by Dan Cummings
Garth swatted Noakes on the shoulder. ‘In that respect, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Now go on, git. Before your little friend over there starts causing some mischief.’
Noakes looked over at Staubach, resting on a yellow paint-flaking railing. Noakes raised his muscular, ink-adorned arms to his chest and cracked his knuckles in agitation. ‘Yeah, okay.’
‘I’ll call you when it’s done. You need one of my guys to drop you boys off? Cal is on a break anyway.’ The beefy, almost unevolved-looking Cal was off discussing some private affairs with a roly-poly long-haul trucker next to a parked big rig, their hands exchanging something as they chuckled like old friends.
Noakes softened slightly and was already walking over to where Staubach stewed. ‘Just Lloyd and the stray. Thanks again, Garth.’ The stress from the broken window still ate away at him, like the powdered glass was scratching abrasively at his calm. It didn’t matter how many old war stories Garth could tell about his dad and uncle Grainger and the Firebird, he still felt like he had let his old man down with this inexplicable occurrence. Locking away his own sense of failure, he observed Staubach’s agitation with a time-honoured patience. Staubach had been conducting himself like a grumpy baby missing his dummy since being denied his second opportunity to beat on those guys back at school. In lieu of a dummy, a bottle of beer had been offered as a pacifier and the sound of pneumatic tools and blue-collar language his lullaby.
Staubach broke his brooding reverie and straightened up as Noakes approached. Finishing off the rest of the bottle in one long draft, he belched, ‘Any ideas?’
‘No. Some weird gunky shit on the glass.’
‘I still reckon somebody threw somethin’,’ Staubach insisted.
‘Did you see anything?’
Staubach clenched his jaw and chose to look away at the oil-stained lot where Lloyd was enjoying teasing and flat-out embarrassing the awkward and graceless Dodd in a one-on-one basketball game using two small columns of tyres for nets in the makeshift court.
‘Yeah, me neither,’ Noakes settled the issue, or at least he hoped. They walked over to where Lloyd was continuing to dance circles around Dodd.
The lithe athlete stilled the ball and held it against his hip. ‘How long will it take to fix that dinosaur?’
‘Day or so. Garth’ll call me.’
Dodd rubbed a salty streak of sweat from his crewcut, his yellow-black bruised eye looking like a smeared bumble bee. ‘Your uncle will be pissed, huh?’ He almost broke through the thin ice of Noakes’s eyes and quickly returned to floundering after Lloyd, who had so far failed to so much as raise his pulse from the exercise.
‘This damage will be coming out of my pocket.’ The muscles on Noakes’ forearms bunched and bulged in accordance with his tightly squeezed fists.
Shit Storm enjoyed seeing Noakes get worked up, quietly hoping he would snap and join him on his level for some unfiltered destruction and violence. It tended to take something big in order to set him off but when such an occurrence transpired it filled him with an electrical tingle, a promise of wrath which in this instance appeared to be, regretfully, not forthcoming. If only there was somebody they could pin the blame on. That would set a fire under Noakes’s ass and make him jump. Staubach watched Dodd fumble around the way a languishing lion might watch a juicy antelope, debating on whether sinking his teeth into the little wimp would offer up some satisfaction.
Noakes punched him in the shoulder to get his attention. ‘You going deaf?’
‘What?’ Staubach almost snapped, pulled from his fantasy.
‘Get your bike,’ Noakes repeated, ‘it’s time to see Grainger.’
Lloyd overheard this and stopped mid-dribble. ‘What about us? I wouldn’t have come along if you were just going to bail on us.’
Staubach walked off to several large storage units near the rear of the garage, whipping the dust sheet off his Kawasaki KX 250. The lime green-painted buzz saw on wheels was second-hand but remained in top condition; useful transport for deliveries and off-roading across town. Wheeling it past another of Garth’s reformed colleagues hard at work, Staubach threw one leg over the machine and waited for Noakes to climb on the back.
Noakes adjusted the heavy semi-automatic pistol in the back of his waistband and placed his feet on the passenger pedals. ‘Relax, superstar. Cal’s gonna drop you off. You got your hydro, smoke it and be happy.’
