An the little get didn't wanna go but I wasn't gunna take no for an answer. He said I'm not going I said ye fuckin are. Tradition, this, I said; you become part of my fuckin family and you'll take part in its traditions. I did this with my old man on my 18th, and he did it with his. Fuckin heritage, lad, I said. He says that he doesn't drink. I told him every lad of mine drinks, fuckin stepson just or no. Besides, place I was gunna take him to, probly best off if he didn't drink. Keep the lead in his pencil, like, knowmean?

So yeh, I takes him down the Dock Road, to the Crown. Thursday Night Special, wannit? We goes in an all the lads're already there, Willy an his brothers, Bob Thompson, all just clocked off an already friggin steamboats the lot of them, not even seven o' clock. The boy's gone all shy an fuckin timid like but I plonks him down an Willy puts his arm round him an starts singin Happy Birthday loud in his friggin ear like an I goes up to the bar an gets two pints an a double vodders, slips the vodders into the pint I give the boy. He sips at it an goes fuckin green, looks like he's just about to friggin honk up all over the table. Honest to God, there's no blood of mine in him, no fuckin way. Pure embarrassing if there was, tellin yeh.

The second occasion Paul remembered came at the end of a spectacularly bad run of poor fortune for his father. After nursing Paul’s grandfather through a grisly series of cancer treatments (he got so high on morphine that he started hallucinating that the hospital trolleys that moved through the corridors were trains dropping off unpleasant creatures from another dimension who were coming to get him), he was playing on a fruit machine at a service station on the way up to see him when the old man finally died. In his will, Paul’s grandfather left all his assets to Paul’s father. He didn’t have much, but he did own his own house, a two-bedroom terrace in an OK neighbourhood. The house had been valued at about twenty thousand pounds, but although it was structurally sound, towards the end Paul’s grandfather had let it fall into a state of disrepair and Paul’s father believed that if he did some work on it he could boost the property’s value by at least five thousand pounds. This turned out to be true. He worked on the house for three months and sold it for just over twenty-five thousand.

He lost the whole amount one week later, in one night of poker. It was the kind of game at which Paul’s father would never normally have been able to buy a seat at the table, and his inexperience cost him. Gamblers rarely have much in the way of assets and it wasn’t long before he had to sell the only other thing of value Paul’s grandfather had left him. Paul’s grandfather had smoked since he was eleven, and from the moment he bought his first packet of cigarettes he had swapped brands according to whoever was producing the most interesting cigarette cards at any one time. Over the years he had amassed an incredible collection, sending away for the limited edition albums that accompanied each series. It had been a hobby for him, and he’d never given any thought to the possibility that the collection might have anything other than sentimental value.

If Paul’s father had been sensible, with careful research, he could have slowly sold off the collection, in sections, to the highest bidder, and made almost as much as he’d got from the house. Instead, one desperate Sunday he found a want ad in one of the antiques magazines he bought every Saturday even though he’d never owned an antique in his life, called up the number and told the man on the other end of the line to come round with as much cash as he could rustle up.

The man arrived an hour later. His excitement was obvious. His fingers were trembling as he turned the pages of each catalogue, and Peter knew his father was making a terrible mistake. Although he couldn’t control his body, the man kept up the normal purchaser’s patter, pointing out miniscule creases on the cards and tutting at misplaced hinges. The man offered seven hundred pounds for the complete collection and Paul’s father, thinking he was being clever, demanded a thousand. The man went outside and got the balance from his wife, who was sitting in the car outside their house. Feeling guilty, and aware he’d done something stupid, Paul’s father had tried to make it up to Paul by taking him and his brother to the cinema that afternoon. Watching the film, Paul realised that when his father died, he would leave him nothing except for memories of the occasional good times, but was aware that he loved him and felt grateful for these two hours together: a temporary relief from the normal grind of their day-to-day existence.

