Cleaning Up

by Paul Connor-Kearns

  Reports were coming in that the Coleshaw and the Barrington were both quiet, nothing doing at all, which seemed a little strange. Within the next half-hour it became obvious why that was the case. The gang of fifty that had gathered at the top of the end of the street had suddenly swollen in the space of twenty minutes to become the gang of a few hundred. It looked like this was where it was going to go down. Reinforcements were called in and Darrin and the boys had taken up position near the two vans that were parked nose to nose across the High Street, strategically placed between the precinct and the mob.

  A few more minutes of the stand off and then the gang broke. A dozen or so lads came through the middle of the throng pushing two big wheelie bins. They had probably corralled them from the back of the shopping mall, which was a half a mile or so back up the by-pass. The bins were ablaze and being pushed with a reasonable velocity down towards their line. Darrin felt the blast of adrenalin, the muscles in his legs, arms and shoulders beginning to twitch, the sweat cooling as it ran down from his face to his collar. Then it was on, fettered anticipation boiling over into action - bottles and pieces of masonry arcing through the air towards them, a few of the missiles hitting the side of the vans with crashing blows. A minute of that passed, their line was kept tight pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder and the shields were kept up for maximum protection. Through his helmet he could hear the muted, heavy thuds of the bricks and the cracking explosions of the glass. He was ready to go now, aching to fucking move. DI Kendrick raised his arm and signalled the first charge - up they went, six abreast. Darrin was in the second row running hard, not feeling the weight of his gear, oblivious to the sweat that was coursing down his back.

  The mob scattered and headed back towards the by-pass, some of them breaking off into the High Street’s side streets, one little fucker falling over as he turned to get away. As he ran past him Darrin wacked the kid hard across the top of his back bringing out a scream of pain. He knew that the kid would be swept up by the snatch team and he kept on running right at the heart of the fuckers. There was a demolition site at the top left end of the High Street and about fifty of them were waiting for them there, primed with rubble, masonry and bottles. Their charging lines came to a stuttering halt and they quickly raised their shields as the volley of missiles came down upon them. He was hit on the left shoulder and big Chev went down with his visor shattered, his lower face a mask of blood. Another bottle smashed just behind them, exploding into flames and, as it did so, Darrin heard the fuckers on the demolition site hoot and holler, delighted at the sight of the coppers hurriedly dancing away from the fire. He grabbed the still prone and now targetted Chev and he held his shield over him. With the help of Barnesy, they got him back onto his feet and made a slow, clumsy retreat back to the wagons, Chev sandwiched between him and Barnesy, Darrin walking backwards his left arm gripping Chev’s waistband, his right keeping his battered shield aloft. The mob had flowed back into the vacuum, emboldened by the coppers’ retreat and Kendrick ordered them back to the second line down near the pedestrian mall. They had the shops covered there, both ends of the mall were sealed up and they had the numbers to protect it.

  The High Street belonged to the rioters now and they quickly turned their pitiless attention to ransacking the shops; an electrical store that had been there since he was a kid; an Asian mini-market, a florist, a pound shop, Ridgeleys menswear, Footlocker - all of them smashed, trashed and burned. Scores of the little fuckers making off with various goods - shopping trolleys commandeered from the mall to help them haul it away. News crews and media were now in the thick of it marking it all down for posterity and wider consumption. Some of the fuckers had filmed themselves on their mobiles and Blackberries and mugged for the cameras - their YouTube moment.

  His shoulder was hurting like fuck but he was told to wait and watch - Kendrick said they didn’t have the numbers to engage again with the looters, so the local businesses had to be sacrificed on the altar of expediency. As he watched the looters his stomach churned with anger and a sense of futility and helplessness. It felt like surrender, a capitulation to the scumbags.

  It was six a.m before the fire brigade could get in to douse what was left of the High Street. Word had come through via Sarge Thomas that the Community Centre on Barker Street had been torched too.

