When Mr. Dog Bites
Page 23
“What does that mean?”
“He was drunk on duty, fighting with fellow soldiers . . . lots and lots of things . . . He was a loose cannon.”
“So they asked him to leave for being a loose cannon?” There were a few loose cannons at Drumhill; they were the ones who were proper straitjacket material.
“They did, yes.”
“That’s, like, getting the sack from a job, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
“So Dad got the sack from the army?”
“Yes.” Just how the devil’s daughter can anyone get the sack from the army? The army! Even people at Drumhill know that the army is full of all the knobs, thickos, and bullies from schools up and down the country. How can anyone get the sack from a place that is already full of psychos? That’s what I didn’t understand.
“But that’s bonkers. Nobody gets the sack from the army, do they?”
“He was a bad man, Dylan. They had to sack him.”
“But what about all my letters?”
“He got them, I made sure of that.”
“But I wrote ‘Iraq’ on some of the envelopes.”
“They didn’t get sent to Iraq.”
“He wasn’t even in Iraq?”
“No, he wasn’t in Iraq.”
“So how did he get them?”
“I still sent them to him—I just changed the address on the envelopes you had put them in.”
“So he got them?”
“Yes, I presume so.”
“Why hasn’t he ever written back, then?”
“Only he can answer that.”
“Where did you send them to, if you didn’t send them to Iraq?”
Mom took one of the tea bags that were sitting on the table and squeezed so hard that all the tea juice came running onto the table and made a wee tea puddle, which was stupid because she would just have to wipe it clean later; I didn’t make the mess, so I wasn’t cleaning it up.
“Where did you send my letters to?”
“I sent them to your dad in Barlinnie.”
“Where?”
“Barlinnie,” she said again, which didn’t make any sense at all, as I didn’t know where or what it was. She could have said the word all day long and it wouldn’t have made a dent in my noggin.
“You can keep saying that, but I still don’t know where it is.”
“Barlinnie is a prison, son. Your dad’s in prison.”
MASSIVE CAPITAL LETTER PAUSE.
I felt like my brain was going down a huge escalator toward a deep black hole. It took me a
long
long
long
long
time
to get the correct answer, but with the agony of thinking so hard I eventually got it. Dylan Mint, a true brain-gym master. A gold star for Dylan Mint.
27
Robber
Mom said she had to leave me with my head on the kitchen table for about half an hour before she plucked up the courage to come and give me one of her hug specials and explain to me what really happened with Dad, and why he had to go to prison and all that. When she kissed me full force on the cheek and told me she “loved me sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much” and that me, her, Tony the taxi driver, and the little monkeys were going to be one happy family, my tears connected with her tears and flowed down both our cheeks together, like best-bud tears holding hands all the way down to the chins. But when she dropped that bombshell bolt from the blue, that knockout punch, that sledgehammer to the balls, I badly needed some nasty-ass brain-gym questions to get me through the initial blast. My tongue blade wasn’t enough on its own.
THIS IS THE STUFF MOM TOLD ME:
When Dad was booted out of the army for being a major embarrassing pain in the arse to them, he couldn’t get a job anywhere for love or money. The eejit spent all his time at the pub getting sloshed or at the bookies spending all his little savings and dole money on mad things like betting on races and skiing. Anyway, he lost all his dosh super-rapido style because what he knew about races or skiing you could write on your eyelid. He was left with only his dole money to keep his head above the grass. Dole money’s crap, and the papers say that it’s only tramps, thickos, and lazy people who are on the dole and it’s a pure redneck to be on the dole, and that’s when I thought Dad had some nerve on him to say it was a redneck for me to go to Drumhill when he was on the bloody rock and roll. Anyway, he still managed to get mangled at the pub all the time and did some odd jobs for some guys he knew, putting bricks and other rubbish people didn’t want into a Dumpster. He started hanging about with these pure badass hoodlums, and that’s when he got into doing some real dodgy stuff. Mom didn’t know what because she was afraid to ask in case she became a human punching bag again, but her detective head told her that Dad was up to no damn good. Around that time she and Tony were graffitiing each other’s Facebook walls. All of a sudden Dad had new hip clobber, did his car up to the nines, and bought a top-of-the-tree cell phone, and drank tons of super-alcoholic booze, champagne, and Martini Lambrusco wine. He was going about the place thinking he was some kind of big-shot playboy James Bond type. Or the dog’s bollocks. Mom said I hadn’t a clue what was going on because Dad couldn’t be arsed with me, and anyway he wasn’t at home for days on end, so it was easier to tell me he was away on army duty so I wouldn’t ask too many Dylan Mint Questions.
