Skinhead (6 page)

In his chest of drawers he had some of those Swedish magazines – the type showing pubic hair and highly erotic positional poses between men and women. He got two out, turned to well-thumbed pages and studied a luscious blonde doing a wonderful thing for an unseen male with a tremendous urge for her; to a brunette climbing all over a dark-haired youth whose intentions could not be more obvious.

“Christ...” He flung the magazines back in the drawer and covered them with dirty underwear. Sweat filmed his forehead. He dressed quickly, wearing his skin-tight Levi's so that his boots could be seen in all their savage glory, a skimpy granddad short-sleeved vest and draped a cheap sheepskin around him. Then he gave his boots a fast polish, slipped his feet into them and immediately felt two feet taller. Funny, he thought, lacing the boots, how they gave a guy a boost!

He didn't bother saying good-morning to his parents. They would rave about last night and the blood-stained towel hanging in the bathroom... Jeeze, that was a laugh! Bathroom... a pokey room with a built-in tin bath and a cracked basin. Even the bloody loo was ready to fall apart. When he got recognized...

One thing Joe really detested was a hippie. For a start, they didn't wash. Then there was the matter of their hair... so bleedin' long and matted with lice and dirt. And their clothes – well, he couldn't bear to rub against one of them anywhere! He always got the shivers thinking of fleas and filth and the sickening stench of unclean material.

Mostly, though, he hated them for not working. He had to work; if he didn't there'd be no cash in pocket. His father was hard when it came to earning money; like most men who had to slave since their early teens to make ends meet. But not the hippies! Not those bastards! The bleedin' Welfare State took care of them – grants if they were students (and that was a big laugh!), handouts from Social Security to pay fines for demonstrating and pot-taking, additional cash to buy more pot and, if they were really lucky to get a sympathetic guy at the Assistance Board, they'd have enough to take a holiday in Cornwall. Christ, what a rotten way to treat tax-payers he thought!

Well, today, they'd do a few hippies for the hell of it. After last night he wanted some easy aggro. No hefty dockers, no bleedin' crazy fools... just soft, dirty hippies to bash around.

Don Taylor tightened his clip-on braces and gazed in admiration at his brand-new Dr. Martens' boots. At ninety-five shillings they were a bargain in his estimation. Like Joe, he felt taller, more important when he wore boots. “It'll be bleedin' cold in Brighton, Joe,” he said.

“We'll find a few hairies and get warm doin' them,” came the reply.

“I dunno,” Don muttered, looking away as Joe's hard eyes fastened on him. “Those Brighton fuzz are hard, man.”

Billy nodded agreement. He ached awful and his face looked as though it had gone through a sausage-mixer. He certainly wasn't in the mood to risk another beating so shortly after last night.

“You gettin' yellow?” Joe asked menacingly.

Don shook his head fast. Billy took longer but again agreed.

“Okay then,” Joe said firmly. “That's settled. We're goin' to Brighton. Let's get the others...” He strutted off, sure of his men now – a commander about to prepare an attack on an undefended town; a brutal Napoleon ready to strike with all the viciousness of his power-mad soul.

Once they reached Victoria Station, the mob were unanimous about what they intended doing in the seaside town. The proceeds of a small robbery they had pulled the week before would provide their fares, meals and booze. And, when they ran out of amusements, they would seek out a few scared hippies and do them.

The first train was The Pullman and Joe gave his orders: “No bleedin' trouble on this train, mates. We wanna get to Brighton – not arrested.”

As they strolled along the platform, the guard eyed them suspiciously. He didn't enjoy having yobbos on his train; no more than the nervous passengers watching from carriage windows wanted them in their compartments. But Joe wasn't interested in annoying innocent travellers today. He was thinking about what would happen once they cornered their hippie enemies and enjoyed the prospect of putting his boot in.

“'Ere's one...” Billy pointed at a carriage where several teenage girls sat watching their progress along the cold-swept platform.

“Christ, can't you think of sumfin' besides girls?”

Billy shrugged, and waved to the stern-faced females. Joe wasn't usually so slow at taking opportunities. If he stayed in this mood they'd have a lousy day by the sea.

