The Dirty South Page 9

  It was one of those chill-out Sunday afternoons when I was trying to work out a way of confronting Paps about the night his legs got fucked. I considered waiting until we were alone in the house and after striking up a conversation about the World Trade Organisation, a topic he always ranted about, hit him with his own gangster shit and demand answers. As I made these plans in my head, Paps was reading a book. I was also trying to summon up the nerve to call Akeisha. I had nearly called her every day for three weeks but at the last minute I had pussied out. It was driving me nuts.

  Meanwhile, Mum and Davinia were leafing through an Argos catalogue and when I wasn’t observing Paps, I was watching MTV Base. Mya was performing a sexy dance routine with Beenie Man on screen and that’s when I said to myself that if I don’t call Akeisha now I never will. Tackling Paps was no longer my first priority.

  So I prepared my game, slapped on my confidence, took in some deep breaths and I made my call sitting on the stairs. ‘Hello. What’s gwarnin, Akeisha?’

  ‘Who is this?’ came back the reply.

  ‘Dennis.’

  ‘Dennis?’

  ‘Yeah, the bruv you met at Red Eyes’ funeral.’

  ‘There were quite a few young guys there at the funeral.’

  ‘None as good looking as me though,’ I laughed nervously.

  Silence… I felt my pulse gathering pace. ‘So when are we gonna link up, Akeisha? You see, I remembered your name and your buff self. When are you gonna show me some love? You know, take me on a tour around your proper buff body.’

  ‘Excuse me!’

  ‘When are we gonna connect, man, in the plug, wall socket sense. You know, to do what young people do. Aren’t you feeling me? I’m not feeling any love from you right now. Why you so quiet? Akeisha?’

  She cut me off. I couldn’t believe it. No chick had done that to me before. My head spun. Oh my God! I fucked it up. Me and my Brixtonian macho self! I’m not Noel, I’m not Noel! Why didn’t you be yourself? You dumb fucking prick!

  I returned to the front room. Paps was still reading. Mum and Davinia were looking at designer handbags in another catalogue. ‘What girl is it this time, Dennis?’ Davinia asked, big grin on her face.

  ‘How do you know it’s a girl?’

  ‘Because every time you sit on the stairs and make a call, it’s usually a girl you’re talking to. Am I right or am I right?’

  She was right. Burn Davinia. ‘Davinia, zip your beak, take off your Halloween mask, deal with your acne and mind your business.’

  ‘Don’t talk to your sister like that, Dennis,’ Paps reprimanded, his eyes looking over his book. ‘I keep telling you, Dennis, to show an example. You’re the oldest.’

  Burn, Paps… I gave Davinia an evil stare. She just grinned with that know-it-all face of hers. I’ll deal with her when Mum and Paps have gone out.

  I decided to try call Akeisha again, this time showing some politeness. I returned to the stairs to make my call and pulled the lounge door closed. ‘Hi, why did you—’

  Akeisha interrupted. ‘If you wanna talk to me you talk to me with respect! You understand? I ain’t no junz so don’t chat to me like I am one!’

  ‘Yeah, that’s cool,’ I managed. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Akeisha. Her voice was still sounding stern. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Er, I was wondering if I could see you again.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why? Damn, she was making it difficult. I had to think hard. ‘ ’Cos you’re the kinda chick I could talk to. You seem intelligent and know what’s what. I’m sick and tired of them ghetto chicks without any manners and they don’t know how to behave when you’re with them.’

  ‘Any other reason?’ Akeisha asked.

  ‘And because you look better in black than Will Smith, Tommy Lee whassisname and Halle Berry in Catwoman.’ It was all I could think of. Sweat was now appearing on my temples but she couldn’t see that, nor the panic in my brain.

  She laughed… Yes! I’ve got her now. I could see her wearing a skin-tight Lycra in my bedroom. I could see that wok coming my way, my hands pulling her booty towards my crotch. I’m slowly woking her and R. Kelly is providing the soundtrack… She’s moaning with serious pleasure. ‘So you wanna meet me, like in a date?’ she asked.

