1.

I am unhappily married. My wife and I are recently separated. Separated from this world and the next in fact.

 

I knew she was being unfaithful to me for some time. She was struggling to lose weight, so I paid for a membership at a local gym with a personal trainer. My suspicions became slowly aroused when she was not losing any weight and was spending more and more time ‘working out’.

 

Eva would come home showered, looking very florid, and was, for reasons that would later become obvious, dismissive of me and uncommunicative.

 

She went out for drinks a few times a week with her ‘girl friends’. As she became more distant from me, on more than one occasion, she came home went to her bed in the next room and as she would pass me on the landing I would catch a whiff of men's aftershave and the odd button on her blouse in the wrong hole. One night she came in with the back of her skirt stuck in her knickers. The pressure cooker, that was my mind, was reaching boiling point.

 

The terrible and inevitable confrontation that would change everything beyond comprehension between the two of us came when she came home at the weekend. I was in one of those drug fuelled whisky binges. As it was the weekend I’d taken a mix of coke and MDMA. Or magic candy as I liked to call this combination. The television in the corner of the room seemed to be growing and shrinking. Growing and shrinking. I would get up periodically to do another line or go to the toilet to vomit. The dog was following me so I kicked it into the conservatory, so I could carry on in peace. I seemed to only see the adverts, with shows jammed between them. I turned the TV off and had a laugh, dancing and stamping out imaginary mice in the pattern of the carpet. When I realised what I was doing, I turned the Dire Straits CD off, and went back to the TV.

 

Eva had completely lost interest in me and who wouldn’t (Apart from maybe a fellow alcoholic junkie)? I think If it wasn’t for the lifestyle I’ve given her, she would have left me a long time ago.

 

She came home, and I tried to plant a kiss on her in some futile gesture of affection, but she turned her face from me. She seemed to be smelling of two different brands of men's aftershave. It seemed to be a mixture of Fahrenheit and Hugo Boss. She’d obviously, at best, been with two men over the course of the evening, or, had two men at the same time. Of course it could have been ‘all in the mind’.

 

‘Huge Boss and Fire and Heat’ I slurred at her. She looked into my drooped, red eyes and just hissed like a snake.

 

I recoiled back into my armchair and picked up the bottle of booze. Finding it empty when it reached my lips, and being totally consumed with rage, I threw it  across the living room in her general direction. I just wanted to scare her. Let her know how angry I was. Being drunk was just bad timing. Actually, I was drunk nearly every night so any time was bad timing.

 

The bottle hit her in the temple and killed her instantly, she slumped to the floor in slow motion, like a disused tower after the detonator had been plunged. Just unlucky for the both of us I suppose.

 

I’m Reece Fink. I will go from being semi-famous in trade journals to being infamous in the daily papers. I am an Account Handler with a large Advertising Agency. I am also a complete and utter shit. In fact, I am  proud of being an utter shit. My colleagues and clients respect me for it. For some reason they think it has to do with my passion for the job.

 

My job mainly entails going to a client who has a product or service they want to sell. I decide the best way to sell it, tell the creative department what I want them to come up with according to the target audience i.e. The largest group of suckers who are likely to want to buy the product, or the suckers we want to persuade to buy it.. I then take the creative’s work to the client and sell them the ideas as best I can. If they like the work and the product sells, then I have done my job. As one advertising guru once put it: ‘Advertising is the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket.’.

 

The guys in the production department call me a baggage handler, which in one sense is true, but you do need finely honed sales skills. I get a nice fat bonus at Christmas if I have performed well that year and I get to drive a nice luxury work car too, for burning up and down the motorway for client and production meetings, usually whilst drunk from boozy lunches.

 

As ad men we may be seen as the pariahs of modern society, as the people who bombard consumers through every form of media, from television, phone apps and the web through to sporting events and billboards. I’ve sold anything from cigarettes to nappies, but it keeps the mortgage paid every month on our five bedroomed detached house and maintains my wife’s expensive and exclusive lifestyle, and my excessive drug habit.

 

My home is in Allerton, at 16 Menlove Gardens East in Liverpool, in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in Liverpool. It’s a very quiet area and we have a large green at the front of the house to walk our Scottie dog, which, by the way, I absolutely hate. It snaps, barks and stinks. My wife, however, doted on it like it was a child, it even shares her bed more than I did before the end, We tried for children, but it turns out I’m a Jaffa. As seedless as an orange from Israel. Another reason for which I am not good enough for her.

 

All in all, I am self centred and morally bankrupt. I have addictions to gambling and any drug I can get my hands on. I have also been known to have sex with the odd ‘Brass’ every now and again. Now I am a killer too.

 

There was no getting away from it I had murdered my wife. Premeditated or not, there was no turning the clock back. I thought I would go into shock or at least panic. For some reason neither of these things happened. The first thing I did was chop a couple of lines out on the glass topped coffee table.

 

My life was already in the toilet, being an alcoholic, a coke fiend and owing money, not just to the bank and work colleagues, but to loan sharks, bookmakers and drug dealers. Things couldn’t get much worse. The only plus in my life was my job, and they would let any reprobate do what I do, so long as they generate money for the CEO.

 

As you can imagine, myriad scenarios to solve this conundrum were racing through my mind, mostly based on films, crime dramas and episodes of Crime Watch. According to these shows the first thing you do is to go to B&Q for tools and equipment. From the dramas you’d think, by now, they’d have an isle by now specifically for the disposal of bodies. I suppose one plus in this situation as far as forensics are concerned, there was no blood to clean up or worry about.

 

I’m getting very anxious at the thought of being caught. I would not cope in prison. Being upper middle class they would probably label me a nonce. I bet they wouldn’t even bother to grind the broken glass in my spittle filled food.

 

I went out to the garden to think. My sacred space being the shed at the bottom of the garden.  I went in, sat down on my pile of vintage porn mags and lit a cigar. As I looked around, I saw that most of the tools, which I bought for the gardener would be ideal. I decided to call him in the morning and sack him.

 

I stood up and tested the wooden floor of the shed for strength. These planks should come up fairly easily and I could dig as deep as I wanted for a grave. Her grave. The compost bin next to the shed, behind a bush, would serve well for the movement of the excavated soil.

 

No one should miss her in the short term. Nearly all of her family are in Israel. There is the odd cousin and a brother in this country, but she isn’t that great in keeping in touch with them. She didn’t have a job so I should be OK in that respect. If anyone asks around I’ll just say she left me for another younger, fitter, more handsome man. And probably moved out of Liverpool or even out of the country. The personal trainer wouldn’t dare to get in touch with me.

 

I look again around the shed, making a mental inventory of everything I will need. Spade, Claw Hammer to bring up the floorboards. I am sure I will need some lime powder or something to break the body down, but I could just be thinking of what they did in Goodfellas.

 

Overall, I come to the conclusion that sooner or later I am going to be caught. The body will be found. I’ll be on the news. Everyone will know, my mother will probably die of a coronary. At least we didn’t have any children.

 

I thought I’d do what anyone would do in the situation of having a body to dispose of. I looked it up on Wikipedia and then bought a few factual crime books that goths and nerds like to read from Amazon on the subject of unsolved murders, serial killers and the like.

 

I dragged Eva up the stairs to the bathroom. Not an easy task as she always was ‘big boned’. With difficulty, I heaved her into the bath. I turned the taps on and put as much shower gel, bubble bath, shampoo, conditioner and bath bombs as I could into the water. Got to keep the smell to a minimum before I can dig the hole. Also If there are discharges and leaks involved it would be best to keep them in the tub.

 

I went back to the living room opened another bottle of whisky, racked up some more Charlie and watched TV . I didn’t even choose a channel. I just watched whatever programme was being shown as I turned the set on.

 

I had drunk so much that I had fallen unconscious slumped over the love chair. I must have woken at some point, and staggered around in a stupor, in the vain hope of reaching the bedroom and collapsed.

 

I had the full horror of everything come flooding back to me when I woke. I didn’t have a hangover as I usually drink so much that I am always inebriated.  I got some more whisky, this time with some MDMA powder to lift my mood. I checked the time. Ten thirty five. I remembered the books I’d ordered, and with my Amazon Prime account they should be here sometime today. In some futile way, it was something to hang onto.

 

I snorted a line then decide to get rid of her car somewhere. I thought the best place would be some sordid lovers lane. Getting in the fat tart’s Mini, I drove down to the car park that overlooks the river, which is renowned for dogging.

 

I leave the car there, and throw her keys in the Mersey. I don a hat and make my way to the local bus stop to catch the number 61 bus home. With any luck the Police will think she’s been sexually assaulted and thrown in the river.

 

I fucking hate public transport, with the unwashed and crumbly pensioners, but needs must as the devil drives.

 

I realise it’s only a matter of time before she is missed, so I start to brainstorm, mainly on how to get out of the country. Maybe I’ll go to Thailand and snort and whore my way around there. I’ll open the safe and get some cash I had saved in case the Estonians or the creditors came after me, and my passport when I get home.

 

As I’m unlocking the safe I hear someone walking up the gravel on the drive of our house. I’m terrified. But then I watch from the hall as a tiny red slip of paper is being sheepishly pushed through the letterbox.

 

Of course it’s that dickhead of a postman, who has chosen to leave my DIY murder books at the depot for me to collect.

 

It might have been all of the whisky and coke, but I find myself loosing my rag and storm towards the door.

 

 

2.

 

I am a Liverpool postman. I have trodden the streets and roads of this city in my red livery and my regulation boots for fifteen years. I keep myself to myself. I get the job done and I do the job well. The only reason I stand out in anyway at the depot is because I don’t stand out. I am not in a relationship and haven’t been for some years. I have a flat in the rough area of Huyton. Or ‘Two dogs fightin’ as a lot of the locals call it.

 

I couldn’t work in an office. Too many people around, with bosses watching what you’re doing. Radio Shitty cackling on the analogue radio. Plus there’s the regimental ‘Dolly Parton’ hours. And I meet more big titted women on my round than I would in an office.

 

Most of the guys I work with are heavy drinkers and that’s where their spare money goes. Pissed against the Armitage Shanks wall. I am no drinker. I never have been really. I read Charles Bukowski’s ‘Post Office’ once. They were on offer, as I like to think, at Waterstone’s. Buy none get one free. It was a good book, but even though I am a postman myself, I couldn’t really relate to it, what with all the alcohol, fighting and sex with tarty, fat, thin, no-necked, plain ugly women. Thinking back I did get a woman back to my flat once, after a rare night out for me, at the Christmas do. Her nipples tasted of nicotine, but that’s as close as I have got to Bukowski.

 

People find my hatred of beer quite odd. It could have something to do with my name being John Smith. Drinking to me is just a numbing of the senses. It sort of hypnotises me and I just stand in the corner like a wobbly standard lamp. It does make you lose your inhibitions, but in my opinion that’s because you let leave of your senses. Weed has the reverse effect, it heightens senses, and that, I think, is the way it should be.

 

Although I have no real qualifications other than getting two GCSEs at C grade and an A for Art, I like to think I am pretty cultured. I try to keep this from the lads at work though.

