Byker Books

 

 

 

I were lucky the police nabbed us afore me granddad, even if he were chronically unfit, because he said I got the family right down in the sewer like us were nowt but rats. Me dad punched him for that and they never spoke since which to me made them spoilt kids. But the argument went back much further than you think at first.

 

One time me granddad was known as ‘The Machine’ because he was the best miner that ever was and set a record for coal in one day. That were at the last pit in our town where most everybody used to be coal-connected somehow.

 

But then me dad who was me granddad’s son of course never got work. Not down the pit which had closed anyroad and not nowhere else either and me granddad always called him a lazy bones like real nasty with hatred that got worse as time went on by.

 

Then me dad who was only pretty young himself - about twenty I think - got into drugs like lots of young uns off the estates and me granddad who had never ever been violent beat him to within an inch of his life, which did the trick a bit as the drugs stopped alright - or so me dad said and I had no reason to doubt this because the one good thing about the man is that he always speaks the truth.
But after the drugs when me dad was married and me sister Dianne and then me came along the drinking started which me granddad couldn’t do much about because he weren’t ‘The Machine’ anymore, he were an old blokey wi’ a bad chest and what me mam said were sad eyes as all his hope had shrivelled (which was rich coming from her who lived on a right old diet of pills from the doctor for all her sad moods and what not).

 

Then about five years ago Dianne who had a lovely little nose that always made us think of a mushroom got into drugs big time after hanging about with one of the rough families that had moved onto our estate.

 

The dad of this particular family was called The Godfather as soon he controlled the streets with kids as young as twelve dealing drugs between themselves, which I know to be true for fact because I were a right little pill popper who would have rattled like a jar if you’d bothered to shake him, which nobody would have dared as I were connected to The Godfather by Dianne who eventually was up the stick to The Godfather’s middle kid, who even The Godfather called Psycho-Lad. Which if you want my opinion on the matter was a considerable under statement by at least a mile and a half.
How he got called Psycho-Lad was because he were a right nutter who once took nine E with at least nine pints of beer and went off it truly big time, smashing every single bit of his mam’s kitchen to pieces including even the light switches and the sockets for the plugs. Apparently the only thing he didn’t do was the budgie which surprises us because you’d think for extra impact he would have bitten its head off, though the word on the estate was that he was fond of the little thing which used to sit on his finger and look all cute - which makes us think now that it must have had some owl in its blood as being cute was a very wise move given the way things turned out.

 

Apparently even The Godfather was shitting hisself, which doesn’t surprise us now as being inside like I am is an education when it comes to the learning of big fishes and little pools. Today if I really had to I’d sort The Godfather with a little help from a sharp implement used to hurt but not kill. That gets the message across - which again I can say because I’m the one with scars to prove it. In fact some say that until you’ve had a knifing and done a knifing you’re unborn, but it’s not a ritual I personally recommend as one misjudgement can lead to disaster and a long, long time behind bars which isn’t funny as anybody stuck on the inside can tell you.

 

Psycho-Lad’s uncle - The Godfather’s brother who’d had a liver transplant and was the one who everybody on the estate said was a nice man - tried to calm Psycho down and got his face pulped with his eye sockets and his forehead smashed to bits causing brain damage, but not too much I think, and anyway he was a bit stupid to begin with otherwise why would he have tried to reason with a dangerous lunatic on the rampage? I mean talk about inviting a hammering.
Looking back on it now I guess I’d say that the whole family was pretty crazy one way or another but you don’t see things clear when they’re dead close at the time, because life’s like that and if it wasn’t the days would be so easy that all kinds of people would still be taking pills and everything out of the boredom. Even Prince Harry for example got into bother for drugs and he doesn’t live on a wrecked up estate so what’s the big difference if it’s me doing it (actually quite a bit I’d guess but that’s a whole different story).

 

Once Psycho-Lad knew that The Godfather was scared of him he got above himself by miles, the biggest nutter I have ever known in my entire life so far - and I mean N-U-T-T-E-R. Nobody on our ever estate dared cross him and the more our Dianne was with him which was all the time I can tell you, the more me dad drank and the more me granddad despised him for that very drinking. Plus he was still always going on about me dad getting a job which sort of missed the point that where we lived jobs were rare as gold nuggets, and when did you last find one of those lying at the roadside?
But like I said afore, granddad couldn’t do anything by then because he were just an old wreck gasping for breath in a chair by the fire, which to add insult to very great injury wasn’t even coal anymore on account of the council making us smokeless to save the air. Me granny got herself buried in bingo and me mam got more pills off the doctor, which if you really want my opinion again was irresponsible because obviously she was a sad woman what needed help, even a man from Mars could have seen that!! (Then again some might say that’s where doctors and all them thought us lot lived – Mars.)

