Home's a hole in the ground, our only home. Our only retreat from the storm forever roarin outside. The Fag Hole, we call it - one of them old Anderson shelters in the rubbish-filled, brick-strewn backyard of a derelict house up on Frederick Street. It's this rustin hulk of corrugated iron, really. Sort of like someone's rib-cage lyin half-buried beneath a thick knot of creepin ivy, beer cans, Evo-Stik pots, shrivelled-up glue bags and the odd used condom. Damp, dark, and dirty it may be, but it's home.

We hang out there dinner-times, or whenever we skive off Games, English, Maths, History, Latin, wharrever - none of em say anythin to us about our lives.

We usually sit facin each other, on mouldy planks balanced on top of milk crates or piles of bricks. The floor's an ocean of old fag-ends and roaches, and the air's always filled with this weird mix of ammonia ("bat's piss", Louie sez) and sweet, sweet blow.

Nobody can touch us ere. It's our place, man - our patch, our sanctuary. Our haven from the order, discipline and cleanliness of school - a rustin, filthy subterranean pit of bliss.

On the walls we etch stuff into the rust with our keys: 'Gregson is an arsehole', 'Miss Skorecki's got great tits'… Louie puts the names of all his top bands up there: Steel Pulse, Black Uhuru, and I must've wrote the same thing over fifty times by now: 'Louie and Steve woz ere', 'Louie and Steve woz ere', 'Louie and Steve woz ere' . . every one of em in this kind of spidery gothic script.

But most of the time we just smoke - spliffs pulled from our blazer pockets, great cones of blow secreted inside felt-tip pens, down our trouser legs, anywhere. We smoke to forget, to escape, to get away from it.

Sometimes we just slide into silence. But sometimes we can sit around bitchin all day long. Why us? - that question's always croppin up - why us? Why do we have to come ere? Why did we tek the bleedin 11-plus?

"Grammar school wallah," they call me - all the kids I grew up with, "snobby fucka, too good for us are ya? Ya toffee-nosed git."

They all think I look down on em now. They all think I've got ideas above me station or summat, but I never wanted to come ere in the first place, I tell ya. It was me mom's fault, man. Always bangin on about it, always goin on about "gettin on in life" and "usin yer brains whilst ya can". In the end I just took the pissin exam to shut her up, I swear. She was drivin me mad.

And then this big brown envelope came.

"We are pleased to inform you," the letter said, "that your son has met the entry requirements . . .," or summat or other.

Mom was ecstatic, and started jumpin up and down. Dad just smiled like he already knew, then carried on readin his paper.

I was goin to King Edwards' in Aston, two bus journeys away. But none of me mates from Ward End had got in. Gaz, Andy Baker, Dave P, and Mick Smith had failed. They all had to go to the Comp instead.

I told the old folks there and then that I didn't wanna go, but they didn't listen. They never listen.

They just started to scrape together all the money they could - money they didn't really have - to buy me shoes, shirts, trousers, a tie, a briefcase, a badge and blazer - things I didn't really want. It must of cost em shitloads, but she loved it, our mom - you could tell. Always gabblin on about it to the neighbours, she was. And on me first day she took a photo of me in me uniform, standin in the back garden just in front of the shed.

They keep it on top of the telly now - where everyone can fuckin see.

Jesus Christ, I looked a complete twat back then, a real stiff, a right little angel. Hair parted, scraped and greased over the top of me head like Hitler. Trousers, shirt and blazer all cardboardy and neatly creased, like they were still hangin from some tailor's dummy in a shop window. I'm even holdin the briefcase in this photo - that bleedin brown leather thing with all the compartments and the lock on the front and everythin. And I'm gazin into the camera with this real gormless expression on me face. Not a zit to be seen, there en't even a bit of bum-fluff on me cheeks. "A right thin strip o piss," as our dad always sez, "a right thin strip o piss - I've sin more meat on a crisp."

No wonder all me old mates ignore me, man. No wonder the Comp kids still call me "stuck-up cunt" whenever I pass em in the street.

"Dunno why you let it bother you," Louie always sez in that big, boomy voice of his, "they en't worth it, man. It en't what's on the outside that counts. It's what's in ere" - he never points, but I know where he means - "not uniforms, not appearances, not skin. None of that shit."

He's right as well. He's always right, our Louie - a real cool dude, he is. And I s'pose he's got it even worse than me. He comes from Handsworth, and the kids there don't tek too kindly to a black bro turned traitor, you see. That's what he gets - "traitor", "white man", "Babylon".

