by Ben Brooks
I met Sam in the toilet at lunchtime. He was sitting in a cubicle with his laptop, playing online poker and eating Haribo.
I met Aslam in the trees by the bottom of the field. We were both there to smoke. He gave me some of his beer and told me about a guy who made a porn with a girl but then he cut the girl up and had sex with the different parts.
I met Hattie in the library. She was by the reference books, reading Ariel and sniffing. I thought about maybe fingering her until she introduced me to James.
We started doing breaktimes together under a spruce tree next to the language block.
Alice didn’t appear for another year. When she did, it was at the bottom of Chris McDowell’s garden, midway through a party he was holding while his mum took his dad to London for a kidney operation. I was nauseous. I was looking for somewhere to hide.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hello.’
‘I’m Etgar.’
‘I know. You’re friends with Aslam. He called Eliza fat once. I punched him.’ I sat down in the grass next to her. Not too close. In case she hit me. I remembered The Eliza Incident. I remembered she’s called Alice Calloway and she’s in the year below us and she’s severely attractive. I remembered Aslam’s eye looked like a pork scratching.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Sometimes he does-a not-a do-a the thinking.’
‘Was that an Italian accent?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Yes. Um. Why are you out here?’
‘I came with Lydia but she’s getting with someone. I don’t really know anyone else I want to talk to.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘Are you going to rub your face against my tits and shout “huzzah huzzah”?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Probably not. I’m not even-a doing the talking well. Sorry. I’m drunk.’
‘Are you the one that hides in cupboards?’
‘No, that’s Sam. He’s not hiding. He just gets tired.
‘Cool.’
We stayed where we were and talked. We talked about who did the motorboating (Ellis Langton) and who shat themselves on the 86 and who had a Pokemon tattoo on their calf. We talked about school. We talked about which teacher is gay and which teacher had been castrated and which teacher got drunk and did anal with a year eleven on the Paris trip. We talked about Vonnegut. We talked about the Olsen twins. We talked about Slipknot.
Alice wasn’t scary. She was good at doing talking. When I asked her about something she asked me about the something too, and she didn’t stop until I gave an opinion that wasn’t beige. I don’t know why. She liked to talk about things other people think are disgusting. She’d read Wetlands. We thought the same things were gay.
‘Wait here,’ she said. She got up and went. I thought, she’s definitely not going to come back. I was too boring. She’s going upstairs to sit on the face of a boy more muscular and emotionally mature than me. I should have told jokes. I should have flexed.
She came back.
She put her legs on my legs and lay back and twisted off the lid of a miniature bottle of rosé with her teeth.
‘Gay wine,’ she said.
I’ve been picked for a team, I thought. I’m on a team now.
We finished the wine in silence, went upstairs and lay in the bathtub, trying to make each other happy with our hands. I wasn’t anxious about doing it wrong because Alice told me exactly how to not do it wrong. It isn’t about how many fingers you can get in and it isn’t about how fast you can make those fingers work. She was the first girl to give me a blowjob without painfully ploughing my dickskin with her teeth.
At one, loud sounds happened downstairs. We followed them and they led to Aslam, standing at the front door, shrugging at two flustered parents.
‘I heard there was a cocktail of drugs,’ the mum said.
‘There isn’t a “cocktail of drugs”. Honestly, it’s boring as shit.’ He tilted his head. ‘Did Martin tell you that? He’s pissed because someone made him drink piss. There aren’t any drugs. Look at my pupils.’ He moved his face very close to the woman’s face.
‘Get away from me,’ the mum said.
‘Get away from her,’ the dad said.
‘No need to be rude.’
‘I’ll call the police.’
‘Help, police, some young people are in a house together and one of them tried to show me his beautiful emerald eyes.’
The woman snorted. She grabbed her husband and turned and left.
‘Martin’s gay,’ Aslam shouted.
I kicked him. ‘Leave them alone.’
‘They’re dicks. And you’re a massive spastic.’
‘Do you have drugs left?’
‘A bit.’
‘Bathroom.’
Alice came with us to crowd around a toilet on the third floor. Aslam apologised for The Eliza Incident. She was in every bathroom after that. She was in my bedroom, Aslam’s summerhouse, the days when I hid from school, and under the spruce tree.
19
‘Fuck off,’ I say, hitting Amundsen in the nose and rolling over. My head is internally bleeding. My throat has been clawed by cats. ‘Amundsen, fuck off.’
‘Excuse me,’ a man’s voice says. I blink and open my eyes. I’m underneath a bright turquoise sky. A confused black Doberman is watching me, tongue flapping out of the corner of its mouth. I look at my hands. They’re panda hands. ‘Are you okay, young man?’ I sit up. The man’s eyebrows are bent into a V. ‘Is there someone I can call?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘For hitting your dog.’
‘Are you sure there’s no one I can call?’
‘No. Thank you. I’m okles dokles.’ I pinch my hands. ‘Okey dokey. It’s okay. I’m okay. Okay?’
