Part 1-2
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If you were rugby-tackled in the middle of the night just as you were about to hurl yourself off the top of a tower-block, you probably wouldhinking about breakfast televisioers.(This would e as a shock to breakfast televisioers, of course, most of whom firmly believe that people think about nothing else but breakfast, lund dinner.) I was mature enough to rise above Jesss taunts, even though I felt like breaking her arms.
If we let go, are you going to behave? Yes.
So Maureen stood up, and with wearying predictability Jess scrambled for the ladder, and I had t her crashing down again.
Now what? said Maureen, as if I were a veteran of tless similar situations, and would therefore know the ropes.
I dont bloody know.
Why it didnt occur to any of us that a well-known suicide spot would be like Piccadilly Circus on New Years Eve. I have no idea, but at that point in the proceedings I had accepted the reality of our situation: we were in the process of turning a solemn and private moment into a farce with a cast of thousands.
And at that precise moment of acceptance, we three became four. There olite cough, and wheurned round to look, we saw a tall, good-looking, long-haired man, maybe ten years youhan me, holding a crash helmet under one arm and one of those big insulated bags iher.
Any of you guys order a pizza? he said.
MAUREEN I d never met an Ameri before, I dont think. I wasnt at all sure he was oher, until the others said something. You dont expect Ameris to be delivering pizzas, do you? Well, I dont, but perhaps Im just out of touch. I dont order pizzas very often, but every time I have, theyve been delivered by someone who doesnt speak English. Ameris dont deliver things, do they? Or serve you in shops, or take your money on the bus. I suppose they must do in America, but they dont here. Indians a Indians, lots of Australians in the hospital where they see Matty, but no Ameris. So we probably thought he was a bit mad at first. That was the only explanation for him. He looked a bit mad, with that hair. Ahought that wed ordered pizzas while we were standing on the roof of Toppers House.
How would we have ordered pizzas? Jess asked him. We were still sitting on her, so her voice sounded funny.
On a cell, he said.
Whats a cell? Jess asked.
OK, a mobile, whatever.
Fair play to him, we could have dohat.
Are you Ameri? Jess asked him.
Yeah.
What are you doing delivering pizzas? What are you guys doing sitting on her head? Theyre sitting on my head because this isnt a free try, Jess said.
You t do what you want to.
What did you wanna do? She didnt say anything.
She was going to jump, Martin said.
So were you! He ignored her.
You were all gonna jump? the pizza man asked us.
We didnt say anything.
The f—? he said.
The f—? said Jess. The f— what? Its an Ameri abbreviation, said Martin. "The f—?" means "What the f—?" In America, theyre so busy that they dont have time to say the "what".
Would you watch your language, please? I said to them. We werent all brought up in a pigsty.
The pizza man just sat down on the roof and shook his head. I thought he was feeling sorry for us, but later he told us it wasnt that at all.
OK, he said after a while. Let her go.
We didnt move.
Hey, you. You f— listening to me? Am I gonna have to e over and make you listeood up and walked towards us.
I think shes OK, now, Maureen, Martin said, as if he was deg to stand up of his own accord, and not because the Ameri man might punch him. He stood up, and I stood up, and Jess stood up and brushed herself down and swore a lot. Theared at Martin.
Youre that bloke, she said. The breakfast TV bloke. The one who slept with the fifteen-year-old. Martin Sharp. F—! Martin Sharp was sitting on my head. You old pervert.
Well, of course I didnt have a clue about any fifteen-year-old. I d藏书网ont look at that sort of neer, unless Im in the hairdressers, or someones left one on the bus.
You kidding me? said the pizza man. The guy who went to prison? I read about him.
Martin made a groaning noise. Does everyone in Ameriow, too? he said.
Sure, the pizza man said. I read about it in the New York Times.
Oh, God, said Martin, but you could tell he leased.
I was just kidding, said the pizza man. You used to present a breakfast TV show in England. No one in the US has ever heard of you. Get real.
Give us some pizza, then, said Jess. What flavours have you got? I dont know, said the pizza man.
Let me have a look, then, said Jess.
No, I mean… Theyre not my pizzas, you know? Oh, dont be such a pussy, said Jess. (Really. Thats what she said. I dont know why.) She leaned rabbed his bag and took out the pizza boxes. Then she opehe boxes and started poking the pizzas.
This ones pepperoni. I dont know what that is though. Vegetables.
