The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

The Curse:

But mainly, for the last few days, I’ve been trying to talk to Silver and trying to avoid Martin Savage, but it’s been pretty much impossible. Madame Pythia’s already given me a warning for hiding in the Males 1st Class changing rooms and another for not being at my desk in reception. She’s not being mean, her words always sound sad. I’m sure she was crying when she was looking at me earlier.

Today my black hair’s all flung loose over my shoulders. I think it looks pretty. I’m not doing it for Martin Savage, it’s just ’cause I’ve had it up for a couple of days ’cause our Bill brought back nits from school and it pulls on my scalp when I wear it up too much.

I’m sitting on the steps outside Males 1st Class, I’m not reading or anything ’cause I’m feeling sick with all the hula-hooping in my belly. That feeling’s with me all the time now, like I’m waiting for that bad thing to happen. It’s not like I can ask Silver to tell me what he saw, no chance at all, ’cause he’s proper ignoring me and still not even buying me Smarties from the shop.

There’s a couple of people waiting to see Madame Pythia but they’re over talking to someone in Silver’s queue, outside Females.

’Course I don’t hear him sneaking up. He’s good at creeping.

‘You thought ’bout tying your hair up nice,’ he says.

I can feel his fingers doing spidery steps running down my arm, up and down and up and down. I don’t move.

‘Show me your titties,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘Prick-tease,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘Bet some lad’s giving you one,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘I declare that you’re sacred to me,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘And if you so much as look at any other bugger, I’ll rip your hair out and stuff it in your mouth,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘You know you love me really,’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘I mean, what you scared of?’ he says. I don’t look at him.

‘I’m Lord of The Oracle,’ he says. ‘There ain’t nowt in the now or in your future that I don’t know.’

I can feel sick coming up my throat and I’m gulping and gulping to push it back down. I want him to go away, I want to scream at him to fuck off back to all them women who want him. There’s so many who throw themselves at him, so why won’t he leave me be?

‘You’d better still be a virgin, this had better all been worth it,’ he says, again. And that’s when I look at him.

‘Fuck off, old man,’ I say.

I know I shouldn’t have said it, but it’s like the words escaped before I had the chance to stop my brain from making them.

‘I’d rather fuck you,’ he says and he sits down next to me. His thigh brushes against mine. He’s calm, too calm. I try to turn my body away, he shuffles closer.

‘Over my dead body,’ I say. I feel his hand on my thigh.

He laughs. ‘Soon,’ he says, and then, ‘It’s your destiny.’

And that’s when I turn to look at him. I don’t remove his hand from my thigh, I don’t scream and I don’t shout. There’s something in his voice that makes me listen, that makes me know that what he’s about to say matters. He’s that close to my face I can smell his ciggie breath. It’s like I’ve got no more fight, like all the strength in me’s gone. I can’t stop him, he’s just too strong, he’s too focused. He’s never going to stop. Martin Savage has got the advantage, he knows what happens next.

‘Why don’t you just kill me?’ I say, I almost whisper. I mean it. I wish he would.

‘No point,’ he says, and then, ‘You’re going to die within the year anyway.’

‘What?’ I say. My eyes are on his face, he’s smiling a proper smile.

‘Dead,’ he says. ‘Silver told me. Within a year. Your life’s over.’

He says those words and I listen. I’m sure I’m holding my breath. I think I’m shaking. And that’s when something changes in me, something hardens, something makes sense. I mean, I think about Silver and I think about all those lines on my palm that told them secrets. I know that Martin Savage is evil but I also know that he’s telling the truth, that it’s been foretold. That’s why Silver’s been avoiding me, that’s why I’ve been feeling full of hula-hoops. That’s why all my hopes and dreams for my future are pointless. I’m never going to escape, I’m never going to be allowed to have better than this.

I know I’m crying. I can hear Martin Savage laughing. I can’t fight him any longer, he’s broken me, his fingers have moved up my thigh and are fiddling with the elastic on my knickers.

And that’s when I look into his eyes. He can see the change in me too.

‘That’s right, my shagging you was foretold,’ he says.

‘It’s written in your palm,’ he says.

‘Get up,’ he says, removing his fingers from me and standing up tall. ‘Go into my changing room.’

