As we pass the barber’s, Daffy says there he is and pops the door open as Taz slows down. I get out and start running after Daffy coz I don’t wanna miss anything and since I’m rolling with these man I’m gonna back it. Kane comes running just behind me.
The Brazilian brer is on the other side of Willesden High Road when he sees Daffy coming for him. Daffy pulls off his T-shirt in the middle of the street and shouts true life true life, and runs across the road. The Brazilian brer looks around for something to grab, picks up an empty beer bottle from the gutter and just as Daffy reaches him, in one swift move he smashes it on the kerb and shanks Daffy with it. Daffy twists round at the last second and the brer crunches the jagged bottle neck into Daffy’s back and starts dussing.
I catch up to Daffy, pull my sweatshirt off and stick it against the bloody tear in his back. It’s bleeding heavy and thick, so I press the sweatshirt against his back, hard, and go hold dat fam.
Daffy’s like I’m cool, I’m cool. Kane runs down the street tryna catch the brer. I run with him and we clock some loose bricks that crumbled off a wall, so we pick them up but the Brazilian brer’s cut round the corner and is too far to catch. Taz pulls up in the whip and I jump in the back with Kane. Daffy ties my sweatshirt around his back and gets in the front.
Where was you Taz? says Kane and Taz stares ahead, wrinkling his forehead like he did earlier when I told him the mash was rusty and goes, I was right there in the whip, I was right there.
Shut up man, about you was right there, says Kane. You wasn’t anywhere. Snoopz was right there with man, you wasn’t doing jack shit.
Daffy turns round in his seat, spuds me and says love for dat g.
Dun know fam, I say.
Fucking drive past the mini park Taz, dafuck are you doing? says Kane.
Taz chews his lip and the car lurches down the back roads of Willesden High Road.
Kane slides his brick under Daffy’s seat. I push mine under Taz’s and Kane unzips the sports bag. There’s a remote-control car, still in its packaging, and three fake Rolexes in cardboard boxes with the Rolex logo printed in silver on the top.
Myman’s not even moving anyting serious, says Kane with his face scrunched up like suttin smells bad, and he zips the bag shut.
We drive past shabby little red-brick houses with broken fences and dirty windows full of white curtains looking like you can’t tell which is more grimy, the windows or the curtains behind them. We go past the underpass that leads to Griffin Close and the mini park, and then Taz slams on the brakes as a fed car with blue lights flashing almost drives right into the front of the whip. At the same time a bully van pulls up right behind us, boxing us in, and six jakes jump out of the van with their batons in hand, shouting STAYINTHEFUCKINGCAR DONOTGET OUT PUTYOURHANDSONTHEWINDOWS HANDS ONTHEFUCKINGWINDOWS.
They surround the whip and as we put our hands on the windows they pop the doors open. One by one we get dragged out. I get dashed against a low brick wall with my face shoved into a bush, my eyes full of green dots and dust, and a fed pulls my arms up behind me hard and handcuffs my wrists quicktime. I look to my left and see Taz standing right next to me against the bush with his wrists cuffed. The fed behind me says spread your legs, so I plant my feet wider and he says spread your fucking legs, and kicks the inside of my left leg, forcing my feet to spread mad wide apart. I almost buckle and then my heart drops right into a pit of snakes deep in my belly as I feel the ball of coke I cheeksed earlier slip out and drop down my left trouser leg. Fuckssake, I’m gonna get shift I’m gonna get shift and I swear I can smell the bush in front of me, all little green leaves, but they ain’t soft on my face and they smell like petrol. It’s like suddenly I can see how everything is ugly and dirty all around me – even the sky looks stained and the sun looks swollen – and I just wish I wasn’t here. The officer starts patting me down, dragging his hand along the seams of my jeans, pulling at my crotch, feeling up my chest and sides – shit he hasn’t felt it he hasn’t felt it just don’t go patting down my trouser leg again. I clock another fed car next to the bully van with two feds in it and sitting right there, on the backseat, is the Brazilian brer. He points at me and Taz, says something to one of the feds and the fed goes those two weren’t involved in the robbery, pointing at me and Taz. The Brazilian brer points at Daffy and Kane and says something else.
At this point I realise that the ball of white has slipped down my trouser leg and stopped on the rim of my trainer, literally balancing there, and the fed who searched me missed it coz he’d started from my ankles and gone upwards as the food slipped down. I need to move from here, I need to move move move, but I need to do it casual like, no big steps, otherwise the food’s gonna drop out and I’ll definitely get shift.
