The Windowlicker Maker @page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; } © Danny Hogan 2010 � All rights reserved � No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. � First published in Great Britain by Pulp Press � All paper used in the printing of this book has been made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests. � ISBN13: 978-1-907499-40-1 Printed and bound in the UK Pulp Press is an imprint of Indepenpress Publishing Limited 25 Eastern Place, Brighton, BN2 1GJ � A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library � Edited by Catriona Watson and Nicola Davies Cover design by Alex Young www.brainofalexyoung.com � � For Alex � 1 So there I was pissing blood from a big, fuck off stab wound in my side. Ava, my wife, seemed frozen in a state of shock as I clamped my hand to the bleeding gash just below the ribs in my right side, and fell back against an elaborate poster advertising the latest film release. Something for kids with robots in it. We had just been queuing up for the pictures, see. That’s all it was. Two people just off to enjoy a peaceful night with no bother. Some idiots just had to start. Me, I’ve always been bigger then your average fella and it seems to encourage these sad acts to have a go. It seems like a lifetime ago I left those gates wanting a clean break. To leave that life behind and be a good productive person, but no, some sad acts had to start something, to prove a whole load of nothing. There were four of them. Skinny little bastards with their clothes hanging off them; no style at all. They were laughing and jeering and saying stuff. The other people in the queue were looking on in horror. Nobody seemed to be doing anything about it though. I wanted to give it to them. Give it to them, but good. I looked over to my wife and she must have seen what I was thinking. She shook her head, her lips quivering and tears streaming down her face. �ŚLook lads,’ the words came from me with difficulty. Not near enough breath and my throat was dry and felt like I had sandpaper stuck in my craw. �ŚI’m done here, you won. Get out of here before the old bill turn up.’ �ŚWe own the Feds,’ was all he said. His voice was full of pride in his inability to articulate properly. For a moment the old things started to come back. The pain ebbed away and I felt normal for all of a second. Then a flash of rage was sunk by a numbness. A cold numbness. My mind was on autopilot now. Filling up with all that stuff that was drummed into me. Terrible stuff. But I caught myself. I had promised Ava. She was not a demanding woman, but when she wanted me to tow the line she made it crystal clear that if I wanted to be in her life then to defy her was not an option. She did this in as few words as possible and never raising her voice. That’s what I liked about Ava, she didn’t dick about. For moment though I stared into the youth who was holding the blade’s eyes and he stared into mine, he smiled the whole time. It was a mean, cold smile I could tell this was just nuts to him, he was not fearful, not at all. Though he should have been. �ŚLook,’ said Ava, her tone calm and holding her hands out to get attention but to indicate she meant no harm at the same time. �ŚPlease just leave and let me get some medical attention for my husband. The police are coming. They’re on their way, I can hear them. You best go now.’ It was then that I saw one of them produce a nickel plated cannon which looked too big in his small bony hands. I remember seeing the name Elaine tattooed between the joint of his index finger and thumb. He held the gun against Ava’s head. �ŚDid you not hear me, we ain’t afraid of no police.’ He levelled at me and paused for too long. The police sirens roared in the distance, getting nearer, causing him to jolt and I felt the first hint of relief for what felt like ages. He was dithering about and looking at his mates. For the first time he looked a little nervous. All of a sudden I became aware of the dumb plebians looking on in horror. The families, teenagers, the denizens of Brighton. Naturally none of them were willing to lift a finger. I could see one of the nerds behind the till of the cinema hunched behind the cash register quivering like a bitch with the phone cord leading to where he was, and hoped he was calling for the cops or an ambulance or both. For one lovley moment he seemed to retract the weapon but then swung the barrel to the back of Ava’s head and pulled the trigger. 2 That was about as much as I remember about that. For a long while I couldn’t go out and see anybody. Sure, concerned friends called and checked on me and what-not, but I just didn’t want to see a damned soul. When I did go out, I could not bear to see other people happy. They were everywhere I went. Smiling, happy, grinning like idiots. Laughing, joking, on their way to pubs. Couples giggling together. It made me sick, I tell you. I wanted everybody to feel the same grim misery and emptiness as me. It was a savage winter that year and Brighton seemed to have transformed into a block of ice. Especially in the Kemp Town area where they must pay less council tax or something, because the gritters didn’t seem to want to go there. I saw a businessman going to cross the road with some boiling coffee in his hand. He caught a bit of ice and did a river dance, trying to maintain dignity for a precious moment before panic set in. In one unreal move he totally slipped, doused himself with the boiling brew, bounced his bonce of a parked car’s boot and landed face first with a smack on the ice. That made me smile. A heap of expensive suit on the floor in a pool of coffee and claret, a real work of art. I thought a lot about Ava. How we met, how she changed me for the better. How she realised that I was not just some dumb thug and had given me a chance, opening up a whole world of opportunities that would otherwise have been unavailable to me. Months passed and all I seemed able to do was look at a lot of TV and eat rubbish. Ava had always made sure I had more greens than meat. Well she weren’t here now. The police had no leads and they didn’t seem particularly bothered about telling me such. Some old friends, real heavyweights from back in the day called me up periodically to arrange for something to be done, but, believe it or not revenge was the last thing on my mind. It wouldn’t bring Ava back. The only social contact I had was with the fella who lived in the room next door, Amos. He worked for the council every day and at the weekends his two young kids would visit. He was always smiling and friendly. The funny thing was it didn’t bother me. The daily anxiety and pain was beginning to take its toll and I started drinking heavily. One day I forced myself out of the house and made it to the pub across the street. It’s called something else now but then it was known as the Arctic. And that is when the drinking started. I began to hang around in pubs guzzling as much booze as I could in an effort to quiet the voices in my head. The other drinkers and bar staff took the piss out of me everywhere I went for the fact that I was always muttering to myself. Back in the day they would never have laughed. But this wasn’t back in the day. This was now and I was old, tired and hurt. A wounded beast at the mercy of lesser creatures. It was inevitable that I would start reeling off all the old stories, like a sad act to anyone who would listen. As inevitable as it was that anyone who listened thought I was bullshitting. Which bloody irritated me, no end. Sometimes I felt the anger build up towards whoever it was that was taking the piss out of me through the haze of stale beer and nausea. But it was like Ava was there during those moments, willing me not to do nothing as she would often do when she was alive. I’d start blubbing at this point, stuffing my public image even further down the toilet. Out of all the things that irritated me most, was people used to disbelieve that I was a damn good dancer. That made the fuckers laugh all right. A big oaf I may have looked but I was a graceful sod on my toes. It had been a good few years ago, I was just walking down the street, trying to get my head around a job I had back in those bad old days. At first I barely registered the person who handed me a flyer, as perambulated away with the demons as I was. Then I noticed the incredible looker that had just handed me this A5 paper with all this stuff printed on it. Slender and graceful she was in a vintage dress and peroxide blond hair done up like Marilyn. She smiled at me, I believe I attempted a smile back. I looked at the flyer, garish thing it was, with pin-ups and sailor tattoo flash and figures dancing all over it. If I remember rightly there was an image of a fat old Elvis on it but I could be wrong about that. The words, which were done up like the billboard of one of those old Technicolor films was advertising jive lessons at the local church. Jive lessons, indeed, I remember thinking to myself. The looker said something, I can’t remember what, but the gist of it was to come down and have a go. It was the sound of her voice that I remember, not what she said, it was quiet, subtle yet confident and assured. Oldschool. Well that was that, I was sold. I turned up in the hopes I could get hold of this fine piece. I turned up and I reckon my nerves went as I just stood around the edges of the hall for a while wondering what the fuck to do, while couples spun around like they’d been doing it their whole lives. There were young’uns, old’uns, media type twats with beards and glasses and snooty looking rockabilly chicks. Well the looker must have took pity on this big oaf in the corner looking like a rabbit stuck in headlights, as she partnered herself up with. �ŚMy name’s Ava.’ I remember her saying that all right. Well with the carrot on the stick that was Ava, I turned up regularly, I got good, we did a few events and it wasn’t long before me and Ava were branching out and starting up our own classes which we taught at the town hall. And then we got married. But now the mugs stick on something Michael Jackson or something, start clapping in time, laughing and jeering, the bloody landlord of my local with ponytail and bucked teeth shouting out at me to �śbust some moves then”. Bust. I would look at their heads, the bar top, a jaw, a half-empty pint glass, an arm, a nearby door, a body, the large bay window, a throat, a tray, a nose, the fire extinguisher and put it all together. The sound of crunching bone and the laughter turning to squeals. Those thoughts would have to do. Ava would never forgive me. And it was during one of these times me, in a pub full of cruel, laughing twenty-one year olds playing MC Hammer and clapping in time, that another one of Ava’s inspirations came upon me. �ŚIf you don’t like it, do something about it�Ś Without resorting to violence. You’re better than that,’ she would say. I put my drink down, and made my way to the door. As I did so I felt a balled up paper or coaster or something smack me on the back of the head. I stopped, but caught myself and carried on. I was going to make some changes. � 3 It took a little while to break some bad habits. But I got myself together eventually, and hired a function room above a pub off of London Road a month in advance. I printed off flyers and went to Rockabilly and 50s nights and handed them out. A lot of people seemed interested, especially these snooty girls with their retro looks and authentic dresses and makeup. Showing off more tattoos than young ladies their age should have. But if truth be told I couldn’t tell if they were taking the piss or not. You could have blown me over with a feather for on the first night five of these girls came down. That was five more than I was expecting. But there were no blokes, so I had to go to the pub downstairs and recruit some that weren’t too pissed or off-putting for the ladies. Must have done well as the next week a few of them had dragged their fellas along, or at least, fellas they knew and a few more birds. The week after the word must have gotten out as we were packed out. But this brought me a little bit of an internal struggle as one of the newcomers was something else. With jet-black hair, green eyes and paper white skin, not to mention a body that looked like one of those old Cadillacs personified, she was one hell of a woman. The fact that she always wore those old-fashioned bullet bras did my gentlemanly concentration no good at all. I felt a pang of guilt just looking at her. Turns out she was this stripper, though she’d beat you if you ever called her that, who went by the name of Eloise. The name rung a bell and she seemed to recognise me as her pretty but hard face broke into a smile when she saw me. Then I remembered this she-devil of little girl, the daughter of my old mate Mark Murphy, the notorious cobblestone fighter. We got to reacquaint pretty well after that. But no more than that for a variety of reasons, least of all because in my mind I was still married. Well on one of the drinks we went on after class there’s me snivelling and I say to her, �ŚI’d kill myself but I just ain’t the type.’ �ŚLife is a gift, Joe. These wasters are undeserved of it, is all. You should do your best to try and live the rest of your days good and happy. It’s probably what your wife would have wanted.’ Eloise spoke these words, but you could tell she weren’t comfortable with expressing emotions. Just like her old man. I gulped down another drink as I thought about what Eloise had said. �ŚAt the pictures too, of all the damned places; sacrilege,’ she added, shaking her head. I turned to her and could not help getting an eyeful of those pointy tits heaving slowly as she breathed, and the way her bottom lip quivered slightly after she said something. I felt a pang of guilt, and tried to drown the sense of betrayal with another drink. She looked concerned for a moment and I thought that I’d been rumbled. �ŚMy old man used to tell me stories about you, like weren’t you working for the services or something at some point?’ �ŚWhat, with my record?’ I said, wanting to talk about something else sharpish because I could see where this was going. �ŚWell still, things I heard. Could you track the people that killed your wife and do’em?’ I looked at my pint long and hard and turned it slowly in my hands. �ŚWell, one thing, I’m old – things have moved on and I ain’t the man I used to be. The other thing is that Ava wouldn’t want it, and to be honest, it wouldn’t bring her back anyway.’ She looked at me, but I’ll be damned if I could tell what she was thinking. �ŚI ain’t got the stomach for revenge,’ I said. She stuck a bit gum from a packet of Nicorrettes in her mouth and kept on looking at me as she slowly chewed. Well unnerving it was, the look in her eyes. �ŚIt’s probably just as well,’ she said, manoeuvring the chewed gum to inside the top of her lip with her tongue. �ŚBrighton couldn’t handle a man like you going mental.’ 4 When I first saw the lad meandering about in front of me I didn’t think anything of it, other than the fact that I found his cocky swagger mildly annoying. He received a call on his mobile phone and talked way too loudly on it, which was another thing that grated my nerves. Then I noticed that the clothes hung off his skinny frame in much the same way as those worn by the murders of my wife. This wasn’t anything special as most of the young idiots seemed to lack a sense of style these days. It was when he turned side-on from me that I saw the tattoo between his index finger and thumb, Elaine. My heart seized and every organ in my body seemed to freeze. The geezer turned to look, he had a shaved head and a face like a rat. I could see then that he recognised me, but it was too late. I should have felt angry but I just felt weak and began to get very tired. The fucker smiled at me and I couldn’t do anything. He mumbled something in his phone and began to laugh. I should have done something, said something but energy was seeping from me. I turned back and to go home and then heard a voice shout behind me. �ŚI ain’t responsible for my actions,’ his voice sounded snide and mocking. �ŚThe doctors said so. Ain’t got enough MAO-A� in my system, he said. Predisposes me to violence. Ain’t my fault is it?’ Then a long mean laugh. I kept walking. I felt something hit my back so hard that I fell to the ground. I looked and saw a rock scuttle across the pavement. I tried to get up but the wind was knocked out of me. �ŚIt ain’t my fault,’ he shouted at me from about thirty yards away. Back in my day we didn’t need excuses. I managed to get up and saw the prat walk towards me, slowly at first, grinning as he went. Then he sped up and I could see the intentions on his face. It seems that I was the one who was not in control of my actions now, as I began to run in the opposite direction. I could not believe myself. I must have been in primary school the last time I ran from someone. And this specimen, too! Running was a hell of a struggle with no breath in me, but I made it around the corner and knew that a few yards and my house would be in sight. I could hear my own heartbeat as if it had been forced behind my eardrums and was trying to thump a way back to my chest. I could see a cop car ambling down the road towards me as if it owned the place, and the thundering footsteps behind me slow down. The abusive shouting tailed off to. I kept going as I knew my place was around the next corner and, if I was lucky I could make it there without the runt seeing where I lived. As I shuffled around the corner, panting and sweating like a fat bloke, I could hear the footsteps behind me stop. I looked around and saw the runt and the copper in his car eyeing each other suspiciously. Without missing a beat I dragged my sorry carcass across the road. Fumbled with my keys as I gibbered and panicked, looked around, no one, shoved the keys at the lock until I eventually found the hole, looked around, I saw a trainer appear, shoved the door with my shoulder and slammed it shut behind me, and stood with my back at the door desperately fighting to get some breath. The shame of it. I used to live in a lovely place with Ava. It was a muse cottage just down the road, with three floors to ourselves. It had a garden which Ava filled with all kinds of colourful flowers, a big old kitchen; the works. Now I was reduced to a pokey little studio with a kitchenette and shared bog. I sat on the corner of the bed, rocking back and fourth, now the rage was coming all too late. For a moment I just wanted to smash my place up. But I just didn’t have the energy. I wished I was ten years younger. I wished I was still in contact with my old squad. I wished it was the old days. I wished I had the heart and the soul I used to have, then they would suffer, but more than anything I wished Ava was still with me. I sat there as the light through the window turned dark blue, and then into plain dark. That old familiar reaction of my eyes adjusting to the change. I used to have to do a lot of jobs at night. So this was it; I would see that little twat walk around Brighton as free as you please and not be able to do a damn thing about it. There was no way I was going to call the old bill. It seemed like the only thing I could do was take it or move out of town. It was then that I finally got angry. I had not done anything here, I was the wronged party. 5 I awoke the next morning with a terrible headache and a strange state of mind. I got to go to the pit that was my kitchen to discover that the only thing I had available for breakfast was one-and-a-half shredded wheat and a drop of milk that was on its last legs. I’d have to make do. After showering I made my way over the road to the newsagents and saw the front page of the local rag. Another random act of violence on our streets read the headline, so I picked it up and read on. �śMichelle Moon, 20, will need round-the-clock care for the rest of her life,” say boffins. Her boyfriend of too years (Sic) who was with her at the time is also in a critical condition. Police have no leads.” �ŚThis not a lending library, my friend,’ said the custodian of the newsagents. I put the paper down and walked out. If I thought I felt shit yesterday, I was wrong. I felt a world worse now. If I had only pulled myself together and done something to that rat, two people would still be happy today. I was sure of it. I looked at the damned mobile phone that Ava gave me long and hard. Jesus Christ I hate those things. I had to face the facts. I was not the man I once was. My wife gone, those kids�Ś I had to do something in case some other poor bastard’s life was ruined for no good reason. I pulled a card out my pocket and dialled the number. About fifteen minutes later a car rolled by me. It stopped, then reversed down the street until it was next to me. A voice called out from the driver’s side: �ŚMr. Tatum, will you get in the car please.’ I walked slowly up to the car window, which was being rolled down and said, �ŚOk officer,’ with a friendly smile. Sitting in the driver’s seat of the otherwise empty car was David Mack, the chief plod and apparent dosser who had been on the case of Ava’s murder. It had made me sick to my stomach to break the code but I had to do something. I opened the passenger door and got in. I noticed that both beverage holders held half-full coffee cups. The cups themselves were gargantuan, Yankee style. Even though he was a copper, David Mack looked more like a villain than most villains did. He had a head like a lump of beaten meat topped with dark hair that looked like a Turkish butcher had done it in a hurry. He was a big bastard and although he always talked using formal and polite language there was an air of brutality about him. �ŚWhat’s this about,’ he asked, as if he had something better to do. �ŚIt’s about that nastiness last night; those two kids.’ There was a long, uncomfortable silence. The kind of gig that made you want to expose yourself and sing I’m a little teapot just to inspire a reaction. It was obvious he wasn’t going to bother saying anything so I decided to get the show on the road. �ŚI reckon that couple last night were done by the same gang that did Ma and Ava.’ �ŚAnd what makes you think that Mr. Tatum.’ I never expect the pigs to be cooperative but still I found his reaction weird. Like I just strolled up reeking of booze and talking about strange lights in the sky. �ŚThis is Brighton, it seems strange that two assaults fitting the same style happens here. I mean it’s hardly LA is it?’ He just looked at me like I was talking dogshit, but I continued all the same. �ŚI saw that bloke that killed Ava yesterday,’ suddenly I felt my nerves go and my mind became gabled by feelings as confusion set in, �ŚI’m sure he had just done something.’ I turned to glare at the dashboard to try and get some focus. �ŚYou mean you believe you saw the guy that murdered your wife, and I mean really Mr. Tatum this all sounds very fanciful. Two brutal and unfortunate murders, nearly a year apart? You see someone who might have resembled the guy that took your wife out and put two and two together. Really Mr. Tatum I must warn you that wasting police time is a criminal offence.’ Oh, I focused then all right. It was all I could do to stop going for him there and then. �ŚSo that is it?’ I practically spat, �Śthe least you can do is give me a pat on the head and tell me you’re going to check it out.’ �ŚI’m the law around here and decide what gets done in its name, Mr. Tatum, you’d do very well to bear that in mind.’ �ŚWhy have you not brought my wife’s killers to justice then?’ I snapped. He was incurring my cantankerous nature, this’un. He looked at me coldly. �ŚI know all about you Mr. Tatum,’ he began, �Śsampled a fair few of our country’s fine institutions and some of our not so savoury ones.’ �ŚSo what?’ I looked at his coffee cups. I could see lipstick on one of them. I could just make out some flecks of glitter like what the young girls use in their make-up these days. Yeah. �ŚMr. Tatum, I can only imagine what you’re going through,’ he said this as if he was trying to stifle a yawn, �Śbut if you even think of taking the law into your hands again I shall ensure, using my considerable sway in the courts, that you get institutionalised for good. A nice little place that houses the criminally insane would do the job I reckon.’ I shook my head in total disbelief. Was this geezer a mate of Amos’s or something? Seemed like he was talking paranormal gibberish. �ŚWhat the hell are you talking about, Mack? I came to you didn’t I? I’m asking you to do your bloody job here and now you talk of me taking the law into my own hands and threaten to throw me in the fucking loony bin, what the fuck have you been drinking?’ Hit him? Shout that he could go to Hell? Do the teapot thing? I didn’t know. These were confusing times for me. Ordering a cup of coffee was difficult enough, but dealing with this�Ś �ŚDo mind your Ps & Qs, Mr. Tatum.’ He looked out into the road like he was about to quote Wordsworth, or something. �ŚI’m a patriot and a conservative who spends his Sunday mornings in church like he ought. I do understand what you must be going through, but I also know what you’re capable of. Who knows who those voices in your head will be telling you was responsible for your wife’s death?’ I kept quiet; he was doing a good job of winding me up. �ŚDon’t bother looking into this again. You’re confused. Maybe it’s time to relocate, a change of scenery might do you good. Clear your head up a little. Now get out Mr. Tatum.’ In all the driving and Mack’s baleful tones I had not noticed that we were in bloody Hove. The opposite side of town I lived on. Typical copper humour. I had nothing to say, so I got out of the car and into the nearest pub. I was thirsty after that. Over the road was an awful looking nightclub with a bunch of heavy looking bouncers milling around its entrance in all their finery. I looked back and saw Mack had his eye on them to. It was a knowing eye. And then he nodded at them. I paid no mind to it as he was right about one thing. I was as confused as hell. On my side of the road was a strange place called the Greenhouse Effect full of old heavies in slacks and polo shirts swinging brand new Chrysler keys around their fingers as they supped on pints of honey-coloured bitter. They made me think of the 80s. I ordered a pint from a friendly tart who was covered in tattoos and had big hoops in her ears. Not hoop earrings, but massive hoops in her earlobes, Christ alive. I was trying to think about what Mack had gone on about. The threats. It riled me how he just captured me in his big tin can and molested me like that. He could stick me in his funny farm for all I cared. Life had lost its taste. I didn’t know then that things were going to change. For better or worse? I don’t know. It’s difficult to gauge that now. 6 It took a lot of drinking to cleanse myself of the filth’s interference and by the time I left the Greenhouse Effect it was dark and I was pissed. I noticed that the bouncers over the road were staring at me. It wasn’t your normal, trying it on glaring either. It was with intent, I was sure of that. Yeah, coppers and bouncers. They make a fine pair. As I might have mentioned I have tendency to get confused and could have sworn I saw the landlord of my local, that dickhead with a ponytail having a chat with them. As I looked at them they stiffened in that aggressive, yet slightly scared way that hard men do. I thought, fuck this, and ignoring them I began the long walk home. I must have got ten feet up the road when what felt like a sledgehammer hit the back of my head and I hit the deck. It was the men from outside the nightclub, there were four of them, and they were hoofing the high-Hell out me. I thought Brighton was a nice town. They went for my head so I wrapped my arms around it. The bastards then began to work my torso. Soak it up old man, I told myself, you can take it. Truth be told, I was out of practice. I was struggling. The lads seemed to have had their breakfasts this morning and each dull and sharp strike was worse than the last. One of them was really enjoying himself as he screeched abuse and kicked me in. It made me feel sorry for myself to tell the truth, but not half as sorry as I felt when the ribs on my left side went. At that point I felt it prudent to play the whimpering done in one, though not much acting skill was required. Then, wouldn’t you know, they backed off. One of them; a fat bald cunt with little beady eyes glaring at me pointed and said: �ŚYou’ve been warned.’ The one who had really enjoyed this whole event gave stepped up and booted me in the face, forcing my head right back. A load of my claret was loosed as my face split right open. Yeah, I tried a couple of times to pick myself up from the floor. It was then that I noticed me and my new friends had attracted quite an audience. The good burghers of Hove seemed to be all stood around me looking suitably shocked and sickened, cooing and clucking and shaking their heads. Hove; the land of the disapprover. This was Vanessa Felts country. I had heard that Nick Cave lived here though I could never understand why. A big, black Bentley, with those effeminate chrome rims, pulled up and the thugs scrambled into it. With much fanfare the saloon did a U-turn and roared off towards the big Tesco on the outskirts of town. As I struggled to get up off the ground, coughing and spluttering and holding myself like a victim, who should I see walking past but the ponytailed landlord of my local. As he walked he eyed me with what looked like, mock pity, shook his head slowly and tutted. I promised myself that that would be the last time he mocked me. Something was wrong here. Why the hell were these mugs warning me and for what? I had the feeling that Mack was involved somewhere along the line, what with the nodding, but that was probably because I couldn’t stand the meat-headed bastard. As often happened when I got hurt, I thought of Ava. I had barely made it onto Church Road when that bloody mobile phone Ava had got me started to chirp. It made me bloody jump too as I forgot the thing existed most of the time. Didn’t do my ribs any good at all. The word on the screen said Eloise. �ŚHey there, lover boy,’ her voice sang out when I pushed the button. I was suddenly reminded of some shithouse film Ava loved. My attention was taken by two police cars screaming passed. �ŚHey,’ I said, and by God didn’t I sound awful. I had made some attempt to gulp down the pain and evidence of my current condition but the word just tumbled out of my dry throat and hit the deck, dead. �ŚWhat’s up with you?’ she asked, her voice was slightly distorted as my phone was getting out of range or something. �ŚI really need some help here,’ I croaked. I felt ashamed. She was silent for a little while and I thought for a minute that my phone had given up, then said, �ŚMeet my mate Hunter at The Office, tonight. He’s got some information for you.’ I was going to plead for her to come and meet me, but then I caught myself. I’m a man after all. 7 Never had a problem with poofters, myself. I can’t see what all the fuss is about other adults. Eloise had often referred to this geezer as her best friend which meant that he was one of the good guys regardless of who he consensually fornicated with. Although he was a strange looking fellow, shaved head, covered in sailor tattoos and a face festooned with metal, he also seemed extremely nervous and continuously fidgeted in the few moments I observed him when I entered the pub. The Office is not my kind of place. Too contrived by half and full of the most glorious wankers you can imagine. �ŚYou look like you been through the wars,’ he said, all horrified. �ŚYeah,’ I said wincing as I sat down, a fresh scotch in my hand. � He looked concerned, almost sympathetically at me, and it was beginning to wind me up. I took a slug and said, �ŚSpit it out will you I ain’t got all day.’ He gulped and said, �ŚHave you heard of Spindle Johnson?’ �ŚYes,’ I said, and my God my rage was building. Spindleruv �ŚSpindle’ Johnson did not look like your archetypal gangster by any stretch. He looked like a goth who had grown up and become one of those dandies, like that comedian Russell Brand or maybe a bit like Gary Oldman when he played Dracula. Right saucy. But everyone knew he was the cruellest, most wicked bastard Brighton had ever seen. �ŚBasically,’ Hunter said, hurling himself forward as if he was about to break into a show song, �ŚSpindle has gone into business hiring out the pick of the crop of the nastiest, most violent thugs he could find. He hand picks them,’ Hunter says this gesticulating away like a bugger, �Śfrom all over and then get them to prove themselves taking a life at random.’ He looked at me as if was horrified by his own words and continued, �ŚThe more innocuous the victim the better, by all accounts. He then uses them to put the fear of God into anyone who gets in the way of his business.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that this fuck-up was behind Ava’s death. Why would it? This scumbag was way after my time. Getting one of his little hench bastards to prove themselves, so he could gather up the coins for himself. Oh, my blood was boiling, and I must have looked bloody angry as Hunter looked like he was about to shit himself. Finding Spindle Johnson would be no trouble at all. He was the kind of jip cunt who liked to show himself off for the pretty bitch he was. He used a lot of his riches to pay for shyster lawyers to keep him out of chokey, so he never feared the police. That’s justice ain’t it? It was bloody obvious that those heavy lumps in Hove were Spindle’s boys trying to put the fear in me. �ŚSpindle Johnson has got Sussex locked down, Joe. He has people everywhere.’ He seemed to stop his endless fidgeting as he looked glumly at his drink. �ŚLook Joe, I would say that it’s best you leave town, but Eloise said there was no way. That you’d go around there and take Spindle’s whole crew out as quick as taking a drink of water. I’m not at all doubting that you are a hard man of some sort. But these guys are something else, and there’s loads of them.’ �ŚListen sweetheart, I ain’t going anywhere. Him and his crew may beat me�Ś’ I got up to leave, �Śbut I’ll hurt’em.’ 8 I spent a couple of weeks lying low and recovering from my injuries, devising ways that I could sort out Spindle Johnson. Though I got to admit, nothing was forthcoming. Years of the good life had made me soft, so after much mustering energy into my now lazy arse, I began to get back in shape. I took to the old rigorous routine of up early, then for a run, sit-ups, press ups then practicing a few moves surprisingly easy but my endurance wasn’t there. That’ll come though, sure it will. Although age was working against me, the years had made me bitter. Like I said the body wasn’t going to be the problem but I was finding it more difficult than ever to get my head straight. The day I decided to show my face in public again, as in socially, was because Amos seemed to feel to sorrow for me and asked if I would accompany him and his two kids into town for a cup of coffee. I really didn’t feel like it at all, but he’s a persistent bastard, so after a while I gave in. � � � � On the long walk to town he rabitted on about all kinds of strange bollocks as his kids amused themselves. My mind was elsewhere so I just nodded at opportune moments. To my horror, that idiot Amos had chosen a café in West Street to have this damned coffee. For those who don’t know West Street is like a strip of hell holes and mug shops, that on Saturday nights would often feature scenes of forty year old men in Ben Sherman shirts doing the cancan with traffic cones on their heads, desperately trying to pull fifteen-year old paralytic girls wearing not much more than belts. It’s so bad they made a whole TV series up about this place. The café, was one of those family places, mint green fa�żade with a small shitty terrace. Inside it looked like it could be someone’s front room. The floral linoleum tablecloths were always a treat for the senses and it was rarely ever full. I nodded at a couple of burlesque dancers I knew from my jive lessons who were having tea and these big creamy cakes that were all designed to look like bleeding roses, lilacs and posies, if you can believe that. I felt a little gutted that Eloise was not there, but I caught myself. Ava apart, she was my mate’s kid for God’s sake. Amos got me a coffee – with all that frothy nonsense instead of proper milk – and I sat down at one of the tables, exchanging pleasantries with the dancers. I notice Amos handing over a couple of notes and the shopkeep shaking his head. Amos looked apologetic�Śno, embarrassed or something like that and made his way to the door. �ŚThey haven’t got any change,’ Amos said as he puts his hand to the door, �ŚI’m just going over the road to break into this twenty quid.’ I thought nothing of it, but then I look out the window, my eyes following Amos as he awkwardly negotiates the traffic on West Street, see were he’s headed. A chip shop. The chip shop in questions is peopled by skinny twats with ill-fitting clothes. I recognised them instantly, as that Smiley prick at the lead and at the rear, rat face with the Elaine tattoo. My heart sank. Smiley looks at Amos – faffing around and looking fearful as he narrowly avoids getting tapped by a silver Merc – and laughs and says something to the others. They start getting noisy at the counter, and I feel weak again. All of a sudden I don’t want trouble. After all that winding myself up my bloody guts go. I take a sip of my coffee, but I don’t taste anything. Perhaps they won’t do anything, I kid myself. Amos’s kids walk over to the window, one holding the other’s hand. God knows what age they are, I ain’t good with kids. The bigger one’s a girl and little’uns a fella. I know that much. I see Amos has made it across the road and he’s entered the chip shop. He’s about to hand his score over to the chippie to get it changed when he appears to realise the lads are taking the piss out of him. I’ll be honest I feel fear as I know that peaceful man too well. He points to one of the lads’ mobile phones which is resting on the counter. I feel myself physically shrink as, although I can’t hear what he’s saying, I know full well what it is. He’s going on about how government agents are listening to all our conversations through our phones, even when they’re turned off. He’s making a bloody effort to break the atmosphere with what he deems to be interesting and informative �śfactoids” as he calls them. �ŚLook it up on www.what-the-fuck-ever .com’ he’s probably saying now. Some of them burst out laughing, others looked angry and fucking mean. I looked at Amos’s kids and they look worried, all quiet as they are. I looked over at the situation and then one of them hits Amos hard. 9 I sit there looking down at that frothy coffee, feeling pathetic. I summon enough courage to look up, but not enough to look at the chip shop. Instead I focus on a vagrant who is sat in the street a little way up from the chip shop, holding a guitar and looking at me like I’m shit. Like I’m lower than he is. Maybe he’s right. Amos hadn’t done anything. He had just wanted to take his kids out for tea and cakes and not have to contend with a bunch of wankers acting up and infringing on his little life like that. It reminded me of my last night with Ava. I could hear one of the lads shouting: �ŚYou like that you fucking coon?!’ I knew that, before long, someone will draw a blade and it’ll all be over. I thought about Ava, and looked into my coffee wishing the world was a different place. I knew poor old Amos would be there on the floor wondering what the fuck just happened and probably pleading by now, but I didn’t dare look. I was weak. Finished. I thought about Ava. My heart felt like it was broke in two. I couldn’t remember what her face looked like any more. How long passed after that I don’t know. I felt totally numb and empty. Could have been hours but was more like seconds. And then as if I was drowning but had managed to break the surface and was gulping for air, there was an explosion in me. Those bastards! Those fucking bastards! I wasn’t aware of shouting or even voicing that but I was slightly aware that I had drawn the attention away from what was happening in the chip shop onto me. One of the burlesque dancers says something to me but I don’t hear it. I began feeling very hot and my breathing intensified. My mind is a jumble but then, all of a sudden my thoughts get very focused. I think past Ava to many years ago. Standing outside HMP Dartmoor when it was still a Cat A prison. I had reduced yet another man to a vegetable on the cobbles. I remembered something about secret filming. My mind went back to my darkest moment. I don’t know if it was years before or years after. Everything has been a jumble for so long the clarity was blinding. A leering judge offering me an alternative to prison and like an idiot I jumped at it. There has not been a day that has passed that I hadn’t wanted to go back in time. I would have leapt into the prison van and tipped the driver. The next memories are a tent full of gas that burns my skin and makes me feel like I’m breathing fire, tied up in freezing water and the feeling that my heart is going to give out, syringes that look more like something you ice cakes with. �ŚVitamins,’ they said. Not even now could I allow myself to dwell on that for long. Never. So I was back there in the café, full of a rage and hatred that was forcing its way out of me. I felt myself grow. I felt like a fucking great big angry giant. The whole world around me seemed to convulse with rage. I swear I even saw the surface of the froth of my coffee undulate rhythmically. Amos hadn’t done nothing, he was just trying to get change for his fucking coffees. Ava hadn’t done nothing neither, nor that young couple. But these fucks think they can go about and fuck up people’s lives without no reprisals? The rage, earth shaking rage, took hold of me. The last thing I remember before storming into the chip shop was looking at Amos’s two kids who were snivelling and clinging to each other. I was vaguely aware that cars were screeching to halt around me as I stormed across the road. My focus was on the chip shop. I could see Amos on the floor covering his head and that twat with the tattoo hovering above him with a blade, squawking threats. There were six of them in total and that included Smiley and the tattooed cunt. They see me and they’re all smiling. Getting boisterous and calling me a hero. They think they can win easy. They ain’t going to. First off, I launched myself right into the middle of ’em. They were still confident but a little part of them must’ve been thinking I’m a nutter, judging by the looks on their faces. A little part of them is right, but that’s not the issue here, see. Look for the biggest, best weapon you can find. Like a wall. That’s a lesson that has served me well over the years. I sidestep the one right in front, as he telephoned a right-hander at me. As I did so I grabbed his right shoulder with both hands and threw him at the wall, which he bounces off marvellously. I then punched the geezer to the left, who I wasn’t even looking at – though I could see in my periphery – smack in the centre of his face. Just between his nose and his top lip. Now I say punched, but you have to understand, it was a good’un. You could tell he had never been hit properly before by the way he folded up like a deck chair. The geezer to my right who I wasn’t looking at either had time to act and was coming at me, but he reckoned I didn’t seen him. Quick as flash I fell back just enough to avoid him, and then help him on his way by grabbing the back of his head – his weight was in my favour, see – and I brung my knee up to meet his face, with all the mustard in me, at the same time I’m pulling his head down. There’s a lovely cracking sound and he literally flew backwards, spewing claret all over the gaff. One of the fuckwits pulled a blade. That’s not nice, that ain’t, I was unarmed. That left him, Smiley and that tattooed bastard. They’re looking awful shaky and so they should. What I did to their three boys was horseplay, mucking about, nothing serious. It was about to get fucking personal. Playtime was over. 10 Although he looked worried that fucking Smiley cunt was still grinning, and that had my adrenalin pumping like a fucking volcano. I did not give a fuck if this geezer was the brains or the coffee boy in Spindle’s organisation; he was going to fucking get it. The pillock with the knife lunges at me, I’d be lying if I told you he didn’t nearly get me. I was doing well, but age was starting to slow me down. I was struggling to catch me breath and getting a little shivery. I was running near to empty, how long that I was going to last... I weren’t sure. The bloke with the knife lunges again, but waking up I block it and return with a strike to his throat. Ho ho, his face was a picture as he dropped the knife, brought his hands to his neck and gasped for air. There’s a whack and everything went black for a second. I spin around and guessed that Smiley had hit me with something the way he grinned and held himself. The tattooed prick is closing in as well. Yet again they think they’re winning this one. No. I boot Smiley in the bollocks, an old chestnut but effective, and he collapsed to the floor wheezing. Tattoo, I want to save until last so I belt him – and I mean belt him – in his face. He hits the deck cold. That’ll keep him busy until I’m ready for him. The one who had the knife is holding himself up against the chip shop counter, still clutching his throat and trying to breathe, looking all sorry for himself and apologetic. Fuck it. I give him a thump in the ribs and send him headlong over the counter and face first into the boiling chip oil. There’s all kinds of hissing, sizzling and screaming, as I held him there for a spell. The chip shop workers are making a lot of noise as they huddle themselves in the corner. Horrified they look at the mess I have made of this geezer’s face as he howls in agony. I wish I’d thought about sticking his head in the batter first. Old Smiley struggles to get up. I help him, he’s wheezing and clutching his knackers and you know what? He weren’t smiling any more. I dust him down, and with my arm around his shoulders give him a little chuck on the chin. He looked like he was about to cry. I catch something out of the corner of my eye and grin. Poor old Smiley, poor old Smiley. I pick up the object of my attention; an unopened bottle of tomato sauce. You know, the thick glass type, not one of them new easy squeasy bollocks. Yeah, this was the kind of thing you had to thump. Old Smiley still ain’t got himself together, and he ain’t ever going to either. I get the little fuck into a headlock and I grab that bottle and bring it crashing down on his crown. I raised my arm and do it again. You see, a full unopened glass bottle might as well be a brick, but still, when you do a job like this you have to put some effort in. You have to really go at it, like using a sledgehammer, grab the fucker, get your weight behind it and swing. A couple of meaningful ones like that and you start to feel the top of the skull give. A bit like when you’re tapping your boiled egg in the morning. I wanted to carry on, but when I heard that sickening sound and felt that skull crack, just a tad, I knew I had achieved what I wanted to, and that was reduce the cunt’s motor skills by around eighty percent. I hope he enjoyed the last wank he treated himself to; there’ll be no more of that for him. Throughout this I was vaguely aware of Tattoo jabbering into what I assumed was his mobile phone. I didn’t give it much mind as, to be honest, I was enjoying my work on Smiley, who was now curled up on the floor, twitching and pissing blood from the top of his head. Big mistake. I heard an explosion and felt a great smack to the outside of my right shoulder. I was pushed forward a little and saw blood and meat appearing through a burnt hole of the right arm of my suit jacket. I bloody liked that suit. I tuned around and see Tattoo, his lips all quivering, mobile in one hand, and with the other he was pointing his shooter at me. 11 Sergio Leone would have put music to it, but rather than two banditos weighing each other across a town’s dusty thoroughfare at high noon, it was just me and Tattoo across that body-strewn chip shop on West Street. I still had that sauce bottle so I flung it full pelt and it hit Tattoo between the eyes, just at the point he was peeling off another shot. The shot went wild left and there was a loud crack as it ricocheted off the floor. In that time I had bolted towards him and now was upon him. I struck his wrist hard causing him to drop the gun, and hit him right in his floating rib. He doubled up. This skinny little bastard did not have a hope. There wasn’t going to be nothing fancy about this. I’m too far gone in the head for that. I put my arms around his waist and lifted up as high as I could, he weren’t heavy but I had to admit it was a struggle. He was now hanging upside down, winded, whinging