My father is in the kitchen reading something. Everyone’s belly is full. The flat smells of pine needles and cooked goose fat. I’ve never had goose before but Mama said she wanted something special this Christmas.
I leave the flat without anyone noticing and go downstairs. Chizzle’s brought back a ninebar I gave him last week. Actually I gave him half a box, but he’s bringing back the other half for me to get rid of. The cro isn’t what he wanted. It’s cheese not ammi for starters, the buds are wet, tight and heavy, and there’s a lot of sticks in the pack. Not the usual quality that I drop on him and he says it’s made his line slow down coz the sells don’t want it. Not gonna lie, I blatantly fucked up. There’s a lesson in this. Never take shit food just coz you’re hungry innit.
I meet him at the bottom of the building. He leaves the cab waiting outside. You look stressed fam, I say as we buck up in the hallway. Chizzle is short and solid, a judo prodigy in his younger days, but his mum never registered him for citizenship when he came from Ghana at the age of four. She fucked man up, said Chizzle one time when I asked him why he wasn’t tryna get into the Olympic judo team for Great Britain. So instead of being a judoka – he told me that’s what you call it – he’s a shotter. He starts telling me how the shit punk fucked up his line. I wave my hand down down down for him to talk quieter coz I don’t want the neighbours to hear us. He smells of the cheese I dropped on him. Rah it smells kinda loud still, I say as he gives me the ninebar wrapped in plastic bags and he says yeah the smell’s decent but trust Snoopz, the food’s really not all dat. I stuff it under my hoodie and then I let him out of the front door. Shout me as soon as you got suttin better, he says as he gets in the cab.
I go upstairs, hoping that the cheese is still in the original smelly proof that I gave it to Chizzle in. Back in the flat I slip my creps off, then head straight up to my room. Sit down on my bed and get the foodsaver out so I can split the cheese into ounces and reseal them in plastic. I’ll take them to Uncle T’s later. He can get rid of pretty much anything I give him.
As I open it, I realise it’s not in the smelly proof. It’s loosely wrapped in plastic bags and my room fills with the smell, mad loud, as if the dark green buds were oozing sap all over the walls, bursting the room’s seams. I get onto my bed quicktime and open the windows. Downstairs I hear my brother saying oh my God what is that smell, it’s as if someone brought dog food into the flat and I start laughing as I’m standing on my bed. I hear my mother say it’s a terrible smell, what is it? Then the sound of windows opening downstairs.
My brother comes upstairs, straight into my room and I say don’t bate me off Danny, shit.
He says I know, that’s why I said it smells like dog food. But it’s unbearable, I thought you stopped smoking.
I did, it’s just my boy brought me a big bit of punk to resell and I had to bring it into the flat.
Gabriel the whole flat stinks, and he whispers it again with wide eyes, then smiles.
I can’t really tell what he thinks about it all. He goes downstairs. I wrap everything back up, thinking why am I moving loose like this?
My father steps into the room, hovers by the doorway, wrinkles his forehead and says Gabri whole house is smelling of marewana, and I try not to laugh at how he says it. When I was a child I used to always find those wrinkles worrying. Deep creases running one above the other. I thought they must be there because he’s sad and I’d rub my hand down his forehead, thinking if I can smooth them out then all his worries will go away.
I say I’m sorry Tata, seriously I haven’t smoked anything I swear, it’s just my friend came and dropped me off a jacket that I left at his house and coz he smokes it stinks of weed now.
He walks out of my room and says all right all right, I’m just telling you whole flat smelling now and is very hard to get rid, and he goes back downstairs. I just keep saying sorry sorry as his steps creak.
I go downstairs, enter the kitchen and repeat the story I came up with to my father again. I’m not sure what I’m tryna do. I think I want him to feel better. It’s been a good Christmas so far. It’s the smell that bothers him but he’s back to reading the newspaper again. I go into the living room and repeat myself for the benefit of my mother. It doesn’t work. She is on her feet, the chess game abandoned, eyes all glassy and severe.
Where is this jacket? she says. I want to see this jacket, where is it?
I say it’s upstairs Mama, I’ve put it in my wardrobe.
