Booze and Burn

by Charlie Williams

  Knocked the fucker out cold, hadn’t I?

  Which don’t look good when it’s a cripple. Not even one who were a cunt, like our Fin.

  ‘Fin,’ I says, bending over him and slapping his chops. Getting no joy from that, I picked him up by the pits and lugged him round the house a bit. He were still limp as a wet jumper but I could feel his little heart going, so I weren’t fretting too much just yet. I set him down on the kitchen floor and had a think.

  I’d been in a pickle not unlike this one a while back. In the Paul Pry, it were, me demonstrating my headbutting skills on an old mate of mine and going a bit far like, knocking him cold. I’d brung him to by tipping a pint in his gob, and I saw no reason why such a remedy shouldn’t do for our Fin and all. Only I couldn’t remember what the pint were of—it were either lager or water. I couldn’t see water doing much good for a man in Fin’s condition, so I cracked a can of Doug’s lager and started pouring it into Fin’s cake-hole.

  Nothing happened at first. Then he gargled a bit and went all quiet. Just when I were thinking I should have used water, he started spluttering and thrashing his arms. I helped him onto his arse and punched his back a few times to clear him. Then I got his chair and put him in it.

  He didn’t half look a sorry state. ‘What the fuck was you doin’ there in the hall?’ I says, bending down so my face were by his. Having trouble focusing on us he were, so I slapped him a few more times. ‘Come on, you cunt,’ I shouts in his ear. Then: ‘Hey, coppers is at the door for you.’

  That done it all right. He threw himself out of his chair, ignoring the fact that he had no working legs. I picked him up again and plonked him back in it. He were a bit more alert now, eyes flitting all over the shop in search of the pork boys.

  I had to laugh at him, the twat. ‘What the fuck for was you in the hall?’ I says again. Cos I won’t have folks cluttering up my hall like that, cripples or no. Fire hazard, ennit?

  He rubbed his eyes and says summat like: ‘Ah…soz, Blake.’ All right, it didn’t sound nothing like that, but I couldn’t make out what the fuck it were he were saying so I’m filling in for him here. It were plain as a crap on your doorstep that he were out of it. I wheeled him into the ront room, drew the curtains, and left him to it. I couldn’t hang about looking after mongs all day, could I? I were a fucking busy man, though I couldn’t recall at that exact minute what I were meant to be doing. I were togged and shod, mind, so it must have been summat fucking important.

  I went out the front door, hoping the fresh air would help. Memory were sure to come back before I reached town anyhow, but as it turned out I didn’t need to wait that long. I didn’t even have the key in the Capri when I clocked her. She were down the end of the street, heading townward, tarted up to the armpits, and disappearing round the corner.

  Doug’s youngun it were.

  Mona.

  5

  TWO HELD FOR CRIMES

  Robbie Sleeter, Junior Reporter

  Mangel Police arrested two youths yesterday in connection with the recent gunpoint robbery at Gromer Wines in Cutler Road. At present the pair are being held for questioning, but charges are expected shortly.

  A police source has revealed that the arrest came about when an off-duty policeman, reposing on a bench in Vomage Park, was approached by a gang of youngsters. Mistaking him for a vagrant, they offered him alcohol for sale. The quick-thinking lawman accepted and agreed to meet them later on in town, where he was to pay them. Only two of the gang turned up and were promptly arrested.

  Goods from Gromer Wines were found in their possession, along with several unidentified confectionery items. The police source reports that on arrest the youths attempted to throw away the sweets, later offering no explanation for this action. The sweets have been sent for analysis.

  A police statement is expected in due course.

  It were a toss-up between pegging after Mona and arriving all sweaty and out of puff, or climbing in my Capri and cruising up alongside her looking all calm and classy. I knew teenagers, see. When I were one meself I’d noticed the way birds preferred your mature feller who holds himself well. And being on the door at Hoppers I’d learned it first-hand, so to speak.

  I climbed in.

  But when I turned the corner, already starting to wind down the passenger window, she were gone. She weren’t on the pavement anyhow. She weren’t nowhere that she might reasonably have been, unless she’d hitched up her skirt and hopped over a wall. Or unless she were in that big shiny new motor headed townward down there.

  I followed.

