Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening, welcome to Lager Time.
Quick little intro, then we crack on with this weeks piece. I’m dropping the second in a series called Satellite Stories. All of these are based on real events with a few details changed here and there. Trying to keep it as honest as possible, without censoring anything. Its tough though, but I guess the truth hurts sometimes.
Anyway, if you like, give it a subscribe or feel free to drop a comment, it all helps. Few bits and bobs in my onnine shop, like my first book, The Suburban and some music, paulcree.co.uk/shop for probably none of your needs but needs must.
Have a banging weekend
Paul
SATELLITE STORIES: DRUNKS AND BUNKERS.
St Wilfrid’s was tucked away behind Goff’s Park, meaning you could access it via the school playing fields. It was forbidden to go in there, unless you were a sixth-former. My older brothers told me of running battles in Goffs, back in their day, with other schools, Thomas Bennet, ICC and Hazlewick.
We’d taken to sneaking off into Goffs some lunchtimes, to go to the little kiosk by the pitch-and-put, or to roll down to the Cazbah on Horsham Road, which was always risky. Where the park came out, onto the main road, it was always busy with traffic and there was, of course, the level crossing. Teachers, on their lunch-breaks, often spotted little chancers, who’d been caught waiting by the barriers, trapped by the trains, pockets full of sweeties, that were probably robbed from the Cazbah.
The notorious moody-geezer in there had one glass eye and despite the CCTV, his shop was rife with adolescent tea-leaves claiming the five-finger discount. Though some sort of moral-code, slash anxiety, told me not to, in truth, I never quite had the bollox for shop-lifting, though I did once nick a pack of chewing gum, whilst at the till paying for something, as the glass-eyed geezer was distracted. Probably said a few Hail Mary’s after that one.
I’m pretty sure it was French that I was bunking that morning. I’d long ago lost interest in school and that whole masculine feminine thing; I could never quite get my head around it. Must’ve been around early Spring, as some of us were still wearing coats and normal lessons were going on; that and I remember that the ground was a bit muddy.
I’d heard a few boys, Tony, Granger and Kells were sacking off lessons and going on a jaunt into Goffs; so me and my mate Colin decided to join them. It was only ever school where you’d often form these temporary alliances, with other boys you might not even be that safe with, but you all had a common purpose and bunking off was ours; young socialists that we were.
To get out, you had to sneak round the back of the gym, with its big glass windows, cut across by the school kitchens, into the bus layby and into this bit of wasteland; through the bushes, then BOSH; you were there. Goff’s Park. The promised land.
We got through undetected and were in the woods, near to where the play area was. Like with most things we did back then, there was no actual plan to any of it, other than escaping and I doubt anyone had even thought it through, so once we got into the park, we just, stood around for a bit; until someone decided we should bop to the Cazbah. This lack of planning, was probably reflected in our combined academic performances.
On the surface, Goffs was a pleasant patch of green, though always a bit gloomy, it had the pitch-and-put up the back and in the summer, a little miniature railway, yet, it was a haven for all sorts of wrong‘uns and I’d heard there was a remand centre in there, somewhere. Only a few weeks before, we’d almost been caught bunking by a squad of police officers, surrounding the pond, whilst a few divers were searching for a knife that had apparently been used to stab a guy to death, just down the road. There was also a known sex-case, of the flashing sort, who used to operate out of there, waiting for the school-girls to come in.
Back when I was in year nine, I remember one lunchtime a guy got battered in there by a bunch of kids, a few years above. He’d come on to the school field at lunchtime and slapped a kid in my year, some revenge attack on behalf of his younger brother. There was some big assembly about it afterwards; and loads of boys, like my mate Rich, went about claiming to have laid a boot in; though he definitely didn’t, because I was with him. The geezer got bashed up pretty-bad by all accounts. Though these incidences were largely few and far between; you still had to have your wits about you.
