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So I go, That wasnt what I said either. I said an explanation might stop me. I didnt say it was why I was up here in the first place, did I? See, we could handcuff you to those railings, and that would stop you. But youre not up here because no ones handcuffed you to railings, are you?

I didnt mind talking, because I knew I didnt need to say very much.

We let that one hang in the air.

We just want to hear your side of it, said Jess.

Anyway, the point is, people jump to the conclusion that anyone driving around North London on a shitty little moped on New Years Eve for the minimum wage is clearly a loser, and almost certainly one stagione short of the full Quattro. Well, OK, we are losers by definition, because delivering pizzas is a job for losers. But were not all dumb assholes. In fact, even with the Faulkner and Dickens, I was probably the dumbest out of all the guys at work, or at least the worst educated. We got African doctors, Albanian lawyers, Iraqi chemists… I was the only one who didnt have a college degree. (I dont understand how there isnt more pizza-related violence in our society. Just imagine: youre like the top whatever in Zimbabwe, brain surgeon or whatever, and then you have to come to England because the fascist regime wants to nail your ass to a tree, and you end up being patronized at three in the morning by some stoned teenage motherfucker with the munchies… I mean, shouldnt you be legally entitled to break his fucking jaw?) Anyway. Theres more than one way to be a loser. Theres sure more than one way of losing.

And at that precise moment of acceptance, we three became four. There was a polite cough, and when we turned round to look, we saw a tall, good-looking, long-haired man, maybe ten years younger than me, holding a crash helmet under one arm and one of those big insulated bags in the other.

She looked eighteen. That was it. That was the good side of the story.

Just belt up and let him talk, said Martin.

Youre that bloke, she said. The breakfast TV bloke. The one who slept with the fifteen-year-old. Martin Sharp. F—! Martin Sharp was sitting on my head. You old pervert.

She was going to jump, Martin said.

I didnt know she was fifteen, I said. She told me she was eighteen.

Some people cope, said Martin.

Jess was too young, I really didnt need to worry about Maureen, and Martin was the kind of guy whod only have smelled a rat if Id told him I was dying of incurable ABBA.

So? said Jess. You forgotten why you were going to kill yourself, or what? Of course I havent forgotten, I said.

Youd rather do that than call me by my initials? Yeah. Course. I hate not knowing things.

How would we have ordered pizzas? Jess asked him. We were still sitting on her, so her voice sounded funny.

On a cell, he said.

But they made me wait, because they wanted Maureen to go first.

He was trying to make me sound stupid, and that wasnt fair, because we could all do that to each other. Like, for example, say, Oh, boo hoo hoo, they wont let me be on breakfast television any more. Oh, boo hoo hoo, my sons a vegetable and I dont talk to anyone and I have to clean up his… Well, OK, you couldnt make Maureen sound stupid. But it seemed to me that taking the piss wasnt on. You could have taken the piss out of all four of us; you can take the piss out of anyone whos unhappy, if youre cruel enough.

JJ I told a couple people about that night, and the weird thing is that they get the suicide part, but they dont get the pizza part. Most people get suicide, I guess; most people, even if its hidden deep down inside somewhere, can remember a time in their lives when they thought about whether they really wanted to wake up the next day. Wanting to die seems like it might be a part of being alive. So anyway, I tell people the story of that New Years Eve, and none of them are like, Whaaaaat? You were gonna kill yourself? Its more, you know, Oh, OK, your band was fucked up, you were at the end of the line with your music, which was all you wanted to do your whole life, PLUS you broke up with your girl, who was the only reason you were in this fuckin country in the first place… Sure, I can see why you were up there. But then like the very next second, they want to know what a guy like me was doing delivering fucking pizzas.

Are you American? Jess asked him.

Then thats good enough for us.

Wouldnt have gone to prison. Wouldnt have lost my job, my wife wouldnt have found out… So youre saying it was just bad luck.

Everyone needs a little time out. Looks to me like things were getting undignified up here. Thirty minutes? Is that agreed? One by one they shrugged and then nodded, and we went back to chewing our pizzas in silence. This was the first time I had tried one of Ivans. It was inedible, maybe even poisonous.

I love my son, I said. I didnt want them to think I didnt.

So I tried again. Oh, go on, lets talk, I said. No need for pain-sharing.

I was just kidding, said the pizza man. You used to present a breakfast TV show in England. No one in the US has ever heard of you. Get real.

No. But like Jess says, maybe they should.

