Published by Mad Fish
Copyright © 2011 by Shaun Othen
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Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
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The characters and events in this publication are purely fictional. Any resemblance between them and real individuals either living or dead is purely coincidental.
NAT: DAY ONE: SOMETHING STARTS
NAT: DAY FIVE: DOES JESUS STILL LOVE ME
NAT: DAY SEVEN: MEETS NANO AND CYAN
NAT: I SAW THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY
NAT: FRIDAY’S FUCKED UP FLOORSHOW
NANO & CYAN: THE SEARCH FOR A NEW PET
NAT & VIKE: DARK SHADE, ART DECO SKIN AND THE HOUSE OF MONSTROUS FABLES
NAT & VIKE: MEETINGS AT THE ASYLUM
NAT: THE DEAD GIVE ME A BLINDING HEADACHE
NAT: WHY WON’T THE DEAD STAY DEAD
PINE: SALLYS NIGHT TAKES AN UNEXPECTED TURN
PINE: RETURN TO UNCLE CHUCKLES
MELTO FANDE: MEETING WITH OTHERS
NAT: AFTERNOON DELIGHT AT KING DEATHS DEADLY DISCO
NAT: THE GROUP: A BIT OF BUSINESS
NAT & VIKE: MEETING AT SUICIDAL
PINE: GUY FAWKES AINT THE ONLY ONE BURNING TONIGHT
MELTO FANDE: MEETING WITH OTHERS PART TWO
PINE: NAMELESS CARNAGE AND A COUPLE OF DRINKS
NAT: FAMILY FORTUNES AND A FIERY MEETING AT MELTO’S
JOHNNY: BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES PART 2
NAT AND VIKE: MEETINGS WITH MELTO PART 2
NANO, CYAN AND PINE: TALK OF REVENGE #1
NANO, CYAN AND PINE: TALK OF REVENGE #2
PINE: CONFESSION TO A DEAD GIRL
THE CHRONICLE: WOMAN FOUND GUTTED IN OWN HOME
PINE: THE DEATH OF ALEX GARVEY
PINE: EVER THE COMEDIAN
She’s ahead of me, running bare foot through the alley, her stilettos lost, clattering off somewhere in the gutter.
Like a doll, one of those with a rip cord that powers cogs, tightens elastic, her head is snapping back with every step. Her wide eyes confirm the worst - I’m still here. She scrambles through strips of shadow, her face flashing black and white, clicking on and off. In the quick darkness, her frantic fingers tear through her social mask, revising it, communicating her fear better than any words.
And in the light, I see her deterioration; her sanity coming apart before I’ve laid so much as a finger on her.
It’s all so fucking dramatic. I’m Bailey, Avedon, Leibowitz, stalking her along some deserted catwalk, some desolate runway, demanding, ‘panic, despair, torment’ a Nikon FM2 welded to my face, shutter whirring fast as a sub machine gun, documenting her fall three shots per second, capturing her final streak toward death. I construct a picture frame with my hands, composing her within the claws of my thumb and forefinger. She wheels through a vein of moonlight, her mascara leaking down her cheeks like she's crying ink.
And suddenly, she’s this season’s jilted bride.
She jams her palm to her mouth, the heel of it slipping, troweling red lipstick from the cordon of her lips, running it thin as a ghost to her ears. And in this instant, I see a double page spread in OK, in Heat, of her collapsing at a child’s funeral.
Her fingers rake through her meagre palette of black and red, driving it over her face like a lunatic.
And she’s the cover girl for Broadmoor.
I snake a hand out toward her, not in friendship, but in stark illustration of what I'll do to her. She stares back at me like I’ve picked a hole in the world.
I unhook the front of my coat and let it fall open, revealing my inhuman nudity, my proximity to God.
In answer, wrung out sounds spool from her throat, broken words bleed off cold brick.
Like some dirty Barbie copy, a Taiwanese death trap with a fucked up soundboard, she could be saying, ‘my name’s Barry.’
‘My favourite colour’s pink.’
‘I like blowing cock.’
I don’t decode a word until she screams, 'NO.'
As though winded, she stumbles, pitching onto all fours, scrabbling a few steps like a fucking dog. I’m quickly howling; almost pissing myself. Another minute of this and I’ll be on my knees. It’ll be her doing me.
I’ve got to rein myself in but this girl’s comedy gold. I knew it from the very start. Straight after she hitched up her skirt.
Straight after she drawled, ‘what are you waiting for?’
Straight after my skin hit the floor.
Man, she almost killed me.
Acting like some B - movie whore, a real fucking scream queen. Her hands flew at her mouth, nearly tearing her lips off the gum line, her terror re-making her face to such an extreme it was like she’d switched skulls.
I’m not helping.
What the fuck am I doing now?
I’m aping the monster, holding out both arms in front of me, lurching forward, scraping my left foot across the floor like the ‘mummy.’ She doesn’t see the joke, is too obsessed with saving her own worthless skin to appreciate what I’m doing.
I’ve got to move. She's making pistons of those bleached legs, stabbing her bleeding heels into the cobbles, getting a serious judder off the blocks of fat clinging at her bones. Her skirt - some hilarious micro number, is flapping up at the rear, revealing a tear in her tights made earlier by my drilling fingers.
I retch, ‘I’m gonna get yaaaa.’
A fucking mistake. I instantly double up, shrieking. I’m staggering around, clinging onto the Earth like it’s a fucking rodeo horse. I only just stop myself running into the ground. Some reinvented muscle abruptly snatches tight, stamping a crease in my stomach. I fold over, nearly kissing my knees, driving the sharp end of a naked rib - splayed outward from my torso - right through my thigh muscle. A thin squeal peels off the bone beneath. There is no pain, I'm beyond that, but this self-decimation engages clarity.
I lift my apocalyptic face and scream, ‘please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and taste.’
