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  The thin little fuck isn’t fazed in the slightest. Calm as you like, save for his normal whiny lisp, he tells us. This Jamie lad is some kind of Kung Fu freak. Adam reckons he’s been doing Judo at Cardiff Leisure Centre since he was three; got gold in two Welsh opens and won some UK thing too.

  “Fuck me, Adam,” I say. “What happened to your scrawny arse?”

  It’s free Wednesday afternoon and we’re playing football on the triangle. I’m belting this plastic orange ball against the gym, fuckin’ my new Nikes up, waiting for Viv to have his pick. Him one captain, me the other. No-one comes close to me and Viv, football wise. We’re the best this place’s had this side of Ian Rush.

  Good little pocket for footballers, this neck of the woods. Lots of us get on the books of pro clubs. Viv even had United come sniffing, but he wasn’t having any of it. Couldn’t be arsed with going up there for the holidays. Jon Dodd, the PE coach, goes round to see Viv’s dad about it one lunch time. Tells him Viv’s throwing away his big chance; that he needs a better example at home; needs discipline. Viv’s dad doesn’t even let him in, keeps him on the drive in the pissing rain.

  “Discipline?” he says to Jon Dodd. “You can talk about fuckin’ discipline, you can. How the fuck can someone who gets banned for life for twatting a ref talk about discipline?”

  So we’re having a kick about on the triangle, me and Viv on opposite teams, and the ball bounces fifty-fifty between me and him. I hold back a bit, put in seventy-five percent’s worth so as not to cause ructions, but I come out with the ball at my feet, piece of piss. It’s then I realise Viv’s head’s not on the game. He’s looking over to the island where Jamie’s lot is hanging about. Fuck me, if big bad Viv isn’t getting the jitters. And when someone hoofs the ball over the fence and has to go and fish it from the stream, Viv comes over.

  “Go’an see what they’re saying,” he says. “See if he reckons he can have me.”

  I go over.

  “Alright Jamie?”

  “Why’s Viv spreading all this shit?” he says. “Calling me a cunt, telling everyone he’s gonna have me?”

  “I dunno,” I say. “He wants to know if you think you can have him.”

  “Why’s he wanna know?”

  And so it goes.

  Tonight’s the night. We’re down the Maelor again and it kicks off with Jamie’s feet slapping the pavement down the Plas Gwyn road towards the corner by The Star. This is where Viv’s meant to be. And what do I do? Carry on playing pool with Ollie, coz for all my bravado, I can’t stand the sight of a fight. Sickens me to my stomach it does. Like the time I saw Jonni Rich drop Puddin down by Royal’s bridge, then kick his hands away so that Puddin’s head hit the curb. The dull thud of it. I spewed five pints’ worth. When the war cry goes up – fight, fight, fight – and every fucker swarms, I walk the other way feeling my stomach’s about to drop out my arse.

  No, it’s not bravado that makes me talk like I do. I keep it hidden in polite society, but I know I can handle myself better than 95 percent of you fuckers. I’ll lash out at you soon as look at you. But it’s only coz I can’t keep control. Ten minutes after chinning you or calling you a cunt, I’ll be puking my guts out in some alley or in the bogs, going out of my tiny mind that I’ve hurt you, worrying that you’ll be psychologically scarred. I won’t sleep for nights. If I could keep a lid on this temper and could think things through in the first place, there’s no way I’d lay a finger on anyone. It might sound funny, but I’m a pacifist. I shit you not. I pick spiders up in glasses so as not to hurt them and let them go outside. Don’t laugh or I’ll twat you. Hahaha.

  The last I’ve seen of Jamie is half an hour ago when he’s hot-footed it down the road, and I haven’t seen Viv all day. I didn’t even know he was coming down tonight. So I’m feeling foot-loose and fancy free, happy shooting pool. News is doing the rounds that Viv and Jamie are about to do battle, but if two big cunts wanna knock fuck out of each other over a girl, that’s their prerogative. What can I do? As long as I don’t have to watch the train crash.

