Ugly Things

by Mark Yarwood

  UGLY THINGS

  By Mark Yarwood

  Copyright 2012 Mark Yarwood

  Amazon Kindle Edition, License Notes

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  Cover by Tony Glass

  Ugly Things

  MARK YARWOOD

  BISCUIT BOOKS

  For my wife and child.

  Ugly Things

  Chapter One

  Kevin is handcuffed next to me and his knuckles are white. I’m swaying, the boat we are standing on is bobbing with the waves, tearing through the water and heading for the rocks.

  I look up at Kevin and see his eyes are tightly shut. His teeth are clenched. The veins in his neck look like the London Underground map.

  ‘Mate, I don’t want to die,’ Kevin says and a tear crawls down his face.

  I try and get a better grip of the boat rail and feel my fingers slip. In front of me, I can see the sea charging at the rocks and smashing against their absolute defiance. I feel as cold as a coin left in a fridge. The seagulls swoop around me and ask me why I’m being stupid enough to head for the jagged rocks.

  To make rock, the kind you eat, takes a lot of skill. Janet knew how to make rock, by boiling the flaccid, soft sugar and layering it in the right way so a message ran through the middle. Messages of truth, she called them. Things people want to say, but never have the balls to speak. She always told me the truth, whether with a stick of rock or her body.

  ‘Mate, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,’ Kevin says.

  ‘I don’t really feel like a swim today,’ I shout at the two men driving us towards our fate.

  In a few years, not really many to be honest, this cliff won’t be here. In fact, all the houses built along it will have long since fallen into the sea. England is gradually being eaten by a hungry sea.

  Above me, just to my right, is Margaret Parks’ house of glass that is built into the rocks, designed by some London based architect probably high on coke. All you can see, as you head for the cliff face, is the glass glistening like gold as the sun reflects off it. Imagine Margaret Parks, film star of the 60s, drinking tea or gin in her massive lounge as she falls, drops into the sea. She’ll sip tea as she sails off into the horizon. Drunk on gin, she’ll laugh heartedly.

  Back when I was a shark in a suit, I would have knocked on her door and sold her something, anything. I would have smiled, putting her at ease. I used to nod then with every positive statement. If you had an agreement you wanted them to read, you had to be careful to pass it to them at the right angle. For men, you push it in the direction of their groin, for women, you jab it at their chests.

  The boat I’m on is getting closer to the target.

  I grab another handhold and breathe deeply. A seagull tells me I must be mad in that screeching way they do.

  I can’t help picture Janet. My life should be flashing before my eyes, but there is only Janet.

  Janet with her blue and red hair and her sticks of seaside rock.

  I look up at Kevin’s face and he looks green. The strength is leaving his body. I look down at the sea and, like a bunch of hungry crocodiles, it leaps up and snaps at my bare feet.

  This is pay back for all the parties, all the fun I’ve been having lately. I have done some terrible things. I can feel my beard rubbing against my shoulder. It’s grown back, blooming out of my face like ginger barb wire.

  Feeling these are my final moments, my mind actually starts to flash images of my life to me, pushing Janet’s face away. I’m in an office, dressed in a smart suit. Jump to me with my arms round a beautiful girlfriend. Next, she’s sitting astride me. Riding me. Jump again and her friend is with us. Then I’m still in my suit with my thick, ugly beard.

  A rare skin infection had taken away my good looks, my perfect epidermis. My girlfriend is gone and I’m alone. Women don’t like beards. They especially don’t like what they’re hiding.

  Flash. I see Margaret Parks’ body on a bed, naked and folding in on itself. In the 60s, she was hot property and every director wanted to nail her. When she was forty, she was THE older woman that all young boys fancied. In her fifties, she had that sexual elegance like Joan Collins has. And us men, we’d do her, just to say we had.

  Margaret Parks is now in her sixties. Now it’s all gone, she’s waiting to fall into the sea. She’s an elegant antique, but all the polish in the world won’t make her shine again.

  All I wanted was to be me again, to have my looks back. I wanted to have a good time.

  The two men leave the boat, jumping into the cold sea, leaving Kevin and I to speed towards our doom.

  I just wanted to be perfect. That’s what I remember as the boat’s about to hit the rocks.

  Chapter Two

  The shiny suited man, who’s standing in the middle of the large conference room, is Tom. He has that tanned, drawn-skin look as many Californians do. Tom’s shag pile hair is bleached by the sun, so you hardly notice the grey hairs at his temples. His arms are open wide, sort of welcoming us as we sit in a semi- circle around him. Through his expensive suit you can see the bulge of his muscles.

  Tom gives us all a broad American smile, making sure he looks us all in the eyes as we say our names and the company we come from. He says he won’t call us by our real names, but by our company names. We are the company, he tells us.

  ‘You are the best of the best,’ he says, showing us his blue eyes, ‘now pat the person next to you on the back. Tell them they are the best.’

  I’m shaking hands with PBY Sales, and then turning and gripping the sweaty palm of GWE Marketing.

  ‘You were sent to me because you are the best at what you do within your company.’ Tom points a finger at each of us. ‘You, you, you, you…you are the chosen ones.’

