Charlie Williams's Blog, page 11

Booze after reading

Today sees the publication of BOOZE AND BURN, AmazonEncore's re-issue of Fags and Lager. This is the book about which one broadsheet critic sniffed "personally I think these books should be issued with embarrassing orange jackets and made to do menial community service in penance for their yobbery", before donning his tweed jacket and heading down to the MCC.

Meanwhile Metro said "Blake is the perfect antihero, engaging as well as terrifying, his delusions of hard-man grandeur fuelling fierce black comedy. Delivered in Blake's rich vernacular, Fags and Lager is yokel Tarantino".

I kind of prefer that one, but the straw-chewing image of Tarantino is troubling.

You can get Booze and Burn CHEAP on Kindle: £1.99/$2.99. Give it a go. It's all about Royston Blake.

Blakey on Tour - Part 25

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


I blames it on them fucking strides.

If I'd have been wearing my own strides, instead of Jock's manky ones that was about ten times too big for us around the middle, I'd have got away. I'd have scrambled clear and gained the stairs, where I would have got on me feet again and started looking at this situation. I'd have asked meself who this cunt were who'd just pinged my head, and I'd have found the answer to be the one from the kitchen last night who'd been chopping squid. I'd have noted the short length of pipe he were clutching, the one that had just opened my scalp up a bit over the right ear. Then I'd have laughed in his fucking face and waded in, annihilating the fucker with me bare paws. But I weren't able to do none of that, cos I were wearing Jock's strides.

Which fell down a bit and got caught up around my ankles.

'Get the fuck off us, you fuckin' arse bandits,' I were shouting, trying to hoik them up again as Squid and his mate got a foot each and dragged us into a room off the main hall. Then I clocked the looks in their eyes and the bad atmosphere of the new room I were in, and I left off the strides and started kicking out at their faces.

'You not fight,' says the non-Squid one. It were the other from yesterday, the one who'd slit my throat in the kitchen and looked just like the corpse from the hearse. He adjusted his grip on my foot, planted his own behind my knee and twisted sideways. Hard.

'Aaarrrggh,' I says. Cos Corpse were busting me fucking pin here. 'Aaa—'

I hadn't noticed the other one let go, but he had. He came behind us and taped up my cakehole, cutting short my yell of pain there.

'You not scream also. Scream is for woman. Not even boy scream. Only weak boy who must be slaughter. I slaughter you. Here, in this place of dark and unhappy.'

I suddenly recalled that my other pin were free now, and swung it at him. He fielded it on the arse cheek, then planted his other foot on that ankle and pushed my legs wide. I felt my pelvis go but I didn't know what to do. I hadn't come across this type of fighting before. It were like I were an Action Man and he were trying to pull us apart, and I couldn't do a fucking thing about it. Then I recalled that my hands was free and that Squid were behind us somewhere. I craned my neck round and saw his ankle not two foot away. I reached for it. I were gonna reel it in and bite a chunk out of it, then he'd start screaming like weak boy who must be slaughter, or whatever, and his mate would have to let go me pins and help him. But it didn't happen like that. How it happened, right, is that he slipped a fucking manacle around my wrist.

Manacles was another thing I hadn't ever come across before. I'd seen many a handcuff, mind you, and the clamp of this were wider than that and not so smooth around the edges, meaning it stung like Billy-o when he pulled the chain taut. He slipped one around the other wrist. It's around that time I noticed what Corpse had done to my ankles.

He'd manacled them and all.

'This is way must be,' he says, pulling up the slack on that side. 'You have fuck with family. When man fuck with family, he must be chain. Like wild boar.'

He leaned back. Squid were leaning back and all, meaning I were yanked taut meself now like a fucking hammock. Corpse looped the chain around a hook in the wall and let go, clenching and unclenching his paws. Squid must have done same behind us cos I were more of less swinging in the air now, two Egyptian cunts stood either side of us and me wrists and ankles knacking like you'd not believe. And I couldn't even complain about it cos of the gaffer tape.

'Now you shut face and listen,' says Corpse, out of breath now. At least there were that. 'In one minute I remove tape from mouth, and you say where is father. You say nothing else and make no shout. Only where is father. If you not do this, you die. Like wild boar.'

There were a bed to the side of him. It weren't square, but long and oblong like normal beds. Fuck knows who'd started that square bed rumour. I think it were you, weren't it? What a fucking stupid thing to suggest. Who the fuck sleeps in square beds? Anyhow, Corpse reached down behind this normal shaped one and pulled summat out. It were wrapped in a faded orange towel with oil stains on it. He pulled the towel off and held the thing out before him.

Straight away I took a dislike to it.

'This special knife,' he says, twisting it and flashing around the scant light in there.

'Don't tell us - it's for cuttin' up wild boar,' I might have said if my gob weren't taped shut.

'Is special knife for cutting human. In my country, we kill the human like this...'

He held the knife in two hands and lunged forwards, going down on one knee and driving the blade forwards and down. If some poor cunt had been there in front of him, their solar plexus would have been feeling it just now. For a bit. Then they would have carked it. He got on his feet again.

'But you,' he says, 'you we not kill. You tell us where is father and you walk away with only the cut and bruise. You not tell, we kill. We kill you like wild boar.'

He came over and whipped the gaffer tape off my face, taking a few hundred bristles and some skin with it.

'First off,' I says, gulping for puff and ignoring the pain, 'first off, right... you let us go now and say a proper soz to us, I won't bear no grudge against you. You know what a grudge is? Means when you got a grudge with someone about summat. And I ain't got one with you pair o'... fellers. I knows yer only Egyptians, see, and that you dunno the rules of the road yet. See, you gotta understand who's who in this town, who's a community pillar and who's a... a... barmy old dosser or summat. And Royston Blake is the latter o' them two. Erm, latter means the first one, right?'

They looked at each other, seeming a bit confused by that one. Mind you, they barely fucking spoke English, did they? Then Corpse nodded at Squid, who taped my mouth up again.

'I see you not cut,' says the latter. Or the former. I don't fucking know, do I? Corpse, anyhow, pointing at my tadger with his big knife. Jock's trousers was gathered around my knees and I were a bit exposed, I now realised. 'I see you have foreskin. But is better without, yes?'

'Mmmmmph,' I says. 'Fnngg mmmp mmmmmph.'

'You hear man, Myko?' he says to Squid. 'Man say he like to be cut. He not want foreskin. Is better without, yes?'

'Yes,' says Squid, rubbing his paws together, like as not thinking about what kind of national dish he could make out of my endpiece.

'OK, you hold, I cut. Yes?'

'Yes.' Squid came forward, reaching out for us. I thought he were gonna grab us, which were bad enough, then I noticed the pair of pliers he were holding.

'Mmmmmmmmmmmppphhh.'

He lunged. The pliers snapped shut as he made a play for my tadger, but I were rocking the hammock a bit now and managed to turn my loinage away from him and keep it like so, anchoring meself with a hip to the carpet. Mind you, Corpse were on that side with his knife.

'You let Myko pull,' he says. 'If not pull, can be accident. Man have accident, is hard for him in life. You let Myko pull now, yes? With plier.'

I weren't really listening to him. I were in my head, trying to get the opening bit of "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor started. But I couldn't hear them guitar sounds, no matter how hard I harked. 'Mmph,' I says, trying to do em meself. ' Mmph mmph mmph. Mmph mmph...'

