The Dirty South (15 page)

‘Mum,' Akeisha called. ‘We have a guest.'

I know it's polite to say that your potential girlfriend's mother doesn't look old enough to have a nineteen, twenty-year-old daughter but Akeisha's mum
really
looked as if she had yet to see thirty. With her make-up neatly applied and her hair all straightened and shit she reminded me of one of those thirty-something chicks who appear in black American sitcoms. For some reason I imagined Noel making embarrassing attempts to chirps her.

‘This is Dennis, Mum,' Akeisha introduced. ‘He's taking me to the poetry jam at the Arches tonight.'

‘Good evening,' I greeted in my best English.

‘Good to meet you, Dennis,' she said. ‘But you can call me Myrna… I hate all that Mrs and Miss thing. My husband would have been glad to meet you but he's in Jamaica for a while.'

‘OK, Myrna,' I said.

‘You don't find too many young black men who are interested in the arts and performance poetry so it's reassuring to meet a fine young black man who does,' Myrna smiled.

God! I felt such a fake. Myrna spoke very well. Even better than my mum when she puts on her proper English voice when she's chatting business on the phone or talking to white people. It'll be cool to see Myrna and Mum trying to out-English each other if they ever meet.

‘Yes,' I finally replied. ‘Rhymes and stuff has always given me a neat vibe.'

‘Would you like a drink while you are waiting?' Akeisha offered.

‘No, I'm alright.'

My nervous tension had left me thirsty as a celeb on a chat show but in these situations I didn't want to be any bother to anybody.

‘OK, Dennis. I'm just gonna look in on Curtis and then we'll be away.'

‘He's still sleeping,' Myrna said.

‘I'll kiss him goodnight then,' Akeisha insisted. ‘Dennis, you're standing to attention like a Coldstream Guard. Sit down and relax, man.'

Those minutes when I was parking my butt on that black leather sofa are probably the most nervous of my life. There I was sitting opposite Myrna who was occasionally glancing and smiling at me. Any bad remark or wrong word here and my promising romance with Akeisha would be fucked like a chav orphan girl on a casting couch. I thought Myrna was expecting me to start a conversation but I couldn't think of anything to say. She seemed too sophisticated for me to deal with and I wondered what she did for a living. After ten minutes of me feeling this strange heat in my head, Akeisha appeared. No-one had looked so wokable since Lisa ‘Left Eye' Lopes did her sexy thing in the ‘Unpretty' video.

I'm gonna try it tonight, I said to myself. Later on. He who dares gets between the crotches. I'll try it when we come back to her gates and Myrna and Curtis will hopefully be sleeping. It was a duty to mankind to try it. Damn! Did she look good in her leathers. I wondered how many woks the black couch had witnessed. I glanced at Myrna and guessed none.

‘Ready, Dennis?'

I shot out of my chair like a Yardie hearing the customs and immigration people were approaching…

‘I'll be back after midnight, Mum,' Akeisha said. ‘Don't wait up.'

The feeling was good walking alongside Akeisha through Angel Town. There was an extra boing in my step and as brothers shot me envious glances I said under my breath, ‘Look and shed tears, motherfuckers!'

‘So how long you've been going to poetry jams?' I said after a while.

‘About three years,' Akeisha answered. ‘It was at a poetry jam where I met Curtis's father.'

‘What? Your eyes kinda met when you were both checking out the performances and the audience?'

Akeisha laughed. Every time she done that her big eyes just sparkled and it brought her cheeks to life and made her mouth look kinda filthy. I liked that. ‘No, it wasn't like that,' she explained. ‘Curtis's father was a performer.'

‘What was his name?' I asked. ‘I might have heard of the brother…'

I faked maturity talking about Akeisha's ex. I was proper jealous of him because he woked Akeisha and I hadn't. He even had a child to prove it even though he don't seem to be around. Burn him.

‘You don't need to know that, Dennis. Sorry for being so evasive but Curtis's father has no place in my life now. He could preach a good game but when it came to being a father he didn't want to know.'

That made me feel better. ‘OK, let's burn his memory.'

Akeisha giggled but just for a fleeting moment her eyes revealed some kind of pain and despair. Burn her baby-father like Guy Fawkes.

