87

 

 

            I didn’t realise for a while where he was heading.  I didn’t realise until he swung his car into the road that led up towards Chaos.  I remained pressed up to the window, too lost within my own pain and horror to realise where we were.  On the drive over, I’d slipped into my own little world of grating pain and soothing music.  I told you that before didn’t I?  That wherever I go, whatever I do, music is with me, drumming and thrumming inside my brain, like a constantly changing soundtrack.  I have no control over it, it just happens, the songs just come, they make their own way in, and out, they do what they want.  I had Lithium in my head, all that time, all that way, while the car swerved corners and trundled across bridges.  You might not know that song.  You might not give a shit about that song.  Or any songs.  But it was there, so that makes it part of everything…I’m so lonely, it’s okay I shaved my head…No I’m not sad, and just maybe, I’m to blame for all I’ve heard…I’m not sure…I’m so excited, I can’t wait to meet you there…I’m so horny, that’s okay my will is good…When the car stopped, he killed the engine, and I moved my head slowly and rubbed at the steam on the window, and that was when I knew he had driven me home.  I looked at the door handle and thought about wrenching it open, tearing down the road and screaming for help.  But my body ached and cried out at even the thought of it.  It felt wrecked and ruined and weak and slow.  My back screamed in agony with every muscle I twitched, and my legs didn’t even seem to be with me.  I like it, I’m not gonna’ crack…I miss you, I’m not gonna’ crack…I love you, I’m not gonna’ crack…I kill you, I’m not gonna’ crack…

            There was a build-up of tears behind my eyes.  I was too tired to give into them, and as I gazed through the hole I had rubbed on the steamed up window, I felt sort of numb, and detached from it all.  I wondered blankly and calmly what would happen next.  During the drive, I had felt the fear ebbing away.  It dissipated, it broke up and floated away, because, I reasoned, it didn’t really matter anyway.  It didn’t really matter what happened next.  Or who won.  Nothing mattered.  You lived, or you died.  You took it, or you fought back.  You cared, or you didn’t.  Now that it had dawned on me where we were, I felt a little confused, and uneasy, but at the same time, I felt perhaps the first tender sparks of anger, deep within my body.  I turned my face slowly to look back over my shoulder at him.  He appeared in a daze, staring straight ahead, at the windscreen.  “So what now?” I asked him.  “You’re just gonna’ let me go?”

            “I haven’t decided yet,” he turned his head to look at me, and his eyes looked glassy and strange.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.  Maybe we’ll drive somewhere else.  I haven’t made my mind up.”

            “You really want me to work for you?”

            He nodded slowly.  “That was the deal.”

            The concept seemed to stun me for a moment or two.  I just stared and blinked at him, open mouthed, and teetering on the verge of nervous, disbelieving laughter.  The sparks of anger gained a little more hold then.  I could almost picture the match inside of me, sparks flying, the flame not quite taking hold, yet.  “But you really, actually want me to work for you?” I swallowed and asked.  My mouth was paper dry, and I would have killed for a decent drink.  He nodded at me, a slight crease appearing across his forehead. 

            “Hope you haven’t forgotten our conversation already,” he said.  “It will do you good.  I’m giving you one last chance Danny, that’s what I’m doing.”

            I ran my tongue slowly back and forth across my lower lip.  I could taste tears, and sand, and blood.  “I’m just a bit confused,” I said softly, cautiously.  “You want me to work for you, when you hate me?  When you’ve always despised everything about me?  That’s the bit I don’t get.  I would’ve thought you’d be happier with me gone.”  His face darkened and his head lowered on his shoulders.  I glanced at the door I was huddled against, and then looked back at him.  “Come on,” I said.  “Level with me.  What the fuck was all this?  Missed having your favourite punch bag, did you?  Punching mum not quite the same for you? Scared you’d lost control?  Had to come and show me who the big boss man is, all over again, right?”

            “You needed showing!” Howard snarled, spittle flying from his lips as he thrust his big head towards me.  “Sneaking round to my house!  Encouraging her to leave me!”

            “And if I’d stayed away, you wouldn’t be doing this now? It was her who begged to see me! I would have been happy never to set eyes on either of you again, to tell you the truth, but she begged Lucy, she told Lucy she needed to see me.”

            With one meaty arm looped over the steering wheel, Howard leaned closer to me.  “You ought to be grateful to me,” he sneered.  “You ought to be grateful that I care about you!  That I’m trying to help you!”

            Again, I was stunned into silence.  I opened, and then closed my mouth.  I shook my head as if to clear it.  I didn’t even know where to begin, or if I should even bother.  The man was dangerously deluded.  Did he truly believe he could be a force for good in my life?  Or was he simply seeking ways to justify his lust for constant violence he could get away with?  I lifted my bloodied hands and dropped them again.  “I’m supposed to be grateful?” I asked him.  “Really?  I’m supposed to be grateful for what you just did to me? Grateful to you, for dragging me away from my own life, and fucking it up all over again? I’d only just got you out of my head you know!” I stopped myself then, clamping my lips over my teeth, recognising the anger building in his face. 

            “What have we just been talking about?  Have you forgotten already?  You said you were going to behave!”

            I dropped my head into my hands.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I felt so close to laughing at him it was scary.  I scraped my fingers back through my hair, found my scalp and scratched at it viciously, whilst shaking my head from side to side.  “So what’re you gonna’ do?” I asked, keeping my head down.  “Come and find me every time you feel like you wanna’ beat someone up?  Every time you wanna’ remember how fucking big you are? Do you know how fucking warped that is?” I looked up again, in curiosity. “How do you know I won’t go right to the police right now?”

            Howard snorted in derision at the comment.  “You never have before, and besides, it’s your word against mine, and they won’t give a shit.  And if you behave like you are supposed to, there’ll be no need for me to be tough on you! I’ve told you that so many times!”

            I blew my breath out over my teeth, risked a smile and shook my head in pity. “You really haven’t thought this through, have you?  Why the hell would I let you back in my life?  I ran away from you Lee.  You should have just left me where I was.”

            He leaned even closer, right over my seat, with one hand gripping the steering wheel. His breath was coming in short, furious bursts through his nostrils. “I thought we just had this discussion Danny?  Eh?” I looked him in the eye.  I could feel the rage throbbing from him in waves, building up again steadily.  As his face jutted closer, I moved back instinctively, only for his big hand to shoot out and grab hold of my face.  I tried just once to wrench free, and then I gave up.  I had barely anything physical left to fight with, so I let my shoulders slump and stared back at him dully, while his fingers crushed my cheeks.  “You’re worrying me now,” he hissed, spit from his curled lips splattering my skin.  “I thought I’d got through to you back on the cliff.  Maybe I ought to take you back up there?  Maybe I should have ignored you when you were screaming and begging?  You said you were going to do what I told you, you said you were going to be a good boy, so were you fucking lying to me?” he let go of me, dropped his hands between his thighs and raised his eyebrows at me.  “Or maybe I should give Jack a call after all, eh?  Shall I do that?  Is that what you fucking want?”

            “No it’s not what I fucking want.”

            “I ought to call him right now, see if he wants to come back and have a date with you eh?”

            I fixed him with a cold, hard stare.  In that moment I understood that it was possible to hate someone so much that you wanted them dead.  Stone, cold dead.  Dead and in the ground.  In the ground so I could piss all over his grave.  I didn’t just want him dead, I longed for him to be dead.  I scowled at him.  “Why don’t you save him the trouble and fucking do it yourself?  You obviously really get off on the idea, you dirty fucking bastard.”

            He snarled and lashed out, his hand slapping my face so hard I fell back against the window.  I laughed at him, I laughed at it all.  I winced and gasped from the pain in my back, and laughed out loud.  “What the fuck is so funny?” he bellowed at me.

            “I’m tired of this…” I murmured, smoothing my hands out across my face and shaking my head behind them, as gentle, exhausted, close to hysterical laughter rocked through me.  “This has to end…one way or another…”

            “I’ll be the one who says when it fucking ends!”

            “Control freak, aren’t you?” I said from behind my hands.  “Is your dad like that too?  Is that where you get it from?  Are you trying to be like him all the time, and failing?  Because one, I am not your son, and two, I fucking loathe you and want to kill you and nothing you can do or say will ever change that?  You need help, you know.  You really need help.” I moved my hands, and shrank slowly back against the car door, keeping my eyes on Howard.  His face and neck had reddened to a dark shade of crimson, and his eyes bulged out of his face.  I sighed at him.  “You should have just left me where I was.”

            “You’re trying to help Kay leave me!”

            “That’s her decision!” I cried back, sitting up straight. “I’m not helping her do anything Lee, John’s helping her, and it’s nothing to do with me! She wants to leave you because you’ve been beating her! Why do you do that?”

            “Oh I see the old you coming back now,” he grumbled, his top lip curling up, and his hands rolling into fists between his legs.  His chest was trembling.  It was all there, under the surface, the tumbling waves of violence, desperate to burst out.  I watched his fists and knew I had to be careful.  I didn’t think I could take any more.  “Same as ever eh?  One minute it’s all please, please don’t hurt me, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good! Then the next you’re trying to fucking push me again!  I think you like it, that’s what I think.  I think you enjoy winding me up.  That’s how it’s been with you the whole time, isn’t it?  I’ve given you so many chances, so many times, and you fuck it up every time!”

            I licked my lips.  Took a breath.  Wondered if I should keep pushing him.  Let him do it.  Let him kill me.  Whatever.  Did I give a shit anymore?  Really, did I?  “I’m just wondering what the fuck your parents did to you,” I said slowly.  “I mean, really, what the fuck did they do?  To create this insane, delusional, monster, who can only see things his way. Come on,” I shrugged at him.  “You can tell me if you like.  You can share it.  Might make you feel better to open up.  You think it was okay your old man hit you with a belt and shit, don’t you?  But it’s not, it’s not okay, it’s not okay to do that to people…Did he burn you with his fags too?  I’m just curious.  Or is that your own little twist on things?  Something you get a kick out of?  And what about Jack eh?  He’s older than you, isn’t he?  Did your dad arrange that too?  Did he get Jack into your life?  Come on, you can tell me.”

            “You better shut your mouth.”  He could barely look at me.  His face was going purple.  The skin on his cheeks was trembling.  A massive vein was throbbing in his neck. I glanced back at the door handle.  “You didn’t sound like this up on the cliff…”

            I cleared my throat.  “Thought you were gonna’ throw me off.  I really did.  But now I see you were just trying to scare me.  Just playing games.  Just getting that control back again, because it makes you feel so good.  But maybe now, I’m less scared, now I’m sat here with you.  I remember exactly what you are.”

            He leaned in dangerously close. “I’ll take you back up there you little shit!”

            “Maybe I’d prefer that,” I shrugged again, eyeing him warily.  “Maybe I’d prefer that to working for you.  If that’s the only choice I’ve got.”  I shut up and waited.  I expected his rage to erupt upon me once again, but he appeared frozen to his seat, his position solid and unmoving, his eyes fixed on mine.  I watched his face carefully for a few moments, before pulling my feet slowly up onto the seat, and resting back against it.  I lurched forward again as soon as I made contact, tears of pain springing into my eyes, swearing under my breath at the sting across my back.  He chuckled at that. 

            “That’ll teach you,” he said, like a child.  He was one big fucking child.  I winced and shifted my arse on the seat, holding myself in the centre of it.

