Spud - Learning to Fly (8 page)

The Fragile Five

Plump Graham

Sidewinder

Gastro

Rowdy

Meg Ryan’s Son

Once back in the dorm, Boggo hurriedly changed into his finest civvies and announced that he was ‘bonking out’ to find the Wild Coast actress. Rambo warned him that he could be facing expulsion if caught. Boggo stood up proudly and said, ‘For her, I’d risk death by firing squad.’ He then gave himself yet another blast of deodorant and strode out the dormitory without saying another word.

23:30 Boggo woke us all up to say that sparks were flying between him and the actress, and that a dramatic shag was looming on the horizon. He said he’d met the gorgeous beauty at the stage door and helped pack her bags and props into the car. According to Boggo, the hot actress then kissed him ‘with a tongue that could strangle a boa constrictor’ and handed him a red rose before driving off into the night.

I must admit this all seemed a little far-fetched. Boggo is famous for lying about his conquests with women and it’s a known fact that the majority of girls find him utterly gross and perverted.

Rambo demanded proof of conquest. Boggo sniggered and pulled a rather crushed red rose out of the back of his pants and handed it over to Rambo. Garlic burst into applause and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to shag an actress!’ Boggo told Garlic that he could probably fix him up with one of the actress’s hot friends.

Then Rambo began his inquisition:

Obviously Boggo hadn’t noticed the note because his mouth fell wide open when he read it. He then tried to convince us that the note had become attached to the rose by accident, but nobody was buying it.

Rambo found Boggo guilty of lying, threw his alarm clock out the window, and accused him of kissing Pieter Scholtz instead.

Boggo said we were all jealous, stole Vern’s alarm clock, and stormed off to bed in a huff.

AA MEETING

20:00 I knocked on Lennox’s kitchen door and heard a baby begin wailing in a back room. The door flew open and there stood a wild looking Lennox beaming out from behind his bushy beard. He invited me in and I took a seat in his cosy living room. Mrs Lennox poured me some coffee before rushing off to attend to her baby daughter who was trying her best to break the sound barrier.

After twenty minutes of making conversation with Lennox, I began to get the sinking feeling that I may be the only one in the society this year. I noticed Lennox kept glancing at his watch and trying his best not to look alarmed. He even went outside a couple of times in case new members were having difficulty in finding his house. Each time he returned alone, looking more and more hurt and despondent.

20:35 We both heaved a great sigh of relief when there was a loud rapping on the kitchen door. Lennox shot out of his seat, pulled open the kitchen door and led the new recruit into the living room.

It was Rambo.

Rambo grinned at me like he was up to something. He then helped himself to coffee and settled into the rocking chair near the empty fireplace. Lennox confirmed that since there were only two members at the first meeting, I should be appointed president and Rambo the treasurer of the society. Thankfully, he said he would perform the role of AA secretary himself until more boys joined up.

Rambo took a loud slurp of his coffee and said, ‘Sir, that’s not a democratic decision. Surely there should be a vote on this?’ Lennox was rather taken aback at Rambo’s confidence and seemed to scald his mouth after gulping his coffee in a moment of panic. I decided against reminding Rambo that he had cancelled democracy forever last week.

‘In any case,’ said Rambo, ‘I have far more leadership qualities than Spud, so it would be common sense to make me president and Spud my treasurer.’

Lennox reasoned that since I had been in the society longer I should be given preference. Rambo scoffed and said, ‘But, sir, if seniority was the only criterion for choosing leaders we would still be barbarians charging around raping and pillaging!’

Lennox’s face broke into a smile and he said, ‘Some would say, Mr Black, that that’s exactly where we are right now.’

And thus began a two-hour battle of wits between Lennox and Rambo. I hardly said a word as the pair fought out an epic battle of intellectual ping-pong. Eventually, Lennox looked at his watch with a start and said it was 10:30pm and that we had to end. He then declared that this was the best AA meeting we had ever had and said Rambo was a breath of fresh air to the society. Nothing further was said about who would be the AA president and an elated Lennox led us out with an arm over Rambo’s shoulder.

Rambo insisted on walking about twenty metres behind me on the way back to the dorm. It was the most uncomfortable three hundred metres of my life.

The Party

18:30 The Crazy Eight lined up at the school gates and handed over our leave permission slips to the security guard. He stamped them without question and handed them all back to us before opening the big gates. Suddenly Rambo was sprinting down the path towards the station. We followed him over the railway lines, through a fence and out onto the road. We eventually found him lighting up a cigarette behind a tree near the entrance to the chicken farm.

‘What the stuff was all that about?’ gasped Fatty, looking like he was midway through an aneurysm. Rambo took a deep drag on his cigarette and said, ‘Let’s just call it a life fulfilment exercise …’

After waiting around for ages in the dark, a rusty Isuzu bakkie roared to a stop in front of us. A cheeky looking guy dressed in a khaki shirt lunged out of the window and shouted, ‘You guys the Crazy Eight?’ When I got up close to the cab it became apparent that our designated drivers were already as drunk as skunks.

