Cracking Up (2 page)

I lost him in the maze of walkways and alleyways on the estate, legging it deep in to the heart of the birds nest. I was heading to the relative sanctuary of The Kennels: A really run-down, rat-infested concrete council block adorned with choice graffiti such as: FUCK THE PIGS, and WELCOME TO MINI-IRAQ.

I’d decided to take refuge in my mates flat. There was no need to phone him because the chances of him being anywhere but his kennel were slim, unless of course he was running out of heroin, in which case he would have been down the frontline.

2.

I rounded a corner, looking over my shoulder down the street for the copper and then slid into the block of flats. There was a lift but it was usually piss-puddled and out of order; so I took the stairwell with its iron handrail and the first thing that hit me was the stench. Fucking hell, the air was rotten, diseased. It knocked me fucking sick, the foul-smelling excrement of various types of mammals.

The ever-present paint sniffers convention squatted on the first landing, their noses buried in the crisp bags full of spray paint. I barged my way past the fucking motley crew of scumbags and shot up the stairwell double pronto. When they saw me coming, they parted the waves and made a space because they could see I wasn’t in the mood.

I was sweating like a bastard rapist after all the action but a big chilly shudder took me by suprise as I continued to shoot up the stairwell. Paranoia kicked in big-style; there was an eerie feeling of doom like someone was walking over my grave and my skin prickled involuntarily. The stairwell was badly lit and I carried on legging it at great speed up the steps and on to the balcony where I could see daylight.

It was about four o’clock now and a pair of single mums with greasy hair and still wearing pee-jays and slippers were outside their front doors, leaning on the balcony rail. They were tranked up and smoking rollies, gossiping as their kids played on the burnt-out remains of a joy riders car in the street below.

I couldn’t suss what had temporarily freaked me out in the stairwell but I pulled myself together and moved confidently forward down the balcony. Dogs were barking behind closed doors; the kind of dogs you don’t stroke. Every door had a deadbolt and spyhole because it was the kind of place where you never knew who would come crashing through the door at any time, the burglars or the bizzies. One of the birds saw me coming and gave me a big smile. “Hiya, Ow-wee! You all right, babe?”

She saw my cauliflower ear and threw her hands up to her face. “Oh my God! What happened to you? You look like you’ve been in with Mike Tyson.”

Her name was Tiffany and she was on to me in a big way, offering an icy compress if I’d come sit on her sofa and keep her company. She was a loose woman with a reputation for accosting men on the estate. She had a fit body, big tits but a face like a potato with the mangies. “Nice one, T,” I said.

I followed her into the flat and sat down on her couch. She went into the kitchen and put a little twist in her hips because she knew I was looking. When she came back, she slumped down besides me, doing the necessaries with the icy compress and flirting with me big-style, coming on all fresh and fruity completely distracting me from my aching wingnut.

She was like a bitch on heat, engaging me in a bit of saucy chat and projecting the come on vibe. She leaned forward exposing her cleavage, started to neck me in a dead passionate way and I could feel a stiffie coming on. She was rubbing my crotch and declaring she was going to rattle my cage. There was nothing for it; I didn’t want her to think I was bent, did I?

I followed her into the bedroom, feeling mad horny and we both stripped off. We began a rampant mess about, getting to grips with a session of heavy petting, fumbling and tweaking under the covers. I sucked her nipples and they were so hard I could’ve dialled a phone with them. Not only were her nipples rock hard but my cock was too; I slipped a rubber johnny on the end of it and got on top. She spread her legs and opened her gash, guiding my tool into her damp patch. I started off with a slow gentle grind because I didn’t want to blow my beans too soon. She was panting porno-style and scratching my back with her cat claws. I sucked her nipples, they were stuck up like two babies bottle teats. She told me to fuck her harder, then came and wriggled like she’d had an electric shock, as I shifted up a gear or two and finished off with a frenzy of groaning and slapping, thrusting and grunting until I reached the vinegar stroke.

I thought she’d actually fancied me and my ego smarted when she demanded money. I hadn’t fully realized that the dirty slag was a working brass and expected her to turn nasty when I explained that I was brassic. Luckily, she had a big cheesy grin on her kipper when I offered a rock of the crack as payment instead. Oh well, it had been a good screw!

She snatched the crack out of my hand quicker than the human eye. “Nice one, babe. Top one!”

