We Come Apart Read online

she doesn’t know it was Rick who keyed her car last week,

  and Fiona who nicked her phone.

  She’s so gullible,

  thinks she’s helping to

  reform,

  rehabilitate,

  reissue us into society,

  all scrubbed clean and ready to make nice.

  The only one she can probably trust is

  Nicu.

  He’s the one we all avoid.

  Can’t understand much anyway.

  And he’s weird.

  An immigrant gypsy boy

  who looks half-wolf

  if you ask me,

  picking litter and leaves like it’s cash,

  greedy for it.

  ‘You want my helping you?’

  he asks today,

  trying to team up

  before I’ve even had a chance to get my gloves on,

  and I sneer

  as best I can.

  Sneer at him

  and his bullshit English.

  Gypsy wolf boy.

  A BUCKET OF SPANNERS

  Everyone laugh and make jokes.

  I stay far,

  picking

  dead leaf,

  cut grass,

  pongy food,

  sharp glass.

  Many caseworkers never speaking to me.

  They just wave and point to filth I should see.

  ‘Understand?’

  I nod my head

  Yes, I understand.

  I’m not the real no-hope.

  Lady Dawn swings her flower dress around her bum and

  hums tunes.

  I think she is liking me.

  She not believe I am wild animal

  like other delinquents.

  Because

  I not wild animal.

  I am pussy cat.

  I come out from massive tree,

  do the baby step to go nearer to girl from my school.

  She stands not with the others.

  No laughing or making joke.

  Her eyes on ground

  in deep thinkings.

  She look depressing,

  eyes all puffy red.

  Her sack is empty

  of rubbish.

  Dawn can add days if we are lazy dogs,

  if we don’t helping our community.

  Maybe she need my rescue.

  A friend.

  A man for muscle work.

  My baby stepping bring me metres from her.

  Two red eyes flick up to me.

  I shine my smile.

  She sniff hard.

  Empty sack is no good.

  ‘You want my helping you?’ I ask.

  She look in air

  and does a snigger laugh,

  which is good because

  laughing is the medicine for not being sad.

  ‘You talking to me?’ she say.

  ‘I talk yes.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You want some my leaves?’

  ‘No thanks, creep.’

  I not know creep, but her voice tell me it’s same as

  dick

  knob

  wanker

  prick.

  ‘I am Nicu.’

  I say my name to show my friendly.

  ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘And your name, please?’

  ‘Nicu, what sort of name is that?’

  ‘I from Romania,’ I say.

  ‘Romania! Long way from home.’

  I do laugh because I am long way.

  She do laugh from belly also.

  She ask me for cigarette,

  I tell her no way because I not

  want to die.

  She do more laughing.

  ‘You’re as weird as a bucket of spanners.’

  I pretend I know her meaning.

  I want to tell her how much beautiful she is,

  not like village girls

  Tata wanting me to marry.

  Sorry, not wanting.

  Forcing.

  Vermin

  Terry’s in a top mood,

  frying up pancakes

  and whistling like a postman.

  But I don’t ask what’s got into him,

  what the good mood’s for,

  cos that would be

  stupid.

  And there’s

  no reason why anyway.

  Never any reasons.

  Not real ones.

  Not ones to hang your coat on.

  ‘Hey, nip down the shops and get us a little bottle of lemon juice,’ he says,

  all cheerful,

  and slides a fiver across the countertop

  with a wink.

  A wink

  and a smile,

  like a real dad.

  The bastard.

  I take the cash and go to the corner shop.

  The old guy knows me there,

  keeps two bald, beady eyes on me.

  Like I’d nick anything

  with him watching.

  In broad daylight.

  Cameras everywhere.

  I might be a thief, but I’m not a moron.

  On my way home, I stop by the park.

  Not to litter pick,

  just to have a smoke

  without Terry finding out

  and giving Mum a clattering for not

  taking better control of me.

  It’s empty,

  the park.

  Quiet.

  I sit at the top of the slide

  and puff away

  when wolf boy appears

  out of nowhere,

  climbs up next to me,

  hands over his bag of pick ’n’ mix –

  cola bottles,

  chewy fried eggs,

  sweet ’n’ sour snakes.

  ‘Will kill you more slower,’ he says,

  grabbing my fag and firing it down the slide.

