“Jude! Stay safe and don’t be late,'' Trevor shouted.
Jude nodded and smiled back, then swooped his hand through his hair, spun on his heel, and bolted away. Leaping puddles and spinning from cars, he warmed his muscles before slowing into a steady lope. Splashing puddles with every heel strike, he junked and swerved through rabbles of addicts.
On he jogged, chin down and smog in his throat. His deep green eyes peered through his brows, blinking away the sheets of rain. Despite the conditions he had become accustomed to in The Gardens, Jude was fit and strong. Trevor fed him well, and he was lucky enough to have a warm dry bedroll in the back kitchen near the heat of the generator. He made this run most days. At seventeen years, he had the vigour only youth could provide, lithe and sharp on his feet.
Pressing on steadily, he glanced up. The sky lowered by the minute, closing in around the streets below like a thick heavy blanket, only it offered no warmth or comfort. He passed countless beggars huddled together in doorways and bus stops, glaring out greedily at the backpack strapped to his shoulders. Here and there, he accelerated out of his jog and leaped one of the many poor addicts lying on the pavement.
As he swivelled past an old red phone box, he clattered into a man rushing against the driving wind and rain. “Sorry, mate!” Jude called as he lost his footing and staggered.
He stumbled on, legs unsteady. He kicked a body on the ground. “Shit. So sorry, I bumped into that guy.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, but the man hadn’t broken stride. “Didn’t…see you there…,” his voice trailed off, as he realised the body on the floor hadn’t even stirred.
A woman lay face down in a murky grey puddle of rainwater, bile, and vomit. Her jeans bunched about her knees, and a dirty needle once buried in her groin now lay harmlessly between her thighs. The backs of her knees glared at him, gangrenous and thick with black scales, plagued with vile boils and blisters. A shiver trembled his spine.
With a bow of his head and a pang of guilt, he ran on. His pace eased down as his mind raced away. Every person he saw afflicted by addiction made him uneasy. It wasn’t their horrific black scales or their rotting skin. It was more that he didn’t know how to save them. The best he could do, he had decided, was to view them and treat them as human beings, not a plague of repulsiveness as most others did. He didn’t think they wanted to be slaves to Croc. Prisoners of the scales. No; circumstance, bad luck, the harshness of the unforgiving world – these factors had made them what they are. Besides, who was he to judge them from his warm bed, with his full stomach?
He sighed, slowing to a walk. Seeing the helpless woman raised thoughts of his father from the recesses of his memory. He was around ten when he had last laid eyes on his dad. A sorry shadow of his former self, he was gaunt and grizzled, with black rings around his lifeless eyes. Hair that had been golden was now dark with grease, falling from his head and sticking to the dried scales and weeping sores on his face. Cowering in the corner of the living room of their old terraced house, like a child in trouble. Through rotten black teeth, he begged mum for help, but she had already given up.
“Help how?” she had cried. “There’s nothing more I can give. You have to help yourself, please! If not for your own sake, then for ours!”
His father looked up, eyes empty of emotion. “Help me…just – money. I need money.”
There was no money. His father had used every last penny on Croc, and when the last penny went, he’d sold everything else.
Tears streamed down Jude’s cheeks as he watched his mother struggle to remove the gold band from her left index finger. Yanking and twisting, anger rising in her eyes, masking sorrow, she eventually wrenched it free and launched it with fury at his father. Jude remembered how he willed his dad to scoop it up and thrust it at his mum, to beg her to put it back on. Scoop it he did and thrust it he did, only not at his wife’s finger but into his own pocket. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but closed it just as quickly, glancing at Jude for a second before staggering to his feet and bustling out the door.
That was the last time he had ever laid eyes on his father. The man who had been his whole world, his hero, just walked out of his life with nothing more than a glance. No more archery lessons, no more cowboy films on Sunday afternoon, no more bedtime stories. Gone.
