Human Punk

by John King

I nod and Dave does a wanker sign in front of my face.

  –You’re a couple of poofs, Chris laughs.

  Skinny cunt.

  –What’s the Major going to do, scoop it up and carry it home as evidence? Dave asks, opening the window and leaning his head out, getting ready to take the piss.

  –Don’t do that, Dave, Smiles says, worried. He’ll tell my old man, and then he’ll know you’ve been round.

  It’s not right being afraid of your own dad. Dave shuts the window. Understands. We never use the name Stalin in front of Smiles, seeing as with his mum dead his dad’s the only family he’s got, apart from Tony, his brother, who’s older and either out working or down the pub. There again, up against Khan’s old boy, Stalin’s peace and love, so I suppose there’s always some poor git worse off. It’s not hard to work out why Khan’s a nutter, his dad running a cash-and-carry, a snob businessman who has to have top end-of-term marks from his sons. Khan never gets those sort of results and his dad uses his belt, head to toe, buckle end. He was even supposed to have fag burns in the showers after football, but he’s a year older so I never saw that. Bowler was there, watching, making sure the boys wash under their arms, and he asks about the burns, but Khan makes up some excuse and Bowler isn’t going to get too close. You’d think some of the other teachers would notice, but the PE lot are a bunch of cunts, fancy themselves too much, more bullies. But it’s not nice having that sort of thing done to you by anyone, let alone your own flesh and blood.

  –What time’s your dad get back? Dave asks.

  –Half-eight. He’s doing overtime tonight.

  –Good, we can have some of this, Dave laughs, taking a small bottle of rum from his pocket.

  Stalin works a lot of extra hours, so Smiles and Tony have more freedom, can look after themselves when it comes to cooking and washing clothes, the sort of things your mum does. If they step out of line Stalin knocks them about, but never uses his belt. If the dishes aren’t washed and in the cupboard when he gets in they get thumped, or if anything is out of place in the living room he’ll bounce his fists off their heads, really battered Tony once when he got sick and messed up the bathroom.

  Tony is old enough to fight back now, and Stalin knows it, both of them keeping away from each other. With Tony out so much, Smiles cops more than his fair share of aggro. He’s an easy target and you learn from the first time you go down the rec to play football, or walk in a playground, that the easy targets are the ones people attack. You don’t have to be brainy to work that out. The way I see it, Stalin is another bully, same as old man Khan. Me, Dave and Chris agree. Sometimes I imagine getting a shotgun and blowing his head off, but know I’d never do it. Don’t have the guts for a start, and anyway, it would make Smiles an orphan.

  –This tastes like piss, Chris shouts, spitting rum on the carpet.

  –Fucking hell, says Smiles. What did you go and do that for? It’ll leave a dirty great mark.

  He goes in the kitchen and comes back with some rags, gets down on his knees and starts rubbing at the rum. Chris takes one and joins him.

  –What did you do that for?

  –It’s horrible that stuff. I didn’t think.

  –Come on. Dad will see it when he comes in.

  They rub harder.

  –How do you know what piss tastes like, Dave asks, sitting back, feet up, laughing.

  Chris and Smiles spend the next ten minutes working on the carpet, me and Dave giving them advice as we pass the bottle back and forward. It doesn’t seem to be going down much. Chris was right. It tastes bad. I raise the rum to my lips and pretend to take a swig, give the bottle to Dave. He’s been trying to impress, nicked it off his dad, but Chris is the robber here, anything from Smarties and Crunchies to Morris Minors and Ford Capris. He fancies himself as a crook, likes the reputation.

  –I’ve got something a bit better than that, Chris boasts, once the carpet has been rubbed clean. Something much better.

  He digs in his underpants and Dave asks if he’s going to get his knob out. Chris grins and produces a small packet. He puts it on the table and opens it up. There’s this powder inside, and at first I think it’s cocaine, something we’ve read about, but know it can’t be. Coke is the rich man’s drug and carries a bad image for kids like us, boot-boy punk rockers. Could be heroin, but that’s hippy drugs, a loser’s drug, has nothing to do with us. It’s bad enough going to the doctor’s for a blood test and seeing the needle he uses. We all hate stuck-up wankers and smelly hippy students, so that leaves speed, cheap and cheerful, fast and furious, and Chris says that’s what it is when we move forward for a closer look. None of us has tasted sulphate before, but know it’s the punk drug.

  –Where did you get it? Smiles asks.

