Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time. It’s a Sunday. Sunday?! What the faaack is going on Paul, you’re slipping, son?! Ye, it’s been another busy week, not had time to record. Been sorting out the studio today, me and the wife put a shelf up, well, I held it, she did all the drilling and measuring, she’s good with that kind of thing; I’m not. It’s a little tricky at the moment, lots of workshops and general running about. Not complaining though, it’s work and it’s needed.
Yesterday, I was outside St Paul’s Cathedral, writing poems on request with The Poetry Takeaway. Net some nice people, wrote them some poems; some of them alright, some of them shite, it’s how it goes; tried my best though. Large up man like Dan Tsu, who came up and said hello.
Funny thing happened this week. My wife and I were working out what we were doing for the week and I said that I needed to record this podcast, meaning this, Lager Time. She said, ‘what podcast?’ I said Lager Time, the one that I’ve been doing, almost every week, for a year now. She went ‘oh, I thought that was the EP you were recording.’ She obviously wasn’t listening when I told her I was big in Kazakhstan.
Anyway, here’s another Satellite Story, kinda similar to the first one but there you, it’s all based on real things that happened. Enjoy
Have a banging week
Paul
SATTELITE STOIRES VOL 4: FAIRNESS AND TARTAN PAINT
Though it took a long time to heed, I learned as a nipper that fairness was more of an ideal and less of a reality. I also knew, instinctively, unfortunately, and reluctantly, that so much of life is about trade-offs. When the Big Man, the Gods, your God, their God, Mother Nature and whoever else, were all banging-out the terms and cons for this living lark, some little melt with a clipboard probably interrupted that meeting, insisting on fairness being built-in. I’m sure they all would’ve looked at each other, laughed, rubbed his hair, then sent the prick away, to fetch some tartan paint. But what their was, was trade-offs.
No matter how much I yearned and moaned for fairness, I was born into trade-offs. There were nine of us, including mum and dad. Probably compensating for a lack of personal space, each one of us was highly possessive of our own things. You had to ask to borrow someone else’s things. We didn’t have that many things but we liked our things and held these things close; even when they were hand-me-downs, which a lot of my things were. This was the unwritten rule. Don’t touch my things.
We lived in a four-bedroom house, in Horley, a fairly-quiet commuter town, with a fairly low crime rate. You might get in a fight playing football at Oakwood, or you might get started-on, or at the very least got some verbal, like ‘wanker’ and ‘gay-boy’ walking through The Court Lodge estate, to the swimming-pool but, all in all, it weren’t that bad. Mates would come round and say it was ‘posh.’ It probably was, compared to parts of Crawley, which tended to have smaller houses and a higher chance of getting your gaff burgled, your car nicked, or your face punched in town, or if staying local, robbed outside the Londis, when you only wanted a Curley-Wurley. But back in the safety of home, once the bills were paid, and as far I know, they always were; we were skint. Loved, looked-after, but skint.
The ticks on the noble list: of a roof, heating, food and marching us every week, across town, come rain or shine, blizzard or hail, to Church; didn’t matter to this kid, not then. I wanted what a lot my mates got: ticks on my trainers and trips to Disneyland, and maybe some Jammy Dodgers in the biscuit tin; or at least some own-brand chocolate digestives, own-brand plain digestives, on their own, just, like, lacked chocolate.
The game changed when Mum and Dad got a car, must’ve been about twelve. Couple of my older siblings had left home and dad must’ve had a couple of promotions. The Golden age had arrived, in the form of a ninth-hand C-Reg, cherry-red Volvo estate, old enough to be missing seat belts in the back and big enough to squeeze in me and my six siblings; if three of us were in the boot and ducking down, for fear of over-zealous neighbours and bored coppers on patrol.
I remember feeling slightly disappointed when Dad drove it home, it was a bit tatty and it didn’t have any hubcaps; in my head, all decent motors had hubcaps. Instead, there were these rusty wheel spokes, which my Dad painted silver, meaning if you looked at the wheels for no-more than about a split-second, they looked new…ish. Kells, who lived down the road, told me within about twenty-four hours, that our new car was older than his nan, was probably as fast as his nan and probably smelt like his nan; his own words.
But it was a car, and it meant we, well mum and dad really, didn’t have to lug a weeks-worth of shopping for several eager mouths, up the hill and past the station, using our hands and this old trolly that mum had. And if it was raining, it meant we wouldn’t get soaked, just to go to Church; hale to hail. Despite the excitement, though, they weren’t really driving us to many other places, aside from Aldershot, to see relatives; ‘get the train’ was the usual response, upon request for a lift, which kinda defeated the object of having a motor, but you know.
