The east side of a tower block blazing orange on a late Spring evening, with the building's shadow stretching beyond the horizon and traffic noise from the overpass heard like the sea through a closed window. The distinct metallic sound of a basketball on concrete and the boy pumping it ping-ping-ping with a bag over the other shoulder. A comb in his Hair, his blazer too small now but scarcely worth replacing, with him off to college in September. Proud, his mother is, of her handsome boy, light-skinned, like his father was, though she wishes he would cut his hair, look more respectable. But his hair springs out from his head as if trying to escape and he lets it, no-one can tell him otherwise. Rusty water pools across the path at the lowest part of the estate, never drying out from year to year, the drains full of blown leaves and litter. He catches the ball against his hip and hops over the water, landing silently on the ball of one foot, with the exaggerated grace of a dancer.
Wrong Place, Time
He has cat's eyes, his girlfriend says. Amber rather than brown. Little white girl, year ten. They talk at bus stops and he puts his hand up beneath her hair and touches her neck and it feels like his whole body has pins and needles.
There are four of them. Older than him, though not as tall. He registers their dark shape and in the same moment turns and starts to run. The ball bounces and rolls, resting eventually in an inch of yesterday's rain.
