Authors: Niall Griffiths
It is the year of Alice Cooper and ‘School’s Out’. It is the year of
The Godfather
.
See Miss Wilson running across the playground as fast as her white leather zip-up stack-heeled knee boots will allow.
—Thomas Maguire! Stop that right now! You big bully!
Nimbly for a fat child Thomas skips away from the smaller boy now curled foetally and whimpering on the ground with a bleeding nose.
—Pick on someone your own size, you bully!
Thomas flicking the V with both hands, laughing, capering.
—Fuck off yeh ahl witch.
Gasp. —
What
did you just say?
—
You
heard. I said fuck off yeh ahl cow.
—Right, that’s it, it’s Mr Powell’s office for you, my lad. Stay there.
See the chase; the wobble and teeter of the beehive hairdo. The laughing and the jeering and then the intervention of Mr Lyons the geography/PE teacher who tweaks Thomas by the ear and leads him tiptoe and full of grimaces across the playground. Many big eyes and gawps surrounding, a few hidden sneers also.
—Ow geroff me al get me dad on youse!
An
me brother!
—I don’t give two shits, son. Bring them up here. How d’yeh think yer dad’ll feel when he finds out his son’s been abusing women? Think he’ll be proud, do yeh?
—He’ll stove yer stupid head in!
—You’re only making it worse for yourself.
—Ow! Ow! Fuckin gerroff! Yeh big pig!
* * *
Mr Powell has long hairs coming out of his nose and a funny growth on his eyelid like a tiny brain. His breath pongs.
—Extortion! At
your
age! What in blazes possessed you, lad?
Thomas a wee bit tearful now on the seat too large for him swings his feet above the floor. There are big men around him, proper grown-ups, Lyons and Powell, and he feels very small despite his relative size. Around people of his own age he feels very, very big but here in this office he appears as puny to himself as those he daily torments.
—I mean what do you think this is? Chicago? Think you’re a little Al Capone, do you, is that what this is all about? Is it?
Thomas sniffs. —Don’t know.
—Don’t know what?
—Don’t know nothing.
—Don’t know nothing,
sir
.
Sniffsniff.
Mr Lyons chips in: —And it’s by far from the first time this has happened, Mr Powell. Seems to me that young Maguire here fancies himself as a bit of a gangster, don’t you, lad, ey? Just like your brother did. He was
just
the same, your Joseph.
And now Tommy nods because this is exactly what he fancies himself as or rather and anathema to Lyons and Powell and their like what he for certain knows he already is. He’s heard his dad and his uncles talking; he’s sat with his mam and his aunties and drunk lemonade and eaten crisps as the grown-up men discussed things in the foggy kitchen. He’s snuck
under
-aged into the flicks and watched huge-eyed the films, those men in hats and suits with guns. He gets free Fabs and Screwballs from the man in the Mr Whippy van and he has always wondered why. There is never any comeuppance from the parents and elder siblings of the local boys and girls he routinely beats up and he has always wondered why and on the sole occasion when there
was
redress, a public face-slapping and forced apology in the precinct, he always wondered why this same big-brother avenger approached him the following week with one arm in plaster and offered him a long and earnest apology. So what can he do now but just nod and say:
—Yeh.
—I
beg
your pardon?
—Oh is that right? Mr Lyons says with a sneer. —Got a little Godfather here, have we? A right little Don Corleone. What do we do with gangsters, Mr Powell?
—Nowt cos yer both gunner be fuckin
dead
!
Tommy pushes a pile of papers and books over on the desk and bolts across the office for the door. A hand clamps his shoulder.
—Hold him there, Mr Lyons! I’m contacting his mother!
The clomp and scrape of Dr Scholl clogs sound down the corridor. Tommy’s heart thuds. The sound gets louder then the office door bursts open and his mother comes in and glances once at him all fire-eyed then turns to the two teachers.
—Youse! Either of youse ever touches my child
again
any
of my kids and I’ll take yer fuckin eyes out! Yiz hear me?
Tommy loves the looks on their stupid faces. Loves the sudden shock, the swift widening of mouths and eyes. And he loves his mother.
—Mrs Maguire, I can assure you we –
—
I’ll
give yiz fuckin assure! Right across yer fuckin gobs either of youse
ever
lay a finger on my fuckin kids again! I mean it! Don’t believe me an just fuckin
dare
it!
