The Shoe by Gordon Legge (Polygon 1989)

 

One

‘Buy a couple of fags, mister?’

The enquiring youth wore Wrangler jeans and a Wrangler jacket. The jacket sadly failed to reach his wrists. His T-shirt read AC/DC. You could smell the shampoo and talc, see the shiny hair and smart trainers but he was still a Heavy Metal fan; he’d rather have been scruffy. He had acne. Bad acne.

‘Don’t bother. It’s okay,' said Archie, declining the offer of 16p as he handed the youth two Benson and Hedges.

‘Save your money and buy some cream,’ scorned The Mental Kid.

‘Thanks,’ said the Heavy Metal fan, embarrassed by The Kid’s remark. He lit the cigarettes using a disposable green lighter and returned to his two friends in the next carriage, handing one of the cigarettes to the smaller of the two, who in turn nodded and smiled appreciatively at Archie.

‘Heavy Metal,’ mused The Kid, ‘it’s okay if you don’t have a brain, I suppose.’

Archie smiled at The Kid’s smug disdain while wondering if it was worth getting upset at being called ‘mister'. The previous Friday, a door-to-door salesman had asked if his wife was in. Archie had blushed and said ‘No’. They never asked that. It was always 'Is your mother in, son?’ And now a fat, ugly (Archie had decided to get upset) Heavy Metal fan called him ‘mister. Twenyy-four next month. Older than Johnny Marr and Pat Nevin.

‘Who was playing in Edinburgh tonight, anyway?' asked Mental, three months Archie’s junior.

Archie shrugged a don’t know don’t care whilst wondering how old The Kid looked. Pretty rather than handsome, punky rather than cool; the triumph of content over style. The Kid wore a black Royal Navy raincoat, Levi’s slit at the right knee, black Doc Marten shoes and a Celtic scarf, which until a couple of years ago he had worn with the regularity of a birthmark; now he only wore it for the Hun games and when it was cold. After every Celtic defeat he would begin the post-mortem with the words, ‘What a nightmare, I was going mental!' The Kid’s concession to ageing was an increased dependency on cliché. But he was still too lean and gorgeous to be addressed as an adult. The Kid leaned forward, resting his elbow's on his knees while tapping his fingers in accompaniment to the noise of the train. Bored out of his skull, like.

‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘11.18.'

‘Okay. So we get food and drink, go to the Apollo, watch the fights, more food and drink then home.' Mental related the forthcoming events as if he were a hesitant bank robber. Mental didn’t like Glasgow and he didn’t like staying up all night. Were he a bird, he would have chosen to be a budgie. ‘If the Hun had brought his van we wouldn't have had all this hassle.’ The Kid referred to the sleeping hulk across the hallway.

Big Davie looked married (within the year it was expected he would be) and he looked twenty-four (which he was); a ‘mister’. Big Davie wore an old man’s bunnet (10p from a jumble sale), a quilted blue jerkin, brand new Levi’s and brand new Sambas. Solid rather than fat, a team man rather than an individual. The Daihatsu van remained at home so that Davie could have a drink on his night out. He couldn’t be arsed driving to Glasgow, anyway.

‘Work does that to you,' said Mental pointing a derisory finger at the sleeper. ‘Fat bastard!' shouted The Kid, hoping, but failing, to wake Davie.

Work was laying insulation for the council. Ten weeks into a six-month job, Davie hated it, but needed the money. He shared a private flat with his fiancee, Terasa.

Mental had never worked in his life. After school he attended college for three years, switching courses continually until one day he had the flu and never went back. The Protestant work ethic was anathema to him.

Archie left school at eighteen with three Highers: English, Modern Studies and a crash course History. His father was disappointed with Archie staying on at school. ‘Get a trade, an apprenticeship. You'll always have it to fall back on.’ Archie asked what the difference between a twenty-year-old tradesman and a fifty-year-old tradesman was. An argument ensued. Arguments never seemed to resolve anything, never a means to an end. Just an outburst of frustration. The father thought in terms of the home rather than holidays, relatives rather than friends, and work rather than play. Archie didn’t know what he wanted, but when Morrissey sang about never having had a job because he was too shy, Archie understood, while his father would never know or admit to knowing.

For Archie, work had been a petrol pump attendant, a double-glazing salesman and a brickie’s labourer. He had been unemployed for three years. The work provided fond memories and a few anecdotes but at the time it all seemed embarrassment and confrontation. He didn’t know' if he would ever work again; he supposed he would.