Teenage Dirtbags

Based on a true story. WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE!

Teenage Dirtbags

©2006 Ian Hobson

A thin cloud of exhaust smoke followed the old Ford Escort as Toddy inched it across the crowded supermarket car park. 'Must be a fuckin gold mine, this place.'

'Yeah, fuckin gold mine.' Robbo had a habit of repeating everything that Toddy said. He took a cigarette packet from his shirt pocket and peeled off the cellophane while Toddy switched on his crackling radio just as a rock-song was coming to an end.

'Shit! Teenage Dirtbags,' said Robbo. 'I like that one.'

'It's dirtbag, not dirtbags. And this radio's a fuckin dirtbag!' Toddy added a CD-interchanger to the list of things he would buy himself once he had a little more cash to spend, and a better set of wheels; he had big plans, starting with a raid on the supermarket's cigarette kiosk.

'You want one?' Robbo tapped a cigarette free of the pack and offered it to Toddy.

'Yeah, go on then.' Toddy took the cigarette and leaned towards Robbo as he lit it for him. They seemed an unlikely pair: Brian Todd was a short and wiry youth, while Eric Robinson was tall and very broad shouldered. Both wore jeans and tops with hoods, or hoodies as they were usually called. The long queue of vehicles heading for the exit suddenly moved forward and an impatient driver gave Toddy a sharp blast on his horn. Toddy glanced in his rear-view mirror then wound his window down and showed the driver his middle finger before moving forward. 'Sit on that and swivel, you twat!'

The vehicles came to a standstill again as the leading car gave way to more vehicles entering the car park. The exit lane was partially blocked by a large white van. 'What a time to put up a bloody sign,' remarked Toddy. Two workmen were completing the erection of a sign beside the entrance. 'What the fuck do they need more signs for anyway? It's a bigger bloody car park they need, not more bloody signs.'

'Yeah, a bigger bloody car park.' Robbo lit his own cigarette then turned to face Toddy. 'So what is it you want me to do?'

Toddy looked furtively about then turned down the volume of the radio. 'You and your dad used to go rock-climbing, yeah?'

'Yeah, he took me a couple of times.'

'And you've still got the climbing gear, right?'

'Yeah, I think so. I think it's in the attic. Oh look!' Robbo had spotted a young woman walking across the car park.

'Oh fuck!' Toddy looked for a quick escape route, but there wasn’t one. 'What's she doing here?' The young woman was his older sister, Anna, and she was headed straight for them.

'Shopping?' suggested Robbo with a grin. He fancied Anna, though he was always tongue-tied when she was around; plus, she was at least two years older than his seventeen years and now lived with her boyfriend.

Anna dodged between the traffic and walked up to her brother's car, wobbling slightly on her stiletto heels. 'I didn't know you shopped here,' she said, as she leaned forward to see who was in the car with her brother. She was taller than Toddy and wearing a smart but rather short skirt and low-cut top. 'Oh it's you, Eric.' She stood up straight again as she realised what her brother's mate was feasting his eyes on. He was a well-built lad, she thought, but as thick as two short planks; almost as thick as her useless little brother. 'You've not been shop-lifting again have you?'

'Of course not,' said Toddy, keeping his eyes fixed on the vehicles in front.

Anna was not convinced. 'Are you sure?'

'Course I'm sure!' Toddy was beginning to get angry. 'Anyway, what business is it of yours, you fat slag?'

'Don't you call me a slag!' Anna leaned in towards her brother again and looked about ready to thump him.

'We were just getting some ciggies,' said Robbo, glad to have found something to say and glad of another look down Anna's cleavage. Suddenly the white van moved off, followed by the line of cars, and Toddy pulled away after them, leaving a trail of exhaust fumes and his furious sister standing precariously between two lines of moving vehicles.

As Toddy's car joined the flow of traffic on the road, Robbo turned in his seat to catch a glimpse of Anna making her way back to the safety of the pedestrian exit. 'She's not fat,' he said.

'She's a fat cow,' said Toddy angrily as he changed lanes and accelerated. 'Did you see what that sign said?'