  I look around and see my fellow salesmen smiling at each other, at themselves, and at Tom. Tom starts to clap loudly, slamming his tanned hands together. We all start clapping, but not knowing whom exactly we are applauding. We look round the circle, eyeing each other suspiciously.

  Tom suddenly takes off his suit jacket and throws it on a nearby chair. He falls onto his hands, taking a press up position, his face lifted to us. ‘Come on, get down on the floor, guys.’

  All of us, all the suits, get on all fours and do press ups along with Tom. He takes it all in his stride, his maroon tie hanging down from his chin. I get to fifteen and collapse. When all the other guys drop their chests to the floor wheezing, Tom jumps up and laughs. ‘That’s as strenuous as it gets! Sales are easy.’

  ‘Try and sell me this pot of anti- aging men’s cream.’ Tom sticks a pot of cream in my hand.

  I look down at the pot and try and read the instructions, anything on the tub.

  Tom grabs the pot from my hand, shaking his head. ‘I just told you what it is. It’ll make any man years younger. Every man wants to be years younger, right?’

  The sharks behind me nod and laugh.

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Then that’s all you need to say, FTY.’ He puts the pot in my hand. ‘Now, I’ve just opened the door to you.’

  ‘Hello sir…’ I begin, smiling.

  ‘I don’t want anything!’ Tom barks.

  ‘This anti-aging…’

  ‘Not interested!’ Tom barks again. ‘See, you aren’t selling yourself, FTY.’

  This is how my life changed.

  Tom is smiling b
ecause he has a beautiful wife and lives in a beautiful home. That Talking Heads’ song that goes, ‘Whose beautiful house is this? Who’s beautiful wife is this?’ –well, that doesn’t apply to Tom. He doesn’t need therapy, or antidepressants, he doesn’t wake up and question his existence, just because he owns a Ferrari. That little square yellow badge with a black horse at its centre, tells Tom all he needs to know when he steps into his garage. If he’s feeling a little bit out of sorts, he takes a dip in his Olympic size swimming pool with the sun cooking his body and mind.

  You have to step out of your comfort zone, Tom tells us. When we are in bed, in our homes, this is when we feel safe from harsh realities, he says. Once a week, Tom takes a trip into the roughest part of Los Angeles where the gangs rule. He takes something to sell and makes sure he doesn’t return with it.

  If you look closely at Tom, you can see a slight tightness around his cheekbones. There’s something odd about the skin around his ears. The Californian sun shrinks the skin, but Tom’s is strangely smooth. Ask Tom why this is and he’ll say it’s the miracle cream and not his plastic surgeon. The problem with giving men a facelift is the beard; you have to cut the skin at the ear line and pull it back. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up shaving five o’clock stubble from your ears.

  Kevin comes in to the room carrying a box and stands near Tom, smiling a little.

  ‘Thank you….Kevin.’ Tom pats his shoulder and you can see Kevin twitch nervously, watching the spot where the American’s hand landed, inspecting it for bacteria.

  ‘Put the box on the table,’ Tom tells Kevin.

  Kevin puts down the box and lifts it up again. He puts the box down and then quickly lifts it up again. He does this a few more times, while you can see his lips moving, counting each lift and put down. He does this ten times. He has to do this ten times or something terrible will happen to his mother.

  I’ve seen Kevin standing by the bin in the canteen, ready to scrape away a piece of food he couldn’t eat. I’ve seen him fighting with himself, hovering over the bin and then quickly swallow the last remaining food. If you watch him when everybody goes back to work, you can see him picking half eaten sausages off plates people have left. His short wavy brown hair is cut by the same barber that he had when he was young, even though the man has long since retired. His round glasses have to be placed on his nose and ears just the right way. If any of these rituals are broken, in Kevin’s mind, someone in his family will die a horrible death.

  Nobody talks to Kevin because they think he’s weird. The women avoid him because they don’t want the trouble of putting a restraining order on him. Kevin’s OCDs don’t just affect objects, but people too. This makes me Kevin’s only friend.

  I nod to Kevin when he’s finished putting down the box and is about to leave.

  ‘Wait a minute Kevin,’ Tom says and grabs Kevin’s elbow. ‘Anybody can sell this product. Kevin could sell this product.’

  The crowd of suits burst into muffled laughter.

  Tom hushes them with his tanned hands and smiles sharply at a nervous Kevin. He takes Kevin by the elbow and directs him to the centre of the men. He makes a big magician’s show of putting the pot of cream into Kevin’s palm. It doesn’t disappear. Kevin doesn’t disappear, even though I’m praying to God that he will.

  ‘Try and sell me this product, Kevin,’ Tom commands and stands back a little.

  Kevin smiles at the people laughing, trying to join in the joke. Kevin, not knowing anything about sales, places the pot in Tom’s hand, then snatches it out so quickly it makes Tom start. He does this as many times as necessary, as many times as it takes to stop his niece, Sherry, dying in a road accident.

