Boyracers

  boyracers

  alan bissett

  for the lads who were there

  Colin Armstrong

  Allan Mann

  Thomas Tobias

  heddy haw

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Boyracers

  Boyracers: Resprayed

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  like rebel angels, bright, restless, sensually attuned to the flux and flow of mortal Falkirk, Belinda our chariot, our spirit guide, the wind rushing up and past her face thrust out like some wido Helen of Troy. The low growl of Belinda’s undercarriage as Dolby shifts her into fifth and our mad singing at the dusk – mine, Brian’s, Dolby’s, Frannie’s – Hallglen receding like stars at warp speed cos it’s Friday, seven-thirty, time for Top of the Pops, and tramps like us, baby, we were born to run. The Glen Brae carrying us down down into the belly of the town, where houses are big and where one day we’ll live, playing pool and drinking cocktails, in a champagne supernova in the sky, where a woman, a rich woman, is bending down to weed her garden and her arse flashes up in the air, then is gone. We whistle, like a release, like the end of a shift. Frannie, in the back seat next to me, telling another work story, his Rangers shift giggling with him, talking about some guy in Tesco who has the nickname Ace of Spads.

  ‘Ace of Spades, ye mean?’ Dolby says.

  ‘Naw,’ Frannie’s like, ‘Ace of Spads. He gets drunk wan night ower in Spain an asks this guy tay tattoo Ace of Spades on his face. Big Motorhead fan, ken?’

  ‘I like him awready,’ Brian says.

  ‘So the Spaniard can hardly speak English, let alone write it, and this drunk Scotsman’s no makin much sense.’ Frannie snorts, kicking the back of Dolby’s seat, knocking the wee plastic Han Solo off his place on the dashboard. ‘I mean, can ye imagine it – no only gon intay yer work wi Ace of fuckin Spades tattooed across yer mug, but it’s no even spelt right?’

  Brian’s phone plays The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme somewhere under the maps and Mars bars and Eagles CDs and whirlpool-fitting requisition forms, muffled by the roar of Belinda’s engine passing from FALKIRK DISTRICT to STIRLINGSHIRE, Dolby trying to teach me the laws of physics with an Irn-Bru can, Frannie slobbering over a fish supper, dripping its vinegary smell, and there’s streetlights, millions of streetlights, passing like tiny orange fish in the ocean.

  A Stirling ned, as we pass through Bannockburn, senses our Falkirkness through the walls of the car. He unfolds his Tommy Hilfiger arms from his Tommy Hilfiger chest, throws a coin at us. It hits the bus shelter across the road. Brian’s for stopping the car and going back, but Frannie’s not giving a shit, not really, his cheeks full as a hamster’s and wet cod slipping onto his Rangers top – ‘faaaack!’ – it slides a slow snail trail.

  Dolby holds up the Irn-Bru can like a teacher. ‘Right,’ he begins again. ‘Now this can is currently travellin at’ – the speedometer – ‘sixty-six miles per hour.’

  ‘Sixty-six?’ Frannie goes, trying to clean the grease from his top with some Barrs lemonade and an AA map of Saltcoats. ‘That aw?’

  ‘Whaur the fuck’s that phone?’ Brian’s tutting, turning to me. ‘Have you got it, runt?’

  ‘Now if I wis tay drop this can,’ Dolby explains, ‘it wid land … thus.’

  He lets the can go. It drops straight down.

  ‘Brian Mann here,’ Brian answers gruffly, finding his phone.

  ‘By why does it no land in the back seat ay the car?’ I say, confused, wishing I hadn’t spent four years of Physics lessons gazing at the back of Tyra Mackenzie’s lovely head and hoping I don’t end up in a job at the Grangemouth refinery, where someone’s life might somehow depend on my knowledge of the effects of speed on an Irn-Bru can. ‘The car’s movin forwards while the Irn-Bru’s still in the air,’ I say, ‘I dinnay understand it.’

  ‘Is it cosay the theory ay relativity?’ Frannie asks, between gulps of fish supper.

  Dolby shoots him a withering glance. ‘Got fuck all tay dae wi the theory ay relativity, ya dick. It’s cos the can is travellin at the same speed as the car.’

  ‘But no while it’s in the air,’ I say, ‘No while it’s fallin.’

  His face creases. ‘How’s that likes?’

  ‘Cos it’s no touchin the car.’

  ‘Eh? Whit?’ Dolby says, ‘Alvin, this Irn-Bru is travellin at sixty-six miles per hour whether touchin the fuckin car or no.’