I keep looking at him, I keep looking into his eyes, I see his disgust, I see what he really thinks of me. I know that I’ve no choice, I know that I’m playing a role. I guess this is what destiny feels like. As I’m getting up, I see that he’s unzipping his jeans.

‘They all give in eventually, Laurel,’ he says. ‘Let me show you love,’ he says, licking his lips. ‘Let me show you what it means to be loved,’ he says to me, and then, ‘Before you’re dead and buried.’

Arthur

EARTH: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Reference No: 10-003760

Name: Charlotte (Charlie) Cornelius

Missing Since: 05-Feb-1998

Not only do I have a boner but I’m running out the yard with my pants around my arse and it’s raining on my cock.

‘You twats!’ I’m shouting, but I know they’re not listening.

My cock rocks in the wind as I run, but I don’t stop and zip up my trousers until I get around the corner, just outside the post office on the main road.

The sky’s all grey, mainly ’cause it’s been raining forever, and I’m just letting myself get soaking. I’m a proper bell-end. I mean, what was I thinking? Estelle Jarvis is fit, there was no way she’d ever be interested in me. I mean just ’cause she liked all my profile pictures on Facebook. Like she’d ever want to suck my cock. No. That twat Tommy Clarke organised it all and by now my cock’ll be all over Facebook.

Why do that? Why put my cock all over Facebook? I look up to the sky, like there’s someone there, like anyone gives a fuck ’bout me. The rain falls in my eye and it stings like fuck. I mean I thought rain was supposed to be good for you, not this bastard, not this twatting northern rain. It pours from the skies non-stop, largest recorded rainfall forever, and now the bastard’s practically blinded me.

I reckon that ’bout sums up my day.

It all started last night. Estelle Jarvis was all over my Facebook wall.

1 Would I get drunk with you? yepp

2 Hug, kiss, or more? kiss

3 Do I trust you? yepp

4 Share bed or on the floor? bed lol ;)

5 Friend, best friend, or good friends? good friend

6 Love, like, hate you? love

7 Good-looking, gorgeous, pretty, ugly, alright, fit? gaaawjuss

8 Would I go out with you? yepp

9 Rate (personality)? 10

10 Rate (looks)? 10

11 What’s your name in my phone? Arthur B

12 Would I give you my number? u ave it

13 How did we meet? in school

I didn’t have her number and I was trying to pluck up courage to inbox and ask for it but every sentence I wrote sounded gay. Then she posted ‘inbox me I’ve gotta talk’ on my wall and I did. I inboxed Estelle Jarvis, THE Estelle Jarvis who’s at the top of the year-eleven tree.

I reckon the other lads from my year were proper wanting to know what was going on, ’cause they were all over my Facebook wall with ‘inbox matee?’ and I was all ‘I will iab’, but I didn’t, mainly ’cause me and Estelle Jarvis were on chat. That’s when she said that she wanted to meet me after school, around the back of the Sixth Form Centre. She said that she wanted to suck my cock and I probs shouldn’t have gone along, but I reckoned it was a chance to get me a nice girlfriend who’d maybes have sex with me.

’Course I got to behind the Sixth Form Centre and she was already there. Seriously she was unzipping my trousers before I’d even said a word and my cock was playing along ’cause that’s what cocks do. Then she had my cock out my pants and she pulled my pants down over my arse. That’s when she stepped back and she was having a right look. I pushed it out a bit and prayed to God that it wouldn’t go floppy.

And that’s when it all went tits up.

‘Alrite gay?’ he said. ‘You hoping for stinky fingers?’

And that’s when I realised there was probs eight or nine of the bastards, all with their phones out, all taking photos of my cock. And that’s when I legged it out through the yard, with my pants around my arse and the rain falling on my boner.

I’m maybes thinking that I might have overreacted and I should have laughed while I put my cock away, that maybes me having a boner would’ve stopped Tommy twatting Clarke from saying I was gay. And I’m maybes thinking that the twats that took them photos are complete dicks and one step away from lager-drinking ASBO yobs.

They’ve really upped their game this time. I mean this is a hundred times worse than the shit they kick out of me every twatting time they see me. I mean my legging it with my pants around my arse has probs made everything a million times worse. I mean whoever said your school days are the best in your life, well they were talking utter bollocks.

