Gang War by Graham Johnson

Author:Graham Johnson [Graham Johnson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Published: 2011-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

AGENDAS

It goes off all over the estate. Everyone’s buzzing on the news, excitement coursing through the cul-de-sacs and bungalows. All the younger ones are supporting the lads but most of the older ones are hoping that the police will finally steam into the gangs, once and for all. They’re only saying it behind closed doors, though.

On Dylan’s street, most of the neighbours are stood outside on their paths, sat on the gates and wheelie bins with the kids, looking up the street, pointing at Dylan’s ma’s house. It’s the same at Nogger’s and Jay’s. The pavements are chokka with wheelchairs and electric shopping baskets. Even the people on the sick have come out of their houses to see what’s going on.

Everyone’s gossiping about how they were dragged up by their mothers, how Dylan’s ma was a brass and she’s still on heroin. Nogger’s ma’s oblivious, shuffling down the street in her slippers, zombied up on psychiatric drugs. Jay’s ma’s only 27. Clegsy reckons he’s got stuck up her a few times when she’s been pissed and had a tablet after Jay’s gone to bed. So he’s told Dylan, anyway. But no one’s seen Jay’s ma for three days now. She went clubbing with her new feller, a cage fighter, left Jay and his brothers with hardly anything to eat.

The Orange Lodge takes advantage of the carnival atmosphere to whip up support for the cause. They’re out marching in red tam-o’-shanters, blue shirts and red trousers. The Derry Walls band, playing ‘No Pope of Rome’ – an estate classic. But a drunk old woman snatches the mace from the leader as they go past, for a bit of impromptu cane-twirling at the front.

Someone’s told Nogger that it’s an anti-gang march. So Nogger and Clegsy bomb out of the entry, chase after them with a samurai sword. They twat the old woman with the mace, even though she’s an IRA supporter and was just taking the piss. The rest scatter. Roberto Griffin’s laughing at his front door, holding up an anti-abortion banner, trying to taunt the flute-players with a poster saying ‘Crusaders for the Unborn Child’. Dylan’s brother Will and his mates rob the drums and cymbals and start going mad.

Dylan’s ma’s in bits. She drags him off to a solicitor when Will shows her Dylan’s name on the Internet, a tweet saying that he killed Chalina. In the lawyer’s office, Dylan, Nogger and Jay are sunk low in armchairs behind the grilles on the windows, saying fuck all, as Kieran Keenan LLB is shining his cufflinks, telling them to say fuck all, especially if they get arrested. Dylan says to him, ‘Are you mad? We know the drill. Just get all that shit off the Internet and get the fucking papers away from outside of me ma’s.’

Keenan says that because they’re 17 and Jay’s only 14, they’ve got to be treated as minors and that naming them is a breach of their human rights. He says that he can deal with the legal side but that the papers are a different matter.

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