I Came Out Sideways

by George Porter

  “What are they doing?”

  “Der ’avin a shag.”

  “What’s a shag?”

  “It’s what yer dad does with yer mam to make babies. Its how dey made yew. He puts his dick in her fanny and plants a seed in her.”

  “What’s a fanny?”

  “It’s what wimmin ’av instead of dicks. Dey doesn’t ’av dicks like us. Da seed grows inside until it’s a baby and den it pops out through ’er fanny.”

  I was naturally both perturbed and confused by this outrageous and disturbing gem of gynaecological information delivered with such an air of knowledgeable authority by my sage. I questioned him further to enable me to digest this implausible bombshell. The information conveyed to me by Alfie, which I enthusiastically disclosed to my father while ‘doing my business’, was the cause of his departure from the house that morning with a bleeding chin sparsely masked by small scraps of paper torn from the Crosby Herald, an issue of which had once displayed a front-page picture of a children’s party with me sitting cross-legged on the floor in the centre of the group, sticking my tongue out. The editor of this popular local newspaper would go to his grave oblivious to the grief he brought to bear on the day that a copy arrived at 4 Church Road.

  We stood watching the display of canine lasciviousness, me with a certain degree of anxiety, and Alfie with a shrewd expression on his knowledgeable countenance while Spike, wallowing in the throes of extreme ecstasy, seemed unaware of our presence. I was in awe of such a spectacle, wondering if that was really how babies were made, or if Alfie had been purposely misinformed by his elder siblings.

  Mrs Evans, a porcine lady of gargantuan proportions, whose son Arthur once gave me a bloody nose in return for a black eye, lurched onto the scene, shod in her well-corroded carpet slippers with stockings rolled down to her bulging, blubbery ankles and a colourful headdress suggestive of a tea-towel covering the hair curlers swinging at will from her perspiring temple. To complete this disagreeable vision, she bulged threateningly out of a large flowery-patterned stained and crumpled cross-over apron which battled courageously to restrain the upper half of her torso from bursting forth in a mountain of unbridled flab. Her legs were dappled with red marks as a result of sitting too near to a fire in an otherwise cold room for extended periods of inactivity. She had the omnipresent Woodbine stuck to her trembling lower lip and her mouth was agape, displaying blackened teeth and several gaps where others had once resided. My father said she had a bloody face fit to frighten the bloody horses. The horses he was associated with unquestionably needed frightening. She certainly terrified me. She was lugging a buckled, galvanised bucket of water with her that she let fly at the dogs, but as a result of the bucket’s bent handle, not only did the dogs get a drenching but she took the severity of an after-shock of the residue from the bucket directly in her face. The cigarette sagged, but miraculously remained secured to her lip. She wobbled to a halt, the shock-waves proceeding up her body until their mounting crescendo reached her head and burst forth in an agonised wail.

  “You DIRTY little buggers!”

  I didn’t know whether the abuse was directed at us, the dogs, or all four of us, but we scattered in different directions, me to the relative safety of 4 Church Road. Relative safety only, because there had been a recent doorstep event involving Mrs Evans and my mother regarding an alleged kick to the ankle directed forcefully by me when she was apparently dragging me off Arthur who was, according to her, about to be murdered. Mrs Evans produced the evidence in the form of a large blue bruise which complimented and blended appealingly with the mottled redness surrounding it. My mother informed Mrs Evans in strident colloquial terms that her son was a good boy and would never resort to such behaviour even if goaded. The door was then slammed on the offending features of Mrs. Evans and her bruised limb. She could be heard on the other side of it threatening violence to me and I immediately received the flying slipper treatment.

  My mother was in the back kitchen poking at a pot on the stove.

  “Is that you, Georgie?”

