Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘Why would you want to hurt someone good? What possible satisfaction can you get from it?’

‘We bus’ people up all the time, V. I never hear you say anything then.’

‘But not people that mean something to us! There’s got to be a line. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise?’

‘Otherwise… we’re animals. We’re council-house-and-violent. We’re nothing.’

‘We’re not nothing. We’re not worth nothing.’

‘Where the hell do you get pictures of naked twelve-year-olds? It’s not like you’ve joined one of those Camera Clubs.’

‘The guy in the photo department. He has to hand over any dodgy pictures he develops to the police. Always manages to make a few copies first, though.’

‘What a sick fucker. And you think Casey’s weirder than that?’

‘He said I could do what I wanted with them, so long as I didn’t post them on the web.’

There’s another pause for more breathing space. Jase’s pulse is fast and shallow, either because of the panic or because he’s looking for a way out. I keep my breathing even and deep, breathing techniques designed to help through anything. Lion power. Have to focus on summat, else I go round Jase’s and bash his head in with a lead stick.

‘I didn’t leave them in his face, so there’s a chance he might not have even seen them yet.’

‘Don’t give me hope like that, ’cos if it isn’t true I’m liable to start throwing things.’

‘Put it this way, I didn’t put them some place he’d find straight away.’

‘This isn’t the time to be talking in riddles, Jase. If he ain’t seen them, I want to get them out of there.’

‘He can’t have seen them. He could have called you, wouldn’t he? He would have said something .’

‘S’true. He’s never one for holding anything back when it’s on his mind.’

‘His bedroom.’

‘What?’

‘I left them under the mattress.’

‘Jesus, Jase. You’re all for originality.’

‘I thought it was a good place. Funny. He’ll see them when he changes the sheets.’

‘He never changes the sheets. I mean, didn’t you see the state of the place? He’s a pig.’

‘But he’s your pig.’

‘Yeah. I guess he is.’

You can only make statements like this at one a.m. when the person on the other end is mashed and unlikely to remember your blatant sentimentality.

It’s hard to make a loaded call sound casual when it’s been playing on your mind for most of the night.

‘What are you talking about? It’s Sunday morning. Haven’t we seen enough of each other so far this weekend?’

Even though it was early, I’d made it down to the kitchen and had the TV on, trying to keep everything sounding up and laid-back. If he even sniffed the mechanics behind every hey, yay and yeah , I’d be done for.

‘It’s out of the question, young Turk. I have church, and then I’m giving a talk to the youth group.’

‘Your church has a youth group? How many kids are in it that aren’t disabled?’

‘If you got your head out your arse every once in a while, Jesus pardon my language, you’d see that the church is an active and vibrant place to be a teenager.’

‘That still doesn’t tell me how many kids you’ve actually got there.’

‘We’ve got enough.’

‘More than ten? Less than ten?’

‘I haven’t got time to have this conversation, young sir. I’ve got to get ready.’

Casey’s tone wasn’t so much busy as exasperated. Most mornings you couldn’t get anything out of him until I’d run at least 800m. Why should Sunday be any different?

There needed to be a window, day, evening, anything. The subsidence of the rot I was feeling in my guts hinged on me getting in there and performing my magic spook trick: thirty-second wonder. Blink and you’d never know I was there, in your room and hunting under your bed.

Casey hemmed and hawed for infinity. Off the track, where indecision rules, he could be a champ at it; greater than anything he ever achieved on the field. He was sensitive about being spied upon, but that couldn’t be helped. He could be in the most secure and non-judgmental environment ever and still feel the paralysis of paranoia. We could discuss the pitfalls of the Surveillance Nation we have become until we were both blue in the face, and he still wouldn’t accept my argument, that the cameras actually give you more freedom rather than repress you. He wouldn’t have any of it. He’s the kind of guy who’s going to spend his old age living off tins in a nuclear bunker somewhere.

My voice crackled with an enthusiasm I wasn’t feeling, cranked up to warp speed like some kids’ TV presenter who’s spent half the night hopped on coke but still manages to turn it on once he sees the red light. Anything for Casey to think that I was in need of his mentoring presence. Hell, I was even prepared to sell Mum down the river if I thought that would do the trick.

I didn’t have to. He gave in once I started going on about how I thought that whilst church was probably a good thing, what was really important was the church that people carried within them in their everyday lives. He laughed for a full five minutes over that one.

‘You’re full of shit, young sir. You know that, right?’

‘You’re not the first person to have come to that conclusion.’

He said he could spare me some time late afternoon, a period of around an hour or so, before heading over to his evening session, Café Worship.

‘What the hell’s Café Worship? Do they make a devilishly good cappuccino?’

‘It’s the informal setting for our evening services, boy. And let me tell you, the coffee’s pretty good. You’re welcome to tag along to that too, if you like.’

I assured Casey that I’d spoken all the church I was liable to for one day, if not for ever.

I felt so relieved I could have smoked a fag. I rang Jase’s mobile about five hundred times before he rose from his Produce-influenced coma. There was no point calling the house phone, neither he nor Billie would answer it. He isn’t good on details generally, so that time on a Sunday morning, with weed buds performing all manner of power-tool excavations in his head, his directions were woolly and to be taken with an unhealthy pinch of salt.

Much of what we argue about, then and later, will stem from Jase’s inability to distinguish between top, middle and bottom.

‘It’s under the mattress, man. Who gives a shit about the exact location?’

‘I’ll be bothered when I’m having to dive into Casey’s room under the pretext of going to the bog.’

‘It’s a small bed, cousin. It’ll take you less than twenty seconds to find them.’

‘I might not have twenty seconds, dumbass. It’s a secret mission. Every second can be crucial.’

Jase offers to come with me to provide diversion services, but I knock it on the head. Casey’ll take one look at his face and clock that something’s up.

I shouldn’t get complacent, but I do. After the calls have been wrapped up, I get my feet on the sofa and keep the blueberries on tap. MTV Base on blast, with some X Box to vary the mood. I sleep a little. I could keep my mind clear until I got to Casey’s at four. He was out all day, so there was next to no chance of him finding something he shouldn’t have. Where’s the fire? It comes at just after one when Casey phones to blow me out.

‘You won’t believe it, kiddo, but my church buddies hadn’t forgotten my birthday after all. They’re throwing me a party!’

‘You’re getting two parties, at your age? How spoilt are you?’

‘So we’re going to have to take a rain-check on our coffee later, unless you’d like to come to the church hall, and meet my friends.’