  I opened my eyes and my hands had become suddenly clammy. A date? I didn’t do dates. No self-respecting road brother did dates. I had to burn that shit… Akeisha’s incredibly buff an’ all but fuck if I’m gonna spend P’s on her in a cinema, nightclub or restaurant like I’m a pussy or a boops. What am I thinking about? I’m not Noel! Be yourself! Of course I can take her on a date, I’ve got the P’s. I ain’t no grimed ghetto brother. I’ve got the game.

  ‘I was thinking more of you come to see me around my gates or I go around to see you at your gates?’ I offered. It came out all wrong. Damn!

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t work like that. You really expect me to come around to your place and I don’t know you that good? You could be a rapist! A psycho. You might be one of those people who gets their freak on in a weird way. And you cannot seriously expect me to invite you to my place. It ain’t gonna happen until I know a lot more about you.’

  ‘Er, OK,’ I managed. ‘Maybe we can link up for a coffee or something and slowly get to know one another?’

  ‘That’s better, Dennis. That’s how we should do things. You’re getting with the programme.’

  ‘So where are we gonna have this coffee?’ I asked. ‘Then when we have that we could forward on to your place and have Basic Instinct-like sex.’ That last line just came out accidentally too. I just couldn’t help myself. In my mind she was now naked. I was also hanging loose, my limbs tied to the four posts of a kingsize bed. She walked around the bed and stopped behind the headrest. Then she purred this delicious purr. Fuck my days! I’m a proper perv.

  ‘Nice try, Dennis,’ Akeisha laughed. ‘But trust me, it ain’t gonna happen like that. As for where we’re gonna have this coffee, forget Bricky. Streatham is good. There’s a few places on the High Street there.’

  I opened my eyes once again and tried to ‘clean’ my mind. ‘When?’

  ‘Next Saturday, say about two in the afternoon. Weekends are easier for me because Mum looks after my baby.’

  ‘You have a baby?’

  ‘Yes. Curtis is his name. He’s ten months old. Everyone loves him because he has cute little dimples. Is this a problem for you?’

  I thought about it for a few seconds. She didn’t look old enough to have a baby but then again she lives in Angel Town. All kinds of fucked-up, American south, Jerry Springer shit goes on there. Noel once introduced me to a twenty-nine-year-old grandmother who he sold skunk to. He woked her ’cos she couldn’t pay for her eighth of skunk one day and he could have woked her fifteen-year-old daughter too. Jealous on seeing her mother get some action, the teenager outrageously flirted with Noel but even Noel has his limits. So he didn’t wok her but he still allowed the teenager to give him a BJ. At the time, the grandmother and her daughter were studying together for their mock exams. Only in Bricky.

  Akeisha seemed so confident, intelligent. How did she get herself pregnant at such a young age? Let me check this. The baby’s ten months old, I think Akeisha is about two years older than me so that means she gave birth at eighteen. Not too bad. Not like those ghetto bitches who get pregnant at fifteen. But maybe the pregnancy fucked up her running career. Damn! She looked good in black.

  ‘No, it’s not a problem, Akeisha,’ I finally answered. ‘Can I ask how old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ she answered. ‘Twenty in January. I’m an Aquarian. Remember to buy me a present for my birthday.’

  This was all good. She expected me to be around by January. She’s twenty in January? One and a half years older than me. Damn! When we finally have sex it’s gonna be the bomb because of her experience and shit. Noel woked this woman who was thirty-three once. She was one of our white tras
h clients. I wouldn’t go for someone as ancient as thirty-three but Noel still talks about that wok with a pleasure overload and a stupid-looking grin. I couldn’t wait to have sex with Akeisha. Now, God, here’s the time for you to prove yourself. Make this wok happen!

  ‘Only if you buy something for me for Christmas,’ I finally replied.

  When she finished the call I fretted on whether I should return her bracelet and tell her I watched her for two years running around Tooting Bec track. At least it would be honest. But I didn’t know if I could do that. She might think I’m nothing more than a petty thief. No, burn that. I can’t have her thinking of me like that.