 

Me sister Dianne who had become a right bitch and dead hard through being with Psycho was still her old self underneath and my reckoning is she was as scared as everybody else so did the big ‘I am’ act as a way of coping. Because once you were in a situation with a right psycho how are you ever going to get out of it without paying a very heavy price? And I mean very heavy!!! Like dead or something - though I’m speculating a bit because he didn’t actually kill her, just something nearly as bad, the ugly bastard.

 

It all happened because Dianne wanted to stop doing drugs because of the innocent bairn that was inside her belly because sometimes babies are born addicted and all that, which is unfair if you think about it because it’s hardly their choice is it? Psycho didn’t like this one bit - I guess because he didn’t want to always be smacked out his head alone (and I think because it was our Dianne defying him for the first time, which took some guts).

 

Then he killed her baby. Not like taking it out its pram and holding its head under water - which another man I know did when the dole stopped his money and he couldn’t handle it - but by kicking her in the belly when she was nine months pregnant so that she fell down stairs and lay there with all the blood and the baby what cried for a little while coming out while he - the Evil One!!! - was out the back dealing to kids off the estate. I mean, talk about C-R-U-E-L.

 

But that’s how he was and there’s plenty more like him I can tell you.

 

Then our Dianne who later told me the truth about everything went and lied to the doctors and the police saying she fell down stairs, which was hardly original but enough to get that slimy murderer off the hook. And all because of him there was one dead bairn that wasn’t going to grow up and ever have a fair crack at life, like I’ve at least got even if it is unfair that I’m inside because I didn’t plan to bite anybody’s nose off like that piece of filth probably planned to kick our Dianne in her big belly where she was carrying, did I?

 

It just happened and believe me I regret it now because I haven’t been able to walk beyond a high wire fence for two years so far and when life’s like that it does bad things to your head!!! Especially when you’re not much more than a kid yourself, which let’s face it I’m not, even though I’ve seen and done more things than most of my age. Anyroad, my Big Plan was to do away with the piece of filth that hurt our Dianne even if she was back living with him and planning to get married as he’d promised that he would never ever hit her again, which made sense to me because he hadn’t hit her, he’d kicked her hadn’t he?

 

With me granddad on death’s door and me dad as drunk as a wanker’s hand it was all down to me, that’s what I felt and if I’m really honest about it that’s what I would still feel about the whole very sorry business today.

 

So 

 

Psycho was in the habit of taking a short cut across what us called the Paddock where he’d been to the shop for his cans. Mostly the Paddock was deserted of people - just a gravely bit of scrap land with scrappy grass growing out of it. Plus it had a stink of sulphur and every now and again caught fire by itself, burning away all the grass so that the scene left was of a sad nothing. Like I felt when I saw our Dianne in hospital with that filth acting all lovey-dovey when in fact he was getting the story straight because the police and doctors had kept at her, telling her she needn’t be scared.

 

Which tells you what they know because she would have been out of her tree not to have been totally terrified because when Psycho had a thing with another girl she moved far away as possible, though the word was he still found her and she paid the price with her looks spoilt where he bit her face, which I suppose I’m not in a position to say much about, am I?

 

Years ago the Paddock was where some of the pit ponies were kept and me dad once telt us all about what smart brutes they were when he was a bairn, shiny like wet paint despite all their time below ground where you’d never catch mesself I might add. So because it was private as you could get with trees all round I decided it was the right place for Psycho to have his very big meeting with his Maker, because whatever I was doing who was it that had murdered our Dianne’s unborn bairn? Not mesself that was for sure as only somebody who deserves to die sinks that low.

Leastways that’s how I was thinking at the time when I were so mixed up with all me family problems n’ that that me entire world felt like I was living inside a telly where everything was out of focus - if that makes sense which I hope it does because it’s a nightmare that I would advise all sane persons to steer well clear of.

