Eddie's Story
If I hadn't had got this job at Tesco then I don't know what I would have done. Probably end up busking or begging on the streets for small change or some other down-and-out thing. I'd like to say that I thank God every day for the opportunities he gave me, but I'm not a believer. Not that I don't believe in God; I just don't believe God's like that. He's there but he doesn't give a monkey what we do down here. He created and then he left us to it.
Take my mum for instance. He created her and then left her to fend for herself with two kids that didn't have a dad. Here's how that went:
Dad: your kids are ugly and so they can't be mine. Look at that red hair. Jesus, woman, if I had red hair like that then I'd throw myself in the river. Lucky that I don't and lucky for you that you don't either. If I were you I'd give the kids to that ginger minger milkman. Anyway, I'm off and you'll never see me again.
Mum told me this story when my sister and me was five. Yes, you've guessed it, we're twins. And no, the milkman's not my dad. It'd be mad to think that my mum had an affair with him. I mean, she's just not an early riser at all and so how could she? No, my dad's gone and I'll never see him ever again and that's that.
My mum's a bit of a strange one. I remember her telling me that my sister had been kidnapped by gipsies and they'd all gone to live in Heckmondthwaite. I told her straight to her face that she was lying and that I could hear my sister crying from inside the airing cupboard and besides, there's no such place as Heckmondthwaite and did she perhaps mean Heckmondwhite that is just half an hour from where we used to live back then and she said that we were both incorrect because it was really Heckmondwike she'd meant. Yeah, I know; you can tell how I got to be so confused as a grown-up now can't you!
The world will never end. Not according to Mr Yard at school. He taught us woodworking. When we were thirteen he brought a cabinet into school and told us to make one like it and if we could then we'd pass his class. None of us passed. Not even one. He got into trouble for that and they had to do an independent review of the other work we'd done. I passed in the end and actually became quite good at woodwork. I even made my own guitar out of sheets of plyboard that I bent and cut into shape. It played great until I left it out in the garden one day and it fell to pieces. Must have been the glue that wasn't good enough. I nicked the proper glue from school and so I don't really know what went wrong. Probably something else. But anyway of course the world will end. Mr Yard might have been a dab-hand at cutting up wood but he obviously knew nothing about the nature of things. All of them end eventually. Everything's eventual. The day ends, the night ends and another one begins instead. Another day with another name. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and all of that. Even a river isn't the same river as it was a few seconds before. It might have the same name but the water that was in it has moved on. The old river was dead and a new river has come into being instead. It was even in the bible: a season for this that and the other. So, yeah, screw you Mr Yard and your world-ending stupidness.
I once read a book that Lark gave me after she'd done with it. Lark? Oh yeah, she's my sister. My older sister; like she hardly ever reminds me. By six seconds. We'd agreed to hold hands as we came out of the womb so that we'd be exactly the same age so I don't know what happened there. Must have got separated somehow. And that's another thing: I never could spell the word separated until I made my mind up to get it right. I think that's all you need to do sometimes: just make your mind up. Like surviving the zombie apocalypse. You've just got to make up your mind. That's what the book was about anyway: making your mind up. It was called ... erm ... I don't know, something like: Make Your Mind Up, Fool. No, that can't be right. It wasn't written by Mr T, who called everyone Fool. I'd have remembered that. No, it was ... wait, I got it: Get Your Ess Aitch Asterisk Tee Together. And yeah, it had that cute little star symbol in it instead of the vowel. I can't tell you for sure which letter was missing but you can probably pick the word out from the following line-up: shat, shet, shit, shot, shut. So this book was really useful for me when I was twenty because I was getting old and I still hadn't chosen the career in Tesco that I chose later on. As a result of that very book, I totally turned my life around. I bought a gun. Yeah, I know: stunned silence! No, actually that's a lie. I threw it in there for dramatic effect. Actually what I did then was got myself a boyfriend.
I thought my mother would freak. I thought she would be, like, Edward, what are you thinking? But all she said when I told her was, tell your sister, Lark because I'm pretty sure that she has a friend she wants to set you up and it would be such a terrible waste of time for her to have to go through all that matchmaking business and you turn around and say that you prefer getting your kicks from having a boy's penis up your boohoo. And I said Mother, what kind of pervert do you take me for? There's no way any boy's going to be interfering with my hoohoo thank you very much. No, I'm the one in the driving seat here and Clive's the one taking it up the boojacksie. Then I turned to Clive, who was sat next to me on the sofa, and I said 'Clive, meet my mother; Mother, meet Clive.' I guess Mother must have wondered why I was suddenly calling her Mother when I've always called her Mum up to that point, but she took it all very well, considering. As did Clive.
It was actually Clive who started me on my career with Tesco, and out of all the good things he did for me, that was the very best one. He not only introduced me to the newspaper advertisement, but he also dialled the number for me on my phone before handing it to me with the encouraging word 'talk!' Then the day after I started work, in my natty uniform of blue with white trim, he finished with me saying that he had to give me time and space to develop and grow. And he was right. Because I really did need time to learn the rigours of life at a major superstore. The induction alone took up most of the first hour in a very intensive morning shift but I am proud to say that I passed with glowing colours and was supervising the self-checkout area by 9 am, which was a major boost to my self-esteem I can tell you.
