Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist

by John Young

  “Look at you, Connor, hot under the collar.” Skeates laughs at me. The cannie laddie has me sussed even before my sconce knows what I’m thinking. “She’s mustard, eh? Do you want me to ask her out for you?” he teases, seeing me redden. “I know you’re shy.”

  “So who looks after you?” I ask Skeates, keen to stop him ribbing me. Despite the teasing and his pessimistic outlook, I’m enjoying the chat with my new mate Skeates.

  “Me,” he says. “I look after myself, always have done.”

  I’m amazed at how happy he is to chat about issues that have ruined his days. I nod for him to continue.

  “I live in a council house – I don’t even think the social services knew my mum had left, until the investigation after your leaping fit.” He laughs.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “My reporter couldn’t believe I’d been paying everything and living under their radar. Usually someone would phone the service, or unpaid bills would spark an investigation or something, but everything looked ticketyboo on the surface.”

  “How do you get money to eat and stuff?” I ask him.

  “Nicked things, stored stolen stuff for others, other jobs for cash. The neighbours are cool and never dobbed me in. I applied for credit cards in my mum’s name so I could pay the bills. I just had to go to school enough so as no one complained. But once they heard I was in hospital and my mum was nowhere to be seen, my place was raided.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” I say sheepishly.

  “What?”

  “I fit sometimes and just lose control, I can’t stop them once they start.” My words come out nervously, as I’m genuinely sorry for busting his head.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it mate, I deserved it. I was real pissed at you sticking that bird in my lunch and the others goaded me. I had to do something. Where did you get that bird from, anyway?”

  “Our neighbour’s cat killed it a couple of days before, I saved it until it was really manky.”

  “You dirty wee skank. Well, you more than made up for it earlier. So, like I say, don’t worry about it, and thanks. I always knew you were crazy, Connor. I like that, Crazy Connor.”

  “It’s better than Taytie,” I say and he grins. “How’s your head anyway?” I ask.

  “It’s OK. I’ve had worse. Bloody sore though when I came round. The hospital did a good job and it all works fine. Dhuugghhhhh.” He feigns a brain mailfunction then laughs again.

  Finally Elise, the uniformed transit lady, comes out of the office with the papers in her hand.

  “Come on there lads.” She smiles that sweet smile of hers and I think I fancy her a bit. She catches me looking at her and I feel my face flame up. She grins broader in response to my roasting face, which makes it worse. I think she’s old but she’s probably only about twenty-five.

  “Connor Lambert, you snake!” Skeates bellows. “I saw you. Hey Elise, my mate Connor has the hots for you. You doing anything later?”

  I kick him.

  Elise chuckles. “I wish I wasn’t, but I’m going out. Come on, you two, off to the bus.”

  We follow her out, Skeates teasing me all the way. Which is fine, as Elise plays up to it. I can feel Skeates’s jealousy about all the attention I’m getting. I wish all officials were like Elise. I would go out and burn things just to get locked up with her. My prejudices against the system are taking a right pummelling.

  Skeates and I take our seats at the back of the bus.

  “Who raided you?” I whisper.

  “First the Troll Twins and Cyclops’s brother, then the police.”

  “You serious, the Trolls? They’re people not to mess with.”

  “Aye right!” he laughs. “They think they’re hard. No skills and all brawn and mouth. That’s their game and their big mistake is they messed with me.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “No Connor, you’re wrong. The Trolls are barely older than us – they have that idiot Soapy running the shop, who acts hard but is all show. I’ll get them back. If I don’t, I’m finished, dead, or I leave town. That’s my choice, or at least it will be once I get out of here. When the police discovered I lived on my own, they brought me straight here from hospital and took all my gear to the nick, well, what was left of it after the Trolls filled their bags.”

  “Sorry, like.”

  “Don’t be, I told you. I was thinking of getting out of it anyway. I want to move on. Somewhere, anywhere. There’s no future here for me.”

