The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

  ‘You will be sorry,’ he said, rubbing his head as he started to come after me, ‘you’ll be more than fuckin’ sorry when I get hold of you!’

  And then I heard the ticket clerk calling, ‘That’s him, that’s the little bastard, catch him, mate.’

  I managed to make it to the end of the carriage and went to get off the train but as I pulled down the window to open the door I saw one of the guards running alongside me on the platform. And there was nowt else for it; I had to jump out of the opposite door and try to scramble across the tracks and up onto the far platform. Halfway across though, I looked behind and I saw that the ticket clerk and the feller whose head I’d bonged were about to jump down onto the track and come after me. But just as the garrotter and the clerk were about to jump down, they were cut off by a 125 train that came hurtling through the station going so bleeding fast it almost sucked the pus out my pimples.

  I clambered up onto the far platform and I thought I’d made it. I was running towards the exit sign. It was all right, I was going to get away, I’d be OK. But as I ran past the bottom of the footbridge an extremely fleet-footed guard came hurtling down it and managed to grab hold of my guitar from the back. And as I was still umbilically attached to my instrument, it was all up then and I was marched back across the footbridge. I kept saying that I’d only got onto the train to use the toilet facilities. I said I’d been suffering somewhat with my bowels and I hadn’t intended to travel on the train. But they said I could tell that to the police. They brought me in here and handed me over to the Station Master. He locked the door and asked me what my name was and I thought about giving a false name and address. But then I knew it would just make everything even worse if I did. So I told him my proper name. And the Station Master phoned up the police then. And there was a pause and I knew that the police would be checking my name on the computer. And then the Station Master put the phone down and said the police would be here soon.

