The Laundry Basket

by G. M. C. Lewis

  “I know you’re right, I just can’t help superimposing myself into his shoes and feeling thoroughly depressed by the experience.”

  Pedro listens to Billy and Ben talking with interest as he rolls another joint.

  “Hey lads, we should make a move fairly soon, aye?” says Hendo. “Give us time to sink a couple of pints on the way.”

  “Sounds good,” says Ben.

  “One for the road, eh boys? Vamos!” Pedro says as he puts the joint behind his ear and pulls his beret over his head.

  “What’s going on, lads?” Pete is coming down the stairs.

  “Just off to the football, Pete,” says Billy.

  “What about training?” says Pete.

  “What happened to Sunday being the day of rest?”

  “What happened to Saturday being the day of training and abstinence?”

  “Hmmm, it was just a couple of beers, Pete…”

  “It’s a long road, Billy. If we walk it together you need to be 100%.”

  “OK, OK,” Billy turns back to Pedro, Hendo and Ben. “Guys, I’m gonna give it a miss, I’ll catch you later.” With his back to Pete, he squeezes his balls and pulls a face for them like he is staring at the sun.

  They step out of the house onto the street. Lorenza is walking towards them.

  “Hola bonita,” Pedro says.

  “Hola Pedro, que tal?” she says. She nods at the rest of them.

  “Muy bien,” he says. “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow evening, huh? You like I can make a space in my diary and we can go for a drink?”

  “Hmmm thanks Peds, but I’ll be spending tomorrow night with Professor Quiggin.” She taps the front of one of the books she’s holding.

  He squints, “Zombie Economics, huh? ‘E explain how people pay their death tax, is it?”

  Lorenza smiles, “Nice try, but no – it’s about the resilience of economic ideas around market liberalism in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.” Pedro shows off his best vacant smile. “Basically, he argues that deregulated markets and policies designed to make the rich better off will rise up from the dead again, unless we can come up with credible alternatives to fill the void they have left in people’s heads.”

  “You know what Lorenza, I have no clue about what you just said. Some words came out, I hear them and now they gone.”

  “OK, well it’s nice to see you Pedro. I better get going.”

  “OK, maybe see you next week for that drink, huh…”

  “No, I’m busy. Bye Pedro,” she calls over her shoulder as she walks away.

  “… And maybe after the drink, we have a little nice time with Pedro’s julo, huh,” he whispers under his breath as he watches Lorenza disappear into her house.

  He runs to catch up with the rest of the lads who have walked on ahead.

  “Eh, sorry guys – I think Lorenza is in love with me, huh. She always wants to talk with me and she looking at me like I’m the coolest guy.”

  “Peds, what are you waiting for, man?” says Ben. “Lorenza is a hottie.”

  “Pedro like to take his time,” he says as he lights the joint. “Like the cat playing with the mouse, I pat her this way, then I touch that way, and then, when I’m ready, I eat her up.”

  Coldblow Lane swallows them whole as they cut through the tunnel, under the tracks into the area the Millwall loyal call ‘open country’. None of them have had what could be described as sleep for over thirty hours.

  There are a few Millwall fans in the pub on the way to the ground but then, as they get nearer to kick off, the Millwall shirts just seem to appear out of nowhere and suddenly they are in it – a great herd of black and white shirts, thousands strong, that seem to have displaced all the other formats of human that are to be found on a typical London street. The noise levels increase at a seemingly logarithmic rate as voices join in unison. Pedro feels the freedom and joy as he releases himself into the mob. He looks at the other two: Ben swept along with the tide, shouting and singing with the rest; Hendo seemingly quiet and thoughtful beneath the sombrero, but still here experiencing this moment with him, his brothers, his family.

