His Tainted Heart

Hands grabbed my wrists and I'm spun around senselessly, like someone was trying to shake my teeth out. My eyes, though blurred, make out a contorted face. I was strung out on painkillers and whatever else I snatched from the cupboard. Even I know his fury is accompanied by a sense of worry, but I'm feeling the slightest bit sardonic.

"I prefer to call this an enthusiasm."

He drew back his hand and walloped me with a force so tremendous the sound boomed down the hall. On its way back to him, a devious smile spread across my face.

"Ouch," I mocked. But the sting was beastly.

Releasing me, I drop the floor, make a staggering attempt to stand, and ricochet down the hallway into my room. Fuck him for this farce and fuck her for acting in it. Fuck everything. This boy is on his own.

That "enthusiasm" was my release from him. Fool didn't realise that by trying out this disgusting rebellious veneer, it prevented me (through permanently gritted teeth) telling him he was a waste of a pair of trousers.

Why the old man frowned I couldn't understand; gave him the excuse not to take them, helping him become deluded in a hopeless fantasy that life was fine. My moron of a Father couldn't tell whether I was on drugs, unsurprisingly. He had years of practice of being detached from my feelings.

Sickness spread around my insides; there was no buzz, no hallucinations. Not like everyone said there would be. One time, though, I met a charismatic stranger in the shape and scent of a homeless bum wandering the Waterfront at the same time as I.

Noticing a shivering wreck decked across a bench and staring at the swaying clouds and shifting colours in the sky, he could have strangled me to death or stolen my virginity during a frantic fuck. He sat beside this mysterious young boy and poured whiskey down his throat instead.

I vaguely remember thinking he was the fabled African refugee in the town, and had it not been for sickness, I'd have run away. His voice was raspy and sharp as a blade. The darkness masked most of his facial features - in fact, all I could make out were a distinct pair of eyes on a face shrouded in black. But there was something innately genial about him.

"What's a nice wee boy like you doing out at this time?"
"Trying to clear my head."
"And what's a nice wee boy like you doing stoned out of his nut?"
"I'm not stoned," said I, "I've actually taken the wrong ones."
"What?"
"A bucket of vitamin fucking Cs, I think."
"Naivete is a sign that nice wee boys aren't cut out for the danger."
"... Or to read the fucking label next time."

Miraculously, the whiskey seemed to dissolve the feeling of nausea in my stomach. Fifteen I was and still a hopeless fool. Perhaps my Father and I shared more in common than I thought. As with my Father's temper, the medicine didn't do much to suppress my unbounded sadness.

"Why do you look like you've got the world's troubles on your shoulders?"
"I'm driving myself crazy," I replied.
"What for?"
"I need the pain. Just to remind me I'm still here."
"Do your parents not notice this?"
"What do you think?"

He opened one side of his sweeping overcoat and invited me in; as dodgy, and frankly quite rank the proposal was, my genitals were an inch from falling off. I accepted.

"You know, something strange happened the other day," I tell him.
"What's that?"
"I was walking home from school and I saw a mentally retarded person in a wheelchair. I couldn't stop staring at her, the way her face was so blank and her mouth hung open, her body just completely still and motionless," as I spoke I recalled the image, and it was no prettier. "It made me realise; I'd rather go through all the shit and pain and torture than to feel nothing whatsoever. Than to be devoid of all senses whatsoever. To feel absolutely nothing is worse than death. What's the point in living if you cannot feel?"
"But there's more to life than pain."
"I've become dependant on pain like it was a reliable friend. Does that make sense?"
"I couldn't tell you, I'm afraid."

Knowing my Father was going to tear me limb from limb by the time I got back, tears were rolling down my cheek out of raw emotion and the freezing cold. Life will be better than this, I promised myself. He'll be gone and I'll learn to be bloody fantastic.

"So, how'd you end up homeless?" I ask him, finally.

He let out a ripping dirty laugh, frightening the fuck out of me.

"I'm not homeless."
"... So, what are you then?"

Taking a swig from his bottle, he gasped and looked out to the silent tide.
"Just lonely, son."

I recalled the rising amber waves of the sea and magenta clouds from a sheperd's delight, birds chasing the distance and sharp whistles in the wind before turning to my left, and noticing nobody was there. I lay back on the bench and shut my eyes. It was a long while before morning yet.