Vegetarian, said the pizza man. Whatever, said Jess. Who wants what? I ask<dfn></dfn>ed fetarian. The pepperoni sounded like something that wouldnt agree with me.
JJ I told a couple people about that night, and the weird thing is that they get the suicide part, but they dohe pizza part. Most people get suicide, I guess; most people, even if its hidden deep down inside somewhere, remember a time in their lives whehought about whether they really wao wake up the day. Wanting to die seems like it might be a part of being alive. So anyway, I tell people the story of that New Years Eve, and none of them are like, Whaaaaat? You were gonna kill yourself? Its more, you know, Oh, OK, your band was fucked up, you were at the end of the lih your music, which was all you wao do your whole life, PLUS you broke up with yirl, who was the only reason you were in this fu try in the first place… Sure, I see why you were up there. But then like the very sed, they want to know what a guy like me was doing delivering fug pizzas.
OK, you dont know me, so youll have to take my word for it that Im not stupid. I read the fuck out of every book I get my hands on. I like Faulkner and Dis and Vo and Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas. Earlier that week - Christmas Day, to be precise - Id finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, which is a totally awesome novel. I was actually going to jump with a copy - not only because it would have been kinda cool, and wouldve added a little mystique to my death, but because it might have been a good way of getting more people to read it.
But the way things worked out, I didnt have any preparation time, and I left it at home. I have to say, though, that I wouldnt reend finishing it on Christmas Day, in like a cold-water bedsit, in a city where you dont really know anybody. It probably didnt help my general sense of well-being, if you know what I mean, because the ending is a real downer.
Anyway, the point is, people jump to the clusion that anyone driving around North London on a shitty little moped on New Years Eve for the minimum wage is clearly a loser, and almost certainly oagione short of the full Quattro. Well, OK, we are losers by definition, because delivering pizzas is a job for losers. But were not all dumb assholes. In fact, even with the Faulkner and Dis, I robably the dumbest out of all the guys at work, or at least the worst educated. We got Afri doctors, Albanian lawyers, Iraqi chemists… I was the only one who didnt have a college degree. (I dont uand how there isnt more pizza-related violen our society. Just imagine: youre like the top whatever in Zimbabwe, brain surgeon or whatever, and then you have to e to England because the fascist regime wants to nail your ass to a tree, and you end up being patro three in the m by some stoeeherfucker with the munchies… I mean, shouldnt you be legally entitled to break his fug jaw?) Anyway. Theres more than one way to be a loser. Theres sure more than one way of losing.
So I could say that I was delivering pizzas because England sucks, and, more specifically, English girls suck, and I couldnt work legit because Im not an English guy. Or an Italian guy, or a Spanish guy, or even like a fug Finnish guy or whatever. So I was doing the only work I could find; Ivan, the Lithuanian proprietor of Casa Luigi on Holloway Road, didnt care that I was from Chicago, not Helsinki. And another way of explaining it is to say that shit happens, and theres no spaall, too dark and airless and fug hopeless, for people to crawl into.
The trouble with my geion is that we all think were fug geniuses. Making something isnt good enough for us, aher is selling something, or teag something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. Its our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first tury. If Christina Aguilera or Britney or some Ameri Idol jerk be something, then why t I? Wheres mine, huh? OK, so my band, we put on the best live shows you could ever see in a bar, and we made two albums, which a lot of critid not many real people liked. But having talent is never enough to make us happy, is it? I mean, it should be, because a talent is a gift, and you should thank God for it, but I didnt. It just pissed me off because I wasnt being paid for it, and it did me on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Oscar Wilde once said that ones real life is often the life one does not lead. Well, fug right on, Oscar. My real life was full of headlining shows at Wembley and Madison Square Garden and platinum records, and Grammies, and that wasnt the life I was leading, which is maybe why it felt like I could throw it away. The life I was leading did me be, I dont know… be who I thought I was. It didnt eve me stand up properly. It felt like Id been walking down a tuhat was getting narrower and narrower, and darker and darker, and had started to ship water, and I was all hunched up, and there was a wall of ro front of me and the only tools I had were my fingernails. And maybe everyone feels that way, but thats no reason to stick with it. Anyway, that New Years Eve, Id gotten sick of it, finally. My fingernails were all worn away, and the tips of my fingers were shredded up. I couldnt dig any more. With the band gohe only room I had left for self-expression was in cheg out of my unreal life: I was going to fly off that fug roof like Superman. Except, of course, it didnt work out like that.
