Tuesdays Are Just As Bad

by Cethan Leahy

  Anne licked the errant haemoglobin off her index finger. ‘That was surprisingly quick.’

  The vampire shrugged and then pulled out a shopping bag from behind the gravestone of Arthur C. Chesterfield. He checked inside it first, removed a packet of crisps and handed it to Anne. Anne looked inside to find what looked like curtains.

  ‘Go on, put it on. I guessed you are a size ten.’

  Anne pulled it out. It was a nightie, made of heavy cloth.

  ‘Eh … thank you, but this is not really …’

  The vampire became crestfallen.

  ‘… something I’ve worn before. So naturally I’m very excited to put this on as soon as possible.’

  ‘Great! There is a crypt over there you can change in. Don’t worry, I won’t peek,’ said the vampire.

  ‘I don’t really mind if you watch …’ Anne began to say but stopped due to the vampire’s schoolboy giggles. She took the bag and walked through the iron gates of the tomb.

  ‘You know, it’s a bit cold tonight. Can I change at the castle?’

  ‘You’re a vampire now! Everything is cold.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise that.’

  Anne entered the stone building and laid the nightie on the stone slab in the centre. She then removed her jeans, T-shirt, cardigan and shoes and put on her new costume. It was a unique combination of drafty and claustrophobic. She pulled a compact mirror from her jeans pocket. Turned out the old legend about vampires’ lack of reflections was not a lie.

  ‘Oh, someone is a mistress of suspense,’ shouted the vampire from outside.

  Anne stepped out to reveal herself to him and was rewarded with the sound of a swoon and a selection of highly complimentary adjectives.

  Anne could only guess what her undead beau considered attractive, but it was most likely for the best that mirrors did not work.

  ‘But no longer shall we delay! To the castle, for I have wicked plans for the night!’

  Anne breathed a sigh of relief, expelling the remaining air in her useless lungs. Sure he was fussy about looks, but now the fantasy could continue to the large cavernous threshold, built for misdeeds not suitable for human eyes.

  ‘I purchased New Moon on audio book. Naughty times!’

  Anne scratched her head.

  ‘But after … we will … you know …’

  The vampire with a sweeping hand picked up Anne by her waist and drew her close. He placed her hand on his breast, the fingers trembling at record speeds.

  ‘Feel that heartbeat?’ he whispered into her ear. She waited a few moments and felt no pulse.

  ‘No …’

  He released her. ‘Well, there you go. No blood flow. Ain’t nothing happened since 1893,’ he said pointing downward.

  ‘So I have committed myself to an eternity of really serious hickeys.’

  ‘Indeed, but probably not tonight. I still feel quite full.’

  Anne’s mother was right. Never get involved with a vampire, she had said.

  The vampire looked around, his cape lifting and falling in the slight breeze.

  ‘I don’t know this area at all. Do you have a number for a cab?’ he said.

  Seventeen

  Parents, much like elephants, never forget, and also, like elephants, are not terribly subtle. The next evening dinner conversation no longer focused on school (which Adam was perfectly happy with and I was no less delighted by, having stood by for the last month and a half listening to made-up assurances that school was going fine). Instead Mum had nothing but questions about the writing group. It was clear to me what she wanted to know, but Adam’s mum was cunning. She knew that she would not get the information she wanted by directly asking. Her initial questions were general: What was he writing? What was his teacher like? What do the other people write? She asked these for over a half hour and, since his father was late due to going away drinks for Harry from work, there was no one to deflect to.

  An unsuspecting Adam answered her questions truthfully, wandering into the trap.

  ‘So what kind of things does your friend write?’ she said.

  ‘My friend?’

  ‘The girl I saw you talking to.’

  ‘Oh, Aoife. Funny stuff with vampires in it.’

  Mum considered this information and phrased her next question carefully. ‘I’m surprised she’s called Aoife. Do you know where she’s from?’

  ‘Oh, Ballincollig, I think.’

