Grow Up

by Ben Brooks

  ‘Hey, Jazzy.’

  ‘Yuh.’

  ‘You want to know what God’s word really was?’

  ‘Yuh.’

  ‘He say, “Fuck that bitch in the pussyhole, yo’.”’

  When we reach Tenaya’s house we say thank you to the Jew and he mumbles ‘No Bar Mitzvah’ then passes me a joint. He shakes Tenaya’s hand and then tries to kiss her but she pulls away. His eyes don’t change shape. He is used to being pushed back, I think.

  We go straight down to the basement of Tenaya’s house and she boils the kettle for tea. Her mum is sat at the table with a bottle of red wine. There are red smudges around her mouth and stains down her blouse in close splotches, like an archipelago after years of war.

  She tells Tenaya that her father is a cuntbucket.

  She tells me that I am a good kid.

  In bed me and Tenaya arrange ourselves with our spines pressed against each other. They don’t match well but it feels good. Before falling asleep she tells me that Waldeinskameit is the German word for the feeling of being alone in a wood.

  22

  The walls of this room are the colour of petrol. There is a boy in the corner wearing a wooden necklace and stroking the hair of a girl without a face. Green numbers are scrolling over the floor.

  ‘You want to be careful of those,’ says the boy.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Matrix,’ he says. ‘The fucking Matrix.’

  I pick a vase up off the floor and throw it at the wall. It smashes. The pieces scatter across the room.

  ‘Watch it,’ the boy says.

  I take a candlestick off the mantelpiece and throw it at the boy. It catches his head. Blood runs down his forehead, along the valleys either side of his nose, into the corners of his mouth.

  ‘You’re fucking mental,’ he says. He takes the girl’s hand and pulls her into the fireplace. They run into the black.

  ‘No,’ I shout. ‘Stop it.’

  I take framed pictures of nothing off the coffee table and throw them into the fireplace. They shrink then disappear. I pull off my trousers and throw them into the fireplace. I throw my jumper and t-shirt and socks in after them.

  ‘No,’ I say. I curl into a ball on the carpet. ‘No.’

  There is a black balaclava on the window ledge. A crucifix has been painted onto the back of it. I can see it from my ball. I stand up and pull it on.

  I leave the house.

  Jonah is in the garden. A field of wheat. A salmon-pink sun the width of the world. He’s chopping wood blocks with an axe the size of his arm. There is a half-built log cabin behind him. He does not stop when I approach.

  ‘What the fuck is that thing?’ he says.

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘That thing on your head.’

  I run my hands up over my head.

  ‘It’s a metaphor,’ I say. ‘It shows how I can be surrounded by people and still feel alone and anonymous.’

  A block of wood splits in two. The halves fly away from each other like wrong-way-round magnets.

  ‘Take it off,’ Jonah says. ‘You look like a prick. And go back inside. If you stay out here much longer, I’ll have to build you a coffin.’

  ‘I don’t like it in the house.’

  ‘Then get up from the living-room floor.’

  I turn around and go back inside. The walls of this room are the colour of tulips. The floor of this room is Astroturf.

  In the kitchen, Tenaya climbs out of an oven. She crawls to my feet and stands up. Her face is close to mine.

  ‘Take it off, Jasper,’ she says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take it off.’

  ‘No.’

  She grabs the balaclava with both hands and pulls. I throw my right hand into her jaw. It cracks. She falls back onto the lino. Half her face is red with blood. She is a bear that has been messily gorging itself on fish. She fits like an epileptic. Her lips are stretched so wide they meet her chin and nose.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she says.

  ‘I’m participating in a dream scene,’ I shout. ‘For my novel. My novel. It will give readers an insight into my inner feelings. It will make the book longer.’

  ‘What are you doing, Jasper?’

  ‘A dream scene,’ I shout.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Dream,’ I shout.

  ‘Jasper?’

  ‘Dream.’

  ‘Jasper?’

  Tenaya is sat on the side of her bed, nudging my shoulder with her elbow. Her skin is cold. She’s wearing the white summer dress and holding two cups of tea.

  ‘Morning,’ she says.

  I paw at my eyes then smile up at her. I want to cry, but I don’t.

  ‘Morning.’

  I take the tea she passes to me and pull myself up into a sitting position.

  ‘Mum’s drunk,’ she says. ‘She told me that Dad has fucked off and that he’s never coming back.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for him to go. If he goes, Mum won’t have anyone to argue with.’

  ‘She could argue with you.’

  ‘I’ll try to stay away.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll get better?’

  ‘I don’t know.

  ‘Okay.’

  23

  It is important to pass these upcoming exams for several reasons:

  So that Mum’s face does not become red and her voice does not get loud and she does not stop giving me money to buy beers and drugs.

  So that I can do the next year of sixth form and not have to worry about getting a job and participating in life for one more year.

  So that I can get into university and not have to worry about getting a job or participating in life for three more years.

