BIG MAN
by
N Quentin Woolf
– You’re a big cunt,
arntcha, he growls.
I sip my pint of Wadsworth
triple-X. It’s been a stinking bastard of a day. He had me
doing press-ups for him, as penance. The man is leering at
me, now, fixedly. His upper teeth are false. He’s smiling,
at least, although what I thought was a friendly pat on my
arm is actually, I realise, him feeling my bicep. He has a
tattooed neck.
– What height are you? he
says.
– Six foot eight, I tell
him.
– Bollocks, he says.
– Oh dear. Really?
– Aye, there’s no need ta
bullshit me, like. You’s seven foot, easy, arntcha?
I mumble something. Under
no circumstances must one seem proud of one’s height by
acknowledging it readily, particularly when it’s brought up
in a pub; particularly when your interlocutor is a man
shorter than five feet five. It’s liable to turn nasty. The
arch-foe of Big Man: his polar opposite, his nemesis: Small
Man, a creature with green eyes, murderous-mad through envy.
– Get him a drink love,
the skinhead calls out. What are you drinking, pal? Here you
are, let me shake yer hand. Fookin’ seven foot, eh? Fookin’
hell. Handle yesel’ in a fight alright, couldn’tcha? In the
mirror behind the bar I catch a glimpse of the pair of us:
his naked head splendid in the large mirror panel, mine out
of view somewhere behind the scotch bottles. I am a wiry,
suited figure, stooped from ducking and from struggling to
hear people speak. My chest is concave. I don’t want to tell
this man who reeks of strong lager that I can handle myself
in a fight, but the last thing I want is to dispute anything
he says. He keeps grabbing bits of me for a feel. We pass an
uncomfortable pint dancing around the issue of our
comparative heights. It gives me Dutch courage. Like a
failed date, I go to the toilet and never come back.
Big Man, his Burberry
cloak flapping, walks the night-time streets towards his
lair (taking longer strides than those achieved by mere
mortals), listening to Londoners opining on FM.
– I think racists should
be locked up, says one person, ‘coz we’re all different,
know what I mean? Black and white and brown and yellow and
green, I don’t care – it doesn’t matter.
– What I don’t
understand, says another, is why the Women’s Institute is
permitted to prevent males from joining when you can no
longer have male-only golf clubs. Either discrimination is
wrong or it isn’t, but you can’t have it both ways. It
simply doesn’t make sense.
The lights are on at home.
All the lights. They’re visible as I round the end of the
street. The living room, both of the front bedrooms, the
hallway and the porch, all belching light into the
night-time. Mother is sitting on the lawn in her nightdress,
covered in mud and crying.
Big Man swoops in to save
the day. But trying to help her up is no good. She just
lashes out feebly with her claws. So I sit beside her on the
wet grass, feeling rainwater soak into my clothing.
– I got your school
report today, she says.
Again.
We’ve read the Oliver
James book, so we know better than to dispute her ideas,
which is relatively simple when she believes she’s back in
Scotland and we still have a King. Other times – often – it
means being fifteen years old again. Curtains in the
suburban street twitch as she scolds me.
In her hands she has
photographs of Dad, taken shortly before he died. The
identity of the figure in the picture changes as the
telling-off unfolds: sometimes he’s her own father,
sometimes, inexplicably, a teacher of this subject or that.
I sneak glances at the house, hoping Clare will wake up,
realise something’s wrong and come downstairs. Neighbours
are openly staring from windows, now, watching me relive my
failure at O-level. I pull my fedora down over my eyes.
– It’s the other
children, isn’t it? she says.
– No, I say.
– Don’t dare lie to me,
she says. I’m not entirely stupid. You’ve sprouted faster
than they have and naturally they’re resentful of that fact.
Of course they’ll try to knock you down a peg or two. But
don’t you worry. You’ll broaden out when you’re older. Just
you keep eating your meat and veg and don’t let them
distract you from your studies. I want my son to have a good
job so he can support me when I get old.
For a moment I forget
Oliver James and I insist, Mum, you are old.
She slaps me around the
face. It stings.
– Watch your tongue,
little man, she says. One more smart Alec comment like that
from you and I’ll involve your father.
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