8

      It was the morning a Hardjit’s big fight an the two a us were kickin bout on the corner a Hounslow High Street an Montague Road. Right outside the Holy Trinity Church. All the other rudeboys hung bout by the bus stop outside WHSmith. All the fit Panjabi girls hung inside the Treaty Centre (where the security guards din’t chuck em out cos apparently it in’t loitering if you’re a fit Panjabi girl). Me, I get the Holy Trinity Church. The place looks more like some school sports hall stead a some church, an in case you’re ever hangin outside long enough to wonder why, there’s a sign tellin its history.

      —Bruv? I go to Hardjit.—Bruv, d’you know the original church got burnt down by two schoolboys in 1943? Hardjit’s busy lookin too hard an slick to be hangin round with someone like me. So I try again.—This one here was rebuilt in the 1960s, in the exact same spot.

      —No shit, Jas. Does it look like I give a shit? Som’times I’s embarrass’d 2 b hangin round wid’chyu. Why da fuck’d I wanna know bout some church’s history 4? Do I look like a vicar? U da one wat probly likes choirboys.

      I tell him he shouldn’t be dissin Christianity, that he should check out his mum during Christmas time. You can tell from the way his eyes kick back that he’s considering this for a minute: the way his mum always sends out Christmas cards with a picture a the Nativity on them. How she even puts up a plastic Christmas tree with an angel on the top, right next to the Buddha statue they got in their living room. She told me it’s cos she believed all the different Gods are all part a the same crew.

      —Look, don’t b cussin ma mum, Jas. Least ma mum’s got friends to send cards to. I ain’t jokin wid’chyu, man. U wanna start actin like a coconut then go inside here n start prayin. Betta b prayin dat I don’t break yo ass 4 bein a gimp.

      Just before a fight was a pretty good time to be gettin down to some serious prayin. Lord, maketh me victorious in battle or whatever. Then again, maybe that’s bollocks, maybe God don’t cheer people on when they bruck each other. I mean, chanting Om Shanti, Shanti wouldn’t exactly make sense right now cos Shanti means peace. Anyway, whatever the Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Muslim Gods thought bout whatever Hardjit intended to do to Tariq’s face today, the bredren hadn’t come out here to the Holy Trinity Church to say a prayer for victory. He hadn’t come here to pray for forgiveness either an I’m pretty sure he din’t know what irony was so that also weren’t the reason we were hangin round outside a church. We were waitin for Ravi an Amit to show up in the Beemer before we all headed down to Tariq an his crew. Waitin for fuckin ages.

      Hardjit kept sayin something bout how, in life, you gotta be a man an scrap a lick with fools now an then. That in’t an option, he said. But why you fight them is. Today, Hardjit was gonna teach Tariq a lesson or two for going out with a Sikh girl an then tryin to convert her to Islam. That’s, like, the desi version a someone fuckin your wife. Sikh bredren’re always accusing Muslim guys a tryin to convert their Sikh sisters. Seems that they even got a proper word for it: sisterising. Sometimes the Sikh girls’d start cryin, sayin they’d used brainwashing techniques an that. Sometimes this shit even turned out to be true. Sometimes, though, it was just the girl’s way a dumpin some good-lookin Muslim guy she’d been seeing without gettin killed by her community for seeing him in the first place. The desi version a waking up the next morning an thinkin, Oh fuck, I best say he raped me. It’s not my fault, he brainwashed me into his religion. I said no, please no, but he forced it into me.

      Truth is, none a us knew whether the girl that today’s fight was bout was tellin the truth or not. Matter a fact, we din’t even know her name. What we did know was that her parents were dyin a shame, her two older brothers had got a restraining order put on them by the feds an all her cousins lived in Birmingham. So it was up to some other Sikh guy to sort things out, an round here that other Sikh guy normly meant Hardjit. Even Hindu kids called on him when they’d got beef to settle. You know how the people a Gotham City’ve got that Bat signal for whenever they need to call Batman? The homeboys a Hounslow an Southall should have two signals for Hardjit: an Om for when Hindus needed him an a Khanda for when Sikhs needed him. He always used to go on bout how Sikhs an Hindus fought side by side in all them wars. Both got beef with Muslims. Both support India at cricket. Both be listenin to bhangra, even though Sikh bredren clearly dance better to it. He says Sikhs were the warriors a Hinduism one time. Like the SAS but in a religious way too, so more like Jedi Knights. But even though Hardjit said all a this stuff, he din’t like the way his mum had hung up pictures a Hindu Gods on their landing at home next to their pictures a Gurus. But then there in’t no point tryin to talk to your mum or dad bout religion, innit. They don’t know jack bout religion. I seen Hardjit win arguments with his dad by quoting bits a the Guru Granth Sahib that his dad din’t even know—like them hardcore Muslim kids who keep tellin their parents what it says in the Koran.

      If Hardjit din’t like his mum’s definition a Sikhism, Amit an his older brother Arun hated their mum’s definition a Hinduism. I remember one time we’d all been round their house during one a their mum’s high-society satsangs. Snuck a peep round the livingroom door a couple a times, watched all the aunties in their pashmina shawls, sittin on the floor, sayin all the usual prayers, singin all the usual bhajans an singin prayers in the form a bhajans. Those a them with bad back problems or diabetes sat on the leather cowhide sofas, which was just as well cos all this sittin on the floor business usually meant some serious strategic crisis for Amit an Arun’s mum. How to help the oldies stand up on their feet again? How to rearrange the furniture? Where to put the cups a masala tea? They couldn’t exactly use their expensive coffee tables with the golden legs cos they’d be too high for those on the floor an’d been moved to the corners a the room for protection anyway. An they couldn’t put the cups on the floor in case one spilt an ruined the expensive silk an satin sheets that’d been laid down especially to protect the carpet.

      Arun was chattin to me bout it while Amit, Ravi an Hardjit were playin on their Xbox. He was a safe guy, Arun. Two years older than Amit, but smaller an with no facial hair. He could’ve even been part a the crew but he spent most a his time with this girl he’d got engaged to. He also weren’t exactly a proper rudeboy cos he had these boffiny tendencies, but he weren’t a coconut either. He always wore jeans, a white T-shirt an a biker jacket made a canvas