The tower grew steadily in proportion. He was working in white now, brows furrowed as he calculated dimensions and numbers of blocks required. It was an exact science; all whites and reds would have to be used. But his eyes kept rolling toward the wall-unit. There had been two, he was quite certain of that; and his mother seemed very upset at the loss of one of them. Even he thought it looked wrong on its own, driving calmly toward the edge of the shelf, dragging dust and mites with it. ‘Who did you give it to?’ His mother was asking again, and again his father gave a low decibal grunt.

His father was often harder spoken than that, looking at him from time to time, barking ‘Fat Apple’ and chuckling. ‘Hey hey hey, are you coming my way?’ he was tempted to respond, but he would lower his eyes and slide into his bedroom instead. There he would look at himself in the mirror. In his green football shirt with its stretchy plastic fabric, he did look vaguely like a Granny Smith apple. He would turn away to contemplate his walls: the small white dimple by his mirror, chipped from light blue by his mother’s teeth; and the model helicopter, a gift from his father, still waiting to be built.

But it was not the model which drove him just then. It was his tower. Or at least it would have been had he not been distracted by the missing ox-cart. He approached its counterpart again and fingered its beady eyes. They glinted like the nails he had seen in his father’s eyes only a few weeks before. As their steel heads hardened against him, he had dropped out of sight, flinching into a corner of an almarya. Sitting in the ward-robe, knees pulled against chest, his back had trembled against a hard wood wall. Outside he heard the steady snap of leather. If he looked, he knew he would see his mother curled like a prawn on the bed, a belt ricocheting off her back. Inside, sweat had gathered in slicks behind his knees and coasted down the backs of his thighs, stinging as it ran over welts.

I was going to say jeans are equally a no-no. But then, jean technology’s come a long way since whatsisface got naked in a laundromat to the strains of a Chicago preacher man. No, jeans should be fine, as long as they look respectable or scream boutique from every super-low-rise boot-cut stitch. Though proper trousers are a safer bet. Don’t these make me look older, more responsible? The last thing you want is your scabby old sky-blues with bits hanging off them at the heel. That’s why a shirt is a good thing: a shirt with a collar, to add a bit of dignity, show them you’re a team player, a part of the mainstream. When it’s time to make contact with a member of staff - I’ll come back to this in a minute - a collar will remind them who’s the boss.

The coat - ah, the coat - that’s the crucial bit of kit. I use this big black thing in the winter months: it’s naturally bulky, and the pockets are let into the lining, see? Invisible on the outside, and deep, very deep. Flaps, yeah? and horizontal zips, so they’ll hold their shape, even when you’re really loaded down. (If you’re wearing gloves, tuck them somewhere else. Same goes for your keys. Don’t clutter up your primary storage facility). They’re quite low down, these pockets, on account of the coat’s quite long, so you don’t have to stick your elbows out when you’re dropping the goodies in. Which is important: you can’t go waving your arms around - they look at what you’re doing with your arms. The sleeves are slightly overlong and loose-ish-fitting: it’s an XL, an extra large; I got it in the sales. And it looks expensive, which it would have been. . . .

Senanu Gikunoo is the only occupant at a table that seats four in the otherwise packed café so the man makes a beeline in his direction, much to Senanu’s dismay. He is pretty dejected as it is and would prefer to stew alone in his own juices. As the man pours himself into the seat opposite and settles in, Senanu’s nostrils are assaulted by a papery, desiccated smell that makes him think of old people. He chances a glance. Twinkling eyes playing hide and seek with a smirk stare straight back at Senanu and seem to bore through his eyeballs to examine the thoughts at the back of his skull. Senanu shifts his body so that he is oblique to the man and going back to his notebook, attempts to harness language in an emotional charge that will chime through the years in clear, precise poetry.

He writes:

The future has dimmed from bright to night
It’s as sad as twilight and as decisive as midnight
Behind me are the shadows and embers of a stone cold hearth
Before me beacons to light the way of possible paths
But for now all I see is trouble and strife
As I contemplate this crossroads of my life

“By all the gods hold dear, would you please spare me the self-indulgent claptrap?”

