Friction

by Joe Stretch

  ‘Look at her.’

  ‘That twat’s pointing at me.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Knockers. Quick, fuck. Look at the knockers.’

  ‘I’ve got no chance.’

  Somewhere among the lights, fun is located, invisible to the untrained eye. This is the age of excess, of silence, of stillness, of getting fucked up, of inebriated and uninhibited sex or hard morning wanks. This is the age of cash and waste.

  At around midnight Colin seeks refuge in a toilet cubicle, leaving Boys 1 and 2 on the dance floor. He takes a piss and then lowers the toilet seat and the lid, wiping away the residue of cocaine and urine before sitting down and resting his elbows on his knees. The music is muffled but still seems deafening. ‘Y2K’ reads a note on the door, graffiti, ‘Y2K: Kev fucked Sal.’ What became of that moment? thinks Colin, noticing a pair of black brogues entering the adjacent cubicle. What became of Kev? He fucked Sal, of course, but then what? What did Sal and Kev do afterwards? Dance, maybe, yes, thinks Colin, Kev danced with a dirty dick, and Sal with an altered minge.

  Colin falls forwards on to the wet floor, turning and lifting the lid, vomiting an odorous yellow into the toilet water.

  ‘You all right in there, mate?’

  Am I all right in here? Colin wipes a hand across his mouth. It’s decay, he thinks, pinching his Adam’s apple between his fingers and thumb. It’s some fucked-up decay. He looks down; the toilet lets out a deep, gurgling belly laugh.

  ‘All right, son, out you come.’

  Colin looks up to see a very white face staring down at him over the divide. A very large fat face, the telling shine of black bomber jacket beyond its neck. A bouncer. Bollocks. A bouncer balancing on next door’s toilet. Colin sighs. The bouncer jumps off the toilet and comes round to meet Colin as he leaves the cubicle.

  ‘Let’s go, sunshine.’

  With a fat white hand on each shoulder, Colin is pushed slowly through The Bar. The crowd parts in front of him. Wankers turn to watch. Bitches whisper and Colin finds himself outside with Boys 1 and 2.

  ‘You’ve been chucked out, too?’ he says, straightening his collar. ‘What for?’

  ‘Fighting,’ says Boy 2, quietly into his sleeve.

  ‘Wanking,’ screams Boy 1, over his shoulder, running quickly towards a bus.

  The following morning. Colin suggests that they all eat breakfast at the hospital. The others follow for one important reason: for the hell of it. They walk from Boy 2’s flat in Victoria Park to the Infirmary off Oxford Road by the University of Manchester. On the second floor they find the Wishing Well, a grim cafeteria where the light is the yellow of vomit and the air is always grey. The pregnant and the dying shuffle here, trays in their hands, hair terrified by nocturnal static.

  All three boys order English breakfasts. Since being guided from The Bar last night, Colin is sure that something has changed. That the intricate pipes of his brain have been tampered with, or one little tube has slumped accidentally from its socket and has begun to leak into his open skull, closing off a hemisphere of feeling and thought.

  ‘I can’t be arsed going out any more. All those wankers, chasing cunts – I can’t be fucked with that.’ Colin watches Boys 1 and 2 closely. His veins seem to course with fizzy blood. Or something bitter, perhaps. Boy 2 forks an entire sausage with one jab and allows it to hover in front of his face.

  ‘You don’t have to go out, Colin. You can shag prostitutes.’

  ‘They make you wear condoms and you can’t kiss ’em.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Colin snaps and Boy 2 crunches at the sausage. ‘What do you think of these women?’ asks Colin cautiously, causing Boy 2 to look around with difficulty, his eyesight impaired by his munching cheeks. The room is full of pregnant women. The room is full of heaving bellies. Unseen faces and torsos nestle and develop in happy wombs, waiting for birth. Boy 1 and Boy 2 scan the cafeteria, unable to avoid the smells and the presence of the unborn.

  ‘You don’t want to shag a pregnant bird, do you? Colin?’

  Colin lays his cutlery across the half-eaten breakfast. His eyes widen, he inhales, his fingers grow crooked with tension. Why did Sal bother fucking Kev? Where did I come from? His lips purse and he exhales. Boys 1 and 2 regret that they are under his control, subject to these strange moods.

