“B!” Dad barks, making me jump.
“Yeah?” I croak, trying not to shake.
He glares at me—then snorts, picks up the can of beer and settles back again. “Go do whatever the hell you feel like.”
“Sure thing, boss,” I smile and tip him a stupid salute.
Dad smirks. “You’re an idiot,” he says.
“I know where I get it from,” I chuck back at him, feeling safe enough to wind him up a bit. I can do that to Dad when he’s in the right mood. He’s a great laugh when he wants to be.
“Oi!” he roars and throws a cushion at me.
I laugh and duck out, knowing Mum will be fine now, delighted at this unexpected swing, feeling on top of the world. There’s nothing sweeter than a narrow escape. I don’t know why Dad laid off at the last moment, and I don’t try to figure it out. I gave up trying to read his mind years ago.
The last thing I see is Mum getting up to retrieve the cushion. Dad doesn’t like it if she leaves stuff lying around. Doesn’t matter if he left it there. Cleaning up is her job.
TWO
Out of the flat, down three flights of stairs, taking the steps two at a time, four on the last set. I slap the wall on my right as I fly past. Someone spray painted a giant arse on it months ago and I always slap it for good luck when I pass. Some of the neighbors have tried scrubbing it off but it’s hanging in there, faded but defiant. I love graffiti. If I could paint, I’d be out covering the walls of London every night.
I land like a cat, cool in my new, totally black sneakers. There was a bit of red running through them when they first came out of their box, and the brand name shone brightly, but I carefully went over everything with a heavy-duty Sharpie. B Smith is nobody’s advertising pawn!
It’s not yet six, plenty of daylight left. I don’t know what Mum was panicking about. Even if zombies were real, and even if they did attack here, they wouldn’t show their faces for another hour, not if the news teams have got it right.
I check myself out in shop windows. Plain black T-shirt and jeans, no tags to show what make they are, threadbare in places, but worn in naturally by me, none of your bloody designer wear and tear.
I’m almost past Black Spot when I stop and backtrack. Vinyl’s in there with his old man. Black Spot is a retro freak’s paradise. They only stock vinyl records, along with clothes, toys, hats, and other bits and pieces from the dark ages. I even saw a video recorder in the window once.
Vinyl’s dad loves all that twentieth-century crap. He won’t let CDs or DVDs in his house, and as for downloads, forget it! They have a computer but all the music sites on it are blocked. He says the crackle of old records is what real music is all about, that digital tracks don’t make the air throb.
I lean close to the window and tap on it softly. Vinyl looks up and scowls. He hates it when we spot him with his dad. Vinyl’s old man is all right–he does his own thing and doesn’t make a song and dance about it–but he’s a weirdo. I think Vinyl secretly likes the records that his dad makes him listen to but he never admits that to us or defends his dad when we slag him off. As long as we don’t take it too far. I started to make a joke once about his dad liking the small holes that you find in the middle of records. Vinyl very quietly told me to shut up. He didn’t have to say any more. I’m not afraid of Vinyl but I know he’d wipe the floor with me if we fought. Why sign up for a beating if you don’t have to?
I make a face and stick out my tongue. Vinyl gives me the finger, then says something to his dad. Old man Vinyl looks up, nods at me and smiles. I salute him, the same way I saluted Dad a while ago. Vinyl comes out, nudging the door open with his head.
“You’re so cool,” I gush, squeezing my hands together and making doe eyes at him.
“Get stuffed,” Vinyl sneers.
We grin and knock knuckles.
“I like the hair,” Vinyl says. “Number 3?”
“Sod that. Number 2.”
“Hard-core.”
Vinyl’s got long, curly hair. He’d love to shave it but his mum would cry and he doesn’t want to upset her. He’s a soft git, Vinyl. But hard when he needs to be. There aren’t many who get the better of him in a punch-up.
“How’s the new school?” I ask.
Vinyl rolls his eyes. “I should have failed that bloody test.”
“Bad?” I laugh.
