Girl

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because its mom disappeared and its dad set fire to himself. What that skunk Billy doesn't understand is that pain is not a riddle. It's a mystery because we lack crucial information. Billy's skin is blue. In all weathers. indoors and outdoors. Blue like the soil on Jupiter probably is. If they ever put Billy into a spaceship and spin him up to the planets, I know he'll feel at home so long as he can take the TV and a stash of popcorn with him. I bought him a cowboy shirt to keep him warm. It's got pearl buttons and an extra one sewn inside the cuff in case. Billy always checks the emergency button is still there when he puts it on. It comforts him just about more than anything else. He wants an emergency button for everything: to get out of nightmares, to call for help when the lift gets stuck, to get out of boring conversations.

Got a tattoo inked into his scrawny upper arm. An oldfashioned one like some virgin boy sailor who called men 'sir' and choked over his first Lucky Strike in a foreign bar full of hookers. I mean, I can't believe he had that dopey tattoo done like all the other fat blokes in the world. It's an anchor entwined with roses and doves. It says Mother, of course.

Billy

Girl wears her famous tears like jewels. Like glass blown from grief. Each tear takes approximately five seconds to form in the corner of her eye. You've got to be careful when you ask Girl what she feels. Here goes.

Say what you feel, Girl? Say what you feel You Nescafe slut You cruel baby wolf Say what you feel.

'I did a Mom check.'

'And?'

'Hopeless. She just stared at me and said, "I got no recall."'

'Well, maybe she was Mom, then?'

'Naaaaaa. She's someone's Mom, but not ours. She called me a Mercedes cab paid for on her account.'

'Did she look like our mom?'
 
'We don't know what our mother looks like, now do we? But she didn't sound like her.'

'Did you tell her about me?'

'Of course I did, Billy. I always do. I said Billy is well but not that well.'

'Next time you do a Mom check, tell her I'm sick and dying.'

'She wouldn't be interested,' Girl snarls. 'No one's interested in a loser.'

'Mothers are supposed to be interested when their children are sick and dying, for God's sake!'

'The worst thing,' Girl says incredulously, 'was that she was wearing a pair of cute slippers.'

'Cute ?'

'Little pink furry things, really dirty. Like the fur on a gonk.'

'A gonk. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life.'

'She was like us, Billy. She had no recall.'

'Then it was her!'

'No, it was not! I know just as well as you what Mom's like and that was riot her. Just fuck off, you creep. Go away! Get out of my sight! Stab yourself! Go away! Die with the gonks!'

I am blotting paper for Girl's anger. She takes it out on me and even more of it out on herself. It's just too much. If they ever make a robot Girl they'll have to give her tear ducts.

Click the heels of my red trainers three times. With force. Take me away from here. Take me home. That's what Dorothy Oz said to her dog. But this is home. Girl is full of junk and dirt and chemicals. Dead birds float on their backs in the slime. It's good for her to cry.

I know this because I read books about it. I study the mind and it's my life's work. Hopefully one day beautiful blonde mad girls will come to my couch and tell me their problems.

My consulting room will be a laboratory of the human psyche. My couch will become famous. Girls will sell their most precious belongings to afford my mind. Biographers will fight amongst themselves to describe my methods. 'He told lies. He told the truth. He gulped for air. He clutched his chest.' Perhaps I'll call myself Billy England. When I die, the world will be able to buy archive photographs of Billy England. The Billy poster, mug, tiepin, watch, pencil, cuff links, notepad. Billy portrait by Ralph von something. The Dianes of Billy Engklnd. Hardback. Paperback. A picture of Eros on the cover (he'll look a bit like Girl) - Eros the basic life instinct. Eros from sometime BC. That will soon change. First there was Before Christ. Then there was BB. Before Billy.

Girl and her Mom checks. Look - Mom disappeared when I was ten years old. I am now fifteen and she's not around to see how good-looking I fumed out. Girl's looked after me ever since she surfed Grand-Dad out on account of his pathetic jokes. She was twelve at the time. We had a Girl and Billy conference and agreed he had to go. It's not good for the young mind to have to endure the wit of the senile. Girl's always known that I am special. Now that she's seventeen she would do the same thing over again. Boot out the clown. She did not want to see me contaminate my integrity by pretending to laugh at the moronic. Being looked after by Girl is one thing. An envelope full of Grand-Dad cash every week is okay. But Mom's not here to watch Wimbledon with. She's not here for her boy. That's not easy to say. She's not here for her boy. 'Scuse me, I just got to stick my head under the cold tap or something.

She's just not here for her boy.

What am I supposed to do with the information? It's like bricks flying around in my head. An earthquake shattering the architecture. Walls falling down. Cars crunching into

Booklist Review
15th May 1999

Ted Leventhal

Buy this book from Amazon.com