  Chris taps his nose, keeping secrets, and we stand around with our mouths wide open, doing goldfish impressions.

  –Let’s have a bit then, Dave says at last, leaning forward too quick.

  Chris backs him off.

  –Later on. We’ve got to make it last. There isn’t much. We’ll have it before we go out tonight.

  He tucks the sulphate back in his pants, down by his bollocks, and I’m glad it’s wrapped up, specially with the heat and how my own nuts are sweating. I go back to the couch and look out the window, see the Major leaving the scene of the crime. He hasn’t drawn a chalk line around the dog shit, which is a surprise. I think how Smiles found his mum’s body in the bath, her wrists slit, blood drained. He sat there with her naked body and had a long chat. He never told me what he said, and I never asked. He doesn’t talk about his mum much. Poor old Smiles. Poor old Tony. Even Stalin’s had a hard time. Have to remember that as well. Talk about bad luck. And we go and sit in the back garden where I lean against the wall under the kitchen window, stretch my DMs out for Dave’s benefit, look forward to tonight as I click the cassette player on and Gaye Advert speeds her way through ‘One Chord Wonders’, all thick black mascara and an old leather motorbike jacket, and if I was at home I’d be lining up my second wank of the day.

  We’re punk rockers, brick chuckers, finger fuckers—fifteen-year-old boot boys with little chance of a bunk-up even though we know we look the business with our chopped hair and straight-legs, sleeper earrings and cap-sleeve T-shirts, standing on the edge of this disco darkness sucking at crumpled cans of lager pretending we love the horrible taste of alcohol, making the dregs last a little bit longer, eyes drifting from one pair of bouncing tits to the next straining for an eyeful of anything over a 32B as Slade shake the speakers with ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’, singing along as we line the wall by the bar shifting our attention to the girls on the far side of the dance floor, real quality crumpet this lot with their pencil skirts and stockings, tight black material wrapping skinny bums and legs, forcing short steps, C&A tops stained with rum-and-black and halves-of-sweet-cider, balancing on too-high heels slowly moving foot-to-foot careful they don’t snap an ankle, hanging around the turntables watching the smug git spinning records, a right wanker with his Elvis sideburns and wrap-around Starsky cardigan, and we’re watching from a distance because these girls prefer 12-inch disco imports to 7-inch home-grown punk rock, they don’t have a fucking clue when it comes to good music, but the thing is, we don’t have much choice because there’s not a lot of places to go and listen to music round here, and these girls have the power to pull the blokes in so they’ll get their shitty music later, the DJ thinking with his prick like every other bloke in here, wants to keep the girls happy, and they let the older boys chat them up leaving us lot to lick our lips at the fishnets and stilettos, skirts riding up their legs keeping us staring, our brains full of pictures from the porno mags we nick down the market, suspenders boxing small strips of pale skin as the UV light shows off low-cut bras and dandruff, thin front-loading Playtex straps and oversized collars, Tracy Mercer pushing up close to Barry Fisher back home on leave from Belfast, glad to be alive, hoping to get his leg over with a local scrubber, least that’s the way he sees
things, Tracy dressed up nice with Soldier Barry in his neat clothes and squaddie crop, regimental wages burning a hole in a brand-new pair of jeans as he runs his hand over Tracy’s bum, tracing his fingers along where the crack should be, if the material wasn’t so tight, and she gets in even closer, like she’s going to disappear down his throat, and I’m thinking poor old Tracy, the girl everyone calls Iron Gob for the blow jobs she’s famous for as much as the dental work, and Chris says he knows some kid who knows this other kid I’ve never heard of, a friend of a friend, and this boy says she’s a right goer who’ll suck off anything in a pair of trousers, a fucking slag, but from where I’m standing it doesn’t seem fair she gets this gossip going on behind her back, she’s always friendly enough sitting in the station cafe or the BHS canteen with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits, whispering like girls do, four or five of them giggling and nattering, watching the boys, and she always smiles and says hello if she knows your face, a friendly girl who deserves better, seems like the stroppy ones get the respect, closed up and cold, maybe that’s what it’s all about, so Tracy gets a load of stick for smiling in public, but none of us have got off with her so who knows the truth, the only thing that’s certain is that Fisher thinks he’s the bollocks because he’s in the army, filling the girl’s head with stories, everyone remembers the IRA bomb in Birmingham, every night another explosion or killing on the news, and even though my head is racing from the speed I’ve had I think of that wanker of a careers officer who told me to join the army, not just me either, told everyone