Wednesday 28 November 2007

Steps Down to the Arch - Smells of urine, sometimes of shit



The Boys

As we came over the railway footbridge, I could hear voices coming from round the corner, down the stairs. The voices were muffled, I couldn't make out what was being said. But there was an urgency to the sound - I thought luckily I'm not alone, it's a dodgy place. I wonder what's going on. At the end of the bridge we turned to go down the stairs, the voices louder as we turn again to go down the last few steps. We were suddenly confronted by three boys at the bottom of the stairs. Or maybe they were surprised by us. I could smell burning now, coming from below. One of the boys, in a red hoody, looked imploringly at us and pointed to his right, towards the railway arch. He said 'Those boys just made a fire. Those boys. They ran off.'
At the bottom of the stairs we turned into the railway arch, where the three boys were now, and the smouldering pile of fire in the corner. The boys looked at the fire and looked at us, convincing us, wondering what we thought. 'Those boys…' the red hoody boy said again, pointing away down the arch. I laughed and kept on walking.

*This isn't the smouldering pile mentioned above...but another Pedley Street pile.

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