Human Punk - Softcover

King, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1629631159 ISBN 13: 9781629631158

Verlag: PM Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

For fifteen-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, busy pubs, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, cutthroat Teddy Boys and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. Life is sweet—until he is attacked by a gang of youths and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles.

Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years away, remembering the highs and lows of the intervening years as he comes to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Joe is earning a living selling records and fight tickets, playing his favourite 45s as a punk DJ, but when a face from the past steps out of the mist he is forced to relive that night in 1977 and deal with the fallout.

Human Punk is the story of punk, a story of friendship, a story of common bonds and a shared culture—sticking the boot in, sticking together.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John King is the author of seven novels to date. His first, The Football Factory, was an immediate word-of-mouth success and was subsequently turned into a high-profile film. Headhunters, England Away, Human Punk, White Trash, Skinheads, The Prison House, and The Liberal Politics of Adolf Hitler followed. His stories reflect his cultural interests—particularly music, pubs and youth cultures—while challenging a range of stereotypes that are often accepted by the established political factions. Common themes are powerlessness and enemy-creation, the contradictions found in every walk of life. Before becoming an author King worked at a variety of jobs and spent two years travelling around the world in the late 1980s. He has long been associated with fanzines, writing for various titles over the years and running Two Sevens in the early 1990s. He currently publishes and edits Verbal, a fiction-based publication. He is currently working on an animal-rights story, Slaughterhouse Prayer. He lives in London.

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Human Punk

By John King

PM Press

Copyright © 2000 John King
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62963-115-8

Contents

INTRODUCTION Two Sevens Clash, 
SATELLITE, 
Slough, England Summer 1977, 
Boots and Braces, 
Dodgems, 
Sound of the Westway, 
Kicking for Kicks, 
ASYLUM, 
Beijing, China Autumn 1988, 
DAYGLO, 
Slough, England Spring 2000, 
Sitting Pretty, 
Loud and Proud, 
Version, 
Against the Grain, 

CHAPTER 1

BOOTS AND BRACES

It doesn't seem right somehow, seeing that kid run across the football pitch with his head sprayed gold, turned into a robot, knowing he has to get home and scrape the paint off before his brain boils and head explodes. He reaches the fence and climbs over, hurries towards the high street. It's not nice, not nice at all, Delaney shaking the can while the others hold him down, covering his face and neck, big blobs in his hair. He'll probably laugh about it later, when he's scrubbed clean and having his tea, safe and sound. And it's a good life when you're not on the receiving end, us lot in our own little corner, sitting in the sun on the last day of term, Johnny Rotten banging out of the cassette player, six weeks of summer holidays drifting into the future. I lean my head into the bricks and stare up at the sky, a pure blue dome with no clouds in sight, the only smudge the thin white trail of a single Heathrow jet, hot and cold air clashing, leaving a long line of fizzing crystals behind. The Pistols chop through 'God Save The Queen' as the flakes slowly melt, and I come back to earth when police bells ring in the 45-version of the Clash's 'White Riot'.

I'm showing off a new pair of DMs today, turning the right boot one on its side so it catches the sun, a warm patch of white light, and they're ten-eye, two over the eight worn by most kids round our way, and the fact I've got them and Dave hasn't is doing his head in. He likes to be one step in front when it comes to clothes, but I worked hard for these boots, stacking shelves at night after school, pricing baked beans and peas while everyone else was at home watching the telly, listening to the radio waiting for John Peel to come on and play some decent music, wanking off over Debbie Harry and Gaye Advert. Soon as I got these Martens home I went out back and rubbed them up with a brick, added big dollops of cherry-red wax then polished the leather till my arm hurt. So I'm getting my money's worth, specially when it comes to this prize tosser Dave Barrows, who's doing his best to ignore the new boots, keeps telling his story.

–So Ali's standing there with Wells holding this knife against his belly and he's shitting it, and all the time there's this little wanker running a bike in his legs. There's four of them, and they're fresh off the train, back from the races, and I suppose they've seen Ali and thought, right, we'll have a laugh and do some Paki-bashing. Ali doesn't know what to do, if he should leg it or wait and see whether he gets let off. The knife makes this some serious aggro and he's got tears in his eyes, but doesn't want to show himself up and start crying. He's handing over the two quid he's got in his pocket when Alfonso comes strolling round the corner.

