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  It feel like a cool rain a-fallin’, after months of blisterin’ heat.

  Soft Stuart

  I can remember a summertime in my life that was jus’ laughter and play, before bug bites and stinkin’ bins and hot-head fights. Before Con-Con, when it was jus’ me and Mum and Dad. I must’ve been five, six, just a baby. Dad rented a big flat with huge rooms, ceilin’s high as the sky, and places for hide-and-seek and chase, and big bouncy sofas and proper beds and what they call a dinin’ room. The dinin’ room had a wooden table big as a stage. Dad used to lift me onto it and peoples gather roun’ and I’d do the Moonwalk. Everyone whistle and whoop. Dad’d lift me on his shoulders and parade me roun’ to all the cheerin’. My head still didn’t reach the ceilin’ because our house back in the day was bigger even than a castle.

  That’s what we called it, The Castle. Mum and Dad was the King and Queen.

  Mum and Dad used to give parties. Everybody come from miles around and play music and dance and be drunk, Mum and Dad leanin’ into each other, laughin’ together. Like they needed each other to stop themselves fallin’ over, on account of life bein’ too funny to stay standin’ straight. I had a zillion toys. Every toy I jus’ snap my fingers ’cos I was Prince Marshall O’Connor the First. My mum and dad was rulers of the whole wide world.

  Dad used to run his own business, successful, so successful he able to spare time with us at home. Mum used to do part-time nursin’. Dad said she didn’t need to do that, but Mum said she enjoyed it. Helpin’ people. Mum always been like that.

  But that was a different world, back in the day. I remember how jus’ before he lef’, everythin’ gone nasty. He be smashin’ everythin’, and the police invaded our Castle and Dad punchin’ them all but they was more than him. The police punched him back, and they took him. All of a sudden he wasn’t King, but Fighter.

  Mum say I get my temper from him, inherited it like fortune. All them other riches jus’ fell away.

  Me and Mum moved into The Finger. Finger wasn’t so bad in them days. Lift worked and there wasn’t bad smells. I hated it jus’ the same. Mum’d sit around, lookin’ empty, like life had slipped out of her. I suppose I sat roun’ pretty much the same way. They put Dad in prison, but The Finger, to me, was a prison also. I don’t mean little bare rooms with cracks in the walls and no carpets and echoey corridors. That ain’t where it’s at. I understand prison. Prison is where Dad can’t be with me and Mum. Prison is where me and Mum can’t be with Dad. Same place.

  He never came back, did he? Never so much as wrote. What happened to all his promises?

  Nearest we get to royalty now is Sis and Big Auntie. I can’t believe they got bug trouble too. I’m sittin’, open-mouth, Sabreboy huddled between my legs, rufflin’ the fur round his neck. I say to Sis What, what? You telling me you got a infestation also?

  Infestation. That word I learned about when you got more bugs than you can count. Like these bloodsuckers come into our territory and attack us, like the police came and battled Dad, which was why everythin’ turn dark. Now, even though we ain’t got much space here in The Finger, these bugs comin’ and infestin’ us anyway. It ain’t right. Why ain’t they goin’ marchin’ on the big mansion houses? They get richer pickin’s there. Nicer wallpaper to drop their full-stop poos.

  Yahh Sis waves a hand dismissively. You get used to it, innit. Communal livin’, yeah? People downstairs got bedbugs, we got bedbugs, people upstairs got bedbugs. They creep through the cracks, yeah? We wanna be glad we ain’t got no cockroaches, ’cos that bad, boy, I’m tellin’ you.

  Always on the bright side, that’s Sis.

  Right there and then we hear sirens nee-nawin’ up from the street below, and rush back to the balcony to see what goin’ down.

  An ambulance, pullin’ up right outside the entrance to The Finger. We see a crew runnin’ out carryin’ medical bags and a rolled-up stretcher.

  Some sad person had another bad accident says Sis.

  All summer we gettin’ meat wagons visitin’ us here in the tower block, ’cos right here citizens always managin’ to do a hurt to themselves, or each other. Sometimes it jus’ families, mums and dads battlin’ each other. Other times it be knife fights, someone gettin’ shanked, which is dumb. I mean why you wanna go and stab some boy from your own estate? They jus’ as likely to go and stab you back. Then you both be bleedin’ and dyin’ in your mama’s arms. Don’ make no sense. Sometimes it’s drugs, which don’ make no sense either. Why people wanna injec’ themselves with stuff that poison them dead?

