by Danny Hogan
On the long walk to town he rabitted on about all kinds of strange bollocks as his kids amused themselves. My mind was elsewhere so I just nodded at opportune moments.
To my horror, that idiot Amos had chosen a café in West Street to have this damned coffee. For those who don’t know West Street is like a strip of hell holes and mug shops, that on Saturday nights would often feature scenes of forty year old men in Ben Sherman shirts doing the cancan with traffic cones on their heads, desperately trying to pull fifteen-year old paralytic girls wearing not much more than belts. It’s so bad they made a whole TV series up about this place.
The café, was one of those family places, mint green façade with a small shitty terrace. Inside it looked like it could be someone’s front room. The floral linoleum tablecloths were always a treat for the senses and it was rarely ever full. I nodded at a couple of burlesque dancers I knew from my jive lessons who were having tea and these big creamy cakes that were all designed to look like bleeding roses, lilacs and posies, if you can believe that. I felt a little gutted that Eloise was not there, but I caught myself. Ava apart, she was my mate’s kid for God’s sake. Amos got me a coffee – with all that frothy nonsense instead of proper milk – and I sat down at one of the tables, exchanging pleasantries with the dancers.
I notice Amos handing over a couple of notes and the shopkeep shaking his head. Amos looked apologetic…no, embarrassed or something like that and made his way to the door.
‘They haven’t got any change,’ Amos said as he puts his hand to the door, ‘I’m just going over the road to break into this twenty quid.’
I thought nothing of it, but then I look out the window, my eyes following Amos as he awkwardly negotiates the traffic on West Street, see were he’s headed. A chip shop.
The chip shop in questions is peopled by skinny twats with ill-fitting clothes. I recognised them instantly, as that Smiley prick at the lead and at the rear, rat face with the Elaine tattoo.
My heart sank.
Smiley looks at Amos – faffing around and looking fearful as he narrowly avoids getting tapped by a silver Merc – and laughs and says something to the others.
They start getting noisy at the counter, and I feel weak again. All of a sudden I don’t want trouble. After all that winding myself up my bloody guts go. I take a sip of my coffee, but I don’t taste anything. Perhaps they won’t do anything, I kid myself.
Amos’s kids walk over to the window, one holding the other’s hand. God knows what age they are, I ain’t good with kids. The bigger one’s a girl and little’uns a fella. I know that much.
I see Amos has made it across the road and he’s entered the chip shop. He’s about to hand his score over to the chippie to get it changed when he appears to realise the lads are taking the piss out of him. I’ll be honest I feel fear as I know that peaceful man too well. He points to one of the lads’ mobile phones which is resting on the counter. I feel myself physically shrink as, although I can’t hear what he’s saying, I know full well what it is. He’s going on about how government agents are listening to all our conversations through our phones, even when they’re turned off. He’s making a bloody effort to break the atmosphere with what he deems to be interesting and informative “factoids” as he calls them. ‘Look it up on www.what-the-fuck-ever .com’ he’s probably saying now.
Some of them burst out laughing, others looked angry and fucking mean. I looked at Amos’s kids and they look worried, all quiet as they are. I looked over at the situation and then one of them hits Amos hard.
9
I sit there looking down at that frothy coffee, feeling pathetic. I summon enough courage to look up, but not enough to look at the chip shop. Instead I focus on a vagrant who is sat in the street a little way up from the chip shop, holding a guitar and looking at me like I’m shit. Like I’m lower than he is. Maybe he’s right.
Amos hadn’t done anything. He had just wanted to take his kids out for tea and cakes and not have to contend with a bunch of wankers acting up and infringing on his little life like that. It reminded me of my last night with Ava.
I could hear one of the lads shouting: ‘You like that you fucking coon?!’
I knew that, before long, someone will draw a blade and it’ll all be over.
I thought about Ava, and looked into my coffee wishing the world was a different place.
