one of those stories where the boy gets beat

It hurts, when they come at him with their laughter and their bad jokes and their fists, but more than the pain it wastes the time he should be spending elsewhere although he realises that’s a fluid concept. Elsewhere isn’t physical enough for him: he means in his room, or on the garage roof with his brother, or anywhere, really, where these people are not.

Son of a bitch, though, the kicking hurts, especially when they aim low. There’s something about Converse that really piss him off when other people are wearing them, and right now he’s pretty damn sure it’s got something to do with the hard, solid toes and the half-moon bruises he’s going to have on his shin.

He can’t get that song out of his head, either, the low, catchy one about beaches and the lottery, or something like that. And that wouldn’t be a problem, because it’s quite a nice song with a lilty sort of chord pattern in the background, but when he has songs in his head he tends to hum them aloud, and that doesn’t do a lot for the whole inconspicuous thing he’s got going on.

His brother once told him (mopping up the blood from his lip and holding ice to his face) that you can’t just lie down and let these people walk all over you, but he’s not sure that it was meant as literally as it feels when Mr Leather Jacket (he is bad with names but not with clothes) is jumping up and down on his spine. Lying down isn’t much of an option, either, because Mr Bad Shoes and Mr Secret Topshop Lover are on his arms and Mr One Cupcake Too Many is getting a little too comfortable on his legs.

Memo to Self: stop.

He means stop pissing people off, stop making a spectacle of yourself, stop singing where singing is not a smart thing to do, stop tripping when your shoelaces are untied, but Stop as a single word and widespread order is much easier to think when the pavement is exchanging phone numbers with his face.

If he were Superman: he would go break a tree in half to see if it’s as fun as it looks. He would save a baby from a burning building to feel the sense of well-being that just has to come from it. He would paint the house so his mother would stop crying at night about Bills and Leaks and God-forsaken Plumbers.

So really, when he thinks about it, getting these guys off his back (the pun was very much intended and he loves it) isn’t that important. And that’s why he doesn’t really give a shit, because they’re having their fun.

He meant that in an ironically indulgent manner and no other.

It never lasts long anyway, because that poor kid with the freckles has Chemistry tutoring and comes out half an hour after school finishes, and then the baton is passed and they share looks that say It’s not too bad today and What’s up? and Watch out for the ring on Leather Jacket. He doesn’t know the freckled boy’s name, or how he came to know about the Chemistry tutoring, and they will never speak to each other. But there’s a sense of solidarity there: one he doesn’t get from his best friend, who waits around the corner to dust him off and help him limp and once, one of the more interesting Wednesdays, drive him to A&E.

He calls goodbye to them as they start in on the freckled boy, and shakes his head when they miss the sarcasm and say it back, and wonders why they do it, but he doesn’t care about the answer as much as he cares what’s for supper tonight or whether or not he remembered to put his new CD on his iPod. Because it’s not that interesting of a problem, not like an eating disorder or a divorce or something, and it bores him a little and upsets him not much. It’s just one of those things, like Mondays always being shit and Thursdays always being more shit, and there never being anything on TV on Wednesdays, and why the hell he always uses days of the week as examples.

When he’s old enough: he’ll study Psych and wonder about Those Things there seem to be so many of.