by Joe Stretch
‘Joe’s former girlfriend, meanwhile,’ says the dickhead, turning from Joe to Life, ‘is little more than something we invented because we were feeling really horny in the lab. And of course, in the Wild World, to give it variety, some females who aren’t anorexic will devote a huge amount of time to looking beautiful. All worlds, even wild ones, need sexy females. That’s sort of why we go on, isn’t it? In addition to eating, females like Life here will be very open-minded towards sex. We called her “Life” as a joke. We made her Faroese because I holidayed there once and greatly enjoyed the food and the wildlife. Ladies and gentlemen, please, give both these people a generous round of applause.’
Joe and Life are staring at each other and shaking their heads, the sound of clapping in their ears.
‘Life,’ says Joe quietly, ‘don’t listen to him. He’s a dickhead. What we shared was real. I love you. I can say it so easily. You left me, yes. You took a shit in my toilet, that was insensitive, but we can go back. We can be together. Listen to me, Life.’
Ian the Dickhead turns to the audience and raises both his arms in a shrugging gesture of genuine pride. The audience respond with even more rapturous applause, shaking their heads in disbelief, amazed at how real these people seem.
‘Finally,’ he says, gesturing for silence, ‘many people in the Wild World will resemble this fellow.’ The dickhead points at Janek. ‘They will live with earplugs in their ears. Exciting music of various styles will be pumped into their heads until, well, until everything around them becomes affected by that music, everything conforms to the merry beats and melodies that they hear. To people like Janek, life will seem like a lovely, upbeat dream. Janek here is incapable of seeing sadness. Everything he sees, however awful, is made sense of by the very cool beats and melodies we gave him to listen to. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I could brutally sacrifice any of these individuals onstage and Janek wouldn’t care. For example, I could slit the throat of Life here and drain every drop of black blood from her body, and Janek, though he’s rather fond of her, would be utterly incapable of giving a shit.’
26
EVEN IAN SEEMS surprised when the elderly audience begin baying for black blood.
‘Really?’ he says, sweeping the cock over his head. ‘You’d really like me to kill one?’
The smartly dressed guests, even the guy who recalls the nineteenth century, are smiling, nodding and clenching their fists, shouting, ‘Yes. Yes. We’d like to see one bleed.’
A commotion is developing. ‘Really?’ the dickhead keeps saying, ‘I can’t believe you’d like to watch one die.’ He’s genuinely moved by the excitement of the crowd. He had, no doubt, expected a little more decorum from such elderly people.
Behind him, Joe has gathered everyone, even Janek, around Roger’s wheelchair.
‘Let’s make this quick,’ says Joe. ‘Does this make sense to any of you?’
Life shakes her head. ‘It’s bollocks.’ She leans across and starts trying to get the earplugs of the N-Prang out of Janek’s ears. It’s difficult. It’s like they’re glued in.
‘Roger,’ says Anka, ‘if I ungag you, you have to promise not to start talking crap. I’m serious. Can you do that?’
Roger nods. He relaxes his grip on the knickers and looks at Anka with honest, loving eyes. A second later she’s ungagged him and he’s taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm.
Life, meanwhile, has succeeded in pulling the N-Prang’s earplugs out of Janek’s ears.
‘Life,’ gasps Janek. ‘It’s. I . . .’ Janek has tears in his eyes. ‘What’s happening?’
‘It seems that you’ve been listening to the Beatles.’
Everyone can hear the familiar sound of the Beatles coming from the N-Prang earplugs. It’s a famous song. ‘All You Need is Love’.
‘We’re real,’ says Joe. ‘Does everyone agree that we’re real?’
Apart from Life, everyone seems unsure. Anka looks at Roger.
‘Was there two of me, Roger? Tell me honestly. Did you ever see two of me?’
Roger stares into his lap. He can feel the technology cranking inside him.
‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘I’m sick. I’m confused. I’m not sure. I’m full of –’
Roger is interrupted by a loud and sudden bang.
Even though everyone is looking at Anka, waiting for her to decide whether she’s real or not, it still takes them a second or two to realise that a bullet has just travelled through her head. To Life and Joe, it just looked as if her expression had changed a little. To them, when the bullet went through her head, it just looked as if she had all of a sudden remembered something extremely important. It was only when the black blood started pouring from where her ear once was that they noticed she was dying. Anka Kudolski collapses lifeless beneath Roger’s wheelchair. The others look towards the door at the side of the stage, to where another Anka Kudolski stands with a smoking gun in her hand and a bandage wrapped around her head.
