by Alex Wheatle
“Sorry, me can’t do that, man. No freeness, no squeeze fe anybody. Pound fe come in,” ordered the doorman sternly.
This exchange of lyrics was holding up blues ravers who were prepared to pay their tax - Floyd included. In consequence, there was a lot of pushing and jostling occurring near the front door. Other ravers, who probably couldn’t tolerate the heat and stuffiness inside the flat, were peering over the balcony wall, hoovering their snouts and spliffs and watching the ash and dead matches flutter down to the concrete ground below.
The tense row at the front door eventually subsided after a compromise was reached, with the still riled guy, trying to avoid payment to the blues, paying 50p for the privilege.
Passing through, Floyd found himself in an overcrowded hallway, lit by a dim red light. He passed the kitchen, which was being used as a makeshift bar, and as he inched his way onwards, he accidentally trod on the foot of a surly-looking lager-swilling yout’. “Watch where you a go, bwai.” Floyd remembered how Brenton’s feud with Terry Flynn began. “Sorry, boss.”
A table was parked across the kitchen doorway, with strong lagers stacked upon it, waiting to be bought. The barman was an overweight rastaman, sporting a knitted red, gold and green hat, and wearing a jacket that a commando might have fancied. “Pound fe a Special Brew or Red Stripe.”
Floyd ignored the hard sell and squeezed into the room where the sound-system boys had strung up. Overhead wires, taped to the top of the doorframe, told Floyd that two rooms were being utilised for this dance.
It took him ten minutes to make his way from the front door to the middle of one of the dark rooms being employed. A torchlight, used by the DJ, was the only illumination. Now he was in the centre of the room, Floyd’s next move was to go and seek a decent spot to stand where the well-shaped ladies outnumbered the sweet bwais, so as to increase his chances of riding a serious crub.
Patrice Rushen’s Forget Me Nots blared out from the speakers - a soul tune, and the crowd two-stepped as if they were part of one entity as the DJ kept on yelling, “Soul break!”
Floyd took the opportunity to move closer to a few girls he spotted in the corner of the room. After another soul break he patiently sort of side-stepped and hot-stepped into prime position. Clocking around him, he couldn’t resist a foxy smile to himself as he waited for the DJ to play some lovers rock.
Taking off his cardigan, Floyd held the garment by pushing his hand in his pocket, with the knitwear draping over his wrist. Trying to acquire a good posture, he shuffled his feet a few times. The bevy of girls that aroused his loins were behind him, but the crub-hungry Floyd preferred to be behind them. Fortunately, he received a lucky break when a crusty youth removed himself from his position against the wall, and obviously feeling the need for fresh air, made clumsy efforts to depart the room. Floyd was quick to slip into the position the intoxicated guy vacated.
Following three anxiously hoovered cancer sticks, Sister Love’s Every Bit of My Heart boomed out from the speakers. Floyd reached out his spare hand and gently pulled the fit girl’s wrist in front of him. She turned around and with a polite look, discreetly shook her head. Not feeling too downhearted, Floyd patiently awaited the next lovers rock record. When he heard the intro to Alpha’s Can’t Get Over You, he stretched out his hand again, extending his arm a little further as he ‘pulled’ another girl’s wrist.
Floyd thought she wasn’t as criss as the first one he’d pulled, but she was decent enough. After a lingering stare, she willingly stepped into Floyd’s clinch. There was an initial confusion over the style of dance, but it was quickly sorted out as the couple settled down to rhythmical groove. Feeling confident and peckish for a tighter crub, Floyd pulled his prey until his hands could meet around her back. Record after record Floyd requested a crub with his keen partner, and the more they crubbed, the tighter the embrace became. It had now reached the stage where the girl didn’t bother to rejoin her friends following the ending of a record. She just settled in her bone-tremoring partner’s arms.
Thinking hard for something intelligent to say, Floyd whispered, “So, er, can’t you tell me your name?”
“What?”
He tried again, this time speaking louder. “What is your name?”
“Rosene,” she answered, craning her neck so her mouth could get as near as possible to Floyd’s lobe.