And then I was thirteen. I got a bike, a mountain-bike, with eighteen gears; I was chuffed, mate. Felt like I was catching up with the other kids. Though dad must’ve got some sort of deal, because me and my brother got the very same bike, identical. Alas. It was a mountain bike, though, with eighteen gears. The brakes had failed on the tatty third-hand BMX I had, numerous times, proving a bit hairy when out doing my paper round. The golden-age had delivered, again. We had a motor, I had a bike, I was earning dough, I had some pubes, my voice had broke and I’d seen a jazz mag; the only thing missing was a Sega Saturn and SKY TV, or at least Cable and maybe a trip to Universal studios, or at least Alton Towers, and some Jammy Dodgers and maybe some trainers that cost more than £20) but somewhere, deep within me, lavished with all these gifts, which almost put me on a material par with my mates, I knew there was a trade deficit to be rectified; it was the rules, which were unfair and arbitrary. I must’ve been asking for too much.
Mum was a teaching-assistant and worked at the primary-school we all attended, St Francis RC School in Southgate, Crawley, right near Mo’s house. It was a twenty-minute walk to Wilfrid’s, my secondary school, and on the occasions when I missed the bus, I’d jump in the car with mum and walk from there. I hated the bus. It was long. It was noisy and would knacker me out, the constant din of inane conversations; all this before I’d even got to school, like getting kicked in the shins whilst on your way to being punched in the face. But now I had a bike, which fit in the big spacious boot. I could sling the thing in there and give a big wanker sign to all those mugs on the bus, get a lift with Mum, get out at St Francis, meet my mate Mo and ride to school like the kids in ET, on their BMX’s wearing massive headphones; and ride back in time for mum leaving at the end of the day. I almost felt normal, almost.
So one day I get up late to go to school and miss the bus. Cool, I’ll go with mum. I go to get the bike out the shed; it’s got a puncture, no, problem, I think, I’ll walk; I’ve got my Walkman and some badly copied World Dance jungle compilation. So I jump in with mum. We get stuck in traffic somewhere round Three-Bridges and I wind up running late. I hate being late, permutations start playing in my head and swirling about, like a stew that never stops boiling, becoming increasingly toxic the longer it goes on; like Holyoaks, the late-night editions.
So I dive out the car, as mum pulls in at St Francis; I see the younger brother of Kells, outside the gate holding some poor kid by the collar and saying something to him. The kid is sort of straining and smiling, at the same time, I know that feeling. Fortunately, I had no time to intervene but I hoped for a brief moment that the kid found some balls; it’s the thought that counts. I ran for a good few minutes, until I was out of breath and sweating. Pay-up, time.
With probably two thirds of the way to go, I stood somewhere along Malthouse Road thinking about the long incline of Goffs Park Road, up ahead, which I’d need to climb. I weren’t getting to school on time, no way. So I relax my run down to a walk, figure I’m probably gonna be late anyway, that Brainkillerz, Screwface tune has just kicked in, making the one working earphone I’ve got, fart; so much for the mega-bass; but it’s still sick.
Blasting the tunes, I’d temporarily managed to subdue the head-tsunami bringing a temporary moment of calm, almost forgetting what it was I was doing, walking through this part of Crawley, at this time of day. I’d passed Southgate shops, which was always a potential flashpoint for purveyors of Crawley’s infamous shake-down routine, ‘Got a pound, bruv?’ The not-quite-a-mugging-mugging, like a legal-high without the psycho-active element, just the psycho; certainly in the case of Ronnie Wayder, who was known to knock about there. Once I’d got to the other side of the Horsham road, I’d be on the home-straight, straight to school and whatever fate waited me there, which was probably a telling off, a detention; before normal academic-looking-out-of-the-window, service would resume.
So I get to entrance of this small park and stop for a sec. I’d once been in there with Gareth, a few years before, looking at a copy of Club International he’d nicked from his older brother. I remember the centre-fold was called Gloria. The parks got this small little entrance, tucked between a row of terrace-houses; almost obscured from the street. I liked a good Public Footbath and the occasional bridleway, especially the ones where you didn’t quite know where it went; I enjoy the momentary distraction of wondering where it goes. I want to run down it. Just beyond the gate, I could see some green, there was extra grass, inferring that it might be that bit of adventure we all seek, or maybe just me.
There’s no one about, it must’ve been gone nine, all the kids are in school and people at work. I get passed the entrance to the park, briefly enquire about the eye-teasing-green space it contained within, decide not to enter but then feel some sort of presence, not sure, don’t like it, so I crack-on and cross the road. Then the debt-collector arrives.
‘oi, mate, mate, yea, you bruv, come here’
‘me?’
‘yea bruv, come here’
This guy was a tall and fairly thick-set wearing a long black puffa jacket. He looked like he could be mixed-race, or middle eastern, or Greek or Italian, maybe, it was hard to say but his accent was a local one. Never understood that tactic of rude-boys to give the ‘oi, come here’ what dickhead would resonds to that? He’d calls me over, I go over, dick-head.
