Reject city - alight here

An excerpt

THE NEXT PICKUP WAS SIMILAR but from a community centre. The next two were churches, then a supermarket and an accountant’s office, just a handful of boxes from them. One or two pickups had attached white stickers reading ‘Food Bank donations’ to their boxes. By eleven o’clock the truck was full. Barry drove silently. Mike looked out over fields of cream-coloured wheat, tall stalks of sweetcorn, other green looking plants he couldn’t identify.

A housing estate surrounded by farmland came into view. They turned off the B road that continued to Linwick village and onto a single lane tarmac road which eventually entered the estate by its gate and ended at a turning circle with a handful of parking spaces in the central hub.

Barry said, “Once we’re parked, go lock the back doors open, then come back in the cab. The oxygen thieves have to do their own unloading.”

They pulled into a space to wait. On the opposite side of the car park two men were wrangling what sounded like empty gas bottles into position on a flat bedded BOC truck. Calor, Camping Gaz and other brands were stencilled on the bottles. Mike thought they were working rather quickly. They looked over their shoulders a lot at the estate behind them, the faded red concrete roof tiles stretching back into the near distance. Finally they chained up the tailgate and drove off.

A man and woman wearing blue tabards had been standing behind the BOC truck. The woman held a clipboard and checked Barry’s plate against it before walking over. One tabard read ‘CAB volunteer,’ the other had a white cardboard square pinned to his, reading ‘Trent Theological Academy: Outreach’ written in red marker. Barry pointed his finger at Mike and the woman changed direction, arriving at his window as it halted at the bottom. He passed her a copy of the inventory which she attached to the clipboard and walked to the truck’s rear.

The man blew a whistle. After his second burst a gaggle of men and women strolled out of a bungalow with ‘Community Centre’ on a board above the door. The style, shape and colours were the same as Mike had seen on signs at the Leicester NHS hospital and the GP he’d signed up with in Hucknall.

The gaggle pushed supermarket trollies and one or two pushcarts with faded commercial logos around to where the volunteers were waiting. One peeled off from the group to approach the cab. He sported a black eye and one sleeve was missing from his jacket. One look at Barry’s face convinced him to approach Mike instead.

“Got a fag mate?” he wheezed through a mouth half empty of teeth.

“No he hasn’t,” Barry reached across. “Piss off.”

The man bridled and a black look crossed his face. He hawked and spat on the cab door. Mike watched by the side mirror as he swaggered back to the group. He felt the truck rock and heard bootsteps on the boards. Boxes began making the journey into the community centre. In ones and two at first, then in their dozens, women, teenagers and children appeared from paths that originated from the grid of buildings behind the hub until there were hundreds of them, milling in and out of the centre. Mike watched as boxes were being carried out of the centre as quickly as they entered. Women snarled at their older children struggling to hold up their ends of their box as they disappeared back down the paths.

The whistle blew and blew to no avail. Soon the remaining women marched down the path to the truck. The tabards walked round to the front of the cab. Barry reached under his seat and pulled out two junior baseball bats, handing one to Mike. Through his side window, Mike could see a line of trollies piled high with boxes pouring out of the community centre into the residential areas. A second group of women appeared out of the housing estate and stood, looking at the community centre and the rapidly disappearing boxes. Several dashed into the centre and came straight back out again, shouting angrily. The whole group descended down the path to the truck. Mike felt it rock and bounce again, then a much heavier bounce as the women climbed back off. In the van’s side mirror Mike watched a dozen women charging after the final straggling trollies.

Barry nodded at Mike to meet him at the rear. They climbed in. A few opened boxes lay on their sides, toys and children’s clothes spilling out. Shouts and screams reached them from the direction the women had taken.

Barry dragged the remaining boxes to the tailgate and folded the lids closed.

“We’ll carry these in ourselves.”

The two tabards were still inside and the man helped them stack the boxes against a wall. The woman was sitting on the least dirty seat, a long slatted bench fixed along one wall, topped with cheap upholstered leatherette cushioning, ripped and defaced with graffiti. The man put an arm around her as she started to cry. Barry wandered across.

“Where’s Security, Tim?”

Tim shrugged. “I only heard a crackle from the radio. Sounded like someone’s set a house on fire on the far side.” He flicked a hand in the general direction of the estate’s northern corner.

“Idiots,” Barry shook his head. “They’re not here to clean up after these rats foul their nest. Let them sleep in their own filth. They’re assigned to protect you two, dishing out the food. People donate this stuff in good faith. Mostly because they can’t bear the idea of these ferals’ kids going hungry.”

Mike’s eyes widened. He’d never heard Barry use so many words.

“Anyway,” Barry waved it away. “D’you need a lift? Can’t leave you here by yourselves.”