When Mr. Dog Bites (22 page)

“Thank God for that. I thought for a minute I had a Take That
fan in my cab.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s old-school.”

“Don’t think I know them.”

The taxi driver laughed again; his smile was as wide as the Clyde.

I smiled, and mine was wider.

“No, ‘old-school’ means they’re from back in the day.”

“Like the eighties?”

“Try earlier.”

“Who is it, then?”

“Ever heard of Pink Floyd?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, Dylan, Pink Floyd is probably the best band ever.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Heathen!” the taxi driver said, which I didn’t know the meaning of, but I giggled so as not to appear stupid.

Then he started singing a song, about being numb and comfortable, which made me want to be anywhere else but there. I promised I’d search for this Pink Floyd band online, if Mom hadn’t banned me from using the Internet.

“I thought the Beatles were the best band ever,” I said to the taxi driver. Dad was, like, the biggest Beatles fan ever, and we always listened to them in our house when he was there. As well as some kick-ass rap.

“Rubbish, the Beatles were just the Take That
of their day.” He chuckled.

I pretend-sniggered like I do when people tell mince jokes and I don’t want to offend them. I gazed out the window, watching the rows and rows of identical houses pass by. Each one could have been a twin of the other. I was glad when we turned the corner onto our street—it meant the taxi driver wasn’t going to take me to a manky den and present me on a platter to his merry band of pedophiles.

As soon as the car pulled up, the curtains began to twitch. Nosy Nora stood behind them. Sometimes we called each other Nosy Nora if we were peeping out the window and trying not to be seen. Mom was Nosy Nora on this occasion. I didn’t have the faintest idea who this Nosy Nora character was in the first place, though. She must have spent all day peeking out windows; she probably didn’t have a tele­vision. He’d gone straight into Dad’s parking space again and pulled the handbrake, which made a sound like a high-pitched fart.

“You’re in Dad’s space again.” Could you believe this taxi driver?

“It’s only for a minute, kiddo; that okay?”

“I guess so.” I nodded.

“Cheers, wee man,” he said, and soft-punched me on the thigh. “We’ll just tell your mom I found you wandering in the park, okey-dokey?”

“That’s what I was doing anyway.”

“No, I mean we won’t say anything about you bumping into those two head cases.”

“Erm .
.
. okay, then.”

“No need to make your mom more worried.”

I looked out at Mom standing in the doorway with her arms folded. Her pure raging stance.

“That’s a good idea.”

“Ready to face the music?” the taxi driver said.

“I haven’t done anything major wrong, mister,” I said.

“Call me Tony.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, Mister Tony,” I said.

“I’m sure everything will be okay, Dylan.”

“Yes.”

“Ready?” he said, and flicked Pink Floyd off.

“Wait!” I said.

“What can I do for you?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“’Course you can, kiddo. Shoot.”

“Can you not call me ‘kiddo’ or ‘wee man’?”

“Sure, no problem. Is Dylan okay?”

“Dylan’s fine.”

“Okay, Dylan, let’s go,” Tony said, and went to open his door.

“Wait!” I said.

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you one final question?”

“’Course you can.”

“What does ‘
sacrosanct’
mean?”

Mom gave me one of her hug specials right there on the doorstep, which was kind of scarlet-face embarrassing. Thinking of all the Nosy Noras in our street who were watching us hug was an utter redneck. The hug was tight and secure and I liked it. I loved Mom so much, and could tell she felt the same way about me because my ribs were cracking under the pressure of this extraordinary jumbo hug. So, not only were my willy, ball-sack, and bum-hole all aching to hell’s fire, but now my ribs were as well. But I didn’t really mind; I was just super chuffed to be home.

“Sorry about the letter, Dylan,” Mom said.

“That’s okay, Mom. I’m sorry for scudding you with it and running out.”

“I shouldn’t have read it, son.”

“I know; letters are sacrosanct, after all, but, hey ho,” I said.

Tony was standing behind me, and we gave each other a wee glance. This was what you would call an inside joke.

“You’re dead right, Dylan, you’re dead right,” Mom said.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I said, because I was doing far too much fighting these days.

“Me neither. Let’s be friends again.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“We shouldn’t have another fight before March,” I said, knowing that this would pull her heart out of its socket.

“What?” Mom said, stepping back from me and flashing a glance at Tony.

“Nothing. I just mean that we should be friends again.”

“I agree,” she said, like the weight of ten dumper trucks had been lifted from her shoulders.

“I’m going to go up and have a bath,” I said.

“Good idea,” Mom said. “Stay for a cuppa, Tony?”

“Why not?” Tony said. “See you, Dylan,” he said as I made my way up the stairs.

“Don’t you have something to say to Tony first, young man?” Mom said.

“That’s okay, Moira,” Tony said.

“Thanks for coming to rescue me,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘
rescue’
?” Mom said, then turned toward Tony. “What happened?”

“He means ‘
find
,’” Tony said.

“Yes, I meant ‘
find
.’ Find, rescue, it’s the same thing. Anyway, thanks for finding me, Tony,” I said.

He winked.

I winked back, but just a reflex wink. Another inside thing. A need-to-know thing.

