Sid

Mack tapped the white and it nudged another ball. It should’ve stopped, but rolled down the slope into a pocket. Bits of torn up cardboard were stacked under the rickety table legs.

“Jammy,” Nicky said.

“Pure skill. I’m an old pro.”

“You’re just old.”

Mack missed and the white trundled into the corner. Nicky had to lift the cue high, because the hall was too narrow. He sliced his shot.

“Two to me,” Mack said. “You’ll be my age before you know it, by the way.”

“People are always saying that.”

“Think about it bud. Every year is a smaller percentage of your life. It all starts going faster.”

Some local kids came in to the church, shoving a door so it smacked the wall and plaster puffed out. “Watch it,” Mack shouted. He went back to his shot. “We used to tear about our youth club like that lot. Drinking in the square before and causing ruckus,” he missed his shot and tutted. “Now I’m running the show.”

A rap song came on the stereo in the main hall. There were a couple of FUCKS in the first few lines. Mack stared down his cue. There was a loud MOTHERFUCKER. He blinked, straightened and went next door. The music stopped.

Beside the pool table some wee kids were playing table tennis. One of them sent the ball bouncing high, off the ceiling and on the other side. The other boy missed, laughing hard and high pitched. The main door opened again, setting off the security buzzer. It was Mack, chucking an acne-faced boy out. He was trying to squirm out Mack’s grip, saying, “I was going anyway. This place is a pure shitehole.”

A new CD came on. It was the Counting Crows CD again.

When the red numbers said 23:03 he was still awake, scanning the TV channels. Outside there was arguing and laughter. Pulling back the curtain, he saw a group going down the street – a girl tightrope walking along the white road lines, leaping from one to the next. One of the boys swung a fat plastic bottle. The girl stopped, looked and Nicky dropped the curtain, peeking through the gap underneath, seeing her take a run and jump on the boy’s back, then disappear round the corner.

Back on the bed, he tapped the remote again. All he was after was a pair of tits. More if he got lucky. Next to the alarm clock a load of toilet paper was scrunched up, ready. After a few more scrolls he muted the TV and closed his eyes.

The last thing he saw was Jennifer Black in the summer, stick-thin legs brown and bare and leaning over a desk. Her pants had flopped round her ankles. It was always women though – Pete told him that’s how you found out if you were gay: if right before you came you couldn’t help thinking of men.

He opened his eyes. It wasn’t as bad this way. Doing it to the TV always made you feel worse, even though it was the same mess to clear up in the end.

Out in the congregation a few hands popped up like aerials. Nicky played a fast fill, smashing a cymbal. Janet Johnson was on the piano. She gave him a look over her music, a mound of grey hair springing on her head. Back when he first started playing at services, some old people had been upset. A few of them moved to another church.

When Nicky was dismantling the kit, the boy came down the aisle, eyes pointing at his black boots. His T-shirt showed a man smashing up a bass guitar. It was the boy with spiked hair. The singer.

He stopped and went, “Awright.”

“Hi.”

“You have to do that every week?”

“What?”