The Dirty South

by Alex Wheatle

  Lester also had various pictures of his twelve kids about the place. Five different baby-mothers Red Eyes had. You would think after the baggage of three, the fourth or fifth one would have said, ‘Wait a minute, this constant breeder ain’t gonna wok me without protection.’ Dumb-ass bitches.

  ‘So you wanna buy an ounce of weed,’ smiled Red Eyes to Noel and me, his two gold teeth glinting. He was sitting in this cream-coloured armchair with a fat-head in one hand and a Bacardi Breezer in the other. He was wearing his hat indoors. Maybe this old school shotta was bald as that black brother in The Matrix, I thought.

  ‘Yeah, man,’ replied an excited Noel. ‘But we call it an oz. And if we sell that, we’ll be back for more.’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Red Eyes. ‘Skunk, mersh or high grade?’

  We had reasoned before the meeting that we’d go for skunk ’cos you get more for your pound. Also, it’s mostly old school people like my paps who smoked high grade. Kids at school all smoked skunk; it hit the spot quicker.

  ‘We’ll go for the skunk,’ answered Noel. ‘But I don’t want no contaminated skunk. I hear some shottas are lacing the shit with crack just to get us addicted so we’ll come back begging for stones fatting up your wallet…’

  I shot Noel a querying glance ’cos I’ve never heard of this lacing shit. Noel should know though, he lives in Tulse Hill estate… Red Eyes laughed. ‘You should think about the crack thing, man,’ he said. ‘Easy money. All you have to do is find yourselves three or four addicts. You sell them a hit in the morning and they’ll be back by lunchtime for another. And then another for their evening hit. They can’t help it. They always find the money from somewhere, even if they have to jack their own granny. A nice steady flow of money. Just don’t give them no freeness ’cos they will always expect it, always begging for it.’

  As Noel worked his brain on what crack addicts he knew, I said, ‘Burn that shit, man. Not into it. We ain’t on that, man.’

  Red Eyes laughed again, then went to go and get the skunk for us.

  ‘Why did you burn the idea of selling crack, bruv?’ Noel asked in a whisper. ‘We could be driving convertibles by this time next year, riding with fit-batty chicks.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But do you wanna crack addict banging down your gates at some bitch time in the morning wanting his hit? My parents would go nuts. Let’s not even go into what Cara will do to your black ass if she found out you were dealing in crack.’

  Noel thought about it. ‘Alright then,’ he said. ‘We’ll put the crack thing on hold ’til I get my own place and if the weed game does alright then I won’t have to wait too long.’

  We weren’t too sure where to get those little polythene bags but Noel’s cousin, Shemera, who worked in the rag trade, helped us out… She gave us hundreds of those little bags for buttons. We had no weighing or scales thing so we just cut up the skunk with my mum’s scissors and guessed the amount to place in the bags. Ten pound a bag.

  Now we were ready to start shotting but we had another problem to deal with. Skunk gives out a strong smell, more powerful than high grade, so we had to sprinkle aftershave all over our school rucksacks to merk the stench. That morning Mum gave me a funny look as I came down the stairs ready to leave for school. ‘A young girl take your fancy, Dennis?’ she smiled.

  ‘No, Mum,’ I replied nervously. ‘I just wanna smell sweet. Don’t you always tell me that I must fling away my BO in a proper way and smell all fresh?’

  We met outside school and nodded to each other, the difficult part of the day over. Now we had to drum up sales. First lesson was maths and I sat next to Ronnie Taylor, a spotty-faced white boy. Ronnie had been smoking weed since he was eleven and his paps was a plumber. So Ronnie always had money on him ’cos those plumbers charge nuff notes just to get out of bed and Ronnie received a sweet budget for his pocket money. His school bag was always full of those Japanese Manga comics.

  ‘Ronnie, I have some skunk to sell,’ I whispered.

  ‘Stop your lying, man. Why try it?’

  Ronnie was going through a phase of talking black. Even the Asian kids at school tried to talk black. They all sounded so fucking stupid trying to pimp off black culture…

  ‘I ain’t lying, Ronnie. Trust me. Ten pound a bag… Would you rather buy off me or one of them older brothers who always rip you off? It’s all legit, I even got this weighing thing at home so it’s all bonafide. I know what I’m doing, man. My paps was a famous shotta back in the day.’

