Right from the start, sum things you know you’re gunna fuck right up. You can keep mulling it over in your head forever but you know you can’t go back and change nuthing. Still, it would a med ever’ thing easier if matters hadn’t a turned out the way they did when China Joe went and gotten us all fucked up in a quandary by sticking that dart in Bobby Chopp’s arm and shooting him full a Hero cut with Ajax.

China Joe sparks up a cigrit and twists the key in the ignition:

—Yeah, well Bobby Chopp never had a lick a brains anyway. Never studied nuthing beyond his own navel. Spent most a the time alone at home stewing in his own masturbatory fluids. Kid had two holes in his head and that’s where all the bullshit got in.

and then, pointing to his mouth…

—And then it all come spewing back out a here again.

 

China shifts the old Borg-Warner auto-box to D and edges Bobby Chopp’s dilapidated Ford Zodiac out into the line a traffic, the stream a red car tail lights flowing like bludlines through the city. The Rolling Stones are playing on the radio. China Joe and me both totally chemically induced, ripped out of our heads we’re driving up to the Lickey Hills, Bobby Chopp lying dead across the backseat with a piece of old grey sackcloth pulled up around his neck under which he’s wearing a pair a Wrangler jeans and a Sonic Youth tee.

 

Dashboard clock says 2 in the AM. Cold enough out there to freeze your cock off but I need to breathe sum air into my lungs.

I roll down my winnder and put my arm out:

—Shit, I got to admit he never done nuthing but make my flesh crawl but I figger all he really done was a little bit a stealing, I figger he never really hurt nobody.

China Joe smiles out the corner of his mouth between drags on his cigrit:

—He did more than stealing. Kid was no good use to nobody. Cunt would a pissed on his own mother if he got the chance. Nah, if you ask me, Bobby Chopp was putrid to the core, he got everythin’ what was coming to him and he got it good.

and then, twizzling the big plasti-gold Jesus-on-a-cross thing Bobby Chopp had got dangling from his rear view mirror…

–And that fucking thing dint save him none neither.

 

I throw my cigrit stub out the winnder and pull a little half bottle a whisky out my pocket and unscrew the cap:

—Tek it easy, Leadfoot. We don’t wanta get pulled over, not tonight of all nights.

China snatches the bottle out my hand and takes a swig:

—Who’s driving this car, me or you?

and then, passing me the bottle back…

—See’f our pal Choppsy in the back there wants some.

—Nah, he ain’t thirsty.

—Try him.

I lean into the back and offer Bobby Chopp the bottle. He don’t move a muscle.

—See? He don’t want none does you, Choppsy?

 

The city is lit up in neon, it’s like a heartbeat, constantly beating out a soft and slow cadence in the background. For the most part it’s a good heart, the heart a this city. But you got to wonder if there’s much appetite these days for good hearts in this world. It ain’t exactly a city of angels but there is a few in it. There is a few residing in it. But good hearts are like a tiny flower growing through a crack in the pavement, they’re the hearts that get brutalised in the tempest of ever’ thing going on all around them and they don’t beat as long as hearts med a stone. I’m not saying Bobby Chopp had a good heart, China Joe’s more than likely right and his demise ain’t no great loss to the world but sumtimes I just wonder what injures men so deep down in their molecules that the damage seeps out their every pore and makes them behave the way they do.

 

The Ford’s tyres crunch along the dirt road. China kills the headlights. It’s pitch black up the Lickey Hills. There’s wind in the trees, the sound of a stream sumwhere trickling gently. Night birds call in the darkness. We find a good spot and roll the motor into a ditch. China unzips a pocket of his leather jacket and brings out two pairs a bright yeller rubber gloves. We get the fuel cannisters out the trunk and begin dousing the car with the juice.

China Joe kicks the door open wide as it will go, holds it with his foot:

—Crawl in and mek sure you chuck plenty over Choppsy there, we got to mek sure he’s gittin totally burnt to a crisp.

 

When we’re done we throw the spent fuel cannisters inside the car, peel off the rubber gloves and toss them in too.

 

Like he’s thinking deeply about summat, China Joe stands for a moment as he pulls the little yeller box a Swan Vestas out his jeans pocket:

– Did you know there’s a legend that the Devil and his sidekick, geezer called Harry-Ca-Nab, used to hunt wild boar in these hills, the both a them mounted on white bulls?

I shake my head:

—I never heard a that story. There’s wild fucking pigs up here or what?

And then, China Joe striking the match…

—Yeah. Think of em as spirit guides.

 

We walk away, dissipating into the darkness fast as we can. Them burning incandescent flames leaping up into the night air could well be visible for a good couple a miles. We pass the bottle a whisky between us as we walk back down the trail, both of us tekking good long hits.

China Joe:

—Let’s get a move on, we’ll get to a service station and call a taxi.

and then, checking his watch…

—Them’s the only places open at this hour.

Behind us we hear the gas cannisters and the fuel tank pop. I yank two little envelopes a speed out the breast pocket a my Levi’s Sta-Prest:

—Come on, let’s bomb another gram on the way.