she doesn’t know it was Rick who keyed her car last week,
and Fiona who nicked her phone.
She’s so gullible,
thinks she’s helping to
reform,
rehabilitate,
reissue us into society,
all scrubbed clean and ready to make nice.
The only one she can probably trust is
Nicu.
He’s the one we all avoid.
Can’t understand much anyway.
And he’s weird.
An immigrant gypsy boy
who looks half-wolf
if you ask me,
picking litter and leaves like it’s cash,
greedy for it.
‘You want my helping you?’
he asks today,
trying to team up
before I’ve even had a chance to get my gloves on,
and I sneer
as best I can.
Sneer at him
and his bullshit English.
Gypsy wolf boy.
A BUCKET OF SPANNERS
Everyone laugh and make jokes.
I stay far,
picking
dead leaf,
cut grass,
pongy food,
sharp glass.
Many caseworkers never speaking to me.
They just wave and point to filth I should see.
‘Understand?’
I nod my head
Yes, I understand.
I’m not the real no-hope.
Lady Dawn swings her flower dress around her bum and
hums tunes.
I think she is liking me.
She not believe I am wild animal
like other delinquents.
Because
I not wild animal.
I am pussy cat.
I come out from massive tree,
do the baby step to go nearer to girl from my school.
She stands not with the others.
No laughing or making joke.
Her eyes on ground
in deep thinkings.
She look depressing,
eyes all puffy red.
Her sack is empty
of rubbish.
Dawn can add days if we are lazy dogs,
if we don’t helping our community.
Maybe she need my rescue.
A friend.
A man for muscle work.
My baby stepping bring me metres from her.
Two red eyes flick up to me.
I shine my smile.
She sniff hard.
Empty sack is no good.
‘You want my helping you?’ I ask.
She look in air
and does a snigger laugh,
which is good because
laughing is the medicine for not being sad.
‘You talking to me?’ she say.
‘I talk yes.’
‘What do you want?’
‘You want some my leaves?’
‘No thanks, creep.’
I not know creep, but her voice tell me it’s same as
dick
knob
wanker
prick.
‘I am Nicu.’
I say my name to show my friendly.
‘I know who you are.’
‘And your name, please?’
‘Nicu, what sort of name is that?’
‘I from Romania,’ I say.
‘Romania! Long way from home.’
I do laugh because I am long way.
She do laugh from belly also.
She ask me for cigarette,
I tell her no way because I not
want to die.
She do more laughing.
‘You’re as weird as a bucket of spanners.’
I pretend I know her meaning.
I want to tell her how much beautiful she is,
not like village girls
Tata wanting me to marry.
Sorry, not wanting.
Forcing.
Vermin
Terry’s in a top mood,
frying up pancakes
and whistling like a postman.
But I don’t ask what’s got into him,
what the good mood’s for,
cos that would be
stupid.
And there’s
no reason why anyway.
Never any reasons.
Not real ones.
Not ones to hang your coat on.
‘Hey, nip down the shops and get us a little bottle of lemon juice,’ he says,
all cheerful,
and slides a fiver across the countertop
with a wink.
A wink
and a smile,
like a real dad.
The bastard.
I take the cash and go to the corner shop.
The old guy knows me there,
keeps two bald, beady eyes on me.
Like I’d nick anything
with him watching.
In broad daylight.
Cameras everywhere.
I might be a thief, but I’m not a moron.
On my way home, I stop by the park.
Not to litter pick,
just to have a smoke
without Terry finding out
and giving Mum a clattering for not
taking better control of me.
It’s empty,
the park.
Quiet.
I sit at the top of the slide
and puff away
when wolf boy appears
out of nowhere,
climbs up next to me,
hands over his bag of pick ’n’ mix –
cola bottles,
chewy fried eggs,
sweet ’n’ sour snakes.
‘Will kill you more slower,’ he says,
grabbing my fag and firing it down the slide.
