He cheered up when he went into the warehouse as there were many familiar faces there. A lot of the young guys he knew from school or being involved with the Cumbie gang. Indeed, when some of the guys saw him they gasped in awe. But others looked disappointed. What was the leader of the Cumbie gang doing here? Surely this was too low esteem for a gangster like him? But they were aware of his fearsome reputation and said nothing. A few came up to shake his hand and welcomed him aboard. He was then introduced to the midget foreman. The midget smiled broadly when he saw Johnny. He shook his hand firmly. In fact, Johnny was quite annoyed at how strong the midget’s grip was. It hurt his fingers.
But from past experience, Johnny found that most small men had strong grips to make up for their lack of stature. “Good to have you on board Johnny boy,” the midget said as the other guys looked on.
Johnny had the suspicion that the midget was putting on a show in front of the other workforce to give the illusion that they were old pals from school. But this was not the case, he could recall beating up the midget several times as school. In fact, his mother, who also looked like a midget, had gone to the school and complained about him beating up her boy. The result was six of the belt, which left his hands stinging for days. But it was all different now. They were no longer boys but grown men who worked together. The past had been consigned to the past. Johnny still detested the midget but put on an old pals act. “Aye great tae see you. Just like the auld days! How’s your wee maw doing?” The midget smiled, “Ach, she’s no changed, still mad about the bingo. She won the snowball of a hundred quid a few weeks ago and was over the moon. She goes to the bingo every night to squander her winnings and maybe win another snowball.”
Alex showed Johnny around the sawmills. Row upon row of piles of wood and plasterboards. “Once you get used to it, it’s quite simple. Your job will be shovelling sawdust, carrying wood from one section to another and to the vans outside. We deliver all over Scotland so the vans need filling up most of the day.”
“Sounds simple” Johnny said.
“Aye, but it still takes a wee while to get intae the routine but there’s one thing ah’ve got tae warn you about.”
“What’s that?”
“Late timekeeping. You’ve got tae clock in by eight every morning. The general manager Mr McDonald hates late timekeepers. If you are late your card goes fae black to red so he knows straight away who the punctual guys are and who the late timekeepers are.”
Johnny felt irked, he had been right, working class slavery!
“Oh aye, who is this Mr McDonald?”
“You’ll see him soon enough. He’s in his office now but he usually wanders about here several times a day to see if everything is running smoothly. And if it isnae, you’ll soon hear about it, ah can tell you!”
Johnny had never met McDonald but hated him already, he could feel his violent streak being turned on. “Where’s Malky?” he asked. The midget replied, “He’s out delivering wi’ the vans. You’ll no see much of your pal for a while.”
Johnny felt a bit deflated. He had envisaged him and Malky having a laugh on the shop floor but so far it was not to be. The midget gave him a guided tour of the sawmills showing him such essential places as the toilets, which had a terrible stench about them and looked as though they belonged to a third world country. Nearby, there was a little hut they called “the tea room.” It was where the men went with their flasks of tea and sandwiches.
He was given his first job, sweeping sawdust into piles and then shovelling it into bags. After a few hours working away he found it pretty soul destroying, but prided himself as being a working man, grafting to put bread on the table for his family. Lunchtime came and Johnny headed for the toilets. They were stinking worse than Lorraine’s fish porter father. He went inside one of the cubicles and sat on the pan. He did not want to go to the toilet but decided it would be a great place to meditate for a few minutes, despite the stink. The smell from the pan was almost unbearable. There was a large turd there that had not been flushed away.
He flushed and flushed, pulling the chain above violently. But still the turd refused to move. Someone had left a rolled up newspaper and he battered the obstinate sewage with it. Eventually it disintegrated and after another flush of the chain it went on its way into the sewer.
He then heard two men coming into the toilet. He knew one of the voices, it was the midget and another guy. They had come in for a pish. Johnny sat down on the pan and listened in on the conversation.
