Human Punk

by John King

  –Give us a kiss, darling, one of them shouts, both girls screaming as they crack up laughing, falling forward off the wall.

  I stop and they turn their heads away, climb back on to the wall. There’s a row of garages behind them, the doors covered in graffiti—CHELSEA BOOT BOYS, TRACY MERCER IS A SLAG and PAKIS OUT, in three different colours. The second one has been painted over, but I saw it before and can still make out the words. Poor old Tracy. Probably some ugly cow jealous of her good looks and smile. There’s a big pile of gravel that’s been forgotten, and all these little flowers have taken over, the girls talking to each other, dock leaves and daisies along the kerb, ivy weaving its way along a sagging mesh fence, twisting through the rusty diamonds, some sort of creeper running along the top, white petals and black seeds trimming the pattern.

  –Come on, give us a kiss, they shout, both together, once I’ve started walking again.

  I keep going this time, sit in Dave’s room and wait for Chris to give us a knock. His mum and sisters are downstairs watching telly, his old man down the pub. I can hear them laughing. I tell Dave about the girls on the wall, and he wants to go that way when we walk to the club. He’s got this new porn he’s nicked down the market, off one of the stalls, digs under his mattress and spreads the magazine out on the floor. It’s strange stuff. There’s women with pigs, goats and donkeys, and a man shagging a chicken. There’s a donkey with a huge cock spunking up over a blonde girl’s face. There’s gallons of the stuff. There’s another with these five pigs on their backs, five women on top facing the camera. You can see where their cocks go in the women. There’s another of a woman sucking off a goat, which has been done up to look like the Devil, the animal’s horns painted bright red. Usually we see pictures of naked women pulling themselves open, showing off their tits and that, but nothing like this. I feel sorry for the animals, because they don’t have much choice. It isn’t exciting or anything.

  –I can’t work it out, Chris says, when he comes round.

  –Maybe it’s supposed to be a joke or something, Dave admits. I thought it was going to be men and women. There’s nothing on the cover.

  –You should leave the thieving to me. You always get it wrong.

  Dave stuffs the magazine back under his mattress.

  –Someone might buy it off me. You never know.

  We take a long cut to the social club, pass the wall where the two girls were sitting. They’re long gone, but Dave goes over and sniffs the concrete for a laugh, reckons it’s still warm. This old codger comes round the corner walking his dog and sees Dave with his nose to the grindstone. The man watches as we walk off. And those pictures are stuck in my head. They don’t make sense.

  –You should chuck those photos out, Chris says, after we’ve signed in.

  Dave nods, and Chris gets in at the bar, buys three pints of lager. We find a table over by the wall and sit down, enjoy the drink. The lager’s nice and cold, and it’s a lot cheaper in here than in a pub. The bar staff are more easygoing as well. This is a proper working-men’s club geared for everyone, and we’ve never been asked our age.

  –Cheers, Dave says.

  The place is packed for the bingo, white-haired Gerry doing his best Bruce Forsyth impression as he pulls out ping-pong balls, a fixed grin all over his face. He’s dressed up in a yellow blazer and tie, biros tinkling glasses for legs eleven, women right across the age groups busy with their cards, girls and pissed grannies side by side, squeezed in by the majority of middle-aged women, alive and happy and dressed up for the special vodka promotion, doing the extra cheap prices proud. The women laugh and shout, taking the piss out of Gerry and his balls, and every so often there’s a scream as a hand bangs into a mouth, the shock of winning smudging lipstick. There’s four or five old boys playing, but most of the men are over by the bar, or further back from where we’re sitting, the other end of the club where younger men play pool, a bigger snooker table next to that, taken over by Tommy Shannon’s dad and a load of his brothers, cousins, mates, measuring shots, Guinness lined up on a table.

  –These girls were tasty then, were they? Dave asks.

  I’ve told him already. They were alright. One of them whistled and asked me for a kiss. Don’t know which one though.

  –More like a fuck. Those sort are always begging for a bunk-up.

  Dave’s talking out of his arse, as usual.

  –Come on, you wanker. If a girl shouts at a bloke in the street, or comes over and starts chatting him up in a disco, then you know she’s asking for it, crying out for a fuck, a right old slag.

