Blueeyedboy (8 page)

9

You are viewing the webjournal of
blueeyedboy
.

Posted at
:
23.25 on Wednesday, January 30

Status
:
restricted

Mood
:
unrepentant

Listening to
:
Kansas
: ‘Carry On Wayward Son’

No, I don’t take it personally. Not everyone appreciates the value of a well-written fic. According to many, I am sick and depraved and deserve to be locked up, or beaten to a pulp, or killed.

So, everyone’s a critic, right? I get a lot of death threats. Most are rants from the God squad:
Jesusismycopilot
and friends, who always write in capitals, with little punctuation except for a forest of exclamation points that rises above the main text like the upraised spears of a hostile tribe, and who tell me YOUR SICK! (sic) and THE DAY IS AT HAND! and that Yours Truly will BURN IN H*LL (!!!) WITH ALL THE QUEERS AND PEDOPHILES!

Well, thanks. There are headcases everywhere. A newbie, who calls herself
JennyTricks
, has become a regular visitor, posting comments on all of my fics on a rising scale of outrage. Her style is poor, but she makes up for it in vitriol; leaves no term of abuse unused; promises me a world of hurt if ever she gets her hands on me. I doubt she will, however. The Internet is a safe house, close as the confessional. I never post my details. Besides, their anger gives me a buzz. Sticks and stones, dude; stones and sticks.

But seriously, I love the applause. I even enjoy the occasional hiss. To provoke a reaction with words alone is surely the greatest victory. That’s what my fiction is for. To incite. To see what reactions I can collect. Love and hate; approval and scorn; judgement and anger and despair. If I can make you punch the air, or feel a little sick, or cry, or want to do violence to me – or to others – then isn’t that a privilege? To creep inside another mind, to make you do what I
want
you to do –

Doesn’t that pay for everything?

Well, the good news is – apart from the fact that my headache is gone – that I now have more time to indulge. One of the advantages of sudden unemployment is the amount of leisure it provides. Time to pursue my interests, both on and offline. Time, as my mother says, to stop and smell the roses.

Unemployment? Well, yes. I’ve had some trouble recently. Not that Ma knows
that
, of course. As far as my mother is concerned, I still work at Malbry Infirmary, the details unclear, but plausible – at least to Ma, who barely finished school and whose medical knowledge, such as it is, is taken from the
Reader’s Digest
and from the hospital soaps she likes to watch in the afternoons.

Besides, in a way, it’s almost true. I
did
work at the infirmary – I worked there for nearly twenty years – though Ma never really knew what I did. Technical operations of some kind – also a partial truth of sorts – in a place in which everyone’s job description contains either the word
operator
or
technician
; I was until recently one of a team of hygiene technicians operating two shifts a day and attending to such vital responsibilities as: mopping, sweeping, disinfecting, wheeling out the rubbish bins and general maintenance of toilets, kitchens and public areas.

In layman’s terms, a cleaner.

My secondary, even more dangerous job – again, at least, until recently – was that of day carer for an elderly man, wheelchair-bound, for whom I used to cook and clean; on good days I’d read, or play music on scratchy old vinyl, or listen to stories I already knew, and later I’d go looking for
her
, for the girl in the bright-red duffel coat –

As of now, I have more time, and much less chance of being caught in the act. My daily routine hasn’t changed. I get up in the mornings as usual, dress for work, care for my orchids, park the car in the infirmary car park, pick up my laptop and briefcase, and spend the day at leisure in a series of Internet cafés, catching up on my f-list, or posting my fiction on
badguysrock
away from my mother’s suspicious eye. After four I often drop by at the Pink Zebra café, where there is a minimal chance of my running into Ma or her friends, and which offers Internet access for the price of a bottomless pot of tea.

Given my own choice of venue, I think I’d prefer something a little less bohemian. The Pink Zebra is rather too informal for me, with its wide-mouthed American cups, and its Formica-topped tables, and chalked Specials boards and the noise of its many patrons. And the name itself, that word,
pink
, has a most unfortunate pungency that takes me back to my childhood, and to our family dentist, Mr Pink, and of the smell of his old-fashioned surgery with its sugary, sickly odour of gas. But
she
likes it. She would. The girl in the bright red duffel coat. She likes her anonymity among the café’s clientele. Of course, that’s an illusion. But it’s one I’m willing to grant her – for now. One last unacknowledged courtesy.

I try to find a table close by. I drink Earl Grey – no lemon, no milk. That’s what my old mentor, Dr Peacock, drank, and I have acquired the taste myself; not entirely usual for a place like the Pink Zebra, that serves organic carrot cake and Mexican spiced hot chocolate, and acts as a refuge for bikers and Goths and people with multiple piercings.