to sign up, the Clash’s ‘Career Opportunities’ running through my head, the lines about hating the army and the RAF, about not wanting to fight in the tropical heat, mixing in with ‘Pretty Vacant’ coming through the speakers, and Fisher must know the DJ or he wouldn’t be seen knocking around with a load of kids, but I suppose there’s enough older people in here, when you stop and look, Fisher a teenager himself, off seeing the big wide world, getting away from Slough and the everyday routine, but there’s no way I’d go to Ulster so snipers can pick me off from a high-rise, the careers adviser another recruiting sergeant who can fuck off out of it, that’s all he knows, I’m going to do something with my life, get a decent job and have an easier time than Mum and Dad, enjoy myself, Dave leaning his head right in next to mine so I can hear what he’s on about, still moaning about the 10p we’ve paid the JA outside, six and a half foot of Jamaican Aggro with the usual lend-us-10p line, and we get this every Friday night regular as clockwork so I don’t know why Dave’s going on about it, that’s what happens when you’re a kid, people take the piss, boys bigger and older are always looking for 10p to tide them over, that’s how it is, and my head is racing along trying to keep up with the Sex Pistols, skin tingling, this is what life is all about, telling Dave to forget it, listen to the music, tell him to have a decko at Iron Gob’s mates, one of them’s a real beauty queen with peroxide hair, ten times better than your boring Miss World efforts, all perms and sparkling teeth, this one stands out from the other girls, and right on cue the Ramones take over from the Pistols, ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’ getting everyone’s heads going, volume cranked up, and I wonder where this girl goes to school and where she lives, if she’s got a boyfriend, if she takes it in the mouth, if she spits or swallows, the same old lines we say over and over again filling my head, but I suppose it’s only the hair that’s different, Dave’s thumping his heel against the wall in time to the music, Chris nodding as he looks at the girl with the hair, I can feel the bang of Dave’s boot chipping into the plaster, and Smiles is right next to Dave laughing like he does, suppose Smiles is my best mate out of this lot, with his big grin and plastic razor-blade chain, happy to be out with his mates, and he’s got this easygoing nature, doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, and that’s what you get off the punk bands, they’ve got a sense of humour, busy taking the piss, and some do it with the lyrics, throwaway words from the Ramones and Vibrators, while others put something extra in, and Smiles’s real name is Gary Dodds, he got his nickname off the Sunny Smiles books they used to give us in the infants, photos of baby orphans we had to sell for charity, and Smiles always asked for an extra book or two, spent hours flogging the sad little pictures of laughing kids that always made me feel sad, seeing those happy faces knowing there was nobody there for them, but it was Smiles who made an effort, can see him growing up and doing something worthwhile, he’s that sort of bloke, Mum calls him a little treasure, my best mate Sunny Smiles leaning back against the wall loving every second of our Friday night, happy to be alive, the speed and power of the music blocking out bad thoughts, and now it’s Debbie Harry’s turn to fill the speakers, fucking beautiful, but I need a piss and give Smiles my empty can to look after because it’s handy having something to hold when you’re skint, so you don’t look like a wanker standing there with your hands empty, and I worm my way along the edge of the dance floor to the bog, go inside, stand up straight and let the piss flow, halfway through when Dave comes charging in and pushes me into the wall, nice and hard so I splash myself, piss soaking the front of my trousers, black moleskins that show the wet, and worse than the mark is the feeling in my Y-fronts, the wet soaking my knob and balls, piss running down my legs, and I turn round and try to spray him but he’s too fast and legs it into a cubicle, slamming the door and jamming the lock, leaving me to finish, then I go and start booting the door, DMs rocking the hinges, but the wood’s too strong and I’ve got no chance knocking it down, can hear Dave laughing inside, and I start worrying that I must stink, and even though I probably won’t get off with anything tonight it’s nice thinking you’ve got a chance, keeps the spirits up, and anyway, who wants to stroll around reeking like a dosser sleeping in the subway, a meths-drinking wino who should be in a loony bin, specially on Friday night, the last day of term, and no girl is going to fancy someone who smells like a toilet seat, so I leave Dave and walk over to the towel machine and take a big wad of paper, stick it down the front of my trousers, trying to soak up the mess, what did he go and do that for, he shouts that serves you right for when you did me last week, and I can tell by the strain in his voice he’s trying to work out where I am and why the kicking’s stopped, the door flying open and Chris and Smiles coming in, the voice