Concentr8

by William Sutcliffe

  ‘Don’t be such a little bitch,’ he says. ‘Man up.’

  I touch my hot cheek with trembling fingers. My eyes prickle with tears. He grabs my upper arm, marches me back to the radiator and re-knots the rope, tighter than before.

  Before he has even left the room, I’m sobbing.

  DAY THREE

  Now the drug-company-funded Bush government plans comprehensive mental health ‘screening’ for all children including pre-school children, in order to intervene at an early age with kids who are ‘aggressive’ in a shameless attempt to ‘fish for new customers’ for the drug companies.

  Sami Timimi, Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture, quoting J. Lenzer, British Medical Journal 328

  THE MAYOR

  ‘Professor Pyle. Will you take the call?’

  Pyle. What a momentously crap way to start the day. Being pleasant to these functionaries is one of the hardest parts of my job. Normally I’d plead a meeting, but I get a sinking feeling the moment I hear his name. It’s unusual for him to call, especially first thing in the morning. I have a sixth sense for when a fresh turd is about to float into my life, and just the sound of his name gives me a whiff. Something to do with that journalist who was after him.

  I snatch the phone from its cradle. ‘Yes?’ I bark. It’s good to be rude to these people. Keeps them in their place. Reminds them of the hierarchy.

  ‘Hello, Mayor. It’s me. Professor Pyle.’

  ‘I realise that. I have a secretary.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. I was just . . . I have a slight . . .’

  ‘Problem.’

  ‘No. Not a problem. But something has taken place which I thought, perhaps, I should run by you just to check I haven’t spoken out of turn.’

  ‘Oh, what the hell have you said? I told you she just needed to check a few facts. I told you what to say.’

  ‘Yes, but she was very friendly, and . . .’

  ‘She was friendly? Did you honestly just tell me she was friendly? Oh, well that’s all right then. She can’t possibly want to stitch us up and dangle us by the bollocks from Tower Bridge like every other journalist, then, can she? Not if she’s friendly! What the hell did you tell her?’

  ‘Nothing much. I was very careful, for the whole interview. It’s just that we had a little chat off the record at the end, and I may have said the odd thing I shouldn’t. It was bothering me in the night, and I thought I should check with you.’

  ‘Off the record? What do you mean, off the record ?’

  ‘Well, she switched off the recorder thingy, and on the way out we were chatting about this and that. You know. Holidays. I mean, it wasn’t an interview at all. That was all finished.’

  ‘Stop flannelling.’

  ‘Well, she asked me if I saw any connection between the withdrawal of Concentr8 and the riots, and I said I did. I mean, that’s my scientific opinion. So then she asked me if I blame the prime minister, and I kind of had to say yes.’

  ‘You blamed the prime minister?’

  ‘Yes. Sort of.’

  ‘Wonderful! Good work. It’s his bloody fault and everyone should know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course. I can’t say it, but the more everyone else does, the better.’

  ‘So you’re not cross?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re totally wasting my bloody time and I’m supposed to be running one of the biggest cities in the world, which is currently in meltdown, but apart from that I can think of nothing I’d rather be doing than sitting here chatting with you.’

  ‘Er . . . OK.’

  ‘Bye, then. We must do this again soon.’ Sledgehammer sarcasm. My favourite kind.

  ‘Yes, and the stuff about head teachers selecting the children for psychiatric profiling, and how almost everyone selected took up the drug, that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just mentioned it in passing. I mean, I thought everyone knew but she seemed, kind of, strangely interested in it. Which was why I had to remind her that we were off the record.’

  ‘Remind her?’

  ‘Er . . . tell her.’

  ‘You told her that, then afterwards asked her if it could be off the record?’

  ‘Sort of. I mean, the recorder was off.’

  ‘YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT THAT! YOU’RE A SCIENTIST! YOU TALK ABOUT THE SCIENCE. WHAT ON EARTH MADE YOU THINK YOU SHOULD OPEN YOUR GOB ABOUT THAT?’