  ‘Really? She looked … never mind. I suppose it’s rude to ask.’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘No reason. I’m just glad you are making friends at your group,’ she said, before dropping the topic. She followed up with a discussion about a mix-up at work that day that led to her accidentally reporting that a beloved musician had died.

  Later, while Adam was watching TV, his father walked in and sat down next to him. Interactions with Adam’s father were generally brief. However their relationship was engineered, it did not allow for conversations longer than ten minutes. After the ten minutes were up, they would both resume staring at the closest available screen.

  ‘Your mother tells me you’re making friends.’

  ‘She did seem very interested at dinner.’

  ‘She mentioned a girl in particular.’

  ‘I don’t really want to have this conversation.’

  ‘Now, she just wanted me to reassure you that we are much more cosmopolitan than you would think. Before I met your mother, I dated an English girl, which at the time–’

  ‘Please stop. A, she is from Ballincollig and B, the reason I haven’t mentioned her is because there is nothing to mention. She’s just my friend.’

  ‘Sure. No rush. We’re right here for when you want to talk.’

  We had heard this sentence before, except this time it was different. Before, it was filled with fear, like slowly opening a box full of snakes; this time it sounded more pleased, like quickly opening a box of fun things that aren’t snakes. It occurred to me that this was the first time in a long time they had had an issue with their son that was a normal boy problem – in fact one of the most common of problems: romance.

  Adam smiled to himself. Whatever his intentions were towards Aoife, he liked being the centre of attention for reasons other than being Mr Attempted-Suicide.

  After he and his dad watched half an episode of Friends, the one where Joey’s fridge is broken, he excused himself and went to his bedroom.

  ‘Should we write?’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  The story we had started the previous day was half done, so it made sense to continue with that. I was finding writing a most satisfying experience, I guess because it functions as my only means of communication beyond Adam, who wasn’t the most exciting audience. We had worked out a system. Adam would suggest something. I’d tell him his idea was dreadful, explain how I would improve it, we’d have a little argument and then move forward. It was a flawless story delivery system. We hadn’t decided on an ending yet, but Adam was insistent that we finish it soon, that night even. I wasn’t clear on why there was such a rush, but I agreed.

  This story was about a guy who looks out the window and notices the nearby wood is getting closer and closer each day. This freaks him out, so he tells the neighbours but they don’t believe him, telling him he is mad. He decides the trees must be moving at night when he’s asleep, so he drinks a lot of coffee so that he can stay awake and see them move. However, he falls asleep and when he wakes up it’s still dark outside. He looks out but he can’t see the trees in the darkness. He checks his watch. It says it’s the middle of the day.

  The trees have reached the house and are blocking out the light.

  Eighteen

  It took a while for Adam to get used to the idea that he had friends. Instead of watching a movie, he was able to go, ‘Hey, I wonder what the gang is up to. I should join them in this activity.’ We weren’t sure how it happened either. It was like he walked around a corner without lo
oking where he was going and slammed into the Famous Five. The movies and TV shows we watched suggested that becoming friends with people involved a long list of favours, or pretending to become friends for some strategic advantage, or being born next door to some doe-eyed, brown-haired gal. I think Adam was particularly confused, although, to be fair, he didn’t have many friends before, so he had no experience to compare it to.

  One day, after school, they were all hanging out in a Subway and Adam asked how the rest of them had become friends. They provided a convoluted oral history, which I present to you now completely unedited:

  Barry: ‘I dunno. I think we all just stood in one place on Paul Street and eventually we ended up speaking to each other.’

  Aoife: ‘No, wait, I knew Linda from dance class.’

  Linda: ‘Oh, that’s right! Our mothers had serious notions of us becoming great dancers. We were to be the next … whoever is a famous ballerina. We started talking when we fell into each other attempting a simultaneous pirouette.’

  Aoife: ‘I was not the graceful swan I was led to believe I was by my mother.’

  Linda: ‘We giggled so much that the dance instructor sent us to the dressing room for a full fifteen minutes. Anyway, afterwards, Aoife was being picked up by her very attractive older brother. So there and then, I made it my business to make friends with her.’