Some dead people, people who were too sensitive to live: Sylvia Plath, Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Ja Pollock, Primo Levi, Kurt Cobain, of course. Some alive people: Gee W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Osama Bin Laden. Put a cross o the people you might want to have a drink with, and then see whether theyre on the dead side or the alive side.
And, yeah, you could point out that I have stacked the deck, that there are a couple of people missing from my alive list who might fuck up my argument, a few poets and musis and so on. And you could also point out that Stalin and Hitler werent so great, and theyre no longer with us.
But indulge me anyway: you know what Im talking about. Sensitive people find it harder to stick around.
So it was real shog to discover that Maureen, Jess and Martin Sharp were about to take the Vi Van Gogh route out of this world. (And yeah, thank you, I know Vi didnt jump off the top of a North London apartment building.) A middle-aged woman who looked like someones ing lady, a shrieking adolest lunatid a talk-show host with an e face… It didnt add up. Suicide wasnt ied for people like this.
It was ied for people like Virginia Woolf and Nick Drake. And me.
Suicide was supposed to be cool.
New Years Eve was a night for seal losers. It was my own stupid fault. Of course thered be a low-rent crowd up there. I should have picked a classier date - like March th, when Virginia Woolf took her walk into the river, or Nick Drake November th. If anybody had been on the roof oher of those nights, the ces are they would have been like-minded souls, rather than hopeless fuck-ups who had somehow persuaded themselves that the end of a dar year is in any way signifit. It was just that when I got the order to deliver the pizzas to the squat in Toppers House, the opportunity seemed too good to turn down.
My plan was to wao the top, take a look around to get my bearings, go back down to deliver the pizzas and then Do It.
And suddenly there I was with three potential suicides mung the pizzas I was supposed to deliver and staring at me. They were apparently expeg some kind of Gettysburg address about why their damaged and pointless lives were worth living. It was ironic, really, seeing as I didnt give a fuck whether they jumped or not. I didnt know them from Adam, and none of them looked like they were going to add much to the sum total of human achievement.
So, I said. Great. Pizza. A small, good thing on a night like this.
Raymond Carver, as you probably know, but it was wasted on these guys.
Now what? said Jess.
We eat our pizza.
Then? Just give it half an hour, OK? Then well see where were at. I dont know where that came from. Why half an hour? And what was supposed to happen then?
Everyone needs a little time out. Looks to me like things were getting undignified up here. Thirty minutes? Is that agreed? One by ohey shrugged and then nodded, and we went back to chewing our pizzas in silehis was the first time I had tried one of Ivans. It was inedible, maybe even poisonous.
Im not fug sitting here for half an hour looking at your fug miserable faces, said Jess.
Thats what youve just this minute agreed to do, Martin reminded her.
So what? Whats the point of agreeing to do something and then not doing it? No point. Jess arently untroubled by the cession.
sistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, I said. Wilde again.
I could.
Jess glared at me.
Hes being o you, said Martin.
Theres no point in anything, though, is there? Jess said. Thats why were up here.
See, now this retty iing philosophical argument. Jess was saying that as long as we were on the rooftop, we were all anarchists. No agreements were binding, no rules applied. We could rape and murder each other and no one would pay any attention.
To live outside the law you must be ho, I said.
What the fug hell does that mean? said Jess.
You know, Ive never really known what the fuck it means, to tell you the truth. Bob Dylan said it, not me, and Id always thought it sounded good. But this was the first situation Id ever been in where I was able to put the idea to the test, and I could see that it didnt work. We were living outside the law, and we could lie through our teeth any time we wanted, and I wasnt sure why we shouldnt.
Nothing, I said.
Shut up, then, Yankee boy.
And I did. There were approximately twe minutes of our time out remaining.
