It was December the forth and pitch black outside.  After every shift at the restaurant there was a ten minute wait at the bus stop around the corner, something I invariably endured alone, either in the fading embers of summer or spring or in this, the blanket dark of winter, with only the single street light on the other side of the road and a peppering of warm looking windows in the high-raised flats around me keeping me company. 

On this particular night of December I was suffering from an ingrown pube which lay swollen and sore just an inch or so below my belly button.  After an hour of antagonizing it that morning the spot had grown a sulking, purple head that look suspiciously as though it were a second penis growing to an audacious coup.  It itched mercilessly, and in the miserable coldness I had no choice but to fumble beneath the layers of my clothing with cold-drunk fingers down to where I could scratch.  As I did so I remember a bus drove past - not mine - momentarily illuminating the damp stretch of pavement I stood on and me, seemingly cock in hand, for the row of gaunt faces sat inside to glance over with disgust.  A steady rain that seemed to have been falling for months suddenly picked up pace after that and took on a gentle roar.  You always know the rain is getting bad when the pavement jeers at you.

After the same ten minutes had passed with me stood doing the same idle to and fro-ing and jostling for warmth as always, my bus appeared at some speed at the other end of the road and just kept going.  I held my thumb out, casually at first, then very firmly, like the finger I was sticking up was in fact my middle, but the bus rattled on without me, the driver poker-faced and resolute, as a small wave from an oily puddle dived out of it’s way onto the tops of my already sodden shoes.  Forfuckssake, I told the street.  But it was lost in the din of the bus’s engine as the rain began to fall harder again.  I sank in frustration beneath the hood of my coat and saw a cat dash incredously from beneath a car towards one of the houses with the warm windows.  In a heartbeat of malice I wished it a painful drowning before it made it home.

After another twenty minutes no other bus came by.  I decided to consult the timetable that stood in the shadow of the stop.  What could be made of it - behind the thick, black letters of illiterate graffiti – implied no bus would come for another hour.  In a mental projection of an hour I saw myself shrunk into a ball in the corner of the bus stand, wet through and weeping, reaching out meekly for imaginary passers-by, then reduced to a paragraph on the page fifteen of the next day’s local paper: Student, 18, found frozen to the death on roadside.  Despite being 17 stone he didn’t have enough on him to survive the cold.  Locals claim to have thought they’d found a seal. 

I wandered back to the restaurant to see if there was anyone left who could let me in.  Straight away the signs were bad.  Everything was locked.  The chairs were upside down on the tables.  The boards had long since been taken inside.  I banged on the back door which led to the kitchen and waited, knowing for certain that no one would answer. 

With no options left, I decided to venture in to the patch of trees at the other end of the car park.  Beneath the canopy of the trees, I imagined, I might find shelter, and wait out my hour before the bus.  As I clamoured over the wire fence I was hit immediately with the smell of damp pine, then the buoyant sensation of it pressed down under my soaking shoes.  Holding some barren twigs aside I headed deeper into the woods, trying to feel my way carefully, trying not to be too egar to escape the open assault of the rain, fearful of ditches or sudden dips in the landscape.  The terrain rose and fell in small mounds, little trenches rippling forward into the trees.  Staggering slightly from side to side, I made it to the trunk of one of the nearest trees and pressed myself against it firmly.  The rough bark made an imprint on my face and left a slight debris on my cheek.  The rain felt immediately more distant and I calmed.

It was leaning against that tree catching my breath that I noticed a light flickering fifty, maybe sixty yards deeper into the trees.  At first it seemed to go on and off, like a child playing with a torch.  Then I realised that the light was constant, and that I was simply swaying, and so were the young roots of many of the trees in front of me, blocking and revealing the light like a kaleidoscope of eye-lids blinking wearily into the darkness.  It may have been the adrenaline of my excursion into the woods so far – no mean feat for a person of my size, in such apocalyptic conditions – or it may have been some deeper human impulse, the nomadic draw to signs of light and warmth - but without thinking I set off, pushing through the anonymous limbs lingering in the blank spaces between the trees, gambling each foot against the possibility of wet mud, driving on towards the light.

A few feet further, I saw that the light was indeed a small fire.  It’s central flames darted upwards, like a pair of rasping tongues, while tiny flecks of amber cracked and popped, floating towards their oblivion in the cold air above.  In the occasional light of the flames, I could just about detect two pairs of knees sat opposite one another.  A mummer of conversation stopped and started with the wind.  I froze behind another tree and realised I had travelled some way towards them and could not be certain of my path back.  Feeling pinched between the danger of going back and the danger of continuing forward, I froze and closed my eyes.

