by Will Davis
Kids are such a bunch of cunts. But it's not just all those losers at school, it's everything. I mean, when you think about it, my life is pretty awful at the moment, so it's not like I don't have an excuse for self-pity or anything. The whole thing with Jon ended like, as badly as it could have, Mum and Dad are taking me to therapy and my best friend's like, chronically mad at me for something that happened at some stupid party I didn't even want to go to. Being ostracised by a bunch of loser virgins is like, the final insult, that's all.
And it's lying here, feeling all depressed and shit, that I first get to thinking how much easier it would be if I just didn't have to deal with any of these hassles. Like, if I started again somewhere where fun was something people actually liked to have rather than something that should be avoided at all cost. I mean, why is it that everything has to be so fucking depressing? What's the point of doing anything? Do y'know what I mean?
Well, maybe you don't. No one else seems to. Anyway. Tuesday:
I wake up with a plan, which is to find Mary and make her tell me what she's been telling other people. I didn't sleep very well, and I kind of wake up all mad and angry, in this mood which I don't really get much, which lasts all the way to school. I actually see Al on the bus, sitting right up front, and she catches my eye. She gives me this look like maybe she's ready to talk, but I'm so mad this morning I just look away and ignore her, which is totally childish I know but I can't help it.
By the time I get to school I've calmed down a bit, but I get all riled up again when I pass junior school. If you can believe it, one of the little shits runs up to me and shouts Rah! right in my face. He runs away before I can catch him and, like, dismantle him or something. I'll never recognise him again either, since all the molestables look the same and most of them haven't started developing like, proper faces yet.
First period is art, which I kind of simmer through. We're supposed to be painting these self-portraits, but I find myself doing a portrait of Satan instead. If you can believe it, when Mrs Bolsh sees it she actually compliments me on my 'sensitive and expressive nature' and holds it up for the class to see, like they're all supposed to copy it or something, which just goes to show that art these days really is what you make of it. But in a way I'm totally irritated by it, and I want to snatch it back off her and tell her just what I really think about stupid art class.
Come break-time I march around campus looking for Mary. I finally locate her at the top of the science ward hanging out with Ian, that puking/snogging cretin you may remember from her party. They're like, getting full-on chummy with each other when I arrive. In fact they look like they're about to snog, and both of them leap like, ten feet in the air when I shout, Mary! from behind her.
She's like, Oh hi, Jaz, in this weird voice which is both innocent and yet knowing. Ian smirks and looks away, so it's pretty clear she's told him. I'm like, Can I have a word or are you working at the moment?
Mary's so dumb she doesn't even get when she's being insulted, and Ian's even dumber, since guys who are regularly pumping down the gym seem to like, sweat their brains out or something (which doesn't say much for a whole bunch of those super-built gay men you see in Starlight either).
She's like, Sure, in this friendly voice.
I'm like, In private?
At this point Ian decides he's a factor. He's like, If you've got something to say why don't you go ahead and just say it?
I'm like, so incensed by this I practically decombust. Before I even know what I'm saying I go, Fine. Mary, did you tell everyone about me being gay or what?
There's this long pause. I may as well tell you here what a fatal mistake this is on my part, because Mary kind of looks like I've shot her or something, and Ian opens his eyes so wide they practically fall out of his head. Mary starts shaking her head back and forth faster than a spin-dryer. Ian kind of recovers and jumps to his feet. He's like, See you later, to Mary. He runs off down the stairs like he's been given an injection.
Mary's like, Why did you just say that? Don't you know Ian's one of the biggest loudmouths in school?
Normally it'd be like, So why the hell were you about to snog him? but I'm way too deep into being like, Oh Shit, to think of such things.
I thought you'd told everyone, I go. My voice wavers. It's much higher than I've ever heard it before, almost like Mum's when she goes supersonic but not quite so earsplitting.
Of course I didn't! she says angrily. What kind of a person do you think I am?
