Blood Donors (10 page)

I’m thinkin’ of Con-Con. My watchin’ over him through the night. Him full of sauce those Megabugs wanna slurp up, drain right out of him.

Meanwhile, we left Sleepy Lady alone, become Bug Supper.

Mum lookin’ at me like it all my fault. Like I shoulda done more. But words comin’ out her mouth make no sense.
Marshall, what have you got involved in?

I blink.

What did you do to her?

Sleepy Lady? No. Not me. I did my best.

You have to hand yourself in
. Tear trickle down her cheek.
I will come with you. To the police station
.

No.

I turn, run out of the house.

Think I’m gonna puke. Got the sweats. Everythin’ spinnin’. Get right away from home.
How can she?
Run. Air. Need to breathe.
How can she think that?

I’m runnin’. Up. Up. The only way out of here. She think I’m plannin’ a badman’s life. She think I’m runnin’ with the wrong crew. My own mum. Need air. Up, up.

I know where to go.

Day pass by, shadow of The Finger spread itself far as you can see. Ain’t no escapin’ it. Only way to be not touched by it, and that to rise above. So I run, up, faster than my stomach can rise up to my throat, keepin’ the sickness down. Spinnin’ round and round the stairwell. Dizzy. East and west, left and right. Higher and higher. Round and round.
Marsh, are you –
my own mum –
you are, Marsh –
round and round –
involved with dealers?

Me and Con and Mus and Sis, we don’ go up the top floor of The Finger too much. The top floor flats are empty, desolated, on account of the damp. Windows up top drippin’, like eyes been bitter weepin’. Few times we adventured up there recent months, we seen people sexin’ each other, seen people wild on illegals, one time even dog-fightin’. So we don’ go up, not too often now. Top of the block is the pits, if that make enough sense for you.

But we know a space on top of all those ruined flats. Secret space. You go round a little corner, see what look like a cleaner’s cupboard. Always shut, but not locked. You go through it, climb more steps, and you in the Attic Office.

Only me and Con and Mus and Sis know about the Attic Office. Made a vow, keep it close.

Between friends. Family.

Must have been some storage room, or insulation or whatever. We call it the Attic Office on account of the big desk sits there, legs all swollen with damp like old folks’. Back in the day, before the older kids started usin’ the wrecks beneath it for their dirty business, me and Con used to play there. Con would sit behind the mouldy ol’ desk and I’d come up them last few steps and I’d go
Knock knock?

Come in
says Con. I can hear him now.
What can I do for you today?

Got any jobs?

Let me see
. He glance down at imaginary papers on his desk.
Ah, yes, we have here a vacancy for a job as fireman—

Cool. Cool
.

But be quick! Run! Run! There’s a fire started at The Finger! Young lady need savin’!

Sis be lyin’ across the room, placed herself underneath discarded mattress.
Aaaargh!
she yell.
The smoke! The flames!

Don’t just stand there, man
I say to Con-Con.
Help me!

And we throw the old three-legged chairs and wall panels aside, smash them and kick them, and all the while Sis screamin’
Help! Help!
And we have to carry her out to safety.

I laugh and I say
Got any jobs?
and Connor say
Yes, we got a dancin’ vacancy
.

I can dance
. I show some fancy moves. Con-Con say
Not that kind of dancin’ – dancin’ like this
. He show me his own freaky moves – like a skeleton doin’ a waltz – and Sis come and breakdance. Three of us, struttin’ through the debris, like a ecstasy of corpses.

Back in the day.

But the best bit I save all for myself. Not even Sis know about this. Sis think she Queen of the World, perchin’ herself on her balcony ledge like she on mountaintops. Ain’t nothin’ compared to this.

I stomp through the wreckage. See sad loser’s used works. Pathetic druggie found our Attic Office, been injectin’. Blood stains on beddin’.

No matter. I clamber on top of the desk, push my arms up. Up. Reach for a rectangular hatch like you get if you goin’ up into a loft. But this ain’t no loft.

This is the sky.

Soon as I push the hatch over on its hinge, the wind whooshin’ at me. Howlin’ like rage.

