Fighting to the Death Page 6

  Most of us had a picture of a naked bird hanging on the wall by our bed. I also had a couple of weird faces that I’d drawn in art classes. But that Italian arsehole with the comb had photos of fighter airplanes. What a loser! One time I spotted his comb on the floor and threw it in the bin, in the hope it might stop him combing his hair all day. Bastard simply produced another one from his bedside cabinet.

  The way the screws woke us up each morning at Rochester was a bloody outrage. Three of them would come in and start screaming, ‘Get up, you lazy little wankers.’ Then they’d start kicking the ends of our beds. Butlins it was not.

  Despite that earlier advice from my relatives, I couldn’t resist sometimes looking the nastiest screws straight in the eye, challenging them to have a pop at me but they didn’t bother. They’d seen me in the gym and had heard the rumours about my past as a fighter.

  My work duties in Rochester weren’t too bad because I was assigned to the garden. But two nasty incidents happened, which luckily the screws never knew anything about. One morning I was in the gym room, on a workbench pulling weights, when this other kid marched in and said I was on his bench. I ignored him at first. Then he started really throwing his weight around so I had to give him a slap with a dumbbell. I’ve never forgotten how I visualised it was the face of that bloke who ruined my life after I beat him in that game of pool. This fella went down like a sack of frozen chips. I walked straight out of the gym before anyone else even noticed what had happened. Later I heard this same kid being given a grilling by a screw who wanted to know why his face was all mashed in. ‘I fell over, I fell over.’ He kept saying it over and over again. That’s how it went inside.

  A few weeks later I was working in the garden when some kid decided to crack me over the head with a shovel because he didn’t like the way I was looking at him. I whacked him straight back with a flurry of rights followed by a left square on the face. The kid went flying but everyone just carried on working as if nothing had happened. A screw turned up just as this kid was getting to his feet. Just like the other kid before him, he told the officer: ‘I fell over, I fell over.’

  Even without these incidents, my life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses inside Rochester. We had to be up at 6 am for a 6.30 am breakfast. Then it was straight off to work. I spent most of my time planting and digging up vegetables in the greenhouse. I really did try to keep my head down. I didn’t want any aggro – I just wanted to get home.

  The sound of my fists pounding into the heavy bag soon regularly permeated the prison gym. I usually started something like this: tap … tap … with my left fist. I’d push my arms away from my body, but the bag would still swing and the top links of the chain holding it to the ceiling would start grating against each other and would squeak. Then I’d pop a right into the battered brown leather. It might not have looked like a hard shot, but the heavy bag would this time jump on its little chain. Once I’d got the bag swinging, I’d begin to pound away: left, left … and then right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK. Air would wheeze out of the bag with every slap, the noise from the chain punctuating my swings.

  Other inmates would look on, knowing that those shots I was inflicting on the leather bag could soon be beating out a rhythm on some poor bastard’s boat race or rib cage if they weren’t careful.

  Each time I visited that gym, I got fitter. My face became ruddy from the outdoor work, running and skipping round the Rochester yard for an hour every morning. I’d have easily ballooned up to fifteen or sixteen stone if I wasn’t training, but now I was fit again, my optimum weight was around fourteen-and-a-half stone. I suppose you’d call it fighting fit.

  I always trained in a T-shirt, old sweatpants and dirty white trainers, which I never bothered lacing up. Before I got sent down I’d appeared huge but shapeless – no neck, beefy shoulders, big arms and the rest coming out in all the wrong places. But being in the slammer turned me into a sculptured, toned-up master of the universe, if you know what I mean. Despite everything, I was sharper, tighter. My bulk was closing in on itself, huddling my frame. I felt compact and constantly wound up. I was on full alert.

