Brixton Bwoy Page 17

  But with all these women to support, Tee would have to get back on the streets soon. He had been on holiday for a while, and the cash from the raid before Christmas was just about gone. So he looked up Blakie and Roderick, and they all went out to do some blagging. For a few weeks, they had a good run, but then they stole some coke and Blakie got picked up by the police while in possession of half a kilo. The police made out a case that he was a Mr Big coke seller, citing the house and cars he had bought with all his criminal moneys, and he was sent down for thirteen and a half years.

  Tee and Roderick were sorry for their friend but kept robbing, and Roderick recruited another couple of men to join them. Tee knew these two men from way back and wasn’t sure about them, but he agreed with Roderick to give it a go. One day they set out in a stolen Ford Granada, with Roderick at the wheel. He had found out about a cash-and-carry warehouse that took its money down to the bank every Friday, and they drove there and waited outside. Eventually a man came out and climbed into his car. Roderick drove after him and when he parked near the bank and got out, Roderick pulled up and Tee and the other two jumped out as well.

  The two recruits went straight into the bank, but Tee walked slowly past the man and saw his briefcase and realised he wouldn’t even have to pull out the borrowed .45 which he was carrying with him. He grabbed the briefcase and turned to run away from the man, but the next thing he knew was a hard blow on the back of his neck, and he fell to the ground. When he looked up, he saw the man he had robbed standing over him in a martial arts stance.

  Tee still had the briefcase in his hand, and with the other he pulled out the .45 and fired three shots over the man’s head. It was the first time he had ever fired a gun, and the noise was deafening. Blam! Blam! Blam! The man backed off and put his hands in the air. ‘On your face,’ Tee shouted, and the man dropped to the ground, pleading for Tee not to shoot. ‘I’ve got a wife and four children,’ he cried. ‘Take the money but don’t shoot me.’

  Tee got up and began to run. But now he had to deal with three have-a-gos who had heard the shots. He lifted the gun and fired again into the air. His pursuers froze, and Tee ran off towards the car. He heard Roderick shouting ‘Watch out!’ as two more have-a-gos started towards him. He lifted the gun over their heads and pulled the trigger. It only clicked. He pulled again. Click. He had run out of bullets. There was nothing for it but to run straight through them and when Tee reached the car, he opened the door, threw in the bag and shouted ‘Drive!’

  ‘Blood claat!’ Roderick yelled. ‘Two bike bwoys behind following.’

  Tee turned and saw two motorcyclists weaving through the heavy traffic after them.

  ‘Just reverse over dem,’ Tee shouted.

  ‘No,’ said Roderick. ‘Go out and deal with dem.’

  Leaving the money in the car with Roderick, Tee picked up the crook lock they had forced when they had stolen the car, and jumped out. As the men approached on their bikes, Tee swung the crook lock at them aiming for their collar-bones. Both took big smacks, after which they turned around and rode off as fast as they could.

  Roderick and Tee met up with the two recruits at their meeting place, and divided up the money which totalled £12,000. But there was also a bank slip for £49,000 in the case, and a fight almost broke out when the recruits accused Tee of stealing the rest. They parted on uneasy terms.

  Tee went home to see Girlie and Paulette, and gave Girlie some of his takings, which delighted her. She didn’t like his way of life, but if he was committing crimes, she at least wanted her share of the proceeds. Then he went out again, puzzling over the missing money. His head was still hurting from the knock he had taken, but slowly it was clearing, and it began to click that if there was missing money there was only one man who could have taken it, and that was Roderick, while Tee was dealing with the two motorcyclists.

  He headed down to Brixton and confronted Roderick.

  ‘Old man,’ Roderick said, ‘me left de whole ah de money in de tiefing car, you know.’ He explained he had done it so he and Tee would not have to give more to the recruits. But Tee was doubtful.

  ‘Wha we ah go fe it now?’ he suggested.

  ‘Hold on, little Drapes,’ Roderick said. ‘No, we can’t go fe it now, up deh hot now.’

