THE ART OF BICYCLE THEFT.
As they walked Jason had a thought. It was a dangerous
thought and he reasoned that it might be better to keep it to himself. However,
a dilemma posed itself. Did he keep quiet and see his best friend turned into a
balloon animal come the morning, or did he share his thoughts and open up a
whole new can of brainless invertebrates? A caper would always prevail and he
knew it. He looked at Paolo walking along beside him in a worried silence. “Hey
Paolo, do you know who owns most of this lot?” Jason pointed to the narrow
streets of red brick terraces that flanked their route. Paolo showed little
interest and raised the slightest of shrugs. “Fucked if I know…The Queen?”
Paolo was already trying to concoct a water tight and
blameless way of off loading the bicycle, or more correctly, the lack of it.
Jason answered his question. “The University do.” He gave Paolo the same kind
of expression that Paolo had given him when suggesting they get home on the
bike. Paolo trudged on sarcastic and unmoved. “What you suggesting Jase’? We
break into the metalwork block and knock up a fucking push bike?”
Jason persevered. “What do you think of when I say
‘students’?” Paolo sparked up once more and blew out a plume of smoke into the
cold damp air. “Dreadlocks and upside down ketchup bottles.” Jason pulled
around in front of his friend. “Exactly!…And why do they have dreadlocks? Paolo
shrugged. “Because they’re fucking hippies and they don’t have any pride in
their appearance?” Jason stopped walking backwards and stood his ground forcing his friend to
halt. “True, but not what I was getting at.” He continued to preserve. “What
about the ketchup bottles?” Paolo thought for a second. “Because they’re skint
most of the time.” At last,thought Jason, he was getting somewhere. “And how
do skint people get about?” said Jason with a wily smile. Paolo began to grin.
His salvation was not exactly pulling up to the roadside but it was certainly
definable upon the horizon.
They nestled low in a ginnel and tried to keep quiet. They
had peered over several walls but so far they had drawn a blank. Jason however,
remained optimistic. A few weeks earlier he had shagged some student bird
called Corinne who was studying at the near by campus. Her student house share
was in the next street. Jason had left early by the back door and noticed about
six different bikes in the yard as he went. It stood to reason that this
pottage of ginnels and alley ways must be home to a whole bicycle shop. They
just had to keep looking. Paolo cupped his hand once more and boosted Jason to
the top of another backyard wall. Jason scrambled to the lip and cautiously
raised his eye line above the brickwork. They had a result at last. Not eight
feet away stood two new mountain bikes. Clean, pristine and waiting to be rustled.
Jason prepared to hop over and have a look at the security situation in regard
to bike locks and getting them out of the gate. Suddenly a thought struck him.
He dropped back into the safety of the alley and huddled up
next to his bemused looking cohort. Paolo looked worried. “What’s up?” Jason
did not feel that he needed too much justification for his words. “Listen up,
Fucko, It’s not my mental step dads’ bike at the bottom of the river.” Paolo
remained off line and continued to stare back blankly. Jason tried to make it
clear. “It's your balls that are in a sling.....If you take my point?”
He gave Paolo a cynical smile before assuming the boost
position against the wall. Paolo took the hint and after a pathetic attempt to
pretend he couldn't climb, scrambled to the glistening lip of the crumbling red
brink edifice. Jason shuffled and puffed in an effort to stabilize their
acrobatics. The alley was only about four feet wide, prompting Jason to flip
out a leg and wedge it up against the opposing wall. He continued to try and
balance the ever wriggling Paolo whilst shaking the rain from his face. Shuffling once more to consolidate his grip, he
wedged himself ever more solidly between the walls and hissed at Paolo to get a
move on.
There seemed to be no
prelude to the disaster. No reason to think that anything worse than getting
caught was likely to happen. Jason strained and looked forward at the opposing
wall of wet red brick and prepared to end Paolo’s dilly-dallying by boosting
him straight over the top. It would be good for a laugh even if they had to
scamper. All of a sudden everything went slack. It was followed by an earth shaking thud.
The unconsciousness lasted but a second and
was no doubt prompted by the connection of the back of Jason’s head on the
wall. A wall that was now horizontal and laying in the yard in practically one
complete slab. Time seemed distorted and the horizon had changed from brick red
to thunder black. A pair of skinny legs clothed in tattered jeans pulled
themselves up Jason’s chest and scrambled shakily to an upright position. The yard became
illuminated by the light from a window directly above and was quickly joined by
several others in the adjoining houses.
Paolo was not about
to give up. He grasped a loose brick from the edge of the wall and, with one
almighty crack, sent the feeble bicycle lock winging across the yard. He
glanced quickly at the window and grabbed the nearest bike before heading off
down the alley.
