Friction by Joe Stretch Page B

loathing. Colin hears the calling. He is the propagandist, the king of the parasites, equipped with an instinct for hurt, an unavoidable reflex to destroy.
    Colin rolls over in bed, his face restless, cheeks flinching because of the sweat. Since being chucked out of The Barhis mind has been on women. He’d spewed to think of them. He’s been thinking about his last girlfriend, Marion, who left only last year.
    He forced her away, wore her down, isolated her with quiet. On reflection, Colin has always been infested, has always had an uneasy grasp of silence and slow anger. Marion certainly saw it, was even attracted to it in the early days. Colin is the boy with the look of unease, the element of doubt. Lonely and inarticulate, he moves effortlessly with the crowd. Marion ran because she saw too much. Saw he was getting worse. First was the drinking. Then the inaudible, stationary rage.
    He hasn’t had sex since Marion. Her body gradually and almost cunningly became repulsive to him. It happened so slowly he couldn’t work out what was going on. Small nuances in her configuration subtly evolved into things that made him breathless with revulsion. His mind was constantly playing tricks on him. He remembers her attempts to turn him on: the lingerie, the words, the caresses and the look in her eye, unknowing and humiliated. He also recalls her fear and her collapsed body on the kitchen floor.
    Colin’s friends remember the day he recovered. They’d been aware that he’d been going through a tough time. Marion had told them about his strange and overwhelming moods, his inability to speak or touch. About a month after Marion left, Colin seemed fine again. Less prone to those long silences that would envelop entire rooms until you could hear a pin drop. He started phoning people again, Boy 1 and Boy 2. He went out for drinks with them, picked up kebabs on the way home, watched the football in the pub on Saturday. He had no interest in girls, but that washis right. Sure it was, not everyone has to be into girls. Gay men, for example. Yes, he was happy to just have a drink.
    Now, Colin looks like just another idle lad. Does fuck all but who gives a fuck? He works, as we know, in a departmental office at the university. Colin is disguised; Colin is private. He irons his shirts, washes thoroughly each morning, keeps up with the fashions of the high street. Colin appears normal, is normal, hurting, rotten to the core.
    Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.
    His minute’s up. Fastest minute of my life, he thinks, as he leaves his bed and picks his way across the room to the door.
    Colin’s glad to get out of his bedroom, glad to get to the shower where there’s fresh water and a more optimistic light. He lives in Withington, south Manchester. He always pays his bills on time. He has a highly strung, rakish frame. Resting between his nipples is a thatch of black hair, the texture of dried earth.
    He gets out of the shower and dries himself with a thin yellow towel. Having sprayed each grizzly pit, he puts on those of his clothes which are already clean and ironed. Underwear, socks and a pale blue Hugo Boss shirt. He walks downstairs, erects the ironing board and turns on the TV.
    It’s morning. Morning TV is on. Currently, a man is being interviewed by two greying, playfully obese presenters. The man has written a book on body language and has a face that seems entirely comprised of pink soap. Body language is a very fashionable subject in the twenty-first century. The idea being that the way we move our bodies says a lot about who we are, why we succeed andwhy we fail. This guy is all hands, limbs and smile, a voice that sounds like a trumpet slurring the notes of some major arpeggio. He’s sitting forward on the soft couch, eagerly and expressively making his points, trying, no doubt, to tell us he’s a tit.
    â€˜You’d be amazed by what