Row...... Ruthless

Row.

"I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?"
"You are such a baby Noel."
"I know you are, you said you.."
"Piss off!" Robert interrupts. "Don't talk to me, you moron."
"Robbo the knobbo," Noel sings, "always covered in shit, runs through the houses with his willy out, and he’s so fat he’s got tits… like a girl."
"Oh just go away, please, leave me alone. It's like talking to an imbecile."
"Just cos you're in the top set at school doesn't mean.."
"And you're in the bottom."
"Okay yeah.. but it doesn't mean you're any better than me."
"Go away Noel!"
"Hey Robbo," Noel asks, the tone of his voice changing suddenly. "Did you know your big, fat ugly fuckin face gets all red when you're angry?"
Noel's question is bursting with an unrestrained malice, as if this spite had been building up for years. His once innocent childlike expression, now lost, only intensifies the animosity he feels for Robert, and what had started out as a game only moments ago, suddenly turns sour.
Robert swallows hard, he detects the razor sharp hooks in his friend's tone and suddenly feels the void that separates them. Robert cannot win now, the damage has been done; whether the two boys make up in the future or not, there will always be a scar left by the wounding words that have passed between them today.
Robert turns away and heads for home. Suddenly he feels a sharp crack on the side of his head that makes his skull burn up and his ear ring loudly. Robert drops to the floor clutching his head.
"Ha, ha!" Noel shouts. "One punch and the man's down." Noel dances over Robert's deflated form like a prize-fighter. "Knockout!" He holds his clenched fist high in the air like a trophy. Robert holds onto his head, soothing the pain with a gentle touch. "Get up you fanny!" Noel pokes him in the side with his foot. "Let me have another crack at you."
"Leave me alone." Robert sits up and Noel bobs and weaves around him, throwing punches in the air.
"You're a real girl fatty."
Robert's eyes follow Noel as he duck and dives. He cannot bear to see his friend in such a frenzy of hate and he closes his eyes and shakes his head.
"What's the matter you big puff? Get up, I've waited years to do this."
Robert looks up at Noel, he feels the heavy weight of a shameful defeat and sees it reflected in his friend's eyes. He says after a short silence, "You're a real cunt Noel."
"Hey hey! Don't I fuckin know it!"
Language is learnt through experiencing language; listening and speaking it, reading and writing it. Picking up a basic vocabulary, getting to grips with the rules of grammar and syntax and understanding semantics, are an ongoing process—a day to day process of constantly updating and developing information.. soaking up data, delighting in knowledge, wallowing in words.
When Robert calls Noel a cunt, they share a basic semantic understanding: they both know they are not specifically discussing women's private parts. The two boys understand how powerful offensive colloquialisms can be, and moreover, they are both fully aware of the time and the place to use them; this is social programming or social etiquette depending on your point of view. Within the waggle of an eardrum, both boys have processed a multitude of complex, linguistic commands, and yet because of their particular situations, they have independent and quite opposing interpretations of the word, cunt. Robert is using it as an insult, its more usual grammatical function. However, Noel takes pride in his position as aggressor and considers cunt an appropriate title—he knowingly transforms the negative into the positive. Robert has lost the fight physically and linguistically. The pen can be mightier than the sword in the hands of a sharp writer, but everyone has an inherent ability to turn their tongue into a razor and cut up a friend with a short, sharp flick and a few well chosen words.
Noel unconsciously feels his friend's weaknesses and exploits them. He knows Robert is more intelligent so he brings the argument to his own level, rather than rising to Robert's. Robert will grow up and go to college and indulge in discussions and debates, while Noel could easily find himself involved in street fights and explosive arguments in pubs and nightclubs. Noel is slowly and steadily losing his grip on his understanding of the term, civilised behaviour. It is his first steps into a darker and more terrifying world; a world where the bastards rise to the top of the steaming shitheap, by trampling over the weak.
"I'm not gonna fight you Noel."
"I don't want you to fight, just stand up so I can knock you down again. It looked stunning.. to tell you the truth I've been waiting fuckin years to do this; let me enjoy it."
"You're sick."
"You don't look too well yourself down there!"
"Please Noel," begs Robert, "just leave me alone."
