The Carbon Diaries 2015

by Saci Lloyd

“So see you there?”

  “Ohh, right . . . The thing is it’s not really my scene. I’m more of an R&B girl. I mean, isn’t this kinda like white people’s shit?”

  “Take a look at my skin,” replied Adisa, coolly. ‘It’s not about color, it’s about giving a shit, Thanzila.”

  “Well, yeah, course! Umm, what’s the date?”

  “The 7th, this Sunday.”

  “Oh, no!’ A look of pure fake distress crossed her perfect face. She turned to Ravi. “We’re going to that party in Hackney that night, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. This looks safe.”

  Thanzila gave him the evil eye, but Ravi smiled shyly at Adisa. “I’ll take a flyer, if that’s cool?”

  “Sure, it’d be good to see you there, Rav.”

  Thanzila turned on her heel. “Yeah, well,”—she smiled sweetly—“as I say, I think we may be busy.”

  After they’d gone, I gave Adi a shove. “What did you go and do that for? I don’t want her there. Or him, for that matter.”

  “Just testing it out is all.” He watched them walk down the link. “It’s not over till it’s over, Than-zi-la.”

  I’ve just tried some new bass moves in the mirror. What if he does come? He won’t, though. Anyway, I don’t like him anymore.

  Fri., June 5

  I went to Offenders and did a workshop on pollution. Bizarre.

  Sun., June 7

  Day of The Gig!

  Close one. Mum found the angels flyer in my jeans pocket this morning when she was loading the washing machine.

  “What’s this, honey?”

  “Oh, s’nothing.”

  “But it says you’re playing a gig tonight. . . .”

  “Oh yeah—it’s kind of a joke. The girls just made it up in Photoshop.”

  “Really? I’d love to see you play sometime, you must be really good now.”

  “Course, I’ll let you know. . . .”

  She sighed and folded the flyer. “My little girl! You’re getting all big now.”

  “Yeah!” I picked up my book bag. “Gotta go, Mum!”

  There’s no way ever ever that my mother is coming to the gig. And, Mum, if you’re reading this right now, I mean it.

  5 A.M. Can’t sleep, just too fired up!

  We got to the gig in a total sweat, cos our ride—Stacey’s friend’s cousin’s friend, Dodgy Gary from Wicklow—had a blowout on the North Circular in his untaxed, carbon-illegal wreck of a white van—and he had to push it half a mile off to the next slip road so the pigs wouldn’t bust him. By the time he fixed it and got to us, it was almost time for the soundcheck. Claire banged on the van door in rage when he pulled up.

  “All roight, darlin’, keep yer panties on!” He grinned.

  “Keep your own bloody panties on!” screamed Claire, throwing a snare drum into the back. “And don’t just sit there like a stuffed pig—help us get the stuff in.”

  Gary’s face went all white; I don’t think girls talk like that in Ireland.

  It was the Van of Tension. The traffic was all snarled up because of some roadworks so Gary was forced to go down the back streets, even though the pub was only a couple of Ks away. We were making him so nervous that he took about 500 wrong turns. I thought Claire was going to strangle him. Even Adi, who is normally one very chilled human being, went into some kind of stress trance. He wedged himself tight against the passenger door, going “juss-gotta-get-there-juss-gotta-get-there” like a zombie until we finally screeched up outside the pub.

  “Sweet Jaysus.” Gary wiped his damp face. “Oi been on some dirty rides before but youse lot is lethal.”

  “Better believe it, buddy. We’re the dirty angels,” snarled Claire.

  You’d never believe she lives in a 5-bedroom house in Blackheath. We piled out of the van and I picked up my amp and set off around the corner behind Stace. Suddenly she stopped.

  “Oh, my God!”

  I stopped, too. The outside of the Hope and Anchor was swarming with kids—hundreds of 12-year-old, Straight X kids in chains and junk. Stace tapped a skater-boy on the shoulder.

  “Er, are you here for the gig?”

  “Yuh. SlashFist are playing. Vegan death. Bare cool.” He flipped his board up on his toes.

  “What’s Adi gonna say?” I whispered.

  There was a groan from behind me.

  “Oh, you got to be kidding!”

