Rhinoceros: Ryon's story 17
Wednesday
Lauren has told Frank that I am ‘uncooperative’. Frank says that there are benefits to playing along with the Rehab meetings. That people like Lauren can pull a few strings for me when I get out, put me at the front of queues for courses, that sort of thing. He said I don’t have to revert to the person I was, that people can change, that this should be seen as an opportunity. He can’t half go on when he wants to. And he doesn’t really get it. I’m going back to the same life, that’s what I wanted to tell him. How is me changing supposed to make the Meadows Estate into a different place? Or make my mum into a better parent?
So Lauren said, “Let me do a little test with you.”
“I’m not a guinea pig,” I said, but she carried on.
“Off the top of your head I want you to tell me what the five most important things are in your life. Then we are going to prioritise them and talk about beliefs.” Whoopee, I thought. This is like the one where your ship is sinking and you have to grab ten things to survive. I always stuck to a gun and a packet of fags, and sod the other eight. She was wearing the same clothes but in different colours. Her ear-rings were a long line of beads.
“I dunno,” I said. I couldn’t really be bothered.
“Try,” she said. “What about your mum?”
“Hardly,” I said.
“Most boys I talk to deep down love their mums.”
“You haven’t met mine,” I said.
“Doesn’t she just get in at number five?”
“She doesn’t even make the top fucking twenty,” I said, and she went all prim and said nothing for a while, though she wrote a fucking essay in her pad.
Eventually she said, “Have another go, Ryon.”
So I had a go, just to shut her up about it. “Alright. There’s food. My favourite is the Special from the chippy in Ecclesfield, £2.40 for chips, fishcake and sausage. Proper good. I like a cigarette every now and then to calm me down…” Then I got stuck. Not much of a life, I was thinking, not a lot to show for sixteen years on this planet.
“What else?” She was being all patient now.
“I dunno. I used to get on with me granddad but he’s dead now. He had pigeons on Penistone Road but the coops are all smashed up now.” She kept waiting. “Well, I never thought I’d ever say this, but I write down stuff that’s happening or that I’m thinking on each day, and that’s alright. It’s a bit like a cigarette in a way. Especially as you can’t smoke in here.”
Lauren wrote more stuff down in her pad, then she said, “Good, you’ve made real progress today.” I thought she was going to pat me on the head. Progress towards what, I thought? “We’ll prioritise when I’m back in a couple of days. Thank you Ryon.”
When I saw Frank after, he gave me the thumbs up, and I asked for the stuff he’d promised. “You’ll just have to be a little more patient,” he said. “There’s more to come. It started in the local paper, but now it’s gone national. But I need to check it’s OK.” For fucks sake, Frank.
