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The first thing I knew about Brad was that his organs were reversed. His insides were a mirror image of the norm. I knew this because Ange had told us about the time they took his appendix out, only they had to cut him open twice to find it. Later, he found nurses in the canteen talking about a freak of nature and realised they meant him.
I wondered if he knew we knew, if he cared, or if it was something he even thought about.
Brad would be all right if he became a vampire. People would try to put a stake through his heart, but he’d just keep on coming. Maybe someone should make a film about it, only everyone would think it was stupid, that it couldn’t happen. Not like all the regular vampires.
I wondered whether he was left-handed. Or if he’d been supposed to be left-handed, and ended up right-handed. I wondered if his brain was reversed, the right side taking care of his tax return, the left, the colours he wore or parallel parking.
Of course, I didn’t ask these things. I just smiled and shook his hand.
Brad and my mate Ange, Sez and me, we were off to the pictures. We sat and watched a film about what would happen if the world was about to end. The Americans would come and save us, so that was OK. One of them would look like Will Smith, that’s how it works.
I’d forgotten about Brad’s insides until we were walking out into the dark and someone said we’d better hurry up to beat the traffic. “Quick – march!” said Sez, and that was it. Left, right, left, right, went my head and wouldn’t shut up. It made me want to laugh, although I didn’t say anything.
We went back to Brad’s for beers. He’d got a small flat, the lounge just big enough for a two-seater sofa, a chair and a monstrous widescreen TV. A bloke with his priorities straight. I was taking to him as he cracked open some Bud.
He slumped on the floor, Ange got the chair, Sez and I sat pressed up tight on the sofa. We swigged and he lit up. He got drunker, I got drunker. Sez started to nudge me in the ribs, like she does when she wants to go, but I started another.
Brad was all right. A man’s man, a man you’d find in the pub on Sunday afternoons. The more drunk, the more verbose. He started to tell us how his organs were reversed. We didn’t let on we knew.
It was all some people could think about, he said. We didn’t say anything.
He told us his ex had once introduced him as “the one whose insides are back to front.” He ditched her after that. Ange glanced at me and looked uncomfortable.
Anyway, he said, he wasn’t back to front at all, he was left to right.
I got up and said we’d better go. He said I hadn’t finished my beer. I sat down.
He said there were photographs of his insides in medical journals, his claim to fame, only no one knew what he looked like.
I said people paid no attention to appearances these days. It was all about the things you don’t see.
Then he threw his head back and laughed.
“Yeah,” he said. “You get it, you really do. It’s what’s on the outside that counts. It’s what’s on the outside…”
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