Chapter 16

 JJ

 

I was going to just like splurge, tell 'em everything they needed to know - Big Yellow, Lizzie, the works. There was no need to lie. I guess I felt a little queasy¹ listening to the other guys, because their reasons for being up there seemed pretty solid. Jesus, everyone understood why Maureen's life wasn't worth living. And, sure, Martin had kind of dug his own grave, but even so, that level of humiliation² and shame… If I'd been him, I doubt if I'd have stuck around as long as he had. And Jess was very unhappy and very nuts. So it wasn't like people were being competitive, exactly, but there was a certain amount of, I don't know what you'd call it…marking out territory? And maybe I felt a little insecure because Martin had pissed all over my patch. I was going to be the shame and humiliation guy, but my shame and humiliation was beginning to look a little pale. He'd been locked up for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old, and fucked over in the tabloids³; I'd been dumped by a girl, and my band wasn't going anywhere. Big fucking deal.

Still, I didn't think of lying until I had the trouble with my name. Jess was so fucking aggressive, and I just lost my nerve.

'So,' I said. 'OK. I'm JJ, and…'

'Woss that stand for?'

People always want to know what my initials are for, and I never tell them. I hate my name. What happened was, my dad was one of those self-educated guys, and he had a real, like, reverence⁴ for the BBC, so he spent too much time listening to the World Service on his big old short-wave radio in the den⁵, and he was real hung up on this dude who was always on the radio in the sixties, John Julius Norwich, who was like a lord or something, and writes millions of books about like churches and stuff. And that's me. John fucking Julius. Did I become a lord, or a radio anchor, or even an Englishman? No. Did I drop out of school and form a band? Yep. Is John Julius a good name for a high-school dropout⁶? Nope. JJ is OK, though. JJ's cool enough.

'That's my business. Anyway, I'm JJ, and I'm here because…'

'I'll find out what your name is.'

'How?'

'I'll come round your house and ransack⁷ it until I find something that tells me. Your passport or bank book or something. And if I can't find anything then I'll just steal something you love and I won't give it back until you've coughed up.'

Jesus Christ. What gives with this girl?

'You'd rather do that than call me by my initials?'

'Yeah. Course. I hate not knowing things.'

'I don't know you very well,' said Martin. 'But if you're really troubled by your own ignorance, I'd have thought there should be one or two things higher up the list than JJ's name.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Do you know who the Chancellor⁸ of the Exchequer⁹ is? Or who wrote Moby-Dick?'

'No,' said Jess. 'Course not.' As if anyone who knew stuff like that was a dork. 'But they're not secrets, are they? I don't like not knowing secrets. I could find that other stuff out any time I felt like it, and I don't feel like it.'

'If he doesn't want to tell us, he doesn't want to tell us. Do your friends call you JJ?'

'Yeah.'

'Then that's good enough for us.'

'S'not good enough for me,' said Jess.

'Just belt up and let him talk,' said Martin.

But for me, the moment had gone. The moment of truth, anyway, ha ha. I could tell I wasn't going to get a fair hearing; there were waves of hostility¹⁰ coming off Jess and Martin, and these waves were breaking everywhere.

I stared at them all for a minute.

'So?' said Jess. 'You forgotten why you were going to kill yourself, or what?'

'Of course I haven't forgotten,' I said.

'Well, fucking spit it out then.'

'I'm dying,' I said.

See, I never thought I'd run into them again. I was pretty sure that sooner or later we'd shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and then either trudge¹¹ back down the stairs or jump off the fucking roof, depending on mood, character, scale of problem etcetera. It really never occurred to me that this was going to come back and repeat on me like a pickle¹² in a Big Mac.

'Yeah, well you don't look great,' said Jess. 'What you got? AIDS?'

AIDS fitted the bill. Everyone knew you could wander around with it for months; everyone knew it was incurable¹³. And yet… I'd had a couple friends who died from it, and it's not the kind of thing you joke about. AIDS I knew I should leave the fuck alone. But then - and this all ran through my head in the thirty seconds after Jess's question - which fatal disease was more appropriate?