  And I know that I’ll never get to Grimsby now. Not now. Not now that they’ve read about me on the computer. I hate computers. They don’t tell the truth. They just tell the facts. That’s why I’ve decided to tell you, Morrissey, about the canal and everything. Because it was all just a mistake, Morrissey; everything was a mistake. And everything that happened to me after that was all because of that mistake. And I want you to know that, Morrissey. That it was all just something that got twisted into something else. If everybody had listened to me when it originally happened at the canal then it would have all been different. But no-one does listen to you when you’re eleven years old. And I don’t care what anyone says, I don’t care, because I know even if no-one else does – we weren’t wanking! None of us were. I know that we had our things out, all fifteen of us. But having your dick out doesn’t mean that you’re wanking. It doesn’t necessarily. We always used to get our dicks out in summer, down by the canal. No-one could see. There was a big warehouse wall at the back and trees at the side, and if we did see anyone coming we used to put everything back in our pants till they’d gone. I don’t even know how it started. No-one ever said, ‘Let’s get our dicks out.’ We just did it. And we’d carry on talking about Lego or school or football or what had been on the telly the night before. And then this day, as we stood there talking about stamp collecting or Star Wars or something like that, this fly landed right on the end of mine and it was just an instinctive reaction really. Before the fly knew what had hit it, I’d pulled my foreskin over it and held it there for a minute. Then when I pulled it back this asphyxiated fly just dropped off the end of my dick. Well, all the other lads thought that was bloody brilliant, that. And that’s how the flytrapping craze started. Every dinner hour we went down to the canal and it became a competition to see who could bag the most flies. I can’t remember who scored the most, but whenever we went flytrapping Albert Goldberg always came in last. Even with the handicap we gave him, Albert couldn’t do much to a fly with his circumcised diddler. Sometimes he’d try and flick the fly dead with his finger but more often than not he’d flick the end of his dick and make his eyes water. But one dinnertime we were at the canal and when we started flytrapping Albert had this big smug smile on his face and when we asked him what was up, he pulled out a small jar from his pocket. It had had honey in it and Albert told us how he’d worked out this plan for keeping the fly on the end of his dick long enough for him to give it an accurate flick. Well, he daubed honey all over the end of it and he was catching so many flies that some of the others said he was cheating and that honey wasn’t allowed and it wasn’t fair. That started an argument between Albert and Kevin Cowley and while Albert was shouting about the unfair advantage of the gentile, a wasp was attracted by the honey on the end of Albert’s equipment. Albert didn’t even look. He just thought it was another fly and still yelling at Kevin Cowley, he flicked what he thought was the fly. Well, the wasp was a bit pissed off at that. And it flew back. Only this time it stung Albert, right on the end of his honey stick, and Albert instinctively lashed out hard with his hand. But with the shock of the sting Albert missed his dick, bashed himself in the balls and fell headfirst into the canal. We were all screaming with laughter at first. Then we realised he hadn’t come back up. And the laughter turned into fear and panic then, as we all remembered that Albert couldn’t swim. I didn’t think about anything, I just dived in. I couldn’t see nothing at all, I just had to keep feeling about amongst the slimy weed and the bits of broken bike frame and supermarket trolleys. I thought my lungs were going to burst. But I didn’t care because I couldn’t bear the thought of Albert being dead. So I forced myself to keep trying. But I felt myself getting weak and tired and I knew that I’d have to go up for air. I got to the surface and I was just gulping in big lungfuls of air and I felt dead dizzy and I didn’t think I had the strength to go back down again. But then I saw the faces of my friends on the bank. They were all looking frightened and Kevin Cowley and Geoffrey Weatherby had started crying. And I think I was crying by then and I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to think. But I heard myself saying to the lads on the bank, ‘I’ll give it one more try.’ And then I gulped in as much air as I could and I dived back down again. And when I felt about and my hand clutched hold of this clump of something I thought it was just more weeds at first and I was about to let go. But then I realised. It was Albert’s hair that I was clutching onto. I don’t know how I got him out, really; my lungs felt like balloons blown up beyond busting point. But I struggled and I struggled and I wouldn’t give in until I’d pulled him up and up and up and out, beyond the surface, back into the air where the two of us just clutched hold of the bank as we gulped and gulped at the air. Soon there were hands reaching out and I could hear all the other lads shouting and cheering as they pulled us both up onto the bank. Albert was spluttering and coughing and shouting about the pain in his lungs and the pain in his dick but everyone just kept on cheering and clapping and saying I’d been really brave for rescuing Albert. The only one who didn’t seem too happy about it was Albert himself because when we got him to his feet he started crying and shouting and said Kevin Cowley was a fucking bastard and none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for him. Kevin didn’t even argue back. He just told Albert he was sorry. And after a bit Albert and Kevin agreed to shake hands. We were all friends again then. And we walked back to school. Geoffrey Weatherby said we’d have to explain how me and Albert had got so soaked. And we all agreed we’d say that Albert had just missed his footing and fallen into the canal. And that I’d jumped in to save him. We all agreed on that. And every one of us knew that not a one of us would say nowt about flies.

  Mr Donaldson was on playground duty that day. He said that we should never have been near the canal in the first place. And me and Albert just nodded our heads and said, we just forgot, sir, and we’re dead sorry, sir. Mr Donaldson shook his head and said we’d been very lucky. And then he lowered his voice, Mr Donaldson, and he said, ‘You’re particularly lucky the Headm
aster wasn’t around.’ We just nodded and Mr Donaldson found us some tee shirts and shorts and said, ‘Here. Get dried off and put these on.’

  He was dead nice, Mr Donaldson, and I thought everything was going to be all right. I thought then that we’d managed to get away with it. But when Mr Donaldson came back into the changing room, Albert suddenly started crying again and said he didn’t feel very well. Mr Donaldson turned to me and he said, ‘Listen, Raymond, you go back to your class. I think we’ll keep Albert down here and ask the school doctor to come along and give him a check-up.’

  I must have looked worried then because Mr Donaldson said, ‘It’s all right, Raymond, it’s just a checkup. There’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure it’s just the shock and Albert will be as right as rain in half an hour.’

  And perhaps I still looked worried because as I was going Mr Donaldson said, ‘Well done, Raymond. And cheer up, will you? I think you’ve proved yourself to be something of a hero this afternoon.’

