The Rabbit

by Ted Lewis

  “Bollocks. You couldn’t if you bastard well tried,” Willie said. “I bet you haven’t the tackle.”

  The others sniggered.

  “Fuck off,” Jackson said.

  “Come on, show us,” Duggie Forder said.

  “He’s bloody frightened to,” said Willie, “’cos then we’ll know he’s having us on.”

  “The only time I take my prick out for you is to piss all over you,” Jackson said.

  “Lassies squat to piss, mate,” Willie said. “You wouldn’t be high enough off ground.”

  “High enough for you.”

  Jackson stood up again and turned his back on the trio and began to wander down the track, plucking at the stalks of wheat as he went.

  “Well, now you’ll never know,” Clacker said, packing up his stuff and getting off his pannier. “You’ll just have to take the bragging bastard’s word for it.”

  Clacker began to walk back between the shed and the slope.

  “We bloody well won’t,” said Willie, standing up. “Come on.”

  “What?” said Tony.

  “Let’s go find out,” Willie said.

  “Hell, aye,” said Duggie, giggling as he got up. “Let’s go and have a look.”

  The three of them began to walk after Jackson, who was still sauntering down the track, now with his hands in his pockets. He turned slightly and caught sight of the trio as they approached him, and as Jackson turned, Willie shouted to the other two and they all broke into a run. Jackson didn’t move for a second or two, then he turned and began to run too, but he never had time to gain the impetus that the others had, and in no time at all they had caught up with him by the arms and were marching him back to the panniers.

  “Here, what the bloody hell are you up to?” Jackson said as they jerked him along.

  “We’re off to see if your prick’s as big as your mouth is,” Willie said.

  The other two laughed.

  “Hey, no, though,” Jackson began, but now they were back at the space between the panniers and Willie put one leg across Jackson’s shins and knee’d him in the backside and still supported by the other two Jackson was half-eased half- pushed to the ground. Jackson began to struggle but Tony and Duggie sank down on top of him, Duggie lying across his chest and holding his arms, Tony straddling him, pinning Jackson’s legs between his own.

  “Hey, come on,” Jackson said.

  Willie knelt down, with one knee on Jackson’s stomach and began to undo the buttons of Jackson’s trousers. Now Jackson began to struggle in earnest, sliding his pelvis from side to side in an effort to escape Willie, arching his back to try and unseat Duggie and kicking his legs to try and remove Tony. No one spoke now, and the only sounds were the scrapings of boots and the grunting breath between tightened lips. The faces of Duggie and Tony and Willie were set with a strange kind of concentrated excitement, as if there was more to the operation than just a way of proving Jackson’s manhood. As for me, I found myself for the second time in twenty-four hours watching Jackson’s flies being undone and just as transfixed by the sight as I had been the first time, but now I found the whole scene tinged with that kind of ambivalent nausea that I used to feel in similar situations at school, a sort of depressing distaste that at the same time couldn’t quite overcome the faint unwelcome physical stir¬rings in one’s genitals. For that very reason I didn’t attempt to intervene on Jackson’s behalf in case I became a victim myself. I had to reluctantly acknowledge the fact that the feeling of coming was the feeling of coming whoever’s hands initiated the process. And also to avoid that warm shame that flooded through one’s stomach at the same time as the excruciation of the pleasure, the shame of being un¬able to prevent the golden glow exploded by ejaculation.

  Clacker had turned back and was watching too, but of course no such mixed feelings seemed to cloud his steady grinning gaze as he watched Jackson’s underpants pulled down to reveal the sunlit flaccid prick. Jackson’s three tor¬mentors laughed, the sound not motivated by humour but by a need to release the tensions built up by the process, as far as it had gone. Willie said:

  “And you had that up some lass last night?”

  Jackson’s squirming had stopped for a few moments since his prick had been revealed to the scorching air but now he began to thrash about again even more furiously, and cried out, his voice close to tearful humiliation:

  “Let go, you rotten sods, you rotten, rotten sods.”

  Willie took hold of Jackson’s prick and rolled the foreskin back. Jackson’s body seemed to shake with some jelly-like convulsion at the touch.

  “He’s cheesy,” Duggie said.

  “Don’t prove nowt,” Tony said. “Bet he ain’t even started fetching yet.”

  “We’ll soon see,” Willie said, and began to masturbate Jackson.

  Jackson continued to scream and wriggle but there was nothing he was going to be able to do about what was hap¬pening. I wanted to leave, to get away, so that I wouldn’t be affected even more than I’d already been affected, one way or another. But to leave would be to demonstrate my disgust in front of Clacker and disgust might be interpreted as being ambivalent, reinforcing some private view Clacker had of me, or at the very least I might be thought of as being too sensitive to witness the whole of the scene. Meanwhile Clacker remained standing as before, by the corner of the shed, grinning easily as he viewed what Willie was doing to Jackson. And as I was trapped by my inability to leave, I watched too, but I tried to watch as though I was looking at something silhouetted against sunlight, something my eyes found difficult to define against a brilliance which left no clear image on the retina, so that at a later date the memory would be as unclear as the image.

