Graffiti My Soul

by Niven Govinden

  ‘We were pelting their bus with stones, Moon, that may explain his petrified look.’

  ‘Possibly. But you obviously need a few more hours with an atlas, and less time cleaning up the school corridors.’

  Her annoyance at not being called to watch the fight was, again, noted.

  ‘Any chance I can come to training tomorrow?’

  ‘At six a.m.? You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? Not even the rapists are out at that time of the morning.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll be making an entrance, well after six-thirty. Just thought you might need some encouragement. And I haven’t seen you run for a while.’

  ‘And this has nothing to do with you wanting to get up close and personal with the town kiddie fiddler?’

  More to do with Jase being there. I’d mentioned he might be popping down earlier.

  ‘It’s been bugging me. I want to see what he looks like.’

  ‘You’ve seen the papers, you know what he looks like.’

  ‘Not in the flesh. I want to see how he acts around you and everything. I may spot something you don’t … and I’ve got my new camera phone. Might be worth a couple of quid.’

  ‘No one’s interested in a picture of Casey.’

  ‘I reckon your mum might be.’

  ‘Moon, he’s a good trainer. I don’t need you baiting him.’

  ‘Duh! Like I’m that thick. I’ll take the dog out with me. He’s never seen us together, right? What could be more natural – girl taking her dog out for a shit first-thing?’

  I’m about to spam Moon with my mouse-mat for lowering the tone of the conversation, but Mum pops her head round, fresh from the pensioner crisis. It had been a fairly serious stroke, and nothing to do with the toilet. She has the polite face she reserves for visitors, even though it’s only Moon, who doesn’t count. Holds a smile that’s attentive but slightly sad. Means that the guy who had the stroke probably died.

  She holds a bag of Chinese.

  ‘Dinner for three,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry, Moon, I’ve just seen your mum. It’s fine. How are the questions going?’

  The whiff from the noodles gives me instant memory loss. We virtually bulldoze her to the plates downstairs and polish off the lot. I don’t remember to ask Mum how she’s doing.

  8

  ‘Shall I give her one?’ asks Jase. ‘Something’s telling me she’s up for it.’

  We’re having an impromptu rest from technology. Options are limited so we’re taking refuge down the ropey. Mum’s got the afternoon off and is pampering herself with smelly shit. His mum has agoraphobia brought on from his sister and the hit and run, and never leaves the house. It’s cold but at least we can piss about without getting shouted at. I don’t like busting lessons, what with me being on a short lease after the fight and all, but Jason’s in a good mood and talks me into it.

  ‘I’ve got an iPod, what more can they teach me about technology,’ he goes, as we brazen it out of the gates. Praying that the cameras aren’t switched on. It’s all about the frontin’. (They usually switch them off during lesson-time to save money. It’s common knowledge amongst the dealers.)

  Jason has a fuzzy skinhead, like playdough that has gone black and started to leach out, and is lanky lanky lanky. You can get away with calling him lurch if you’re a mate, otherwise expect a blow to the balls. Like I’ve said, I’m six foot, give or take, and he’s already towering way over me. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to have a go – but they still want to try it. The Goliath principle, I presume. Everyone wants to tackle the monster.

  He’s a funny boy, is Jase, but what I like the most about him, aside from the fact that he’s so dumb with his goofy jokes and shit, is that he has this energy that is mad unpredictable and comes out of nowhere. There’s a charge that comes out of him that can give anyone standing near an electric shock. Moves like a very tall featherweight. I’ve had it a couple of times, so I know what I’m talking about. One minute you’re outside the offie and talking to people and everything’s all easy, the next he’s over in a corner without his legs even moving, and he’s got the guy by the phonebox in a headlock, and all without a word; bish bash, nice to meet ya, crack. I’m never bored when he’s around.

  I’m a good boy really, but I won’t lie about it; I like the street violence around here. It’s probably one of the reasons I’ll never move out of Surrey.