            “I could use a drink,” I said.  “Any chance of that?”  I had just remembered my cigarettes, and slid my hand into my pocket to retrieve them.  The pack was squashed and soggy, but there were one or two smokes that appeared to be intact.  I shook one out, stuck it between my teeth and lit it before he could react.  “How about it?” I prompted him.  “You got anything?” He grunted and his eyes shifted to gaze out at the dark street beyond the car.  “A nightcap, what do you say?” I urged him, almost desperate for one now.  “To toast this new business arrangement of ours? Then you know what?  I’ll promise to go home like a good boy and not say anything to anyone.  I’ll tell them I had another accident, how about that?”

            He looked at me, his small eyes squinting down to slits. “I don’t think I can believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”

            I laughed incredulously. “Come on, what am I gonna’ do?  I can’t even fucking walk!  You’re the biggest Lee, you remember?  You’ll always be the biggest.  I’m not gonna’ call the police, come on.  I tried that a few days ago.  They don’t give a shit.”

            “Jack Daniels,” he nodded abruptly at the glove compartment in front of me.  He slipped his hand towards the gear stick and picked up his own cigarettes.  I leant forward stiffly, pulled open the compartment and plucked out the bottle of whiskey.  I sat back, unscrewed the cap, and lifted the rim of the bottle to my swollen lips.  I took a long mouthful and swallowed, and closed my eyes.

            “That’s good,” I murmured, and drank some more.  Howard gestured for the bottle so I passed it to him, and sucked on my cigarette instead.  I wrapped an arm around my knees and rested my chin on it while I smoked.  The pain throbbed steadily across my back, and in my head, in my brain, and I just smiled at it.  I still remembered how to claim it, how to make it mine, and not let it panic or consume me.  I thought about my friends and wondered what they were doing up there without me.  Would they even be worried?  Would they just think I was at my mums’, or with Lucy?  Howard nudged me and handed me the bottle.  “So what’re you gonna’ tell mum?” I asked him then, taking it and swigging from it hungrily.

            “What?”

            “What’re you gonna’ tell her?  That you and me made up?  That we’re best of buddies now ‘cause you had a little word with me?” I grinned at him, took another big swig of whiskey that burned my throat raw, and passed it back to him.  “’Cause once she finds out how you got me to change my mind, she’s gonna’ be all over you like a rash, right?”

            Howard glowered at me darkly.  “Always with the smart remarks eh?” he said, smoking with his elbow resting against the window.  “From day one.  You know what I thought when I first met you?  Arrogant, smart mouthed little shit.  I thought there’s a kid that needs taking down a peg or two.”

            “Well yeah, you did that alright.  Couldn’t have taken me down further.”  I took back the bottle and poured it down my neck.  It was setting me on fire, but I loved it, I needed it. I swallowed, and wiped my mouth on my arm, and it was like the whiskey was fuelling the fire in my belly.  I felt this strange sense of calm.  “So couldn’t you find anyone else to replace Jack?” I asked him.

            “It’s not just about that,” he looked at me and sighed.  “I’ve told you a million times Danny, I’m trying to help you.  To give you an opportunity.  We could run a family business if you play your cards right.”  He was looking at me intently, his forehead furrowed with his own private frustrations.  I didn’t understand.  I would never understand.  I found it almost painful to look back at him.  There was something in his eyes more disturbing than the blatant lust for violence I was so used to seeing there.  He looked like a man torn between doubt and conviction, hope and frustration.  And then he said something that chilled me to the bone.  “I could be a father to you Danny.  That’s what I’ve always wanted.  We could put all this behind us.  We could work together, and make the business a success.”

            I felt choked with horror and disgust.  I swallowed, but the lump in my throat would not budge.  “You really think I want to be like you?” I asked him.  He jerked an angry thumb towards the darkened buildings outside. 

            “You really want to end up like your loser friends?”

            “They’re not losers,” I shook my head.  “They helped me get away from you. They’re the only people who’ve given a shit since I was thirteen.”

            “Yeah?  Bunch of long-haired fucking druggies, drunks and ex-cons?” he replied distastefully.  “You’d be better off without them.”  He lifted the bottle of whiskey up to his lips and drank.  His eyes appeared hooded and dark as he sloshed a double measure down his throat. 

            I opened the ashtray on the side of the door and tapped my cigarette into it.  “Let me ask you something.”  He looked my way.

            “What is it?”

            “When Anthony got arrested that time, when the cops raided their house?  That was you, wasn’t it?  I mean, I’ve always known it, but how?  How did you do it?” I smoked and kept my eyes on him.  I watched his eyes widen and shine with a glitter of pride that sickened me, and he snorted in reply.

            “That was easy.”  I waited for more.  I could feel adrenaline moving through me and picking up speed.  Something rearing up wild, and untamed and primal, stirring to life inside of me, and somehow the horrible pain was subsiding and the sudden and bloody desire for revenge was stamping all over the fear and making a mockery of it.  “Jack did it.  Just broke in and planted it there.”  He smirked a little at the memory and shrugged at me.  “Easy.  The back door was knackered.  I made the call.  The punk deserved it for threatening me.  Giving it the big I am.”

            I nodded slowly and gazed down at the floor.  “So you got Jack here on purpose?  To do that for you?”

            “He was at a loose end.  Plus, he owed me.”

            “Oh I know why he was at a loose end.  So, you got him here to get rid of Anthony?” I looked back at Howard and tried to determine what I saw before me.  A huge, physically dangerous man, who looked proud and arrogant, but at the same time nervous and twitchy.  Did he feel guilt, I wondered?  Did he ever feel sorry for the pain and fear he inflicted?  “Then Jack starts being nice to me,” I spoke up.  “At the club.  Buying me smokes and drinks.  I was lonely I guess.  Staying away from my friends because I didn’t want them to end up like Anthony.  He started letting me go to his flat to get high.  So what was that then?  Some perverse little favour you owed him?”

            “No.  He owed me, I told you.”  He seemed to thrust his chest out a little then, drank more whiskey and dragged a hand across his wet lips before breaking into a knowing smile.  “He owed me shit loads, let’s put it that way.  He owed me favours going back years.  He owed me for every time I turned a blind eye to his sick little crushes.  And believe me, he had plenty of them when he used to hang around my old man’s gym! He even has a fucking type, you know?  He has a type, and you were it.” He sniggered then, his eyes flicking all over me as I stared back at him in horror.  “He was pretty much in love with you, you know. Pathetic, eh?”

            I finished my cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray behind me.  “So why didn’t he try anything before?” I asked.  I don’t know why I asked the question, when the whole business was making me feel sick and queasy in my stomach.  I licked my dry lips, then used my teeth to scrape at the dried blood I could feel on them.  Howard was shaking with soft mocking laughter.  He looked right at me, cocked his head and smiled.

            “How do you know he didn’t?”

            “What?”

            “Come on, don’t make me fucking laugh…all those times you were round his flat, off your fucking head?  How do you know what he did, or didn’t do?  Could’ve dropped a fucking bomb on you sometimes and you wouldn’t have woken up!”  He was grinning at me like a shark, all small neat teeth and shaking shoulders, obviously finding this distressing scenario pretty amusing.  I breathed in through my nostrils, felt the hatred pumping through me, and I exhaled it again slowly, steadying myself, staying calm. 

            “Pair of sad, sick bastards,” I whispered.  “Pathetic.  Disgusting.  You make my skin crawl.  Pair of sad bastards who can only get their kicks torturing people who are weaker than them.  And you!  You are worse than him!  And I am so fucking bored of all of this…” I turned my face to the window and sighed with exhaustion.  I gazed at the dead street beyond the car, and I craved sleep, and a chance to think…

            “Bored?  Bored are you?”  I wouldn’t look at him as he leaned over me again.  “I’ll make sure you’re not fucking bored!” he was hissing at me. “You brought it all on yourself Danny, you remember that!  You made an enemy of me from day fucking one!  You decided to mess with me, not the other way around!  You tried time and time again to poison Kay against me.  It would have been different otherwise, if you’d been a nice, normal kid!  We could have been like father and son from the start!”

            I puffed breath against the glass and shook my head.  Then I turned my face and sneered back at him over my shoulder.  “Stop saying that.  Do you know how fucking sick that makes me? It’s a good thing you never had your own kids!  You’re a monster!”

            His hand clamped down upon my arm.  I felt the power like a shock wave, and my body wanted to recoil and shrink down to nothing.  I looked into his eyes and they were ablaze with fresh anger.  “Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” he said to me.  “Maybe we’ll go somewhere else.  I better take you back to mine instead.  Tell your mum I picked you up off the street, totally wasted.”

            My eyes travelled down to the door handle.  “Alright, I’m sorry.”

            “You don’t mean it.  You’re not sorry.  You just say sorry when you have to.  It doesn’t mean anything.”

            “I’ll take the job,” I told him then.  “As long as you promise that’s the last time you pull this shit on me?”

            “I don’t think I believe you.”

            “We have a deal,” I gritted my teeth and told him.  “If you don’t pull this on me again.  I’m not gonna’ work for you and be your fucking punch bag too.  I mean it.”

            “I wouldn’t have to get tough, if you behaved yourself.”

            “Yeah, okay, I get it.  I can get out here then.”

            He looked like he was considering it.  But his hand held tight.  “I don’t know if I can trust you little man.”

            “I’m telling the truth,” I urged him. “I’ll take the job.  I don’t have a fucking choice, do I?  I’ll take it, I’ll do it, I’ll do whatever you want, just as long as you keep your fucking hands and your fucking belt to yourself!  That’s the only way!  The only way!”  For some reason there were tears in my eyes again.  I didn’t feel sad though.  Far fucking from it.  But I was glad of the tears.  They looked convincing, and he fell for them.

            “I’ll have to trust you then,” he said slowly and thickly.  I nodded.

            “You can trust me.  But that’s the deal.”

            He kept hold of my arm.  I opened my mouth to breathe.  The air in the car was stale and cloying.  He reached out with his other hand, turned the key in the ignition and unlocked all the doors.  I took a breath.  I moved my free hand and tried the door handle.  I pushed it down, and I felt the door give way, just a little, behind me. I looked back into his face, just inches from my own.  “Well I know where to find you,” he said to me softly. “And if you let me down this time, it’s over little man, do you understand that?”  I nodded silently.  Pressed my tender back a little harder against the door, and felt it move again.  Howard kept hold of my arm and slipped his other hand inside the breast of his denim jacket.  I watched him silently, as he pulled out a slick, shining blade.  He held it up by the stubby wooden handle and then swished it dramatically through the air, and I cringed away from it, just to please him, just to really knock him out.  I could feel cool air teasing my skin from outside the car.  I was so close to freedom, yet still locked in with a madman.  He took the knife and pressed it up under my chin.  I closed my mouth.  I did not breathe.  His tiny eyes were right in front of mine.  “This is the very last time I warn you,” he said to me.  “I won’t be giving you any more chances little man.  If you fuck this up, if you let me down, I’ll come looking for you and I won’t stop until I find you.  You know what I’ll do then?”  I shook my head just a little.  He growled very softly and pressed the knife harder into my skin.  “I’ll take you home to your mother, and I will slice that bitch from her cunt to her throat and the two of us will sit and watch her bleed to death slowly.  And then I will do the same to you.  Because I am not going through this again, do you hear?  This is it.  Final chance.”  He moved the knife away, dropped my arm and pushed the blade back inside his coat. 

            I lowered my feet to the floor and pushed the car open just a little. “I think I get the message,” I told him quietly. 