  Course, I were fretting a tad that they’d drag us over the Bee Hive again. Not that I’m scared of Norbert Green nor nothing, like I already told you. I just couldn’t go in the Bee Hive is all. For…for personal reasons, all right? So just shut it and let us get on, will yer? Fucking hell

  Well, they didn’t end up heading west so I were worrying over nothing there. The car went right at the roundabout up by the Forager’s Arms and headed down the High Street. Halfway down there she swung a left into Frotfield Way and pulled up outside the arcade. I thought that a bit odd, being as you couldn’t park there by rights and there were a copper slouching his way up t’other side of the road picking his nose. Be a bit of a giveaway if I pulled in and watched, so I drove on, slow as I could. I looked in as I went past and clocked her leaning into him, like they was snogging. A few yard up I looked in me rear-view. She got out and blew him a kiss.

  A bit odd, that. The fucking arcade, on her tod? Not the makings of the romantic afternoon I’d been expecting, but it did explain what she were doing with all Doug’s money. Slotting it into them fucking one-armed bandits, weren’t she?

  Silly tart.

  Her feller’s motor were pulling away so I sped up and turned right. He carried on west, heading for the bridge. I went round the block and parked on the High Street. ‘You can’t park here,’ says someone behind us.

  It were the copper from just now. ‘Well fuck me,’ I says, clocking him close-up. ‘If it ain’t PC Plim.’

  ‘PC Palmer to you, Royston.’

  ‘Who says you can call us Royston?’

  ‘Come on…’

  ‘No, you come on,’ I says, squaring up to him. I fucking hate coppers.

  ‘All right, have it yours. But you ain’t parkin’ here.’

  ‘Oh aye? Gonna stop us, is you?’

  ‘I can’t stop you leavin’ yer car here, but I can have her towed away all right. And you’ll be payin’ to get her back, I can tell you.’

  ‘Oh, you can tell us, can you?’

  ‘Aye, and I will.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘I didn’t hear nuthin’.’

  ‘Blake…’ he says. He’d been backing off, but now I had him up against the wall. Hadn’t touched him, mind. I knows the law. ‘Blake, just think a minute.’

  ‘All right,’ I says. ‘I just thought a minute. I thought how much I fuckin’ hates coppers.’

  ‘But…’ He were looking side to side now and pushing back, sort of aiming to slip through the wall. Couple of young lads had stopped to watch across the way. I hadn’t seen em but I could sense em. Always sensed an audience, I did. ‘Please, Blake…’

  ‘Please what?’

  ‘Please…’

  ‘Go on,’ I says, raising me voice of a sudden. He jumped about a foot in the air. I reckon the two lads did and all.

  ‘Please let u go.’

  ‘Let you go? For what?’

  ‘For…cos I’m a copper.’

  ‘But I fuckin’ hates coppers. Didn’t I tell you that?’

  Every word I said had him blinking. It were fucking hilarious, though no one were laughing. ‘Let us go an’…an’ you can park here.’

  I were laughing now, mind. I laughed like he’d said summat funny instead of the usual shite and bollocks him and his ilk came out with, which were all they had in em. But he hadn’t said summat funny, had he? There
were fuck all funny. I laughed cos it were one of them rare moments, times when you could see Mangel for what she were and not what you wanted or reckoned her to be. You had em once in a while, when the stars lined up right and the wind turned arse. Well, maybe you never, but I fucking did. And when I did, laughing were the only thing I were fit for.

  But it weren’t funny.

  ‘All right,’ I says, turning serious just when PC Plim were thinking about having a chuckle himself. ‘Fuck off then.’

  He thought for a second, weighing up his choices. Then he slid sideways, never taking his pig eyes off us. He backed away, getting faster and faster as he went, stumbling and winging lamp posts but still looking at us. When he were round the corner and pegging it off, I faced the younguns across the way. ‘Knows who I is, does you?’ I says.

  ‘Aye,’ says the one who weren’t goofy. ‘Royston Blake.’

  ‘Aye, but does you know who I is?’

  The one who’d spoke were turning a bit chalky, so his goofy mate says: ‘Doorman at Hoppers, ain’t yer?’

  ‘Right,’ I says. ‘Head doorman, by the way. And manager. But that still don’t tell us much, do it, when you thinks about it? I mean, what if Hoppers shut up shop tomorrer? Who would I be then?’