I got on really well with the other people working at Tesco just as I'd got on well with everyone at school. It's as plain as the wart on my nose that they were jealous of me, but that didn't bother me at all. I reckon ninety-five percent of the kids under twenty-one were doing a university course of some sort or another. One girl was doing Forensic Psychology, which must have been awful for her, the poor dear. I mean, how horrific to know that you were wasting all those thousands of pounds of money on getting a degree when all you really had to do was get the boxset of Criminal Minds for £69.99 from Amazon (not in stock at Tesco, but do have a look at our other boxset deals when you get a mo) for the absolute skinny on all things forensic. So, yes, they were all jealous of the fact that I had found my niche in life and I didn't have to go gallivanting all over the country just to get an education. Living at home with my lovely Mother was suiting me fine thank you very much.
Clive once joked about me that aimlessness is my focus. I smiled when he said it because that's the kind of person I am, but inside I must admit that the comment worried me a little. It was almost as if he was saying goodbye. It wasn't until the week after that he ended our love match and left our relationship that had stretched over August and the first week of September making it the longest love affair I'd ever had. He had brightened my heart with the selfless way he poured his life into mine. He even gave me a gift for our first month anniversary. It was Chinese food that he brought over to my Mother's house at nine-thirty pm prompt. Just in time for a late supper. Mother was surprised and kindly gave her full portion over to Clive saying that she'd already had tea and wasn't about to eat so close to bedtime because it wouldn't digest in time and so Clive and I had a wonderful feast while we were all watched a movie on TV. The way the light flickered over their faces was lovely to see and I was buzzing inside to see how well my two most favourite people in the whole wide world were getting on from their chairs at the far ends of the room. So you see how silly it is to say that aimlessness is my focus? I'm as loving as a leatherback turtle in a bed of lettuce when I'm sitting in front of the TV watching a movie and eating Chinese food and so there. Then Lark called to say that she was going to have a baby.
Lark's always been a bit of a flighty person. Married at sixteen to the love of her life and then, a bare four years later declaring that she's pregnant that there's nothing we could do about it. I mean, really! She had settled down to give her love to one person and then she invited another along to take his place; what kind of madness is that! It's almost as strange as arranging tins in the cupboard with their labels facing inwards. Who does this kind of thing?
Come to think of it, my sister has always been very selfish. I remember the time when I was fourteen and she bought me the latest CD of a group I really liked and then insisted that I play it as loud as I wanted. All the time it was playing she was lying on her bed in the next room listening to my music without even a by-your-leave. It was downright rude of her and I was fuming the whole album through. I couldn't concentrate at all just from thinking about her selfishness. How dare she! And how dare she drop in unannounced on our monthly anniversary just to tell us that she was doing something tantamount to leaving her husband! I mean, the poor guy must have been fuming too. I called him and told him as much the next day and he was, like, it's alright, Ed, that's what life is about. Such selflessness.
One morning not so long ago ... about three weeks ago I think, I woke up with the strangest feeling. I was four-thirty in the afternoon and I was having tea before heading off for the night shift at Tesco. I remember that me and Mother were sat at the table doing a crossword in yesterday's Metro paper when I told her about it.
I said, 'Mother, I'm going to say goodbye now because ...'
'Finish your tea first,' she said. 'I've just spent the last five minutes slaving over the microwave to put that food on the table in front of you and if you don't finish it off then, mark my words, there's going to be trouble.'
'No, I don't mean that I'm going now. It's a different kind of goodbye.'
'Finish it,' she said, jabbing a fork in my direction. It was unfortunate for her that it was loaded with mash, white sauce and a fair chunk of cod at the time because the motion of the fork dislodged it from its perch. Lucky for me, though, because it fell off her fork onto my plate. Mindful of her strict admonition I kept silent and let my smirk speak for itself. She tried getting it back but I was too quick for her and countered her fork-thrust with a knife thrust of my own. Good job it only resulted in a superficial wound to the fleshy part of her hand because anything else would have got me in serious trouble.
After I'd finished eating I tried again. 'Mother, I ...'
'Don't call me that. I don't know why you started and I've stood it as long as I can and now I'm sick of it and I want it to stop.
I tried again. 'Gwendoline, I ...'
She threw her knife and fork down and huffed at me. 'Are you trying to take the blooming piss, young man?'
I frowned and tried again. 'Mrs Arkwright, I ...'
That's it. I've had quite enough. Upstairs to your room with you. There'll be no supper for you tonight you young whipper-snapper. Straight to your room and stay there until you learn to have a civil tongue in your head!'
'But Mum!, I've got to go to work!'
'That's more like it, son. Now what was it you wanted to say to me?' she asked as she picked up her cutlery, licked the mash off the handle of her fork and resumed her meal.