The squarks of an addict’s song wrenched him from his despair. She was a janky bag of bones, with sunken eyes and too much cheap makeup. Two or three teeth rattling around her gums. Hair matted. Tatty red high heels, knobbly knees knocking as she staggered towards him. She brandished a rusty cook pot at him, a few coins jingling in the bottom. “Here’s a story ‘bout Minnie the Moocher…,” she sang, coarse and raspy and out of tune.
“No, thank you, lady. I’ve no money. I’m really sorry,” he said. He was sincere. If he had a coin, he’d have given it. Perhaps even just to stop the song. He sidestepped her and pushed on. She followed at a hobble.
“...She messed around with a bloke named Smokey,
She loved him though he was cokey,
He took her down to Chinatown and showed her
How to kick the gong around…”
Jude kicked on into a run, leaving her behind. She called after him with a chorus of abuse. He swung a left, into the shadow of the Britannia Hotel. He spat. The place offended him. One of many hotels in Manchester that permanently housed hundreds of middle-class working people. Roomers.
He still couldn’t understand it. How they could live there, warm and safe, with a clean conscience, while thousands wallowed in poverty beneath them. Not to mention the City Guard, who only protected the well-off, occupying the bottom floor of each hotel, securing the building from the homeless and addicted.
The loud thumping of a rhythmic drum filled the air, followed periodically by the clash of symbols. He halted his stride. On his right, he saw what had been a long glass frontage to several shops laying opposite the towering hotel, the glass long since shattered and the shops sat gutted. The only remnant of times gone by was a white sign, hanging loosely from the pillars at the far end: “Dawson’s.”
The inside was a squatter camp. He would pass through on his journey, not through need, but by choice. He pushed his way through a crowd of people watching the drumming street performer, and with a deep breath, he stepped into the camp.
The foul stench immediately assaulted his nose as he trudged along the path carved into the filth on the floor. Despite his familiarity with the slums of the city, the smell caused him to gag every time. A thick musk lingered, akin to sweat but infinitely stronger. The air was damp. Soiled cloth nappies here and there added to the stink, and the unpleasant metallic tinge of blood was present on the tongue. A cocktail of odours only the city’s myriad of squats and slums could provide.
The path meandered across the old shop floors and through the rear partition walls, which had collapsed, allowing the tents, bedrolls, and shacks to continue sprawling into the belly of the massive building. The deeper he walked, the warmer it got. He passed drums of fire and crackling camping stoves, the closeness of the masses creating a stuffy heat, which compounded the stench in the air. Jude grimaced as he moved deeper into the dilapidated filth. He tried to decide what was worse, the cold of the open entrance or the hot stink of the depths. He knew the answer. The smell was sickening, but it wasn’t deadly. The cold would snatch you from your dreams in the night, freeze your blood, and steal your soul.
For those who paid enough mind, the hierarchy of the camp was clear to see. Closest to the freezing open air and relentless rain of the entrance laid blankets and flattened cardboard boxes strewn on the floor. These plots were first come, first served, and they were in high demand. Any who hadn’t squeezed in come night would be out in the cold, and whether they were still breathing come morning would be a matter for fate to decide.
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He pressed on. Rows and rows of tents in all shapes and sizes, not an inch of space between them. In a small clearing in between the tents was a makeshift spit, a small dog rotating over the jumping flames of a campfire. It looked as unappetising as the bucket of excrement that was being flung onto the path not ten yards ahead. He leapt over it and continued along the path, each step he took accompanied by a crack or a crunch as he navigated the syringes and broken glass strewn there.
He neared the rear of the ground floor. He dragged his sleeve over his fist and wiped the sweat from his brow. A heavy metal door on the left wall beckoned him. Above it a green light flickered with a white arrow and the figure of a running man. Next to this sign was another, this one handmade from ply board, the words scribbled in charcoal:
“Dawson's Shanty – No Crocheads on Pain of Death.”
Jude bounded up the stairs, excitement and nerves rising until, at last, he cleared the final step and halted in front of the imposing man at the top.
