THE FAST AND THE SPURIOUS

The recycling bin was overflowing again so I took it all up to the recycle banks at Sainsbury’s tonight.

The recycle banks are at the back of the car park, which of course is pretty empty on a cold Saturday night. I swung the car in and sorted through the sack of rubbish for ‘mixed card and paper’, for ‘plastics’, and for cans and bottles. I’ve always liked the way the glass shatters and echoes inside the recycle bin.

I got back in my car. My phone beeped so I read the message, then started to write a reply, sitting there in my car at the far end of the car park, lit blue from my phone screen. I didn’t see the headlights approaching. I wasn’t paying attention to the squeal of tires on concrete or the faint smell of brake dust in the night air. Not at first.

What I had forgotten of course is that 9:30pm on a Saturday night (and possibly every night) is the exact time that the local Fast and Spurious Crew bring their shiny boy-racer-machines up to Sainsbury’s car park to show off. I’ve seen them before - they’re young men mostly, fuelled by testosterone and petrol fumes. They race each other around the car park and then stand around their headlights, smoking, and trying to out-Vin-Diesel each other. When they’ve brought girls with them, they’re much, much worse.

I looked up from my phone. A sleek black Nissan Skyline was staring me down, watched on by a silver lawnmower with tinted windows and a spoiler. I switched on my engine and my lights, and then carefully buckled my seatbelt.

My car chugged into life like Thomas the Tank Engine, naively unaware of the Bullet Train opposite, which was now roaring loudly and threateningly. It was definitely time for me and Thomas to go.

But... I couldn’t. For some reason the deranged young driver of the Skyline had suddenly decided to intimidate me, and started to do doughnuts around my car - circular hand brake turns! Round and round and round he went, circling and squealing and burning his tires and his clutch. His head was out of the window, whooping like a Native American encircling a caravan in a Western.

“Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me,” I heard myself repeat as the smoke billowed from his screaming wheels. I was calm though - even in that moment. He wouldn’t risk a collision; he had far more to lose, and after six or seven revolutions, each with a radius of a few feet, it seemed less likely to me that he’d let that happen, as idiotic a thing as it was to do. He needed to stay in control. 

My foot hovered over the accelerator, though there was no way I would introduce even more velocity into such a dangerous equation. I’m not stupid - that would have almost guaranteed an incident.

He of course, got bored and sped off across the car park eventually. I left, cautiously at first, in case Dick Dastardly in the silver lawnmower over there was prepared to be even more imbecilic. Then, with the recycling banks disappearing behind me, I gradually sped up towards the road, shaking a little as I went.

I get it. It’s a territory thing. It’s machismo and showing off and proving a point and rebelling and in no small part, nastiness. I’ve seen all those things before - the need for control, for assertion, for self-confidence-building through a powerful machine and the perception of the skill required to operate it. There was a deeper fear in his eyes than there was in mine.

Anyway, my car and I remained unscathed, and no doubt, Mr Skyline roared supremely back to his concrete kingdom, through the smell of burning rubber, to the high-fives and subjugation of the rest of the Fast and Spurious Vin Diesels out there. One thing’s for sure: new tires on that machine will cost a fortune.

I might just avoid going to those particular recycling banks late at night though. I think I like a more gentle approach to my recycling adventures.