Not that I thought London was a bad place, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of angst and violence amongst particularly the youths and young men I crossed paths with on a daily basis around East London.
I experienced several incidences of “chicken”; a kind of brinkmanship game on the streets, where, usually 3 young men, often hooded, headed head-to-head with me on the pavement. They would deliberately try to test me, and see if I would be the one to step out onto the road.
Often someone would spit on the ground just in front of me, as if to provoke a reaction; another test.
I had come across this spitting behaviour, when, as a teenager in the mid 1970’s, my school in Adelaide, South Australia, experienced a large influx of English immigrants. The boys sported skinhead haircuts and baggy jeans, things which we had never seen or heard of. We were sport crazy not girl crazy. Lunchtimes were cricket and AFL football matches, and sometimes basketball and tennis. The English boys introduced what we called soccer; the round ball game. We all thought it was a bit of a game for girls as there was a distinct lack of rough and tumble. Our games would often involve fights between competitors over some rules dispute or over-rough tackle. But things usually sorted themselves out quickly; boys would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back into the game as young warriors do.
The other boys that were new; the Poles, the Hungarians, the Greeks and Italians, the Dutch and the Latvians all joined in and became one with us. We didn’t see them as different.
But there was something different about these English boys.
They seemed to mooch around like lost souls; many had what I would call a “chip on the shoulder”. They were quick to anger over things which we were unaware of, and seemed to hold a grudge forever. Many struggled in the classroom and were unable to bring themselves up to the standard to which most of us had been schooled.
But I couldn’t blame them.
I wondered what it would be like to be ripped out of your school, your home, your environment. To come from a place of cobble-stone streets, gun-metal grey skies and coal mines; to have to start all over again in a foreign land with no friends.
But I couldn’t understand the spitting.
At every opportunity, these lost boys would spit on the ground. Not great gobs of mucus or saliva. They had it down to a fine art. They were accurate and could have probably hit a pin-head at 3 metres. But it was an anathema to us. It was dirty and distasteful.
Fortunately, they grew out of it. The sunshine and the air and the beach in summer were stronger than their ties to their former life. They lost their accents and they changed their hairstyles; girls didn’t like their look. Some became surfers or footy players. Some went to University. Some went home to England and felt lost again, and came back to Australia and stayed forever.
We met Eddy and his friend Edwina at St Pauls Cathedral one Sunday. As usual, it was English summer cool, and the wind off the Thames was living up to its reputation as a natural refrigerant. We parted ways at Southbank, and Team KW and I headed off to another destination. We were walking down the street. There was a young man walking with his girlfriend slowly ahead. He wore his jeans so very low, and I was moved by how proud he seemed to be of his underwear; perhaps Calvin Kline was actually his name. Wayne, being taller than Kate and I combined, turned back to me, and, over Kate’s head said “Neither of us thought...” he was suddenly cut off by the pants man;
“wot the fuck did you just say...wot did you say..did you say wot I fink you said”
We were stunned. My radar went off and I was on high alert status. Calvin’s girlfriend was trying to pull him back, and he was fully in-Klined to fight Wayne. He was a little taller than me, he was fit, and some sixth-sense told me he was dangerous. Wayne repeated the word “neither” in his Australian accent and Calvin reduced himself to a poncy, chest-puffing show-off. It was a lucky non-encounter, I felt.
One sunny afternoon, when the team are at work, I walk to the local Tesco supermarket. I buy some things and stand at the pedestrian lights waiting to cross. An attractive, young , coloured lady stands next to me. A car slows right down and six brown youths hang out of the rust-bucket’s windows and bawl and bellow disgusting insults and suggestions at the young woman. They drive off only because the traffic forces them to. The young lady is stony faced, like nothing has happened. The lights change and she quickly walks across the road. I follow, and as I come around a corner near Limehouse Station there is a black man face down on the concrete slab. There is blood on the concrete and blood on his face. He struggles to his feet. He is perhaps twenty years old. He staggers off the footpath and straight into oncoming traffic that aren’t going to stop; this isn’t Holland. So I lurch for him and pull him back just in time. I manoeuvre him across to a fence and prop him against it. His pupils are dilated and he is going in and out of consciousness. An Indian couple have called the ambulance, and we wait and I hold him straight, till they arrive and we can leave him in their care.
Some weeks later, having just begun recovering from my London ‘flu, Kate invites me out for Friday night drinks at Brick Lane, with her buddies from Barking Abbey School, where she taught for a term, and who have now offered her a permanent job. Wayne comes along, bringing Richard and Antony from work, and everyone settles in for a good night of drinking, laughing, and playing practical jokes.
