Just so long as you know
That these roads
Are our roads,
So we will fight for these streets,
Yes, we will die for these streets
Because they are the only thing
That have ever given us a place
In this monarchy,
The closest thing I have to an identity
So yes, I will die to be me –
I may have been born a pauper
But ya dun know I’ma die a king.
Extract from Monarchy by Indigo Williams
Contents
Black Sheep
Sweetness
Thug 4 Life
Rising Star
Cutting Up Mandem
Run Da Streetz
Bad Boys
Prodigal Sons
Succession
Circles
Ms Walker
Crazy In Love
Closing In
Wrong Side Of The Tracks
Disrespect
The Verdict
Romeo and Juliet
Revelation
Da Endz
Home Turf
A New Lens
Daddy’s Little Girl
Moment Of Truth
Retribution
Scapegoat
Give And Take
Commitment
The Prodigal Boyfriend
Man Talk
Larkside Games
Night On The Town
Spittin’ Light
One Chance
Payback
Blood Sport
Back Home
The Morning After
Judgement Day
Retribution
Acknowledgements
About the author
Dedication and Copyright
Black Sheep
DWAYNE
“Yuh wort’less, Dwayne!” Mum’s shrill voice cut through my sleep. I rubbed my eyes, all confused. What was with the harsh wake-up call? “Yuh wort’less, just like yuh father!”
Then I remembered. Mr Douglas from the school had called the night before: just a short, hurried phone call to tell my mum, Alicia Kingston, that I was failing at school and that, at this rate, I wouldn’t even get enough GCSEs to drive a dump truck. Mr Douglas had said that they would be entering me for the lower-tier exams in as many subjects as possible but even then I would be lucky to pass. Screw him. Who cared anyway?
Mum was vex’ and refused to speak to me all evening, making sure she scraped the pot out before she went to bed so that I’d have to eat peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner. Please! Hadn’t she ever heard of ordering pizza? But I guess as far as she was concerned, I didn’t have money for take-away. Which was fine by me. The less she knew about my finances, the better, y’get me.
Mum kicked the pizza boxes to the side and glared down at me, her hands on her hips. But as I looked across at her, I caught sight of my new kicks. They hadn’t come easy but, damn, they looked good. I was gonna wear them on stage at the club on the weekend – they were the fiercest piece of footwear I’d seen in a long time.
“And take yuh shoes off me sofa, y’ hear me, boy?” Mum sure knew how to pull an angry face. Frowning, her light-brown eyes blazing, she glared at me, her black, black son, lying on her sofa, her hard-won, highly prized leather sofa that she had bought in instalments from DFS. I didn’t move.
“Dwayne!” she barked. “Yuh no hear good? I said get yuh blasted trainers down from me sofa!”
I rolled my eyes and let out a loud sigh and cussed – but only under my breath. I wasn’t in the mood for a slap so early in the morning. I took my feet down from the sofa and looked up at her, trying to look like I didn’t care, one eyebrow raised. That was the most I dared.
“There,” I said. “Happy now?”
But Mum just kissed her teeth and stomped out of the room, muttering, “Only God knows where he got the money to buy dem tings...”
Mum? Happy? Of course she wasn’t happy. She was never happy with me. As far as she was concerned, I couldn’t do anything right. I was wort’less, as she said, just like my father.
And true say, I was just like my father in so many ways. For a start, I was just too fly, y’get me, the hottest thing to hit the streets in 2005. I turned 16 that year and I just knew it was going to be a good year for me. I was a sweet boy like my dad, with the silky smooth tongue, all the lyrics, all the lines. But that was probably why Mum hated me so much. My looks, my dark skin, my street style all reminded her of him. When she looked at me, it was as if she didn’t see me, Dwayne. She saw someone who was gonna break hearts, just like my dad broke hers.
