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15 min read

Chapter 15. He Grabs the Wheel

Chapter 15. He Grabs the Wheel
2017. The excavated Reno. Photo Karen Rangeley.

This has been hard as fuck. Emotionally. But, also, holding the mind-map and the discoveries at the same time. I did start to let go. I hope you did. And trust that the mind-map is one tool, a JCB. The pen is another tool, the trowel. And working in tandem, putting one down to pick the other one up, does unearth the precious artefacts. Though hard, it has been entirely gratifying.

Reminder Of Our Tasks, Set Last Week

First Pebbles
We are going to form the first pebbles by repeatedly sticking together the gas and dust orbiting our star. Rather than bore you with the details just flick back if you want a recap.

How Last Week Evolved for Me

Day 1. Tuesday 24.03.26

People Spit in My Pram
8 vital discoveries.

  1. I swap my half-cast-ness for Tom's coolness.
  2. The bird is gonna get fed cos the universe made it.
  3. But I know Tom will look after me.
  4. His patronage starts in the semi-circle the Prouses are leading.
  5. He has been watching me like a cheetah watches a frail gazelle.
  6. They are all masquerading.
  7. Ivan’s stitches are like Frankenstein’s.
  8. Whereas it’s a 12-seater table she needs to survive. I’ve got epaulettes on both shoulders.

8 Discoveries' Mind-map

8 New Discoveries

  1. The Bible and Tom are where 8-stations begins to evolve. Begets — begets — begets.
  2. He is on stage an altar boy dramatised by Bible stories. Throwing over the market in the temple. The Last Supper. The Crucifixion. Water-to-wine.
  3. I am concerned about where Pauline is because what if she is coming back to kill me. I need my knight-in-shining-armour to protect me.
  4. I have been targeted because he can sense my pain my weakness. The Ivan story is still fresh. It is great gossip in Moss Side. Tom will know.
  5. He has a thing for saving women. He saves his mum who double-crosses him with her abusive lover, who grooms her when she is vulnerable with 6 kids. Her husband dies at 37. Her lover takes her money. She loses her husband’s RAF widow’s pension to marry him. Tom, the son of a doormat, meets me, the daughter of a doormat. Both Irish. A broken heart. Learned behaviour. A shield. He shields his mum.
  6. Grooming. Scratching each other’s back. Chimps. Cave art. Gossip. Computer likes on WWW. Pecking order.
  7. How frightened Ivan must have been, he had no one to protect him. No Tom. Alone in the world. His mum bothered about her boyfriend and her houses to rent. That’s how he ends up with a woman 12 years older than him caring for him. A gambler to make life better.
  8. The Reno is my mixed-race haven against black women with knives. And black women who steal your bedding and paint BITCH on your wall. I am with my own tribe. I have the Knights to my left. The top 3 tables to my right. The red Reno door ahead of me. There is only one way in. This is my tribe. I am safe. I am protected. Tom on the fence will protect me all his life.

Day 2. Wednesday 25.03.26.

8 Discoveries' Mind-map

8 New Discoveries

  1. Fractals. Geometry. Pushing against soil. Impressions. Anomalies. No 2 roots are the same. Pressure. Gravity. Chicken and the egg.
  2. Dad’s deathbed. The flannel. Tom’s game. What he has seen in the movies. My dad hates cold. The photo of the sun setting. Riding the coach back to Athens. No battery. I can’t talk to him. Her being in his room. I am with the right woman for what is happening now. Athens. Seeing Maharaji. Tom has let go to death. Like he cut his curls to be Rachel’s dad.
  3. I am concerned about where Pauline is in the city. Not cos I’m a caring individual. Because I’m shitting myself. She may come back. She will come back. To stab me.
  4. I can sense his weakness too. I can sense Tom is a game Tom is playing well. No one will challenge him. He is a bully.
  5. Our magic carpet is a doormat. We both believe in genies. He thinks he has the lamp. Or maybe he does have the lamp. Maybe he hands me the lamp. I benefit by the lamp in the long run.
  6. Him and my dad share the stage of the good. Jesus. They gather to give sermons on the mount. A poor white tramp. And John Wayne in a black body. Only the goodness of impersonating Jesus can afford them a clap. They scratch backs. Gossip. Preach. Reach the souls of the less. Earn disciples.
  7. My mum watches me take the cheese slices from the gas fridge to take me and Ivan for a picnic by the bandstand in Alec Park where my dad used buy us KitKats. Small KitKats. Never big KitKats, like the Prouses.
  8. The fridge is gas cos the gas bill is hers.

