Shit Brick by Jack Barrie

Shit brick. That’s what my cousin Harry called it. He’s from Oxford. Nice down there. All the brick that way has a lovely gold-cream color to it, but I like our shit brick better. It’s home. Endless labyrinths of it, and I know every winding street for miles. My school’s made of sharp orange brick. Once, Patrick Waite tripped and slammed into it on the playground, and where a brick wall will always hurt to collide with, even that smooth Oxford Cotswold stone, this brick was almost serrated. He has scars now on his chin and cheek from where he picked the scabs. After that we were careful for about a week, then back to the usual sprinting with untied laces.

I have one too on my right shoulder, where I came off my scooter outside my nan’s nursing home. Pebbledash wall – bloody cheese grater. In fact, we all have something. My mate Shoe (surname Trayner) has a black messy one on his elbow where he came off his mini moped in an oil puddle, leaving a dull, involuntary tattoo under raised scar tissue. He was fond of it.

Harry stayed a while, and everyone in the labyrinth thought him soft. Couldn’t kick a ball, wore khaki corduroy trousers out and knitted jumpers with holes in that stank of ciggies from his dad, and his school shoes, even on weekends.

Thought he’d be with us for half-term, then back down Oxford for school. But Easter came and went. Harry moved from sleeping on my floor to more cigarette-y clothes arriving from home and him unpacking in my older sister’s now-unused room. I was protective over her stuff and threatened Harry not to nick ‘ote or I’d know. 

Next term he was in my class at school ‘n’ all. Mum wouldn’t tell me why. I asked Harry why he was still here, but he said he didn’t know, but that he was fine with it. Weird. If I had to move from creamy Oxford to here, I’d be fuming. 

Break time. Nutri-grain, purple fruit shoot, pork chop for school dinner. Like chewing a wet bible. Shoe showed off his tattoo again, starting a pissing contest, and before long everyone was unbuttoning cuffs and rolling long sleeves up to the shoulder. Joe Coulson prodded Harry to do the same, and before I could stop him, Harry hoisted up his sky-blue button-up and navy jumper.

Little dots pattered across his back like the surface of the moon. Most small, some larger, most faded, some raw.

“Fuckin’ ell. What’s them from?” Not soft anymore. One of us.

He rolled his jumper down, his new jumper, no cigarette smell on this one. No little burn holes either, not like his others. And he was silent for just long enough for the boys to goldfish-brain their way onto the next person.

I leant against the school’s serrated brick. It clung to my jumper like Velcro, and I winced at its subtle stabs in my back.

Harry and I shared a long look, and I thought maybe my sister’s room ought to be his now.

Jack Barrie is a writer from Leicestershire, in the Midlands of the UK. He studied Screenwriting at the National Film and Television School before working in the locations department on over twenty film and high-end television productions. In 2023 his debut novel, Sundown, was published with Ravenstone Press. He is the recipient of two Royal Television Society Awards including the Sir Lenny Henry Award for his short form writing and directing for the screen. Other short work has been accepted to the Sensorially Challenged publication, and he was recently shortlisted for the Writing East Midlands Mentor Scheme.