You Don't Know Me

‘Missing you I think. Hard to say. She’s a bit better. Worried. I don’t know,’ I say, not sure what I am trying to say.

‘Y-you should all come round to Mum’s. Just pop in for a few minutes.’

‘Yeah, I can’t really do that right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks when things are a bit more chill,’ I say. Bless says nothing and I feel like I need to fill in the spaces. ‘So what’s going on with you?’

‘Nothing. Got f-fired from work,’ she says eventually in a quiet voice.

‘Shit Bless. What the fuck happened?’

‘Y-you know Malaika, the one with all them little sisters? I saw her p-putting some lipstick in her bag.’

‘And?’ I say intrigued.

‘And the manager noticed that there were a few missing when she did a stock take.’

‘Yeah, and?’

‘And I t-told her I had taken it.’

‘What do you do that for, Bless?’ I say shocked.

‘Didn’t want her to lose her job.’

‘Shit Bless,’ I say. But I ain’t surprised. No really. This is the kind of thing that she does. Once when we were kids, I remember my mum was proper having a go at her because she hadn’t tidied her room. Mum had a high anger in them days. Now, if you look at Mum you would not see it, she has proper chilled with age. But back then she was like an old bomb. She’d go off without warning you get me.

Anyway, so I was playing in my room and all I remember is hearing Mum’s voice shouting in Bless’s room. I sneak out of my room and look in through the crack of the door. I’m kind of terrified but I’m like ten so I want to know what’s going on. Bless is like eight years old, so this is way before he did what he did to her. Dad was off on one of his disappearing tricks again so it was just the three of us. So there is Mum shouting like mad at Bless who is just standing there, looking down at her feet, these fat tears rolling down her face. Mum is going ‘What is the point of you, stupid child? I am at work all day long. I still have to make dinner for you ungrateful children and you cannot even have the sense to tidy up your mess. Why are you still standing there child? Go do it. Do it now!’

As Mum leaves the room I dive back into my room so she don’t see me. Then in like two minutes Bless comes straight into my room, these tears tracks all on her face. I’m thinking to myself she better get on with it before Mum comes back, and I start clearing up my own mess. But the weird thing she does next is that she starts to tidy my room with me. Then before I can say anything, Mum is back up the stairs and straight in my room and she is angry! She starts proper letting go at Bless. ‘You stupid girl. What are you doing that boy’s room for when you haven’t even tidied up your own room eh? Are you a slow child eh? Do you not have the brains that God gave you?’ And then she is pulling her out of my room by her little stick arms back into her own room. Later when it has all calmed down a bit I go and find Bless and she is sitting quietly in a corner of the room playing with some fluff on the carpet. I go over to her and nudge her with my foot. ‘I don’t get you sis, why you do my room when you know it’s just going to make her madder?’ And she looks at me with this face I will never forget and says, ‘She was already mad at me. I didn’t want her to get mad at you too,’ she goes and turns back to picking at the fluff on the carpet.

‘Bless. You are too good for your own good, sis. You have to stand up for yourself,’ I say into the phone.

‘It’s okay. I d-didn’t really like it there anyway. Don’t worry. Love to Kira,’ she says and I end the call.

In a way, no matter that it was horrible what had happened with Bless, part of me was glad to be thinking of something else. As I got closer to home my mind drifted back to my own life and the visit with Spooks. That day part of me believed, I mean really believed, that my plan might have done the trick. It was perfect in a ways. Here was this little fool from South causing all kind of problems for crews in the North. Stealing customers. Dealing on next man’s patch. It should have been enough to shut this ting down. With Spooks on the inside feeding vine to his crew on the outside about where his own sister was at, it was open and shut really. Really and truly it should have been five minutes before they shut that boy down. Didn’t even matter that he didn’t know where she was. It would have been enough of a thing that he had been roughing up big man’s patch. Reason enough to put the boy out and I wouldn’t have felt bad about that, no way.

Jamil being dead isn’t a bad thing, not even now with everything that happened do I ever think that. Trust me, he was bad, he was waste, but that doesn’t mean I was the one who iced him. For real though, back then I did wish that Glockz would shoot him. I can’t lie and say I didn’t wish that because I’m only telling you truths here. But that doesn’t mean I was the one who did it.

Long adjournment: 15:50

IN THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT  T2017229