Lottery Boy

by Michael Byrne

  Stray on the loose answers to the name of bully last seen on the south bank heading north to watford – big reward offered for safe return JANKS

  And a good many men rubbed their eyes and went back to sleep, thinking nothing more about it. But in bright little flats in dark little places, a few paused for a moment in what they were doing (to the relief of some) to seriously consider this offer. And though most of these men went back to doing what they were doing, more than one or two decided they wanted in on this. And all these men – fat, thin, tall, short and funny-looking – had one thing in common: they didn’t care what they were searching for. They just wanted the money. And before the sun came up they were buzzing through London, on the lookout for a stray named Bully who was going to make them rich.

  Bully woke and choked, Jack licking his face, spit and snot going up his nose. He strained his neck to lift his eyes and saw a streak of grey painted into the darkness.

  In summer the light came back in the middle of the night, a long time before the sun, and he guessed he hadn’t been unconscious for more than a couple of hours. He tried to pull himself up on Jack’s dog lead but his arms weren’t listening to his head, refused to do what he asked of them, even when he was nice about it. He was a dead weight; the old blood from last night was stuck in his top half and he felt like a worm cut in two.

  He tested his legs. They still did as they were told and he braced his bare feet against the sides of the bore. They slipped a few times and he stayed where he was. Then he remembered that inside all guns, big or small, there was rifling in the barrel. These grooves in the metal spiralled up, round and round inside the gun, spinning the shell to its target. Phil had explained it to him. He’d shown him his pistol that he’d brought home from his war and Bully had looked down it and seen the little grooves shining in the darkness, and pictured someone dying at the end of it.

  Bully didn’t want to be dying inside a gun, and he lifted his knees up a little, felt for the grooves with his toes and then jammed them in as far as they would go. And he pushed and pushed … and slowly, slowly he shuffled himself and Jack back up the barrel.

  A few seconds after he got his elbows hooked over the lip of the gun, the pins and needles started poking into him, and he was a long time writhing about and complaining about it, saying Jesus wet, Jesus wet, even though he was drying out now.

  He remembered then the man’s scream from a few hours ago and he looked down around him. And there he was, that man, lying on the ground. His pockets were turned inside out and his belly was leaking onto the grass and turning it a dead brown colour. But Bully still watched him for a while longer until he was sure he was dead.

  When the pain had had enough of him, Bully started climbing out of the barrel. It was easier than getting in because he was getting out. It didn’t matter how scary it was looking that far down, with a dead man on the ground. He shuffled back along the barrel on his hands and knees, Jack still inside his hoodie. He looked for his trainers and socks but they were gone. And though he squinted up into the grey light, he couldn’t see his coat in the tree either. Janks must have taken it, searching for his ticket. Then he remembered what else was in one of his pockets. He stood still a moment, taking it in, mourning the loss of his mum’s birthday card.

  Today was the first day he would not be hearing her voice since the day she died.

  He heard a car roaring past on the empty road, saw its lights still on, showing up the early morning. He got himself moving, walked towards the gates, pretending the dead man wasn’t there, but then he looked back, couldn’t help it, just to make sure he really was never getting up again.

  On the road he got his bearings from the compass on his penknife. He watched the little arrow point north and made his way towards the river. He didn’t have any money or any food or even any shoes. But all he had to do was just keep following the arrow to get to Watford and Camelot, and then he could buy as much food and as many pairs of Reeboks as he liked. The geeky guy had told him Watford was about twenty miles away, north of London. That sounded a lot but then he thought about how much walking he did most days just wandering round. And he was bound to bump into Watford if he just carried on walking north, at least to see a sign for it or find a train going that way.

  First of all, though, he had to get across the river.

  London was empty. Nothing much was moving. Even the river was sludgy and slow. He walked past the Eye, stared at the grey, empty pods hanging from the whitening sky. It was broken now, nothing going round.

