The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) (8 page)

The door crashed open and it was “on”.

We saw there were four of them, muscling together, to storm up the stairs. We needed space quickly, so being the front man, standing two stairs up, I zeroed in on the third guy, back right. Our eyes met and I knew straight away that this was “The Guy”, this was the one that I’d been waiting for since I started this job, the one that was going to do me like a dog’s dinner.

Well, you’d better go hard, mate. “In, in, in. Attack, attack, attack.”

I dived off the second step over the front two and grabbed his lapels, managing to pull him out of the doorway into the alley. I got pushed from behind, so while I still had hold of him I did a sacrifice throw, pulling him over the top of me and into the ground next to me. There was a sudden mêlée of legs round us, shouting and cursing, so by the time I sprang up he was up, too.

I went straight at him with a spinning elbow strike to the head, guaranteed to put his lights out, my favourite technique. (First night I was shown this special technique by Gary, I accidentally KO’d four other students, one after the other, while “light” sparring, ’cause I couldn’t control the spin.)

BANG. I felt like my elbow had hit a telegraph pole. He just shook his head, backed off and said, “C’mon in here, Sunshine, I’ve got something for you.”

I saw a quick glint of a knife as he pulled it out of his watchband.

Looking back, I think if I hadn’t got him with that elbow strike he would never have let me see that knife. A knife-man is a very
dangerous
person. Forget the movies, usually you won’t even see it before it’s in you. If he’s right-handed the knife hand will now be palm up, close to the body, bottom of the ribs. The left hand will come over the top to hide and shield it. Left elbow points at target. Left hand will quickly sweep away any guard you’ve got up. Knife goes in … bye, bye. It’s quick, sudden and lethal.

The left hand went over the blade …

The 1950s were good in Liverpool, but the 1960s were even better: the “Mersey Sound” music with the Beatles and a host of other groups; the comedians – Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd and others; the soccer – Liverpool and Everton … It was a great place to be. The clubs were playing Motown and soul from the US, too, brought back by Liverpool sailors.

By 1962, Ryan had passed the exam to go to a private college, with its own swimming pool and sports field. His mum and dad were real proud of him. I failed the exam, so got to go to the concrete jungle high-school round the corner, no pool or field. The boys and girls went to separate schools next to each other.

All sorts of ruses were employed to gain access to the girls’ school: bribing teachers, hot-air balloons, tunnels. Many a young man went blind in those tunnels, I can tell you.

I managed to do quite well in History, Maths and English (tho u woodn’t no it …) and was doing OK in Science until one of my team (I’d never dob a team-mate in, Jimmy Golbourne, if ever you read this) put sulphuric acid in the teacher’s pet fish tank! Goldfish started behaving like piranhas in a feeding frenzy. We managed to save one and it became the school mascot. We called it Moby Dick. Everybody loved it. We gave it fish food, then sandwiches and sausage rolls, but I think it was the curry that killed it.

Our team all got an “F” for our Science project. We got our own back on the last day of school, though. We super-glued the teacher to his chair and put a dead toad sandwich in his lunch-box. He was a horrible man; I did feel sorry for his fish, though.

There was no way I was going to let this guy get within arm’s length of me. Our eyes locked and we both knew this was going to go all the way. I reached with my right and found the comfort of the “nunch”. I pulled them, sprang back and we were “into it”.

This mongrel has to go. I try a classic “S” strike with the nunchaku. WHOOF – forward swipe catches him on his left ear and cheek, opening it to the bone. Recover and WHOOF – back swing to the right elbow. Must have hit the funny bone; he lets out a howl and has to drop the knife. Recover and WHOOF – strong forward swipe on to his left knee-cap – “GAAARRH!”

Blood is pouring down his face, right arm hanging by his side, useless, and he’s still limping towards me making guttural animal noises.

“I’ll ’ave you now … I’ll ’ave you now, yah bastard!”

He dives in on me, grabbing on with his left. I still have the nunchaku in my right, too close to use. I would have tried a judo throw but I panic, the flail frozen to my hand. Anyone else would have been right out of the game but not this fella. This is my
introduction
to the drug-crazed ones. I come too, drop the nunch and grab him back. His breath is on my face, trying to grab hair that isn’t there now. I feel his mouth on my ear, slobbering on it, trying to get the breath to bite it off.