‘Oi, you’re paying for that,’ I say.
‘Paying where?’ he asks,
cos he doesn’t really understand much.
Not words anyway.
But he says,
‘Life shit pile today?’
And I laugh.
‘A right shit pile every day, Nicu.’
BYE BYE BAD BOY
The jelly egg and sugar snake sweets
I eat
make my nerves better,
giving my heart a break.
And I smile when I spy her,
high on kids’ sliding tube,
smoke up in the air, puffing from her head.
That girl has to know cigarettes make her dead.
I do the sneak walk,
like a spy.
I’m behind her.
I act like flash man.
I flick her fag down tube,
offer her a sugar snake.
‘Will kill you more slower,’ I say.
I become brave and sit beside.
Again I see her sad eyes.
‘Life is shit pile today?’ I ask.
She laughs.
Hip hip hooray!
‘A shit pile every day, Nicu,’ she say.
I laugh also
and feel warm because she speak my name.
It sound weird coming out her mouth,
lovely weird,
make-my-stomach-tickle-weird.
‘Snap!’ I say, because our living is the same.
‘Snap? What you on about?’ she say,
with trouble eyes,
but eyes anyway that could be on a Christmas tree,
twinkling
twinkling
brightly.
I look.
Secrets Shared
He acts as though secrets can be shared like sweets.
But I hardly know him.
Not sure I can trust him.
I mean, I don’t trust anyone,
usually,
and definitely not with stuff about him:
Terry
the terrible.
Terry the terrier.
Terry the twat.
‘You can talking with me,’ Nicu says.
And for some reason
I know he’ll be good at keeping secrets
so I start to speak.
But I can’t tell him everything.
STRUGGLINGS
‘Jess,’ I say.
‘What?’ she say.
‘My life too has strugglings every day.’
‘Really?’
‘Big strugglings.’
‘Sorry to hear that, Nicu.’
‘Thank you.’
We laugh in same time.
‘My family too is arse pain,’ I say.
‘Yeah, but I bet you don’t wish any of them were dead.’
We look
to each other.
Breakfast
Terry’s pancakes are cold
and his mood has cooled down too.
‘What took you so long?’ he asks,
but I can’t say
Nicu,
can I?
Nicu? he’d say.
Sounds foreign. Is he foreign?
Thought we’d voted them all out.
Dirty immigrants.
Rat scum.
Knock those boats outta the water before
they arrive, I reckon.
So I say,
‘They didn’t have any lemon juice.
I had to walk to the Co-op.
Took me ages.’
But it doesn’t matter what I say now.
I’ve riled him.
‘Louise!’ he shouts.
GOOD CITIZEN
Even though we here in this country,
Tata think for ever of home,
his peoples,
his cultures,
of village with no road or toilet.
Every day he talk of return,
always of the past.
‘As soon as we find enough money for a wife,
we’ll go back,’ he say.
I wanting to
remain:
learn my English,
be the good citizen – no more thief,
wave bye-bye
to bad boy.
When day come to return home
to meet wife from village,
I will cry.
I will hide.
I will disappear like magic.
Lots of cash
Tata say
he have to pay,
for finding me honest wife.
But
I am not the cow on market day.
‘I want to stay here!’
I tell to Tata in high voice.
I need to
go to school,
work the hardest,
have a job like businessman, making clean money,
find my own wife.
Tata puts finger in my face.
He screaming with the loud mouth:
‘You’re going.
You do what I tell you to do
and that’s the end of it.’
His breath pong of
booze and
fags.
The screaming go on more –
Mămică start
when she come through the door.
‘Do you believe this boy, Miri?’ Tata say.
‘Nicu, listen to Tata.’
His finger touch my head.
His breath touch my tummy.
‘Nicu, Tata knows best,’ Mămică say.
‘But I want to stay here.’ I praying to them.
‘Here, what is here?’ Tata say. ‘People hate us here.’
