Pixel Juice

THE SHOPPER

In the first shop they bought a packet of dogseed, because Doreen had always wanted to grow her own dog. In the second, a pair of bird shoes, which fluttered slightly as Matthew put them on. In the third shop, Little Tommy bought half a dozen singing biscuits, five of which he swallowed straight away, because shopping made him hungry.

There were only nine shops in the entire city. In fact, the shops were the city, so vast they were and all encompassing. It was difficult to know where one shop ended and the next began. No wonder the children were tired already.

In the fourth shop Doreen chose a box of shadows, some of which she used to mask the pain in the head that Tommy's constant singing gave her. In the fifth shop, Matthew floated over the umbrella-pig cage in his bird shoes, claiming that if Doreen had bought the shadows, then he should have at least a single pig to keep the rain off. Doreen reminded him it never rained inside the shops, and that he should instead buy an egg of words. Matthew was becoming angry at the way this shopping trip was going.

The three young shoppers were determined to buy a single product from each of the nine stores. These precious items were to be the children's gift to their mother, for her birthday. Their mother, you see, had never once ventured outside the first shop.

In shop six, Tommy bought a penny ghost. In shop seven, Doreen purchased a Girl-of-Eternal-Flame Doll. In shop number eight, Matthew wanted to buy a genuine piece of cow, but Doreen told him they could no longer afford it. Instead, he was forced to buy a mansion house in London. In the ninth and final shop, Little Tommy bought a smoke-map of Manchester, which they used to retrace their steps through the aisles of the city.

On the way home, however, the dogseeds slipped from Doreen's fingers, caught on a slight breeze. The bird shoes tried to catch the seeds, only to crash into a display stand, tumbling poor Matthew to the ground. He landed on Tommy, who swallowed his last song biscuit accidentally. Doreen used many more of her shadows to wipe away Tommy's wailing. Matthew's egg hatched prematurely in his pocket. The resulting cloud of words gathered over the Flame Doll, forming the word 'locust' in the air. The doll ran screaming into the mansion house, shooting electric sparks from her hair. The house burned so fiercely that not even the fire brigade could put it out. They'd forgotten to bring their hosepipes.

Tommy smoked his map completely to get them home to Mother's little kiosk. All that remained was the penny ghost and a single shadow. The children were in tears by then, but their mother accepted gratefully the gift of the shadow and told Little Tommy he could keep the ghost for his trouble and kindness. That night he played with the spirit, as his mother wiped her sad eyes with the birthday shadow and told them the story of the mythical tenth shop, the one that lay beyond all the others.

SOLACE

Remember Spook?

—No.

Sure you do, came out when you, me and the rest of the world were just a bunch of kids. It was a bit of a craze for a few years, a new soft drink product. Ninety-nine per cent sugar; one of those things that tastes disgusting first off, but you can't help getting hooked if you persist with it. It was called Spook, I guess, because it was like clear liquid to start with, no flavour, with this neat gimmick in the cap. You could twist the cap six different ways to get six different flavours. Nothing special looking back, just some cheap chemicals released according to which flavour you chose, but the sort of thing that kids go mad for.

—Oh, right. Orange, strawberry… apple…

That's it. Lemon, cola or elderberry. Anyway, remember Nesbit?

—Who?

Come on, that scrawny little brainbox with the rich parents? He was the one who first introduced us to drinking Spook, because it wasn't advertised or anything, you just had to know it was there somehow. Whenever we went to the shop, it was always, 'I'll have a Spook'. That's all he ever asked for, especially after he'd discovered that turning the cap in a certain clever way, you could get to mix the flavours. I'm not sure if the manufacturers even knew you could do that, and we had to pay Nessie to do the combinations for us, because only he knew the secret.

—Nessie?

Nesbit. Now you've got him. He got us all hooked on the stuff for a while, trying out different combinations. It was neat, the way the two colours merged to form the new flavour. He was good at maths, I remember, and he'd worked out with six starting flavours you could have more than sixty different flavour combos, if you could only discover the correct ways of turning the bottle top. I can't remember the exact figure.

—He made up names for them?

That's right. Orange and cola he called orancola. Strawberry and elderberry he called elstrawb, and so on. He'd found out all the ways to combine two of the flavours. Then he started on mixing three of them. It was tricky stuff, getting the cap to twist just so to release three at the same time. He'd spend hours with the bottles - playtime, after school, whenever. I went round to his house one time, he was sat on his bed with dozens of bottles all around him, twisting at one like he was in a daze, like it was the best puzzle ever.

The first trio flavour he discovered was apple, cola and lemon. He called it appolamon. Tasted horrible, but he was so excited, the taste didn't bother him. It wasn't the taste anyway, that drove him, it was just finding out the new flavours. He had this thing that he would find all the trios and then move on to four different flavours, then five and so on.

—He started to put on weight?

Yeah. Real skinny to start with, but the body just can't take that much sugar. He was visiting the dentist's nearly every week, and he was the first one of us to have spots I remember, really bad ones. He used to be good at school, but now his grades were dropping daily. His parents were worried; they tried to ban him from buying any more Spook, stopped his pocket money. Which was a mistake because then he started stealing the stuff, drinking it in secret. It was strange, because the new combinations he was coming up with, they must have been vile. You'd think he'd be happy to just mess with the bottles, but no, he had to drink every single one, even the ones that were failed experiments.

By this time the rest of us were growing up, you know. Moving on to more sophisticated pleasures. Like beer, for instance. And girls and ciggies. But Nessie was still in there, still searching.

He gave me a taste of his first ever four-flavour combination. Elorcolem, he called it. Elderberry, orange, cola, lemon. I tell you, one sip was enough; I was nearly throwing up! He drank the concoction in one, no trouble, but from the look on his face, I could tell he was hating it. He couldn't stop himself.

I called him a spookaholic. He didn't laugh.

Instead, in this really clear voice, he told me that he was searching for the solace.

—Solace?

The ultimate combination. All six flavours: strawberry, orange, lemon, apple, cola, elderberry; all mixed together. He took the initial letter of each fruit: S, O, L, A, C, E. That's how he came up with the name. Solace. He said it might take him years to find the right way to twist the bottle cap, but he was determined to get there, even if he died doing it.

—He said that?

Even if it kills me. That's what he said. Exact words.

—Did he ever find this… what was it?

Solace? Well, we moved apart then, because it was time to go on to high school. I did all right, got a good place, but Nessie, who everyone thought would make university one day, he ended up at the worst school. He'd given up on being brilliant, I guess. That's addiction for you. Cheers!

—Bottoms up. That's a hell of a story.

It's not over yet. I bumped into him the other day. Christ, it must be fifteen years since I last saw him.

—Did you? Whereabouts?

You know that pub, the Cut Above? In there, last Friday. It was late afternoon, the place was quiet. Just me and this other guy, a great fat bloke wedged behind one of the tables. Looked like he needed two chairs to sit on. I avoided him of course, propped up the bar. He called my name out. I looked around, he was waving me over like he knew me. It took me a second or two to recognize him.

—Nessie?

I went over. God, he looked bad. Fat, like I said, and still spotty even at his age. When he smiled at me, his teeth were black, what was left of them anyway. Looked like he was on his last legs. I asked him if he wanted a drink, you can guess what he said.

—I'll have a Spook?

You got it. The table was filled with empties, must have been a dozen of them. I didn't know they were still selling the stuff, should have been banned years ago, I reckon. Anyway, I bought him another, just for old times' sake. The barman didn't open it, like he was following orders. I placed the unopened bottle on the table in front of Nesbit, who just stared at it for a while. I was trying to make conversation, asking him what he'd been up to, if he was working, married, kids of his own. He said he was out of work, divorced, a kid he never saw.

I fear for that kid, I really do.

—What do you mean?

He told me the story. Remember the Introvert scandal, from way back?

—Vaguely. He wasn't one of them, was he?

That's the explanation. He'd only found out when he was twenty-one; his parents finally got round to telling him, the bastards. That's why they were so rich, you see. Spook, the company that is, they paid them a small fortune, them and about two hundred other young couples. It was meant to be the next wave of advertising; get them hooked in the womb. I don't pretend to know the details, something to do with feeding the DNA with subliminal messages. They targeted poor people, of course, and promised no side effects. Of course, now we know better, but those two hundred kids have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

Introverts; interior adverts, I think it stood for. The original idea was that they would just promote the product, you know - word of mouth being the best advert of them all. Remember how Nesbit almost got us hooked. Then it went wrong; the hook was too deep, too sharp. The product took over.

—They were paid compensation, weren't they?

Sure. Very generous. That's why Nesbit didn't have to work. Little good it did him, the poor bastard, because you can guess what he spent the money on. And I'm scared for his kid, because if it's genetic, you know, it might be passed on.

—Jesus. Want another?

I'll stick with this, thanks. Anyway, Nesbit finishes his story, then he finally picks up the bottle of Spook I've bought him. I was all set to grab it out of his hands by this point, because I didn't want to be blamed for anything. But he was too quick for me, his left hand was gripping the bottle tight, the right twisting the cap this way and that, lightning fast. It was like watching an expert at play, like a magician or something. I tell you, I was frozen in space, as these six streams of colour - red, orange, yellow, green, brown, purple - all started to appear in the clear liquid. For a few seconds a rainbow was there in the bottle, a small tornado of colour. Then they finally merged, and the whole bottle turned black. Midnight black! Nesbit gave the bottle a final shake and then removed the cap. He poured the drink into an empty glass and placed it in front of me.

Solace, he said.

I picked it up, real slow. Looking deep into it, I swear I could see sparkles of light, like stars in the night sky.

I put the glass to my lips, and took a sip.

—And?

What?

—What did it taste of, man?

Tasted like heaven, I tell you. Like heaven was washing over my tongue.

THE CABINET OF NIGHT UNLOCKED

Now that the existence of the Olmstaff Method is public knowledge, it may well be time to offer a brief history of the procedure. The fact that the Method itself is currently an illegal act, and that even a description of the actual ritual is a punishable offence, should only persuade us more strongly to consider the moral problems it has brought to light.

Of Brother August Olmstaff himself little need be said, beyond the standard biography proposed by Professor T. P. Lechner in his now famous but hardly seen The Sacred Wound (Cargo Press, 1967). The facts are quickly sketched: Olmstaff was born to a poor farming family in Lancashire, England, in 1455; he was the last and weakest child of nine siblings; he was born mute; his father ordered him to join the local Silent Order of Nazarenes, at the tender age of seven. Like many who joined the monasteries of that time, Olmstaff's subsequent history has vanished into the secret chambers of dust and slow tolling bells. Lechner places his death in the year 1487, in disagreement with more recent writings, which find evidence of Olmstaff's life as late as 1524. (Interested parties are directed to my own 'The Blinded Sundial' in Items of Moral Philosophy, April 1995, for a detailed overview of the 'biography problem'.) It should only be noted here that it was to Lechner's advantage to give Olmstaff an early death, and to point out the (allegedly) curious state of the corpse.

Of the three extant manuscripts attributed to Brother Olmstaff's hand, the first two may be dismissed in passing, being only a fair copy of Plato's Republic, and a rather beautiful illumination of Egberg's On the Chronologic of Certain Insectes. That Plato's philosophies evidently concerned the monk less than the life cycle of the horsefly, has been of interest to some observers.

It was only with the uncovering of the third manuscript in 1959 that the world paid any real attention to the obscure 'tongueless monk of Barnstrop'. How this Latin text found its way from a tiny Lancastrian village to the abandoned library of a household in Dusseldorf has yet to be fully mapped. It was found there by the antiquarian Sir John Bosley, who published his English translation in 1962, the year of his death. This coincidence, of translation and death, has not been overlooked.

Bosley called his translation The Cabinet of Night Unlocked, a rather poetical rendering of Olmstaff's original Latin. Despite this, his work, being of an overly academic nature, attracted interest only from his fellow scholars. The public imagination was stirred only when Lechner later brought the manuscript to their attention.