She was still bare-arsed naked but, in her hurry to get blasted, reached into her bedside draw and pulled out a little glass pipe while I was putting my clothes back on. I watched with a sideways glance as she burnt some wire wool, then stuffed it into the pipe. She quickly crumbled her prize in the middle of it and kept the lighter on it, all the while inhaling, sucking it down deeply. The crack was like being wired into the National Grid. The rush she was getting was massive, like a tsunami of electricity buzzing through her veins replacing removed blood. “Wow! Fuck me! That’s fucking nice.”

The crack would make her feel fucking fantastic for fifteen minutes until the dreaded comedown. Her eyes were as big as fifty pence pieces, as she whizzed her tits off, having to hold herself up against the wall to steady herself. “Woo hoo!”

I had just finished putting the Adidas on my feet, but she was gagging for more and turned all sketchy on me all of a sudden: “That was fucking ace, babe! I need another toot.”

I got the message loud and clear, she was cracked to the max and in the mood for a freebie session but all I wanted now was out, a trouble free exit. I scooted out of there and off down the balcony to my mates flat. I knocked on his front door. There were three bullet holes in the door: A frequent hazard of living on the estate. “Bangerz! Bangerz! It’s me … open up.”

I heard someone moving something behind the door and saw an eyeball peeking through the spyhole, a latch was dropped and a key turned. “Come on, lad! Hurry up, will you,” I shouted, knowing he had barricaded himself inside because he had the good sense to be paranoid. Burglars were drumming gaffs and working round the clock on the estate, even when peeps were in their beds. They’d empty the place like a proper removals firm and even take the wallpaper.

“All right, all right, mate … hang on will you…”

He opened the door and we clasped hands and I walked in. “All right there, lar!” I said.

“You got any smack on you, bruv?” He was twitchy and nervous, showing obvious signs of stress and withdrawl.

“Fuck’s sake, lad. Give us a fucking chance, will you. I’ve only just put me fucking foot in the door.”

There was a piece of ten-foot, four-be-two on the floor. He’d wedged it between the middle of the door and the skirting at the end of the hallway because somebody had tried to kick in the door.

I went into the front room and sat down in an armchair. He followed and flopped down on the couch. The flat was a complete health hazard; a real druggies den with the front room littered with piles of discarded clothes that he couldn’t be bothered to clean, overflowing ashtrays and empty white cider bottles littering the floor and all sorts of rotting leftovers from takeaways were discarded on the tatty carpet. What a sad bastard!

“What happened to your ear?” he asked.

“What happened to your front door?”

“Listen to this: I was sat here last night, having a dig up. Watching Shameless on the telly. About two in the morning. I heard some shitty goings on. Arseholes tried to boot the door in. I rushed to the hallway and warned them to fuck off out of it. Then, BANG! BANG! BANG! I fired the bullets through the door. They fucked off sharpish then …”

“You’re a fucking mad man!”

“Come on, Ow-wee! They’re fucking cunts, mate, you know that!” he said, shaking his head. “The bastards are taking the piss. Trying to bust in when you’re sat in front of the fucking telly. Total scumbags, mate.”

“Yeh, I know. Piss takers and scumbags everywhere, lad. Just like the Mug Fam.”

“You been beefing with that lot?”

“Yeh. They’re treating us like knobs. Trying it on. We got to sort them out.”

“Well, when you make the moves, count me in. I fucking can’t stand that shower of cunts,” he spat out.

He hated them because they were the attempted housebreakers. He had a dirty, filthy smack habit and he was pulling smackhead stunts left, right and centre opening up lines of credit with opposition drug gangs like the Mug Fam and failing to settle up. His bad habit of swerving the payment had resulted in the drama last night. The Mug Fam were going ballistic, threatening to do him in if they didn’t get their dough, NOW.

Bangerz was called that because not only did he liked to scoff sausages but he also had a hard-on for shooters. That’s how he had ended up in nick. Back in the day, he was a proper nutty lad: A hard case and he could handle himself. One day, he was plotted up by the community centre, dealing by himself. These two lads from another crew came up to him, giving it the biggun. They started arguing the toss over who should be grafting the patch: A trade dispute. Bangerz had a little something semi-automatic tucked into his trackie bottoms waistband. He pulled the thing out and popped it off above their heads. They scarpered and the plod landed. He got nicked and sent down, potted off to the Chokie for a year.

He was only sixteen and that was the maximum sentence the Beak could dish out. When he came out of the Young Offenders Institution, he told us all about it: “Them screws, man. Fucking cunts. They think they’re hard coz their wearing a fucking uniform and mob-handed. One of them walked up to me and tried to boss me around like I was some fucking no mark. Talking down to us, he was, like I was a soft cunt. I called him a fucking bastard straight to his face. He shoved us into me cell because there’s CCTV on the landings, grabbed us by the throat and rammed the back of me head into the wall. Me nut felt like it was going to explode. Then two of his mates piled in, grabbed both me arms and bent them up round me back. Next thing: Cuntie steps in front of us and gives us a dig on the chin.”

