Six Dead Men (3 page)

Another boy with his comb stuck in his afro retorted. "Watch your mouth rudeboy." But Rudeboy didn't know who I was. His head snapped round to Afro. "Mind your business yeah."

Doogie whipped round and gave him the full force of his gaze while Afro grabbed Rudeboy by the arm.

I waited for the triangle of meaningful looks to end. Rudeboy looked from Afro to Doogie, Afro whispered in Rudeboy's ear, Rudeboy paled, looked to me and let his eyes flick quickly back to Doogie. Doogie turned his attention back to me, his lips forming the apology.

I smiled lazily and waved a hand airily. "No grief Doogie. Rudeboy here doesn't know me." I nodded over at Junior who was hemmed in by the boys and their bikes. "What's happening with my man?"

Doogie's relief leaked from him like a dripping tap. "This wannabe says he wants to join our gang but he’s got no wheels. Get me?" A nervous snigger from the circle of boys followed this comment. "How's he gonna get a bike?" This from Afro.

"Yeah, how's he gonna get a bike?" The edgy chorus rang round the group.

I moved towards the BMX circle. The boys edged back respectfully and I noticed Rudeboy move just that little bit further back than everybody else. Just for fun I paused when I was alongside Rudeboy and showed my teeth in a cross between a smile and a snarl. If it was possible he became even paler.

I turned to face Junior. He was tall and rangy and looked like a human Duracell battery because of that hair cut and blonde dye. There was something about him that reminded me of Lennie from
Of Mice and Men
. Except he lacked the bulk I always imagined Lennie would have. So maybe I was meant to play George to his Lennie. Not that I'm that small or wiry, but my brown belt doesn't hurt any. "Come on Lennie, I know just the place where you can pick up a really good bike." He just looked at me with a glazed expression so I gripped the top of his arm gently. I could see the delay as his ears accepted the message and his brain then finally made sense of it.

"Really?"

"Yeah, come on. There's loads to choose from and you can decide which colour you like."

Before I turned to leave I grinned at Rudeboy. His eyes shifted sideways and he tugged at the end of one of his braids, and unconsciously shuffled his bike further away from me. The other boys and their bikes became statues.

I turned my back and walked away. "Later Doogie." Junior followed me like a lost puppy looking for a home. You can't buy that kind of trust. The blindness of it fascinated me and I knew I would have to take care of him till the day I died.

“That boy's shit out of luck man.” I heard Doogie mutter.

I tightened my grip on Junior's arm and smiled inside.

*****

I was a disappointment to my mother, my father, any number of aunts and uncles and Miss Jenkins, my history teacher. When I was 12 Miss J displayed an essay I wrote in which I compared a Roman general to an English king. She said I was” able to do what her best A’Level students were yet to come to grips with. You have a didactic memory Curtis.” She spelled it out for me in my vocab notebook and then told me to look up the meaning in a chunky dictionary she kept on her desk. When I cared to share my talent, my ability to pull facts from my ‘didactic’ memory constantly astounded the class. Unbeknown to me until my first behavioural review, I was talked about in the staff room and the socially conscious Miss Jenkins apparently stood up for me on many occasions. I really wish I’d known that sooner. I would have been nicer to her in lessons. She was all right Miss J. Let me go on the computer at the back of the class, showed me amazing sites to explore and translation sites to help me with more complex words. Three hours a week with Miss J and guaranteed time on the internet it was truly ace. But other teachers wouldn’t have it. “You have to earn the right to go on the computer Curtis. Five minutes of good behaviour in a lesson of fifty minutes does not entitle you to privileges.” Smug old cow Miss Hawkins. She looked a bit like a hawk too with her huge hooked nose.

At home I nagged dad to get the internet and a computer. He was having none of it, giving me lectures about how scarce money was, but then he’d do pay per view to watch a Portugal match. That always made me go quietly crazy. But at least I got to watch the History Channel and all the wildlife ones too. Dad always directed me to the documentary channels. “Education for free.” he said. “You have to pay for Sky dad.” “Don’t cheek me boy.” Smack. In a way dad was right. Everything I learnt during my long exclusions from school was either from the telly or down at the local library on the internet. When my command of English improved I started reading books on all sorts: religion, philosophy, psychology, but my favourites were true crime.