His mom and dad are alright, though. They came over from Montserrat in the sixties, and worked their fingers down to the bleedin bone, they did - savin up for a nice place. I bet they wish they never bothered now. I mean: I know where I'd choose to live if I had the chance. A nice little island in the Caribbean, with beaches and palm trees and all that. Or Handsworth - kids down the street smashin windows and nickin tellies and stuff, and pigs in riot gear all over the bleedin place. Yeah, I know where I'd go.

I tell ya, his mom's a bostin cook. She does the meanest jerkie chicken I've ever had, and his dad's quiet enough. A bit like our dad, really. He works on the track at Longbridge too, but in a different section. I don't think they've ever met or anythin 'cos it's huge, Longbridge is - fuckin huge. But that's why his dad and mine are so similar, I s'pose. Neither of em want us to end up doin what they have to do day in day out. Neither of em want us to end up bein grease-monkeys or wharrever, like they are.

So, even though his mom and dad are quite nice and everythin, they never wanna listen either. The nights I've bin round theirs for tea, Louie hardly gets a look-in. Always talkin, his mom is - always gabblin on about how proud of 'our Louie' she is. If the conversation ever gets round to all the stuff we have to put up with, it's: "didn't think much of the Blues this Saturday," or "want another piece of chicken, Stevie?" They don't wanna know about anythin goin wrong - no spanners in the works or anythin like that. At the end of the day they're like our folks, really - they just hear what they wanna hear, see what they wanna see.

But I've given up tryin to get through to our mom and dad. I en't that bothered about all me old mates not talkin to me no more, and I couldn't give a toss about all the bad-mouthin I get every mornin while I'm waitin for the ninety-four. It's the stuff I get this end that shits me up. It's the stuff we both get this end that's totally out of order, I swear.

Tek this mornin, right - this sort of shit happens to us all the time. None of the other kids from our school get it, mind - only me and Louie. None of them have to catch the bus, they all get driven to school in posh cars. BMWs, Range Rovers, Jags, the works. I've even sin a Porsche pullin up outside the gates once an'all.

Anyway, this mornin, right - I'd changed buses at Saltley Gate, as usual, and I was dead late cos there'd bin some pile-up or summat. It's pissin it down. Cats 'n' dogs, it is, cats 'n' dogs. I'm lacin-up me sixteen-holer DM's, on the back seat of the number eight, and I get so engrossed that I almost miss me stop.

I get off at Aston Cross, rain smackin against me cheeks, and there's this big bunch of Holte School kids waitin there to greet me.

They're millin around over by BRMB, like they do most days. I'm more sussed now, though: I spike me hair up with gel, don't wear me tie or badge in public no more, and always carry me Stanley knife round with me. Just in case, you see.

Still, I try to duck down behind the bus-shelter, but one of em clocks me and they all steam across the Lichfield Road in a big stampede.

They've got bottles and sticks and chains and bricks and stuff, and there's too many to tek on, so I run. I burn it up the side of the Expressway followin the barrier all along, the hum of the traffic off to me right - up the hill towards the distant E for Edward lyin on its spine - I peg it, fast as I've ever gone, over concrete, tarmac, mud and grass, and all the time I can hear their feet thuddin, slappin, punchin. There must be at least fifty of em behind. I can hear their shouts: "white boy", "yo, grammar school fucka". Too close, man, too close - I en't no fast runner. Change flies from me pockets, I lose the knife, and me bootlace is undone, but still I run - up and on, past the HP sauce factory, the taste of molasses in me mouth, the rain peltin me full in the face, hair-gel dribblin down. It gets into me eyes and stings. I'm runnin blind, can't see a thing.

I mek it up to Albert Row, bottles smashin, rocks clatterin on the pavement all around. I dart across the road, tekkin the turn into Frederick Street and can just about mek out Ramjam's cornershop on the left as one of his windows gets done in by a brick or summat, and there - the distant blurs of Aston Hall, and the Villa floodlights down in the dip. I'm skirtin the edge of the park and all the time I'm thinkin, what am I gonna do? Where am I runnin to? I can't get into school 'cos I'm over an hour late and the gates might be locked and they're still right behind me and me legs are killin and I've got the stitch and I can't keep this up much longer cos I'm runnin out of . . . road. There's only one place left to run, so I dive into the derelict house and try to mek it through to the back.

Bad move, man.

