by Mikey Walsh
I prayed not.
We downed our drinks and left the Bowl before Gobbler and Tracey reappeared. Back at the camp, Adam, Levoy and I headed for Levoy’s trailer. We spent the rest of the evening making up stories about how great the girls had been at giving head.
Levoy and Adam passed their driving tests within a month of each other and as a reward Adam was given a new BMW and Levoy a brand-new Toyota van. Every night, just as my father would go from trailer to trailer to call for the men, Levoy would call for us teenagers. One by one we would stack ourselves into the back of his van, but only after a good twenty-minute argument between the girls about who would get to sit in the front. Kayla-Jane and Frankie always won, so Romaine and Charlene were always in the back with me and Adam.
We still went to the Dyna-Bowl, because it was one of the few places in town that we could hang out. As soon as we arrived in the car park we would head straight to the bar where all of us, including Levoy, would get wasted on diamond white cider and jelly shots. My father had stopped paying me while I was learning to drive the lorry, and afterwards reinstated my wages at just twenty pounds a week. But my mother would give me extra without my father knowing. Like the other boys, I would blow the lot on drinks and cigarettes at the Dyna Bowl bar.
With our group – Frankie, Kayla-Jane, Adam, Levoy, Romaine and Charlene – I felt at my most comfortable. We would play drinking games, and torment Adam and Romaine who had started going out with each other. There were still rules – we boys had to pay for the girls, no mention of sex words and so on, but it was the nearest I ever got to really relaxing.
Sometimes, to change the pace, we’d go to the cinema. One night the others in the group voted to see The Lion King for the third time. I decided to give it a miss. With the cinema being next to the Dyna Bowl, I bought a packet of cigarettes, told the others I’d see them later, and headed over to the bar on my own.
‘What can I get you, mate?’
I had noticed this particular barman several times before. He had a warm smile, bright blue eyes and tattooed arms.
‘We’ve got a two-for-one offer on Fosters if you fancy it?’
‘All right then, I’ll have two of them.’
I sat at a high stool at the bar as he poured. I took a sip. I’d never tasted lager before. It was so rancid I nearly spat it out, but I had to keep some kind of composure in front of the barman.
‘You’re one of the travelling lot aren’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ I answered suspiciously.
‘The travellers have always lived around here. I live just up the road from the campsite. Always thought you lot were all right.’
I took another swig of the lager. ‘Do you wanna help me finish the other one?’
He smiled again. ‘Thanks. I’m finished now, I’ll just get my coat.’
While he was gone the danger of what I was doing hit me. I was about to share a beer and conversation with a Gorgia man. My father – not to mention the rest of the men back at the camp – would probably kill me if they found out.
Kayla-Jayne and Charlene’s older sister Esther, a pretty girl of twenty, once told me that she used to hang around this same bar with two other Gypsy girls. One of them had started seeing a Gorgia man, and when their fathers found out, all three were not only banned from ever going there again, but were labelled whores, which meant not one of them would ever marry. It was a terrible punishment, and now here I was, risking even worse. But I felt excited by the idea of talking to someone new, someone outside our small, closed world.
He appeared a minute later and sat on the stool next to me. His name was Caleb, he was twenty-five years old and he’d been working in the bar since dropping out of the Navy two years before.
‘I’m Mikey,’ I told him, ‘and I’m nineteen.’
You weren’t even supposed to be in the bar until you were eighteen. I’d added one for luck.
We talked for a while, then he looked at his watch. ‘I have to shoot off, do you want to come for a drink with me and some friends?
‘I can’t, I’ve got to get back.’
Our chat had lasted all of twenty minutes. I waited for him to leave the building before I left for the cinema. I felt guilty for breaking the rules. But I wished I could have gone with him.
In the weeks that followed I saw Caleb whenever I went into the bar with the others. He was always friendly when I went over to order drinks, and several times he repeated his invitation to go out with him and his friends. But I didn’t dare accept.
