This goes all the way back to grade school—or what you'd call primary school here in England. There were all kinds of rumours about this kid before he joined our class. He was expelled from his previous school; I think there was something about a stabbing, but I didn't believe it then. Whatever, it was definitely tied to violence. Though, even back then, they stupidly labelled it 'disruptive behaviour.' Like changing the name of it would've somehow cured or fixed his bad conduct. Maddening.
Anyway, he came from a predictably rough family—his sister was a bully too. Although she ended up dying, slowly, from some kind of degenerative brain malady. Then it was all, 'Oh! Isn't it sad?' As if all was forgiven. The last time I saw her, healthy, that is, she was hanging around with a couple of oversized empty heads and being dragged around by a big, mal-influenced dog on a chain; typical studded collar replete. A Rottweiler, I think it was. But on the very last occasion, she was being pushed through the town's main street in a wheelchair, pathetically yellow and dribbling in between spasms. It was supposed to be a sad sight, but I felt nothing resembling sympathy. And I'm sure she didn't want or deserve it.
Jessie's and my first encounter was in the schoolyard at break. Huh… on my end, it was a stupid fucking thing to do, and I take full responsibility for our intentions—even if I was just a dumb, impressionable kid. But that's all I can do. Because that's all there was: intentions. No actions. Not on our side anyway. In truth, I'm pretty sure it was actually his very first day there.
My best friend Richie Bond, the master manipulator, was like, 'Chris, Chris, what the fuck is he doing? Have you seen?' He put a coercive arm around my shoulder and turned me to start walking in Jessie's direction, whispering and goading—as was his forte.
You see, I was no bully; one or two might differ, for which I'm very sorry, but I wasn't anywhere near the bottom of the food chain either, so... I mean, I was tricky enough to get by without too many scrapes—more than most anyway. I played on all the sports teams and had decent-to-good grades—when I took an interest… But I do admit, I was pretty impressionable. And like I said, Richie Bond was one of my best friends and cunningly treacherous in his own right. He didn't have the requisite physicality to intimidate like I could, so he made others do his bidding—me, in this case. Stupidly. If you met Richie's mum, you might not blame her fella for leaving; she was always so loud and stuffed with gravel—but she was fair and motherly with me, so I didn't complain. I only saw Jessie's dad a couple of times, but he definitely idolised him as some kind of hard-guy icon—even if he did beat up his far taller mother. So they both came from what you might call 'broken homes', but whatever, you can call that if you want.
So we made our way through the other kids at play that break time. The weather was nice, and the yard was always thrumming at that time of year—it was May or something. As we approached the corner of the grand old red-brick building, there was Jessie, spinning around super-fast on one foot, his arms fully outstretched, spinning like an upturned windmill. He had a blank stare, and you could tell right off that he wasn't playing with very much mentally. He looked kinda skinny, but not in an athletic way. More like he was undernourished. I tell ya, the power of intent is a hell of a thing! Wish I'd known that then. I can't tell you what Richie was saying or whispering to me as we got closer; all I can say is I'm sure our intentions seemed obvious: put the new, supposedly dangerous kid in his place. Wherever that was meant to be...
Well, you might have already figured out that isn't quite how it went down. All I know is I didn't get even close to a stance of readiness once we got into that corner. Or if any words were even spoken—I don't think they were. Before we did or said anything, one of Jessie's brainless spins came hurtling around and caught me in the ear, busting my eardrum… Yes, I know, in fairness, our intentions weren't honourable in going over there, but Jessie didn't know that. There really wasn't enough time to even state our position, whatever that was. So, it WAS a stupid thing to do, like I said. And I do take full responsibility on behalf of my credulous ten/eleven-year-old self. Ha… I wish I could say that'd been the last of it.
I mean, did you ever have the feeling that your life might have progressed in a completely, even radically, different direction if just one specific person hadn't been born? Why in the name of all shits did he have to be sent to our school? Why couldn't I have been homeschooled? Or gone to one of those Waldorf schools? Huh... It's not like we could've afforded that, I'm sure. Don't feel bad. I know you won't. It isn't my intention to immortalise myself by way of this-here yarn as some kind of everlasting victim. (Already far too much of that around.) And what's more, this story is far from fucking finished.
Unusually, or maybe not, I really don't know... This kid and I actually became 'friends' over the next couple of years. It wasn't really what I'd describe as a normal or healthy friendship, as you can imagine. More of a bond over mutual delinquency. Things at home had become grim for me, financially and otherwise; I won't bore you with that now. But it wasn't like me, Jessie, and the rest of our group's home situations were all alike, especially not his.
His mother resembled him in a way: skinny, though not athletic. She was an avid smoker of the cheapest cigarettes, usually from abroad, and had curly dark hair with what you might have once called nice looks. Having said that, they were quickly being scabbed over by either self-abuse, beatings, lack of a good diet—or all of the above. They had a little yapping white dog, which in truth looked healthier than she did. And much fatter, thankfully.