‘How come there are only seven of you?’ enquired the co-driver before draining a tin of Ohlssons lager and tossing it out the window.

‘Fatty chowed the eighth dude,’ shouted Rambo as he leapt onto the back of the bakkie. Everyone laughed and soon we were tearing through the night shouting and howling, feeling the chilled air sting our eyes. The hooligans up front swerved from side to side, hooting and laughing hysterically. I held onto Fatty’s leg and looked up towards a sky of satellites galloping through space desperately looking for a good time of their own.

CHRISTINE’S PARTY

RATING 7/10

HIGHLIGHTS

LOWLIGHTS

POINTS OF INTEREST

We’re not the only ones who take bets on scoring. Seems like Christine and her mates have their own tote running. Any girl brave enough to kiss Fatty receives one hundred bucks. Any girl psycho enough to kiss Vern will pocket R400. Nobody claimed the money.

Only Simon and Rambo (he says) came right last night. Thankfully, Christine was too busy kissing everyone else to pay me much attention.

Boggo’s foolproof scoring theory was a dismal failure. Aside from Boggo being slapped twice in ten minutes, Vern made a terrible hash of using Boggo’s spading method and had a mortifying cretin attack in front of a crowd of about twenty girls. Fatty tried the technique on a terrified thirteen-year-old girl who looked barely out of primary school. The girl threatened Fatty with a lawsuit and then locked herself in a bathroom until her dad arrived to take her home.

I didn’t receive so much as a look or a smile from a single girl.

LUNCHEON

Underneath it said:

Strictly no halfwits

I found The Guv in the kitchen wearing a frilly green apron, which he said belonged to his late mother. In his hands he held a savage looking meat cleaver and lying on the counter was a gigantic hunk of black meat.

‘Springbok,’ he divulged. ‘Poor thing – if only it had clung onto life like it clung onto the roof of my freezer.’ He then asked, ‘How do you like your wildlife, Milton – fried in butter or buggered and boiled?’

Thankfully, we didn’t have to eat the springbok that’s been doing a Walt Disney in The Guv’s freezer since the late seventies. Instead he offered up eggs and bacon and said that occasionally having breakfast for lunch kept his bowels honest and his stools impressive.

The Guv then began to remove the entire contents of his fridge in search of some eggs. I strolled through to his living room to take up my usual position in the armchair at the window. I nearly dropped the books I was carrying when I realised that there was another schoolboy sitting in my chair. ‘Rowdy?’ I almost shouted. ‘What are you doing here?’ I was attempting to come across nonchalant but my voice emerged as a strident shout. Rowdy was alarmed by my dramatic entrance and staggered to his feet like he was guilty of a heinous crime.

He didn’t say anything other than an extremely soft grunt of ‘Sir.’ But it was nevertheless pleasing to see that he was looking at me with fear, awe and respect.

‘Milton, you must know Simpson,’ said The Guv as he entered the living room with two bottles of wine and a corkscrew. I informed The Guv that back at the house he was known as Rowdy, which amused my English teacher hugely. Poor Rowdy blushed and grinned sheepishly but true to form said absolutely nothing. It was more than a little weird talking to The Guv in front of the silent Rowdy. He never said a word and observed the conversation like he was watching a tennis match at Wimbledon. The Guv continued like Rowdy wasn’t there except he didn’t offer me any wine, which was a disappointment.

The conversation then turned to cricket and The Guv was utterly appalled that I was playing for the fifths. ‘Fools!’ he shouted while pacing around his living room like a maniac. ‘Have these pedestrian people never heard of the refined art of leg break bowling?’ The Guv raged on about this being a sign of the times and the end of a golden age in cricket where seductive flight and a rotating ball could melt the miniskirts off buxom women.

I left early. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings in front of the silent presence at the window. I marched back to the house in a rage. I was angry with The Guv for inviting somebody else to our lunch. I was angry with Rowdy for sitting there like an idiot and not saying a word. I was angry that another Valentine’s Day has come and gone without somebody to share it with.

21:00 Vern lined up the Fragile Five on the top step of the urinal and spent half an hour saluting at them. The Fragile Five never questioned what they were doing, and returned Vern’s three hundred odd salutes with serious faces and complete concentration.

Something is up with Vern. After years of watching him closely I’ve come to realise that it’s impossible to know what (or if anything at all) is going on inside his head. But the key is to watch for sudden changes in behaviour. At present his new habits include:

Drawing hundreds of pictures of my laundry bag

Shining his shoes constantly

Putting Roger’s tail in his mouth

Shooting an imaginary gun at the roof

Drinking out of his contact lens solution bottle