Like a shite-strike, butterflies start panic-buying-bread in my belly, Holyoak’s just went dark again. He’s a bit taller me but it feels like he’s towering over me. Eyes are looking down at me, slightly slanted, with his chin tucked in a bit. He looks familiar. He moves a little closer, one hand in his pocket, the other smoking a fag.
‘I Just wanna chat to your bruv, chill for a sec, where you going?’
He knows, I know, but does he though? I don’t want to know, but he wants something, I know that and so does he. Maybe he wants directions?
‘School… I’m running late.’
‘You aint running, though’
My voice goes up an octave, my feet are tap-dancing. Then an inconvenient thought pops-up, like that mate who doesn’t read social ques. I’m wearing my school uniform, isn’t it obvious where I’m going?
‘What school do you go to?’
Again, I’m wearing the uniform.
‘St Wilfrid’s.’
He takes a drag of his cigarette, looks at the ground, spits, then looks at me.
‘You heard of Ryan White?’
‘Erm, like maybe, I think so, like, maybe’
I lie. I know who is, I’m looking at the cunt, knew I recognised him, this is one prick I don’t really want to be bumping into.
‘Yea, so what they been saying about him up there?’
Now, in the Crawley school-hardness-league-tables, Wilfrid’s was probably lower-mid-tier, like a stable Southampton, surviving in the Premiership. Mainly by virtue of it being a lot smaller than the other , and its catchment area being a more geographically mixed compared to the other schools, meaning it drew a fair few middle-class kids in from Horsham, East Grinstead and a few from Horley; which melted-up the cohort a bit. However, it had its faces and names, and my year was no exception. Names that lingered around Crawley, like rude boys outside the local shops, shaking kids down for pounds; in this case, they were probably the same boys. Even Kells was well known as a brawler and by the looks of things, his brother was going the same way.
‘Err I dunno, like’
This prick is talking about himself, in the third person, who does that, apart from Wrestlers? I weren’t even a wide-boy and I knew that this prick was not that well respected. He was known as more like a street-rat. The sort-of-cunt that would break into your house or steal your bike; even if you were mates with him. But it didn’t make him any less dangerous for a no-name like me. And I’d heard he carried a blade. Sounds like his family was a Jeremy Kyle case and he he;d taken a few severe beatings, but that meant probably aint scared of much. And he could probably take me if he wanted but as yet, I’m still not sure what his motive is here.
‘Safe, safe. Oi you got any money you, yea?’
And there it is. He goes from a leg-lean, to a slight lean forward, chin moving towards the floor but eyes very much on me. I’m still sweating and out of breath, no my heart beat is beating faster than it was before. There’s no one around.
‘Err, like, na… sorry’
‘So what’s that in your pocket?’
My wallet was sticking out, bulging with the pound coins from my paper round.
‘Ah like, it’s not, like’
‘What, you lying to me, yea?’
He moves in further, I can smell that cocktail of fags, BO and faint notes of Lynx Indigo or is it Africa?
‘Chill out bruv, I aint trying to rob ya, come on, lets just see what you got’
No-one around, auto-pilot, wallet out, empty out the coins compartment. Must’ve been about £5 and shrapnel. Even the shrapnel broke my nut, palm full of nuggets, fifties’, tens and twenties, that beautiful mix of silver and gold, hard earned slogging newspapers around. He hands back about thirty p.
‘Yea that’ll do, yea, nice one, If I ever see you in town ill sort you out, bruv, yea, safe’
I just got robbed, by Ryan White. It wasn’t even a proper mugging, it was like the demo-version. Like a Premier League side putting out their youngsters for a round two league Cup tie.
‘Thanks… yea, safe, thanks’
Thanks?! What was I thanking him for? Not taking my wallet? Letting me keep a bit of change, thirty p. Well I least I can still get a Curley Wurley.
I trudge back up to school, musing on his offering of ‘sorting me out in town’ like, what are the terms and conditions of this? When can I call in? Or was it just, something people say, like, lets go out sometime. Why didn’t I bang him in the fucking jaw!? Bang him and run, but then, who knows, he might’ve stabbed me or something. Why weren’t he at school!?
Got to school, got that detention, slept-walked through the rest of the school day, as usual. Got the bus back, with all them other mugs, listening to people like Kells chatting non-stop bollox. Get home, figure I should attempt to fix the puncture on my bike. Open the shed, shit, quickly realise, it was my brothers-bike that had a puncture, not mine. Not fair, it’s tartan paint. Trade-offs, mate.
Satellite Stories: EP 4 - Fairness and Tartan Paint