  –It’s true, says Chris.

  Don’t see how these two know so much. None of us is exactly shagging regularly, and I don’t think Chris has even got his end away yet. Dave had some bird at a party, same as Smiles, except he won’t tell anyone her name.

  –Did they have big tits? Chris asks.

  They were alright. Not much more than a handful.

  –Small tits are the best ones, Dave says, the expert.

  –Fuck off, cunT, Chris says. You’re just a bum boy. Give me a healthy pair any day. Birds with flat chests look like boys. Who wants to touch up a girl with nipples instead of proper king-size knockers.

  –You’re the fucking bender. How can a bird look like a bloke just because she hasn’t got massive tits? You’ve got queers on the brain, you fucking tosser.

  –Fuck off.

  I tell them both to shut up or we’ll get kicked out. If you’re still at school and drinking in a pub, even a club like this where the rules are lax, a place for families to come and enjoy themselves without any aggro, you have to behave. If you sit in the corner and keep quiet, spend your money and don’t spew up over the tables, don’t spray the bog and rob the johnny machine, they’ll turn a blind eye. Start causing trouble and you’ll be out on your ear, banned for life. The others know this and shut up.

  –We still going into town next week? Chris asks. Like we said? Go to that pub in Camden again?

  –It’ll be nice to get away from this place, Dave says. I’m bored out of my skull round here. There’s nothing to fucking do, nowhere to go. We’ll make sure Smiles comes as well. Go up nice and early.

  I tell them me and Smiles are working, so it will have to be when we’ve finished, that they should be as well, then they wouldn’t get so bored. Both answer at the same time. Perfect Flowerpot Men routine.

  –Fuck off, cunT.

  We finish the first drink quick, and I go up to the bar, wait my turn, watch the bubbles rise through the gold liquid, filling the glasses. The man serving is a professional, even turns the handles towards me. We drink light and bitter normally, because when you go up for another round most landlords give you more for your money. Each time the pint is filled a bit further over halfway, and with a bottle of light ale making up the measure you can end up getting a pint and a half for the price of a pint. It makes sense. We drink to get pissed, not because we like the taste. In here, because the drink’s a lot cheaper than a pub, we can treat ourselves to lager. Dad says lager’s a girl’s drink, but a lot of the younger lads prefer it to bitter these days, specially during the summer when it’s hot and a cold drink is refreshing. Not many men drink from a straight glass though. I bring two pints over to the table and set them down, go back for the third, sit down with the others.

  –Smiles was fucking miserable when I saw him the other day, Dave says. Wasn’t his normal happy self. What’s the matter with him?

  I shrug my shoulders, look around the tables. We’re the youngest in here, apart from the children playing by the glass doors. I spot Debbie’s mum sitting with three other women, having a good time, laughing her head off. She looks more human down here, younger as well. Bet she was a raver in her day, a Teddy girl in a pleated skirt and stockings. I’ve got a pair of brothel creepers at home, two-tone suede. Thick soles and buckles. Haven’t worn them for a while now, same as the fluorescent socks. Everything from lime green to bright orange. I’ve had a pair o
f DMs since I was twelve, but used to switch them back and forward with the shoes. Now it’s Martens all the way. Every normal kid wears Doctor Martens non-stop. Some younger boys end up with monkey boots, get it wrong.

  –That’s Barry Fisher over there, isn’t it? Chris asks, pointing at Soldier Barry, who’s standing by a pool table, drinking lager, mouthing off about Paddies and the scum in the IRA.

  I wonder if the Shannons can hear.

  –He used to go out with Debbie, didn’t he?

  That’s right, but I don’t say much. He was the one who broke her in. It was a couple of years ago.

  –He’s a nutter, Chris says.

  He’s a squaddie serving in Northern Ireland. He’s bound to be a nutter.

  –Why is it … ? Dave asks, lifting his glass and taking a mouthful of lager, almost choking because he’s gulped too much.

  –You fucking wanker, Chris says.

  –Fuck off you string-bean cunt.

