Glue Bag

'Oh Mark, shift for a second. See if I can jump over the bench,' Wes
goes. Skateboard in hand, he goes to the top park, just where the gate
is, then moving slowing down the path gathering speed. Coming down
faster, when he reaches arm distance, he puts his heels into the back
of the board, lifting the board up, and slides across the benches
back.
'Is that skill or wha'?' he boasts. 'Martin, your go now.'
'You are taking the piss, aren't you?' I replies.
'Just do it.'
'Go on, Marts, lets see you do something,' Batty goes.
I haven't done anything fancy on a skateboard for years, even then all
I did was ride over badly made ramps and that was about it. This was
around about the time when everyone had skateboards for Christmas and
everyone would boast what tricks they could do. This was just phrase,
didn't last that long. Not like Wes, getting into the culture and all
that.
I get to the same spot where Wes was, then place the board on my
trainers, wheels facing up. I'd then jump on the board and starts to
gather speed. I also use my right leg for speed as I go down faster. My
idea was just to jump on the bench using the board and just ride on the
flat surface, but I was soon put off, knowing that I wasn't able to do
it.
'I'm not exactly a trick person,' I goes.
'Can see that,' Batty laughs.
'This place just needs a few ramps and we're sorted,' Wes goes.
'Like that's really going to happen,' Carla goes, finishing off a
bottle of cola. Becki wasn't far behind her. She asks Batty if she
could use his marker pen to leave her mark. We were all going to do
that anyway. Vandals aye fair enough, but I'm sure we'd pay the council
tax for it later. Then again, Batty's tags might make it into an art
gallery one day. But it has to be said, wasn't exactly impressed with
what I had written down.
'Kurt Cobain RIP,' Batty goes to me. 'Marts, that's the sort of thing
that you'd cover fucking exercise books with, not as a tag.'
'Alrigh' then, pass the pen over,' I goes, ready to do another. When I
did the second one, it looked rather tacky, nothing like Batty's but
then again he had already made it into an art.
'Fatboy?' Batty questions.
'That's what I got called in my last school,' I explains. Though it
was meant to be an insult, I somewhat got used to that name since then,
much better than the usual taunts that got more harder to deal with.
Fatboy; I liked the way it sounds, so I chose it for a tag name.
'Its got a ring to it,' Wes goes.
'Aye, rather appropriate there though,' Batty goes on.
'You taking the piss or something,' I goes.
'Was I taking the piss? Anyway, you're not that fucking fat. Got to be
said, not a bad name for a tag,' Batty reckons.
'Aye, then someone could write 'he ate all the pies,' Wes jokes. I
looked at him, I walked up to him, and I had him in a headlock and
rubbed my knuckles into his head. I was just messing, understanding the
joke. Thing was, I was able to joke about it, my 'fatness' if you like,
with this lot, as opposed to wankers and two faced shits like Harry
Stevens.
'Hello, what's this then?' Carla goes, looking over the swings. 'Oh, I
can see Sulky from here.'
'Who's he with?' Batty wonders.
Not the Reebok Posse, but then again they wore anything that was
costly and had a brand name on it. There must've been about five of
them, but I was standing where Carla was so it was difficult to make
out who was there.
'Is that Tracy there?' Becki goes.
Tracy, long time since I was told about her. Had a psycho for a
brother, Sal, glassing bouncers after battering someone for grassing
him to the police over drug deals. Known for going down the Vetch just
for a few rucks, see if there were any sort of gangs there to go abroad
with and do the same there. Its known that Tracy did what her older
brother did; bobby knock Pakis, get one of the boys to piss through the
letter, usually things.
They look around the park, no doubt seeing us, just having a laugh. We
did notice they had this yellow carrier bad with them, thinking it was
just cheap lager or something that they got someone else to buy. Wes
and I had a race from the top, just to see who would come down the
fastest but Carla soon stopped that when 'they' came round. We just
talked, Batty sat on the bench back and Becki followed suit.
'Alrigh' there bastards?' Sulky goes. 'Wha' you doing round here then,
playing touch?'
'Just getting fresh air,' Carla replies.
'Was I talking to you?'
'We're just hanging round,' Batty explains.
'Well, you can fuck off now cause we're here,' Tracy goes, holding the
bag.
'Well we're here first, so why don't you piss off somewhere else?'
Carla butts in.
'You're turning into a right cheeky cow now, aren't you?'
'Just saying, we were here first.'
'Well I'm telling you and friends to piss off.'