For all our academic distaste at Professor's Lechner's shallow popularization, and our suspicion of his decadent lifestyle (a known drug-user, associate of Timothy Leary, and a champion of the Acid Tests) we have to admit that but for his death, the Olmstaff Method (as it became known) would still linger in obscurity.

Many have claimed to have seen the public appearance Lechner made in 1974, at which he performed the Olmstaff ritual; only a few can have actually been there. None of them would be unchanged by what they saw.

To say it was my fortune to have been in that audience is to stretch the meaning of the word too far. I was on a short university tour of America at the time, promoting my second book, Morality and Death in the Age of Mass Destruction, and found myself sharing a platform with the charismatic professor. I had no knowledge of his work, but we quickly found ourselves on the same side against the rest of the panel. Our shared position was to make suicide a legitimate undertaking, given the discovery and proliferation of the nuclear bomb. One of our opponents was a bishop of the Roman Catholic faith, so you may picture the ferocity of the arguments. This bishop (I shall refrain from mentioning his name) had read Lechner's Sacred Wound, and was making a mockery of the book's heretical claims. That Lechner was calling the book a religious text 'produced by a brother of your very church!' and a work of God's bounteous goodwill, obviously hit a bare nerve, because the bishop (no doubt to his eternal shame) called for him to offer proof of 'the Devil's sacrament!'

Lechner paused for a moment then, as though drawing strength. He told the bishop that the ritual took approximately fifteen minutes to perform, and that he had no intention of boring the audience for that length of time. The bishop insisted, however, and took a straw poll of the audience. It was a close count, and it may well be that my own raised hand tipped the balance. Who can tell?

'Very well, then,' Lechner said, quite calmly.

He closed his eyes and began to mumble some Latin phrases to himself. I was seated two places along from him, and could only catch a word here and there, and my Latin was nothing like it is now. Every so often he would raise his arms to make some complicated patterns in the air. At one point, perhaps after five minutes, he touched his left hand to his heart. A little later he stamped his right foot. During these movements he was continuously whispering the Latin text. The audience had laughed to begin with, but quickly became bored. Only the bishop could be heard making a spluttering sound.

I had glanced at my pocket watch as Lechner began the ritual, and after thirteen minutes passed, I was becoming quite tense. Even the bishop lapsed into silence as the final minute ticked away. Somebody in the audience dropped a notebook, and the sound of it echoed around the hall, causing me to jump in my seat. But fifteen minutes came and went, and Lechner was still intoning to himself, and so I started to breathe again, and even to smile a little, especially when Lechner opened his eyes finally and smiled right back at me.

The bishop guffawed a final time, and made some derogatory remark.

Lechner closed his eyes, let his head fall gently to one shoulder and then down to his chest. He appeared quite relaxed, and the audience was talking loudly amongst themselves. Some of the rowdier students were even booing, and demanding their money back.

The bishop had risen from his seat, and was now slapping Lechner on the back, calling him a liar and even a false prophet. The professor leaned forward under the force of the slap, until his head was resting on the podium. A glass of water, touched by his forehead, tumbled to the floor, where it smashed.

A silence, deeper than before, once again fell over the auditorium.

Somebody laughed, but then stopped, as the bishop pulled Lechner's head away from the desk. His eyes were closed, his lips still fixed in that beatific smile. Of course, like the bishop, I suspected an aimless joke was being pulled, or that a drug-induced torpor had been achieved. I went over to admonish Lechner for bringing our argument into disrepute, but no words from me would rouse him. I started to shake him vigorously, all to no avail.

I demanded an ambulance be called immediately, which announcement caused a small commotion in the audience. A few students were making their way to the platform, some more were hurrying out; the vast majority of them were fixed to their seats, as though in reflection of Lechner's fate.

By this time the bishop had moved away slightly, and was crossing himself, as though fearful of the consequences.

Perhaps he was already thinking of his own guilt.

The media were slow to pick up on the story, which hiatus allowed me to find a copy of Lechner's book, The Sacred Wound, in an alternative bookshop on Haight-Ashbury. I was still badly shaken by the professor's strange death, especially when, three days later, the story finally made the local press. I spent a few tense minutes in Customs coming home; it felt as though I was smuggling the work into Britain.

The book had never been published in this country, and never would be. Of course, an enterprising party quickly produced a pirate edition, which was said to fetch a handsome price on the black market. Mine was one of the few legitimate editions.

I was determined to keep an open mind about its contents, but for some reason I hid the thin volume within my prized first edition of Vesalius' De Humanis Corporis Fabrica. There it rested for another two weeks, unread, as the strange story of the American professor who had 'killed himself with words' briefly made headline news. The few details released told only of a doctor's puzzlement at the exact cause of Lechner's death.

Only when the story had faded, did I dare peruse The Sacred Wound for myself.

It was a short book of ninety-nine pages, barely more than a self-produced pamphlet. It was arranged in four sections, the longest being Lechner's introduction. This introduction consisted of the already mentioned biography of Brother Olmstaff, a brief history of the Method, a pseudo-scientific explanation of the Method's effectiveness followed by a plea for its acceptance, and finally a set of guidelines for the correct performance of the ritual.

Lechner had traced the Method back to certain obscure, forbidden texts said to have been lost in the fire that destroyed the Library at Alexandria. He has no explanation as to how Olmstaff came upon these original manuscripts.

The second two sections of the book detailed the Olmstaff Method itself: first the text to be spoken, secondly the movements to be made. Lechner wisely divided the two elements to prevent the casual reader from accidentally performing the ritual in its entirety. The professor made it clear in his guidelines that the two elements, the words and the movements, were completely safe if performed separately; only when combined would they activate the body's natural processes.

Still, as you can imagine, I read these two sections with no little trepidation.

The final section of the book was Lechner's improvisation upon the Method's spiritual meaning, which owed a rather heavy debt to Leary's LSD-fuelled take on The Tibetan Book of the Dead. This section is, perhaps, the least interesting.

Indeed, finishing the book still 'alive', as it were, led to a feeling of anticlimax.

And, although I decided I had witnessed nothing more than one of life's sadder coincidences, that night in San Francisco, nothing would make me perform the ritual as per the instructions.

Nothing more was heard of the Olmstaff Method for a few years, until Dr Elizabeth Cunningham published her paper, 'On the Body's Self-Destruction', in the Journal of Alternatives, September 1985. This offered for the first time a medically approved explanation of the Method.

The fact that Cunningham was later arrested for murder should not prevent us from admiring her pioneering and courageous work. In the simplest terms the doctor had discovered a small gland (which now bears her name) in the lower abdomen. The gland had been noted previously, but no use had been found for it. Cunningham connected it to the Method in a very precise way: the combined performance of the spoken text and the ritual exercises activated the gland, which then, and only then, secreted a small amount of poison into the bloodstream. This poison (Lechner's Fluid) very quickly, and quite painlessly, overcomes the body's defences. Death follows within twenty seconds of completing the Olmstaff Method.

Cunningham's work, of course, was highly controversial, not least the fact that she had experimented on human guinea pigs, two of whom had died during the process. Both of them had terminal cancer. They were willing victims, and the doctor had signed-disclaimers proving such. This did not prevent her arrest and subsequent trial for assisted murder, of which she was found guilty. She received a sentence of not less than twenty years.

Cunningham's cause was championed by the euthanasia lobby, who campaigned vigorously on her behalf, alas with little effect. The doctor was found dead in her cell on 1 August 1989. No explanation could be given for her demise. Her trial and death brought the Olmstaff Method to the forefront of public consciousness.

One should not be surprised at this. Suicide has been a constant companion to the human struggle for progress. Before the Method came to light, it was thought that the human psyche contained a fail-safe against self-destruction; witness people's pathetic attempts to hold their breath for long enough to suffocate, or the violent convulsions that pull even the most desperate back to the surface of the darkest lake.

The Olmstaff Method broke this hold over the body's defence, with the added quality of guaranteeing an entirely painless death. Of course, this last fact cannot be empirically verified, but all witnesses of the ritual (myself included) can point to the beatific smile and relaxed posture that accompany the final moments. To quote Lechner's most famous sentence: 'God has provided an off-switch.'

Despite the fact that nineteen separate studies have shown the Method to be a legitimate process of the human physiology, none of the world's governments could be persuaded to make it a legal act, or to allow publication of any books offering instruction. The incident in Denmark sealed the Method's fate, and was the strongest proof yet of its universal effectiveness.

Prior to the incident the world had hardly noticed the so-called Offspring of God's Illumination, beyond a few rumours of the cult's supposed 'sexual worship'. Even the good people of Copenhagen were taken by surprise at the extent of the group's beliefs, when all 207 members were found dead one icy cold morning in October 1992.

The bodies were tested by the Danish authorities for drugs or any other means of self-destruction. It was no surprise to me that they found none, and that the group's final statement gloried in the 'next life that awaited all true believers, through the portals of the Sacred Wound'.

The fact that the Method was undertaken in the Danish tongue is of interest, and can be briefly examined here. It should be remembered that Lechner himself had performed the sacrament in Latin, even though his own book gave the text in plain English. In the introduction to The Sacred Wound he notes that the ritual can be spoken in Latin or English, although he believed the Latin expression to be more pure, 'closer to the wound itself, as he puts it.

Around this time I happened upon an edition of Sir John Bosley's The Cabinet of Night Unlocked. Curiously, although the book is long out of print, it has never been banned in this or any country. Certainly, Bosley's is an academic study, and his translation from the Latin is dense with secondary and tertiary meanings. It is of little use to any but the most convoluted or desperate mind.

It is interesting to compare Bosley's version with Lechner's, mainly because Lechner had simplified the more complicated passages, and even eliminated entire sentences in his quest for the purest form. Both versions are effective, which leads one to believe that the exact nature of the text is of less importance than the overall 'truth' of the sacrament. The same leeway is allowed with the accompanying movements, with different cultures producing their own, slight variations.

Hundreds of illegal translations have been made over the years, and all of them activate Cunningham's Gland successfully. One curious exception is the pictograph language of the K'dhall Islands in New Guinea. Here the Method does not work. Research continues into why this should be so.

Is it any wonder that the Method became so popular? The suicide rate increased noticeably as the ritual became known, not least in death cells around the world. For the victims of painful incurable diseases, it is quite easy to find a doctor who, for a price or for his conscience, will tutor the sufferer in the correct words and the movements. Other stranger rumours abound. For instance, Lechner had stated that the Vatican held similar manuscripts in their vaults, and that the facts had been suppressed for centuries in order to maintain the Christian way of death. Certain warrior sects had known of the Method as long ago as the tenth century, using it to ensure that captured soldiers could kill themselves without succumbing to torture. The US Army is said to have employed the Method in the Vietnam War. It is, perhaps, not entirely untrue that the Method was used to effect a kind of escape from the Nazi concentration camps. One famous, perhaps non-existent heretical text is said to contain certain proof that Jesus the Son of God used the Method in his dying moments on the Cross.

My own obsession with the Olmstaff Method is fuelled by my professional interest in the morality of suicide, and by my personal involvement in the first reported case. With these two not unworthy weapons at my disposal, I was, after a lengthy bureaucratic battle, allowed a brief perusal of the original Cabinet of Night Unlocked.

Sir John Bosley, in his last will and testament, had bequeathed Olmstaff's manuscript to the British Museum, where it was expressly to be kept under lock and key in the rare volumes chamber. I was escorted there, one dismal afternoon in December of last year. I was allowed only one hour with the volume, and the guard was to be with me the whole time, whether for protection of the manuscript, or for protection of the reader, I cannot say.

How strange it was, that one hour. The manuscript was kept under glass, and was open at the page that began the sacramental text. The calligraphy and the illuminations were of the highest standard, far higher than Olmstaff's other known works. So rich were the colourings, I almost felt they were rising out of the parchment towards me. It was, quite literally, a pleasure to gaze upon it.