I was totally bored at school. I had this huge font of knowledge (good phrase isn’t it) which was hidden behind my 'inability to express myself in my second language.' That's what they called it in an article I read in TES. I found I'd read anything just for the sake of it. My frustration, both at school and home, ‘manifested itself in a series of unacceptable incidents.’ - this one I gleaned from a psychology book on disruptive children. I moved up the chain of action within the school’s discipline policy very swiftly. As the school system got more frustrated with its attempts to understand me it began to leave me to my own devices. Teachers labelled me a troublemaker and a nuisance. “He disrupts my class to the point where he completely commands my attention to the detriment of the other students.” was one comment I overheard to my Head of Year. Another one said, “I know we’re meant to adhere to the policy that Every Child Matters, but this child won’t let the other children matter. I want him out of my classroom!” That was said in front of me at my Year ten review hearing. Miss J fought my corner at the hearing, but she was one voice in a multitude of dissenting ones. So that’s how I ended up at the borough’s behavioural unit. After I stabbed the art teacher with a stanley knife they decided I was better off with home schooling. “I get that anyway.” I told them, “It’s called Sky TV.” Before the stanley knife incident I managed to free quite a lot of internet equipment from the constraints of the IT suite and eventually even got my hands on a laptop.

Dad despaired of me fairly quickly and farmed me out to relatives at every opportunity. As each set of relatives tired of my inexplicable ways I was once more passed on till eventually Social Services was called in and I went into care. I rode the waves of abandonment and as soon as I turned 16 I found ways and means to move into my own place. If I’d been given the chance I could have been a contender. I knew I had greatness in me. So I decided to conquer my own small little world. I came, I saw and I did conquer.

*****

I'm in and out of the Bricot family home and I've met not only Junior’s mum, a completely ditzy cow, but also his sometime dad and the aunt who says she remembers me from school when I was in the year group a couple of years below her. I didn't remember her at all and would never have thought of her as a relative of Junior’s if I had met her on the street. But she's one of the few people I can talk to. She's always doing crosswords. We sit at the table, in between her stirring the pot on the cooker or whatever, and solve the puzzles together. She can never do the cryptic ones, till I show her some tricks on how to understand them. But she just claims she's no good at them, telling me I have a god given talent and am I ever aware of how really bright I am.

I know I'm bright. I'm dazzling. I've picked that up along the way. At first I didn't believe it, but then there were all those online IQ tests to try and the MENSA quizzes. I figured it out before too long and realised Miss Jenkins had known a thing or two. Only person besides Junior's auntie M that saw something worthwhile in me. Maybe if I'd had that sooner in life I wouldn't have gone in for the game I'm in now. The thing is, even though I'd like to leave it, I'm kind of stuck. I've set myself up as this invincible. That's why guys like Doogie won't mess with me. Doogie plays rough, likes to torture little kids. He's a bit of a sicko and pops way too much snow. Mind you, he's not fussy. Doogie'll take anything that comes his way. His worst mistake in my opinion was when he started in on the smack. I did try to warn him, but some people don't know what's good for them. In the early days I was always saying - if you're gonna deal stay off the goods, just be a dealer man.

Doogie and his gang, call themselves dealers - I have to laugh sometimes. They don't know the true meaning of a deal. They all think I've got some serious backing. It's best to let that seem the way things are. No need for them to know I'm my very own backing. I call the shots. Found out way back when it doesn't pay to have to rely on anyone but yourself. Now I fly strictly solo and that's just the way it's going to stay till the day I die. The operation's fairly simple. I pretend to be the runner, arrange the meets and set up everything else through mobile phones and companies like DHL. It's amazing what you can send through the post these days. There are all those little beagles with their noses pressed to the ground at shipping warehouses and airport freight yards while my little parcels are winging their way all around the country and the world in a post bag.