<strong>JESS</strong>
A long time ago, when I was eight or nine, I saw this programme on telly about the history of the Beatles. Jen liked the Beatles, so she was the one who made me watch it, but I didnt mind. (I probably told her I did mind, though. I probably made a fuss and pissed her off.) Anyway, when Ringo joined, you sort of felt this little shiver, because that was it, then, that was the four of them, and they were ready to go off ahe most famous group in history. Well, thats how I felt when JJ turned up on the roof with his pizzas. I know youll think, Oh, shes just saying that because it sounds good, but Im not. I knew, holy. It helped that he looked like a rock star, with his hair and his leather jacket and all that, but my feeling wasnt anything to do with music; I just mean that I could tell we needed JJ, and so when he appeared it felt right. He wasnt Ringo, though. He was more like Paul. Maureen was Ringo, except she wasnt very funny. I was Gee, except I wasnt shy, or spiritual. Martin was John, except he wasnt talented or cool. Thinking about it, maybe we were more like anroup with four people in it.
Anyway, it just felt like something might happen, something iing, and so I couldnt uand ere just sitting there eating pizza slices. So I was like, Maybe we should talk, and Martin goes, What, share our pain? And then he made a face, like Id said something stupid, so I called him a wanker, and then Maureen tutted and asked me whether I said things like that at home (which I do), so I called her a bag lady, and Martin called me a stupid, mean little girl, so I spat at him, which I shouldnt have done and which also by the way I dont do anywhere near as muowadays, and so he made out like he was going to throttle me, and so JJ jumped iween us, which was just as well for Martin, because I dont think he would have hit me, whereas I most definitely would have hit and bitten and scratched him. And after that little fluffle of activity we sat there puffing and blowing and hating each other for a bit.
And then when we were all calming down, JJ said something like, Im not sure what harm would be done by sharing our experiences, except he said it more Ameri even than that. And Martin was like, Well, whos ied in your experiences? Your experiences are delivering pizzas.
And JJ goes, Well, your experiehen, not mine. But it was too late, and I could tell from what hed said about sharing our experiehat he here for the same reasons we were. So I went, You came up here to jump, didnt you? And he didnt say anything, and Martin and Maureen looked at him. And Martin just goes, Were you going to jump with the pizzas? Because someone ordered those. Even though Martin was joking, it was like JJs professional pride had beeed, because he told us that he was only here on a recce, and he was going downstairs to deliver before ing back up again. And I said, Well, weve eaten them now. And Martin goes, Gosh, you didnt seem like the jumping type, and JJ said, If you guys are the jumping type then I t say Im sorry. There was, as you tell, a lot of, like, badness in the air.
So I tried again. Oh, go oalk, I said. No need for pain-sharing.
Just, you know, our names and why were up here. Because it might be iing. We might learn something. We might see a way out, kind of thing. And I have to admit I had a sort of plan. My plan was that theyd help me find Chas, and Chas and I would get back together, and Id feel better.
But they made me wait, because they wanted Maureen to go first.
<strong>MAUREEN</strong>
I think they picked me because I hadnt really said anything, and I hadnt rubbed anyone up the wrong way yet. And also, maybe, because I was more mysterious thahers. Martin everyone seemed to know about from the neers. And Jess, God love her… Wed only known her for half an hour, but you could tell that this was a girl who had problems. My own feeling about JJ, without knowing anything about him, was that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke Ameri. A lot of Ameris are gay people, arent they? I know they didnt i gayness, because they say that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it bato fashion. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: it disappeared in aimes, and then they brought it ba the tweh tury. Anyway, I didnt know anything about gays, so I just presumed they were all unhappy and wao kill themselves. But me… You couldnt really tell anything about me from looking at me, so I think they were curious.
I didnt mind talking, because I knew I dido say very much.
None of these people would have wanted my life. I doubted whether theyd uand how Id put up with it for as long as I had. Its always the toilet bit that upsets people. Whenever Ive had to moan before - when I need another prescription for my anti-depressants, for example - I always mentiooilet bit, the ing up that needs doing most days. Its funny, because its the bit Ive got used to. I t get used to the idea that my life is finished, pointless, too hard, pletely without hope or colour; but the mopping up doesnt really worry me any more. Thats always what gets the doctor reag for his pen, though.
Oh, yeah, Jess said when Id fihats a no-brainer. Dont ge your mind. Youd only regret it.
Some people cope, said Martin.
Who? said Jess.
We had a woman on the show whose husband had been in a a for twenty-five years.
And that was her reward, was it? Going on a breakfast TV show? No. Im just saying.
What are you just saying? Im just saying it be done.
Youre not saying why, though, are you? Maybe she loved him.
They spoke quickly, Martin and Jess and JJ. Like people in a soap opera, bang bang bang. Like people who know what to say. I could never have spoken that quickly, not then, anyway; it made me realize that Id hardly spoken at all for twenty-odd years. And the person I spoke to most couldnt speak back.
