One Day In The Life Of Jason Dean - Ian Ayris

by Near To The Knuckle

  I push the buzzer on Reg Tucker’s flat. Nothing.

  Like I said, I ain’t got the heart for this. Ain’t got the heart for none of it no more. Get today over with, and that’s me lot. I’m fed up of people lookin at me like they think I’m gonna hurt em, people crossin the street cos they know I work for Micky Archer, people crawlin all round me cos they’re so fuckin scared. That ain’t me, see. That’s just something I gotta put on to lay over all the fuckin hurt.

  I hear a shufflin inside. The peephole on the door slides open.

  And much as I try and stop it, I can feel me eyes go cold and the only thing on me mind’s collectin Micky’s five hundred quid in whatever way’s necessary, no matter how old and helpless this fuckin Reg Tucker geezer is.

  Chapter Four

  One look at me face, and the old boy knows who I am. The spy–hole slides back down. He unbolts the front door, and opens it up a crack. I’ve caught him in the middle of a shave, foam all round his face. He’s got a towel round his neck, and a straight razor in his hand. Ain’t seen one of them razors since I went down the barbers as a kid with me dad. Other than the one Micky has handy when he’s got a bit of business needs sortin. Nasty fuckin thing, that is.

  He don’t look good, Reg. He’s got these light blue, thin as fuck jarmas hangin off him. And the way his eyes hang down, looks like he ain’t slept for fuckin ever. A shave’s just skimmin the top of what Reg needs. Don’t know why the fuck he’s botherin.

  He comes out and unbolts the barred gate separatin him from me, and opens it wide for me to come through.

  Not a word.

  “I’m from – ” I says, but he don’t let me finish.

  “I know who you are,” he says, a flash in his eyes, like me bein here means more than just the money. He looks troubled, Reg. Proper troubled.

  He shows me in the front room with a wave of the straight razor.

  “I won’t be a minute,” he says, and disappears into some other part of the flat.

  ***

  I go over to the window, and look down. Three floors don’t sound much in a block with fourteen of em, but it’s high enough. If you fell out.

  There’s army medals in a glass case on the back wall, and a shit paintin of a black labrador’s head over the electric fire. It’s like it’s lookin at me. I don’t like that. And on top of the telly, there’s an old photo – forties, lookin at it – a woman smilin, sort of shy. Reg’s missus, if I had to guess. Another guess is she’s probably dead by now. On a shelf under the window, there’s urns. Four of em. I pick one up – the biggest one. Hold it up to the window to get a proper look. Label on the front says ’Elsie Tucker’. I look at the date, and put it down. Don’t seem right, me holdin his missus up at the window.

  I check the other urns out. Half the size. I get a lump in me throat, and leave em be.

  A door shuts somewhere in the flat, and there’s footsteps. I turn round. And there’s Reg Tucker standin there smart as fuck. Navy blue pressed trousers, matchin waistcoat and cravat, bright white shirt. His hair’s all Brylcreemed back, and the shave’s took twenty years toff him. He’s got both his fists clenched, and he’s starin at me with them grey eyes of his. Makes me fuckin edgy. This whole place makes me fuckin edgy, tell you the truth. I flick a glance at his right fist. He’s got a little key pokin out of it. I can’t see what he’s got in his left one cos he’s holdin it enough behind him to stop me seein what it is.

  He goes over to the little glass cabinet on the wall what’s holdin his army medals, unlocks it, and takes the medals out. As he’s pinnin em on him one at a time, really slow and methodical, I’m thinkin I got a bad feelin about this. He still ain’t showed me what’s in his right hand cos whatever it is he must’ve slipped in his pocket before he got his medals out.

  Reg shuts the glass cabinet up and leaves the key in the lock. Then he takes a moment, starin into the glass. And I wanna get out of here, cos the whole place is full of so much fuckin death.

  “What’s your name, son?” he says, not facin me, still starin into the cabinet.

  “Jason,” I says. “Jason Dean.”

  He nods his head, slow.

  Turns round.

  I’m expectin a face full of anger, or tears, me comin in here, on his patch, him knowin I’m here to take five hundred quid off him for no good fuckin reason at all.

