Geekhood (16 page)

FIFTEEN

Even running the last five minutes back to my house doesn’t help me get rid of the superhuman feeling that has flooded my system. But I don’t want to wear it like a badge; for the moment, this is my secret. Not that it’s going to become a major concern for the FBI or anything. It just feels that talking about it will somehow diminish it. There’s a warm glow in my stomach and I want to keep it that way.

But I’m also determined not to suffer any more of Tony’s insensitive cracks. I can still hear my IM chattering away in the back of my head, but I’m pushing it away, ignoring its self-conscious babble. I’m going to find a new voice and I’m going to start now – strike while the iron’s hot.

Mum’s in the kitchen, making a cup of the predictable.

“Tea?” she asks.

“Yeah, please. Where’s Tony?”

“He’s just nipped out. Be back in a bit.”

There’s a lull while Mum presses a teabag against the inside of the cup, getting the most for her money. In goes the milk and sugar, and then I’m presented with my tea and a twinkling smile.

“So. How’d it go?”

IM:
With a snivel and a kiss
.

Mum’s excitement is almost palpable and, ordinarily, I’d feel pressed into giving some immediate answer. But this time, I take a moment to consider how I want to play this. I don’t
have
to tell anyone anything; I can make my life what I want it to be.

“Yeah. It was cool. She’s a nice girl.”

“Good.” The subtext in that one word tells me that she wants more information. She tries a different tack. “And? Do you like her?”

I allow the silence that would usually make me so uncomfortable. Instead of looking for the answer that suits everyone else, I look for the answer that suits me.

“Yeah. She’s cool.”

Even the way Mum sips her tea is riddled with frustration; it’s all lemon-sucking lips and a tightening round the eyes. But I maintain my Zen-like composure. She’s got to let me grow up.

“And does she
like
you?”

My mind does a slow-motion action replay of the kiss and I purse my lips, as if in contemplation.

“We’ll see.”

Mum mock-glowers at me; I haven’t delivered the goods – but I’m not going to feel guilty about it. For the first time in my life, I’m starting to do things
my
way.

“I’m going upstairs,” I announce. “Stuff to do. When’s lunch?”

“We’ll see,” comes the wry answer, but we both laugh knowingly; there’s a game being played and we’re both playing by the rules. “Five minutes.”

IM:
And she just lost
.

In the hallway, I bump into Tony as he squeezes in through the front door.

“Aha!” he declares, pulling a cigarette out of his mouth. “The wanderer returns!”

With no IM to muddy the waters for me, I trust in my instincts. And it’s an interesting experience.

“I do live here, Tony. In case you hadn’t noticed.” My delivery is perfect; it’s not aggressive, just a clear statement of fact, delivered with a non-committal smile. I can virtually hear Tony’s certainty crack beneath his nervous chuckle.

“Yeah. So – how was Sarah?”

“She’s fine.”

“Great. You want to get her round for dinner one night?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

I leave him, wreathed in smoke and obviously confused, and walk calmly upstairs to my Lair.  

Dumping myself on the bed, I pull out Sarah’s book from my back pocket. It’s entitled
We Are All Our Souls
and has a picture of a feather and an egg on the front.

IM:
Puh-lease!

I make a conscious effort to ignore the cynical rantings of my underdeveloped psyche and give the pages a cursory flip: there are various chapter headings along the lines of “Allowing Yourself to Be You”, “The Higher Resonance of Intention” and “Awakening to Grace”.

IM:
Depends if Grace is worth waking up to…

“Shut up!”

Great – I’m talking to myself now. Out loud. I obviously need this book more than I thought.

But Mum’s got other ideas and I hear the Summons for Physical Nourishment. Once in a blue moon, Mum decides to get all creative in the kitchen and pulls out a recipe book she’d forgotten she owned. Today is that day. While the food’s always great – and today’s curry is no exception – it does mean that me and Tony are subject to a long description of what ingredients are used and how they work together, peppered with the intermittent question: “So, what do you think?” At this point, we both know that a simple “yeah, it’s great” isn’t enough and we have to qualify our approval. But, today, this suits my needs; I don’t really have to fully engage with Tony or discuss what’s going on in Archie World
^TM
. Between mouthfuls, I offer up my theories about the taste of fresh
herbs, go “
mmmm
” a lot, and then leave the table to continue my spiritual journey.

I go back to the book and rattle through the pages until I hit on the heading “Dreams and their Meanings”. There’s a list of subjects in alphabetical order and under the letter “G”, I find the word “Gargoyle”. A quick read reveals that, apparently, I’m suffering from “hidden and embarrassing fears over secrets you have not shared with anyone”. Page thirty-three of the Next catalogue springs to mind. Chugging through the list of dream topics, the word “Beard” catches my eye. It seems that dreaming of growing a beard signifies “growing spiritual awareness”.

Caught by a sudden flash of inspiration – or perhaps a message from what Sarah calls my Psychic Self – I charge to the bathroom mirror: there on my chin are a few straggly hairs, whilst my upper lip coyly displays something that could be mistaken for a shadow.

What if I grow a beard?

IM:
Please remain seated, everyone. Do not panic. We’ll let you know what the problem is as soon as we have identified it
.

My IM is trying to gain ground, but I’m already seeing a pattern; it kicks off in moments of self-doubt and uncertainty, feeding on my insecurity like a vampire.

“Shut UP!”

