by Joe Stretch
‘Tackle him!’ Anka’s shouting. ‘You can catch him, Roger. He’s overrated. Tackle him and boot the ball in the net yourself!’
Roger has no idea who the footballer they’re chasing is. He does not follow the game. Famously, he enjoys musicals. Staring up at the crowd, he can’t help but fantasise about singing and performing for such a large audience. To sing a song sincerely in front of such a crowd. That’d be nice. As it is, he’s happy to just be seen by them, happy to be seen in public with Anka riding on his back. Because as much as we pace quietly around our skulls as if we were the librarians of our brains, what we really need is to be seen, occasionally touched, occasionally cheered up, occasionally kissed, occasionally ridden like a horse. Roger realises this now.
In front of Roger, Lampard has allowed the ball to drop over his shoulder. He has controlled it well and begun to dribble at pace towards the goal. Further up the field, Roger can see the goalkeeper, dressed in yellow, bouncing out towards the edge of his area, spreading his gloved hands out wide, making himself big, watching Lampard’s every touch of the ball. The goalkeeper seems calm. Lampard, too. The moment of truth is coming. The moment of truth is knock knock. Scratch.
Anka has turned round to flick immaculate Vs at the chasing stewards, the desperate defenders and the obsessive teens. The air is unbreathably loud. Thick with noise. Thousands here are desperate for a goal. Thousands are desperate for a save or a miss or a total fuck-up. Even so, Roger can hear Anka’s shrieks. ‘Piss off,’ she cries at the orange men and the trendy little kids. ‘We’re artists,’ she cries. ‘We’re eaters. We’re lovers. Piss off!’
All this throwing of insults is, in fact, quite unnecessary. Because despite the fact that Roger is apparently full of heavy technology and finds it difficult to get about, on this occasion he is proving to be an excellent runner. Not only is he easily maintaining his lead on the stewards, the kids and the defenders, but he’s gaining on Lampard. So much so that Anka starts whipping Roger’s shoulders with his wire reins, kicking his backside firmly with her heels and actually stretching her arm out beyond Roger’s large head in an attempt to grab the midfielder by the shirt and bring him down.
The moment of truth is seconds away. Lampard, pro that he is, can’t even hear the crowd, only the sound of his own quick breathing and the thudding of his feet on the turf. He glances up and examines the position of the goalkeeper. Lampard’s thinking maybe he should try and chip the ball over the keeper’s head. That would be nice for the crowd, he thinks. But the chip is always a risk. If I miss, he thinks, I’ll look like a bit of a tit. Maybe I should just take it round him and slide it into the net, Yeah, that’s probably easier. But less spectacular! Oh, thinks Frank, it’s a worry, life, I mean, football, scoring, it’s a worry, I’m always worrying nowadays. It’s age. Age.
‘We’ve got you, Lampard!’ cries Anka. She and Roger are within inches of being able to bring him down. ‘Better be scared. We are sick! We are eaters of food! We are lovers!’
Lampard glances over his shoulder to see the galloping Roger bearing down on him, his large bespectacled face perspiring madly, and, on his back, Anka, shouting, reaching out with her fingers splayed. Naturally, Frank’s a little alarmed to find that he’s being pursued by a strange couple, several stewards, three or four defenders and a gang of EMO kids, puffing and panting, calling out all sorts of crap: ‘El Rogerio, slow down. El Rogerio, you’re so cool. So cool!’ Naturally, Frank’s confused. But he’s also a professional footballer halfway through a difficult season. He needs to score. I need to score. He calculates he’s got little more than a second before Anka drags him down. I’m gonna have to try and chip the keeper. There isn’t time to go round him. If I fuck up, he thinks, I fuck up. It’s as simple as that. It’s been a difficult year.
It’s time. The England international straightens his back and tightens his shoulders. He spreads his arms out wide for balance. He takes one last look at the keeper to check his position before bowing his head and staring straight at the ball. His right leg starts bending at the knee. He’s going to stab the bottom of the ball with his boot, causing it to sail over the keeper’s head and bounce calmly into the goal. It’s time.
