by Lee Evans
All the girls loved Donny Osmond, so I enjoyed pretending to be him, too. I once become so convinced that I was Donny, I went to the sheds at the back of the flats, climbed on top of the rickety corrugated roof as if it were a stage and sang ‘Crazy Horses!’ to thousands of imaginary screaming girls at the top of my voice. I beckoned the crowd to join in. What I didn’t realize is that, having got up there, I was unable to get down and had to call for help. Our next-door neighbour tried to help me down, but in doing so he fell off the roof and broke his leg. He told me that he hated Donny Osmond after that and could never listen to him again.
On another occasion, I held a beaten-up old umbrella and dived off the garages because I really thought the umbrella would suddenly pick up the wind, take flight and lift me high into the sky. Of course, I plummeted like a rock, landing in a bone-shattering heap on the floor below, with the umbrella turned inside out.
Whenever a crash-test dummy was needed, I would always be the first kid to volunteer my services – anything to please the crowd. But I’d have volunteered anyway for no other reason than my naive and foolish optimism. Basically, I was an idiot with the brain cells equivalent to an amoeba. Stupidity was my speciality. Some people might frown at that, but I was good at it and it was all I had.
My visions became more and more powerful. I pictured things so vividly, I had to take a look around me to see if others had seen them too. For example, when I was at school, the teacher might enter the room at the start of a lesson and, in my mind’s eye, he might randomly turn into, say, a giant bear or a gorilla. Or, while seated at his desk, the teacher would without warning transform into a frog or a rabbit, particularly when the class had been ordered to be silent and told to copy something from the blackboard. At that moment, I would look up from my book and suddenly inanimate objects – desks, coat stands, chairs, an apple on the teacher’s desk – would all start talking. And I wasn’t even on tablets!
School was really a place where I just went through the motions. It never really meant anything to me as it never had the things I wanted. I found it boring, unexciting. The school wanted to teach me things I never wanted to learn, and the things I did learn I haven’t ever used since leaving school. Somehow I have always been out of synch with everybody else, either because my family travelled around a lot and I never really had time to settle in any one school and grasp the curriculum, or because I was just plain stupid. I’m not sure, although the latter now sounds more convincing! So, as a young boy, the ability to lose myself within my own mind gave me the escapism I so badly needed.
All the same, I wish I were more educated. It was so frustrating feeling such a complete simpleton all the way through school. In the classroom, I would mostly sit like some spaced-out lobotomy patient, dribbling and staring into the ether, my small pea-like brain working overtime just to keep my vital organs going, wandering off into the land of dim. Whenever a teacher began talking or writing anything on the blackboard, I would gawp at it from the back of the class like a Neanderthal muttonhead.
Even worse for everyone and much to the annoyance of the teacher, I would sit there with my hair sticking out in all directions making the sorts of eeks, burps, honks, zip, zap and frigging zoop noises to myself that a highly medicated psychiatric patient might when the brightly coloured toys come out of the play-box. The other kids literally thought I was retarded.
This story might show you what sort of stupid kid I was – it certainly shows how I was always an oddball. One day in class I stumbled upon a way to make a high-pitched humming sound at the back of my throat, while at the same time being able to speak quite normally. It was a two-voices-at-once kind of thing. I managed to become so good at this new vocal dexterity that I declared myself a Zen master of the vocal chords, able with just a few movements of my rubbery lips and voice box to drive teachers close to insanity. They would get more and more angry and frustrated about where this odd, high-pitched humming sound could be coming from. When in full flow, it sounded as if there was a huge bees’ nest somewhere overhead.
In lessons, I’d sit like a simple kid, usually drooling, watching the teacher pause mid-sentence at the front of the class. He would raise one ear in the air, tilting his head one way, then the other, like a parrot. I had become so good at making my noise that the teacher would follow the sound through the air to the point of placing his ear inches away from my mouth. However, his suspicion was confounded when, thinking he had discovered exactly where the sound was coming from, he questioned me and I was able to speak quite normally while still making the annoying sound.
