The Runners Read Online Free PDF Page A

glass pane were sticking up from the corner of the window frame.
    Jay gave a loud knock on the plywood. Johnny answered the door. Shirtless and skinny.
    ‘Howyis lads, me oul friend Anto is a good lad. What video did he send you up with?’
    ‘The
Thriller in Manila
,’ said Bobby.
    ‘Ah, great, Cassius Clay and George Foreman, lovely stuff, happy days. Tell me oul friend Anto I’ll see him later. Nice one, nice one.’
    The door closed and Bobby looked at Jay.
    ‘Last one down is a bag of shit.’
    The two of them took off down the stairs, Bobby just ahead of Jay. They got about half way down and flew around the constant bend, swerving to avoid somebody on the way up. Bobby stopped to apologise, and Jay kept going, shouting ‘bag of shit’ as he passed. Bobby turned to say sorry and realised it was Angela.
    ‘Eh, he wasn’t calling you a bag of shit, we wereracing down and last one down was a bag of shit.’
    ‘You are the bag of shit, so,’ smiled Angela.
    Bobby couldn’t take his eyes off her.
    ‘Are you all right, you bag of shit?’ shouted Jay from the bottom.
    ‘You’d better go.’
    ‘OK, see ya.’
    Bobby turned to walk away and glanced behind to get one last glimpse. Angela turned at the same time and smiled.
    ‘What were you doing up there?’
    ‘I told Angela you fancied her, she is going to call over to you later.’
    ‘Yeah, right.’
    ‘She’s not bad though, is she?’ asked Bobby, not knowing what Jay’s response would be.
    ‘Not bad for a nig…nig… Ballybough girl!’
    Jay would never call her a nigger. She was the only black girl in Ballybough. He knew Bobby fancied her. Bobby knew Jay did, too. She was so beautiful that Bobby could never imagine her fancying him. He had never kissed a girl. His brother had. He had overheard Kevin talking to his friend about kissing a girl called Cheryl at a school disco. Bobby was too young to go to a school disco. He kissed his pillow at night pretending it was Angela. He knew you were supposed to use your tongue, but he didn’t know what you were supposed to do with it. The pillow was toodry to lick, so he just tipped his tongue off it instead.
    It was a really short walk up the avenue and down the four doors to Anto’s new house. Jay took the key out and opened the door. They put the first two boxes in the living room at the front of the house and made seven journeys up and down the avenue, carrying Anto’s belongings. He let them watch Ali v Frazier when they were finished their work. It wasn’t an original. Anto had a way of copying videos: he had two video recorders and he hired all the boxing videos he could find. And he copied and sold them. Ali v Frazier was his favourite. They had fought each other before, but the
Thriller in Manila
was their last, brutal fight. President Marcos of the Philippines had paid them millions of dollars to bring the fight to his country. And, because of time-zone differences, it had to be staged at the hottest part of a sweltering day, so that viewers in America could watch the fight live. Anto told them all the details before leaving them to watch the fourteen rounds. He was an encyclopaedia on boxing. Jay and Bobby were transfixed by the brutality. Ali and Frazier had once been friends. Frazier had given Ali money when he was banned from boxing for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. In the build-up to their fight in the Philippines, Ali had goaded Frazier, callinghim a gorilla and an Uncle Tom. Bobby didn’t know what an Uncle Tom was.
    ‘Did you like the fight?’ asked Anto.
    ‘It was amazing, how many more have you got?’
    ‘I have them all.’
    Anto gave them a fiver each for their two hours’ work.
    ‘That won’t be the end of it lads, if you’re interested in more work around the house. I’m going to paint it and gut the garden. There’ll be a lot more fivers. It’ll be great exercise too.’
    Bobby and Jay were delighted. A fiver was a lot of money. Bobby only got twenty-five pence