While we didn’t live in the projects, we weren’t that far from them.
Understanding that, imagine my shock when I caught glimpse of a pearl white Rolls Royce coupe parked across the street from my flat. I approached and shook my head in pity. Whoever was stupid enough to park it in this neighborhood would be lucky to come back to anything at all.
Already, the young deviants from around the way were shivering in the cold just to get a closer look. A dark-skinned boy with an afro dared the eleven-year-old in the miniskirt to touch it. I watched as the chavette smacked her lips, cocked her head back and put her hands on her hips. “Do I look as stupid as you are? I touch that thing and watch the bloody alarm goes off. What happens then? I’m getting me arse kicked, ain’t I? Why don’t you touch it, brave black boy?”
“Nothin’ to be brave ‘bout,” replied the boy, who had a touch of his parents Jamaican accent. “It’s a car. It’s not goin’ bite, is it?”
“I’m not doin’ it,” she said. Then she smiled and said, “You do it. I bet there’s money inside. If you open the door, I’ll have a look.”
The boy glanced at me. Then he shook his head and waved his hands apprehensively. “I can’t,” he insisted. “I don’t want to go gettin’ muh hands all messy now.” He waggled his finger toward the tires. “Look how dirty dem white walls is.”
“Pussy,” spat the girl. Her mouth was almost as dirty as her mother’s. Her younger brother Trevor tugged at her shirt.
“You said you were gonna take me to the field,” he whined. Despite being siblings, the two didn’t look anything alike. She had scraggly blonde hair while his was black and curly. Her eyes were round and blue and his, slanted and dark. “I want to play ball! I’m going to tell mummy.” He started toward the flat.
“Stop being such a pest,” she said and whipped him by the back of his shirt and threw him onto the curb. He tumbled over his feet and fell hard on his bottom.
Within two seconds from the start of his wailing, the front door swung open and the shouting began. The fat bitch came running out in a bathrobe, curlers in her hair and a cigarette hanging off the end of her lip. “Oi,” she shouted and rapidly snapped her fingers. “What’d I tell you ‘bout pushin’ Trev ‘round like that, eh?” She held her robe closed with one hand, though her left titty still hung out. She jerked Trevor onto his feet and his head bounced off her exposed breast. She grimaced open-mouthed, showing she was missing fronts from both rows. “Now take him to the bloody park before I give you a good swipe,” she screamed loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear before shoving the boy into his sister, knocking down the both of them. “You think I want to listen to you two argue while I’m watching telly?”
Then she pointed a thick finger with two gold rings clamped around it. She stared hard at me. “Fuck you lookin’ at? How ‘bout minding your own damn business, yeah?” She flicked the ash of her cigarette onto her stained sock and half-broken flip-flop, then took another deep puff. When she spoke, her voice strained as she choked on smoke. “You think we don’t notice you, walkin’ ‘round, thinkin’ you’re better than the rest of us, yeah?” She exhaled white through one nostril. “If I were ten years younger, I’d come over there and thump you me-self. You think I’m gonna get locked up in the ol’ Bailey cause of you?” Just a moment in the rain turned her dark red hair brown and a few scraggly curls stuck to her forehead. She turned and went back inside her two-bedroom flat with its splintered yellow paint and a curtain-less, cracked living room window sealed with a strip of duct tape.
The type was easy to provoke. I learned early in life to just pretend like I didn’t hear a word and go on with my business. It was only eight months earlier I had arrived from Detroit, where the hoodrats would’ve jumped on me without warning.
I thought all that would change once I got to London. Before actually moving to the country, I stupidly equated England with elegance and class. I didn’t imagine there being rough neighborhoods. For the first few minutes out from the train terminal, I thought I had been right – limestone townhouses and luxury cars were sprinkled everywhere. I didn’t realize I was on the West End. Once I got to Hackney, reality smacked the shit out of me. Shirtless thugs, liquor stores, graffiti on the walls and butt-naked kids wandering the streets. Hackney wasn’t much different from Detroit in that sense.