Martin made a groaning noise. Does everyone in America know, too? he said.

Can you remember the taste of red wine as it came back up and into the toilet bowl? Can you remember dreaming every night that you were still together, that he was talking to you gently and touching you, so that every morning when you woke up you had to go through it all over again? Can you remember carving his initials in your arm with a kitchen knife? Can you remember standing too close to the edge of an Underground platform?

Hey, you. You f— listening to me? Am I gonna have to come over and make you listen? He stood up and walked towards us.

Not every mistake, no. But maybe this one.

Oh, yeah. Dying? Fuck. Thats, you know… Like diamonds or spades or those… Trumps! Youve got trumps, man.

(This would come as a shock to breakfast television presenters, of course, most of whom firmly believe that people think about nothing else but breakfast, lunch and dinner.) I was mature enough to 九_九_藏_书_网rise above Jesss taunts, even though I felt like breaking her arms.

So, I said. Great. Pizza. A small, good thing on a night like this.

How? Ill come round your house and ransack it until I find something that tells me. Your passport or bank book or something. And if I cant find anything then Ill just steal something you love and I wont give it back until youve coughed up.

And JJ goes, Well, your experiences, then, not mine. But it was too late, and I could tell from what hed said about sharing our experiences that he was up here for the same reasons we were. So I went, You came up here to jump, didnt you? And he didnt say anything, and Martin and Maureen looked at him. And Martin just goes, Were you going to jump with the pizzas? Because someone ordered those. Even though Martin was joking, it was like JJs professional pride had been dented, because he told us that he was only here on a recce, and he was going downstairs to deliver before coming back up again. And I said, Well, weve eaten them now. And Martin goes, Gosh, you didnt seem like the jumping type, and JJ said, If you guys are the jumping type then I cant say Im sorry. There was, as you can tell, a lot of, like, badness in the air.

Hes being nice to you, said Martin.

I stared at them all for a minute.

Some dead people, people who were too sensitive to live: Sylvia Plath, Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Jackson Pollock, Primo Levi, Kurt Cobain, of course. Some alive people: George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Osama Bin Laden. Put a cross next to the people you might want to have a drink with, and then see whether theyre on the dead side or the alive side.

Shut up, Jess, said Martin.

We didnt say anything.

Im interested in something, said JJ.

Jess glared at me.

See, now this was a pretty interesting philosophical argument. Jess was saying that as long as we were on the rooftop, we were all anarchists. No agreements were binding, no rules applied. We could rape and murder each other and no one would pay any attention.

Theres no point in anything, though, is there? Jess said. Thats why were up here.

But that wasnt why I was crying. I was crying because all I wanted in the world, the only thing that would make me want to live, was for Matty to die. And knowing why I was crying just made me cry more.

Really? I was pleased.

Id say there was a certain degree of culpability involved. This was, I need hardly tell you, an attempt at dry understatement; I didnt know then that Jess is at her happiest wallowing in the marshland of the bleeding obvious.

Jesus Christ. What gives with this girl?

And then when we were all calming down, JJ said something like, Im not sure what harm would be done by sharing our experiences, except he said it more American even than that. And Martin was like, Well, whos interested in your experiences? Your experiences are delivering pizzas.

Who? said Jess.

Like fuck I am. Why should I? Because were going to march you there.

Yeah, well you dont look great, said Jess. What you got? AIDS? AIDS fitted the bill. Everyone knew you could wander around with it for months; everyone knew it was incurable. And yet… Id had a couple friends who died from it, and its not the kind of thing you joke about.

Yeah.

They spoke quickly, Martin and Jess and JJ. Like people in a soap opera, bang bang bang. Like people who know what to say. I could never have spoken that quickly, not then, anyway; it made me realize that Id hardly spoken at all for twenty-odd years. And the person I spoke to most couldnt speak back.

Except I cant find him. I was at the party downstairs looking for him, and he wasnt there. So I came up here.

Oh, God, said Martin, but you could tell he was pleased.

We eat our pizza.

What are you, a f— idiot? he said to Jess. Look what youve done.

My plan was to wander to the top, take a look around to get my bearings, go back down to deliver the pizzas and then Do It.

Oh, yeah, Jess said when Id finished. Thats a no-brainer. Dont change your mind. Youd only regret it.

Jess snorted. If I took it personally, I wouldnt have any friends left.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, I said. Wilde again.

