Jack Tumor

by Anthony McGowan

  “Okay,” said Stan, “what the hell was that all about?”

  “That?”

  “That girl, the one who came over. I don’t know her name. It didn’t seem too good, what happened.”

  More explanations. I told Stan about meeting Amanda after we’d parted company on Saturday, and I said that I really liked her.

  “So why were you so nasty to her? In front of everyone?”

  I knew, I knew. My heart ached for her, ached for what I’d done.

  YET EACH MAN KILLS THE THING HE LOVES.

  I pointed to my head: “This makes me do stupid stuff. I’m not in control anymore.”

  “Do you want me to carry your bag?”

  “I’m not a crip, you know.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Anyway, you’ll stink it all up,” I said, and I shoved him and he shoved me back, and we laughed until we reached my house.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “Nah, I’ll just . . . Oh, hello, Ms. Brunty.”

  “Hello, Stan.”

  She must have been watching from the window. Her face was rigid. Stan wandered away, either back to school or off into town.

  We went inside. Clyte was there, looking serious. There was no hugging or emoting, which was a relief.

  “Dr. Jones called,” said Mum when I’d thrown my bag in the corner and taken off my coat. “Not his secretary, but himself, which was good of him, because he must be a busy man.”

  Twittering.

  “What did he say?”

  I knew it wasn’t good. If it was good they’d already have told me. Hey, they’d be wearing party hats and doing the Highland fling.

  Pause. Pain.

  “They found something on the scan.”

  “I knew they would.”

  “They want you to go into the hospital on Thursday.”

  “For more tests?”

  Hopeful. Not really hopeful.

  “No . . . yes, well, they . . . Oh, come here, Heck. I wasn’t going to do this. I was going to be strong. But I’m not. I’m not. I’m not strong.”

  And then she was hugging me, and kissing the top of my head. And I had to comfort her and say “there, there” and that sort of thing, and finally she was able to carry on.

  “They want you to go in on Thursday, and then they’re going to operate on Friday. Dr. Jones said it was urgent . . . that they had to take out what they could.”

  “What they could?”

  “No . . . all of it. They’ll take out all of it. He said it would all be fine, he said they would get all of it. All of it, he said.”

  THE HEARTLESS SWINE.

  “They’re good now,” said Clytemnestra. “They zapped my breast. Not a trace.”

  “Of what, your breast?”

  “No, my— Oh, you’re joking. That’s good. That’s very good.”

  “I’m not frightened, Mum,” I said.

  WELL, I AM. IT’S FINE FOR YOU TO BE ALL BLASÉ ABOUT THIS. YOU’RE NOT THE ONE THAT’S GOING TO BE SLICED.

  “Well, I am, actually, when you think about it.”

  “Think about what, Heck?”

  “Nothing, Mum.”

  I took the rest of the day off school, and lay on the bed trying hard to think about nothing at all, because none of the things I might be able to think about were good things, and most of them entirely fitted the description of frigging terrible.

  Very Romeo

  and Juliet

  The next day I had a choice: go to school and take whatever punishment awaited me there from Amanda or Uma or Tierney or fate. Or stay at home and look at Mum trying to keep herself together, with nothing to take my mind off Jack T. and the other crappy things in my life except for Celebrity Antique Challenge(or was it Challenge an Antique Celebrity?) and the other muck on daytime telly. Caught between the poo and some soft stuff.

  Despite Mum’s protests and Clytemnestra’s claims that we could have a fun day together, I opted for the poo. I mean, school. I was going to explain everything to Amanda. She would understand. Who wouldn’t? I had a brain tumor. They were about to crack open my skull like a walnut and spoon out bits of my brain. Of course I was acting strangely.

  I decided to try to enjoy my last couple of days, so I kicked a stone to school. I didn’t care if it wasn’t cool.

  HEY, HECK.

  Hello, Jack. I mean, goodbye, Jack. You’ve done enough damage for one lifetime, haven’t you?

  DON’T BE LIKE THAT. I’M HERE TO MAKE IT UP. I’VE BEEN THINKING. I WAS WRONG ABOUT AMANDA. I’M BIG ENOUGH TO ADMIT THAT NOW. IF THAT’S THE BEST YOU CAN DO, THEN WE’LL HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT.

