by Harry Crooks
“They’ve robbed me fucking bling, Ow-wee lad.”
I couldn’t believe that he was still going on about the chops that had hung around his neck, because it looked exactly like what it was: a cheap gold-plated necklace. Just two-bob bling. But to the impetuous Spermy, though, it was a dazzling piece of jewellery, and it would be used as an excuse for violent mayhem and impulsive revenge.
“You fucking lost the plot or what?”
He switched on me, sneering, curling the corner of his upper lip. “You shitting it or something? Thought you had a bit more bottle than that!”
“The pigs will come down on us like a ton of bricks.”
“Fuck the bizzies!”
He was being a right wrong un, a proper psycho bastard, turning on me and giving me a slagging like that. It was the first time I’d really wanted to top Spermy. I felt like grabbing the AK-47 from the back bedroom and filling the cunt in. Do him some real harm. But he had his mind made up; he had his finger stuck firmly on the self-destruct button and no one could persuade him otherwise. I knew deep down it would cause murders and we were going to have to keep our heads down after, lay low because the Matrix units would be all over the estate. The streets would be hotter than a Vindaloo. All of it over that snide bling.
But we were going to have to play along with it because the Mug Fam were out to get us; retaliation was now a matter of life or death. Before it was time to blow there was a relay to the toilet. When I took my turn the bog stunk of shit but I had to drop my guts because my arsehole was rumbling like a volcano. The shits is a standard nightmare before all outlaw stunts like this, and we were no different. There were a lot of good reasons for dropping out of a gang-related shoot-out but bad bowels was not one of them.
We took the batteries out of our mobies, then chucked the clobber on: Boiler suits over bulletproof vests and latex gloves for fingerprints. We grabbed the bangers, stuffed them into a kit bag and piled into a nicked car with snide plates, a Toyota Corrolla. “For fuck’s sake,” Spermy moaned, as we were stampeding out the door. “Don’t forget the ski masks.”
The job was a disaster from the moment we set out. Dome, Melt and Trim were wankered on spliffs and Special K, crashed their vehicle into a parked car almost immediately, cracking their radiator in the four-wheel fuck up. Shit happens but they were definitely off the job and stumbled back to the house in a right state while we set off.
Caspar was up front on his own because I had to chew the fat with my main man Spermy in the back. He was acting like he was ten men; he’d been making a bit of a pig of himself on the crackpipe and was ready to execute every fucking last one of the Mug Fam. He was crack raging and had the biggest pair of fuck-off maniac, staring peepers. He was going bananas, foaming at the mouth and talking kill-hate. Revenge and crack had definitely rattled his cage. “Put your seat belts on,” Caspar said. “There’s a pig car parked up the road.”
“Well, do a u-ey then, you stupid cunt,” Spermy barked. “Them bastards curb us and we’re down the fucking road.”
Caspar was keeping a pistol between his thighs while he was driving. A replica BBM 9mm Olympic revolver converted to fire live ammo. It was the best place for it. You couldn’t put it on the dashboard because it would be seen. If it was stashed in the glove compartment, you’d lose too much time reaching for it. The only problem: It was a bit dodgy if he hit a sleeping policeman or a pothole in the road. He might blow his balls off.
We drove round the ring road that circled the estate. We were headed to the Bricklayer’s pub. It was a stone’s throw away on the north end of the estate. We were on a countdown to murder and mayhem now, the vibe in the motor was heavy and edgy. Anxiety was coming out of my earholes, but my adrenaline gland kicked in.
Caspar parked up a couple of doors down because the battle cruiser had a CCTV camera fitted on the wall outside. Caspar stayed put with the motor, keeping it turning over. We ballied-up, took the tools and did a sneaky creep along the pavement to the pub. We were in position, outside the front doors. It was last shout Friday night and the place would be packed to the rafters.
Spermy gave me that scary cunt look. He had wound himself up so much that his eyeballs were bulging. There was dangerous chemistry in the air because he was full of bad intentions. “Let’s mash these fuckers!” he snarled.
It was a mad situation and we were putting ourselves up on offer. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing and alarm bells were going off in my head. I was double cacking my pants, but it was too late in the day to back down now. “Go on, then,” I said. “Fucking get in there. Get on it!”
