by Calvin Wade
“Alright, alright, I get the message.”
I jumped off the bed. Took the condom out the foil, I hated wearing these bloody things. I put it between my thumb and forefinger and was about to put it on. I looked over at Zara, her pert bottom was up in the air, so she wasn’t watching me. I paused for a few seconds and then thought,
‘Do you know what, sod it!’
I left it on the sideboard, next to the opened foil.
“Is it on?” Zara asked.
“It is. Fits like a glove, but you’ll be glad to know there’s only one little chap, heading your way, not five.”
“Hope he isn’t little any more!”
“You can be the judge of that, gorgeous!” I said as I jumped on top of her.
The sex, or what I remember of it, was really great. I managed to get out in time and caught everything in my cupped hand, so I didn’t give the game away. We both fell asleep soon after, but the seagulls woke me up about seven. I had the hangover from hell, which came as no surprise. Zara was flat out, I had pinched all the covers off her, so she was just there, naked and uncovered. She was stunning. What a waste! Maybe one day Judy Garland would take her to the ‘Wizard of Oz’ and get her a brain. I decided to creep out of there. I shut her door quietly behind me. As I left Zara’s B&B, I passed what I presumed to be the landlady in reception. She gave me a look of disgust, but then it broke out into a huge smile, almost a laugh. I can charm the birds from the trees, I can. It’s a real gift!
SIMON – May 2012
Carrying an unconscious man, with a dwarf, when you are hung over and handcuffed together, isn’t the easiest of tasks, but somehow we managed to lean Boffin up against the sea wall. It was tempting to leave him on the sea side of the wall and let the tide take him away, but we opted for the land side.
“How long will it take for him to come around?” I asked Tim.
“Any time now,” Tim replied.
“How are we going to keep him from attacking us?”
“That’s simple,” Tim said, “I’ll just point the stun gun at him and I’ve got pepper spray too, so I’ll threaten him with that.”
“Where in God’s name did you get the Taser and pepper spray from? Have you been robbing policemen?”
“It’s not exactly a Taser,” Tim explained, “A Taser is just a make of stun gun and mine isn’t one of them. This one is a Far Eastern stun gun. It’s not exactly legitimate either. I bought it from Black Market Bryan, who deals out of a flat in Chorley. It cost me £200, but he threw in the pepper spray for nothing. I need some sort of protection in my line of work and this has worked well. I’ve used it four times this year already. Taser’s stop the brain controlling the muscles in the body, the body recovers when the Taser stops. This one seems to take people longer to recover from. Lucky it does.”
“Tim, you can’t just go around zapping people! You need to get rid of it. You’ll end up killing someone.”
“It hasn’t killed anyone yet.”
“It only needs to happen once, mate.”
“Alright, I take your point. I’ll get shut of it, but not until we’ve dealt with Boffin.”
We sat a few feet away from Boffin, just staring at him, waiting for him to come around. It didn’t take long, two or three minutes after we propped him up against the wall, he started to murmur. A minute after that, he was coherent.”
“What did you do to me?” he asked.
“We used a stun gun on you and we’ll use it again if you move, so keep still,” Tim warned.
“Where’s your knife?” I demanded.
“In my pocket.”
“Well, take it out of your pocket and throw it along the ground to me. The Goblin has pepper spray as well as the stun gun.”
Boffin took a Stanley knife out of his back pocket and hurled it along the floor to me.
“I can’t believe I’ve been stunned by a Blue Goblin,” Boffin said sounding a little groggy.
“It’s Timmy Anderson,” I said, “Timmy from Parklands.”
“Now, I believe it,” Boffin moaned.
“Why are you here, Boffin?” I asked. I had no idea what we were going to do with him, so I thought the best thing to do, would be to see what he had been planning to do with us.
“I came to make peace,” Boffin stated like a character from Star Trek.
“Get lost Boffin, you did no such thing,” I argued, “you’ve just cut the back of my neck and told me that I have no idea how much you hate me!”