I knew poor old Amos would be there on the floor wondering what the fuck just happened and probably pleading by now, but I didn’t dare look. I was weak. Finished. I thought about Ava. My heart felt like it was broke in two. I couldn’t remember what her face looked like any more.
How long passed after that I don’t know. I felt totally numb and empty. Could have been hours but was more like seconds. And then as if I was drowning but had managed to break the surface and was gulping for air, there was an explosion in me.
Those bastards! Those fucking bastards! I wasn’t aware of shouting or even voicing that but I was slightly aware that I had drawn the attention away from what was happening in the chip shop onto me. One of the burlesque dancers says something to me but I don’t hear it.
I began feeling very hot and my breathing intensified. My mind is a jumble but then, all of a sudden my thoughts get very focused. I think past Ava to many years ago. Standing outside HMP Dartmoor when it was still a Cat A prison. I had reduced yet another man to a vegetable on the cobbles. I remembered something about secret filming.
My mind went back to my darkest moment. I don’t know if it was years before or years after. Everything has been a jumble for so long the clarity was blinding. A leering judge offering me an alternative to prison and like an idiot I jumped at it. There has not been a day that has passed that I hadn’t wanted to go back in time. I would have leapt into the prison van and tipped the driver.
The next memories are a tent full of gas that burns my skin and makes me feel like I’m breathing fire, tied up in freezing water and the feeling that my heart is going to give out, syringes that look more like something you ice cakes with. ‘Vitamins,’ they said.
Not even now could I allow myself to dwell on that for long. Never. So I was back there in the café, full of a rage and hatred that was forcing its way out of me. I felt myself grow. I felt like a fucking great big angry giant. The whole world around me seemed to convulse with rage. I swear I even saw the surface of the froth of my coffee undulate rhythmically.
Amos hadn’t done nothing, he was just trying to get change for his fucking coffees. Ava hadn’t done nothing neither, nor that young couple. But these fucks think they can go about and fuck up people’s lives without no reprisals? The rage, earth shaking rage, took hold of me. The last thing I remember before storming into the chip shop was looking at Amos’s two kids who were snivelling and clinging to each other.
I was vaguely aware that cars were screeching to halt around me as I stormed across the road. My focus was on the chip shop. I could see Amos on the floor covering his head and that twat with the tattoo hovering above him with a blade, squawking threats. There were six of them in total and that included Smiley and the tattooed cunt.
They see me and they’re all smiling. Getting boisterous and calling me a hero. They think they can win easy. They ain’t going to.
First off, I launched myself right into the middle of ’em. They were still confident but a little part of them must’ve been thinking I’m a nutter, judging by the looks on their faces. A little part of them is right, but that’s not the issue here, see.
Look for the biggest, best weapon you can find. Like a wall. That’s a lesson that has served me well over the years.
I sidestep the one right in front, as he telephoned a right-hander at me. As I did so I grabbed his right shoulder with both hands and threw him at the wall, which he bounces off marvellously. I then punched the geezer to the left, who I wasn’t even looking at – though I could see in my periphery – smack in the centre of his face. Just between his nose and his top lip. Now I say punched, but
you have to understand, it was a good’un. You could tell he had never been hit properly before by the way he folded up like a deck chair. The geezer to my right who I wasn’t looking at either had time to act and was coming at me, but he reckoned I didn’t seen him. Quick as flash I fell back just enough to avoid him, and then help him on his way by grabbing the back of his head – his weight was in my favour, see – and I brung my knee up to meet his face, with all the mustard in me, at the same time I’m pulling his head down. There’s a lovely cracking sound and he literally flew backwards, spewing claret all over the gaff.
One of the fuckwits pulled a blade. That’s not nice, that ain’t, I was unarmed.
That left him, Smiley and that tattooed bastard. They’re looking awful shaky and so they should.
What I did to their three boys was horseplay, mucking about, nothing serious. It was about to get fucking personal. Playtime was over.
10
Although he looked worried that fucking Smiley cunt was still grinning, and that had my adrenalin pumping like a fucking volcano. I did not give a fuck if this geezer was the brains or the coffee boy in Spindle’s organisation; he was going to fucking get it.
