He hadn’t, of course, but sadly it didn’t seem like that to him.
Like Daisy, Gordy had also visited the optician’s all ready to purchase his much planned pair of Reactolite Rapides but after an eye-test the Optician had given him some rather unexpected news.
It seemed he no longer needed to wear glasses at all - at least not all of the time. He might still need them for distance but, for the most part, his specs had done what they had originally been intended to do, which was to repair his defective vision.
Gordy walked out of the Optician’s completely gobsmacked. Things were working out better than he had ever hoped.
No more glasses. A great knowledge of music. A lot more money in his pocket to buy whatever clothes he wanted. And the ability to actually dance - which after hours of practising with Daisy had helped him lose much of his puppy fat so that he now looked possibly better than he ever had before. Gordy even secretly thought after examining himself in the mirror that he might even be classed as a bit ‘good looking’.
He was currently way ahead of schedule which was great news as in just two weeks time the Summer holidays would come to an end and the new, improved, much cooler Gordy Brewer would make his triumphant return to school and Pippa.
Perfect.
***
Razor Redmond was a big, scary punk rocker who, to coin one of Alan Brewer’s phrases, was ‘built like a brick shit-house’. A Fourth Year - soon to be Fifth Year - at Poplar Park, Razor was a ‘big lad’ and amongst the school populace was known to be ‘well hard’. Indeed, no one messed with Razor. Ever. Not even the local hard nuts who were equally wary of his big, scary presence.
However, Razor rarely attended school and was not seen often around the grounds as he was frequently suspended due to his rather bizarre and terrifying appearance.
Nevertheless, Razor was fast becoming one of Bailey’s Bandstand’s more regular customers - which would have been a good thing had he been some average looking individual but he was far from an average anything.
First of all he was at least six foot tall - added to that height was a bright pink, sharply spiked mohawk that arched over the camber of his cranium from front to back, standing at least twelve inches high from the top of his otherwise cleanly shaven scalp. Making him taller still, were the thick Air Wear soles of his eighteen hole Doc Martens that were hand-sprayed in an abstract mishmash of green, red and silver. Secondly, was the thick black smear of make-up that ran from ear-to-ear, across both his dark eyes (menacingly highlighting the whites) and over the bridge of his nose which looked like an insane version of a super-hero mask. Thirdly was the spiked leather dog collar around his thick sinuous neck, the strong, muscly arms that hung beefily out of his frayed, tie-dyed denim waistcoat, the toned chest and six-pack that were clearly visible through his black mesh vest and the bold tartan bondage trousers that were covered in zips, safety pins and straps. Finally, to finish off the whole terrifying ensemble, Razor wore a pair of large hooped earrings with several razor blades hanging from each and a thick, gold nose ring through his nostrils that gave him the appearance of a seriously pissed-off prize bull.
Razor had been into the shop a couple of times since Gordy and Daisy took charge - once on that first incredibly successful Saturday when he had said to Gordy, “I’m after Orgasm Addict and Never Mind The Bollocks.”
Which meant that he wished to purchase the audio recording Orgasm Addict by ‘Buzzcocks’ and the long-playing disc Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols by ‘Sex Pistols’ - which was a reasonable enough request from a punkishly styled young gentleman such as himself.
Unfortunately, a rather intimidated Gordy understood him to be looking for a person addicted to having orgasms and didn’t want any bollocks about why Bailey’s Bandstand might not be the correct establishment in which to find such a person.
Luckily, as he was contemplating how to explain this rather thorny issue to this very fearsome looking character, Daisy came to Gordy’s rescue and led Razor to the ‘Punk Rock’ section (which Gordy was still astounded that Bailey’s Bandstand had - right alongside the Puccini section), where she impressively supplied him with exactly what he required.
The second time Razor came into the shop it was on the following Monday and his bright pink spiky mohawk had changed to a bright green spiky mohawk and the tie-dyed waistcoat had been replaced by a black leather jacket with Anarchy in the UK painted in white on the back of it. This time he bought Peaches by The Stranglers.