Day 3. Wednesday 26.03.26

8 Discoveries' Mind-map

8 New Discoveries

  1. Duplicity. Splitting. Growing new leaves. Spreading roots.
  2. Tom seems to welcome death. He seems to volunteer to give in. He does not fight. He finds God and turns his back on him. Multiple times.
  3. I begin to see my culture as exclusively half-caste. Mixed-race. This has value. Afraid of Pauline. I live on the 11th floor of a tower block. A great vantage point to see her coming. We meet our guru in the Town Hall. Through Matt at his record stall opposite the cheese stall in the precinct below our flats. I am evangelical. Guarding my soul about Ivan’s death like my mum does about deserting her 4 kids.
  4. We stage a family. He paints a woman leaning over a black chesterfield he copies directly on the wall. I make striped bean bags. We save in Mr Men pot pigs for our child coming. But the Reno is calling him. He hasn’t finished with its forcefield. Where he means something to his audience. Ruining my show for my audience who I need to forget there is a dead black guy by being a better mother than anyone else.
  5. I wash her clothes in the bath, so they don’t get polluted by the public washing machine. And scream at him when he comes in. We hang a 4 ft square picture of Maharaji, our guru, on our wall.
  6. He gets Knowledge first. His inherent sincerity recognised. His eyes are bluer. With knowing. I can’t stand that he is better than me. I throw an axe as he runs for the door.
  7. And Ivan’s body won’t lie down. It keeps knocking at the flat’s door. I hear his moccasins leave. Pass the bin room next door. To the lift. That distinct clip on the polished concrete floor. Arrive at the door. I’m not sure if there is a knock or not. But it is him. As sure as the kids my mum hears crying.
  8. 'I want to talk to the boy at the back.’ No one answers. 'In the green jumper.' Has to be me. My hair is short. We have walked off the street. A spiritualist church. It goes with our vibe. We have no idea we are coming here. Rachel isn’t born. 'I have a young man here. Just come of age.’ Ivan dies on Halloween 09.11.1976. He would have been 21. ‘He says beware of a crow. Beware of a key.' Pauline stands up on the other side of the room. She must have come to talk to him, and he talks to me. It is the first time I have seen her since that night.

