What Came Before He Shot Her

            This was raw meat to a starving lion. The fact that Joel had been writing poetry indicated to Ivan— however falsely—that all was not lost when it came to his young friend. He sat at the table, drew the poetry over, and read. The room was hushed and expectant, as was Joel.

He’d come up with a way to explain why the poetry was so wretched: No quiet place to write, he’d say, if Ivan wanted to talk about the general deterioration of his work. Toby watching the telly, Ness talking on the phone, radio playing, Aunt Ken and Dix going at it like monkeys up above in the bedroom . . . This did not make for the solitude required for inspiration to translate itself into words. But until things changed at home—which meant until the restrictions on his movements were somewhat lifted—this was probably the best he’d be able to do.

            Ivan looked up. “These are very bad, my friend.”

            Joel let his shoulders sink, a motion of spurious defeat. “I been tryin to sort how to fix ’em, but maybe they’re just ready for the bin.”

            “Well, let’s not throw out the baby,” Ivan said, and he read them another time. But when he’d done so, he looked even less hopeful. He asked the question Joel was waiting to hear: What did Joel think had altered his writing so very much?

            Joel went through his list of prepared excuses. He made no suggestions for rectifying the situation, but he did not need to do so when Ivan’s entire conditioning programmed him to make the suggestion himself. Would Joel’s aunt consider lifting part of the restrictions she had in place, in order to let Joel attend Wield Words Not Weapons once again? What did Joel think?

            Joel shook his head. “No way c’n I ask her. She’s dat cheesed off wiv me.”

            “What if I phoned her? Or stopped by the charity shop to talk?”

            This was exactly what Joel had hoped for, but he didn’t want to seem overly enthusiastic. He said that Ivan could certainly try. Aunt Kendra felt dead bad about having put the cops on to Ivan in the first place, so she might want to do something to make up for that.

All that remained was waiting for the inevitable, which didn’t take long to happen. Ivan paid a call upon Kendra that afternoon, taking with him Joel’s five poems. They had never met personally so when Ivan introduced himself, Kendra felt a rush of chagrin. She dismissed this quickly, however, telling herself that she’d done what the situation called for when Joel had gone missing. When a white man involves himself with black kids, she reckoned, he has only himself to blame if something happens to one of them and he gets suspected of malfeasance in the aftermath.

The fact that Ivan was so ready to let the issue go melted any resistance to his ideas that Kendra might have had. The ideas were simple enough anyway: Ivan explained that Joel’s writing, which was surely the best representation of his future, was suffering under the restrictions his aunt had placed upon him. While he—Ivan—had no doubt these restrictions were absolutely well deserved, he wondered if Mrs.

            Osborne might lift them just enough to allow Joel to return to Wield Words Not Weapons, where he would once again be exposed to other poets whose criticism and support would not only improve his verse but also allow him to mix with people of all ages—young people included—who were engaged in a creative act that kept them off the streets and out of trouble.

            As Dix’s efforts with Joel—taking him daily to the Rainbow Cafe— had not paid off, as Fabia Bender was still suggesting an outside influence to keep Joel on the straight and narrow, as Wield Words Not Weapons was at least convenient and Joel’s attendance there did not involve a long bus ride to the other side of the river to some programme about which Kendra knew nothing, as she could wrest from Joel his word of honour that he would attend the poetry meetings and then return home . . . Kendra agreed. But if she found out he’d gone anywhere besides Wield Words Not Weapons on a night on which the poetry meeting took place, she would sort Joel in ways that currently defied his imagination.

            “We clear on that?” she asked her nephew.

            “Yes, ma’am,” he told her solemnly.