  He spots a group of Bushwhackers, members of the Millwall firm, rolling out of The Alfred. There is a palpable tension in the atmosphere now, an underlying violence seeping onto the street as more of them leave the pub, like gas from a broken pipe. They are out in force. Up ahead a small pocket of away fans are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or are they? He watches them as, hands in pockets, they nonchalantly watch the growing group of Bushwhackers behind them. Playing it cool or planning an assault? They’ve got some balls if it’s the latter. Ben is unaware of the developing situation, laughing with a tall Indian dude next to them who is carrying his son on his shoulders. Hendo is watchful, but seemingly uninterested in the away fans. Pedro returns his attention to this small group and feels his adrenaline spike as they suddenly move closer to each other, shielding the body of one of their number from sight, a shaven-headed, heavily-built short guy who can just be seen focusing his attention on whatever is in his hands. Pedro wolf whistles and immediately his two friends stop what they are doing and begin moving towards him. He catches Ben’s eye and nods imperceptibly towards the away fans. At this moment, the group of away fans break apart; through the sea of bodies, fire is visible. Flames suddenly fly into the air and for a split second the entire street seems to catch its breath as the two petrol bombs hang at the top of their arc before plummeting into the heart of the Bushwhackers and lighting them up like dancing, screaming Guys on November the 5th.

  The chaos is short-lived. Fans near the flames try to push away from them, some of those further away try to get nearer to help, some Bushwhackers try to push through the crowd to give chase to the offenders, who end up being the only people who move anywhere, disappearing off down a side alley. The flames are out in less than a minute and although a few guys’ legs are burnt, they feign disinterest in their injuries and the procession continues to march towards the stadium as though nothing has changed. But everything has changed.

  The game is uneventful and at times it feels as though it is the players on the pitch who are spectating as the Bushwhackers whip the home crowd into a frenzy of chants. The final whistle blows and the crowd pours out of the stadium, bloodthirsty and ready to inflict damage. They manage to get out of the doors together but there is a riot outside; bottles flying, fires everywhere, people running, mounted police wading into the affray. Pedro sees an away fan lying unconscious on the floor with three Bushwhackers stamping on his body: head, torso, legs. He sees a mounted policeman pulled from his horse and fall into a jerking mass of fighting – his baton swings briefly and then he disappears. He sees a Bushwhacker run up to the riderless horse and punch it in the eye; it rears up in surprise and seems to stagger backwards on its hind legs before rolling onto the road, where it is set upon by more men, some of them swinging bollards and rubbish bins. He sees the shaven-headed away fan who threw the petrol bombs earlier staggering down the road, laughing, with blood pouring from his head. He sees a skinny young Millwall fan, wearing a woolly hat and scarf, run up behind the bloodied man and batter him round the head with what looks like a crowbar. The man drops like a sack of butcher’s meat.

  “Peds, c’mon matey, let’s get the fuck out of here,” says Ben. “C’mon, I can see Hendo waiting over there.” He follows Ben wordlessly. He sees Hendo up ahead, standing alone and slightly to the side of the street, still wearing the sombrero. Suddenly a man steps out of nowhere and punches him hard in the face. Hendo buckles and the man starts in with the boot. He sees Ben shout and start running forwards, bursting out of the crowd, running low and catching the man side on in his mid-section, lifting him clear off the ground and dumping him on the pavement. Pedro sees Ben’s shoulders working briefly over the man on the floor, before he turns and squats down next to Hendo. Pedro reaches the scene and sees Hendo holding his nose, with blood streaming through his fingers. Ben is talking calmly to H
endo, seemingly heedless of their surroundings and Ben even seems to laugh at one point. He cannot hear them and they seem distant to him. He steps away from them and in a moment he is in the flow of people moving away from the chaos. Momentarily he holds himself, turns and sees Ben looking around for him, then he turns again and stumbles away. Calmness begins to return to him as he puts corners between himself and the noise of the riot. Within ten minutes, Pedro is back home on the street, but suddenly he is overcome with shame at leaving his friends. He knows they will be close behind him, so he decides to hide out in the garden and wait a while until after they return, before making his entry along with a reasonable explanation for his losing them.

  He sits on one of the benches a little way down the street from his own house and rolls a joint. His hands are shaking, but he calms immediately once he begins to smoke. He looks at the houses in the street; squares of multi-coloured lights ignite the windows and laughter rolls down the street from house eight’s kitchen. The street is blissfully unaware of the carnage only three blocks away. Distant sirens are the only reminder that what he just experienced was real at all.

