Dad and I had made a good name for ourselves in Allentown and were welcomed by black and white folk alike. Segregation was long gone, but the different ethnic groups still tended to stick to their own. Most of the bars and clubs were either ‘black’ or ‘white’, but we felt very privileged to be welcomed in either. I’ve many fond memories of nights out as the only white face in a black crowd, but those evenings were only possible because of the goodwill we’d earned through a combination of business and friendship – two things that had always mixed in our world back home.
It’s said that ‘Home is where the heart is’ and it was painful for Mum and Dad to finally sell our wonderful house in Dulwich. After Mum completed the sale, she and Danni made their way to Allentown. We hadn’t seen them in five months and our reunion was as wonderful as can be imagined. Dad had moved us to a new, larger condo and Mum lost no time in turning it into a lovely home for us to stay in until the new house was completed.
Allentown was a shock for Mum and Danni, as it had been for me. Being away from friends and family was undeniably hard on the girls, but as always they made the best out of the situation. We were all in this together. We knew it wasn’t for ever, so there was nothing else for it but to be thankful for family life, knuckle down and get on with it. Danni found a job with the local theatre company and was soon having a whale of a time in several productions. I think she enjoyed the experience really. She made new friends. Scott, a good-looking young gay guy, was her real ‘buddy’. He was a lovely kid and idolised Danni. We helped her get a part-time job in a clothes shop in the local shopping mall, and Dad gave her the use of our truck – a huge Dodge pick-up that she absolutely adored. It really was something to watch the way she handled that beast, and we soon gave her the nickname ‘Trucker Dan’. It was good to see her happy – like me, my Danni had been through a hell of a lot over the years.
And why didn’t I get involved in a bit of acting? I was too busy bringing home the bacon with Dad. Providing for the family always came first.
Eventually, our beautiful house was ready to move into. The whole family adored it. For the first time since leaving our beloved house in Dulwich, we were in a place we could really call home. I cherished the moments spent together in our new house. For me home life was as fine as it could be. But as the year wore on my life outside that home slowly began to unravel.
Day in, day out, Dad and I minded the games room. At first I’d been happy with it all – setting up and establishing control had been a real challenge, a battle I’d enjoyed fighting. But nothing ever changed after that – it was the same old same old. The same faces, the same old squabbles, the same threats and jibes and the same old right-handers to keep trouble at bay. I was winging it every day of the week and over time the repetition started to wear me down. When it came to our customers, my fuse got shorter and shorter. I was well used to their petty displays of bravado – at first I’d found their small-town mentality a mere surface nuisance – but now the ignorant, unworldly ways of our punters was really getting under my skin. I wanted to be an artist on stage. Hanging around with these lowlifes was a constant reminder of how starved I was creatively.
Often, as I stood around listening to the endless quarters dropping into our machines, I thought of my old life in London. How I missed the places I’d seen and the fascinating, diverse world of entertainment I was part of. My friends had been actors, directors, artists – people with ideas and dreams. What a contrast they were to the crowd in this place. It seemed our punters dreamed of little more than a free game of Space Invaders.
I became directionless and dejected. All the hopes and ambitions I held felt like nothing more than a pipedream. I would never reach my full potential stuck in this place, and that realisation made me feel very depressed. But I bottled up my emotions for the sake of the family. We all had our worries. I sensed the claustrophobia of the games room was getting to Dad too, and Mum and Danni had become increasingly homesick. We all had to do our bit and stay strong for each other. I kept telling myself it wasn’t for ever and tried to remain positive. After all, we had a house, friends and money and, most importantly, our freedom – all reasons to be cheerful. Still, I couldn’t put the brakes on my unhappiness. Slowly but surely the cracks began to show.
My frustration inevitably turned to anger. I’m sorry to say that I started taking it out on others. Simple as they were, the guys at the games room couldn’t help it. They came from tough, deprived backgrounds and hanging out and ducking and diving was as good as it was going to get for them. Those guys were our bread and butter too. Without their quarters our business didn’t exist. But knowing that didn’t stop me from starting to hate those around me – I needed another scapegoat and unfortunately I found it in our customers.