I mean, Jesus... When you're a kid, you just don't usually notice the little details that would've shown you that your bully, or personal tyrant—whatever you wanna call them—was acting out of their own weakness and insecurity. Or maybe you don't realise you're picking up on those things at the time. Even when you do become privy to those explanations as an adult, however credible they seem, it's easy to dismiss a lot of it as some kind of clichéd, Freudian quackery. Which I'm sure it is mostly.
Anyway, I mustn't have been totally ignorant... This one time I was back at Jessie's place after school: at that time they were living in a small, beat-up annex attached to a much larger place that was actually a decadent and beautiful sandstone house in its day—we were about twelve or thirteen at the time. He lived there with just his mum. His sister was barely ever staying overnight by then. It didn't really pass as a proper home—or even half-decent—and always seemed colder inside than out.
I was saying my goodbyes to his mother and was quite happily getting ready to set off home for dinner—solo. It was November or something, so the evenings were dark. I don't know why Jessie felt the need to maintain his pretence for the benefit of his mother; maybe it was for my sake; who knows.
'I'll take you back over that way.'
I said, 'Nah, it's alright. I've got my bike, anyway, so...'
Before I could even begin to head for the door, his mother chimed in with, 'Yeh and you can walk that bloody dog while you're at it.'
Jessie put on his coat, puffed up and full of nonchalant bluster—of course it was all a mere bagatelle for him, this common errand. We headed out and up the dark driveway of the once-grand house and stepped into the streetlights on Lampton Road.
'Which way you wanna go?' he asked.
'I usually just cut through the chase and then the park. That brings me out at my side of town.'
He seemed slightly hesitant and said something about maybe not being bothered about going the whole way. I didn't mind and figured that the park was probably where he was taking the dog anyway. As we neared the gateway, the streetlights became fewer. It wasn't a dangerous place to be at all, but there were no lights of any kind in the park. That route took a mile or two off my journey, so I took it all the time.
Jessie was saying less and less as we headed into the darkness. I could just make out that his eyes were fixed straight ahead, wide and explicitly alert—jittery, almost.
We were just about halfway through before he broke his silence and began to nervously ramble. He started recounting these weird tough-guy scenarios which supposedly happened around the town, and to which HE, of course, reckoned to be privy. And they all took place at night! Or 'when it was dark!' Then he started to brag unconvincingly about how he, or WE more like, should react if something like that ‘went down right now!’ Never mind that we were just a couple of after-school kids strolling through a peaceful park whose most regular visitors were white-haired dog walkers… I think it was about 6:30 in the evening. 7 at the most.
Well, he did actually end up making the whole journey with me to my house, his little dog in tow. We got into my kitchen; my mother gave the little dog a bowl of water; I fed him a small treat or two. Not a hint of Jessie's fragile bravado remained as he did his best to be polite with my mother—my house wasn't fancy or anything but was nice enough in comparison, situated in a typically middle-class area on the eastern edge of town. I was more than ready for some food by this point, and we weren't really so close that my parents would invite him in to eat with us. Besides, I don't think my dad liked 'the cut of his jib,' which happened a lot.
So, there he stood, Ten Men with a little dog, in the corner of our kitchen. Not even looking like half a man—or half a boy, in truth. With the bright yellow kitchen spotlights giving his fearful bambi-eyes nowhere to hide, he again started making random, nonsensical small talk. He even tried to talk about schoolwork, which was laughable given his scholastic prowess. It was all barely cogent and a side of him I hadn't yet seen; but that's when I realised: this little shit is scared stiff of walking home on his own in the dark! A simple journey that I took all the time by myself.
My mum went back to the living room before Jessie finally plucked up the courage to ask, 'Er... you gonna walk me back home then?'
Ha… He was asking me! What an absolute joke! I mean, I didn't even want or need him to come with me to begin with. That's before we even get to the point that, not too long ago, we set out on this positively anodyne quest with him acting the big guy, all full of piss and gumption for me and his mother. And how HE was the one, with great gallantry, of course, that was supposed to be escorting me! False strength narrative, indeed.
At first I just smiled and tried to make a joke of the absurd situation. I actually ended up playing his coach and cheerleader, laughably. I reassured him that there's nothing to be afraid of; I do that journey all the time and that the dark is nothing to fear. And besides, it's not even very late—not that the time really mattered much. After all, it's just a midsized market town in rural England, not exactly Mexico City... I even tried light-heartedly painting his wee companion as his fierce protector and canine steed! But alas, unsuccessfully. To think of Ten Men, self-appointed tough guy: afraid of the bloody dark. On our way back, his sense of his fear felt so bright it could've lighted our way; I carried it with me like the offering it was.