Leukemia? The Ebola virus? None of them really says, 'No, go on, man, be my guest. I'm only a joke killer¹⁴ disease. I'm not serious enough to offend anyone.'

'I got like this brain thing. It's called CCR.' Which of course is Creedence Clearwater Revival¹⁵, one of my all-time favorite bands, and a big inspiration to me. I didn't think any of them looked like big Creedence fans. Jess was too young, I really didn't need to worry about Maureen, and Martin was the kind of guy who'd only have smelled a rat if I'd told him I was dying of incurable ABBA.

'It's like Cranial Corno-something.' I was pleased with the 'cranial' part. That sounded about right. The 'corno-' was weak, though, I admit.

'Is there no cure for that?' Maureen asked.

'Oh, yeah,' said Jess. 'There's a cure. You can take a pill. It's just that he couldn't be arsed. Der.'

'They figure it's from drug abuse. Drugs and alcohol. So it's all my own fuckin' fault.'

'You must feel a bit of a berk, then,' said Jess.

'I do,' I said. 'If "berk" means asshole.'

'Yeah. Anyway, you win.'

Which confirmed to me once and for all that a competitive edge had snuck in.

'Really?' I was pleased.

'Oh, yeah. Dying? Fuck. That's, you know… Like diamonds or spades or those… Trumps¹⁶! You've got trumps, man.'

'I'd say that having a fatal disease was only any good in this game,' said Martin. 'The who's-the-most-miserable bastard¹⁷ game. Not much use anywhere else.'

'How long have you got?' Jess asked.

'I don't know.'

'Roughly. Just like off the top of your head.'

'Shut up, Jess,' said Martin.

'What have I said now? I wanted to know what we were dealing¹⁸ with.'

We're not dealing with anything,' I said. 'I'm dealing with it.'

'Not very well,' Jess said.

'Oh, is that right? And this from the girl who can't deal with being dumped.'

We fell into a hostile silence.

'Well,' said Martin. 'So. Here we all are, then.'

'Now what?' said Jess.

'You're going home, for a start,' said Martin.

'Like fuck I am. Why should I?'

'Because we're going to march you there.'

'I'll go home on one condition.'

'Go on.'

'You help me find Chas first.'

'All of us?'

'Yeah. Or I really will kill myself. And I'm too young to do that. You said.'

'I'm not sure I was right about that, looking back,' said Martin. 'You're wise beyond your years. I can see that, now.'

'So it's OK if I go over?' She started to walk towards the edge of the roof.

'Come back here,' I said.

'I don't give a fuck, you know,' she said. 'I can jump, or we can look for Chas. Same thing, to me.'

And that's the whole thing, right there, because we believed her. Maybe other people on other nights wouldn't have but the three of us, that night, we had no doubts. It wasn't that we thought she was really suicidal, either; it was just that it felt like she might do whatever she wanted to do, at any given moment, and if she wanted to jump off a building to see what it felt like, then she'd try it. And once you'd worked that out, then it was just a question of how much you cared.

'But you don't need our help,' I said. 'We don't know how to start looking for Chas. You're the only one who can find him.'

'Yeah, but I get weird¹⁹ on my own. Confused. That's sort of how I ended up here.'

'What do you think?' said Martin to the rest of us.

'I'm not going anywhere,' said Maureen. 'I'm not leaving the roof, and I won't change my mind.'

'Fine. We wouldn't ask you to.'

'Because they'll come looking for me.'

'Who will?'

'The people in the respite²⁰ home.'

'So what?' said Jess. 'What are they going to do if they can't find you?'

'They'll put Matty somewhere terrible.'

'This is the Matty who's a vegetable? Does he give a shit where he goes?'

Maureen looked at Martin helplessly.

'Is it the money?' said Martin. 'Is that why you have to be dead by the morning?'

Jess snorted, but I could see why he had asked the question.

'I only paid for one night,' said Maureen.

'Have you got the money for more than one night?'

'Yes, of course.' The suggestion that she might not seemed to make her a little pissed. Pissed off. Whatever.

