The school day was over, thank fuck. The full week was over and done with. Tony had homework, or at least, ChatGPT did. He leapt off the bus dodging craterous puddles along the street and bounced through his front door.
‘Boots!’ called his Mum from the kitchen. Stew for tea. Bastard.
He stopped halfway up the stairs to peel off his trainers and swished splodges of ash through slits in the railings down onto the hall below. He took his next steps two-three at a time and bounded into the bathroom.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that!’ his sister yelled through the door. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’
‘Were you in here?’ he shot back.
‘Could have been for all you know.’
‘Why are we arguing about this? You’ve got an en-suite,’ Tony gasped through the sweatshirt trapped on his neck.
‘I’m entitled to pee where I please,’ she replied.
‘Aye, well away and pick a spot in the garden then, Fido.’
Tony could not hear her, no doubt brutal, comeback against the rushing water of the shower. In and out. Had the water even touched him? Quick spritz of the Lynx Africa. Dried. Joggers and a t-shirt on. Then a few games of Call of Duty with Deek until dinner was ready. That was the plan.
He wiped away condensation from the bathroom mirror. He was looking good. Trim, even. The after-school sessions were paying off. He hated his timetabled P.E. classes but had been enjoying the group ran by Mr. Stevens every Thursday and Friday. He had not wanted to go at first. Deek peer pressured him into it. He told him it would be a good way to talk to girls. What, like the girls we spend six and a half hours a day with, who are not interested in us then, will, if given an extra hour?
Deek had not been at the session today. He is currently grounded for slowly replacing family photos with pictures of football mascots from all four flights of the Scottish Professional Football League to the eventual shock and embarrassment of his blissfully unaware Mum one night she had the new boyfriend over. A lovely photo of you and the boys at the beach there, Sharon. Oh, and is that Paisley Panda? Deek did not go out enough to make grounding a proper punishment so his Mum banned him from the gym club. He argued his physical health was being negatively impacted by this ban, to which she retorted that his mental health would be in a much worse state if he did not find the photo of her and his elder brother at his graduation which had been replaced with Kingsley, the splattered sunbeam fever dream mascot of Partick Thistle.
Tony loosened his gangly legs on the scale, stood with his back straight and peered down over his belly button. Almost a stone lost since he last checked. He dried his hair, whipped the top back off and took a quick photo. He posed a little and took another. A few more until he could find the happy medium of straining his stomach muscles into shape without giving a facial expression which signalled severe constipation. He flicked through each of the pictures and was pleased. He did not know exactly why he had taken them but brimmed a little with pride, nonetheless. In the top right hand corner of his screen the time was coming up for five and he raced through to his bedroom, a snake of soaking bath towels in his wake. He booted up the PlayStation and invited Deek to his party.
‘WIT TIME DO YOU CALL THIS?’ blared Deek through the stuttered connection of the gaming headset. ‘I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SCRATCH YOUR IMAGE ONTO MILK BOTTLES!’
‘Sorry mate, just saw the time on my phone and ran through.’
‘Stick a wee dig in while you’re at it, why don’t you?’
Deek had lost mobile phone privileges too when his Mum found the two pictures in the love heart necklace which she wore every day had been replaced by the mascots of Celtic and Rangers, Hoopy and Broxi. Love across the divide, he called it.
‘Team Deathmatch or Search and Destroy?’ asked Tony.
‘Search and Destroy,’ replied Deek, ‘no did that for a while.’
‘Aye, you always fuck it up cos yer pure shite,’ Tony sniggered.
‘Connection went for a second mate, I missed that, what did you say?’
‘Just saying I’ll need to level up, all my armour is light.’
The round began and Tony ventured ten paces across Nuketown before he was noob-tubed to the spectator screen.
‘Brutal that, mate. Keep an eye on my guy and maybe learn a thing or two.’
Tony had five minutes at least until the next round would begin and he was back in the fight. He flicked through his pictures again. He had been tracking weight loss hashtags on Instagram and followed a lot of fitness guru’s in the past month or so. He reckoned that he did not look a million miles off them. Not as buff as the brick shithouse, lift-a-school-bus types or as bronze as the Herbalife punters, but he could calmly cut it with the #weightlossjourney crowd. He liked a lot of their posts. He wondered if they would do the same for him. His Instagram feed was 50:50 exercise enthusiasts he would love to meet and folk from school he would do anything to avoid. He clicked the button to post a photo.
‘ARE YOU WATCHING THIS?’ screamed Deek. Tony looked up. It was five versus one. Deek being the one. Camped behind a plant pot with enough trip mines surrounding him to give the Kitchen/Living Room area more of an open-plan vibe.
Tony exited the upload page. His feed was filled with photos just like his. With some folk getting upwards of two hundred likes and as many or more positive comments. The most liked photo on Tony’s grid was of his rabbit, Bunny Holly, with a whopping five likes and zero comments.
