Forest Gate (5 page)

James told me he hadn't spoken so openly to anyone else before. Not someone who understood.

After that they seemed to spend all their time together, sitting in Internet cafes, going to the movies, enjoying bus rides, roaming Oxford Street and sitting in the park. Yet I often think back to James and my brother together in that Pizza Hut in Forest Gate.

James had five brothers. He said he didn't want to be like them, amoral men whose exploits normal people read about in the
Evening Standard
on the Tube on their way home from work.

While they ate Ashvin remarked on the features of their waitress: she was tall with honey-brown eyes. He called her over and James asked for her phone number and email address. She laughed and gave the two boys another set of crayons and a sheet each of plain paper. 'I don't date black men,' she said.

'But you're African, I can hear it in your voice,' said James.

'That's why I don't date black men.'

They didn't understand the girl but I would have given her a high-five. James took the crayons and paper and drew a picture of a satsuma with two green leaves still attached to the top and my brother wrote 'Death is Art' in red and they both laughed more than they should. The man in the London Underground uniform peeked over the booth. He kissed his teeth loudly when he saw the picture. He got to his feet cautiously and tucked his crumpled blue shirt into shabby black trousers. He smoothed the rough fabric on his coat resolutely, all the while watching them with disgust. Then he held up his newspaper and offered it to James and Ashvin.

'Lickle shits,' he said.

'Excuse me?' asked James.

'You think you want to die. You aren't even ready to shave. Lickle shits, get a fucking job like everybody else,' said the old man in an incongruously pleasant tone.

'What, so we can end up like you?' said James. 'Eating stuffed-crust pizza all alone on a Monday night?'

The old man slammed a meaty fist on their table, spilling a glass of orange juice and sending a fork clattering to the floor and causing heads to turn. The restaurant quietened as he waved the newspaper at them.

'I got sons older than you. If you were my boys I'd kick your cursed arses. Join the army if you don't got nothing to do. Get yourselves fucking jobs, you stupid black boys. You gotta work. Stop killing each other, making us all look bad. I been here forty-six years. Never been arrested, much less seen a gun. In my day we knew about hard work. What happen to y'all? Go to school and get a job like everybody else. Lickle shits.'

The old man tossed the newspaper on their table. The headline was about the murder of a black boy; the article said he was in a gang.

'What the hell is y'all doing?' A neon light illuminated the sweat on his face and his eyes were wide. 'I bet you can't even read.'

When the waitress and her manager asked the man for calm, he pushed past them and headed towards the glass front door. He turned and pointed a finger at my brother.

'One day you'll wake up and you'll be sorry for your sins. You mark what I'm saying. Get a job, stupid lickle shits.' The old man opened the door, pulling the zip on his coat. He grimaced at the stiff breeze and then left. James and Ashvin accepted the manager's gesture of free ice cream and a small discount from their bill. They were both rather embarrassed when they left.

When I think back to James and Ashvin's first encounter I worry about the inner promptings of our souls and I get confused about whether we are ever in control of our own actions. Ashvin and James were reserved and private, but both full of wit. They had a deep distrust of people and they regarded themselves as outcasts.

Before that night with James, Ashvin had never spoken about the deaths of our parents. Not even with me. But he found himself speaking freely to James. He told James all about our father, who was shot dead, about our mother who was also shot after she was raped by the same armed gang.

Our parents loved each other and our upbringing was a reflection of that love, our home a simple one. My mother had grown up in Scandinavia where her father had fled after leaving Somalia. She had a PhD in art history and she loved to paint although she wasn't very good. My father would joke that he spent more money on paint than on food. What made our father stand out from his peers was the way he expressed the love he held for our mother. They met in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, studying for the same paper on English literature. My father was strong-minded and fearless and he was so handsome he was almost intimidating. He was a professor of English at Mogadishu University and regularly published essays in political journals; he was a contributing reporter for
Waayaha Press
and the only Somali stringer for the
New York Times
. His constant and unabated criticism of sharia law, warlords, corruption in big business, and other general government internal policies eventually led to his death.