  “Jack!” he yelled because Jack was off chasing pigeons still sleeping on the ground. And then he looked around as the buildings across the river threw his own voice back at him. All around him it was like TV with the sound right down, making him nervy and twisting him around. Basically, the quiet was too LOUD and he felt like the last boy in the world and he wanted the zombies back, pouring out of the station and across the bridge so that he could lose himself among them.

  He wondered then if it would be better to wait longer, to hide out until it got busier or even until Monday morning before he crossed. But the tourists didn’t turn up until the middle of the day and Monday was too far away and he felt the urge to make a run for it now.

  He knew if he didn’t get across now, the more chance they had of hunting him down, of picking up his scent again on this side of the river. And even if Janks didn’t use his dog, humans could still hunt. All Janks and his crew had to do was look for a boy without shoes and socks and a funny-looking dog. Even in London that wouldn’t be hard to find.

  * * *

  He got to the end of the footpath that ran alongside the river and then on his hands and knees he crawled up the steps to the road bridge above. He heard a car coming and ducked down, waiting long after the tyres had gone, until the smell of the exhaust disappeared. Then he peeped his eyes up just above the top step, so that anyone looking would just see half a head. When he saw the road bridge it looked much longer than he remembered because it was closer and emptier than he’d ever seen it before. There were, he reckoned, two or three football pitches in distance between him and Big Ben. And though he was thirsty and his eyes were heating up whilst the rest of him was getting cold, he waited. And he waited. And he watched the long hand shudder towards the end of the hour, getting ready to bang on to the whole of London that it was four o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  He ducked down as another car raced past, making time on the straight through roads. Then, like he was going to hold his breath for a very long time, he took a deep one and decided this was it. He stood up and began to run across the bridge towards Big Ben, the clock face getting bigger as he ran.

  He was running jinksy because of his ankle and kept veering off into the road. Once he tripped over Jack and swore at her for getting in his way. Two cars passed them on the bridge. It frightened him, the first one, going ever so, ever so slow, like it was going to stop, but it didn’t.

  Bang… Bang… Bang… Bang… through his head, like Big Ben was punishing him for taking so long to cross the river. And when the banging stopped and he took his hands away from his ears and looked up, a huge fat man wrapped in a big black coat with a stick was looking down at him.

  CHURCHILL it said underneath the statue.

  He was pretty sure he’d heard of him: something to do with winning one of the wars with a big I in it. He looked nice and warm up there, all wrapped up. Bully missed his coat, still felt the loss of it and what was in it.

  He stopped all that when he heard the noise of the motorbike revving up along the river. He didn’t know why he was frightened of the motorbike, why it was making him want to hide. Perhaps because all he’d heard so far this morning had been cars. Perhaps because it sounded louder than the cars, louder than most bikes, like a trail bike, something off-road that didn’t really belong in the city, that could go after him on the pavement, through parks and wherever he went.

  The bike was going slow but getting closer … the sound of
a fat two-stroke engine buffeting the buildings around him, pistons poking up and down…

  Rummm … rummm …. rummmm… Rummmmmm…

  Bully looked round the square. There were old buildings everywhere but nothing to crawl up, no doorways to hide in, and the politician place was wrapped up in iron railings and locked away, looking like a one-off, very pricey giant sandcastle. He took another look around the square. He’d been so busy scouting the buildings he hadn’t really taken in what was there. In the middle on the grass were a crowd of green and brown tents and for just a silly second he thought maybe they were there on holiday. Then he saw the coloured rags and signs tied to the trees at the edge of the pavement.

  PEACE CAMP

  He knew where he was then: crustie town. He’d heard about the protesters, living on the pavements and getting in everyone’s way, moaning on all day and night about soldiers killing people. But right this second he loved crusties! He was glad they were there, camped out in the middle of the Big Ben square! And he ran into the little tent town to hide. And when he realized the sound of the bike was steady and very soon he would see it, and they would see him, he whispered: “Down, girl! Down!” And he followed Jack to the ground.