'Sorry, but we're staying.'
'I'll smack you one now.'
'Aye, can't do that down the Hafod can you, then grassed up to the
pigs.'
They soon both got into a scrap, Tracy nailing into Carla pulling
hair. Wes dragged Carla away only to manage to give Tracy a fist to her
face. Eventually, we did give in, rather than take it further.
'Look, we're off,' Wes goes, 'bastard junkies.'
'Wha' you fucking call us,' Sulky goes.
'He called you junkies, happy now?' Carla replies.
'Aye, that's what you got kicked out of school for, wasn't it?'
'You're asking for a kicking.'
'Yeah,' Wes storms, slamming his board to the ground, 'fucking kick me
in, just us too yeah.'
Sulky just laughed, like he was already off his face. The others just
stood there. With the others in a spitting distance, I just looked at
them.
'Wha' are looking fucking looking at?' Tracy goes to me. I pretended
to ignore her and left with the others, Wes picked up his board, making
further scratches to the edges.
There was good reason why they wanted our spot. There was this
building that was hardly used, used like an old man's gentlemen's club
where they'd drink tea and play cards, maybe it was a boxing club. The
windows were boarded up with silver grids but never knew what was in
there cause it hadn't been used for years. I thought that bag was full
of cans but I was put to rights otherwise.
'Probably a bottle of vodka,' Becki begins, 'and the rest happens to
be glue and a gas can.'
'Why don't they do what some of the boys in my school do, wait till
they have a science lesson, go to the back of the class and just whiff
some gas out of the gas taps,' I goes.
'That's what they did last year,' Batty tells me.
'After they've inhaled, they're going to put the gear behind that
building' I wonders.
'Probably,' Carla replies.
I tagged along with Wes the following day, just after we had I had
done my evening round. We went to the park, skateboards in hands, just
for that race that we didn't get round to finishing yesterday. It was
agreed that we our legs for speed when we passed the first bench, and
the race would end after we had passed that disused building.
'Boys, could we have a word with you both' a voice goes. Turns out to
be a policeman, with a few other people behind the building getting at
something. Miss Wilcott also happens to be present, worse luck.
'Could you two tell me where you two were yesterday evening? Do you
come here often?' he asks us.
'Now and again,' Wes replies.
'Were you here yesterday by any chance?'
'Only for a while,' Wes goes, then turning to me in agreement.
'We were just playing around on our skateboards,' I goes, just backing
up what Wes had already said, easing the tension.
'So I take it none of you boys don't glue sniff or take alcohol?' the
officer goes on.
'No,' we both reply.
'You didn't see anyone carrying a yellow bag like that by any chance?'
the officer points out.
'We did see someone, with a gang,' I begins, 'they had a bag like
that.'
'But we don't know their names' Wes finishes off.
'Can you describe what they were wearing?'
'Sports wear mainly,' Wes replies in a nervous way, but we're in the
clear. The other officer bags the contents into see through bags. From
a distance these turned out to be what was expected; a gas can, which
they found a couple of, a small tub of glue, and other things such as
razor blades and other substances for getting high. The police got
called when a man had let his dog run round the park, went to the
building and started to get things from behind, the first thing being
that yellow bag.
How Miss Wilcott got involved I will never know, but she clocked our
damage on the bench where we were yesterday and decided to play police
with us, the bitch, calling the officer that questioned us over.
'You didn't do this yesterday instead by any chance?' she goes.
'No we didn't', Wes replies.
'Are you sure?'
'Positive.'
'Well, I do remember you two throwing stones at my house.'
'That was ages though with someone else.'
'So what about this then?'
'No we didn't do it. Anyway, all that will be faded in good
time.'
'Boys, did you do it?' the officer asks us.
'No' we both reply and that was that, Wilcott with a grump her face.
Talking to her friends who happened to walk by, she'd point to us like
we did do it, in usually old church going lady disgust and agreement
like they were in parliament.
'She still thinks its us,' I goes.
'Does she give you a bollocking for every time you go through her gate
by any chance,' Wes wonders.
'No, only when we stamped on her flower bed with Gav Boy.'
'I reckon he led them to it.'
'Who? What do you reckon Gav Boy did then?'
'Righ,' basically, Gav Boy started inhaling in the Science labs, and
they just followed. Once Gav got chucked out he'd hang round with Sulky
and that lot outside school, and they'd start sniffing outside, got the
idea?'
'Fuck, in a way he did use us.'
'Telling you now, that boy is going to worse.'