"Do you really want me to go?" Noel asks trying to play down the sarcasm a little now. "Do you really?" Noel knows he has won. Robert is crushed, his wings torn off one by one—the game is over. Noel is bored, he just wants to scrape Robert off the sole of his shoe now and go home.
Robert looks up at Noel, trying to analyse his oppressor, he is quite sure Noel would keep him sitting in a heap for the rest of the day.
"Well do you?" Noel asks again. "It's a simple enough question dummy; d'you want me to go, yes or no?"
"Yes," Robert says finally.
Noel smiles the innocent smile of the tyrant. "Okay!" And he is gone.
Robert remains on the ground for a while expecting Noel to reappear at any time, fists aloft. Minutes pass and Robert moves onto his knees before rising to his feet. He hears a shout in the distance and his heart races for a second, he unconsciously ducks back to the floor, but realises he is still alone and the voice just another child playing in the next street. Fear builds up inside the young boy and is expressed in the tears bubbling at the edge of his eyes. He quickly wipes his cuff across his face and heads for home.
"Fuckin bastard," he whispers. He is referring to himself of course, he despises Noel, but he has a deeper hatred for his own self for allowing Noel to humiliate him so.
"You're a fucking weakling," he continues, "stand up for yourself!" But he knows underneath his coursing emotions, he cannot, it is not in his psychological make up. Even under intense provocation he will resist the urge to fight and back away. Robert touches his ear, sensing it has swollen to twice its normal size, but it hasn't.
"I wish Martin were here," he whispers under his breath.
Robert stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, pressing a cold, damp cloth against the side of his head. He lifts the cloth to reveal a bright red ear. It clashes with the yellow streak down your back, he thinks.
"Ow!" he says softly as he replaces the cloth. Robert looks deep into his own eyes, searching for some sign of life in his reflection, but he can only see pain and the sight compels him to look away quickly, focusing on the dimple on his chin, the dry skin around his mouth, the blackheads on his nose—anywhere except the black centre of his eye which suddenly appears to be connected directly to his soul. A terrifying prospect, seeing yourself without make-up, totally exposed; a harsh and ruthless representation of our real selves.. not a pretty sight.
-
The world wakes, and goes through a daily ritual of applying the natural, skin-tone foundation to itself, covering pimples, pock-marks and other characterising blemishes with a fake, manufactured face. And then masked by mascara and eye-liner, and blushing with bright pink blusher and lipstick, polysyllabic chemicals are added to the disguise until the world fails to recognise even its own image.. and gradually, week by week we forget who we are, and who we once were.
-
Robert too has forgotten, or more precisely, he is in the process of forgetting. He is still able to identify the tortured soul which lies within, but he is trying to bury it. He wants to be something he can never be; somebody else.
When he catches a glimpse of his true self in the bathroom mirror, Robert throws another handful of soil onto his coffin and trowels a new layer of make-up onto his blistered facade; toughening up his already weather-beaten exterior. The danger is of course, the character flaws are invisible from the inside, but are quite obvious to anyone looking on—and fakes after all, will give themselves away in the end.
Again Robert feels a strong yet painful urge to escape, to run away like Billy; to be in a place where he can reinvent himself and have the opportunity to be different.. no longer the coward, no longer the boy who shits himself, no longer himself. But Robert will find little peace until he accepts and celebrates his own life; shit and all. He can run for a hundred years but he will never escape himself, and as the days roll on, he will feel less and less like a human being and more like a rat on its exercise wheel going round and round in circles.
Robert wants to be accepted. He wants the world to see the beauty of his soul, but it is so caked in make-up it is impossible to appreciate. He needs to tear down the scaffolding and strip off the layers of superficiality, but he cannot; it is easier to lie and fabricate than to stand naked and defenceless before one's peers. Robert does not accept himself, yet he expects the world to..
And while blackheads burst open across the end of Robert's nose and he moves through his early teenage years, his sense of dislocation will become amplified and his resentment will swell. Robert inspects the face before him, seeing it as if for the first time—it seems ugly and out of place. The round, fat head; the deep set eyes, bloodshot and swollen; the lips, scabbed from cuts and cold sores, hide crooked and yellow teeth, protruding canines jut out from the gum savagely, dark fillings blacken molars; flabby cheeks, like two great sides of ham are pocked with the first explosions of puberty, they flow undisturbed to join the flabby neck and double chin, where the first signs of a soft, light facial hair are growing. He knows already he has a face that does not fit.. he is an outsider.
