Church Group

by Michael Brightside

  * * *

  By the time we left the bar I could barely stand up straight. Fortunately we’d left our crash helmets hidden behind a thick hedge outside. I doubt the bar would have let us leave with them if they’d known we were intending to ride home.

  The journey back was fantastic. With the pair of us on it the bike would only just hit thirty, even in top gear. I made it my mission to maintain our top speed no matter what was in front of us, ignoring pedestrian crossings and red lights without refrain. With eight pints of extra confidence in me I managed to hold speed through the sharpest of corners, crossing onto the other side of the road on the approach before leaning hard through them on the straightest possible line. Our fun on the black British racetrack was only interrupted when a police car suddenly appeared from behind. Luckily it turned out to be a flying visit when he pulled up beside us, gave us a funny look, then demonstrated how much faster he was than us by shooting off down the road.

  I dropped Al home first then cut the engine and pushed the bike back to mine. There was no need to wake my mum up, that would only lead to questions I didn’t want to answer; and especially not at this time of night.

  As I walked the cold street lit road, I realised Al hadn’t asked me how I felt about the dad moving out thing. I think he knew me well enough to know that if I wanted to talk about it I would, but then he probably knew me well enough to know what I was thinking without me even saying it. Either way, it’s the mark of a good friend when they just let you be.

  They Want You to Put Your Hand In

  April 2002.

  A brand new tape-pack full of ten year old music had been released- Slammin Vinyl at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. What I’d really wanted was to actually go to the rave, but everyone else was either working that night or skint. I was disappointed about not making it there, but having a job that allowed me to listen to eight uninterrupted hours of my own music every day would soon fix that. Having been paid on the last Friday of the month, the plan was to go to the shop in Carlton on Saturday morning. I would then take the first bus back, with my Walkman so I could start listening to it before I even I got home. It was the perfect plan, flawless in its design and with no chance of working out anything other than immaculate.

  Mindful of that I found myself down the White Hart after work on Friday with Al and James. I’d only said I’d come out for a few drinks, which wasn’t so much for their benefit as mine; after the week I’d had at work I needed a few drinks as much as anyone. They knew I’d be leaving early though, I’d made concrete plans for the following day, the shop was shut on Sundays and I wasn’t going to wait for another week. At ten o’clock I said my goodbyes, then James threw a spanner in the works by offering to pick Al and I up in the morning and drive us to Carlton, on the condition I stay out until the pub shut.

  At one am I staggered through the garage door and collapsed in a heap on the bed, convinced I wasn’t going to Carlton the next day. So imagine my surprise when the two of them actually turned up the following morning, looking like shit and wearing last night’s clothes.

  “Surprised you fuckers actually got up,” I said, wiping sleep from my eyes. “How are you both feeling?”

  “Bit rough still man,” James replied. Though he hadn’t needed to tell me, I could see it in his face.

  “I’m not too bad mate, feel like I’m perking up a bit,” Al said, handing me a can of breakfast.

  “All set then Lu?” James asked.

  “Yeah mate.”

  “Well come on then.”

  Al took the front passenger seat, seeing as he’d already been sitting in it on the way to mine. I got in the back where I found a pile of old VW Camper magazines that I briefly flicked through.

  The drive to Carlton was over in no time. When I say no time I mean there is no way of measuring the amount of time it took us to get there. It would be like resting a stone on the table in front of you then measuring how long it took for it to get to the moon. I’m not even sure James had taken the handbrake off.

  “Can you not go any faster mate?” I said. “The magnetic code on the tape will have gone by the time we get there.”

  “I’m making sure I don’t get stopped on the way there,” James replied, “I’m probably still over the limit.”

  “Stopped? If you go any slower the police will think we’ve broken down.”

  Al turned to me and laughed, “I bet every time he parks people think he’s broken down. Wanky green VW Polo shit-mobile.”

  “It’s better than your car Al,” James retorted as we pulled over in one of Carlton Town’s backstreets.

  “Not for long mate.”

  “What?”

  There was a long drawn-out grunting sound from Al’s arse as he filled the car with shit flavoured gas. “Enjoy the Stella fart you knob.”

  “Cheers schmuck. Don’t get bummed today will you,” James said. “See you later Lu, watch Al doesn’t try to bum you. Are you coming down the pub again tonight?”

  I turned to James, after climbing through the smell of Al’s intestines. “Think so mate, gonna have to get some more sleep today though. I still feel like shit.”

  “You don’t need sleep you tart! What you need is another one of these,” Al said, thrusting another can of beer in my hand. “Fuck off then James.”

  “Fuck off Al you prick.”

  There was a final solitary “twat” from the driver’s side window of the little green Polo as it left us.

  We soon arrived at the shop.

  “Alright Lu, Slammin Vinyl is it?”

  “You know me too well,” I replied.

  The man who ran the shop wasn’t the same man who owned it. I never met the man who owned it. If I’d had to guess I’d have said he was in his thirties, always clean shaven and with perfect hair, and always immaculately dressed. The shop sold mostly men’s clothes, with rack upon rack of hundred pound tops and equally expensive jeans and shoes. Every so often when I was in there I would see something I liked; I never got as far as trying anything on though, the ridiculous price tags saw to that. The reason he also sold tape-packs was because before becoming a clothes shop it had been a music shop. Once that closed down people would go to Woolworths or one of the supermarkets to buy their mainstream CDs. There was nowhere in Carlton you could get your tape-packs from however.

