by Rick Wood
“I – I’m sorry,” I stutter. “I don’t really know what to say or do in this situation.”
I am not lying.
I am not a strong, confident person. I’ve come a long way, achieved great things. I am proud. I am grateful. But I am in no way strong.
Someone threw a brick through the window of my business with a racially abusive note attached for the third time in a matter of months. The police told me they were too stretched to do anything about it, so I bent over and took their uncaring manner like they were lodging a giant pole up my backside, and I was thanking them for it.
My wife is in charge when I get home. The wife I met on my wedding day, mother of my children, that I have grown to love so much – she tells me when I need to mow the lawn, do the dishwasher, change the television channel. Hell, she even decides our bed time.
Do I long for it to be different?
Well. I am grateful for the life I have. I no longer face the poverty I grew up with, and I could never have dreamt of being in this prosperous position I am in.
As true as that is, you will notice that the above answer to said question did not contain a “no.”
“Mate, there ain’t nuttin’ for you to do, like,” the man sitting in the centre says beneath his black hoodie and purple cap, his voice not much more than a mumble. “You give us name, give us dough, we do him in, job sorted. You say nuttin’ to no one and we ain’t go no further beef with you.”
It takes a few seconds for me to go through the man’s words and decipher them.
“How much do you need?”
“Ten thou should do it.”
“I will be right back.”
I stand and walk my normal slouched stumble out of the backroom and to the counter of the pharmacy. I open the till and look at the money. More than enough. I have kept it there especially.
Then the ethical dilemma runs through my mind.
I know who it was. I saw the look on his face. I am sure of it.
But my money is not endless. I keep my wife, I send my children to school, but I do this by making sacrifices myself. Can I really afford ten thousand?
Then again, can I really afford not to?
The police aren’t interested.
What am I supposed to do, hire security?
It would be cheaper.
But the image my business would create would be worse.
They will walk past my pharmacy and laugh. Two burly men stood outside the door to a drugstore. It would put off my customers, and that monster who keeps throwing the brick through my window will have won. He will see what lengths I have had to go to, and I can just see his face, cackling, laughing, chortling to himself as he saunters off.
No.
This has to be done.
I go back into the room and sit opposite the men. I hand the money to the man in the middle, who hands it to the man to his right. It’s counted as the middle man continues to stare at me without changing his expression. It looks tough. Grumpy. Emotionless. As if he’s cold beneath the surface. As if it’s just ice, and nothing else left.
“Safe,” says the counting man.
The man in the middle produces a pen and paper and hands them to me.
“Write the man’s name down.”
I do.
He takes it. Looks at it.
“Yeah, I know this guy,” he acknowledges. “Been lookin’ for an excuse.”
“You know him?”
“What black guy don’t?”
They stand up. Nod at me, which I only just see beneath his hood and cap concealment. They head toward the door.
“Be seeing you,” I say in a pathetically delicate manner.
“No,” the man says. “You won’t.”
22
Milo
The evening arrives and I have my tumbler of brandy, filled a third of the way up. I feel its blissful sting caress my throat and I relish its taste.
I sit in my chair. In the darkness. My television hasn’t been on for days, and that’s how I like it. Too many people waste their lives away in front of a screen nowadays, and I will not be one of them. I have no interest in iPads, iPhones, and all this iCrap. What’s more, the news is full of slander against any organisation I’m a part of, and I’ve had enough. Even the BBC, who claims to be impartial and unbiased, labels us as ‘racists.’ Even if it’s not blatantly stated, it’s inferred, and implied through everything.
It makes me sick.
And I don’t know what to think anymore.
One of them saved me. Saved my life. One of them, who came from over there, from whatever land they come from, he trained as a doctor through the British education system and restarted my heart.
What am I supposed to think?
I still hate them.
Don’t get me wrong, my ideologies aren’t so weak as to be tainted by brushing against a positive experience with one of their kind.
But it poses an intriguing dilemma.
A thud against the front door shakes me out of my deep thoughts.
Just a single thud.
Clear, audible, unmistakeable.
But just one.
I rise from my chair, groaning as I do, feeling my bones already growing stiff from being sat in the one place for a prolonged period of time. I limp my way to the doorway, thinking this better be good, whoever is knocking on my door this time of the night.
It’s too late for the postman. Even so, I didn’t order anything. There’s no reason for him to come.
I open the door.
A windy, blustery night with shots of rain firing diagonally against my driveway reveals itself. But no living thing looks me in the eye. The doorway is empty, as is the front of the house as I peer up and down it. An empty driveway, void of life, void of anything but weather.
