In the Bag

by Jim Carrington

  In the Bag

  Jim Carrington

  For Daisy, Flora & Billy

  Contents

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  SUNDAY

  MONDAY

  TUESDAY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  My Inspiration for IN THE BAG

  Also by Jim Carrington

  Praise for Inside My Head by Jim Carrington

  Read on for a taster of Inside My Head

  Copyright Page

  FRIDAY

  Ash

  Friday night is what I’m all about. It’s what I live for. If I had my way, I’d sleep through the rest of the week and wake up around four or five on a Friday, then stay awake till Monday morning.

  Right now I’m getting ready to go out to the rec. Just like every Friday night. My iPod is docked, music turned up to full, listening to this new American band called the Porn Dwarves. They’re amazing. Hardly anyone in this country has heard of them yet. But they soon will.

  I grab the deodorant off my desk and give myself a spray all over, even the delicate bits. You never know your luck, do you? Then I strut over to the wardrobe, nodding my head in time to the music. I open the door and have a look for something decent to wear, pull all my jeans down from a shelf and let them fall on the floor. I pick out the black ones that are ripped right across the knees and give them a little inspection. They’re a bit dirty. Grass stains from last Friday night, to be precise. But I pull them on anyway. No one’s gonna notice at the rec cos it’ll be too dark. And everyone will be as wasted as me.

  I take a belt off a pair of jeans that are lying on my drum stool and put it on. Look in the mirror. Looking good. I scrub up nicely, even if I say so myself.

  I play along to the Porn Dwarves drum solo – give it a bit of air drums – before I look back in my wardrobe and pull out a T-shirt. The black one with a skull on it and silver writing underneath: Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Too right. That’s my philosophy right there. Who wants to die sitting in an old people’s home at ninety years old, stinking of piss? Not me. I’d rather be hanging out with Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Heath Ledger on a cloud with a bottle of whisky, a spliff and my drum kit.

  I grab a black zip-up hoodie from the back of my desk chair and a cap that’s lying on the floor. Keys, money, fags, mobile. I check my mobile. Fuck it, the battery’s nearly run down. I send Joe a text anyway to tell him I’m nearly ready. Undock my iPod, grab my trainers, pull them on and I’m out.

  Downstairs, I put my head round the lounge door. Mum’s sitting on the sofa, glass of wine in her hand, watching TV. She looks up.

  ‘You off out?’

  I nod. I look round the room. ‘Dad not home?’

  Mum shakes her head. She takes a gulp of wine. ‘At work,’ she says. She sounds pissed off.

  I nod. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Right. See you later. Don’t wait up.’

  Joe

  I’m in my room trying to get ready to go out when my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Ash. Meet u at the end of ur road in 5 mins. I put my phone in my pocket and look in the mirror. My hair looks shite, like someone left a pile of straw on my head. I try and sort it out with my hands, pull it over my face, brush it over one side of my head and then the other. I sigh. Useless. I look like a scarecrow that’s got birds nesting on its head. Maybe I should get it all cut off. At least that way I wouldn’t have to worry about what it looks like.

  I go through to the bathroom and fill the basin with water and dunk my head in it. Then I try and plaster my hair down and look in the mirror. Great. Now I look like a drowned scarecrow. I sigh. It’ll have to do.

  I give my teeth a clean and then go downstairs. Mum and Dad are in the kitchen. Dad’s leaning against the kitchen worktop, staring out of the back window and listening to the radio.

  Mum’s doing the washing up. She looks up as I walk through the hall. ‘Hello, Joe.’

  Dad turns round. ‘Hey, Joe,’ he says. It’s his joke. It’s the name of a Jimi Hendrix song. It’s why I’m called Joe apparently, even though Mum and Dad aren’t old enough to remember the song when it came out.

  ‘I’m going out now.’

  ‘OK,’ Dad says. ‘Where are you off to? No, hang on, let me guess . . .’

  ‘The rec,’ I say before he has a chance to do his whole routine.

