Quitters Never Win

by Michael Bisping

  Time to get back to the airport – only, I had no clue where the airport was. I dragged those bloody suitcases around in the heat and sweat of the city all morning. By 10am I was croaking like a frog: ‘… water … please … water’.

  Everywhere I turned, I was mobbed by street merchants. On every corner, I was literally surrounded me by people of all ages selling watches, T-shirts, necklaces and even electrical goods. ‘Good deal for you! Good quality!’ they’d holler as they stalked after me into the next crowded street – where I’d immediately find myself in another fence’s patch and then I’d be harassed all over again. There were these two girls – about my age, 16, 17 years old – who were the most aggressive of the lot. They pulled and tugged at me as I walked, begging me to buy a leather bracelet.

  ‘Okay, you have for free!’ they said and tied a bracelet on each of my wrists as I hauled my suitcases behind me.

  ‘No, get those off me,’ I said. ‘No thanks.’

  As I stopped to untie the bracelets, I spotted a KFC. Like an oasis in the desert! I pushed my way by the street sellers and swung open the door into the beautifully air-conditioned fast-food restaurant. I ordered a giant Sprite and sucked it down like it was life-force itself! I went to pay and … those fucking girls had pickpocketed me. They’d stolen everything.

  There are probably legends in Bali to this day of a crazed teenager trucking two lumpy suitcases through the streets and over the sewers – but the two girls were long gone.

  And I was even more lost. I almost passed out from thirst getting to the airport but I made it back in time for my flight on to New Zealand. My bad luck followed me. The trip from hell continued with me contracting a crazy foot disease. My left foot was bleeding and reeked like a zombie’s fart.

  When I landed in New Zealand, Richard was waiting for me

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been!’ I answered.

  ‘Have you got my bag? Where’s my bag?’

  ‘Here’s your fucking bag!’

  Richard tore the zipper down – and pulled out over $20,000 in cash. He was planning to stay in NZ – and didn’t want to pay tax on the money he was bringing in.

  Whatever, I just needed to get medical attention for my foot. The doctor I saw had no idea what I’d caught in Bali. He prescribed me antibiotic tablets the size of Big Macs.

  Richard’s friend we were supposed to be staying with? Turned out not to be much of a friend at all, so we stayed in a hostel that a serial killer would be ashamed to visit. Capping off a grand experience, Richard – 30-something and huge – also beat the shit out of 16-year-old me every day in sparring.

  In the end, though, he was knocked out in the opening round. I took home the silver medal in the light heavyweight division and a series of anecdotes I’ve been telling ever since.

  It wasn’t as much that I was losing interest in martial arts (I continued to kickbox) as much as I became more interested in DJing.

  One night when I was 16 and walking home from work, I popped in to see a mate and he had a set of decks. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. He let me have a go and I was hooked. Like with martial arts, I drove myself into an obsession DJing. I got my own decks and practised relentlessly. I secured a paid gig at a club and improved to where I was one of the more popular and respected DJs in the northwest of England.

  I played a lot of the major clubs of that time including having the 2am and 6am slots at the infamous Monroe’s nightclub in Great Harwood. The best DJs in the country worked Monroe’s.

  Monroe’s was a crazy place. During one set during my first few nights there, I saw a pushing and shoving match on the dance floor escalate to where one guy bit the nose off another. I’d learn that was a slow night; several months later during one of my breaks, a man stormed passed me wearing a red balaclava and wielding a Samurai sword. He was making his exit after chopping someone up on the dance floor. Then there was the time when my records got stolen between sets. I went outside to the car park and forced two dodgy-looking guys to show me whatever it was they were obviously hiding in their boot (‘Open your fucking boot now,’ I said. ‘No problem – but when you see what is in there, walk away’). Instead of my records, it was some poor guy gagged and wrapped in duct tape.

  The place was finally closed down in 2004 after 200 police descended and arrested everyone in sight. Along with a mountain range of ecstasy tablets, the cops found CS-gas sprays and various weapons including, you guessed it, samurai swords.

