Simon Lelic - A Thousand Cuts

He squealed. I mean, he actually squealed. We went on this school trip once, to this farm or something, and Scott, he brought his catapult and a bag of carpet tacks. It was well funny. The cows didn’t hardly feel anything but the pigs… Honestly, it was fucking hilarious.

But you know what a squealing pig sounds like, don’t you? You get to hear it all the time.

So Bumfluff squeals and he goes down but nobody’s taking any notice cos the ball is back in play. Mr Pressplay’s got it. He passes it inside and the caretaker gives it back and then Mr Pressplay knocks one across to Terence. Terence shoots again, from the edge of the area this time. All day long. That’s what I say to him. Is that all you’ve got? And he’s jogging towards me and I’m standing there and he dips his shoulder, like this, and it feels like I’ve run bicep first into a doorframe. And I’m like, fucking hell Terence you cocksucker. And Terence turns and he’s like, watch your mouth, boy, I’m still your fucking teacher. And I wanna say something back but Bickle’s watching us now so I just hold up my good arm for the ball.

It’s out with Micky again. This time he loses it to Mr Pressplay and the ball goes loose and Terence is nearer but I’m quicker. I get it and Terence is behind me and he’s expecting me to do the turn, right, the one I showed you before, but instead what I do is—

What? I’m telling you, aren’t I?

No you didn’t, you said you wanted me to tell you what happened at the match.

Well, you should of fucking said so.

You fucking didn’t. Jesus Christ. You’re worse than my fucking mum.

All right all right. It wasn’t till the second half though. I mean, loads of stuff happened before then, like Don, he scored this blinding volley, right—

Can I at least tell you the score? Are you gonna get your period if I tell you the score?

Four-nil. We were four-nil up at half-time. The teachers, they’re fucking shattered. Terence is on his feet but the rest of em haven’t got the juice to suck on a piece of orange. Us lot, we’re having a brilliant time. Mickey’s doing keepy-ups and Don’s lighting up a fag and the rest of us are just chatting and messing about. We could of been seven or eight up, easy. I mean, we’ve won. It’s only half-time but basically we’ve won. So when Bickle blows his whistle and we jog back on to the pitch, that’s when Don gives me the nod. The game’s over, right? Time for a bit of fun.

Bumfluff is last on again. He’s in a state. He hasn’t touched the ball all match, cept for when he’s been picking it out of the net and rolling it out to Terence, but he’s fallen over a fair few times; fallen or been made to fall. So he’s covered in mud and he’s limping from where Don stamped on him and he’s got a bruise across his ribs probably cos that’s where I gave him a little dig when I was up on his line for a corner. Oh, I didn’t say, did I, I can’t believe I didn’t say. Don pulled down his shorts. In front of everyone. We were all waiting for a free kick and Terence, he was shouting at Bumfluff, saying, watch it, Sam, don’t fucking miss it, here it comes now, and Bumfluff almost looked like he was making an effort. He had his knees bent and he was holding his hands up in front of his chin and his tongue was sticking out between his teeth and just as the ball came over and Bumfluff was about to make this leap into the air, Don crouches down behind him and gives his shorts a tug.

The ball went in. Bumfluff fell over and the ball went in. If someone had been filming it we’d of been, thank you very much: five hundred quid from You’ve Been Framed .

Anyway, the point is that when it comes to the second half Bumfluff is looking a bit sorry for himself, like he’d rather take a kick in the nuts than come back out on to the field. But us lot, we’re buzzing, and I know you don’t want to hear it all but basically we kick off and pass it around and one thing leads to another and we end up getting a corner. Happy with that or was that too much detail?

So this is it. Micky’s taking the corner and Don and me are standing on the edge of the box. Mr Pressplay’s got a post and Grunt’s come back to pick up Scott and Terence is covering the short one. The caretaker’s taking care of me and Don but we make it easy for him cos we don’t move. Yet. Bumfluff, he’s just standing on his line. He’s not even looking at the ball. What he’s looking at is the two of us, like he knows what’s about to happen. But he can’t do anything about it, can he? There’s nothing that he can do.

Micky knocks it in. It goes high. Mr Pressplay leaves his post. Scott draws Roth to one side. Don moves. I move. The caretaker doesn’t know which way to move. The ball’s falling now and Bumfluff’s watching it but he’s also watching us. He sees us coming. He sees us smiling. The ball finds someone’s head but I don’t know whose cos I wasn’t looking. It bounces in front of us. It bounces in front of Bumfluff. It distracts him, just for a second. He flaps at it. He misses. Don slides and I slide. The ball goes in, I think, but we’re still sliding, through the mud and the water and with our feet sticking out in front of us like we’re Bruce Lee aiming a kick at some other chink’s head. We would of slid for ever if there hadn’t been something there to stop us.

Don got his knee. I got his ankle. Not quite simultaneous but near enough. The sound it made was like ice cubes. You know, like when you drop ice cubes in a warm glass of Coke.

I got up. Don got up. Bumfluff stayed down. He was squealing again. Actually, he was screaming. He was on his back and he was writhing. He had one hand on his leg and his other arm across his eyes. The crowd, they were cheering so I suppose the ball must of gone in. But it felt like they were cheering for us.

Grunt was closest. I don’t know whether he saw it but he thought he did. He collars us. He’s like, you boys, what the hell do you think you’re doing? And we’re like, what, what, let go you twat, let go. Bickle blows his whistle. He’s still blowing it when he reaches us.

What’s going on here? Mr Grant. Mr Grant!

And Grunt’s shaking us and sort of growling and he’s looking at Bumfluff on the floor but it’s like he doesn’t want to let us go.

I dunno, sir, goes Don. I dunno. And he’s holding out his arms, you know, like players do on the telly when they’re about to get carded by the ref.

They did it on purpose, goes Grunt. You little thugs. You did it on purpose.

And it’s like Bickle notices Bumfluff for the first time, even though he’s screaming still and crying probably and making more racket than the crowd.

Did you? he goes. Did you do it on purpose?

And I shake my head and Don’s like, course not, sir, we were going for the ball. It was fifty-fifty.

And Bickle looks at Bumfluff and he looks at Grunt and he looks at Bumfluff again. Let them go, he says. Let them go, Mr Grant.

But Mr Travis—

I said let them go. And he sort of turns away but then stops and spins back. And see to Szajkowski, will you? He’s making a fool of himself. He’s making a mockery of this game.

And we jog away and we pass Terence and he’s just fucking smiling. He knows what we’ve done and he’s glad. As far as he’s concerned, Bumfluff’s lost him the match. Which is bullshit of course, they’d of lost with Gordon Banks in goal, but that’s what Terence thinks. So he’s smiling and he even gives Don this little wink.

It was that easy. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. Don says later, he’s like, no sweat, Gi, what could they of done? And he was right I spose but I was still expecting a fuss, like a warning or a detention or even a fucking suspension, I mean we snapped his fucking leg. But we didn’t get so much as a yellow. Bumfluff got stretchered off, the caretaker went in goal, Don scored two more goals and in the end we won nine-nil.