  Today he’s carrying, so we’re smoking a couple. You kind of have to if you’re out with Jason, that’s the rules. I’m having one puff out of every five, doing a Bill Clinton with the inhalations. Ever so gently, since my lower lip is still the size of a fish slice after last week’s Vera-baiting. I’m not a wuss. I just have a race in two days’ time, and want to win. Jason’s guzzling enough for both of us anyway. He barely notices what I’m doing – and what I’m not.

  ‘Should I give her one?’ he repeats.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not? She’s hot. V, you’ve been busy lately with your running and that nerd stuff. You’re not paying attention to what’s going on. You should see how she looks at me.’

  He’s the only person I let call me V.

  ‘And how does she look at you?’

  ‘Like she wants to eat my dick.’

  We laugh like a pair of duffuses.

  ‘Well,’ I go, in my posh voice, ‘speaking as someone who’s already sampled the goods, I’d say she’s well worth boning.’

  ‘Are you saying you’ve done her? And not told me?’

  ‘It was the Christmas holidays. She was bored. I was bored …’

  I’m more stoned than I realise. Moon is going to kill me.

  ‘What do you make of this?’ I’m saying quickly, pulling a letter from my bag, realising that I don’t really want to get into what I got up to with Moon. Also, trying to play it cool, because the last thing I want is him getting any further than her tits.

  Jason does a double take and starts chanting, pulling out a similar letter from his jacket.

  ‘Who’s bad? Who’s bad? Who’s bad? Who’s bad? Shit, I knew there was something I wanted to tell you.’

  The letters are from the school to our parents, telling them that their children are shit.

  ‘We’re in for it, aren’t we?’ he goes, after scanning my letter.

  They are the same word for word, even down to the spelling mistakes – an extra c in fracas, and one n too many in unprovoked. The Year Head is requesting a meeting at our parents’ earliest convenience. We don’t see either of them being free for that meeting. Ever.

  Jase hands over his letter and I stuff both of them in the tree. Push them as far down as I can manage, grazing my fingers as I pull them out. We could have started a nice little bonfire instead, but Jase hasn’t got much lighter fuel left and is being stingy. The tree is hollow at a certain point of entry, round halfway up. The only way you’d find it is by climbing the thing. And there’s little chance of that round here. Most of the guys at our school are happy to stand outside the offie and get pissed. No one is interested in climbing a fucking tree. Not unless you’re using it as practice to get up drainpipes.

  ‘Teachers are always busy,’ I go, once I’m back on my feet and dusting down.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Chances are, they’ll be too stressed with the key stage tests to worry about us. Anyway, who’s going to remember a small scuffle when Lucy Gilbert has just been knocked up?’

  ‘You’re funny, d’you know that, V?’

  Jason is so far gone now, he’s grinning like one of those kids who’s been shot-up with too much Ritalin. I might as well be talking to myself.

  9

  This is how we have our fun: Friday night, cold and clear. Riding our bikes from Broadhurst to Auriol. A two-mile circuit that takes in the best of our area: video shops, kebab shops, offies, pubs, posh coffee bars, and more old people’s hairdressers than there are old people. None of these interest us. We’ve already had a drink, and we don’t want to ha
ve our hair done. Our rule is that we’ll lap and lap until we find someone to have fun with. This will normally be in Auriol, where it’s more densely wooded than Broadhurst, and is less hardcore with the street lighting.

  Like fruit pickers, we’re seasonal. Summer is no good for our fun. We work better in the darkness of winter. One kid’s terrifying gloom is another kid’s safety net.

  We trawl until we come across a suitable player. If it’s someone from school, great. Someone from the upper years, even better; usually a Year 12 muppet who still hasn’t passed their driving test, and is too much of a dork to go out drinking.

  Tonight is a night like any other. It’s seven-thirty. We’ve been on the road for twenty minutes and haven’t passed anyone of value. A man with a briefcase who’s on his way home from the station; an old woman who looks like she’s heading for the bus stop at the top of Auriol. Neither of them are right.

