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I try to remember what the skies actually looked like when I was young. All I can see is a vast, featureless, blue expanse. I saw this big sky during the heatwave of 1976 when I'd just turned five. If I lay on the tarmac outside my house on the Tommy Jones Estate, Rainhill, Merseyside and looked down the road, I could see a mirage if I was lucky. It was as if a scratch of sky had leaked onto the road in the distance. But I couldn't really stay down for too long. There would be too much of my skin touching boiling hot tarmac. The road got so hot on one of the days that it was easy in some parts to pull chunks of it out as if it were partially melted toffee. We laughed and pushed our fingers into the viscous road surface.'I'm pulling the road apart with my hands!' I thought, arms covered in burning hot tar.Later in the day my mum had to put me and my mate in the bath and use butter and washing up liquid to get the now-hardened bituminous pitch off us. We came out of the bath with angry, bright pink skin, like crabs with their shells ripped off.
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Suddenly one lunchtime there were the biggest raindrops I've ever seen. I would still swear now that I remember the first few drops hissing as they hit the pavement. I can see them now, falling slowly and hitting the floor like exploding 50 pence pieces. And the funny thing is, at first it only rained down one half of our street. If you looked to the right of our house it was all rain and heavy charcoal clouds. If you looked to the left, it was all blue sky and roasting sun. But slowly, the wall of rain rolled down the street until that was all you could see. Within an hour the parched gutter had become a torrential river bursting its banks, as seen from an aircraft window.At the bus stop I think about Ste's elder brother and laugh "wanker" to myself as a mild aftershock of shame runs through me. I think about Ste's brother and all of his mates marching me out to the copse that day the following year. About how they wouldn't let me go home. How they kept me there all day…The guy on the bench is unwrapping his sandwiches, he pulls one free from the clingfilm and jams the whole thing into his mouth and masticates loudly.He glances up and a sickly flash of electricity runs through me.He looks exactly like me.He's my height, my build, my age, has a similar haircut, the same broken nose, the same baggy eyes, the same creased forehead. He's me, but he's drinking Special Brew, eating sandwiches, wearing a tracksuit.Read from VICE Magazine: 'Engulfed': Fiction by Curtis Dawkins
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The following day, I'm standing at a different bus stop in the rain. I'm still stuck in a loop, unable to stop thinking about the guy with the sandwiches. If you're a man and you're lucky, you tend not to get people starting on you physically once you hit your mid-thirties. You probably look as intimidating as you're ever going to. You probably represent an unknown quantity to those looking for a scrap, who are usually younger. But does this grace period end once you become middle-aged? This is a startling and unwelcome concept. It's not something I'd ever considered before. Do men start looking like potential victims of violence again after a certain age? I had "victim" written all over me in my teens and twenties. I don't want this to happen again.A voice with a Caribbean accent snaps me out of it: "You've got nowhere left to run! Your time is run out!" A retirement-age lady in her Sunday best is addressing everyone at the bus stop, all of whom are staring intently at their feet or smartphones."He is coming! Even if you're not a fornicator. Even if you are not a drug addict. Even if you are not a problem drinker. Even if you are a non-believer. He is coming and you need to be ready! You have no idea what will happen later today, let alone tomorrow."I take a leaflet off her. "Thank you, son. God bless you," she says.When I get to the gym, as always, I just can't get into it. After about 40 barely taxing minutes on the cross-trainer I get off and head, slightly more crushed than when I came in, to the changing rooms. I went in looking like an unfit middle-aged man and now, in the unforgiving full length mirror, I look like an unfit middle-aged man who is drenched in sweat.Read on Noisey: I Survived Motörhead's Motörboat Cruise
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