The boy loved being down the Granby Triangle on days like these. And with Shaun next to him, no-one was going to fuck with them either. With sweat clinging to his forehead and eyebrows, the boy wiped his face and swept back his jet black hair.
There’s a feeling of space on these roads, he thought as the feint breeze cooled him.
Wide Victorian streets were lined with tall, terraced houses – Beaconsfield St, Cairns St, Jermyn St and Ducie St. There were a couple of black kids on the other side of the road. They exchanged furtive looks – they must have been on the wag too. He didn’t have a problem with the blacks. They were just the same as everyone else, weren’t they? The kids at school, and some of his relatives, were dead racist but he hated that. They listened to black music, supported Liverpool, whose best player was John Barnes, but said things like ‘bloody coons’. What was that all about, eh? Dickheads.
As Shaun kicked the now-empty beer can into the gutter, the boy got a waft of the food from the nearby Bangladeshi store. It smelt like curry but also sweet and smoky. They hadn’t had breakfast. There was nothing to eat in the house and they hadn’t bothered robbing anything yet.
As they turned left, the boy saw a building with boarded up doors and windows that were now covered in colourful graffiti tags. He and Shaun had a go at tagging after robbing some spray paints from Halfords last month. It hadn’t lasted long as Shaun had decided to spray his younger brother’s hair and face green to look like the Incredible Hulk. But that was Shaun. Daft as a bloody brush, our kid. But the boy loved the bones of his older brother. Their dad, Jack Blake, had died three years earlier in a motorbike accident and since then Shaun had taken on the role of being ‘the man of the house’. Well sometimes.
Up ahead, some old West Indian men, all in hats of one kind or another, sat on the porch of a house smoking ganja, playing cards and laughing. They nodded a hello to the boys who nodded back. Someone was playing reggae from somewhere, the bass of the stereo reverberating down into the street. It was a lazy day, where the dogs lay breathing heavily in the shadows of trees and the air was still and thick with heat.
As they passed an alleyway, they saw two drunk men having piss against the wall, holding themselves up as they slurred their words. The boy knew all about the pubs and bars in this area from his uncles. There was the old Somali Club where his Uncle Ray had got stabbed in a card game a few years ago. There was the strip place where the prossies would give you a hand job for a rum and coke – or that’s what Uncle Ray said when he’d been on the piss. Another club round the corner was called Dutch Eddy’s, even though that wasn’t its name. The Lucky Bar and the Silver Sands. The boy couldn’t wait until he was old enough to go on the razz with his uncles.
Shaun slowed noticeably and then stopped beside a car as he glanced around. The boy looked at his brother and then at the car – a dark green MG Maestro – and knew immediately what was coming. His heart sank. They were the easiest cars on the planet to hot wire.
‘Eh, fuck off, Shaun,’ the boy protested wearily. They’d been in enough trouble in the past few weeks.
Shaun wasn’t listening. Having pulled a flat-head screwdriver from his jeans, Shaun grinned at him as he went to work on the lock. They could TWOC a Maestro in under a minute. ‘Don’t be soft, lad. Two litre, fuel injection. This is greased fucking lightning.’
The boy shook his head, ‘Only if I drive, dickhead.’
‘Go ‘head then, shorty,’ Shaun said as he opened the passenger door and let the boy in the other side.
The inside of the car was like an oven. The boy watched his brother yank out a brown wire from the fuse box. He then ripped a white and red lead from the starter relay. He touched the two wires together and engine started immediately.
‘Bingo,’ Shaun said, giving him a wink.
Shaun could be a bit of a dick, but it was pretty cool having him as your older brother.
The boy could feel the buzz in his stomach. He loved driving stolen cars. They never did anything with them. Just took them, drove around like nutters and left them somewhere. Some of the scallies from down the road used to pour petrol in their stolen cars and set them alight. Then they’d throw bricks at the bizzies when they arrived. The boy couldn’t see the point in that.
Pushing down hard on the accelerator, the boy felt the engine roar and judder under the seat and on his feet.
Come on! Let’s fuckin’ go!
He stamped on the clutch, which was softer than he was used to. Then he used the gears to pull away at speed. Second gear, third gear and now fourth. Smooth as fuck, lad.
Both brothers began to laugh and whoop.
‘Let’s see what this twat’s listening to...’ Shaun said, turning on the stereo.
The album ‘No Jacket Required’ by Phil Collins was playing.
Shaun pulled a face, ‘Are you fucking joking, mate? Phil fucking Collins!’ He hit the eject button, took the cassette and tossed it out of the passenger window. ‘Yous can do one!’
Twiddling with the radio, Shaun heard something he liked – ‘No Good (Start the Dance)’ by the Prodigy. Cranking up the volume, the frenetic beats and bass crackled out of the speakers.
‘That’s more like it, la!’ the boy shouted, peering over the steering wheel with a