“I was acting. It’s only a scratch.”
I dabbed the back of my neck and then held my palm up to show him the blood.
“It’s more than a scratch,” I said, feeling a little sorry for myself.
“Where were you intending on taking us?” Tim wanted to know.
“Just out from the middle of the field, so we could talk. Somewhere like here.”
“Why threaten me with a knife then, if you just wanted to talk?” I asked.
“Would you have done anything I asked without it?”
I thought about it.
“Probably not.”
“Probably not!” Boffin scoffed, “Definitely not. Every time I see you, you attack me.”
“That’s an exaggeration, Boffin! I’ve only ever attacked you twice and the first time was because you were beating Tim up.”
“I’ve changed since we were kids, Simon. I’m not denying I was a horrible kid. I know I was. I was a bully, I am well aware of that. I am not a horrible human being now though.”
I was more than a little dubious about this claim.
“Leopards don’t change their spots,” I insisted.
“Emily says they can. Emily says every leopard has the potential to change their spots.”
“Emily?”
“My girlfriend, Emily.”
I found it hard to believe that Boffin would have a girlfriend. I was expecting her to turn out to be an imaginary one. A voice inside his head. Boffin could probably tell I was dubious about this claim too.
“Simon, you know my girlfriend, you’ve met her.”
“I don’t think I have Boffin. I don’t know any Emily’s.”
“Yes you do. She works with Nicky at the nursery.”
I tried to think of an Emily. I thought of one.
“Young Emily?”
“She’s 25, Simon, she’s not 16.”
Emily at the nursery where Nicky worked was someone whose name I had heard mentioned a lot, but I had only met her on a couple of occasions. She was a lovely, friendly girl. Physically, she was a bit on the heavy side, with dark hair and glasses, but then I would never make a judgement on someone based on their looks. The main point was that she was lovely and friendly, not the type who should be interested in Boffin. If she was Boffin’s girlfriend, I decided I would get Nicky to warn her off.
“So Emily thinks you can change your spots?”
“She believes anyone can, Simon. She’s a Christian, she believes in repentance. I’ve started going to Alpha classes with her. They are really interesting. Luke Chapter 15 has become an important passage to me. I want to turn away from sin. As I said, Simon, I was a horrible child, at times I have been a horrible adult too, but I am changing, changing for the better, day by day.”
“Boffin, here’s a tip for you. If you want to change for the better, day by day, then don’t carry a Stanley knife, cut someone’s neck or say how much you hate them.”
“I’m sorry for that Simon, but my ultimate goal was a noble one. I wanted you to listen to me. You have never listened to what I had to say about Colin.”
I wasn’t swallowing all this Christian goodness stuff.
“Because you have always lied, Boffin.”
“I haven’t lied, I just haven’t told the whole truth. That is why I have come to see you, to tell you the whole truth. I really need you to hear my story. Emily knows what happened. She also knows about your Stag Do as Nicky has mentioned it at work. Emily has never mentioned to the girls at
work who her boyfriend is, because she has been willing me to speak to you first. She has been urging me to come on this Stag Do. She feels you would appreciate the truth. Obviously, the problem was that you didn’t want me here, so I had to get the train over. That was why I had to get my £70 back, to pay for the train and a B&B. I have been following you to see if I could catch you when you were on your own, but once you were handcuffed, that was impossible, so I have been waiting for a point when it has just been the two of you. Please will you just listen to what I have to say, Simon?”
“I’ll listen, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll believe you.”
“Just listen though. Don’t interrupt.”
“OK. Can I ask you a couple of things before you start?”
“Go on.”
“Were you the kid spotted wearing the baseball cap, walking with Colin along Euxton Lane?”
“Yes.”
“And did you go to the canal with Colin?”
“Yes.”
This felt like progress. They were the only two questions I was going to ask, but once he answered yes to both of them, I needed to ask one more.