  Then Claire appeared. “Wow, there’s like 400 people here!”

  Adi stuck his hands on his hips. “400 edgers. They’ll kill us if they catch us with as much as a Coke Lite in our hands.”

  “C’mon, Adi,” said Claire, “it’s time we broke down those old barriers. That’s what we’re about—we aren’t punks, we aren’t Straight X, we’re us. We’re here to rock out.”

  He shook his head. “Whatever.”

  As soon as we walked inside, a girl with about 50 thousand face piercings and blue hair skated over to us.

  “Yo! Mia Metziger,” she drawled in a U.S. accent. “You the angels?”

  “Yeah,” Claire drawled back.

  “Cool. We gotta problem, though. Running order’s changed—the Mondays have pulled out, so you’re on third now. Just before us, SlashFist. OK?”

  “Yeah,” said Claire.

  “Cool.” Mia skated off.

  Claire turned to us, eyes shining. “Our first gig, 400 crowd, and we’re nearly headlining! Come on, Ad, it’s awesome.”

  He grinned. “Okay, but just keep your smokes hidden, girl. Or they’ll kill ya.”

  I felt my stomach twist.

  After we’d done a fast sound check, I wandered around backstage. There was a reporter in there with Mia Metziger. I turned to go, but she waved me to stay. “Cool if you wanna chill. . . . Er, yeah”—she turned back to the reporter—“I came to London cuz of the whole new rationing scene here. The States suck right now—they been talking for ten years ’bout a hydrogen revolution, but like everyone knows the oil people still call the shots in Washington. Anyhowz, I play drums for a political/personal/anti-thug sXe hard-core band from Little Rock called SlashFist. We’re like total hard-core enviro punk, but I’m also deeply into political/social justice issues, art, baking, skating, tattoos, and booking shows.”

  The reporter nodded. “So, how did you get into the scene?”

  Mia fiddled with her eyebrow bolt. “Well, I was always into music a whole lot. It sounds kinda sad, but I din’t really have many friends of my own, I just kind of hung out with my brother’s crew. I wanted to play keyboard in a band so bad in elementary school, but this music teacher told me my hands were all wrong to play. I was really down, but then one day I picked up my bro’s buddy’s stix and it all started from there.”

  The reporter smiled. “Okay, so just one final question. What was it about hard-core/punk that appealed to you in the first place?”

  “I think what got me into it was the aggression.” Mia frowned. “Not aggression in a macho sense—because I was never really that big into bleeding at shows. It was just the fury, the anger, the whole attitude of ‘Yes, I’m mad, I’m not happy like YOU think I should be, everything isn’t okay, and I’m gonna do something about my life!’ I liked that a lot, that I could be in a band, go on tour, be part of something—instead of just living through bands on MTV and YouTube and Facebook and whatever.”

  “Awesome!” The reporter switched off her recorder. “Have a great show. I’ll be out front.”

  Once she’d left, Mia blew out a deep breath and smiled. “Journos. Gotta love ’em. . . . Anywayz, what’s your name?”

  “Laura.”

  “From the angels, right?”

  I nodded. I kind of felt shy, but I really liked what she said about the anger thing. She twisted her smartphone around. “Wanna touch? Us radicals gotta stay in touch.”

  The gig was mind-blowing. The club was just one big sweaty mosh pit by the time we got on. I nearly threw up, but once we were onstage and Stace clicked her sticks, I
just stepped into my bass stance and rocked out. All our school crew were there, right at the front. I saw Louise Foster go down in a pool of blood, laughing her head off. We wound up for the final track, death to capitalist scum, when suddenly I saw him. Ravi. He was standing on his own, right on the edge of the crowd. Our eyes locked and my whole world went cold, my fingers froze to the fretboard. Adi turned to me, frowning.

  “Laur?” His voice coming from a thousand miles away.

  “Ravi’s here.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Then let’s mess this place up good!”

  Stacey screamed, “1, 2, 3, 4!” And the place just EXPLODED!

  After the gig finished we hung out with the others outside. Ravi came over to me. “I’m going home soon, if you wanna walk. I reckon it’s as fast as the bus . . .”

