Young Writers Society

As a rating, R is extremely exaggerated. There's mild swearing, and nothing more. Just thought I'd be on the safe side, what with all the very young writers

My Friend John

I’m walking with my friend John. The entire conversation so far has been off somehow. John’s acting odd, pausing mid-sentence to hold in some unexplained hilarity, and then wheezing out the rest of his words.

‘What’s so funny?’

John finds this too much. His head kicks back as he laughs. He bends over, holding his stomach. He laughs for a pretty long time; it's one of those laughs that get louder with each breath. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘But we better hurry up. The film starts in ten minutes. Tommy’s waiting, too.’

John had sex when he was eleven. He says he’s not proud of it, or at least the badge he used to wear did, and the T-shirts he made. “I had SEX when I was ELEVEN. But I’m not proud of it.” Then John started going to the gym, to buff up for the honeys or something. He proved everyone wrong who said he would give up (Sometimes I think John does things because no one expects him to.), and Beavis and Butthead made the T-shirts too small.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m friends with John…

Bevis and Butthead are John’s biceps. They’re pretty huge. John said once, that he only names the bigger parts of his anatomy, and the only other part he’s named is called Jake. John found that hilarious at the time. Maybe he’s laughing at something along that line.

‘But what are you laughing at? You’ve been holding in your damn laugh since we got on the bus, man.’

There was no room on the bus for us to sit together. I sat with a man called Phillip. Phillip was about twenty one stone. Phillip had the entire seat; I just stood in a half crouch, pretending there was enough room, my abbs aching by the end of it. Phillip found the ingrown toenail on his left foot terribly amusing and noteworthy.

John sat with some old woman. She had clutched her bag like a newborn baby when John sat next to her. A face piercing can do that to a person; make them more intimidating, somehow devious. John’s face piercing – running like a snake from his left eyebrow to his bottom lip - labelled him as a stealer of old women’s bags, apparently.

For the entire bus ride, John varied from moments of complete silence, to spasms of laugh-stifling, as if whatever was funny kept popping into his mind. I heard it in between Phillip’s long, laboured breaths for air and ingrown toe witticisms. ‘Yea,’ he said. ‘The nail just decided to go down, and it’s going straight into my toe. It’s all blue and purple and it bleeds all the time.’ Phillip sounded like that Darth Vader, but I imagine the Sith’s aroma would have been somewhat more pleasing. Perfumed bodysuits - $35.99

John would make a light-sabre joke if he was not otherwise engaged.

Apparently, the old woman went all paranoid on John, thought John was laughing at the growth on the right hand side of her face. The old woman stood up and screamed at him. Shrieked that it was a damned medical condition, damn it, and she was getting some damn treatment.

Damn.

I can think of no real reason why I’m friends with John, other than chance. He found me when I was six, cowering in the Maths room, afraid to leave. At first, he simply sat there and spat spit-balls into my face, but after a while John grew bored, and we became friends, somehow.

John was forced to leave the bus. I bid farewell to Phillip and followed him.

That’s why we have to walk to the cinema.

Thanks John…

‘You know,’ John said when the bus hissed its doors like a pissed off cobra and left us to walk, ‘she has a point. That thing on her face was pretty huge, man. It looked like a shit.’

John walks behind me, trailing with weak legs as he laughs.

‘Dude, what the hell are you laughing at? How long can you laugh at something! It’s not even normal.’

John straightens as he tries to gather himself, puts on his but-sir-I-couldn’t-possibly-have-been-with-your-daughter-that-night-as-I-was-at-church face. ‘Oh, it wasn’t even that funny. Or at least it won’t be to you. And I was drunk, so…’

‘What the hell did you do?’

‘I’ll tell you later, let’s get a jog on.’

I wish John wasn’t so athletic. I breathe through my nose as we run, fighting the heavy breaths that beg to push through my mouth. But John isn’t tired. Of course not. No one gets those kind of guns without doing a little cardio.

And why do cheeseburgers taste so damn good, anyway? I don’t see any of those Japanese wafer things tasting of cheeseburger – no, they taste of air and dry paper. If cheeseburgers tasted of dry paper, I wouldn’t eat them. I’d leave the melting cheese and the dripping meat, the fresh bun and the crisp salad. I’d leave it all. No one wants to eat dry paper. Or wet paper, actually.

But I’ve never seen a fat Jap… so they have to be doing something right. Maybe it’s the ‘Me Love You Long Time’ outlook on life.

