Riot Read online

  RIOT

  Riot is a raw, visceral rant by 18 year-old Mark Jones, a college student in a depressed area of Cardiff, South Wales. He’s hemmed in by apathy, sex and violence on all sides and despite his intelligence and humour, he’s sucked into small town life. Ultimately he escapes to Manchester, but something unexpected claws him back.

  It’s bleak, frightening and funny, all at once.

  “The first book by Welsh writer Jones Jones is a compact, elegant little volume containing ten short stories and a novella. Titled The Humiliation Triptych, its presentation is impressive, with neat hardback binding and a sprinkling of absurd, Victorian-style illustrations that – despite being largely random – marry perfectly with the general feel of the writing.” Neon Magazine

  “MARG is an exceptionally well written page-turner and a very strong start for both writer Jones Jones and Salt Publishing’s new Modern Dreams range. Highly recommended.” WAYNE SIMMONS

  JONES JONES was born in Wales in 1977, but now lives in West Yorkshire. He’s had many jobs over the years, including working at a golf course, writing press releases and magazines for big companies, and selling books on a market stall. His short stories have been published in various online magazines, he self-published The Humiliation Triptych in 2012, and his novellas Marg and Riot are published by Salt.

  Also available from Modern Dreams

  Devil On Your Back by Denny Brown

  Sky Hooks by Neil Campbell

  Songs of the Maniacs by Mickey J Corrigan

  The Pharmacist by Justin David

  Precious Metal by Michelle Flatley

  Albion by Jon Gale

  The Organised Criminal by Jarlath Gregory

  Riot by Jones Jones

  Marg by Jones Jones

  Desh by Kim Kellas

  Carrion Men by V.C. Linde

  Choice! by Rachel Medhurst

  Stuff by Stefan Mohamed

  The Blame by Michael Nolan

  Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

  12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Jones Jones, 2014

  The right of Jones Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

  Salt Publishing 2014

  Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978-1-78463-017-1 electronic

  RIOT

  “The cause of the Cardiff riots is the looters; opportunistic, arrogant, amoral young criminals who believe they have the right to steal, burn and destroy. There were no extenuating circumstances and no excuses. Severe sentences must follow.”

  Comment on Cardiff Leader Online

  No matter how hard I hit Stevie Jen, he carries on giving it back. After watching The Fighter, me and him wrap scarves around our knuckles and knock fuck out of each other in my front room. Sweating buckets we are. Dancing like dicks, naked from the waist up. Council house versions of Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.

  He’s a thin, wiry fuck, Stevie. Pale too. Bony torso, ribcage like a stray dog. Dappled with ginger freckles and blue veins, he is. Tiny nipples. But he’s hard as nails. We’re pummeling each other. First him, then me, then him again, ‘til my mam puts her head round the door:

  “You’re eighteen years of age! Soft as shit, y’are. Both of you.”

  I don’t see him much in college nowadays. Rum as fuck, he is; runs about with all the scavs. Some of the estate lot too. Like Wes Edwards, who’s mam has Stout tattooed on one tit and Mild on the other. Stick hairspray cans up their jumpers in class they do, Stevie and Wes. Then they press the nozzle and suck like fuck for a filtered lung-full of aerosol. First time I saw them do it, Stevie nearly passes out. Eyes go into the top of his head.

  Doesn’t give a fuck about lectures, Stevie, just pleases himself. Comes and goes. One afternoon, when I was in Business Management, him and Eds were shagging Cerrys Howell right outside my window. Gives me the thumbs-up, Stevie does.

  Doesn’t enjoy himself half so much at home. Me and him are on the Wii in his mam and dad’s front room, kicking six shades of shit out of each other on ‘Mortal Kombat Armageddon’. Stevie’s little brother Greg comes down and sits by us in front of the settee. He’s not so little, though. Not so thin as Stevie. Taller too. Been at a young offenders place near Stoke for most of the past year. Came out twice as bad as he went in.

  “Giz a go Stevie,” he says, scoffing a piece of toast.

  “No,” Stevie says. “We’re playing.”

  So Greg grabs the controller and the two of them wrestle until Greg gets it free. Then he chucks it across the room and brings his heel down on the consol. Stevie’s trying to get up off the floor coz he knows what’s coming. But Greg brings him down to the carpet, easy.

  After a month of Greg living back home, Stevie moves out. Goes to the flats by the police station. Dossing on the floor of these two lads from town called Powell and Bartley that none of us know. Scruffy fuckers. See them both on the car park bench now and then or shuffling round outside SPAR. So I’m not looking forward to going round there. But since Stevie hasn’t shown his face in nearly six weeks and isn’t answering his phone, I go. Straight from college on a Friday, past the cop shop and into the piss-stained concrete walkway of the flats.

