by Alex Wheatle
‘Courtney Thompson?’ I repeated. ‘I went school with that brother… We used to call him Billy-No-Bredrens. The takeaway brother. Burn him… He’s a pussy.’
Silence… I was sure I played my game right. Ghetto chicks like a dominant male telling them to do shit. I was sure this pussy who Tania claimed was her man probably hadn’t even woked it yet.
‘You can come around on Monday, Dennis,’ she finally answered. ‘Say after half eight when EastEnders finish. I will get my sister to go out for the evening. You know where I live, New Park Road ends. Streatham Hill side.’
Why do dumb-ass ghetto chicks love EastEnders? It can’t be for the idiot coconut black people in it. Anyway, it was all good. While I’m woking Tania I will close my eyes and think of Akeisha. ‘Yeah, I know where your gates is,’ I said. ‘Oh, before I go, get some protection yeah. In case I forget. But don’t get that fruit-flavoured shit, just get the normal dick macs.’
‘No problem, Dennis. See ya on Monday!’
I finished the call with a smile on my face. I heard Fed sirens behind me but I ignored that sound and couldn’t help feeling it had been a good day. I took a 109 bus to take me up Bricky Hill and home. It was after six o’clock when I turned my key in the latch. I entered the hallway and found Davinia sitting halfway up the stairs looking proper fucked off. Then I heard this arguing from the front room. It was Mum and Paps. The door was slightly open and Davinia and I could hear every word.
‘Why you spending so much time at work?’ Paps shouted. ‘Why’s your boss only ask for you to stay behind? If you’re screwing him I’ll break his head.’
‘Why don’t you believe me, Lincoln?’ Mum yelled. ‘It’s only work! I’ve never wanted to screw anybody else. Why don’t you believe that? I’m with you, aren’t I? Been with you for about twenty years!’
Silence… Davinia looked at me all sad-like and whispered, ‘They been at each other for half an hour. Can’t you stop them, Dennis?’
‘They have to sort it out themselves, Davinia. What can I do?’
‘Maybe you can explain to Dad that because of his condition, he doesn’t see himself as a “full” man no more. Therefore his self-esteem drops with every birthday and he is becoming more paranoid. That’s why he’s convinced Mum is having an affair. He can’t see why Mum stays with him.’
God! This girl was so smart it was frightening. I climbed the stairs to where Davinia was sitting and I could see she was hurt by all the arguing. There were probably more rows that I didn’t know about. I knelt down to one knee and touched her left cheek with the four fingers of my right hand. It’s something Mum used to do to me. ‘Even if it comes from me it will hurt him badly,’ I said. ‘It has to come from Granny. Paps will listen to her. He always listens to her.’
Davinia held onto my hand, gave it a gentle squeeze and then let go, as if embarrassed by her emotions.
‘You always question me!’ Mum ranted on. ‘Why can’t you support me? Like I have done for you. For so many fucking years with your fucked-up legs! Was it my fault? WAS IT MY FUCKING FAULT, LINCOLN? And trust me, Lincoln, you was and still are a terrible patient. You know how many times I thought of walking away? Those nights, endless nights of agony. How did you think it was for me? Listening to your pain? BUT NO! I FUCKING STAYED! All I ask from you is a little support for me and my work. Is that too much to ask? All I get from you is accusations. That I’m screwing my boss. That I’m not home enough. Well fuck you, Lincoln, I’m not standing for it no more! You can sleep downstairs.’
Mum came rushing out of the front room wiping away her tears. She brushed past Davinia and myself and ran up the stairs. Then we heard her bedroom door slam. Davinia ran after her and I sat on the stairs wondering if I should enter the front room and talk with Paps. I sat there for nearly an hour and although I tried to think what’s best for my parents, I couldn’t help but concentrate my mind on how I was gonna impress Akeisha on our next date.
Eventually I walked into the lounge. Paps was sitting in his favourite armchair. I parked myself on the sofa and at first Paps failed to acknowledge me. It was only after five minutes that he turned around his head and said to me, ‘I’ve been an idiot, Dennis.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I nodded.
‘I didn’t mean to say the things I did,’ he said.
