Read Online Christmas At Leo's - Memoirs Of A Houseboy by Gillibran Brown - Free Book Online

didn’t fancy getting lockjaw. I liked having a good old natter even then. It’s hard to chat when your jaws are welded together. I opted for the overdose method, only I didn’t have any pills.
    I travelled to town and tried to buy a pack of paracetamol from Boots. The assistant refused to serve me. The store policy was not to sell painkillers to children under sixteen. I claimed I was sixteen, but she claimed I looked about twelve. Being a man on a suicide mission I didn’t have time to argue with her. I rudely told her she looked about seventy and then went to Superdrug and pinched a couple of packs off the shelf. I bought a bottle of fizzy blue Panda Pop and headed back to the shed.
    The dosage guide on the tablet box said to take one or two tablets every four hours. I reckoned taking six in less than a minute would constitute an overdose and swallowed them down with half a bottle of the pop.
    I think I had a notion death would be instantaneous on swallowing the pills: puff and the poof would be gone. Nothing happened. I waited a minute or two and then popped out another couple of pills. They didn’t get further than the palm of my hand. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. Surely even gay people had the right to live and be happy without imposed shame dogging their every step.
    I began to panic about the pills I’d taken. I was thinking of running home to tell my mother what I’d done and get her to take me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when something did happen. I had an episode. It was probably brought on by stress. It seemed to confirm I was some kind of cursed freak.
    Collapsing onto granddad Davy’s deckchair I broke down, sobbing my heart out, as waves of terror washed over me. I was frightened of dying and terrified of living. There seemed nothing for me to look forward to other than rejection and scorn. I was a boy like any other. I wanted love, affection and acceptance, but a society poisoned by religious intolerance decreed I wasn’t worthy of those basic human rights.
    The paracetamol combined with the episode knocked me out. I slept for hours, only waking when someone shook me. It was Lee. My mother had called at his house in a state when I didn’t come home from school at my usual time. She got in more of a state when told I hadn’t been at school in the first place and Lee hadn’t seen me all day. She told his parents we’d had a row, but she didn’t say what about. Lee told mum he’d look for me. He guessed where I might be.
    I was cold and cramped. Being January, it was pitch dark outside even though it was only about half past five in the evening. Lee lit the paraffin lamp. It cast out a pungent sickly glow in keeping with my mood. He asked me what was wrong, cos I looked like shit. I confessed I’d taken an overdose of paracetamol in an effort to kill myself. He looked stunned and demanded to know how many I’d taken. I told him.
    “Six?” He stared at me. “Our Cass takes more than that when she’s on her period.”
    “Not all at once.” I glared at him.
    “You fucking bell-end. You can’t die on six paracetamol.”
    “I’ll take more next time.”
    “Don’t be daft, Gil. Why do you want to kill yourself? Life isn’t that bad is it?”
    I started crying.
    “Howay, Gilli, man. What’s wrong? Tell us. Is it the fight you had with your mam? What was it about? Is fuck-face Frank getting at you again?”
    Screwing up all my courage I whispered the dread words. “I’m gay.”
    There was a long pause after my revelation, then. “Are you sure?”
    “Of course I’m fucking sure. Why else would I say it? I’m a nance, a poof, a queer, a shit stabber.”
    There was an embarrassed silence.
    “Don’t worry. It isn’t catching.” I struggled out of the deckchair. “You don’t have to be friends with me anymore.”
    “Sorry, Gil. I dunno what to say.” He raked at his hair. “Do you fancy me then?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Cos you’re fucking