Best Boy - short story written on a course

Best Boy – a short story 

Nike Town never gets this exciting. The siren’s louder than the one at the unit. It’s like being in an action film. Towering Inferno or Apocalypse Now.

“Move swiftly but carefully to the nearest marked exit. May I remind you to pay particular care with the disabled.” That’s disablist isn’t it? If I was blind or deaf or only had one leg I’d be offended. Not about the leg, about the tannoy man. I’d probably go up to his tannoy room and smack him with my plastic foot, or stab him with my foldaway stick or turn my deaf aid up so it makes that screeching sound like chalk. I do the chalk thing in Miss Simpson’s class at the unit. Her veins come up on her neck. I’m going to put a knife through those veins one day. You think I won’t but I will. I’m just biding my time.

I can’t hear myself think for all the coughing: “It’s psychosomatic you idiots. You see smoke, your brain tells you to cough. You’re not really choking. See. He’s not coughing” There’s a man sat on the stairs next to the tennis shirts and the trainers. The smoke’s made his eyes water. He’s sitting in a pool of it. No. he’s pissed himself. “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen mate.” There’s a bloke in a suit telling me off now, trying to be my dad. My dad doesn’t exist, never has, so this freak is invisible to me. I’m going to nut him.

That was sweet. This is FUN. This is AWESOME. This is the best day of my LIFE. You know what would make this day even sweeter? If my mum burned in the fire. And I could watch her. She wouldn’t see me, I’d be disguised by the smoke, and when she was about to asphyxiate I’d shout out like a disembodied voice: ‘I love you mum, I love you. I don’t want you to die.’ And I’d do my crying voice and she’d feel really sorry for me and her last words would be ‘I love you Terry’ and then she’d go like in war films like Deer Hunter or Platoon, or something, when soldiers die and they can’t stand to leave their loved ones. It would be really funny ‘cause it would be the first time she’d ever said that to me. Sober. Drunk doesn’t count, that’s not real. This is though. This is really real.

I’m going to be an orphan. And I’m going to be a supidly rich orphan. I’m going to be the most materially encumbered orphan in Dagenham. I’m going to nick every game boy, every Beckham shirt, every effin Nike thing in this burning down empire. Mum keeps ringing my mobile.

The smokes black now, thick and black. I reckon no one’s left in here but me and my mum. She won’t leave ‘til she’s found me. It’s not love you understand. It’s guilt. She hates me. Look, look at these little round tattoos on my arms. Except they’re not tattoos are they? They’re one hundred and fifty seven little burn marks from one hundred and fifty seven Marlboro Lights. My arm is my mum’s ashtray. This fire is god’s revenge on all abusive mothers. I’m shouting this out through the smoke: “MY MUM SEXUALLY ABUSES MY ARM WITH HER LIGHTED CIGARETTES ON A DAILY BASIS. SHE SHOULD BE BURNED ALIVE” I added the “sexually” bit for dramatic effect. It worked. I’m being lifted off the ground by two Darth Vadar look-alikes. “Put me down. I deserve to burn in hell. I am the devil’s spawn. ”The Darth Vadar men press their Darth Vadar claws deeper into my arms and carry me out to the pavement.

It’s gone all quiet. Like the scene in Deer Hunter when they go hunting before the wedding. “Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry”. My mum’s squeezing me really hard. My ribs are busting. “Darling, Darling, Darling, Darling, Darling” Mum’s vocabulary’s shrunk. It’s not massive at the best of times – ‘Take these bottles back and get me some fags’, ‘Don’t spend the change or I’ll hit you’, ‘I wish you’d never been born’ ‘All you do is remind me of the day that bastard raped me’. That’s the sum total of it, and it’s worse when she’s pissed. You wouldn’t want to see those things written down.

And now she’s stroking my hair. And she’s saying I love you. And she’s not even dying of asphixiation. We’re both outside. We’ve got a blanket around us. The Darth Vadar men put it there. Her breath smells sweet. My ribs are fine. I’m not an orphan.

This is the best day of my life.