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Scotland.

3
LAUREL & HARDY MEET THE HAIRY GUY
9 TH FEBRUARY 1982: 11:57AM
    ‘Ye know the only downside tae spending time in here? Listenin’ tae
this
shite every day.’ Joey stretched his legs out until his body lay flat across three of the softer sixth-year common-room seats.
    ‘Get up an’ switch it off then,’ said Bobby.
    ‘These stories must be aw made up. That fuckin’ depressin’ theme; a tragic story … “We fell in love, then I had to have my leg cut off, then we were separated by a ragin’ storm and never saw each other again” … Whit a loada fuckin’ horse manure. And then ye find out that their
tune
is fuckin’ “Lady In Red”.’ Even lying down, Joey was capable of a level of animated exasperation that Bobby found impressive.
    ‘When Heatwave gets goin’, ther’ll be nae
middle-o-the-road
pish gettin’ played. That’s got tae be rule number one.’ Joey folded his arms.
    Bobby laughed. Since Joey had embraced the dream and put the spectre of Fat Franny Duncan to the back of his mind, there had been around twenty-three ‘rule number ones’.
    ‘Right. Got it,’ said Bobby. ‘Nae
Christy Burgh
. Nae
Goombay
Dance Band.
Nae
Flocks o’ Fuckin’ Seagulls.
’ Bobby sighed. He feigned irritation, but he secretly loved these exchanges with his best friend.
    ‘Did yer man Jeff say the biker guy would be there all afternoon? Mibbe ah should go tae economics today.’ Bobby looked up at the monochrome clock above the double doors into the common room. It recorded the time as 10:32 p.m. – just as it had for every minute of the last thirty-six days. ‘Whit time is it? Dunno why ma dad can’t get that bloody thing fixed.’ Neither of them wore a watch and therefore relied on the numerous clocks, which were located at department boundaries all around the James Hamilton Academy.
    ‘Dunno. Half-eleven, mibbe,’ said Joey, eyes now closed and giving the impression that only an earthquake with a north-east Kilmarnock postcode as its epicentre would move him.
    ‘Right. Ah’m goin’ tae auld Fowler’s class at ten to twelve an’ then we’ll fuck off tae the farm after dinnertime, eh?’ Bobby really didn’t want to go and listen to Kondratieff’s cyclical theories of economic expansion, stagnation and recession. Although he broadly understood it, and could appreciate why an economist might find it important, it said nothing to him about his own current interest: The
Black
Economy.
    Bobby actually quite liked school – or rather the freedom its flexible sixth-year structure afforded him. He had to be careful, though. Having a parent working in the same building wasn’t ideal. But he had accumulated a decent level of ‘O’ grades and Highers in the two previous years and – as with Joey – this allowed him the comparative freedom of coasting through his final year on the assumption that he would progress on to university. For this to happen, though, Bobby needed a pass in the subject that had become his tormentor.
    Joey had no intention of going to university. His dad worked for British Rail in Glasgow and felt that it was a man’s duty to leave school as soon as possible and earn, in order to help pay his keep at home. Joey’s dad left school at fourteen and proudly belonged to an era that considered
that
to be more than enough education for the essential tasks in life: enough reading to be able to laugh along to John Junor’s rancid, bullying
‘
Angry from Auchtermuchty’ columnsabout ‘poofters’; enough writing to be able to fill in the betting slips at the bookies; and, enough arithmetic to instantaneously add up the exact accumulator payouts. Some – but not all – of that ethos had rubbed off on his son.
    Joey actually
was
asleep by the time Hamish May came into the common room at twenty-five past twelve. Hamish came in with two others and, on seeing Joey, quickly put a forefinger to his mouth. The ‘shushing’ was to remove background noise to allow him to deliver