by John King
Generations of British kids grew up admiring American culture. This started with Hollywood and grew through a shared musical tradition. Rock ’n’ roll was the basis of a range of youth cults, and the rebel flag meant nothing more to us than Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Rhythm and blues and doo-wop played across Technicolor images of drive-in cinemas and hot-rod burn-ups. America was the land of plenty, but it had a fantastical edge. In West London, young men saved hard and bought their classic automobiles from the US air base in Ruislip, customising and showing them off at the Chelsea Cruise, next to the River Thames. When the film American Graffiti was released, local myth claimed that several of their cars were included. There was an American dream, and it had an energy and freedom we lacked.
In literature, we would find this same vibrancy in the novels of John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory, the journalism of Hunter S Thompson and the prose of Charles Bukowski, John and Dan Fante, Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit To Brooklyn. Jack Kerouac’s work was more stylised, but On The Road hit a nerve for anyone who watched the motorway traffic and wondered where the cars were heading. The reality is that the same energy that built America and gave it the positivity to create crushed many millions along the way. Some say that matching that dynamism with a caring society will never happen, but in post-war Britain it seemed possible.
In 1988, I spent five weeks crossing the States in a $300 car with two friends. We drove from New York through the northern states to Chicago, before heading south into Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, finally stopping for five days in New Orleans. We then continued towards California, breaking down for the third time in the New Mexico desert. It was late at night and, in the morning, twenty minutes after we started hitchhiking, a trucker from North Carolina stopped and offered us a ride to the West Coast. He was the original Good Old Boy, a Vietnam veteran, and had a helper who did the loading and unloading, told us he was descended from Charlie Bowdre even before we said we had seen Bowdre’s grave next to his pal Billy The Kid a day earlier. From one side of America to the other, we were treated with nothing by kindness.
The characters in this novel have seen and done many things, and each has a touch of the outlaw about them. The wider world exists inside their minds, and even when the body fails and a person can barely move, these experiences can pass to those willing to keep the lessons alive. This is the spiritual superman. Of course, not everyone agrees, and it only takes one bully to act out the hints of politicians. Wannabe dictators come in different masks, but all of them want to play at being god, believe they are superior to the ignorant masses, and while White Trash is the title of this book, the reality is that there is no such thing.
John King
London, 2016
THE MAN IN the white coat comes when good girls are tucked up in bed dreaming of talking dolls, the bell tinkling once, ever so quick, so the sound slides away and it seems like the fairies who live by the garages are giggling, in the dark, the ring of a bottle breaking outside a pub, far far away, and it’s safe in bed, warm and snug, this man in the white coat clicking the door shut, tiptoeing into the living room where Ben is stretched out on the couch with his great big head resting on Mum’s lap, dozing and dreaming and chasing rabbits through sunny green fields, fluffy bunnies he’s never seen and couldn’t catch even if he wanted to, because, you see, Ben’s not a puppy any more, he’s all grown up and lived out, tired after his last walk, the joints in his knees swollen, cancer eating into his belly, dumplings under grey-specked fur that used to shine it was so black, he’s always been a beautiful boy, and very friendly, even now he moves his tail in half a wag, for the stranger, Ben doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, and he loves his walks, the fresh air and chance to have a sniff, a wee and a poo, he loves the summer, laying in the sun, and today he just about made it out, his body swaying, crying gently, to himself, limping, he wanted his walk same as when he was a puppy, it’s his body that’s the problem, his age, but now he’s tired out and stays on the couch, smiling, just smiling.
BEN ONLY REALLY sees shapes, eyes misty and cataracts taking him back to when he was newborn and trying to work out what the outlines held, that’s what Mum says anyway, Ben’s puppy face stuck in photo frames around the room, rubber nose twitching as he sniffs the man, a mixture of aftershave and antiseptic, Ruby bets it’s strawberry flavour, sitting at the top of the stairs out of sight, Mum’s read her a story and told her to sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, stroked her eyes and hair, and usually she’s a good little girl but tonight she can’t sleep, Mum’s eyes red, like she’s been crying, so Ruby’s peeking through the banisters, Mum’s long fingers stroking Ben’s head, moving over his lids, ever so gentle, the sound of her voice whispering, a good boy, a beautiful boy, Ben’s eyes shut again, sighing deep down in his chest, in his heart, happy, so happy he doesn’t have to move, it doesn’t hurt when he keeps still, the warm of the electric fire and the touch of Mum’s hand all he needs, Ruby looking towards the man in the funny white coat who’s talking in a quiet voice so she can’t hear what he’s saying, his hair combed to one side, a tie around his neck, he’s leaning forward and touching Ben, Ruby can’t see any of Ben’s toys handy, no bouncy ball or plastic bone, doesn’t know what she’s seeing really, she’s only a kid.
