Late this afternoon, Michael will emerge from his council home on to the
streets of the East London estate that he knows as “the block”.
If it is a good day, the 19-year-old will quickly get rid of the two ounces of
cocaine that are burning a hole in the pocket of his low-slung jeans.
Eli, a fellow “general” in his Leytonstone gang, the Loyal Soldiers, will be
successful in his quest for an “eight-ball” - about 3.5g of coke that he has
promised a client. They'll celebrate their success by smoking some weed.
But if it is a bad day, the events of a fortnight ago will repeat themselves.
There will be “beef” - a fight with a rival gang - and the chances are that
someone will get knifed, popped, bored or wetted up. Whatever the parlance:
someone will get hurt.
Like many boys his age, Michael dreams of bigger and better things.
“Having the kind of money to have my own boys working drugs for me, them
bringing in the money,” he told The Times. “That's instead of me being in
the limelight, me being on the street. That's my progress. Everyone wants to
be in the director's seat.”
Once, Michael's ambitions were different. It seems a lifetime ago, but at
primary school he dreamt of becoming a firefighter. These days, his role
models are gang bosses of the tough estates in Peckham and Brixton.
“All them lot down South London, those G's [gangsters] are real. It's a
completely different world to here.
I violate you in South London, I'd be gone in an hour. Round here, they let
things die down, they don't do nothing.”
The two boys, whose youthful faces belie their tough attitudes, started their
gang a few years ago when Michael was released from detention. He had been
sent there for committing robbery at knifepoint.
Michael and Eli had agreed - through an intermediary - to meet The Times this
week and tell their story, giving a compelling insight into the gang
rivalries that span the capital. Their faces glow with pride as they
describe the Loyal Soldiers' reputation.
Emphasising his words with a stabbing gesture, Eli says: “What other cliques
know is that we ain't really got much guns around us. We use our knives, we
really use 'em. Done a lot of that. Bored [stabbed] this guy in the head
three times. Done that, done that, alright, I got the heart to do that.”
Michael also prefers knives but will carry a “burner” [gun] if he ventures to
see a girl outside the estate and fears a trap. Such outings are rare; he
feels safe only inside the block. It is always locked down by his boys, who
will not let any “unknowns” in.
“A pretty girl could be the bait. I don't trust girls. You want me? You're
coming to my area.”
Knives are better than guns, they say, for they don't need to be disposed of.
Michael had to get rid of his gun last year, in case it was traced, after he
shot someone in the leg in a fast-food restaurant.
“I stab someone, I wrap up my knife and put it back in my pocket. Much easier.
When I walk around with it, it's me and my boy, man. I'm riding with my boy,
he will back me. I know I can take out anyone. My mum say to me, ‘All the
kitchen knives are gone'.”
The pair laugh uproariously and touch fists when Eli says: “My mum too!”
Asked to explain the hierarchy of the Loyal Soldiers, Eli insists on the
correct spelling, not the usual gang patois “soljah”. He compares the
structure to that of a big electrical shop: “They've got white goods like
fridge and freezers, then brown goods like TVs and all them other goods,
yeah? Well, we've got all the departments. There's the guy that's connected
to the guns. Another can get the crack. Us two, we set pace. When there's
beef, we'll set the pace.”
They claim that they steer clear of hurting girls because Eli has a little
sister and Michael has nieces.
However, they try to indoctrinate children. From the age of 8, neighbourhood
kids are asked to carry weapons as a favour.
“You get the little guys holding a strap for me. He's very happy to hold a
gun, its ‘wow' for him,” Eli says.
Michael, who comes across as a bright and engaging young man, is happy for
members to leave his gang and forge a better life - provided they visit once
in a while. “As long as when you're getting your two or three grand a month,
as long as you're still coming and putting a box on the block - a box of
weed, a box of crack, a box of heroin, whatever.
“You can't just leave and not show love to the block. Or I'm going to start
thinking you're sticky, who you rolling with? The enemy maybe.”
Fights with other gangs erupt because someone steps into another person's
territory, or simply because of a stare.