I always think to myself, if The Finger got a voice, this is it. I pull myself up. Climb through to another world. Wind whips around my head, like The Finger in foulest mood today. Even when it bright and sunny down on the ground, The Finger always ragin’ a gale up top. I’m with it. Huffin’ and puffin’ up into a stormin’ temper. The tempest.

On the roof, I’m crawlin’ on my hands and knees, so’s I don’ get blown away. Like I’m lookin’ for lost coins. Crawl to the middle, wind roarin’ in my ears. It ain’t got no secret to share with me. No
Who?
or
Why?
or
What?
demand the wind. Just one word, whole lungful of it. Yell it over and over, louder than the world.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!

This is me. Deepest tempest of all.

I lie on my back. There ain’t nothin’ but concrete beneath me, cloud above. Honest sky. Nothin’ but Heaven. The Finger is beneath me now. Every beef, every grief, every punch, kick, battle, all blasted clean away by the wind.

No suspension.

No shamin’ Mum.

No missin’ Dad.

No cheatin’, scroungin’, name-callin’.

No meat men.

No Finger, with no suckin’ bugs. No bullet-hole poo. No crawlin’ out your ear. No battle.

Marsh, are you involved with dealers?

No.

Floatin’ through the clouds.

Beginnin’ of summer I gave my brother a lesson in self-defence. Mum found out, threatened to throw me out the house. On account of Dad.

Like I said, I ain’t gettin’ with kids runnin’ with gangs, carryin’ blades, taxin’ other kids or whatever. It’s a fool’s game. But Con-Con, he only a little kid, as likely get taxed as any others.

See, someone come at you with a blade, you need the knowledge to disarm them.

Mum say don’ fight. Mum say give the fools what they askin’, walk away. What Mum don’ get is that you can never walk away.

You walk away one time, they gon’ get you a second time.

You walk away the second time, they gon’ get you a third.

Disarm them once, with efficiency, they gon’ leave you be.

So how do you go about disarmin’ a kid with a blade when you ain’t carryin’ one yourself?

Self-Defence Technique Number One:
you
kick
the knife out of their hand. Sweet. But remember, you gotta be enough distance from them get your angle right, and out of stab reach. Geometrics, right?

Self-Defence Technique Number Two:
grab the wrist, twist the arm round the back. This a riskier strategy.

Same goes for
Number Three:
throw your mobile in their face – impressive results but not healthy for your phone.

Number Four:
we won’t even go into.

That day I was teachin’ my brother
Self-Defence
Technique Number One: The Kick
. My boy got a fine kick. Problem is, he ain’t so keen on utilizin’ the power he born with. Con-Con would rather turn tail, run as fast as you can. This itself is a successful technique, but only has short-term impact. Fools goin’ to come back at you nex’ day, and the day after.

Day gonna come when you ain’t nowhere to run.

It got to be
The Kick
.

We in the livin’ room experiencin’ this lesson. Sabretooth shut out on the balcony on account of usin’ Mum’s knife from the kitchen – only a knife for butterin’ toast, no deadliness. In practice it better to be hundred per cent authentical – so you get no unexpected surprises in the reality. But blunt knife probably wiser when practisin’ with little brothers.

What happen? Mum comes home early.

She is far from impressed.

The reason my dad was sent to prison was because he killed a man. I suppose this is why he in prison such a long time. He jailed for
manslaughter
. He not jailed for
murder
on account of him actin’ in self-defence.

Dad put into action a technique that involved takin’ the fool’s knife and turnin’ it on the fool. Fool died. Because of that, I been growin’ up without no dad. Because of that, Mum in permanent stress.

But what if Dad hadn’t taken the fool’s knife? Dad would be the dead one. You want to live, you got to fight.

Mum flip.

Con say
We only playin’ a game
.

Mum send him out on the balcony, join the dog.

She say I’m as bad as Dad.

I say
Dad ain’t bad
.
I’m watchin’ over Con-Con ’cos Dad ain’t here
.

She say why do I think Dad not here?

I say
I don’ know on account of he never writes to tell us about it
.

She say why do I think that is?

I kick over the coffee table.

That’s the way
she say,
the way of a man who teaches knife-fightin’
.

I wasn’t teachin’ knife-fightin’! I was teachin’ how to fight knives! Be safe from the gangs
.