  Akeisha and I met at one of them coffee places where it costs more than a pound fifty for a hot chocolate. No way I would’ve paid that if I was with the brothers so I had to grin and bear the pain. Burn name-brand coffee places. I reckoned Akeisha had a job ’cos she bought a couple of croissants and a cappuccino and didn’t see much change out of a ten pound note. She didn’t even flinch. Best of all she didn’t see the nervous twitch that my left knee developed. This wasn’t no normal ghetto chick.

  ‘So when is Curtis’s birthday?’ I asked.

  ‘In two months time. Didn’t I tell you he was ten months?’

  ‘Oh yeah you did. Who’s his paps?’

  ‘Don’t mean to be rude but you don’t have to know. It’s my business.’

  ‘So do you find time to work or go college?’

  ‘Yes, I want to be an accountant. I was always good at maths at school. Mum helps me out looking after Curtis while I’m at college and I work part-time at Marks and Spencer on Fridays and Sundays. The one in Clapham Junction. No-one should use an excuse that they lived a grime life in the ghetto to stop them progressing… So many of my school friends use that excuse and it’s weak.’

  While Akeisha was speaking I allowed myself to look her over. She had this pink beret over her pitch-black straightened hair and although she wasn’t wearing any lipstick she had this lip thing on that made them shiny. She was sporting a denim jacket and knee-length denim skirt and all this was underlined by a pair of black leather boots. The only bling she wore was a small gold ring that decorated the baby finger of her left hand. As for me I had an erection.

  She was one of those very few black people of my age who still lived with both parents. Her paps worked nightshift in some factory and he was saving up to buy some property in the Caribbean where him and his wife could spend their retirement. The family had lived in Angel Town for over twenty years so they must have seen all that Feds shooting black men who were armed with water pistols and high on crack shit.

  Akeisha had two older sisters and no brothers. I was glad ’cos sometimes in Bricky you might have some hardcore brother coming up to you and saying, ‘Fuck with my sister and I’m gonna fuck with your breathing.’

  When Akeisha asked me if I smoked weed I did say yes but I didn’t tell her I was a shotta. I intended to keep that shit quiet. I still remembered my pounding at the hands of the Nigerian crew in Peckham. Akeisha had smoked the occasional spliff too but she claimed she never ‘inhaled’.

  For the rest of our date I impressed Akeisha with my knowledge of Jamaican history. I spoke about the maroon wars, slave uprisings, how Christopher Columbus’s ass was saved by the native peoples after his ship was fucked and I explained that the first mass migration to leave Jamaica wasn’t to journey to England but to work in Panama to construct the famous canal. She really enjoyed the story of Caribs going from island to island throughout the Caribbean hunting for human flesh. All that listening to Granny paid off. I did stress in my tale that I was descended from the Maroons and we hated the taste of human liver. But Bajans wouldn’t say no, I joked. I couldn’t believe I said that but luckily Akeisha was third generation Jamaican just like me so she let the bad taste joke pass. By this time my knee had stopped twitching.

  ‘When you see the way some brothers eating Kentucky chicken I can believe that story about the Caribs being cannibals,’ she chuckled.

  Finally, I thought to myself, she’s warming to me. I might have to wait a serious time for my wok though. Akeisha ain’t no junz.

  Akeisha allowed me to escort her back to Angel Town. As usual the brothers there eyed me as I walked through the estate. If they didn’t know your face then there was a ninety per cent chance of getting jacked and stepping home in just your boxers. In these kind of situations you have to acknowledge them with your eyes and not go on like a pussy. Show any sign of weakness and it’s running like Linford Christie time. Most of them knew me so it was cool and Akeisha just ignored them… There is an off-licence in the estate and judging by the thick metal grilles that covered that place you would think they were looking after the Crown Jewels… Rumour had it that the shopkeeper kept a Uzi behind the counter and brothers believed it ’cos the shop hadn’t been raided for two years. Quite a miracle in Bricky.

  Akeisha lived in a second-floor flat that overlooked a courtyard and as we neared her front door I asked, ‘So when can I see you again?’

  She thought about it, her keys poised an inch away from the lock. ‘Have you ever been to a poetry jam, Dennis?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A poetry jam. Where conscious people let off steam and chant inspiring words.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard of raves like that. Haven’t been to one but I heard it’s all good.’