  The name ‘Georgie’ at that early stage along life’s bumpy pathway was anathema to me. The diminutive was not one of endearment, merely the method used to distinguish my name from that of my father, who was also named George. Thus, whenever the cry “GEORGIEEEEEEEEE” went out I was not too sure whether the shit was about to hit the fan or my egg was cooked. I still shudder inwardly with embarrassment at the thought of the words chanted by young hoods and their future molls of “Georgie Porgie pudding and pie.” I would launch stones, sometimes even half bricks, from a discreet distance whenever this offensive rhyme was chanted in my direction.

  “Where have you been, and why are you dripping?”

  “On the big field.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Watching Spike ’avin a shag.”

  I was brought up to be truthful. I could have said, “Oh nothing, just playing.” That morning I learned a lesson for survival. Never, ever, under any circumstances, tell the truth to anyone unless you are prepared to accept the full and furious consequences. In the matter of Spike the dog versus the truthfulness of Georgie, a severe blow was struck. Unlike my father, my mother had no reservations when it came to striking a child when she could apprehend it. Being a fairly nimble child was to my advantage, and all that usually happened in situations like this was the purposely misguided flight of a slipper whizzing past my head. However, on this occasion my mother’s blast of fury exceeded my speed, and to this day my right ear still rings. I have since remained throughout my life extremely circumspect when asked by anybody what I have been doing.

  “And don’t do that again!” These words are indelibly cemented to my psyche. Never have they left me. Guilt springs eternal. They were many times spoken to me when I hadn’t even done anything. I was often sent into a spin trying to remember what I was supposed to have done that I hadn’t done which shouldn’t be done again. If I ventured to ask what it was I was supposed to have done in the first place, the outcome was either the flying slipper treatment or a very stern admonishment not to be cheeky.

  One matter which I certainly do remember being told not to do again on several occasions was walking backwards into lampposts. At one time I had sprouted two conspicuous lumps on the back of my head, which accounted for my father’s acidic comment that I was probably knocking some bloody sense into myself so my mother shouldn’t be too bloody concerned about it.

  There were some things I never did, but for which I got told off along with the other rip stitches in the locality. I cannot ever remember being either cruel or hurtful to an animal, but I was accused of taking part in an unpleasant incident which horrified me in all my six years of earthly wisdom. It also caused me to enter into a passionate confrontation and subsequent bleeding nose with Arthur Evans, who accused me of such a monstrous act.

  This happened when I was industriously reconstructing a bombed house from its blasted remnants. I was with Cyril Darch, a relative of the bookmaker (whose carpet my father had bought for him with his systematically unsuccessful up and down and doubles). Darch wasn’t actually a friend, and he became an arch enemy some time later after he embedded a shard of slate in the temporal artery on the left side of my head, causing a great deal of blood and much consternation among the adults in the area who stemmed the flow by holding my head in a vice-like grip for about half an hour. It is not outside the realms of fantasy that the blood supply to my brain may well have been truncated during this operation and it was pointed out by my ever-knowledgeable father that this may well have been the reason why my brain was not all that it should have been when it came to matters educational.

  On the opposite side of the bomb-site appeared the podgy figure of Yocker Spencer of the cleft palate, and sprightly Sonny Crummy of the solitary lung. They were in possession of a bicycle pump and were attempting to inflate a toad. The
y were Catholics, and although there were no serious vendettas between the younger children in the area, Protestants and Catholics kept themselves slightly aloof from one another. At that time I didn’t know what a Catholic was, but I knew that Piggy the Priest was involved and whenever we Protestant children saw him, we ran away. There was a chant which used to be called out by older children to the priest which I could not understand, but which in essence was just one segment of a liturgical collection of abuse and bigotry directed towards Catholicism in general and the priesthood in particular:

  ’Av yer seen da priest

  ’Av yer seen ’is daughter

  ’Av yer seen her piss in da pot

  An’ call it holy water?