  “Some hope. We’re stuck in the system, remember? We’ll be in it until we’re old enough to get out of prison or die.” I laugh. “I might get away sooner than you!”

  Skeates smiles and shakes his head. He punches me on the arm, nearly knocking me onto the floor of the bus. “You’ll make it. I’m escaping, the first chance I get. I could look up my mum and I have a few contacts in Glasgow. I’m sixteen soon and then I can start again. It’s easy to make a few quid. That’s all I want.”

  “We all want stuff we can’t have. Want is just greedy,” I say, trying to be all mature about it. “Sometimes you just have to accept the facts. I’ve been accepting sad facts all my life.”

  “I’ll rephrase it. I need to get out of here. Patronise me about that Taytie boy. Need and greed are worlds apart.” He’s suddenly angry, not used to explaining himself. “What about you, Connor, you never need anything?”

  That riles me.

  “Look at me, Skeates.” I stand up with my arms apart. “I look like Dobby the Pixie. I’ve been a needy wee stooler all my life.” The bus wobbles and I fall back onto my seat.

  “Elf.”

  “Eh?”

  “Dobby was a house-elf, not a pixie.” He says and nods.

  I’m astonished that Skeates, the rarely-attending-school chancer, has corrected my book knowledge.

  “I do need something.” I say after a while.

  “What’s that?”

  “My dad.”

  I expect Skeates to start taunting me about him again, but he says nothing. Eventually I break the silence. “Long stretch, whatever he did.”

  Skeates looks at his feet. “I shouldn’t have ribbed you about your dad. I knew it would get to you. Even though my dad was a real bastart, I still wish I had him here sometimes.”

  “I would give anything to see mine,” I say.

  We sit in silence, letting the dad conversation soak in. He looks at me and, like magic, I know what he’s going to suggest. I can read his mind.

  “Let’s go and see him,” he says, as if suggesting that we go to Scotmid for milk.

  He’s serious, and confirms it with a plan that’s strong enough not to be spur of the moment. I play devil’s advocate, even though I’m suddenly excited at the thought of escaping and seeing Dad. “In case you’ve forgotten, he’s in Shotts Prison near Glasgow – and we’re locked up too.”

  “So? You’ve visited before, right, so you can pop in again.”

  “No. Haven’t seen him since I was six. Every time I ask about him Mum goes all emu, sticks her head in the sand, refuses to talk about him.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “Well, she has her reasons.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “When I was really ill I couldn’t have gone anyway. Time drifted past and I hadn’t seen him for so long that once I started grilling her she shut down. Then Dad apparently decided that he couldn’t face me seeing him in prison, so he told Mum not to bring me. Now I’m old enough to kick up a stink about it she tells me he’ll be out soon and I can see him then.” I look at Skeates. “I won’t judge him for being inside. I just want to see him.”

  “Aye, that’s because you haven’t seen him locked up. Jail makes people look bad, whether they’re innocent or not. I don’t think it’s right that they kept you away from him, but I can understand their logic.”

  I look at Skeates and wonder where he’s kept his reasoning hidden all these years. And then I feel suspicious that he wants m
e to open up so he can use it against me later. I wouldn’t put it past him, yet he doesn’t seem to have that usual mean look.

  “It still doesn’t help.” I reply.

  “I bet it doesn’t, so here’s what we’ll do. We take the first chance we get at the Children’s Panel and offskies. We’re going to see your dad.” He looks up from the floor and into my eyes. I guess he knows he doesn’t need to convince me. Even so, he commences negotiations.

  “You have nothing to lose by going. If you stay you might never see your dad again. You give it a shot and the worst thing they can do is to bring you back here. So, what do you say?”

  “We’ll never get away. The Children’s Panel is in a secure place and we’re always with someone.”

  “Oh come on, Connor, it’s not that secure. The toilet windows open into an alley.”

  “Have you checked?” I ask, knowing that he will have.

  “Of course. I check every place I go for a way out. I’m not good at being cooped up.”

  “So, Houdini, how do we get to Shotts?” I’m intrigued to see how far he’s planned.