and kicking in my grasp as I struggled. I remembered that night in the cinema. I hoisted him up a little higher and dashed him to the ground head first. There was this nasty crack and glimpse of the sight of his neck giving. And as he lay there at my feet, twitching and gibbering I wanted more than anything to feel joy, but truth be told, I felt nothing, not even anger. I looked at Amos, who had been on the deck all the while, and he looked back at me like he’d seen a ghost. He slowly pushes his glasses up the ridge of his nose. I was suddenly aware that there was some kind of commotion in the street outside of the chip shop. I looked down at Tattoo still jerking and fitting on the ground and thought, uh-oh, police. I was wrong, I turned around slowly expecting the boys in blue tipping themselves out of a meat wagon and got mighty surprised to see a load of bouncer types seeping out of a black Bentley. Yeah, there they all were, the ones who did me outside that club in Hove and, for big fat cunts, they weren’t half moving fast. They were all on me before I had a chance to pull myself together and with a great thump one of them whacked me in the face. I felt my jaw go and I was on the deck. There I was on the ground and they’re all loving it as before. All mob handed with their victim on the floor giving him a kicking. It had them feeling well hard, no doubt. They’ll probably give themselves a pat on the back and go for a drink after and brag about it the live long night. And then carry on with their lives. No, not this time. As nasty as they think they are I’m worse. I can see the fear in their eyes and that’s something I never had meself. I just did not care and never did, until I met Ava. And these bastards took her away from me. Well the price they’re gonna pay will be dear. There’s three of them hoofing the fuck out of me while I could just make out through the boots raining down on me, that meatball looking one who give me all the threats the last time. He’s out by the motor talking sternly into his blackcurrant, or whatever the fuck you call portable phones these days. The three kicking the shit out of me had a rye old time. But they failed to notice. I weren’t feeling it. Maybe I would the day after, but I weren’t planning on living that long no more. This is like back in the old days when people knew what they were about. These jokers are playing at it. Bumpkins pretending to be city boys in front of the ladies. I almost feel sorry for them. All full of hubris as they are, unaware of the living nightmare about to be unleashed on them. Because I’m a monster. There’s that bloke from last time who’s really enjoying himself, working my head and ribs over. I catch his mean eyes and see his confidence shaken when he notices I’m smiling at him. He seems to get himself together to give me one final, end of story boot, but as he brung his leg down, I bring my legs up to my chest and slammed my right boot into his knee with all the hatred in me. There’s all almighty snap and the look on his face is priceless. Sheer terror and agony at the fact that I have just given him a dog’s leg. The other two recoil like old women happening across someone’s dumped stash of porn in the pack, which gives me time to roll up and give the nearest one a right hook in his nuts. He doubles over with a long gasp, I’m on my feet now so I stamp on the back of his head sending him hard against the deck, face first. The third prick has pulled out a knife, but his guts went and his lunge was weak. I grab his wrist and his upper arm and twist his joints so he’s turning away with his elbow facing me. I focus on the roof of the chip shop and send my knee skyward and straight through his elbow with a sharp crack. His arm, which is now just a useless bundle of flesh, nerves and broken bone is at my mercy. So I twist it right round, all unnaturally, as he squeals and wriggles, and plunge that knife into his guts with his own hand. I help out by kneeing the handle right in there, grab the back of his head and smash his face on the hot, heavy duty cabinet which displays the pies. I’m in a world of my own and start over-egging the pudding by working the ribs of the bloke who I gave the dog’s leg to as he’s holding himself up against a wall, whimpering. That’s when I notice the fat bald bastard outside standing by the Bentley. He still had his phone stuck to his ear but he weren’t saying anything, just looking at me a tad bewildered. Then a mean, confident look takes over and he slowly lowered the phone. He nodded at me slowly. He didn’t half reckon himself. He then reached into his inside pocket and produced something, which at the flick of the wrist, turned out to be one of those telescopic batons. Lethal if you get one around the head, which by the look on his face, was his intention. I notice the sauce bottle that I did Smiley with, all bloody on the floor, but still intact. Wanted to play with toys did he? Well as my old man always said, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. I picked up the sauce bottle and smashed it on the counter as I walked towards him. The cool breeze in the street made a welcome change to the humid chip shop. He weren’t tall, but he was as wide as he was tall. Like a big meat square that had a prick with ears for a head. He looked at me as if he had already won, and was bellowing all kinds of threats. But although I ain’t no, Darren Brown, I knew how this one was going to end. All that fat and muscle meant he’s slow and he ain’t got the movement or articulation of a smaller man. I had plenty of time to sidestep his first strike guiding his arm out of harm’s way with my left hand as I stick the broken bottle into his right bicep. I then twist my writs and cut a big circular lump out, and didn’t he just scream. Poor old fat bloke didn’t know what was going on, his mind all twisted up with shock and pain. Which gave me enough leverage to get behind him, put my left arm around his neck, choke him a little and plunge the broken bottle into his left bicep. Want to know what I was feeling? Go into your fridge, pull out some raw liver and have a go at it with a knife and a heart full of rage. With the broken bottle still firmly clutched in my fist, I did the back of his legs. Fat bloke rendered useless. Mutilated limbs pissing with blood as he undulated face down on the cobbles, his fancy black mobile phone vibrating and chirping by his fat head. I never knew exactly what he was grumbling and screeching into the pavement, but I took it for: �ŚHail horrors, hail.’ Now where are all the actual police through all this palaver? I hear you ask. That’s them careering around the corners at each end of West street. Sirens sounding with them all hanging out of their windows, waiving their truncheons and giving it the Keystone Cops one. Although, with all the exertion the last thing I felt like was doing a runner, I wasn’t ready for getting nicked. There was still some business I needed to take care of. The chip shop was right next to this alley called Boyce’s Street, so I ducked up it as the cop cars encroached. I knew that there’d be cops coming up from Middle Street at the other end of the alley, but I also knew that on the left hand side was a nursery school which backed on to the alley. I dived over the fence and took a major run up to the wall of the nursery school building, the squeal of sirens bothering me immensely. My fingers grasped the edge of the nursery school’s roof as it weren’t all that tall, and with my very last ounce of energy I hoisted myself up and lay down on the roof. It was an old trick from my own school days and I hoped to fuck it still worked. The hard part was keeping my breath down as I wanted to gulp down air like never before. I didn’t have to worry about such yankee things as helicopters. They only tend to get them out when some tourist topples off the pier. I could hear the coppers make themselves look busy and talking all officially to one another and curious citizens. Then I closed my eyes. 12 I don’t have any idea how long I was out for, but it was dark when I open my eyes again. Although I didn’t exactly take any punishment that time, I’m stiff as a board and am hurting like buggery all over. I wince at that flesh wound on my arm which was all filthy and congealed. I peered gingerly over the edge of the roof to see how much of the route the coppers had closed off. I couldn’t see a soul along Boyce’s Street but could see fat bodies in luminous yellow jackets with peaked caps along Middle Street and knew they’d probably have West Street cordoned off at the other end. I also knew that the cops around here were more show than CSI and clambering slowly across the roof, along Middle Street without being seen wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life. But again, as my old man used to say, getting up’s the easy part, it’s the getting down. There were bloody cops everywhere. So I had to stay put. I must have been fucked because I dropped off again. God knows when I came around again, but it was still dark and seemed a lot colder. I took a quick peek and could not see any coppers but heard the crackle of police radios and the reflection of blue flashing lights on walls and in shop windows. There was a throng of people heading towards Ship Street and I saw my chance. I very slowly eased myself over the edge and clambered down. I nearly winded myself when I lost my footing and tumbled a foot or so. I pulled the collar of my crombie up and headed quickly towards the group. My heart nearly packed in when I turned the corner where the Trafalgar pub is and saw a load of pigs milling about. I tucked my head right down and kept pace with the people around me, manoeuvring myself between them so they were in the old bills’ line of sight and not me. I knew I couldn’t go home. Amos probably spilled his guts out of shock and fear more than anything else. The cops were liable to watching my place for days. There was only one place I could have any hope of getting any kind of sanctuary now, and it weren’t the church. I was getting too old and was not used to all this exertion. I was totally suffering by the time I found the house and pressed the buzzer on the door. The familiar but distinctly unimpressed voice crackled though that battered intercom, which was probably once cream but now a fag-stained brown complete with thick black streaks. �ŚJoe? Oh for fuck’s sake�Ś Come in.’ There was buzzing sound which strummed my nerves, indicating the door was unlocked. I pushed the door open, and walked past a kicked in bike and up the mould fragranced stairs. The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar. I went to push the door but it was wrenched open from the inside. Standing before me was Eloise in oversized purple pyjamas, hair in two massive black pigtails, a mug in her fist which was kicking out steam and the aroma of heated whisky, and a pissed off look on her face. I also noticed she had a reddened nose. �ŚI’ve got a cold, so that’s gonna add to the many reasons why you’re out of luck if you came around here looking for action.’ I turn to show her the bullet skim on my arm like a hurt little boy and said. �ŚI’m in a heap if trouble.’ Without saying much she made me a hot toddy and after cleaning up my wound from a little green first aid box she had we sat down, me on her leather settee and her coiled like a snake in the matching armchair. She had barely reacted at my gunshot wound and the way she cleaned me up told me she had done it before. Not surprising really knowing her old man. Girl’s houses always amazed me. Eloise was in her late twenties or early thirties and she had band posters and stuff you would associate with a teenager as well as box sets of sci-fi DVDs and paraphernalia you’d associate with a nerd. If she was a bloke you’d take the piss but she managed to make this nonsense look good. Call it the sickness of being a man but even though all of that shit had happened, my only respite a few snatched hours on a cold roof with the pigs on my heels after destroying no less than ten men, and getting nicked by a bullet, I just wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about the mean-faced beauty before me, nothing between us but a thin layer of purple material. There was something in her eyes however that brought me back to the straight and narrow and I spilled my guts about what had happened. After I had told her about all the righteous vengeance, and the narrow escape from the police, for the first time that evening I saw her smile. �ŚSure you can stay here, you big oaf. I’ll sort everything you need out, you won’t even have to leave.’ As I drank my hot toddy, she pulled the bottom of the arm chair she was sitting on and the whole thing seemed to unfold and become some kind of camper bed. She laid it out all nice, with a thick quilt and two plump pillows. She then came and checked my wound. She looked at me in an unusually concerned manner and it was at that point I realised how damned tired I was. �ŚCall me if you need me,’ she said before moving out the room in that way of hers. I crawled over to the camper bed, relished the clean softness and closed my eyes. 13 I woke up the next day in all kinds of discomfort. My whole body seemed to have seized up and my arm hurt like hell. I sat up on the overly spongy bed and coughed my guts up. Bleary eyed I accustomed myself to the alien surroundings and smells. The latter being not that unpleasant at all. I got up and sat down at a breakfast table where there were some fresh pastries and hot coffee in one of those glass French presses that are all the rage these days. I had to shake my head a little to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I saw a neatly folded piece of duck egg blue paper poking out from under the small plate with the pastries on it. I’ve gone to work. Don’t worry about food tonight, I’ll sort it, so stay in. And keep your head down. El X I should have stayed in and kept my head down. The last place I should have gown was anywhere near my place up the road. The police were sure to be camped outside of it. But that’s exactly what I did. I had a job to do. See, I needed to get hold of Spindle now and finish this once and for all. So I grabbed my coat and headed out to the direction of my house. The outside seemed otherworldly, people just going about their business seemed awful strange to me. My heart raced like a steam engine as I marched to the road I lived on and as I came up to the familiar bend in the curb my head was thumping with tension. But it wasn’t my house I had come all this way for; it was my local over the road. I pushed the door open, the place was practically empty apart from some customers, sitting and drinking around a circular table, behind the bar a barman, a barmaid and that ponytailed bastard of a landlord. There was no MC Hammer or people clapping their hands in time as I approached the bar. * That bucked-toothed, ponyytailed prick looked at me, shrugged, held his arms apart and said, �ŚI’m a lover not a fighter.’ Tough. I grabbed his head with both hands and bounced his face off the bar. I enjoyed it so much I did it again, and by God don’t he kick out a sound. I reminded myself I need information out of him, so I dragged him across the bar and stuck my fingers deep into his jugular notch. He was there, tears rolling from his wide open eyes, blood and teeth dribbling down his chin and emitting a sound like a duck being raped. �ŚWhere can I find Spindle!’ He looks like an old washed up version of tattoo, which is making this thing all the more enjoyable. His face is a mask of terror, the kind of look a man has when he’s stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea. I push my fingers deeper to help him make a decision. He taps my shoulders and I leave it a minute until his eyes begin to boggle. I hauled him up, he splutters and coughs the rest of his teeth out before he says with a great deal of difficulty: �ŚHe owns a bar, it does them cocktail shots, on Preston Street. He always spends his Wednesday afternoons down there doing business.’ The pair of bar staff behind the bar were looking at this scene quivering with fright. �ŚPlay some Mc Hammer,’ I said to the barmen He just stood there with a fearful look on his mug. �ŚPlay it,’ I shouted. He went over to some CDs and fumbled around with them. Most of them leaped from his hands on to the floor. �ŚI-I don’t think we’ve got it�Ś I don’t think we’ve got it,’ he sniveled in a total panic. �ŚPlay something crap then,’ I shout. Shakily he looks at a CD and puts it in. Some familiar sounding piped intro kicks up but my mind is to far gone to recognise it straight away until I hear the fruity singing: � I try to discover A little something to make me sweeter I glared at the ponytailed prick and shouted �ŚDance, dance you bastard!’ I’m so in Love with you I’ll be forever blue I let go off his scruff and he fell backwards. He looked at me terrified, and I started having this almighty lust to kill him outright. He must have sensed that as he started shuffling pathetically in time with the music. That you give me no That you give me no... � � The three customers who had been drinking at the circular table have been trying to sneak out when I caught them with my eye and glared at them. They look at me like rabbits caught in head lights for a moment. Then look at each other. Then they start shuffling in time with the music. I turn my attention back to my quarry. �ŚPut some effort into it,’ I roar. I have to say it was amusing the juxtaposition of him gyrating like a tart and sobbing like a bitch, as Andy Bell went into one. The three customers are also doing a good job, but they don’t look happy as they dance away, truth be told. Oh baby please give a little respect to me I leave the pub comfortable in the knowledge I have lost my mind. I then realise this is not the time to get nicked as I have to sort Spindle out. Gripped with fear I turn to look at my manor over the road, what I see turns my fear into white hot rage. 15 Instead of cop cars and meat wagons waiting for me in front of my house, I saw a single British racing green roller. In it were three occupants, who I would bet both of my knackers, were two hit men and a driver. I’ve got the right hump as I approach. On my left was a house under construction, the builders were sitting having their sandwiches. The look on my face was apparently enough, as they just look at me all agog and say nothing as I pick up three feet worth of scaffolding off the floor, and walk back out into the street with it. The hit men were watching my house all right, so much so they don’t realise I’m right on them until I’ve put the scaffolding pole through the driver’s side window and into his face. I open the door and drag the driver out, bringing the steel crashing down across his kidneys. His mate’s popped out the back and is going for me, but I stopped him dead with a pole to the gut then destroyed the left side of his face with an almighty swing of the scaffold. The third one’s made his way to my position and surprise, surprise he pulls out a shooter. I backhand the scaffold and smack his right elbow, breaking it. I drop the scaffold, grab his hand with the gun in it before he has a chance to drop it. The shooter is 1911, nice piece, I force his hand up and squeaze his wrist hard causing him to loose six shots harmlessly in the air. Seagulls that were perched around rooftops or dragging last night’s kebabs from bins, noisily took flight and people ran around looking for cover. I then force his hand down into his groin and make him blow his own nuts off with his last bullet. Money can make a lot of men do anything. But no amount of dough can give you the heart and conviction that getting seriously wronged does. The fact that there were hit men waiting outside my gaff and not old bill was awfully telling. With all this fuss and noise the police would definitely be on me on me now more than ever. I made a phone call on my mobile, which is a bugger to use with its small buttons, and headed to Preston Street. 16 It was drizzling with rain and the sky was a dark grey as I waited in the street on the other side of the road to this place, Nitros. It was a right tacky looking gaff and it only served shots of multicoated liquid and had photo-menus in its windows like a McDonald’s. It seemed like an age before my phone vibrated in my pocket. It would be Hunter, that wofftah pal of Eloise’s. I had called when I left the mess at the my local and asked him to get down to Nitros and let me know when Spindle went to the shithouse. I knew his kind. With only one thought on my mind I stormed over the road and through the double doors of Nitros. It was a plain box room that had been done up like a tart’s handbag. Long bar along the left hand side, manned by dolly birds, who by the look on their faces, seemed to know what I was about. The punters were townie twats and morons commencing their stag dos. I pushed through them, no one really bothered me, though I did have to slap a bloke. As I approached the bogs it was how imagined, two bouncers either side on the door making sure no one got in as Spindle conducted his business. I saw them stiffen and ready for action as I approached. I was going to have to make this quick and efficient, no showboating, no anger, just get the job done. I picked a shot glass off a table, smashed it and shoved it deep into the right hand bouncer’s trachea. The one on the left went for me but I side stepped him, walloped him in the gut, got my arm around his neck as he bent forward and pulled up for all I was worth until I felt a dull snap and it was good night from him. The punters in the bar started to panic and I could hear chairs dragging against the floor as they recoiled. I had to be bloody. I pushed the doors of the toilets open and enter. Bloody fancy things they are all black tiled walls and gold effect fixtures. In the middle of this fancy piss pot is Spindle in a crushed velvet suit and slick shoulder- length hair. He has his back to me and in front of him some young bird in the same uniform as the bar girls is squatting. I knew full well he was one of them types. �ŚTell Jim to bring the Limo around the front will you,’ he said. Great, he thought I was one of his mugs on the door come to occupy themselevs with his whims. I didn’t have time to savour this moment. Not then anyway. I booted him in his kidneys sending him flying forward, and grabbed the top of his hair wrenching his head right back so that I had eye contact. Now was the time. �ŚIt’ll be the sunshine coach for you from now on you slag.’ With that I raised my arm and with all the beautiful hatred in my heart brung my elbow crashing down between his eyes. In those wonderful days of old, those bygone days when kids could play in the street and you’d help an old lady across the road in those days of proper summers, and you knew your neighbour and said hello as you walked by strangers, and looked after your own, when you knew what you were about and not just playing at it and you had time to live not just exist, we used to call that move the windowlicker maker. 17 Of course I got nicked and was hauled down to Brighton & Hove Police Station and after eight hours in a cell I was lumped into Formica clad interview room with a little CCTV camera perched in the corner. I could swear that camera was trying to wind me up. I was sat at a cheap table opposite a grinning – or grimacing – David Mack and his dim looking partner. Mack was making much theatre out of looking at some documents before he finally utters, �ŚWell Spindle Johnson is alive, so we have that to be thankful for I suppose. But he ain’t going to be able to play the piano again, or fuck all else.’ He looks at me as if he’s trying to remind himself he’s at work and is supposed to be in a professional capacity. �ŚBut the same can’t be said for the two bouncers you croaked, that’s two murders Mr Tatum. Not to mention the three gentlemen out for a drive on St George’s Road, the manager of the Burlington Pub, and the fruit and veg market you made out of two groups of men in West Street. You’re clearly a very sick man Mr. Tatum. A danger to society.’ He definitely smiled. He thought he had me banged to rights. But it was me who had him. He was as much behind this mess that had got my wife killed for no good reason, as much as any of the mugs I had done in the last two days. And truth be told I don’t care if he was a major player or just turning a blind eye. A grown man is responsible for his actions and needs to pay the price of any infractions. He was part of something that destroyed people lives for no reason at all, other than sheer entertainment and just because they could. I thought about Spindle’s future and wondered if he was going to enjoy looking out towards Brittany, along the rolling waves, with ice cream drooling down his face, unable to control his own limbs. Yeah, as a legacy of this swine’s own wretchedness which Mack was a clear part of the CCTV of this’ll probably end up on Youtube. Mack prattled away and my mind went back to those good old bygone days, and then I decided listening time was over. The End � � � Jezebel St. Etienne in A Gun Called Comeuppance A post apocalyptic chestnut By Danny Hogan � I don’t expect you to be on my side from the get go. But, give it some time and you just may be. I’m round the back of the titty bar by Friendship Station buying a bunch of weeping kids from some traffickers. Ain’t on my side yet are you? �ŚYou see they’re all in prime condition. Ain’t been broken in yet,’ says Choctaw McGraw, my primary contact. He’s a bearded bastard with a growing out Mohawk, who looks like the kind of fuck who wouldn’t think anything of stealing pennies from a vagrants arse. He can’t take his eyes off me, but that’s the point. His gaze never goes above my neck. I’m wearing my battered old trench coat open just enough to show off my nastily short mini-skirt and a tank top that’s way too small and threatening to lose the fight to keep my tits from busting free. �ŚJust pay us bitch, so we can get out of here.’ This from Shady Jane, a skinny mare with a fat girl’s attitude. My outfit ain’t working on her. For some reason I didn’t figure on her being here. She only turns up at the really big deals. One of the kids, there are three in all, two boys and a girl, looks at me hopefully. Her mouth contorts and she begs, �Śplease miss’. Shady Jane smacks the kid hard around the back of the head and tells her to shut up. I think about a deep blue ocean for a second and then say, �ŚI ain’t taking no damaged merch.’ �ŚYou can shut up, too. Ain’t you done this before? These shits are gonna need more than that if you want ’em to work for you,’ replies the delightful Jane. There are two others with Choctaw and Jane but they don’t say nothing. They just stand there looking menacing. Who they are, I don’t know and I don’t give a fuck. I suppose they’re there to make sure I ain’t gonna pull a fast one. Yeah. They’re boys so they’re just gawping at me like Choctaw. I’m small but my chest didn’t seem to take any notice of that when it was growing. �ŚGot my pay?’ Choctaw asks my tits. �ŚYeah, I got your pay all right,’ I say reaching into my trench coat. People tend to laugh when they see me wield my 44. True it looks way too big for me. I suppose they imagine that the recoil will blast me back quicker than the slug goes in the opposite direction. To some people the whole scene in front of them may seem strange. A 19 year-old girl, 5’3” (well 5’10” if you count the twin Mohawks that run parallel on my head) pointing a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum with a 7-and-a half inch barrel at ’em. It always begins the same way; they laugh. It always ends the same way too. I pull the trigger, they stop laughing. With all this and the way I’m dressed none of these bastards pull their pieces, not even that bitch Jane. They’re stunned for a second or so. The kids stop weeping. Then Choctaw begins the smirking. What do you know? The others follow suite and then the full on laughing starts. �ŚWhat the hell’s that, penis envy?’ asks Jane. �ŚYou ain’t got the guts, kid,’ says Choctaw wiping tears from his piggy eyes. �ŚI can see you shaking from here. Besides,’ he struggles to get a grip, �Śyou won’t hit us with that cannon unless you’re point blank,’ and to illustrate his point he stands with his hands wide apart, offering up an open target. True I was shaking. But not with fear. I’m young OK, and I’m still learning to compensate for the adrenalin. He, like the others, is still laughing; confident in their knowledge of my abilities and what I’m capable of. Overconfidence is a killer. I pull the trigger. Boom. Choctaw’s head comes apart like a Christmas bauble full of hot sauce. Beautiful. See, I learnt to compensate for recoil a while ago. Now they’re stunned again, dumb bastards. Which gives me time. This god damned gun I love so much is only single action, see.� The kids are squealing and its putting me off somewhat. Jane draws first, which pisses me off because I wanted to save her until last. She’s the one they use to lure these kids, see, plus she’s a cunt. Oh well, can’t always have what you want. She’s there, weapon half drawn, glaring and threatening all kinds of shit. You know how legend says that a .44 can take someone’s head clean off? And then some ballistic experts say, well, no it can’t? What I’ve found is, if you aim for the throat, just under the chin, you can make a person’s head flip right back like it’s on a hinge or something. The boom, smack and crack sound it makes is cool as fuck. OK, so it’s not clean off, but it sure as Hell shut Jane up. I was expecting this to be an uphill struggle but the two so-called muscle only go and down tools, the bitches. They whimper shit about not being anything to do with this, about how they were just told to turn up for a job. How, when they discovered what it was all about, they were going to pull out, but then I showed up and they were taken in by my looks. Bastards were trying to blame me now. I could go into all sorts of crap about how they are as guilty as Choctaw and Jane, so on and so forth. But I really can’t be fucked. I decide to let Comeuppance, my .44, do the talking. She tells them to fuck off, permanently. Yeah, I’d like to say Vengeance is my middle name, but it ain’t. It’s Misery. Jezebel Misery St. Etienne, that’s me, and I’m here to level some shit up. You’re probably expecting me to save these damn kids now ain’t you? What do I look like, a nanny? I’m just here to bring the pain to bastards and greedheads like Choctaw and Jane. Leave them there too fend for themselves, it didn’t do me no harm. I look around and behold the image of sorrow in these three urchins, snivelling and generally making a god-awful noise. Oh Hell. If I didn’t have a conscience I wouldn’t do what I do I suppose. I know a safe haven on the other side of town. That, by the way, is a sure path to suicide. Thugs, thieves, mercs, fascists, bounty hunters and raiders are all waiting for me down that road. Speaking of roads, most of them are impassable too. This was a city once. Before the bombs dropped, that is. And, with three kids too small to fight in tow, it’s going to be a long old trip through Hell. Bring it on. �ŚCome on, I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ I mutter. I begin to walk but the kids just stand there. I turn around to see what the fuck is going on and two of the kids are just trying to stop their snivelling while the bigger one of the boys glares at me purposefully. �ŚMiss, you’re mean. We know you was trying to buy us. Maybe you never had no money and you was trying to get us for free? Why the Hell should we go with you?’ �ŚFine,’ I say, �Śstay here and become entertainment for whichever lowlife comes wondering by. If you’re lucky, you’ll starve to death before then.’ I take a hit of rum from my flask and begin walking. I decide to head to the other side of town anyway. I’m still up for a fight and in the mood for some sex, too. I wish there’d been someone around to place a wager with. I’ll be damned if I don’t hear the patter of small footsteps behind me. I admit it OK, I’m glad. I ain’t a complete cunt. It’s not that I hate kids, I don’t. They just can’t drink or fight worth shit or anything else that interests me. They also don’t shut-up. Even when they’re not yapping away they make noises like slapped dogs. Pre-war, so I’ve been told, the journey across town would take around 40 minutes. Now it takes the best part of a day and, when I say day, I mean 24-hours if you got a good pace on. Well, I’m encumbered and these kids look hungry. Hungry kids make more noise, it turns out, be damned. Mercifully my city safe house is on the way. This’ll serve three functions. Feed myself and the brats, get ’em some rest because they’re gonna need it and pick up equipment. On such a voyage you need a whole range of gear and I only came out expecting to do this one job and then maybe hit a bar and get fucked up in more ways than one. My abode’s a dank utility basement at the bottom of an abandoned building that has been left half demolished. The room itself is lovely. It has fixtures that I scavenged from a hotel that was left to rot. I even got some plastic plants, fairy lights and all sorts of fancy bric-a-brac I picked up along the way. My single bed is in one corner and opposite the main door is my desk. Next to the desk is my rack of guns. I take a slug of whiskey, some cheap shit I pilfered, and get to the task of lovingly cleaning my 44. I look over at the brats who’re commandeered my god damned bed straight away, and are now fast asleep. I hate feeling, I don’t know�Ś responsible for people. Yeah, I’ve been in love, once. He was famous, too. A legend to peaceful folks. A scourge and no-good to the shit, filth, scum and traffickers. I used to be a raider myself you see. Going around as high as fuck, robbing stealing, murdering, you name it. Then one day I was out with my crew and he came along. We knew who he was. He’d been around for decades, before most of us were born even, bringing justice to this justice-less world. I tell ya, I was even more full of myself then than I am now but, on seeing him, my heart started beating so hard I thought it was going to break free of my chest and make a run for it. It wasn’t fear this time either. Four quick shots from his repeater and my crew belonged to yesterday. I had never seen such shooting. Oh man, when I think of that moment. Him standing there in his duster and wide awake, pointing that thing at me with the new day’s sun coming up behind him. His looks were so rugged. A real, true man, not like the others. The admiration and lust I felt then, well, I ain’t never felt anything like that before or since. They say being out there reverts you back to your animal side. Well, I guess it does because he must have smelled me or something as he lowered his weapon. He had probably put paid to hundreds of girls like me in the past. Out there in wastes we were ten-a-penny. But, lucky for me, the attraction was mutual. Well, we did it there and then in the dirt and dust. He taught me about the importance of compassion and understanding. That normal folks, who were just trying to cut a life out for themselves from nothing, needed protection. About how damned wrong the whole slavery business was. He talked a lot about this guy Gilberto, his nemesis or something. About a year ago, he was cleaning his guns at this very table with me kneeling under it sucking him off. Just at the moment the floodgates opened, some of Gilberto’s boys burst in and blew his head to pieces, leaving me on my knees with a mouthful of dead man’s cum. Dunno how they found us but it was news to them that we were an item. One of the bastards reckoned he had a sense of humour and put a gun to my head and forced me to swallow. Yeah, then they raped me to hell, beat the shit out of me and left me for dead. I still get the ringing in my ears and them awful gut cramps. They should have shot me there and then, but hate and the need for retribution is one hell of a healer. All I know is, one day I’ll get that dirty bastard Gilberto and his boys. I kick the kids awake and feed them some of my precious rations, goddamnit. Then I equip. OK, I’m gonna need my man’s old repeater, for range work; four grenades for laughs and of course Comeuppance for the hurt. You may think that there’s no way the repeater, one of them old Henry rifles, would have survived and be serviceable after all these years, and you’d be right. It’s a real Washington’s hatchet effort with all of the parts having been duplicated and replaced over the centuries. I don’t give a fuck. It shoots strait and brings the pain. We set off at a good pace but it doesn’t take long for this, escorting kids to safety routine, to get old. Stupid little varmints’ legs are too short for most of the terrain. Clambering over ruins is all part of the game, see. Add their constant grumbling and