  On his knees and elbows he worked his way towards one of the tents at the edge of the camp. He snatched a look between the little V shaped gaps in the tents and it was a dirt bike, big, curling mudguards and rocked-up suspension. And he could see two men: one driving, one riding pillion with his visor up, looking around, really searching, his crash helmet going left and right … left and right. Neither one was Janks’s shape and size.

  The bike slowly circled the camp and Bully slowly crawled round the tent, Jack staying with him, keeping on the bike’s blind side. He patted the fabric to see if anyone was in there. No one said anything and when he got to the front he unzipped it and dived in, ready to plead for just a minute, for just enough time to get his breath back… But the tent was empty.

  “In, in,” he said to Jack before the bike went past, but as he pulled the zip back up he heard the engine idle and then stop.

  He waited. The men were talking quietly but not whispering. He took a breath, let it out slowly, put a little early morning mist inside the tent.

  “What did you see?”

  “I dunno. Something moving. Something over there. I can’t see shit through this visor. D’you wanna swap?”

  “Which tent was it?”

  “I dunno. I just said, over there. They all look the same. Over that way.”

  “This is a waste of time! What is it exactly that he’s got, anyway? What did Janks say?”

  “He wouldn’t say, would he? Must be sumin’ that’s worth a bit.”

  “Maybe we get it out of the boy and it’s worth a lot.”

  “Suits me, but we gotta find ’im first…”

  So there was a price stickered up on his head now, thought Bully. And Janks had put it there. How many people knew about his lottery ticket? How many mobiles were ringing now, tagged with his name? He didn’t want to think about it – frightened him too much.

  He could hear them walking about, one of them tripping and swearing. “Shh,” he said, because Jack was panting quicker and louder than he was. Then he heard a tent zip go zithering down near by. Then another.

  “This one’s empty… And this one… There’s no one ’ere, Baz!”

  That set him shivering all over again. Crustie town was just like any other town: they went home for the weekend. He heard another zip go, closer in. Another and another. And then bumpth … bumpth… They were booting the tents over now. It was quicker and more of a laugh.

  Bumpth … bumpth…

  “Arrgh!”

  Someone was inside the tent next door to his!

  “What do you think you’re doing!”

  A woman was going for them, yelling, calling them fascists. And they were yelling back, telling her to go back to sleep, love. But now more hippies were waking up and joining in. The place wasn’t empty after all, just half empty. And the two men were effing and blinding, backing away to their bike.

  He heard the engine rev up and go. And when he stopped hearing the bike, he wobbled over to the zip on his knees, pulled it down slowly and peeked out. The hippies were all looking in one direction still, the way the bike had gone, north out of the square. One or two were rubbing their heads, and saying it was unbelievable. After a while they started picking up tents and putting them back like it had just been a stupid game.

  Bully zipped his tent back up and he relaxed then and had a look round inside it.

  He had never been in a tent before and didn’t think much of it: the walls were only thin and moved when you touched them and he didn’t think it was much better than sleeping out.

  There was a sleeping bag but no water, just a rolled-up banner and some rubbish in a plastic bag. He had a look through it anyway. He could do with something to drink but what he really needed right now was a wee. So he waited for all the crusties and hippies to go back to bed and then pulled the zip down just a little…

  And for the first time in a long while, he giggled.

  Peace not war! Peace not war! Peace not war! Peace not war! Peace not war! Peace not war!

  The shouting and whistling woke him up in a panic. He wondered where he was, the soft green ceiling of the tent warming his face just a few centimetres away. He’d been out for the count. He’d expected Big Ben to wake him up like an alarm clock when it got to five or six in the morning but he’d slept through all that bang, banging of the clock… He stopped thinking about it when he caught a sort of thick burnt-chocolatey stench working through his cold—

  “Jack! Jesus wet.”

  Jack did her sorry face, looking sideways at the ground. She’d had to go and she’d done it as far away from Bully as she could … but in a two-man tent that wasn’t very far away.