  People do it ’cos the rest of their crew do it.

  My dad used to say If your best friend jump off the edge of a cliff, you go follow him, what that make you?

  He give me that serious look, straight in my eyes like a laser.

  Tell me I said.

  It make you a lemon.

  And I ain’t no lemon.

  Dad never followed no gangs, had no need, he was one-man gang. Didn’t do no drugs neither. Always said that me and Mum got him as high as he needed to go. Ain’t no better buzz than the love of my leadin’ lady he said, nor my Little Prince.

  That was me: Little Prince.

  When I was titchy, Dad was always tellin’ me things, sharin’ sayin’s, makin’ cracks about life. Mum says I got my temper from him. But that ain’t right. I got his wisdom. That’s why I’m my own man. The only gang I need is my family, and Mus, and Sis, and my dog.

  I remember three times, people goin’ and doin’ suicide, which make even less sense – slittin’ themselves like they jus’ want their life to flow right outta them, drip, drip down the drain. Worse, a year ago, someone jump. Jump from the top floor, dive straight off of the balcony – splat. Mum saw it with her own eyes, but she say I don’ wanna look. I’m thinkin’ she tellin’ the truth, ’cos bad business is down on the concrete below. Lemon Squash.

  Ain’t no authority gonna come and do nothin’ about all this. Far as they concerned we all just a bunch of scuzzies. Get what we deserve.

  Now the nee-nawin’ is back. We listen out. We can hear the ambulance men huffin’ and puffin’ up the stairs on account of the lift not workin’ which keeps us all fit and seein’ what happenin’ on all the other floors.

  Sis always keep her door open, so’s her family can take in visitors without havin’ to stretch themselves up from the sofa. Theirs is a Open House. Any peoples can drop in, like a public library. Big Auntie full of knowledge. It safe, ’cos nobody goin’ to bring trouble through their door. Big Auntie got respect. Sis mus’ have about a dozen other brothers like me up and down The Finger. Her mum – Big Auntie – is like who everybody gonna turn to when they got a problem need fixin’, or they got disagreement with one another and in need of a refereein’ voice, ’cos no one gonna argue with Big Auntie. She’s block warden – not the official one put down on the groun’ floor by the council, who never here anyway – but the warden as chosen by the citizens livin’ here, get me? Sis keep an eye on the younger ones, which is why everybody know her as Sis.

  These meat men huff and puff right past Sis’s door and up the nex’ flight. We crane our necks ’cos we hear them bangin’ and crashin’ in the flat right above. We can hear a woman wailin’ and screechin’ and the meat men are yellin’ ’structions. Big panic.

  Sis meet my eye. Soft Stuart she say. He does drugs. Hard stuff.

  She tilts her head at me and walks towards the door. She means we got to go and take a peek. Sis’s mum ain’t in, and she gonna wanna know what’s happenin’. So she know what to tell peoples later on.

  We tiptoe up the stairs. I ain’t sure I want to go. I’m afraid we goin’ to see a dead person. I don’ know Soft Stuart. I don’ wanna know Soft Stuart. I certainly don’ wanna see no Soft Stuart body bein’ carried out, face covered by a blanket like on some cop show on TV. But I follow Sis ’cos that what I gotta do. I wanna reach out and hold her hand. Cuss myself for bein’ a baby. I’m fifteen, yeah?

  We get to Soft Stuart’s
flat. The door is open where the medic people barged in. Smell waftin’ out worse than any I smelled before, mix of bedbugs and sweat and fear.

  I wanna ask Sis if whole block crawlin’ with bugs, but she put a finger to her lip – shush. Leans her head through the doorframe. Behind her, I crane my neck, take a look. I see the first body I ever seen in my life.

  Soft Stuart is slumped on his sofa. He’s as skinny as a street lamp and as white as a sheet. The three meat men are crouched round him, shakin’ their heads like ’tain’t no use, this man is mos’ definite dead. Oh, he is white. I don’ mean he is white like Connor is white. He is white like a sheet of paper. That is wrong, ain’t nobody white like that, not dead nor alive. He’s as white as a ghost that seen a ghost. He got a puncture in his skinny white arm. His eyes are wide open like he realized at the last moment that he gonna die. But too late, ’cos death already bitten him in the arm.

  Drugs Sis silently mouths to me. Oh dear.

  She shakin’ her head, like she expectin’ this kind of thing if people gonna mess with the bad stuff. Oh dear she say again.