 

In my free time, when I’m not just zoning out watching documentaries or imbibing classic modern novels, by writers who include the likes of Vonnegut, J G Ballard and Haruki Murakami, to broaden my mind, I listen to music. I listen to music a lot. It’s my one true passion in life. I think it probably takes up about one third of my life. I have a collection of about one thousand plus records, covering many different genres. I enjoy a spliff as I listen as well. It’s like going into a higher state of consciousness. It doesn’t really matter what type of music I listen to, as long as it’s good. I could be listening to folk one day and hard-core punk the next.

 

I think the only reason I have kept this job for so long is because I can listen to to any music I want as I do my round. I reckon I could do anything if I had my music on. I’d be more than happy doing the heavy lifting on the foundation of a building site if I could listen to some quality House music, as I’m digging it.

 

I covered the walls in the spare room, where I listen to my records, with fibre glass loft insulation to make it sound proof. There’s a nice comfy Lazee Boy armchair and an air conditioning unit where the window used to be, so I can control the temperature all year round and the records won’t get warped. I got a fire door fitted too, so that my collection is fairly safe in the event of a blaze. I can really crank the volume up in there and not annoy the neighbours. Before I lagged it, I received a letter from Environmental Health. They threatened to take away all of my equipment.

 

When people ask me what I do for a living, the next question is nearly always about being bitten by dogs. I have never been attacked while doing this job and have never come close in fact. The only time I have suffered serious injury was when I was bitten by a highly sprung brass letter box. I lost the top of my right middle finger. When someone pisses me off at the depot, I always have to remember to flick the one on my left hand back at them. They would have sewn it back on if the house owner hadn’t thrown it out with the rubbish thinking it was chewing gum.

 

The thing about me and dogs though, is however well trained, preened and pampered, friendly and loyal they are to their owners, I hate the little fuckers. I also hate their owners almost as much as I hate them. Green-wellied, urban farmer chic tossers. Barbour must be making a killing at the moment, who by the way, do waxed dog coats. I loathe the way they talk to them in sentences, as if they can understand what they say.

 

As a child I had a deep fear and loathing of canines deep rooted in my psyche. My father decided to treat me to a night at the cinema to see ‘Watership Down’. I couldn’t sleep that night. Images of the dogs tearing apart cute, docile and friendly rabbits stuck with me until I was about six.

 

Then there was Kiki. I’ll never forget the name of that little French bitch. It was our first foreign holiday in 1979 when I was seven. We went to Normandy. As I got out of the car at our accommodation, excited at being in a foreign country. I took my first step on French soil and I was immediately attacked by this vicious little dog. I remember the shear panic of it. It was almost as bad as the pain. I had no control of the situation, so I just screamed for help. I remember wetting the bed that night. So as well as being frightened and traumatised I had been humiliated. My father told me when the subject came up many years later that there was a big Rabies scare in France that year, so they were terrified as well.

 

In the summer break while I was in junior school me and a friend, when we were bored, went looking for lizards in the local cemetery. I remember it was a sunny day and we were enjoying the tranquillity of the church grounds, lost in our own little world. We heard barking and yapping, growing increasingly louder as it approached. Then a black Labrador came through a gap in the hedge and came running at us. My friend had a family dog, so he knew the drill and stood stock still. I, however, instinctively ran for my life. It sank its teeth into the knee joint and I fell facedown into the coloured gravel on someone’s grave.

 

A man came and dragged the dog off me. He was the security guard from the adjoining school. The dog was his. He told me how sorry he was and he took me back to his office and called my mum. She came and took me to hospital. There was no need for stitches thankfully, but I would need a Tetanus jab. So Nurse Erica Bristow lay me on a trolley and gave me the single most intense shot of pure pain I had experience up until that point in my life.

                                                                                                                     

I do like some pets though. One type of pet in particular. The self sufficient, feminine, graceful, gentle and affectionate cat. People, mainly dog owners, think they are selfish, as they do as they please. I had a cat back in the mid-eighties, back when I was a youngster. She was called Mrs Crevatte, after the landlady in Hancock’s Half Hour. Everyone in my family loved her. We did spoil her a bit, but not too much. That cat was the first living thing other than my family that I loved. She taught me to love and receive love in return. The only things dogs seem to return are sticks and tennis balls.

 

In those days people didn’t keep their dogs in the house and walk them a couple of times a day. It was a long time ago. The time of not bothering with seatbelts and you could leave your front door open. You get the picture. People just used to let their dogs run free all day, chasing and sexually assaulting children and causing motorcyclists to take headers over their handlebars.

 

It was a glorious summer day, the school holidays, and I was playing in the front garden, a friend and I were throwing water balloons at each other, to have a laugh and cool off. I heard barking from one of the semi-feral dogs in the road, seconds later our Mrs came running to me, a trail of spattering blood in her wake. She lay down and looked at me as she died. I knew she thought I should help, but she also knew that it was too late.

 

I cried as the family gathered around her grave we were in tears as my mum dug the grave. I just couldn’t bear to do it myself and couldn’t watch as the hole was filled in.

 

Any way after feeling a period of acute grief, I got on with my life. You just did in those days. There weren’t any child psychologists available then. Certainly not on the NHS. But it did stay with me for a long time.

 

For the most part I had a happy childhood, in a happy home with a happy family. Then the hormones came from out of nowhere, three or four years were spent doing anything from slamming doors in my parent’s faces to burgling a school, for which I earned myself a criminal record. I left school as soon as I could and after a couple of Youth Training Scheme non-jobs I joined the Royal Mail.

 

Recently though,  dogs seem to have become more ubiquitous. They are everywhere. Usually thoroughbreds. I suppose the owners see them as status symbols, like their cars and houses.

 

The other day I was having a nice sausage roll outside the café in Calderstones park. There was a family with a dachshund. It sat down in front of me and started barking at me for some of my lunch. The owners started laughing, saying ‘come on get away from there he’s trying to eat his sausage roll.’ That’s the problem with dog owners they think everyone should like their animals as much as they do. They obviously thought I was going to crack a smile, but I just sat there Stoney faced. I didn’t enjoy my sausage roll. If the owners weren’t there I would have been tempted to give him a kick when no one was looking.

 

I deliver letters and packages to the Allerton district of L18. It is a posh area. All massive five-bedroomed houses two cars in the drive, ninety percent of them are German luxury motors, which I have always found strange as the neighbourhood has two synagogues in the local area and there are mezuzahs on most off the door frames. The little boxes that Jewish people have on every door in the house with Hebrew prayers in them. I have nothing against any religion in particular, I just think of the all the trouble it has caused throughout history. From the Romans and the Christians onwards and even a few millennia before that I imagine. Now we have the war on terror. I am fully briefed on suspect packages. I now know that semtex smells of marzipan and if the package is leaking not to touch it.

 

No doubt there’ll be a few packages today. I have a bad back most of the time anyway, but today is pretty bad. I have taken some painkillers as I can’t afford to go off sick but the pain is still shooting up my spine and down my legs. I collect my bag and head off on my round. I would normally take the packages with me so that no one complains, but today I make sure I have plenty of ‘Sorry you were out…’ flyers.

 

I pick out a nice Rhythm and Blues soundtrack on my iPod and head off. It’s a beautiful day. People are saying hi to me as I’m plodding along. Friendly Mr Postie, they are probably thinking. Even if I do bring bills and solicitor’s letters, there are the birthday cards and presents, DVDs and CDs and other nice things that I bring to them.

 

I’m about an hour into my shift and I come to number 16 Menlove Gardens North. I know from the name and address that a married couple live here and buy a lot of DVD’s, books and stuff from Amazon. I walk up the drive and, quietly as I can, shove the calling card through the letter box and make haste.

 

That’s when I hear the door opens. Oh shit here we go again.

 

I hear ‘Hey you!’ and that’s when the snarling and barking starts. This medium sized white dog comes haring through the man’s legs and straight at me. Before I have any real time to react, the dog leaps up my leg and sinks its teeth into my groin. I immediately throw up my Cornflakes. I punch it as hard as I can on its muzzle and it whimpers off to its owner. I grasp what I think is a stone from the flower bed. It’s only when I miss him and see it splat against the window of his front door that I realise it is a dog turd. ‘I am going to fucking kill you!’ I snarl. The man comes and stands over me. ‘If you report this’ I’ll report you’ he says in a hushed, angry tone. ‘Do you know how many times I’ve had to drive to that fucking depot? And I’ve seen you smoking weed on your route. You’ll be jobless as soon as I put the bloody phone down.’ He goes inside, slamming the door. The turd slides down the door leaving a repugnant streak down the glass.

 

I look down at my crotch to inspect the damage. There is quite a bit of blood there but I’m not bleeding profusely. I feel totally humiliated and very, very angry. I can’t bear the thought of taking my trousers down. I could be castrated or worse. The fabric is torn.

 

I’ll get to the hospital as fast as I can then I’ll think of a way to deal with that moneyed cunt later. I stagger to the corner of the street where it meets the main road and call an ambulance.

 

The paramedics arrive. They ask me how it happened. I’m going back for that bastard and his viscous ‘pet’, so I tell him it was probably a stray dog that I’d seen around for a few days previous. And that it must have been one of those dogs people get for Christmas. I throw the idea out there that a bin bag and a canal would probably have been the better option. They just look at me.

 

When we get to A&E, the nurse pulls my trousers down, and takes a sharp intake of breath. ‘It looks a lot worse than it is, lovely.’ Don’t call me pet names please. Not now. ‘It’s just a torn scrotum and your right testicle has dropped down a bit. I’ll just have to irrigate it, sew up the wound and get the doctor to prescribe some painkillers and antibiotics.  We’ll bandage it well so that you are a bit more comfortable and above all keep that area clean. I’ll get a sick note for you now.’

 

She gives me a knowing look and says, ‘Don’t let this get you down. I know how embarrassed you must be feeling for this to happen to you as a man. We had a case a few months ago. A couple came home after they had had a few on a night out. They stripped, put the lights off and when she went to pull the duvet over them she accidently tore his scrotum open with her long fingernails. I bet that was a night to remember.

 

I waddle from the hospital to the bus stop. My mind is in turmoil. The lads might have a whip round for me, as I’m bound to lose my job with my poorer than poor sickness record. But I doubt it as I keep such a low profile. I just concentrate on getting home.

 

I drop some of the pills and go and lie down on the bed. After a few minutes I drop off to sleep.

 

I wake up pouring with sweat, my heart convulsing to hell. I’d had a nightmare about the dog attack. In the dream it had gone for my throat. And I had lay on the path, bleeding to death like Mrs Crevatte did all those years ago. I feel the pain and look down my body to the bandages around my crotch. Have I been fucking neutered?

 

I take some more painkillers, only this time I take double the amount. I slip into another deep sleep. Only this time I don’t dream.

 

I get rudely awakened by my alarm clock which is always set for 4.00am, due to work. I decide to get up and have something to eat.

 

As I’m sitting there eating rice pudding straight from the tin, I realise I have to get that man. After all, he has probably just lost me my job, which was everything to me. Without my job there are no LPs, no weed and no internet.

 

I start plotting in my head as to what I can possibly do to this man. I am no murderer. I’m not a fighter. I even have trouble with heated arguments. One thing is certain though, He has to feel that all-consuming fear and panic that I have been subjected to.

 

I have a plan. Putting on my uniform , and taking the sick note as I leave, I head to the depot.

