Nipper

by Mitchell, Charlie

  Suddenly the door opens. Gleeson is standing there in his pinstriped suit, staring over his glasses that are perched on his big purple nose.

  ‘Charlie, you first.’

  I stand up and walk in, closing the door behind me.

  ‘What’s happening with you, boy?’ His voice is very calm as he leans back in his chair.

  ‘Nothing, sir—’

  ‘Sit down.’ He points at a seat at the other side of his desk. ‘Sorry, carry on.’

  ‘I was outside Frenchy’s classroom—’

  ‘Let me stop you there – his name is not Frenchy.’

  ‘Sorry sir, I was outside Mr Henry’s classroom doing my work and someone put a bin full of water over my head.’

  ‘Was it the girls outside?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir, I never seen anyone as my head was in the bin.’

  ‘So you are telling me you never heard or saw anyone sneak up on you – two people with a massive bin.’

  ‘I was sleeping, sir.’

  ‘You don’t come to school to sleep, you come to learn.’

  ‘I know, sir, please dinna suspend me, my life winna be worth living if you do.’

  ‘What about the abusive language you directed at Mr Henry. No one in this school can talk to teachers like that.’

  ‘I know, sir, but he had already kicked me out the class for making one comment and then accused me of putting a bin of water on my own head. Are you gonna tell mi dad and suspend me sir?’

  ‘No Charlie, I’m not, but I can’t let you walk around in those clothes and catch a cold.’

  ‘Thanks sir, thanks a lot.’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet, son. I’ll be back in a second, wait there.’

  He walks out of the office, leaving me confused as to what he meant, but it’s not long before I find out. Two minutes later he comes back into the office and hands me a box.

  ‘Put these on and leave your wet clothes over the chair,’ he says and goes out again.

  What a good man, he’s given me clean clothes! Then I open the box and pull out some of the most old-fashioned, oversized clothes you could imagine.

  There are brown flares with a 36-inch waist; a white and yellow flower patterned shirt with collars that nearly touch my waist; a pink and purple Paisley kipper tie four inches wide; and a pair of size-nine platform shoes. I have to tie the trousers with another school tie so they’ll stay up.

  Fair play, he would rather humiliate me than get me done in, I respect him for that. Even so, I look like a total plonker.

  It’s right on the lunch bell as I put on my last item, and my hair is slapped over my forehead like George McFly from Back to the Future.

  Mr Gleeson comes back in and tells me I can pick my clothes up later and to keep my temper under control. I think he means my language.

  ‘Thanks again, sir!’

  ‘Stay out of trouble.’ I can tell he’s dying to laugh. ‘Go on, have some lunch.’

  I walk out the office past Natalie and Kelly and not surprisingly they break down in fits of laughter.

  ‘What have they done to you?’ Kelly is slapping the bench. Tears are running down her face.

  The small square outside the Head’s office is getting busy with people going into the dinner hall. I wait until the lunch hall is packed and then pick my moment. Gleeson may have thought he would embarrass me into behaving, but what he doesn’t know is that this is an excellent opportunity for me to be the centre of attention.

  I stroll into that dinner hall with a bounce and a swagger in my step – just like John Travolta as he walks along the street in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever.

  ‘Alright ladies?’ I say as I walk past a couple of the older girls.

  The whole dinner hall is laughing – there’s even some wolf whistling and shouts of ‘Wayhey!’ Other people look on in bemusement, as if they thought I actually dressed like that.

  It’s hilarious. I’m just glad no one has a camera.

  I’m now into my teens and starting to go through puberty. I’ve met loads of new friends from school that I hang around with at night – but I’m only allowed to do so by Dad under very strict conditions.

  At home it’s getting more like being in the army than living with a parent. Dad seems to have turned into a sergeant major overnight. School finishes at 3.45 p.m. and I have to be home by 4 p.m. or 1600 hours on the dot, or before.

  There’s usually a period between when I get home at four and when I have tea at 6.30 p.m. when he isn’t drinking. It’s like a respite period for me, except that I’m always waiting for the drinking to start up, so I can never relax. If I’ve done something wrong and he’s still sober, he’ll have a verbal go at me and then say, ‘I’m going to the VG for eggs.’ The VG is the local food store.