The sound of the music was unrelenting, but the couple were determined to get to know each other as they talked and crubbed for the next hour or so. Rosene must have tickled his fancy‚ because on two occasions, he even struggled through the massed throng to get to the makeshift bar. He was certainly glad his partner only downed soft drinks, as his budget did not cater for any liquor, especially at the prices they were being sold at here.
At half past four in the morning, the disgruntled sweet bwais and a couple of roughnecks who failed to find a partner, loitered in the hallway or were strung out along the balcony, staring aimlessly down at the forecourt, which was now filled with badly parked cars. The two rooms were still packed though, with sweating couples practically making love, standing up in their clothes.
Floyd decided it was time to take in some badly needed air and chat with his dance partner outside. The pair weaved their way onto the balcony, where the cool night air rapidly refreshed their sweat glands down a degree or two. Rosene appeared even more criss in the light, as he studied her clear face and carefully kept permed hair. Wearing an off the shoulder, silky blue dress, she indeed looked stunning.
Floyd bided his time until they passed any would-be news reporters – he remembered how Carol caught him crubbing with Sylvia. The couple stood at the far end of the balcony, viewing the panorama from their third-floor vantage point.
“So, er, Rosene, could I see you again? You know, um, can we go out sometime?”
Rosene seemed to be revelling in the attention. Flashing him a smile, she looked at her admirer with a sexy, sideways glance, causing Floyd to feel a flock of butterflies in his stomach.
“Maybe we could, but it might be difficult, if you know what I mean. I’ve sort of got a man, y’know.”
An expression of curiosity passed over Floyd’s face. “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
“You might know him – everyone else does.”
“Why? What’s his name?”
“Terry. His spars call him Terror, Terror Flynn.”
Floyd’s eyebrows shot up through his forehead. “Frig my living days … You go out with Terry Flynn?”
“He takes me out now and again - he’s a brethren of my brother’s. But it ain’t serious, if you know what I mean. He ain’t that bad when you get to know him.”
Floyd began to pick imaginary dirt from his fingernails. “He ain’t that bad when you get to know him! Man and man would say your judgement is crucially lacking. He’s a bad man!”
Rosene crossed her arms, trying to keep warm. “Look, I said it wasn’t serious. We just go out in a posse sometimes and I sort of pair off with him. He always shows respect with me - never tries to manners me or anything.”
Trying to look composed and mature, Floyd slowly nodded, while Rosene thought to herself that her dance partner looked like an ant being pursued by a boiling pool of water.
I don’t believe this, Floyd was thinking in a panic. Get myself a nice piece of legback for the night and she deals with a warmonger. “Let’s go back inside,” he said, disappointment in his voice, trying to hide his fear.
“So what? That’s it?” Rosene probed, admiring Floyd’s devilish looks.
“Er, we might clash again, yeah. But I just come here tonight to enjoy myself.”
Rosene kissed her teeth.
“It will be too much strife for anyt’ing to happen,” Floyd explained.
“In other words, you’re scared of him.”
“No! It’s just that it would be too much hassle.”
“I hardly see him these days. He’s too busy selling herbs down the line.”
Floyd’s eyebrows arched. “He sells herbs down the line?”
“Yeah - he says he’s too busy to deal wid any girl seriously.”
Floyd’s interest gathered pace. “So, er, where does he coch?”
“Vauxhall, near the station. He always jumps on a Tube to check his spars in Brixton. He never checks me at my yard ’cos my fader caught my brother and him downstairs one morning weighing herbs. So you can bell me?”
Floyd ignored the invitation. “Vauxhall? He ain’t even a Brixtonian. Dem flats near the cricket ground?”
“Yeah. I have to go back inside for a pen so I can write down my phone number.”
“Yeah, safe.”
The pair walked slowly back towards the flat, where the blues was still carrying the swing. They passed by another couple going in the opposite direction. Possibly the start of a romance, or the end of a very brief one.
The thought of dealing with Rosene suddenly appealed to Floyd. It could be his revenge against Flynn for an incident that happened in Brockwell Park one afternoon.
On his way back inside the flat, Floyd recalled in his mind his first encounter with Terry Flynn.