What was there to love? Jess was saying. He was a vegetable. Not even an awake vegetable. A vegetable in a a.
He wouldnt be a vegetable if he wasnt in a a, would he? said Martin.
I love my son, I said. I didnt want them to think I didnt.
Yes, said Martin. Of course you do. We dido imply otherwise.
Do you want us to kill him for you? said Jess. Ill go dowonight if you want. Before I kill myself. I dont mind. No skin off my nose.
And its not like hes got much to live for, is it? If he could speak, hed probably thank me for it, poor sod.
My eyes filled with tears, and JJ noticed.
What are you, a f— idiot? he said to Jess. Look what youve done.
So-rry, said Jess. Just an idea.
But that wasnt why I was g. I was g because all I wanted in the world, the only thing that would make me want to live, was for Matty to die. And knowing why I was g just made me cry more.
MARTIN Everyone bloody knew everything about me, so I didhe point of this lark, and I told them that.
Oh, e on, man, said JJ, in his irritating Ameri way. It doesnt take long, I find, to be irritated by Yanks. I know theyre our friends and everything, and they respect success over there, uhe ungrateful natives of this bloody chippy dump, but all that cool-daddio stuff gets on my wick. I mean, you should have seen him. Youd have thought he was on the roof to promote his latest movie. You certainly wouldnt think hed been puttering around Archway delivering pizzas.
We just want to hear your side of it, said Jess.
There isnt a "my side". I was a bloody idiot and Im paying the price.
So you dont want to defend yourself? Because youre among friends here, said JJ.
She just spat at me, I pointed out. What kind of a friend is that? Oh, dont be such a baby, said Jess. My friends are always spitting at me. I ake it personally.
Maybe you should. Perhaps thats how your friends intend it to be taken.
Jess snorted. If I took it personally, I wouldnt have any friends left.
We let that one hang in the air.
So what do you want to know, that you dont know already? There are two sides to every story, said Jess. We only know the bad side.
I didnt know she was fifteen, I said. She told me she was eighteen.
She looked eighteen. That was it. That was the good side of the story.
So if shed been, like, six months older you wouldnt be up here? I dont suppose I would, no. Because I wouldnt have broken the law.
Wouldnt have goo prison. Wouldnt have lost my job, my wife wouldnt have found out… So youre saying it was just bad luck.
Id say there was a certain degree of culpability involved. This was, I need hardly tell you, an attempt at dry uatement; I didnt know then that Jess is at her happiest wallowing in the marshland of the bleeding obvious.
Just because youve swallowed a fug diary, it doesnt mean youve dohing wrong, said Jess.
Thats what "culpability"… Because some married men wouldnt have shagged her no matter how old she was. And youve got kids and all, havent you? I have indeed.
So bad lucks got nothing to do with it.
Oh, for fucks sake. Why dyou think Ive been dangling my feet over the ledge, you moron? I screwed up. Im n to make excuses for myself. I feel so wretched I want to die.
I should hope so.
Thanks. And thanks for introdug this exercise, too. Very helpful.
Very… curative.
Another polysyllabic word, another dirty look.
Im ied in something, said J?J.
Go on.
Why is it easier to like leap into the void than to face up to what youve dohis is fag up to what Ive done.
People are always fug young girls and leaving their wives and kids.
They dont all jump off of buildings, man.
No. But like Jess says, maybe they should.
Really? You think anyone who makes a mistake of this kind should die? Woah. Thats some heavy shit, said JJ.
Did I really think that? Maybe I did. Or maybe I had done. As some of you might know, Id written things in neers which said exactly that, more or less. This was before my fall from graaturally. Id called for the restoration of the death penalty, for example. Id called fnations and chemical castrations and prisoences and public humiliations and penances of every kind. And maybe I had meant it when Id said that men who couldheir things irousers should be… Actually, I t remember what I thought the appropriate punishment was now for philanderers and serial adulterers. I shall have to look up the n iion. But the point is that I ractising what I preached. I hadnt been able to keep my thing in my trousers, so now I had to jump. I was a slave to my own logic. That was the price you had to pay if you were a tabloid nist who crossed the line youd drawn.
Not every mistake, no. But maybe this one.
Jesus, said JJ. Youre real tough on yourself.