  “Oh, I’ve got to pack the van up—”

  Adi cut in. “I got it covered—we’re all done here, girl.”

  Ravi shrugged. “I’m ready if you are.”

  We set off and walked for the longest time in deep, deep silence, Ravi viciously chain-smoking.

  “So, thanks for coming,” I finally blurted out.

  He nodded.

  “No Thanzila then?”

  He turned to me, with a half smile.

  “Nah.”

  “Oh.”

  Another deep pool of stressy silence. I’ve never felt so good as when we turned the corner into our street. I pulled my keys out too fast and dropped them. Ravi bent down and held them out to me. “I’m not with her, you know.”

  I didn’t know what to say, just stared at him like an idiot.

  “Laura . . . you were, uh . . . really cool . . . tonight.”

  He leaned in toward me, the world went so quiet and still—and then his cell buzzed. He flipped it open. “What?” And then he suddenly moved away. “Look, Thanz, I told you I don’t want . . .”

  I turned, sharply. “Got to go.”

  “No, wait . . .” Ravi smooshed the phone up against the palm of his hand. “I got family shit tomorrow, but see you Monday?”

  Once I got inside I leaned up against the door, heart pounding. Basically it was the best night of my whole life.

  Mon., June 8

  I feel like I’ve been floating around on a cloud—everything’s kind of unreal. I drifted into the kitchen this evening.

  “What’s up with you?” Kim growled.

  Mum looked up from her knitting. “Yes, darling, you do seem kind of . . . different.”

  I was feeling so happy, I almost thought about telling them.

  “Maybe she’s in lurve,” said Kim.

  I yanked the fridge door open and pulled out a juice. There’s no way I’m telling anyone in this family what’s really going on with me.

  “Girls, girls . . .” Mum sighed and put her knitting needles down. “Well, there, that’s done! My first sweater, for your dad. D’you think he’ll like it?”

  “S’great,” I said. Kim said nothing.

  Mum tutted. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic.” She went over to the kitchen door. “Nicky!” After a few moments he appeared at the door. Mum made him close his eyes and then she held up the sweater.

  “You can open them now. Voilà!”

  He took the sweater in his hands, turning it over, trying to find the neck. And then he did the worst thing—he started to laugh.

  “It’s . . . terrible . . . it’s the . . . crappiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Mum just gave a little shocked gasp. I wanted her to shout at him, like usual.

  “Oh, c’mon, Ju, it’s funny. I mean . . . the arms don’t even match.”

  She sighed. “Nothing I ever do is going to be good enough, is it?”

  He tried to put his arm around her. “Let’s face facts, you’re never going to be very good at practical stuff—it’s just not . . . you.”

  Mum pulled back. “But that’s just not all right for you anymore, is it? Looks like you married the wrong woman, Nick.”

  It’s like a loop. One of them gets happy and the other gets sad. Again and again and again.

  Tues., June 9

  School was awesome. Loads of people came up and asked us when the next gig was. For the first time in my life I am popular. Except with you-know-who. She must have an evil 6th sense—cos when she swanned past us in the hall with a bunch of pretty girls she gave me the filthiest look.

  “Scratch your eyes out!” hissed Adi. “So, anyway, how was the walk home?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? You’re not getting away with that.”

  “He said he wasn’t going out with her.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. . . . I think he was going to kiss me, but then he got a call. Thanzila.”

  Stace gasped. “No! Why’s that if they’re over? So what did you do?”

  “I just went indoors, left them to it.”

  “Hmm. Playing it cool. Like your style, Laur—as long as he’s not stringing you along.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s the type.”

  Adi frowned. “Well, just remember you’re better than him.”

  “Yeah, right—I mean, he’s gorgeous.”

  He turned away, sharp.

  I grabbed his arm. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he muttered. “I didn’t say nothing.”

  I wandered along the corridor toward the Design Tech lab, and when I got there Ravi was inside, bent over a piece of steel tubing.

  “Hi.”

  He barely looked up, just held out a piece of wire. “Here, can you hold this please?”

  I took it silently, all my cool melting away like a snowflake on skin.

  “Wrap the end around that screw—there . . .” He flicked the hair out of his eyes, irritably. “No, not like that—counterclockwise.”

