This section is being held for my current opus, a novel that, at the moment, I intend to call ‘Three Men and, Eventually, a Dog.
It is my plan to introduce here the idea of presenting visitors with sections of my novel as I feel that it is appropriate in terms of the progress of the work. You may wish to contact me, please feel free to use;
N.B. identification of HYPOS would be particularly welcome! Tony
Title – Three Men and Eventually, a Dog
This book began as an idea for a short story because the Author was feeling lazy at the time. Like Topsy however it ‘ grewed and grewed. It developed an impetus of its own. It s a work of fiction but many of the characters are based upon people I have known; some even members of my own family. The names however are all fictional, as are all the plots. The Author unfortunately often feels lazy. If he were at school his report would conclude: Could do Better
Part One
Attack and Revenge
Part One – A DAY OF VIOLENCE
‘Pandora, the first woman was made of clay at the request of Zeus. When this woman of clay had received life she was endowed by the Gods with every gift, and Zeus gave her a box, which he directed her to give to the man who married her. Epimetheus married her and opened the box, whereupon there issued from it all the evils that have since afflicted the human race. Hope alone remains at the bottom of the box.’
By that token it is hope that we must cherish. Authors in particular!
Pitsh! Patsh! Ver vemen, veys ikh nit! becomes Biff! Bang!- but I don’t know who bashed whom. {Yiddish Proverb}; and there are many of those.
Well there it is, the beginning of their story. And so it comes ahead, Friday night in Whitechapel, like a gentle sigh at the end of each turbulent week. As evening approaches the petrol fumes being to clear and the ULEZ zone, in the future would have come into its own as the traffic, with mindless confusion, niggles its way out towards the centre of the city or eastwards towards London’ famous green belt.
The several pubs within a literal stone’s throw of the London Hospital are well into their parting by the first flux of customers of the weekend as they depart homewards. The weaker, wearier mortals, are bent on that one last illicit drink before tackling the crowded journey back to the green suburbs away from the East End. Then, slowly, the second wave will begin to appear; the locals are those who will gratefully re-visit their pub for the weekend.
It was in just one of those pubs that Mallik and Ken first met. It was on another Saturday night, perhaps two years previously when the two young men were each in the pub with his own group of friends. It was not difficult to annoy someone to the point of violence in a pub in that part of London but that happened very rarely to Ken. He was too well known and even by those who did not know him his lean heathy and athletic muscular figure was a put off, a no – no, to most would-be challengers. That night, however there was someone who wanted to take him on.
Ken could never recall just how it came about but a remark was made and, suddenly he was being ‘offered out’ by this geezer from Myrdle Street, plus some of his friends who were also seeking some of the action when the odds were three to four to one. Even then Ken was not prepared to back down because he didn’t know what he needed to back down for.
The confrontation grew more and more angry. Fisticuffs inside the pub were not-on because the Landlord had his own very efficient and violent methods of dealing with ‘breakers of his code’. The violence, with Ken on the minority end of the deal, was about to move outside when suddenly the light around him seemed to dim as a huge figure sidled up to stand at Ken’s side. It was Ken’s future friend Mallik and he was a huge man, very much size one and apparently made of granite. The sort of face he carried was one that you did not want to catch glaring at you across the floor of a pub, or anywhere else for that matter. For reasons of his own Mallik had decided that his presence would even up the odds, and that’s the way the two men met and became friends. That particular fight never took place because the ‘would Be’s’ suddenly became the ‘no thank You’s’. Mallik and Ken were friends from that moment on.
Moving on to the night in question however we see the two men, Mallik shutting up shop at his factory in Fieldgate Street and Ken sitting comfortably in a tube train on his way to Whitechapel where the two friends were due to meet for their Friday evening drink in the very same pub where they had first met. Mallik, a true Muslim, would make an exception to the rules by having the occasional beer with a friend; much like some Jews, mainly the male of the species will make an exception to the rule against Pork for the delights of bacon. Don’t argue, I know you don’t! If you read my book Who Cares? You will see how and when I excepted myself from that Illogical exception!
Ken was a very fit twenty eight year old young man who had been studying and excelling at the martial art of full contact Karate since he was sixteen. Like most proficient and modest Karate experts he kept his skills very much to himself. He never flaunted his ability and, one look at him usually dissuaded most opposition.