  ‘I’ll have to see it, man. I ain’t buying no broccoli or shit like that.’

  ‘It’s the proper skunk, man. You’ll burn half a fat-head and be buzzing. I promise you. And the skunk I’m shotting can make a man so relaxed it can delay a virgin man’s explosion… Trust!’

  After a while, Ronnie offered me a nod. We agreed to make the deal at lunchtime.

  Courtney Thompson always sat behind me in maths. He was a salt addict, forever eating Kentucky chicken, McDonald’s and the rest. He was also paps-less and ugly. His mum worked late shifts in some call centre and always gave five pound for Courtney to buy his dinner in the evening. He stank of salty breath and ’cos that shit was in his system from the day dot, he was always hyper, unable to keep still and pay attention in classes. I hadn’t seen him burn a fat-head before but I thought he was ideal customer material.

  ‘Hey, Courts!’

  ‘What’s up, Dennis?’ Courtney replied while tapping a pencil on his desk. ‘Have you seen that new Asian girl in the school today? She’s buff, man! Did you see Big Brother last night? A black man will never win that shit. What you doing after school? Come to think of it a black brother will never win a reality game show. They all hate us, you know. Simple as. It’s proper out of order.’

  Courtney could go on all day like this, you had to break into his lyrics. ‘Yeah, yeah, Courts. Listen up. I have some light green to shot.’

  ‘What? You? Shotting? A piece of Brockwell Park turf? Ha ha! You must think you’re a proper Al Pacino. Have you seen Scarface? In a survey of West Coast rappers they voted Scarface their favourite film of all time. You haven’t seen that new Asian girl? Trust me, I would wok that all day. How comes the Asians get their fucking programmes on TV and we don’t? If you’re shotting I wanna discount!’

  ‘Courtney, man. I ain’t joking. Ten pound a bag and the skunk comes all the way from Amsterdam. Proper skunk, not your DIY shit that’s grown by cowboys under nuff lights and they’re worrying about putting a pound in the meter. Proper skunk.’

  ‘I’ll have to sample it first. Did you know that in the film For A Few Dollars More, the bad guy is smoking real weed in his roll-ups! Trust me, man. I ain’t lying. I read it in a book. I’m getting some serious munchies. Do you have any sweets, Dennis?’

  By lunchtime there was an assembly of thirteen guys in the toilets, all of them sampling the skunk from two fat-heads that Noel rolled; he was always a better roller than me… We sold eight bags that very day with the promise of more sales by the end of the week. Things went very well apart from a couple of brothers like Courtney who after tasting, blasphemed our weed saying it’s not bonafide and it had a parsley thing going on. Burn Courtney. Then there was one or two brothers who offered to pay in a week or two. Burn that idea, I thought, recalling Red Eyes’ advice.

  ‘No freeness,’ shouted Noel. ‘If you haven’t got the dollars then don’t even think about asking credit. Just raid your mum’s purse when she ain’t looking.’

  Everyone laughed at Noel’s remark but a few days later we learned that three brothers did raid their mum’s purses to buy our skunk. It was all good.

  My parents had opened up a post office account for me when I started secondary school, so any profits I made I put it in there.

  Once a week we would step to Red Eyes’ flat and buy our skunk. It was easy money, always shotting to people we knew. I had to resist Red Eyes’ sales chat about the rocks but even Noel, proper happy that he was making P’s, dropped
the idea.

  Chapter Four

  PAPS

  Three weeks after Noel and myself went into business, I had placed a hundred and sixty notes into my post office account. I was well content. It was a Saturday morning and I was whistling some hip hop tune on road when I got a call from Mum. ‘Come home, quick.’

  Paps had fallen off a chair while trying to drill a hole in a front room wall. He wanted to hang a new photograph of Granny overlooking the TV. Stubborn bastard. I had offered to do it for him before I went out but oh no, he started to give that ‘I ain’t no useless cripple’ lecture.

  Mum put a cushion under Paps’ head. She was quiet, just stroking his forehead. He was just laying there, still, staring at the ceiling. For a long moment I wondered if he would ever walk again. I had grown used to taking the piss out of him limping along. Hop-along-daddy I used to call him. And he didn’t mind. I had this sudden image of pushing Paps around in his wheelchair while I was shotting.

