You know, kids who need love and attention will often do anything to get it. Mick admitted that he was one of these and as a result got involved with five or six other kids as regular models for Uncle Jack. These kids, boys and girls between the ages of seven and thirteen (they were moved on to another home when they reached thirteen), were eventually doing everything you could imagine for his camera.
Mick said that one girl, she was twelve, was photographed giving two hand jobs and one blow job to three boys, including Mick, whilst having full sex with Uncle Jack, all at the same time. She got twenty Rothmans and £1.20p for that.
Uncle Jack got caught when he tried to bugger one of the new boys. The kid screamed the place down and it frightened the life out of the old bastard. An investigation began, but it was dumped when he resigned and retired to the coast. Before he left, Mick and three other boys blew up his Morris Countryman by sticking a whole bundle of bangers in the petrol tank on bonfire night. Other than that one incident Mick has no fond memories of his time in care at all. He's now a chain-smoking delivery driver, living alone in the flat that his sister used to have in Hackney.
Pete and Den were abused by a schoolteacher. They were eleven years old, their first year in high school. They took with them their reputation for fucking about and used to drive their first-year teacher absolutely loopy by pretending to be the other one all of the time. One day he had taken just enough from them so he sent them to the headmaster. The Head wasn't in but the Deputy Head was. He caned them both, trousers down, bare arsed and instructed them to stay after school every night for a week. By the end of that week he had buggered the pair of them and made them bugger each other. That was so they didn't tell everyone.
You see if you're involved, you're responsible, and if you're responsible you don't tell. Clever bastards nonces, if they don't get you one way they'll get you another.
Mick was in the fourth year at their school when he sussed out what was happening to them. He and five friends 'convinced' the Deputy Head to leave. The twins never told anyone but us, they couldn't you see, they felt that they were guilty too. Mick never told them how he had convinced the old guy to leave.
My first week at the squat was spent resting and relaxing. It was great to feel warm and comfortable. No hassle, no pressure, no fears. Mick was out till quite late most nights and Pete and Den, or is it Den and Pete, took me around with them.
I needed some clothes and other bits and pieces so they decided to take me shopping; well that's what I thought they were going to do, but boy was I in for an education.
First they would take me into one of the best clothing stores in the local shopping centre and let me choose whatever I wanted. I wasn't to actually pick it up, just show it to them. I was having a great time picking out some very expensive stuff, pretending that I could afford it and thinking to myself that this was a fun way of killing some time, when they gave me some money and told me to go and sit in the cafeteria overlooking the shop. Situated on a sort of balcony, from my table by the rail I could drink my coffee and watch everything that was going on.
I watched as Pete took a stack of clothes to the shop assistant who gave him a ticket for the changing-rooms, Den was over by the far side of the shop out of sight at this time. He waited until the assistant's attention was distracted by someone or something else, which wasn't long in a place of that size, and quickly moved in hugging a pile of clothes that he had picked up. As he passed the changing-room door, Pete slipped him his ticket and with Pete's ticket and the pile of clothes that he had, he came up on the assistant from behind and gave the whole lot to her, saying that he didn't like them. She, thinking that Den was Pete, took them with the usual shop assistant's scowl and began sorting them out for returning to the racks. Den would then keep her attention by talking to her whilst Pete would slip out behind her with the pile that he had for me.
As they were only allowed to take three items at a time into the changing-rooms, it took seven different stores before we decided to call a halt. By the end of that day I was the one who was getting the assistant's attention while Pete and Den did their swapover. It was the sweetest thing that I had ever seen, electronic tags were found dumped in changing-rooms all over the place.
I also discovered how the boys had so much money. What I heard frightened yet excited me. Mick called it 'getting even'. Pete and Den said that it made them feel magic when they did it. They felt that they could at last feel control over something in their lives.
What they were doing was setting up and rolling nonces, dirty old men, just like mine.
