SHED

Devlin and Pete stood waiting. I kept refusing but they wouldn't listen. Both had their arms folded across their thick chests like those men in suits outside the Jockey, not saying anything but smiling and bristling with violence and shaking their heads at the drunks and underage kids trying to get in. So I started to hit the thing. My small fists made almost no impression. Embarrassed and full of spite, Devlin turned away to look out the brittle window. I seemed to be deep under water.

He brushed me aside and the bag swung about.

I considered holding it to save face or something, to not seem quite so useless. Large dents appeared with each fist Devlin landed and his lazy eye opened wider. He looked insane and hateful, seemed quite dangerous to me at that moment and I wanted to leave.

KILL THAT MOTHER-FOCKER IT FOCKED YAR MOM, Pete suddenly bawled.

I laughed and didn’t feel so bad. I’d always liked Pete. He’d been arrested a number of times and told us stories. He had long hair and rude tattoos and a moustache and liked to drink. Devlin grew crazy, stupidly crazy punching with venom and yelling, his breath quick and sharp and his eye wild. I decided right there if he looked at me I’d turn with embarrassment, notice something out the window the exact same way and then we’ll see, we’d both see exactly how it was. The fists lay heavier and he began to dance around. The wooden floor moved up and down underneath our feet.

Pete stopped him and Devlin stood clawing back his breath unsure what to do for a moment. He looked at me and then at the punch-bag, forgetting how much he hated me - how much we hated each other, spittle yo-yoing from his mouth and collecting thickly in the corners.

He always made me sick.

Every time his Mom gave us sandwiches at the kitchen table he blew all his snot loudly into a tissue looking right at me, knowing how I couldn’t stand it. With bread stuck to my palate and trying not to wretch or look too troubled I casually went to the toilet. When I got back the bread sat visibly different on the plate showing more grated cheese and ketchup than before and other signs. I concentrated on the crisps. Coming in and out of the kitchen Mrs Faulder would look over and eventually ask if everything was okay. I placed the sandwich in my mouth. To Devlin’s surprise I took my plate into the toilet once. I may even have whistled on the way. Though this seems unlikely - it would have alerted Prince waiting at the back door. When I came out they all laughed at this odd behaviour, even Pete. Even Prince, probably.

Pete had his weightlifting belt wrapped around his waist and a blue vest exposing his immense muscle. No other Dad I knew looked this way or acted this way, except for the drinking. On his left arm a naked woman sat with her legs apart. Pete flew at the bag and it immediately folded as though gasping for air. He attacked it with a fluent one-two left and right that drew a new sound from the bag, a dense shed filling sound that I felt in my stomach. The hook clattered around in the bracket and I looked for signs that it was coming loose from the roof. He didn’t wait for it to swing back but darted in its direction with lefts and rights that appeared to land at the same time, then protecting his face, shuffling from side to side, dancing, saying HAH HAH, bobbing his head, moving, letting out air in bursts, quickly, fantastically. Devlin and I watched this display in awe, utterly mesmerized. Even the woman on his bicep seemed pleased, erotically stretching her legs out further and bringing them back in teasingly and then out again. Sweat seeped into the curls of Pete’s hair with speed making it appear longer.

The shed suddenly seemed a lot smaller and I stepped back and hit my head against something hard. The end of the weight-lifting bar I realised without turning round. I tried not to let the pain show and luckily Devlin didn’t notice, he watched attentively, his mouth reacting to the punches. On the wooden slated walls the audience of topless and fully naked women taken from a porn mag watched the blood-red punch-bag slowly dying with fuck-me faces.

YOU FOCKED MY WIFE YOU FOCKED MY WIFE, he shouted, gritting his teeth, punching with less accuracy but with greater strength and seemingly all his strength. He swung wildly and missed. He stopped. We were all silent except for the creak of the punch-bag rocking back and forth and Pete breathing heavily. Tears came to my eyes. Devlin looked at him with almost unrecognisable features. He seemed weirdly younger, as though his face had puffed out, and even looked unsure of himself. Pete stood with his hands on his knees in an odd way because of the belt with an odd expression. Then straightened. We all readjusted our sights and looked on spitefully at the punch-bag now almost still. As still as everything else and as gloomy as everything else.

I felt the back of my head and saw blood on my fingers. I decided right there blinking like mad, trying to clear my eyes before anyone noticed, not to look at Devlin’s Moms always exposed slender legs again. I would eat the sandwich. I would eat the crisps.

Devlin once lent me one of his Dad’s magazines. At home with nobody around I saw that all the pictures had been taken out leaving only stories. Whoever wasn’t in the shed, Devlin probably kept for himself before realising with vindictive glee what a good joke he could play on me. I read the stories and thought of his Mom.

We left Pete to lift weights. He asked us to leave. He didn’t have a job as such. He spent a lot of time in that shed. Instead of going out the side gate as usual Devlin suddenly ran off up the garden and threw himself into the house. I knew exactly what he was doing and felt a wave of panic. Prince came darting out like a delighted dumb giant.     

Simply coming up the drive sent the dog into a frenzy. I stood well back as Devlin put the key in the door. Shouting at the dog through the gap. Trying to grab his collar. Trying to restrain him. Devlin’s mom screaming the dogs name from inside. Its ugly snout appearing and all its teeth and black gums snapping at my outside presence with unreal anger. The little brass-knocker tapped a couple of times after the door slammed shut. After a few minutes the door opened again and I went in, no dog in sight. Prince brooded in the garden with my smell still in its nostrils considering the banishment that always followed. I would see his dark sinister shape sat patiently at the frosted glass of the back door when I went in the downstairs toilet. I generally sat on the edge of the bath with this image waiting for shithead to finish clearing his fucking nose and fuck with my sandwich, flush then go back out to see him there unmoved. Going into the back garden was easier, down to the shed. We went out the front door past the Never mind the dog - Beware the owner sign and round to the side-gate, the dog stupidly raced into the house to search me out as we did this.

I ran two or three times around the garden, unable to breathe or make a sound other than the desperate strain at the back of my throat like something stretched beyond what it could take and having a different structure afterwards, twisting and turning just from his reach before slipping in shit.

 My school shirt already out of my trousers was torn and I could see blood on it. Pete came from the shed and called out with such numbing ferocity the dog whimpered with suddenly terrified eyes, cowering in a dread unable to decide which direction to run as if mad, as if pain inevitable no matter what.