            “Good,” he said.  “I’ll come and pick you up tomorrow.  There is no time to mess about.  That Lawler prick needs a kick up the arse to start with.”

            I slipped one foot from the car, down to meet the road outside.  The fresh air circled around my ankle, cold and soothing against the wet leg of my jeans.  “I need to call him actually,” I murmured wonderingly.  Howard leaned forward.

            “Do it.  Tell him he’s working for you now and see how he likes that.”  He laughed a little and put the car into gear.  I lowered my other foot to the ground and eased the rest of my body out into the night.  I felt odd.  Dazed, and dreamlike. 

            “Yeah, I need something,” I said, and raised myself up onto my legs.  They seemed to be able to hold me.  I felt like I had climbed out of a hole.  I felt the ground beneath my feet and tested it warily.  I put weight down on them, and straightened out my spine.  My entire body began to shake violently in protest.  I knew one thing.  I needed to call Jaime.  That was true.  I needed to call Jaime, and then I could get some sleep….and then….I looked into the car and my eyes met Howard’s as they peered out at me.  I swear to god I felt it go.  I felt it.  Something, grew hard and taut inside of me, and then snapped.  I swear to fucking god I felt it happen.  I turned around, turned away from him, shuffling footsteps like an old man, my feet unable to pick themselves up. I remembered all the other times both my mind and body had been crushed beyond repair.  You could only pick yourself up so many times.  You could only do so much with the damage before it got too late.  It was too late.  It’s alright though, I told myself, glancing back one more time at the man who was responsible for all of it.  The man who held the puppet strings.  The man who was never going to let me fucking go.  He stared back at me, hard slits for eyes, and a tight-lipped mouth turned up at the corners.  He looked calm again, not twitchy anymore.  He looked like he knew he had won.  He nodded once, as if everything was now well, and understood, everything was as it should be.

            “Make contact with Lawler and see how that goes,” he called out to me.  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we’ll go to the club.  Talk properly in the office.  Stay out of trouble, you hear?”  He gave a strange little laugh and leaned across the passenger seat to yank the door shut.  Then he put the car into reverse and screeched back down the road. 

            I remained on the pavement for some time, just staring.  I was thinking about Howard rather calmly, and thinking that really, it was all easy to understand, because we were all just humans, and underneath it all humans are just animals.  They fight and snarl and wreak havoc to get what they want, they destroy each other on a daily basis, so why be surprised by any of it?  I realised then that my trouble had always been that I cared too much.  I felt too much.  People like Howard, and Freeman, they did not care.  They did not feel.  They merely stomped through life like giants, stepping and stamping on anyone who got in their way, picking people up like toys, using them and tossing them away again.  I turned and limped awkwardly down the road, towards the call box on the high street. 

            I went inside, lifted the receiver, found some coins in my pocket and fed them into the slot.  I punched in Jaime’s number and it rang six times before his groggy voice answered it.

            “Yeah?”

            “Jaime.  It’s Danny.”

            “Danny? What the fuck mate?  You’re friends have been out looking for you.  They’ve called me like twenty fucking times!”

            “I’m okay.”

            “Where you been then?”

            “With Howard.”

            “Fuck! Shit! You okay mate?”

            “Nah, not really.  I really need something Jaime.  Can you help me out?”

            “Yeah, what do you need?”

            “I tried coke a few times,” I remembered, pressing my aching head against the cold glass of the telephone box.  “Does it always make you feel really fucking full of yourself?”

            Jaime laughed at me.  “Yeah, basically, either that or it just makes you talk shit all night.”

            “I need to feel really fucking full of myself, alright?  I need to feel like king of this shitting world, yeah? I need to feel invincible.”

            “Ah, are you sure you’re okay mate?” he asked me then. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

            “That’s good, ‘cause I don’t want to be myself anymore.  Can you help me out Jaime?”

            “Um…” he sighed deeply on the other end of the phone.  “I dunno mate…I don’t think you’re friends would be too happy with me, to be honest.”

            “Don’t worry about them! Come on man, I don’t want to beg you.  Listen to me, that bastard just totally fucked me up, and if I don’t get hold of something to make me feel better about it, I’m gonna’ do something stupid, I’m serious Jaime!” I paused, and gulped, and stared through the glass at the deserted street beyond the phone box.  All the shops stood in neat rows on either side of the street, black and silent and watching.  “I’m serious.  If you can’t help me out really quick, I’m gonna’ go throw myself off a bridge or something…I really mean it Jaime.”

            “Alright, alright,” he said quickly, sounding alarmed.  “Calm down mate, just chill out a minute yeah?  I get what you’re saying.  Look, I’ll drive you over something to calm you down, yeah?  Where are you?”

            “I’m outside home.  In the phone box.  But I don’t want something to calm me down Jaime, I want something to fire me up.”

            “Right.  Okay.  Sorry.  Just sit tight then mate?  Don’t do anything silly, okay?  I won’t be long.”

            “I’ll be here,” I replied and hung up.  I felt my broken body weakening against the side of the phone box.  I let myself slip slowly down to meet the floor.  It reeked of piss, and I could see a used condom in one corner, coiled and pink like a piglets tail.  I didn’t care, and I couldn’t have moved if I did.  I crossed my arms over my knees, rested my head down, and closed my eyes as tightly as possible.  I invited in and embraced the darkness, the ugliness inside of me, and I listened to the embers of the fire, crackling and hissing.  The match had been struck, I thought to myself.  I could feel it.  I could really feel it.  I kill you…I’m not gonna’ crack… I could feel it burning.  It was burning, but I just needed a little more fuel to add to the fire…to keep it going.

 

            I had no idea how much time had passed between my call to Jaime, and the screech of tyres further down the road that let me know he had arrived. I lifted my head and squinted through the darkness.  I could see his tall, gaunt figure loping up the street towards me, moving in that jerky, shifty way he had, his head held low, and yet whipping from side to side the whole time.  I wanted to get to my feet to greet him, but I couldn’t do it.  My body felt like mush.  He hesitated for a second outside, and then grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.  “Danny?” he sounded unsure.  I looked up at him and grimaced.

            “You bring me something?”

            He nodded, and crouched down beside me, a frown lining the face under the crammed on baseball cap.  “Bleedinghell mate, look at you.”

            I nodded at him.  “I told you.”

            “That fucking insane bastard, what did he do?”

            “He wants to own me.”  I tried to shake my hair from my eyes, but it was all sticky and clumpy with blood, and rain, and sand from the cliff, and it wouldn’t move.  So I lifted a hand and smoothed it to one side.  Jaime gasped.

            “You’re head’s all cut mate.  You should go to hospital!”

            “This was his way of convincing me.  He won’t stop, you know, he won’t ever stop.  Not until one of us is dead.  He thinks I work for him now.  His fucking errand boy.  If someone did this to you Jaime, would you do what they wanted?”

            Jaime seemed to flinch and squirm at both the question I asked and at the state of me, slumped in front of him.  He shrugged his bony shoulders.  “I dunno mate.  I dunno what to say to you.”  He shook his head and whistled through his grey teeth.  “Suppose that’s up to you to work out.  Shit, I knew that bastard was nasty…whatever happened to Freeman, do you know? One minute he was here, barking orders at me, then suddenly he’s vanished, and no one knows where the fuck he is!”

            “I stabbed him, so he left town.  That was ages ago.”

            His mouth fell open.  “Are you fucking serious?  You stabbed him?”

            “Yeah.  Had to.”

            “Jesus fucking Christ!  Well you learn something new every day!  Guess you had your reasons….are you okay mate?  Can you get up?  Shall I call Anthony and Michael down?”

            “No,” I shook my head at him.  “I’ll be okay in a minute.”  I stared down at my trainers, sodden and crusted with sand.  “I thought he was gonna’ kill me up there.”

            “Up where?”

            “The cliffs.”

            “Shit!  Fuck me.  Looks like he had a damn good try anyway…”

            “Yeah.  What did you bring me?  I haven’t got the money on me.  It’s up in the bed-sit.”

            “Don’t worry about it now,” he shook his head at me, dug around inside his tracksuit jacket and pulled out a plastic bag.  “Coke,” he told me and looked into my eyes.  “You sure you’ve done it before?  It’s a bigger deal than speed you know.”  I nodded that I had.  “Okay then, here you go,” he placed the bag into my outstretched hand.  “I don’t exactly feel good about giving you this, you know.”

            “You’re helping me out,” I told him, closing my fingers over the bag.  My head felt so heavy and full, close to exploding with everything.  “If I don’t get some way to feel strong right now, then that’s fucking it, I’m done…I’ve had enough, you know.  What’s the point?  What’s the point in anything Jaime?  Do you know?”

            Jaime just reached out and patted my shoulder clumsily.  “Don’t ask me mate.  I don’t know a fucking thing about anything.  You’ll be okay.  Take that and feel better then.  Maybe call the old bill tomorrow, eh?  That bastard needs stopping.”  He got to his feet, stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and glanced around him nervously.

            “Yeah he does,” I agreed with him.  “He has to be stopped.”

            He looked down at me worriedly. “You’re not gonna’ sit in there all night, are you?”

            I shook my head.  “Help me up?”  I held up a hand, he took hold of it and pulled me to my feet.  I closed my eyes against the pain, and my back took up its persistent drum beat once again.  I stepped out from the phone box and leant briefly against Jaime, took a deep breath, opened my eyes again, and felt ready.  “Okay,” I said.  “Thanks.”

            “What the hell did he do to you anyway?  Jesus!”

            “Doesn’t matter,” I breathed out heavily as we started to walk slowly and jerkily towards my building.  “Just listen, just don’t ever mess with him Jaime.”

            “God, I won’t.  I don’t.  Just keep my head down, I do.  Do what I’m told.”

            “Jaime, can I ask you something?”

            “What is it mate?”

            “When I first met you, you know, at the club?”  Jaime nodded in reply.  “Was it Howard or Freeman who told you to deal to me?  Who did it come from?”

            “Freeman,” Jaime remembered.  We had reached the building.  I let go of Jaime and leant against the little red brick wall that cornered off our patch.  I stooped slowly forward over my knees to catch my breath.  Jaime brought out some cigarettes and offered me one.  I took it, and waited for the light.  “I met him there.  Actually he caught me dealing pills to some mates in the loos.  Thought he was gonna’ take me outside and give me a good hiding, but he was cool about it.”  Jaime lit my cigarette, and then his own.  “He was pretty friendly.  Suggested I went through him.  He wanted a local bloke he could trust, someone who knew everyone I guess.” He shrugged loosely and puffed on his smoke. “So I said yeah.  Made way more money through him.  Heavier shit though.  Always just sold grass and e’s before then.  That was it really.  I did the dirty work.  Made it easy for him.”

            “He told you to deal to me?”

            “Yeah, I knew he was mates with Howard.  Thought they were like, I dunno, business partners or something.  You could tell there was something going on between them.  You wouldn’t mess with either of them, you know?” He flicked ash behind him and peered at me curiously.  “Took me a long fucking while to realise he was your step-dad though.  That’s when I realised how nasty he could be, I guess.  Then Anthony shows up…starts sniffing around, asking me questions…Fuck, if they ever found out it was me who helped him…” Jaime shook his head and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as he sucked on his cigarette. “I don’t exactly feel good about any of this,” he admitted. “It’s all totally fucked up, isn’t it?”

