Londonstani. Gautam Malkani
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name’s Jas, innit? U goes 2 da same German n Science lessons as me, but u sit up front wid all dem spods, innit?
I just gave it one a them polite, shit-scared smiles, showin him all the metalwork on my teeth just in case he din’t realise I was smiling. If you don’t smile proply at someone at a time like this, you’ll get accused a blanking them an then smiling won’t even be an option.
—Yeh, man, u da one wid da braces Kavi wired up 2 a six-volt battery, innit? Did dat hurt yo mouth, bruv?
Nobody’d ever called me bruv before cos, well, desis who called people bruv din’t want a pussy for a bruv.
—Jus ignore wat peeps like Kavi n Davinder say 2 u. Dey shud save up their aggro 4 Paki bashers, u get me?
—Y…y.I er y…
Shit, that was my voice. I tried to cough up any gungy spit an that from the back a my throat so that I could go an say whatever it was I was gonna decide I was gonna say. There weren’t nothin there though, an so I just sounded like one a them poncey tossers that go around clearin their throats. Back in them days, the braces on my teeth weren’t the only reason why it was generally a bad idea for me to try an talk. But I was talkin to Hardjit an Hardjit was sorted. You can’t give up tryin to chat proply when you’re chattin to someone sorted, someone like Hardjit. You’ll be thinkin I fancy him now, won’t you? That I really am a batty boy after all? But it in’t like that cos I in’t batty. I just wish I was as sorted as Hardjit is, that’s all.
—Yeh, I think I know what you mean, Davinder an that, like. I yer gey… Well, you know. In’t sure like. Depends what you reckon, I mean, no, depends, sorry.
Hardjit just looked at me, all confused like I was chattin in fuckin Scandinavian or someshit. An I was thinkin, What the fuck is wrong with me? Why say sorry when I weren’t? Why the fuckin fuck did people like me say sorry when we weren’t?
—I mean, maybe it don’t matter, no more. No, forget it, I agree now. Like just before. Sorry, yeh, OK. No, really I do, Hardjit, actually forget it, like I really think you’re right bout them. Sorry.
God. Why’d you make me have to say something if all I can do is talk a pile a shit. Stupid tutty shit at whoever it was I was talkin to. But for some reason I remember Hardjit seemed OK bout me being a dickless khota. He knew what I meant to say was the three words, OK, I agree. In fact, if Hardjit thought I was just some sap beyond help then he’d probly help me, say it for me like how most people do. Stead a that he just carried on tellin me I should stand up to Davinder.
Thing is, right, I din’t really agree with him anyway but decided not to try an explain why cos I probly wouldn’t be able to cos I’m a sap who can’t talk. Cheers, God. No use blaming God, though. S’pose I should really thank Him for givin us a tongue. If it was a proper problem, like a stutter or something like what Dave Gilbert has, or that problem with saying S’s what Spencer (fuckface) has got…
Then Hardjit said,— Laters, bruv, an then headed to the library. I in’t lyin, the library. This may sound like a strange place for someone like Hardjit but there weren’t no librarian no more so it was a safe place to go when you din’t want to go to lessons. Comfy chairs an that. The teachers din’t care. Only the librarian used to give two tosses bout the books an the noise an all the yellow stuffing stuff leaking out the chairs. Even though I din’t agree with all a Hardjit’s mafia rudeboy shit back then, suddenly I wanted to follow him, wanted to carry on talkin to him. Don’t matter that you can’t actually talk cos if you hang around with sorted people then other people’ll think you’re safe yourself. But I din’t go after him. Din’t want to push my luck, you get me?
Every time when it’s important to use this gob a mine I hear my voice, which never normly works proply an so I panic. It’s as if there’s some other voice a mine givin it, Don’t say that, it’ll make u look like a gimp. An so I’ll go, Yeh, maybe so, but…Then I’ll realise that the other person, the one I’m s’posed to be talkin to, can hear me. So I’ll quickly shut my gob, only to hear the other voice go, You fuckin sap. Now you look like you can’t even talk. Which you can’t, you stammerin piece a wasted shit. For fuck’s sake, just speak up.
