Howard sighed as drunken students buffeted him
as he made his way to Gallie. The Soft Cell
ballad
Tainted Love belted in his ears
as he returned from the bar with a pint and
a Pernod and black. Happily, he visualised himself
as a cave-dwelling hunter bringing home mammoth
steaks to go with the carrots amassed by the
starving gatherers. He sat down at the bench
and marvelled at the sight of Gallie fiddling
with her hair and peering into his eyes as if
they were jewels. They said nothing. They kissed.
Emotions hurtled. Compulsively he grabbed her
by the hand and pulled her to her feet. She
asked what the matter was. He explained he had
a surprise in store and beckoned her to trust
and follow him. With trepidation he weaved through
the crowds to the perimeter location of the
stubble-faced bouncer.
'Stage Shaft,' he muttered, ensuring that Gallie could not
overhear: not a difficult task given the din of the disco.
The security guard stared at him askance.
'What?'
'
Stage Shaft! Greg sent me.'
The bouncer shuffled on his feet. His nose twitched with
disapproval. 'This way.'
Gallie looked puzzled. Howard felt thrilled, and vowed to
thank Greg profusely at the next opportunity. This ploy was ingenious! They
were led down a small corridor; ahead the bouncer barged a path through the
snogging students that barnacled the walls. Fishing a chunky set of keys
from his belt, the uniformed man opened the door at the end and ushered. Gallie
and Howard passed into darkness and the door shut behind them. The key clinked
in the lock. The music from the disco quietened, but only relatively. He could
easily hear
Love will tear us apart by Joy Division.
'Oooh Howard, I'm scared!'
'Don't be, my maiden! I did a deal with the guy; he's given
us a spot of privacy, that's all. Trust me!' Wherever they were, it was dark
and the air smelled musty. He led the way up a ramp. His eyes were adapting.
They were in a large enclosure. He could discern a set of drums and microphone
stands.
'Howard, take me back. Please.'
Howard kissed her. 'We're alone!' He could feel
his chest thump. He felt charged up; he imagined
lightening passing between their lips. His mind
raced back to his romp with Jacintha beneath
the bench in the optics lab. He cringed with
guilt. Yet he was exhilarated by the dark! The
groping became frantic. Buttons unfastened.
Zips unzipped. The panting grew faster, sharper.
Her sublime breasts felt like heavenly jelly.
His hand reached down to her crotch. She inhaled
violently. This was it! This was the turning
point. He would become a man!
He paused. What was the snag? This was the moment that was
too good to be true: when everything unravelled. Then the time arrived. The
time he had yearned for; had urged fate for; the event he had beckoned from
fortune and gods. The wave of ecstasy was shattering. He was swimming in the
womb. He was dancing with valkyries. Lotus fruits sweetened his tongue. The
rays of a golden star warmed his skin. Showers of angels' tears bathed his
face. The delighted adulation of a million innocents caressed his heart. Gallie
moaned and her sighs were sweeter than symphonies of laughter.
His accursed virginity was put to the sword.
He became vaguely aware that the music was louder. Then
it stopped. He glanced up. It was no longer as dark. A barrier was rising.
Coloured lights flashed and swirled and threatened like the night eyes of
predators. Before him, only a few body lengths way, were faces. Hundreds of
faces. All staring back. In his dreamlike, confounded state it took time to
realise those faces were
real. It cost patient time to sober up enough
to apprehend this bizarre spectacle as reality. Having tasted Heaven, was
he now fallen in Hell? He blinked in disbelief.
'Howie, is anything the matter?'
Gallie! Howard lifted up from her. Beneath him, on her back
and with the top of her head towards the people, she was unable to see the
horror. His abdomen churned. He did not want her to know what his eyes were
telling him. But lying to her was simply too risky, he could not shield her
from this nightmare for long.
'Well, it's just that this place is not
quite as
private as I thought.'
'What do you mean?' Gallie arched her neck backwards. Her
eyes widened in dismay. Her body shuddered.
'I can explain!' blurted Howard. He wished he were able
to. He watched helplessly as she stared at him accusingly. It was terrible
to see her suffer, to see her poor, delicate mouth tremble, her distressed
eyes flicker with torment.
'
Sodom and Gomorrah!' boomed a voice. This voice
was boomy by definition, but now it boomed supernaturally, like the bugle
call of a devil. But Greg was nowhere to be seen.
