Standing On A Green

You know the feeling you get? It’s eleven o’clock on a bright summer’s day. You’re only rolling out of bed. The bedroom window has been slung open all night long. You’re just turned thirteen so the room isn’t filled with the fug from the night before, so in reality there is no need to have it open. There’s calmness to the air. But there’s a buzz too. People are out in their back gardens doing things that people do. Mowing the lawn, having a blazing row, kicking a ball against a wall over and over and over. You’ve nothing much to do and all day to do it. It’s magical this stillness. Feels like heaven. So you get up, get showered and have a bowl of tasteless cereal. The cricket is still on terrestrial television so you watch a bit of that. You poke your head out through the venetian blinds to see what’s going on in the street. Maybe the tasty new Spanish student girl will stroll on by? In the summer, in the city. You check the teletext to see if United have bought someone less injury prone than Neil Webb. You slip into your track suit, for this is Broadford. Tuck it into your pristine white socks and cover them up with runner boots. This is the Nineties, man!... This is the Nineties. All that has to be invented has been invented. Days like this are sweet. Your Mam starts nagging you, your brother starts annoying you, your sister is watching a ‘Care Bears’ video for what seems like and probably is the ninety first time, “I wanna be a Care Bear!, I wanna be a Care Bear!”You leave. With a flick of the V’s to a sliding porch door. Feels like heaven. This is heaven.

 Ireland have just been in the World Cup. They were knocked out in the quarters by some fucker who looked like a bullet with pop out eyes. But so what? Your old man is mates with Andy Townsend. He’s been in your house. You’ve been cheeky and told him you’re not exactly proud at being Irish. Proper little Dunphy, you. You bought yourself a Leeds shirt for a fiver on a football club trip to Blackpool. Does it matter? Who the fuck  are Leeds anyway? They’ve always been in the Second Division as far as you are concerned. Johnny Giles? Didn’t he used to play for Vancouver Whitecaps? Fuck it.

You’ve gelled your hair beyond reason. You’ve applied some Old Spice to your baby’s bum-like face. You can’t fail can you?...Yes you probably can and most definitely will. The girls unbeknownst to yourself are just as nervous around you as you are of them. They’re more interested in fucking Bros or someone of their ilk than made- up-to-look-like-someone-out-of-Brother-Beyond-in-a-tracksuit-you. You used to be able to talk to girls before you started in all all-boys school. You used to have that ring of confidence until you started in that all-boys school. You were a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond until you went to Benildus. Now? You’re the equivalent of a rather rubbish sea urchin on a rock that doesn’t want you to stick to it. Inside, you are floundering. You are Calamari waiting to be cooked by a lecherous Greek bloke who will end up shagging the bird you will be mad into on holiday when you’re eighteen. Plate smashing bastard that he was.

You take a stroll down to the Green where you used to play football every day with the boys on your street. You’re on your own. The boys are all still snug in bed or failing that, watching ‘Swinging On A Star’ because the girl in it is tasty as fuck. You’ve discussed it with them at length. All are in agreement on that particular score.

Even Gero, the giant-of-a-man bloke you looked up to, couldn’t be arsed getting down onto the Green until at least seven, purely because he couldn’t be arsed. It’s a right quandary you find yourself in.  A pickle if you will. There’s nothing to do and all day to do it. Seemed fine earlier on didn’t it?

Then out of the corner of your eye you spy a dark-clothed gaggle sitting on the wall. One of them is brandishing an acoustic guitar. Upon closer inspection this wannabe Jimmy Page is one of the fuckers off your Broadford Rovers Under 13 football team...and sat beside him in Gothic dress is your first ex-girlfriend. Okay, you were only ten when you ‘went out’. Still though...At least four of them are wearing ‘The Cure’ tee-shirts. So you walk up and go “Alright?”. A muffled response. You don’t belong in their gang. You know that anyway. And you don’t pretend to ingratiate yourself with them. You’re wearing a fucking tracksuit after all. Then you pipe up with “So what’s your favourite Cure album then? ‘Pornography’ or ‘Standing On A Beach’?” And you are met with blank looks all round. So you fucking do one, knowingly. And you get home and you flick the V’s and you open the sliding porch door and you wait for the nagging Mam, the annoying little brother and the ‘Care Bears’ film on constant rotation and you thank the Lord that you are just like Catherine Zeta Jones in being reliant on the older lads to get ahead in life. There’ll be a match on the Green at 7 and the ‘Cure Heads’ will have long since dispersed. Feels Like Heaven.