Londonstani. Gautam Malkani

all jumpy like when I used to sit up front in History lessons an knew the answer to Mr Ashwood’s questions.— It’s a wikid fone, man, it got a camera, it got a video player, it got them polyphonic ringtunes, an Java games.

      —Jas, u pehndu. I meant his mobile numba. I’s gonna fuckin fone him, innit. Fuckin dickless piece a shit.

      —Ah, sorry, man, my bad, I go as I start searchin my fone for Davinder’s number.

      —Ras clat, fuckin useless, all a u, Hardjit goes, shakin his head an doing that suckin the inside a his front teeth thing. Hardjit could suck his front teeth louder, longer an harder than most people could. I in’t lyin, the man could tut like a black brother.

      —Davinder got a lesson on Monday so he probly got his fone on silent, goes Amit.— Dem bhanchod teachers make you turn your fone off now. Stick it in your bag or sumfink so you can’t even flex it on your desk.

      —Amit, I don’t give a fuck whether his fone’s on silent or stuck up his butt n set 2 vibrate, Davinder told me 2 call him when we left da school n we b leavin da fuckin school, innit. So c’mon, u bunch a chiefs. One a u’s gotta b havin his numba.

      Amit dialled Davinder’s number from his Nokia fone book an passed his fone up front to Hardjit, all in a single, smooth move, like a cricket fielder scooping up an throwin the ball in one go.

      —Shut da fuck up, dis b business, Hardjit goes to all a us as, somewhere near Hounslow High Street, Davinder’s fone started ringin, or vibrating, or flashin, or whatever the fuck he’d set it to.

      —Kiddaan, man, ‘sup, homeboy?… Listen, blud, we jus leavin now, innit… Some gora got lippy wid us… Nah, u know it, blud …He ain’t got no lips no more, bhanchod… U know it, blud, innit …A’ight, safe… Nah, I call her tonite… I got me free minutes on my fone, innit…Say wat?…Nando’s. Safe. Nah, we’ll hook up wid’chyu dere… We leavin da school right now… We got da Beemer, innit …A’ight, safe, laters.

      Soon as Hardjit hangs up, Amit takes his Nokia 6610 back an starts makin a call beside me. He’s being all polite an in’t using no swear words or nothin so is clearly chattin to his mum. But he makes sure he don’t look like he’s chattin to his mum, narrowin his eyes, suckin in his cheeks an noddin as he stares out the window. Amit pulled a better fone face than all a us. Tellin some stockbroker or banker to liquidate his portfolio a stocks an, no, he din’t give a damn how bad the market is today: just fuckin sell.

      —Theekh hai, he goes.— Flour an eggs. Free range. I’ll get it, Mama. Alright, Mum, theekh hai.

      —I ain’t squashin u back there, is it? Hardjit goes to me, his seat pushed all the way back so I was gettin, like, kneecapped.

      —Nah, man, I’m cool, I go.— Move the seat further back if you need to. I’m cool.

