Mo-Maw sends her son Mungo off with two men. Mungo doesn’t want to go, but Mo-Maw insists. Once he leaves, she starts drinking.

The two men board with Mungo on a bus that leaves Glasgow. One of the men is old and withered by years of poverty. The other man is young and rough around the edges; Mungo admires his handsome looks, which are already fading. The young man refers to himself as St. Christopher, his nickname from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He opens a beer. Mungo has experience with people with alcohol addiction who go in and out of AA because his mother vacillates between sobriety and alcohol dependence. Mungo and his siblings have a nickname for their mother for when she gets wildly drunk and resentful of her children: Tattie-bogle. Recently Mungo’s mother and sister chided Mungo for being too gullible, so Mungo resolves to listen to what St. Christopher is saying and what he really means.

The older man introduces himself by his nickname as well: Gallowgate. He tells Mungo that they’re headed to the countryside, where Mungo can fish without a permit because there’s no one else around. They ask to see his bruises and embarrass him by lifting his shirt to touch the bruises around his ribs.