You forget who ya friends are; ya forget your home, ya car, ya name; and by the end of it, ya whole damn life. It wasn as if we got a life, we always running from trouble ain’t us both? We hear the bloody pigs; we see the shinin lights in tha dark. We ain’t scared though; we got na life to lose.
Tripod’s runnin the race, his got legs, that’s for sure. He aint no scared of no piggy, nat scared of no cell. So he runs faster than any other human brother, runs into tha dark and the Great Unknown. Ya try to stop im but he will keep on runnin. I says so to the utha brothers, but they not listening to a thing I says. So a just keep on runnin. There’s a thing we used ta call leggin it, we would play it at tha party’s sum broads had when we was younger. You’d run up ta the door of sum poor random git and knock the livin Jesus out of it until they came ravin like a madman on speed. It was all for fun back in those days. Nothin like it is now.
- Scotty boy naw you listen to me says Matty. He’s got a pocket full of cocaine and snow on tha nose. He racin too but he got no leg, he’s slow and daft, fatter than tha rest of us. I hate it when he calls me Scotty. N’vr Scott like my Ma. Always Scotty or Scotty boy. S’pose we call im Matty rather than Matt, or bloody Mathew like the high bloody religious dude you hear of in tha God house. But that’s beside the point isn’t it? Matty was a good bloke, we’d give im that. I mean, there ar sumtimes when he’s bein a right pain, especially when he ain’t high. Wen he high then he’s off is nut. I mean, sumtimes its fun, sumtimes, you’d give anythin to escape.
Matty’s got tha blonde air and the blu eyes like all the chicks like. Tha eyes creep me out though, suppose they do to tha chicks sumtimes, especially when he on tha piss and he slurs and raves on. Matty was ma oldest brother, met im back when I was just a kid. Before we hit anythin big. Is older brother Jordy McLean was big in the drug world. He tha reason why we be runnin this god damn freezing night, while the oinkers ar right up our arse. Ever since we got big in tha game we be chasin off those fat pigs. It was fun, sort of like the leggin it game just with far greater consequences.
You run, you run, and you get the hell out of there. That’s wat life is all about. Nothing else and nothing less. I ad a life. Until ma mate top’d imself. Found is body in a ditch, suppos’d the Whiters knock’d im off for bein a mouth but na one culd prove it. The pigs said that he ad is wrists cut like a sui or sumthin but reckon utherwise. Im smart like that, always head of tha game, rather than my royal backside left in tha dust. I got tha nickname Wise Guy from another bra who topped imself back a few months ago. He OD’d on ice, the one load im never gunna take cos I got more brains than that. I take tha safe stuff. Tha stuff that gives ya a high but lets ya down softly. I’m not inta tha heavyweights, that was Tripod’s position.
I ear im laughin as us run, Matty in tha back with Tripod n Didge takin tha lead of the tin fence. I see it but ma legs wont reach it, im gunna hav to jump it, but my knee feels dodged from the fall a took back at the pub. The broad with the big rack and bleached hair had handed me ma pint before tha big brother knocked it out of me hand. I show’d im one, took im down easily, he was wasted and was easily beat’n. Is nose broke out in blood, his face was mess’d and everywhere, the broad was screamin and a felt like telling er to shut her big trap. Instead, she calls up the pigs and now I find myself leggin it. If they catch us now wer dead brothers. Matty’s got the gold while Tripod and Didge hav tha money we stole from tha broad’s till. I guess a was a lucky bastard, the only evidence leading me was the bloody hand. I wiped most of it off by now, a can still see tha dint where is tooth chipped ma knuckle.
- Tha bloody dun it this time, Didge tells me as we first ran out a tha pub. Its pissin down with rain, even tho they says we in a drought, I find we all soakin and we got na shelter from it. Tha rain doesn’t stop us though. Didge and Matty ar high and Tripod a little drunk from the holy water, the drink sent by god imself. We lov’d the grog. Almost as much as the drugs. It was a safer alternative tha fur sure. Put tha two togetha and ya get a deadly combo.
The sirens sound louda now, as we find ourselves racing down the High Street, searchin for tha back alleys but all we find is tha adult store up a flight of stairs. It is too dark to see anythin up there, but ther is na other alternative. A broad wit an umby is standin in the rain, smoking a cigarette an lookin at us funny. I smile at her and watch her. She’s hot and I find myself drawn inta her for a second but im to drunk to even register her fully. It took tha moment to register, but Matty and I both saw the others run up em. Better to be in there than down here wrest’n wit bacon.
The stairs only go up to tha second story, the doors ar black cept for tha sign that says, “Come In, We’re Open”. I laugh at tha sign, as I always do. I find myself poundin on tha door as I enter, collapsin on tha red carpet. It look’d like ma head was spinning out of it. It was only a second before Tripod took his uge hands an lifted me off tha ground, dustin off ma leather jacket. Shops like these r dirty, he tells me. I shrug im off before checkin out tha owna of tha store, who is watchin us from tha counter behind a row of some of the finest pornography, or so says Didge as he picks up tha DVD which has a picture of two blonde school girls in miniskirts. I hate this place. It smells god awful and the owner always thinks wer up to na good. Guess he’s right alf the time.
- I don’t wanna be here, I says to Matty as he continues ta browse tha DVDs and na he was goin to tha magazines. He only laughs at me and shrugs me off.
- Whats wrong with ya? There is no guy not interested in this stuff, he returns afta putting a magazine back on tha shelf.
- I’m not into it, I replies to him, he just grins and punches me in tha arm. It hurts, and a kno im gunna bruise but I dunt say anything cos I wanna live until tomorrow. See tha thing is, Matty is scary when he’s high. He gets all dangerous and punches thing. One time he almost killed a guy who accidentally bumped inta him at the bus station. You know whenever he raises his voice to run cos u dun wanna be on tha end of im.