Later, when I tell Rex about this he says I shoulda gone upstairs at this point, grabbed a handful of punk out of the bag and rubbed it all over one of the jackets in my wardrobe. Brudda, what were you thinking? Come on, you’re not dumb Snoopz, you know you was flopping the ting. I say to him but brudda, she followed me and wasn’t gonna take no for an answer.
Show me this jacket Gabriel, I want to see the jacket. She carries on.
I say I’m not showing you the jacket Mama and I start going back upstairs, but she follows right behind me and says show me this jacket, I want to smell it.
I stop halfway up the stairs and say whatdafuck is this abnormal behaviour? I’m not showing you the jacket, stop following me. My father comes out of the kitchen and asks her what she’s doing in Polish and Danny says come downstairs and stop this weird behaviour. Why can’t she just chill the fuck out? Just for once. But my mother is covered in spikes. Maybe that’s how she survives the world. Maybe that’s how she survives me. I don’t fucking know.
Back in my room Danny comes in again and says you do realise you don’t have the right to get pissed off like that since it’s blatantly a lie what you’re saying and it’s your fault there’s this smell in the flat? I say what do you want me to do then, tell them the truth? He says yeah, maybe? I don’t know. But it’s you who fucked up, it’s not Mama’s fault.
I pack the foodsaver and the ninebar into a travel bag. I call Uncle T and explain the situation and he says come through whenever you’re ready my son, I’ll get rid of it for you no problem. I pick up the bag and go downstairs. I walk into the kitchen and announce to my parents that the reason the house stinks now is because my friend came and dropped off nine ounces of weed and I brought it into the flat thinking it wouldn’t smell. Yeah that’s right I sell weed, that’s how I make my money, I mean how do you think I could afford to live in a flat on my own before Christmas? You know I haven’t got a job, how do you think I afford all these new clothes and Christmas presents for everyone? I let it all out without breathing once.
My mother flinches but her face is still frozen, staring at me in such a way that I don’t feel fuck all about what I’ve just told her. My father just looks annoyed that my mother forced me to tell the truth. My mother calls for a family meeting in the living room.
It goes like this: Daniel and I sinking into the scratched leather sofa in front of the little table with the abandoned chessboard. Across from us my mother asking interrogation-style questions. My brother telling her this kind of question is irrelevant and that I don’t have to answer. My father sitting in silence next to her, looking away from us all, at the wall, closed lips moving silently as if he’s chewing words. I point out that if we were living in Holland, we wouldn’t be having this conversation coz legally I’d be considered an entrepreneur and not a drug dealer.
Where did you get it from? Who are you going to sell it to? Where are you going to sell it? She presses ahead; questions that I’m never gonna answer. My brother points this out as she asks each one. It reminds me of when we were little and we had all these secret jokes and ways of making each other laugh at things when our mother was punishing us for whatever we’d done that had pissed her off.
At a certain point she tells me I ruin people’s lives with this. What people? I ask. Young people, she replies and Danny and I start bussin up. Eventually, I get tired of the whole thing, my mother annoying me in the way that only an old mother full of love and misplaced beliefs can annoy you. I interrupt her and say sorry but what’
s the point of this?
My mother turns to my father and says I find it very upsetting and wrong that I’m having to do this on my own. Don’t you have anything to say to your son? She says it in her usual aggressive manner, totally missing the point that it’s her who wanted this dramatic circus.
My father turns to look at me. I am very upsetting, he begins and my mother interrupts him. Upset or upsetting? Danny and me are like why are you doing that? She says but I don’t understand what he means. I say Tata please continue. I cannot accept that anyone in my family is involved in criminal things, especially my son who is most talented person I know, who can do so many artistic things, for you to choose to selling drugs. I know how is hard for you to get job – to get a job, says my mother and then she starts explaining to him in Polish what’s wrong with his grammar.
When he finishes, his voice goes light and friendly, he looks at me and says now finish, you have to go somewhere yes? I nod and get up. It’s getting late, nighttime is filling its belly with streets and rooftops, my mother’s face is jagged stone and I don’t want to be here any more.