Chris laughs and Dave stops for a second, gives himself away. He kicks at my right foot, but I'm too quick, stick out my jaw, tell him to come and have a go if he thinks he's hard enough. He sucks deep down in his throat and fills his mouth, gobs at the same boot. Again I'm too quick for him and this massive greeny hits the concrete. I feel sick just looking at it, move over and take my chips with me.

–You should've got steel toecaps, he says. That's what I'm saving up for. A proper industrial pair off a building site.

I shrug and tell him to go ahead and buy steel toecaps if he wants. Doesn't bother me what he does. Can never work out why he takes these things so serious, and anyway, the coppers will have the laces off him soon enough, when he goes to football. Offensive weapons.

–You going to eat those chips? Chris asks. I'm fucking starving.

I say I don't know yet. I'm still thinking about it.

–So what happened next? Smiles asks. Did Ali get his head kicked in or what?

Dave goes on, doing his best to ignore the ten-eye Doctor Martens staring him in the face, shining bright, out on parade.

–Alfonso doesn't say a dicky bird, just goes over and nuts Wells between the eyes. Wells goes down, and the others don't move. Now it's their turn to brick it as the knife falls on the ground and Alfonso bends down, picks it up, admires the blade and tucks it in his dungarees. He pats the div with the bike on the head like he's nothing, while Wells lays there spark out, spread all over the pavement. Alfonso takes the two quid and stuffs the notes in his pocket. He tells Ali to have a kick if he fancies it, but Ali says no thanks, thanks anyway, and Alfonso says to get off home. Ali reckons two pound's a bargain to see Wells get done like that, but there was no point sticking the boot in, specially with the others watching. That would be asking for worse trouble later on.

–Makes sense, Chris says. Must've been tempting though. I'd have kicked the bloke in the head and worried about it later.

Ali made the right choice. There's no point making problems for yourself.

Nobody says a word, not till Smiles pipes up.

–I thought Alfonso and Gary Wells were mates.

Chris nods and Dave grins.

–Not any more they're not.

I think of Ali, trapped in a corner with no way out, mugged by Wells and his poxy bumper-boy mates, all baseball boots and striped T-shirts, wankers picking on an easy target. It's just bullying, same as the kid getting his head sprayed gold. Wells is nineteen, four years older than Ali, and that's a big difference at our age, plus it's four on to one. Least Ali didn't get a kicking.

–You shouldn't waste those chips, Chris says, smiling.

This boy's always eating, stuffing his face with crisps and chocolate, the cold pork pies and Scotch eggs he nicks down the shops, grabbing anything he can get his hands on. He always helps himself to two school dinners, three puddings. Doesn't matter what's on the menu. Could be roast, could be liver. He's always tapping us for chips. He should be fat, but instead he's tall and skinny. Maybe he's got a tapeworm.

–Ali and his brother had to run from Alfonso and Wells when they were out Paki-bashing last year, Smiles says. Wonder what happened.

Fuck knows, but it's a beautiful day and we've got six whole weeks away from this shithole. I tell the others to have a look at the sky, how it looks as if it goes on for ever. Time doesn't matter. It's good to be alive.

They all look at me. Dave laughs.

–You fucking bum boy.

But he can't resist having a peek himself, even though he tries to do it on the sly. He's like that. Always has to have one over on you.

–I hate this place, Chris says, turning angry. It does my fucking brain in. One more year ...

The fifth form are leaving today, and the lucky ones will be fixed up already, off down the trading estate in the next few weeks, straight into the factories and warehouses, shop floor and offices, full-time jobs with proper full-time wages. We can't wait till next summer when we'll go the same way, maybe get an apprenticeship and learn a trade. There'll be no more skiving when we start work, and we'll have to clock-in on time, learn to do what we're told by some manky...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PM Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1629631159
• ISBN 13: 9781629631158
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: eucomply OÜ; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; Pärnu mnt 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland