Nine Foot Tall Read online

  Mark’s face is bright red and he shouts back at me, ‘Fuck you, Gaz man. Anyway, you’ve only had one shag. And she were fucking bald!’

  Everyone creased up laughing at this announcement. Including me.

  ‘She weren’t bald when I shagged her, you mad ginger cunt…’ They’re all proper pissing themselves now. ‘She were nice when I shagged her, man. She just went mad or summat afterwards and went and shaved her head bald. She looked a right bastard after that. So I chucked her. For being bald. Me dad went mad wi’ me. He told me you can’t treat girls like that, chuckin’ ’em just coz they got their head shaved bald. Fuck him, man. I’m not going out wi’ no baldie. Shame though coz she looked fit before that. Oh well.’

  Mark looks pissed off that I didn’t get mad at his bald statement, just took it in my stride. I felt a little sorry for him then, so I changed the subject.

  ‘Anybody pissed yet? I am a bit. C’mon, let’s open that Pernod, boys.’

  Now, Pernod, for any of you unfamiliar with the drink, is an aniseed-based spirit. Mental stuff indeed, strong as a bastard. You need to mix it with lemonade or blackcurrant juice, however, coz if you drink it neat you will be comatose. We had neither. All we had to mix it with was cheap cider. Strong, cheap cider. Oh well, here goes nothing.

  ‘Here’s what we’ll do, boys…’ I pretend that I’m the big drinking authority, ‘we’ll bang some Pernod in our glass, top it up wi’ cider and then slam it on the desk and down it in one, just like cowboys do off the telly, yeh?’

  ‘What’s the idea behind that, then?’ Ricko looks puzzled as he asks.

  Mel thinks he knows the answer. ‘I think it’s when you slam it on desks and that, the sugar all turns into a hundred and fifty proof alcohol or summat. And fucks yer brains out. Is that right, Gaz?’

  ‘I don’t know what it does, man, but I do know that it gets you mental, so come on slam away, boys, the girls’ll be here in twenty minutes.’

  So we did. Each of us poured what would probably be a quadruple measure in a pub of Pernod into a half-pint glass, topped it up with paint-stripper strength cider, then BANG. Slam on the desk, up to the gob and down in one. Like a cowboy.

  ‘Fuuuuuking bastard nasty fuckin’yaaak!’ coughed Mel.

  My reaction wasn’t much better, ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgh!’

  Ricko fell to his knees clutching his throat as though he was gonna die. ‘Fack, fack, fack, me neck’s on bastard fire. Faaaaaaaak!’

  And poor Mark, only fourteen and all, well he screamed like a woman, really high-pitched screaming like you hear on horror movies when women are being chased by mad killers.

  ‘Gaz, what de FEK is going on up dere?’

  Oh no, it was my dad shouting from the bottom of the stairs. He sounded quite mad coz he said fek, which he says “is not swearin’, it’s an Irish terminology” but it still lets me know that he’s angry.

  I shout back down through the gap in the door, trying to compose myself after the terror that was Pernod and Fire in my oesophagus, ‘Nowt, Dad, Mark… erm… er… cut himself…He cut himself shaving.’

  I realise what I’ve just said and bite my lip, the others in the room laughing under their breaths so that my dad can’t hear them.

  ‘Ah well,’ shouts my dad, ‘probably serves him right, lettin’ you little feks teach him how to shave. Behave yourselves now.’

  I hear the living room door slam. He’s gone back in to my mam. No questions asked. He actually thought Mark’d cut himself shaving. Is my dad pissed as well?

  I pop my head back in the bedroom, my head that’s spinning like a record, and the guys are all laughing at what my dad said. They couldn’t believe it either. Mad.

  Now we’re all really giddy. The Brain Juice has gone straight to our heads, just as we wanted it to.

  ‘Gaz…’ It was me dad again.

  Oh no, was he gonna come upstairs and see us all paralytic and stove all of our heads in coz he’s six foot one and built like a brick shithouse and we’re not?

  ‘Gaz, Bananarama are here. I’ll send ’em up, okay?’