So Maureen stood up, and with wearying predictability Jess scrambled for the ladder, and I had to bring her crashing down again.

What are you doing delivering pizzas? What are you guys doing sitting on her head? Theyre sitting on my head because this isnt a free country, Jess said.

So what do you want to know, that you dont know already? There are two sides to every story, said Jess. We only know the bad side.

She just spat at me, I pointed out. What kind of a friend is that? Oh, dont be such a baby, said Jess. My friends are always spitting at me. I never take it personally.

Thanks. And thanks for introducing this exercise, too. Very helpful.

Let me have a look, then, said Jess.

Which confirmed to me once and for all that a competitive edge had snuck in.

The f—? said Jess. The f— what? Its an American abbreviation, said Martin. "The f—?" means "What the f—?" In America, theyre so busy that they dont have time to say the "what".

What are you just saying? Im just saying it can be done.

Well, I never said that, and I told him. So then he was like, OK, youre up here because youre owed an explanation, then. Is that it?

Snot good enough for me, said Jess.

We fell into a hostile silence.

Yeah. Anyway, you win.

And I did. There were approximately twenty-eight minutes of our time out remaining.

So what? Whats the point of agreeing to do something and then not doing it? No point. Jess was apparently untroubled by the concession.

Fair play to him, we could have done that.

Whats that supposed to mean? Do you know who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is? Or who wrote Moby-Dick? No, said Jess. Course not. As if anyone who knew stuff like that was a dork. But theyre not secrets, are they? I dont like not knowing secrets. I could find that other stuff out any time I felt like it, and I dont feel like it.

Leukemia? The Ebola virus? None of them rea藏书网lly says, No, go on, man, be my guest. Im only a joke killer disease. Im not serious enough to offend anyone.

Another polysyllabic word, another dirty look.

Thats my business. Anyway, Im JJ, and Im here because… Ill find out what your name is.

It was invented for people like Virginia Woolf and Nick Drake. And me.

Suicide was supposed to be cool.

And that was her reward, was it? Going on a breakfast TV show? No. Im just saying.

Yes, said Martin. Of course you do. We didnt mean to imply otherwise.

Now what? said Jess.

This ones pepperoni. I dont know what that is though. Vegetables.

Youre going home, for a start, said Martin.

I think shes OK, now, Maureen, Martin said, as if he was deciding to stand up of his own accord, and not because the American man might punch him. He stood up, and I stood up, and Jess stood up and brushed herself down and swore a lot. Then she stared at Martin.

Any of you guys order a pizza? he said.

We didnt move.

None of these people would have wanted my life. I doubted whether theyd understand how Id put up with it for as long as I had. Its always the toilet bit that upsets people. Whenever Ive had to moan before - when I need another prescription for my anti-depressants, for example - I always mention the toilet bit, the cleaning up that needs doing most days. Its funny, because its the bit Ive got used to. I cant get used to the idea that my life is finished, pointless, too hard, completely without hope or colour; but the mopping up doesnt really worry me any more. Thats always what gets the doctor reaching for his pen, though.

I couldnt resist.

Maybe you should. Perhaps thats how your friends intend it to be taken.

JJ was nicer. He could see that I wanted to find Chas, so I was like, Duh, yeah, except I wished I hadnt done the Duh bit because he was being sympathetic and Duh is taking the piss, really, isnt it? But he ignored the Duh and he asked me where Chas was and I said I didnt know, some party or another, and he said, Well, why dont you go looking for him instead of fucking around up here and I said Id run out of energy and hope and when I said that I knew it was true.

They figure its from drug abuse. Drugs and alcohol. So its all my own fuckin fault.

Is there no cure for that? Maureen asked.

Oscar Wilde once said that ones real life is often the life one does not lead. Well, fucking right on, Oscar. My real life was full of headlining shows at Wembley and Madison Square Garden and platinum records, and Grammies, and that wasnt the life I was leading, which is maybe why it felt like I could throw it away. The life I was leading didnt let me be, I dont know… be who I thought I was. It didnt even let me stand up properly. It felt like Id been walking down a tunnel that was getting narrower and narrower, and darker and darker, and had started to ship water, and I was all hunched up, and there was a wall of rock in front of me and the only tools I had were my fingernails. And maybe everyone feels that way, but thats no reason to stick with it. Anyway, that New Years Eve, Id gotten sick of it, finally. My fingernails were all worn away, and the tips of my fingers were shredded up. I couldnt dig any more. With the band gone, the only room I had left for self-expression was in checking out of my unreal life: I was going to fly off that fucking roof like Superman. Except, of course, it didnt work out like that.