Fortuitously, this just happened to coincide with Daisy’s choice for that Monday morning’s soundtrack (which she had decided upon after Saturday’s Orgasm Addict incident) that she had called ‘An Intro to Punk’. So when, as luck would have it, the big, scary punk rocker came into the shop to buy Peaches, White Riot by The Clash was blaring loudly out of the Thorn Ultra.
As Razor was collecting his change from Gordy’s trembling hand, he fixed him with his terrifying black-smeared eyes and said, “You play some good shit in here, man”. To which Gordy, who thought he was just about to take a ‘good shit’ in his seriously scared underpants, replied, “Er, yeah. Thanks.”
“I’ll be seeing you again”, said Razor rather ominously as he turned and headed for the door leaving Gordy quaking pitifully in his wake.
“He seems nice,” said Daisy, seemingly blind to how monstrously scary the punk was and how fearful he made Gordy feel.
“Does he?” Gordy replied, rather off-handedly, trying to pretend that he hadn’t noticed one way or the other before heading out the back for a much needed fag to calm his frazzled nerves.
Razor made his third appearance on the following Saturday. Genre: Mixed (as per the previous Saturday). Customers: Numerous.
This time his mohawk was red, his bondage trousers were black and he was wearing a luminous green bomber jacket. Gordy watched him surreptitiously out the corner of his eye as Razor flicked through the albums in the ‘Punk’ section.
Gordy had somehow convinced himself that the big punk rocker was going to steal something and was worrying himself stupid about how on earth a wimp like him was going to deal with a muscular lump like Razor if he did, indeed, try to do a runner with the recently released record by ‘The Ruts’ - or even abscond with an abundant armful of ABBA for that matter!
In fact, Gordy was so intent on watching Razor that he completely failed to notice the utterly mortified and totally flustered expression on Daisy’s freckly face - because she had just laid eyes on the young couple who had recently entered the shop and were currently standing right behind him.
Had Gordy been paying attention, he would have known instantly that it was none other than Steve Cool and Pippa Wilson.
Fuck.
***
As Razor ambled over to the counter (clearly intent on paying for the album tucked under his arm instead of hurtling out of the shop and having it away down the High Street as Gordy wrongly suspected he would), a voice directly behind Gordy called out to the punk making Gordy jump out of his skin.
“Hey, Razor!” the voice called.
Gordy span around in surprise, bumping straight into Pippa and inadvertently placing his right hand directly on her rather fulsome left breast to steady himself (not that her left breast was any more fulsome than her right - in fact they were both equally fulsome and perfectly matched).
“Oh Christ, Pippa!” He exclaimed, “Sorry!”
“Hey, that’s okay”, she replied, her perfectly plump lips sliding into a wide perfect grin and exposing a set of perfect white teeth. “You might want to take your hand off my boob though before my boyfriend catches you”. Fortunately for Gordy, Steve Cool’s focus was elsewhere as he was still trying to attract the attention of Razor.
With horror, Gordy looked down at his right hand and saw that it was perfectly cupping one of Pippa’s perfectly formed breasts. It was a moment that he had dr
eamt about so many times that he could scarcely believe it was happening (although the scenario in his dreams had never been quite like this). Time suddenly seemed to stand still as he stood there utterly transfixed, his hand having at last found it’s long lost soul mate. Hand and boob had finally met, like a pair of star-crossed lovers, as Gordy always hoped they would and, for him at least, it was a magical union far surpassing that of Lois meeting Clark, Starsky meeting Hutch or even Han meeting Chewie. The thin fabric of Pippa’s T-shirt did little to disguise the soft bouncy wobbliness of her wondrous boob and Gordy was experiencing the full effect of it in glorious Technicolor, amazing CinemaScope and fabulous Feel-O-Rama.
Suddenly he heard her giggle and say, “When you’ve quite finished!”
Gordy was instantly snapped out of his reverie and his hand shot off her boob as if he had been struck by 10,000 volts of electricity. “Oh, shit! Sorry, Pippa!” blurted Gordy, his face immediately turning the colour of a baboon’s bum.
“That’s okay, no harm done”, she chuckled. “It’s Geoffrey, isn’t it?”