The vacuum inside; already pulling cold at my bones, sucks fast on my giggles, cutting them dead. I bolt at the walls, clawing up high, hurtling toward her across the crumbling brick like some venting engine on a wall of death. She’s nearly free, crying, ‘please, please’ either at me or that exit growing in front of her.
Her pleas fail to shake me; they move no one, amount to nothing but steam in the cold air. I’m on her in a second.
What’s left of my hand – a knot of bony saws, screws, a medieval mace - unzips the back of her head, hooking her into the air. For a moment she hangs – circled by a static halo of gore - then sails slack as a doll toward the wall of the alley. My hand rockets out of her skull, the sheer speed of it pulling me into a mad spin.
I land awkwardly, my feet slamming into the cobbles, skewing across the wet stone. I hit the alley wall and cling to it like a spider. Snapping toward the girl, I realise something’s wrong. She’s still suspended a foot off the ground, hovering there like a spectre. An explosion of wet matter spraying from her excavated brain has congealed in the air like foul blossom. Each clot of meat continues to fall, to follow its planned trajectory but in stuttering bursts as though penned in some spastic flickerbook. The alley, perhaps the world, has slowed to a virtual stop. I gaze around in awe. More of the girl’s blood swirls above me, set in the air like yards of Chinese silk. This red helix, hanging like some intricate glass mobile, depicts my assault, my fall. I walk toward the girl, fingers raised, carving a line through the stammering shower of gore like a god tinkering with the stars. I lean close to her, hearing a guttural sound gargling from her throat like a dial tone. Suddenly, I understand. My legs give, almost dropping me to the floor like some weak fuck beneath the statue of David, some cunt crippled below the ceiling of the Sistine. This is a sign. A burning bush. He’s ceased the world for a reason. He’s instructing me, displaying her as an examination of fat, of excess, of everything that’s fucking wrong with society. He’s confirming that I’m on the right path, holding her up like a lamb before the wolf. Her arms hang limp at her sides, her flab rippled like water, her head upturned; a dead bride waiting for a kiss. I press my cheek against the wall and stare down the ragged lines of cement, a spectator to her gradual advancement upon the brick. Like some wretch pouring over a snuff film, I sweat, watching her agonisingly protracted impact, leering over each component of damage. Her teeth bite the wall as though it were an apple. A complexity of cracks flash through them before they collapse. Her nose pulps. Bruising floods its length like tar drawn through a syringe. Her jaw buckles like a car shell beneath a fucking juggernaut and a shard of bone spears through her cheek like a sleepy flick knife. I reach toward her, wanting involvement in her pain, to guide it. My fingers glance her neck and her skull slams into the wall like a cannonball. I flinch as bone and blood pelt my face; thick and warm like vomit shot point blank from a sawn off. No longer held in time, she rips across the wall as though tied to a rocket. I scrape her meat from my eyes and shoot after her, tearing into the back of her hard as a car smash, dashing out the rear of her head.
She wants to fall, really has no choice.
I spin her around and take a hold of her head.
Streams of blood drop from her hairline, drawing a cage over her face as I try to crush her skull. Something gives and her eye moves.
Keeping things light, not wanting to come on too strong, I say, ‘do you come here often? I do, generally after a hard day’s work. I come here to unwind, maybe find that special somebody.'
I give a taste of myself, 'I like confidence but hate arrogance. I like honesty but hate naivety.'
I pause, watching my thick breath nudge the blood across her face.
Her eyes have revolved to whites and I’m finding it hard to accept her lack of participation.
Snagging a nail in her eye, I try to roll her pupil back down like it’s on a Rolodex. In trying to re-establish a connection, I clumsily end up pushing through it, piercing her eyeball like a gel capsule. My nail hooks over the ring of her skull socket and rests there like a cigarette paused on the rim of an ashtray. Staring into the ruptured black, I ask her, 'when you looked at me in the club, did you really see me, did you see what’s underneath?'
I lower the side of my head - where my ear should be - down close to her mouth.
I hear liquid, I hear clicking.
During this bleak silence, I yank her head from side to side, smearing it against the brick, painting thick gristle stripes across the wall.
Next, I’m butchering her chest, hacking at her ribs, stabbing her over and over until the holes in her gape. Her blood floods the scene, prints the walls with long canes of red, with spatters like falling comets, all running, collecting as a thick liquid floor, slipping heavily down an unseen grate. Parts of her stick to the walls, chipped off muscle leeches at the brick. Air hisses, stops then starts, escaping all over her like she’s deflating. Then, as always, it happens, cool cerulean lights blast from her, jamming me with electric paralysis. I let go of her and drop to my knees in a slumping synchronicity with Stephanie or Jackie or whatever her fucking name is as she falls in a dislocated jumble. Time passes unmarked.
Finally, I’m standing in the dripping abattoir alley under a sky crammed with lines of cloud like moonlit sand dunes. My scuttling flesh reconstructs. Blades of bone - stuck out from my wrists like roots - melt. Skin rolls up my arm, tight like a surgical glove. My ribs, currently external, both halves splayed out like two hands - two hands accepting the cup of Christ, two hands releasing a dove - close and re-fuse. I draw in my long coat, covering the impotence of my sudden humanity then throw my head back and screech at the desert world above. From a pub close by, where people are drinking in oblivious safety, I hear a grinding metal beat, a re-work an old Eurhythmics track and at the exact moment I’m stood, moodily surveying the body, a hoarse female voice bays, ‘sweet dreams are made of this’ as if to establish a pathetic clichéd link.
NAT: WE'RE NOT FRIENDLY
You don't want to meet me. You don’t want to meet anyone like me. If you do, you’re dead.
No fifty-fifty, no sportsman’s odds, you’re dead, you've come to the end.
Jab a knife to my throat and I'll rip your fingers out at the knuckle.
Stick a gun to my head and I'll leave veins hanging out your neck like snagged wool.
