A bare room in the bus depot and I sit on a bench
Standing in front of me is a bored teenager
No more than seventeen
He wears a military uniform
He's playing a game with no words
Listening carefully to music on his iPod
He casually waves a loaded rifle round the room
Pointing it first at a wall
Then straight into my face
Then out of the window
Targeting a succession of passers by
When I was his age and drunk on holiday in Italy
Me and some local lads got into an argument with the police
It grew heated
One of the lads hit a young cop
We all ran away, laughing
Suddenly
Bullets from an automatic began thudding into the wall above our heads
I dived through a doorway
A whole family, sitting around their dinner table, mid meal
Glanced up to see me, a mad Englishman
Sauntering drunkenly past them through their kitchen and away
Years later, touring America with a couple of punk bands
A cop stopped us after midnight on a beach somewhere in Los Angeles
He told us to take our hands out of our pockets
When I didn't, he pulled out a gun and stuck it against my head
I got angry, or is arrogant a better word?
Anyway, I refused, saying
I'm English and I'm not used to cops with guns
Ask me nicely
Take your f###ing hands out of your f###ing pockets now!
He said
Motionless, I stared back at him
Just do it, Nick
Said my friends
So I shrugged and held up my hands
Turning to the others, the cop told them
I didn't know if he had a gun
I wasn't gonna wait and see
Then, addressing me, he added
You're lucky
I was counting to five before pulling the trigger
I'd got to four and a half
I'd got to four and a half