            I blew smoke smoothly at the ground and looked up at him with a brave smile.  “You’ve done me a huge favour tonight,” I told him. “So don’t feel bad.  They just used you, like they use everyone.  To get what they want.  I sorted Jack out, you know.  Now I’m gonna’ sort my step-father out.  I just needed this to help me feel better, you know?  To help me feel strong.  So I can fight back.”

            Jaime frowned at me.  “Fight back?”

            “Yeah, I have to.  I’m not gonna’ let him win.  I’m not gonna’ fucking work for him.”  I took a few more drags then dropped the cigarette to the ground and stamped on it.  I looked up at the building.  “I’ll get that money to you tomorrow.  Probably give it to Mike to give to you, okay?”

            “Why?  Where will you be?  What’re you gonna’ do Danny?”

            I turned away from him and begun to limp awkwardly towards the door.  “Fight back,” I called over my shoulder.  “You’ll see.”  I did not look back as I arrived at the door.  I realised then that I had no keys.  I pressed the buzzer and waited.  My head was pounding with the music, so I nodded along to it, and thought it was okay, it was all okay, and I would just take it along with me, whatever I did, whatever happened, I would take the music with me.  I love you…I’m not gonna’ crack…I miss you…I’m not gonna’ crack.

86

 

            I dreamed.  I dreamed I was lying on my back, floating on a raft, in the middle of a vast, black ocean.  I know it’s over, and still I cling, I don’t know where else I can go…I could hear the fat man, somewhere, mumbling and muttering, jangling his cashing up bags.  But I couldn’t see him…only darkness.  Darkness, and The Smiths singing I Know It’s Over.  I was trying to get to sleep, but it felt like someone was trying to cut off my hands.  I brought them up to my face and peered through them, looking for stars in the sky, but there was nothing.  Just the black.  The ocean rocked beneath me, shushing and whispering, and the sky bore heavily down upon me.  There was pain.  Biting into my hands, my face, my head.  I tried to call out, to call to Terry, if he was there, but I couldn’t hear him now, he had faded away, and there was nothing, just darkness and an endless ocean and I was all alone.  I know it’s over, and it never really began…but in my heart it was so real…There was nothing.  Just the lapping waves, and the eerie dark, and The Smiths.  I wondered if I was dead.

 

            I woke up to the sound of my own coughing.  My throat was itchy and dry, coated with dust and stuffed tight with hot air. There was a massive pain in my head, right at the front, and I screwed my eyes up against it, battling with the weight of it, wondering what it was.  It throbbed relentlessly around my temples, and my forehead, and there was another pain, a bitter stinging around my mouth and nose.  I swallowed, and tasted blood, tangy and metallic.  I remembered, and the horror flooded me.  I blinked faster and faster, trying to clear a space in the darkness that surrounded me.  My eyes searched through it desperately, trying to work out where I was.  Was I dead?  If I were dead, how would I know?  It struck me then, that maybe this was what death felt like.  Just darkness, and pain, and confusion, forever.  I fought against the panic that was threatening to strangle me.  I realised that I was in a small, tight space.  My knees were right up next to my chin.  When I moved my head back, I found a soft, yet unyielding surface right behind it.  My face felt wet, but when I tried to wipe at it with my hands, I discovered they were tied together.  I lifted them up slowly, gasping in pure terror, my mouth falling open, my heart thundering away under my t-shirt.  I started to breathe faster and faster as panic set in.  I looked up again.  My eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to make out a window, up and to the right of me.  A car window.

            Fuck.  I was in the car.  Howard’s car.  I looked to the left, saw the other window. Straight ahead, the passenger seat.  I was squashed down in the foot well.  I didn’t understand.  I stared hard at the luxurious leather interior, at the green lighter laying on the drivers seat, and his pack of cigarettes resting in the space behind the gear stick.  The engine was off, and the car was cold.  Howard’s fucking car.  It was dark outside.  How long had I been out?  What had happened?  I clawed my way back through distorted memories to try to work it out.  I could remember the phone ringing, and Michael leaving, and Kurt scraping at the door to get out.  I stared around, gulping and swallowing air, following the light that reflected from the leather seats.  The light was coming from outside.  It took me a few more moments to work out that the light was coming from the moon, and when I stared harder at the passenger window, I could make him out, Howard.  He was stood there, leaning against the door.  I could even make out the grey swirls of smoke as they circled and rose into the air before him.  I tried to lean forward, straining my ears to try to pick up any sounds that might tell me where the hell we were.  I wondered if I could hear water running, or falling, but I wasn’t sure.

            Hearing a clock begin to tick inside my head, I looked back down at my hands.  They were tied with some sort of wire.  I lifted my wrists to my eyes to get a better look.  I moved my palms against each other, back and forth, trying to loosen it, but it was wound too tight.  When I moved my hands, the wire bit deep into my skin and I guessed that was the idea.  I felt a huge sob lurching up from my chest and swallowed it back down.  This was deep shit.  This was worse than I had ever imagined.  This could not be real.  Maybe this wasn’t real?  Maybe I was still dreaming?  I listened to my breathing getting faster again.  Panic was knocking, knocking really fucking hard.  I stared back up at the window, at the outline of the man, still leaning and smoking casually against the car.  He was just a man, I told myself.  I would be able to get through to him.  He was just trying to scare me.  He would see sense and let me go, I knew he would.  I’d do anything.  I’d do whatever he wanted.  I jerked my head to the left, but I was unable to tell if the door was locked or not.  I couldn’t make out if the knob was up, or down.  I tried to shift, I tried to move around in the tiny space, but my body was taking up all of the room.  As I stared at the door I knew it was my only chance of escape.  If I could get out of the foot well, if I could get that door open, I could run, I could run and scream for someone to help me.

            Just then, Howard moved from the door beside me.  I saw him throw his cigarette butt down.  I waited, fear gnawing at my guts, and then I saw my only escape route destroyed in a second, as he yanked open the drivers door and slid smoothly into the car.  He slammed the door shut, and our eyes met in the darkness, and I saw him smile, and I wondered how fucked I was.  The moonlight snagged on his teeth, lighting them up in their small, neat rows.  He rested one broad arm across the steering wheel, and shifted his weight to face me.  I recognised the gloating, euphoric glint in his eyes, the look that reminded me of a junkie getting his fix.  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked him, my voice a trembling disbelieving croak, as terrified tears rolled down my cheeks. 

            “Thought you’d fancy a drive,” came the smooth, controlled reply.  He grinned at me as if we were sharing an inside joke.  I wanted to rip his face off.  I swallowed.

            “Where?”

            “At the beach,” he said with a small and casual shrug.  “Well the cliff top.  You know the bit that’s all roped off?  They had a bit of erosion up here last week apparently.  Big chunk of it fell off.  Yeah.  Fell right in.  Splash.”  His grin was bright and gleaming, his small eyes laughing in his calm face.  “Pretty deserted up here this time of night,” he added, with a slight nod.  “No one about for miles, and miles.”

            “Why?” My voice had crept higher, and quivered in terror.  “Why?  What are you doing?  What the fuck are you doing?”

            He shifted a bit closer, leaning towards me as if to share a great secret with me.  He pressed his finger against his thin lips.  “Shh,” he smiled. “Keep it down little man.  No need to shout.  It’s just you and me.”

            “You’re crazy,” I whispered, shaking so bad now I could barely think straight. I looked back at my hands and started trying to twist them free again.  I could feel the wire eating into my skin, opening it up, and a warm sticky wetness spreading, but I did not care.  “You’re completely insane,” I said, not looking at him.  “You can’t do this, you have to let me go!”

            “You’re gonna’ cut your own hands off if you keep doing that.”

            “Let me fucking go!” I looked up and screamed at him then.  There was an explosion inside of me.  I felt it, and it was telling me to get up, to get out, to get far away, to not let this happen, to fight back.  I struggled to get up, launching my body forwards and trying to use my elbows to hook into the seat for leverage.  Howard just sat and watched me, with this sleepy and slanty-eyed look of amusement on his face.  Finally, he reached for me, grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the foot well.

            “Been watching you for some time,” he announced brashly.  I landed sideways on the seat, and immediately tried the door handle with my hands, but it was locked.  I brought my feet up instead and kicked the door, and then the window.  I drummed my feet against them, while terrified tears squeezed free of my eyes.  “Okay, that’s enough of that now, that’s enough of that,” he said, pulling me back with my t-shirt and holding me in place, with a hand to my chest.  I squirmed and strained under it.  I was in a state.  Panicked, and out of control.  I lurched against the hand, tried to knock it away, brought up my knees, tried to twist away from him.  “Calm down,” he told me, “that’s enough of that!  I’m talking and you should be fucking listening!”

            I stopped struggling.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  I stared at the windscreen, breathlessly, with the weight of his hand on my chest making my guts wring out, and forcing vomit up my windpipe.  “You’re fucking insane,” I panted. “You’ve lost it.  You can’t do this.  You can’t do this to me.”

            He pushed his hand into my chest. “You better pipe down,” he said indignantly. “You might have been gone for a while, but you should remember the rules.  Shut the fuck up when I’m talking, or I’ll break your fucking nose.”  He stared at me.  I stared at the windscreen.  I saw him nod.  “Okay.  I had to bide my time you see.  Could have rushed in and taught you a lesson at any fucking time.  But you had all your homo friends swarming round you like fucking flies on shit.  Had to be patient and wait for the right time.”

            “They’ll be worried about me by now,” I told him through my gritted teeth. “They’ll have called the cops.”

            “They’ll probably think you’re with your mum,” he said cooly, and our eyes met again.  He nodded at me.  “Oh yeah, I know you’ve been sneaking around to see her for a while now.  And I know what the bitch is planning too, thanks to you.  Been putting ideas in her head, haven’t you eh?  Been trying to fuck things up between me and her, yet again, haven’t you eh?”

            “Yeah, so what?” I shot back at him, pushing with my feet and shuffling my backside further back on the seat.  “She wants to leave you!  She hates you, you stupid bastard! And that’s nothing to do with me, it’s ‘cause of how you treat her! She contacted me, she begged me to come and see her, not the other way around!”

            “Oh is that so?”

            “Yes!” I screamed at him, shifting to face him, easing my back up against the car door.  He kept his hand on my chest.  I couldn’t get away from it.  “It’s your fault!  It’s over!”

            “Well,” he said, with a little tip of his head. “You are right about that, anyway. It’s over alright.  Come on then.”

            I shook my head at him, not understanding.  “What?”

            “Come on!  Look lively!” He sniggered, turned the key in the ignition and unlocked all the doors.  He reached over me and opened the door I was leant on.  He used the flat of his hand to shove it open, and I nearly went with it, but moved forward just in time.  “Come on, out you get!” he laughed into my face.  “Can you hear that?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.  I looked out of the door.  I could hear the stark and lonely sound of the waves crashing violently against the cliffs.  It was raining steadily.  I looked back at him.  His face had changed.  There was no humour now.  Only cold, dark malice.  “I knew you’d try to ruin things between me and her,” he growled, and shoved me out of the car.  I landed on my back, winded, but quick enough to roll over and get up onto my knees.  He appeared behind me, grunting, like a living nightmare, wrapping his bear like arms around my middle and tearing me to my feet.

            “What are you doing?” I screamed, thrashing wildly, kicking out with my legs, drumming my heels into his shins. 