‘I know that too. If I was you I’d apologise when Mum calms down.’
‘I will, Dennis. I will.’
Silence… We looked at each other for the next twenty minutes without saying a word. He was obviously feeling more uncomfortable than I was.
‘Do you know I’m smoking weed, Paps?’ I suddenly blurted out.
There was no rapid head movement from Paps. No look of surprise. He just sat there, staring into space. ‘Your mother and I had our suspicions,’ he said. ‘But I can hardly rebuke you about it because I have been smoking since I was thirteen. It would be hypocritical. I just hope that you’re intelligent enough not to use harder drugs.’
‘No, I’m not on that, Paps.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
Silence again. I guessed Paps was still kicking himself for talking to Mum the way he did. But before he hobbles upstairs to apologise, he’s gonna answer some of my questions. It was the right time.
‘Did you kill a man, Paps?’
He looked up and searched for my eyes. It was hard not to be intimidated but I held his gaze. He answered after a long pause. ‘I don’t wanna lie to you, Dennis. Yes, I did. Along with others. Just don’t think that we never think about it. We all do. Them things never leave your head.’
‘Who pulled the trigger?’ I wanted to know.
‘We all pulled the trigger, Dennis. And that’s all I’m gonna reveal about it. It was a long time ago.’
‘There was Uncle Everton, Brenton Brown, Frank, Auntie Denise and you, Paps. You was all there. Doesn’t a son have the right to know if his paps might be a killer?’
‘DENNIS! That’s enough! We all killed Nunchaks and that’s the end of it. And you’re one short! Sceptic was there that night. Yes! Red Eyes, Noel’s dad. So maybe you can go away, play at being Miss Marple and try to work out who pulled the trigger. I know this much, I will never tell you. You don’t have to know. It is we who have to live with what happened that night. Not you.’
At that point Paps looked down at his legs and I knew that he was doing his best not to weep.
‘What did it feel like, Paps? That night? I know you went to rescue Auntie Denise…’
Again Paps stared into space, as if he was mentally rewinding back the years. He closed his eyes for a minute and he spoke when he re-opened them. ‘It was the first night of the Brixton uprising. Yes, we went off to try and get Denise back… Crazy fools the lot of us. But with the riot blazing off all around us we could hardly go to the police. I’m not sure where my courage came from that night. It was the scariest feeling I ever had.’
He trailed off and looked at me. ‘That’s all you need to know, Dennis. Don’t bother me with this again. I’d better now make my apologies to your mother.’
As I watched him get up and hobble out of the room, I guessed he was protecting someone. I didn’t think it was Paps who pulled the trigger.
Chapter Eleven
SOMETHING ABOUT ROAD RAMPS
The next Monday morning I made sure I spoke to Davinia before she left for school. I joined her at the breakfast table and as I was spreading marmalade on my toast, she was eating Ready Brek with cinnamon and nutmeg in it. Davinia was always particular like that.
‘Davinia, what goes on in a poetry jam?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘If I did know I wouldn’t be asking, would I!’
‘No need to bark,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Why? That’s my business. Are you gonna tell me or what?’
She grinned that know-it-all grin of hers. Then she fed herself two spoonfuls of her morning starter, enjoying the moment of me having to come to her
for help.
‘Well!’ I said, beginning to get frustrated.
‘Usually you get a few headline performers who are well known on the poetry jam circuit,’ she finally explained. ‘They usually rant about the government, poverty, racism, you know, that sort of thing. In the audience people cheer and clap, everyone is respectful to each other and in the breaks you sip herbal teas and mineral water and make friends; it’s not cool to drink alcohol. Then when the headliners have done their performances it’s the time of the open mic session. Basically, anyone who has the nerve can go up to the mic and have about five minutes in front of the audience. Everyone is given encouragement…’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Yep, that’s it.’
‘The audience, they are not ancient-like, are they? Mum’s generation?’
Davinia laughed and nearly choked on her breakfast. ‘No, audience is youngish… You get a decent crowd.’
‘What? Does that mean there’s lesbos and chi chi men doing their shit in the back rows?’
‘No, Dennis. Just a mixture of black, white, brown, whatever. Lord knows why you want to go to a poetry jam, Dennis? You’re not exactly cultural.’
