Ramona lets go of my arm. “Dillon, are you chewing bubble-gum?”
“Nope.”
“All this time – even while you were trying to kiss me?”
Shit – should I be warning her about the side effects the same way I’d once warned my cousins? My famously backfiring email: “Please be advised that your aunty has broken out in mouth ulcers that look like bullet holes and upside-down insects. Not suitable for viewers of a squeamish disposition.”
“A breath mint, then?”
“Nope.”
“Then why do you keep sucking the inside of your mouth?”
“Nope. No. I don’t.”
According to my mum, all mouth-ulcer treatments are a waste of bucks – best way to treat a mouth ulcer is to swab it with salt. It hurts – she said it hurts like you’re trying to remove them with a hybrid vibrator-cheesegrater, but if you can man up and brace against the pain, you can cure mouth ulcers with salt.
“Dillon, don’t. Stop sucking like that – you look like you’re trying to imitate a horse.”
“Dhilan, stop sucking your mouth ulcers – you sound like you’re having oral sex.”
“What’s oral sex, Mummy?”
“It’s when you love someone with your mouth.”
It’s just three or four small sores today. Broke out inside my face this morning. Ramona kisses me on my cheek – dead centre of each kiss somehow hitting dead centre behind each ulcer. She does this even when I got a toothache or headache – even when my fingers cramp from typing or my kidneys twinge from ODing on energy drinks. Seems to know about the pain before it starts paining – same way she knows me so well even though she knows nothing about my mum. Gets me even better than anyone who does know. And why the hell not, yeh? Some people know the whole Tube map by heart even though they ain’t got a clue how London’s roads are arranged. Meanwhile taxi drivers know bugger all about the Tube map. Point is, both sets of people still know London way better than most people do. And Ramona knows her way around ‘Dillon’ better than anyone else does, has done or ever will.
“Okay, fuck it,” goes Ramona. “Let’s just embrace the fact that we’re finally becoming slightly less dysfunctional. I don’t care that we’re on the Tube, Dillon. Kiss me again – but properly.”
“What?”
“Let’s just pretend that we’re heading to Heathrow – all the way to the end of the line.”
I tell Ramona I can’t kiss her properly – with tongue and mouth and so on – cos I got mouth ulcers. Oral abscesses. Tell her I don’t wanna infect her. Tell her that we’re on a Tube train. Then she kisses me for being considerate. Says she’ll give me some medicated mouth gel when we get back to her student halls. Behind her, I clock an ad for Bonjela above the carriage doors. Beside it, an ad for a search engine. Then an ad for some dating app that says: “Don’t search for love, let love search for you.”
Start praying for another signal failure. A points failure. Emergency engineering works. I know some guys are apparently so manly they’re strong enough to dump women before the woman in question dumps them. Technical term for that is a “pre-emptive break-up”. But I ain’t one of them guys. This whole thing’s such a neon-lit fuck-up it’s like as if I actually wanted to fuck it up. Get my ass punished or whupped, whatever, redempted. Except how the hell does that even begin to make sense? – That I’d prefer guilt over happiness cos being happy makes me feel guilty. Allow that bullshit.
I suck on my mouth ulcers just to calm myself. Sucking and chewing in time with the beat of the Tube tracks. At first, Mum only got mouth ulcers when her cocktail of chemo contained anthracyclines or methotrexate. Then, at some stage, salt sachets became a permanent part of her morning make-up-and-meds routine.
Ramona comes closer to kiss away my soreness. Gives me no choice but to step away from her. To leave her no choice but to hold the handrail. Cos, like I said, kissing her is wrongness now. Your tongue don’t belong inside another person’s mouth. Fucking might be functional, but kissing don’t do shit – even licking a woman’s feet clean has got more purposeness than kissing. We ain’t birds who chew each other’s food and feed it back to them, we’re people who crunch up each other’s feelings and feed it back.
Ramona pulls out her fone with her free hand.
“You ain’t gonna get no signal – we’re still underground.”
