Gotti says but there’s a downside to this shit Snoopz. If you get a spirit protecting you, that ting will attach itself to you for life innit. It’ll never go away. You’ll wake up and the spirit will be there in the room with you. And I don’t mean the spirit will be in the room with you like you can feel a presence, I mean you’ll wake up and see suttin standing at the foot of your bed. Trust me Snoopz, I know this. Wherever you go, wherever you sleep, this ting will always be there, it’ll never leave you alone. I lean over the balcony coz I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach. Probably those chicken wings we ate earlier.
I remember when I was a Listener, says Gotti and I’m like what’s a Listener? And he says when you’re in pen, to try and get privileges and show the parole board that you’re reforming or whatever, you can become a Listener. It’s where you’re basically available for mandem to talk to when they’ve got problems but don’t wanna talk to a screw. You go into a man’s cell when he’s feeling depressed and you listen to his problems and try reason with him n shit. I became a Listener last time when I was doing five years, says Gotti. I’d go into certain man’s cells who was doing life for murder and them man would be telling me how they can’t sleep. Like every time they close their eyes, they see the face of the person they duppied. Or they get into bed to sleep, pull the covers over them, and the next ting they know, this person who they bodied is under the covers with them. But real talk Snoopz, it’s not the ghost of the person they killed, it’s the spirit that they got on them, that’s attached itself to them and ain’t gonna leave. I’m like rah, whatdafuck, that’s some deep shit forreal. And Gotti’s like yeah truss me, it’s proper mad, people won’t tell you about it, most people won’t even know about that shit, but it’s real, swear down.
He spits over the balcony and says anyway brudda, I think we should do this gunman ting innit. The sky above is drained of light, turning his face blueberry grey as he looks at me, blank eyes. He says if man’s gonna do it though, man’s gotta be serious about it you get me, coz once we decide to go and lick a man down, there’s no going back. I’m like yeah I hear you, lemme think about it still. Water kisses my forehead. It’s started raining, so we go downstairs and knock for Bimz. He opens the door and lets us in.
Later, I zone out after a big zoot of amnesia, thinking to myself how this life seems forever, like it’s always going to be me and Gotti on the block, scheming on how to get rich and maybe one day we will. But for now it feels like this place is going to be forever, this life is going to be forever. Bimz and Mazey and Precinct and SK and Uncle T and everything all together like a massive whirlwind that can’t stop.
WEREWOLVES
It is the meaning of all culture to breed a tame and civilised animal … out of the beast-of-prey, man.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morality
VISIONS OF BACKOFFS in the morning. Visions at night when I’m sleeping alone. Visions of gods and fallen angels and great battles on far-off stars. I wake up and pull the sheet over my face and head as if I’m in a shroud – to get buried like this will hide me from the world. I miss the feeling of Yinka’s pussy clenching round my dick. She’s got herself a flat in Chiswick but I rarely go and stay there. I sit in her blood like mercury; up down, hot cold. When are you gonna move in, she asks. Soon Boo, soon. You’re always saying that. Next week I promise. Next week comes and I don’t even go and stay the night with her. I air her calls. Nineteen missed calls. The next day I pick up. Why the fuck are you always playing games with my heart Gabriel? What fucking games? You know what I’ve been through, you know how important building a life with you is to me. Well it’s not my life is it, I say, it’s yours and I’m not your cement. Yinka starts crying and it’s this high-pitched noise, chewed up by pain. It’s like she’s realised I’m gonna ruin her. She says you always fucking do this to me, you make me think you want a life with me but you don’t, you’re just stuck on the roads with your mandem, and then I just listen to her tears because I don’t know what else to say. I’ve run out of words and I don’t feel anything right now even though I want to. My heart has escaped from my chest and it’s sitting on my shoulder, dangling its legs, and the world around me is a groan. Yinka says I can’t do this no more and the phone goes beep beep beep as she locks me off and I start walking up the road with nothing inside me. Back to South Killy. The love song is over.
Can’t believe she split up with me. Feels like it’s forreal this time. Funny how now I want her more than I ever wanted her when we were together. Waking up, tortured by visions of her on all fours with her back arched and her backoff pushing up and I— it’s as if memory, like history, only exists in torment and sacrifices.
