A white house among white houses
beneath a dishwater sky. Blinds pierced by a limp ray, illuminating a teenage
boy. In his boxers before the mirror he stands dumbfounded by his own vileness.
The lank hair half hiding the acne-flecked face. The sick sheen of the nose
poking out between those two greasy curtains. The pot belly thrusting forth too,
long too babyish, what eagerness? Long ape-like arms dangling awkwardly by the
sides, fumbling even now. The pigeon chest between speckled with more acne.
Turning, inadvertently coquettish, the head craning back ungainly to see the
spots spreading out larger and denser across the shoulder blades like a pair of
unfurling bubonic wings.
Slouching down the street with the
envelope he wishes he hadn’t a face at all. This uncontrollable signal post he
attempts to blanket with worldly sullenness, always failing. Ever broadcasting.
If the face is naked then so too the whole lot may as well be. The parked cars
only concealing him from the right and only up as far as the neck but still he
huddles close and stoops. The light is unbearable, that merciless white greyness,
and the dream comes back to him. Of being on the floor of the Dart, near
paralysed and naked, dragging himself with exhausting languor by his chin and
elbows the length of the carriage, now and again the odd Metro Herald lowered
to allow a stare down, revolted. And a dismissal. He hasn’t yet learned to
euthanise a train of thought in its infancy. That life skill yet to come to him. He lopes even more hunched beneath
the weight of his tender pregnant back as it rasps against his t-shirt. Surinam toad, he thinks. I am a Surinam toad.
Few pleasures left now but
self-abuse, the list whittled down from vibrant and promiscuous childhood
wonder till all that was left was the barbed and hedged concept of music
marketed to his kind. And then not even that really as he felt compelled to
specialise further, listening only to what was upsettingly ugly. To guitars
like road drills, to singing like belching, relishing the dry thrill of
parental indignation in place of aesthetics. A narrow pass between two valleys.
Perhaps the last purity left to him
the rigid world of his Warhammer figurines. When not at the mirror at the desk,
flecked with many bright spots of colour and cauterised wads of superglue, painting
the little sci-fi warriors. A shield against bullying, the envy of the
philistines. He brought a few to the Gaelteacht and there they guarded him,
ensuring, if not respect, at least that he be allowed skulk in peace as one
artistic. And even, thanks to the figurines, a friend was made in the dorm. A
fellow skulker. Who sent him a letter weeks later from a boarding school in the
country, asking his news and requesting he paint a small plastic man and send
it to him for some respite in that place where he was alone. It would be deadly if you could paint me one
of those little space marines and send it down here to me.
So he dipped a figure, a ‘plague
marine’, head first into a pot of livid orange paint and pushed it straight
into an envelope, not even dry, along with a note saying, There, that’ll be €3.50 please.
Through the grey white, the green of
the post box comes into view. He thrusts down the letter once and stamps on it,
feeling the plastic splinter within, leaving the half-moon of a boot-print on
the paper. For once not thinking he picks it up and pushes it through the slot
and hears the faint soft sound of its settling. And then the burning comes back
anew, stronger. The absolute doubt, the unbelievable loathing of himself. And at
his heels an inner tide of excoriating invective drives him back through the
streets to the room, red faced, the spots for once blending away, his mouth now
erupting in salival muttering. Fucking
Surinam toad. Fucking Surinam toad. Till he is back alone in the gloom
behind the prim blinds of the white house. In his room. At the desk. At the
mirror.