For the first time ever, in his whole fifteen years of existence, Gordy badly, more than anything else, wished with all of his heart, that his name was actually ‘Geoffrey’ and that he could answer ‘yes’ to her question, content in the knowledge that she actually knew his name - and for a second he did contemplate answering in the affirmative, but when it came to it, he just couldn’t.
“No. It’s, er, Gordy, actually”, he said, still deeply embarrassed by having had his hand on her boob but knowing deep down that he would cherish the moment forever. As it was, he was already planning a midnight session under the blankets with a box of Mansize Tissues and a torch for company - along with his extremely lucky right hand and the wonderful memory of how marvellous Pippa’s breast felt - a memory - or possibly even a mammary - that far outstripped the one he had of seeing Daisy’s mum’s boob a few weeks before. In fact, all things considered, the last thirty days had been a bumper month for boobs - a positive boob-fest, one might say, for Gordy, whose life until then had been one long boobless drought.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. ‘Gordy’ - I knew it started with a ‘G’”, said Pippa, somehow making Gordy hate his name even more as he silently cursed Alan and Barb for not calling him ‘Geoffrey’ in the first place. “Do you work here then?” She asked.
“Er, yeah”, said Gordy, squirming a little. Even now, with the place full of young trendies, Bailey’s Bandstand was not a place that he was particularly proud to work in.
“Wow! You’re so lucky”, said Pippa honestly. Which took Gordy quite by surprise. He was just about to ask her what she meant when Steve bloody Cool turned around and snatched her attention away from him.
“Hey, Pip, Razor’s over there, c’mon”, he said. Then he glanced at Gordy, clearly unimpressed. “Alright, Geoff?” he said.
“Yeah, fine—” Gordy began, but Steve Cool and Pippa were already heading over to Razor who was standing close to the counter, where Daisy was desperately trying to hide her gingery self behind the cash register.
Steve Cool and Pippa arrived at the counter just as Razor handed over the LP he was buying (Generation X by Generation X) to Daisy. However, from her awkward hiding place behind the cash register and with one hand covering her bright red face, she had to have three goes at taking the money from him before finally getting a grip on it.
“Alright, Razor?” said Steve Cool to the big punk.
“Yeah, okay I suppose”, replied Razor, clearly not as keen to speak to Steve Cool as Steve Cool was to speak to him.
“You going to the roller-disco next week down at the Drill Hall?”
“Dunno. You?”
“Yeah, course. Should be a good laugh - ‘specially if you can skate - no what I mean?”
“Yeah. S’pose”.
Daisy was listening intently to this riveting exchange of sparkling repartee. Gordy, however, was lost in a world of his own as he stood swooning over Pippa who looked stunning; her golden hair glistening in the sunlight (or at least it would have been had there been any sunlight - as it was it shone dimly in the dull gloom of the shop but that wasn’t quite poetic enough for Gordy and the girl of his dreams).
She was dressed simply in a T-shirt and cut-off Levis (much in the Daisy Duke style), her long, tanned legs shapely and perfect. Gordy’s gaze loitered on her for far longer than necessary but he could not help it as she looked absolutely amazing.
Then his attention turned to Steve Cool, his arch-nemesis, The Green Goblin to his Spider-man, Darth Vader to his Luke Skywalker - or perhaps more accurately, The Fonz to his Potsie (and oh, how he wished it was the other way around). Gordy took a good look at what he was wearing and noted, rather unhappily, that once again Steve Cool looked incredibly cool (well, he would wouldn’t he, after all, it was in his name and once again Gordy cursed him for having such a cool bloody name. The bloody bastard.
Today Steve Cool was wearing a tight white T-shirt with short sleeves that had been rolled up even shorter to accentuate Steve’s ample biceps. The shirt was tucked into a pair of tight faded Levis which showed off what Gordy assumed Pippa would consider to be a perfectly tight butt.
Tight shirt, tight jeans, tight butt. A triple threat. Fuck, bollocks and arse.
Meanwhile, back at the counter, Steve Cool was still trying to make conversation with Razor but Razor, it seemed, was not in the mood to talk.
“Yeah, anyway, Razor”, said Steve Cool pretending not to notice, “I’ll see you next week, eh? At the roller-disco, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay. Maybe”, said Razor.
“Great. See ya then”.
