Friday 13 March 2015

Gentrification Tales Vol. III: Fighting In The Streets

It’s still fucking mental round here, mind.
Yeah, alright, you can pay £3 for a coffee,
If you’re inclined,
And you can take your laptop to a trendy café
To pretend to write
But it’s not changed completely, has it?
Couple of weeks ago, I’m at the bus stop, minding my own.
A bus pulls up, not mine, so I looks back down at my phone –
I’m on my own, mind –
Anyway, when I looks back up, I sees
Some lad getting a kicking off a couple of other kiddies
They were only young, maybe not even eighteen,
But nobody at the bus stop was doing anything.
Maybe the kids were arguing on the bus or something, I don’t know
Anyway, one lad, he’s across the other side of the road
And here he comes, running back over,
Shouting to the small crowd at the bus stop:
“Help!”
So I thinks, yeah, right, strength in numbers and all that, and I goes up and shouts:
“Oi! Leave him alone – come on lads, let’s calm down and go home.”
(I haven’t got a clever line, I’m not Sly Stallone)
And as the gang starts to back down,
There’s suddenly another two of them right behind
Me.
And I’m thinkin: “This ain’t right, but I don’t wanna fight with these kiddies.”
There’s seven of them, for one thing…

And it reminds me of the last time I was at this same bus stop,
And witnessed a fight
It was a Tuesday summer’s night, still light,
And I suddenly heard shouting over my headphones
Two blokes appeared in the road, one carrying bags of shopping home.
And the other geezer approached, going on and shouting
About something that happened up the road,
And obviously, then he wanted some afters.
So he scurried after the man with the shopping,
Who turned round and matched the shouting
In volume and confusion,
And then all of a sudden, the two of them were struggling
In the street, with all the traffic going past
And I was thinking: “Woah, that’s kicked off fast,
I don’t want to get involved with that.”
And the dude with the shopping was saying something
About the other one stealing off him, and I was thinking
“What’s he nicked, frozen chips?
This is some strange business…”
Then the second one pulled out something
That I immediately thought was a knife or a gun, but
Just as my heart fell out of my arse, I realised
It’s a needle, not a knife.
There’s a guy, wielding a dirty syringe in a fight
Right
In front of me.
I was at the bus stop on my own, mind.
No one around, no one with me.
And I didn’t know what the fuck to do…

In the end, my number pulled up, so I got on the bus, just
As the broken-up looking geezer with the needle
Was down on the ground,
With his head by the kerb,
And the other bloke was standing over him
And I couldn’t see the faces,
But I could imagine
That they were both looking pretty disturbing.
But I was on the bus by then.
And I don’t know if the driver saw;
He didn’t say anything.

So, anyways, this time, the other night, I’m
All on my Jack Jones, trying to break up a fight.
It’s a cold rainy winter’s night this time
But there’s a lot of people around
And no one comes out
From the coffee shop/bar place,
Or the barber’s, or the pub, or the take-away
Across the street,
And no one moves on the bus stop,
Except to stamp their frozen feet,
And I’m thinking:
“Nah, not me – not again, not this time.”
But I back off from the gang and the first lad runs off,
His mate isn’t sure whether to do the same.
And I’m wondering if I’ll get a kicking
For stepping in,
And they all starts shouting and pointing again
And I’m like: “Hey, it’s still rough round here –
Condo buyers be beware”
And as I’m thinking this, still
In my neighbourhood, still
Worrying for the future of it, still
Thinking it’s getting too trendy
And full of posh types and hipster kids
Still not giving a shit what the condo-buyers think,
The kid that took a bit of a shoeing runs off
And gets chased by the magnificent seven,
Who look so excited, except the one kid
Who was doing all the beating,
Who still looks angry, and I think:
Was we like this as kids?

And then I follow a safe distance behind
Not by choice, mind –
I’m going that way anyway,
This bus has abandoned me to the street
And I walks slowly, just a little bit nervously,
Down into the bad neighbourhood,
The one I hated walking through when I was a young ‘un,
I’m jumpy, only slightly,
They’re boys, only kids, have kids
Always been this vicious?
Well, they learn from adults, like always, so
Probably.
I’m walking in, but I can’t see any of ‘em,
Where the bloody hell have they gone –
Have they took these kids somewhere darker,
Where no one will see them?
And what am I gonna do if I see them?
And as I’m thinking all this,
Maybe for the first time in my life, I’m
(Sort of)
Glad to hear the sound of sirens behind.

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