  ‘It’s not exactly a rave, Dennis. It’s more of a spiritual vibe thing. A lot of consciousness. A sit-down affair.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m all up for that.’

  Akeisha smiled. ‘Good! You can take me to the Arches behind Morleys in Bricky High Street. They have a jam every last Friday of the month and this coming Friday there is a special Black History Month event. Come for me about nine. See ya.’

  ‘Hold up a minute. My throat is kinda dry-like. Can’t I come in for a drink or something?’ I also wanted to spill the shit about the wristlet… It was bothering my conscience and I really wanted to tell her about the whole Tooting Bec thing.

  ‘If you go down to the courtyard and turn right there is a sweetshop that does an excellent line in throat lozenges.’

  ‘And I need to use the toilet,’ I lied, desperate to get into her flat.

  ‘Then you’d better get on home then. Bye, Dennis and thanks for a nice afternoon.’

  She closed the door. I couldn’t believe it. Akeisha closed the door. I still hadn’t told her about the bracelet and those Friday afternoon games lessons… It’ll have to wait but I better step carefully. I don’t want her thinking of me as some sort of obsessive perv and a thief to boot.

  Being with Akeisha for the afternoon had roasted my crotches and I had to get that seen to. So after I reached level ground I made a call to Tania Blake. I knew Tania from Stockwell Youth Club and I knew she was always on me. She was a bit of a junz. When I was playing pool or something she would come over and pinch my butt or pose in a way to put me off my shot. She was fit and curvy in the right places but her face was not saying a lot. It was just about good enough for a BJ. Unfortunately Tania had this bitch of a nose that almost covered her face. Another minus was her hair that was full of extensions. Usually when a ghetto chick goes to the trouble of having so many extensions put in, it means they haven’t got too much of their own real hair. I didn’t like the idea of woking a bald chick but hey, when your crotches are roasting then you can’t be too picky…

  ‘Hi, is this Tania?’

  ‘Dennis? Is that you?’

  ‘Yeah, what’s gwarnin?’

  ‘You know how it goes. This and that. Same shit, different toilets.’

  ‘Yeah, I feel that too.’

  ‘So how comes you calling me, Dennis?’

  ‘Well, I’ve come around to my senses. This bruv thinks you’re buff, Tania, you know what I’m saying? This bruv reckons it’s time to feel a sample of your buffness.’

  I heard a noise to my left and I looked up.

&nb
sp; ‘Hold up, Tania. Something’s gwarnin in Angel Town.’

  A number of brothers had surrounded this delivery van and at gunpoint they were ordering the driver to open up the shutters at the back. I thought I’d better ignore that shit and I walked off in a different direction.

  ‘What’s gwarnin?’ Tania asked.

  ‘Oh, some sufferers are jacking a van. I’m alright though, they know my face. I think they’re using a fake gun.’

  ‘Well that’s alright then.’

  I looked up again and the sufferers were removing a washing machine and a fridge from the van. The driver, a gun pointed to his head, was giving away his wallet, his mobile phone and his trainers. Only in Angel Town.

  ‘I knew you was feeling me,’ said Tania, resuming the call. ‘I knew you wanted some of this booty. You were just fronting. All the time you were pretending that you didn’t like me. Maybe ’cos your bredrens were around.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, Tania. I was just fronting. I did like you from the start but I didn’t know how to tell you. Especially with all them men who surround you at the club. You know what I’m saying? It was proper difficult to walk up to you in the club and reveal my game.’

  ‘You could have called me, Dennis.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘Dennis Huggins lost for words?’

  ‘Well, it’s always harder to chirps a chick you really like than just a plain ugly bitch.’

  I hoped my game was working. It should do ’cos Tania’s dumb as a trailer load of shit. I was only gonna wok it the once though, just to take care of the roasting in my crotches. Damn! Did Akeisha look fine today! Maybe for Tania it would be paper bag time. No way can I look at her face while I’m woking it.

  ‘So, Tania, can we link up later on at your gates?’

  ‘I would love to, Dennis but right about now this girl’s getting her weave on and you know how long that takes. Girl wanna look her best. There’s also another problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ve got a man now. He treats me all good. Taking me out and shit. You know him. Courtney Thompson.’