Come in ten strong and they'll bury you all as loose meat, stitch you up with a foreign arm, knee bone, chest.
I’m a killer, that’s all I can tell you, that’s all I know.
I’m a monster and I don't mean that in a tabloid way.
I’m not some sick fuck who rapes little girls; I’m talking razor edged teeth.
I’m talking hands made of knives. Sure, I look normal, but here’s where the cliché kicks in - you want to see me at night. You want to see what those poor bastards in alleyways see before the lights come down. You've never seen anything like it. I don't give a fuck how many horror flicks you've seen, couldn’t care less how many comics you've read; you have NEVER seen anything like it.
I'm a concept, a tangle of bone, a lost design.
You believe in God, the creator’s hand?
If he held the pen that drew me.
He wants you dead.
My names Nat, I'm twenty-six, though you'd never lift that detail from my face. Life has so far failed to chisel so much as a nick out of my skin, a fact attributed to clean living and stress management, the latter achieved through an insistent 'fuck it' attitude and the former, through a set of rigid, insurmountable inhibitions. I stand five foot ten on bare soles and following the recent termination of my 'long' phase, I'm wearing my hair short and choppy, a change of direction accredited to the genius, Zed. A change of direction I'm not fully au fait with.
It went down like this – I'm at 'The Gallery' sat in 'the seat.' Zeds at my back, wrapped up in black like a scraggy spider, skirting me like a void, taking all the air out the room via a channel of open disdain. He's evaluating me, eating up what remains of my calm, bleeding me of dopamine, lifting up the ends of my hair with the spear end of his comb, all the time screwing his mouth down tight, reacting like I'm leaking worms. He flips an eye toward his watch, his fingers having to part a crowd of bangles spiralling up his arm just to see the face, and says, 'I give you ten minutes before you’re on the flipside of fashion.'
His face strips me of any choice, silences any discourse. His scissors rob me of a week’s pay.
My only act of freewill - I choose to take this kind of shit.
My hair is currently the colour of Mango wood. Also down to Zed.
I am a victim of other people's designs for society.
I'm unblemished, slim, a pace ahead of famine chic, capable of wearing European clothing without their ‘on the bone’ sizing forcing a re-evaluation of my BMI.
I'm good looking - a belief enforced by my mother on the many occasions she questions my lack of female company. To her it's a waste, to me, it's because I'm gay. The week before all this new shit began, I told them, informed them over dinner of my homosexuality and watched the ramifications of such a life translate out on their faces – the death of their grandchildren, the abduction of a daughter-in-law, the growth of a new social awkwardness within their own peer group. My father attempted to shout this ‘ridiculous phase’ out of me, hoping for his words to neutralise whatever disease lurked within, fucking up his own biological reflection. Mother just sat, shaking her head, eyes fixed on the shepherd’s pie, running a replay of my life across the potato top, trying to pinpoint her fuck up so she could mend or medicate it, either for my father’s sake or mine. I left and slammed their front door hard enough to put a ripple in the lounge window. Outside on the drive, I hopped from one foot to the other, jumping up and down as though the tarmac had boiled white hot and was picking strands of rubber from the soles of my Converse like bubblegum. I wanted to burst back in there, give them another piece of my mind but I couldn’t circumvent the fact that they were my parents, that twenty six years of ingrained respect would not allow me to provoke any further conflict. This restriction literally crippled me, divorced me from even the most rudimentary motor functions. I wanted them to dash after me, rushing an apology, lacing me up tight in their arms, whispering, ‘hey, we’ll work through it together.’ They didn’t. In the end, I got myself together and left, my anger dissipating into my body, making my blood redder, making a poison.
That was then. Their disgust and its effect on me has been relegated to a back seat, has been eclipsed. My body now warps and folds into something that slices and wrecks. I’m trying to control it but that's proving difficult. I don’t want to be bad but my blood and bone take instruction from elements beyond my command. I'm not alone either, there are others and our hunger for you is beyond satiety. The odds are still greater of you dying in a car smash, of you torpedoing through a windshield, of you screaming into an oxygen mask as your plane plummets from thirty thousand feet, but still, we’re here, and all the above are far more preferable to what I offer. Should you live near us, should frequent the same pubs, the same clubs, use targeted supermarkets like Lidl, Aldi, Netto and Spar, gutter shops like Primark, Peacocks, my advice, though it’s fairly fucking worthless, is by the state of your dress, your manner, the way you conduct yourself, don’t give the impression that you could disappear without significant upset. Don’t engage with anyone who is unusually interested in you, especially those whose physical appearance dictates a higher status. Be a realist, accept the rules of social interaction, the visual pecking order, how human sexual selection is determined. Don’t leave your drink unattended, don’t drink from a glass with a wide circumference, don’t cry in a corner, don’t cry at all. Don’t look for fights, don’t be too loud, don’t be too quiet, don’t drink to excess, don’t strip away your defences, your motor functions, your ability to yell for help. Don’t be the fool, the cunt, don’t solicit for drinks, drugs, cigarettes, lights. Keep within your group, don’t appear to be alone, don’t leave alone, don’t look lost, don’t wander, go straight home and if you’re by yourself, stick a phone to your ear, mimic company, better still take a taxi, but for fucks sake don’t share, make sure it’s licensed, pre booked.
What the fuck am I doing, you may ask. Why would I instruct you to act in a way directly contradicting my survival? Consider a similar analogy - teaching livestock to defend itself, a Chicken to use an Uzi, a cow to wield an M16. Won’t make a blind bit of difference. You know why? Because it’s still just a fucking Chicken, still a cow. Whatever I say, you’re still a human, limited by weak will. All that I’ve told you will account for nothing, you’ll fuck up, drink too much, become emotional, split from the crowd, become blinded by beauty, think it genuinely wants you. You’re a slave to your nature, your needs, your vanity, to a society that exploits the fragile will of others, to the fall of religion and morals. All your steely intentions are made nothing by industries older than the bible, by the flesh pots, the cattle markets, the need to escape what you’ve built for yourselves. All your weaknesses are known and understood because we are you, only changed, made better.
