If during one of the weekend All Dayers the clashes had been particularly nasty, the rivalries would often spill over into the working week, distilling down into rivalries between different gangs. And that’s when the 28s and Untouchables would clash.
To start with it wasn’t much more than chasing the Untouchables out of the estate or tracking some of their members down and stealing stuff from them. Bottles and stones were thrown. Sometimes there would be fist fights.
Looking back, though, it was still innocent. There were no knives or nothing. No guns. It was quite often about staring up each other.
‘Staring up each other’ – that’s what Pod would do on a Saturday evening if there was nothing else going on. It meant that they would just stare at each other, looking for a fight. Sometimes it was with guys from the Untouchables, or strangers who’d walked uninvited into the estate. Sometimes the 28s used to fight amongst themselves. Pod would just stare at someone until a punch was thrown in anger. Then they’d end up brawling on the ground. It was rare that anyone took on Hustler, though. He was one of the main men in the 28s. The others looked up to him because he had a reputation as an effective and fearsome fighter. Most people tended to leave him alone.
It was on evenings like this, as the 28s gathered to fight or to chat about girls and robbing, that Pod became aware that some of the little kids on the estate had begun to hang around. Kids like Elijah Kerr, the Cross brothers, Michael Deans, Fat Chris and Michael Payne.
He’d watched most of them grow up. He knew Elijah Kerr, or JaJa as he was called, from the day he’d arrived from Birmingham as a little kid with a strange accent who’d looked lost on an estate like Angell Town. He’d known Nathan Cross, or Inch as he was called on the streets, from church and from Angell Town’s steel band where he’d been the quiet little guy who played the drum and performed in front of Princess Diana and the Queen.
He’d watched them all grow up and change, becoming more confident, bolder, cheekier.
JaJa was the one who impressed him most. The kid always stuck up for himself, even when some of the older kids tried to bully him because of his thick Brummie accent. He always seemed to be one step ahead of the game.
Increasingly they’d begun to hang around the 28s, asking for money or just pestering them for no reason.
Now and then Pod would feel protective and dip into his pocket and pull out a handful of loose change which he would give to one of the kids. Then he would send them on their way with a kick up the backside.
‘Stop bothering us. Here’s some money. Now go and buy me some jerk chicken and a coke.’
Sometimes they refused.
‘Why do we have to?’
‘Coz we’re older.’
‘That don’t make no difference.’
‘Do what I say or I’ll come after you.’
Sometimes the kids would hide for a week because they thought that Pod or one of the others really was after them.
The kid who Pod had most trouble with was the one everyone called Fat Si. Pod could see that the kid lived on the edge and had a short fuse. Pod enjoyed taunting him, seeing how far he could push him before getting a reaction. It was easy because Fat Si was always hanging around Pym House with Inch and JaJa. Whenever Pod saw Fat Si he would give him a kick in the leg.
Then one day Fat Si was waiting for him.
It happened on the landing of Pym House. Pod, as usual, was teasing Fat Si. He gave him a kick up the backside to taunt him. This time Fat Si whipped out a knife and stabbed Pod in the leg.
Pod screamed in shock and surprise.
‘What the fuck did you do that for? I’m gonna knock you down.’
Fat Si didn’t back down. He tensed up, ready to fight.
‘I’m gonna get you for this.’
But Pod’s leg was bleeding so badly that he hurried off to hospital to have it stitched up.
Pod left Fat Si alone after that. He’d found Fat Si’s limit and didn’t want to test him again.
He understood it, though. The whole estate knew that Fat Si’s mum had run away to another country and left him to fend for himself.
He didn’t have no motherly love. Lucky his dad always knew where he was. Even though his dad wasn’t always
around he always knew where Si was. They were alwaystight.
But still, Pod wondered, if Fat Si is prepared to pick up a knife at the age of 11, what’s he gonna do at 16?
It wasn’t long before Pod and the others in the 28s realized that the little kids they’d seen growing up on the estate had got older, bigger and more impertinent. Now they were roaming around the council blocks in their own group. That’s when people on the estate began to make a joke of it.
‘There go the Younger 28s.’
I saw what they were doing. But I wasn’t stupid. I thought, I could do this myself and keep the money.
JaJa
JaJa followed the lives of the 28s with fascination. At night, as Wesley, Pod and Duffers gathered with the other 28s beneath his window at Marston House, he would hang on their every word as they lit up joints and chatted about girls and robbing. They were famous. Famous because they were older and cool and famous because they had money. JaJa was now getting into his second year of school and he started realizing all the things that money could get him.
One day after school he went up to one of the 28s.
‘Hey man, how do I get hold of my own money?’
‘Hey, Birmingham. I tell you what. Come out with us tonight and watch. Just watch.’
That evening he asked his mum if he could go out with friends. He didn’t have a curfew so she just told him to be careful and not come back too late. Some of the older boys gave him some weed. He spluttered on his first draw but then started getting the hang of it. Then he followed the older 28s boys to a small car around the corner from the estate. They grabbed hold of the top of the passenger door and bent it back.
Because I was so little I could squeeze my hand in and open the locks. That’s what we used to do. And we’d hit the car stereos which we sold for 15 or 20 quid to an Italian guy called George. And when you are young, that’s a lot of money. I used to get six stereos a night and I’d get 25 quid and I’m loving it ’cos we’re doing this every two days. I’m getting change in my pockets. I got into the street life and that, buying weed and chilling with girls my age. I’d go into Brixton and meet more 28s and got to know more people and started to do house burglaries.
JaJa found the burglaries scary at first, but the older boys reassured him.
‘No, don’t worry, come. Just watch this one. Watch and