Church Group

by Michael Brightside

  * * *

  By now I was on my fifth can of beer and was really beginning to feel the effects. I had a giddiness I’d never felt before, and as well as that I had trouble standing up straight. This was made worse by not being able to make out objects properly in the dark, vertical had become very vague. And everything seemed like a good idea. I knew this wasn’t how I normally felt about things, somewhere in the back of my mind a voice was saying: You’re not like this, you wouldn’t be talking to these people, you don’t like groups of strangers. But at the same time an overwhelming positivity was running through me, washing away any nervousness or doubt I’d normally have had. It was why when I was offered a cigarette I said yes. I could almost watch myself take it and set fire to it, even though I didn’t want to. I wasn’t entirely sure who was in control of my actions any more, it was almost as if another side of me had taken over, like I’d become semi-detached to myself.

  “What’s it like Lu?” Al asked.

  “Alright mate, pretty good,” I slurred back, trying not to cough.

  “Let us try one then.”

  The pair of us stood there pretending to know what we were doing. The taste wasn’t anything new, I knew the smell from when my dad smoked and the taste was just a stronger version of the same. The only real difference with smoking for yourself was the burning sensation within your chest that made you want to cough. I carried on smoking it though, until I’d reached the end.

  THUD. I looked down and through the blackness could make out the silhouette of Al lying on the floor.

  “What are you doing down there mate?” wobbled from my mouth.

  “Dunno, just felt dizzy after having that fag,” Al replied. The four older lads laughed. I knelt down to help him back up.

  “Whoa, nearly,” I said as my head spun from leaning over and I almost fell myself.

  “Come on then you two,” I heard big Al say. “You lightweights need to get back to the party where there are people to look after you. I don’t want you passing out round here and us getting the blame.”

  An arm hooked round my shoulder and helped me to the gravel drive at the front of the building, then I was leant up against the wooden exterior with Al next to me.

  “There you go, someone else’s problem now,” one of them laughed as they all walked back to their hiding place.

  I staggered back inside with a beer in my hand, then after finding the toilet, was on the way out again when I got this uncontrollable urge to dance. “Red Alert” by Bassment Jaxx was playing on the stereo and the bass-line seemed to pick my feet up and put them down again in new places. I flew around in circles like a madman, throwing my arms in the air, totally oblivious to the circle of people on the dance floor who had backed away and were laughing at me. The alcohol, lights, music, all came together as one and made complete sense. So this was why people went to parties. It was as though I needed to express how I felt through my movements on the dance floor, to translate the sound into something everyone could see. Then, just as I felt I was beginning to get my message across, the song ended, cutting short my big finale.

  I made my way outside to find Al, fighting to get my breath back. The fresh air hit me hard. My legs began to buckle at the knees and my vision doubled. Whatever state I’d been in when I went inside was nothing compared to the state I was in now, the beer had got me so bad I could barely see. I needed to find Al, he could look after me on the walk home, telling me which of the two parallel roads I was looking down was actually real. If we walked slowly then by the time we got back to mine the buzz would most likely have subsided.

  A girl’s voice came from the other end of the gravel car park, “You promised you wouldn’t do this!”

  A group of people stood round in a circle laughing at something on the floor, I couldn’t make it out so walked over to see what they were looking at. As I got closer I recognised Sally in her red flowery dress.

  She shouted at the floor, “Get up, you’re ruining everything!”

  I finally got close enough to see what they were looking at; between the people’s legs I could see it was my best mate Al. He was on his hands and knees, throwing up while the older lads we’d been smoking with earlier, and some of the people I knew from school, took the piss out of him.

  “Leave him alone will ya!” I shouted, staggering over.

  “Look who it is, it’s only that other lightweight from earlier,” one of them laughed.

  “Who are you calling a fucking lightweight?” I spat back, staring him in the face.

  “I’m calling you a fucking lightweight, what are you going to do about it!”

  Inner rage boiled my blood. I didn’t know if I was more angry about him laughing at my friend or calling me a lightweight. Either way I broadened my shoulders as I walked towards him, barely managing two steps before someone grabbed me from behind and dragged me the other way. The last thing I remember is the slamming of a car door.

