Free The Alternative Hero by Tim Thornton

distracted briefly by the sound of approaching dance music. A throbbing Transit van roared past us, ignored our outstretched thumbs and hurled a half-full can of cider in our direction.
    “Tit!” Alan shouted after the Transit.
    “There’s some left,” I exclaimed, bending to pick the can up.
    “Don’t be a pleb, man.”
    I shrugged. I’d have done worse if I’d been on my own.
    “Anyway, I was saying. She’s a singer or something, I’m sure of it.”
    Alan would later claim to identify her as Sarah Cracknell, soon to be of Saint Etienne—although God knows how he arrived at that conclusion. He didn’t have a chance to consider it for much longer back then, for soon the cider-flinging van was speeding back down the wrong side of the deserted dual carriageway towards us.
    “Probably coming back for their cider,” chuckled Alan; although as the van neared we halted and stepped backwards nervously.
    “Maybe he didn’t like being called a tit,” I suggested. The van spun round, came to a crazy diagonal stop in the middle of the road and stuck its hazards on. A bearded, mad-looking bloke with muddy dreadlocks stuck his head out the window and yelled delightedly above the pounding din.
    “Where ya goin’?”
    “Bushey,” Alan bellowed back, injecting as much rock ’n’ roll as possible into the word. “Where you going?”
    “Where?”
came the response.
    “Yes, where?” repeated Alan, a little too enthusiastically, as events would prove.
    “Cool, us too!” the guy shouted back. “Come on!”
    “No, where!” repeated Alan.
    “Tha’s all right, mate, we’re all goin’ same place, jump in the back, we’ll drop you by the Royal Oak or somethin’ in the town centre. That’ll do you, eh?”
    “The Royal Oak! Perfect,” I grinned, at the sound of a pub less than fifteen minutes’ walk from my house. Alan looked a little stunned, then shrugged approval.
    “Yeah, man, the Royal Oak’s cool. Cheers.”
    What brilliant luck! There was nothing to this hitchhiking lark. We plodded round to the back of the van. The doors opened and we were met by two scruffy mongrel dogs on threadbare leads, held by two equally mangy dreadlocked geezers in New Model Army T-shirts. A small girl lurked further back, looking fairly spaced-out in a Spacemen 3 top that she’d fashioned into a dress.
    “Come on in, don’t be shy,” beamed one of the chaps. “I’m Barry, this is Welpo, Liz over there, Si up at the front and this,” indicating the two dogs, “is Margaret and Steve.”
    We climbed in and settled ourselves on the purple rug. Welpo slammed the doors and Si, after turning the music down just a touch—to earsplitting rather than brain-crushing volume—began to wildly reverse back up the road.
    “Sorry I chucked the can at you,” he shouted. “You looked like you needed a drink.”
    The makeshift lounge they’d created in the back was lit by an ultraviolet torch and surprisingly cosy, once I’d got used to Steve’s arse in my face. Alan looked content enough, having temporarily abandoned his concerns as to where the hell we were going. I accepted a swig from Welpo’s can of cider and tried to familiarise myself with the music.
    “Who’s this?”
    “You what?” Barry frowned, cupping his ear.
    “Who’s the music?”
    “The Shamen!” he exclaimed. I looked over at Alan to see if he would repeat his earlier view that they were “a load of toss,” but he was already being snogged by the spaced-out girl.
    I’m still amazed we got as far as we did without noticing our ridiculous error. I remember remarking into Barry’s ear that it was quite a coincidence we were all from the same town, and being somewhat puzzled when he mentioned something about living near“the river.” Perhaps if the music hadn’t been so loud I might have asked him where the hell a river was in Bushey; then again, perhaps if Alan wasn’t having his faced sucked off he might have noticed from Si’s driving style that