I had learned a little more Latin since my first (and last) meeting with Professor Lechner, and I tried as best I could to decipher the work's meaning. I mean not the textual message discovered by Bosley, nor the wild extrapolations given flight by Lechner; rather I was seeking the hidden message of the work. The mechanism - the magic, if you will - that allowed a few words, marks on paper, to affect the human body so drastically. And always, as I read, how could I not be aware that Bosley, Lechner, Cunningham, and perhaps Olmstaff as well, had all taken advantage of the Method. They had all died by the book.

I came out of the museum early, twelve minutes before my allotted time was up, and never before had the dirty London rain felt so glorious on my face!

I will finish this short history with an account of my own experiments with the Method. My main preoccupation is to establish the exact limits of the ritual's effectiveness. For instance, I have already agreed with Lechner that the words and the movements are quite harmless when performed separately, by the simple expedient of performing them myself. I have followed his instructions precisely during these experiments.

During the last few months I have taken to performing the words and the movements together in various combinations; for example, speaking the words in reverse order, or making the movements in mirror-image. None of these variations has had any effect upon my body.

I am currently in the process of performing the Method in its correct order, but stopping off at various points to ascertain the cumulative effects. From these experiments I can conclude that the first ten minutes of the sacrament have no obvious effect at all. Only at the eleventh minute does a certain lightheadedness descend upon the body. It is not unpleasant. At the thirteenth minute this is replaced by a momentary fear, which may be a physical symptom of the Method, or else a legitimate emotion brought about by the approach of death. The fourteenth minute passes almost unnoticed.

As the final passages of the Olmstaff Method are undertaken, a feeling of intense expectation and desire takes over the whole body, as though it were eager to complete the ritual forthwith, and to leap joyously into the realms of darkness!

It is only with immense self-will that I have managed to hold off from making that final execution. To descend from such heights so crudely brings with it a despair I would never have thought possible.

I have only a single word left to say, and a single movement to make.

The word is 'circumference'. The movement, a gentle touching of the right thumb and middle finger, to form a small circle of flesh.

Thus.

SUPER-EASY-NO-TAG-SPECIAL

So they threw me out of Strangeways with a packet of stale fags and the clothes I went in with. And a letter from the governor praising my good-boy behaviour and my spirited reform, and claiming I was perfectly capable of holding down an honest job, given the chance. Right, so that's why the last thing inside, they stick this tagging device around my left ankle. Radio bleeper, satellite mapping, locking encryption, nifty little sonic ball-and-chain. I had to wear the thing for two years, two years of being followed, of having my every movement logged on some giant cop computer. Don't ask me how the thing works, I'm just the guy that has to sport the accessory. Two years of never leaving Manchester.

Betsy was waiting for me outside the prison, the sweet-hearted old girl. We gave each other a kiss, and said hello and she told me that nobody was wearing trousers like that any more, and I said you should try being off the scene for four years, see what you come out like. Then she said we need to get you out of those trousers, and I said we most certainly do.

First she was a touch put off by the contraption strapped tight around my ankle, then she got kinda excited like it was some weird bondage device, then when it was the third time over, she said it was sad that I'd never be naked, not really naked, not for two whole years anyway. Me, I was just thinking that some greasy cop was watching this little bleep on a computerized map going jigger-jigger. It was like having a voyeur in the boudoir. Gave me the shivers. Then we talked about the job, and the money and where the fuck was Danny Boy with the takings. Then she went quiet, and turned away.

So, Danny Boy. Good old faithful Danny the Boy, trusty assistant of yesteryear, now gone AWOL with the loot. London, said Betsy. Last month, said Betsy. And she said, I wanted to tell you, visiting times, but I thought it'd only make your time go slow. And I said, no, the anger would've sped it along no end. And she said, so when are you going after him, Dex? And I said, now that's the problem, I can't.

I can't wait two years, because Danny will have spent it all by then, if not already. So I did some enquiries, and the friend of a friend said there just might be a way out of it, but it would cost. I said name it, cause it's gotta be less than I stand to make if I catch up with the bastard. And it was, a whole load of cash, but a lot less than the big takings. I had to pull in some bad debts, and make some bad debts myself just to raise the unlocking money.

The guy said his name was the YoYo, which is pretty damn stupid, but he did have a way of bouncing up and down when he got excited, which is when I showed him the fee. Of course he had to come visit me to do the operation, because no way could I let my bleep-bleep show up on the bad part of the map.

He had all the equipment with him, which fitted inside a case you might keep a pair of spectacles in, posh ones. Things have gotten smaller since I was put away. Soon the whole world will vanish, I swear. So this guy, this YoYo guy, he gets this gadget out of the case, presses some keys on it, holds it against the tagging device on my ankle. The gadget goes whirrrrr, and the tag goes wheeeep! And I said, that's it, is it? And he said, that's it. Super-easy-no-tag-special. Just like that. Super, easy, no tag, special. Proud of it he was. But I was nervous, and I said, you're sure this is safe? I mean, I can really leave Manchester now, no problems? And he said, leave right now, your bleep still shows up on the cop map. It moves around the streets just like you're still living here. It's a phantom bleep, isn't it? Because I've hijacked their fucking system, haven't I? Any trouble, call this number. Twenty-four-hour care line. And he went off on another bouncing spree, a little heavier this time on account of the fee I'd paid him.

So I went down to London, and I found Danny, and it took five days all told, and we had a nice little tete-a-tete, and he handed over the money. Just my rightful share mind, because that shows the difference between us, I'm fair, me, even when I've been cheated. So it was good, everything was back on plan. Get back to Manchester, sit tight on the loot, wait out the two years, get to know Betsy all over and all over again. Easy. Like the man says, super easy!

I got back to Manchester on the Saturday, the afternoon it was, and I thought maybe I should go see that YoYo right off, get him to turn me back onto the real map. But then I thought maybe not, maybe I'm needing to leave town again some time soon. He didn't say anything about a time limit, did he? So I thought instead I'd go round and see if Betsy was up for a night out, but who should I see on the way but Nasty Dave, who was an old acquaintance and not at all nasty, not if you ignored the business with the Kumar Brothers anyway. And he says to me, hi Dex, you're out then? And I say, yeah. And he says, I thought it was you. And I say, well it is me. And he says, no, last Wednesday I mean, I saw you on the street, thought it was you but I was on the bus, so I couldn't stop. And I says, nah, you're wrong there, cause I was away last Wednesday. Oh, he says, must have been someone else then. And I says, yeah, it must've been. Strange, he says, it sure looked like you.

I give Betsy a call, but she's not in. Now, I could go round there if I want, cause I've got a key. I'm more or less living there until I get settled. Instead, I'm thinking, well it's a Saturday night isn't it? Let's do the town, just like the old days, me and my shadow working the clubs and playing the chances. I have a pretty good time, meet up with some of the old guys, get drunk. Someone says, can't remember who, that he sees I'm back with Betsy. And I say, well kind of, just messing around you know. And he says, well it looked serious to me. What did? I ask. Holding hands and everything, he says. Of course this gets a laugh from the boys, the thought of me holding hands with anything, never mind a woman. When was this? I ask. And he says, Thursday I think. Yeah, Thursday. In the park. I was walking the dog. Yeah, holding hands and everything.

I left after that, laughing with the rest of them. I took a cab over to Betsy's flat. More than anything, it was an insane surge of jealousy that drove me there. Strange this, considering our relationship, which was always loose and easy. Maybe it was the fact that she was taking up with someone else, so soon after I'd got out of Strangeways. And the fact that the guy looked like me, that was the killer. OK, maybe it showed her love; I'd been away for four years, and so enamoured was she, the only person who could keep her company was a lookalike. These thoughts didn't help me any. And when I got to the flat, and I rang the bell to no answer, and when I tried the key, and it didn't work…

So I bust the door down. Straight away, I could see that the nasties had been done recently, and with some vigour, because the bed was in a mess, and the smell, and the stains… Jesus! Who was this guy? And the cheek of Betsy - right under my nose. I didn't know what to do for the best, except just to wait there, perched on the bed, slowly getting angrier. My only problem was who to hit first, the man or the woman. I must have dozed off at some point, because the next thing I know it's gone one o'clock and all the lights are off. I wake up wondering where I am, and then who I am. I shake myself out of the feeling. Then I hear noises down below at the door. Well, here it comes. Betsy will see the door is smashed, she'll know. Maybe they won't come up. No, here they come, two sets of footsteps. I can hear them moving through the living room. I sit up, get myself in a relaxed position. The bedroom door opens. Two men come in.

It was the cops. Inspector This, Deputy Inspector That. The bastards only arrest me, don't they. I'm screaming at them, what have I done wrong now? They inform, kindly, that a robbery took place Friday night, and that, according to my location on their tagging equipment, I was in the exact vicinity, the exact time. I protest at this, but what can I say, no, I was in London, I'm innocent? Eventually, when we get to the cop station, I'm more or less pleading with them to believe me, I was in London! London! Does no good, and I get my one call. I think about a lawyer, then about Betsy, then about the only person who can really get me out of this mess. I call the number that YoYo gave me.

It was a dead line.

ALPHABOX

The bookshop on Deansgate Boulevard in Manchester is filled with many words, most of them for sale, only a few of which manage to find their way into customers' bags. Most of the staff take their lunch at the Bluefinch Cafe, on John Dalton Street. Donna Clarke, who worked in the shop, was walking towards this place of refreshment one lunchtime, her head filled as usual with strange ideas of becoming a writer herself one day, when she happened to notice a man walking towards her carrying a wooden box.

The box was not too large, but the man seemed to be struggling with it. Perhaps it contained something heavy. Strangely enough, the next day he was there again, same time, same place, still struggling with the weight of the thing. And the rest of that week, whenever she went to lunch, the man was always there, walking towards Donna and then past her, a pained expression on his face.

Donna was curious. Why did he keep carrying the box around with him? If it was the same box every time, that is. Maybe the man had a number of these boxes to deliver, but then why not send them all at once and by delivery van? And if it was the same box, where was he taking it and, more importantly, what was inside it?

One day, Donna had to take an early lunch due to a staff mix-up. When she got to the cafe, the man was there. He was eating his meal, with the box on the table beside him. Donna slid into the empty seat opposite to him, ordered her usual, and then tried to start a conversation. The man answered her statement about the weather with a simple, 'Yes, isn't it?' and then carried on eating. The box, Donna could now see, was rather ornate and antique looking, decorated with flowers and songbirds. It appeared to have been carved from a single piece of wood, with no lid to it, no obvious way to open it up.

The man was silent until he had finished his simple meal (eggs, chips, beans) and then ordered his cup of tea. Only when this arrived, did he look directly into Donna's eyes. 'I suppose you're wondering what's inside?' he said.

Donna stopped eating, her fork poised halfway to her lips.

'It's a letter,' the man said.

'A letter?' asked Donna.

'Yes. Today's letter.'

'It's a large box to carry a single letter in, isn't it?'

'I have to use this box. It's in the contract.'

'I see,' said Donna, not seeing at all. 'To whom is it addressed?'

'Addressed?'

'Yes. The envelope. Are you a postman?'

The man laughed, gently, and then pressed upon the box in certain places. Until, with a whirring sound, the flowers and the songbirds parted company, making a small aperture. 'I shouldn't be doing this, really,' the man whispered. 'Just a tiny peek now.' Feeling somewhat foolish, but curious nonetheless, Donna put her eye to the opening and peered inside.

It was a world of febrile darkness, in which something barely breathed, gleaming in silver. Almost liquid it seemed, like mercury is almost liquid.

'Do you see it?' the man asked.

'Yes,' answered Donna. 'It's the letter W.'

'What!?' The man was suddenly agitated. 'Let me see that!' He pulled the box away from her, and quickly placed his own eye against the opening. 'Oh, I see what has happened.' He breathed a sigh of relief. 'The little bugger was upside-down. There, take another look.'

Donna did so, and saw now quite clearly that a small letter M was moving around inside the box, moving as if alive.

The man gently performed the secret operation, and the box closed shut. 'It's my job to deliver the letters,' he announced proudly; 'one for each day, according to the contract.'