“Final question, will you tell the police exactly what you are about to tell me?”
“If you want me to, Simon. I’ve carried this burden with me for twenty five years. It feels like time to let it go.”
LUKE ‘BOFFIN’ BOOTH – August 1986
It must have taken us about an hour to walk up to the canal, but it didn’t seem like it. Colin was a hyperactive kid, but what a laugh! He couldn’t just walk and talk, he had to be up to something. He kept jumping on my back for a piggy back or giving me a piggy back even though I was miles bigger than him. We also played a game where we stood either side of a puddle and kicked water into each other’s faces and the first one to move lost. We were soaked by the time we got to the canal. We sat down under a bridge, out of the rain.
“Why have we come here, Boffin?” Colin asked.
“I come here a lot, Colin. There’re loads of things to do.”
“Like smoking and drinking for starters, mate?”
I had brought a plastic bag with me. I opened it up and there were four cans of Carling Black Label in there along with an opened packet of Benson & Hedges cigarettes with eighteen fags still in there.
“Brill, where did you get them from?” Colin asked excitedly.
“Home, Mum had friends around last night, loads of them and they brought loads of cans of beer and some fags to drink and smoke before they went into town. They took most of the fags with them but someone forget theirs but they left the beer behind as they all came back after the pubs shut. I just nick the odd beer from each pack and stash them away, so no-one ever knows.”
“That’s why I like you, Boffin, you’re smart.”
I took two fags out the gold packet and passed one to Colin, putting the other into my mouth. I had a lighter, so I lit Colin’s first, then my own. Colin inhaled deeply then blew out some perfect smoke rings.
“You look like a proper smoker now, Colin.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, seriously, look at you, blowing smoke rings! Remember last year when you first started smoking, you were coughing and spluttering, but not now. You’ve really got the hang of it now.”
“Do I look cool?”
“You look cooler than cool, Colin.”
“Do you think so?”
“Defo.”
We had a chat whilst we smoked our first fags.
“I’m not happy with my brother today, Boffin.”
“What’s he done?”
“Do you know Nicky Moyes?”
“No.”
“She’s my age. She knows Joey Neill. Anyway, I think Simon loves her. He changes when she turns up anywhere.”
“How?”
“If I try to boss him about, he doesn’t let me, but if Miss La-de-da does, he does everything she asks. He’s gone to the cinema today, he’ll snog her if she asks him to.”
“Good lad!”
“No, it’s not good, Boffin. I hate her.”
“What have they gone to see?”
“Top Gun.”
“I’ve never been to the cinema.”
“Haven’t you? It’s boring anyway, it’s just like a big TV screen and you just have to sit there and watch it, but if you don’t like it, you can’t just switch over, you have to watch it until the end.”
“Colin, I said I’d never been, I didn’t say I didn’t know what one was!”
For about half an hour, we sat and talked and mucked about. We had a can of beer each, but saved two to fizz up and spray at the narrow boats. I pointed out to Colin that they couldn’t turn around quick and come after us if we ran the other way and people didn’t tend to jump off their boats and run after you, because someone had to steer it. This meant most of the time you could do anything daft and get away with it. We started playing dare and took it in turns to do things to the boats or the people on them. Colin pulled a moony at one and I threw a beer can at a man on another. It was all stupid, naughty kids stuff. It went quiet for a while, boats stopped coming past, so we sat down to have another fag.
Halfway through the fag, Colin spotted something.
“There’s someone coming!” Colin pointed out as we saw a woman walking along the embankment, “Do you think she’s a woman off a boat?”
“I’ve no idea, Colin. Get ready to run just in case.”
“Should we leg it anyway? If my Mum found out I’d been drinking and smoking and doing daft stuff to the boats, she’d be really mad with me. Our Simon wouldn’t be happy either.”
“My Mum wouldn’t be bothered,” I said truthfully, “Let’s just hang on a second. It may just be someone walking past.”