  ‘Why you never seh so from time you left de money?’ Tee asked, still suspicious.

  Roderick shrugged, and Tee left him. But he didn’t go home. He went straight to where they had left the Ford Granada, waiting to see if the coast was clear and then checked the car. Nothing. Not a thing. Tee was as angry as a hive of bees, and if he had found Roderick then and there he might have killed him. But it wasn’t until a week later that he finally tracked him down, climbing out of a Jaguar XJS.

  ‘If you wasn’t me friend who me did love so much, Roderick, me would lick off you head stiff stone dead,’ Tee growled. He told Roderick never to come around to his flat again.

  Not long after, Tee saw Roderick in a BMW coupé, and later he heard he had taken a holiday in Jamaica. A few months after that, Tee ran into him again. Roderick suggested they do another job together, but Tee turned him down. The next he heard, Roderick had recruited a couple of undercover cops for a job, and had ended up with an eight-year sentence.

  A few months had passed since Tee’s return from Jamaica and he was sunk into depression. He and Girlie were arguing, and he was broke. Without Blakie and Roderick, he only seemed to make enough to get from one day to the next, and this particular day he didn’t have more than a couple of quid – not even enough to take Girlie out for a drink to cheer her up. Part of him wished he had stayed in Jamaica.

  With the little they had, they went to a pub in Clapham, and Tee used his last couple of quid to buy them each drinks. Then he headed into the crowds in the hope of picking a pocket to pay for the rest of the evening. He dipped his hand into a handbag and came out with only a make-up case, but as he dropped it back in again the woman felt him and grabbed at his hand. He walked away, untroubled, as he hadn’t taken anything.

  When he got back to Girlie, still empty-handed, she needed to go to the ladies’ room. He went with her and waited outside. As he stood there, the bouncer, a giant six-foot-four black man, strode over to him.

  ‘Dis lady claim you tief her purse and dese two police want to talk to you,’ he said to Tee. He shoved him towards the two coppers, saying, ‘Talk to dem, man, talk to dem.’

  Tee pushed the bouncer off him and told the police that he hadn’t done anything. He turned out his pockets to show them, but they still wanted to arrest him for questioning.

  Exasperated, Tee dropped his trousers to show he didn’t have anything on him, but they still weren’t satisfied and started trying to march him out.

  ‘You are not taking me nowhere,’ Tee suddenly yelled, pushing both the policemen so hard that they flew through a pair of swing doors towards the toilets, the doors flapping after them.

  The bouncer now had a grip on him, and Tee reached into his pocket and came up with a present Doll had given him before he left Jamaica, a little penknife. He didn’t intend to use it, but opened the blade just in case.

  ‘Let me go,’ he told the bouncer, but the man only gripped him even harder, so Tee drew the tiny blade across his face.

  By now, the furore had attracted the attention of a couple of men who knew Tee, and they ran to his rescue, shouting for help at the same time. ‘Police and de chucker-outer ah beat up Drape Up!’

  The two policemen pushed their way in through the swing doors to meet half a dozen of Tee’s friends flying through the air like Batman and Robin, and were knocked back out again.

  Tee kept shouting at the bouncer to let him go, but the man was as stubborn as a mule, so Tee slashed his face again and again. For a second, nothing happened. But then blood began to flow out from the gashes and the bouncer let go of Tee, wiped his face and sat down on the floor in a daze. Tee pushed through the swing doors, where he saw a group of youths beating the policemen
with sticks and bottles. He turned round, walked back out through the pub, and headed for sister Ivy’s house where they had left Paulette. Girlie was not back yet, but by the time he had bathed and changed, she had returned. She started on at him, but soon hushed up when he showed her the money he had borrowed from Ivy, and they went out again to the Blue Lagoon as if nothing had happened.

  A few minutes after they had arrived, the red lights came on, which was a signal meaning the police were coming. Girlie was wearing a long coat, and Tee wrapped it around both of them, and pulled Girlie to him – though the police had a long hard look at them, they eventually left.