  “Steal a car, walk. Does it matter?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we live on an island and we’ve no money. Shotts is hundreds of miles away and I don’t exactly walk very well.” I point to my dented caliper.

  “Stop being so negative. I thought you wanted to see your dad?” He knows I’m convinced, because he’s seen me grinning despite the arguments.

  “I do. I also want to know that we’re going to get there and not end up back in the clink. What about money?”

  “I have loads of cash.”

  “Had. You mean you had loads of cash. You told me the Troll Twins nicked it,” I correct him.

  “So? I know where they keep it.”

  “Where?”

  “Slots-o-Fun. I’m going to nick my money back.”

  “Don’t be a bamstick, they’re headcases. My druggy neighbour Damien gets his gear from them and he’s full of stories about the Troll Twins and Soapy, the guy who runs the arcade.”

  “They owe me.”

  “Get lost.”

  “Don’t be a big blouse, Taytie.”

  “I hate that name, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So don’t call me it!” I know he thinks it’s funny to call me Taytie but it’s not. Everything is tied up in that name; it labels me, it makes others label me and it means Skeates sees me as less than an equal. As soon as he says it I remember what I am, a sicko.

  “I just want to wind you up.” He stares at me.

  “Call me it again and I’ll thump you.”

  Seeing that I mean it, he changes his tack. “OK, as long as you stop being such a wuss.”

  I punch him in the arm and we mock fight at the back of the bus. The driver gives us grief about the racket and tells us to stop pissing around. Elise smiles to herself. We settle back down, snickering. Skeates looks at me and says.

  “You’re alright, Connor.”

  He holds out his fist for me to bump and I meet it with my own. It’s like punching a sledgehammer. I grin from ear to ear. Me and Skeates, mates, how weird is that?

  “So what about it? Are we going to see your dad or what?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Is it happy holidays or beaten up by Desperate Dan – if you’re lucky?”

  I smile.

  “And sharing a cell with me if you aren’t?” he adds.

  I can tell that he’s confident of my answer, but I don’t want to give in without some backchat. “Share a cell with you! You’re right, Desperate Dan sounds a better option.” I grin at his patter, wondering what I’m letting myself in for.

  “Are you game then, Crazy Connor?”

  “Too right I am.” After all, I have nothing to lose.

  “Good man. Right, here’s the plan.”

  He explains in great detail how we’re going to escape. I have butterflies in my stomach the size of seagulls; it’s like Escape from Alcatraz and I love the fact that he’s analysed every detail. I never took him for a thinker. I now realise that he began the whole conversation with one aim in mind: to persuade me to do a runner with him. He knew we had a common denominator before we started. Nevertheless, there are some details I’m terrified about, like the height of the building, and raiding the Trolls, and how I can swing by and pick up my meds before we get off the island. But I don’t interrupt. I sit and grin like the creamy cat.

  Chapter 8

  Kids Go Free

  As the bus pulls into the Council Office car park that services the Children’s Panel, Skeates pokes me hard in the back. “You keep your mind on the plan.”

  I nod in reply. Elise nods to the receptionist, pops us in the lift and hands us over to our lawyers on the second floor.

  Blair, my lawyer, greets me with his insincere smile. He needs to work on that, maybe practise smiling into a mirror or something. Skeates, having been in and out of trouble all his days, has a lawyer of his own who seems a bit more on the ball. Unlike me, relying upon the lucky dip of a panel-appointed brief. Being good at being bad has its advantages. Skeates and his brief go in one direction and Blair and I go the other. We each have our designated interview rooms and Skeates and I nod to each other before departing, confirming our plans.

  “You look cheerful, Connor,” says Blair.

  “I’m grand thanks,” I say with a big smile.

  I’m thinking of escape and of the jolly journey here with sexy Elise. Talk of seeing my dad has really perked me up, even though there’s more chance of finding legs on a haggis than us reaching Shotts prison.

