Nah Nah Not Funny .1
By Mark Burrow
- 3405 reads
Warm glass is kinda nasty. On a thick brown bottle too. That’s the worst. Some alkie musta left it half empty on the wall of broken bricks.
I sniff the top of the bottle an the sticky rim smells of Tracey Clarke’s knickers. She won’t speak to me, Tracey Clarke. I was lyin flat on the garage roof once, quiet as a spider, listenin to her sayin that her grandad’s ghost haunts her nan’s flat an that she woke up one night an saw a whiteness float bright across the room, an she knew it was her grandad, an she was frightened outta her mind, an when she tried screamin nothin came out. She says the room went proper cold.
I like how she laughs, Tracey Clarke. Except when she cracks-up at me when I’m gettin slagged off for the holes in my tops, my no-name trainers an greasy hair. Nah nah not funny at all. Other boys an girls keep sayin I smell rank an I never get invited in no one’s flat ever because the mums don’t want my germs in their places an I don’t have friends, not really, never have, an that’s okay by me cos I don’t want none anyway.
I throw the bottle an hear the pop an tinkle of glass smashin. It’s a lovely sound. A door opens from one of the flats an someone is shoutin at me an I start runnin.
Like they could ever catch me.
Others hate how I can run fast. They think I’m tramp boy, dustbin raider, with my clothes like they are an they’re laughin at me, teachers too. Mr Cole calls me Stig of the Dump. I don’t know what that is but the kids laugh at me an everyone thinks I’m a thickie, a bit of a mong. I dunno. When I’m runnin no one can catch me. Doesn’t matter if it’s near or far. I guess you gotta be a good runner or a good fighter. Me, I’m faster than fast. You might get close to me but I’m only messin with your head. Once my turbo booster goes on you’ll be eatin dust. That’s me. Five. Four. Long gone. Three. Two. See ya.
One.
Wouldn’t wanna be…
I think they don’t like me at school cos I’m supposed to be rubbish at everythin. When they see how good I am at runnin, it messes with their brains, finishin first when there’s this fucken random law that says I should always be last.
I climb a lamp post and sit on the roof of the garage, throwin stones. I can hear the bounce of a ball. The ball makes a rubbery, boing-boing sound. It’s cos of the high brick walls an concrete.
I keep outta sight mostly.
No one lets me play footie with them. Maybe they let me go in goal but then they do blasters at me, seein if they can make me cry.
Nah nah, not me.
Ain’t like I can stay indoors. Mum has gone proper strange again. She sits in front of the tele, starin an noddin off, spit drippin from her mouth like melted ice cream. She’s sort of awake and sleepin, halfway between the two. It happens when she’s with this man who wants me to call him uncle but he’s not family, no way, not him, an he smells worse than Tracey Clarke’s knickers. Not that I’ve ever smelled her knickers, or spoken to her for real, but her laugh makes me feel funny, like I’ve shaken up a can of Dr Pepper an pulled the ring an this fizziness is in me and it's kinda like everythin could be excitin an better if she let me tell her about what it’s like to run really fast. If she was with me lots an lots then I’d teach her to run fast too an you best know that no one’d ever catch us.
I throw stones at a burnt out car.
People don't speak the truth. Like, they call it ‘Care’ but there ain’t nothing caring about those places they put me in. It’s another stupid fat lie that they tell you. Care. As if. Sharin a room with boys and some of them are older an all they want to do is fight an show off how hard they are. It don’t matter what their size is, you have to hit them with everythin you got. And once you have a fight they stop bullyin you for a bit. That’s what Care is. Getting told off for fightin but you have to fight otherwise all you’ll do is be hit an get known as a coward. I’ve seen what happens to boys who won’t hit back and show they’re scared. And I don’t want to go into Care except there’s this nosy, do-gooder teacher at school an she keeps askin about wantin to see mum an I know she’s gunna call Social. It’s better not to be noticed cos once people like them start takin notice of people like me an mum what happens is they fuck you up even tho to your face they’re sayin they want to help.
That’s why I keep outta sight.
Part spider, part ghost.
I hang an drop off the garage roof an walk to the tower block. I like to stand right under it an gaze upwards. If I look up long enough the sky starts movin an my feet feel loose an my head goes dizzy an I’m tiltin, my body all papery, an I can feel myself fallin over.