On the evening in question Ken was sitting comfortably and quietly on a corner seat in the tube train when the noisy crew from hell came on board in the form of four young men, somewhat the worse for drink and foul language. The lady sitting two seats away from Ken, suddenly very nervous, began to move to get up from her seat to move away. Ken smiled, leaned across to place his hand gently her arm whilst shaking his head. “No need to move” he smiled at her. She, startled, sat back in her seat. Ken then turned his attention to the noisy, bolshy foursome.
Ken’s years of training and fighting in the dojo had left him totally confident in his ability although it rarely came into use beyond a quivering, sometimes angry, usually nervous, stand-off by an uncertain opposition. The group of four now across the carriage a few feet from him, and the erstwhile very nervous lady, gave him no problems. He well knew that if he needed to act then his actions against the first one would persuade the other three that they wanted no part in any continuing ‘discussions’.
With more hope than expectation he began “Come ln lads, let’s have a bit of quiet and a lot less foul language. You’re disturbing the neighbours.” At that he nodded towards the now re-terrified lady beside him.
“Piss off cunt. What d’you think you can do about it?” Ken smiled, a confident smile. “Well I won’t visit you in hospital that’s for sure.”
It took a few moments for that to sink in. The fists opposite clenched and the man rose in sudden rage but, unfortunately for him Ken moved at the same moment and he was still on the rise when that angry man was also still in motion and at the top of his move towards Ken whose fist, aided by the approaching motions of the two men, caught ‘Mr angry’ full in the mouth. Ken never discovered just how many teeth he shattered that evening, neither did he care. Any fight or feeling for fight was eliminated from all concerned on the opposite seats with that single blow. The lady, however, was clearly terrified by the incident, Ken offered to walk her home and it was for that reason that he arrived late for his pre-arranged meeting with Mallik.; a lateness that he was to deeply regret for many moons to come. The lady, nonetheless, arrived home safely and in much better spirits than when she was seated on the dramatic tube train.
Mallik, in the meantime, had finished closing up his factory on the two of the three floors of that block in Fieldgate Street. There is an air of relief in the East End for the most part as it performs the weekly task of shutting up shop on a Friday evening. There was a time back in the days circa 1975 when there was still a barely tangible but still present Jewish influence in the area and ancient Jews, left behind by poverty or faith or even by choice and who had remained, in the wake of the post war exodus of their fellows to more opulent suburbs made their way each Shabbos, silently to Schule.
Despite the changes though, and still it comes, Friday night in Whitechapel; a sad and forgotten promise of better things to come from the week to come. Muslims now; Indians Pakistanis and many more, and of all generations can now be heard at worship. And so the wheel of immigration turns and grinds ever onwards. Immigration that, despite the eternal naysayers and doom-mongers has formed this wonderful land into the huge and potentially powerful mixture of creeds and languages that it is becoming.
Ken’s real name was not Ken. That was an inheritance from his late teens when he occupied one of three flats set on a triangular landing in a local edifice of Peabody Buildings. Three of them there were, frekhe bkhurim ale (Cheeky boys all!) with misleading Yiddish name tags on their doors, ordained to mislead anyone searching for unpaid debts of which there were many in those days. Ken’s mislead from his real name Danny [Daniel Kenwood] as he was the third of the evasion group and had chosen the disingenuous selection ‘Ken de Gebn’ Yes, you’ll get’, as near as dam-it in English Not Jewish, Ken, but very happy to exist and enjoy the Yiddish ‘handle’. From that piece of avoidance, he was gradually selected for the permanent handle, Ken, which stuck with him long after he owed money to anyone. He had long since parted company with both of the other two boychicks!
Having made certain that the woman was safely and happily secured in her own ground floor home, back of Middlesex Street Ken turned to make his belated way back to the pub. All the while he was mentally retelling the story of the evening’s bit of excitement to his friend Mallick.
