Skinhead Page 2

  Like most of his generation, Joe knew about these things. At one time, East Enders enjoyed a visit to Soho and mingling with the “heavy boys” from Poplar and Plaistow and Barking. No longer. The word had circulated – stay away from Soho. Look for your heroes in Ilford, Forest Gate and Whitechapel. The old cockney thug was slowly being confined – to Bow, Mile End, Bethnal Green and their fringe areas. London was wide open now. To anyone with a gun, a cosh, an army of thugs.

  Joe was brash enough to venture forth into enemy territory. He had seven mates – all tooled for trouble; all asking the same question: “Any aggro today?”

  Slipping a light-weight cotton jacket over his gear, Joe studied himself in the mirror. The cosh didn’t show under the jacket. He fingered his West Ham scarf, then threw it back into his wardrobe. That would be asking for police inspection... and the last thing he wanted was having his cosh found before he had an opportunity to use it.

  He wasn’t a bad-looking youth. At sixteen, he gave the impression of being at least nineteen. He was tall for his age – five-eleven. He had filled out and, at a fleeting glance, many a young girl’s heart would flutter when he appeared on the scene. But his eyes could have deterred those females wary of sadistic companions. There was something in his gaze that spoke of brutality and nonconformity expressed in terms of physical rejection and explosive reaction.

  At last, he was ready. Taking a final glance at his appearance, he nodded to his image, grinning approval. Then, with heavy boots making a resounding noise on the worn stair-carpet, he went to the front door, yelled: “I’m goin’,” And left.

  Outside, on the street, he paused.

  God, how he hated this street! Next door, he could see that bitch Grace peeping from behind her curtains. What a bloody bitch she was! No matter how he acted, nor what he thought, he hated her for the way she had treated her husband. In a way, though, he was afraid of Grace. In his opinion, she was a black witch – and he didn’t want to associate with her!

  He hurried down the street, conscious of eyes following him. It was always the same. No matter how early he left the house, eyes always followed him. Sometimes he wondered if they ever slept in his dirty street.

  He was whistling when he strolled down to the Barking Road. The cosh felt comfortable against his flesh. His boots felt solid, secure on his feet. In a few minutes he would meet his mates and, soon, they would be ready for aggro...

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fresh air in the pub was more valuable than gold dust. Smoke from countless pipes and smouldering cigarettes filled both bars, effectively helping to dull the clinging smell of cheap disinfectant. Nobody had ever asked the guvnor to list his establishment as a must on a tourist itinerary. It was unlikely anyone ever would.

  If air was precious, a sentence spoken without four-letter emphasis was enough to bring sudden silence, raised eyebrows and get the speaker an award for bravery in the face of obscenity. Even the two barmaids spoke in anatomical descriptiveness and some of their suggestions were physical impossibilities except for a mechanical engineer.

  His mates had the Saturday corner table and Joe shoved through the crowd, catching sight of Henry Downy at the bar. “Pint, mate,” he yelled, getting a nod from the pimpled youth. Frankly, he couldn’t stand the sight of Henry. The guy’s pimples wanted to make him throw-up. Not just that, though – he had serious doubts about Henry’s usefulness to the mob. He had always kept a close eye on Henry’s activities and never ever gave advance information of an aggro when Henry was listening.

  “You tooled?” Billy Endine asked nervously as he took his chair.

  “Of course,” Joe replied with an indignant sneer. “Think I’d go to fuckin’ Chelsea without this?” His hand fondled the cosh under his shirt.

  Billy shrugged and watched Henry struggle through the crowd with their beer. None of the boys tried to help the pimpled youth. It wasn’t part of being mates to offer a helping hand. Not in their mob, anyway. “’Enery ain’t got ’is!”

  Joe fixed Henry with a malicious eye. He watched how the beer slopped on the table as the other nervously set it before him. “Wot’s this about you not ’aving a tool?”