  Davinia had already called an ambulance and she stood over Paps with a look that a mother might have for her injured son rather than a daughter has for her father. She then looked at me. I wanted to be all big brother-like and take control of the situation.

  ‘Shall we move Paps onto the sofa?’ I suggested.

  ‘No!’ shouted Davinia. ‘Are you an idiot or what? You’re not supposed to move somebody who’s injured.’

  I felt useless. I just stared at Paps as he continued to gaze at the ceiling. It was obvious that some of the pain he was feeling wasn’t just his legs. It was as if his independence and manliness was being fucked up at that very moment, never to be regained. As the tears began to roll slowly down Mum’s face, she closed her eyes and kissed him on the forehead. When I was younger I used to sneak outside my parents bedroom door and listen to them having sex, but this was so much more intimate, much more telling of their love for each other. It almost felt like Davinia and I were in the way. I remember thinking that I hoped I’d find a girl who would love me like that.

  Coming back from the hospital after six days, I could see Mum’s doubts as she carried the walking frame into the house. She left it in the hallway as Davinia pushed Paps’ wheelchair into the front room. I helped Davinia roll him onto the sofa and I noticed that his grip on my wrist was strong, too strong, as if he was telling me that all strength in his body had not gone yet.

  That evening was the first that I can recall when my family didn’t eat dinner on the table in the kitchen. We ate in the front room, surrounding Paps with our plates of food on trays. It was his favourite – lamb, rice and peas. Propped up by three cushions, he looked a little embarrassed as Davinia and I, pausing our usual cussing and fussing, offered to pour him his glass of Guinness or pass the hot curry sauce that he loved.

  After Paps had drained his drink, he turned to me and said, ‘Dennis, if you’re not too busy I want to chat with you.’

  ‘Yeah, Paps, of course. Whenever.’

  Mum and Davinia went to do the washing up. I thought I was gonna hear one of Paps’ lectures but instead he laughed and turned to me. ‘I’ve been a damn fool.’

  I sat down opposite him and I found it difficult to meet his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘I told you I was gonna do the drilling, but you always wanna do everything yourself.’

  Paps nodded… ‘It’s been hard all these years accepting my condition. I still don’t think I have managed it.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ I agreed.

  He looked down at the carpet and I wondered if I had been too frank with him. I remembered him taking me out to the park when I was a boy to play football. I must have been six or seven at the time. He had a walking stick back then and he simply couldn’t keep up with me. I know now he went through great pain just to play ball with me so respect was due.

  ‘I know I am always one for talking and lecturing,’ he continued. ‘Even your mother moans about it. But Dennis, in this life we never know what tomorrow brings. So my most important lesson for you is to enjoy life, enjoy being young and able-bodied. ’Cos if you can’t enjoy it then what’s the damn point!’

  There was a hint of anger in his last words, as if he was addressing them to God. He scrunched up his forehead and angled his eyebrows and I thought he was gonna start cursing.

  ‘Do you enjoy life, Paps?’

  He thought about it for a few minutes. ‘Despite everything, I have been blessed with your mother,’ he finally answered. ‘And you and your sister.’

  For the next nine months Paps had to go through some bitch intense physiotherapy. In all that time he never used his walking frame. Instead, he would walk along the hallway with his hands pressed on the walls, grimacing as he did so. A fucked-up sight… Now and again, Granny would turn up to see Paps. In fact, Granny used Paps’ condition to kinda take over in the house. She was writing shopping lists, interrupting in Paps’ physiotherapy sessions, hoovering the front room after Mum had already done it the evening before. Mum and Granny had one of those what I call polite relationships, always sweet to each other and full of compliments when they met face to face. But behind each other’s backs they would bitch about each other… Not blatantly. Like Gran would open a window in the front room saying, ‘It’s a bit stuffy and dusty in here,’ knowing that Mum had cleaned and dusted.