I dunno why the tower block an sky move like they do when I stand at the bottom and stare upwards.
It’s like vertigo, but backwards.
Planes are flyin. Little crucifixes in the clouds.
I wait for someone to leave the tower block an then dart through the open security door an press the button for the lift. I ride up by myself to the twenty-fifth floor an then walk up these stairs that you’re not meant to go up an I use the set of keys that my dad had when he worked on the Council round here, before he got sick an all that. I use one of the keys to open the massive steel door with the graffiti on it an the dents where other fools have used crowbars to try to break through. I lock the squeaky door behind me an walk up more stairs an you can tell only a few people have ever been up this way because it don’t stink like stairways always do round here. I use a different key to open another door an the sun makes me blink an the air feels different cos I’m on the roof of the tower block an this here, right here, this is my place, this is where only I can come.
I go to my den which is made of a plasticky sheet tied onto some metal bars for aerials. There’s cardboard an some wood walls for when it gets chilly. I take out my fags an light one, openin a can of Dr Pepper. A warm tin doesn’t feel as dirty as warm glass. Up here, I can chill, let my guard down as I don’t have to stress about name callin or some fool tryin to start somethin. Dad used to come up here too. I think for the same reasons, sorta. And he’d bring me now an then an show me which way was North, South, East and West. We’d look at the buildings an he’d point to other estates and tower blocks, places where he’d worked an what they were like. I can remember him lettin me have my first ever sip of beer, an laughin at me because I didn’t like the taste an him tellin me that one day I’d get used to it and that’s when my troubles would really start.
I walk to the edge of the roof an look at the streets below, hearin traffic. Everyone looks shrunken an tiny like Lego.
The Council had to put on the big steel door to stop crazies throwing themselves off the sides of the tower.
Dad used to wonder what it must be like to be a tower block round here, that we should feel sorry for her, havin to watch over the estate day after day, night after night, like churches used to do in villages back in olden times.
I know what he means – when the tower block sees the ambulances an the fire engines an the police comin, I bet she wants to shed the biggest tear.
I can feel her twistin for sure. Tears wellin up an bulgin from her glass windows, hundreds of them, like fly eyes, an they burst out at once an these tears are splashin down onto the streets below, floodin the flats, the water risin up, cos she doesn’t stop cryin, the tower block, she’s seen too much, heard it all over the years, felt it inside of her, deep in the pipes an the plumbin, every beatin an muggin an all that shoutin an arguin an suicidin that goes on and on and on.
Tracey Clarke, she’s reachin out a hand, askin for me to save her.
Nah nah, can’t be doin that, sorry.
See ya.
I’m on the roof, safe and sound for once, smokin my fags, watchin rubbish floatin on dirty brown water, everyone gettin washed away, drownin in a warm sea of tower block tears.
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Comments
Living in such a harsh
Living in such a harsh enviroment, surrounded by such unwelcoming people, must pressure a child into feeling cast out. You've drawn on such a dreaded world clever;y, and written all those feelings so well, that must go through the mind.
A well written.story that comes over so real.
Jenny.
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A brilliant and wonderfully
A brilliant and wonderfully authentic voice in this monologue - so much in common with some of celticman's characters. I loved the part where he wonders about how the tower block must feel, and his little sanctuary up on the roof - still a small boy with his den and his imagination, despite the harshness of his life. Well done Mark
Small typo here:
seein if they can make be cry.
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I don't know if you've ever
I don't know if you've ever heard the serialisation of Just William on radio 4 (it's really good) - but he also drops his gs, and, obviously makes dens etc etc, so I was reminded of that quite often when reading yours - both the similarities and the contrasts
Congratulations on the golden cherries too!
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It's a 1940s (?) children's
It's a 1940s (?) children's classic by Richmal Compton and read by Martin Jarvis - William couldn't be more middle class if he tried, but he does drop his gs when speaking
It's always hard to write an accent and I think sometimes it's unnecessary if the writing is good enough (which yours most definitely is)
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What Peter, cman and Sean
What Peter, cman and Sean write is more of a language in itself -I think that might be why. But I also find it grates when not done properly and makes for a clunky read (yours doesn't grate)
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Enjoyed this so much!