 

Once there, no one says hello, or even asks why I’m walking a bit funny. I check out the keys to one of the vans and collect a couple of sacks for delivery. Whoever had the van before me was obviously a youngster judging by the drivel on the radio. Justin fuckin’ Beiberlake or some other millionaire with a complete dearth of talent.

 

When I had some anger issues in the past, about the time I found out my girlfriend was cheating on me, My GP told me the secret of not getting angry is ‘not to get angry.’ What the hell is that supposed to mean, I pondered. But I now think I grasp what he said. As Don Corleone said to Sonny in Godfather part one:’ it clouds your judgement.’ I need this to go down with precision. In my mind I know exactly what I am going to do and exactly how I am going to do it. There will be consequences, but I don’t give a fuck, because I am fucked.

 

I drive straight to Mr Fink’s home. There’s just his car in the drive, so I know he’s in there alone. After reversing the van just inside the drive and opening the back, I go around to the back garden, bunking over the gate. I am in luck as the dog has been let out for a shit. I run over to it, and after some cajoling I get the thing into a mail bag. I close the sack with a cable tie. Once inside the dog  goes quiet, which I find strange. It must be some kind of self preservation instinct. There is a bit of whimpering though. I go back to the van and throw it in the back.

 

Now for Mr Fink. I go to the front door, round the paving, skirting the house, so as not to arouse his suspicion by walking on the gravel. Standing to the side of the door, I give the doorbell a ring. He marches straight out onto the drive. Before he turns around, I rush him, grab the hem of his Pringle sweater and pull it over his head and face. This also disables his arms. I use another cable tie on his wrists at his front, and shove him in the back of the van with the dog. I also cover his head with a mail mag..

 

'What the fuck! What the fuck are you doing you mad fucking bastard!' he yells.

 

‘I might be a mad, but you’re the fucking bastard mate’

 

I shove another 'Sorry we missed you..’ card through the letterbox to give me an alibi, if there are questions asked.

 

I drive calmly home to the flat. Mr Fink has decided to keep quiet. I’m sure he is now beginning to realise the gravity of the situation. As am I.

 

I take the van round the back to the car park, dragging Fink to the goods elevator I take him up to my floor. Entering the flat, I put him in my easy chair in the music room. I return to the van and do the same with the dog.

 

I take the van back to the depot with my sick note. The boss seems genuinely sympathetic and he says to take as long as I need to get better. He tells me his wife had just made him have a vasectomy, so he has some idea of what I’m going through. He warns me that this could be another step closer to the sack though.

 

 

 

 

3.

 

Ok. I seem to have turned over two pages at once here. I am in the process of burying my wife, after murdering her, and now I’m being kidnapped.

 

I realise that it could be any number of people who I owe money to. From my ‘Big time’ Estonian coke dealer to Clive at work, who I owe over a grand to, and he’s just trying to scare me. I pray it’s the latter, for reasons I am sure you can imagine. It might even be my wife’s chubby chasing lover.

 

I am now seated. The bag is removed from my head. I am looking into the eyes of a man wearing a full face balaclava.

 

‘Please. Don’t hurt me whoever you are! I can get you money. Lots of money’ This is all bullshit of course, but I do have the five grand I took from the safe for my getaway. ‘Just check my wallet. That should do you for starters.’ He goes in my pocket, tickling my glans  as he does it. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but it still sends a shiver down my spine.

 

‘I’m not going to  hurt you Mr Fink, but he might’

 

He points towards my wife’s dog.’You see. Here's the deal. I hate dogs, and, even more than that I hate dog owners. What I want, and it isn’t your money, is for you to eat your dog. If you find you don’t have the appetite, then I’m sure your little Scottie here will get hungry before you do, and all I’ll have to do is get rid of are your bones. Mechanically stripped. See? Your only other option is for you to take this bottle of diazepam and drink this bottle of vodka. I promise you a painless suicide. Then of course the dog will eat you anyway’

 

Thank Christ it’s not the Estonians. I seem to have been kidnapped by some weirdo. Shit! He’s a fucking serial killer. My God I didn’t know Karma worked this fast. I’m now getting very paranoid. I’m trembling, and it’s not just the whisky and MDMA wearing off. I don’t think I’m going to get out of this cluster fuck of a situation alive. On reflection it is probably more than I deserve. Suicide is the cowards way out. But then what could be more cowardly than killing a woman and that woman happens to be your wife.

 

I look around the small room. There is no natural light. No window, but the air is fresh due to an air conditioning unit. There is one wall with shelving, weighed down by a lot of vinyl records. There is a large hi-fi system and the room is lagged with fibre glass. There is no sound from the outside world, so I conclude that no one will hear me if I scream for help. He puts on a record. A very loud record. He holds up the cover to show me. It’s by a band called Napalm Death and the LP is called ‘Scum’. I don’t know what this band’s modus operandi is, but they sound like a pneumatic drill with a pig being raped on vocals. Or a pig being raped with a pneumatic drill.

 

The man in the balaclava leaves the room and closes the door over and engages two heavy duty locks.

 

I am thinking about a means of escape, but I don’t know who this guy is or where the hell I am. I suppose this is just what I deserve. Satisfying the sick needs of this dog hating lunatic?

 

Of course. I know this man. It was the bloody postman the dog attacked this morning. How could this be happening. That bite must have really hurt him, now he wants his revenge.

 

The postman comes back in the room. He undresses me down to my boxer shorts. He grabs the dog and plugs a set of hair clippers into the mains. The postman then, starting around the neck, sheers all of the dog’s fur down to his tale.

 

‘What’s this mutt’s name anyway? If you say Snowy, I will break your jaw.’

 

He looks at me expectantly. ‘Hercules’ I say through gritted teeth, wincing.

 

He leaves the room again. After about five hours, with the record clicking on the run out groove for hours like water torture, he returns. He has a big pan full of instant gravy and begins to apply it to Hercules’ naked body with a large paintbrush and then he slavers it all over me, including my groin.

 

‘This should help to get things going’

 

'You're the postman aren't you? You’re not the type of person to do this. Come on, if you release me now you will have humiliated me enough, don’t you think. I swear I won’t tell anyone about this. I have nothing to gain from reporting you.’

 

He puts on another LP. This time it’s the Bee Gees. Hercules goes crazy, howling, due to the high pitched brothers Gibb singing ‘Staying alive’.

 

When he’s out of the room I neck some Diazepam from the bottle on the floor and wash it down with some vodka. I’m glad that I at least have something to keep the cold turkey at bay, and to help me sleep as it must be late by now.

 

I have a few spliffs that evening, zoning out in front of one of those stupid, American sitcoms that have been through so many series, you’d think the production companies don’t have any idea how to stop making the same jokes. It kind of takes my mind off things going on in the music room. Chewing gum for the eyes and all that.

 

I don’t remember going to bed, but I’d managed to get my clothes off before I got into it. It must be all the excitement from yesterday that knocked me out. I’m up early though. My clock reads 6.05am.

 

I switch the TV back on and catch up on the news. It’s the usual plethora of suicide bombings, child sex abuse and yet another article about something else that gives you cancer.

 

The local news comes on. There is a report from outside Mr Fink’s home. Shit. The report went something like this:

 

‘Police went to a house, in the Allerton district of Liverpool this morning after a milkman had found a trail of blood on the owners’ drive with the front door left open. There was excrement on the front door so they are suspecting an anti-semitic attack. First thoughts are that there had been some kind of stabbing , but once inside they found the body of Eva Fink in the bathtub with no wounds to her body. It is also thought that she suffered a blow to the head with a blunt object. Police are currently look for her husband, Reece Fink, Anyone with any information should get in touch with Crimestoppers.’

 

‘Jesus H Christ!’. What the fuck. I’ve got a murderer in my back bedroom.

 

I start to panic. I have kidnapped a wanted man. Is this good or bad. I don’t know. I’ve just got to get things back to normal. Fuck the dog. Fuck revenge. One thing is true, if I’m found with him, I’ve either been harbouring a murderer or a kidnapped someone.

 

I decide to check out my guests. Fink was awake and in the process of taking lots of Diazepam with the cheap nasty vodka.

 

‘What the fuck are you doing! I didn’t mean for you to go through with it you daft arsehole!’ Now I don’t want him to die. I want to get out of this whole mess.

 

I pick him up with him facing away from me and do the heimlich manoeuvre. He chunders all over my Stereo, bringing up the vodka and pills.

 

It’s still dark, so I put on a dark blue tracksuit with a hood and a baseball cap to hide my face.

 

I don’t have a car and I’ve taken the van back to the depot, the nearest thing I’ve got is a mountain bike. I get Fink and the dog from the music room, we go down in the lift.

 

I put gaffer tape over his mouth and a hooded top over his head too, so he looks like one of the scallies on the estate.

 

I tell him to sit on the handlebars, saying I’m going to take him to hospital. He just weeps. I take the dog with me too, with a lead fashioned from a piece of flex, so he can run alongside us. To the residents we’ll just look like a pair of kids going to the chippy or somewhere.

 

I had made a sign to hang around Fink’s neck reading:

 

‘Take me to the nearest police station: I have murdered my wife.’

 

Keeping my head down, and taking a circuitous route around the housing estate, I stop at a lamppost outside an off licence. I tie them to the lamppost and give them both a good hard kick in the knackers to say ‘Bon voyage’. The dog didn’t have knackers, but I think it got the message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From an Article in the Liverpool Echo:

 

The Mystery of ‘The Bisto Kid’

 

A suspected murderer and his shorn dog were found semi-naked, covered in gravy, tied to a lamp post in the Huyton area of Liverpool yesterday.

 

The man, Reece Fink, is thought to have brutally murdered his wife while under the influence of alcohol and class A drugs, supposedly after a heated argument.

 

It has been reported that the murder happened two days ago and the whereabouts of Mr Fink during this time remain unknown.

 

It has been suggested by Police at the scene, that Mr Fink had been hiding in a loft, due to fibre glass fragments found on his body. The conundrum of the vigilante, the gravy, and the state of the dog, remain, as yet, unexplained.

 

 

It was cold. Two days after Christmas. There was a layer of frost on the ground under my wellington boots.

 

I had bought a metal detector for my eldest son, who was 12, for Christmas. The big kid in me wanted to have a go with it first while he was still asleep. Of course I wanted to make sure it was working as well. That was my excuse anyway.

 

We live in Little Neston, on the Wirral in Cheshire. The liverpudlians on the other side of the Mersey look down on us, mainly because we have more money and bigger houses and nicer cars. We are known as the perineum. That which separates the arseholes from the dicks, because we are in between them and wales. We ain’t one thing nor the other. We have the picturesque countryside of the Cheshire plains and beaches, golf courses and nice places to eat. So all in all it's not na bad place to live.

 

It was 9.00am and the sun was up, so I was out in the field behind our large semi. The field belonged to a rich young man, Elliot, who lived alone. His father used to produce TV commercials and dabbled in feature films earlier in his career. His house was older than ours and detached, with a stable. The family had its roots in New York.  We knew him well enough to say hello and take in packages for each other, but not enough to invite him in for drinks or dinner or anything like that.