  If I can hear Fisher going on about the Irish, then the Shannons must be able to as well, and while I don’t suppose they have any sympathy with the IRA, they’re still Irish.

  –Why is it, that wherever you look there’s always a nutter, Dave finishes. Think about it. There’s Fisher over there, Gary Wells who mugged Ali and goes around tooled-up, Alfonso the giant jungle bunny who nuts Wells and glasses people, the Jeffersons who put bouncers through glass doors, the bouncers themselves, the Shannons who I’ve never seen do anything but look hard enough, and the likes of Mick Todd who uses a hammer, his brothers, Charlie May with a fucking police dog on the end of a chain, and even Khan, a headcase Paki who doesn’t mind kicking some knocked-out kid’s brains in. Those are the ones we know about. Let’s face it, lads, we’re surrounded by nutters. What’s it all about?

  Don’t have a clue.

  –It’s because they’re older than us, Chris says. That’s the reason. If we were nineteen or twenty, or thirty, or forty, then we wouldn’t worry about them. It’s just they’re older and bigger, and have more experience. It’s the same with the older girls you see. They look dirty, but really they’re no worse than your average fifteen-year-old.

  –Fuck off. You telling me you’d say no to an older woman taking you in hand. Think of the tricks they’d know. You telling me that stripper we saw doesn’t know more about sex than a schoolgirl.

  We went to this pub that does strippers on Sunday, the windows covered with thick curtains and the tables packed, standing room only, this bird onstage who must’ve been in her thirties, with the sort of body the likes of us will only ever see in a dirty mag. The landlord had a record player set up and went through a couple of songs before the strip. She was a real professional, the hundred or so blokes going mental, pissed out of their heads Sunday dinner time, and the stripper was spinning silver Christmas tree tassels pinned to her tits, taking them off, stripping out of her G-string and bending over for the punters to surge forward, a quick flash of her lips before this bloke buries his head between her cheeks and tried to lick her arse. She skipped offstage with a big smile on her face, and someone went round with a beer mug. She did alright as well, the coins quickly mounting up. The landlord pulled the curtains after the last bell, did afters for those blokes who didn’t have a Sunday dinner to go home to, gave us a bollocking when he saw how old we were.

  –That stripper was a beauty, Chris admits, love in his eyes.

  –Dirty Arab, Dave says. Remember that wanker who stuck his tongue up her bum? It’s enough to put you off sex for life.

  –She had a lot of class.

  –Fuck off. You should’ve been up there with that mong.

  Debbie’s mum, Bev, shouts and waves her numbers in the air. It’s true what they say, every girl is someone’s daughter, mum, sister. I was thinking that when we were watching the woman strip, and maybe she has kids somewhere, doing what she can to earn a living, and she has to have a mum. Imagine some bloke trying to stick his tongue up her bum. And those animals pictures. Those women aren’t doing that by choice. Maybe they’re forced into it. They can’t make much.

  –Never mind, says Chris. The thing about a professional stripper is that they show themselves but don’t let the crowd touch. In other words, she’s no tart, just a prick-teaser.

  –Who told you that then?

  –I read it in the paper. There was an interview with a stripper. Other girls shag blokes onstage.

  We all think about this for a minute.

  –I bet every bloke down there went home and had a wank over her, Chris says. I did.

  –Dirty bastard, Dave says, pretending to be upset.

  –You saying you didn’t, Chris asks.

  –No, I didn’t.

  Neither did I.

  –I waited till the next day.

  –What about you, Joe?

  I tell them I never did.

  –Bum boy. It’s your round. Come on, you tight cunt.

  I tell Dave I got the last one, and Chris bought the first.

  –Must be mine then, he says, going up to the bar.

  –What did you think of those pictures? Chris asks.

  I tell him the truth, don’t pretend it’s a laugh.

  –That’s what I thought as well.

  Dave brings the drinks back on a tray and we take the piss out of him as he tries not to spill them. The bingo ends and the night turns into a piss-up, things always friendly in here. We slow down, but end up having seven pints by closing time, chipping in for the last round. We talk about music, girls, getting pissed, the normal stuff, winding each other up over nothing. I keep quiet about Smiles. It’s his business and he doesn’t want the whole world knowing. It’s his story.

