The Olympic legacy

I’m the fucking Olympic legacy. Lord Coe is visiting later to see me run. Not just me, obviously, he’s here to watch all the races. But I’m the fucking star. 5,000 metres, certain to win gold, will probably break records.

The International Interned Youth Physical Performance Championships 2013.

The governor’s delighted. We’re hosting it this year and I’m his high-profile winner that he can show off to Lord Coe. The place is covered in flags and bunting, you’d think this were a fucking school fete, not a borstal.

According to Lord Coe, the quote that’s appeared in every newspaper, we’re “exactly what the Olympics were about.” So it wasn’t about the medals, it wasn’t about TV ratings, it was about a bunch of young criminals running round and round a running track.

When me dad were at borstal it was different. He was a runner too, but in those days they actually let you off the leash, 30 minutes of bracken-crunching non-imprisonment, they opened the gates and you ran round the fields that surrounded the place. My dad used to laugh, claimed he was deliberately useless, because the slower you ran the free-er you were. Borstal’s full of stupid anti-sense like that, the whole system’s bollocks, always has been always will be.

They don’t let us out now, though. Not since Leggy McPherson did a runner five years ago in the all-England event in Hull.  Stupid really, where the fuck is there to run to in Hull? You’re better off in borstal. Now we just run round and round the Olympic Running Track like so many hamsters jogging in their wheel. It’s boring as fuck, but I don’t mind. I’m fast, I’m fucking brilliant, the quickest legs in the entire prison system.

That buys things that does, fast legs. The governor loves me, thinks I’m trophies personified, I am the man Lord Coe will talk about. I am the fucking Olympic Legacy.

Jabber gave me a book to read last week. One he’d read at school: The loneliness of the long distance runner.

It’s a genius story. It’s set in a borstal and it’s about a guy like me, an inmate, a runner, who’s the governor’s favourite because he’s going to win that all important inter-borstal running cup. Only the kid hates the governor, hates the system, hates everything, and deliberately throws the race, just to fuck the governor off. Even though he’ll suffer terribly, because the governor’s a vindictive cunt.

It’s amazing to think Jabber read it at school. A story with a disruptive borstal kid as it’s hero. Jabber must’ve gone to a good school. My school was shit, the comprehensive that Ofsted forgot. They made me read about nice children doing nice things. It’s no wonder I turned out like I did.

“What yer think?” Jabber asked, when I told him I’d read it. He meant was I going to throw my race, like in the book, to fuck off the governor.

“Na,” I’d said. “I can’t be bothered by that. I wanna win, I’m not some fucking 60s loser tripping off on socialist wank about the system. I’ll win the race, take my trophy from Lord Coe, shake him by the hand, then I’ll turn and shout to everyone present, my victory speech:

“‘I’m the fucking Olympic Legacy I am’.”