 

My son, Malcolm, wouldn’t be up and about for a few hours yet, I imagined, due to all the excitement of the festivities, so I put the headphones on and started to sweep the field. I just started at random. After about half an hour I got a beep. The ground wasn't frozen solid, so I got my spade and started digging. Crumbling the soil between my fingers, I found a coin. It wasn’t Roman, but it was an old farthing. I felt quite pleased with myself. Not the most exciting of finds, but I put it in my pocket to show Malcolm later to pique his interest.

 

I started criss crossing around the field. Again I got a signal. The ground was a bit more solid here, but the signal was really strong, so it must have been something big. I dug down and came to a flat metal object which appeared to be made of lead. I found the edges. It looked like a box, about three feet long and two feet wide. I managed to excavate and extricate the box completely. It was really heavy, but I was pleased with my find and excited by what might be inside.

 

On closer inspection there wasn’t any kind of lock on the box. Not even a padlock. I dragged it back to our house and dumped it down in the workshop in my garage.

 

***

After a lazy dinner of turkey curry, the family went to watch TV. My wife was having a snooze after doing all the work in the kitchen.

 

I went to the garage and had another look at the box. I was thinking, is this one of those time capsules, or something more sinister, like some sort of bomb. It could be the proceeds of a bank job, with the robbers in prison, counting down the days until they can come back to collect their ill gotten gains.

 

I couldn’t wait to get it open. The tension I was feeling was causing me to shake. There was a line running around the edge of the sides of the box. This looked like lead or solder. I figured I could melt it away with my gas soldering iron. I went into my cupboard full of tools and set the equipment up.

 

The lead seal dribbled away quite easily, but it took some time. As I was about to open it, I wondered if I should ask someone to come in and witness this, but I thought, if there was something dangerous inside, I should be alone.

 

With a bit of bashing around the seal with my hammer, it was completely loosened. I held my breath as I lifted the top part away.

 

When I looked down, it wasn’t the treasure trove, or the unexploded ordinance I was expecting. It looked like a sixties or seventies home move projector and a film can. There was a notebook in there too.

 

I feared that it might be something dubious like child porn, or evidence of something sinister.

 

‘Are you coming to watch Indiana Jones, or what Dad’ my son Malcolm said from the adjoining door. I jumped with shock, put the lid down on the box and said ‘Sure Malcolm. I’ll be right there,’

 

The box would have to wait until later. I will have to take a look at what exactly it is on the film. I felt a wave of excitement. A mystery was about to unfold. Of course it could just be someone's family movies, but why bury it?

 

***

 

After having a tea time watch of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I couldn’t stop think about my own ark in the garage. After lunch, I decided to call Elliot, my neighbour, and owner of the field. I

 

got his number up on my phone and made the call.

 

‘Hi Elliot, it’s Frank your neighbour. I’ve been metal detecting in the meadow behind your house and I’ve found something that looks as though it’s of some significance. It appears to be someone’s home movie kit, but it was sealed in a lead box, so I really think you should take a look at it.’

 

‘Okay Frank, why don’t you bring it over tonight, I’ll open a bottle of whisky. It’s probably one of my grandfather’s projects that he wasn’t proud of, when he was working for one of the old studios.’’

 

‘Okay, does eight o’clock sound good?’

 

‘Yes, my sister is here for lunch, but I’ll be free by then, so no problem.’

 

‘See you then, then.

 

***

Elliot was sitting in his front porch smoking a joint, pacing around. He is quite liberal and arty, so I wasn’t surprised. I have only smoked weed on the odd occasion, but as it was Christmas, with no work tomorrow, I thought that I might as well when he offered me a toke.

 

'So that's the treasure trunk. I’ve been racking my brains as to what it might be, and to be honest I’m a bit worried that it’s something that should have been left where it was. My Dad and my Grandfather had their secrets and dark sides as well as being good family men.’

 

We got hold of each end and took it inside and put it on his billiard table.

 

He opened it and has a look at one of the note books. There were little illustrations, storyboards, and photographs glued onto the pages here and there. They were pictures from circuses. Clowns, trapeze artists, strongmen and the like. The illustrations included technical drawings for what looked like a cannon for firing a daredevil from.

 

Elliot said that he recognised the drawing style and handwriting as that of his grandfather.

 

‘I don’t know what you know about him, but he played a big part in the some feature films after the war. He was mainly a writer, but sometimes he got behind the camera as well. He was Lighting Cameraman on some of the Ealing comedies in the late fifties.

 

Elliot opened on of the film cans. The label on the side said ‘Dare Devils’ He very gently unspooled a little bit of the film at the start of the spool.

 

‘What’s on the film?’

 

‘It doesn’t appear to be anything special. The first few feet are just of a circus ring master. It could be footage of a project that never saw the light of day.’

 

He took the post war projector from the box and examined it. The projector had one of those old plugs from just after the war, so Elliot went to the storeroom in his ample garage and came back with a new plug and the appropriate fuse.

 

‘I suppose now we’ve got it set up, we should give it a watch’ said Elliot. I agreed. I have to admit I was excited. An undocumented film, who would miss that.

 

The film was in negative form, so we had no way of knowing if it was developed or even if it was shown to anyone else.

 

Elliott opened the can. Very carefully he fed the start of the spool through the projector.

 

‘Ready’ he said.

 

‘No going back now. Can I have a whisky please Elliot if you’ve got any?’ He poured me a glass of malt, and then he set up the screen that he used for looking at slides at the end of the room.

 

The light from the projector whirred into life and the opening credits appeared on the screen. The film was obviously ‘hand cranked’ and there was a slightly fast, comedic feel to it, like an old Buster Keaton movie.

 

The opening title came on screen. ‘For your watching pleasure we present ‘The Dare Devils.’

 

After the credit, there was a shot of a man climbing a long ladder in the dark, that appeared to be going up into the air. Elliot said he didn’t recognise him. As the camera, which was hand held pulled out, we could see more of what was about to happen. What we saw chilled my blood..

 

The man was being poked up the ladder by one of the ring masters, with a window opening pole. The ladder led up to a diving board at about 30 feet above the ground. The ‘Daredevil’ was wearing an old fashioned swimming costume. At the top was a dividing board. Under the huge drop below was a bathtub, filled with water.

 

What happened next had the potential to destroy a lot of people’s lives. And by what happened next, I knew it would stay with me for a long time The daredevil was prodded to the end of the diving board. He was walking the plank.

 

Down he went. The footage made the horror terrifying, and it seemed as though the filmmaker wanted to add a jokey feel to this nightmare, as the ring master gave a salute to the camera, the  hand-cranking caused everything to happen very fast.

 

He landed in the bath. There wasn’t a sound between us as the bath spilled over with blood. ‘Holy shit!’ He said. ‘That was no stuntman. What possessed them?’

 

There was a head shot of the ring master with him talking. There was no sound but a speech screen came up saying: ‘Welcome to our circus. We also have a lion tamer on the bill tonight and a completely crazy clown.’He  put a joint to his lips and said ‘Roll up. Roll up.’

 

There was no doubt in my mind. This was not any kind of stunt, or special effects. This was a real ‘Snuff’ film.

 

‘Do you think we should carry on Elliot, or take this to the authorities?’

 

‘I want to see it as this could be something that incriminates relatives of mine, being how it was found in the grounds of my family home.’

 

The next scene opened. It was a dining room, filmed from one corner. There was a man sat at the table eating what looked like a steak or a pork chop, with some veg.

 

The door to the room slowly opened. What we saw next, was a full grown, lioness slinking through the door. The ‘Tamer’ immediately grabbed a chair and jumped up onto the top of the table. The lion roared as the tamer threw his chop in its direction. It wasn’t interested. It swiped with its paw and the man thrust the chair at him in defence.

 

There was a serving hatch at the other side of the room. Elliot said he recognised the layout of the house as being that which we were sitting in. There was a serving hatch and the two ring masters were spectating. They were wearing pith helmets, like they were on Safari. They were both laughing and pointing, making pawing motions with their hands.

 

Elliot and I now knew what was about to happen, but we were both compelled to watch. I guzzled down the rest of my whisky in one swig. Elliot lit another joint that he had at the ready.

 

The ‘Daredevil’ tried his best to fend the lion off, but it chewed the leg straight off the chair. He now had nothing to defend himself with. The lion bit hold of his ankle joint with its jaws, like a massive serrated clamp. The man was dragged into the corner, where his throat was ripped open. It was like watching a very bloody chicken being deboned, as it broke his shoulder and began tearing off his arm.

 

The circus men were both laughing and giving a thumbs up signal.

 

The screen went to white again. The legend ‘And now folks, what circus would be complete without a clown.’

 

‘God knows what they could possibly do with a clown.’ Said Elliot. I held my breath, by now my heart was tachycardic and the atmosphere in the room was palpable. ‘I don’t know. But I am very nervous about the whole thing Elliot.’ I said.

 

The ring masters appeared facing the camera. They were wearing clown’s noses and had a happy smile painted on their faces, they moved out of the line of sight of the camera. When they moved, sure enough, there was the Clown.

 

He got in a small brightly coloured car. It look like a Mini Moke, only smaller. He got in and started to drive around the grounds. Knowing that the car, in typical circus fashion, usually drives around a bit and then the engine breaks and the doors blow off, we had a good idea of what was about to happen.

 

The car set off driving around and around the field at the back of the house, where I had found the box. The engine smoked. The doors blew off. We thought the clown had perished in the explosion. Suddenly, there was a second explosion and the clown was launched about a fifty feet into the air. The car had a ‘James Bond’ style ejector seat.

 

We sat with bated breath as he landed in the trees at the back of the field, setting a large pine on fire as he landed.

 

The circus organisers appeared together on screen, this time both dressed as ring masters again. The screen went white again, ’That’s all folks!’

 

As the the film spool ran down, there was countdown on screen: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. there was a huge, white flash. From the projector. It went up in flames. Elliot ran to the next room and threw a tablecloth over the projector, putting the fire out.

 

‘It’s been set to self-destruct when the film runs out. That smell is definitely magnesium we’ve just witnessed a one off viewing of a snuff film’ I said.

 

‘Look Frank. You can never tell another living soul about this. For all I know my Grandfather was behind the lens. Please can I have your word that this will not be spoken about beyond these four walls? I know it’s very shocking and disturbing, but I need you to do this, not just for me, but for my family.’

 

‘But what about the people who died making it? Their families?’ I pleaded. I was getting worried and starting to get paranoid due to the cannabis.

 

‘Look Frank, it’s got to be special effects, it's the only explanation’ said Elliot.

 

He had a very different look in his eye now. ‘Very convincing special effects.’

 

‘It's time I left Elliot.’

 

‘Look mate, you can’t tell anyone about this. I mean this film is from the late fifties at least. Can’t we let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, what would we take to the police?’ Elliot pointed to the blackened mess of metal and melted plastic,‘There’s no evidence.’

 

‘I’m going. My family will be wondering where I am.’

 

 

*

 

 

I couldn’t sleep that night. My mind was running in all kinds of different directions. I had witnessed three murders, even though they were on film, I am now fully implicated. What the fuck am I meant to do now? I can’t call the police, there’s no evidence. I was thinking about the victims. I was sure they had been disposed of years ago, and the police had either not found them or couldn’t link them to Elliot's family.

