David Mathew: O My Days

TV guide, innit.

Safe, cuz, he calls from the sink.

I’ve interrupted him shaving his chest. Feeling somewhat disappointed, I push the publication under his pad door. I’d expected something different. I’m just about to close the flap when he turns to me. He has eyes like the Indian Ocean, blood, even through the reinforced glass. Piercing, is it.

What happened to the two screws in the Cookery Room? he asks.

How do you mean? I reply, thinking: News moves swift.

Suspended. Compassionate. Fired, he elaborates.

I’m not willing to give too much away. When you do it’s like one of them anorexic chicks must feel while throwing up: you’ve lost your nourishment. You feel weak. I tell him that I don’t even know and he returns his attention to the mirror behind the mesh that is supposed to stop the suicides breaking it to use as a vein-slitter but doesn’t.

He says to me, offhandedly, Would you keep me posted?

It’s like I’ve been on an alcoholic bender and I’m sweating out all of the poison.

What’s in it for me? I demand.

He returns his gaze to the window that he’s not supposed to see much through. But I get the impression he sees me wide-screen plasma.

I can treat you in so many ways, Alfreth, he answers.

I’m chilled to my fucking atoms. Guy creeps me.

Is that a perv threat, Dott? I shout, aware that I’ve got about two more seconds before the cameras pick this up—that I’ve been at Dott’s cell for too long and that we’re doing more than chatting shit—but I’m all but trembling.

It’s not a perv threat, Billy. It’s a promise. A good one.

I slam shut the flap. Rattled. Continue to make my way to the stairs.

Hey, Library!

The address is very welcome. I want something to do that’s routine, even if it’s a complaint about a paper that hasn’t been delivered.

Jesus Christ. It’s Downe. Downe and Dirty, as he’s known to his enemies. Maybe to his friends as well, if he has any.

Wogwun.

Open the flap, cuz. Thanks. That Dott, yeah? he whispers.

Yeah, man, I say.

Maybe you could arrange for someone to bang him up regular.

My eyebrows pinch together.

What makes you think I have those resources? I ask him, genuinely confused.

I don’t know. It’s the word.

Mildly flattered that my reputation for organisation—albeit long since relinquished now that I’ve earned my Redband—has rippled the waters.

I ask him, And why would I want to do that anyway?

Downe’s reply is unequivocal and non-confusing. He freaks us all out.

This from a yoot who used a cocktail of shampoo and lighter fuel to toast a baby within an inch of its life, just because it had the wrong eye colour.

A pouch of burn, man, Downe continues in a whisper that only just penetrates the glass. His words shock me.

A pinch ain’t much, man, I seek to clarify.

A pouch, cuz. A packet.

In all my time inside I have never known of a stake so high. Remarking that I’ll think about it, I close his flap—there are footfalls on the stairs below me, screws approaching—and I’m marshalling my reasons for dawdling. I’m badly shaken by the wager’s proposal. I’m badly shaken by the fact that Dott knows not only my surname—impressive enough after a few days of incarceration—but my first name as well. But I’m shaken much more by the following interaction. My feet on the stairs, the bag on my back.

Yo, Billy! calls Dott.

Fuck you! I call over my shoulder.

I heard your whispers, Billy! he shouts. Give my love to Kate!

I been looking at me penis for the best part of three hours, says Ostrich.

Tell me more, I say. It’s Sosh Time: therefore we’re chatting shit.

And I can’t understand the conundrum of the egg and the chicken.

There’s a beat of silence. Until Carewith—a quite new yoot in from Chelmsford for bad behaviour—says what we’ve all been feeling.

The fuck that got to do with your dick, dude?

Ostrich says, Nothing. Just two ting happen same time. Me multi-tasking innit. Man looking at the chap and thinking about life, yat.

And what conclusions did you draw, Ostrich-man? I ask.

Ostrich stretches his neck and rotates his head: clearing the clicks. Man don’t know innit. The fucking chicken lay the egg, right? But what made the fucking chicken, right? Y’nar. It’s a fucking astronaut shit situation.

Roper is a div kid with learning difficulties, and he’s slow to catch on to The Teletubbies , let alone psychological rah.

And how your dick figure?

There no dick, man! Ostrich shouts. Just a piece- together, innit.

To which Carewith adds, Man know all about fucking chicken, yat.

As we’ve got another twenty minutes, and the pool tables are already and always occupied, I bite the bullet and ride the noise and say:

Chicken wogwun?

But Roper isn’t finished—it’s his way. He still wants to talk about the notification he’s received about a Sunday visit.

I want to know, he mutters absently, who’s coming to chat me.

Shut up, man, Roper-man, Carewith offers, equally as absently.

At least the seconds are passing. It’s a way of killing time.

One day, yeah? says Carewith. I’m teefing bare poultry from the supermarket, innit. It’s me and my ting. My girl Aleisha. Not me babymamma, another ting. And we’re up there at the hot chicken shit. The counter, yeah? And she’s like, rah, I don’t feel well innit.

Your girl says it? I want to confirm.

Yeah. But she’s faking it, rudeboy. She giving it the hand to the head, right? I don’t feel good. I need to sit down.

We all start to laugh.

Making sure the chicken chick’s clocking her. Getting her nice and worried, yeah? She virtually be having a cardio innit.

I remember in Felts, I dashed a yoghurt in a yoot’s face, says Roper.

Ostrich says, Shut it, Ropes-man. Allow it.

Carewith is smiling broad. Then she fall down innit, he continues. So what the chicken chick gonna go? He raises his hands: case considered and case closed. Leave her position, of course. Offer assistance, rudeboy.

That Miss Simpson ting, Roper carries on, following the line of his own internal logic—his own gingerbread trail. He’s talking about a screw on his Wing. She’s something I’d move to on the outside.

We’re not talking about that, guy, I tell Roper, impatiently. So shut your beak. What we say has got nothing to do with your life.

You make me shut it, Roper says, his features yokelly and not to be trusted.

He resembles the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz . Such fear as he inspires is diluted with sadness. You can’t help but feel sorry for the cunt, regardless of what he’s done. Or who he’s hurt. Arson is not a man’s game anyway.

I’ll scoop you out, motherfucker, I inform him.

Give him the stare that I’ve learned from Dott, although I’d never concede my sources. And I doubt that mine is one tenth as fucking chilling as that bruv’s.

Carewith is squirreling in a store of impatience. In an instant he stands up and says, Rudeboy, yat. You wanna tell me my story, rah? Yah?

No, man, says Roper.

Then rope up your lips, char. Allow it. Me taking piss.

Roper nods. No allow, man. He raises his hands. Swear down, blood.

You fucking dickhead, I add.

Roper strokes me with the look that I’ve granted as worthless. It means nothing, cuz.

And you’re speaking to me, rudeboy? he asks.

I’m cool. I wave the yoot away. He’s not important.

Carewith is eager to carry on, which is an underlying theme. What he says next is, and he says it with impatience on his taste-buds, Are you listening? And while she’s doing that, I’m dusting behind the counter with my sports bag. Filled that up with chicken, rudeboy. Made a split for the doors.