Friday Night Street, Ch5-7

CHAPTER 5



When I wake up, I can hear the engine still running. I’m in the car then. Never get in bloody cars. I told you something bad always happens.



My instinct is to reach out and inflict some pain, but I can’t open my eyes and my body’s not responding. I’m trying to work it out, but the pain in my head is distracting. There’s an abrupt noise close to my ear. My eyes open and I start coughing. The noise is the door opening. I’m still in the passenger seat, but something cold and sharp is strapped around my neck. I can’t move my arms either. There’s a face where the door should be.



“Alright dickhead,” the face says with a smile.



It’s junior pencil dick. I should have known. First the sandwich eater, then the wife, and now pencil weed. I’m burning with rage, but there’s a sharp pain whenever I move my neck. Junior’s smile turns into a laugh.



“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That’s steel wire around your throat.”



I can see rope running across my chest too, binding my arms and upper body to the seat.



“By the way”, he says, “this is yours.”



He smacks me right on the nose. Blood spurts out of it and my eyes go all misty. I shake my head despite the pain at my throat.



“So, want a bit of revenge do you?” It comes out as a cough. “You better burn this shit-heap of a car with me in it pal because I am, mosf definitely, going to rip you into tiny little pieces and take your broken, tortured, beaten body to the fucking pig farmer.”



I intend to kill him. You’ll see. The bitch and the sandwich eater too, if he’s involved in this.



“Glad we’re clear on that then,” he says. He hits me again, and offers another smile.



“Come on,” says the bitch, “this wasn’t part of the plan.”



“What plan?” I croak.



“Not nice being a victim of crime, is it?” She shouts in my face.



“Victim of what? What fucking crime?” 



Pencil dick rams a fist into my stomach, but it doesn’t hurt too bad. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing.



“You were on bloody holiday. Fair enough, I can understand Junior wanting a bit of me for clobbering him, but you’re hardly a victim here.”



About then I realise there’s no use in arguing the toss, she’s obviously just backing up her bloke. He’s the one I need to deal with.



“Alright, fuckwit, what do you want, eh?” I say.



“Well,” he begins, “let’s see now. You robbed her house, smashed her things, punched me in the face – what do you think is right and proper?” He says in a mocking sort of tone.



“I dunno, I suppose you’ve got everything you want already haven’t you? Daddy’s company and some other fella’s missus?”



“Idiot. Haven’t you got it yet? It was all bullshit. Brian and Natalie are fine, and I’m not interested in Brian’s job or the family business. I’ve had it rammed down my throat all my life. I’m not interested in fucking insurance, for God’s sake.”



He’s shouting and angry now. But he’s lying about something, too. I can tell from the look on the girl’s face; something is missing here.



“Brian told you that story in the coffee shop, didn’t he?” she says. “He wanted to talk to you before we did this, to make sure you deserved it.”



“Yeah, but it was my idea,” says pencil dick. “I’m sick of people like you, running around doing what they like without a care in the world. It makes me sick. You’ve got to learn, you’re not allowed to just do what you fucking like all the time.”



Then he punches me in the face again. Luckily, Junior is no fighter. It was one of the most pathetic punches I’ve ever had. Looked like he hurt his hand by the wince in his eye.



I’m starting to get a bit concerned now though, because this prick is a loose canon. I’d rather be cornered with some street fighter than this angry little rabbit. Give them a sniff of power, and people like this turn into vengeful little psychos, capable of anything. I was still utterly determined to remove his sorry existence from the planet at the first opportunity, but I needed to get back to Natalie, maybe she was the one that could control him after all.



“Where’s Brian now? Doesn’t he want to see your handiwork? See me get my comeuppance?”



“Brian’s a has-been,” Junior says. “He’s got no spunk left in him, has he Natalie?”



He grins at her. She looks away.



“Don’t talk about him like that. He still means something to me.”



“Ah, he doesn’t know, does he?” I cotton on. “You really have been banging his missus, then tried to hide your tracks by using it as a cover story for this little caper. Very cunning, Einstein, but you didn’t bank on me finding out did you?”



“Then maybe I’ll just have to get rid of you before you get any smugger, eh?”



That was my opening.



“This how you saw your life turning out, Nat, when you were sixteen, accomplice to murder?”