 

Over the next couple of days, my wife was beginning to notice a difference in me. I couldn’t talk to her about it. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I had to talk to Elliot.

 

I looked from the kitchen window at the back of our house. I could see Elliot with his dog. He was walking across the field between our house and his. He had a shotgun with him, broken over his arm.

 

I put my coat on and pulled on my wellingtons to go over and speak to him. He approached me as I walked over. His eyes were pink. Was it from lack of sleep, or was he stoned again? I didn’t ask.

 

‘Good morning Frank.’ He said. He seemed withdrawn somehow, he was obviously preoccupied. In fact he looked how I felt. I began to shake a little so I put my hands behind my back.

 

‘What are you hunting?’

 

‘Rabbits for a stew. The little buggers are ruining my vegetable patch. He sort of squinted at me and said ‘The thing about rabbits is, as hard as they try to run away, they have a target on their backs to aim for. Their little white fluffy tails. They’d do better if they came at you, in my opinion.’

 

‘I didn’t know you had a fire arms license.’

 

‘I don’t. This is an old one of my fathers that I inherited. He had a permit because he handled firearms during shoots. No pun intended. But whatever you do, don’t inform the authorities. I’ll be hauled over hot coals.’

 

Is there a subtext to this conversation? I think to myself. Adrenaline starts to pump through my veins. The words fight or flight come to my mind.

 

‘Can you come over to my shed Elliot, while you’re here?’

 

‘Of course, yes. What’s the problem?’

 

I open the creaky door to my musty smelling shed. I offered him a seat, but he refused, saying he’d rather stand.

 

'Look Elliot, we really need to talk about the other night.’ I say, hoping we can somehow bring some reason to the situation. ‘What's to talk about? ‘He says.

 

‘You know very well. I haven’t slept. I can’t get the images out of my mind? I’m desperately trying to gauge what he is thinking and what he is going to do. ‘Are we really going to “sweep it under the carpet”.’

 

‘Look Frank, just forget about it. If we both never speak of it there’s no problem.’

 

‘I can’t forget it Elliot It is going to stay with me forever.’ I notice that he too is shaking now.

 

A spark of paranoia ignites in my mind. He has a shotgun. An unlicensed firearm, and now we share a terrible secret.I start to feel pressure on my chest and my breathing becomes laboured. I try to hide this as best as I can.

 

His expression changed. He was scowling. ‘Go and have your turkey sandwiches and I’ll get on with bagging my rabbits.’

 

I went indoors and told my son that he was forbidden to use his metal detector in the field behind the house.

 

I told him there were unexploded bombs.

 

Elliot and I never spoke again.

Bruce finished work early at the car showroom as it was Friday afternoon. He always found he lost his edge when it came to flogging motors at this time of the week, when his mind was on the night ahead. He felt lucky tonight.

 

The female in question was Candice, who worked at the tobacconist over the road from Shearer’s, his place of work. She was putty in his hands, and always responded well to his double entendres with a haughty laugh and a blushing the hue of his maroon coloured leather blouson jacket. He was meeting her later for dinner. Nothing snaps knicker elastic like the thought of a free prawn cocktail and an enormous well done steak. He’d be getting a nice bottle of Black tower too. A bottle of white and she’s up all night, as the saying goes. Rumour has it that she was amorous after a few sherbets.

 

Bruce got into his 1976 Triumph TR7 and shifted it into first gear with the custom eight ball gear stick. He knew the TR7 was the envy of the cul-de-sac. The ‘wedge of cheese’ style aerodynamics probably didn’t add to the top speed, but it looked ‘the dog’s’. He’d paid extra for the black paint job too. He went home to prepare for his dinner date.

 

When he got home, he lined up a record on the stereo. He’d paid two weeks wages for it, even though he only had a collection of only nine records. He had Kate Bush, Abba, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and some Queen, including the Flash Gordon Soundtrack. He pondered what to put on when he got Candice home from the Bernie Inn. She had to be an Abba ‘Dancing Queen’ sort of a lady, he thought. He filled the coffee percolator so it was primed and ready to go.

 

He had a set routine for his ablutions. First of all he chose what to wear. He nearly always wore black trousers, shirts and shoes. This was his trademark. His shoes were of the slip on variety, or as he called them, slip offs. There is nothing more of a turn off for a woman than a man struggling to untie his shoe laces, falling all over the bedroom. He made a mental note to remember to take off his socks too. That was another turnoff.

 

Bruce went to the bathroom and ran hot water into the sunken tub of his avocado suite. He ran the water as hot as he dared. No bubble bath as he was a ‘real bloke’. He would use the soap on a rope his mum gave him for Christmas.

 

He got undressed and lowered himself into the water. There was a sharp intake of breath as his glans hit the water, but the pain subsided after a minute or two. ‘Got to give the prince a rinse’ he said to himself. He soaped himself down and lay there for a good half hour, just until his fingers started to wrinkle. He got out of the tub and got the talcum powder from the cupboard above the sink. He did this every time he had a bath, but he wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t a good towelling good enough to dry himself off?

 

Now for the most important part. The hair. He wore it with a swerved longish fringe, bangs that curled inwards at the bottom and bushy sideburns. He dried it off with his hairdryer and carefully combed every thing into place. When he was happy with the result, he walked into the bedroom and got dressed. He would leave most of his buttons on his shirt undone to reveal the tightly curled, rampant hair on his chest. He put on his shark’s tooth pendant with a thick gold chain. He felt this gave him the look of someone like Chuck Norris. A man of action with a hint of danger.

 

He knew not to douse himself in aftershave. It smacked of desperation, the last thing he wanted Candice to think. He dabbed a bit of Brut behind each ear and a little bit of deodorant under each of his armpits.

 

He got into his car and checked his A to Z just to make sure he knew where he was going. He wanted to arrive slightly late, but not too late. He wanted her to be as pleased to see him and again, as with the aftershave, he didn’t want to appear desperate. He never had been desperate. The only thing desperate about him was his jaw line, which looked like Desperate Dan’s.

 

He arrived at Maison de Candice at seven thirty five on the dot. He knew she’d hear him, gooey with anticipation, as he tramped up the gravel path, before he swung the knocker against the door.

 

The door swung open and there she stood. She was wearing, from the shoes up, stilettos, black fishnet tights, a tartan mini skirt and a brown sheepskin coat, which He couldn’t wait to see the contents of. Bra or no bra that was the question.

 

‘Hi Bruce. Great to see you.’ She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

 

‘I’m off now Dad.’

 

‘Can you put your pussy out while you’re at it Candice!’ Either her dad had a wry sense of humour, or he had no sense at all.

 

They didn’t talk much in the car. Bruce passed over one of his swanky Dunhill cigarettes. He always smoked Dunhill’s, the most expensive smokes in the cabinet, even though he knew that the other brands were probably no better. He also had a replica Cartier lighter.

 

‘You look nice tonight Candice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you from the waist down, what with you working behind a counter.’ He said and she giggled that naughty little laugh. I bet she’s a wizard in the sack, he thought. Bruce had to think of something else as the vibration of the car and her giggling gave him a bit of an erection. He knew he should have had a wank before he came out. It’s dangerous to go out with a loaded gun. It could go off too early or without warning.

 

He parked up the TR7 in the near empty car park of the Bernie Inn. Once inside they asked to be seated in the window, even though the view was of the colliery. Bruce sat there pondering the fact that if he’d been born a decade earlier he would probably been put to work in that pit. The miners were striking at the moment. He was worried about the current political situation himself, as there was a car manufacturing strike on at the moment too.

 

The waiter came over with the wine list and took their coats. Bruce’s heart skipped a beat when he saw what Candice was wearing. She had on a deep V neck sweater and no bra, and to be fair, she didn’t need one. They were large and she had a cleavage that Jans Klammer could slalom down.

 

‘Do you like Black Tower?’ Bruce asked.

 

‘I like anything wet and alcoholic’ she smiled.

 

‘Two Black Towers and an ice bucket please.’

 

‘Two?’ the waiter said in puzzlement.

 

‘Yes please. One for me and one for the lady. It’ll save you two trips.’

 

'Are you trying to get me drunk’ She lowered her head and the top of her nose wrinkled' as she smirked.

 

‘I have been meaning to ask you out for ages. Seeing you every day, I should have the black lung by now, the number of fags I’ve bought off you. I think you have a really beautiful face.’

 

She put her head down shyly and said, ‘I’ve got terrible crow’s feet’

 

Bruce looked under the table at her stilettos. ‘I think you’ve got nice feet.’

 

‘Ooh! You are a smooth talker. I’ve never heard a chat up line like that before.’ Neither had Bruce, because he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box and had said it in all seriousness.

 

The waiter came over and took their order. The Black Tower arrived as well. Two ice buckets one on either side of the table.

 

‘Steak all round I think chief. Well done.’

 

Bruce poured the wine. ‘So Candice. If I can tell you what you weigh, you have to knock back that glass of wine in one go.’

 

‘Go on the Bruce, what do I weigh?’

 

‘Sweets.’

 

‘You're an awful sod. I’ve got one for you. ‘I bet I can guess how many pubes you’ve got’

 

‘Go on lets hear it.’

 

‘Just the one and you wee through it.’

 

This was going well. Dirty jokes always get things going. He realised that he had been talking to her tits a lot and averted his gaze to her face. Which to be fair had a hell of a lot of slap on it. She must be begging for it.

 

The steaks arrived and Bruce poured more wine. The steaks were still smoking a bit, so Bruce ordered extra sharp knifes for the two of them.

 

‘I like them well done’ Bruce noticed he was salivating a bit, and who wouldn’t with this plateful and the well stacked lady in front of him. ‘They last longer, so you get your money’s worth, and I love them a bit crispy.’ He noticed her eyes were drooping slightly, whether from the smoke coming off their food or the wine. It was probably the latter.

 

‘So Candice, what do you like to do when you’re not working?’

 

‘Dunno really. I haven’t got much money, so a couple in the Bulldog is about all I manage. And it’s hard to do anything else, what with the blackouts..’

 

‘I’m sure the strikes will come to an end soon.’ He put his hand on hers and gave a gentle smile.

 

They finished their meal and drained the two Black Towers.

 

‘Well I can’t drive, so I’ll get us a cab.’

 

They hailed a cab. Bruce opened the door and Candice tumbled inside losing one of her shoes on the way in. He picked it up for her.'This is yours I believe, Cinderella.’

 

‘Where do you Live Bruce? We’ll go to yours first’.

 

Bruce was already congratulating himself. He was definitely on a winner here. A snog in the back of the taxi and away we go. Bruce sat down and Candice bent over, to speak to the driver with her arse in his face. He could see her knickers under her skirt. He felt a swelling in his Y fronts.

 

The taxi sped off towards his home. She was all over him now, like he was the prey.

 

They reached the house. Fuck the “Coming in for a coffee?” Routine. He thought.  it’s well beyond that now. His heart was hammering against his rib cage.

 

He chased her up the stairs slapping her on her peach of a bum.

 

'Cheeky sod.’

 

On the way up he put ten bob in the meter. It was enough power for the foreplay so they could take their time. But the way this girl was going, he’d have enough power to put the electric blanket on afterwards as well.