  Brian runs his thumb along his stubble almost hard enough for it to catch fire. ‘Aye,’ he grunts into his phone. ‘Naw.’

  and we know it’s somethin to do with Smiths (the pub) (where he’s a barman) (having just turned nineteen) (cos he’s Brian the fuckin Mann and he takes shit off nobody) (except ‘burds’) (except ‘Catholic burds especially’) (because ‘it just feels durtier wi Catholic burds, Alvin, I dunno why’).

  ‘Anywey,’ Frannie coughs, lobbing the remains of his fish supper out into the Dunipace waste, ‘guess who I wis oot wi last night.’

  ‘Oot wi oot wi,’ Dolby says, ‘or oot wi oot wi?’

  ‘Oot wi oot wi.’

  ‘Oot wi oot wi?’

  ‘Listen,’ he emphasises, ‘I wis just oot wi her, awright?’

  ‘Aw.’ Dolby’s face falls. ‘Who?’

  ‘Scarlet.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Scarlet,’ Frannie repeats, raking through the pile of Dolby’s CDs which lie scattered: Muse, Foo Fighters, Moby, Cream (that’s Eric Clapton’s Cream, not the nightclub), the Gladiator soundtrack and Eminem. Dolby? Playing hip-hop? He surely must’ve bought it thinking it was Boney M.

  The Irn-Bru can. How it falls in a moving car. My confused Homer Simpson-ness. It’ll come to me.

  ‘Aw Scarlet Scarlet?’ Dolby beams. ‘Niiiice. Heddy haw.’

  Brian is nodding into his phone, serious. I can actually hear the sound of his thumb rasping across his stubble. ‘Aye,’ he grunts again. ‘Naw.’

  ‘So whit did Scarlet havetay say?’

  ‘Mainly “take yer hand affay there”.’

  petrol. Pit-stop. Crisps, chocolate, juice stop. Me, Frannie and Brian clamber in to pay for it like a three-headed monster, Frannie straight up at the counter, handing over his patter with the cash to the girl serving. ‘Could you tell us how to get to Abadeeeeeen from heah?’ he says, in an accent so ridiculously posh she has to twig, but no. The girl gives us directions as best she can, even though Aberdeen is in, like, a whole different dimension from Falkirk. Then Frannie’s comedy withers in the main attraction which is Brian Mann, movie hero. Clint Eastwood in a shirt from Burtons in the High Street. He strides up to the counter, spurs clicking, and the girl’s eyes flick on and a smile curves round her mouth, as he silently hands her his Curly Wurly. How could she know that this smouldering rock of a man was born with stillborn charm. He recently tried to chat up a girl in Rosie’s with the line, ‘You’re a Catholic, aren’t ye? Aye, I can always tell.’

  I buy a can of Cherry Coke. ‘For poofs, that stuff,’ says Brian, stamping three glass bottles of Irn-Bru on the counter, which will probably be gone within the hour.

  In the forecourt, that sharp tang of petrol making me feel queasy, Frannie glows. ‘She fancied me. See that wee honey? I lightened her day right up.’

  ‘Heddy haw,’ goes Brian.

  I glance back at the girl. She’s arranging the counter. She looks about as inspired as paper.

  Back in the car. Belinda hums with satisfaction. ‘Whaur next?’

  ‘Maddiston.’

  ‘Glasgow.’

  ‘Cairo!’

  Dolby starts a debate with me about the new Stephen King novel, while Frannie and Brian, the Ibrox twins, cut across with Rangers news, which means I onl
y hear, ‘He’s good with ghosts, but shite with aliens,’ before, ‘Advocaat’s the maaaan,’ and ‘twelve million on one player!’ and ‘reckon we’ve got a shot at Europe’ all pile on top. Then it’s the chiming riff of U2’s Where The Streets Have No Name, Frannie’s favourite song, and Karaoke Colin, his dreaded pub alter-ego, takes over

  I wantay run

  I wantay hiiiiiiide

  I wantay tear doon the waaaaaaws that haud me insiiiiiiiide

  I wantay reach oooooot and touch the

  Traffic lights at red.

  later, a smooth feeling on the rise into Bonnybridge, the UFO capital of Scotland. We spot a few aliens lingering at bus-stops, bored outside chip-shops, Frannie stubbing his finger against the car window, going, ‘There’s Yoda … and she’s Greedo … and she’s … ooh Princess Leia.’ Frannie has a habit of rating women as Star Wars characters, even if he’s been with far more Jabba the Hutts than Princess Leias.

  ‘Whit about her?’ I say, pointing at a tracksuit with pony-tail.