Day 4. Saturday 28.03.26

8 Discoveries' Mind-map

8 New Discoveries

  1. Cancer. Lung cancer. Growing. Strangling.
  2. I’m sat looking into the excavated ruins at the foot of the Acropolis. Tom is dying. Lung cancer. Tom is dying. Did I ruin our chances when I threw the axe and forbade him to practise Knowledge when I didn’t have the 4 techniques? I say I am sorry, once. When we are adults in a café in Chorlton where we meet cos when all is said and done, we are the only 2 people we trust in the world. He says it is all right. I say I am sorry for all the flirting when we are young. He says you were with someone who was angry all the time. He is sorry too. I am sat looking into the glass ceiling over the floor of the Acropolis where once people lived. The floor of the museum. I won’t have access to him anymore. I am finally seeing Maharaji like the rich European Premies. I have a beautiful hotel. I would tell him if he wasn’t dying. He would give me marks out of ten. I would tell him. I would brag. 'I was 4 rows from the front. The closest I’ve ever been to Maharaji. I was by the sea. Poseidon’s temple by the sea. As the sun is going down, resting on the sacrificial bowl, Rachel is saying you have lung cancer. My phone goes dead. I travel back in silence not knowing how you are feeling. And what we will do without you.'
  3. We are building our 11-storey tower from skips. Our playhouse. Our playhouse. Our house with the side off with a purple carpet we pull from a skip. With the side off. Everyone is watching us. What good parents we are. What a good couple we are. How close we are. How we don’t care what we look like. How empathetic we are. How easy to talk to. How you can tell us anything. Me hiding from a dangerous black woman. Him being a mixed-race guy. And our baby, who came home from rehab yesterday. When I suck snot from her nose rather than push a cotton bud up there in case it penetrates her brain. Her head pulsates. Look, her head pulsates. We pull her bottom lip back; she is already practising Knowledge. Doing the 4th technique of meditation. She is perfect. We are perfect. In everyone’s eyes. We are better than everyone else.
  4. We buy the black leather chesterfield when we sell weed to buy the house with a garden. To enter the property ladder. When we live in the council house that my mum gets to leave my dad but doesn’t take up cos he pushes £500 under the door. If my dad gives away £500 it defo means he loves you. She stays. She claims the rent in her name. She has the rent book. I am in that precarious I don’t own this house position again. Rachel stands at the top of the slide Tom has built, drinking from her bottle. In a tartan skirt. And red top. Her hair in clean pigtails.
  5. We reach the £1000 fast. Surpass. The 4ft x 4 ft picture on the wall of Maharaji is meaning less and less. By accident. The way Tom accidentally drinks in the pubs where he sells our weed. We succumb to a brand-new carpet. Axminster. In a council house. While we wait for the council to release the £1000 house we have bought. And the grant that I work out to the penny so the fucking builder can’t have us over like they’ve had over everyone else. And by the time it is rebuilt, new back wall, wall ties, blue carpet, svelte carpet, and a Canon fire that looks like real flames, and a Xmas tree that won’t come through the door. With red baubles, all matching and white lights, big red baubles, white lights, and a washing machine my first washing machine. My first washing machine. I sit on the floor and watch it turn. Then spin. In the fitted kitchen. That we build. Are building. By the time it is built, Tom doesn’t come home anymore. Not till the lock-in is over. The Lord Lion where her lover wheeled his mum, and he hates when they bring him to buy the chips she slings full of halves of mild. I can’t shut my mouth. I can’t shut my mouth. You’re ruining my fucking dream. And Rachel says,’ I used to think he’d come home if she’d shut up, but now I’m an adult I get you.’ I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to hear that. I can’t stand to hear I’m not perfect.
  6. Did I fuck it up? Did I fuck it up when I threw the axe? I apologise for this too. When I throw the axe when you get knowledge before me and your eyes are really blue. April 1979. Before she is born. His eyes are really blue. He has Premie’s eyes. That can see though walls and into hearts. How dare you have those eyes when Ivan is knocking on the door. I can hear his moccasins, and you are gonna leave me. They continue even when she is in the cot. December 1979. April. May. June. July. August. September. October. November. 9 months. He would have been practising the 4 techniques of meditation. Been accomplished when she is born. When he holds her. As he does. There would have been more love. There would have been more stability. He would never have needed to be empathetic in the Lord Lion. Win disciples. In a Big Country. ‘Because you would have been in touch with your real heart, Did I bring it on myself?’ ‘Linda, If I wanted to do my meditation you know as well as me nothing would have stopped me. I’ll pay for this.’ His eyes are blue. Old Blue. And tired.
  7. I throw away her childhood. Like my mum throws away the childhood of her 4 kids. And the first time Rachel ever feels truly mine is when she runs to me when I get the 4 techniques of meditation in 1981. She climbs on my knee. And goes to sleep. She is 18 months old. The first time I don’t feel overwhelmed. Like her first moments, in her hospital plastic cot, and I need a wee when I can’t, secretly, believe what the fuck I have done.
  8. They put me in a ward with 3 other women that can’t have kids. My body, my womb, is a graveyard for the body I cut out. It’s weeping. It’s throbbing. I can’t sleep. My tits are full of milk. They put me on a ward with 3 women who can’t have kids. This is my punishment. The black nurse comes and binds my chest. Pinning it at the back. The milk seeps out. Neither him nor her come to visit

Day 5. 29.03.26

Isolate the couplet 1 & 5.