At first I’d only got physical if somebody was taking a liberty, but all of a sudden – much to my horror – I found myself wanting to have a row over the littlest things. Comments that normally would have been water off a duck’s back were rankling with me big time. I was picking fights for no good reason. I got more and more feisty and the change in my demeanour made me very uncomfortable. Worst of all, I couldn’t do anything about it.
Even Dad was shocked by my unpredictable outbursts. I remember walking into the office one day to relieve him from a morning shift. Sitting with Dad was a guy I’d thrown out the previous day. Without saying a word I walked up and punched him in the eye. One minute Dad had been talking to him and now the bloke was clutching his face in agony. Dad was shocked.
‘What was that about?’ he said.
‘I fucking barred him yesterday,’ I yelled, pumped up and angry. ‘I kicked him up the arse and slung him out.’
Always fair, Dad thought I’d gone over the top and told me so. I calmed down, and felt ashamed for talking back to my own father. I apologised and that was the end of it. Looking back, I should have taken my outburst as a warning that there was worse to come. But I didn’t. I certainly could not have predicted what I would end up doing a couple of months later. But I think that moment in the office was a sign to Dad that something was wrong. It certainly wasn’t lost on him. This wasn’t the Jamie he knew, and it worried him.
One day we heard a whisper: a gang were planning to rob us. The stick-up crew would be armed. This was bad fucking news and very troubling. Up until then we’d been happy to steer clear of guns – they’d caused us enough trouble in the past and we had no need for them in our line of work. But, knowing our fists would be useless against firearms, we decided to acquire a couple of shooters from the local chaps. We bought an automatic and a revolver. There was a lot of money at stake and we had to be tooled up in case of the worst.
We didn’t have a gun licence, so couldn’t carry loaded weapons, but there was a way around that. In America you could carry a gun if you keep the bullets in one pocket and the gun in another. Licence or no licence, you couldn’t get nicked for it. We kept the .32 automatic locked in a drawer at work, but sometimes I’d walk around with it, the clip in one pocket and the piece in the other. I felt safer that way.
Time passed and thankfully the robbers never showed. But locking up one night we heard someone trying a back door. Dad drew the automatic, cocked it and shouted through the door that he was going to fire. We gave it a second and charged out. Whoever it was must have legged it. A false alarm, perhaps, or maybe the crew realised we weren’t to be fucked with. Who knows? Following that, I kept the tool close at hand as I went about my angry days in the games room.
By now I’d been doing the same job for nearly a year and it was really sapping my resolve. I was constantly on edge and my state of mind only worsened. The lower I got, the more I tried to fight it and keep myself on an even keel. But I was fighting a personal battle – and losing. The pressure in my head mounted; I was a bomb waiting to go off. Then, one terrible day, I exploded.
For once the games room wasn’t busy. There was no need for me to stand around, so I took a rest in the back office. I was i
n a reflective mood, dreaming of England. How I wished I were back home. My mates were there, my career was there – or had been – and life in Allentown had nothing left to offer me. I was melancholy as hell.
Just then a man came bursting into my office. It was Tyrone, one of the local faces, a real character who did a good line in nicked gear. He was always out thieving and I used to help him shift whatever he pinched. He was six foot two and a right funny bastard, so I’d always had a bit of affection for him. We got on well. Tyrone stood out from the others and always amused me. Today, however, I wasn’t in the mood.
Full of himself as ever, Tyrone waltzed in on a high: he’d nicked a load of designer shirts. ‘Look at this lot,’ he babbled excitedly, assuming I’d be interested. I wasn’t. I didn’t give a fuck about Tyrone and his shirts. ‘We’d better shift these,’ he said, holding out one of them. ‘Help me take the pins out.’
And then he threw it at me.