Then everything changed. A new group of Gypsy boys, from a campsite a few miles away, heard about the Dyna Bowl hangout and arrived one night to see for themselves.
I was drunk and doing impressions of Aunt Minnie, when three stocky, greased-up Gypsy boys entered the bar. Without any introduction, they bought their drinks, came right over to our table and took a seat. They closed in, blatantly chatting up the girls while giving Adam, Levoy and me the cold shoulder.
We went out into the lobby to play the fruit machines and discuss the situation.
‘It’s all gonna change now,’ said Levoy in a morbid tone.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because now this lot know we all come here we won’t get rid of them,’ said Adam.
‘Who are they?’
Adam and Levoy knew of them and gave me the low down on the newcomers. They said that the group had been banned from the main Gypsy haunt a few miles away, after countless violent attacks on Gorgias and other Gypsies.
Romaine came out to join us. ‘I think your sister’s found a man in there, Mikey.’
‘What!’
‘Yep, he’s already buying them drinks and flirting.’
I went over to the door to see. Sure enough, Kayla-Jayne, Frankie and even sour-faced Charlene were melting and giggling at every word that came out of the boys’ mouths.
Then I heard Frankie’s wicked witch laugh. Romaine was right.
I walked through the bar and into the toilet, where I composed myself before making my way back to the table. Adam and Romaine had already returned, but were sitting outside of the intimate circle the girls had formed with the new boys. But Levoy was doing his best to get friendly, and appeared to be succeeding.
‘This is my brother,’ Frankie said.
Davey Nelson took one look, then leaned over to Levoy and the other boys and whispered. The three of them let out a laugh, and the sound of Levoy joining in crushed me. He was an even bigger coward than I was.
The boy interested in Frankie, wanting to impress her, rose from his seat and gave me a heavy handshake.
‘How yer doin, mush. Me name’s Wisdom, this is Davey, and this is Tyrone.’
He turned back to Frankie. I didn’t even bother sitting down.
Romaine tapped Adam on the leg, gave me a nod and the three of us left.
Adam flagged down a taxi. ‘You gonna head home with us, Mikey?’
I wished I could, but I wasn’t about to leave my sister. ‘Na, it’s all right, I’ll see you when we get back.’
I went back inside and sat in silence as Frankie and the other girls lapped up the attention for the next two hours. Finally we made our way back to the camp with the new boys in tow. I realised that Levoy had been right: everything was going to change, and I was furious that these boys could walk in and destroy it all.
When we pulled back into the camp, I jumped out and went straight back to our trailer. I was in no mood to sit in the car park, watching the girls and Levoy humiliate themselves by going cock-eyed over a bunch of apes.
After that night, the new boys became a regular fixture, and they brought other friends with them. Before long Frankie began dating Wisdom, Kayla-Jayne got together with Tyrone and Charlene pulled the leader, Davey.
Most painful of all to Adam and me was that Levoy had chosen to join them too. He stopped coming for me in the evening, and when he saw me, he turned the other way.
In a matter of weeks, our group had shrunk to just Adam
, Romaine and me.
One evening Adam came to call.
‘Come on out, Mikey, the three of us can have a laugh. We can ignore all of them. Besides, it’s Romaine’s thirteenth.’
Our mouths dropped open in shock as we reached the Dyna Bowl car park and saw the sea of transit vans and pick-ups.
Inside the bar was a mass gathering of Gypsy youth. Frankie spotted me. ‘Oi, get me a diamond white and black,’ she called.
I asked Adam and Romaine what they wanted and headed for the bar.
Caleb was there. ‘Your lot are certainly packing in these days,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said with a sigh.
I watched him laughing with the rest of the staff as he poured our drinks. What I wouldn’t give just to be normal. To be able to work in a pub, wear a silly bowling shirt and cap and just serve drinks for the rest of my life.
As I walked over to give Frankie her drink there was a loud ‘wooooo’. I had been spotted chatting to the barman, and to these people that meant something sick or gay. As they laughed and jeered, I picked up my drink and walked away.