'The contract?' Donna asked.

'The signed contract between myself and the writer.'

'Which writer?'

'Oh, he's very famous, miss, and does not like to be named.'

'He only writes a single letter a day? He must be a very slow writer.'

'Each morning he sends word of which letter he next needs. I pick it up from the suppliers, and then carry it across town to the writer's house. For one moment there I thought I'd picked up a W by mistake. That would have been disastrous.'

'Can he not have it delivered, by van for instance, or through the postal service?'

'It is in the contract that I must carry the letter personally, and contained within this box.' The man stood up. 'But now I must be going. I am already late, and the writer must have urgent need of the letter M. He gets very angry, miss, if I do not deliver on time.'

The man picked up the box.

'Wait!' cried Donna. 'You haven't told me what he writes about.'

But the man had gone already.

METAPHORAZINE

Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Every clockwork day. Says it burns his house down, with a haircut made of wings. You could say he eats a problem. You could say he stokes his thrill. Every clingfilm evening, climb inside a little pill. Intoxicate the feelings. Play those skull-piano blues. Johnny takes Metaphorazine.

He's a dog.

Lucy takes Simileum. That's not half as bad. She's only like a moon gone slithering, upside-down the sky. Like a tidal wave of perfume, like a spillage in the heart. With eyes stuck tight like envelopes, and posted like a teardrop. Like a syringe, of teardrops. Like a dripfeed aphrodisiac, swallowed like a Cadillac, Lucy takes Simileum.

She's like a dog.

Graham takes Litotezol. Brain the size of particles, that cloud inside of parasites, that live inside the paradise of a pair of lice. He's a surge of melted ice cream, when he makes love like a ghost. Sparkles like a graveyard, but never gets the urge, and then sings Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! like a turgid flatfoot dirge. Graham takes Litotezol.

He's a small dog.

Josie takes Hyperbolehyde. Ten thousand every second. See her face go touch the sky, when she climbs that rollercoaster high. That mouth! Such bliss! All the planets and the satellites make their home inside her lips. It's a four-minute warning! Atomic tongue! Nitrokisserene! Josie takes Hyperbolehyde.

She's a big dog.

Alanis takes Alliterene. It drags a deeper ditch. And all her dirty dealings display a debonair disdain. Her dynamo is dangerous, ditto her dusky dreams. Dummies devise diverse deluxe debacles down dingy darkened detox driveways. Alanis takes Alliterene.

She's a dead dog, ya dig?

Desmond takes Onomatopiates.

He's a woof woof.

Sylvia takes oxymorox. She's got the teenage menopause. Gets her winter-sugar somersaults from sniffing non-stick glue. She wears the V-necked trousers, in the blind-eye looking-glass. Does the amputated tango, and then finds herself quite lost, in the new old English style! Sylvia takes oxymorox.

She's a cat dog.

But Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Look at those busted street lamp eyes, that midnight clockface of a smile. That corrugated tinflesh roof of a brow. The knife, fork and spoon of his fingers, the sheer umbrella of the man's hairdo! The coldwater bedsit of his brain. He's a fanfare of atoms, I tell you! And you know that last, exquisite mathematical formula rubbed off the blackboard before the long summer holidays begin? Well, that's him. Speeding language through the veins, Johnny takes Metaphorazine.

He's a real dog.

ALPHABOX

'What does he write about?' This was the one question that Donna kept asking the man with the alphabet box, whenever they bumped into each other. During the last few weeks they had become quite friendly, sometimes even taking their lunch together in a small park behind a department store.

He told her stories, stories of his own. Stories of the factory he visited every morning, the way the letters were bred and tamed, and of the writer and his cruelties. He often let Donna see inside the box; the silvery, slippery letters that flowed to the corners as though afraid of the light.

'What does he write about?' the carrier finally replied to Donna one day. 'Ah, that's the trouble, you see. The writer doesn't get out much any more. Not at all, actually. He's very old. That's why he pays me to deliver the letters. Now when he was a younger man, why he was famous for his cruelty and cunning in hunting down the letters. And not these tame little factory-produced letters, oh no; back then, he would track down wild, fierce letters, and drag them screaming back to his rooms. And his books were wild and fierce, in turn. Now, unfortunately, his stories are quite tame, and always about the same subject.'

'Which is?'

'He writes about writing, of course. What else does he know?'

And then, one wonderful lunchtime, in the autumn of the year, with the sun moulded from brass, the carrier showed Donna how to open the box for herself. The secret manoeuvres; the slightest pressure to the wing of a songbird, to a flower's petal, to a thorn. The box opened up for Donna, and she put her eye to the gifted darkness.

It was the letter Q.

A flash of quicksilver, curling to meet inside itself, to flick out a tail.

QWERTYPHOBIA

The trouble began at the christening. The joyous announcement, 'I name this child Quentin Thomas King', was disturbed by the baby boy's sudden retching cough. The holy water in the font swirled red with blood.

During the first years of his life, Quentin suffered daily from this attack. His mother would call out his name, to stop him from doing that naughty thing, whatever it was, this very instant. The boy would start to cough. His father would read him a bedtime story: '"Off with her head!" cried the Queen of Hearts.' The child's skin would inflame. His mother would say to him, 'Oh, you're such a queer boy!' A trickle of blood would flow from his lips.

Experiments were made on his body, checking for all the common allergic reactions. Neither milk nor pollen nor even the household cat made any impression. All the tests failed to find the cause of Quentin's discomfort. Some small relief was taken from the fact that the abreaction was becoming less pronounced as he grew older, with the shock of blood slowly giving way to a severe, burning rash.

For all the tests done by various doctors and experts, it was Quentin's own mother who first discovered the cause of the problem. This came about when she was trying to teach the young boy the alphabet. When asked to repeat the letters after her, the poor child managed all the way to the letter P, quite successfully, only then to go quiet.

'Come on now,' said his mother, 'the next letter is called Q, isn't that right?'

The usual reaction set in. The pupil's skin was livid with his pain. Mrs King immediately made an appointment for her son to see a psychiatrist.

This psychiatrist, a certain Dr Crombie, confirmed the mother's suspicions. 'Mr and Mrs King,' he said to the parents, 'your son, I'm afraid, is allergic to the letter Q.'

Quentin was in the room at the time, and of course the very sound of the pronouncement was enough to set him off.

'Your child is not alone,' continued the psychiatrist, once Quentin was safely in bed. 'I have found a number of cases in the literature. Most of these have occurred in the last five years, which may prove worrying. There was the case of a young girl in 1999, who was scared of the letter E; a rather more serious case, I think you'll agree.'

'But what have I done wrong?' cried Mrs King, 'to cause this… this disease to happen?'

'Oh, it's not a disease, madam; think of it more as a negative reaction, a mental dismissal. Your dear child has a deep, deep hatred for the seventeenth letter of the alphabet, whether written down or spoken aloud. This hatred causes a psychosomatic response in his bodily functions.'

'Can nothing be done?' asked the father.

'The root cause of the condition is unknown,' replied Dr Crombie, 'although research has shown it to occur mainly in the more well-off, dare I say it, upper-middle-class families, such as your own. Until the cause is found, we can do nothing except treat your son with the utmost tenderness.'

'Oh my poor, poor child!' Mrs King was in tears.

'I would advise', added the psychiatrist, 'that your son lead a more isolated life.'

So Quentin's parents started calling their son by his middle name, Thomas. His bedroom was stripped of all offending posters and all the books, of course, for how could they check every one? Only the simplest picture books were allowed, and even these had to have certain pages torn out. Thomas was not allowed out to play, and none of his friends could visit, except under the strictest instructions, and then only for a few minutes at a time.

At first, the Kings found it hard not to say the dreaded letter in their son's presence. Quixotic, query, quincunx, quoits, quotidian; these words, and others - quaff and quiff, quiver and quagmire and quantum mechanics - all had to be forsaken. Eventually, however, they became expert at their task. They would read to Thomas, see the dreaded letter coming up, and with a deft turn of phrase, substitute the offending word with a more suitable one. By this technique, Thomas received an education of sorts, and even started to write his own stories; magical tales they were, and not entirely because of the restricted vocabulary.

Even in their own private, intimate conversations, and without thinking about it, Mr and Mrs King found themselves avoiding the letter Q. In this avoidance, strangely, they found a renewal of their love for each other.

When Thomas was seven years old, the good Dr Crombie brought news of a new treatment. 'I must warn you,' he said to the parents, 'the drug is still in its experimental phase. Basically, if you agree to his being treated, your son will be a guinea pig. It will not cure him, please take note of this. It will only hold the reaction at bay. If he should desist from the treatment…'

The Kings signed the required paperwork.

The medication turned out to be a cloudy liquor, pale green in colour. Thomas took two portions a day, every morning and evening. Without cease, this washing of the tongue. Until, on one fair spring day, a trembling nine-year-old boy wrote these words in his diary: 'My name is Quentin Thomas King.'

There was a slight quickening of the pulse, a flush of heat to his forehead, a nervous twitch in his arm.

And then a smile, a play of sounds in his mind, on his lips.

At the age of eighteen, Quentin King joined a self-help group called Word Up Positive. They met every Thursday evening, in a room above a public house in the centre of Manchester. At any time there could be between twelve and thirty-nine members present. They led a more or less normal life, thanks to the continuous intake of certain drugs, but at these weekly meetings, all use of the medication was banned. Instead, they talked in their own tongue, feeling more natural doing so, and not wanting to lose the gift it gave them.

The language they used was entirely dependent on which particular members were present. Sometimes, when the gathering was sparse, it was almost English they spoke. Other times, when the room was crowded, they could hardly speak at all, with so many letters dangerous. Even then, they managed to hold real conversations, expressing more in those two hours together than they had all week in more liberal company.

Thirteen of them were writers of fiction. Quentin King, led by their example, became the most successful of them all, with three best-selling novels to his name. The critics praised the 'majestic restraint' of his prose.

At the age of twenty-four Quentin married another member of the group, Molly Unwin, who could not stand the letter U. One year later their first child was born, a boy, a completely normal, healthy boy.

They called him Charles Gordon Alexander King.

ALPHABOX

After learning the secret of opening the box, Donna didn't see the carrier for a few weeks. Perhaps he had chosen a new route; perhaps he had lost the job because of being late, or for bringing the wrong letter; perhaps the writer had finished the book. No matter how Donna varied her lunchtimes, no matter where she searched, still the alphabet box eluded her. She started to feel lonely, depressed even, and could not explain why, especially to the manager of the bookshop, who kept on at her for not working to her usual high standards.

Eventually, about two months after she had last seen him, the carrier turned up again at the cafe. He was looking very tired. He clattered the box down on the table, with none of his former loving care. And when Donna asked him what was wrong, he said:

'It's the writer. He's driving me mad. He's desperate to finish his book, you see. His last great masterpiece, he calls it. He's dying. He's got me carrying two, sometimes even three letters over in one day. I just can't manage it.'

'Put two letters in at once,' suggested Donna.

'Two letters in the box! At once! Are you crazy? They would mate. Have you ever seen the offspring of a G and a P? It's a horrible sight, let me tell you. No, if I'm to keep this job, I must work harder, that is all. Look, I only came in to say, well, I won't be around much any more. I have enjoyed our conversations, but…'

'Don't worry, I understand.'

'Perhaps when this story is over…?'

'Yes. Let's.'

The man picked up the box, and left the cafe. Donna finished her meal, hardly knowing what to think. Suddenly, the idea of returning to the shop didn't appeal. But she had to make a living. On the way back, there was a crowd gathered on the corner of Deansgate Boulevard, and the traffic had come to a standstill. As Donna got closer, she realized there had been an accident. Pushing through the crowd, she saw the man's body on the ground, somebody kneeling over him. A car had mounted the pavement.

The box lay some way off, unnoticed. Donna heard a voice, from somewhere.

(Hardly anything is true about me.)