Junior slaps his hand across my face ineffectually. It’s his other hand, his weak hand, because his right’s hurting too much. He’s starting to feel less heroic now the adrenaline’s wearing off. Natalie tells him to get in the car.



“We need to drive,” she says, “we can’t be seen with him all strapped up like this.”



We start moving. Natalie says they’d best rendezvous with Brian as planned.



“Look, don’t worry about knucklehead,” she tells Junior. “Brian’s not going to believe anything he says, is he?”



It made sense. They had the power here. A man tied up and taken hostage by your wife and your mate is hardly someone you’re going to take marriage guidance from now, is it?



We were still heading towards the 24-hour and the Subway. I figured there was going to come a time when they’d have to cut the ties to get me out of the car, unless they really were going to burn it with me in it. But I didn’t think so. It was Brian’s car, after all. Whatever they were going to do, they had to get me out. That was my opening. Even all three of them wouldn’t be able to stop me once my arms and legs were free.



We went past the garage and turned off into a housing estate. It was a warren of cul-de-sacs and lock-ups, typical old council estate style from the seventies.

And I had a vision, then. It was like the present just disappeared and I was transported back into the past, as a spectator, watching myself and my brothers playing in some other garage block, one that looked exactly like this one. I must have only been six or seven, I guess, but I can remember all their names. My brothers’ friends: fat little Nicky Patterson and his scrawny sidekick Daren Mackin. Paul Briton, who three years later I kicked in the head, and Stevie Vickers, a cruel little turd who was always encouraging others to do wicked things to the weak and helpless. Cats, dogs, kids, whatever. Little prick. They tied me to a chair that day, and threw wet sponges and rags at me, pretending like I was some scum in the stocks in a pirate story or something. It wasn’t that it hurt, though at the time, I remember, I cried from the smart stings of the wet stuff they threw in my face. But physical pain is the easiest kind to deal with. It comes and it goes, and when it’s gone you don’t remember it. It was the humiliation that was burnt into my memory, and the disgust of watching my brothers just stand there, laughing along with the others, enjoying the sight of their baby brother getting creamed by a gang of bullies. It was like they didn’t care, like I wasn’t important to them. I figured out, much later, as I got older and began to understand the power relationships between kids, that my brothers went along with it out of fear – they were too scared to stand up to the bullies, and they were ashamed of themselves. They were ashamed of their cowardice, so they laughed and showed the others that they were enjoying it so they wouldn’t notice they were too afraid to stand up for their own. That was what really hurt. I often wonder what those kids must have thought about my brothers. To show such a lack of loyalty, to refuse to go out on a limb for their own kin. Somewhere in the back of their stupid little heads those bullies must have despised my brothers right then,  just as I began to do later.



The car headed into a small block of lock-ups. Brian is standing by one of them, with the door open. He follows the car in and closes the door behind him.



“Get him out of the car,” he orders.



Now was my chance. Junior opened the passenger door carrying some sort of contraption made out of a four-foot broom handle with a steel strap on the end. He puts it round my neck and pulls on a piece of string. It tightens hard. They cut me loose from the seat, and Junior yanks on the handle, dragging me out of the car head first.



It didn’t matter. My hands were free and that was all I needed. I grab the broom handle and use my body weight to ram it into Junior’s abdomen. He lets out a cry and falls to the floor. I start loosening the strap at the same time as turning on Brian, but he moves to the back of the lock-up.



“You bunch of pussies!” I’m shouting, urging them to come and fight me. Instead, everything changes.



I’m sitting on the floor, and they’re all standing around me. Junior is holding the handle again, pressing it down into my neck, forcing me against the wall. I’m looking around, confused about what has just happened. Then I see Natalie. She’s holding a small fire-extinguisher in her hand, like the ones you keep in a car. She must have come up and hit me with it from behind.



That’s when I notice two other things. The hard pain in the back of my head, and the fact that I can’t bring my hands up to rub the sore spot. They’ve tied them together behind my back.



“So what now, Superheroes?” I ask. Brian squats down in front of me.



“You should have taken the sandwich,” he says quietly, “It’s going to be a long night for you. We’re going to go collect your friend and bring him here too. Then, when we’ve got both of you paying full attention, we’re going to teach you a lesson.”