If you've listened, if you’ve learn’t, for a little while, you just might, and I stress this, might, escape us.
NAT: THE BEGINNING
Wednesday 6.00pm, the Video Vault.
I’m draped over the counter, my arms splayed lifelessly across the surface. If I were the workings of a clock, I’d read quarter to five. I look to have abruptly deflated. The reason - four hours stalking the marble floors of a shopping centre, four hours searching for a shirt that’s doesn’t skim my nipples like rough metal. I’ve unseated veins, replaced cartilage with thumb tacks, swapped the soles of my shoes for a pair of brass knuckles. Endeavouring to liberate the pulverised meat of my feet, I'm flicking my legs up off the floor; a gymnastic effort that flattens my ear against the counter like someone’s nailed me in place.
Viggio, watching this spectacle, says, ‘you’re like a fucking trout.’
Ignoring him, I bleat, ‘I'm such a slave. Winklepickers, fuck me. Where on the box does it say not suitable for toes?’
Viggio tuts, ‘I only have sympathy for the devil.’
I watch him finger the collar on his Hawaiian shirt, folding down a ruck of palm trees as he rakes it open, revealing a chest as hairy as a rat’s back. I tell him as often as possible he’s like, ‘a fucking ape.’
His hair is charcoal black, wet with balm, scraped off his forehead with such severity it sits like a stroke of paint across his skull. He looks, and I tell him this as often as possible, like ‘a Colombian Drug Lord.' The hair, the choice of shirts, the vintage Paul Smith slacks, the Adidas white towelling socks, the black leather moccasin shoes, the watch - Rolex silver Air King, are all a result of his ongoing exposure to Brain De Palma's classic, Scarface. Viggio has taken this disc home more times than it's been professionally rented and has succeeded in mimicking Tony Montana in the same way a billion tiresome wankers have Charlie Croker.
‘Let me introduce you to my li’ll friend’ is his usual homage, generally aimed at a row of urinals.
He stares down at me, his finger stabbing the DVD boxes I’ve chosen.
‘You sure, Nat?’ he says, ‘these are what you want?’
‘Yes’ I wearily affirm.
He cranks down, planting the spike of his elbow just shy of my nose, affording me the full benefit of his Brutus aftershave.
‘Look’ he starts, wafting his hand across me as if dispersing my web of lies, ‘you don’t need to put a front on with me, I’ve got musicals coming out of my back hole ...’
I immediately groan, knowing full well where this is going.
‘...I've got Rogers and Hammerstein up to my fucking glands.'
He cuts a hand at the side of his throat, indicating the level.
'Now seriously’ he says, ‘what’ll it be, Forty Second Street or South Pacific?’
I smudge my face against the counter, restricting my voice to that of a dying robot, ‘fuck you.’
I don’t look at him; just hear his bones creak as he straightens.
‘Nat’ he groans, ‘you fly against convention. You defy universal stereotypes. Christ. What have we got here?’
I hear him flicking through the DVD boxes.
‘Hard Boiled’ he reads, then actually shrieks, ‘hard – fucking – boiled.’
‘A classic’ I groan, lethargically rising, quickly regretting the move as my feet react like stumps of open meat the second they touch the ground.
He recites off the cover, ‘John Woo at his frenetic, bloodthirsty best.’ He stares at me, his greasy face a caricature of matronly disapproval.
Flicking to the next, he pauses to let the horror of it take a hold, then chokes, 'Shogun Assassin!' His hand claws at his throat as if the words have stuck there. Scanning the box, he squawks, 'the blood gushes out all over the screen as if being hosed in to the camera.’
‘It’s a work of genius’ I counter, not looking at him, instead focusing on the face of Tom Hanks grinning like an idiot from a box on a shelf.
‘And for the finale’ he says, holding the final box before him like the skull of Yoric, ‘Mausoleum.’ He slowly reads it again, emphasising the syllables, ‘Mau – so- leum’ then explodes, ‘MAUSOLEUM!’ The fool starts flapping around behind the counter, lifting his arms like a mad bird, letting me see how difficult it is for him to gain a handle on what I’ve chosen.
I keep my face a controlled mask of boredom. I probe my front teeth, feeling for plaque. Out the corner of my eye, I see him stop, see his head incline toward me.
‘What?’ I shrug, ‘not been taking your Ritalin?’
He taps the box, speaking in synch with every strike of his finger, 'low budget, lower-acted, mid-eighties-shocker. The only features of merit are the leading ladies Bristol’s.'
I shrug my eyebrows, couldn't care less.
He draws a finger across his forehead, venting a posed strain. While doing this, he muses, 'I could ask a hundred fags....’
'Homosexuals' I correct.
'Sorry’ he goes, all mock touchy, only to repeat the tag with emphasis, 'I could ask a hundred fags to name a movie star and ninety percent of those limp wristed fuckers would be giving up Garland, Crawford, Davies, but you, our resident homo ... no offence…’
I shrug, 'none taken, glad to see your not surrendering to the usual stereotypical view of....'
‘Our resident homo' he shouts over me, 'would go large on Chow Yun Fat.'
His observation gets left in a frame of silence, maybe for me to bend to, at the very least acknowledge. He gets nothing.
'I just don’t get it’ he says, ‘but you know...’ and he stops to throw me a wink, to sound a click from his tongue, ‘I love you for it.’
‘Only in your greasy dreams, slick’ I sing.
Viggio turns to the shelves and reaches up to the top rack. The effort of stretching his stubby little arm pulls his voice tight.
‘You look a little down’ he squeaks, ‘you have the depressed air of someone returning a Jean Claude van Damme film.’