The game ended a second after Deek realised he had placed triggers for the bombs in the wrong direction. The next round began and Tony ran straight into the action.
‘Haw. Rutherglen Rambo! This is a tactical game, what are you doing?’
Tony was the first killed, and he tossed the controller to the pillow beside him and looked through the tight and tanned torsos of his Instagram feed once more. He picked the most flattering picture of his own and uploaded it to the app without so much as a two-minute browse through the filtering options. It took him to the caption page.
Weight loss journey going strong!
Naw.
I miss fish suppers.
Worse.
Lost just over a stone recently, hoping to lose a bit more.
That will do.
He hash-tagged the life out of it: #weightlossjourney #fitnessgoals #gymmotivation. All the heavy hitters for likes from complete strangers. His thumb hovered over the post button.
‘Do it! Just do it now!’ barked Deek, who was referring to the teammate camping on the bomb rather than defusing it, but Tony took his advice. He pressed POST and fidgeted impatiently as the progress wheel spun on and on. He dragged down on the screen to refresh his feed and suddenly it was there. Just above a post of a weeks’ worth of meal prep from a vegan with a very miserable looking dachshund, and below a filtered dead pigeon at a bus stop from the boy that sits a few rows behind him in Techy and chews nails.
The next round began and the locked phone screen lit up beside him; a first like only thirty seconds or so after he posted it, that was a first.
‘Which way are you heading this-’ Deek’s tone dropped from questioning to conciliatory, ‘-aw, and that’s you deed again.’
Great work man, keep it up!!
Looking #swole
Keep smashing those goals!
Forty likes and ten comments in after a few minutes. Tony could not refresh the page quickly enough to catch each notification as they rolled in. His fingers fizzed and a grin ripped across his cheeks. He paid no attention to Deek rambling in his ear about how he might consider going pro on COD if he fails his prelims. He read and replied to every comment as quickly as he could. All were from people on the hashtag, barring a girl in his geography class, Kaelyn, who wrote – with a refined yet simple elegance – the shocked face emoji. She would never have commented on one of his posts before now. Maybe Deek was right.
‘I’ve thought of my next stunt for when my grounding is up. I’m gonna move everything in the living room an inch across the room in a clockwise direction every day until someone notices. Any chance you know how to disconnect a fireplace?’
Then he remembered that Deek had never been right about anything.
‘What do you think?’ asked Deek.
Tony surveyed the list of people who liked the picture.
‘Deaf boy?’
A few more from school. Mostly boys in his classes but one or two girls, too.
‘HAW!’
Tony snapped back into the moment, ‘Sorry, mate. What were you saying?’
‘You got a girl over there or something? Don’t cuck me on COD, mate. Better yet – hand her the controller for the next round.’
‘No, it’s-’ Tony paused, the likes now up to one hundred and forty and counting, ‘Nothing, mate.’
‘Better be nothing. Get yer head in the game. These boys have got virtual families back home and so far, you’ve sent them back a casket and an American flag every round.’
Tony hit the menu button to check the teams, ‘Mate, we’re the terrorists in this one.’
‘The point stands,’ Deek dismissed. ‘Look, it’s switched now. I’ll run to arm the bomb and you cover me.’
The round began once more. Tony could not keep his eye on the T.V. or his phone for long enough to focus on either. He caught the tail end of the notification for a comment. The word fat stood out as if written in seven-foot-high LED lettering on the Las Vegas strip but the screen faded before he could read the whole message.
‘Away down the other side of the bus and switch to your sniper,’ commanded Deek.
Tony took the position and held the controller in one hand. He unlocked his phone to read the comment from gregliftsFL_420.
Lol. You fat fuck. That’s nothing. I could lose that in a day. Train like a real man you piece of shit hahahahaha
Tony read the comment again. And again. And again. His dark, dilated pupils zipping back and forth along the line. He glanced up to see an enemy player spinning on his character’s corpse, then dropped his controller and clicked on the profile.
Greg. Lake Worth. Gym Freak.
LIKE I GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU GOTTA SAY ABOUT IT
(American Flag emoji times thirteen, bookended by flexing biceps)
He did not follow Tony. His wall of photos was entirely selfies of him attempting stern and serious but achieving a look akin to solving long division without a paper and pencil. More positive comments and likes continued to trickle in but Tony could focus on nothing but this slight at his post.
He lay his headset on the bed and walked to the bathroom. He lifted up his top and examined his stomach. Perhaps it had not looked as impressive as he thought. He cringed so hard that his teeth hurt, and asked himself why he had even bothered with posting the photo, with putting himself out there for the world to see. He felt small, pathetic, and exposed. He read the comment again. Fat fuck. He sucked his gut in tightly. That’s nothing. He thought about asking Mr. Stevens if he could stay late a few more days each week to use the fitness suite. I could lose that in a day. He rubbed the arch of his stomach as he puffed it back out. Train like a real man you piece of shit. Then trudged back through to his bedroom and slipped the headphones over his sunken skull.