“Yeah,” Junior pipes in, “you’re going on a trip, a very long trip, and it won’t be very pleasant. You see,” he says with a nasty sneer on his face, “we know some people in the shipping business. We’re sticking you in a freighter, and when they unpack your wretched little bodies in Sâo Paulo or somewhere this time next year, you’ll either be dead or a long way from here. Either way, you won’t be our problem.”



“Not till I get back,” I say, staring the squirt straight in the eyes.



“If you get back,” he counters. “I hear there’s a good market for animals like you amongst the smuggling gangs.”



Then he wrenches the handle upwards and locks it onto the wall.



Right then, I decide. If that’s the way it’s going to be, it’s time to start breaking things.







CHAPTER 6



Now while I was plodding home from the cop shop, having turned down old Michael’s lift, he’s pulled out of the car park and took the dual carriageway back into town. All the roads are empty apart from someone else leaving the police station just behind him. If I’d have noticed it at the time, of course, everything would have been different. As it was, Michael’s seen the old Vauxhall in his rear-view mirror and figured it for a bobby finishing his shift, so he keeps his eyes firmly on the speedo.

He’d been feeling tired, but our little chat was playing on his mind. As he comes into town, he sees the petrol station and the Subway sandwich shop. He knew it made more sense to head straight home to bed, but his thoughts were all stirred up. He needed to fill up anyway, and he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.



So he’s filled the car with juice and gone inside to pay. The glossies on the magazine rack invite him to train his thoughts elsewhere, but he just flicks through a few gossip rags without enthusiasm. One of the boys behind the counter gives him a promising look, and now Michael, according to his nature, is wondering idly what time his shift might finish. Then he suddenly has second thoughts, and decides he isn’t in the mood for flirting, so he plods over to the sandwich shop instead.



On his way over, he notices the same Vauxhall parked outside that he’d seen coming out of the nick. He doesn’t think anything of it, of course, just  supposing they must do a reasonable trade at night from coppers going to and from the nick.



Inside, he doesn’t see anyone that looks obviously Old Bill; just a young couple and an older geezer sitting together in one corner. He chooses a table near them. They look safe and Michael’s the sort that likes the presence of other people around him.



When his food arrives, the hypnotic action of chewing pushes his mind down the path it had been impatiently waiting to go ever since our little chat at the station. Now this is all in his head, you understand, and I only got all this in the taxi on the way over to Alicia’s later on, but it turns out that what he’s mulling over, he’s mulled around in his head a million times before, not that that ever stops any of us doing it again. Michael’s not your typical Jesus junkey. Much of what kept his belief alive was the companionship he felt God gave him. Knowing that there was someone who saw his every action, who shared his every secret thought, that kind of thing, gave him comfort. But at the same time he had his worries. Was it real, or just nothing more than a fancy version of a kid’s imaginary friend? That’s what he constantly asked himself. Was his belief in God just a psychological crutch? He confessed to me later that he’d bought the ‘home’ line in the nick because he was scared this was exactly what I’d have said if he’d let it go on any longer. He had his own answer, of course, as you would if you’d been over something a millon times, but he knew it would be less than convincing if he said it out loud. The answer he practised trying to believe was this:  how else could God’s presence be known or felt by the individual except like this? If God did exist, he would be known in just this way. The fact that Michael took comfort from God’s presence did nothing to establish that his belief was wishful thinking. But this kind of reasoning, he knew, settled nothing. Real or imaginary, God’s presence in his life would appear to him in just the same way. And so his thoughts brought him to the point he knew he would reach before he had started: that his belief in God was immune to outside influence. It could be neither confirmed nor denied by anything except his own will. It was a belief of his own choosing – an emotional choice, as he liked to say – and no science, logic or reason could either gainsay or sustain it.



The mulling process was always cathartic, if never completely convincing. His mind ached for some kind of external justification at the same time as knowing none was possible. It was the classic existentialist dilemma, he told himself. If only the Bible hadn’t been so full of all those dumb pagan miracle stories – turning water into wine and what not – everybody would have had less of a hard time accepting that the dilemma was part of what defined their faith.



And then he made himself feel better by reassuring himself I’d never have been able to handle such a sophisticated line of reasoning, and he made himself feel better that he’d spared me the intellectual humiliation of defeat. It wasn’t good to make people feel small just to score points, he reminded himself, at the same time as acknowledging it was something of a speciality of his. 