  ‘We were just chatting.’

  ‘Exactly how thick are you? Do you understand anything? Do you realise how badly you have just fucked up?’

  ‘Er . . . not entirely. No.’

  ‘What the hell was I doing letting you anywhere near a journalist? It’s like giving a seal pup to a shark.’

  ‘That’s actually very insulting. I am a highly respected –’

  ‘If this blows up on us, I’m going to drag you down with me. You understand that?’

  ‘I don’t really know what you mean.’

  ‘Can you imagine what it feels like to drown in a river of shit?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well I think you might be about to find out.’

  I hang up.

  So it’s official. Subnormal intelligence is clearly no longer a bar to becoming a university professor.

  I should have gone into academia. I should have taken the easy path. It’s not as if I’m lacking the modest count of marbles required. I could be eating crumpets in front of an open fire in an Oxford senior common room right now, watching London burn on the telly. Supervise the odd undergrad. Publish a book every five years or so. Vintage port on tap. What could possibly be nicer? Life could have been so easy.

  I’ve always been too ambitious for my own good. I wanted to make the world a better place. Bloody idiotic waste of time. People are ungrateful bastards who hate you for trying to help them. That’s what politics has taught me. In fact, that’s a pretty good working title for my memoirs, right there. People Are Ungrateful Bastards Who Hate You for Trying to Help Them by Hugo Nelson. A sure-fire bestseller. I could use it to launch a post-political career as a de-motivational speaker, travelling the world encouraging people not to work so hard, because it’s all a waste of effort. Trouble is, only corporations could afford me and they don’t want to hear that stuff.

  I’m beginning to sound like a Trot. Pull yourself together, Hugo. Get back on that horse. Fight the good fight. Crumpets and port can wait.

  Stand up, walk out of your office, and make something happen.

  A while ago, my son showed me a truly delicious video on YouTube. It is of a beach somewhere in America on which a whale has washed up, dead. The local police chief decides that the best way to dispose of the problem of the vast, rotting corpse is to blow it up, after which he believes the whale parts will simply wash out to sea. A crowd gathers. The explosives are laid. You can see the excitement on the faces of the crowd, until the explosives detonate, at which point everyone realises this has been a huge mistake. Suddenly, nobody’s having fun. Rotting whale meat rains down. That instantaneous shift from ‘fun day out’ to ‘standing in a hailstorm of putrefying whale intestine’ is genuinely hilarious.

  I indulge myself with this brief circumlocutio as a means of illustrating my situation. At this moment, my career is that whale and Pyle is the police chief. He’s already laid the charge. What I need to do is find a way to defuse those explosives before the rotting carcass of my career is blasted into the sky.

  This metaphor doesn’t make much sense, does it? My calling as a poet never quite got off the ground, probably for good reason.

  I decide to go online and watch the video one more time. It’ll cheer me up. When facing adversity, a positive frame of mind is crucial. A smile is the best starting point for . . . oh, shut up, Hugo, and do something useful.

  Something useful.

  A thing of use.

&
nbsp; An action with a constructive outcome.

  Hmm.

  ‘I was embarrassed by my reading . . . I didn’t feel good about myself. I got no pride in myself. I was angry over every single little thing. It didn’t take a lot to set me off . . . so I think why not bunk school and go and do a bit of thieving? . . . Other people go from school to university. We go from school to prison . . . School shatters your dreams before you get anywhere.’

  Harriet Sergeant, Among The Hoods: Exposing the Truth About Britain’s Gangs

  TROY

  I’m out back through the concertina doors where there’s air. Just a small square of concrete – high walls all round – but look up and there’s sky. Breathe in and it’s fresh or almost. Better than inside anyway. Middle of the day the whole place is so bright the whiteness slaps your eyeballs and the concrete’s mostly too hot to sit on but there’s a corner in the shade so I go there for a bit.