I looked at her with an incredulous expression that I'd picked up from a YouTube video and had been practising all week. Isn't it nice when one's honest endeavours come to fruition like that? Of course, by the time all that had finished happening, I'd completely forgotten what I was going to say and so as soon as I'd finished my cuppa I got up, collected my pack-up from the fridge, put my shoes on, grabbed my coat, unlocked my bicycle and set off for work.
I never saw my mum again because that was the night it all kicked off.
Oh, just one more thing: me and Kurt; one of the guys I work with at Tesco were never a couple. I mean, sure, we were a couple of fools, but I never laid a finger or anything else on his hoofudgehole. He just wasn't my type. On reflection, it did take me quite a while to realise that he wasn't my type but a few well-aimed curse words from Kurt and a poorly-aimed punch that skimmed my face, missed my nose completely and gave me just a single black eye, meant that I was a little wiser to his rejection of my advances. I sat him down a week later when my face had healed and he'd calmed down enough to be in the same room with me again and made him explain when he meant by the phrase 'keep away from me you shirt-lifting faggot or I'll rip your arms off and shove them up your arse' meant.
He actually drew me a picture in the end, bless him, after my utter failure to understand his explanations. Honestly, up until that point, I'd thought he'd meant those words as some kind of sophisticated American flirt. Finally, I got the message: he wasn't ready for me. I could understand that. It's not everyone who can be so straightforward as I can about their sexual preferences. I did keep the diagram though. It's one of my most cherished possessions and I keep it in my locker at work next to my gun. I'd lied when I said that I'd lied when I said I'd got one. You can't be too careful at work because there are some very odd characters there. There's one guy who keeps a machete - a frickin' machete; can you imagine? - at his workstation near the entrance to Teso. I mean, Jeesh. Don't ever let me get on his bad side!
Oh, and something else: I just remembered what I was trying to say to my mum at teatime that night. It was about a dream I'd had when I was sleeping.
In the dream, I was in this massive field, and the whole place was covered with flowers of every single imaginable colour. It was like a gay-pride parade on acid. Oh, and that's another thing, remind me to tell you about the time I dropped acid with my friend Marvin. So, yeah, there were all these flowers and me in this massive field and I was lying down in it looking up at the sky, which was the most marvellous shade of green. We'll skip over the part where I looked closely at the stems of the flowers and noticed that each one of them was a skinny, but very erect penis, because it's not at all relevant to the thrust and ultimate meaning of the dream, and we'll move on to the action. Umm, okay, hold up. Listen, I've totally changed my mind about telling you about this dream; it's completely irrelevant to what's going on and it'll just confuse you utterly if I start telling you about the clouds forming into a dark mass that looked like a Chinese guy in the sky looking down on me like some kind of giant Freddie Krueger and then bending down and whispering in my ear that storms are going to come and that we all had to hide in the best place we could find or fight if we were able. I'll not tell you that stuff because I don't want to fill your head with any nonsense and then have you thinking that something important is going to come of it. So that's that, forget what I said, okay?
Let me tell you about me and Marvin tripping out on acid instead.
Guys, it was totally amazeballs. I mean, not that you should try it yourself, but if you did, make sure you're in a safe environment away from roofs and upper story windows and things that have the potential to look like snakes and anything that sounds like flies buzzing and well, pretty much anything that can be misconstrued as being frightening when your mind is opened up to appreciate the inner reality of outer existence. The best thing you can do is put on your favourite cartoon from when you were a kid, sit yourself down so that your nose is about six inches away from the screen and drop the tab, which is exactly what Marvin and me did and it was awesome!
Man, we just laughed and laughed at absolutely nothing at all for the whole duration and when we woke up the next morning it didn't even seem to matter that we were both naked and covered in cornflakes, milk and something sticky that had the consistency of jelly but tasted slightly of salt. I have no idea at all what happened that night, but that's alright, it's one of those experiences you go through as part of your coming of age ritual: getting drunk, experimenting with drugs, having sex and telling your uncle Ernie to take a flying leap (not necessarily in that order). I'll stress this again, though, kiddies: don't try this at home! Your uncle will absolutely whip your ass until you can't sit down for a week.
On a more serious note, I was in the warehouse at the back of Tesco when the zombie apocalypse started. I was watching it live on the interned in real-time. Kurt burst into the restroom a couple of seconds after it started with his mouth open and his eyes wide like he was a rabbit about to be run down by a truck and he said, 'dude, have you see this shit?' and I was, like, 'yeah, what the fuck is happening?'
We used to have this thing; a shared interest you might say, where we used to hook up to live feeds and webcams; some of them legal but most of them hack-jobs. Here the thing: every single one of them, with absolutely no exception, was showing the exact same thing at the exact same time in every single country we could pick up, which was pretty much all of them: frickin' mad people, ripping out people's throats, sucking on their blood and dropping them, and then those ripped-out-throats-people getting up a second later and ripping out other people's throats. The screaming. The blood. The death. The zombies. The fuck!