Then one day when I was at school, police with motorbike helmets came to the door with a big red battering ram and dragged Dad out of his bed while he was sleeping off a massive booze binge and huckled him downtown to read him his rights, throw the damn book at him, and charge him with “aggravated armed robbery.” When Mom told me what “aggravated” meant, I wondered if there was any other form of armed robbery. The police do have funny names for crimes. The funny-ha-ha-belly-laugh thing was that Dad only had his underpants on when they huckled him downtown. Mom laughed because she said that she hoped he had on clean underpants that day. When she got to the station, Dad was wearing a bright orange railway worker’s suit and had a hangover that would have knocked a camel out. Dad didn’t want to see her and she didn’t really want to see Dad either, but the police had some serious questions for Mom and put her through the ringer for five hours and forty-two minutes. I remembered that day so well, because that was the day I had to remain in school for what seemed like ages and ages and ages for no reason at all and listened to Sigur Rós and Mogwai in Miss Flynn’s office.
Dad the dafty head case had only gone and robbed a wee post office in a tiny borders village, tied up the man and lady who ran the wee post office, and smashed a baseball bat into the poor man’s legs until he gave up the information about where all the dosh was stored. He hooked the poor man four times on the face and gubbed the poor soul of a lady twice on the jaw AFTER they told him where the loot was. He got away with 763 quid (not very wow!) and hightailed it back to Glasgow in his own car. What a tool! The police huckled him the very next day because they saw him on the wee post office’s CCTV camera with his face uncovered. What a total tool! He put his hands up, said it was a fair cop, and pled guilty to the dastardly deed.
Because Dad was the world’s worst armed robber and the world’s biggest tool, he received a fifteen-year stretch in the notorious Barlinnie Prison. Fifteen years for 763 pounds. What a total bloody tool you are, Mr. Mint!
Out of the ninety-two teams in the English leagues, which teams have the shortest and the longest one-word team names?
A teasing
tease
of a
teaser,
especially as English leagues weren’t on any of my
“specialist subject” lists.
Long hard think.
Lots of staring and not talking.
Bury
and
Middlesbrough.
Brain Gym Champ Extraordinaire!
Game over!
28
Shopping
When I told the bold Amir that I wasn’t going to cack it after all because the docs at the hospital had made one almighty dick-up, I think he wanted to give me a bone-crushing bear hug. (I was too embarrassed to tell him that it was, in fact, my own almighty dick-up. I didn’t want my best bud to think I was a mad dumb dumb tosspot. So I kept schtum.) In the end he didn’t give me a bone-crushing bear hug, partly because we were out in the open, and partly because that’s what sausage jockey men do with each other before they get down to the real nitty gritty, and we weren’t in the slightest bit sausage. There was no nitty gritty to be had.
“It’s bl-bl-blooming annoying as well, though, isn’t it?” Amir said. He did some severe blinking, which he only did when he was upset or shocked or didn’t know the answers to easy questions in class, like when Mr. McGrain asked him what the capital of the USA was. Amir took a tortoise’s lifetime to answer New York. The class chuckled, and Amir blinked like the start of the movie in the cinema. “Do you not think it’s a wee bit bl-bl-blooming annoying?”
“How?”
“Because you won’t get to do all those cool things on your to-do list now.”
“I can still do them, Amir.”
“How?”
“It just means I’ll have more time to do them in, and when you think about it, I can add more top-notch things to my to-do list and do them over a longer period of time. See? That’s what makes living ace.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?”
“It’s up here for the thinking, down here for the drinking,” I said, pointing to my head and then to my willy.
Amir sniggered. “You’re men-men-mental, Dylan.”
“Want to know another thing?”
“What?”
“I can still have my Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It list, because the way I see it, we are all going to cack it anyway. That’s one hundred eighty-five percent fact.”
“Suppose.”
“I can add you to the list, if you want.”
“Can you do that?”
“Special rules for best buds.”
Then Amir put his thinking hat on. Danger Alert!
“So,” he said, still wearing his thinking hat. Abort! Abort! “You want to do me before you cack it?”
“Not on your nelly, Amir.” Sometimes Amir’s mind worked differently from other people’s. This was one of those times.
“So how could I be on your list, then?”
“I mean I could just change it to a Cool Things for Dylan and Amir to Do Before They Cack It list.”
Amir blinked and hit himself four times on the thigh. It was a pity that there was no mouth brace for him to wear. Mine was working wonders. Not so much as a tic session for a week or so. I sort of missed Mr. Dog. Not too much, but enough. Sometimes I made a few wee head shuffles on purpose so Amir wouldn’t feel all alone with the stuff he did. I could tell he liked my idea of the new list.
“I like that idea.”
“Excellente, capitano.”
“Can we change it a wee b-b-bit, though?”
“That’s what we just did.”
“No, I mean, can we change it again?”
“To what?”
“To Cool Things for Dylan, Amir and Priya to Do Before They Cack It?” he said like a wee lost laddie.
Since they met at the Halloween disco, Amir and Priya had become bf and gf. For a lassie, she was as sound as a pound. And because she was from India and Amir was from Pakistan, they did a lot of
you’re a pure fanny,
no, you’re a pure fanny.
You’re a stupid arsehole,
no, you’re a stupid arsehole
type banter to each other. Their parents didn’t know they were Velcro knickers, though. If they had known, a river of shit would have been unleashed. I promised never to open my gub about the bf–gf thing. They were a fantabulous pair, and I liked having Priya cut around with us; it was good to have another person’s mind and a woman’s opinion about stuff. One thing I didn’t like, though, was when they spoke to each other in their own dub-a-dub-a-dub language, because I thought that they were taking the micky out of me. Amir told me they weren’t, and I believed him. He was my best bud, after all, and trust is everything. The worst thing was when Amir and Priya said good night, and I had to wait around the corner of a shop, at the back of a bus shelter, at the front of the community center, or behind a tree while they snogged each other’s faces. The bold Amir always returned as if he had just come straight from Santa’s grotto. I wondered how poor Priya put up with his breath, but she smelled a wee bit like curry too, so I suppose everyone was as happy as Harry.
It was so much better when Michelle Malloy started to hang out with us, because then I had someone to talk to and didn’t feel like the big green hairy-suited monster. Me and Michelle Malloy didn’t kiss in front of people. We hadn’t done real kissing yet, though sometimes our hands would touch and we held them there for a while. We did some damn good talking about super-crazy stuff like parents being annoying, school being shit, normal people being idiots, walking like a wonky donkey, reality telly shows being utter crap, and music that old people listen to.
Michelle Malloy liked the fact that I didn’t call her SLUT BITCH any longer. Sometimes I’d text nite nite slut bitch to her as a joke, and she’d text back something like: ur a prick mint! lol. nite hun. It made my tummy tingle when Michelle Malloy said “hun” or “babe” or “hey, you” in her texts. She and Priya got on like a garage on fire, so everything was cushty jubbly.