  But just as I’m eyeing up this match-winning black to the bottom left, Judo Jamie’s arse walks through the door and comes gunning for me. What the fuck’s all this then? I think about swinging a cue, but he’s already got me, doing that thing with my wrist.

  “Fuckin’ hell, Jamie,” I say.

  “This is all you, this is” he says. “Viv didn’t wanna fight me. You caused all this, you did.”

  No word of a lie, this is the first time I’ve even considered that I’m involved. I’m slow to read things, me, that’s my problem; like the time in junior school when Ollie was about to put ice down my boots in the cloak room.

  “Fuck off Ollie,” I say. “Put it down someone else’s boots. Put it in Morgan’s boots or something.”

  So Ollie drops a big, frozen lump of dirty ice down Johnny Morgan’s boots and Johnny Morgan gets wet socks when he pulls them on again at first break. Doesn’t cross my mind that I have anything to do with it until I get called by the headmaster.

  “Did you do this?” he says, holding up one of Morgan’s boots; turning it so that brown water slops onto his carpet.

  Did I fuck.

  “No Sir.”

  “It’s better for everyone if you tell the truth, lad.”

  Fuck off, oily-haired cunt.

  “I didn’t do it, Sir.”

  It takes forever to get me to admit to it, coz it wasn’t me.

  “Oliver told me you told him to do it, lad.”

  Fuck me, I think. In that case, we’re all guilty.

  “Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

  “All right, all right,” I say to Jamie.

  But he just bends my hand back further.

  “Stay out of things, dick head.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say. “Sorry.”

  And then he lets my hand go and I rub my wrist.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” I say. “Fuckin’ hell.”

  Me and Viv are that far gone, we’re lucky to be let in the ground. Or unlucky. Depends on your point of view. Shouting fucks and cunts as we’re going through the turnstiles, we are. Ollie’s trying to calm us down, but he’s got no chance. I’m back home for a weekend and I’m flying.

  It’s a shit match. Always is. But when they put one past us in injury time, it’s a real kick in the bollocks. The C stand loses its head. We spill out of there like a fucking tsunami.

  Judo Jamie’s reputation has saved him from Viv. Or the other way around. Fair play to Jamie, he’s kept his nose clean without throwing his weight around. But Viv’s just come across like the cunt he is. No one will ever say that to him mind. Reminds me of the time the big, lanky twat Sasha starts taking the piss out of me and Angharad when we start seeing each other.

  Nice girl, Angharad; less of a goer than Donna, Tracey and all those. A bit posher and clever too. Someone I can talk to a bit. Not so much emphasis on fuckin’ and sucking, though it does go on given time. She lets me have a bit of space to get used to the idea; that’s the difference. Thing is, she’s never done much either. Naïve as fuck we are, compared to everyone else. Necking with Pavel Shake by the lamppost outside her mam and dad’s is as far as she’s got. And then her brace got caught on his.

  “Fuckin disgusting it was, so I dumped him,” she says.

  Slowly, but surely, we get to grips with each other. First time I feel her up is in her mam and dad’s dining room, up against the wall. I’m sliding my fingers into her sweaty little bra until I feel the nub of her nipple. Rubbing my thumb over it like I’m trying to get a bit of old chewing gum off the bottom of a desk. And my cock’s like a rocket. Thank fuck. I’m straight as an arrow after all.

  I feel like shouting it from the roof tops. Coz I reckon being gay round here would be the end of me, and I’ve had my doubts about myself if I’m honest. Every other fucker dribbling ove
r Donna Owens and I’m like some uninterested third party even when she’s got her hand down my pants. And there was that time I grabbed Evsie’s leg under the bench in Science, just for a joke. I was only having a laugh, but he screamed and ran out. I didn’t come in for the rest of the week coz I thought I was gonna get my head caved in; thought everyone would have heard about it. Viv’s mum says you only do that sort of thing when you’re confused about your sexuality. Fuckin’ hell fire. But thanks to Angharad’s nipple, I’m pretty much sure I’m straight. I don’t shout anything from the rooftops though, coz it’ll bring her mam and dad through from the lounge.