The Arches venue was beneath a railway line very close to Bricky High Street. Whoever had taken over the building had done the best they could with little money. The brown brickwork was mostly covered in banners and fabrics that had been painted and graffitied upon; the Egyptian ankh seemed to be the artists' choice of design. The wooden seats looked like they had been borrowed from a local school and there was only a single light bulb that hung from a long stretch of wire above a black painted wooden box that acted as a stage; to me it just looked like a soapbox big enough for three people and a skinny sister to stand on.

Upon the stone floor in front of the stage rested beanbags, large cushions and two multicoloured armchairs that had been rebuilt untold times. On the ground along the walls, candles placed in cup
saucers provided another source of light. For me it was all a bit New Age, dying celebrity icon shit gone over the top but the candles did make Akeisha's big eyes look even more sexy. Akeisha herself was in her element, nodding and smiling to people she knew on our way to our seats. I just glared at the brothers, making sure with my body language that they knew Akeisha was mine so don't even think about chirpsing her.

The chairs were quickly filled by confused hippies, disillusioned rastas, strange brothers with mad afros and fucked-up sideburns, single ugly brothers who came with no brethrens and sat alone, French students who were showing off their anti-war badges and big boots, other foreign students who didn't appear to have come for the show but came to score drugs, black women decked out in African robes, beads and all the bangles their wrists could carry, rich white people who had dressed down for the occasion and had a cocaine-zonked-out look about them. I guessed they were rich 'cos what kind of people would try and pay their entrance tax at a venue like the Arches with a Visa card? There were chi chi men who were wearing baggy jeans, baggy sweaters and fucked-up hats and a couple of white goth chicks who sat in the corner with all their black make-up shit and black-netted hand accessories… Sitting to my right was this white couple and judging by their gossip they were members of the Liberal Democrats. It was then I realised, as I watched Akeisha standing up and waving to a friend of hers, that I was in a fucking nightmare.

I said to myself, keep cool. You are doing this for a good cause. To wok the seriously wokable Akeisha.
Don't
fuck it up.
Don't
flop. Act like you actually get on with chi chi men. Pretend that you like brothers with fucked-up sideburns. Try not to think about the P's I could have made if I was shotting my skunk in this place. Ignore and don't get turned on by the lesbos behind me who are making out and pay no mind to the bewildered brother who was wearing a Ku Klux Klan kind of robe thing and yellow striped sandals…

‘How long does the show go on for?' I asked Akeisha.

‘Just enjoy the vibe,' she replied.

The white woman beside me, who was now building a skinny
roll-up with hash sprinkled in it, answered the question for me. ‘About two hours, maybe three or four if the vibes are really hot tonight. This place is
sooo
cool, don't you think?' I wanted to give her a hard slap.

Four hours! There was no way I could spend four hours with this crowd without going insane… ‘I have to get us something to eat at some point, Akeisha,' I said. ‘Maybe we can go to that new chicken place in about an hour? I hear that they do some serious hot wings.'

‘Maybe,' is all Akeisha managed.

Ten minutes later this fat black woman appeared on the stage. She was the mother of all salad dodgers. Suddenly the stage looked tiny. She was wearing the obligatory African robes, beads, bangles, Nefertiti head-wrap and a giant pair of silver earrings that could have fitted around a tractor's wheels. ‘Greetings to everyone,' she welcomed. ‘My name is Queen Manashmanek from the golden and prosperous lands of Nubia and I am your hostess and priestess for the night.'

‘Greetings,' the audience echoed, including Akeisha.

I couldn't believe this shit. Was it for real? A wind-up? From the golden prosperous lands of Nubia? Is she taking the fucking piss? From what my paps taught me those lands are modern-day northern Sudan and Ethiopia. Now, they're not exactly oil-rich and the ghetto brothers over there don't wear Nike One Tens. Queen Manash-her-face must have visited there recently and ate all the food. I looked at Akeisha and she was taking it all in, everyone was taking it all in. I half-expected Queen what's-her-face to morph into Oprah Winfrey and to start talking about the
inner you
and all that meditation shit. Queen Salad Dodger then waddled about the stage and for a minute I thought the thing was gonna collapse and her weight would force her underground and she would end up roasted in the core of the earth. Unfortunately it didn't happen.