 

Psycho was big heavy and strong, more like a cart horse than any pit pony if you see what I mean. Me plan was to come up behind and stick a long knife for cutting bread right through his ribs to the heart - if he had one. Even at the beginning when I was planning I knew I couldn’t go through with it as inside me head I saw his blood tubes getting all sliced with blood pumping out and it was too much, though I still prepared with about eight E and as much in vodka!! And I’m telling youse as one who knows - if that doesn’t get you uncorked nothing ever will.

 

It was like I was made into a battery that had too much charge in it - fizzing to the point of popping but no power and with so much fear in us besides that I felt like me whole body was stuffed with steel wool that itched and scratched without letting up. Looking on from outside I were probably like some kind of mad man - all lightning.

 

And then

 

I waited under this knobbly old tree that had black berries on that an old man off the estate sometimes picked to make wine that everybody said tasted like red piss which made us wonder just how they knew that particular detail as piss-drinking even if it was red wasn’t high on me own list of fun as I guess it isn’t yours if you’re the reader of this story (if that’s what it is!). Who would have thought that I was to get brought down by little black berries smaller than a frozen pea? But that’s exactly what happened as when I were waiting with the knife hidden inside me shell suit I got hungry and started eating the things like I were shovelling pills to save me life.

 

For some reason that I didn’t stop to question obviously, I wanted more and more and if the hand fate hadn’t intervened in the form of near disaster doubtless I would of gobbled through the whole tree, which was what the writer in residence helping us say all this reckons was probably an elderberry as his old man used to make wine too - which would be a funny connection if it weren’t that lots of people are home brewers (maybe I’ll be one when I’m old too?).

 

Next thing Psycho’s on the ground aside us all concerned because I’m blue in the face and nearly dead where the berries have got caught in me throat which with all that I’d taken in terms of E for ‘ecstasy’ and A for ‘alcohol’ had sort of gone on strike so I couldn’t get it clear as the muscles were well paralysed - and to be really honest I thought it was curtains at fifteen years of age and that’s a pretty scary thing if you’ve never experienced it.

 

So whose fingers went down me throat and cleared the horrible mess that was draining me life away? Well I guess you don’t need to be a winner of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to know the answer - Psycho Bloody Lad. The very man I were meant to be whacking with me mam’s bread knife (which afterwards I took home again because me mam’s never had very much and the knife were a present for Xmas). When Psycho had got us breathing as right as I could manage at that particular time and stumbled across the knife in me shell suit he looked at us all funny and said it weren’t the kind of thing to be mucking about with, and I thought you’re not kidding there mate.
But how could I whack him then when he’d saved us from meeting me own Maker who I were starting to think might’ve been pissed off with us anyway for even wanting to go as far as whacking Psycho? In fact at the time I thought it was Him Above what’d got us choking to death on the berries, a little reminder of who was the big boss when it came to the most important things, which let’s face it don’t get much bigger than life and death do they?

 

Psycho told us to get mesself away home and went off with his cans and the worst of it is for a little while I took to the bit of scum like he was a big brother or even a dad as obviously it was only human to be feeling grateful and all that.

 

But then I made mesself think of our Dianne lying at the bottom of the stairs with her baby dying between her legs and got back to hating again - BIG TIME - except Psycho Lad was gone and the moment was passed because he’d still saved me life, the ugly mongrel who I wished I’d never seen and who should never have come to our estate anyway, because why should us live with the likes of his family who like I said before are all crazy?

 

Looking back on it now I can see that I pushed me anger down inside so that I were like what they call a walking time bomb ready to blow the whole place wide open at any minute, which was pretty dodgy because as I left The Paddock the gravely sulphur did it’s fire trick with all the scrubby grass suddenly burning away so I had to run like the law was after us.

 

 

I think now that I took that sudden natural force of flame as a signal not to be going soft with me feelings because only the strong survive and again if you were to spend time behind bars yourself you’d understand exactly what I mean as four lads alone have topped themselves this past year - which is a pretty bad thing when you think they were just my age though maybe a year older, but certainly not two years older.

 

So (again)

 

Psycho-Lad what had murdered me big sister’s unborn bairn what still managed to cry afore it died - and who’d saved me own life not realising me mission was actually to whack him good n’ proper - was in me blood like a virus, I daresay. And like the great big fool that I was I kidded mesself everything was back to normal probably hiding from me failure to do what I had set out to do in the very first place - whack Psycho who deserved it NO ARGUMENT.