  1. Fallen Angel (The Protagonist).

Cancer. Lung cancer. Growing. Strangling.

  1. Split Rectangle (Change/Transition)

We reach the £1000 fast. Surpass. The 4ft x 4 ft picture on the wall of Maharaji is meaning less and less. Etc. Etc.

8-station Mind-map of Couplet 1 & 5

Title I Hear: He Grabs the Wheel.
Object: Steering Wheel.
12 associations

  1. Malaga
  2. Big lorry
  3. Motorway
  4. Wheelchair
  5. Xray
  6. Confession
  7. Bus Stop
  8. Crumpsall Hospital
  9. Navy tracksuit bottoms and navy t-shirts
  10. Nobody
  11. A pub hero
  12. A house hero

He Grabs the Wheel
He grabs the steering wheel as we come off the motorway. As we near the exit. Afraid of the juggernaut behind us. ‘Are you fucking mad? Stop. Stop.’ He doesn’t shout back. Not like we used to be. Not like we would. He is subdued. I’m subdued. We’ve been to visit Rachel in her new home. In her Spanish home. Together. Even though we’re not together. For some reason, there’s always been a reason, I can see the reason — you were always afraid, weren’t you, Tom? The name. Tommy Brogan. Before I first know you. He is a legend. Especially near Broadfield Rd. The Fargahlys. Cottier. Pete. Can’t remember his second name. Breakfast in Bed is playing in the bagwash. Might be the Prouses’. Doubt it’s a radio. They don’t play music this suggestive.

‘You’ve been crying, your face is a mess.’

All the fly guys. Circling. Myra Trigg. Carol Grey. It’s Oasis on steroids. And colour don’t give a fuck. They cross the divide. Smoke weed. Have staged walks. And tops. And shoes that tap. And desert boots. And Ivan fits in, in his own Moss Side way. Moss Side Youth Club. He’s not dead yet. It’s the first time I see him. The crowd step back. He is a legend. Not just because he dies 9 days before his 21st birthday, before he comes of age, before he gets the key. This fucker can dance. He is extraordinary. In the real meaning of the word. It comes up from his feet through his knees. From his platformed feet through his patch-pocket knees into his V-neck top and out through his bobby hat. He has moves. Step back. See his show. The first time I see him.

The first time I hear the name Tommy Brogan we are in the bagwash on the corner of Broadfield. Rd. Breakfast in Bed is playing. Which reminds me of Ivan. Tommy has fucked someone up again. Indestructible. A fighter. More than a fighter. A poncho wearer. A cigarillo clenched in the corner of your mouth as you light it with a flick top Clipper. A horse you don’t have to tie up. It just stays cos this is how it is trained. Without training it. It just rolls this way. They just live this way, together. Yeah. Tommy Brogan. Chris Otto has just had an axe in his head. It is around that time. I know the Reno Knights some time before I go down the stairs.

