RuKsaK

I met Donny when we were both eight. Under the vast blue sky of the middle two months of 1976 we kicked a ball, rode our bikes, collected and killed insects every time we found one. Everyday we wiped the muck of summer onto our hands, faces and fashion-free t-shirts. We’d return home to angry mothers and tired washing machines. It really was a summer to hate going home for, and we thought they’d all be like this. We were just arms and legs which needed air.
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It’s hard for me to think about Donny without thinking about his mother now. I’ve had friends in later life, for years, who’ve never met my parents. When you’re seven such a period hardly lasts a few days. I’m not sure which is better still. Well, except in Donny’s case I’m sure.
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When I first saw his mother, sitting in a brick corner in their back yard, it was the stench which hit me. She sat on a little stool with her legs open wide enough to park a colossal, lumpy sack between them. This black sack was crammed with mussels. She was picking them out, one by one, ripping the grassy beards from their pointed, hard shells and scraping out the sordid orange flesh inside. Each crack-open of a shell caused her top lip to lift and make her gum-held teeth show the quick strength needed for the task. She flicked each one into a salty bucket on her left. I couldn’t work out which smelled most; the bucket, bag, or her. Anyway, she looked mean and she scared me into more shyness than usual. She was quick to notice that.

‘Who’s your friend Donny?’ she demanded, staring on my face.

She was about to taunt me. I could see this as each lip curling shell-crack showed a grin, more than just the wince of force it had been before.

‘This is Ruk.’
‘Ruk? Funny name, isn’t it? Do you wanna have a try Ruk?’ She was holding out a mussel and telling me more than asking.
‘No thanks.’

Her arm went straighter and repeated:
‘I said do you wanna have a fucking try Ruk!’

It was entirely questionless this time. I was scared by the language I understood as bad also. I wasn’t using such words yet, but knew words like ‘fuck’ were made of fists and bared teeth.

I took the mussel hurriedly from her hand and couldn’t even make its sharp mouth move a millimetre. I didn’t want to open it. The look of the sinewy mucus inside made me not want to open it. I was glad I couldn’t. It gave Donny’s mum what she wanted also.

‘I knew you couldn’t do it lad. I get fiver for a bag of these fuckers. Every six bags I have to buy a new, cheap pair of trousers, because the others have rotted from the stink. Is this what you want to do when you’re older Ruk?’
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About a week later, thanks to me, Donny’s nickname had become Stink. It’s lasted all his life. He didn’t need it, as his mother was amputating enough emotions. I had no idea, of course, where he’d be twenty years later. How could I?
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The next few stories will be from moments of Stink’s life.

You can read Stink and the suicides, part 2 here.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Stink and the suicides – part 1