Bully

by A. J. Kirby

  ‘Do you have a knife?’ I asked, rapidly growing tired of this game.

  ‘I’m using it,’ said Twinnie, spearing a huge piece of what looked like barely cooked flesh with a hunting knife and plunging it down his cat’s arse of a mouth. I heard the point of the knife scrape against his jagged little teeth as he pulled it back out.

  ‘I like what you’ve done with the place by the way,’ I said, while I was waiting for Twinnie to finish his extravagant chewing of the meat. I pointed at the blood-red graffiti on the wall. Smirking as I did so.

  Twinnie barked something back to me that was almost totally incomprehensible. A trickle of blood slipped down his purple chin.

  ‘Knife?’ I said, holding out my hand, half expecting Twinnie to twist it into my naked palm. Almost expecting the jarring pain as it cut through sinew and bone. It looked damn sharp that knife. Probably Twinnie had it singing off a butcher’s steel hymn sheet every morning these days.

  He continued his exaggerated chewing, sounding like some predatory animal. And I knew from watching my nature documentaries that an animal like that doesn’t really want to be disturbed while they are eating.

  Finally, he stopped; spitting out some gristle onto the floor right by the side of his camp bed. For some reason, all I could think of was how unhygienic that was.

  ‘Think you can come back in here ordering me around like you’re the fucking alpha male of the pack?’ he growled, still accentuating every word with a baton-twirl of the knife. ‘Think being in the army gives you some divine right to be the big boss man?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nah Twinnie, I don’t think that at all. I just wanna at least try to patch him up…’

  ‘It’s every man for himself nowadays,’ spat Twinnie. ‘You made that very fucking clear when you went off to the army. You can’t turn back time, mate. You can’t have everything just like it was before you went off on your own like goddamn Rambo.’

  ‘I just wanna…’

  The knife whistled past my ear and twanged into the wooden door, sticking into the flesh of it by at least an inch and a half.

  ‘I’m only messing with you, Bully!’ laughed Twinnie. ‘For Christ’s sake, chill the fuck out.’

  I didn’t laugh. I didn’t chill the fuck out. Dick was right; Twinnie was way out west now. He was so far gone that he probably didn’t even know where he’d come from in the first place. He was as much monster as Tommy Peaker now. Somehow, I preferred him as snarling animal rather than his other schizophrenic incarnation; this laughing, faux-friendly madman that would stick you in the back as soon as look at you.

  I clenched my fist around the hunting knife and twisted and turned it until it finally came out of the wooden door. Had half a mind to launch it straight back at Twinnie, but when I turned round to face him again, he had the shotgun cocked on his lap. It was pointed directly at me.

  ‘Just making sure you don’t wanna use that knife for something else,’ he sneered.

  ‘I’m not like you, Twinnie,’ I said. And then I repeated the same phrase in my head for about the next half hour. What the hell had happened round here while I’d been away?

  I managed to put together a rudimentary dressing for Dick’s leg using some of the stuff in my pack, and also some woefully out of date medicines I found under the smashed-up sink in the outhouse next to the barn. I copied the treatment techniques I remembered from the military hospitals back in that desert place; remembering Nurse Thomas tending to Do-Nowt’s stump. I remembered Dr. Montaffian, and started whistling ‘Purple Rain’ as I worked. Part of me wondered whether even that old doctor’s choice of song had been a sign that I hadn’t heeded. Had he been trying to tell me something of this purpling business?

  Even after I cleaned and dressed it as best I could, the wound couldn’t stay like that for any more than a few hours, tops, I thought. When I cut Dick’s tracksuit bottoms away and seen the mangled mess that the scattered shotgun pellets had made, I’d been inextricably reminded of my own foot. When I’d not been able to tell what was skin or flesh and what was boot or sock. Dick’s tracksuit bottoms had become so saturated with blood that bits of material clung to the wound and refused to be budged. Dick screamed when I pulled the material away.

  He also screamed when I applied the ointment from the outhouse and a bandage from my pack. He screamed whenever shadows moved in the barn and begged me to either stay with him or let him come back into the farmhouse.