"You're a fat fuck."
Robert clicks the bathroom light off and darkness floods into the room engulfing the teenager's reflection. He continues to stare into the mirror and even in shadow his contempt for himself is clear. Robert breathes out slowly and softly.
"What on earth are you doing in the dark Robert?" Celia flicks the light on and stares at her son. The pupils in Robert's eyes dilate slowly as sixty watts of electricity pour into a coil of wire in the bulb above his head. He squints, the glare blinding him momentarily.
"Mum."
A teenager's life could be full of wonderful, undisturbed suicidal moments if it wasn't for parents. How can anyone dwell on the utter meaninglessness of life and one's own shallow existence when your mum keeps popping in with cups of tea and affection?
"What's the matter love?"
Robert had held himself together well until now. He has endured the humiliation of defeat, the shame of a beating and the pain of looking into his own barren future; he had prepared himself for the worst. But now, with one careless phrase and the natural loving tone of a mother's voice, Robert's whole world collapses as he finds an outlet for his frustration, his fears and his grief. As Celia holds her son in her arms, Robert cries for the first time in years. Tears flow down his face and mix with snot and saliva, salting his lips, staining his cheeks.
"It's all right baby, it's all right."
"No it isn't mum.. it isn't."
"What's that?" Celia says. "I can't understand you."
Robert sobs into his mother's shoulder muffling his words. Celia pulls herself away and brushes Robert's hair back off his red face.
"Let's have a nice cup of tea," she says, "and you can tell me all about it."
_
"Don't torture yourself," Celia begins quietly when they are settled. "You mustn't worry about anything at your age, you've plenty of time for that later in life." Celia smiles and kisses her son. "You're in such a rush to grow up these days, so anxious about who you are, what you look like, where you're going.. it doesn't matter you know, it really doesn't matter."
Celia holds Robert to her chest, she has so much more she wants to say. There has been a barrier between them for a long time and much left unsaid. Celia wants to explain so many things to her son, but after much consideration she decides to wait.
"Just believe in yourself," she continues. "Don't give anyone else the satisfaction of thinking they've beaten you.. be strong." Celia breathes in deeply, feeling all at once the mother she has failed to be for the last five years. Warmth, love and strength flood into her whole being and she finally opens up to her son, returning his years of quiet affection a thousand fold.
"There are only four things you need in life my darling boy." Celia begins to cry softly now. "I'm not saying I've followed my own advice, but here goes anyway.. four things; passion, courage, motivation.. from which you will find a direction and a focus.. and lastly and most importantly, love."
The room is silent for several minutes. Tears of joy seep from swollen eyes as Celia and Robert hold and comfort each other. Finally Robert looks up at his mother, he smiles.
"But what about the girls mum?" Robert says.
Celia laughs, "Don't worry, with your rugged good looks, they'll be queuing up. You wait, there'll be a row of girls around the block after you, you'll have to beat them off with a stick.. you're beautiful Robert."
Robert plants a kiss on Celia's cheek. "Thanks mum."
Celia smoothes out Robert's hair and picks a dead eyelash off his cheek. "Okay," she says, "it's time to wash the snot off our noses and face the world."
In the most unlikely of locations, with no conscious effort and with a total lack of any deliberate intention, Robert finally finds a friend.


In the months that follow, Celia manages little by little to let go of her obsession for cleaning, especially when she learns that her son has not crapped in their toilet for years. After many tearful nights they become closer than ever before and gradually helped each other to slowly sort out their neuroses, so they can at least live in the same house without fighting. Robert blessed the day when he sat on his own toilet, in his own house and unloaded the biggest turd of his life.. the agreement being that he himself would ensure the toilet was spotless after his session.
Whilst cleaning and tidying his room (another part of their deal), Robert comes across his old exercise book; the one that contains the beginnings of his novel. He flicks to the first page, which even after years of planning and good intention, still holds just four words.. Today felt like Christmas.