“Ah see big Johnny fae the Cumbie has joined us,” the guy said. Alex replied, “Aye, what a come down. One minute he’s the Gorbals top gang leader, now he’s shovelling sawdust into bags.” The other guy laughed and said, “This’ll bring him back down to earth. He’s no’ a big-time gangster anymore, just a labourer like us. What made you give him the job?”
As the midget concluded his piss he replied, “Ah had nae choice. Ah don’t really like the bastard. He bullied me at school. But when his best pal Malky asked me to gi’ his pal a start, ah had to. If ah had turned him down it would have got out that ah had turned down Johnny, the leader of the Cumbie, for a job. Ma card would have been marked. Ah don’t like hospital food, that’s why he’s working here today.”
The other man giggled, “Ah don’t blame you, ah widnae fuck wi’ that mad bastard. He probably willnae last here long anyway, fingers crossed.”
Alex said,” Ah hope so, aye. Fingers crossed. ”
They both left the stinking toilets unaware that Johnny had heard every word of their rather denigrating conversation. Beads of sweat fell from Johnny’s head but they were not the result of hard work, or the stench of the toilet, but the result of his fear and paranoia. He threw some cold water on his face from the manky sink and wandered over to the tea hut.
He had forgotten to take his flask and sandwiches with him to work, a typical rookie’s mistake. When he got to the hut there were about a dozen men eating their sandwiches and drinking their tea from their flasks.
All the men looked around as he entered the hut. Some had welcoming smiles on their faces as if to say, “Welcome, pal!”
Other had grimaces on their faces as if to say, “Fuck off, pal!” But he was unperturbed. If half of them loved him and the other half hated him, he could live with that. The midget was sitting at a table in the centre and gave him a warm welcome, “Hey, it’s Johnny boy! Sit down and have a cup o’ tea and ham sandwich wi’ me.” “Two-faced bastard”, Johnny thought but he decided to play the game of being all pals at the palace. He said in a humble voice, “Thanks, pal, a cup of tea and a sandwich would go down very well.” He sat beside the midget and listened to the general conversation. It was the usual guff about Celtic and Rangers and horseracing. In many ways the tone and topics of this working class conversation made him feel demeaned.
Also, the fact that the midget could be nice to his face but secretly ran him down, depressed him. He could feel his anger rise and decided to get back to work. There was a mountain of sawdust and plies of bags to be filled. He laboured hard over the next few hours. But as soon as one pile of sawdust disappeared another sprang up, Working class slavery shite!
A few other labourers did come over to have a quick chat with him, but they were also busy doing other menial jobs. All this shovelling would keep him fit, no chance of him getting fat. As he filled his umpteenth bag of sawdust he began to sneeze uncontrollably.
The sawdust, like some people there, had got up his nose. In fact, he could even taste it in his mouth as if he had eaten a tree trunk. One of the other workers gave him a mask to stop him sneezing and it seemed to work after a few minutes.
Johnny had only been in the job for a few hours but now he hated everything about the place, including the sawdust and the two faced foreman. It was just when he was thinking this when he heard a voice shouting in his direction. “Hey, you in the mask wi’ the sawdust. Can ah have a wee word?” He took his mask off and turned round to see a tall grey ha
ired man in his late 50s facing him. He looked the typical office type, white shirt, dark tie and highly polished shoes. He knew straight away it was the manager Mr McDonald.
“Aye, what is it?” he said still holding his shovel.
“Look you’re doing this job all wrong. The sawdust should be placed over there in that corner and then put into bags. You’re new, aren’t you?” McDonald said.
“Aye, just started this morning, pal.”
“Ah’m no’ your pal. My name is Mr McDonald and I am the boss around here, so don’t forget it,” he said in a tone that suggested he was the master and Johnny his servile slave. He continued, “Furthermore, make sure the sawdust is cleared and put into bags before the shift ends.”
