by James Newman
He said nothing to the entrepreneurs that ran the joint but the word spread and the kids left me alone after that. It was a case of bunk beds in a real house. My first real house. I experienced breakfast for the first time, and going to bed at a set time. Laying there awake listening to the other boys masturbating under their duvets. I guess it was better than the site but I missed Noah, I missed his logic, his warped knowledge of nature and mistrust of outsiders. I even missed the smell of his super strength lager and the sounds of him snoring at night. I missed the walks in the woods, the trails, the birds, the foxes. I missed the freedom of being a gypsy.
I missed Rose.
The gypsy family were in my heart.
LET ‘EM COME
now
GET BACK out on the street. Make a swift exit while the sister is looking the other way. Nurses, doctors try to pull me back. Fuck ‘em.
Notice some police uniforms lurking around.
Not in the mood for talking.
Some Indian doctors saying something as I hobble down the ward.
Sorry Gov’.
Don’t speak Punjab.
Wouldn’t mind giving that yellow nurse another shot, mind, but the ground is moving.
Just.
Hit the street.
Make it to the off license. The bird behind the counter has a pair of Bristols that you could spend a week exploring. Maybe it’s the drugs that’s giving me the raging horn but it seems that everything is worth a good poking. You put a skirt on right now, I’d fucking do you.
Ample bosom says,
“What do ya want?”
Tell her like it is:
“A smile, a pack of Bensens, copy of The Sun, and a small bottle of Bells.”
She does her thing. Apart from the smile.
I give her one of mine. Hand over the dough.
Take a look at the paper, nothing about a robbery, as if there would be, check the sports section.
Burnley at home.
The leg hurts, hurts like a bitch, but I’ve never known life without pain and I don’t miss the game. And I know the drugs to quell it.
Hail a black cab and tell him to pedal it to New Cross.
It’s Saturday.
And that meant one thing.
AMBULANCE
now
ED SLID along and propped up the bar and waited for the barman to serve him. He looked like an extra in a zombie flick. Blood drenched his shirt and jeans. Cuts and bruises on his mug.
He waited a long time.
The barman walked over. He looked like a geezer who could handle situations. Half a beard and a shed load of trouble. Prison tattoos and personality to earn them. Ex-football hooligan or player. He leaned over the bar his huge face next to Ed’s battered mug. “You don’t need a drink, son, you need a hospital.”
The barman made a call, speaking in a deep gravely cockney voice and Ed sat there the speed and the vodka rushing through his blood stream.
The lights of the ambulance outside reminded him of an all-nighter on Brighton Beach.
The paramedics came in the pub and took him by the arm and led him to the ambulance waiting outside.
He heard one of the paramedics say.
“This patient has been patched back together with some kind of adhesive.”
Paramedic two replied. “Yeah, superglue, they used to use this method in combat zones. Works quicker and faster than stiches.”
“Good heavens, what do we do?”
“Nothing, just keep him comfortable – the doctors will apply a solvent to remove the adhesive and then stich him up.”
Been stitched up already, thought Ed.
WHITE RIOT
then
FROM THE school library I found the public libraries. Bromley, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge. It takes a long time to work your way through those monsters. Bromley is enough for anyone. The supernatural section took a good few weeks and that was the smallest section.
Bounty would look at me reading in the lounge and pull a face. “What you want is to discover something real rather than keeping your nose in those books.”
“Fuck you, Bounty.”
Bounty was what we called him owing to fact that he was a black boy being brought up by white folks. Like the chocolate bar he was white on the inside.
Bounty was five years older than me, which when you’re nine is almost a life time.
“You ever watch the game?” he asked.
“What game?”
“The football. The match, what you talking about ‘what game’”
“What’s all the excitement about?”
“Put down that book and I’ll show you.”
We slipped out on that Saturday afternoon.
He told me the old stories about how Millwall were in the first division for the first time in their history back when he went as a kid. After one hundred and three years and sixty-one seasons in the football league the Lions were in the top tier of English football. At the time this meant little, but looking back it was something astonishing, he explained. As we walked from Burmondsy station we passed a gypsy site. A sudden feeling of loss and sorrow. Then we were away to the ground. The odd supporter would call Bounty a ‘fucking nigger’ or something to that effect but it didn’’t seem to bother him. He would talk about the good old days and about Sherringham’s skill in front of goal. Cascarino’s height and presence in the box. Hurlock’s fearless defending. But current squad with Tim Cahill, Steven Reid, and Dennis Wise as captain and manager. Bomber Harris as striker were a nice tidy squad. A team that took them to the FA Cup final. The thing that struck me that day most of all was the crowd. Fearless, unforgiving and brutal. The language was out of this world – even for a boy who grew up in a gypsy camp. The anger, the frustration, the joy, the sorrow, every emotion spilled over onto the terraces of Cold Blow Lane.
Often the anger spilled outside the ground.
Every club that came to visit us either brought as little fans as possible or if they were one of the London clubs or say Leeds, or Cardiff they’d bring the firm. While we were only grunts we’d get involved now and again. I once saw Bounty cut a Palace supporter’s face open.