  ‘Oi, you’re paying for that,’ I say.

  ‘Paying where?’ he asks,

  cos he doesn’t really understand much.

  Not words anyway.

  But he says,

  ‘Life shit pile today?’

  And I laugh.

  ‘A right shit pile every day, Nicu.’

  BYE BYE BAD BOY

  The jelly egg and sugar snake sweets

  I eat

  make my nerves better,

  giving my heart a break.

  And I smile when I spy her,

  high on kids’ sliding tube,

  smoke up in the air, puffing from her head.

  That girl has to know cigarettes make her dead.

  I do the sneak walk,

  like a spy.

  I’m behind her.

  I act like flash man.

  I flick her fag down tube,

  offer her a sugar snake.

  ‘Will kill you more slower,’ I say.

  I become brave and sit beside.

  Again I see her sad eyes.

  ‘Life is shit pile today?’ I ask.

  She laughs.

  Hip hip hooray!

  ‘A shit pile every day, Nicu,’ she say.

  I laugh also

  and feel warm because she speak my name.

  It sound weird coming out her mouth,

  lovely weird,

  make-my-stomach-tickle-weird.

  ‘Snap!’ I say, because our living is the same.

  ‘Snap? What you on about?’ she say,

  with trouble eyes,

  but eyes anyway that could be on a Christmas tree,

  twinkling

  twinkling

  brightly.

  I look.

  Secrets Shared

  He acts as though secrets can be shared like sweets.

  But I hardly know him.

  Not sure I can trust him.

  I mean, I don’t trust anyone,

  usually,

  and definitely not with stuff about him:

  Terry
the terrible.

  Terry the terrier.

  Terry the twat.

  ‘You can talking with me,’ Nicu says.

  And for some reason

  I know he’ll be good at keeping secrets

  so I start to speak.

  But I can’t tell him everything.

  STRUGGLINGS

  ‘Jess,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ she say.

  ‘My life too has strugglings every day.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Big strugglings.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Nicu.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  We laugh in same time.

  ‘My family too is arse pain,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, but I bet you don’t wish any of them were dead.’

  We look

  to each other.

  Breakfast

  Terry’s pancakes are cold

  and his mood has cooled down too.

  ‘What took you so long?’ he asks,

  but I can’t say

  Nicu,

  can I?

  Nicu? he’d say.

  Sounds foreign. Is he foreign?

  Thought we’d voted them all out.

  Dirty immigrants.

  Rat scum.

  Knock those boats outta the water before

  they arrive, I reckon.

  So I say,

  ‘They didn’t have any lemon juice.

  I had to walk to the Co-op.

  Took me ages.’

  But it doesn’t matter what I say now.

  I’ve riled him.

  ‘Louise!’ he shouts.

  GOOD CITIZEN

  Even though we here in this country,

  Tata think for ever of home,

  his peoples,

  his cultures,

  of village with no road or toilet.

  Every day he talk of return,

  always of the past.

  ‘As soon as we find enough money for a wife,

  we’ll go back,’ he say.

  I wanting to

  remain:

  learn my English,

  be the good citizen – no more thief,

  wave bye-bye

  to bad boy.

  When day come to return home

  to meet wife from village,

  I will cry.

  I will hide.

  I will disappear like magic.

  Lots of cash

  Tata say

  he have to pay,

  for finding me honest wife.

  But

  I am not the cow on market day.

  ‘I want to stay here!’

  I tell to Tata in high voice.

  I need to

  go to school,

  work the hardest,

  have a job like businessman, making clean money,

  find my own wife.

  Tata puts finger in my face.

  He screaming with the loud mouth:

  ‘You’re going.

  You do what I tell you to do

  and that’s the end of it.’

  His breath pong of

  booze and

  fags.

  The screaming go on more –

  Mămică start

  when she come through the door.

  ‘Do you believe this boy, Miri?’ Tata say.

  ‘Nicu, listen to Tata.’

  His finger touch my head.

  His breath touch my tummy.

  ‘Nicu, Tata knows best,’ Mămică say.

  ‘But I want to stay here.’ I praying to them.

  ‘Here, what is here?’ Tata say. ‘People hate us here.’

  ‘Nicu, people here only see our skin, not the thing within,’ Mămică say,

  thumping her bosom,

  two times.

