Cow-Tipping, fiction by Mark Staniforth

Squint­ing up at all that bare chick­en-flesh parad­ing right past you, it’s all you can do just to think straight, let alone talk. But Roscoe Williams, he’s so screwed-up with think­ing where his next drink’s going to come from he could talk his way through a sixth-form orgy just so long as there was a bot­tle of Super wait­ing on the oth­er side of it.

Maybe it’s because he’s so blur­ry-focused on the booze and his next means of get­ting it that the sight of all them shiny fawn thighs doesn’t seem so much of a big deal to him as it does to me. Me, I reck­on I’d hap­pi­ly trade in swig­ging Super all day long on the bus-stop bench if it meant even the small­est improve­ment of get­ting any pair of them edu­cat­ed limbs of theirs lolled around my neck.

This time I’m try­ing my best to focus on the long curve of Kel­ly O’Mara’s calves, smooth and sleek as a sports car bon­net and guar­an­teed to top-speed her out of this place just as soon as she’s old enough to get behind a wheel. Only Roscoe’s blab­bing in my left lug­hole about this week­end being a right ripe time to pull anoth­er of his ‘famous’ cow-tip scams.

Thing is, what gets me most isn’t so much Roscoe’s blab­bing as me know­ing how it’s going to turn out, no mat­ter how much I try and stop it. Ever since my din­ner-time drink­ing got me fired from the ani­mal feeds, I’ve been des­per­ate enough that there isn’t a whole lot left I wouldn’t do for mon­ey. Even most of those things would be tempt­ing if you waved a bot­tle of Super under my nose.

Me and Roscoe go back a long way. We met when his moth­er threw a par­ty when we were ten years old, snuck under the kitchen table and drank our­selves as good as uncon­scious on her cook­ing brandy. Some­times it seems the screw­cap hasn’t been back on since. Through it all, I’ve learned the hard way that Roscoe is exact­ly the kind of greasy-arsed bas­tard I oughtn’t to be lis­ten­ing to when it comes to the ques­tion of mak­ing up the next bunch of beer money.

So when he starts up with the famous cow-tip shit, I blink my eyes off all those per­fect bod­ies and drib­ble a spit on the con­crete and say, con­vinc­ing as I can, ‘bull­shit, Roscoe.’

‘Wayne-oh,’ sighs Roscoe. I hate it when he sighs my name that way, like he’s some kind of big-shot who can hard­ly low­er him­self to shape the words. The sun turns to shad­ow and there’s no need to look up to know it’s Pat­ty Jenk­ins who’s block­ing it out. She’s already replaced her school jumper with a tee-shirt say­ing ‘Frankie Says Relax’. It pegs the end of her bal­loon boobs then drops straight off, makes her look like some sort of slut­ty sand­wich-board evan­ge­list. She’s got tight scraped-back fos­ter-home hair and smells of wet tow­els and cheese and onion crisps. She sags down between us and pokes a Ben­son in her cake-hole. She eyes up the bot­tle of Super and Roscoe hands it over sweet as if he was giv­ing Kel­ly O’Mara a box of Black Mag­ics on Valen­tines’ Day.

‘All right?’ I say, but it’s Roscoe who’s got her atten­tion on account of the free slurp of Super and the always-like­ly offer of some more fat cash.

‘You fixed for tonight?’ says Roscoe. Pat­ty shrugs. She slurps and bends for­ward to itch an inner-thigh. She pass­es me the Super. I take one look at the fuzzed-up rim and pass it right back. She takes anoth­er slurp, pass­es it to Roscoe who drains the last two inches.

‘Have faith in the cow-tip!’ he pro­claims, stand­ing and toss­ing the emp­ty bot­tle of Super towards the vil­lage green bin and stomp­ing across the street towards the pub­lic lavs.