Staubach gunned the engine, the powerful shrill whine competing with the sound of the mechanics earning their cash-in-hand wages. Staubach and Noakes blazed out of the yard, kicking up dust as they turned onto the badly-maintained switchback of Wilmslow Road, speeding southeast towards the terminally-ill section of Birch Creek. Lloyd and Dodd watched them vanish around the wall of towering trees.
Lloyd sighed and bounced the ball, caught it and passed it to Dodd with no real enthusiasm. ‘You dunk it, I roll it.’
Dodd smiled like a hopeful dimwit, his fingers running along the surface of the ball, feeling the texture, perhaps believing that his caress was imbuing the ball with some type of good fortune. His tongue slipped out the corner of his mouth, giving him a child-like quality or maybe just that of a simpleton. Springing up on the toes of his shambolic Vans, form looking good, Dodd was about to shoot. With one quick, lengthy stride, Lloyd stepped in and powerfully slapped the ball from Dodd’s opening hands like a grown man playing against an infant. The ball bounced away over to a long forgotten, rusted engine too far gone for reclamation.
Lloyd scooped the fat sack of chronic from his team’s shorts and thrust it into Dodd’s chest. ‘You missed, you’re rolling.’
Accepting the order, the squirrely Dodd slumped his shoulders in disappointment and grabbed the baggie. The pair of them walked over to the interior of the stripped and wrecked car to smoke and wait for Cal.
Chapter 9
The skate park was a graffiti-ridden series of half-pipes, bowls, drop-ins and tables. A vast playground for daredevils keen on testing their bravery and bone strength. Over the decades the official, legal open ground of the park had secretly expanded beyond the tiresome health and safety regulations, with some of the thrill-seekers setting up a DIY guerrilla minefield in the adjacent disused warehouse which loomed nearby. Nick used the edge of the magic-marker-covered bench to pop the cap on his beer, passing it to Lindsey and grabbing himself another from the plastic bag.
‘Do you guys skate?’ Lindsey asked, watching several maniacs twist in the silvery, overcast sky like human tornados.
Nick, sipping his beer and sitting beside her on the bench, felt very lucky for the moment. ‘I’m not that crazy.’
Deb was practically close enough to sit on Lindsey’s knee despite the generous bench space. ‘Then why do you come here?’
She had of course declined an offer of beer, content to imbibe her own distaste and mistrust of Neil and Sam, but as for Matt…it was difficult to tell.
‘You never watched skaters bail whilst stoned?’ Matt asked, cross-legged on the table top behind Deb.
‘No, I have a life,’ she sneered.
‘That must be nice.’ Matt took a swig of beer. In a nearby bowl, Halloween revels were already in motion. A camcorder-carrying tin-man was directing a pirate, a rubber pumpkin-masked menace and a rabble of other skaters whirling around the largest empty pool like rampaging costume store monsters.
Neil pointed to the large half-pipe before them, the one being observed by the crooked, broken eyes of the boarded-up warehouse, his finger falling on the acrobat in the green helmet and Glassjaw t-shirt. ‘I’ll bet you three fingers of beer that that dude is the next to wreck himself.’
Lindsey grinned suspiciously, the breeze fanning dark strands of hair across her face. ‘This seems kind of grim.’
‘It’s almost like we don’t belong here or something,’ Deb sniped. Lindsey played dumb to the comment.
‘Do you feel bad for those parkour idiots who throw themselves off buildings?’ Sam reasoned, sl
owly recovering from his shell shock.
‘I’ll admit they must be bananas but I don’t enjoy knowing they’ve hurt themselves.’
Sam didn’t understand people who sympathised with those who harboured death wishes, but tried to view the issue from Lindsey’s perspective. For Neil. ‘These guys have knee pads, they’ll be fine.’
‘So what do you say?’ Neil smiled raffishly. ‘Deal?’
Lindsey liked the dimples which framed his smile, but not as much as the daring life in his eyes. ‘Deal.’ She was really swept up in the energy and colour of this place. A self-appointed DJ hovered around a large group of kids and let his boom box bark out Ho99o9’s Hated In Amerika like a vicious kicked dog. They all watched Green Helmet like hungry vultures, ready to swoop down and pick at the innards of his self-respect should he come a cropper. After a sequence of smooth varials and nosebones he capped it all off with a 720 to a round of whooping applause and ovations. ‘Yay,’ she clapped excitedly, revelling in her own personal victory, and the fact that the skater didn’t cripple himself.