‘Burn you, Davinia. You don’t know shit. I can be cultural when I put my mind to it. Fuck!’
Just as I said that Paps walked into the kitchen. ‘Dennis! Stop using bad word to your sister! Set an example. How many times do I have to tell you?’
Paps went to make himself some toast; he always spreads this honey that he gets from some herbal shop on his toast. That’s where Davinia gets her fussiness from…
‘Are you taking some girl?’ Davinia asked with her know-it-all smile; it was bigger than ever now Paps had told me off. ‘To a poetry jam? It must be love!’
I offered Davinia an evil stare as I put two Weetabix in a cereal bowl and covered them with Corn Flakes. There was brown sugar in the sugar bowl. Why did my family have to be different and have brown sugar instead of white in the fucking sugar bowl? Anyway, I poured too much over my cereal. ‘If you have to know, I’m going to a poetry jam on Friday night to see a bredren. He’s proper good with his lyrics.’
‘Yeah, right,’ laughed Davinia.
Pissed off with smart-ass Davinia, I ate my breakfast in my room. Mum didn’t like us eating meals in our rooms but she wasn’t here. She had left for work an hour ago.
In my room I wondered what I should wear when I go to see Tania Blake for my wok. Name-brand tracksuit or garms made by Tommy Hilfiger? Mum told me that although brothers of my age wear nuff Hilfiger clothes, the man himself is a racist. But he doesn’t mind black people buying his garms ’cos then they become cool and everyone else buys them too. Mum went on to say that I shouldn’t really be fatting up no white man’s wallet who don’t like black people but if I did that I would walk on road naked. I didn’t really give a shit as long as he makes nice garms. So I decided on my Hilfiger jeans and jacket and my Timberland boots. I would just have to step out when Mum ain’t looking.
New Park Road council estate is one of them places where politicians like to go before elections so idiot people think they really care about the Nike-less and the ghetto folk. It stretched either side of Brixton Hill and Streatham Hill and basically the place is proper grimed. You can always tell how a council cares about their estates by the state of their road ramps. In New Park Road, it looked like they just dropped loads of cement all over the place and ran for it. As an after-thought they called the mess they left behind road ramps. This shotta I know who lives there is forever complaining about how the so-called road humps fucked up the suspension on his Benz and now he parks his ride outside one of his girlfriends’ gates in Streatham…
New Park Road ends was just a ten minute walk from my gates. I reached Tania’s gates just after 9 p.m. I didn’t want to arrive on time ’cos that would have looked like I was proper desperate. I didn’t want her thinking that.
Tania opened the front door wearing only a silk-looking burgundy nightgown. She had a smile of expectation on her face but she went a bit over the top with the brown lipstick and the blue eye make-up. She also had this gold stud in her nose that only brought attention to its enormity. She grabbed my arm and ushered me to sit in the lounge. The lights were dimmed and Jodeci was playing on this cheap stereo that the family probably got from a car boot sale. The room was cramped and the sofa I was sitting on had lost all its bounce and colour. At this point I remembered that I hated visiting shit-poor ghetto people, save Noel…
‘You got any drink?’ I asked.
‘Er, yeah. My sister’s man left a couple of Stella bottles in the fridge last night.’
‘Bring one for me then.’
I needed a bit of liquor to help me forget my surroundings. As she went to get me a drink I started to build two fat-heads. One for her and one for me. Mine would be bigger… By the time she came back I had already finished wrapping her one; I was proper mean with the skunk. She sat beside me, put an arm around my neck and torched the fat-head. I started to build my own spliff and drained a third of my bottle in one go. ‘So what about Courtney?’ I asked.
‘He’s been going on weird lately,’ she answered. ‘He’s started to read the Koran and hanging out with brothers who have fucked-up beards and shit.’
‘Is that right? Courtney now has bredrens?’
‘Yeah. He’s been telling me that I must not eat bacon and not to wear my revealing garms. I told him to fuck himself. No man gonna tell me what I should and shouldn’t wear. I’m not into that woman must pay homage to her man’s religion. Burn that shit. If you ask me it’s just a way for weak-heart men to control the sisters. And that’s the way of most religions. Burn the fucking lot of them I say.’
