Gun Dog (3 page)

Big Roddy
is
dead. No point me saying that I can hardly believe it or any of that crap, because I can.

I'm sitting in the living room at home with Mum and Dad and Sean, and all four of us have trays on our laps. We always eat in the living room, watching TV. Anyway, there's a local news programme on the TV and it's all about Big Roddy. I recognise where the cameras are showing us. It's a grey concrete precinct of soulless flats where people live. We call it the Concrete Canyon, and it looks depressing on TV, a jumble of graffiti-covered walls and dark abysmal walkways linking square slabs of dismal
apartments. And I know from experience that it's even worse seeing it for real.

This seventies-built ghetto is a few miles from here on the outskirts of the other side of town. I've been there because a girl I liked used to live there. The second time I went to visit her, I had the crap beaten out of me when I was walking to the bus stop to go home. It was dark and I had to go along one of the walkways, and then down an unlit stairwell. That's where they jumped me. They left me bleeding and bruised and they stole my phone and my iPod. I can remember them telling me to steer clear of their turf.

I can also remember Dad phoning the police when I got home. I can remember him going spare when he realised they weren't going to send a car around to see us right away. That was when Dad first realised what I or any other kid could have told him ages before; that the police have given up on crime. They don't want to know. They've definitely given up on the streets in estates like ours. And they'd never venture into the desolate Concrete Canyon that we're
seeing on the screen now, where Big Roddy bled to death.

The blue and white police tape blocking off the exact place where Roddy snuffed it stands out against the grey of the concrete. I'm looking to see if I can spot blood on the paving stones, but the camera is too far away to see properly. What you can see though, is that already there are little bunches of flowers and a couple of stupid cuddly toys. What the hell is it with people, for fuck's sake? What a nation of feeble professional mourners we seem to have become.

Listen, they're interviewing some woman from our estate now.

‘He was a lovely boy. He wouldn't harm anyone. He had his whole life ahead of him.'

Other women standing nearby are nodding their agreement.

‘He was a bit cheeky, like, but he wasn't a bad lad. I hope they catch who did it and lock them away forever.'

‘I used to work with his mum, like. I don't know how she'll cope with this.'

This interview is taking place outside Roddy's house, but these aren't family members. I'm guessing that they're neighbours just dying to be on TV. And of course they live close by, so they won't let the truth intrude upon their words.

He was a bit cheeky, like, but he wasn't a bad lad. Christ almighty, these are neighbours so they just had to have known! Big Roddy was a loutish, violent, cunning, dirty bastard who would piss on their cars and carried three ASBOs on his sleeve like sergeant's stripes.

‘Ha ha ha ha ha – what a load of bullshit!' Sean's only saying what I'm thinking.

‘Show a bit of respect – the lad's dead.'

Sometimes I think that Dad is stuck in a time warp. Who cares that an asshole like Roddy Thompson is dead? Lucky for us that we live at this end of this particular street.
It's not so bad here and we're fortunate that groups of kids haven't chosen to hang out here. Probably because we're a well lit and relatively busy road. Dad might not be so respectful if Roddy and his friends had been spending their nights outside our front gate. Bad enough that, even as it is, he has to clear up empty fast food cartons and sweet wrappers and plastic drink bottles and stuff from the garden from time to time.

‘I feel sorry for his poor mother.'

Jeez Mum, get real. This woman is a foul-mouthed drunk who will pup out a replacement bastard in no time.

I've finished my tea, so I get up and take my tray into the kitchen. I even think that I could wash my plate, even as I'm putting it in the sink. But I don't wash it of course; Mum will do the dishes later.

I go up to my room. While I'm waiting for my computer to boot, I'm thinking about the gun under my bed. For some reason, it seems kind of disrespectful to want to hold
it so soon after Roddy has been killed. It's a stupid thing to say, I know. But all the same, I leave it where it is.

