Junk - Melvin Burgess [29]
My tools are superglue and subversion. No one gets hurt, everyone has a good time, including my victims. They get the day off work. I never heard anyone complain about that.
Vonny sidled up to me outside the NatWest on Chisem Street and hissed, ‘Jerry’s smoking…’
I said, ‘Oh.’ I mean, what’s new? ‘When is Jerry not smoking?’ I enquired.
‘Yes, but he’s giving some to Gemma…’
I said, ‘Oh, dear.’
Vonny said, ‘What shall we do?’
I said, ‘Play it by ear.’ I posted my card and led the Outlaws up the road to HSBC, three shops further down. I ask you. What do you need four banks for on one street?
Although we’re not really a collective, you understand. It’s just me and whoever I can get to come along with me on the night.
To be quite honest, I didn’t care one little bit if Gemma was smoking a bit of dope. Frankly, I’d rather Jerry didn’t smoke on a stick-up. If we get caught it just confuses the issue. It’s the sort of thing that gives them an excuse, something to latch on to. You know-drug-crazed punk anarchists glue banks…
But still, this is scarcely a military operation. And why shouldn’t he share it with Gemma? The reason why I said, ‘Oh dear,’ was that Vonny was having problems with it. The usual sort of thing. Gemma wanted to do one thing and Vonny wanted her to do another. It’s called politics.
I hate politics.
Vonny walked alongside me.
‘She’s only fourteen, you can imagine the mess the police or the press would make of it.’
‘Corrupting the youth of the nation, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
I beamed. ‘But we are!’
The trouble is that Vonny comes out on a stick-up because she really does think we are affecting the financial running of the area. She thinks people will lose their money, the economy will get into trouble, that sort of thing.
Render unto Caesar, I say. I’m fishing for hearts and souls. The bank manager’s heart, the bank clerk’s, for Gemma’s and Tar’s, for Vonny’s… yes, and for yours, too. Go on – be a devil. Do your bit. Stay in bed today.
We had a bit of an argument outside the Co-operative Bank. Jerry reckoned we ought to let them off because they were co-operative.
‘They’re still a bank,’ I pointed out.
They got glued.
Gemma and Jerry were having a good time by the sound of it. I was actually getting a little nervous myself. Her giggles were getting slightly hysterical and she was beginning to trip over things rather a lot. Vonny was getting extremely annoyed. She was walking in front of them glancing angrily over her shoulder. I gathered that Jerry had ignored her wishes not to get Gemma stoned. Tar was with Vonny and they were engaged in an intense-looking conversation, which I was willing to bet was political, and about Gemma.
Oh, dear.
It gets in everywhere.
When you walk down a high street in Bristol, you have so much going on around you. Butcher’s shops, for example. We were standing outside a butcher’s shop. I’m a vegan myself. It’s an issue. All around us the streetlights were blazing away, burning up the fossil fuels. Banks and insurance companies investing in death and disease. Chemists selling cosmetics that have been tested by being dripped in monkeys’ eyes. Plenty of opportunity for Vonny to spread a bit of political awareness.
And overhead the stars. It was a lovely night. When you stepped out and lifted up your head and looked up above the roofs and the traffic and the people you could hear the wind blowing in among the roofs and the stars overhead.
So what was Vonny doing?
Bending Tar’s ear about Gemma.
Just what he needed.
Just the thing to endear him to us. Just what he needed after spending fourteen years being brought up by two monsters.
Vonny is a lovely person. She’s ever so motherly, always bringing home stray cats and making biscuits and giving money to beggars. Always trying to