Nine Foot Tall Page 3

  A broken bottle stuck in his neck.

  Like I said. He can hurt you.

  Oh, and he snorts extreme amounts of coke.

  Tonight was no exception. I’d had some too, just a little mind. I mean, I’m no drug addict, but Steve had half of Colombia up his nostrils.

  We’ve got to go and pick up some cash; a guy we do business with, Rasta Bill, owes us two hundred quid and he’s asked us to meet him in the “blues”.

  The blues, a shebeen, an after-hours drinking den. Illegal, of course.

  These places can be pretty daunting – middle of Chapeltown, the run-down black ghetto of Leeds. Always, and I mean always, run by, and mostly frequented by, blacks.

  But that doesn’t matter to us.

  They’re our mates.

  Most of ’em.

  We’re driving up Chapeltown Road, the hookers in small groups trying to sell their wares, large groups of teenage black kids jumping around outside the chicken shop, great big Victorian houses made into flats and bedsits looming over us.

  Dustbins burning, surrounded by tramps.

  Scary place.

  ‘It’s getting bad around here, Gaz. Look at the state of it.’

  Steve hates Chapeltown. Doesn’t much care for the blacks unless they’re doing business with us.

  ‘I’ve seen worse,’ I whisper, whilst staring at the run-down parade of shops from my passenger window.

  Steve looks amazed. ‘You’ve seen fucking worse? Where?’

  We both burst out laughing.

  ‘You know what my worst nightmare is, Steve?’

  ‘No. What?’

  I go silent for about ten seconds to wind him up.

  ‘I said, do you know what my worst nightmare is?’

  Steve looks at me sideways, somewhat disgruntled, and groans, ‘Go on, what’s your worst nightmare.’

  I go silent again, looking out the windows and acting like I haven’t heard him.

  ‘Do you know what my worst nightmare is, Steve? Steve. Do you?’

  I love winding people up.

  He’s mad now.

  ‘Fuck off, Gaz. I don’t want to know what your worst fucking nightmare fucking is. Fuck off.’

  ‘Go on, have a guess what it is.’

  ‘No, fuck off.’

  I sing it to him now in an operatic voice, ‘Guess what it is, go on, see if you can. You tit.’

  He just stares at me, twitching his eye.

  ‘My worst nightmare is…’ I start laughing because his face is getting red with anger, ‘is getting kicked to death.’

  Steve draws his breath. ‘Aw, man, that would be shit.’

  I carry on, still half giggling, ‘I’m not bothered about dying, I just don’t want to get kicked to death. I know that everyone, and I mean every single bloke in the land, gets at least one bad kicking during his life, but I don’t want to get kicked to death. Especially if they do it from the legs upwards. That would be shit. Not even funny.’

  Steve’s laughing again.

  ‘It happened to me ages ago.’ He says this so matter of factly that it’s unreal.

  I crack up laughing at this statement.

  ‘How the fuck can it have happened to you ages ago? You’re not dead, you clown.’

  He gets a bit defensive.

  ‘I don’t mean kicked to death, you nutter, I mean I took a good kicking. I was seeing this bird, married she was. Anyway, I’m bang at it with her in the bedroom, fucking porno star I was, when we heard her husband come in downstairs and he had three of his mates with him, didn’t he? So I’ve leapt up to the window, bollock naked, and jumped out. Only twisted me fucking ankle, didn’t I? That was it, man. All four of ’em ran out, me lying there in the bastard snow, bollocko, and they started to boot the fuck out of me. They even kicked me in me hard on. Can you believe that? I still had a fucking hard on. Not for long though, after they kicked the bastard. Anyway, I didn’t die.’

  ‘Fuck that, Stevie boy, getting kicked in the cock is not funny. At all. Anyway, c’mon, we’re here.’

  Now, pulling up outside the blues, which is only a house with beer and music, is an ordeal in itself – the slags come up and offer you a fifteen quid shag and the little crack heads offer to sell you some rocks. We just tell them all to get fucked.