Jenko was the Shanty Genna, Dawson’s right-hand and head of security. He stood, arms folded, his broad shoulders almost touching both sides of the door frame he leant on. He wore a green vest and a sour frown. On one shoulder and running onto his upper arm was a tattoo of a pensive man who looked just like Jenko did, with dreadlocked hair and a thin moustache running into a chin beard, holding a Ganji-Bud joint. Jude always wondered if it was a portrait of his dad, but he’d never asked.
To his right, taking up the landing, four large men with muscles and tattoos sat at a metal table, playing a curious game with thin white bricks decorated with black dots. Each man had a machete sheathed at his side, and two pump action shotguns rested on the ground under the table. The sickly sweet smell of Ganji-Bud lingered, and a wispy haze hung above their heads. The low buzz of a generator hummed, the landing lit by the red glow of heat lamps fixed high on the walls.
“Nah, bro.” He drew on a thick Ganji-Bud joint and puffed the smoke at Jude. “Do you never learn?”
“Ah Jenko, he’ll be fine! I gave him two pigeons the other day. I’ve had Trevor on my back for that. He thinks I've gotten sloppy.”
Jenko sipped moonshine from a tin hip flask. A black, gold, and green flag adorned the front. “Tsk…” Looking over to his men at the table, he rolled his eyes and landed them stern on Jude. “In the six months I’ve been Genna, you’ve caused me more shit than anything else in this shanty.”
“I’m just misunderstood,” Jude grinned.
“Wasteman,” he said, taking another puff of his joint. “Wherever ya go, shit follows.”
“I’m sure Dawson promoted you to Genna to protect his Croc and Ganji-Bud, Jenko. Doubt he intended you to use your skills to keep a harmless young pigeon hunter out.”
“In one month, you’ve taken the Lord’s daughter out of the shanty without permission twice, started a fire, and threatened to shoot Winston.”
“Winston bit my arse! He was lucky I didn’t shoot him.” He slung his bow from his shoulders and thrust it at the big Genna.
“He’s a guard dog, bro. You were climbing the outside of the Lord’s house. What did ya expect?
“Dunno. Thought he might have given me a warning bark. Oh, and the fire had already started. I was putting it out.”
“With petrol?” asked Jenko with a raised eyebrow.
“Who in their right mind keeps petrol in a bucket near to a cookfire?”
Jenko stifled a laugh. The tension hung in the air for a moment before his shoulders relaxed. “You’re lucky the gyal’s smitten with ya. I saw Dawson skin a bredda alive for far less than what you’ve done. Go in, but I’m telling ya, bro, keep ya quick mouth shut.” He stepped to Jude and snatched the arrows from his quiver. He docked out the last of his joint on the wall and placed the bow and arrows into a metal chest behind his men.
“Anything for you, Mr Jenkins,” answered Jude with more than a hint of sarcasm, and with a wink, he brushed past Jenko and entered Dawson’s Shanty.
The place was alive. Children whooped and raced, men smoked, women drank and laughed. An old music system soundtracked the bustle with a jungle baseline, and Jude passed through with a carefree bounce in his step. He whistled along and clicked his fingers to the one-drop drum.
The huge room was sprawling, packed wall to wall with huts and shacks built with wood and metal, salvaged from abandoned buildings about the city. A far cry from the rooms at the hotel across the road, but infinitely more desirable than the slum below. The ceiling was more than double height, and light bulbs hung like stars in an inkwell sky, dotted here and there, casting circles of light on the walkways below. On the far side, the red glow of heat lamps pulsed, and huge silver fans shifted hot air through the makeshift walkways. Ganji-Bud drifted on the artificial breeze, and its earthy sweetness masked the musky odour of shanty life. A group of old women, crookbacked and wizened, shuffled through the green plants, chopping and dropping buds into canvas sacks. Brooding men clutching machetes eyed him through the leaves. On the walls, many of the windows still had glass in them, or were at least boarded, keeping the heat locked in. The shacks and huts appeared well-made. They were permanent dwellings that housed families, and the conditions were reasonable in comparison to other parts of the city's slums. They made an effort to keep the walkways clean, and Jude always thought the front porches of the shacks looked quite homely.