            INSIDE, JOEL WAS clicking along, making plans. Neal had resurfaced, which was hardly a surprise. He kept his distance, but still he watched and Joel never knew where he would see him next. The other boy seemed capable of simply materialising, as if some force scrambled the atoms of his being, transported him, and reassembled him wherever he wished to be. He also seemed to have contacts everywhere— boys whom Joel had never before associated with Neal—and these contacts shoved into Joel hard when crowds were about, murmured Neal’s name at bus stops or in Meanwhile Gardens, shouted out a greeting to a Neal who could not even be seen just outside Toby’s school. Neal Wyatt became like an undercurrent, and Joel knew that he was merely biding his time as he waited for the moment when he’d be able to settle the score that Kendra had built up when she’d given his name to the cops.

            All of this told Joel that he had to return to the Blade, and Wield Words Not Weapons gave him the opportunity. When the regular night for the meeting came around, he set off with his aunt’s warning in his ears. She’d be ringing Ivan to make sure he went to Wield Words and nowhere else. Did he understand? He said that he did.

He didn’t have so much a plan as knowledge, which he intended to use. He’d been to enough poetry evenings to know how Ivan organised them. When it came time for Walk the Word, those who weren’t up for the challenge afforded themselves of the refreshments, mingled, talked poetry, and sought out Ivan and each other for private help with their work. What they didn’t do was keep an eye out for what one twelveyear-old boy was up to. That, Joel decided, would be his moment, but he needed a bad poem to make it work.

            He made certain that everyone knew he was in the Basement Activities Centre: He mounted the dais and read out one of his most ghastly pieces. At the end of his reading, he gamely suffered through the silence until from the back of the room a throat cleared and someone offered a bit of criticism meant to be constructive. More careful criticism followed and a discussion ensued. Through it all, Joel did his best to act like the serious student of verse that they supposed him to be, taking notes, nodding, saying ruefully, “Oooh. Ouch. I knew it was bad, but you lot are startin to vex me,” and going through the rest of the motions. These included a conversation afterwards with Adam Whitburn, one in which he was forced to listen to encouragement about a creative act that no longer held any importance to him.

            After Adam clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Ballsy of you to read it, mon,” it was time for Walk the Word, and Joel eased his way to the door. He reckoned that anyone who noticed would conclude—as he intended—that he was slinking off in embarrassment.

He jogged the distance from Oxford Gardens to Mozart Estate. There, he wound his way through the narrow streets to the squat that stood in Lancefield Court. It was completely dark this time, however, with no Cal Hancock at the foot of the stairs, guarding the Blade from whoever might want in on the business he was conducting.

Joel muttered, “Damn,” and considered his next move. He hustled back through Mozart Estate and, in the dim light, he looked at the housing plan, a large metal map posted in Lancefield Street. This gave him nothing useful at all. The place was a sprawl and although he knew that a girl called Veronica lived within—mother to the Blade’s most recently born son—he had to wonder how likely it was that he could find her and, even if he found her, how likely it was that the Blade would be there. She’d served her purpose; he’d moved on. The block of flats in Portnall Road where Arissa lived was a more likely place to find him.

Joel trotted to this location next, arriving out of breath at the building midway down the street. But again, no Cal Hancock lounged in the doorway, which meant no Blade upstairs.

            Joel felt thwarted on every side. Time was running out. He was due home at the end of Wield Words Not Weapons, and if he wasn’t there, there would be a hell designed by his aunt to pay. He felt defeated, and that feeling made him want to punch his hand into a dirty brick wall. There was nothing for it that he could see but to head for home.

He chose a route that would take him down Great Western Road. He began to think of another plan to find the Blade, and he was so deeply into his thoughts that he didn’t notice when a car slid up beside him. He only realised it was there when his nose caught an unmistakable whiff of weed. He looked up then and saw the Blade behind the wheel of a car with Cal Hancock in the passenger seat and Arissa in the back, leaning forward to lick her man’s tattooed neck.

            “Blood,” the Blade said. He braked the car and jerked his head at Cal, who got out, took a hit of weed, and nodded at Joel. He said,

            “Happenin, bred,” but Joel made no reply. Instead, he said to the Blade, “Neal Wyatt ain’t actin like