  I cuss myself for a fool. She ain’t mouthin’ Oh dear at all. She sayin’ OD. Overdose.

  I’m sweatin’, ain’t I?

  One of the medics mutters Open and shut case, like someone open up a case and take a look, see what’s in it and lock it shut again, on account of the contents bein’ clearly not what you wanna take outta the case. A girl standin’ over them that I seen aroun’ the block, with her fists bunched up to her face. Mus’ be Soft Stuart’s girlfrien’, sobbin’ and gaspin’ like she run out of breath. Grievin’.

  Soft Stuart glares at me. His eyes are clean poppin’ out of his head, screechin’ Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!

  I thought overdosin’ on heroin made you nod out, fall asleep, fade out of life. Don’ make no sense. Soft Stuart look more like he was tortured to death. His mouth a rictus gape, like he died screamin’.

  One of the meat men frowns at me, look of disgust, like he think I’m part of this scene.

  Sabretooth whines. I look down and see he done a little accident, tricklin’ along the floor.

  A shiver runnin’ through me. Come on I whisper to Sis, let’s go.

  Beatin’ Up the Tree

  Me and Sis watch from her balcony as they take Soft Stuart away. ’Zackly as I thought, on a stretcher with a blanket coverin’ him from his ankles up over his head. His toes stickin’ out, like his feet are wantin’ to walk him back to life. His girl sobbin’ and wailin’ behind him, like if she screeches enough it’ll help his toes get twitchin’ again. Small crowd of rubberneckers gathered roun’, takin’ pics to share with their mates. Sick. Sis is bangin’ on about how drugs is spoilin’ the block and it is time people oughta be takin’ a stand.

  Meat wagon drive off, but ain’t no sirens blarin’ this time. Ain’t no need of ’em, now says Sis. But she don’t say nothin’ about no terror writ all across Soft Stuart’s face. Maybe I imagined it.

  Didn’t imagine no dead body though, did I?

  So here I am, two minutes later, bangin’ on Mustaph’s door. Come on, fool! Let me in. I got stuff to tell. Oi! Mustaph! Hey, man! Wake up!

  Soft Stuart’s eyes are still fixed on me, like the blazin’ sun when you glare directly at it – still there even when you shut your eyes tight. Burnt into your vision.

  I knock and knock so I almost make a fist-shaped hole in the door. You always got to knock at Mustaph’s door ’cos he the only fool in the whole postcode ain’t got no mobile phone. Sis got him one once, for free, no cost, so he could hardly say no, could he? I’m callin’ him a day later and he ain’t answerin’ so when I see him I say Where’s your mobile, man?

  He say Oh, I left it somewhere.

  Where? Where you left it?

  Dunno. And that was that.

  Finally I hear a shuffle shuffle and a Yeah, yeah, the click and clunk of deadlocks and bolts and chains all bein’ undone. Door opens a crack.

  Mustaph’s dad tilts his chin up at me and turns away, strollin’ through to their livin’ room, where all of Mustaph’s sisters are squeezed together on the sofa, eatin’ sweets, glued to the TV. I veer left into Mustaph’s den.

  Mus always in the darkness, curtains drawn, light bulbs unscrewed. My boy live by candlelight and torch beam. When you walk in his place you never know whether he there, not there, dead, alive, sleepin’ or disguisin’ himself as some bad art experiment. He got a full-size human skeleton hangin’ down from the ceilin’, dressed in a bright orange boilersuit, and a bust of Beethoven’s head on a chest of drawers next to a life-size crow. Everythin’ plastic, but lookin’ real enough to make you wonder whether the boy actually sane. He keep a impressive collection of dolls as well. Spray-painted and amputated and in some cases operated on so they got too many limbs or inappropriate heads. Every inch of wall, ceilin’, floor sprayed with swirlin’ colour and shape. I mean, who could sleep at all in here, never mind sleep the eighteen hours a day Mustaph seem to?

  Any fool goin’ to want to hear all about rictus-grinnin’ dead druggies, it be my boy, Mus.

  Mus?

  Top of it all, that boy sleep in a tent, I tell no lie. He got one of them pop-up types, in the middle of his room, with a blow-up mattress and a duvet. He insane. Rest of his family leave him to it, sittin’ there on the sofa, glued to their TV like he some stray dog they lettin’ sleep in the side room.

  From inside the tent, I see lights a-flickerin’, so I know he awake. I give the side of the tent a friendly kick.

  Who is it, blud?

  It’s me, you zombie, who d’ya think?