  My dear old mum came to see me once a week in Rochester. She’d always start off each visit by smiling at me and saying: ‘You’ll be out soon, son.’ Then she’d spend the entire visit babbling on about my brothers and sister and what was happening back at home. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways and I knew she was trying her hardest to avoid cracking up. I could see in her eyes that she was holding herself back from crying. Trouble was that watching her suffer made me feel like shit. It broke my heart to see her in such distress.

  At the end of each visit, she’d give me a hug and I could feel her shaking like a leaf, still holding back the tears. I knew that if I hugged her too long then she’d completely crack up so I’d sort of push her away. Sometimes the bad things you do are done for a good reason. She told me later how she’d then go home and sob her eyes out. She never wanted to show me how upset she really was but I knew all along. It’s typical of my mum to try and always be strong.

  Meanwhile the staff at Rochester continued to prove themselves to be total wankers. If they could get one over on an inmate they would. It was all like a game to them and there were a lot more sensitive souls than me around.

  There was one particularly evil screw who baited up a fight between me and a boy who was supposed to be the ‘Big Daddy’ inside – the kid no-one dared take on. This screw kept trying to wind us up to have a tear-up. He got his kicks from seeing this so-called tough kid bashing the shit out of other, weaker inmates. In the end, I fell for the bait and gave the socalled ‘Big Daddy’ the hiding of his life, which was nothing more than he deserved.

  The only member of staff I even vaguely got on with was the art teacher. I did twelve hours of art a week. I couldn’t get enough of it: I loved it. It was like a release from all my problems, which enabled me to escape into a fantasy world and, believe me, I needed something to help me forget my troubles.

  I specialised in painting faces. They were all imaginary, well sort of. And they all looked a bit bloody miserable. Many were faces of people from my past – like that bastard who slammed an iron bar over my head at the Pigeons pub and that arsehole ‘stepfather’ Terry, who’d landed me in borstal in the first place.

  I had a special technique when I was drawing. I’d start at an eye or the nose and then work my way out from there. I never knew what I was going to end up painting; bit like my attitude to life, I suppose. I’d just strike out with my brush or pencil and then see how the mood took me. That art teacher encouraged me a lot. He seemed to understand what was going through my head, which is more than I can say for any of the teachers back at school.

  Often I’d end up with two faces looking at each other. Sometimes I even managed four faces on each page. Their haunted look reflected what I felt at the time. How could I have done pictures of smiling, happy faces if I didn’t feel it myself?

  I also drew cartoons – some called them caricatures – of people in the borstal. I’d pick out people’s faults, like a big nose or a bulbous mouth, and make them look even worse. There were a couple of screws I loved painting in a really distorted way but I’d always tear the pictures up into pieces if any of them marched into our dormitory. Pity I couldn’t do the same thing to them in real life!

  There was one huge, fat bully of a screw with a goatee beard who featured over and over in my cartoons. I hated him so much, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Anyway, one time I drew a cartoon of him sitting on the toilet, looking like a big fat prat (which is what he was) and stuck it up on the wall to amuse my cellmates. I was asking for trouble but didn’t give a toss. The screw walked in one day and, surprise, surprise, spotted the picture, but the funny thing is he didn’t recognise the figure as himself, even though everyone else said it was a good likeness. He just snatched it off the wall and tore it into little pieces without saying a word. But news of my car
icatures eventually reached the borstal’s counsellors, whose job it was to assess if I was ready for release. Naturally, they believed I was still a bolshy youngster who might be a danger to society. I answered every one of their questions with ‘Fine’. I didn’t want to give anything away about myself. I’ve always been like that.

  I eventually left the counsellors’ office knowing they had me labelled as a nasty, violent delinquent, not prepared to face up to what I’d done. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d steamed into Terry to stop him battering my mum – it’s as simple as that. But the authorities never looked at it from my point of view.

  About a week before I was due for release I was called into the Assistant Governor’s office to take an important personal phone call. It turned out to be my Uncle Pete. He said: ‘You can’t go back home next week, son. You gotta steer clear in case that bastard Terry comes looking for you.’ I insisted I wasn’t scared of Terry but Uncle Pete said the family had decided it was too dangerous for me.