  Bully tried to breathe just through his mouth but a backlog of phlegm made him gag. He listened to the hullabaloo outside. He couldn’t go out there in all that noise just yet, he didn’t know what was going down. So he emptied out the rubbish bag from the corner, and for the first time in his life he picked it up.

  He put a knot in the bag and flung it away. Then he checked Jack’s collar. The chewing-gum hadn’t set yet and he rubbed a little bit more grease and dirt into it. Then he sat still to work things out. He estimated by the feel of the light and the way the sun was hitting the tent it was well past getting-up and making-a-move time. Maybe 11.00 or 12.00. He couldn’t hear any cars, just voices, a lot of them, shouting and moving about like a big, big party going on out there. Sometimes they’d had them on his estate, out on the grass between the blocks, in the summer, with burgers and drinks and laughing and… A drum started up and then more shouting and he put his hands to his ears for a bit.

  Peace not war! Peace not war! Peace not war!

  When the drum stopped, he had a look out, unzipping the tent enough for one eye to get the light. All the crusties and hippies had come back. And they’d brought their friends, too. The square had been transformed from a campsite into a full-on holiday camp … hundreds, maybe thousands of people shouting and singing and looking really happy about it, even with their faces screwed up and angry. They weren’t a problem but the Feds were… They were all round the square, blocking off all the exits.

  He swore a lot, had a think while he was doing it and then got his penknife out and had a look at the compass. He shuffled round on his knees until he was facing roughly north, then he slit the side of the tent with the short blade of his knife. He was on the edge of the camp and he could see the Feds had set up special barriers at the exits, standing right next to each other so no one could get through, flashes of sunlight coming off their high-vis jackets. He thought it was sunlight until the light showed up too white and sharp and snappy and he looked again: the Feds were taking photos of everyone leaving the square. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was here. He didn’t want no publicity.


  How was he going to get out? He didn’t want to wait here all day until they took the barriers away. It wasn’t just the time he was wasting; he didn’t like the feeling of being stuck somewhere, as if he was in an open prison. He had to get going. Bully knew if he wanted to get out of the square without any trouble, he would have to blend in. And to blend in, he needed camouflage. He needed to look like everyone else. Problem was, he didn’t. He put his head back in the tent and looked at as much of himself as he could from the neck down.

  For a start he was dirty, filthy all over, and he had no socks, no shoes, just a scabby hoodie and jeans that weren’t cool and ripped, just worn out. He looked exactly like what he was: living on the pavement. And his long straggly hair had nothing in it to make it smooth and new-looking. He knew he just didn’t look right. He had to change.

  He took his hoodie off because Feds didn’t like hoodies and there was no point hiding underneath one because they would stop him straight away and want to see his face. Then he started work on his jeans. He took them off too, cut each leg away above the knee and burned the ends with his lighter to give them a crustie look. He put them back on. He’d cut off too much and they were a bit too high and getting near his bum but at least he didn’t look so homeless now. None of his mates wore shorts, not on the streets, not even when it was hot. Not even the Daveys, cracked in the head, wore shorts. Next he gave himself a bit of a wash, hawked up what was left of the green stuff until he had a clean mouthful of bubbly – spit was like soapy water if you thought about it – and he rubbed off the worst bits of dirt that he could see. Finally, he combed through his hair with his nails and then smoothed it back with his wet hands.

  Still, though, he didn’t think it would be good enough. His cut-offs showed up his skinny white legs and made him look younger. And he didn’t have shoes. He had to be honest with himself: without his coat and hat, he didn’t look old enough to be even a shrunk-up, grown-up crustie boy. And he was forgetting something… What was he going to do about Jack? As soon as the Feds saw her they would start asking What sort of dog is that? Are you the owner? Everyone asked him that. And you had to be sixteen to own a dog. It said so in his magazines. And then they would start taking a second look at him, asking the same sort of questions. What sort of person was he? Was he really sixteen? Did his parents know he was here? Where was he from? Who owned him? And then he’d never get to Camelot, never see his money.