Shuggie Bain

Agnes blames her mother for ruining her image of Wullie right before his death. A month after Wullie dies, Lizzie dies. She stepped backward off a curb and a bus hit her. Agnes, distraught and more reliant on alcohol than ever, begs a taxi to take her from Pithead to Sighthill, where she organizes her mother’s viewing and wake. She sits by her mother’s body all night. Chaffed at the way people reacted to the food at Wullie’s wake, Agnes provides better provisions at Lizzie’s to improve her image in the mourners’ eyes.

Back home in Pithead, Agnes has Leek call Catherine in South Africa to fill her in on her grandparents’ deaths. Agnes was sober for the wake, but she now drinks a can of Special Brew as she strains to listen to her children’s conversation. Catherine is distraught at the news and angry with Leek that she was not informed sooner. Catherine does not speak to Agnes, who had been desperate to hear her voice.

In the morning, Agnes is passed out and half-hanging over the side of the bed. Shuggie leaves her tea and the dregs of her drinks from the night before to quell the hangover and withdrawal symptoms. He shyly tries on some of Agnes’s mascara.

When Agnes comes to, she thinks Shuggie left for school. Suffering, she tries to piece together the night before. She remembers going to bingo, drinking heavily, and taking a taxi home. She vomits when she remembers the taxi driver raping her in his car by the mine pit. When she takes a bath, she sees the new bruises on her body.

Jinty McClinchy visits and sees that Agnes is suffering from a hangover. Jinty claims to just be dropping by for tea, but soon they are drinking the last beer Agnes had hidden away, and Jinty produces more from her purse. Agnes tells her about her bad blackout and the taxi driver. Jinty is sympathetic. They soon run out of beer.

Because they are broke and want more alcohol, Jinty calls up Ian Lambert (“Lamby”), a single man, to come over to have a small party. She uses Agnes’s beauty to lure him into purchasing more beer for them.

Once they start drinking, Jinty tries to set up Agnes with Lamby. When Lamby asks if Agnes is seeing anyone, Jinty says, “That one is practically on call for the Greater Glasgow Taxi Livery” (208). This ruins Agnes’s mood. Now drunk, she accuses Jinty of being a backstabber. They continue drinking and smoking rolled cigarettes. Jinty tries to revive the mood by putting on music and getting Agnes to dance with Lamby.

Agnes vomits on Lamby, just as Shuggie walks in. Lamby surveys the scene: “from the broken lady to the little boy in his school clothes to the woman tucking the last of the plastic bag into her big leather handbag” (211). Lamby leaves. Jinty checks for more alcohol and, finding none, leaves as well. 

On the playground, Shuggie the McAvennie kids bully Shuggie, calling him homophobic slurs. Francis punches Shuggie in the head, knocking him to the ground, before a girl named Annie rescues him.

Annie takes Shuggie back to the caravan where she lives with her alcoholic father. She knows about Agnes’s struggle with alcoholism. Agnes even visited their trailer once. She tells Shuggie he should fight for his mother when people insult her; he replies, “I do fight for her! […] Mostly with herself, but it’s still a fight” (214).

Shuggie and Annie play with Annie’s plastic ponies, which he sees as magical. Annie asks him if he really touched Johnny Bell’s penis; Shuggie lies that he did not. Annie says that she has touched other older boys’ penises in return for some alcohol. Shuggie is shocked; he says, “Why do girls always let boys do what they like?” (218). Before he leaves, Shuggie steals two of Annie’s horses.

Shuggie’s anxiety about going home manifests in an upset stomach every day 15 minutes before the end of school. Agnes’s sporadic stretches of sobriety are always fleeting. Shuggie learns what to expect from his mother’s behavior based on the differences in the sounds he comes home to. When she is drunk and angry, Agnes makes Shuggie dial the numbers of the men in her address book so she can berate them over the phone.  

Many times, Shuggie comes home to strange men visiting his mother. As Shuggie grows, these Pithead “uncles” begin to see him as an obstacle and contrive to get him to leave the house. Shuggie sees the “aunties” who visit as worse than the uncles, because they pressure Agnes to drink again. Jinty is the worst of these visitors. Agnes makes Shuggie rub Jinty’s feet while she insults Shuggie, insisting that he be sent to a school for the mentally challenged. Shuggie, in a sudden rage, twists her toe until it cracks, sending her wailing to the ground.

Shuggie comes home one day to find Agnes sober. She fixes him tea and an apple pastry. Shuggie is delighted.

Agnes begins attending AA meetings on Dundas Street. She chose a farther location to avoid running into any familiar faces. The leader, George, has Agnes introduce herself to the group. Before she can say much, George uses her name to launch into the story of Saint Agnes, comparing the flames of her attempted burning at the stake to the metaphorical “burning” experienced by alcoholics. 

Agnes sobers up in time for Shuggie’s tenth birthday. After three months of sobriety, she gets a job at a petrol station working the night shift. Her job helps occupy her time and keeps her mind off her many grievances. Taxi drivers frequent the station late at night. Over time, Agnes accumulates several repeat customers, who visit the station mainly to see her. Shuggie and Leek, meanwhile, are astounded at their mother’s new, caring behavior.

Agnes takes an interest in one of her regular customers, a large, red-haired cab driver named Eugene, who seems new to the job. She flirts with him, but he rebuffs her. Eventually, they hit it off, and Eugene ask her out on a date. Shuggie and Leek share in their mother’s excitement and nervousness for the date.

