Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

They’re not being quiet about it either, all taking the piss and calling whoever’s holding the ball a blind spastic cunt. The prohibition beer goes some way to explaining their enthusiasm. Jase, getting busy whilst I was in the bog; as far as he’s concerned, kiddie cups are for sharing. He’s the one who’s the most excited, shouting the loudest, cussing the hardest. He’s happy to be included, wants to show that he’s nailed it, this being-part-of-the-gang business. He can take it or leave it, but tonight he’s happy to take it, yes-sir-thank-you-very-much. I have to concentrate on staring at Moon, ’cos if I look too long at Jase and see how’s letting himself be so happy with these idiots it’ll break my heart.

No one wants their mates to be hurt in any way, but people gotta learn lessons.

Pearson throws a look in her direction at every other cheer.

‘This one’s for you, babe,’ he goes, before each one of his rounds, like he’s John Travolta in Grease , and we’re the fucking muppets with nothing better to do than egg him on. He’s giving so much cheese you can smell it from here. There may be a kiss in it for her if he gets a strike, or if he can be bothered to move his ass the several steps it takes to reach her, what with heckling the other guys proving to be more important.

I stand as close as I need to be heard, no closer.

‘Why would a person want to come up the Bowl if all they’re going to do is change their shoes and then stand around the sidelines?’

She gives a hollow laugh that sticks in her throat, the kind she uses when she’s about to put the boot in. Also, walking me in the direction of the arcade games where we won’t be overheard.

‘Yeah, you really are wasting your time, aren’t you? Standing around… on the sidelines.’

‘I’m not talking about me! I’m talking about you.’

‘So stop trying to be so clever if you don’t want to be wound up! What business is it of yours where I go? If I wanna change into bowling shoes, I’ll change into bowling shoes, who gives a shit?’

‘Isn’t it an expensive way to watch a stupid game of bowling?’

She looks at me as if I’m stupid.

‘I don’t pay, twat-head. He does.’

‘He knows how to treat a girl. I bought you that top, and he takes you bowling.’

‘Why do you always have to make this a competition? Jesus. He’s my boyfriend. You were never my boyfriend. End of discussion.’

‘Don’t get het-up. I was just making an observation.’

‘Keep your observations to yourself. No one’s interested.’

Jase hasn’t looked at me once since I’ve come over here, talking of observation.

‘Moon, I…’

‘Veerapen, look. We’ve had the conversation, more than once. Let’s not have it again. Just sip on your illegally obtained beer like a good little boy, and go and growl somewhere else.’

She’s hard. He’s made her so hard. In the old days, she’d have given me a funny face or something to show that she wasn’t being malicious. Any chats we’d have about my welfare or hers was because we cared. This is anything but. Her face frozen in its finality, copied from dozens of shabby daytime soap operas, she turns back to the scoreboard like I’m no longer worth bothering with.

I go back to the toilet where I punch the cubicle door a few times. It makes me feel better. The knuckles on my left hand are bashed to fuck, but it’s fine. It’s my feet I need to look after, not my hands.

When I get back, Jase is thrashing everyone with a fifty-point lead, and Pearson compensates by bitching about Keith, who won’t serve him with any more beer.

‘I’m going to get that Abdul kicked out. One bad word from me and he’ll lose his job.’

‘Fuck off, Pearson, who are you kidding? You don’t have that kind of power,’ I go. ‘This isn’t some country club that your parents are members of. This is a cruddy bowling alley. They couldn’t give these jobs away.’

‘’Kinell, Dan,’ goes Jase. ‘Keith’s all right, man. Leave him alone. We wouldn’t have got that round of beers in the first place if it wasn’t for Keith.’

‘Keith, Abdul, whatever his name is. He can’t just decide to stop serving us when he feels like it. If he felt so strongly about us getting pissed, he shouldn’t have given you anything in the first place.’

‘Jase has only got one round in. You can’t be pissed on one round of beers, surely?’

The knuckles might be fucked, but there’s still a way to put the boot in, if you know what to do.

He talks some stupidness about having a few before coming out, which everyone knows is wack, even the thicko in-breds he came out with suss that. His parents won’t let him take a shit in that house without knowing about it, now he reckons he kicks back in his room with a bottle of JD?

We’re all laughing at his foolishness, even Moon, who looks at him like he’s an idiot. One more move in that state and she’d be well over him. If only…

‘I’m gonna give him a kicking when he gets out of here. I hope he’s a fast runner.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ goes Moon, though we all know what he’s saying.

‘That fucking monkey at the bar. He can’t be embarrassing me in public like that. I ain’t having it. Who the fuck is he to decide who can drink and who can’t?’

Jase is pulling at his shoulder, ‘C’mon, man, leave it. No biggie, eh?’

‘Dan, stop making an issue out of it. You’re acting like a prat.’

Moon’s voice, suddenly acquiring the authoritative tone of her mother, cuts through the bullshit; the pitch, like diamond cutting glass.

Taking a third toilet break (it’s the sippy cups, they kill any semblence of tight bladder action), the others are back on their game, and he’s still talking about it. If the guy at the bar had been some cockney wideboy from a longboat on the river, you know he wouldn’t have said anything.

Jokers, man, these guys I hang round with.

Now he’s talking about cleverness, instead. Of brain over fist, which gets my ears up, ’cos I thought I was the only person who worked in that department.

‘If I tell my dad how shocked I was to see a Sri Lankan gentleman serving beer to clearly under-age Indian customers, and how I was worried that it was going unnoticed, he’d send a letter up to that place like a shot.’

I feel this thing rising in my chest that I haven’t felt for a long time swamping my upper cavity, powering the acceleration of my heart, filling my brain. Working my legs as I move away from the still-arguing/still-pacifying group, heading over to one of the free shelves where the extra balls are kept. Looking for one just light enough, but weighty enough, to deliver a blow… if it was thrown at someone you had an issue with.

It’s a beauty. Blue, puke-making blue, like the top that Moon is wearing, and small-sized, like the dinky pumpkins you get in those growing competitions. This isn’t a kiddie bowl, it’s heavy, and solid, like it was designed for midget men with strong throwing power. I have height on my side, and can’t get my fingers in the hole, but it’s the kind of prize that fits tight in the ball of my hand and I lean down and cup it. I think about the shot-throwers at school, their form as they run, body turn and throw, all this still powered by the continuing swelling in my chest, like a wave still a mile from breaking. Beautiful, euphoric, deadly.

Moon’s hand covers mine.

‘Don’t.’

‘What are you talking about? I was just looking for the bowl so I could join the game.’

‘That’s not what it looks like.’

‘I don’t care what it looks like. You don’t even know what I’m going to do. What are you so worried about? Me and the trouble I might get into, or just concerned about the damage I’m going to inflict on laughing boy’s perfect face?’