Blood Donors (3 page)

We tiptoe up the stairs. I ain’t sure I want to go. I’m afraid we goin’ to see a dead person. I don’ know Soft Stuart. I don’ wanna know Soft Stuart. I certainly don’ wanna see no Soft Stuart body bein’ carried out, face covered by a blanket like on some cop show on TV. But I follow Sis ’cos that what I gotta do. I wanna reach out and hold her hand. Cuss myself for bein’ a baby. I’m fifteen, yeah?

We get to Soft Stuart’s flat. The door is open where the medic people barged in. Smell waftin’ out worse than any I smelled before, mix of bedbugs and sweat and fear.

I wanna ask Sis if whole block crawlin’ with bugs, but she put a finger to her lip –
shush
. Leans her head through the doorframe. Behind her, I crane my neck, take a look. I see the first body I ever seen in my life.

Soft Stuart is slumped on his sofa. He’s as skinny as a street lamp and as white as a sheet. The three meat men are crouched round him, shakin’ their heads like ’tain’t no use, this man is mos’ definite dead. Oh, he is white. I don’ mean he is white like Connor is white. He is white like a sheet of paper. That is wrong, ain’t nobody white like that, not dead nor alive. He’s as white as a ghost that seen a ghost. He got a puncture in his skinny white arm. His eyes are wide open like he realized at the last moment that he gonna die. But too late, ’cos death already bitten him in the arm.

Drugs
Sis silently mouths to me.
Oh dear
.

She shakin’ her head, like she expectin’ this kind of thing if people gonna mess with the bad stuff.
Oh dear
she say again.

I cuss myself for a fool. She ain’t mouthin’
Oh dear
at all. She sayin’
OD
. Overdose.

I’m sweatin’, ain’t I?

One of the medics mutters
Open and shut case
, like someone open up a case and take a look, see what’s in it and lock it shut again, on account of the contents bein’ clearly not what you wanna take outta the case. A girl standin’ over them that I seen aroun’ the block, with her fists bunched up to her face. Mus’ be Soft Stuart’s girlfrien’, sobbin’ and gaspin’ like she run out of breath. Grievin’.

Soft Stuart glares at me. His eyes are clean poppin’ out of his head, screechin’
Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!

I thought overdosin’ on heroin made you nod out, fall asleep, fade out of life. Don’ make no sense. Soft Stuart look more like he was tortured to death. His mouth a rictus gape, like he died screamin’.

One of the meat men frowns at me, look of disgust, like he think I’m part of this scene.

Sabretooth whines. I look down and see he done a little accident, tricklin’ along the floor.

A shiver runnin’ through me.
Come on
I whisper to Sis,
let’s go
.

Me and Sis watch from her balcony as they take Soft Stuart away. ’Zackly as I thought, on a stretcher with a blanket coverin’ him from his ankles up over his head. His toes stickin’ out, like his feet are wantin’ to walk him back to life. His girl sobbin’ and wailin’ behind him, like if she screeches enough it’ll help his toes get twitchin’ again. Small crowd of rubberneckers gathered roun’, takin’ pics to share with their mates. Sick. Sis is bangin’ on about how drugs is spoilin’ the block and it is time people oughta be takin’ a stand.

Meat wagon drive off, but ain’t no sirens blarin’ this time.
Ain’t no need of ’em, now
says Sis. But she don’t say nothin’ about no terror writ all across Soft Stuart’s face. Maybe I imagined it.

Didn’t imagine no dead body though, did I?

So here I am, two minutes later, bangin’ on Mustaph’s door.
Come on, fool! Let me in. I got stuff to tell. Oi!
Mustaph! Hey, man! Wake up!

Soft Stuart’s eyes are still fixed on me, like the blazin’ sun when you glare directly at it – still there even when you shut your eyes tight. Burnt into your vision.

I knock and knock so I almost make a fist-shaped hole in the door. You always got to knock at Mustaph’s door ’cos he the only fool in the whole postcode ain’t got no mobile phone. Sis got him one once, for free, no cost, so he could hardly say no, could he? I’m callin’ him a day later and he ain’t answerin’ so when I see him I say
Where’s your mobile, man?

He say
Oh, I left it somewhere
.

Where? Where you left it?

Dunno
. And that was that.

Finally I hear a shuffle shuffle and a
Yeah, yeah
, the click and clunk of deadlocks and bolts and chains all bein’ undone. Door opens a crack.