Two weeks ago, the Loyal Soldiers attacked a rival gang in nearby Forest Gate,
because one of their members had been “stared at”.
The pair scream “arghh” and flail their arms in the air when they describe how
the rival gang ran when they saw them.
“That's what always happens,” Michael says. “We decide to roll up and they
want to run. We come with the smallest team and they'll run. They know what
we're coming to do, someone's gonna get bored up.”
Like many gangs across London, they use bicycles instead of cars to make their
getaway easier. Michael says: “Obviously you can use cars but there's
numberplates and all that. There's cameras everywhere, I call this place Big
Brother city. Next thing you're in a big chase with police. On a pushbike,
you can get out of there. You can just kick out of there. Alleyways, back
streets and you're gone.”
Eli adds: “Getting the job [stabbing] done, that's nothing to us. It's getting
away. That's the hardest part.”
Accounts of drug deals pepper their tales. Eli narrowly missed jail when the
police nearly caught him with 51 wraps of cocaine, he mentions casually.
He was “switching shifts” with a cohort in Braintree - one of several county
hotspots for their drug dealing -when five police vehicles arrived at the
service station. “Luckily, I dashed it [threw it away] and they couldn't
find it.” He shrugs.
The mood lightens when Eli tells how the white couple to whom he had been
planning to sell drugs had a “crack fiend baby”.
“She was very smiley, like, talking rubbish,” he says, rolling his eyes back
in his head to demonstrate the state of the child. Michael, who describes
himself as a “black cab driver” because he does not run drugs for anyone but
himself, chuckles. Asked if what they say is for real, Michael exclaims that
he “ain't no J.K. Rowling”.
Their story is one of abandoned hopes and a carelessness - or perhaps lack of
awareness - over the value of life.
Both are nursing injuries. Michael's arm has been stitched up after he was
slashed with a blade, while Eli's hand is covered in plaster to heal two
torn finger tendons.
The pair were not injured by gang rivals, but by each other, during a tussle
over a knife. It followed a stupid argument over a phone, they admit.
“Had it been someone else, I would have properly wetted them up [knifed
them],” says Michael. “But at that moment, I crumbled, I weren't gonna do
it, I couldn't do it. We were hugging, there's blood on our clothes, the
floor. That was emotional, those times there. It's love, innit?”
They have both been in more serious situations. In March, Michael was walking
home when he ran into several rivals from Waltham Forest. They had just been
at his house, trying to kick down the door while his terrified mother was
inside.
“I touched my knife, but he had a gun,” Michael recalls, demonstrating the
pump action that his foe undertook to get his weapon ready.
“He tried to shoot me, like, but it jammed. He put it back in, and went ‘pop,
pop', shooting twice. They were two blanks, I see the spark. My younger [a
15-year-old member of his crew], I told him to run. We got away. The mistake
is, I always said from that day, [they] should have never have let me get
away.”
Politicians from all parties are seeking solutions to gang violence. Jacqui
Smith, the Home Secretary, mentioned forcing gang members to visit victims
of knife wounds, in order to realise the error of their ways. Such ideas
seem to come from another world.
With a chilling, casual air, Michael describes how he slashed a man's face
from ear to nose because the man owed him £80 for drugs.
“I let him off for so long, I gave him a loan for weed, but he started taking
the piss out of me.”
Michael says he is not scared of losing his life; he does not care.
“Everyone's going to die. That's in the book of life - if I die, it was meant
to happen.
“No one's innocent. Every black boy, white boy - somewhere along the line
they've been in a gang or they know gang members and they've been seen by
enemies with these people. It's all affiliated.”
Names have been changed to protect identities
Word on the street
Beef A fight between gangs
The block A council estate
Bore To stab someone
Box A stash of drugs
Burner/strap A gun
Crumble To look away when staring at a gang rival
Dash To throw away drugs
Eight ball 3.5g of cocaine
G A gangster
Peel/pull To rob someone
Pop To shoot someone
Rep your end/stating your noize To represent your postcode
Tuck To knock someone out
Wetted up To be stabbed
