Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ned Beauman
no way dashed by an operation which, only a few minutes before, had changed nearly one half of the blood that was in their bodies.’ Erskine got up and took a very long bath.
4
Only six or seven hundred people in the world have trimethylaminuria. Because of a misprint in our genes our bodies are unable to break down trimethylamine, the chemical that gives the stink to both rotting fish and bacterial infections of the vagina. (Hence all those tiresome old jokes about a blind man wandering into a fish-market and taking it for a brothel, or vice versa, which could just as well be made about a blind man wandering into a convention of trimethylaminuria sufferers, although in truth if such a convention were ever to take place then it would no doubt be identified as a terrorist biological weapon and fighter planes would be scrambled at once.) Trimethylamine leaks out in our sweat and our urine and our saliva, curdling the air around us. There is no cure. Most of us will never have consensual sex, and many of us commit suicide by the time we are thirty. I used to spend time on trimethylaminuria support group messageboards, the closest thing we have to the aforementioned convention, but I found the tone too depressing, in contrast to Nazi memorabilia collecting messageboards, which are brisk with shared endeavour and friendly competition.
Along with trimethylaminuria I also have asthma, eczema, cystic acne, mild irritable bowel syndrome and half a dozen other absurd non-terminal diseases. I have come to see my body as a sort of Faulknerian idiot man-child which I must drag along groaning behind me wherever I go. Stuart is convinced that within the next fifty years it will be possible to upload one’s brain into a computer and live on as nothing more than sparkles on a hard disk, and I long for that day ofrapture. (Funnily enough, though, Stuart himself suffers from a sort of electronic trimethylaminuria, the sheer obnoxiousness of his emails and messageboard posts ensuring that I am the only person left in the internet Nazi memorabilia collecting community who will talk to him. He once tricked several of his enemies into watching a nine-minute video clip, loosely of the pornographic genre, called ‘Three Girls, Two Cups’; at least one victim has reportedly not approached a computer since.) But until that day, I will just have to go on smelling like unwashed cunt.
Consequently, you might expect that I would take excellent care of my flat in Holloway, since I so rarely feel motivated to leave it. But several months have passed since Maria quit, and things have got to the stage now where I worry that, without all the dirty socks, takeaway cartons and semen-stiffened tissues like crude artificial roses, the place might actually feel a bit empty and weird. I’m not someone who minds a bit of mess. Also, even if it were spotless, the trimethylamine smell would still be intolerable to anyone but me. Sometimes I like to think of it as a mutant power but the truth is I don’t think I’d fit in with the X-Men.
When I got home from Zroszak’s flat at about one in the morning, I woke my computer and wrote a post on the largest of the collectors’ forums.
Subject: Philip Erskine?
From: kevin (Posts: 1,267)
Time: 1:11 GMT
does anyone know anything about a scientist and possible acquaintance of Hitler called Philip Erskine?
I opened my chat program. Stuart, as usual, was still online. He doesn’t sleep much.
KEVIN: i saw a dead body today
STUART: dig her up yourself? lol.
KEVIN: i’m serious
STUART: where, then?
KEVIN: i can’t tell you
STUART: well aren’t you mysterious
hey, what’s this about ‘Philip Erskine’?
Stuart has a browser extension that immediately alerts him to every new post on every relevant forum so that he doesn’t have to click ‘reload’ every ten seconds.
KEVIN: just something i came across
STUART: to do with the dead body?
KEVIN: no
STUART: come on
KEVIN: no nothing to do with it
STUART: oh for
4
Only six or seven hundred people in the world have trimethylaminuria. Because of a misprint in our genes our bodies are unable to break down trimethylamine, the chemical that gives the stink to both rotting fish and bacterial infections of the vagina. (Hence all those tiresome old jokes about a blind man wandering into a fish-market and taking it for a brothel, or vice versa, which could just as well be made about a blind man wandering into a convention of trimethylaminuria sufferers, although in truth if such a convention were ever to take place then it would no doubt be identified as a terrorist biological weapon and fighter planes would be scrambled at once.) Trimethylamine leaks out in our sweat and our urine and our saliva, curdling the air around us. There is no cure. Most of us will never have consensual sex, and many of us commit suicide by the time we are thirty. I used to spend time on trimethylaminuria support group messageboards, the closest thing we have to the aforementioned convention, but I found the tone too depressing, in contrast to Nazi memorabilia collecting messageboards, which are brisk with shared endeavour and friendly competition.
Along with trimethylaminuria I also have asthma, eczema, cystic acne, mild irritable bowel syndrome and half a dozen other absurd non-terminal diseases. I have come to see my body as a sort of Faulknerian idiot man-child which I must drag along groaning behind me wherever I go. Stuart is convinced that within the next fifty years it will be possible to upload one’s brain into a computer and live on as nothing more than sparkles on a hard disk, and I long for that day ofrapture. (Funnily enough, though, Stuart himself suffers from a sort of electronic trimethylaminuria, the sheer obnoxiousness of his emails and messageboard posts ensuring that I am the only person left in the internet Nazi memorabilia collecting community who will talk to him. He once tricked several of his enemies into watching a nine-minute video clip, loosely of the pornographic genre, called ‘Three Girls, Two Cups’; at least one victim has reportedly not approached a computer since.) But until that day, I will just have to go on smelling like unwashed cunt.
Consequently, you might expect that I would take excellent care of my flat in Holloway, since I so rarely feel motivated to leave it. But several months have passed since Maria quit, and things have got to the stage now where I worry that, without all the dirty socks, takeaway cartons and semen-stiffened tissues like crude artificial roses, the place might actually feel a bit empty and weird. I’m not someone who minds a bit of mess. Also, even if it were spotless, the trimethylamine smell would still be intolerable to anyone but me. Sometimes I like to think of it as a mutant power but the truth is I don’t think I’d fit in with the X-Men.
When I got home from Zroszak’s flat at about one in the morning, I woke my computer and wrote a post on the largest of the collectors’ forums.
Subject: Philip Erskine?
From: kevin (Posts: 1,267)
Time: 1:11 GMT
does anyone know anything about a scientist and possible acquaintance of Hitler called Philip Erskine?
I opened my chat program. Stuart, as usual, was still online. He doesn’t sleep much.
KEVIN: i saw a dead body today
STUART: dig her up yourself? lol.
KEVIN: i’m serious
STUART: where, then?
KEVIN: i can’t tell you
STUART: well aren’t you mysterious
hey, what’s this about ‘Philip Erskine’?
Stuart has a browser extension that immediately alerts him to every new post on every relevant forum so that he doesn’t have to click ‘reload’ every ten seconds.
KEVIN: just something i came across
STUART: to do with the dead body?
KEVIN: no
STUART: come on
KEVIN: no nothing to do with it
STUART: oh for
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