I thought about school early that day.  It had been the final P.E. lesson, the last of what had long been one of my most dreaded times of the week.  I didn’t mind the lesson its self.  In my set, the lower ability band, I was something of a athlete.  In low stamina games such as badminton I had one of the best hand-eye coordination in the group.  The other kids weren’t as fat as me, but I had better skills.  Some of them couldn’t even hold the racket straight.  No, what I hated was the changing rooms.  We were all put in there together indiscriminately.  Even on the days I managing to avoid a teasing (often I got away with changing my t-shirt swiftly while the others were distracted), there were the bodies, all slender and more toned then mine.  I would always sit there, the first dressed, feeling dry-mouthed yet sweaty, unable to stop myself glancing towards their naked limbs, scared of being caught, feeling peculiar as their arses bend over and their balls flashed from between their legs.  Sometimes I would have an erection and not know why – how silly, that they always come when you least want them - and I would have to walk with a jumper held dangling down from my torso to prevent them from seeing as we lined up against the wall to be separated and put into teams. 

That day, as we walked out, Big Sordy did that old trick on me, the one where you time a kick someone’s heel as he lifts it so that his foot has no choice but to sway outwards and then back in to trip him up.  He did that and I fell, just as most of the others had lined up against the wall, but I didn’t hold my hands out to steady myself because of the erection I had, and so I landed face-first in the gravel, my chin getting the worst of it.  There was rising chorus of laughter, genuine titters at first, then distorted shrieks of hilarity – laughter for laughter’s sake, like the over the top response you get in old American sit-coms.  Mr. Jenkins marched straight over and scolded Sordy, then began pulling me to my feet.  Extraordinarily, through the pain, I had retained my hard-on, and soon I stood there dazed, still holding my jumper vaguely over it, only now the whole class were focusing on me, and it wasn’t long before someone shouted something and pointed, and then the laughing escalated and became splintered with sounds of disgust.  Again – over the top.  And relentless, like I’d done something unforgivable in front of them.

As I shut off my sense of sight by closing my eyes my sense of hearing duly sharpened, and I heard that the two voices, far from that of grown men, were in fact the higher-pitched jostling of two young boys.  I could make out their tones, both lost in some arms-race of rhetoric, fantasies delivered in imitations of authority.  I edged closer, less conscious now of the noise I made.  The rain fell more lightly in the forest but still the wind lashed through the trees, pulling and pushing you slightly one way or another.  It was like one big confused mind, rolling in and on it’s self.  I felt physically unafraid, but as I made slow ground on the boys and their fire, something inside me was turning like the wind, unsure which way to let myself go.

‘What the fuck!’ one of them shouted, standing suddenly as I stumbled somewhat awkwardly through into their clearing.  The second spun round to face me and shrieked, though I calculated that such a sound would not be audible for a long way from here, given the wind and the rain. 

‘Who are you?’ The first one asked.  For about a minute I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just peered at them, trying to get a better look at their faces.  I was right – they were boys, no older then ten years old, both in army trousers and Newcastle tops.  I wondered if they might be twins, until I got a good look at their faces. 

The one nearest to me, who looked the most afraid, was a short ginger thing, with a face that seemed to narrow to a point beneath his chin.  His open mouth showed a incomplete offering of teeth – just two at the front-top and a scattering at the bottom.  His eyes were wide yet somehow unalert.  His hair was falling out of a black beanie several times his size, that stood up high on his head.

The second boy had a square jaw, far too defined and muscular for his age, and narrow, fine eyes which were taunt with apprehension.  His hair was cropped short and pasted down on his head in thick strands with the rain.  It was such a handsome, serious face, so obviously set for action, I took immediate liking to it whilst recognising that if that face was only a few years older, or even less, it would be approaching me faster then I could clock it, ready to glare into my own and diffuse the threat it perceived in a moment.

I sat down on a log next to the ginger boy, who shuffled along like a rat you’d thrown a stone at.

‘Who are you?’ The other boy asked again in the same steady tone. 

‘I work at the restaurant over there’ I told them, without motioning in any particular direction.  They seemed to accept this. 

‘Are you the chef?’  Asked the ginger boy.  His voice was sillier than his friends, more childish. 

‘Yes’ I told them.  They accepted this too, even though I was far too young to be a chef.  I reasoned that it was because I was fat.  People always think that fat people must know a lot about food.  It’s the same reason you presume beautiful people must know an awful lot about sex. 