I'm round at Junior's again, to pick him up for a night on the tiles. Auntie M is feeding me snacks in the kitchen and talking to me about a new production of ‘Julius Caesar’ while I wait for Junior to get himself out of the shower and dressed. On the way out, as Junior and I stand on the bottom step looking up at auntie M in the doorway, she leans forward and plants a kiss on my forehead and then on Junior’s. “Take care out there you two.” she says. She waves to us as we put our helmets on and climb onto my scooter. I like her more for doing that, making me feel like part of a family.

Madie was in her favourite café; the one with the excellent chocolate cake and the music soft enough in the background so it didn't interfere with a spot of reading.
My afternoon off, a decent coffee and a great book before I head home.
But she was a little distracted. She was finding it difficult to succumb to the humour of her book. Calvin hadn't called in two days.
I suppose he’s upset because I wouldn’t let him move to third base. I can’t really blame him. Allie says if you keep a man waiting too long, he loses interest. If anyone knows about stuff like this, it’s Allie.
In Madie’s eyes her eldest sister’s judgement where men and relationships were concerned was second to none.
Well, Cal has certainly been kept waiting
.
He didn’t really seem to mind before.
She now began to wonder if this was because he might be “having intimate relations” elsewhere. That’s what her other sister, Frankie said whenever a man showed little interest in her.
We might share a place but I’m not exactly going to ask Frankie for advice on personal matters. She's always been down on me. Always commenting on my looks and how I don't fit in with the rest of the family.

Madie looked nothing like the rest of the family and Frankie never let her forget it. You could guarantee that whenever guests came over the photo albums would find their way onto the coffee table and Frankie would make it a point to mention Madie’s angular bone structure and miniature stature versus the buxom, statuesque physiques of her sisters and other female relatives. When Madie was eight or nine and Frankie had extended the comments about her looks to the school playground, Madie became convinced she was adopted. Being a forthright child she confronted her mother.

“Ma, I think it’s time you told me about my birth mother.”

“What do you mean Madie?”

“Well it’s obvious I’m adopted. I don’t look like you or da, or anyone else neither.”

Her mother had not laughed at her childish notions. She had sat down with her on the front steps.

“I carried you beneath my heart for nine months Madie Bricot. Unlike the other three, you never caused me a moment’s bother. I had no morning sickness, or cravings like when I was carrying Allie. And when I was pregnant with Frankie I had the most awful back-ache. With your baby brother it was swollen feet. But you... nothing. Sometimes I completely forgot I was pregnant until someone stood up on the bus to let me have a seat. Then I'd stand there trying to figure out why they were being so polite."

Her mother chuckled at the memory. She tucked one of Madie's braids behind an ear and ran her thumb over the outer ridge of Madie's ear. Madie leaned into the caress. She loved it when her mother stroked her ears in that way. Her mother continued speaking. "And, as a baby, you were the most contented thing anyone had ever seen. Believe me darling when I say — you were conceived in love and you carried that love with you from my womb into this world. You have big love Madie Bricot.”

Then her mother cupped Madie's face and kissed her on the lips gently before returning to the house of squabbling children.

I shouldn't care about what Frankie thinks about me and Calvin. Her men never stick around and she's got a whole host of fatherless children but she's always ready to play relationship guru.

Calvin was not the first man who had kissed Madie, but he was the first she had dated more than once. The others never called back. When Cal called for a second date Madie just about hid her surprise. But when he called for a third date she was downright astounded. After that the dates came thick and fast, the phone calls and texts increased till they were almost a daily occurrence. That is until two nights ago and the sudden lack of contact. Allie had said to wait - men sometimes needed to go to their “caves to reacquaint themselves with what it was to be masculine.” She had quoted that one verbatim from the latest book on male/female relations. So Madie was waiting.
It’s weird not hearing from him. I'm so used to him calling and texting to check where I am. It makes me feel good. I know Allie's always phoning, she's family and that doesn't really count. Cal calling... that's different somehow. I’m not even sure what I feel for him. I like him and I like that he likes me. How am I supposed to feel? What does it feel like to love someone? Why can’t those questions be answered? Allie says I’ll just know. Just know.