The Shizzmeister’s Best Friend

Jesus.  How did I get here?  The Cabbie said it was just around the corner.  Must have been the wrong damn corner.  I have no idea where I am; apart from I know I’m in Peckham.  It’s midnight in November, I’m alone and it’s raining.  Not another cab in sight and I have no idea where the club is.  I had to pay the cabbie extra to drop me here in the middle of nowhere.  He said he didn’t go south of the river but a crisp twenty had changed his mind.  Didn’t go south of the river?  What kind of dinosaur is he? 

         ‘Rather you than me,’ he’d said, knowingly, but I’d assured him there was nothing to fear on the streets of Peckham.  Bloody famous last words.

         ‘Chill,’ I’d soothed in my best mockney.  I’d learned the lingo from my chums in Notting Hill.  That’s where I’d first met Shizzy Shizzle, at Tarquin’s party.  We were drinking at the bar in the marquee when The Shiz stepped over.

         ‘Yo Tarq,’ he’d sung and they’d bumped fists.  How cool was that?  In truth I was rather overwhelmed.  It’s not every day you meet the hottest grime act in the country.  We got talking and The Shizzmeister was very cool.  Anyway, to cut a long story short we hit it off and Shizzy invited me down to this exclusive PA he’s doing in Peckham.  Top secret and I’m on the guest list!  Tascha refused to come.  Can you believe it?  She’s as bad as the bloody cabbie.  I wouldn’t call her a racist exactly but she has some very questionable attitudes, let’s put it that way.  Spends too much time in the country if you ask me.  The Cotswolds isn’t exactly the best place to learn about the world. 

         I regaled the Cabbie with some pearls of wisdom regarding racial intolerance and he started to get rather defensive.

         ‘Some of my best friends are…’ Yah, if you say so, mate.

         He’d got a bit chippy after that.  Started going on about immigrants and all the rest.  It was like listening to Richard Littlejohn.  Bloody Neanderthal.  I think he dropped me at the wrong place on purpose.  Unlike him, some of my best friends really are black.  Seriously.  There’s my man Shizzy of course and then there is his fine lady Missy Gee.  She is hot.  She looks good in the photos and on the telly but up close?  I well and truly would.  Catch my drift?  Not that I would ever say that to Shizzy, you understand.

         So here I am getting drenched in the freezing night, lost and alone in Peckham.  I’ve just realised that mine is the only white face on the street.  There is a world of difference between hanging with musos in cool clubs on the King’s Road and this.  I’m feeling very exposed and not a little frightened.  The rain is sinking down to my skin and there are black people everywhere.  I could be in trouble here if I’m not careful.

         Is that a gang of hoodies coming in my direction?  They are big and dark, like hulking ghosts in the night.  Are they looking at me?  I squint into the lashing rain at their huddled silhouettes, back-lit in the orange glow of the sodium street light.  I think they’re looking at me.  Now they are marching down the street toward me with a purpose.  Should I run?  If I run will it mark me out as a victim?  Will they chase me?  If I stay here will they just walk past?  Will they mug me?  Slice me?  Cut me up?  What should I do?  Oh God, why didn’t I listen to Tascha?

         Now a set of full beam headlights are behind the gang, dazzling me.  The vehicle paces slow with the gang’s walk.  It’s big and black with tinted windows.  It’s a bloody Hummer!  The biggest, baddest pimp mobile there is.  It must be Mr Big and his boys are almost on top of me.  I can feel myself shivering uncontrollably.  Run!  Don’t run.  They’ll chase.  I’m paralysed, terrified and shaking.  Water is running down my face.  I’m soaked to the skin.  That bloody racist Cabbie!

         ‘You alright, bruv?’ is the inevitable ominous salutation from the lead member of the gang.  He’s tall, built and ebony skinned.  His homies huddle round.  What comes next?  The rabbit punch?  Stripes?  The Stanley Knife with the double blades, separated with a matchstick, so that wound can’t be stitched and leaves a permanent scar?  I should have run.  Now they are going to mug me, stab me.  I could die here on this hard, wet, filthy street.  My knees buckle and I sink to the concrete.  I raise my hands in supplication.

         ‘Please,’ I’m begging for mercy.  ‘Please!’

A forest of legs closes in on me.  The looming shapes above block the street light.  I cover my head with my arm and look at the ground anticipating the first blow.  A coin hits the pavement in front of me.  That’s the signal.  This is it.  Oh Christ they’re going to kill me!

         ‘Take it!  Take it all!’ I scream desperately.  I plunge my hands into my pockets and pull out my wallet.  I spill the contents onto the flooded flag-stones, more than one hundred pounds in notes, plus change and credit cards.  ‘Here!  Here!’  I cry, tearing off my gold signet ring and dropping it to the ground where it rings in the rain.  ‘Take my watch!’ I pull off my Omega and add it to the pile, ‘and my phone!’ My iphone joins the heap of booty.  I crawl toward the leader of the gang and grasp his ankle, sobbing.

         ‘Please!  Please don’t kill me!’  I beg into his Nike trainer.  I hear another voice among the group of muggers.

         ‘Come on, Col.  You can’t help him.’  I hear the sound of sucking teeth and the feet move away.

         ‘See that?’ one of them says.  I’m sitting in two inches of water watching the group wander away.

         ‘Wait up,’ says the leader, the one called Col.  Oh God he’s coming back.  I knew I couldn’t be that lucky.  He’s changed his mind.  I curl into a ball and scream as he approaches fast.  He reaches into the swag on the pavement.  He grabs something and picks it up.

         ‘I’m taking my pound back,’ he says to me.  ‘You obviously don’t need it, do you?’  He moves off to join the group.  I can hear them talking as the make their way down the street. 

Breathing heavily I try to steady my shakes.  I scrape my sodden possessions from the grime and shove them, dirt and all into my drenched pockets.  I’m freezing and soaked but most of all I feel ridiculous and embarrassed.  I notice that my trousers are torn from all the rolling around on the flag stones.  The humiliation is excruciating, at least no-one I know saw that.  I’d never live it down. 

I look up.  Jesus, the Hummer is still there, squatting like a giant, black, cockroach in the street, its engine revving.  Will this never end?  A back door starts to open.  This time I’m definitely running.  I’m out of here.  I’m on my feet in a flash and moving fast.

         ‘Ollie!’ Comes a call.  It’s a familiar voice.  ‘Ollie! Where you going, man?’  I stop and turn.  Shizzy is standing at the door of the Hummer.  He starts to walk toward me.  ‘I thought it was you,’ he says.  I try to straighten myself out but it’s a waste of time.  My clothes are now just rags stuck to my shivering body.

         ‘Sup man?’ he asks.

         ‘Oh nothing,’ I reply in what I hope is a nonchalant tone.  ‘I was just…’ the words die in my throat.

         ‘What?’

         ‘I was just… coming to see you.’

         ‘Cool,’ replies The Shiz. ‘Need a ride?’

         I could kiss him.

         ‘Yes please!’ I cry before catching myself, ‘I mean, er, yeah.’

         Shizzy puts an arm on my shoulder and guides me back to the Hummer

         ‘You want to watch yourself around here, Ollie.  It ain’t safe.’  He says as he helps me into the car.

         Missy Gee is sitting in the back.  She looks at me with utter disdain as I splash into a seat.  Shizzy climbs in next to me.

         ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ she says.  I don’t mind the barb, Its warm and safe in here and she looks sensational, channelling Beyonce and Pam Greer on a good day in her afro wig, gold loop earings, white fur bomber jacket and gold hot pants.  I gaze into her Cleopatra eyes, hypnotized.

         ‘You look like shit,’ she says.