This is the tenth part of A Story in Several Parts, by Matthew de Kersaint Giradeau, the previous parts can be further down the page. (The painting is by George Shaw and is taken from here;http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/online_shop/ikon_catalogues/artists_monographs/… )
Your eyes point outwards. Your eyes point up and outwards before you are born. And when you sleep, they roll up, and sometimes back out. Back out like before you are born. Lloyd's eyes sometimes roll up and out when he blinks. Sometimes they don't make it back down into view before his eyelids retract. This makes it hard for Lloyd to see sometimes. And sometimes, when he is aggravated, or when he masturbates, or when he is scared, his eyes stay up and out. He gets double vision when they are up and out. Their axis is all wrong. And even though the brain has to process all the sense impressions that are presented to them by the eyes, it has to get used to a way of seeing before it can understand it. The brain cannot correct itself that quickly.
It is normal to get double vision when your eyes roll up and out, as Lloyd's sometimes do. It is not normal for the eyes to go to this position when you are not asleep. For Lloyd it poses few problems, though sometimes, when he is aggravated, people's response to his aggravation can be fear rather than understanding because of the way his eyes flutter up and out His eyes, when they roll back like they do sometimes, are grey. Though they are white; they look grey.
And when people are scared by Lloyd's eyes, and their rolling greyness. Lloyd realises that if only his eyes could look whiter, even if they weren't actually whiter, then somehow it would be better. But those are his eyes. This is their colour.
Alex cannot see Lloyd's eyes. They are rolling when he blinks, and with his churning mouth punctuating the rolling eyes, his whole face beats out a rhythm. Alex watches Lloyd. The childish muscles of his back move as he scrapes the tent peg along the body's skin. They tense up suddenly, and Lloyd makes a low, uneven sound. Alex looks to where the tent peg is scraping and sees that the skin is open. There is blood, but it moves slowly. Like glass, but faster than glass. Alex tries to look away, but Lloyd has already turned round.
“Do you want a fucking go?”, Lloyd offers the tent peg. “We could always just take it to the river and throw it in. Or burn it, like I said. We should fucking burn it. But I haven't got any white spirit. We could get petrol. But it costs money. Have you got any money? I haven't got any fucking money. I bought cigarettes, but they won't let me buy them in the garage so I have to wait till someone walks past and then give them the money. Then they always ask for a cigarette and I tell them to fuck off. Just because they bought the fucking cigarettes doesn't mean I have to give them any cigarettes.”
Lloyd looks at Alex and slowly stands up, he tosses the tent peg in front of where Alex lays and reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes. He brings out a handful of detritus and searches through it. The cigarettes are loose in his pocket, and some of them are broken. He takes one of the unbroken cigarettes and lights it with a see-through, pink, plastic lighter. He smokes like he knows how to smoke, but he worries that he doesn't smoke properly. That's why he sometimes smokes in front of a mirror, and tries not to catch his own eye as he inhales and exhales. This is how he knows about his eyes rolling back. When he is concentrating on smoking, his eyes roll back when he blinks. But when he concentrates on making sure his eyes don't roll back, then he forgets to look at how he smokes.
Alex doesn't smoke. He just watches Lloyd smoke. He just thinks of how much his face hurts and how he can't run away because Lloyd is faster than he is. He wonders what it is that Lloyd wants. He wishes that Lloyd would just go and then Alex could run back to his house and double lock the door until his mum comes home. Alex watches Lloyd smoke and notices that Lloyd's eyes sometimes roll up when he blinks. Lloyd laughs and hesitates as he is about to take another drag on his cigarettes. He drops suddenly to his knees and grabs Alex's cheeks. He takes the cigarette and taps some ash onto Alex's cheek. It is not hot, but it smells bad. Lloyd's hands smell bad too. Alex struggles a little, but then gives up. He crunches up his eyes so ash doesn't get into them. Lloyd washes some spit around in his mouth and dribbles on to Alex. Alex can feel it touch his forehead, and then it slips over his eyelids. Lloyd lets go of Alex's face and traces his finger down where his spit is. He pushes it down his nose and makes a flicking movement towards his mouth. The spit is too sticky to be fluid, but too fluid to be flicked. It doesn't make it to Alex's mouth, which is tightly closed. His nostrils flare above it, pouring and sucking hot air back and forth.
Alex stays like this, breathing heavily with his eyes and mouth screwed up until he hears Lloyd walk away. He opens his eyes and sits up. Lloyd has gone from the clearing. The cigarette smell has gone. Alex's chest hurts, but at least his nose has stopped bleeding. He feels dizzy and looks around for Lloyd, but can only see the body. He sees the tent peg which Lloyd has left on the ground. He wonders if he could hurt Lloyd with the tent peg and run away. But then if he didn't hurt Lloyd enough then Lloyd would come after him. And he knows, somehow, that Lloyd is on the edge of something. He is on the edge of a bigger violence. That is why the older boys hate Lloyd so much.
If Alex tries to hurt Lloyd then Lloyd will probably hurt Alex more. He is bigger than Alex, and he has less fear and his lack of fear makes Alex more scared.
Alex looks around for Lloyd but no one is in the clearing except him and the body. The body watches Alex and the body's arm bleeds slowly. Alex wonders how long it will be until the body rots. Maybe he can go home and not tell anyone about the body and then it will rot and no one will ever know. But someone will know. Someone will know the body.
But maybe he could go home now and not tell anyone and then even though someone probably knows about the body, they will not mention it. Like Alex and the someone have made a promise even though they don't know each other. Like how Alex and the people who did the shits on the trees had a deal. Alex doesn't know what the deal was, but he is sure that they had a deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment