Hole Punch Read online

  * * *

  "When I told my wife you were back," said Bertie. "She told me I should do what I thought was right."

  "Women," smiled Jack. "You gotta love them."

  Jack kissed the secretary and pressed his boot down harder on the Mayor's screaming head.

  "Happy New Year baby," said Jack, with lipstick smeared down his chin.

  TRAVEL

  Holly had always wanted to travel. She loved travel documentaries ever since she was a little girl. She wanted to see Egypt and its pyramids, France and its tower, Berlin and its wall.

  She thought all her chances of travel were over when her spine was broken after being pushed down some stairs at school. But then on her eighteenth birthday, her mother bought her a green screen to sit in front of.

  With the power of her imagination (and some basic digital arts skills) she was able to visit Egypt and its pyramids, France and its tower, Berlin and its wall, London and its bridge.

  WHY NOT WALTER?

  “I need some incentive to get out of bed,” she said to Walter on the phone.

  “I’ll be your incentive.” said Walter, with his keen, puppy dog voice. “Come on, get up! It’s a lovely day outside. We can go for a walk.”

  “Sorry, but I’m still not over what happened with Dave.”

  Walter’s lip wobbed. What about me? He thought. Why does she never think about me!?

  “Dave’s a real piece of work isn’t he?” said Walter. “You should be over him by now, I mean, you never really liked him anyway. Come on! Rise and shine! I’ll cheer you up!”

  “Sorry Walt, but I don’t think I can make it out. I’ll see you later in the week though? At a party?”

  Walter's hand tensed on the phone. He hated being called Walt.

  “Okay then, don’t worry, it’s okay.”

  “Are you sure you’re alright Walt?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes I’m fine!”

  MAKE HIM LOOK

  It was weird to see him again in college. She remembered when he used to walk her home from school. It was so obvious that he fancied her. His best mate Simon had told her.

  “He told me he fancied you,” Simon said with two fingers arched inside her.

  It was weird seeing him again in college. His hair was still greasy but he’d styled it into an art-school side-parting. His hair looked even worse now. When she passed him in the corridor she liked to make sexy poses with her bum. Tease him. Make him look. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, she was seventeen.

  At lunch time, she sat with the boys from Digital Arts and Illustration. She smoked cigarettes and gave them all lap dances in the courtyard. It was great when he walked past and saw her doing that. Tease him. Make him look. Let him see how sexy she was now. Make him look. Why didn't he look?

  “Have you seen those nose-ringed slags he walks about with?” she asked Kevin, who had some fingers in her.

  “What? Who?”

  “That side-parting prick on the Drama course? The one I went to school with. The one who fancies me?” she squidged hold of Kevin’s soft penis.

  “What him? What about him?”

  “Have you seen those nose-ringed slags he walks about with?”

  THE MONEY

  She lay in a coma in hospital, her husband sat next to her, he held her hand.

  “Do you remember our first date?” he asked.

  She remembered.

  “We walked in the forest.”

  Her lips turned. A smile? Could she hear him?

  He leant forward to whisper in her ear.

  “I'm going to keep the money safe, none of those kids are going to get their hands on it.”

  * * *

  They'd raised their children well they thought. Their first son, Martin, was skinny and underfed. His clothes were too big for him.

  “He'll grow into them. I'm not wasting my money on new clothes every year.”

  Their next son, Jamie, had Down's Syndrome. Martin had to look after Jamie.

  “I have to make money and your mother is in no condition to look after him. Taking care of your brother should teach you some responsibility.”

  Their last child, Lisa, they barely even noticed. So Lisa did her best to get noticed. She dated all the wrong boys and she stubbed out cigarettes on her arms. When she turned thirteen her dad finally noticed her but in a way she didn't like.

  “I'm a pillar of the community, no one will believe you. To think that my own daughter would tell lies about me.”

  There wasn't enough evidence to investigate Lisa's allegations against her father. Those sorts of allegations weren't taken seriously back then.

  * * *

  “I'm going to keep the money safe, none of those kids are getting their hands on it. We've been saving it for years and it's ours!”

  * * *

  Martin married his support worker, Olive, who felt sorry for him. Martin and Olive had one child. Olive died during child-birth. She was thirty-four when she died. Martin had to bring their son up on his own. His son, Howard, got a car and job. At night-time he drove his car around and followed ambulances. He liked to see what was happening.

  Jamie missed Martin very much when he moved away. No one cared for him like Martin did. Sometimes Jamie would get angry and have tantrums. His parents would lock him in a cupboard until he calmed down.

  Lisa got pregnant at nineteen, her child, Aiden, wanted to be a soldier.

  “I want to shoot people!” Aiden would say.

  Lisa's second child, Claire, committed suicide at the age of nine. It was a few months after her brother, Aiden, got sent to a juvenile prison because he had tied her to a bed and repeatedly raped her.

