Foughts in my Head
By
Matthew Friday
‘The boy’s got a good one. Proper banger, ya get me?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wicked man. What’s she like?’
‘Proper bling, bruv. Gagging, like.’
‘How old?’
‘Thirty something, bruv. Grateful, ya get me? Do anything, yeah.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.’
‘Fucking good looking, safe, like. Proper dirty bitch. She’s on it all the time. I just bang her and go, you get me? Sweet.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t stay for tea, right bruv?’
‘Fuckin’ too right, bruv. All the way, all the way.’
The train pulls in at Ashtead. The doors open. People step on and on hearing the men talking, and sensing something else, some ancient instinct of self-preservation, move to the furthest end of the carriage. They are all domestic cats forced into the hiding by the presence of two underfed, bored tigers.
‘You heard about that wanker, Trent?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the one who proper beats up the dealers?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Totally fucked up the Sutton dealers. Did them all one night, one by one. Properly fuckin hard, you get me?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, bruv, totally. He’s well messed up.’
‘He well messed up those pikies in Leatherhead, sweet.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really?’
‘I’m fuckin’ saying so, right? He knocked out six pikies, right. He started on them, ‘cause he fuckin’ hates pikies, yeah?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, bruv. Proper scum.’
‘So he starts on them and they’re like, you’re fucking dead. But he knocks them out – bang! Bang! Bang! All six of them. Police came and they were like, good job, sweet. Got a caution – had to, right?’
‘You telling me the truth, bruv?’
The first man snaps forward. He flexes his fists. The doors close and the train judders to a start.
‘You fuckin calling me a liar, bruv?’
The second man leans back.
‘No, man, I-’
‘You can’t lie to a liar, you get me?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, proper, proper.’
‘Did I or didn’t I say it?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you did, bruv. Totally, right?’
‘Right.’
The first man leans back. The second man relaxes a little and moves forward. There is a hot, pensive silence. The view of trees breaks for a second and shows a steep road going upwards. After a few seconds of passing houses the scene is sucked out of view and then belched back out as high embankment, stripped of trees like closely cropped hair.
‘I had this strange moment last night, after the come-down, right?’
‘What sort of moment, bruv?’
The second man is curious. The first one is speaking softly and looking out of the window.
‘I got foughts in my head, right?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah bruv.’
‘And you have foughts, right?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes, bruv?’
‘Don’t fuck me, bruv. This is serious, right?’
‘Right bruv, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.’
‘So, ain’t it weird?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s weird, bruv?’
‘Foughts and shit. You think your foughts are the only ones in the world, right? But we all got foughts, like. You get me?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, bruv. I suppose. Not really fought about it.’
The first man began stroking his face.
‘Then I fought, fuck, we’re all just flesh and shit and bling, right? We live in our heads, behind these eyes, right? Words out of my mouth. All in ‘ere, right?’
The first man slaps his own head. The second has flashbacks of the time his friend beat up a smack-head who tried to mug him. How that stupid smack-head had whimpered for mercy, like a dog losing its balls. The smack-head lost an ear.
The train slows down as if approaching a major junction. The train guard comes on the intercom and announces the arrival at Epsom, hardly an event deserving such caution from the train driver.
‘That’s the first time you felt that, bruv?’
‘What? I said so didn’t I?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, bruv, sure.’
‘You don’t think about it? You don’t think how fuckin’ weird it is, being all muscles and blood and bling and shit. Just mechanical bones and yet we got all these foughts, right?’
‘Right, yeah. Nah. I don’t fink about it.’
‘You fink about anything?’
‘Me? Nah. Simple fuck, me.’
‘You pissing me?’
‘Nah, bruv. Honest like. I mean…’
He fishes around for something suitable to say, trying not to think of the time his friend cut up a tramp, slicing his skin off like some sort of deprived Chinese torturer.
‘Sometimes I close my eyes and see things, like. Shit on my eyes. Blobs and shit. Microbes or some shit.’
‘You wanna get new eyes, bruv.’ The second man laughs and then remembers the time the first man stabbed his heroin needle into the eye of a dealer who refused to score him.
‘And sometimes in the dark I see colours, like.’
‘What?’
‘I’m saying, bruv. Like, you close your eyes and it’s dark, but it’s not dark ‘cause there’s still colours, right. Like red and orange blobs and swirls and bright sparks, like some sort of fuckin’ universe there, right. And it all changes colour, warping like. Fuckin’ hippy freaky, right? Like flying through stars like that film. Two thousand and something. At the end. You fink I need to see a doctor, bruv?’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ asks the first man standing up. The second one leans back and looks frightened. He relaxes as the first man goes to the door.
‘Nothing, bruv. Just shit.’
‘Shut it, right?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.’
The train arrives at Epsom station. It’s home time for the workers who are waiting to get on board. The doors open and the two men get off.