So by the time he’s made himself feel better, he wants to turn away from his own thoughts, to reach out to something external, something real.  He tries twice to call Alicia, but when he gets no answer he spends ten minutes sipping his coffee and trying to think up a pithy text to reflect his wit. Eventually he sends her ‘Trouble boy released unharmed; refused delivery to place of safety’.



He finishes up his coffee and goes back to the garage. He wanted some gum to freshen his breath, he told himself sincerely, but another part of his brain was calculating how best to initiate a conversation with the sales boy. He was feeling much better after something to eat, and the idea of getting a number for the weekend now seemed to give the whole wasted trip up to the nick some ultimate purpose. It would, as things would turn out before the end of that night, define Michael’s purpose in the most ultimate way possible.



In the garage, much to Michael’s delight, the sales boy repeated his earlier inquisitive look, and was quick to show an interest.



“Can I help you sir?” he said.



Oh yes, thought Michael. “Hmm, got the time?”



The boy hesitated for a minute, but was confident enough to take a risk.



“Definitely,” he said without ambiguity.



Michael’s heart’s gone all a thump-a-thump bump with the excitement. Hell, maybe he was going to get a result tonight.



“What time do you finish?”



The boy looked down, and shook his head.



“Later’s not much good. I can take my mid-shift break now, though.”



So he’s gone and got all halleluljah on himself. “Oh thank you, Alicia!” he’s says to himself rejoicing. “How God does indeed move in mysterious ways!”



“Is there somewhere we can go?” he asks the kid out loud, worried now about the practicality of arranging a spontaneous shag.



The boy gives a nod.



“There’s a party tonight not far from here. It’s a friend of mine’s. It’ll be fine.”



“Perfect.”



Michael goes outside and waits for the boy in his car. While he taps his fingers on the steering wheel with excited impatience, he notices the Vauxhall’s gone. Then, just as they are pulling out of the forecourt, he sees me crossing the road towards them, heading for the Subway. The rain had started by this time so my head was down. He’s glad I haven’t seen them, and quickly turns onto the road and drives away without looking back.







CHAPTER 7





“Come on,” Brian tells the squirt. “Help me with the car.”



They go round the back of the Vauxhall, open the boot, and start messing with some stuff I can’t see. Natalie sits on the bonnet in front of me and lights up a fag, staring.



“Well, princess, everything going according to plan?” I ask her.



“So far, so good.” she says back at me, but there’s something there, in her eyes. I can feel it. Something I can work on.



I’m thinking, funnily enough, about Muhammad Ali. Years ago there was a movie about him called ‘When We Were Kings’. It’s the story of the title fight for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship they had over in Zaire in 1974. The fight’s between him, in his thirties and past his prime, and George Foreman – young, fearless and rock-hard. Foreman was easily the top boy in them days – he was reigning champion of the world and had battered all the best fighters in the game. All the fight commentators had Foreman picked to win the fight. No one fancied Ali’s chances because of the sheer power of Foreman’s swings. He hit the punchbag so hard he’d leave melon-sized dents in it after a fifteen minute workout.



Ali, typically, was talking himself up, but no one believed he was a match for Foreman. He didn’t have the power or the skill to outbox Foreman, who was five years younger to boot. Ali had his trademark ability to ‘dance’ round the ring, but Foreman had already proven he knew how to corner the dancing fighter against other opponents. Not only that, but everyone figured in the energy-sapping heat of Zaire, dancing would see the older Ali tire even quicker than Foreman. Nobody – not even Ali’s own camp as Gast’s film tells it – believed that Ali’s dancing skills would save him from a brutal beating.



But when the fight came, Ali didn’t dance; he stood toe-to-toe with Foreman in the first round and threw long rights over the top of Foreman’s jab. Now that’s cheeky. Watch the movie, and you’ll hear Norman Mailer tell how it’s a great insult to throw that kind of punch at a professional boxer. Since the right hand is normally cocked behind the leading jabbing hand, it has to travel a lot further to land on the opponent. Professional boxers don’t use long rights without jabbing first – it’s too easy for anyone, save the rank amateur, to see them coming. It didn’t stop Ali though: he threw twelve long rights in the first round. And what happened? Foreman didn’t go down; he went ballistic and started hammering Ali like a giant ogre beating on a toy doll.