  The weeks following Paps’ accident drama, I kinda withdrew a bit from the weed business. Not totally but just a little. I just felt guilty shotting while some physiotherapist was ordering Paps to stretch and bend his legs. It was agony for him. Noel would complain and shit. ‘No, man. My ratings for you have gone down, bruv,’ he would say. ‘Whether you shot or not ain’t gonna make no difference to your paps’ legs situation. His legs are fucked, always will be. Deal with it! I thought he said to you to enjoy life when you can?’

  I thought about it. Yeah, Paps did give me a licence to enjoy life. And shotting was exciting… It gave me more of a buzz than smoking the skunk itself. Kids at school looked on me different, girls no longer ignored me. I was no longer the black brother who got decent pocket money and wore the best Nike trainers. No longer the spoilt little rich kid. I was one of the cool people now.

  Chapter Five

  THE ENDS OF SOUTH LONDON

  Late summer, year 2000. Paps had been back at work for over a year. His limp was now worse but he refused to even use the aid of a walking stick. I couldn’t see why ’cos he used one before. Stubborn old man. Since his accident his old friends came around more often. On Saturday nights they would play old school reggae on the stereo, burn fat-heads, drink their Guinness and chat about Brixton in the ’80s. All this deprived me of watching Sky TV on a Saturday night. They would watch old school DVDs with titles like Burning An Illusion and Babylon, dramas about young brothers living in London in the late 1970s and early 1980s… I thought it was all so wanna-remember-when-I-was-a-young-buck kinda thing. They’re lucky to have had that kinda shit though. I can’t remember any television dramas about brothers like Noel and me. Black people in programmes like EastEnders might as well be white. They don’t chat like me, look like me, walk like me or dress like me. The so-called brothers go into pubs and chirps fat white chicks, something that a ghetto brother with any kind of rep would never do. Burn them and the motherfucking BBC…

  Anyway, Mum was now working even longer hours. She got some kinda promotion but it didn’t seem to make her more happy. She was always bitching about how tired she was and her reaction to dirty plates and cutlery left in the kitchen sink was bordering on the mad side of nagging. I even saw Mum sharing a fat-head with Paps after dinner, a new development. In the front room they would sit, watching some shit about the seals of the Falklands or something with Mum bitching about her day at work. Mum and myself don’t talk as much as we used to and I don’t have to suffer all those kisses and hugs that I received from her whenever I returned from school or wherever. Maybe it’s easier for mums to show nuff love to their little boys and spoil them… But once we reach seventeen we turn out to b
e selfish, lazy bums who leave dirty plates in the sink and piss on their see-through toilet seats. Anyway, at this stage of my life, my parents were proper boring.

  Meanwhile, Davinia was getting untold pats on the back and ratings from teachers. She also noticed that boys were taking an interest in her and I told her straight that young bruvs were only interested in a wok. Simple as. Davinia would say I was overreacting or ignore me so I started to call her a ho. She’d always run off complaining to Paps. Burn Davinia. At times though I had to be nice to her… She had learned to plait corn-row style really neatly and most of the brothers were showing off that style. So when I hadn’t called Davinia a ho for about a week, I’d knock on her door, tell her I was proud of what she’s doing at school and ask her to do my hair. The stupid girl would oblige me. Davinia’s bright with her studies but sometimes she lacks common sense.

  Granny was brewing at her own flat in Cowley estate, no longer needed as much as she once was. She came around sometimes for Sunday dinner and Mum was forced to cook rice and peas and lay on a serious salad with peeled cucumber and shit. If she didn’t Granny would chat about that even when she hardly had any money she always cooked rice and peas for her family on a Sunday with all the trimmings… Mum would always politely refuse Granny’s help in the kitchen… Granny would then sit on the couch in the front room, sipping endless glasses of rum punch that she made at home. She would call for Davinia and me and then she would tell us stories about Jamaica from when she was a little girl. I heard tales about great uncle David’s travels in America, mad bushmen, pit toilets, donkeys, three-mile walks to school, outside dances, the maroon wars, pervy preachermen, more mad bushmen and a tobacco-chewing old man with one tooth… Sometimes, Granny would tell her tales by doing this strange dance. Fascinating shit. Davinia even did an English essay about Granny’s stories for school and she got more ratings and pats on the back for that shit too! By the evening, Granny was a little tipsy and Mum had to drop her home and walk her to her gates; Paps always had trouble climbing the steps in Granny’s block.