22

Characters

wot u up 2 dylan?

not much

wot u doing?

in the bath

who with? lol

yer maw. lol

i saw reservoir dogs earlier

and?

cool as

so u up for it?

u bet

brill, im mr blue then

im mr orange so

u have a suit?

my dad has one. wot about u?

Dad has funeral one i can blag

ties?

funeral ties. mine and Dads so i can give u one.

itz gonna be fabby dylan

i no

u gonna try pork MM at it?

dont know . . . prob not amir . . . prob not

u cood try pauline mcstay??

not even with urs. lol.

any word from the docs?

no, y?

just sometimes they have these mad cures for things

no cures for tourettes amir

sorry just thinking

better go, been a mad bonkers day and cream crackered

i hear u captain

wot u up 2?

in the bath as well

who with, yer da? Lol

yer maw. lol

see u the morra

OK best bud

by

by

When we stopped texting I jumped out of the bath, dried myself, and thought how berserk towels were, because towels, when they dry, actually get wet.

Life!

But the reason for jumping out of the bath was because the bold Amir had planted a mega seed in the old napper: cures. I went online and googled “
cures for Tourette’s,”
and there were, like, forty trillion pages all about Tourette’s. I checked about nine of them, but they all said the same thing, that there was NO CURE. NOTHING. NADA. NIENTE. BUGGER ALL. Some guy in America (always bloody America) became paralyzed because he ticced so much that he damaged his spine. Now he had to suck hamburgers up through a straw and surf the net using a glockenspiel stick attached to his head. Some of his no-hands paintings were online too, which would have gotten a D in our art class. Then there was this woman who couldn’t eat or walk in a straight line because her Tourette’s was so bad. She was covered in bumps and bruises because she kept falling over. She’d broken her arms, her hip, her collarbone, and her knees.

Christ on a cracker!

It wasn’t those people’s problems that scared the Jimmys out of me, no siree—it was them saying that when they were my age their Tourette’s was “manageable and low-level.” So maybe it was a good thing that March was almost five months away, as I sure as shit didn’t want to be painting pictures with my head or being wonky donkey on my feet.

I read that some head-smart docs wanted to drill holes into people’s brains and insert teeny-weeny electrical things in there that would help stop tics and jerks. No effing chance was I letting some doc drill holes into my napper. Did these docs think they worked on a building site or something?

Too many pages.

No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure. No Cure.

When I closed my eyes in bed that night, I could see NO in my left eye and CURE in my right eye.

Life!

23

Funeral

In order to go to the Halloween disco we needed a plan. And, boy, did we have a plan. Our plan was watertight, although Amir didn’t need a plan because he was actually allowed to go to the Halloween disco. He was just in it to win it. Mom told me that she was “being true to her convictions and responsibilities as a mother” and was sticking with her decision to not allow me to attend the Halloween disco. I could have thrown my toys out of the baby carriage and written “
bitch”
on the toilet mirror with her lipstick or something equally childish, but I was trying to live up to my mom’s title of being a “much more mature boy.” She said it was time to grow up and put all my “childish antics behind me.” I agreed. I was nearly seventeen, after all. If you looked at it from Mom’s eyes (which would be the coolest thing ever to do), you could see that I had been acting like a selfish rotten head case over the past few months, even though I did have some good reasons for it.

The watertight plan involved borrowing Dad’s funeral suit—that’s what he called it—and pretending that Amir’s uncle had suddenly died. I’d tell Mom that the pressure of owning a high-class Indian restaurant had gotten the better of him, and he’d suffered a mammoth heart attack due to stress and the credit crunching. Amir was well in on the plan, which came directly from my own imagination. And if he got hauled downtown to give evidence against me, Amir would never crack under the fuzz’s cross-examination. I trusted him, and he was my best bud; he wouldn’t be no stool pigeon. The only stumbling block I could see was that the bold Amir was Pakistani, not Indian, and Glasgow didn’t have any Pakistani restaurants that I knew of. This was the type of risk I was prepared to take, but I knew it was all going to be all right on the night because Mom didn’t take the slightest bit of interest in Amir and hadn’t the foggiest about his family setup either. She’d never find out the truth. I’d tell her that I wanted to go to the funeral to show my support for sad Amir.

“When did he die?” Mom asked.

“Two days ago,” I lied.

Mom went into her thinking-out-loud state. “It’s terrible what the bankers have done to people.” This wasn’t a ­question.

If my insides could chat, they’d have said
phew
!

“I know; it’s pure rubbish. Amir is in thrupnies about it.”

“Thrupny what?”

“He’s in bits. It’s rhyming slang. It means—”

“I know what it means, Dylan. Just speak properly.”

“Gotcha!”

“And when’s the funeral?”

“Friday.”

“Halloween?”

“Weird, isn’t it? I thought everything shut down on Halloween.”

“Don’t be silly, Dylan.”

“DEAD PAKI CUNT! Shit, sorry.” It just popped out. I’d been doing so well. I didn’t mean any of it. I hated saying things I didn’t mean. The doc told me it was an “unavoidable subconscious cognitive behavioral action.” Really he told Mom, who told me, and I wrote it down because I didn’t quite know what it meant. Still don’t, but I think this was the straw that finally broke the donkey’s back.

“Are you sure you want to go?”