POLICE CARS STEAM down the hard shoulder blue lights flashing epileptic fits tyres screaming as they brake and unload, Ruby counting three cars with two vans right behind, numbers on the roofs for their chopper copper mates, riot mesh pulled down over the windows, asylum sirens screaming drowned puppies, floppy dog corpses, giant body-armour men swinging truncheons as they run along the side of the motorway, handcuffs snapping, their fuck-fuck-fuck language mixing with the drone of engines, three boys climbing the embankment, mechanised Old Bill too heavy and slow to catch these scruffy skin-and-bone herberts churning up rocks and gravel as they scramble to safety, parched earth crumbling, the first two boys reaching the ridge and running into the brambles, the last one stopping and turning towards the flashing lights and robocops struggling in the dirt at the bottom of the embankment, electric rozzers weighed down with toys, the boy raising two fingers in a fuck-off V-sign, grinning inside a death-head skull, red skin peeling burnt under a heatwave sun, hair sliced to the bone, counting stitches and feeling scar tissue, a nurse’s fingers tracing the line, easing the pain, and he picks up a bottle, glass catching thousands of glittering cars, lorries, vans, coaches, lobbing it at the police before he follows his friends through the brambles, out of sight of the police now, laughing as he picks a track through ripe fruit nobody comes to pick, oozing black juice against his legs, rotting, fermenting, leftover rubble and masonry nails rusted down turning to dust, flowers on the rougher land behind, pricks of yellow, red, blue.
THE FLASHING SILVER blades of a police helicopter cut across the sky, chopper coppers linked to millions of television sets, the light turning blue to grey, smeared orange and purple razor nicks, thermal technology targeting three fleeing suspects, and the pilot has a brilliant view of the town, motorway ticking red-white-red-white, the spread of houses and factories same as a plastic model, the place ready to explode along the power grids, industrial ley lines melting down as the sun scorches the earth and the reservoirs boil and sink, slow columns of steel and rubber oozing past concrete blocks, slate terraces fanning out from the train track, car parks and gas tanks, patches of asphalt and prefab factories, a wood to the east, patches of yellow where the fields have died, a square of caravans, local roads and the hum of computers, chemical visions and exhaust hallucinations, non-stop tunes, sweating truck drivers loaded down with electrical goods and live exports, ticking indicators and smoking pipes, choking pigs, the motorway a road to somewhere else, the pressure and heat helping to raise top-quality skunk for hooligan farmers who’ve created a tropical paradise off the hard shoulder, a little bit of heaven where hemp-hungry peasants sow their seed and tend the soil, working the
land and loving the earth, the perfect factory farming, concrete cows in a concrete paradise, the black-tarmac snake of the motorway passing through dreamland.
BECAUSE THIS IS the worker’s dream, make no mistake.
THE MAN IN the white coat has perfect manners and a sympathetic tone, a black bag by his side, crouching down next to the couch, Ben opening his eyes, nose sniffing, mind floating, catching ghosts, lip pulling back and showing fangs, the man’s hand on a sore paw, and Ruby wonders what he wants, who he is, running her palm over the legs of her pyjamas, pretends they’re made of silk like that princess in the film, and the man is friendly to Mum, maybe he’s a doctor, and he opens his bag and takes out a small pair of scissors, that’s it, he’s come to give Ben a haircut, that’s going to be funny, she’s never seen a dog have a haircut before, he’s a hairdresser, they wear white coats and use scissors, she wonders if he’s got a comb as well, or if he’ll use Ben’s brush, the one with two sides, he loves being brushed, and the man strokes Ben’s leg again, keeping away from the paws, nails long, too long, he won’t let anyone near them, Mum tells the hairdresser to be careful, and he nods, smiles, smooths the fur on Ben’s leg, and Ruby imagines the feeling, his fur soft and smooth, and people and animals have skeletons inside them, lots of bones that join together and hold the skin up otherwise it would fall down, and for some reason she thinks of a skull grinning, glad the hairdresser is gentle with Ben.