  “So what? So what? So what? So what? So what?” repeated Aiden, whenever he gets asked about it.

  * * *

  “I'm going to keep the money safe, none of those kids are going to get their hands on it. We've been saving it for years. I have to look after our stocks and shares!”

  DEEDS NOT WORDS

  She walks down the street. She chews gum and kicks an empty can of nothing. She's supposed to be at school.

  A dead-sea face slinks out of an alleyway.

  "Follow me down here little girl," said the teabag-eyed orb. "I'll show you piles and piles of people getting burnt! You'll hear them scream! Like an orchestra, little girl! A cacophony of screams!"

  "Sod off you attention-seeking, old prick," she said.

  She spits out her chewing gum and kicks an empty can of nothing.

  She marches on proudly, her fist in the air.

  "DEEDS NOT WORDS!"

  CARER

  On wheels - squished face - dead limbs - mouth open – slopping his laughter in every aisle.

  The woman pushing him is sad. He laughs and only she knows why. The normal look away and pretend they haven't heard or seen.

  “What sandwich shall I buy?” they think.

  “Shall I get some crisps as well?” they think.

  “Diet or regular cola?” they think.

  He laughs and only she knows why.

  Slopping his laughter in every aisle.

  MURAL

  "Ooo it's nice isn't it?" said the old lady.

  The local community mural painting had a big sun up in the sky and lots of accurately painted Tudor houses. You could see the local supermarket, bus stop and lots of little people going about their daily business.

  "It's a vibrant celebration of our community," said the old lady. "A really pretty picture that affirms everything which is normal and reliable about life."

  The painter preened proudly and announced that her next project was at the local school, helping babies create potato prints.

  DAVE

  Dave gnawed a large rip from his steak, then he flumed a lager down his fat throat.

  "We won at the football today!" he banged his fist on the table.

  "We won at the football!" he repeated with pride that wasn't his.

  After his meal, he s
norted a gram of cocaine from a toilet seat, then he went for a wide-eyed drive in his plumber's van. His nose poured with blood and drug crunched snot.

  He pulled up next to a girl on a bike and he leant out of his car window.

  "Oy! I've got something to say to you! Something that only I'll find funny!"

  A week later, Dave held a letter from a solicitor in his hand.

  “I can’t believe Aunty Emma, who I barely knew, has left me all this money. I'm going to open my own pub and I’m going to have a karaoke night and a quiz night and it will be a place where things and events happen, most of all, it will be a place where people can go for a drink. It will be mine. My pub. My own pub. I'm going to call it: The Goat and Duck!”

  HUMANS

  An infinity of burly, bald-faced, boxer boys bulge and bilge naked at the porous walls of drivelling, self-centred holes.

  The pervert stars gaze down from the heavens in sickened arousal at the new-born babes that spin blurting within fart clouds from the bunghole of planet Earth. A drivelling, stupid, idiot spurt of musky mouthed flesh.

  All wanting breast milk and tit.

  INFERIOR HATE

  "My diagnosis," emitted CounsellBot C0N1. "Is that you have an inferiority complex. How does that make you feel?"

  "Inferior," sobbed the patient.

  "My diagnosis," emitted CounsellBot C0N1. "Is that you have an authority complex. How does that make you feel?"

  "I hate you," sobbed the patient.

  THE PIT

  “What you did was wrong. Why didn't you eat all your dinner?” asked his mother.

  “I wanted to see what would happen.”

  “I'm very concerned about his behaviour and worry that things are wrong at home,” said the headteacher.

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “What do you want to eat?” asked his mother. “You can't just eat your gravy and custard and leave all the rest of your meal untouched.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “It's not normal.”

  “It's not normal.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “We need to send him for psychological analysis.”

  “He needs to live a normal life. He can't just eat gravy and custard.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “Tell us the truth. Why did you do it?”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “It's not normal.”

  “It's not normal.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “Tell the truth.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

  “It's not normal.”

  “It's not normal.”

  Something else needed to be said. Something that wasn't true. Something they'd believe.

  The bottomless pit yawned.

  “I don't like school dinners.”

  “You have to eat them. You can't just eat your gravy and custard.”

  “Maybe I could have a packed lunch?”

  “We don't have time to make you packed lunches. Just tell us the truth.”

  “I just wanted to see what would happen. That's the truth. I just wanted to see what would happen. If I knew this was going to happen then I wouldn't have done it. I like my school dinner really. I just wanted to see what would happen if I only ate gravy and custard.”

  The bottomless pit swallowed the room.

  Never resist.

  Always eat what they give you.

  Always swallow.

  Digest.

  If you don’t, there will be questions.

  An Educational Psychologist opened the door.

