Q: Wicked Games

I'm in the park by the monkey bars. An older boy has got his fingers
at his lips like he is about to say "bellissimo!" Like an Italian
gangster. They always say it when they taste Mamma's lasagne,
"bellissimo mamma!" But this older boy is sucking not kissing and his
fingers are yellow like Gran's feet. He blows smoke up in a superman
ice-wind. Then he flicks his cigarette butt and it sparks to a stop
like a train with its brakes locked on. I think about how it might feel
for the cigarette butt to hit my eye. Ow.

I'm thinking this older boy hasn't seen me watching him but then he
turns and he looks straight at me. I feel like I need to itch my arm
but I don't want to. He's speaking to me. I want to itch my arm. He's
coming towards with his yellow fingered hand stretched out in front. Up
close it looks more like the colour of my toe nail collection. It
smells like cardboard or old coins or both. He's touching my ear which
makes me think that he might be sexually harassing me. Christian says
that he's been sexually harassed twelve times. He says it feels a bit
like when you are eating pavlova and you think you are going to bite
into a bit of jelly and it turns out to be fruit. The older boy pulls a
cigarette from behind my ear and I jump a little and scratch my arm at
the same time. Shit. A fucking cigarette behind my ear. He's holding it
up straight and asking me if I want one. It smells a bit like the
woodchip we're standing on.

The older boy pulls out a lighter and another cigarette for himself. He
lights his own and he sucks on it like he's drinking the end of a
milkshake with a straw. I put my cigarette in the middle of my mouth
and he puts the flame to it. I can feel it warming my eyes. "You gotta
suck," he says. I itch my neck. This is definitely being sexually
harassed, I think. I imagine it's a straw in a McDonalds strawberry
milkshake. I know I'm about to cough because the older boy stands back
and frowns. I cough up some chips and gravy I had earlier. It looks
cool on the woodchip. Chips on woodchip. My chest hurts but the older
boy says that that's natural for a first-timer and after a few more it
gets better, like sucking on sweet pussy pie.

~

"It was like sucking on sweet pussy pie," I tell Christian when he
comes round later.

"And how the fuck would you know what sweet pussy pie tastes
like?"

"Yeah, well, you don't know either," I say.

~

We decide to climb the tree at the end of our road and throw things at
people who walk by. There is the old woman with the migraine. She gets
a migraine when we play fives against her back wall. We decide it's too
easy to get her because she moves too slowly. Then there's Christian's
little sister Leanne who we throw some twigs and shit at but don't
waste any gravel on because she'll start crying. She asks if she can
play with us but we tell to her go fuck herself. "Go fuck yo'self!"
Just like the Italian gangsters in the film Christian stole from his
Dad's video cabinet. Christian's started doing his hair like a
gangster. He borrows his brother's gel and slicks it back so that when
we wrestle I get slimy hands and I can't head-lock him properly.

We wait for ages for someone to walk by but we eventually we get bored
and decide to aim for cars instead. First, we get this big white van
with some twigs and stuff but it doesn't even make a sound. We've got a
jar of gravel in our tree that we stole from the garden at our school.
We crept in over the fence one night, put the gravel in a jam jar and
kicked the heads off the daffodils and the roses. It even got read out
in assembly. They called us "vandals." Vandals! We are going to throw
the gravel on the cars. Christian gets this bus really good; some of
the passengers even look up like "what the fuck was that?" After a
while we see this really old Reliant Robin, (Christian says it's a
Robin Reliant,) coming up the road, and we know that the only person
who owns a Reliant is the hippy from the house on the corner so we get
two hands of gravel each and wait for it to come underneath us and then
we throw it all down like rice at my sister's wedding. My sister got
married last week to Geoff who has one joined up eyebrow like a brown
caterpillar or a turd.