He grabs the wheel; the minute I meet him. ‘They’re all masquerading.’ Then when he makes the spaghetti bolognaise. I can be forgiven for thinking he also wants a family. A family home. Curtains. Blue carpet. A fire that looks like a fire without the mess. But think about it, why would you swap your hero? Your Hi Ho Silver horse, and your masked bandana for a Xmas tree? When you are a real living hero. You know people know your name. He is supposed to swallow my dreams not the other way round. I think he wants a home cos he doesn’t have a home. She jumps from the window pushed by her lover. The lover who pushes her in her wheelchair to the pub. After his dad dies in a pub. The Big Alec is an extension of the Reno. They know him here too. At the mouth of Hulme. The Iron Duke. Where the older black guys lick down dominoes. And Tom buys our weed in black bin liners. He doesn’t weigh it. They don’t count the wad. It is trust. Tommy Brogan has a horse he trusts. The horse trusts him. His name goes before him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says in his wheelchair. 'I’m sorry.' Confession. He is dying, this Xray states. ‘I never had that much money before. Money like that.’ The three of us know he is talking about the time he trades his horse for handmade suits. What he thinks he is missing. His horse returns with the row-upon-row of warriors, Knights, as they lift his coffin. The Knights of the Reno. Of all the pubs. He’s not a tramp. Not a nobody. With his mum’s tights as a belt. And their food money given behind the bar. Finally resting under his flag. Green, white and gold. In death. He accepts he isn’t one of the lads. Not really. In doing this he is declaring, understanding, how mighty he is as a white lad.

He grabs the wheel. We leave the hire car and are taken back to Malaga airport. It is all too much for him. He knows without his diagnosis. He thinks it is The Man. The Man’s plan to eradicate the poor. People like him, with Covid jabs. A shadow of the conversation on the 1984 fence when he is the crow. Flying up from the depth. But I am holding the wheel now. The Reno wheel. I am the queen of the excavation. ‘If I could get rid of these.’ He means his swelling lymph nodes. I’m shocked at how aggressive he is daring to be. We’re not together now. I am a queen, and you are a has-been.

I stare at the bus stop outside Crumpsall Hospital. ‘I’m sorry. I’d never had that much money in my life.’ A little white boy. He isn’t wearing the navy tracksuit bottoms of the navy t-shirts I buy him to look smart and won’t feel they hate him. He has on shorts, grey, and a t-shirt, grey, that look baggy. He is freezing even though the sun is shining. He smokes, chain smokes, 5, one after the other. His confession is quick cos he can’t stop crying. We are crying too. Me and Rachel. Quietly. Silently.

‘He was a fucking, is a fucking, hero,’ I say to her last week. ‘A fucking hero. I don’t mean it rashly. He is a hero. He is a Moss Side legend. I want a home. I stage my home. I am a house hero. He wants a stage. He is a pub hero. That is hard to give up. He’d have been proud of his audience at his grave.’

Bigger Pebbles


We are going to form bigger pebbles. By repeatedly sticking these pebbles together.

Day 1. Sacred hour. Sacred space.
• Note 8 vital discoveries you make in this week's day 5 12-word narrative.
• 8-station mind-map them.
• Note 8 discoveries. It is easier to do while the mind-map is happening or is fresh. Your subconscious becomes opaque again when you let it cool.

Day 2. Sacred hour. Sacred Space.
• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 3. Sacred Hour. Sacred Space.
• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 4. Sacred hour. Sacred Space.
• 8-station mind-map these 8 discoveries.
• Note 8 discoveries.

Day 5. Sacred hour. Sacred space.
Isolate the couplet:
2. Crosshatch Circle (The Theme/Backdrop)

  1. The World (Equator, Capricorn, Cancer, Ozone = Emotional Climate)

Interpreting the symbols like tarot cards. 8-station mind-map the couplet 2 & 6. Exhaust the discoveries. Listen for a title. What tangible object do you see?

Write Its 12-word Narrative

  1. Title
  2. Object
  3. 12 associations.
  4. 12-words. 20 mins. You must use your object, 12 associations, under your title.

Type and Log

  • Type it up — don't change anything.
  • Pair it with its mind-map.
  • Pair each day’s mind-map and its new discoveries,
  • Pair last weeks, as I have above.
  • Create a file — chronologically log all there.

Published by:

Linda Brogan