She bent down to the box, touched it in secret. (I want everybody to know that.) The carvings slid apart, making darkness. (Read the true confessions.) She put her hand through the aperture. (Reveal all, reveal all.) Clutched at something wet and slippery, like catching a fish with bare hands.

(Let someone write it for me.)

Donna didn't know where the writer lived, didn't know where the letters were made. (It wouldn't be truthful.) She was already late for the afternoon shift, but suddenly nothing mattered any more, nothing at all. (You have to be special.) This was hers now, this warm, squirming thing inside her palm.

(You have to be very special.)

She didn't dare open her hands until she was five streets away.

(It wouldn't be truthful otherwise.)

It was the letter J. Without knowing why, the young bookseller knew it stood for Junior.

(Reveal all, reveal all.)

Donna started to run.

JUNIOR PIMP

First of all I want everyone to know that hardly anything that was said in the other papers is true about me. The other papers know nothing, and only in this paper will you read the true confessions of the world-famous Junior Pimp. I intend to reveal all, no holds barred, pimples and all, and if the police and the church people and all the other stuck-up people don't like it, well they know what they can do. I reckon they're only jealous anyway, because I bet they had boring old childhoods, and it's not everybody that gets to be a famous Junior Pimp, you have to be special.

My name is William Wheeler, and I wish my mum and dad hadn't given me those two Ws, but there's nothing much I can do about it except call myself Liam. Which I tried for a few years, but the other kids just kept on calling me Willy Wheels, and that's just one example of the things I've had to put up with. And people wring their hands in shame, and dare to ask why it was that I became a Junior Pimp.

Well, keep reading, because I'm going to tell you exactly how it happened, and I'm going to tell it in my own way. The paper offered to let someone write it for me, but I refused, saying it wouldn't be truthful otherwise.

I'm eleven years old, nearly twelve. I became the famous Junior Pimp when I was only ten, which I think must be a record, certainly for this country. I've given up being the famous Junior Pimp now, and I'll give the reason for that as well, but to learn why you'll have to keep buying this newspaper, won't you?

I lived with my mum and dad and my little dog, Tango, in a nice little house in Ashton-under-Lyne, which is a town near Manchester. There's some rough areas in Ashton, but we don't live in them, oh no, we live in one of the posher bits. We're not very rich or anything like that, just not rough, that's all. I'm telling you this so you won't get the idea that maybe I was forced into being a Junior Pimp because of a deprived childhood.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I've always done pretty good at school, especially at art, which is my favourite. I like to draw, and my hobbies include watching television, listening to music, and reading. I've never been very good at things like football or tennis or cricket, and my dad was always telling me off about this, saying when was I going to be a proper man like the other kids? But apart from that, I've had a very happy childhood, compared to some, the kids from the Shakespeare Estate that backs on to our street for instance. My mum was very angry when the council built the estate, apparently, so my dad kept telling me, and she wanted to move straight away. They were saving up for a better house, in a better part of town.

My mum says it's a joke that the council called it the Shakespeare Estate, and that all the streets are named after characters from his plays. She's a bit of a snob really, and I hope she doesn't mind me saying that, because I know I've caused her problems lately, ever since it came out that I was a Junior Pimp. But I've promised to be truthful, so she'll just have to put up with it, anyway she's not complaining about the money I'm getting for writing these world-exclusive confessions.

I always liked to play with the kids from the estate, because they were more fun than the ones in our street, far less boring. There was one kid in particular that everybody wanted to hang out with, his real name is Paul Holland, but everybody called him Dutch. He lived on MacDuff Park, which is really grotty and not a park at all, but who's to blame for that, the council I reckon. Dutch was the same age as me, but older if you know what I mean, and the leader of a gang that called themselves the Parkas, because they lived on the Park, and also because they wore these long parka coats, even in the summer. You had to have one to be in the gang. I asked my mum to buy me one, but she wouldn't, they weren't posh enough. But I really, really wanted to join Dutch's gang, and would do anything to hang out with them, even if they were always making fun of me and calling me Willy Wheels.

It was the summer holidays, very hot and nothing much to do, except think about how close it was to going back to school. We were going on to the secondary school after the holidays, and I think that got Dutch going a little, because he seemed to get madder, braver, more outrageous in his schemes the closer it got. I guess he was worried, or something, and really wanted to make the most of his time.

I'll tell you how I got to be a member of the Parka Gang, without even needing one of them snazzy coats. Dutch and his mates were hanging out at the busted playground one day, when I came to find them. I think they liked to have me around just to make fun of, but I was beyond caring by then. Anyway, they had these magazines that Dutch had got from somewhere. Girlie mags they were. I'd never seen one before, not close up enough to study. I was amazed! Open legs and everything. They weren't hardcore or anything, but I'd never seen a woman before, naked I mean, even if they were only photographs. I wasn't excited by them, not in my body I mean, and it's important to remember that fact for later on. No, it was just the idea of them that got me going. I was excited in my head. I wasn't thinking about sex, like Dutch and his mates were. They were going crazy over them, and telling dirty jokes about the women, and explaining how big their thingies were getting, and moaning about the fact that the pictures weren't explicit enough. Me, I was just fascinated by the shapes, the hidden details, the secrets. I tried to pretend that my thingy was getting big as well, but I didn't know what they were talking about. I guess I've always been young for my age.

I asked Dutch if I could borrow one of these mags, and he said OK, only don't bring it back with the pages stuck together. I asked him what he meant, but all he did was laugh at me. I don't care that he laughs at me, at least it's something.

I had to smuggle it into our house under my coat, so my mum wouldn't see it. It was bad enough me hanging around with the estate kids, never mind bringing home pornography. But I had a plan, see. I waited till bedtime, and then got the magazine out and studied it for a while. Then I got my drawing kit out. Like I said earlier, I've always been pretty good at drawing, ever since I was little.

Anyway the next day I turn up at the busted playground again, carrying the mag with me in a carrier bag. I hand it back to Dutch, and then I tell him I've done some of my own. He says, what? I say I've done some pornography of my own. And I pull these four sheets of paper out of the bag, hand them round, one for each member of the gang. And their faces, you should've seen them! Because I'd remembered all the things they said about what they really wanted the pictures to show, and I'd painted just that, as realistic as I could manage. Which wasn't very realistic at all, because I got a lot of the details mixed up.

But Dutch was amazed, I just know he was, because he couldn't stop smiling and drooling over my drawings. So that's how I became a true member of the gang, and that's why Dutch stole me my very own parka, because I'd turned myself into a Junior Pornographer! Pretty neat, eh?

I just assumed that Dutch had nicked the girlie mags, from the newsagent, or even from behind his dad's workbench, but when he told me where he'd really got them from, well it was my turn to be amazed. Because he'd been given them by his sister!

Now I'd seen this sister a few times, just hanging around, you know. Her name was Fiona, and she was seventeen years old. She was pretty good looking, I think, a bit tarty with it, but most of the girls on the estate looked that way, I think it was the fashion. But you always got the impression with Fiona that it wasn't just fashion, it was more a way of life, if you know what I mean. Sometimes she'd turn up with a bruised cheek, or even a black eye. She could be hard-faced when she wanted to be, but she always had a little smile for me. The other kids in the gang were always trying it on with her, even though they were only ten and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. She'd just tell them to shut up and come back when they were men, but with me it was different, I never bothered her. I think she saw me as just a little kid really, innocent, you know. So she'd smile at me, and I'd smile right back.

I had this famous smile. I know I had it, because my aunts and uncles were always calling me 'Smiler'. I just couldn't be tough like the other kids, even if I tried. When I did try, it came out all funny, so in the end I gave up on ever being tough.

Fiona even called me Liam, which was the best thing of all. She never made fun of me. Still, I was shocked when Dutch told me that it was her that had given him the porno mags. I didn't think girls could get hold of that kind of thing. I mean, I knew she was easy because all the lads said she was, but porno mags! So I asked Dutch where she'd got them from, and he said that it came with the job.

Job, I thought. What job could possibly let a girl get hold of porno mags, and she didn't even have a job as far as I knew, because she was often hanging out at the busted playground during the weekdays. That's when Dutch told me that Fiona was a prostitute!

I was shocked of course, who wouldn't be. I didn't believe him at first, I thought he was just joking with me. But he wasn't, and I found out for sure a few days later.

You have to understand that we didn't do much with our days, just hang around the busted playground mostly, and talk about pop music or football, or maybe we'd go down the high street and try and nick things from the corner shop. We were never very successful at this, and that's one of the reasons I liked to hang out with the Parkas, they weren't really, really bad like some of the other gangs I could mention.

One time we were messing about outside the shop, steeling up courage, and it was pretty late, I know because I kept looking at my watch. I had to be in by a certain time or else my dad would go mad at me. My dad could be pretty mad at times, and even violent, although he mostly took that out on our dog, Tango. I don't care who knows this, because it's true. It was strange, because I had this parka on, that I wasn't supposed to wear. I had to hide it in the shed, go out in my normal coat, swap it for the parka, and then swap back before I went back in. I kept thinking it must be nice to be able to do just what you want, like Dutch, like Fiona. Their parents didn't seem to mind what they did.

Anyway, so we were hanging out at the shop, and it was getting late, just starting to get dark, when Fiona comes running out of the pub opposite. She's got a man with her, some older guy, real fat and ugly and I wonder what's she's doing with him. Dutch says to me, There, I told you. That's her latest punter. No way, I said. Watch, he says. The man and Fiona are talking, and I actually see the man give her some money, then they walk off together!

Where's she going? I ask. Oh, they usually go to her flat, Dutch replies, or else just to a dark street if it's just a blow job the bloke's after. She gets twenty quid for a blow job. Twenty quid! I say. Sure, he says, and fifty for the whole thing. Fifty quid! I shout. Bloody hell, that's a fortune! And then they laugh at me some more.

Uh huh! whispers Dutch. He's looking over to the pub where this young bloke's come out, a real hard-looking type, all tight trousers and bare arms with muscles and everything. Who's that? I ask. That's Melv, says Dutch. Melvin Flowers, he's Fiona's pimp. I ask what a pimp is, and then they really start making fun of me. Willy Wheels! Willy Wheels, doesn't even know what a pimp is! Stuff like that.

Of course I'd heard the word before, but it was one of those words that I never got round to really finding out about, mainly because until then I'd never had the need to. So Dutch tells me how it all works, how this Melv character gets 70 per cent of everything that Fiona earns, and in return he's supposed to look after her, protect her from violent clients. And that this Melv has got about fifteen girls working for him, and that instead of looking after her, usually it's him that's the cause of all the bruises on Fiona's face.

This Melvin looks over at us then, and Dutch gives him a wave, but all he gets in return is a dirty look.

It just didn't seem fair somehow, but just think of all the money he must be earning for doing hardly anything at all, and that night, when I was lying awake in bed, it was all I could think about, how lucky he was.

Nothing much happened for a week or two, and then we had to go back to school. I kind of lost touch with Dutch then, because when we got to the secondary school, he started to change, become more serious. And when we did meet up, it wasn't the same. He suddenly seemed a lot older, I think he must have been reaching puberty or something, after all the pretending. He even stopped wearing the famous parka coat. Sometimes I'd go to the busted playground, expecting the gang to be there, but they hardly ever were.

I still went anyway, with the parka on just in case. I think I just liked to get out of the house, because Mum and Dad were arguing a lot by then, lots of shouting and one time my dad actually hit my mum. It wasn't a bad hit, more of a slap really. But I was an only child, and I felt pretty helpless, because how could I help my mum, I wasn't much use to anyone.

So I'd just sit on the busted roundabout, feeling pretty sorry for myself, and thinking that maybe there wasn't much use in love or whatever you wanted to call it. And who should come up, but this Fiona.

She was looking real bad herself, with a black eye again, but worse than usual, and plenty of bruises. She sits down on the roundabout and we don't say much to each other for a while, just lost in our own little worlds I guess. It was nice, being like that, as though we didn't even need to talk. Eventually she says, That's it, I've left him. And I knew who she meant, without even asking. I've got to get me a new pimp, she says.

Do you have to have a new pimp? I ask.