  ‘Her?’ he goes. ‘Ugh. Darth Vader when he took his helmet aff.’

  Then he starts on us. Brian, imposing, hairy, is Chewbacca. Dolby is Obi Wan. Naturally, grinning, Frannie awards himself Han Solo.

  ‘I suppose since I’m the youngest,’ I pipe up from the back, ‘I’m Luke Skywalker.’

  ‘Naw, Alvin,’ Frannie laughs, hurling a twisted crisp-packet at me. ‘You’re an Ewok.’

  Whaur the streets have nay name

  Whaur the streets have naaaaaay naaaaame

  right enough, Brian consumes the three bottles of Irn-Bru, burping happily, as Frannie’s phone goes all Christina Aguilera on our asses, and Dolby’s pulling Belinda over so we can pish.

  Frannie slouches over his own splish. ‘Just heard. Celtic beat Aberdeen 3–0.’ He shakes it despondently.

  I look down the road. About a hundred yards away there’s an old couple having a picnic on a fold-down table. Old and gentle. Maybe seen a war or two together, maybe even still in love. Cars whizz past them. The husband carefully spreads onto pieces of bread, while his wife pours from a flask of tea. ‘Hey!’ Brian shouts. ‘George and Mildred?’ The wife looks up to see Dolby and Brian shaking urine from their dicks. Brian points at their picnic. ‘Sortay thing’s that tay be daein at the sideay the road eh?’

  We cruise past and they stare dumbly at us like tortoises. ‘Fuckin noddies,’ Brian’s muttering, ‘I hate auld folk.’ He stabs Led Zeppelin into the stereo and his head does a frustrated, funky peck.

  Dolby’s eyes widen in the rear-view mirror, furious. He’s just noticed what I’m wearing. ‘How many times have I telt ye, Alvin, get that stupit baseball cap aff.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cos ye make us look like boyracers.’

  ‘Are we no boyracers?’

  Both Brian and Dolby turn to me. The air gathers menacingly. ‘Are we fuck,’ Brian almost spits, the word curling from his mouth to land on my Matrix t-shirt. I look to Frannie for back-up but his thumb is tapping at his phone, which he shows me and which says the Rangers score.

  God’s Eleven 0

  Hibs 2

  ‘D’ye see any birds in here wi bad perms?’ Brian demands.

  ‘Are there stickers on the windays that say On a Mission?’ Dolby.

  ‘Are there Buckfast bottles clinkin in the back?’ Brian again.

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘Well, take that fuckin thing aff and stop actin yer age.’ Brian turns back round and starts singing the wrong words, off-key, to Whole Lotta Love.

  ‘Boyracers,’ Dolby moans. ‘Typical schoolie.’

  Frannie snaps shut his phone, dripping exasperation, and stuffs it away and runs a hand through his hair and goes, ‘Whit we talkin about?’

  ‘The, eh, head-gear that schoolies and losers wear.’

  ‘Aw right,’ Frannie tuts. ‘The runt at it again?’

  after we leave Falkirk’s skanky parts, summoned back into the tan-stocking finery of the sandstone houses, sex begins building up a head of steam under the bonnet. We talk about women and underwear, women in underwear, finally, women out of underwear, as we imagine rich wives hanging sheer knickers on washing-lines that flex above fresh, well-trimmed grass. Frannie regales us again with Elaine, legendary section manager who plucked his cherry when he was about, oh, Alvin’s age, and they look at me as if it’s me alone who’s keeping them from entry to the palace of love. ‘That’s your problem, Alvin,’ Brian says. ‘You wantay get yer dick oot them books and intay some wee schoolies.’

  ‘They aw go for aulder guys,’ I moan, then clench shut my eyes as I realise the bait I’ve just dangled, which – ‘whoooaah’ – they clamp onto, hungrily. ‘Get them roon here!’/‘Gie them ower tay me!’/‘I’ll show them an aulder guy!’ (god almighty). I’m afraid to report, however, that even if Brian has the Mann With No Name physique, the finesse was stolen and shared out between the other two. Frannie, for example, since Elaine, has been known to satisfy the urges of many a frustrated wife between shelf-stacking in Tesco’s, and can you really blame some overworked woman of 35, 40, for listening to a horny 19 year-old who tells them how pretty they are, that their man and kids don’t appreciate them, christ, they lap the Franster up in there. Every Tesco’s Christmas party, Brian and Dolby lose him after five minutes to a quick one with some wookie round the back.

