So, you've come this far, and you might be wondering if this guy truly deserves this kind of exposure? He deserves it; don't worry; you'll see soon enough. Anyway, can you imagine if he's following along, reading this blog right now, waiting for the axe to fall? That'd make it even sweeter, let me tell you! Because he knows what he's done and what he did to me—and who knows how many others… Such is the KIND we're talking about.
Just to be clear, he is a bully. Even now as an adult. But he wasn't really my bully. I mean, what he did to me was more than despicable—criminal, in fact. But he never dominated me, not in any meaningful way. Others had it way worse; that was proper bullying. What bothers me more is what he might still be doing. Or that for which has not yet been accounted; redressed, documented, revealed.
Hence, I thought it might be time for a brief portrait of the bully as a young man, yes? Well, yes or no, this is my domain, so off you fuck if you don't like it (preferably in a grotesque and rapid hip-thrusting motion until you're well out of sight.) Although I do have one or two anecdotes about this clown that are absolutely priceless, if somewhat incredible seeming. So stick around if you wanna hear them.
You see, I said he had a small dick all along. Certain types of attitude just scream it, don't they? And don't try telling me that small cock/big compensating attitude isn't a thing. I've seen it more than once—the attitude, that is. Anyway, that's definitely one of the scratchy little hang-ups residing in Jessie's brain, such as it is. And one of the chief reasons he had beef with me, I'm sure. Plus, he always wore shorts in the shower, tellingly—which didn't seem very tough.
He once said to me, 'Just because you're big, don't think you're tough!' Interesting choice of word. Yeah, I was taller than him, broader-shouldered, and better built. But 'big'? Dunno which piece of me he was referring to. I mean, I may be giving his unconscious a bit much credit... Can men suffer from penis envy? I also read somewhere that up to 70% of bullying behaviour can be inherited, and thinking about this prick really does lend veracity to the notion that Mum & Dad can indeed ‘fuck you up’. And I heard he's actually spawned offspring now too—highly unfortunate for some classmates somewhere.
So, if you don't mind, I'll tell you about his VERY brief encounter with one of my best friends growing up, Michaela—I called her Mickey. She was a bit of a tomboy and shared some classes with Jessie in high school. They were in the lower sets, so I didn't see them much during the day. Me and Mickey usually hung out afterwards: smoking, listening to music, doing comedy bits—normal sort of stuff for that age. Sometimes we'd go out and drink those large bottles of cheap cider when we found someone who could buy it for us, it was usually all we could afford. Great memories, all harmless enough; never hurt anybody. And it was all purely platonic between me and Mickey; we were like siblings.
On the night in question, after school, there was a group of us hanging around in the park near Mickey's place when Jessie turned up on his bike. She lived on my side of town, but it was early summer, so light nights were no problem for our Jessie. She'd invited him earlier in class. We were about four or five that night, having a drink, smoking a few cigs, not doing any damage. And at first, Jessie actually seemed to merge with the group fairly well—which was surprising. He was pretty quiet, though, not like he was at school. But of course, we weren't his usual group, so there really wasn't the usual imperative of having to impress any onlookers and prove how tough he is—such is the bully's milieu. But, if you'll allow me to quote from an equally simple but infinitely sweeter mind, 'Stupid is as stupid does.'
Predictably then, it wasn't long before being the outsider got right under Jessie's skin. All our conversational reference points were beyond abstract to him, and he didn't get any of our jokes—don't think he gets too many jokes at all, in fairness. So that's when he decided to start running at the climbing frame a few yards from where we were, springing off it doing spins, chops, and kicks, uttering sound effects like he thought he was Bruce Lee or something! You might think, 'Aw, well, that's kids for ya.' But we weren't 'kids,' not then. We were all the same year or older—about fifteen at the youngest... I suppose that's okay behaviour and everything, but even at that time, it seemed awkward, out of sync, and just plain juvenile. I really don't think he has anything to add to genuine badinage or mirth—it's like he's stunted, socially.
Still, as much as he might have belonged at the corner table, even at fifteen, his urge for copulation didn't seem dampened—like a very simple-minded primate. And I knew he had a thing for Mickey, or what normal people would call a ‘thing’. The implication of such being that the THING itself might induce a modicum of subtlety, courtship, charm—in most cases anyway. Though not with Jessie… The closest he got to flirtatious guile was taking the piss out of his target with scummy innuendos, laggingly out of context usually. But Mickey knew how to handle him. In fact, she was pretty game for it and gave as good as she got. However dumb, undernourished, and vacant Jessie's eyes were, he wasn't actually the worst-looking boy in school. He had a sort of scraggy and curled roughness that went over quite well and was perhaps charmingly roguish in a Gaelic traveller kind of way, however shocking that may seem. And I could tell Mickey wasn't totally incurious.
When his kung fu session finally abated, Jessie turned his attention on Mickey—with great panache as usual. He gestured towards the conifers in the corner of the park and said, 'How many times av u had yer knickers off in there, then?'
Quick as you like, Mickey came back with, 'Tonnes! Go and have a look; I think there's still a pair of pink ones stuck up inside. Keeping them up there for spares.'