bleating and you’ve got some idea of what level of Hell I’m in. One thing about out here that’s hard to get used to is the smell. Like death farted or something. Some say that it’s caused by a million wasteful things rotting over the years. After many uneventful, prattleful hours the safe haven is in sight now, but this here is no man’s land. Anything could happen between here and there. We are making our way through some craggy rocks, heading down this ridge on a hill towards a monstrous concrete affair surrounded by corrugated iron fences that is the safe house, when I discover how right I am not to let my guard down. I hear the laughing first; I recognise it from a year ago. It makes my skin crawl and the adrenaline pump. Appearing from behind some burnt out vehicles are the three bastards who killed my man and raped me. With them is that fat, evil bastard Gilberto. Those fucks must have tracked us. I have never known him to walk around with such a small contingent of muscle to protect his overstuffed, used up couch of a backside. This is too perfect but, then again, it isn’t. Sometimes I hate the way things turn out. This could be the best opportunity for me to get revenge that I will ever have, if it wasn’t for these damned weak little kids cowering behind me. They make far too good a target for that evil dick Gilberto to pass up on, knowing full well that a dying, squealing kid’ll distract the Hell out of me. But it is a stupid, stupid move to ponder all this for too long. With my attention on Gilberto, I don’t notice that one of his boys must have levelled a gun at me until I hear a bullet crack though the air. OK, so my coat’s bullet proof, but it don’t do nothing to stop the impact. I feel at least two of my ribs get pulverised. And I do mean pulverised and not broken. I double over and try to bawl at the kids to take cover, but I can’t get no breath and what comes out is a strangled rasp. I feverishly point at the crags. Either by instinct or because of me the kids finally flee and take cover among the rocks. I drop, crawl on my hands and knees and hunker down with them, just escaping a couple of shots that would have finished me. �ŚJezebel, Jezebel. You just ain’t got the class or brains of your predecessor. You know, the one that bought it with his shrivelled old cock in your mouth, you skanky, corpse fucking bitch.’ I hear Gilberto shouting. I look at the kids. The kids look at me, all wide eyed and open mouthed like I’m about to fucking explain it or something. Breathing is the most unnatural thing at the moment, and I feel like I’m dying. �ŚJezzy Bell, I’ll distract’em and you can shoot at’em from another place to trick’em,’ says the female one Sarah, all of a sudden jumping up like she knows shit. She’s gone and grown some balls at exactly the wrong fucking moment. Am I role model now? Am I fuck. Yeah. The girl’s called Sarah like I said, the other two are boys. James who appears full of himself and Adam who look like the runt of litter. Their names don’t matter that much to me though, as I don’t intend knowing them that long. I shout and try to grab her but the little nightmare is too fast. She’s standing there in plain view doing a stupid little dance. I feel sick to my stomach. It’s a gift to those fucking scum and there is no way in Hell they could stop themselves. The shot rings out and the little’un is stronger than I thought. She doesn’t budge or even make a sound as the bullet passes right through her. OK, so it isn’t the squealing that distracts me in the end because there is none. But it works none the less. Even better I’d say. I slump back and can’t even look at her. The colour goes out of everything and the world doesn’t even stink anymore. There is just a kind of nothingness. I can’t hear, I can’t taste the bile in my mouth. Nothing. It may seem strange but I feel really tired, like super lazy even. I just can’t be fucked no more. Now the two boys are whimpering like dying dogs and I can hear those, cruel, wicked bastards down the knoll laughing at what they’ve done. My eyes are starting to burn and well-up and I realise that I, that we, are done for. The last time I cried it was over my dead man with one of those rat bastards’ cocks up my ass. I summon the courage to at least look at the girl. She coughs and splutters; she’s still alive. That’s kind of worse in a way �Ścos she needs medical attention or it’s gonna be a slow and painful passing for her. I clutch the repeater and look at the skies, but you can be sure there’s no answer there. I rest my forehead on the barrel. This cannot be it. Fuck. I’m all about ready to throw it in and give up but something weird is starting to happen. My head is beginning to throb and my arms are shaking and I feel real hot. Then, my God, do I start to feel pissed off. Hatred, hellfire burning, white hot hatred, along with the undying need for a vengeance pushed out of Nemesis’s own cunt are the best healers a woman can have, as I said before. I can’t control myself now. �ŚYou bastards, you fucking bastards think you can go around and fuck with people like this and just nothing happens? Think you can shoot kids that ain’t even had a chance to fuck up for themselves yet?’ I’m shouting. �ŚShut the fuck up, bitch,’ One of Gilberto’s goons shouts back at me. Oh yeah, it’s on now. Right, time to take hold and get things into perspective. Fact, this is fucked up. Fact, we have one down and she’s just a kid. Fact, there are more of them than me. Fact, these bastards have no hope �Ścos I love killing. I get up and put myself in plain view. They can take as many shots at me as they like �Ścos you can bet all you got that I’ll be shooting back. I’m not as clear headed as I thought and I’m facing the wrong godamned way. I spin around guns at the ready. Sometimes, just sometimes, luck works in my favour. Not only have I found myself perfectly balanced but the repeater seems to swing so that the sites are lined up just right to take a shot at the first fuck that’s got his weapon aimed at me. I am Jezebel Misery St. Etienne. The fuck raped me, so I blow his nuts through his asshole. I pump the handle to chamber the next round as a bullet gives me a haircut, and get the next man well acquainted with an antique as I rip his heart out with a .44 rimfire. The third gets a good old gut shot. He’ll have plenty of time to realise he shouldn’t have messed with me as he dies slowly and painfully, poisoned by his own shit. That leaves that dirty fat fuck Gilberto, who’s peeling shots off at me like there’s no tomorrow. I drop the repeater and run like a crazed bitch diagonaly to his position. Most of the shots whiz past but, smack, and I feel like someone’s hit my shoulder with a sledgehammer. There’s fucking blood everywhere. I’m stumbling and can’t help falling onto my hands and knees. I don’t know what he’s firing but it’s gone right through. I use every bit of strength I’ve got to push myself up and carry on but the next one is gonna finish me off. I’m wrong, oh shit, right in my butt cheek, fuck. I’m spinning around now in agony, but I’m close enough and it’s all or nothing. I get my bearings, aim Comeuppance, and take Gilberto’s knees out. Ha, I knew it, he’s a pansy. He drops his weapon and collapses to the ground, squawking pathetically. I’ll do it just like my old man wanted me to. No prettying it up. No big last speeches, just do it. I hobble up to him (my shoulder and ass are killing me, and breathing is a real drag). Hmm, something occurs to me. I press the business end of the barrel to his forehead and I wonder if, perhaps now, I can get the answer I’ve been looking for and I pull the trigger. Nope, his head doesn’t come clean off. I guess the .44 magnum just can’t do that after all. There’s a neat whole plum in the middle of his forehead where the round went in and the rest of his head is a red mucky smear on the ground behind him. Ha, good enough. A shot rings out. Oh Christ, I think I’ve been hit under my right shoulder blade. I hear another shot but I can’t feel anything. I don’t know, what the hell’s happened? I’m face down in the dirt and I can hear small foot steps making their way towards me double time. Shit, in all this excitement I forgot about the kids. Ahead of me I can see someone, not a kid, running towards me, oh shit, damn and fuck. Now it really is over. I wake up and I’m in a bed with some damned bright light shining right above me. Well, I realise pretty quick that I’m in the safe haven. Pottering around me I can see the usual folks you get peopling these places, you know, the shit don’t stink types with their stupid haircuts and identikit outfits. My clothes are gone and I’m wearing some kind of flimsy gown that ain’t doing what it ought to. I’m also bandaged up to fuck. �ŚYou saved those young ones, child,’ says some grinning idiot of a woman in scrubs. �ŚYeah, the girl?’ Goddamit, my throat feels as dry as fuck. I need some rum or something. She’s putting her idiot hand on me, oh so gently as she says, �ŚSarah’s fine, they’re all fine thanks to you.’ She carries on in that pussy, butter wouldn’t melt tone. �ŚYou’ve been here two weeks but you’re physically in good shape now. We were just worried you wouldn’t wake up.’ I look her dead in the eye. �ŚGreat, so I can go. Suppose you’ll be willing to take care of the kids, because I sure as fuck ain’t.’ That takes the smile off her face. �ŚOur resources are very limited�Ś’ I glare. She looks worried. �Ś�Śbut I am sure we can find something.’ The last thing this righteous bitch sounds is sure. I ain’t going to be recuperating in this place, no fucking way. I am as weak as a lamb but I grab my things, ignoring smiley, get changed and make my way to see the kids. I want to make sure they’re really OK. I find’em, all smiling and jumping around, like nothing ever happened. Except, that is, for the dopey Adam, the runty one. He seems a bit withdrawn. I ask him if he’s OK. Then James the cocky one pipes up instead. It’s then I find out what happened out there. The guy who I’d gut shot, managed to lift his gun and he shot me in the god damned back before he collapsed. That’ll learn me. James says he ran to get help from these safe haven halfwits. Bastards were glad to come out, once they knew the coast was clear. Turns out they had been watching the whole scene from the safety of their compound. They probably had the popcorn out and everything, cunts. Anyways, while he was running, James says the youngest boy, Adam, picked up a gun and, very efficiently, eliminated the threat of Mr. Gut Shot. Shit. Ain’t no disease more infectious than violence. The kids are OK. Maybe the young one’ll forget this ever happened after a few years of being locked up safe in here. Time for me to go get some decent booze and do a bit of that brawling, bragging and booty chasing I was so looking forward to. I am Jezebel Misery St. Etienne, junky, psycho and tart; though I’m sure you’ve noticed I do have some flaws. You may be with me now, you may not. Either way I don’t give a fuck. The Beginning � I would like to thank the following most dearly: Mum, Dad, Big Modge, Tim, Vicky, Jay, Matt & Chloe, Nicola, Nathalie & Simon, Rebecca, Brian Bell, Alan Kelly for being so patient and of course Dominic Milne & Becky, Dark Daze �śFrench” Kev Mason & Tasha & the rest of Garage Studios (www.garage-studios.co.uk), hyper-talented Jen Harrison (www.feralfriend.com) for the Pulp Press website, burlesque legend Bella de Jac & Matt, the amazing Kitty Peels, living legend Cathi Unsworth & Mike, Tony Black, Allan Guthrie, Matt Louis and Out Of The Gutter, David Brazill, Jason Michel and Pulp Metal Magazine (www.pulpmetalmagazine.webs.com), good old Keith Rawson, Nick Quantrill, Matt Coleman and Helen, Buz Bunker & Em. Agnostic Front, Madball, Cro-Mags, The Business, Deadline, Morrissey and Nick Cave for the sound track. Red Stripe, Guinness, rum and Bombay Sapphire for the fuel. Special thanks goes out to: Danny Woollard for acting as consultant on this project. Lynn & Caroline, Grace & Gina, Kathryn, Catriona, Jacque and Rocky at Indepenpress without whom none of this would be possible. Alex Young although it pains me to say so. And of course Kim, for all the love support and the earhole that gave me a kick in that arse in the right direction.� And I’d like to use this opportunity to remind everyone that Hardcore still lives.