‘Do you mean the Italian restaurant?’ Asked the other one .

‘Because my parents eat there all the time’ he said, sounding a little less defensive.  I nodded. 

‘I know your parents’ I found myself telling him. 

‘Bollock.  What do they look like then?’  He asked, the same tone returning to his voice that was there earlier when I first came through the shadows.  I rubbed my fingers together quickly over the fire and breathed into them heavily, banging my knees up and down quickly, acting in that animated way I always find myself acting around children, like I have to illuminate every tiny thing I do to interest them.  This seemed to please the ginger kid who’s eyes softened slightly and sat back down on the log a few places along from me. 

‘I know them, your Dad has the green peppercorn steak and your Mam  has the chicken carbanora.  I know that and I know that they wouldn’t be happy if they knew you were out on a night like this.’  The boys both shifted uncomfortably and looked at their feet.  The other boy spoke again, looking up defiantly

‘We didn’t know it was going to rain.  We’ll go home after…’ 

‘And where do they think you are now?’  I asked. 

His house they said in unison, then chuckled.  I laughed too, unnaturally I thought, but when I quickly looked around I saw they hadn’t noticed and were smiling.

‘So what was the idea?  To go camping?’  I asked, trying to pick my words carefully.  The last thing I wanted was for them to turn on me, for me to say the wrong thing and for them to start poking fun.  I saw the stern faced one, who was still standing, smirk a little. 

‘Camping…’ he repeated under his breath.  I burned with embarrassment.  Such a stupid idea to city kids. 

‘We just wanted to have a fire’ said the ginger boy, as the other one shot him an annoyed glance.  I could sense he wanted to challenge me, ask me what I was doing there with them, but he didn’t quite have the nerve.  Once again I saw it: the difference only a few months would make to the boy, such a small fraction of time before he would be just like one of them, another jeering, dismissive face.  For now it burned away at him, his own impotence, the time that stood between he and I.  I felt my power grow with every moment I sat there comfortably as he stood.  The ingrown pube below my belly button begin to itch as my body warmed up by the fire. 

‘What’s your name?’  asked the ginger kid suddenly.  I looked at him.  His frame was gangly and thin, his arms no thicker than the branches blowing back and forwards just above our heads.  His stance was childish: hopping from foot to foot, arms wrapped around himself. 

‘What’s yours?’  I asked him. 

'Paul.’ 

‘And yours?’  I asked the other kid, who just glared at me sulkily and let the question hang there between us all.  I tried to let the moment past as though it had not bothered me. 

‘This is a good fire’ I told the ginger kid.  ‘How did you get it started?’

‘Why are you out here?’  The other one asked over me, clearly finding it unacceptable for me to get into a conversation with his friend. 

‘The rain’ I said vaguely.  ‘To get in from the rain.’

‘Do you know how to get to the train station?’  Asked the ginger kid. 

‘Paul!’ Hissed his friend.  It was the first time either had addressed the other since I arrived.  ‘Shut up man!’

I considered this strange question for a moment while the two boys bickered.  It was clear that there was something the stocky one did not want me to know.

‘I know the way to the train station’ I found myself saying over the top of them.  ‘In fact, that’s where I was going, when it started to rain.’  The boys were silent. 

‘How are you going to get there?’  Asked ginger. 

‘In my car.  It’s parked around the corner from the restaurant… I locked up the kitchen and then it started to pour down, so rather than get wet walking all the way to the car, I nipped in here for shelter.  That’s when I saw your fire and thought I’d come see who it was.’  This seemed to make sense.  I felt proud of the explanation. 

‘We were going to run away’ he confessed, while his friend swore and spun around in exasperation.  So that was it, I thought, and noticed for the first time two small rucksacks beside the other boys feet.  I didn’t ask the obvious – why they wanted to run off.  The pube was really distracting me now, it itched insanely beneath my coat. 

‘Well you won’t get very far by foot, not in this weather’ I told them.  I had hoped
that would act as a hint, that they would naturally ask: ‘can we come with you’, but neither boy seemed that interested.  The ginger one kept skipping about on his feet and staring into the fire, glancing over occasionally at his friend who was still standing with his back to us with his arms folded and his shoulders tense.  I wasn’t sure what I was doing.  I thought of my bus, how it would be passing soon, how I might miss it.  But I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the boys, as though somehow things had gone too far already.  Everything I had told them so far had been a lie.  I felt obliged to stand by what I had constructed, that somehow it would be a failure not to win them over.  I wanted them to like me and to fear me both.