  Falkirk town centre. The nightclub doors flung open and a tempo pounding out like jungle drums and the young – drawn from sleepy shires by chart rhythms, block-rockin beats, the call of the wild. Lipstick smoothed over lips, t-shirts unfurled down chests, tights wriggled up thighs, while shaving cuts absorb the splash and sting and

  The Force, Luke is what gives a Jedi his power. An energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together with

  the other sex’s body. Midriffs, torsos, necks. The word Dolce, the word Gabanna. Low, slow whistling from Frannie, that becomes

  there’s not a team like the Glasgow Rangers

  Tesco’s, as we ooze past, bleeds its red letters down the windscreen. Frannie prays to the place that pays his wages and Brian slaps him – ‘fuck off’ – slaps him again – ‘ya dick’. John Cusack, Renee Zellweger, the Cruiser exuding mik-white grins in the window of Blockbuster. ‘Who’s read American Psycho?’ I say, but we park, disembark, with the laughter of females at dusk, with the Lads switched to automatic, pulled along in the tractor-beam of nice arses towards

  Rosie’s nightclub.

  At the head of the queue are six bouncers. Six pairs of eyes to try and sneak beneath. Dolby turns to me. ‘You bring fake ID?’

  ‘Em.’

  ‘Naw?’

  ‘Naw.’

  Dolby and Brian shake their heads, weary cops saddled with a rookie. ‘Right, well, here’s the plan.’ We merge into the queue. Frannie has changed from his Rangers shirt into a Top Man shirt.

  I recognise the two girls in front of us from school, 15 year-olds trying desperately to look 18. One of them starts adjusting her barely-there chest. ‘Tell ye whit I says tay her, Emma,’ she seethes, in her mother’s voice, ‘Make a fuckin choice, I says. Ye canny like Destiny’s Child and the Sugababes equally.’

  ‘Fuckin outtay order,’ her pal agrees.

  ‘Alvin,’ Dolby commands, ‘stick close tay us. The bouncer might assume yer the same age.’ I shuffle into position. ‘If he asks for ID whit should ye dae?’

  ‘Pretend tay search for it?’

  ‘And why will ye no find it?’

  ‘Must’ve left it in ma other jacket. Sir.’

  ‘Good. Dinnay call him sir. He’ll probably no go for it, but it’s better than just shruggin and lookin like a knob.’ Dolby’s tone suggest I’m often shrugging and looking like a knob. ‘Fake date ay birth?’

  I reel it off, smart.

  He nods, without much confidence, checking me up and down. Shoes shined black. Shirt almost stapled into place. Hair slick and stiff with gel. I don’t
feel very old. I feel that over-groomed, stuffed way you do on the morning of a cousin’s wedding.

  ‘Have ye shaved?’ Brian growls.

  ‘Aye. Twice.’

  I peer through the club window. Alvin through the looking-glass. My reflected face looms ghostly in front of me, and for a second I am dislocated, hovering with the pretty faces, listening to chat-up lines from immaculate blondes over the sound of Basement Jaxx/Armand Van Helden/Geri Halliwell. Drinks glowing a Mediterranean neon, live lived in knife-like prime, while I

  Stand outside.

  In the grey Falkirkness.

  Frannie has let in workmates from Tesco’s, there are grumbles from the rest of the queue. He does his MC bit – ‘Andy, Mark, this is the Lads. Brian Mann, fellow teddy bear. Heddy haw.’ They shake hands fraternally. ‘This is Dolby, he works at Whirlpools Direct.’

  Dolby taps cracks in the pavement with his shoe.

  ‘And the wee yin here … this is the runt.’

  The pair nod at me, unimpressed, before commencing the Ibrox chat with Brian and Frannie – ‘aye, there’s definitely a split in the dressing-room likes’ – and the queue shunts up.

  Falkirk cinema across the road is showing Scary Movie. Dolby is chatting up the girls in front of us. They turn over their accents, stroke their 15 year-old curls and sigh ‘Work? Oh, well I work for an uh … management consultancy firm in Edinburgh.’ Q: How can you tell someone in Falkirk is lying about their job? A: It’s in Edinburgh. Seriously, have you ever met anyone in Edinburgh – batting their eyelashes, patting their ringlets – who admitted to working in Falkirk? Dolby-Wan Kenobi’s gesticulating to these schoolies, ‘Canny believe you’ve no even read an X-Men comic!’

  One of them laughs, high and piano-like. ‘You’re so funny.’

  The bouncer leans his meaty head out like a truck-driver in traffic. I duck, fearful, then try to position my shoulders that sort of Liam Gallagher way so that I look older, harder, cooler, but my shirt feels far too tight on me for it.