by John King
When we were kids we smoked a bit of blow, but it was mostly speed we were into, along with the drink, the cider and lager, the snake-bite mixture that a lot of pubs stopped selling because of the trouble it caused. Whizz was cheap and easily had, and fitted the speed of the music we were listening to. Coke was a posh person’s drug in those days, something for the trendy wankers in London, the rich kids who didn’t have to work for a living. Some of the punk bands started doing coke, and we used to slag them off, saw it as more of a sell-out than when they tried to experiment and move their music in a different direction. Dope was a hippy drug and we slagged it off non-stop. We used to go around spraying NEVER TRUST A HIPPY on subway walls, even though I don’t remember seeing any locally, but we hated them because they were always telling us how to live. They went to university and didn’t work, and we knew they would end up in all the plum jobs. And they did. You see them on the telly now, in their country mansions, running multi-million-pound businesses. Hippies meant dope and student lectures. Full stop. But my six months inside made me appreciate the herb and helped me handle the sentence.
I think about what Sarah was saying, how she reckoned me and Dave are close. Never really thought about it before, and we’ve always argued, smacked each other up on occasion, but maybe she’s got a point. It can take an outside view to get to the truth sometimes. When I was inside it was Dave who came down and saw me the most. He visited four or five times, but always said he was on his way to the family estate, the rusting caravan outside Bournemouth, and happened to be passing, but thinking about it now it was just an excuse. I wonder if his dad still has the caravan. Last I heard the roof had caved in, and the site was being sold, a computer warehouse planned, the grass concreted over for a giant car park. The phone rings and I reach over, punch a button and wait for the handset to find a channel.
–You got home then? Dave says. Thought you’d still be round that sort’s place giving her a second portion. I was going to leave you a message while I remembered.
I tell him I’ve just got in. I reach for the amp’s remote and turn the volume right down.
–She’s alright, isn’t she?
She is, and I ask him if he’s at home, tell him I’m having a smoke and he can come round if he wants. I feel good about Dave right now, the drug doing its job, and I’m remembering how when he came to visit me he used to bring music magazines and books, even went round and recorded some of my records for me, so I could listen to them on the Walkman, put ‘Rotting On Remand’ right up front. Mind you, he was the reason I got done, after he picked a fight outside the Grapes and came out second best, on the ground with this bloke using his head for football practice. I helped Dave and ended up inside. And prison was the first time I really took any of that slower reggae and dub seriously. If you’re banged up, you don’t want fast music getting you excited, so I started smoking and listening to more mellow stuff. It was always there in our youth, floating around in the background. There was no need for words in prison, I just wanted to keep my head down and get out. There was nothing left to say. It had all been said and nobody took any notice. Just like Britain today.
–I would do, he says, but I’m round Sharon’s. You know, Sarah’s mate. She’s down between my legs right now, giving me a blow job, running her tongue round the back of my helmet, licking my balls, and any second now I’m going to give her a mouthful of bunty, find out if the girl spits or swallows.
The muffled sound of a woman’s voice says something, then more clearly tells him to shut up. Dave screams down the phone and I move it away from my ear. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell me she’s just bit his knob. He tells her to let go, that he was only joking. She tells him to say she’s not sucking him off.
–I was only joking, he tells me. Sharon’s in the kitchen rustling up some bacon and eggs. I can’t think straight. My cock’s rock solid from that gear and this girl fucking loves it.
He screams again, louder this time, and I can hear her voice saying that’s it, he can finish off himself. A door slams somewhere.
–No sense of humour.
I wait patiently, trying not to laugh.
–You still there?
I tell him he should leave off the charlie. It’s going to do his head in and wipe him out money-wise.
–You sound like my fucking ex, he says. I didn’t phone up for drug counselling, just to see if you’re coming out later? It’s Baresi’s birthday and he’s got a stripper lined up for tonight.
Baresi’s a wanker. His old man always used to stitch us up with his ice creams when we were little, give us half a flake in our 99s. Baresi Junior took over, and probably goes around turning kids over same as his dad, who got his name off the Italian hatchet man. I tell Dave we’ve got some work in Hillingdon. He can come along if he wants, bundle in the back of the van and help us unload.
–What’s the occasion?
It’s a benefit for this skinhead who died of cancer, me with the punk and Alfonso with the ska, Charlie coming along for the ride and to help set up.
–Fuck off will you, he says, spluttering. Don’t fancy that at all, spending my Saturday night in a pub full of miserable cunts sitting around thinking about death. I’ll go and see the stripper. Baresi might be a cunt, but it’s local and he’s got this girl who’s going to do some extras.
The line starts cracking and covers Dave’s voice.
–Better get going. I need to have a chat with that Sharon. Do some sweet-talking.