            “Tried to ruin things from the start, didn’t you?” he was growling, as he heaved me away from the car, and towards the red and white tape I could see had been strung up along the footpath just ahead.  He half carried, half dragged me, and I did all I could, bucked and strained and kicked and screamed, but there was no way out, no release from the massive arms that held me.  “They ought to put a proper fence up, eh?” he hissed into my ear as he hauled me along. “Anyone could just drive up here and dump rubbish over the edge eh?  Thorn in my fucking side, that’s what you’ve been since day fucking one!”

            “What the fuck are you doing?  You can’t do this!” I tried to force my feet down into the ground, tried to plant them there and use the earth to hold me down, but he moved me on, dragging me closer and closer to the edge. 

            “Come on, come on, nearly there now, nearly there!” he was panting into my head. “Then it will all be over Danny!  You’ll see!”

            I didn’t want to see.  I twisted violently within his grasp.  I made it as hard as I could for him to move me, scuffing my feet into the sand, turning and jabbing my elbows back into his body, but it made no difference.  Finally I opened up my lungs and screamed; “Help! Someone help me!  Help me!” I could see the black waves down below, I could see them swelling and rising.

            “No one can hear you,” he told me. “We’re miles from anyone.  No one comes up here.  No one will hear you. I’d stop struggling if I were you, this is where the ground gave way, we might both go down together!”  He held me there.  We were at the edge.  His arms were tight around my chest, squeezing the air from me.  My feet dangled, just above the ground, my toes scraping uselessly at the wet sand.  I had no choice but to face the ocean.  I could see the white froth down below, gleaming in the moonlight as it thrashed and hurled itself at the rocks.  “Time to pluck that thorn out,” he whispered into my neck.  I heard him inhaling deeply, and I knew what he was doing, breathing in my terror, sucking it into his rancid lungs.  I tried to press my body back into his, tried to turn my head away from the blackness below.

            “Don’t do this, please don’t do this,”  I began to babble in a high pitched sobbing voice.  I couldn’t understand, couldn’t believe it had come to this…I stared at the sea and suddenly felt myself going, and a scream echoed from me, he had let me go, let me go, and  was falling forward, the big arms were gone, and he was laughing, and laughing and laughing behind me.  My t-shirt snagged up under my arm pits.  I held.  He knotted his hand in the material at the small of my back and that was all there was.  That was all there was between me and falling.  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, please, please, oh my god please don’t let go, please, please, please, whatta’ya doin’ whatta’ ya’ doin…”

            “Do you want to die today Danny?”

            “No!  No!  Please, please don’t let go, don’t let go…”

            “It’s about time you said please….”

            “Please!” I screamed into the darkness. “Please Lee!  Oh my god!” I could not tear my eyes away from the angry black waves that rolled and crashed below us.  The rain was falling heavier, plastering my hair to my skull, running in cold rivers down my back. My feet scraped pathetically against the fragile ground.  My t-shirt was pulled tight around my neck. I could feel his fist there, warm and solid in my lower back, holding me.  Oh god, oh god don’t let me go, don’t do it, don’t really do it…If my t-shirt tore, or if he let it go, there would be no stopping me.  There would just be falling, and the cold whoosh of air and rain as I plummeted into the sea.  “Please,” I said it again, my teeth chattering together violently. “I’m begging you, I’m begging you please, please…”  There was a horrible, and terrible pause, while I was forced to wait, and he didn’t say anything, he just breathed heavily behind me, as if he was thinking it over.  “Please,” I whispered again, shaking so hard I could barely see straight.  “Please Lee…”

            “You better let me hear some more of that,” he grunted finally, and stepped back, yanking me with him.  I closed my eyes, relief wracking my body with an explosion of noisy sobs, as I felt myself tugged down to the ground.  It shook through me, the disbelief, the horror, the fear..I felt like my mind was going to cave in, give up…I was on my stomach, my hands trapped beneath me, my face still just inches from the terrible edge, so I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see the awful, hungry blackness any more.  He was on top of me, his bulk pressing me into the sand.  The wet and the cold was soaking quickly through my clothes.  All I could do was sob, and moan, and tremble, my eyes squeezed shut, my face against the sand, just desperate to block out the sound of the angry waves, just desperate to block everything out.  Howard took me by the hair and pulled my head up.  “Look at that!” he snarled. “Look at that there! You don’t want to go down there, do you?  Do you?”

            “No,” I shook my head in his grasp.  “No, no, no, please no…”

            “No one would ever find you down there, would they?  You’d be lost forever down there, wouldn’t you?  You don’t want to be lost forever down there, do you eh?”

            I shook my head again. “No, please, don’t…”

            “Well you have to be a good boy, don’t you then?” He gripped my hair tighter, pulling my head up so hard and fast I thought my neck would snap.  “For once in your miserable little shit stained life, you have to be a good boy, don’t you?”

            I sniffed up my tears and snot.  “I will, I will, I will…”

            “You’ve never been very good at it, have you?” he continued to rage on.  “Never been any good at doing what you’re told, have you, you little bastard?”

            “Sorry…I’m sorry…”

            “You better be fucking sorry,” he pulled my head back even further, until all I could see then was the dense black sky.  I closed my eyes before they filled with rain.  “You better be sorry, and you better start being a good boy, because this is your last fucking chance, or you’re going down there, do you understand?”

            “Yes!”

            “You be a good boy or that’s where I’ll put you!  You say sorry for trying to wreck things!  For trying to get her away from me!”

            “Sorry!” I screamed and sobbed.  “I’m sorry!”

            He pushed his lips against my ear.  “She wants to leave me because of you, she’s lying and cheating behind my back, because of you!  She’ll stop all that if you be a good boy!  If you do what I say!  If you do as you’re told and be a good boy, she’ll be alright again, won’t she? We’ll be a family, won’t we?  Are you gonna’ do as I tell you and be a good boy?”

            I swallowed.  I opened my eyes and blinked in the rain, and in my minds eyes I saw the little bed-sit, with the bean bags, and the walls covered in posters, and the sagging bed, and the little tatty sofa that Anthony curled up on, and I nodded for him, I nodded.  I felt my ribs groaning under the weight of him and I just wanted it to be over, whatever it was. “Will you let me go?”

            “I haven’t decided yet.  I might.  If you’re lucky.  If you promise to be a good boy, and if I believe you.”

            “I will, I promise, I will.”

            “Fucking say it!”

            “I’ll be good!  I’ll do whatever you fucking want!”

            “Yeah, that’s right, you will, you’ll be good and you’ll take the fucking job I offered.  You’ll come and work for me and make amends.  Last chance Danny!”

            “I will, I will, okay…”

            He finally let go of my hair.  He sniggered into my ear. “Jack thought you were a good boy didn’t he?  He really did.”  I felt the cold sand against my cheek again, and closed my eyes against it all.  If he didn’t get off me soon, I would be dead anyway, and nothing would matter anymore.  “He really liked you a lot,” he went on, slurring his words into my brain.  “If you’re not careful, maybe I’ll give him a call and get him to pay you a visit eh?  You have no idea how much he’d like to get his hands on you.” He chuckled, and shifted his body against mine, as if to drum in the humiliation in, and he was laughing so softly, and I knew he would be licking his lips too, relishing every moment of the power he owned.  “I told you, didn’t I?  I told you not to leave.  I told you I would find you, if you did.  You should have listened to me, shouldn’t you?  You shouldn’t have run off with your scuzzy friends.  When you’re part of a family, you don’t do that sort of thing.  You stick together and you’re loyal.  You were a bad boy, doing that, weren’t you?  Naughty, naughty boy running off like that, weren’t you eh?”

            “Yes,” I replied quietly.  “I was.”

            He laughed out loud, and finally eased himself off of me, and stood up.  I could breathe again, but I was not entirely sure that I wanted to, now that I could.  I lay there, not moving, just breathing slowly in and out and questioning whether it was even worth it.  He grabbed the back of my t-shirt and hauled me to my feet.  I was soaked through.  I just hung there, head down and eyes glazed and mind fogged with terror, and then he marched me back to the car with his hand around my neck.  I had a feeling I knew what was coming, and I was right.  I didn’t put up a fight, and I didn’t say a word.  He opened the passenger door, pushed me down onto the seat and lifted my t-shirt up to my neck.  “Need to get you back in line,” he was grunting, and unbuckling his belt.  I turned my face to the side, my eyes dull and beyond caring.  He chortled to himself up above.  “I’m gonna’ fucking enjoy this,” he decided to tell me before the first strike came.

            I closed my eyes, I braced myself for it, I arched my back and hissed the pain through my teeth each time I heard the belt cutting through the air behind me.  Wow, I thought numbly, you fucking motherfucker, pulling out all the stops, all this, wow, what a show.  I tried not to cry, but in the end it was too much to keep down, and the sound of my tears seemed to slow him down.  I counted ten, and then he stopped, turned me over and unwound the wire from my wrists.  I just shook and tried to contain it all, I kept my eyes closed, and when he slammed the car door on me, I curled into the door, and brought my knees up to my chin, and wrapped my arms around myself, and refused to look.  I didn’t want to look, I didn’t want to see, and I thought maybe if I stayed in a calm darkness, then none of this would be real, maybe it was all just a nasty fucking dream. 

            The car rocked when he climbed in the other side.  I wondered what his agenda was.  I wondered what was next.  I wondered if it was over, or if it had just begun.  I screwed my face up, burying myself in my arms, and the pain was getting worse, growing and swelling with every passing second, layers of hot, electric pain smothering my existence.  He turned the engine on and pulled across his seat belt.  “Let’s go,” he said.  I kept myself turned to the window, my knees up, and my head down.  I recognised his voice.  Calm now.  All the anger had gone.  He was like a junkie getting his fix, and now he was as high as a fucking kite on it all, until it started to run out again.  We drove along in silence. 

85

 

June 1996

            It was only a matter of time.  I told Anthony that after he’d spoken to Howard out on the street that day.  He tried to play it down, of course.  He alternated between trying to play the ex-con tough guy and threatening to beat the shit out of the guy, and the bad boy gone good persona, and suggesting we call the police.  I just sat and took it all in, and I realised that in truth, it was what I had expected all along.  I wasn’t really surprised, or shocked.  I had escaped.  There had been a time, when things were good.  But now, the hunt was on.  It seemed and felt inevitable.  I thought that I had two options.  Run, or fight back.  I could leave, I could leave alone, and I could run, and keep running.  I would lose them.  I would lose them all, because I would never be able to tell them where I had gone.  The idea, and the thought of being that alone in the world, made me want to fall to my knees and weep in protest.  I would hear Michael and Anthony discussing things, in sombre, fear filled tones.  Every now and then one of them would raise their voice in exasperation, or anger.  I felt myself slipping away from them.  I felt the distance imposing itself from within.  I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried.  It was my problem, not theirs.  Something would happen.  One way or the other.  I could run, or I could figure out a way to fight back. 

            The job offer was a joke.  A way to taunt, and torture me.  He was playing cat and mouse.  I walked through the days that followed with the undeniable sense that everything was falling apart around me.  I walked through my life like a shadow.  I felt the distance stretch out between me, and my friends.  I felt it, like the unstable ground beneath my feet, stretched and flimsy, weakening as my mind drifted.  I went about my business like a stiff little ghost.  Around every corner, I fully expected to see the monsters face, gaping and snarling, preparing to eat me up.  When I was alone, my mind echoed with the impossible loudness and clarity of the words I had spoken; I am going to fucking kill you…The words, they followed me to bed, and whispered softly into my ears.  I awoke in the morning, with the force of them pounding at my head.  When my friends spoke, I realised that I could barely hear them anymore, and that their words meant nothing.