  So that Georgia Treely will think I am a man who is going places and who will be a good, hardworking father to her children.

  So that Tenaya will not hit me.

  I am in the bath thinking about these things. In my hands there is a Philosophy and Religion textbook. I am reading about how some people believe in God because they had visions of the Virgin Mary. There is a large picture of the Virgin Mary wearing a blue dress and looking quietly pleased. I am bored. The book says that humans can hallucinate due to extreme emotional distress. I wonder if I will hallucinate because of the emotional stress caused by Keith’s constant murder-plotting. I hope I hallucinate Georgia Treely masturbating with a toothbrush.

  I fold the textbook back on itself so that only the picture of the Virgin Mary is showing and I hold it in one hand. I move down into the water and hold the photograph directly over my head. I move it towards my face until the Virgin Mary’s nose is almost touching my nose. The picture shivers in my hand as I masturbate. Afterwards I sit back up and watch my semen floating sadly in islands on the bathwater.

  Next the textbook covers the Trinity. There is no wank fodder on these pages so I just read for a while. The Trinity is a diagram of a triangle with The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit written on different corners with ‘THEY ARE ALL ONE!’ written in the centre. ‘Haile Selassie’ was the name of an Ethiopian Emperor and it means ‘the power of the Trinity’. Rastafarians believe that he was Jesus. They stand on opposite sides of Copson Lane and shout his name at each other. Mum will not walk past them because she believes that if she inhales their secondhand marijuana smoke then she will become addicted to drugs and eventually die of a heroin overdose in a house where the walls are filled with dead mice.

  I shampoo and condition my pubic hair, and then my head hair, and then I step out of the bath. I pull a towel around my waist and tuck it into itself so that it will stay there without me holding it. Mum is stood outside the bathroom door with
her hands on her hips.

  ‘Jasper,’ she says, ‘you have been in the bath for over an hour.’

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘it is illegal to interrogate people who are not wearing any clothes.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  I wave the Philosophy and Religion textbook in her face.

  ‘I was revising,’ I say. ‘I am going to make you extremely proud, Mum.’

  She makes a sound like hmm, then pushes past me into the bathroom.

  In my room I download and watch a Serbian film about a man who believes that his wife is a ghost. In one scene they have sex and afterwards he says, ‘For a ghost, baby, you’re pretty good,’ and then she hits him and leaves the room.

  When all the blue in the sky has been soaked up by clouds, I sit at my desk and recommence work on my novel. I make notes about a man who builds a hut in a forest and uses it to rape girls in. When he has raped them he uses a butterknife to chop their bodies into small pieces, which he bakes into sausage rolls and feeds to his schizophrenic mother. I think it is important to write about things like this. It is important because things like this often happen, mainly in America. Usually it is men with moustaches that do things like this, for example Keith.

  Possible novel titles:

  And The Trees Said Nothing

  Get In My Car And You Will Become Famous

  Forced In Tree

  She Woodknot

  Sexual Bat-Tree

  I stare at my hands for a while. I think about all the bad things people have ever done. I realise that I am going to have to phone the police and do an anonymous tip-off and tell them about Keith and what he has done. Margaret Clamwell’s body was probably buried too deep for me to uncover using only my hands. When the police learn of the body’s whereabouts they will dig up the entire garden, twice. I will have to do the tip-off just before I leave for the end-of-exams party at the cottage because if Mum finds out then she will not let me go.

  Carrie Waterman is having a house party tomorrow. Tenaya already said she wouldn’t go because she had to revise. I decide to phone Jonah and ask if he’s going.

  He answers after two rings.

  ‘Sup?’ he says.

  ‘Not much, just bored. You going to that thing tomorrow?’

  ‘Carrie’s?’

  ‘Yea.’

  ‘No, Mum says I have to stay in.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Not sure. Pope’s on telly, I think.’

  ‘The Pope? Why do you still care about him? Didn’t he like rape kids or something?’

  ‘No, that was Irish priests.’

  ‘Catholic ones?’

  ‘Yea.’

  ‘Mum says you are who you associate with.’

  ‘He’s apologising.’

  ‘Apologies never fixed anyone’s torn asshole.’

  ‘Guess not.’

  ‘So you aren’t coming?’

  ‘Can’t, man. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Night.’

  ‘Yea.’

  I hang up.

  I stare at the exam timetable pinned to the cork board above my desk. It does not look exciting.

  I watch old episodes of QI on BBC iPlayer. I wish Stephen Fry wasn’t gay and my mum could marry him and he could teach me things like how you can hurt someone more when you’re wearing boxing gloves than when you aren’t. The only thing that Keith has taught me is constant vigilance.

  As a way of avoiding revision, I fill out a long questionnaire on Facebook. This is called procrastination.

  Your ex is on the side of the road, on fire, what do you do?

  can we do that thing where you break up with someone but then have sex again once or maybe twice afterwards please

  Your best friend tells you she’s pregnant, what is your reaction?

  you are going to be a very good mother. i believe in you.

