It wasn’t a punch exactly, more a swiping bear paw, followed by a lot of moving onto and through things. The noises were new, special-sounding. Like the hollow beat of head against door frame. I was out for a second or two. Then The Postman was standing over me, his red face all spit and snarl.<\/p>\n
\u2018You dirty little fucker!\u2019<\/p>\n
Violence is all about the truth. You have to hand it to violence\u2014everyone knows where they are with it.<\/p>\n
I touch the back of my head to check what sort of chunk might be missing. There\u2019s a hard wet lump in the wrong place. Standing is out of the question\u2014way too technical. Besides, it\u2019s safer on the floor with my head next to the door frame.<\/p>\n
Most people call him The Postman, even me.<\/p>\n
Suzie grabs his arm to pull him away and shouts, “We never!”<\/p>\n
The Postman scowls at her and pushes her away.<\/p>\n
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and say, “Don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.”<\/p>\n
He says, “The fuck you don\u2019t.”<\/p>\n
Suzie says, “We never.” She\u2019s crying and it\u2019s all she can muster.<\/p>\n
The Postman stares and his upper lip curls.<\/p>\n
“How long it been going on?”<\/p>\n
I close my eyes and touch the cut over my left eye.<\/p>\n
He says, “Tell me the truth, and we get this over and done with.”<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got his eyes, his mouth, his huge slab-hands.<\/p>\n
I breathe in, then say, “Don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.”<\/p>\n
He shakes his head. “After all the shit I\u2019ve put up with…”<\/p>\n
Suzie is closer to my age, it\u2019s true. But fucking my old man\u2019s girlfriend? Come on\u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m all about the truth these days. I\u2019m a real truth-teller. Try and stop me. I look into his eyes and he looks into mine.<\/p>\n
I speak real quiet, “Never touched her.”<\/p>\n
He brings his face closer and bites his bottom lip.<\/p>\n
I hold his stare and say, “Never. Touched. Her.”<\/p>\n
You hear people say bullies are cowards. Some of them might be. But why would they all be cowards? And it’s no good saying someone should stand up to them. If I could tell you how one time The Postman came unstuck, that someone taught him a lesson, then believe me, I would.<\/p>\n
The Postman is all dick, balls, and skull. That\u2019s all he is. He’s a throw-back, a club wielding thick fore-headed fucker.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty big too. It\u2019s something he handed down. Size goes a long way in fights, in the intimidation game. I’ve seen average-sized men look at me sideways, seen them measure themselves. I learned this way back, when I wrestled this heifer of a boy at school. It was my first and last experiment with bullying; I\u2019m not cut out for it. He knocked me down and pinned me to the floor. No way of shifting him. No chance. His fat cheeks wobbled, his chubby lips spitting some heart-felt shit about how I’d been on at him for months and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. Believe me, I was on his side. I could really see things from his point of view. I felt for him.<\/p>\n
You ever been in a situation when you can’t move? I mean, you really can\u2019t move. It’s all about size. All men know this. And all men know, if you’re going to upset the natural order of size in a fight then you have to learn the tricks. You need the speed, and above all, the ruthlessness to get in there first. If I’d known better I’d have poked the fat fucker in the eye before he had chance to charge at me. But I don\u2019t have it. The Postman has the lot: the size, the speed, the eye gouging\u2026<\/p>\n
To take a beating means you can read the score of violence and give a good beating yourself. You see the treble clefts, lines, notes, timings, the lot. It’s all there when it goes red and limbs are being thrown. When you can read the score, violence slows down. You know what\u2019s coming, read the points on the body you know hurt like fuck when they’re hit: the nose, the ear, the gut, the bollocks, the neck, the jaw, the knee, the ankle. Violence is one of those Beethoven symphonies. It\u2019s best to start out with the whole orchestra, make them sit back in their seat and listen. You can use the quieter, more delicate, experimental shit later on, when they\u2019re face down in a puddle of face.<\/p>\n
I’ve been there myself, on the floor, waiting for the contact to stop. And don\u2019t let anyone tell you pain is in the mind. Pain is all about the body. And it\u2019s not just the pain: there\u2019s the embarrassment, looking up at someone stood over you, your blood on their knuckles. It\u2019s the contact, someone’s body hitting yours, that really lays it on thick.<\/p>\n
When the music\u2019s over and everyone has gone home, the real pain has its say. You\u2019re eating two months later and your jaw twangs. Maybe there\u2019s a jolt of toothache when you chew on a pork chop. There\u2019s the pang of tendon, bone or muscle disagreeing on the connection of some sort of joint in your arm you had no idea was there. There\u2019s a deep purple bruise on your hip that won’t go away. There are the headaches, the stomach aches, the throb in your shoulder.<\/p>\n