I go into the hallway, put my Nike creps and jacket on and pick up the sports bag with the foodsaver and nine zeds of cheese inside. As I start down the stairs to leave the flat, my father comes out of the kitchen stopping me quickly, Gabri, and I turn. He holds out a box of mince pies to me. For you and your friends, he says with a smile on his face, eyes like drops of silver taking cover beneath his eyebrows which he styles in this way so that they go up into little points like some evil wizard in a cartoon. Thank you Tata, I say and smile. I unzip my bag and fit the mince pies in, on top of the foodsaver, pressing right next to the wrapped-up cro.
As I leave the flat I start crying silently, tightening up my face with my eyes all blurry, but I can’t work out if I’m sad or if it’s just the way I’d clocked my father’s love for me has no limits, even while it pushes against something terrible. It doesn’t stop until I get to the bus stop and my breath shudders inside my mouth as I breathe out slow, wiping my face with my sleeve, getting vexed with myself like stop being a fucking pussy, wa’um to you, fix up – because the bus is coming and I have to go SK and get rid of this food.
When I get to Blake Court I see these new purple lights going all the way up the length of the block, looking like some tripped-out nightmare, all that grim concrete flooded in purple and heavy shadows. Whatdafuck is this I think as I buzz Uncle T and he lets me in.
The door is on the latch and I lock it behind me, shouting yo yo yo as I come up the stairs. Wagwan Snoopz, shouts Uncle T and I enter the kitchen. Uncle T’s long time bredrin Sparky General is there. They’re sat around the glass kitchen table, Uncle T in that old black office chair he’d found dumped outside the block that he uses to roll around the kitchen when he can’t be bothered to stand up and go to the sink or fridge – arthritis in both knees from years of working as a plasterer without protective equipment – and Sparky is sitting at the other end beneath a faded Bob Marley poster, which is drained of colour by days of sun pouring through the kitchen window. They’re bunning big spliffs with no roaches, kingsize Rizla rolled up proper yardie style. Thick gold sovereign rings on Sparky’s fingers, tiny bits of ash from his zoot floating up, clinging to the night in the thickness of his locks.
You’re a lifesaver, I say to Uncle T as I start unpacking my bag. Snoopz, anytime you need to get rid of some food just come to me, says Uncle T. I give him the box of mince pies and he says for me? I say yeah pops, merry Christmas and he says thank you son, I’m gonna have one right now, and he opens the box. I take the ninebar out of my bag and start unwrapping it.
The Kilburn Times is spread out on the kitchen table with bits of ash scattered across the page and Sparky is saying it’s fucking bollocks mate, see this Jackie Sadek woman and Uncle T says who? I just read it to you, says Sparky, she’s the head of a council project in Brent, which was supposed to clean this place up. Listen to what she says: ‘South Kilburn is a wonderful place to be, terribly well connected to central London, really leafy – it’s got everything going for it’ and Sparky starts laughing hahaha and the laugh turns into a throaty cough. Uncle T says South Kilburn? She’s talking about South Kilburn? Ah lie she ah tell. I say yeah, coz if somewhere’s leafy you can’t get gunshots and man getting poked up and nittys everywhere right? Listen to this though, says Sparky. When she gets asked what happened to the 50 million pound which the government gave the council to sort the estate out – Uncle T shouts 50 million? 50 million? Sparky continues – when she gets asked what happened to the money, she says she’s unsure but she now feels ‘the only way is up’. Whataload of bollocks, says Sparky as he finishes reading. Well they’re gonna have to show something for it, no true dat? says Uncle T. That’s probably why they put those bloodclart lights on the block. I say yeah I saw those when I was coming up, dafuck is that about? I hear the council’s taking them down again next week, says Uncle T.
I spud Uncle T and Sparky – I’m off. See you later Snoopz. Outside it is raining and as I come out of the block I see purple light swimming in black puddles. I pull my hood up and start walking home.