  We can lap four or five times until we find what we are looking for. We’re pros. We’re fussy about our playmate. We could go onto the high street, where there is guaranteed to be all-night action, but we prefer it here, on these streets. Catching people only yards from their houses only adds to the fun. Another bonus point if we can get them under a Neighbourhood Watch sign. There is minimal over-eighteen activity round here after dusk. Adults with any sense know that they need to drive everywhere, even if it’s just down to the Tesco Metro at the bottom of the street for a pint of milk. The muppet kids don’t have that luxury, and this is when we strike.

  There’s no one in our houses to give a shit where we are. Mum is on another block of late shifts, this week it’s been seven out of seven, and Jase’s mum has gone to her group meeting where she talks to other depressives who’ve lost children and eat too much cake to get over it. Jase says it’s a kind of AA for grievers. Apparently they know everything about each other except their real names. I tell Jase that people have to give a name for everything these days, that they won’t be happy until every aspect of human nature has been labelled or explained; that soon there’ll be a support group for people who still can’t come to terms with the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy or something, but he’s cycled so far ahead I don’t know whether he heard me. Racing off and ploughing up the hill that leads into Auriol at the first mention of his mum and her group.

  This kind of picking on people comes naturally to us. If I didn’t run, and Jase didn’t smoke all the time, I guess this could be our second careers.

  Jase is on his way back down. He’s almost flying down the hill, hand off brakes, feet elevated from pedals, but even at those speeds the prospect of take-off isn’t pleasing him. I suddenly think that if a car pulled out of one of these side roads any moment now, Jase would go the way of his sister. I feel like the biggest loser to be thinking it, but can’t help it. That thought, that death, is always there.

  He’s already back in my face before I stopped thinking my horrible thoughts, luxuriously picking the scab. Looks pissed off.

  ‘This is stupid. There’s no one about.’

  ‘Give it some time, eh? There’ll probably be some action after eight.’

  We always make sure we have our fun before ten-thirty. Any playfulness that coincides with closing time can lead to situations with older kids that are out of our depth. I speak from experience.

  ‘Fuck that. It’s too cold tonight. Let’s go back to that commuter, and then we can go indoors.’

  Jase is the only person I know who calls home ‘indoors’. His family aren’t even cockneys. We’re all pretending to be something round here.

  I agree that this commuter’s our boy, and we black up: caps on, hoodies up, scarves wrapped tight around our faces, so that all you can see are the eyes. I make sure mine is pulled so tight that it feels like its been stitched into my head. It wouldn’t take the police five minutes to knock on our door if the scarf fell and the commuter got a full-frontal mugshot of a local Paki wearing Nike. There’s only about five of us in this town. Finding the right teenage darkie is no needle-in-a-haystack exercise.

  Jase is on fist duty tonight, we take it in turns, leaving me to be the cameraman. He leads, a head-start set at a standard thirty seconds. Means potential playmates let down their guard as they see the lone cyclist riding past, until, that is, he does the sharpest of U-ies, arriving at a point too close to their personal space for comfort. (Early on we made a decision not to go after the girls, unless we chanced across one of the school bitches who needed to be taught a lesson. Bad karma otherwise.)

  This commuter, who’s walked up and down the hill, and now onto Lower Park Road proper, sings like the rest of them. He’s early fifties, and kinda fit looking, but doesn’t put up any kind of fight. Must be down to the surprise element, I suppose. Textbook scenario.

  I normally have a moment on the pause button once I’ve done the U-ie with a playmate and got into their space. Probably my favourite part of the job. When you suddenly crash into their universe, become a part of their history. A second or so is all you need. Taking that time to register their face, and to clock their brains working overtime: eyes invariably widened, forehead and brows wriggling in fear like a can of worms. Looking for information that I am regrettably obliged to give.

