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01.008 Interlude - The Wolves of Kennington

Early morning (Monday, October 11, 2021)

Mayfair, London, United Kingdom

“Ballies on, ballers tall, balls deep.”

Right fucking poet Skitz was. Thought he and our “gang” were the next Spartans to come out of Kenny but that was just stupid. Plus he couldn’t verse for shit.

I pulled down my mask and checked my ching at my side. “Skitz, you gonna duss moment we pound that door.”

“Shut up you patty. Your name gonna be Powda since you white like cake.”

Like I said, regular poet he was.

This was my first time stepping up and I was nervous and about to throw live corn at Skitz before Loba jumped in. And unlike Skitz she could flow.

Queen Wolf on the streets, taking my shot
Only cock in the pants and hands on the Glock.
Gyal focus on the win, she the queenpin
Filho de puta, he just be standing in."

Skitz took a moment to figure out what Loba was saying, “Little ting like you ain’t leading nobody. Come on breh” I could see he was psyching himself up. He must have felt her diss since I was somebody now, not just the white boy that he only took for his crew since he was a nobody. I was a right rude boy now. Living that jolly olde England dream right there now.

Us three rode up hard on the house the radio too loud for this hood1. Skitz hopped over the iron gate, the small posh house quiet in the dark with a light or two on. He motioned us over.

Skitz whispered, “Cake boy, you ring and we’ll pull our sams. Man be handing over packs and stacks and be smart like Turing quick like.”

Shit he was back to calling me names, I was back out of the mandem. How will I ever live? I was nervous as shit being on our opp block. Well more like we didn’t have no block our own since we was shit but heisting a don was stupid. What the fuck was I doing?

My heart was racing as I took a couple of breaths. I could hear the nylon of Skitzs tracks as he moved to one side and Loba went to the other. Both had rambos out, edges gleaming in the night.

Fuck I miss Brix where I had a real crew. Moving here was shit. Shit shit shit. I rang the doorbell before I realized it. Shit again. Fuck was I sweating.

I stood there, dressed like a batty boy waiting for the yardi to open the door. The door swung in, and fuck if it wasn’t a small girl. Maybe 9 years on her. I was switching to fucks. Fuck. fuck. fuck. Fuck Skitz. Fuck me. Fuck Loba for not stabbing Skitz. Fuck this here girly who answered the door in this posh neighborhood. Fuck this posh place. Fuck it all.

“Shi… I mean hallo. Is your dad home?” I was trying to save this with my terrible posh voice to go with these poncy clothes.

“Yes. Papa!” She turned away and called.

I waved both hands at Skitz. Mouthing no. I wasn’t tuning up some kid. Trying to get him to leave.

Loba looked like she was going to back down when Skitz jumped in and grabbed the girl holding his rambo’s blade against the girls throat.

“Fuck dis!” Loba turned and turned around and bussed out of there.

The girl started screaming, and I just stood there frozen.

“Let ma girl go.” A voice from behind us. A mad hench fucker was standing there, his face shadowed in the dark, his dredds wild and glistening, reflecting something from the streetlights behind him. Glistening with blood as he threw something to the ground to roll at my feet. Loba’s head, bloody and with part of her spine hanging down from it rolled to my feet.

I wasn’t frozen before the way I was now.

“Fuck…” whispered Skitz, his voice started going higher pitch,and it was wavering “No closer. I get your gyally here.” He was shaking. We still couldn’t see the man’s face. I felt piss running down my leg.

“Do ya?” Said the shadowed figure, his hair shaking as he laughed. Haitian voice. “Die Congo Savanne ain’t ones to fuck wit, nor the Marasa, boy..”

He stepped into the light from the front door, his chalk white skin and black dredds combined with sharp fanged teeth, blood dripping down his face onto his bare chest.

“Now the Marasa sister, she will call for her bruddah. And then she will be hungry.”

The girl whispered, “I am hungry now, feed me.”

“Don’t you worry now ma girl. This boy won’t be doing a ting.” And he leaped forward so fast, I barely saw it. And Skitz flew back and slammed into the table and mirror set against the wall inside.

This Congo guy stood where Skitz had been and said “Now is time for you to go girl. I will be eating first. " He shoved her out of the door and I ran after, fucking tripping over Loba’s head, as I ran without looking back. The light from the entry shut off as he closed the door and I could hear Skitz screaming and then tearing sounds as I struggled to get the iron gate back open.


  1. "Corn" by 2Smokeyy” ↩︎

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This chapter I am always going to say was super hard.

First, I was trying to write a character I can’t even say I pretend to understand, a council estates kid in Kennington, London from Brixton. So I am going to completely fuck up the vernacular and regional differences. He is teamed up with a native East Londoner from Kennington and a Brazilian Portuguese girl and they run into a couple Haitian lwa.

Second, I wanted it to be very in media res, but given how fast things go south, I had to move a bunch of stuff up front. Which takes away from starting with them ringing the doorbell and being in the shit.

Third, the use of slang and eye dialects. Eye dialects can come off as super condescending. And I suspect that happens here. Plus I know I am inconsistent with them and come in and out of it. Also Haitian lwa in media have never been presented in a non-derogatory way, and I can’t say this chapter isn’t guilty of that. And the slang? UK drill slang from reddit, from "Who They Was" by Gabriel Krauze , and other random sources.

I am thinking about revising the protagonist of this chapter to be a bit more racist and sexist, but frankly I find that to be an even bigger can of worms. And does that mean just because they are poor they have to be that way?

All that being said, I wanted to do this because (1) it shows that what is going on is more widespread than our main storyline. (2) representation is important here and I am trying to navigate not having everyone be an American of some sort. I expect I will write future interludes all over the world.

So a little more about why I chose this scene. I threw in a reference to a currently popular background TikTok track, should be easy to guess. UK drill seemed to be the best insight into the language of wannabe gangsters. The rap verse I wrote took me a while to write and I am sure it could be better, but it is supposed to be off-the-cuff for Loba and she is good at rhyming only in comparison to Skitz.

And this is a chapter I suspect will get heavily revised if I can get some Haitians and UK folks to provide some help to be better.

Fun secret fact about Skitz - he has that name because he over-ate Skittles as a child and threw up rainbow. He thinks it is just a cool name people started calling him years later that he adopted. Loba knew the truth. The real story is that happened to me with Starbust when I was a kid.

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