the cadence of part time poets

Chapter 30: Summer, 1976

No more pencils,
No more books,
No more teacher's dirty looks;
Out for the summer,
Out till fall;
We might not come back at all...

- "School's Out (For the Summer)" Alice Cooper, 1972

The summer of 1976 was the hottest recorded temperature the British Isles had experienced in more than three-hundred and fifty years. It was so hot that if one were to stand in one place for too long they risked letting the soles of their shoes melt to the pavement. Luckily for all of them, Tonya had the sense to push Tomny into buying an air-con, which they set up on the living room front window. In a country of radiators, the air-con was a welcome blessing. On the really rough nights, they would sleep bare on the floor in front of it, since even a blanket would leave one too hot to function.

Despite the dreadful heat Remus was happy to be back, and both Tomny and Tonya seemed perfectly eager to put him up for as long as need be, provided that he followed a few set ground rules. The first being that he kept his head low and his mouth shut.

Like he'd been expecting, the hold various gangs and mob groups had over the throat of the East End had solidified since Christmas. East of Aldgate Pump, they ran everything; if you had a rent to pay, you paid it to the mob. If you happened to be one of those blokes able to make an honest living, that honest living was in moral support of another mob. If you wiped your arse, you thanked that mob for the opportunity. The neighbourhoods still long-suffering from air-raids leftover from WWII were now ground zero for radical gang reunification. This naturally led to a new world order, one Tomny seemed adamant that Remus would have nothing to do with. He spent his entire first day back getting lectured on what he could and couldn't do. Tomny still managed to tip-toe around the real information, like what it is the boys were actually running now—narcotics of course. Gone were the days where they were just running money or bets for bookies or bulking up the protection rackets of Whitechapel Lane. No, they'd all moved on to bigger and better stuff, throwing their lot in with those who guaranteed it would be worth it. Provided they kept loyal and didn't get caught.

Remus had already seen clear evidence that the area's drug problem had only gotten worse—his friends' along with it—but there was also the violence; kids getting jumped in alley ways just for talking to the wrong person, guns showing up on the streets, more and more turf wars breaking out amongst the smaller groups. It was a far cry from the place the End had been when he'd left the year before, and Tomny made sure he knew it.

"You wanna stay? Then you're gonna to do what I fuckin' tell you," he said, with no room for argument. "If you wanna be around, you can stay with Tonya. Go with her when she goes out—it'll give Vint and Doss a break at least."

Remus had instantly soured at the thought of spending another holiday locked up in the flat. It wasn't the fact that he would be playing chaperone, but that it was summer and he wanted to go out and run the town with his boys, even if the heat would most definitely have killed them. The only problem with that wish though, was that none of them were boys anymore.

"You understand?" Tomny snapped when Remus didn't answer. "Ain't a game no more."

"Never thought it was a game," Remus shot, defensively. Tomny's eyes tightened, before his shoulders dropped and he shook his head with a smile.

"You know I love you, Lu." Tomny got up from his recliner and pulled Remus into a hug. He hugged back, feeling the ache in his chest that had been there since last Christmas, as Tomny rubbed his back and spoke into his hair. "Jus' don't want you gettin' too caught up. Fun's fun, but life always catches up."

Being stuck inside the flat again made Remus wonder what Tonya's life was like when he wasn't around. It had to be lonely, staying cooped up while your boyfriend and his yobs peddled others' goods, but Tonya kept herself busy by cooking, reading, listening to music or else taking care of the tiny box garden she'd set up on the flat's balcony. All of the plants looked limp and frail in the intense heat, but Tonya watched and watered them religiously, no matter how brown they seemed to get.