MAUREEN I d never met an American before, I dont think. I wasnt at all sure he was one, either, until the others said something. You dont expect Americans to be delivering pizzas, do you? Well, I dont, but perhaps Im just out of touch. I dont order pizzas very often, but every time I have, theyve been delivered by someone who doesnt speak English. Americans dont deliver things, do they? Or serve you in shops, or take your money on the bus. I suppose they must do in America, but they dont here. Indians and West Indians, lots of Australians in the hospital where they see Matty, but no Americans. So we probably thought he was a bit mad at first. That was the only explanation for him. He looked a bit mad, with that hair. And he thought that wed ordered pizzas while we were standing on the roof of Toppers House.

Oh, is that right? And this from the girl who cant deal with being dumped.

Thats what "culpability"… Because some married men wouldnt have shagged her no matter how old she was. And youve got kids and all, havent you? I have indeed.

What was there to love? Jess was saying. He was a vegetable. Not even an awake vegetable. A vegetable in a coma.

I could tell I wasnt going to get a fair hearing; there were waves of hostility coming off Jess and Martin, and these waves were breaking everywhere.

Not very well, Jess said.

What the fucking hell does that mean? said Jess.

New Years Eve was a night for sentimental losers. It was my own stupid fault. Of course thered be a low-rent crowd up there. I should have picked a classier date - like March th, when Virginia Woolf took her walk into the river, or Nick Drake November th. If anybody had been on the roof on either of those nights, the chances are they would have been like-minded souls, rather than hopeless fuck-ups who had somehow persuaded themselves that the end of a calendar year is in any way significant. It was just that when I got the order to deliver the pizzas to the squat in Toppers House, the opportunity seemed too good to turn down.

Oh, yeah, said Jess. Theres a cure. You can take a pill. Its just that he couldnt be arsed. Der.

Do you want us to kill him for you? said Jess. Ill go down there tonight if you want. Before I kill myself. I dont mind. No skin off my nose.

If he doesnt want to tell us, he doesnt want to tell us. Do your friends call you JJ? Yeah.

So-rry, said Jess. Just an idea.

You help me find Chas first.

Why is it easier to like leap into the void than to face up to what youve done? This is facing up to what Ive done.

And Martin goes, all sarcastic, Youre going to kill yourself because Chas didnt turn up at a party? Jesus.

Ill go home on one condition.

Sure, the pizza man said. I read about it in the New York Times.

You cant do what you want to.

Jesus, said JJ. Youre real tough on yourself.

So if shed been, like, six months older you wouldnt be up here? I dont suppose I would, no. Because I wouldnt have broken the law.

If you were rugby-tackled in the middle of the night just as you were about to hurl yourself off the top of a tower-block, you probably wouldnt be thinking about breakfast television presenters.

I got like this brain thing. Its called CCR. Which of course is Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of my all-time favorite bands, and a big inspiration to me. I didnt think any of them looked like big Creedence fans.

OK, you dont know me, so youll have to take my word for it that Im not stupid. I read the fuck out of every book I can get my hands on. I like Faulkner and Dickens and Vonnegut and Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas. Earlier that week - Christmas Day, to be precise - Id finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, which is a totally awesome novel. I was actually going to jump with a copy - not only because it would have been kinda cool, and wouldve added a little mystique to my death, but because it might have been a good way of getting more people to read it.

And maybe I felt a little insecure because Martin had pissed all over my patch. I was going to be the shame and humiliation guy, but my shame and humiliation was beginning to look a little pale. Hed been locked up for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old, and fucked over in the tabloids; Id been dumped by a girl, and my band wasnt going anywhere. Big fucking deal.

Its not just that, anyway. Its the public thing. The humiliation. The enjoyment of the humiliation. The TV show on cable thats watched by three people. Everything. Ive… Ive run out of room. I cant see any way forward or back.

No, I mean… Theyre not my pizzas, you know? Oh, dont be such a pussy, said Jess. (Really. Thats what she said. I dont know why.) She leaned over, grabbed his bag and took out the pizza boxes. Then she opened the boxes and started poking the pizzas.

Raymond Carver, as you probably know, but it was wasted on these guys.

Go on.