After the game the Palace fan was only a small geezer wearing glasses. He was drunk and chanting as he left the stadium. Bunty ran and lept on him, a flash of metal and there he lay on the pavement.
Bounty trotted back over, a smile, “best move sharpish boys”, he said.
We went every other Saturday. Home games and the odd away game the scraps after the game were ordinarily not planned until that is we met Mad Frank who introduced us to the Bushwacker firm and some of the baby firm who we were to run with for a couple of years.
The meets after the game became more regular. The scraps got scrappier. The older firm would buy us cans of beer. Got drunk for the first time before the match. What was once a lively football stadium became a coliseum. That first beer buzz was like somebody somewhere turned the lights on in the stadium. The game was on.
Mad Frank was about eighteen and would invite us to the meets after the game. Frankie dressed smartly, mostly clothes he’d nicked from clothes shops. “Just go in the changing rooms, take a bag with you and fill it up, no fucking bother.”
Frankie led the younger crew with an iron fist. He was the first to go into battle and would put his own safety at risk to help any of the younger mob. This violent streak was not restricted to humans. He was violent with animals too. I once saw him jump up into the air and punch a copper-mounted police horse on the nose. The horse reared back and we legged it through the smell of fried onions, burger vans, graffiti, piss-soaked alleyways, back to the station.
“Jimmy, we got a meet with the Zulu’s this Thursday, cup draw. You in?”
I nodded. These were Birmingham lads.
“Don’t tell Bounty. That geezers a liability. Nothing wrong with a good old punch up, but I don’t like blades, never have done. You saw what he did to that Palace geezer’s face. I’m telling
you Jimmy, be careful of that cunt. He’s unpredictable.”
NO ONE LIKES US
NO ONE likes us
No one likes us
No one likes us
We don’t care
We are MILLWALL
SUPER MILLWALL
We are MILLWALL
From the Den
That’s how it goes.
Fucking original ah?
“Shit, your breath smells like you been drinking whiskey.”
“Yeah – and yours smells like you been talking shit.”
Bounty.
You had to either love him or kill the cant and throw him in the fackin canal. But we liked the canal. As kids we played there. Bounty was in the care home too. He was black, I was a gypsy. We used to sneak down to the canal and smoke. The ducks like it. It was a nice place, the canal.
‘No one likes us, no one likes us.’
We don’t care.
Fuck knows. You get attached to a club and it’s like a bad wife or mother – ever disappointing you and leading you in the wrong direction but you know better than to stray because loyalty is what counts on the sites and the estates and without it you’re properly screwed.
And we don’t care.
The younger crew jumping up and down fueled on pills or powder. Probably the pills I lost in the deal. Yeah – it’s the perfect crime. Find out where a drug deal is going down and turn up with the shooters. Not like the dealers or the buyers will go to the filth. I almost envy the body-builders that shot me in the kneecap. But it hurts, hurts like a bitch. And the slags are out of reach.
And Byron probably got the news already.
‘No one likes us.’
The old boys stand there in their flat caps and even, get this, the odd sheepskin jacket. Henry is playing a blinder crossing from the flanks but there’s nobody on the end of them. Dunne is sliding in like there’s no tomorrow clearing up at the back and tearing forward with pace. Used to be a sprinter before he played football full-time.. Jimmy Abdou is there strong and secure in the back line. He goes in for every challenge, fearless, unperturbed.
‘Millwall till I die.’
If you haven’t been then you don’t understand it. It’s not like Spurs or Palace or Arsenal, you understand. It’s the Den and you don’t know what it’s like until you been there, had the grotty Lion-burger (extra onion, watery sauce) and seen your team go a couple of goals down.
The singing. Oh yes, the singing.
There’s a sudden new song. To the tune of London bride is falling down:
BYRON, BYRON IS OUR FRIEND, IS OUR FRIEND,
IS OUR FRIEND,, IS OUR FRIEND,
BYRON, BYRON, IS OUR FRIEND,
HE KILLS COPPERS!
Throat goes dry and hands clammy.
I feel my balls rise up a notch.
Up by the top row he sits, Ed Case next to him. Byron’s wearing a business suit and drinks from a hip flask. Ed is surveying the rows. I pull my hood up.
“Don’t look now, Bounty, but e’s up there.”
“So what you gonna do?”
“Don’t look. Keep your eyes on the game. He give me fifty large to do the exchange.”
“What happened?”
“Third party. Some body-builders took the merchandise and took the cash. Dealer got shot dead. I took a bullet in the leg. He’ll want paying.”
“Bank job?”
“Too risky. Fucking cameras everywhere.”
“Bookies?”
“Bounty, this is no time to place a fucking bet.”
“No you pillock, you raid the bookies – they always have the cash and minimal security – breeze in with a fucking shooter and Bob’s your mother’s brother.”
“Where do I get this so called shooter.”
“How about this?”
Bounty pulls out a weapon from his jeans.
“It’s a fucking cap gun – a fucking air gun.”
I said more out of hope than real experience.
“I know that, you know that – but does the bookie know that?”
“Give it here.”
And then we watch Burnley take a run down the flank, cross over a ball into the box and the striker nods it in and we both know that we’re fucked.