Robert sits down on his bed and suddenly laughs out loud, as he remembers the day when Billy had found it and changed the words.
"Today smelt like Christmas," Robert says out loud and then again, laughing harder this time. "Today smelt like Christmas! That is better! It really is."
And then he stops laughing and thinks about the friends he has lost. "I miss everybody," Robert whispers to himself.
Suddenly, he sits up straight, tears the page from his book and picks up a pen. "Right!" he says, "First things first, a letter… Dear Martin, sorry I haven‘t written to you like I said I would, but from today I will stop saying I will do things, and will actually start doing things. Life is too short. When I finish this letter, I will begin my novel. I will probably stop for a wank and then a Mars Bar, but this time I will not stop writing until it‘s done. By the way, I hope you have managed to ejaculate now, and that the problem you had with your helmet is all sorted; you‘ll probably find that masturbation will correct that, in fact, I find it normally fixes most things and I shall continue to do it until I find a girl who I can satisfy in equal measure."
And Robert begins to write like never before, as if ideas and thoughts are pouring down his arms and through his fingers. He fills pages and finally concludes the letter to Martin saying: "I ran into Rachel last week and she asked after you. She gave me her address to pass on to you. Here it is, you should write to her."
He signs the letter, "Your true friend, Robert", and then turns to a fresh page. "Okay, and now the novel."
He taps the pen in the centre of the page and scratches his chin. "Yes, the novel."
Robert stands up, laying the book on the bed. He paces the room, back and forth a couple of times. "Yes," he repeats, "the old novelly novel."
He picks up the pen again and looks out the window. After a few moments, he throws the pen down and says, "Fuck it, I’ll have a wank first."




Ruthless.

Noel arrives home from school in a bad mood. His mum asks him what’s wrong in between asking him what he wants for tea.
"I hate going to school now Ruth’s finished her O levels, and now Billy and Martin aren‘t there either."
"You’ve still got your other friend," his mum offers, "you know, the fat one."
"Yeah, Robert," Noel confirms, "but he’s fat and useless, and people still remember when he was naked and all covered in poo."
"I thought he was badly beaten then?"
"Yeah well maybe, but I’m embarrassed to be seen with him at school. He makes me look bad."
Noel’s mum shakes her head, "Tea will be ready in twenty minutes, okay?"
"Thanks. Is Ruth home?"
"I don’t think so. I heard her go out before but she didn’t say goodbye."
Noel runs up the stairs to his room and begins to change out of his uniform. He spots an envelope on his sideboard wedged under a mug full of marbles and thinks nothing of it until he sees his sister’s writing on the front. Intrigued, he opens the letter and falls heavily onto his bed as he reads the contents:
Dear Noel
I wanted to talk to you personally before I left, but knew that it would be too distressing for both of us. I am leaving today and never coming back. I don’t know where I am going yet and will see how far the money I have saved will take me.
There are things that have happened that I cannot possibly let you know about, but I cannot go on living in this house any longer.
Just remember that I love you, mum and Hannah very much. Please take care of them for me. You are now the man of the house.
With all my love
Ruth
Noel stares in disbelief at the words on the page. Tears of rage and frustration pour from his eyes, while a wild fury tears through his body. His hands are shaking fiercely as he rereads Ruth’s words; now the only thing he has of hers to hold onto.
Noel’s mind whirls, as he considers the events that led up to his sister leaving, and although he partially blames himself for not facing his father before, he knows with all of his being that the fault lies squarely at his father’s door.
Noel knows that his dad is not home yet, but the energy built on anger that is now flowing uncontrollably through every sinew and muscle in Noel’s body cannot be contained any longer. Noel, still half dressed, races from his room and up the stairs to the attic. He tears off the sign from the door, and kicks at the lock until the door flies open. Before him lies the only thing in the world his dad really cares about; the model railway and village. In the absence of his father, Noel directs and releases all his pent up emotions on the defenceless model town. With bare hands the young boy rips up railway lines and model trains, smashes down houses and tears into papier-mâché hills, scattering trees and cows and sheep across the attic floor. The miles of wires and cables below the model are torn out causing sparks to fly in the dimly lit attic, as he throws all the broken pieces into a pile in the corner of the room.