~

When we are grounded me and Christian have a deal that we each have to
construct an elaborate revenge plan for when we get out and whoever's
plan is better will get carried out with mechanical efficiency. My plan
is two-fold. Firstly, we borrow my sister's video camera and then we
film the kidnapping of Leanne by a mysterious hooded figure, our hero,
Max the Masked Mugger. Leanne, who will be in on the act, (she is
always asking to be in our films,) will be dragged out of her room. Cut
to secret hideout, (the cellar at my house,) where Leanne will be
tortured: permanent marker tattoos, the consumption of raw onions and
putting her hand in the green slime that glistens on one wall.
Secondly, the tape and an accompanying ransom note will be posted to
Christian's parents. The ransom note, which I have already prepared,
written in magazine clippings from PC gamer and a copy of Loaded
Christian nicked from his brother, will read as follows: "You're Girl
has been HI-JACKED, she is 'Under The Influence' of the terrible and
mighty cold-blooded Killer MAX PAYNE" This last bit in bright blood red
capitals.

I see Christian in school and tell him my plan. He says that he had
been forced to go to see his Gran for tea so he hadn't written a plan.
This means that I win by default. Christian thinks my plan will be
better if Leanne is not in on it because then she will act more
convincingly and also it would teach her for saying she'd seen us up in
the tree throwing stuff. Cool.

~

We get the video camera from my sister's old room. It already has a
tape in it so we just start shooting; firstly, practising on each
other. I sing Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game' and pretend to play the
guitar and then Christian does his trick where he makes his stomach go
right in and you can count his ribs. We are watching the footage on the
downstairs TV at my house when my sister comes back from work. She's
moved into her own house down the road with Geoff but she still pops in
on her way back from work. Her and mum watch the soaps together. She
always tells me that I have to shut up and watch Neighbours or get out.
It's the one thing she wants to watch each day and I have all afternoon
to watch my cartoons.

It is just getting to Chris Isaak's guitar solo and on the video I am
going down on both knees and playing air guitar with my teeth.
Rock!

"Have you been using my video camera?"

I want to say something to her but it's that really good bit where
Chris Isaak sounds like a girl. And Eyeeee wanna fall in love, really
really wanna fall in love? with you.

"I told you, it's not a toy."

My sister is looking really pissed off. I think Christian is
apologising.

'With you?'

I'm watching myself do this strut now. My sister is calling my mum.
It's the end of the song and on the video I'm pretending to snog a
girl, you know with your back to camera and your own hands stroking
your back, feeling yourself up. It looks sweet.

"Mum?" My sister is calling.

Then it cuts to Christian doing his ribcage thing. Fucking cool.

"Hang on, what tape did you use?" My sister's asking.

Christian looks like he's a skeleton.

"What fuckin' tape did you use?"

Christian is telling her we just used the one that was in the camera.
Mum is yelling down the stairs, "what is it love?"

"That was my fucking tape." My sister's really pissed.

"What is it love?" My mum is calling.

Christian is saying he's sorry again. My sister has shut up and so has
Christian and we're watching the screen. There's just my mum calling
out, "what's wrong?" Christian has finished doing his skeleton thing
and the screen is snowing. After a bit, the snow turns into my sister's
face poking round a door; she's smiling, laughing. On the video she's
saying to the camera "turn it off, David, it's not funny!" And then a
man's deep voice is speaking slowly.

"And now we see the female of the species in its most familiar habitat:
the bathroom. Observe as it performs it's daily cleansing duties:
picking nits from its scalp, washing its fur. All in preparation for
the elaborate mating ritual she is about to perform."

The camera goes into the bathroom. My sister has a towel wrapped round
her and slicked back hair like a Gangster.

"Piss off, I'm changing," she says to the camera, to us.

The voice continues: "she may seem aggressive now but you should see
her?"

My sister, who I realise has been lifting up sofa cushions, magazines
and seats, has found the remote control and pressed stop.

"Darling, what's wrong?" My mum won't shut up, still calling from the
top of the stairs.

"Nothing, Mum," my sister says, looking like she's just smelt a really
juicy fart.

Then she walks to the machine, ejects the video, (I can see Christian
is looking at her ass), and without saying a word more she walks out of
the house clutching the tape. She even leaves us the video camera. We
take another tape that is labelled 'The Third Man', checking that it is
okay to record over, (it's black and white!) and go to Christian's to
shoot our film.