  There are normally a couple of black meatheads on the door. We know ’em usually, but tonight we don’t recognise them at all. Two real mean looking bastards. And they’ve got a dog. A big fuck off pit-bull trying to tear itself away from its master’s grip. Slavering and barking like a scary fucking monster.

  Boombastic by Shaggy is bellowing through the doorway and out onto the street.

  ‘Not tonight, gents.’ The guy who says this looks like Mike Tyson. He even has the crazy shaving on his hair, and he smiles when he says it. No, not a smile, a smirk.

  Steve just stares blankly at the floor as I pipe up in my most jovial of voices, ‘It’s alright, fellas, we’ve come to meet Rasta Bill, he’s got some money for us.’

  The sound of my voice is making the dog even madder it seems. It’s trying to jump up at me, barking and growling whilst Tyson yanks it back away as forcefully as is possible with such a powerful beast on his wrist.

  ‘I said, not to-fuckin’-night. No white bwoys allowed.’

  What happened next was a real horror movie situation; in fact when I look back, I’m sure it all happened in black and white. Tyson had hardly finished his sentence when Steve looked up at him with blank eyes and a little grin and said:

  ‘Are you havin’ a nice time?’

  Then pulled a great big machete from his coat – must have been two foot long – swung it and chopped the dog’s fucking head off. Not clean off, mind, just half its head. Tyson and his mate dived back through the doorway screaming, covered in dog blood and brain, slammed the door shut, and I shot back to the car at the bottom of the path, hoping that Steve was following. The garden area was full of people who up until that point had been singing and dancing and whooping and drinking and drugging. Not now. No, now they were all stood still, frozen for just a moment in disbelief at the craziness that was Steve.

  I’m shaking like a bastard as I jump into the car, only to look up the path to see Steve lunging at anyone within striking distance, screaming like a maniac, ‘I’ll fucking kill you all, you bastards.’

  It was pandemonium – people running everywhere, girls screaming, men screaming. It was like a fire in a Chinese firework factory, reggae music still booming and a great mammoth of a dog lying lifeless. With half a head.

  ‘Steve, c’mon, we’ve gotta nash. C’mon, the fucking feds’ll be here soon.’

  Nobody in that place, and I mean nobody, is daft enough to even attempt to chase him down the path.

  He’s covered in blood as he dives into the motor, and we speed off into the darkest streets of Chapeltown with some hardcore rock music screaming from the stereo.

  ‘Man…’ Steve’s voice is calm and cool, ‘that was pretty hairy.’

  I’m still shaking. ‘Pretty hairy? Steve man, what the fuck were you thinking?’

  ‘Fuck ’em…’ He spits, then his manner stops being cool and goes back to the freakshow that I’d just witnessed seconds earlier.

  ‘Fuck them black cunts and fuck their fucking, stupid, fucking, dead, fucking dog. This is not Monday night at Tiffany’s. They won’t fucking bully me.’

  I try to lighten his mood a little.

  ‘How many times did you just say fucking then?’

  He turns and smiles, and once again we burst out laughing.

  You had to admire him.

  But he scared me that night.

  I often wondered if it was Bill the Rasta who had set us up that night, put the two guys on the door so that he wouldn’t have to pay us our money. I’d never fin
d out though; Bill was found two weeks later, slumped over his steering wheel at the side of the canal, a single bullet wound through his eye.

  Nobody ever found out who did it. Another unsolved killing for the cops to add to their list.

  Like I said, beware the little guy.

  Chapter Three

  -

  Boot Polish and Paranoia

  Empire State Human– Phil Oakey,

  Human League, 1979

  Autumn 1982– Aged 15

  When you’re fifteen, all you want to do is either go out and get drunk with your mates, or go out and get drunk with your mates and get a girl. Neither choice a bad one, I’m sure you’ll agree.

  Saturdays were beautiful: no school, of course, and we could stay out later than weeknights. Yes, Saturdays were beautiful.

  The afternoon would usually be spent roaming around the city centre looking for girls. Hanging outside the record shops, where the punks would be cutting their hair with penknives and the mods would be peacocking in front of the plate glass windows.

