Chapter twenty three - green


i hate the world i hate the world i hate the world


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Everyone was ready to go when I got back to Gerard’s. I told Pete and Patrick that I’d left my guitars for them at my house, and they both jumped happily at the opportunity for new instruments.

The rest of us left for the harbour in the hope of finding a cargo ship going somewhere far away. America wasn’t exactly a hotspot for growing exotic foods, but we were sure there were things being sent here from all over the world.

When we reached the docks, it was busier than we thought. There were people everywhere, whites and whites and whites. Gerard looked quite scared. “Come on,” I said, pulling him behind a stack of crates on the loading dock. Ray and Mikey hid with Gerard, and Bob and I stood in front of them, acting nonchalant while trying to look around and find a ship that looked suitable for sneaking onto.

All the boats were identical, and they all looked heavily guarded. Bob and I were the only ones with passports, but even we couldn’t get on without money. “We didn’t really think this through, did we?” I murmured to Bob.

“No,” he sighed. “Not really.”

“How are we even supposed to get to a ship? I’m sure nobody would bat an eyelid at us, but there’ll be a complete freakout over Gee and the others.”

“Are you sure there aren’t, like, black ferries or something?”

“Blacks aren’t allowed to leave the country.”

“What are we supposed to do then?” Bob asked exasperatedly.

“Hello,” a boy said, appearing from behind a crate. He was white, but his hair was dyed black, and he had black eyeliner smudged under his eyes. It looked quite odd. “I think I can help you,” he grinned.

“Who the hell are you?” Bob spluttered. “Were you eavesdropping on us?”

“No, no, no.” The kid shook his head. “Of course not,” he reinforced, but then he paused. “Well, maybe.”

“Are you going t0 call the police?” Bob asked.

“No,” the boy said, rolling his eyes. “I’m on your side.”

“You’re what?” I frowned.

“I’m helping the blacks,” he said with a smile. “Me and my buddies, Mike and Tré, we help sneak ‘em out of here.”

I stared at him, kind of awed. “This is just what you do? Man, you’re awesome.”

“Billie Joe,” he introduced himself with a grin.

“Frank,” I smiled.

“And I’m Bob,” Bob said. “We’re leaving with our friends, Mikey and Ray–”

“And my boyfriend, Gerard, and his little sister,” I added.

“Oh, cool,” Billie Joe said. “Where are they?”

“Um, hiding. Somewhere behind here. Gee?”

Gerard shyly emerged with Rose. “Hey. I heard you talking. You help blacks?” he hesitantly asked Billie.

“Yeah,” Billie Joe grinned.

“Cool!” Gerard said happily. He’d only ever met a couple of whites who shared the same passion for equal rights as he did. Come to think of it, so had I. There was Bob, there was me, and… well, there was this dude, apparently.

“Do you want to come with me to England?” Billie asked. “That’s where we take people. Things are way more relaxed over there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, blacks and whites live in the same towns. They’re friends. They’re even starting to accept mixed race relationships over there.”

“Really?” Gerard asked excitedly.

“Yeah,” Billie laughed.

This was totally the place for us. “Can you take us with you?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “You have a passport?”

“I do, and Bob does. But none of them do.” I gestured at Gerard, Mikey and Ray.

“Right then. We’ll all go in the cargo hold.”

“How?” I stared at him. “Please tell me we don’t, like, climb into the crates and hide there for seven hours.”

“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we do,” Billie Joe said with a grimace. “We’ve just gotta find somewhere to tip the cigarettes first. None of you smoke, do you?”

We all shook our heads. Billie grabbed a carton of cigarettes from the crate and slipped it into his pocket, then emptied all the remaining packs onto the floor behind a truck.

“Right,” Billie said. “In.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Get in the crate.”

“How?”

“Two to a crate, three if you’ve got the baby. You gotta lie down or you won’t fit. I’m going to have to put the lid on or people will see you. This is gonna hurt your neck, sorry.”

“Ugh.”

----

An hour went by before we were even loaded onto the boat. There were rattling and clanging noises for a while as the cargo was loaded, and then there was silence.

Three hours passed.

“Gerard?” I whispered into the darkness of the crate after a while.

“What?” he whispered back.

My stomach was rumbling and I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since last night. “You got any food?”

“Do you think I have any fucking food?”

I shrugged. Then it occurred to me that he couldn’t see. “I don’t know.”

“Frank, if I had any food at all I would have eaten it. All I have is a lukewarm bottle of baby formula, and it’s only warm cos I’ve been sitting on it.”

“Nice.”

“Mm.”

There was quietness for about half an hour after that, but then something was poking me in the arm repeatedly and I snapped at Gerard to stop it. But he was definitely asleep; when I flicked his arm he just snuffled and buried his face in my neck, so I deduced that it had been Rose prodding me.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to stop it because she wasn’t even very sure of what she was doing, so I endured her poking for the next hour until she fell asleep.

Once she had finally stopped, it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep too, and I spent the next few hours dreaming about what it would be like in England. Everything would be revolutionary there. I’d heard that England had some very beautiful architecture, and that everyone there was very polite and clean. I was really looking forward to going, actually.

----

England was a dump.

Well, the town the boat stopped in was a dump. All the other ships were rusted, and all the buildings were covered in mould. Litter and cigarette butts were everywhere. Everyone looked depressed. But Billie was right, blacks walked among whites and no one was trying to kill anyone.

“Man, this place just keeps getting worse,” Billie said as we stepped off the boat.

“You mean this isn’t where we’re staying?” Mikey asked.

“Jesus, no. This place is a shithole. We’re going to London.”

“How the hell are we going to get there?”

“Taxi,” Billie stated simply.

“They don’t stop for blacks,” Mikey said.

Billie grinned. “They do here.”

----

It took us hours, but we finally got to London. Well, not central London. A village on the edge of London. Billie had taken us to a nice little neighbourhood with semi-detached houses and a small green spruce growing in the patch of grass in front of each house. “This is your new home,” he said.

My mouth nearly hit the floor. These houses looked expensive. More expensive than the one I’d been living in back in Belleville, and it had been my mom who was paying for that. “How the fuck are we gonna afford this?”

“Government funding,” Billie said. “Oh, I didn’t mention, did I? I work for the government.”

“This is your job?” I asked with a laugh. “Smuggling people out of one country illegally so they can live as happy legal citizens in another?”

“Pretty much.”

“I thought you were just some kid.”

“I’m twenty three!” he said incredulously. “But I choose to take that as a compliment.”

“But– your hair. Your eyeliner. You look like some rebel kid.”

“Oh, our government is trying to integrate black and white culture. Some people even dye their hair coloured.”

“What, like, actual colours?”

“Yeah.”

“In their hair? Like red and blue and stuff?”

“Yeah. People actually wear coloured clothes round here too. I just wear white to blend in as much as I can over in America.”

“Wow. Shit.”

“What?”

“Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“This is the most amazing thing ever,” I said. “Shit.”