Corpse turned away and reached into his back pocket.

Fucking hell, I thought – it's only gone and worked. Not like I'd pictured it, mind. I'd been aiming to rile meself into a feat of superhuman strength, smashing them manacles and killing these two fuckers dead like Ivan Drago done to Apollo Creed (rest him in peace). But the music seemed to have done the trick on its todd, knocking the Egyptians back and make em change their ways. Then I noticed the mobile blower Corpse were holding, and the bleeping sound it had been making.

'Yes?' he says into it. 'Who is? No, you. Who you is?'

I could hear someone shouting at him from the other end. Fuck knowed who it were, and how long they'd keep it up for and thereby help us to keep my tadger in one piece a bit longer, but I couldn't fret over that. I had to seize the fucking moment. I had to grasp this opportunity that providence had bestowed upon us and bust meself free from the chains.

I pulled arms down and legs up, using my rock hard abs to tug the hooks out of the walls, or whatever them chains was tethered to. I thought about Rocky Balboa. I thought about him in the Rocky films and also the Rambo ones, where's he's up against it and looking like there's no hope... and yet he still comes out on top, no matter who or what is stood before him. Also "Over the Top", where Rocky's an arm-wrestling truck driver. For some reason I found that one the most inspiring of all, and I pictured meself in a massive arm wrestling contest against the wall hook, the two of us locked in an epic struggle between good and evil. I were on the side of good, just to clarify.

But evil won.

I didn't have it in us.

Squid hovered over us, pliers at the ready.

'OK,' barks Corpse, still on the blower. 'But this not end. There will be more. I swear on blood of wild boar, there will be more.' Then he comes over to us and bends down, grim-faced and looking like an evil surgeon who's got more than a circumcision lined up for us. He puts the blower to my ear.

'When they unchains you, which they will do anon, I wants you out of that place flamin' pronto,' the voice blares at us.

The Egyptians was blaring at each other and all, but I couldn't hear that. (And it were in foreign anyhow.) All I harked were Nathan the barman's irate tones coming down the line, scorching fuck out of my ear drum.

'And I wants you straight down here, right? I says right?'

'Mmmph,' I says.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Left Lion Interview

Interview with me on Left Lion, Nottingham's culture and listings mag. We talk about Graven Image and other stuff. Thanks Robin Lewis.

Blakey on Tour - Part 24

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


It had been a long old while since I'd been on a bus.

I weren't sure, but I seemed to recall the last occasion had featured me having a little scrap with a lad. A grown lad, I'm on about, not a youngun. Royston Blake do not fight younguns - let's be straight on that. For starters, any youngun has a pop at me, I finish it fucking sharpish, well before it moves into fight territory. And if it's me starting on them, you can bet your motor it'll be a one punch job. I can't get low enough to headbutt em, see.

But I'm on about the lad, the bum-fluff merchant I'd had a ding dong with back then. Actually, fuck him – I ain't wasting me puff on little fucksticks like him. All I wanted to say, if you'd just fucking give us chance, were that there was no lads on this here bus that me and Jock was on, heading back towards Mangel from Hurk Wood. No folk at all under the age of eighteen nor even near it. Only the one or two old fuckers you always gets on buses, hogging the worst seats and spoiling the atmosphere with their silences and their not causing no trouble and their polite thank-yous to the driver when they gets off.

'Thank you,' says one of em as she gets off.

'Fuckin' old bitch,' I says under me breath. Old folks is well annoying but you don't like to offend em, does you? I'm well brung-up, me.

'I heard that,' she says, pausing as she stepped down.

'Heard what?'

'What you just called me.'

'Go on then – what were it?'

'I'm not lowering myself to repeating words like that.'

'No? You can lower yerself to suck this, then, you fuckin' old slag. Now fuck on off my bus.'

She glared at us for half a second or so, but you could see the fight had gone out of her and she'd be backing down. That's another thing about old folk – they're fucking cowards. I flicked her a V out the window as the bus pulled away. Then I put myself away and did me flies up. Or Jock's flies, getting technical about it, me still wearing his manky slacks. Not for much longer though. Soon I'd be home, and I'd put some proper smart kit on and set about springing Kirsty out of jail. I might even don me court suit, seeing as I'd be in for some legal wrangling like as not. Kirsty were in deep shite, when you thought about it. I mean, swiping someone's babby? What kind of barmy cow does that? It's like swiping someone's leaky bag of shite that won't stop making a load of racket. In fact, it is that. And were I really up for getting involved with a bird who's prepared to do that, and therefore off her rocker?

Aye, I were, I realised as I closed my eyes and pictured what I'd glimpsed down her top back there. And I'd help her. Together we'd work out what's wrong with her swede and find a way to sort it. But no matter what it were, she weren't having the anti-wossname drugs. Not like they got me on. No matter how fucked up a person is in the head, there's never a just cause for pumping that shite inside em. Better to just lobotomise em, like they tried on me. Might work on her.

It were my stop next. Fuck knowed where Jock were headed, but he'd fell akip anyhow and I were hoping to leave him be. Worst case, he'd end up at the main bus depot and there's some skips you can doss in down there, if he were skint and not wanting to go home like I reckoned him to be. I left a bit of cash on the back seat next to him and rung the bell. Then I changed me mind and picked up the cash – I weren't a fucking charity, were I? I popped the 10p back in my pocket and went up front when the bus stopped.

'Ta,' I says to the driver as I walked past him. Fuck knows why though cos I'd paid me fare. Weren't like I were hitching a lift. And he were one of them Egyptians anyhow, like the ones in the bedsits where I lived, so he ought to think himself fucking fortunate to have a job at all.

He nodded at us, saying, 'You are wanted man.'

'You fuckin' what?' I says, turning back to him and with me hackles rising a bit. But I were off the bus by then and the door closing behind us. I banged it with me fist, shouting at him to open up and what the fuck were he on about, me being wanted? But he just smiled through the grease-smeared glass and pulled away. I ran alongside for a bit, trying to catch his eye but he weren't having none of it. Then I ran into a fucking lamp-post and had to stop for a bit and get meself together.

'Are you alright?' someone were saying to us a bit later. I'd got my nose under control with a hanky by then. Still couldn't find two of me teeth, mind.

'Eh?' I says, peering up at the blurred shape stood before us. I still couldn't see proper, but I got the impression of a feller. Sounded like one and all. Feller in a wide-rimmed hat but with one side of it bent up. I peered a bit harder, wondering if it were Clint Eastwood. Nah – no fucking way would Clint let his cowboy hat go like that.

'Do you want me to call an ambulance?' says the feller. There were summat a mite foreign about his voice. I wondered if he were another of them Egyptians. Or Scottish.

I took my hanky away and squinted at it: seemed to be clearing up nicely. Plenty of blood coming out still but no bits of bone in it now. 'Do you know what I'd really like?' I says, fishing for another hanky cos mine had got well sodden. There weren't one. It were a fucking miracle I'd found any hankies at all in Jock's strides. Who the fuck carries hankies, for fuck sake? This one had been a bit crispy in places, mind. 'See, it ain't possible, what I'd really like,' I went on. 'Cos what I'd really like, see, is for you to walk behind yerself and kick yerself up the fuckin' arse.'

'Ah, but it is not necessary to walk behind oneself to achieve that. The same can be accomplished merely by—'

'Is you thick or summat?' I says, raising me voice a mite now. 'Fuck off.'

