BIG MALCOLM

[non capisco]

You know those silly rivalries you manufacture out of nothing when you're a kid in school? Walkers vs. KP Crisps. Jacko vs. Prince.  Arnie vs. Sly. The one that really got out of hand at our school was the Nintendo NES vs. the Sega Master System.

Now, I had a Sega Master System and thought it was alright but I wasn't really going to go to bat for the thing. Except my mate Becksy had one as well and he was a bit of a loudmouth, and sort of got me inveigled into this partisan gang of his where we'd march around the playground like little fascists chanting the merits of the Master System and bitterly decrying its rival. I secretly thought the NES was better than the Master System but I daren't tell Becksy this, I was in too deep to backtrack. Plus the visceral thrill of this rivalry was quite seductive. Having little rumbles in the playground with the NES lot, even though in my heart I knew Alex Kidd in Miracle World was an exceedingly pale imitation of Super Mario Brothers.

Anyway, because Becksy was such an aggravating loudmouth this all quickly got too out of hand and personal and thus a massive fight between the two rival factions was arranged, at the top of the field behind the school, next Thursday.

Away from school I was sort-of friends with this guy Big Malcolm. Big Malcolm was a couple of years older than me, although his age could best be described as indeterminate, and didn't go to our school, although he lived in a tiny house exactly adjacent to it. As far as I knew Big Malcolm didn't go to any school. I don't even really remember how I got to know him. He was over 6ft and looked almost exactly like the lead singer of the Commitments and yet was definitely somewhere in his teens. In all the times I went round his house there was never any parental presence there. I don't think I even saw any family photos with parents in. He seemed to live unaided entirely on his own in that house, a slovenly colossus stomping around his cramped and stinking citadel. His front room smelt of sour milk. We'd watch pornography there, not in a masturbatory way. Just sat watching it passively like we were watching 'Commando' or 'Die Hard' or something. "This is a good bit", Big Malcolm would say, as if he was about to watch Bruce Willis do a stunt. "Can I borrow this?", I'd say. He never let me. I'd sit there wondering why I was watching it with him.

One day, a week before it took place, I mentioned this stupid Master System/NES fight to him.

"Can I come?"
"Why, Malcolm? You've not even got a games console. You've no dog in this race."
"You said it was stupid."
"It is stupid. Why do you wanna go for? Which side would you be on?"
Then he sort of looked a bit hurt. "Your side of course!"
I felt a bit bad then. I'd never seen Big Malcolm out anywhere knocking around with anyone. I didn't really talk to him about the things I got up to. I sort of had it in my head that he didn't go to school because there was something up with him.
"Yeah, go on then, Mal. You can be on our side. The Master System side."
Jesus, the Master System side. I cringed when I said it. Alex Kidd in bloody Miracle World.
He grunted with contentment then turned his attention back to the celluloid classic he'd selected that day for our cultural furtherment. It was a Bond parody called 'On Her Majesty's Secret Cervix'. You don't get pun titles in pornography so much now, do you? The world's got lazy.

The day of this fight comes and I can't believe anyone's actually going to go ahead with it, fighting over the superiority of a games console. Ridiculous. Yet there we all were (no sign of Big Malcolm), on the fields behind the school, 'The Gallops' as they were colloquially known, two meticulously arranged vistas of mutual foes staring at each other across a makeshift battlefield. The sullen silence occasionally punctuated by reedy jeers of 'Bollocks to Duck Hunt!' or 'Road Rash is shit!'

The Nintendo lot started up a chant. 'N-E-S. N-E-S. N-E-S IS THE BLOODY BEST'. The 'bloody' made it sound quite quaint. Passionate enough about their console, but not enough to do a proper swear. Bless 'em.

Some of our lot responded in kind. 'SE-GA..MASTERSYSTEM! SE-GA..MASTERSYSTEM!' Lyrics needed a bit of work but the intent was there.

Big Malcolm comes running out of his house then, I could see him from the top of the field pegging it up towards us. I can't believe how fast he's going, like a joke film sped up. He's yelling something. 'Don't start without me!' I think. He's lugging this big bag up with him. I sort of signal at the head Nintendo boy across the way, 'Not yet. We've got one more.'
"Who the hell's that?" says Becksy. I suddenly realise none of my mates have ever met Big Malcolm and again I try and fail to remember when exactly it was that I did.

Anyway, he's now stood beside me, grinning his chops off. 'You got a Master System, mate?' Becksy's asking him. The chants on the Nintendo side are getting louder and it's obviously all about to kick off so I quickly teach him our chant which isn't exactly a hard one to get your head round. 'SE-GA...MASTERSYSTEM! SE-GA...MASTERSYSTEM!' And he's doing that for a bit but then he starts changing the words. He's stood there chanting to the same rhythm but going 'HU-MAN...SACRIFICES! HU-MAN...SACRIFICES!'  Becksy's looking at me going 'What?!'

And then something breaks in the Nintendo ranks and they start charging. Immediately I don't want to be doing this, fighting over a games console. Some of them are holding rocks and stuff. Then suddenly I see all their advancing faces turn from rictus masks of pretend fury to actual genuine terror and I realise they're all looking at Big Malcolm.

He's fished something out of his bag and, not a word of a lie, it's a giant MEDIAEVAL MACE.

Like, a real genuine bloody mace. Sharp spikes coming out of it, polished to within an inch of its life. I've seen the rest of his house and nothing in it has had as much care taken with it as this...MACE has.

And he's swinging it about his head and running at these Nintendo kids whilst bellowing and laughing his head off. i can't bear to see this. You know when you see a little kid standing in front of another little kid on a swing and you know they're going to collide? That mace. The size and speed of Big Malcolm. You saw him running up that hill. No-one stood a chance.

I start running down the hill. I try not to hear the screams coming from behind me. Terrible screams. Unholy screams. What was worse was when you heard a scream and then it suddenly stopped.

Later that afternoon I threw my Master System in the river.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

I managed to avoid getting in any big rivalries, mainly by hanging out with all the unpopular social bottom-feeder types. Lunchbreak would be hanging out at the bins with Jasper, Smelly Terrence and Weird Crisps[nb]brought some unconventional crisps in with his lunch one day, and you know how kids can be.[/nb]. Of course, Terrence never actually liked me, we just hung out out of pure necessity, he secretly thought I was cramping his style, like some weird needy hanger-on constantly dragging him just out of reach of being accepted by the slightly more popular kids. He sells teeth on the Chinese black market now.