  Thank fuck for that. He’s not coming up to kick ten barrels of shite out of us, it’s just the girls, the girls have arrived. Yes. Bananarama my dad calls them; they look a little like the ’80s girl group of the same name, hair all backcombed, big hair, little crop tops in fluorescent colours, and the tiniest little rara skirts that you could ever imagine – sexy as fuck, man. There’s three of them too, just like Bananarama. Come to think of it, our girls were fitter than the group.

  There was Anita. She was the one that Mel fancied. She fancied him too so he was gonna be cush. She had a little party piece that she would do for us when she got drunk. She could fanny fart at will.

  Yep, fanny fart. She would just hitch up her skirt and PPPPPRRRRRRRRRRRRPHHT! It was sure to brighten up even the most miserable of days. It would have you in stitches, man. A very pretty, sweet looking, angelic face, petite and everything, and the maddest noise erupting from her fanny. Hilarious. Especially when you’re only sixteen.

  There was Jo-Jo. She was FIT, man. We called her “the little bit of fitness” on account that she was only little, about four foot eight, and she was super fit. Jo-Jo was mine. Not yet, but it was on the cards. I could tell by how she looked at me, she was gonna be mine. Soon.

  Last but by no means least there was Trisha. She was quieter than the other two, who were very brash to put it mildly, but Trisha was more ladylike. She conducted herself well in public, she didn’t drink a lot, didn’t smoke, wouldn’t even kiss a lad, let alone shag one. Aw that’s sweet. None of us fancied her. She was very beautiful, but that was no good if she was saving herself until she was thirty fucking five. But she always tagged along with the others.

  We didn’t mind. It made us look good having three gorgeous birds with us all the time. Ricko once hinted that he might give Trisha a go, y’know try and get off with her, but we put him off by saying that her fanny was probably scabby and that’s why she didn’t let anyone near it.

  When they walked into my room we were all laughing and giggling like schoolgirls. We were well gone now. We did, however, try our best to look and act sober for the girls.

  Didn’t work.

  ‘Wahey, the shag pieces are here!’ Aw fuck! What have I said? ‘I mean… sorry, ladies… the girls are here… our beautiful girls.’

  I know I’ve gone red-faced. I can’t believe I called them shag pieces to their faces. Fuck.

  ‘You better behave yourself, little fella, or we’ll just turn back around and go find some boys who’ll treat us like ladies.’ Jo-Jo said this with a wry smile on her face, as though she may have secretly thought that being called a shag piece was funny.

  ‘C’mon, sit yer sens down, ladies.’ Mel gave me a swift disapproving glance and mouthed the words, ‘Shut the fuck up’ at me. He was worried I was going to spoil his chances of a shag. ‘Gaz was only messin’. ’ere, ’ave a drinky wink.’ He passed them all a glass each of our flames-in-a-glass concoction.

  Anita looked at hers curiously. ‘You’re not trying to get me drunk are you, Mr Mel?’

  ‘Would I?’ He winked at us. ‘I’m sure you can do that all on your own.’

  And she could. Anita was renowned for being able to drink the lads under the table at any party. Shlurp. There. It was gone, up to her gob, down the neck. In one go. No screaming, no clutching the windpipe. Nothing. What a girl.

  ‘Pass me another, Mr Mel.’ She whispered this in her most overtly flirtatious Marilyn Monroe voice.

  Fucking hell, I could see how this was gonna go now as Mel sidled up to Anita on the bed and brushed us all away. He was gonna get his nuts, and we were all gonna have to watch. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I’m not watching no twat get his nuts if I’m not getting mine.

  They both climbed up onto the top bunk and started to kiss and
grope and slurp in a way that only teenagers know how.

  Ricko and Mark, slurring and giggling, both edged either side of Virginal Trisha on the sofa and started talking complete bollocks to her, the weather and shit like that. Bloody weather? I needed a plan. Jo-Jo was kind of laid across the rug on the floor nodding her head back and forth in time to Bad Boys by Wham, singing along to the lyrics, she was pretending that I didn’t exist. Not good.

  I need to get myself down there with her, despite my spinning head and the feeling that I’m gonna spew everywhere. I need to talk about something cute to her. Girls like cute things, don’t they?

  So here I am, coming in from behind, closing right up against her laid out, and she’s not stopping me. Good.

  She’s smiling. She wants me to cuddle up behind her. Awesome.

  My mind is in a real muddle; it’s full of Pernod and cider. My guts are swirling, swooosh.