Eugene takes Agnes to the Grand Ole Opry, somewhere she has never been. Eugene is a regular: the other Opry fans call him “Sherriff.” Agnes feels out of place because Eugene and the other patrons dress in country attire. Eugene asks Agnes about her life, and she gives him the whitewashed narrative she has rehearsed. A waitress comes to take their order. She is flirty with Eugene and dismissive of Agnes. To Eugene’s surprise, Agnes only orders a Coke. Eugene tells Agnes that his wife died of cancer a few years back. Agnes is sympathetic because of Wullie’s death.

A couple Eugene knows, Lesley and Leslie, interrupts their date. Eugene is uncomfortable. Through the course of their conversation, Agnes realizes that Eugene is Colleen’s sister. Leslie mentions “that alky hoor that’s moved in across the street” from Colleen (245). After the couple leaves, Agnes confronts Eugene. Eugene asks if she slept with Jamesy, and Agnes denies it.

The band starting up, followed by a fake shootout tournament that Agnes and Eugene participate in, provides relief to the tension between them. Afterward, they dance together. Agnes describes the difficulty of quitting drinking. She asks him why he took an interest in her if he knew the rumors about her. Eugene tells her that even before his wife died, he felt alone. He and his wife had been together for 20 years and had nothing left to say to each other. After her death, he was all alone. Colleen had never mentioned Agnes to Eugene. When he first saw Agnes, he saw somebody that he thought was as lonely as him. It made him realize he wanted to live. Agnes kisses him. 

Eugene and Agnes go on a date in the daytime to a canyon Eugene used to hike in when he was younger. It goes well, despite a rocky start, and the two grow closer. That night, she wakes Shuggie and takes him to steal rose plants from the center divider of the highway near the petrol station. Agnes transplants them to their yard. In the morning, the McAvennie children bully Shuggie because of the roses.

Summer is unusually hot. Agnes tries to get Shuggie to spend some time outdoors to take advantage of it. She upends an old refrigerator and fills it with water for Shuggie to use like a pool. Agnes wonders what kind of man Shuggie will grow up to be. She wants him to be “Peaceful […] Less Worried-looking” (263). Shuggie just wants to be with her, to take her somewhere they can be brand new. When he asks if she is going to marry Eugene, Agnes says that it has just been the two of them for too long.

Shuggie, Leek, and Agnes splurge on chocolate from the ice cream truck, and spend the afternoon watching soap operas together. Leek leaves when Agnes asks Shuggie to dance for her. Shuggie teaches her the dance routine to Janet Jackson’s “Control” and keeps dancing to other songs when Agnes tires out. Shuggie screams when he sees the McAvennie children are watching from their window across the street, roaring with laughter. Agnes tells Shuggie to keep dancing so they do not win. Despite the mortification, Shuggie does not stop. 

During physical education, Shuggie is bullied by the other boys and the teacher. This culminates in a fight between Shuggie and Lachlan McKay after school. Their altercation draws a crowd of students. When Dirty Mouse McAvennie chides, “How come ye don’t do yer wee dance for us?” Shuggie explodes in rage. Shuggie and Lachlan are equally weak. Francis McAvennie trips Shuggie, allowing Lachlan to pin him and punch Shuggie in the face until he wins the fight. Bloody and battered, Shuggie walks home, hating himself. He sticks his head into the cold water of the upended refrigerator in the yard and regrets it when he thinks the pink streamers of blood floating in the water are pretty.

Leek is waiting for him. It is the anniversary of Agnes becoming sober, and Leek and Shona, Birdie’s youngest daughter, have been planning a surprise party for her. Shuggie thinks Agnes is only 21; every year, she has Shuggie buy her a “Happy 21st birthday” card. Leek, who is almost 21 himself, laughs at him.

The party packs the small house with strangers, including the Dundas Street AA group and the Pithead women, who are disappointed it is a dry party. Shuggie cleans the rest of the blood from his face and dresses himself in crisp suit, reminiscent of a forties mobster, and makes the rounds serving food to the guests. When Agnes and Eugene arrive, Agnes is shocked: she had not realized that it was her anniversary of sobriety, or that her sons had been keeping track of the days so closely.

Eugene and Shuggie have a conversation for the first time. Shuggie asks how long Eugene plans to stay with his mother. Eugene is taken aback; he tells Shuggie that he can take care of Agnes so Shuggie can focus on playing with other boys his age so he can be more like them. He gives Shuggie a small red book of football (soccer) statistics. Shuggie’s “face flushed with shame; any feelings of superiority left him” (281). Shuggie goes over to his mother, who introduces him to two of the group members, including a handsome man. Seeing him, “Shuggie felt funny inside. The football book burnt his leg” (282).

Mary-Doll, one of the AA members, tries to flirt with Eugene. The encounter shifts Eugene’s mood. He finds Agnes and lies that he is fine. She tries to kiss him, but he rebuffs her, making her “feel old and dirty” (283). He leaves. Agnes looks around at the people at the party and wonders if she’s broken like they are. Agnes redoes her makeup in a less old-fashioned way, but seeing that it does nothing to change her, she longs for a drink. Instead, she takes “two of Birdie Donnelly’s happy pills” and rejoins the party (285).