  They slied a gander at each other, looking a mite less white but no less worried. ‘Royston Blake?’ shrugs Goofy.

  ‘I fuckin’ knows that. But who the fuck is Royston Blake? I mean, what the fuck am I other than a name and a job? Eh? Come on, cos I fuckin’ wanna know here.’

  The other one were looking at his boots, leaving Goofy to fight the lonely battle. Which were all right as it happened cos Goofy turned out to be a smart little fucker once he got going. Often happens that way with goofy cunts—looks like a mong but turns out clever. ‘Well,’ he says, one hand in his trouser pocket, other scratching his ribs, ‘feller’s from Mangel, right, he don’t need to be no one at all. Bein’ from Mangel’s enough.’

  He were nodding at himself now, stepping side to side.

  ‘An’…an’ searchin’ for summat past that don’t pay him. It ain’t right, see, cos folks from Mangel is all leaves on the same tree, an’—’

  ‘An’ a leaf who falls off withers an’ dies,’ says his mate.

  ‘Aye,’ says Goofy, ‘but what I were gettin’ at were, like, all leaves on a tree is same as each other, right? So if you wants to know who you is…well, look at the feller next to you.’

  To be honest I weren’t sure what to make of this. On the one side it were a straight answer. But on the other they sounded a bit like cocky cunts. So I gave em the benefit and only cuffed the one of em. Not the goofy one, mind. I didn’t fancy snagging me knuckles on them jaggedy gnashers of his.

  I hadn’t been in that arcade in fucking donkeys. It ain’t a place grownup fellers goes unless there’s summat wrong with em, but when you’re still a youngun and it’s time to see how much bollocks you’ve got, the arky’s your place.

  A first visit through them peeling arches is a matter of seeing how long you can hold onto your coinage and fags without having an eye blacked or a rib cracked. But them who survives and comes back for more is set up for life. There’s a hardness bred in the arky that you don’t get nowhere else, not even the shops down at Norbert Green. On his lucky day a stranger can go down them shops, buy a pack of fags, and be off on his merry way. But he’s meat in the arky. And all his lucky day will get him is a broke nose instead of a blade in the leg.

  Course, birds is welcome there at all times. Especially ones who’ll flog their gob for tuppence. But even if you’re a bird and you’re short a few bob, you won’t want to go there. Not unless you don’t mind what folks says. And folks can be a bit nasty in Mangel, things they says.

  ‘Hoy, fuck off out of here, you little cunt.’

  But not every bird in the arky is there to sell summat or hang off a feller’s arm. You’d not be wanting Fat Sandra hanging off your arm. Or any other bit of you. ‘All right, San,’ I says, stopping by her kiosk. ‘Long time no—’

  ‘Deaf or summat, is you? I says fuck off. So go on—hop it.’

  Now, I hears all sorts on the door at Hoppers. I’ve been told to fuck off in as many ways as there is to cook an egg. And I’ll tell you—none of em works on us. Course, the fellers and birds who says it finds emselves out on the street sharpish, but that’s only us doing me job. Underneath it all I don’t give a shite what they says to us. But this Fat Sandra here, sitting behind the oily glass of her little change kiosk—she had a way of phrasing things that had your knackers shrivelling.

  ‘Now, San,’ I says, leaning on the till, ‘is that any way to—?’

  ‘Aaahh,’ she says, coming across all sympathetic of a sudden. Or so I thought for as long as it takes a fly to shit. Bollocks were she sympathetic—Fat Sandra could have eight fucking trillion bones in her fat bag of a body and not one of em would be sympathetic. ‘Here’s me talkin’ all rough, and I’m forgettin’ how Blakey’s gone soft in the head since I last seen him. Is there someone I can call to come and collect you, poor Blakey?’

  I’d had it up past me eyeballs with all that bollocks. Everyone else knew it had just been a cock-up, and hile a feller might have his head examined it don’t follow he’s a mong. That’s what I’d been working so hard to show the world, see, by getting back on the Hoppers door so quick and establishing meself once again as the hardest pound-for-pound doorman in Mangel. ‘Don’t get out much, does you, San?’ I says. ‘Else you’d know woss what, and that I’m—’

  ‘Aye—banned. Now fuck off.’ She were stood up now, pointing a saggy white arm to where a bit of light were spilling through from the street.

