a straightforward, —F-F-Four.
—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi.— Gora ain’t seein double, innit.
So now it was Ravi’s turn to make me jealous with his perfectly timed an perfectly authentic rudeboy front. I still use the word rudeboy cos it’s been round for longer. People’re always tryin to stick a label on our scene. That’s the problem with havin a fuckin scene. First we was rudeboys, then we be Indian niggas, then rajamuffins, then raggastanis, Britasians, fuckin Indobrits. These days we try an use our own word for homeboy an so we just call ourselves desis but I still remember when we were happy with the word rudeboy. Anyway, whatever the fuck we are, Ravi an the others are better at being it than I am. I swear I’ve watched as much MTV Base an Juggy D videos as they have, but I still can’t attain the right level a rudeboy authenticity. If I could, I wouldn’t be using poncey words like attain an authenticity, innit. I’d be sayin I couldn’t keep it real or someshit. An if I said it that way, then there’d be no need for me to say it in the first place so I wouldn’t say it anyway. After all, it’s all bout what you say an how you say it. Your linguistic prowess an debating dexterity (though whatever you do don’t say it that way). The sort a shit my old schoolteachers told my parents I lacked an which Mr Ashwood’d even made me practise by watchin ponces read the news on the BBC. I in’t lyin. Why’d the fuck’d anyone wanna chat like that anyway? Or even listen to someone who chatted like that? I respect Mr Ashwood for tryin to help me lose my stammer or whatever kind a speech problem it was I’d got when I was at school. But I’d’ve wasted less a the man’s time if I just sat down with Hardjit in the first place. Let’s just say Hardjit’d make a more proper newsreader. An the white boy here was listenin to him.
—Dat’s right, goes Hardjit,— we b four a us bredrens here. An out a us four bredrens, none a us got a mum n dad wat actually come from Pakistan, innit. So don’t u b tellin any a us Pakis dat we b Pakis like our Paki bredren from Pakistan, u get me.
A little more blood trickled down the gora’s face as he screwed up his forehead. He wiped it with his hands, still tryin to stop it from staining the sappy button-down collar a his checkered Ben Sherman shirt.
—It ain’t necessary for u 2 b a Pakistani to call a Pakistani a Paki, Hardjit explains,— or for u 2 call any Paki a Paki for dat matter. But u gots 2 b call’d a Paki yourself. U gots 2 b, like, an honorary Paki or someshit. An dat’s da rule. Can’t be callin someone a Paki less u also call’d a Paki, innit. So if you hear Jas, Amit, Ravi or me callin anyone a Paki, dat don’t mean u can call him one also. We b honorary Pakis n u ain’t.
—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi. Don’t ask me why the white boy still looked confused. It was the exact same for black people. They could call each other nigger but even us desi bredrens couldn’t call them niggers. Or niggaz, if you spell it like that. At least that’s how NWA was spelt when their name was spelt out in full. In fact, I figured that if Niggaz With Attitude followed the usual rules a acronyms, it’d be more accurate to use a capital letter, as in Nigga or Paki. I know I should’ve fuckin known better, but I decided to share this thought with the other guys.
—Yeh, motherfucker, an even when you allowed to call someone a Paki, it be Paki wid a capital P, innit.
—Jas, u khota, Hardjit goes, swivelling round so fast his dog tags would’ve flown off someone with a thinner neck,— why da fuck u teachin him how 2 spell?
I shrugged, deeply lamenting my lack a rudeboyesque panache.
—Da gora ain’t no neo-Nazi graffiti artist n dis ain’t no fuckin English lesson, innit.
An so I shut the fuck up an let Hardjit sum up his own lesson.
—A Paki is someone who comes from Pakistan. Us bredrens who don’t come from Pakistan can still b call’d Paki by other bredrens if it means we can call dem Paki in return. But u people ain’t allow’d 2 join in, u get me?
All a this shit was just academic a course. Firstly, Hardjit’s thesis, though it was what Mr Ashwood’d call internally coherent, failed to recognise the universality a the word Nigga compared with the word Paki. De-poncified, this means many Hindus an Sikhs’d spit blood if they ever got linked to anything to do with Pakistan. Indians are just too racist to use the word Paki. Secondly, the white kid couldn’t call no one a Paki no more with his mouth all cut up. It was still bleedin in little bursts, thick gobfuls droppin onto the concrete floor like he was slowly puking up blood or someshit. It made me feel like puking up myself (the samosas an a can a Coke we got at the college canteen at break time). The blood trickled differently down his chin than down his cheeks. A closer look showed it was cos he’d got this really short goatee beard that I din’t notice before. What’s the point in havin a goatee if it’s so blond no one can even see it unless your face is covered in blood? Amit’d always said goras couldn’t ever get their facial hair right. If it weren’t too blond, it was too curly or too bumfluffy or just too gimpy-shaped. One time he said that they looked like batty boys when they’d got facial hair an baby boys when they din’t. I told him I thought he was being racist. He goes to me it was the exact same thing as sayin black guys were good at growin dreadlocks but crap at growin ponytails. Amit probly had the wikidest facial hair in the whole a Hounslow, better than Hardjit’s even. Thin heavy lines a carefully shaped, short, unstraggly black hair that from far back looked like it’d been drawn on with a felt-tip pen. Anyway, even if it was possible for a gora to have ungay facial hair, the gora in front a us now looked like he’d shaved himself with a chainsaw.
Hardjit was tellin the gora something else, but I din’t hear what. I’d zoned out during the short silence an tuned into the creaking a these mini goalposts Hardjit’d hung his Schott bomber jacket over. You could tell from the creaking that they’d rusted an were meant to be used inside the school sports hall rather than stuck out here opposite the dustbin an traffic cone that made up the other goal.
—Ansa me, you dirrty gora, Hardjit goes, before kneeling down an punchin him in the mouth so that his tongue an lower lip explode again over the library books he’d tried to use as a shield. Even if the white kid could say something stead a just gurgling an splutterin blood, he was wise enough not to.
—Dat’s right, the three a us go in boy-band mode again,— ansa da man or we bruck yo fuckin face.
—Yeh, blud, safe, goes Ravi.
We should’ve just left the white kid then an got our butts back to the car. We’d still got some other business to sort out before headin back to college that afternoon. We were also takin some serious liberties with our luck that none a the teachers’d look out the classroom windows or step into the playground to pick up litter. They’d ID us for sure if they did. Not just cos we hung round this school’s sixthform common room now an then, but also cos up till last June we were sixth-formers here ourselves. We all fuckin failed, a course, despite all our parents’ prayin an payin for private maths tuition. An so now we were down the road at Hounslow College a Higher Education, retakin our fuckin A-levels at the age a fuckin nineteen when we should’ve been at King’s College or the London School a Economics or one a the other desi unis with nice halls a residence in central London.
Teachers or no teachers, fuck it. I had to redeem myself after my gimpy remark bout spellin Paki with a capital P. After all, Ravi had spotted the white kid in the first place an Amit’d helped Hardjit pin him against the brick wall. But me, I hadn’t added anything to either the physical or verbal abuse a the gora. To make up for my useless shitness I decided to offer the followin carefully crafted comment:
—Yeh, bredren, knock his fuckin teeth out. Bruck his fuckin face. Kill his fuckin…well, his fuckin, you know, him. Kill him.
This was probly a bit over the top but I think I’d got the tone just