  And that did cheer me up and I forgot all about the doctor then.

  I’d never been called a hero before, and going back to my class it was like I was walking on air. And it got even better because when I walked into the classroom, Miss Barraclough even made me stand at the front for a minute as she told all the kids in my class what a very very brave boy I was and everyone cheered and patted me on the back as I walked towards my desk. And Rosemary Rainford smiled a big adoring smile at me. And she’d never looked at me before, even though I’d been in love with her ever since we’d both been jam-jar monitors. It was dead exciting, being a hero. I tried to concentrate on the geography we were doing but a note was passed back to me. It had a picture of a heart with the names Rosemary and Raymond inside it and after that I just gave up trying to put the names of the rivers by the names of the towns, and I just sat there instead and basked in my new-found status as school hero and Rosemary Rainford’s official boyfriend.

  But I’d forgotten all about the doctor!

  I didn’t know that back in the changing room there were certain discoveries being made. I didn’t know that Albert had carried on crying and saying that he had an awful pain. And when the doctor asked him exactly where this awful pain was, Albert told him it was ‘down there’. That’s when the doctor told Albert to drop his shorts. And when he did, the doctor and Mr Donaldson just stood there speechless and staring at Albert’s dick that was all swollen up now so that it looked as though he had a circumcised Cumberland sausage dangling between his legs.

  And even then, we might just have got away with it. But then the worst thing happened – the doctor said that the Headmaster should come and take a look! Mr Donaldson looked anxious and wondered if that would really be necessary. But the doctor insisted.

  If it had been the old headmaster, if it had still been Mr Kerney who was in charge of our school, everything would still have been all right. He would have found out, in the end, what had been going on. But Mr Kerney would have just sent for me and the others and got us all in his office. Then he would have looked at us, Mr Kerney, looked at us all sad and disappointed, the way he always did when we’d done something wrong and let him down. And he would have quietly told us how much we’d hurt him and made him sad in his heart because he’d always believed that we were trustworthy boys and good boys and there we were, all the time, going behind his back and sneaking off to the canal. And we would have all felt awful by then. Mr Kerney with his big sad eyes would have looked at us one by one and asked all of us to think about the danger of playing near the canal and think too about Albert’s mum and dad and just consider for a moment what it would have done to those two particularly lovely persons if their son had drowned in the canal today.

  And by that time, me and all the others would have been crying our eyes out and feeling really guilty and we’d never have gone back to the canal after that and it would have all been over and done with, the fly-trapping and all the fuss and everything.

  But Mr Kerney wasn’t in charge of our school any more. Mr Kerney had been sacked in the aftermath of the Transvestite Nativity Play Scandal. They called him a ‘loony leftie’, Mr Kerney. And Mrs Bradwick who was the Chair Person of the Governors was on the North West News and said she didn’t blame it on Mr Kerney personally, but blamed it on the Sixties when teachers stopped caring about Janet and John and Nip the Dog and long division and the ten times table and all they ever did was finger-painting and dancing and the sort of poetry which made no sense and didn’t even rhyme. That was when I was still in the lower juniors and it was boys like Norman Gorman and Twinky McDevitt who were in the top class then. But it wasn’t true, what Mrs Bradwick said, about how we never learned about any of the proper things when Mr Kerney was in charge, because we did! We learned how to read and write and do sums and history and geography and all those things. But we learned all sorts of other things too, when Mr Kerney was the headmaster. Like we learned that it was all right to be different, like Terry McDevitt was different. But nobody ever called him Terry. Everybody called him Twinky, even Mr Kerney and the teachers, and ‘Twinky’ fitted him better than ‘Terry’ because he was always skipping with the girls and linking arms with them and doing concerts in the playground where he did his impressions of Petula Clark and Lulu and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. But Norman Gorman said his dad was getting him a pedigree pit-bull terrier for Christmas and then Twinky McDevitt better look out because it was a well-known fact that pit-bull terriers just went mad and couldn’t be stopped when they picked up the scent of a queer! Twinky McDevitt just did another pirouette and told Norman Gorman he was so ugly that when he got his pit-bull terrier nobody would be able to tell which one was the dog and which was Norman Gorman. So Norman Gorman punched Twinky in the face then and Twinky ran off into school crying and telling the teachers that he’d probably be scarred for life now, which meant that his future was in serious jeopardy and he’d have to have plastic surgery right away or his career as a glittering star of the West End stage would be denied him. By the time the teachers had calmed Twinky down and reassured him that it was no more than a bruise and his skin remained unblemished, Mr Kerney had found out about the fracas and immediately called a special assembly. And Mr Kerney spoke to us all about differentness and being different and said that if it hadn’t been for the Chinese people we’d still have chip shops where all you could get was fish and chips and pie and chips and perhaps some mushy peas. And he asked all us boys and girls to just think for a minute and consider what it would be like to live in such a world; where the Failsworth chip shops had no chop suey rolls and no fried rice and no char sui and no such thing as piping hot beansprouts and steaming thick hot runny curry sauce for dipping your chips in and warming up your insides all yummy and lovely on cold and frosty winter nights. Mr Kerney looked down at us all and asked us would we really want to live in a world like that? And we all of us shook our heads and said, ‘No, sir.’