'Your vehemence is admirable, Highlander. However, there are better ways to expend your energies than abusing old women on buses and being hostile to those who come to your aid. In considering the properties of the common lamp-post, for example. Tall and slender, the lamp-post nevertheless is rigid and immoveable as a granite outcrop. At least, it is to those who approach the world as does a mere mortal.'

'What the... who the fuck do you...?'

I gave up trying to find the right words and lashed out, doling the kind of blow to the guts that would surely have brung about major organ failure if it had landed. But it never. Fuck knows quite how, but the fucker weren't occupying the same space no more. I spun around, blinking hard and thinking about summat he'd mentioned there.

'Hang on,' I says. 'What did you just call me?'

You heard it and all, right?

Hadn't he just called me the Highlander?

'Oi,' I hollers, losing it now and quite rightly so. The number three cause of aggro in the Mangel area, after eye contact, pint spillage and looking at birds who ain't yours, is calling former head doormen Highlanders and then fucking off. Cos this one were nowhere to be clocked. Somehow, and with my peepers now working 20/20 and me scanning a full rotation of 180 degrees, he'd fucked off.

I trudged home, trying to put the episode out of my head. Some things you just have to, don't you? Everyone gets them things. I'm on about the things you know don't belong in your swede, the ones that some fucked up part of your brain has cooked up, using rotten bits of scran gathered here and there over the years. I'd had enough of them bits. From now on, Royston Blake were getting his shite together big-time. Starting with finding a proper set of togs to wear. And wiping some of the blood off meself. My nostrils had caked up now and no more was coming out, but it were all over me chest and guts.

I looked down at it as I went in the front door of my building, flexing my abs and wondering why I couldn't see em. Mind you, I do have a very hairy body. No matter how ripped you is, like me, the hair's always gonna take the edge off that. But it don't take the edge off where it counts – getting shite done and pinging swedes.

Someone pinged me swede.

I went down.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 23

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


Course, I were sorted now.

On the vibrating diamond front, I'm on about

Not only were I getting Kirsty reunited with her wayward old man, but he were alive as well. One minute he's a mangled corpse lying in a ditch, next he's ticking and breathing, if a bit scratched and bruised and half cut from the hard stuff he'd been supping. When you looked at it like that, you could see that I'd saved him, really. I'd saved Jock's life. And I were banking on his daughter seeing it that way. Mind you, I couldn't see why she wouldn't. It's fucking logic, ennit?

'Nah, it ain't a vampire, honest,' I says to Jock. 'It's defo someone you likes. Don't fret over it.'

'Ah'm no frettin', Royston, I just cannae take nae more chances. Those bastarts are oan tae me, are they no? It's no often a person survives an assassination attempt from a pack o' them cunts. They'll be doubling their efforts noo, youse mark my words.'

'Just fuckin' relax. Would I let you down, Jock? Would I?'

He grabbed an arm and wheeled us around. At first I thought he'd suddenly remembered the truth about the gulley business and my part in it and wanted his own back. Then I clocked the look in his eyes, which was gazing into mine. I've only seen that look once before – in the eyes of my own infant lad, Little Royston. It's a look of total trust and adoration. Thinking about it, I don't reckon I ever actually met Little Royston before the witch got her, me being in Parpham when he were borned. But I'd shut me peepers and imagined holding him many a time, and here's the look I got off him on each of them occasions. Then I'd put him down somewhere and fuck off down the pub, cos he'd started wailing or shit his pants or summat.

'Ah want youse to know sumthin right here and noo,' says Jock after a few seconds of that look, eyes getting a bit moist. I hoped to fuck he weren't gonna start wailing. Or shit his pants. 'Youse and me, we've been through a lot, have we no? Yesterday, eradicating that one in the hearse and chasing doon the female one in the Hoose o' Despair, ah feel that we bonded a bit. Do youse feel it?'

'Hoose of Despair?'

'Aye, it's what they call it, that place behind the canal.'

'The fuck's a hoose?'

'No, ah mean... look what I'm saying is that I'm considering you as fully on board noo. I know ah can trust yis, Royston. From noo oan, far as ah'm concerned, your mooth speaks only gospel. So if yis say there's a nice surprise waiting on us up there by the road, ah'm with yis.'

'Good. For fuck sake.'

'Ah'm gettin' quite excited, actually.'

'So you fuckin' ought to be,' I says, setting off again. I knew Kirsty'd still be there, and that she wouldn't abandon little Vectra nor swipe my new motor and leave us out here to fend for my own arse, but I didn't want to keep her waiting too long. Birds can be a right pain when you gets em itchy. Mind you, it's a good way of setting em up for a shag and all. But that could wait. Not too long, mind – my bollocks felt like a couple of cricket balls in a bag. Jock went down.

'What the...?' I says, turning about and clocking him scurry behind an old oak tree. 'Jock, what's the fuckin' problem now?'

'Blue light,' he whispers, beckoning us over. 'I sweer ah just saw some blue light up there. Ah'm no going up there.'

'Eh? But...'

'Blue light signifies vampire activity, Royston. Didn't youse ken that? Ah'm gonna have tae educate yis.'

Vampire activity? He were mental, Jock were. Mind you, I could soon see what he were on about, when I walked on a bit and looked through the trees: blue flashing lights, up there by the road. No doubt about it. 'It's coppers,' I said.

'Keep yis voice doon,' he says, still not coming out. 'Vampires have got super-sensitive hear—'

'It's fuckin' coppers, for fuck sake. Can't you hear their radios and that? And look, you can see the edge of one of their vans up there. Shite.'

'It's no what yis think, Royston. Polis they may appear tae be, but it's vampires in disguise. Ah know how them cunts work.'

'Fuckin' shite,' I says again. Cos it were shite, weren't it? Soon as the coppers gets involved, shite is what everything turns to.

'No, it's alreet, Royston,' Jock were saying, unscrewing another half bottle. Fuck knows how many of them he were packing in his pants. 'See, ah've got a couple o' wooden stakes here in mah poke. We just need to—'

'Look, just hang back here a min, right?' I says. 'I'm off up there for a scout. I don't come back in five, fuck off without us, right? And, I dunno, keep yer eyes peeled for vampires or summat.'

He started protesting but I hared off up the path, keeping low and getting that Rambo feeling again, which were easy cos I were still dressed like him. Best bit were that I seemed to have stowed my monkey wrench in the back pocket of Jock's trousers. I got it out and clamped it between me gnashers, which allowed us to use my paws for sweeping the undergrowth aside as I ploughed silently through it.

'Aaah, you fucker,' I says, sweeping some stingers aside. They was all over this bit, and no way were I going through em with me top off and some of them nettles reaching me nipples. Mind you, I were close enough to see what were going on roadside now. And it weren't healthy.

Not for Kirsty anyhow.

She were getting led into the back of a squad car just then, cuffed and none too happy about it. In another motor you could see Vectra, a WPC holding her just then and copping an earful of lairy babby. I didn't blame the little lass – you should have seen the way the copper were holding her. I had her, I'd have her quiet and kipping in no time. Everyone knows you're meant to give em a nip of whisky. Only a tiny bit, mind. No more than three or four capfuls.

I got my bottle out and took about twenty capfuls, without actually using the cap.

