Suedehead Read online

  RICHARD ALLEN

  Suedehead

  Skinheads were dead, man. Phased out. Home had never appealed. All his life he had dreamed about a plush flat somewhere in the West End of London. So now he would make the leap from poverty street into the affluent society. In one gigantic jump.

  Fresh out of stir after kicking a police sergeant’s head in, former skinhead Joe Hawkins is heading for the big time – a job in a firm of stockbrokers, a swanky flat and (hopefully) plenty of money. A whole new style is called for – so Joe becomes a Suedehead.

  The hair is a few millimetres longer, the uniform a velvet-collared crombie coat, bowler hat and neatly-furled umbrella – with razor sharp tip. For while Joe might be playing the establishment pet, he remains the unrepentently vicious, cunning hooligan from Skinhead, intent on pulling women, stealing and putting the boot in. It’s not long before he finds some other Suedes willing to commit mayhem under cover of respectability... but can Joe and respectability ever really get along?

  Suedehead is the second of Richard Allen’s era-defining cult novels featuring anti-hero Joe Hawkins. First published in 1971, this new edition features an introduction by Andrew Stevens.

  INTRODUCTION

  Beginning with Skinhead in 1970 and culminating with 1980’s Mod Rule, the Richard Allen novels, published by the New English Library, bookended what was in many respects a dark decade and inadvertently comprised one of the most comprehensive documents concerning the post-mod evolution of the skinhead subculture. However, even for the most ardent of fans, it is the first two titles in the cycle, Skinhead (1970) and Suedehead (1971), which act as the best introduction to the New English Library (NEL), a cornerstone of literary pulp.

  Richard Allen was the pen name which Canadian writer James Moffatt toiled under for Suedehead (1971), a sequel written in response to Skinhead’s entirely unexpected success and which would help perpetuate a market for the likes of Skinhead Escapes, Trouble for Skinhead and Skinhead Farewell, though, as even die-hard fans will attest, the plots began to wear thin.

  In Suedehead, Joe Hawkins’ milieu shifts from Plaistow in East London, with its ‘poverty and hardship’, to a West End pad and dalliances with more affluent women, where he’s all of a sudden stepping out wearing a bowler hat. But what we’re dealing with is a more enigmatic prospect than Skinhead, as suedehead itself represented a more tailored approach to the skinhead aesthetic, with its velvet-collared Crombie, houndstooth check suits and brogues. The hair grown out and lack of bovver-boot attire singlehandedly and conveniently for many to this day manage to sidestep any visual associations with the far right – though for Allen, the look still represented ‘cultism’ as a façade for violence, which was of a ‘deep, dark nature’.

  Four decades on, it is perhaps the debut solo single of Morrissey which serves as a blistering arpeggio-laden intro to the subculture for many, certainly representing an enduring fascination with aspects of the East London demi-monde on the part of the post-Smiths singer. The musical taste of skinheads and suedeheads themselves ran to reggae and ska, reflecting their broader interest in West Indian culture and fashion. Trojan Records returned the recognition with their 2008 Suedehead box set. It’s arguably a footnote in the evolution of the skinhead subculture but Barney Platts-Mills’ lauded Bronco Bullfrog (1969) represented the suedehead style’s sole depiction in cinema (though it’s often mislabelled a ‘mod’ film).

  Interest in the NEL, Allen and the Skinhead cycle remains strong and testimony to the enduring values and aesthetic of the skinhead subculture, demonstrating perhaps that dangerous youth cults incubating within the bourgeois system prove a perennially potent concept. No doubt fuelled in part by successive iterations of skinhead, the cycle of novels was repackaged two decades on in the early 1990s by Skinhead Times as a six-volume set (which included other Allen titles such as Knuckle Girls and Punk Rock). Beyond the odd enthusiastic write up in Scootering magazine, Moffat, who died in 1993, would probably be surprised to know that the spirit of his work lives on, not only in the form of films like This is England, but also allusions in the work of contemporary bands such as Sleaford Mods. Not a bad legacy for a middle-aged writer-for-hire living by the Devonshire seaside.