  “I am ready to present my diagnosis. I will alter your perception of this child. I will shape the opinions of everyone around him. I will ruin his life forever.”

  STREET TREES

  The street trees hate people.

  "Look at them!” rumbles the bitter old oak. “Walking about like they are something! I remember when all of this was trees. Before the people came and ruined it!"

  "They think they are something!" hisses the sapling in her metal support cage. "That one over there! Look at him thinking!"

  A man of long hair and beard looks at the street trees with his faux face. He likes to smoke cannabis and he thinks that Che Guevara is interesting.

  "Trees....." he breathes.

  He looks at their branches and textures.

  "Trees..."

  He strokes the bitter old oak.

  "Trees..."

  CUMHANDS

  Cumhands Murphy had been caught sloppy handed; trying to steal the Albatrax Tapestry from the Vaults of New Rome on Earth Fourteen.

  “You've got yourself in serious doo-doo this time Murphy,” said Officer Doldron.

  “Please officer, I won't do it again!” Cumhands pleaded.

  His hands dribbled a puddle of semen on the interrogation table.

  Doldron waved away his deputy to get more Kleenex.

  “We got bigger crisps than you to fry Murphy. Give me all you got on Bumface McGinty,”

  Doldron held up a pen.

  “Sign this witness statement. Then we've got him stitched in a gastral sack right up the tightest event horizon in the universe.”

  “But-but Officer Doldron!” pleaded Cumhands. “I can't sign anything! Not with my hands!”

  “Shut up Murphy! You're signing it! Even if you have to wear these!”

  Doldron held up a pair of yellow, plastic gloves.

  “Not Marigolds!” cried Cumhands. “No please, not Marigolds, please no!”

  Cumhands hid under the table, his hands blurted terrified wank vomit.

  INDIVIDUAL

  It was the end of his shift, so Bert the deckchair assistant was tidying up all the deckchairs that the tourists had strewn around the pier. The last deckchair to be tidied was occupied by a man in a florid floral-patterned suit. He was lounging back with a straw hat over his face.

  "Sorry to wake you sir but-" said Bert.

  "I'm already awake," growled the man from under his straw hat.

  "We are closing the pier now and all deckchairs need tidying."

  "I know what you’re thinking," growled the man. "You're thinking you need to get this dirty, old queer off your pier. You're thinking I'm a superficial prick in my superficial suit and hat."

  The man lifted his straw hat.

  "Let me tell you something sonny boy," growled the man with his dyed green moustache and silver eyeliner. "Life isn't about being superficial. Life is about looking good!"

  SCARBOROUGH

  At three in the morning the sound of the waves blurred with the sound of the boy racers. Liam and Claire could hear it all through their closed windows.

  “I'm not one of those boy racers anymore,” Liam would tell Claire as they lay in bed.

  Liam didn't have a job but he had ways of making money. People would pay Liam to steal their cars so they could claim the insurance money. Then they would give him a percentage.

  Claire was a dance student at the University Campus on Filey Road. She didn't go to the her classes or dance much since meeting Liam. Love was more important than dancing or classes.

  * * *

  One time, when Liam was out stealing a car, Claire knocked on the door of the upstairs flat. She needed to borrow some coins for the electric meter. The tenant upstairs was a Marine Biology student called Dan.

  “Can I borrow a couple of quid for the electric meter,” she said.

  She felt a bit embarrassed asking, but Dan gave her some coins.

  “No problem,” said Dan.

  It was the nicest thing anyone had said to Claire since she had started going out with Liam.

  * * *

  One time, Claire invited Dan downstairs and introduced Dan to Liam.

  “This is the guy upstairs who gave us a couple of quid the other day,” said Claire.

 
; “Alright mate, thanks for that,” said Liam.

  “No problem,” said Dan.

  “What's your name again?” said Claire.

  “Dan,” said Dan.

  The three of them got stoned and had dinner. Liam threw mash potato at Claire's face. He laughed and she didn't and neither did Dan but Liam said it was just a joke.

  * * *

  One time, Dan and Liam went out for a drink, Liam was crying and told Dan that he couldn't keep his penis hard anymore.

  “When I try to get it in her it goes soft. I can get it hard for a bit but when I try to get it in her it goes soft.”

  Dan tried to reassure Liam and Liam was thankful.

  “Thanks mate,” said Liam.

  “No problem,” said Dan.

  Liam told Dan that if he ever told anyone about this then he would throw Dan into the sea.

  * * *

  One time, when Dan and Claire went out for a drink, Claire told Dan that Liam liked lube because it took some of the effort out of things.

  * * *

  One time, when Dan and Liam were out for a drink, Liam told Dan that Dan had been like a dad to Liam. Dan pointed out that they had only met a few weeks ago and that Liam was older than Dan. Liam insisted that Dan had done more for him than his own dad had ever done.