She looks down the stairs and sighs like a mother who's disappointed in one of her children.
In any case, everybody'll know pretty soon, she goes in this voice like she's deeply regretful or something.
At this point I kind of flop against the wall and crumble to the floor. Mary looks worried and comes and sits next to the pile of body parts that I've turned into. She leans forward so that her massive tits are like, expanding towards me and then does the naffest thing on Earth. She reaches out and strokes my cheek. I mean, it's like, full-on Yuck - it just goes to show that no matter how low you sink, there's always a lower level to be sunk to.
She's like, It'll be OK, you know, in this ultra-mumsy voice. She's well into this role. Her whole chest swells. I swear, it seems to get bigger by the second, like one of those frogs with the inflatable necks. It'll be OK, she goes again. I just don't say anything because what the fuck does she know? Nothing, that's what. But Mary won't shut up. She keeps stroking me, like I'm a vagina or something. Then she goes, Maybe it's for the best. You know, you shouldn't deny it. You should be proud of it.
When she says that I can't take it any longer. There's this like, ocean of puke rising from my stomach, and I just can't stand Mary and the way she's sitting there stroking my cheek like something out of one of her fucking soap operas. I want to scream at her or punch her or something. In the end I just tell her all icily to go get a breast reduction and push her hand away.
Jaz! she goes, like she can't believe me, but I'm already out of there. And then, just because I can, I decide not to bother with the rest of school that day and so I take a bus into town and end up wandering around the Trocadero watching the Japanese kids dancing on those video-game pads and pretending like I don't exist or something. I wander round Piccadilly and down inside the tube station too. I'm hoping there'll be someone to bum a cigarette off since I've smoked all the ones I nicked off Dad. But it's rush hour and everyone's just pushing against each other and fighting to get in or out through the gates, and it's like a full-on scrum, so I end up pressed against this poster. It's a horrible poster. It's got these two pictures of women. One of them is like, this goth, kind of cool, all white with black hair and clothes and silver piercings. The other one's all dressed in this dull grey suit with this blonde highlighted hairdo, looking totally boring, and is smiling out of the picture. There's a little note under each one saying that the goth is the lead singer in this band, and the other one's like, a bank manager. And it's the same woman apparently, 'cos underneath the photos there's this blurb which says, 'In just ten years your taste has improved and so has ours'. It's advertising wine. It's the most depressing fucking poster I've ever seen in my whole life.
Of course word gets back from the school to Mum and Dad that I truanted it, because even though I'm in year six you still have to be accounted for when the teachers do their stupid roll-call. Mum's waiting for me at home with a whole speech prepared about how I'm really sliding and how she can't believe I'm really her son because when she was my age she never had any of these problems I have. She's like, When I was a teenager we didn't have any money. When I got back from school I had to work, from six till nine o'clock, and so did all my friends. We didn't own a television! like television is all I'm about. I just run upstairs to my room and lock the door. At least that's to say I push my drawers against it, since obviously I don't have a lock.
On Wednesday I wake up and try to fake a disease, but Mum's not having any of it. She doesn't even bother lookin
g at me when I tell her at breakfast I don't feel well. She just goes, It's probably your conscience, and goes back to reading whatever the latest self-help rubbish is. Dad looks me over but shakes his head, like I've failed some kind of test or something, so I end up going to school anyway. I tell myself I don't care really. It's not like I have to or anything.
So this like, scene takes place in the exact same corridor where I wrote on the crappy molestables' collage. That's now been replaced with a bunch of dappy pictures of hand prints, and I'm standing there staring at them for the simple reason that I've got nowhere else to go. It's free study period but there's no way I feel like studying. Then I hear the word 'Poof!' coming from behind me and the next thing I know I'm facing Fuck Face and his goons. And Fabian's with them too. He's kind of hanging behind them, watching us with this total smirk across his face. I give him this look like I can't believe how low he's sunk but he looks back at me and his grin widens. He just shrugs like he could give a shit.
