Talk Brutalist
No one’s home so I don’t have to listen to Liam an mum. I think she’s working behind the bar tonight an he’s probably sat on his stool, tryin to neck free pints on the sly.
The breakin news is that mum has tried to clean the kitchen. The eight billion beer bottles and lager cans have disappeared and the sink is fucken gleamin for once with a blue cloth hanging over the tap. The cabbage smell ain’t so strong and the flies are lookin confused, like they’ve taken a wrong turn an are asking for directions back to the ghetto. I open the fridge and see food on the shelves, thinkin how I wasted money earlier buyin fish ‘n chips. There’s a bottle of Liam’s homemade special wine, which he always warns me not to touch… Fucken Liam… I find a tall plastic cup in the cupboard and pour myself some. I go an push the door to mum’s bedroom an rummage through the wardrobe to find their stash of fags, taking two of the cartons Liam gets from a dodgy bloke who is from a place called Turkey. The geezer comes to our flat every couple of months and is well creepy. He has a glass eye an shows pictures on his phone of his collection of baby dolls.
I hear my kitten cryin. I walk in my bedroom an I can tell straight off Flapjack’s twistin. I tell her I’m sorry and open a can of food, forking chunks onto her plate an I quickly go to the bathroom to fill up her water bowl. I then have to sort out the mess she’s made, pickin up poos and sortin wee stains. I take a flannel from the bathroom to scrub where Flapjack peed on the carpet. I don’t rinse it out. Nah nah, why would I? It’s only Liam who uses it.
When I’m done, I shut my bedroom door and light a fag, sittin cross-legged, danglin a piece of string for Flapjack to jump at, watchin her do her mentals.
After I finish playin, I undress and lie in bed, smokin in the dark, stroking Flapjack, who keeps fidgetin and crying. I skull the wine, which tastes alright, lookin at a strip of moonlight comin through a gap in the curtains.
***
I jolt awake, wonderin if I’ve had nightmares. Cept I know I ain’t. I realise there’s this stabbing pain in my stomach and I’m sweatin. My gut hurts like fuck. I move Flapjack, swinging my legs and unlockin my bedroom door to rush fireman style into the bathroom. I pull the string an the light from the bare bulb makes me blink. I shut and lock the door behind me an I pull down my pants to sit on the seat just in time. I don’t know what’s going on, but I could seriously suffocate ants with the smell. I wanna be sick too. It’s hard to not flop on the floor, but everything is coming out of me, like the council should pay me to tarmac roads for a living.
Maybe that’s what I’ll do after I finish school.
I’ll be known as The Road Boy.
I’ll have a special seat on a lorry for my bum to poke through an I’ll lay roads that are so pukka even the Romans would be impressed. They’d stand in their white togas an laurels, clappin their hands and cheerin.
My headteacher, Mrs McNeil, would be so proud of me, standin on stage in assembly, tellin fools that they could follow in my poo-steps if they showed application.
I’d be what teachers call, A Role Model.
The pain eases off. I take mum’s make-up mirror by the sink and look at my face, starin at my eyes, seeing how the pupils are big an black. I swivel the mirror round to the side that magnifies my face like I’m a Giant, opening my mouth to look at my gums an teeth, pokin out my tongue, seeing cracks and white-spitty-bits like you get on the bacon served in the school canteen.
I lean against the wall, feelin the coolness of the blue tiles on my cheek.
It must be the fucken cod from the fish ‘n chip shop that’s done me in.
I shoulda gone to Maccy D’s.
***
Convinced there’s nothin left in me, I go back into my room, walkin like I’ve been shot in the guts, taking the mirror with me, and I crumple onto the carpet.
I try drifting off, cept my head is racing an colours are poppin.
Dad’s tattoo is on my forearm. The one he had of a coiled snake.
He’s close. I can smell his deodorant.
I touch the green snake.
We’re standin on the balcony, me an dad, like on our last night together, when he was drinking a can of lager after he had a humdinger of a row with mum.
Dad: I always thought you were a good lad. I didn’t want you and your brother caught in the middle of this mess. It’s not fair on the pair of you.
Jason: I knew you’d come back.
He lights a fag.
Jason: Can I cuddle you?
Dad: Don’t act like a girl.
Jason: Sorry.
Dad: Do you see how bright the moon is? I like this time of night, when it’s so quiet you can hear the sound of electricity, when you’re in this no man’s land between late and early. It’s the only time it feels peaceful, you know? Like the estate itself is dreaming.
