Mixey.

We wrecked some old cars together,
him driving, me hanging on for life.
With manic grins
and much loud screaming.
Fast, a bit too fast.
Up at the knoll fields,
on the dirt tracks,
in the dusty wind.

That is, we did,
untill we rolled one over
and nearly died,
which was quite exhilarating
for fifteen year olds,
in the boredom of a summer evening.

We crawled out,
groggy and gurgling,
and he shouts out,
watch out.
I could smell hot oil and petrol,
and as I turned
he threw a lit match.

The explosion blew me,
blew us both,
backwards off our feet.
Singed at close quarters.
I thought fleetingly of shrapnel.
The flames roared,
we ran,
looking back at it as we did,
laughing and hooting.

At the canal bridge sometime later
that evening,
we wiped smoke and dust from our eyes.
Listening to the sirens coming closer,
as the fire raged and smoke billowed
over the settling evening fields,
over yonder,
over there.

We stood and watched them put it out,
bathed in blue flashers
and short-wave transmissions.
And as darkness fell gently
the orange glow subsided to dampened smoke.

Down at the civic centre
( years later renamed the Nelson Mandela centre)
none of the usual faces would believe us.
They just gave us the big
yeah yeah yeah yawn yawn yawn.
So we stopped telling the story.
Moved on to other things,
like you do.
It had all got a bit mundane anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dougal.

I used to go up to his place sometimes
and it was really cool.
His mother would casually ask me to get the juice out of the fridge,
and that was totally unheard of at my place.
My mother was a really possessive fridge bitch.
Out of bounds and all that.
And his sister was really nice,
I really liked her.
But she didn't like me at all,
on account of my stutter,
and my nervous twitch,
and because I was in the backward class at school.
She probably thought I was a spastic.
But she was nice anyway.
So me and Dougal, we hung in the same crowd for years.
Then one day he turns up
with a little green badge pinned on his parka,
and it said 'Jesus luvs you' in black letters.
And he was carrying a bible.
And he saw everything from a religious angle from then on.
Like he was an evangelist or something.
And people went off him after that.
And I went off his sister,
and developed an unhealthy obsession
about Susan Stranks from Magpie instead.
And then Dougal joined some religious meeting group
with a headquarters in Canada somewhere.
And then he emigrated to Canada
a few years later.
And I saw his mother
and she said he was a missionary.
Then his father died in a snowy winter car crash,
and his sister ended up a toothless addict
selling herself on the streets of Glasgow,
and his mother took to the bottle.
And Dougal never showed his face ever again.
Probably too busy,
doing Gods work.