One of the boys would stand as bait, wait until he was approached by one of these guys and walk off with him to a quiet spot to do business. Unfortunately for the bloke, half-a-dozen other boys would be waiting and the only business that he would get would be the loss of any cash or valuables that he was carrying, a good kicking and a visit to a local hospital. It was sweet, they never complained (well, they wouldn't would they), and with any luck another nonce might just think twice before ever touching a kid again.
It sounded brilliant. My mind turned to thoughts of setting up my old man like that and I asked Mick about it.
'Later,' said Mick. 'I want you to meet some of the others first.'
Chapter Three
That night Mick drove us across to King’s Cross in a pure white Golf GTi. This motor had everything - soft top, radio, stereo cassette blasting out Acid House music, even a phone.
I asked where he had got it from and he replied, ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,’ then he winked.
Den chipped in with, ‘You’ve got to learn Stewy boy, when you want something in this world you can’t sit back and wait for it, you’ve got to go out and get it.’ Just then the car phone rang, we all jumped.
Mick picked it up. ‘Hello,’ he said softly. He listened for a second or two then yelled.
‘Fucking hell, it’s the geezer who owns this motor!’
Pete and Den creased up with laughter. I could hear the poor bastard screaming down the phone to Mick.
‘I’ll get you, you bastards, you see if I don’t!’
Mick laughed, said goodbye very sweetly and hung up on him.
‘If he’d been nice,’ he said, ‘I’d have told him where I was going to leave it. But no, the silly bugger had to threaten me, didn’t he? Well now he’s gonna have to look for it.' I thought that Pete was going to bust something, the way he was laughing.
Mick parked the car up in an old garage behind some flats off York Way.
'Find that, you bastard,' he said as he walked away taking with him the bloke's cassettes and mobile phone. 'Might as well use it till the batteries run out,' he said, stuffing the phone into his jacket.
We arrived for my first visit to Max's and joined five boys who were sitting at a corner table. Mick introduced me to them. There was Alan, not so big then. Wivva complaining that the barber had sliced open a couple of zits when he gave him his skinhead cut earlier that day. Trev, who was off to join the Army next week, and Mark and Steven.
Steven delighted in telling everyone that the Old Bill were on his arse again for kicking his old man in the bollocks.
'I'm not worried though,' he said, 'I'll stay at my gran's for a few days and they'll forget all about me.' Then he said, 'I've got to get some dosh though, I don't want my gran to be out of pocket because of me, poor old girl's only got her pension.'
Wivva's grandad was a war hero, won the George or is it Military Cross or something at Tripoli, lost a leg in the process. Wivva was fascinated with the stories that he used to tell him about those days and ever since has wanted to be in the SAS.
He used to massage his grandad's back and shoulders for him when his war wounds started to act up. That graduated to 'jacking him off because grandad said that it was good for the pain. Wivva never knew that it was wrong, he never even suspected.
Until his mum caught him wanking himself in his bed one morning. She kicked him all over the
house screaming, 'dirty bastard dirty bastard!' at him. He was so confused, poor fucker, that he went straight to his grandad. When he told him, the old bastard had a heart-attack. He died a month later.
Wivva had learned in the worst way possible that he had been abused. And even worse, his grandad had been his abuser. But he couldn't make sense of it. So he took all of his anger out on everyone else, especially nonces. Wivva loved his grandad and for some weird reason still does. We never question that.
He still lived with his mum and dad, but often after he'd finished work (he was an apprentice painter and decorator) he came to spend his nights with us.
Alan was most definitely one of a kind. Built like a brick shithouse no one, but no one got up his nose. I swear he could break your back just by looking at you; he was every inch a tough guy. He worked for a demolition firm, just right for him that was.
Alan never talked about his past but we all knew about him because we had read it in the papers. He was one of a load of boys that had been screwed by the headmaster at a special residential school. He hated nonces so much that it hurt. He lived with his invalid grandma and often said that she drove him fucking mental with her 'Do this love' and 'Do that love'. He put up with it because it was rent free and quite frankly, because no one else in his family wanted him.
