THE MATTRESS

It was just there one day. A grey, stained double mattress, tipped overnight in the old school yard with a few scabby items of soiled clothing in carrier bags. Without a second thought about hygiene; who might have sprayed what bodily fluid on it, died from a massive overdose, or a gone-wrong sex game on this thing, I got Alex in a headlock, set off running and fell on my arse, bouncing on the worn-out centre as I failed to nail the bulldog I’d seen 100 times on TV wrestling. I laid there laughing. He gave me shit.

Throughout the entire school holidays, we only left it to get lunch, buy ice-pops and let our mothers know where we were. Every evening, under pink sunsets we fought incessantly on the mattress, providing our own colour commentary until we had nothing left, then laid back on it, talking as dusk set in. The local girls watched on in horror as another face was pressed deep into the pissy fabric. A knee in the back of a neck. Another arm wrenched agonisingly far behind an arched back as screams of submission were ignored, bits of grass down our shirts and in our mouths and red, ringing ears.