It wasn't often Joe felt compelled to explain his edicts, but he did, loudly: “We get in there an' there'll be bovver for sure. I don't want anyfing to stop us doin' them hippies.” He smiled, shaking himself like some huge bear about to itch against a benevolent tree-trunk. “After yesterday we're not goin' to have our sport spoilt.”

Billy grinned happily. He, too, wanted to gain a measure of sweat revenge for the beating he'd taken trying to make Mary. But he also wanted a bird. The long hours contemplating how it would be with Mary had given him the urge. And all the boots, fists and broken bottles that had found their target in his flesh hadn't dulled his massive desire. If only Joe would let them combine pleasures...

“Ain't we gonna chat-up any birds, Joe?”

Joe shrugged, throwing open a carriage door. “Mebbe
after
the aggro, Don. Get in...” He stalked down the carriage, taking a window seat. One elderly man at the far end of the carriage glanced fearfully over his Sunday newspaper and hurriedly buried his nose in the latest scandal. Like so many people he figured that what he couldn't see wouldn't come to lay grief on his doorstep.

“'Ow much we got, Joe?”

Billy rubbed his hands together, waiting for Joe's reply to Tony's pertinent question. He hoped it would be enough for them to make steak and chips – not the old standard fish with.

“Thirty knicker.”

“Cor, we bleedin' well nicked over sixty-five!”

“Yeah,” Joe said softly. “An' I divvied out some.”

Tony dropped his gaze and sulked in his corner. He didn't dare query Joe further. He knew – as did the others – that Joe had taken a larger slice than any of them. He always did. As their leader he apportioned the spoils and, with deference to his superior position, allotted himself the general's ration.

Slowly at first, then gathering speed, the train moved out of the station, the crumbling warehouses and dilapidated homes along the track like sickness on the face of London. Joe didn't see the horror of railway surroundings. Nothing here was worse than his own neighbourhood; nothing dirtier than Plaistow or Poplar. Although he had ambitions to rise above the filth of working class districts, he had accepted conditions with the fatalism of those born to squalor. It was one thing to believe in a West End flat, a Mayfair bird, a gleaming car and new gear every day of the week, but the brainwashed mind could not see further than personal betterment. It couldn't realise that all of this slumland must be cleared and kept free from decay. It couldn't accept that people had to be educated to have pride in their surroundings, to make their district forever clean and fresh and on a par with other high-class areas.

As the train sped past a huge new office building near the Thames with its huge red sign announcing space to let, Joe felt a tremor of annoyance. From the top floor of that block, one would see across the river to the Houses of Parliament, down river, up river, see all the landmarks of the city. He had a fair idea what a flat there would cost always providing the landlords would rent to a private individual instead of a large company.

That was the closest Joe came to speculating on his future residential ambitions that day. For the most of the fast journey he allowed himself the luxury of imagining how they – the mob – would deal with his hated hippies.

Basically, Joe had a feeling for violence. It was an integral part of his make-up. Some do-gooders trying to explain his attachment to the skinhead cult would, no doubt, stress his environmental background, his childhood fighting for every scrap of education and clothing. They would point with undisguised delight to his father's tough profession, to the East End as a breeding-ground of crime and the conditions under which its inhabitants grew up. They would gleefully assign all manner of reasons for Joe being what he was without ever touching on the most important factor of all – his character weakness for brutality. It wasn't something that had grown inside him because of surrounding blights. It was him; he was one of the incurables – one of those born to be hard, mean, savage. Nothing had made Joe this. He had been born to accept crime and the ravaging of that which he found objectionable. Joe Hawkins was one of nature's misfits; one of her habitual criminals. And all the soft-soap and kindness would not alter him. Not one iota.

“Jesus, Don – you're a stupid bastard!”

Don laughed, dug his hands deeper into his pockets. It was freezing cold along the front and the wind-whipped waves formed salting white-caps as far into the Channel as the eye could see. “Relax, Joe-mate... they didn't get us, did they?”

Joe growled into his sheepskin coat, feeling his face getting numb as the wind continued to assault them. “They bleedin' nearly did, you bastard! If it hadn't been for Billy...”

