Here lads, says Banny. I reckon I should do this cunt.
Look I sigh, trying to flatten the waver that’s starting up in me voice. I’ve got work to do, me. I’m a lover not a fighter.
Aye. A lover of young boys.
Then all three of these charvers are talking at once.
Give us some tack, bender.
Fucking pikey paedo.
He’s soft as shite, man.
Oh bollards to this, I finally snap. I’ve got work to do, me. I snap the window shutter down and scramble to the front seat.
They bang on the glass with their palms and then they start to rock the van back and forth as I fiddle with the keys in the ignition. In my rear view mirror I can see that one of them has run around the other side and is putting more weight behind the tilt. I put the van into gear, take off the hand-brake and drive off down the crescent as they chase us, hoying stones and rocks at my back window and shouting things I can’t hear. Some smaller kids on bikes join the chase until I turn back out of the estate and lose them somewhere out on the main road, just past the tatty video shop that sells dodgy animal porn – you know, fillums of women noshing off horses and licking pig dick and that.
*
Flashing Lane was where the traders run their horses up and down for buyers, a busy, narrow lane tight with animals, trotting carts and travellers.
Over to one side of Flashing Lane was the main market area where the beer tent was and across the other side of the lane there was nowt but fields. It was here, behind these tall hedgerows where travellers settled their scores and where your Dad did fight this Lee Lerner one with Barker Lovell giving out odds of 2 to 1 on the showman winning the square go. Barker oversaw it all.
“What’s your name son?” he says.
“Lee Lerner.”
“You heard it here folks. Lee ‘The Gorilla’ Lerner” – laughter rang through the tent at this – “will fight Jimmy ‘The Anvil’ Smith in a sporting boxing match, fought the auld way and the fair way: a bare knuckle boxing match between two evenly matched men of the road.”
In the early days Barker and Mac didn’t use his real name in fights. Instead Mac always used the most common travelling name of Smith. It not only protected them from any repercussions with the law, but allowed your Dad to fight as an unknown entity. Barker turned to Lerner again.
“Where are you from, son?”
“Fuck off.”
“There you have it gentlemen: Lee Lerner from Fuck Off will fight Jimmy Smith out of the north-east.”
“He’s no traveller,” sneered Mac. “He’s just a bloody showman. I’ll flatten him like a spatchcock.”
“What’ll you give on the lummox?” said a voice from the crowd as the two men sized each other up.
“Which one?”
There was more laughter from the men at this. The afternoon drinkers were enjoying the spectacle that was unfolding before them. It was what they expected at Appleby. What they came for. Bloodspill was a tradition and they would each take home with them more stories to tell round camp fires and in back room bars.
Barker made to scratch his chin. He weighed Mac up and down and shook his head.
“This man is a game cock, I’ll give him that. I’ve trained him up mesel. But he’s not match-fit and he has broken knuckles from his last tussle. So for that reason – and I’m sorry to have to say this in front of these lads, Jim – I’d have to say 4 to 1.”
“Bollards to that,” said Mac, pre-fight adrenaline coursing through his veins, unaware this was still part of the elaborate set-up. “My knuckles are fine. I’ll put this plastic traveller on his back.”
“You what?” said Lerner, raising his fist.
Looking round conspiratorially, Barker ignored him and pretended he was addressing Mac and Mac only.
“You can’t win if you can’t punch properly, Jim,” he whispered.
“It’s a bluff,” said another voice. “They’re all in on it. The north-east lad looks pretty fit to me.”
“No – I’ve been here all morning,” said someone else. “I saw these boys nearly kick off a minute ago. Proper, like. I don’t know about this broken knuckle stuff but they’re no marrers.”
*
Like I say, I’ve met this Banny before. Not him, but plenty like him.
There was hods of them inside. Shitehawks. All mouth and nee trousers, and always with an entourage of brown-nosing little cling-ons. Get them on their own though and they whimper like drowning kittens.
