by Paul Kelly
When I did get back to the police station I was met again by my old ‘friend’ sergeant Harrington and he recognised me immediately making sarcastic comments about how he had missed me and that he knew I would soon be back.
I waited about four hours in the station and expected that I would at least have a bed and breakfast the following morning, but the strangest thing happened to me that afternoon. One of the policemen came through to the room where I was awaiting sentence and told me that someone had come to see me.
I could not believe who would want to come and see me in prison and then I thought that it might have been Charlie as he had been involved in my last prison visit, but it wasn’t Charlie, it was a very well dressed portly gentleman and he smiled at me as he came into the room as if he already knew me, but I couldn’t recognise him. The policeman stood with his back to the door and I supposed that was because he would be listening to anything that was said, however, the visitor didn’t seem to want to hide his voice as with a firm tone, he told me that he had come to get me out of prison as requested by my parents and that made me even more inquisitive as I never had any parents... well none that I knew of... The visitor told me that he had paid the bail and that I was free to go and the policeman who was standing at the door, stood aside and let us go free. We walked into the street and as I was about to ask this visitor who he was and why he had come to get me out of goal, he told me to shut up until we reached the nearby park, where we sat down together in a park bench and the visitor undid the top button of his jacket as he turned to me and started to speak.
“I have heard from Charlie how you tackled that geezer at the pub the other night,” he said and I immediately thought he was going to give me a thorough dressing down or knock me over for my cruelty, but no... he smiled again and told me he ‘admired’ people like me who stood up against anything ‘untoward’ and he wanted to invite me into the gang which he said he was the leader and that his name was Angus... I told him that I thought Pongo was the leader of the gang but he told me that Pongo was only number four and I couldn’t understand what he meant until he told me that all members of his gang, male and females had to have a tattoo on their arm as soon as they were accepted and it was then I remembered about the tattoo on Sheba’s arm and I concluded that she was number nine in the gang.
Angus then told me that he was a very wealthy man but that he hated injustice of any kind and he had formed this gang to help him eradicate the problem. He gave me fifty pounds and told me to go to a public bath and have a good shower and buy some new clothes, but they had to be jeans and just an ordinary shirt. The money also included a fresh set of underwear and I felt I was being treated like a prince as I had never ever had decent clothes before in my life. My clothes were either hand-me-downs or nicked from a charity shop.
I did what he told me to do and on my visit to the shops I met Charlie again.
“I didn’t know who that man was who visited me in the prison,” I told him and he grinned as he told me that he had seen me pinching stuff in the supermarket and he knew I would be picked up by the police and it was then he told Angus of my experience with the drunken geezer at the pub, hoping he would be able to help me, but he didn’t tell Angus that HE was the culprit who knocked the drunken man to the ground and kicked the shit from him. He had blamed all that on me and Angus thought I was ‘worthy’of his cause and wanted to get me into his gang. Charlie then took me to a tattoo parlour and I was given the number fifteen... It transpired that Charlie was number eleven.
At last I was a full member of the gang and I felt strangely proud of myself. I felt that no one would ever again tell me what to do or how to do it. I was my own boss... well within the gang and I spoke at length to Charlie to ask him if he could give me some idea of what I would be expected to do and he said if I carried on doing what I did WITH HIM at the pub, that evening, I would be doing fine and when I asked him what Sheba and the other girls did, he simply smiled and did another jigging action with his wrist.
“Do the girls do this with many guys?” I asked and Charlie would not reply but his smile told me all I wanted to know. We walked on together whistling a song that we both knew to be rude and sexy, but it was fun and I was looking forward to the next meeting with the gang. It could mean everything to me or nothing, but it was exciting nevertheless.
If I played my cards right, I could be a man before I knew it, but although I was excited, I had stupid and funny thoughts of what I would look like and what sort of clothes I would be wearing. I know I could see lots of kilts in the city but I didn’t fancy one of them as I didn’t know what could be seen under them and I didn’t like the thought of knickers. Knickers were for girls and even then, I had seen many a girl with |NO knickers, so maybe that’s what the fellas wore under their kilts... No knickers, just their balls running free.
Chapter Four
I was feeling great dressed up in my new jeans and purple shirt. The underclothes were lovely too, but I couldn’t show them, even if I wanted to do and I wondered what the ladies of the gang would say if they saw me in the ‘raw’ I was only fifteen but would soon be sixteen, I thought and I think I was fairly well endowed for a young boy of that age. I know that when I went to the public baths for my shower, I could see a few of the men who were undressed there with me, giving me a furtive look and one young man even got so bold as to touch me and that made me jump. I don’t think I can be homosexual as I didn’t see anything in the dicks that I saw there and certainly didn’t get in the least excited when there were plenty of ‘nuddys’ to be seen.
I strolled down the streets of Glasgow as if I owned the bloody place and I waited for everyone to congratulate me on my new clobber but funnily enough, nobody did. They were a dowdy lot anyway, thinking they were supreme in their stupid kilts and I wanted to shout out loud that I was now the fifteenth member of a famous gang and they had better watch out.
