‘That’s enough,’ Abi said, then she hugged her cousin Rachel and chatted with her instead of hanging around with me. She pulled her fingers through her dark hair, laughing about the cat outfits and the whiskers. I turned 180 degrees and tried to smile at her, but Rach frowned and mouthed, ‘Who’s that?’
My cheeks burned red disco lights. All of a sudden I had no one to dance with, spotlit on an empty stage, and I froze up. I was only trying to be light and floaty and outgoing, but when it comes down to it you’ll always be the same boring bastard. Were you supposed to just go and grab whoever you wanted? I danced and glanced at Eve but her eyes were shut and she was in a world of her own. I thought fuck it. I scrunched my gel then shuffled into the middle of the floor, doing the seed-sowing dance with my arms jerking out at the sides. My hands looked a bit creepy in the lights, and I felt like a sex pest. It was getting near to half-nine, and the dancefloor was so crowded I kept losing sight of Eve. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of a swishing blonde ponytail, but apart from that she was a bit of a mystery. I squinted around, then felt Dan Williams grab me and shout, ‘You’re going for it tonight, aren’t you! Come dance with us; you’re a mint laugh.’
I wasn’t sure if he was taking the piss or not; he was mates with Burny, but we never really talked and I didn’t want to dance around for his amusement. But his face was pretty sincere so I smiled and slipped into a gap. I looked about the circle of Rachel, Gracie, Jenni Farrell, Gaz, Claire Blame, Debbie and Eve. It was dreamy – I stamped quickly to the music then grinned at Debbie when she waved. She always seemed dead caring and genuine, not bitchy or up herself, but she had a boyfriend. She looked surprised to see me waving my arms about like an electric-shock victim, and for the hilarity of it she pulled me over for a little one-on-one. I hopped over the handbags as our soft hands tugged, and I felt my elbow glide off Gracie’s big boobs and I was getting all excitable. My heart was skipping to the beat of a brilliant night, and I did not want to fuck it up. Like a pervert with Tourette’s I was trying to harness all thoughts of sex and wanks and explosions, but the testosterone was fluttering out of me like a gymnast with the ribbon. Debbie’s skin felt warm and smooth and she was dancing quite intimate with me, but after a minute or so I decided to let go because I didn’t want that fuck-off face again. I felt deranged enough to swap her gently for Eve. At first she flinched but she didn’t pull away – I was a happy puppy, running after cats and pink toilet-roll. Eve laughed – her face looked both shocked and very smiley. We did a silly erotic dance together, and she gave me a big kiss on the cheek leaving two wet cherry lips. She was delumptious. And from then on all I wanted to do was get home and wet myself into a million pink toilet-rolls. I was desperate for her, but I spent the rest of the night on the other side of the circle, making sure no one tried to flirt with her during some boy-band ballads. Once or twice we caught each others’ eye and smiled. It was a complete dream. At the end of the night I spun round to find Burny and everyone, all knackered and ready to go, and I caught up with Eve before she slinked into the night.
‘Hiya,’ I said, smiling sweetly in the dark. ‘Did you have a good night?’
‘Yeah,’ she pouted, flicking her fringe round as she joined me in the queue. ‘I’m shattered though.’
‘Me too – I’ve been sowing so many seeds tonight, I might as …’
I couldn’t even think up a punchline, but Eve laughed pretty loud as we made it out in the cold. She pretended to hit me in the biceps, and as we looked out across the car park it felt like we were an item. She was wobbling about and I thought about touching her. Gary Clinton barged past as people knocked around, aching my left shoulder but I didn’t care. I kissed Eve night-night then joined my friends by the litter bins. I got a few looks of spite and jealousy – Abi for one didn’t like Eve – but gorgeous girls were always bitching about each other and nothing was going to bring me down. I held my head against the breeze and watched all the cars going nowhere. I wouldn’t get to sleep that night.
Gary
We ground down a couple of the pills and snorted them. The bus was rocking so we left them dead gritty, and when we got to the disco our noses were in fuckin ribbons. I kept swallowing loads of blood as we watched out the window. There was grief in Park End – I’d been over Ste’s for another hundred MedusaHeads, and while we sat in his bedroom listening to the Beltram tape he was telling me all his fuckin shite.