  ‘No, Boy 2,’ says Colin, drops of moisture round his eyes, ‘I won’t shag a pregnant one.’

  5

  New Sex

  BACK DOWN SOUTH King Street to the restaurant where Justin is watching his mother foreplaying with her tuna Niçoise. The salad’s loving it, its leaves writhe in their dressing and, of course, all olives adore a little middle-aged sex. Justin is wondering whether inheriting sixty thousand pounds is enough. Surely, he thinks, with sixty grand I’ll never have to see her again, she can fuck off to Greece and shag a schoolboy. I’m free, he guesses, free to find new ways of loving.

  He’s watching the space where his mother’s left arm meets with her left shoulder. He’s watching the way the excess fat on both body parts meets; he imagines this area of skin is sticky to the touch.

  ‘Your father wasn’t a rich man, Justin, and I’m barely taking any for myself.’

  Justin nods. He’s wondering what his mother’s body was like before she met him, before she gave birth to him. He feels that her large bosoms have always been dependent on a degree of obesity. He imagines their size fluctuating in accordance with her varying weight. He imagines this process sped up. Bigger then smaller. Bigger then smaller. Could you plot a graph that showed how moments of good fortune and happiness coincided with periods when she was a good weight, when her breasts were firm and more taut, still large but not droopy? He imagines the graph and tries to imagine his mother’s current misery.

  ‘Have you any idea how you’ll spend the money?’

  ‘Well,’ Justin begins, quickly deciding that sixty grand is enough and that’ll he’ll never have to see his mother again. ‘I was thinking of conducting an experiment.’

  Diane’s eyebrows arch into something like an interested expression.

  ‘Yeh, Mum, you see, I’ve been shagging very similar girls recently. So similar, in fact, that I can no longer tell one from the other. And, in truth, I doubt they can distinguish me from other boys either.’

  A paper napkin begins to dance in Diane’s hand, nervously waltzing with her fingers. She sighs at her tuna salad; the sex is over, her son having interrupted.

  ‘So what I thought,’ continues Justin, ‘was that I could do an experiment.’ He gulps the remainder of another White Russian, leaving a milky residue across his top lip. His mother’s eyes begin to quiver. Justin rises and leans forwards till his face is only thin air from her own: ‘Mum,’ he says, slowly and quietly, ‘I’m going to save us all. I’m going to find brand new ways of having sex.’

  Justin leaves Diane silent on her chair, a half-shagged tuna salad lying in front of her. He grabs his coat and smears grease over the shite glass door as he pushes it open. Air congratulates him as he leaves, summer runs to him and slaps him on the back. Brilliant, he thinks. New ways of having sex.

  He walks to the Chop House pub on Cross Street and sits at the counter at the window. ‘White Russian, mate.’

  He takes out his mobile phone and finds the number of Old Trafford football stadium. His call connects and he quickly quits his job as a steward because it’s fucking bollocks and because sixty thousand pounds are bleep-bleeping their way to his bank account. His drink arrives and he sinks half of it immediately. His legs jig on the high stool. He is looking for adventure.

  Outside, the shoppers of Cross Street shop. Babies get pushed in buggies while buses get waited for. I’ll put a stop to this, Justin confirms, I’m going to save us all. He orders another White Russian and begins to feel noticeably drunk. He shouldn’t be drinking cocktails in the Chop House at all, it’s a traditional English pub. But something is changing, is getting lost, is dying, etc.
We have entered the age of lager and fruit, the age of cocktails and pop. Although I sense that if you were in this pub, you’d get a pint of real ale, as would I. ‘I really fancy a pint of real ale,’ I’d say to you, and you would agree, I hope. If you didn’t want one, I’d try to persuade you. ‘Go on, mate,’ I’d say, ‘lager’s shit, cocktails too, have a real ale.’ We are mates, right?

  Yes, yes, I’m me and you’re you. Neither of us is Justin. Justin sits on his high stool, leaning forward on to the thin counter that works its way round the walls and windows of the pub. He’s looking out at the people of Cross Street, but he’s not much of a people-watcher. He’s not the kind of person who would think fuck, who are all these slaves? Who are these drones with their shopping bags and their nauseating, broken, dishevelled bodies? No, Justin wouldn’t think that at all. He’s more likely to think fuck, my dad’s dead and I seem to be consciously indifferent to the fact, what should I do? Or even more likely, he thinks fuck, certain events have occurred that have rocked my hitherto firm belief in the merits of love, what should I do?