  So here I was, about to get out of one cage only to be dropped right into the middle of another. Story of my life, I suppose. Even after serving time for giving him the beating he deserved, the spectre of Terry was haunting me.

  A week later I got out of Rochester. Me and two other kids stepped out of the gate and heard it sliding shut behind us. I thought to myself ‘Well, you’re on your tod now. No more nice gentle screws to tuck you up at night. Back to the real world.’ I couldn’t wait. I shivered, not from the cold but, as my mum would say, ‘Because someone just walked over your grave, Son.’

  I was five-feet-eleven-inches of pure muscle from all that time spent in the borstal gym. I’d been capable of growing a beard since the age of fourteen. I was a man in everything but actual age.

  The year had started badly with that iron bar attack at the Pigeons that wrecked my boxing career, then I’d got banged up for beating up that bastard Terry. Now I was determined to start my life all over again. There was no turning back.

  The few decent screws back at Rochester had told me it was the air you first noticed when you got out. ‘Air doesn’t have to smell of disinfectant,’ they said. ‘You think this is normal … wait till you smell real air again.’ At the time I hadn’t given it much thought but now I was out I remembered every word.

  The same dark blue transit with the blacked-out windows that had delivered me to the hell hole was waiting to take us boys back to East London. No one said much in the van as we drove through Kent and then into the Dartford Tunnel. The bright florescent lighting in the tunnel made me squint. I was so relieved when we finally drove up into the grim grey of the East End. The screws pushed us out just by Bow Station.

  Over to one side, near where the steps led up from Bow Underground Station, an old boy in a brown plastic apron was opening up a flower stall. As the van pulled away, I strolled over to him but he ignored me.

  ‘Got any daffs?’ I asked him.

  ‘Over there.’

  They were at the far end of the stall, high up at the back. I reached across and took down a bunch. They were still wet, and bound tightly together with elastic bands.

  ‘Fifty pence,’ the old boy said.

  I fingered the coins: some of them had been taken off me when I’d been nicked. I was just about to hand over the money when I heard my name being called. I turned round to see Uncle Pete and two of his heavyweight mates in a white Cortina. Uncle Pete looks a lot like my dad. He’s four years younger, a big rock-’ n’ -roller and six feet tall. Still works out every day.

  ‘Forget the flowers, Son,’ he said in his strong East End twang. ‘You’re comin’ home with me.’

  I certainly wasn’t going to have a ruck with him so I jumped in the back of his Dagenham Dustbin.

  While we drove across London to Pete’s home in Croydon, South London, he and his mates talked about the doorman game and how someone with my skills would fit in perfectly. Uncle Pete had been running a crew of doormen for a few years down at some nightclubs in Croydon.

  That night I kipped at Uncle Pete and Aunt Marge’s house. ‘You’re here till further notice, Son,’ he said. I knew I was going to enjoy myself and, to be honest about it, I knew I needed a fresh start. Maybe this cage wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  A couple of nights later, me, my mum and brothers John and Ian steamed into a few bevvies at Uncle Pete’s local boozer. Ian and John ended up having to carry Mum and me back to Pete’s house but no one was complaining. After what we’d been through, a few drinks were perfectly natural.

  I had a nasty dream that night about being attacked in borstal and I was sweating heavily when I opened my eyes and saw the sun peeping through the window. I suppose I still expected some lousy screw to waltz in and start barking orders at me and kick the shit out of the end of my bed.

  I’d survived all those months in borstal without even touching a ciggie but the deadly weed went and hooked me within days of getting out. And life inside Rochester had made me grow up quickly. I’d probably seen more than most blokes twice my age. But I knew I now had to do something with my life. It wasn’t going to be easy. There’d been too many knockdowns already and I didn’t honestly know if I was up to the challenge.