  And then Mr Kerney said something about Twinky McDevitt being different and how lucky we were to have somebody who brought such enthusiasm and glamour to the grey world of the playground. Mr Kerney said he’d like everybody to think about that as we stood in silence for a moment. So we all stood there in silence and tried our very best to think about differentness and about Twinky and his pirouettes. But really we couldn’t think about nowt but piping hot chips and beansprouts with soy sauce and char sui foo yung and lovely runny curry sauce and whether we could persuade our mams to let us have our tea from the Garden of Confucius Cantonese Chip Shop tonight even though it wasn’t yet Friday.

  And then we all sang the song about the family of man and Mr Kerney asked Norman Gorman and Twinky McDevitt if they’d like to come up onto the stage and make their peace with one another. The two of them went up the steps and told each other they were very sorry and then they shook hands. And everybody in the hall applauded. So then Twinky did a big curtsy and everybody laughed, even the teachers and Mr Kerney. And that must have been an irresistible encoura
gement to Twinky because he started pirouetting around the stage then and doing his latest bit from The Wizard of Oz. Everybody was laughing and it was lovely and while Twinky went dancing and singing up the yellow brick road, Mr Kerney told everyone in the hall how he hoped that just like himself, we were all glad in the heart that the little world of our school had been made brighter and warmer by Norman and Twinky settling their quarrel.

  And everybody went home feeling nice and happy (apart from Norman Gorman who said that Chinese people were all slant-eyed twats and it was a well-known fact that they wipe their bums with their bare hands) and none of us, not even Mr Kerney, knew that the bright little world of our school was a world which Mr Kerney would shortly have to depart in the wake of the Transvestite Nativity Play Scandal and Twinky McDevitt’s notoriety as reported in the pages of the local gutter press.

  Twinky had been given the part of one of the Three Kings. But Twinky wasn’t too happy about that because he’d had his heart set on playing the part of the Virgin Mary. Miss Thompson told him not to be so stupid and how could he play the Virgin Mary which was a girl’s part and that’s why Samantha Hardcastle would be playing the Virgin Mary.

  Twinky did a pirouette and said he could easily take the part of the Virgin Mary, especially as he was much prettier than Samantha Hardcastle.

  Samantha Hardcastle started crying then and Miss Thompson shouted at Twinky and said if he didn’t shut up he wouldn’t even be playing one of the Three Kings and he’d have to be Sheep Number Twenty-Four instead!

  Twinky shrugged philosophically and asked Miss Thompson would he be playing the King who brought the frankincense, the King who brought the myrrh or the King who brought the gold to Baby Jesus.

  Miss Thompson, who was still preoccupied with stemming the sobs from Samantha Hardcastle, said, ‘For God’s sake, Twinky, I don’t know.’ And plucking the first thing that came into her head, she said, ‘The gold. You can be the King who brings gold as a gift.’