  It’s a Saturday night and Angharad’s mam and dad are off to presentation night down Cardiff golf club, coz he plays a bit. Shit fucker I hear. Proper hacker. Air shots and all the rest of it. So Saturday morning I bob round SPAR for a DVD. I’m pacing about like some bored bear up Colwyn Bay Zoo, trying to pluck up the bollocks to take something down from the top shelf, even if it’s just a tame as fuck Playboy or whatever. And it doesn’t help that it’s bright as fuck in here and the cashier is my mam’s mate Laura Kidd, watching my every move with her big dopey eyes on the CCTV monitor she’s got at the till. Fit as fuck Laura is though; huge tits. I can’t bring myself to get anything out-and-out porno. Angharad would probably shit herself anyway. So I pick up a battered copy of get Basic Instinct from ‘ex-rentals for sale’ basket and take it to the till.

  “Oh aye,” says Laura, giving me this smile and raising her eyebrows. “Gonna have a posh wank are we?

  And it’s all I can do to not gawp at her tits through the cheap white shirt she’s got on. I can see her bra, near enough make out the big apple nipples that I’m pretty sure crown her milky white baps.

  “Come on Laura,” I say. “Just put it through.”

  “Why don’t you get Netflix on your phone or something? You can get proper wank material then, not some shit 1990s re-run.”

  I’m burning up. I could swear she touches her left tit, but I’m too busy trying to look calm to know for sure.

  “Data limits, innit,” is all I can say.

  Blip. She puts it through.

  “Three-fifty.”

  After tea, Angharad’s mam and dad leave for the club, her dad in this black polo-neck, looking like the milk-fuckin’-tray man, so she says. I take the film round. We put it on in the lounge, and fair dos we give it a chance, but it’s shit and before we know it we’re necking on the sofa. Angharad doesn’t even notice when the scene comes on. Hasn’t even heard about it, probably. But I’ve been waiting for ages for this bit so I push her off.

  “Hang on ‘Harad,” I say. “This is meant to be the important bit.”

  We watch it for a couple of minutes, but there’s fuck all to see in reality. Maybe if we’d been down the Odeon things would have been different, but on her mam and dad’s 40 incher, I don’t catch so much as a pube.

  “This is shite,” says Angharad.

  We get back to the necking. I don’t know if it’s me or her that initiates the slide off the settee onto the carpet, but Angharad’s on top of me now, straddling me, and fuck me if she doesn’t start undoing my belt. And there it is; there’s my cock, plain as fuckin’ day. Lying up against my stomach like a blue-veined flute. She takes it in her soft white fist and starts wanking me off. Slap, slap, slap it goes.

  She’s got on this white, wide-neck top that I pull down over one shoulder, then the other, and she slips her arms out. Then, gently, gently, I pull down her bra. First her left nipple pops clear, then the right. Two sausage-pink nipples, proud as punch, on tiny little tits. And she just carries on wanking my cock, slap, slap, slap, ‘til I shoot my load with such gusto that most of it ends up on my chin.

  But back to this Sasha cunt. From nowhere, he starts saying that I’m up Angharad’s arse and all sorts. Makes this song up about us and starts singing it in the common room. Where he got his balls from, I’ll never know. But I reckon Viv and all them lot put him up to it, trying to get a rise out of me. I know for a fact that Pavel Shake was involved. Probably fucked off with me good and proper for nicking his missus.

  I’m walking for the bus when this Sasha cunt bundles into me. Puts his big shoulder right in the middle of my back.

  “Go on Sash, lad,” Pavel says. “Do ‘im, Sash lad.”

  And he does it again, drops his shoulder right into my back so I go stumbling like a twat. I drop my bag and I’m groping about. Nine out of ten times, any fucker barges into me I’ll be spitting chips, trying to rake my fists into their face whether the poor fucker meant it or not. But this Sash lad has thought this through. It’s a premeditated bit of intimidation, and it seems to have Pavel’s blessing too. And he’s no soft lad either. I’ve seen him windmill into lads three or four years older and come out on top. All this means my head goes a bit west.