I walked past the house where I had been looked after since my birth, at 86 Clarkeston Road, but the person who owned that house, referred to it as a CHILDREN’S HOME. I never really knew her only to refer to her as auntie and it was when she went unto hospital and died, that I knew I would have to ‘scarper’ as I didn’t want any more ‘aunties’ and I wanted to live life as I wanted and not to what somebody else chose for me to live and I called myself Felix Marr and not Jimmy some bloody name because I like the way Felix Marr sounded and I knew nobody else with a name like that, so I was ME at last and that’s how I wanted it to stay. Several people have asked me about my name and thought I might be a Jew being called Felix, but that was not the case. Strangely enough, I had always dreamt about the name ever since I was a little baby and I will never know why. I have no connections whatsoever with anyone named Marr, let alone Felix, but then some cats are called Felix if I remember.
It was later in the afternoon that I was walking down one of Glasgow’s main streets and I passed a shoe shop that had all their shoes in boxes outside the door and I saw a nice air of trainers that I knew would be my size, so as I passed the shop, I took the trainers and walked on quietly... but as no-one seemed to take any notice, I walked back again and took another pair. All I needed now was a couple of pairs of new socks, but I would have to wait until I passed a suitable store for those, I thought and then I bumped into Charlie again and he told me he had a job in the supermarket where he had to be in at six in the morning to ensure that all the goods in the store were well equipped and he had to take stuff around to various departments that were selling well and where the produce needed stocked up again for the following day. I asked him if there was any chance I could get a job there too and he said he would enquire and let me know, but that meantime. Angus had asked to see me again and Charlie gave me his address as he wanted to see me urgently and I wondered what I had done wrong and was I in for another bollockin’...
I shoved my new trainers on my feet and even without socks they fitted O.K. and
I set off to meet Angus who was sitting in his lounge waiting for me. I was surprised to see where Angus lived as it was rather a big house and I understood he was a single man and had never been married, so where did he get his money from?
I had hardly rang the bell in the front porch when the door seemed to open of itself and I found myself in a rather spacious hall, but within a few moments, I could see Angus coming towards me from a door at the end of the hall. He greeted me and invited me to come into the room, but I saluted him and announced that I was number fifteen reporting for any duty that was required of me and Angus laughed. He invited me to sit down and unfolded some papers on his desk.
“Felix... I am rather concerned about you,” he said and I was worried about the tone of his voice. “I want to know first of all how you come to have the name MARR as I can see no-one of that name in the Glasgow phone book. Was this your father’s name?”
I shut my eyes as this was the last thing I had expected when Charlie told me that Angus wanted to see me... and urgently, but I had to explain and I did so as best I could.
“Angus, I have never known a mother or a father. I was dumped at a doorstep in Clarkeston Road when I was a baby and a lady took me into her house which she regarded as a home for children without parents or illegitimate kids, in other words. I was only one of many kids who had no parents and I was given the name Jimmy something or other. I can’t remember what my other name was but I answered to Jimmy. When the lady of the house who I called ‘Auntie’ went into hospital and died, I took the opportunity to get out and live a life where I could do as I wanted and I took the name Felix Marr. That’s all.”
Angus looked at me as if he didn’t believe a word I had said and then he asked me again where I got the name Felix Marr from and I told him that I had always dreamt about this name and I thought maybe as I had so many dreams that either this was really my name or at some time in my life I would meet someone who would be called Felix Marr and then, maybe this person could have been my father.
Angus asked me at this point where I was living and I had to look down and shake my head as I told him that I lived anywhere I could and he immediately told me that I would have to go to 97 Mansfield Road where the building had been unoccupied for years but that his gang, of which I was now a member had squatted down in there and they seemed to be very comfortable. They had no rent to pay and they avoided income tax payments... Can you read and write?”
“I can read a little but only if the words are printed in large letters but I can’t write at all.”
There was a long silence after Angus had spoken and then he asked me a peculiar question.
“Have you ever owned a gun,. .. a revolver or a rifle?” and I shook my head. I had never owned anything like that as it wasn’t in a child’s life that I knew of, and I was surprised that Angus should ask me such a question and yet, I was excited to think that I could use a gun. I imagined what I would do with it and how big I would feel when I pointed it at someone... but I never wanted to kill anyone, so what was I thinking about when I thought I would be using a gun? and then Angus explained his theory by telling me that with a man, power was the quality that gave him manhood whereas the quality of a woman was her beauty.
I listened carefully to what Angus had said, but then I asked him why was it that none of the girls who were in our gang were what anyone would call beautiful and Angus put his hand in the air as if to shut me up.
“The females in our gang are women who want to be like men. They want power and beauty is something of very little consequence. After all when a man is having sex with a woman, he is not looking at her beauty, is he?”