  Little Red Toy Sports Car

  March 1999.

  It was as though someone was hitting me in the head with a hammer, and any attempt to move only made the hammer bigger, pain shooting through my face. Under my cheek was rough carpet where my bed should have been. Time to open eyes. The kitchen never looked so bright. Searing, blinding bright. Why was I in the kitchen?

  “Mum!” my own voice hurt my ears.

  “You’re finally awake then?” she replied from the front room.

  “Feeling rough are you?” she asked, as I collapsed into the chair nearest the television.

  “Yeah pretty bad,” I replied. “Why was I on the kitchen floor and why are my boxer shorts soaking wet?”

  Dean sniggered, then went back to helping Jack play with his toy cars.

  “I thought you might not remember much, the state you were in,” my mum said. “So you don’t remember the paramedics then?”

  Paramedics? What paramedics?

  “The last thing I remember properly was arguing with someone at the party.”

  “That was when Sally’s dad took you both home.”

  “I didn’t think I was that drunk though. Like drunk enough not to make it to bed.”

  “You weren’t at that point. When you got back you took my bottle of vodka from the kitchen cupboard and drank it with Al in the field at the top of the road. All of it, the whole litre between you, on top of what you’d already had.”

  Half a bottle of vodka, on top of the beers I’d drunk. No wonder I was feeling rough.

  “Sorry Mum, I’ll buy you another one.”

  “You won’t! I’m going to find out who sold you two alcohol last night and make sure they never do it again. Or anyone else for that matter.”

  “Who called the paramedics?”

  Dean pushed a little red toy sports car round in circles whilst replicating the sound of an ambulance siren, before making a screeching noise as he stopped it and saying, “I’m here about the alcoholic.”

  Jack cackled.

  “It’s not funny Dean,” my mum said. “We’ll get to that bit. So after you’d finished the vodka, you two apparently came back down the road shouting your mouths off about something or other. Then you started making snow angels on the grass in next door’s front garden.”

  “Not the policeman’s garden?” I groaned.

  “Yes the policeman’s garden.”

  “He didn’t wake up did he?”

  “Wake up? It was him that woke us up. He was at his front bedroom window shouting at you, telling you to go home before he had you arrested. Fortunately your dad came out and took you into the house.”

  “Oh no, of all the gardens to do it in. So why did the paramedics come?”

  “You’d passed out paralytic on the kitchen floor, Dad tried waking you up but you were unconscious, we thought you had alcohol poisoning.”

  “Did the paramedics just come round and say I was alright then?”

  “No, you were sick love, everywhere, it was all over the fridge and the carpet. They wor
ked out how long it had been since you last drank and said there wouldn’t be any point in taking you to hospital to pump your stomach. They told us to just keep an eye on you and let you sleep.”

  “How comes my pants are wet?”

  “You wet yourself Lu.” Dean and Jack both burst into laughter.

  Bollocks.

  “What about Al? Where was he?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “He ran away when your dad went out to get you from off the neighbour’s lawn. He’s banned, I’m not having him round here again, he’s a bad influence on you.”

  “I’ll just go round his then.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Why won’t I?”

  “Because you’re grounded for a month.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” my mum replied, “and don’t even think about going out on that motorbike again, your dad’s taken the keys.”

  How could they have taken it off me already? I’d not even had it that long.

  “I’m going to bed then.”

  “You can but you’re not staying in bed all day. Dad needs you to give him a hand getting rid of some rubbish down at the dump, he’ll be home from work at lunchtime. I suggest you do, seeing as he sat up half the night watching you. If you don’t you’ll probably never get that bike back.”

  Great. That was really how I wanted to spend my Saturday, out in the car feeling like shit, watching people throw away things they shouldn’t have bought in the first place. I crawled up to my bedroom and into my top bunk. It felt like a big pile of cotton wool as I melted into it. I realised then, that as much as it wasn’t my own bed like I wished it was, it was still miles better than the kitchen floor. I was never going to take it for granted again.