Junglist

  — What the fuck are you singing?

  — We live in Brixton… babae.

  Three the Hard Way. When the shit gets too thick in this surround, we burn and get high on stress: We run tings they say tings nuh run we. There’s a dirty stain in the air but they don’t care ’cause home’s only moments away and war is life in the everyday.

  — Our time is now.

  Only on this part of the Earth, crime pays so, when crime doesn’t pay, you know it had to be free. In this business they are the empire. If they ever meet God He’ll understand. In the chillout room the phones sing, the tones of niggas hustling ends. Ain’t shit move unless they’re on it or fucking it. Every day’s a fight, a fight from falling from gravity’s pull into the Earth.

  — Yeah? … What, what? … What? Slow down!

  … Who … Did what? … Craig? … Craig!

  CRAIG’S PRAYER

  I WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLANET FROM ALL THE TROUBLES THAT’S IN IT

  Lately I’ve been thinking, maybe I’m sick, I should see my doctor, but still it don’t matter. Sitting on the edge of my bed, stressed in my four-cornered room with thoughts that go nowhere, come back, disappear. Maybe God’s fucking with me. This shit just dogging me.

  I inhale then exhale as night creeps into day, as the dawn brings the beginnings of another dark Saturday. In go the freaks of the night and out come the good Christian folk of the city. In this boned state, I just stare and stare, people passing through the waking streets, conversing, listening to the voices of the peoples, since this the world, knowledge and ignorance are mutually on offer and I only listen, digest, consider — and we’ll just say it’s shit. In the dawn of this day I feel fear closing in. I want a place where I can go to be mad.

  I remember castles in the sand and, once I stopped looking, they’d disappear, die. Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust. Fuck I just don’t know. Do ants ever stop and question what goes on? In this rat race, you look up, get concerned while others pass on by and check it, see who comes to your side. Friend or foe?

  — What’s goin’ on? Listen…

  The ghettoised state of mind speaks with blackened statements scrawled on a white wall. Peripheral noises rising from the ghettos are the whispers that turn to screams when comes time to change. Gods into dogs and dogs with human heads, dogs chewing bones off the master’s table. Life is now born from concrete cracks and fed on the barrel of a gun, while thought the trigger, firing lead into the mind, causing momentary spasms of life, real life; this is the people, these are the peoples. Migrants from gracious lands, coming into the cold and sometimes, just sometimes, this grace is released, love speaks: broken chains lie helpless without the power of the master and the ghosts from our gracious lands speak. One day I might speak with love, with form, perception, wisdom, where my words are far brighter than the sun and live and create their own light. Coking up my life. This, the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Nothing surprises those who see as the world rises with the sun. Everything that exists will be illuminated and I will stay in the shadows by myself for myself, for each and every day. Each passing season will bring life closer and further away. The pain will maintain, ‘cause it runs deep into the hearts of the brave and strong. This is the war in Babylon.

  Only mum could come and take away the ghosts so that I can live and maintain. If only this can of T wouldn’t run out, if only…

  SATURDAY

  DA FLIPSIDE

  “Death to the young is the undiscovered country.”

  MAYA ANGELOU

  EVERYMAN

  Another grey day comes from another grey night, shutters go up on the shopfront windows, signs and graphics are like beacons showing the way. If the price is right and your pockets have change, pay. As the harmonies of voices rise into the air, people seep out of the street corners. When tings-a-gwan, it’s real. The TV will only give you cartoon reflections of these streets. Being born of flesh and brought up on concrete gives your mind, body and soul a whole new function for living.

  There are some things you’ll never know, least of all understand, even if it’s just your rights. How many youts who sift through the streets are made to realise that they have a mind that can cure cancer? You will never know that you’ll inherit the Earth because you’ll never be told. How many times have you got to have your head banged against a wall before you realise the pain, before you realise the pain this world brings is manmade and your head’s against the wall every day? One day you’ll know what this life owes you. The question shall always remain, how many rivers do we have to cross before we realise we’ve lost and the yout turns back, steps out on the streets. This way of life is love and loved in the Jungle.