I could not answer that question as I had never had sex with a woman, even if I had dreamt about it many times and woke up from a wet dream and a frustration that I would just have to endure.
Yes, I wanted power. I wanted to be a real live man and if power was what I would have to have, then I would have it, however and whatever it took to get it and Angus told me that when he was a young man, he acquired a gun and that gave him power and that was what he had become in his later years, with money and strength and manhood which made him what he was today.
“Do you want to become a man, Felix? A really man, I mean,” Angus asked me and I straightened my shoulders and said ‘yes’
“How old are you now?” he asked but I couldn’t answer that question truthfully as I didn’t know that answer myself. I was a teenager and that was about all I could say.
“Then you will have to have a gun. I know you don’t want to kill anyone, but having a gun doesn’t mean you have to kill. The gun could not be loaded with bullets or ammunition and would only ‘click’ when you pulled the trigger, but it would mean that you were IN CHARGE and that YOU WERE A MAN.”
When Angus said that to me I felt as strong as an ox and I could have done anything as I waited impatiently for the day to come.
I left Angus that afternoon with a gun in my hip pocket and a smile on my face that told the world that at last, I was a man and I would tell anyone who said I wasn’t to fuck off. It was what I would call ‘maturity’ and I hoped I had spelt that word correctly. Yes I was MATURE at last and I could go where I wanted and do what I wanted and no bugger could stop me, because if they dared, I would give them a bloody bunch of fives.
Chapter Five
It was Travis who contacted me the following afternoon and asked me what Angus had wanted to speak to me about and I told him almost word for word what Angus and myself had discussed and he seemed very pleased as he looked at me in what I would have described as my MANLY APPEARANCE... but he warned me that words alone meant nothing and that I would have to put in some actual practice before I could make any conclusions.
I asked Travis if he would show me what I should do so that I could call myself a man... and not just a man but as Angus had described, A REAL MAN and Travis stared at the wall for a few moments before he turned to look at me again.
“Meet me at here at three o’clock this afternoon at the Jewish Synagogue in Bolton Street, Do you know where that is?”
I told Travis that I would find it and agreed to meet him at the time he suggested.
The morning passed without any incidents of importance if you can forget the sausage role that I pinched from Ferguson’s Grocery Store and the bottle of lemonade I picked up from outside the shop and at five to three I was waiting outside the synagogue for Travis and I hoped that none of the Jews, if they were there at that time, would think that I wanted either to join them in prayers or that I had ambitions to become a Jew. After all, the lady gang member thought I might be a Jew by the name Felix, but as I was waiting, the Salvation Army came along and started to sing and I thought the noise might distract Travis, but he turned up in perfect time with not one minute late, however as he approached me, he had two guns in his hand and I told him I had no intentions of killing anyone and he laughed but I hoped that no-one could have seen the guns, even if the singers went on with their music and it seemed that all the Salvationists were absorbed in their work.
“These are harmless,” he said, “they have no bullets, see.” and with that he pulled the trigger of one gun and it clicked itself into silence and I was pleased, but I was still confused as to why we would require any guns at all until Travis explained.
“Do you see just next to the synagogue, there is a bank? Well we are going in there with our faces covered with these balaclavas and point the guns into the faces of the staff there as we demand all the money they have in the bank and then we race out and the cash is ours. Every full penny of it.”
As Travis was explaining the plan the Salvation Army went on singing in oblivion... ‘Jesus loves me, yes I know, cos the bible tells me so’... and I hoped we would be able to do our task before they stopped. I thought the idea was indeed very MANLY, but I had a tiny fear at the back of my mind that if we were caught, we c
ould spend quite some time in prison, but Travis ignored my thoughts and told me he had done this sort of thing before and the action was too quick for the police to be called and we made our move.
I was a little afraid when I looked at the faces of the people behind the bank counters but within a few seconds the faces froze as we pointed the guns towards them and it was hardly time at all before we grabbed the money and quickly made our getaway only to hear an alarm go off as soon as we had left the building, but Travis and I quickly removed the balaclavas from our faces and walked calmly out amongst the crowds that had gathered outside... and the Salvationists were still singing.
I could not believe how easy it had seemed to be as we strolled casually together back to 97 Mansfield Road and Travis gave me a very ‘old-fashioned’ look as he asked me if I was alright and if I had found any problems with what we had done, but I truthfully could find nothing that upset me. I hadn’t harmed anyone and all I had done was take the money. Yes, everything was fine for me and I did indeed feel like a man.
Three days afterwards, Travis again asked me if I would like to do the same again and I needed no persuasion to agree.
We chose another bank, about four miles away from the one near the synagogue and did exactly as we had done before. The pistols were pointed towards the scared faces; we grabbed the money and bolted; the balaclavas were quickly shoved into our pockets and after a few more moments we had mixed again with the gathering crowds and showed surprise on our faces that such an event had taken place and how disgraceful it had seemed... and everyone agreed with us, but on this occasion the Salvation Army were not singing and everything seemed so quiet.