  Aoife: ‘She was not subtle about it.’

  Linda: ‘I was not.’

  Aoife: ‘He was frightened.’

  Linda: ‘He misunderstood my intentions.’

  Aoife: ‘You stole his hamster.’

  Linda: ‘Correction: I borrowed his hamster. I thought he would naturally fall in love with the woman who rescued his beloved pet.’

  Aoife: ‘We put up Missing posters and all for it.’

  Douglas: ‘Then I entered in a triumph.’

  Linda: ‘What?’

  Douglas: ‘I’m sorry to derail this unsettling tale of attempted hamstercide–’

  Linda: ‘Hey! It was at most a hamsternapping.’

  Douglas: ‘… but this origin story has been going on for a long time without getting to the real meat of the legend – when I deigned to become friends with you. You see, it all began in Madagascar.’

  Linda: ‘Douglas lives in the same park as me. So when Aoife and I started hanging out here, being the cool chicks that we are, Douglas naturally gravitated to us.’

  Douglas: ‘That is not how I remember it. It all goes back to three years ago … the summer everything changed.’

  Barry: ‘I literally was just sitting outside Burritos and Blues and they filled the other three seats one day.’

  Douglas: ‘Barry, it was friendship at first sight. Why must you question these things?’

  So in answer to the original question, I somehow had even less clue as to how people make friends. But then their chosen hunting ground, Paul Street, was home to many miscellaneous groups. Populated by kids with dyed hair, dark clothes, skateboards and loud laughs, it was a home from home, one filled with floating emos and weirdos.

  Down the edges of Paul Street was a little street and an empty alleyway. The alleyway proved popular with teens who had procured bottles of alcohol and other things, and couples who snuck away from their groups to eat each other’s faces. When we passed such things, Adam always looked away shyly, perhaps fearing that if they caught his eye he would suddenly plunge into a world of illicit sex and drugs without warning. He seemed so easily frightened by this that I told him he was destined never to have a girlfriend.

  I was wrong about that, as it turned out.

  Nineteen

  Dr Moore sat back in his seat. He had replaced the hideous painting of a horse with a worse one featuring a giraffe on a beach.

  ‘Adam, how was this week?’ he asked.

  Adam shrugged. ‘It was all right.

  ‘How are you feeling about school at the moment. Okay?’

  Adam sighed. ‘Grand,’ he said. ‘I’m not super enjoying it but I’ve stopped hiding in the fortress of solitude at lunchtime.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Oh, the toilet. The fortress of solitude is where Superman goes when he wants to hang out on his own.’

  ‘I see. I was always more of a Spiderman fan. Have you had any success with your classmates?’

  ‘Not really. They don’t seem to hate me or anything …’

  Well, that’s not quite true for all of them, I reminded him.

  ‘… but I’ve made some friends outside of school. Actually one of them is Douglas, the kid before me here.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Dr Moore said, a bit too unsurprised.

  ‘That sounds like you talked about me. Did you talk about me?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t discuss other people’s sessions. How did you become friends?’

  ‘Ah … he just seemed to decide one day that we were and I didn’t disagree.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He is a charismatic young man.’

  ‘Also I joined a writing group and one of his friends, Aoife, goes too. I guess she is one of my friends now as well. We swap stories and stuff.’

  I noticed a note of interest on Dr Moore’s face.

  ‘Can you tell me more about Aoife?’

  ‘Oh, she is really cool. She’s a Goth, but she was telling me that since her mother is from South Africa that means she is an Afrogoth, and she writes these really funny stories with monsters and vampires and things like that. She listens to really terrible music, though. I tried listening to it a couple of times, and she has a load of different genres like grindcore, industrial, but they have no tune or …’

  Adam went on about her for a solid five additional minutes before finally getting to his other friends.

  ‘This is very promising,’ Dr Moore said. ‘How does it feel to have friends?’

