The Redemption Factory (5 page)

“Close and chew. It’s important to always chew your food. We don’t want you choking. Do we?”

The chime of the shop’s bell echoed up the stairs.

“Must go,” said Kennedy, leaving the remainder of the pancake resting on a plate. “I’ll bring your lunch up, later. I’m making your favourite. Chicken soup. Yum yum. That’ll soon have you on your feet …” Kennedy smiled and winked, then closed the door behind him, gently.

Catherine quickly reached for the bucket beneath the bed and spilt her guts into it …

P
AUL HAD REACHED
the entrance to the Tin Hut – the local snooker and drinking hall – just as the familiar voice asked, “What the hell are you doing with a brush shaft? This is a snooker hall, lad. Not the abattoir’s annual sweeping contest.”

Paul didn’t want to think about the abattoir. He would be back in that place in less than 30 hours. Like a prisoner on parole, he dreaded the thought, but knew he had no other choice. He had been out of work for almost a year – his longest stint of unemployment – and the abattoir seemed the best opportunity to rectify that. He hated the thought of
getting the job but, paradoxically, knew he was lucky to have secured it. His financial situation left him in no doubt about that, not to mention his mother who never failed to tell him that he should be married by now, giving her grandchildren. Of course, that was a load of nonsense. The last thing his mother wanted was to be in close proximity of people less than two feet tall with rubbery faces. She didn’t hate kids: simply could no longer tolerate them, their shitty smell and non-stop mouths, as if the one child in her life had drained her forever.

“Funny you should mention the abattoir, Lucky, because by the time I’m finished with you and the rest of the
would-be
challengers in there, it
will
be a slaughter house. Make no mistake about that. And that lucky charm of yours won’t help, either.”

Lucky raised his wrist and kissed the gold bracelet dangling from it.
There’s only one Lucky
it proudly proclaimed.

“The day you beat me at snooker, is the day I give this to you.”

They both grinned and entered the Tin Hut.

Once inside, Lucky volunteered to buy a drink.

“Performing a miracle, Lucky? Where the hell would you get the money for two pints?” smiled Paul.

“Well, the way it works is that you’re suppose to stop me, preventing my hand – which is strategically placed in my pocket – from coming out, saying –
demanding
that under no circumstances will I, Paul Goodman, allow a drink to be bought by my best friend, Lucky Short, tonight, because of the wonderful news that on Monday I, Paul Goodman, start my new job at the slaughterhouse.”

“I see. But what if your best friend has no money until payday, next week? What then?”

“Credit, me old bucko. Terry Browne knows you now have a job and will be more than willing to put a couple of pints on the slate.”

Paul laughed. “You better hope I don’t get fired on my first day, my best friend, because it’ll be those dancing legs of yours that’ll be getting smashed by Terry, not mine. Now make yourself useful. Go over and put our names down for the middle table. I’ll get the pints.”

While Paul waited for the pints to be pulled, he glanced back at Lucky, who was arguing with someone about being next for the best table in the place, the middle one. It had few rips in it and was almost perfectly balanced, with little or no sliding to the side.

“Suckered in for a free drink from that lazy pissy whore, Paul?” said the owner, Terry Browne, a one-time boxer and trainer. People Terry didn’t like, were pissy whores. Nearly everyone in the hall had been a pissy whore, at one time or another. Only yesterday, Paul had been a pissy whore. Now, with a potential job, he was Paul, a customer with credit.

“He’s okay, Terry. Just never had too many breaks in his life,” replied Paul, smiling.

“Breaks? The only breaks that pissy whore is interested in are the snooker breaks he makes – and even those are crap.” Terry shook his head. “Does he still go to the
Boom Boom Rooms
for those dancing lessons? Still thinks he’s the next Fred Astaire?”

Paul nodded.

“I’d like to give him a good kick up a stair, the pissy whore.
I blame him on you no longer having any interest in boxing. You had a lot of potential. A lot of potential.”

“Lucky didn’t stop me. I just lost interest in getting my head knocked off every time I entered the ring – all of ten seconds,” laughed Paul, wishing the pints of Guinness would hurry up and settle. Terry believed that pulling a pint of Guinness was an art, a slow and delicate art, and god help the person who asked him to hurry it up, destroy his masterpiece.

