The Knife That Killed Me

by Anthony McGowan

“Where do you want it taken?”

  That was it: I was committed.

  “That’s ma boy. Up to the sports ground. The one in Temple Moor. You can take the bus up.”

  “But all the Temple Moor kids hang out there.”

  “Very, ah, astute.”

  “But they’ll see me….”

  Temple Moor High School was nearly as rough as ours. And there had always been trouble between us. Sometimes it was war. Sometimes an uneasy peace.

  “Look, it’s all cool with them. In fact it’s one of them you’ll be dropping this off with. Black kid. Called Goddard. They call him Goddo. It’s something he wants.”

  “Like what?”

  “Seriously, Paul, you don’t really want to know. Just a package.”

  I could guess.

  Drugs.

  I felt sick.

  But there was no way out now. Well, there was a way out, but I couldn’t take it. I was already too far down the path.

  Drugs weren’t that big at our school. A while back there had been a serious problem with glue and solvents, but one kid died with a can of lighter fluid up his nose, and that kept things quiet for a while. A few of the older kids talked about dope and speed, but I’d never heard of anything worse than that.

  “You look a bit peaky. I’m telling you, there’s nothing to worry about. And it’s one little favor. After this, you and me, we’re mates, all right?”

  I didn’t want to be mates with Roth. I didn’t want to hang around with him and the nutters like Bates and Miller. But I did want something from him. Something hard to put your finger on. I’d felt it already today. It was as if Roth put out fields—I mean, like radiation or something. And there were two different kinds. There was the one that killed you, the death field, and the one that protected you. If you were in that field, then you were OK, you were safe. Safe from anything. But it was really hard to know sometimes where one field ended and the other began.

  He handed me the package. It was heavier than I thought. It’s funny. Sometimes when things are heavier than you expect, it’s a good feeling. And this should have been a good feeling now, because surely this was too heavy to be drugs. It weighed as much as a cricket ball, more maybe.

  “When shall I take it?”

  “Now.”

  “Now? But … but I’ve got to go somewhere else.”

  “That can wait.”

  “No, I …” But I didn’t carry on, because I could easily get from Temple Moor to Halton. It just meant I couldn’t go home first. And I knew that I didn’t have the strength to tell a convincing lie to Roth.

  And so again I asked him:

  “Tell us what it is, Roth.”

  And Roth put his hand at the back of my neck and squeezed, and pulled me toward him at the same time. The pain wasn’t that bad, but I knew it was a message, and the message was: I can hurt you whenever I want to.

  “Ask me that again and you’ll find out,” he said, and that filled me with more dread than anything so far.

  And then he showed me his teeth. This close I could see the flat tops. They looked like they’d been worn down, worn smooth. I’ll grind your bones to make my bread. It came into my head like that.

  “Get going, or you’ll miss him.”

  I nodded, and began to get up. And then Roth pulled me back down again.

  “But just to be on the safe side,” he said, in a low voice, “you’d better take something. For self-defense.”

  Then, keeping eye contact, he put something metal in my hand. I looked down.

  It was the scissors.

  I heard wild laughter. Miller and Bates had appeared from nowhere to enjoy the joke.

  TEN

  I went to the bus stop. I could have walked—it’s only twenty minutes—but I was afraid that Roth might be watching, and he’d told me to take the bus. There were a few other kids there, larking around. No one I knew. I was daydreaming. Thinking about Shane. Thinking about Maddy. Sometime in between seeing her get hit by the ball and her visit to me in the sick bay I’d realized something. Something that was probably there all along, but I’d never acknowledged it. I liked her. I liked her a lot.

  You probably think it’s weird that I liked Maddy, after what I said about her. Not exactly cool. Not exactly pretty. But she had something. Something strange, like she heard secret voices or saw things that other kids couldn’t see. That’s making it sound worse. Maybe it was just that I thought she was a bit like me.