‘I’m gonna go, man. I’m not really feeling another round.’
‘Something up? You sound a bit off. And you’re never usually this shite.’
‘It’s nothing, it’s-’ Tony read the comment again. He had to intentionally scroll past positive ones just to get to it.
‘It’s something. I know you. I don’t think I’ve heard you this defeated since literally every time I smoke ye on FIFA.’
Tony thought for a moment, Should I tell him? Will he rip the piss? He will, but should I tell him anyway? Is it better to just delete the post and pretend it never happened? He took a deep breath.
‘Promise you won’t laugh.’
‘Naw, but continue.’
‘I posted a photo on Instagram. It’s stupid right, and it’s not like me at all, but I did it.’
‘Accidental dick pic or something here? A picture of you and your Care Bears?’
‘I got in from the gym club. Took a picture of myself in the mirror as I thought I looked… well, like less of a fat prick than usual, and put it online.’
‘Ooft, no like you but OK. And?’
‘Folk are being nice. Nearly two hundred likes. Fifty comments, all saying really nice things.’
‘So, what’s funny about this?’
Tony read him the comment verbatim.
‘MANKY, DIRTY, MOUTHY, BOGGIN’, CLATTY, PUDDLE DRINKIN’, ARSE STINKIN’, SPOON BURNIN’, STOMACH CHURNIN’, CHEEKY, WANK!’ Deek bellowed. ‘Who in the Lord’s green valley does this mouthy Malcolm he is?!’
‘We don’t know him. Random guy searching through the hashtag most likely.’
‘Whit a brass neck. Where’s he fae?’ Deek asked.
Tony googled Lake Worth, ‘Florida, mate.’ The headset connection went fuzzy.
‘Mount Florida, you say? That’s the seventy-five bus. Come on and we’ll head up there now and find this PRICK.’
‘Regular Florida, mate. America.’
‘Well, we’re still getting back at him,’ said Deek, determined. ‘Click on one of his pictures whilst I think of something vicious to write back.’
Tony would not reply. If you have nothing nice to say… his Granny would remind him. He clicked on the first photo anyway, the option to reply had been withheld.
‘He’s made it so that you can’t leave a comment, mate,’ Tony said.
‘Aw, so the big man can dish it out, but can’t take it back?’ Deek was dumbfounded. ‘If I had my phone right now mate, he would be getting non-stop pictures of my spotty ring. In fact, can you direct message him?’
Tony checked. He could. He also noticed that the commenter was only following one account. He clicked on to it. It was a model. All of her pictures were of her and her friends on beaches and yachts. On every one of them, gregliftsFL_420 was the top comment. He clicked on one from six months ago; You look so good baby, you ever in Florida?
Three months ago; You ever need a ripped fucking stud, CALL ME
Two weeks ago; You ever reply, bitch? smh
Today; CHECK YOUR DM’S HO
‘He’s a nutter, mate,’ Tony said. ‘All he does is comment on this model’s page. I think he’s in love with her.’
‘THEN THAT’S WHAT WE’LL DO!’ exclaimed Deek. ‘Make a fake account pretending to be her and we’ll reel him in, torture the cheeky bugger a wee bit.’
‘Fake account? Is that no’ catfishing?’ asked Tony.
‘Swordfishing mate,’ Deek told him. ‘Because this boy’s getting stabbed.’
Tony burst into paroxysms of laughter and felt lighter. As if all he needed was a good laugh to break the tension of it all. He hovered his thumb over the messages button for a moment then hit settings and muted gregliftsFL_420.
‘Just gonna ignore him, mate.’
‘You know I’ll kick his head in if you need me to, right? I don’t care if he’s in America, nobody slags my best pal like that but me. You hear me?’
Tony smiled, ‘Aye mate. I appreciate you willing to imprison yourself for my sake.’
‘Any time, man. And aye, you are looking better these days.’
‘Thanks man, that means a lot. You don’t look too bad, yourself.’
‘Och, whit’s this, you fancy me, now? Less of that. We having one more game?’
Tony browsed through the comments again, and for a moment he considered deleting the one that stuck out like a sore thumb. There was something about viewing it sandwiched in between so many positive affirmations from kind strangers and friends alike which made it appear smaller and less biting in its taunts. He decided to keep it.
‘You just get pricks like that, eh?’ said Deek. ‘Best to just ignore them and get on with what really matters.’
‘Spot on, mate.’ Tony replied. And all that mattered to him was having one last game with his pal before his dinner was ready. Even if it was stew. Again.