  Henry glanced over his shoulder then spoke in a whisper. “My old man found it. Jeeze, didn’t ’e raise hell!”

  “You’re a bleedin’ liar, mate,” Joe said deliberately. “Go get a tool or forget the game.” His hand closed possessively round the glass, his mocking smile destroying Henry’s unspoken reply in advance. As the pimple-face youth walked dejectedly away, Joe laughed. “Serves the bastard right! Drink up lads... ’is beer is good!”

  From behind the bar, Mary Sommers watched the group. She couldn’t take her gaze off Billy and, she felt sure, he was returning her interest each time he glanced across the pub. She was nearly old enough to be his mother but it didn’t stop her having physical yearnings for him. It hadn’t made her say no two weeks previously when Billy accosted her after closing. Nor had she tried to get away when he seemed to tire of feeling her. In fact, she could admit to herself that it was her prompting that had seen their confrontation develop into a frantic mating behind the soaring Point flats.

  She knew she was asking for trouble getting involved with one of them yet her knees shook when she thought about how wonderful it had been pressed against his hard young body. Looking at Joe and the others she even wished Billy would waylay her tonight and share her with his mates. The escapade with Billy had opened floodgates inside her; made her realise how tame the past ten years had been with a man who really never gave sex a thought. She could remember when she was eighteen. Her proud boast then had been “I’ve been screwed by every man in the district”. Since her marriage, she’d had about six bits on the side – hardly enough for a healthy, passionate woman with her shape.

  Bending to pour a pint, she became aware of eyes peering down her wide-fronted blouse. She looked up, and caught the old lecher leaning forward to see more of her breasts. He turned away, smiling secretly. He’d had his eyeful and that was his fair share. At seventy-three a man could look but not touch.

  Mary shrugged, her breasts jiggling firmly. The motion did not go un-noted. Those closest to the bar grinned; those at tables tried to catch her act but she refused to co-operate, her attention still rivetted on Billy and his mates.

  “You don’t want little bastards like them, Mary-girl!”

  She swung on the man. “Mind your own fuckin’ business,” she snapped.

  The man frowned. “Christ, lads – she’s really after Joe!”

  Let them get it wrong, Mary thought, flouncing down the bar. They’ll be trying to catch me with Roy’s son and I’ll be rubbing against Billy. God, she sighed. I wish I was!

  “That old cow!” Billy snorted disgustedly. “I jumped her an’ she raped me.”

  Joe twisted round, studying Mary with a lascivious eye. He had to admit she looked pretty good for a tart. Turning to Billy he grinned. “Was it good?”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “Arrange to meet her and we’ll all be there...”

  Billy frowned. “If she hollers, Joe...”

  “Bloody hell, she’s only a wet-knickered bitch! She won’t holler. Go ahead – talk to her.”

  Billy got to his feet looking dubious. It was one thing trying to get a bit in the dark for yourself, he thought, but letting Joe and his other mates share – well, that was asking for big trouble. Since hanging had been abolished some magistrates were getting bleeding horrible with the amount of porridge they handed out. Especially when it involved tear-aways and girls! Bloody M.P.s, he thought. They got elected to do what their constituents wanted done and the bastards thought they were little tin-gods better than the voters! If he had his way every politician would be slung into prison and given a taste of what they deserved.

  “Hey, Mary...” He leant against the bar between two huge coloured men. The stink of the blacks made him sick. He hated spades – wished they’d wash more often or get the hell back where t
hey came from. This was his London – not somewhere for London Transport’s African troops to live. He enjoyed the occasional aggro in Brixton. Smashing a few wog heads open always gave him greater satisfaction than bashing those bleeding Chelsea supporters.

  Mary slopped beer into a glass and pushed it at her customer. She felt her knees go rubbery. Collecting the cash, she rang it up, then hurried along the bar to face Billy. Her eyes sparkled, her breasts heaved.

