A Kind of Hush (3 page)

It sounded brilliant. My mind turned to thoughts of setting up my old man like that and I asked Mick about it.

'Later,' said Mick. 'I want you to meet some of the others first.'

That night Mick drove us across to King’s Cross in a pure white Golf GTi. This motor had everything - soft top, radio, stereo cassette blasting out Acid House music, even a phone.

I asked where he had got it from and he replied, ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,’ then he winked.

Den chipped in with, ‘You’ve got to learn Stewy boy, when you want something in this world you can’t sit back and wait for it, you’ve got to go out and get it.’ Just then the car phone rang, we all jumped.

Mick picked it up. ‘Hello,’ he said softly. He listened for a second or two then yelled.

‘Fucking hell, it’s the geezer who owns this motor!’

Pete and Den creased up with laughter. I could hear the poor bastard screaming down the phone to Mick.

‘I’ll get you, you bastards, you see if I don’t!’

Mick laughed, said goodbye very sweetly and hung up on him.

‘If he’d been nice,’ he said, ‘I’d have told him where I was going to leave it. But no, the silly bugger had to threaten me, didn’t he? Well now he’s gonna have to look
 for it.' I thought that Pete was going to bust something, the way he was laughing.

Mick parked the car up in an old garage behind some flats off York Way.

'Find that, you bastard,' he said as he walked away taking with him the bloke's cassettes and mobile phone. 'Might as well use it till the batteries run out,' he said, stuffing the phone into his jacket.

We arrived for my first visit to Max's and joined five boys who were sitting at a corner table. Mick introduced me to them. There was Alan, not so big then. Wivva complaining that the barber had sliced open a couple of zits when he gave him his skinhead cut earlier that day. Trev, who was off to join the Army next week, and Mark and Steven.

Steven delighted in telling everyone that the Old Bill were on his arse again for kicking his old man in the bollocks.

'I'm not worried though,' he said, 'I'll stay at my gran's for a few days and they'll forget all about me.' Then he said, 'I've got to get some dosh though, I don't want my gran to be out of pocket because of me, poor old girl's only got her pension.'

Wivva's grandad was a war hero, won the George or is it Military Cross or something at Tripoli, lost a leg in the process. Wivva was fascinated with the stories that he used to tell him about those days and ever since has wanted to be in the SAS.

He used to massage his grandad's back and shoulders for him when his war wounds started to act up. That graduated to 'jacking him off because grandad said that it was good for the pain. Wivva never knew that it was 
wrong, he never even suspected.

Until his mum caught him wanking himself in his bed one morning. She kicked him all over the house screaming, 'dirty bastard dirty bastard!' at him. He was so confused, poor fucker, that he went straight to his grandad. When he told him, the old bastard had a heart-attack. He died a month later.

Wivva had learned in the worst way possible that he had been abused. And even worse, his grandad had been his abuser. But he couldn't make sense of it. So he took all of his anger out on everyone else, especially nonces. Wivva loved his grandad and for some weird reason still does. We never question that.

He still lived with his mum and dad, but often after he'd finished work (he was an apprentice painter and decorator) he came to spend his nights with us.

Alan was most definitely one of a kind. Built like a brick shithouse no one, but no one got up his nose. I swear he could break your back just by looking at you; he was every inch a tough guy. He worked for a demolition firm, just right for him that was.

Alan never talked about his past but we all knew about him because we had read it in the papers. He was one of a load of boys that had been screwed by the headmaster at a special residential school. He hated nonces so much that it hurt. He lived with his invalid grandma and often said that she drove him fucking mental with her 'Do this love' and 'Do that love'. He put up with it because it was rent free and quite frankly, because no one else in his family wanted him.

Just like me every one of them had been sexually abused and not one of us had got any justice at all. We 
were all bloody angry at the way that we had been treated, angry at a system that didn't seem to care, the police for doing nothing, the social services for giving us no choices, our families for letting us down, but most of all, almost murderously angry at the type of people who had used us. It's for that last reason that we chose to do what we did during the long weekend nights.