THE WORLD’S MOST
I’M IN THE trap with Capo and we’re counting money. Capo’s fingers move mechanically over and over again, as if he’s glitching and this one moment is stuck on a loop. Focused. He says make sure that each note has the Queen’s face on top, line them all up the same way. You gotta have standards, he says. Most of the p’s are going right back to the plug anyway, since Capo got all this food on tick. I guess he’s tryna make a good impression. We separate fifties and twenties and tens so that every thousand-pound stack is made of the same notes. We only drink bottled water because the kitchen is mad dutty, full of cockroaches, and every half an hour one of us goes and sprays Febreze in the hallway and on the front door. The boxes of ammi are vacuum packed so there’s no smell, but we open some of them to make smaller orders – half boxes and ninebars – and pack them again with a foodsaver. Every time we buss one of the boxes open, the smell bursts into the room, hijacking the air around us. Plus we’ve been bunning zoots as well, towel rolled up and pressed against the bottom of the door, window cracked open – all the tricks – just in case. There’s a samurai sword on the sofa that Capo’s sitting on.
Since I started doing the cro ting, this has to be the most I’ve seen. Twelve boxes – twelve kilos – like hard plastic pillows full of dark green buds. It’s the biggest order so far coz Capo’s line is banging and the plug knows he’ll get his p’s. That’s the thing about Capo. Everyone knows they can rely on him when it comes to this ting. When we finish counting the bread it comes to 125 bags. 125,000 pounds in cash. I wonder how many different places, how many different moments and hands these notes have existed in. Now they’ve ended up in stacks, held together by green, blue, yellow and red rubber bands, piled up inside a Selfridges shopping bag. The cro and the p’s together comes to over 200 bags. My family has never known that kinda money. My head spins. When we picked up the food from the connec in East London, we passed a massive billboard on the side of one building just before Stratford. There was no advert on it, just big black letters on a white background that said Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock. Capo says he wants to get a flat in Hackney to use as a traphouse, but Hackney’s getting mad gentrified. I say Hackney mandem need to do more shootings to keep the house prices down and we laugh. But I mean it.
I go to the toilet and I’m so gassed about the p’s and all the food that I bell Rex. I say brudda I’ve just finished counting out 125 bags with Capo and we’ve chopped up like twelve boxes of ammi. Rex says what? Where are you now? I’m gonna phone Shredder and tell him to come with the van and a burner and we’re gonna run up on you now. I say what? No brudda. Not Capo. Capo’s family. You’re not robbing Capo. Rex says whatdafuck are you on Snoopz? That’s a life-changing sum of money. All you have to do is hold a gunbuck, it’s not like I’m gonna let off the
mash in the yard. I promise I won’t break your nose or knock any teeth out, I’m just gonna buss your forehead open to make it look realistic. Capo will never know. I say brudda, that’s not the point, anyone else and I’d be on it, but Capo’s family. I can’t do some snaky shit like that. Rex starts switching – I’m supposed to be your brother, how can you not let your brother do that after everything – and I’m like you are my brother but I gotta have some principles, not this, not now. I’ll ride out with you on anyone else. Rex’s voice goes flat and he says cool and puts the phone down before I can say anything else.
He’s over hungry right now coz his bredrin Jim Jones got murked a few weeks ago. Stabbed in his heart when some brers kidnapped him and tried to rob him. Jim Jones was Rex’s connec for the buj. Rex was always telling me it’s that ten out of ten which makes the cats keep coming back like clockwork. On a real though, Jim Jones was actually Rex’s bredrin, not just a plug, but true it’s easier to get upset about losing a connec for good buj than it is to get into your feelings about your bredrin getting duppied. What bunned Rex even more was that Jim Jones’ mother didn’t allow any of his bredrins to attend the funeral. Something about she wasn’t gonna have any criminals at her son’s graveside.
The next day I go to see Rex. Usually he calls me every morning, but this time I call him and when I say I’m gonna check you, he says yeah whatever, I’m in the trap, and then he puts the phone down. But I know how he stays. That’s my brother innit. I go to check him in Stamford Hill. Orthodox Jews walk past in the street rocking long black coats and wide-brimmed hats. He uses one chick’s yard as a traphouse. It’s in a brown block that looks exactly like all the other buildings in the estate and no matter how many times I come to check him, I never remember which block it is. I call him and he looks out of a window and says buzz flat six.
Who They Was Page 26