Fuck off, leave me alone. I’ve just got gunge an shit down my throat.
Speak up, boy.
Obviously this voice must know that actually it can’t speak up, that it can’t talk cos it’s me, innit, it’s my voice. But it keeps tryin anyway. An then another voice, I reckon that makes it three fuckin voices, will go, Boy? In’t no fuckin boy. In’t no girl either but in’t no fuckin boy.
I just slated the way I was thinkin, same way my mind slates the way I speak. I slated it even before I finished thinkin it never mind sayin it, so I ended up soundin like a dick. An it’s like I know in my head an can even tell to you why I talked like a fuckin pehndu. But I couldn’t ever say it. Couldn’t ever explain it to anyone with my mouth. Couldn’t say, No, I in’t thick, I just got thinkin bout how wrong what I was sayin was, an then got thinkin bout how I weren’t totally right to think that way, but by then it was too late to say what I was gonna say anyway, so now I’m just sayin this instead. OK, I suppose it could make sense. I could’ve said it to someone an they might even’ve understood me. But I couldn’t really say it cos I’d mess it all up with loads a erms an sorrys an shit. An anyway, it only just makes sense an seeing as how I’ve probly already made a floppy dick out a myself, then the person I’m chattin to in’t exactly gonna listen to me explain why I sound so crap. It don’t matter none that this time I’d actually be makin sense. An so you just look like a sap an try to make things better by tryin not to give too big a shit. But I in’t a sap. OK? In’t a sap, in’t fuckin thick. I understand me. Fuck it all, fuckin useless tongue. Probly couldn’t even sixty-nine it. An no, I in’t a perve for thinkin that. This is just my mind remembering one time when my stupid tongue made me look a total khota in front a Kavi an Deepak an all the other guys in my Science lessons. I din’t know what sixty-nine meant, you see. I thought they were chattin bout the bus that goes down Chiswick, the one you take if you go down Brentford. I couldn’t even ask for a bloody bus ticket. Obviously I couldn’t. You can’t pull if you can’t fuckin talk, can you? Not unless you’re that Hugh fuckin Grant from that movie bout shaadis an funerals an shit. Always sayin sorry an erm an stuff. He still got his dick sucked, din’t he? It was on the news. Hugh Grant. Ponce.
Daydreamin is good for you. Better than wankin even, or at least that’s what someone told me one time. Actually he weren’t really tellin me, why would he? He was tellin someone else an I overheard him. At least my ears work. Unlike my fuckin tongue, my fuckin Shitesprecher. That in’t even my own word. It’s from a German lesson, I think. Or History. Same thing really, same teacher so you get em mixed up.— You’re trying harder these days, aren’t you, Jas? Carry on like this and I mean it, you’ll deserve at least a C in GCSE History…If you start having all those problems with it again, I’m always here to help. Not just History problems, you understand, any problems. We care about pupils at this school.
Lookin back, he was probly gay.
Or, again, was it German? We did bout Nazis in both lessons. Heil. I wonder if it’d be possible for a guy like me to be a Nazi. I’ll daydream that I’m a Nazi. I know it sounds like I’m being a wanker cos they were scum like suicide bombers, killin all them people an that. But were they all wankers? At least they walked an talked proply. An even if you reckoned they walked or dressed stupid, at least nobody’d take the piss outta them. Fuckin saluted them instead. Maybe I’d not talk such piles a shit if I spoke in German. It’s like, they don’t stammer cos they know what to say. An if they’re Nazis then fuck to all those voices criticising the way they think bout the way they talk an all that bollocks. Anyhow, fuck it. Someone made up the word Shitesprecher, meanin tongue, when we were doing a lesson on Nazis for History or for German. Mr Ashwood laughed with us even though I don’t think he found it funny.
Maybe I should’ve followed Hardjit to the library. I couldn’t go back to Room 418 cos Davinder an that girl were probly still in there an I was so late for lesson I’d get a detention if