It’s not like I can talk to my dad ’bout all the Facebook stuff.

Everyone at school reckons Dad’s gay. I’ve had many a Facebook-wall post off them saying ‘Braxton’s dad gobblz cock’ and ‘Ur dad is queer’. But he’s not. Dad’s just broken, proper broken.

Two years ago I came home from school to find my mum sitting at the bottom of the stairs crying. I thought maybes my dad’d died. He hadn’t. He was at work and Mum was gearing herself up to pissing off out of our lives.

Mum told me that she’d got back in touch with some bloke she’d known at university. She’d found him on twatting Facebook and at first it was all ’bout inboxing. Then she’d met up with him for a pint. She’d driven all the way to Leeds just so as they could meet up in a pub they once knew. Mum said it like I’d be impressed that she’d once been in a pub. Mum said it’d been going on for two years. Two fucking years and my dad didn’t have a clue. At first I wondered why Mum was telling me all the stuff. I mean I didn’t want her getting all menstrual ’bout life and then, Jesus Christ, she made me a bit sick in my mouth when she started going on ’bout how she was still young and needed sex. She didn’t say it exactly like that, but that was the gist of it.

The fact was that Dad wasn’t giving her any and Mum wanted some.

Mum said that she reckoned she deserved more than the shit life her and Dad were having and that if she didn’t leave that very day then she’d probs never leave. Mum said she’d waited until I was fourteen, God bless her consideration, but that now I was fourteen there was little more she could help me with. She made some joke about ‘Arthur helping Arthur’, ’cause clearly what with me and my dad having the same name, that meant that I was more his than hers. She reckoned she’d done enough raising me and my dad’d be good at the last bits before I left home. I think she said something ’bout expecting me to be left home by the time I was sixteen. Clearly she had high hopes for my future career, even at that early age.

Anyways, that’s when Mum stood up off the stairs, I mean she was sobbing so not entirely a heartless slag, but she went upstairs and I followed her into her and Dad’s bedroom. Then she packed one bag, with hardly owt. It was mainly some frilly underwear, make-up, some expensive perfume and a couple of photos of me that she liked best. One was from when I was a baby and the other from when I was two, she didn’t take owt with her to remind her of how I was then.

I sat on Mum’s and Dad’s bed and I watched her packing her stuff. All the time I didn’t cry and I didn’t shout and I certainly didn’t speak. I just watched my mum putting the only reminders of her life with us into a bag. Simple. And while she was packing she said that that day was the start of her new life with her new bloke and that he was all set for buying her everything she needed. The bell-end. He was a lecturer and Mum was thinking ’bout going back to study creative twatting writing. She had a novel in her, whatever the fuck that meant. She was going to do all the stuff that having me when she was twenty had stopped her from doing. She said I’d made her tits little and taken away her identity. It was bad enough she was pissing off but saying shit embarrassing stuff like that made it all the worse. She even said that she was looking forward to being a mum again one day.

Then Mum came over to me on the bed and she sat next to me. She put her hand on my knee and gave it a little squeeze. And that was all. No hug, no emotional goodbye. Just my mum standing up, picking up her bag and pissing off down the stairs and out the front door. I was left sitting on Mum’s and Dad’s bed wondering what the fuck I was going to tell Dad.

And, me being me, I didn’t tell Dad for a few hours. I mean I couldn’t judge the right time to tell him ’bout Mum pissing off. He came in from work asking me where Mum was and I lied, I said I didn’t know. By half ten and after he’d figured she’d gone out without her mobile and left her house keys in the kitchen, Dad was all set for phoning the police. That’s when I reckoned I had no choice but to tell him ’bout Mum being a slag.

Dad seemed to take it quite well, that night. That night I reckon he did what any bloke would do after learning their wife had pissed off. He drank most of his single malt and passed out on the sofa. Not forgetting that when I went down in the morning to have my breakfast before school, I found him stinking of piss, lying half on the sofa and half on the floor. But I reckoned that was a normal reaction. I expected a couple of days of wallowing and then me and him’d put the world to rights. ’Cause my dad was ace, proper tough and funny, I expected him to sort all the shit out and make everything better.