The pillock with the knife lunges at me, I’d be lying if I told you he didn’t nearly get me. I was doing well, but age was starting to slow me down. I was struggling to catch me breath and getting a little shivery. I was running near to empty, how long that I was going to last... I weren’t sure.
The bloke with the knife lunges again, but waking up I block it and return with a strike to his throat. Ho ho, his face was a picture as he dropped the knife, brought his hands to his neck and gasped for air.
There’s a whack and everything went black for a second. I spin around and guessed that Smiley had hit me with something the way he grinned and held himself. The tattooed prick is closing in as well. Yet again they think they’re winning this one. No.
I boot Smiley in the bollocks, an old chestnut but effective, and he collapsed to the floor wheezing. Tattoo, I want to save until last so I belt him – and I mean belt him – in his face. He hits the deck cold. That’ll keep him busy until I’m ready for him. The one who had the knife is holding himself up against the chip shop counter, still clutching his throat and trying to breathe, looking all sorry for himself and apologetic. Fuck it. I give him a thump in the ribs and send him headlong over the counter and face first into the boiling chip oil. There’s all kinds of hissing, sizzling and screaming, as I held him there for a spell. The chip shop workers are making a lot of noise as they huddle themselves in the corner. Horrified they look at the mess I have made of this geezer’s face as he howls in agony. I wish I’d thought about sticking his head in the batter first.
Old Smiley struggles to get up. I help him, he’s wheezing and clutching his knackers and you know what? He weren’t smiling any more. I dust him down, and with my arm around his shoulders give him a little chuck on the chin. He looked like he was about to cry. I catch something out of the corner of my eye and grin. Poor old Smiley, poor old Smiley.
I pick up the object of my attention; an unopened bottle of tomato sauce. You know, the thick glass type, not one of them new easy squeasy bollocks. Yeah, this was the kind of thing you had to thump.
Old Smiley still ain’t got himself together, and he ain’t ever going to either. I get the little fuck into a headlock and I grab that bottle and bring it crashing down on his crown. I raised my arm and do it again. You see, a full unopened glass bottle might as well be a brick, but still, when you do a job like this you have to put some effort in. You have to really go at it, like using a sledgehammer, grab the fucker, get your weight behind it and swing.
A couple of meaningful ones like that and you start to feel the top of the skull give. A bit like when you’re tapping your boiled egg in the morning. I wanted to carry on, but when I heard that sickening sound and felt that skull crack, just a tad, I knew I had achieved what I wanted to, and that was reduce the cunt’s motor skills by around eighty percent. I hope he enjoyed the last wank he treated himself to; there’ll be no more of that for him.
Throughout this I was vaguely aware of Tattoo jabbering into what I assumed was his mobile phone. I didn’t give it much mind as, to be honest, I was enjoying my work on Smiley, who was now curled up on the floor, twitching and pissing blood from the top of his head. Big mistake.
I heard an explosion and felt a great smack to the outside of my right shoulder. I was pushed forward a little and saw blood and meat appearing through a burnt hole of the right arm of my suit jacket. I bloody liked that suit.
I tuned around and see Tattoo, his lips all quivering, mobile in one hand, and with the other he was pointing his shooter at me.
11
Sergio Leone would have put music to it, but rather than two banditos weighing each other across a town’s dusty thoroughfare at high noon, it was just me and Tattoo across that body-strewn chip shop on West Street.
I still had that sauce bottle so I flung it full pelt and it hit Tattoo between the eyes, just at the point he was peeling off another shot. The shot went wild left and there was a loud crack as it ricocheted off the floor. In that time I had bolted towards him and now was upon him. I struck his wrist hard causing him to drop the gun, and hit him right in his floating rib. He doubled up. This skinny little bastard did not have a hope.
There wasn’t going to be nothing fancy about this. I’m too far gone in the head for that. I put my arms around his waist and lifted up as high as I could, he weren’t heavy but I had to admit it was a struggle.
