Chapter Five

Micky McManus's day started badly and got worse.
First off, he woke up to find that he was still Caucasian. Despite the picture of Coolio sellotaped over his mirror beside his bed, there was no getting away from the fact that he was still a big ass ol' white boy.
Micky McManus wanted to be black. He knew that everything in his miserable, inadequate life would be OK if he were big and shiny and graceful and menacing. Instead of short and stubby and freckled and ginger.
Secondly, Kelly, the girl he'd met the previous night at Major Disasters, was in the process of doing a runner. Not that she was much of a girl - a bit of a bargain basement one - but she was better than nothing.
Micky's sex life was an unsatisfactory and unsettling one. On the rare occasions he persuaded a woman to sleep with him - and money usually had to change hands - he suspected they did so just to see if he had ginger pubes. Followed by a quick look to see if his lad was freckled. (It was.)
To be fair, though, Kelly hadn't had much interest in the colour of Micky's pubes. On the contrary, she couldn't have cared less. She'd slept with him because she couldn't afford the taxi fare home to Bray.
"Are you going?" Micky asked anxiously from the bed. As Kelly was already dressed and half-way out the door, the answer was obvious.
"I've to go to work," she said.
"Can I give you a call?"
Kelly shrugged assent.
"But I don't have your number," he pointed out.
"It's in the book."
"But I don't know your name."
"That's in the book too."
And she was gone.
Desolate, Micky stared at the recently slammed door, then put on Cypress Hill, very, very loud. After a couple of songs about smackin' his bitch up, he felt restored. While his floor, walls and stomach vibrated from the bass-line, he was briefly at peace.
Though there was no reason to get dressed, he put on his black shiny track suit and the box-fresh trainers he'd managed to liberate ten minutes before he was sacked from the sports shop. Actually, the liberation was why he was sacked.
He decided not to wear his gold chains. It was too early in the day. And they'd started to turn his neck green.
In front of the mirror over the sink, he experimented putting gold foil from a bar of Dairy Milk over one of his teeth, then smiling at himself. God, he wished he could afford the real thing. After Cypress Hill he put on NWA - a few good shouty raps about killing pigs with an Uzi. Great stuff.
Someone was knocking at his door. Probably one of those big-ass culchee bro's complaining about the noise. "Fuck off and ting, muthafucka," he shouted.
But when the knocking got louder and the door began to warp Micky lurched rhythmically to open it. "Yo! Oh fuck, hello, Mr Roberts."
It was the big bad bollocks looking for the rent.
Usually Frank Roberts sent a lacky but as he was on the premises - a quick visit to Dympna - and Micky was in arrears by a week, he'd decided on a personal call. He felt the need to remind himself that he was a powerful man, and what better way than to bully someone?
"Mr Roberts, suh." Micky smiled nervously, still with the gold foil on his tooth.
"Turn off that racket!"
Micky did so with alacrity.
"What can I do for you, Mr Roberts?"
"Money, Micky."
Quaking, Micky tried to explain. He'd lost his job in the sports shop, it wasn't his fault, he'd be starting a new job on Monday, as soon as his P45 came through from the old job he'd have money.
"Micky, this won't do," Roberts said, with horrible calm. "I'm a businessman, you understand my position? If I put an ad in the Herald this afternoon, there'll be fifty, sixty, a hundred people, queueing up to pay to live in this lovely bijou home."
Bijou. He loved that. He'd asked Patsy, "What's that French word, beginning with 'B' that means small and posh?"
"Bijou," she'd said, without looking at him.
"Bijou," he'd agreed, pretending to write it in the crossword.
Micky's heart sluiced through him on a wash of cold fear. If Roberts threw him out he'd have nowhere to go. No family bosom to be welcomed back into. And he couldn't go back on the streets, the cold, dirt and tedium nearly killed him the last time.
"Mr Roberts, I promise..."
"Collateral, Micky. Provide me with collateral."
Roberts looked with mild revulsion around the shoe-box room. How could people live like this? The only thing of value he could see was the ghetto blaster. That'd have to do.
"No, please, Mr Roberts," Micky said hoarsely. "Why don't you take the kettle? Or the sandwich maker? Or the superser? Or the bed, even?"
"Because they're all mine, you tool."
With distaste, Roberts crossed the threshhold - Christ, the floor was sticky! - and unplugged the tape player. "When you've paid me what you owe me, you'll get it back. Until then, it'll look lovely on my sideboard."
Roberts knew he was being uncommonly compassionate and accomodating - if he'd been firing on all cylinders Micky would be in the process of packing his few paltry possessions and the phone would already be hopping with enquiries from potential tenants. But the events of recent days had knocked the stuffing out of him.
He departed, the tape player under his oxter, leaving Micky utterly bereft. It was like a part of him had been amputated. He hated the silence. He could hear the chattering of his own tormented thoughts. Without the blanket of noise to hide behind he was brought face-to-face with his own ginger inadequacies. And what was he supposed to do all day now?
"Sheee-it!" he exclaimed.
Not for the first time he wished he had a huge mother-fucking Uzi. For ages he lay on the unmade bed, steeped in resentment, playing out incredibly violent fantasies that all ended with Roberts begging Micky to kill him to put him out of his torment.
Suddenly he knew what he was going to do. In every man's life comes a moment where he has to choose between lying down and being trampled on, or standing up and fighting for what's right. He was going to get his tape-player back. He was going to go to Roberts house and rescue it, or his name wasn't Gangsta MMC Manus.

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