  Willie continued.

  “See,” said Tony. “Told you he couldn’t fetch.”

  Willie varied the speed of his arm.

  “I’ll make the bastard fetch,” he said.

  There was the sound of a lorry groaning up the slope. At first the sound didn’t register, but then as the sound filtered through my consciousness I realized that here was an excuse for me to leave, especially as Clacker was making no move to go and help the driver to unbelt the tailboard.

  I got off my pannier and picked up my satchel and walked to the corner of the shed. Clacker didn’t move and there wasn’t enough room between the slope and the side of the shed for me to pass through without Clacker moving.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  He grinned at me.

  “What’s your rush?”

  “The lorry needs unbolting,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Let him do it for a change. Do him good to do some work.”

  Now this approach was very clever, because Clacker’s words were the kind I’d been looking for since I’d worked with him; by urging me to take sides, he would have been accepting me by association with him against them. But of course he didn’t mean that at all. He just knew that that was what I wanted to hear, while all he wanted to do was to prevent my leaving the scene.

  “No,” I said, accepting the convention. “There’ll be trouble.”

  He put his hand on my chest and without seeming to use any force at all he pushed me back into the area.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll take care of any trouble, mate.”

  There was a slight pause between the words “trouble” and “mate.” I didn’t have to look into his face to confirm the sarcasm. Helpless, I turned away from him. Then several things happened all at once.

  First of all I saw Frank Peacock striding along the track on his way back from the station master’s house. At the same time Arthur Akester appeared at the top of the flint tip, looking to see why there was no one to help him with his lorry. And Willie achieved with Jackson the result Willie had previously doubted. J
ust as Jackson came, Arthur, who could see the whole scene from the top of the tip, called out: “You dirty bastards,” Jackson called out: “You dirty bastards,” and Tony, who’d received some of Jackson’s semen on his overalls and on the back of his hand called out, “You mucky sod.” Frank Peacock, who from his position could only see Clacker and me, the others being hidden from his view by the panniers, looked up at Arthur and shouted, “What the fuck are you on about?” Arthur had already started down the flint tip. Frank stood and stared at Arthur as if Arthur had gone barmy until Frank’s attention was drawn to Jackson who had risen up from behind the panniers drying his belly and his pubic hairs with his hand¬kerchief, his pants and his trousers still halfway down his thighs. Then Frank’s view was augmented as the other three appeared dusting themselves down. Frank broke into a run which increased in speed the closer he got to the panniers. He and Arthur reached the panniers together, sweat pouring off them.

  “Now just what the fuck’s going on?” Frank roared.

  “Fucking playing with each other, the dirty bastards,” Arthur said. “And I’m waiting for me wagon to be fucking seen to.”

  Willie and Tony and Duggie backed away towards the hut, as though its shade would give them some protection against Frank’s wrath, while Jackson with belated modesty turned his back on everybody and pulled up his clothes and fastened up his flies.

  “Is that right, Clacker?” Frank shouted.

  Clacker shrugged and grinned his grin. Jackson turned back to face Frank.

  “Wasn’t my fault, Mr Peacock,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “Rotten sods made me, they did. They held me down.”

  Frank turned his gaze on the trio.

  “You dirty-minded little fuckers,” he said. “You filthy little sods.”

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Victor,” Arthur said, pained, scarcely able to look at me. A great heat of injustice flooded through me, but how could I ever explain to Arthur the reasons for my not being able to leave?

  “Oh, leave ’em alone,” Clacker said. “They were only muckin’ about. You’re like a bloody old woman.”

  Frank turned on Clacker and began to wave his finger in Clacker’s face long before he could get the words out for the finger to underline.

  “Just you keep your bloody nose out of it,” Frank managed at last. “You just keep your bloody nose out.”

  “Oh yes?” Clacker said after a slight pause. “Oh yes?”

  “Yes, or I’ll keep it out for you.”

  Very quickly, almost too quickly to see, Clacker’s right arm flashed out from his body and his hand closed round Frank’s wagging wrist and held it abruptly still.

  “I’ve just about had enough of you,” Clacker said.

  Frank tried to snatch his arm free, but Clacker’s arm was as rigid as a piece of iron.

  “Let go, Clacker, or there’ll be trouble,” Frank said.

  Clacker smiled and let go.

  “Right. I’ve let go. Now what are you going to do about it?” he said.

  Arthur walked over and made to stand between the two of them. Frank tried to push him out of the way. Arthur swayed back into him, now himself angry because of Frank’s pushing, but this time Frank succeeded in shoving Arthur against the bottom of the slope where he slipped on a stone and sat down. Frank’s aggression was now fully primed and he followed through with a swing at Clacker which Clacker parried without effort and then threw a punch at Frank which caught him on the side of the head and sent him reeling against one of the panniers. Then they both flew at each other.

  Arthur got up and again tried to separate them and then all three of them were whirling around in the space between the panniers, charging this way and that, until the sound of my father’s voice crackled through the hot air and then slowly, like spent clockwork, the three of them wound down.