I wasn't amused, but the back-and-forth seemed fairly jovial. Mickey's sharpness wasn't surprising, not if you knew her. Still though, off he went to look up inside the trees like a prize moron. The conifers huddled together; there was a space underneath like a shelter with just enough room to stand. It's where we learnt to roll up when we first started smoking. As Jessie pissed off into the corner to search for Mickey's underwear, she told us she was really sorry and that she shouldn't have invited him to hang out. She looked at the greying sky and told us she'd 'get rid of him'. With a weary blue softness, she handed me some coins and suggested we go to the shop to pick up some more ciggies; I could usually get served, and it was looking like rain. She headed over to the trees as we drifted off out of the park towards the shop.
I didn't see Mickey again that night. I went back to the park to see if she was still there and to give her her cigarettes, but she'd already left. No Jessie either. He WAS at school the next day, though. When I got into the form room before class, he was bragging about something to the football lads—they weren't natural allies or anything; they might have respected his tough facade in some way, but I knew they thought he was just an idiotic dropout. They laughed and cackled at his evergreen willingness to play the dunce—no staging required. Then he started miming and humping the air over the end of one of the desks like a demented little terrier and talking shit about his latest sexual conquest.
Well, the manner in which I've recounted these events should, I hope, leave you in no doubt as to the content of his swinish LARP that morning. Further, I wish I could tell you this was all a fiction. I couldn't get it off my mind the whole morning—as you can imagine. I would've gone straight across to Mickey's room to see her, but she'd already told me the night before that she was at the dentist's and wouldn't be coming in until late lunchtime. I hung around smoking near the bike shed, of all places, as the lunch hour drew out. The bell had been and gone a good while ago when Mickey finally strolled in. I still have in mind perfectly clearly her bohemian, tomboy style: record bag for schoolwork, flared trousers, long blonde hair that was usually wet from a recent shower, tongue stud, cigarette; that casual unhurried gait. Lateness mattered not—de rigueur.
'Where the hell did you get to last night, Mick?' I ushered her behind the sheds, out of sight of classroom windows.
'What? Nowhere. After you left, I went home and got a shower, then bed, pretty much…'
'Here, there's your ciggies; I had a couple. There's fourteen or fifteen left.'
She dropped to a low, comedic voice and said, 'Ya cheeky monkey.' Took them with her lovely, fulsome grin, popped her lighter in the space in the deck before tucking them into her bag.
'What happened with Jessie? Did you tell him to clear off, or what?
'Er, no. I sort of didn't, actually.' she shook her head back to move the hair out of her face, 'we kind of got it on after you left.'
She seemed relaxed enough, but she was always kind of laid back—externally at least. I didn't know how she'd take it if I told her about Jessie's performance in the form room that morning.
'For fuck's sake, Mick... What?'
Only a derisive sort of chortle came from Mickey's full lips as she fished the ciggies back out from her bag. She lit one in her mouth and put it to my lips, got one out for herself, and stepped in to light it off mine.
'Kinda funny actually... don't know if I should say.'
'Yeah but Jessie! Why him? I mean, come on!'
'I know, I know, but we've kind of been flirting, messing around together in class. We've got maths together, so... And I've always, ya know... thought he was quite cute.'
I just continued smoking and looked off somewhere else. My head shook slightly as she told me.
'So if WE did maths together does that mean I'd be getting into your pants?' I said.
I got her laughing. We were back on familiar ground. And it broke the tension for a moment at least.
She continued, 'Well, he won't be getting in there again… And, in fairness, he didn't really get in there last night—not properly, anyway!’
Then she got a little giddy; took the back of her fingers to the corner of the lashes and cleared her eye before going on, 'We just kissed for a while in the trees at first. Then he was feeling me up; over my jeans, under my shirt, ya know...' I nodded along - this much wasn't unusual, we discussed pretty much everything.
Mickey went on, 'But then he started kinda humping my leg. I didn't really do much at that point—it was really bizarre!' She paused to take another drag, 'I was up against the fence, ya know, in that back corner? It's pretty dark there. Anyway...' She stopped briefly, looking upwards, ‘ahh, this is so fucked up!’ It was like she couldn't quite believe what she was about to say. 'Then I could sort of hear him unbuckling his trousers. I wasn't really touching him back by this point... It all happened in a flash—or seems like it now.' She swept some hair behind her ear and continued, 'Anyway, heh-ha... the little fucker had me pinned up against the fence; he lifted up my shirt and started humping away like crazy! All I could feel was something prodding in and out of my belly button. It felt like a little cocktail sausage, or something!’
'Oh my god, Mick... That's insane!'
'Ah… I know right.
She gathered her thoughts and continued, ‘But it's alright, it's really alright—he was only going for about another twenty seconds and then it was over.’
'Mick, fuck… I dunno what to say right now.'
With the beginnings of a wonderfully mocking smile igniting her lovely face, she said in her casual style, 'Ah, it's no biggie. I might have been pissed off; called rape or something; but he's just so fucking...'