Mick explained what was going to happen and said that as I was the new boy, I could sit back and watch. Mark was the bait for that night. He was fifteen but looked about twelve and a half. He was the classic choirboy type, blond hair cut into a pageboy style and big blue eyes. But as I was soon to learn, looks can be deceptive - that boy was as hard as nails.

Trev disappeared and reappeared ten minutes later.

'It's looking real cool,' he said. 'I think there's a chance of some big business tonight.'

'Right,' said Mick, 'let's go.'

Mark went ahead and set himself up at the front of King's Cross Station, leaning against one of the metal posts that hold up the canopy. Mick, Alan and me sat on the floor by the main entrance doors.

'So that we can keep an eye on him,' said Mick.

The others went through a side entrance in York Way and cut through the station to an exit near the taxi rank on the other side. They then cut a right and disappeared into the tiny side-streets behind the station.

We watched Mark for what seemed like ages before someone approached him. The man talked to him for a few seconds and then walked off. Mark mouthed something to Mick, chuckled and went back to his business.

'No sweat,' he said. 'He wanted to know if Mark 
wanted to buy anything.'

Like what?' I said.

'Drugs,' said Mick.

'Oh, is there much here then?'

Too fucking much,' said Mick and added, 'sometimes these blokes can be fucking dangerous, so you've gotta be very careful. Anyway, if you ever need any of that shit let me know, I can get it far cheaper than they can and a lot better quality.'

'I'll go along with that,' said Alan with a grin.

A few short minutes later someone else stopped to talk to Mark. Mark put his hand in his pocket as he spoke to the man.

'This is it,' said Mick. 'We've got one, come on chaps.'

We got up and walked slowly through the station and round to the back where the others were waiting.

Alan explained that the signal for catching a live one was to put your right hand in your trouser pocket when talking to him, that way everyone could see and could get ready for action.

We all crouched down behind a wall and waited.

I heard Mark arrive and through a break in the wall saw him lead the bloke into a doorway. Mick whispered to me to stay put no matter what happens and then got himself ready to move.

The man unzipped his fly exposing his very ready penis, and at that moment Mick screamed Go! and everyone except me jumped over the wall and piled into the doorway. I swear that bloke literally shat himself, I have honestly never seen anyone as scared as that in my entire life. He threw himself into the corner and rolled up into a ball.

Fucking perv, fucking perv!'_shouted Wivva as he kicked out at the guy's head, the others were just kicking and punching anything of him that was showing.

He went quiet. Mick pulled everyone off and went through his pockets, checked his neck for chains and ripped off his watch.

I came out from behind the wall, I was shaking like a leaf. I looked at the bloke on the floor and felt sick.

Mick hissed at me, 'Kick him, he's just like your old man, kick the slag.'

Suddenly all I could see was a picture of my old man in front of my eyes. All of the anger and fear that I had felt when he was around welled up inside me as I looked down at this creep now lying curled up in the corner of the doorway. I kicked him hard between his legs from behind. He moaned. I kicked him again and again, tears from years of pent-up anger and frustration flooding down my face as I screamed obscenities at him. Mick grabbed me from behind, Pete and Den took hold of my arms and we ran.

Up by the old gas holders, along Goods Way to York Way, through Wharfdale Road to the Caledonian Road and back down to Max's.

We were high. Not one of us had taken anything, no drugs, no booze, nothing, yet we were all higher than I had ever thought it possible to be.

'Burger and chips all round lads?' asked Max as we danced in.

Too right,' chorused Mick, Trev and Mark as we moved to our corner and sat down. We waited until we had finished our food and Cokes before Mick took a look at what we had taken from the guy.

There was a wallet with eighty-five pounds in it, a Visa card, an Access card, a picture of a bloke with an old lady and an identity card that showed that he was fifty-three years old and worked as a manager for a TV rental company.

'Just think,' said Mark, 'we could be renting our telly from that slag.'

Mick was grinning again. 'Look at this then lads,' he said. In a long brown envelope, taken from the bloke's inside pocket, was a whole wadge of notes.

'Must be his shop takings,' said Trev.

'Who cares,' said Steven. 'It solves my fucking problem.' Everyone laughed. Four hundred and sixty-two pounds was in that envelope.