“See ya”.
“Bye, Razor”, said Pippa over her shoulder as Steve Cool dragged her away from the counter.
“Yeah, bye, Pip”, replied Razor without looking at her.
It was only then that Daisy dared to come out of hiding, her eyes blinking mole-like through the blue plastic frames of her horn-rimmed specs that she was still having to wear until her contact lenses were ready as she followed Steve Cool’s every step to the door.
She watched from behind the cash register as the object of her desire left the shop; the very reason for her getting contact lenses and Brutus jeans and lots of new clothes and yes, even the reason for her delight at finally having some sort of sprouting in the chest department.
Daisy wished she was braver but she simply was not. She had not had the nerve to even let him see her let alone had the courage to speak to him and it made her sad. And truthfully she knew that no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did, she would never look as good as Pippa Wilson and would therefore never be able to compete for Steve Cool’s affections.
As she leaned over the counter to get one last lingering look at his tightly denimed bottom as it finally left the shop, she found herself almost nose to nose with Razor who was leaning on the counter from the other side and had purposely put himself in her way.
“Boo”, he said and smiled.
Daisy jumped and pulled away a little flustered, then smiled guiltily, suspecting that she had been found out.
Gordy had drifted back to the counter too, his fear of Razor completely forgotten as he stood next to the big punk and wistfully watched Pippa Wilson leave the building with her cooler than bloody cool boyfriend, Steve bloody Cool.
Razor looked from Daisy to Gordy and then from Gordy back to Daisy. “Christ on a bike”, he said, “You two have got it bad!”
***
This statement, made by this very big, very scary and obviously very perceptive punk rocker caught both Daisy and Gordy a little bit by surprise. Firstly because they thought each of their respective crushes were known to no one else other than themselves and secondly because both of them now simultaneously realised that they had something very secret - and potentially very embarrassing in common.
However, rather than just own up to it, knowing all too well that they had been rumbled, they both tried to bluff it out.
“Eh? What? No way! Complained Gordy rather strenuously whilst his face returned to what the Dulux Colour Chart might describe as ‘Baboon Anus with a Hint of Sunburn’.
“I don’t know what you mean - course not!” exclaimed Daisy a little meekly and far from convincingly.
“Hey, it’s okay”, said Razor seeming suddenly much less scary and much more chatty than he had been just a few moments earlier. “It’s no big deal. Love is the drug, man. It makes the world go round”. This seemed a lot more like the kind of mumbo jumbo hippie shit Glynn and Lynn Flynn would say not an Air Wear shod punk with a twelve inch red mohawk but say it he did and what’s more he had a big, wide, dreamy grin on his face as he did so. It seemed like Razor, contrary to his outwardly fearsome appearance, was actually quite the romantic.
Then, in another uncharacteristically punk way (or at least what Gordy perceived to be an uncharacteristically punk way), Razor held out his hand and said “Hi, I’m Frazer”.
Cautiously, Gordy reached out and shook it, “Hi. I’m Gordy and this is Daisy”, he said. Then added rather apprehensively, “But I thought your name was ‘Razor’?”
Frazer offered Daisy his hand and she shook it. Her face on the Dulux Colour Chart; ‘Baboon Anus with a Hint of Haemorrhoid’. “Hello”, she said shyly.
“Gordy, Daisy. Very pleased to meet you”, said Frazer most genially. “Yeah, people do call me ‘Razor’ but they’re mostly idiots and sheep. My friends and people I like call me ‘Frazer’”.
Gordy had no idea what Frazer meant by ‘sheep’ (maybe he was a farmer or something, although he certainly didn’t look like the sort who wore wellies and a flat cap and spent his days wading through shit and whistling at a sheepdog). Gordy was quite amazed, however, that Frazer had the audacity to refer to someone so obviously cool as Steve Cool as an ‘idiot’ (not directly by name of course but that was definitely the inference). Gordy was also quite pleased by this as having just seen Steve Cool with Pippa he was feeling more than a little bit jealous. Strangely, Gordy was inexplicably chuffed, too, that Frazer seemed to class both him and Daisy as friends.
Jam Tops, the Fonz and the Pursuit of Cool Page 9