‘Yeah so little Caroline’s been fucked about by Watson out of our year you know,’ he went as we laid about counting out the pills. Caroline was Ste’s sister and I’d definitely had a few wanks over her like, but Watson had been fucking her since she started secondary school, then fucking some other cow in Berwick Hills, then coming back to Park End and giving Caroline some hepatitis or whatever it was. It was all Ste could talk about. I didn’t know what hepatitis was, but after I shagged Gemma Rover in September I got some stinking scab on my dick-shaft and it was probably worse than that. Nowadays I went for cleaner, cannier girls – with Claire Blame under my belt and a handjob off Debbie Forrester, I could nail whoever I wanted. I figured all them lasses would be at the disco, and with the pills kicking in I started to lighten up. But it felt more like we’d done acid tabs because the bus seats were starting to turn to rock-hard porcelain, and I wasn’t on a proper happy buzz. I blamed it on Ste. About once a month we got together a hundred pound for a hundred of his cousin’s ecstasies, but it was the first time we’d seen Versaces and once you start necking them you can’t really take them back. Ste’s cousin was pretty reliable for pills and that, but he was an ugly cunt and when we went round that afternoon he was saying he was off the pills for good and it made you wonder. He’d keep cutting us a deal for money’s sake, but if you’re not mixing business with pleasure there’s something up. We carved our names into the bus seats then got off at the Beechwood Easterside, my head going about a million miles an hour. A massive stream of girls and policemen and STDs was rushing about in there like a red hot tap. They were weird gurns. We necked one more though for the buzz, and as we sloped across the field I was certain the grass was like five or six times longer.
The school hall was sinister when we got inside. Everyone was dressed different and all me and Ste wanted to do was stand in the corner with some mates, decked out in trackie bees. He was depressing the fuck out of me, like he’d only come out to look for Watson and get him brayed. Watson was pretty well connected with these lads from Grove Hill, but me and Ste knew hard cunts all over town and in the end Watson didn’t even show. Even so Ste had a long face all night, and I couldn’t be arsed wasting my time with him. I walked alone following the pattern on the floorboards, feeling pissed off and I couldn’t see anyone I wanted to talk to. I stood for a while round the catgirls, and it was only when Claire Blame nudged me that I realised it was those lot. She grinned a circus mouth and asked how I was, but my eyes were all over the shop and I told her I was having a bad one. I was in a fuckin state like. I fell in the direction of Eve, and when she asked me for pills I got paranoid what with fifty of the cunts in my back pocket. All the teachers were standing round the walls like PCs. I sorted Eve out in the bogs though, away from all the shite back there, and I wasn’t bothered about money cos I wanted to offload the MedusaHeads as soon as I could. To be honest I was thinking about flushing them down the fuckin bog, but I’d have to twoc a load more sportswear to afford another hundred and I wasn’t that arsed. After Eve snogged me for another pill I started getting all horny and thinking I wanted to fuck her head off, but I had to get out of that cubicle. In there I was seeing all sorts of twisting walls and breathing doors. It was fuckin acid or ket alright, but I didn’t say owt. We walked together back to the hall, chasing Eve’s tail at about one mile an hour. I took in a huge breath, had a shiver and I felt dead tall compared to the furniture. The curtains kept opening and shutting in time with the music, and the dancefloor was revolving. It was suddenly fuckin beauty, and I was totally off my box. I floated along w
ith the girls, and all I wanted to do was stick my dick in between their whiskers. Debbie had nip-ons through her boob-tube, and Eve left not much to the imagination if you get me. But for the rest of the night I couldn’t touch her. This moron from Jason Burn’s form had found his way into our group, and though no one knew him all of a sudden he was dancing with the best girls. He was dancing like a cunt mind. Debbie and Eve grabbed him and spun him round, and as I watched the room got darker and melted – I felt all paralysed. On LSD you think you’ve got everyone sussed out, but I watched him dart around like a fuckin homo and yet still there was something going on between him and Eve. Everything in my head started to centre around them two, like that cunt had been put on earth to ruin my night. And I got myself in a bit of a hole, all these sick thoughts charging round in a vicious circle and I ground my teeth down to little stumps. My skull was fuckin banging and I had to go sit with Ste after all, and I couldn’t say anything.