Except me.
The size of English beers and my weakened state of health result in a decision to only have 1 small beer. I find it enjoyable and enlightening, as everyone else gets hammered and I stay sober.
I chat to Roxanne, who is leaving teaching to complete a PHD, and who won’t go back to her home country of Iran because, in her words “I would become a second class citizen”.
Jim is a rough-around-the-edges socialist archetype. “I feel like I should buy ya a beer, but I’m skint” he offers. Someone tells me he’s a French teacher, “I’m not, I’m an Englishman who teaches French”. He’s for the union and workers revolution, he rides his push-bike everywhere, and has a kind of open house format where he lives, with people coming and going as they like. He’s a character, scruffy in the way of benign self-neglect, and a genuinely funny guy that I warm to.
Toni is an Art Teacher from New Zealand. She wears her black Docs, her black stockings with black short skirt and long black hair cut in a fringe, with attitude. She’s a free spirit, riotous, raucous and ribald. She is two years away from the coveted UK Resident certificate. This is where she wants to be.
We repair to one of the many Indian Restaurants that line Brick Lane. When you walk this street you run the gauntlet of the touts who try to entice customers inside their establishments with offers of “25% off the bill and 3 free rounds of drinks” or “35% off the bill and one free round of drinks; you can choose anything on the menu”. That is, as long as it’s not the King Prawns!
Jim orders a black tea, in a futile attempt to sober up. He dozes off, and awakes from the petit power nap to claim a glass of red wine as his free drink; “no sir, sorry sir, but you have already had your free drink”. Tea is obviously very expensive here!
It’s midnight. Everyone goes home. Wayne, Antony and Richard want to kick on. This means we miss the tube again, but what the hell, you only live once!
We take a damp walk to the end of the street; yes it’s raining again! We enter a small, packed club with red lighting. The boys have another beer. Anthony has an intelligent discussion with me about electronic music, and informs me of the Berlin scene. He looks sober, the other two are falling asleep on their feet.
So, Team KW and I trudge again through the misty rain to the bus stop, and wait, along with other early morning revellers for our double-decker rescuer to arrive.
We sit on the top deck with thirty or so others, all in their own state of Friday night trance. The young man next to me is asleep with his earphones still blasting away. They say you only really become a Londoner when you have slept through your stop, and awaken some hours later at the end of the line, as the sky begins to light up with the new day.
Wayne and Kate sat together down the back; I could see Wayne was asleep already. A girl behind me began talking to another girl across the aisle from her. I had noticed them at the bus stop. A young man behind them joined in the conversation, it was not English. To diminish my boredom, I tried to pick the language. Italian, yes. And now, Spanish? Two men in their early to mid-twenties emerged from the stairway. One looked Arabic, fit, maybe 5’10”; the other was big but rangy in build; about 6’7”, and black in an African or Caribbean way. The black man sat directly across the aisle from me; the other sat behind. They both began talking in Spanish to the girl behind me. Everything seemed perfectly normal, in a sleepy, night bus kind of way.
In a moment though, everything changed.
I couldn’t see him but I heard the Arabic man speed up his speech, switch from Spanish to English to Arabic and start yelling “puta, puta”. I heard him get out of his seat. I turned and saw him approach the girl behind me. She was cringing and holding herself in the way that you might if you expected to be hit.
The black man across the aisle put his hand on me “stay out of this, it’s ok, I’m his backup”
The Arabic raised his open hand, as if to slap her. He was yelling at her, she was whimpering “no, no”. A young Chinese looking guy about the same age in the seat behind the girl stood and said “you can’t do this to her!”
The not-so-dynamic-duo turned their attention to him. The Black got in his face and slapped his face. The Arab was making a right-handed fist and I could see exactly how this was going to go. The two had him trapped against the window and were going to smash him. The guy next to me was still pretending to be asleep. Mayhem broke loose, the other girl was screaming. I went over the top of the first girl and put my hands on the Black’s arms and began pulling them back.
“Stay out of this it’s not your business”
“You need to leave him alone, I can’t let you do this”
He was looking at me, I was looking at him. We are all pressed together with the Arab trying to get a hold on the Chinese and the Chinese struggling. The girl is somewhere beneath us and frozen in her seat. There are screams and shouts and I feel the bus come to a halt.
Then I’m being dragged backwards. Kate and Wayne have grabbed me, and, quite rightly are trying to get me out of here “Dad, don’t get involved, let’s get off the bus, come on!”