Jason: Only Tower Blocks dream.
Dad: Shoosh, listen carefully.
Jason: I can’t hear anything.
Dad: Keep listening.
Jason’s heart is pumping and then he hears the sound of a train on railway tracks. His father looks at him with excitement. They stand on the balcony in the darkness, listening to the da-da-da-dah of the wheels on metal tracks and his father’s face breaks into a grin when the train toots its horn.
Dad: I’ve always loved the noise of that train in the dead of night, ever since I was a boy growing up round here.
Jason: Did you get on the train? Is that how you escaped the estate when you left us?
Dad: I used to think it was a ghost train when I was little, but I it’s only the Royal Mail, delivering their parcels and letters through the night.
Jason: Mum told us you’re unwell. That you had to be put in a hospital cos when they found you, you didn’t know what you were doin.
Dad: I would’ve made a good train driver.
Jason: Are you going to stay this time?
Dad: I’ve always been fond of trains.
Jason: Was it the Tower Block that made you ill, dad? I think it’s making me poorly too.
Jason realises his father is going to leave. The same as before. The same as always. He watches him push the cigarette into the can of lager.
Jason: Dad, don’t go.
***
I’m on the bedroom floor, wet with sweat, an my stomach is hurtin bad. I use the bed for support to stand up and hobble to the bathroom, hearing noises in the livin room. I wonder if it’s dad. If he’s really returned and is staying with us.
Maybe this is all part of mum’s plan to make us a family again.
I lock the bathroom door an sit on the toilet.
My bum lays down a road that could go from here to fucken China.
***
Blue and red lights are shimmerin.
I’m back in the bedroom.
I hear voices but it’s like I’m under water.
A snake hisses, showing its white fangs.
The Old Lady who gave me a fifty pound note for the fags and gin, stands by my bed. Her face feels close up an her wrinkles are all magnified. She says, Boy, I told you not to go on the grass.
I see the door to the room is open. I slowly swing my legs outta bed. My whole body tingles.
I hear a cracking sound, like a tree branch breaking.
I walk out of the bedroom and along the hallway.
Boy, says the Old Lady, what do you think that smell is?
I keep walkin. My form tutor, Mr Leonard, is standin in the kitchen doorway, wearing his suit and coffin-shaped tie. He says, Don’t think you can rely on that freakshow anus of yours to get you anywhere in life.
No, sir, I try to say, but nothing comes out.
Mark my words, that road you tarmacked was a fluke. It might have impressed Mrs McNeil, the Romans and the Chinese, but the rest of them will find out the truth about you soon enough.
I realise what he’s getting at – he’s talking about the Tower Block growin inside of me.
We stare at one another.
He turns round and the back of his suit is a denim dress.
I feel myself sliding into the living room like I’m on a travelator.
I see Liam and mum.
They don’t seem to notice I’m here. Liam is standin in his dirty boxers. Baked beans spill out over the top of his leather army boots. In one hand, he holds a stick that jockeys use to whip horses. In the other, he’s gripping the end of a thick rope, the type fishermen use. It’s tied around mum’s throat and he’s yankin her towards him like she’s a dog on a leash. I look at her and see she’s on all fours. She’s completely naked an her boobs are sagging down. He strides towards her and cracks the stick across her backside.
Faster, he yells.
She scampers on her hands and knees across the carpet.
He strikes her with the stick once more. I can see red marks appear on her skin.
She doesn’t seem to mind the pain. She makes a groanin noise, gasping, almost as if she’s enjoyin it.
I try to tell them to stop. That they shouldn’t be hurtin each other like that. Cept they can’t hear me.
Liam makes her eat the spilled beans from his boots, orderin her to lick the juice.
Even if they could hear me, they wouldn’t understand what I’m saying. It’s cos I’m not speakin English. There’s a whole load of foreign words comin out and it’s at a different frequency to what regular humans can hear. I’m talkin in a language an at a pitch only Tower Blocks can understand. Nobody else knows what it is I’m goin on about.
I head to the bedroom in silence. The door closes without me touchin it.
From under the bed, I take the can of lager dad drank out of the night he left.
It’s empty, apart from the cigarette butt he put in there.
I curl up in a ball on the mattress, clutchin the can, wishing dad hadn’t gone away.
Flight of the dragonfly 