Mind, I remember one time not long after I first went in. I was fifteen and frightened to bloody fug what with all them newspapers stories alerting all the lads inside to the tale about the wild gypsy kid.
There I was five foot-nowt-much in my stocking feet, skin the colour of someone from the soil. A carnival curiosity.
The first day in the dorm they laughed at us. They took the piss for hours, talking shite about eating hedgehogs and selling sprigs of heather and that, and they pointed at us.
That is the pikey we read about?
I’ve shat bigger jobbies than that kid.
Look at the fucking lugs on him!
It only took a couple of days before some git big lump with plenty of bum-lickers backing him up tried to take it further. Tried to show us up and break us down, like.
A big wide lad by the name of Mackem who was thick as pig shit and twice as smelly. His trousers were always hanging round his arse; he was just another Cat A twat getting by on swagger, strength and psychosis.
But I knew he was too big to be quick and too stupid to expect the unexpected.
First this Mackem lad done a shite on my mattress and even telt us he done it, the daft knacker.
I just done a shit on your bed, he said, just like that. Like he was remarking on the weather or summat: the sun’s out but there’s talk of rain later. I just done a shit on your bed.
I telt him I wanted nee trouble and did nowt about it. Just made a glove out of bog roll and scooped it up and hoyed it down the shitter, sprayed the mattress with deodorant and then went down to ask the man for a new sheet.
It was hard to get that type of stink out though. It seeped into me sleep, the bastard.
Then the next morning when I was having a shower he nicked all me clothes – every single stitch. Strides, kecks, shirt – the lot. Me shoes an all. So I had to gan back to the stores in the nud, shivering and freezing and cupping my junk, everyone laughing and trying to grab us down there and jabbing us up the scut with their thumbs, and even the screws just stood there laughing and shaking their heads. And Mackem’s stood laughing an all, and everyone’s patting him on the back because they’re all a bunch of greasy bum-lickers who are just glad it’s me whose bed he’s shit on and my clothes he’s nicked, and not theirs.
Still I did nowt. A day or two later, at breakfast, Mackem comes over and hockles in me corn flakes. He just leant ower and done a git big rubbery greener. Some bad boy you are, he sneers at us. Fucking dirty little pikey.
And still I did nowt. Instead I spooned it off on to the floor and carried on eating those corn flakes it hadn’t touched while the other lads looked on, howling in disgust.
Look at him – he’s fucking eating it an all!
And I waited.
I waited until we were watching telly one night in the rec room, and everyone was all relaxed and sitting around smoking and joking and scratting their balls, and that was when I made my move.
One minute I was sat there staring at the back of this bullying bastard’s over-sized noggin and the ripples of fat where his skull met his neck, the next I pounced on him from behind.
He was sat with his feet up on the chair in front of him and his hands down his kecks when I made me move. It was a dirty suckerpunch move, and I wasn’t proud of it, but then so is shitting on a bed or picking on someone who just wants to get their head down. And that’s one thing me Dad taught us: there’s nee rules in fighting. Why would there be? Games have rules. Fighting’s nee game.<
br />
So I grabbed the big ugly lump by his lugs and bit into his fat hacky neck, right where the vein pumps bluest. Summat must have come ower us because I went at it like a terrier, shaking me head and tightening my teeth and growling. I was proper riled. I bit in and I didn’t let go.
Mackem’s neck tasted warm and bitter and metallic, though no worse than the liver an onions they served us every bloody week. I loosened for a second then went at him again, nearly dislocating me bloody jaw. There was a crunching sound and me teeth nearly met in the middle and I must have hit some veins or summat because the blood started pouring out of his neck. Human flesh doesn’t tear easily. It’s noisy stuff.
And this git big bully boy of the wing who must have had four stone and a good foot in height on us started yelling and screaming like a girl. Proper mewling, like a right mimsie. I’d have laughed if I’d not had me mouth full.
