‘I’m bored?’ announced Ronnie, shattering my silent ruminations on the mysteries of romance.
‘What?’
‘Bored of this shit?’
‘What shit?’
‘This sitting around and doing nothing shit.’
‘What else is there to do?’
‘Dunno, maybe we should look for work or something?’
‘Ave you taken leave of your senses?’
Animated by the turn in conversation Ronnie sat up,
‘Ok, maybe that is a mad idea, but we definitely need to do something new before we get into a rut.
‘What’s wrong with being in a rut?’
Ronnie smiled wryly and took a swig from his beer, ‘Everything, we need a new scene, a new horizon, something different.’
‘You mean get the fuck out of London?’
‘Yeah, why not, I’ve been thinking……’
But before Ronnie could finish another sentence a gaggle of voices was suddenly heard outside and then the doorbell went. Stupid mewed a few times in disgust before jumping down from the windowsill and exiting the scene. As I approached the door I recognised the voices of Tony Baloney and Surfer Boy, and a couple of feminine voices I didn’t. I opened the door and lo and behold standing before me were Surfer Boy and Tony Baloney, plus three teenage girls I’d never seen before in my life. They were all drunk,
‘Hey, hey Ridgwell, time to party bruv,’ slurred Baloney who then proceeded to barge past me, along with the others,
‘Time to what?’ I thought as I checked out the new girls, who, despite their relative youth were already beginning to show signs of the classic sink council estate look, scrawny figures, bad hairstyles, bad complexions, and cheap market stall clothes. Whatever happened to the teenage dream?
Instantly the introduction of the newcomers introduced a fresh dynamic into the apartment and filled the musty rooms with vibrant energy, augmented by the fact that Baloney had little fellas and the bugle on board.
‘Bit of Dicky?’ he asked, after he had chopped six or seven huge lines out onto the surface of the coffee table.
I looked at the lines and then at my beer. It was now just gone three in the afternoon,
‘Na, I’ll just stick with the beer.’
Baloney looked at me oddly, ‘Each to his own.’ Then he turned to the drunken girls and proffered them a tightly rolled fifty pound note,
‘Ladies, can I interest you in some of Colombia’s finest?’
The drunken teenagers eyeballed the note and white powder with greedy, fascinated eyes. Then the boldest of the three, a scraggy-looking blonde grabbed the note,
‘Shit yeah!’
‘Easy,’ said Baloney.
Two hours later a full scale mini-party had developed. The girls were all out of it, jumping around and dancing to some crap musak pumping from the stereo, while Baloney and Surfer Boy snorted as much coke as possible. At some point me and Ronnie cornered Baloney in the kitchen,
‘Where the fuck did you find these piss kids Baloney?’ Fired Ronnie.
‘Boating.’
I did a double take, ‘Boating?’
Baloney coined some more bugle up an already congested nostril,
‘Yeah, sniff, sniff, after a session in the Antelope me and Surfer decided to go boating over the ponds, and we bumped into the tarts at a bus top.’
‘What, they were waiting for a bus?’ I queried.
‘Na, they were just hanging out there, so we asked them where they were off to didn’t we, and they said they were going to the lift.’
I did another double take, ‘The Lift?’
Baloney smiled, somewhat evilly, ‘Yeah, a lift on the council estate where they live, another of their shitty hang-outs.’
Ronnie shook his head, ‘Class, Baloney, pure class.’
Baloney coined some more coke up another congested nostril, and looked at us out of one eye,
‘What ya talking about? The arf-chap one’s a little sort, nice tits.’
‘Jail bait,’ spat out Ronnie.
Baloney continued looking at us out of one eye, ‘Who gives a shit, the ginger one’s not bad either, proper shaggable?’
Ronnie took a nonchalant swig from his can of wife beater, ‘You my friend, have the morals of an alley cat.’
I shot Ronnie a quizzical glance, thinking about the convo we’d had the other night, where he’d stated categorically that any bird over fourteen was fair game, but that was the Ron all over, a bona fide enigma.
‘Bullshit!’ Said Baloney.
Back in the living room the mini-party was still raging. Surfer Boy was entangled with the blonde girl on a settee, and the other two girls were dancing in the middle of the room and checking out their reflections in a huge mirror above the fireplace. Ronnie sat down in a humph and began constructing a huge spliff, while I sat down in an armchair and observed the scene. I could overhear Surfer’s intentions.
‘Come in one of the bedrooms babe,’ he grunted over and over.
‘Fuck off, what sort of tart do you think I am,’ was the girl’s general response.
Meanwhile Baloney had zoned in on the mixed-race girl and was giving it some cheese on toast big style,
‘Your eyes are like spanners?’
The girl smiled and sniffed, ‘Oh yeah, why’s that then?’
‘Every time I look at them my nuts tighten!’
‘Oh fuck off, that is so wrong.’
Baloney laughed and offered the girl some more Charlie.
When Ronnie had finished constructing what looked to be at least a twenty-skin joint he stood up and made an announcement,
‘I’m Lee Marvin, who fancies something from the Jamaican?’
At that everyone suspended what they were doing and fired a series of orders at Ronnie, who in turn, took it in his stride,
‘Curried goat, check, rice and peas, check, six patties, check, untold jerk chicken check, blinding. Right I’m off, see you losers when I get back.’