John looks down at me. I’m sweating, he’s bone dry and smiling - but not laughing, at least. It seems he’s overcome that which was just so terribly amusing…

We approach the few shops that bunch together on one corner of the road. Clever tactics, really. I’ve never heard of an army using one archer to kill a group of unarmed peasants, as brave as it would be. The peasants would just side step the thing and bare their arses. They send whatever you call a group of archers at them, use hundreds of arrows, not just one. I’d like to see the fuckers side step that.

It’s exactly the same for the shops. If I jog past one, I’ll be fine – side step. Two, and I’ll be proud – side leap, arse-bare. Three, and it’s a long shot, and I’m looking for praise from someone – trampoline aided.

There are seven shops on this one corner. It’s too much for me, and I’ve never owned a trampoline anyway.

John has total control of himself when we reach the cinema. I ask why, again, but the half-chewed chocolate and soda leak from my mouth as I try. John pushes the glass door open, and the smell of popcorn hits me.

Think Japanese wafers. Think Japanese wafers. No one likes dry paper.

It’s a small world, apparently. Phillip From the Bus is ahead of me in the line for a ticket. He turns to me – this action takes a long time – and he smiles. He looks like a tiger shark from one of those animal documentaries I don’t watch.

‘I’m here alone!’ he shouts. ‘Maybe we can sit together!’

‘Yea…’ I figure Phillip’s about forty seven.

I get my ticket from the heavy-lidded employee, and a grumbled, ‘Thanks, hope you can come again and see all the spectacular, out of this world movies on offer here at the UGC. Jackass.’

After we all pay for the tickets – me, John, and now Phillip From the Bus – we walk towards the doors of the screening.

‘Have you guys seen this before?’ Philip yells. ‘I’ve seen it seven times! The car chase is hilarious, but then he dies.’

Movie ruined. Thanks Phil...

I look at John, he didn’t hear a thing – Bevis needed a little kiss, apparently. Before I open the door to see the hilarious car chase and whoever it is die, someone shouts my name.

I turn, smile as Tommy walks over. He remains silent for a moment, staring, wanting me to say something. His eyes flicker to John.

I look to John, too. He’s laughing, more so than ever now there’s someone to share the joke with. I look at Tommy, he’s smiling. I look to Philip From the Bus. He cowers slightly with the introduction of a new person, cowers like the scared puppy that pisses on a new carpet. He leans on his right foot, taking pressure off the toenail I can imagine twisting into the bottom of his toe like a spade through purple and blue mud.

‘Okay, what the hell is so damn funny?’

I can’t remember a single day with John that didn’t go awry to some degree. Not one normal day.

Tommy’s eyes look horrified as he stares at John and speaks. ‘You didn’t tell him yet? That’s sick, man.’ There’s a pause. ‘I mean, that’s just wrong.’

I’m starting to think it’s something serious. I’m waiting for the arrow to hit my peasant little arse and throw me onto the dirty carpet of the cinema.

Tommy was my first ever friend in the Cub Scouts. He taught me how to take the badges from people’s uniforms without them noticing, taught me how to cry on cue and say that the big boys took all my cookies and even punched me in the belly (then he taught me how to eat more cookies than my body could handle). Tommy showed me how to make marshmallows explode in a campfire, how to make people’s tents fall in on themselves, and how to ‘poison the waterhole.’ Tommy got me thrown out of the Cub Scouts…

‘Okay, okay. I’ll tell you if he won’t,’ Tommy says. ‘Last night, John got drunk. John—’

‘Wait,’ John interrupted. ‘You won’t tell it right.’ What John means is, he won’t sugar coat the arrow that’s aimed at my arse. ‘When I’m drunk, you know how I can get, thinking the lamppost was a woman, and the woman was a lamppost? Well, it kind of… happened again, I—’

‘John took a turd in your garden!’

Phillip’s eyebrows wobble.

…

I stare blankly at John. He collapses to the floor, probably imaging his little masterpiece sitting on the grass next to the roses and the gnome, steaming with a lordly steaminess.

‘There was no turd in my garden, dude… And who does that, anyway?’

The atmosphere gets thicker. John stands up, goes somewhat pale. ‘What?’

Phillip’s eyebrows wobble again, and his mouth quivers, as if he can smell John’s load.

‘There is, was, and has never been a turd in my garden, John… Where the hell did you dump your crap?’

‘I—’

Phillip steps forward. ‘That was you! You know how long it took my Mom to clean that up? You know how long I got shouted at?’

John isn’t laughing anymore. Bevis and Butthead, as big as they are, are no match for an angry Phillip From the Bus, with an ingrown toenail and a total body mass of twenty one stone. Phillip looks like one of those fishes that puffs out when they're threatened. I wouldn't know the name. I don't watch those documentaries...

I smile. No day is normal with John. I think that’s how I like it.

‘And he wasn’t even drunk,’ Tommy adds.

-Fantasy