Howard zipped himself up and scrambled to his knees. Gallie
sat up, with her back to the audience, adjusting her clothing with panicky
clumsiness.
'Oh! How
dare you!' She slapped him. Her words and
her dainty hand stung with a ferociousness he had not thought possible in
her. Then tears flowed.
Greg's laughter exploded and echoed from all directions. Then
his looming figure stepped into view, eclipsing the brightest lights. Howard
looked at this leviathan silhouette in awe. Greg turned to the audience and
strode across the stage. All eyes transfixed upwards. Howard told himself
Greg was, after all, only human; he was flesh and blood and one could be brutally
parted from the other.
'Greg, you
bastard!'
Greg's large head bobbed rhythmically as if to some silent
beat. In his left hand he grasped a microphone, the flex of which followed
him around like a satanic tail. He raised the microphone to his lips.
'Ladies, gentlemen, for your delectation I present: my housemate!
They call him Howard. Let me tell you a bit about Howard, Ladies and Gentlemen.'
Greg was speaking rhythmically. 'He's from an ordinary house in an ordinary
town in an ordinary country skiving off an ordinary course at an ordinary
bleeding university:
if you can call
this place ordinary. Yet
this dude is an extraordinary
lady-killer!'
Howard hissed, 'Stop it, Greg!'
'Straight up, Ladies and Gents. You see, Howard's
granny dealt the finest weed in the West 'til
he went and frigging offed the old bat in a
premeditated arson attack. The silly sod incinerated
his own bleeding Grandma! Canny idea, that!
Mind you, at least they didn't need to cremate
the evil witch.' Greg turned towards Howard.
'But even so, Howie mate, we're not living in
bleeding India! Sodom and Gomorrah!' Greg lit
a cigarette and faced the amassed students.
'Anyhow, by making a booby trap with gas canisters,
Howie here went and torched his poor, honest
to goodness Granny, her old cottage, and, what's
worse, her magic weed. The whole lot went up.
I was there at the time and got stoned as fuck
just breathing on the smoke from the blaze.'
The audience laughed nervously at Greg's rant, and warmed
to him as he effortlessly dispatched a few hecklers. So perfect was Greg's
command that he controlled the crowd without friction. He pleaded with the
concerned, stubble-faced bouncer for more time.
Howard nibbled his lip. 'Why are you fucking
doing this, Greg?'
'As for Howie, killing
his Granny -
my
dealer - for that I'll not ever forgive the
stupid bastard!' The crowd cheered. 'Yes, ladies
and gentlemen, that guy there is Howard, behind
me on the stage. Mind you, he's got guts, I'll
give him that. Blimey! He got in a scrap with
Drijk and lived to tell the bleeding tale.'
Greg gestured and gawped. The audience gasped
on cue. 'OK, so Drijk ate one of his fingers,
big deal!' The audience tittered. 'Yes, it's
true, Ladies and Gents, you've heard the grapevine.
You know it's straight up! But for you doubting
Thomases out there I will prove it to ya! Come
on now Howie, show us your hand, mate, hold
it up!'
Inexplicably, Howard found himself raising his bandaged
hand for the audience to inspect. He felt as if he had no freewill in the
matter, that some malevolent force was twisting his limbs. He recovered control
and withdrew his arm, but not before the audience roared with delight.
'Did you see that ladies and gents? Mutilation!
But I bet you didn't know Drijk went and munched
one of his bollocks too! Drop your trolleys,
Howie!' The audience spluttered, women squealed.
'Only jesting, Ladies and Gents, only jesting,
ya fell for
that one didn't you!' The
audience giggled with glee. 'Drijk might have
deprived him in the finger department, but Howie
more than made up for that with his mighty frigging
pecker!' The audience cheered. 'As you see,
when it suits, our Howie's a bit of a bleeding
demon with the ladies. You just saw him knocking
off one of his very own housemates! How about
that for a class act way to lose yer cherry?
Give the man a round of applause!'
The audience laughed, clapped and shouted. Howard stared
at their faces. Many were jubilant. Some were awed. Among the horde he saw
Sue, Karen and Dominic. Gallie gasped in horror. She looked at Howard in accusing
disgust and scrambled sideways off the stage. Howard saw Dominic leave Karen's
side. Greg's laughter quaked the hall.
