992 The South Side (pp 3 – 13)
Shuggie is 15 and working at a depressing deli. He goes to school sometimes but not enough, and uses his work money towards his education.
“He has liked the way they sat easily together. How their bulk surrounded him and the softness of their flesh pressed into his side…For the women, Shuggie offered some form of male attention, and it did not matter that he was only sixteen and three months” (6).
The women try to have sex with him but he’s uninterested.
He’s actually only 15 years old.
“Something about the boy was no right, and this was at least something they could pity” (6).
Living in Mrs Bakhsh’s boarding house alone. Shares a bathroom with a few other men.
“In the mirror his wet hair was black as coal. As he brushed it down over his face he was suprised to find it nearly to his chin. He stared and tried to find something masculine to admire in himself: the black curls, the milky skin, the high bones in his cheeks. He caught the reflection of his own eyes in the mirror. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t how real boys were built to be” (11).
Catholic – Protestant divide: “In ma day a person’s religion said something about them…Now any good lassie will sleep with any dirty Mick as soon as she’d lie with a dog” (12).
Mr Darling asks Shuggie if he’s Catholic or Protestant and Shuggie answers neither.
Mr Darling and Shuggie drink, Darling asks what Shuggie’s best subject is in school (he answers ‘nothing’)
Shuggie and Mr Darling have sexual tension or attraction between them
Built in the late 1960s and originally made of ten high-rise slab blocks, the Sighthill estate was once home to over 7,500 people. By the mid-1980s it was labelled a ‘sink estate’ with high levels of unemployment, crime and drug abuse. Local press and the city council described Sighthill as a “byword for deprivation.”
Has two children from a previous marriage (Brendan McGowan, a Catholic), Catherine (17) and Alexander “Leek” (15)
Shug and Agnes live with her parents (Lizzie and Wullie) in a high rise flat in Sighthill. Her parents are Catholics
“Him, her man, who when he shared her bed now seemed to lie on the very edge, made her feel angry with the littered promises of better things. Agnes to put her foot through it all, or to scrape it back like it was spoilt wallpaper. To get her nail under it and rip it all away” (18).
Regrets, “better things”, dissatisfied with life
“It bored Agnes. There was a time before baggy cardigans and skinny husbands that she had led them all up to the dancing” (19)
Agnes misses the fun and attention that comes with being young
“He was a selfish animal, she knew that now, in a dirty sexual way that aroused her against her better nature…It showed in how he devoured the women leaving the card party. These days it was showing too often” (28).
“…not admitting Shug was roaming” (30).
Flashback scene of Agnes too drunk out with Shug. He gets angry that she’s incoherent and drags her up the stairs by her hair, rapes her, and beats her (34-36).
Shug Bain:
Taxi driver, Protestant, Masonic ring
Brother named Rascal (who has a son named Donald Jr)
Left his previous wife to marry Agnes. He has four children with the previous wife.
“The auld Glasgow jakey was a dying breed–a traditionally benign soul that was devolving into something younger and far more sinister with he spread of drugs across the city. Shug looked in the mirror and watched the man continue his drunken solo, the conversation so low and incoherent that he could pick out only certain words like Thatcher and union and bastard” (41).
Jakey = derogatory slang for a homeless alcoholic.
“Glasgow was losing it’s purpose” (43)
At this time in history, shipbuilding and other industrial production jobs (mining, for ex) are starting to fail in Glasgow
Some struggling to find work are looking to diamond and other types of mineral mining jobs in South Africa (“It’s diamonds… They go to South Africa to mine diamonds.”)
Shug and Ann Marie have sex in his taxi; Agnes tries desperately to reach him by phone. Agnes drunkenly tells him she knows everything (47) and Shug goes to spend the night with Joanie Micklewhite, the taxi service phoneline operator (49).
Shuggie plays with empty lager cans with women on them (51), until his mother buys him a baby doll
Agnes get’s drunk and lights the curtains in her room on fire. Shug throws them onto the street (51-52)
Fenian = derogatory for a Catholic (used by Protestants)
“Orange” = Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland; The Orange Order is the oldest and biggest Protestant fraternity in Scotland. It is an organization of people bonded together to promote the ideals of the Protestant faith.
Catherine Bain:
employed in a credit lending office as an assistant
dating Shug’s nephew Donald Jr and is saving her virginity to marry him
Catherine sees the burning curtains on her walk home from work and goes to find her brother Leek who is hiding in a stack of pallets. Some boys in the alley harass her and try to chase her (60 – 70)
Agnes wakes up blacked out after burning the curtains. Her father Wullie is upset: “I know it’s my fault, Agnes. I know I’m the reason you are the way you are” (74).