  Craig looked back as a child, when he would be dragged through the streets, through the markets — first Bush, then Bricky, later Peckham — and hear the riddim of Reggae, looking at the skirts of aunts, playing on the streets with his cousins, running with the wind in his shaven head looking out into tomorrow.

  Craig came up the hard way. His mother was like a Black monolith, his father only existed as a ghost in his past. She never made Craig forget, he was her first born and her last, she would never make him forget the pain. His life is an extension of hers and, as such, with the skin he’s in, his world would never be sweet and he always remembered someday would come the payback. The pain, the love, the joy, and the reward, with all the stories she told of her struggles to succeed, a struggle she had fought for him — he would always believe his struggle would finish it. The truth is he never would.

  Every Saturday he made his trek across London to visit his babymother. Today, as the time came to 11 o’clock, he was late with a hangover that cast a deep shadow on his mood: it seemed he was driven there more by obligation than by love. The journey took him up the Victoria line to Oxford Circus, Central line towards East Acton and a short trek to Du Cane Road.

  Craig Mack! 1000 degrees

  You’ll be on your knees…

  Burning, begging please.

  I’m a reign, rain forever,

  Rain like bad weather.

  It’s always a Saturday when Craig imagines a verse and sings, when he regroups, creates a verbal technique, a kung fu from the mind re-enacted over and over, re-enacted into various riddims, finally resting in a Reggae ska.

  His yout was called Tony, he would have gone as far as calling him Tony Montana but no one would have understood, that is, how he always wanted to be a gangster. A gangster that would chat like an armed soldier of Jah, schooling them on certain runnins. All this like most thoughts were just passing in the wind. Only in the eyes of Craig’s son would this vision be true, only Tony would listen intently — as children do sometimes, picking on dreams.

  Natasha watched over them while they played, eyeing him all the time: his new clothes, his new haircut, his new shoes; Craig always made a point of looking good and Natasha always took this as a sign he had money. Thus she’d begin, pulling her usual yarn:

  — Doing well, are ya?

  — What you chatting about?

  — I’m talking about money to feed your yout.

  That made him sore. She would always hassle him for money, never once standing on her own two feet, never looking to do for herself. It was always Craig, what have you done for me lately? It didn’t bother him paying for Tony’s keep but it seemed he was paying for her indulgences.

  — You lazy bitch, you’re so fucking lazy! Why the fuck don’t you go and work?

  No reply.

  — That’s cool, because now I’m going to make you work.

  With that he put Tony in his room, pulled Natasha to the bedroom, tying her up with her clothes, and goes for his belt. He goes out and grabs all her perfumes and sprays and systematically beats the shit out of her, pulling off her clothes just to beat raw skin. He stops, picks up the perfumes and sprays, pouring them into her raw wounds.

  — Fuck you, bitch.

  And so saying he makes her bend over and spread her legs apar
t.

  — Now, here’s your shit.

  And taking fifty pounds out of his pocket, he crumples it and shoves it up her crotch.

  MR METH: EXIT STAGE LEFT

  I stagger out into the morning air, crisp and cold, breath frosting on the breeze. Looks like I’m smoking. How often as a kid did I stand around outside pretending to smoke in the cold air? Shiver for a second as I stamp my feet and pull on my jacket, retrieved from the wilds of the cloakroom. Quick look at my watch. Half 4. Watch the second hand flick round, mesmerised by its circular movement. Life is like a circle, wheels within wheels, turning, turning. Another quick tug at the jacket, pulling it up to my throat and sliding the zip closed.

  Turn around and look back, feeling the people brush past me — a rock in the sea of their movement. You know it’s a good night when people are still trying to get in when you’re leaving. They are still standing and waiting, watching you as you leave — looking to see how you feel as you walk past, as if by your expression and demeanour they can fathom out whether it is worth going in, paying those extra dollars on the door. Their hard eyes gleam like cat’s-eyes in the road, reflecting light back at you, watching as you stand and try to not look conspicuous. When you’re standing in line, looking at people is the most interesting thing you can do.