I get about half way down the hall, then the rotten timbers give way, and this dirty great hole opens up right in front of me. All the joists beneath me feet groan and the few remainin floorboards pitch forward with a dull 'thwack'. Fat slabs of plaster and brownin break loose from the ceilin and walls, and then this thick plume of dust erupts from the bowels of the house like some fuckin genie. Shit, I think - arms windmillin in thin air - shit, this is it. Then I lose me balance and sink.

I'm lyin on me back next to the hole when he finds me, starin up at a row of exposed laths in the ceilin. Ribs, I'm thinkin, they look like the sun-bleached ribs of some animal protrudin from a desert floor. (I think there must of bin one of them David Attenborough documentaries on the night before.)

"Fuckin ell, you alright, mate?," comes Louie's deep and reassurin voice, "Whappen?"

"Mmmnn," I mumble incoherently, hardly able to speak cos of the dryness, the dust, the desert in me mouth, "I got legged . . . the Holte . . massive fuckin hole . . . me head . . . me fuckin head . . . must of banged me head".

Bones, all I can taste is bones mingled with the mustiness of the place, the mould. Hot salty jets shoot along me jaw-line - you know, like that nasty taste you get when you've had too much of yer mom and dad's Christmas Captain Morgan. The bile bubbles and starts risin in me belly and I sit up urgently to sort of counteract it, but this big magnesium flare of pain suddenly ignites before me eyes.

"Urghh," I groan and slump back to the floor in this pathetic crumpled heap.

"S'ave a look, then," Louie sez. His face looks all blurry as he crouches down beside me, and the whole room's spinnin like mad. His crown of short, spiky dreads looks like a load of tarantula legs comin to get me, and I can feel the prickly heat of his mustard breath on me neck as his fingers probe all over me scalp.

I half-expect him to cup me skull in them vast hands of his at any moment and loudly proclaim me to be "a fellow of infinite jest" or summat, but it must be one of his off-days. Instead, he finds a damp, sticky patch somewhere just below me left ear and I wince.

"Yep," he sez, holdin two crimson fingers up to the half-light, "looks like you did - c'mon, let's get you out of ere."

He grabs me by the arm, hoiks me up, and gently leads me out into the backyard. I feel safe, man, safe. He pulls a dirty hanky out of his trouser pocket and offers it to me. There's a massive greeny stuck in the middle of it, but I don't care. I wipe all the blood off that's trickled down on to me collar and neck, and dab it around the gash. Jesus, it don't half hurt.

"Lucky you didn't fall down there, I'm tellin ya," he sez as we skirt the splintered mouth of the pit. "You shoulda sin it - whole cellar floor was movin when I got ere!"

I look down. The splinters look like broken teeth in a rotten mouth.

"Wha, whaddyamean?" I ask groggily, the hum of the Expressway now vaguely perceptible in the distance.

"Rats, man, fuckin rats - carpet of em"

"God, yeah," I drawl as we stumble outside lookin like POWs or summat, "fuckin hate rats."

The rain seems to have eased up a bit, but I'm still soppin wet. Soaked to the bleedin bone. I'm shakin as well, but the warmth. . . No, it en't the warmth - it's the size and power of his body next to mine that meks the tremblin subside a bit. One of me arms is slung across his shoulder and I can feel the tightness of his uniform. Stretched taut across his muscles, it is. Funny, that. It never usually looks too small for him or anythin.

I ask him if he'd sin any of the Holte kids, but he sez there weren't none around by the time he got there. Must of scarpered when they heard the whole house fallin in, I s'pose. Must of thought I was a gonna.

Strange, though - it en't them I blame. I mean: they can't help it, can they? They think we're better off than them. They just reckon they bin dealt a bad hand or summat, that's all. No, it's the kids from our school I can't stand.

Christ, I'd like to kill every single one of em. All the kids who get lifts every mornin and don't have to put up with this. Sittin there with their mommies and daddies on nice comfy seats. Talkin in their posh accents about all the nice things they're gonna buy with their money. "Please, daddy, can I have a BMX?" "Oh, please mommy, can I have an Atari? - you promised me!" Peerin out at the world through their fuckin rose-tinted windscreens.

That's how me and Louie got together I s'pose, out of mutual hatred for all the other tossers. I remember the first day there was like landin on another planet, I'm tellin ya. Everybody else spoke in these real weird voices like none of em came from round ere or summat. I couldn't believe it when I found someone else who spoke like me. Someone else who felt like me and didn't get driven back to a friggin mansion every night of the week. Soul-mates, we are.

The main thing, though, is some of the other kids don't even reckon they're well-off, either. That's what really gets us mad.