But I can’t come on or off. I can’t let this go. I can see the Duo have taken heart from my temporary absence, and are getting ready to do some serious pounding.
So I break free, and somehow, it is not clear to me now, I get the Black out of the way and grab the Arab. I have the feeling he is probably very right-sided, so I pin his right arm so he can’t use it. With my other arm I grab his jacket and start trying to pull him away. He struggles. I start talking in his ear, “Come-on you have to get off the bus”
“No, I want to talk to heem, I want heem to come outside with me”
“No, I can’t let you do that, you know you have to get off, the police are coming, you don’t want to get caught”
He struggles but I have him; I run monotone hypnotic language patterns into his ear. I feel his strength diminishing and I am able to pull him away and start moving him, backwards, towards the stairs and out of the bus. In the heat of it all I shout at the other girl “get her out of here now!” She gathers her still cowering friend and they leave.
I am in some kind of a zone. I feel no fear, no emotion only clarity. For 3 seconds I consciously contemplate twisting the Arab’s arm into an arm lock, and with my left arm locking his neck and then dragging him backwards. It’s a dilemma. I know I will up the stakes. Violence begets violence. But I am getting somewhere with him. So I just keep pouring the words into his unconscious mind.
The Arab still yells abuse at the Chinese but it is less convincing. I tell him I want him to get off the bus so that he doesn’t get into trouble. The Black is looking at me from the back of the bus, he doesn’t understand what is going on, but he still looks dangerous.
Just then I feel someone come over the top of me, and Wayne punches the Arab in the chest. It’s perfect timing.
The Arab fires up at Wayne, Wayne yells in his best Australian “If you fucking touch that man I’ll kill you”.
I still have the Arab in a hold.
Kate is screaming for someone to call the police.
I see the fire go out in the Black’s eyes, now we are three.
The Chinese has more courage now and yells abuse at the Arab. A Pakistani man begins to hurl abuse at the Arab.
I say to the bus in general “come on every-one if we all work together here we can stop this” but I get only groans and disinterest. One well-built Englishman stands up and says “please stop this, we all just want to go home” to the duo and sits down. It’s not much, but it’s something.
The Arab makes a last attempt to rush the Chinese, but I manage to get hold of him again and this time forcefully pull him backwards, all the way to the top of the stairs. I’ve really had enough of this now and am struggling to keep my own violence under control.
The bus has been stopped about 20 minutes I think; no sign of any police. The bus driver has been up three times but won’t get involved. I keep repeating the mantra into the Arab’s ear “we have to get you off the bus, you know you have to get off the bus now before the police come”.
The girls have long fled.
I get him on the stairs. The Black is already there. Control the General and you control the Soldier.
The Arab turns to me. We have built a strange rapport in the time I have had his body in my control. With obvious emotion he says “you know, you are the only good person on this bus”. The irony of this escapes me in the moment. Now, I just really want hurt him, and fear I will, if he makes one more move.
But, with a spit from behind the protective wall of the stairs, he hurls a final torrent of abuse at the Pakistani in a face-saving attempt, and smashes his plastic coke bottle against the rails, showering those in the front seats with a mixture of cheap rum and cola.
Then they are gone.
Wayne and I run down the stairs and check the lower level. Yes, they really have gone. We tell the bus driver and he starts the bus again.
Back upstairs is an eerie silence. I feel like I’m in a void or a vacuum. I just feel empty. I go back to the Chinese and put my hand on his shoulder ; ”you showed real courage there, you should be proud” I tell him. But he is in a kind of shocked state now, and emotional. He just stares and says nothing. You often only realise how dangerous a situation really was after the fact. I look back at my fellow passengers sitting in their seats. They avoid my eyes and look down. I feel ashamed for them. I am twice their age, my youth is long gone. They just would have let it happen to the girl, to the Chinese. The Englishman says simply “thankyou”. That’s all that is said.
Team KW and I alight one stop past ours. There is concern the Duo may still be lurking somewhere. Kate brings up the proliferation of knife fights in London. The adrenaline still courses through my veins and I am feeling particularly antsy.
We get home. Kate goes to bed. Wayne and I stand around the dining table, leaning against the wall, drinking endless glasses of water, and going over and over it, debriefing the way men do after a battle. We share our thoughts and speak of the nuances and the drama of what we have just been through.
When I finally go to bed, the light is seeping through the curtains, and I sleep fitfully and dream of devils, and armies of children being marched through mist into ovens.
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