It is certainly time. Anka, for the sheer humane and humorous hell of it, is going to pull Frank to the ground and then instruct Roger to dribble the ball past the keeper and into the net. She sees that he’s about to shoot and decides to go for it, reaching with both arms for the footballer’s shoulders. That’s when it happens. (The simple thing.)
It is fashionable to crave the simple life. I myself crave the simple life.
There is a
There is an extremely loud thud.
The crowd, all forty thousand of them, look on, amazed and suddenly silent. Rubbing their eyes with fists, saying, ‘Good heavens,’ and ‘Good grief.’
It is simple. Something very simple has happened.
A large blue rock, clearly a section of the sky, has fallen from the heavens and crushed Frank Lampard. It has flattened him like a pancake. Just one Adidas football boot and a bit of blue sock poke out from underneath the rock. The ball must have been burst. The footballer must be dead.
Anka’s fingertips had just brushed Frank’s shirt when it suddenly felt like he’d disappeared. Roger noticed the fallen object and was able to alter his path and stumble out of the way, causing Anka to fall off his back. Now the two of them are stood staring at the blue rock. It’s as big as a small car. It’s shiny. It smokes like ice. Every inch of it looks sharp. The sun has gone in. The stands are darker; you can’t quite make out the faces of the crowd.
Anka grins at Roger. ‘It’s good this, isn’t it?’
Roger nods. ‘Yeah, it’s ace.’
‘It beats the past,’ says Anka. ‘My past, I mean, and I’m guessing yours.’
Roger nods again. ‘My past, Anka. Jesus. You should have been there . . . awful. Absolutely awful.’
The stewards arrive, followed by the other players and then the teenagers. No one’s bothered about capturing Roger and Anka any more because they’ve been totally overshadowed by the fallen rock. The stewards are looking with amazement at the thing, thinking, Wow, so unlucky, he looked all set to score, all set to make the crowd roar.
Some players are trying to figure out whether they could lift it. They’re plunging their fingers into the soil to see if they can get a grip on the rock’s bottom. After all, Lampard’s worth a fortune, he gets given a lot of shit but he does score a lot.
‘It’s not meant to happen, is it, like?’ says one player, a stocky, mid-twenties man with long, wet hair. ‘They’ll reckon it’s total bollocks and we’ll get fuck-all cash, do you know what I mean? No compensation.’
‘I know what you mean,’ says a teenager, a gaunt one in a baseball cap with the word ‘Hatebreed’ written across his T-shirt. ‘What you mean is, the sky’s not meant to fall on our heads, and I totally agree. It isn’t. And I think it’s just typical. I really do. I mean, take a look around you. Look at us all. You guys, for example.’ The teenager points to the players who are trying hopelessly to pull Frank Lampard out from under the rock, causing them to look up, perplexed. ‘You guys have been practising your football for many years, I expect. Since you were pretty young, I dare say. And now, and I congratulate you for this even though I’m not a fan of the game, now you’ve reached the height of your profession. I mean, you’re not all megastars, but you’re clearly on the right track. These many thousands of people have come to watch you play, to cheer you on and be amazed by your high level of skill. You’ve got into these lovely bright kits, each with your different names written on the back. But still, in spite of everything, this happens, this catastrophe!’ The teenager points at the blue rock. ‘And let me introduce you to someone who you’re probably not familiar with. That man over there standing with the thin girl with the bandaged head is El Rogerio, a legend, a man who at this moment is dying, yes, dying, I don’t exaggerate. He’s full of technology. L
