Dead End Kings

by John Kirkwood

George had never been to this beach before. Its watery sky, bindweed, and gentle lapping waves conjure a feeling in him he isn't familiar with. It is a change from playing at the back of the cul-de-sac during half term with Alice, where they would take turns standing on top of the compost bin to look over the fence at the new development, which has shiny solar panels. They'd imagine what sort of life the residents must have, and Alice believed that one of Robbie Williams’ backup dancers lived on the top floor. George believed the family that lived there went on holidays to places like Dubai or Universal Orlando for the third time as opposed to a beach in Scotland during the half term where the sea resembled sewage water, and the smell of rusty copper lingered in your nostrils. His dad cursed the gentrification in their area, which the boy believed meant that certain areas had genders. He imagined areas strictly for women, such as hairdressers and eighties bars that strictly served cocktails like those woo-woos.

"Christ, that would be the fucking day. Try telling your Auntie Debs that. She might finally put some knickers on if she knew she couldn't pull a fella," the mother joked.

George didn't find that funny. He didn’t like the idea of gentrification as all his friends were girls.

His father reminds him of this daily, meaning Sundays are spent watching Match of the Day with his older brother—his way of ensuring he is spending time around fellow males, having to drink cold tea from his grotesque Alan Shearer mug. The tea would slip down the side between the ceramic and the plastic face, where he imagines the eventual mould to be a new organism he has accidentally created. Tea is the hot beverage in their household—coffee is too American. There has already been an invasion of Americanisms through the television without having to drink them. It also reminds his father of flat whites served at a coffee chain in the gentrified area (the female bit).

“It’s shit covered in glitter. It's just a milky coffee.”

In the shallow pit in the sand George subconsciously digs; the sea foam resembles a milky coffee, the one with the long Italian name—a cappuccino, he concludes. A couple of the clouds separate, and he notices a stone island in the sea with foliage clinging to its edges as though they’ll drown if their branches loosen their grip. George’s older brother sits on his own towel and claps his hands to catch sand hoppers, a repetitive activity to fill the boredom until their father returns. If George is lucky and his father returns after having caught fish, he will be in a good mood and allowed to collect shells and decorate their bathroom when they get home. In response, his mother will make her smile, making her eyes narrow and her cheeks look like two little eggs. If it were up to his mother, he’d do all these things he wanted. The father’s mood is an hourglass, rapidly changing with a limited time frame to react, whether he has to apologise for ripping Alan Shearer’s face off the mug or for cutting down a t-shirt into a crop top, taking inspiration from a B*Witched music video.

The father often returns from the Old Swan, having talked himself into an argument about his parenting style after goading from a pub dweller. The mother either sends George to bed early or for a sleepover at Alice’s. For the latter, they stay up and watch Top of the Pops, taking turns to either be the presenter or showcase their dance routine to make it to number one.

“The wanderer returns,” says his older brother.

The father’s stocky build fills George’s vision as he clutches two large herrings from the tails. Their eyes swing like pendulums with large pupils, one with a golden hue in the iris, which George finds mesmerising. For a second, he swears it blinks.

But fish don’t blink, George tells himself.

“Did you ever doubt your old man?”

“‘Course not.” The father drops the fish onto the towel, like they are hot. The mother appears from behind him, her dowdy presence reinforced by mismatched stripy socks.

“Did they need to go on the bloody towel? It’s going to take about three washes to get the smell out!”

The father sets up the fire and makes a joke George doesn’t understand about fish and the mother’s underwear. His older brother’s face turns into a tomato, forcibly laughing, but George can tell he is embarrassed. He knows it's something rude but doesn’t dare sigh. Feigning ignorance is bliss. The feeling of repulsion consumes him. It's the same feeling he had when he stole his brother’s phone to delete a picture of him on the toilet but found a screenshot of a woman with her legs spread open on a bedsheet, with a black metallic Playboy logo. Her nether parts were very pink, like raw salmon, and her cherry nails did the splits to widen her moist opening to the camera. That was very gentrified.

“This was a real find, old man. How’d ya find it?” the older brother asks.

“Man’s intuition,” he replies with a smug grin.