Patty’s swapped her Frankie tee-shirt for her best blow-job clothes, a cheap black bra just about big enough to hold them in under a two-sizes-too-small crop-top that shows off her folds. The way she’s rub­bing up against Roscoe look­ing up at him with those big trust­ing eyes of hers, it almost makes me feel sor­ry for her. It doesn’t take a genius to fig­ure out what’s com­ing but I swal­low my morals for the thought of a pock­et-full of dough.

Roscoe’s got his eye on a cou­ple of like­ly lads. Reck­ons he’s like a lion pick­ing out the weak­est wilde­beest from the herd. Calls it his sixth sense and I have to hand it to him, it hasn’t done us too far wrong in the past, save the time he didn’t account for a scrawny-arsed runt being a cham­pi­on fly­weight. They’re well-dressed town­ie types and it’s easy to see who shits it the most when the pissed-up farm boys barge past on their way to the lavs. Roscoe flicks his head and heads off, pulls up a stool. I fol­low him. Pat­ty stays back by the juke­box, swivels her clack-shoes so her tits are spilling in their direction.

Roscoe nods at a pair of lads and asks if they can spare him a fag. The fat­ter one offers up a pack of pon­cey men­thols and I know that at that moment Roscoe’s gone and struck gold again. Roscoe leans in for a light. He nods his head at Jack­ie Bell lord­ing it up at the end of the bar and says, ‘known him for years. Couldn’t hap­pen to a nicer bloke.’

You can tell the pair’s ner­vous what with the prox­im­i­ty of Roscoe’s fucked-up face. Roscoe lifts his dregs and makes them clink glass­es. He clocks one of them’s wear­ing a Unit­ed pin-badge. When it comes to clock­ing stuff like that, Roscoe nev­er miss­es a trick. A few min­utes lat­er, we’ve got fresh pints lined up cour­tesy of the town­ies, and they’re embroiled in a red-faced three-way over who’s bet­ter down the Old Traf­ford wing, Jes­per Olsen or some oth­er cunt I’ve nev­er heard of. I’m look­ing over at Pat­ty wait­ing for the sig­nal, and I’ve half a mind to pull Roscoe aside and tell him a night on the beer’s enough for me with­out hav­ing to go through with all the famous cow-tip crap.

Roscoe flash­es me the wink which says I’ll nev­er see the end of it. He nods over at Pat­ty and draws their heads in and says, ‘see that bird over there with the tits? Best blow-jobs north of Wat­ford.’ He reach­es for anoth­er men­thol, sparks up. ‘Fact.’

They’re look­ing over giv­ing her the ogle. She gives them the cutesy wave. ‘You’re in there.’ Roscoe says it so they both them he means them. Truth be told, they’re not the types it looks like pussy comes easy for. The fat one looks down, embar­rassed. The oth­er meets her stare.

Just then, Jack­ie Bell flits past and Roscoe
pulls him over and steers his pint to the table and says, ‘good on you, Jacko!’

‘Hey-hey!’ says Jack­ie Bell, slaps Roscoe’s back. Roscoe used to be Jackie’s pussy-catch­ing mate till too many nights on the glue turned him into an ugly sniff-faced bas­tard. Used to bore me sense­less with sto­ries of dou­ble-team­ing sluts behind the Kwik Save. Now Jack­ie just treats him like anoth­er piece of shit ought to be stuck down the bot­tom of a brown paper bag.

Jack­ie says, ‘you’ve found your­self a right fuck­ing pair here, lads,’ and I can’t work out who it is he’s talk­ing to, us or the stag-do dick­heads, but either way know­ing we know Jack­ie seems to put the two stag-do dick­heads at ease.

Jack­ie gone, Roscoe’s back to drawl­ing on like a Match Of The Day pun­dit. Out of the cor­ner of his eye he tips Pat­ty the wink and she wob­bles over.