  When was the last time you wanted to punch someone in their face?

  this is gay

  Congratulations! You just had a son, what’s his name?

  martin Luther king

  Congratulations! You just had a daughter, what’s her name?

  simone olive buckettwat

  What are you craving right now?

  an end to institutionalised racism

  What is your favourite sexual position?

  the ‘penis in vagina’ position

  Do you like pickles?

  no

  What colour is your crotch?

  hazelnut brown

  What is in your pocket?

  hummus

  Say you were given a pregnancy test right now, would you pass or fail?

  chance would be a fine thing

  Have you ever blocked someone on Facebook before?

  you shouldn’t have done that

  Do you know anyone in jail/prison?

  yes. no. sorry, i’m embarrassed. that was really really childish. i don’t want to do this any more

 

  Because I am stressed about the possible repercussions of implicating Keith in the disappearance of the girl, I am suffering insomnia. It is 3:46 a.m. One of the things I do when I can’t sleep is to research insomnia and sleep deprivation. Here are some facts about Insomnia:

  There is little to no increase in mortality associated with insomnia. In fact, there seems to be an increase in life expectancy.

  Somniphobia is a fear of sleep.

  Thai Ngoc is a Vietnamese insomniac who claims to have gone without sleep for thirty-three years.

  Sleep deprivation has shown potential as a treatment for depression. Such treatment is called Wake Therapy.

  I attempted Wake Therapy when I thought I had meningitis but I fell asleep.

  It is 3:51 a.m. If I can’t sleep by five, then I sit in the dew outside, drink cups of strong, sweet tea and watch the morning. I enjoy being outdoors during mornings and evenings because I find that the sky is much more creative in its use of colour. For instance, grey may be substituted for fuchsia, saffron, salmon or other romantically named hues of red.

  I go to www.girlsoncam.com, enter my nickname as ‘Ebonylonghorn’ and click ‘enter room’.

  You: hi, babe

  Candywife: hey, baby, how are you?

  You: horny, babe. you?

  Candywife: horny for you too, babe. wanna go private?

  No.

  You: can you show me some of your bod before we go private, babe?

  She stretches out over her bed so that I can see her mediocre middle-aged body. The skin around her thighs is bunched up and pockmarked and her stomach hangs down like a thick slab of chicken over her waistline. She is an average model for the milf category.

  You: mmmm

  Candywife: ;]

  Candywife: private now?

  I decide that I am bored. I decide to use Wikipedia to unbalance her. I am going to inject confusion into her strange and distant life.

  You: what will you do in private?

  Candywife: anything you want, bb

  You: will you brush your teeth?

  Pause.

  Candywife: sure, babe, in private

  You: can you do it now, please? i don’t want to wind up in a plaque show!

  Candywife: in private, babe

  You: once i paid for a girl to go private and then she wouldn’t brush her teeth

  Candywife: i’m not like that, babe

  You: i don’t know that, please

  Candywife: fine, fine

  Candywife: you had best go private

  Candywife crawls grudgingly off her bed. She is wearing lilac underwear and a stained taupe bra. As she moves I can see that her pubic hai
r remains untamed, extending down the insides of her thighs and up the wrinkled crescent moon of the valley between her buttocks.

  After two minutes she returns and bares her pixelated teeth at the webcam. Candywife thinks that she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She thinks that I am prey.

  You: babe, you are supposed to brush for three minutes

  Candywife: what?

  You: spend one minute on the lower jaw, one on the upper, and the remaining minute can be used to attack the plaque on the reverse side of the teeth, to brush the gums, or to brush the tongue

  Pause.

  I think about how her father will maybe hit her if she makes no money. I think about how his voice probably sounds like a monsoon of gravel and vodka. Because he does not know what else to do. I do not know what else to do. I am not being very sensitive today.

  Candywife: go private

  You: you haven’t brushed your teeth properly

  Candywife: i did what you said

  You: i am only looking out for you

  You: decay in a tooth can cause a cavity. if the decay continues, infection of the tissue within the pulpal chamber will occur, which will result in necrosis and necrosis, if unabated, can affect the jawbone

  You: it’s true, i’m reading about it right now

  You: on Wikipedia

  You: so it’s definitely definitely true

  You: and if you have a wonky jaw, no one will go private with you

  Pause.

  Candywife: please go private

  I watch my monitor in fascination as a single tear trips down her cheek. She tilts her head down. Candywife has bleached blonde hair with faint copper roots. I wonder if she knows that the sound of crying can trigger ‘the milk ejection reflex’ in the mothers of newborns. When I think about this I imagine Mum, just after having me, watching a film with Dad. In the film a baby cries because goblins have surrounded its crib and are dancing. Milk begins to dribble from Mum’s nipples and permeate her t-shirt. This makes Dad want to do sex with her but then I start crying so they can’t. Sorry, Dad.

  You: knock knock

  Candywife: what

  You: knock knock

  Candywife: who’s there?