The fire ignites, lighting up the mother’s face, and she sits with a towel wrapped around her like a little tortilla. George never noticed how many jagged lines there are on her face. He sometimes can’t tell if she has eyebags or bruises, maybe one of each. The father shoves a stake through each of the open mouths of the fish, which resembles that film poster for Cannibal Holocaust his older brother had shown him, making him cry. The scales of the fish glisten a kaleidoscope of silvers from the fire with the two cavemen captured by the fire’s spell. A moment of peace. In the distance, two seagulls caw and fight above the stone island. The sea that surrounds it sparkles, and George imagines the moon delicately sprinkling glitter around the island's perimeter as though a decoration for a cake. The saturation increases as the water houses beautiful turquoise tones, and even the seagull's plumage is crystal white with sparkling grey wings. The foliage sways, waving to him.

“Eat, sweetheart,” his mother says, serving a paper plate of cut-up fish.

George investigates the mound with his fork, spreading out the scaly pieces of skin. The brown sewage returns around the island, and the birds fly away. His ears pick up on his father’s slurping as fish juice runs down his chin, and a piece of it clings to an incisor. In some ways, George is jealous of his simplicity, how easy it is for him to be happy. The mother’s tortilla unravels, edging closer to George. “I tried to pick out the scales, but there might still be the odd parts.” She points out the good bits.

 The fire spits out an ember, making George drop his plate onto the sand, relieved that the remains of the fish have been returned. He’s suddenly aware of the vast noise of the sea, the tides lapping the shore and the never-ending horizon, which sparks a realisation of how insignificant they are.

The father is enamoured by the sea. The possibility he, too, is experiencing a pronounced saturation of vision crosses his mind. The father makes an imperceptible gesture, a form of communication with the island he cannot understand and does not want to learn. The father does not blink, and George imagines his eyes will turn into two tiny bowls of soup from the heat of the fire.

“Roy?” The fire gains a new lease of energy, highlighting the father’s deserted expression and a white dribble from the corner of his mouth as it lay open like a deep cave.

“Mum, is he having a stroke?”

“Roy!” The father grins hard, showcasing the remnants of the sea between each tooth and finally closing his eyes for a moment. George has not once ever seen his father pull such an expression. He turns to his older brother, expecting an answer, but sees a quivering child.

“Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“That song...”

The mother starts to cry, and desperation takes over the older brother, grasping his father’s shoulder who’s panting like a dog, fanning the smoke into George’s face. He can’t see much but can hear the clink of a belt.

“Jesus Christ, the boys are right here! What are you doing?” The father’s panting becomes muffled as the smoke clears, and he wades into the sea, jeans and underwear below the current as his limp penis bobs on the surface.

A dead mouse floating, George thinks.

“Get out of the water it’s freezing!” The father doesn’t stop, wading in line. The wind whistles. It’s ushering him in.

“You can’t swim!”

George can’t even see his father, only what appears to be a dark creature disappearing below the surface to retreat for the night. It’s only when his mother’s face contorts into a painful expression, releasing a scream, that he realises the dark creature is the top of his father’s head.

George has never seen the older brother in this state. He sits on a rock overlooking the sea and cries to the point where George thinks his lungs will give out, snot caressing his top lip. It evokes the same repugnant feeling when Alice had shown him a trick her dog Sparko did a few summers ago, where she’d throw a stuffed toy rabbit into her bedroom and close the door until it was ajar so they could see in. Then they’d watch as the dog hump the toy, going faster until his leg did this shake and stopped.

“That’s ejaculate,” she’d said.

Alice proceeded to explain that Sparko would be castrated the following week and wouldn’t be able to do this anymore. He wondered whether he could be castrated, too.

George observes the beautiful soft glow across the sea as an inviting watery mirage in his shallow pit. The mother stares out to sea, devoid of emotion, waiting for the father to return from a watery war. George swivels in his man-made pit, looking at his mother.

“Mama?” The mother turns to him. There’s a softness that’s returned to her eyes that fills George with hope.

“Should we call for help?”

 “There isn’t any signal here, sweetie.” The mother returns to her deep state of shock, a bubble no one can enter. George wonders if this is what the elements do. Fire and water cast their spells on unrelenting men as the older brother now preserves a look of enchantment at the sea’s perpetual view with dried snot on his chin. George counts the stars above—one, two, three, four—and stops at thirty-six, realising this futility as most are dead. The sky and sea, once difficult to differentiate, are now opposites. One undulating and restless, the other clear and hushed. He extends his legs, his feet contacting the waves as a tentative peace offering. The freezing cold water sends an exhilarating rush through his body; only when this reaction subsides does he feel it against his foot.