I glance back at the owner and find are beady eyes watchin me. He’s got greasy dark hair and dark eyes, he’s fat, his gut rolling out of a tank top, the smell of tha dusty AC is blowin crap all ov’r us. He asks me if a need help but I shrug im off, saying that I was na in here fer me. I was in her because I had na life. It was all goin to waste now. We wer all wastin away, we wers Westies after all, nobody liked us Westies. The bloody stigma they held against us always drove us to tha atten’in of tha pigs.
Didge shows ma a DVD entitled “Wild Antics Caught On Tape”, I shrug at im cuz im not interested. I havn’t been interest’d in that in a long time. I was inta that cars, the drugs, the money and the booze. I need’d nothing else in tha world. I jus wished I culda been at home by now, I have’n slept in days and my face is hideous. A look in the stor mirror, my hair is a mess, I got bags unda my eyes and I’m unshaven. My eyes look’d scary wen I was drunk. Ther usually green but nah their reddish brown lik shit ur sumthin.I look at ma hair, im always conscious bout it . I got tha dark hair but lately I been getting tha greys and still unly a kid. I dunt get why im agin so much an I dun like it.
- Get lost will ya, I says to Didge, he laughs and tells me to piss off before goin back to the shelves. I look out tha window into the street below and I see tha pigs driving slower, tryin ta find us no doubt. The store owner eyes me funny so I giv im the finger. He laughs back at me and I find maself bored out of ma mind. I go ta tha front door and begn to go down tha stairs. Ther, the young chick with dark hair and big tits stands smokn a cigarette. She smiles at ma and offer me a drag. I tak it, and inhale it deeply. I cough it out, it feels lik shit so I dunno wat the hell im doin it for. She laughs at ma and takes it back, and tells me her names Peta. I don’t really care fer her name. I jus look in er eyes and imagine the two of us.
- Ma names Scott, I tell her, and she smiles, she still puffing away, while she holds up her umbrella as the rain pisses down on us both. The shelta supp’d to protect us but we find ourselves covered in it.
- I didn’t ask for your name, she tells me. I smile, thinkin she is a smug little cow. She was hot, I gave er that much, but not hot enough fer me to take her to me Ma. She had a smell of cheap perfume, sum flower, I’d be stuff’d if I knew what the hell it was.
- What you doin here so late at night, I ask her to mak conversation while I wait fer the guys who seem to be takin ther time. Maybe ther watchin the movies up ther. By this time I’m freezing my ass off on the street, while the coppers keep on drivin, im hopin they willna see me standing by the broad, but maybe she ma only protection.
- I’m waiting for my brother. He was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago, she says as she flicks her fag down onto tha street. She coughs to erself before she sits on tha stairs. She got a nice skirt on, and beautiful legs undaneath. I find er attractive, about ninety nine percent of all men wuld. They’d be lyin or gay if they didn. I say to her, that sucks, but she just looks at me and smiles before askin ma what I was doin so late, specially since a still had school. I ma have lookd olda but you culd still c a was just seventeen years old.
- You got a boyfriend, I asks her.
- No, she smiles shyly as started ta play with her hair, why, u offerin?
I laugh and shrug her off, I tell er that I got a girlfriend, its only a half lie, there was this chick I knew but she hadna spoken to me for ages now.
- What’s her name? she asks me.
- Why do you wanna know? I say seriously then laugh at her when she gets pissed off.
- Ya stink of alcohol, she tells me. I smell maself and laugh at her, im probably to pissed to even smell me. When a think that im thinkin she ma not be as beautiful as a think she is. Maybe im just too drunk. Life was a funny that way. It kinda sucked.
Ma life was never lik this. My father was takn by tha pigs when I was just six, for murder apparentally, then they found charges of armed robbery. He was takn and me Ma was distraught. It kinda sucked to watch her all upset. It was only last year that he was givn parole. The murder was accidental and he was soon acquitted. Me Ma was scared for her life, an mine in ways. She wanna to protect me from im, but I ad to find out who he was.
So ma life changed, and I met tha brothas. We were inta everythin we shouldna been. I was sixteen when I got ma first tattoo, seventeen when I got ma fifth. I got fiver visible piercins and three ya cant c as they’d probably scar tha shit outa ye.
As I sat out ther in tha rain, and next to tha hot broad, I wond’d wat my life really meant. I guess you couldna pect a junkie to be ponderin life’s big questions, aye. I ere em racing down the stairs and ear the shuffling of plastic bags so a kno they got sum porn. I say goodbye to tha chick and we begin ta walk down tha street, aware that tha pigs were still afta us.
Matty is show’n ma tha DVD he bought, “Voyages and Voyeurs” an a laugh, he was inta that weird shit. He punched me, and called me blonday like ha always dus when he taken tha piss out of ma. I laugh back and smash im in tha face, but he knows it’s a joke so we keep on walkin. It about midnight now and I wonder’n why I got no phone call of me Ma. It doesn’t really matter, she kno’s nuthin of wats happenin, and she probably neva will.
- You were in with that chick mate, Didge tells me as we look back at Peta who is still standin in tha rain. I feel sorry for her, some part of me wanted to protect her or ta tak her home maself; not ta leave her here alone at this time a night. I turn back though and I forget about her in a few minutes. I always do.
We ear the sirens blar’n and we begin to run again. Tripod yells, Oh shit as we run, the rain still pourin on us like the almighty pissing down on us low lifes. We take the nearest alleyway and leg it.

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