They whipped my father and then shot him in the legs and made him watch while they mauled my mother. Most Somali houses have only two rooms. Ashvin, hiding in our third, saw the whole thing. I was late home from school. I am slowly forgetting the events of the day my parents died but I have a vivid memory about that night. By the time I had returned, Ashvin had put our parents' bodies beside each other and we lay silently with them until morning. We slept together as we had on many previous occasions, only that night our parents remained still. My brother wept with such lack of control it seemed almost primordial. I followed his lead but although I was older and in just as much pain, he was vastly more complex than I was. I did not really understand the magnitude of our loss. Ashvin cried long after I had fallen asleep. Anything that has hurt me since has only been an echo of what I felt on that night. As for Ashvin, I believe his soul left along with theirs at dawn.

As Ashvin and James walked home after their pizza they met a man dressed in a faded black djellaba that reached the ground, carrying business cards he normally handed out in Stratford mall. He approached them, gave them each a card.

Sheikh Ali, spiritual healer
Wash away your troubles
Solve any problem
At
work, relationships, money, exams
Call 24 hours
07988 885902

'You are troubled. The spirits trouble you both. Come and see me tomorrow. I can help you.'

The man rolled his 'r's. His teeth were brown, his lips thin and he smelled of incense.

'Help with what?' asked Ashvin.

'You are troubled. Troubled,' said the man. His tone was grave.

'I know who you are. We don't have any money for you. Now fuck off,' said James.

The man laughed defiantly. 'Take my card. Be sure to come and see me tomorrow.'

'We're all right thanks,' said James.

'Not all right,' the man said, shaking his head as he blocked their path. 'I can help you. Free of charge. Free of charge.'

Both the boys became suspicious.

'Are you a griot?' asked Ashvin.

The man looked weighed by what was on his mind. 'Why are you so afraid?' he asked. 'The two of you are strained by life. Why are you so afraid of life? You need my urgent help.'

The man turned. 'Come and see me,' he said. 'Tomorrow at three,' and walked briskly across the street in the opposite direction into an alley between a brick house and a playground.

It was almost midnight. James and Ashvin walked home in the dark.

'So listen,' said Ashvin, 'shall we go together?'

'Go where?' asked James.

'To the other side.'

They turned and looked at each other, searching for any crack of humour.

Then there was a screech behind them and they both froze as an unmarked car with a blue flashing light stopped directly in front of them.

'Stop. Police.'

Instinctively my brother raised his hands in the air. James did the same.

Two uniformed policemen wrapped tightly in bulletproof vests got out of the car.

'Put your arms down and step towards me, lads.' The officer walked backwards into the alley where the market traders locked up their stalls at night.

'What do you want?' asked James.

'Step over here, I said.' The officer had a wide forehead and close-cropped hair. He didn't look like he should be messed with. 'We've had reports of a street robbery in the area. You two fellas fit the description, so I'm going to have to search you guys, OK? If you have any drugs on you, it's best to let me know now, lads. You won't get nicked if you've just got a little bit of weed.'

Once the boys had entered the small dark alley, the two officers stepped closer. 'What are your names?' one said as he held Ashvin's wrists firmly.

'Ashvin.'

'James.'

'Nice names,' said the other officer with a mocking sneer.

'Where are you from?' asked the officer who had gripped James's wrists. He was a heavy, mean-looking man with pasty skin.

'London. You're hurting me,' said James.

'Could you spell your surnames for me, please?'

They did.

It was pitch black. At that point Ashvin and James were only a few steps apart with their backs to the officers and their hands against the cold metal shutters of the lock-ups. They were growing suspicious but didn't dare say anything.

The first officer spoke up. 'Any drugs? Last chance.'

'No dlugs,' said Ashvin. His accent was always thicker when he was afraid.

'No drugs,' said James.

'No drugs, eh? What do we have here then, the last of the Lord's black disciples?'

The other officer laughed. 'Let's have a look, shall we, lads? Spread your legs.'

While their hands were still against the shutters the officer searched the boys' pockets, pulling out the lining.

'Have you been fighting?' the first officer asked as he went through Ashvin's back pocket.

'I fell over playing football after school.'