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
Vinyl took a Mensa test in the summer. Turns out he’s smarter than the rest of us put together. His mum went gaga–she thinks he’s the new Einstein–and begged him to switch to a posh school. He hated bailing on us but she turned on the tears and he caved.
“What’s it really like?” I ask as we stroll, punching each other’s arm every now and then.
“All right,” he shrugs. “I thought they’d be full of themselves but most aren’t much different from us. I’m doing okay, not the best, not the worst.”
“What about the teachers?”
He shrugs again. “They wouldn’t last long in our place. I’d give them a week—they’d be head cases after that.”
Vinyl still thinks he’s one of us. And at the moment he is. But that will change. You can’t switch schools and carry on as if nothing’s happened. He’ll make new friends soon and start hanging out with them. Another few weeks and we won’t see a lick of him. Way of the world.
“You must be crapping yourself,” I tell him.
“What are you talking about?” he frowns.
“The zombies.”
“What about them?”
“They go for freaks with big brains.”
He laughs sarcastically. “Know what I like about you, B?”
“What?”
“You’ll be dead one day.”
We snicker, knock knuckles and head for the park.
THREE
Some of the gang are already in the park, as I guessed they would be. We’re too young to get into pubs and there’s not much else to do around here. They’re hanging out by the swings, trying to look cool. Dipsticks! I mean, how the hell are you supposed to look cool in a park?
“Strewth, it’s the B-ster,” Trev hoots. “And who’s that with our cheery old chum? Strike me pink if it ain’t our old mate Vinyl! Evening, guv’nor.”
Trev loves a bit of old-time cockney slang. Sometimes it’s funny but it gets stale quick.
“Anything happening?” I ask, taking one of the swings and lifting my feet up so that everyone can admire my sneakers.
“Sod all,” Copper says.
“Looking for zombies,” Kray yawns.
“We thought Vinyl was one of them,” Ballydefeck says.
“Eat me,” Vinyl retorts.
“I wouldn’t even if I was a zombie,” Ballydefeck sniffs.
“Anyone else coming?” I ask.
Trev shrugs. “Talk of a curfew has scared a lot of people. I’m not expecting many more. Surprised to see you, B. I thought you’d have been kept in.”
“It’d take more than the threat of a few zombies to keep me in,” I sneer.
“Aren’t you afraid of the living dead?” Kray asks.
“I’m more afraid of your killer breath.”
Laughter all round. I grin. It’s great to have friends to slag off.
Copper produces a packet of cigs and passes them around. He’s good that way. He’d share his last butt with you. He used to take a lot of flack for being a ginger before he butched up, but I always liked him. I slagged him off, sure–and I gave him his nickname–but in a nice way.
I’ve given a few of my friends nicknames over the years. I’m good at it. You’d be amazed how some people struggle. It doesn’t take a stroke of genius to look at a redhead and call him Copper, but even that simple task is beyond a lot of the kids I know.
I’m prouder of Ballydefeck. His family’s Irish. Most of us have a bit of Paddy in our blood, but his lot act like they still live in the bog, spuds for dinner every night of the week, Irish dancing competitions on t
he weekend, Daniel O’Donnell blasting out loud in every room of their house if you pop round. He was known as Paddy or Mick for years. Then one night I was watching a rerun of Father Ted. An old priest in it kept cursing, saying, “Feck!” I put that together with the name of an Irish village and came up with Ballydefeck. He’s answered to that ever since.
Kray digs out an iPod with a plug-in speaker. It’s brand-new, the latest model. I whistle appreciatively. “Fall off the back of a truck?” I ask.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Kray says indignantly, but his smirk ruins his show of innocence. We’ve all nicked a bit in our time but Kray would have been Fagin’s star student.
We listen to some good tunes–Kray has great taste–and talk about TV, zombies, music, sex. Vinyl tells us about the girls in his new school. He says they’re hot and easy. Trev, Copper and Ballydefeck listen with their mouths open as he describes what he’s been getting up to with them. Me and Kray look at each other and roll our eyes—we know bullshit when we smell it. But we don’t tell Vinyl to shut up. It’s fun listening to him stringing the fools along.