Even sixteen years later, she hadn’t forgotten how he made her pregnant at seventeen, then left her standing at the altar. Ruined her life. Left her with me, growing inside her, making the white dress that she borrowed from Nan too tight around the middle. All the neighbours could see, she says, and they talked about her for ages.
Allow them, man, why should you care if people ain’t got nothin’ better to do than chat yuh business? Free that. I didn’t know my dad. Didn’t business about him, where he was, what he was doing. I had my life, he had his, y’get me. It’s just that Mum’s cusses always brought him back up in my face: they were like a soundtrack, as regular as her going to church on a Sunday.
But my soundtrack was way, way more than the beef between my mum and me. My soundtrack had rhythm. My soundtrack had rhyme. My soundtrack had beats. Man, when the beats got inside me, I didn’t think about Mum, or the bruck-down council estate we called home, or my mad teachers, or the Larkside mandem from the estate across the way. All I thought of was the beats and the rhymes and the way they came together to create something lyrical, powerful, magical. I would spit anywhere: in the school playground, on the estate, at raves, house parties, MC battles, anywhere where they would pass me the mic. I wanted to make my mark, y’get me. I was Boy Wonder, future star.
Oh, yeah. Then there was Misha, that piece of chocolate-fudge-coloured, sun-kissed sweetness: my girl. She was part of my soundtrack too, for sure.
I had met her at a rave six months before, in West London. In a crowded room full of man flashing cash, sweating in their silk suits, and gold-diggers trying to score a play, Misha stood out as a class act. I don’t know if it was the way her smile lit up the room or the way she turned away from big players like my main man, Tony, to talk to me. Whatever it was, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I felt myself being pulled towards her, magnetised, mesmerised, hypnotised, like the whole party was nothing but a mixtape of bodies and movement, noisy, unreal, making no sense. It was like we were the only two people in the world, that we were all there was. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how it felt, for real.
That was the beginning.
She gave me her number.
“I don’t normally do this sort of thing,” she said, scribbling the mobile number on the back of a taxi-cab card.
I could feel myself getting well into her, man – she was just so different. The way she spoke – all posh and proper, but a bit naughty at the same time; the way she looked straight into my eyes, not all shifty; the way she asked me about myself as if she really wanted to know.
Down my sides, girls don’t talk much sense, not the ones I know anyway. Chirpsing them is like playing a soundtrack on a loop: you say the same tired chat-up lines and they respond with the same tired responses, loving themselves too much, trying to play hard to get. But you can always get them in the end, if you still want to after listening to their foolishness for most of the night.
Girls can be divided into two groups: skets and neeks. The skets are just plain nasty – and I don’t do nasty – and the neeks aren’t worth bothering about. But Misha? She confused
me; I just couldn’t place her. She was like a girl from another world.
“So why’re you breaking your own rules?” I had to ask, with a cheeky grin.
You know what she did? She looked me in the eye and smiled. “You seem like a nice guy,” she said – just like that! Then her friends pulled her away, out to the cab that was waiting to take them back to where they were staying.
I was in shock, for real. Almost one hundred per cent sure that no one, no girl, had ever called me a ‘nice guy’ before. I shook my head and smiled.
‘This one’s going to be interesting, blud.’
‘Ya dun know!’
Then I felt a heavy arm across my back and caught a whiff of Paco Rabanne: it was my mate, Jukkie.
“Oooh!” he growled. “Get a load of that t’ickness, bwoi! Man’d like to mash dat, one time!” Jukkie was proper drooling as he watched Misha and her friends get into the cab.
“I beg you shut up, man!” I sneered, shaking his arm off. I was proper vex’; I didn’t want Jukkie and his nasty self getting in my way. And I didn’t like the way he was eyeing Misha up either. “No girl in her right mind would want you and you know it, man. So fall back!”
“What you sayin’, blud?” Jukkie’s eyes were bloodshot and the whisky on his breath was so strong that it made my eyes water. Not the best time to pick a fight.