  “Same again for the lads,” Billy muttered, unable to tear his gaze from those beauties. It wasn’t his round yet he couldn’t come right out with the proposition. Joe’s insistence on making Mary made him think about the other night and he suddenly realised how good it had been. Why should he share her with his mates?

  “Billy wants to see you again, Mary...”

  Billy glowered at Joe standing beside him now. Mary didn’t flinch. She stared at Joe, asked softly, “Will you be there too?”

  Joe nodded.

  “When, Billy?”

  The boy was lost. He couldn’t understand a woman like her. He’d had his share of the little bits hanging around the fringes of their mob – the local girls trying to snare one of the better-known heroes. He’d even gone to bed with a Soho brass when they’d pulled a job off. But that had been a big disappointment. He’d felt sick, feeling around a professional tart.

  “Tonight... when you finish here?” Joe asked.

  Mary felt her throat constrict. She glanced up and down the bar. “Wait for me behind the Point?”

  “We’ll be there – won’t we, Billy?”

  Billy wanted to object. Knowing Joe, the woman would be subjected to extremes of intercourse before he – or any of the others – got their share. Yet, nobody denied Joe Hawkins his glory. “Yeah, Joe, that’s fine.”

  Mary lowered her voice. “Forget this round – it’s on me.”

  Joe laughed, returning to his seat. Mary would fiddle it. They were getting free beer on the guvnor for promising to give her what all concerned would thoroughly enjoy – especially Mary. The round was on her and everything else pleasurable would be on her, too.

  The coloured man beside Billy laughed throatily, slapped Billy’s shoulder. “Man, you’se got it made,” he grinned.

  Billy brushed the hand away and glared at the man. “Don’t ever touch me, spade!” He backed away, ready to grab his tool.

  Quickly, the two coloured men stiffened and moved to close in on their opponent. Then, suddenly – as the pub grew deathly silent – they glanced around and relaxed with foolish grins on their ebony faces. Even they had heard about Joe Hawkins, and his mob.

  “Trouble, Billy?” Joe asked eagerly, watching the coloured men with what amounted to hungry appreciation. Like most East End skinheads – and, for that matter, population – Joe detested the influx of immigrants into what had always been a pure Cockney stronghold. It wasn’t so much the colour of the skins that annoyed him. Any intruder would have been subject to the same treatment – be the man South African, Canadian, American. The East End was proud of its London-heritage; afraid to lose its ancient right to control what was, essentially, a Saxon bastion. ‘Anglo-’ had never been acceptable here. Loyalty to an established, accredited Cockney crown was taken for granted. In time of war, the East Ender had only to enter a recruiting office to be accepted as a fit example of a British fighting man. Nobody dare question that. Nor the right an East Ender had to voice his opinion regardless of Race Relations Board and governmental sympathies. Spades or wogs didn’t count. They were impositions on the face of a London that should always be white, Cockney, true-British... not so-called British because they claimed a passport and insisted on rights their independent nations did not grant to the inhabitants of the British Isles.

  “No trouble, man,” the first immigrant said.

  “None,” his fellow black murmured.

  Joe grinned evilly. He wasn’t satisfied to let it go at that. This was Saturday – a day for splitting skulls. What better warm-up than these two coons...

  “Apologize...” he suggested antagonistically, moving forward with his mob stepping in tight like a gang of Nazi S.S. men about to interrogate a prisoner.

  Billy grinned. He felt tall, more than equal to a couple of hefty niggers now he had the backing of Joe and the lads. “Tell me how sorry you fuckin’ well are,” he snarled.

  The first negro blanched. He lived in Plaistow and knew how difficult it could be to oppose this gang of young thugs. He had heard of other immigrants whose homes had been terrorized. He had been warned by the pastor not to invite racial discontent with the ’ignorant’ Londoner. Mentally, he rejected these white savages – and all Englishmen – as inferiors striving to prove their right to subjugate black peoples. He didn’t stop to think about the poverty and superstition that made his homeland a place to avoid, or leave, nor the debt each of his people owed to the British administrators, the British tax-payer, the British sense of fair-play. He forgot these things because he wanted a job, a decent home – even if, after occupation, he turned it into a slum-dwelling – and a right to stand on his own feet without having a witch-doctor, a tribal chieftain, or an arrogant headman telling him what to do, when to do it, how to do it. He remembered his rights in England – the right to protest and call the British bastards and exploiters.

