Human Punk

by John King

  He nods and closes his eyes.

  –I might have to get married.

  There’s a long silence, in the background the sound of laughing from the men and crying from one of the kids. Smiles looks at the men enjoying life, eating their food and telling jokes, off work and looking forward to a pint, then at the little boy with a yellow mess streaking his shirt, chunks of egg white covering his chin, snot dripping from his nose. There’s a layer of the stuff smothering his lips. His mum should sort it out. It’s going in his mouth with the toast. How she can eat with that sitting opposite I do not know. The kid’s probably still in his nappy. Sitting in his own shit. I’m glad I’m not Smiles right now, facing that sort of future. Me, I’ll never get caught out, never marry or settle down. No chance.

  –What’s going to happen when Dad finds out?

  It’s hard to see Smiles having to get married, but his old man will go mental when he finds out. Mind you, any excuse. It depends on what the girl’s mum and dad do. If she’s got brothers it isn’t going to matter that Smiles is the same age as her, and I wonder if they do under-age boys for shagging under-age girls, or whether it’s just proper grown-up men who get locked away. I don’t want to see Smiles in borstal getting the shit kicked out of him, marching around in a uniform. That would be worse than having a kid, stuck in borstal, same as being buried alive. You have to have your freedom or you might as well be dead.

  –It’s like I’m stuck in a horror film and can’t get out.

  The woman behind the counter has started peering down her nose at us, like we’re scum. I pick up the empty mug and take a sip of air, look out the window and watch the traffic thinning, everyone on their way somewhere else, leaving their fumes behind. There’s a smear of what could be lard, the print of a hand, sunlight giving it this weird X-ray effect. When a tipper passes the glass rattles so much I think it’s going to cave in, the roar of the HGVs harder than the drone of Cortinas and Capris. That’s what we need. Wheels to get us around.

  –Think of it, being a dad when you’re still at school. Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s no point sitting around.

  We walk through Queensmere, looking in shop windows, dossers in the square sipping their bottles of cider, arguing with each other over a fag end. Two coppers stand outside a shoe shop, arms crossed, watching the alkies. The shops are closed and there’s not many people about. We go down the high street and in the front bar of the Pied Horse. I buy Smiles a light and bitter to cheer him up, and we sit in the corner. This is a lively pub at the weekend, but quiet now, seven o’clock on a Wednesday. The back bar gets busy with a hard soulboy crew that boasts some well-known faces from the surrounding areas, and they pull in some dirty old disco girls. Smiles’s brother Tony comes down here, even though he’s still a bit junior in comparison.

  We make the drink last, sitting in silence again, same as the older family men who’ve stopped in on their way home from work, ground-down blokes in their forties and fifties. At least they’re working, I suppose, have wives and kids, a warm bed at night, better off than the dossers in the arcade. We leave after one drink. Go to the fair.

  –That’s what having kids does to you, Smiles says. You spend your life working and then you’re too knackered to even talk. Look what it’s done to my dad. Turned him into a machine.

  Music rolls over from Upton Park, Gary Glitter and the sound of church organs. The Stranglers would do well here, and Mum hates their Rattus Norvegicus album, doesn’t know how we can listen to that sort of stuff. Her and Dad prefer Elvis. He’s their hero. Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochrane are others they like, plus the Who and Stones.

  –Think, I could be bringing my child down here one day, Smiles says. Maybe it would be a laugh, but it’s all the other stuff. Getting the money to pay for its clothes, the rent and food. That sort of thing. There’s going to be people putting their oar in, causing trouble. If it was the kid and no aggro, I could live with that.

  He laughs.

  –I could call him Bryan, after Bryan Ferry.

  We pass the usual stalls, the darts and air rifles, house of horrors and coconut shy, a sign pointing to Sheri who’ll tell our fortune for 25p, half a box of cherries. What’s the point of knowing the future anyway? There’d be nothing to look forward to if you knew what was going to happen next. There’s the smell of candyfloss and toffee apples, excited children chasing each other around, gangs of kids our age over by the dodgems, hands in their pockets, DMs primed, shoulder-length boot boy cuts and shorter crops where the sides have been chopped off. The girls eye up the gypsy boys working the bumper cars, while the local boys make jokes, try and act like they don’t care, can handle anything, and I know that look, because it’s what I do as well. The Todds, Delaney and Charlie May are over there. Two coppers come along and have a word with one of the Todd brothers, who peels away and stands there bouncing foot to foot.

