You Don't Know Me

23

So, like, I just want to say sorry. I don’t know why I went off like that yesterday. It was just remembering Ki in my arms – it’s just – anyway.

I just need to look at my notes for a second.

Back to that day.

Nobody was in the mood to do that long drive to the airport so we decide just to get the tube. We leave the flat and next thing I know we were sitting on the tube looking at each other’s faces, waiting for it to leave Elephant and Castle station. Then we were off. The train was racing down the tracks and hitting all the stops quickly because hardly no one was getting on at that time in the morning. Ki and Curt had their bags on their laps and were quiet, just staring ahead, their eyes doing that flicking thing as the stops rushed by. Every now and then a couple of people got on. They were either workmen on their way to a building site mainly, or every now and then a late night raver just getting home, eyes still like glass from the E’s.

We get to Piccadilly Circus then we change lines to the dark blue line to take us to Heathrow. The platforms are filling up a bit as we get off so we have to bundle our ways past the crowds which are like the London crowds everyone knows. Some drunk people. Some homeless people. Some students. Some working people. Small pieces of the whole world right there underground. We cross to the right platform then wait a minute before the tube comes into view and finally screeches to a stop. We still ain’t said a word and as we get on and find seats next to each other we still don’t do more than just look at each other until the train pulls away again.

We watch the stations flit by one by one. Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, Knightsbridge, South Kensington. All these names which don’t mean nothing to people like us except richness. A kind of richness that even money won’t ever get us closer to. We know the names and we know the places, but we ain’t invited.

Then as we pull up to Earl’s Court in the corner of my eye I see a boy waiting to get on with a girl. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Just another couple. Then as the doors were waiting to open, I notice Curt start to stiffen. ‘Fuck,’ he goes, ‘I know that boy.’

The doors open and the boy gets on with his girl behind him. Curt buries his head in his giant paws but anyone who met Curt even once knows that he is impossible to miss. It was like an elephant trying to hide himself with his trunk. The boy saunters in and then sits opposite us with his legs wide open. He has on an Avirex flying jacket which makes him look bulked up on top, but you could tell by his stick legs that there weren’t nothing underneath that leather. The girl he’s with is all heels and short dress. It’s obvious that they’ve just been out clubbing somewhere. They have that dazed half-drunk, half-whacked-out-on-E’s look about them. Suddenly the boy notices Curt.

‘Yo,’ he says and leans over with his arm out and touches Curt on the knee.

Curt pretends like he’s noticed him for the first time and says ‘hi’ by nodding at him. The boy takes this as a sign and gets up and sits next to him.

‘Dread you know mans scoping you on the street. Bare people looking for you.’

Curt shrugs as if to signal he ain’t interested but the boy can’t be stopped. ‘Even your General’s putting words out. Where you been at?’

Curt folds his arms and gives out this look that could knock a person down.

‘Hey that ain’t even my crew no more man. I ain’t no one’s soldier you get me?’

The boy physically backs down and puts his hands up. ‘It’s cool man. So you want me to keep it on the low bruv?’

Curt nods and then says, ‘What’s even the beef though? You know anything about it?’

‘Yeah some Pagans giving Glockz a bit of heat innit,’ the boy says smiling again.

‘Yeah? What about?’

‘Some Somali boy got shot up and these big mans – Olders – on the war path you get me. They reckon it’s Glockz who shot their boy up and Glockz reckon you might know something. Boy says he was in some yard doing a deal and got shot when it went mash up.’

Curt nods, trying to look all ‘whatever man’ when he suddenly twigs.

‘Boy said? What boy said?’ he says.

‘The Somali boy. The one who was shot up. JC, I think he’s called.’

‘No man. Back up. The shot boy said it?’

‘Yeah.’

Curt looks at me baffled. Then he turns back to Avirex. ‘The way I heard it is that the boy was merked.’

‘Nah, man. He was shot up but the bullet went straight through. Survived. Shit this is my girl’s stop bruv, I’ll see you about. Don’t worry though I’ll keep it low,’ he adds, winking, and then pulls his girl off the tube waving us goodbye as he does it.

Ki and me look at Curt. No wonder we couldn’t find nothing about the murder in the news. Fucker was still alive. Curt thinks for a moment then stands up and swings his bag over his shoulder.

‘Let me look at them tickets,’ he says to Ki who fishes the printouts out of her purse and gives them to him. Curt gives them a once over and then rips them up.

‘What you doing bro?’ I say raising an eyebrow at him.

‘We don’t need these no more. Five-O ain’t going to be on us now is it? Come on. Back to your yard. Some shit’s going to kick off soon though.’

‘What? We aren’t going to Spain now at all?’ says Kira following us off the tube, confused.

‘If this shit is true, we don’t need to run from no police if no police are looking for us,’ says Curt as he walks across the platform to catch the train going back where we came from.

‘How do you know the Feds ain’t looking for us?’ I say following him.

‘Because no way would he have said anything to police about a drug deal gone wrong. And anyways, he’s scum but he ain’t a grass innit,’ he says and gives Ki a look which tells us that he is talking about Spooks.

‘And what about the gangs? What about Glockz? What about the Olders?’ she says still worried.

‘Olders ain’t after us though are they? They after Glockz. JC would have told Olders it’s them. Glockz might come looking for us but I reckon they got more bigger problems than us,’ he says and just then the tube falls into view and we all get on. It is still early in the morning but by now commuters are just starting their days and the train is fuller than before.

‘Anyway,’ Curt says in a low voice just as the train doors shut, ‘if there’s no Feds on this then Bless and your mum and my mum and your brother are all in shit.’

Ki and I look at each other. We know he’s right.