Last summer, Floyd and Biscuit were playing football in Brockwell Park. The sun had blessed this particular day and enticed many of the black youth out of the estates and into the swerving hills of Brockwell Park, where they walked and talked, listening to suitcases, watched dog fights and bought the latest batches of Jamaican collie herb.
After a miskick, the ball escaped and found its way to the feet of a fierce-looking black guy, who was hoovering a spliff like there’s no more Sundays, on a park bench. Floyd went to retrieve the ball. “Kick the ball back nuh, man.”
Silence. Floyd approached the bench-dweller. “Do you chat triple Mexican or somet’ing? I did ask if you could kick it back.”
Terry Flynn exhaled the smoke in Floyd’s direction. “Who are you ah talk to bwai.” He produced a flick-knife from his back pocket. “Next time say please,” he smirked.
Biscuit galloped to be at Floyd’s side. “Come Floyd man, I wanna get level - you’re winning 2-1. The loser buys the choc-ices.”
Floyd stood there, mesmerised by the blade. Flynn folded the knife back into his pocket, cackling. Biscuit retrieved the ball and led Floyd away.
“Don’t chat wid him,” Biscuit advised. “When he was born, God forgot to give him humour. He’s just a warmonger.”
“What’s his problem? I only asked for the man to kick the ball back.”
“Come, man. 2-1 to you.”
Floyd had yet to tell of this incident to Brenton, but he remembered the anger he had felt and the pointless intimidation. The seduction of Rosene would be a good vehicle for his requital.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Terror’s Lair
24 hours later
A sweet bwai simmering in frustration sat on the bonnet of his 3.5 Rover, knowing there was no chance of escaping the roadblock. Four terraced houses away, Soferno B were rocking the neighbourhood playing endless dub plates of Sugar Minott and Al Campbell. A little further on, the all-night West Indian food shop boasted a queue of raved-out ravers, hungering for a snack of bun and cheese or fried dumpling before heads butted their pillows. Across the road from the shop, a bejewelled pimp sporting a beaver-skinned Stetson sat regally in his Jag, collecting the night’s taking from his bruised and swollen-faced whore.
Sinking their Special Brews, teenaged boys employed by the drug dealers watched up and down the road for any sign of SPG vans. A stray dog, sniffing around dustbins looked unsurprised when his snout was nearly punctured by a thrown-away syringe … It was a typical night and early morning in Railton Road, or as locals called it, the ‘front line’.
In a run-down residence that nobody was sure who owned, about forty steps from the blues, Terry Flynn held court. Sitting in the only armchair, he was surrounded by a catalogue of Brixtonian villains. Apart from one. This one was a rasta, decked in African-type robes, perched on a red plastic milk crate in the corner of the room, squinting out of his one good eye, while sucking an enormous spliff.
“I shoulda drapes his fockin white arse,” Flynn regretted. “What’s a fockin white man doing at a blues down here? Fockin white people. Dis is our area. Why do they wanna come here for? Nosing in on our business. I shoulda wet him up an’ tek everyt’ing he had.”
Everyone nodded apart from the dread. Encouraged by the response, Flynn continued his monologue. “If a black man steps in their area, we get arrested quick time. Can you imagine if we were cruising in downtown Windsor? We’ll be stopped before we step out of the rarse car.”
“Ah true dat,” a dealer concurred, scissoring a fresh batch of faded green Jamaican export.
“Yeah, mon, ah reality dat,” a picky head youth agreed.
Flynn took out his Rizlas and cancer sticks. “I fockin ’ate de white man. You see, they would never allow us to ’ave de t’ings they ‘ave. They don’t wanna see us in nice car an’ nice clothes. They don’t wanna see us in nice yards an’ ’ave serious stereos. They jus’ wanna keep us in the ghetto. They all ’ate us, y’know, always ’ave, always will. Dem mek me sick, walking in our area in their stoosh suits, doing some fuckery social study.”
The monologue slid into a rant as herbalists came and went, silently purchasing the Mary Jane and Charlie.
“I want what they got, man!” Flynn resumed. “I’m gonna get meself a nice yard wid a big garden so I can grow my own herbs. And it’ll have a garage big enough for two cars, me ah tell you. An’ I’ll join the local fockin golf club, just to piss off de white man dem.”
Snorts of laughter. “You can’t play golf, Terror,” a dealer suggested.
