Blood Donors

Blood Donors Read Free Page B

Book: Blood Donors Read Free
Author: Steve Tasane
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huffin’ and puffin’ up the stairs on account of the lift not workin’ which keeps us all fit and seein’ what happenin’ on all the other floors.
    Sis always keep her door open, so’s her family can take in visitors without havin’ to stretch themselves up from the sofa. Theirs is a Open House. Any peoples can drop in, like a public library. Big Auntie full of knowledge. It safe, ’cos nobody goin’ to bring trouble through their door. Big Auntie got respect. Sis mus’ have about a dozen other brothers like me up and down The Finger. Her mum – Big Auntie – is like who everybody gonna turn to when they got a problem need fixin’, or they got disagreement with one another and in need of a refereein’ voice, ’cos no one gonna argue with Big Auntie. She’s block warden – not the official one put down on the groun’ floor by the council, who never here anyway – but the warden as chosen by the citizens livin’ here, get me? Sis keep an eye on the younger ones, which is why everybody know her as Sis.
    These meat men huff and puff right past Sis’s door and up the nex’ flight. We crane our necks ’cos we hear them bangin’ and crashin’ in the flat right above. We can hear a woman wailin’ and screechin’ and the meat men are yellin’ ’structions. Big panic.
    Sis meet my eye.
Soft Stuart
she say.
He does drugs. Hard stuff
.
    She tilts her head at me and walks towards the door. She means we got to go and take a peek. Sis’s mum ain’t in, and she gonna wanna know what’s happenin’. So she know what to tell peoples later on.
    We tiptoe up the stairs. I ain’t sure I want to go. I’m afraid we goin’ to see a dead person. I don’ know Soft Stuart. I don’ wanna know Soft Stuart. I certainly don’ wanna see no Soft Stuart body bein’ carried out, face covered by a blanket like on some cop show on TV. But I follow Sis ’cos that what I gotta do. I wanna reach out and hold her hand. Cuss myself for bein’ a baby. I’m fifteen, yeah?
    We get to Soft Stuart’s flat. The door is open where the medic people barged in. Smell waftin’ out worse than any I smelled before, mix of bedbugs and sweat and fear.
    I wanna ask Sis if whole block crawlin’ with bugs, but she put a finger to her lip –
shush
. Leans her head through the doorframe. Behind her, I crane my neck, take a look. I see the first body I ever seen in my life.
    Soft Stuart is slumped on his sofa. He’s as skinny as a street lamp and as white as a sheet. The three meat men are crouched round him, shakin’ their heads like ’tain’t no use, this man is mos’ definite dead. Oh, he is white. I don’ mean he is white like Connor is white. He is white like a sheet of paper. That is wrong, ain’t nobody white like that, not dead nor alive. He’s as white as a ghost that seen a ghost. He got a puncture in his skinny white arm. His eyes are wide open like he realized at the last moment that he gonna die. But too late, ’cos death already bitten him in the arm.
    Drugs
Sis silently mouths to me.
Oh dear
.
    She shakin’ her head, like she expectin’ this kind of thing if people gonna mess with the bad stuff.
Oh dear
she say again.
    I cuss myself for a fool. She ain’t mouthin’ Oh dear at all. She sayin’ OD . Overdose.
    I’m sweatin’, ain’t I?
    One of the medics mutters
Open and shut case
, like someone open up a case and take a look, see what’s in it and lock it shut again, on account of the contents bein’ clearly not what you wanna take outta the case. A girl standin’ over them that I seen aroun’ the block, with her fists bunched up to her face. Mus’ be Soft Stuart’s girlfrien’, sobbin’ and gaspin’ like she run out of breath. Grievin’.
    Soft Stuart glares at me. His eyes are clean poppin’ out of his head, screechin’
Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!
    I thought overdosin’ on heroin made you nod out, fall asleep, fade out of life. Don’ make no sense. Soft Stuart look more like he was tortured

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