  On King Billy’s day, a motley gaggle of men and boys would march along Church Road past our house. A couple of drummers swaggered along, with some of the parade playing on tin whistles. They were led by a small boy playing the part of King Billy, wearing wellington boots and what looked like one of his mother’s hats with feathers poking out from it. He was swinging a wooden sword (wrapped in silver paper) in time with the beat of the drums. Some of the men wore battered bowler hats and carried umbrellas. The more important-looking ones had long orange scarves draped around them. It puzzled me.

  “Dad. Who is King Billy? Does he play for Liverpool?”

  “No, son, not that King Billy. That King Billy has never been crowned. This one died a long time ago, and those fools need locking up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they hate Catholics. Your friend the nomark had better stay out of the way today, or he’ll get pepper in his eyes.”

  No more needed to be spoken by my father. The gravitas of his voice when speaking with sincerity was always marked by the lack of the usage of word ‘bloody’, and his words rang authoritative and true to me when I was little. Indeed, they were fools and yes, they needed locking up. In fact I thought they all needed to go to Rainhill, the place I had been threatened with for not straightening my back and for kicking stones.

  I learned from this short conversation that madness and prejudice are siblings and they are clothed in the cloak of extremes. Although it was ingrained at such an early age in my heart, I did not have the verbal skill to express such feelings, and still wonder at the magnificence of the talent of oratory.

  ***

  Algernon, known locally as Algy the bookie’s runner, was a personality admirably suited to his trade. He was inconspicuous in his surroundings and an affable local fixture. He was a tall thin pipe-cleaner of a man in the twilight of his years, but nimble enough to pedal his decomposing Hercules roadster at a canter whenever the local bizzie was seen approaching from a distance. He permanently wore his cycle clips ready for a quick getaway, a frayed cloth cap and a grey gabardine raincoat which flapped in the wind when he was forced to decamp at speed. He had a long pointed nose which seemed to have a perpetual dew-drop on the tip of it. He also whistled, and sometimes hummed, tunes from the shows. I was quite well acquainted with Algy, as was my father. On some days when I was training to play for Liverpool, kicking my treasured size-three football against the back doors of the Lion and Unicorn (I had found it washed up on the shore alongside what I thought was a deflated balloon with a knot in it), he would stand leaning on his bike giving me instructions on how to trap a ball and how not to kick it with the toe.

  “That’s a toe-ender sonny, that’s no good. Yew’ll kick it over the bar if yew does that. Get yer noddle over the ball and use the top of yer foot. Don’t lean back or yew will put it in the stands!”

  His services were invaluable. I would deliver half-crown pieces wrapped in scraps of paper to him where our street corner met the back jigger, which was where he plied his illegal trade. He’d emit his tinny whistle through clenched teeth, furtively on the look-out for any signs of the constabulary. Only on one occasion do I remember going to collect some ‘winnings’ from Algy. He was rather circumspect in his attitude when I approached him.

  “What’s his nomdeeploom?”

  “What’s his what?”

  “His NOM DEE PLOOM!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t bother sonny, I know what is anyway. Here - don’t lose it or spend any or I’ll cut yer tail off. Tell him that his each way up and down and doubled yank worked for a change.”

  I didn’t tell my father anything of the sort for two reasons. First, I couldn’t remember the detail of such a scrambled message and I am not sure that it has been correctly reported now, and second, the word ‘yank’ to my way of thinking was closely associated with another word I had heard in the company of Alfie Littlehales and repeated in the perilously close vicinity of the flying slipper, not knowing the meaning or connotations of the verb to wank. Nor did Alfie for that matter. At least if he did, he never imparted the information to me.

  Algy arrived panting on the scene of the imminent explosion of a toad in the guise of the avenging angel, wobbling on his bike across a field of debris. He was out of breath and in a condition of some consternation, which was most unlike him.

  “ME PUMP! GIVE ME ME PUMP, YEW THIEVING LITTLE BASTARDS!”