He averted his eyes as he passed some of Dawson’s soldiers. Tattooed, aggressive, and unwelcoming, six of them stood at a metal barrel, dipping tin cups and drinking. They spoke English, but not like Jude knew it. He picked up something about a shoot-out. He risked a glance. The man doing most of the talking was small and wiry, with a braided goatee and piercing eyes. Beads and chains drooped from his neck, a green bandana on his head. Not men he’d want to be in a shoot-out with.
There were other shanties dotted about the city, though Jude had never been in any of them, only here. Trevor said they were all at war with each other over who sells Croc where. As if there weren’t enough addicts to go around.
In the furthest point of the room, taking up a whole corner from floor to ceiling, was a large shack. Though Jude always thought it more of a house, as it was big and strong and had many small details of crude elegance that the others were lacking. Someone had taken extra care to paint the boards and scaffolding with black paint. Fire barrels lined the low perimeter fence. Jude passed them. As always, he admired the pink plastic statue of a tall bird standing on one leg, decorating a long strip of dull artificial grass, which acted as a path to the house. He’d searched all over the city for one of these to hunt, but he’d never seen one. The front door was a foreboding barrier, painted a bright red, with two glass rectangles of a variety of colours standing proudly in the top half.
Jude strode towards the door. With his head high and his shoulders back, he reached towards the large brass lion's head in the centre. Taking hold of the ring between the lion's teeth, he tapped it against the door three times.
The door flung open, and a young woman sporting a face like thunder burst out, knocking him off balance. Not breaking stride, she stormed along the grass, booting the pink bird off into the distance as she went. She came to an abrupt halt by the barrels, with the back of her head towards the house.
Jude imagined steam shooting out of her ears, and for a split second, he nearly laughed when he saw the enormous head of a wolfhound appear in the doorway. “Fine afternoon, isn’t it, Winston?” he asked with a sheepish step back.
The huge wolfhound snarled and bared its teeth. The powerful head pulling towards Jude was halted only by a thick chain looped around its bulging neck.
“I’ll take that as a yes…”
“Shut your noise, child.” The voice was level, but stern and authoritative, the words delivered with hostility by a powerfully squat man who had appeared in the doorway behind Winston.
“Hello, Dawson,” replied Jude, the smile vacating his face. How could such a small man seem so big, he thought. Dawson was no more than five-eight, but his neck and shoulders were impossibly wide. The forearm straining to hold Winston’s chain was as thick as Jude’s own leg. A tattoo of a black panther baring its teeth adorned his bare barrel chest.
Dawson tugged at his thick black beard with his free hand. Contempt hung in the silence until, at last, he spoke. “Have her back at this door in one hour. A second later, and I'll feed what’s left of your arse to the hound.”
Jude’s eye twitched as he called upon every shred of restraint and stifled a sarcastic reply. “I’ll bring you a few pigeons.”
“Good.” He slammed the door, almost tearing it away from its hinges, and the lion head knocker rattled angrily to a stop.
Jude’s smile instantly reappeared as he spun around and took a running jump over the barrels. “Well, I think that went better than last time,” he laughed as he landed at the pink bird, which was now protruding from a fire drum. Luckily, it wasn’t burning. He picked it up and returned it carefully to its home on the grass.
The young woman turned to face Jude, the tightness in her striking amber eyes relaxed as the thunder in her face rumbled away. The corners of her dark lips upturned, and a brilliant white smile lit up her features. “It could hardly have gone worse, Jude. Last time he gave you half an hour and called you…what was it now?” She pulled a puzzled face and feigned ignorance.
“A jumped-up little shit, I think it was.”
“That was it, and he wasn’t far wrong,” she laughed.
Jude chuckled and threw his arm over her shoulder, and with a smile on his face and spring in his step, he led her back towards the stairs.