Jeff Noon: Pixel Juice

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.