            It was not their fault, but my heart was being wrung out by a pain they could never understand.  I looked into the mirror and did not recognise the haunted face that stared back at me.  I peered at my reflection, and spoke the words, I will fucking kill you…The words occupied my mind in between quivering like a victim.  When I thought about the words, when I tested them out on my tongue, one by one, it was like laying out a plan, a proposition, and I felt better, and the trembles eased.  I felt a hardening inside of me, and it gave me the strength to get up and go to work each day, always wondering if today would be the day.  I held the words inside my chest like a weapon, like a shield.  I aimed to build myself up, to stack up the hatred and the fury, brick by brick inside of myself.  I thought about protection, and I thought about attack.

            When Lucy came to see me, she wanted to hold my hand and locate my softness, my warmth, but I had nothing left for her.  Sometimes I looked into her face, and wanted to scream at her to get the hell away from me; I’ll hurt you, I’ll hurt you, one day I will really hurt you…She watched my rage erupt when I could not open a tin of beans, when the jagged rim bit into the skin of my thumb and sent blood drops scattering all across the kitchen floor.  I felt like the rage inside of me was a black and bottomless pit.  A torrent, a flood, with no end, no way to turn it off once it started.  I watched her back away when I lost control and I saw the look in her eyes and it was the same look that my mother always had.

            One day Anthony caught hold of my arm to make me listen.  “I’ve got an appointment with the bank manager,” he was trying to tell me. “So we can apply for a loan, then we can afford to buy a car, and find a place further from here.  Danny, you listening?”  I wasn’t listening.  I pulled free of him and went back to kicking in one of the kitchen cupboards.  It felt good, I reasoned.  Maybe I was starting to see things from his side, yeah.  Lashing out, striking something, feeling the wood give way and splinter under the force of my foot.  Anthony attempted once more to pull me away, to make me stop, to make me listen. “Danny, don’t do this!  We’re nearly there!  Just got to hold on a few more days! A week maybe, are you listening Danny? You’ve got to listen, you’ve got to let us in, if he does anything we’ll call the police!”

            I stopped the kicking. “They won’t care,” I hissed at him.  I stared at the damage, my shoulders moving up and down breathlessly.  I did not feel finished then, and wondered what else I could attack.  “You’ll see.”

            “What will I see?  What do you mean?  Come on mate, pull yourself together.  He’s messing with your head and you’re letting him!”

            “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and I was right.  “Nothing does.”  I pushed past him and lay down on the bed with my arms folded behind my head.  My eyes moved up to find the yellowed ceiling.  I found a crack, and followed it.

 

            Saturday evening, and Anthony was at work.  Michael and I were self-medicating our headaches from the night before, with carefully rolled spliffs and endless rounds of tea and biscuits.  I ignored the phone ringing, shrill and endless, until Michael at last gave in, grunted and rolled from the bed to answer it.  I opened my eyes, and then closed them again.  The familiar weight of dread and muted rage was pressing down on me, as it had done all day.  Michael picked up the phone, rubbing at his red eyes under his hair, stretching out a yawn and mumbling his replies.  Finally he hung it up and swore.  “Been called into work,” he said to me, as I watched him.  “Bastards!” he expressed, and started to hunt for some clean clothes.  I did not answer him.  I had begun to view speaking as a mostly needless and pointless waste of energy.  I listened to Michael stumbling around the room.  “Why don’t they just hire more staff?” I felt the bed sag as he sat down on the edge to pull his legs through his jeans.  “It’s not like there’s a lack of people out there needing work!  And then I could have my fucking evening off, like I’d planned…”

            He got up again, sighing wearily.  I rolled over onto my side, away from him.  Kurt whimpered and curled into a tighter ball beside me.  “You gonna’ be alright?” he was asking me from the door.  “Anthony will be back in an hour or so.  He won’t be long.” I heard the rattle of keys as he grabbed his from the table next to the door.  “Danny?”

            “Mmm?”

            “I said, you gonna’ be okay? If I go?  I’d tell them to shove it, but Anthony reckons we really need the money, so…”

            “Yeah, fine,” I muttered irritably. “Just go.”

            “Alright, alright, sorry for breathing.  I’ll see you later okay?”

            When I did not answer, he groaned and stormed out of the bed-sit.  I opened my eyes and stared at nothing.  I could hear the TV chattering in the background.  The phone rang again, but I did not move.  I closed my eyes and tried to find sleep.  The smokes had removed me slightly from everything, and that was a good thing, I reasoned.  The rage was dulled for the time being, the fear and the panic held back.  I would have to control them all until Anthony returned.  I would have to keep my eyes closed tightly and tell myself that monsters did not exist.  I missed Lucy’s arms around me.  It was like a knife to my heart every time I even thought about her, but I had told her to stay away for now.  To be on the safe side, I had tried to tell her, but the grief and confusion in her eyes was hard to escape.

            I felt like I was living on a knife edge.  Inevitability washing over my existence in greedy, vicious waves.  Why the fuck was the phone still ringing?  I tried to sleep, but the phone would not stop ringing.  It was making me feel rattled, and caged in, shaky with frustration and creeping resentment.  I pulled my arms over my head and covered it.  I squeezed my eyes shut.  The phone stopped.  I breathed in slowly, deeply, and exhaled it back out again.  Sleep stole in upon me.

            I was torn back out from it just minutes later.  The fucking phone again, ringing and ringing and ringing.  I growled with impatience, sat up and lunged from the bed, and found the phone on the side table with everything else we needed in a hurry; ashtrays and lighters and keys and money.  I picked it up and looked at it, and half considered hurling it through the window.  Then I wondered if it might be Lucy.  “Hello?”

            “Danny!  It’s me, mum!” she sounded excited and breathless with fear and something else.  I leant against the wall, and my head was spinning.

            “Why’d you keep phoning?” I demanded.  “I’m trying to sleep.”

            “Because it’s important, that’s why, I need to tell you something!”

            “What?”

            “I finally did it, I finally did something right.”

            “What?”

            “I called the police honey.  Just now.  I called them.  I spoke to this really lovely female officer, and I said it’s not an emergency, but she is going to come and see me tomorrow, when he’s out.”

            I pushed my hair from my face.  “Really?”

            “Yes, really.  I wanted you to know.  I did it.  I phoned them.”  She seemed to catch her breath on the other side of the phone, and then went on.  “She talked me through everything.  I have to press charges against him, and then they can arrest him.  They can even make him stay away from me while I get myself sorted.  If he comes near me, he’ll get arrested.  Oh she was so nice and helpful Danny.”

            I breathed out through my nostrils.  My mouth was clamped shut.  My lips did not seem to be able to move, or open.  Conflicting emotions rose up within me.  Relief teased and taunted me, daring me to believe in it, while resentment and darkness swirled so thickly inside my head I found it impossible to congratulate her.  You don’t know him at all, I wanted to say to her.  Her naivety was astounding.  Her innocence.  Her hope.  You do not know him at all.  “Danny?  Are you there?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well what do you think?”

            “Dunno.”

            “Are you okay?  Have you seen him?”

            “Not for a few days.”

            “Well you just hold on honey.  You just sit tight.  It will all be over tomorrow.  Everyone will know the truth about him, and he will never be able to hurt either one of us ever again.  Okay?”

            I thought about what she was saying for a moment, turning the words over inside of my head.  I wanted to believe her.  I wanted to grab the light that she had held out to me. “Okay,” I murmured.

            “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

            “Okay.”

            “I’ll call you tomorrow, after she’s been.  I’ll have more to tell you then.  I’ll let you know what happens, okay?”

            “Okay,” I hung up on her before she could say anything else.  I wanted my mind to be free for a while.  Free of wonder, and clutter, and fear, and hope.  I turned off the TV, put a record on and went back to the bed.  It was that old song, that song I had drifted towards at Billy’s, all that time ago.  I could see her in my head then.  June Madison, her long blonde hair hanging down over one shoulder, as she swayed and moved to the music coming from her little battered radio on the kitchen window sill.  My head sank into my pillow and I mouthed the gentle words as they came to me, as they filled my fading mind with sweetness and pain; When rain has hung the leaves with tears, I want you near to kill my fears, to help me leave all my blues behind….For standing in your heart, is where I want to be, and I long to be…ahh but I may as well try to catch the wind…I curled around Kurt, and I slept.

 

            The next time I awoke, it was because Kurt was whining.  I could hear his little claws scraping at the door to get out.  I rolled over in bed, groggy and thick with sleep, and clogged up dreams and stretching memories.  “You want a wee?” I asked him, rubbing at my face with one hand.  He turned in a circle, tail wagging and eyes bright.  He barked at the door and whined again.  “Okay, hang on, hang on.”  I lowered my feet to the floor, grabbed my pack of cigarettes and lighter and stuffed them into my pocket to smoke outside.  I opened the door and he scampered quickly through it on his squat little legs, and I smiled at the sight of his little white arse disappearing down the first flight of stairs. 

            I stepped through the door to go after him, and I was instantly startled by an enormous shadow coming from the right, smothering me in darkness.  I backed up, shaking my head no, my eyes widening, as he filled the doorway, as he blocked out the light, and the hope, and towered over me, with this strange and cautious expression on his face.  He held up giant hands as if to soothe me.  “It’s okay, don’t freak out,” he said to me, “I need to talk to you, it’s about your mum.”

            I glanced behind him.  I could see Kurt out on the landing, hovering there with his small head cocked to one side, and his ears aloft.  I felt suddenly a million miles away from the outside world, and as the distance between Howard and me was swallowed up in huge strides, I knew that even if I did manage to get past him, I would not make it very far.  I looked back at Howard and accepted this was it.  One way or another.  This was it then.  I shrugged my shoulders.  “What about her?” He looked pained, as if he might cry, and he wrung his big hands together.

            “She’s in the hospital,” he said. “She took an overdose last night.  I came back from work and found her.  Called the ambulance just in time.”

            “What?”

            “She’s okay,” he asserted quickly. “They’re taking good care of her.  But she wants to see you.  She asked me to come and get you, to go and see her there.”  He made a small hand gesture towards the open door.  I felt my skin crawl with knowing and I shook my head at him. 

            “Bullshit.  I just spoke to her a while ago.  You’re lying.  Get out.”

            A different face fell over the one he had presented to me.  His eyebrows rose slowly to meet his receding hairline.  A calm smile tugged up the corners of his lips.  “I’m giving you a chance to do this the easy way,” he said very softly.  I felt cold with terror, like I had been wrapped in ice.

            “My friends are back any minute.”

            “Oh really?” he looked amused and rocked back on his heels.  “Is that why I saw one get on the bus not so long ago?  And the other one is at work, because I checked, little man, I checked.”

            My jaw was shuddering.  My teeth clattered against one another.  I watched the smile slide across his face, and I watched the small, stone like eyes gleaming at me with the satisfaction of victory.  “I’ve been watching you,” he informed me.  “I told you that once before, do you remember?  Do you remember after the wedding when you tried to run away? I also told you that I’d be the one to decide when you could leave.  Didn’t I?  Do you remember that conversation shit stain?  Anyway, I’m here to do you a favour.  I’m your last chance mate.  Your last chance to be a good boy.  You get one last chance to get it right, to make amends and be part of a proper family.”

            I backed up further.  I reached out with one hand, made contact with the thin glass of the window, and felt nausea swimming to the surface.  “No chance,” I said, shaking my head, not taking my eyes from his face.  “I don’t want it.  I don’t want anything from you.”