  I was around those sorts of people here and there but while I was no angel – and no stranger to street fights – I was never interested in being part of that kind of lifestyle in the slightest. All I cared about was having a good night out with my mates. But, even though I didn’t go looking for trouble, one night trouble came looking for me.

  On a summer’s night in 1996, a man came to my apartment to kill me.

  I’d moved out of the family home in April. I was 17, earning some money and after growing up in a noisy house of eight, I couldn’t wait to have a place all to myself. I’d found a fully furnished apartment for 67 quid a week. It was fully furnished with funky plastic furniture from the 1980s but, hey, 67 quid a week.

  The five rooms I was renting had been requisitioned from the homes on either side of it. It was basically a bedsit space zig-zagging through the larger building. While everyone else who lived in Bawdlands (no ‘Street’, no ‘Lane’, just ‘Bawdlands’) entered their home via the main street, the only way in – or out – of my apartment was via a back alley behind a greengrocer’s.

  The back/front door opened into a vestibule. To the right was a slender, rectangular kitchen area which was separated from the living room by a very 80s-style door – clear glass held in a wooden frame. From the living room you could take the Mount Everest of steep staircases to the upstairs bathroom and bedroom.

  Like any 17-year-old kid would, I thought the place was fantastic. I didn’t consider that entering via a dark alleyway could be in any way unsafe. I didn’t care how dark the yard outside my door was. I didn’t think about how low to the ground the bedroom window stood. Why would it occur to me that having only one way in – one way out – could be so dangerous?

  The unthinkable happened at 11:45pm on a Saturday night in mid-July. I’d arrived home about 20 minutes before. I was a little drunk from that evening as well as hung over from the night before. Thank God I didn’t let the lads talk me into another late one. I collapsed on the old-fashioned PVC sofa and finished off the last few sips of a can of Foster’s I found in the fridge. I was knackered from the two-day bender with my mates. I kicked off my shoes, socks and jeans, lay on the couch and began to watch a late-night Channel 4 movie.

  I’ll have a doze here, I thought. Maybe when I wake up I’ll have the energy for the hike upstairs to bed.

  I don’t think I fell asleep, but, if I did, it was for a minute tops.

  My eyes flickered open. I’d heard a noise. A faint tapping. I sat up and listened. I couldn’t hear anything. I started watching the movie again when …

  Knock-knock, knock-knock-knock …

  I definitely heard that! I was a little spooked. I was 17, living on my own for the first time. I got up and turned the TV down a bit. I waited a few minutes, listening. Then I heard it again.

  Knock-knock, knock-knock-knock …

  It was faint, it was intermittent, but there was definitely a knocking. It was creepy; loud enough for me to hear but only just about. Something wasn’t right.

  It came again:

  Knock-knock, knock-knock-knock …

  Fuck. Fuck!

  It was coming from the kitchen. I skulked to the glass door to the kitchen and opened it, placing one hand on the pane to stop it from rattling in its frame. Something wasn’t right. I left the kitchen lights off. Instead I crept on my hands towards the door. It was pitch-black outside. Blacker than when I’d arrived home 25 minutes before.

/>   I waited, crouched there in the dark. I calmed down a little and almost felt silly when …

  Knock-knock, knock-knock-knock …

  I freaked the fuck out. I could hear my heartbeat. No doubt about it now – someone was outside my door. Someone was in the dark knocking on my door, remaining silent for long minutes and knocking again.

  ‘Who is it?’ The words shot out of my mouth.

  They were met with a stretch of silence. Then a muffled voice replied: ‘It’s Jon …’

  Ron? Jon? I didn’t make it out. ‘Who?’

  ‘Jon.’

  I didn’t know a Jon. ‘Jon who?’

  More silence. I stood up and switched the kitchen light on. The light made everything look normal.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s me! It’s Jon!’ This time the voice was assertive. Annoyed, almost. I unlocked the door and pulled it open, expecting to see the familiar face of a friend of a friend who I knew only by a nickname.