 

She ripped the two buttons on his shirt that were not fastened. Threw him down on the bed and dragged his trousers und underpants off. This girl was mad keen.

 

Thank God she wasn’t wearing a bra. Bruce always had a bit of a problem with this part as he had very fat fingers and always fumbled about. So he was spared that embarrassment.

 

Now they were naked under the eiderdown. She whispered in his ear ‘Tell me what you like.’ What a daft question he thought as he pointed downwards. She duly obliged and he was in heaven. Best not let her do this for too long as he was on the brink of going off like a Roman candle.

 

He rolled Candice off him and whispered in her ear ‘Now tell me what you like. Nothing too kinky though. After all I have my reputation.’

 

‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to make you wear my knickers or anything. It is a bit unusual though.’

 

‘Go on I’m intrigued.’

 

‘Well it all started where I lost my virginity. We did it in his outside toilet and the enclosed space sort of made it more intimate. It was dark as well, and we could hear all our breathing and panting. The next time I did it was in a tent, again the enclosed space was a real turn on. It was like we were two rabbits in a nice warm burrow.’ Bruce had heard a lot of kinky stuff, but this seemed fairly reasonable. Romantic even.

 

‘Okay, why don’t we use the wardrobe? You take my clothes out and I’ll rubber up.’

 

Bruce went through his wallet for his Johnnie. Candice threw his suits and shirts on the bed. They were now ready.

 

Once inside there was a bit of struggling to get in the right, comfortable position. After a minute or two they were away. She was gasping and panting from the get go.’ Bruce had to admit it was very sexy, but the wardrobe was beginning to rock about a bit. It was a well built heavy oak model that he inherited from his dead Grandfather, so there shouldn’t be a problem. They were just about to climax when the wardrobe toppled over onto the floor. They were now trapped, unable to open the doors.

 

‘Bugger it. Oh fuck. Shit.’ They were panicking.

 

‘Bruce what are we going to do? Help! Help! She screamed at the top of her lungs.

 

‘Stop shouting. You're using all of our air. I’ll boot the back of the wardrobe in.’

 

As much as Bruce tried, he just didn’t have the space or the strength to kick the back through. All was lost. No one would hear them. They were running out of air.

 

Now the air had gone bad, Candice had stopped hyperventilating.

 

‘Look Candice. I think there is only one thing we can do now. We don’t have to suffer. It’s good night Vienna anyway.’ He pressed his face against the wood and said, ‘Have you heard of auto asphyxiation?’

 

‘What the fuck is that when it's at home?’

 

‘It’s when you fuck and just as you reach orgasm you cut off oxygen to the brain and have the orgasm of your life. But if we do this we can go out pleasurably rather than suffer.’

 

Candice said quietly, ‘You literally want us to fuck ourselves to death?’

 

'I think we’re dead already.’

 

Bruce penetrated Candice and thrust hard and fast. Candice orgasmed and went limp in his arms just as he shot with both barrels, then he saw stars and then everything faded to black.

 

 

 

Monday

 

It was a cold, wet September day and Keith was starting senior school. He was anxious to the point of feeling physically sick, he was a wreck and hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days, as he wouldn’t know anyone there. All of his friends from juniors went to another senior school. He had been the unfortunate one as he lived out of the catchment area of he and his parents preferred school. He was dreading walking into that playground with no one there to talk to. His mum walked him to school, but had left him down the road. ‘You’ll be OK once you’ve got today out of the way.’ She said trying to reassure her trembling son.

 

In junior school Keith was shy and it took him a while to open up and make new friends. He was a bit of a comedian, which the teaching staff didn’t like and labelled him the class clown but the other members of his class really liked him for it.  

 

 Today he wore a baseball cap which he would keep low. So he could avoid eye contact and not stand out. Or so he thought.

 

While Keith was a healthy, intelligent boy, he had the misfortune to be extremely ugly. In fact he could barely look himself in the mirror as he was ashamed of the acne, sticking out fat ears, bulbous nose and the way his chin was firmly embedded in the top of his neck. His hair was permanently greasy, no matter which brand of shampoo and conditioner he used. His eyes were tiny and sort of oriental. He had too many teeth, no shoulders and a pigeon chest. In fact if you tapped his sternum, it would make a hollow banging sound like a cupboard door.

 

The kids in the playground were all standing in groups or playing football. Some were playing shove halfpenny, in decimal now of course, as this was eighties. This was not a well thought of school. The council had no money. Thatcher ‘the milk snatcher’ was in power.

 

Keith knew he had to befriend someone as soon as possible. He had to approach one of the other kids. He couldn't just stand there staring at the ground. He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned expectantly…

 

A kid who was quite muscular looked at his baseball cap and flicked it off his head and put it on his own. He then grocked and spat at Keith's face. The phlegm hung from his nose like a slimy, greenish pendulum. He balked. The boys’ gang then gathered around and shouted, ‘Ha ha he looks like a spitting image puppet.’ From then on keith’s nickname was Spitting Image another name they would come up with towards the end of the day was Spit the Dog.

 

One boy came over to Keith who was now in tears, which he was unable to hide now his cap was gone. He said, ‘look, there was no need for that lar. That was well arlarse ’ The boy had on a duffle coat and hair that looked as though his mother had cut for him.’They’re always picking on people. They gave me a shit time when we were in junior school too.’ He offered his hand and they shook, ‘I’m Joey. They still have a go at me because I came into school one time with my sister’s coat on. Don’t take any notice, there’s plenty of other people they can pick on. Which school did you go to?’

 

‘Out Lane in Woolton.’

 

‘You must be posh. Keep that under your hat. Most of the kids here are from Garston. ‘‘Under the bridge.’’’

 

'Under the bridge?' Keith didn't know what this meant.

 

‘It’s part of Garston. All car thieves, gangs who have their own corners and patches, burgle and take drugs. In short, it’s rough as fuck and these people are not to be messed with. What team do you support?’

 

Being as how he figured that there were more Liverpool fans in the city than Evertonians, Keith said ‘I’m a red.’

 

‘Me too.’ Kevin was a true Evertonian, but wanted to impress his new acquaintance.

 

Their form teacher was Mr Jones. There was a nickname for him as well that had evolved over the years, student to student. His initials were BP Jones. Someone decided to skit him by calling him British Pork due to his initials, then that evolved into Sausage and now the definitive nickname was SOS which stood for Save Our Sausages. Imagination ran riot here obviously.

 

Keith filed into the classroom with everyone else. SOS took the register and started his Geography lesson. The pupils didn’t have an ounce of respect for the man and were disruptive to the extreme. One boy climbed out of the second story window and walked along the ledge. Another hid in a cupboard, which had a glass door, in the front of the teacher’s large desk. Mr Jones couldn’t see him as he pulled faces at the class.

 

Mr Jones, however much the class carried on, just went through the motions as if no one was there. He took a kit Kat from his pocket and wrote something on the blackboard. Before he could take a bite as he stepped away from the board one of the kids ran up to him and shouted,’Hi Yah!’ and Kung Fu’d it out of his hand with a flying kick.

 

Mr Jones locked himself in the store room at the back of the class. Keith was completely stressed out and despondent. He wasn’t the most avid student, but after this display he knew that he was going to learn nothing from this school if the other teachers were of the same temperament. Shit, and the bullying too.

 

Mr Jones didn’t emerge from his refuge. He had obviously gone for a cry, so the class headed off to assembly where they were lectured on the dangers of eating the magic mushrooms growing on the school playing field.

 

The students filed out of the assembly hall to their second lesson of the day, which was chemistry. The class was delivered by Mr Roberts. Joey sat next to Keith, who whispered in his ear,’ My sister told me this is one of the best teachers they’ve got.’

 

And he was good. He piqued the interest of all of the class and no one messed with him. Even the thugs at the back kept quiet. ‘ A kid spat at him and tried to hit him a few years back and he broke the lads collarbone,‘’Accidentally’’ of course.’

 

Mr Roberts talked to them about all the exciting things they would be doing in his class. Making tear gas, blowing the legs off chairs and other pyrotechnics, as well as the theory.

 

The bell rang for lunch and Keith's stomach knotted again. Joey said,’Do you want to play poker dice?’

 

‘OK, but you’ll have to teach me.’ They both hunkered down in the corner of the playground and Joey explained the rules, which were just the same as regular poker only with five six sided dice. No money was exchanged.

 

After dinner time, it was the double games lesson. Keith guessed the staff wanted the kids to have a bit of fun on their first day. Keith was mortified as he was going to have to get undressed in front of everyone. He was so skinny to the point of looking almost anorexic and gangly into the bargain. However, there were a few other under developed Mr Puniverse types.

 

Once on the school field there was the predictable system of putting the teams together. Two Captains were chosen. These being the muscliest looking kids with the best haircuts, which were Arnold Swarzanneger buzz cut, flat tops.

 

The captains took their positions and passed judgement on the team whittling them down to just Joey, Keith, Bean Head and an Indian lad called Rambo. The other boys never passed the ball to them, so they just ran about throwing mud at each other.

 

The kids filed into the changing room. They had all got to know a bit of what the

The others in the class were made off. Keith and Joey were, if not to be ignored, but made fun of. It was the end of the day and Keith could relax. For tonight anyway.

 

Tuesday

 

Keith took the bus to school today, which was a bad, but he had no choice. Other lads from his school would be on there. He took a seat on the bottom deck while the gang upstairs smoked and spat at passers-by out of the windows. Why can’t they keep their phlegm to themselves? Keith thought.

 

From the bus to the school gates one of them ‘Gresty’ kicked him repeatedly up the arse trying to get a rise out of him. He could do nothing. His two friends were behind and they were saying ‘How long do you think it’ll take him to give in and start running?’

 

After a while Gresty got bored and decided to give him a dead arm instead. ‘Two for flinchin’.’

 

‘Did you see Spitting Image last night?’ said one.

 

‘No. He was at home with his mum.’ Said another. They laughed.

 

Keith met Joey again in the playground and decided he would get to know him a little better. ‘What does your dad do Joey?’

 

‘He’s a pub landlord and with live above it. It’s the Dealer’s arms on St. Mary’s road in Garston. Suitable name for it, with what goes down in there.’

 

‘Under the bridge?’

 

‘No it’s in the nice part of Garston. By that I mean the second shitiest place in South Liverpool.’

 

There was registration and then the first class of the day went fine as it was mathematics. Keith was very good at maths in his last school.

 

Lunchtime came and Keith was approached by two students who were obviously the type who were the ones to watch on the footy field. They were very friendly now though, it appeared. They just chatted about this and that, Keith told a few jokes and they laughed. One pupil walked past them. That’s Burnsey . He’s the cock of our year.’ Meaning he was the hardest lad of all the forms in our year. ‘He’s also one of the best boxers of his age in Liverpool. He’s semi-professional.’

 

Keith decided to say something sarcastic, which was to be a very bad idea as it later turned out. He said ‘I can fuck him.’ The three of them laughed. Keith decided he had made a couple of friends further up the ladder and they seemed good lads.

 

Joey came up to Keith shortly afterwards and asked him if he could have some of his packed lunch. ‘Why didn’t you have anything in at home?’

 

‘No I usually have dinner money, but Gresty just taxed it.’