Keeping a dead straight face was, of course, vital for my little trick to work. If I appeared to crack for a moment, it would wreck the illusion. It was like my own little lie detector test.
I could push the teacher to the edge of suicide. Eventually, he would be standing rigid with rage on the spot at the front of class, shouting, ‘Whoever it is making that ridiculous noise, stop it now, or I swear I will kill them. And don’t think I won’t. Beeecaaaause Iiiiieeeeee will.’
I would, of course, be looking innocently over my shoulder and around the class, demonstrating that butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth, while still making the humming sound. ‘Yes,’ I would demand, siding with the teacher. ‘Who is making that idiotic noise?’
So one of my wishes is that I were not resident in the world of stupid.
But the ‘wish list’ doesn’t end there. Ever since I was tiny, I have always yearned to be what I wasn’t. I wish, for example, that I’d had more girlfriends. Not now, obviously – my wife would kill me! – but growing up. Perhaps my life would have somehow turned out differently if I’d been better-looking and known exactly what to say to a woman. But so bad was I with the opposite sex that I’d more or less given up on trying to acquire a girlfriend by the time I was into my late teens.
I wish I’d had more confidence too. I’ve always been an insecure person. I was a nervous child, suffering from eczema that would flare up whenever I got anxious. In addition, I wish I cared less about other people’s feelings. That problem has dogged me my whole life. My wife has always complained that whenever we’ve been round to someone’s house, I will spend the next three days agonizing over how I might have said the wrong thing or reacted inappropriately to something, even to the extent that I want to phone them up and apologize.
On occasions, I have sent letters or even sneaked out of the house without my wife knowing, driven back to the supposedly offended person’s house and tried to say sorry. Of course, the poor, baffled ‘victim’ I’m trying to explain all this to has no idea what the hell this loon is going on about as he rants away on his front lawn.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve just got to apologize for what I said the other night,’ I’d say.
‘What the fuck are you talking about, you tosser?’ he’d reply. ‘Do you realize it’s five o’clock in the morning? I’m calling the police now!’
As you can tell, ineptitude has been my constant companion. A lot of my earliest memories revolve around sport – or at least my total inability to do it. My rubbishness on the sports field of course only served to intensify my sense of being one of life’s losers.
But you couldn’t fault my enthusiasm. Ever since that doctor handed me one of those lollipops for the last time and finally gave me the all-clear that my heart had healed over, I haven’t stopped running, jumping, diving and making sure I generally fall all over the place. Anyone who has seen my live show will know what I mean.
Once I had broken free from the chains that had constricted me for so long and I was allowed to run, I sprinted everywhere. We couldn’t afford running shoes, so we had what we called ‘daps’, cheap shoes from the Bata shoe shop. I would even run to the hall to put them on quickly in the morning. Then I’d run out the door and didn’t stop running until I came back for my tea that night. At long last, I was able to be as physical as I liked.
But it still didn’t make m
e any better at sport.
To me, sport always felt like another obstacle, another excuse to be left out. One might think that of all the sports in the world, there would have to be at least one I could do. But there really isn’t, not even welly-throwing, although I do now realize that it’s best to take them off first before throwing them. Alas, I seem to have the unfortunate trait of what you might call physical Tourette’s when it comes to any sporting activity.
I have literally been thrown off or out of more football fields, snooker halls, golf courses, darts games, fishing lakes, cricket pitches, sports halls, running tracks, ski slopes and ice-skating rinks than I could shake a stick at – and I probably wouldn’t even be able to do that. I was once chucked out of a dog track for jumping the fence and making a dive for that rabbit. And just in case there are any dogs reading this, a good tip is, when that bell goes and the gate is released, run around the track the opposite way to all the other dogs and don’t be freaked out when you eventually find the rabbit is suddenly running towards you.
