The Glister (11 page)

on it, a card with colored writing, and a printed instruction book that told you how to take samples of your bowel movement. The steps were very clearly written out, so anybody could understand what had to be done, and the packet was addressed to me, not Dad, so somebody somewhere obviously thought I was at risk. I got a bit alarmed about that for a while, because it probably meant they knew something they weren't telling people. I didn't tell Dad, though, because I didn't want to upset him. I didn't do the test either. I was a bit curious, but when I read the instruction
SUGGESTIONS TO
CATCH YOUR SAMPLE ARE: FOLDED PIECES OF TOILET PAPER, YOUR HAND IN A SMALL PLASTIC BAG, OR ANY CLEAN DISPOSABLE CONTAINER,
I couldn t go on.

Now, though, I do wonder if maybe there's something in me. Lurking. Some chemical trace, some cancer. Because after I got that test kit through the post, I started to have all kinds of minor symptoms: sudden nosebleeds, numbness in my fingers, swollen knuckles, bleeding gums, gut pain. It was as if my body was just waiting for a suggestion of sickness and as soon as that suggestion came, the sickness was already there, waiting to happen.

I didn't tell Elspeth about all this, of course. She seems to think that we've all been affected one way or another, and we can't do anything about it. We don't all have the same diseases, but there's abnormal groupings, she says—statistically rare clusters of problems to do with the nervous system, or respiratory diseases, or cancer of the colon. Some of us are still healthy, but it's only a matter of time. She doesn't seem that put out, though. She talks about it very matter-of-fact, like she was talking about catching a cold. That's how she is about everything, I suppose. Nothing seems to bother her. But then, she's different from other people. She's healthy and she doesn't give a fuck about anything. She just wants to cram as much life as she can into the time she's got, and after that, it's no big deal one way or another. She's not sentimental, about that or anything. Which I miss sometimes, to be honest. She's so tough and matter-of-fact, I sometimes wonder if she has any feelings at all, besides being more or less permanently horny. Not that I have any complaints about that. It's just, I wish she would be softer, now and then.

Still, you have to take the gifts the world gives you. There's nothing worse, in people like us, than ingratitude.

For quite a while after Liam disappeared, Elspeth was the only friend I had. What with having to help look after Dad for so long, I got into the habit of keeping myself to myself, more or less. Besides, when you lose someone like Liam, you're a bit cautious about new acquaintances. You don't want to hitch up with some weakling and suffer all over again. A couple of times, though, I'd see some kids out by the plant, or on the landfill, and I'd be curious about them. The only one I knew was Jimmy van Doren, Elspeth's old boyfriend, and I only knew him in passing. As far as I knew, his little crew were the only kids who ever went out to the plant in a gang. The rest of the gang didn't look like much, but I was curious about Jimmy because he'd had sex with Elspeth. It's always difficult to imagine the girl you're fucking as being with somebody else, even if it is water under the bridge. It always seems like bad taste, like she couldn't wait for the best, and had to waste her time with second-raters till you came along.

The way I met Jimmy was this. We'd had a school assembly, and the Head, Mr. Swinton, had had a sudden rush of blood to the brain and gone apeshit about the book of Job, reading to us straight out of the Bible, the King James version no less, which is always a mistake with kids, because if ever there was a book just begging to get the piss taken out of it, it's the Bible. Especially the King James version. Old Swinton, he's going on about Job's dead kids, and his boils, and how God's just handed him over to the Devil to do what he likes with him, even though Job has always been a bit of a Holy Joe. It makes you wonder what kind of a prick God is, on His off days.

Anyhow, I get out of this crap and I'm walking along feeling a bit mystified, thinking maybe Mr. Swinton is having a midlife, when I spot Jimmy van Doren walking next to me, matching me step for step, his head down, a perfect reflection of me in my reflective state. I stop dead then and get ready for whatever's coming—maybe he wants a go at me because of Elspeth, though he's waited long enough—but he just keeps on walking for two or three paces before he turns and smiles at me. As he does, another boy materializes beside him, shorter, not as broad, but similar enough to Jimmy at first glance that they could be brothers. They aren't, as it happens, and when you look close, you can see that the similarities are pretty superficial. I ignore the little guy and look at Jimmy. He just smiles, though.

“Boy, that Job,” he says eventually, still smiling. As he speaks, I am aware of other kids too, standing off to either side of me. One I sort of know, the other I might have seen about the place. The one I know is a gangly, pikey-looking girl who everybody calls Eddie. A lot of the kids round here know her, she's got the reputation of being a bit parboiled in the little gray cells. The other guy is fat, kinda ugly, not too bright-looking. Jimmy notes me scouting his little crew, though I've kept it all very minimal, but he just goes right on talking, friendly as ever. “Yeah,” he says, “God really fucked
that
guy over.”

“And then some,” the little guy next to him throws in. He's not smiling. He looks like he'd rather perform delicate surgery on my tender parts than stand here gassing.

“Worse than living round here,” Jimmy says.

“At least we haven't got Almighty fucking God to contend with,” the little guy says.

The other kids aren't talking, they're just spectators. You can tell, they have absolute faith in Jimmy. He speaks for them. They would probably do anything he told them to do, no matter how stupid. All this for a kid with a joke name. He's called Jimmy van Doren because his dad changed it by deed poll from O'Donnell. Patrick O'Donnell, part Irish, part pikey, but he's got his own little landscape-garden business, so he changes his name to Earl van Doren, for more class. He's got letterheads printed with this and he's sending them out all over the peninsula, hoping that somebody will see the “Earl” part and think he's some kind of minor aristocrat. Apparently, minor aristocrats do well in landscape-garden design, which is sad in all kinds of ways that I don't even want to think about. Though, doubtless, this is what gives Jimmy his edge. He'll scrap with anybody, he'll take it further than anybody, he's a born leader and you don't mess with him. We're kind of in Boy Named Sue territory here.