I manage to sit, sliding my back up the wall.<\/p>\n
Suzie covers her mouth with both hands. She\u2019s seen The Postman\u2019s violence-art before\u2014first hand. But it never loses its ability to shock. That\u2019s the thing with violence, real violence, it\u2019s always a surprise, always a mystery. Even The Postman, when it\u2019s done, has a look in his eye like: What the fuck just happened?<\/p>\n
“Sweetheart,” Suzie says, trying again for The Postman\u2019s arm, “nothing\u2019s going on. I promise.”<\/p>\n
He points at me. “This is about that little slag of yours\u2014the one you reckon I shagged.”<\/p>\n
I blink like I mean it.<\/p>\n
Carlie has this tattoo on the small of her back: Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty. Some poet or other. Ironic, huh?<\/p>\n
“You\u2019re insane. You get your shit together and leave. You have until morning. We clear?”<\/p>\n
The Postman kicks a chair and leaves. The front door slams.<\/p>\n
Suzie sits next to me on the floor and examines my face. She raises a hand to touch it.<\/p>\n
“Don\u2019t,” I say.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m sorry,” she says. “Don\u2019t know what made him think it.”<\/p>\n
“Because it\u2019s true?”<\/p>\n
“What did he mean? Who did he sleep with?”<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not as pleased with myself as I thought I\u2019d be. I had this fantasy: telling Carlie what I\u2019d done, how I got back at him, how I won in the end. Even now, after everything, she\u2019d say nothing happened between them. Not that she\u2019d talk to me.<\/p>\n
Suzie asks, “Can we go now? I\u2019m ready.”<\/p>\n
She really doesn\u2019t get it. Feel sorry for her to tell you the truth. She\u2019s wrapped up in all this and it\u2019s nothing to do with her. Not really.<\/p>\n
I stand and everything jerks to the right, then left.<\/p>\n
“Craig,” she says. “Can we go now? Like you said?”<\/p>\n
I say a lot of things.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re not going anywhere. You can stay here with The Postman if you want, but I wouldn\u2019t recommend it.”<\/p>\n
I reach for the bag I have packed.<\/p>\n
“Craig?”<\/p>\n
I stumble past the overturned table and chairs.<\/p>\n
The cold air finds its way into the cut over my eye and it stings. The dog from next door follows me along the street. At the crossroads the dog sits, its tongue lolling, its ears aimed at me, its head tilted like it knows I\u2019m not coming back.<\/p>\n
In New Street Station I work hard to read the the train times on the electric board, the glowing white place names and numbers jumping about. I close my eyes and breathe in. I open my eyes and see “Manchester.” That\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n
This man in a wheelchair, bearded and blanket-wearing, asks, “Any chance of some money for a ticket, mate? Need to get home.”<\/p>\n
Mate? Who do these people think they\u2019re kidding. Does this shit actually work?<\/p>\n
“Is that bullshit? Tell me the truth.”<\/p>\n
He stares at me, confused, like no one\u2019s ever asked before.<\/p>\n
“Yeah. It\u2019s bullshit.” He smiles and his teeth are fucked up.<\/p>\n
I tell him, “Everyone lies. Don\u2019t feel bad.”<\/p>\n
“You okay, mate?” He points at the cut over my eye, then looks at my pockets like I\u2019m going to give him some money now we\u2019ve connected.<\/p>\n
I say, “Except me. These days I\u2019m all about the truth.”<\/p>\n
He nods, and the cheeky fucker looks at his wrist like there\u2019s a watch there and he has somewhere to be.<\/p>\n
I say, “See you round,” and walk off.<\/p>\n
The man says, “Prick,” then asks someone else for money.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no way I can deal with a computer screen so I ask a woman behind the counter for a one-way ticket to Manchester.<\/p>\n
“You okay, love?” asks the woman behind the glass.<\/p>\n
I nod, and the way the woman looks at me, all sympathy and sorry, makes me see Carlie. Over and over Carlie said she was telling the truth. She cried. She didn\u2019t sob or anything like that, but was real quiet about it. Her tears made her eyes shine and she looked pretty as fuck. She\u2019s a hell of a liar, I\u2019ll give her that. For a moment, I thought she might be telling the truth. I saw it all: the house, dog, kids, growing old, deciding who gets to die first. But all that\u2019s bullshit. I\u2019m not falling for it. Any of it. Not me. I\u2019m all about the truth these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Violence is all about the truth. You have to hand it to violence \u2014 everyone knows where they are with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1957,851,91,852,1956,12],"class_list":["post-15265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-betrayal","tag-father","tag-revenge","tag-son","tag-truth","tag-violence","writer-adam-lock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15265"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15428,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15265\/revisions\/15428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}