‘It’s me, Roger,’ cries the new, still-living Anka. ‘She lied.’ Anka points at Anka’s corpse. ‘I’m the real me. Look.’
The new Anka is, in fact, just as thin as the one she just killed. But to Roger, she does seem slightly different. It’s hard to explain why. But we have senses, us lot, weird ones. We’re freaks. We are intuitive and wild.
‘Anka!’ Roger cries.
‘Come with me, Roger. Now!’
Having been silenced by the gunshot, the elderly guests and Ian the Dickhead are now all staring in astonishment at Anka. They watch as she reaches into her rucksack and produces a ham sandwich. Holding it in the same hand as the gun, she brings it to her lips and takes a large bite.
‘I’m the real me,’ she says again, her voice obscured a little by the food. ‘I can eat. I can get better. You’re not full of technology, Roger. I swear you’re not. Let’s just go.’
Roger looks down at his body. It does seem so heavy. So full of crap. He fingers the black cords that come from both his ears. He looks at the corpse of Anka beneath him, the black blood leaking from her head, then at the living one eating the ham sandwich in the doorway. Around him, the young shellsuits with this season’s arseholes are closing in. Fuck this, Roger decides, life is just too much fun. He leaps from his wheelchair and dashes for the door.
‘Let him go,’ says Ian, calmly. ‘Let him go.’
Up on the stage, Janek, Life and Joe are being held by their shoulders while the corpse of Anka Kudolski is cleared away.
‘Get those earplugs back in his ears,’ whispers Ian to the girl holding Janek. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he murmurs, adding, as an unsteady afterthought, ‘for Christ’s sake.’
Though Janek tries to prevent her from doing this, deep down his struggle is all for show. He’s glad. Better to live with music in your ears, he’s thinking, than to actually listen to and understand the bullshit that goes on around you. Seconds later his head is swimming in happy sounds. The Beatles, or some other many-legged and musical group of men. In Janek’s eyes, the elderly crowd are all suddenly sexy-dancing with each other, having a really cool time. In his eyes, Joe Aspen is not grimacing or trying to shake off his guardian and reach the travel seat. Life is not wiping tears from her eyes. To Janek, both seem fine. To him, they’re both watching in amusement as Ian the Dickhead dances centre stage, swinging his head round, helicoptering his knob to the beat of the song.
In reality, however, Ian has regained his composure and is returning to the podium. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he’s saying, ‘I can only apologise for that little interruption. Naturally, with such a complicated and groundbreaking project, there is still a little room for improvement. There are still things we can’t fully control. After all, when we made these people, we were all pissing about so much that it’s possible we weren’t as thorough as we ought to have been. Yes, we were joking around so much that we often lost sight of the fact that we were building humans. But I’m sure we can still have some fun with these remaining specimens. Of
course we can.’
Behind the dickhead, Joe finally succeeds in pushing his minder to the ground. He runs to the travel seat, lifts Sally from it, places her over his shoulder and then turns to confront the dickhead.
‘I don’t believe a word you say,’ says Joe, bouncing on the spot in order to calm Sally down. ‘It’s bollocks. All this. I’ve met dickheads like you before. I used to work in a theatre. I’ve known knobs who prance around making everything seem weird and dramatic, you’re simply –’
‘I should say, ladies and gentlemen,’ interrupts Ian with a smile, ‘that I think we made Joe’s love for Life, that is to say, his love for this beautiful girl beside him, a little intense. I should make it clear because it might help us to understand his rather dramatic behaviour. We were drunk when we did it, the scientists and I, we were drunk and it’s possible we made his love for this girl a little too intense. I’m sure you’re familiar with how melancholy men can get when they’ve been drinking too much beer and wine. It’s possible, in our drunken state, that we made his love for her far too strong. But don’t be fooled. This boy bleeds black blood like the rest of them.’
‘I don’t,’ snaps Joe. ‘I bleed red blood and I love her because she’s real. Aren’t you, Life? Tell this dickhead. Tell him how real you are. Tell him about that shit you took before you left me.’
Life inhales anxiously inside her pretty red dress. Her lungs fill with air, causing her large and perfect breasts to protrude. ‘I don’t know, Joe. I just don’t know.’
You do, thinks Joe. You do know. We all know we’re fucking real. It’s just that sometimes we’re afraid to admit it. In his frustration, Joe turns baby Sally round so she’s facing Ian and, knowing full well that Sally will grab anything placed in front of her, he thrusts her forwards till her fingers are inches from his forehead.