  Nobody about, thank fuck, save for an old woman with a fat Jack Russell. All this stuff going on behind hundreds of green doors. Dinners cooking, crying kids, shouting mams and dads. There’s stagnant puddles that don’t even dry up in the middle of summer. Second floor, E-19. Just like all the others, except the window’s papered-over with scabby old spreads from The Sun. Nobody comes when I knock. I don’t expect them to. I wouldn’t be in if I lived here. I give it another go. Knock, knock, knock just for the fuck of it coz I’ve come all this way. I have a squint at the newspaper in the window. Watford man sets fire to family.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Jonesy,” I say.

  I’m hoping to fuck this is Stevie, not one of the other two. My arse is going as the chain clatters off. But it’s him.

  “Come in,” he says, walking back through the kitchen.

  Jesus Christ, it’s a shithole. Half-eaten cans of food, pizza boxes, cups overflowing with fag butts, piled up bin bags. I follow him to the front room. He’s already flat on his stomach facing the TV, Stevie is, playing ‘Mario Kart’. There’s a fag going in an ashtray by his elbow. I wait ‘til he crashes.

  “Twat,” he says, taking a quick pull.

  “Haven’t seen you for a bit,” I say, sitting down on the armchair.

  “I’ve fucked it off,” he says. “College.”

  It’s dark in here; smoky as fuck. The curtains are drawn and the only light’s coming from the telly. He’s back on with the game, pulling tricks off the ramps.

  “How come you’ve fucked it off?”

  “Moved out from me mam and dad’s, haven’t I?” he says.

  “What you doing for money?”

  “This and that,” he says.

  He jer
ks the controller.

  “What you doin’ with Powell and Bartley?” I say. “They’ll get you into shit.”

  “Couldn’t give a fuck,” he says. “Wanna spliff?”

  I can hear next door’s telly going as he kneels at the coffee table and skins up.

  Over the next few weeks, we hear stories: Stevie’s been done for possession; burglary. Turned over an old girl’s place on the estate. That he’s on smack. You name it, it does the rounds. Then it goes quiet. Two, three, four weeks, like he’s fallen off the face of the earth. Then Vice Principal Brough calls some of us out of the common room.

  “There’s no easy way of telling you this, lads,” he says.

  But I stop listening, I do. I tune in to ‘Everyday Robots’, drifting through the closed door behind Brough.

  At the funeral, I can’t get my head round it’s Stevie lying there. This vicar or whoever is saying how special he was, and fuck me, I look at Ollie and Viv and we think we’re in the wrong place. This vicar wouldn’t know Stevie if he’d come up and lamped him. Which he probably would have done. He’ll be saying exactly the same about some other dead fuck tomorrow. So I take myself off in my mind ‘til they play a recording of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ on a crappy Hi-fi.

  It rattles round the crematorium chapel, tinny as fuck. Then the coffin starts sliding through a curtain at the back. This is sick, this is. I look at Viv and he’s crying his eyes out. I look round. At the back of the chapel there must be thirty or forty men, all in these dark blue suits and matching ties. Our CD peters out and everyone goes quiet.

  “As many of you will know,” the vicar says, “Steven’s father is a long-standing and well-respected member of the Gwyn Jones Male Voice Choir. As a tribute to Steven, the choir, many of whom have so kindly joined us in today’s celebration of Steven’s life, will now sing number 238. The choir would like the congregation to join them for the third verse.”

  Stevie’s dad’s this sniffling white-haired fucker in the front row. Just as I’m thinking what a useless arsehole he’s been to Stevie over the years, this deep down low rumble starts up from the back pews. It rushes over me like the door of some massive oven’s been opened. My heart’s going and my stomach’s going and my whole skin’s crawling to fuck. My eyes are welling up like a five year-old who’s lost his mam. There’s no piano or organ or anything – just this fucking harp and all these voices in harmony that feel like they’re gonna blow the lid off this shit place. Hold it back, soft lad. Hold it back. And I’m doing alright. But it’s when all the others join in, the congregation, everyone round me. Verse three.

  A dyro’th law, Myfanwy dirion

  I ddim ond dweud y gair “Ffarwél”

  I can’t hold it back any more.

  It’s never a good idea to have a drink before a game, especially with Viv. But since I’m just back for the weekend, and Viv and Ollie reckon we’re on a big one, there’s no choice. Been hard to adjust up there in Manchester. Only a few hours up the motorway, but it’s like another country. Good to be back here with people that know me.

  It’s coming up to kick-off, and the three of us are flying after five or six pints of Stella. I can tell we’re in trouble coz Viv’s looking for action even before we’re in the ground. But I couldn’t give a fuck now.

  Half eleven we met, just as Yates’ was unbolting the doors. You could still smell the clean up after Friday night. I’d give my left bollock, now, to have fucked the match off and stayed there all day.

  All done up in my paisley shirt and leather Converse, I am, with Sean Evans up against the wall; my hand at his throat. Ghostpoet’s ‘Dial Tones’ playing loud as fuck.