Now Ali wasn’t just being cheeky, he was taking a huge risk, too. Knowing the power of Foreman’s punches, you’d think riling him would be the last thing you’d want to do. After the first round, Ali stopped using the long right, but he kept up the disrespect. When the fighters got in close, Ali kept jibing at him, telling Foreman his punches were soft, that he had no power, that he would have to give it up to the better man. Foreman’s rage just kept on burning, and he hit Ali harder and harder. Ali sat on the ropes and took it all, giving it plenty of lip to keep Foreman in a blind frenzy. Eventually, the rage and the heat of the African night took its toll. By the eighth round, Foreman was knackered. Ali threw a blistering combination that felled the World Champion flat on to the canvas. Muhammed Ali, at the age of thirty two, was Champion of the World again.



It is a David and Goliath story; an heroic story of the underdog whose determination to make the world conform to his own will defeats the world’s implacable resistance to change. Foreman was bigger, stronger, harder, younger; these were facts that no one, including Ali, disputed. But Ali ignored the facts. He made an image in his mind and brought it into reality in spite of the facts.



How did he do it? Of course, on one level, it is easy to analyse what Ali did. He got himself proper prepared for the brutal beating he knew Foreman would dish out; he let his sparring partners work him over day after day on the ropes for weeks before the fight. By using the right-hand in the first round, he found a way to shock Foreman out of his pre-match gameplan. By chipping away at Foreman with jibes, he kept the man’s mental focus off-balance. Keeping Foreman angrily swinging huge broadsides while Ali lay on the ropes covering up made the African heat work for the older man and against the younger one.



But Ali still had to weather eight rounds of brutal beating. And this is what I’m thinking about now. It was the very thing that made Foreman’s victory seem certain – his immense power – that Ali chose to face head on and defeat. It was only by facing Foreman’s power and surviving it – not trying to avoid it or ameliorate it – that Ali could dent Foreman’s determination to win the fight. Ali must have known that if he had tried to avoid or match Foreman’s punching power, he would have lost. Foreman would have held steady to his belief that his punching would catch Ali off-guard at some point. Only by demonstrating that Foreman had no power could he chip away at Foreman’s confidence. The more Ali jibed that Foreman’s punches were weak, the more Foreman had to retreat into his rage and swing heavier and heavier punches to prove himself.



But prove himself to who? Foreman wasn’t trying to prove himself to Ali, or to the fight audience, nor all them millions watching it live on the telly. Foreman was trying to prove himself to himself. This was the genius of Ali’s strategy: he took away Foreman’s power by making the stronger man doubt himself.



If you believe that boxing is a sport of speed, strength and physical skill, then Ali’s triumph over Foreman had nothing to do with boxing. Ali was engaged in psychological warfare long before the fight ever took place, not just with his opponent but with himself and the audience. Ali had convinced himself he could and would win the fight from the start. The moment he stepped foot in Zaire, he began working on the people who would watch the fight. In the weeks before the fight, Ali reached out to the locals. He visited community leaders and the poor Zaireians in their villages. He talked about the need for Americans and other people in the world to respect Africa and the African people. He talked about the debt countries like America owed to the African people, because without their aid, America would never have been built. He talked about donating some of his prize money to build a local hospital. Ali made himself so popular that by the night of the fight, the entire 100,000 Zairian crowd watching the fight were screaming ‘Ali Kill Him!’ at George Foreman. Having first convinced himself he would do the impossible, he then convinced the crowd; all he had left to do was convince Foreman.



And that is what he did. Foreman didn’t lose the fight because Ali had greater speed, strength or physical skill. He lost the fight because he stopped believing in himself. Ali – and the crowd – undermined Foreman’s self-confidence, his belief in himself.

I’ve always loved this story, Ali’s ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ as it came to be known, because it proves that how we think about the world and the problems we face are far more important than any physical facts or realities we have to confront.



All this is going through my mind as I look at the broom handle. I was figuring I’d be able to snap the bloody thing in two given a minute left to myself, but now I see some smart-arse has bound a strip of metal down the length of it for just that reason.

Natalie sees me looking but says nothing.