Of course I do. Who would look after me otherwise? I'd get beaten up.

You're getting beaten up anyway, I say.

I know, she says. It sucks, doesn't it?

And then she asks what's up with me, and I tell her about my mum and dad and all that trouble. She comes close then, round to my side of the roundabout, and sits back down beside me. We're a couple of right losers, aren't we? she whispers, and it's only then that I realize that she's crying.

And there's nothing I can do but put my arm around her. We must've looked a right sight.

It was a week after this that I left home. I'd come home late one time, and I was expecting to get told off for it, but what should I find but Mum and Dad arguing again. I was growing used to this by now, but this time was different, worse than ever. Tango was howling as well, like he wanted to get in on the act, and my mum was crying, and my dad shouting his head off and waving his fists around. I just knew he was working up to hitting someone, either me or Tango, or even worse, my mum. I'd just about had enough, so I shouted back at him which felt good because it was the first time I'd managed it. That stopped him for a moment, just a moment, then he started in again, even louder this time. I don't know, something must have broken inside me then. I went up quietly to my room, collected a few things into a rucksack, came back downstairs and out the back door. Nobody noticed me leaving, not even Tango, which was sad. But I just had to do it, although I suppose I was only making a scene of it, not really running away.

I didn't have a clue where to go, except the busted playground. It was late by the time I got there, and dark. I was hoping Fiona would be there. We'd met up nearly every night since the first night, just to talk and share a laugh or two, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. But she wasn't there. Of course Fiona hadn't left Melvin, her pimp, because she couldn't, could she? Every pro had to have a pimp. She'd taught me all about how the system worked, and how there was no escape from it, once you got started. I think that's why we felt good together, both of us were trapped, in our own ways, I suppose. Although I've never quite managed to work out what was holding me back. Maybe just boredom.

But she wasn't there. I hung around for a bit, but then I got scared. I didn't want to go home, not yet, it was too soon. I wanted Mum and Dad to be really sorry for having argued. But where could I go? I didn't know where Fiona's flat was, she'd never told me, I think she kept it secret on purpose, part of the pimping system. I walked over to the high street. It was about eleven o'clock by then, and the pubs were chucking out. It was a Saturday as well, so the streets were pretty violent, that special tensed-up feeling like a fight was just about to break out. I kept my eyes to myself, because that's the best way to avoid getting beaten up. It was strange, because the tough guys would go quiet when I passed them, as though they were embarrassed by me being there, a young kid on the street like that. I always did look innocent, my mum was so proud of it, the way I looked, I mean. Mummy's little angel, she called me, if you can imagine that! No wonder I ran away.

Anyway, I was hoping to see Fiona, and I got lucky. Well, not that lucky, because this was her big night for working. I was using my brain, wasn't I? I saw her coming out of the pub with some over-eager bloke. I didn't know what else to do, so I followed them. First of all I waited to see if Melvin turned up. Sure enough he did, but only to talk to the bloke like he was warning him or something, then he turned to see to one of his other girls, who was making a right noise because some drunk had slapped her.

So, I followed them, Fiona and the punter. It was pretty easy, with the dark, and with me being so small. I kept to the shadows. Fiona's flat was only around the corner anyway, above a newsagent's. There was a side door that they went through, and when I got there of course it was locked. There was a little panel with her name in it, just her first name that is, Fiona, and a little bell and a grille beside it you could speak through.

I didn't know what to do next, so I just hung around, maybe to wait until the guy had finished. There was a window above the shop, and that's where Fiona lived, because the light was turned on almost straight away. I saw her close the curtains, but she didn't see me. I couldn't help thinking about what was happening up there. All I had to go on was the naked pictures I'd seen, and the jokes of Dutch and the gang. Somehow, I couldn't imagine Fiona doing anything dirty like that, which just shows how innocent I was in those days!

I must have waited down there for about ten minutes when suddenly I heard a scream. It was Fiona! I looked up at the window, and there were shapes moving there, and then the light went out, and the scream was almost lost, you know, something you can only just hear. Straight away, not even thinking about it, I ran to the door and pushed the bell. I kept my finger on it. I could hear it from upstairs, making this piercing sound. I just kept pushing it, till my finger went numb. And suddenly Fiona's voice came screaming through the little grille, Help! and the door buzzed and swung open. Fiona must have got to the switch somehow. I ran up the stairs. No, that's not true. I walked up the stairs. I was suddenly scared, you see, really scared, thinking about what I might find. Where was this famous Melvin the Pimp, wasn't this his job, protecting his girls? And what could I do, just a kid.

Anyway, I got to the top of the stairs, where another door led to her flat. This one wasn't locked, so I pushed it slowly open. I couldn't see anything, not at first, because the light still wasn't on. There was a noise coming from somewhere, another room I think, so I headed towards it. I was shaking something rotten, but what else could I do? Fiona screamed again, and called out Melvin's name, she must've thought it was him coming to rescue her, not me.

I walked into the room, Fiona's bedroom it was. Pitch black, but my eyes had started to get used to the darkness. There was a shape on the bed, and a shape standing over it. I called out Fiona's name.

Fi… on… a…

Just like that, very quietly

Everything seemed to stop then. The standing shape made a noise, turned towards me. Fiona must've got to her bedside light, because it came on then, and I saw this man, big man he was, half naked and carrying his belt in his hands like a whip. He turned on me like he was going to hit me with it this time.

But then he stopped.

Fiona called my name out loud.

What's going on? said the man, only he swore, which can't be repeated in a family newspaper. Leave her alone, I said. Don't be a bully. The man laughed, just once, and then he stopped laughing. He looked confused, more than anything, like I was the last thing he expected to see, which is the truth I suppose. He almost looked scared himself. Then he picked up his shirt and his jacket, and he walked out of there, just like that!

Weird, eh?

Fiona stood up, and hugged me. She was nearly naked. But it was nice, you know, just nice. I wasn't excited by it, just glad she was all right, that's all. Just glad I'd managed to protect her. She let me sleep there, for the night. I slept in the living room, on the couch. Just so you don't get the wrong idea or anything.

I guess that's when my career as the famous Junior Pimp started, although I didn't know that then. The bad man had already paid for his stupid pleasure, and Fiona gave me some of the money for helping her out. Not a lot, but I was happy to take it, who wouldn't be? I went back home the following morning, which was the Sunday. Of course there was some explaining to do, but mainly my mum was just glad to have me back, safe and sound. My dad promised to never argue ever again. I didn't tell them where I'd slept, just saying I'd stayed at a friend's house, which wasn't a lie.

My dad kept his promise, for a while anyway. They wanted to keep me in at night from then on, but I told them they couldn't, I was eleven years old now. It was my birthday that week, you see. But I put up with their wishes, till the next Saturday that is. They went out for the night, which was something they hadn't done in ages, so my dad really was making an effort. Of course, as soon as they were out the door, so was I!

I went straight round to Fiona's. It was early yet, and she was in. She was alone and glad to see me. She said she hadn't been out since last Saturday, said she was sick of the game. That's what she called it, the game. I suppose it did have rules, but who was the winner? The pimp, I think. Melvin. He'd been round, she said, to ask her what was going on, where was his money? She'd told him she was ill, a bad disease that meant she couldn't have sex. Of course she didn't have this disease, she was just kidding him. He'd said she was no use to him in that state, and she'd said, good, because she wanted out.

It was me that persuaded her that she didn't want out, that she was just feeling scared. I told her that she should go out, find a punter, because didn't she need the money? And if there was trouble, wasn't I going to be there to protect her, just like I'd done that week?

If this sounds like I was being very grown-up, well I suppose I was. What I'd seen last week had changed me, made me realize things about adults, how bad they could be, how stupid. If I had to grow up, I was determined to be different, I was going to be in control of my life, like they said on the American chat shows on the tele. I wasn't going to be stupid like other men, that's what I promised myself anyway.

Fiona was reluctant at first, but she gave in eventually. She had to eat, didn't she? So we made a plan, and out she went to find a punter. My job was to hide in the living room until they'd finished whatever it was they had to do. Only if there was trouble would she call for me. Then I'd come in and sort it out.

The first punter didn't make any bother, and neither did the second. But the third was a nasty piece of work. Sure enough, Fiona called for me, and in I went. I put on my most innocent face, and the famous smile. I just smiled at this big tough guy, like butter wouldn't melt. And sure enough he couldn't take it, he left sharpish. What it was, I think, is that the punters just couldn't think about sex or violence, not whilst there was a kid in the bedroom. Does that make sense?

Anyway, it worked. I made a load of money that night, more than I'd ever seen before. It was part of the deal, you see.

So that's how I became the Junior Pimp. I more or less moved in with Fiona. I know mum and dad called the police about me, but I stayed in the flat as much as possible. Fiona did the shopping. It was the Easter holidays at school, so that was all right, and when the holidays were over I just didn't bother with school at all. Fiona was angry with me about this, but what could she do, she'd hardly been a perfect pupil herself. She got used to having me round. It was like I was her younger brother, the younger brother that Dutch should've been, if only he hadn't been so stupid.

She introduced me to some of the other girls, and I would do specials for them, if they had to see punters that had caused trouble in the past. I tell you, nobody caused trouble when the young boy turned up. Eventually I was looking after nine different girls, which was neat but involved a lot of juggling. We decided that all the difficult punters had to come to Fiona's flat, so Fiona became what she called a madame, which is French, isn't it? Me, I just stayed in the flat, going out at night sometimes, for air. I wasn't needed all that often, because most of the punters behaved themselves. But I was always there for them, the girls that is, if they ever needed any help.

Fiona and the other girls were so used to me, they more or less walked around naked when I was there, as though I wasn't there. I'd do drawings of them sometimes, in various states of undress. They made nice shapes. The only rule we had was that I would never get to see them actually doing it, the sex I mean. Anyway, I didn't want to.

Of course it all had to go wrong, and that's what I'll tell in the final part of my confessions, which you can read in tomorrow's paper.

I was a Junior Pimp for three weeks altogether, which doesn't seem very long, but how long have you ever been a Junior Pimp? tell me that. And anyway, I sure packed a lot of living into those three weeks, and made a whole lot of money. But everything has to end sooner or later, even the good things. This is how my career finished.

I had the police looking for me still. I'd see my face on television, and read about how I'd gone missing in the newspaper. But it wasn't the police that finished my career. And Dutch, he found out about what I was up to with his sister. He came round one time, saw me there, and when I told him the story, boasted about it, well, the look on his face was worth everything. Not even Dutch could top a scheme like this. But it wasn't Dutch that finished my career, he kept quiet about it, his sister made him promise.

Melvin, Fiona's old pimp, had been thrown into prison for beating up some bloke in the pub. Beat him up something terrible I heard, so it wasn't him that finished my career, he was out of the picture.

No, it was me that finished my career as a Junior Pimp.

It was a quiet night, a Tuesday. Fiona and I were in the flat alone, the other girls not needing me that night. Fiona didn't want to go out, she said, because nothing ever happened on a Tuesday. I said that she had to, because I was the boss, wasn't I? It was just a game between us in a way, but she really was treating me like her boss by then, she usually followed orders. We were sitting in her bedroom, with her lounging on the bed and me in the armchair. She was still in her scruffs, so I ordered her to get changed into something sexy, she had some outrageous gear, let me tell you. She stood up and pulled off her T-shirt, and then undid her jeans, rolled them down her legs. I was just sitting there watching her, thinking maybe I should get my sketchbook out, when something happened to me.

Do I have to spell it out? I hope it's all right to say the word erection in a family newspaper. Anyway, that's what happened, I got an erection. I got excited. I slid down the chair to hide it, but the more that Fiona dolled herself up, the bigger it grew. She looked over at me, saw something was wrong, and asked me what it was. I said, nothing, get ready. But then I said, no, don't get ready, let's just watch tele tonight, it's a Tuesday, nothing ever happens on a Tuesday. But she wouldn't listen, said that she'd got ready now, she wasn't going to waste it, no way.

