My BMX friends carve summer into a WD40 smell. The spray can fix anything. I start using deodorant. I don’t have a BMX, I just use the smallest bike in our garage.
We hang at a park every evening. One time, a girl on a swing asks why I keep one of my eyes closed. I tell her it’s because of her face, when really, it’s because the sun is falling at the wrong angle. She doesn’t talk to me again, until she remembers I’m the boy who threw up through my trumpet in assembly in Year 4.
We get rusty from talking about kissing too much, stop at Steve’s for a can. We sit on the driveway, imagining ourselves in years to come, clad in motorbike leather. Steve’s younger brother calls me a faggot for having lights on my bike as he zips past us. The other’s laugh. I shrug. My eyesight’s not great at night.
On my way home, I find him curled in his inner tube, bike spokes where his voice box should be. I don’t have WD40 on me. I tell the ambulance driver this as the blue lights filter in. Paramedic says the spray wouldn’t fix anything and once he’s happy I didn’t see anything, he tells me to go. I place my bike lights in the boy’s hands so he can get home too.
Syllable Syndrome 