'Sign?' Robbo was mentally conjuring an image of Anna standing naked in the shower; perhaps she was a bit fat.

'The bloody supermarket sign, you twat! I meant to look and see what it said.'

'Oh, no I didn't look either. Do you want to go back and see?'

'No, we'll be late for work.'

The two youths both worked at McDonalds. Robbo spent most of his earnings on cigarettes, DVDs and computer games, while Toddy just managed to keep his Ford on the road; and to keep his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Jade, happy.

'So what do you want me to do, again?' Robbo asked.

Toddy threw his cigarette end out of the window and then patiently explained his plan.

***

'We should have brought a ladder, shouldn't we?' said Robbo. 'We'll never get up that drainpipe.' A day and a half had passed since the two youths had visited the supermarket, and now, at three in the morning, he and Toddy were standing in the derelict timber-yard immediately behind it.

'If we had a fuckin ladder, we'd have brought one,' Toddy whispered his reply. 'And keep your fuckin voice down, there are houses just over there.'

'My dad's got a ladder,' whispered Robbo, looking up at the roof of the supermarket; it seemed to be a lot higher at the rear of the building.

'Well why the fuck didn't you say so before?' Toddy took hold of the drainpipe and tried to shake it free of the wall. It was a large one, made only of plastic, but well supported by several fixing brackets, and it seemed to be strong enough.

'Because you didn't ask,' replied Robbo. 'Shall we come back another night?'

'No! We're doing it tonight… Look, if you want, I'll go up the drainpipe first and lower the rope. Then you can tie it round your waist and I'll help you climb up, okay?'

'It looks very high.' Robbo was beginning to loose his nerve.

'I thought you'd done fuckin rock-climbing, you twat!' Now Toddy was raising his voice.

'Yeah… rock-climbing, not fuckin drainpipe climbing.'

'What's the fuckin difference? It's still climbing, isn't it? And it's a fuckin building, not fuckin Everest!' Toddy decided that once this job was done, he'd dump Robbo. He had been a good mate to have at school, as a defence against the bullies, but he was such a fucking dick-head at times.

'Okay,' said Robbo, 'you go first. But if that drainpipe gives way and I fall off and kill myself, you're fuckin dead.'

Toddy ignored the ridiculous threat and shinned up the drainpipe and onto the supermarket roof, surprising himself with his own agility. Crouching low, he looked across the expanse of the roof: it was completely flat except for a number of skylights positioned at regular intervals across its surface. He was surprised at the amount of light that shone from them but then remembered that these places always left lights on at night for security reasons; a lot of good that would do them tonight.

He tiptoed over the nearest skylight and peered down into the supermarket. The glass was dirty but he could see the end of two isles with well-stocked shelves on either side. He leant closer to the glass, trying to see further along one of the isles. What if there was someone inside? A shelf-stacker or a security man? But he'd walked by the place in the middle of the night on three occasions the previous week and there had been no parked vehicles and no sign of life. He went back to the edge of the roof and looked down at Robbo, glad to see that he was still there. 'Throw me the rucksack,' he whispered.

'What?'

'The rucksack, you twat! Throw it up.'

Robbo picked up the rucksack, which contained a climbing-rope, a crowbar and some plastic bin-liners, and windmilling his right arm, he hurled it at Toddy who caught it easily and soon had it opened. He lowered the rope to Robbo and waited for him to tie it around his waist then took up the slack as Robbo climbed up the drainpipe and clambered onto the roof. 'See, it was fuckin easy, wasn't it?'

'Yeah, I suppose so.' Robbo agreed. 'Why is it all lit up?'

'They always leave the lights on. Come on, and bring the rope.' Toddy picked up the rucksack and set off diagonally across the roof. He knew exactly which skylight to make for: the one at the end of the third row from the front of the supermarket, right in front of the cigarette kiosk. It was two weeks earlier, when waiting to be served at the kiosk that he'd noticed the skylight and conceived the plan.

'How do we get it open?' asked Robbo as he joined his partner in crime beside the skylight.

