Rock God of The Future

Danny King

Gaz hadn’t even worked off an hour of his Community Service before his arse was above his eyebrows. The wind blew up his back, the leaves refused to stay swept up and his Supervisor kept calling him Gareth even when he refused to look up for it. He hated it.

Fucking Community Service?

Eighty hours he’d got. For what? For nothing. For trying out a new pair of trainers a little too thoroughly. It weren’t like he’d got very far in them either before JJB Sport’s newest Employee of the Month had caught up with him and sat on his head so he couldn’t exactly be accused of nicking them. Yet that’s exactly what the Old Bill threw at him and the reason he found himself sweeping up nature’s litter this cold October morning instead of playing Rock Band 2 in bed with a cup of tea as usual.

“Gareth! You’re not here to smoke so put out that cigarette and pick up your broom or else I’ll mark you down as not trying.”

Gaz stared at... whatever his name was (he’d already forgotten) and curled up his lip in irritation. Twat! Fucker! Cunt! He was exactly what was wrong with this country. Jumped up little Hitler in a yellow jacket and matching braces. How did these same arseholes always end up in the positions of power over him?

School had been the same. “Do this. Do that. Do as I say. Not yet. Well go on then. Who told you to do that? etc". And the twats on the dole office were the worst of the lot. “So what have you actually done this week in terms of looking for employment?”

Fucking trainers had only cost £49.99 in the first place so he was being asked to work them off at less than a pound an hour. Correction. Not asked, forced to. And it weren’t like he was even going to get to keep the trainers at the end of it either so it was even more of a raw deal. In millenniums to come scholars would look at this sports field and deliberate how it was kept free from leaves and crisp packets just as today’s spoddy eggheads looked back at the pyramids. 

“Gareth, just sweep them into a single pile and Justine will put them into her sack.”

Gaz looked at the overgrown blancmange in a tightly fitting orange Community Payback jacket with no TV Licence staring back at him and scratched his head.

“Which one’s Justine again?”

“Right, I’ve had enough of this. I’m marking you down as not trying so you can do this hour all over again until I’m satisfied.”

Gaz blew up in disgust. “You can’t do that! That’s illegal. I’ll have your job for that I will!” he threatened, but his supervisor just walked away, scribbling all manner of malice into his clipboard as he went.

…..

Gaz managed a little more industry over the next couple of hours and finally got to chalk off some of his sentence, but it was backbreaking work. Lots of bending over, lots of picking shit up and lots of sighing at the injustice of it all.

At midday they stopped for a cuppa and bite so Gaz took the opportunity to slump under an old willow and flick fags in the direction of the ivy-clad manor house beyond.

“What is this place anyway?” he asked.

“College or something,” Justine shrugged, face-deep into her microwave-hot Ginsters.

The place didn’t look like any college Gaz had even seen but then again Gaz hadn’t seen many colleges. He’d barely seen much school. It was all bullshit anyway. No school could teach what Gaz knew.

After half an hour the Supervisor climbed out of the minibus and tapped on his clipboard for effect.

“Right, lunch break is over. Let’s get back to work.”

To which Gaz replied: “Where’s the bog? I need a slash.”

“Why didn’t you go before?” The Supervisor asked.

“When?” Gaz replied.

“For God’s sake,” the Supervisor pursed. “Just go behind that tree and hurry up.”

But Gaz wasn’t about to have his human rights violated so cavalierly and moaned as much until the Supervisor finally cracked and let him go off in search of a porcelain target.

“But the clock’s stopped for you my boy. Take as long as you like but you’ll only have as much to come back to. If not more,” he shouted as Gaz trudged away with his hands in his pockets.

The college’s front door was protected by a keypad and Gaz had to lean against the intercom for a couple of minutes before the receptionist buzzed him in.

“If you’re more than five minutes I’ll have a security guard come and look for you,” she warned Gaz, but Gaz hadn’t got to where he was today by taking only five minutes in bogs. She could send all the guards she liked. Some things simply couldn’t be rushed.