Dare
it well!
She stands and stares panting. Lyons and Powell look from her to each other and then back at her again.
—Friggin manhandlin little kids … should be ashamed of yerselves yer should … fuckin disgrace yerrah … call yerselves teachers?
She turns. —Come on, Thomas. Am takin you out of this bleedin place.
He follows her out and stops to point and laugh at the teachers but she grabs his arm hard enough to bruise and yanks him through the door, drags him down the corridor that claps and echoes to her wood-soled clogs and out of the school into the abrupt sunlight and out of the school grounds and across the road to a bus stop where she spins her son like a top to face her and slaps his face. Shock and ear-ringing. Instant tears.
—So yerrah friggin gangster now, are yeh? Don’t you fuckin
ever
embarrass me like that again or al take the friggin skin off yer back. If I
ever
have to come up to that school
again
… An stop yer fuckin whinging or yer’ll get somethin to cry about. Little bastard yerrah.
Blurred and swimming in his tears she lights a cigarette. Blows smoke through her nostrils like a dragon and asks an old staring man what the fuck he thinks he’s looking at then points at Tommy’s face with the lit end of her Regal King. The smoke makes his eyes water further, the burning coal seems further to inflame the heat in his stinging cheek.
—You an yer brother, I’m ashamed of yiz both. Honest to God, the pairer yiz, I am, I’m fuckin ashamed. Notten but trouble from the both o’ yiz. God help me but sometimes I wish yer brother ad’ve friggin
died
of that fever.
She crosses herself. —Think I
wanner
come out to the school every week? Ey? Must think I’ve got nowt better to do, you. Is that what yeh think?
—Mam, I –
—I don’t wanner hear it, son. Don’t say another fuckin word. Yer no son of mine any more. An
you
can fuckin shurrup before yeh start n all.
The old man red-faced and tutting turns away again and the bus arrives and they get on it and the ignoring of him from his mother is worse. She says not one word to him and jerks her arm away from his when he touches her elbow and he blubbers and sobs and she simply stares straight ahead and alights at the correct stop and walks stiff-backed and merciless ahead of him homewards and he must follow and inside the house she points wordlessly upstairs and he goes to his room and there among the posters, the football posters and Bay City Rollers and Mud posters, he cries himself out and climbs under the covers and buries his face in the pillow and screams muffled swear
words
until the word ‘cunts’ stops him because he can think of no worse but that is what they all are, all of them, especially
her
. A short time later he hears his dad come home and hears him talking to his mother in the front room, no specific words just mumbles, and then there are heavy footsteps on the stairs and the door opens and there is a presence in his room, big and heated. He can smell his dad. He can feel his dad standing there, outside of the pulled-up blankets, displacing air and breathing. To show his face might invite a slap so he keeps it hidden. Hot and hidden under the hairy blanket that makes him itch at nighttime.
—So yeh wanner be a gangster, son?
It is a deep but gentle voice and Tommy is surprised. He expected a roar, he expected a swooping open palm. He feels a pressure on the bed and then a hand softly pulls the sheets down to reveal his face. And there’s his dad; a smile, bushy sideys, a big once-broken nose. A
smile
; what’s going on here? One fat hand lies just below Tommy’s eyes and he can see the letters L-O-V-E big in his vision and blurred and blueing.
—I hear you’ve been playin at gangsters. Av yeh?
Tommy nods.
—Well, ad berrer show yiz how it’s done, then, hadn’t I?
Tommy nods.
—Come ed then, well. Get yerself up.
Tommy gets out of bed and follows his dad through the house and out into the car, the black Capri. No words, no directions, just out through the house and into the car.
—Know the first thing yeh need to be a gangster round here?
Tommy shakes his head and his dad reaches into the back seat and recovers a hammer which he places on Tommy’s lap, between his pudgy knees. It feels very heavy. Tommy tries to lift it and can but only with difficulty and with both hands. The car starts and pulls away.
—So why’d yeh fancy yerself as a gangster, then, eh? Is it cos yeh wanner be like yer dad? Yeh?
Small nod.
—Well, howjer know that I’m a gangster? What makes yeh think that?
A shrug.
—Well, yer wrong. Cos what I am son is a businessman. That’s the first thing yer’ve gorrer learn, Tommy; that there are no gangsters there are only businessmen. Djer understand that?