Romaine grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t leave, Mikey,’ she pleaded. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’
‘Just sit down here with us,’ said Adam, ‘we’ll stay for a drink and then we’ll go.’
But I couldn’t bear it in there any longer. I walked out of the building and round to the back. After smoking a couple of cigarettes, I headed back to the entrance, hoping that Adam and Romaine would be waiting for me and we could go home.
They weren’t, but others were.
As I got closer I heard Colbert Runt whisper, ‘There he is coming now.’
I knew what was coming. Just like Levoy, Colbert had joined the new boys to take me down for fun.
‘Oi, poofy boy.’ A fat-headed thug stepped out from a group that had gathered in front of the door. I kept my head down and tried stepping around him. He pushed me backwards. ‘You’re Frank Walsh’s boy?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘I bet he punched your mother up something good for popping you out.’
The others cheered as he rushed forward to punch me. But it was clear he had never learned to box; his face was fully exposed. I drew back my fist and punched him as hard as I could on the bridge of his nose. As he fell, face first, to the floor, the others rushed towards me in a stampede. Two boys grabbed hold of my arms, and while the thug got back to his feet and punched my ribs and stomach, Colbert Runt turned his gold rings to the jagged edge, punching me over and over on my forehead face and nose.
Rage ran through me as blood poured from my face.
I could hear Frankie and the girls screaming and the punches kept coming. They had all heard the fight and come outside to see. Then two security men and Caleb pulled me free of the gang and took me inside.
Frankie, Adam and Romaine stood in the doorway as I went by. I asked Adam if he could get them home right away.
‘Will you be all right?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be all right.’
Caleb helped me up to the staff toilet and sat me down. He handed me a damp cloth, then stood quietly, going through a first-aid box, as I swore, shouted and punched at the walls.
I looked into the mirror. There were three gaping cuts on my face; the worst of them right down the bridge of my nose. At the sight of my face my anger turned to panic. My father was going to kill me for getting beaten up.
‘I think I need stitches.’
Caleb began cutting off strips of tape. ‘Have a seat, I’ll have a go at closing them.’
I sat quietly as Caleb dabbed the strips of tape across my face.
‘This is what we really are. Do you still think we’re a good lot, Caleb?’
‘I suppose not,’ he replied. ‘But there’s still one good one I know of, only I can’t get him to come out for a beer with me.’
I laughed. ‘Well, I’m officially hated now, mate, so I don’t think you’ll be seeing much of me any more.’
‘If you’re hated, then they won’t have much to do with your time, will they?’
I explained to Caleb that for me to go out with him and his buddies for a drink would be impossible. ‘We’re not allowed to mix with people who aren’t Gypsies.’
‘Well, don’t tell ’em then.’ He gave a cheeky smile. ‘I’ve just finished work, they’ve all gone, so how about it?’
I took a look in the mirror. He’d done such a good job that I almost looked as if I hadn’t just had the crap beaten out of me twenty minutes before. If there was ever to be a chance for me to see him, then this was it.
‘OK then.’
He checked that the coast was clear as we walked out to his car: a little orange Micra that looked like a little rusted pumpkin.
As we drove, my stomach did somersaults. I began laughing. I couldn’t believe what I was doing; I was sitting in a Gorgia car with a Gorgia man, who was taking me to the Gorgia pub for a drink.
He took me to a typical little English pub, with low wooden beams and copper pots hanging on the walls. It was well away from the Dyna Bowl, and had lots of dark corners where I could sit without feeling self-conscious about my wounds.
Caleb got us drinks and began asking me about my life. From there the conversation just flowed. It was wonderful to be able to talk about something other than money, fighting and girls.
When I had finished, Caleb told me about his school, his college and his brief Navy life, as well as his friends, his girlfriends and his family. He was the first genuinely happy person I had ever met. All that mattered were his family, his friends and enjoying his life.