I stand up and fall to one side. The man takes hold of my arm and rights me. I thank him and run. My legs are foam. They pull me to the living-room sofa and give up. The house was unlocked. All of the lights are on. Amundsen is asleep in the armchair. He’s done more shits. I don’t care. He can do as many shits as he likes. He should shit. He should keep shitting until everything is covered in a layer of shit sitting like thick ash on me and the house, stuck here in Pompeii.
Bile tides rise and fall in my neck. There’s a stagnant pool of water burping in my belly. It’s going to come up. Is it? Vomiting might be good, I feel. Or it might be like uncorking a bottle. I might keep vomiting until there’s nothing left. Mum will find my body lying like a punctured balloon by the bath.
I make coffee with the cafetiere, adding an extra spoonful of coffee and not knowing why. It’s not that I want to be awake. I want to be asleep. Amundsen doesn’t. He’s kissing the mud stains around my ankles and doing content dog sounds. He wants tripe and I give him some, then let him out into the garden to be a detective questioning the weeds and leaves.
I get into bed and under the duvet. I don’t want to be woken up by unfamiliar dogs in wet parks. I want to be woken up by quietly attractive women with Nesquik tea and athletic physiques.
RE: London
Macy,
It’s not weird. Don’t worry. You’re coming to London for a meeting and that’s where I definitely am. I want to see you too. Tell me where your meeting is the day after and I’ll book us a hotel. I’d say we could stay at mine but renovations are being done and everything’s messy. I’ll find a good hotel. We can have dinner there. Maybe see a show or something afterwards.
We’re actually going to meet.
We’re going to have sex with each other.
I’m excited to see you,
Etgar
I record a video and attach it. In the video I am staring into the computer and I say, ‘I am not a man. I promise.’
I send it.
I’m going to London.
Alice Poem #3
I caught malaria in your dumb canals. I got
a fever and vomited and went the colour
of dead daffodils. You said I didn’t h
ave malaria.
I have loads of malaria. A+ at having malaria.
I should have been vaccinated, maybe, BUT OH:
if you wake up one day in Uganda it’s too
late. I don’t know if I’m Cheryl Cole. On TV
Ashley Cole got sent on against Arsenal
and 60,000 people booed him and that is what
I want to happen to you. Please feel like
I feel now.
20
Sitting crosslegged in the centre of the living-room carpet, I pretend to be a fishing boat lost at sea. I know about what to do if that happens. From the book. I know how to fashion fishing hooks from safety pins. I know about flares. I know about doing an SOS and making solar stills and punching sharks in their noses to scare them away. In Lost, when some of them left the island on a boat, they sent up a flare and evil men came. They stole the boy away and shot someone almost dead. It was ultra-scary.
That’s why I am staying away from The Outside.
The television comes on. It’s the news. The bald man is here. He shuffles a sheaf of papers and coughs and looks at me. His tie is loose and his collar is foxed with old sweat. The screen behind him shows a photo of the earth, spinning faster than a bike wheel, so that the colours slide into one long smear.
‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘Someone died today and a hurricane happened. Something else happened and something else happened. The banks did something. A footballer kicked a football referee. Someone sexed someone else.’ I tip the glass back until it’s vertical and empty. My body is humming. ‘And, in an unexpected turn of events, Etgar Allison has arranged to meet with Macy Anderson, a thirty-five-year-old Scottish female he has been romantically linked to via the Internet. The trip will be financed with money left to Allison by his late grandmother, who died aged ninety-two at a computer with William Hill bingo on the screen.’ I wonder if everyone is going to start dying at computers now. I wonder what will be open on my computer when I die. Probably the Wikipedia page for death or 4OD or a chat window with someone I will never meet. Probably Alice’s photo albums. Probably interracial porn. ‘The purpose of the trip remains unclear, although it has been suggested that Allison is attempting to gain a sense of perspective and break his recent cycle of self-destructive behaviour.’ That’s fucking stupid, I feel. I’m going to London to have sex with Macy because Macy is sexy and nothing else is happening. Alice is gone. Mum and dad are away. Aslam is being a dick. I want to be next to someone and nothing else. I don’t need perspective. I have perspective. I have good perspective. My perspective is: Alice cheated on me and I broke up with her and I’m sad and everything’s scary. I’m also drunk. Heavy weather. ‘When questioned, he declined to comment and lashed out aggressively in a manner perceived to be “out of sorts” with his usual character. More soon.’
I have a mouthful of Dad’s Famous Grouse and go upstairs. I climb into bed and read some of the book. There’s nothing in it for this. There are only diagrams showing how to deactivate bombs.
I put it down and fall asleep.
*
‘Etgar?’ a voice says. ‘It’s me. Get up.’ I do a rumbling sound and roll over. ‘Etgar, come on. You look fucked. Wake up.’ I slap a hand away. Why do people keep waking me up? I don’t want to be awake. That’s why I’m asleep. ‘Etgar.’
I sit up. It’s Aslam. He’s come in by vaulting the back fence and walking through the conservatory. It was easy because I left the conservatory open. Usually, he comes in through one of its windows. When I’m getting into his, I go through the living-room windows, or through the kitchen skylight, which stays open a lot because their smoke alarm’s so sensitive.
‘Aslam?’ I say. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I kick off the cover and heave myself out. I’m still in the mud-flecked panda suit.
