David Mathew: O My Days

So what do you wanna know? Ostrich asks.

About the others still, I tell him. The ones you squash up.

We are eating our baguettes during Sosh. It’s the nearest we get to going out for dinner: saving our baguettes for an hour until we’re unlocked. If we’re unlocked. So tonight Mr Ostrich is my dinner date. We’re an item.

O my days!

Sure I’m busting chuckles, but swear down, blood, it’s nice to eat together, rudeboy. It’s amazing the things you miss. While it might not be an Indian meal with a nice glass of beer, it’s pleasant to watch the muscles pulse on Ostrich’s left temple—as he chews, as he swallows. As he prepares himself to honour his side of the bargain. I watch his deep eyes: they’re searching for something in the noisy distance. No one is bothering us. We must appear too serious to be disturbed. It’s crisis talks.

You know when you have to do something, Ostrich intones, regardless of the consequences innit.

I nod my head.

We’re all here for precisely that reason, I tell him.

Ostrich shakes his head. Nar, man. I ain’t talking about normal crime madness.

He is fingering what’s left of his baguette; he is like a child mashing up play-dough. The action speaks of distraction and inner pain. It makes me feel like a waste to hurt a friend, but a deal’s a deal. Man needs the knowledge. Man’s thirsty for that knowledge.

So what are you chatting? I ask.

Ostrich sighs. The salami we’ve just munched comes out in a flow of garlicky bad breath.

We’re criminals, blood.

Allow it.

But are you listening, though? We made choices, blood. We took chances, we do what we have to do. We gamble.

Allow it, I repeat.

But we didn’t have to do it. We might have come into some beef. We might’ve, fucking, lost some face, rudeboy. Name be mud innit. But we didn’t have to do it, bruv.

Swear down, I tell him.

Then imagine a situation, yeah—a ting where you know the consequences are gonna be deep, blood. But you have to do it innit. There’s not like there’s no freewill about the madness, he says, sighing again.

I tell Ostrich that I’m puzzled. Then I come across the only logical response. Are you talking about a family ting? I ask.

Yeah yeah. A straight down, confrontation, mad astronaut shit family ting. Ostrich laughs. But this is lips-is-sealed, right?

I’m surprised you have to ask, I answer.

Check it. Ostrich nods his head. He holds out his left knuckle; I tap it with my own. Matter closed.

It was a ting with my Mumsy innit. Gets herself a new man, right? And he all right! She has a few before him. The sniff he gives is dismissive, disdainful. Just there to take up space, bruv.

I laugh.

To make up the numbers, the quota, he continues.

Some, rah, some exclusive pricks innit.

I hear you, man, I’m listening. Sounds familiar, bruv.

But he’s not giving me stodge about staying out too late. You’ve got to go to school: all that. You’re disappointing me. Allow it, man! Those other wastes, boy, they try too hard, rudeboy. This Anthony guy was okay. He tosses the remains of his baguette to the floor: a sign of disgust rather than of satiation. He’s on a roll, ha ha. Check the chuckles, blood.

I still don’t know where this is going. Journeys through the dark are only swish if you know the destination like the skin on your dick. I’m getting busy.

Man was even preparing his Father’s Day present, blood. I’m there, out at all hours, jacking cars and licking stereos for some peas to buy man a nice present. Show my respect innit. I go to bare trouble, rudeboy. I buy man a nice set of matching cufflinks and a duster ring. Cost me bare peas, blood! And what does the waste do? Man leave my Mumsy. On Father’s Day!

So what did you do?

Well, Mumsy’s ruined, rudeboy. Obliterated, says Ostrich, so I’m in the market for buying up a nine-millimetre strap and going over to his yard and putting a hole in his heart.

Allow it.

But Mumsy’s no, no, don’t do it, Maxwell innit. Why not? I know where to sell the motherfucker’s present. Get man some peas. And I know where to buy a strap. Friend of a friend, bruv. Not in my ends but I know where man live; it won’t take long. Man can get it in a hot minute. So I’m all for dusting over and showing the waste what time it is.

I’m nodding my head. This stands to reason: I myself have seen the need, back in the day, to teach a paramour or two of my mother’s a lesson. It’s what a good son does. Because a good son is the man of the house, and a good son hates seeing his mum bust a tear. It’s not right.

I’m with you, cuz, I tell Ostrich, aware that Sosh time is spinning fast.

So man dust over to man’s yard. Somewhere in Stepney, yat. Man driving enhanced two-litre whip in them day.

With a strap?

Nar, man. Just going over to polish the man’s face, blood. Seeing my Mumsy on the vodka at ten in the morning. She’s fucked. Gives man a toot on the mobile. Don’t do it, Maxwell—I’m begging you, innit. And I’m like, rah. Why, Mum? And she does it: she drops her fucking bombshell.

I haven’t seen it coming.

He’s your dad, Maxwell. Anthony motherfucker is my blood , rudeboy.

O my days! I say.

Yeah, man. My own dad leave my own mum on fucking Father’s Day, Ostrich informs me. It beggar belief innit. He is shaking his head.

Are you going to pick that up, Thomas?

Our attention is drawn to Screw Jones, who has approached with the stealth of a viper. For a fraction of a second neither of us know what the troublesome piece of lamb manure is referring to, and Ostrich even says: Pick what up, sir? Genuinely confused.

That piece of bread.

The abandoned baguette; our sustenance until the buttered toast in the morning. And we’re growing boys. Sorry, sir, says Ostrich, doing as he’s told.

Point made, Jones strolls away.

Ostrich rolls his head in a figure eight to get rid of the clicks. Enhanced though we might be, we’re not privileged to the sort of personal, tension-relieving massages that I used to like, back on the out.

So you punched him out?

Eventually. But I find out, says Ostrich, what the game is first. And I find out that Father’s Day. He busts a chuckle. Is not exclusive to me.

Meaning what exact?

Man has other yoots. Man ring his bell and he’s there, giving it the lemon. Shit didn’t work out. Sorry, son, rah. I say, Anthony? You’re my dad and it Father’s Day and I want to give you a fucking present. What’s that, son? he ask. Bam! Give the waste five knuckles to the chin. Cunt drops, rudeboy. But who’s there? Babymamma number two, with her yoot. And babymamma, fucking, number three—who just happen to be cousins—and I’m rah. What’s a man to do? I go in knowing and there’s no way of going out not, innit.

You killed the babymammas? I ask.

Nar, man. Point I’m making is, I have no choice. This was family, cuz. Ignoring it is not an option. I know I’m gonna bedevil a good day for two chicks who’ve done nothing to me. Man know this, rudeboy. But man can’t help it.

That journey through the blackness has not finished. Not by a mile.

Because he hasn’t left me once, man, Ostrich says slowly, in a different voice from the one that he usually uses, but twice. That’s fear. That’s fear of me, blood. It’s suddenly got nothing to do with Mumsy. It’s me.

The picture is clearing. He hit his head on the way down, didn’t he?

Yeah, man. The little table with the phone on it, Ostrich answers. A chance in a fucking million. Damage his neurons innit. Cunt die. I kill my dad.

That’s a tough call, I remark.

I ain’t finished, rudeboy. I dust that shit. Man dust the fuck out of that place. Babymamma’s not seen shit. I’m a free man. Conscience excepted.