“Am I to beat this selfish devil out of you?…I am tired of you coming first, Agnes. I’m tired of watching you destroy yourself and knowing it’s my fault” (75).
Agnes tries to hide behind Shuggie so her father doesn’t whip her; he whips her with his belt.
Agnes visits her mother who is sunbathing and peeling potatoes with other women outside the high rise.
word is getting around that Agnes has a problem and is not holding up well
Lizzie warns Agnes not to ruin her father’s good name
“‘Honestly, I was that happy for you when you married that Brendan McGowan. He seemed like he could give you what your father had given me. But look at you, you had to want better.’ ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ ‘Better?’ Lizzie used her clenched teeth to itch the tip of her tongue. ‘Look where better has gotten you. Selfish article’” (81).
Agnes asks her mother to tell her father that she is moving to a new house with Shug. Lizzie is skeptical and says Agnes will believe anything, and that Shug will cheat on her more.
“‘If you cannae make Shug do right by you, at least make him do right by the boy.’ Lizzie narrowed her eyes at her grandson, at his blond dolly. ‘You’ll be needing that nipped in the bud. It’s no right'” (82).
P 84 – 89 Flashback to when Agnes and Shug left their spouses for one another.
It is a “bone dry” town where only the miners drink at the pub. Catholic town/school
Miners town, Agnes unimpressed
“Leek watched them as they were watching him. His stomach sank. The men all had his mother’s eyes” (94).
1982 Pithead (pp 99 – 136)
“Wid ye get a load o’ that. Liberace is moving in!” (101). Women of the Pit make fun of Shuggie by suggesting he’s Liberace (rumored to be gay when he was famous).
“The skull-faced women took a step closer to Agnes. ‘Aye, well. We’ll get on just fine…Just as long as ye keep yer fancy sleeves away from our fuckin’ men'” (102).
“I don’t want your dinners any more. Don’t you get it?…This is it. I can’t stay any more. I can’t stay with you. All your wanting. All that drinking” (104).
Shug is leaving Agnes and the kids in the Pit
Agnes and Shug ask each other why the other wasn’t good enough. Agnes says she’s “never so much as looked at another man” (105).
“That’s no what I meant…Why did you no love me enough to stay off the drink, eh? I buy you the best of gear, I work all the hours God sent…I even thought, maybe if I gave you a wean of my own, but no. Even that wasn’t enough to keep you still” (105).
Agnes tries to stop him from leaving: “No. Not good enough. This doesn’t happen to women like me. I mean look at me. Look at you” (105).
Catherine asks her mother why they can’t go back to Sighthill. “But Agnes couldn’t explain through the hurt. She knew he would never come back if she returned to her mother’s. She was to stay where she was dropped. She was to take any little kindness he would give” (106).
Shug only visits Pithead at night after the kids are asleep to have sex with Agnes. Agnes finds out that Shug is living with Joanie from the taxi agency (109).
“‘Why the fuck did you bring me here?’…’I had to see if you would actually come'” (110).
“He had to squeeze all the small bones in her hands to get her to release him. She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn’t do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later” (110).
Possessive feelings over Agnes, and possibly attachment? Implying he sees her as broken already, “break her completely”
P 111 Living in Pithead 4 months.
Agnes dresses up to head to the Miner’s Club to drink. Ends up chatting with neighborhood women instead:
“Don’t be botherin’ about that…The men don’t like it when we show our faces up there. Stay here with us, and we’ll hae a wee welcome drink to oorsels” (112).
“The women ran their eyes up and down their new neighbour: the strappy heels, the hard-set hair, the beautiful fur coat” (112).
Agnes is originally from Germiston but says she’s live “all over the East End” (113).
“That mine has been dying for years. There’s hardly any work there for naebody anymair. Every year we’ve got mair men sat at home, wanking in the daylight” (113).
The women tell Agnes about the mining accidents an the explosion that injured and killed many men.
Woman with the skull face = Colleen McAvennie.
“…protective of her Jamesy. Used to be a good-looking fella. He was a big burly banksman; used to ferry them up and down in a cage lift in that shaft. Got burnt in that mine, took the skin all off his shoulder and the side of his neck…” (114).