We were bowling back from the Cazbah and had gotton back into the park, most of the boys loaded up with sweeties, Tony Doyle being a top thief, munching away, when I saw my brother. He was in sixth form at the time and presumably on a free period. All the other boys went on ahead. He had a bit of a pop at me, knowing full well what I was up to. I felt pretty bad but also enjoyed the sort-of-naughty-kid-reputation I had within my family, even though I was never really that bad. I think he probably saw through it all, knowing I wasn’t much of a bad-boy, wasn’t even that good at pretending to be one, but minor acts of bad-boy-behaviour, like bunking off, I could do and it gave me a tiny shred of clout; in that warped aspirational ideal that so many of us tried to live-up to.
In our ranks, Kells was the hardest. He could easily switch and go from being a loud-mouth to a solid, fast moving, block of rage, clumping whatever was in front of him. Most of the time, though, he was a bit of a nob, gobby but a good laugh, all the rude-boys tended to leave him alone, knowing he could mix-it, if he wanted.
My mate Colin could fight, he was huge for his age and had fists like shovels, because of this, he often had to contend with cocky wide-boys, often backed by a pack of mates, trying to dick-swing with him but like me, he didn’t like fighting and was quite gentle at heart but unlike me, he had to put up with getting started on all the time.
Then there was Granger and Tony Doyle. Granger was alright, all mouth but no trousers, as my dad would say, a bit of a clown and Doyle was quiet, didn’t make a fuss but all in all, they were all game for a laugh and none of us were up to much in our projected GCSE grades; we didn’t know at the time but we were all destined for the post-sixteen-Blarite-dream of useless GNVQ’s.
We were just wondering around aimlessly, walking up a slight hill, just in front of the woods, by the old house. We’d split up, with Granger, Kells and Doyle up ahead, me and Colin just talking at the back. I’d noticed an older-women, probably mid-forties, maybe, lots of make up and scraggy blonde hair, walking a dog, coming towards us. I think she had some sort of drink in one of her hands. She was wearing black sunglasses and I remember thinking somethings not right here. That Granger has gone right up to her face, leant in and gone WOOF WOOF and run back to where Kells and Doyle were.
It’s like she was sleep-walking and then suddenly launched into life You fucking little cunts, you fucking little gay-boys fuck off fuck off come here you little cunts fuckin gay boys cunts Granger and Kells were cracking up, laughing at this women, who I’d now realised, was pissed out of her face; when all a sudden this geezer with a pony- tail appears out of nowhere, holding a can of Special Brew and starts charging at us. Granger, Kells and Doyle were long gone, bolting back up into the woods and with me and Colin right at the back, and Colin the closest, he comes right at us instead. He grabs Colin by his school blazer and cracks him in the face, mouthing various obscenities. I don’t fully remember what exactly, but it weren’t flowery language and spit was flying out of his mouth. Colin fell back onto one leg and would’ve gone fully over but the guy still had hold of his blazer. It was like he was hopping, trying to keep his balance and fight back. Colin’s massive and his unnecessarily oversized football bag was wedged between the two of them, which probably worked in his favour. Colin, was slightly taller than him but either way, this guy was a man, with man-strength; this weren’t no lunchtime punch up.
It weren’t ‘im, it weren’t ‘im, it was the ovvver ones - the drunk dog walker must’ve had some mystical hold over this guy, because at that, he let go of Colin and charged off into the woods.
This whole time, though, I’d stood there frozen, as this geezer slapped my mate, not knowing what to do. It all seemed to happen in the space of a few very short moments, whilst also wondering, where on earth this angry geezer had appeared from, it was like he teleported right to where we were, from some bare-knuckle pit somewhere and he was angry at the inconvenience.
Colin was alright, though, the guy had only caught him on the cheek, bit shaken up but we made our way back into school via a different route, didn’t see that other women or the pony-tailed-pit-fighter again, thank God. We caught up with the other boys and they were laughing their heads off and I remember feeling angry, as we, or Colin more like, almost got our heads kicked-in by some whino; all because of Granger, running his mouth off and then pussying-out by giving it toes. So much for the solidarity.
Next day, Granger and Kells had told everyone this guy had started on us and they slapped him up. I was partly scared that the school would find out, though they never did. I doubt anyone wanted to admit it, that we were probably all shitting ourselves, though. Or maybe it was just me? All that, because I didn’t want to go a French lesson; ce la vie.
Satellite Stories: EP 2 - Drunks and Bunkers