Brendan

Brendan’s head was flat.  It looked as though somebody had sliced the top off before gently rounding the sharp edges.  His ears were cauliflower, the whites of his eyes like raspberry ripple ice cream, his brow more beaten than a French meringue, his nose attempted to point to all four points of the compass simultaneously giving the impression that his face was in continuous motion.  He was not a good looking man, indeed many had called him repulsive, but it didn’t bother him.  His unusually short-cropped red hair (kept that way to combat the ubiquitous headlice) sat him apart from most of his more elaborately coiffed classmates, as did his build.  As broad as he was long, he assumed the nickname ‘Cube’ from his first day at school.  It wasn’t bad, as nicknames go; pretty inoffensive and some of the girls quite liked it, and Brendan liked the girls, but he always found that love was unrequited.  Girls quite liked having him around, like a pet dog – the kind of pet that would snarlingly defend you if you got into trouble – although not the type you would allow to lie on your bed.  But it didn’t bother him.

Brendan fought – a lot – at school.  He fought those who called him ugly, he fought those who called him dumb.  He had spent more time in the headmaster’s study than the headmaster himself and his secretary always kept some of his very best biscuits back for Brendan.  He didn’t mind being kept out of lessons: they taught him nothing he needed to know.  He didn’t need to add, he didn’t need to take away, he didn’t need to spell, he didn’t need to know who The Sun King was. (Actually, it was Louis XIV of France, Brendan knew that.  He loved history, although he didn’t care to admit it to anyone, particularly his History teacher.)  Everyone laughed at Brendan in lessons because he never knew the answers to the simplest of questions – even the teachers sought to ingratiate themselves with the class hierarchy by humiliating him for the general entertainment of all.  Brendan didn’t react, he just smiled and remembered.  It was difficult sometimes, he wasn’t bright enough to get an education, but it didn’t bother him.

At least being held in the headmaster’s study generally meant that he was going to be kept behind after school (again).  Brendan didn’t mind being kept behind; it was preferable to being at home.  It was warm and he got Garibaldi biscuits.  There were no cosy fireside scenes at home for Brendan.  He had got used to finding mother unconscious on the sofa and he had grown to realise that it was better than finding her awake and aggressive.  Violent and remorseful by turns, she was much nicer when she was sleeping off the vodka… or recovering from one of his dad’s monumental benders.  Dad was ‘a big man’, providing you were smaller and weaker than him.  He had the kind of weight that he didn’t mind throwing around.  Mostly, if he was available, it was thrown at Brendan, but it didn’t bother him.

Brendan left school, home and the ‘protection’ of a disinterested state at fourteen years old and followed a path perfectly suited to his physique and his intellect.  It wasn’t pretty, sometimes it was messy and it required the kind of emotional detachment that Brendan had spent his whole life developing.  His heart was as empty as an Estate Agent’s.  He became rich somehow, but he never forgot where he came from and he had a fair idea of where he was going.  He could have had his nose fixed, but he found that sometimes it was to his advantage for others to think he was perhaps a little bit vulnerable.  They would discover the errors of their ways soon enough.  His teeth were dazzlingly white and perfect.  He was proud of those.  He’d had all of the work done without anaesthetic, partly because he would have felt too vulnerable if he had lost his ‘edge’ whilst in the dentist’s chair, and partly because he quite enjoyed the pain.  It helped him keep things real.

Through the years, Brendan himself had caused considerable pain to quite a number of people.  He had removed quite a lot of teeth, but he wasn’t a dentist.  He wasn’t an Undertaker either although he had buried a great many people, and if he was honest, it didn’t bother him…

This whole little story started with the simple line ‘but it didn’t bother him’.  I decided to see where it would take me, but I didn’t realise quite how dark it was going to be..