  Having turned away a huge swathe of potential customers when the shop was first taken over, the new owner decided to tap into this market. So you now had a shop where you could buy a pair of Paul Smith trousers, a Ralph Lauren shirt, and with the change left over from two hundred and fifty pounds just about get a copy of a tape-pack from a rave where you would never wear your Paul Smith trousers or Ralph Lauren shirt. None of my circle of friends would ever have shopped there, I remember the stick I got when I bought a pair of retro trainers with Velcro instead of laces. The only exception was James, but he wouldn’t have shopped there either, seeing as he always looked as though he’d just walked in off Newquay beach. Having paid the man and listened to as much of the soulful jazz music in the background as I could possibly take, we left the shop and set off down the road, while I pondered what to do next.

  “I’m out of beers Lu.”

  I got us a couple of Stellas in the nearest pub which was the Londoner’s Parade. Then we took a seat by the window facing out over the pier. There’s a magical feeling that accompanies drinking while watching the sea that you just can’t recreate inland.

  “So what’s the plan now Lu?”

  “The buses come every hour mate,” I said, “but I don’t know when the next one is due.”

  “Within the next hour,” Al stated the obvious. I could tell he was pissed again from last night.

  “You don’t want to go home yet do you? We don’t get up this way very often.”

  “True mate,” I said. “Fuck it, let’s have a few drinks and a wander about.”

  “Sweet, it’s my round.”

  The next couple of hours passed qui
ckly. The roughness I’d felt on waking gradually disappearing as the day became just a continuation of the night before, briefly punctuated by the drunken nap shoehorned into the middle.

  The next destination was Carlton pier itself. Having sat facing it for so long, its big red and yellow sign had somehow imprinted itself onto our subconscious....and who doesn’t want to go on a pier when they’re pissed?

  We wobbled slightly down the steep slope that led to the entrance, Al taking tiny steps to keep his balance. Then onto the pier with its noisy amusement arcades and miniature indoor kids rollercoaster, until we reached the entrance to the sea-life centre.

  “Have you been in there before Al?”

  “Nah mate, what’s in there?”

  I pointed to the sign. “Er....sea-life Al.”

  I paid the few coins that would keep us occupied for a while, and we put our wristbands on and made our way in through the dark entrance.

  “Can you imagine being that lobster?” Al asked excitedly, peering in with his face almost pressed against the glass. “Like if you’d been born a lobster, can you imagine how fucked up that would be? If instead of you, you were a lobster.”

  Unfortunately I could imagine it, and it filled me with the strangest feeling. I was still trying to shake off that feeling when I heard. “Check this out Lu, this sea anemone thing. That would be fucked up. At least the lobster can move.”

  He was right, being the lobster would be better than being the anemone. I don’t know by how much though, they both seemed pretty shit options to me. I think I might have just chosen rock; if we’d been playing rock, lobster, sea anemone.

  We continued through the tight maze of fish-tanks, filled with crabs and fish and octopuses until we came out into a cavernous room with just one massive round tank in the middle. The sides of the tank were transparent and through the sand tinged water you could see big fish; brown and white spotted dogfish that bullishly chased bass, round and round in silver circles; then above them at the very top, a handful of massive rays that swam with only their eyes sitting clear in the air. The floor led into a ramp that climbed up around the big glass tank until you were looking down on the fish inside. There was no lid.

  “Lu you can put your hand in and touch them,” Al said.

  “I don’t know if you’re meant to Al.”

  “Yeah mate, that’s why there’s no lid, they want you to put your hand in. So you get your money’s worth. If they didn’t want you to touch the fish they’d have put a lid on. Why else would they have this ramp here?”

  It seemed like a valid argument.

  Al waited for a big dogfish to swim by, before reaching out and touching it on the top of its back, waiting until the first part of the fish had passed his hand before he did.

  “That’s the nuts Lu, it feels like sandpaper,” he said. “Try touching one of them when they come past.”

  I picked one circumnavigating the tank, watching it to see if it was watching me. Then I slowly put my hand out and held it above the water to let the fish swim underneath without me scaring it away. When just its fish face had passed under my hand I dipped my fingers into the water, and touched it on the top of its head.

  “It does feel like sandpaper mate, I wonder if that’s so the other fish don’t eat them.”

  “Probably,” Al replied.

  “I touched mine on the head,” I said. “Even though it was close enough to bite me if it wanted to. Touch one on the head.”

  “I’ll touch one of those manta ray things for a beer.”

  “Pint of Stella mate, only if you touch it on the head though.”

  Al shook my hand. “Done.”

  The pair of us stood there motionless for a while, waiting to see if fate would allow Al to carry out his promise. In the meantime a dad with a couple of young boys came in. They climbed the ramp like we had and stopped on the opposite side of the tank to us.

  A ray came slowly swimming around the top of the tank. Al had his chance. It was massive; a good three feet wide and long, although only a few inches thick. With a long thin tail that stuck out the back like the aerial on a radio controlled car. As it swam it flapped its wings like flying. Al stretched his arm out ready to touch it, and anticipation filled the air, as the two young boys on the other side watched on excitedly. Al tentatively reached out a couple of fingers and tried to pat it on the head, but at the last minute it flicked up to the surface and tried to kiss him on the hand.

  “What the fuck?!” Al shouted as he snapped his hand away from the gay fish. “Did you see that Lu? The fucker tried to bite me.”

  The dad and the kids started laughing at us, the dad stopping when he realised we’d noticed him.

  “I think he just wanted a kiss mate,” I reassured him.

  “Fuck this, I’ve had enough of this. Let’s get another drink.”