McDonald walked off with his haughty head in the air. Johnny felt like going after him and giving him a Glasgow kiss, a head-butt that might knock the haughtiness out of him. But he let his anger subside and carried on shovelling the sawdust into a corner as demanded by McDonald. He managed to bag up the remaining sawdust before clocking out at 4.05 pm and headed home feeling exhausted.
Cathy was waiting for him with a big smile, looking pleased and excited about her man’s first day at work. “Ah’ve got your tea ready. How did your first day go?”
He put on a brave face, “No’ bad, but hard physical work takes a bit of getting used to. It’s no’ for the faint hearted, Cathy.” She laughed the way that women do when they are proud of their men, “Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used tae it. You’ve got a job for life there!”
He nodded his head and gave a weak smile but said nothing. Feeling exhausted after an honest day’s labour he lay in bed thinking about the phrase, “Only fools and horses work.” He reflected how true it was.
Chapter 48
FACADE
For the next four weeks he kept up the facade and pretence of being a hard-working family man. At least it kept Cathy happy. She boasted to neighbours that the wild man she had married had finally settled down with had put his nose to the grindstone. But the stress of working such an obnoxious environment left Johnny at times having minor panic fits, which were the result of feeling nervous and anxious. He knew he was a square peg in a round hole and had utter contempt for his fellow employees. He met an older guy in his late 50s who had been working in the saw mills since he was 15, more than 35 years, man and boy. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box and had a resigned look about him.
He told Johnny in the tea hut, “Ah came here straight after school. Ma father said it was a job for life, and he was right. The pay packets might no’ be big but they’re regular.” Johnny instantly felt depressed. A whole life in the sawmills, doing the same mundane tasks, day after day. A life that had gone down the drain. Was he destined to end up like this? The very idea sent a shudder down his spine. Subconsciously, he knew he had to get the hell out of it. He could not walk out on the job as this would disappoint his young pregnant wife. No, getting the sack was the only option.
It was another case of slowly, slowly catch the money. He was late for work almost every day with red time marks all over his clocking in card. He was late by only a few minutes day in day out but he knew that an accumulation of red marks would mean he would get called into the office for a warning by McDonald.
But much to his dismay, McDonald had been off for a couple of weeks to have “a piles operation.” So the big boss had not been around to give him a warning about his timekeeping. Through various conversations with his fellow labourers in the tea hut he learned that McDonald was an educated man and had gone to the posh fee-paying Hutchie grammar school. He had then studied business at Glasgow University. From then on, he joined the Scots Guards as an officer and even had a few medals for fighting in the Korean War. He was reckoned to be a “hard but fair” man who treated his workers as if they were privates in the army. Johnny felt a deep contempt for McDonald with his posh lower middle class accent.
Sure, he had fought a few battles in Korea but so had Johnny in the Gorbals. He also heard through the grapevine that McDonald was a big shot in the Orange Lodge and a member of the Masons to boot. He detested such people being members of a sectarian movement and secret society. And those fucking secret handshakes! It did not impress him, in fact it made him feel repulsed. Another thing that got on Johnny’s wick was the fact that every time he went into the toilet there was a large turd there that had not been flushed away.
He decided to find out who the culprit was. He was shifting wood near the toilets when he saw a guy called “Big Tam” go in. He had disliked the fellow from day one. Big Tam thought of himself as being a cut above the other labourers. In some ways he was. He was a forklift driver who had been there 20 years. He was an obnoxious looking fellow weighing almost 20 stone but his weight did not stop him operating his forklift truck. Johnny had been warned though to be careful what he said to Big Tam as he was known as being a workplace grass and often told tales to McDonald resulting in a few people getting the sack. He and McDonald were connected in more way than one. He was a member of the same Masonic lodge. Tam would be the ideal guy to pick on if he wanted the sack.