  Darrin was stood down at eight as reinforcements from neighbouring forces had allowed them to completely cordon the centre off. Before he turned to leave he took in the vista for one last time and Sergeant Thomas, who now looked at least a decade older in the bright morning light after the long night before, tapped him on his sore shoulder and told him to shake a leg. Thomas saw him wince at the touch and the Sarge quickly called over the medics and organised a ride down to A and E for him. Two hours later and he was being patched up by a pretty nurse. There was nothing broken, just deep bruising and he was given painkillers to take the edge off.

  Darrin rang the station and told them about the shoulder, he was told to stand down and to take a couple of days off. They now had the numbers to cover. He went to his mum’s for his lunch, she clucked and fussed over him and, for once, he was grateful for it.

  He was knackered in body and in mind and he went for a lie down in his old room and slept through until almost midnight.

  When he returned downstairs his old man was still up listening to the radio, which was always Doug’s preference whenever he was alone. It was tuned into a local station with only one topic being discussed.

  His dad looked at him with a rare show of concern.

  ‘You alright then son?’

  Darrin nodded and tried to mask a wince, it was definitely time for more painkillers. His dad offered him a brew and he listened to the radio as his dad busied himself in the kitchen. According to the radio it was all quiet tonight - too fucking late that, he thought.

  Pasquale had heard about the agro from Junior who had been hanging out up on the Coleshaw when it was all kicking off and Kat and Jess had also received texts about what was going down in the centre - sounded like arma-fuckin’-geddon. They had a lockdown, nobody was allowed out of the refuge and Wendy had popped around mid evening to nervously check on her charges and to offer Rod a bit of moral support.

  He went to bed early, which raised a few comments from the others. He lay on his bed for an hour or so then got up and slipped out through the bedroom window. He made his way to the back shed putting enough distance between himself and the back door of the refuge to ensure that he didn’t trip the sensor light and quietly slid open the lightweight corrugated door. He grabbed the petrol can that held the juice for the lawnmower and poured a pint or so of fuel into one of the lidded glass jars that housed some screws and nails. Satisfied that he had enough, he put the jar, along with a cleanish rag, into his backpack and then grabbed the bicycle.

  Junior was waiting for him at the Centre, stepping out of the shadows at the sound of his whistle from around the side of the long part of the T-shaped building. It was a moonless night and there were only a few lights around the front of the Centre - nice and dark for their purpose. Pasquale led Junior around to the back office window. He grabbed the hammer from him and smashed in the window as completely as he could. The alarm was immediately triggered, grating and dramatically insistent but it barely pierced his grim intent. He stuffed the rag in the jar of petrol leaving just a few inches of it dry. He lit the rag then he threw the bottle at the far wall of the office where it smashed and spectacularly exploded into flames - arma-fuckin’-geddon.

  They cycled a quarter a mile or so away to a little park from where they had a clear view of the Centre. Junior had rolled them a couple of joints and they smoked and waited. After a few minutes they could smell the smoke and after five more they could see the flames rolling up the back of the Centre, dramatically eating away at the large part of the building that held the basketball court where they held the monthly raves.

  It took half an hour before they heard the siren. According to Ju
nior’s phone there was mega-mayhem in the Centre and bins and a few cars were still ablaze on both the Coleshaw and the Barrington. There was a ‘copter buzzing the High Street and plenty of flame coming from over that way too. They hung around for another hour and then took off, splitting up immediately as they did so. When he climbed back in the window his room was still empty, Liam was still up watching the late movie probably with Rob and night bird Kat.

  Pasquale went through to the bathroom, cleaned himself up and stashed his clothes in the wash basket.

  He lay in the dark for a while and listened to the blare of sirens in the distance, a sense of grim satisfaction turning his mouth into a bleak thin line. What was that Sonny had told him? Yeah, that was it. There are always consequences to your actions.