  Watching them watching me, caught in the crosshairs of a sniper’s scope, dead to rights; laser light on my forehead, finger around the trigger. Spill my brains over the pavement. Crowd round like the voyeuristic vampires that you are and stare. Lifeless, my body lies there becoming colder, more rigid, more adult, whilst I stare into your eyes and see you yearn to see a spectacle. To see someone die in a particularly gruesome Quentin Tarantino fashion. Your faces are cold and hard, eyes sharp as flint, bodies lean like greyhounds waiting to be unleashed.

  Turn my head away from your gaze and look behind me. See Biggie and Q saying their goodbyes. Fists touching, complex handshakes given and finished with a flourish. Watch them smile and nod gently. Tired but pleased. Happy to have gone but ready now to go home to settle comfortably into their own homes, familiarity all around them. Didn’t get any puss but not exactly trying very hard.

  They walk over to me and I see them slip into slow motion, each footfall arriving long seconds after it was taken. Gentle loping stride, as they are floating, each detail of them etched into my memory, as they tussle gently and then look over at me, eye contact, acknowledgement. I feel a huge flush of emotion slide over me, a comfort in the knowledge that they are here with me. Q all rolling gait, wide and broad as if he is striding across the deck of a ship at sea, arms close to his body as he listens to Biggie expounding on some subject. His face set into a mask of concentration, intent to listen to every word and understand it. Biggie with his small frame and sweeping movements, hands creating intricate patterns, feet spread outward duck fashion. Walk bouncy, and slightly pimp limpish, rising on the ball of his foot every step. I blink and everything comes back up to speed, and I stand here trying to act nonchalant and devil-may-care, seemingly unaware of the passing glances. Wondering whether my fly is undone, trying not to check. They reach me and I feel so close to them that it hurts, so close that I treat them like family. Hurt them unintentionally but accept and trust that they’ll be there when I regain my senses. That they will always be there to support me and keep me going when times are rough.

  Zip up my emotion-proof jacket and pull the soft vulnerable parts of myself back into my shell. Cassie showed me how vulnerable I was when I thought that I was indestructible. She slipped in under my guard and loved me and I loved her just as I love these guys. I thought I had everything locked up in the box, but it popped open and I couldn’t get the lid back on. All the emotion I’d held inside just spilled out and I couldn’t put it back on as long as I was with her. So I left.

  You can’t be soft with life. Any show of weakness and the sharks appear, ready to feast on you — scenting blood, moving in silent and deadly, tearing strips out of you, driven into a frenzy of feeding. Open the box within yourself, where all the secret parts of you are kept, lift the lid and find that all the privileged information it contained comes back to haunt you. Spat out in the heat of the moment, faces touching, voices loud and harsh as the anger spits forth like venom. Searing the skin, burning through the layers, burrowing through to the bone. Bone showing pearly white in its luminescence, gleaming as clear as day. So I hide myself beneath layers of toughened skin. Skin toughened through a youth as normal or abnormal as anyone else’s. Just as the gradual accumulation of scars through a life of rough and tumble, wear and tear of being human and as fragile or strong as anyone else, and as unable to change your lot as anyone else. A lot that is dominated by skin colour. Whether brown, black, white, yellow. There is no getting away from it. Chocolate-brown complexion that evokes such fear and loathing, but also suppressed desire. Lusted after yet also despised. Second-class citizen. So you hold everything inside, not going to ever let it get out. Hold it all in. Death grip, grip so tight my knuckles go white. Got to break the fingers to loosen it.

  My friends trip the light fantastic as they step to me and nudge me back into intelligible thought. Wrap my arms around them and hug them, my friends. Try not to smile, to laugh, to give an indication of just being with them makes me about a foot taller. Walking on a buoyant cushion of air. Walking tall in their company.

  — Where’d you go? I lost you. One minute you were there, the next you were gone.

  — You know me: Undercover Elephant. Now you see me, now you don’t.

  — What are we doing now?

  — Going back to the car, that’s what we’re doing.

  — No after-dance parties?

  — Get to the car first, then we’ll decide.