I can barely remember what happened next. All I know is that I lost it. Within seconds of that shirt hitting my chest, I was out of my chair, across the room and pointing my cocked .32 automatic against Tyrone’s head. A red mist had descended over me and I completely flipped out. I growled every swear word under the sun into his wide-eyed, terrified face: I was going to maim him, I was going to put one in his nut, I was going to bury him; he was a nigger, he was a punk, he was a cunt. Terrible, terrible words, I know, but I was in a terrible way.
Tyrone shook as I ranted, and tried in vain to calm me down. His words were no use – I’d truly lost it. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill and I came terrifyingly close. I remember thinking how easy it would be to pull the trigger and be done with it, with him, with everything. Worse, I remember feeling capable of it. I had it in me.
Thank God I came far enough down to earth to realise what I was doing. Not that I calmed down right away. Far from it. Still seething, I fired off another volley of insults and slung Tyrone out of the building. When he was gone, I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t even shaking.
I hadn’t given a thought to the position I could have put us all in. What if he called the cops? But he’s a thief, I thought. He won’t go to the police. I’d pulled a gun on an Allentown face for no good reason and possibly opened a can of worms. I knew there might be a comeback, but right then I didn’t give a fuck. Let him do what he had to do, I thought, I’ll fucking have him…
Eventually, the adrenalin died down. Calmer now, I walked back to the office, my head down. What had I done? I’d completely lost control. Simple as that. I’d threatened to end a man’s life over a shirt, for fuck’s sake – a shirt. I’d flipped. I was shocked at myself. Disgusted, confused and shaken. I knew what had happened, but didn’t understand why. I’d work that bit out later. Right now there was a situation to deal with.
I picked up the phone and called Dad to explain what had gone down. ‘You’d better get down here,’ I said. ‘It’s serious.’
Dad came over like a shot, revolver tucked into his waistband. In situations like that you never know how soon the comeback will happen.
I felt numb. I was so ashamed of myself. It was bad enough that I’d lost the plot, but I felt sick to think I’d created a reputation and put my dad in danger. Rather than an asset to the business, I suddenly felt I was a risk to our safety and well-being. It made me feel like shit. I apologised profusely to Dad, but he was wonderful about it. We sat together and talked it over. I shook my head in disbelief every time I thought about what I’d done. Dad stayed with me for an hour or so.
‘These things happen,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s not the end of the world. Still, I think you should go home. I don’t think Tyrone will come back now – he’s probably shitting himself. Take the afternoon off.’
I didn’t want to leave Dad on his own, but he reassured me he would be all right and insisted I rest. So I went.
I’d really scared myself. I was shaken to the core by what I’d nearly done. Never had I felt remotely capable of doing such a thing. But my behaviour made me realise I’d got myself wrong. I was capable of anything. During those moments with Tyrone I’d glimpsed that dark place in my soul – a place that I feel any man can go if pushed – and, while I learned something about myself, it terrified me. The hatred I felt towards my situation had led me to hate others. My actions in that office made me start to feel very uncomfortable about myself. I realised what I had become. I wasn’t the man I thought I was, nor the man I wanted to be.
Back at the house, Mum comforted me. I have always been able to unload on Mum. I still do today. She opened some wine and we talked about the way I’d been feeling over the last 18 months – the stress I’d been under – and I told her how I’d been bottling it all up. I needed to understand why I’d lost control that badly, and Mum’s wisdom and love helped me accept that I wasn’t a bad person. My situation had turned me into a caged animal and eventually something had snapped. It wasn’t Tyrone I’d been trying to destroy, it was what he represented. Tyrone was just one of my jailers in a life that had imprisoned me.
My situation had come to a head. The incident was proof I needed a change. Having discussed it with Mum, Dad was the first to recognise it. It upset him to realise I’d got to a place in my head where I might end up doing similar things to those he’d done in the past. It broke his heart to think I might do something rash and have to pay the price in prison. He’d always loved my help, but he’d never wanted my life to go the way of his. Just as I’d always wanted to be there for him, he wanted to be there for me now that I needed it.