The fed who kicked my legs apart uncuffs me and I watch as Daffy and Kane get placed under arrest – the whole you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence speech – Kane looking at Taz in some type of way that I want to understand but I can’t work out. The fed starts uncuffing Taz and Taz, who’s been quiet the whole time, starts hyping up, turning to screwface the officer – fucking feds, always harrassing man, it’s coz I’m black innit, every time you pricks see man you – and the fed says do you want to get arrested?
I say Taz, stop man, they’re letting us go, come we cut.
But Taz is on a mad hype, going I know, but every fucking time they see man they wanna harass man, always the same ting with these fucking boydem.
Oi! I’m warning you, says the police officer. One more word and you’re nicked.
Kane says just seckle Taz, as he peers out from the open police van door.
Taz says fucking eedyat ting, looking at the pavement as he turns around and starts rubbing his wrists.
We walk back to the whip, me walking extra slow so that I won’t dislodge the soft, balanced between my ankle and the rim of my left trainer. As soon as I get in the whip I can breathe properly again and my heartbeat goes away. I take the ball of coke out and it smells kinda mad and then I cheeks it again.
Couple days later, I’m sitting in a room in the Holiday Inn on Kilburn High Road. I’m with one brer from South called Sniper who’s linking Grim’s cousin. Grim is my bredrin who’s literally one of the baddest MCs in Northwest and probably the whole of London. But like a lot of MCs he doesn’t really live the life he spits about, lyrics about wetting up man and bussin straps. Still, I got mad love for him. I wish I could write bars like that. Anyway. When he introduced me to Sniper, he was cotching at his cousin’s yard in Kilburn and he belled me and said come thru I’m here with my cousin and her man. Real recognise real and that’s how me and Sniper connected. It’s like he could see suttin in my eyes, hear suttin in my words that made him know I was about dat life. Sniper is one of them typical bang bang South man. He’s in PDC which these times is one of the greaziest teams in South and one of the greaziest in London full stop. So after we met through Grim, bunned couple zoots and whatnot, we swapped numbers and the next time Sniper came to Kilburn, he phoned me and said yo cuz, come check me at the Holiday Inn if you’re free.
Sniper is bagging up champs and brandy on the table in the hotel room. While we bun zoots with blue halos of smoke curling around our heads, I tell him the whole story of the madness with Daffy and Kane and Taz.
Myman’s not even about it like dat, I say. Couldn’t even hook me up with a proper burner.
Sniper says I can get you that cuz.
Swear down?
Mum’s life cuz. You want a 9 mill yeah?
Yeah fam. Or a .22 if that’s about.
Gimme couple days and I’ll shout you.
A few days later, Sniper calls me.
Yo my g, what’s good? I say.
Yeah cuz, mi deya. Listen, I can’t hook you up with the twenty-two-year-old but I got a next ting there for you.
Swear down? What is it?
It’s Nina cuz. Two and a half bags. And she’s silent. Comes with like ten sweets in the clip still.<
br />
Say nuttin my g. Bring that down with you and I’ll have the p’s waiting, I say.
And so I finally get my burner, my strap, my mash. A Star 9mm with a screw-on silencer and ten bullets in the clip. Now I’m ready to take revenge if I have to, I can do the beef ting on my ones if I need to, I can protect myself differently. And anyway, not gonna lie, one of the main reasons I wanted a gun is because I just wanna know what it would be like to shoot a man. Onetime. Real talk.
AT TAMEEKA’S YARD
Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy but fear the sword like me, he’ll scarcely look on’t.
William Shakespeare, Cymbeline
AT TAMEEKA’S YARD, I fall asleep sitting in the armchair and although I got my jeans fresh from the dry cleaner’s just the other day, they’re already smelling frowzy from all the punk getting bunned in the yard.
After I got my strap, Kane introduced me to his bredrin Not Nice. Not Nice heard me spitting bars over a beat that was pumping out of the whip when we parked up in the courtyard of some blocks on Church Road.
Surrounded by the haters, claiming who’s the badder man,
I should scar the faces of these Tony Montana fans,
Greazy, from North Weezy where the hammers bang,
My Muslim boys will eat you, even when it’s Ramadan.
You’re sick still, he said. Why you rolling with that pussy Taz?