  They danced the night away, and ended up back at the flat in Surrey Docks. In the morning they went to Ivy’s to collect Paulette, and while Tee waited round the corner, Ivy’s son Ray came out to tell him that the Old Bill were looking for him.

  Tee turned right round and headed for Brixton. He met Boy Blue, one of the godfathers of Brixton bad bwoys, dressed in a silk suit and shirt and piled down with gold. ‘Hoy, Drape Up,’ he said, ‘me see some police ah look fe you. Dem did have picture of you, say you dangerous and wanted! Ah wha you do, man?’

  ‘A bit of trouble down Clapham,’ said Tee.

  ‘Well, me know one little man will sell you a visa to go State go cool out fe a while, it don’t make no sense playing no hero, bad bwoy.’

  ‘Yeah, me know,’ Tee said, ‘but ah no big ting.’

  Tee didn’t want to go to any of his main girlfriends in case the police found him there, so he went instead to see Iley, his Indian girlfriend, who no one knew about. She put him up in her flat, but every time he went outside he met people who told him the police were looking for him.

  ‘Drape Up, de police ah look fe you so hard,’ a friend said when he walked into Con’s one night, ‘and you in here full ah informers. Go ha country, man, or something, go chill out.’

  Tee went home again to Iley, and she suggested he go and stay with her parents in Birmingham. She took him there by coach, installed him at her parents’ house, and then returned to London. The house was near Winson Green prison and walking past it every day Tee would shiver at how old and dirty and cold it looked. He would end up down at a black club called the Bee Hive where he could get a draw to smoke and hang out with other West Indians.

  He made friends with a couple of brothers, Suzuki (named after his bike) and Sonny. They tried to keep him clear of crime but he still picked a few pockets and did a few robberies, although he made sure he didn’t do anything too risky, as he didn’t want to fall into the hands of the police. One time he stole a camera, and for a while he took photographs and sold them to people, but he never made more than a few quid that way.

  In the beginning Tee went out most nights, but one evening when he stayed in he noticed how tired Iley’s mother was when she got home from work and started to cook dinner. He told her he could cook, and offered to do it, and from then on he cooked dinner every night. The second or third time, Iley’s mother took him to the drinks cabinet and said, ‘Help yourself to a drink or two, Tee.’

  He took her up on this, and for the next few days he was drunk by midday. The next time she looked in the drinks cabinet she let out a scream. ‘Tee,’ she cried, ‘you must have some worries, no one who doesn’t have worries drinks so much. What kind of trouble are you in?’

  Tee told her as little as he could, but that night she called up Iley and got the whole story. No matter how good his cooking was, she decided Tee had outstayed his welcome. Her advice was that he should give himself up, but he wasn’t going to do that, however low he got. The following day he jumped on a train back to London.

  It was a good thing Tee returned when he did, because he found that Paulette was seriously ill and crying the whole time, and Girlie had all but given up on looking after her. Tee took his little girl straight to hospital, and his first few days were taken up with visiting her.

  By the time Paulette was well enough to come home again, Tee had found out how many of his friends had been arrested for the events of that night. He was lucky to have escaped so far. Karen was due to have his baby any day now, but he couldn’t get her on the phone and he didn’t dare show up in case the police had her place staked out. But in the end it made no difference. He was picked up two days later outside Girlie’s place, and remanded in custody on three charges of GBH, as well as affray and attempted theft.

  When at last Tee got bail a few weeks later, the first thing he did was call Karen. Her mother answered the phone and started on at him straight away for doing a runner.

  ‘She had the baby ten days ago, with or without any help from you. It’s a boy and a black one at that,’ she said. ‘And don’t say it’s not yours, it has your nose and your lips.’

  That afternoon, Tee went round to see his first son, who Karen had named Richard.

  Winter was coming around again. While Tee was waiting for his trial to come up at court and trying to keep his nose clean, his second son was born, to Princess. This one Tee helped to name. He was called Rocky.