  Pauline rang Tommy just after nine - the sirens and the circling chopper had delayed his sleep for a couple of hours until he’d remembered that he had some ear plugs at the back of his sock drawer. Her news had jolted him awake. He ate some toast, showered and got down there a little after ten. She was round the back of the building near what was left of his office, animatedly chatting with a middle-aged fireman and Jeannie, her office administrator. He called out her name and she called back and gave him the briefest of smiles, her face blotchy and tired. The emergency services had taped out a perimeter some twenty yards from the back and side-walls of the building. The roof had buckled but was still intact. The wall of his office was a blackened shell, his desk and the computer now a fused lumpen mess. When she had finished chatting with the fire guy she turned in his direction, they walked up to each other and embraced. He held her for a few moments but she’d done with any crying. She stepped back and looked at him, her hands tightly clenching his upper arms.

  ‘Anybody see anything Pauline?’

  She shook her head, ‘it was called in just after half eleven, by the time they got here it was well ablaze.’

  He stepped half a pace to the side and took in the mess again.

  ‘Who would want to do this Pauline?’

  She shook her head, ‘don’t know love, doesn’t make sense does it? But, given last night, who knows.’

  He wasn’t convinced by the connection, the town centre and the estates had been orchestrated but that had been somehow organic too and predictable. He could see the cause and effect in it. The riot was a curdled reaction arising from the interminable status quo of disaffection, struggle and unhappiness, which had fed the mob mentality. Finally erupting into battle stations, the ‘let’s get into it’ with the coppers and the jackal like ransacking of the shops. But, to his mind, this seemed odd, an anomaly that was out of whack with the rest of the fucked up night.

  ‘Anyway Thomas, it looks like you’ll be sharing an office for a while. The front of the building’s still usable apparently and the reception should be big enough for the groups. Maybe the council might have a room or two for us to use.’

  Typical Pauline, he thought, the Phoenix rising whilst the place is still smouldering. She was always looking for a way to keep going, as redoubtable as the people of London in the Blitz.

  ‘Yeah, yeah we can do all that - everything is covered.’

  He looked around to his left, smoke still spiralling over there too, the High Street in fucking tatters.

  ‘Looks like we’re still waiting for that Great Leap Forward eh Pauline?’

  She smiled and touched him lightly on the cheek, ‘that fight never stops Tommy, that’s why they put people like you and me down here.’

  Tommy nodded grimly - she was half-right in her assertion, he was starting to feel battle fatigue though. Let them have their shit heap, he thought.

  Tommy met the old man in the Farriers for lunch and he set his stall out early with Guinness and a malt chaser. Mick raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Nev dropped in and Drink Gorman was already there, half-lit and already starting to burble. Mick’s old sparring partner, Jimmy Buck came in too, which meant that there would be some guaranteed laughs to leaven the disbelief and the anger.

  Today he was in the mood for it and he matched the old man for spleen. He’d even shared his spiritual sickness theory with them during the lengthy, slightly circular conversation about last night’s events, the youth as the spawn of a culture of rampant vacuous commercialism. His dad liked it - nodding along furiously, getting off on his son’s bristling anger at least as much as the details of his argument. The old man had always enjoyed seeing his fighting side, the displays of the chip off the old block.

  ‘Aye right on son, right you bloody well are, there’s no excuse for the little fuckers’ behaviour but they’ve been doled out a diet of false idols for decades now. If we want any kind of fucking enlightenment let’s get rid of the TV for fucking starters.’ That comment caused Drink to burpingly giggle in slight alarm. Nev broke the silence, ‘there are some decent shows on though Mick, yer know, National Geographic and that.’

  The old man rolled his eyes to the heavens but gave Nev a pass.

  ‘Let them eat fucking cake,’ Mick said and JB laughed and then chimed in.

  ‘Get the little cunts in the army and kick the mums’ and dads’ arses too. Fucking nanny state has killed us, soft as shit this lot, good job Adolf wasn’t born in the nineteen fifties.’

  Tommy agreed, he disagreed, they were right, they were wrong, he was certain, he was uncertain and he was, pound to a penny, as pissed as a fart. He drank all the way through the day. Mick had temporarily bailed out in the late afternoon, off home for tea and a nap. The old man returning a few hours later, fresh faced for his weekly dose of the blues band.