'With this.' Toddy reached into the rucksack for the crowbar and set to work. 'Do you remember when I was on remand for shoplifting?' Robbo nodded a reply. 'Well, I got off, but while I was there I met this guy who told me how easy it is to get these things open.' Toddy's hands were trembling slightly, and inserting the crowbar was more difficult than he'd been led to believe. He kept on talking to calm his nerves. 'You've never been in trouble with the law, have you?' he said.

'Only once,' Robbo replied.

'When was that? Bollocks!' Toddy was still having difficulties.

'That time I nicked a wheelbarrow as a Christmas present for my dad.'

'What happened?'

'Fuckin snowed, didn't it! Bastard shopkeeper followed my tracks home.'

'Got it!' Toddy wasn't listening; he'd managed to force the crowbar into a gap and once that was done it was easy to prise the skylight open.

'What's that?' Robbo asked. Strains of Don't Cry for me Argentina were coming up through the skylight.

Toddy stopped to listen. 'Bleedin muzac,' he said. 'They obviously can't be arsed to turn that off either.' He opened the skylight wide and quickly knelt and stuck his head down into the opening. The interior seemed very bright, especially with light reflecting from the highly polished floor, but he could see straight into the cigarette kiosk.

With his heart beating fast he got back to his feet and wrapped the rope end around his waist, tying it securely as Robbo had shown him. The day before, they had both climbed a tree in the park and practised using a belay device, but soon abandoned the idea in favour of Robbo taking Toddy's weight and lowering him into the supermarket, and then hauling him back up after the bin-liners, filled with cigarettes, had been despatched the same way.

'Are you sure you're going to be able to pull me back up,' Toddy asked, for about the twentieth time.

'I've told you; I can bench press twice your weight.' But Robbo was still listening to the musac. 'Are you sure there's no one in there?'

'Course I'm sure. It's the middle of the fuckin night, isn't it? Now come on, lets do it.' Toddy lowered himself feet first through the open skylight and waited for his accomplice to wrap the rope once around his own waist, climber-style, and take up the slack.

***

It was Anna's first night at the supermarket. She was one of the new staff hastily taken on for the twenty-four-hour opening that had started that very day. Unfortunately, the full-page ads in the local papers had failed to drum up many customers so far, and so, like the other eight night-staff, she was bored out of her skull. But at least the supervisor, Mike, was nice, and the two of them were chatting together when Anna realised that Mike had stopped listening to what she was saying and was looking over her shoulder.

Anna turned in her seat to see what Mike was looking at, and was surprised to see someone dangling from the ceiling over by the cigarette kiosk. Mike rushed off to the nearest telephone while Anna, who was beginning to have the most awful premonition, left her till and set off along the isle towards the intruder but soon stopped in her tracks as the dangling man slowly revolved on the end of his rope and faced her.

'Pull me up!' exclaimed Toddy, in a kind of whispered shout. 'Pull me up!'

'What?' Robbo's hands were beginning to sting, and he leaned forwards slightly trying to see how much further Toddy needed to be lowered, and trying to hear what he was saying.

'Pull me up! There's someone here!' Toddy was screaming at Robbo now, but it was too late: Anna, her worst fears confirmed, had rushed at her brother and snatched at the leg of his jeans.

'You stupid fucking bastard! I'll get the sack now, because of you!'

Above them, Robbo had realised that something was wrong and, gripping the rope tightly, he began to haul Toddy back up by taking backward steps. But suddenly, as Anna took hold of both of Toddy's ankles and pulled, the weight on the rope became too much for him and he stumbled forward into the open skylight.

***

Fortunately neither of the two would-be thieves were seriously hurt, as Toddy had landed on top of his sister and was, for once, glad that she was so well upholstered, while Robbo had managed to arrest his fall by grabbing hold of he the skylight frame and hanging there until a stepladder was brought from the back of the store.

As the two accomplices were driven away by the police, Toddy glanced back at the new sign beside the car-park entrance.

It read, 24-Hour Opening Starts Tomorrow.

'Bollocks!'