She, like Lorraine, was obviously not a woman of great sophistication and had the most guttural Glaswegian accent he had ever heard. He was only 16 at the time and when they got back on the street, he asked to see her again. She took a draw of her fag and looked at Johnny in a menacing way. “Aye maybe, but you’ve got tae keep your tongue tae yourself. Ah like being kissed like a lady, no’ a fucking whore in a line up.”
He thought her accent was so rough and loud, like a foghorn, she would never get a job as a BBC newscaster.
But at the end of the day, she was a decent girl, who worked long and hard in the Templeton’s carpet factory. She had been right, she was not another “line up merchant” who were known to have sex with up to a dozen boys in the dark back lanes.
Johnny remembered when he was number five in such a line up with a rather plump nymphomaniac from Nicholson Street. Two policemen raided the scene. The other boys ran off leaving several discarded condoms behind. On seeing this one of the policemen said to the girl, “Are you a saleswoman for Durex?”
He had been with quite a few line up merchants –they had given him a degree of sexual experience when he started at the age of 12.
He was full of himself as he got out of bed and he could hear his mother singing as she scrubbed the tenement stairs outside. As she did so she was singing, the old Scottish ballad, “Yir no awa’ tae bide awa.” As she did so he thought she had one of the most beautiful voices he had ever heard. Indeed, she had been talented at school and often sang at school concerts and the parties her parents would have. But like many Gorbals women, her dreams were only dreams. She had neglected her talent to become a tenement housewife while having Johnny and his brother.
Johnny thought of all the wasted talented women who were out there. Lovely looking women, who in another environment would have become models or actresses, musicians or singing stars. But they all had one thing in common, they had thrown their looks and talents away for a mediocre life in the rat-infested, decaying tenements.
It was then he thought of Cathy, a fine specimen of womanhood, a gentle creature full of love and passion who was clearly too good for this filthy, poverty ridden, environment. Maybe she was too good for him!
As he washed himself in the kitchen sink, he looked down to Crown Street and by coincidence he saw Cathy briefly before she turned the corner into Rutherglen Road. She looked stunning. Johnny’s mood changed dramatically. It was a feeling of guilt. How could he have shagged that woman behind the club? The thought had at first pleased him but now it became a torture. What if one her pals had spotted him with Lorraine? What if they had told Cathy? She would not speak to him again, not even one single word. He began to shake; it was a fate worse than death.
His exasperated thoughts were interrupted by his mother who had finished scrubbing the stairs, “You are a handsome boy Johnny, time ye settled down and stopped all this gang nonsense.”
Johnny put on a conciliatory tone, “Ah know ma, maybe one of these days.”
“Ah’ll believe it when ah see it,” she said.
They both laughed, Johnny did look handsome. He had a new Arthur Black shirt on, black with white pearl buttons, two pockets at the front with one having the initials J.M. embroidered in white thread. He had also splashed out from his savings and bought a new pair of black coloured Levi Sta-Prest trousers and a pair of shiny Doc Marten boots.
His body was also in great condition with not an inch of fat. It was a different story 18 months ago. He had let himself go, too many pints, too many fish suppers. He then had a ghastly thought that one day he would end up looking like a sumo wrestler. Johnny called it his “fat Elvis” phase and vowed from then on to go on a diet and work out every day. The diet consisted of having one banana sandwich a day, cutting out the pints of lager, and “running like fuck” through the Glasgow Green. He also swam every day in the pool at the Gorbals bath house. When he was fat, he joked that the birds did not look at him anymore and “no’ even the poofs” fancied him.
But now he was back in tip top condition. He had seen Elvis in the 1968 comeback special and he looked starved to perfection. He just thought – “What’s good enough for Elvis, is good enough for me.” Indeed, Johnny did at times look like a young Elvis and when someone would remark this he’d reply, “If only ah had his voice, ahuw!”