  Something.

  But his face is just flat. Fuckin blank. Grey eyes lookin straight through me.

  “My wife died last week, Jason,” he says.

  He pulls the straight razor out his pocket and starts strollin towards me.

  Nothing more dangerous than a cunt with nothing left.

  Ordinarily, old geezer or not, anyone comin at me with a straight–razor, a shooter, even a fuckin banana, they soon fuckin regret it. But this place, this little poxy shit–hole of a place, it’s sucked the life right out of me. And the way I’m feelin today, if Reg Tucker wants to take it out on me, wants to take his whole fuckin life out on me, fair fuckin play to him.

  He stops the other side of the glass coffee table. Just a cheap shit piece of wood and glass between him and me.

  He rolls up his sleeves, really slow. Here it comes. All that fight and flight shit, that’s all bollocks when it comes to situations like this. It’s all about motivation, see. Who wants it more, that’s all that matters.

  I watch as Reg Tucker slices the straight razor down his left arm from the inside of his elbow to his wrist.

  He don’t even fuckin blink.

  Wilfred Owen, he was one of them First World War poets what writ all about the trenches an that. And when Reg Tucker slices through his arm and the skin and the muscle fold right open and all that blood starts spillin on the carpet, there’s these lines from Wilfred Owen what creep in me head:

  ‘With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

  Lifting distressful hands as if to bless,

  And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,

  ‘By his smile I knew we stood in Hell.’

  And fuck me, we did. Me and him. Me and Reg Tucker. When he goes on his knees cos the blood in his body can’t hold him up no more, and then falls forward and smashes his face into the coffee table, it’s all I can do to step over the stupid cunt and get out of there without chuckin me guts up.

  What a fuckin waste. All right, he was fuckin old and everyone and everything he ever loved was dead, but a life’s a life. Fuckin sacred, you know. You don’t fuckin throw it away like that.

  You fuckin don’t.

  I’m thinkin about all his little kids – cos the size of them urns they must’ve been his little kids what’s in em – all three of them littl’uns lookin down at him, pullin that blade down to his wrist, fallin onto his knees, crackin his face into the coffee table. What would they be thinkin, you know? ‘Daddy’s comin home? Yippee!’ I don’t think so. They’d be thinkin, ‘What the fuck are you doin, you silly cunt.’

  See, when it’s your time, it’s your time. Everyone knows that. But you don’t mess with it. Even when you’re at the end of the line, when all your hope’s gone.

  It’s hard. I know. I been there.

  Reg Tucker, he don’t know fuck all about bein there – in that place. Fuck all.

  Wilfred Owen, he had the fuckin life smashed out of him at twenty–seven crossin some pissy bit of French water a week before the war finished. Now that is fuckin tragic. Reg Tucker in his eighties and his waistcoat and his fuckin cravat, toppin himself with a straight–razor cos he’s a bit fuckin lonely, that’s just fuckin givin up, that is. And you can’t give up, no matter how much you want to.

  You carry on. You carry on cos carryin on’s all you got left.

  And as I’m thinkin this, I’m feelin me eyes gettin wet and it feels like some cunt’s thrown a bucket of sand down me throat.

  I get Micky’s bit of paper out me pocket, cross Reg Tucker’s name off in me head, and look at the next one.

  Eddie Fitch. The name rings a bell. The
Fitches. All cunts. The fuckin lot of em.

  ***

  The Fitches live in one of the low risers on the other side of the estate. Like I said, the whole family’s scum. All of em. The old man, he was banged up seven year back for aggravated burglary – broke into a warden controlled gaff for old people and robbed an eighty–four year old woman of everything she fuckin had. Threatened to take her face off with a chisel when she fronted him. He’ll be out in five.

  And the rest of the family, they’ve done daddy fuckin proud since. The little ’uns, well they ain’t so little now, they’ve been thievin and dealin since the day the old man got banged up. Two of em, they’re still at school – Peter and George – well, they’re supposed to be, and then there’s Eddie. Eddie Fitch. The worst of the fuckin lot. Must be twenty by now. Evil as they fuckin come. Right chip off the old block, he is.

