CIARÁN COLLINS
look at it. I knew what he was at so I closed my eyes and put my two hands over them. I wouldn’t take my hands away from my eyes for the whole session with the doctor. Three-quarters of an hour. Then my mother came to collect me and I still wouldn’t take my hands down and open my eyes. I didn’t open them until I was getting out of the car to go in home. And even then my mam says I opened one eye a tiny bit first to make sure the picture they wanted me to look at wasn’t around. Fuck the tractor. That’s what I said to my father. So that was my problem. I’d do anything in the world except what people wanted me to do. Then I started school and that all changed. Kind of. —But you’d better watch it, the father used to say. —The nail that sticks out gets hammered in. —The Japanese know their shit Charlie. My father knew from the word go though that I wasn’t interested. —Will you ever quit the fecking shit? —Get with the programme man for the love of Christ. He gave up on me then. A Man Apart So that lark was keeping all the experts off the streets and was keeping me from being expelled. At the end of the day I reckon they secretly knew that the real problem was that I didn’t give a fuck. They had my teachers reading about ODD so I was let away with murder. I was being praised left, right and centre. Any tiny bit of work at all that I decided to do next thing I was the best thing since sliced blah. 16
9781408827840 The Gamal (394h) updates.indd 16
05/12/2012 10:23:20