Skippy Dies (55 page)

Pock, pock, pock: if ping-pong’s your game, Friday night in the Junior Rec Room is where the action’s at its hottest. The
table tocks like a clock gone crazy, as reigning champion Odysseas Antopopopolous, in spite of a badly bitten ankle, continues
to vanquish all comers.

The weekend exodus of boarders has long since trickled to a halt; of the remnants, some rush in and out of dorm rooms, spraying
aftershave haphazardly and hustling each other out into the evening; others have found alternative means of entertainment.

‘Hey, Geoff, here’s you this morning, brushing your teeth.’

‘Hey, look, there I am!’

‘Hey, Victor, here’s Barton Trelawney punching you in the head, remember?’

‘Oh yeah!’

Mario, perched on a bench, is going through the video library on his phone. ‘Geoff, here you are again, taking stuff out of
your locker. Hey, Dennis, here’s you telling me to stop filming you.’

‘God damn it, don’t you have any porn on that thing?’

At that moment the door opens and Ruprecht enters the Rec Room, wearing school blazer, cufflinks and generally sparkling from
head to toe.

‘Hey, looking good, Blowjob!’

‘Where are you going, Ruprecht? Are you going to ask the nuns out on a date?’

Diffusing a redundant cloud of hairspray over his wiffle, Ruprecht explains the latest variation of Operation Falcon, viz.,
to go over disguised as himself, Ruprecht Van Doren, explain to the nuns that his science project, i.e. the pod, was thrown
over the wall by bullies, and ask if he can please have it back.

‘Not bad,’ Dennis considers. ‘That sounds like it could actually work.’

‘The danger is that they might have seen me escaping through the laundry window,’ Ruprecht says. ‘But it’s a chance I have
to take.’ He examines himself in the mirror over the water fountain.

‘Gaylords,’ Darren Boyce fires at the group on his way to the bathroom. As he’s passing out the door, Skippy passes in; that
is to say, suddenly he is there, in the doorway, though attended by such a palpable sense of
weight
it’s hard to imagine him actually moving anywhere, as if he’s subject to some private gravity that makes it impossible to
raise his limbs. In his hand, meaninglessly, is a frisbee.

‘Yo, Skipford, how was hamper-packing?’

‘Didn’t let Father Green bum you, did you?’

‘Hope you at least made him buy you dinner first!’

Skippy drags himself over the threshold without reply.

‘Hey, what’s with the frisbee, Skip?’

‘What happened to your date?’

‘She just called.’ Footsteps slooching zombie-like over the linoleum. ‘She can’t come out, she’s sick.’

‘Sick? What’s wrong with her?’

A shrug. ‘She’s got a cough.’

‘Crap.’

‘That sucks.’

‘Maybe you could go up to her house and see her?’

‘She didn’t sound like she wanted me to.’

‘Poh, girls never tell you the truth about what they want you to do,’ Mario states. ‘That is lesson number one in dealing
with girls. You should go up there right now and give her a big fat kiss.’

‘Even if you can’t kiss her, you could still feel her boobs?’ Victor Hero suggests.

‘Victor’s right,’ Mario concurs. ‘I’m no doctor, but I don’t think anybody ever got sick from feeling a girl’s boobs.’

‘You’re more likely to get sick from
not
feeling a girl’s boobs,’ Victor remarks, a little wistfully.

‘Though if you don’t feel like it,’ Geoff says, as Skippy does
not seem much cheered by this, ‘you could just stay here? Why don’t you put your name down for table tennis?’

‘Or join me in a game of Russian roulette,’ Dennis offers. ‘I play it with five bullets?’

‘Or hey –’ Mario opening his phone again ‘– check this out, Skip, it’s Geoff brushing his teeth, see? And there’s a seagull
on the rugby pitch… and the rugby pitch on its own, without the seagull… and here’s you coming through the door, remember
that?’

‘Mario, for God’s sake, that was three minutes ago, of course he remembers.’

‘Yes, but he has not seen the film of it.’

‘Benders,’ says Darren Boyce, on his way back from the bathroom.