That was when some of his boys got to giving us some kicks and digs to get us off him, but I was blind to the pain, and then some of the other lads who weren’t too keen on Mackem and his lot starting punching them off to let us have our dirty go in peace.
There was quite a scrap going on around us at this point, it wouldn’t be long before the screws turned up but I paid it no mind. I was lost in terrier mode. Everything but this bully’s neck was invisible to us.
When I finally unclamped me teeth and stepped back a circle had opened up where the chairs had been and Mackem was in the middle of it, thrashing about on the floor like a right dick, his eyes rolling and his mouth gaping like a big bloody goldfish that had leapt out of its bowl. Gasping like a bloody gimlet he was. Blood everywhere. Then he started retching and gagging and grabbing his flapping neck and I just leaned ower him and said dead quietly, I telt you I wanted nee trouble.
There was blood all round me mouth and chin and a bit of it down the front of me trackie top an all and I must have had a bit of a mad look in me eyes because when I turned round and saw the look on the lads’ faces they’d stopped fighting each other and they all sort of breathed in at the same time and said nowt except the odd fucking hell and Jesus Christ he’s proper mashed the cunt, and they all gave us a wide berth when I passed them to go to the bogs to get me mesel cleaned up and straightened out.
The whole thing only lasted a few seconds. Five, mebbe. Ten at most. That’s all it took. Ten seconds from him laughing and watching telly and turning his eggs, to having his life changed in such a way that he’d think twice about picking on someone next time. Ten seconds to earn us five year’s peace from the lot of them.
Mind, Mackem lost some blood that day. He had a load of them butterfly stitches put in his dirty stinking neck and had a good scar to show for it an all, so it wasn’t all bad for him.
And that was that.
He never came back at us because he knew he’d have to kill us. I’d shown him what kind kind of a lad I was. A little bloody terrier, just like our Coughdrop.
Because it’s not about size or strength or numbers when it comes to dealing with people like Mackem. It’s about having enough about yoursel to say, Na, I’m not having this. No bloody way.
*
Part II
The Green Cathedral
I’m four weeks out.
Four weeks out and it’s early in the morning of me first day off in ower a week and I’m sat drinking a brew and thumbing through me tatty copy of Robinson Crusoe. I’m up to the bit where’s he’s just met his man Friday and he’s not alone in the world no more, and mebbes it’s all going to be alreet, but even then, after everything he’s just been through, all the coconuts and worry and that, he still cannot help himself and he starts getting all up his own arse, saying he’s going to ‘civilise’ Friday and this and that. You can see that he’s pissing away his own paradise by being a proper numpty just like everyone does in the end, and I’m scratching little Coughdrop’s pink hairless belly and thinking if I find paradise I’ll not piss it away, when there’s a banging on my front door.
I’ve not had a visitor before; there’s been nee-one that’s ever wanted to come see us. So I jump a bit in my chair and so does Coughdrop and he starts yapping and I slop a bit of hot milky tea on me crotch and it stings like all hell, and me heart is thumping in my chest like a bloody jackhammer.
I feel like Robinson bloody Crusoe when he sees the ship that first time. All bloody nervy and confused at the thought of another human coming into his waters, like. Coming on to that island of his. Invading his quiet little corner.
I hold Coughdrop to me chest and put me hand ower his mouth and as I do he gives us a little nip with his puppy teeth. Sharp, they are. Like little needles.
I quietly lean back in my chair to get a gleg down the hall corridor. I can see there’s a face pressed up against the frosted glass of the front door. Whoever it is has his hands cupped around his eyes and his nose is squashed flat. He looks proper ugly, like one of those old-fashioned bank robbers that used to wear lasses’ stockins on their head, and when the face moves away from the glass his sneck leaves a greasy print on the glass, the hacky twat.
John-John-lad, says the voice. You in there?
It’s Arty. Bloody Arty Vicari. Banging away.
I gan and answer the door.