Just like me every one of them had been sexually abused and not one of us had got any justice at all. We were all bloody angry at the way that we had been treated, angry at a system that didn't seem to care, the police for doing nothing, the social services for giving us no choices, our families for letting us down, but most of all, almost murderously angry at the type of people who had used us. It's for that last reason that we chose to do what we did during the long weekend nights.
Mick explained what was going to happen and said that as I was the new boy, I could sit back and watch. Mark was the bait for that night. He was fifteen but looked about twelve and a half. He was the classic choirboy type, blond hair cut into a pageboy style and big blue eyes. But as I was soon to learn, looks can be deceptive - that boy was as hard as nails.
Trev disappeared and reappeared ten minutes later.
'It's looking real cool,' he said. 'I think there's a chance of some big business tonight.'
'Right,' said Mick, 'let's go.'
Mark went ahead and set himself up at the front of King's Cross Station, leaning against one of the metal posts that hold up the canopy. Mick, Alan and me sat on the floor by the main entrance doors.
'So that we can keep an eye on him,' said Mick.
The others went through a side entrance in York Way and cut through the station to an exit near the taxi rank on the other side. They then cut a right and disappeared into the tiny side-streets behind the station.
We watched Mark for what seemed like ages before someone approached him. The man talked to him for a few seconds and then walked off. Mark mouthed something to Mick, chuckled and went back to his business.
'No sweat,' he said. 'He wanted to know if Mark wanted to buy anything.'
Like what?' I said.
'Drugs,' said Mick.
'Oh, is there much here then?'
Too fucking much,' said Mick and added, 'sometimes these blokes can be fucking dangerous, so you've gotta be very careful. Anyway, if you ever need any of that shit let me know, I can get it far cheaper than they can and a lot better quality.'
'I'll go along with that,' said Alan with a grin.
A few short minutes later someone else stopped to talk to Mark. Mark put his hand in his pocket as he spoke to the man.
'This is it,' said Mick. 'We've got one, come on chaps.'
We got up and walked slowly through the station and round to the back where the others were waiting.
Alan explained that the signal for catching a live one was to put your right hand in your trouser pocket when talking to him, that way everyone could see and could get ready for action.
We all crouched down behind a wall and waited.
I heard Mark arrive and through a break in the wall saw him lead the bloke into a doorway. Mick whispered to me to stay put no matter what happens and then got himself ready to move.
The man unzipped his fly exposing his very ready penis, and at that moment Mick screamed Go! and everyone except me jumped over the wall and piled into the doorway. I swear that bloke literally shat himself, I have honestly never seen anyone as scared as that in my entire life. He threw himself into the corner and rolled up into a ball.
Fucking perv, fucking perv!'_shouted Wivva as he kicked out at the guy's head, the others were just kicking and punching anything of him that was showing.
He went quiet. Mick pulled everyone off and went through his pockets, checked his neck for chains and ripped off his watch.
I came out from behind the wall, I was shaking like a leaf. I looked at the bloke on the floor and felt sick.
Mick hissed at me, 'Kick him, he's just like your old man, kick the slag.'
Suddenly all I could see was a picture of my old man in front of my eyes. All of the anger and fear that I had felt when he was around welled up inside me as I looked down at this creep now lying curled up in the corner of the doorway. I kicked him hard between his legs from behind. He moaned. I kicked him again and again, tears from years of pent-up anger and frustration flooding down my face as I screamed obscenities at him. Mick grabbed me from behind, Pete and Den took hold of my arms and we ran.
Up by the old gas holders, along Goods Way to York Way, through Wharfdale Road to the Caledonian Road and back down to Max's.
We were high. Not one of us had taken anything, no drugs, no booze, nothing, yet we were all higher than I had ever thought it possible to be.
'Burger and chips all round lads?' asked Max as we danced in.
