Martin Amis - Yellow Dog

Dear Daddy:

So it’s ‘we two’ now, is it? Mummy will be delighted when she hears. But she won’t hear. Perhaps I could have told Mummy what happened in the Yellow House, even though she would have been much more horrified than you. But I can’t do that, can I? Because it’s just ‘we two’.

I’m so sad to learn that you’re suffering. On the other hand I am absolutely fine. It’s nice to know that everyone on earth is leering at you. I don’t dare look at any of it, but I’ve talked to my friends, until I stopped daring to do that too. The very air seems full of me; even the wind seems to say my name. But the air and the wind are polluted. When I’m not sleeping, or sitting there with you, not eating, I’m bathing. And even bathing, now, deeply reinfects me. Even the clear water feels like sewage.

I want to get farther and farther away from the thing which is called World.

May I close with a few quotations from your letter? ‘Thoroughly rotten … It’s my poor character … Sweetheart … let us be in this together.’

Uh-huh?

‘I dare not close my eyes for fear of what I may see.’

Oh go on and close them. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t ask to be—

V.

‘I am blind, like a kitten,’ said Henry in a slurred voice. ‘I see nothing. Do you think it possible, Bugger, to do something truly dreadful in your sleep and not remember it?’

Brendan moved closer. He hoped to dredge up words of comfort for his liege lord. Henry had settled on a certain eventuality: ‘What of it, if she had some sort of romp with one of those pretty Arab boys?’ There would be a better time to tell him that the visitor to the Yellow House was an adult, and not just another child.

Chief: Tonight I’ll e you the pilot piece for the column. I suggest the byline ‘Yellow Dog’ (photo of snarling pariah). Then, if anyone asks, we can say it’s satire and comes from Jonathan Swift (the cases I’ll use will be all generic, so nobody can sue). You know like the Modest Proposal where he told the starving Irish to eat their own nippers. Look, there’s a big Vicky story brewing in LA which we can develop without stepping out of line. A flesh video called ‘Princess Lolita’. Humungous hit — what with the timing. Can’t buy that kind of publicity. More later. Weather here still superb high pressure. Saw that three people fucking drowned in the rain in SE England. That’s what I like to hear. Clint.

‘Hey asshole. What’s five times eight?’

Rich said, ‘… Fifty.’

‘Oh yeah? And what’s five times ten?’

Rich said, ‘… Forty-seven.’

There was laughter, in which Clint joined. He was attending class at the Academy, along with nine other denizens. Rich stood naked on a dais at the far end of the room. He was ridiculously endowed, endowed beyond all utility (his head and torso seemed mere afterthoughts: a howdah and canopy tacked on to the trunk), and he was supposed to be a genuine retard. In fact he was a would-be porno star acting under instructions. The Director of the Academy, John Working, had used genuine retards in earlier days, but it was hard to get hold of the right kind, and they were always injuring themselves or molesting the help. At the nightly poolside cookouts, Working also employed a nonorchid headmaster from Central LA who, strolling naked from table to table, knowledgeably answered questions on everything under the sun; the would-be porno star had to stand there too, stupidly eating hamburger after hot dog, while the Academy denizens sat back with their smoked trout and their ewe-cheese salads.

‘Hey shithead. In the Bible. Adam and …?’

Rich said, ‘… Ivy.’

‘Hey dorkbrain. How many Commandments are there?’

Rich said, ‘… Nine.’

Clint was not to be left out: ‘Hey. Who shall inherit the earth, cunt?’

dear clint: so! u have been sent to cali4nia 2 cover the princess lolita phenomenon 4 the lark ! it’s just come out here 2, but u can only get it in the 6 shops, and they’re so c-d: i’ll have 2 get my brother (well, 1/2-brother) 2 get 1 4 me. every1’s talking about it: they say the actress is the absolute twin of our vicky (she’s barely 17) & per4ms the usual r&y stunts with stableboys & diplom@s, not 2 mention some 69 with a lady-in-w8ing! that’s what i am, clint: a lady in w8ing … so! k pasa? i’ve never been stateside, but i’ve read some boox. indian

reservations with t-p’s & heap big totem poles? or all very spanish with k-n pepper & “iladas? e me all, dear 1. i can’t tell u how much happier i am without orl&o. i o u 1 4 th@. 2nite i’m @ home with my father. so deliciously sed8! hurry back 2 engl&. i think it’s time, don’t u? k8.

Most birds you meet in the chat-rooms, thought Clint, as he relaxed in his cabana: they’re virtual. They ain’t there, not really: a bootstrap botchjob of mannerisms and affectations. But this one? A real character, a bubbly personality with a smashing sense of humour. And a good family girl, too, who knew her place, unlike some …

Cracking his knuckles, Clint moved to the table and the waiting laptop. He inhaled richly. He felt an unfamiliar afflatus: what was the phrase — taking dictation from heaven?

Yellow Dog’s Diary

• So some nun took a knock from a stolen car and was left bleeding on a zebra crossing.

Now, before we put our boxer pants into the tumble drier, let’s have a look at the other side of it.

The coppers openly admitted that the lad had had a few.

In actual fact he was four times over the limit.

It would have been a miracle if he’d noticed giving her a tap.

So much for ‘hit and run’.

As for her?

Thirty years old and she’s ‘a bride of Christ’.

In other words she’s crossed her legs forever to concentrate on her ‘good works’.

Pass the sickbag someone.

Word from the hospital is on the grim side, so at least she’ll be off the streets for a year or two.

But what about the others?

We ‘re the ones that have got to look at you, darlings.

Never had the strength of a man in you and it shows.

So when you go out in public, get your hair done and put some powder on that ugly old boat, for f**k’s sake.

• So a so-called ‘referee’s assistant’ (‘linesman’ was good enough in my day) got kicked to death by players, management and crowd after a disputed decision at the North-East derby at the Stadium of Light, where they really care about their football.

Yes, care.

That’s C-A-R-E, alright?

True, video replays leave little doubt that a red card was in order, and that, given the career-ending injury that resulted, a yellow would not have sufficed.

But they don’t f**k about up Tyneside way.

If you so much as

Clint worked on. Then, having filed, he sat down on the sofa and empowered the TV and the VCR. He was looking forward to seeing Princess Lolita. But normal porno was forbidden at the Academy: you had to watch the stuff they provided as part of your kit. Academy porno, true, had much in common with normal porno: the acting, for example, was free of all conviction. So you had to wonder, when the bloke stripped down, at the bird’s gasp of gratitude and awe. There she was now: swooning at the sight of another no-see-um — another inverted exclamation-mark (in, what, fourteen-point?). And the next bit, there, look. What was she doing — picking her teeth? Clint was supposed to pay special attention to the thirty-minute cunnilingus sequence that followed, but he found himself reaching for the remote. And you had to suspend the old disbelief entirely when at last he plunged into her: the way she twists and judders and starts singing Wagner. To be fair, the women in Academy porno were among the smallest he had ever seen. Not kids or midgets — just incredibly small. Real throwabouts …