‘I’m fine' I reply, with little conviction.
He turns, eyeing me.
To pacify him I tack on a weak, ‘honestly.’
It immediately injects doubt. He opens his mouth to speak, to probe further as the door bell chimes, appearing like he’s making the sound. Our Oprah moment is delayed though his eyes linger on my face, assuring me it’s just a postponement. He fucking loves involvement. I snatch a look at the door to see Mrs Reeves enter the shop. Glancing at my watch, I note she’s right on cue. I pull myself across the counter, hissing, ‘if she rents it, you’ve gotta ask her.’
Viggio spits, ‘yes, yes, ok’ through gritted teeth like a ventriloquist, all the while nodding a welcome at Mrs Reeves. She returns a quick chin dip before stuttering into the far aisle of DVD's, looking trussed up by her own awkwardness. I hobble away, whispering a round of curses at my bleeding shoes. The best vantage point for this episode lies in front of kid’s cartoons.
Mrs Reeves edges through the shop like she’s actually searching for something different. Viggio glances at me, his eyebrows flicking upward. Her general modus is an immediate pick up due to our poorly concealed amusement. Her browsing is only cursory. Within moments she’s stood in front of vintage horror, extracting the box we’ve been waiting for. The Exterminator, a classic from '80. Flipping it over, she actually scans the description on the back, reading such tags as, 'Vietnam vet, vengeance, cleaning up New York.' Nodding to herself, satisfied, like its contents are a pleasant surprise, are custom made for her needs, she moves towards the counter. I quickly nod at Viggio, silently urging him to complete the task though he daren't acknowledge me. Mrs Reeves hands over the box, her membership card snapped across the cover. In doing, she surrenders up the kind of smile that makes you think of insanity, of drool, of someone who would happily strangle a dog. Viggio bounces one back that’s full of teeth then turns to get the disc.
I pluck a Disney classic off the shelf and pretend to read the blurb while stealing glances at her. She’s rocking back on her heels, snatching at the counter like some kid on a high railing, just catching herself before toppling in a dead man’s fall. Foolishly, I let my gaze linger and her eyes flick toward me. I rapidly look at the box in my hand, instantly colouring up, cursing at how easily I’ve been revealed. Viggio spins back around, clicking the chosen disc into the case. I look up to see Mrs Reeve reach for the case. Viggio has left his hand draped over it while he enters her details onto the computer. Her hand stalls and her teeth dig into her bottom lip as though she’s been denied something juicy. Finishing at the keyboard, Viggio slides the box forward and as her fingers drop on its edge, he ducks toward her and speaks. What he says is a mystery. I strain to hear but he’s lowered his voice to such a whisper I’m unable to extract anything identifiable. In turn, Mrs Reeve leans over the counter, her face almost grazing his as she makes her reply. After several fluttering words she pulls back, her stiff face presenting a confined pleasure. Viggio, on the other hand, looks dazed, his jaw dangling from his face like it’s hung on a jib. As his hand withdraws from the case, Mrs Reeve’s fingers spider walk across it. She drags it toward her and folds it tight to her chest. Nodding once more, she turns on her heels and hurriedly exits the shop. The second the door closes, I race around to the counter, demanding in a rush, ‘did you ask her, did you ask?’
For a second Viggio doesn’t respond, only stares at the front door like a man expecting ghosts. When he finally does reply, his speech is a direct rendition of such a trepidation, 'y-y-yeah, I - I said, Mrs Reeves ...’
I note he winces at her name.
‘What is the ... the attraction with this ... this film?’
I’m almost giggling with excitement; she’s rented it three times a week for the last month.
‘And she said ...'
I claw forward, urging, 'what?'
'I like the beheading scene. It looks so ...real.'
‘You’re fucking joking me’ I blurt.
‘No, I’m serious’ he says,. ‘and then ... did you see her? The way she just smiled.’
‘Un-fucking-believable!’
He whispers, ‘I tell you, some people worry me.’
His statement hangs in the air and I nod, appearing to join him in the contemplation of his words when, as always, I feel that thought inevitably slide from me, replaced by something more constant, more me, like tapered jeans from All Saints, like Jeffery West shoes, Christian Audigier T-shirts, the ecstasy of shopping without financial constraint. Viggio goes back to retrieving my DVD's.
Over his shoulder, he says, ‘how are you going to watch all these, I thought you were out tonight, cruising the underbelly of our beautiful town.’
I gradually surface from thoughts of perfectly cut shirts, of Firetrap, Diesel, Boss, G-Star, Henley’s, the dream of them all being priced in line with Primark, Matalan, Peacocks. While picturing myself strutting the high street in a Belstaff panther leather jacket, I tell him I’ll watch them when I get back and as names like Replay, Lambretta, Ted Baker, echo in my head, I sing a snatch of the old Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle track, ‘on my own…how did it end this way, this wasn’t how it was supposed to beeee.’
Viggio places the DVD's on the counter, his fingers instinctively levelling them into a prefect stack.
‘So that’s it?’ he says, ‘no one using the back door?’
‘Viggio’ I wince, ‘you really are a very vulgar, hairy man.’
‘Come off it' he argues. 'Good-looking queen like you ...’
Quickly realising the potential misinterpretation of what he's said, he jabs a finger at me, warning, ‘now don’t you go taking that the wrong way, don’t go getting all excited, don’t go fantasising about this joint of man beef’ and he rubs his gut like he’s just had a blow out at the local Beefeater.
I choke on the very notion.
‘You’re safe’ I tell him, ‘when I start returning ‘Gorillas in the mist’ to the adult section, that’s when you need to worry.’
‘I’m just saying' he cuts in, all defensive, his voice lifting an octave, 'I bet you’re slapping them away with your little handbag.’
He tucks an elbow in at his waist and flails his bent hand, giving life to the deranged idea of me swinging a handbag at a legion of adoring men. He looks like a mad swan.