At the end of the disco me and Ste were baltic in the rain in the car park, waiting with Claire Blame for the minibus she ordered. She was shivering in her cat gear, and we shared a bit of Smirnoff Ice she’d taxed while everyone piled out of the wall. I was still tripping out, and while I smoked one of Ste’s Regals I was watching the smoke twist into bikes and trains and motor vehicles. I must’ve been desperate to get home, after all it was a fuckin shit night. There was no chance of getting laid, especially since Claire had a bun in the oven, and I waited for Eve and that cunt to walk out together laughing at some shite thing he said. They kissed goodnight and I wanted to fuckin batter him. His face was a monkey mask, and he hunched towards his friends like a cunt that got the cream. The school and the cars were wobbling, and as I glared across at that lad he had the nerve to wink at me like we were all matey. He thought he was Mr Popular. And then my whole night was fixed around snapping him in half.
‘Fuckin fight you now then, daft cunt,’ I shouted over. The park became a videogame, and as I walked I dropped the Ice bottle and throttled the fuck out of him. You could make out certain voices laughing around us, and even though I’d lost all perspective I landed a couple of decent punches. His head and my hand met somewhere in the middle of space, and I grunted as a few chunks of tooth flew out his mouth and the jaw snapped. As he fell to the ground, I kept hold of his collar and booted the cunt full in the face, the Nike shooting high up as his nose buckled in. He curled up in a bit of blood, and I stopped for a sec looking at how red it was. Everything was quite stop–start on the acid, and I had to proper focus when I reached over for the bottle. It was already broken after dropping it ten feet and I mashed the pointed edge right into his eye, severing the lid and hopefully a bit of ball and all. I had dogshit on my trainers as well from walking through the twenty-inch grass, but Jason Burn grappled me and told me to fuck off. He was fairly sound; I shrugged him off and I felt like the lights were switched on again in my head. His mate was a red stain, but at least he wouldn’t go anywhere near Eve again. I clocked that Abi Ellis crying slightly behind me – she was another lass I wouldn’t kick out of bed, even though she had a load of tarbrush in her. I turned and headed back to the minibus – I still felt everyone’s eyes on me but it could’ve been the paranoia and that. You could see Donna Easter sticking a red tissue to the daft little shit’s face, and when I got back to Claire all she could say was, ‘Look what you’ve done, you dick.’
But what did she know. As we stumbled onto the minibus, we sat towards the back and I rubbed my right hand – I’d swollen it from hitting him too hard, but mebbies my mind was exaggerating it. We didn’t talk much as the bus rushed down the street, but I think Claire was tired. I was still tripping slightly and I brought my knees up to my chest and I needed to get some kip. When I woke up I wasn’t totally sure what had gone on.
Chapter Eleven
Boxing Day
Adam
I spent the holiday in ward 9. I couldn’t eat any Christmas food til I came back from the dentist, and even then it didn’t taste good and I cried through the telly. For a bit my mouth was like a grand piano smashed, and once the front ones got capped it looked like a shitty tatty keyboard out of Music. I sat with my face in the curtains, getting lower and lower the more I thought about stuff. I pressed the neat blue stitches on my nose, then winced and wrapped myself in the bed sheets. I couldn’t sleep at all. The left eyelid was hanging off with the white bit all red and tender, and my jaw felt twice as big as I sat and watched the sun curve round the hospital. It was boring but I didn’t notice the days flying by – Christmas Day was the same as a Monday morning. Mum and Dad came now and then, and for Christmas they got me the fake Telecaster I’d seen in Cash Converters but it was at home and all they brought to the hospital for me was crackers and that. The jokes and the mottos were agonising.
‘Look what happens when you go picking fights,’ Dad said to me on the first day, but he really didn’t get it. I was too pained to explain. ‘You’re not as tough as you think.’