Fuck Face comes towards me. There's no hope of escape whatsoever. I figure I don't even care. But as soon as Fuck Face gives me this great push and I go flying back and hit my head on the board, I realise that actually I do, because pain still hurts no matter how shit you're feeling.
I'm like, Just go and afflict someone else!
I make a bolt for it, though it's totally pointless. This time old Fuck Face just grabs my arm and, like, rips it backwards. It feels like it's about to come off. I use my other arm to swing at his face, and I'm pleased to say I catch him with a nicely pleasant clunking sound right in his teeth. He kind of reels backward for a second, but he doesn't let go of my arm.
Tweedle Dum goes, You're not gonna let that pass, are you? like Fuck Face needs any more encouragement.
Fuck Face balls up his comic-book fist and gives me one in the head, which I swear will ring for days. I'm like, totally seeing stars, and it doesn't help that when I go flying backwards I hit my head again on the board. It's like my skull is that thing that dangles inside a bell. I kind of slide down the wall like a lump of shit that's been thrown at it.
Fuck Face is like, You know what we do with poofters at this school?
He comes and stands over me and the Tweedles come and stand at either side of him. Weirdly, what with the light and all shining right down in my eyes from the window behind him, he looks kind of celestial, like God or something. The Tweedles actually look kind of like seraphs. But it's only because you can't see their ugly mugs is all, and the fact that my entire brain is like, totally pulverised.
Tweedle Dum, or Dee (I can't quite make out which one's talking), goes, Look, he's acting all hurt.
Just as Fuck Face is about to show me what they do, there's this flicker at his neck. I like, blink my eyes a few times and try to refocus. (Turns out I'm practically concussed here, by the way. It's lucky I don't die.) It's Fabian's knife I guess, 'cos I hear Fabian saying something and then I hear Fuck Face like, begging him not to do anything, with real terror in his voice. Then there's like, this total cry of pain. I kind of see some red on Fuck Face's neck but I don't really believe that Fabian's cut his throat or anything 'cos that'd just be daft. But then I hear the Tweedles shouting stuff, like Fabian's insane, and there's all this yelling and stuff and doors are opening up the corridor so I figure more people are coming. But I don't really see it, I just hear it, and over it all there's this beat in my head playing like a full-on techno track.
Then Fabian's like, kneeling beside me going, I got that fucker for you! I got 'im good. Won't be cussing you up no more! and I'm like, majorly Huh the what? because I can't even tell which side of me he's supposed to be on. Then there's the voice of some teacher who's like, clearing the way around me and telling people to get back and issuing orders and stuff. It's totally surreal, like finding yourself in a David Lynch film or something, only one that's severely out of focus.
Anyway, I end up sat in Fatty the headmaster's office while my brain resettles itself. The nurse, who's even fatter than he is, bulges in to see me and pokes me around and shines a little torch in my eyes. She decides there's no point in me going to hospital, which is typical of her because she's this total power-nut who just loves diagnosing pupils herself and hates sending them off anywhere else for, like, proper treatment. But pretty soon I start thinking halfway normally so I guess just this once she was right.
Fatty's got all these questions for me, but I can't be bothered with it so I pretend like I'm still dazed and he calls Dad to come pick me up.
Meanwhile Fabian's like, totally vanished. But he's in deep shit because he cut Fuck Face's cheek. Not badly – unfortunately – just a little nick. There's not even gonna be a scar there probably. But it was enough to scare Fuck Face. When I finally get to leave the office 'cos Dad's arrived he's sat outside in the corridor with the Tweedles, staring into space like he's traumatised or something. Tweedle Dum gives me this full-on evil look and whispers something into Fuck Face's ear. But Fuck Face doesn't seem to hear him 'cos he just carries right on staring straight ahead as we pass by. He looks totally unhappy and it kind of makes you almost believe that inside every bully there really is a sappy little orphan waiting to get out or something. But even if that's true I don't care, 'cos he totally deserved it.