“Then I’ll fockin learn, innit. Den I will join a tennis club to rarted, jus’ for de pleasure of seeing de white man’s face when I gi’ ’im de money to join. I’ll show ’em us blacks are jus’ as good as dem.”
“Then if you’re for your own people, why do you rob dem?” the rastaman asked, peering through the smoke and noting the gasps from the multitude of sinners inside the room.
Flynn glared at the dread. At this moment a hot hatred swelled in his body and he was itching to use the blade close to his chest. No one usually dared to challenge him here. This is me turf, he thought. An’ dis dirty rastaman is trying to show me up! “A wha you ah talk to, dread? Wha dem call you? Nelson dread wid de one eye. Ah wha de fock are you doing here anyway?”
“You never answer me question. Why you rob your own people dem?”
Flynn’s veins became visible in his throat. His lips thinned and his cheek tightened. It would be easy to just take his knife and wet the dread. But cut Jah Nelson? Every ghetto yout’ respected him. Jah Nelson wasn’t a man of violence. Flynn knew that in his environment it was easier for a violent man to ratchet-sketch another violent man. “Dem bwai who me drapes are idiot bwai, dem too rarted an’ mek people walk all over dem.”
“You t’ink even less of de white bwai, so why you don’t drapes any of dem yet?” the dread riposted, speaking in a calm manner that infuriated Flynn.
The hierarchy of Brixtonian villainy smelt the sudden tension, along with the wafts of lamb’s bread. They didn’t think too much of Jah Nelson’s chances, expecting him to be another victim of Terror Flynn’s overused ratchet.
“Why should I listen to a man who gives praises to a dead African Emperor who made his own people starve to death?” Flynn suddenly countered, gauging the reaction of the rogue’s gallery. “Emperor Haile Selassie I, fockin crook who ’ad whole ’eap ah money inna Swiss bank account an’ made his people starve. Don’t talk to me, dirty dread. Why don’t you run an’ go home an’ wash your dirty head?”
“An’ if I don’t, what you gonna do? Wet me up like so many others? You t’ink me like dem fool fool bwai who is always around you, nodding their heads to everyt’ing you say. Telling you you’re badder than what you really are.”
“Shut your fockin mout’, dread, before me cut off you
r dirty locks an’ peel off de skin ’pon your top lip!”
“Remember dis,” the Rasta continued, his voice still tranquil, “those who induce fear are only hiding their own fears. Jah know!”
Flynn shot out of his chair and went for the dread. The onlookers backed away, putting their merchandise in their pockets. Flynn took out his blade and held it an inch away from the dread’s good eye.
“I should jook out your eye, dread. Then everyone will ’ave to t’ink ’bout another name rather than Nelson!”
Jah Nelson sucked on his spliff mightily. “Then you’d better mek a good job of it. Cah if you leave me standing an’ alive, in Jah’s name I will tek ’way your life. You better believe it!”
Flynn pushed the dread off his crate, causing him to drop his spliff. Jah Nelson readjusted himself as Flynn returned to his chair. “You ain’t worth cleaning my blade for,” Flynn mocked. “Joker dread, as if you could do me anyt’ing.”
Jah Nelson relit his roach. “Well, you’re not so impregnable. Everyone knows dat a young bwai mark you for life. You’d better start looking over both shoulders.”
Flynn cackled - a horrible sound that spelt out utter contempt. His friends laughed with him, thinking that Brenton Brown would never come after Flynn looking for revenge.
“Me nearly killed dat bwai to rarted,” Flynn laughed. “’Im probably still der-ya inna hospital. When the rarted bwai fucked with me, he didn’t know who I was. He does now. My name’s on his rarse neck!”
“Yes,” Jah Nelson agreed, “but ’im walking an’ living, an’ sure dat he is walking an’ living, he might be the one to be your Waterloo. Jah know!”
Right now, Flynn would have liked to sink his blade in Jah Nelson’s tongue. He wouldn’t look so smug then, he sniggered. What was the dirty dread still doing here anyway? He’d bought his herb. Why didn’t he fock off to Twelve Tribes or somet’ing an’ smoke his herb there with his dirty-head brethrens?
