Boyracers (8 page)

‘Fucksakes,’ Brian sighed, shaking his head at the telly. His own dad was in the army, Brian barely saw him, and now they don’t talk. This is why he has the house to himself usually, with all its lonely family-less space. Onscreen, a soldier hunted for his missing arm on the grey beach, a wall of rain on the horizon sweeping closer. The soft fall of pain. Someone shot through the skull and

Me and Frannie pogoing with 40,000 nutters to Pride (In the Name of Love), Frannie ignoring the Irish tricolour flags, Dolby’s there! He’s pretending that he doesn’t think Bono’s a knob and has even learned the words to everything on Achtung Baby and

‘Aw them lives lost.’ Brian’s eyes became misty. He wiped at them manfully, dignified, and I wondered when the last time he spoke to his dad was. Bodies littering the beach, the surf a light crimson colour, lapping like a stray dog at a scrap of bare meat and

Soon Bono calls me up onstage during With or Without You for a slow dance and I’m cuddled into him and even though he’s been performing for two hours he’s not sweaty and

‘If I was a religious man I’d say a prayer for them boys,’ said Brian, sort of talking to himself, distant, humble and

We slide towards the derelict car-park like sharks.

Across the horizon, lights in a row mean parents with children,
watching
telly, maybe Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The industrial estate in
Middlefield has concrete walls spidery with lichen, vacant windows. Idlewild are singing Actually It’s Darkness on Radio 1, but Dolby cuts them off as we turn the corner, making Belinda a vacuum, making the noise from the car-park bubble and spit to life. Laughter, young and male, honed on garage forecourts. Motors revving like dogs on leashes. Music, dance mostly, but bursts here and there of Shania Twayne from a pink Fiat Punto, Coldplay, Limp Bizkit. My blood drums along. Brian going, ‘So my Uncle Tam oot in California says I can join him any time I like. Just needtay get ma visa. California boys, eh?’

‘California girls!’ Frannie nyuk-nyuks.

Light sluicing from the cars up one side. Silver metalwork with a rainbow flip. A girl answering her phone, her silhouette knife-thin against the headlights. A tower of Reebok checks his texts. Phones
ringing
everywhere, a seizure of bleeping, drug deals spiralling into the air above us.

As we cruise up the line, Brian points at the boys, ‘Fiat Uno … Ford Fiesta … Golf …’

As we cruise up the line, Frannie points at the girls, ‘Rancor Monster … Snaggletooth … Hammerhead …’

Two guys place loose change on the roof of a Vauxhall Corsa. The bass throbs and the coins dance, a miniature rave. ‘The guy’s name wis Shiny,’ Dolby’s muttering, as we smooth past a gang of girls. They are lionesses spotting a wildlife photographer. ‘Met him on a chatroom last night.’

‘Shiny?’ Frannie says. ‘Sortay fuckin name’s that?’

‘Sortay fuckin name’s Frannie?’

Chatroom, I’m thinking. Internet, I’m thinking. First killings by internet cult, I’m thinking.

Tyra Mackenzie was wearing a salmon-pink blouse today with a silver chain, her skin lightly freckled like eggshell.

There’s a tap at the window. Some dude gestures for us to roll it down. He casts an eye over our dashboard – for woofer speakers? strobe lights? – and snorts to see it bare. ‘You Shiny?’ Dolby asks him, guarded.

When he smiles his front teeth jut out like a rodent’s. ‘Why?’ he yips. ‘Whit d’ye want?’

‘Just telt tay ask for Shiny.’

His teeth nibble at his bottom lip. ‘Aw, you the chatroom boy? Uriel?’ Frannie glances at me, smirking. ‘Nay bother, pal.’ Our host breaks into a grin. ‘I’m Shiny. Just makin sure ye’re no the pigs, ken?’

‘Of course,’ Dolby manages nervously, ‘em … whaur do we go then?’

Shiny’s smile is bringing on nightmares. It seems to eat into the sides of his face. He’s dressed head to toe in Adidas, his hair slicked back as though he’s just climbed out from a toilet. He catches my eye, sees my discomfort, and his grin burrows further into his cheeks. Then he’s rubbing his hands. ‘Got yer readies there, gents?’

We fish in our pockets for a couple of quid, Brian grumbling like an old colonel, which we hand to Dolby, which he hands to Shiny, which Shiny pockets in one of those bags that hang at your belly, the kind used by those guys at the waltzers who shout, ‘scream if you wanna go faster!’

‘Just drive up there, mate. Watch the races if ye want. Wait yer turn for the burnout.’

Dolby nods.