“Don’t be daft,” said Terry, crossly. “You had potential. Always. Don’t let any of these pissy whores tell you any thing different, especially that pissy whore Lucky Short. What the hell you ever saw in that walking failure, I’ll never know …”

Paul just smiled. There was little point in even contemplating a disagreement with Terry whose middle name was Opinionated. Instead, he watched the beautiful creamy white of Guinness harden, transforming itself into a vicar’s collar, while his mind strolled back to yesteryear, and the first meeting he ever had of Lucky Short …

Imagine having the nickname Willie Short, of having to carry it with you as a young boy through school years, through the pimply, squeaky voice of adolescence? Can you imagine a worse fate?

Try this.

What if the nickname wasn’t a nickname but your
real
name?

Willie – Willie Short – couldn’t fight to save his life let alone defend a name he despised. Fortunately, he possessed exceptional fortitude, comfortable with the probability of humiliation at all times. Even some of the girls in the street used to beat him up – usually on a Thursday night after being
hyped to the gills by Emma Peel in
The Avengers
. “Is your willie short, Willie Short?” they would tease mercilessly, as only girls can tease.

Paul Goodman was Willie’s best friend. Actually, Paul was Willie’s
only
friend and ended up fighting most of his fights for him, as friends tend to do for friends. Not a week went by when Paul couldn’t be seen minus a black eye or busted lip, or some other war wound meant for Willie, whose war cry was: I’m getting Paul Goodman for ya! He’s a famous boxer, ya know! Won a silver medal at the Olympic Games … beat the shit out of Mangler Delaney …

It made no difference that Paul had never fought at the Olympics and that the only meeting between the notorious Mangler and Paul ended up with Paul having a new identity done to his face that lasted two weeks.

Paul and Willie had met quite by accident, and depending which friend you listened to, each had a different rendering of the occasion.

One Friday night, Paul had just had his face and spirit battered by Mangler who seemed driven by the hatred of Paul’s handsome face, wishing to make it as ugly as his own.

Delaney was an evil-looking young lad who would grow up to become the local undertaker. Years later, Paul often reflected that perhaps the boxing was only Delaney’s apprenticeship, whetting his appetite for what really was his calling: burying the dead.

His face covered in a family of forget-me-not bruises tattooed firmly to his skin, Paul called in to the local café. He wasn’t really hungry, but his spirits needed a bit of a lift. Afterwards, he would head home, just in time for his
favourite sports show,
147
. He had never missed the show, where snooker players tried to reach the magical break of 147, immortalise their names and have a holiday – all expenses paid – thrown in for good measure.

Snooker was his real passion, not boxing. Boxing was an ordeal inflicted upon him by his mother who kindly enrolled him at the local boxing club in the misguided belief that it would somehow make a man out of him. He was twelve. What young boy wants to be a man at twelve? All Paul wanted to be was a kid.

Paul figured at least fifteen people were in front of him in the queue, and quickly tried to calculate how long it would take before he reached the counter. He prayed he didn’t get Annie Parson. She was at least 100 years old and had an old battered hearing-pieces in both ears forcing you to scream at the top of your voice. Tiny brown lumps of earwax covered the pieces, making the chance of hearing nil minus zero.

Annie was an extremely ugly old woman whose nasal hairs dangled like spiders legs and her foul breath always smelt of tobacco and mints. An army of moles littered what little skin she had and it was said that if you joined all the moles together – like ‘join the dots’ – they would mutate into an image of Elvis Presley. People said she was good at reading lips as well as tealeaves. Paul believed neither, only that she turned his stomach.

As he eased closer to the counter, he prayed to God to give him a break, just like the break he wanted for Alex ‘Stormy’ Jennings, his favourite snooker player, who hoped for the magical number tonight.

Don’t let Annie serve me, God. Please, show some mercy
…

But there’d be no mercy tonight. Not at the boxing. Not at the café.

“You’ll have to speak up, ya little bugger! I can’t hear a word you’re saying!” boomed Annie, her midget frame perched atop a milk crate barely reaching the lip of the shop’s wooden counter top.

Ah, fuck. She’s no teeth in. I’m gonna throw up. There’s juice on the tip of her nose. It must be snot. Oh, fuck
…

“Speak up, ya little bugger!”