Using my mental Photoshop, I replace my teenage
tufts with a thick, blond beard – probably a bit pointy to highlight my rakish charm. It’ll make me look older. It’ll make me look more devilish, give me a certain edge. I’ll look more intelligent.

IM:
You’ll look like a gnome crawling out of a bear’s arse
.

And it’ll make me more attractive to Sarah. If she’s into all this spiritual stuff, then what could communicate my buying into it more than a lustrous piece of face furniture? A touch of the warrior, a touch of the wizard and a prime example of my spiritual development.

If I’m going to grow some proper facial hair, I’m going to need a shave.

IM:
What you need is a psychiatrist
.

But I’ve got no razors and no money with which to further my spiritual quest. I charge downstairs as casually as possible.

I breeze into the kitchen, my Tosser Tracker
^TM
on full power, sweeping the terrain for any indication of Tosserish activity. No signs of life; Tony’s either hunkering down in his study or disappeared off to his other favourite place in the world: the toilet. The length of time that man can spend in there beggars belief. With no danger of my plans being scuppered by his inane trumpeting, I mask my designs with an air of innocence and creep up behind Mum, giving her a hug.

“Oh, hello, love! What was that for?”

IM:
The dance begins
.

“Nothing. Just wanted to give you a hug. What time’s tea tonight?” It’s a poor attempt at a smoke screen, but it’s all I’ve got.

“Not for a while.” She cocks her head slightly; she knows me too well. “Why?”

“Just wondered. Have I got time to nip to the shop?”

“I should think so.” Another flash of her probe. “What d’you need?”

I could lie at this point and come up with something about pens or something to do with school, but she’d see through that;Mum knows that the only shop I’ve got any interest in is the Hovel. A better option is to tamper with the truth and hope that she doesn’t know too much about the effects of testosterone on teenage boys’ facial hair.

“My face is itching.” I back this up with a scratch to the chin and neck. “It started a few days ago. I think I need a shave.”

I can virtually see Mum’s brain weighing up this information with what she knows about young males. She fixes me with a stare that’s trying to search out a lie, but is obviously confused by the symptoms I’ve thrown at her.

“Let’s have a look.” My neck and chin undergo the sort of intense examination that only a mother can give. “Well … it
is
a bit red…”

IM:
She’s buckling…!

“Hmmm…”

IM:
…
buckling
…

“You might be right. D’you need some money?”

IM:
And down she comes! Bingo!

“Thanks, Mum.” I throw in another dig at the chin for good measure. “How much are razors?”

“Take a tenner. You’ll need some shaving foam.”

How did she know that? More to the point: why didn’t I know that? Shamelessly, I raid her purse and set off for the shop, the wind blowing through my childish whiskers for the last time.

Fast-forward a love-powered trot to the shop and I am gazing, slack-jawed, at rows of Male Grooming Products. I had never considered that buying razors could be so difficult. How am I supposed to know if I want disposables, triple blades, quadruple blades, aloe vera strips, swivel-headed or fixed? And then there’s the foam: moisturizing, protecting, razor-rash reducing; I only want to shave off my bumfluff so I can grow something a bit more butch! In the end, I go for the foam that has the coolest-looking logo and the razor with the most sharp bits.

IM:
What could possibly go wrong?

Ten minutes later, I’m back in front of the bathroom mirror and feeling a little nervous: I realize I’ve got no idea what to do. Getting the razor out of its packaging was hard enough – I suppose I could give Dad a shout and get some
hombre
to
hombre
advice, but I’m just not ready to talk to him at the moment. My chin hairs laugh at me from the mirror, daring me to cut them off. I wish there was someone I could talk to. A concerned knock at the door and my mum appears with all the timing of a genie.

“How’s it going?”

“It’s not at the moment. I don’t … really…”

“Hang on, I’ll get Tony.”

The “NO!” doesn’t even make it to the back of my throat before Mum has bellowed his name across the landing. There’s a moment of silence, followed by the muffled flush of the downstairs toilet and Tony lumbers upstairs and appears in the doorway.

“What’s up?”

“Can you give Archie a hand?” Mum might think I don’t notice the little elbow to the ribs she gives him, but I do.

“What? Oh, yeah … yeah … right … OK.”

As Tony manfully enters, Mum tactfully exits; she’s engineered the perfect bonding moment and, judging by the tension in the air, it’s one that neither Tony nor I are thankful for. In the absence of any spiritual
enlightenment, my EM takes over and plasters a loose impression of a smile on my face. My IM cheerfully comments from the back seat.

IM:
Tosser
.

And Tony lives up to my expectations.

“Oho! Shaving, eh? The Big Day! Right then, let’s get stuck in!”

“Thanks.”

He then lurches into some flannel about how the razor’s going to be my best friend, as long as I treat it with respect. Like a woman, apparently. A beautiful one. Like my mother. It’s a wonder my teeth don’t impact with the pressure I’m putting on them. Finally, we get to the point where it looks like we’re going to do something.

“OK, you want to fill the basin with hot water…”

I do so and am subject to another Wikipedia-style monologue about opening up my pores and getting my oils flowing. After an instructed splash of my face, it’s time to put foam in my palms and stick it on my face.

I look like Santa. With a black eye.

Tony’s reaction is to fall into a series of wheezing laughs that culminate in a long, rattling cough. Despite the protestations of his lungs, Tony continues to wheeze/laugh until there are tears in his eyes and he has to hang on to the basin for support. All I can do is stare back at my reflection, which seems to make him
laugh all the more.