After Big Tam left the toilet cubicle Johnny went to check and sure enough there was a large turd there. The evidence was overwhelming, Big Tam was the mystery defecator. Johnny approached the forklift and shouted to the fat man, “Hey, ya fucking dirty bastard. Dae ye no’ flush he lavvy after you’ve done the business?” Big Tam looked angry at such foul mouthed insolence, “What the fuck has it got to dae wi’ you? A can shite where ah want.” Johnny leapt at him and threw him from his forklift. He punched Big Tam heavily in the face causing his nose to bleed. The other labourers rushed forward to break them up.
The midget looked as white as a sheet and took Johnny to one side, “That was no’ a wise move. He’s a big pal of McDonald and when he gets back there will be hell tae pay.” Johnny shrugged his shoulders, “Who gives a fuck? The shitey bastard deserved it.” He went back to work shovelling sawdust. From then on Big Tam kept out of his way. So did the midget who feared he could be the next recipient of Johnny’s temper. But although he was still shovelling sawdust Johnny was pleased he had laid the foundations for his sacking.
It was Friday night and he and Cathy went to the Horseshoe Bar in Crown Street. The place was quite busy and when they sat down with their drinks they did look like a handsome couple. Johnny was in a three-piece suit, shirt and tie. Cathy was wearing a figure-hugging red dress and despite her pregnancy looked glamorous. A guy Johnny barely knew came over, slapped him on the back and said, “How’s it going pal?” He then said to Cathy, “You look sexy in that dress doll.” The guy was being insolent and he knew it. Johnny realised his change in status from being a gangster to a labourer had repercussions. People no longer respected him as before. Something had to be done about this.
He saw the guy go into the Gents and followed him in. The fellow was aged about 30 and also smartly dressed. Johnny grabbed him by the lapels, “Don’t ever fucking slap me on the back and call me pal again.” He pulled out an open razor and held it to the guy’s throat. “Also, don’t ever talk tae ma wife like that again, if you do ah’ll fucking throttle you and rip you.” He let go of the man’s throat knowing he had got the message. The man spluttered, “Ok, Johnny… ok.” After that the weekend went well but he could still detect from some people that his status had been diminished. He said nothing to anyone, including Cathy. The weekend flew in and soon it was Monday morning. He was back in his overalls shovelling sawdust into bags. Suddenly, he heard McDonald’s voice shouting to other labourers, “You there. Aye you! Shift those plaster boards to the other side.” He shouted to another labourer, “You! Stop standing about scratching your balls. Get back to work, that’s what you’re paid for.” The two men were frightened of getting the sack and said nothing, carrying on with their menial tasks.
It was obvious McDonald was in a bad mood. Perhaps the removal of his piles had left him with a sore arse. He moved towards Johnny and
shouted, “You there, aye you wi’ the sawdust. Tidy that area up, it looks a mess.” Johnny put his shovel down, “Ma name is not you, fucking understand that ya tube, ye.” McDonald was taken aback with such cheek. Johnny could see the fear on his face. A war hero be fuck, he wasn’t in the same league as Johnny when it came to a fight. McDonald moved off towards his office. But Johnny was aware he had obviously not been told about the assault on Big Tam, yet.
It was only a matter of time and the clock was ticking. Just before lunchtime the midget came up to him with a worried look on his face, “McDonald wants to see you in his office. It’s no’ looking good Johnny.” He replied, “Ah don’t give a flying fuck.” He went into the office and McDonald was sitting at his desk looking at Johnny’s clocking in card with all the red marks. He was shaking his head. “Sit down, young man,” he said in a voice that sounded like an officer talking to a private. He sat down facing McDonald, “What dae ye want me for, big shot?” McDonald was yet again taken aback by another insolent remark. In all his years at the sawmills and in the army he had never been talked to like this. “Since you started you have been continually late and aggressive, not only to me but other staff members.” Johnny smiled, “So what?”
The Incredible Rise of a Gorbals Gangster Page 26