It’s fair to say the fat one was a bit more reluc­tant to give up his seat in the thick warm pub for a spot of gal­li­vant­i­ng round pitch-black fields get­ting his box-fresh Filas all fucked up with ani­mal shit, but it’s noth­ing a well-placed hand on a thigh from Pat­ty couldn’t sort out quick-sharp. We pile in the back of Roscoe’s Corti­na Estate. It’s had the back down so long now the seats wouldn’t sit up if you tried. Roscoe uses it as a mobile bed most nights giv­en as he’s pret­ty much per­ma­nent estranged from his folks these days. Cold­er it gets, the more litres he gets through for insu­la­tion. It smells of old fags and stale piss and the bear­ings squeal like a yard of pigs as Roscoe bathes the pub car park in full beam. ‘Jes­per fuck­ing Olsen,’ he says as he backs out, shakes his head in the best fake awe you’ve ever seen.

Soon we’re bounc­ing up the pitch-black back-tracks so much it’s giv­ing me a stiffy and I’m hat­ing myself for it tak­ing just a few stu­pid pot-holes to get me horny about Pat­ty Jenk­ins of all peo­ple again. She’s squeezed in between the col­lege cunts in the back and if everything’s going accord­ing to Roscoe’s well-laid plans she’ll have each of her hands down their respec­tive box­ers by now and be twid­dling their no-doubt tiny nobs towards the point of splurge.

After more bump­ing and grind­ing than you get on the dance­floor of the Pick­er­ing Ritzy on your aver­age Fri­day night, Roscoe pulls up and half-turns and his teethy smirk is lit up by moonlight.

‘Cow-tip time!’ Roscoe says, and we all lamp out the car and feel our feet sink in pools of warm shit. The fat lad stops to light up anoth­er men­thol and by the look of his face in the match-glow he’s not all that thrilled with where we’ve took him. The oth­er one’s more perv­ing at the gigan­tic bounc­ing balls Patty’s got stuffed up her tee-shirt and they’re look­ing even big­ger in the moon­light glow. Patty’s looped an arm round both the boys and she’s steer­ing them off to the dark­ness as planned.

Roscoe hiss­es open a cou­ple of cans of Spe­cial and we clank them togeth­er and glug them down. After giv­ing them ten min­utes we creak out after catch­ing one or both of them in the act. Sure enough there’s the flab­by lad sil­hou­et­ted in the open field with his arms stick­ing out like a scare­crow and he’s mum­bling to no-one in par­tic­u­lar: ‘I knew it. I fuck­ing knew it.’

There’s a slur­py sound com­ing from a block of black on our right which we take cor­rect­ly to be a hedge, and clos­er inspec­tion reveals Pat­ty Jenk­ins down in her most con­ve­nient pose gob­bling the oth­er lad’s sweaty knob with his box­ers tan­gling his knees. Patty’s still got her mega-baps well strapped in which I can’t help feel­ing is a mighty waste on the lad’s part, though they do say some are inclined to save a lit­tle mys­tery for their lovemaking.

The rou­tine is for Roscoe to step out out and polite­ly inform the chap that in order to keep such a sor­ry and per­haps ille­gal activ­i­ty under wraps there may have to be a small ses­sion of finan­cial trans­act­ing. But some­how the sight of Pat­ty sum­mon­ing up such enthu­si­asm for the one-thou­sand-and-forty-third nob she’s ever had in her gob seems to rub Roscoe up the wrong way. So while the flab­by lad’s still stomp­ing around the field moan­ing about fuck­ing know­ing it, Roscoe bel­lyflops over the top of the hedge and slaps the lad out of his fan­ta­sy and calls him a paedo.

Pat­ty slops his nob out of her gob and wipes her­self on the hem of her upturned top and gets to her feet and gig­gles at her mucky whore knees.

The lad’s star­ing big-eyed at Roscoe going, ‘I don’t want no trou­ble, like,’ but Roscoe slaps him round the chops and sinks him in the mud. He goes, ‘she might be a dirty slut but she’s only fif­teen, like.’