THE POLICE GIVE UP trying to climb the bank and hurry back to their machines, stand at the doors brushing earth from their armour, the ridge empty, one man talking into a radio, looking around, shaking his head as he says something to the controller, sun dipping further down, it’ll be dark soon, and he shakes his head some more, listening, another police van roaring in from the opposite direction, cutting through a gap in the central reservation, traffic slowing, picking up speed, blue lights flickering, it’s a great sight, small balls of electricity casting shadows, and Ruby can see it all from where she’s sitting near the top of the opposite bank, the boys have reached their car, a rusty Ford parked by a stack of breeze blocks, the last boy catching up with the others, suddenly injected with adrenalin, turning and looking towards her, and Ruby feels air smack into her face as the chopper sinks down, waves off the blades flattening the straw in front, the thumping rhythm of its massive scythes building a long track over the hum of the motorway, radio messages confused, and for a second or two she loves the feel of the air on her skin, finally realises what’s happening.
THESE CHOPPER COPPERS are zeroing in on Ruby, everything else forgotten now as thermal-imaging equipment picks up the nearest shape, sitting by the embankment leaning against a tree, and the turbulence rattles the branches so hundreds of crisp leaves snow down on her, she looks up at the chopper and sees the lights, the sleek body, the blur of the blades coming to chop off her head, and she’s all grown up and full of life, but minding her own business, sitting at the top of the stairs, sitting on the embankment watching the cars pass through, wondering who’s driving them and where they’re going, loving the smell of burnt petrol, and sometimes she comes early Sunday morning, when the road’s empty, imagines the world has no people in it, the tarmac so powerful when it’s empty, these things stand out when you’re high up, in the clouds, and she’s just sitting in the background, doesn’t have a bad bone in her body, wrinkles her nose and sniffs the leaves, picks one up and holds it to the fading light, sees parched human skin and thin veins, a crinkly feeling of age, the chopper edging down, Ruby stuck on the lines of the leaf, imagines the pilot talking to his controller who passes the information on, something lost in the system, and Ruby doesn’t have a face now, no name, no number, just the heat of her body, she’s sexless, hardly human, more threatening than a photofit, the police on the road looking towards her, the man with the radio pointing a finger.
THE POLICE RAISE their truncheons, excited, one of them stepping forward to hold up the traffic, the rest beginning to cross the motor-way, and Ruby knows there’s a path cut into the embankment on her side, that the footbridge means they think she’s one of the skunk farmers who’s snuck back over the motorway, and they’re obeying orders, they’ll be here soon, huge men stuck in the central reservation now, a van moving to block the road, and she’s laughing, they don’t know what they’re doing, wonders why they’re wasting time on these boys anyway, and she’s on her own, just sitting against a tree having a smoke, relaxing, something a bit stronger in her pocket, and the police are over the last lane now, angry and hot inside their uniforms, bitter pills to swallow, the town simmering, tension in the air specially after last week’s riot, and she was one of the people who had to clean up the mess, the Old Bill were caned, everybody knows that, knows it was their own fault as well, there’s too many kids out and about for them to take liberties like that, and anyone will do right now, she’s no fool, has to sort things out, stands up and takes a deep breath, the chopper sinking lower, a spotlight bursting out, the voice of authority through a speaker.
AND SHE’S OFF.
RUNNING IN THE opposite direction to the boys in the Ford, and she hopes they’ll get away but doesn’t want to be the diversion, she’s only up here for the cars and the sunset, relaxing, chilling out, and the Ford’s cranking up and puffing dust as she heads across the empty ground that separates the nearest houses from the motorway, hoping she doesn’t cut her ankles on broken glass, rubbish and plants heaped together, a long wooden fence ahead of her marking the boundary, where the houses begin and the empty land ends, she always wonders why the council doesn’t do something with it, turn it into a garden or something, allotments, maybe it’s because it lines the motorway, and she can feel the chopper locking in on her, the sound of its engine pushed back by her breathing, the beat of her heart, and she’s trying to think where to go, watching her step best she can, a minefield of nails and broken glass, the long splinters of cracked planks, swerving right and speeding towards a hole in the fence.
