Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘I’m, like, staff, you get me? We’re, like, colleagues really.’

The pairs of us giggle like stoners, even though Jason’s brought nothing to smoke. Hasn’t smoked all week. This cracking up for no reason in front of adults is habit, I guess. Making out to them that we have secrets, it’s a stronger impulse than even the weed. We need it.

Casey knows too much about me. Moon knows too little. I have to feel in control of something.

The mall post-lunchtime is like a feel-good convention for the elderly. They are all out and being smug about still being so mobile. You can see it plastered across their faces. They almost need mugging just to bring them down to earth — Jason’s words, not mine. Aside from a handful of unemployed scum, there is no one here under the age of sixty. Am not including the young mothers here because they are invisible and don’t count. We can see every defect associated with age on display, from rickety old bones clinging onto zimmer frames, to gum disease, to white-stick blindness, to skin cancers. It’s enough to make you bring up your salad.

‘I’d keep that store ID to yourself if were you,’ nods the guy, with a matey-I’m-OK wink. ‘If the centre supervisor sees that, he’ll be onto your bosses in a flash. You could get into even more trouble.’

Something about us being cheeky to the man at the handcrafted mug stall. Paying our money and then demanding that he inscribe the mugs ‘Happy Birthday Cunt’ (Jase) and ‘World’s Biggest Foreskin’ (me). The banner said ‘Personalise your mug! Any dedication.’ We were just holding him to it. There was no mention that the dedication had to be some lame ass bollox.

Obviously I don’t have an anorak for my dick, but this guy isn’t to know that. I could have asked for ‘World’s Biggest Kike-Basher’ and he still wouldn’t have put two and two together. Trus’, not having an anorak, it kinda makes you obsessive about having one. It’s fucked up.

The mug man, this old guy around thirty-five, with one of those ratty free-for-all beards that’s supposed to tell us that’s he’s so organic or something, had no sense of humour. Put down the pen and refused to inscribe anything. Gave us our money back. That’s when we started kicking up a stink, demanding to see the manager.

‘This is my stall. I am the manager,’ he kept saying, which made us crack up all the more.

We were shouting a little and kept picking up all the mugs and pretending to inspect them. He looked almost scared of us for some reason.

‘As consumers, we have rights,’ I go, remembering a few of Dad’s best lines. The ones he gave whenever he wanted to show how he was better than anyone who worked in a shop; usually as retaliation for being given too much attitude by shop girls who didn’t like serving anyone with brown skin. I still get that shit even today.

‘I am outraged by your treatment and will be writing a letter of complaint.’

‘I’m happy to inscribe anything, lads, so long as it’s not offensive. And those words, I’m afraid, are offensive.’

‘Which words would they be, mate?’

‘I’m not going to be drawn into your childish games by repeating them. You know the words I’m talking about.’

‘Fine. Then my letter shall also be copied to the Epsom Chamber of Commerce and Trading Standards, and the local paper.’

If there was a letter to be sending Moon, I’d send it. Dear Miss Jones, please can you explain why you now prefer the company of psychos over us? I’d update my MySpace profile in a second if there was any guarantee she’d read it. But she’s too busy for computers these days. Being drunk on dating makes you forget all the weird online obsessions you relied upon so heavily to pass the time when you were single and lonely.

‘Mate, don’t be such a wuss. Put the pen in your hand and inscribe cunt on my mug, you cunt,’ goes Jase, precisely at the moment the security idiots are doing their rounds — for the sake of the CCTV. They are all questions. If there was a girl with us we’d probably be left alone.

‘Why aren’t you at school anyway? It’s two o’clock.’

‘Library studies.’

‘Mate, haven’t you heard of library studies? What kind of school did you go to?’

‘Enough of your lip, cheeky. So why aren’t the pair of you at the library?’

‘Because they’re getting some local history files out of storage. Told us to give them twenty minutes.’

I’ve used this line before. It’s a winner.

We are asked to move on.

Then it’s about them not liking how we were spinning the freestanding pine units on display outside Dickins and Jones. We were on one by this point. We just wanted to see how sturdy they were. That’s why Jason was sitting on them whilst I was doing the spinning. Formula One speeds.

Jason picks me up when I fall over ’cos I’ve been laughing so much. Puts his arms tightly round my middle and lifts me from behind. My stomach does cartwheels.

Admittedly, the corner unit shouldn’t have been pushed in the direction of the old people but, as we were trying to tell the security after the accident, the casters on the things were fucked. Shoddy workmanship. All we were trying to do was push them back into their original spots. No idea that they would shift in the opposite direction. If Mum took one look at them she’d say they were tat.

The security guy is standing with his feet apart, like he’s trying to make out he’s had police training. Gives his cheap blazer a brush across the buttons like its fucking Armani and not some synthetic bollox from TK Maxx. Now we’re out of the building, he doesn’t touch us. S’pose he can’t, legally speaking. He does that thing that teachers do when they want you to be reasonable, giving you full eye contact and talking in a conspiratorial way that’s supposed to make you think that it’s the system that’s making things tough, and not them at all.

We nod like we get it but, man, we’re past the age to be swallowing fairy stories. Too old for that good-cop routine. We puff our chests up and make out we’re scared of nothing. Inwardly, though, cacking it because we’re both in uniform like a pair of retards. Standing out like two unkosher beacons.

‘Like I give a shizzle. ’Cos when the police get here, we’ll be, like, dust.’

Have been listening to too much Wiley lately. On top of Dizzee, I’m sounding as black as you like. When I get all ‘You get me?’ like this, especially in front of the dry security suits, it makes Jason lose his mind with joy. He always wanted a homie for a mate. Surrey — Hackney. There’s no difference.

We can’t get our bikes, but still manage to have some fun on the way home; a Sri Lankan muppet who has to run all the way up the Downs Road ’cos we’ve jumped him and grabbed his shopping. Sounds a good idea in theory, but running up a hill with five litres of water in one hand and about three thousand potatoes in the other ain’t as easy as it looks. (Not helping ’cos I’m trying to make it look stylish, being a near-professional and all.)

The bloke’s about twenty-five and darker than my arsehole. When we start attacking the meat of Down’s Hill, getting under a long, wide canopy of treetops, where much of the sunlight gets eaten up, you can barely see him, only judging his movements from the flouro flashes on his Nike, and his gob from when he shouts at us. Pearly whites as a compass, better than any lighthouse.

‘Come back with my shopping, you cheap motherfucking bastards! Get your arses back here!’

He’s got an accent, so I ask him to repeat himself. Several times.

What kind of manners has this one got? The ruder he gets, the angrier, as I continue to ask him to repeat what he’s just said, running backwards so we’re teeth to teeth, the more certain we are that he ain’t gonna get his aloo gobi gear back.