  Our success with women was somewhat erratic at this time. Oh sure, they fancied us and that was great. But we didn’t want to be fancied, we wanted to shag.

  But apart from a couple of not very inspiring attempts at doing the dirty, I hadn’t had much in the way of action, if you know what I mean.

  We were gagging. Exploding even.

  We were fifteen.

  There was me and there was Mel. His real name was Shaun but we called him Mel. There was Ricko. His name was really John but we called him Ricko. And there was Mark. His name really was Mark.

  We were all the same age except for Mark, who was a couple of years younger than us. We didn’t mind him hanging around with us because he had a sister who we all wanted to shag. She wasn’t super fit or anything, we just wanted to shag her. We wanted to shag anyone.

  Except fat birds.

  I never could see the appeal of fat birds. I know some guys who actively seek them out, but no, not for me I’m afraid.

  Mel liked fat birds.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Gaz, you can’t be choosy y’know.’

  ‘I’m not choosy, fuckin’’ell, look at some of the states I keep getting off with. I just don’t get off on fatties. You know my rule, man –if I can’t lift ’em above me head, they’re not coming in me bed.’

  ‘Well, I love ‘em…’ Mel started to lick his lips as he proceeded to make voluptuous curve shapes with his hands, gyrating his pelvis. ‘I love ’em because when you shag a fat bird…’ he’s thrusting back and forth now, ‘when you shag a fat bird, she thinks it’s the last shag she’s ever gonna get, man. She’ll go like the clappers.’

  ‘Fuck off, man. How do you know that? You’ve never shagged anyone, let alone a fat bird.’

  I chuckled as I announced this, smirking at Ricko and giving him a sly wink.

  Ricko started laughing.

  ‘So what? I might not have shagged anyone yet, but our kid has and he told me. He’s shagged loads of birds, fat ones and everything.’

  Mel did have an older brother, about twenty he was, and he did always have girls with him. It might have been true.

  These were the kinds of things we always talked about when we were getting ready to go to the church disco on a Saturday night. The Immaculate Heart of Mary disco. The Maccy Heart, as we called it. It was the bollocks, man. Not as glamorous as Tiffany’s of course, it was only in a church hall, but it was cool enough all the same.

  A hundred and fifty kids, a fair mix of lads and lasses, all similar ages and looking to “get off” with each other.

  We’d get ready at my house. I always had everyone at my house. Putting our nice threads on, black and purple boating blazer with the gold buttons no less, Fred Perry shirt and two-tone trousers, black loafers, and don’t forget to gel the hair. You had to gel the hair. We’d have the Ramones and The Jam on the stereo, and we’d be drinking cider from the Paki shop. Just to get us nicely before we got there. Only soft drinks inside the Maccy Heart. Paff.

  We were never the biggest lads around, nor were we the hardest, yet we still always walked about as though each of us were Nine Foot Tall, as though we were ten men. We thought we were the men.

  We had all perfected this pronounced swagger when we walked. We’d seen John Travolta doing it in Grease a couple of years previously, and we thought it was the coolest. We entered any place we went as though we were going up to collect an award. The other guys often let slip, y’know, they came out of character now and again. It became second nature to me though. Even to this day.

  Hey, why walk when you can STRUT.

  We used to play-fight, watch Bruce Lee films and then do kung fu on each other, never hurting each other, just messing, y’know. Our unsaid and unwritten rule was that we’re all equally as hard. But we knew, we all knew, that Ricko, should it come to it, that Ricko was “top boy”.

  I felt sorry for Ricko, not just because he had a mad haircut that was really long at the back and short on top. His dad had died a year ago, and his brother was on his way to becoming a junkie – he was funny though. He used to get us weed.

  We’d drink our cider and have a joint and then we’d be off, off to the Maccy Heart.

  To pull.

  Inside was no great shakes. A DJ at the front with a few shitty flashing lights and a smoke machine. A row of wooden chairs down either side of the room and a rickety old wallpaper paste table where the plastic cups full of diluted orange were being sold by one of the church helpers. You know the sort, the old women who make coffee for the priest on a Sunday morning.

