This Will End Badly

Rob Hayes

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783193394
• eBook ISBN: 9781783193400
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"You can't even shit… You're being outskilled by the most primitive life forms on Earth" Repressed rage; entrenched isolation; compacted bowels. Staring deep into the destructive ego of the modern man, Rob Hayes masterfully dissects the world of relationships, defecating and surviving in this testosterone-triggered tragi-comedy. Collaborating with critically acclaimed director Clive Judd, Hayes injects dark humour, candid observation and arresting imagery to confront our existing understanding of masculinity at blistering pace.

Meat Cute

Misery Guts

This Pain

We’re going to let you in on a secret. What we do is, we picture a field. Picture it perfectly in our head. Every blade of grass, every privet leaf. The shape. The acreage. The colour and character of the sunlight. The wind. Dandelions. Is there a cow? Or maybe a small brotherhood of lambs. We focus in on every single detail until we can see it perfectly, in our head.

You used to ask me how it felt. But I couldn’t… Could never seem to find the words.

But then recently I had to write about it. How I’d describe the pain. Took ages.

Eventually I said it’s like you ate a seed. In your food or something and you didn’t taste it or know it was there. And then it grows inside you and no one notices. And for ages you don’t notice. Grows and widens and deepens and entrenches itself, ploughing roots down into the core of your matter so it can grow taller, and thicker, from your chest and outwards, up out of your body until it is you. More you than you are. Until you’re just a vessel for it.

It’s not even pain anymore. Something else completely. Can’t really call it pain at all.

I wrote all that in like, a poem. Memorised it and said it out loud and it was good.

After you broke up with me I couldn’t shit for nearly two weeks. I tried, obviously. I tried six or seven times a day.

I’d feel it brewing, just like normal. I’d feel the load settle into the breach. Get that lovely warm feeling when you know, you just know it’s coming. And you’re in the right place for it. Then I’d sit on the bowl and stare at the door. I’d start thinking of you. And nothing would happen. Nothing for ages and ages.

So we’re stood there and the word we’re looking for is exacerbate. Means to make worse. But we can’t quite…grab it in time. It’s there, it’s just beyond–

And this is ruining the rhythm of the sentence. Creates this weird pause. In the end we have to just go for exaggerate. So it comes out like,

And the whole thing only serves to, to, to….you know, serves to exaggerate the underlying problem.

Which makes sense, sure. But the word we really need is exacerbate. And that would’ve been perfect because it’s a very particular word. Only a certain type of person would use the word exacerbate. It does a lot of legwork. And it sounds interesting.

Exacerbate.

So instead of listening to the point we’re making – which let’s face it is irrelevant – you’d be thinking of that word. Exacerbate. What does it mean? Where did he learn it? And you’d be looking at us. And then we’d be the exacerbate guy. Whenever you hear that word, which would be all the time now because you’ve just learnt it, you’d think of us. And of that very first time you heard it, talking to us right now.

And we’d be there, inside your head, every time. We’ve carved out a little space of our own. At least we would have if we’d used the word exacerbate.

But we don’t. We say exaggerate. Which is disappointing.

The more I forced it, the more, like, futile the whole thing became. I’d make my eyes water. The vein running down the middle of my forehead would swell up like a leach. I’d shiver with the strain of it. Then I’d give up.

I’d wipe for the sheer routine of it. Do up my trousers, wash my hands, and go on with my life just feeling fucking awful.

This is six or seven times a day.

I know you hate the fact that I live alone. But I have to. Constantly humming to myself. Think it would just drive people mental.

Trying to write music for adverts is really hard. Really hard. But it’s what I want. More than anything, so…

And I can’t tell you how many times people have said, why adverts. Why not films. Why not make your own music. And I say I don’t know.

But I do know. Adverts are pure. Jingle for an advert can stay in your head for your entire life. Might not have heard it since you were a baby, but you can sing it without thinking. They’re like little bubbles of music.

Remember I used to fill VHS tapes with just adverts? Sit in front of the TV all night. End of a pencil against the record button because my finger would get tired. Just waiting for my favourite ones. Used to drive you mental.