  There was no face. Only the glimpse of a large outline in the dark – and a hissssss.

  ‘AGGHHH!!!’

  I’d been sprayed in the face. My eyes were welded tight shut. I couldn’t open them. I stumbled into the kitchen. Snot exploded from my nose and my throat burned. I wrenched and coughed. I’d been CS-gassed in the face. What the fuck was happening? I had to get my eyes open! What was all that splashing? I tore my left eyelid open. I couldn’t believe what I saw. An intruder was standing inside the kitchen. He was over 6ft 3in, decked in black. Black boots, black combats, black bomber jacket and what I can best describe as a black KKK hood. There were two holes for his eyes and one for his mouth. The intruder was swinging a can of petrol everywhere. It was slapping against the walls and the kitchen counters. And all over the floor.

  He saw my eye was open and threw petrol on me. It splashed my clothes. I was beyond scared. I screamed words but I can’t remember what.

  Terrified, I realised this intruder was here to hurt me. Maybe more.

  ‘AGGGH! STOP! STOP! WHO ARE YOU?’ I screamed. The intruder said nothing. He shook the last drops of petrol on the floor and placed the can by his feet. Looking directly at me, he took out a box of Swan matches. He struck one against the box. Too hard, it snapped. He struck another; it snapped. As he went for a third I scrambled – half-blind – deeper into the house. I flipped another light on and reached the landline phone just inside the living room. I dialled 999 without taking my eyes off the doorway to the kitchen.

  ‘Emergency Services—’

  ‘Help! Please send police! There’s someone in my house trying to kill me.’

  The voice on the line told me to calm down. The voice asked if I required police, ambulance or fire brigade.

  ‘Please send someone!’

  ‘Sir, I understand you are—’

  I’d stopped listening. The intruder was stood near the doorway, looking right at me. He was huge. The look in his eyes …

  ‘He’s here right now!’

  A coat-hanger smile stretched behind the intruder’s hood. He was six paces from me. He still hadn’t uttered a word. He was absolutely motionless. He was just watching, watching me on the phone.

  ‘Sir, it is important that you—’

  I slammed my finger down to hang up on the emergency operator.

  The smile tightened beneath the mouth hole. I could see teeth.

  I hit speed-dial.

  It rang twice and then: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mate – it’s Mike! Call nine-nine-nine! Someone’s in my house! He’s trying to kill me! Please! Seriously! There’s a man here right now! Nine-nine-nine wouldn’t believe me! Call the police! Please!’

  The intruder jerked his head to one side. Something had surprised him. His thin lips crushed the smile gone. Slowly and deliberately he reached into his black jacket. He pulled out a lump hammer.

  I leapt to the door and slammed it shut. I jammed my bare foot against the doorframe and pressed my entire weight against it. I dug in, pushing with all my strength. The masked intruder pressed his forehead against the glass. Our faces were less than a foot apart.

  A smile stretched across the mouth hole again. Without moving his head off the glass, the intruder lifted the hammer up.

  Clink, clink, clink …

  He gently rapped the hammer on the glass.

  Clink, clink, clink …

  ‘Who the fuck are you?! What do you want?!’

  More smiling.

  Clink, clink, clink …

  There was nowhere to run. There were no doors to lock behind me. What could I do? Who the fuck was this? In a split-second my mind raced over anyone – everyone – it could possibly be. It returned one name. The name of a thirty-something lout who I’d had several run-ins with. A bully who, finally, I’d snapped on and decked with a punch earlier that month.

  ‘Bruno?’

  His face startled back from the glass. The smile was gone.

  ‘Bruno – is that you?’

  He took a step back.

  It was fucking Bruno!

  ‘YOU FUAGH—’ I couldn’t shout. My throat was a cube and my lips had curled back.

  White-hot anger flushed out the panic and terror in an instant. This was no practised killer, no horror-movie madman. He was just a bloke. Just a bloke named ‘Bruno’ who’d picked – and lost – a fight with me outside a pub a few weekends before.