  The music’s cranked right up as we get on the big wheel, pay our money and wait for it to fill up. We move slowly and get a view of the roof tops, Windsor Castle on the horizon, over the other side of the river, Slough to our right, waiting for the machine to speed up. It doesn’t sound too healthy, and it’s taking its time, and bang, something snaps. We’re left sitting right at the top.

  –What else can go wrong? Smiles asks, shaking his head. You can see for miles up here.

  It’s a long way down, a killer drop, so I sit back and close my eyes, only open them when Smiles leans forward to catch what the bloke on the ground is saying. He leans right into the bar and we rock forward, this massive pikey cupping his mouth and shouting at us to stay where we are, keep still, that they’ll have it going in a minute. Must be off his head if he thinks I’m going anywhere. The gasworks and the floodlights of the greyhound stadium stand out, the concrete blocks of the shopping centre in the middle of town, grey slabs of stone and steel, small glass squares, the factories and warehouses of the trading estate, the spread of houses and Matchbox cars.

  –Can you see my brother? Smiles asks, leaning forward. Tony said he was coming down here tonight.

  I tell him to stop moving otherwise he’s going to tip us out. He nods and grins, sits still for a minute, waiting for the part-time mechanics on the ground to get us going. I turn my head away from Slough towards the castle in Windsor, and it looks smart enough, postcard-style, except outside the walls the pubs are packed with off-duty squaddies who’ll kick your head in for fun, even if you’re five or six years younger, and then there’s the hardest Hell’s Angels chapter in the country, the sort of men who’d never waste time on the likes of us. Smiles starts rocking, gently at first, then faster, for a laugh. A voice comes up from below.

  –Stop fucking about up there.

  Smiles does as he’s told, and here we are, stuck in the air like a couple of muppets, have to wait half an hour till the motor starts and we jump forward, stop again as people unload two by two. We stay patient, wait our turn, coming down to earth in slow motion, finally push the bar off and get out. Someone asks for a refund and the owner tells him to piss off.

  –Could’ve given us another ride, Smiles mumbles, as we walk away.

  We have a go shooting airguns at Jam targets, throw darts at rings on playing cards, for goldfish we don’t want, splash out on a toffee apple each, stand around, couples walking along holding hands, lost in their love zones while the lights flash and some healthy speakers pump out the hits of Alvin Stardust, Showaddywaddy, Hot Chocolate, Mud, the Bay City Rollers, Sweet. There’s the steady hum of generators behind the scenes, and the cables running back behind the caravans are old, the casing cracked, but it’s good down here, the stalls packed with David Essex lookalikes, and there’s an edge, something in the air. It’s got the smells and sounds, the hard feel of a football match, a mix of people, all sorts turning out, from gangs of teenage hooligans to pensioners and babies, one or two Paki families, a couple of coloured kids. The music never stops and people shout to get heard, the smell of grease and burn
ing electrics rising and falling with the rides, girls screaming their heads off.

  –Come on, Smiles says, let’s have a go on the bumper cars.

  We’re halfway through our ride, smacking into the side of these two birds, one of them a ginger nut with buck teeth, the other a blonde with big firm tits, and they’re giving us the eye, laughing and smiling, and I’m just about to clatter into them again and line up a night at the pictures and maybe a wank in the back row when the kid I hit in the bus station last week shows up and rams into the side of us, and if a boy does this on the dodgems, a boy round about your own age, it means trouble, and he’s taking the piss driving with one hand as he uses the other to give us a wanker sign, the two girls looking back wondering where we are, waiting for a shunt up the rear, but there’s a choice to be made, love or hate, and love has to wait a minute as I dodge past a jam of cars and cut back inside the loop hitting the bloke in the side, and it’s a good one as well, enough power to send him and his mate snapping sideways, and I pick up the current, swerve away so I can get after the girls before they forget our faces and someone else gets in there, Smiles coming over all shy when we smack into the girls again and spin them sideways, back in the flow, doing the circuit, and I’m glad I’m driving, feel like a Spitfire pilot, or James Bond in his Aston Martin, the one with the ejector seat, just need the machine-guns, bouncing into the girls, going for love and romance now, forgetting about that tosser and his mate, the ginger nut screaming and waving, the blonde concentrating on her smile, tits jutting out of her tank top so I think the material is going to burst, and it’s a good way to chat up a bird, just bang her with your car, means you don’t have to come up with any clever lines, I never know what to say to a girl, and those two wankers are back again, trying to ram us but just nicking the front, the driver leaning over.