The illicit force behind the public face takes great care not to attract too much attention to itself. It is, however, no less ruthless than its predecessors. There are those who know of its presence. There is a permanent manifestation of the half felt, always tangible energy of hidden violence. It is not and never was the punk, mindless, boozed up violence of the football crowd, no never that. It is cruel, hard and calculating. One knows the people involved for they are an adult cross section of the kids we grew up with, the kids we went to school with. When we meet them in the pub, they greet us. They are all hail fellow well met! They call us by our first names as if we are old buddies, which sometimes is the case. They all love their children and their pets. There is not one common factor as to why they are involved.
To add another dimension the money is not always easy, and the life can be hard and dangerous. It can be violent and sometimes, fatal. It is often harsh and sudden warfare under the surface in which the rules are simple: do or be done! Did they have hard or difficult childhoods? Didn’t we all? As in all walks of life the better game is directed by the experts, the cool heads sometimes the callous brains. In the case of organised crime, the experts are gutter animals living under a genial façade, well, sometimes under a genial façade. Their mindless ferocity has been learned in the back streets and dark alleyways, often as children and it knows no mercy, no pity.
Thankfully, the rougher game is usually played within a very tight circle. Both victim and tormentor have a vested interest in secrecy. The police know, of course and for the most part they work hard to fight the insidious, parasitic strangle hold. From time-to-time headline progress is made. Police and criminal hit the columns and broadcasts together for a few days. Arrest follows headline arrest which stirs the pool of public awareness for a few slender moments. The ripples subside as the interest fades and in the quiet aftermath fresh faces insinuate to replace the old. There is but little respite for the established victims of the deposed tzars. There are few who try to buck the system. There are fewer still who live to tell the tale.
On our particular Friday night not so very long ago when Mallik and Ken were due to meet up and Ken was on his way to see a frightened lady home to her place back of Middlesex Street ;when in a dark courtyard, not a good stone’s throw from the London hospital there lurked not hate which could have been understandable, but simple, cold retribution. Four pairs of eyes peered from darkly strategic corners of the squalid courtyard behind the big green gates that gave on to the road, the road that was Fieldgate Street. Their victim’s hour was approaching, approaching fast. With breath baited they could hear him on the landing above. He would make no sound, no sound of alarm, they would see to that. Even if he did it would do him no good for there was no help on hand for him, not there, not at that time of night. There was only the coughing, spitting pushing and shoving queue of ‘hard-ups’ hoping to be in turn to get a night’s sleep in Rowton House and they would not interfere with the doings behind those ancient green gates. The four were there to do a thorough job. They were experts in their trade and were intent on balancing certain underworld accounts.
Ken had just left the quite attractive, a bit older than him, and now unstressed woman back of Middlesex Street and had turned to walk back toward the pub on the corner near the London Hospital. Our Mallik felt himself to be a contented man as he closed the door of his third-floor factory on that Friday night.
לעבן און טויט ( lebn un toyt) (life and death)
Yes, indeed Abdul Mallik felt himself to be a contented man as he closed that door and began to put the worries and battles of the week behind him. He began to relax from the sweating late summer heat of the East End with its sticky heat scented with the sickly smell of the roasting coffee from the blending plant across the yard. That icon was closed now for the week but the stale scent lingered on far into the weekend. The oppressive atmosphere together with the steamy heat from the boiler of the Hoffman pressing machine could easily grind a man down by the end of the long day that he always worked. Mallik turned his face away and gratefully towards the open window on the dark landing through which window the late breeze bustled and busied the tiny swirls of dust on the stone floor of the landing. He smiled quickly; the window catch was so old that over the years the holes in the bar had worn the metal tooth to a fine point. It had eventually broken off entirely, leaving the bar as a noisy and helpless rasp, forever jerking back and forth on the useless stub.
Yet even as that contented man turned and smiled, that unseen and unsensed and very eager four pairs of eyes continued to keep vigil; watchful for any sight of a victim as they waited in the courtyard below. A lonely cat called a mournful challenge in the heavily scented gloom as Abdul Mallik turned at the top of the stairs and took his first step down towards the yard and the patient retribution waiting there. Then, halting, one could have heard a quietly muttered oath as he turned back towards the now closed factory door and factory alarm test button that was sited there. Our man had set the alarm inside before closing the door, but the test needed to be made to ensure that the alarm had indeed been set properly. to be continued…