Ash

How do you describe the rec on a Friday night? Easy. One word: mayhem.

It’s quite funny the way the rec is. We have our own bench, over on the left-hand side of the rec, kind of hidden away a bit. Our bench is like the alternative bench. It’s got a load of band names written on it in marker pen. And some other stuff like GT 4 AB – you know, boyfriend and girlfriend stuff. My tag’s on there too: Layzee Eyez. The chavvy kids hang out on the other side of the rec, near the road. They sit on the wall and smoke fags and wear tracksuits. We don’t really mix much, the indie kids and the chavs. Just kind of respect each other’s space instead. And then there are the older kids, the ones who think they’re something special, turning up in their souped-up Peugeots and Fiestas, parking up near the chav girls and then taking them for a ride. If you catch me doing that when I’m seventeen, please just shoot me. I want to be out of this hole by then.

Tonight there’re ten or so of us hanging out by the indie bench. Usually someone’s brought some booze from home. Sometimes I raid Dad’s drinks cabinet. He’s a whisky drinker – gets through a bottle or two a week. He doesn’t miss the odd bit now and then. But tonight I haven’t got any on me. So there are only two options open to me: 1. stay sober, or 2. go and get an older kid to buy some booze for me. And seeing as option 1 is not really what I have in mind for tonight, I walk over to the wall where the chavs in their hoods and trackie bottoms and the boy racers in their cars are hanging out. Joe and Rabbit don’t have anything to drink either, so they come over with me, out of the far gate and on to the pavement.

The kids on the wall are all the same kind of age as me. Some of them are younger. I don’t really like any of them much, but I nod and say, ‘All right?’ They nod back. It’s best to stay on nodding terms with them. Sometimes they can be useful. But not when you need to get served.

I walk over to the parked cars. Glenn Moulting’s in his Peugeot 306. He used to go to our school. Got kicked out before he did his exams, though, for starting a fire in the changing rooms. He’s a bit of a psycho – shaved head, tattoos. But he’s all right if you know him. If he knows you. He’s eighteen now, works down on the industrial estate, driving a forklift truck. And he’s used his wages to soup his car up – lowered suspension, new bodywork, put in some massive woofers. It looks fucking lame. And right now, he’s playing some horrible house track and smoking a fag. There’s a girl from my year sitting in the passenger seat and a couple of younger girls in the back drinking alcopops. I lean in through the window.

‘All right, Glenn,’ I say.

He looks at me and nods. He doesn’t smile. He just blows a smoke ring. He truly is a cock.

‘Can you go into the offie for us?’

He makes a face, like I’m kind of insulting him. But then he smiles. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Cost you a pack of fags, though.’

I shake my head. ‘Joking, aren’t ya? Can’t afford that. You think I’m made of money or something?’

He sighs. ‘All right, five fags . . .’

I shake my head. ‘Three.’

He looks at me, then out of his windscreen, thinking. He sighs. Then he turns back to me and smiles. ‘Four and you’ve got a deal,’ he says. ‘But I want some skins as well.’

‘Deal,’ I say. ‘Get us some two-litre bottles of cider will you, Moulty? The cheapest they got. Lightning White.’

He nods. I pass him the money. ‘Don’t know why you drink that shit, though,’ he says. ‘It’s as rough as a badger’s arsehole.’

I laugh. ‘It’s the only thing I can afford. And it gets me wasted!’

Glenn laughs, gets out of his car and goes across the road to the offie.

I nod to Kelly, the girl from my year at school that’s sitting in the front seat. She’s got a can of cider in her hand. Just as I’m about to start talking to her, there’s a noise. Engines. I look up at the road. A silver car goes racing past, well over the speed limit. Idiot – he’ll get caught on the speed camera. A few seconds later there’s another car, a BMW or something. It goes flying through the town centre as well, out towards the woods. By the time they’re gone, I can’t be bothered to talk to Kelly. So I just stand there and wait, light a fag.

A couple of minutes later, Glenn comes back out with a blue carrier bag stuffed full of rough cider. He hands it to me and I give him the fags. ‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ he says. He gets back into his car, starts the engine and then wheel-spins away.

‘What a tosser,’ Rabbit says. ‘Just cos he can drive he thinks he’s the dog’s bollocks.’

I laugh. ‘You can talk.’

Rabbit laughs. ‘Yeah, the difference is that I don’t play shitty house music and have a load of underage girls in the back of my car.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘But that’s cos all you’ve got in your car is a shitty radio. And you’re only allowed to drive your car around the tracks in the forest with your dad in the passenger seat. No self-respecting girl in the world would be seen dead in the back of your shit-brown car.’

‘Jealous,’ Rabbit mutters under his breath as we walk back over to the bench.

When we get there we share the cider out. I open mine and take a swig. I wince. It tastes rough as hell. But for the price and the alcohol content, you can’t go wrong. If there’s a cheaper way to get drunk, I haven’t found it yet.