The phone goes dead and I make some sandwiches, eat them on the couch and drift off to sleep, the click of the record-player arm gentle in the background, a steady rumble across the windows from the motorway traffic. It’s a good sleep, and when I wake up at six I’m raring to go, a busy night ahead. I phone for a cab and realise I didn’t turn the receiver off properly, so Dave won’t have been able to make a call all day. Estuary Cars arrives on the dot, the driver a chatty bloke with a number one crop and two photos pinned on his mirror, twin boys sitting with Father Christmas and a blonde girl with a teddy bear, all three kids beaming sunny smiles, the happiness oozing out. The twins are identical, which means they come from the same egg, and it’s all out there waiting for them, the future packed with possibilities, just hope nothing goes wrong, and for a second I lose control and sink into a dark pool of melting fat, my stillborn brother shoved into a furnace, his brittle bones and blind eyes incinerated in a council oven so I’ll never know if we looked the same, if we were from the same egg. But there’s no point brooding over what might’ve been, and I pull myself back into the open.
The driver stops outside Alfonso’s house and I pay, go up the path and knock on his door. All the lights are turned off. There’s no answer. I try a few more times and peer through the window, notice Parish hasn’t arrived yet with the van and my singles. I wonder if I’m late, but I’m sure they said seven. Maybe it was last night. No, definitely Saturday. Maybe Alfonso’s won the Lottery and fucked off somewhere exotic. Except no one you know ever gets lucky like that, least nobody I know. I walk down the side of the house and lift myself on to the gate, undo the latch and go round the back. There’s a note on the door—TONIGHT CANCELLED. GONE TO SEE BARESI’S STRIPPER. PAY YOUR PHONE BILL. He’s guessed I’d come round here, seeing as he sits in the back room with his speakers blaring half the time, and I start walking back, but it’s Saturday night and I decide to go and see him in the pub, find out what happened. Seems like the whole of Slough is going to be down there tonight, and I start wondering what sort of extras the girl is going to do. It’s not hard to guess.
I walk along and pass the pizza place we used to go in. Have to laugh, spying the manager through his new glass front. There’s one of those all-you-can-eat salad bars that try to be like the Americans but never pull it off because English-run companies are too fucking mean, give you one helping, charge a fortune, and then act as if they’re being generous. We started going in there after the pub, when we didn’t fancy a curry or wanted
something cheaper, worked out a good way to wind up the tart running the place. First you have to get them to fill up the red beans, rice and tomatoes, because they let those run down. Then you build from the sides. Celery gives you the cross beams, then cucumber builds a wall, makes the poxy little bowls three times as deep. Then you stuff the food on top till it’s overflowing. It’s the principle. I hate all that petty thinking, taking you for a mug. Someone decided to cut the celery sticks shorter so we couldn’t use them as beams, but we were too smart. Used the spring onions instead. Next time the onions were an inch long. They thought they’d won, and there was no point going in there again, the smug wanker running the place prancing around like Saddam himself. I left it a couple of weeks and bricked their windows instead.
I walk past the window of the pub and spot Dave talking with a couple of blokes we know, move through the ranks of shaved heads, no women in sight except for the barmaids who are getting treated with extra-special respect seeing as in an hour or two everyone will be steaming into the hall out back to shout at the stripper. Alfonso’s standing at the bar with Parish and Billy Clement, and Clement adds a pint of lager to the round he’s buying, passes it over soon as it’s been poured. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and gives me a kiss on the cheek, asks me where I’ve been, hasn’t seen me for a while, checking his change and quizzing the girl who’s short-changed him a fiver. She gets worried, eases up when she sees his easy manner.
–They phoned at six o’clock to cancel, Alfonso says. Cheeky cunts. Couldn’t really charge them seeing as it was going to be a benefit for cancer research. Could’ve let us know earlier, though. They said sorry and all that, but it’s not the point. What do you think? We’re in this together. You reckon I should put my foot down and get the cash off them?
Me and Charlie shake our heads.
–Don’t worry about it, Charlie says. It can’t be helped. How can you charge a cancer benefit for cancelling.
–That’s what I thought.
I sip my drink and nod my head. I’m lagging suddenly, and this is my first pint. I’m glad tonight’s been cancelled in a way. It’s that charlie keeping me up all night. It’s knackered me out. You’ve got to be in the right mood to make the music work.
–Only got up an hour ago, Dave says, looking at me. Couldn’t resist tonight then? That Belinda is a right old dog. She did a show down here a couple of years ago and had two blokes up there onstage, both ends at the same time. She’s a smackhead, and takes it like a trouper.
He stuffs her card in my top pocket. There’s Beautiful Belinda cards scattered all over the pub, a picture of a good-looking half-caste bird on the flip side. I’ll have a pint then piss off. Some strippers do a good show, but birds like this Belinda are just sad cases. I don’t like all that. Someone’s daughter, sister, mum. Doing their best to get by. It’s just ordinary people fucking each other over, but I don’t say anything to Dave who’s off his nut again. He just needs a top-up, and I can see Alfonso eyeballing Dave. Get a black bird onstage and there’s a current that comes through from some of the lads.
–Baresi’s is a fucking muppet. He just wants to get the woman up because she’s black.
–Don’t think it’s that, Dave says, genuine, looking a bit wary now, seeing Alfonso’s narked. I mean, her manager’s black as well.
–You don’t think black people stitch up their own kind? Do us a favour.
