Free Boyracers by Alan Bissett Page B

the drivers and hang at their sides like ornaments. Low-grade electricity buzzes between us. ‘This is the shout,’ Brian says, charged, ready, and then we’re leaping out of the car to join the crowd, wringing each other’s shoulders, yelping like children and it’s
    Witnessed: Frannie copping off with a skank in the backseat of Belinda. We stand outside in the night air, freezing and full of wonder. The dazed shouts. The way drivers stopped expertly before the wall. Surely, they all know that someday one of them won’t stop in time.
     
    morning and I’m standing with the hash-heads at the back of the History huts. Not that I partake, mind, just that Barry and Gordo – the Cheechand Chong of Falkirk High – have between them the Floyd’s entire back catalogue on CD. Today it’s my copy of The Wall for Barry’s Delicate Sound of Thunder for Gordo’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn, as hands appear from the wreath of smoke then withdraw covertly.
    ‘Sure ye dinnay want a draw?’ Gordo offers, squinting through the grey fronds. ‘Just one for Syd Barrett?’
    He and Barry laugh explosively (at?) before descending into a whispered exchange and brief paroxysms of giggles. It’s guys like these who were responsible for Hallglen becoming Hash Glen, sniggering, slack-eyed Syd acolytes that have a thousand potholes scattered around Falkirk High. Harmless. Sometimes even good for patter. They definitely know their Floyd. But when I’m with them I feel funky and unfunny, on the edge of things. This is what I do, float from group to group, liked by all, accepted by none. Like Icarus, I soar against the underbelly of the Livingstone set, then descend, wings fluttering, to the level of the grasshoppers. Each thinks I surely belong with the other lot.
    ‘This is cheap shite,’ Gordo splutters. ‘You been buyin aff Big Mark again?’
    There is a famous story of Barry, when he was twelve, buying off Big Mark Baxter. Barry boasting to everyone at Gordo’s house that night that he knew his shit, that he was ‘well in wi the Fear crew likes,’ not knowing that Mark had sold him two Oxo cubes. ‘Ha fuckin ha,’ Barry tuts.
    Gordo is the rumour conduit of Falkirk High, an oracle in Nikes. He hears things vibrating across the floor, or spoken to him in a dream. You can see him lounged in some doorway at break, a pale wraith in a shroug of ganja, murmuring, ‘New Chemistry teacher’s a dyke, gen up.’ He knows where every boyracer in Falkirk has been in the last month, who they saw there, what they were listening to, probably knows where they’re going next. We could consult him, cross-leggedbefore a poster of Bob Marley, for Cottsy reports, leave rizlas at his door by way of thanks. Gordo knows all about Brian’s head-to-head with Cottsy at the bowling-alley and he knows where all the races are happening and he knows about a Snobs Party coming up, Jennifer Haslom’s birthday. ‘Should be a classy do,’ he muses, then takes a long toke. ‘Nay skanks like us there.’
    ‘Fuck that, man,’ says Barry, shaking his head, ‘be fullay knobs. David Easton, James French, Louisa Wanwright, Tyra Mackenzie, Connor Livingstone …’
    ‘I hate that cunt,’ Gordo tuts sourly. He offers me his roach, which I refuse, then they start a raunchy conversation about Tyra in various states of undress and position, Jimi Hendrix playing in the background, which makes me quite uncomfortable, so I distract them: do they reckon we’ll get an invite?
    Loud cackling.
    ‘Us?
    ‘Ye jokin?’
    ‘Sure ye’re no wantin some ay this?’
    ‘Naw.’
    ‘Anywey, Alvin,’ says Gordo, ‘you’ll be awright. Tyra’s keen on you.’
    ‘Is she?’ I say, too quickly, and they collapse again into an ecstasy of giggles. I sigh, turn, see First Years hurrying back before the bell past these Fifth Years with their funny cigarettes. They peek at us and scurry on. Their shoes are gleaming black. Their hair is cut straight. Their eyes are alive with