My very first encounter with sport was miserable and it never really got any better. Sports day was always a particular disaster. To compensate for my inadequacy, I’d stand in the sack at the start of the sack race and, as soon as they blew the whistle, quickly jump out, put the sack over my head and run in the other direction.
The other kids always had the proper kit for football. I, on the other, would still be in my school shorts, wearing one white and one black trainer borrowed from Lost Property. (Lots of my clothes were also made by Mum, an avid knitter. The only problem was, when it rained I was suddenly carrying 400 pounds of extra weight.) But I didn’t care, as long as I was picked to go in goal. I loved it, because I could dive everywhere. But when the ball actually came towards me, I’d panic and dive frantically in a random direction, letting the ball go straight into the net, to the massive groans of the other kids. After a few experiences like that, I was quite content to stand on the sidelines and make spaceship noises.
My first game of cricket didn’t go too well either. I was finally picked to bat. I had never had the honour before, and so I was very nervous. When the ball was bowled at me, I swung at it with all the effort I could muster and, by chance, hit it. I opened my eyes and, turning round to see where it had gone, I noticed all the other kids scouring the air. I looked up and there it was, high in the sky. Now it was coming down, fast. A shout came from Pat Phelps on the far side of the field that the ball was his. Pat was, apparently, really good at catching. Not only could he catch balls well, but all the girls thought he was a catch as well, as he had really nice teeth.
So he was standing there beneath my ball, with his hands cupped up ready in front of him to catch it. I watched as the ball fell towards him. Resigning myself to returning back to the pavilion, I dropped the bat and headed off the pitch. At that moment, I heard Pat shout, ‘I got it, I got it.’ I knew he had it, he always caught the ball. I was as good as out. But then, all of a sudden, I heard, ‘I got it, I goooooaaarghmmmm?’
‘What does that mean?’ I thought. I looked up towards Pat, and he certainly did have the ball. It had gone through his hands and jammed itself into his mouth, knocking out most of his lovely teeth.
It was, I hasten to say, a complete freak accident, and that’s how it was explained to his parents by our PE teacher – though I, of course, was never allowed near a bat ever again. But that was all right. I had moved on.
While at school, despite having the eagerness of a ball-chasing dog, I was never picked for any team. They didn’t even trust me with the oranges at half time, deciding that it would be safer to place them on the side of the field at the ready before the game. This was so disheartening for me – the PE teacher would rather trust a fruit to supply itself at half time than to rely on me to be in any way involved in what some might think a simple task.
My main motivation for wanting to be a sportsman was that I’d noticed lots of girls from school would stay behind after hours to stand on the touchline and cheer on the boys’ teams in football and rugby. So I believed it to be imperative that somehow I must put some shorts on and blag my way into anything resembling a school team. I lay in bed at night dreaming that one of the main players in the school football team would miss a sitter at a crucial point in the match, triggering anger and a near riot from the disenchanted, rumbling crowd of girls who would then begin chanting my name, as I reticently kitted up. Not stuff from Lost Property, mind, but from a major sponsor.
‘Lee is under-rated,’ they would chorus, ‘he is not to be wasted. Let him on and win this game, and we’ll definitely get butt naked.’
Well, a boy can dream.
10. The Hair Trigger
You know the phrase ‘Stuff that up your arse’? Has that ever been done before? I can bear witness that it has. I saw it with my own eyes.
At weekends, Wayne and I would often walk across the back fields near the estate. It was always a bit of an adventure to visit the tip that was not too far from the flats. The lorries had spent all week bringing stuff in and dumping it there, and you never knew what you might get your hands on.
One day, when we were thirteen and eleven, Wayne and I were in the middle of the back fields. The only thing you could hear was the occasional cricket. We were weaving our way blissfully through the long wet grass when suddenly Wayne ducked down, covering his head with his hands. He turned and looked up at me, shouting, ‘What’s that?’
I thought it was another one of Wayne’s wind-ups. I just carried on with my stroll. ‘You do my head in, you do, Wayne.’ But then, suddenly, something whizzed past my head, really fast. I turned towards Wayne, but he wasn’t there. ‘Wayne?’ Where’d he gone?