  There was a loud honk, yanking me out of my thoughts. I looked up, already knowing what I’d see. It was my dad, leaning out of the window of his truck cab. I felt my face burn.

  “Where you off to, son?”

  “Just up the hill, Dad. I’m … I’m meeting some friends up on Temple Moor.”

  “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “It’s all right, Dad, I’ll get the bus.”

  “What for? Money wasted. Get in.”

  He opened the door for me, and I climbed up. The cab was hot and it smelled of my dad—not foul, but a bit sweaty. I opened the window, and the truck juddered and chugged into motion.

  “Who are these friends then?”

  “Just some kids.”

  “But why are you meeting up there? You’ve got to watch yourself.”

  “Yeah, Dad, I know.”

  “Did I ever tell you about the big fight up there when I was your age?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “It was the whole school, virtually. Streaming up there like an army. You see, one of their kids had nicked a bird off one of ours. Over nothing, really.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “All our hard kids were there. And I’m telling you, back then, when I say hard, I mean hard. Not like now.”

  “You’ve told me, Dad.”

  “Funny thing is, though, we took a right spanking that day. We were on their patch. And Temple Moor has always been a bigger school. We got surrounded. I wasn’t even supposed to be fighting, just watching. But some of the little kids got mixed up in it, and I had to dive in to help them.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Well, someone had to.”

  He’d told me the story a million times. Me and anyone else who’d listen. About how he shepherded the little kids, protecting them from the Temple Moor meatheads. How everyone said he saved their lives, even though he’d just saved them from getting a kicking. How even the Temple Moor kids nodded at him afterward. I was sick of it, to be honest.

  “But it’s all right now, Dad. We’re not fighting them anymore.”

  “So what are you doing up there?”

  “Like I said, just meeting some mates. Drop me here, will you, Dad.”

  “OK, son.” He ruffled my hair. “Stay out of trouble, eh?”

  “See you, Dad.”

  I cut through the shops at the top of the hill. There was a pound store where you could buy anything shit for a pound—shit batteries, shit biscuits, shit baby clothes. And there was a liquor store where the guy stood behind a grille so you couldn’t rob him. It was the first one of those they had in our town, and people used to come just to look at it. It was like something in an American film, so people thought it was kind of cool.

  Past the shops, and soon you were in what looked a lot like countryside, although you could always see the shadow of the big council estate that looped around one side of it. We’d done the history of this place at school. The land was given to the Knights Templar in twelve something. That’s why it was called Temple Moor. They had a big farm, making money to help them fight the Saracens in the Holy Land. Then the Templars got slaughtered, not by the Saracens but by the kings in Europe who wanted their money, and I can’t remember what happened to the land, until hundreds of years later someone built a big house, and it’s still there, kind of beautiful. You can go round it and look at the chairs and beds of the rich people who used to live there.

  But I didn’t have to go near the big house to get to the sports ground. I knew it quit
e well, because we always had our school sports day there. You probably wouldn’t have guessed it, but the best time I ever had at school happened on sports day. I don’t know why, but Frisco made me volunteer to do the triple jump. I’m OK at sport, nothing special. Not in any school teams, but I can run. Frisco said, “Any volunteers for triple jump?” and then, “Right, you, Varderman,” before anyone had put their hand up.

  I’d never done the triple jump. None of us had. It was a new thing. I think Frisco brought it in just because it was quite hard to get right, and he wanted to see some of the kids fall on their faces in front of the whole school. It was a sunny day. I was against all the really sporty kids in the year. I did a couple of practice runs. The first time I messed up, stumbled, fell. The next time I went slowly, but got each stage right: hop, skip, jump. I didn’t get very far, but I could do it—you know, basically do it.

  Because the day was running late we were only allowed one jump in the competition, which was stupid. It was probably all part of Frisco’s plan. And it nearly worked. Every jump was a no-jump. Kids stepped over the board, or got the stages wrong, or didn’t bother with the stages at all, but just took a big leap, thinking that would be OK.