Our journey had been long. Together we had started from scratch and made a success of America, but it couldn’t go on for ever. I could no longer see the wood for the trees and, with nothing but my best interests in mind, Dad decided enough was enough.
‘I know what you’ve been through,’ he told me one night. ‘I’ve found it tough myself. But this is my life. You have your career and your life to think about. I think you should start thinking about going back to England.’
Dad had recently got word from the chaps that it would be safe for me to slip back – the poor Customs man’s murder case was over and the hunt for Dad was dying down. The authorities had realised that I’d had nothing to do with planning to bring the drugs in.
Much as I missed my old life, the idea of leaving Dad again filled me with fear. We’d relied on each other so much in America – for months we’d stood shoulder to shoulder on the lookout for danger – and I was scared of leaving him vulnerable. Dad and I have an inextricable bond and those months together had brought us closer than ever. Looking at him then, sensing the compassion and kinship in his eyes, I loved him more than ever.
But I also felt guilty. Allentown was a prison for Dad too. The idea of abandoning my father brought back all the sickening, horrible feelings from Leicester jail all those years ago. We’d come so far since those dark days – we were together, free and strong – but sometimes those buried emotions came back. I’d lost my father and found him again and I never wanted to let him go. I thought that leaving him would be disloyal in some way. I told Dad how I felt.
He understood. He felt the same way as me – he never wanted to let me go again either. Our time in America had been so precious. We learned more about each other than a father and son could ever hope to. We’d witnessed each other strong and weak; revealed our love through words and actions. Going on the run had been a blessing in disguise. I looked at Dad and smiled. I hadn’t failed, I wasn’t weak. But the time to move on had come.
‘You’ve done more than your bit, Jamie,’ said Dad. ‘I’m proud of you. We all are. I’ll be fine here, you’ll see. But it’s time for you to think about yourself. It’s time for you to go home, son.’
POSTSCRIPT
On the plane I ordered a Bloody Mary. I paid and as I took my change from the stewardess – a dollar bill – I noticed some writing on it: ‘DUKE’. I stared in disbelief. It was Dukey’s signature. Impossible, I thought.
But there was no mistaking Pasha’s hand – I had read his suicide letter. He always wrote in capitals. I was stunned and overwhelmed – all the memories came flooding back. I thought of Duke, of Dad, of ‘Scatty Eddie’ and his life sentence, and reeled at the enormity of the adventure we’d been through. Poor old Dukey, I thought, a tear coming to my eye. I’d been through so much – we’d all been through so much. Through all the trials and tribulations of our lives, our family had made it this far. To me Dukey’s dollar was a sign, his way of telling me that all would be well.
And it was. Getting back to London was like being shot with a wonderful, calming drug. Seeing my mates and reconnecting with the chaps was an injection of pure comfort. But getting back into acting was the icing on the cake. My agent, Bill Horne, had waited patiently and even opened a bank account in my name for my royalty payments, bless him. Before long I was back nicking parts as if I’d never been away. Bliss. I’d been so starved for so long and being back on the fringe circuit made me feel alive again. Moments before going on stage I’d sometimes think back to those days in the games room – of all those quarters dropping, all those battles – and smile as I waited to step out into the spotlight. What an incredible journey I’d been on. Now I had some distance from it, Allentown would always have a place in my heart.
I paid a few more visits to America until Dad finally made it home in 1981. In the end he missed England as badly as I did. Besides, some rival firms he had close links to were rowing, and it was time for Fred to step in and sort things out. A face as powerful as Dad’s can’t hide in London for ever. Eventually, Dad was arrested and charged with importation of cannabis. At Winchester Crown Court a judge gave him a two-year suspended sentence. What a result. One day while I was with Pandy, I saw a picture of a beautiful girl in the newspaper. I realised it was Julie immediately. My memory of her was so strong. ‘That’s Julie Dennis,’ I said. ‘She slipped the net.’
Gangsters, Guns & Me - Now I'm in Eastenders, but once I was on the run. This is my true story Page 20