  I think, Here it comes, and try and get as much food in me as I can, because I know what will happen when he gets back. Sure enough, he’s bought the vodka and soon the beatings start.

  And now even if I’m just one minute late after four, once he starts drinking that is all the trigger he needs to unleash frenzied attacks on me for hours and send me to bed at twelve o’clock starving. But if I manage to make it home before 4 p.m. he’ll allow me to go out again after supper and stay out until nine o’clock, but with the same rules as before.

  That’s out of the question this evening, though. It’s 4.04 p.m. on Tuesday, 11 July 1989. I’ve arrived home from school four minutes late and Dad is waiting for me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Four Minutes Past Four

  He’s sober but he’s got that look in his eyes – wary, watchful, the lids turned down at the corners, the finger pointing. He could be on the warpath but I’m not quite sure.

  ‘What have I told yi about being late? I worry if you’re no in at the right time.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad, I wiz talking to Calum.’

  ‘Is that it, yi wir talking to Calum?’

  ‘I just lost track o’ time, Dad.’

  ‘I’m goin’ to the shops fir stuff fir tea, go and get cheenged.’

  ‘OK.’

  He leaves the house and I head upstairs to get changed. I’m relieved and not really worried as he seems quite calm compared to normal, even though he’s just split up with Shelly again. He normally flips after Shelly leaves, as I think he enjoys hitting her more than me.

  He comes back with his usual VG bag with stuff for tea and his voddy and Coke. He used to just drink a bottle every night but he’s now getting through a whole litre every night. It beats me where he gets the money to fund his drinking habit. I suppose he’s still crawling around the roofs drunk. I’m sitting watching TV after doing some dishes and folding clothes up that have dried on the clothes horse thing. While tea is on he’s getting stuck into the voddy drinking.

  It’s very quick – he’s drinking down one glass after another. Maybe it’s an excuse for what’s about to happen.

  He’s finished in the kitchen and brings two plates through, one each, and I get some forks and knives and salt and sauce.

  ‘There’s fucking dog hairs awar, fucking mutt.’

  ‘I’ll hoover up after tea, Dad.’

  ‘Yi could have done it when eh wiz in the shops, but it’s arite, yi’re gonna dae it after tea.’

  He’s starting to get very sarcastic, always a bad sign, but he still doesn’t have an excuse to start anything.

  Then I look down on my plate and think, shit! There’s a plum tomato slap bang on top of my egg and chips – the juice is all over it. He knows that every time I’ve tried to eat a tomato in my life, I’ve heaved and puked. He even tried to force-feed me one a couple of years ago, and I took a beating rather than eat it, as I’m allergic to them and can’t stomach them.

  I pick a couple of chips from around the side, the ones with no juice on them, trying to act normal, but he’s seen me eating around it and places his fork and knife down on his plate.

  ‘What’s up, Charlie?’ He looks pissed off.
<
br />   ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What the fuck’s up now?’

  ‘I can’t eat tomatoes, Dad, I’ll puke mi ringer.’

  He stands up and walks towards me. ‘Geeze yir plate then,’ he says, putting his hand out.

  I pass the plate to him. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll just cook yir tea, don’t eat it, I’m loaded wi money.’

  More sarcasm! Great! He’s still standing beside me with the plate in his hand. Then he says, ‘Come in the kitchen and pick something else.’

  I stand up and walk towards him as he turns his back on me to go into the kitchen. I normally kept an eye on him when he’s drinking just in case he flips as most of the time his personality will change in an instant, but on this occasion he’s a bit annoyed but doesn’t seem too aggressive.

  I look down to avoid standing on the remote control that’s on the floor. And as I look back up, the plate I’ve handed him comes crashing into my face, all over the wall and onto the dog-hair-covered floor. The tomato in my face is the worst thing, though, as I hate them as much as I hate him.

  ‘Yi will fuckin’ eat every last bit o’ that dinner.’