  C’mon, Gaz, speak, say something cute, she’ll love it.

  Here goes…‘Jo-Jo?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  She was gorgeous, man, even the way she said yeah was gorgeous. She definitely was The Little Bit of Fitness.

  ‘Jo-Jo, have you er, er…’

  I’m trying my damnedest to pluck something cute from my imagination, whilst all the time listening to Mark and Ricko boring Trisha to death on the sofa and the faint moans of Anita and Mel on the top bunk doing whatever the fuck the lucky bastards were doing.

  Something cute… something cute… Think, man, think.

  ‘Have you ever… Have you ever been shagged up yer arse?’

  Aw bastard! That is most definitely not what I meant to say. No no no no. Not at all cute.

  That was it, man. Jo-Jo jumped to her feet, shaking her arms about and calling me a cheeky bastard – did I think she was some kind of slag, you’re a fucking bastard, Gaz, and a torrent of other shite-filled obscenities. She was not happy. Ricko and Mark were pissing themselves on the sofa. They thought it was oh so hilarious, especially when she gave me a slap around my chops. Trisha, “I’m a virgin forever even when I find Mr Wonderful” Trisha, started giving me a hard time as well – I should know better than to speak to a lady like that and I had no respect and blah blah fucking blah.

  Mel and his wife are taking no notice at all, they’re too busy slap, slap, slapping away.

  Bastards.

  Jo-Jo and Trisha have had enough. They grab their bags and they’re gone, door slammed behind them and still calling me names as they trot off down the stairs.

  Now I’m sad. Very sad. I sit down next to Ricko and Mark, who are both laughing their tits off at me while trying to see what Mel’s up to with mucky Anita.

  I’m just about to tell them both to fuck off out of my house and go and shag in the park or somewhere when…

  ‘That’s me done! Who’s next?’ Mel was popping his head up from underneath the quilt when announcing this…

  We couldn’t believe it. Did he mean it? Would she be game for a full-on gang bang? Only one way to find out.

  All aboard the Anita Train.

  Me, Mel, Ricko and Young Mark, yes even “I’ve had a shag on holiday” Mark. And poor young Anita. She didn’t know what had hit her. She couldn’t walk for a week.

  I never saw Trisha the Virgin ever again after that night. I did hear that she found Mr Wonderful though – some fucker who got her pregnant at seventeen and beat her to a pulp on a daily basis.

  Jo-Jo, aaahhhhhhh Jo-Jo, The Little Bit of Fitness, I never saw her again after that either. Someone told me they saw her in the Fish Market a few years later, with a couple of kids in tow, and that she should now be called The Big Bit of Fatness. A pity, that.

  And as for Anita, I never saw her again either, but she did teach me a valuable lesson that I wouldn’t forget.

  The lesson was simple…There are only two types of women: those who are available… and those who aren’t.

  Like I said… simple.

  August 1996 – Aged 29

  ‘Looky, looky, look, look, looooog!! Fuckin’’ell, Steve man, you’re missing all the action.’

  I’ve got my head hanging completely out of the car window, ogling the half-naked, sun-kissed beauties that the summer sun always brings to the streets, and Unsolved’s sitting tap, tap, tapping into his bastard phone. Not staring at birds.

  ‘Shhh, Gaz man.’ He didn’t even look up to shush me, he’d just pulled the car over onto the park and started pissing about with his mobile. ‘Just shhh! I’m trying to confrabulate.’

  I chuckle to myself. ‘Confrabulate. Good word, Steve man. I like it. What ya trying to confrabulate about? Even though it doesn’t mean anything at all.’

  ‘I’m texting Tony the Toe about that thing…’ He gives me a side glance as though I’d just wiped shit on his nana’s eyelid, ‘oh-fuckin’-kay?’

  I turn back away from him and peer out onto the park at the bevy of women sunning themselves on the grass, all the while thinking about “that thing“ with Tony the Toe.

  Tony the Toe.

  Fuck. Where do I start about Tony the Toe?

  I know. Why is he called Tony the Toe? Here’s why.

  Tone used to work in the mill a few years ago, a real good job it was too, well paid. A wood cutter or lathe operator, or something. Anyhoo, whatever he did involved using one of those great big circular saws, the ones that the baddie always had on Batman in the ’60s and they’d tie Batman and Robin to a desk to get sawed to death. But they always escaped. One of those saws.