‘Aaaaaaaagggghhhhh,’ cries Ian. He’s having his dick pulled extremely hard. Sally has a firm grip. Joe’s pulling too. He’s holding Sally by both feet, leaning back with all his weight. A shellsuited twat is up like a shot, trying to unpick the baby’s grip. But the baby, naturally, is far too strong.
‘Keep hold, Sally,’ shouts Joe, keen to tear the silly penis from the man’s head and restore some normality. But as hard as they pull, it isn’t coming off. How good the surgeons of plastic are these days. What absolute experts we are. What a gifted bunch of total fucking losers.
‘You are real, Life!’ Joe’s shouting, pushing away the tosspots who are trying to detach himself and Sally from the dickhead’s dick. ‘I’m telling you. Listen to me. Remember, I kissed your arse. I cared for your crap. You are real, Life! We ate puffins together. You are real, Life. We ate puffins together.’
The whole occasion is chaotic. The guests don’t know what to do. They hide their faces with their gloved hands. They cry out in shock. They groan. Heart attacks concealed in their ancient eyes. Ian the Dickhead has lost control. He’s furious. His forehead is bruising under the strain of Sally’s pulling. ‘A knife,’ he keeps shouting. ‘Bring me a sharp knife!’
27
HOLDING TIGHTLY TO each other, Anka and Roger run down the cold white corridors of the stadium. Neither of them knows where they’re going. They turn corners at random, breathless, desperate to maintain the enthusiasm caused by their escape. The sound of the nearby crowd echoes down each corridor. Large undulations of human misery and human hope and joy. Men in orange coats stand at intervals staring at the floor. Anka and Roger turn down yet another corridor and come to a halt, panting and leaning against each other.
‘Should we kiss?’ says Roger eventually. ‘I’m guessing we should kiss on account of you just shooting someone. Well, you sort of shot yourself, didn’t you? And I leapt from the wheelchair having previously been barely able to move. And so . . . She gagged me, the other you, do you know that? You’re not going to gag me, are you? Should we kiss?’
Anka has removed the remains of the ham sandwich from her rucksack. She’s finishing it with small bites, chewing each one meticulously. ‘I could never have done this without you, Roger. Eat, I mean.’ She takes another bite.
Roger leans against the wall, staring briefly at a selection of corporate logos. ‘But, Anka,’ he says, ‘how do I know you’re the real you? I mean, that’s exactly what the other you claimed to be.’
‘I can prove it,’ Anka replies. ‘I can. I promise.’ She has finished the sandwich. She swallows emphatically: ‘You’re such a little nerd, Roger. It’s so strange. You and me, like this. You’re such a little nerd.’
Roger grins. ‘When I’m with you, Anka, in fact, even when I was with the other you, I had such a desire to be seen. That’s so weird for me. I mean, recently, as you know, I barely left my flat. But even when I was gagged in that wheelchair with this mouse stuck in the back of my head, I wanted to be looked at by other people. I didn’t feel ashamed. Is that what love is? Just some sort of pride?’
‘Look down there.’
Anka is pointing down the corridor to where a canvas tunnel curls away from the exit. A small section of green grass can be seen where the tunnel ends.
‘That’s the pitch,’ says Anka. ‘How strong are you feeling?’
‘Stronger than before, definitely, but I’ve still got a lot of heavy equipment inside me.’
‘Turn round then. Come on, Roger, turn round and be thankful I weigh next to nothing.’
The moment Roger has turned away from her, Anka leaps onto his back, throwing her arms round his neck and allowing him to grab her legs. ‘Now, run, Roger,’ she cries, grabbing the wires that fall from his ears and tugging them like reins. ‘Come on, El Rogerio, run!’
Roger does run. He begins to gallop down the corridor at quite a pace. ‘I’m thirty,’ he cries, his voice echoing harshly in the narrow space. ‘Thirty years on planet earth. Ha ha!’ Anka, as she has at last acknowledged, is very light. Roger finds he can run as fast as if a child were hoisted on his back. He enjoys the feeling of her kicking his backside with her heels as a jockey might a horse. Oh yes, pretending to be a horse, being kicked on the backside by a girl, even an ill one, it’s so much better than crapping a motherboard into a toilet, so much more fun than bullshitting teenagers on the Internet. At the end of the tunnel, two bright orange men are attempting to form a human barrier to prevent Roger and Anka from reaching the pitch. They look terrified. Terrified by the blonde, beautiful and sickly thin girl riding the big-headed boy as if he were a horse. The orange men hold hands and spread themselves out. They say shit, shit like ‘Stop’, shit like ‘You can’t go through ’ere’. They say shit in angry cockney accents. ‘You can’t go through ’ere.’ But Roger can. He just knows he can. He’s running faster than he’s ever run before.