  ‘Good, I think,’ said Adam.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Well, I’m a little worried, to be honest. I’ve had friends before and they all kind of disappeared over time. What if these guys get bored too?’

  ‘Adam, you’re not boring.’

  ‘Yeah, I know but–’

  ‘No buts. Concentrate on the positives. They have invited you to be their friend.’

  ‘Got it,’ Adam said, ‘but people change their minds, you know?’

  Twenty

  ‘OH, COME ON SHEPPARD!’ Douglas shouted with a degree of irritation. ‘IT WAS WIDE OPEN!’

  Adam sat next to Douglas in the stand, eating what must have been quickly cooling chips. The lights beamed on the pitch, while players scrambled over each other to kick a wet ball. This was a soccer game.

  The reason we were here was simply that Douglas had rung Adam earlier that day. It should be noted that Douglas never messaged, only rang. This was due to his principled stand against the mobile phone, so he was relegated to using the landline. I wasn’t sure why Adam’s house had a landline (the only two people who rang Adam’s landline were his aunt and Douglas), but I have been assured they were very popular in the past.

  The conversation had gone something like this:

  ‘Adam, do you like soccer?’

  ‘Well, I–’

  ‘Glad to hear it. I will see you at the entrance to the Cross, tonight at seven.’

  Douglas hung up.

  ‘I guess I am going to see some soccer,’ Adam said.

  ‘You gave in easily there,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, you know. It might be fun. Also I kinda owe him.’

  He said no more but I knew what he meant. Douglas, brash and weird as he was, had essentially given him a new set of friends, a new life for seemingly little in return and no obvious motivation, so Adam was inclined to go along with whatever he said. This minimised the risk of losing it all.

  Anyway, it would be a new experience for me. Adam never watched any sports so I only knew of it from hearing snatches of conversation in the schoolyard, or from the occasional glimpse on TV before his father changed the channel.
r />   ‘So soccer is the egg ball one?’ I asked.

  ***

  After Adam gave me a brief explanation of what sounded like a needlessly complex way of kicking a ball, and when we figured out where ‘the Cross’ was, his mum gave us a lift. She was equally confused about why Adam would suddenly wish to watch a soccer match and gave him ample warning on how cold the stadium got these nights.

  Douglas was standing outside wearing a long red and white scarf. ‘Hi, Adam, here’s my grandad’s season ticket,’ he said. ‘Try to look more retired.’

  Adam made a coughing noise. ‘Hello, Sonny Jim, I’m Douglas’s grandpapa,’ he said in a cracked voice.

  Douglas did not laugh.

  Entering the toll booth, the woman said, ‘Hello, Douglas.’ Then she looked at Adam’s card, stifled a laugh and motioned us through.

  Inside the gates were mountains of people dressed in big jackets and similar scarves to Douglas. We were seated on one side of the pitch. We waited as the announcements told us who was playing and which sponsors we could thank. It began to rain.

  ‘I didn’t know you were into football,’ said Adam.

  ‘Evidently I am. Just Cork City though, I’m not one for attaching your hopes and dreams to tedious millionaires in London. Also, don’t call it football, we’re not English.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. That makes sense.’

  ‘Do you follow any teams?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I’m a big fan but I keep an eye on it,’ said Adam. I would like to emphasise that that day was the first time Adam had ever mentioned football.

  A man in a pink shirt blew a whistle and the game began. On one side of the pitch a crowd noisily chanted songs which I’m fairly confident didn’t mention Cork City in the original lyrics. The game was quite something to watch. The ball bounced up and down the pitch, accompanied by whoops and boos.

  Feeling out of place, Adam kept forgetting to stand up when the ball came close to a goal, and clapped whenever something happened, including when the opposite team gained control of the ball, which he soon learned from the displeased expressions of those around him was a no-no. Douglas didn’t seem to notice, though, as he was very much into the game. Gone was the cool dude who would make great statements with a flourish; instead he was tense and passionate, shouting and cheering as the match wore on.