Howard rose to his feet. 'Give me that thing, Greg.' He
snatched the microphone from Greg's heavy hand.
Howard stood before the crowd. He shook with fear but rage
tilted his actions towards the fight instinct.
'Fuck you, Greg, for what you have done to me
and Gallie! What's wrong, no time to screw your
endless harem of one-night whores and fill their
orifices with your vile lust?'
The crowd jeered. Howard knew he was attacking someone they
instinctively liked. Greg's face darkened. He wrenched the microphone from
Howard's grasp.
'For Sodom's sake, give me a bleeding break! The cockroach
only goes and blames the cook! Complains his nosh ain't frigging tasty enough!'
The crowd cheered manically. The microphone changed possession.
'Fuck
that Greg, you try to compare the beautiful
thing between Gallie and me with your sleazy romps with trollops? The difference
between you and me is the difference between porn and romance:
you
might be able to show the surface, but
I want the real thing!'
A female voice rang out, 'good on you!' Male voices laughed
and mocked. The microphone was snatched. Greg waited patiently for the heckling
to die down.
'Romance? Romance! Mills and bleeding Boom! What a load
of total old bollocks! Knobbing your own housemate in public is very frigging
romantic, innit! You're no better than the rest of us pervs, mate. You're
after one thing, to detonate yer stick of dynamite in the pink safe door,
just like the bleeding rest of us!'
The crowded roared with approval. The microphone exchanged
hands. Howard looked at the crowd. His consciousness dissolved into a mental
cauldron. He spouted words he would never be able to recall. 'Do
you
know Greg?' he challenged the audience. 'Do
you know this man? I'm
the unfortunate punter in the room directly below his attic room. I can vouchsafe
that he does not sleep. Not a wink. He plays his bass all fucking night so
I get no damned sleep either. When he's not doing that, he's shagging
birds on his squeaky fucking mattress. All fucking night usually! He knows
no suffering despite abusing all manner of illegal substances; he drenches
his fucking cornflakes in toxic drug cocktails from Hell. This Greg is all
but impervious to the pain of the lasses he screws like rag dolls and flushes
down the bog!'
The crowd was silent. Howard's heart hammered.
He was getting somewhere! The microphone was
seized. Howard looked at Greg with fear. Greg
was wrathful. The sight of Greg's face was a
sight he had not seen since the fight at Cleopatra's
nightclub. It was a portrait of danger.
'Oi Knucklehead, get some frigging reality in
that knackered bleeding brain of yours! You
think
I treat chicks bad? At least I
don't go and murder them!' Greg turned to the
audience. 'Sodom and Gomorrah! Bleeding ringwraiths
are less evil than Howard here! When the coast
is clear he's a fucking lady killer!' Greg turned
to Howard and glared. 'Tell them about Jacintha!'
he cried. 'I mean, it's not a good fuck unless
you fucking kill whilst you're at it!'
The crowd jeered agitatedly. Howard wasn't sure whom they
were berating, he was just aware of a concerted chorus of anger. The atmosphere
was corrosive.
'It wasn't just a
chick that died that
day,' screamed Greg. The crowd fell silent.
Howard marvelled at the sudden stillness. Not
many people could turn a seething mob into an
attendant congregation. Greg whispered into
the microphone, 'It wasn't
just a chick.'
Howard could sense the crowd straining to hear.
'My kid died that day.
My kid was in
her belly.' Tears streamed from Greg's eyes.
He turned, faced Howard, and raised his fist.
Howard kept his arms crossed. He stood there
waiting to be hit. He did not care what happened
to him. All he knew was he felt sick.
Greg, with his back to the audience, stepped
backwards. His face was purple with fury. He
backed away from Howard towards the edge of
the stage. Howard watched as one step followed
another. The crowd's murmur grew with each backwards
pace. Karen screamed and begged him to stop.
Greg reached the brink at Howard. Gallie ran
past, towards Greg, her pleas drowned in the
uproar. Greg held out his arms and laughed.
His huge form toppled backwards over the brink.
 | | | | |
| From: |
Knoeier | Subject: | 2003-07-06 03:52:19 |
| | | | |
help: how to add your comment Page hits: 1502Any thoughts or feedback?
Add your comment
