The Boyhood Of Billy McKenzie Part 1
I've never been much of a drugs person. I have dabbled, tried bits and pieces but thats about it. Some people are either drugs people or alcohol people, in the same way as some people are Elvis fans or Beatles fans, its rare to get both. I've always been an Alcohol and Elvis person, well early Elvis before he sold his soul to showbiz and became cheesy. Alcohol makes you forget your thoughts and lose your mind, whereas drugs expand your mind and extend your thoughts. I would rather forget.
I got drunk for the first time when I was 12 years old with my friend Lee. It was christmas time and the whole town was painted with snow and fog. Multicoloured christmas lights and gray fog danced across the snow covered cobble stones as we walked up the street, cupping our cigarettes in our hands to keep them warm. It was a fairly long walk from Horsforth park to King George Avenue, but I would walk any distance as long as I could get home. I always felt the safest when I was at home. We entered the council estate, shuffling passed the paper houses, along the grim pavement looking down at the chipped curbs. Every council estate in England looks the same. Cheap, grim, depressing and daunting. To us it was home sweet home.
We walked through my gate and opened the door to the workshop, closing the door quietly behind us, hoping my mother wouldnt hear us from the house. We searched high and low, worried that my brother had found it. We then looked under the sofa, our eyes lit up, there it was, the litre of cider! We had stashed it in the workshop the night before when we had 3 girls from our school over, we were meeting them again tonight and were off to see the christmas lights get turned on in Yeadon. We took the litre of icey cider, wrapped it in a sheet and placed into Lee's backpack. Out into the falling snow we went, back to Lee's house.
We were in Lee's bedroom, a strange room with a pungeant smell and lots of rats and hamsters in various cages. Lee was sat on a chair and I was sat on his bed with 3 girls, I was in heaven. The girls refused to drink and Lee decided he would rather have one of his brothers joints, so the cider was all mine. I began swigging relentlessly.
I was in my bedroom alone layed out on the bed wanting to sleep, laughing and crying at the same time. I tried to stand up but this failed so I fell back into my bed and decided to sleep. Suddenly my mother burst into my room and gave me the death stare that only parents know how to give.
'YOUR DRUNK!'
'N-not ah?'
'Right! Thats it your grounded, I am absolutly disgusted Billy, you are 12 years old! What on earth is happening to you?'
'can't grown me, off, christmas lights, girls!'
'No chance in hell!'
My mother slammed the door and I sat there crying, desperate to go see the lights, to see those girls, to catch joke with Lee. I began throwing things around my room in frustration and anger, then it dawned on me. My mother was right, what on earth was happening to me? A Month ago I was playing with action men and video games, a month later I was smoking cigarettes, drinking booze and chasing girls. This was now my life for the next 10 years.