“I’m not phoning anyone, I’m deleting someone. Still can’t believe how she lied to us.”
I tell Ramona that, technically, Naliah didn’t lie – she just didn’t give us the whole story. I tell her she was only looking out for her mum. That Emotional Sincerity Is More Important Than Being Truthful.
“Look, I realise she might one day be your stepsister or whatever – and you should totally forgive her if you want to. But she lied to me too and I just can’t ever forgive that crap. You know how I feel about liars, Dillon. But, look, that’s my own problem and I’m sorry to burden you with it.”
Now we’re on the overground part of the Underground. Somewhere between Earl’s Court and Baron’s Court station. Don’t notice this cos of the daylight, I notice it cos the signal-strength indicator reappears on Ramona’s fone. When she’s done binning all Naliah’s texts and messages, Ramona starts unfollowing, unfriending and blocking – and we’re talking with proper violenceness.
I try meditating and mindfulating. My school lunchbreak mantra for dealing with pre-bereavement bereavement: Losing someone who you’ve already lost ain’t no loss at all. Losing someone who you’ve already lost ain’t no loss at all.
“Stand clear of the closing doors. The next station is Hammersmith” – aka the stop for Charing Cross Hospital. Meanwhile, Hammersmith Hospital is in Acton. All them times I used that shit as an excuse to turn up too late for visiting hours. All them times I used to try and pick a Tube carriage that contained at least one prettyful woman – someone, anyone, nearly as prettyful as Ramona. That shit weren’t lechery, it was just rehearsals for whenever I lost her. Because “eventually”, “inevitably”, “deservedly” all meant the exact same thing. Pre-bereavement bereavement strategies for dealing with one day getting dumped.
But ain’t nobody ever comes close.
A magazine with Rihanna on the cover looks ridiculous in comparison. Ekta, Emily, Nicole, Nina, Nadine, Anjali, Amelia, Amy, even Ramona, yes, even Ramona, even Beyoncé, even the actress Eva Green – they all look ridiculous in comparison. Cos I ain’t some bodily objectifising masculinity asshole. Cos I don’t just mean prettyful in terms of looks, I mean the prettyful that stays there even if they become bald and breastless. Kind of prettyful that perfumises the scent of their puke. Because my mummy is the most prettyful woman in the world. Just like that other mantra I told myself every morning on the bus to school. My mummy is the most prettyful woman in the world. My mummy is the most prettyful woman in the world. My mummy – the woman who made my packed lunch this morning – the world’s most prettyful lady. We’re talking the best of the best of the best. And then a few years later, just like Daniel Day-Lewis at the Oscars or Roger fucking Federer, my mummy was still the best. Only, this time, with the sweet smell of her scalp where her hair shoulda been. The mess of scars on her chest where her breasts used to be. The sweetshop stench of her regurgitated meals. The soaking-wet night sweats. That fine film of her hair whenever she re-entered remission, like the scalp of a newborn baby. Her howling like a baby, staring at her disfigured self in the dressing-table mirror that I kept on re-repairing for her. Screaming at the irradiated B-movie zombie alien. The mirror itself howling back. Louder and madder and more piercingly. Later, just smashing her own fone screen. Crying herself to sleep in the bed that she and me way-too-often shared. Me not leaving her side in case she woke up dead. Cuddling the safe zone above her tummy but beneath her scarring. The positions she collapsed into beside our non-slip bathtub. Her madly fluctuating body heat. The toxic medicine in and out of every orifice. Mopping it off the bathroom floor; the exact same squelchin
g sounds all day, on the daily, still inside my brain. The chemo sweat on her inner thighs brought to the boil by my hydrochloric tears. Me screaming at her in my own sleep like some silly, soap-opera drama queen: Please, Mum, please don’t fucking leave.
When our train pulls up at Hammersmith station, I know it’s a no-need-to-google-no-brainer. There really ain’t no other choice for me. “Come on, Ramona, this is us.”
“What are you talking about – your mum’s house is in Acton.”
