When Mr. Dog Bites (20 page)

“That smelly wee black cunt you know,” Fritz said.

“I don’t know any black cunts,” I said, nodding my head and missing Mom, afraid that my eyelids were going to be glued down and terrified that I wouldn’t be able to see again, and I wanted to see as much as I could before you-know-what happened.

“The Paki cunt,” Gaz said.

“Who? Amir?” I said.

“That’s the one,” Fritz said.

“What sort of coon name is that anyway?” Gaz butted in.

“I think it’s Pakistani,” I said, and they laughed.

“It’s almost as bad as Dildo,” Gaz said.

“It’s a coon name, that’s what it is,” Fritz said.

“The name Amir actually means ‘
commander
.’” Amir had told everyone that one day in history when we were doing a class on what our names meant. Mine meant “
great sea
,” but I wasn’t going to tell Fritz or Gaz this.

“Who gives a fuck what his name means, arse-bandit,” Fritz said.

“Can he command this?” Gaz said, putting his hand on his willy, rubbing and tugging at it really hard. He made a stupid Cabbage Patch Doll face, all screwed up and ugly. “Can he?”

I thought this was a serious question, so I answered it.

“Erm, I don’t know.” Which I didn’t.

“Does he shag his sister?” Fritz said.

“What?” I also scrunched up my face, because this was a mega weird question to ask about someone. This was one of those deep-stress moments I get myself into at times. I should have been doing something like counting or brain-gym exercises or curling up in womb-baby position to relieve the pressure or fiddling with Green. There was no chance of me taking Green out—these two eejits would take it off me, lob it into the bushes, and that would be the end of poor wee Green. Mind-bogglingly I wasn’t having any tics, screaming fits, or grunting noises. Strange, because my insides were like the percussion section of our school orchestra. I was in Normal Town.

“I heard that Pakis shag their sisters and cousins,” Fritz added.

“Erm .
.
. I don’t think they do.” This was all new to me, a real eye-opener.

“Why do you hang around with that Paki?” Fritz said.

“Yeah, answer that one, Dildo,” Gaz added.

“Because he’s my best bud,” I said, which made the two lads howl with laughter as if I were a comedian with some top-notch belly-shaker jokes.

“Best bud! Would you listen to that shite—what age are you?” Gaz said.

“Well, he is,” I said.

“He’s a sister-shagging Paki, that’s what he is, and you shouldn’t be seen dead with him, Dildo,” Fritz said.

“Does he go to your spazzie school?” Gaz asked.

“It’s not a spazzie school,” I said, but I knew deep down that it was.

“It’s for mental twats who can’t wipe their own arses and who piss themselves,” Fritz said.

Both of the lads laughed again.

I just stood there like a pure saddo spaz, saying nothing. It was hard to argue against what they were saying about Drumhill, because every day pupils do have to get their arses wiped. I was not one of those. Nor was Amir.

“Do you piss yourself, Dildo?” Gaz asked.

“No.”

“Sure?” he asked again.

“Do you and your Paki friend ever piss on his sister?” Fritz asked.

“No. I’d use the toilet if I wanted to pee,” I said, because I certainly wouldn’t pee on anyone, no matter how desperate I was for a wazz. I’d tie a knot in it before I’d pee on someone else.

Again they LOLed out loud at my answer. These guys were a right pair of sniggering hyena eejits. They wouldn’t last a minute at Drumhill.

“Have you ever seen a girl pissing?” Gaz asked.

My eyes shot up to the sky. At the same time my mind went into super-overdrive mode, because the thing was, at school I’d seen millions of girls peeing. For example, when I was in the second year I saw Marta Lenton squat down behind her desk, lift up her skirt, and pee all over the floor just because the teacher was going to ask her to read out loud. The fear got the better of her bladder. Then one time I saw Suzanne Donnelly rooted to a spot on the floor with pee gushing down her legs, leaving a puddle at her feet—it was in home economics class—just because she was scared of the carrots we were using. So in actual fact I could have answered yes to the question, but I didn’t.