Noel’s hands are bleeding from splinter cuts and his bare feet are bruised from stamping and kicking out at the remains of his dad’s work. When his fury finally dies down, he is left breathless, seated in front of the results of his unrestrained destruction.
Moment’s later he hears footsteps on the stairs up to the attic. Giles appear in the doorway. He remains shocked into silence as he surveys the devastation before him. He goes to speak, but Noel stops him by screaming, "Don’t say a fuckin word."
Giles can be heard swallowing hard. There is a voice behind him, it is his wife, "What’s going on?" she says nervously.
"Nothing," Giles replies, "it’s okay. I’ll deal with it." Giles closed the door behind him.
"She’s gone," Noel barks, "Ruth has run away… all because of fuckin you."
"What‘re you…?"
Noel screams out again, tearing at his vocal chords, "I said don’t fuckin speak you cunt."
"But…"
"Fuck off! I know what you did you fuck, I know what you’ve been doing… I was fuckin here," Noel cries out, pointing at the space underneath where the model village once was. "I saw everything. How long you cunt? How long did you make her do those things?"
"I don’t know what you mean…"
"Don’t fuckin lie. I saw you.. I saw you."
Giles does not speak. In his mind he replays all the times he has spent with his daughter, desperately trying to remember if there ever was time when he hadn’t been careful. But he can’t be sure. Giles feels trapped; for the first time in his life he doesn’t feel in control.
"What do you want me to do?" Giles says softly, trying to win over his son by pretending to admit defeat.
"There’s nothing you can fuckin do! She’s gone. I don’t know where. I’ll never find her now… how do I know where to look? You’ve done enough anyway."
Giles approaches his son and sees the blood dripping from his hands. "Let me help you."
"Fuck off! Get off me… Fuck off you cunt, you’ve killed my sister. Get away from me."
"It can be all right again, I promise, the way things used to be."
Noel pictures his mum and his baby sister, and rereads in his mind the note left by Ruth: ‘You are now the man of the house’.
Giles extends a hand to his son, "Come on Noel."
Noel looks into his father’s eyes with such utter hatred, still desperate though to find some honesty there, something of the father he once loved; but there is nothing, it is just another lie on top of a lie on top of a lie, but now it ends here. Noel has his hand on something metallic and heavy, it is his dad’s binoculars. He grabs tight hold of them and smashes the binoculars into his father’s head. The impact causes Giles to lose his balance and fall to the floor. Noel remains frozen, but Giles comes to quickly and crawls back towards the door, clutching his bleeding head.
"Get away from us!" Noel roars, "Leave us alone." And for once his dad obeys, scrambling through the door and falling down the stairs.
Noel’s mum cries out when she sees her husband’s bloody wound, but Noel can hear Giles pushing her away and trying to get out of the house as quickly possible. The front door slams open and there is a sound of the car starting up and screeching away.
And then there is silence.
Moments later, Noel hears his mum’s soft steps coming up the stairs and her caressing voice as she tells Hannah to wait.
"Noel?" Susan calls, "Are you there?"
Noel sees his mum appear slowly at the top of the stairs and runs to meet her, his arms outstretched.
"Oh my god! What’s happened?"
"It’s all over mum.. it’s all over."
While Susan tends to her son’s bleeding hands, Noel tells her what he had hoped he would never have to. He shows her the note from Ruth and she breaks down, weeping uncontrollably, crying out through sobs: "I didn’t know, I didn’t know."
Noel kisses his mum over and over and says in a caring voice he never thought he had, "This isn’t your fault mum. Don‘t blame yourself."
"But I can’t help it Noel," she says, wiping her reddened eyes. "I should’ve known.. he hasn’t been near me for years. No matter what I did for him, no matter what I tried, he wasn’t interested in me. I should‘ve known."
Susan casts her mind back to the times she had tried to rekindle their non-existent sex life; she had agreed to wait for him at home in nothing but a garter and dance in front of their bedroom window so he could pretend to be a peeping Tom outside and then break in dressed as a sex-mad burglar.. he never made it past a wank in the garden; they also had arranged to meet late at night in the park dressed only in their coats and shoes, so that they could make passionate love in the outdoors.. she walked around for hours only to find later that he had stayed home the whole time; finally, Susan had sent naked pictures of herself to Fiesta magazine, hoping that the thought of other men ogling her most private areas would stimulate his inert member into life.. but no, nothing worked and now it all made sense.