  Someone told me later that he was ready to lamp me, Sean; so he said. But he could have been ready to do whatever his tiny little heart desired, he wouldn’t have got near me. His hands didn’t move from his sides. Hanging there, limp as you like. Would have put him down inside ten seconds, curly-haired cunt.

  I’m still the same now; just one deep breath away from flying at the fucker on the train who stands too close or the prick on the street who cuts me up. Ready to drop any fuck with a one-two, soon as look at him.

  “Keep away from her,” I tell him, my hand on his throat, pushing that curly mop back against the wall. “Don’t fuckin’ complicate things.”

  Ghostpoet’s in my head. We’re in a sports hall, all blue and yellow tram lines and block flooring, but you wouldn’t know it for all the dry ice and reverb. Wooden climbing beams vibrating like they’re part of the supa-woofers piled in the corner. Mirror balls strobing. Bottles of Jägermeister smuggled down jackets.

  And Sean’s hands don’t move from his sides. Ready to lamp me, my arse. Do it then, Billy-Fuckin-Big-Balls.

  Donna Owens. Big tits, blonde hair, bit of a goer. On and off, me and her, since school. Can’t get enough of me, for some reason. Scott and Charlene, Bonnie and fuckin’ Clyde; childhood sweethearts.

  Just 10 minutes before I get Sean by the throat, me and her are necking round by the pool tables, her brushing the back of her hand against my cock through my jeans. But I don’t want it. Never have. Trying to move my cock away from her hand, twisting my hips like Lee fuckin’ Westwood.

  She’s nice, Donna. Too experienced for me, though. Fucked Carl Thornhill in the common room bogs during one of our off periods. He was sat on the shitter drinking a can of coke when she just knocks on his cubicle door, comes in and undoes his fly. Lifts her little skirt, pulls down her knickers and rides him. Couldn’t believe his luck, Carl couldn’t.

  I’m not into all this shagging. French kissing is more than enough. I’ve tried with Donna though. Last week waiting for the bus after town, Ollie dares me to undo her bra and feel her tits. I snog her, but then pretend I can’t get her bra undone, fumble about with the clasp. I just can’t be arsed with it. I’d rather wank.

  So with all this inner turmoil about why I’m trying to shield my cock from the fittest girl in college, I don’t need some ringletted little runt confusing things further by professing his love to her outside the bogs. She tells me straight away; not interested in shitty little Sean.

  “Weird,” she says, frowning; the same little dimples showing as when she smiles. “Sean Evans just asked me out.”

  So I go and have a word.

  Jamie Johns, twenty-fuckin’-one, got hold of me in there once when I was playing pool. Only needed a black for the match. I’d hardly even noticed the fucker ‘til the day his brother tells me and Viv about his Judo skills. So when he gets hold of me, I don’t lash out coz I’ve got the Judo thing in my mind. I weigh things up. He just walks up, grabs my right hand, bends it back on itself so my wrist feels like it’s about to snap. Keeps his other hand on my right elbow so I can’t bend my arm; locks it out and steers me to the fire escape, like he’s some KGB cunt. When someone does that, you just shut the fuck up.

  For the past two weeks, Viv’s been saying he’s gonna have Jamie; cave his fuckin’ head in. It’s over Tracy again; always Tracy. Like Donna really, best friends in fact, only with dark hair, smaller tits, arguably even fitter. Viv shagged her against the side of her mam and dad’s house in Nant Glyn a few Saturdays ago after a night out down Royal’s. Even worse, first off he fingered her in front of fuck knows how many when they were still in the club. He tells me this in Music Tech while Tracy’s across the table from us.

  “Fuck off,” is all she says.

  But I’ve already heard. Ollie filled me in this morning. Trouble is, Tracy’s meant to be seeing Jamie and he’s heard about all this. Every fucker has. To be fair, he’s not making a song and dance, Jamie. Then again, Viv’s not someone I’d like to have to fuck with. I tried it once when I lost my rag on the football pitch. I jumped in, two-footed; tried to break his fuckin’ leg. He just gets up and looks at me, stud marks from here to there.

  “Don’t bother,” he says. “Don’t fuckin’ both
er.”

  Even though Jamie’s chosen the higher path, Viv’s decided to turn things around, calling him a cunt. Sprayed it on the common room wall even. And in Music Tech, we’re sat on the back row with Viv whispering things to Thin Adam, Jamie’s little brother. That he’s gonna do Jamie, break his fuckin’ fingers for him. But this little shit doesn’t react. I thought his little sphincter would be spasming like fuck; that we’d smell the fear. But he just sits there.

  Then he says: “Whatever, Viv.”

  I lose it.

  “Fuck off Adam, you little tosser,” I say. “Who the fuck d’you think you are? Who the fuck d’you think your brother is?”

  I’m ready to rip Adam’s head off, never mind his fuckin’ brother.

  “So tell me this, soft lad,” I say. “How the fuck’s your brother gonna keep his head on his neck when Viv gets hold of him?”