After a while I spot a skinny black teenager entering the park. It’s Tyler, a kid from our year. He stops when he sees us, hesitates, then backs up.
“Tyler!” I shout. “Get your arse over here!”
He grins nervously and taps his watch. Vanishes before I can call to him again.
“A pity,” I sneer. “I fancied a lynching.”
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Vinyl says.
“Only joking,” I reply.
“Tyler’s all right,” Vinyl mutters.
“No, he’s not,” I growl.
“What’s wrong with him?” Vinyl challenges me, then smiles with icy sweetness before I can answer. “It’s not the color of his skin, is it?”
I scowl at Vinyl but don’t say anything. Because to an extent he’s right. Dad’s a racist and proud of it. He hates anyone who isn’t from England, especially if they’re dark-skinned. In his ideal world the ruling party would be the Ku Klux Klan and he’d go riding through the streets of London on a horse every day with a load of hood-wearing buddies, keeping law and order with a thick length of rope.
Dad’s always warning me of the dangers of racial tolerance. He pushes Aryan books and pamphlets my way. The first picture book I remember reading by myself was Little Black Sambo.
I don’t believe the same things that Dad does. I don’t want to be like him, not that way. But at the same time I’ve got to live with him. I learned early on not to challenge his word. So I put up with the ranting and raving. I read the hate lit. I laugh at his crude jokes. I’ve even gone to a few meetings with him, rooms full of angry white men muttering bloody murder.
The trouble with putting on an act is that sometimes it’s hard to tell where the actor stops and the real you begins. It’s rubbed off on me to an extent, the years of pretending to hate. Vinyl’s black as the ace of spades, but he’s my only friend who is. And it’s not just because I know Dad would hit the roof if he saw me hanging out with black kids or Muslims. Part of me genuinely fears the menace of those who are different. I’ve read so much and heard so much and been forced to say so much that sometimes I forget that I don’t believe it.
To be honest, I’m amazed I’m still friends with Vinyl. We hung out together when we were tiny, before I started selecting my associates more cautiously. When Dad beat me a few times and told me to stop having anything to do with that horrible little black kid, that should have been the end of it. I tried to avoid Vinyl after that but I couldn’t. We got on too well. He made me laugh, he never teased me, I could talk to him about anything.
I learned to sneak behind Dad’s back, never mention Vinyl at home, not be seen with him close to where we live. He’s my secret friend. If Dad knew, he’d knock the stuffing out of me. Even one black friend is one too many as far as he’s concerned.
“Come on,” Vinyl says again, bristling now. “What’s wrong with Tyler?”
“I don’t like his face,” I snap. “What difference does it make?”
“I ran into your dad a few days ago,” Vinyl says. “He recognized me, which was a surprise. I thought we all looked the same to him.”
“Hey,” Trev says uneasily. “Let’s drop it.”
“He told me he’d heard about my new school,” Vinyl goes on, ignoring Trev and staring hard at me. “Said it was amazing what they could teach chimps these days. Asked me if I could peel my own bananas now.”
I feel my face flush. I’m ashamed of my mean-spirited, foul-mouthed father. But I’m even more ashamed of myself, because I instinctively want to defend him. I know it’s wrong. He shouldn’t have said that to Vinyl–to anyone–but part of me wants to take his side, because no matter what, he’s my dad and I love him.
“I can’t control what he says,” I mutter, dropping my gaze.
“But do you agree with it?” Vinyl growls.
“Of course not!” I spit. “Tyler’s a whiny brat. He gets up my nose. It’s got nothing to do with him being black.”
Vinyl eyes me coldly for a long, probing moment. Then he relaxes. “That’s all right then.” He winks. “You should tell your dad that you want to move in with me.”
“Wishful thinking!” I snort.