Close your eyes and the sky is full of burning planes. The night is caused by _________, it grinds its teeth, it scrapes its
arms. The air feels like girl’s hair, the moon is an eye rolled back in its head, here is a nice lollipop for you bitch how
do you like that you thought you were so great now you better do what I tell you

That’s not what you say, Carl
. Janine’s voice in his head, explaining the Plan to him.
Say what I tell you to say
.
Then she’ll do whatever you want

the O like a pink mouth wide open clamped round you tight as a hand sweet and sore at the same time like cuts on your arm
the grey roof like craters of the moon the sky whooshing and wobbling like it’s just snorted a big line do you like that you
slut do you like the taste how many pills do you want for that

What do you want her to do? You want her to suck your dick?

Like this?

[ ]

Oh my god

The Plan works she meets him wrapped up in a hoodie and scarf I can’t let Daniel see me
It’s been so long tell her
It’s been so long
and then You look so beautiful
You look so beautiful she takes
your hand her finger traces over the cuts like a tongue Why do you do that Because I am bored you think but instead you say
Because I missed you she starts crying

Then tell her I love you

Like this

I love you

last night in Janine’s granny’s greenhouse Is this part of the Plan? a secret part he didn’t care

I love you, Carl, I love you

doggystyle in dirt and plants and empty mini-bottles of gin with Vaseline to stop it hurting It still hurts Well here is something
that will hurt more BAM that is what she deserves she puked gin into her granny’s plants afterwards you switched the heaters
off so the flowers will die

I love you, you say

Oh Carl!

The Plan works like a dream the zip comes down

I love you too

Ha ha you slut the taste in your mouth is your friend’s asshole you win the prize it’s on its way – you don’t say that

around you the night freezing melting

the gook’s slanty eyes at the end of a long black gun

the O so bright the whole sky burning with napalm

everything smells like petrol and with the sawn-off no with a flamethrower you take out the gook he falls through the door
with a burned-off face and then up to the school letting rip in the assembly bodies tumbling eyes crying blood everybody teachers
Nurse Barry Mark Lori Daniel no wait I have a special plan for you she doesn’t know shooting her in the face with the
BIGGEST
GUN
IN
THE
WORLD
–

mmmf Lori’s head pops up from between your legs making a choking noise and she twists about reaching around for her bag dribbling
globs of jizz onto your jeans that are Diesel she has a Kleenex in her hand is she just going to spit it out? your left hand
zips out and grabs her jaw she wriggles about going mmmf
mmmf till finally you hear the gulps and you see her throat go up and down and release her back into the seat to wipe her
eyes, sobbing, why did you do that?

Your head so heavy and sleepy now

Why do you have to be such an asshole?

and then she sees the phone in your hand, and freezes, and her green red eyes go wide, What the fuck are you doing?

Nothing, you don’t even look at her

and suddenly like a wildcat she’s lunging over you and screaming at the top of her voice and scrabbling and scraping trying
to reach it even though it’s too late ha ha and you push her back and away shouting at her at the top of your voice shut up
bitch shut the fuck up ho

‘Hey, someone sent me a video-message!’ Mario exclaims, springing out of his seat. ‘Ha ha, up yours, Hoey, someone’s sent
me a video-message! I told you this phone wasn’t a waste of money!’

‘Who’s it from, Mario?’

‘ID withheld,’ Mario reads. ‘Whoever it is, though, he’s got the good stuff. Check this out.’ Four heads gather eagerly around
the phone, knocking together like clunky moons.

‘Oh-ho-ho! This is a bit more like it!’

‘What is it? I can’t see.’

‘Yeah, move over, Victor… holy shit, hey Skip, take a look at this.’

The picture is fuzzy and dark, but there at the centre, in a vortex of shadow, a pale, pixellated face may be seen attached
to an anonymous penis.

‘Ho, this bitch is really chugging it back.’

‘That’s my kind of woman,’ Geoff says approvingly.

‘Isn’t that your mom, Mario?’

‘Fuck you, Hoey.’

‘Fuck
you
, you can’t see anything properly on your stupid phone.’

‘Well, don’t look then, and the rest of us will enjoy this porn.’

‘She’s
hot
… like it’s hard to tell, but I’d say she’s hot.’

‘Shut up, he’s about to – here it comes… oh yes! Take it, bitch!’

The money shot, cheers mixed with disappointment: ‘Why didn’t he do it on her face?’ ‘Some of it went on her face.’ ‘Yeah,
but I’d totally do all of it on her face.’ ‘Oh sure, when you’re a hundred years old and you finally crack open your penny
jar and you go down to some skank on a street corner, is that it?’