‘Nicu, people here only see our skin, not the thing within,’ Mămică say,
thumping her bosom,
two times.
We continue to
shout
scream
roar
yell
until I have no more voice.
The Dregs
They say
we are the dregs
and
pack us off to the park to teach us a lesson,
where we
pick up crap
and
talk crap,
pay back
our society,
which we
so
wounded.
But take the rest of them – the other wrong’uns.
Rick’s got a temper,
might batter you if you
talk dirt about his mum
or whatever.
And Fiona’s a bit of a crackpot,
tattoos up her arm like a footballer.
She’s only here
cos some slag tried to bottle her
outside a nightclub.
Lee was done for selling weed
to kids in his class
(but looks like he smokes most of it himself).
Bill nicked a BMW
and was caught joyriding down the A10
like Lewis bloody Hamilton.
And Jade tagged tonnes of tube trains,
too stupid to realise they had the whole thing on camera.
So,
yeah,
we’re not exactly angels,
probably a bit yobby,
but the dregs?
Do me a favour.
EYES OF JESS
Many day at reparation scheme
Jess try to helping with my
English.
She say to me lots of important informations:
FAG BREAK
BUNK OFF
KEEP AN EYE OUT
COMPLETELY KNACKERED.
Rick, who is like top boy offender,
tell me that passing womens are
WELL FIT
but
I hearing WEALTHY,
which make Rick
and others
hyena laugh and friend-slap my back,
though
Jess give me special eyes
when peoples are
TAKING THE PISS.
Rick
definitely taking my piss when
he ask me to shout
CAN I WARM MY HANDS IN YOUR MUFF?
to Dawn.
And when these TAKING THE PISS things
happen,
I always search for the special eyes of Jess.
Always
I
search.
Pairing Up
I spend two hours
scrubbing graffiti from a kids’ climbing frame,
then meet Nicu by the park gates.
We seem to be doing this a lot,
and I can’t remember how it happened,
how we paired off from the others,
and I stopped smoking cheeky fags
with Fiona and Rick,
started sharing a bag of
Maltesers with Nicu instead.
‘You want I walking you home?’ he asks.
‘I protect you from bears.’
He growls and flexes his muscles,
kisses both fists.
I laugh. ‘Ain’t no bears in Wood Green, mate,
and you know it.’
He laughs too. ‘I protect you from
bad boy robbers instead,’ he says.
‘How about I walk you home
to protect you from bad boy robbers,’ I say.
‘Sounds like first class deal to me,’ he says,
and tries to take my hand,
like,
actually hold my hand
as though we’re going out together
or something.
I pull away.
I don’t need anyone touching me.
‘Unless you plan on walking out in
front of a car,
I don’t think
we need to hold hands,
do you?’ I ask.
He smirks. ‘Worth trying, Jess,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It was worth a try.’
MISTER INVI
SIBLE MAN
Woman are complicate.
One day
up,
one day
weirder.
At school I thinking that
maybe Jess has really
two peoples
inside her brain.
She don’t return my smile.
She don’t give me the Jess special eyes.
I am Mister Invisible Man.
But I not want to make for her
difficult time
in case
she has boyfriend in the lad crew.
Mostly I not want Jess to lose her
pride
dignity
honours
if she friendly chatting with me.
I can be her protect from this.
Still,
it not feeling lovely to be
Mister Invisible Man.
All Smiles
After litter picking
we go to the cheapest caff on Wood Green High Road.
I get a Coke.
Nicu orders a mug of tea
and smiles.
He’s got a nice smile, Nicu,
even though
his teeth are a bit
crooked.
His face sort of
scrunches up,
his eyes shine.
And I watch him slurp at his tea
while he tells me all about his life
back home,
how he lived in a house with no proper floor,
just dirt and dust on the ground,
and he rode donkeys and horses,
cos they didn’t have money for a car.
‘And no skateboardings,’ he says,
and smiles again,
all shiny.
The woman behind him gets up