Enjoyed this so much! Appreciated your consideration of Care, too. Not discussed enough, not at all really, the damage it does. Or the problem teachers face, knowing they should do something but the something might be worse. And children know, that's why they can't tell anyone. And now teachers have to report things by law it means children are even less likely to tell them anything.
I like the different strands in your story, the running, the feeling that Tracy might be a friend, the aware towerblocks. Particularly how you describe sounds, the bottle smashing, ball bouncing. The feeling of otherness he has, yet also united with everyone by the towerblock, which seems almost like a parent.
I loved this one
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It does! I have been thinking
It does! I have been thinking about it more, I loved how he is not full of despair, at all - he is the rubber ball bouncing in the concrete, isn't he?
The Care thing (I think about this a LOT sorry, having been tangled with it because of my son) it is like being a ghost, you know, there but unable to move anything? All these people saying stuff which is rubbish, and not listening, and you move through their world and they change things as if you are not there at all, they seem not to see the suffering they cause to children, not even as if it was a cobweb they walk through
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Don't want to interfere with
Don't want to interfere with a brilliant writer, but incase it is helpful, my son and other children here, the overwhelming feeling about social work was anger? I don't know if it is only here, where we live, but the problem is that they say things that are not true and then justify their interventions on this. Truth and lying are important to children, it is good and bad, easy to understand. The feeling of frustration can only become betrayal. Can any sign of friendliness be trusted? A child as in your story, is aware there is something wrong, that home life is not like other children's. They will have a way of coping. They will know money is short. And then this whole paraphernalia of the state gets involved, with free transport to courts (impressive if your family doesn't have a car) treats like free icecream and afternoons out of school in the hope of getting a quote that can be used. But there is nothing, no help to fix the actual problem. As was said so often to me in the complaints procedure after my son was allowed home (cannot complain while a child is in Care as this is "not co operating" and justifies a child being in foster even longer) that "it is as if you have a sprained ankle and the doctor amputates your leg". Every child I have spoken to on the island, or my son has here or on the mainland, the after effect is Anger. It is easy to see why so many children from Care end up in prison, they decide from the beginning that the state does not do what it is supposed to and the only way to survive is not to obey the rules either. I can see your story is very different, in that it sounds as if his Mum has real problems, but I wonder if he might feel anger too. Or if it is part of his rubber ball character and his running talent, that he can escape anger also? Just as he climbs up way beyond anyone else can, to the top of the tower block into the sunshine, that this is part of his gift
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He is fine, thankyou :0)
He is fine, thankyou :0)
I love the idea of someone who comes out still lit up with hope despite everything. Am looking forward to reading more about this voice you are working on :0)
To add to your reading list, have you heard of Lemn Sissay's My Name Is Why?
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Nicely done. I tried the same
Nicely done. I tried the same style with many of the stories I wrote. Taking all the gs we swallow out. Then changing my mind and stticking them all back in. A bit like Tracey's knickers.
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You paint a grubby picture of a lonely abandoned
intelligent kid growing up in a grubby environment. This is the underclass, a few make it most don't.
Kind of reminds me of the Dutch Film Ciske de Rat, except that was set in the 30's and he had a better chance in life than your spider boy. (no Ketamine then)
Just realised I mean the situation is grubby. Certainly not the quality of your work which of course is brill.
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I like the poetic lines in a
I like the poetic lines in a lot of your stuff. "..quiet like a spider" Planes that are "... little crucifixes in the clouds." And in a recent story when you compared cremation curtains closing to a "magic show gone wrong."
I think it's these observations that differentiate and elevate prose to a different level.
You seem strongest writing in first person and in settings like this. The affinity is clear for all to see.
A pleasure to read, of course :)
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Excellent piece Mark
Really vivid and poignant.
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You've got a rich collection
You've got a rich collection of characters here, and that always brings a main character to life. I always feel (but then what do I know?) that as readers we often relate to the main character by seeing the way they react to others and so the supporting cast needs to be as strongly imagined as the leads, even if we don't see so much of them. Also humour, however black it is. You need to have laughed with someone before you can cry for them.
My jury's out when it comes to writing accents or other speech mannerisms. If it's done well (as with our own ABC writers who completely nail it every time) it works really well, or it can be nothing but a distraction if done badly. For me, your version is working. I can hear this boy's voice in my head.
Are we going to see (and hear) more of him?
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