 

‘Yeah sure. My mum’s trying to feed me up, so I’ve got plenty.’

 

The bell rang and it was business as usual for the other kids. Skitting, laughing and farting their way through a French lesson.

 

Keith walked out to the playground to have his lunch in a corner. Joey wasn’t around as he’d had a can of fart spray from the joke shop squirted all over him and he’d had to go home for a change of clothes.

 

Burnsey marches up to Keith and got right up close to his face. ‘You said you could fuck me!’

 

Keith’s right ear suffered two jabs to set Burnsey up for the killer blow with a right hook. Keith’s head spun and his ear stung. He couldn't stop tears trickling down his face, however much he wanted to. Burnsey walked away and that was that. One of the lads from this morning obviously didn't know how sarcasm worked.

 

Joey came back from his trip home, wearing what Keith assumed was his sister’s coat, and asked him what the matter was. Joey then went to the Deputy Head so Keith wouldn’t be labelled a grass and get reprisals.  Burnsey was put in detention and he must have drawn his own conclusions as to who had told on him. Tongues wagged for the rest of the day.

 

At going home time Gresty, who had the repulsive talent of being able to throw up at will, vomited all over Joey’s sister’s jacket. With the food he had paid for with Joeys dinner money. Now he wouldn’t have a coat to wear at all when tomorrow came.

 

Joey said that if something wasn’t done soon we were in for it until the end of the year. But what could we do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday

 

Things were not looking up for Keith and he didn’t want to confide in his mum or dad. It would probably have caused more worry and trouble. If only he hadn’t been bigger and stronger and not so weird looking, he would have stood a chance. It was not like this in junior school. These were big lads.

 

Keith arrived at school the next day and the bullies were all standing by the bike shed, smoking and talking shit. They turned and saw him.

 

‘There he is!’

 

‘Fuckin’ grass!’

 

‘Get the ugly little twat!’

 

They ran over to Keith. He didn't have a chance to run and he wouldn’t have been fast enough if he tried. He just stood there mouth agape.

 

All at once the lifter him up above their heads, like they were about to put him on a crucifix, and carried him over to the playing field.

 

‘There's only one thing to do with a grass.’ That’s when the blows started. Head, face, bollocks, the lot. One kick to the head and he fell unconscious.

 

He came too and everyone had disappeared. He was choking on something. They had stuffed his mouth with grass cuttings.

 

Joey appeared from the yard.’Jesus Keith, they could have killed you.’

 

Once Keith had stopped crying and spitting he said to Joey ‘We can’t tell. We have to think of a way around this. We can’t avoid them now.’

 

They went off to their classes and during lunch they went into the alley behind the shops, so they weren't in plain sight but had to go onto the adjoining golf course as some of the bigger lads were there smoking.

 

After dinner, that night, Keith went to see his best friend Chris. He needed to ‘hang out’ and take his mind off things He also wanted to ask him if he had any idea what he could do.

As soon as Keith arrived Chris opened a bottle of pop and put some cheese on toast under the grill, as was tradition.

 

‘How’re you doin’ mate,’

 

Keith went ashen and told him what had been happening. Chris tried to reassure Keith that in the long run it would toughen him up. ‘I think that’s impossible Chris, I’m the lowest of the low in their eyes. I can’t sleep and my mum and dad are starting to notice, the last thing I want them to do is go to the school.’

 

Chris took all this in and said ‘I’ll speak to some of the lads from Out Lane, see if one of them could step in.’

 

‘There’s a lot of them Chris, I think you’d need a small army with this gang of bastards. They’re dog rough and as hard as nails.’

 

They had a quick game of three and in with a half deflated football and then Keith went home.

 

At about eight o’clock Keith rang Joey to tell him about his meeting with Chris. ‘Joey one of my mates from my old school said he's going to speak to his mates about dealing with these arseholes. I’m not holding out any hope as blood is thicker than water, or words to that effect.’

 

Joe had an idea. ‘You know my dad runs a pub right.’

 

‘Yeah. But how does that help?’

 

‘Well I have a free run of the place, I can get hold of a lot of cigarettes and booze. My dad might notice eventually, but I’ll take the blame. I’ll just tell him I was bullied into getting them. We could use these to get someone to beat the shit out of them. ’

 

Keith rang Chris back, ‘Sounds like an excellent bargaining tool. The lads at school are always after booze and fags. I’ll ring round tonight.’

 

About an hour later Keith got a call back from Chris. Keith's dad was saying something in the background about being always on the phone. ‘Have you got a bird at your new school Keith?’ If only.

 

‘Good news buddy, I have six lads, two from our year and four from the second year, and there’s me as well of course. They want spirits though as well.’

 

Morning classes went off fairly uneventfully apart from someone singing ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ by the Pogues behind Keith's back. Farting, farting and more farting.

 

Joey sat next to Keith, but in the aisle. He had his school bag there on the floor. It was half open. If you walked past you could just about see that there were a lot of boxes of cigarettes. Joey looked at Keith, ‘The carrot. Have you arranged for the stick?

 

'You bet. Dinner time and it'll all go off. Chris has asked us to head to the entry behind the shops, no matter how fast they run after us, don’t look back, just keep your head down and run like fuck.’

 

As the lesson went on, with students passing in homework, you could see their eyes drawn to the gold packaging of Benson and Hedges and the silver of Lambert and Butler. Gresty and Burnsey were among them. They couldn’t do anything about it though because Keith and Joey sat right at the front.

 

The dinner bell went. Joey and Keith sprinted out of the classroom, jumping a flight the stairs of the way down. One of the bastards jumped too but landed awkwardly and fell over, blocking the path of Gresty and Steven Burns, but only temporarily. Breaking through the main gates they headed to the back of the shops.

 

Panic shot through the two boys like electricity. There was no one there. But Just as Gresty and the rest ran into the entry, three boys with their blazers inside out and balaclavas over their heads appeared at the other end. Gresty and the rest of the four man group stopped in their tracks.

 

One of the Gateacre pupils had a hold-all with him. He opened it and ceremonially took out a rope ladder. He pulled some rungs out of the roping and passed them out.

 

The shit heads turned tail and ran the other way, but they were stopped in their tracks by three more lads. They were outnumbered almost two to one. They had ladder rungs as well.

 

‘Remember lads, nothing above the neck.’

 

Chris, came out of one of the backyard doors and pulled Keith and Joey inside, shutting the gate behind them.

 

Keith could hear the ensuing violence and was glad he wasn’t there to see it happening. It was going to be ugly.

 

Then all that could be heard was sobbing and then silence. One of the masked boys opened the gate and said, ‘Safe as houses. They came out into the back alley and Gresty’s gang had cleared off.

 

They were now protected. Safe for the time being.

 

All Right, I presume you’ve got the goodies?’

 

‘Yeah.’ Said Joey.

 

'None of us smoke, but if we sell them as loosies I reckon we’ll make about two hundred snots on this.’

 

‘I have vodka as well.’

 

‘Party tomorrow night at Chris's then.’

 

'And sick bay for the walking wounded.' One of the chasing party had broken his ankle on the staircase

 

‘Lucky break for you two then’ Chris said to Keith and Joey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember seeing Thomas Dolby’s promo video for ‘Hyperactive’ in 1984. I was blown away by it.  Even at the formative age of 10, I knew I had to hear it again, right away. I had never bought a record before. The next moring I went down to the newsagents, with my £1.25 pocket money, and proudly presented the 7” copy to the cashier and ran all the way home. After the song had finished, as soon as the needle hit the run out groove, I’d return it to the beginning. My parents would walk past and tease, but I didn’t care. ‘Hyperactive? Very appropriate’. Yeah. So be it. Bring it on, I internalised.

New romanticism was prevalent at this time. I sort of liked Duran Duran. However, I found Spandau Ballet a bit mushy and Culture Club a bit naff. Then Frankie Goes to Hollywood released ‘Relax’ with ‘Two Tribes’ hot on its heels. Being from Liverpool, they were all over local radio, and their buzzword T shirts were all over the breasts and pecks of the local teens.

 My folks were averse to the sexual content of the lyrics, but I was too young to understand. I still think Trevor Horn’s production has its qualities. The beat was what Trevor called his ‘shagging beat’. They didn’t like me listening to Frankie, so for the first time I felt I was being edgy and mysterious.

I bought releases by Prince. He seemed like a cross between a pimp and a leprechaun, astride a purple motorbike. ‘Ponce more like.’ was the paternal judgement. Looking back, the music I listened to was quite futuristic, electronic and most importantly forward thinking.

My Dad at this time was listening to the Eric Clapton, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen. He tried to move with the times. When I was very young he used to play Aladdin Sane and Transformer by David Bowie and Lou Reed. My favourite record in his collection was ‘DIY’ by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. The track I liked was ‘Quiet’. This was because it contained the words wee wees, plop plops, prune juice and ah ahs. At the ripe old age of four the thought of setting what were, in my world, swear words to music was mind blowing. I laughed so hard I got cramp in my puny abs.

 Now, music takes up about a third of my life. I’ve been through many genres as diverse as hip hop and folk. While I never really joined a tribe or had a particular look, I carried a mind-set and had a certain attitude towards life that changed whenever I got interested in something new.

 

I walked in on my dad, a few years ago, who was watching the Scissor Sisters live performance at Glastonbury. ‘What are you watching this for?’ I said. ‘Aren’t I supposed to say that to you?’ Suggesting I was a stick in the mud. I stormed upstairs and blasted the NWA’s F*** the Police as loud as I dared. Yeah take that, you square.

It was the summer of 1995 and I had turned 21 a few months earlier. I had a quite a bit of cash that my Dad, and other relatives, had given me for my birthday. My friend Phil had been to Israel and Egypt the previous year and I had listened, enviously, to his stories of the amazing things he'd seen and done.

We met up for a drink and I asked him if he wanted to go abroad, somewhere far flung and exotic. He told me he'd always wanted to see India. It was a place I wanted to visit too. I think it was the thought of the vibrancy, colour, food and spirituality that was appealing. It was also very cheap, so we could travel around for a couple of months, no problem.

As I was packing my rucksack to leave for my bus, my Dad said to me 'Don't bring any packages back for anyone, and don't go to Kashmir.'

'I won't.' I promised.

I broke that promise.

In the months leading up to this there had been, in the national news, an item about 6 backpackers who had been trekking in Kashmir and were kidnapped. One of them was from Lancashire. They are still missing to this day, although one was subsequently found beheaded.

We'd traveled to Heathrow overnight, slept in the airport and now we were on the last leg of a 9 hour flight. I was nearly halucinating from sleep loss.

We walked off the plane and headed by bus to a busy square. A tuk tuk driver approached us and said he knew of a family run house where we could stay. Because of the state we were in we took him up on his offer.

At the appartment, there were a group of Kashmiri tourist touts. They socialised with us over the next couple of days. They seemed decent. We were told about the houseboats, the widlife and the Himalayan mountains. They had a couple of houseboats in trekking distance of K2. They were keen for us to go.

Phil and I discussed the risks. It was adventure we wanted and there wouldn't have been many people in the world given this opportunity. I expressed my concerns about the military presence but we reasoned that it couldn't be much more dangerous than Belfast or Cape Town, and people go there all the time. Anyway if they have 6 hostages, why would they want 2 more?

