Stories
I was in a Mile End pub recently, handing over some DVDs I was selling to an acquaintance of mine from some years ago. Met her on holiday actually, just before I graduated Uni. We all felt that the final year had been a bit stressful [not due to work load you understand, it was just a terribly run Mickey Mouse affair of a course] and we needed a collective decompression exercise. We went to Southern Spain for a fortnight, and in week two happened upon a group of girls [and one lad] who were doing a similar thing but 4 years earlier than us, in as much as they were 17/18 and we were 22 odd.
Each of us found a female counterpart amongst the group, and mine was called Vicky. We kept in somewhat lazy touch over the intervening 4 years, Facebooking it mostly, but now I'm flogging off all my DVDs to make money for the America Trip and she was interested in a deal.
She chose 10 from the list of 200 and offered me a cool £30 for the bundle, which ain’t bad considering Computer Exchange was prepared to offer a tepid £5 for the same bundle. Things go well at the pub and we're chuckling away about what our respective groups have been up to [mine unemployed, disappeared or making adverts, hers studying, disappeared or addicted to heroin] and when her cousin turned up we relocated from propping up a bit of old shed [it's that sort of pub] to a proper bench style table and carried on the beering.
However we were not alone. Since I was with two young ladies in a pub full of either lads or old boilers, we'd attracted some attention [not me, obviously. No fucker was looking anything other than past me] and after a few minutes one brave chap made his cockney introductions and the game was on. He leaned at our table for a bit and talked his cheeky East London patois for a while, then would seemingly retire to his own table defeated, only to tag in another one of his lot who'd spin round and pull their moves. It was a revolving platform of "ello darlin" type banter.
I must admit to being initially insulted. I mean, these boys don't know what I'm doing there. Maybe I'm with one of these girls, maybe they're chatting up my girlfriend or my wife or someone. They don't stop to ask, or indeed pay me any attention beyond a half hearted "yeah alright mate" before turning their attentions back to the longer haired members of the party.
On this went for an hour or so, into the night, until the pub was largely just us, them and a couple of wayward old men avoiding their wives, Andy Cap style. The Mile End Massive clearly thought they were on for a promise, because they invited us [even me, who I'm sure only got a ricochet invite] to a party that was suddenly happening "nearby". Sensing their impending rape, the girls tried to dodge the question and talk about music for a bit, leaving the MEM at an impasse. They needed to get these girls to trust them. To see them as tasty geezers rather than potential offenders. They needed an in, and the leader clearly decided it was me. "So then mate," he abruptly said in my direction, "you up for this party then?" Those who know me will already be aware of the answer to this question. It's a no. It's always a no. I hate parties even when I know most of the people, and this one was setup to be an aggressive sexual nightmare. We'd turn up to the supposed venue only to discover it was a lock-up in Stratford where the girls get fucked and video'd and I get sparked out and thrown over a railway bridge.
I'm being unfair. They were actually all right. Sure they were a touch full on with Vicky and her cousin, but not to the point of violence. It was more awkward and a bit uncomfortable than anything else, no more than you'd expect from a handful of Artful Dodger types in a pub on the edge of an East End council block [The pub was nice, actually, and I might review it for My2Pints one day if I can remember the name of it... The Dog and Shooter I think, something like that]. One of them turned out to be a local DJ and him and Vicky's cousin had a long and excited chat about 90's hip-hop and the state of Glastonbury Festival these days. Even I wound up talking to the leader of the pack about the difference between Nottingham and London [as it was, we both felt that our respective home towns were rougher, but agreed to disagree based on a sort of stalemate between Nottingham's prevalent gun crime culture versus London's more blade and knuckle-duster based format]. It was, if a bit scary, not a bad night.
Until things were wrapping up and the leader reiterated his offer to attend the party, first to me [who he now felt he had on the payroll], but as you know I wasn't in anyway interested in going to this party, should such a party even exist, so I used a time honored excuse but expressed it in possibly too Nottingham a fashion.
"So how's about this party then mate?"
"Can't do it youth, I've got work in the morning so I've gotta fuck off"
"...did you just tell me to fuck off?!"
Oh dear. This has happened before with my casual use of the word fuck, which is considered less of a swear word and more of a lacuna for conversational gaps. We'd think nothing of filling the empty space in a sentence where you try to remember the name of a place say, with the word fuck. "I'm off to the...fucking... Harvester" is a commonly heard thing. I'm used to having to explain that to people down here, but this wasn't even an isolated incident in terms of the night.