It takes a couple of beats for Senanu to register that he is being spoken to. “What?”

“I said –“

“I heard what you said but what do you mean?”

By now the man’s smile resembles that of a wolf eyeing up a lamb chop. He raises his chin, indicating the notebook. The width of the table between them, Senanu’s side turned body and the notebook balanced on his upraised knee all add up to inform Senanu that the man cannot possibly read his notebook from where he is sitting.

“Wanna bet I can’t read it? Rhyme all you like, procrastinate, ponder, you’ve still got a decision to make.”

Senanu is taken aback “Who are you and what do you know about my decision?”

“You must know who I am. You invoked me. I am the Guardian of the crossroads, Keeper of the gates, Linguist of the gods, Opener of the way – “

Senanu interrupts him with a snort. “I invoked you? What are you? The second coming?”

Silently he thinks, we’ve got a live one here.

“Mock if you will but I am very much alive. Your name is Senanu isn’t it? Did you know your name means god gives things?”

Alarm, greasy and effervescent, shimmies up Senanu’s spine, over the back of his head and hovers just above his crown ready to clamp down in clean cut fear should things turn tricky.

“Easy, easy now. Okay. Here’s a clue. Last night you were reading about a bluesman, Robert Johnson, from a couple of centuries back, who met the devil one night at a crossroads in the bayous of Louisiana. Well, I am the one who met young Bobby. Sure, I can be a little devilish, okay very devilish sometimes but I am not the devil. Old Beelzebub had too much of a one track mind and lacked the finesse to strike a deal as sweet as the one I struck that night.”

Senanu can barely believe the words he is about to utter. “Eleggua….you are Eleggua?”

This time the man’s smile is beatific and his appearance seems to gel a little more into focus.

“What was it old Willie Rattle-a-Javelin said – a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet though I prefer to be called Legba. You can even use my nickname, Aflakete. I’ve been called all sorts. St Peter because of the keeper of the gates thing, obviously, which I don’t mind. Although he did give me shelter from prying eyes a couple of times, I’ve always been a lot more fun to hang out with than that bible thumping bore. Some call me Loki. I like his style but who wants to freeze their ass off in Scandinavia? Anansi – web spinning is definitely my forte. Others call me Hermes. Eloquent, reckless Hermes - he was my brother in arms you know, but when was the last time you saw a man running around with winged sandals? I warned him that his bloody footwear would cause his demise. My look is innocent enough but a lack of mortal belief is beginning to do me in too. I’ve wasted time and now time is wasting me. Time was when I laid ladies who lunch in London, noodled nubile nymphs in Nubia, pent up princesses in Persia – “

Senanu’s eyes drop down to the spot where, if the table hadn’t been in place he’d have been eyeing up Legba’s crotch. Legba lets out a laugh so full of life it rolls over Senanu like thunder. Senanu looks around the café. A few people look over quizzically. But for the most part languid adolescents still loll in standard issue plastic furniture and nannies coo at their charges and twitter at each other. When he looks back towards Legba, the sight that greets him threatens to shake his soul loose from its casing. It’s Wile E. Coyote. Complete with toothy, cheese eating grin. Senanu knows who it is because he is presently doing a PhD in Classic Cartoons of the 20th Century and the Wile E. Coyote ones are his favourites. He scans the café again. To his immediate right is a clump of oldies - the blue rinse panthers as Senanu dubs them – who have congregated to sip hot, sweet tea and debrief on the day’s skirmishes. But they don’t seem to have noticed this new turn of events. There’s that thunderclap of a laugh again and Wile E. Coyote morphs back into Legba.

When the factory was up and running, they constructed an aluminium pipe that led to the water’s edge, very near to Somu’s favourite spot. One Saturday in October, Somu watched as an ugly green fluid emerged from the pipe and entered the ocean. As the days went by, more and more of this fluid appeared until the water turned green. It became hard for Somu to see his sisters face, and he knew she would troubled by it. It made him angry, but there was nothing he could do.