“I’ve fucking got you now, you little cunt. I’ll fucking kill ya!”

“No, you won’t!” I scream back at him.

Grabbing on tight, I draw back and head-butt him twice, as hard as I can. His nose explodes into his face. I push back off him and put two groin kicks into him, in once, then bounce the ball of the foot, in again. “ARHHH!”

More noises come out of him, bent over double, unbelievably still up. I am so scared, I’m going mad. I grab him now by the hair and run his face into the wall, spin him round, knee him under the heart, step in and hip-throw him – he’s down, but still not out. I’m off the planet. I set into him. No way was he getting up again.

On Sunday mornings we’d all go to nine o’clock mass. I used to watch out for Gillian just so I could walk near her. I just loved everything about her. There was this inner beauty and strength that exuded out of her.

The ten o’clock mass was the most popular in our parish because it would finish around the time the pubs opened. All the
Irish-Catholic
men would pat their broods on the head outside church. They’d give them a couple-o-bob for holy water – usually spent on lollies – and off to the pub till 3 p.m. closing. Certain suburbs of Liverpool were like the second capital of Ireland. The single men would then wander off to the park for drunken “footy”. The married ones would come home to a big roast meal then upstairs for a cuddle with the wife. This worked very well for the Catholic Church’s “Withdrawal method” policy (at the point of
climax – withdraw
). The O’Reagans had ten kids, the O’Briens eleven and the Delaneys twelve.

The church was bursting at the seams. “Oh well! If you can’t convert, go forth and multiply.”

The blood was splashed over the white wall in the alley. I looked down at the glistening stains on my trouser legs. My shoes, as well, had a wet look to them. My hands face and shirt had blood all over them.

I walked back down toward the door. There was another one of the four, sitting down in the entrance way, head down, legs splayed. He was unconscious and sounded like he was snoozing. The fingers of his right hand were grotesquely bent. A cosh lay next to him. His face was mincemeat. I looked around for the other two. One was sitting down on a small wall on the end of the alley, Gary and Rolo standing before him.

He put his hand up in submission to them, then put his head in his blood-covered hands, and gobbed out a mouthful of blood and teeth. He was shaking his head to get rid of the galaxy in front to his eyes. Both his cheekbones were done, eyes closing up, blood running down his face, dripping on to the pavement.

The taxi was still there, the driver frozen.

Where was the fourth one? I walked down to the taxi, door open, and looked in. Number four was sitting in the back, wide-eyed, grinning and rocking. He’d run away when the night didn’t go the way it was planned. That wasn’t fair. Grabbing both sides of the cab opening I put a front snap-kick on to his chin as he leaned forward. CRACK … He slumped back in the seat, eyes open but no one home. Steel toe-caps can have that effect on people.

“Fucking ’ell, lah, that was a cracker!” said Jimmy, looking in and seeing the result.

Gary and Rolo were heaving the carcass of “Snoozy” into the taxi, which was now the four men’s transport to a hospital. I walked back up to where “Mr Indestructible” was. I looked down on this piece of shit that would have killed me if he could. His chest was making a death rattle, and there was what looked like a pink-
blood-spume
coming out of his gurgling mouth. Grabbing the back of his jacket, I dragged him down to the taxi.

The conscious one, still stuffed, sitting on the wall and trying to focus, looked at me and said, “We won’t forget this …”

I grabbed him by the larynx and the back of his hair, lifting him, face into face.

“Good. Look at it, remember it well. Don’t come back.”

The sight was a bundle of arms and legs and bloodied bits and pieces, making memorable noises.

The school occupational advisor (SOA) came round to our school just before we finished. There was no graduation party for the likes of us, just a kick in the arse and a “don’t come back” … as if.

“So,” the SOA says to me, with a Rolodex full of job vacancies, “and what would you like to do when you leave school, sonny?”

It might have gone down better if I’d sat on his knee and he had a red suit and a white beard.