He walked along Crown Street with no particular place to go. Though at one point he thought he must see Cathy soon for peace of mind and also to paper over any cracks there might be. He went into Lombardi’s ice cream parlour and ordered a cup of tea. He felt quite content there reading a copy of the Daily Record which had a brilliant story about Celtic and Rangers. Suddenly a man joined him at the table. It was Larry McGowan, a well know conman and thief. Larry, in his mid-40s, was not a fighter or hardman like Johnny, but people respected him because he always had a dodgy scheme on the go. “Awright Johnny boy?” Larry said, “What’s the Hampden roar?” (The score.)
Johnny took a sip of his Typhoo tea, “Nothing really Larry, same auld shite, different day!” Larry bent over the table and whispered, “Got a wee thing on the go that might interest you.”
“Interest me?” Johnny said, “If it involves spending money, count me out, ah’ve spent it all. No’ got a pot tae pish in.” It was a bluff and Larry knew it.
Larry laughed and whispered again, “Ah’ve got a cousin who works in a bank up the town and she says you’re loaded.”
Larry put a bag on the table and pulled out a bundle of forged one pound notes. Johnny looked around the cafe to make sure no-one was watching. He picked up some notes and studied them carefully, “They look like the real deal.”
Larry nodded his head in agreement, “Ah’ve got plenty of the fuckers, you can have as many as you want.”
Johnny sensed there was a transaction to be made. “How much?”
“Forty pence for every pound note, minimum purchase 500 notes,” Larry explained.
It was an interesting proposition and Larry gave some advice, “The only thing is be careful where you spend them. Only buy small things, get the change and disappear. Ah’ve done 30 already today in places like Hillhead and Partick where they don’t know me.”
Johnny was impressed, “Forty pence for a pound sounds like a win-win situation to me. Ok, get me 500 tomorrow, same place, same time.”
The next day they met again in the cafe and Johnny was handed a brown paper bag with 500 notes inside. Larry gave him one piece of advice, “Make sure you and your boys only have one pound note on you at any time. And if you do get done just say you got it in change from another shop.”
The plan was unfolding. Johnny would get some of his pals to go into shops all over Glasgow and cash them. He’d then meet them in a local pub or café to replenish the scam. He would not change the counterfeit notes himself, he’d get his foot soldiers to do it on commission. For the next few days the plan worked beautifully. The big department stores were easy meat when it came to small purchases in a hurry.
Johnny put his profits into his bank account every day. Alex and Peter had been in on the scam and the money was flowing in. When it came to the weekend, they were all in the mood for a pub crawl to spend some of their ill-gotten gains and maybe have a dance later. They did the Mally, the Sou’ Wester and The Laurieston pubs before heading to the notorious Portland dancehall. It was reputedly the roughest dance hall in Glasgow, full of drunken Irishmen and equally drunken gangsters.
Johnny scanned the dancefloor. It was packed with intoxicated eejits and a few female line up merchants. If Hell had a dancefloor, this would be it. An Irish band called Big Tom and The Mainliners were on stage singing a Country and Western song – ‘Do the Hucklebuck’. Johnny was aware that the Irish were no mugs, they did not fear the gangsters. When he was 16, Johnny, well bevvied up on cheap wine, had made a cheeky remark to a big burly Irish navvy who promptly knocked him out for half an hour.
The women and men on the dancefloor looked rough, almost uncivilised. John
ny saw one man urinate near the stage and the bouncers bundled him out of the building. At the end of the night everyone had to stand up and sing the Irish National anthem – if any man did not do so he would get beaten up by the bouncers for disrespecting the Irish nation.
The place was run by Big John, who was known by his nickname “The Irishman.” He was a tall lanky-looking fellow with black hair. He looked innocent enough. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he was in fact the leader of the IRA in Glasgow. Johnny had been told the Portland was being used to launder dirty IRA money, gun running and illicit booze trading. When Johnny looked around the bar downstairs at all the older Gorbals gangsters, they looked like they were afraid of nothing. But there was one thing they were afraid of – the IRA. Those fuckers would shoot you or blow you up without any hesitation.
Johnny found himself a quiet corner in the downstairs bar and spectated as lots of drunken men and women staggered about. Alex and Peter had gone upstairs to see if there was any talent on the dancefloor. He was sipping his pint of Tennent’s lager when suddenly The Irishman, joined him, “Young Johnny, don’t see you much these days. You been inside?”
