Little Whining, England.
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The harsh music blaring through my cheap, definitely not stolen headphones keeps my head clear as I ride my bike across the large wooden bridge. The wood makes it rather bumpy, and the stairs make it even more bumpy, and this is why most kids don't ride their bikes on wooden bridges in 6-degree weather. Despite the obnoxiously cold weather, a thin layer of sweat coats my jean-covered legs as I pedal violently across Little Whinging.
Little Whining. What a shit hole. Even though most people here think they're cousins of the queen or something, everyone knows that it's the exact opposite of that: a complete wreck of a place. Abusive husband here, rebellious teenagers there, hell, even kids that throw fucking glass bottles at people make the place I call home a real piece of work.
I'm a little under five minutes away from my chosen destination, and as the landscape passes by me, I feel oddly calm. The brisque wind keeps my face cold and raw, but this is counteracted by the heat radiating from my legs and up into my chest.
Even though I'm biking, I'm wearing three layers: a tattered grey sweatshirt I think I bought from a person with a heroin addiction, one of my dad's even tattier old jean jackets and a somewhat still put-together grey T-shirt from ASDA. But still!
It's fucking 6 degrees outside, come on.
I pass a park of aforementioned bottle-throwing kids, and they take one look at me and run for the safety of the playground. I blinked and almost hit a car because of the distraction.
Fuckin' kids.
The place I'm trying to go is rapidly approaching, and the punk rock song I'm blasting ends rather dramatically right as I skid my bike to a halt in front of said destination.
The obnoxious orange sign reads Little Whinging; Fix It All. The store itself is a piece of shit, no duh, but the four pieces of shit that stand in front of the store, two of them smoking and the other two drinking out of brown paper bags, really seal the deal—the broken down windows. The old Saturn gathered dust in the driveway. My godfather's nurse really knows how to pick them.
As I blankly stare at them, the wind jostles my hair, slightly getting it into my eyes. I huff up, and it blows back out.
The four have finally realized that I'm here.
The farthest one, a particularly fat man wearing a red sweatshirt that says London on it, looks at me and yells, "What?"
I stare at them more and give them no reaction.
Another one, taller and leaner than fat man, tells me to fuck off. I blink twice, and then they start walking towards me.
"I said, fuck off, you fucking freak!" He takes a hit of his cigarette, a John Player if my nose doesn't deceive me, and flicks it against my face. It catches me in the corner of my mouth and leaves a little red mark. I involuntarily blink and slightly jerk back at the sensation. I look down at the ground as the cigarette slowly burns out and tilt my head slightly to the side.
"I said go." At the low tone of the man's voice, I look up, and whatever look my face is showing must lead him to believe that I plan on listening to him because he turns around and walks back to his posse; the other three jeer me on and make motioning noises and chicken noises.
As the man returns to his group, he must realize that I haven't left because the other three are still yapping at me. He turns around, and his face shows his agitation. He takes a drag of a new cigarette and kicks a piece of ice towards me, and it bounces lightly off my bike's tire.
I stare at the block of ice for a second, and then I get an idea.
I lift one leg over my bike and don't watch as it falls on the asphalt, and instead bend down to pick up the small block of ice. The ring leader yells something at me again, but it goes right through one ear and out the other. I toss the block of ice a few times up and down into my hand and look up at the building, slowly moving forward. While most of the windows on the building are boarded up, two remain intact, and I hurl the block of ice as hard as I can and grin as it shatters one of them.
The four stare at the window as if aliens just shot it open with a laser gun.
"What the fuck!"
They've whipped around now, and I stare blankly back at them. They must think I'm crazy.
The door then bangs open as a guy in a shitty plaid bathrobe barges outside and then looks up at the broken window of assumably his building. I'm hoping it's his building, anyway.
The other four chuckle as the man begins to shake his hands in presumably anger and loudly curse.
"Hey! Who the fuck did that to my goddamn window!"
At this, the group immediately points at me, and I look over to the side, trying to goad him on.
It works as he marches towards me and grabs me by the collar of my jacket, a slight rip being heard as he ruffles me about, having me walk backward towards the curb of the street his piece of the shit shop is on.
"Did you break my fuckin' window? Did you? Answer me, you little cocksucker!" The more he talks, the more I stare at him as he keeps pushing me backward. He's wearing a silver cross necklace. Rather ungodly words to say to me, but that's neither here nor there.
"Answer me, you little bitch!" At this, he finally pushes me back, and I stumble on the curb and plop down onto the small pile of snow. I immediately lean forward, and he slaps me right across the face, and with the wind, it kind of stings.
I kneel, prop myself up, and spit on his grey wife-beater.
He doesn't like that.
He then kicks me right in the center of my chest, and a small grunt leaves me right along with all the air, and before I know it, he's on top of me, landing punches left and right. They hurt, but it's nothing I haven't felt before. I hear the group of guys cheer him on from the light post on the corner, and as I block one punch, he whips my head across the opposite side with a left hook that leaves blood scattered across the snow.
I hear them throw my bike around, and I'm glad I didn't bring my motorcycle. For one, motorcycles probably aren't good on bridges, and if I had it on me, they would've probably stolen it. At least they won't steal my shitty bicycle.
He's finally off of me and just tells me to fuck off before presumably heading back inside his shit-looking repair building, and I push myself off the snow and stumble forward. I barely manage to catch myself, and then I straighten up and wipe some of the blood off of my face. The other four continue stomping on my bike as I walk past them and right up to the curb, where more ice blocks have built up due to the cold weather.
The owner of the store, who just beat the shit out of me, is hunched over and holding his hand in kind of a grimace. Whatever. He must see me out of the corner of his eye because he tilts his head up and watches me walk up to the curb in some form of amazement because I hear him whisper, "What the fuck" under his deep breaths.
I find a new piece of ice and throw it through his other non-broken window.
Oops?
"Man! What the fuck?" His voice is exasperated, and I give him my full blank stare once more, and then I walk off.
Fuck my bike. Piece of shit hardly worked anyway.
Blood has begun to pool in my mouth, and I spit some on the snow beside the owner's store.
Whatever he just saw in me, what that was, I have zero fucking clue; he shakes his head and simply walks back inside the store. The other four look at the owner, then me, then the owner again, and then me, and I don't see what they do after that.
I wipe more blood off of my face as I walk off, the cold air doing wonders for my face right now.
A garbage man is working, and he just stares at me as I walk off, my face bloody and blood on my grey sweatshirt. Whatever.
I just want to get some beef jerky from the petrol station for lunch.