  But Justin knows what to do. The plan is simple. The plan is to find a happy sexual experience, or at least a sexual experience that makes him happy. New ways of having sex. He sips his drink and scores lines in a beer mat with his fingernail. You can only fall in love once, he thinks, twice at the most. The human heart is a butcher’s nightmare, quick to shrivel, to lose flavour. Justin’s out of time, out of chances. He’s pissed too much affection up the wall. Told too many girls of his ridiculous love for them. It’s dumb and regular, love. He should have avoided the idea of it until later in life. He should have covered the basics like first kiss, first blow job, loss of virginity, first girlfriend, without ever flirting with the notion of actually loving another human being.

  He gulps the last of his drink and uses a straw to manoeuvre the residue of frothed milk around the glass. It is afternoon and the sun is out. This is an experiment, he thinks, indeed everything that has preceded this moment was an experiment. But the experiment must now be changed in light of certain failures, in light of the unforeseen collapse of love and its long, life-affirming story. The project is, he supposes, happiness. Or more broadly, the project is life. Or more narrowly, the project is sex and a calmed mind. Love has been eliminated; it failed. New things must now be tried: new sexes, contexts and techniques. The project is, he maintains, happiness.

  The trouble, Justin believes, is that once experienced, everything becomes dull. The tracksuited goon of experience harms itself. It scrapes away at its own features with its gold-ringed fingers. Just when you suspect you’re experiencing something enjoyable, you’re abandoned. Just when you feel ready to gorge yourself, when you’ve sharpened your knife and tucked a napkin into your collar – just at that moment when you’re ready to feast, you lose your appetite. I can never do that again, you say of some activity. No, I can never do that again. It has become dull. I hadn’t noticed, but I am already full and must find new appetites.

  Justin asks at the bar for paper and a pen. The barman prints out a ream of blank till paper and hands it to him with a biro.

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ says Justin, catching sight of a staff photo Blu-tacked to the till. In it, various employees embrace, wet and drunk. A boob has fallen out of a turquoise top and the nipple is purple, like an exotic beak. Faces smile, fingers are held up to the camera.

  A shiver tip-toes up Justin’s neck.

  ‘New sex,’ he whispers.

  ‘Pardon, mate?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says Justin, blinking, smiling at the barman and removing the pen lid. ‘Nothing, mate.’

  Returning to the counter by the window, Justin jots down three points, each preceded by a large black dot:

  Experience all sex.

  Spend freely, bankrupt sex.

  Find new sex.

  He exits the bar and heads towards Deansgate, leaving the list behind.

  6

  The Curious Wanker

  CARLY WATCHES WITHOUT interest as Steve’s cock begins to dance. She turns away as it begins to spurt, choosing instead to watch Steve’s face as he performs his trademark little twists and grunts and begins to cough with joy. The wank is over. Steve is dragged irresistibly back to sleep.

  Carly climbs over him and steps down from the bed, carefully avoiding the condoms which yellow by its side. She opens the top drawer of Steve’s bureau and removes two hundred and fifty quid. Her mind has been on products since her wrist began to move. She could think of nothing but cash as she wanked Steve off, to the extent that the branding on his boxer shorts triggered fantasies of purchase, newness and the brands the day might bring.

  Carly is an exceptional shopper. Really, really good at it. She showers, dresses, then heads for town down Corporation Street. She hits Market Street and her lungs begin to open, her pupils dilate and the shopper in her screams with joy. She is surrounded by shops. In her element. Her peripheral vision works overtime, making out shapes, colours, textures and cut, judging them instantly, ensuring a well-paced and heavenly glide through each shop. This is the way to buy: smoothly, elegantly, exactly. Girls like Carly don’t pause and stagger, don’t finger garments for minutes on end or agonise over decisions. Carly is a killer. Few people bother holding garments up against themselves any more. Everyone can shop. Everyone knows their bodies, their capacity to fit into fabric, their ability to hide their shame. If it doesn’t fit then fuck it. Take it back. Give it away. Forget you ever bought it. Garments begin to amass on Carly’s arm: slashed skirts, capri pants, military styles, tracksuit bottoms for chilling out in.