  The band’s industrial noise levels always made any attempt at conversation a complete waste of time, beefed up bass and drum underpinning toe curling string bending guitar, just the way Mick liked it. The old man nodding along to the rolling four-four beat, that percussive motion of his punctuated with the occasional ‘get it up yer’ punch of the air. Tommy up and dancing with Lil, the comely barmaid, to Dr. Feelgood’s Back in the Night. Tonight they were temporarily in seventh heaven - rolling back the years.

  Tommy woke up to the sunlight pouring in through the window of his old man’s front bedroom. He looked at his watch and groaned, it was nine o’clock, his mouth and throat were as dry as a march through the Gobi and he had a crushing headache that painfully pulsed with every breath. He forced himself to dress and just about kept it all down. He drank as much water as he could bear and had a futile look for some aspirin. He didn’t know why he’d bothered as the old man regarded using tablets as a sure fire sign of weak willed degeneracy. He climbed back up the stairs to wash his face and had a quick clean of the teeth with his old man’s spare toothbrush, finally wincing his way on out of Mick’s pad just before ten. It was a long walk home, it would be nearly two hours by the time he arrived at his own flat. Tommy went via the High Street and felt a genuine sadness as he looked at the fucking mess that was the aftermath of the riot. They hadn’t fucking missed, that was for sure. He knew the young couple who’d had the florists and, Jesus, poor old Harry Pritchard and his electrical goods joint! He’d bought loads of secondhand albums from Harry when he was still in his teens.

  There was a high police presence down there and both ends of the High Street remained sealed off. The clean up crews were already in, bolstered by some of the shopkeepers sorting through the crap in the areas where the buildings were deemed to be safe.

  Tommy turned away from the mess and walked the rest of the way home. He spent the afternoon laid up inertly on the couch like a beached sea elephant that was saving his energy for the mating season. Thankfully, his supply of aspirin was kicking in to do the trick. He was grateful for the company of the muted pictures of the TV. The stereo was fully loaded up with CD’s so he wouldn’t have to move for hours if he didn’t want to.

  Donna hadn’t called, which irritated him a little even though he hadn’t called her. Later on in the evening he eventually plucked up the energy and resolve to get through to her
. He apologised, he was meant to be cooking her dinner last night. She gave him exculpation but in a cool neutral way which, although understandable, irritated him again.

  And that was it for the next few days, the aftermath; local politicians, visiting national politicians, every man and his dog pitching in with their ten cents worth. The left banged their drum, blaming poverty, lack of opportunity and social exclusion. The right rat a tatted back with criminality, family breakdown, the gang and drug culture, one parent and no parent families and the nanny state absolving people from individual responsibility. The local Archbishop even had a poke at the false idols of consumerism and celebrity and the growth of reality TV. The kids blamed the coppers, lack of jobs, things to do and places to go. The shopkeepers were gutted and angry and wondered why they had bothered putting in the time and effort for a local community that was so ready to cannibalise them. Little old ladies were frightened and he was missing his life in Australia and the sunny tolerant relaxed hedonism of inner city Sydney. He had a few days off while they sorted out the building although he checked in on Pauline and the gang every day. He felt he at least owed her, and the rest of the staff that.

  He met up with Donna on the Wednesday, her place this time and he told her about the conversation with Sonny.

  ‘You told him what I told you, about Pasquale?’

  He looked at her levelly and nodded, trying to read her face and failing miserably.

  ‘And what made you think that was OK Tommy?’

  Fucking hell - he was being chastised!

  ‘Sonny knew Donna - he told me. He’d had the word from a reliable source. Pasquale was lucky not to have been pulled in.’

  ‘Why did they leave him alone then - if he is still… dealing?’

  Tommy caught the hesitation and just like that he’d felt something start to take shape in his mind; the talk that he’d had with the kid at his bedroom doorway, the fact that her time-line was a little out, a house bought in a reasonable part of the city before she took up her university studies. Sure, he thought, the city was cheap then, still pulling out of its postindustrial wasteland rep of the eighties. But, a single mum doing what was semi-skilled work at best. It just didn’t add up - period.