So she went out to find a punter.

I was left alone in the flat. I was thinking about what had happened, trying to understand. I was tempted to get it out, my thingy I mean, but I didn't. I was scared, wasn't I? Scared of what might happen. Would I still be able to protect her now, with a stiffy in my pants? Anyway, eventually I heard Fiona coming back up the stairs, so I slipped into the living room, as usual. I heard her going along the corridor to her bedroom. It was quiet out there, no talking. Some punters are like that, they don't like talking.

So I waited as I always did, trying to read a little, but my mind couldn't stop imagining what was going on behind the wall. And the more I imagined, the worse it got, my excitement I mean. All these dirty pictures flashing through my head like a cinema show. Adults only.

I was hoping that nothing would go wrong tonight, but something did, because after about ten minutes I heard Fiona calling for me. Not wanting to, not really, I made my way slowly to the bedroom. My thingy was still tingling in my pants. I pushed open the door. Fiona's bedside light was on, all nice and glowing red it was, and the man had tied her to the bedposts. I could never tell with Fiona when things were bad, because sometimes she had to be bad just to keep the punters happy and coming back for more. But if she called, that meant it was really bad, not just pretend bad.

She was screaming now, and the punter was kneeling fully clothed astride her naked flesh and he was hitting her across the face again and again, like he hated her or something, like he hated the whole world and Fiona was unlucky enough to be on the end of it.

My excitement died like a squashed fly.

Of course I recognized the punter straight away, even from the back.

Dad, I said, real slow and quiet, like I couldn't quite believe it, which is certainly true. Well, that stopped him, as you can imagine. He turned to look at me, and his look of surprise, the shock on his face, well, I shall never forget it. Trouble was, it just made him even angrier, the surprise I mean. I tried my usual trick, with the innocent face and the smile and everything, but of course that didn't work any more, especially now. I mean, that was my own dad in there, the dirty so-and-so!

He jumped off the bed, and came straight for me, his hand raised to strike. He was screaming something blue at me for being there, as though I was to blame for his stupid randiness. But then I saw the look in his eye, the real look, which was kind of blank. And it came to me in a second, the so-and-so didn't recognize me! His own son, and all. He must've been out of his head with anger, or lust, or maybe both, most probably both. Or perhaps he was just denying me being there at all, out of guilt for instance.

Anyway, I tried to dodge away but he had me already, by the scruff of the neck. He picked me up, and I'm sure he was going to throw me against the wall. I'm sure of it. So I just screamed his name out loud, as loud as I could, not his real name, I mean I just shouted out DAD!!!! DAD, STOP IT!!!! Like that, as loud as that.

And he stopped. He stopped sudden like, still holding me aloft, like a baby. Then he let me down slowly. He walked back to the bed, more or less just collapsed on to the bed actually. My dad put his head in his hands, his head dropping down to his hands, and his body shrivelling to almost nothing. And then he started to cry.

Well, as you can imagine, that was the end of my career as a Junior Pimp. I didn't know what to say to my dad, so I didn't say anything. Instead I undid Fiona, and she got dressed. I had no excitement left in me, none at all.

Then my dad came over all apologetic and begged me not to tell Mum about him visiting a prostitute. I promised I wouldn't, just to get him to shut up, and to get him out of there. After he'd left, Fiona and I sat on the bed together, not saying hardly anything. My dad's money was lying on her bedside table, and she actually offered me my usual cut, can you believe that? Of course I told her what she could do with her money. Then I said goodbye to her.

When I got back home my mum was overjoyed to see me. It was like being smothered in kisses! Horrible. Of my dad, there was no sign. Mum didn't know where he was, and she didn't care, that's what she said. I wouldn't have told on him, I really wouldn't have, except that Dutch finally stuck his big foot in it by telling some stupid journalist about me..That caused a right stink, with questions in the papers and people going on about me as though I was the end of civilization or something. That's why I've decided to tell this true Confession of my time as a Junior Pimp.

Anyway, it's all finished now. I'm living at home again, with Mum and Tango. Mum and Dad are getting divorced. I'm back at school as well, doing my best to catch up with the lessons I missed. I want to be an artist. The authorities are still trying to decide if I've done anything wrong. What do you think - have I? I don't know, sometimes it seems like it never happened, that I never was a Junior Pimp. But then I remember what I've seen, and what I've done. Seen more and done more than any other boy in the school, even those that have actually had sex, or so they claim. They all look up to me now because I'm famous, especially the girls. Some psychiatrist expert type woman has said that it's going to affect me for the rest of my life, and I certainly hope so.

SHED WEAPONS

Just about the best thing about being a kid is that you get ' to have hobbies. Hobbies are not graded according to how educational they are, and not even by how interesting they are; no, a hobby is deemed good or bad by how many gadgets it involves. Stamp collecting for instance, although undeniably educational, has only the album, the tweezers, the hinges, the magnifying glass, and that's about it. According to the gadget quota, by far the best hobby of all time is angling.

Your average boyhood fishing trip involves hooks and weights, and floats and lines, and reels and rods, and landing nets and keepnets, and strange apparatus like the little tool that gets the hook out of the fish's mouth. And all this paraphernalia gets a carefully allotted place in the various plastic trays that slot neatly into the wicker basket, the basket that also doubles as a canalside seat.

But the best gadget of all, in fishing, is the bait. By this, I mean specifically, the maggots.

You could buy these little creatures by the ounce, usually from the local pet shop. As though a maggot could be a pet. They came in a rainbow of colours, which means that somewhere on Earth, some kid is being asked, 'What does your dad do?' and he can answer, quite proudly: 'He's a maggot-colourer.' You would give the shopkeeper your sixpence, or whatever it was, and he would open the big tub and there they all were, millions of them, wriggling like crazy. The man would scoop out your portion, plop them into a brown paper bag. The bag was warm in your hand, and pulsated slightly, and from there you transferred them to your baitbox, which was plastic, with a lid. Sometimes they would show a natural history film on television, a speeded-up film in which these very same creatures could be seen devouring a dead rabbit in seconds. It took a while to get over the fear.

But pretty soon you did, especially after piercing a few with the fishing hook, right through the belly. And there was so much you could do with them. For a start you could throw a bunch of maggots on to the water, around your luminous, bobbing float. This was supposed to tempt the fish towards your hook. Even better was to put a handful in a catapult, and use this to disperse your bait. Of course this led on to more exciting pursuits; like using the catapult to fire maggots at your friends. Then there were competitions to see who could eat the most maggots. And the best thing of all was to put maggots down the back of girls' dresses.

Of course, angling soon went the way of all hobbies, as you got older and moved on to more grown-up pursuits. And when that happened, all the gear - the rod and the basket, the reels and the nets and the baitbox and all the little gadgets, most of which, truth be known, you had never ever used - all of it went into the garden shed.

The garden shed was traditionally the repository of lost hobbies, and not just yours, but your father's too. It was stuffed to the roof with rusting tools and old bikes, and broken-down lawnmowers, moth-eaten overalls, a spade with no handle, a handle with no spade, unwanted presents, cricket bats and airless footballs, jam jars full of nails and screws, and piles of rotting magazines, and all the useless souvenirs from the holidays in Blackpool.

Discarded dreams.

My father kept his weapons in the shed. When I was growing up, it was still close enough to the war years for memories of the conflict to be constantly on -people's minds. The comic books we loved to read were filled with pictures of storm troopers shouting things like 'Gott in Himmel!' and 'Englisher Swinehunt!' Our favourite game was play acting the great battles, and I was secretly ashamed because my father had actually been on Germany's side in the war. I knew this because the weapons in the shed were marked with the dreaded symbol of the eagle, and any words on them were in the German language.

Of course, I know now that my dad must have stolen these off dead bodies.

There was a gun, a Luger I think. And a bayonet, a pair of binoculars and some bullets, about half a dozen bullets. Sometimes I would creep into the shed to play with these weighted, magical objects. The binoculars I lost on Blackpool beach one time, and for that I was severely punished. The pistol and the bayonet were handed in when the government called an amnesty on any old war weapons. But for some reason my dad didn't hand over the bullets, the six bullets, I still don't know why.

A few weeks after this, it was Guy Fawkes night, and long after the last stragglers had left the glowing embers of the communal bonfire, my father went up there alone. I don't know what he was thinking of, I really don't, because a few minutes later there were some terrifying explosions from the site of the fire, and my father comes sprinting down the street, waving his hands madly in the air.

He'd only thrown the bullets into the embers!

And in the morning, all along a wooden fence, we found the blackened punctures. I think this is when the people in the street really started talking about my father.

Infected as he was now with the cleaning-out mood, one day he attacked the shed with a vengeance, saying he was going to throw out all the rubbish once and for all. He was in there for hours, and the pile of junk grew in front of the door. Us kids soon grew bored with all this, until we heard a sudden cry of alarm from the shed. My father came running out, followed by a cloud, a black cloud of buzzing life.

He'd opened the baitbox. The baitbox that had slept in the shed for weeks, with the maggots turning first into hard-baked pupae, and then into the ravenous cloud that swarmed for a second around my father's startled face, before taking off at last. Scatters of ash, floating away into the sun.

HOMO KARAOKE

Operate all mechanisms! I am Girlforce 7 of world-famous PERFUME SWORD team. With my special gadget handbag I am best ever invincible. Especially note my deadly poison love ballad! Play game with me. Together we save Moonchester from all contagious evil.

Tonight, the city wears dirty slut perfume and matching outfit. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets with wet greasy hair, strands of pulp blocking the drainage. All the flyers of every party of all time have gathered at the plughole of life. I'm standing on the balcony of Dubtek's nightclub, holding my hand over my mouth. High above me, projected from the roof, lasers paint a dark cloud with colour, chameleon to the beat. I've come out for some air, but even the music has got a serious hygiene problem and there's no escaping it. It's my first ever gig in Manchester, and the place is one giant filthy arse-wipe loudspeaker, zero panache. There's no sign of my challenger. When I walk to the edge, look down, waves of people are streaming out of the club, epileptic under stuttering lights. A purified canal runs back of the club. Some tables, chairs, a couple of sun umbrellas, all wet and soggy but no matter; it's the small gaps between the rain that count, and learning how to live amongst them. Clouds of cheap, shop-bought hormones lift from the young bodies. A girl screams. Another flings her drink at a waiter; the liquid passes right through, creating radio shimmer. Some boy falls in the water. It's all very flesh-core, very human-human, and it's all I can do to stop from retching.

'Would sir be requiring assistance?'

'What?' I turn round: a waiter is grimacing at me.

'Is it the humidity, sir?' His face is twitching badly, struggling like a bad flow diagram.

'I'm fine,' I say.

'A drink? To calm the nerves, perhaps? Courtesy of the management?'

'Leave me alone.'

'Young man, I wish you luck tonight.'

Yeah, right. Put the emphasis on man there, why don't you? A final nod and he's gone, flickering on and off a few times before he manages it. Shit, there's still some bugs in the system, all I need. A gang of lowlife casuals stagger on to the balcony. I'm feeling pent up as it is, and I can't shake the mood, I mean, this is supposed to be the VIP zone, DJs only. The kids are crowding in, pressing close, laughing at me about how I'm gonna be a pile of melted vinyl when the killer housebass gets a hold of me. One of them hits me, a hard testing blow to the shoulder. I wouldn't mind but I'm the same age as they are; just another kid from nowhere. I look up at the opposite roof, over the canal, trying to catch a glint of corporate security, let's have some freezer-beams down here! but the cameras are blind and all the goons on locoweed. More system-glitch. Or else the whole place is against me. There's never any shit when you need some, plenty when you don't. Stick that on my gravestone if I lose tonight.

And the rain falls once more.

Operate all mechanisms! I am M.O.R.phine of extra famous PERFUME SWORD hero squad. With my special loudspeaker eyes I beam out E.Z. listening rays of Muzak power. I will dull all supervillains this intriguing Death Lounge way. Play game with me. Together we fight off evil Skinvader menace.