I have homework to do. Something I have to write about King Lear. Actually, I quite like Shakespeare. Once you get behind the poncey language, the stories are really quite good. Ms McNeil who teaches us English has handed out these books with the story of King Lear written in dumb stupid language so that we'll understand it. I'd find it insulting if I stopped to think about it. But the thing is, it means that anything we have to write for this class can be kept simple. Suits my lazy streak, I have to say. Anyway, I want to get this done and out of the way. It's Friday and Andy's coming around later and we're going out somewhere. Dunno where yet. I'll wait and I'll see what he suggests. We'll probably end up going to see a film though. He's been going on about this new Jason Bourne film for ages. Wonder what type of gun Jason Bourne uses?

It's not yet dark and I'm out on the street just outside my house with Andy. I was right – about him wanting to go see the latest Jason Bourne movie that is. It means a trip to the retail park on the far side of town and a visit to the multiplex, and it means spending money. But that's OK; I want to see this movie too. It's funny, but it's like I'm going to be taking a professional interest. As though, now I'm hiding the Ruger, I have something in common with Jason Bourne. Well actually, now I think of it, it's not funny at all. Just weird. Forget that thought. Thank goodness I resisted the mad urge I had to bring the Ruger with me.

We have to walk a fair way to the bus stop. But we can take a short cut through The Gardens – an area of shrubs and trees and grass with a square playground area of red shale in the middle. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? It isn't.

We have loads of time. So we're not in any rush as we slouch down the street with our hands in our pockets.

‘Did you hear what happened to Roddy Thompson?'

I look at Andy and I shrug.

‘Sure I heard. It was even on the news earlier.'

‘Who do you think did it?'

I shrug again.

‘Dunno. Could have been anyone over there.'

I'm thinking of the gang of hoodies in
that dark stairwell who robbed me and kicked my head in.

‘Yeah. It's pretty grim over there.'

I turn to look at Andy when he says this. After all, here where we live it's hardly Mayfair.

Andy realises what he's said and smiles sheepishly.

‘Well, compared to here it's grim. You have to admit that.'

And he's right; I do have to admit that.

We continue our slouching walk for a while, crossing the intersections of streets that lead off our road. The street signs are unreadable, covered with multi-coloured graffiti. We see the same indecipherable tags everywhere; on walls, on garage doors, on the post box that we pass. It's like the way that dogs piss to mark out their territory. I hate it, but what can I do?

The gutters at the edge of the road are filled with fast food cartons, wrappers and plastic bottles and cans. Every now and then there is broken glass. And you have to watch where you're treading because there's dog shit on the pavement too.

Even some of the rubbish has a tired look to it. Plastic and polystyrene ripped and torn and grey with dust and dirt, and flattened where it's been trodden and trampled and run over. It makes the place feel even seedier and more run-down. It just shows how infrequently the council sends road cleaners around here. Wonder if they appear more often where the councillors actually live? Dad says that there's never any money for anything any more, except there always seems to be plenty for councillors' pay and expenses and
index-linked
pensions. And jobs that nobody really understands like ‘Diversity
Co-ordinators
' and ‘Five-a-day Co-ordinators'. This last bunch apparently has to make sure that everyone has five portions of fruit and veg a day. Some days I definitely don't have five portions of fruit and veg, but no
one has ever cautioned me about it. Except maybe Mum. And she definitely doesn't work for the council. Dad gets really angry about stuff like this, he's always going on about the way things were, but I can just accept that it's the way that things are. I've never known it to be any different.

We pass a wide street as we head towards The Gardens. On the corner of this street, on the opposite side of the road to us, is a piece of flat gravel-covered ground with a couple of old concrete garages. The doors of one of the garages have been kicked in and burned. The other one has peeling paint and a broken grimy window. In front of this garage is a car. It's a clean and tidy car, even if it is ten years old. A Nissan Micra. It belongs to the couple who live in the house on the corner next to this piece of ground, Mr and Mrs Allen. I know this, because to me and my brother and sister, they aren't Mr and Mrs Allen – they're Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret. Not that they are really relatives, just that we've always called them that. Aunty Margaret has looked after all three of us
during school holidays while Mum was at work. Before that, she even looked after our mum, while
her
mum went to work. They've looked after quite a few kids round here. They are in their seventies now, but they still look after their house and garden, and I know that the little car is their pride and joy. They bought it brand new the day after Uncle Jack retired. I've been out in it with them many times as a little kid, squeezed into the back seat and listening to kid-crap songs on the cassette that Aunty Margaret used to keep in the glove compartment. Happy times, I guess.