  ‘Please,’ he said, tugging at the sleeve of my t-shirt like a kid would. His breathing was raggedy. Dangerous breathing; like how he’d described the Black Panther breathing. Or how we’d all imagined the Black Panther breathing at any rate.

  ‘Let me back inside. I’m so c-c-cold…’

  ‘Too dangerous,’ I said, trying to sound stern, not-to-be-messed-with. ‘I’ll keep checking up on you though, Dick. You’ll be fine.’

  I managed to find a few tatty old blankets in that same outhouse and wrapped Dick’s body inside them so tightly that he started to resemble a cocoon. On top of all the blankets, I placed the yellow tarpaulin which I’d wrenched off the broken body of the farm vehicle out in the courtyard. I didn’t know which I felt more sorry for; the rusted, abandoned body of the machine, now left open to the elements after all those years of protection, or Dick; so warped by drugs that he hardly knew where he was any more and hence probably didn’t even know that one of the main reasons I was wrapping him up so tightly was in order that he didn’t try to crawl away in the night, looking for treatment of a different kind to that which I could provide. Treatment which could only be found in the flats above the shops in the main street, with their naked bulbs buzzing with energy that they’d sapped from the drugged-up townsfolk.

  And I started thinking about what Twinnie had said about every man for himself. I started to ask myself whether I wouldn’t be better off facing Tommy Peaker alone, without these two crazies holding me back. But that wasn’t the way Tommy wanted it, was it? He wanted us all together, driving each other mad just like we used to. He wanted us to experience that same head loss which had driven us to kill in the first place. And right then, I knew that he had us exactly where he wanted us. He’d be coming, and soon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “No angel born in hell”

  Twinnie and I sat around the flickering light from the small blue flame of the camping stove. It wasn’t providing much heat, but as the only torch we’d thought to bring was rapidly running out of batteries – refusing to play ball like every other goddamn piece of equipment we had up here apart from the gun, of course – it was at least providing us with some light. And both of us wanted light. We wanted to be able to see what the other one was doing.

  I was sat, cross-legged like in school assembly when we were good little boys, or at least not so bad little boys. God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat like that. Nor could I really remember being a not-so-bad little boy. Every memory I had seemed soured by the knowledge of what was to come later, like when I remembered that last day we were all at school together. How we’d all scrawled our names across our school shirts. How we’d got the girls to plant big lipstick kisses on the collars. But then we’d got drunk and someone had attempted to burn the school down. Not us, you understand, but we’d been the ringmasters. The ones who’d whipped everyone up into such a frenzy that it all got waaaaaaay out of hand, and far too quickly.

  Or the time Tommy Peaker got that certificate in assembly for managing to make it in to school every day for two consecutive weeks. The way some of the spods had complained. You know the type: ‘I’ve not had a day off in two years, let alone two weeks. Why can’t I have a certificate? Oh sir, please present your penis to me so I can suck it. Please, pretty please…’ How we’d all rolled about laughing when Tommy collected his certificate and started trying to make a speech, holding the crappy piece of scrap paper aloft like it was the FA Cup or something and not just sweet FA. Tommy pointed out to us who the main complainers were, and i
n the spirit of the day, we set about them all; robbing lunch money here, burning school bags there, pretending to pierce their fucking smarmy faces with their pristine compasses for maths class. How in the end, as always, we took it one step too far and ended up going for the easiest target of the lot; Tommy himself. Twinnie wiped his arse on the certificate and blu-tacked it to the wall of the lad’s bogs using his own shit. Unbelievably it took a whole two weeks for the certificate to be removed by the cleaners. And a whole two weeks for us to see Tommy at school again.

  As I thought about the old days, I’d been rubbing at the stump which was formerly known as my foot. When I looked down, I saw that my over-long fingernails were tearing into the plasticy-flesh; trying to scratch the itch that was not really there. Like Hannibal Lecter quizzing that senator in Silence of the Lambs, I wondered where it itched on Twinnie. Maybe it itched on his fucking dead twin.

  Jesus, I have to lighten the mood, I thought.

  And for some reason, I thought that the best way to re-establish some kind of bond between Twinnie and I was by bringing up some other incident from our past.

  ‘Does this remind you of the time we went camping up at Grange Heights?’ I asked, trying to massage some life into my stump.