Maybe there wasn’t a bang.
It was probably just the wind.
I shut the front door and, almost in perfect synchronisation with its closing, a smash announces itself from the room I just left.
Now I know I heard that.
I go through the dark hallway as fast as my weakening body will allow me.
Bastards.
Someone threw a brick through my window.
The glass decorates my carpet with shards poking between the frays. The weather punches itself through the open gap. My carpet is already drenched, and my newspaper is already dancing on the gust.
But no one stands outside or inside it but me.
I pick up the brick. There’s a note tied around it by an elastic band. I unravel it and display it at the perfect distance for me for my fading eyes to focus on.
RACIST SCUM
“Fucking idiots,” I mutter. I hobble toward the window, ignoring the discomfort of sharp glass that digs into my bare foot. “Come out, you sons of bitches! Come out and show me your face, if you got the balls!”
The front door opens and closes. Not a thud, not a knock, not even a doorbell – I clearly hear it open, then lock shut. The sound is indistinguishable from any other – the click of the handle lifting up to keep the door firmly closed finishes the sound, which is followed by a few footsteps through the hall.
Three hooded men adorned in balaclavas and tracksuits enter. One holds a cricket bat. One wears a knuckle duster. The other holds a knife.
I don’t move.
I’m not scared.
I’ve faced worse than these amateurish dickbags.
“Give me your best shot, you pussies,” I tell them.
I’m sixty-eight, going on seventy. I’m not about to back down for a bunch of home invaders who think they can beat on an old man for some kind of sick gratification, or retribution for something I never did to them. They can go to hell if they think I will show one smudge of weakness on my face.
That’s the problem with this generation. They feel like they have some kind of entitlement. Like they are owed something by society.
I fought for this society.
I saw my friends di
e for this society.
My fucking son died for this society.
So they can grow up, tear it apart, and muddy it with their dirty hands. Ruin everything we built. Leave it to all the grubby foreigners to take it over, taking away everything that’s ours, shitting all over our culture.
Kill me if you must.
I don’t give a shit.
But you will not find me screaming or crying or shouting.
They walk forward slowly, surrounding me in a triangle. Standard intimidating techniques. They probably don’t even know how to use those weapons they carry.
I see one of their hands.
Their black hands.
Holding the cricket bat.
Of course.
I laugh. Shake my head to myself.
If they found my dead body after this, it would only deepen my cause.
I lick my lips. Toughen my grin. Stiffen my posture.
Bring it on.
As if reading my thoughts, they all step forward and begin at once. The cricket bat wails into my kneecap, the knuckle dusters into my jaw, and the knife scrapes my back; enough that it will do nothing to permanently wound me, but will leave a lovely scar, like they were decorating a tree.
It isn’t long until I’m unconscious.
I’m an old man. I can’t take what I could when I was young.
I can still feel them beating me, even though I have no awareness. The pain is still there in my mind.
When I come around, the gang have gone. It’s morning again, and the killer has arrived to abduct me and put me in a room with four more arseholes.
I’m in and out of it, but they can’t tell.
And I see their face.
For a fleeting moment, I see their face.
The one who does not belong. The one who put us all there. As clear as I saw those three arseholes surround me, I see them.
Then they shove a sedative down my throat.
And I saw their face when I woke up in the room with them.
I was in a room with them.
I knew who it was all along.
I knew exactly who it was.
I saw their face.
Then I died.
And I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell any of them.
Why should I?
I knew who the arsehole was, but they owed nothing to me. My time had come enough times already, and I was anticipating my date with death.
But they will never guess who it is.
Never.
Because they are just too good.
23
Tariq
Driving my son home from school. Driving on automatic, my leg bouncing anxiously. My head implodes. It rages and rants, from one stricken exclamative to another. I’m furious at the brick thrower. I’m livid at that racist fool. And I am disappointed with myself.
But I went through with it.
I was strong in my convictions.
What was I supposed to do? I say to myself.
I had no choice! I say to myself.
You’re a fool, I say to myself.
I paid a good amount of money; this was not a spur of the moment thing. I thought it out – I can have no excuses.
I am to blame.
I just don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
I realise my son has not been talking this entire time I’ve been ruminating. Just as distracted as I am. He’s quiet in a strange way that I’ve never seen before. He stares at nothing. And I realise I’ve been so caught up in my own mess that I have failed to see my fatherly duties through – and when I realise that, it’s possibly the most disappointing aspect of it all.
“Habib,” I say. “You are very quiet.”
He nods. Remains quiet.
He’s never quiet.