  The windscreen of the Cortina is covered in huge glossy fold-out, gatefold, expanding-to-twice-their-size-if-immersedin-water flyers. Bright colours streaking through the air. A new dawn on Q’s windscreen. We rip them from underneath the wipers and bundle inside, turning up the radio and the heating, pouring through them, seeing where they are, watching the lines of force as Jungle travels up the country, trying to figure out where it’s going to blow up next. Birmingham, Northampton, Luton, Manchester, Leeds. Seeing how long it takes and how far it goes. After sifting through them, amazed at the size and colour, bitching at the prices and deciding that we can’t be bothered travelling into the wilds of the northern hemisphere. The flyers are chucked onto the floor and disregarded until Q has to clean it out before his mother drives it again.

  — So where we going now?

  Loud and brash. Top of the world ma. Top of the world.

  — Home.

  — Nah! There must be a party somewhere. I feel to go somewhere, do something.

  — Well I feel to go home and sleep in my own bed.

  — Come on, the night’s young.

  — I’m with Meth it’s only half 4, I feel to keep going.

  — You know we’re going to crash at someone’s and I always hate that.

  — Live a little.

  Q looks at me as if I’ve lost the little sense in my head. Cut him some slack though. Because he does have a hard time sleeping in other people’s houses. It comes from not settling down for a long time, so he likes to know that he’s in his own house, which is permanent; that’s what he said a few months back. I ruffle his semi-afro and smile a goofy grin into his face. Don’t you just love me? He looks at me for a long beat, quizzical, wondering. Then he shakes his head and leans down to put the key into the ignition. I jump up and down on the back seat like a kid who’s just been told he will be having ice cream and not later but right this minute.

  And like fame I’ma live forever,

  Niggas crossing over ‘cause they don’t know no better.

  Q straps himself in and pulls out intent on breaking the land speed record, revving the engine like he’s out of control, but the grin he flashes to Biggie is self-deprecating: in this instance, for this short space of time, he
knows what he’s doing, he’s just pissing about, having a little fun. Joking at his own style of driving.

  — Head for Camden.

  — Yessir, Mr Captain sir.

  Q stamps on the brakes and slides the Cortina to a stop. The malevolent red eye stares back at us, watches us. Ever present. The red light, the line you’re not allowed to cross. The place where you have to stop. Deadline, edge of the envelope, cross her and you depart into uncontrolled flight. Turn my head and lock eyes with a glassy stare. Radii looking back at me. Shiny silver number on his shoulder. Look at it, so bright, how it slips and morphs into a mouth, fanged and demented. Waiting to pounce. Stare back, look into the eyes. Head still nodding to the bass. Q whispering frantically.

  — Don’t look at him. Don’t hot it up.

  And I, caught like a doe in headlights, (before I’m mown down and made into so much dog food), stare back. The beat is in my blood, no losing it now. Watch his eyes narrow, see the cogs start to churn in his head. Three Black youths in a car going where? Must have drugs on them. Must be criminals! Haul them over. Make them empty their pockets. Show them who’s boss. Who’s in control. See his eyes, Aryan and blue and clear. Cold blue, like the sky in summertime, when the sun’s shining bright and everyone’s out getting a tan, except those of us who have a permanent year-round tan. I’m always surprised by how white people can hate us so much, yet put themselves through so much pain and financial struggle to disappear for two weeks so they can try to become as Black as me.

  But the eyes stare at me, cutting through my deflection of thought. I stare back, I’m not dropping my gaze, I ain’t no slave, believe that. No backing down. The music holds me in place as time slows, bouncing energy all through me. Ain’t nothing going to worry me. Look, wink, smile, grin, then turn away: no confrontation. Defuse it, the demon don’t scare me.

  We pull away from the lights and Q’s forced to settle in behind the PO-LICE van, which travels along sedately in front of us, daring us to do over 30. Daring us to pull out and try to overtake so they can turn on the lights and flag us down. Pull over three more niggas, it’ll be fun. Pull us over because we’re not as pale as them, and we don’t listen to House. The new DJ’s pushing in some Hardcore tracks, going to the stack with the old skool Jungle flavour — if you can call two years old.