Thinking about it, and with the whisky warming me cockles and the bottle empty, this weren't so bad. Alright, so the vibrating diamond of my life were in a bit of shite at the minute, but I felt sure I could yank her out of the cells with a word in certain ears – namely them of Nathan the barman. I still weren't sure how that worked, but Nathan just seemed to pulls strings and make shite happen, no matter how high up them strings went and who were on the other end of em. And on the Jock front, I were shet of him now. I could just leave him back there behind the oak tree, stake held aloft and a gallon of whisky sloshing around in his grots and guts. I could have done that from the start, really, saving meself a lot of grief. But my swede hadn't been straight yesterday, and now it were. Plus there were summat about that fat Scottish cunt that I just couldn't turn me back on, not when he were in front of us and making us feel soz for him. It were like he were my little bother, a little boy lost in a big modern world, and I had to look out for him else he'd be crushed 'neath the wheels of, I dunno, a bus or summat. And it hadn't turned out so bad anyhow – if I hadn't have joined up with Jock, I wouldn't have met Kirsty. It were all about her now.

And clearing her of a crime she never committed.

I closed me peepers and pictured her there in the cells, sitting all lonely and scaredy. Then the door swings open and I'm there, a massive silhouette in the doorway, couple of dozen coppers lying broken on the floor behind us. I'd sweep her up in me arms and carry her off into the night, then find a nice comfy spot in the grass somewhere and shag her. You pictures it, then you does it – that's the way it works with men of action like meself. I opened my eyes. I clenched me fists. I filled my lungs with air. It stank a bit. 'Thought ah'd lost yis back there,' says Jock, pulling alongside.

For fuck sake.


(Come back on Monday for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 22

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


I dunno if you've seen First Blood.

In it, right, Rocky Balboa is getting chased all over the wossname by the coppers, who told him to fuck off out of town at the start but he didn't feel like it, or summat. There's two matters there I want to talk about.

First off, why have they always got things arsewise in America? In Mangel, they comes after you if you tries to leave town, not stay in it. We are all leaves on the same tree, and if one falls off they all might fall off, and the tree will die. Personally I'd be happy if Mangel carked it, being as I were sick of the fucking place. But no one else thinks that way. So why do the coppers in America get fucked off when a new leaf tries to join? They should be happy for their tree, shouldn't they? Especially when that leaf is the heavyweight world champion.

Second off, I were starting to feeling like Rocky. In Rambo, I'm on about, not in the ones where he's boxing. (Aye, I fucking knows he's called Rambo in Rambo, but everyone knows it's really Rocky underneath.) I were feeling hounded, like everyone were coming at us from all sides and trying to corner us. I dipped sideways and into some bushes, pulling me strides up a bit as I went. I were like a ninja, silent and fast and deadly, but not wearing one of them black outfits with the mask like they does. And not looking Chinese or whatever. I were looking more like Rambo, actually, with the long hair and shite. Except my long hair were more like the mullet in the arcade back there in Rocky III. That's how I felt, anyhow. I realise it weren't real, and that in reality I just looked like Clint Eastwood's head on the body of Ivan Drago. I yanked me anorak off.

'What? No, I'm no interested in a new fuckin' kitchen. How did yis get this number?'

Jock were only about ten yard to me right and down a bit, paused just then and yakking to Kirsty on the blower. I wished I could concentrate on what he were saying, but I were a ninja, weren't I? I had to focus on all the ninja things, like vibrations in the air, and... and putting me lughole to the ground. That's ninjas, ennit? Also I couldn't understand what he were saying, cos I were Chinese. Aye, I know I said I weren't just now, but I changed me mind, alright? I remembered about Bruce Lee.

'I dinnae give a fuckin' shite aboot special rates for the self-employed caterer, I'm no interested. Now fuck off, before I... What the fuck did youse just say to me, ye wee bastart?'

I still couldn't get me swede around Jock still being alive. It were fucking miles down that gulley, I could now see when I looked over me shoulder and had a glance. One wrong foot and I'd be heading that way meself, and there were no way I'd survive that kind of fall, let alone climb back up and have a row with my daughter on the blower. Mind you, it were a bit odd, weren't it? Didn't he just call her a bastard? That ain't normal between father and daughter. I mean, a feller don't call a bird a bastard, do he, even if he's rowing with her? He calls her a bitch or a cunt or summat.

Which meant it couldn't be her on the blower. And I might be in the clear.

So long as I could get to Jock before he spilled the beans to her about last night.

'Ye cheeky wee fuckin' bampot,' he yells. 'If I had yis here with me the noo, I'd... Hello? Hello? Fuckin'...'

I looked behind us again, clocking Jock's mobile flying into the gulley. Five or so seconds later I heard a faint plop as it hit bottom. That's one thing out the way – least she can't get him via that no more. Now, if I could just shimmy over there a bit and get him in a headlock, I'd be—

'Aaarrgh.'

That's me that time, letting rip with a manly bellow as the bush I were hanging onto gave way and I went backwards, casting about for a grip on summat and finding fuck all. Well, that's it from me, I recall thinking as I fell to my certain demise. I've had a good run, doing a lot of good in the world and saving many a life and ending some bad ones (and not many good ones by accident at all), but here's the feller calling me boat in. Get the fuck in with that boat, he were shouting, waving his flag about. You've been out there nearly forty fucking year. Now get the fuck in and let someone else have a go, you selfish cunt. And I couldn't even ignore him this time, like I had done them other times when cunts had shot at us or swung chainsaws at us or tricked us into overdosing on wossnames. This time he'd got us good and proper. He had a rope tied to the boat and he were reeling us in nice and steady and no getting out of it. Mind you, I'd break his fucking face when I touched shore. Didn't he just call us a cunt? Also I had unfinished business, didn't I?

I touched shore.

It weren't like you'd expect. You'd imagine carking it to be quite painful, wouldn't you? Or at least feel a bit different, like you're floating up to the clouds or summat. But this were not that at all. This were more like getting snatched out of the sky by a very fat bloke who stinks.

I clenched me fist and went to swing it. I put all me weight and strength behind it, aiming to demolish the fucker's face beyond repair. Cos this were the feller on the shore, weren't it? This were the big one in the clouds who'd called time on us before I'd been united with my vibrating diamond.

'Royston, wid yis... what are yis doing, Royston?'

'Wha? I thought... Eh?'

'It's me, yer pal Jock. What are yis trying to slap Jock fer, eh?'

'But I thought you was... what d'you mean, "slap"? Woss you sayin'?'

'Youse need to tread more careful, Royston. This slope here, it's fuckin' treacherous. Me, I wis only saved by that wee conker tree doon there.'

'What conker tree?'

'It's no there no more. The main part o' the tree went oan doon to the bottom, but I managed tae hang onto the jagged stump. Eight or nine fuckin' hours I were clinging there, trying tae claw mah way back tae safety. I tell yis, ah'm a lucky man, Royston. Och, can youse smell sumthin?'

'Er...'

'If ah'm no mistaken, that pong there is human faeces.'

'Erm, Jock, you know you says you had a bit of a fall here last night? Well, do you recall how—?'

'Fall?' he blares, eyes blazing at us behind his undamaged bifocals. Mind you, they was at least an inch thick so I couldn't see how anyone could damage em. 'Ah widnae call it a fall, Royston. Wid youse? Wid yis really call what happened tae me a fall? You know whit ah'd call it? A fuckin' assassination attempt.'