  I jumped at the chance of working the door at a club with Uncle Pete and his crew because I desperately needed to start earning a wedge. Mum turned a blind eye to the fact I was missing school – she just wanted me off the streets, where I might get up to no good. I assured Pete I was fighting fit and ready for work. I was fifteen and about to get a taste of the real world.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Money in my Pocket

  I always reckoned that not much of the old man ever rubbed off on me, but now I know that’s not completely true. He was always a diplomat if ever there was any aggro. He never just steamed in and caused trouble. He liked to talk about things first and then, if someone ignored him, whack, he’d go in with all fists blazing. His brother – my Uncle Peter – was the opposite. He always told me: ‘Don’t give up. Don’t lose. You ain’t gonna lose as long as you think you ain’t gonna lose.’ Uncle Pete certainly wasn’t shy about knocking a few heads together if he felt the need. He went in hard and fast and took no prisoners.

  It was Uncle Pete who really taught me much of what I know today. He taught me self-respect and he also showed me the importance of manners. Not having my dad at home meant that was doubly important. And Uncle Pete was certainly quite a character. He was so into heavy rock that he used to drag me to pop concerts in fields and events like that. He especially loved the Eagles and the Rolling Stones.

  My first door job with Uncle Pete was at a Croydon night-club called Scamps. Me and all the other doormen had to wear a red shirt, black bowtie (clip-on, naturally) and a black jacket. I was still just fifteen years old, but no one back at school in Forest Gate even bothered to come after me. I already weighed in at nearly fifteen stone with a seventeen-inch neck and well-toned biceps to match. No one there (apart from Uncle Pete) had a clue how young I was. If they had, then I’d probably have had a lot more trouble with the customers.

  But it didn’t take more than a few days on the door at Scamps for some aggro to flare up. ‘Get your arse down here,’ screamed Uncle Pete over the walkie-talkie, seconds after a punter outside the club had tried to smash a bottle over his head. I sorted out the assailant and we made sure he never came back to Scamps again.

  I worked three full nights a week at Scamps and stood in for many of the other doormen if they were off sick. There were seven doormen in total working at the club at any one time. One night a few weeks after I’d started, I was walking up the stairs to the club entrance when a familiar-looking figure walked down the other way, right past me. I blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. It was my dad. I hadn’t seen him in years.

  He turned back. ‘Heard you was here,’ he said to me as our eyes met. I was well annoyed to find I was working at the same club as the old man, who had worked as a d
oorman at loads of clubs over the years. I suppose I should have known better since it was his brother Pete who was running the door. But I still couldn’t get that clash between him and my mum out of my mind. I knew he’d been given quite an ear-bashing by my mum, but nothing gave him the excuse for tearing into her the way he did.

  I said nothing at first and just gave him a kind of steely look, right into his eyes. I suppose I was waiting for him to say sorry for fucking up the lives of his four kids and wife. But instead he just grinned at me as if nothing was the matter. That really grated with me at the time. I wanted him to grovel for what he’d done to us.

  ‘Ain’t you even goin’ to say hello to your old man?’ he said, trying desperately to break the ice.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said, surprised at my own coldness.

  Just then Uncle Peter appeared on the stairs. He must have sensed the tension in the air because he immediately tried to calm things down by proudly telling my old man about how I’d handled myself during that tear-up a couple of days earlier.

  Pete laughed and joked as he described how I’d steamed in and sorted it all out. Just then a smile came to my old man’s lips and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he wasn’t really so bad after all. We’d get along fine just so long as we both realised where to draw the line.

  Not long after starting on the door at Scamps I got my first taste of the rivalry that exists between firms of doormen across London. A mob from a club on the other side of Croydon had decided to try and take over Uncle Pete’s doorman contract at Scamps.

  At first the rival firm put the word around Croydon that Pete and his crew were no better than a bunch of schoolgirls and that they were the real men for the job. Basically, they were throwing down the gauntlet to us. They wanted our business and that’s not something any doorman will give away without a real battle.