Then Tony, Jukkie’s older brother, stepped to us and put a hand on each of our shoulders. “Easy, man, easy! No point getting into a fight about it. They’ve gone now, anyway.”
That was Tony, man, always there to take the edge off things, to calm things down. Tony was a don, a proper don. I had bare respect for him. I’d lost count of the number of times I had wished he was my brother as well as Jukkie’s. But then, being in RDS meant that he was my big brother, still. And it helped that he took my side against Jukkie, at least some of the time.
“And where’s your girl, anyway?” Tony asked Jukkie. “How come you’re stepping on Dwayne’s toes, entering his territory?”
Jukkie grunted and took a drink from his plastic cup. “Allow her, man. She’s been takin’ bare liberties lately. Had to slap her up, teach her a lesson, y’get me.”
Jukkie was the kind of guy who got mad angry when he was drunk: it was time to get him home. “Come we get out of here, man,” I said, taking Jukkie by the arm. “Tony, you got your keys?”
Sweetness
DWAYNE
I thought about Misha all the way home in the car. As soon as I got into my room, my palm started to itch. I needed to call her, to make sure she hadn’t given me a fake number or something. I dialled the number she had written on the card.
“Hello?”
“Misha?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“It’s Dwayne... we met at the party?”
“Oh my God,” she laughed. “You’re supposed to wait at least twenty-four hours before calling me, you know, to make me get all worried that you aren’t going to call!”
I was embarrassed but I laughed, still. “I just wanted to check your number, innit.”
“Right...” I just knew she could tell I was bluffing. Then she said, “Call me tomorrow, OK?”
“OK, yeah... yeah, sure...”
“You sure you can wait that long?” Her voice was teasing and I could hear her friends laughing in the background.
“Now you’re takin’ liberties, man,” I growled and came off the phone.
That wasn’t my usual style, letting the girl know that I was eager and that. But she had told me to call and, to tell you the truth, I was almost going crazy waiting until the next afternoon. And when I rang, she laughed and told me, “Congratulations,” saying I had waited “a respectable amount of time” before phoning. I felt stupid, but kinda proud in a silly way. I could tell that she liked me. Man can just tell these things, y’get me.
MISHA
Dwayne was not my type, not by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, there was something about him.... He was so funny, so different. I began to feel quite giddy whenever I saw his name flash up – but I had to remind myself: I am Misha Reynolds and I don’t do ‘lovesick teenager’. I will play hard to get. I will not let him charm me. If he puts one foot wrong, he’s out. Simple. I’ve got things to do – no sixteen-year-old ‘sweetboy’ is getting in the way of that.
At first I actually refused to meet him. I told him I wasn’t sure that we were compatible, that I didn’t go out with random guys. But after a couple of weeks I decided to give it a try. To be honest, I didn’t expect much: a movie, a meal at Pizza Hut, maybe. But Dwayne surprised me.
“Let’s go Battersea Park,” he said on the phone.
“Yeah?” I smiled, thinking, ‘this is different.’
“Yeah, the weather’s nice, innit? I thought we could chill there... unless you wanna catch a movie.” I heard him catch his breath then – maybe he was worried that he had read me wrong, thinking maybe I would have preferred to do something ordinary, safe. Not knowing that Battersea Park was one of my favourite places.
“No, no!” I protested. “Battersea Park sounds perfect.”
We met at the gate, shy and hesitant, as if we were seeing each other for the first time.
“You look nice,” he nodded, smiling the smile I remembered so well.
I giggled then and turned away.
“Hey, don’t go all shy on me now, girl, you know you look criss! Come here, are we gonna do this or what?”
And he took me by the hand and we walked in through the tall wrought-iron gates. I expected him to pull his hand away after a while but he didn’t. And I didn’t pull mine away either. It just felt like the most natural thing to do. We walked like that, hand in hand, through Battersea Park; past the miniature zoo, lingering by the lake, watching the families in paddle boats, buying ice-cream from the kiosk. While we walked we talked, of a million and one things and of nothing: school, family, friends, music, the latest TV shows, who was better, Chelsea or Man U.