Shite.

Fuck and shite.

'By them fuckin' vampires.'

'Ah... right...'

'Yis seem surprised.'

'Me? Nah, I'm just... I reckon yer on the right lines there, Jock. Vampires, yeah.'

'Ah must say, Royston, ah'm surprised that yis are agreeing with me. Surprised and heartened. Yis widnae believe the opposition ah've had from the toon at large. And when we joined forces yesterday, ah truly thought we wis all set for the big push towards total vampire eradication, ye know? But then youse changed yis tune. Youse turned oan me, ye wee fuckin'...'

'Jock, I swear I... I mean, I might of wavered a mite, but later on I got to thinking about it and—'

'What the fuck is that reek? Has some wee dirty bastart been using this vicinity for a cludge?'

Before I could ask him what a cludge were he reached inside his pants and pulled out a manky half bottle of Bells. He twisted off the lid and upturned it in his mouth, Adam's apple going up and down until the filthy thing were empty. 'See this stuff?' he says, lobbing it behind him. 'That's what saved me. That and the fuckin' tree doon there. It's like garlic, see - vampires cannae take it. From now oan, yis and me have got to keep oor bloodstreams topped up wi Bells at all times. Reet?'

'Aye, reet. I mean...'

He got another half bottle from his pants and held it out to us. The glass were smudged so bad with his sweat and fuck knows what else you couldn't hardly see the whisky inside. Straight away a fly landed on it and started licking or laying eggs or whatever. 'Go oan - drink up.'

'Yeah, it's just that I ain't feeling too—'

'Drink up.'

'Aye.' I twisted the cap off and took a sip. For fuck sake.

He nodded and went on up towards the path, leaving us dizzy and feeling a bit sick from the filth on the bottle and that were now on my lips. Or maybe it were the sheer speed at which events were turning. Or maybe it were the smell of the cack I'd done up there.

'Oh shite,' he says, 'ah've gone and stepped in it noo.'

I took a massive pull from the bottle. 'Them fuckin' badgers,' I shouts, following behind him.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 21

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


My main problem were that I didn't have a motor.

I did have one, if you wanna get arsey about it, being as I still had Jock's burger van and the keys to it somewhere, but I couldn't hardly take the lovely Kirsty out to Hurk Wood in that. Not without her getting suss about it anyhow. She were a right little sparky one, weren't she? Did you see her when I grabbed hold of her arm? For fuck sake, I thought she were gonna yank herself free for a minute there. And she got even sparkier when they came out of the caff to have a go at us about knocking some bird over and not paying the bill. Mind you, it were good to see Burt having summat to do besides popping toast. Weren't so good to see him kicked in the knackers by Kirsty, though. Actually, fuck that, it were good to see. In some ways she reminded us of Sal, former bird of mine and mother of Little Royston. Kirsty and her both knowed how to swing a shoe when required, and they both had dark hair and the kind of pale skin you normally sees only on prostitutes. Also they was both in Hurk Wood at the minute – Sal buried a bit too shallow for my liking up in the north bit (though she'd be well rotted by now or her flesh ate off her bones by foxes and rooks and that), Kirsty stood beside yours fucking truly on the edge of the south bit.

'And you're sure you dropped him off here last night?' she says, squinting into the path through the undergrowth and not looking happy.

'Defo. Said he wanted to go for a walk in the woods, commute with nature or summat. I think he had matters on his swede.'

'His swede?'

'Aye,' I says, tapping the side of mine. Youngsters these days. They don't learn fuck all at school, does they?

She frowned down at her high heels, frowned up the path once again and set off into it, frowning. Her blouse got snagged straight away by a bramble.

'Allow me,' I says, stepping in and trying to unsnag the fucker. It came off easy but I made the most of it, stood close and pulling the material away so I could get a gander inside. Fucking hell.

'Thanks,' she says, pulling the blouse straight and cutting short my glimpse of heaven. 'Are you alright? You look... peaky.'

'Nah, I'm just a bit...' Peaky? Randy, more like. But I couldn't give way to that just yet. I had to work on her, win her over and get her appreciating the old Royston Blake magic. Be a fuck of a lot easier if I'd drove her out here in my old Capri, instead of the Vauxhall wossname I'd had to swipe off a bird who were getting out of it in the supermarket car park back there, but needs must. And how were I to know there were a babby in the back?

'Whoops, looks like little Vectra's awake,' says Kirsty, looking over at the car where the wailing had started up again. 'She really is a sweet little baby. I wouldn't have bothered you today if I'd known you was a full-time dad.'

'Nah, it's alright,' I says, looking over there meself and rubbing me chin. I still weren't sure how to play that angle. The babby had helped win Kirsty over a bit, true enough, but I could see one or two problems looming on the horizon, what with the mum making all that racket back there and calling the coppers, like as not. Luckily I'd got Kirsty to wait for us over by the arcade, and she didn't hear none of it. 'Erm, I think she's just a bit hot, or summat. Reckon I ought to open a window?'

'Well, you know your own baby, but I'd say she wants changing. Or maybe she's hungry. Anyway, I'll leave you to it. And thanks for the lift. Is there a bus that comes by here?'

'You ain't going in that wood on your todd,' I says.

'Why not? I wanna find my Dad. If here's where he was last seen, here's where I look. I've gotta say, though, you told me you knew exactly where he was. This isn't that exact, is it?'

'Nah, it's... look, I'm coming with yers.'

'Don't be silly – you've got Vectra.'

'She can come and all. It'll be alright, honest. Look, I know she stinks a bit, but if we gets too many flies following us I'll just light a fag. They hate fag smoke, flies does.'

'You can't do that.'

'I can – look, I got four left.' I popped one out and lit it. 'Fancy one?' They was only Silk Cut, mind. Found em in the Vauxhall.

'Hmm...' she says, taking one. 'I didn't have you down as a low-tar man.'

'I'm on a diet,' I says, lighting her up and stepping a bit closer. I could see me lighting her up in other ways before long. All it had took was a fag and a babby and finally she were defrosting.

'Tell you what,' she says, stepping away slightly. You couldn't blame her for wanting to preserve appearances, class bird like her. 'You go and change Vectra, I'll try Dad again on his mobile.'

'I didn't see no mobiles on him when I seen him.'

'He didn't like to use it – said it made him vulnerable to vampire attacks. I told you he was living in a fantasy world.'

'Aye, well,' I says, smoking and looking back at the motor. 'Look, can you change the youngun? Only I gotta go for a bit of a dump meself.' Which were true – I couldn't recall the last time I'd curled one out. Seemed like a week or so.

'Oh, uh...' she says, looking all flustered like I'd put her on the spot. 'I don't know if I know how to—'

'For fuck sake,' I says, stepping foot to foot. I had a bit of a turtle head situation going on down there just now. 'How hard can it be? All you gotta do is, erm...'

I left her to it and pegged it into the wilderness. I couldn't hold on no more – that turtle were getting well brave, I fucking tell yer. Half a minute more and he'd be out of his arse-shaped shell and rattling around in Jock's trousers. Saying that, they was well tight on me and not much rattle. And he seemed to be retreating a bit anyhow, or staying put at least with his shoulders coming through but not his arms. I think it were the motion of my arse cheeks rubbing on each other as I sprinted down the trail. Sure enough, when I finally ran out of puff after about forty yard and pulled up, holding on a tree, the exodus were on again. He were like Harry Houdini, that fucking turtle. I yanked down me strides and squatted, making sure to aim him over the gulley a bit cos I'd be coming along here with Kirsty just now, leading her to the battered and busted corpse of her old feller and standing by with me comforting arms. Last thing you needs in a seduction scenario is the smell of human shit.

