Idolism (13 page)

Then somebody asked, “Where was God in Auschwitz? Surely people were praying in Auschwitz, so why didn’t God save any of them?” That question outraged the Jews in our class, both of them, and the whole discussion ended in a free-for-all during which some people kept acknowledging the supposed evidence for God’s existence while others took both man-made and God-made disasters as evidence for the non-existence of God, and some claimed that God was as real as he was mean and sadistic. And in the middle of all that Mrs Woollcott suddenly got mad at one student for biting his fingernails and spitting the clippings on the floor.

“It distracts me if people are sitting here doing their fingernails when they should be paying attention,” Mrs Woollcott said.

“But that’s just you,” Julian replied, “and at least you’re getting paid for it. Now you’ve distracted everyone in this classroom just because of somebody’s fingernails. I think you did that on purpose. I think you were looking for a reason to end the discussion about God because it was getting out of hand, and you didn’t know how to deal with it.”

“How dare you!” Mrs Woollcott shouted at Julian. “Who do you think you are?”

I had been sitting through all this for minutes with me hands in me pockets trying to suppress the urge to pee. On any other day I would have just raised me hand at a strategically favourable moment and asked if I was allowed to go to the toilet. But there weren’t any strategically favourable moments that day. It had been a heated discussion, and I was afraid that if I raised me hand, people would think I had something interesting to contribute and they would get mad at me if I said I needed to go pee. So I decided to just get up and leave. Nobody would notice.

Except Mrs Woollcott of course.

“Where on earth do you think
you
’re going?” she snapped at me.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I need to go to the loo.”

“And since when can anybody just get up and walk out of here without even having the decency to ask?”

At which point Julian said, “You’re doing it again! Every time a discussion becomes uncomfortable you just change the topic! What is wrong with you?!”

Needless to say that this rubbed Mrs Woollcott completely the wrong way, and while she started to throw a major hissy fit at Julian, I took the opportunity and slipped out of the door quietly and unnoticed.

I walked down the school corridor on me way to the boys’ room, me hands still in me pockets holding on to my dick. I was afraid I might not make it to the loo before I wet meself, so I hurried. And that’s when I saw her.

She came walking down the corridor towards me, long, black hair, brown eyes, 22 years old, and less tall but even more beautiful than on TV. Momoko Suzuki, the most famous, most popular presenter and entertainment reporter of T-Vox. Walking down the corridor. Of me school. Towards me. Smiling.

It was surreal, and I wondered if holding your pee in for too long could induce hallucinations. I stopped and I stared at her as she came walking towards me. I was sure she’d ignore me and walk right past me. Nobody ever takes notice of the dorky fat kid. Nobody famous and beautiful anyway. Why would Momoko Suzuki stop and take notice of a pimply, greasy-haired, overweight 17-year-old kid in a Marks & Spencer’s school uniform?

She stopped right in front of me, opened her lips to a perfect smile and said: “Herro.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. All I could do was stand there with me mouth wide open, probably drooling, and keeping me hands in me pockets holding onto me dick, squeezing it to avoid premature ejaculation.

“Excuse me,” she said with the most adorable Japanese accent. “I am look for school office?”

Somehow I finally managed to say something, but I’m afraid it wasn’t the most intelligent thing I’ve ever said.

“What?”

“School office?”

I loved how she pronounced the word school.
Skooru
. I loved how she pronounced everything. I loved
her
.

“Oh, the school office! Right. Down the corridor, staircase on the right. It’s on the third floor.”

I nodded me head into the direction of the staircase. From the look on her face I could tell that she thought it was weird that I would use me chin to point to the stairs and not me hands. But there was no way I could have taken me hands out of my pockets now. They were busy trying to keep things under control.

Momoko smiled again and said, “Sankyuu,” and I assumed it must have been
thank you
in Japanese. She continued walking down the corridor.

“You’re welcome!” I called after her, and she turned her head around as she kept walking to give me another one of her beautiful smiles. I thought maybe if I said something more to her, she’d turn around and smile at me again. So I said, “It has a sign on the door that says
School Office
!”

Sure enough, she turned her head again and smiled, and then she raised her hand and waved at me. It wasn’t the type of wave the Queen does when the drives around in a carriage, or the way somebody waves as their ship embarks on a cruise around the world. Her hand didn’t move at all when she waved at me, only her fingers did. It was a shy, cute, sexy wave, and before I even knew it, I took me right hand out of me pocket and finger-waved back at her as she turned around the corner and walked up the stairs. And that’s when me dick reminded me why I was in the corridor in the first place. I put me hand back into me pocket and ran for the boys room where I took a quick pee and then gave myself the bloody best wank
ever
.

TMI?

The Gospel According to Ginger – 4

Sometimes I really hate Tummy. Wait, did I say sometimes? Let me start over.

I really hate Tummy. Mostly because he’s such a boy. I hate boys. No wait, that makes me sound like a lesbian.

I don’t hate boys. I love boys, but let’s be fair, they can be bloody annoying. Boys sweat, belch, and fart in public, they’re loud and dirty, and their mouths reek of kebab. Boys laugh all the time, especially when there’s really nothing to laugh about. But they never cry, because they don’t take life seriously. All they ever want to do is play. Boys are every shop assistant’s worst nightmare, because they always want to try out everything without ever making their bloody mind up. Boys never take anything seriously, and they don’t even want you to understand them. Boys are immature by default. At the age of ten they should really be locked away, or sent to a remote island in the South Pacific, and not be readmitted to human civilization until they’ve grown a beard. A real beard; one that scratches, not one that merely tickles. Then again, I’ve read
Lord of the Flies
, so perhaps that remote island isn’t such a good idea after all.