She say she ever catch me teachin’ Con-Con to fight again, she kick me out.

I say
Kick me out where? Out with the fools flashin’ their blades. See me stabbed in the street?

She send me to my room.

She sit alone in the livin’ room. I hear her sobbin’.

It is a conversation I have set to memory.

The wind blows memories roun’ and roun’ my head.

After a while, my head clear again. Brains been washed clean.

I climb back down through the hatch. I’m done feelin’ sorry for myself. What we need right now is a plan.

Mum and Big Auntie can go see the council men if they like, it don’t mean nothin’.
We got a infestation
, she gon’ say, and the council men say
Ooh, we’ll send round the pest men in a few weeks
. Only in a few weeks they ain’t gon’ be none of us left on account of we all been slurped up by them Dozen-Eggs-a-Day Megabugs, and they gonna be so starvatious they eat up all the pest men before they can even fill out their form. So thirsty they suck the ink outta the pest men’s biros and the tears from their eyeballs.

We got to act now.

So here’s me hammerin’ on Mustaph’s door, hopin’ he ain’t also been taken in the night. Door opens and his dad let me in with the usual cheery greetin’ – not. I take this to be a good sign on account of his dad’s big fat belly. If I was a hungry bug I would give myself a big proper feast on Mustaph’s dad before goin’ onto the leaner pickin’s. Mustaph skinny, like prison-camp skinny, just a bag of bones in scabby jeans that only be stayin’ up ’cos Mus keepin’ a tight hold of them all the time. When he doin’ his sprayin’, he tuck the spray cans into the waist, otherwise he’d be creatin’ his art with his strides round his ankles, and it wouldn’t be no vandalism he’d be gettin’ lifted for, but exposure. I asked him once why he ain’t got no belt and he say he do have a belt. I asked him why he don’t wear it, and he looked at me like I was crazy.
Who wears belts?
he said.

Mus?
I say, and push open the door to his den. I am hit with a faceful of pongy body smell, which is the usual state of affairs.

Can’t see nothin’ ’cos of the drawn curtains, but I can hear a steady breathin’.
In out.
In out.
Lazy dog mus’ be nappin’ still.

Mus?

I remind myself always bring a lighter when you come into this space, ’cos you can never see even the tip of your own nose.

Pitter-pat
.

I freeze when I hear that. Flex my legs and wave my arms all aroun’ me like I be the Kung Fu expert and my invisible foes about to be karate-jabbed to a pulp. Touch nothin’. Listen. Listen hard.

Mus?

In the darkness, somethin’ press against the tip of my nose. I yell and punch in wild panic into the blackness. Nothin’.

Mus?

Something tickle the back of my neck. A Mega leg. I swing round and punch wildly. Nex’ thing, I’m blinded by a beam of light, a shadowy figure behind it, goggles, heavy breath. A hand lift up the goggles and I see Mustaph’s ugly mug grinnin’ at me.

Boo
.

I nearly smack him.
What you doin’, bro? You scarin’ the bones offa me, man!

I pull open his curtains, which is breakin’ the only rule Mustapha ever set, but I’m too mad to care. Mustaph standin’ there like some kind of space engineer, holdin’ onto his big torch and with ridiculous big goggles in his hands.

My new toy
he say, like that explain everythin’.

I snatch the goggles. They weigh a ton.
What’s these?

He’s well pleased with himself, breakin’ a rare grin.
Night vision
.

What? Man, for what you be needin’ a pair of night-vision goggles?

He just shrug.
I wanted to see
.

See what?

The bugs, of course. The giant ones
.

Damn, my boy is a genius.
Did you see any?

He shrug again, strolls over and places them night goggles on his bust of Beethoven like that where they naturally belong.

Shoulda seen yo’ face in the dark
he say, reachin’ down to wrap his duvet up over his pencil-thin shoulders.
So. Wassup?
Like he ain’t even heard the sirens or nothin’, lost in Mustaphaland.

I look around. He ain’t got no bullet holes in his walls.

When I tell him about seein’ the meat wagons carryin’ out Sleepy Lady he jus’ nod his head like I tol’ him I’m goin’ to watch the football on downstairs’s widescreen.