Free Boyracers by Alan Bissett

could only picture me and Fran with big headphones clamped to our ears, chilling to the new U2 album like superstar DJs and
    ‘Fucksakes,’ Brian sighed, shaking his head at the telly. His own dad was in the army, Brian barely saw him, and now they don’t talk. This is why he has the house to himself usually, with all its lonely family-less space. Onscreen, a soldier hunted for his missing arm on the grey beach, a wall of rain on the horizon sweeping closer. The soft fall of pain. Someone shot through the skull and
    Me and Frannie pogoing with 40,000 nutters to Pride (In the Name of Love), Frannie ignoring the Irish tricolour flags, Dolby’s there! He’s pretending that he doesn’t think Bono’s a knob and has even learned the words to everything on Achtung Baby and
    ‘Aw them lives lost.’ Brian’s eyes became misty. He wiped at them manfully, dignified, and I wondered when the last time he spoke to his dad was. Bodies littering the beach, the surf a light crimson colour, lapping like a stray dog at a scrap of bare meat and
    Soon Bono calls me up onstage during With or Without You for a slow dance and I’m cuddled into him and even though he’s been performing for two hours he’s not sweaty and
    ‘If I was a religious man I’d say a prayer for them boys,’ said Brian, sort of talking to himself, distant, humble and
     
    We slide towards the derelict car-park like sharks.
    Across the horizon, lights in a row mean parents with children, watching telly, maybe Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The industrial estate inMiddlefield has concrete walls spidery with lichen, vacant windows. Idlewild are singing Actually It’s Darkness on Radio 1, but Dolby cuts them off as we turn the corner, making Belinda a vacuum, making the noise from the car-park bubble and spit to life. Laughter, young and male, honed on garage forecourts. Motors revving like dogs on leashes. Music, dance mostly, but bursts here and there of Shania Twayne from a pink Fiat Punto, Coldplay, Limp Bizkit. My blood drums along. Brian going, ‘So my Uncle Tam oot in California says I can join him any time I like. Just needtay get ma visa. California boys, eh?’
    ‘California girls!’ Frannie nyuk-nyuks.
    Light sluicing from the cars up one side. Silver metalwork with a rainbow flip. A girl answering her phone, her silhouette knife-thin against the headlights. A tower of Reebok checks his texts. Phones ringing everywhere, a seizure of bleeping, drug deals spiralling into the air above us.
    As we cruise up the line, Brian points at the boys, ‘Fiat Uno … Ford Fiesta … Golf …’
    As we cruise up the line, Frannie points at the girls, ‘Rancor Monster … Snaggletooth … Hammerhead …’
    Two guys place loose change on the roof of a Vauxhall Corsa. The bass throbs and the coins dance, a miniature rave. ‘The guy’s name wis Shiny,’ Dolby’s muttering, as we smooth past a gang of girls. They are lionesses spotting a wildlife photographer. ‘Met him on a chatroom last night.’
    ‘Shiny?’ Frannie says. ‘Sortay fuckin name’s that?’
    ‘Sortay fuckin name’s Frannie?’
    Chatroom, I’m thinking. Internet, I’m thinking. First killings by internet cult, I’m thinking.
    Tyra Mackenzie was wearing a salmon-pink blouse today with a silver chain, her skin lightly freckled like eggshell.
    There’s a tap at the window. Some dude gestures for us to roll it down. He casts an eye over our dashboard – for woofer speakers? strobe lights? – and snorts to see it bare. ‘You Shiny?’ Dolby asks him, guarded.
    When he smiles his front teeth jut out like a rodent’s. ‘Why?’ he yips. ‘Whit d’ye want?’
    ‘Just telt tay ask for Shiny.’
    His teeth nibble at his bottom lip. ‘Aw, you the chatroom boy? Uriel?’ Frannie glances at me, smirking. ‘Nay bother, pal.’ Our host breaks into a grin. ‘I’m Shiny. Just makin sure ye’re no the pigs, ken?’
    ‘Of course,’ Dolby manages nervously, ‘em … whaur do we go