A voice came from deep within the tall grass. ‘Lee, get down.’ Again, something else whipped past my head, closer this time, and cracked into the grass. I folded to my knees, curling into a ball. I waited there for a moment.
Not lifting my head – that stay firmly tucked between my legs – I shouted, ‘Wayne, what was that noise? What you up to?’
‘It’s not me, you tosser. That’s an air gun, that is. Someone’s firing at us.’
I instantly began to sob. I was frightened. ‘I want to go home.’ I heard Wayne moving, and I lifted my head and saw him on his knees, peeking over the top of the grass, trying to get a better look. There was a sudden low thud as another pellet hit the wet mud next to him.
Wayne ducked back into the grass and looked over at me. ‘There’s a bloke over by the flats. I reckon it’s him.’
I buried my head into the flattened grass and began crying into the soil below, confused. ‘What have we done? I haven’t done nothing, Wayne …’
I was snapped out of it by a muffled ‘Bollocks to this.’ I looked up and saw the soles of Wayne’s daps shoot past me. He was making a run for it. I was on my own. I panicked, jumped to my feet and ripped after him. We ran across the field to the sound of the pellets whizzing past our heads and cracking into the grass around us.
Why does anyone fire a loaded gun at two small boys in the middle of a field? The only reason can be that this deficient twat has too much time on his hands. He has saved up his money from the labour exchange and bought a gun. Anyone who has held a gun will know that as soon as you pick it up and hold it in your hands, there is some kind of weird, overwhelming urge to fire it. It’s something to do with an ancestral hunting throwback in our genes. Well, Charlton Heston over there was certainly a throwback.
It must have been quite a buzz that filled his meagre, uneventful day as he aimed at two live humans. Of course, when we started running for our lives that must have made it all the more of a thrilling prospect for him – moving targets! To him, we were just two little dots on the landscape that jumped, bobbed and weaved their way around the inside of his telescopic sight.
We managed to make it to the sanctuary of the back sheds near the flats, slamming our backs against the wall, heart
s pumping faster than pistons. We were safe. Sniper boy, on the other hand, would have most likely chuckled to himself, shrugged his shoulders and thought no more about it. He probably moved on to train his sights on other parts of the estate and see how far a lead pellet could penetrate a shed door. Or perhaps he tried to hit one of the clothes-line poles, finding some delight in hearing the little distant ding as the pellet struck the galvanized steel.
Rumours on the estate soon alerted us to the identity of the shooter. He most certainly wouldn’t have expected the two dots on the landscape, mere unconnected ducks at a shooting gallery, to arrive at his front door in the company of a rather larger, rather angrier dot: Dad. Nor would he have expected that loud thumping knock on his front door as he was just about to sit down with his wife for his tea.
I could smell the mixture of chip fat and gravy from outside on the landing where Wayne and I stood trembling with fear as Dad let go of my hand for a moment to give the front door a good hard thumping.
The bloke wouldn’t have had a clue about who was knocking at his front door as he raised himself up from the dinner table. He would have no doubt glanced over at his wife, confused as to why anyone would be knocking quite so loudly at such an odd time of the evening. Now he was up, disturbed, he might even have picked up a bit of a march across the lounge. His anger was growing and he might have thought that on opening his door he would certainly give this persistent knocker a bit of an earful for banging so loudly at teatime. Muffled from behind the closed door, we heard him muttering, ‘Who the hell is that who keeps knocking?’
As kids we were often drilled about the dangers of air guns. It was a difficult lesson to forget anyway, as Dad’s glasses were a constant reminder of how he was shot in the eye while messing around with an air gun while serving in the army. ‘I nearly lost me eye,’ he’d tell us. ‘There are still bits of lead floating about in it. I can see them go by sometimes. I can’t watch the tennis any more and God forbid I try to do Spot the Ball.’