  As for Mummy Fitch, she’s been on the game since the day Eddie was born. Can’t knock her, really. Everyone’s got to earn a livin. And with three tykes to bring up on her own, good fuckin luck to her. Face on her like a bag of bolts, and an arse like a sack of King Edwards, mnd, but like they say, there’s a market for everything.

  I’m crossin one of the smashed up playgrounds on the estate. The swings have been swung round the top so no bastard can use em, there’s graffiti all up the slide and over the climbin frame, and the council have bolted the roundabout to the concrete. Lovely. Back in my day, we spent all day in playgrounds like this. They’ve got four or five round the estate, or used to, that is. Be surprised if there’s even one left in decent fashion.

  Times change. Ain’t that the fuckin truth.

  The two youngest Fitches come out from under the slide as I’m passin, one suckin on a joint, the other neckin a can of Special Brew. They should be in school, but that’s the least of their problems. Brought up like they have, there’s only one way they’re headin. Fuckin sad, but there ain’t no stoppin it now.

  Too fuckin late for that.

  They slide along the concrete, the two of them, and they block me way. The one with the can finishes up, lookin at me the whole time like Reg Tucker did when he cut his arm up a minute ago, shakes the can as he lowers it, then crushes it with a squeeze of his hand. The other one takes a slow puff of his spliff, and looks at me the same way.

  Playin at it, these two. Playin at bein hard. But what else do they know? When your role models are cunts like the old man and Eddie, what chance they fuckin got?

  Anthem for Doomed Youth – that was another Wilfred Owen one. He writ it about a whole generation of poor bastards gettin wiped out in the trenches. But there’s another one here gettin wiped out right in front of our eyes. The last line of that poem says something about the drawin down of the blinds at the end of the day, sort of meanin that day’s gone and won’t never come again. And these two fuckers in front of me, every night they go to bed, them blinds get drawn down right over em.

  Hope? They ain’t fuckin got none.

  “Where’s Eddie,” I says.

  They both look at me like I’m some sort of cunt.

  “What’s it to you, mister?’ the one with the crushed can says, squarin up, although he don’t look more than fuckin eight.

  The one with the spliff flicks what’s left onto the ground and tells me to fuck off.

  Cunts like this, you just got to scare the shit out of em. Thing is, they’ve had the shit scared out of em since the day they was born, so you gotta go some, you know what I mean?

  I get right in his face, the one what’s just spoke, and grab him by the throat.

  “Listen to me, you little fuck,” I says. “Tell me where your fuckin brother is or I’ll squeeze the fuckin life right out of you right here and fuckin now.”

  I can see out the corner of me eye the other one startin to sneak off.

  “And don’t you fuckin even think about movin, you little cunt,” I says to the other one, not takin me eyes off the little shit what I’ve got in me hand. That’s how you gotta treat em, cunts like this. Sad, but fuckin true.

  “All right, mister,” he says, the one what was about to run off. “I’ll tell you. Just let me brother go, okay. He’s got . . . his breathin . . . it ain’t so good, all right? Has to see the doctor and everything. Let him go, mate.”

  So I do. Wouldn’t want to hurt the kid. Not really. But soon as I let him go, the two little fuckers fuckin have it away on their toes sharpish, turnin round callin me a cunt at a safe distance, and sayin they’re gonna get their dad onto me soon as he comes out the nick.

  Bastards.

  Eddie’s most likely at the bookies on the parade or the boozer – both just round the corner – so it ain’t as if I can’t find him meself.

  ***

  Turns out, he’s at the bookies. Just comin out. And he’s countin a wad of cash into his hand, which is a bit of a touch considerin he owes Micky a monkey. I goes up to him from behind. Tap him on the shoulder. Now any self–respectin villain would spin round swingin, but Eddie, he nearly jumps out his fuckin skin.

  “Hello Eddie,” I says, once he’s stopped shakin.

  He tries slippin the cash in his pocket.

  “Hand it over, son,” I says.

  Like Reg Tucker, he knows who I am and who I work for. Not exactly who I am, but everyone knows my type round here, you know.

