We all know a Kev. Face like a dog chasing a car. He’s the guy who stands too near, who laughs too loud and too late at the jokes made about him. He’s the fall guy, the goober, the one who stands outside the principal’s office for baring his butt from the back seat of the bus.
Kev carved his name on the desks and wrote on the walls. He wasn’t a guy to figure you don’t sign using your real name. He would flick floppy hair from his eyes, and smile his goofy lopsided grin, and I’d like the light in his eyes, but I’d never smile back in case someone saw me.
It was the Bretts, the Scotts, the Deans and the Dans we saved smiling for, while Kev bought the beers, nicked the smokes, rolled the joints, and got caught in the process.
I’ve seen ‘Kev woz here’ all over the world, even scrawled over a Spanish municipal map in the mountains above Cabra. I reckon Kevs are the kind of guys who keep signing their names hoping for someone to think they’ve been places, had a good time, and stuck one finger up in the process, and for sure, I smiled when I saw it.
Last I heard, the Kev I knew was driving a forklift somewhere west of Point Chev and doing 200 hours of community service. But in the Sierras Subbeticas, I signed my name next to his, bared my butt and stuck up one finger, just for him.
Emily Macdonald has stories published in anthologies including the Bath Short Story Award 2023, and online journals such as Fictive Dream, Flash Frontier, Free Flash Fiction, Raw Lit, Roi Fainéant and The Phare. Her collection of driving related stories, Wheel Spin and Traction, is out now with Alien Buddah Press.
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