Just to backpedal slightly, we’re a bar. It’s one of those bars that stays open till three am and is actually more of a night club. There’s blue under-lighting and lots of padded leather and several more mirrors than there strictly needs to be. It calls itself a cocktail lounge. But no one’s drinking cocktails and certainly no one’s lounging.

We’re leaning against a far corner of the bar with one elbow on the bar’s surface, which is a perspex pane over a loose mosaic of light grey pebbles. We’re drinking a gin and slimline tonic and also chewing chewing gum because we find that G&T leaves our breath sour and bitter. We have a glass of water just behind us to our left which we occasionally sip from. It’s highly important to stay hydrated.

You’re wearing a kind of lilac chiffon dress with a halter neck. You also wear silver sandals with a three-inch chunky heel. You’ve curled your hair, which is auburn, and threaded your eyebrows. You’ve gone in heavy with the mascara and aqua eye shadow, which is iridescent. Your lips are coated in a nude gloss which over the next two hours you reapply regularly. You’re almost beautiful.

And that’s why we chose you. Because you’ve tried just that little bit too hard. Because you know in the right light you can attract some real attention, but the conditions have to be perfect for you to feel it. And this keeps you a little self-conscious. A little off-balance. Which is useful.

There was this little like, doodle right at my eyeline, on the toilet door. This little picture. A man with a penis sticking out his head. He was cross-eyed and his tongue was hanging out his mouth. The doodle taunted me at first. You can’t even shit, he said once. Animals shit. Dogs. Insects. Microbes. You’re being outskilled by the most primitive life forms on Earth.

But I ended up talking back to it. We had proper conversations. Once I pushed through that surface aggression he he was actually really nice. Became a bit of a mentor.

You worry about me. Even when you pretend not to I know you are. It’s exhausting.

Thing people don’t get is, they don’t get killing yourself is really hard. Probably not gonna believe this, but one in 25 suicide attempts succeed. You’re under 25 years old, it’s ten times harder even than that.

Top of this you’ve got the fact that only one in eight people with serious suicidal thoughts actually go and try and actually do it. If you’re seriously contemplating killing yourself then statistically, you won’t.

What you and I are doing, it feels honest. It feels nuanced. Spontaneous. Humane. But it does exist in a framework. And to deny that or to ignore it is to become a victim. Because frameworks have… protocols. If you fail to observe them, you become ostracised. If you’re shut out you have nothing to offer. No value. Worthless.

Is it a coincidence that the two key texts for dealing with the opposite sex are called, for women and men respectively, The Rules and The Game? No it is not, my friend. No it is not.

Now we’re gonna go places. Certain places that you may not want to follow. But it’s crucial that we feel we can be honest. About everything. Otherwise it’s not fair on you. Even if it’s unpleasant. Even if it’s a level of candour you don’t feel prepared for.

We just…before we continue. We thought that would be…

Where were we.

Reason so few people actually end up finishing the job is because it’s not enough to just want to kill yourself. That’s not it. Gotta reach a point where you simply cannot continue living. Subtle difference, there.

It’s like food stops tasting of anything. Or, or…

Think about holding your breath. Can manage it for a minute. Maybe two. After that, doesn’t matter how hard your body and your brain try and keep you holding your breath. Doesn’t matter how much you want it. How many people are rallying round you for support. You just can’t keep doing it.

On that second day I had to call in sick. First day I struggled through. Second day, I didn’t trust my bowels, so I called in. I told my line manager Vicky I had diarrhoea. For some reason I knew constipation wouldn’t cut it with her. She can be a bastard like that.

I bought a pack of Imodium and a chicken Madras. The man at the curry house automatically filled in your order, and I had to tell him to scratch it off cos I’d be eating alone tonight. But then the order wasn’t big enough for delivery so I had to order it anyway and then just not eat it.

Felt like the universe was kicking me in the balls.

I heard somewhere that back when we were cavemen we used to crouch on the floor to take a dump. And so nowadays we’re supposed to put our feet up...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Chapter
• By the Same author