  Andrew Stevens, May 2015

  CHAPTER ONE

  As he stood in the dock, Joe Hawkins considered his situation with utter detachment. Legal procedures meant nothing to him. He had done a police sergeant and now he faced the consequences of that action. What they – those stupid bastards going through the motions of justice – did not know was how all this was making him an even greater figure in the eyes of his pals.

  Joe listened to snatches of the case against him. He was not troubled about the outcome. It was always the same – a fine, a warning, publicity. He returned the magistrate’s glare, he smiled cockily at the coppers in court. He refused to assume an innocent attitude. Nobody was going to say that Joe Hawkins ever knuckled down to authority. He was a law unto himself.

  Suddenly, Joe felt tension mounting inside him. The message reached his shocked brain. This wasn’t any common or garden fine. Not the way that old buzzard was talking. This wasn’t a warning to behave like other decent citizens. This was the big walk – bird...

  “...eighteen months...”

  Joe was stunned.

  “You may step down. Next case...”

  Stumbling from the box, Joe felt strong hands grab his arms. Realisation smashed into him like red-hot daggers probing for a vital spot. Eighteen days was a lifetime but months sounded like the total end of all his dreams. The gang would forget him in a few weeks. When he came out there would be nothing for him to command. Some rotten bastard would have taken control and he – the famous Joe Hawkins – would be a skinhead without mates.

  “He can’t...” Joe struggled. “He bloody can’t do this!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” a harsh-voiced policeman said. “You’ve got off light. If I had my way...”

  “Nobody arsked for your opinion,” Joe snarled, striving desperately to keep his cool.

  The policeman grinned and motioned for the others to remove this object from the courtroom. He had no sympathies for those who deliberately attacked coppers. The magistrate had surprised them all with his treatment of Joe and, the bobby thought, about time too. Practically every member of the force believed that stiffer sentences would eliminate eighty percent of the injuries they sustained doing their duty.

  Joe’s co-ordination vanished as his legs turned into elastic. He felt weak, ready to scream. Half-dragged, half-staggering, he made it downstairs into the cells. According to one of the fuzz he had a short wait – and then...“Clobbered you, eh?” a thin-faced youth smirked as he picked at a sore on his ear. “I got three years.”

  Joe shuddered. “I expected a fine.”

  “That’s the way it goes, mate. It all depends on how the beak’s missus treated him the night before!”

  “What did you do?” Joe asked unemotionally.

  “Knifed my girl, “came the easy reply. “The little bitch held out on me.” Blood trickled down the ear and a dirty handkerchief was hurriedly used to stem the flow. “We had an agreement how much she would charge, then I discovered she was upping the ante and keeping the change.” Narrowed eyes surveyed Joe’s face. “You ever tried pimping?”

  Joe’s head shook a fast negative.

  “Man, it’s the life. They do all the work and you collect.”

  Something about the youth frightened Joe. Not a physical fear but a deeper menace which went against his grain. Not many things bothered Joe but pimps were scum and their treatment of girls they professed to care for left him cold.

  “I once had a black chick...” The youth kept talking, evidently proud of his record. He was about Jo
e’s age yet there was a worldly wisdom in those narrowed eyes which went with his thin, hungry, cunning face. Every so often he examined his blood soaked handkerchief and nodded.

  Joe lost interest after the first few sentences. He had problems of his own and how this other prisoner had spent his freedom did not matter. Nothing mattered except those eighteen months inside. Could he take it? Could he emerge feeling like Joe Hawkins of old? Or would prison have a sapping effect on him? He knew several old lags near his home and hated to think he would ever look like them.

  “...and you can have her address if you like.”

  Joe shook his mind awake. The youth had not noticed his preoccupation.

  “Man, she’s a terrific worker. Six, seven marks a night. That’s money, man.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Joe said.

  “Do that, mate. You’ll be out long before me. I’m not going to get remission.”

  “Why not?”