  Mum doesn’t say anything, but I can tell what she’s thinking from the look on her face. Ever since Christmas, when I went down the rec with some friends and got completely wasted, she’s been kind of quiet when I say I’m going there.

  ‘The rec?’ Dad says sarcastically. ‘I never would have guessed that.’ He winks at me.

  ‘Who are you going with, love?’ Mum says, ignoring Dad.

  ‘Just Ash and Rabbit and that lot.’

  Dad nods. ‘Well, have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Just make sure you’re careful,’ Mum says. ‘I don’t want . . .’ She doesn’t finish her sentence.

  Dad looks at Mum. ‘Give him a break,’ he says. ‘He’s learned his lesson, haven’t you, Joe?’

  I nod. I can feel myself blushing.

  Mum smiles at me like I’m a little kid. ‘I know. Just me being silly, treating you like you’re still my little baby. Have fun,’ she says.

  I nod my head and then I’m gone.

  A little explanation about the Christmas thing. We all arranged to meet up down at the rec on the evening of the last day of term. We were gonna bring some booze and have a party kind of thing. So I had a look around the house and found some whisky – Mum’d already got it in for when Dave (my uncle) came round on Boxing Day. I poured some of it into a water bottle and then refilled the whisky bottle with water. Thought no one’d notice.

  When I was down the rec, I started to knock back the whisky neat. It tasted disgusting to begin with, made my throat burn and my stomach twist around. I thought I was gonna vom. But it was all right after a bit. I got used to the taste. It stopped hurting to drink it. Either that or I stopped being able to feel anything. I finished the whole bottle. I think. See, it’s all a bit fuzzy. I can remember everything before the rec. And I can remember getting there. But I can’t really remember what happened after that. I haven’t got a clue what I did, where I went, how I got home. None of it. Apparently I was being a bit of a twat, shouting my mouth off and that. Which isn’t like me. I’m usually quiet. Shy.

  Next thing I know, it’s the next morning and Mum’s waking me up. I’m lying on the lounge floor. And all over the front doorstep, there’s a pile of my sick. Mum and Dad go mental at me at first. And Kate, my sister, just sits there in her dressing gown and smirks. But they leave it at that. I still feel like an utter dick whenever I think about it.

  Ash is waiting at the end of my road when I get there, slouching on his BMX. He’s got a fag hanging out of his mouth. He really doesn’t give a toss, Ash. If I smoked, there’s no way I’d do it where people could see me, in case they told my mum and dad.

  ‘All right, J?’

  ‘Hi, Ash,’ I say.

  ‘You ready to get wasted or what?’ Ash says. He’s got a mad grin on his face.

  ‘Yeah. Course,’ I say. But in my head I’m thinking, I’m not sure how wasted I want to get. I don’t want to wake up on the lounge floor again.

  We start pedalling along the pavement, and then out on to the main road. It’s the quickest way to the rec: along the main road, past the pub and the police station and the fire station and the memorial hall.

  We pedal in silence for a bit, get some dirty looks from an old couple walking their dog cos we’re riding on the pavement and they have to move out of the way.

  ‘Hey, J,’
Ash says. ‘You know who texted me earlier?’

  I shake my head.

  Ash lets go of his handlebars. ‘Lucy Crow!’ he says. I can tell, even though I can’t see his face, that he’s got a massive cheesy grin. So would I if Lucy Crow was texting me.

  ‘Jesus. Why?’

  ‘Ah, you know,’ Ash says. He takes hold of the handlebars again and pulls a wheelie. He manages to keep the wheelie going for ages before he lets the front wheel come back down to the pavement. ‘She wants me.’

  ‘Really?’

  Ash nods. ‘Yeah. She’ll have to join the queue, though.’

  I roll my eyes. Ash doesn’t realise how lucky he is. He has girls literally throwing themselves at him and he acts like he couldn’t care less.

  ‘What about you?’ Ash says. ‘Anyone you like?’