‘Play it again, Mario.’ The crowd around the phone now swollen to take in everyone in the room, shouting encouragement as
the grainy face, no bigger than a fingernail, tentatively sets to work again.

‘Hey –’ someone – Lucas Rexroth – extends a finger ‘– what’s that there in the background?’

‘Where?’

‘There, right there in the corner, see? That ring thing?’

‘I don’t know, a sign or something?’

‘It looks sort of like…’

But here comes the messy denouement again, and the boys cheer like they’re at a Senior Cup match and Seabrook has just scored
a try.

It was eleven years ago tonight that Guido LaManche, Hawaiian-shirted pariah of Seabrook’s graduating class, came into Ed’s
Doughnut House and advanced his proposal.

‘They call it the “Bungee Jump”,’ he said. ‘They’ve been doing it in Australia for years.’

‘Why?’ Farley asked.

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Why would you want to throw yourself off a cliff with elastic tied around you?’

The Doughnut House had opened just a few weeks before; the lights made Guido’s olive skin shine, as he turned to Tom and his
entourage at the next table – Steve Reece, Paul Morgan, and a trio of soft-haired St Brigid’s girls who looked like they’d
just been taken out of their packaging – with a scoffing, palms-up gesture. ‘Because it’s exciting, that’s why. So that when
you’re a grey-haired old fart drooling into your soup, you’ll have at least one thing to remind you that you were alive. Seriously,
you’ve never felt a rush like this. It’s like sex to the power of a thousand – that’s a good thing, by the way,’ he glosses
for Farley’s table, winning a laugh from the jocks.

‘It sounds dangerous,’ one of the cashmere-clad girls said dubiously.

‘You’re damn right it’s dangerous. What’s more dangerous than jumping off a thousand-foot drop? But at the same time, it’s
one hundred per cent totally safe, because of the elastic rope and the harness, see? I’ve personally tested it out fifty times,
and it’s absolutely foolproof. Although perhaps it’s not for the ladies.’ He directed another sly, theatrical glance at where
Farley sits with Howard and Bill O’Malley. ‘Or all of the gents.’

Guido LaManche, though he’d failed every exam he ever sat, was a bona fide genius when it came to the psychology of the adolescent
male: even when you knew he was playing you, it was nearly impossible to resist. ‘Well, where is it, so?’ Farley said, bringing
his Coke down on the table with a thunk. ‘Why don’t you show it to us, instead of just sitting here talking about it?’

At this Guido became demure, folding his hands like a chaplain. ‘If anyone thinks he is ready for the ultimate challenge,
I will bring him to it personally right now. All I ask for in return is a small contribution towards expenses – say, twenty
pounds a head?’

‘Twenty
pounds
?’ someone spat incredulously. But Farley was already on his feet.

Howard grabbed his arm: ‘What are you doing?’

‘I want to see this thing,’ Farley replied.

‘Are you mad?’

‘It’s not like there’s anything else going on. We’re just going to sit here all night and, let’s face it, not talk to any
girls. Anyway, you guys don’t have to come.’ Turning away, he fished around in his pockets till he found a twenty-pound note.
‘I’m in,’ he said, slapping it into Guido’s palm

‘All right!’ Guido said. ‘At least there is one brave man here tonight.’

Tom, Steve Reece and the others looked at each other in consternation.

‘Don’t go
now
?’ a blonde voice pleaded. ‘It’s like the North
Pole
out there.’

But the shame of being out-faced by a nerd was too great; already coats were being put on, scarves wound around necks, and
the next thing Howard knew he was wedged into the back of Tom’s Audi with two of the blonde girls, cruising down the dual
carriageway after Guido’s moped.

In spite of his reservations, he couldn’t suppress a wave of excitement. Earlier in the week, Tom had scored four tries in
the Paraclete Cup match against St Stephen’s; Howard’s own father, who rarely showed interest in any aspect of the world not
preceded
by a pound sign, had come home raving about this ‘boy wonder’ everyone was talking about, and his prospects of ending Seabrook’s
five-year dry spell in the Cup Final next month. Even sitting half-asleep in a dingy classroom, Tom exuded prowess, vitality,
the sense that something was about to happen; he moved in broad, bold strokes, sweeping through the complications and dithering
that for most people constituted life. Howard thought of him as a kind of anti-Howard, a bolt of lightning to Howard’s ever-dissipating
fog. And now Howard was in his car!