  Twinnie flashed me another of his unreadable smiles.

  ‘Yeah mate,’ he said. ‘It might well remind me of that night, but I can guaran-fuckin’-tee it won’t remind you of that night. I bet the only reason is you mention it is after something fucking Dick let slip.’

  ‘What you on about?’ I asked, calling his bluff. ‘I remember everything about that night… I remember the Black Panther stories… All of it.’

  Twinnie started laughing. He laughed for so long that it soon became obvious that he was mainly doing it to prolong my discomfort.

  ‘Bully,’ he said, finally, ‘you were so drunk that night that there’s no chance you’d remember anything. Staggering about all over the place. Never could take your booze, could you?’

  His comment may or may not have been intended as a slight on my manhood. I certainly felt it that way. In a town like Newton Mills, drinking all day is respected; making a show of yourself is not. Beating your wife behind closed doors is expected; striking her in the pub is a big no-no. She shouldn’t be in the pub in the first place, some wag might say.

  ‘Piss off, Twinnie,’ I snarled.

  He laughed again.

  ‘Pack it in.’

  ‘What’s up, Bulls-eye? Don’t you like a bit of ribbing? A bit of dissent in the ranks? Can’t you take it?’

  Can’t you take it? It was what Twinnie always asked of his victims. As though the fault was somehow with them. And do you know what? When he asked the question of me, I sort of felt like it was my fault that I couldn’t take him bullying me as he was attempting to do. I sort of felt like I deserved it.

  ‘It’s not that… I just…’

  ‘Just what? Just what? What are you stammering like that for? You sound just like Tommy fucking Peaker.’

  Suddenly there was silence in the room. We listened to the wind whip round the farmhouse and the far-off cries of Dick in the barn. I’m sure we both felt that by saying Tommy’s name, we were simply drawing him closer. For the first time, I saw a quiver of fear in Twinnie’s face.

  ‘When did you first see him?’ I asked. ‘Second time around, I mean?’

  This time it was Twinnie’s turn to go on the defensive. He shrugged his shoulders, muttered something typically incomprehensible and picked up his porno mag, feigning nonchalance.

  ‘He came to the hospital… After what happened to my foot. Why haven’t you even asked about my foot, Twinster?’ I continued, pressing home my advantage.

  ‘Don’t fucking care about your foot,’ sniffed Twinnie, sounding like Dick, like a child. ‘Doesn’t bother me what happens to you. Not after you left.’

  Were you lonely, Twinnie? Was that what fucked you up? Lonely for your dead twin? Did you kill him too? Did your purpling begin before you could even walk and talk properly?

  I longed to be able to ask him those questions, but knew that I had to save them up. Save them for a time when we were gripping on to the edge of the precipice with just our fingernails, and he’d be trying to scramble all over me, just to save himself. Besides, Twinnie was stroking the shaft of the shotgun in a way that suggested that any mention of his twin brother, and I’d be chucked in the woodpile, just like that mad old farmer’s family.

  Suddenly, he spoke again: ‘I presumed he did it to you. I thought that I didn’t need to ask. Not after Lion. Not after Lion.’

  ‘Not him actually,’ I admitted. ‘Rats did it.’

  ‘Rats?’ barked Twinnie, suddenly sitting upright on the camp-bed. ‘What you on about?’

  ‘Rats tried to eat me alive.’

  ‘Fuuuuucccccckkk,’ groaned Twinnie. Then: ‘Still; look on the bright side, you’re still walking. Sort of…’

  Twinnie’s words reminded me so much of my dad’s that I was taken aback. Still, the conversation was the first sign that Twinnie wasn’t completely turned to the dark side. There was still something of the old him left, wasn’t there? Or was that the problem all along? Should he have been trying to get rid of the old him?

  Later, after a silence which could hardly be described as companiable – I’d had to listen to some suspicious sounds from Twinnie underneath his sleeping bag – I started to feel the pangs of hunger eating away at my stomach like… well, like the rats that had gnawed away at the top-side of my foot.

  ‘Is there anything to eat?’ I asked.

  ‘Should’ve brought your own,’ Twinnie snapped. ‘You not pass any shops on your way up here. Like Burt’s or something?’