I couldn’t tell anyone, probs ’cause I knew that the likes of Tommy Clarke would go on ’bout how my mum’s new bloke was chewing on her tits. And also I didn’t really want anyone to know what a slag Mum was being. I guess in them first few days I reckoned she’d come home. She didn’t. Obviously.

After that night of Dad pissing himself, he was all apologetic. He even went out looking for Mum. I told him all I could remember ’bout her new bloke and we even tried logging into Mum’s Facebook account, but of course she’d got herself a new password, to go with her new life. She’d even protected her profile so that we couldn’t see any of her friends. Got to give my mum credit, she was shit hot on cyber protection.

Anyways Dad didn’t give up for quite a bit. He was all for cleaning the house and cooking and being pretty much tops. He was saying stuff ’bout us Arthur Braxtons being made of strong shit, going on ’bout his dad being an Arthur Braxton and how he took no shit from women and how our name was like some sort of badge-of-twatting-honour. It was a laugh, me and my dad against the twatting world. But then I reckon it hit Dad that Mum wasn’t coming back and that’s when he went all manic.

To start with he got to writing ‘cunt’ all over my mum’s feature wall in the lounge. I reckon it made the feature wall look less wanky, but I didn’t tell Dad that. Then he spent days smashing up plates and ornaments. He’d take them out from Mum’s cupboards and off Mum’s shelves, then go into the centre of the kitchen and hoy them on the floor. I reckon no one’ll understand my reasoning but I’d give anything for him to be like that again. It showed he cared and it didn’t leave the room stinking of piss. ’Course I didn’t like him being like that at the time, God no, not back then. He was a proper nutter. But it was somehow better than now.

After a manic week or so, Dad went all quiet. And that quiet’s how he’s been since.

Mum never came back. Worse still she never called, she never emailed, she never sent a text and she never even bothered to tell us where she was living. She hasn’t even bothered with my two birthdays since. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not an utterly heartless bitch, she pays money into the bank account every month. Guilt money, I reckon. But it keeps us afloat and social services off our backs. But Dad, well he’s not taken my mum disappearing too well. He’s managed to tell his mum and his sister to twat off, and even though at first they’d come visiting and trying to make things better. They’d bring around food and bits of shopping, stuff they reckoned we needed like washing-up liquid and talcum powder and bleach for the toilet. But after six months of Dad refusing to speak to them and instead holding up a piece of cardboard with the words ‘twat off’ written in one of Mum’s lipsticks, well they did just that.

My dad’s being a bell-end but I get it. I get that Mum broke him, I get that he’s got nowt to get bothered ’bout and he’s got no one to get washed for. I get it. Instead he spends his days lying on the sofa watching daytime telly or staring at the word ‘cunt’ on Mum’s feature wall. Dad’s doctor has him as ‘unfit to work’. No shit, Sherlock. And me, well I’ve spent months trying to make sure that no one ever comes round our house and if they do, they certainly never get to step into this shithole.

’Course, I don’t tell anyone ’bout how shit it is in my house. It’s not like I’ve got any mates to talk to. Tommy Clarke told everyone that the reason my mum pissed off was ’cause my dad’s a bender. He said my mum’d caught my dad bumming the milkman, said that’s why Mum pissed off, said that’s why Dad lost his job. Everyone believed Tommy twatting Clarke. But what am I supposed to do? I don’t want to hear them all calling Mum a slag and saying how she’s getting boned every night. God, no. And I can’t be telling them that Dad’s broken and spends his days watching crap daytime telly and pouring stale Walker’s crisps into his mouth. So, I keep quiet. I let them think whatever they want. That’s ’cause I read an agony-aunt column once and it said how if you fight back you sometimes end up digging yourself into an even bigger hole. So me, well I let the shit-slingers hoy whatever they want at me. Sticks and stones, my dad’s no bender.

So I keep my mum’s secret and I keep my dad’s secrets and instead I put up with daily shit from Tommy twatting Clarke. Well I say daily but I’m proper talented at wagging off school. I mean why would I bother going someplace where I get the shit kicked out of me ’cause Tommy Clarke and his bunch of merry twats’ve got some gay-bashing thing going on? He reckons Dad’s gay, that I’ve caught being gay off my dad and that I deserve the beating for the both of us. He’s even told the lads in my year that if they’re friends with me then they’ll ‘catch being gay’ too. Tommy Clarke’s proper bright like that. And if I don’t leg it fast enough, then I put up with the beatings they give me, simple as that.