‘Burnout?’ says Frannie, as we are coralled to the head of the
car-park
, past – I don’t believe it – a van selling Mr Whippy ice-cream. ‘Fuck’s a burnout?’

‘Just think it sounds gid,’ Dolby mumbles, turning the wheel smoothly, treating Belinda like she’s a girl he wants to keep sweet, as
though their relationship hangs in the balance. We park behind a purple Mazda, two neds dropping bottles and chart hits from the window, elbows (Nike) leaning nonchalantly. There we wait, listening to Primal Scream, not talking, watching the cars purr in and out,
creating
a secret language with their engines, windows rolled down, banter and fags lit, a sudden laugh like a firework, someone boasting, not caring who hears, ‘I’ve written aff three motors and a mountain bike,’ as a girl with a clipboard – neat hair, like a secretary – asks if we want to put our names down for a race.

‘Um,’ I say, ‘I’ve no brought ma trainers.’

‘Shut up,’ she tuts savagely.

‘It’s awright, hen,’ Dolby says, ‘we’ll just watch.’

The Lads glare at me, mortified.

after a while, in which Frannie bores us with another Tesco’s story, motors start gathering in the middle of the car-park and the air
tightens
. There are whistles and catcalls. Expectation. ‘Shiny was tellin me the things they get uptay,’ Dolby’s saying, ‘like recreatin the Grand Prix course every year round Falkirk.’

The secretary girl is holding her hand up.

‘Maistly, they meet up in places like this and–’

The crowd clears. She picks up a flag, holds it aloft, stretching her arm so high her back becomes a drawn bow.

‘– race.’

Two cars appear in a burst, tyres screeching. They jostle, neck and neck, fumes billowing, everyone cheering. They accelerate towards a wall at the far end of the car-park, but the crowd converging behind them block our view. Squealing breaks. We crane our necks.

Light confusion settles to the ground. Girlfriends’ anxious hands flutter at their throats.

Two figures step out from the cars. Applause. Arms wave in the headlights like a strobe show. Friends grab the victor, shaking his hand, patting his back, telling him he’s mad, mad, he’s a mad bastard, but he doesn’t seem quite there for a second. He smiles vaguely, then takes a long unbroken gulp from a can of Miller, throwing back his head, beer pissing from his lips, and something animal is roared at the black sky.

the burnout goes like this: a gang of people stand in front of a car with their hands on the bonnet. The driver pulls the handbrake and starts revving up the engine, gradually increasing pressure on the accelerator. When it hits the floor he drops the clutch, and the wheels spin madly on the spot. Then he releases the handbrake and the crowd scatters like a shoal of fish and everyone laughs. Up to you to get out of the way in time.

Three of these break up the races. One car sacrifices its clutch. The second roars forwards like a tiger, neds slapping the bonnet as it is freed. The third car revs too long and the engine fails, a genie of smoke hissing from it. All the other cars honk horns and flash lights and we watch. The dangerous allure of it. The way girls drift towards the
drivers
and hang at their sides like ornaments. Low-grade electricity buzzes between us. ‘This is the shout,’ Brian says, charged, ready, and then we’re leaping out of the car to join the crowd, wringing each other’s shoulders, yelping like children and it’s

Witnessed: Frannie copping off with a skank in the backseat of Belinda. We stand outside in the night air, freezing and full of wonder. The dazed shouts. The way drivers stopped expertly before the wall. Surely, they all know that someday one of them won’t stop in time.

morning and I’m standing with the hash-heads at the back of the History huts. Not that I partake, mind, just that Barry and Gordo – the Cheech
and Chong of Falkirk High – have between them the Floyd’s entire back catalogue on CD. Today it’s my copy of The Wall for Barry’s Delicate Sound of Thunder for Gordo’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn, as hands appear from the wreath of smoke then withdraw covertly.

‘Sure ye dinnay want a draw?’ Gordo offers, squinting through the grey fronds. ‘Just one for Syd Barrett?’

He and Barry laugh explosively (at?) before descending into a
whispered
exchange and brief paroxysms of giggles. It’s guys like these who were responsible for Hallglen becoming Hash Glen, sniggering,
slack-eyed
Syd acolytes that have a thousand potholes scattered around Falkirk High. Harmless. Sometimes even good for patter. They
definitely
know their Floyd. But when I’m with them I feel funky and unfunny, on the edge of things. This is what I do, float from group to group, liked by all, accepted by none. Like Icarus, I soar against the underbelly of the Livingstone set, then descend, wings fluttering, to the level of the grasshoppers. Each thinks I surely belong with the other lot.

‘This is cheap shite,’ Gordo splutters. ‘You been buyin aff Big Mark again?’