We burst in. There were punters everywhere, about fifty of them. Most of them on a raised section of the lounge bar at the back, having a slurp. We spotted Bola at the bar with a couple of his opos, chatting up some fanny. We didn’t have a problem with the birds but, if anybody got in our way, we’d fuck them over too. Because Spermy was a bit of a short arse, he stood on a seat so he could take level aim. “You’re fucking dead!” he shouted, and let rip with the AK-47.
It was like an action fillum. The high-decibel blasts ricocheted through the boozer and sent the punters into a panic-striken, screaming dash for cover, and as they ran, crying out in confusion, the bullets sprayed everywhere. The whole clip, thirty bullets, crackled out in three seconds, demolishing glasses, bar pumps and optics. A fruit machine exploded like a glass handgrenade and ricochets went through the giant TV screen. It all went fucking mental: People were scrambling, hysterical. There was pure fucking mayhem going on all around. Punters were legging it as fast as you fucking like. It was a mad free-for-all, as people dived for cover under tables and chairs. Others tried to make it to the back of the pub in a vain attempt to escape through the emergency exit which was double padlocked. Bar staff and regulars were showered with shards of glass and metal fragments, splintering them. The spraying bullets were buzzing around like blue-arsed flies and smacking into walls, making big, fuck-off holes. Three people dropped to the floor like puppets with their strings slashed. At least one of them was Mug Fam, Bola. He collapsed in a squirming, bloody heap.
Fucking hell, Spermy and his big gob. Because he had shouted before pulling the trigger, Bola had just enough time to grab one of the protesting birds by the shoulders and held her in front of him as a human shield, ducking behind her. A bullet struck the girl in the upper thigh, smashing her bone to smithereens before exiting the other side. She buckled and collapsed and pissed herself, as Bola bolted, galloping for safety. He was running like a racehorse when he took one in the shoulder. It knocked him off his feet, but he managed to crawl under a table. If he hadn’t, he would have been dead. It was a miracle he only got hit the once. Spermy thought he was going to spray the room and they were all going to drop dead like in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. But he only hit Bola once because he was firing from the hip and moving targets are hard to hit.
And then it all went tits up. Someone fired back and a bullet flew past my ear, missing me by inches. Spermy spun off the chair and hit the deck. Another bullet had tore through his left leg and it had exited out of his arse cheek. I fired back, hit the shooter in the thumb and his hand turned oxide red. His thumb had been blown off and he collapsed on the floor, screaming in agony and disabled.
The old adrenalin gland was spewing out survival serum; I scooped Spermy up and made for the street. I was half-carrying, half-dragging him. His arm was draped around my shoulder, hanging onto me for dear life. The other kept hold of the ugly, black assault rifle. My arm was around his waist and I gripped the baby Glock in the other hand. He was dragging his mangled leg behind him, dribbling a red trail of blood on the ground. We stumbled into the road. There was a screech of tires and the motor pulled up in front of us. I pushed and shoved Spunky into the backseat, then jumped into the passenger seat and we were offski.
My ticker was racing, my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. Spermy was writhing about, blood pissing out of him. Caspar asked whe
re to go.
“Just fucking drive!” I shouted. “Get out of here!”
I turned round to see how Spermy was getting on. He was still twisting around in pure agony, moaning. He was in a bad way and needed medical attention. It was proper on us now. I told Caspar to drive to the A&E at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. “No!” Spermy was yellen from the backseat.
“What do I do?” Caspar said, confused.
“Do what I tell you! Go to the fucking hospital!” I shouted.
“Don’t take me to the ozzie, Ow-wee. Please, man,” Spermy was pleading.
The blood just kept seeping out of the wound. There was nothing else to do with him. “You’ve got to go, Sperm. You’re pissing blood, lar. You need the ozzie bad style.”
He was in bulk, twisting about like a wounded animal, making stuck pig, snared bellows. A bullet had ripped through his thigh and he was clutching his leg in proper excruciating pain. The blood was pouring out and soaking the backseat. He’d torn off his balaclava and was trying to plug the big, fuck-off hole in his leg with it. “Calm down, lad. You’re going to ozzie,” I told him.