Did I really think that? Maybe I did. Or maybe I had done. As some of you might know, Id written things in newspapers which said exactly that, more or less. This was before my fall from grace, naturally. Id called for the restoration of the death penalty, for example. Id called for resignations and chemical castrations and prison sentences and public humiliations and penances of every kind. And maybe I had meant it when Id said that men who couldnt keep their things in their trousers should be… Actually, I cant remember what I thought the appropriate punishment was now for philanderers and serial adulterers. I shall have to look up the column in question. But the point is that I was practising what I preached. I hadnt been able to keep my thing in my trousers, so now I had to jump. I was a slave to my own logic. That was the price you had to pay if you were a tabloid columnist who crossed the line youd drawn.

Youre not saying why, though, are you? Maybe she loved him.

OK, a mobile, whatever.

How long have you got? Jess asked.

He wouldnt be a vegetable if he wasnt in a coma, would he? said Martin.

That shut him up. I was pleased with that.

Now what? said Jess.

The f—? he said.

Well, said Martin. So. Here we all are, then.

And its not like hes got much to live for, is it? If he could speak, hed probably thank me for it, poor sod.

I should hope so.

Give us some pizza, then, said Jess. What flavours have you got? I dont know, said the pizza man.

I do, I said. If "berk" means asshole.

I dont know you very well, said Martin. But if youre really troubled by your own ignorance, Id have thought there should be one or two things higher up the list than JJs name.

Oh, come on, man, said JJ, in his irritating American way. It doesnt take long, I find, to be irritated by Yanks. I know theyre our friends and everything, and they respect success over there, unlike the ungrateful natives of this bloody chippy dump, but all that cool-daddio stuff gets on my wick. I mean, you should have seen him. Youd have thought he was on the roof to promote his latest movie. You certainly wouldnt think hed been puttering around Archway delivering pizzas.

I think they picked me because I hadnt really said anything, and I hadnt rubbed anyone up the wrong way yet. And also, maybe, because I was more mysterious than the others. Martin everyone seemed to know about from the newspapers. And Jess, God love her… Wed only known her for half an hour, but you could tell that this was a girl who had problems. My own feeling about JJ, without knowing anything about him, was that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke American. A lot of Americans are gay people, arent they? I know they didnt invent gayness, because they say that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it back into fashion. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: it disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century. Anyway, I didnt know anything about gays, so I just presumed they were all unhappy and wanted to kill themselves. But me… You couldnt really tell anything about me from looking at me, so I think they were curious.

There was a thoughtful silence, for about ten seconds.

I dont bloody know.

You must feel a bit of a berk, then, said Jess.

They dont all jump off of buildings, man.

You were all gonna jump? the pizza man asked us.

I launched in. I just went, My names Jess and Im eighteen years old and, see, Im here because I had some family problems that I dont need to go into. And then I split up with this guy. Chas. And he owes me an explanation. Because he didnt say anything. He just went. But if he gave me an explanation Id feel better, I think, because he broke my heart.

No? Well, fucking shut up then. Stick your smile up your saggy old arse.

And suddenly there I was with three potential suicides munching the pizzas I was supposed t九-九-藏-书-网o deliver and staring at me. They were apparently expecting some kind of Gettysburg address about why their damaged and pointless lives were worth living. It was ironic, really, seeing as I didnt give a fuck whether they jumped or not. I didnt know them from Adam, and none of them looked like they were going to add much to the sum total of human achievement.

So its OK if I go over? She started to walk towards the edge of the roof.

Why it didnt occur to any of us that a well-known suicide spot would be like Piccadilly Circus on New Years Eve. I have no idea, but at that point in the proceedings I had accepted the reality of our situation: we were in the process of turning a solemn and private moment into a farce with a cast of thousands.

So were you! He ignored her.

The trouble with my generation is that we all think were fucking geniuses. Making something isnt good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. Its our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first century. If Christina Aguilera or Britney or some American Idol jerk can be something, then why cant I? Wheres mine, huh? OK, so my band, we put on the best live shows you could ever see in a bar, and we made two albums, which a lot of critics and not many real people liked. But having talent is never enough to make us happy, is it? I mean, it should be, because a talent is a gift, and you should thank God for it, but I didnt. It just pissed me off because I wasnt being paid for it, and it didnt get me on the cover of Rolling Stone.

If we let go, are you going to behave? Yes.

So you dont want to defend yourself? Because youre among friends here, said JJ.

That sounded about right. The corno- was weak, though, I admit.