  –Come on then, Dave says when the first bell’s gone. Let’s get going. I’ve had enough.

  We walk down to the crossroads, and Debbie’s mum is standing on the corner outside the Nag’s Head, saying goodbye to one of the women she was drinking with inside, looking around for someone else. Soldier Barry marches down the street with two other blokes, Blakeys clicking on the pavement. He goes up to this Irishman and nuts him in the face. The man goes down and one of Barry’s mates kicks him in the face. Fisher stands back, arms crossed, polished brogues catching the headlights of a Cortina that mounts the kerb and scatters the small crowd that’s quickly gathered. The driver’s door opens and bangs into Soldier Barry. Tommy Shannon’s dad jumps out of the other side and runs round the car, punches Fisher in the head. The bloke that Fisher’s nutted gets up and walks over to the pub wall, where he sits down and watches. Fisher recovers and nuts the driver who’s out of the car now, a real beaut right between the eyes, his second of the night. It’s a classic head-butt, but it doesn’t have much effect. The man lifts his right knee into the squaddie’s bollocks and the army boy stumbles forward, the first time he’s bent over since he was potting pool balls earlier on. It makes me wince, and I think of the tennis balls I used to get in the bollocks playing football in the playground, but another part of me is glad to see his nuts take a pounding, sick of the stories Debbie used to feed into my ear. Seconds later a panda replaces the Cortina, which screeches away, two coppers jumping out, radio babbling as they swing their truncheons in the middle of an empty street.

  –I hate this, Debbie’s mum says, gripping my arm. What’s the matter with them?

  Everyone involved in the punch-up is on the move, and I catch the back of Soldier Barry marching away, flanked by his mates, eyes straight ahead, back straight. Debbie’s mum is shaking, digging her nails into my arm.

  –Will you walk me back? My friend’s gone. I told her to wait, but she’s disappeared.

  I sober up quick, look round for a skinny kid and a flashy part-time punk, but Chris and Dave have legged it, not wanting to get nicked by mistake. I’m a grown-up now, with a full-size grown-up woman leaning against me. My head’s buzzing from the drink.

  –Let’s go back along the canal, Debbie’s mum says. It’s quicker. And you can call me Bev.

  We
go over the road and work our way down to the towpath. This is the end of this stretch of the canal. It’s dark, and we walk slowly, passing the backs of houses, the moon reflecting on the water. It’s another world down here, and the air smells clean and musty at the same time. They taught us about the canal at school, how the Slough Arm was added to the Grand Union to help the railways which couldn’t handle all the bricks being made here and shipped into London. The city was spreading and the brickfields supplied the raw material. When the bricks ran out, the barges took gravel up instead, and London sent back its rubbish to fill the holes. We helped build London, and they sent us the shit they didn’t want. We had a good laugh at that. But today the canal is forgotten, and it’s not the sort of place I’d normally come.

  –Why do men always want to fight? It was the same when I was a girl. It doesn’t turn women on, you know. It puts them off.

  Bev brushes my arm and I jump. It’s the second time. Her arm is on my shoulder and it’s like she’s oozing perfume the smell’s so strong. I’m shitting it. What if she wants a bunk-up under the bridge? I see her lying back against the sloping concrete, rubbers left behind by Debbie and her squaddie boyfriend, Bev lifting her bum up for a schoolboy in ten-eye Doctor Marten boots, finding his winkle’s shrivelled up from fear. I’m a kid, fifteen years old, just want an easy life.

  –I can’t see much down here, don’t know where I’m treading. We don’t want to fall in, do we?

  It takes a while, and we’re walking slowly, and it’s a brilliant night out, and as it’s darker down here we can see the stars, millions of dots in a clear sky. I’d never come down here on my own, and my fear goes, because Debbie’s mum is old enough to be my mum as well. I laugh at myself, look at the water and watch my step, small ripples on the surface, where the canal isn’t clogged with weeds. We finally reach the bridge and go under, and it’s dark and smelly, dead beer rotting in cans, piss and shit, the smell of Bev’s perfume banging into me again as her hand runs down my arm. She holds my hand and squeezes.