Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

He has to make sure they don’t see him. He can just make out their shapes, standing in front of Mr. Devlin’s brick shed. Mr. Devlin’s flashlight is pointing at the ground but Tufty’s light dances everywhere, the beam making wild shapes in the air. Leon wheels his bike slowly along the far path behind Mr. and Mrs. Atwal’s plot. As usual, Tufty is doing all the talking but Mr. Devlin seems to say just as much with fewer words.

“Is that so?” he says. “Show the government? Is that so?”

Tufty is shouting and Leon knows he will be pointing his finger, right up close to Mr. Devlin’s face.

“That’s what you do, isn’t it? You and your IRA. It’s a protest. Get it? A protest. Except we don’t bomb people in their beds like you Irish people.”

“Oh, every Irishman is a terrorist, is that what you’re saying?”

“You sit in your shed half-drunk, talking to yourself. You don’t know what’s going on in the world.”

“Is that so?”

“You think it’s funny? Why you smiling? You think it’s funny that the police kill black people?”

“Don’t be so fucking—”

“What? Don’t be so fucking what? You don’t believe me? There’s hundreds of people on the street tonight. You know why? The police killed a black man last night, someone I knew. Yeah, my friend. Castro, man. They took him to the police station for some bullshit reason and kicked him to death. Castro, they killed him.”

“Listen—”

“Yeah, so don’t laugh when you’re talking to me. Don’t laugh.”

“I am not fucking laughing.”

Leon can hear the drink in Mr. Devlin’s voice. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he continues, “but that doesn’t mean they should be running through here like this. Look at this place.”

Leon stands still. He can see now that the flower beds have been trampled. The water barrels have been pushed over and the lines between the plots aren’t straight anymore.

“You ever been angry?” says Tufty. “I don’t mean you run out of whiskey and the shops are shut. I mean down in your belly. You ever been angry in your balls?”

There is a long silence. Tufty and Mr. Devlin must be staring at each other, waiting for each other to blink. Leon stands still too because it is so quiet and he is so close that they might hear him. He hopes that whoever made the mess in the allotments hasn’t been near his shed.

“Of course I’ve been angry.”

“Yeah? Anybody make you into a slave? Put you in chains?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” says Mr. Devlin, “a history lesson now. Fix the gate with me, can’t you? The gate. You’re acting like a child.”

“Who you think you’re talking to?”

“Well, don’t make excuses for them then. They’re savages.”

“Savages? You calling black people savages? You fucking—”

Leon hears the scuffle but can’t see it. Both men are grunting and gasping, the flashlight beams skimming across Leon’s chest like a laser. Leon wheels his bike slowly until he is level with Mr. Devlin’s shed. He’s about to move when he hears Mr. Devlin cry out as he lands on the ground.

“Yeah,” says Tufty. “I’d rather be savage than a pervert. You think I ain’t seen your pictures and your dolls? You think we ain’t all seen what you got in there? All of us in this whole allotment. We all know about you.”

“You bastard!”

Mr. Devlin must have got up off the ground and charged at Tufty because all of a sudden both men slam into the wall of Mr. Devlin’s shed. A flashlight drops to the ground. If Leon can get the light then he won’t be so afraid to walk deeper into the allotment on his own. If he can get near the light, he will switch it off and hide with it until they have finished.

But they keep pushing and shoving each other and shouting.

“I seen you with that boy that comes in here. Making friends with him. Getting him to like you. You going to take his photo now? Is that it?”

“You shut your filthy mouth.”

“I seen you giving him things. Presents. I seen him go inside.”

“I’ve never—

“You got no wife. You got no children—”

“Wife?” screams Mr. Devlin. “My wife? How dare you?”

Leon stares into the darkness. He can see the shape of the two men standing like black scarecrows against the purple sky. He can hear them panting, feels the current between them that raises the hairs on his arm and fires the beats in his chest.

“Yeah,” continues Tufty, “you got no woman but you got pictures of little boys all over the place, eh? Pictures not enough now? Is that it? You want a piece of the real thing?”

“You’ve got a filthy mouth, you black bastard.”

The smack that Mr. Devlin gets doesn’t stop him speaking.

“You’re a dirty-minded fucker. I’ll show you.”

Leon leans his bike against Mr. Devlin’s shed, crouches down, runs for a few steps, then goes slowly toward them. He drops down onto his belly. He crawls forward on his elbows like he’s seen in the war films. Feels around for the flashlight. He grips something but it’s soft and squishy. He gasps and pulls his hand back, wipes it on the grass. He feels around on the ground but can’t find anything. He hunches down behind the water barrel. Suddenly, Mr. Devlin dashes into his shed.

“Come in here!” he shouts. “Come on! I dare you! I’ll shut your mouth for you. Come on. Bring your filthy mind with you.”

Tufty stands at the door of the shed. He shines the light full on and Leon can see clearly now. He can see Mr. Devlin through the window acting like he’s gone mad. All his nice things are falling off the shelf and smashing onto the ground. He is staggering and bawling. Tufty takes a step back.

“You’re crazy, man. I ain’t got time for this.”

“No, no, no. Not crazy. I’m a pervert. That’s what you said. A pervert. I’ll show you. Come on, come and see the monster.”

Mr. Devlin begins throwing things down. Leon knows what he’s looking for. He has it in his backpack.

“Where is he? Gabriel! Where is he? Where’s he gone?”

Leon can hear all Mr. Devlin’s favorite things breaking on the floor of his shed and him breaking as well.

“My baby, my son, where are you?”

“Fucking hell, man. Calm down,” says Tufty. He steps into the shed and, as soon as he’s gone, Leon runs. He can’t see where he’s going but he runs. He runs with the pack banging against his back, with the baby’s wooden head inside, bouncing up and down. He falls and falls, and by the time he gets to the shed his back is wet with sweat.

It’s dark in his halfway house.The air is too hot and too sticky to fit down Leon’s throat. He throws the backpack on the floor and drops to his knees. He pulls his T-shirt up over his head. It’s as sticky as tape on his skin. His scalp is itching, his back is itching, his feet in his sneakers are burning and damp, his chest is thumping so hard it might break open, his heart will jump out and he will be dead and then Maureen will look for him and be sorry and his mom will cry because she never loved him as much as she loved Jake and when he has a funeral everybody will say they are sorry for not being nice to him and he won’t care because he will be dead.

He looks out of the dirty window toward Mr. Devlin’s shed. His shouting is almost drowned by the sirens but Leon can still hear him and Leon wonders what Tufty is doing, if he’s still trying to calm him down or if they are arguing or maybe Tufty has gone home. Something scuttles at his feet. A scratch. Leon notices how dark the shed is. Creatures and spiders might live in here, rats, black moths, mice, animals, people, ghosts. A rasp of wind hisses on the broken glass. Anyone could be in the shed with him and he wouldn’t be able to see. They could grab him and attack him like in his nightmares. Kill him. Eat him. Tear him apart. Leon bursts back out of the shed and the door bangs shut behind him. Twice.