  I don’t know if the plate has cut me or it’s the tomato juice all over my top, but I’m panicking like mad. And he’s at that drunk stage when he’s still quite strong but totally mental. He grabs the back of my hair and pushes my face towards the wall.

  ‘Eat it, yi ungrateful bastard. Lick the fuckin’ wa, clean it, eat it!’ he shouts.

  ‘Dad, please, I can’t!’ The thought of going near that tomato is making me heave.

  Smash into the wall with my face again, one hand on my hair and the other on the back of my neck.

  ‘FUCKING EAT IT!’

  I started licking all this slop off the wall.

  ‘Get the whole lot, yi cunt!’

  I am ready to blow chunks.

  ‘Dad, please, I’ve had enough! I’m gonna puke!’

  ‘Oh look, yir food’s on my carpet. Get down there, yi bastard.’

  Dragging me down to the floor by the hair.

  ‘Dad stop it, I’m gonna spew.’

  Grabbing crushed up tomato and egg and ramming it into my face, holding my nose so I’ll open my mouth. The tomato’s covered in Bonnie’s hair.

  ‘Chew it, yi cunt, go on swallow, that’s it, chew it, tomatoes are good for yi.’

  ‘Dad, please!’ I say, choking and puking on the carpet and onto his hand.

  ‘Maybe if yi hoovered, then yi wouldna be chewing on dog hair now would yi.’ He notices the sick on his hand. ‘Yi dirty little cunt, yi puke on my carpet, now yi eat it.’

  ‘Please stop, Dad!’

  ‘What’s up? Do yi no like eggs?’

  ‘Arrggg, what are yi dain this fir?’ I scream at the top of my lungs.

  ‘Oh are yi gitin’ a bit o’ a temper now yir gitin alder. Go on then, I’ll give yi a free shot. Go on tough guy.’

  He has taken one step back and put his chin out towards me. I just stare at him and never say anything.

  ‘Go on then, yi ken yi want ti. Come on, BIG MAN! Have yi found a few hairs on yir balls? Come on, hit me! I’ll tell yi one thing, yi’ll have to kill me.’

  He walks towards me with his arms by his side, fists clenched as I walk backwards towards the living-room door. He kicks the door closed as I try to escape, so I’m now stuck in the corner, trapped like a lightweight being mauled by a heavyweight.

  The punches are coming from all angles; kicks and knees are then added, and a few toe punts in the balls nearly finish me off. He just keeps hitting and stamping as I slide down the door, blood splattered all over the white gloss door and cream curtains.

  It’s the longest hiding I’ve ever had; it goes on and on and on, getting more painful as areas are hit for the seventh and eighth time. As if that isn’t bad enough, he’s poking my eyes, nipping the backs of my legs with his massive hands and biting my hands, so I’d stop trying to block the punches. The weirdo is even actually trying to stamp my balls into oblivion. I think subconsciously he is hoping to stop another generation of people that might turn out like him.

  Through the long night that follows I try a few times to escape but he’s slowed his drinking down to prove he’s still the boss. I think he’s clicked onto the fact that I will bob and weave out of the way when he’s really pissed.

  My anger the next day is uncontrollable. I’m off school again with a note but when I meet up with my pals the next evening, I go on a one-man self-destruct mission.

  All my friends that I hang around with at the time have seen the mess my face is in, but I don’t care, I’m not gonna hide it any more. I have to get some of this anger that had built up inside out, and I don’t care who or what I release it on.

  I go out that night wrecking things, smashing windows, kicking cats, putting gas bottles in sheds and blowing them up, anything that I can destroy.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Rogues

  That will be the last really bad beating Dad ever gives me. It’s certainly not the last time he beats me – he gives me loads more – but it’s the last serious one as I’m getting bigger and stronger between the ages of fourteen and fifteen.

  For one thing, I’ve started going to kick-boxing classes. Something has switched in me. I’ve finally decided that I won’t be a punch bag ever again. If anyone’s going to do the punching, it will be me. I’ve come more under the influence of my big brother Tommy, too, who already at the age of fifteen has became a Scottish amateur boxing champion.

