All People Really Cared About Then Was Napster

In Year Nine, I studied home economics with this kid who liked to touch his balls. It didn’t really matter what we were doing: measuring sugar, mixing eggs, sifting flour — if he had a hand free, it was on his balls. One time me and my friend were playing basketball at a park close to his house. The ball was old and my friend kept saying, ‘I offered to wash my mum’s car for a new ball but she wouldn’t do it … I mean, what the fuck?’ The guy from home economics came up to us with a group of his friends. He introduced us to this girl. He said, ‘Five bucks and she’ll sit on your lap.’ We shook our heads. I stared at the ground. He said, ‘Twenty bucks and she’ll suck your dick.’ We sort of turned around and laughed and stopped laughing and didn’t know what to do. The guy said, ‘What? She not hot enough for you?’ We bounced the basketball. Some of his friends said, ‘Huh?’ And, a few minutes later, after the guy from home economics said he’d waive the first lap sitting, I sat with the girl on my lap, slowly counting backwards from one hundred, thinking the word ‘sorry’, unsure of who it was directed at but fairly sure it was at everybody, like humanity in general.