We watched as the woman got nearer. As she approached, I realised I knew her. It wasn’t a woman, it was a fifteen year old girl, Kathy Joyce. She was one of those girls who grew really tall when she was about nine or ten and had large breasts by then too. I had always been fascinated by her breasts. She lived on a road by ours and Kathy was as rough and ready as me. We were not exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but we used to meet up for kissing sessions. After a while, I started getting bored by just kissing, so I’d try my luck with other things. Kathy Joyce didn’t stop me.
“Oh, it’s alright Colin, we can stop here. It’s Kathy Joyce.”
“Who’s Kathy Joyce?” Colin asked.
“She lives down by us. She’s a right goer, Colin.”
“Someone who likes doing kissing and stuff.”
“I hope she isn’t going to kiss me.”
“No, Colin, it’ll be me she’s after. She gave me a fishy finger last week.”
Colin didn’t understand.
“A cold one?”
“Yeh.”
“I wouldn’t like that. My Mum gives me hot fish fingers.”
I burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny, Boffin?”
“You mate. You’re hilarious.”
Kathy Joyce came right up to us and stood looking at down on the two of us smoking, with her hands on her hips. She wasn’t good looking, but with massive breasts like hers, I wasn’t bothered. She was wearing a skirt too, which excited me as I could get my hands underneath.
“I thought you were supposed to be meeting me at the bus station, Luke Booth?” she said, sounding annoyed.
“It was raining, Kathy. I didn’t think you would turn up.”
“Well I did. I felt like a right idiot standing there waiting for you. I thought I’d just try down here before I got a bus home.”
Down by the canal had been a regular petting point for Kathy and me. I smiled at her, my best cheeky smile. The sight of that skirt and those breasts were doing things to me. She never turned me down. I knew it wouldn’t be difficult to win her around.
“I’m sorry, Kathy. I’ll make it up to you. You aren’t going to stay cross with me, are you? I need to see your beautiful smile.”
Colin n
udged me with his elbow. He hadn’t heard me speaking like that before. As expected, Kathy did smile.
“Fancy doing a bit of making up, Kathy?”
“OK, but not in front of him.”
Kathy motioned at Colin.
“I understand that. It’s hardly raining now, do you fancy coming around the other side of the bridge?”
“Yeh, ok then.”
“Colin, can you just wait here a minute? Me and Kathy are just going for a bit of slap and tickle.”
“OK,” he said, “don’t be more than a minute though Boffin, I get bored on my own.”
“We may be a bit more than a minute, Colin, just have another fag and chill out.”
Kathy and I went around the other side of the bridge. I made a grab for as soon as we were out of Colin’s sight. We stood up at first, just snogging. Kathy was much taller than me though, so I didn’t like kissing her standing up, it hurt my neck.
“Can we sit down, Kathy? It’ll be more comfortable.”
“Only if you take that baseball cap off. You shouldn’t be kissing me with that on. It’s very rude.”
I took my cap off. Kathy was two years older than me, so liked to be the boss. She was the only person I allowed to boss me, as I liked the returns I got for doing as I was told. Colin must have heard us talking.
“Are you finished now, Boffin? I’m getting bored.”
“Just a bit longer, Colin.”
“How much longer?”
“Just give us a few minutes, will you?
“I’m bored, Boffin. You said one minute.”
“Give me a chance, Colin.”
We carried on kissing once we had sat down. Colin kept on shouting from time to time but I just ignored him. I was doing my usual wandering hands stuff, up her top, then a hand on her knee. I was like incy wincy spider, just progressing up from the knee cautiously. I was making real progress, when Colin appeared at our side of the bridge, looking down at us. I had one hand up Kathy’s top and the other was on her thigh. I didn’t appreciate Colin spying on me like that. It was creepy.
“Bloody hell, Colin! What are you playing at? I told you to wait, didn’t I?”
“And I told you that I’m bored, Boffin. Can she not go now, so we can carry on playing?”