Getting into Manchester only this morning, pitching up at the Piccadilly Hotel, rooms paid for as promised, everything laid on. Separate rooms. Leave it be, for now. Margo celebrating with a gym workout, sauna, massage, the works, and a serious noontime session in the bar, everything on the club tab. Knowing what the drink would lead to, but like I said, leave it be. Me, up in my cell, going over possible tunes for the night, checking all the ghosts are happy, checking the weapons.

Ten past one, I look in on Margo. She's flat out, buried deep in the fog. Beside the bed, the usual nasty gear. And all the broken promises. I kiss her lips. Like smoky bruised peach, the smell of her breath. She stirs at the kiss, opens her eyes, softly.

'It's good here, isn't it?' she whispers. 'Here in the city?'

'It's fine, Margo. Just fine.' She's never even left the hotel yet. 'You get some sleep now.'

'Lullaby me, one time.'

What the hell; I sing her favourite number, all about the physics of angels, and the weight of the clouds, and when it's done, she says, 'Don't forget the deal, Perfume. Do it good.'

And then gone with a slow, slow smile, back down into limbo.

Sure thing, the big deal: Margo driving the car, Margo making decisions, finding gigs, doing the talking, counting the money. Margo getting dirty, me keeping clean. But what about the deal with the heart, eh Margo? The stupid, unsigned deal with the heart. How much longer has she got? If I can only come good tonight, collect the winnings…

Yeah, and all the other promises.

We're supposed to be at the club, two o'clock, for a sound-check. I really need to make it, because the decks will be way beyond my usual span. I call the desk, arrange a four o'clock alarm call for Margo, and then set off walking, alone across the city. Through the crowded heart, some rain decides to fall.

This is the start of it.

The club's on Whitworth Street, half redbrick, half-chrome. Just the pink word, Dubtek, in discreet turned-off neon. Discarded flyers litter the doorway. I see my face there on the ground, handfuls of my scattered eyes, blurred by the rain already. Me, with my tiny satellite talents, OK, pitched against the house on DJ-it-Yourself Night. Nineteen years old, loose at the edges, only the music keeping me glued.

Becoming pulp.

Some guy lets me in and straight away I know something's wrong. A frazzled technician is running around with sparks in her hair. The faltering lights, popping like broken stars, and the stench of burning flesh hanging over the empty dance floor. And the shiver, like the building's sizing me up, making fun of me, moving in. The technician comes close; I tell her who I am, and what I'm here for.

'Soundcheck?' she says. 'Oh, I doubt it, not at this rate.'

'What's the trouble?' I ask. 'It's not a virus?'

'Get out of here. Sweet as a virgin, we are. Nah, just a technical thing, be clear by tonight, sorted. But like I said, no soundcheck, buddy. You'll have to fly blind, eh? What's the name again?'

'DJ Perfume Sword. Four times champion of my local league.'

She looks at me as though I'm smalltown-dead already. 'Well, we do things a bit different in the city. No-one's ever beaten him, you know? No-one ever. Skinvader's a maniac. He'll swallow you whole. Still, always a first time, eh? Always a first time.' And she laughs like crazy. 'Got work to do.' Leaving me alone on the edge of the floor, with the air turning heavy around me, tracking my heart.

I should have left right then.

Instead…

I mean, the size of the floor, the circumference and the haze and the far horizon of the floor. I step on to the boards, kinda fearful, feeling the expert suspension give gentle breath to my weight. All around me, hanging from the walls, the projection system glimmers with wanting. Somebody tries a record out, making a hole in the air where the bass prowls loose. Hits in the stomach, like a deep-sea memory; bells in the head as the treble makes wing-glitter.

'What do you reckon? Bit better than Blazer's, eh?'

It's Margo, of course, bending close to whisper above the music. Always makes it, doesn't she? Taxi-sealed, looking like she's never been away. But how can I speak? Blazer's Nitespot was where I learned my trade, spun my baby grooves, called up my first ghost. The bleak suburban long dark disco of the soul.

To which this is the mothership. Under the spasm-lamps, inside the music, which breaks into sick, dark crackle even as Margo moves closer still to kiss…

Operate all mechanisms! I am Lizard Ninja Tongue of PERFUME SWORD DJ acrobats. With my mercury poison repartee I shoot sticky death to all known enemies. Skinvader will be mere housefly to my exterminating hip hop tongue tactics. Play game with me. We bring plague by poetry.

Tonight, the same floor is a temple of sweat, noise, crush, sweaty noise crush, flavour beats, heartache, naked flesh, head fog, spilt beer, tarnished love. I'm forcing my way through the miasma, the wet flesh of dance, getting sticky with it. People recognize me from the flyers, which is more than I do. It's somebody else they're clawing at, calling fuck-off names, some stranger hanging loose inside this prickle of skin.

The warm-up DJ is playing floor-fillers only, no adventure, and strictly human. Every so often and just for a second, the lights dim, the music cuts out, leaving the crowd in quantum jerk mode.

Shit!

I should never visit the floor before a gig, especially one this big, and me the visiting team. Margo's out there, jam-dancing amid the crowd, her face a miles-per-hour glaze of bliss, when she's supposed to be looking after me. And there's one too many stabbing hand, one too many bad name screamed out, it's getting so I can't see the good way forward any more, so I'm turning…

Turning around, trying to make it to the big doors to the doors trying to make it to the doors being dragged under trying to make it to the doors dragged under when a bouncer beam swoops down on waves of ice and all the dancers around are stuck sudden on full freeze and I'm caught in the same cold crush jungle slow-motion overload and running now like tepid flesh smoke too much fucking glitch in my system! straight into the arms of corporate security with the MC's voice booming over the speakers… It's soundclash time!

Operate all mechanisms! I am called Metal 6-String Boy, belonging to PERFUME SWORD. With my special Guitar Ghost powers, I eliminate all known Moonchester madness on one thousand riffs of steel. Together we six-string strangle evil Skinvader Deathbeat Squad. Play game with me. Make sonic graveyard explosions!

They're strapping me into the DJ machine. It's dark in the booth, and the world closes in. My challenger is a blur of movement in the chair across the room, spinning away from me. No Margo. I'm feeling lost without her, because it's lonely going under and without a hand to hold, no matter what it's made of. The twin faces of the turntables come up to meet me, already speeding, so that even calling out Margo's name does nothing to stop my hands moving on impulse to caress the slip and slide of the grooves. The visor clamps down on my eyes, as my fingers merge with the spinning, then my hands fully, sinking into the soft, melting plastic and I'm through…

… into the music, projected from the one thousand speakers.

Operate all mechanisms! I am Godzilla Bass member of PERFUME SWORD fighting-beat maniacs. I walk on orbital legs, heavy pregnant with Ultra Low Reverb action. Play game with me, feel Mighty Earthquake inside deepest stomach, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Together we destroy all lesser-known monsters of music!

All is calm, floating, prepared, on a tremble.

Below me, miles away, the dance floor; a boiling of faces, stretched-out arms, jeering voices. I'm suspended above them all, giant in my shape, made out of intersecting beams of knowledge. I sweep down a magnified arm; it moves through the crowd like a wavelength. Some of them fall back, others just let the illusion pass through their bodies, defiant. What do I care? I am the almighty Godzilla Bass, of the Perfumed Sword. There's no sign of Skinvader yet, the floor is mine, so I start a growling riff that gets them dancing; a charge so deep, they just have to move, even to the opposition. The club lights fuse and pop, a tiny darkness, split-second followed by a stutter to the beat, before the system kicks back in, and there I am, scouring the air with blades of bass, loving the flash of it all.

A cheer goes up, battle drums sound. A bass answers my own, only deeper, rivered with teeth. Shovelling the noise, Skinvader comes alive; fierce dark drenched information. Slow pounding drumbeats taking shape; a vast heart pumping. Bloodsonic caress. The club shakes with fury. Nightblack wings sprout from each side of the heart, floating dragonbass high. And when the heart splits open, showering me with stars, it's a melody of daggers. Pain floods me, like sunjuice. Staggering, I call up Metal 6-string Boy, scratching twisted funk on the ghost guitar. Drop da funk, hope to bomb the rhythm. Skinvader mutates; fogburst of psychedelic squall, dissolving into whispers. Now I become the Lizard Ninja Tongue; antique Led Zep drum loop, hip hop scattershot maniac. Rapid fire, hard-edged words, dissing the house DJ, the club, and all who dance in her. Skinvader is turntable fog, letting the music hit, again and again. The crowd doesn't know how to handle the beats I'm throwing them, it's going cold-crazy down there. Let's murder this; calling up M.O.R.phine now, floating in on a cool, shimmering breeze of vibraphones and finger-clicks. It's nice, it's smooth. It's a charm of sleep. Skinvader melts away, seeking slumber. And with the joining of all my monsters, all into one skyscraper, I am Empire State Perfume Sword! Projected from the exterior system, I break loose from the disco. Rain is caressing my body, but my head's above the cloudline. Immense at the centre of roads and dazzle and the distant hills where once I lived my little life. But that was on a yesterday, and now all must bow to my 97 million floors!

I'm lulled by my own dream, when the enemy-bass really slithers, earthcore deep, and the drums surge into a speeding plague that travels the crowd by the veins, sucking energy from them. The noise twists again, into a swordfish locomotive, steam driven, ravaging. The blast hits my building dead centre; elemental. Expressway to the skull. Headburst. I come crashing to the ground, so now I see only the club's ceiling, all the lights ablaze with sizzle. Dancers rush through the broken rooms of my body, scattering, cheering.

It's done. So easy.

Hovering, kaleidoscoped, Skinvader hangs triumphant from the beams of light, his shape now a horse, now a hammer, now a switchblade, now a swarm of wasps, now a rocketship; each with its own, terrifying melody. Finally, a giant snake looms suspended over me, salivating with a venom song, each drop of which burns right through my walls.

Until only one person remains inside my illusion, and I feel Margo's slow, burnt-out feelings mingling with mine. But she's smiling, I don't know why. Whispering. The lights flicker once more, the beams falter, time becomes languid. I understand all things in that stretched moment, the way that failure itself has a rhythm; lights, projection, music…

And in the tiny silence that follows I let dissolve all my ghosts, calling up only Girlforce 7 with my last remaining strength. The music clicks back into action, time becomes ordinary, and I'm gone, vanished. The snake hisses around, searching. But I'm small, I'm petite. Angels in the dub. I'm the little girl who sings poison in your ear, when no-one is looking…

Now they're dragging me, flesh naked, out of the DJ machine, what's happening? All is dark, inside and out, with a crowd screaming somewhere far away and my challenger lying on the booth-floor, smoke rising from his puny, twitching body. In this world, he can't be no more than ten years old. I'm shaking as well, so bad I can't even feel the pain as somebody hits me. But Margo's there, she's always there when needed, demanding the money, the prizes. Somebody's offering me a job; Margo tells them to go stuff themselves, and that's good, because with the new thing inside me now, alive to my every need…

Close all mechanisms. I am Skinvader Deathbeat, latest member of all-time best ever PERFUME SWORD music team. With my chameleon melody weapons I am ready for all warfare. Play your next game with me. We turn Moonchester into DJ Paradise. Death to all challengers!

We don't bother staying overnight, just grab the bags, check out, start driving. Margo can't stop smiling, the mouth fixed into joy as her hands move slowly on the steering wheel. We're out of the city now, following the twin snakes of light back to the hills. All is quiet outside, the night passing by in a hush of rain.

We don't talk much. Each of us caught in separate feelings, lost in the wonder. Until, as we reach the crest of the hill, Margo stops the car. 'I can't drive any more, Perfume,' she says, her voice as gentle as the moon that hangs above. 'You'll have to get us home.'

Right. She gets out of the car, ghost-frail, walks a small distance into the darkness. I follow her there, to take a hold of her dissolving hand. We kiss, under the moonlight, and I let her spirit seep back inside of me. It's a tear-stained cadence. Then I'm alone.

I walk back to the car, carrying some beauties.

DUB KARAOKE