JOHNNY BULLETS AND THE CHEMOTHERAPY KID
An Excerpt from the novel Career Opportunities, by Ian Hunter.
It would have been hard to find a more affable guy than
Vince Clegg. He was seldom to be seen without a smile and this in its self,
considering his beleaguered social status, was something to be admired. Both
Paolo and Jason had known him since school. He was, and always had been, the
statutory fat kid that all schools must have by law in order
to show you what will happen to you if you bunk off games too often and live on
McDonald’s.
Poor Vince had suffered an adolescence riddled with social
stigma and castigation. He was actually called Donald, which was bad enough,
but some bright spark had noticed his ears were practically lobe-less and Van Gogh
had evolved into Vince. His other nickname, the one that even the cruellest of
detractors refrained from using to his face, was The Chemotherapy Kid.
Apart from being
born fat, smelly and socially repulsive, Vince had begun to lose his hair at a
very early age. He hadn't lost it in the usual pattern, from the temples or the
crown, but in an even thickness from all over his head. For poor old Vince
Clegg, a trip to the barbers held more fear than a visit to the dentist. As his
late teens had passed by, his cranium had become an ever-decreasing mess of
fine bum fluff, and some cruel bastard had commented that he looked like he was
having chemotherapy. And so a name was born.
Vince hung out on
the edges of Jason and Paolo’s post-school social circle. He could usually be
found down at the front of local gigs getting over enthusiastic about a very
mediocre band and constantly cottoning on to other local miscreants in order to
feel superior to at least someone.
Most people treated him with contempt but all seemed keen to
include him in their weekend plans, albeit this inclusion would invariably be
blamed on someone else.
What Vince did possess, although unwittingly, was social
equilibrium. In every social circle, young or old, there is a fat Vince They
are the people who serve to remind us what will happen if we slip off the ladder
of ambition. They make us realize that we are something better than they are
and, that in it’s self, gives us the confidence to climb higher and with a
surer footing. It is a confidence that we suck from them and that is why we
want them close to hand. Vince was a fat, odorous, sexually repressed good bloke
and definitely no threat to anyone’s chances of scoring on tour.
Johnny Bullets could not have been more different. He was
six feet two with a mane of jet- black hair. He had a character that endeared
him to men, and a smile that could drop female knickers at a hundred yards.
His arms were tattooed from wrist to shoulder with oriental
pornography of the most explicit kind, which was a useful professional aid for
a man who had once earned a crust as a bare knuckle fighter in East London pubs.
He was charming, witty and always dressed in the coolest
threads. Johnny Bullets did OK… for an ex coal miner on the
dole.
He was a few years older
than they, at twenty-five and had become something of a hero to the T-bar regulars.
However, and despite his affable demeanour, Johnny was one hard bastard but his
sheer physical presence and aggressive looking body art meant that jealous
boyfriends and spoiling drunks usually side stepped the urge to get embroiled
in any kind of physical nastiness. It was a wise decision.
What Johnny had was
‘It’. The 'X'. That evasive but irresistible quality that we see in others and
wish on ourselves. He didn't really live anywhere, as such; just crashing out
on his aunts sofa for the odd week when he wasn't dossing down with which ever girl was
currently flavour of the month. He would pick up some hapless girl, move into
her house and keep her serviced. In return for what he viewed as this pleasant
interlude in her monotonous existence, she would feed him, clothe him, and keep
him in money for beer and cigarettes. However, within a few months he would
tire of the same old shag and she would tire of how much he cost to keep. She
would invariably slope off back to her recently dumped boyfriend to beg for
forgiveness, whilst Johnny had one last rummage in her purse and moved on to
his next victim. Johnny
Bullets didn't give a fuck… Not one fuck.
Career Opportunities is available at Amazon
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