So, I go to school when I have to, I keep social services off my back. But every single twatting time I do it ends up with me legging out of school and Tommy Clarke and his merry bunch of twats chasing after me. And all the time I know that none of it would be happening if my mum wasn’t such a fucking slag.

But, still, sometimes I dream ’bout Mum. I dream ’bout her coming round one day and letting herself in with a key and ’bout her having bags of shopping from Asda. I swear I can practically taste the custard doughnuts and Jammie Dodgers popping out the top of her carrier bags. And then it’s shit all over again when I wake up and realise that my dream was bollocks, that Mum don’t give a shit ’bout me and that my life’s utter wank. Some days I hate that I wake up.

Mrs Harrison from over the road stopped me the other day and said that she’d seen Mum pushing a pram through the centre of Manchester. She said she was sure it was Mum but that she’d lost a few pounds and got herself a fancy new haircut. She said she’d not seen Mum round our way much recently and wondered if she was all right. I ended up saying something gay like ‘my mum’s on holiday’. I mean, for fucking out loud, who goes on holiday for two years? I reckon it’s perhaps ’bout time I said something honest. So next time someone asks, I’m all for saying that Mum’s fucked off with a bell-end and she’s not coming back. And that she don’t give a twat ’bout me and that she certainly isn’t going to want to be having sex with Dad. He stinks of piss and he’s fat.

Nice one, Dad. Good work on the parenting front. Nice one, Mum. You utter twat.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. I’m on the seafront now and it’s proper freezing. Nowt but crappy black to my left, I can’t even see the sea, and the shops are closed; I swear, I must be the only twat stupid enough to be outdoors. Even the seagulls have fucked off out of the rain.

My head’s been full of Estelle Jarvis and Tommy twatting Clarke. I must have been walking for hours.

I’m shaking, I don’t know if it’s ’cause of the cold or my head. The wind’s lashing from the sea and onto me, the rain’s splashing on my phone’s screen and making it impossible to read. I smear it across with the cuff of my blazer and manage to press an icon that takes me to my settings. I tap off it and load Facebook.

And that’s when I see a photo of my cock.

‘Bastards,’ I whisper. ‘Twatting bastards.’

I’ve been tagged. My cock’s on Tommy Clarke’s wall, so there’s no way I can delete it, but ’cause he’s tagged me and practically every other person in year eleven, my cock is everywhere. The six inches of my boner is glistening from my phone’s screen. Oh God, no. There’s already thirty-seven likes and nineteen comments, but I can’t bring myself to click on the comments. I know it’ll be taken down soon, but that’s not the point. The whole fucking world will have seen it by the time Facebook gets to removing it.

That’s when I start walking along the seafront. I’m shoving my phone back in my pocket as I walk. The rain’s pounding down on my head and the wind’s dancing across the Irish Sea. The wind’s circling me and making me feel like utter shite, like it’s telling me that my life’s not worth owt. I stop. I put my shaking hands onto the metal railings and look out to the sea. The cold wind stings my face. I hadn’t even realised I was crying. Estelle Jarvis is an utter bitch. I hate her. And Tommy Clarke is an utter twat. But it’s me that’s the biggest twat in all of this. What the fuck was I thinking? Why the fuck would someone as fit as Estelle Jarvis want to suck my cock? I’m the school fucking freak, why would she be interested in a twat like me?

I’ve no idea what to do next. I’m freezing, my uniform’s fucked, I’ve no one to turn to, I’ve nowhere to go. I’ve fuck all in my life. And somehow the wind’s telling me that my life’s not going to get any better. And somehow the wind’s telling me that this is it, that this is the best my life’s ever going to be. And somehow the wind’s telling me that all Arthur Braxtons are utter twats.

And that’s when I start thinking ’bout ending it all. I mean there, on the seafront, with the heavy sky and the freezing wind, that’s when I realise that I’ve nowt in my life. No mum, no dad who gives a fuck, no mates, beatings at school, and now I’ll always be known as ‘Cock Boy’. But more than that, I’m thinking that all Arthur Braxtons are fucked up and I don’t want to end up like my dad.