So there I am in my first year of uni, sitting in a Shakespeare seminar in a black Nike tracksuit with my iced-out grillz in, after a one-hour lecture on Romeo and Juliet, talking about how revenge is the purest instinct whether you like it or not. Revenge is a demonstration of love, real pure love, like when Romeo went to murk Tybalt coz Tybalt murked his boy Mercutio I say to the class, just how you’d feel the absolute need and desire to kill if someone raped your mother, the most natural urge to take revenge, even if it’s just for a split second before your moral training kicks in, before the way society has numbed your instincts starts working – and the light in the room breaks into thousands of pieces as it hits the diamonds in my teeth.
THE WEDDING
I’M NINETEEN, IT’S April and I’m done with uni shit for a while since it’s the Easter holidays, so I’m cotching at Bimz’s yard and I wanna get a draw. Bimz’s mum moved out and left him the flat so his boys basically jam there all day long and all night, anyone who wants to can practically k.o. there whenever, there’s always at least four five man in the yard, spitting bars over grime or rap beats, bunning cro and playing Soulcalibur or GTA on the Xbox, watching happy slap videos and footage of mandem chasing down their ops on their phones, getting juiced on Alizé or Henny, chatting shit into the early hours. So whenever I’m not linking Yinka, who’s back at her mum’s yard, I come to Bimz’s and get mad faded and sleep on a sofa or the floor.
So anyway, I want a draw, Bimz wants a draw and so does Ki and Sly, so we come out the yard and start walking from Precinct to Uncle T’s. Bimz says Uncle T’s got the bang bang. It’s one of those warm spring nights that makes you forget things and we cross Carlton Vale under the CCTV camera by the entrance to the park, and start walking to Malvern Road. There’s the quicker route, which is to cut left through the park, going past the front of D-block and then you’re basically right next to Blake Court. But true we don’t really ever take this route, especially not late at night because all the D-block mandem will be patrolling the balcony and we’ll have to walk right in front of them, everyone clocking us, and these are the mandem that hold straps on them twenty-four seven, everyone with iced-out grillz, shotting food all night to the nittys and if they see us, someone might wanna make an example, might try suttin or just talk shit about us in loud voices, boying man off, showing us who’s running tings, and that’s a stress we all wanna avoid coz no one wants to be aware they’re below anyone else. No one wants to feel powerless.
We take the path through the top of the park. Darkness ripples around us, and coming from Malvern Road we see three white brers and a woman, the men in polo shirts, the woman in heels and a miniskirt. They’re talking loud, probably a bit crunk. Maybe they thought this was a good shortcut coming from wherever they’ve been, but it’s like they don’t realise where they are forreal. There’s me, Bimz, Spooks, Mazey, Ki and Sly, and we’re just spread out, bopping towards Malvern Road. As I’m walking down the path, one of the white brers doesn’t step off. He walks straight forward like it’s nuttin, so I brace my shoulder and he bounces off as he goes past. I carry on walking but two twos I hear him from behind as he says fucking prick. Spooks turns around straight away like what? with his face screwed up and I turn and run up to the brer and back out my shank, open it all in one smooth movement as it comes out of my pocket and I wet him deep in his arm which he’s raising towards me – I meant to shank him in his chest but he put his arm in the way – and the blade goes in and slices up the length of his arm and I see a thick black line open up on his forearm and the woman starts screaming and I grab her by her jacket and dash her to the ground where she slumps against a fence that surrounds a little playground area for children with swings in it and a climbing frame. Her legs are pale white as if the moon’s been poured onto them and one of her high heels is broken and she grips her bag and the man is holding his cut arm with his other hand, looking at it as if the arm isn’t his own and he just picked it up or suttin, and the other two white brers are frozen silent, pulling their phones out, so we turn around and walk up to Malvern Road.
We’re laughing and Mazey says Snoopz is on a mad ting and I’m like fuck dat is he mad? Walking into man like some dickhead, and Spooks says how can a man turn round and start chatting shit after he blatantly barged you? Fuck dat eedyat ting and I say exactly fam, I seen how you turned round quicktime and we laugh. Bimz says ah it’s all gonna be peak now, this is long this is long – we know they’re gonna phone jakes on man and when the feds come, if we’re still around, everyone’s getting shift.