Johnny put on his most confident voice, “Nah been keeping a low profile John. Steering away fae trouble and aw that.”
The Irishman grinned, “Ah’ve been hearing good reports about you. You’re a game Fenian boy. Maybe you’d like to join the cause. If ye fancy it, give me a call.” He handed Johnny a piece of paper with his phone number on it.
Johnny suddenly felt elated, he felt like a schoolboy, who was good at football, being signed for Celtic. He had been asked to join the IRA- what an honour! “Up the IRA!” a drunk navvy shouted at the bar.
If he wanted, he could become one of them soon, but was that a future he wanted to contemplate? A short time later he left the dancehall, with Alex and Peter, as Big Tom and The Mainliners were on stage singing Del Shannon’s “Kelly and I” They walked away from the club along South Portland Street. Alex said, “Fuck’s sake, look who’s coming!” It was Joe McCoy and two other guys, they all looked half cut. Johnny walked towards McCoy and shouted, “Hey you, ya tube, you got Sam McGlinchy life in jail for that fucking gun.”
McCoy showed no sign of fear, “What the fuck has that got tae dae wi’ you, ya bampot?” He reached into his pocket and Johnny saw a razor coming out. But the bevvy had slowed McCoy down. Johnny launched himself at McCoy and both began punching and kicking like wild animals. They fell into a manky puddle in the street. “Fucking wanker,” Johnny was shouting.
The guys who had been with McCoy made no attempt to intervene, neither did Alex or Peter. It was a Gorbals rule, a square go was always man to man. Johnny took a couple of blows to the face with McCoy shouting, “Come on ya bastard, you’re no’ a hardman, you’re a fake.” They rolled on the ground. There was a pile of building rubble a few inches away. Johnny leapt to his feet, grabbed a half brick, and hit McCoy over the head with it several times. Blood began to gush from McCoy’s face and head. He was a bloody, defeated man. Johnny kicked him full force in the balls. McCoy fell silent, he was either dead or unconscious. Then they could hear the noise of police sirens. They all ran off just before the police arrived, leaving McCoy in a bloodied pulp.
A few blocks away Alex said, “You sorted him out proper Johnny, he looked like something you see in a butcher’s shop window.”
Peter laughed, “Ah’ve seen slaughtered pigs in a better condition than McCoy.”
Johnny got back to his house, his mother and brother had gone to bed, oblivious to his actions. He looked into the mirror and his face and hands were covered in blood. What really annoyed him though was the fact that there was blood all over his Arthur Black shirt, Levi trousers and shoes.
He had a quick scrub in the sink until there was no sign of blood at all on his face and hands. He gave his boots a good scrub until the blood disappeared. Johnny changed into fresh clothes and put his bloodied ones into a bundle.
He walked across the Albert Bridge and threw them into the Clyde. He had to, if he had murdered McCoy the bloodied clothes could have convicted him. Johnny crept back into bed and thought rather oddly, “I’ll bet Elvis disnae have to put up wi’ shite like this.”
He fell soundly asleep. At times living in the Gorbals could be a nightmare, any sweet dreams he got now would be a godsend.
Chapter 16
GANGSTERS
“John McGrath, you are charged with the murder of Joe McCoy. How do you plead?”
Johnny looked up to the public gallery and saw his mother there, crying into a big white hanky. His father was also there, dressed in his shiny suit from Hong Kong. On the left of them was McCoy’s father who made a cut-throat sign to Johnny.
He could see his life slipping away. A life that could have been ten times better if only he had been studious like his wee brother and played the game of respectability instead of the low life game of being a gangster.
He just thought that this is how many of the so called Gorbals hardmen ended up – a drunken fight, a murder, and then life imprisonment. Prison was meant to rehabilitate people like him, but, in reality, they went to jail acting even harder. Hard talk, hard walk, hard look on the face, hard language full of threatening expletives. In jail of course, there would be square goes, the gang rivalry, the utter nonsense and futility of a life in a squalid existence. Being a hardman was 99 per cent to do with image. He thought of the phrase, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Johnny certainly walked, talked and looked like a young gangster.