It was too late. She couldn't finish her sentence. Once she started grinning like that, and we caught each other's eyes: hysterics! Such a little bastard but so pathetic we couldn't help but laugh at him. Mickey caught the drips from her lashes with the tops of her fingers; I flicked my cigarette off to one side, and she came in for a hug, still chuckling. I kissed her forehead, and we headed off to class.
I honestly had no idea at that time how precisely damning that specific little piece of information would become. Yeah, it was a weird kind of vindication, but I was just relieved that my friend was now safe. I think the downright pathetic nature of Jessie's deed obviously made it easier for her to laugh it off, but I dunno… I never could manage to tell her about his charade that morning in the form room.
Now, this is the point in the story where you’ll say I’m taking the piss. And I get it. I would too. But this bit? This isn’t me exaggerating. This is me repeating, as faithfully as I dare, what I saw with my own eyes. Still with us, Jessie? Doubt it. Anyhow, at the risk of going on too much, I'll try to keep it short. You're out after this one, Jessie - baaaa!
It wasn't an estimation, my earlier statement concerning his genital might! I knew it. Yeah, it was a strange luxury to have Mickey's testimony to the affirmative—even if it came at the laughably botched violation of my dearest friend. But now has come the time to share with the good people of Marton one of your, no doubt, most sacred bête noire's.
It's a lovely place, Marton. Bucolic—I've used that word before, but it's truly well-fitting. I lived right on the edge of town with nothing but views of fields, hills and farmland—thoroughly idyllic! Kids from town used to love coming over to my house because we often had free run of the land, especially in summer. Which brings me nicely to a particular occasion our boy Jessie came to play… this was sometime between his lightning-fast slither with Mickey and his mindless schoolyard whirligig impression.
It was late summer, just before the harvest, and there were often a few animals kicking around in one field or another behind my house—the rest were sowed with wheat that year. We had a stile in the fence for easy access. I hopped over and said, ‘Come on then,’ nonchalantly. We'd just planned to go and hit some golf balls on the scrap bit of land at the end of one of the fields, but Jessie just stood there, muddled and rooted to the spot, ‘But, but… what about the animals?’ I just laughed and assured him it was alright; they don't bite, and they're actually pretty docile from being so near the houses. I couldn't believe that someone from an, albeit large, but very rural town didn't feel comfortable around a few dozy sheep.
Well, I'm not going to keep going on like this, as much as I'm enjoying the narrative foreplay. Jessie very soon got comfortable with the animals. Freakishly comfortable, in fact! Ha, ha… man! It is amazing how sheltered you feel when you're settled down in a field of wheat or barley. For example, you might not even hear a vehicle coming until fairly late, and a good chance you might miss some footsteps; it really dampens the sound, especially in the breeze—I'm sure anyone who grew up near fields like that would tell you the same. And that's exactly how I caught him. Knelt down in a nest of wheat, one hand holding down his waistband, the other furiously working said little todger betwixt thumb and forefinger, staring straight at the poor old gal's backside, just a few feet away.
The image is pretty well burnt into my mind. The poor old lassie! She must have escaped through one of the wire fences and was happily nibbling away at the wheat-tops. Totally unaware of the assault on her virtue which transpired just a few feet away. ‘How?’ I hear you ask. To which I reply, over hopefully virulent laughter, ‘I have no idea!’ Did he feign trepidation about ‘the animals’ at the stile, sort of like a double bluff? Did he have previous with such a dalliance? How did he get so close without rattling her? Who bloody knows… All I can tell you is that's what I saw—you'd have to ask him; I never told anyone until now.
You see, he couldn't even make contact with the golf ball, try as he might. I was hitting a few, going to find them, and hitting them back. That's when he wandered off, out of frustration, I think. It was quite a large bit of land: several fields, a few trees, and one or two hills. A liberating environment for youngsters. So off he went, after his feeble attempts to coordinate himself; off to indulge his own curiosities, I suppose... I actually didn't take much notice at the time. The last I saw him before ‘the incident’, he was fiddling around in the hedgerow with his golf club about two or three hundred yards away from where I was, up near the big oak tree.
Anyway, I still can't believe neither sheep nor boy was startled sooner by my presence. There was a stiff breeze flowing through the nearby tree as I headed homewards; I remember that much. The pair, as it turned out, were in a little depression in the corner of the wheat field, and I'm quite certain I had the prevailing wind in my face as I approached. Nonetheless, as I crested the little hill where the big tree stood and glanced to the left, there they were in their very own little dell of iniquity. Consensually askew and not exactly reminiscent of Leda and the Swan. As you can imagine, the couple didn't suffer my rapidly brief spectation for long. He jumped up; the dear old gal just about cleared the nearby hedgerow, and I just stood and goggled. Ha, ha, ha—how surreal! I never thought I'd be writing about any of this stuff…
And so, to finalise this absurd but no less damning or literal scene: Jessie scrambled off down the field eastward towards Lampton Road; the ewe survived—though probably a little scratched up from not fully clearing the hedge—and I was left trying to convince myself that I'd seen what I just thought I'd seen as Ten Men hopped off down the field, tucking in and buckling up. So, there you have it—like it or not.