“Fancy a trip to paradise with me, Nat? Freedom of the ocean and all that? Escape this life of monotony and those two sorry sad sacks?”



She smiles a bit, like she’s indulging the fantasy of getting me alone in a cabin with a bottle of Smirnoff and forty Marlboro lights. She kicks her feet back and forth like a child sitting on a swing, but still says nothing. Just smoking and staring.



“Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice,” I’m grinning a little more at her. I’m fishing for the place where he confidence rests, looking for the power that I have to tackle head on and undermine.



The boys are making a fair bit of noise hauling something in or out of the car, but I can’t work out what’s going on.



“What they up to?”



“The problem with men like you,” she answers, “is you always want to be in charge. You’ve no idea how to do anything, but you want to be in charge of it anyway. I mean look at you, what are you good for? You remind me of that bastard my mum brought home, just assuming it was his natural fucking right, his place to use me any fucking way he wanted.” She tutted and shook here head in mock whimsy.



The realisation of the position she was in must have been dawning on her. Unlike Junior, who’d grasped at power from the off like a starving man, and then given it up just as easily when Brian appeared, Natalie hadn’t even realised until now that power was something that was ever going to come her way. I figured it was the extinguisher bottle that did it. Whacking me over the head made her realise she had something: a means of expression for years of hurt, anger and resentment.



“Looks like you’re going to miss your mum’s funeral, aye? Men. No good for anything.”



“How do you know about that?” I ask with genuine surprise.



“Her life insurance, dummy,’ she says after a pause. ‘She had it with Brian’s company.”



“So, you fuckers planned this…”



“…for today.” She finishes the sentence for me. “Part of the punishment,” she says with a smile.



Then I’m on my feet. The world’s swallowed up in rage. I can feel a sharp pain around my neck. It’s the steel brace biting in, but the rage outweighs everything. I don’t give a flyers, and anyway I can sense the wood, the brick, the metal, all of it about to give out as I rush at the bitch on the bonnet. Her face goes visibly pale as it occurs to her something – the wall, the handle, the strap, something –  might give way and let me loose. The other two come round from the back of the car like frightened little rabbits. I’m still pumping with my legs and swinging my shoulders as the brace continues to jerk me back. My head feels like a bloody boiled tomato about to burst, but I’m not ready to stop yet. Everyone stares at me with gaping jaws, awaiting the outcome of the battle, pure animal rage versus implacable physical reality.



And then I’m tiring, and the pain in my neck is getting worse. As the seconds go by, the fact that I’m still not free is working on my brain, making me feel strangely embarrassed. I feel the power ebbing and reason returning; the physical reality of the bindings finally saps my rage and my confidence. I sit down exhausted, giving the lot of them hateful stares. Then without a thought I’m on my feet again, jerking and pushing once more; they all jump back for a second, but they’re sure now they’ve done their work properly. The bonds will hold, the monster’s rage will be vanquished by a fucking broom handle and a bit of old metal. It’s absolutely, unforgivably, fucking ridiculous.



“You know these two really are at it like fucking rabbits behind your back, aye?” I shout at Brian. “It’s not just a fucking story you know.”



Brian looks up and then down, but not at anyone. The weakness in my voice shames me more than I could have imagined.



“You should have taken the sandwich,’ he says again. “Come on,” he tells the other one, “let’s go.”



Brian gets in the car and waits for Junior to open the garage door before backing out.

Now it’s just me and her. The garage looks bigger without the car in it, but there’s nowhere for her to sit, so she starts pacing around.



“What you looking at?” she says to me.



I’m not speaking. Anger and frustration are clouding my thoughts. I’ve got to start thinking my way out of this. I’ve got start boxing clever. She’s walking around holding on to the fire extinguisher like her life depends on it. Then she walks up to me and kicks my ankles.



“Going to start jumping around again are you? Go on, see what happens. I’ll clobber you with this again, just you fucking watch.”



She’s talking tough, like the boys in the bars and the street. I suppose that’s how we’ve all grown up now, even the birds. The language of violence trips off our tongues, straight from the TV, the school playground, the nightclub. I don’t know why this occurs to me just now, except that there is something ridiculous about her posturing, like there’s anything she could do if I wasn’t manacled to this wall. And I’m thinking about how I was going to start avoiding conflict less than a couple of hours ago, and now here I am smack bang in the middle of it, up to me neck in shit.

