9
. Just for being youngsters, you know. Drinking up every penny for weeks on end and then sick as a dog and useless when they’re coming off it and then everyone having to tend to him and cater to ‘im. Me poor old mother walking around like some sort of cornered rat. I just got thinking about all that, and what I was after becoming myself, you know. Same kind of old drunk, nothing and no one around me. And who’d give a speech at my own funeral? And what have I ever done but disappeared? Sure I got my own youngsters out there I aint laid eyes on in years.
Christ I stood there with the leg of that chair, me two hands wrapped around the skinnier end, just waiting. Then comes the knock on the door, just this gentle little tapping. I realizes then that the lock is undone anyhow. I stands there, me heart racing like it do and I asks who’s there. This lad, this Jeremy, says from behind that he’s looking for a bit of sugar, about half a cup is all he needs. For his tea, he says, until the big cheque comes on Tuesday and he’ll get it back to me. Yes b’y, I says, lotsa sugar here, come on in, door’s open. So I watches the knob turning, slow motion kinda, like he’s half wanting to maybe change his mind. The knob turning, turning, turning, slow motion, heart pounding, then BOOM, he boots the door in and he’s got this pair of women’s panty hose over his head and he starts rushing towards me. I almost laughs. He’s only a fat little stubby thing, you wouldnt expect. I was thinking he was gonna be this tall slinky bruiser type, the way I had him pictured in me head. Even from behind the panty hose I can see the confusion and questioning in his eye as he’s rushing me and I’m not moving, just standing there with the leg of that old chair raised like I was up to bat in the World Series or something, probably a big grin on my face or at least that’s how I likes to think back on it. I just fuckin gives it to him. Right across the side of the face, right on the cheekbone. I fuckin cracks him good and hard and he just falls back into the doorway tryna keeps his balance while his knees are going weak. He bawls out a bit and I cracks him again on top of the head and he’s down for the count. Then I sees these two other lads standing in the hallway, one with a ski mask on and the other fella with some sort of scarf half-wrapped around his face. I seen him around. They stands there kinda froze to the floor, frightened to death, young punks. I walks towards ‘em then and puts me foot on young Jeremy’s chest and I holds up the chair leg to show the lads what I got in mind and then I puts the pointy edge of the chair leg on Jeremy’s throat. He’s awake and looking up at me and I knows I musta been smiling, I knows I was. I says to the lads, right low and mean and growly, that I aint got no fuckin sugar, that only fuckin mama’s b’ys puts sugar in their fuckin tea anyhow. And I stands there like that, pushing the jagged end of the stick into young Jeremy’s throat until one of the lads asks me to stop. We’ll go, we’ll leave, he says. Fuckin right you’ll leave, bunch of fuckin cunts. And if ever you comes here looking for sugar no more you’ll be leaving in a fuckin body bag. Got that? I starts booting at young Jeremy then, booting him out into the hallway but when I sees tears running down his face I kinda loses the heart for the whole scene. The other two lads takes off out into the street with Jeremy staggering on behind, holding his head and sniveling. I s’pose that was smart of em, to leave the building altogether, rather than go on back into their own place right next door. In case I called the cops, you know. Smart thinking. But I never called no fuckin cops. I kept that chair leg next to the bed for the rest of the night though. And I locked the door. And made sure the little mobile phone was charged up.