Tek Richmond in 3B, right - a real mommy's boy he is. The apple of her eye. Keeps goin on about bein workin class cos his dad's this labour councillor or summat, 'cept he pronounces class "clarse". You can always tell. And his mom drops him off in this brand new Range Rover every mornin. Fur coat. Pearl necklace. Diamond rings. The lot. Same goes for all the others. Loaded, they are - all of em. They've all got houses about six times bigger than ours, and think nothin about stumpin up a grand for school skiin trips. If we asked our moms and dads for the money they'd just laugh, I swear, they'd just laugh, man.

And the teachers en't any better, either. They all keep talkin about telephones and televisions and videos and cars - like everyone's fuckin got em. And they always tek the piss out of the way me and Louie speak: "Orroight our kid, ow yow doin? Yow orroight?" Darby as well, our History teacher - he never lets us get a word in edgeways. Every time we stick our hands up, it's: "Orroight, duz yow wannoo say summat. I doubt if yow've got anyfink broight ter say, but cum on then kidda - spit it out." Then all the kids start laughin, and he ends up askin someone else.

Na, we're on our own, man. We're on our own.

"What're you doin ere so early anyway?" I ask, once we've med it across all the debris into the womby darkness of our hole.

"Oh, I had Shakespeare in English. Couldn't face it," he sez, plonkin me down onto one of the makeshift benches. "You do know Shakespeare's a fascist, don't ya?" He's flickin through a book he's pulled out of his blazer pocket, now - peerin at me intently through the gloom.

"Louie - not now, please, me head's fuckin killin me." He always does that - always starts up about some personal quest he's on at the time you least wanna hear it. See, it en't that Louie don't read none of the books they tell us to read. He even goes to quite a few of the lessons. He listens to what they have to say, but at some point - I dunno when it was, probably in the second year or summat - at some point he just decided. No, he didn't decide - he knew. He knew that all the stuff they were force-feedin us was wrong. Bullshit, he calls it, total fuckin bullshit.

"Listen 'ere, right." He's got the book open on his lap and he en't gonna let it rest. "This Measure for Measure, yeah? The Duke goes undercover and spies on his people so's he can catch all the troublemakers, right?"

"And?"

"It's like 1984, ennit? Surveillance and all that crap, 'cept Shakespeare don't mind - he let's this - this Duke, Vincentio or wharrever his name is, he lets him get away with it. It all ends happily ever fuckin after, dunnit. The troublemakers are banged up or wharrever, and this wanker's back in control of the people."

"Well why don't you just go to the lesson and tell em that, then, instead of whinin on about it to me?" The hanky's completely covered now, and the bleedin still en't stopped. I look around to see if I can find any bits of rag lyin around the Fag Hole floor. No such luck.

"You think they'd listen to me?," he asks, chuckin the book out into the drizzle with disgust. "You think they wanna hear some black kid trash their exquisite bard?"

I love it when he does that, the way he just switches accents at the drop of a hat. He's one of the best impersonators I've ever heard, and he can do all our teachers off to a tee.

"Do it again, go on. Do McKintyre." I'm on the edge of me seat, beggin him like some little kid. "Do Watkins, Bevan, Hawley."

"Na, Hawley's shit, man. E'are, who's this - aim tairiblair sarry headmarster but ai sym to herv gort a paint glarse widged farmly op mai arsehowl." It's spot on.

"Darby, that's wicked, man, wicked - go on do us some more."

"Give us a light first," he sez. He's got this massive fuck-off spliff and he's runnin it backwards and forwards between his lips, moistenin it like Cheech and Chong do in all their films. I hand him me zippo, and, in-between impersonations, I snatch a couple of tokes. The pain in me head begins to slowly subside.

Me attention wanes as he goes through his whole repertoire - teachers, other kids, the lot. Hours pass. The warmth wells up inside, troubles fade. The numbness in me temples increases, and Louie's voice drifts further and further away.

Mom, dad, the exam, the photo, Gaz, the Holte kids, school. It's all sort of . . . immaterial. Immaterial now. It's all a kind of . . . big blank nothin. Safe, man, safe. It's alright.

The rain's stopped and it's gettin dark. Louie's fast asleep. I've been sittin ere for about the last three hours, now. Just sittin ere, nursin me wound and starin out. Out, through the leafless trees, past all the rubbish in the backyard - all the beer cans left by winos, all the glue bags and the rustin baked bean tins. I think I can see a bit further than most. I'm lookin down into the park, past the chimneys of Aston Hall, past the Villa ground, past all the scrunched-up houses down in Witton. . .

© Steve Thorne 2002
stevethorne@blueyonder.co.uk

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