The Dirty South Read Online Free Page A

fat-heads in the toilets at dinner break. We thought they looked so cool with their red eyes and that Snoop Dogg ‘don’t give a fuck’ look. Anyway, these cool kids would leave their fat-head butts on the toilet floor and we would pick them up and roll a skinny-head in a single cigarette paper. First time we did it I took one inhale, it didn’t affect me. I took a second and my head started to feel warm, kinda like how a suit feels when its dry-cleaned with all that steam and shit. Then I had this kinda rushing sensation in my head. With a messed-up grin on my face I told Noel, ‘This is good serious shit.’ Noel, in response, offered me a fucked up nod.
    It meant our afternoon lessons were kinda compromised. We would turn up at IT and giggle at everything. We just couldn’t stop. Especially when this new Vietnamese kid turned up in the lesson wearing grey shorts, sandals and a refugee haircut. We laughed so hard that suddenly the kid burst into tears and ran out of the school. Noel and myself got detention for that shit but we still hadn’t shrugged off the effect of the weed. This was all clear when the Vietnamese parents turned up, obviously stressed out at their missing son, with a stush-looking interpreter. Shouting in their language they were, hands going everywhere. The interpreter tried her best to relate what they were saying to the teachers. While all this was going on, Noel and myself collapsed in giggles yet again. That evening Paps gave me another lecture but he really got annoyed at my fixed grin. ‘Don’t smile at me while me trying totell you some truths and rights!’ he barked. I just couldn’t help it. Noel got the Dutch Pot treatment and afterwards he was thinking about reporting Cara to the social services, but gave it up when he realized what his mother would do to him if she found out he’d reported her… It was at this point Mum warned me about walking with bad breed boys and about their unhealthy influence on me. Kinda hypocritical ’cos when Cara turned up at our gates Mum was all polite and shit.

Chapter Three
RED EYES
    I t was after Noel and myself had just turned fourteen that we decided to go into business… We had a hundred and ten notes between us, saved from our jackings at various corner shops and clothes stores. One of Cara’s ex-boyfriends, Lester ‘Red Eye’ Davis, was shotting out of a flat in Myatts Fields North. The estate Lester lived in is like a maze and he never liked the hordes of Africans who had moved in there. ‘How can they get a flat so easy while I was on the housing list for thirteen years?’ he whinged. He was a tall, smartly dressed guy, never without his old school black Stetson on his head. He wore square glasses and had this skinny moustache and a fucked up goatee. Needless to say, Lester’s eyes were always red. He was forty-three and stuck in the old ways, this was all clear ’cos he didn’t own a single CD and he played his ancient reggae on a turntable and homemade speakers. I guess Cara linked up with him ’cos he had a ready supply of skunk, mersh and high grade weed… Red Eyes also done a line in rocks but even if we wanted to, me and Noel didn’t have the budget for that shit.
    Red Eyes’ front room had a heavy plasma TV and a pile of pirate DVD copies laying around everywhere. Lester had films that were not even released to the cinemas… My guess was that he got them from those Chinee brothers who always hang out in bookies andthe local markets with their rucksacks full of illegal shit. Looking at these Chinee hustlers I guess they needed the P’s so they could buy a decent meal. Skinny as spliffs they were.
    Lester also had various pictures of his twelve kids about the place. Five different baby-mothers Red Eyes had. You would think after the baggage of three, the fourth or fifth one would have said, ‘Wait a minute, this constant breeder