ook at his head. Full of wires. He’s fascinating. He’s so cool. He’s a man of genuine wit and angst. You only have to read his blogs. And yet even he is shown up by this miracle, this terrible miracle.’ The teenager punches the rock and instantly regrets having done so. His hand kills. He shakes it and breathes in air through his teeth. ‘And look at us,’ he says, still squinting with pain. ‘Look at all the effort myself and my friends here have gone to in order to appear exciting. Look at our piercings, some of them were very painful. Look at our clothes, our retro sports tops, these T-shirts. We have tried hard to be interesting people. People worth watching. We have made choices. We have swum around God’s silence. We have interpreted that silence as a clear hint that us lot, the humans, should have dominion over the world and over nature. We did this with good humour. I myself have learnt to hate God and to play the guitar. I’m really into new music. What I’m saying is, and I can’t stress this enough, what I’m saying is that we have, as individuals, tried to make ourselves alive and exciting. Haven’t we? We have. And now this!’ The teenager nods at the rock. ‘And now,’ he splutters. ‘And now this not insubstantial section of the sky has fallen on top of one of us. It has undermined all our effort. The Wild World . . . I don’t know. I can only hope. I can only . . . I suppose, I guess.’ The teenager is exasperated and angry. ‘I can only hope that we are the kind of people who it might be nice to go for a drink with. Are we? In spite of this?’ Again he points at the rock. ‘Are we still the kind of people it might be nice to go for a drink with?’
Oh, Frank Lampard is crushed. The other players have accepted this and stepped away from the blue rock. The teenager walks backwards into his crowd. He is patted on the back. There is a general sense of anger towards the fallen section of the sky. A young midfielder with stylishly bleached hair mutters, ‘Fucking bollocks.’ The referee arrives. A stocky little man with a basic head. He points at the protruding foot of Lampard and then blows hard on his whistle. ‘Foul,’ he says, calmly, one arm pointing in the direction of the banqueting suite. ‘The sky has fouled Lampard. Free kick to Chelsea.’
The Chelsea players clench their fists in delight and start jogging towards the penalty area on the understanding that a well-taken free kick could lead to a headed goal. The stewards jog obediently to the touchline, each of them holding a teenager by the wrist. The crowd reanimates. Shouting complaints and encouragement. The players from the opposing team gather around the referee to complain angrily about his decision. ‘You lying, balding, cocksucking cunt. It’s only a fucking meteor, you bent bastard,’ says one. Then his teammate joins in: ‘He dived. He did. You dick. He dived. You’re taking the piss. It’s a meteor!’
Roger and Anka leave the scene as soon as the teenager draws attention to them. Anka touches Roger’s shoulder and gestures that they should make a quiet exit. Good idea, Roger thinks, nowadays these teenagers only get me down.
The two of them hold hands and walk quite slowly away from the fallen rock. The crowd in the stands do not notice them. They don’t cheer or whistle. In the dugouts, the managers of both teams mutter to themselves anxiously, wondering, I suppose, how many more expensive humans might be crushed by the sky today. How can we win the league if the sky keeps falling on our heads? We must avoid more of these terrible injuries. Anka and Roger walk quietly by. It feels like a walk in the countryside, it’s so quiet and peaceful in the seconds that follow the rock’s descent. The stands look like mountains. The fans like an intricate rock formation. Anka and Roger walk back down the tunnel in the corner of the pitch under the banqueting suite. They locate a changing room in the warren of white, silent corridors. The changing room is square with wooden benches round the walls, all covered in the players’ tracksuits, spare boots, sports bags overflowing with towels. In the corner stands a blackboard, haunted by a chalk sentence, still legible despite having been erased. No tactics. No point to this. Run wild. They pass through the changing room to a starkly lit, white-tiled shower room where the floor slopes inwards towards a large silver plughole. At head height around the walls, rusting silver showerheads drip. Roger and Anka understand that the fate of their relationship will be determined in this wet, dripping room. The air stinks of nervous men. They sit down against a wall and Roger is immediately hit by a drop of water.
‘If I sit here, Anka, I’ll be electrocuted. Of course, my body, I’m full of –’
‘Roger!’ Anka snaps. ‘You’re not. For Christ’s sake. You’re not. You’re full of normal organs. Don’t you get it?’ Anka begins to unwind the bandage on her head. With each turn a bloodstain begins to appear until finally, with some discomfort, Anka pulls the last of the bandage away from a long, moist scar just below her hairline.
‘Red,’ says Roger.
‘Exactly,’ Anka replies, softly. ‘We’re real.’
Anka leans in towards Roger, causing him to panic. He’s not sure what she wants. A kiss? A hug? A whisper? Several minutes of spooning on this cold wet floor? He puckers his lips in desperation, eyes shut, forehead creased. But Anka is not ready to kiss. She must, she knows, take small steps. Ham sandwiches. Gun disposal. Therapy. But no kissing, not yet. Instead, she grips the wire that runs from Roger’s left ear and begins to pull on it firmly. At first Roger winces and starts moaning, muttering, ‘My brain, Anka, you’ll pull out my brain.’ Anka just ignores him, sticks to her task. It doesn’t take long. She pulls the wire from his ear and examines the end.
‘Glue,’ she says, showing it to Roger.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, it’s just glue.’
The mouse lodged at the back of Roger’s head comes away easily, taking a clump of curly brown hairs with it.
‘I glued a mouse to my head?’
‘You did. Just like I didn’t put any food in my mouth.’
‘It’s just that we’re alive.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And we were nervous about it.’
‘Yeah.’
Anka undoes Roger’s belt and takes down his fly. Roger lifts himself off the floor on the heels of his hands and feet allowing Anka to pull down his trousers and his underpants. Roger lowers his chubby buttocks onto the wet floor. I should have changed my underwear more often. I should have gone outside to buy things. I should have joined a choir and sang with other people. Instead, he thinks, staring down at the numerical keypad where his penis should be, instead this. Anka has paused to stare. She starts tapping on the keys, deep in thought. 7-8-1-3-5-0. Her childhood phone number. Before mobiles. Back when she was bright and full of fresh brain. Before her age began to rise and rise and food became a non-event.
‘From now on,’ says Anka. ‘From now on we’ll just have to be together. The fact is, I didn’t realise that life was going to be like this. I thought, when I was growing up, that it would be easier. That things would keep happening in nice, year-shaped ways, like they do at school.’
Anka begins to pull at the sides of the numerical keypad. Lifting the glued plastic off the delicate skin of Roger’s groin.
‘We’ll go back to Manchester. I like Manchester. Either I’ll move into your flat or you can move into mine.’
She’s almost there. Roger’s petrified. I was born with a penis. I remember playing with it when I was young. But lately. Lately. I’ve spent a decade watching porn. I’ve spent years writing lies about my penis on the Internet. Saying I’ve done such-and-such with it. Put it here and put it there. All bollocks. I glued a piece of plastic over it. I must have done. Perhaps it has given up on me. Felt betrayed. Perhaps it’s disappeared. Or perhaps it’s retreated into my body to be consoled by my other organs. My shallow lungs. My harmed, faithful heart. Allow me. Allow me.
‘There we are,’ says Anka, as if she’s talking to a smiling baby. ‘There we are.’
Roger does have a penis. It is warm and curled and clinging to his two testicles. The three of them have the look of startled children, those that have spent a war hiding in a cupboard, holding tightly to each other. Anka
takes the penis tip gently in her fingers. She pulls it away from the testicles. She’s reminded of peeling stickers off her school folder. Old heart-throbs. Given up. Replaced. Roger’s is a good penis. A normal scared one. Not the kind that could ever adorn a forehead or spit swear words at women’s bits. Gently, only half thinking, Anka begins to move the foreskin up and down. I am Anka as in wanker. We all are. Humans as in. Cute people. True-hearted wankers.
‘The other you,’ Roger murmurs, his cheeks raised in nervous hope. ‘The other you talked about teaching me . . . to find her clitoris.’