Would you watch your language, please? I said to them. We werent all brought up in a pigsty.

Still, I didnt think of lying until I had the trouble with my name. Jess was so fucking aggressive, and I just lost my nerve.

AIDS I knew I should leave the fuck alone. But then - and this all ran through my head in the thirty seconds after Jesss question - which fatal disease was more appropriate?

We had a woman on the show whose husband had been in a coma for twenty-five years.

Well, fucking spit it out then.

A long time ago, when I was eight or nine, I saw this programme on telly about the history of the Beatles. Jen liked the Beatles, so she was the one who made me watch it, but I didnt mind. (I probably told her I did mind, though. I probably made a fuss and pissed her off.) Anyway, when Ringo joined, you sort of felt this little shiver, because that was it, then, that was the four of them, and they were ready to go off and be the most famous group in history. Well, thats how I felt when JJ turned up on the roof with his pizzas. I know youll think, Oh, shes just saying that because it sounds good, but Im not. I knew, honestly. It helped that he looked like a rock star, with his hair and his leather jacket and all that, but my feeling wasnt anything to do with music; I just mean that I could tell we needed JJ, and so when he appeared it felt right. He wasnt Ringo, though. He was more like Paul. Maureen was Ringo, except she wasnt very funny. I was George, except I wasnt shy, or spiritual. Martin was John, except he wasnt talented or cool. Thinking about it, maybe we were more like another group with four people in it.

Vegetarian, said the pizza man. Whatever, said Jess. Who wants what? I asked for vegetarian. The pepperoni sounded like something that wouldnt agree with me.

So it was real shocking to discover that Maureen, Jess and Martin Sharp were about to take the Vincent Van Gogh route out of this world. (And yeah, thank you, I know Vincent didnt jump off the top of a North London apartment building.) A middle-aged woman who looked like someones cleaning lady, a shrieking adolescent lunatic and a talk-show host with an orange face… It didnt add up. Suicide wasnt invented for people like this.

Thats what youve just this minute agreed to do, Martin reminded her.

Go on.

Just, you know, our names and why were up here. Because it might be interesting. We might learn something. We might see a way out, kind of thing. And I have to admit I had a sort of plan. My plan was that theyd help me find Chas, and Chas and I would get back together, and Id feel better.

So bad lucks got nothing to do with it.

But indulge me anyway: you know what Im talking about. Sensitive people find it harder to stick around.

Oh, for fucks sake. Why dyou think Ive been dangling my feet over the ledge, you moron? I screwed up. Im not trying to make excuses for myself. I feel so wretched I want to die.

Its like Cranial Corno-something. I was pleased with the cranial part.

Whats a cell? Jess asked.

JJ I was going to just like splurge, tell em everything they needed to know - Big Yellow, Lizzie, the works. There was no need to lie. I guess I felt a little queasy listening to the other guys, because their reasons for being up there seemed pretty solid. Jesus, everyone understood why Maureens life wasnt worth living. And, sure, Martin had kind of dug his own grave, but even so, that level of humiliation and shame… If Id been him, I doubt if Id have stuck around as long as he had. And Jess was very unhappy and very nuts. So it wasnt like people were being competitive, exactly, but there was a certain amount of, I dont know what youd call it…marking out territory?

MARTIN Everyone bloody knew everything about me, so I didnt see the point of this lark, and I told them that.

Roughly. Just like off the top of your head.

People are always fucking young girls and leaving their wives and kids.

Im dying, I said.

But the way things worked out, I didnt have any preparation time, and I left it at home. I have to say, though, that I wouldnt recommend finishing it on Christmas Day, in like a cold-water bedsit, in a city where you dont really know anybody. It probably didnt help my general sense of well-being, i九_九_藏_书_网f you know what I mean, because the ending is a real downer.

Well, of course I didnt have a clue about any fifteen-year-old. I dont look at that sort of newspaper, unless Im in the hairdressers, or someones left one on the bus.

Now what? said Maureen, as if I were a veteran of countless similar situations, and would therefore know the ropes.

You know, Ive never really known what the fuck it means, to tell you the truth. Bob Dylan said it, not me, and Id always thought it sounded good. But this was the first situation Id ever been in where I was able to put the idea to the test, and I could see that it didnt work. We were living outside the law, and we could lie through our teeth any time we wanted, and I wasnt sure why we shouldnt.

All of us? Yeah. Or I really will kill myself. And Im too young to do that. You said.