The women tell Agnes they know Shug left and that Agnes is a drinker:
“‘We’ll have to get you on benefits. Ye can go up the office on Monday morning. Ye’ll have to tell them ye’re needing disability allowance…’ ‘Will they sign me on to disability?’ ‘Ah widnae worry, hen. They’ll take one look at yet address and give it to you easy. Look at this place.’ Bridie waved her hand into the empty street. ‘It’s no like there are any new jobs coming here. Disability is the only club we’ve got, and Monday is club day'” (114).
“Ah could see the sadness, and ah knew ye had to be a big drinker” (114).
“Listen. One day at a time and aw that shite. Ah’ve had a wee problem maself. Six weans and a husband out of work? You better believe ah drank…It was the blackouts that did me in though. Ah couldn’t take that first five minutes of every day waking up and wondering who said what to who and what bastard ah’d had a fight wi’…” (115).
“Look. Ah know why ye drink, hen. It’s hard to cope sometimes. Ah steer clear of the drink, but ah still need a couple of these every day…Bridie’s little pals…Valium. If you want just try a couple. A wee taste that’s all. If you want more I’ll look after ye. Special price” (117).
Shuggie can’t find Agnes. Wanders past the school and wonders why he’s not there (119).
Boys on the playground taunt him, asking why he’s not in school and why his dad’s not around (120).
“The dirty lager mixed with petrol and made lochans of shining rainbows. Shuggie knelt down and pushed Daphne’s blond hair into the iridescent puddle. When he took her out the shiny yellow hair had turned the colour of night, and he tutted. Where were the beautiful rainbow colors?”
This scene shows how young and innocent Shuggie still is, even though he has to deal with adult situations.
“Inside the machine sat a boy, with legs above his head, curled around the drum like a broken-backed cat. ‘Want a spin in my carnival ride?'” (121).
“Hiya. My name’s Johnny. Ma maw calls us Bonny Johnny” (121).
“Is that a dolly ye’ve got, Shuggie?…Are ye a wee girl?…If ye’re no’ a wee girl then ye must be a wee poof…Ye’re no’ a wee poof, are ye?” (122)
“Shuggie didn’t know what a poof was, but he knew it was bad. Catherine called Leek it when she wanted to hurt his feelings.”
“Do ye no’ know what a poofter is, wee man? A poof is a boy who does dirty things with other boys…A poof is a boy who wants to be a wee girl.”
In this time period/culture gender expression and sexuality are seen as the same thing… If a boy acts feminine, it’s assumed he’s gay. It’s also assumed gay men want to be women.
Bonny Johnny spins Shuggie in the washing machine and he gets bruised and bloodied. Johnny’s dad beats Johnny for playing with the machine again.
“With his fat thumb, the man jabbed towards the drum. ‘Get. That. The fuck out of there, afore ah really gie ye something to greet about.’…Johnny stood in the opening looking like a battered dog…He reached in and plucked Shuggie out of the drum. ‘Listen. Ye stop that greetin’, or I’ll gie you something to greet about” (123).
Cycle of abuse… Johnny takes out his frustration and hurt about being beaten by his dad out on Shuggie.
Johnny rubs the blood off of Shuggie’s legs with leaves. “Bonny Johnny stood up again, a wiry silhouette against the bright daylight. He handed Shuggie the pulped green leaves and then he took down his gym shorts. ‘Stop girning,’ he said, through his big boy teeth. ‘Now you rub me'” (124).
“By the time Shuggie had limped back to the Miner’s Club the sun had nearly dried up the rainbow puddles. He’d left Daphne in the machine. He didn’t ever want to go back.”
“…it had been a year free of peace since they had moved to the Pit” (125).
“He knew Catherine would not come home again tonight. She was getting adept at sneaking around under Agnes’s nose, holding her secret life with Donald Jnr away from their disintegrating mother…Leek saw how his mother worried over money, how she worshipped Catherine’s weekly pittance, and so she said nothing…After all his years of practice, Leek was angry that it was Catherine who was disappearing first” (125).
Leek is leaving the house in the Pit saying he’s going to his grandmother’s and Shuggie asks if he can go; Leek says no, it’s too far:
“What he never told Shuggie was that he had once found his real father’s address. Brendan McGowan…Leek had walked to this address the winter before and had sat on the wall opposite the broad Victorian tenement. He’d watched a man come home from work, a man he didn’t recognize, but who shared the same tired stoop. A man with eyes of the same light grey. The man parked his car in front of the building and then walked past Leek on the street with nothing more than a polite nod. As the door opened, three small faces had raced down the close to greet him. Leek had watched the happy, rowdy family sit and eat at a dining table pressed against the front window…he folded the address and dropped it between the slats of a storm drain” (126).