‘Yeah, right’ I sigh and lift up the DVD’s, ‘I just sometimes feel that I‘m stood on the edge, on the periphery, on the outer rings of a life that should be mine. I’m not stupid, I know we all feel the cold, we all think the world's happening someplace else. Of course, it’s entirely media driven but it still gets into you and the knowledge of it cannot negate its effect.'
Viggio stares at me.
I exhale a heavy breath, 'we're all in the same tormented boat’ and I drop my hand onto the counter as if to accompany the point, to add weight.
Viggio shakes his head like I'm all shades of twat before reacting to a sudden memory. Shooting his hand up like some teachers pet, he blurts, ‘oh, I’ve got something for you.’
He ducks down behind the counter. While rummaging through the cluttered shelves, he says, ‘one of those little horror freaks brought it in for you.’
‘What?’ I ask, leaning over only to quickly flinch from the sight of his hairy arse crack.
‘Where is it?’ he mutters.
Finally, his hand jerks up like a zombie punching free of a grave, ‘this!’
It’s a disc in a cellophane sleeve. I pick it from between his fingers, asking, ‘what’s on it?’ while turning it over in my hands as if there might be an answer somewhere.
Viggio struggles up from the floor, ‘the little geek said it’s a recording of a real life Vampire.’
I stop turning the disc in my hands and hold it still, drawing out, ‘O-K, r-i-g-h-t.’
Viggio’s lips compact, communicating his agreement.
I dismissively put it on top of the others and ask ‘you in tomorrow?’
‘I’m always in’ he replies, lifting his hands up, motioning around, ‘this is my life.’
‘Yeah, this and the drug cartel, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He laughs, ‘yeah, see you later and tonight, I hope you end up doing something I wouldn’t dream of in a million years.’
As I retreat toward the door, I cock my finger at him, ‘thanks for that. You know, you’re beginning to act like some closet freak. I’m getting you a crowbar to bust that closet door open. Your public denouncement of anything homosexual is like a window on your soul. You're transparent. You’re in denial baby, this macho shit, it's a pure smokescreen.’
‘Fuck off’ he shouts as I let the door shut behind me.
I see him through the heavily poster filled window, cracking a stern smile as he gives me the finger.
NAT: BACK AT THE FLAT
It’s 7.51pm. I’m still damp from the shower, tiptoeing through the chaos of my bedroom as if the floor is a game of hopscotch. I come to a precarious standstill, off balance amidst swirls of discarded clothes, my mind dividing with the effort of determining which shirt to wear. Untangling a brown pinstripe number from the knotted mess, I twist into my reflection, currently filling the full-length mirror propped against the wall. The shirt falls from my chin like a bib. I feel good about its concentration of colour, I love the way it holds against my skin.
There were four messages stored on my answer machine when I got back in.
One: Mother (4.15pm); Nat. its mum, are you there? (Pause) I suppose you’re not, how are you? Look, things were said that weren’t meant. Your Dad’s just a little confused, he needs…. time. Please come round. I’ll see you soon (phrased like a question). Bye... bye.
Two: Dom (7.00pm); I’ll be round at eight. Call me as soon as you get in.
Three: Dom (7.15pm); Nat, are you there? (Pause, an irritated nasal blow) Christ, we're going out at eight. Call me as soon as you get in.
Four: Dom (7.30pm): Shit! Nat, are you there? Pick up you tosser. Christ! I’m dreaming of you setting your hair on fire and it never growing back. Where the hell are you? Let me know you’ve got my message, I’ll be round yours at eight ...you twat.
I button my shirt while still looking in the mirror, pausing halfway to touch the red colour high on my cheeks, hoping that it will drain. Tracing a finger down my shaved jaw line I succumb to the fact I look good.
Pinhead is staring down with frozen menace from the ‘Hellraiser’ poster tacked to the wall above my bed.
I meet his dead eyes and ask, ‘pretty sharp, eh?’
His face is ghostly white and for a moment, just a second, I have the unshakeable feeling he’s actually looking at me and I wait with sick dread for…. for what? For it to fucking speak? I look back at myself in the mirror and, after shaking my head to clear the idea, whisper, ‘too much grain’ as if this might stand as explanation for my delusional state. As I inspect my eyebrows, contemplate their shape, wonder if I’ll ever get a double chin, entertain several involuntary thoughts, mostly Brad Pitt, shirtless in Fight Club, I find I’m unable to stop stealing quick, nervous glances at the poster.
The door to my bedroom is ajar, giving access to the TV playing in the living room. I catch a look at ‘Shogun Assassin.’ Lone Wolf, our fat hero, swipes his sword through a ninja. The poor fucker goes off like a blood bomb.
My unease evaporates.
I decide to wear the fourth pair of jeans, Dolce and Gabanna, skinny fit with a dirty red tinged finish. As I'm studying their cut, the way they shape me, the way they grip my ankles, there’s a knock at the door. Upon opening, I find Dom.
‘Thanks for ringing me back, shit house!’
He brusquely brushes past me and stomps off into the lounge, leaving spoken fury in his wake, ‘took a real chance coming over here, I didn’t know whether you’d be in or not and if you weren’t…’
His words quickly diminish as he stares goggle eyed at the screen. As though I’ve wrapped the TV in bloody skin, he asks, ‘what the fuck's this?’
I met Dom at an awful house party two years ago. I’d gone feeling at odds with myself, knocked out of sync after an unexpected bout of clinical sex with a girl whom was a friend of a friend. I’d been at her place, having a coffee and a well made tuna mayo sandwich, catching up on some fairly stale gossip when during a lull, she asked if we could we have sex. The question was delivered in a flat business like tone.
My response was a failure to exhale.
