Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Puff drops by early out of breath, takin me a few years’ back to when we were in the Home, don’t want to think of that place, get a shaky feeling, start to squeak, it’s just this nervous reaction I can’t help having. Walking up the hill to school, Puff can’t talk, it’s her asthma attack, she’s falling back against this wall as if she’s gonna croak it, Oh shit and she’s gone and forgotten her inhaler, head like a sieve, that girl. So I run back, squeaking till my throat aches, ring on the doorbell, bolt up to her room and get the thing, race right to her with this horrible but saving contraption in my hand, silver and grey; the girl’s turning yellow when I get there, there’s no breath left in er, I remember it. Puff on this, I squeak.

Puff says, Got this idea girl, easy and everything, we could make a packet. Great thing about it is we don’t have to do a fucking thing. No shit job that’ll drive you crazy, make you feel like a helpless slave, you just have to stand about on a set somewhere. You show em yer fanny, wiggle yer bum and that, maybe you have to let this pervy put his finger in, so what. You wait and they say ‘Take’ and then it’s over, there’s this board with black and white stripes and that, or sometimes they’ll want to replay the scene, no problem, you just stand there. Same as last time, it’s so easy, you just stand there awhile and wiggle your bum and let the pervy carry on with the fingering, or maybe they’ll pour this vanilla custard or something on the pervy’s prick and they’ll tell you to start eating it off him. Stuff like that. A Blue Movie.

Puff says, And that’s it, that’s all girl, an you get loadsa money, you’ll be laughing. There’ll be dosh spillin out your ears, you won’t need to get one of them slave type jobs, won’t have to throw yourself away or carry on with all that squeakin.
It’ll be heaven girl, it’ll be the bee’s. And you can just see us then, can you just see the pair of us. I’m tellin you, it’ll be something, it really will. We can go where we like, do what we want and when we want to. You won’t believe how good it’ll feel till you see. An all you have to do Squeak is stand there, feel this bit of a trickle of spunk from this pervy guy, it’ll be running down your leg say, but what’s that anyway, you take no notice of all of that stuff, listen to me. All you have to do is just
stand there and that and you’ll be in the movie. Nothin to it girl, I’m tellin you how it will be.

Puff drops by late in her purple wig, What you do is hide upstairs an wait, easy as that girl.
We go over it, seems o’kay.
I’ll be coming through the door with him, soon after eight as I can make it.
Squeak, you be waiting quiet. Got that?

Puff says, It’ll be a doddle, girl.
And I say, But what about later, when he finds his wallet’s gone?
Crap, goes Puff. Guy won’t do fuck all, he’ll keep right away from Police, Won’t make no trouble.
I wonder why he won’t but Puff knows about guys and stuff like this, I trust her. Though you’ve got to get the timing right. I don’t want to end up having to let him do it. O’kay, We’ll go over it again, I come in with the guy, you wait eight minutes, no ten. Then come in, yeah? We’ll be in bed, trousers on the soddin chair.
Right. I get the picture but I have me doubts.
You get the dosh, girl, then you say me ol man’s comin. You start screamin an that, loud as anything. Screamin not squeakin, you hear me?
Right, I say.

Puff says, It’s simple, what we do is go down this dark alley, there’s two of us, he’ll be pissed the guy, stupid, he’ll be easy. We’ll choose the right one, drunk and fat, alone, goes without saying. We’ll go in pub, pick him out, roll im when he’s half way down the alley. Piece of piss.
S’posing somebody comes the minute we’re rolling him?
Nah, we’ll make sure. It’s that simple, Squeak girl, I’m telling yer, guy’ll hardly
know what’s happening. Be lying down by that wall docile as a dead rabbit. Done it
loads of times, haven’t I.
Have you, Puff?
Course I ave, right.
Right.

Puff says, Go in the changing room, pretend you’re trying something. What you do is keep asking for a different size, keep em busy looking, Squeak. Get some er them boots they got there Puff, I tell her. Think you could get some’ve them silver boots?
Don’t make me laugh, it leaves me breathless, I’ll clean the place out, nothin to it girl. You jus keep on tryin stuff an asking the woman to look and it’ll be cool. Meetcha later back at mine, we’ll go fifty-fifty, be rich Squeak. I’ll get a load’ve gear,
maybe do the till, keep em distracted girl, that’s all. Nothin to it, believe what I’m tellin yer. You keep on tryin stuff, that’s not hard, that’s easy.
Right.
We’re in the shop like, then there’s this one hell’ve a row and Puff goes burstin through the door with this guy an dog after her out’ve nowhere, leapin out’ve bleeding nowhere. Bastards’re lovin it, shop woman’s screaming, Police, she’s goin.
I walk out the shop all calm, no sign’ve me mate.

Puff drops by later, says shoplifting aint no fucking joke, she’s re-thinking her old idea about starring in a Blue Movie if I’d be up for that; says they got her belting across these friggin gardens, she’d have jumped the fence but she’d started getting wheezy, hardly any breath left inside her, an they caught her by the wig an it came off. Had to walk back along road with Police her own hair pinned flat as a squashed beetle, purple wig taken into custody. Felt such a fool girl, lookin like a bloody insect. Seen meself in shop window. Sorry sight.