  He pulls the roll of twenties out his pocket with a shakin hand. Starts handin it over to me, one note at a time. There’s a fair bit there – all twenties. Amazin how so many really nasty bastards can have so much fuckin luck.

  “Gee gees?” I says.

  “Dogs,” he says, and carries on countin.

  “How much you got?”

  He tells me three hundred, but I know he’s got more.

  “Honest, mate. It’s all I got in the whole fuckin world. Tell Micky to give me a week, I’ll have the rest for him by then, no trouble.”

  “Look son,” I says, pocketing what he’s given me. “I ain’t tellin Micky nothing of the fuckin sort. You hand over what’s in your other pocket or I’ll turn you upside–fuckin–down in the middle of this fuckin street and get it my fuckin self. All right?”

  Eddie Fitch pulls out another roll of twenties.

  “I’ll tell Micky thank you, shall I?” I says.

  “You can tell Micky he can fuck off,” he says back, and walks away calm as you like.

  He looks round at me like he ain’t got a care in the fuckin world, like he knows exactly where his next payday’s comin from. Some poor bastard on the estate’s gonna find themselves without a telly when they wake up in the mornin, no doubt, or their computer or their jewellery. See, for cunts like Eddie Fitch, the whole world really is their fuckin oyster.

  Just remembered I promised Sophie I’d get her a little something from the toy shop today. Micky won’t mind if I help meself.

  Chapter Five

  Gettin off the estate’s like breathin air for the first time. I know I grew up there, an that, but I ain’t got one fuckin thing I took from the place worth a fuck. Me old man, he was a waste of fuckin time, and me mum she spent her whole life pretendin everything round her weren’t happenin.

  A kid can’t grow up like that and not come out fucked.

  That’s why I took to me books.

  Poetry and classics, mainly. Had this idea of betterin meself, you know. Risin above all the shit floatin round me. Nicked me first couple of books from school when I was in the third year – a collection of poems by Keats, and Homer’s Odyssey. Dad found em, said they was for poofs and nonces. Dragged me by me ear to the metal bins downstairs and threw em in. Set fire to em with his lighter. Next day, he made me join the boxin club. Said I needed to learn how to be a man.

  After that, I spent half me life down the boxin club beatin the shit out of other kids, and the other half in the library readin every fuckin thing I could get me hands on.

  I left school with fuck all. But I was built like a shit–house and I could quote Rime of the Ancient fuc
kin Mariner word for fuckin word.

  ***

  Micky’ll be in The Gardener’s about now waitin for his money, proppin the bar up with his half of shandy and his inflated ego.

  The Gardener’s is a shit–hole, but it does Micky. Means there ain’t no youngsters in causin trouble, and the Old Bill, well, Micky’s got certain arrangements with them what keeps em happy. Dust in the air all the time, there is. in The Gardeners. It’s just one of them pubs. No matter what time of day or night, or whether it’s sunny or fuckin pissin down outside, always dust, just hangin. When I used to come in here with me dad as a youngster, and I ’d see all this dust in the air amongst the smoke, I’d think they was bits of the universe all exploded up. And then I’d think of that poem by Blake, the one about him holdin a grain of sand and it bein eternity. And when no–one was lookin I’d hold me hand out thinkin if one of them bits of dust ever dropped and I caught it, just one, I’d hold the key to the universe in me hand and it’d take me out of this god–awful fuckin place for fuckin ever.

  But it never did drop, the dust.

  Fuckin Wagner’s playin when I go in. Micky won’t have nothing else. Old Sid, the governor, he’s too shit–scared of Micky to complain much. He has his say every now and then, but it’s like a puppy yappin at a mountain or King Canute sittin on his deckchair on the beach tellin the tide to fuck off.

  Micky’s at the bar, like always, nursin half a shandy, in a conflab with Alfie Knowles – his nephew. Alfie Knowles is what you might call, something of a cunt. A psycho. A fuckin headcase that shouldn’t be let out amongst normal human beings. He does Micky’s dirty work for him. I mean the real dirty stuff not even Micky wants to touch. And the fact Micky’s in such deep conversation with Alfie Knowles on today of all days ain’t a good fuckin sign.