Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

Mum stops the car outside Jason’s. The car stinks of damp and stale chicken. The rain was a five-minute wonder. Now it’s non-existent. She laughs girlishly at her panic, because we have company, like it’s me making all the fuss.

You know when Jason’s mum is having a bad day, as the curtains will be drawn. One of those days when the pain of her daughter’s death becomes too great. Opens a wound so wide, she needs to fill it with all the refined sugar she can fit inside her gullet. A day when the son that didn’t die can do nothing for her, aside from bring the chocolate. And plenty of it. We all look up as Jason gets out of the car. The curtains are pulled tightly shut.

We get into another fight. This one’s after school so there’s no worry about letters turning up unexpectedly in the fallout. At least that’s what we think. Me, Jason and Moon are minding our own business when we walk into the new cunt who started all the Paki trouble up the week before. He wants a settler, didn’t like being made a fool of. Brings the same two jokers who tried to see us off in the corridor. That means Pearson, who’s looking even more vicious than before. Me and Jase are well up for it. We’re anyone’s, if it means proving a point.

We are all fight. It’s what we want plastered above our graves.

We throw down on a patch of grass opposite the school. The council gateway we call it, as behind us lies the Rose estate. Once the jackets are on the ground, ties stuffed into bags, we are officially not in uniform, so let rip. I’m worried about Moon being there. Chivalry isn’t dead in my house, and she gets that this might be time to keep her distance. She takes the gear and stands on the corner.

A crowd quickly gathers. It’s two hours ’til there’s decent TV, and too early to get goggle-eyed in front of MSN. The people need entertaining. We also know that some do-gooder teacher will catch sight of our goings-on from the car park within the first five minutes. It’ll probably be a more litigation-weary member of the species who’ll need to go and confer with some other teacher friends before stepping in. There’s little time for ceremony or name-calling, just boots and fists.

Jason has an aunt staying with them at the moment; come down to look after his mum. She’s in the room next door to his — not his dead sister’s room — which has put a hold on him wanking himself raw of an evening. It comes across in his fighting. He takes the two jokers and kicks them to shit. I’m still giving the eye to Moon and already he’s at it. Once he’s got them on the ground he has no use for his hands, the boots do the talking one kick at a time. He’s going at it so quick, it’s almost a garage rhythm he’s knocking against their ribs. The sound of bones being broken.

One week has passed since the last fight. Scars have barely healed. From outside the circle we probably look like a bunch of old-timers. Scabbed fists punching scabbed-over faces. Sore, weeping eyes washing over freshly blackened skin.

The kids around us are all shouting like they’re at Old Trafford. Jason’s trying to tell me something but I can’t hear a word. I still find time, however, a nanosecond, to spot Kelly Button standing with a group of girls to my left. Eyes going flutter flutter flutter.

This leaves me with the new boy. Not quite alone. Moon appears from her corner and throws a book at his head. Combined science, a heavy hardback with lethal corners that could rip skin to shreds. He turns at her, pissed at the intervention of a girl, giving me a window to jump on his back. He’s heavier, but I’m taller. The surprise is enough to floor the bastard. Then I do a bit of Jason with the kicking.

New cunt doesn’t stay on the floor for long. He’s up and ready. Uses all his trademark moves, mainly the groin and the shoulder kick. He really knows how to use the shoulder kick. Gets me right where the last one left its mark, top left shoulder between blade and back. I never worry about being vocal at these things. When he gets me on the shoulder for the second time, I let out something gutteral that sounds like a roar because it really fucking hurt.

He sees the weak spot and goes for a replay, but doesn’t quite manage it. Jason, who’s now on the floor with the other two idiots, wriggles our way at speed and grabs his skanky ankle. New cunt is taken by surprise, jigging about one-legged, like some German beer-drinking circus freak. Furious because everyone’s laughing like fuck. Laughing even more as he tries to shake Jason off.

Then a bottle catches the back of Jason’s neck the moment he’s on his feet. One of new cunt’s friends trying to be clever, the one who isn’t Pearson. It’s a small bottle and doesn’t quite hit the mark, most of the impact missing the neck entirely and swallowed up by air. Spastics. Aside from Pearson, none of them do any sports, so it’s no wonder.

Everyone gasps, loud, like how you get in a pantomime, as the arrival of a bottle always marks something new — the disappearance of good clean fun. They have left some kind of result, however, a small nick at the right side of Jason’s neck. He’s been wearing a Man-U scarf all winter, so his neck is very smooth and white. Blood trickles slowly downward in a thin stream, a drop at a time; making his neck and the nick look like a freshly squeezed McFlurry.

They think that means the fight’s over. It ain’t.

Moon drops bags and coats, and joins us for the final stretch. They’re in a gaggle, still laughing about the cut. Think we’re coming over to shake hands. As if.

There’s the three of us, and the three of them. They’re on the floor; we’re making sure they stay there. Six-boot chorus. The kids are going wild. Which is when the committee of teachers, a thin procession of one timid four-eyes after another, finally turns up.

In the Year Head’s office we’re made to stand through the suspension dance. Moon is told to wait outside, so it’s just us boys. Year Head seems oblivious to the fact that Jason is dripping blood all over her kingfisher-blue carpet tiles. From a slow trickle it has now increased to a steady drip drip drip. Blood trail criss-crossing his neck like graffiti.

I have it all my own way. Say it’s racially motivated, which it is. Enough witnesses come forward to confirm that several ‘Pakis’ were uttered. They don’t mention that most of these came from my mouth when I was slamming the cunt. It’s not enough, though. New cunt is refused the luxury of mellowing into an old cunt, and is excluded, permanently. I’m excluded for the rest of the week. Jason too. Today is Thursday. Means I can write it off with Mum as an INSET day. The exclusion means fuck all. The school secretary has gone home, so the corresponding letter won’t even arrive home ’til Tuesday. Discipline in this place is a joke.

Disappointingly, none of the boys have broken anything. Pisses us both off. We thought that was one of our better performances. Still, it did get me top prize, Kelly Button’s hand down my trousers at the ropey the following afternoon. She thought I’d been fantastic.

Moon’s meeting with Year Head is way shorter and limited to shouting or finger-wagging. Something to do with Gwyn being head girl and putting in a good word. Her parents do the grounded thing, but unlike most, because they’re older and don’t have a life, make sure she adheres to it.

Moon lives across the road. It’s impossible to avoid each other, but somehow, with her pushy parents’ help, she finds a way. I don’t hear from her for over a week.

Moon’s death has pushed everyone who’s left living into an alternative universe. We don’t talk to each other; we all float around like helpless fatties bobbing randomly in this sea of significant glances. Mum’s been doing it so much lately she’s starting to look mental. If you stuck your head through our window of an evening, you’d think we were a family of autistics — me with my arms folded across my chest, sat watching the TV and letting the dinner on my tray grow cold; her sitting on the sofa opposite, watching me watch the TV. Sound up so loud you can hear it from Broadhurst. Our house has become Loony Tunes, but you can’t diss — it’s Mum we’re talking about. She’s so worried, she’s this close to giving me my computer back.