  Her presence in the shops is akin to that of a celebrity. She has an aura; so slender, decisive, erotic and fast. People are rooted to the spot. The eyes of boys and girls roll after her, admiring her bottom, her breasts, her long, dark brown hair, her delicately tanned arms. It isn’t unheard of for young men to approach Carly during the day.

  ‘I realise you must get this all the time, but I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘You’re beautiful. You’re incredibly beautiful.’

  ‘I’m serious, I don’t mean to put you on the spot . . . a drink maybe?’

  ‘Are you familiar with the films of Pedro Almodovar? I’d love to take you to his latest.’

  ‘Dinner?’

  ‘You are so fucking fit.’

  ‘Latte?’

  My name is Carly and I advise such diamond wankers to fuck themselves. Carly is tough. Three weeks ago, at twenty-five minutes to four on a Saturday morning, she was arrested. She gave a black eye to a boy called Brad and beat the shit out of his girlfriend. By the time the police arrived the pavement was covered in blood. The girl was unconscious. Steve legged it after the first punch; he turned red with shame as his bird began battering the couple. It took six people to pull Carly away. She doesn’t know. Just likes a drink. Loses it. Fuck this. Hates things. Feels like shit. In a month’s time she will go to court and be charged with actual bodily harm. So?

  At noon Carly meets a friend, Girl 1, in the Breathing Room on Deansgate. The Breathing Room is a bogusly plush affair: velvet pillows stuffed with crap, pockets stuffed with cash, lips stuffed with arse fat. The two of them take a table outside, in front of a group of boys who seem to suffocate as Carly sits. Carly’s legs cross like lovers. Girl 1’s bulbous midriff is revealed and sags to obscure a lurid gold belt. Her hair is a lank yellow and her skin is the colour of an orange felt tip. Carly recounts the theft of Steve’s cash and Girl 1 is breathless with admiration.

  ‘He won’t kill me,’ says Carly, reaching for her pint. ‘He’ll probably just get his cock out at the breakfast bar, you know?’

  ‘Make you suck it?’

  ‘Of course, yeh, which is fine. I mean, look at this.’

  Carly lifts a denim jacket from one of her many bags, it has the words ‘The Pistols’ scribbled in pink across its back.

  ‘It’s like clockwork: I rob his cash, spend it, then suck h
im off in the kitchen.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ says Girl 1, dreaming into the bags.

  ‘Love to what?’

  ‘Suck him off.’

  ‘You’re too fat,’ says Carly, snatching back the jacket and lighting a fag.

  ‘I know.’

  Yes, it’s the twenty-first century and Girl 1 is too fat. A gold crucifix dangles on a silver chain from her belly button. But her belly button can’t be seen, the jewellery squirms from within fat like a tasteless umbilical cord. She stares knowingly at the midriff between her belt and her pink T-shirt. The midriff, she thinks. My midriff, she thinks again, then drinks.

  ‘We’re going to Versus next,’ says Carly, suddenly bored with watching Girl 1 wallow in self-loathing. ‘I’m going to try the Relentless Bliss.’ She inhales hard on her fag: ‘In fact, there’s part of me that just fucking loves machines, but they don’t have any money, do they? No, they don’t, because they’re just sex machines.’

  ‘Steve is so fit,’ says Girl 1, ‘and dead posh.’

  ‘I know, and he’s got a cock like a dildo, but . . .’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeh, but it’s as if he . . . I don’t know . . . it’s so easy.’

  ‘Does he make you laugh?’

  Carly stubs out her fag and begins gathering her bags together, boys behind her dying, smiling at her arse and dying.

  ‘I don’t wanna laugh. Let’s go to Versus.’

  Carly and Girl 1 head towards Exchange Square. Shoppers sulk around them, drowning in bags, killed by accoutrement, murdered by the special offer. Funny fucking freedom. Carly strides by, head held high, thighs pumping. Girl 1 waddles to keep up.

  Designer clothes, mobile phones, sunlight. Sometimes it seems as if this isn’t a world at all, but something entirely different. A land of the new, ageless and forever fulfilling. Just a context, a secret space, a hell. A virtual reality in which our petty miseries and our joys can coexist with our need to move, to shop, to die. There is a deceit here, these days. It’s in the crucifixes jiggling with the pigskin midriffs. Something’s coming. Something dirt-cheap.