“Nope. No. We get off here.”
“Please stand clear of the closing doors.”
Next we’re on the platform at Hammersmith station and Ramona has no idea what the fuck’s going on – thinks maybe my mother’s moved.
“Listen, Ramona, I don’t really have any mouth ulcers.”
“Then why did you say that you did?”
“Cos I was lying.”
“But … why?”
“I just didn’t wanna kiss you. Only reason I was forcing myself on you in the Tube carriage is cos I was basically forcing myself. Cos I don’t like kissing you. Any more or ever again. I think you should cross over to the eastbound platform and go back to your student halls. I’m very sorry.”
And another mantra – the one I once thought Mum was actually actioning: The more that they hate me, the easier for them to move on.
Ramona doesn’t argue. Doesn’t say a word. Just turns around and walks. The pre-birth heartbeat of her footsteps beneath her elevated heels.
40
PREFERRED THIS BACK when I was a boy. When the only way to do this was to sit at my desk or the kitchen table. Laptop instead of a fone. First laptop Mama and me owned was called a ThinkPad. Me tapping to the sound of her tinkering with something. Just being busy being okay. We bought that laptop for ourselves for Christmas. Don’t remember why we decided to share the same user profile.
I pull out my fone, my fones, my other fone – my “Dhilan” fone. Head to my home screen while all these other people here head back to their homes and that. Feeding themselves into the Tube station. Tutting cos I’m in their way. But I need to do this. Need to scroll and search like all these commuters need food and warmth. Their fones giving their faces their own glows.
Now an ad for junk food. An article about low blood sugar. A story about acid reflux. Turns out there’s a McDonald’s right here in Hammersmith Tube station.
“Sugar’s behind you,” says the man behind the counter.
“No, I said salt. I asked if you had any salt sachets.”
“For your milkshake?”
I tell him I got these mouth ulcers – that I know I should probly buy some Bonjela, but my mummy told me to just put salt on them.
Cool my ulcers with my salty milkshake. Warm my chest with my overheating fone. And then, when I’m ready, I start asking the database/library/archive/oracle.
What happens when you lose someone you love?
How do you carry on when they’re gone?
How will I cope when I see her in lectures laughing at some other guy’s jokes?
Back when I was a boy – back before all the full-on custom-tailorising – sometimes search engines could take shit too literally and their psychic insights got twisted. How to be a better man? Here are some healthy-living tips and adult education courses. How to run out on her? Here are some stories about pre-running stretching exercises and ads for Nike trainers. Then search engines got smarter – a lot smarter. Ads, articles, answers – they basically became correct if people clicked on them; bumped up their algorithmic accuracy or something.
How did my shit get so twisted?
(No, this ain’t a query about braided bowel movements.)
Okay, my heart, then? The way that I been treating her.
And is there any point in even having a “Dillon” fone without Ramona?
Do I shut Dillon down now?
Should I just leave him rotting on some external hard drive or USB storage device?
(Even though Dillon was the only one with any spark.) (The only one who’d bounce his ass outta bed soon as he woke up.)
I want Dillon’s customised ads and articles and answers. I know that the Botox man keeps beating up on Google and that, but how the fuck would I even know anything without Google? What would Dillon do? What would Dylan do?
So, yes, right now I want all them custom-tailored answers. The targeted ads and articles. The familiar pattern of stories. The warmth of the sick feelings. The recommended products and YouTube videos. The homeliness of the search bar set to auto-complete. I wanna be dependent on the recommended. The premasticated. I wanna swallow my own feedback and soak up my own night sweats.
Anycase, I know that sometimes in life there ain’t no standard-issue answers no more – that you gotta make your own sense of shit, your own decisions about what shit means, your own calls about what’s right and what’s wrong. But maybe, by custom-tailorising my search results, Google gives me a hit of both these things in one reassuring single dose. Standard-looking answers and my own answers – and they don’t contradict each other cos they the same fucking thing.