  I unwound it. “All right! Only trying to help.” I jerked my hand away too quickly and pulled the wire out of Ravi’s hand. Blood welled up across his thumb.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” I stared at the wires. “What is it, anyway?”

  He sucked his thumb. “A crossbow.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, for shooting with. S’for my mum . . . to keep my dad in his place. He’s such a jerk.”

  We looked at each other for a moment and then we both cracked up, big time. So much for the perfect Dattas.

  “Can you do one for me, too?”

  “You got the same shit?” he asked softly.

  I nodded. “My sister.”

  He gave me his shy smile. “D’you want to come to the park this Sunday? There’s a softball game . . . could be cool . . .”

  “Sure.”

  Boom, Boom, Boom went my heart.

  Fri., June 12

  A category-5 hurricane has hit the east coast of the States. That’s the fiercest type, even stronger than the one that wiped out New Orleans back in 2005. It struck this place called Wilmington in North Carolina in the middle of the night. Everyone was asleep because the local news media had told people not to evacuate. It’s not even hurricane season yet and the weather bureau said the winds would only be 50 mph. So wrong. The outer wall of the hurricane slammed in with 150+ mph winds that went up to 250+ mph. They don’t know what the full damage is yet, but by this morning 9,000 mobile homes and 10,000 apartments have vanished off the face of the earth. They don’t know how many people are dead. The really chilling thing was this local broadcast that they kept repeating. It was like something out of a movie.

  We interrupt this program to bring you an emergency alert from the National Broadcast Emergency Center. This is an emergency alert! We repeat, this is an emergency alert! The outer winds of Hurricane Vanessa have just reached the North Carolina coast. Hurricane Vanessa has unexpectedly shifted twelve degrees north. We repeat, Hurricane Vanessa has shifted twelve degrees north. Vanessa is expected to strike Wilmington within minutes. We repeat, Vanessa is expected to strike Wilmington within minutes. All Wilmington resid
ents should take immediate cover! We repeat, all Wilmington residents should take immediate cover! This is an emergency alert!

  Watched the news at school. Vanessa isn’t stopping, she’s swept up north along the coast and formed hundreds of mini-tornadoes through Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington. All my mum’s family lives there. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. The death total is up to 2,400 with nearly a million people homeless. All the reporters look sick and shocked.

  Adi shook his head. “This ain’t no New Orleans, this is rich white people getting killed. Everybody bothered now.”

  Sat., June 13

  Still waiting to hear from our family. Dad’s cousin died in the Great Storm, but we didn’t know for weeks. Mum’s really upset.

  She keeps calling and e-mailing the States, but all the lines are down. When I got back tonight, she was sitting at the kitchen table looking thru some old photos. I leaned over her shoulder.

  “Look, there’s your grandparents with that stupid speedboat. Their pride and joy. Wouldn’t be allowed now—it only did about two miles to the gallon.” She stroked the surface of the photo and sighed. “I just want to go back and be with them. Stupid really, I couldn’t wait to get away, couldn’t stand my crazy mother—but now it’s so hard to go back. . . . A return trip to the East Coast would use up nearly two months’ points.”

  Sun., June 14

  We finally heard from Mum’s sister in Washington. She could only talk for a couple of minutes before cutting out. They’re all safe, though they’ve been in shelters for a week. Vanessa is now down to a category 1, but thousands of miles of coastline are still flooded. Endless shots on the TV of stranded people paddling across flooded towns.

  This leading hurricane expert, Dr. Lewis, did an interview from his Colorado State University office. He was all normal, then suddenly in the middle of the interview he just lost it. He banged his fist on the desk: “The Gulf Stream is desalinating and shutting down right now and it’s not going to stop. Storms on this scale are going to happen again and again—and we’re going to see damage like we’ve never seen before. We have to act now, before it’s too late.”

  I was really looking forward to this afternoon with Ravi, but then I kept remembering about America and my family and feeling dead guilty. Anyway, it turned out there was no need, it’s not like anything good happened to feel guilty about. Basically he called around for me at 1—we walked along the hot, dry back roads to the park, he smoked, played softball, he smoked some more, had a burger, had a beer, he smoked even more—and then we came home.