Too right,' chorused Mick, Trev and Mark as we moved to our corner and sat down. We waited until we had finished our food and Cokes before Mick took a look at what we had taken from the guy.
There was a wallet with eighty-five pounds in it, a Visa card, an Access card, a picture of a bloke with an old lady and an identity card that showed that he was fifty-three years old and worked as a manager for a TV rental company.
'Just think,' said Mark, 'we could be renting our telly from that slag.'
Mick was grinning again. 'Look at this then lads,' he said. In a long brown envelope, taken from the bloke's inside pocket, was a whole wadge of notes.
'Must be his shop takings,' said Trev.
'Who cares,' said Steven. 'It solves my fucking problem.' Everyone laughed. Four hundred and sixty-two pounds was in that envelope.
We did one more that night, a short, squat, greasy-looking bloke it was. He tried to drag Mark into his car in the hotel car park, but we stopped him. He got really done, and when Mick checked his pockets and found that the bastard had no money on him at all, he got done all over again. Mark was so mad he bit the bloke's fucking ear off.
Chapter Four
Things remained much the same for about four years. As we got older some of us tried to get our lives into some sort of order, you know, jobs, a decent place to live, that sort of thing. The squat was pulled down so I went and found myself a job as a trainee chef for a Bayswater hotel where I lived in. Trev joined the army and we lost touch. Steve’s in prison, he got five years for almost killing his old man. And Mark? Well, believe it or not, Mark’s at university. He’s studying computers, it seems he was a whiz-kid with them at school.
Weedy Si has been with us for about eight months now and when he’s not staying at his uncle’s place in Kennington he crashes with one or other of us.
Si’s mum and dad were hippies. They were well into all of that free love and drugs stuff. Often Si would be woken up by the grunts and moans of couples screwing each other all over the flat. His parents were into wife swapping, husband swapping, every sort of swapping you can think of. There was so much shit smoked at his gaff that he was addicted to it himself by the time he was ten.
Th
ey got themselves involved with some people who ran a witches' coven or something; it was really just an excuse for more orgies, but they had ceremonies and special days when kids had to be there. It was at one of these, in an old church off Old Street, that his mum and dad, both stoned out of their heads, had sex with him while everyone else there watched. The police raided the place and caught them at it. Both his parents were given probation and Si was taken into care. He's been running away ever since.
The only one in his life, other than us, who he trusts, is his uncle Chris, that's his mum's brother. Chris offered to take him in, but the social services for some reason keep saying no. I suppose that it could be that Chris has a record for violence, ABH, GBH, that sort of stuff. Chris says, quite innocently, that it was only because he was protecting himself; what he doesn't say is that he was protecting himself from being caught at one or other of the blags that he was doing.
When Si can't stay at Chris's he sleeps on the streets 'working' the stations for food money; that was until he met us of course.
Si turned out to be very useful. Mick could never get good deals on the stuff that we took from the nonces; that was until Si took some of it to his uncle Chris, now we can sell on anything. Cash cards, credit cards, driving licences, you name it, Uncle Chris can deal with it, very handy that is. I just wish that dirty sod Si would learn how to use a hanky, his constant sniffing drives me bleeding mad. Oh! the other thing about Si is that he is brilliant as bait and that's mainly because he'd been working on the rent boy scene for some two years before we met him. He knew those punters inside out and could always pick out the best ones.
Tony's the new boy. He's the result of a holiday romance. You know how it is. Mum and a couple of girlfriends go off on one of those 18-30 holidays, she gets swept off her feet by this butch Italian waiter, he swears his undying love, says that he wants to take her home to meet his family (after the holiday season is over of course). He sees her off at the airport and says that he'll write, and never does. She gets home and a short time later realises that she's been knocked up. She's blamed Tony for it ever since, seems the poor bastard looks just like his dad. She eventually put him into care because, she said, she 'couldn't cope'.
A Kind of Hush Page 3