Not Nice. Hair brushed out into black fire and face like he’s straight outta Kemet. Eyes that don’t laugh. Thick scar on his left bicep where someone poked him. Tells me, when the blade went in I was like what you tryna do blood? Don’t you know you can’t kill a man like dat? Then I pulled the shank out of my arm and showed the yout how it’s meant to be used.
The first time we jammed together, there was a boxing match on TV. It was a white boxer and a black boxer and when the black brer started rocking his opponent, Not Nice said milk of magnesia can never beat melanin. Then he looked at me and said Snoopz, are you sure you’re not mixed?
He’s one of them olders in Northwest doing his ting, always scheming, and he’s got couple youngers who he sends out to do shit. If there’s a drought, he’ll bell the one person who’s got food and ask them to bring a big bit and then he’ll send his youngers to go rob the brer so that Not Nice don’t have to pay for it. He could tell I was on stuff, was gassed about my bars and he rated the way I didn’t pet to speak my mind. Still, I refused to diss Taz just because Not Nice was dissing him, although he clocked that I didn’t really rate Taz no more after that bullshit with the burner and Kane told him how Taz hadn’t done fuck all when Daffy got shanked. So all through summer Not Nice would holla at me and I’d come Willesden and jam with him and bun zoots, and more times Kane would be with us as well.
So we end up jamming in this yard between Dollis Hill and Willesden High Road where these three yardie chicks live. Tameeka, Marcia and their seventeen-year-old sister Stephanie.
Half the time I have to proper concentrate to understand what they’re saying. Tameeka’s got bare piercings; tongue, lips, nose, eyebrow, left cheek, and she has this bright platinum-blonde weave that looks like it wants to get off her head and die somewhere quietly. Not Nice, Kane and me end up jamming there for like a week, staying the night and just bunning zoots and drinking Henny during the day. On certain nights, Not Nice and Kane go upstairs with Marcia and Tameeka. On other nights, everyone gets too mashup and they start arguing, Tameeka and Not Nice always the loudest, badding each other up until Kane and Marcia stop arguing and go to calm the other two down. Eventually Not Nice and Kane come downstairs and just frass out on one of the spare sofas while I sit in the armchair, and the youngest sister, Stephanie, sits on the staircase, busy on her phone.
The real reason we came to this yard is because we needed a traphouse. We’ve started shotting big bits of cro together. I’ve got the p’s and Not Nice has the connec for big bits of food and he knows everyone round the ends who’s shotting punk and wants to pick up from man. So we set up a line. We get a couple boxes – two kilos of amnesia – and break them down into smaller bits. Shotters park up round the corner from Tameeka’s yard and Not Nice or I go and drop off the food and come back with the p’s. We split the profits fifty-fifty.
Tameeka and Marcia start tryna hook me up with their younger sister.
Ya like she, don’t it? says Tameeka. You nuh wan deal wid dat Snoop? Cah me see how unu badboy fi true so wa’um, you nah wan deal wid my lickle sister? I laugh and say yeah I’ll deal with her but only if she’s on it, and truth is I could tell from the beginning Stephanie ain’t feeling me like that. It’s not like she’s on some shy tip, although compared to her sisters she’s mad quiet, always cooking or playing on her phone and bunning zoots in silence. Everything done alone, uninterested. Then Tameeka starts talking all this shit about cah unu av money fi spend, it nuh tek nuttin fi look after mi lickle sister, you cyan buy her one two trainer dem and a Gucci belt nuh true? And I’m thinking allow these ratchet chicks tryna hustle man. I say I ain’t spending my p’s on no one. Even if we go McD’s I ain’t buying none of you a meal, not even a cheeseburger, real talk. She says not even a cheeseburger? I say not even a cheeseburger. She stares at me cold and I can see she’s wearing bright green contact lenses, and then she says me nah like you Snoop. She picks up the empty bottles of Hennessy off the table and dashes them in the bin proper hard so it makes noise and then she actually stomps across the room to the kitchen and starts billing a zoot. Marcia comes into the room like wa’um to you sis? Tameeka starts chatting bare quick with her voice all scratched up and all I manage to catch is him say him wouldn’t even buy we McDonald’s to bloodclart and then she looks at me again, kisses her teeth and goes upstairs.
Later that night a big argument kicks off between her and Not Nice. He comes downstairs and says fuck this Snoopz, we’re gonna do this ting somewhere else and he starts making phone calls while I drift into uneasy sleep full of things I can’t hold on to.