  Jase takes his spectator moment after. He says it’s because he likes to see their distress once they’ve realised that they’ve been punked. So there’s no time for niceties with the commuter, or intimate eye contact; once he’s headed in their direction, he’s strictly business. Makes out he’s grabbing the briefcase, but gets the guy on the ground, classic trip-style. Gives a push, just one, when the commuter makes his only attempt at a struggle. All this without a word being said. (Another reason why it’s better to leave out girls. They normally want to have a fucking conversation with you as you’re trying to go about your business.)

  At this point, I’m in the area, phone ready on camera option. Jase holds him down – the classic foot-on-the-gas pose – and I click: one, two, one more for luck. Done.

  He’s still not making a sound, this commuter. We’re all three of us united by our heavy breathing, but that’s about it. With blokes this age and build, you have to be in and out like a dynamo, before they regain their senses and start acting the hero. This one guy chased us all the way to the bypass. He only stopped because he was winded or was having a heart attack or something (couldn’t have been anything major, because we never saw it in the local paper).

  He’s still on the floor as Jase gets back on his bike. I’ve stayed on mine the whole time. It’s all about the preparation. I’m silky smooth when we’re on operations. We pedal off and he doesn’t move an inch, just flat on his back with the heavy breathing. Briefcase held tight to his chest.

  ‘Quiet bugger, wasn’t he?’ I go, once we’re over the bypass and back in our area, where there are cars driving past and busybody neighbours who can vouch for us should a shadow of suspicion be cast.

  ‘Did he say anything? Before I turned up?’ I go again, because Jase has caught the commuter bug and isn’t saying anything either.

  ‘How brilliant was that?’ he goes. ‘I didn’t think I was in the mood, but once I’d got down the hill and saw him poncing about with his briefcase, walking so fucking slowly like some old fool, I knew I was going to have him.’

  ‘That hill at Auriol is steep. You wouldn’t be walking quickly either after getting up that.’

  I get this knot in my stomach that lasts about a second. Something to do with the guy being older than my dad and not walking very fast. I don’t get knots like this when we punk the dweebs and the dorks. The one time we did a woman, I got the knots about a thousand times worse. They’re unexpected, and momentary; when they go, it’s like you almost imagined them. But an essence of them always lingers, like a niggle. No one wants to feel a niggle rising from their belly to the back of their throat when they’re meant to be grinning from ear to ear, trying to be as high as a kite.

  ‘Did you think he looked familiar? Like someon
e’s dad?’ I go, jumping up and down like we do after a hit, but still bowing to the niggle.

  ‘This is Surrey, mate. They’re all someone’s dad around here.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me if he said anything.’

  ‘It all happened so quick. He started some bollocks about “What the hell are you doing”, but once I had him on the ground, he shut his trap.’

  We’re both marginally disappointed that he didn’t give us a ‘Don’t hurt me.’ They’re always a good ego boost when you’re feeling despondent and insecure about yourself. Another souvenir you can replay in your head again and again. The antidote to a persistent niggle.

  ‘I think we’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Bollocks, have we!’

  Jase’s showers half a gallon of spit across my cheek, he’s so fucking excited. Spits even more when he sees the pictures: three close-ups that I like to call ‘Man On Ground In Misery’. I should be an artist, or a proper professional photographer, the way I capture the human spirit.

  And fear. You could be distracted by a couple of wet leaves that have fallen across his face, but the eyes of the man are pure fear. That moment when you realise that you are no longer in control of your own trajectory. That you are old or frail or cowardly. Or maybe just the moment when you realise that there are people more powerful than you are. That when it comes down to it, it’s all about the power of the muscle over the intellect.

  ‘That, mate, is genius. Fucking genius! How good is that? That’s great!’

  Jase never speaks faster than ten words a minute unless he’s really excited. And the excitement to word-speed ratio is at it’s most extreme, akin to Paris Hilton teleporting out of nowhere and fucking him on the spot.

  Less to be proud of, however, when I show Moon the pics the next day. She says that the eyes of ‘Man On Ground In Misery’ belong to someone who resembles Pearson’s dad.