If it is your life by James Kelman Page B

overly protected boy, that my mother was a tyrant. My mother was not a tyrant. My plight had nothing to do with maternal so-to-speak mismanagement.
    We hardly spoke another word on the walk but she did smile now and then, when she saw me watch her. And I did watch her. Okay. There were these large store-windows. It was quite embarrassing. You were both walking towards one and then looking into the reflection at the same moment. I pretended not to be doing it. I did not even care about my appearance. I had no ego. No ego! What in heaven’s name did that mean? Ego me mihi meum: everybody has an ego. Well not me, not in that sense. I was a damn weed! A nine-stone weakling, thirty-six years of age and I only bloody hell my body, an embarrassment.
    Who cares. Bodies are bodies. Then again
    No.
    But there was a demeaning side to what was happening. I could not take all the blame. Once upon a time ours was a proper relationship.
    I have to describe myself in the third person.
    At least they slept together, once upon a time. Once upon a time she enjoyed his company. Yes, for its own sake. When males and females sleep together it is a very fine thing indeed when they are also friends. Maybe not with bisexual males who are noted for their one-night stands and general promiscuity. Promiscuity. The word itself, the herald of untold mystery. He knew one fellow who drank in the same local bar as himself andacted in a coy manner. Mike was not unfriendly but distant; typically he was drunk by the end of the evening [a damnable lie!] and joked loudly with the barstaff. Two other fellows drank in this bar and might have been lovers in that non-physical masculine manner, they were forever kissing and canoodling. Bidding one another hail or farewell was an excuse to get physical.
    Forget the third person: On one occasion I was in the bar for a quick beer on my way home from the office and I heard one of them saying, Dont give me a kiss.
    This was in reference to a drink the one had bought for the other, so I assume the kiss would have been an expression of thanks.
    Nobody can be friends with everybody, ‘not even in California’. That was the title of a movie I saw recently. ‘Not even in California’. Characters kept saying it all the time, it was one of these in-joke expressions the beautiful people have. But was it true or simply one more prejudice?
    Life is full of prejudice. I didnt have many friends, bisexual or otherwise. Was that the result of prejudice? But you cannot be prejudiced against everybody. Or can you? Perhaps. There was a name for that? And was that name not ‘misanthrope’? Was I a pathetic misanthrope? Well if I was I was. No damn wonder.
    I could be honest about myself, to myself. Why conceal matters from one’s inner psyche? That would have been foolish. Those of us lucky enough to have a psyche. Even an outer one. Do people have outer ones?
    Jennifer knew I was better than that. If we cannot be honest with our own selves what chance has the world? I am talking survival. Less than none in my estimation. In bygone days she would have assumed that about me. Now I meant so little to her that – well, I was no longer treated as a male human being, a masculine human being, only an ordinary kind of – what? A man? Yes, an ordinary man, and an ordinary man can be anything if we are talking women. Women see a man as a man, and some more than that, as males. I was not too ambitious. This latter would have sufficed for me. But it was not to be. Not only was I an ex-boyfriend, I was an ex-male. Not only was I neutral, I was neutered. A neutered neutral, as far as she was concerned. Not only her, the entire world, or that part of society I was forced to find myself within. Within.
    Within is an extraordinary concept. People would never understand how extraordinary a concept it is.
    Jees, life was so horrible. It was high time I returned home. I was sick of this city. Even the geography or topography, whatever you call it,