Before I can even get a word in, Arty says you need to get yersel a phone lad, and he walks right past us and into the hallway like he owns the place or summat, nee invite or nowt, and that irks us, because everyone knows you don’t just walk into someone else’s place, whether it’s their bloody caravan, their bloody cell or their pokey little bloody probation dive. You ask first. Or better still, you wait to be invited. Any good travelling man knows that.
And you offer to take your bloody shoes off an all.
There’s nee socket for a phone I say, not feeling much like blethering to the big man today. It’s too early and I’m still on that island with Crusoe and his goats.
And anyroad you barely pay us enough to buy me tins of chilli and me razors and baccy, I feel like adding. Never mind bloody phone bills.
Arty clicks his fingers in front of us.
Well get yersel a mobile then. Howay man, it’s the twenty-first century in a couple of months. You’ve got to get with the times, kidder.
I shrug.
I’m not arsed me, Arty.
But half the world’s got a phone these days, John-John man. You need to get upwardly mobile. Join the human race.
Fug that, I think. I tried it and look where it got us.
Half the world’s got haemorrhoids Arty, I say, but I’m in nee hurry to join them.
Shaking his head and frowning, Arty walks into the living room. I put Coughdrop down and he runs up to him and starts yapping and scratching at his shins.
Who’s this then?
It’s Coughdrop.
Is he yours?
Aye.
I love dogs, me. And they love us right back.
Arty bends down to pat the pup and little Coughdrop bites him on the hand.
Ow – yer little bastard.
I start laughing. Good lad Coughdrop, I say. Good lad.
So this is your place then? He looks around the room.
Obviously.
Bit pokey isn’t it. Where’s all your stuff? It looks like you’ve been robbed
What stuff?
You know – your bits.
What bloody bits?
Possessions and that. Your things.
I look at me feet, then I say, Well, I divvent have owt else.
Hmm, says Arty. And what about furniture?
I point to me armchair. It’s there.
‘Kin hell. It’s a bit minimalist isn’t it?
It’s how I like it.
Arty shakes his head then jerks his thumb back behind him. Is my van alreet out there?
How should I know.
Bit rough round here innit.
I shrug. Aye, mebbes. I’m not stopping long though. The probation’s got us here so’s they can keep tabs on us.
I’ve got nee choice in the matter.
Arty takes out a cigarette and sparks it up. He seems to be in nee hurry to say owt, so I decide to get things rolling. I want to get back to me book and me tea.
So, I say. Um. What’s happening? It’s me day off.
Well I would have just rung you if you had a bloody phone, Arty says taking a big draw on his Benson. Half an hour it took us to drive ower here. Or I could have just emailed you.
Aye, well. Like I said – nee phone.
You divvent need a phone to get emails you daft knacker. It comes on your computer doesn’t it.
Oh aye I forgot, I say, though I reckon Arty’s just trying to humiliate us now.
Christ. Do they learn you nowt inside?
I have to give this one some thought. While I do I pass the ashtray to Arty.
What, I say. Like how to speak proper, like you?
Eh, he says oblivious, then: Do they not give you computers and that?
Na. We had a snooker table though. You should ask your Tony about all that.
Bloody hell. A snooker table. Nee wonder you’re all straight back at it when they let you out.
Not me.
Aye, well, mebbes, says Arty in a way that pisses me right off. Like he doesn’t believe I’m serious, Like he thinks I’m just some robbing junkie like his son.
Then he goes, Well, either way, get yersel a phone or a computer or summat so next time I divvent have to haul me arse out of bed and ride halfway across the county just to come to ask if you can work today.
Work?
Aye.
Today?
Yes. Down at the fair.
Which fair?
The fair down the race course in town. The one that’s on every single year. The one they’ve been setting up down there all week.
I shrug.
Bloody hell Wisdom, get with it man.
Arty clicks his fingers in front of me face again and I’m thinking do that one more time and I’ll bloody bite it off and feed it to our Coughdrop with his Winalot. Cheeky get. I thought Arty was alreet but now he’s just getting on me tits, lording it ower us and that.
Pig Iron Page 12