'Ahhh,' I says. Cos sometimes you just got to express yourself, ain't you? With a range of sounds, via both ends. Mind you, there was some odd noises coming out the back bit just then. You had your usual ones, which was like someone playing a trombone while driving a tractor, but also a new one that were more like a blackbird or summat, one of them singing ones you gets in the morning and what wakes you up with their fucking racket. Cheep cheep, it were going, or whatever. Maybe it weren't a turtle after all, but a canary? I'd been through quite a few eggs of late, it had to be said. Cheep cheep... cheep cheep... cheep—

'Fuck,' I says. Cos I recognised the sound now. A phone.

A mobile fucking blower.

Down in the gulley, which seemed about the spot I'd waved goodbye to Jock the night prior. Only there were summat about it, this cheeping and whatevering. It were...

It were getting louder.

Nearer.

Then it stopped.

'Och, what is it?' says a voice, about ten feet under my bare arse.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 20

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

Kirsty, her name were.

And she weren't blonde.

That's the first thing what hit us, after the earthquake had died down a bit and I felt meself getting control once again. Cos that's what it had been like – an earthquake. She weren't only the fittest bird I'd ever seen, she were the fucking vibrating diamond on the wall. That's what it had been about, the lightsaber and all that bollocks yesterday morning - it were the world's way of telling us I had a big one coming. A jolt so fucking major it's gonna set your teeth rattling and yet make you stronger and better in yourself than you ever felt. But she weren't blonde.

And her name were Kirsty.

'He's been having some problems,' she says, toying with a bottle of ketchup.

We was in the caff. It weren't Burt's Caff no more but in the same place. And Burt were still in it, pottering around behind the partition there. His own business had gone the way of most others in Mangel of late, meaning it had sailed down the pan and been took over by a bunch of outsiders you never saw. They'd stripped out all the old shite and put new shite in, most of it shiny and a bit like a hospital, except a lot cleaner than the one in Mangel. Then they'd gave Burt his old job back, although he were restricted to making toast these days, so I'd heard. But at least he had a future. I had a future and all, now. That's how I truly felt, staring at Kirsty's dark lashes and willing em to lift up and show us them brown eyes behind em.

'What's that?' I says.

'My Dad. He's been... well, he's been back on the whisky. He's always liked a drop but he's lost control of his drinking since Scott died.'

I thought about that. No matter how beautiful she were, and however much I just wanted to look at her and ask her out and try and get off with her, I had to play things careful. I had to make her see that I'm an intelligent, professional person who is not brain damaged. And to do that I had to say the right things, ask the probing questions. 'What d'you mean, lost control of his drinking?' I says.

'Well,' she says, shrugging. I loved it when she done that. It made the whole top half of her body move in a certain way. 'He just never seems to let up on it. He's always knocking it back, no matter what time of day it is.'

'Yeah, but in what way has he lost control of it? You mean he's spilling some down his chin or summat?' Cos I'd heard about that. Loss of motor skills, they calls it. The next stage is that the patient won't be able to drive his motor no more, which is where the condition gets its name from. Mind you, Jock didn't have to fret over that no more.

Shite.

I'd plain forgot about all that business of last night. I'd shoved him swede-first down that gulley, hadn't I? Didn't seem like such a good idea now, with the anti-wossnames inside us and the professional part of my brain getting going. Had I really believed Jock to be the Highlander? People can be twats at times, I swear, and I'm including meself on that. Fuck it, though - can't be helped now.

I could help his daughter, mind.

I could comfort her.

'He's just... you know, he's just trying to escape reality, I suppose,' she says. 'With the drink, I mean. But he's going too far. I think he's gonna hurt himself.'

'He were alright when I seen him,' I says, reaching out and squeezing one of her delicate paws. I were trying to set her at ease. 'I seen him put away at least a bottle and half, I reckon, and not spill a fucking drop of it.'

She frowned and withdrew her paw. Maybe I were being a bit forward there. I budged around the table instead, going for some leg contact. Mind you, I wished I weren't still wearing her old man's trousers – they fucking reeked. Then again, she might find that reassuringly familiar. But what the fuck were I playing at, not giving meself the once-over before stepping out with her? Change of strides and a clean shirt and I'd have been humping her by now, no fucking problem. I had to get me swede straight, truly I fucking did. And I'd already thought of how.

'Two Big Breakfasts?' the waitress were yelling from somewhere behind us.

I called her over and she set em down in front of me and Kirsty, saying she'd be back with the teas. I rubbed me paws and got stuck in, swallowing a streaky rasher whole.

'Erm, I don't think I can eat this,' says Kirsty, grimacing at the plate in front of her.

'Nah, I never ordered you one,' I says, reaching over and getting that plate. I scraped it onto mine, giving me a nice pile of scran about four inches high. If that didn't get me swede straight, fuck knows what would. 'I don't mind lending you a bit o' black pud, though?' I says to her, feeling generous.

'No, I don't really—'

'Go on. It's made of fresh pigs' blood. You can't go wrong with it, I fucking swear.'

'Really, I...'

I put a bit on the spare plate and shoved it back in front of her. Kirsty needed her head straightened and all, after all. I couldn't think of a bird who didn't, now I came to think on it.

'Look,' she says, 'I might as well tell you that my Dad's been living in a bit of a fantasy world lately. Since Scott died, he—'

'Hang on a min,' I says, hushing her up with a hand, 'who's—?'

'Can you take your hand off my knee?'

'Is that my hand? Soz about that. I'm just wondering who this Scott is?' Cos I didn't know no one by that name in Mangel. Foreign name like that, I were wondering if he might be linked with Jock in some way. This is the way you have to think if you wanna do private investigating, like I were doing here. Kirsty had come to us cos she'd heard about my skills in that area, like as not. It's true that her old man had been seen with us yesterday, but so had other folks. I didn't see her going round Alvin's, for example. That's cos Alvin looks like a fucking shaved squirrel in an apron. And cos he's shite at private investigating.

Me, on the other hand, I'd done loads of it in the past, sorting shite out for folks and locating missing persons. This one were gonna be a piece of piss, cos I already knowed where he were. But I had to make it look like I never, and the way to do that were by asking questions like who this Scott feller is.

'Hang on, don't tell us the answer,' I says, putting my fork down and pressing a finger to my temple, like clever folks do when they wanna get even more cleverer. I think there's a hidden button there or summat. Like the turbo boost button in Knight Rider. 'This Scott, he's linked with yer old man in some way. Aye, I'm getting strong feelings on that. And what's more, I reckon yer old man is linked with this Scott as well. So it's a two-way kind of linkage. Aye, I truly feels that.' I glanced at her, making sure she were keeping up with this.

'Scott was his son,' she says, looking a bit disgusted. I don't think she liked her black pud. 'He died... well, he had a drug-related fatal accident. They said afterwards that he was hallucinating on acid or summat, and I suppose he thought he could fly. They always warn you about stuff like that, don't they? But my brother was reckless. He was always doing crazy shit.'