  ‘Why’d you say Burt’s?’

  Twinnie bolted upright again; sensed the tension in my voice.

  ‘Just said it, that’s all. Blast from the past, like. You were the one bringing up all sorts like that camping trip at Grange Heights. Chill out mate, for fuck’s sake. Thought that by mentioning that old gormless fuckwit, I’d be able to make you laugh.’

  ‘Burt’s dead,’ I said.

  ‘Figured as much; not seen his shop open in donkey’s years; maybe the environmental health finally got hold of what shit he was trying to sell in them dog-meat pasties…’

  ‘No man; I don’t think you get what I mean. I mean he died yesterday…’

  Twinnie whistled through his teeth, clearly still not understanding.

  ‘I mean he died from the same thing as us!’ I cried. I longed to take his head and smash it against that whitewashed wall or on the blank space on the concrete where the Aga must have used to reside, before some hardy, and strong thieves managed to disconnect it and make off with it.

  The fire returned to Twinnie’s eyes. ‘We’re not dead yet, man,’ he said. ‘Look at us. Alive and kicking… Well; some won’t be kicking as well as others…’

  He twisted round on the camp-bed, gestured to the blood-red graffiti on the walls: You’ll never take me alive.

  ‘That’s what I mean! He doesn’t want to take us alive; he wants to…’

  Twinnie climbed up from the camp-bed. Towered over me. I couldn’t remember him being so tall.

  ‘Well, what do you suggest we do then, soldier boy?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Huh?’

  I still didn’t say anything. Twinnie returned to his seat, but picked up the spade from under the camp-bed again. I could see glints of blood on the blade. My blood.

  ‘You were talking about that night up at Grange Heights earlier, Bully,’ said Twinnie, in a soft voice which didn’t quite tie-up with the violence he’d so nearly inflicted just a few seconds earlier. ‘Well let me tell you about that night.’

  ‘Member it was around that time that everyone was afraid of the Black Panther. Some fucking busybody or other claimed she see’d a big black cat stalking through her garden messing with her washing or some such. Called the old filth in to report it. An�
� of course they laughed their piggy-little heads off at the story. A big cat in Newton Mills? Where’d that come from? The travelling circus?

  Anyway, turns out that because the woman’s garden backed on to the school playin’ fields, the filth had to go check it out. Just in case, like. Look for dock-off paw-prints and the like in her rose beds. And of course, they found nothing out of the ordinary. Whatsoever. But you know what it’s like in Newton Mills. People like to talk. There isn’t much else to do round here save killing yourself on drink or drugs or by joining the army. So this busybody starts talking. She starts talking in the shop queue and at the bus stop. She tells her neighbours. And before you know it, it’s like Chinese Whispers and everybody’s talking about this big old cat with sabre-tooth fangs that’s strutting round the town like he owns it. Men in the pubs start talking about the cat making off with a baby from a pram like that woman down under who had her baby snatched by dingoes. Women in the… wherever women go… start talking about pulling the kids outta school. Just in case.

  ‘Member the special assemblies they had round that time? How they told us we had to go straight home from school. Do not pass Burt’s. Do not collect two hundred 1p sweets. How they told us not to go out at night until that beast was caught? Do you not remember even why we went up Grange Heights in the first place?

  It was after… after what happened with you know who. And nobody knew where he was still. So we decided – all of us – to go up the Heights and say we saw the Panther and that he had a piece of you know who’s clothing on him. In his fangs or something. Or that we saw the Panther carrying you know who’s school trousers – remember them shit ones that he always wanked in. I dunno, we just kinda decided that the best way of putting everyone off our scent was to set the bloodhounds on the trail of that imaginary cat.

  But of course, once we got up there, we had nothin’ to do but drink and smoke, like usual. And it turned into a good party for a while. Dick was being a dick, but funny with it. Lion was trying to wrestle all of us, but playful-like; you know how he was. Me and you sat around sharing this dock-off bottle of cider that we’d pinched from the offie down on main street. You know the one; the one where they had that bird from a couple of years above us – well, a few years above us – and she always just gave us booze so we’d stop pestering her.