  It’s good to be alone and just think.

  Place like this – probably the closest you get to outdoors when you’re banged up. Even sweltering hot that’s an idea makes me shiver. Ice down my spine.

  Weird how it’s nice to be on your own then your mind goes down a turning and suddenly it ain’t – so I’m glad when Femi comes out sits next to me – but I can tell by the way he walks and the look on his face that he’s edgy – and that even though he’s acting like it’s an accident he’s come to find me on purpose.

  Don’t speak. Just wait for him.

  A’ight? he says.

  I nod but so small it hardly even counts. I know what’s coming and I already ain’t into it.

  He leans in. We got to get out he says. This is craz y man you know a way out?

  Past the feds?

  Yeah.

  Course I don’t. I don’t know where the feds are do I?

  He looks at me – desperate eyes – like he ain’t drunk for days and I’m a Coke.

  You don’t mean past the feds do you? I says. You know that ain’t possible. You talking about going to the feds ain’t you?

  Anything man just anything! It’s like he’s shouting and whispering at the same time.

  I know he’s right. Logical thing is to save yourself – no doubt – just walk out the door and do whatever the feds says – blame it all on the others. That’s what logic says. But there ain’t one drop of my blood that’d let me do that. Not one.

  Why? Cause of Blaze. Femi’s saying lay it all on Blaze – and even if that’s the truth – even if it was all him – that ain’t something I can do.

  The others is scared of him. Not me. That ain’t why I wouldn’t do it. With me and Blaze it’s something different.

  All these years I never actually seen him fight – throw a punch – at least not on one of our own so there’s no reason why he should have a rep or why anyone should be afraid of him. I mean no reason that comes from facts – from something he’s actually done. But nobody wants to be on his bad side.

  I only seen him angry once or twice – maybe with the feds or with his mum – and you don’t want to be on the receiving end of it because it’s like a volcano man the power of it.

  I’m the same but I ain’t got the size or the personality. I don’t know what it is but when I lose it people just look at me like I’m a freak so I have to stay in control always – as much as I can – and it’s hard man I tell you it’s hard with the shit I got to go through. All my life people act like I’m wild or out of control or something but they don’t know nothing about what it’s like – about the effort man the constant effort what I got to do to hold myself in – to keep walking that line. Yeah I’m angry but you would be too – you lived what I lived. Nobody ever said he done well he got through a whole day putting up with everything without once losing his shit nobody ever said that about me – they always just tell me what I done wrong.

  People with cars and houses and jobs and money in their pocket – they don’t know what it’s like they don’t got a clue what it’s like to get through even one day when everyone’s against you and there’s nothing for you except don’t go there – don’t do this – don’t say that – stay out of the way – just shut up and disappear – they don’t got a clue man. They think I’m a freak they think I’m a criminal they think I got no self-control they don’t know nothing. I’m made of self-control man – my blood is self-control – my heart just pumps self-control round my body because if it didn’t I’d be running around killing people. That ain’t a threat or nothing – I ain’t crazy – I’m just saying you try getting on from day to day to day knowing you ain’t never going to have nothing – ain’t no job nowhere with your name on it and never will be. Cradle to grave man you think about it – what do you think that’s like?

  I’m not really into remembering shit – I mean what’s the point – looking back just messes with your head – but there’s some things about Blaze you can’t forget. When we was small we used to cotch at the playground – me Blaze Femi Lee and others sometimes – but mostly us four as a group the same age and everything. Most of it was smashed up and the slide had a hole in it halfway down and the roundabout didn’t go round and everything was covered in graffiti and the ground was a kind of gravelly concrete that some guy invented specially as the best thing to grate skin off knees – but there was at least a climbing frame made of metal – solid man weren’t no way to smash that up. Maybe it’s because when you’re a kid you’re shorter than everyone else – I don’t know – but as soon as there’s something to go up – to make you higher – you just want to do it. So that’s where we was – all weathers – up that climbing frame.

