Free Snuff Fiction by Robert Rankin

British colony.’
    My father shook his head. Rather sadly, I thought. ‘You’re getting lard all over your barnet,’ he observed. ‘You really must learn to use a knife and fork.
    ‘And a condom,’ he added.
     
    I set off to school a bit late. I thought I’d give puberty another go before I went. This time without the shouting. My mother banged on the bathroom door. ‘Stop jumping up and down in there,’ she told me.
    School for me was now St Argent of the Tiny Nose, a dour establishment run by an order of Holy Brothers chosen for the smallness of their hooters. It was an all-boys school, very hot on discipline and nasal training. Smoking was forbidden in class, but the taking of snuff was encouraged.
    I had somehow failed my eleven plus and so while the Doveston, Billy, Norman and just about everybody else in my class had gone on to the Grammar, I had been packed off to St Argent’s with the duffers of the parish.
    I didn’t feel too bad about this. I had accepted early in life that I was unlikely to make anything of myself and I soon made new friends amongst the Chicanos and Hispanics of Brentford’s Mexican quarter who became my new classmates.
    There was Chico Valdez, leader of the Crads, a rock’n’roll outlaw of a boy who would sadly meet an early end in a freak accident involving gunfire and cocaine. ‘Fits’ Caraldo, leader of the Wobblers, an epileptic psychopath, whose end would be as sudden. Juan Toramera, leader of the Screamin’ Greebos, whose life also came to a premature conclusion. And José de Farrington-Smythe, who left after the first year and went on to theological college.
    He later became a priest.
    And was shot dead by a jealous husband.
    Our school reunions were very quiet affairs.
    I was greatly taken with Chico. He had tattooed legs and armpit hair and told me that at junior school he had actually had sex with his teacher. ‘Never again,’ said Chico. ‘It made my bottom far too sore.
    Chico initiated me into the Crads. I don’t recall too much about the actual ceremony, only that it involved Chico and me going into a shed on the allotment and drinking a great deal of colourless liquid from an unlabelled bottle.
    I know I couldn’t ride my bike for about a week afterwards. But you can make of that what you will.
    The Crads were not the largest teenage gang in Brentford. But, as Chico assured me, they
were
the most exclusive. There was Chico, the leader, there was me, and there would no doubt be others in time.
    Once we had ‘gained a reputation.
    Gaining a reputation was everything. It mattered far more than algebra and history and learning how to spell. Gaining a reputation made you
somebody.
    Exactly how you gained a reputation seemed uncertain. When questioned on the subject, Chico was vague in his replies. It apparently involved gunfire and cocaine.
     
    I arrived in school as Brother Michael, our teacher, was calling the register. He had been scoring lines through the names of those boys slain in last night’s drive-bys and seemed quite pleased to see me.
    I received the standard thrashing for lateness, nothing flashy, just five of the Cat, put my shirt back on and took my seat.
    ‘Chico,’ I whispered from behind my hand, ‘have you heard the news?’
    ‘That your mother caught you whacking off in the bathroom?’
    ‘No, not that. President Kennedy’s been shot.’
    ‘President who?’ whispered Chico.
    ‘That’s what I said. He was the President of the United States.’
    ‘Just another dead gringo,’ said Chico and he thumbed his teeth.
    And that was the end of that.
    We got stuck into our first lesson. It was, as ever, the history of the True Church and I think we’d got up to the Borgia Pope. We had not been at it for more than ten minutes, however, before the classroom door opened and Father Durante the headmaster entered.
    We rose quickly to our feet. ‘Bless you, Holy Father,’ we all said.
    ‘Bless you, boys,’ said he, ‘and please sit