  Will we?

  WILL WE WHAT?

  Live?

  NO MORBIDITY, NOT TODAY. LET’S HAVE SOME FUN.

  I don’t see how. Tierney still wants to kill me, even if you don’t. And I can’t even imagine how to make it up to Amanda. She’s probably taken an overdose herself.

  VERY ROMEO AND JULIET.

  Yeah, I’ve seen the movie.

  YOU’RE FORGETTING MY PLAN.

  Yeah, well, I was thinking about that. I know Tierney’s a dog but, well, isn’t what we planned a bit . . . serious? And you heard what Stan said about bullies. If I beat him, then I am one, because he must have been weaker. QED, he said.

  TRICKS WITH WORDS. FIGHTING EVIL NEVER MAKES YOU A BULLY.

  Well, I don’t really care. It all seems a bit . . . unimportant now. Compared to the other stuff. Amanda. You. What they’re planning to do to me in hospital.

  US.

  Eh?

  DO TO US.

  Then I realized I’d forgotten about my stone and it was nowhere to be seen. But I was at school anyway. On the way in to the gates I got jostled a bit by the bruisers there. And when I looked back I saw why.

  The huge knob was gone.

  A fresh layer of gray paint covered it up like a pair of giant underpants. So they hadn’t just let it fade away, dwindling to a shadow and then a memory. No, they had to kick a knob when it was down. I felt as though I’d lost a friend.

  And then I found a few more. Stan, Gonad, and Smurf were all there, and I slotted into the group. There was none of the usual piss-taking and messing about, but nor was there any obvious sympathy. They’d probably worked it all out in advance.

  “Didn’t think you’d come in today,” said Stan.

  “Couldn’t stay away. You know, double chemistry, head kicked in at break, what’s not to like?” And although I piled on the sarcasm, I wasn’t joking about the double chemistry.

  But for once I wasn’t really in the mood for Mendeleyev and his marvelous periodic table. I was desperate for break, so I could go and find Amanda and try to explain things. And then I saw that the rain had started, drops as big as crab apples hitting the windows, and then hail, and then a steady, drenching shower, and I knew that we’d be confined to our form rooms.

  I was on my way down there when I suddenly found that I wasn’t on my way down there. I was going in the other direction altogether. I was heading for the language rooms, and I knew which one.

  IF WE’RE GOING TO DO THIS, WE’RE GOING TO DO IT RIGHT.

  Whatever you say.

  Amanda’s form teacher was the dreaded Mrs. Allworthy, recently promoted to head of French. Her base of operations was the language lab, a sad and desolate place, and not just because Allworthy was such a callous witch. Half of the space was taken up with the soundproofed audio booths where kids were supposed to be able to hone their conversational skills, using what was probably cutting-edge technology in 1972. They hadn’t been used in living memory, or at least not for the teaching of languages. Now they were isolation cells where All-worthy sent the kids she didn’t like to look at. The booths were made of nice crumbly asbestos, and some of the school drongos were convinced that if you ground it up and snorted it you could get reasonably high before you perished from asbestosis.

  I pushed open the door without knocking. Mrs. Allworthy had her back to
the class, with her feet up on the windowsill. She was smoking a thin cigar and had on a set of earphones. She had once been, it was said, an attractive woman. Now her short sleeves showed off her granny flaps, and her eyes were lined with resignation and contempt. She didn’t know I had come in. Or didn’t care. The class all stared at me. Fights were frozen mid-punch. Pencils poised mid-stab. Even by the standards of the Body, this was a rough class.

  I looked around. There were many faces, glittering like the facets of a diamond, and I couldn’t take them in. I couldn’t see Amanda. But I did see a couple of the members of Tierney’s gang, and one of them was Murdo.

  DON’T GIVE UP. WE HAVE WADED SO FAR IN BLOOD, IT’S AS WELL TO GO ON AS BACK.

  Blood?

  FIGURE OF SPEECH.