Bethan – the manager – glares at me. Perhaps it’s my choice of beverage, or the fact that I’m wearing a suit and tie and therefore qualify as
The Man
– or maybe today it’s just my face – the ladder of suture-strips across one cheekbone, the cuts bisecting eyebrow and lip.

I can tell what she’s thinking. I shouldn’t be here. She’s thinking I look like trouble, though it’s nothing she can quantify. I’m clean, I’m quiet, I always tip. And yet there’s something about me that unsettles her; that makes her think I don’t belong.

‘Earl Grey, please – no lemon, no milk.’

‘Be with you in five minutes, OK?’

Bethan knows all her customers. The regulars all have nicknames, much the same as my friends online, like Chocolate Girl, Vegan Guy, Saxophone Man and so on. I, however, am just
OK
. I can tell that she would be happier if she could fit me into a category – perhaps
Yuppie Guy
, or
Earl Grey Dude
– and knew what to expect of me.

But I prefer to wrong-foot her sometimes: to turn up in jeans occasionally; to order coffee (which I hate), or, as I did a couple of weeks ago, half a dozen pieces of pie, eating them one by one as she watched, clearly itching to say something, but not quite daring to comment. In any case, she is suspicious of me. A man who will eat six pieces of pie is capable of anything.

But you shouldn’t judge by appearances. Bethan herself is an irregular choice, with the emerald stud in her eyebrow and the stars tattooed down her skinny arms. A shy, resentful little girl, who compensates now by being vaguely aggressive with anyone who looks at her askance.

Still, it is to Bethan that I owe much of my information. From the café she notices everything. She seldom speaks to me, of course, but I overhear her conversations. With people like me she is cautious, but with her regulars she is cheery, approachable. Thanks to Bethan I can collect all kinds of information. For instance, I know that the girl in the red duffel coat would rather drink hot chocolate than tea; prefers treacle tart to carrot cake; favours the Beatles over the Stones, and plans to attend the funeral at Malbry Crematorium at 11.30 on Saturday.

Saturday. Yes, I’ll be there. At least I’ll get to see her away from that wretched café. Maybe – just maybe – she owes me that. Closure, as the Americans say. An end to this parade of lies.

Lies? Yes, everyone lies. I’ve lied ever since I could remember. It’s the only thing I do well, and I think we should play to our strengths, don’t you? After all, what is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence? You’d never guess from my writing that I’m as plain-vanilla as they come. Vanilla, at least, on the
outside
; the heart is something different. But aren’t we, all of us, killers at heart, tapping out in Morse code the secrets of the confessional?

Clair thinks I should talk to her.

Have you tried telling her how you feel?
she suggests in her latest e-mail. Of course, Clair only knows what I want her to know: that for an indeterminate time I have been obsessed with a girl to whom I have hardly spoken a word. But maybe Clair identifies with me rather more than she is aware – or rather, with
blueeyedboy
, whose platonic love for an unnamed girl echoes her own unrequited passion for Angel Blue.

Cap’s advice is rather more crude.
Just fuck her and get it over with
, he advises, in the world-weary tone of one trying vainly to hide his own inexperience.
When the novelty wears off, you’ll see she’s just like all those other bitches, and you’ll be able to get back to what matters . . .

Toxic
agrees, and pleads for me to write up the intimate details in my WeJay.
The dirtier the better
, he says.
And by the way, what’s her cup size?

Albertine
rarely comments. I sense her disapproval. But
chrysalisbaby
responds to what she sees as my hopeless romance.
Even a bad guy needs someone to love
, she says with awkward sincerity.
You deserve it, blueeyedboy, really you do
. She does not offer herself, not yet, but I sense the longing in her words. Any girl would be lucky, she hints, to earn the love of one such as I.

Poor Chryssie. Yes, she’s fat. But she has good hair and a pretty face, and I have led her to believe that I prefer the chubby ones.

The problem is that I play it too well. She now wants to see me on webcam. For the past couple of weeks she has been talking to me through WebJournal, sending me personal messages, including photos of herself.

Y can’t i C U?
she messages.
Out of the question,
I reply
.
Y? U ugly?
Yeah. I’m a mess. Broken nose, black eye, cuts and bruises all over me. I look like I went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. Trust me, Chryssie. You’d run a mile.
4 real?? What happened?
Someone took exception to me.
?
O!!! U mugged?
I guess you could call it that.
!!! Oh, fuck, oh, babe,
i just wanna give U a great big hug.
Thanks, Chryssie. You’re very sweet.
Does it hurt??

Dear Chryssie. I can feel the sympathy coming from her. Chryssie loves to nurture, and I like to feed her fantasy. She’s not quite in love with me – no, not yet. But it wouldn’t take much to draw her in. It’s a little cruel, I know. But isn’t that what bad guys do? Besides, she brings these things on herself. All I do is enable them. She’s an accident waiting to happen, for which no one could possibly hold me to blame.