  I’m trying to think. Being attacked like this at half five just when I’m winding down is bit tricky to get my head round. Think, you prick. Think. And then, somehow, I’ve made it to my bus and Sasha fucks off to his.

  The next day, I’ve got my head together. I’m in English and Sasha barrels in like some gorilla twat. Honest to God he thinks he’s got me beat. But it’s not even begun. He’s a long, rangy bastard. But at the end of the day, he’s useless. I saw Ad Eds kick him in once when we were about 16. Ad just pummelled away, throwing head punches over and over like they were going out of fashion. Sasha curls up, hands over his head like a baby.

  He sits down behind me and I wait for him to get comfortable. There’s no rush. I even feel his lanky foot giving my chair leg a nudge, like he’s some big made man or something. Thing is though, he’s got a bit carried away. Viv and Pavel and whoever else’ve got him so lathered up he’d have a go at his own nana. I turn round and slide my chair so we’re facing each other across his desk. I’ve never seen him look so in control. He almost scares me. But I lean over and put my right arm around his neck, all gentle, and pull him close.

  “Sash,” I say, nice and quiet. “What the fuck’s all this about? These songs you’ve made up? This shoulder barging in the inside yard?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Just carry on, Sash la’, carry on,” I say. “Do whatever you’ve got to do. But I just wanna say this. I don’t wanna fight you, coz you’re a big lad, and I don’t wanna get my head bent.”

  And then I change my tone.

  “But you know what?” I say, grabbing his neck, bringing him in close. “If you wanna fight, I’ll break your fuckin’ neck. If you make me fight you, I’ll break your fuckin’ neck and shit all over you.”

  And then I go all nice and quiet and calm again.

  “But I don’t wanna fight you, Sash lad. You’re a good lad, you are.”

  And he doesn’t say a word.

  It’s a free period the same day. I’m finishing up in Music Tech when the buzzer goes, with Viv, Pavel and a few others, but this Sasha lad’s in another lecture or something. As I’m getting my stuff together, word goes round that there’s gonna be a fight and I get this sick feeling coz I know what’s coming. I’m thinking oh fuck no. And then Pavel Shake makes sure I know what’s coming.

  “Sasha says he’s gonna fuck you up by the netball court,” he says.

  And by the time this nugget has sunk in, everyone’s jeering and filing down the corridors, out the side exit to the netball court.

  My heart’s going nineteen to the dozen, but there’s no option, so I follow the throng. I open the door and half the college is here. It’s like Cardiff on a Saturday just before kick-off. The same morbid fascination. People with fuck all else in their lives to look forward to, but watching shit like this. I can feel the old sphincter going. The crowd parts as I come out and I try to fix a grin on my face but I’m looking round, behind me, to my sides, trying to spot Sasha before he knocks my head off my shoulders without me even seeing him coming.


  And then I realise that he’s not here yet. We’re all waiting for him, me included. Waiting for him like he’s the big attraction, top of the bill. Like I’m Frank Bruno and he’s Michael fuckin’ Tyson. While we’re waiting, everyone’s got something to say. Some uplifting fucker tells me I’m gonna get lamped. Think, you fucker, think. I have to turn this fear into something useful. It doesn’t help that I’m shaking like a crapping dog. If I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Angharad’s here, baying for blood like the rest of ‘em.

  “Nobody’s had a fight over me before,” she says, clutching her tits with crossed arms, hamming it up, swooning likes she’s getting off on it. Proud as fuck she is, in front of her mates. Clit like a golf ball, I bet.

  But this sends me through the roof. Seeing her there, no better than the rest of these cunts. Worse, in fact. Flicks my switch, it does. Suddenly there’s steam coming out my ears and I’m gonna kill this Sasha the minute he steps outside. I’m gonna be all over him like a rabid dog, kicking and butting and biting. I’m not gonna let up until he’s in a pool of blood and snot, pissing in his pants, crying for his mam.