Back at uni. Third term of the second year which I’m redoing, but as usual I’m getting up to plenty fuckery. Last night was a mad ting when Lexi lost her virginity to me. I only realised after as well. It took a whole episode of The Simpsons for me to push it in and when I said why is it not going in she said I don’t know. Short, dark-skinned ting, with a long weave, always immaculate-looking without a hair out of place. Tongue pierced, red blusher on her cheeks like pink frosting on chocolate cake, always rocking them thigh-high boots over her jeans. She’s a whole snack. It took me a while to realise she was fully on me and no one else. Her bredrin Keisha told me one day you know Lexi’s waiting for you to move to her and I was like bang, next time it’s just me and her in her room I’m dealing widdit. She lives on campus, so it wasn’t a long ting and I wasn’t tryna drag it out when these times I’m desperate to feel alive, as if I could get locked up tomorrow or someone might kill me.
I went to her room just before 6 p.m. I lipsed her up and her tongue piercing clinked on my diamond grillz and then she lay back on her bed and pulled me on top of her. I pulled the cover over us and we scrambled to pull each other’s jeans down, trying not to stop lipsing as if that would break the trance we were in. It took me twenty minutes to push myself in and I couldn’t understand it. I know exactly how long it took coz The Simpsons started as I was tryna push it in and I could feel the wetness but I couldn’t get anywhere and only when the end credits started rolling did it finally go in and it was crazy tight. Afterwards she sat in her bed with the duvet all bunched up around her and then I was like yo I gotta bounce coz I’m linking up with Capo and them man on Roman Road. I texted Gotti where r u and he messaged back Im at the yard and then I left.
I’ve been staying with Capo and Blix in Fish Island since the third term started. Gotti comes through on the regs and both Blix and Capo said he can stay on the other sofa as well. It’s a good change of scenery. Especially since the raids in SK, especially since we stopped doing moves with Big D, especially since Gotti heard that he’s wanted after feds came looking for him at his mum’s yard. I’ve brought toiletries and uni books, as well as some garms. Gotti brought some garms but most of his shit is still at his mum’s in D-block. I brought my Star 9 as well. After unpacking, I wrapped it up in a fresh towel and stashed it under one of the sections of sofa that I sleep on. I haven’t told Capo or Blix about it because only me and Gotti need to know and I don’t want them man to feel a way. Capo’s shotting cro in uni now, £20 draws here and there, and I guess it helps with the rent. Me and Gotti ain’t dropped him no p’s for letting us stay here and he ain’t asked for nuttin either. Capo is my darg forreal.
I get up and prepare for the day. Lecture at nine, followed by a seminar. After that I’ll link up with Gotti and go Northwest since it’s a Wednesday and I’ve got no uni for the rest of the week. Capo and Blix are asleep because they don’t have any classes until the afternoon. Gotti is curled into his sofa. I wonder what he dreams about.
We’re doing Nietzsche again and after the lecture I’m in my seminar in full flow since I’ve been reading The Genealogy of Morality. We’re talking about justice and its origin and I put my hand up and when the professor says yes Gabriel, I say well in The Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche makes the point that justice exists as a social res
triction, like not just as a form of control but an actual restriction of human nature. So if I wanna follow my instinct to pillage a next man’s city and take it over, or just kill my enemies, I can’t do that. Because the law will punish me and justice will take revenge on me for following my instinct and breaking society’s rules innit. The teacher says exactly. I say and that’s not good coz it’s forcing me to suppress what I feel I need to be happy, or at least – in terms of revenge – to get some kinda closure.
One next brer in the class says but based on what you’re saying, if we lived in a society where we could all just follow our instincts, paedophiles would be allowed to abuse children because that’s them following their instincts. So are we supposed to just say oh they need to do what feels natural to them?
I say, well you’re right about that on one level, but then at least I could follow my instinct for revenge and kill all paedophiles, any rapists in fact. And not just kill them but like keep them alive and do it slowly, make them suffer, chop pieces off them n shit, sorry, like not to sound too raw to everyone here but I’m being real.