A thump, the sound of rock on metal, makes Andy and me turn our heads. There are two kids using the little Nissan as cover, and from behind the burned out garage three other kids are gathering rocks to throw at them. I recognise all these kids. They are about ten and eleven years old. The two hiding behind the car are laughing as the rocks come flying at them. All I can think is that the poor little car is going to be scratched and dented. Maybe worse.

A rock goes way beyond the car and smashes against the red brick wall of the house. I feel that I should do something, put a stop to this before there is serious damage, but the fact is I do nothing. I just watch it all going on as I walk on by. You just can't afford to get involved in anything like this; everyone knows that. And one of the three bastards behind the garage I recognise. It's Derek Rogers, and the Rogers family are trouble. There seem to be loads of them living in a house that they've made squalid even by the unkempt standards of a lot of the houses on this estate. And they are criminals. Every foul-mouthed stinking one of them. They are noisy, drunken, and clannish to a degree you can barely imagine. To even look askance at one of them is to challenge the whole rotten pack. The mother alone has been inside a few times in the past for theft and the fat ugly sow of a woman sports more tattoos than a San Quentin lifer. The kids all look the same, and they have these slitty eyes so that you can't help feeling that there's some inbreeding going on. Doesn't bear thinking about. It's just like that film,
Deliverance
. Needless to say,
disorderly conduct is not a criminal charge to this lot; it's a lifestyle choice. Do I even have to mention that they are brutal and violent? So, however much it's breaking my heart to see these little scumbags hurting Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret's car like that, my cowardly instinct for
self-preservation
has won over. I feel sick and I want to cry. I'm not kidding.

What makes it all worse somehow is the knowledge that it's not personal. Not yet. These kids have nothing against Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret. It's just unfortunate that this is where their selfish thoughtless anti-social stupid game has brought them. So you really ought to be able to just tell them to clear off, right? What should it matter where they go to make their mischief? But what is really terrible is that it
will
get personal if Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret step outside to remonstrate with them. I'm praying that they don't. I'm really praying hard. For their sake.

I notice the curtains twitch. Please don't come out, please don't come out. Uncle Jack
and Aunty Margaret don't realise that it's a jungle out there. Another clang of rock against metal. I look to where the rock has come from and Derek Rogers is looking right at me.

‘What the fuck are you looking at?'

I'm not going to answer that whatever you might think of me, and neither is Andy. Next thing you know, Rogers and the kids with him are hurling rocks over at us. And we're putting our arms up as shields and we're running as the foul language and bricks follow us down the road, unmindful of the couple of cars that pass in both directions. These drivers must be local; they know better than to stop. Then soon enough we've left the foul kids and the rocks behind and we're turning into The Gardens. Rogers and the goblins that trail around with him haven't bothered to follow us. I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I'm glad that we no longer have to consider them; but on the other hand, I'm wondering if they are still hanging around Uncle Jack and Aunty Magaret's place.

I feel guilty and angry and ashamed all at the same time. I mean, these kids were about ten or eleven years old. Andy and me shouldn't be running from the likes of them. In the natural order of things, they really ought to be wary of us. But the rules on estates like ours don't follow any natural scheme. Remonstrate with kids like that, chase them off the way we ought to be able to and we'd have to watch our backs forever. You think I'm exaggerating? I told you about the Rogers family. Any perceived affront to one of them and you find you're dealing with the whole pack of jackals. If one of the bigger ones were to see you on the street, you'd be praying for the speed of an Olympic champion. But that's not the half of it. There's a better than even chance that the criminally violent father of that festering brood, along with one or two of the older yobs in the family, would be at your house battering on your door before you knew it. And suddenly your whole family is at risk.