‘Wrecked yourself, stretch. Drink up.’ Matt clinked his bottle with Sam who was hip-leaning into the bench.
‘Suds to be you,’ Lindsey said shamelessly.
Neil winced. ‘Shit…a pun too?’ He downed the punishment happily. ‘That’s a bet I don’t mind losing.’
Matt pointed at another kid, maybe a few years younger than the last show-off, with a blue faux-hawk, strapping his helmet on and waiting precipitously on the lip of the ramp. ‘I can smell this dude’s fear. I’ll wager the full bottle he wipes out.’
Deb looked over her shoulder at him scornfully, then seemed to appeal to Lindsey’s better judgement. ‘Maybe you got nothing better to do later, but we do. Getting drunk in this dump is lame.’
Lindsey felt awkward, feeling her nagging but well-meaning bestie ruining her chance with Neil. ‘It’s just a few beers, Deb. I think we’ll be okay. It’s Friday, we always work our asses off. It’s okay to have a little fun.’
Deb averted her eyes with a discreet head shake, her attention returning repeatedly to Sam’s van like it might come alive and chauffeur her away from these idiots, even if she did find Matt cute.
Matt decided to make it his personal mission to lighten her up. ‘C’mon, Deb. Sit back, relax, and let’s watch this kid hurt himself.’ They watched; the sound of a dozen or more boards thundering along the wooden ramps seemed to be rumbling to a crescendo as the underdog racked up an increasingly flashy repertoire of tricks to get a good flow. Moment of truth. Not wanting to be upstaged by his friend, he attempted his own 720. It was a mistake. Crashing down the smooth half-pipe, he skidded to a stop in a tangle of limbs. Matt and Sam high-fived then Matt held his stinging palm out to Deb, showing dogged persistence until she finally conceded with a fractional smile and a half-hearted palm slap. ‘See, one guy’s pain is another guy’s entertainment. Fun and good grades don’t need to be mutually exclusive.’
Deb’s smile inched wider, her standoffish defences lowering to that of a marginal compromise. ‘Fine, one won’t kill me. Pass me a bottle.’
Matt accepted a beer from Sam, used the table top manoeuvre to prise open Deb’s bottle and gave her a look which seemed to say was that so bad? They watched the crash test dummy limp about briefly, moving out of the way for the next skin-graft candidate. ‘Is it just me or are none of you honouring the bet?’ Matt asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Deb went selectively deaf at the question; succumbing to Matt’s impish charms started and ended with accepting the bottle. Neil and Lindsey, however, accepted their losses like pros and commenced sinking their whole bottles with some friendly competition. Neil was edging the lead easily enough but with smiling eyes noticed that Lindsey was giving some impressive rivalry. Deb watched her friend with distinct disapproval and casually sipped her beer. Nearing the bottom of the bottle, Lindsey coughed and sputtered the ale all across the concrete in a giggling fit, her eyes watering. Matt cheered, attracting a moment’s worth of attention from some of the idle skaters.
Neil raised his hands in victory then patted Lindsey on the back whilst she struggled to control her laughter. ‘It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the participation.’
‘Ah, screw it, losing was clearly more fun than winning.’ Matt chugged down his beer and in quicker fashion than Neil no less. Deb rolled her eyes and questioned what she found so intriguing about this guy. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand in a belated attempt at daintiness.
‘It might be a dumb question but are you going to the Halloween party tomorrow? Err, both of you?’ Neil amended.
Lindsey had actually been in two minds since word about it first started circulating around the student body, but that didn’t stop her from nodding like a bobble head. ‘Of course we are,’ she lied, tapping Deb on the thigh to encourage her silence should she flap her prudent yap. ‘We just haven’t been able to make our minds up on outfits.’ Glancing at Lindsey’s swatting hand, Deb felt her mild resurgence of over protectiveness threatening to put a dampener on what sounded like an official date but as quickly as it rose up, she allowed it to fizzle out. ‘What are you going as?’ Lindsey asked.
Neil turned and glanced at Sam for a second. ‘I’m going as Donald Trump. Got that blond turd wig and everything. Sam is going as a Mexican drug dealer.’
Lindsey snickered, ‘Really?’