Some people in the class nod. Some look down at their books and frown. Others stare. Someone breathes out loudly. I continue. People could take proper revenge against these kinda tings and those abusers wouldn’t just get a measly five-year sentence on a wing in prison that protects child molesters, then come out into society and live normal while the child they abused remains damaged for the rest of their life, you get me. And then it’s mad, coz in this society you’ve got people who sell drugs to people who already want drugs, getting way longer sentences. Shows you what the lawmakers really care about ah lie? Some of my classmates say it’s true it’s true and the professor says okay let’s all calm down.
After the seminar, I go and link Gotti at Mile End tube station and he says Snoopz come we roll Willesden, I reckon we might be able to set up a move or suttin. I say I’m on whatever. On the platform, he leans close to me and says brudda I got the strap tucked you know. I say swear down? Swear down he says. I’ve got two boxers on and two tracksuit bottoms. I’m like I was gonna say fam, there’s no way anyone can tell you’re holding anyting and he says the only thing is I can’t sit down properly coz it’ll look like my dick’s hard, and then he starts laughing. You madman I say, ain’t you hot? A little still, he says as the train pulls in. Rah, Gotti’s nuts forreal. Just when I think I’ve seen it all he shows me some next level of no fucks given. Man’s strapped up on the tube to rahtid. Here we go. We change at Bond Street and take the Jubilee line to Willesden Green.
We go to these blocks in Willesden, just off the bottom of the high road and jam at the back of them, Gotti introducing me to certain man who come over and say wagwan. Red bricks and narrow windows, grass outside covered in rubbish and the sun above heavy and rotten. Couple young tings with their hair gelled down shiny, babyhairs like little crowns on their foreheads, stare at us from the stairs leading up to the back entrance of the blocks. One of them chews her gold chain as she clocks me. I look at them; puffer jackets with tight jeans rolled up showing ashy ankles and the girl with her chain in her mouth says oi that boy’s buff you know and I smile at her and turn back to Gotti. One brer who’s rocking yellow-gold grillz top and bottom walks over, says wa’um Gotti and Gotti says this is Snoopz, he’s shower, and the brer spuds me, says rah you’re that Snoopz brer yeah? Nodding like something’s just fallen into place in his mind, then says so what you man dealing wid?
Gotti called me shower. Like I’m a showerman. Manabadman manawickedman manashowerman. But he’s way more shower than me. Gotti on the block with a loaded 9 mill down his tracksuit bottoms. That’s shower. I guess what makes me shower in his eyes is everything I’ve done since I started rolling with him. Into the darkness. Man like Bugz Bunny are real showerman though. Licking man down with no regrets. Living with demons until you become one yourself. No fear in your eyes while you put fear into a next man’s eyes. Being shower is having mad heart, going to mad lengths, never backing down – it’s having no heart in fact. Moving so badmind that the wickedness you do come like you got no heart inside you to feel anything. I don’t think I’m shower though. I don’t know what I am. Not gonna lie though, I felt mad gassed when Gotti said that. It’s like he put some kinda power into me.
Later, we’re on road and Gotti tells me he can’t walk fast coz if he does, the nine is gonna keep poking through his tracksuit bottoms and obviously man can’t be getting clocked on road with a strap. We’re in NW10 and the undercovers move different round here so we gotta be mad on point. Anyway, I don’t mind walking slow coz I’m rocking a fresh pair of Jordans and I don’t wanna crease them.
We grab some chicken n chips from Sam’s and then we go to check some next mandem who Gotti knows just off Willesden High Road. The yard looks like a traphouse from the outside but it’s just one of them random red-brick houses you see in Brent, run down and neglected. We sit on the wall and bun zoots. When Gotti wants a zoot he goes oi lemme get a zoot to one of the brers we’re jamming with and when the brer passes his draw over, Gotti pulls out the two biggest buds, and gives the brer back his bag, which basically has one dowy little zoot left in it. But the brer don’t say nuttin. I can see defeat in his eyes. Then Gotti says we’re looking to pick up a two-and-a-q or even four-and-a-half if the punk is live, you know anyone who’s got big bits? These times I’m thinking we ain’t even got the p’s on us to front like we can cop a big bit, but I trust Gotti to run it however his mind is scheming. The brer Gotti asked gets mad eager, says yeah I’ll make couple calls still, I know someone.