It’s the first time them man seen me do a madness. Mazey says you should link up with my cousin Gotti, truss me, you two would be unstoppable, and Bimz says that would be a mad ting still. I’ve seen Gotti couple times at Bimz’s yard, although we’ve never exchanged more than a few words and I’ve heard how he’s been doing eats around the ends since he got out of pen, robbing mandem for their food n shit. While I’ve been at uni, he’s been coming round Bimz’s, tryna get them man to come and do eats with him, but we always seem to miss each other for whatever reason. Anyway.
I’m like I need to cut out the ends right now, so I bell Capo since he knows South Killy and he’s usually driving. He picks up and I’m like yo brudda I just poked up some brer in the park in SK, beg you come get me, I need to cut, and he says yeah fam, me and Blix will come scoop you still, we’re just at Mo’s brother’s wedding. I get off the phone and tell the mandem I’m cutting. Safe Snoopz. They head off to Uncle T’s and I walk back to Precinct.
Five minutes later, Capo calls and tells me he’s parked up round the back of Bimz’s block. Capo and Blix are rocking suits coz they’ve come straight from this Moroccan wedding they were at and they’re with some next Sudanese brer they know called Omar. I jump in the whip and Capo says come to the reception, they’re still eating n dat and I’m like safe my brudda. This Omar brer starts asking me why did you shank that brer though, like what’s the point, that’s dumb and I say it’s not fucking dumb, don’t ask what’s the point if you don’t get it, you’re just not about dat life g and I stare into his eyes and he looks away and goes quiet like he wants to say something but he knows not to chat shit. I can tell he’s one of those brers who’ll criticise when someone does a madness but it’s not because he disapproves morally, it’s because the violence in other people scares him, because he’s not on them kinda tings, he’s not a shooter or an eater and he ain’t never wetted man up. He’s tryna close the gap between me and him, because what I just done is gonna earn me stripes whereas he’s just a nobody when it comes to this road ting.
Later I ask Capo wagwan for your boy Omar though? Man was asking me some bate questions in the whip and Blix laughs and says I saw how quick he shut up when you told him he’s not about dat life and Capo says don’t watch dat, he’s just moist Snoopz, he’s not on nuttin.
We go to the wedding reception which is in the hall of a community centre in Maida Vale. Them man go to join the party but I tell Capo I’m not inna dat fam. I feel awkward coz I’m wearing my black Raiders tracksuit and Air Maxes, I’m blatantly not dressed for a wedding and I’ve still got my shank in my pocket. Capo takes me to the kitchen area at the back of the centre, says something in Arabic to one man who shakes my hand and says salaam alaikum, pointing to a chair at an empty table. Capo goes back to the party. I can hear singing, clapping and women doing this high-pitched howling noise, almost like some war cry; it’s as if there’s joy and pain in it all at the same time. Two twos one Moroccan woman in a headscarf brings me a plate of rice and lamb and I say thank you alhamdulillah, because Capo told me that’s the right thing to say when you give thanks, and I eat at the table alone, the women in this backstage area sorting out food and taking care of wailing and hyperactive children who are all dressed in smart little outfits with shiny shoes.
When I finish eating my food, I wait for Capo so that he can drive me back to my mum’s yard. I reckon it’s better not to show up again in SK tonight, just in
case feds are looking for man, and anyway, I’m itching to get indoors because I wanna check if my shank still has any blood on it.
ON TAG
It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding).
Bob Dylan
I’VE GOT 220 hours of community service to do but I’m gonna ignore that shit. My probation officer doesn’t even spell my name right in the letters she sends me.
Being on tag is a real long ting. Imagine. I get into bed at my parents’ yard – one of the curfew conditions is that I have to sleep there every night – and there’s this grey rubber bracelet holding on to my ankle, tight enough that it can’t ever come off; not under any circumstances, with a big round plastic bit holding the sensor that sticks out. If I sleep on my side it rubs against my free leg. Every night. Wake up under the duvet, sunk into the softness of my bed, the same bed I’ve had for years, dented by childhood memories, but my right ankle feels heavy from the tag.