“No.”

Fritz asked yet another confusing question. “Have you ever seen a woman’s fanny?”

Now, if we were in America, I could have answered a crystal-clear yes, ’cause “
fanny”
means “
bum”
across the pond, and one time I got a swatch of Claire McManus’s bum when she mooned me and Amir from the school bus for calling her a fat lezzie sock. But we weren’t in America.

“No.”

“Have you ever sniffed a woman’s fanny?” Gaz said, which was a really silly question to ask, because if I hadn’t even seen one, how could I have sniffed one? Unless I did it blindfolded. These park guys made no sense to me at all.

“Why would I want to do that?” I said.

“’Cause it’s good,” Gaz said, and stuck out his tongue and sort of pretended to make a snake noise, or be a snake; I couldn’t tell the difference. Confused or what! I didn’t know what snakes and women’s fannies had in common. The whole conversation was becoming Billy Bonkers, and I missed Mom. I had lots to learn about stuff, that was for sure. Maybe this was what adults and teachers meant when they talked about “intellectual conversations.” As much as I would have loved to stay and chat with the guys, time was getting on, and I knew for defo Mom would be at her wits’ end searching for me, and that was not a place I liked her to be in.

“I need to go,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” Fritz said, his face changing from Laughing Boy to Glue Master expression.

“You’ll go when we tell you to go, Dildo,” Gaz said.

Fritz nodded in agreement. “We’ve got tons to talk about yet, Dildo,” he said.

“Like what?” I said, thinking that we had done all the talking for the day. And some interesting chat it had been too.

“Are you a fag?” Gaz said.

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

More laughter.

“Do you and your Paki ‘best bud’ ever ride each other?” Fritz said.

“What?” I said.

“Do you shag each other?”

Then it was my turn to laugh. “That’s a Billy Bonkers question,” I said.

“A what?” Gaz said.

“A silly question,” I said, because Gaz and Fritz were obviously the thickos of the week.

“Do you suck each other’s cock?” Fritz said.

“No, why would we?” I said.

“’Cause you’re a couple of bare-arse boxers,” Gaz said.

“We don’t box,” I said.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s like talking to a pure and utter mong, Gaz.”

“He
is
a mong,” Gaz said.

More laughter. Louder.

“Honestly, guys, I need to go, but if you’re here tomorrow or the day after we can chat some more, if you like.” That was a total pork pie. There was No Way, José and his sister that I was coming back to meet these two spanners. What we spoke about was good for bed-thinking time but nothing else beyond that. Two things put me off: their hair and the glue. I wasn’t too chuffed with what they were saying about Amir and his family either, but the only reason I kept schtum was so my eyelids remained unglued.

“Fuck that!” Fritz said.

“We can talk now, Dildo,” Gaz said.

“Unless you don’t like us and want to run away,” Fritz said.

“No, it’s just .
.
.”

“I don’t think Dildo here likes us, Fritz.”

“I think you might be right, Gaz.”

“I’m offended by that, Fritz. The cheeky little mong twat doesn’t like us,” Gaz said, taking a step closer to me.

“You cheeky mong twat.”

“I’m not being a cheeky mong twat,” I said.

“He’s not being a cheeky mong twat, Fritz.”

“I bet he’s a
dirty
cheeky mong twat, Gaz.”

“I’m not,” I pleaded.

“I bet he’s a
filthy
little fucker, Gaz.”

Gaz came much closer so that I could smell his breath; it was so much worse than Amir’s, any day of the week. I think Gaz had definitely been drinking tonic wine and smoking cheap-arse hash. Death breath! I pulled back from him a bit.

“I’m not filthy. I shower every day,” I said. These guys were blind as buttons, as anyone could have seen that they were much filthier than I was.

“This bell end’s hilarious, Gaz.”

“Fucking riot,” Gaz said. Then he backed off a touch.