As he looked from the dock, he could see policemen grinning and whispering to each other. They gave sly grins that policemen give when they have snared their prey. He thought of the police and the job they had to do. Basically, it was sweeping up the rubbish of society and brushing it under the carpet, the carpet being a metaphor for jail. The police were a shower of bastards but as his father often said, “They might be a shower of bastards but you need them.”
Johnny was asked again by the prosecutor, “Mr McGrath, I will ask you for a second time. How do you plead?” Johnny shouted, “Fucking insanity, your honour. Complete and utter insanity.” The people in the public gallery began to laugh and then, all of a sudden, their faces began to change into the faces of rats. Big fucking dirty rats.
He awoke with beads of sweat on his fine head. It had all been a nasty dream or rather a nightmare, but it was a nightmare that could come true. He had a quick wash in the sink and headed down to Murray’s newsagents to buy not one, but all the Scottish papers. He went through every paper but nothing – not a word about any murder in the Gorbals. Maybe it had missed the deadlines so he waited for the early editions of the Glasgow Evening Times and the Citizen to come out. But once again, nothing.
It was the same story with radio and TV, if he had murdered McCoy it would have been all over the shop. He was thankful in many ways. No news is good news.
It was late afternoon when he walked into the Wheatsheaf pub. He knew a gang of older criminals who met there every Saturday for a bit of craic. He needed to have a laugh and was never disappointed at the outlandish tales these old gangsters had.
In the corner having a bevvy was Freddy the bank robber, Bobby Mac, a retired razor king and Jimmy, an ex-safeblower. Johnny walked over to join their company at the table, He was greeted with friendly handshakes and smiles. These older men, in their late 60s and 70s, recognised that he was one of their kind. On entering the company, Johnny’s first line was extremely gallus, “Have ah no’ seen you three guys before? On wanted posters?”
The old gangsters laughed in mock agreement but now it was time for the storytelling to begin. Johnny listened as if he was a pupil at school.
Freddy took a sip of his beer and said, “There is no better job than robbing a bank, as long as ye don’t get caught. Ye can do anything ye want, but never make the cardinal sin of getting caught. Only mugs get caught. Ah did thirteen robberies and l
oved every minute of it. Me and the boys would walk into the bank with our masks on. Mine was Mickey Mouse, and I’d shout, ‘Get down on the fucking floor or I’ll blow your head off!’ I would wave the gun as if I was a fucking madman. The tellers would fill our bags full of notes. Always used ones so they couldnae be traced.
It was the biggest rush of adrenalin you could ever have, better than drink, drugs or sex. Ah got addicted to it.”
Johnny asked, “Did ye ever shoot anybody?”
Freddy laughed and shook his head, “Nah, the gun wisnae a real one, it was a starting pistol. But when you fired it, it sounded so real, people were shiteing their trousers.”
Johnny did not have the impertinence to ask Freddy where all the money had gone but he did know the old fellow had a nice detached bungalow in leafy Newton Mearns. Some of his pals had nicknamed it “Bank Bungalow.” Freddy continued, “By the time of the 13th robbery ah was getting too confident. Ah was waving ma pistol in the Clydesdale Bank when my Micky Mouse mask fell off. One of the customers, who was lying on the floor, clocked ma dial. He knew my face. He had been at the same school years before. So that was it, ah ended up getting nicked “But the other masked guys, Donald Duck, Pluto and Minnie Mouse all got off. Ten years I got just because the elastic band on the mask slipped. After serving ma time I never did a bank job again, but at least I got ma bungalow out of it.”
Bobby Mac was up next, “I loved razors when I was growing up and had my first one when I was 12. Stole it from the barbers. I slashed ma first guy when ah was 14 and after that it became a habit. I became the leader of the Bee Hive gang and we usually went to war wi’ the San Toi fae the Gallowgate and the Billy Boys fae Bridgeton.”
The Incredible Rise of a Gorbals Gangster Page 10