So I just start talkin', right? Now? Ok, so it was Tooting. Early 1980s. I'd been on their radar for a long time, the coppers. I'd find them snoopin' around my street or following Mickey home (my kid, Michael. Good boy he was.) They'd stoop low in them days. Bottom line was they didn't trust me 'cause I was a working class boy with nice cars living on a council estate.
I've loved cars my whole life. Can't remember a time when I didn't know how the pistons of an engine fit together or how to repair a clutch. I've fixed up Porsches, Jags – old ones – an' a couple of Aston Martins in my time. Made 'em all tip top, spankin'. Good as new. The only one I kept for myself was the Ferrari 288. Beautiful car. Aim was to sell it on, but let me tell you, that's a tough gig sometimes, when you're livin' on a council estate. Clients think you're car jackin' all over London, usin' dodgy parts that fall off the back of a van. But, fact is, I weren't some slimy, half-cut used car salesman doin' paint jobs for crooks an' changin' drug dealers' number plates. Nah mate. I had skills. I had nice cars, not 'cause I pinched nothin, but 'cause I saved my money for the parts, and I have smart hands that can fix up vintage cars. Nothin' wrong with that.
Anyway in Tooting you got the Den and the Pool hall in them days, and if you wasn't in the Den you was in the Pool. They tried the Den first, but I was down the Pool, and that's where they nicked me, right in front of me son. Let me tell you somethin'. Long as I live, and I'm past 59 now, I 'aint never ever going to get over that night. It's not so much what I went through – and I went through hell – it's more look on my son's face when they hand-cuffed his old man and led him out like some low life scum. Haunts me, that look on his face. He was the one I was doin' it all for, see, the cars, I mean. An' I was teachin' him everything I know to give the kid a future — a livin' if you see what I'm sayin', you know, a skill. Havin' a skill gives you a chance to get off the estate. An' I wanted to keep him out of trouble, away from them gangs an' dirty dodgers hangin' around like sin down the local park.
Anyway, place was hivin' that Saturday night full o' geezers from Tooting an' Clapham an' Brixton. There was a pool tournament on, and my son come down with his mates. Lad was 14 but he come down for the pool an' a coke. It's a dingy place, really. Floor's always sticky, an' you have them creepy green lights an' that weird non stop hummin' from the pool tables. But we always had a laugh.
Anyway. So you got people playin' pool, queuin' for drinks, jabberin' away at the bar, an' all of a sudden there's this bang. Doors throw open. Music cuts off an' we all turn round. 'Freeze', we hear. One o' the young girls starts cryin' and we're all trying to shush her 'cause we don't know if it's a hold up or what. But it's not, an' these two uniformed coppers come bargin' in. One o' them – big, wiry, angular bloke, pointy face – comes right up to me straightaway an' gets me down across the bar. Strong as an ox, he is, an' he's slammin' my head down, hand cuffin' me before I even know what I'm meant to have done. I'm protestin' with every breath, 'get off, get off me' I says, 'I ain't done nothing!' but it makes no difference an' he handcuffs me in front of my boy, and escorts me outside and into this van. Windowless van it was in them days. Dark as a dungeon inside.
Journey seem to last forever, but we get down the station an' I'm led straight into this grimy room for questionin'. Has this brown carpet with stains and holes, an' these tattered curtains, the colour o' urine with fag burns in. Smells disgustin' – stale smoke an' old vomit. And then some heating system's been well cranked up 'cause it's far too hot an' it's making the smell worse. Strange, the things you remember.
That same big wiry copper sits down on this desk, next to this ashtray that's spillin' right over, all this mingin' grey ash crumblin', an' leans right back, an' puts his hands behind his head, watchin' me. He's got this red around his eyes probably eczema – an' this white skin like an albino, an' this pointy, sharp face. Reminds me of one of them lab rats with red eyes. He finally asks me if I want to sit, but I say 'nah, I'm alright'.
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Tales of Disturbance
Science FictionA young teenage girl, haunted by the memories of her father's execution, attempts to escape a cruel regime by night. A solitary woman, abandoned by her husband, inadvertently plays into the cruel hands of 'the state'. In another totalitarian regime...