We took an Indian Airlines flight to Srinagar. The cabin was full until we stopped at Jammu airfield. Jammu is in the South of the disputed territory, and fairly trouble free. We got off the plane with the other passengers to stretch our legs. There were machine gun emplacements on the roof of the arrivals building and convoys of very rough looking soldiers in jeeps. Not a good sign. Another bad sign was that we were the only passengers for the last leg. No one else was going that far. We checked the Rough Guide to see what advice it could give us. All it said was 'do not go' as it would be 'a senseless act of bravado'.

Touching down at Srinagar we were surrounded by military fighter jets, and more soldiers. Our driver met us and he said it was a half hour drive to the houseboat. The streets looked like how neighbouring Afghanistan looks now. Like a war had passed through.

The scenery ,however, was breathtaking. The high peaks of the roof of the world. There were golden eagles, huge kingfishers and lotus gardens.

The houseboat was antique and ornate. You could imagine colonial aristocrats taking morning tea on our veranda. There was an American and an Australian next door with a young Japanese tourist.

We settled in and felt we should catch up on sleep for a couple of days before doing some exploring and trekking. The family looked after us well and said they would organise a Kyak trip around the lake the next day. We agreed.

The kyak was a sort of three man gondala. There was an oarsman, who was busy puffing away on a hookah. We went through all kinds of checkpoints, had guns poked under our noses almost every 500 yards and there were gunboats and soldiers everywhere. We went through a huge lotus garden and got off at a Mughal garden and we set off exploring. Everything seemed relatively calm.

Phil saw a ruined fort at the back of the flower garden and decided to walk over and take a closer look.  In the bushes about 100 yards away, I saw two soldiers hitting the deck and aiming their rifles our way. 'Get back. Get back' I said, as quietly and urgently as possible. Phil heard me and came back, but he thought I'd misread the situation and that they'd been kids.

We got back in the boat and paddled back towards or house boat. I could see a kyak coming towards us. The occupants were wearing khaki sun hats. They didn't look right somehow. Phil had his back to them and it was just me and the oarsman who could see them coming right to us. The boats rubbed together. Phil and I looked over. On the laps of the three men were three AK47's. We looked up at them and they gave us three sweet, friendly smiles. They weren't Indian Army, these were mujahideen trained guerrillas. Time stood still, and I have to say I thought I was going to get shot to bits. I willed the oarsman to paddle faster while we both lit a cigarette. It seemed to take an eternity for them to pass us and paddle away.

Back at the boat we told the neighbours what had happened. They said they had been in the town and there had been rioting and shooting. The Army were cracking down on the rebels. They were using the houseboat area to hide. The Australian said he was worried about the Japanese man because he had gone trekking,the day before, and he hadn't come back. All his things were still there.

I told Phil we had to leave and he agreed. We were a bit sore about losing our money, but it's better to be safe. We said our goodbyes and left on the next day's bus to Daramasala.

When I returned, my dad drew my attention to a magazine article he had saved. It was a first hand account of a tourist who had been approached at Delhi airport and then talked into going to Srinagar by some Kashmiris. Last year someone I met on holiday had been there,the same year, and the same thing had happened to him and his older sister. He had been just 18.

it was very edgy and scarily exciting at the time, but I carried around  a lot of stress afterwards. I don't think I could go anywhere like that again.

I hope someday the situation there improves and it becomes the tourist destination it once was. The word beautiful doesn't come close.

When I was thinking of a name for this site, I wanted something that could have a number of different meanings.

I wanted to say something about myself, my work and my story. I'm not going to get a violin out, but I have had a lot of setbacks along the way. Life goes on though and I'm still smiling.

The first thing that came to mind was Mallory climbing everest, in what basically amounted to street clothing, with his pipe in his pocket. One of the routes has a section called 'Mallory's Pipe' where he turned back to retrieve it after having dropped it. Whether he succeeded or not in 'topping out' or 'peaking', we will never know. The point is that he was doing the seemingly impossible the hard way. So I am trying to take my inspiration from him.

My career has stalled more times than a first time driver, so I hope to see myself peaking in my autumn years. As the waistband of my M&S slacks creep towards my chin and my chin edges towards my waistband.

So no, it's not meant to be a reference to the drug habits of the landed gentry. It can mean whatever you think it does.

I arrived at London Euston with some high expectations of the cycle friendliness of the mean streets of the Capital. So with A to Z in bum pocket I headed south in the general direction of my hotel in Drury Lane.

My first impressions were pleasing. There was next to no traffic due to the congestion charge and there were nice, wide and well surfaced bike lanes. If I had one critisism, it was that there is nearly a complete absence of road signs. I soon found myself lost in the one way system and disoriented by the fact that there was a Pret a Manger on every street corner. So after going round in circles a few times on the ring road, I arrived at my hostelry.

Bike parking in the covent garden area was convenient and, due to it being in the theatre and opera district, relatively safe. I left my bike overnight and it was unscathed when I came back the next morning.

Once I found my bearings and got a sense of the scale of the city, getting around was a doddle. In one afternoon I got around Soho, Trafalgar Square, The City, St Pauls, Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge and Tower of London. London is fairly flat and I only found myself breaking into a sweat on the way to Camden.

All in all it was much better and felt safer than my native Liverpool. I can't wait to zip around those dusty, grimy streets again.

Top marks for Virgin trains as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday evening I went out for a ride, as always, and decided to go to The Pilgrim pub by the Art College in Liverpool. My cousin had sent me an invite for a gig night of four 'brutal death metal' bands in the function suite upstairs. 

I had been into hardcore, industrial and new wave punk bands like the dead kennedys, Ministry and dread punks Bad Brains in my younger days, so I had a rough idea of what to expect. However, I was suprised at how friendly, funny and LOUD the night was.

As I entered the bar downstairs, to get myself a drink, the noise of bass drum rolls and larynx shredding, screach-singing from upstairs was competing with the jukebox selection of The Power of Love  by Jennifer Rush. Jennifer was losing by furlongs.

I climbed the spiral stair, paid my flim entry, got my 'disco licky' and took my place at the back in a dark corner.

The line up consisted of: Carnal Decay, Pighead and Cancerous Womb.

There was no stage and the band were in the audience. I got down the front with the slammers and stompers to get a closer look and take some pictures. It was impressive how physical and aggressive the performance was. When the first band left covered in cuts and bruises there was a pool of sweat, beer and broken glass.  

The music made a lot more sense seeing it performed live. The bands had their own idiosyncrasies. One band took it's inspiration from hip hop beats and lyrics with the vocals sounded like scratching in parts.

The crowd were a mix of Swiss, German, Russian and English. I clocked a phone screensaver of Stalin over a shoulder. In general there were lots of black tees, tats and beards. During smoke breaks outside everyone was sharing amusing stories, such as assaulting friends with dildos and getting erectile disfunction from estonian moonshine. This was all rudely interrupted by a suity bloke taking all his clothes off  to wave his genitals and his mangina to the patrons, only to slide into unconsciousness on the street furniture outside. All in all a top night and experience... Much better than my local pub quizz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I am unhappily married. My wife and I are recently separated. Separated from this world and the next in fact.   I knew she was being unfaithful to me for some time. She was struggling to lose weight, so I paid for a membership at a local gym with a personal trainer. My suspicions became...

    It was cold. Two days after Christmas. There was a layer of frost on the ground under my wellington boots.   I had bought a metal detector for my eldest son, who was 12, for Christmas. The big kid in me wanted to have a go with it first while he was still asleep. Of course I...

Bruce finished work early at the car showroom as it was Friday afternoon. He always found he lost his edge when it came to flogging motors at this time of the week, when his mind was on the night ahead. He felt lucky tonight.   The female in question was Candice, who worked at the tobacconist...

    Monday   It was a cold, wet September day and Keith was starting senior school. He was anxious to the point of feeling physically sick, he was a wreck and hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days, as he wouldn’t know anyone there. All of his friends from juniors went to another...

I remember seeing Thomas Dolby’s promo video for ‘Hyperactive’ in 1984. I was blown away by it.  Even at the formative age of 10, I knew I had to hear it again, right away. I had never bought a record before. The next moring I went down to the newsagents, with my £1.25 pocket...

It was the summer of 1995 and I had turned 21 a few months earlier. I had a quite a bit of cash that my Dad, and other relatives, had given me for my birthday. My friend Phil had been to Israel and Egypt the previous year and I had listened, enviously, to his stories of the amazing things he'd...

When I was thinking of a name for this site, I wanted something that could have a number of different meanings. I wanted to say something about myself, my work and my story. I'm not going to get a violin out, but I have had a lot of setbacks along the way. Life goes on though and I'm still...

I arrived at London Euston with some high expectations of the cycle friendliness of the mean streets of the Capital. So with A to Z in bum pocket I headed south in the general direction of my hotel in Drury Lane. My first impressions were pleasing. There was next to no traffic due to the...

On Monday evening I went out for a ride, as always, and decided to go to The Pilgrim pub by the Art College in Liverpool. My cousin had sent me an invite for a gig night of four 'brutal death metal' bands in the function suite upstairs.  I had been into hardcore, industrial and new wave punk...

1. I am unhappily married. My wife and I are recently separated. Separated from this world and the next in fact.   I knew she was being unfaithful to me for some time. She was struggling to lose weight, so I paid for a membership at a local gym with a personal trainer. My suspicions became...

    It was cold. Two days after Christmas. There was a layer of frost on the ground under my wellington boots.   I had bought a metal detector for my eldest son, who was 12, for Christmas. The big kid in me wanted to have a go with it first while he was still asleep. Of course I...

Bruce finished work early at the car showroom as it was Friday afternoon. He always found he lost his edge when it came to flogging motors at this time of the week, when his mind was on the night ahead. He felt lucky tonight.   The female in question was Candice, who worked at the tobacconist...

    Monday   It was a cold, wet September day and Keith was starting senior school. He was anxious to the point of feeling physically sick, he was a wreck and hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days, as he wouldn’t know anyone there. All of his friends from juniors went to another...

I remember seeing Thomas Dolby’s promo video for ‘Hyperactive’ in 1984. I was blown away by it.  Even at the formative age of 10, I knew I had to hear it again, right away. I had never bought a record before. The next moring I went down to the newsagents, with my £1.25 pocket...

It was the summer of 1995 and I had turned 21 a few months earlier. I had a quite a bit of cash that my Dad, and other relatives, had given me for my birthday. My friend Phil had been to Israel and Egypt the previous year and I had listened, enviously, to his stories of the amazing things he'd...

When I was thinking of a name for this site, I wanted something that could have a number of different meanings. I wanted to say something about myself, my work and my story. I'm not going to get a violin out, but I have had a lot of setbacks along the way. Life goes on though and I'm still...

I arrived at London Euston with some high expectations of the cycle friendliness of the mean streets of the Capital. So with A to Z in bum pocket I headed south in the general direction of my hotel in Drury Lane. My first impressions were pleasing. There was next to no traffic due to the...

On Monday evening I went out for a ride, as always, and decided to go to The Pilgrim pub by the Art College in Liverpool. My cousin had sent me an invite for a gig night of four 'brutal death metal' bands in the function suite upstairs.  I had been into hardcore, industrial and new wave punk...