In the morning, we take all the food that’s left in a Nike sports bag, jump into Not Nice’s whip with Kane and drive off. We end up in the kitchen of one flat in Church Road – the white flats as Not Nice calls them – and I’m cotching with him and Kane and a box of cro all split into four-and-a-halfs, wrapped up in clingfilm, waiting for the line to ring. We know the food is gonna move quick coz there’s no dust, barely any sticks and the buds are bright green fat, covered in orange hairs and feathery white crystals that ping when the light catches them. We’ve put aside couple buds to sample. When Not Nice sparks his zoot I’m like rah that smells mad loud and even Kane, who doesn’t smoke, says fuckinell that smells piff, and opens a window.
The yard belongs to one chick who Not Nice is linking and he tells us she’s gone to stay with her auntie for couple days, but the kitchen looks like no one’s lived there for a hot minute. Stovetop thick with brown grease and oil stains going up the wall behind it. Kane opens the fridge and says rah what’s this gyal on though? because there’s only two wrinkled peppers and a half-opened pack of that orange plastic-looking cheese that’s like 99p in the corner shop. The fridge door has a souvenir magnet from Amsterdam with a big weed leaf on a canal and the magnet is stuck over a Chinese takeaway menu. Beneath it, there’s a see-through magnet with a photo of a little boy in school uniform, grinning gappy teeth, although the magnet is upside down and it looks like no one’s moved it for time coz it’s all dusty n shit.
When we came into the yard, I’d clocked the front room because the door was open and just before Not Nice closed it, I noticed bare garms all over the floor and Nike creps and high-heeled shoes and fake Gucci belts and a hairdryer and bits of Lego and empty takeaway boxes and I was like seen, I know what kinda gyal this is. This is one of them excuse my yard type chicks. One of them there’s nothing in the fridge, frowsy bedsheets, Facebook profile works at fulltime mummy to a king hashtag boss bitch chicks. One of them my son goes to sleep when he feels like it but he’s got a TV in his room s
o he won’t disturb us type chicks. Allow dat.
Kane opens a bottle of Henny, pours some out on the kitchen floor and says this one’s for the fallen soldiers, and I know that we’ve all imagined what could be written on our gravestones one day.
Not Nice gets off the phone and says Snoopz go and drop one of these four-and-a-halfs to my don who’s waiting outside. You’ll see him parked up in front of the playground in a white Benz. I grab one of the packs, stuff it into the front pocket of my hoodie and step outside.
Every time I’ve come round these flats with Not Nice, I’ve never seen any youts playing in the playground. It’s just empty swings getting pushed by the wind and silent tarmac. Now that it’s summer, it feels like the sun has drained the life out of the air. I make the drop, get the p’s and walk back into the block.
As I’m going up the stairs, one brer in a red leather AV, white gold chain round his neck with an iced-out Donald Duck pendant swinging off it, comes down. As we pass each other in the stairwell he goes yo who you here to see blood? I stop, look at him and go fuck d’you mean who am I here to see? He’s looking at me mad hard face, no blinking, as if whatever once made those eyes alive musta withered long time into nuttin, and he says this is my block blood. I say so fucking what? I don’t know you blood. I start going up the stairs. He comes right after me like oi come ere rudeboy, I’ve had man tryna run up on me in this block before. I get to the top of the stairs, kiss my teeth and say about come ere man. As I walk down the balcony to the flat, I hear the brer reach the landing behind me. He says dafuck are you walking away for? Moving like you’re some op. I turn around and he goes who da fuck are you blood? I’m like why da fuck are you asking me who I am? You don’t know me blood I don’t need to tell you nuttin. But as I say this, his right hand, black Nike glove on, digs into the front of his trousers and pulls out black metal, 9 mill looking kinda scratched up n dat. What’s mad is that right then I can feel he’s used it before. I can feel some next power that’s making my heart kick against my chest like it’s tryna get out. When you see a gun in a film it’s entertainment, it’s just an object, a prop that everyone knows about. And if you start tryna imagine what you’d do if someone pulled a strap on you, there’s always this one vital bit missing from your imagination. It’s the feeling of being face to face with a power that can end your life in one blink. Of all the days not to have my burner on me, it had to be today. But where is it? Safely tucked away inside a shoebox under my old bed at my mum’s yard. Fuckssake.
Who They Was Page 6