Billy turned his back on the spray blowing over the sea-wall, hearing the incessant rattle of pebbles under the smashing waves. It had been bloody close, he thought walking backwards. They'd slashed the seats and bust a carriage window just as the train was entering Brighton Station but Don had to act the fool and throw light-bulbs onto the platform. If he hadn't run to the copper and made a complaint about a mythical member of the Hell's Angel's mob going for him, Don would be freezing his arse inside a Brighton cell now. “Fuckin' fool!” Billy said as the wind tore his words away and rushed them down to the marina.

“Let's eat, Joe,” Tony voiced, glaring at the angry sea. “I'm starvin'.”

Joe nodded. He was hungry too. And he didn't much fancy being blown to bits any longer. They'd seen the bleedin' sea and, for his money, Brighton could keep it. He didn't go much on sand and sea and sky. He preferred the city with its layers of smoke blotting out the sun, with its teeming millions struggling for a mere existence, for the aggro and for the clash of wills.

The caff catered to early holiday-makers but on a cold, lonely Sunday it was practically empty. The menu didn't offer much in the way of good eating but Joe wasn't one to know the intricacies of
Cordon Bleu
cuisine. His idea of a slap-up meal consisted of chips with everything and a steak could be raw, medium or burnt to a crisp for all the difference it made to his cast-iron stomach. He had no real sense of taste – a result of years spent eating his mother's cooking. In the Hawkins' household a chop tasted like fish and fish tasted like rubberized shoe leather. Nobody would ever honour Mrs. Hawkins for her cooking. Nobody!

“Listen sonny... I don't want any trouble, hear me?”

Joe grinned at the swarthy, heavy-set man behind the counter. He had a feeling the out-of-sight right hand was lovingly caressing a truncheon. He didn't want trouble then either. Especially not with a typical East Ender operating a profitable Brighton caff.

“Isn't it the shits!” Joe said in a low voice, “'ere we are in dear old Brighton an' he slaps a law on us already!” He laughed, motioned for the mob to take their seats, bending forward and telling the owner in a confidential whisper: “Mate we're famished – we wanna eat... okay?”

“Just remember,” the other growled, “no trouble. You pays when I bring the nosh!”

“Suit yourself, chief, “Joe replied in his most casual manner. “Wot's your tip for the day?”

“Ham san'ich.”

“Christ, I said we're bleedin' famished...”

“You got money?” the owner asked suspiciously remembering other skinheads and other non-payment of bills.

Joe deliberately withdrew his cash, flicked the fivers to prove his intention to pay. Inside, he boiled. It would serve the bastard right if they done his place and didn't pay. But he controlled his emotions and forced a smile. “'Ow's that?”

“Right... What's the order?”

As Joe took his seat, Billy leant forward and snarled, “Let's do the bastard when he brings the nosh.”

Joe considered the request, but brushed it aside. His plans were swiftly formulating. First, they'd find a few hippies and kick the shit out of them. Secondly they'd run riot in whatever amusement arcades were open. Thirdly, they'd come back here and bust the caff's windows and, if they could, break every stick of furniture in the rotten place. Maybe they'd even have the satisfaction of doing the owner. That would make the current backing down worthwhile.

“No, Billy, “he said finally. “Save 'im for later.” He winked, letting them all know he – their supreme commander – had a definite scheme afoot.

“Let's have the most expensive nosh, eh?” Don said with a sly grin. “We can always get our money back...
later
!”

Joe nodded, wondering if his plan would let them rob the geezer. He doubted if an East Ender would leave his spare cash lying around where yobbos could find it. He wouldn't... and he placed the owner in this category.

Without exception, the mob followed Joe's selection from the hand-scrawled menu: soup, minute steak with boiled potatoes and peas, cheese and biscuits, tea.

None of them complained when the soup arrived lukewarm. Nobody noticed that the minute steak was tough, sinewy, an unfrozen offering to nauseate a gourmet, and that the potatoes were a day old and reheated. None of them paid any attention to the tinned peas and the way they came up in solid balls. And even the cheese passed their non-inspection although it smelt to high heaven and had mould on the edges. As for the biscuits the least said about them the better.