Mr Dibbs Fixes Bikes

24

TW: Racist, demeaning dialogue, bullying

Jeanie tipped backward on the bar and swung upside down, her long hair scraping against the ground. Frederick hadn't visited these playing fields, where football and rugby pitches sat side-by-side. Old, once proud, stands faced each other across the two swathes of churned up grass and fading white lines, trying to outdo each other to see which stand could become more rundown before collapsing completely.

The concrete posts, set seven or eight feet apart, held these metal poles to border the pitches, giving baying spectators something to lean against, worn shiny from the presence of cold hands on winter mornings as grown men ran up and down the field hating the day they realised they would never become professionals. Right now, in Summer, the goal posts had become removed, tufts of grass the only reminders of where they once stood.

Frederick and Jeanie had walked everywhere that morning, or so it had seemed. She had raced along, showing him the sights that the old geezer hadn't bothered to. Those special places known only to children that hid under the noses of adults. The old man had shown Frederick the canal, but Jeanie had shown him the little hut, overgrown by bushes and weeds where they sat for a while before moving on.

The old man had shown him the allotments, but Jeanie had continued on along the path beside the elevated railway to the point where the constructed mound became a bridge across a river Frederick didn't even know about. Then, following the river, circling the town, until they had arrived here at the playing fields.

At the one end of the expansive area, houses bordered the fields, with large, old trees and privet hedges marking the end of the public areas and the beginnings of gardens. To the other end sat a Sports and Social club and a crown green bowls pavilion. Jeanie had said she'd show him that later. For now, she seemed to only want to swing upside down as Frederick dangled by his arms, lifting his feet to sway above the packed dirt and sparse grass.

"I still can't believe someone sprayed that in front of your house. That's sick." She pulled herself up, displaying an enviable strength, and straddled the bar as though riding a horse. "So, where is Mister Dibbs now? I bet he didn't say anything, did he? He's so quiet Dad has to ask him to repeat everything he says. But Dad's, like, really loud, so I don't know. Maybe Mister Dibbs isn't that quiet at all?"

"Opticians." Frederick tried to pull himself up and failed, relying, instead, on jumping up and hooking his leg over the bar to join Jeanie. "He's gone with Mum. She had to go with him or he would never have gone himself. And he's not quiet, he's just, I don't know ... he thinks before he talks. I think he doesn't like upsetting people."

She was right, of course. The old man hadn't really said anything. Not about the graffiti, or about the broken windows. If anything, he had seemed resigned to it all. Weary. As though nothing seemed to bother him, but Frederick knew the old man cared. He was one of the most caring people Frederick had ever met, but, for those two horrible incidents, the old man had hardly reacted at all.

It infuriated Frederick. Even now, he could feel anger boiling within him but there was no-one to direct that anger toward. No outlet for his anger. Then again, Frederick had never had an outlet for his anger. Like his dad. Unlike his dad, though, Frederick had never loosed that anger inside the home as well as outside. A constant twisting in his stomach at every injustice that fell upon him and his family, and now upon Mister Dibbs, with no escape for it all.

He couldn't allow the anger out, just as his dad could never let it out in public. 'Angry black person' was a description white folks used to prove their prejudices, because, to them, that justified their hatred. White folks could get angry any time they wanted, as loud as they wanted and wherever they wanted. Black folks getting angry frightened white folks, so Frederick, like his dad and like so many others, had learned to push that anger away.