of Bob Marley following them through with ‘Punky Reggae Party’, volume turned down again when the door snaps back, Chris asking me where Dave’s got to, dirty cunt’s not having a shit is he, and I point to the bog where he’s holding up and, hearing our voices and knowing I’m over by the sinks Dave piles out grinning, suppose he’s got a point about last week, but he did me before that, and it goes right back, suppose you’ve got to let things drift same as Ali not kicking Wells in the head, but no, I’ll get Dave when he’s not expecting it, we’re only having a laugh, and Chris starts scrunching up his face as he sees my trousers and works things out, wrinkles his nose, Dave laughing so hard I think he’s going to join the club and piss himself, Chris shaking his head sadly and unzipping, stands there humming to himself as Dave takes the spray can from his jacket, rattles the ball-bearing and starts decorating the walls while I finish mopping up and go over for a turn with the paint, and in two minutes flat the toilet’s been covered in graffiti, everything from ELVIS IS A WANKER to THE LOFT RUN FROM MOTHER CARE to that old chestnut VAMBO MARBLE EYE, and when I tell the others the can is almost empty they bundle out the door so I’m left holding the evidence, a bunch of wankers, and I give the can one last shake, add DAVE BARROWS IS BENT AND SUCKS OFF SOLDIERS in dirty great letters before lobbing the empty into one of the bowls and leaving the scene, head down, quickly merging with the mob of boys and girls filling the dance floor, the whole place going mental to ‘God Save The Queen’, the real number one during Jubilee Week, and I get over to the bar, back in the crowd, spot Soldier Barry on his own, blown out by Tracy Mercer and probably narked by the song, Chris taking money off us and pushing in for our second and final cans of the night, and we all have a shot of lime which is 1p extra but worth it to
kill the tang of the lager, none of us is going to admit we don’t like the taste, say it’s just for a change, Chris handing the drinks out then pointing at another one of Tracy’s mates, look at the fucking tits on that, and we follow his finger to a girl who’s clearing a section of dance floor, Dave’s eyes popping in his head, and we watch this girl in action, the gentle bounce of her tits and the line of her stockings till a bundle starts and everyone backs off as the two sides swap punches and kicks, the music shifting into Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’, and I’m waiting for that great line about cavemen fighting on the dance floor, strobe light flashing, and maybe the DJ’s not such a wanker after all, because I know punk means we’ve got to get rid of all the music we’ve listened to in the past, start fresh, but Bowie is magic as far as we’re concerned, and nobody believes the stories about Bowie being a poof, it’s just that singers saying they’re bent is fashionable and gets them noticed by the papers, and it’s the Jeffersons causing trouble as the bouncers jump in and drag the three brothers outside, and as they go through the door the music stops dead and the tosser at the controls makes this big deal out of nothing and says some cunt has sprayed the bogs and when he finds out who it is the bouncers are going to cut their nuts off, and there’s a cheer for the paintwork and boos for the knife job, but most people don’t take a lot of notice as we’re concentrating on the aggro that’s flaring up outside, the DJ asking will Dave Barrows please step forward and take his punishment like a man, and one or two people look Dave’s way but not enough to cause a stir, and he’s sharp enough, starts looking round himself which confuses the people who think they know his name and he’s worried and I hope the joke doesn’t go too far, except the bouncers have got other things to worry about as they pull the Jeffersons through the second door and stick the boot in, the brothers game and big for their age, the old man’s well known for wrecking pubs and knocking out coppers, the oldest of the three brothers belting the biggest bouncer who’s off balance and topples back through the plate-glass window, and there’s this screaming from the girls and the DJ gives up trying to find out who’s sprayed the bogs, has a go at calming things down by putting on some brain-dead love song, and these blokes who are mates with the bouncers get stuck in as well, looking through the broken glass I can see the Jeffersons legging it across the car park, well outnumbered now, disappearing in the dark, the bouncers right behind, and I check the time with Smiles and know that from now on the music is going to be shit, slow dances for the smarmy boys to move in and pull, and Dave asks me how the DJ knew his name, but I smile and shrug my shoulders, nothing to do with me, leaning against the wall watching the girls from a distance, stupid slags dancing around their handbags, fresh air coming in through the broken window, people laughing and joking, hot and sweaty, all sorts catered for, building up for Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’, and we sip our cans, lined up getting bored now, wish they’d play something else, agreeing this sulphate’s not bad, not bad at all.