“It was early, but the boy had taken himself off to school again. He had already missed too many days…The school didn’t like that. Father Barry had said that the Social Work would have to be notified if he did not start having a regular attendance” (127).
“With a hand over her eyes she scanned the low coffee table for something to calm the shakes” (128)
Alcoholism worsening to the point where she wakes shaking and has to drink to stop. Once you’re this addicted to alcohol it’s dangerous to stop cold turkey.
“It was Thursday, and all the Monday and all the Tuesday benefit money was already done in” (128)
She receives 38 pounds on Mondays (disability) and 8 pounds 50 on Tuesdays (child support)
46 pounds in 1983 is worth 134.32 pounds in 2021.
134.32 pounds is worth $184.62 USD (2021)
“Sad, selfish tears of the poor me’s welled in her eyes. She raked a finger through the dirty ashtray. She needed to think what to do next” (129).
Agnes begins looking for things to pawn, starting with her jewelry, and then Leek’s art supplies and tools for his apprenticeship. Leek had taken everything with him: “He had learned his lesson the last time she had been itching for pawn” (130). She checks Catherine’s closet, but finds nothing there.
Eventually she settles on selling the mink coat Brendan McGowan had bought her
P 130-131 Walking out of Pithead in the rain, getting coal dust in her open-toed shoes.
“She felt she must have looked mental” (131).
Agnes runs into a taxi garage and asks to use the bathroom to clean herself up:
“Agnes went into the bathroom and closed the door tight. She stood for a long while looking at the melted old hoor in the mirror” (132).
“‘We’ve all got a couple of them…Long stories’ ‘Like how youse are off to pawn that coat?” (133)
“She brought that Milngaive voice out again, the one that said, I am a women with a rich man and a big house. ‘I am not off to pawn this coat. What on earth gives you that idea?'” (133)
Agnes asks the man why he’s calling her out for being an alcoholic:
“Look, Missus, ye just came in here in a right sorry state, and from the look o’ ye, there was a thing or two ah could easy tell…Ah could tell because ah’d been through it maself, that’s all” (134).
“So, have ye been to AA yet?…Well are ye at least willing to admit ye have a problem?…Ye came in here wi’ the level-five shakes” (134).
Agnes asks him if he knows Shug. He doesn’t. She asks him to “fix his brakes” (135) if they ever meet. He says: “For you, beautiful, absolutely.”
“He’s no the reason you’re headed down the plughole, is he?…Ah-ha, ya daft eejit. Doin’ yersel in for a man… Do ye know what to do, if ye really want to get yer own back?…It’s quite easy. Ye should just get the fuck on with it… Get on wi’ yer fuckin’ life. Have a great life. Ah promise nothing would piss the pig-faced baldy bastard off more. Guar-rant-teed.”
Closing Thoughts:
These chapters followed Agnes’s decline from just a drinker to a full blown alcoholic. She shakes and has to pawn her and her children’s belongings and use her disability and child support to pay for more alcohol.
Agnes still holds a relatively elevated view of herself, even as she deteriorates. Only on her trip to the pawn shop is she starting to catch glimpses of the true current state of herself.
Catherine is slowly pulling away from the family. As a character, I think Catherine is meant to allude to Agnes’s younger self? Or she is meant to be a foil against Agnes’s irresponsibility.
Leek is jealous that Catherine is able to pull further away than he can. I think Leek and Catherine combined are meant to show the options of teens and young adults at the time. For Catherine, her best option is the marry the best guy she can find (“best” to Catherine might mean wealthiest, most secure, where to Agnes, “best” or “better” meant something less secure and more “shiny” like Shug). Leek is trying to find his own way out, but he’ll have to seek education (difficult because he has no money and no support) or find work (also hard to find given he lives in Pithead where there are fewer and fewer jobs each year). Both Catherine and Leek have to balance their urges to escape their mother with their guilt of leaving their younger brother with her.
Shuggie is starting to come up against more and more consequences for the way he is. The way he talks, walks, and acts is beginning to attract negative attention. At the beginning of the book, his more effeminate nature wasn’t as big of a deal because he was younger. People warned Agnes in the beginning of the book that his behavior would have to be “dealt with” or “nipped in the bud,” but now there are no warnings and people are either actively making fun of, attacking, and taking advantage of Shuggie based off of how he acts. I am predicting that the homophobia Shuggie faces will intensify the older he gets.
Shuggie has not yet shown much dislike for Agnes, which is a little surprising. He still seems to be her #1 supporter and loves her, although it seems he recognizes she is untrustworthy.