“Well, I’d like to be a soldier. No, a fireman. No, an engine driver … a brain surgeon?”

“No, no, none of those. Look, it says here you’re good at art. How would you like to be a painter?”

A big soap bubble appeared over my head. I could see it all now, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, canvas and easel, brush in hand, one in the mouth, beret on, women falling at my feet …

“Hold me back – Yeah, sounds great,” says I.

“Done,” says he.

Next week I started as a painter in a Liverpool dry-dock painting the bottom of a huge cargo ship. I was covered from head to toe with red lead paint from using a big paint roller.

“Don’t worry, son. It’ll wash off. There’s a bucket of diesel over there, you can wash your hair, face and hands in that.”

“Oh yeah, thanks, boss.”

I did buy myself a black beret though, just to make me look “windswept and interesting”, as Billy Connolly used to say …

We found out later that the cab driver was a friend of the two thugs from the night before.

“Mr Indestructible” was their homecoming champion and cousin. He needed resuscitating three times that night. Emergency surgery put several plates in his head; corrective eye surgery was needed; he had a heap of stitches to the face; his nose needed
resetting
for breathing; his right elbow was reset; he had several broken ribs and a punctured lung that had to be drained; ice packs were put on his swollen testicles, which had gone black; and he had a knee-cap removed. And then there were the other three … busy night all round.

They told them at the hospital they’d crashed their car but couldn’t remember where.

There was not a grain of sympathy or remorse for any of them. I was just glad it wasn’t me or the innocent patrons in the club, or the boss and his family.

After everybody had gone home, Jimmy and I went to the hospital to “have another word” with them. We don’t like being threatened. It was a nurse that saved them. We told her we were “concerned relatives”. She took one look at us, a wild-eyed skinhead and a big woolly Mad-Manson and shooed us out, locking the door. They owe their future well-being to her – we’d have made sure they stayed there for a long, long time. That’s how psyched up we were.

After the fight, the boss and I really showed our appreciation to Gary and Rolo – the boss with two envelopes and me with an “eye to eye” handshake. There was no hugging in those days. “Anytime,” was all that was said.

They left me smartly in case the “Ee-aw, ee-aw” boys arrived. It left me and Jimmy on the door. The boss disappeared. Jimmy suggested I get cleaned up.

Up in the Gents, trying to get myself back in order, I noticed guys were shrinking away from me. Looking in the mirror, the effect was definitely a first. The person that looked back at me was hardly recognizable from the one I’d seen two hours ago; mad eyes, full of adrenaline, a face splashed and smeared with blood. A shirt that was bloody and torn. The bow tie was interesting though – halfway round my silly neck!

I did the best I could with myself and noticed I hardly had a scratch on me. What had happened felt like an hour’s event. I went back down to Jimmy and took my spot.

Another banging on the door, same as before.

I looked back up at Jimmy; his black eyes are scary. He put his hand on my shoulder. I took a breath, Jimmy was with me, we’re pumped to go again. I opened the door a fraction …

“POLICE! … Who had the nunchakus?”

My poor Mum. There wasn’t much to make her proud of me. After I’d nearly drowned Ryan and myself, she got the bright idea of getting me swimming lessons, three years later mind.

I took to it like the proverbial duck. Inside three years I was the school backstroke champion. Ha ha! Things were starting to look up. So when the Inter-schools Swimming Championships came up I invited her to come and watch her champion son, and along she came, proud as Punch. When the backstroke event was called I came out, threw the towel off my skinny little shoulders, arms spinning round like propellers, dancing like I was Ali at a boxing match.

“Yeah, that’s right, bring ’em out. Where’s these kids I’m going to cream?”

This kid walks out and stands next to me. I looked around. You’ve got to be kidding right? You’ve heard of David and Goliath? This kid was about eight feet tall! His hands dragged along the floor, his feet looked like huge flippers painted pink. Evolution’s Missing Link?

Another kid came out, smaller than me. Ha! – I had his number. Three other kids ran away.

“Take your marks.”

BANG – we’re away. That was the last we saw of the Missing Link until halfway up the first lap of three when he passed us, twice. The crowd went mad – a new schools record.