  The youth laughed. “I’ve done porridge before. I’m not worried about it. I like breaking every rule in their book.”

  The hell with that! I’m going to get full remission, Joe thought.

  “Stick with me,” the youth said softly, eyes wider and shimmering now. “I’ll show you the ropes...”

  *

  Standing on the street with the Scrubs a gigantic horror behind him, Joe Hawkins took a gulp of air down into his starved lungs. It wasn’t that this air tasted fresher, or had less pollution in it than the air breathed back there in Wormwood. It was just that here, on the outside looking in, there was a freedom quality he had been denied for far too long.

  “You goin’ my way Joe?” Nobby Clarke asked as he hefted his bundle under one ancient arm.

  “Naw,” Joe replied thankfully. He did not want to be seen anywhere near the old lag. It had been great finding somebody he knew by sight in prison but once outside he was determined to avoid all ex-cons like a plague.

  “Lemme give you a tip, Joe,” Nobby said brightly. “Never get nicked for anything small. Next time make sure they gets you for a big job!” The old man shuffled a few feet, turned and grinned. “Go see that woman I mentioned. She’ll help a kid like you!” He winked and hurried off.

  Alone now, Joe thought back to the first day of his bird. That had been bad but not nearly anything like when he discovered he was a special target of every queer in the Scrubs. God how he loathed those bastards! He had always figured homosexuals to be small, dancing men with carefully manicured hands, lisps and a walk that signposted their aversion to women. He had found that they did not belong to any such tight limitation. Some of the ones who had tried to lure him into their cells were big, strong, typical heavy types. One especially had been sent up for murder – a vicious ex-boxer with a protection racket backing his penchant for desirable young men.

  The queers had been bad but they had not been the worst of his problems. Even now, after all that porridge, he could not get used to regimentation and loss of identity. The soul destroying routine had shattered his self-confidence until Mr. Thompson had seen fit to take Joe under his wing. In a sense, Joe felt a debt of gratitude to Thompson. As a screw he was a pretty good egg. But he was a screw! And although he had gained permission for Joe to take a course in office procedure, and got him a job in the prison administration section, there was that barrier – prisoner and screw!

  Some of the old lags had been kind, tolerant of youthful mistakes, eager to pass along knowledge gained from years spent doing prison sentences. Nobby had been most helpful. Thanks to him Joe had managed to evade the dirtiest jobs and make sure his lapses weren’t reported.

  “Never again, “Joe whispered to himself.

  Far ahead, Nobby shuffled along – a lonely, beaten old man with but one thought gnawing on his saturated mind; back to Plaistow and the boozer. Joe didn’t give Nobby more than a few weeks freedom. The man was beyond rehabilitation. He’d blow his bankroll, make a couple of visits to Social Security and then, when the boom was lowered, he’d do a sloppy job and get nicked again.

  Now take me, Joe thought. I’m young. I’m smart. I’m not going to commit a crime like Nobby. I’ve got an address and I can make out okay until I get a job. There’ll be birds and booze, but not another visit to the Scrubs.

  Taking his time, Joe walked in Nobby’s wake. He knew exactly where he was going. The magazine article had shown him the root. Skinheads were dead, man. Phased out. Home had never appealed. All his life he had dreamed about a plush flat somewhere in the West End. So now he would make the leap from poverty street into the affluent society. In one gigantic jump. The advice poured into his ears by all those old lags had taken root. If he was to succeed he had to plead, and beg, and make like a downtrodden slum-dweller whose environment had been the root cause of his imprisonment.

  They must be stupid, he laughed silently as he began to whistle.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bernice Hale had known poverty as a child and this made her extremely susceptible to the pleas of those whose homes she could associate with her own background. When Joe Hawkins entered her pathetically small office she felt an immediate “relationship”.

  “Mrs. Hale?”

  “Sit down, Joe. Relax. I’m here to help you – not scare the hell out of you!” She smiled and waved to a chair.