  –We’re going to have you two, you fucking cunts.

  He gets two fingers back and we keep going, enjoying the ride, Gary Glitter’s voice worming its way under the roof from outside, cracking with the flashing electricity above us, running down the pole, a Shed favourite, HELLO, HELLO, CHELSEA AGGRO, CHELSEA AGGRO, HELLO, same as every other end, and Gary’s the king of the terraces, king of the fairground, king of the discos, singalongs for boys and girls everywhere. It’s good to be in the driving seat, can’t wait to get a car one day, a bonus spying Alfonso standing on the side with Smiles’s brother Tony, a stroke of luck when the current snaps off and the ceiling goes dead. Those two blokes come straight over, red in the face they’re so wound up, and this pikey steps in and tells them to get in a car or fuck off to the side, no fighting here sunshine, he’s got a living to make, so they go over to their mates. Now there’s six of them screwing us out, snapping their hands, clicking the fingers, waiting to kick our heads in.

  –Look at that, Smiles says, as we leave the car behind.

  The two girls we were chasing are busy talking to two other boys. We’ve got no chance now, and head over to where Tony and Alfonso were standing, but they’ve gone. We get to the side and see them over by the chip van. The kid I punched starts slagging me off and there’s no way you can get out of these things sometimes, so I tell him to come on then. He hits me in the face and I hit him back, using my knuckles, and next thing we’re on the ground rolling around in the dirt. A man steps in and pulls us apart, says to behave ourselves, then goes back to his goldfish stall where he hands an excited little girl a ping-pong ball, her dad leaning forward to help her win a pet. I want to see if she gets a fish, but Tony and Alfonso have come over now, and when these other boys see the size of Alfonso they walk off with their heads down.

  –What was all that about? Tony asks.

  I tell him and Alfonso laughs. Tony treats us to a bag of chips each, doing his big brother act, and even though he’s two years younger than Alfonso they’ve started going around together, work at the same place and play in the same football team. Tony’s sharp. A nice bloke. He’s into reggae, same as Alfonso. I reach for the salt.

  –Fuck me, he says, you’re not going to eat those now are you?

  –You’ve got enough salt there to blind the Devil, Alfonso laughs.

  Don’t know what he’s on about, but I laugh anyway, to keep him happy.

  –Give us one, Tony says, reaching over.

  He pops it in his mouth, chews, spits it on the ground.

  –Fucking Ada.

  He kicks the chip away, goes round to the side of the van and gobs.

  –Tastes worse than the fish my old man used to make me eat, Alfonso says, after he’s had a go.

  It’s a treat for us talking with someone like Alfonso and enjoying his banter. He’s got a reputation, and any boy is the same, likes to be seen with a nutter occasionally. Not many people cross him. He did six months for glassing some bloke who called him a black bastard in a disco car park. And it must be hard for a coloured boy in a place like Slough, a town full of young whites, plus the Pakis who don’t get out much. It’s different in somewhere like Notting Hill, where they have the carnival riots, a big city area full of JAs.

  We stand around listening to the music and watching the people, till Tony and Alfonso go off with these two girls they’ve arranged to meet. They’re nice as well, near enough twenty and dripping sex. Me and Smiles share another portion of chips and hope those boys aren’t hanging around, waiting to give us a kicking. Six on to two doesn’t go. Smiles goes quiet again, thinking about the baby, and I can see him sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, same as I was with Debbie a while ago after school. She went down to collect her pills from the family planning and wanted me to go, so I did, sat there surrounded by women, one other bloke in the place, a few teenagers scattered around, but it was mostly women with kids who couldn’t afford or handle a bigger family. Debbie was so glad someone could be bothered to go with her I was pleased I went.