I’ve got to do three months on tag at my mum’s yard and then I’m gone. It’s running from June up to mid-September; basically the entire summer holiday before I start my second year of uni. On a real though, I coulda got a custodial sentence so I guess I’m lucky to have ducked that. I used the fact I’m doing a degree in English Literature in court – like please don’t ruin my prospects for the future by locking me up, your honour – but true I’ve already had too many arrests and previous cases for them to just fine me and give me community service, so now I’m on tag. It was an assaulting police charge times two, but I managed to buss case for one of them so I only got convicted of one in the end.
When I moved back in to my parents’ yard, even though the last time I saw them I was at war with my mother, I found my bed ready made with fresh bedsheets and my favourite duvet and pillow set – the one covered in light green spirals on a dark green background because green is my favourite colour – and I lay down on the bed for a minute and inhaled the light powdery smell of my mother’s detergent.
If I step out of the flat after 7 p.m., or before 9 a.m., a box in my bedroom sends an alert to someone at Serco, one of them private security companies that make mad p’s transporting mandem to prison and monitoring people like me. They call you on the box – it’s got a phone attached to it – to check what you’re doing and where you are. If you trigger the alarm too many times they can say you’re breaching your probation and send boydem to come arrest you all over again. I know couple man who used a hairdryer to heat up the rubber strap around the ankle, allowing them to stretch it just enough to slip the tag off. But if it goes wrong, or they clock what you did when they come to remove it, you’re definitely going back to court and probably going bin. Bun dat. Like I said, it’s a long ting.
I get in the shower and I’m all naked, hot water washing away the remains of dreams as I wake up under the water, and round my ankle I’ve got this plastic tag. My arms are free; I touch my ribs. My dick is free; it touches the inside of my thigh. My right ankle is tagged; I’m not free.
I go to link Yinka. Her mum is away on holiday with the stepdad and their children so she knows what time it is. Answers the door in a pink thong and bra that highlights the glow in her skin, dripping with softness and I jus wanna bite dat I tell her as I step through the door and grab her backoff. I see melting caramel in her curves and blood oranges and sunset. She is short, with little feet that I wanna chew and her hair is dark ginger, which is a mad ting because her mum is dark-skinned with black hair and so is her dad apparently, although I’ve never seen him. She tells me that one woman in every three generations on her mother’s side has ginger hair. The last woman before her to have it was her great-grandmother back in Nigeria, in Ibadan; the ancient seat of Yoruba warrior kings who made bronze heads that looked as if they could breathe and speak. I lips her up as the door closes behind me and it’s all heartbeats like thunder through my legs and up up up and my hands grabbing, squeezing her backoff like I could die squeezing it, and my hands still can’t get enough, and then she breaks away giggling, and runs up the stairs. I chase her and catch her at the top and she gets down on hands and knees and pushes her juicy backoff out like a ripe apricot full of sap and I bite it and I wanna open it now and—
Later, all my clothes are off and her pink thong got dashed long time and it’s all intense and burning and deep smells of life and wetness that no one else knows, and our bodies are all sticky as they mould into each other and there’s that banging feeling like falling through space, endlessly falling past comets and constellations, but there’s this one thing that’s breaking it all up: hard plastic around my ankle, unnatural, reminding me. It feels like it’s getting heavier and heavier the more I try not to think of it, the more our knees rub together on the carpet.
Afterwards she says come we watch Flavour of Love and I say noooo like the world is about to end and I fall on my back fake dying and then I sit up and tell her I’m only putting up with this bullshit coz I love you you know and she says shut up Boo you’re blatantly into it as well, you’ve probably got a favourite chick already, you just won’t admit it and I say laaater star allow dat, my favourite chick is you and then I bite her shoulder.