“One of them holding us back shouted: Just the body! Smack! Smack! Smack! The screw using us as a punchbag pummelled us in the chest a few times and belted us once in the guts. I threw up blood and puke on the cell floor and one of them called us a dirty fucking bastard. Forced me down on to me hands and knees, and pushed me face into the chuck-up. This’ll teach you a little lesson, cocky Scouse cunt. Plastic gangster, playing us up. They rubbed me face into it like I was a fucking dog, then stuck the boot in while I was down. Blood was coming out of me nose and mouth, everything was spinning and I blacked out. Then the cheeky cunts claimed I’d had a bit of a funny turn and tried to smash out of me cell using me barnet. Fucking clowns! They told us they were in charge of the nick and to behave me-self and keep me fucking trap shut, or I’d get another fucking doing.”

The telly was switched on and he was watching some shit TV: Jeremy Kyle.

Nothing was said. We just sat there, watching the show. Jezza was gobbing off at some blurt, demanding he take a drugs test.

He broke the silence. “So … you got any gear on you, then?”

“Hold on a second; let me have a look,” I said, rummaging through me trackie pockets and digging out a snap bag with the brown powder in it. “Knock yourself out!”

“I ain’t got no money,” he said. “I’ll have to have it on tick.”

“I don’t want your money,” I said, keeping it simple. “I want a favour!”

“What’s that then?”

“Laters. Have a dig up first.”

I handed it over and he fannied about, organising his doings on the cluttered coffee table in front of the couch. Amongst the toxic debris of used drug paraphernalia such as dirty needles and blood splatters was a batch of newly-acquired squeaky clean 1ml syringes, cookers and water ampules from the needle exchange at the drug agency.

He poured water into the tiny tin-foil cooker, then tipped the brown powder into it and heated it up with a plastic lighter until the brown mix was bubbling. He put a needle into the liquid and sucked it up into the syringe, found a vein in the crook of his elbow and pumped it into his system. Sitting back on the couch, he made himself comfortable and felt the gear kicking in. “Yeh, that’s nice, that is. Nice as fuck, that is. Top gear, that is.”

He was crashed out, getting into the buzz of things. He couldn’t keep his eyelids open, they were heavy as lead and he was nodding off. Going into himself, monged out and disappearing into his own little druggie dreamscape. Sitting there, in a dingy doss-hole, with his head so far up his own arse I doubt he even knew I was still there. No worries now, nothing to stress about until the next toxic craving. Just chilling out in the front room and floating dreamily on an opiate cloud. The shit-stem was still out there, still horrible but, for the chemical moment, it didn’t have him by the bollocks.

He’d been a proper tasty fucker before he’d been sent to the rubbish heap. He wasn’t one to be crossed and sworn enemies shat in their kecks when they saw him coming. But the shithole had left its mark on him and he’d gone down the banks inside HMP Altcourse. “It’s fucking dread in there, Ow-wee lad. I got thrown into some cramped fucking cell. There were shout outs scratched all over the walls and I even put JU$TU$ CREW REIGNS up there. The beds were fucking torture, anorexic mattresses and no pillows. Me cellie was this schizo kid called Kenny. He was sick in the head, kept hearing voices. He said the devil was getting at him, testing him. Kept going on about the end of days, when God’s children would go to heaven and everyone else left behind. Seeing things that weren’t there, chatting to thin air. Wouldn’t take his meds. At night he’d be talking in his sleep, telling the devil to get his hands off him. Saying he belonged to Jesus. Mad being trapped in a cell with someone like that, going on about scriptures and revelations all day long. Thought I was going looney tunes me-self. He should have been sectioned, end off. Then one morning, before five o’clock roll check, something woke us up: A gargling noise it was and I could smell shit in the cell. I got up out of me pit and saw him hanging from the bars. Eyes bulging and the shit had just fallen out of his arse. It was fucking horrible, mate. He’d made this noose from two fuck-off black bin liners. I ripped through the plastic bags with me knife. He fell down with a bump on the concrete floor. He weren’t brown bread, though: His ticker had stopped but the guards came legging it, found a pulse and brought him back. He was sent to hospital and was in a coma for a week but he was brain dead and they switched off his life-support machine.”