  We continue to

  shout

  scream

  roar

  yell

  until I have no more voice.

  The Dregs

  They say

  we are the dregs

  and

  pack us off to the park to teach us a lesson,

  where we

  pick up crap

  and

  talk crap,

  pay back

  our society,

  which we

  so

  wounded.

  But take the rest of them – the other wrong’uns.

  Rick’s got a temper,

  might batter you if you

  talk dirt about his mum

  or whatever.

  And Fiona’s a bit of a crackpot,

  tattoos up her arm like a footballer.

  She’s only here

  cos some slag tried to bottle her

  outside a nightclub.

  Lee was done for selling weed

  to kids in his class

  (but looks like he smokes most of it himself).

  Bill nicked a BMW

  and was caught joyriding down the A10

  like Lewis bloody Hamilton.

  And Jade tagged tonnes of tube trains,

  too stupid to realise they had the whole thing on camera.

  So,

  yeah,

  we’re not exactly angels,

  probably a bit yobby,

  but the dregs?

  Do me a favour.

  EYES OF JESS

  Many day at reparation scheme

  Jess try to helping with my

  English.

  She say to me lots of important informations:

  FAG BREAK

  BUNK OFF

  KEEP AN EYE OUT

  COMPLETELY KNACKERED.

  Rick, who is like top boy offender,

  tell me that passing womens are

  WELL FIT

  but

  I hearing WEALTHY,

  which make Rick

  and others

  hyena laugh and friend-slap my back,

  though

  Jess give me special eyes

  when peoples are

  TAKING THE PISS.

  Rick

  definitely taking my piss when

  he ask me to shout

  CAN I WARM MY HANDS IN YOUR MUFF?

  to Dawn.

  And when these TAKING THE PISS things

  happen,

  I always search for the special eyes of Jess.

  Always

  I

  search.

  Pairing Up

  I spend two hours

  scrubbing graffiti from a kids’ climbing frame,

  then meet Nicu by the park gates.

  We seem to be doing this a lot,

  and I can’t remember how it happened,

  how we paired off from the others,

  and I stopped smoking cheeky fags

  with Fiona and Rick,

  started sharing a bag of

  Maltesers with Nicu instead.

  ‘You want I walking you home?’ he asks.

  ‘I protect you from bears.’

  He growls and flexes his muscles,

  kisses both fists.

  I laugh. ‘Ain’t no bears in Wood Green, mate,

  and you know it.’

  He laughs too. ‘I protect you from

  bad boy robbers instead,’ he says.

  ‘How about I walk you home

  to protect you from bad boy robbers,’ I say.

  ‘Sounds like first class deal to me,’ he says,

  and tries to take my hand,

  like,

  actually hold my hand

  as though we’re going out together

  or something.

  I pull away.

  I don’t need anyone touching me.

  ‘Unless you plan on walking out in

  front of a car,

  I don’t think

  we need to hold hands,

  do you?’ I ask.

  He smirks. ‘Worth trying, Jess,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It was worth a try.’

  MISTER INVI
SIBLE MAN

  Woman are complicate.

  One day

  up,

  one day

  weirder.

  At school I thinking that

  maybe Jess has really

  two peoples

  inside her brain.

  She don’t return my smile.

  She don’t give me the Jess special eyes.

  I am Mister Invisible Man.

  But I not want to make for her

  difficult time

  in case

  she has boyfriend in the lad crew.

  Mostly I not want Jess to lose her

  pride

  dignity

  honours

  if she friendly chatting with me.

  I can be her protect from this.

  Still,

  it not feeling lovely to be

  Mister Invisible Man.

  All Smiles

  After litter picking

  we go to the cheapest caff on Wood Green High Road.

  I get a Coke.

  Nicu orders a mug of tea

  and smiles.

  He’s got a nice smile, Nicu,

  even though

  his teeth are a bit

  crooked.

  His face sort of

  scrunches up,

  his eyes shine.

  And I watch him slurp at his tea

  while he tells me all about his life

  back home,

  how he lived in a house with no proper floor,

  just dirt and dust on the ground,

  and he rode donkeys and horses,

  cos they didn’t have money for a car.

  ‘And no skateboardings,’ he says,

  and smiles again,

  all shiny.

  The woman behind him gets up