Marabou Stork Nightmares Read Online Free PDF Page B

considered Bernard too effeminate. He bought us cheap, plastic boxing gloves and set up a ring in the living-room, with four confiscated traffic cones defining its perimeters.
    Bernard was even less interested in the boxing than I was, but Dad would force us to fight until one or both of us broke down in tears of misery and frustration. The gloves caused a great deal of scratching, scarring and tearing, and it looked as if we'd been slashing rather than punching each other. Bernard was older, bigger, and heavier-handed, but I was more vicious and had quickly sussed out that you could do greater damage with slashing swipes than punches.
    — C'moan Roy, Dad would shout. – Punch urn, punch um, son . . . Keep that jab gaun Bernard . . . dinnae fuckin slap um like a pansy . . . His coaching advice was always a bit one-sided. Before the fights he used to whisper to me: — You're a Strang son, mind that. He's no. Mind that. Right? Mind, yir fightin fir the Strang name. He might git called a Strang, but eh's no. Eh's a fuckin crappin eyetie bastard son.
    On one occasion when I had marked Bernard's eye and swollen his lip, John could scarcely contain himself:—Keep that fuckin jab in ehs eye, Roy! Poke ehs fuckin eye right oot!
    I kept jabbing away at that reddening queer face, my body tight with concentration as Bernard's eyes filled with petulant unease.
    BANG
    QUEER-FACED CUNT
    BANG
    TAKE THAT YA FUCKIN SAPPY BIG POOF
    BANG
    I opened up his eye above the brow with a tearing twist of the glove. I felt a jolt of fear in my chest and I wanted to stop; it was the blood, splashing out onto his face. I was about to drop my hands but when I looked at Dad he snarled at me to fight on: — GO FIR THE KILL, NAE FUCKIN PRISONERS!
    I battered into the fearful face of my broken-spirited pansy half-brother. His gloves fell by his sides as I kept swinging wildly, urged on by John's frenzied cries. Bernard turned his back on me and left the room sobbing, running up the stairs and locking himself in the toilet.
    — Bernard! Ye'll huv tae learn tae stick up fir yirsel! John smirked, a little worried as Ma would not be pleased when she came back from the shops in Leith and inspected the damage. On that particular occasion, I came off the best, but it wasn't always like that. Sometimes it was me who beat a humiliating retreat, overwhelmed by pain and frustration.
    At such times I envied my younger brother Elgin, silently rocking or gently humming, trapped in a world of his own, exempt from this torture. Perhaps Elgin had the right idea; perhaps it was all just psychic defence. At times I envied Elgin's autism. Now I have what he has, his peace and detachment from it all.
    As for me and Bernard, those fights made us fear Dad and hate each other.
    Bernard was
    Ber no I've no time for this.
    Now the nurses are back. They're doing something to me.
    THIS IS ALWAYS UNPLEASANT
    Tum the cabbage, prevent him rotting away . . .
    I have to go deeper.
    Deeper.
    DEEPER
    DEEPER
    Away from them.
    Better.
    Now it's time to go
    to
    the
    hunt – – – – – – –
    There is one lush green national park which is unique. Nowhere else in the world does such a park exist in a major city. Only a few miles separate the centre of the city from this park where game animals and the large carnivores which prey on them exist in the splendour of half a century ago
    – – – Easter Road Nairobi got to stop this shite deeper deeper– – – –
    The area of the park, around fifty square miles, is small in comparison

    I'm not deep enough. I can hear her. Nurse Patricia Devine. She's confessing to me, her vegetable priest, he who cannot affirm or condemn. I've found my perfect role.
    —You always think that the next one will be different and I suppose I let my emotions get the better of me, got all carried away and read what I wanted to read between the lines. He was so charming, so wonderful, so understanding but, yes, that was before he got me into bed . .