There were broken beer bottles

scattered over a nearby street again yesterday. It was done in such a way that it was obviously deliberate...broken bottles do not lie in patterns or with all their jagged edges uppermost.
It is the second time this week that this has happened. Last week I saw someone smash a bottle on the side of the street. He was with more than one other person and they looked - undesirable. 
I knew B....who lives in the house outside which that incident occurred was home and he would be out to clear up the mess when they moved on.
He was out there when I returned and he was angry. He used to be in the army until a serious medical condition forced him out. B...is the sort of neighbour most people would like to have. He's not intrusive but he sees to things like that and other little jobs that need doing. 
     "Pity the cops can't catch them at it," he told me.
I thought the same thing yesterday. They had moved further down the same street and made it even more deliberate. 
     "Bored school kids I suppose," someone else said.
     "No, not that lot," B... told them, "Cat and I have both seen them. In their early 20's...trouble with a capital "T" too."
My guess is though that had once been bored school kids. In all likelihood nothing ever appealed to them at school. Nobody ever managed to get them excited about learning anything perhaps? They are probably unemployed. They may never have had a job and may never have one.
I thought about this as I was waiting at the pedestrian crossing. Next to me was someone I know slightly. He has Down syndrome but he has a job. His boss says he is absolutely reliable, so reliable he is permanent in a largely casual industry. He will see things that need to be done and doesn't wait to be told to do them. Yes, it is largely menial work that others wouldn't want to do but he takes pride in doing it.  His workmates like him - like him enough that he told me they "made a big cake for my birthday for thirty". 
He would no more deliberately break beer bottles an leave them on the road than he would do anything else he recognised as antisocial.  He would almost certainly get out there and clean the mess up.
I dropped the prescriptions for the elderly couple on the corner into the chemist, did some essential shopping, picked up the prescriptions and went back the way I had come. If nobody had started on clearing the glass I would ask one of the people I know if I could at least borrow a broom.
It wasn't necessary. There was a young lad sweeping the glass to the side of the road where an open bin and some heavy duty garbage bags told me what he intended to do with it. 
    "Thanks," I told him
He  looked at me and then said, "Stupid bastards aren't they?"
I could only agree.