  And I’ve started up a gang in St Mary’s with Calum. We call it The Rogues. It’s halfway between a club and a gang and you have to do loads of mad stuff to prove yourself and become a member. I’ve lost it at this point. All those years of built-up frustration, pain and suppressed anger have just burst out of me. I’m thinking fuck my dad, fuck the world and fuck anyone who crosses my path.

  Dad has succeeded. He’s turned me into a monster like him – only I would never pick on women or kids. I start on people’s property and later go on to fully grown men. The Rogues Club I start when I am fourteen involves a lot of different things. We’re a group of angry, alienated kids with bad attitudes – years later we’d have been called Asbo kids – looking for things to vent our anger on and destroy.

  We start by wrecking cars and blowing sheds up with the gas bottles stored in them. Then smashing windows on a points system: the further away you are, or the bigger and stronger the item, the more points you get.

  We have around twelve members from the St Mary’s area, with a name chart, with all of our names on it. That’s to keep a record of who’s the biggest rogue – who’s caused the most destruction basically. And as usual I’m at the top of the leader board.

  One of the lads who’s close behind me puts a garden gate through someone’s front window and ends up on the front page of the Telegraph newspaper. Not to be outdone, as I hate getting beaten, I fill a container full of dog dirt and smash it through someone’s window. I know it’s disgusting, but the more beatings I get from Dad, the more angry I become and the more determined to heap misery on the rest of the world.

  We make up descriptive slogans for everything we do. For instance, one of the other lads calls my dog-dirt grenade ‘A Rather Large Stink Bomb’. Soon The Rogues start to get bigger with more and more people joining, so that more activities are added, like bouncing cars into the middle of the road and setting fire to things.

  Then there’s bogus milk money collecting. As none of us has a penny we watch people doing a milk round in the morning and follow them, writing down the numbers of the doors that have a delivery. Then on a Friday, we go half an hour earlier than the real milk boy and collect his money with a bogus book. I’m getting worse and worse with each new scam I dream up, as I now realise that most of the kids I hang around with have smart clothes on. And as Dad never has money to buy me things, stealing is now my mission.

  I’ll go into the local
shop and get one of the lads to distract the shopkeeper, while I steal the milk tokens from behind the counter. These are worthless to most people, but I have a friend working for a dairy firm that thinks they’re gold dust, as he can cash them in. I’ll swap him the tokens for his old Pringle jumpers. And hey presto, I’m one of the lads without anyone knowing any better. Then I’ll come home from school some nights, and Dad will be sitting wearing them, covered in soot from sweeping chimneys. At times like this I walk along to the shops, kicking fences and punching cars in a rage, as I’m back to my old scruffy self again. I’m thinking of how I can get even with him and of the next scam to kit myself out.

  The older lads are gang fighting with the Dales and Kirton at the time, and I really want a piece of it. I want to hit somebody, and not worry about being killed or kicked out, or whether I’ll be homeless or out in a home. The Rogue thing isn’t fuelling my anger – in the end it’s more of a laugh to me. But now I don’t want to laugh. I want to destroy. So I walk down towards the Dales past St Leonard’s Church.

  The Dales are another gang – or scheme, as we call them – not far from St Mary’s. Both gangs will meet in the middle of a football pitch, while the girls sit on a massive stone teapot in the park to get a good view of the action. It really annoys me most of the time, as it’s a bit like cat and mouse at first – you chase us then we chase you. There are only a couple of people standing in the middle that are prepared to have a punch up.

  I love it when nobody runs. We collide in the middle like a scene from Braveheart and every person running towards me looks like Evil Jock. Well, in my head they do. It’s mostly just hands and feet that are used, but there’s one bloke you have to watch out for. If you have someone on the ground giving them a hiding you always have to watch your back.

  This bloke is nicknamed ‘Animal’. He’s about four foot high, really skinny with dark hair and a boxer’s face, like most of the kids have, as they’re all getting battered at home like I am. He’ll glide around the mass brawl looking for targets. His calling card is to stick a knife in people’s arse cheeks. If you hear a scream you know exactly where Animal is. Later on I hear that he’s been killed in a knife attack. What goes around comes around I guess.