Jason sat up, still stunned. His vision was blurred and the
confines of the small backyard began to spin. He wiped the red brick dust from
his hands and deposited it in two long streaks upon his best black Levi’s. The
sound of a key began to prattle and clank in the lock of the back door,
followed by the snap of several bolts. Now seemed like a good time to vacate.
Jason staggered to his feet, crossed the tiny yard, and began to fumble with the bolt on the gate when
something suddenly occurred. What the hell was he doing trying to open the gate
when there was a gaping hole where the wall had once stood? The door flew open
just as Jason leapt over the debris and headed off down the narrow alley. He
ran in wide-eyed panic towards the shaft of yellow light that signalled the
junction with the street.
Suddenly the alley began to lose its shape. The walls began
to shift and wobble. His vision began to break up. Black…. He could make it to
the road, he was sure. Black again. Cold damp concrete kissed his ashen cheeks
and the back of his head became warm and sticky. Jason rolled over and crossed
his arms above his face. He chanced a peek through his inadequate protection
and momentarily froze at the sight of a huge guy wielding a golf club. The first swipe
had split open the back of his head, and if he didn't think pretty quickly, the
second was about to send him to A&E.
The student was a big lad. Quite obviously a first team
member of the university rugby club and probably able to drink his beer from a
bucket. Jason cowered momentarily before deciding that, rugger-bugger or not,
he wouldn't be intimidated by a big fat cunt wearing nothing but a pink
bathrobe. Jason seized the moment and delivered a Chelsea boot to a pair of
bouncing bollocks. The result was instant. His assailants broad frame began to buckle. His knees collided
like Poseidon’s rocks, and his face became a picture of the most unimaginable
discomfort. He tottered for a second as his kidneys began to pulse with the two
second bellyache, before collapsing backwards in a whining heap.
Jason seized his
opportunity and scrambled to his feet once more. The slit became wider and
wider as he lurched towards safety. The yellow hue of the street lighting
seemed to dazzle. This was too fuckin’ much, thought Jason. Two days on the
piss, mushrooms and speed, Giz knobbing Lucy, Ken’s nose, losing the bike, and
some amateur demolition. To cap it all he’d just been battered with a nine
iron. This had not been on the evening’s agenda. Jason gasped and scanned the
street with terrified eyes. Which way? Where the fuck had Paolo disappeared to?
His pursuer was up again and the unmistakable silhouette of a golf club was
growing in size and scraping the narrow confines of the alley as it once more
closed in on Jason's throbbing head.
“Yoo-hoo!”
Jason looked around and spotted Paolo. He was two hundred
yards away, astride a brand new mountain bike and pulling a wheelie. A wall
brick splintered on the road as Jason ran towards him. It was preposterous. How
the fuck had this happened, thought Jason? He raced up the road towards Paolo.
An hour ago he had been as happy as a pig in shit. After narrowly escaping a
drowning he was now covered in shit and running away from a big unit in a pink
bath robe. A big unit with very sore plums and a golf club.
The brick had been recovered and was once more sailing
across the void towards him. He felt it hit the road once more, only inches
from his heels. Jason reminded himself that now was not the time to be holding
a revue of the evening’s events. Paolo spun the bike and began to pedal way,
momentarily turning to beckon his friend. Jason sucked in the air and ran
towards him, the paper thin and vessel heavy walls of his heart screaming with
pain. He could hear the echo of the rugger-bugger’s feet thumping along behind. His windpipe began to heave;
sore from too many cigarettes. Paolo was no closer. He was pedalling faster than
Jason was able to run. His salvation was ebbing away. Jason summoned up enough
breath to yell whilst remaining flat out. “Slow down, you cunt!” Paolo glanced
behind himself once more. “Run faster, you fucker!”
The rugger-bugger appeared to be running out of steam. He
had slowed to a resigned jog as Jason finally closed on the rear of the fast
moving bike. Paolo took his eyes off the road one last time and moved his
skinny rump forward of the saddle. He screamed at Jason to leap aboard the
bike. Jason took one last look behind him. His pursuer was definitely slowing
but he was still coming. Maybe in the hope that a neighbour might appear and block their escape.
This was no time to become blasé about things. Jason launched himself skywards,
legs akimbo, and thudded down on the bicycles saddle with all the grace of a
drunken goose landing on a frozen pond. It was a thump that sent the bike careering
sideways. Paolo let out a squeal before amazingly regaining some balance.
Jason’s feet stabbed the wet road at intermittent intervals as he tried to help. He took
a firm hold of Paolo’s shoulders and glanced back once more. Their radged-up
pursuer was now almost at walking pace. He swore and slashed the air with
frustration as he saw his transport heading off down the main road. “I’ll see
you bastards around somewhere, and I swear to god, I’ll kill yer!” Paolo
steered them out on to the main road, narrowly missing a taxi, and pedalled off
into the night. A last goad drifting through the rain.
“Not if we see you first!” yelled Jason.
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