The following Friday, Somu’s father came home in an anxious mood. He found Somu in his bedroom, sat beside him, and put an arm around his shoulders.

‘Somu,’ his father said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but somebody stole the ocean. I’m sorry, son; I know how much it meant to you.’

‘But, Dad,’ said Somu. ‘That’s impossible. You can’t steal the ocean.’

‘Go see for yourself, son,’ his father replied.

Somu rushed to the pier and looked out. It was true. The ocean had gone. Where there used to be water as far as the eye could see, there was now a huge cavity, as dry as the desert. And Parvati was nowhere to be seen.

Somu grinned. And then laughed, a greedy, triumphant laugh.

It was he who had stolen it, late last night. He had sneaked out of the house, clambered to the shore, and drunk the entire ocean. Now it was in his stomach, and it would stay there. Parvati would be safe, and no-one would turn the water green.

A sudden hush and glance behind stopped my thoughts and judgments, and the coffin passed by balanced by four of the six insistent male relatives of unequal height. The family followed two by two, silent, serious, seemingly serene. None of them crying tears, so why all of a sudden was I? Fears for the limited future decades of my 86-year-old mother, who now sat beside me, meant I couldn’t help but imagine how it must feel to be burying your mother. Or do you feel? Do you not become frozen in a state of doing…Like I did with my Dad? Then some kind of primal emotion exploded through centuries and gripped the heart of me, nailed me to the seat in disbelief in the registrar’s office, and rocked me back and forth as the shadows crept out of the a.m. hours and grief screamed out from deep within my gut, and I heard my own self moaning a low, deep-rooted hurt that needed my Daddy.

A sermon, a solo, another hymn, tributes by sons and a baby on a grandmother’s lap cries through eulogy. I’m struggling to listen and fill the years before we new her. She came to England to be a nurse … Distracted I’m soon thinking about life and the growing up years when Mum and Antie were best friends, and all of a sudden I get it.

I was having a good long ogle myself when I bumped into Byron, a burly Zimbabwean barrister from Brixton. So I asked him what he thought of Bella.

‘Not my type bro. Anyway I don’t like girls from Bristol,’ he mumbled, with one eye rooted to Bella’s bristols bobbing up and down in youthful unison.

There was no denying. Bella was beautiful, with a body made in heaven. She was a born star. But sometimes the stars make us cry and watching Bella being filmed on the boards of this busy supermarket wasn’t really helping. I realized Bella’s beauty might stand the test of time as she was being captured on celluloid, and this thought sent powerful new pictures of her seductive form hurtling through my head. For a moment standing there, my whole mind felt like a giant electronic screen shimmering with her immaculate image.

But enough was enough. I turned away and headed off down the aisle of the frozen meat section, frowning.

Bella was beginning to get the better of me.

Oh, haven’t I told you my power? I can turn people to stone. Yeah Me, Medusa!

I discovered I had this power by pure accident five years ago when I was 16. I had got to the age when I wanted to stop taking the hair straightening tablets. You know I had read so much about the harm that those chemicals could do, anyway I wanted to be more singular.

So many of us, I mean Africanoids are so confused about who we are and what we should look like. The Media doesn’t help either. Images of blue skin and purple eyes, it’s the multi-hued look that’s . Since the re-unification of races after World War 3, the world governments agreed that everyone (on Earth anyway) should be made up of all the remaining races, or what was left of them after the massive amounts of radiation the human race soaked up. People literally became colours over night, black and white were replaced with blue and green or any other colour you could imagine. That was about the time they started discovering that some people had powers, mutants they called them.

Most people just mixed naturally and soon you got all these different colour combinations. But us. Our people didn’t want to trust to natural. We are spending some serious money to get a designer vari-colour look. You know how we stay.