We laugh, bump fists and everything’s okay again. In a weird, messed-up, uncomfortable kind of way. It’s not easy sometimes, having a racist for a dad.
FOUR
We meet Suze and La Lips outside a kebab shop. They’re sharing a bag of fries and Suze has a kebab that she’s saving for later.
“Lovely ladies!” Trev croons. “What does a guy have to do to get a fry and a kiss around here?”
“Sod off,” Suze growls as he drapes an arm round each of them. La Lips smiles and cuddles into him.
“What’s up?” I ask, eyeing the fries hungrily. I had dinner before I came out but I always get the munchies when I spy a bag of steaming-hot fries.
“We were supposed to be meeting Elephant and Stagger Lee, but they never turned up,” La Lips pouts.
“What are you doing with them?” Copper asks suspiciously. La Lips has kissed just about every boy she’s ever come into contact with–I snogged her too, a while back, to see what it was like, though she tells me to shut my trap whenever I bring that up–but Copper has been sort of going steady with her for the last few weeks.
“Stagger Lee was going to give us new ringtones for our phones,” Suze says.
“More Nick Cave, I bet,” Copper scowls (Stagger Lee’s a Nick Cave freak—he was nicknamed after one of the singer’s most famous songs) and drags La Lips away from Trev.
“Careful!” she shouts, spilling a couple of fries. She rubs her arm where he pinched her and glares.
“You won’t be copping a feel tonight,” Kray laughs.
“He doesn’t cop a feel any night,” La Lips says, tossing her hair indignantly, but nobody buys that for even a second.
“Here,” Suze says, handing me the bag of fries. “I can’t bear to look at you drooling any longer.”
“Cheers, ears.” I tuck in and the others crowd around me. Thirty seconds later the fries are gone and we’re licking our lips.
Suze shakes her head. “Like a pack of dogs,” she sighs. Then she smiles at Vinyl, the only one who didn’t grab any fries. “How’s the new school?”
Vinyl shrugs. “You know. All right.”
“Is it very different from ours?” La Lips asks.
“Yeah. They have gold-rimmed toilet seats.”
“No way!” she gasps.
Everyone laughs.
“You’re an idiot,” I tell her.
“Less of that,” Copper says, draping a protective arm around her.
“My hero,” La Lips simpers and stands on her toes to stick her tongue down his throat.
“Not in public!” I roar and we keep on going down the street, jostling and laughing.
The girls don’t have much news. They’re as bored as
we are. Suze and I walk a little ahead of the others, chatting about our mums—they used to be best friends when they were our age. But then Ballydefeck starts telling us to kiss each other, so I round on him and give him a slap to shut him up. He covers his head with both hands. “Not the face, B! Not the face!” In the end I kick him playfully and leave it at that.
We come to a liquor store and pause by the window, enviously studying the bottles. Most of us have had a drink or two in our time–Dad let me sip beer when I was a baby, for laughs–but it’s hard to get hold of. Another few years and we’ll be able to pass for eighteen and go to parties and drink ourselves stupid. But for now we can’t do much apart from ogle and dream.
“Wait here,” I tell the others, deciding to stir things up a bit. I push into the shop and walk straight to the beer fridge. I pick up a six-pack of the cheapest brand I can find–in case I get lucky–then lug it to the counter. The Pakistani guy behind the till stares at me, unimpressed. “Ring it up, boss,” I tell him.
“You are underage.” He doesn’t even ask to see my ID.
“No I’m not. Go on, ring it up, I’m good for it.” I dig out a tattered wallet that once belonged to my dad and slide out a tenner that I’ve been holding on to since Friday.
“You are underage,” he says again. “It is illegal to sell alcohol to anyone under the age of eighteen. Please leave my shop immediately.”
“Please leave my shop immediately,” I echo, mimicking his accent. I know it’s petty but I can’t stop myself.
“If you do not leave, I will call the police,” he says.
“Call them what?” I smirk.
He points to a security camera. “This is all being recorded. I would advise you to return the alcohol to its shelf and–”