  Joe sensed the desire to get on friendly terms. It was just as Nobby had said it would be. He sank into the chair and returned the woman’s smile. After serving his porridge he needed to look at an attractive woman and think about some of the girls he had known before that old bastard of a magistrate handed him time.

  “You’ve been a model prisoner,” she said with blue eyes scanning the dossier.

  He nodded, judging her to be around fifty. She was slender enough to be a movie queen and her vital statistics left nothing to be desired.

  “I’ve a son your age,” she said, fixing him with an expression that vaporised all his notions of an easy bit. “Being in prison sometimes makes a man...” and she stressed the man, “yearn for female company. I’d advise against hasty decisions, Joe. You’re not in any position to spread kings yet.”

  “Nobby Clarke sent me to see you...”

  “I have a dozen Nobby Clarkes on my books, Joe.” She got to her feet and breathed in deeply. Her breasts thrust against a woollen jacket. Her eyes caught his, and air whooshed from her lungs. “That was silly wasn’t it?”

  He continued to stare.

  “Joe – get those ideas out of your mind.” She came around her desk, hitched her skirt and sat half on, half off the edge of the desk. Her stockinged legs enticed, provoked, sounded clarion calls in his frustrated mind. “I’m being a tease, I know. But then...”and she laughed huskily, “I always am.”

  He could not make head nor tail of her tactics. She seemed to be begging for him to make a move. Yet, was she? He did not dare risk it. He sat hard on his chair, perspiration beginning to roll down from his armpits.

  “You pass!” she said briskly and extended a slender hand. “If you had made one move to assault me that would have been the end!” She shook his hand, and hurried back behind the desk. “I’ve a thing about sex maniacs. I don’t like them!”

  “I only came here to ask for help, Mrs. Hale.”

  “I take it that means money?”

  Joe nodded. He was confused by her tactics.

  “For a room?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to live at home.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Reasons...”

  “Name a few!”

  “I’ve been inside. I don’t want to go back. My parents would crucify me.”

  “I see...” She consulted her file. “You were a vicious monster, Joe. Skinheads are, unfortunately, a product of our ultra-permissive society. Have you changed enough for me to trust you?”

  “I can go to Social Security,” Joe growled, getting to his feet. So much for Nobby’s bright idea!

  “Sit down!”

  Joe felt
compelled to obey. There was hidden strength in this woman.

  “We don’t sponsor habitual criminals,” Mrs. Hale told him. “Our aim is to give the first offender an opportunity to establish a working relationship with his fellow men. We have a strict rule – help once, no more.”

  “I’m not going back,” Joe replied sourly.

  “I should hope not. How much money do you have?”

  He emptied his pockets, placing the meagre amount on her desk. Glancing at the pathetic result of his prison pay-out, she smiled scathingly. “Not much for what you’ve suffered, eh?”

  “They haven’t got unions in prison yet,” he answered with a sneer.

  “That’s quite enough cheek,” she snapped. Counting his cash she said; “That’s grocery money, Joe. I have an arrangement with a landlady in Islington. She’ll provide a room and breakfast. It’s not a palace but you’ll have a front door key and freedom to come and go as you please. ”

  “Thanks!” He sounded bitter. Nobby had given him such glowing accounts of this outfit’s cash reserves and how they treated their clients generously.

  “Your attitude leaves much to be desired. I suppose your old lag friend spun you a yam about how soft we were...” Her gorgeous breasts flattened on the desk as she leant forward. “Joe, pay attention to me.”

  His eyes fastened on her breasts. His pulse quickened. She was a magnificent woman and frustration seethed like super-charged electrons inside him. “I am,” he said truthfully.

  She ignored the obvious. “I’m going to tell you a story, Joe,” she said evenly. “My son lives in Canada. He served five years in Kingston there and got a loan from this society. With it he met a girl, got married and found a job. Today, thank God, he’s an honest citizen and owns his home, a business and has two beautiful children. That’s why I work here, Joe. If my boy could do it – so can you.” Joe sat motionless. Why did they have to pour on the soft soap, he asked himself. He didn’t believe her. This was a standard approach to someone fresh out of stir.