  I swung the door open ready for the fight of my life. The hammer arced just inches away from my head. I felt the draught on my neck hair. He turned and ran out outside. Barefoot, wearing only boxers and a T-shirt doused in petrol, I chased. I was across the backyard, down the alley, I hurtled around the corner into the street. Black boots thumped down on the pavement down Bawdlands. He skittled a family saying goodbye to visitors about to get into a car. It’s crazy, but I apologised for my would-be immolator’s poor manners (‘Sorry! Sorry! Excuse us!’).

  I couldn’t keep up with him. My adrenaline was burned to fumes and the soles of my feet were already red raw. The man in the black hood was now at the end of the road. Without glancing back, he turned the corner and disappeared.

  My mate arrived first. The cold and the adrenaline dump had me shivering but I didn’t want to go back inside my apartment. We went back to his place and called the police again from his phone.

  ‘It was Bruno!’ I told the police as two cars of them pulled up. ‘It was (I gave his real name)! Lives on (I gave the street he lived on)! Calls himself Bruno! I said his name and he stopped. As soon as I said, “Bruno!” he ran off. It was him!’

  They radioed that information to their colleagues and continued to take my statement in between me washing my eyes out with cold water. They stung but I didn’t need to go to the hospital.

  The police told me that crime-scene experts had looked over my apartment. They confirmed petrol had been thrown everywhere – and found something chilling. My attacker had been inside my home earlier in the day.

  ‘There’s evidence of forced entry through the bedroom window,’ the officer said. ‘And your doorbell wire was cut.’

  ‘My doorbell?’

  ‘It appears the assailant thought he was cutting your phone wire.’

  I swallowed hard. That explained him standing there smirking when I was on the phone – he thought the line was dead and was getting off on me trying to use a phone he’d taken out of commission. That puzzled look, the tilt of the head, when I phoned my mate – that’s when he realised he’d messed up and the phone was working. Even the quiet knocking at the door – he’d probably tried the doorbell as soon as I got home.

  He’d been waiting for me. Planned it so I was blinded in a house set on fire and unable to call for help.

  But it wasn’t Bruno. The police were at his house – miles across town – within minutes of me giving them his name. They found Bruno asleep in bed; his flatmate said they’d been in all evening.

  ‘There’s no way he could have gotten from Bawdlands to his house in
such a small window of time,’ the cops pointed out.

  ‘So why’d he run, then?’ I gasped. ‘Why’d he run when I said the name “Bruno”?’

  The coppers didn’t know, but put forward a theory.

  ‘Things were going wrong for him,’ one of them pointed out. ‘The doorbell was cut, so he’d spent a long time trying to get you to answer the door. Every time he knocked he risked being spotted by a neighbour or setting a dog off. Then the matches didn’t light. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to cut the phone line while you were out, but he’d messed that up and you’d alerted Emergency Services and your friend. He knew assistance was on the way. His plan was falling apart – you mis-identifying him offered him a way out – someone else would get the blame – and he took it.’

  I never stepped foot in that apartment again by myself. My mates came with me the next day to collect my stuff.

  You’d think a masked man trying to murder a 17-year-old by burning him alive would be worth a follow-up, but the police didn’t contact me about the incident again.

  I still get chills when talking about what happened – what could have happened – that night. But I never had nightmares or anything like that. I moved back in with my mum (my parents had now divorced) for a while, but moved back out as soon as I found another place I could afford.

  I’m not a psychologist, but if I were to guess why something like that didn’t affect me more I’d say it was because I got some measure of closure.

  A month after the knocks on the door, I got word who the masked man was. It was credible. The guy in question – we’ll call him Ronnie – was a well-known psychopath around town who believed he had a reason to dislike me. Ronnie wasn’t just a local hardman, he was a violent criminal.

  Literally the night I was given Ronnie’s name, I spotted him in a pub. He was the right height and bulk. I walked towards him.

  ‘Alright, Jon?’

  He turned around. He recognised me.

  ‘I said, are you alright, Jon?’