He was now hanging upside down, winded, whinging and kicking in my grasp as I struggled. I remembered that night in the cinema. I hoisted him up a little higher and dashed him to the ground head first.
There was this nasty crack and glimpse of the sight of his neck giving. And as he lay there at my feet, twitching and gibbering I wanted more than anything to feel joy, but truth be told, I felt nothing, not even anger. I looked at Amos, who had been on the deck all the while, and he looked back at me like he’d seen a ghost. He slowly pushes his glasses up the ridge of his nose.
I was suddenly aware that there was some kind of commotion in the street outside of the chip shop. I looked down at Tattoo still jerking and fitting on the ground and thought, uh-oh, police.
I was wrong, I turned around slowly expecting the boys in blue tipping themselves out of a meat wagon and got mighty surprised to see a load of bouncer types seeping out of a black Bentley.
Yeah, there they all were, the ones who did me outside that club in Hove and, for big fat cunts, they weren’t half moving fast. They were all on me before I had a chance to pull myself together and with a great thump one of them whacked me in the face. I felt my jaw go and I was on the deck. There I was on the ground and they’re all loving it as before. All mob handed with their victim on the floor giving him a kicking. It had them feeling well hard, no doubt. They’ll probably give themselves a pat on the back and go for a drink after and brag about it the live long night. And then carry on with their lives. No, not this time. As nasty as they think they are I’m worse. I can see the fear in their eyes and that’s something I never had meself. I just did not care and never did, until I met Ava. And these bastards took her away from me. Well the price they’re gonna pay will be dear.
There’s three of them hoofing the fuck out of me while I could just make out through the boots raining down on me, that meatball looking one who give me all the threats the last time. He’s out by the motor talking sternly into his blackcurrant, or whatever the fuck you call portable phones these days.
The three kicking the shit out of me had a rye old time. But they failed to notice. I weren’t feeling it. Maybe I would the day after, but I weren’t planning on living that long no more. This is like back in the old days when people knew what they were about. These jokers are playing at it. Bumpkins pretending to be city boys in front of the ladies. I almost feel sorry for them.
All full of hubris as they a
re, unaware of the living nightmare about to be unleashed on them. Because I’m a monster.
There’s that bloke from last time who’s really enjoying himself, working my head and ribs over. I catch his mean eyes and see his confidence shaken when he notices I’m smiling at him. He seems to get himself together to give me one final, end of story boot, but as he brung his leg down, I bring my legs up to my chest and slammed my right boot into his knee with all the hatred in me. There’s all almighty snap and the look on his face is priceless. Sheer terror and agony at the fact that I have just given him a dog’s leg. The other two recoil like old women happening across someone’s dumped stash of porn in the pack, which gives me time to roll up and give the nearest one a right hook in his nuts. He doubles over with a long gasp, I’m on my feet now so I stamp on the back of his head sending him hard against the deck, face first.
The third prick has pulled out a knife, but his guts went and his lunge was weak. I grab his wrist and his upper arm and twist his joints so he’s turning away with his elbow facing me. I focus on the roof of the chip shop and send my knee skyward and straight through his elbow with a sharp crack. His arm, which is now just a useless bundle of flesh, nerves and broken bone is at my mercy. So I twist it right round, all unnaturally, as he squeals and wriggles, and plunge that knife into his guts with his own hand. I help out by kneeing the handle right in there, grab the back of his head and smash his face on the hot, heavy duty cabinet which displays the pies.
I’m in a world of my own and start over-egging the pudding by working the ribs of the bloke who I gave the dog’s leg to as he’s holding himself up against a wall, whimpering.
That’s when I notice the fat bald bastard outside standing by the Bentley. He still had his phone stuck to his ear but he weren’t saying anything, just looking at me a tad bewildered. Then a mean, confident look takes over and he slowly lowered the phone. He nodded at me slowly. He didn’t half reckon himself.