Its not just that, anyway. Its the public thing. The humiliation. The enjoyment of the humiliation. The TV show on cable thats watched by three people. Everything. Ive… Ive run out of room. I t see any way forward or back.
There was a thoughtful silence, for about ten seds.
Right, said Jess. My turn.
<strong>JESS</strong>
I launched in. I just went, My names Jess and Im eighteen years old and, see, Im here because I had some family problems that I doo go into. And then I split up with this guy. Chas. And he owes me an explanation. Because he didnt say anything. He just went. But if he gave me an explanation Id feel better, I think, because he broke my heart.
Except I t find him. I was at the party downstairs looking for him, and he wasnt there. So I came up here.
And Martin goes, all sarcastic, Yoing to kill yourself because Chas didnt turn up at a party? Jesus.
Well, I never said that, and I told him. So then he was like, OK, youre up here because youre owed an explanation, then. Is that it?
He was trying to make me sound stupid, and that wasnt fair, because we could all do that to each other. Like, for example, say, Oh, boo hoo hoo, they wo me be on breakfast television any more. Oh, boo hoo hoo, my sons a vegetable and I dont talk to anyone and I have to up his… Well, OK, you couldnt make Maureen sound stupid. But it seemed to me that taking the piss wasnt on. You could have taken the piss out of all four of us; you take the piss out of anyone whos unhappy, if youre cruel enough.
So I go, That wasnt what I said either. I said an explanation might stop me. I didnt say it was why I here in the first place, did I? See, we could handcuff you to those railings, and that would stop you. But youre not up here because no ones handcuffed you to railings, are you?
That shut him up. I leased with that.
JJ was nicer. He could see that I wao find Chas, so I was like, Duh, yeah, except I wished I hadnt dohe Duh bit because he was being sympathetid Duh is taking the piss, really, isnt it? But he ighe Duh and he asked me where Chas was and I said I didnt know, some party or another, and he said, Well, why dont you go looking for him instead of fug around up here and I said Id run out of energy and hope and when I said that I k was true.
I dont know you. The only thing I know about you is, youre reading this. I dont know whether youre happy or not; I dont know whether youre young or not. I sort of hope youre young and sad. If youre old and happy, I imagihat youll maybe smile to yourself when you hear me going, He broke my heart. Youll remember someone who broke your heart, and youll think to yourself, Oh, yes, I remember how that feels. But you t, you smug old git. Oh, you might remember feeling sort of pleasantly sad. You might remember listening to musid eating chocolates in your room, or walking along the Emba on your own, ed up in a winter coat and feeling lonely and brave. But you remember how with every mouthful of food it felt like you were biting into your own stomach?
you remember the taste of red wine as it came back up and into the toilet bowl? you remember dreaming every night that you were still together, that he was talking to you gently and toug you, so that every m when you woke up you had to gh it all ain? you remember carving his initials in your arm with a kit knife? you remember standing too close to the edge of an Underground platform?
No? Well, fug shut up then. Stick your smile up ygy old arse.
JJ I was going to just like splurge, tell em everything they o know - Big Yellow, Lizzie, the works. There was o lie. I guess I felt a little queasy listening to the uys, because their reasons for being up there seemed pretty solid. Jesus, everyone uood why Maureens life wasnt worth living. And, sure, Martin had kind of dug his own grave, but even so, that level of humiliation and shame… If Id been him, I doubt if Id have stuck around as long as he had. And Jess was very unhappy and very nuts. So it wasnt like people were being petitive, exactly, but there was a certain amount of, I dont know what youd call it…marking out territory?
And maybe I felt a little insecure because Martin had pissed all over my patch. I was going to be the shame and humiliation guy, but my shame and humiliation was beginning to look a little pale. Hed been locked up for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old, and fucked over iabloids; Id been dumped by a girl, and my band wasnt going anywhere. Big fug deal.
Still, I didnt think of lying until I had the trouble with my name. Jess was so fug aggressive, and I just lost my nerve.
So, I said. OK. Im JJ, and… Woss that stand for? People always want to know what my initials are for, and I ell them. I hate my name. What happened was, my dad was one of those self-educated guys, and he had a real, like, reverence for the BBC, so he spent too much time listening to the World Servi his big old short-wave radio in the den, and he was real hung up on this dude who was always on the radio in the sixties, John Julius Norwich, who was like a lord or something, and writes millions of books about like churches and stuff. And thats me. John fug Julius. Did I bee a lord, or a radio anchor, or even an Englishman? No. Did I drop out of school and form a band? Yep.