Now, he's looking at the little guy in awe and wonder, like he's amazed, not just by the wit and wisdom of his remarks, but by the fact that he can actually speak at all. He looks just long enough to let him know he's been duly noted, then he swings back. “Hey,” he says, mock-surprised, as if he's just noticed me standing there, “isn't your dad the guy who's got some disease nobody knows what it is?”

He fixes me with his eyes and stands there, grinning. I grin back. They're just playing, I know that. They don't bother me at all. It may be a crew of four, but it's only Jimmy really, and I think I could probably take him. So I just hunker in and wait to see what transpires. It goes through my mind that maybe I need the exercise. “Yeah,” I say. “He's the one.”

“Yeah.” He looks around at the others, like he's about to tell them some big important secret. “He goes to see the Head Doctor and the Head Doctor says: Cheer up. It's not every day somebody gets a disease named after him.”

The other kids laugh, all except the little guy. He snorts and gives Jimmy a disgusted look. “I suppose you think you made that up,” he says.

“Sure I did, Tone,” Jimmy says. The little guy's name is Tone, apparently. What an inappropriate fucking name for this short-arsed little twerp.

“No you fucking didn't,” Tone says. “I read that in my brother's joke book.”

“Your brother's got a book?”

“Yeah,” Tone says. “Sometimes, when he's good, I read it to him.”

They're going on like this, Jimmy and Tone, bouncing words back and forth at each other like Ping-Pong balls, Jimmy good-humored and forgiving, Tone trying to see how much he can get away with, and I'm just standing there, watching, listening, like the others. Then, suddenly, right in the middle of it all, they stop with the banter and the whole gang looks at me.

“Well,
Leonard,”
Jimmy says, “what do you think of that Job story, then?”

“It's just a story,” I say.

“Fuck, no,” Tone says, indignant. “That's the
Bible,
Leonard. That's God's honest fucking truth, that is.”

I put on a serious look. “Well,” I say, “if it is, God's got a lot to answer for.”

“Yeah?”

I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “All those plagues. All that
smiting.”

Jimmy pretends to look impressed, kind of stopped in his tracks by the sheer weight of my knowledge. “You have to give it to him,” he says at last, turning to the others for confirmation, “this boy knows his Bible.”

Tone nods. “He sure does,” he says. “Tell us, Leonard. Have you read the Good Book, like, all the way through?”

I nod back, but I don't say anything. I look at Jimmy.

Tone looks at the others, then he turns back to me. “Jesus, Leonard,” he says. “Get a life, would ya?”

They all laugh, but they know it's all coming out pretty lame and I just give him a long look, like he was something I'd found floating in a toilet bowl. “Exactly my plan,” I say, giving him the stare, only light, pleasant, couldn't-give-a- fuck style. “Just as soon as I wipe the mud off my boots.” The gang laughs again. Tone glowers.

Jimmy comes over to me, puts his hand on my shoulder. “You're all right, Leonard,” he says, all Hollywood buddy movie. “You wanna be in our gang?”

I smile. “Not particularly,” I say.

Jimmy smiles madly, a zany Mel-Gibson-on-triple-vodkas smile. “OK, then,” he says. “Be seeing ya.”

With that, he turns and walks off in the direction of the West Side, the others loping dutifully after him—only the two hangers-on, Eddie and the fat kid, keep turning back and waving, as if it was all some parting-is-such-sweet-sorrow deal. Tone looks back too, but he's not waving. I think we might have some silly stuff to work through later, if I'm not careful. I don't really need that trivial kind of hassle at the moment; if there's any nonsense to be gone through, I'd rather just do it with Jimmy and get it over with. Still, it hasn't come to that. Not yet. And it's a wise man who knows when it's better to keep the peace. Always better to keep the peace, if you can manage it, I think. And when you can't, get in quick and hit hard. Dog-eat-dog and all that.

I don't tell Elspeth about my run-in with her ex—I'm assuming this is what the run-in is all about—so things just go on as per. We fuck, we talk, we make it clear we're not in love. I don't go out of my way to avoid Jimmy's gang, but I don't go looking for them either, so the next time I see them is about a week later out at the plant. Which isn't a surprise because, as I say, I'd seen them out there before, a couple of times. Still, it's always a disappointment, that kind of thing. It's much better if people stay where you left them, and don't turn up where they're not supposed to be. I'd rather it would stay as it was out at the plant: no gangs, just the odd solitary individual slipping away through the bushes and rubble when they realize they've got company, or passing by in silence, furtive and awkward, like sad animals. A few days after that first encounter, though, I find the whole crew on a patch of ground near the old waste-disposal unit, in one of the few places I thought was mine and mine alone. Like it's my secret, private garden, only there's pipes and rubble and pineapple weed instead of roses. They're all there, crouched around a fire, poking at something in the flames with sticks. I would prefer to work my way around them and move on, but Jimmy looks up and sees me, so I haven't got that option. I'm not about to slink off when I know he's clocked me, so I go over, all casual and not that friendly.

Jimmy gives me a big welcoming smile, then he turns to Tone. “Hey, Tone,” he says, “here's your mate Leonard.”