  I don’t answer right away. I feel shy for some reason. I bet I’m even blushing. ‘Don’t know,’ I say. Even though I do know. There is someone. But I don’t want to tell anyone. Not even Ash. Especially not Ash.

  ‘There must be someone.’

  I shrug. ‘I can’t figure it out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Girls. Women,’ I say. ‘It’s all foreign to me. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know how to make girls like me . . .’

  Ash smiles. He nods his head. He makes a face like some wise old man who knows all the answers. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ he says. And then he laughs.

  He puts his brakes on and stops. I stop beside him. We’re right outside the new flats that they’ve been building for months.

  Ash looks right at me. ‘The thing with girls, J, is that they’re different from us. It’s like they come from an alien planet or something.’

  I nod. I thought I was gonna get a straightforward answer that solved all my girl problems. Looks like I was wrong.

  ‘There’s only one rule where girls are concerned,’ Ash says. ‘And it’s a simple rule: never try and understand what a girl is thinking because you’ll always get it wrong.’

  I laugh. I wonder if he’d say that stuff to a girl. Actually, he probably would, knowing Ash. And then she’d probably get off with him. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘But the thing is, I can’t even go and speak to girls. My mouth just clams up.’

  ‘Why?’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘Dunno,’ I say. Although to be honest, I do know. It’s cos I don’t want them to ignore me or turn me down.

  Ash starts cycling again, slowly. After a few seconds he takes his hands off the handlebars and puts them in his pockets. ‘Talking to girls is easy, J,’ he says. ‘All you have to do is use the Jedi mind trick on them.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You know, like in Star Wars.’

  I nod. I know what the Jedi mind trick is, but I have no idea why Ash is going on about it. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look, J, we may not be able to understand what goes on in girls’ minds, but it’s very possible that they can read our minds. So what you have to do is imagine that you’re the Jedi, right? You are Obi-Wan Kenobi.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And the girl – whoever it is – is like a stormtrooper. She’s the one that’s standing in your way – you know, stopping you getting where you want to go . . .’

  I make a really dubious face. Ash sometimes talks utter shit like this.

  He stops his bike again. We’re right close to the rec now.

  ‘What you have to do is use the force. Like in Star Wars episode four . . . You know, the bit where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke are in the hover car and the stormtroopers have stopped them, looking for droids.’

  I nod.

  ‘And Obi-Wan starts talking to the stormtroopers and telling them what to think, like, “These are not the droids you are looking for.” They start repeating it back to him like it was their idea in the first place, right?’

  ‘Yeah. And?’

  ‘Well, you’re like Obi-Wan. All you have to do, young Jedi, is use the force. Jedi mind trick.’ Ash taps his head and smiles.

  ‘So I start telling girls that these are not the droids they’re looking for and all my girl problems are solved?’

  Ash laughs and shakes his head. ‘No, Jedi, you make them believe what you want them to believe,’ he says. ‘Your problem is that you spend too much time worrying, and girls pick up on that stuff. If you go over and talk to a girl thinking she’s gonna turn you down, she will. But if you go over to her all confident, she’ll pick up on that. They’ll do exactly what you want. Just don’t show them any weakness or doubt.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘It works,’ Ash says. ‘Just block any doubt out of your mind and you can make any girl believe anything you want her to. Try it.’

  I shake my head. I can’t imagine myself being all cocky and confident like Ash. It wouldn’t suit me. Girls would just laugh at me. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Want a bet?’ Ash says. He starts cycling again, alongside the railings of the rec. ‘I’ll prove it to you. You point a girl out to me today, and I’ll use the Jedi mind trick on her.’

  I smile. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Anyone?’

  Ash nods. ‘Yeah. Be kind, though.’ He stops and opens the gate to the rec, wheels his bike through. ‘No chavs or mingers.’

  I smile. ‘All right, deal.’

  Ash laughs. ‘Watch and learn, young Jedi. Watch and learn.’

  We cycle across the rec to the bench, where three others are already gathered.

  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.