“Ahhhh, fuck! … Ahhhh!” Wailing from the back.
“Listen, Spermy, lad: We’re five minutes from the ozzie,” I said.
“Don’t want to go, Ow-wee. Pleeeease don’t! Don’t fucking do it to me, man. They’ll nick me. Ahhhh!” He was shouting and sobbing. “I don’t want to go! I don’t wanna go! Ahhhh! …”
“You need help, Sperm, mate. You could die here in this car. I can’t help you, mate.”
He was losing it, thrashing about, frustrated and shouting through gritted teeth now. “I don’t want nobody involved … Ahhhh, ahhhh! Get me fucking home! Ahhhh! …”
“What are we going to do, Ow-wee?” Caspar was panicking, the head was rotating.
“Put your fucking foot down and get to the ozzie,” I said, putting MY FUCKING FOOT DOWN.
It felt like a lifetime had passed since we’d crashed through the door of the alehouse, but the carnage had taken a vicious half a minute and we were two miles away from the squalid scene another 60-seconds later. I was trying to compose myself, but the adrenaline rush was still full on because it was on top. I knew we had to dump Spermy at the hospital and get rid of the car, fast, before we got pulled over by the bizzies.
Spermy was losing blood fast. He looked like the living dead, a fucking zombie. His eyes were glazed over, the face had gone a sickly shade of grey and he was drenched in sweat. The energy was draining from his body which was giving in to the pain. He’d had a fucking good spanking and, next thing, shock would be setting in.
We dropped him off in a dark, secluded part of the car park, away from street lighting because it was equipped with CCTV. I bundled him off the backseat and onto the tarmac, stripped off all his get-up because forensics would have had a field day with all that scientific evidence.
He howled like a wolf when I pulled his trainers off. His hands clawed up, trying to protect his throbbing leg. He was in a right state, eyes rolling round in their sockets, frothing at the mouth. I tossed all the gear into the boot of the motor along with the AK. He was still wailing, but starting to shake uncontrollably now. Body shock was kicking in bad-style and he probably had internal bleeding too. The situation was getting critical. I popped the battery back into my mobie and put an anonymous phone call in to the emergency services. Caspar booted the accelerator, the back tires spun and whistled as we wheel spinned out of there, quick style.
I called Dog Sick next. He wasn’t happy. “You lot could fuck up a good pussy,” he said. “Lose the phone and motor and meet me at the lock up.”
We had to ditch and torch the Corrolla. We drove it to a stretch of wasteland. It was deserted, an obvious lack of law and order there made it an ideal dumping ground. I put one end of a hose into the fuel tank and my lips on the other, sucked up some fuel into an empty bottle, stuffed a strip of rag into it and moved away from the motor. I lit the rag with a lighter and flung the petrol bomb into the back of the motor. “Get in there!” I said to Caspar. “See if the pig-dogs can get any DNA off that.”
We got away from the burning motor pronto, before it blew up. We put our heads down and marched ten minutes down the road to a deserted industrial estate. There was a unit there belonging to Dog Sick. It was a workshop where he had some arl arse repairing de-activated bangers, fitting new barrels and breech blocks, mainly Mac-10s and Baikals. Dog Sick was waiting for us, he had the key and a petrol can.
He was waiting and opened up, we went in and took off all our clothes. We were starkers and washed ourselves down with the petrol. It was a must, we had to get rid of gun powder residue, hair fibres and blood. We set fire to the boiler suits and balaclavas in a metal bin. Forensics was a kick in the balls; it had to be destroyed at all costs. DNA evidence would be our downfall and send us down for a long stretch, if we weren’t super careful.
The bangers and vests were left there. Dog Sick was like David Blaine; he could make them disappear. We got cleaned up and put on a change of clothes, walked out the unit and into the hire car Dog Sick kept because it was an anonymous little runner that wouldn’t attract attention from the bizzies.
He turned the Renault Megane onto the main road and drove off towards our arse end of the estate. We passed a fire engine and a couple of police cars speeding to the burning car wreck in the opposite direction. I sat back in the passenger seat and made myself comfortable. We had managed to swerve them again, stay free from detection.
