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Judd and Molly
By Dom Passantino
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Chapter #1- House of Pain
Judd put the gun down. It was an impressive gun, more than enough to fulfil any
Leone or Peckinpah fantasy Judd entertained. But, unfortunately, it didn’t work
for the Mills and Boon lifestyle that Judd wanted. 18 months he’d spent stalking
Molly, and she didn’t even think to give him a second look? Did she know what
he’d been through to try and get through to her? Did she understand what he
felt? Did she realise how difficult it was to find her address so he could send
flowers to her? Especially after she went ex-directory, commenting wryly to Judd
“You go anywhere near my house, and my boyfriend will cut your cock off, you
bloody f---ed-up freak”. She had a definite way with words, did Molly. Very much
cut in the Ian McEwan mould. If Ian McEwan were an 18 year old girl with
constant cold sores and a Hello Kitty lunchbox. But, still, despite all of the
problems, Judd still loved Molly. It was all he
could do, really,
love her, never leave her.
Judd knew about the thunderbolt, that one moment in your life when you realise
that you’ve just seen the person you wish to spend your entire life with. Judd
knew all about it. However, he didn’t expect the thunderbolt to descend from the
sky one rainy Monday morning, in an English literature lesson, whilst the well
meaning, but hopelessly Radio 4, teacher wittered on about William Blake. Molly…
Molly was… Judd didn’t know what she was. He’d spent 1the past 18 months of his
life focusing on that girl non-stop, fantasising about every possible scenario
involving her, allowing her to eat into every single moment of his life. She
was his A.I.D.S.… and yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was he
found so attractive, so attractive, so important about her. She wasn’t
beautiful, by any stretch of the imagination. Crueller tongues in the school
compared her to Patty and/or Selma. Her hair was pulled back with a bulldog
clip, giving her bun the same tension as Joan Rivers’ skin. Her clothing
resembled a ram-raiding attack on River Island, random bits of fashion that was
already 3 days out of date. She wore see-through mules, revealing her
anaemic-fairy white skin further, her toe-nails done meticulously in purple, and
yet still looking neglected. No, it wasn’t really her looks that attracted him
to her.
Her personality? Her personality? No, definitely not. Molly’s interests could be
listed in three as Tom Stoppard, deep trance, and deep throat. The usual hobbies
of the modern middle class girl, really. Her voice was the voice of a
self-mutilator, full of pauses, stops and starts, and embarrassing ums and ahs,
penetrated every so often with a tirade of violent anger and swearing, like
Barry Fry on crack. It was this combination of traits that had seen Molly get
shunned by nearly everyone in her year group. Everyone except her boyfriend, and
practising Satanist, Leonard.
When word got around the school that a Satanist was studying there, most of the
students wetted their sponges with hopes of 6 foot 7” Nick Cave types wandering
about sacrificing goats and eating chickens. A bit of excitement, at least, a
dangerous religion that wasn’t going to car-bomb anyone. They expected something
interesting, intriguing, and sexy. What they didn’t expect was Leonard.
Leonard, with his Savage Garden tee-shirts and his combat trousers. Leonard,
with his foppish hairdo, and habit of talking through the side of his mouth.
Leonard, with his face that seemed to have singled him out from birth for a
career in I.T. networking. Leonard was an arsehole. There was no doubt about it.
He was the very dictionary definition of “arsehole”. Judd was fully aware of
Leonard’s arseholeness, and his entanglement with Molly only added to Judd’s
problems.
With Molly being as Molly was, and there being no chance of Judd recovering from
what was past, he was left to… what was he actually left to do? Nothing.
Nothing at all. Absolutely sweet Fanny Addams, Faustino Asprilla, Francis of
Assisi, f--- all. He wandered from day to day, desperately searching for
something, anything, to occupy his time, anything not called Molly. Socialism,
pornography, heroin- Judd felt like he was permanently living to edge Molly out
of his life, and replace her with something… less damaging to his health.
He picked the gun back up again. Himself, Molly, or Leonard? Himself, Molly, or
Leonard… Leonard had suddenly decided he wanted to be called “Leon”. It seemed
that every single essence of Leonard’s being was specifically created by God to
be as annoying, as grating to Judd as could possibly be. Every single little
aspect that made up Leonard, from his Silverchair CDs, to his aromatherapy
expertise, to his insistence on “ironically” flirting with his elderly teachers,
to his foppishness. Fop, fop, fop. Hugh Grant with the spine removed.
Judd considered what it’d be like to kill Leonard, to slowly, carefully, yet violently ram that big black cock of death straight into Leonard’s mouth, past his perfectly white teeth, feeling the tension as Leonard bit down on the gun, Leonard’s breathing getting harder and harder, the silence punctuated just by his gasps, the last breaths he would ever take, before Judd pulled the trigger, and decorated the surrounding walls with fragments of Leonard’s skull, a Jackson Pollock of bloody and brainmatter appearing on the floor. Don’t get me wrong, Judd wasn’t a violent person. Far from it. He was a complete pussy. That explains why he kept putting the gun down.
“Come on, grow some guts man” Judd thought to himself, aware of how ridiculous
those words sounded when said by, or in any relation to, him. A thin, smug,
bespectacled guy with bad hair, trying to turn from Adrian Mole to Dirty Harry.
Judd sighed. He went over to the CD player, and turned it on, hoping that he
could absorb a predeliction for violence through soundwaves. House of Pain’s
1993 opus “Jump Around” attempted to fill that role for him. As Everlast ranted
and rapped over the beat, Judd tried to work out what the hell to do.
He’d considered raping Molly, but that was too… undignified. He didn’t want to
be a rapist, he refused to believe he was that far gone. Even in obsession, he
liked to think that he had some ethics left. Each second spent thinking about
Molly, though, was another second where his ethics seemed intrusive.
Judd thought about how Mafia dons can quite happily peddle heroin and force woman into crack-whoredom, but will go mad if someone insults the Pope. Twisted ideas of what is right and wrong, and when Judd peered through the looking glass of his lust for Molly, right and wrong seemed to melt like a Dali clockface. If not rape, maybe murder?
If he did shoot Molly, maybe he could make it look like a suicide pact! Maybe… maybe… just maybe…maybe he could shoot her, and then shoot himself… and there could be fake letters, suicide notes! Yes, he’d fake the suicide notes, and the letters would say that each of them loved each other, and that Leonard was evil and stopped their union, and everyone would feel sympathy for themselves, and in death everyone would think he was great, and the books would always say that him and Molly were in love, and everything would be good, and we could all go home happy and and Leonard would be put down and they’d be together in the afterlife and and and…
Judd put the gun under his chin, and pulled the trigger.
“Jump jump jump, everybody jump!”
