Soft in the Head Read Free

about me. Like for example the car that took a wrong turn at the hairpin bend on the coast road, one dead, three injured (I live right opposite, I’m usually the one who calls the ambulance, one time I even had to help the paramedics put a man who’d been cut to ribbons into a body bag, and it’s a pretty crappy job let me tell you). Or I tell my friends that the men down at the factory have threatened to barricade the slip road off the motorway—I know this because Annette works at the warehouse—local news stories, you know the kind of thing. Current affairs. But the idea of someone being interested in me ? Wow! I felt a lump in my throat like I was a little kid. I nearly burst into tears, that’s how bad it was. If there’s one thing that makes me uncomfortable, it’s crying. Thankfully, it’s not something that happens to me often, except this one day when I crushed my foot when Landremont and me were helping his sister move house and he dropped the chest of drawers and pretended like his hands were all sweaty. Anyone would have been in tears: it hurt like a bitch, even if it is only an anecdote. I’m talking real tears. Like when I came first in the regional finals in the orienteering race, just ahead of Cyril Gontier, a complete scumbag who made my life a misery all through primary school. Or the night I fell in love with Annette, which was pretty surprising because we’d been fucking for three months already. Butthat night, it was so beautiful, coming with her, that I had tears in my eyes.
    Long story short, I don’t know about you, but me, I’m ashamed to cry. My nose starts streaming snot worse than a two-year-old, my eyes piss tears like a fountain, I yowl like a bull in a slaughterhouse. Everything about me is in proportion to my huge size, which is good for the ladies, but it’s also true when I’m upset, which is bad for me.
    This little old lady made me all emotional without even trying. I don’t know why, maybe it was the kindly way she said, So you give them names? Or maybe because she looked so gentle. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that I’d had a skinful at Jojo Zekouc’s fortieth the night before and only had four hours’ sleep. But like I said before, when you start with maybes, there’s no end to it.
    So, anyway, I said:
    “Yes. I give them all names. It’s easier to count them that way.”
    She raised her eyebrows.
    “Well, well… Excuse me if I’m being indiscreet, but I have to confess I’m intrigued: how do you manage to tell them apart?”
    “Um, well… It’s a bit like with kids… Have you got children?”
    “No. And you?”
    “Me neither.”
    She nodded and smiled.
    “In which case it is indeed an astute comparison…”
    I wasn’t really sure what this meant, but she seemed to want to know more, so I carried on:
    “Actually, they’re all different… If you don’t really pay attention, you’re not likely to notice, but if you study them carefully, you see that no two are the same. They’ve got their own personalities, even their own way of flying. That’s why I said it’s like kids. If you had kids, I’m sure you wouldn’t get them mixed up…”
    She gave a little laugh.
    “Oh, if I had nineteen of them, I’m not so sure…”
    This made me laugh too.
    I don’t often laugh when I’m with women. Not old women, at any rate.
    It’s strange, I felt like we were friends, the two of us. Well, not really, but something quite like it. Since then, I’ve tracked down the word I needed: allies.

 
     
    W ORDS ARE BOXES that we use to store thoughts the better to present them to others. Show them to their best advantage. For example, on days when you just feel like kicking anything that moves, you can just sulk. Problem is, people might think you’re ill, or depressed. Whereas if you just say out loud: Don’t piss me around, I’m really not in the mood today! It avoids all sorts of confusion.
    Or, to take a different example, some girl sets