I know what you’re thinking. I was feeling sorry for meself, and to tell the truth, being held captive by a lass in a run-down old lock-up tied up by a fucking broom handle and a couple of insurance men, you would be right. But I was also thinking about my old dear’s funeral. You want the truth, we never cared much for each other, me and my old dear, but that’s not the point. What kind of a person misses his own parent’s funeral? It’s a matter of honour, of personal integrity. Some things you just have to do in life, no matter how you feel about the people involved. You’ll see.



Then Alicia comes to mind, and at that time I’m thinking how she’s a good lass really, despite all the harping on about commitments and responsibility. Like she promised to come with me to mum’s do in the morning. At least if I don’t get there, I know she’ll turn up for me. The row won’t make any odds. She got on well with my old dear, probably better than I did myself, if the truth be told.



My head is hurting, and I still can’t think my way out of this. Maybe when Dickie gets here it’ll be easier to sort them out between the two of us. I don’t know, though. They seem to have thought this smart little caper through to some degree. I don’t know how they think they are going to find him. Fuck, I can hardly find Dickie myself when I want to. And he certainly wouldn’t be jumping into no car with those two geeks in a hurry. Nah, I have to rely on myself and get out of this before they get back, with or without Dickie.



So, think. There’s only two ways off this wall. Either I break the fucking stick or she let’s me loose. The first one I’d tried, and I wasn’t so sure that I was going to have any more luck with her standing over me with that fucking fire extinguisher. It had to be her. She had to let me loose, somehow.



“You not scared then, Natalie?” I say after a while.



“Scared of what?” she says back, still all tough-guy and pacing.



“Scared of what’ll happen to you. You’ll see. If I don’t die, there’s nothing in the world that won’t stop me coming back to get you. If I do die, someone, somewhere is going to find a body and start asking questions. You want to live the rest of your life in fear? It’s either me or the nick – chances are one of us is going to get you. You reckon you can all live happily ever-after come tomorrow? You’re dreaming darling. Your problems are only just beginning. End it now. Let me loose and go home. When those two get here, well, that’s between me and them.  You better just go and think about starting again.



“Fuck you,” she says, but less aggressively now. “Why would I do that?”



“Cos that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? A new beginning, a new start? Yeah? This way, you’ll really have a new start, and there’ll be no fear. And no Brian and no fucking pencil weed. It’ll be down to me, not you. You’d even get the house if I saw to them two. Think about it. Freedom, independence, money. And no guilt, no blame and no fear. No cops, and no me hounding you. It’s the answer to everything. Just let me loose and go home.” 



She’s staring at me now, wide-eyed. I’m Ali to her Foreman. I know the next few neurons that fire in her head are crucial. I don’t know whether to speak or stay silent. It’s like time has fucking stopped while someone calculates the ramifications.



“How do I know you’ll let me go if I let you loose? Only thing protecting me from you is that broom handle. You’re as likely to hurt me as hurt them after all.”



“Nah. You’re just a bird. I know you’re just looking for a way out. It’s between me and them. Neither of them have got any real reason to be doing this shit to me. I’m not angry with you. Look, just put the key in my hands. By the time I’ve managed to unlock meself and wrestle out of all this, you’ll be half way down the street. There’s no way I can get you.”



She pulls the key out of her pocket and throws it to me. It lands by my knees. I’ve got to twist and squirm around like a fucking spastic to get it in my hands, but who cares. She doesn’t move. She just stands and stares, watching with some kind of fatal curiosity. Half of me is wondering why she hasn’t taken off, the other half of me is too concerned to get free to care.



Finally the key is in my hands. The problem is my hands are tied with some kind of plastic wire, and the key is for the padlock holding the broom to the bracket on the wall. I still can’t do it without her. It’s impossible. I get to my feet.



“Natalie, just cut my hands free and run. It’ll still take me five minutes to get free. You’ll be long gone. It’s safe, trust me.”



She hasn’t moved or said a word for a good five minutes. I realise that she knew when she threw the key that I couldn’t do anything with it. She’s still weighing up the pros and cons.



She walks slowly up to me, not scared now, and walks around my back. She takes the key out of my hands and presses her body gently into mine. Then she says in my ear, real quiet like, “If I let you go, how do I know you won’t come after me later? I mean, what’s to stop you turning up at my door tomorrow and beating me senseless? There’s no guarantee.”