            Kurt had edged back into the room.  He was at Howards feet, sniffing.   I saw him pull his head back in confusion, before thrusting it forward to sniff again.  Howard saw him, and made his move quickly, letting out a hungry growl as he swept down with one arm and snatched the little dog up by the scruff of his neck.  I stepped forward automatically, reaching for him.  “No!  What’re you doing?”

            Howard held him up and looked him over. “Ahh what a sweet little thing,” he said. “Sweet little rat!  Yeah, I’ve seen you two going about together, makes me fucking sick!” He used his other hand to grab one of Kurts wiggling back legs, then he let go of his neck and held him aloft by one leg.  The dog cried out in pain, and Howard jerked him behind, slamming him against the wall.  I ran forward.

            “You bastard!”

            He laughed, shoved me back with a hand to the chest and I landed on my backside.  Howard held the dog up again, examining him as he twisted and yelped in his grip.  I scrambled to my feet and rushed forward again, but he grabbed my t-shirt and held me back.  “Horrible little thing,” he mused.  “Look at it, nasty little rat!”

            “Put him down you fucking arsehole!”

            “I’ll break his fucking legs,” he retorted and swung Kurt against the wall again.  There was a horrible thump, and I felt desperate sobs rising in my chest.   I struggled against his hand.

            “Please!” I tried to reach for him, but Howard held him up higher and he was hanging limply now, breathing rapidly and looking dazed.  “Please stop it!  Stop it!  Don’t hurt him!”

            “Come here,” Howard pulled me forward by my clothes and wrapped a firm arm around my shoulders.  “I ought to snap all his legs off and flush him down the toilet,” he sniggered into my ear.  “That’s what I’ll do if you don’t behave yourself, right?”  With my eyes on the dog, I nodded quickly.  “Good.  Come here.”

            I saw him drop the dog.  I felt his hand snatching up my hair.  I caught a glimpse of Kurt staggering off to hide under the bed, and then I saw the same wall, flying towards my face. 

84

 

 

June 1996

            I don’t think they knew that I was watching, all the time, I was watching.  They may have been keeping an eye out for my silver Merc, but that wasn’t the only car I had.  They may have checking over their shoulders, staring into shadows, but the funny thing was they missed me; they never knew I was there.  I watched patiently from afar, and I found the patience soothing.  It was alright to wait, you see, it was alright to bide my time and choose my moments.  There was a delicious sense of regaining control, while they scrabbled about their untidy little lives, like rats abandoning a sinking ship.  Their faces, panicked, pale.  The girl did not go around anymore, maybe they had warned her not to.  It was just the three of them, day in, day out, scuttling about with their eyes wide open, yet never seeing me.

            I knew their routines.  I knew their work hours, and their shifts.  I knew that Anthony was scanning the newspaper for flats, for other places to live.  I knew this because I often drank a pint in The Ship when he was not there.  I found his rolled up newspaper on the bar, and I was able to peruse his thought processes.  He had a few lines of enquiry open, it seemed, a few options he was considering to keep them safe.  Moving home, was one.  Numerous flats across the area were circled or crossed out.  Question marks had been drawn in next to a couple of old bangers in the car section at the back.  I could see how his mind was working.  Move further away, but buy a car so that they could still get to their jobs.  Why, they had a dilemma on their hands, didn’t they?  Move away, run away and keep running, and lose their jobs, their income.  Stay close, and run the risk of bumping into the bogey man on every dark street corner.  Oh how I chuckled over my pint, and his newspaper.

            Sometimes I parked the car on the road outside their building, and just waited.  I wanted to talk to them.  To any of them.  I wasn’t sure exactly what I would say, but just the thought of engaging one of them in a meaningful conversation was a thrill stirring to life in my chest.  I wondered what their faces would look like.  I thought back to Danny’s, that day in the alley way.  I’d felt so good afterwards, so tall, and clean and fresh.  I’d inhaled his stinking fear as soon as I’d opened the car door.  He could try and hide it behind a surly expression, and a monotone voice, but I could smell it, and there was nothing he could do about that.  I’d thought briefly about just grabbing him, just punching him in the head or something, taking him by surprise and slinging him into the boot of the car.  Just for the hell of it.  I could drive somewhere and open it up and let him out, laughing.  Just for the hell.  Just for the kicks.  Just to see the look on his face. 

            But this was more fun.  The waiting, and the watching, and the observing.  I felt calm again, for the first time in ages.  I felt like I had them all back in the centre of my palm, and their fate lay there, unsuspecting and blind.  They knew nothing.  They were rats in a cage, waiting for me to make my move.  And here was one of them now.  Anthony Anderson.  Leaving the building to make his early shift at the pub.  I watched him push through the heavy metal door at the bottom.  He stopped, workbag slung on one shoulder, and lit up a cigarette, blinking and wincing in the bright morning sun.  He had not seen the car yet.  He shoved his lighter into his back pocket, and inhaled on his cigarette hungrily, as if he had been craving it for some time.  Then he yawned, and scratched at his head.  He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and I could see the intricate tattoos winding up and down each forearm.  What a tough guy, eh?  What a piece of work.

            He strode purposefully towards the crumbling brick wall that cornered off their crappy little piece of shit garden.  He always walked like that.  Fast and strong, his head held high, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the area, a ready smile on his lips, but not for me, not on that morning.  He stopped when he saw the car.  He lifted his cigarette to his lips and dragged long, and slow, before flicking ash at the ground and stalking quickly around the wall.  “Fuck this,” I heard him mutter, as I rolled down my window to greet him.  He walked along the side of my car, and then aimed a kick at it, booting the back door as hard as he could. I merely shook my head, and turned the engine off.  “Oi!” he called out, stopping at my window and bending down.  His eyes, dark brown and outraged, burned into mine.  “You lost or something mate?”

            I stretched my arm out of the window, and tapped the ash from my own cigarette out onto the ground between his feet.  Anthony looked me up and down, and I could see his skin shaking, from anger, from fear, from barely contained disbelief.  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked, when I continued to smile up at him.

            I tipped my head. “Now that’s friendly, all you boys are so friendly!”

            “I asked you a question.  What the fuck do you want?”

            My smile stretched out across my clean shaven face.  I felt a little giddy, and dreamy, as I looked up into his blazing dark eyes.  “Well, if you’re really interested, I wanted to have a quick word with my step-son again.  Is he in?”

            “No,” he snapped quickly, letting me know right away that he was.  “He’s not.  You stay the hell away from him, I’m warning you!”

            I blew smoke up into his face, and watched him pull back, his eyes fluttering in their sockets as he waved a hand in front of him. “Well maybe you could pass a message onto him then, how about that? Maybe you could tell him that I dropped by to say hello, and maybe I’ll drop by again another day, just for a chat, you know?  Just to catch up and see how he’s doing.”  My grin crept upwards, my teeth shining out at him. 

            “Listen to me,” the boy snarled suddenly, pushing his face as close to mine as he dared to.  “You don’t scare me, right?  I see you for exactly what you are.  I am telling you now.  I am fucking warning you.  Stay the hell away from us or I am calling the cops, do you hear?  Danny wants nothing to do with you, not ever, so get that through your fucked up head, and stay away!”

            “Well listen, there’s no law that says I can’t drop by and say hello to my step-son if I feel the need,” I replied to him calmly.  “I’ve got something I need to talk to him about.  I think he’ll be interested, once he gets a chance to hear it.”

            Anthony was shaking his head.  “You’re unbelievable,” he breathed, pulling away from the window, as obvious sweat broke out across his frowning forehead.  “You’re completely fucking insane if you think he wants to hear anything you’ve got to say!  After what you did!  Don’t forget, arsehole, me and Mike were there the day he stabbed your vile paedo friend!  We know how far you’ll go to control and frighten someone, and it turns my stomach, it makes me sick! I ought to go to the cops! You’d be finished if we told them everything!”

            I could see he was hoping this would alarm me.  But it did nothing of the kind.  I was laughing so hard my shoulders were shaking with it.  I looked up at his face, and he stood back, straightened up and dragged on his cigarette. “Go on get out of here,” he said to me coldly, flicking his head towards the road. “You’re vile. Get away from here.”

            I leant forward suddenly then, taking him by surprise, and loving it.  He was caught off guard by the ferocity of my movements, and stepped back again, blinking, his lips pressed down over his teeth.  “Real tough guy aren’t you?” I asked him, sneeringly.  “Yeah, look at you, talking to me like that, when you’re the one who’s done time.  Twice.  Very, very naughty boy, weren’t you eh? Thought that would shut you up.  Don’t like the thought of going back there a third time, do you boy?”  I raised my eyebrows at him and smiled slowly.  He thought he was a big man, but I could see the truth.  He was nothing of the sort.  He was another scared kid, too big for his own boots, playing with fire.  I nodded at him. “Just pass the message onto him, or I’ll go up there and tell him myself.  Tell him I’m never very far away.”

            “Well come on then!” he yelled at me then, lifting his arms up to either side in frustration. He let his workbag drop to the pavement and beckoned me.  “What are you waiting for then?  Come on!  We’re all just dying to know what you’re gonna’ do!  Come on then! Why don’t you take it out on me, eh?  Try it on with me!” He nodded at me, daring me, sucking on his smoke and flicking ash at my car.  “Come on then,” he urged me. “Take it out on me, take all your sick shit out on me, just you and me, right now, I fucking dare you!  Get out of your shitty little car and try it on with me! Or do you only like your chances with little kids and women?  Is that it?  Hey?” He looked satisfied, and stepped closer to lean down towards me again.  “That’s the truth of it, isn’t it big man?  That’s the real truth, and it’s exactly what I’ve always said about you…You’re a big cowardly bully. You won’t get out your car and take me on, will you?  You had to get another cowardly piece of slime to do your dirtiest work for you, didn’t you?  How do you sleep at night?  Really?  How the fuck does someone like you sleep at night? You get your kicks controlling people, frightening people who are smaller, and weaker than you…burning them with cigarettes, for fucks sake! What the fuck is wrong with you, you evil motherfucking bastard!”

            I stared back at him, and I yawned.  “You finished?” He shook his head at me.

            “No. Come on.  I’m serious.  Get out your car and fight me.  Show me you’re not a coward and a bully, or I’ll go to the police right now, and tell them all about your drug dealing, child abusing ways!”

            I offered him a knowing smile and a gentle shrug of the shoulders. “Well I might have to drop a call to them myself,” I told him.  “Now that I know where my step-son lives.  I better fill them in.  How he’s unfortunately got himself mixed up with a drug dealing ex-con.  Still see Jaime don’t you eh?  Oh yeah, got tabs on you son.  Got tabs on everyone.  I just hope you don’t have anything up there that might get you into trouble when the cops come calling.  I think they’d send you down for a very long stretch, wouldn’t they eh?  And what would happen to your little brother then?  No one else to look out for him, or so I hear.  Hmm.  I suppose I could keep an eye on him for you?  See what he needs?  What he likes?”

            He threw his cigarette down, and gripped the roof of the car, his head shooting in close to mine.  I did not flinch.  I considered a fast and brutal head butt; shattering his nose all over the pavement.  “We’ve got far more shit on you!” he snarled at me.  I laughed.

            “Well fine.  If you want to risk it.  But if I was you I would make arrangements for Michael first.  You know.  You wouldn’t want to leave him to fend for himself when the cops drag you away again, would you?  Just something to think about.”

