Free January by Kerry Wilkinson

The clock on the dashboard flipped over to 11.52 as the battered Volkswagen engine continued to idle, sputtering exhaust fumes into the freezing night air and causing that hole
in the ozone layer to expand even further. If it was still there, of course. Whatever happened to that hole? A few years previously, it was all scientists banged on about, now they were on to
rising sea levels and who knew what else.
    Kitkat drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, nodding and umming as the occupant of the passenger seat wittered on, barely pausing for breath.
    ‘So, Clarkey, right, he knows this bloke in Sefton who reckons he can get these knock-off Nikes. We’re going into business doing car-booters . . .’
    Kitkat gazed at the gap on his left hand where his ring finger had once been. The rest of his fingers were wrapped around the steering wheel, leaving the small stump poking upwards. It was
aching because of the cold, though the mild pain was marginally more agreeable than listening to Chris Green’s latest ploy to get rich quick. The bloke was a moron, a disaster waiting to
happen – still he was the only person who’d volunteered to spend New Year’s Eve with Kitkat, making him, by default, Kitkat’s best mate. At nineteen years old, that was a
terrifying thought. Was this really his life?
    ‘Right . . . yeah . . .’ Kitkat replied, not really listening.
    He needed some better friends.
    The red tail lights of the car in front blinked off as they moved forward an entire car length before the crimson burned through the windscreen again. When Chris had suggested going to Tennessee
Fried Chicken, Kitkat had laughed, thinking it was a joke. Who went to a fast-food drive-thru on the night of 31 December?
    As it turned out, lots of people.
    They’d been queuing for fifteen minutes and there was still another car between them and the speaker box that signalled the promised land.
    ‘Whatcha gonna get?’ Chris asked.
    Kitkat just about zoned into the conversation in time to realise he’d been asked a question. Chris was fidgeting in the passenger seat, phone in one hand, crotch in the other. He was
scratching incessantly as if he had crabs, which, in all honesty, he probably did.
    ‘Chicken,’ Kitkat replied, hoping for a snigger that didn’t come. Instead, Chris was off again.
    ‘I might get a bargain bucket.’
    ‘To share?’
    ‘Nah, it’ll get me through to breakfast tomorrow.’ Chris cleared his throat and then added: ‘Don’t s’pose you’ve got a spare tenner, have ya?’
    Kitkat could feel his passenger peering sideways, wanting to make eye contact. If there was one rule about being friends with Chris Green, it was to never lend him cash – not if you wanted
it back. Chris had less idea what to do with money than Kitkat had when it came to girls – and that was saying something.
    ‘Sorry, mate,’ Kitkat replied, hoping he had something other than a twenty in his wallet.
    Chris exhaled loudly. ‘No matter – I copped twenty quid off Jase early doors. He’s staying in for the night – can you believe that?’
    He sounded incredulous but Kitkat didn’t know who was the saddest: Chris’s brother, Jason, for staying in for the night on New Year’s Eve, probably watching Jools Holland
playing honky-tonk piano over the top of some current pop tune; or the pair of them going through the TFC drive-thru.
    Actually, he
did
know who was more pathetic: them. Definitely them.
    Kitkat had never known what to make of Chris’s older brother. He was unquestionably the smartest of the Green siblings and also the most aloof. They were so different that it was sometimes
difficult to believe Jason and Chris were brothers. Chris was the family idiot, blowing any money he did have down the bookies or the pub; Jason barely spoke, hardly ever going out and keeping
himself to himself. There was something about him, though, an intelligence behind his eyes that always made Kitkat think he had something going