  Lorenza is sitting at her desk by her window on the first floor of house six, reading. She has a strand of hair in her mouth. There is something about her, the way she seems to fly above the shit of the world untainted, working hard and making something of herself. She has an innocence and a braveness that he envies.

  He can hear footsteps, then Hendo’s voice cursing as he looks for his keys outside their door, and finally the door unlocking.

  He thinks of the cavefish and the fish in the sea. He thinks of the sleepy little village of Herrera del Duque in Estremadura, where his parents would take him as a child to see his grandparents. He remembers the cold stone walls inside their house in the midday sun. He remembers the men drinking at the taverna, the one small block of light in the cool, damp, early morning darkness, before going to work for the day, pink hams hanging in the smoke from the bar behind them. He remembers Uncle Alfredo riding to work on his horse Goliath, laughing and saying “Late again,” as he patted Goliath’s neck, who had stopped to chew the roadside grass.

  He looks down at his shirt, the black and white of his strip.

  He looks at Lorenza’s window again, but the light has gone out.

  Sable

  Ig switches the light on and goes straight over to fill the kettle.

  “Man, these English folks is serious bout their football, huh?”

  Ig waits for an answer from Bernard and when none is forthcoming, he carries on. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, fans at an American football game will happily kick crap out of the away fans just like most other sports, but that was something else this evening, you know ‘m sayin’?”

  Bernard looks at Ig, then wordlessly rests his enormous bulk into a chair, takes his gun out of his coat and begins to automatically check it over.

  “You want a coffee, Burns?” says Ig.

  “Yes.”

  “You got football fans like that in Lichtenstein, Burns?”

  “I am not from Lichtenstein,” he says.

  “Where you from then, brother?” says Ig.

  “It does not matter. And we are not brothers.”

  “Alright, alright, I hear ya. Man, I’m just tryin’ to be friendly. If we gots to work together we might as well try to get along OK, don’t ya think?”

  “It is not professional to make friends in this business.” He has taken his gun apart and is looking disinterestedly at Ig down the length of the barrel.

  Ig thinks this over for a minute and then finally says:

  “OK, well how bout talkin’ to pass the time? I promise not to try and befriend you.”

  “The violence after the game was evidence of a healthy community. If people are not given an outlet to express their anger and frustration, they begin to boil like your kettle.”

  “OK, OK, that’s an in’restin’ perspective.”

  Ig turns the gas off, pours the boiling water into a cafetiere and brings it to the table with two cups. “How ‘bout those innocent folks who gets hurt in the violence, huh? Ain’t so healthy for them now, is it?”

  Ig finishes plunging the cafetiere and pours. He hands Bernard a cup and takes a seat opposite.

  “Imagine it is like the forest fire. People understand that if there is a forest fire every couple of years, it turns forest litter to ash, which is good for the soil. It burns at a level that doesn’t kill trees and the animals can hide in their burrows or outrun the flames. There are even some trees that rely on fire to germinate their seeds. But if you do not have regular small fires, the leaf litter builds up and then when the fire finally starts, it burns with too much intensity, fast and deep into the earth, and everything dies: the trees, the seeds, the animals. What we have seen this evening is a little forest fire.”

  “That’s a nice analogy. So you’s sayin’, that even though innocent folks is gettin’ hurt, it’s for their own good, cos if they don’t get a little bit of regular hurt, they’s goan end up gettin’ some real nasty hurt somewhere further down the line?”

  “This is inevitable. In Srebrenica, this is what happened.”

  “That where you’re from Burns? Zebraneeta?”

  “It does not matter where I am from.”

  “Unnerstood. So in summary, a little violence keeps a community healthy.”

  “Correct. Organisations such as ours are like park rangers, who are sometimes required to go and shower some sparks around if a fire has not started naturally, in order to maintain the healthy forest.”

  “Showerin’ sparks, huh. You’d be referring to your Glock, I’m a guessin’”, says Ig, between sips of his coffee.

  “You are very perceptive for an American.”

  “I try.”