TEENAGE KICKS
now
BYRON was outside on the front lawn smoking a cigar when he watched his precious little Rose walk up the gravel driveway to the mansion. Except she wasn’t so little anymore. Nor precious. She’d grown up into the kinda woman that would dig a few graves just like her mother had. She wore a tight black top, leggings and her hair was tied up, make-up smeared – been out all night, another one of these fucking raves. Popping a couple of pills no doubt. MDMA powder...
Drugs was something they never spoke about.
“Where do you think you’ve been?” he growled.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“I’m nineteen, daddy. I go wherever I please.”
“Not while you’ll living under my roof, sweetheart,” he said. He thought for a moment. “What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“I’ve just got back from the game. You’ve been out almost twenty-four hours. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. So you go out all night and there’s no fella involved. Just give me his name love. That’s all I need.”
“Maybe I’m into girls?”
“Not if you take after your mother.”
It was a sore subject – his wife, Rose’s mother, had walked out when she was just six. Byron had employed a succession of maids and au pairs to bring his daughter up. She went to a private catholic school.
University was a sore subject.
Everything was sore with Dad.
Byron had learned everything he had needed to know on the streets and in the prison library. His little girl deserved better. She was all that he had.
For her it would be different.
She made a face at her dad and barged past him and up three flights of stairs into the space that was more of an apartment than a bedroom. She had her own bathroom, living room, bedroom. She placed a record on the turntable – Future sound of London. Papua New Guinea. Opened a drawer and found what she was looking for: a blister pack of six blue tablets. Vallium 10 milligrams – the perfect way to crash from a night on the speckled doves.
She laid down on the bed under the covers, her fingers found her center and she began to play with herself. The dull rush of ecstasy reaching out for one final dance, a wave of relief, maybe the last.
Finally she came.
Downstairs Byron found it impossible to understand why they needed to listen to their music so loud. Jimmy hadn’t been at the match. He had to formulate a plan. Find out where he was and when he found him, let him know that he had been found.
Now where was that bag of grass she’d been saving for a rainy day?
SCOOBY SNACKS
LADBROKES, Old Kent Road.
“We go in and fucking start swearing like a couple of fishwives. There’s nothing to it. Just act like yourself,” Bounty said smiling like the cat that got the Dairy Lee.
“Watch it, Bounty.”
“Why?”
“Do you think before you fucking speak or does it just come out like that, Bounty. Tell me truthfully, have you ever had a nice fucking thought about anyone?”
“Only your mother.”
“My mother’s dead.”
“Exactly.”
I know he’s fucking with me.
It’s part of the routine, get hyped up before the job.
I hope.
“Right. That’s it. We’re going in.”
Door swings open and its full of Muppets on fruit machines and watching horses on television screens running around the tracks scribbling down numbers on little betting pads. Some mouthy bitch in a tracksuit is arguing with a chav in a hoody. Talking about food for the baby and cigarettes. What a great fucking society we live in where government spongers gamble their hand-outs and squeeze o
ut kids to claim more benefit. I hate the pair immediately but we have a job to do. We make it over to the booth and I grab the kid behind the counter by the scruff of the neck pull him towards me. “Right youse, hand over the fackin lira.”
“I, I, I...”
Spotty bastards got a stutter can only be eighteen years old, wearing a sweater with a fake Lacoste badge on it. “The deutschmarks, baby. Hand it over.”
“We, only keep a small amount here. C-C-C-“
“Cant,” Bounty eloquently says.
“Company procedures. For a big win we go to the bank.”
“I said Fackin show me the fackin dollars before I stick that weapon,” I say nodded towards Bounty who stands, legs slightly apart with the Glock trained on him, “so far down your throat you’re be auditioning for a part in Kenny does Old Kent road.”
His face makes an expression like he just squeezed the turtle’s head down the bowl.
I slip over the counter and have a look in the till – about a grand in cash by the looks of it. “Is that all there is?”
“I p-p-p-promise. Take it. Take it all.”
Bounty aims the weapon and fires.
You ever seen a geezer’s jaw separate from his skull?
You don’t want to.
Claret everywhere. Fucking horror scene.
Jesus. Danny. No.
Chav geezer comes up to us. “Used to go to school with that cant.”
“Well fucking doing something about it you useless cunt,” his chav girlfriend says. “Thought you always talking ‘bout ‘ow fucking hard you ares.”
“Fucking hard?” says Bounty. I’ll show you fucking hard. He aims the weapon at the kid’s stomach and fires him a kidney shot. The floor grabs the chav and he lays there flapping around in his own stomach acid. “As for you mouthy bitch,” he grabs her by the hair and brings her to him. She screams, spits in his face, calls him a fucking nigger.
“Thou protest too much,” says Bounty and with one hand manipulates her jaw open and with the other inserts the barrel of the gun into her mouth. He looks down at her boyfriend. “How deep she take it, boy?”
The chav spews up bile on the floor
I want to say ‘no.’
Jesus. Christ. Bounty.
Bounty takes out a roll of masking tape from his back pocket and wraps it around her mouth. Spins her around. Her hands grip the betting booth. Pulls down her tracksuit and there’s no underwear and a lot of bush.