“Can you ride a bike, Misha?” he asked me.
“Yes, of course I can! Can you?”
“Yeah... let’s grab some bikes and go for a ride then, innit.”
“Are you serious?”
“’Course I’m serious – don’t go all stoosh on me now, yeah, all girly and ting. If you know how to ride a bike, let’s see you ride one, innit!”
I tried to punch him but he blocked my fist and made a face at me. “Not bad, not bad – for a girl....”
“Right,” I shouted, laughing, “that’s it – you’re finished!” And I swung my other fist at him (Dad would have been proud). But he dodged and began to run, over the grass, under the enormous oak trees whose leaves whispered in the breeze, while I chased him, determined to teach him a lesson in gender equality – with my fists.
DWAYNE
True say, I don’t know what got into me that day at Battersea Park. I felt free, like a kid again, living for the moment, not caring what anyone thought. Usually, I would never act like that – let my guard down – with any girl, but especially not one I’d just met. Mans got a reputation to think about, y’get me. But Misha, Misha was different. She wasn’t part of all that, you know? I felt like I could relax with her – and I could tell that she felt the same. What did it mean? I didn’t know at the time; I was having too much fun...
When I got tired of running, I slowed down enough for her to catch me and jump on my back. But then I thought, ‘Nah, man, that was too easy!’ and I grabbed hold of her legs and began running again. Now she was shouting, laughing, pounding me on the back.
“You’re crazy!” she screamed. “Put me down, you nutter!”
“Ha!” I laughed. “Make me! I ain’t lettin’ you go, girl, you’re stuck with me!”
But then she stopped hitting me and held me, just for a moment.
Something inside me shifted. I let go of her. It was all getting too heavy. I turned round and, when I looked into her face, something passed between us, a spark. I cou
ld tell that she felt what I felt: this – whatever it was that was happening between us – was something special.
It was a moment.
But I couldn’t handle it in the end. What can you do with a girl who looks you in the eye so that you can see exactly what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling? You either do the same or you fall back, innit. Instead of looking in her eyes again, I took her hand and said, “Let’s get those bikes, yeah?” But my voice was softer than before.
We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling, riding around the park, going all the way up to the promenade along the River Thames.
After we’d returned the bikes, we bought sandwiches and sat down on the grass to eat.
“What you got in your bag?” I asked. You can tell a lot about a girl by what she carries round with her.
She shrugged. “Not much. Some make-up, a bit of cash, a book...”
“What book you readin’?”
“Lord of the Flies, we’re studying it at school.” She passed me her copy, full of tiny scribbles in the margins, thick lines under some of the sentences.
“Yeah, I know it – it was pretty good... I thought the language was kinda tired, though.”
“Oh my God, are you serious?” Misha’s hand was on her heart. “I love the language Golding uses! It’s so poetic!”
“Poetry? That ain’t poetry! That’s just a long ting – this is poetry...” And then I did my thing: I spat a little freestyle, a freestyle rhyme about a girl with sweet chocolate fudge-coloured skin, with three gold earrings and a weakness for raspberry ripple ice-cream; a girl with a supermodel smile and a mean left hook.
A poem about her.
Have you ever seen a black girl blush? It’s the prettiest thing. I could tell from the way her eyes opened wide and the way she bit her lip that she was blown away. I knew I had her then, so I decided to deliver the death blow.
“Read some to me then, innit,” I said, handing her the book. “Let’s see if this Golding bredder can spit as good as you say...”
So she read to me from her copy of Lord of the Flies. And that book that had made me die from boredom in English class came alive. I lay down next to her on the grass and closed my eyes, listening to her reading in that pretty, posh voice of hers while the bees buzzed above us, the afternoon sun warm on my skin.
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