We did one more that night, a short, squat, greasy-looking bloke it was. He tried to drag Mark into his car in the hotel car park, but we stopped him. He got really done, and when Mick checked his pockets and found that the bastard had no money on him at all, he got done all over again. Mark was so mad he bit the bloke's fucking ear off.

 
Things remained much the same for about four years. As we got older some of us tried to get our lives into some sort of order, you know, jobs, a decent place to live, that sort of thing. The squat was pulled down so I went and found myself a job as a trainee chef for a Bayswater hotel where I lived in. Trev joined the army and we lost touch. Steve’s in prison, he got five years for almost killing his old man. And Mark? Well, believe it or not, Mark’s at university. He’s studying computers, it seems he was a whiz-kid with them at school.

Weedy Si has been with us for about eight months now and when he’s not staying at his uncle’s place in Kennington he crashes with one or other of us.

Si’s mum and dad were hippies. They were well into all of that free love and drugs stuff. Often Si would be woken up by the grunts and moans of couples screwing each other all over the flat. His parents were into wife swapping, husband swapping, every sort of swapping you can think of. There was so much shit smoked at his gaff that he was addicted to it himself by the time he was ten.

They got themselves involved with some people who
 ran a witches' coven or something; it was really just an excuse for more orgies, but they had ceremonies and special days when kids had to be there. It was at one of these, in an old church off Old Street, that his mum and dad, both stoned out of their heads, had sex with him while everyone else there watched. The police raided the place and caught them at it. Both his parents were given probation and Si was taken into care. He's been running away ever since.

The only one in his life, other than us, who he trusts, is his uncle Chris, that's his mum's brother. Chris offered to take him in, but the social services for some reason keep saying no. I suppose that it could be that Chris has a record for violence, ABH, GBH, that sort of stuff. Chris says, quite innocently, that it was only because he was protecting himself; what he doesn't say is that he was protecting himself from being caught at one or other of the blags that he was doing.

When Si can't stay at Chris's he sleeps on the streets 'working' the stations for food money; that was until he met us of course.

Si turned out to be very useful. Mick could never get good deals on the stuff that we took from the nonces; that was until Si took some of it to his uncle Chris, now we can sell on anything. Cash cards, credit cards, driving licences, you name it, Uncle Chris can deal with it, very handy that is. I just wish that dirty sod Si would learn how to use a hanky, his constant sniffing drives me bleeding mad. Oh! the other thing about Si is that he is brilliant as bait and that's mainly because he'd been working on the rent boy scene for some two years before we met him. He knew those punters inside out and could 
always pick out the best ones.

Tony's the new boy. He's the result of a holiday romance. You know how it is. Mum and a couple of girlfriends go off on one of those 18-30 holidays, she gets swept off her feet by this butch Italian waiter, he swears his undying love, says that he wants to take her home to meet his family (after the holiday season is over of course). He sees her off at the airport and says that he'll write, and never does. She gets home and a short time later realises that she's been knocked up. She's blamed Tony for it ever since, seems the poor bastard looks just like his dad. She eventually put him into care because, she said, she 'couldn't cope'.

Tony was fostered by a pervert. It happens a lot. Dumped by his mother, fostered out to this bloke and his wife, then forgotten about by his social worker.

Tony could never understand how the council could let a childless middle-aged couple be foster parents. Come to think of it, it does seem pretty strange doesn't it? If a kid's got to learn what it's like to be a part of a caring, loving family, you would think that they would put him in with a family that had kids, wouldn't you? Anyway, the foster father started on Tony almost from the day he arrived and he couldn't tell his social worker, after all it was her that had put him there.

He left there at sixteen and has been working as a London Transport apprentice ever since. He's got a bedsit over near the Angel and just like Si he met us on one of his bored-shitless nights when we were hanging around at Max's.

That night was Tony's first, Wivva brought him in. Wivva had been seeing a lot of Tony since we first met at 
Max's. He had that look in his eyes that I must have had after my first one, and just like me, he wanted to go out again.

Mick had a 'special' laid on for the next night.