“If you don’t stop this now, I guarantee that’s exactly what will happen.”



It’s a response out of frustration, a classic George Foreman move. The wrong move.

She hits me with the extinguisher and I’m on my knees. “Fucker,” she shouts. “You think I’m going to live in fear of you, do you? I’ll smash your fucking brains in right here and now, I will, if I have to. You understand me? I ever even see you again after this and I’ll have you fucking done. I know all sorts of people. I’m not scared of you, little boy.”



Her tone’s goes all quiet now. “You, though, better be scared of me.”



Then she hits me again. Right across the temple, and I’m on the floor. The pain is excruciating. I can feel blood, too. Bitch.



I suppose I passed out because the next thing I know I’m in a dream; well, not a dream, but a memory, of me and Dickie at last year’s Glastonbury. It’s the Saturday night and me and Dickie are too stoned to even bother going round the site, we’re just sitting in front of the tent tripping out on the stars and smoking spliffs. Then these two scallies turn up, and the first one’s giving it, in his best Manx accent,



“Alright there boys. We’re from Moss Side. What’ve you got in that tent for us?”



And he’s standing there, all cocky and threatening, casually dangling a machete the length of an arm out of one hand. Now a situation like that doesn’t call for discussion or argument. There’s only two ways it can go down. You either let someone turn you over, or you fight for your honour. There’s no point in trading words or stalling for time. There’s no covering your fear and looking for another way out, because there isn’t one. So while they’re standing there basking in the glory of stating their hoodlum pedigree – ‘We’re from Moss Side’, like the world should bow down in fear – I haven’t said anything, or even looked at Dickie. But we’re the same, me and him. We’re up and on them, without ceremony or preamble. And it’s only when they’re lying battered and bleeding in the mud, and I’ve rammed that machete half-way down its length into the grass by the mouthy one’s head, that Dickie’s come over, knelt on his chest and told him, “Yeah? Well, we’re from Whitley.” No fanfare, and no posing, just a simple statement of fact; a simple statement of victory.



We’re like that me and Dickie. We’ve got each other backed almost instinctively. Like I know what he’s going to be thinking in a certain situation, and how he’ll react just like I know my own mind. Scratch on the other hand, well, he’s a good lad, but he’s no fighter. If that’d been him instead of Dickie at Glastonbury, it wouldn’t have changed what I did or how I’d acted, but I’d have been figuring it was a two-on-one fight. You wouldn’t pick Scratch for your backup in that kind of fix. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s a good mate, and loyal just the same, for sure. But some people just aren’t fighters are they? They’re just not built that way. If it’s a favour you need, Scratch is your man. He’ll put his hand in his pocket and get the rounds in time after time, and he’ll never see you go without when he’s flush. Dickie, he’d as likely lend you a tenner and borrow a fiver of it back, you know what I mean? It’s just diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, right?



The next thing I know is the sound of the garage door being opened. They’re back, but I don’t see anyone else in the car. She must have noticed my searching eyes.



“He’s in the boot, dummy. What do you think they were doing before? Making it all nice and comfortable for him?”



The car’s still outside with the engine running. Junior jumps out and half runs into the garage.



“We didn’t get him,” he says, breathlessly. “Fucker came after us too.”



“What?” I can here the fear in Natalie’s question. I smile to myself, nice one Dickie.

“Yeah, well, I went to the party and asked to buy some gear as planned, but I guess he recognised me or something. He got all menacing. I told him the money was outside, but he just laughed. Then he pulled a fucking gun out. I ran for me life.”

The clueless little runt was exaggerating. Dickie had a habit of carrying a knife, but never guns. That shit is way out of his league. I see Brian reversing the car into the garage.



“Come on,” the runt says. “We’ve got to get him in the back.”



The two of them unlock me and run me to the boot. Brian’s out of the car and adding his weight in as well. I’m kicking and throwing myself around, but she’s hitting me in the kidneys with the extinguisher. The runt and Brian are leaning on the broom handle and pushing me against the back of the car. It takes awhile, but eventually they get me in the boot. Someone slams the boot lid and everything goes dark.



--chapter seven continues in the next installment---