A crab with long, spindly legs and two sets of eyestalks that look in opposite directions. It’s housed in a two-tone shell of silver and black. Its movements are spidery compared to those of its standard brethren as it makes its way up his foot with tendrils skirting across his wisps of newly formed hair. Its front pincer claws act as walking sticks as though it has roamed the planet for thousands of years, unnoticed. As George watches the creature, he thinks about the design flaw of having such long legs as it impedes the ability to move fast, much like how humans have no fur for buoyancy when in the sea. George looks more intimately at the crab as it pauses on a tuft of hair. The silver shell has hundreds of intricate scales which resemble a woven tapestry. His fingertip touches it, and many colours expand across the shell, to his delight. The crab jitters side to side; it enjoys the contact as it conducts a performance for George, which concludes by bouncing off his foot and onto the sand. George does not notice his mother’s mortified face above his left shoulder as the rest of her comes into view. The mother’s scabby foot slams down onto the crab, crushing it to a congealed mush. It has the same bodily fluid as him. She lifts her foot back up, and with a quick swipe, a couple of fractured eyes and a chunk of shell drop to the sand.

“Mama? What did you do that for?” George’s voice cracks under the weight of his sadness, looking up at his mother as though a God he’s praying to. But she is no God.

“It was crawling all over you!” The sea hurls veracious waves, soaking both, whilst the older brother submerges himself into the waters with that same pathetic, enamoured smile. The last view of his brother reminds him of Alien as the seaweed clings to his head like a face hugger. Only then does the mother notice that the older brother has taken to the sea’s fancy, her scream silenced by the wave that consumes her and George.

After what feels like an hour, George emerges from the sea, gasping for air with a belly full of salty water, and he vomits up a frothy mess. The sea’s bitter freezing temperature tricks his body into believing it has been stabbed numerous times, his lungs sponges being squeezed. He could be dead.

Hell is all water and no fire.

The torture is interrupted by the relief that the mother is alive. Her wails fill the night sky, from either grief or pain or both. George can’t decide. But he cannot see her.

Just to hear her is enough.

He thinks about the occasions the mother recalled his birth at Christmases, drunk, or to showcase her endurance to other men who thought better. How despite the stitches, blood and shit, George slipped out onto that cheap lino flooring in the kitchen, and she did it alone. George concludes he does not have this innate ability, and as he resigns to being swallowed up by the black abyss, he sees it.

The mermaid perches on a rock at the cliff edge of the stone island. With a narrow waist, crystal blue eyes and long auburn hair, she’s exactly like the books. She has the clearest pearly white skin and a few freckles around her dainty nose. George can’t fathom how she got there with a fantail. Electric pink sea waves surround and dance to the wind as though those old-fashioned Disney films he watched with his grandmother. The mermaid enigmatically smiles at him like Mona Lisa. She knows what to do. She’s done it a million times, opening her mouth.

But nothing.

George does not hear.

George admires the stars above, thinking how he needs to show Alice this from on top of the compost bin. Nature’s own little solar panels. The mermaid’s confusion turns to dismay, her face an unflattering rouge with veins bulging in her neck, bursting into purple streams. Her eyes turn grey, chunks of hair drop out, and her scales pop like buttons on an old shirt. The elegant posture moves into a strange contortion. The bones snap with jagged pieces jutting out from her chest, and the flesh is akin to red worms. She tumbles and comes to rest like a twisted skewer at a barbeque.

The father is found days later, amongst plastic pollution and disregarded fish nets. A disgusting bloated object that only resembled a corpse from the clothes stuck to his green skin. The news moves on quickly, a ghastly accident where men outdid themselves and died for it. George and his mother remain with the grandmother, where she wonders why he hates Disney films. During a sleepover, George shows Alice each star with an explanation as to why they are already dead and hopes that when he lays his head down tonight, his older brother will not reappear as he usually does, dripping wet.

BIO: John Kirkwood resides in York and engages in surreal LGBTQ+ writing. Whilst John has only just begun submitting works he has previously featured as a finalist for Scriptalooza. To contact John please email kirkwood2689@gmail.com, and/or follow John.andrew_ on Instagram