  And then I came along. Yeah, I just did it, easy as anything. Not many people were watching as there were other events on at the same time. A kid called Franklin punched the side of my head because I’d beat him. But I didn’t care. It was the only time I ever came first in anything at school. And now nothing can change that.

  Wait. I never said the knife wouldn’t move. I said it could never reach me. The distance will halve, the time will halve. Infinity does not require that there is no movement. In fact it demands that there is. The plan is working. I am safe. The knife will never get here. We are safe.

  ELEVEN

  I saw them hanging round some benches near the changing rooms and clubhouse. Six—no, seven of them. They looked pretty mean to me, although that could just have been because of the history.

  I could tell the second the gang saw me: the excitement went through their bodies, jolting each one.

  Here comes some fun, they thought.

  I took the box out of my bag and held it out in front of me as I approached them. I was trying to look purposeful, but not dangerous. Ha! That was funny. As if I could ever be a danger to them. But I wanted at least to look like I was there for a reason, and not just like some aimless kid, ripe for robbing of his pocket money.

  The gang had stopped talking among themselves, and now watched me, their stares openly hostile. I was frightened. I tried to think of my dad, tried to think what he’d have done. But thinking about my dad never really helped me. Somehow thinking of his strength always made me feel weaker. Imagining his courage made me want to hide.

  About ten meters away from them I stopped and shouted out: “I’ve got something for Goddo.”

  My voice chose that moment to crack, and it came out as a squeaking croak. At least that broke the tension, and they laughed.

  Too hard.

  Too long.

  “Hear that, Goddo, he’s got something for you,” one of the kids said at last, copying my squeak. The laughter swelled again. It was impossible to know how this would turn out.

  Something about Goddo reassured me. He was a head taller than the other kids, but he had the kind of face that fell easily into a smile.

  “He better bring it here then,” he said.

  His tone wasn’t unfriendly, and the words still had that smile or the promise of a smile behind them. I was struck by the difference between him and Roth. There was never a time when Roth wasn’t asserting his dominance over you, letting you know that he was the master and you were clay. Goddo seemed less concerned with making the world bow to his will. But it might have been an act. After all, I was still far enough away to have a chance of escaping if I ran for it, so he could just have been trying not to scare me off.

  But the truth is that I was more scared of Roth than of any of these kids, and I wasn’t going to run. I walked the rest of the way to the group.

  “It must be your birthday,” one of the gang said. A scrawny kid with spiky hair. He looked like something spat out by a dog.

  I stretched out my arm to Goddo and he took the package.

  “Who’s it from?” he asked.

  “Roth.”

  “Roth?” he said, looking puzzled.

  I hadn’t thought for a moment that he wouldn’t know who Roth was. It was like not knowing who Jesus was, or the Queen.

  Then he twigged.

  “Oh, you mean that ape-man?”

  The others laughed. The spiky-haired kid did an ape walk, rolling along on bandy legs, his knuckles dragging on the ground.

  I didn’t like that. I don’t mean calling Roth an ape-man; I mean the fact that Goddo didn’t seem to know what this was all about. Although I wasn’t exactly delighted at the idea of running drugs, I thought at least it was a deal between them, something they’d agreed on. That’s where my safety lay.

  Goddo weighed the package in his hands. “Quite heavy. What is it?”

  “Dunno. I’m just the messenger.” At least I’d got the sentence out without squeaking.

  “Open it up,” said the spiky-haired kid, pulling at Goddo’s arm.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” replied Goddo, shrugging him off. He picked at the Scotch tape. “Give us your knife, Mickey.”

  A knife. I felt another surge of unease.

  Then Mickey, the scrawny kid, took out a Swiss Army knife. I felt oddly reassured by that. Yeah, a penknife can kill you, but it’s not exactly the weapon of choice for a gangsta. What if you opened up the corkscrew or nail file instead of a blade?

  Goddo found one of the shorter blades and cut through the wrapping. The brown paper eased open, and Goddo let it fall. The box inside had a picture of a heart on top.