  We haven’t had a go on the coconut shy, and I fancy it, Smiles standing back as I knock one off with my last ball. The woman running the stall cracks it open with a hammer, and this thin liquid runs away. I share the coconut with Smiles, use my front-door key to break lumps off the shell.

  We sit on the steps by the side of the bumper cars. It’s getting on now, and people start drifting away. Those two coppers come back, stand near enough for us to hear the crackle of their radios, voices under the fizzy static, broken sentences that don’t mean anything, and it’s there in the background, same as the stuff Dad gets upset about, the fuzzy arguments on the telly, we get it non-stop, see the headlines, hear the speeches, don’t care about the crime threatening society—the mindless hooligans—the white boys smashing up football specials—the black boys throwing bottles at the police—the scroungers and do-gooders—the muggers, pimps, drug dealers—the Irish boys bricking soldiers—the decent majority of law-abiding citizens—the bully boys who need a lesson—the rule of law—the social order—the best police force in world—the best legal system, best medicine, best education, best army, best democracy—best of everything—best music, best pubs, best girls, best football hooligans, best drugs—the call for hanging, flogging, stocks—the death penalty for the Birmingham and Guildford bombers—the young offenders crying out for a shock to the system—life far too easy in our prisons—far too hard for our rulers—it isn’t like the old days—the good old days—‘The White Cliffs of Dover’—George Formby—punk rockers swearing on television—sticking their tongues out—taking drugs, taking the piss—punk rockers and bovver boys—scum of the earth—too much sex, too many skivers, too much freedom—too young, too old—unwed mothers, unwanted pregnancies—communism doesn’t work—socialism doesn’t work—jumped-up union barons are trying to destroy the country—turn us into a Soviet slave state—Moscow ready—nuclear warheads ready—three-day weeks, power cuts, food shortages, loss of confidence—our taxes going down the drain—immigrants, layabouts, anarchists.

  Someone has gone and sprayed DIAMOND DOGS ROOL OK on the back of an old truck, and the song sums up the fai
rground in a way, coming out of the oxygen tent, a gritty fantasy world that sets up, does a job, moves on, keeps going, same as the bumper cars, the old dodgems of life. The police walk off and the feedback fades. They talk with the man running the house of horrors, all laugh at something. Sharing a joke. I finish my bits of coconut and wait for Smiles to finish his. It was a good shot as well. Bull’s-eye.

  •

  After a week working, swinging through the trees like Tarzan, I’m feeling good, feeling rich, and get Dave and Chris out. Smiles wants to come, but his auntie’s round for a visit so he has to stay in and eat sausage rolls. She’s his mum’s sister and Smiles likes her well enough, but she’s not exactly a stranger, Southall three stops on the train. Stalin wants him to show respect for his mum’s memory and keep the family together, so Smiles is lumbered. He could do with a drink to help forget the latest disaster clogging up his life. Dave and Chris have been busy sitting down the park and shoplifting in the arcade, for peanuts mostly, except Chris has got lucky and nicked himself a decent pair of headphones, for a hi-fi he doesn’t have. I leave Mum and Dad sitting on the couch, watching telly, plates balanced on their knees, and go over to Dave’s house. I skirt the dog shit and breathe in the sweet smell of mowed verges, cross hot tarmac and look at parked cars. In a couple of years I’ll be old enough to drive, and I see myself cruising around in a customised Capri, the girls gagging for a length as I pull over with an elbow resting on the door, feeding them classic one-liners.

  There’s two girls sitting on a wall up ahead, bare legs dangling on the breeze blocks, a row of dandelions growing in a line below their feet. The tall one’s wearing a bleached jean jacket, the arms cut off and cotton frayed, while the other has a black blouse. They’re both looking straight at me, staring me out, and I know I’m going to fall over any second, tread in the sort of shit that’s going to stick in the soles of my boots. I make an effort and try to walk confident, go the other way and start to swagger same as a pirate. I want to cross over, but it’s too obvious, hope my face hasn’t gone red. There’s only us three in the world and they’re taking the piss without saying a word. I wish I could think of something, but as usual there’s nothing there. I have to keep going and pass the girls, staring at the slabs of concrete and strips of cement, trenches packed with ants. The girls show no mercy, follow me with their stares, whistle at my back.