But what I think is probably the worst of it is that every aspect of your life would
be ruined from that moment on. Like I say, I'm not exaggerating. What would happen is that the whelps from this pack of scum and their hangers-on would more than likely decide to hang out on the streets near to your house. Their foul language, yelling, and generally loutish behaviour would be stressful enough. But there would be the vandalism; the broken windows in the middle of the night; the damage to your car parked in the driveway. They'd be spilling into your garden, ripping out any plants and shrubs. You'd hear them in the middle of the night in your yard and you'd look out of your windows and they'd just look right back up at you and jeer their foul-mouthed, mocking invective. It would be loads of tiny little things. But it would be relentless. And they can keep this behaviour going, fuelled by alcohol and drugs, until you eventually break. Trust me, they will never tire of it. They're too stupid to tire of it. And they'll be enjoying it. Don't ever forget that.

So why not just call the police? Ha ha ha. Let's not even go there. Life's too short.

Still, Andy and me, we've got a movie to see so we just keep walking, along the path and through The Gardens. Like I've said, it's getting dark now, but we're not worried about walking through here. And besides, we'd have to walk about half a mile more if we didn't.

‘Be good if somebody would just take the Rogers family out, wouldn't it?'

I think about this before I answer. I'm still unhappy with myself, to tell you the truth.

‘You'd think they'd have enough
enemies
, wouldn't you?'

Andy doesn't comment and we continue our unhurried trudge through The Gardens. We're way out of sight of the roads now, and it's getting even darker. As we round a corner, we can see the playground area off to our left. The slides and the swings and the climbing frames are brooding in the shadows like the skeleton frames of dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum. It's way too late for
mums and toddlers to be here, so there's no laughing and crying and squealing kids; no dreary single mums with their baby buggies, smoking on the benches. But there are a few older boys there, standing on the dark shale. There are about half a dozen of them, slouching around in that slovenly fashion that they must think is cool, and I can see wisps of grey smoke from the cigarettes or spliffs they're smoking, and the red burning tips. We're too far away for me to recognise who they are, but some are wearing the peaked Burberry cap that's like a uniform to them, and the others are wearing dark sweatshirts. The hoods are pulled up so that they don't have faces from where I'm looking. I shiver, because these hooded kids remind me of that time when I was beaten and robbed, not far from where Roddy Thompson bled to death earlier today. Those kids were dressed just like that, although I doubt that this is the same crew.

I can just about hear the murmuring of their voices. Not the drunken loutish bellowing and fooling around you might expect, so I'm sure that they're transacting
business. That can only mean drugs or weapons. Skunk, E, speed, heroin, crack, meth and God knows what else. Or it could be a gun that's being traded. You can imagine why I'd think that, right? And yes, my mind slips back home to my room and the plastic bag under my bed, and the cold black Ruger that lies there.

Actually, it's more likely to be drugs than guns. Despite what the newspapers shriek and what the television gets all weepy over, it's not true to say that there's an epidemic of guns out on the streets. You read the papers and you'd think that every kid either has a gun or could get one cheaply in minutes if needed, but the truth is that guns are still hard to come by for most people. If you're a member of a crew and your crew is part of the drug distribution chain, it's possible that one can be borrowed if a little frightening or enforcing is necessary. Anyone who wants to be tooled up will carry a blade though. Knives are immediate. It was a knife that did for Roddy Thompson. Maybe it wouldn't have happened if he'd been carrying the Ruger he'd given me to hide.

Suddenly, I realise that the murmuring from the group in the playground has stopped. It's as quiet as the grave. And I realise that I'm looking at them and that all of them are looking at me. Jeez, that was stupid, letting my mind wander like that so that I didn't realise that I was looking over at them. I'm scared now, and feeling prickly as the adrenaline courses through me in preparation.

‘What the fuck you lookin' at?'

Fight or flight. I remember it from a science lesson in school. That's what adrenaline prepares you for. That's its job, to give you extra speed and strength and sharpen your reflexes for fight or flight. Well, I don't even have to think. It's flight for me.