  Blair is on grumpy form. He sighs, “I need to explain a few things to you, Connor,” and gives me a weak smile before starting his advice chat.

  I tune out, thinking of Skeates’s plan. The clock on the wall gives me twelve minutes, and the seconds tick by dead slowly. I come out of my trance with a wake-up from Blair.

  “You OK, Connor? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. He’d been talking for nine minutes, out of which I gathered that a more secure institution beckons. The only thing that might save my limping ass is my disability. After years of ‘Hopalong’ I have, at last, found an advantage to being a cripple. The evidence from some of the other inmates suggests that I helped start the fight rather than save Skeates from a kicking. I don’t even bother correcting him. Instead I concentrate on the clock. Two minutes, thirty seconds. The clock seems to slow the nearer the time – and the nearer the time the more anxious I become. Time should be more consistent: I’m sure if I saw Elise in the bufty for two minutes, thirty seconds, time would soon speed up. I giggle at the prospect.

  “What’s funny, Connor?”

  “Nothing, just nerves.”

  Two minutes. I hold my breath for thirty seconds and breathe out, recover and do it again.

  One minute. I hold my breath for as long as I can. This game is passing the time nicely, but I must look like a numpty to Blair. I manage forty-five seconds and gasp for breath at the end.

  “Are you sure you are alright, Connor? You haven’t been on drugs or anything, have you?”

  Ding, ding! 3.25 p.m. on the button, my signal. I start the ball rolling on what I guess will be the adventure of a lifetime with a classic line that has been so well used that I wonder if he’ll fall for it: “I’m desperate for the bog. My guts have been playing up.” He looks quizzically at me so I hammer the point home. “I think I’m going to shit myself.”

  Bingo! Blair looks horrified, all that breath-holding has made my face puce, reinforcing the threat of mess and bacteria. “You know where it is.” He nods to the door. “We have five minutes before the panel starts,” he calls after me.

  Five minutes, will that be enough?

  I scarper, feigning wind. He sprays some antibacterial stuff on his hands as I leave.

  The toilet door is closing as I exit the interview room. I guess correc
tly that it’s Skeates who’s just entered. He has the window jimmied open before I even get in there.

  “You don’t muck about.” I look at the broken lock on the floor. He kicks it across the tiles into the corner and out of sight. He jams a chair, which he took from the corridor, against the toilet door to slow down anyone who follows us. He’s thought of everything.

  “We only have five minutes and you don’t exactly do warp speed,” he says.

  “Funny, ha ha.” I grin. There’s a balance between banter and being cruel and on a rare occasion like this Skeates gets it spot on.

  I notice that the window is high up, but he has a plan even before I start moaning about it. He must have been analysing all this since the last time he was here.

  “I’m going to hoist you up. Sit on that windowsill, like a wee bird, until I get up. It’s narrow, so don’t slip off.” He cups his hands, without waiting for me to complain.

  I step into them with my good leg and he pushes. It takes a bit of scrambling and wobbling on my part, but it’s virtually effortless for him. Clinging on is difficult. The sill is only about two metres from the toilet floor and I already feel dizzy, as I don’t like heights. I look out the window into the alley and yelp. It’s a lot higher than I thought. Skeates sees my face.

  “What are you like, Taytie?”

  That pisses me off. I turn and glare, but wobble. “Hurry up.”

  He swings himself up onto the ledge like he’s settling onto a sofa. He’s done this shit before.

  “There’s a big drainpipe to your right. I’m going to climb onto it and down to the cross pipe. Then I’ll help you. I can lower you the rest of the way onto that other pipe. We repeat the process until you’re on the ground in that alley. Can you manage that?”

  I’m surprised at his reassuring talk, and nod. I try to ignore the height and examine the alley but I can’t see where it leads. “Easy,” I lie.

  He detects the fib. “Look Connor, we’re only two floors up – ten metres or so. Stop being such a drip.”

  He’s on the pipe in a flash and I try my best to hurry, which makes me look like I’m scrambling about in a panic. My jacket catches on something.