–Baresi’s a mug, Charlie agrees. He got done for flashing some girl when we were kids.
Never heard that one before. I look over at him. He’s cocky, and when his old man used to do us on the 99s young Baresi took the piss, even though he was little compared to us, so in the end he got the same name as his dad. His coat’s slung over the back of a chair, mobile phone out in the open, on a table.
–Honest he did, Charlie says.
Halfway through my pint I go for a piss and grab the phone as I pass. The bog’s empty and I take the card out of my pocket, phone the Beautiful Belinda and get a man’s voice, tell him that due to unforeseen circumstances tonight has been cancelled. He tenses up and says there’s no refund if we cancel, and I tell him no problem. Belinda’s off the hook, and when I go down the corridor leading back into the pub, I jam his mobile behind a pipe, leave it on so if he uses another phone he won’t be able to get through. He’s going to have a nice bill to pay, and no single-mum-junky-half-caste to fuck. I go back to the others and get a round in. Must be sixty blokes down here now. I sit back and wait for things to kick off.
–You’re happy all of a sudden, Dave says. Here you go, have some of this.
I shake my head, while Charlie, Clem and a couple of others have a go at the coke. Alfonso stands out of the circle, chatting with someone I don’t know. I tell Charlie about the big record fair coming up.
–Come on, Dave says. Have a dab, you tart.
Not interested.
–What time’s the stripper get here? Charlie asks.
We get stuck in at the bar, and after a slow start I’m building up, the old thirst returning, the excitement in the pub growing, and I can see Baresi checking his watch, wondering why Belinda’s late. He looks for his phone, then borrows someone else’s. Soon he’s red in the face, his brothers and cousins around him, getting wound up. People start drifting off, moving on to other pubs. Alfonso has a big smile on his face, and none of us seem too disappointed.
–That’s two no-shows tonight, Charlie points out.
Baresi’s mullered, and has to be helped from the pub. Some kid walks up and punches him in the mouth, runs off into the night.
I heard he got onstage once and pissed over this girl who was down on her knees trying to get a hard-on out of him for a blow job. Poor girl was humiliated right there in front of fifty blokes, worse than having to suck him off. The bloke minding her couldn’t do much. Thing is, you can’t always point the finger at the rich cunts in power, have to take some responsibility yourself. You can make allowances for a while, and then you have to be honest and sort yourself out. I think of Sarah.
–It was worth coming down to see Baresi’s face, Dave says. I reckon that’s the only sex he gets, standing up on a stage.
When the pub shuts I walk along with Dave, and we stop for some food. The chip shop’s busy and there’s these youths in front of us, giving the man behind the counter a load of mouth. Everyone gets served and ends up outside. Don’t know how it starts, but I’ve put my chips on an electrics box and square up to one of them. He thinks he’s the business, except I knock him down with a textbook punch. His mates pile in, but me and Dave have the experience and we’re more filled out than these skinny little shits. There’s only two of us, though, and seven or eight of them. Dave grabs one around the neck and drills his head into the wall. Another bloke comes in and Dave dips down the front of his joggers and into the pouch he carries his wallet and charlie in, pulls out a knife. I’m surprised, but not as much as the wanker in front of him, who backs off as the blade flashes past his face, two inches from his nose. There’s a bang as a car hits the pavement, Parish, Clement and two others from the pub jumping out. The chip-shop boys leg it, including the one I’ve smacked. The owner of the chippy comes out and says the Old Bill are on their way, sorry, he thought we were going to get done. We’d better not hang around. We hear the siren and start walking, Parish loading up and driving away.
We get lost in the narrow little roads behind the high street. Nobody is going to track us down here, everyone long gone, the whole thing quickly forgotten. We sit down on a wall to eat our fish and chips, and it takes me a while to ask Dave what he’s doing going around with a knife. Wouldn’t have thought it was his style.
–You’ve got to look after yourself, he says, stuffing fish in his mouth. You can’t be too careful these days.
The batter falls into his chips, and he’s left with a long strip of skin hanging through his fingers, white flakes of cod stuck to the lining. Dave sounds a bit paranoid to me. He sucks the skin down and lick
s his lips.
LOUD AND PROUD
There’s the soft crunch of chicken bones under the tyres as I pull away from the kerb, the snap of brittle ribs under bargain retreads, and usually I’d kick them down the drain except it’s gone ten o’clock and I’ve got to be in Swindon by eleven. The sewers must be stewing with hormones, the Colonel’s secret recipe mixing in with the pill’s own special ingredients, cooking up a treat. The motorway’s clear and I put my foot down, the stink of the sewage works on my left, bones so weak they’ll turn to slush before they even arrive. Intensive farmers and their corporate pay masters are the scum of the earth. Never mind the dope dealers and bank robbers, the duckers and divers and juvenile joyriders, those are the ones who need sorting out. Tonight the Kentucky’s going to get its windows bricked, a good way to ease the tension and put something back into the community. I reach over and get hold of a tape, shove it in the cassette player to block out the stuck-up cow on the radio running on about football hooligans. Anything’s better than the wah-wah bleat of the media elite.