8.
Dog Sick dropped me off at the top of our road to get myself in order; relaxed and innocent-looking. My heart was doing somersaults and I was drenched in sweat from all the carry-on. About ten minutes passed as I sat on a garden wall reflecting on the nights madness, steadying my nerves before the careful, silent creep back into the house.
It was after midnight and I went in with stealth, sneaking up the stairs to my room, mission accomplished. I nearly shit myself; my mam was in my bedroom, waiting vigilantly on the end of my bed to collar me on re-entry.
Most of the lads dealing on the estate were living with their mams because we were scrapping by, just making enough to make ends meet. My poor, long-suffering mam was pulling her hair out, as I had gotten more and more involved in the outlaw lifestyle. I was turning into a top fucking menace to society, but she had tried her best to put me off; going fucking mental on us, giving me some proper clouts and threatening to chuck me out onto the street.
She clocked the bruising and the ear and, obviously, sussed something was up. “Look at the state of you! And what’s that smell - petrol? What have you been up to, now?” she said, accusingly.
She knew by intuition that whatever I had been up to, it was seriously wrong and before I could answer, she told me that there had been a gun fight at the Bricklayers pub and some young people had been shot. I lied through my teeth, denying any involvement and proclaiming my innocence. “You’re a liar, Ow-wee!” she raised her voice, getting wound up. “Me friend Judy phoned me up in a right state and one of those kids is her daughter Kirsty.”
It was at this point that everything went ballistic with my mam bursting with rage and screaming at me. “You’re an animal! You’re scum! Nothing but a two-bob gangster!”
She stared at me angry like for a split second. There was shocking, furious silence and she was shaking with rage. “I can’t believe you’re my son! A vicious thug. Drug dealing vermin. The same thing that happened to Kirsty and those other kids in the pub is going to happen to you. You’re going to end up in ozzie or in prison, rotting away. Or worse - DEAD!”
I swore to God that I wasn’t guilty. I was trapped and squirming, trying to get out of a sticky situation but even if there wasn’t any evidence or clues my mam always knew. She could read me like a bible truth in the old solemn swearing-in book.
“I’ve told you not to hang around with those animals. You wouldn’t listen and now you’ve probably thrown your life away,” she said, her h
ead dropping and tears filling her eyes up. “Ow-wee, you’ve got to get some sense into you, son!”
Seeing that look of disgust and hurt in her eyes was crushing. I mean your mam is your mam when all’s said and done. She was the one person who cared for me unconditionally and I eventually realised that when I hurt other people I was only hurting her. “Poor Kirsty!” The anger was gone now, there was only sadness in her voice. “Judy’s devastated!”
Her head went down, she turned on her heels and went to her bedroom. I could hear her through the wall, sobbing and crying her heart out. Now I loved my mam but, seeing the grief I was causing her what with the outlaw way of living, I realized it was time to move on. I was going to ask around tomorrow, see if I could stop round a mates house for a bit.
I built a skinny little weed, took my clothes off and got into bed. My mam’s outburst had done my head in. I smoked the bedtime draw, stubbed the roach out then snuggled under the duvet. It was cozy and warm, but I tossed and turned, struggling to slip into unconsciousness. Eventually I went into that state between nodding off and deep sleep. I was in a state of rapid eye movement, a sure sign I was dreaming. I was in the dark stairwell of a dread block of flats, legging it up the cold concrete steps, leaping two at a time. I didn’t know what was wrong but, deep down, was certain something bad was going to happen. The stairwell was dark and the wind howled through it like a banshee. There were bad vibes, I felt uneasy and fearful. I’d felt that way before, not often, but you never forget that feeling: Alone, hunted, scared for your life. As though an apex predator was stalking you for prey.
At the top of the stairwell I could see a bright light, shining like a lighthouse beacon. But there was something behind me, in the inky black darkness. Close behind me, gaining ground. I didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help myself. Terror forced me to look. Something was about to pounce on me, as I looked over my shoulder. A blurry shape shifted towards me and before I could make out what it was, I woke up with sweat oozing out of every pore and my heart was pounding.