There is a famous story of Barry, when he was twelve, buying off Big Mark Baxter. Barry boasting to everyone at Gordo’s house that night that he knew his shit, that he was ‘well in wi the Fear crew likes,’ not knowing that Mark had sold him two Oxo cubes. ‘Ha fuckin ha,’ Barry tuts.

Gordo is the rumour conduit of Falkirk High, an oracle in Nikes. He hears things vibrating across the floor, or spoken to him in a dream. You can see him lounged in some doorway at break, a pale wraith in a shroug of ganja, murmuring, ‘New Chemistry teacher’s a dyke, gen up.’ He knows where every boyracer in Falkirk has been in the last month, who they saw there, what they were listening to, probably knows where they’re going next. We could consult him, cross-legged
before a poster of Bob Marley, for Cottsy reports, leave rizlas at his door by way of thanks. Gordo knows all about Brian’s head-to-head with Cottsy at the bowling-alley and he knows where all the races are happening and he knows about a Snobs Party coming up, Jennifer Haslom’s birthday. ‘Should be a classy do,’ he muses, then takes a long toke. ‘Nay skanks like us there.’

‘Fuck that, man,’ says Barry, shaking his head, ‘be fullay knobs. David Easton, James French, Louisa Wanwright, Tyra Mackenzie, Connor Livingstone …’

‘I hate that cunt,’ Gordo tuts sourly. He offers me his roach, which I refuse, then they start a raunchy conversation about Tyra in various states of undress and position, Jimi Hendrix playing in the background, which makes me quite uncomfortable, so I distract them: do they reckon we’ll get an invite?

Loud cackling.

‘Us?

‘Ye jokin?’

‘Sure ye’re no wantin some ay this?’

‘Naw.’

‘Anywey, Alvin,’ says Gordo, ‘you’ll be awright. Tyra’s keen on you.’

‘Is she?’ I say, too quickly, and they collapse again into an ecstasy of giggles. I sigh, turn, see First Years hurrying back before the bell past these Fifth Years with their funny cigarettes. They peek at us and scurry on. Their shoes are gleaming black. Their hair is cut straight. Their eyes are alive with zest for life. They are wondering how it all becomes a sad toke behind the History huts.

‘Naw, seriously,’ Barry remarks, sticking the next spliff behind his ear, ‘you’re brainy. You’ll end up invited.’

‘I will not,’ I tut, secretly thrilled at the prospect. ‘I’m no like them.’

Gordo shrugs, staring into the distance, ‘Might no have their money, mate, but I dinnay see ye fillin yer brain fullay this shite either.’

Smoke hangs around their heads like gaseous lead. Their eyes are downcast, dismal with hash. The bell rings and they look up slowly, as if god has just spoken to them. So I leave them there, standing dumb as drugged rabbits, revelation floating between their fingers. Copy of Delicate Sound of Thunder in hand, I head for class … a party invite? one foot in the camp of Cleopatra? I picture myself surrounded by Jennifer Haslom, Louisa Wainwright and Tyra Mackenzie in silken garments, all dancing seductively to Delicate Sound of Thunder (Dave Gilmour’s guitar solo at the end of Comfortably Numb) and I am not coping. Today, someone stopped me in the hall and said, ‘heard Cottsy kicked your mate’s heid in,’ and I stood there, listening, restraining a need to run away, far away from him. But I did nothing. Except stared. Nodded. Snarled convincingly, ‘the cunt whit said that better watch oot,’ and later, in the toilets, I wrote feverishly on the back of the door THIS WORLD IS KILLING ME.

so we’re in Brian’s living room, right, and Batman is on the telly (a good one, before Jim Carrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger came along and ruined it for everyone) and we’re swapping a single can of Irn-Bru since none of the Lads has been paid from work yet. Brian makes a pile of toast a la margarine while we watch Batman at work, munch, snigger at the décor of Brian’s house while he goes and makes more toast. ‘Who lives in a house like this?’ goes Frannie, sweeping a finger along a shelf.

‘Shaft!’ goes Dolby.

‘Can you dig it?’

soon we’re slouched like collapsed deck-chairs, Homer-bellies on show, only vaguely registering the film. Frannie and Brian moan about the
length of their shifts, and when they ask about Tyra I say that, like Juliet, she is the sun. No, I definitely don’t. They lapse into a brief
self-pity
, until Frannie, quite unexpectedly, leaps from his seat and shouts, ‘It’s him!’

‘Who?’

Frannie stabs at the rewind button. The screen whizzes back to a scene with a reporter walking into his office. All of his colleagues are mocking his interest in the story of a caped vigilante stalking Gotham City. One of them says