            “I’m not scared of you,” he told me then. “You disgusting slug.  I’m not a sixteen year old kid.  Does it make you feel good, does it?  Scaring him?  Fucking up his life again?  Is that what makes you happy?  You don’t think you’ve tortured that kid enough?  You can’t just leave him the fuck alone?” He touched his head with his hands, shaking it in exasperation.  “It’s not fair,” he started saying then. “It’s not fair what you’re doing…just leave him alone why don’t you?  Just worry about your own life.  After everything that you’ve done…it’s just not fair…”

            I could see what he was trying to do now.  His tone had softened, and his eyes were searching my face wonderingly.  He was trying something else.  Seeing if there was another way he could get through to me.  I looked past him, my gaze tracking up to the tall building behind him.  “I did everything I could to be a father, and a good influence to that boy.  I thought I’d done all I could, and it was all too late.  But it turns out it’s not too late, you see.  I can give him one more chance.”

            “You’re crazy,” the boy muttered, shaking his head. “You’re just crazy…leave him alone…he doesn’t want to know you.”

            “Well it’s very honourable, all this care you show for him.”

            “He’s my friend!”

            “Just tell him I want to see him,” I snapped, suddenly bored of all this, bored of his glaring, stubborn face, bored of going back and forth with him, not getting anywhere.  I turned the key in the engine, and he stepped back quickly. “Just tell him we have unfinished business, and he might as well talk to me and see what I have to say.”  I checked the mirrors and slipped the car into gear.

            “You shouldn’t keep pushing him!” the boy was yelling at me now.  “He’s on the edge after everything you’ve done!  One of these days he’s gonna’ turn around and fight back, you know!  He’s gonna’ stand up to you!”

            I laughed out loud as I swung the car away from the kerb.  I heard him yelling, and he kicked the car again as I did a three point turn.  I could let that slide, for now.  He’d be paying for that before he fucking knew it.  I drove off, casually, calmly, as if the roads were mine, as if I had not a care in the world, and really, I didn’t.  It was all coming together in my head you see.  All of it. 

 

            I continued to circle the streets of Belfield Park in my car, like a low, sleek shark, moving in on its prey.  I liked the feel of it, I have to be honest about that.  As I trawled the streets, I felt on some deep and primal level, like a hunter, stalking my victim.  The thought always brought a smile to my lips, as my hands worked the steering wheel smoothly, as my eyes scanned the pavements, the doorways and the shops.  I didn’t want to go up to their crumby bed-sit just yet.  That would be the last resort.  I could be cleverer than that, and after all, at the end of the day, it was all for the boys own good. There was a constant, warm and soothing calmness to my movements and to my thoughts.  I had a feeling the boy would soon see sense.  I had a good idea, a really good idea, and I just wanted to talk to him about it.  I thought about the other two boys and rolled my eyes in impatience.  They were like the fucking guards of filthy, shitty bed-sit kingdom.  They were always there, weren’t they?  Lurking. 

            And so, whenever I had spare time to kill, I kept the car rolling, trundling around the block.  I mostly felt at ease as I drifted around.  I felt calm, and controlled, as my thoughts were laid out as neatly as my plans.  The only thing that interrupted the relative tranquillity I existed in, was the occasional grumbling and sniping that came from the voice at the back of my mind.  The voice that poked and needled at me, reminding me that Kay was not to be trusted, reminding me that I was running out of time.  There was a clock ticking somewhere, and I could not afford to forget about it.

            I parked the car in the darkness of the shadows and killed the engine.  I kept my eyes on their scummy building.  I sat slumped in the seat, and chain smoked cigarettes, keeping my eyes on the grotty looking people that came and went.  It was twenty to eleven.  I already knew Anthony was out.  I had driven past The Ship to make sure.  So the two younger boys were up there alone, and this excited and amused me.  I killed time just imagining their faces would look like if I marched on up there, kicking down their door.  I tried to imagine whether they would try to run, or attempt to fight.  What would they do?  I thought I would probably grab them both by the hair, smash their skulls together and then hurl them to the floor.  That would be a good start, and the image brought a smile to my lips, but I knew I would not be going up there like that tonight. 

            I glanced up suddenly then, using my elbow against the door to hoist myself up when I heard the heavy metal door clanging on the building.  I could see him, Danny, just outside the building, lighting a cigarette while that little dog of his scampered about in the straggly grass.  Wee wee time for the little rat, usually around the same time every night.  I did not hesitate. I got quickly out of the car and strode towards him. 

            He was dressed in these awful ripped black jeans, looked like they hadn’t seen a washing machine in some time, and this baggy, shapeless grey hooded jumper.  Before he noticed me, he was just smiling inanely at the dog as it squatted in the grass to take a shit.  I held up my hands and approached him.  When he saw me, his eyes widened like saucers, and the cigarette slipped through his fingers and landed, smouldering in the grass, and then he turned in a panic, and fumbled for the door.  “Hang on, hang on, wait!” I called out, still holding up my hands.  “I just want to talk to you a minute!  Hold on!” I stopped walking and nodded at the ground under my feet. “I’ll just stop here yeah?”

            He glared back at me.  His eyes outraged, disbelieving.  “What now?” he growled, and I felt my skin prickling at the contempt in his tone.  I swallowed.

            “Just want a quick word, that’s all I want,” I assured him.  “Just a quick word.”

            “I don’t want to talk to you, not ever. I want you to go away and stop hanging around here.  Or I’ll call the police.  I’ve already spoken to them you know.”

            I was intrigued.  “Really?  Have you?  What about?”

            “About you!” he cried out. “About you stalking us!  I told them!”

            “Oh,” I said, nodding and stroking my chin. “Well that’s the first I’ve heard about it.  They haven’t said anything to me yet.  Maybe they’re too busy out fighting real crimes, eh?” I watched his face crease up in dismay and confusion.  “Sorry,” I told him. “I just want to talk a minute.”

            “They said they can’t do anything,” Danny told me, his eyes flashing with hatred. “Until you’ve committed an actual crime, so why don’t you get one with it then?  Whatever you’re gonna’ do?”

            “Well listen Danny, this is what I want to talk to you about, I just want a quick word then I’ll leave you be.” I lowered my hands and chuckled softly. “That’s not too much to ask is it?”

            “Yes it is,” he replied scathingly.  “I want you the fuck away from me. I’ve had enough.”

            “Oh calm down,” I advised him with a brief roll of my eyes.  “Stop getting your knickers in a twist, and just listen.  I have something to put to you, something to discuss.  We can talk here, or we could go somewhere else if you like?  Maybe a pub, or back at mine?  It’s up to you.”

            He had one hand wrapped around the edge of the open door. His eyes drifted up and down me. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”

            “We’ll talk here then, fine,” I said amiably, stepping towards him. 

            “What is it?” he asked.

            “Well, it’s about Jack,” I started, and immediately I saw the alarm fill his eyes, and he shuffled closer to the door, pushing one side of his body through the gap and staring back at me with wary eyes.  “He was very handy to have around, you know, I sort of miss him now he’s gone.  He was my right hand man, I suppose you would say.  He took care of a lot of business for me.  I haven’t been able to replace him see, because there’s no one I can really trust.  So I thought, I would offer you the job.”

            He was shaking his head very slowly.  His mouth was slightly open, and his eyes appalled. “The job?” he uttered, as the little dog scuttled through his legs and into the hallway.  “Are you fucking insane?”

            I sighed, tiring slightly now.  Why did everything always have to be such a fight, and a battle with him?  Couldn’t he see a good opportunity when it was staring him in the face?  “Oh don’t be so melodramatic,” I said to him. “It’s not like you’ve ever been squeaky clean, is it?  And I bet you’re not now either!  Jack had a job, didn’t he?  A position.  Earned himself some good money too.  I’m offering it to you Danny.  You’d be great at it.”  I pushed my hands into my pockets and shrugged my shoulders at him loosely.  “What do you say?  You’d be rolling in it in no time.  You wouldn’t have to live in this shit hole.  You could have Jack’s place, all to yourself, if you wanted.”

            He just stared at me.  “You mean drug dealing?”

            “Among other things,” I smiled. “It’s a colourful position, you wouldn’t get bored.  I thought you’d jump at the chance actually.  Right up your street I should imagine.”

            “You don’t know anything about me!” he screamed at me then, his fingers clutching at the door, his eyes growing round and wild with a rage I could not fathom.  The blueness of his eyes stood out all the more against his pale face, drained of all colour.  “You never did!”

            “What are you saying?  You don’t want to get rich?  You don’t want a stable job with good prospects?  A nice place to live?”  I clicked my tongue and raised my eyes up at the grotty hole they called home.  “Are you sure?  Why would anyone want to live like this?  Here?  I don’t understand you.”

            “You…you…” the boy stopped and looked wildly around at nothing, as if he had lost the words he intended to speak.  His chest was rising and falling at speed, his breathing had become laboured and heavy.  “You…you have no idea…” He pointed a shaking finger at me then.  “Why the fuck would I want to work with you?  Do you think I’ve forgotten what you did to me?  Do you think I’ve forgotten about Jack?” His eyes bore into mine, heavy with a disgust that made me stiffen. 

            “Jack was a loose cannon in the end,” I tried to tell him. “That’s why I sent him away.  He’d lost the plot.  Couldn’t control himself…But me and you, we could work well together Danny.  Think about it.  I’m giving you a chance here.  You don’t even really deserve one after all the shit you’ve put me through, but here I am again, trying again, trying to help you. I still hold onto hope that you’ll listen to me!”

            “No,” he was saying, looking away, shaking his head, “no, no, no, just get away, just go away…” He pulled the door open, slipped through it and tried to close it on me, but I was too quick, shoving my foot and thigh into the space.  His eyes met mine, dark with anger.

            “Think about it carefully,” I warned him then.  “Don’t make any more mistakes Danny.  You’ve run out of chances. Don’t fuck it up again.  Think about what you are turning down.  You don’t want to regret it..”

            “Anthony!” he turned and screeched into the hallway.  I winced at the sound of his shrill tones, echoing up the stairwell.  I felt my patience slipping, and my calmness growing jagged.

            “Fucks sake,” I muttered, leaning close. “Don’t be such a cry baby, he’s not here, and I know he’s not.  I’m giving you an opportunity here!  I’m giving you another chance to make amends!”

            “Leave…me…alone!” He faced me and hissed it at me through the gap in the door, and then he jutted his face towards mine and spat a mouthful of gob out onto the ground.  It landed between my feet and I stared at it and shook my head at it, at him.  I looked up and smiled patiently.

            “You really didn’t want to do that little man.”

            “What do I have to do to get it through to you?” he said to me then, and his voice was this hard, brittle thing, rushing out between his clenched teeth. “Leave me the fuck alone or I am going to kill you!”  He yanked hard on the door, and I could hear voices reverberating up and down the stairs, people coming out to see what the noise was about, so I pulled my foot back and let him go.  The metal wobbled and vibrated right in front of my stunned face.  I was suddenly shaking, fuming, boiling over with impossible heat.  That ungrateful little shit had spat at me!  He had threatened to kill me, he had spat at me, and he had slammed the door in my face!  I stepped back quickly, panting.  My tongue seemed to loll from my mouth as I struggled to breathe through the torrent of rage that rushed through me.  This terrible, gut wrenching realisation was pounding at my head.  He hadn’t learnt a thing.  Not one fucking thing.  That defiant little shit.  Nothing had worked, nothing.