  This was certainly not the benign Algy of street corner whistling with whom I was acquainted. He had assumed the countenance of one who belonged in Rainhill, to which I was told I would be sent if I didn’t stop behaving like a bloody lunatic, take my bloody hands out of my bloody pockets and straighten my bloody back. I can remember being threatened with being forced to wear a special brace to straighten it and was terrified by the thought, but was reprieved by the kind Dr Novak who told my parents that pneumonia was the source of my rounded shoulders and I would grow out of it. In retrospect he was doing his best to avoid my having to wear a brace, knowing full well that I would never change my posture - I am still round-shouldered and still walk with my hands in my pockets. Also, I still kick stones and empty cans whenever I see them - still daydreaming about the exploits of the great Billy Liddell whose spirit burns within me to this day.

  Yocker Spencer, so named because of his speech impediment and the resultant spray of spittle which jetted out when he spoke, turned his tousled snot-daubed nine-year-old head to face Algy and spoke only two words.

  “Huck ock.”

  Yocker didn’t mince his words metaphorically, although he did literally. Fortunately for him, he had difficulty pronouncing the consonant ‘f” which saved him a great deal of extra grief when remonstrating with officialdom.

  “Give me me pump now, or I’ll skin yew alive.”

  Algy dismounted his rusting cycle like some latter-day crusader ready to do battle. With one majestic swoop of his spider-like leg, his toecap scored a direct hit on the ragged rear end of Sonny Crummy, while at the same time his lumpy, blue-knuckled arthritic fingers regained a moment’s dexterity, clamping them firmly on the jug-like protuberance of one of Yocker’s ears which he twisted violently.

  Only then did Algy realise what they were using the pump for. It fell to the ground, as did the toad which hobbled away under a nearby brick, unaware that it had very nearly been flaked alive had it not been for the fortuitous arrival of an old man on a bike.

  “Yew nasty little sods. Yer not fit to breathe. I’ve got a bloody good mind to pump YEW up!”

  “Huck ock. Our Yonner’ll get yew for dis yew old unt.”

  Another consonant which caused difficulty for Yocker was the letter ‘c’. Yonner Spencer, his elder brother, would certainly have become involved in this scuffle had he not been serving a stretch in Walton jail, relative to his notoriety as a bad man. The ear was held in a vice-like grip as Algy bent down to administer some advice.

  “Don’t thieve me pump again or I’ll ’av the police on to yew. And don’t be crewel to dumb animals”.

  The confrontation was further enhanced by the arrival on the scene of the priest, a red-faced Irishman
with a bulging blue-veined nose and a straining cassock.

  “Now what in the name of our Lord is all dis about now? You’ll be raising da dead with all dat racket so you will, so you will.”

  Yocker saw some light at the end of the tunnel. He knew the priest, and although they were not on first-name terms, the priest would be aware that Yocker was one of his strays.

  “He’s hittin’ me farder, he’s hittin’ me. I ’aven’t done nowt.”

  The priest took Yocker at his convoluted word and went off on a head-to-head with Algy, regardless of which Algy maintained a firm grip on the reddening ear of his prisoner.

  “What’s da matter with you Sir? Doesn’t yew know what our Lord says about suffering little children? Let go of dis child immediately or I shall be forced to involve the constabulary, indeed I will, so I will.”

  “Oh yer will, will yer, you big fat bag of wind. Well, I’ll tell yer this, FATHER, the little bugger will suffer more than a twisted ear if he steals me pump again, and as for blowing up toads I’ll bloody well blow ’im up!”

  Algy then became my hero. Not only was he a first-class football coach, but he’d saved the life of a toad and had faced up to the priest. I would have run away, but not Algy. He took a step towards the priest, extending his chin, unwittingly stretching the already oversized ear of Yocker, who let out a roar of anger, managed to release himself from the vice he had been held in and then disappeared into the unexplored territory of Chapel Street, an area strictly off limits to me, where - should I venture there - I would get bloody diphtheria and die.

  “Don’t you talk to me like dat. I am a man of God don’t yew know, don’t yew know.”

  The priest was now inflating himself and his cassock strained even harder to keep his bulk within its confines.