“I said a fish suppers!” screamed Paul, right back at her hairy face. “No salt or vinegar.”

“Vulgar! Who’re ya calling vulgar, ya little bugger! I’ve a good mind to call our Anthony! He’ll show ya, ya little bugger!” Annie’s brother Anthony, the owner of the cafe, was about 90 years old, aided by two walking sticks. He wore clothes two sizes too big and squeaky shoes. You heard him before you saw him.

“No! I just said no salt or vinegar!” Someone started giggling behind Paul. Within seconds, the giggle was contagious. They were all at it.

“Give her a kiss, Paul. Stick your tongue in her mouth,” someone shouted, making the laughter louder.

Paul glared back at the crowd, hoping to catch the owner of the smart mouth.

Five minutes later, Annie handed him the steaming package, but not before drowning it in salt and vinegar. The vinegar was seeping heavily through the thin paper. It felt disgusting, like a baby’s soiled nappy, and was probably unfit for human consumption.

“In future, you watch your language, ya little bugger!
Coming in here with your face dripping blood all over the place. We run a respectable establishment here. The next time, you’ll not be served! I can read lips, ya know!”

Paul quickly grabbed the package from Annie’s withered fingers. “There’ll be no next time, you old witch! I’m going to
Harry
Bunts
, in future.”

“Anthony!
Anthoooonnnyyy!
” screamed Annie. “The little bugger said I had a hairy cunt! Anthony!
Anthoooonnnyyy!
”

The place went into uproar while Paul made good his escape.

Resigned that
147
was gone for another week, Paul rested his tired back against the café wall, and opened up the package. The steam rose to his face, the aroma making his stomach growl with anticipation. Like a starving wolf, quickly he devoured the contents and waited.

“That was you who shouted for me to stick my tongue in Annie’s mouth. Wasn’t it? Don’t lie, it’ll only make matters worse for you,” said Paul, grabbing a boy as he emerged from the café.

Startled, the boy almost dropped his package of chips. “Yes,” replied the boy, offering no defence. “I just thought it was funny. I’m sorry …”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Your face looks a right mess,” said the boy, leaning his face into Paul’s. “How many of them were there?”

“Perhaps you would like me to leave
your
face like this? And what are you blabbering about? It was one person, Mangler Delaney, in the ring. I just had a bad night.”

“You can say that again. Your face looks like a balloon – a battered and bloody balloon.”

“Do you even know who Mangler Delaney is? He won a silver medal at the Olympic Games, that’s all. And I managed to stay in the ring with him for a good two minutes.”

“A
good
two minutes, eh? Lucky for you they weren’t a bad two minutes,” smiled the boy, stretching out his hand to be shaken. “Anyway, my name is William. William Short.”

“Never fucking mind, Will
ie
. Now move, out of the way. I’ve got to get home.” Paul wanted to get home before any of the street gangs witnessed his defeated face. They would perceive him an easy target. His life wouldn’t be worth living if word got out that he wasn’t such a great boxer, after all. Going to the local boxing hall was the only thing that had placed doubt into the minds of the gang members.
Don’t fuck with him; he’s a boxer, ya know
…

Paul knew he would relinquish that life-saving doubt if any of them spotted him, vulnerable and battered.

“My da has great stuff in the house. Magic cream, he calls it. Your face will be like new, once you put it on. Wanna try it?” asked Willie.

No, Paul didn’t want to try such nonsense. He didn’t even want to be seen talking to this non-ranking non-person.

“I saw Badger Lumley and his gang over near Alexander Street,” continued Willie. “That’s where you live, isn’t it? That’s where his gang was lurking. But cheer up. My da says that gangs are where cowards go to hide.””

For a split second, doubt and possibly fear registered in Paul’s eyes. Badger alone would be no problem. But with his gang …? Paul quickly calculated how his face would be like a red rag to a bull once Badger spotted it. He would fancy his chances. Paul would be regarded as a wounded animal.

“Where do you live?” asked Paul, reluctantly.

“King’s Court,” replied Willie, enthusiastically. “A
two-minute
walk. That cream’ll do the job – guaranteed.”

“Guaranteed?”

“Cast-iron.”

They kept to the safety of badly lit streets. The darkness covered Paul’s wounds, and he was grateful. If only this nuisance would stop asking questions and doing that stupid tap dancing.