If we were one of the guests up in the banqueting suite, like, say, if we were that old guy who remembers the nineteenth century, then we could turn from where Joe Aspen and Sally are trying to pull the dick from off Ian’s forehead and stare down at the pitch. We’d see two people burst from the tunnel in the corner of the pitch – a girl on a boy’s back. We’d see the girl waving happily at the crowd, pulling hard on reins that come from the boy’s ears. We’d see the two of them go charging off down the touchline, galloping over lush green grass, past the stupid Chelsea mascot, who to us, through our nineteenth-century eyes, would look like a massive blue lion. Dumb Southerners. We’d see many a bright orange steward chasing these two, arms outstretched, attempting to run in a calm manner that befits a chubby bunch of crowd controllers. We’d see the crowd waving their fists and opening their mouths wide, passionately willing that the two heroes avoid capture.
If, by chance, we grew tired of watching the chase and our attention turned briefly to the action taking place on the pitch, we’d see the huge Chelsea midfielder, Michael Essien, whose face, I could add, seems forever electrified with delight. We’d see him hoof the ball from his own penalty area up into the sky. Following the flight of the ball, we’d see the much loved and much maligned midfield
er Frank Lampard turn his marker on the halfway line, spring the offside trap and suddenly find himself running alone towards the goal, monitoring the ball’s progress with occasional glances over his shoulder. Fuck me, we’d think. Fuck me. Even though we recall holidaying in the nineteenth century and even though our head contains every single year the twentieth century had to offer, we’d still think, fuck me, this is entertaining.
Down on the touchline, suddenly aware that certain activities on the pitch have drawn the attention of the crowd away from themselves, Roger and Anka are considering running onto the pitch.
‘You wanted us to be seen together, Roger,’ shouts Anka, pulling hard on the wire that comes from Roger’s left ear in an attempt to make him turn onto the pitch. ‘This is your chance. Run onto the pitch. It’s our only option!’ Anka’s laughing. She’s laughing at the alarmed tone she heard in her own voice. Roger’s laughing, too. He’s laughing so much that Anka’s slipping down his back. His grip is shot to shit by his sense of joy. He has to pause and shunt Anka higher up his back and strengthen his grip on her legs. Glancing up, he notices that more orange stewards are coming towards them. We’re trapped. Anka’s right. It has to be the pitch.
Once again, if we were that nineteenth-century guy staring down at the pitch from up in the banqueting suite, then we’d have a cracking view. Jesus, we’d be thinking, I once shared a world with the likes of Oscar Wilde and Otto von Bismarck, and now, over a century later, I’m sat watching the England international Frank Lampard running through on goal pursued by a big-headed guy with wires in his ears and an anorexic on his back, who, in turn, are being pursued by several men in weatherproof jackets and bobble hats and several athletic men in football kits who, presumably, are keen to stop Frank scoring. Superb, we’d think. This is superb entertainment. Because even when you’ve lived as long as we have and you’ve holidayed in 1870s Morecambe, witnessed the advent of the computer age and watched men stick flags in the moon, you still can’t shake the feeling that life is too short, that we just cling to the porcelain with all the other shit, staring up, praying that a well-aimed jet of piss doesn’t spray us away. Thank God, we’d think, thank God for these light-hearted moments. And what’s this? we’d wonder, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. What’s this? Suddenly we can see dozens of teenagers leaping over the advertising hoardings near to the dugout. These, I believe, we would no doubt say, aren’t these the latest batch of sceptical young life fearers? They’re piling onto the pitch in black T-shirts. Purple drainpipe jeans. Hooded heads. False red hair. And even though we remember Teddy boys, mods, rockers, the jitterbug and the Nazis and the time before Teenagers, we would, to our credit, ask, are these not those who are fond of loud music, guitars and heartbroken American men with high voices? Are these not those who have invented new dances? Is it true, we might ask, regarding these young people piling onto the pitch, is it true that these are the latest generation of young people, scared like we were of every single second, past or future, every single second except for that one dry, nutlike second that lies split in their palms, protected by their fingers, fingernails painted black? Life is short, we would say, every year of the twentieth century rattling round our heads. They should relax. Life is short.