Sometimes it’s really embarrassing to see what boys will do to impress a girl. It’s embarrassing
me
. It’s almost insulting, and it makes me wonder how much—or rather how little—they must think of girls if they make such fools of themselves in front of us.

Julie was an extraordinary boy, in the truest sense of the word extraordinary. He was something special, a very rare specimen. He didn’t like it when I called him Julie. He thought it sounded girly, and like all boys he didn’t like it when somebody questioned his manliness, even if it was just meant to be a cute nickname for a cute boy. Yes, I thought Julian was very cute. And he wasn’t like any of the other boys, although I bet he wished he was.

Julian didn’t talk a lot. Ever since I first met him, I never thought he didn’t speak because he didn’t have anything to say. I rather thought he didn’t have the time to speak because he was always being busy thinking. Julian liked thinking. I think it was his favourite pastime. I’m sure that if you had asked Julian what his favourite body part was, he’d have said it was his brain. Most boys would probably say it’s their penis. Then again, most of them seem to think with their penis so maybe that’s not even so different.

One of the things Julian loved to think about the most was who we as human beings were and how we got here. If that hadn’t been the case, then maybe this whole story never would have happened. Julian was in love with the theory of evolution. However, another one of Julian’s peculiarities was that if he loved someone or something, he didn’t necessarily spoil them and defend them against all and everything. Oh no, if Julian loved you, he would constantly challenge you to see if you were really worth it, if you really were what you seemed to be. And if you were not, then at least he didn’t waste any energy telling you that he loved you.

So yeah, Julian’s favourite pastime was thinking, and the only reason he accepted me as a friend was because I gave him food for thought. I think he liked that. I also think Julian was happy when somebody acknowledged and respected his intelligence. Except he’d never have said so to your face, which made him a real boy. Boys would rather share their biggest secrets with the whole world than with a close friend. Julian expressed himself through the things he wrote. He didn’t say things directly to you, but months later you’d suddenly find an allusion to something you have said in one of his song lyrics. I sometimes wondered if this was just a test because he wanted to find out how intelligent I was and whether or not I was smart enough to see through his metaphors. If I didn’t say anything, he might have thought I wasn’t smart enough to understand somebody like him. But if I did say something, I might have suddenly found myself discussing a topic I didn’t even want to discuss. And because Julian knew this, the real test was to see if I did one thing or the other. Julian could make people come to a decision. Often he didn’t even have any influence on the decision itself, only on the fact that a decision was made. Julian was a great catalyst.

As I said, Julian loved the theory of evolution, and he thought religion was a great way to challenge it. Julian may have been great at making people come to a decision, but he himself dreaded making up his mind. He just wanted to keep all his options for as long as possible. Most people probably thought Julian was just procrastinating, but to Julian it seemed the right thing to do. It gave him more time to think. The reason why there were so many people who didn’t use their brain properly and so few people like Julian, and I’m speaking from an evolutionary perspective here, is that we were a very young species, and for most of our existence thinking wasn’t really all that helpful for our survival at all. If you were walking across the savannah and you were attacked by a lion and you started thinking about all your options or even tried to talk things out with the lion, chances were that your genes wouldn’t make it to the next generation. If you didn’t think and just ran, however, your chances of survival were so much better. That’s natural selection for you right there. Evolution got us pretty far, but it probably made us lose our most intelligent peers along the way, which is why today most people think of someone like Julian as a freak. But he wasn’t a freak. He was just very special.

Michael was special too. He was one of the few people that deserved to be called a friend. But that wouldn’t have been the case if it hadn’t been for Julian. Julian’s friendship with Michael was what made Michael so special. It was a great gift that Julian could instruct and inspire people. Julian was the electricity to Michael’s light bulb. He had the power to make others shine. Without Julian, Michael probably would have been just another kid at school for me, and perhaps I never even would have let him get close to me. Without Julian, Michael would have found another best friend, one with whom he would have spent his days shouting at football matches and playing PlayStation. When I looked at Julian and Michael, I sometimes thought the only thing boys ever took seriously was friendship; friendship with people like themselves.

I hate boys. Boys are so selfish.

The boy I used to hate the most was Tummy. He was a real boy if there ever was one. Julian and Michael were real boys too, but at least they were special. Tummy was just ordinary. He was obnoxious, rude and loud, he never stopped eating, and he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world to turn around and fart in your direction. I had no idea what it was that made Julian and Michael accept Tummy as their friend. Maybe it was just loyalty because they’d known him since nursery school, and because one day they needed someone who could play the bass. Or maybe it was just pity because Tummy was a damn poor bastard. His family was very catholic. He had once been an altar boy at the local church. Not because he wanted to but because he had to be. He had an incredibly ditzy older sister, an alcoholic mother, and a dad who was a conservative politician. Nothing big, he was just some sort of secretary at our constituency, but it happened to be the constituency of the Education Secretary, and the mere fact that he had access to the government was enough for him to pretend that he was a part of it. As a politician, Tummy’s dad talked a lot of crap, a character trait he had bequeathed on his son who usually talked nothing but crap. A neutral and more benevolent observer might say that Tummy exaggerated, that he embellished the truth. I was neither benevolent nor neutral. To me Tummy just talked a lot of crap. I’m not calling him a liar or anything. You have to know that you’re lying in order to be called a liar. The sad thing about Tummy was that he actually believed all the nonsense he said. So when he told us that he had met Momoko Suzuki, the famous and beautiful Momoko Suzuki, in the school corridor, and that she had asked him about the way to the school office, I had no doubt that he thought he had talked to the real Momoko. However, I was pretty damn sure that he had actually just met some Vietnamese cleaning lady looking for a job.