When it came to my turn I couldn’t stop talking. I had never felt so free to talk about myself. I told him things I had never told anyone before: about my father, the fighting, and the rules of Gypsy life.
I left three things out: Joseph, being gay, and my real age. I didn’t know him well enough to trust him with any of those secrets.
When last orders were called I knew I would have to face going back and showing myself to my father. Caleb drove me back, and I asked him to pull into the park next door to our camp, in case we were seen. The place next door was a council-owned trailer park for permanent residents, all of them elderly Gorgias.
He turned off the engine and we pushed back our seats and talked in the dark.
He told me about his favourite music, his love of motorbikes and how he one day hoped to get promoted to manager of the whole Dyna Bowl.
‘I’m going out with some mates tomorrow if you wanna come,’ he said.
They were going to a nightclub. I had never been to one before.
‘Do you think your friends would mind?’
‘No. I think they’d really like you.’
I smiled at the idea that anyone might actually like me. I wanted to go, but did I dare? I could risk it. My parents would just assume I was out with the group.
‘All right.’
Caleb smiled. ‘Shall I pick you up here, then?’
‘Yes. That would be great. Can you make it nine?’ I knew that by that time Levoy, Frankie and the gang, plus my father, would have left the camp.
‘Fine,’ he said.
I stood, waiting until his car was out of sight, before I started walking back.
21
Caleb’s Plan
I walked back to the camp thinking about Caleb and how much I had enjoyed just being with him. I couldn’t wait for the next evening. I would be taking an even bigger risk, but it was worth it. Then I turned a corner – and saw the orange glow of a cigarette. My father was waiting for me. But a filthy look, a dictionary of hateful words and a good kick up the arse barely touched me. I dusted myself off, climbed into the trailer, got undressed and fell into my bunk. I pulled the curtain across and stared up through the open skylight. The stars made me think of Kenny and where he was now. Something important had happened this evening. I had seen a chink of light in the darkness and I was determined not to lose sight of it.
The next evening, once Frankie and the others had gone out and my father was in the pub, I slipped away to meet Caleb. He took me to meet his friends – two girls who also worked at the Dyna Bowl, and a boy who was an old schoolfriend of his. They welcomed me, and I had a really good time. No pressure to fight, or boast, or chase girls, just a friendly evening full of laughter and chatter. I was astounded by the way boys and girls could be friends without any kind of romantic pressure. And how both girls and boys could talk openly about sex.
Over the next few weeks I managed to sneak out to meet Caleb nearly every night. Sometimes we met with his friends, other times it was just the two of us. It was surprisingly easy to slip out of the camp. By this time, few of the others my age wanted to hang around with me; I was social poison to the boys and a lost cause to the girls. Only Adam and Romaine still offered to go out with me, but I told them I didn’t feel like going anywhere. And then, a few weeks later, Adam suddenly left the camp. He was shipped off to run a place his father had bought in Scotland, but the real reason was that his family didn’t approve of Romaine. His family were very well off, and considered Aunt Minnie and her family common. Aunt Minnie swore, chain-smoked, drank, and didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of her. Uncle Jaybus, was exactly the same, and so was Romaine, who had a straggly ponytail, wore three-inch thick layers of make-up and a gaudy selection of ‘designer’ tracksuits.
Romaine was crushed, but eventually she began hanging around with another girl at the camp.
I was sorry, because I really liked Adam. But after he left, it was even simpler for me to slip away to meet Caleb.
After work each day – we got back anywhere between two and six each afternoon, depending on the job in hand – I went in to sit with my mother, the boys and Minnie until Frankie was up and ready, around six. My father would be out talking to the men or collecting more tarmac and I would chat to my mother, help the boys with their games, and give Minnie a cuddle.
Once Frankie was up I would go back to our trailer, get a bowl of hot water and wash the pink dust off me. Levoy would arrive to collect Frankie and Kayla-Jayne and around seven my father would drive around the camp collecting all the men to go to the pub.