SERIAL CHILD KILLER (ALMOST)
My old man was not only a fence for the local criminal classes of Birmingham (his front for this activity being a big fuck-off pub which went from one side of the street to the other and had effectively a front saloon bar on each side) but a gambler and a local hard man. All of that did not make him the brainiest person in the city however - but he did have a big car - a Zephyr much beloved of TV programmes of the time.
Now I played centre forward for my primary school team and as a result one Saturday my old man offered to take us all to the match in his big car. That is 11 players, 2 subs and a teacher who was the coach.
Zephyrs were big cars but even a big car isn't big enough for 13 seven year olds and 2 adults - my old man's idea: 4 of us head to tail like sardines in the boot.
I volunteered thinking it would be fun. It wasn't. It so fucking wasn't - not only was the turning back and forth of the car and the bouncing on the 60s soft suspension vomit-inducing some of the exhaust fumes leaked back into the boot. It was bloody horible.
I remember heaving pretty quickly soon after the journey began onto someone's World Cup Willie soccer boots. The others joined me and my sock soon felt a bit soggy and gooey and the floor of the boot got slimier and sslippery making us all slosh back and forth in kiddie puke. The sounds of retching were well covered by the noisy engine but in the boot it was all we could hear.
Thankfully the match ground wasn't too far away - the car stopped after a final bounce or two over the grasssy entrance to the pitch and cue four sick covered kids emerging from the dark - still puking in part from the smell of the sick from the enclosed space. One of us had shit himself too for good measure. It was fucking scary in there.
We lost 6-nil I think but one good result was that when I got onto the ball no one dared come near me to tackle me in case the crap on my shoulders got onto them.
Looking back I now know that he could have killed us all the useless sod - not a single sensible idea he had about childrearing nor team transport. Another time he enrolled me at a school telling them I was twelve when I was nine - I ended up at High School at 10 before they found out he'd screwed up and by then it was too late. My expected teenage sexual years were ruined by him thanks to that lack of memory of how long I had been around his life! My mates were getting it while I still ran around collecting lego and action men.
Now he's a broken man who sits around doing a small garden doing little thanks to a stroke he had a few years back. Think I care? Not one whit - he was a cruel and fucked up guy when young and certainly hurt a lot of people around him - you get back what you pay in to life.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Fri 17 Aug 2007, 5:01, Reply)