      When you’re in the back seat a some pimped-up Beemer it’s basically your job to be cool. To just chill, listen to the tunes an stare out the window like some big dumb dog with a big slobbery tongue. DMX pumpin so loud out the sound system you can hardly hear what the other guys’re sayin up front. Amit shuffles into the middle a the back seat, leaning forward into that death-if-you-don’t-wear-a-seat-belt position my mum was always going on at me bout. But I just stay sittin back. The world going by outside the window tells me that in the olden times, before the airport, Hounslow must’ve been one a them batty towns where people ponced around on cycles stead a drivin cars. Why else we got such narrow roads? Some a them were so narrow that the trees on each side had got their branches castrated to stop them fightin in the middle. In’t no leaves on em either, even in the summer. Talk bout a shitty deal for the trees. Castrated an no pubes. Standin there like giant, upright versions a the dried-up sticks a dogshit that lay at their feet. If I was a cycleriding, tree-huggin, skint hippie I might’ve given a shit bout the trees an all the posters pinned to them for some Bollywood film that’d been released two weeks ago, the new Punjabi MC single that came out a month ago or ads for a bhangra gig in Hammersmith that happened a year ago. But I in’t, so stead I hope the skint people who work for the local council would just finish the fuckin job an chop em all down. Make room for more billboards, more fuckin road. Only proper-sized roads round here were the Great West Road an London Road, both a them runnin along either side a this part a Hounslow like garden fences to an airport at the back where the garden shed should be (they called it Heathrow cos it’s bang in the middle a Hounslow Heath or someshit). Lucky for us there weren’t no other cars cruisin down all these side roa ds squashed between the garden fences. There were hardly any parked cars along the pavements either, partly cos the staff car parks at Heathrow were full but mostly cos all a the houses round here had got their front gardens concreted over an turned into driveways. Big wheelie rubbish bins an recycling boxes where the plants, flower beds an garden paths between them used to be. No sign a the other stuff I drew on houses when my playschool teacher moved me up from crayons to colouring-in pencils. None a them smokin chimneys an those lollipop-like trees were missin too. Missin, presumed castrated. Some houses had got Om symbols stuck on the wooden front doors behind glass porches, some a them had Khanda Sahibs an others had the Muslim crescent moon. All a them had satellite TV dishes next to the main bedroom window, stuck up there like framed dentists’ diploma certificates. If there weren’t no symbol on the front door, you could still tell if it was a desi house if there was more than one satellite dish. One for Zee TV an one for Star Plus, probly. You could tell if someone was home cos the daal an subjhi smell would mix in with the airport traffic on the Great West Road. An you could tell if the people at home were friendly if the car parked in the driveway was a car with a friendly face. I in’t jokin. That kid in The Sixth Sense, he sees dead people all the time - me, I see faces in cars. Maybe this makes me some mad weirdo psycho, but I been seein them ever since I was little. It’s like as if the headlights are the eyes, the grille the mouth an the wing mirrors the ears. The faces meant that, back before I got tight with Hardjit’s crew, I tended to like smaller cars. Ford Fiestas, Fiat Puntos an all the other crappy hatchbacks my schoolteachers drove. I din’t like them in a skint hippie way, though, I liked them cos they’d got friendlier faces. Take this red Nissan Micra that just pulled out behind us. It looked like a little, button-nosed puppy dog. The black Volkswagen Beetle parked in a drive on the left had got big friendly eyes. This was why, back when I was a gimp, I never got why everyone reckoned big flash cars were such big fuckin deals. Sure, flashy Mercedes were smiling cos a their massive grilles, but their faces weren’t friendly cos it was more like some smug grin: I’m a fuckin SLK, look at me, you pleb. Aston Martins got mouths like piranha fish, Beemers looked like androids playin fuckin poker an Italian sports cars were even scarier cos they’d got no mouths, no eyes even. I dig sports cars now a course, cos my head in’t so stupidly fucked up these days an I try an not see the faces no more. Matter a fact it’s the bodies I tend to notice now. Take the body on a Lexus SC430. So sleek an smooth you don’t even notice its face. Like Christina Aguilera. The curves on an Audi TT make it J-Lo while the Porsche 911 GTS got a booty like Beyoncé. An it in’t just divas: I got the Bentley Continental GT down as Snoop Dogg an the Hummer H2 down as 50 Cent.

      If Ferrari made a 4x4 SUV, it’d be a Hardjit. A Hardjit SUV would have a big engine grille but it wouldn’t be grinnin. It’d be more like that constipated face he makes when he’s tensing his body an thinks no one else in the gym is watchin him. When I turned my head back from the window to see if anything was going on up front he was still settling into his seat, winding down the tinted electric window, resting his elbow on the door frame, flashin his Tag Heuer, sovereign ring an Karha bracelet. Grabbin the top a the door frame with his left hand, he straightened his shoulder so that his upper arm snapped into place, his tight black D&G vest givin everyone outside an even better view. An just like the empty side roads gave Ravi an excuse to slide down into second gear an do some seriously sharp rudeboy manoeuvres, they gave Hardjit an excuse to grip harder on the door frame an tense his arms up more. The engine an drivetrain connected to his biceps, the brake pads connected to his pecs. Ravi swervin past some random slowcoach Citroën like he was at the arcades playin Daytona USA. Beep beep, get the fuck off the street. Pump pump, we don’t slow for no fuckin speed hump. Luckily, Hardjit din’t notice me watchin him feel his biceps. Otherwise he’d have rinsed me for being gay or a gora lover, or