  “I was wrong, it’s Valentine’s day,” said Mickey.

  He was obviously the comedian of the group. But this time the others were too engrossed in the box to laugh.

  It was then that I really should have run, while they were checking out the package. Even if they’d bothered chasing me, they might not have caught me.

  Goddo had been smiling, but now his face changed. He moved the box to one hand and looked at the fingers of the other, touching them together as if there was something sticky on them. Then he held the box up to eye level and peered underneath.

  “Something leaking,” he said, almost to himself.

  Then he opened the box.

  And dropped it.

  Mickey let out a scream, and the rest of the gang shouted and stepped back.

  Again I should have bolted. I’d have made it, I know I would. But I was hypnotized by the box, caught by my desire to see what it contained. So I moved forward rather than away, and looked at what Goddo had dropped.

  The box was empty. Its contents had rolled out. For a second I couldn’t see what it was. I moved closer still. And then I saw.

  It was a head.

  A dog’s head.

  Black and brown fur. The shocking pink tongue, lolling. Dull eyes, staring. White teeth. Blood thickly oozing.

  Looked like a pit bull. Except a pit bull never appeared so vulnerable. Or so dead.

  “Suzie.”

  Goddo spoke the word. And then he did the shocking thing. He picked up the head he had let fall from the box, brought it to his face and kissed the black lips.

  I must have made some sort of noise then, because they all turned and looked at me. I think they’d forgotten I was there. Too late now, I tried to run, but they were on me. Two grabbed my arms and one held me by the hair, pulling my head back. Mickey stood in front of me. Somehow he’d got the knife back from Goddo. He pointed the blade at my exposed neck. They were all shouting and the world seemed to spin and reel in my eyes.

  “Slit his throat,” someone said, one of the kids holding me.

  “Yeah, bleed him.”

  “You saw what he
did. I’m gonna cut his head off. Send it back to them. Head for a head.”

  The kids holding my arms pulled and twisted them further behind my back, and I felt the hand in my hair circle closer to my scalp, and then yank back. I gasped with the pain. But I never took my eyes off the knife. Mickey put the blade to my throat and pressed. I felt it cut into me, felt a trickle of warm blood run like a tear.

  “Aw, baby cry, baby cry.”

  “Leave him.”

  Goddo again. I felt a swell of pure gratitude toward him. He pushed Mickey out of the way, and my gratitude turned to horror. He was holding the head. His eyes had gone. He looked mad. I mean mad crazy, not mad angry.

  He put his face close to mine, then raised the dog’s head.

  “Why?”

  “I swear I didn’t know. Roth … it was a trick … against me. I’m not his mate.”

  I was trembling. And yes, tears were streaming down my face. I don’t know if Goddo was hearing me.

  “Do you know what this was?” he said, pressing the head against my cheek.

  “I didn’t know it was in the box. I promise. I thought it was drugs.”

  “This was my puppy,” he said, and moved away.

  His back was to us. We all waited. I don’t know how long. He turned to face us again, and I knew I was saved.

  “Let him go.”

  A sort of collective moan came from the gang.

  “But what he did … Goddo, we’ve …”

  “Shut it. Like he said, he’s only the messenger. The post boy.”

  “Still, though, Goddo, we’ve got him. Yeah, he’s the one we’ve got. Sometimes you have to make do with that. So we send them a message back.”

  “Least we should do is cut him.”

  Goddo ignored them. He took another step toward me.

  “Come on, Goddo, let’s teach them a lesson,” said Mickey from the side, his voice quiet, urgent, pleading. “They can’t do this. They can’t show us this disrespect. This is war.”

  Goddo looked at him, as if for the first time. And his face changed again. Not angry, not crazy, not laughing. Deadly serious. Suddenly he looked like Roth.

  “For once you’re right, Mickey,” he said. “It is war. But this little poof isn’t the one.” He turned to me. “You said Roth sent this?”