Earlier me and the leader had been talking London v Notts in terms of violent crime, and at one point he joked that everyone'd best keep their north eye on me in case I whipped out a piece. Chuckling along and choosing to ape his Americanism for the word "gun", I said "Don't worry lads, I might be the only person from Nottingham who's not packing!". Stony faces all round as the leader looked me square in the face and asked, "Did you just say you hate Pakis?!"
Oh dear.
I'm beginning to think that he's misunderstanding me on purpose to get me into trouble, but he didn't stop there. Two of his clan had splintered off amongst themselves and were having one of those drunken conversations men often carry on with one another. "Listen... LISTEN... I think you're fucking great!" etc... I had one in the cubicle of the Gents at The Dry Dock in Leeds with James, all the while doing shots and throwing the glasses into the toilet, so it's not an alien notion to me. I'd largely been oblivious to it, focusing more on making reassuring eye contact with Vicky so she knew, should the ‘party’ come up again, that I'd be on her side.
The leader had been silently listening in on the man talk in the corner, and had begun to comment on it to us in a hushed tone. "Look at them pair aye... I reckon they should've just got off with each other years ago and got it out the way." He laughed, the girls laughed, I laughed... which was a mistake.
One of the lads, a bullmastiff looking youth with chapped lips, miniscule but angry eyes and a voice like a chain-smoking cockney swan, suddenly wheeled around and locked his [tiny] eyes right on me.
"What did you say mate?"
AHA! I got him! I hadn't said anything, for ages! Clearly he'd only been half listening and, in his drunken haze, mistook his friend's voice for mine. This would be cleared up in no time. "I didn't say a word youth, it was your mate over there." pointing to his friend cheerfully with a you've-misheard-there-I-fear look to my face. I glanced over to the leader to see if he was amused by his friend's error. He wasn't. He wasn't angry either at being shopped in. Instead he was nothing, a face blanker than a VHS in a box of magnets. I turned back to Guy Richie's Howard The Duck, but his eyes had somehow gotten smaller and angrier and were now just pin-holes of distilled [yet misplaced] anger. "You shun’t be facking eavesdropping on uvva peepuls conversay-shuns pal! FACKING, cammin in ere facking abaahht..."
I assured him I'd come in here doing no such thing. I didn't mention the DVDs for fear he might jam the Wayne’s World 2 case in my mouth and piss down it. "You yeah, are you fackin’, ooo are ya anyway? Ya fackin’ nobody intcha!"
How do you answer that question? Is it even really a proper question? I didn't get chance to find out. "You listen to me, you camm’in ere actin’ the fackin’ big man... I tell you wot, I'll open you up like a tin of beans mate!"
I get the concept behind that one, and indeed I think I've heard Danny Dyer say it to Dexter Fletcher before, but it always struck me as a bit whimsical for a threat. Open me up like a tin of beans? Did he have a Swiss army knife? Aren't there better, gorier things he could have said to get his point across? "I'll gut you like a fish" is a tried and tested favourite of revenge movies from across the ages. That's better. Fish are alive and therefore feel pain, plus the addition of the word ‘gut’ adds another level to the horror, conjuring up images of my own innards suddenly finding themselves outdoors and slopping down a grate in the road. Tins of beans, by and large, don't give me the same feeling. I like beans. Beans on toast were a staple of my childhood. I only think of good things when someone says ‘tin of beans’.
The Leader was no fucking help either. I looked to him for reassurance that his friend was merely yanking my dick, but no reassurance came. "He's only joking mate..." Oh, thank God. "But he will cut you!" Oh... shit. So is he joking or will he cut me? OR BOTH?! Is cutting me a joke to these people? Maybe that's what passes for humour these days. A man walks into the Doctor’s office, shanks him the gulliver and then calls him a toilet. Everybody laugh.
The girls stepped in to change the subject with the hope of calming things down, offering to perhaps consider the party but first needing to go home and get changed. Thankfully it worked, and I made tracks to the tube and away. I'm sort of sure he was only messing about, or if not that then he was all talk and no sharpened toothbrush handle, but I will admit to stepping a bit lively towards the train and not putting my earphones in until I was past Stratford.
Don't wanna get back-shivved. That's the worst.
Beanz Meanz Knivez - Brought to you by Gazz Wood -