So I want the custom-tailorised. Cos I wanna have my say in the truth that Google tells me. My future clicks determined by my search history. All my unknown data crunched from the known. My new data crunched from the old. Cos all them stories and that about Oedipus – it weren’t no specific story that fucked with my head and twisted my shit. Weren’t any particular media outlet. My shit got twisted by me – not cos of what I done to her, but cos of all my decisions to press click.
Guess maybe this means all them counsellors and therapists I bailed on, they weren’t actually wrong when they kept saying how your feelings are as valid as reality. That emotions got the same weight as facts. Ain’t nothing wrong with there being a shit-ton of different realities, different readings, different filters, different truths. Problem is when your clicks start locking you in. Lock you so far into whatever you already think that you start believing it’s the only truth.
Down some more milkshake before it gets warm and start scoping out the commuters. Some of them on Red Bull, some of them on fruit smoothies and that. End of the day, we’re the ones who partly select what stories and info we’re actually shown – even partly select the selection we get given.
And so I swipe my fone and start searching about Oedipus. All the exact same ads, articles and answers I’ve read fuckteen times before.
Oedipus didn’t mean to cause so much suffering.
Dude didn’t intend to cause people pain.
Oedipus can be corrupted and crooked without being guilty.
A person can be wrong without being at fault.
A person can be wrong without being at fault.
That’s all for today about Oedipus.
Apparently the oracle in the story of Oedipus had this sign in the temple forecourt that said “Know thyself” – i.e. Ancient Greek for know your own shit. Botox man was right, though: only way to know yourself now is to school yourself up about social media and search engines – know more about the systems that try to know you better than you know yourself. This means you gotta know yourself better than your own data. School yourself up about your own twistedness. Wise up to your own toxicness.
The problem isn’t Oedipus’ ignorance or foolishness, it’s that he has the wrong facts – about his parents and about himself.
Oedipus misjudges reality by using reason and logic instead of checking out the actual factual accuracy of things.
i.e. making calculations based on his past experience.
Predicting the future by crunching data about previous outcomes and behaviours. Inferring the new from the old.
Oedipus learns that no amount of clever calculation can ever be as good as really, truly knowing.
Especially if you don’t even know what it is you wanna know.
That’s all for today about Oedipus.
And so, finally, this is when it hits me.
This is when I
put away my fone, my other fones, I put away all my fones.
Actually, I disable my Google app and then put away my fone.
(Actually, first, I google how to disable Google, then I disable Google, then I put away my fone.)
Cos what if the best thing for you to do next has fuck all to do with your existing data and previous search history? What if the right thing to do in the future has fuck all to do with your previous clicks? What if you shouldn’t be locked into who you already are? If you gotta just move the fuck on?
41
THE LOCK ON your room door busted again. Can tell from ten metres away as you walk up the corridor. Every door in between holding in sounds of laughter or message alerts or intercourse. Sudden gust of louder bassline. Your wide-open doorway silent. Your daddy’s raincoat lying like a corpse on your bleach-stained carpet. You stop in the corridor and consider turning and splitting. You didn’t want your daddy, you wanted Ramona. You stop in your doorway and knock on your own open door. Please can I come in, Daddy? It’s cold out here indoors.
Your daddy is sitting on the edge of your bed, watching his crumpled carcass of raincoat. Plastic bag by his feet is puking up its replacement – a brand-new leather biker jacket. Battered cowhide, double-breasted, zipper in need of a dentist. Also his briefcase and newspapers – only thing of his not mashed or crumpled is his moustache. “I’m here because I need your help, son.” He says this without looking up. “Oh, and the door was already open.”
In your hand, a one litre-bag of table salt you’d bought when the local late-night Tesco had closed even later than usual. No table in your dorm room so you dump it on your desk. “Would you like some salt, Daddy?”
“What?”
“I’ve decided to call my start-up whatever you want me to. If you like, I’ll even name it after you, Daddy – and I’ll stick a pop-up billboard for it right outside Naliah’s bedroom window.”
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