The lad’s got his arms in the air and he’s start­ing to pan­ic. He starts to yam­mer about not know­ing, and it would look well fun­ny if it wasn’t so seri­ous because he’s plain for­got he’s still got his box­ers round his knees and his dan­glies dan­gling. Then while he tries to get up Roscoe slaps him back in the mud and he plants his bare arse in the soil with a slop.

The fat lad comes over with all the com­mo­tion and Roscoe calms a lit­tle and gives it the, ‘your mate’s been knob­bing my sis­ter and she’s only fif­teen,’ bit, and for good mea­sure, ‘what with her men­tal what-nots, I’m afraid it don’t look good.’

The fat lad squints through the gloom at Pat­ty like he’s check­ing if she’s drib­bling enough to pass for a spac­cer. Pat­ty leers right back at him and licks her lips.

The fat lad starts curs­ing under his breath again and he reach­es out his wal­let and Roscoe’s most peturbed when he finds the two lads between them can only sum­mon the pal­try sum of thir­ty-five quid between them and their cash cards are stuffed safe behind Old Roy’s bar run­ning up a fine tab.

Faced with the prospect of hav­ing a pock­et-full of  short change once he’s deduct­ed trav­el­ling expens­es and the cost of a cou­ple of four-packs of Spe­cial Brew and Patty’s con­sid­er­able pre-event bar bill, it doesn’t take Roscoe too long to get his radge back on. First he orders the thin one to kick off his air-bub­ble Nikes and the Levis from round his ankles and the box­ers from his knees, then he’s after his dress-shirt and the lad’s left clasp­ing him­self white and blub­bery in the nude. The fat lad’s got wind of what’s hap­pen­ing and he’s leg­ging it away over the field stum­bling as he goes, hap­py to spend the night tramp­ing out on the moors if he means he’ll avoid hav­ing to get his own pair of flop­py norps out in front of a lass. Roscoe gives the thin lad a boot in the ribs and the lad’s prop­er cry­ing now. ‘Fuck­ing hell Roscoe,’ I say, think­ing the lad’ll most like­ly freeze to death just lying like that, and on sec­ond thoughts Roscoe chucks him his shirt back, and I might say it’s one of the touch­ing things I’ve seen him do, only he spoils the effect by pulling out his car keys and chuck­ing them and his train­ers into the black­ness for the spite of it.

Roscoe’s fair rag­ing and we sit in the car in silence and nei­ther me nor Pat­ty has the courage to ask Roscoe for our cut. The car stinks of mud-shit and Roscoe’s got the Stone Ros­es on blast­ing which is total­ly wrong for the mood we’re in.

Roscoe swigs anoth­er Spe­cial while his lights search the road and I feel Pat­ty sob­bing in my armpit and I say, ‘you didn’t need to call her no dirty slut.’

Roscoe slams on his brakes and almost sends us arrow­ing through the wind­screen. He tu
rns and slurs, ‘get the fuck out of my car.’

Well the mood he’s in we don’t need no sec­ond invite, and I help Pat­ty out and he zooms off with the door still flap­ping, and Pat­ty sobs more till his red back-lights turn out of sight.

It takes us a fair few hours to make it back and those hours present plen­ty of time for think­ing. Instead of risk­ing wak­ing her old man at her place we head in the site sta­t­ic with the bro­ken win­dow catch that those of us of a cer­tain age been using for extra cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties for years. Pat­ty sprawls out over the stinky couch and starts talk­ing her fan­ci­ful notions about get­ting a one-way tick­et out of here. They’re tempt­ing enough notions all right and what with all that think­ing time I find myself swept up with thought that it’s not too late to make a go of it some­where else. Then I look into those eager-to-please blowjob eyes of hers and sud­den­ly I hate myself even more. Truth is I know how tonight’s going to end up, just like I know how things’ll end up next time Roscoe cools off and comes back round spout­ing anoth­er of them stu­pid ideas of his.