I launched in. I just went, My name's Jess and I'm eighteen years old and, see, I'm here because I had some family problems that I don't need to go into. And then I split up with this guy. Chas. And he owes me an explanation. Because he didn't gucci online say anything. He just went. But if he gave me an explanation I'd feel better, I think, because he broke my heart. Except I can't find him. I was at the party downstairs looking for him, and he wasn't there. So I came up here. And Martin goes, all sarcastic, You're going to kill yourself because Chas didn't turn up at a party? Jesus. Well, I never said that, and I told him. So then he was like, OK, you're up here because you're owed an explanation, then. Is that it? He was trying to make me sound stupid, and that wasn't fair, because we could all do that to each other. Like, for example, say, Oh, boo hoo hoo, they won't let me be on breakfast television any more. Oh, boo hoo hoo, my son's a vegetable and I don't talk to anyone and I have to clean up his… Well, OK, you couldn't make Maureen sound stupid. But it seemed to me that taking the piss wasn't on. You could have taken the piss out of all four of us; you can take the piss out of anyone who's unhappy, if you're cruel enough. So I go, That wasn't what I said either. I said an explanation might stop me. I didn't say it was why I was up here in the first place, did I? See, we could handcuff you to those railings, and that would stop you. But you're not up here because no one's handcuffed you to railings, are you? That shut him up. I was pleased with that. JJ was nicer. He could see that I wanted to find Chas, so I was like, Duh, yeah, except I wished I hadn't done the Duh bit because he was being sympathetic and Duh is taking the piss, really, isn't it? But he ignored the Duh and he asked me where Chas was and I said I didn't know, some party or another, and he said, Well, why don't you go looking for him instead of fucking around up here and I said I'd run out of energy and hope and when I said that I knew it was true. I don't know you. The only thing I know about you is, you're nike shox outlet reading this. I don't know whether you're happy or not; I don't know whether you're young or not. I sort of hope you're young and sad. If you're old and happy, I can imagine that you'll maybe smile to yourself when you hear me going, He broke my heart. You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, Oh, yes, I can remember how that feels. But you can't, you smug old git. Oh, you might remember feeling sort of pleasantly sad. You might remember listening to music and eating chocolates in your room, or walking along the Embankment on your own, wrapped up in a winter coat and feeling lonely and brave. But can you remember how with every mouthful of food it felt like you were biting into your own stomach? Can you remember the taste of red wine as it came back up and into the toilet bowl? Can you remember dreaming every night that you were still together, that he was talking to you gently and touching you, so that every morning when you woke up you had to go through it all over again? Can you remember carving his initials in your arm with a kitchen knife? Can you remember standing too close to the edge of an Underground platform? No? Well, fucking shut up then. Stick your smile up your saggy old arse. 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 queasy 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 humiliation and Nike Shox 2011 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 tabloids; 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, reverence for the BBC, so he spent too much time listening to the World Service on his big old short-wave radio in the den, 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 dropout? 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 ransack it until I find something Men Nike Shox NZ 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 Chancellor of the Exchequer 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 Men Nike Shox R4 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 hostility 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 men nike shox agent again. I was pretty sure that sooner or later we'd shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and then either trudge 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 pickle 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 incurable. 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 killer 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 Revival, 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 women nike shox agent with the 'cranial' part. That sounded about right. The 'corno-' was weak, though, I admit. 'Is there no cure for that?' Maureen asked.