He steps back. ‘What the fuck have you been doing? Is that Hattie’s? What happened to your face?’
‘I told you to not come over.’
‘Are you drunk?’
I push him to one side and go to hold my face under the bathroom tap. He leans in the doorway. Cold water calms my swollen eyes. I let some into my mouth. It feels like the first time. I blink and try to shrug out the straightness in my shoulders.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Why are you being such a dick? I came to ask if you wanted to come and get drunk and play Monopoly at Amy’s. She finally asked me over, but it’s with other people.’
‘Who’s Amy?’
‘I’ve told you about her a fuck ton of times. That girl. The girl I’ve liked the past month.’
‘Just go.’
‘I’m not going. You’re fucked.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m going to call your mum.’
‘You’re not.’
I put one hand on the doorframe and look past him. I’m trying to make him leave with my eyes. It isn’t working. They aren’t intimidating eyes.
‘What have you been doing?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing. Go.’
‘Why are you being a twat?’
‘I’m not being a twat. I want to be on my own for a while. Me and Alice broke up. I want to sit on the sofa and eat ice cream and watch films like people do in films.’
‘It doesn’t look like you’ve been eating ice cream and watching films.’
‘Well, I have.’
‘What films did you watch?’
‘One with Jews and Nazis and Daniel Craig.’ I walk downstairs. He follows. In the living room, he picks up an empty bottle of wine and reads the label out loud. He says it how I said it. Cab-er-net Soh-vig-non. I unlock the front door and hold it open. ‘It’s pronounced Cah-bern-ey Soh-vin-yon. Now go, please.’
‘No. And why are you drinking red wine?’
‘I’ll call the police.’
‘Me too.’
‘What?’
‘They’re kind. I like them.’ He sits down in the armchair, leaning back and crossing his arms. ‘This is an intervention now. You have to stop doing whatever you’re doing. Your parents will be back soon.’
‘I’m not doing anything. I’m sleeping. I’ll see you at school.’
‘Stop being a dick.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘It was only Alice. It wasn’t like your wife or something. Fuck’s sake.’
I walk over to where he’s sitting and hit him.
I don’t know why I’ve started being able to hit people. I don’t know where it’s coming from. My body is doing a lot of things without me telling it to, I feel. These don’t seem like decisions I would make. I don’t know.
It’s not a real punch. It lightly connects side-on with his right cheek. But his face changes so quickly it’s like it’s been replaced with someone else’s. And the someone else’s eyes have collapsed in the corners and the someone else’s lips are wobbling and the someone else’s body doesn’t know what to do.
He uncrosses his arms and stands up and walks into The Outside. He doesn’t close the door or look around. He leaves. I hit him. So he left. Seems reasonable. I hit Aslam. He said ‘only Alice’. He doesn’t understand. The longest relationship he had was with Callie Tripton. It lasted for five months and ended when he put it in her bum and she headbutted him.
Not bum.
Ass. Ass. Ass.
I hit him.
Aslam.
In the face.
With my hand.
My actual hand.
The hand that belongs to me.
Amundsen wanders into the living room. He goes to the open door, sniffs the air and comes back to lie at my feet. I scratch behind his ears with my big toe. He yawns. I get up to close the door and we get back under the duvet.
21
When the sun is mostly gone, I put on Mum’s coat and walk to the big supermarket down past the Baptist church and the roundabout. I’m heavy and sick. A streetlight comes on as I walk past. I’m Dumbledore. The trees are anorexic. Their roots wrestle with the pavements and
lose, so they tilt at odd angles over cars and those green metal boxes with I-don’t-know-what inside them.
The security guard outside Sainsbury’s looks down at me and I look down at me and we both see the panda legs sticking out of Mum’s coat. I nod at him. He doesn’t nod back. He’s got thick, dark hair but no eyebrows.
The supermarket is busy. My heart goes doubletime. Most of the people are young. Young couples with baskets full of wine and pasta. I should get wine and pasta. I should have a romantic meal with Amundsen. We should get drunk and then sleep until we’re dragged out of the house by people Mum found on the Internet after Googling my son will not move.
I take a basket and move down the aisles slowly, doing my best to not look at anyone above the waist. I pick up ham, oven chips, a large purple vegetable, a tomato, an apple, eight Polish beers and a bottle of Captain Morgan’s. My arm is coming out of its socket so I do a half-run to the checkouts. While I’m passing the alcopops, someone starts calling my name. I usually ignore it when this happens because I’m anxious that the person isn’t calling my name, they’re calling the name of their friend, who coincidentally is standing nearby. I don’t want to look retarded, so I don’t answer.
They call my name again.
A hand falls on my shoulder.
I turn around and put my basket on the floor. It’s Sarah Clemence, Matt Wilkes and some other people from school. They’ve got a trolley filled with WKD, beer and cocktail sausages. They’re smiling and finishing laughs.
‘Etgar,’ Sarah says. ‘Are you okay? What happened to your face?’
‘Nothing. Hi. I fell into a lamppost. Walked into it.’
‘It looks sore. You should put peas on it. Are you having a party?’