Evening blossoms over the street. The brer gives Gotti a number to call and says myman’s got blue cheese still, I told him you wanna pick up. Call him when you’re near Willesden Green station and he’ll tell you where to come. We walk to the station. Gotti goes into a phone box, calls the number and says yo my boy gave me your number, said you got big bits for man whatyousayin? … Where shall I come? Then he puts the phone down. We pull our hoods up and put gloves on. The yard is down a side road, right next to the station. Another terraced house, except this one’s better looked after. There’s not a lot of street lights and the yard is on the corner as the road bends to the right, the door set into the building under a wooden awning. We nestle into a pool of shadows, press the buzzer and wait.
One yardie brer with his hair in fresh canerow, rocking a white vest, opens the door. He looks at us both and says to Gotti ya Nino bredrin? Gotti says yeah that’s me. Man wanna cop a big bit but I wanna see what you’re working wid still. Wa ya want? Bring me a two-and-a-q innit. He looks at Gotti, then me and says me ah bring dat, soon come, then steps into the yard and closes the door. Through a pane of frosted glass in the door we see him go upstairs and into his flat on the first floor. I turn to Gotti and say we gotta get at least a ninebar brudda and he says yeah course, let’s see how he’s moving when he brings man the food. Nine zeds, nine ounces – a quarter of a kilo – is the least we should try and get, since a couple zeds ain’t gonna be worth more than four bills at the most. The yardie brer comes back down the stairs, opens the door and gives Gotti the two-and-a-q wrapped up in clingfilm. He says blue cheese bigman, as Gotti peels back a bit of clingfilm to see the cro. He smells it, passes it to me and says what you think brudda? I smell it and say yeah it’s banging. You got more of the same food yeah? The yardie brer says how much you ah look fi buy? Gotti says bring man a four-and-a-half of dat. The brer closes the door and about thirty seconds later opens the door again and hands Gotti two clinged-up balls like the first one. Me have everyting wrap up in two-and-a-q, he says to Gotti who passes me the four-and-a-half and says bring me a next one then. The weedman looks at me, then back to Gotti and says look bredrin, how much you ah want cah me nah deal wid— I say I’m not feeling how you’re moving like you wanna set man up or suttin. The brer looks at me mad surprised. His eyes are redup from bunning. Set you up? Ah wa di bumbaclart you ah chat bout set up, me nah set up – and I say n
ah blood you’re moving off key, and then to Gotti, brudda I’m not feeling this, come like some set-up ting, and Gotti says yeah forreal.
I stuff the zeds we’ve already got into the pockets of my Avirex which are just about deep enough to hold the food and at the same time the weedman looks at my hands like he’s seeing the gloves for the first time. Gotti pulls out the strap mad quick and I grab the brer by his throat. Gotti sticks the nine right into his belly, hard, and with his other hand grabs the brer’s belt, pulling him into the strap. The weedman’s eyes open wide, two black moons coming out of clouds, and puts his hands up next to his head. His hands are shaking. Bossman, me ave mi granmudda upstairs. Fuck your grandma, says Gotti, I swear down I’m gonna shoot you if you don’t back up right now. The brer steps backwards and we enter the yard. I let go of his throat and close the door behind us. Click.
The hallway and staircase are hushed up in shadows and at the top of the stairs, through a door with a pane of glass in it, I can see a hum of orange light. The grandmother has no clue what’s going on downstairs. I can hear a TV programme bubbling. Gotti lets go of the brer’s belt, cocks the strap ch-clack and puts it right between the weedman’s eyes, pushing hard so that he crouches, shrivels into himself and goes cross-eyed as he looks at the burner. I’m gonna give you one chance, otherwise we’re going into your yard and if your grandma’s there, no lie I will gunbuck her face off, says Gotti. I say how much food you got upstairs? I only had half a box bossman, his hands together like he’s praying. Bring me the rest right now, says Gotti. You got one minute blood, if you’re not down in one minute I’m running up in your yard. The brer backs off slowly, still crouching, with Gotti aiming the Star 9 at him. He runs up the stairs, trips just before the top step, drops to his knees and pushes himself back up, wobbling on shaky legs as he gets to the top, opens the door and enters the humming orange light. Half a box. That’s half a kilo; eighteen ounces or two nines. Standard trap maths. That’ll make us three bags easily.
Who They Was Page 19