RUBY SEES HERSELF on the police monitor, she’s been in these helicopters before, on the telly, the LAPD chasing gang bangers along burning freeways and into a McDonald’s parking lot, the producers mixing hip-hop effects in with the voice of a controller, Los Angeles police chasing kids through the streets of England, the long old urban sprawl of the provinces, vans unloading outside McDonald’s, the same tunes, new computer sound effects, and she knows she’s a blur on the silver screen, a white spirit crashing through the fence and disappearing behind the point of a terrace, walls and roofs protecting her, coming back into view, a thermal image on a game show, presenter serious about the threat posed to society by these running shapes, speed freaks racing cars through new model estates, banging into walls and bailing out, off across football pitches as the monitor shows police arriving, more shapes joining in, and Ruby knows she has to merge with other spirits, knows where she’s going now, the mass of houses will give her time to work out the best way, they’ve spent money getting the chopper up and will be looking for a result, it’s not fair but she has to treat it like a game, harmless fun, she’s been on her feet all day, had a smoke, she’s tired and doesn’t fancy running for fifteen minutes.
BUT THE MACHINE has seen her acting suspicious, sitting on wasteland, there’s no pubs or takeaways, no flower beds or climbing frames, only tramps and kids up to no good hang around there, people walking dogs, and boys wee through the railings when they see a Porsche or Mercedes, politicians call it the hooliganism of envy, but Ruby knows it’s just kids being kids, it could be stones and bricks, that’s dangerous and happens sometimes, and even though she’s done nothing wrong they’ll arrest her, no doubt about it, but the chopper has to pull back up and hover, trying to see where she’s heading, the police will be back in their vans now, following directions, aiming to cut her off, and she stops to look at the chopper, the controller is busy, she’s a target all right, the system on full alert, there’s nobody to talk to, no chance to explain, there’s alleyways and short cuts, she doe
sn’t need the bother, has people to meet, everything out of control suddenly, she has to be with people, on her own she’s dead.
RUBY JOGS NOW, running full pelt is only going to make people stop and stare, she passes along the street, turns right, keeps going, television stars floating out of open windows, around the corner and past an overgrown verge, she hears the wolf whistle of a boy sitting on a burnt-out car with his friends, brothers by the look of two of them, a hundred shades of black, torched Ford textures, and she knows the helicopter won’t dip low here, the pilot has to remember the guidelines and stay sensitive to the needs of the community, can’t risk hitting a house, stirring people up, trouble spreads, copycat riots they call them, kids with red peeling skin and nothing better to do than sit on dead cars sipping fizzy drinks, small boys playing football, bare-chested so she can see ribs sticking out, a couple of girls stroking a cat, the purr of the chopper, heads snapping back, she knows he wants to dip right down and buzz her, make her scared, the pilot wants to have some fun but has to stay in the background, directing the troops.
RUBY IS QUIET as a mouse looking at Ben’s left leg sticking out over the edge of the couch, the hairdresser snipping at the fur, a small patch of grey skin showing through, and Ben’s lips slide back again, he doesn’t want his fur cut, it should be his head, but then he’d look silly having more hair on his body, somehow things don’t seem right to Ruby, he’s a good boy, loves everyone and everything, in love with life, even tries to play with the cat next door sniffing at her till she pats him on the nose and he runs off, and he smells Ruby when she’s been stroking the cat, interested, and when Ben sees another dog he bounces forward to say hello, he’s only ever had a fight twice, both times with boy dogs his own age, they started it as well, and Ruby is standing in the road somewhere, laughing, pointing, asking Mum if cats and dogs speak the same language, his ears are big and flop around, Mum calls him a cartoon dog, too friendly by half, he wouldn’t be much good if burglars came knocking with a chewy, but when those other dogs attacked him he had a go back, then wagged his tail after, no hard feelings, he’s just defending himself, sees the good in everyone, the same as Ruby, that’s what people say about her, they’ve always said that about Ruby, that she’s kind-hearted.