Scene One
Front Room
Delroy stands laughing loudly with a Guinness in his hand. He is clearly drunk.
Delroy It was as if things werenāt bad enough. It was the punch in Punch and Judy, the real in surreal . . . I mean, like I didnāt know, understand, get, how twisted, corked, mash-up life can be already. They was gonna take my dignity too . . . my dignity, man . . . but I wasnāt gonna let him know that.
Wasnāt gonna give him, them, the pleasure. Though to be fair he was nice . . . well as you can be in the circumstances, considering. I mean like, he would never have known the size of the crater on my heart.
Heās got as shit a job as mine I guess. So maybe I should just enjoy the fact I had a white man doing a Kaepernick. I am guessing everyone knows what Iām on about? Colin Kaepernick. Youād have to be the biggest tosser in the world not to know, right. Youād have to have your head so stuck up your privilege not to know, youād need Nelson Mandela to rise from the dead and twerk, naked, on the finish line at Ascot to actually see black people exist. So heās kneeling there . . . in front of me . . . and heās telling me, showing me, explaining how Iām gonna have to manage this shit. But even though it was killing me . . . all Iām thinking of really is her . . . her, who is she? Where is she? Is she ok? but I have to engage . . . but I keep drifting off . . . thinking about her . . . wanting to hold her, smell her . . . then heās says the words ābreachā.
Man Youāll be in breach.
Delroy And my mind whip pans to his will.
Iāll breach?
Man Yeah and that can . . . well thatās like, youāre fucked! They could bang you up for that.
Delroy I nodded like a schoolboy being a chastised by his headmaster. He could see my ego sliding off under the door. So in an effort to lighten the mood he asked
Man What do you do?
Delroy I paused to try and work out if he was the right kind of person to tell. Noticing my reticence, he looked down to my ankle and clicked it in place thoughtfully and then asked.
Man Alright, whatās the funniest thing about your job?
Delroy And I just go into one . . . must be the nerves, the anger, the shame . . . yeah the utter shame of it all . . .
The surprise
I say as he stands up and plugs me into the wall.
The surprise . . . yeah, the surprise . . . I think people fink, theyāre kinda untouchable, well not untouchable just . . . just that it wonāt go āthatā wrong for āem. Well, until we bailiffs rattle their cage . . . yeah, bruv, I used to come in and shatter that shit good.
He laughs his infectious laugh fully again.
Cheez . . . the look on the their faces . . . itās like all the muscles in their face just give up . . . like some hundred-year-old manās scrotum, all lifeless and southbound.
He goes for his bag and starts packing his stuff up but keeping eye contact with me, like heās fully engaged, interested, when he mustāve been dying for me to shut the fuck up.
He giggles childishly.
Every time same shit, like itās some kinda āsurpriseā. They havenāt paid! The rent, the mortgage or whatever, they aināt paid! So whereās the fucking surprise.
Cracks me up.
Posh Man GET OUT!
Working-Class Woman Leave me stuff alone.
Delroy This student said my favourite. Stood there . . . this guy, made a grunge attire look well dressed he did.
Student HOW DARE YOU!
Delroy Thatās my favourite . . . he aināt paid his bills and Iām the scum. āHow dare you!ā Jokes, man.
He drinks down the last of the Guinness and opens another.
Then . . . he wants my sympathy . . . I mean what the actual fuck . . . I was like Mate, Iām a black man. Of West Indian descent, claiming some kinda Britishness . . . on the account of the fact that I was born here and my grandparents was born in a British colony that āreach inna Englandā with a British passport in the fifties, and had learnt all the British values there, of not giving a shit about anybody! Part from their kin . . . Iām a product of this country!
Student Come on āmanā you could help me. We could ākeep it on a downlowā.
Delroy I said to him, Boss man, youāre tripping.
Heās got his coat on now, this tagman fellow, and heās holding the door knob hinting desperately at me that he wants to talk . . . but I donāt wanna hear what heās got say . . . I donāt wanna hear the truth of what he has to say so I carry on.
He laughs taking a large swig of Guinness.
Hereās the rub . . . if there are no evictions, I donāt get paid and I need to get paid or Iām not a good member of society, right?
Thatās capitalism aināt it? Or consumerism . . . one of the two . . . someone has to pay for me to live rich . . . thatās British values, no? . . . all this.
Michael Weāre in it together.
Delroy Datās what Michael . . . my mate Michael gives it.
Michael Weāre in it together, Delroy.
Delroy laughs.
Delroy He says, white guy.
Iāve known him since school. My best friend to be honest . . . but itās been on the ropes . . . the friendship . . . he mugged me right off a while back and, well, they hated me doing this job, goes against . . . well . . . Iām not sure but . . . I was like āIām British!ā . . . all we do is clap, pull down a few statues and discuss.
Bout their looking at me for sympathy, whoās Michael to think I should have sympathy. Iām like, āGet de fuck out of de yard!ā
Man It takes about a hour and half to charge.
He says, not taking a breath in case I start popping off again. But Iām on a roll.
Delroy And my daughter! She was born eight weeks ago, and I aināt even seen her. Theyāve made no effort to make things right . . .
It came like vomit from deep inside me, unannounced and visceral as fuck.
None of them! No effort! . . . they didnāt even come to court!
Man I gotta go, mate . . .
Delroy His knitted brow making it clear heād got the arse with me now.
Man Remember if it bleeps youāre in breach . . . so youāve got to keep it charged . . . right?
Delroy I nodded again like the schoolboy from before.
Man Charge it every day . . . right.
Delroy And with dat . . . he was gone like some CIA operative . . . all he needed was a plume of smoke and I would have thought Iād imagined it. I looked down at it . . . my tag, my fucking tag and laughed.
He laughs loudly. He takes a big swig.
To be honest though I never gave a fuck who it was we evicted, black, white, Indian, Chinese . . . European . . . though thatās white still though, right? . . . sometimes I find that shit funny too . . . Whites hating whites cos they got a different accent . . . funny bwoy . . . when they know, unlike us, blacks, if they breed here, their kids will be considered more English then me! Whoās got generations of Britishness but thatās being British innit . . . well thatās what works for most of us apart from that lot . . . the Kumbaya lot who just love to march, while singing and partying.
He laughs, mimicking them.
Thinking that it can make changes, jokers . . . love to travel that lot, think theyāre better than us for it too . . . fuck dat, staying right here, earning my corn, get a nice car, lickle flat, big flat-screen TV...