Recently Michelle Malloy and I had begun to do little mini hugs with each other. She hadn’t experienced one of my hug specials yet. I didn’t think it would be too long, though. Fingers crossed. I even showed her Green and let her have her own wee rub of it. I began snogging my forearm as practice for the main event. I couldn’t wait! Fingers, toes, arms, and legs crossed. I told her she could be on our list if she wanted, and she was majorly down with that idea. So Cool Things for Dylan, Amir, Priya, and Michelle Malloy to Do Before They Cack It was definitely the way forward and was taking shape. We just needed some cool things to put on it.
*
Mom and Tony were going to the flicks to see some duff Christmas rom-com; Mom said that she needed some chewing-gum brain crap to take her mind off getting fat. That meant I had the house all to myself FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! Tony told Mom that I was still the man of the house and that I could be trusted not to burn it down.
Way to go, Tone-Meister!
So, here’s what I did: I invited Michelle Malloy over to spend some quality time with her new bf. ME. And when we made plans on the phone I did a mega un-Dylan-Mint thing.
Just before we said the “Good night, babes” part, I said, “Wear the red Adidas high-tops, babe.”
Nutzzzzz.
She said, “No probs, hun.”
Double dunter nutzzzz.
Then my heart began to beat even faster than it did the day I thought I was going to cack it. Michelle Malloy, my new gf, was coming over to my house.
My gaff.
My empty gaff.
To chew the cud.
“Chew the cud” was a “euphemism” (my new word) and we both knew it.
Good Golly, Miss Molly!
I had to tell someone, so I told Tony, who was like my second best bud now, and it’s okay to tell your second best bud things as long as you tell your first best bud too. I didn’t say anything about chewing the cud, though. Wink! Wink! I only asked him what I should wear (jeans and a nice crisp shirt, he said), what we should eat for snacks (anything but soup, he said), and what music I should put on. Tony suggested some fella called Marvin Gaye and gave me this CD called Let’s Get It On, which is a euphemism for “let’s pump each other silly.” And “Gaye” made me giggle, because it was a super-ironic name given that it was a dude and a chick who were going to be chewing the cud. Wink! Wink!
But then I had to tell the bold Amir, as my nerves were shattered ju
st thinking about my empty gaff, Michelle Malloy, red Adidas high-tops, and chewing the cud. My original Cool Things to Do Before I Cack It: Number one: Have real sexual intercourse with a girl. (Preferably Michelle Malloy) was actually going to happen, and I was shitting big bazoongas.
“The first thing you’ll need to do is get r-r-rubbers, Dylan,” Amir said.
“Suppose.”
“Suppose nothing. You don’t want any of her eggs to be fer-fer-fertilized by your seed.” Amir was really into the reproduction section in biology.
“I ditto that.”
So Amir wingmanned me to a drugstore on my rubbers-buying mission.
“There’s shitloads of them, Dylan.”
“Shut up, Amir,” I said, because we were like a couple of semen demons hovering about the rubbers section. “Someone will hear us and lob us out.”
“But how do you know which ones to get?”
“How should I know? I’ve never bought rubbers before, have I?” I tried to pretend I was looking at the deodorant and shaving-cream section, but really my eyes squinted toward the stacks and stacks of rubbers. It hurt my eyes doing this.
“There’s, like . . .” And Amir started counting all the different kinds of rubbers you could buy. “. . . four, five . . .” All different-colored boxes. “. . . eight, nine . . .” All for different things. Promising different pleasures. This was a stress head-wrecker. Green was soaked in my damp hands. “. . . eleven, twelve . . . TWELVE different kinds. Fuck me sideways.”
“Come on, let’s go, Amir. This is bonkerinos.”
“Bonkerinos exactly, Dylan. Look at these!” Amir was holding a yellow box up to my face. “These taste like ba-ba-bananas.”
“I’m not going to eat them, Amir.”
“I know, but . . .” He did the nudge nudge game we sometimes play.
“But nothing,” I said. “Come on, this place is making me feel nervous.”
Amir picked more packs off the shelf. “These ones are called Tingle.”
“Shut your fucking cave. Come on.”