  “Look at this,” Burns says as he takes a bullet from the magazine of the gun and holds it up for Ig to see. “What do you see?”

  “A bullet,” says Ig.

  “More precisely, this is a hollow point round, encased in a 19mm Parabellum cartridge. Parabellum means ‘prepare for war’, from the saying, si vis pacem, para bellum. ‘If you seek peace, prepare for war.’ The arms producers of today understand the philosophy I am describing as well as the ancient Romans.”

  “Holy shit, that is some deep shit man! I mean I ain’t so sure those Roman dudes was talkin’ bout zactly what you is talkin’ bout, but you sure is animals from the same farmyard.”

  “No, you do not understand because you are American. You have no sense of history.” Bernard is rapidly reassembling the gun.

  “Man, we all come from the same place. We all got history, an’ mostly, it’s the same one.”

  “No, you do not understand. When European settlers and African slaves colonised the Americas, they wiped the slate clean, they forgot their own history, destroyed the indigenous people’s history and started a history of their own.”

  “Well maybe. Hey, what d’you think’s takin’ the guv so long?”

  No sooner has he said the words than the door to the office opens and Mr Kent walks in. He sees the coffee.

  “Oooh, is that coffee fresh?”

  “Sure is, Mr Kent,” says Ig.

  “Lovely jubbly.” He grabs a mug from the kitchen cupboard and pours himself a brew, then goes to the fridge. “No milk. Black it is.” He takes a seat at the head of the table, takes a swig of the coffee, grimaces and then begins.

  “Alright lads, we are running short on time. I’ve got eyes all over town looking for the grocer, but I need you lads to close off the options for him as quick as you can. We need to smoke him out. Ig, Burns and me will deal with the junk from the match, meanwhile I want you to check with your man on the force and see if he can come up with anything – the grocer’s going to be in a lot of pain after your last visit and I’m thinking if he ain’t gone to hospital for treatment, then he’s going DIY, which means he might’ve needed to break in to a pharmacy or a clinic for morphine. In fact, just swe
ep the whole area for B+Es and robberies since Wednesday – the cozzers are bound to know something. Soon as you’re done, you can take the junk back to his cage and then I want the grocer’s pad turned upside down; if we can’t find the paperwork, we need some leverage and fast. OK?”

  “No problem, Mr Kent,” says Ig.

  “Good. We can still come out of this shining. OK, Ig, anything we need to know about the junk?”

  “No Sir, name’s Connor Henderson. He jus’ got himself 3G in arrears and then skipped his deadline after a personal visit from yours truly. He needin’ a little lesson in punctuality is all.”

  “Fine, Bernard, you go fetch him from the car and take him down to the basement – use the back door.” Bernard responds instantly, rising from the table and putting his gun away as Mr Kent issues further instructions. “Ig, you better use the office and make some calls – give us a shout when you’re done.”

  The night is silent and black as Bernard walks around the side of the house and then crosses over the roundabout with the small Japanese maple at its centre around the front. The security light triggers as he walks by the little tree, intensifying the dark beyond its range. He crunches over the gravel into the black void, to where he knows the cars are parked in front of the garages. He dislikes the dark intensely. Every expanse of darkness opens up a window to the past and, if it’s dark enough, he falls through that window, landing in Potocari on that one night in July 1995 when he was just twelve years old.

  His mother and father and older brother had fled to the UN-declared ‘safe zone’ of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina as General Mladic’s troops, known as the VRS, and other Serbian paramilitary forces called the Scorpions, spread into the region encircling the safe zone. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, they had fled to Potocari, hungry, fearful and exhausted, as the VRS moved into Srebrenica with UN forces offering little resistance. A UN force of four hundred Dutch peacekeepers was stationed at Potocari and Bosniaks in their thousands descended on the area, seeking protection from the approaching storm. Over the course of just a few days, the Serbian forces proceeded to massacre eight thousand Bosniaks, mostly men and boys, under the very noses of the Dutch peacekeepers. His father and brother were shot. His mother had dressed him in girl’s clothes and they had eventually escaped on a bus to Kladanj.