So, I said. OK. Im JJ, and… Woss that stand for? People always want to know what my initials are for, and I never tell them. I hate my name. What happened was, my dad was one of those self-educated guys, and he had a real, like, reverence for the BBC, so he spent too much time listening to the World Service on his big old short-wave radio in the den, and he was real hung up on this dude who was always on the radio in the sixties, John Julius Norwich, who was like a lord or something, and writes millions of books about like churches and stuff. And thats me. John fucking Julius. Did I become a lord, or a radio anchor, or even an Englishman? No. Did I drop out of school and form a band? Yep.

Really? You think anyone who makes a mistake of this kind should die? Woah. Thats some heavy shit, said JJ.

Im not sure I was right about that, looking back, said Martin. Youre wise beyond your years. I can see that, now.

And, yeah, you could point out that I have stacked the deck, that there are a couple of people missing from my alive list who might fuck up my argument, a few poets and musicians and so on. And you could also point out that Stalin and Hitler werent so great, and theyre no longer with us.

Shut up, then, Yankee boy.

There isnt a "my side". I was a bloody idiot and Im paying the price.

Nothing, I said.

What have I said now? I wanted to know what we were dealing with.

I dont know.

What did you wanna do? She didnt say anything.

Just because youve swallowed a fucking dictionary, it doesnt mean youve done nothing wrong, said Jess.

Is John Julius a good name for a high-school dropout? Nope. JJ is OK, though. JJs cool enough.

Very… curative.

Then? Just give it half an hour, OK? Then well see where were at. I dont know where that came from. Why half an hour? And what was supposed to happen then?

I dont know you. The only thing I know about you is, youre reading this. I dont know whether youre happy or not; I dont know whether youre young or not. I sort of hope youre young and sad. If youre old and happy, I can imagine that youll maybe smile to yourself when you hear me going, He broke my heart. Youll remember someone who broke your heart, and youll think to yourself, Oh, yes, I can remember how that feels. But you cant, you smug old git. Oh, you might remember feeling sort of pleasantly sad. You might remember listening to music and eating chocolates in your room, or walking along the Embankment on your own, wrapped up in a winter coat and feeling lonely and brave. But can you remember how with every mouthful of food it felt like you were biting into your own stomach?

Right, said Jess. My turn.

So I could say that I was delivering pizzas because England sucks, and, more specifically, English girls suck, and I couldnt work legit because Im not an English guy. Or an Italian guy, or a Spanish guy, or even like a fucking Finnish guy or whatever. So I was doing the only work I could find; Ivan, the Lithuanian proprietor of Casa Luigi on Holloway Road, didnt care that I was from Chicago, not Helsinki. And another way of explaining it is to say that shit happens, and theres no space too small, too dark and airless and fucking hopeless, for people to crawl into.

But for me, the moment had gone. The moment of truth, anyway, ha ha.

Anyway, it just felt like something might happen, something interesting, and so I couldnt understand why we were just sitting there eating pizza slices. So I was like, Maybe we should talk, and Martin goes, What, share our pain? And then he made a face, like Id said something stupid, so I called him a wanker, and then Maureen tutted and asked me whether I said things like that at home (which I do), so I called her a bag lady, and Martin called me a stupid, mean little girl, so I spat at him, which I shouldnt have done and which also by the way I dont do anywhere near as much nowadays, and so he made out like he was going to throttle me, and so JJ jumped in between us, which was just as well for Martin, because I dont think he would have hit me, whereas I most definitely would have hit and bitten and scratched him. And after that little fluffle of activity we sat there puffing and blowing and hating each other for a bit.

You kidding me? said the pizza man. The guy who went to prison? I read about him.

OK, he said after a while. Let her go.

The pizza man just sat down on the roof and shook his head. I thought he was feeling sorry for us, but later he told us it wasnt that at all.

Id say that having a fatal disease was only any good in this game, said Martin. The whos-the-most-miserable bastard game. Not much use anywhere else.

My eyes filled with tears, and JJ noticed.

Im not fucking sitting here for half an hour looking at your fucking miserable faces, said Jess.

Were not dealing with anything, I said. Im dealing with it.

See, I never thought Id run into them again. I was pretty sure that sooner or later wed shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and then either trudge back down the stairs or jump off the fucking roof, depending on mood, character, scale of problem etcetera. It really never occurred to me that this was going to come back and repeat on me like a pickle in a Big Mac.

To live outside the law you must be honest, I said.