  Tom makes some joke and the rest of the group laugh and I laugh too, my face cracking open and the laughter crumbling out. Kevin looks at the suits, seeing for the first time that they all think he’s weird, a freak- show. I stop laughing when he looks at me like a lonely child with no friends. From that moment, I know he’ll never let me forget it.

  I used to be so vain, I’d visit my doctor when I’d get an out break of spots, fearing that I’d been struck down by the horror of adult acne. My doctor would look at me with that “my son died two years ago of a rare cancer before he was twelve” expression and I’d want to crawl out in shame.

  The pot of cream that Tom was telling us to sell, well, I’d bought many just like it. Some of them from South American countries made from the extracts of God knows what animals, just so I could keep my skin the way it was when I was twenty. I’d have nightmares that my skin was peeling off and I’d have to run to the bathroom mirror and check it was still okay.

  I’d see people in the street with scarred or spot riddled skin and I’d tell myself I was lucky, but half an hour later I’d be buying some mud from the foothills of some third world country just to look less tired.

  Maybe I was ill in the head, perhaps I should’ve been going to a vanity obsessive group or something, but instead I used myself-love to sell products to people who really didn’t want them or need them. I was selling me, just like Tom said. But lately, just before Tom had come on the scene, I had started believing I was becoming ugly. Maybe it was the tired rings under my eyes, or the blonde who had rejected me a week earlier, but I had to do something to save my looks.

  My boss, Neil, had decided all of us, even the other smaller departments, needed to get together under the same roof and get a good talking to from Tom. We’d do this every month after we’d check the monthly figures, noting who wasn’t selling that well.

  When you’re vain, you can’t pass a mirror without looking at yourself. At home, you have to start putting the mirrors in cupboards or you’ll never get anything done. You might have noticed the way women touch up their hair as they pass a shop window -that was me. I’d meet beautiful women in clubs just because I thought their incredible beauty would reflect mine. You spend the evening with an ugly looking girl, because then you look like a God. I really was sick.

  All things happen for a reason.

  Tom was always at the monthly meetings, his big American smile stretched across his face. I’d seen him once park far away from the building even though they had reserved him a special space right outside the building. He did this, he told me, because it gave him a chance to walk and think positive, to build up his momentum. Elvis did the same, Tom told me proudly, and would park his trailer a thousand steps from where he was about to perform. Tom told me he lies in bed at night imagining his future successes. His wife would be reading some glossy magazine, while he was picturing a giant cinema screen in his head. On the screen, he would envision welcoming the people he’d be meeting the next morning or the day after. Tom said, when he and his wife were trying to conceive, when they were actually doing the physical act, he was imagining what his kids would be studying in college. Most men are just thinking of anything non- sexual just to stop themselves from coming.

  ‘What’s in the cream?’ I ask Tom.

  Tom nods and looks at the small tub. He holds it up as we both sit in the canteen, sipping our sour tasting coffees.

  ‘This is made from various different beetles found in the Jungles of South America.’ He turns the tub in his thick fingers.

  ‘And it really helps remove wrinkles?’ I ask.

  ‘It hasn’t got FDA approval yet, but it certainly has helped some of the people we’ve tested it on.’ He smiles. ‘They extract some of the poisons from snakes too, because apparently, it has some affect on the skin. Toxins are the way forward in terms of better skin products.’

  These days people are taking pieces of their backsides and stuffing it in their lips. They are taking animal fat and sticking them God knows where, just to look and feel better about themselves. It’s not enough that we kill animals for food, now we are using their testicles to help us get aroused.

  Back in the conference room, Tom picks me out just because I’ve been showing so much interest in the product, the miracle cream. I picture th
e snakes that have been grabbed by the tale and squeezed until their fangs drip venom into a plastic beaker. I wonder about alien abduction. I worry that it’s all true. I’m concerned that aliens are squeezing our juices into little beakers to rub on their faces to give themselves younger looking green skin.

  ‘Now, I want you to take this pot of cream and go and sell it to someone, anyone in the building,’ Tom says and shoves the cream into my hand. ‘I don’t want to see it when you come back, but make sure they don’t use it. That’s very important. And get their name and department. I’ll want to check how you did. Now, you guys, I’ve got different products for you.’

  So, Tom sends me out with the miracle cream and there I am looking down at the small pot. I pass a silver picture on the wall that reflects my face back at me. I examine the lines on my face, the bags under my eyes. I hadn’t been sleeping too well, as many women had been helping me feel better about myself. Nightmares, where my skin flakes off my face, would wake me each night in a cold sweat.

  I stop at the bathroom and look down at the pot. I can almost hear all the pissed off beetles and the angry snakes all wanting to strike out at all the safari jacket wearing crackpots that stole their venoms.

  Next thing, I’m in the men’s room, looking at myself in the big square mirror, the white tiles twinkling behind me. I undo the lid of the pot and touch the butter like cream. On my finger, it looks like lard, but lighter, and I suddenly realise this might just be able to perform miracles.

  I dab a little under my eyes and it feels like an angel’s been urinating on my face. I look at my cheeks and the redness where I shaved that morning. I begin to rub the cream into my beard area, trying not to disturb the amount of cream in the tub. There’s a tingle at first, a wave of sea air taping along my face.