Every day after school he’s rambling on about this or that. He is telling me who he spoke to, what work he did, what his teacher said, how he reacted, what he thought – on an average day, he recounts almost every event that occurred at school in sufficient detail that I could almost act out the day myself.
Often my thoughts would go away then come back, and he’d still be going on, and I’d tune myself back into his recount of his activities and it would bring me such joy – such joy I didn’t realise it brought me until a sombre silence replaced it.
His retelling of his day is the best part of mine, and I don’t even realise he hasn’t done it.
“What is it?” I ask.
Habib shrugs his shoulders.
“Hey, come on,” I urge him. “I’m your father. You can tell me anything.”
He sighs a sigh that raises his shoulders and pushes all the air out of his lungs.
“Hey, Habib,” I say, my stern, serious voice taking over. “Come on. I want to hear it.”
He takes a moment, holds his breath, then blurts it out: “Some boy at school was really mean to me.”
Oh. Of course. I was wondering how long it was going to be until we had to have this conversation. It’s inevitable, really, bullying – honestly, can you say you’ve never experienced it? Likelihood is that, if you had a room full of hundreds of adults and asked who was bullied at school, every hand would point to the ceiling. It’s as common as breathing. Especially for a boy that will appear as different to the others as Habib.
I just thought he’d be a little older when it started.
That we would be afforded the luxury of time before we had to confront reality.
“And what did he do that was mean?”
“He pulled on my wrist and twisted it and gave me Chinese burns.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Then he told me he should call it Paki burns because I’m a Paki.”
That hurts. That really hurts. Like a dagger in my heart. It’s a shame. Such a shame that we have to face such things when we are so young.
How does an infant school child even learn such a word?
An image of this bully’s upbringing appears in my mind. Alcohol cans littered around their parents’ feet. No one asking about their day. Never seeing their parents because their parents don’t care. Too busy with drugs. Spending their money on tobacco instead of care for their child.
And I realise I’m stereotyping just as much as they are.
My son goes to a private school. These aren’t drunken layabouts – but people who work hard enough to pay huge amounts of money for their child’s education.
Yet, somehow, the child still learns such a word.
And I cannot understand how.
“Father, what is a Paki?”
I take a deep breath.
“It is a very offensive word for people with brown skin, and if it happens again, I want you to tell your teacher straight away, you understand?”
“Okay. But then he–”
He stops himself abruptly.
“Go on,” I urge him. Although I don’t want to hear the rest. I must, but I really, really don’t want to.
“He kicked me. And it hurt.”
I hate the kid who did this. I know he’s likely to be very young, and a product of a neglectful home, but I hate him. And I want him to hurt. Hurt badly.
But I can’t hire a gang for this.
That can’t be my go-to for any time we face these difficulties.
Not for a child.
Not ever again.
Maybe my son just has to learn that this happens.
Maybe I have to learn that this happens.
The thought brings tears to my eyes, but I battle them away. I will not let them win. I won’t.
“Can I ask you a question?” my sons asks.
“Of course.”
“Is it okay for me to kick him back?”
I go to answer, then I don’t.
What a question.
And tell me, honestly. What would you say?
Yes, kick that racist bastard back?
Or no, be the bigger man, and walk away? Then walk away again next time. And the next time. And the next time.
<
br /> Until you end up like me.
A pathetic man with no confidence who lets everyone push him around.
Because he took the high road, and he walked away every time.
You know, if I’m honest with myself, I say I took the high road, but I didn’t. I took the easy road. The high road is just a lie we convince ourselves of when we’re too weak.
“I mean,” Habib continues, “if someone says or does something really bad to you, it’s okay to do something back, isn’t it?”
As we reach traffic lights, I turn to him. His eyes, two sparkling circles reflecting the sun, stare at me with innocence this world cannot afford him.
He awaits my answer.
I know what I should tell him.
I know what I really feel.
I know what it’s done to me.
And honestly, I do not know how to answer.
They taught me that love conquers all.
But in truth, love conquers nothing.
It’s an excuse.
It’s a word.
And a word is only as valuable as what the word hides.
24
Tariq
I’m standing in the back amongst boxes of drugs, absentmindedly filling out prescriptions.
One of the girls from the counter brings me the next few prescriptions. I look through them and I see it.
His name.
He’s back.
I stare at it for a little while. Pad the paper between my fingers, shuffling until it crinkles, feeling its crisp touch against my coarse fingers. In some kind of catatonic state, with no particular thoughts, just a hazy fixation on this name.
I peer out from the back. I see him waiting. Waiting all alone. A black eye. A cut across his arm. A bandage around his knee. He leans on a walking stick.
They did that.