Tania’s reasoning proper surprised me. This ghetto chick wasn’t as stupid as she dressed.
‘Courtney was always an idiot from schooldays,’ I remarked. ‘And his mum goes to the same church as my granny. So why the fuck is he turning Muslim?’
‘So they can order their girlfriends around,’ reasoned Tania. ‘Haven’t you been listening to me, Dennis? And I’m proper fucked off with it. I’m gonna sack him after Christmas.’
‘Why after Christmas?’ I asked.
‘ ’Cos he’s promised to buy me a gold chain and name-brand shoes from this store in Bond Street. We was up West the other day and I pointed them out to him.’
I laughed out loud. ‘So Courtney is nothing but a sad boops! I’m gonna tell you blatantly, Tania, if me and you ever have something going on I ain’t buying you shit! I ain’t no boops.’
Taking a mighty toke Tania blew the smoke over my head. She looked a bit pissed off at my last remark but it’s better that she knew where she stood with me. ‘I don’t need no man to buy me shit!’ she said, performing her head moving sideway thing. How the fuck do ghetto chicks do that? ‘But if a man’s offering I ain’t saying no,’ she went on. ‘Man take what they want from you so I’m gonna take what I want from them. Besides, you didn’t come here to chat about Courtney, did you?’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘I’m just kinda wondering why you linked him in the first place. He’s a pussy-hole.’
‘When his bredrens are not around him, he’s cool, you know, on a level. But when he’s with them he changes. Acts like a hardback man on road. You get me?’
‘Courtney ain’t no hardback,’ I stated. ‘At school this maaga little African brother broke him up, punched out two of his teeth and ran off with his sandwiches and crisps.’
I looked around for an ashtray but couldn’t find one. ‘Where shall I tip my ash?’
‘In the bedroom. Follow me.’
I knew what was coming next but I didn’t have an erection. Tania led me to her box-room and the walls were covered in posters of LL Cool J, Usher, Will Smith and Tupac. At least they covered up the cheap wallpaper. The bedroom was so small that if you wasn’t careful you might broke the window with the mortise key when entering. She closed the door behind me and she invited
me to sit down on her single bed. The duvet had no cover on it and I reckoned it had never been washed. There was an ashtray on her dressing table and I placed my fat-head in it and my half bottle of beer beside it. She did likewise and seconds later we were rolling about on her bed, taking off each other’s clothes. Underneath her dressing-gown she was wearing a black bra and a black thong. It didn’t take me long to get her naked and she had the most buff body I had ever seen in the flesh. But I so much wanted to see Akeisha’s face in front of me. I tried to imagine it was Akeisha’s face but that didn’t work. Closing my eyes only made me imagine how big Tania’s nose was.
I rolled her onto her belly and started to kiss her neck, caress her back and feel up her bottom. Her face was pressing into the bed. But Tania moved onto her back and stuck her tongue down my throat. As she circled my tongue with hers, her big nose was bumping into my face like a dodgem car driven by a fucked off bully at the funfair. I just couldn’t carry on. I pulled myself off her and sat up… For a moment I thought that I should have just let her give me a BJ. At least that would have kept her nose away from me.
‘I’m not in the vibe to do this,’ I explained. ‘It don’t feel right. Courtney was a proper bredren at school and I don’t want to do him any disrespect…’
‘What!’
I shook my head.
‘Are you a fucking chi chi man or something?’ Tania yelled. ‘You don’t want none of this?’
She raised her bottom in the air, gyrated her hips and all her business was revealed. Damn! She was fit! Her bottom was proper peach-like but I couldn’t wok her with that nose. And she wasn’t Akeisha. It was then when I noticed the condom packets on her dressing table. She even got the plain ones that I asked for, no fruit flavoured shit.
‘Come out of my fucking house, man! Wasting my fucking time with a someone who prefers a man’s bottom. I can’t believe you diss me like that. Fuck off and remove your chi chi self from my gates. It’s a good thing you stopped when you did ’cos I ain’t catching no Aids from a chi chi man. You thought you could cure your chi chi self on me? Fucking liberty! Remove from my gates, man!’