‘Listen, guys, if you want I can drive you to the train station.  But you mustn’t tell anyone that I did.  My car is parked just a few feet away.’

At this point the ginger kid was pulled aside by his friend and they spoke alone.  I sat and waited, poking the little fire with a stick that was resting on the ground.  I poked and poked, not really noticing them, spreading the embers out wide until the flames died down and it almost went out.  They hadn’t noticed, and nor barely had I, but by the time they turned around and came back, the light had all but gone, and the fire was a nothing more than a scattering a blinking red fibres slowly fading into the soil.

‘How far is it?’ asked Paul

‘Not far.  Look, your fire is going out anyway.  You can’t stay here, so you might as well come with me.’

‘We can go home.’ Said the other one.

‘No come on’ said his friend, with surprising authority.  He seemed determined not to go home, and his friend gave in.

And so we set off the way I had came, passing through the woods unsteadily, me leading as though I knew where to go.  The rain seemed to have finally stopped, but it was no less dark or treacherous under foot.  After about ten minutes, the sound of the boy’s feet behind me stopped.  I turned and saw that the other boy, not Paul, had turned and was marching back towards where the fire had been.

‘Ed!  Where are you going man?’ whined Paul.

‘Fuck this I’m goin home.’ He shouted back, and then paused.  ‘Coming?’

‘Don’t!  Ed don’t!’ was all Paul call say, but Ed was long gone.  His vague outline that had been reflecting in the moon soon merged into shadow and vanished, leaving Paul a few feet in front of me, standing up on his tip toes trying to make out where his friend had gone.

‘Come on Paul.’ I said.  ‘It doesn’t matter about him.’  Paul turned and looked at me.  I couldn’t see much besides his stupid hat and those wide, silly eyes peering out beneath it.  I gave him a little tug on the arm to get him walking, which caused him to stumble forward a bit.  ‘The car’s just through here’ I said.

We kept walking, pushing our way through the forest, me not saying anything but listening carefully.  After a while the boy starting crying a bit, but his footsteps stayed steady behind me, so I knew he wasn’t running off.

‘It’s ok Paul, I’ll drive you to the train station.’ I said.  ‘We can go to Scotland. I went there once when I was your age, we played in the rock pools on the beach.  I’ll find us a place to stay, don’t worry.  I’d like to see what the people are like in Scotland.  Better than here, I bet.  I’ll get us some food for the journey too.’ 

As I talked I suddenly saw in the distance, the metallic sheen of the dustbins that we kept outside the back of the restaurant.

‘We’re nearly fuckin there!’ I said, and turned to face Paul, who looked up at me, alarmed, probably just as excited as I was.  I grabbed his arm again and this time started jogging forward, pulling him along with me. 

‘Come on, I can see the car park’ I said, as Paul staggered on, me more pulling him then him walking.  His cries were getting louder so I moved faster and heavier, as though it might drown him out.  We got to almost a canter, me feeling breathless but full of energy, until suddenly the arm in my hand was gone. 

I heard a short scream.  When I turned around, I realised my right heel was resting on the edge of a sharp dip in the ground.  I steadied myself and prodded the floor beside where I stood.  It was unstable so I grabbed the nearest tree.  I saw that the dip had to be several feet down, and further away from it was a the huge uprooted tree that dislodged the earth.  It’s gnarled roots stabbed out into the clearing left behind dirty and tangled head of hair. 

‘Paul?’ I yelled.  I heard a moan from beneath me, raising slowly to a kind of wail.  It occurred to me that even if he wanted to call out my name he couldn’t.  I had never told him. 

Closing my eyes against the tree for a moment to gather my thoughts, I realised something had gone horribly wrong.  If  I didn’t make it back for the next bus, it would be after midnight, and the buses would stop running altogether.  I’d have been stuck there, like little Paul, stuck out in that mess in the woods.  It hadn’t quite been an hour yet, so I stood up straight and looked out again until I could see the bins of the car park once more.

The bus driver gave me a queer look when I stepped aboard, and I don’t think it was just because of how wet and muddy I had become, I think it would have been there anyway, that look of disgust.  People had been looking at me like that my whole life.  In a heartbeat a malice, I wished the bus driver a horrible crash after I got to my stop.  In the meantime I just sat down near the front, and began scratching at the spot just below my belly button, which was itching again.