I ate a couple of bangers. 'Your brother?' I says, chewing. A bit of sausage flew out of my gob and stuck on her forehead, but I don't think she noticed. 'How do he come into this, then? Did he know this Scott feller?'

She looked down and rubbed her pretty eyes, the pressure of it all coming down upon her. I wanted to put a paw round her shoulder but I sensed it weren't the moment. I went for her knee again instead.

'Maybe I'm not explaining myself well,' she says, batting it away. 'Scott was my brother, Jock's son. It's my brother who died falling off the roof of Rockefellers. We're the same family. Do you get it?'

'Ah, I gets it now,' I says, casting me swede back to summat Jock had said about his son getting killed by vampires on the roof of that selfsame club. It all made sense now. All you had to do were tie up the wossnames, cross-reference your thingios and you found the true picture. 'So Jock had two sons, right? Bit of a fucking nightmare, ennit, both of em carking it on the same roof? Anyone'd go a bit barmy after that and spill some of their whisky. So which one were first, the druggy one or the vampire one?'

Kirsty pushed her chair back and got up, flashing us a bit of creamy thigh before tugging down her skirt. At first I thought she were gonna give us a big hug, me being the first person to finally understand where she were coming from and know how she felt. Maybe she'd sit in my lap as well, stick her tongue in me ear and waggling it around a bit. I don't half love it when they does that. But she never.

She pissed off outside.

'Hold up a min,' I yells, going after her. Some twat got in my way by the door but I didn't have time to fuck around with that. This were a test, weren't it? Kirsty were my vibrating lightsaber diamond and I had to prove meself worthy. I caught up with her on the corner of Friar Street and grabbed her arm, not letting go when she struggled to get free. If that didn't show her how worthy I were, fuck knew what would.

'I made a mistake, OK?' she says, calming down. Some tears were coming down her cheeks and I wanted to wipe em off. With me tongue. No, with a hanky or summat. Fucking calm down, Blakey. And I could finally get that bit of banger off her forehead while I were at it. Waste not want not. 'I thought you was a serious person,' she says, getting all emotional now. 'I thought you'd be able to help me. But now I can see that—'

'I am a serious person. I fuckin' swear I am, Kirst. See that place over there? I used to be head doorman of it. And you can't get more serious than that.'

'What place? The Porter Centre?'

'No... I mean, yeah, but... Look, that place used to be Hoppers, Mangel's premier piss house, and it were me who done the doors there, letting in them who's welcome and knocking back them who ain't. I were a fucking community pillar, honest I were. Ah, you should of seen us back then, in me dickie bow and that. I'd of soon defrosted yer, I fuckin' swear. I mean—'

'I'll tell you what you are – you're worse than my dad. His brain's addled from the booze, but you, you're just nuts. You're off your head. Look at you – you're wearing a woman's raincoat, for fuck's sake!'

'No, you don't understand, I—'

'Go on then – what don't I understand?'

'See, you're the vibrating diamond, and, erm... well, before that, I thought your old man were the Highlander, and that there could only be one of him, but, er...'

She walked off again. I didn't blame her. I were fucking it all up, weren't I? Here were the biggest chance of happiness Blakey's ever had, and he cocks it up by getting his swede all confused. I mean, fancy saying that about defrosting her? She were too classy for that kind of wossname, this one, even though she were a bit frigid in actual fact. I'd blown my chance, no doubt about it. But I knowed how I could pull it back. I had one card left to play.

And it were the ace of fucking spades.

'I can take you to your old man,' I shouts.

She stopped.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 19

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

In a way you could blame my recent run of shite luck on Rocky III.

I realise how that sounds. I'm as big a fan of that film as the next man, and I wouldn't ever say nothing bad about it nor insinuate that it ain't right up there at the top in terms of all the films ever made. But there's one scene in it, and it came to us of a sudden about a year back, when I were playing pinball in the arcade. You know the bit near the start, where Paulie's in the pub and he gets arsey cos the barman keeps going on about Rocky? After that, right, he's staggering down the street, pissed out of his fucking swede, and he sees an arcade and goes in it. Looks like a top arcade as well, with way more folks in it than you gets in the Mangel one. Mind you, we got Fat Sandra in ours, which is a built-in customer deterrent, unless they'm into walruses poured into glass boxes, which is what Sandra looked like in her change kiosk. But fuck that – I'm on about me and my episode, which is how come I got saddled with council cunts like Dobson on me fucking back all the while, jabbing needles into my arse cheeks and giving us grief. More precisely, I'm on about Rocky III.

Cos there's parallels, see.

What happened in the film, right, is that Paulie's having a gander around this arcade in Philadelphia, which as well as being where Rocky comes from is where they make that fucking shite cheese that only birds on diets eat. He's having a smile and a chuckle at most things, including one feller who's got a mullet like you ain't ever seen. I've always sported the cropped look meself but I dunno, there's summat that appeals about this one in a way I can't put me pointer on, and if long hair of any sort on a male weren't considered a safety hazard in Mangel, I might give it a go. But that weren't what finally grabbed Paulie's attention, pissed as a cunt like he were and lairy in the head, despite his jovial wossnames. It were the Rocky pinball machine. Just like the one we got here in Mangel.

And that I were playing on a year ago, when all this came to us.

Everyone knows what happens next. It is a scene more famous even than the one in First Blood where Rambo chucks that rock at the helicopter and the bloke falls out. It is a scene that is full of shock and drama and pure horror. Not horror like zombies and Frankenstein and shite, but horror like when summat precious has just been destroyed. Cos that's what Paulie does, the fucking twat. He's jealous of Rocky and pissed off cos Rocky buyed him a watch instead of a sports car, which is what he really wants (Escort MK2 RS Mexico, I bet), and so he takes his whisky bottle and lobs the fucker at the pinball machine, smashing it and thereby setting the alarm off.

That scene just came to us, stood at the pinball like I were, full can of Strongbow Super in one hand and fag in the other. I were trying to get the ball in that hard bit up on the left and not getting no nearer, no matter how rough or gentle I handled the flippers. I'd never got it in there, not in all the long hours I'd spent playing that fucking machine. And it weren't like it were fixed nor nothing, cos I'd stood by like a twat and watched while others had done it. Even a couple of birds, for fuck's fucking sake.

So why couldn't I?

What's wrong with old Blakey?

And when you thought about it, it weren't just the pinball. It's every fucking hurdle life puts up, as far as old Blakey is concerned. Every other cunt gets over them hurdles, running up and clearing em with nary a grunt nor a blink, but when it's Blakey's turn to make his run-up, some cunt goes and makes the hurdle higher. So Blakey clatters into the thing, damaging it quite a lot but not getting past it. He's stuck the wrong side of it, watching all them other cunts forging decent and respectable lives, getting wedded and having younguns and buying nice houses with ponds round the back and koi carp in em. Where was my koi carp? And why the fuck couldn't I get that ball in the hole up there?

Looking at all that, you can see why I suddenly realised how much like Paulie I were, so much so that I took the can of cider and lobbed him at Rocky Balboa's smug face, which didn't look nothing like him anyhow.