  He worked away from England quite often – France, Belgium, Eastern Europe, all over the place. This one time, they sent him to Lithuania to work for a month.

  So he’s sawing away, minding his business, as you do. Pushing this fat chunk of maple toward the Bat Saw he was, singing along at the top of his voice to the Lithuanian radio, apparently, when… splooge! He not only pushed the maple into the teeth, but his thumb too. Came clean off. They say that it squirted blood out like comedy blood off a cartoon or Monty Python. Tony, God bless his cotton socks, didn’t scream and act like a girl, nope, he just stood and watched in awe as his newly removed thumb flew through the air and into the wood pulping machine. It was like throwing a kitten into a kitchen blender and leaving the lid off. Tiny little splodges of thumb exploded everywhere. Guys were covered in blood and bits of bone and whatever else kind of slime comes out of an exploded thumb. Even though the prospect of ever having his thumb sewn back on had just been thrown entirely to the wind, Tony, God bless him, still stood there, not saying a damn word.

  Shock, they said.

  His workmates and supervisors, however, were in chaos. Rushing around like blue-arsed flies, no time for an ambulance. There’s blood still pissing out of Tony’s hand where his thumb used to be, so they had to wrap a towel around it and race him to hospital in one of the work vans.

  So, he’s in the hospital and the doctor tells him, in broken English and bits of Lithuanian, that they can fix it for him, no problem. Even though he’s had the thumb ground into prime mince, they could get him one from someone who had only just come into hospital minutes earlier and died in the emergency room. Car crash victim. Tony agreed to this. He didn’t relish the thought of having a dead Lithuanian’s thumb but it was better than walking around for the rest of his natural with a twat of a claw looking hand.

  So down he went for the thumb to get stitched on. The dead thumb.

  Four hours later Tony comes around in his bed, surrounded by doctors, feeling groggy, and he asks if the operation was a success.

  ‘Well…’ The doctor sounded unsure as he tapped a pencil on his forehead. ‘Yes… And No.’

  Tony was puzzled. He lifted up his hand to find it bandaged, but in his half drugged state began to rip at the bandage. The doctor tried to stop him but it was too late – the bandage was off and Tony let out an eardrum-pe
netrating wail of horror. What he saw before him was the stuff of nightmares, Edgar Allan Poe style. There, attached to his hand, where he thought he was going to see a lovely new thumb, albeit a dead Lithuanian thumb, was a toe. A big, fuckoff toe.

  A swollen dead toe, all purple and nasty, with a gnarly yellow nail on it, the kind of nail that you would only find on a big, dead toe.

  He went berserk. They say it took nine doctors to subdue him that day; he’s a big lad is Tony.

  Apparently, the reason for the big toe was that after the promise to make his hand look better, the doctors put Tony to sleep and took him into theatre only to realise that there had been a mix-up somewhere along the line of communication. This dead guy had lost both his hands in the fire that had ensued when his car crashed, and the doctors thought they were giving his toes to some poor sod who’d lost a toe at work. They didn’t want Tony to wake up with nothing. So on went the toe.

  He’s grown used to it over the years, but it’s never blended in properly. It’s still purple and it’s still too massive for his hand, although the gnarly nail has come off and never grown back.

  It looks a bastard really. But no-one tells Tony. Because he’s insane.

  And no-one calls him Tony the Toe to his face, that’s for sure.

  And… he hates Lithuanians.

  ‘Loooooooooooook, Steve man, there’s fanny everywhere.’

  I’m still giddy as hell, but Steve, well, he just throws his phone onto the back seat, revs up the engine, cranks up the music and, with an angry sneer in his coke-fuelled voice, gives me a side look and…

  ‘C’mon… we’re off to meet that fuckin’ freaky, big, ugly, toe-fingered bastard.’

  Oh fuck. I’ve heard that tone before.

  ‘Yer don’t like Tony the Toe, do yer, Steve man?’

  ‘No!’ A short and sweet answer if ever I heard one.

  ‘Aw c’mon, Stevie, he’s alright, man. What’s he ever done to you?’

  ‘He’s a fuckin ‘slink. That’s what he’s done to me…’ He’s getting mad with himself now.