'So phone them up and tell them he'll be staying two.'

Maureen looked at him helplessly again. 'Why?'

'Because,' said Jess. 'Anyway, there's fuck all to do up here, is there?'

Martin laughed, kind of.

'Well, is there?' said Jess.

'Nothing I can think of,' said Martin. 'Apart from the obvious.'

'Oh, that,' said Jess. 'Forget it. The moment's gone. I can tell. So we've got to find something else to do.'

'So even if you're right, and the moment has passed,' I said, 'why do we have to do anything together? Why don't we go home and watch TV?'

' 'Cos I get weird on my own. I told you.'

Why should we care? We didn't know you half an hour ago. I don't give much of a fuck about how weird you get on your own.'

So you don't feel like a bond kind of thing because of what we've been through.'

'Nope.'

'You will. I can see us still being friends when we're all old.' There was a silence. This was clearly not a vision shared by all.

1 queasy   

adj.易呕的

参考例句：

• I felt a little queasy on the ship.我在船上觉得有点晕眩想呕吐。
• He was very prone to seasickness and already felt queasy.他快晕船了，已经感到恶心了。

2 humiliation   

n.羞辱

参考例句：

• He suffered the humiliation of being forced to ask for his cards.他蒙受了被迫要求辞职的羞辱。
• He will wish to revenge his humiliation in last Season's Final.他会为在上个季度的决赛中所受的耻辱而报复的。

3 tabloids   

n.小报，通俗小报（版面通常比大报小一半，文章短，图片多，经常报道名人佚事）( tabloid的名词复数 )；药片

参考例句：

• The story was on the front pages of all the tabloids. 所有小报都在头版报道了这件事。
• The story made the front page in all the tabloids. 这件事成了所有小报的头版新闻。

4 reverence   

n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• We reverence tradition but will not be fettered by it.我们尊重传统，但不被传统所束缚。

5 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

6 dropout   

n.退学的学生；退学；退出者

参考例句：

• There is a high dropout rate from some college courses.有些大学课程的退出率很高。
• In the long haul,she'll regret having been a school dropout.她终归会后悔不该中途辍学。

7 ransack   

v.彻底搜索，洗劫

参考例句：

• He began to ransack his mother's workbox for a piece of thread.他要找一根线,开始翻腾妈妈的针线盒。
• She ransack my apartment for the bankbook.她在我公寓里到处搜索寻找存折。

8 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

9 exchequer   

n.财政部；国库

参考例句：

• In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
• This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。

10 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

11 trudge   

v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行

参考例句：

• It was a hard trudge up the hill.这趟上山是一次艰难的跋涉。
• The trudge through the forest will be tiresome.长途跋涉穿越森林会令人疲惫不堪。

12 pickle   

n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡

参考例句：

• Mother used to pickle onions.妈妈过去常腌制洋葱。
• Meat can be preserved in pickle.肉可以保存在卤水里。

13 incurable   

adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人

参考例句：

• All three babies were born with an incurable heart condition.三个婴儿都有不可治瘉的先天性心脏病。
• He has an incurable and widespread nepotism.他们有不可救药的，到处蔓延的裙带主义。

14 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

15 revival   

n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振

参考例句：

• The period saw a great revival in the wine trade.这一时期葡萄酒业出现了很大的复苏。
• He claimed the housing market was showing signs of a revival.他指出房地产市场正出现复苏的迹象。

16 trumps   

abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造

参考例句：

• On the day of the match the team turned up trumps. 比赛那天该队出乎意料地获得胜利。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Every time John is late getting home he trumps up some new excuse. 每次约翰晚回家都会编造个新借口。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 bastard   

n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子

参考例句：

• He was never concerned about being born a bastard.他从不介意自己是私生子。
• There was supposed to be no way to get at the bastard.据说没有办法买通那个混蛋。

18 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

19 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

20 respite   

n.休息，中止，暂缓

参考例句：

• She was interrogated without respite for twenty-four hours.她被不间断地审问了二十四小时。
• Devaluation would only give the economy a brief respite.贬值只能让经济得到暂时的缓解。