Well I was finding that out alright. I cried my eyes out at the dentist, the nerves all exposed like electric wire and them going mad carving my mouth out. It was sheer horror. I had to wait a couple of weeks to get the caps made, and until then I wasn’t eating any solids – the last day at the dentist was the last day shitting out water. Then there was a day or two of horrifying eye surgery, afterwards wearing a daft eye-patch like the saddest pirate on the seven seas.
When I got home I plugged the guitar in, but I wasn’t having any luck learning from the Beatles book – none of the happy songs made much sense to me anyway. Messing about with the amp you could get the fuzzy sound of ‘Revolution’ or ‘She Said She Said’, but god knows what the notes were – I knew what it felt like to be dead though. ‘Yer Blues’ was in constant rotation on the turntable, and I was certainly in my blue period.
I thought the Christmas disco had gone okay until Gary punched my lights out. Did I really dance with Eve? I’d been slurping so much anaesthetic I couldn’t remember any more what were dreams. At hospital all the nurses seemed more like skeletons in miniskirts than Benny Hill characters, and my interest in girls was dwindling. I wasn’t going to get close to any nice ladies with a face like a building site anyhow. All there was to do was sit around moping – it was actually a blessing that I didn’t have the guitar, since I was so shit at it and I didn’t want all the kids on the ward thinking I was a div. Ever since I got into the Beatles it was my dream to get good on an instrument, travel round the world, break loads of hearts, but all I could do was break my jaw on Brackenhoe car park. In hospital the obsessive-compulsiveness got worse – I went round shutting toilet doors and ward curtains millions of times. I was a nervy wreck. No one came to visit me at James Cook, except for Abi on Boxing Day and she brought with her a bunch of grapes. She’d been pretty caring since the accident, always phoning and gobbing on about Easterside and everything going on, and she kept my mind off things. She hadn’t seen Gaz since the disco, nor had she seen Burny or the Prick or anyone else for that matter. I hardly even saw a text off them.
‘So how you feeling anyways?’ Abi asked as she sat on the plastic grey chair. Since I’d been knocked out she tended to put on this cute annoying voice, and me being the paranoid type I always thought she was talking down to me. But she had such a mouth on her you never really had to say that much to her.
‘Okay, you know, not too bad,’ I replied, watching the silver winter light blast over her. ‘Have a good Christmas?’
‘Oh yeah, not bad. You’ll never guess what happened though … you know Linda, my cousin? Not on the Shannon side; the other side. Yeah well her and her boyfriend just got engaged. It’s mad, they’ve only known each other five minutes and that. We were thinking she’s got pregnant, you know, but like she’s a fat cow anyway so you’d never notice. So what did you get off Santa?’
‘Oh this and that. Money really,’ I said. I couldn’t be bothered bringing up the guitar or the amp getting all fuzzy-wuzzy – she’d only wa
nt to come round and have a listen.
‘Class, well we’ll have to go out again sometime soon. You can treat us,’ she laughed, but it wasn’t all that hilarious. I hadn’t really thought about going out ever again – after the mad disco violence it didn’t really seem like I was cut out for it. But Abi’s face was a floodlight, and she went, ‘We’ll get out of Easterside though. Town’s miles better – there’s always knobheads, but we’ll keep you out of trouble …’
I didn’t like Abi taking the mick, however Eve was always mouthing off about town with her mates and I really wanted to bump into her again. I was totally hung up about her – I imagine Gaz gave me a hiding because I was twirling about with her and being daft on the dancefloor, but when you’re laid in hospital with your face dropping off it’s not like things can get much worse. Eve was lovely. And now Abi was looking out for me, not that I needed a spic barbiedoll for a bodyguard. But she had been really good to me, and even if she was always talking down to me I would’ve gone mentally ill if she wasn’t around. We sat and chewed the grapes, her picking off the skins between her gnashers and looking about the place.
‘So when do you get out of here, then?’ she asked. The hospital was depressing as fuck, all mouldy green and white with metal and sad faces darting about the place, but Abi was my lucky mascot.
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