hadn’t got off with anybody before. I was in second year in secondary school and I still hadn’t got off with anybody, whereas everybody else seemed to be doing it.
My mate took me aside one night, and asked me if I knew how to get off with a lassie.
I said aye, but I didn’t really.
He laughed and said, ‘How then? Go.’ He didn’t want me to kiss him, he just wanted me to show him what I did with my mouth.
I got embarrassed and said that I fucking knew how to get off with a lassie, fuck off.
But he said, ‘Look, you just do this,’ then he started to show me, by pretending to get off with this invisible lassie. I wanted to walk away, but instead I watched him, because I wanted to know. He had his mouth open, with his tongue sticking out a bit, and he moved his chin in a circular motion. He said, ‘That’s all you do. You just move your chin in a circle like that.’
It looked easy. It looked daft, but it looked easy.
Not long after that, he told me that this lassie wanted to get off with me.
It was a fat lassie called Julie that we hung about with. She always hung about with this other lassie that was skinnier than her, and my mate would sometimes sing this song to them: ‘Fatty and skinny went tae bed. Fatty rolled over and skinny was dead.’ Julie would chase him about for singing it, then batter him. But they’d all still be pals. I think he even got off with her sometimes, her and her mate.
I was terrified, but I said alright.
It was night-time, and she took me round the corner, then got off with me.
I just stood there, doing that thing that my mate told me to do. I just stood there taking no pleasure in it, just getting through it like it was an initiation. Which it was, in a way.
Then we stopped, and walked back. I went to talk to my mate and I told him how excited I was, and he congratulated me.
It was like Footloose or something. The funny thing is, d’you remember that lassie Helen that wanted to get off with me in Millport, and that song ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ was playing? That’s the song playing in the film Footloose when Kevin Bacon’s character is teaching his mate how to dance. And there was my mate teaching me how to get off with somebody.
He then wanted to move me on to the next stage of the training course.
Poking.
No, no. I said I didn’t want to do all that. I was only in fucking second year, for fuck’s sake.
He said it was good. He said you put your finger in the lassie’s fanny, and you could walk about later with your finger to your nose, smelling it.
No, no, no. No. That was Footloose, except Kevin Bacon’s character then offers his mate a pill. ‘Take it. Go on, take it. Don’t be a shitebag, take it.’
Too much, too soon.
I was happy that I’d got off with somebody and it was over and done with. It bumped up my confidence a bit. Not a lot, but a bit. I went into school, and word got out. It’s not that everybody was interested, but, you know, a few folk heard about it. There was a group of lassies, and one of them said, ‘I heard you got off with Julie.’ Julie wasn’t in our school, so I didn’t know how this lassie knew Julie’s name, but she knew.
I said aye, a wee bit nervous, but a wee bit proud.
Then this lassie impersonated the way I got off with Julie.
It didn’t look good.
She pursed her lips tightly, like an arsehole, and squeezed her tongue through it, like the arsehole was doing a shite. Then she moved the tongue up and down, moving the mouth with it. It looked like somebody licking an ice lolly with their mouth closed, if you know what I mean. It looked fucking hideous. And they all laughed.
It was like Footloose, except imagine the bit at the end where Kevin Bacon’s pal finally does his big dance at the disco and everybody’s amazed, but instead of that, imagine everybody points and laughs and goes, ‘Hahahaha, check the fucking state!’
Bullied
Earlier in the book, you asked me the question, ‘Limmy, did your mum give you enough cuddles?’
Now I hear you ask, ‘Limmy, were you bullied in school?’
No, I wasn’t. Not really.
There were a couple of boys that bullied me for a few weeks whenever I was in art, in first year. They noised me up, slagging off my trampy clothes and my hair. Then they pushed it a bit further. We were making these puppets, making the heads out of papier-mâché, and one of these boys tested to see if it was hard yet by whacking it over my head. It was fucking sore. That’s when I snapped and went ‘Fuck off!’ and pushed one of them away. And they didn’t bug me again.
Other than that, I didn’t get hassled in school. I certainly didn’t get hassled by any older boys, because of my brother.
You remember me saying that my brother got a reputation as somebody that you didn’t want to fuck with. I’ll tell you what he was like. When I first got to secondary school and the teachers were reading out the names to see who was who, they’d all say, ‘Brian … Limond. Limond? Any relation to David Limond? You’re his brother? I see. Then we’ll have to keep our eyes on you then, won’t we?’ He was like that. I’d be having to prove to the teachers that I was a good boy. I wanted to do well, I was into my computers and that. It was a wee bit embarrassing to begin with, but the pros outweighed the cons when it came to an older boy having a go.
I was in third or fourth year, by which point David had left school. And I was waiting at the bus stop after school, along with everybody else. There was some older boy that had just joined the school, because he’d been expelled from another. I’d see him in the morning, at the bus stop to go to school. He was a shady wee hard guy that would always wear a grey tartan scarf around his mouth, and I’d wonder who he was.
Anyway, at this bus stop after school, he hooked my jaw. He took a dislike to me, an argument started, then he hooked my jaw. He knew I wasn’t hard. He hooked it in front of everybody, and I just left the bus stop and walked home.
I told David about it, I grassed the guy right up. I said he had a grey tartan scarf, and David knew exactly who he was.
The next morning, when I was at the bus stop to go to school, I saw the guy. His face was done in. He didn’t look like he needed the hospital or anything, but it was more than a black eye.
He knew I was there, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t rub it in. I was a bit embarrassed. But, you know, it was good.
So to answer your question, no, I wasn’t bullied in school, not really. I didn’t get into fights either. I avoided them. I was a bit of a shitebag, really. There was a hard boy in my class who once offered to fight me, and I just said naw. A few months later, he offered to fight this other boy, the biggest in our year, one of these boys that was more like a man. The man-boy accepted, and the hard boy knocked his two front teeth out.
I
