Deansgate and on and then we think we’re clear. Fighting for breath and people smiling and shaking their heads. Hot, bruv. And Coxie spies this deli, already looted. He dives in and that’s when this load of riot cops in the proper gear charge up the road in formation and I’m yelling for him but he doesn’t come out and we have to run. I take Stella’s hand to pull her along. Time to go, then. I don’t want it to end. Like the best night ever, you know?
From my window, with the lights off, I watch the streets. I wonder how much they will burn. This is my city, their city, and they want to tear it down. My heart aches for Manchester. For the destruction, the livelihoods lost, the sense of safety gone. Like back in ’96 when the bomb exploded and we saw the devastation. There are fires burning over the river in Salford. The moon rises above the town hall. I keep vigil. It’s all quiet by about two in the morning, but I sit up until dawn. Watch the sunrise. Weeping. Wonder if they’ll be back.
When I get home, mum’s going ape, yelling soon as I get in, but she can’t move that fast cos of her back so I take my new hoodie up and stash it under my bed before I see her. She knows. She always knows and she shouts and I watch her mouth and close my ears. Then she stops. She’s frowning and her eyes have this look. Like the woman on the floor did. Then she’s crying. I hate her bawling. She does it to peck head. Her nose all puffed up and she’s talking about how I’ve ruined my future and how can I be so thick. What future? The job that ain’t never gonna happen? The little gaff and the car and the kids and the holidays that come with it? I’d settle for that – I’d love that. I would fucking love that. But that’s not my future, never was. My future is the same every day – scraping by, never having enough of anything. It’s boredom so deep that sometimes I think I’ll go mental, mornings I wake up and wish I hadn’t. There is nothing on the horizon, no light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing. No change. Just more of the same on and on and on. She’s crying and I know I can’t make it right. So I go to bed.
People come in their hundreds to clear up, carrying brushes and dustpans, bin bags. The sense of camaraderie is palpable, but I haven’t the heart to join them. I don’t think I could hold it together and it hurts to move anyway.
I don’t report it to the police and when I hear the sentences they are handing out I am glad: with months inside for the theft of the most pathetic items, what would they hand down for assault? I despair as I watch the knee-jerk responses. Everyone on their high horses spouting sound bites and platitudes and abuse: scum, scrotes, chavs, thugs, hooligans, gangsters, yobs. Because slapping a label on someone means we no longer have to make any effort to comprehend them – to see them as human. To understand, to investigate, to interrogate. Just make an example of them, teach them a lesson: herd them into prison, mark them for life. Locked up, unsafe and facing an even bleaker existence on release than they had before. Storing up more trouble.
What they have done is despicable. But they are not the only ones. Iraq, the expenses scandal, Abu Ghraib, police corruption, Guantanamo, phone hacking, the bankers who have brought us to our knees with their legal larceny. Oh, this green and pleasant land.
They come for us early in the morning. Thumping and shouting downstairs. I think we’re being robbed. That some knobhead has got the address wrong and thinks we have something worth stealing. (Well – there is the hoodie and the BlackBerry.) But there’s half a dozen in full-body get-up, batons out, screaming, and a psycho dog on a leash barking. Mum’s crying and they arrest me and put handcuffs on and she’s shouting at them, ‘Where are you taking him? What’s he done? Please don’t hurt him.’ I tell her it’ll be all right, even though I’m shit scared.
In
From my window, with the lights off, I watch the streets. I wonder how much they will burn. This is my city, their city, and they want to tear it down. My heart aches for Manchester. For the destruction, the livelihoods lost, the sense of safety gone. Like back in ’96 when the bomb exploded and we saw the devastation. There are fires burning over the river in Salford. The moon rises above the town hall. I keep vigil. It’s all quiet by about two in the morning, but I sit up until dawn. Watch the sunrise. Weeping. Wonder if they’ll be back.
When I get home, mum’s going ape, yelling soon as I get in, but she can’t move that fast cos of her back so I take my new hoodie up and stash it under my bed before I see her. She knows. She always knows and she shouts and I watch her mouth and close my ears. Then she stops. She’s frowning and her eyes have this look. Like the woman on the floor did. Then she’s crying. I hate her bawling. She does it to peck head. Her nose all puffed up and she’s talking about how I’ve ruined my future and how can I be so thick. What future? The job that ain’t never gonna happen? The little gaff and the car and the kids and the holidays that come with it? I’d settle for that – I’d love that. I would fucking love that. But that’s not my future, never was. My future is the same every day – scraping by, never having enough of anything. It’s boredom so deep that sometimes I think I’ll go mental, mornings I wake up and wish I hadn’t. There is nothing on the horizon, no light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing. No change. Just more of the same on and on and on. She’s crying and I know I can’t make it right. So I go to bed.
People come in their hundreds to clear up, carrying brushes and dustpans, bin bags. The sense of camaraderie is palpable, but I haven’t the heart to join them. I don’t think I could hold it together and it hurts to move anyway.
I don’t report it to the police and when I hear the sentences they are handing out I am glad: with months inside for the theft of the most pathetic items, what would they hand down for assault? I despair as I watch the knee-jerk responses. Everyone on their high horses spouting sound bites and platitudes and abuse: scum, scrotes, chavs, thugs, hooligans, gangsters, yobs. Because slapping a label on someone means we no longer have to make any effort to comprehend them – to see them as human. To understand, to investigate, to interrogate. Just make an example of them, teach them a lesson: herd them into prison, mark them for life. Locked up, unsafe and facing an even bleaker existence on release than they had before. Storing up more trouble.
What they have done is despicable. But they are not the only ones. Iraq, the expenses scandal, Abu Ghraib, police corruption, Guantanamo, phone hacking, the bankers who have brought us to our knees with their legal larceny. Oh, this green and pleasant land.
They come for us early in the morning. Thumping and shouting downstairs. I think we’re being robbed. That some knobhead has got the address wrong and thinks we have something worth stealing. (Well – there is the hoodie and the BlackBerry.) But there’s half a dozen in full-body get-up, batons out, screaming, and a psycho dog on a leash barking. Mum’s crying and they arrest me and put handcuffs on and she’s shouting at them, ‘Where are you taking him? What’s he done? Please don’t hurt him.’ I tell her it’ll be all right, even though I’m shit scared.
In
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