Is John Julius a good name for a high-school dropout? Nope. JJ is OK, though. JJs cool enough.
Thats my business. Anyway, Im JJ, and Im here because… Ill find out what your name is.
How? Ill e round your house and ransack it until I find something that tells me. Your passport or bank book or something. And if I t find anything then Ill just steal something you love and I wont give it batil youve coughed up.
Jesus Christ. What gives with this girl?
Youd rather do that than call me by my initials? Yeah. Course. I hate not knowing things.
I dont know you very well, said Martin. But if youre really troubled by your own ignorance, Id have thought there should be one or two things higher up the list than JJs name.
Whats that supposed to mean? Do<var></var> you know who the cellor of the Exchequer is? Or who wrote Moby-Dio, said Jess. Course not. As if anyone who kuff like that was a dork. But theyre not secrets, are they? I dont like not knowis. I could find that other stuff out any time I felt like it, and I dont feel like it.
If he doesnt want to tell us, he doesnt want to tell us. Do your friends call you JJ? Yeah.
Then thats good enough for us.
Snot good enough for me, said Jess.
Just belt up a him talk, said Martin.
But for me, the moment had gohe moment of truth, anyway, ha ha.
I could tell I wasnt going to get a fair hearing; there were waves of hostility ing off Jess and Martin, and these waves were breaking everywhere.
I stared at them all for a minute.
So? said Jess. You fotten why you were going to kill yourself, or what? Of course I havent fotten, I said.
Well, fug spit it out then.
Im dying, I said.
See, I hought Id run into them again. I retty sure that sooner or later wed shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and theher trudge back dowairs or jump off the fug roof, depending on mood, character, scale of problem etcetera. It really never occurred to me that this was going to e bad repeat on me like a pickle in a Big Mac.
Yeah, well you dont look great, said Jess. What you got? AIDS? AIDS fitted the bill. Everyone knew you could wander around with it for months; everyone k was incurable. A… Id had a couple friends who died from it, and its not the kind of thing you joke about.
AIDS I knew I should leave the fuck alone. But then - and this all ran through my head ihirty seds after Jesss question - which fatal disease was more appropriate?
Leukemia? The Ebola virus? None of them really says, No, go on, man, be my guest. Im only a joke killer disease. Im not serious enough to offend anyone.
I got like this brain thing. Its called CCR. Which of course is Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of my all-time favorite bands, and a big inspiration to me. I didnt think any of them looked like big Creedence fans.
Jess was too young, I really dido worry about Maureen, and Martin was the kind of guy whod only have smelled a rat if Id told him I was dying of incurable ABBA.
Its like ial ething. I leased with the ial part.
That sounded abht. The o- was weak, though, I admit.
Is there no cure for that? Maureen asked.
Oh, yeah, said Jess. Theres a cure. You take a pill. Its just that he couldnt be arsed. Der.
They figure its fr abuse. Drugs and alcohol. So its all my own fu fault.
You must feel a bit of a berk, then, said Jess.
I do, I said. If "berk" means asshole.
Yeah. Anyway, you win.
Which firmed to me ond for all that a petitive edge had snu.
Really? I leased.
Oh, yeah. Dying? Fuck. Thats, you know… Like diamonds or spades or those… Trumps! Youve got trumps, man.
Id say that having a fatal disease was only any good in this game, said Martin. The whos-the-most-miserable bastard game. Not much use anywhere else.
How long have you got? Jess asked.
I dont know.
Roughly. Just like off the top of your head.
Shut up, Jess, said Martin.
What have I said now? I wao know what we were dealing with.
Were not dealing with anything, I said. Im dealing with it.
Not very well, Jess said.
Oh, is that right? And this from the girl who t deal with being dumped.
We fell into a hostile silence.
Well, said Martin. So. Here we all are, then.
Now what? said Jess.
Yoing home, for a start, said Martin.
Like fuck I am. Why should I? Because were going to march you there.
Ill go home on one dition.
Go on.
You help me find Chas first.
All of us? Yeah. Or I really will kill myself. And Im too young to do that. You said.
Im not sure I was right about that, looking back, said Martin. Youre wise beyond your years. I see that, now.
So its OK if I go over? She started to walk towards the edge of the roof.
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