Gadget staggered out into the street. Usually when your friends are taken to A&E, you’ve got to wait till they’re released to hear what happened. But this time we had witnesses. Gadget had been with Cyrus at the time.
“See what he’s done? I’m not having it.”
He paced back and forth, ticking like a timebomb.
“What did he look like?”
“Man was Turkish. Vicious little shit. Small, skinny. Yellow Stone Island jacket.”
Badman stumbled out after him, his new trainers covered with blood. He had a wild look in his eye I knew only too well. “Gotta get this yout, innit. Man can’t be coming, thinking they’re brave enough to bust man’s head.”
The rest of us said nothing. There was no talking. We were getting ready for action. We were saving our energy to perform.
Someone needed to take control. I pulled Gadget and Badman to one side.
“Did you see which exit they were heading for?”
“Could only see two. This one and the other one on the far side. Must be that one.”
The club had been evacuated. Police cars started to pull up at the front. An ambulance must be on its way. We spread out like hunting dogs in a pack – far enough to minimise suspicion but close enough to keep tabs on each other – and weaved our way through the crowd, trying not to be too bait.
Girls were crying. Officers were taking statements from witnesses. We were not deterred.
Drex gestured over, pointing to his eye. He was asking if I’d seen any of them yet. I shook my head. Some of the Man Dem were buzzing off the alcohol. This was a club environment. Man had to sober up fast. Others who joined us outside had their own agenda.
I scanned the crowd for Turkish-looking faces. My heart was thumping. I felt a twinge of excitement. A yout snagged my eye. He looked Turkish. Could it be him? An exit spilled out on to a side road. He was standing at the bottom, next to a friend. I was about to yell, but remembered the Stone Island jacket. Not bright enough. Hold on. Not yet.
Hang on. The yout he was speaking to turned round and caught my eye. Small, skinny. Yeah, he looked like a guilty little motherfucker. As I turned round I saw the yellow Stone Island jacket.
Badman had spotted him too.
“That’s the guy!”
“Jump him!”
We charged.
Some characters just cower, and take the beating. Others think they’re Muhammad Ali. You can get some serious kung-fu fighting shit going on. This was one of those times. We got him quick, just as well, as he was a nimble little fucker. He was skinny and sinewy. Looked like the boy could run. Luckily for us, he never got the chance.
His boys leapt in, punching to the left, kicking to the right.
I didn’t just do things for the sake of it. If my boys are fighting, I needed to get involved.
I ran with a flying kick, and jumped straight in. I could fight. I knew how to take care of myself. Whenever an arm or leg made contact, I firmed the pain and tightened my fists.
I’d lost sight of the yellow jacket. All I could see was a scrum of designer labels and scuffed trainers.
Someone yelled.
“The Feds!”
That was the sign to split. Man Dem began to disperse. I ran too, not caring which direction I was heading for. I didn’t look back. Once we’d split, we’d split. There was no regrouping. That just makes it too easy for the Feds. It was known: you make the journey home on your own.
I kept running until it was safe enough to walk. I stopped to catch my breath. At this point I didn’t care if someone had followed me.
I walked through quiet back streets, past offices and restaurants shut for the night, until I was back on Bond Street. It was almost light by the time I got on the night bus.
I slumped down in the back seat of the top deck. It wasn’t too busy. I just wanted to get home, and thought about having a bath. I wondered whether Tyrone and Kez had seen any of the action, or whether they made it home early. They were both sensible. I knew they would be safe.
Did I think about that yout in the yellow jacket? Hell no. If he has come up to my mates, starting trouble, why should I worry about him? He was the least of my worries. No one had mentioned Cyrus’s injuries. Guns and knives weren’t involved. It was only a fist fight. How bad could it be?
You only need to worry if it comes back to you. And it wouldn’t. The Turkish boy had only seen me for a moment.
As long as the Feds haven’t come for you at seven in the morning and kicked down your door, you’re fine. Even if you do get nicked, what they gonna do? We were young. It was all fun. No one had been killed. All we did was give someone who deserved it a good fucking hiding.
I rested my head against the window, trying to take in what had happened. I inhaled deeply and imagined I could still smell Drex. I closed my eyes and smiled. Yeah, that blood had ruined the whole night. We had a whole vibe going on.
I thought about the open bottle of Moet in my bedroom, and decided I’d finish it when I got in. I realised I was hungry. I wondered if any mum had left any chicken and rice for me in the fridge …
The next night, we met in our usual spot by Brixton Police Station. You would see very quickly who was missing, but that evening everyone was present and correct. No one had heard from Cyrus.
“Police come to your house?” asked Badman. “Anyone been nicked?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Who was them guys anyway?” I asked.
Stimpy knew. Stimpy always knew. “Jags. He’s connected to the Enfield crew. Some bruv said he was the cousin of one of the youngers.”
Stimpy started laughing. “Did you see the way Sour come with that running fly kick from behind?”
Gadget grinned. “And you, bruv. You did an uppercut to blood’s face. Jags and his boys were trying to fight y’all off like ninjas. They had no chance. Crazy night, man.”