Sam had been so busy contending with the uneasy knowledge that for the first time in years he didn’t have so much as a crumb of herb left back at home to help him switch off, that he hadn’t noticed he had somehow been brought into a conversation. He quickly tried to push the thought away like an obnoxious bully and looked expectantly at Neil and Lindsey. ‘What?’
‘Are you going as a Mexican drug dealer?’
Sam forced a tight smile. ‘I wouldn’t have bought fake tan if I wasn’t committed.’
‘Despicable choice, didn’t you know all those brown-skinned drug dealers are taking jobs away from good, honest, white-skinned drug dealers?’
Sam’s smile was half-hearted.
Deb feigned interest. ‘How controversial. Couldn’t have just went as a zombie or something?’
‘Far too clichéd.’ Matt pulled a cigarette from the pack in his jeans, noticing another small sideways look of disapproval from Deb. Whilst any jock-heartthrob credentials he might have harboured had dissipated over the years, it was clear as day to Matt that beneath Deb’s veneer of mild hostility she seemed to be crackling with the right sort of charge.
‘What about you?’ Deb asked him, keeping his faith alive for a possible date tomorrow. ‘Any other half-baked political statements in that drug-addled brain?’
Or maybe I’m just full of shit, Matt reassessed, lighting the tip of his cigarette with a heavy sigh. ‘Khaleesi, you know from—’
Deb’s eyes shone with embarrassment proving that she knew full well who Khaleesi was. Deb and Lindsey formed a union of pity and cackling. Neil and Sam had already mined the cavernous depths of mockery concerning Matt’s punishment by way of dress and wig, and were content to allow the girls to get their share of heckling out of the way. ‘So, are you like, into dressing up as a nerd’s wet dream?’
Matt exhaled a blue cloud of smoke like one of Daenerys’s dragons. ‘Only on weekends.’ Jabbing the smouldering red rock of his cigarette at Neil, Matt felt compelled to set the record straight. Deb seemed hard enough to get without having to dispel any peculiar character quirks such as cross-dressing. ‘Stretch here beat me in a track race yesterday. High stakes.’
Deb was slowly peeling away her layers of superiority, succumbing to her unmistakable interest in Matt. ‘I thought you snubbed all the sporty stuff years ago?’ Deb had said too much and took a nervous sip of her beer.
Matt was unexpectedly piqued by Deb’s knowledge of anything regarding his former life, filing it away for now. He regarded the lung-blackener between his fingers. ‘Pretty much. I showed promise on the baseb
all team, but — I don’t know…it lost its appeal.’
Deb scrutinised him like a lie detector. ‘Interfered with your hobbies?’
Tapping ash into his empty bottle, he said, ‘Something like that.’
Neil was very aware of how Lindsey’s leg had been in contact with his own for a few minutes now, sensing the warmth and not wanting to do anything which could disturb it. Without getting too carried away he couldn’t help but reason that although there were three of them sharing this bench seat, it looked like there was still some ample space between Lindsey and Deb. Gently, ever so gently, he pushed his leg against hers, testing to see if she pulled away. Lindsey’s leg remained fixed in place. ‘What time are you getting to the party?’ she asked.
Neil turned to consult Sam but found him preoccupied with quietly peeling the label off his barely touched beer, a half-frown of racing thoughts etched on his brow. Neil had been so wrapped up in how his luck had turned around post-near-pummelled experience that he had overlooked one mighty worrying possibility about tomorrow night. Would those mouth-breathing dipshits be gracing the party with their presence or would they be indulging in their own wild bash with some of the other dark fringes of society? He felt a pang of shame, concocting a plan which could potentially draw Sam and Matt into a tough spot. If Matt was troubled by the possibility of running into them at the party he hid it well, he dropped his smoke in his empty bottle and continued talking intermittently with Deb. But Sam had just been quietly listening to this arrangement slowly take shape. Neil didn’t want Sam to think he was bailing on him but at the same time he didn’t want Sam to feel like he had to risk any undue harm by showing up to the party. But the truth was, Sam was much more concerned about his current predicament. The notion of turning his back on weed after five consecutive years was unbearable, making him feel exposed somehow, lost and vulnerable to a cold and clinical world. He left the rest of his beer on the bench, and carefully toyed with the dangerous decision to text Sticky, inwardly castigating his weakness for needing a bag of thought-numbing nirvana.