Mustaph’s dad tilts his chin up at me and turns away, strollin’ through to their livin’ room, where all of Mustaph’s sisters are squeezed together on the sofa, eatin’ sweets, glued to the TV. I veer left into Mustaph’s den.

Mus always in the darkness, curtains drawn, light bulbs unscrewed. My boy live by candlelight and torch beam. When you walk in his place you never know whether he there, not there, dead, alive, sleepin’ or disguisin’ himself as some bad art experiment. He got a full-size human skeleton hangin’ down from the ceilin’, dressed in a bright orange boilersuit, and a bust of Beethoven’s head on a chest of drawers next to a life-size crow. Everythin’ plastic, but lookin’ real enough to make you wonder whether the boy actually sane. He keep a impressive collection of dolls as well. Spray-painted and amputated and in some cases operated on so they got too many limbs or inappropriate heads. Every inch of wall, ceilin’, floor sprayed with swirlin’ colour and shape. I mean, who could sleep at all in here, never mind sleep the eighteen hours a day Mustaph seem to?

Any fool goin’ to want to hear all about rictus-grinnin’ dead druggies, it be my boy, Mus.

Mus?

Top of it all, that boy sleep in a
tent
, I tell no lie. He got one of them pop-up types, in the middle of his room, with a blow-up mattress and a duvet. He insane. Rest of his family leave him to it, sittin’ there on the sofa, glued to their TV like he some stray dog they lettin’ sleep in the side room.

From inside the tent, I see lights a-flickerin’, so I know he awake. I give the side of the tent a friendly kick.

Who is it, blud?

It’s me, you zombie, who d’ya think?

I hear the zip unfastenin’, and out pop Mustapha’s head.
Wassup?
He stand up, wrapped in his duvet, his hair all mussed up like he been asleep for a week, his big eyes blinkin’ and squintin’ like a mole caught in a rave. Whole place smells of sleep smell, like it full of stale dream-spittle.

I say
It’s mid-afternoon, man
.

So?
He shrugs and frowns, pullin’ the duvet tighter round his shoulders.

You ill?

He frowns even deeper.
No
.

I’m for ever havin’ this exchange with Mustaph, and, like I say, he’s my best mate. He’s great, when he’s awake. But Mustaph reckons there ain’t nothin’ goin’ down in the land of reality. Time is better spent wrapped up in dreams. His family’s place is even barer than ours. He ain’t got no Playstation nor nothin’, and his three older sisters don’t do nothin’ to keep him psyched. No games or jokes or nothin’, like he ain’t part of their world. That boy always dodgin’ school ’cos even when he is there he jus’ dozes through the lessons.

First time I met Mustaph, he was asleep. Under a tree no less, in the park. This was back in Year 5, before I got my mutt and a sense of somethin’ to do, so I’m just wanderin’, lookin’ out for whatever goin’ down. I see a gang of Year 6 boys all laughin’ and jokin’, standin’ roun’ somethin’ on the ground like it the most entertainin’ thing since Wii. They gigglin’ like a bunch of jokers. I see a shape curled up on the grass, gently risin’ and fallin’ like a dozin’ beast. Then one of them boys spits on the thing on the ground. Everyone laughs. Hilarious, yeah? Then another boy spits, and in a few moments all five of ’em are phlegmin’ away on what turns out to be poor ol’ Mustaph. So what happen is Mustaph wake up, give a yawn and a stretch, don’ even speak to the boys. He jus’ wipes the spit off his face with some leaves, stands up, turns round, and climbs up the tree, like a Squirrel-Man, yeah?

We’re all taken by surprise, on account of Mustaph’s rapid climb. In seconds he clamberin’ roun’ on the upper branches. Up he goes, and up. Must be hundred feet at least. When he’s found a nice little nook he make himself a nest bed among the leaves and curl back up and go back to sleep.

I’m impressed.

But, see, them Year 6 boys ain’t so impressed as me. Some people round here, when they see anyone doin’ somethin’ a bit different to sittin’ pickin’ their noses or squirtin’ each other with shaken cola cans, it get them all beefed up. So one of these boys calls over one of the others and he gets a leg up and he start tryin’ to climb the tree himself – wantin’ to get up there and spit on ol’ Mustaph some more.

I’m irritated by this. I walk over and I push the boy off the tree and he fall on the ground and scrape his face in the dirt. I feel good. The biggest boy, he swaggers over, all fists and lip, and next thing I know I sock him in the face, punch him to the ground. I give him a kick in the ribs, my blood floodin’ round my head. Kick him again. When somethin’ make my blood boil there ain’t no stoppin’ me. I’m a machine switched on, goin’ to do what I’m designed to do until I’m done. I kick him again. Then one of the other boys is up in my face. I put my hands round his neck and start to throttle him. The others run away. I kick this boy’s legs from under him and throw him to the ground, next to the other fool.