She assured me nothing exceptional was required, just some rudimentary clit work before penetration. I'd then be required to thrust at her until she came, shouldn’t take more than five, six minutes, tops. She held up both her hands, her fingers confirming the numbers. I sat there motionless as she stared at me, not hopefully, not anxiously, just expectant as though all she’d asked was that I remove my shoes before treading on the carpet. I must have breathed out in a style considered positive because without a word, she stepped out her clothes.
I put my coffee down and unbuttoned my shirt.
Passionless, frugal sex followed against the sink base unit.
She recommended that I tell her what I was doing.
I said I was fucking her.
She came.
She wasn’t far off with the time either. Ten minutes later we were both re-seated, fully clothed, sipping at a couple of freshly made coffees. She offered me a chocolate biscuit in a light, breezy manner, convincing me that my recent fingering of her sparsely haired cunt had been erased from her mind. While I sat there, understanding how little this had meant, how it had been nothing more than a tick on a score sheet, she recounted the story of an old boyfriend. He had virtually crippled himself by over stretching the elasticity of his arse ring with a broom handle, the reason for which was unknown to her and him. She raised her eyebrows at the end of this tale, prompting an explanation, like I might hold the answer, as if parallels could be found between this and my sexuality.
The party was in a terraced house on Clarence Road.
It was late, bordering on early. I remember feeling the onset of despair as any potential the night had originally held drained away. I was sat at the end of a settee, pinned into place by the fat free pelvis of some seventeen year old queen, his ring of bone repeatedly stabbing into me as he argued with some other svelte bitch about which of them was the vilest fuck up.
The smaller of the two was rolling his eyes, exclaiming with a waft of his hand, ‘I am such a bitch.’
The other reached over and tapped his arm as if coaxing a vein, ‘age and experience, darling. I have more of each than you, making me a grade A fucking witch.’
‘I’ve been told I’m a real poisonous cunt’ the other spat.
‘Christ! I was that at twelve, darling’ the one shrieked.
I struggled up, aware of their eyes hooking into me, drawing out all that was wrong with my dress, my hair, my body, manufacturing it as poison, something to spit between them. I trudged through room after room, finding nothing different and nothing familiar. At the kitchen door a hand clamped on my shoulder. I turned and followed it back to a skinny boy propped against a wall like a decorative corpse. His skin was the colour of something starved, hanging off his every fixing and joint like thin dough. He opened his wide mouth, quickly looking like he'd come undone and said he was going to fuck me.
‘What makes you think I’d let you fuck me?’
He cocked his mouth sideways, hooking the skin from his eyes, ‘because of what I’ve got in my pocket.’
‘What?’ I snorted, ‘Rhohypnol and a dozen plastic ties?’
His hand slid off my shoulder like it had died. A sense of empowerment bristled within as I strode away but it soon withdrew.
Dom must have recognised something precarious in me. He approached tentatively, his concern carving a stave of lines in his brow. I expected him to ask if I was all right but instead he said, ‘we’re not all like that.’
Stood in the middle of my front room, Dom manages to cram a mixture of amusement, perplexity and disgust onto his little face.
On screen, Lone wolf slashes left and right like he’s powering a canoe, dismembering an onslaught of Ninjas. One takes a slash to the neck and pirouettes, shooting nine gallons of ruby red paint into the air. The camera zooms in on Lone Wolf, his face dripping blood, only the whites of his mad eyes visible.
Dom has ceased blinking. His chin has sunken into his neck, a result of his mouth hanging open. Positioned as he is, directly below the naked light bulb hanging in the centre of the room, his bald head glows like a beacon. I’m about to mention this, about to get more mileage from his lack of hair, when he makes some connection.
Slowly, he utters, ‘this is a DVD? You’ve chosen to watch this shit?’ He stalls, lost for how to reconcile with this.
Finally, he says, ‘there are times when you really fucking worry me.’
‘Going bald worries me?’
He ignores me, instead asking, 'what do you think of the new shirt?’
Without hesitation, I reply, 'it's like an eyeful of mace'.
I lift up the bottom edge, looking for the label, muttering, ‘let’s see what it’s made of’ before shrieking, ‘POLYESTER.’
He snatches it from my hand.
‘You’ll need earthing’ I tell him, ‘If you were blessed with hair, it’d be up like a toilet brush.’
He spits, ‘wanker’ and looks for something of mine to pick on.
I keep going, ‘are you wearing rubber soles?’
He puts his hand in the air to acknowledge some error, ‘sorry, wankers not strong enough, you’re a twat-wanker.’
I gesture at the design, ‘is that Beef stew?’
Shutting his eyes, he sticks a finger at his temple and tells me, ‘I’m now thinking of you slipping on a banana skin in front of the man you love and him just thinking, Christ, you fucking klutz. He's even sticking the boot in.'
I drop my hands on his shoulders, wanting to convey sincerity.
‘Dom, please don’t take this wrong but it is my opinion this item of clothing be declared useless. In the world of shirts it is akin to the onion flavoured mint.’
He shrugs me off and smoothes down the front of his shirt.
Eyeing the room, he says, 'let’s get out of your stinking hovel, my Tetanus has lapsed.
NAT: ARRIVAL IN TOWN
It’s gay night at POPPY FORTUNES. We slink past the crowd to find Vic at the door, working it like a giant piston, feeding the acceptable into the machine.
On seeing us, he booms, ‘Dom, Nat, how you doing?’ and slings his arms wide open, cutting us with a vicious tide of Old Spice.
‘W-we are perfection’ Dom splutters, ‘how are you?’
‘Marvellous’ Vic replies, dropping a hand on my shoulder. It weighs on me like a cow side. I drop my eyes down the length of his fingers, noting they’re almost at my cherries. With his other, he yanks the door open and while ushering us through, a shout comes from deep in the line.
'FUCKING BITCHES, ever heard of queuing?’
Vic doesn't try to locate it, just says, 'you boys, you’re worse than a Saturday night stag do.’
