Landing The Impossible
By Alex Fox from Hackleton

They call it an impossible. Ever seen a dog do a backflip? Replace the dog wiv a skateboard and imagine it backflipping round yer kicker foot. That’s an impossible.

We was sittin’ on the library steps and all the cans were empty, and Philly took a drag, blew the greasy hair up off his nose and said, ‘You’ll never be able to impossible, Pimsie. It’s like a phantom flip. It’s like tryin’ to walk on your hands when you can’t handstand.’

An’ I said, ‘Yeah, I can. Nuff of yer bitchy nonsense.’

Daf passed me over the bong. He’d got a new pair of Vans, and his hair was buzzed like he’d been near school that week. ‘You’ll have to pussy drag it. You’ll never get your front foot off without the board smacking you in the knees, mate.’

An’ I said, ‘Pussy, who? You’ve just gotta jump real high. You’re gonna rub it in, right?’

Philly hawked through his nose and grabbed the joint back. ‘Nope … you’ll never do it. Norra front foot impossible, norra double hardflip. You’re too gay to try.’

Philly an’ Daf was okay. Daf was right posho. If you could flip and scoop and ollie it didn’t matter where you come from, where you slept. I pushed me tongue against me falsie, flicked it out tween me lips, and looked down the kerb. The dentist says he won’t touch me teeth no more till I stops skating. I got front teeth built of filling now and they’re grey as stones.

Metallica was grindin’ out the beat of Battery and I went up the top of them steps and I just let it fly, with all the extra-strong inside of me.

An’ it was impossible, like I can’t even do it on a three inch curb. It’s gay, my back foot just goes nuts and I just hit a nosegrind and stops dead. An’ then me head went black.

Next thing I know, I’m in the friggin’ trolley. In the friggin’ Morrison’s trolley with me knees up me ears and me arse in the flower pack, and all the decks was stuck in round me. And Daf and Philly they was pushin’ me, racin’ me like they was up the Rockingham friggin’ racetrack. The sky was up there going round and round and in me head I was talking to meself and saying that I shouldn’t’ve flipped it, I should’ve scooped it round me foot.

Then they pushed me down the stairs of the walkway, bumping down the curbs, and all that Morrison’s full-flavour came bubbling back up again and spewed out me mouth, in me ears, down me back, and it was hot and then it was cold. An’ where the wire’d skinned me zits off, it stung like sodding acid. And Daf he was a right tit, and he was friggin’ scared.

‘Philly … where we gonna take him?’

‘Shuddup Daf and push. We can’t take him up the hospital or the p’lice. Me dad’ll leather me. We’ll have to drop him somewhere.’

Me brain went on a fakie flip, and next I know we was in this dark road wiv trees all over, and big houses like’n the old black-’n’-white horror films. And this tall black iron gate went creaking open and me guts churned up. Daf an’ Philly they just left me there. They pushed me up the porch, and rung the bell and shoved off, and the bell went clang like the horrors, too. They just went and left me there in the dark.

This big woman in a skirt, she come to the door and she looked at me like I was dogshit on her shoe.

‘Norman,’ she screeched, in this scared whiny friggin’ voice. ‘Norman, there’s a boy here in a shopping trolley. I think he’s on drugs.’

I never saw Norman. Me head went out again.

I’d bin here before, see. There was this posho kid, David, what hung round the ramp years ago. He was a friggin’ rubbish skater, couldn’t get the basics, couldn’t ollie, couldn’t clear his deck. An’ I come home with him one day to this house here, and we went up all these stairs to his bedroom and you’d never believe what he’d got on his walls. He’d got all his old snapped decks stuck up on his walls like pictures or summat, with all their trucks and wheels still on ’em like. And I said to him, look here … don’t you use them poxy trucks? An’ he said no, Pimsie. So I screwed ’em off and sold them down the boot. And I bought lager. His mum, she give us sausages for tea, with broccoli. And he et up all his broccoli. What a tit.

She was tryin’ to murder me. I waked up and found this clingfilm on me face. She’d wrapped this stuff round me mouth, round me nose and I couldn’t breathe. I could feel the puke in me throat, and the chunks stuck up me nose and the air was whistling, friggin’ whistling trying to get in and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe and then she stuck her finger down in its yellow kitchen gloves, and popped the clingfilm and the air come in again.

An’ her mouth come down on mine like she was gonna snog me, like.

I could see her nose with a bit of crusty snot in it and the orange powder on her eyebrows and this mole under her chin with a black hair sticking out, and I thought she was gonna snog me and put her sticky sweet breath into me and … I just had to puke.

That’s when I saw the bucket. It was a blue plastic bucket with a yellow handle, a kid’s bucket with old dried sand and bitsa shells in the bottom. That bucket was, like, I’ve bin on holiday … I’ve bin to places where there’s sand and a seaside wiv me mum and me dad. An’ I puked up me chunks into that sand and them bitsa shell.

An’ this little kid, this cute kid, in a Barbie nightie and no knickers, she comes running down the stairs shouting, ‘Mummy, mummee, what’s happening? Who’s that boy? Poo … He smells awful. No, don’t give him my bucket, my holiday bucket. That’s my blue bucket. He’s being sick in my bucket! Mummy stop him. Mummee …’

And me friggin’ head was splitting open, and she was screeching at me and screaming like she’d never stop, and I wanted to give her back her poxy bucket but it was full of vomit and chunks and bits of blood … so I held on to it and the sharp edges were cutting into me fingers and all me insides were rising into me mouth and spewing into the bucket, till this bubble of thick stuff come up and out and filled up me throat so I couldn’t breathe and I shook me head and shook it and tried to cough it out but the bubble was filling me and me head went black and dark and thick and everything rolled round and round and down till it stopped and I wasn’t there any more.

I come round in the hospital and this nurse, she touched me like she’d catch sumfink nasty off of me; she poked me like it was wiv a stick. Then she rolled me over and saw the state of me back an’ me arse and her eyes turned kinda quiet, like.

The pigs come. They said, ‘What’s your name, and where do you come from, son?’ Worra laugh. It was like blind friggin’ date on the telly.

I didn’t tell ’em where me dad was. I can fakie blind wiv the best.

Last time I were in the hospital I were only eight. I’d tried a kickflip off the six-foot pipe up Corby and took a slam. Both the bones in me arm snapped, like, and I ran off up the hospital holding the top of me arm, wiv me hand hanging down and moving on its own like a soddin’ spider. They said to me did you come here on your own and didn’t it hurt? And I said yeah.

This time I were in the hospital two weeks till they stopped the bleeding in me guts. Then they put me in a home. It was like a holiday being wivout me dad. I went to a coupla fosters, but they weren’t near the ramp. Got me teeth fixed, though. It was better in the home. A bloke’s gotta have his mates.

An’ four years on I’m in the army. They fink I’m ace. I got strong leg muscles for marching wiv, and I’m not scared of heights, and I don’t mind getting hurt. It’s the first time I’ve bin off overseas, going to Iraq.

It’s not much cop for skating but there’s loadsa sand.

In Weekender