  I strode through the desks to the booths at the back. There were four rows of them. I found her in the third row, in the far corner. First I saw the back of her head with its strawberry blonde hair, and then the side of her face, the left side, the side without the birthmark. She was biting her bottom lip and looking down at an exercise book, her whole being absorbed in what she was doing. It was only when I was almost upon her that she saw me, or felt me, and she turned towards me, startled, and she began to rise, but I came down to her, and knelt by her and took her face in my hands and kissed her and whispered into her ear that I was sorry, so sorry, so sorry, and I felt her tears flow over my hands.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered in my ear. “Stan told me. Stan told me you were sick.”

  And then I heard the loud jeering. I stood up and turned around. Murdo was there, and the rest of the class was behind him, clustered into the narrow spaces between the lines of language booths. Hard faces, both boys and girls. Some showing spite, some disgust, some still neutral.

  Murdo was trying to get the class on his side, trying to get them to join him in ridiculing us. Ridiculing, and then worse. A year before it would have been easy. A year ago most of the kids didn’t have girlfriends or boyfriends, or even particularly want them. Sex was funny or filthy or shameful. It was something other people did. Now, although there was still a residue of that, it was normal, or at least within reach. But still, Murdo wanted blood.

  “Givin’ her one, eh? At it like polecats. Go on, shag her, shag her. No one else will, ugly slag.”

  Murdo was big. And he was hard, and his fists looked like huge iron gauntlets at the end of his long arms. I decided then that I was going to try to land one punch before he got me. One punch would be worth it. My muscles were tensed, ready to spring.

  IN CLOSE. MAKE HIM FLAIL.

  Yes, get in close, one punch. Didn’t care after that. He could do what he wanted.

  And then a sharp face appeared over the top of one of the booths. It was Flaherty. Just what I didn’t need—I mean, he was hardly going to add to the dignity of the proceedings. I imagined he was going to make some mad chattering commentary on what was happening, taking the piss out of everyone there, including me.

  I was wrong.

  He was carrying a wastepaper bin and, with as much force as he could muster, he slammed it upside down over Murdo’s head.

  “Stop looking, you dirty pervert,” he said in his singsong way. And then he jumped down next to Murdo and started whacking the bin with the wooden edge of a chalkboard eraser.

  It was funny. It was very funny. The class joined in pushing and belting Murdo, and he was bellowing inside the bin, lashing out blindly with his fists.

  I took Amanda’s hand and pulled her towards the back of the classroom where there was a second door, and soon we were out and running along the deserted corridor, suddenly free and full of joy. Down the stairs, two flights, and then we were outside into the rain, and still running.

  “Where are we going?” Amanda shouted, smiling, rain drenching her face and hair.

  “Nowhere,” I said, and we stopped in the middle of the playground with puddles all around us, and I didn’t know what to do next. But Amanda did. It was her turn to kiss me, and I felt the presence of a thousand pale faces clamped to the windows and I didn’t care.

  The Duel

  From the playground we went to the new Starbucks that used to be a picture-framers, and she had a cappuccino and I had a latte, which was nice but not very butch and I tried not to think about how upset Mum would be about me throwing my weight behind globalization and the terrible effect it was probably going to have on the rain forest and the ozone and peasant farmers in the high Andes.

  Amanda wanted to know everything, and I told her everything. Told her about my dad, about my head, about the voices I sometimes heard, about how I had a good chance of pulling through. She didn’t say much back. She didn’t have to.

  I thought about taking the whole day off, spending it with Amanda, hanging out, talking, dreaming, but then decided against it. I wanted to see my friends again, wanted another afternoon of classrooms and corridors. Because soon they’d be gone.

  “You can come and have your lunch with us,” I said.

  From everything she’d said, it was pretty clear that Amanda had no real friends in the school. Except me. I was her friend. And that made me feel proud.

  Amanda smiled shyly. “The others wouldn’t like it.”

  “They’ll love you. Just don’t talk about girl stuff, okay?”

  It was a joke, because Amanda never talked about girl stuff— you know, dresses, hair, the stuff you put in hair, that kind of thing. She talked about music and books. She’d fit right in. Might even be a civilizing influence. Maybe Gonad would cut down on his mooselike belching, and Smurf might get some Odor-Eaters for his sneakers, because boy his feet stank, and that was all wrong for a poetry-loving type like him.