Ashvin tried to tug at the waist of his trousers, pulling them up but the officer yanked them down and then pressed a thick hand against his throat. Ashvin squirmed as he felt a thick finger poking at his anus.

'Hold still,' said the officer.

'I wasn't fighting. I fell over,' Ashvin protested.

'Yeah and my girlfriend, Kate Moss, gives great head and she swallows.'

'Where you coming from?' The other officer patted James down. He put a hand in James's front trouser pocket and tugged at his penis and felt the weight of his balls.

'Pizza Hut,' said James, trying his best to struggle free.

'Pizza Hut, eh? What did you fellas eat?'

'What you doin?' Get your hands off me,' said James. He tried to pull away but the officer held him by his throat and squeezed his windpipe until he was still.

'You're blushing. I didn't know you blacks could blush,' the officer leered.

'What did you eat?' demanded the officer with his finger in Ashvin's arse. He removed his finger and then spat on his hand loudly and slid his finger further inside Ashvin. Ashvin winced and then let out a low moan.

'I said, what did you eat? Don't make me repeat myself.'

Ashvin's eyes widened and he snorted. 'It's none of your business.'

'A pizza,' screamed James when he thought his windpipe was about to crack.

'What type of pizza, sparky? Tell me all about it,' said the officer, still milking James.

'It was a deep-pan with double cheese, olives and green peppers.'

The officer closed his eyes momentarily. His voice started to falter. 'What . . . c-colour were the . . . olives?' He held James's dick tightly and rubbed faster until it grew hard.

James moaned. 'Black. The olives were black.'

'Very romantic. So if we were to take a little stroll back to the Pizza Hut the manager would be able to verify your story, would he?'

The boys shrugged. Their attempts to wrestle free were useless.

'Where are we going this time of night?' asked the officer now draped around Ashvin's waist slowly stroking his dick as he moved his finger in and out of his arse.

'Home,' said Ashvin grimacing, sickened at his body's response.

'That's good. Go ahead and come, don't be embarrassed,' whispered the officer, his breath hot against Ashvin's neck. He began mumbling, his strokes became faster and harder.

'Where is home?'

'I live on the Lumumba estate,' Ashvin stammered.

The officer gripped Ashvin's shoulder with his right hand and continued, unperturbed, pulling on his dick until it became slick, almost oily.

'What about your friend,' he said.

'Mandela estate.' James's heartbeat raced and he was ashamed to find he was crying.

He watched as Ashvin rocked slightly from the balls of his feet to his toes. When Ashvin came in the grip of the policeman's fingers his anguished moan made James's skin crawl. James's officer looked him in the eye as his wrist became frantic, rising and falling, his face red and mottled. James tried to shield his eyes but the officer told him to keep his arms down. Instead he looked to the top of the buildings. Against the night sky he could see the admin offices of the Department of Social Security, DSS in big black letters: a six-storey boxy building, a looming black monster with bright yellow trimmings along the large plate-glass window that reflected the glow from the moon.

James, who had been refusing to acknowledge what was happening to him, gasped. His thighs began to jerk, his pulse throbbed and he erupted.

'You fucking bastards,' he sobbed, without much conviction. He fell to the ground, his back heaving as he sobbed, but he pulled himself together when he saw Ash, his face set in a glare, adjusting the buckle on his belt. The silence was broken by a loud crackle and a female voice coming from one of the officers' radios.

'No previous, sarge. They're clean.'

'Well, well, well. There's a surprise. Perhaps you two really are disciples. Be sure to go straight home, ladies, and stay out of trouble.'

The officers returned to their vehicle. 'Whoa,' one of them shouted out of the window, as they sped off with their lights flashing.

Ashvin and James did not look at each other. They didn't speak. They continued on their way home, regaining their composure with each awkward step. They walked along empty streets. Over towards the Docklands a green laser light beamed into the hollow of the sky. To the east a blue light emitted from number 30 St Mary Axe, London's second tallest building or something, the Gherkin – the financial district's big dick. Beyond that, far, far in the distance, the London Eye, fitted snug in its place like a treasured plate of porcelain.