  And that was it.

  But we still loved it.

  All the latest music, The Specials and Kraftwerk and Bananarama. The girls would line up down one side of the room and the boys down the other for the first hour of the night. Then after a few more sneaky ciders or another shared joint, they’d all get more daring and start dancing in groups. Same sex groups of course, it was only early.

  Cannabis has never liked me. I’ve never liked it, either. It’s always done “funny” things to me. I’d still smoke it though, just to be part of the gang.

  So, we’re huddled in a small group, steaming drunk from the cheap cider and the couple of swallows of blow that we’ve been sneaking outside for now and again. The lights are swirling, as is the whole room, smoke billowing from the crappy machine, and there’s a gang of girls looking right at us. Right at us.

  I’m slumped in my chair as one of them approaches me, fit as shit she is as well. Could be my lucky night.

  ‘My mate fancies you.’ She giggles as she tells me.

  Aw fuck. I knew it was too good to be true. Here she is, fit as fuck, and it’s her mate who fancies me.

  ‘Yeah? Which mate?’ I look over and all I can see is about seven or eight big fat birds dancing round a tiny white handbag.

  ‘The one with the miniskirt. She’s been looking at you for ages and she daren’t come over.’

  Of all the luck, the only fit bird in the place doesn’t want to know. But her fat mate does.

  Oh well, fuck it.

  All I can hear in my head, besides throbbing from the cider and weed, is Mel’s brother: ‘Fat birds go like the clappers…go like the clappers…go like the clappers.’

  Come to think of it, in the state I was in she didn’t look bad at all. Fat, yes, little miniskirt hugging her big fat thighs, yes. But not bad all the same. Pretty face, as they always say.

  I might as well fill me boots.

  ‘Send her over. I’ll see what I can do.’ I thought I was John Travolta, cool as ice.

  Fit bird hurried back and told her friend. Before I knew it there she was, towering over me as I lay out on my chair. She was even bigger close up. Fifteen stone easy. Scary.

  Her mates weren’t much better, except for the fit o
ne of course.

  Now, in those days, I don’t know if this still happens, but then, you wouldn’t have to chat the girls up, nope, you would just start kissing them, necking. This was us, slobbering like a couple of pigs, my mates all laughing and all.

  Before I knew it we were outside. There was a great big weeping willow tree around the back where everybody always went to… well… y’know.

  I’m gonna get me nuts. This is ace. I’m under the shagging tree and I’m gonna get me nuts.

  With a big fat bird.

  Still slobbering like boxer dogs, I haven’t even felt her tits when…

  ‘What the fuck you doing with our mate? You little cunt. She’s only thirteen.’

  These girls were big, fat as fuck, man. All her mates standing outside the weeping branches of the shagging tree and they’re shouting in to me as though they mean business.

  Pretty Face Fatty has passed out under me, pissed out of her bleedin’ head. Fuckin’ thirteen? Yeah right, thirteen stone maybe. At a push.

  ‘I didn’t know she was only thirteen!’ I shout through the branches. ‘We haven’t done anything anyway, we were only kissing.’

  They don’t seem to want to listen.

  ‘Get the fuckin’ perv.’ And they dive through the branches like mad animals.

  I’m not hanging around to get kicked to death by a gang of birds. A gang of fat birds.

  I’m up and I’m off, darting around like a whippet. They won’t catch me, they’re too fat.

  I run back into the disco and shout the others, but these fat fuckers don’t care, they’ll chin us all.

  Now, unbeknown to us, these fat ’uns were in with their brothers as well.

  Aw for fuck’s sake.

  Not only have we got the bitches from hell chasing us down the road but their equally mad and equally large brothers are now on our case as well.

  Gasping and nearly out of breath, running faster than our legs can go, me, Mel, Mark and Ricko, running for our lives.

  Hang on a sec, strike that. No Ricko.

  ‘Where’s Ricko?’ I’m flapping now as I shout to the other two who are just in front of me.