17
Dad's pretty sympathetic once I tell him I was picked on by homophobes. I kind of play up that part and leave out the bit about writing old Fuck Face Joseph's name above the cardboard cow in the molestables' collage, even though I know it's probably going to come out once he gets a grilling from Fatty.
It's cool in a way though, because he tells Mum and she gets all mad about it and it's kind of touching in a way, how mad she gets, especially 'cos she alternates between that and cooing over me and my head. She goes on though. All about how we're going to sue the school and imprison my bullies, and then later she comes up to my room and gives me this long talk about freedom, like I've earned the right to listen to this great philosophy of hers that she's been like, accumulating for all of her life. She obviously thinks it's a Special Moment, when actually it isn't. I'm touched though, and I feel kind of bad when I run out of patience and have to tell her I'm fine and to please leave me alone.
That night I get a call from AL She's heard what's happened and is all hyper-apologetic. She's like, Jaz, I'm so sorry I can't believe it! I feel so bad. She goes on and on about how she feels guilty and how her parents have been hassling her and other stuff, and how she should never have ignored me and how it's probably some hormone kicking in or something which made her do it. Seriously, listening to her you'd have thought she'd forgotten she was talking instead of just thinking. After a while she starts asking me questions about what happened and telling me some stuff I don't know, like that Fabian's been expelled and Fuck Face has been suspended. Then she starts going on about her parents, and how they're on at her to buckle down and focus on her studies and stuff, and how much she feels like a slave at home. But the truth is I can't actually be bothered to even listen much. I mean, I suddenly feel so bored of it all. Not just her parents - of the whole school thing and everything else that's been going on. Of life, basically, if that doesn't sound too naff. Because it is boring, when you think about it. I don't know, maybe you don't. Maybe it's just my concussion or something. Then she starts going on about poor Fellows and how we still have this like, mission to get his jolly roger a good workout. But I'm just not interested. I kind of give her the silent treatment, I suppose. It's not 'cos I'm mad though. It's just that I can't be bothered. Finally she goes, Let's go to Starlight tomorrow night, in this super-excited voice, which I know is her way of really trying to make it up to me, but I just think to myself, What for? and that's when I get this sudden flashback of Fabian telling me about how people always just do what other people tell them to, and I think Yeah, it's totally true. Then I think to myself, Uh oh, 'cos Fabian's this total Nazi and that means that I'm basically agreeing with him, which means maybe I'm turning into a Nazi or something myself. S
till, it is true, what he said, and even if he is a Nazi it doesn't mean he can't like, ever be right about anything.
I tell Al I've got to go and hang up pretty fast. Then I pay a visit to Grandma, who's sleeping, which is all she seems to do these days. That and stare out the window.
The Nun comes in while I'm there and demands to know what I'm doing. She's like, totally jealous of all the attention I've got from the whole thing at school, and tells me that I should have some respect for the elderly and let her nap in peace.
I'm like, If you keep talking you're the one who's gonna wake her up.
The Nun's like, You know, you have no respect for other people. Sometimes I really think you might have psychological difficulties.
Normally when she says something like that without Mum and Dad around I'm like, flexing my finger muscles and getting ready to attack, but today I just ignore her. She seems kind of surprised by the lack of reaction, but after a good sesh of righteous tutting she wanders off again.
Then Grandma opens her eyes and says, George? which is really scary because that was Grandpa's name. For a minute I consider like, pretending to be him or something, just to make her feel better, but then she closes her eyes and goes back to sleep, thankfully.
The whole of the week that follows is totally boring, so I'm just gonna give you the broad strokes. Like at school, everything goes pretty much back to normal. Me and Al go back to sitting together, and nobody really says anything to me about being gay, since the whole Fuck Face thing has kind of made me into this walking spotlight. Except for a few brainless gym freaks, that is, who've obviously been pumping iron with Ian and who make like, puckering noises with their lips whenever they see me, which is like, sad beyond sad.