  I was there the most – for obvious reasons with Mum so mashed up all the time – it weren’t safe to be home – you never knew if she’d be happy or out of it or crazy violent or what – I mean from proper small I just knew I was better off somewhere else. Cold rain whatever I’d be on that climbing frame waiting to see who else would show. Maybe they’d take me back to theirs – maybe I’d get fed that way – I tell you I was hungry most of the time crazy hungry – people don’t believe me but it’s true. Apart from me Blaze was there most often. His mum weren’t as bad as mine – she weren’t on anything – but there was a guy and another one after him in and out the flat that weren’t good – and same as me Blaze knew just stay out the way that’s what’s safest.

  I ain’t much protection to nobody I mean I’m small. Probably would have been anyway but the shit Mum gave me to eat when she gave me anything – ain’t hardly surprising I’m little. Anyway what I’m saying is me and Blaze we looked after each other. Even if there ain’t nobody out to fight you – even if there ain’t no actual person threatening you – the difference between being alone and having someone else it’s like another world. It’s same as the difference between empty pockets and having notes.

  Point is them cold days when nobody wants to be out – when that playground’s almost the shittest place in the world – them days it was just me and Blaze. Everyone else home in the warm – me and Blaze was out there – or maybe somewhere else looking for something to do – and I ain’t talking once or twice I’m saying day after day after day – just me and Blaze like brothers man more than brothers – I’m telling you he saved my life and I know I ain’t nothing compared to him but I swear I saved his.

  Blaze found places for us to go – I don’t know how – and he never got lost or if he did he never let on and we always found our way back eventually. He never been scared Blaze – he ain’t scared of nothing – I swear if he’d been born somewhere else – if he’d had a proper family what looked out for him he could have done anything. It’s what sets him apart it’s what makes people follow him it’s like a force a secret weapon or something – he just ain’t afraid – don’t even know what it means – it’s like an energy man just a buzz to be around that and to see where it takes you.

  I ain’t no use in a fight and I ain’t even got much mouth on me – can’t get the right words out when I ne
ed them – but I got a role cause fear’s there for a reason like sweat is and hunger is and pain is. Them things are there to tell you something but it’s a voice Blaze don’t hear so I’m his sensors – like antenna to spot things he don’t see or hear or feel and he always listens to me cause he knows it. Whatever crazy shit is going on – I just got to look at him a certain way and he’ll know what I mean – won’t question me or nothing – he’ll just know it’s time to bail and we do. No question. Bang we gone.

  In school Blaze never took any shit neither at least not from other kids. Even older ones knew he was somebody and left him alone – didn’t have to prove it in a fight or nothing. Teachers were different though. The same thing that protected him in the outside world – that I-ain’t-afraid-of-you stare – made teachers hate him. It was like they could see straight away he didn’t accept the rules – didn’t accept that he was less than them and they could push him about – didn’t accept that he had to respect them just cause they was at the front of the class with posh clothes and posh words and all that. He just weren’t playing that whole game and they didn’t know what to do about it. Man they hated him – he was their worst nightmare and he knew it and he just didn’t care.

  School was a joke anyway – like a cross between a zoo and a prison to keep us off the streets until we was a bit older. From the minute you walked in on the first day you could feel the pointlessness – teachers scurrying around either afraid or psycho angry or just waiting to get home get another job just get away. I remember whole lessons where the teacher would say I’m not starting till you’re quiet – you have to stand up till you’re quiet and we’d just stand there for the whole forty-five minutes with somebody somewhere shouting or acting up or messing around – and the whole lesson would go by just a total waste of time. The only way to make it not a waste of time was to join in the mucking about – at least that was fun.

  Blaze wasn’t the worst – neither was I – we was just bored and there was something about us the teachers hated. When they lost it and they needed someone to blame it was always him or me – don’t know why they just didn’t like the look of us. Ghetto eyes or something I don’t know. We weren’t the worst.