  I hear the zip unfastenin’, and out pop Mustapha’s head. Wassup? He stand up, wrapped in his duvet, his hair all mussed up like he been asleep for a week, his big eyes blinkin’ and squintin’ like a mole caught in a rave. Whole place smells of sleep smell, like it full of stale dream-spittle.

  I say It’s mid-afternoon, man.

  So? He shrugs and frowns, pullin’ the duvet tighter round his shoulders.

  You ill?

  He frowns even deeper. No.

  I’m for ever havin’ this exchange with Mustaph, and, like I say, he’s my best mate. He’s great, when he’s awake. But Mustaph reckons there ain’t nothin’ goin’ down in the land of reality. Time is better spent wrapped up in dreams. His family’s place is even barer than ours. He ain’t got no Playstation nor nothin’, and his three older sisters don’t do nothin’ to keep him psyched. No games or jokes or nothin’, like he ain’t part of their world. That boy always dodgin’ school ’cos even when he is there he jus’ dozes through the lessons.

  First time I met Mustaph, he was asleep. Under a tree no less, in the park. This was back in Year 5, before I got my mutt and a sense of somethin’ to do, so I’m just wanderin’, lookin’ out for whatever goin’ down. I see a gang of Year 6 boys all laughin’ and jokin’, standin’ roun’ somethin’ on the ground like it the most entertainin’ thing since Wii. They gigglin’ like a bunch of jokers. I see a shape curled up on the grass, gently risin’ and fallin’ like a dozin’ beast. Then one of them boys spits on the thing on the ground. Everyone laughs. Hilarious, yeah? Then another boy spits, and in a few moments all five of ’em are phlegmin’ away on what turns out to be poor ol’ Mustaph. So what happen is Mustaph wake up, give a yawn and a stretch, don’ even speak to the boys. He jus’ wipes the spit off his face with some leaves, stands up, turns round, and climbs up the tree, like a Squirrel-Man, yeah?

  We’re all taken by surprise, on account of Mustaph’s rapid climb. In seconds he clamberin’ roun’ on the upper branches. Up he goes, and up. Must be hundred feet at least. When he’s found a nice little nook he make himself a nest bed among the leaves and curl back up and go back to sleep.

  I’m impressed.

  But, see, them Year 6 boys ain’t so impressed as me. Some people round here, when they see anyone doin’ somethin’ a bit different to sittin’ pickin’ their noses or squirtin’ each other wit
h shaken cola cans, it get them all beefed up. So one of these boys calls over one of the others and he gets a leg up and he start tryin’ to climb the tree himself – wantin’ to get up there and spit on ol’ Mustaph some more.

  I’m irritated by this. I walk over and I push the boy off the tree and he fall on the ground and scrape his face in the dirt. I feel good. The biggest boy, he swaggers over, all fists and lip, and next thing I know I sock him in the face, punch him to the ground. I give him a kick in the ribs, my blood floodin’ round my head. Kick him again. When somethin’ make my blood boil there ain’t no stoppin’ me. I’m a machine switched on, goin’ to do what I’m designed to do until I’m done. I kick him again. Then one of the other boys is up in my face. I put my hands round his neck and start to throttle him. The others run away. I kick this boy’s legs from under him and throw him to the ground, next to the other fool.

  They stagger to their feet and run away. One of ’em stops – when he reckons he a safe enough distance – and yells Your mum’s a sponger!

  He legs it. She ain’t. She ain’t no sponger. I’m steamin’. I’m kickin’ and punchin’ the tree, my blood boilin’ so the inside of my head screechin’ like a old kettle. I’m growlin’ and cursin’ and beatin’ up the tree, makin’ my knuckles bleed. Why do peoples do that? Why do peoples think they can jus’ come, pick a fight, insult your ma?

  Teachers say I got bad blood. I overheard ’em one day, in the corridor when they was in a class with the door not properly shut. They said when Marshall O’Connor leaves school he will go to prison. They didn’t say they thought I will go to prison. They said I will go to prison, like it a certainty, a certainty like good kids go to university and become rich. See? I got bad blood and that what will become of me.

  Eventually, I stop beatin’ up the tree and I look up and Mustaph lyin’ there on his branch givin’ me a slow handclap applause, like he don’t have a care in the world. He gimme that lopsided grin of his, do a enormous sleepy-cat yawn, go straight back to sleep. Didn’t matter how loudly I yelled, he wasn’t doin’ no more wakin’ up. Made me smile.