****
An hour later Simon, Brian and Craig rode their bikes slowly along the footpath past the long strip of shops at West Gosford. Craig who had only just joined them was still not entirely sure what to make of the news Brian had both excitedly and graphically recounted to him the minute they were out of earshot from Craig’s mother.
“Will you shut up about it already?” Simon tried once again to get off the topic.
“I guess that’s why my Mum doesn’t let me go around to your place anymore.” Brian pondered. “Do they always just sit around in your lounge room like that?”
“No, of course not!” Simon replied, disgusted at the thought. “Don’t go telling your Mum either, she’ll only ban you from hanging out with me, or worse still if she comes around to my place to say anything to my Mum I’ll end up getting a belting after she’s gone.”
“My Mum says that Ron guy across the road is a bad influence on her. Everyone on the block knows that he’s on drugs and he’s probably got your Mum on them too.”
“Drugs?” Simon stopped his bike and looked at him puzzled. The other two boys swung their bikes around and came to a stop facing him. “What do you mean my Mum’s on drugs?”
“Didn’t you see all the needles and stuff on the table?” Brian asked amazed that Simon didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
“So, I’ve seen them lying around before, what are they?” Simon looked anxiously at Brian who was leaning casually on the handlebars of his BMX.
“They were drugs Simon.” He replied softly. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but I think your Mum might be using them.”
“What does that mean, are they bad or something?” Simon tried to contain the sense of worry he now felt. “I know she has a drinking problem, but….”
“Man, drugs are far worse than drinking,” Craig interrupted, his blue eyes filled with a sense of seriousness that defied the mischievous, freckled outline of the rest of his face. He leant forward on the handle bars of his bike, hunching his shoulders forward until they met with the long locks of his mullet haircut. “People either smoke them or stick needles filled with them in their arm and it makes them high or something. I don’t know because I’ve never even seen them but my Mum and Dad warned me about them before I started high school. They said that people get addicted to them and it ruins their life.”
“He’s right you know.” Brian agreed. “It explains why your Mum sounds like such a horrible person to live with Simon. It’s probably not her but the drugs making her that way.”
“What can I do about it?” Simon seemed lost in the face of the latest revelation to ruin his day.
“Dude, I don’t know about you,” Craig now spoke light heartedly, the smile across his face breaking the seriousness of the moment. “But if it was me, the first thing I’d want to do is get the naked image of my mother out of my head.”
“Yeah you should have been there Craig.” Brian erupted enthusiastically once more. “She was totally naked with three of them….”
“Okay, that’s enough about it!” Simon cut him off. “It’s my mother we’re talking about here remember.”
“Hey, I know what he should do.” Craig suggested, immediately getting the attention of the two boys. Simon looked at him blankly and waited for him to continue. “There’s a newsagency about six shops up from here that has a huge section of porn magazines. You can’t just stand there and read them but if there’s no one beside you and the man is busy at the front counter, it’s pretty easy to just slip one under your shirt and walk out.”
“Are you nuts?” Simon asked in disbelief.
“No, we’ve both done it before.” Craig replied coolly. “I’ve got three hidden at home in my bedroom.”
“Is he telling the truth?” Simon stared at Brian in disbelief. “You’ve actually shoplifted a dirty magazine?”
“It’s no big deal.” Brian defended himself. “I’ve only done it once and I didn’t get caught, it was easy. Besides, look at where being a goody two shoes has got you so far in life.”
“He’s right.” Craig said. “It’s the only way you’re going to be able to put all of this behind you. If you don’t see a picture of a hot, nude chick showing off her body in the next 20 minutes then you’re going to be obsessed with naked thoughts of your mother for the rest of your life. You don’t want that do you?”
“Of course I don’t.” Simon shook the thought from his mind. “That’s disgusting, it’s sick!”
“Well you’ve gotta do it then Simon.” Brian reasoned. “Otherwise your brain’s gonna be screwed up forever.”
“You want me to go in there and steal it?” Simon grew more nervous the longer the conversation continued.
“Hey, it wasn’t my Mum sitting around naked with three other men.” Craig responded quickly.
Simon thought about it for a brief second. If they had both done it before without being caught, then surely he could do the same as well. Besides, what they were saying seemed to make sense, and there was no way he wanted to spend the rest of his life being tortured by the image of what he’d just seen.
“Okay, I guess I can do it.” Simon said nervously. “But you’re going to have to help me. I’ve never done anything like this before so you’ll have to tell me what to do.”
“No problem.” Craig said excitedly. “First of all you’re going to have to walk in and out of the place without drawing any attention to yourself, stay too long and the shopkeeper is going to get suspicious, so pretend to look at some of the other stuff first, but remember not to take forever. Then when you’ve got it, whatever you do don’t hurry out of the shop. That doesn’t mean hang around out the front when you’ve got it either, we need to make sure we all know where we are going afterwards and get out of there.”
“The cemetery.” Brian exclaimed. “That’s why we rode all the way over here anyway, were going to find the gravesite of the old couple that used to live across the road from Simon.”
“Sounds weird, but I s’pose it’ll do,” Craig said as he turned his bike around in the direction of the newsagency. “Okay Simon, when you get inside here’s what you do….”
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