Yinka’s room is the smallest room in the house; a box room, pretty much just a single bed with a small space next to it and a wardrobe. Always neat and tidy, with the only sign of mess being a pile of hair products and brushes full of tight orange curls and creams and lotions and packets of sanitary towels and hair clips, on top of a white chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. The first time I came over, which was after she told me her secret, I clocked all these posters of Usher and Ja Rule stuck on the wall and it made me kinda sad and jealous when I saw them, as if she had some secret hope in her heart that one day Usher himself would come down from a cloud full of flashing lights, singing a love song to her, bussin out the dance moves, and then he’d take her away with him to a new life somewhere, rescuing her from this place, this very room in which she’d been abused as a child, this bed where she told me she’d sat one day with a kitchen knife and tried to summon up the courage to kill herself.
There is a Me to You calendar on the wall with baby blue borders and blue teddy bears all around the edge, and she’s written little notes about meeting up with friends in black biro, bubble writing, smiley faces on days she’s looking forward to, and I see my name in one square and black biro bubble hearts and black biro butterflies all around it, because one day out of nowhere she started calling me Butterfly. One time Mazey heard her call me that and he laughed and said Butterfly you know, and I said it’s coz man rolls with the butterfly knife innit and Yinka laughed with the light pinging off her chipped front tooth and said shut up Gabriel, stop tryna front for your boys like you’re some badman, and then she said to Mazey it’s coz he’s my butterfly. There is a giant stuffed toy elephant in the corner of the bedroom next to her wardrobe and one time she told me how when she was younger she practised having sex with the elephant, which had me bending up laughing.
We lie against piles of pillows on her bed with her laptop propped up in front of us and she leans her head against my chest like she’s trying to hear my heart as we watch chicks on Flavour of Love competing for fleeting moments of fame on reality TV. But then I can’t even stay the night coz I have to be back at my mum’s yard before 7 p.m.
I link up with Dario one morning. He’s back from Canada. We go looking for a yard to run up in. If it’s a tiny bathroom window, he’ll go in first because of how short and agile he is and then open the door for me. It’s how we became bredrins in the first place, doing these kinda licks. Before that we used to see each other at pirate radio sets on Laylow FM with Secret Service and a next crew called Hot Off Da Block. One day I saw him on road, he was on his ones, I was on my ones, and he said what you deh pon fam and I told him about this yard I’d seen with the back window open and he said come we lick it. He went home and came back to meet me by the yard in a navy-blue boiler suit with Nike baseball gloves in his pocket and a bandanna tied
over his nose and mouth. We never had to talk about it, just understood it naturally, instinctively; this is what we wanna do.
Since that move for thirty bags, we’ve become like brothers forreal and his family treats me sameway since I’m always coming over, although more times it’s because I’m linking up with Dario before going to lick it. His younger brother Travis and little sister Chynique often see us folding ballys into our pockets and putting empty rucksacks on our backs while they’re getting ready for school. Big Bajan family. Last time I went to their yard for a family barbecue I said where can I get a plate and his uncle Kelvin grinned gold teeth and said that’s how I know you ain’t been around for a while Snoopz, don’t you know it’s every man for himself in this family and then he clapped me on the back. Dario loves his burgers, or as he calls it, his grease. Whenever he’s in a photo, he squints and rolls his lips into his mouth as if he’s trying to hide them. Dario was the first to show me about the whole Anunnaki ting after he read The Epic of Gilgamesh and whenever we jam at his mum’s yard, bunning zoots in the attic, we end up talking about Sumerian gods who came from Nibiru in spaceships and created humans to mine for gold so they could take it back to their planet.
Last time we ran up in a yard, we got laptops, a Playstation 2, Versace colognes and even a few bills that we found in a drawer. I carved Westside 2 Gunz Up into the living-room wall with my shank. We both know we’re chasing another big move like the mad one that made us rich. They talk about you should get an honest job. But the way I see it, the way Dario sees it, they mean they want you to submit. Grind hard to fill someone else’s pockets more than your own, come home with just about enough to keep you alive for another month so you can repeat the whole ting over and over again. Drains your spirit. Turns you into a shell. If you press your ear to a shell like that you can hear the sound of dreams in the distance. But it’s just an illusion. Bun dat.
Who They Was Page 8