  ‘Banned? You what?’

  ‘Aye. Banned. Now for the fifteen fuckin’ hundredth—’

  ‘Hang on, hang on…what for is I banned? I ain’t been in here in…’

  But she were correct, you know. Getting banned had happened same time as I started getting sick of the arky anyhow, so I’d took it in me stride and forgot about it. ‘Oh, that,’ I says. ‘That’s fuckin’ donkeys ago. I ain’t still banned for it, is I?’

  ‘Nah, course you ain’t—I just been tellin’ you to fuck off the past five minutes for a laugh. Once yer banned,’ she says, voice going so loud of a sudden I had to take a step back for fear her kiosk might shatter, ‘yer banned.’

  ‘Come on, San. Me an’ Legs and Fin, we…heh heh. We…’ It were all coming back to us now.

  ‘Turned over a pinball table. Aye, I fuckin’ knows it.’

  ‘But we was bladdered. You can’t blame—’

  ‘Don’t I knows it—there were sick all over the carpet over there. Now—’

  ‘An’ it weren’t me who honked anyhow, as I recall. That were—’

  ‘Oh, here we goes—gonna blame it on a dead man now? Convenient for you, that is.’

  ‘Eh? No, I were—’

  ‘Aye, now shut it before I starts cryin’. Far as I cares, it were you. An’ it were you done the rest of it an’ all. Now fuck off cos yer banned.’

  That just weren’t fair. As it happened it were Fin who done all three. He always went a bit barmy on the pop in them days, which were fair play bearing in mind we was only younguns. But mates sticks together, even if one of em’s a twat and the other turns out to be a cunt. So all three of us got banned at once, like. But I couldn’t be arsed to trot it all out to Fat Sandra now. I pulled out me wallet instead and started fingering through it, hiding it from her. ‘How much?’ I says, slying a gander at her.

  She were eyeing me wallet and licking her lips. ‘How much you got?’ she says, no edge to her voice of a sudden.

  The answer were six old betting slips, a couple of bits of paper with birds’ numbers on em, a photo of my Capri when I first had her, and a fiver. And Fat San weren’t having the fiver—wages weren’t due till next day and a man needs a bit of scratch. ‘Fifty. That all right?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Her smile were almost pretty, if you squeezed yo
ur eyes shut tight enough. ‘Well…’ she says, coming to her senses and forcing the corners of her lips down. ‘If that’s all you can manage.’

  I got 50p out me pocket and put it atop the counter. Then I blew her a kiss and went walkies. She were kicking up a row again behind us but I chose to ignore it. It were time to stop fucking about and concentrate on the job in hand.

  The main bit of the arky were a big square with the change kiosk in the middle of it. Off that were three aisles lined by machines, mainly gamblers but also a few pinball tables and spaceys. I walked down the first, clocking a gander at the younguns glued to them machines as I went by. Fruities had come a long way since my day. Back then it were 10p a go for your top end, 5p and 2p bar. Now most of em took 20p, which were flaming barmy if you asks me. Where’s a youngun meant to find enough coinage to see him through the day on them terms? Same place as me and the lads did in our day, like as not—flogging knock-off.

  ‘Got a light, mate?’

  I turned. It were a filthy little scrag-end of a youngun in a black bomber and greasy hair, sort of feller you want to cuff round the ear just to watch him sail off on the breeze. ‘Who you callin’ mate?’ I says.

  He shrugged and backed off. ‘All right, mate. Only askin’.’

  I grabbed his sleeve. ‘Where’s the bird come in here just now?’

  ‘Bird? Ain’t no birds in here. Get off us.’

  ‘Don’t feed us shite, you little cunt. Not five minute ago she came in here.’

  ‘All right, all right. Let go me hair. Fuckin’ hurts, that do. Ah…fuck…’ He rubbed his scalp for a bit then leaned in and starts whispering. ‘Only bird in here’s Mona, back there by the pinball. You won’t get much out of her, mind, heh heh.’

  ‘What the fuck do that mean, you little—?’

  ‘Ow…let us go…I mean you can’t stick yer knob up her. She ain’t for sale.’