 

Then when me mate what I’ll call Spider on account of giving no real names rang me mobile and said go to his for a night because his mam was out on the batter I thought fucking great because I needed something for getting me head right.

 

And anyroad Spider was a TWOCCER WITH A GIFT and odds were us’d get a good evening in as it’s hard to beat a real mission for lifting your mood - if you’ve been unlucky enough to sink to THE BLACKNESS OF HELL which is more or less where I was, with all the humiliation of failure thrown in for good measure, as hadn’t I let our Dianne down major style?
Spider lived just two streets from ours and we’d been friends since the very beginning when he was a bairn and I were one too. When I got round to his he were already pretty stoned and soon us were just chilling with cans and E but I didn’t mention the Psycho business in the Paddock as I didn’t want to be the REALLY DUMB ONE did I?

 

In fact it all just sat inside us like some beast that was going to burst out when it was good and ready and to perfectly honest I was happy to let it all happen that way because why should I have been carrying all that shit around? I were just a bairn mesself even if that didn’t count for much when the beak what gave us me five long years behind bars said I were a danger who’d never learnt boundaries - which got us to say I’d never been far in any direction with nobody in the court room laughing at me joke which I suppose was a bit thick of us.

 

But I weren’t actually thinking any of this at the time if you see what I mean. In fact everything was chilled at Spider’s as it’s amazing how sometimes you get really fired up and sometimes you get dead relaxed, like you’re a tired puppy dog that’s flopped for a nap before jumping up and running round and round and round, forever chasing your waggy little tail and having great fun all the time no doubt!!! (If life was like that all the time who says things wouldn’t be much better for everybody because that’s what I reckon the bottom line of modern society is - nobody has enough fun anymore).

 

Then another lad what I’ll call Dynamo on account of all the speed he did joined us and wanted a twoc what Spider said no to because he was a different kind of twoccer all round - not into smashing the cars which still got a hard time nonetheless because nobody - and I mean NOBODY - was as fast as that lad.

 

So me and Dynamo left Spider alone which I felt a bit bad for and went off for a truly mental night - Dynamo not knowing a thing obviously about the Beast inside us though even then I sort of realised that Spider saw it all right as he knew us as his kid brother, which I weren’t actually as our birthdays were only ten days apart to be exact.

Well didn’t we get ourselves out and find a yellow Astra that just begged to be took and destroyed on account of its puke colour? Maybe that’s why the owner hadn’t bothered with a steering lock I thought, like he wanted us to take the thing. And the point is that the cars were insured anyway so it’s not like real harm gets done is it? (And if you ask me insurance companies rip ordinary people off in their own sweet way anyroad, like investing in dodgy deals and all that. But who cares about that side of things - nobody from where I’m standing, that’s who).

 

Things got proper turbo-charged when we popped phet on top of the E for ecstasy and the A for alcohol that us’d already got down our greedy little necks and by now I were truly and magnificently smashed outta it -

 

Whee.....a spaceman flying on the fringes where nobody could stop us not ever

After about only half an hour we’d done the Astra which we torched at the back of a house where we heard the wifie inside going bananas because just inside the garage where the blazing car was we knew she bred hamsters which to be honest isn’t so hilarious now as I’ve nowt against the furry little things which must bring a lot of comfort to kids and to lonely people. Like us can all be if the big flow of life doesn’t go our way as must have happened even for some of you that’s reading me words (what I hope you’re enjoying a bit at least).

 

Finally some other lads had arrived and we twocced several cars and drove to what was called The Flats where the last pit head was capped when I were knee high to one of the hamsters us nearly cooked (I heard in the newspaper what reported the case that they survived all right though they must have been hot about the collars so to speak, mustn’t they?)

 

 

That’s when we did British Bulldog with the cars which gave me my best buzz of the whole evening even if it did get a bit hairy as I took a knock that put a right sharp pain in me lower back what was gone in the morning though - which makes us think ‘no gain without pain’ and all that, because the gain on that specific night was a blood-pounder that I’ll never forget that’s for sure.

Little did I know how horribly wrong it was all about to go.

 

Afterwards the cars looked like they were dead or dying n’ I felt for the poor things with all the fibre of me heart until I remembered they were just bits of metal and plastic, nowt more - in fact rubbish really when you think about it and all the harm they do too.