“Tell us something, Dildo,” Fritz said.

“What?”

“Can you come yet?” Fritz said, waggling his cupped hand fast as anything in front of his own willy.

I didn’t answer.

“Are you a mad mong hand-jiver?”

“Yeah, do you shoot your load all over your stomach every night, Dildo?”

“No,” I said, and stared at the ground. I knew 110 percent what they were on about, but I was embarrassed to talk about things like this with strangers; even with Amir it would have been jeepers creepers to talk about stuff like this. I’d never tried to do what they were going on about. If Mom caught me doing something like that, she’d probably go to hell and back. No one would want that to happen in the house.

“I bet Dildo here licks his own chipmunk, Fritz,” Gaz said, giggling.

“Do you lick your own chipmunk, Dildo?”

“In the name of the Wee Man! Why would anyone want to do that?” That’s, like, the yuckiest thing on the planet; even thinking about it gave me the dry boak. These guys were beyond eejits. Licking animals. Madness.

“I bet when it scuds you on the face you lick it all off,” Gaz said.

The numpties were in hysterics again.
That’s the effect of the cheap-arse hash
, I thought.

“Yuck!” This was all I said, because that was the word I felt like when I thought about what Gaz had said.

“Have you had your hole yet, Dildo?” Fritz asked.

“Yeah, have you rode anyone yet?” Gaz joined in.

“I’m not telling.” I could have told them of my intention to do it with Michelle Malloy, but I didn’t want to drag her name into the dirt, and the fact that we hadn’t done the deed yet meant that I couldn’t answer their question with a big fat yes. Maybe if I had said yes, they’d have put their arms around my shoulders and fed me some of their tonic wine and cheap-arse hash.

“Come on, who have you pumped, Dildo?” Gaz said.

“Yeah, who got the mad mong boaby?”

“Someone at school?” Gaz asked.

“You shagged another spazzie?” Fritz said.

“That’s pure mad as, man,” Gaz screamed.

“Big spazzie orgy,” said Fritz.

“Look, I have to get home
asap,
as Mom has my dinner on,” I said.

“Listen to him, Gaz. Fucking mommy’s boy.”

“Bet he shags his mom as well.”

“Yeah, is that it, Dildo? Do you shag your mom?” Fritz said.

Double wow!

This was what Mr. McGrain at school called a preposterous question.

“It’s against the law to do that,” I said, which sent the plebs into convulsions. Either I was the funniest guy in our scheme or these saps would cackle at a pair of knickers dangling on a washing line.

“Maybe his balls are too baldy to ride anyone, is that it?” Fritz said.

“Yeah, have you any pubes, Dildo?” Gaz asked.

“Why do you want to know that?” I said. Then it dawned on me that these morons could be a couple of sausage jockeys, especially if they really wanted to know about the hair around my willy and if I played the hand-jiving game in my spare time.

“We’re doing a survey for school,” Gaz said.

“Yeah, so show us your pubes,” Fritz agreed.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Show us your pubes now, Dildo.” Gaz’s voice had changed from being full of laughs and giggles to a voice that wanted to knock ten lumps of shite out of me. My evil radar was alerted.

“No, I don’t want to show you,” I said.

“Get them out now, Dildo, or else this glue’s going on your fucking eyelids.” Fritz’s voice was now the same as Gaz’s. The cheap-arse hash had obviously worn off, and their laughter had evaporated like salt water does in science class. Dad was 120 percent right about the hash.

“Yeah, and then we’ll glue your hands to the goalposts so you’ll never fucking escape,” Gaz said.

“And no one will find you,” Fritz said.

“And you’ll fucking die right there on the goal line,” Gaz added.

“Like the fucking mongo boy you are.” They were like a bad double act. Cannon and Ball, or Little and Large, who were on
UK Gold
all the time, but I didn’t think they were as funny as all those people in the audience thought they were, who went bananas over their rotten jokes.