‘We really have an excellent show for you tonight,' she continued. ‘So without any more delay, first on the Arches stage tonight, all the way from Forest Hill in south east London, is Soulful Sonia!'

The crowd stood up, clapped and cheered as if Muhammad Ali,
Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley was in the house. Meanwhile, I wondered if I knew anyone who lived in Forest Hill… Nope, I didn't. Forest Hill is
the
most boring place in the whole of South London and if any cool people did live there they would never admit it… As the bird shit drops, Forest Hill is only about six or seven miles away from Bricky but I've never heard in my entire life of anybody going to a party, a rave, a drink up, a wine bar, to wok a girl, to shot some skunk or to buy some garms in Forest Hill.

Anyway, this tall black chick climbed onto the stage. She looked like Eryka Badu after a very generous dinner. You guessed it. She was wearing a Nefertiti head-wrap, robes, bangles and cheapo necklaces with crosses and ankhs hanging from them.

She gazed at the crowd and then she sort of hugged herself before closing her eyes… I had the vibe that something seriously fucked up was about to happen. Then Soulful Sonia started to go on like one of them black women who are receiving the spirit in one of them fucked-up churches. Her head started shaking and I half expected her to froth at the mouth and give birth like John Hurt in
Alien
. Trust me, it was hard not to fall off my chair in hysterics. Everyone around me was taking this shit serious, including the few Muslim brothers at the back and that was surprising 'cos usually they have no time for women doing their shit.

‘I want you all to embrace your Africanness,' Soulful Sonia urged, her eyes still closed, her head still rocking.

Then the audience proceeded to hug itself. I was amazed. Even Akeisha was doing this shit… I nudged her. ‘Akeisha, that tall chick is crazy, man. The sister needs some serious counselling. I ain't doing her shit, man. I'm not on it. I ain't feeling this at all. She's probably got issues about her mother not rocking her to sleep when she was a baby. Are all the acts psychologically fucked up?'

Akeisha chuckled. ‘No, Dennis, and you don't have to do what she says… Just relax, I'm sure there will be an act that you might like later on.'

‘Is this crane-legged chick gonna tell us all to start playing with ourselves next?'

‘
Don't
be flippant, Dennis.'

‘I'm kinda peckish, Akeisha. Do you mind if I step out and get something to eat?'

‘No, course not. Feel free.'

‘I'm gonna get some hot brutal chicken wings, do you want any?'

‘No thanks. Dennis, keep your voice down.'

I started to resent paying the brother at the gate five notes for this show. I looked up to the stage and Soulful Sonia now had her eyes open and she was glaring at me. Burn Soulful Sonia! As I left I heard Akeisha giggling and I walked to the exit with a zip and a boing in my step. Maybe sex
was
a possibility after the show.

Deciding to eat my hot wings and fries outside the Arches I made sure I cleaned my fingers and mouth with the tissue provided. I then sprayed a little aftershave on my hands and dabbed my face before re-entering the poetry jam. To my relief Soulful Sonia had finished her fucked-up routine. As I returned to my seat I couldn't resist a laugh to myself as I wondered what would Tupac think of it all. The wafer-bread-dodging hostess returned to the stage as I took my seat. Akeisha smiled at me and asked, ‘You alright? You might like the next act.'

‘Yeah, sorry I had to go out but I just had to fill that hole. You know how it goes… What's the next act?'

‘The next act? Oh, just the reason why I brought you here.'

‘And now for your spiritual nourishment,' the fat chick announced. ‘All the way from the Notre Dame estate in Clapham, we have the legendary Yardman Irie in the house tonight! Yardman Irie was the mic man for sound systems like Soferno B, Neville King, King Tubby and Crucial Rocker. But he's gonna chant for us tonight!'

I've heard of that name! He looked familiar. This Yardman guy had been inside my gates when Paps has his people around on boring Saturday nights.

Dressed in green army fatigues and black army boots, Yardman Irie took to the stage as the crowd whooped and hollered. His dreadlocks were tickling his backside and in his right hand he was carrying this trophy thing. It looked like a golden microphone…
He was followed onto the stage by this dread who was carrying a nyabinghi drum under his right arm. He looked like the kind of man who would eat you if you booed him. Yardman scanned the crowd and as he saw the Muslims at the back, he scowled… This might be interesting, I thought.