  My father was standing at the top of the flint tip. Jackson and the trio and myself watched him as he picked his way down the flint tip, while Arthur and Frank tried to hide their embarrassment by dusting themselves down and straighten¬ing their clothes. Clacker just rested his backside on one of the panniers and studied one of his fists.

  My father arrived at the panniers and looked at each one of us in turn. Then he said:

  “There’ll be somebody down the road for this, and that’s for certain.”

  Frank and Arthur began to speak but my father cut in on them.

  “Get that lorry seen to, Arthur,” he said. “And you three get up there with him. Frank, in the hut.”

  My father walked between the side of the hut and slope and Frank followed him. Arthur made for the foot of the flint tip.

  “Hell,” Jackson whispered to me. “What do you think’s off to happen?”

  I stepped a little bit away from Jackson, unconsciously disassociating myself with him, however unwilling a party he’d been to what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and made off after Arthur. Jackson trotted along behind me.

  “Bloody mucky bastards, weren’t they,” Jackson said as we slid and slithered up the flint tip. “I say, weren’t they bloody mucky bastards?”

  I ignored him.

  When we got back on the platform Arthur had already done the tailboard and the load was sliding down into the wagon. I hurried across to the platform’s edge to help Arthur re-fasten the tailboard but he had already done the side I’d been making for and by the time I’d got there Arthur was already on his way to attend to the other side. I got down into the wagon and began to search for flints. Arthur stood by his lorry and rolled a cigarette. Jackson got down in the wagon with me and scratched about without really doing very much. A minute or two later Clacker appeared and rather than get down into the wagon with the two of us he sat down on the running board of Arthur’s lorry.

  Arthur lit his cigarette.

  “You aren’t half a daft twat, Clacker,” Arthur said, flick¬ing the match away.

  Clacker spat, a long curving loop of spittle that seemed almost to sizzle as it landed on the platform’s surface.

  “You could be down the road for this,” Arthur said. “Frank’s always had it in for you.”

  “If I’m down the road, I’m down the road,” Clacker said. “I don’t give a monkey’s.”

  “Oh aye,” Arthur said. “And jobs are like monkeys round here: they grow on trees, don’t they. No trouble in getting another.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Aye, you can live on rabbits, can’t you?”

  Frank appeared at the top of the chute.

  “Arthur! Clacker!” he called. “Gaffer wants you.”

  He disappeared again.

  Arthur took a drag on his cigarette and began to walk towards the chute. Clacker, of course, waited till Arthur was halfway there until he got up from the running board.

  When they were out of sight and earshot Jackson sat down on the wagon’s edge and said:

  “Do you reckon Clacker’ll get the sack?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, throwing a flint into the barrow.

  “Reckon he will, I do,” said Jackson. “I mean, Frank is foreman, isn’t he?”

  I didn’t answer. Jackson slipped his hand in the waistband of his trousers and explored his genitals.

  “Rotten bastards,” Jackson said. “He really hurt me, he did. I’m red fucking raw.”

  I straightened up and with all my force threw a flint at Jackson. Jackson ducked, causing him to fall sideways, half into the load, and the flint whistled across the platform and struck the bush by the flint tip. Jackson began to speak but before he could do that I shouted:

  “Just keep your fucking trap shut! I’m sick of listening to you, you great fucking nellie.”

  Jackson picked himself up and stared at me.

  �
�What’s up with you, then?” he said.

  I said nothing and went back to work.

  “Nearly hit me in the flaming head,” he said.

  “In that case it wouldn’t have hurt you, would it?”

  Arthur reappeared at the top of the chute and walked back to his lorry.

  “Your dad wants you, Victor,” he said. “He’s in the hut.”

  I got out of the wagon and walked over to the chute and wondered what my father wanted that he couldn’t have dis¬cussed at the platform’s edge. An audience had never bothered him before.

  I clambered down the chute. The Websters and Duggie were nowhere to be seen. Clacker and Frank were standing outside the hut, as far apart from each other as the space between the hut and the kiln would allow. I didn’t look at either of them and opened the door of the hut, releasing a wave of stale heat. My father was leaning against the far wall of the hut, his arms folded.

  “Shut the door,” he said.

  I shut the door.

  “Now then,” he said. “Just exactly what’s been going on?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, come on. I haven’t got all day.”

  “Didn’t the others tell you?”

  “I want to hear your version.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Clacker’s off down the road, that’s why.”

  “Why Clacker?”

  “Because from what I gather, he started it. And in any case, Frank’s foreman.”

  “But you can’t sack Clacker.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, you just can’t, that’s all.”

  The awfulness of the situation was beginning to dawn on me. It would appear to Clacker that my father, after collect¬ing the evidence from me, was going to give Clacker the sack. Nothing I could say would ever convince Clacker other¬wise than that his sacking was a result of my putting in the final boot.

  “I can’t have men thumping up foremen.”

  “It was half a dozen of one and six of the other,” I said.

  “All right, so tell me what happened.”

  To try and shift blame from Clacker I would have to go into what happened with Jackson and the others, and the thought of discussing something like that with my father was too embarrassing to contemplate. I wondered if either Clacker or Frank or Arthur had mentioned the real cause of the incident.