 

By then Dynamo was all spent and us watched from a distance as the good officers of the fire brigade dealt with the little blaze we’d done to get rid of our prints and for the hell of it anyway. By then it was dead late wi’ the clubs on the front tipping out and what have you so it was inevitable that us’d see stragglers on our weary walk home…….

 

If you’d asked us then I’d a forgotten more or less about Psycho-Lad saving me life n’ all that but that didn’t mean the Beast had exited me body did it? Probably now I was the Crazy One but just didn’t know it, though if crazy meant being calm then I can tell that on that specific occasion I were a flat sea. A flat sea with killer sharks lurking that is.

 

When I saw this right twat who was staggering drunk shoving his lass on the pavement I went straight up and he looked at us like I was a bairn what shoulda’ been tucked up in bed wi’ a hot water bottle n’ his mam’s good night kiss lingering like the scent a’ perfume - the lass hitting twat.

And afore he knew it - or even I knew it to be honest with youse again - I were at him, the Beast or the lurking sharks if that what they were coming out wi’ a vengeance that had us reeling like I were a midget clinging on, trying to bring down King Kong himself.

 

But I weren’t clinging on with me hands as such and the twat who was no King Kong had gone down with me teeth clamped around his nose where I actually tasted snot in the middle a’ the frenzy.

 

His girlfriend was going mental with Dynamo who couldn’t believe his eyes and who legged it even before I’d bitten harder and pulled the stranger’s beak clean away in me mouth, leaving a hole n’ a blotch in the middle a’ his face that looked like a plum had been blatted with a cricket bat.
And I suppose if I hadn’t been so outta me head and gone and swallowed the snotty thing they could’a stitched it back or something but I have to say that to this day that very man walks around wi’ a plastic snout, only it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if they grow him a new one as they do that sort of thing on the back of mice these days don’t they?

 

 

Maybe next time he’ll not shove his girlfriend and lose to an avenging dark angel.

 

I left the twat on the pavement with his girlfriend cuddling him and already doing nine nine nine - which had to happen I suppose as he could’ve gone and bled to death making things a whole lot harder for mesself as I already had SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES to deal with didn’t I?

 

Then I got afraid to go anywhere because as sure as the Queen makes a dead boring speech at Xmas the law was coming….Its long arm already reaching out even if it couldn’t be seen by any naked eye. In fact I’ve wondered that if they got us on time would me stomach have been pumped to get the nose to stitch back on even if the edges had to be a bit rough with me teeth and all that?
Sometimes to this very day I dream that the nose didn’t get digested like me food but is still there ready to grow into a huge thing that will make mesself burst open which is another scary thing I carry if you care to give it some thought.

 

In the morning it was me granddad who was angry and crying and turned us into the law and that’s when me dad punched him one which was wrong as me granddad was doing what he had to do - And besides he was just a frail old man with nothing left ahead of him wasn’t he?

 

Then even if it’s not funny I had to laugh a bit because one of the copper’s said to us ‘where’s the victim’s nose?’ n’ as I couldn’t remember a thing at that point I naturally said ‘middle a’ the bastard’s face!’ with another one looking at us all sickly saying ‘the cannibal’s eaten it’, sending us from a bit of laughing to giddy hysterics the like a’ which I’d never had in me life.

 

I’m glad the ‘cannibal’ tag didn’t stick, though if I’m looking into me soul and telling the total truth I do sometimes look at a nose and wonder how easy it would come away, but only in jest - not like I want to get the salt n’ pepper out!! Which really would be sick, leastways in my book which is pretty normal if you forget the one eaten nose which won’t get repeated.

 

Now me granddad’s died the poor old soul, and me dad’s liver’s got less life left than the yellow Astra us twocced - not long now and me mam’ll be on the batter wi’ Spider’s mam who’s a right good survivor in this world that youse wi’ good jobs n’ all that doubtless reckon I’m making up which would be funny if it weren’t the truth and nothing but the whole truth.

 

Anyroad, sorry to be getting angry - here’s a poem I writ when it were middle a’ the night in me cell and me head got to thinking like heads will always do I suppose.

 

BANGED UP

 

When it’s dark
I’m all alone
When it’s dark
I fear -
What darkness to follow
This darkness here?