They stagger to their feet and run away. One of ’em stops – when he reckons he a safe enough distance – and yells
Your mum’s a sponger!

He legs it.
She ain’t.
She ain’t no sponger.
I’m steamin’. I’m kickin’ and punchin’ the tree, my blood boilin’ so the inside of my head screechin’ like a old kettle. I’m growlin’ and cursin’ and beatin’ up the tree, makin’ my knuckles bleed. Why do peoples do that? Why do peoples think they can jus’ come, pick a fight, insult your ma?

Teachers say I got bad blood. I overheard ’em one day, in the corridor when they was in a class with the door not properly shut. They said when Marshall O’Connor leaves school he will go to prison. They didn’t say they
thought
I will go to prison. They said I
will
go to prison, like it a certainty, a certainty like good kids go to university and become rich. See? I got bad blood and that what will become of me.

Eventually, I stop beatin’ up the tree and I look up and Mustaph lyin’ there on his branch givin’ me a slow handclap applause, like he don’t have a care in the world. He gimme that lopsided grin of his, do a enormous sleepy-cat yawn, go straight back to sleep. Didn’t matter how loudly I yelled, he wasn’t doin’ no more wakin’ up. Made me smile.

Another time, same teacher said I’m sure to go to jail, I hear him tellin’ another teacher that Mustaph is a
retard
. That ain’t right. It is a fact that
retard
is a hate word that teachers are not allowed to use. I hear other teachers say that Mus have
special needs
, but that ain’t right either. Ain’t nothin’ special about Mustapha’s needs. His needs are simple and straight.

After that day, next time I see Mustaph strollin’ down the street I introduce myself. We been besties ever since.

He loyal, for sure. I never have no need to bunch my fists when Mustaph is aroun’, ’cos he don’ do nothin’ to wind me up. He always seem to know ’zackly what I’m thinkin’ or feelin’ and, man, when we have a laugh, we laugh till we break all our ribs, get me?

He shuffles to the kitchen and puts the kettle on.
So whassup, man? How comes you ain’t in school?

I could ask him the same thing, but what’s the point? I tell him what went down between me and fool Ashley, gettin’ hit with a suspension and all. Me and Mustaph we don’ have no secrets. All sudden, I tell him about the bug crawlin’ outta my ear and how I’m mad with it.

He shrugs again. He rolls the duvet up, barin’ the inside of his forearm.
We all got it, man, why be stressin’ so?

Like Sis say, if the upstairs people got it bad, the downstairs people got it bad also. And the people downstairs of them too. We all got it. There are three or four red raw bumps on Mus’s skin, where them little devils been picnickin’ offa him. It make me feel a bit less sore.

Told you. Sis and Mustaph both have a real easy way of makin’ the rough stuff feel nice and smooth.

Mustaph squeezin’ a teabag into his mug. Once he gone got ’nuff tea from it he dunk it in the mug for me, weak as kitten wee. Thing with Mustaph, he don’ even know it that he bein’ the selfish one, ’cos his mind jus’ don’ think that way. He jus’ savin’ teabags, is all. He still got that dirty ol’ duvet wrapped aroun’ him, despite the heat. I wonder if he actually awake or jus’ sleepwalkin’.

I been waitin’ for the right moment to tell him about seein’ the dead body. Seem like that moment ain’t gonna come, so I jus’ blurt it.
Hey, man, guess what I jus’ seen? Go on. Have a guess. You’ll never guess
.

He shrug.
I dunno. A tiger and a rat, playin’ cards
.

I’m serious, boy! A dead body
.

He sip from his tea, like I jus’ said it a bit overcast today.

On the floor above Sis. A druggie. Gone and overdosed
.

He nod, sagely, and sip more tea.

Yo, boy
I say,
they took him away on a stretcher, blanket over his head and all
.

He blink.

Throw my arms up in despair. Is there even any point in tellin’ him about Soft Stuart’s face? How it looked like he bein’ shanked by a murderous mob, not fallen into endless sleepiness from extra-strength smack? Thing with Mustaph is, he believe anything you tell him. He got no concept of lies. You tell him pink elephants servin’ behind the counter in the corner shop, he gonna say
Oh yeah
like he seen ’em already. Only thing is, he ain’t gonna have no comment to make on it. Jus’ blink, look wise. Boy a fool.