  Tee was moving quietly between one woman and the next, with none of them very happy, but none of them able to kick him out for good. The bail restrictions meant he couldn’t go about his normal business, so as well as being short of cash, he was getting frustrated.

  One cold rainy evening he went round to Girlie’s. He hadn’t been there for a few days and was looking forward to an evening in, but when he arrived he found both Girlie and Paulette dressed and ready to go out.

  ‘Where you going in that weather outside, Girlie?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m going up Peckham to take Paulette to the Bonfire Night fair. Claire and most of the other girls and children will be there.’

  Tee frowned. ‘It’s too wet and cold out there,’ he said. ‘Get changed and put Paulette to bed.’

  But Girlie jumped up and said she was going to the fair and nobody was stopping her. Tee grabbed hold of her, and tried to convince her not to go. Girlie pulled herself away and made to struggle out the door, and all full of emotions and anger and upset, Tee slapped her. This only made Girlie even more angry and she started to fight, and Tee slapped her again, telling her to calm down. Eventually she did, and sullenly putting Paulette to bed she curled up herself. Tee left, hating Girlie and himself and the whole world for what had happened.

  In the morning, he went back to see if Girlie was all right but she was gone. He called back again the following day, but there was still no sign of her. And as the weeks passed, and then months, Girlie and Paulette seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

  That winter found Tee living with Princess and Rocky in a flat near the Oval cricket ground. He had sold his Jensen when he first went to ground, before going to Birmingham, because it was known by all the police, and as he had spent all his money, he now had neither cash nor car.

  One winter day, Tee was lounging on the settee in the flat and Rocky was playing on the blood-red carpet, when Princess emerged from the bath with a towel wrapped around her head to stop her wet hair from dripping everywhere, and another around her body, from her chest to her knees. Tee took a long hard look at her and Princess smiled and said, ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just thinking how beautiful you look, that’s all, Princess.’

  Princess smiled and blushed. She went over to her son and picked him up.

  ‘OK, Rock?’ she murmured. ‘You all right, baby?’

  Rocky, who was having a ball of a time playing with everything from his toys to the bamboo beads hung up over the front door which rattled together when you entered the flat, twisted and wriggled in his mother’s arms to be put down and get on with what he was doing.

  ‘Oh, you turn big man now, you don’t want Mummy to pick you up. Go on, then, wreck the whole place as you normally do.’

  She put him down and the boy happily crawled away on the carpet. She smiled to herself as she watched him.

  ‘He don’t need you, babes, but I need you,’ Tee sai
d. ‘You come to me, no? You would ah never get away from me tonight, de way you look so sweet right now.’

  Princess laughed. ‘No, go away, all you think about is sex, food and sleep. And you do nothing but fart in your sleep. Eeyuk!’ Then she grew more serious. You really going to fart today, tomorrow and the day after and the whole of Christmas? Because we are broke and there is no food in the house except baby food.’

  ‘So what you want me to do?’ Tee asked. ‘Go and rob and tief people when I’m on bail for dis case, with the police breathing down my neck every time I step out of de house?’

  ‘No, I’m not telling you to do nothing as such, I’m just telling you you really going to have something to fart about over Christmas with nothing in the house to eat.’

  ‘All right, all right, me heard you. Me ah go rob some money little from now.’

  Tee wasn’t serious, as the last thing he wanted was more trouble with the police, so when he went out he borrowed some money from a friend and brought it back to Princess. The money fed them for a couple of days, but soon they were broke again. The best they managed for Christmas was some tinned food, chips, soft drinks and a couple of beers.

  Christmas passed, and then the New Year, and with the bail conditions and the cold outside, Tee barely left the flat. But eventually it grew too much. Rocky was hungry and Tee felt desperate. He went out and walked along the cold and wintry streets to the Oval tube station and, marching in past the ticket collector, he got the train to Brixton. He walked out past the ticket collector there too. He was utterly skint, without even fifty pence in his pocket.