"What do we do now mum?"
"Well first of all I will clean up these cuts, and then I will take every piece of shit that belongs to him and throw it in the garden."
"I’ll help."
"I’m proud of you love," Susan says and then begins crying again, "but my poor Ruth, how will she ever forgive me."
"I swear mum, I will find her.. whatever it takes. She can come home now, can’t she?"
"She should never have gone. I just wish I could…. oh why didn’t she tell me."
"What about the police mum?" Noel asks again, wincing as his mum dabs TCP on his open cuts.
Susan thinks about the implications of calling the police. She feels the humiliation of being labelled a bad mother by her son and daughter already, and couldn’t bear that stigma being spread across the entire estate. She also feels in some way that bringing this out in the open may cause her missing daughter to hide herself away even further, out of shame.
"He can’t be allowed to do this again," Noel continues.
Susan nods, "We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Now let’s look at your cut feet."
The next day Susan and Noel, with a little help from Hannah, are throwing all of Giles’ belongings into black bin bags. There is a knock at the door and Susan’s heart explodes in her chest, as she fears she may have to face her husband.
As calmly as possible, so as not to disturb Hannah unduly, she walks to the door. Preparing herself Susan opens the door and feels her stomach sink into her feet when she is met by the sight of a police constable.
"Mrs Turner?" the policeman asks.
Susan nods, looking confused.
"I’m sorry to have to tell you that your husband was found dead this morning near Quainton."
Susan cries out and has to steady herself against the doorframe, "Oh my god."
Yesterday evening, Giles had driven around and around in circles, for miles and miles around the villages surrounding their estate, and eventually found himself, as if planned, at a local railway museum, a place they had visited often as a family, but only ever enjoyed by one. He had parked on a quiet country road in a gateway to a field, attached a length of garden hose to the exhaust of his Princess, fed the tube into a small crack at the top of the backseat window, sat in the driver’s seat and then turned on the engine for the last time. He was found by a farmer in the early hours trying to gain access to his field.
"Good riddance," Noel spits out later that afternoon, as he throws the last bag of Giles’ belongings into the garden. "I’m not sorry, one little bit."
Susan remains quiet. In some way she agrees, but then again she feels cheated; she had wanted to mutilate the man who had shattered her family’s lives—wanted to feel the satisfaction of his bollocks cracking underneath her boots, craved the hurt that has been felt by her loved ones be passed back to him tenfold.. but that can never happen now, because that bastard, that coward chose to take control of his life before it was denied him altogether. Even his last act was a final two fingers up to his family.
"Well," she says at last, "at least he can’t hurt anyone anymore."
"Yeah."
"We’ve got each other and from today, we will never mention that bastard’s name again.. agreed?"
"Agreed," Noel says holding onto his mum and feeling like a boy again.
"But we’ve got to look out for Hannah," Susan says, "this will be hardest on her."
Noel nods and then thinks for a moment. "I wish I knew where Ruth had gone."
"I know, I know. We’ll find her, you’ll see."
Susan strokes her son’s head, wishing that when she knew her marriage was dead, she had had the strength to leave Giles. Although she herself was lonely and unhappy, she had assumed that giving the kids a stable home was more important than her own happiness. She shakes her head as a long list of "if only’s" unravels before her eyes.
Noel wakes her from her distant thoughts by saying, "You know I think I need to see Robert.. I really need to apologise to him."
"I think you’re right.. at a time like this, you really need friends."
Noel kisses his mum and then leaves the room. He stops and pops his head back around the door, "You’ll be okay, yeah?"
"Yeah, I‘ll be okay."






THE END.



Touching Wood
A Woman’s Complete Guide
to the Kid Inside Their Man
Part One
Stories for boys
by
alan neilson
To be continued in
Part Two - "Touching Ground"
and Part Three - "Touched"


alanneilson@blueyonder.co.uk
An all Baskets and only One Egg Production - © Copyright 2006