“So what’s the deal for tonight? Who’s hungry?” We traipsed across the road to Morley’s chicken shop.
Cyrus’s name was barely mentioned.
Kitchen Drawer
I sat cross-legged on my bed, watching Drex clown around. He was telling a story about the time Stimpy stole a police car. I didn’t believe a word.
“You’re lying.”
“Man did! Cross my heart and swear to die.”
“So, why’s he not in jail?”
“Too young, innit?”
I laughed. “Keep telling bare lies, your nose gonna reach Brixton Hill.”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
The engine roar caught our attention. It sounded much closer than the car park. I leaned over to the window and pulled back the curtains. Outside, on the walkway, we watched a grinning Yusuf pop out from underneath a motorbike helmet.
He was riding a moped. Or rather, he had just ridden a moped up the ramp at the end of the block and had parked it outside the front door. His feet could barely touch the ground when he sat on it.
He looked up and saw our puzzled faces at the window, and waved.
“Man gotta be kidding!” exclaimed Drex, sounding impressed.
Yusuf wiped the sweat off his face, jumped off and bounded into the house and up the stairs.
“Well? What do you think?”
“What do I think?” I said. “I’m thinking how the fuck did you get the money for one of those? That’s got to be about £2,000? If you stole that, Yusuf, someone is gonna be marking you name.”
“Chill, sis,” he said. “I ain’t been tiefing no mopeds. That beauty is all mine.”
“But how?”
He gave me a frown.
“You tink you’re the only one in this house who can make money?”
Yeah, sometimes I was too caught up in my own shit to remember that Yusuf was showing himself to be a bit of an entrepreneur too. Shit, he was becoming a serious little rugrat, man.
I’d been so shocked by Yusuf’s new purchase I wasn’t paying attention to the angry footsteps thu
mping up the stairs.
The door flung open. I saw Drex’s eyes widen, but before I could look round I felt an agonising whack. It sucked the breath from my lungs and made my vision a blur. It took me some seconds to recognise the screaming voice. It was Althea. She was wielding a baseball bat and she had fury on her face.
I had meant to be babysitting Cheenie but sacked it off when Drex asked if I was free. I’d told her to fuck off over the phone – I had company, that’s all she needed to know. She wasn’t happy.
Stars flashed before my eyes.
She had hit me with a baseball bat. As far as I’m concerned, that was attempted murder.
I threw myself at her like a girl possessed. We rolled around the floor, kicking, biting and scratching each other’s face.
Drex didn’t have a hope in hell of prising us apart.
Yusuf tried to block the doorway.
“Mum!”
Mum cussed something from her bedroom, and put her music up louder. Her door stayed closed.
I wriggled from her grasp and bolted out the door and down the stairs.
“Don’t let her get to the drawer,” shouted Yusuf, belting down the stairs after me. “She’s knife happy.”
Why was no one helping me? I was the one getting beaten up here! Just because I was naughty, everyone always assumed the arguments were my fault. Bitch cried wolf once too often, I guess.
Yusuf spread-eagled himself across the kitchen door.
“Whatever you’re about to do, Sour, don’t do it,” he begged. “Ain’t worth it.”
I heard Althea storm out the house, banging the front door behind her. Her silhouette passed by the frosted glass of the kitchen window, towards the stairwell.
“Lemme past, Yusuf,” I growled. I’d never raised my voice to my little brother before. He was wasting precious seconds.
“Alf’s just a bully,” he pleaded. “Please Sour, don’t do it.”
I pushed him out of the way, and yanked open the drawer. I ran out of the front door, the kitchen door still swinging behind me, the drawer open with one knife missing.
Drex yelled at me to come back. I paid no attention.
I knew the route she was going to take to catch the Number 2 bus home. I spotted her purple parka on the street and sprinted after her.
She was waiting at the bus stop when she saw me running towards her.
“Fuck off. Didn’t you get enough back at the house?”
“I ain’t no coward. You did that in a coward’s way, Alf, sneaking up behind someone like that. You coulda killed me!”
She said something under her breath and smirked.
“What did you say?”
I was goading her, so I could justify what I was about to do.
“Shut your mouth, you little bitch. Think you’re some gangster now? Learning tricks from your new friends?”
I knew if I killed her there would a whole lot of disruption. But Lord have Mercy, I wanted to teach that bitch a lesson.
She didn’t expect me to stab her.
I jabbed for her twice, missing the first time, puncturing her thigh the second.
She clutched her leg.
“What the fuck?”
She only needed a few stitches in the end. Drama queen.
Yusuf and Drex were still at home when I walked back into the kitchen, ran the bread knife under the tap, dried it with a towel, and calmly placed it back into the drawer.
Althea never attacked me with a baseball bat again. Nor, for that matter, did anyone else.
Mysteries
The code was that getting caught ain’t cool. And yet, something was bothering me. The Feds didn’t turn up at my door at seven the morning after the club brawl, or any other morning for that matter. And it niggled. There were things I was getting curious about.
Drex and I were a couple. The Posh and Becks of our postcode. The Peckhams, if you will.
