Londonstani - Gautam Malkani

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the car door.— Can’t you see Davinder’s gettin a parkin ticket?

      Shit, he was right. How can I have missed the traffic warden when the fucker’s standin right in front a me, wearin that yellow jacket that glows in the light an that traffic warden’s hat, the kind security guards wear to look like cops. An in case all that in’t enough, there’s a massive afro oozing out from underneath it. People usually cuss me for being deaf or mute, but not blind.

      Davinder an Jaswinder were standin in the traffic warden’s face, shoutin him down so loud, people spilled out the newsagent’s next door to see, in their own words, what the fuck was goin on ‘ere then.

      —Thirty fuckin seconds, man, dat’s all I wos, goes Davinder. —I got food poisoning, innit. Had 2 vomit in Nando’s toilets. Or wudyu prefer it if I threw up in da street? Oolti out on da pavement here where u cud slip on it?

      How gandah is that? The traffic warden was as ready to swallow this excuse as he was the stomachful a vomit Davinder went on to describe. My own stomach felt like it could offer the boy some inspiration, that’s how much I was dreadin the rinsin I’d just let myself in for. I turned back to face Amit to see whether it’d be a super-rinse with spin cycle or whether he’d just lay into me with a light-wash piss-take. I try an head him off either way by sayin,— Shit, Amit, I’m really, really sorry, man.

      —Ohw, you’we weally weally sowwy, arwe you?

      His Tweety Bird impression again. Bang outta order then, cos I never spoke like that. I never had a problem with my Rs. I never had no stutter an I never even had a lisp, I just had a problem speakin. An I hardly ever have that problem no more anyway. But none a this matters to Amit. I hate the way people bring up your fuck-ups from the past to make your fuck-ups in the present seem even worse. My mum does the exact same shit with my dad. They’ll be all luvvyduvvy n tight but then Dad’ll forget something or fuck up somehow an then it’s thapparh time. She’ll bring up beef she had with him from, like, before I was even born.

      —I’m sow weally weally sowwy dat I tawlk n act like a woman tawlkin n actin like a batty boy, goes Amit again.— Wat’s da point in sittin in da car if you jus gonna let someone give Davinder a parkin ticket? Fuck’s sake, Jas, you give us all nuff grief by being such a sap.

      Amit carries on layin into me for being dickless an also for being dickless to someone like Davinder, someone who was the opposite a dickless. So I’m sittin there wonderin whether that means Davinder’d got a big dick while Amit brings up things like how safe Davinder’d been to us all these years, how we’d already kept him waitin that afternoon, what a great customer he’d been, how he’d given us nuff business an even what a bling car he’d got.

      —Him n Jaswinder bringin all their crew to Hardjit’s fight tomorrow, Amit goes on.— An you pay dem back by bein a sap n lettin em get a fuckin ticket. Fuckin dickless woman. You lucky dat traffic warden in’t got round to givin our own Beemer no ticket yet cos Hardjit’d break yo face. Fuck’s sake, Jas, why da fuck din’t you call us, you sala kutta?

      —I, well, I, the traffic warden, I was kind a, I…er, I, you know, er, you know…

      —For fuck’s sake, boy, how can anyone argue wid’chyu if you can’t fuckin talk?

      —Well…I…I, er…

      Remember that Fatboy Slim CD? The one that all the goras liked cos it mixed electric guitars with breakbeats. Remember what it was called? You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.

      —I…I, er, I did call you guys. I was shoutin for you lot to come.

      —Wat’s da point in dat? How we meant to hear you holler from da muthafuckin car?

      —No, I…I, er foned you, man. I was shoutin on the fone.

       Rudeboy Rule #1:

      My dad always said that you shouldn’t ever lie cos you’ll have to tell another ten lies to back it up. However, Hardjit’d taught me that if the back-up lies are good enough, then so fuckin what?

      How to tell a good lie, though? Especially when sometimes you stammer even when you tellin the truth. Mr Ashwood taught us in History lessons that Hitler thought a good lie was a big lie.— He even had a minister for propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Jas, explain to the rest of the class what propaganda is. However, Hardjit’d taught me that a good lie is a lie with lots a detail in it. That’s why, right now, Davinder an Jaswinder were being even more gandah, listing the ingredients a Davinder’s imaginary vomit. Rice, daal, aaloo ki subjhi mixed in a base a bhindee an bile. If the back-up lies were detailed enough, then so fuckin what?

      —I foned Davinder to warn him, innit, I say to Amit as I carefully reached for the Nokia 3510i in my back pocket an dialled Davinder’s number, stealth-style behind my back. Davinder an Jaswinder were frettin so much they probly wouldn’t hear the fone ring anyway. A long way indeed, baby. —Trust me, Amit, I din’t have time to come in an get you guys cos the traffic warden only just showed up. But I swear I foned Davinder though. Check his fone if you think I just be chattin shit. A hundred bucks says it shows a Missed Call.

      Amit walks over to Davinder an does that whole Chinese whispers thing in his ear. Sure enough, Davinder’s Sony Ericsson P800 colour display showed a Missed Call from me, prompting Davinder to hold his forehead as if to go, Shit, how could I be such a deaf khota? Amit held his palm out towards me, as if he was givin me blessings, though what he was really going was, Shit, sorry, Jas, my bad. Jaswinder held his own palm out to Davinder, though not in a givin blessings kind a way but stead pretendin like he was gonna give him a thapparh across the face for being deaf. All a them too vexed to check the exact time the Missed Call had been missed. Then there’s Hardjit givin me a proud grin as he gets in the car an silences the drama outside by shuttin his door.— U jus call’d Davinder now, din’t u, bruv? I always knew u could b nuff smart when u proply tryin.

      Davinder’s leather rucksack had twenty fones inside it this time. I nearly dropped the thing when Ravi passed it to me, though obviously I din’t look like I nearly dropped it. Most customers usually give us bout two or three at a time but Davinder normly gave us more’n ten. That was why we bought him some Nando’s or kebabs or whatever whenever we did dealings with him. The bredren was our best customer, you see, an if a good desi knows anything, it’s how to look after their best customer.

      I don’t even want to know where Davinder’d got all his merchandise from, but it kept us in business an you can’t be a businessman if you in’t in business, innit. Our business is reprogramming mobile fones, which basically means unblocking them or unlocking them so that they can be reconfigured. To unlock a fone, you change its security code so that the handset can be used on a different network from the one it was originally bought on. Most people came to us cos they wanted to swap fones with their dad or mum or sister or whoever but keep their own fone numbers an tariffs an stuff. After all, what’s the point in your dad havin a blinger fone than you when he probly can’t even use the thing proply. So say your dad gets a handset upgrade to some slick Samsung on his Orange network an you want to swap it with your Nokia 6610 that you got on a T-Mobile network. You can’t just stick the SIM chip carryin your fone number an tariff an stuff into your dad’s new handset. It won’t work cos most fones are locked to the network they were originally bought on. To switch networks you gotta unlock the handsets by changin the security code. For some reason, the fone companies din’t allow people to have their fones unlocked in proper fone shops. In business-speak, that meant the fone companies had gone an left a gap in the market.

       Rudeboy Rule #2:

      Havin the blingest mobile fone in the house is a rudeboy’s birthright. Not just for style, but also cos fones were invented for rudeboys. They free you from your mum an dad while still allowing your parents to keep tabs on you.

      So any time anyone round here wanted to enforce Rudeboy Rule #2 by doing one a these family fone swaps while keepin their own fone number, all they had to do was dial

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