  So we got back in time for lunch, or a bit late actually, because the playground was already half full. And things weren’t normal. There was a cluster over against the fence on the stream side of the school. A strange noise was coming from them—a low, grunting sound.

  HECK?

  Yeah?

  READY TO RUMBLE?

  I don’t know.

  I told Amanda to wait. There was a feeling of horror, of blood in the air, and I didn’t want it splashing on her. I glanced back as I walked towards the group. Amanda looked thin and young and frail against the background of concrete and glass. She was biting her bottom lip. She waved, and I smiled.

  The noise grew as I approached. An ugly noise. The noise of a blood rite or ritual. The sounds of people working at pain, and the sounds of others egging them on.

  A circle had formed. That usually meant a fight. I wasn’t alone in approaching. This sort of thing always attracted a crowd. For the past week I had usually been in the middle of it. Now all I could see was a wall of purple blazers.

  Then I saw Stan and Smurf and Gonad, looking on helplessly. I was relieved that at least none of my friends were in there, getting tortured.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s Flaherty,” said Smurf.

  Flaherty. I’d almost forgotten his antics with Murdo this morning. And he had no protection. And they hated him.

  I pushed through the wall. Elbows jabbed at me, big boys pushed back. But I was through.

  It wasn’t a pretty sight. Murdo and No-Name had hold of Flaherty, forcing him down onto his knees. Murdo had a fistful of hair and No-Name was squeezing his cheeks, trying to open his mouth. Sean Johnson was hovering around as well, looking gormless, needing someone to tell him what to do. Flaherty’s nose was bleeding and his face was red and blotched from hard slaps and sloppy punches. But that was nothing compared to what was about to happen.

  Tierney had a stick. A thin branch torn off one of the willow trees by the stream. At the end of the stick was a used condom, impaled on the splintered wood.

  “Open his mouth,” snarled Tierney, and his eyes were burning.

  No-Name squeezed harder and Flaherty’s lips began to part. He didn’t make a sound. Nothing. He might be about to have a stinking used condom shove
d in his face, but he wasn’t going to whimper.

  Maybe Tierney was never really going to make Flaherty eat the condom. Maybe it was just part of the humiliation. I wasn’t going to take the chance.

  “Stop it.”

  Tierney spun around, still holding the stick like an obscene spear. When he saw it was me his face showed a second of uncertainty before it hardened.

  “Oh yes, this is good. Come to help your bum chum?”

  Sniggers from the crowd. Guffaw from Murdo. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stan help Flaherty up. Nobody else was paying him any attention now. Things had moved on.

  “You’re the one going at him with a condom. Bit of wishful thinking?”

  There was another, quieter snigger at that. This crowd could go either way. Tierney responded by jabbing the stick at me. I managed to sidestep the thrust and grabbed the stick halfway along its length. I wrenched it from Tierney’s grip and then threw it, javelin style, over the fence and into the stream, where it drifted downstream with the lazy current. HMS Condom’s maiden voyage.

  “I said I was going to kill you, and now I am,” said Tierney. And his hand moved, and I saw that he was carrying a knife, long-bladed and thin.

  KNIFE. BAD. TIME TO RUN?

  “You really are chicken, aren’t you, Tierney?” I said, ignoring Jack.

  Whether or not Tierney was chicken, I was certainly afraid. I so didn’t want Tierney to stick his knife into me. I didn’t want to feel the blade slide through my skin, glance off bone, find my liver or my lung or my heart. Stabbing is not a good way to go. But I was angry, and I had my plan, and my mind was clear.

  Jack had given me this clarity. His words, partly. But more his presence. The presence of the thing that really would kill me. The other times that he had helped me in situations like this, he’d sort of taken over, shoved me out of the way. But now we were together, and our thoughts and actions were one.

  “It’s you that’s afraid. Wetting your pants, are you? Don’t worry, might only give you a little nick, something to remember me by.”

  “You’re a coward, Tierney. And I can prove it.”