A nod. Tommy cannot take his eyes off his father, off the wedge-heeled shoes working the pedals, the chunky-ringed hands gripping the steering wheel, the wide face with the flat nose and chipped teeth and the dark eyes flicking between rear-view mirror and windscreen and the large arms beneath the yellow cheesecloth shirt and the long hair hanging down over the back of the vinyl seat. And the hairy handbacks with the blue tattoos snaking and anchoring out from beneath the flapping, unbuttoned cuffs and the gold identity bracelet. This is his dad, all bulging in the car. All sinew and confidence look at me now, Lyons, Stinkygob Powell, this is my frigging dad and I am sitting
next
to him.
—Business, that’s all it is. Makin money, like. There are a thousand different ways of makin money an I just happen to use a certain way. And, y’know, when yeh grow up?
He looks at Tommy now, a sideways glance. A small but humourless smile revealing a gap where an upper incisor should be. He shakes his head and faces front again.
—Ah, yer’ll find out.
—What, Dad?
—Dozen matter. Yer’ll find out in a bit.
—Wharrabout, tho?
His father doesn’t answer, just swings the car into the car park of a huge pub.
—Am pickin up yer uncle Dusty. Remember him, yer uncle Dusty? Baldy feller?
Tommy nods but he doesn’t.
—I won’t be a minute. Just sit still an behave yerself.
He leaves the car running, goes into the pub, comes back out with a stocky man in an orange boiler suit and a bald head streaked with what looks like oil or grime, coal dust maybe. This man grins at Tommy and climbs into the back of the car on the driver’s side and leans and ruffles Tommy’s hair.
—Y’alright, big man? I’m yer uncle Dusty, remember?
Tommy stares. This man has a Belfast accent the kind Tommy’s heard on the news and some pink scars on his face. He looks at Tommy then grins again then asks the back of the driver’s head: —Ye sure about this, now, Shem? Not think it’s mebbe goin a wee bit too far, like?
—No. Gorrer learn, Dust, anny?
Some
time, like. Might as well be now. Been playin up at the school again, like. Gorrer learn im sometime, avn’t I?
—Suppose so, aye … His face suddenly brightens. —Ey, did I tell yis I was on a bus there the other day there at the back, like, an who should I see but Ian Paisley, Gusty Spence an Leo Sayer. And, just me luck like, there’s me with only the two bullets in me gun. Who did I shoot, well?
Shem, father, smiles and shakes his head.
—I shot that fucker Sayer twice! Make sure he’s dead an can’t sing any more fuckin records!
He roars with laughter. Tommy’s dad does too and Tommy joins in although of course not understanding why and laughs even louder when Dusty tousles his head again and says: —Like that one Tommy, aye? Shot that fucker twice! Make sure he’s dead!
Laughter again. He likes this, Tommy does, driving along and laughing with the tough and grown-up men, a hammer heavy on his lap. If Lyons and Powell could see him now. Wouldn’t
dare
to tweak his ear. Wouldn’t
dare
to take him into the office. They’d leave him alone all scared and do whatever he told them to do. Bastards. See Tommy now in the stylish car that George Best has advertised on TV. In the stylish Besty car with the two big tough men his father and his uncle, oh if the school could see him now.
Tommy wants to ask Dusty to tell another joke or to tell one himself, wants to feel that giant hand ruffling his hair again but Dusty suddenly serious is gazing out the window and talking, it seems, to the outside world, the city passing.
—Not sure about this, Shem, so I’m not. It’s not sitting right with me, this.
—What isn’t?
—The wean.
—He’s gorrer
learn
, Dust, anny? Never too young to find out about these things, like. I mean say he carries on the way he is doing an in a few years’ time he’s at the bottom of Ally Dock in concrete wellies, how’ll yeh feel then, eh? Or proppin up the fuckin motorway. How’ll yeh feel then?
—Aye but still.
—An besides anythin else he’s
my
lad. If this puts im off then great, sound, he’s not gunner follow in is ahl man’s footsteps. An if it doesn’t then that’s alright as well cos that means he’s got wharrit takes. So either way he’s gunner learn somethin, inny?
Dusty sniffs. —Aye. Suppose.
—No ‘suppose’ about it, lar. I
know
wharram doing.
—Wharrabout your Joseph, tho?