Robbing Hoods

Dom Tenby had an hour to get home. Home was where his son, partner and dinner awaited. And it was where he’d hope to find a little sleepy sympathy in the wake of another bad day. A day in which redundancy rumours circulated like a noose in a gale above his head. A day in which the juniors he’d hired a few years back continued to impress with new ideas, fresh eyes and annoying enthusiasm that were getting them closer and closer to ousting him from the role that kept his family in a modest house that didn’t befit his senior management status.

Thoughts of the office faded with every step towards London Bridge train station. As he walked, Tenby became concerned that his was becoming a dog’s life. More and more, he looked forward to taking a shit during office hours, walking away from the place at 5.30 and eating the imaginative meals his partner served up most evenings. Dom-Dom-Dom domesticated Dom. Anyone want to substitute my suburban life for theirs?

Sudoku in the London Evening Standard could only keep thoughts of the overdose razorblade hosefume at bay for so long. Real salvation lay in whatever would be set in front of him on the dinner table and the escapist fable he’d fill the ears of his still milking boy with, before the nightly ritual of the laying down behind cot bars (sweet dreams) then the feet up, glass of cheap white, post mortem of the day with his yawnful partner, and the kiss before the early to bed and inevitable early rise.

But tonight, children who barely a decade ago enjoyed their own cot bar innocence, (and who in a few hours would start serving time behind firmer bars) had other ideas.

Tenby found himself squeezed in the middle of an undersized three seater in his carriage, the penalty for late arrival. Broad male thighs, London Evening Standards and the stale smell of the City left and right. Soon the phone calls started. News from the other end of the line was disturbing. All ‘whats’, ‘ehs’, ‘whos’ and ‘whens’. Then someone said, ‘They’ve closed the station.’

The line hung heavy as the train rumbled south. Standards flopped in half, earphones were plucked from ears, fingers fumbled on shirts, sliding volumes subtly down. Eyes peered over spectacular rims, thick and metallic like the crowbars being introduced to shop windows at the end of the line. Subtle as flying bricks, sizzling Molotovs and charging riot shields, commuters leaned in to get a better hear of their neighbour’s business. Imagination, fear and worse case scenarios filling the gaps in the one-sided mobile stories.

The train slowed and Tenby envisioned the driver receiving news from Control.
‘Stop. Turn back to the terminus.’
‘What do I tell me passengers?’ There were hundreds either seated in neat formation or standing in aching desperation. ‘And what do I tell the wife? My shift ends in twenty.’

The bad news followed the beeps. ‘This is a customer announcement. The station ahead has been closed on police orders. That’s all the information I have at the moment.’

The line went dead and the muttering started. Like many, Tenby felt vulnerable. He felt the need to keep moving. But the train slowed and to those outside, all aboard looked like the wealthy on the Stagecoach, edging through a thick forest, ripe for the picking of pockets. Around Tenby, watches were consulted, phone screens tapped, messages sent and received. Tenby sent a whisper to his answer machine because she’d be bathing their boy, readying him for a story then bed. ‘Leave it in the oven, I’ll have it when I get in.’ If I get in. If I’m not incinerated in the heat of someone else’s battle.

‘A whole parade of shops is on fire,’ was mentioned in another mobile conversation, and eyes sought out tell-tale vertical plumes on the horizon. Tenby saw nothing from his backward facing seat. His thoughts flashed to his boy. A son about to be denied a precious few evening minutes with a Dad he barely saw Monday to Friday. Brief time denied by grey hooded tracksuited outlaws, bolstered by bodywarmers, topped with back facing caps and rounded off with ice white trainers. The uniform of those intent on stealing valuables from the rich. And nothing is more valuable than their time. Why should your child get to spend time with his father, when I never even met mine?

The carriage got edgy as the train halted. Tenby felt stabs of regret. ‘I should have been home by now. If only I’d left earlier, taken the work with, I wouldn’t be here.’ His stomach tightened. Was that a chest pain?

Then a smash and a shatter, muffled from being in the carriage ahead. Soon, the adjoining carriage door slid aside and in strode three in grey, all hooded and booted and cliched. Striding down from the front, taking a carriage at a time, carrying their stolen spoils in designer backpacks. One overweight from overexposure to time zapping video games. Another sporting the sneer and premature frown ruts of parental neglect. But the first, the leader, was all boyish good looks under his hood, all ultimate hold hair gel with the sulky swagger of youth. None of the three was a day older than fifteen.

No one welcomed their gaze but Tenby felt it as they stood in the aisle looking to pilfer. He hoped some of the younger fellow passengers around, those without children awaiting a once upon time and a happy ever after were reckless enough to take them on. But only one voice shouted about not wanting trouble, and they were soon shushed down.

The laptop in Tenby’s bag weighed heavy and made it look like Tenby had a bag with a laptop in it. He thought about moving it from his lap but to where? And anyway, they’d seen it. Surely they sensed the iPod in his breast pocket too, thudding against his chest, and the twenty burning a hole in the wallet in his jeans pocket.

The three looked back nervously the way they’d come, a guard on his way perhaps, or commuters rustling together a group of vigilantes to ‘go get ‘em’. All three hid their hands in jacket belly pockets, despite the warmth of the summer dusk. Tenby knew they were concealing and saw them looking for a target and knew it would be him. It hadn’t been his day so why should it be his evening?

As Tenby shot to his feet, the hands of one of the outlaws left his warming pockets, and tried to grab the shiny silver that slipped from his grasp. Tenby pounced upon, causing commuter gasps and the silver to clatter to the carriage floor. Two others from the regular commute, family men in their thirties, set about the other two hoods, exchanging punches and expletives. The passive leaned away or hid behind their raised Standards. Some unconvincingly called for it all to stop at once, but most favoured outward neutrality and inward desire for Tenby and the family men to administer swift savage justice. Bash the hoodies. The wasters. The Sinner City Spongers.

Then a woman no younger than fifty reached down to the aisle floor and held up a silver watch.
Tenby’s hands stopped when he saw. The boy reached for his watch, its shining strap broken.
‘It’s my Dad’s. We only want to get off the train.’
He snatched it back and rose to his feet, eyes red, face pale from the shock of assault. He stared at Tenby, on the verge of tears. His friends extracated themselves from head and arm locks respectively. Threats of future violence and retribution from parents were spat from the three young faces and were met with guilty silence.
‘How do we get off?’ the leader asked, taking in the whole carriage as he spun a three-sixty on the spot.
There were no answers.
‘Let’s smash another window, and climb out this time,’ the overweight one said.
But the leader tugged his friend’s top and the boys resumed their journey to the back of the train, away, away from what was happening up ahead. Away from where this train was taking them. Let us off. Get us off.

Tenby stood, more vulnerable than ever with nowhere to look, save down to retake his seat amid the itching thighs and re-raised Standards.

He couldn’t meet an eye of anyone bar the two family men, who resumed their seats amid the silence. Tenby knew many eyes would be on him. And as the train restarted its slow journey south, Tenby’s thoughts briefly returned to the dinner that awaited and the son he hoped would sleep through what was to come, safely behind bars.