  “I’se sorry, boss,” he snarled.

  Joe laughed. “Boss? Sambo – get stuffed!” He turned away in disgust. The Chelsea mob would offer more resistance.

  Billy puffed out his skinny chest and pushed past the coloured men.

  Conversation started again in the pub and Mary’s eyes glittered frantically as she kept watching Joe, Billy and the mob. These were her type of men, she thought. She loathed serving blacks. She detested their lecherous looks, their arrogant attempts to strip her across the bar and the almost “don’t dare refuse me” propositions they made. But the guvnor had warned her not to invite trouble by refusing to serve them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Waiting for the District Line train to come in, Joe regarded his mob with a critical gaze. They were not an inseparable group. Billy and Don usually accompanied him on big bovver but Tony, Jack, Frank and Harry usually managed to avoid the more audacious escapades and shrank from physical contact with opposing forces of numerical superiority. As the leader, Joe felt his mob needed some backbone. It was disastrous to turn for support and find no-one there.

  “We gave those spades something to think about, eh, Joe?” Billy laughed as they gathered outside the waiting room.

  Joe shrugged. He wasn’t interested in the niggers now. They were past tense; his mind was on present and future trouble. “Forget the bastards, Billy,” he cautioned. His mind searched for something to vent his spite upon. His gaze lit upon the station sign: UPTON PARK. He grinned. That’s what they needed – a sign to tease those Stamford Bridge yobs. “Tony, Jack, nick that sign!” he commanded.

  Grinning, the two hurried off, tearing the metal sign from its moorings.

  From his relatively safe position on the opposite platform, a stationman took a quick step forward, then slunk back to his post with studious concern for counting the small change people offered in lieu of correct fare. Six weeks previously he had been brave and tried to defeat the vandalism of these young thugs. Not any more. London Transport didn’t pay him enough to wage single-handed war against savages. Nor did he consider contacting the police any solution, either. He didn’t want them waiting for him after a night-shift. Occasionally, he glanced furtively across the track to see what they were up to next. He would have to make a report but that was going to be the extent of his involvement in the affair.

  He would never know what his lack of involvement was going to cost his employer – nor the agony to one of his fellow-workers!

  “WEST HAM... WEST HAM... WEST HAM...” The mob chanted as they poured into a carriage when the train arrived.

  Other supporters laughed, took separate carriages – content in the thought that they
were better off not riding with Joe Hawkins. Yet, they didn’t find the mob’s actions contrary to accepted behaviour for football supporters. None of them belonged to an official body attached to their club. That would be tantamount to accepting authority and civilized conduct – and these were anathema for the likes of Joe and other young tearaways.

  Joe glared at the occupants of his carriage. Native cunning warned him that L.T. sometimes planted one of their trains likely to carry football supporters. He didn’t give a damn about one man but he didn’t wish to be trapped below ground when the dogs came. Boots and a tool meant nothing to a ferocious dog but flashing teeth meant a whole lot of pain for a skinhead.

  Like frozen puppets, the other passengers sat in their seats, trying hard to forget Joe’s presence. The fat woman with shopping bags glared right back at him then, conscious of the strained atmosphere as the train started, dropped her gaze and concentrated on the tips of her shoes. A small man wearing a scarf and hat examined the route map, reading and re-reading the names of stations listed. A young mother with two children suddenly discovered wonders outside the window to bring to their attention. A tall, portly gentleman in a window seat refused to be intimidated and stared at the mob until Joe’s slow grin changed his mind. A newspaper opened and the man’s face got lost in the spreading printed pages.