And with that he exited the flat, jumped onto his yellow chopper, and peddled off down the road with a twenty-skin J hanging from his lips, clouds of grey smoke trailing in his wake.
Once the Ronnie was out of the picture, a decidedly sexual dynamic thrust itself onto each and every participant of the mini-party. By now the teenage girls were pilled up, coked up, and good and boozy. Baloney swerved off into Ronnie’s bedroom with the mixed-raced girl, and Surfer Boy and the scraggy blonde appeared suddenly oblivious to their surroundings and began getting incredibly amorous on the settee. In fact so much so I was forced to get up and frog march the ginger bird into the sanctuary of my bedroom.
‘What the fuck we doing in ere?’ slurred the girl, after I’d slammed the door shut and jumped onto my bed,
‘Come ere,’ I said.
The girl was really out of it, she’d gone bossed-eyed, and was finding it difficult to focus. I’d necked a pill about twenty minutes prior and was buzzing nicely. I leaned over and pulled the girl towards me. We tongued each other for a while and I stuck my hand inside her top and felt her small tits,
‘What’s your name?’ She asked.
‘Dave,’ I lied, ‘Yours?’
‘Charlene.’
‘Nice name,’ I lied again.
Then, as we lay together kissing and groping I had a sudden epiphany. Somehow it seemed imperative that I show this young girl the error of her ways. I pulled myself away from her embrace and stood up,
‘Charlene, why the fuck are you in my home and in my bed?’
The girl lay on the bed in a foetal position,
‘Fuck knows, we were invited weren’t we?’
‘Yeah, well sort of, but what do you think you’re achieving by coming round an older boys gaff and getting wasted on a Tuesday afternoon?’
‘It’s better than the lift.’
This response phased me for a moment, ‘I mean, shouldn’t you be at college or something?’
‘You’re talking crazy.’
I sauntered around the room in a little circle. Then I pointed to my bookshelf. It was filled with classics, Ask the Dust, Huckleberry Finn, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Hunger, On the Road, A Confederate General from Big Sur, Where are the Rebels? Lounge Lizard, Radgepacket, etc.
‘Do you read books Charlene?’
Charlene sat up and held her head in her hands, ‘Fuck, these pills are proper rushy, can ya get me a glass of water?’
Strangely I wasn’t listening, ‘Concentrate on the books Charlene, the books. These are the tools of education, an escape route from the council estate, a secret path to the realisation of the true self,’ I pontificated.
The girl looked up at me and groaned. She had also turned a strange green colour,
‘You’re off ya fucking nut and I think I’m ganna be sick.’
And with that she was, and copiously, all over my West Ham quilt.
She’s cabbaging out was my overriding thought. ‘Oh fuck, okay, hold on I’ll get a bucket and some water.’
Once outside my room I was distracted by the sound of screams coming from within Ronnie’s bedroom. I opened the door and the mixed-race girl tumbled into my arms, dressed only in her knickers. Her large brown breasts pressed tight against my chest,
‘What the fuck’s going on?’
The girl looked at me out of frightened and drug-addled eyes, ‘It’s your mate, ee’s gone berserk.’
I pushed her into my bedroom. Then I peered into Ronnie’s room. Baloney was staggering around in his boxer shorts, holding a baseball bat, and with a bottle of amyl nitrate stuck to his nose,
‘Baloney, what the fuck?’
Baloney looked up. Both his nostrils were blocked up with coke bogies and he appeared to be foaming at the mouth. His eyes were bloodshot and crazy looking,
‘Hah, her, er, rrrrrr, where’s that tart? Ganna stick this up er!’
I slammed the door shut and poked my head into the living room. Inside Surfer Boy was shagging the blonde girl doggie-style. He was sweating like a pig and huge green veins writhed down both sides of his forehead like demented snakes. The girl had her head down and was groaning and moaning.
‘Oh my god, oh fuck, yeah, oh my god!’
Surfer looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. He looked like a devil or a demon or something. He was pounding away at the white flesh before him and gurning,
‘I can’t come, I can’t fucking come!’ He gasped.
I slammed the door shut and raced to the kitchen. I grabbed a wife beater from the fridge and reflected on matters. This was all getting out of control. Then I heard a knock on the back door. It was Ronnie with the Caribbean cuisine. I opened the door and gave him the low down,
‘So, Baloney’s gone mental, one of the birds has puked all over your bed, and Surfer Boy is still banging the blonde tart?’
‘Exactly, so what should we do?’
Ronnie put the food on the kitchen table, grabbed a Jamaican patty and took a huge bite, ‘Like I said earlier we’ve got to get away.’
I reached into one of the bags and grabbed some jerk chicken,
‘What down the boozer?’
‘Na, a bit further than that amigo, I think it’s time we fucked off out of the country.’
I raised my eyebrows, ‘You mean, emigrate?’
Ronnie grabbed a chicken wing and waved it at me, ‘Maybe, maybe not, but we can’t go on living like this, it’s bad for the nerves. Come on let’s pop down the Antelope and talk it over.’
‘What about the munch?’
‘Bring the rice and peas and the curried goat. Leave the rest for the space cadets.’
(c) Joseph Ridgwell 2008