We go through to the lobby, our passage tracked by Vic’s colleagues, three apes in Tesco suits, each like a cooked chicken stuffed in a babies sock. The only thing missing from this scene is a straw floor, maybe a suspended tyre. We walk toward the main club like visitors at a zoo. Instead of wire mesh, only flimsy ideals of society and law are stopping them ripping us apart. One of them is supplementing his demented steroid abuse with a thick protein shake. Another is down on the floor actually doing press ups. He pauses to look up as we pass, then continues, furiously pumping himself up and down, exorcising his need tear the fuck out of us. We go straight to the bar.
Sometime later, I’m in a toilet cubicle awaiting death. My head is cricked up the wall, left cheek smeared tight against the piss sheet - a plastic panel encasing the walls from floor to cock height. My heart is down to ten clicks a minute, getting heavy in my chest as it struggles to shovel blood. Every breath feels sunken as though I’m scooping it off the floor. I have no other choice than to let the minutes drain from my life until an uncertain equilibrium is reached between my heart and lungs. I let my head fall back and wait for them to make a deal. And the reason for this failing? The stifling heat. The club is a sweltering mess of bodies, their chaffing and sweating chasing off any breathable air. Add to that violent swelter a ‘Take That’ megamix, three bottles of Becks necked in quick succession, the stench of Amyl and body odour, the frailty of my own system wrought from watching too much TV, from taking too little exercise, from surviving on fucking raisins so I can walk into Abercrombie and Fitch without raising an alarm and you’ve got a recipe for physical stress that’ll put an ox on its arse. There's a Polaroid tacked to the inside of the toilet door. A large erect penis runs diagonal from corner to corner, bleached white by a flash bulb. Stapled to it is a note that reads ‘for Goliath please ring…’ and then there’s a number scrawled in green biro across the bottom. Staring at it, I wonder how many hands have gripped it, how many throats, how much confidence it takes to put yourself out there like that and I have to hold myself back from actually touching the photo, from trying to connect with it, to garner some symbiotic contact that may help deconstruct my own social barriers. A depression runs quick like I've took it direct from a needle. The usual sense of inadequacy pulls, finding its centre around my failure to switch on in this world. There are times when my inhibitions coil around my throat like a leash, keeping me short tied to a fence while the colour of life flashes out of my reach.
Dom always says, 'let the world stamp your card.'
He says, 'don't be one of those poor bastards found weeks after their last breath, glued to the floor by their own blood, excavated off the lino by a group of council workers.’
He says, 'everyone's their own torturer. So ignore the bastard.'
He's out there, free of awkwardness, looking like he's shrugged off the inferiority that crushes me. Admittedly, he's running on pills but he still stands as a magic mirror for me. I’m on the verge of leaving the cubicle, quickly fingering a style out my saturated hair when the noise of the club pumps in through the opening door. An old weakness surfaces and I wait, suspended, listening, not wanting to emerge into a group of attractive, hip people, their conversation halting, forever associating me with taking a shit. Fuck knows where this comes from but it’s deep seated and not easily broken. Footsteps cross the tiled floor and stop right outside my door. I hear the tap head squeak on the basin opposite, releasing a stream of spluttering water as whomever speaks.
‘I’m sorry, Melto. Jake’s already invested in the necessary persuasion.’
Another voice responds, deep as a plucked Cello string, its powerful tone further enforcing my need to remain where I am.
‘Brother... I understand. It is only correct you go ahead with Jake. I have uses for the others.’
The first answers, ‘I appreciate your attitude. If given the choice I’d take your offer over Jake's any day. Fuck knows what he’s lined up for me.’
‘Hey, I understand, brother. There’s no need to apologise. Your first thought must be for your own needs. Look, I’ll see you later.’
The outer door opens, letting in a surge of music before falling shut, sealing the room in a silence. I hold myself perfectly still.
The running water stops. The tap head squeals as it shuts off.
I hear, ‘Christ, I look like shit.’
I picture him, leant toward the mirror, pulling the lines from his face, flattening his eyes, stretching the skin across his cheeks, maybe thinking about cutting out the excess, getting that stitch behind the ear.
He mutters, ‘what a shit hole’ and I smile. His description of the club matches my own. He’s now doing something with his jaw because as he asks himself, 'what the fuck will he have for me tonight?’ it sounds like he’s talking while shaving. He doesn’t answer his own question, just slaps his cheeks with his fingers, making that hollow sound in his mouth like a kid playing a Red Indian.
Finally, he spits, ‘if it’s one of those ...fucking little tracksuit runts, I’ll....’
I hear him inhale a deep breath.
‘Oh fuck, get a grip, it’s just skin. Quick one in the brain stem then straight home, leave Jake with the fucking mess.'
Brain stem?
My smile tapers away.
He huffs, ‘where the fuck does he put them all? Must be a landfill somewhere ...’
And ever so slowly...
‘Full of tracksuits and Argos jewellery.’
My movie educated mind believes he means the bodies.
Some little runt in a tracksuit.
I stop breathing. The glue hardens in my joints and I set like a living statue. I hear his feet squeak on the tile floor beyond as he crosses to the main door. As he pulls it open a quick snatch of air rattles the latch on my door and I flash rigid in the cubicle. The outside door falls shut and in my head, I see him let it close, see him turn around, drawn by the sound of the lock bouncing in the clasp, quickly understanding there has to be someone behind it. I zone in on the wall at my side, reducing my stimuli to an inch of oak veneer, to a square of synthetic bark, to a line of graffiti spelling out how ‘Mandy loves cock.’ My refusal to breathe forcibly depresses my heartbeat to that of a psycho. I’m not making a single noise; he’d barely pick me out with a thermal imager. I shoot my eyes at the floor, suddenly sure my feet are sticking out of a twelve inch gap at the bottom of the door. Thank fuck, the door is solid, grazing the floor tiles.