I pretended his constant calling was irritating, but secretly I had grown to like it. The phone rang just as Mum was wandering past in her dressing gown. She passed it over. She didn’t need to ask who it was.
“When you coming to see man?”
“Seriously? No hello Sour, how you doing?”
I could hear him sighing. “Hold on, give man a chance! Wha gwarn? You cool?”
“Good, thanks for asking.”
He paused. “Gonna come and see me now?”
For someone nicknamed Drex, he didn’t exactly have a silver tongue. As it happened, I was planning to go and see him; I just liked hearing him beg.
Drex was one of the luckier ones. His parents weren’t around, but he had a nice home in Stockwell Park. His dad treated him like the little prince of the household – he was real spoiled, with his own quarters and a badass stereo system – the kind people had in their front room, he had in the bedroom. The house always smelled of nice cooking.
I’d go over to his and we’d listen to music in his room.
His dad was strict, and when it was dark he’d start to cuss. “Come on, young lady,” he’d say, “time for you to be going home.”
Until then, we’d laugh and joke and kiss. Nothing more. He never moved too far. I liked that. “My Heart Belongs to U” by Jodeci: that was our song. He’d sit on the bed and mime the words to me, acting the clown.
He looked ridiculous.
“Why you singing to me for?”
“Coz that’s how I feel, innit. Don’t you like my singing?”
“No!”
“Fine, won’t give you your present.”
“Oh yeah?”
He retrieved a plastic bag from underneath his bed. It was a Nike Air jacket – top trend, real cute. It suited my hair and make-up and looked good with my Reeboks. I wore the hell out. I wore it with pride.
Yeah, for the calibre of girl I was, he was on my level.
And I loved him. He loved me. When he said he felt safer with me than with the Man Dem, that was the biggest compliment anyone could ever give me. He knew I’d always have his back. I would have moved to anyone for him.
I felt comfortable with him in a way I’d never felt comfortable with anyone.
Yet, no matter how much I loved him, and how many times he asked, I had no interest in taking our relationship to the next level. I’d heard too many conversations outside the police station about the chicks they’d banged.
I’d been one of the boys too long. I knew what they talked about.
It seemed a girl’s power went up in smoke the minute they heard she had slept with someone, even the chicks they really liked. When I think about it, especially the chicks they really liked. I wanted more than that. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.
Yeah, I was curious about something, but truth was, I was curious about something else. Something everyone was doing and boasting about afterwards. Everyone but me.
This was my other secret: I had never been arrested. Not properly, that is. Sure I’d been picked up, that time with my brother, but as I said, that was more a kiddies’ tour of the station.
Things had changed. I’d grown up.
I was one of the Man Dem now. I was meant to be a brand-name. So how could I not know what the inside of a police station was like? I’d see friends, guys from the estate getting arrested, then they’d be back the next day, bragging about their experiences. I listened to their stories, but I knew that, deep down, I had no idea about the reality of what had happened in between.
There was no shortage of boydem stopping and searching all the young black men I knew. What about the cute black girls? That’s discrimination, innit.
I wanted to know what the justice process was actually like. I needed to know. For me, the mysteries of the police station and the courtroom were much more interesting than any of the mysteries of sex.
Careful what you wish for.
Right Girl, Wrong Crime
The irony was that, when I did finally get nicked, it was for something I didn’t even do. But that’s karma, innit? Rig
ht girl, wrong crime.
I knocked on Tyrone’s door.
“Come on, I’m bored. Let’s hit the road.”
He started moaning about studying, but I just laughed at him, and shouted through to his mum that I’d have him home soon.
We jumped on the bus and headed to Brixton Market. I found it funny – I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with someone who paid his fare, but Tyrone didn’t seem to see the joke. When we got to the market, he was talking – boring stuff about school, his college application – but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking of what kind of naughtiness I could get up to. Let’s call it my episode of expressing myself.
“… so yeah, application’s got to be in next week. Do you know how much an engineer makes?”
Poor Tyrone. Always talking, talking, talking.
The market was particularly busy.
“See that butcher chopping up meat over there?”
The stallholders were Eastern European. The couple had been round the market for years. Didn’t smile much. Probably coz they were always stuck behind this stall. He had his cleaver in hand, chopping fillets on request, while his wife was taking orders and operating the till.
I noticed when a lot of customers came at once she started chopping and bagging things up too, leaving the till unattended behind her.
“Watch.”
I walked round the back of the stall, waited for my moment, and when they were both distracted I leaned over and pressed the bottom right button on the till. Ping.The drawer came open. There were so many notes. I didn’t even think stallholders could make that sort of money.
I likked a £20 note for me and a £10 note for Tyrone.
By the time the wife spun round, the till was exactly how she left it. The butcher made a swing for me with the cleaver.
I ducked through the tarpaulin, into the street.
When Tyrone came out to join me, his eyes were open like a barn owl.
“I can’t believe you just did that. By yourself? Face straight?”
I gave him his tenner. He looked puzzled.
“All that? Just for a tenner? You’ve already got money.”
“I wanted to show you.”
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