The children loudly made their way down the street, laughing and poking fun of each other. Trevor pulled his sister’s hair and quickly ran ahead of her. When she caught up, she pushed him into a shallow pool of mud. He kept his footing, reached down and flung some back in her face. “You little—,” she yelled and wiped the mud away from her eyes with the backs of her hands. She made a break for him, except he was faster and disappeared around the corner.
All I could think about was getting to my room. The sooner I got there, the sooner I could take my medicine. I strolled up the short stone path to my front door and wiped my muddy shoes against the welcome mat.
I walked into the house smiling. For the first time in nine months, I wasn’t going to cry myself to sleep.
That smile disappeared once I saw my father along with two old people I didn’t recognize. William, dressed in his usual jeans and t-shirt, sharply contrasted the other two, who dressed like they just came back from a funeral.
They sat at the glass dinner table while William leaned against the island in the kitchen. All three stared like I stole something.
“What are you doing home?” I demanded. William smiled, the old man chuckled and the old lady just kept staring.
“Maybe I’m confused in my old age, but this is my home too, Iris.” My father seemed nervous.
I composed myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect anyone to be home this early. You guys just caught me off guard. I didn’t mean to—.”
He pushed off the black granite island and came toward me. “It’s quite alright.” He spoke so unlike everyone we lived around and more like the poshers or wannabes on television. He walked behind me, squeezed my shoulders and ushered me into the dining room.
“This really isn’t a good time for me,” I whispered. The old lady maintained her glare and the old man gazed at her with the same intensity.
“There never will be,” he whispered back. “Trust me.”
“Allow the girl to at least put down her books, William,” the woman said as she lazily wagged her hand then took a sip of tea. “There is no reason to rush things, is there? Of course not.” She turned to her companion and said, “Don’t you find it curious that the boy never hurried to do a thing in his life? Yet here he is, rushing the girl to meet proper strangers before having even taken off her shoes. Though this type of behavior is rather classless, isn’t it? And the boy always has,” and she glared William up and down. “…Lacked class, hasn’t he?”
The old man kept quiet and took another sip. He sucked the wetness from his white mustache.
She scoffed and ranted on, “The boy has always settled for mediocrity. A mediocre job, mediocre friends and,” she covered her mouth and nose with a white silk cloth as she glanced around our flat and said, “A less than mediocre living situation. Good gracious, William. How do you put up with this chaos day in and day out? Screaming children running up and down the street, parents that are even louder and a crime rate similar to America. I wonder when you will finally get hit with a bit of sense and realize it is time to relocate? I should say… when some thug robs you at knifepoint?” She glanced at me and said, “Or perhaps when one rapes your dear child?”
“I’m ten minutes away from my job,” he argued. “There are decent restaurants scattered about and I like the culture. It’s not as bad as you think. Tell you what – there’s a flat for let two blocks down. Maybe you should rent it for a half a year. I dare say you may find it to your liking.”
The old lady turned to her companion, “The only interest I would have in such a property would be to burn it down and pray the wind catches and spreads the flames through the rest of this forsaken neighborhood. The entire borough if the gods are generous.”
The old man nodded. He took off his black hat and sat it next to his drink. He rubbed his fingers back through his snow-white hair and said, “The boy will do what the boy will do.” Then he cleared his throat. “Though if I might say, we did not come here to discuss his choice in real estate.”
The old woman watched William, a cold look in her eyes. “No,” she sighed. “We did not.”
“Nice meeting you two,” I said and began toward my room just through the living room and to the right. “I’ve got some homework I really need to get done before the weekend starts. You know how it goes – if it doesn’t get done now, it never will.”
My father made a half-assed attempt at stopping me. “Iris…” Except being absent the first sixteen years of my life meant he couldn’t tell me what to do.
“Sorry,” I said, not even trying to look up. “I’ve got a lot of studying to do,” I shuffled toward my room as fast as I could without running. I passed the dining room and saw the old man’s eyes – they were the same as mine. He nodded, but I pretended not to notice.
Once I got to my room, I wasted no time. I sat my bag on the floor and took out the oxycodone I scored from that loser, Aaron. I popped the top and then grabbed the cheap vodka from under my bed.