It were the coppers first. Six of em, headed up by Jonah in his stupid fucking bullet-proof wossname. Someone else had a megaphone (Plim, I think), and he were out there on the street, blaring at us to throw down me fucking weapon and think about my family and friends. Family and friends? If they'd done a bit of asking about they'd know I didn't have no kin left (except Little Royston who'd been snatched by that fucking witch), and any mates I had was all cunts. And what fucking weapon anyhow? How could I throw down a weapon I didn't have? Then I looked at my paws and clocked the monkey wrench, which I had poised just then above Fat San's swede, her having come out and had a pop at us about the pinball.

She were giving us a fat smile, letting us know she didn't think I had it in us.

To be fair, I dunno if I did. Sandra were a bird, if you wanna be strictly technical about it, and I got a rule that I don't harm the fairer sex unless they'm trying to take my life, which meant that not many birds at all had felt the back of my hand or been killed by me over the years. But Fat Sandra were hardly the fairer sex, were she? A fucking one-eyed mongrel with an external tumour is better looking than her. Plus she were asking for it, weren't she? She represented every cunt who done their best to raise the bar just as I'm coming up to clear it. I raised the wrench, just as summat hit my neck like a big wasp crash-landing stingwise into it. I went down. And stayed down.

And I hadn't got up since.

Not when you thinks about it.

These was the reflections going through my swede as I lay on the floor of my room, still with me trolleys down and a mouthful of axminster but not feeling the sting from the needle no more in my arse cheek. Or maybe I did feel it, and just didn't give a toss. It were always the same, each time they pumped that shite into my bloodstream and fucked off until the next time. That's what my decision were about, the one I hinted at earlier but never actually told you about cos you got a big mouth and I don't trust you. But I don't give a toss now, do I?

What it were, right, is that I'd woke yesterday morning, which is when all this recent shite had got started, and seen things different. A bit of sun were slicing between the curtains like a massive lightsaber, stretching bright and yellow across the dust- and fart-filled emptiness and hitting the wall opposite, illuminating a bit of wallpaper the shape of a squashed diamond. And that don't mean much, taken like so and in the tepid light of day and with an arseful of anti-wossname. But yesterday morning, with me swede clambering out of a barmy dream and my muscles flexing and my cock standing proud like a tent-pole (without meaning to brag), I seen the light. The one on the wall, which were vibrating a bit like an alarm clock. Wake up, it were shouting. Wake the fuck up, you fucking twat. Meaning don't go down the clinic first thing and get your arse shot up, like I'm meant to. Go on an expensive holiday instead.

In a caravan.

And now here I were, back to peg fucking zero and pumped full of the anti-wossname once again, and further from going on holiday than a sheep is from leaping over the fucking gate. I craned my neck a bit, looking at that same bit of wall where the squashed diamond wossname had been only a day prior. No light there now. I think it were raining.

I listened to the big drops falling overhead, plop plop plop. Fucking massive raindrops, these was, and not many of em. Not very watery neither. More like a person doing a series of dumps from a great height onto the roof.

'Hello? Mr. Blake? I'm looking for a Mr. Blake.'

That didn't sound much like rain neither. More like a human.

'Hello? Is there someone home? I'm sure I can hear someone in there.'

A female human, aye, with big tits and blonde hair and an alright face. Cos you can tell, can't you? All the important things about a person, you can tell it in their voice.

'Well, OK, maybe not. I'll be off, then.'

'Hold up a min,' I shouts, staggering up and putting shoulder to wood. Or granite, more like. It's them cunts Dobson and Bean again, sliding the wardrobe even more in front of the doorway after they'd pissed off. I gave up and started shoeing the back panel, which were made of ply or summat and gave way sharpish. Then I stuck my swede out.

And saw her.

She were halfway down the first flight, turning back to us and smiling. At that selfsame moment the clouds cleared up outside and the sun came bursting in, filling everything with a warm, soft light like you gets when you stick your thumbs in your eyes and press hard for a few minutes. Or maybe it were still pissing down and grim outside, and all the light were in here, coming from that smile. Either way, it were in me now. I felt the anti-wossname getting swept aside and flushed down the drain, replaced by that light. I felt meself stirring. Stirring so much I had to bend over a bit.

'They said you might know where my dad is,' she said.

She were the most beautiful woman I'd ever clocked.

'His name's James McCrae, but people call him Jock.'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)

Blakey on Tour - Part 18

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'You know it's for the best, don't you?'

Dobson sat on the bed and leafed through his papers, glancing over at us now and then. I couldn't see it but I could feel it.

'Antipsychotic medicine is a godsend for people like you, Royston. With it, you can lead a normal life. Well, maybe not normal like I define the term, but as normal as one such as you can expect, after wasting his school years and doing his best to waste those of his betters.'

His foot were going up and down, like he were nervous. These are the things you notice when you're full up of the anti-wossname. You can't always see things but you can feel em. You're face-down on the carpet with your trolleys down from the injection still but you can feel things. In your gut. And I could feel in my gut that he weren't nervous. He were excited. For him, this were the best bit.

'Now, let's see what it was this time, shall we? The Wall Road, circa 4:45pm. You were running around with no clothes on again, is what I've been told by my colleagues on the police force. Also causing mayhem in the Youth Centre in a similar state of undress. There's more, but I'll get to that in a moment because there's a more serious criminal angle. First I want to address this public indecency and disorder business. What have you got to say about that, Royston? Got any thoughts on it? Care to share the sequence of events that led up to that little song and dance?'

And I couldn't blame him for it, his excitement. For him, it's like David and Goliath. He's David, the weedy cunt who no one rates. I'm Goliath, the massive giant who's lorded over it all for as long as any cunt recalls. And he's felled me. His leg's going up and down and he's breathing hard and feeling the blood pumping hard round his weedy body cos he's done a number on me.

'Well, fair enough. You don't wanna share, that's fine by me. And I understand it. I really do, Royston. You're ashamed of yourself. You've gone off on one again and made a complete fucking tit of yourself. You've caused innocent people distress, frightening children with your nudity and scaring unaccompanied women. And what of your family, Royston? How do you think they feel when they hear about you doing all this stuff in public yet again?'

But it's different in this story. Here, Goliath is alright. He's a nice giant, liable to crush you if you're a wrongun but otherwise fair, and nice to younguns and birds who are fit. Even ugly ones, long as they don't get on his nerves too much. But David ain't alright. David is an evil little cunt.

'Oh yeah, I forgot - you haven't got any family, have you, Royston?'

And he's felling Goliath over and over, firing that catapult time and again and hitting bingo every time. And he always will. I can't stop it happening cos he's got me. And he'll go on getting me until Goliath ain't getting up no more.

'Ah, look at me, asking you all these difficult questions when all you want to do is rest. Rest and let the medicine do its good work. Come on, Bean, let's get out of this one's hair. Mind you, he ain't got much on top these days, has he? Most of it's on his arse. I gotta tell you, Royston, you've got just about the hairiest arse I ever seen. And believe me – I've seen some hairy arses. Seems to be rife amongst the mentally handicapped. You ever noticed that, Bean?'

Grunt.

'Yeah, I'll bet you have. Come on, let's leave him to get on with his normal, law-abiding life.'

Dobson's words and Bean's grunts drifted out the door and down the stair, until I heard the front door slam and silence fall once again. It flooded everything, that silence. It were all over the building, in the air and the floorboards and the doors that weren't slamming nor making no sound at all. It were outside the window, stopping the birds singing and the traffic from making its otherwise constant hum. And in my head.

Most of all, the silence were in my head.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)