Andy struggled as much as the other lads to re-align with his younger life. Having to remember where he lived, who he was friends with, what day of the week it is, what league Scunthorpe United are in, and whether or not he’d missed a card game for Danny Pleasants. Danny had only just sprung to mind since coming back to Scunthorpe, as the only thing he desired was private time with Sarah.
BOOM…. BOOM…. BOOM. Three loud bangs on the front door of his house woke him up. BOOM…. BOOM…. BOOM, came three more waking Sarah up as well. He turned over in bed to look at her and he smiled. The previous night’s romantic entanglement with Sarah had been the medicine he needed to remind him of what he’d missed the most about his old life.
Andy recognised those knocks on his front door. He hadn’t heard them in forty years, but he knew who was behind them. They weren’t even knocks; they were punches. And he knew exactly who was doing the punching. He didn’t want to hang out the window to talk to them, so he slipped his jeans and ‘Frankie Says Relax’ T-Shirt on and went downstairs to answer the door, leaving Sarah curled up in bed with a smile on her face.
BOOM…. BOOM…. BOOM came three more punches before Andy managed to open the front door, revealing three of Danny Pleasants enforcers. Little and Large and larger everyone called them, not to their faces though as they were nasty shites, well known for cutting people's ears off that owed money.
Andy’s nickname for them was BDB, which he told them stood for their names, Billy, Don, and Barry, but in reality, it stood for Brain Dead Bastards. Andy had once attempted to explain to them what an Anachronym is so they wouldn’t think he was taking the piss out of them, even though he was, but it would have been easier to explain this to a brick wall than these three. Fuck they were dumb, but absolute experts at collecting debts for Danny Pleasants.
“Where the fuck were you last night?” Demanded the smaller of the three. It doesn’t matter where you go in life you always get a mouthy little shit who thinks he’s hard if he’s got back up to protect him, and Billy ‘The Nonce’ was no different. A convicted child abuser that everyone in town hated, including Andy.
Because Billy considered himself one of Danny’s boys, he swanned around town as if he owned the place. A short, skinny, and sweaty-faced little Herbert who dressed as a Teddy boy with a greased quiff, whose own mum disowned him when he was sixteen for his nonce ways. Andy always consoled himself with having to work with scum like this by knowing what happened to him during one of his spells in Hull prison. It involved a broom handle, his anus, and two broken legs which is where his limp came from.
“I was ere, why?” replied Andy whilst looking confused and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Big Don leaned forward with his hands in the pockets of his beige camel hair coat and gritted his teeth menacingly. He’d worked for Danny since retiring as a prize-fighter five years earlier when he realised there’s more money in ‘collecting’ than there is in fighting.
“The big games on tonight son, and last night you were supposed to be at Danny’s pub practising wiv him.”
“So where the fuckinell were ye?” Asked Barry with spittle coming out of his mouth with anger. Barry the Butcher came to work for Danny after he’d had a major falling out with his Loyalist Paramilitary comrades back home in Belfast. A misunderstanding occurred when he “accidentally”, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered the brother of an opposing branch of his paramilitary group, all by complete accident he claimed. A £50.000 bounty had been put on his head after that, so he had it away on his toes to England and began working for Danny, who paid off the bounty and put Barry in debt to him. Barry was loyal to Danny, he’d do anything he required to keep him happy and if that meant turning people inside out for him, then he would.
Of cause, Andy had forgotten about the practice run, he’d been away for forty years living the high life, how could he have remembered, he couldn’t exactly explain this to these three idiots. He put his head in his hands knowing he was in deep shit, but at least he hadn’t missed the big game itself.
Billy the nonce, walked over to a black Jaguar Sovereign that they’d parked outside of Andy’s mid-terraced house and opened the rear door. It belonged to Danny as he liked big cars like the Sovereign as the large boot space was more than enough to fit two corpses in and a set of golf clubs as well if needed.
The opened car door revealed Danny Pleasants wearing a brightly coloured tracksuit and a bright red John McEnroe headband even though he was bald, giving the impression that he’d just come back from the gym when he hadn’t, he just liked to look sporty whilst sitting in the back of his car smoking a Cuban cigar and sipping a single malt out of one of his custom-made whiskey glasses.
“IN”, growled Danny in a pissed-off and stern tone.
A mean-looking, shaven-headed ex-British Para and Borneo veteran who had taken over all of Scunthorpe’s criminal activities upon being discharged from the army. Danny was a natural killer who his commanding officer had once described as one of the most dangerous men he had ever met. Many people who knew Danny before he joined the army, claimed he had only joined to learn how to kill people quickly and efficiently. And those that knew him after he left the army, claimed he’d learned well.
Andy reluctantly climbed into the car barefooted, he hadn’t had time to put his trainers and socks on before answering the door, but Danny liked to catch people like this, it made them feel vulnerable.
Danny sipped at his expensive whiskey and puffed away on his Cuban cigar, filling the whole car with his foul-smelling smoke. “If you miss the game tonight, I’ll personally take every one of your fingers, off both of your hands, and then who knows, maybe your mates as well, and if I’m in the mood, maybe even that pretty little girlfriend of yours too. Now you let this sink in son, let it sink in deep. Tonight, the game that I’m hosting is the biggest game I’ve ever put on. The head of five of the biggest families are turning up at my pub, to play at my gig. The game starts at eight, I want you there at the Cecil for six, do you facking understand that?”
“Yeah Danny, of cause I do, I’ll not let you down.”
“Now fack off.”
The car door opened without being prompted and Big Don’s massive hands reached in and grabbed Andy. He pulled him out and threw him on the pavement outside his house as a further warning. The BDBs climbed in the car with Danny, and Billy the nonce started the engine and they slowly drove away like royalty.
Sarah had watched this from behind the net curtains in the bedroom but jumped back into bed when she heard Andy close the front door behind him and started climbing the stairs. Andy sat on the edge of the bed knowing she would have heard and seen all of it and that she was just pretending to be asleep.
“Me and the lads have made a decision, and we need you and the girls' help.”
Sarah opened her eyes from her pretend slumber and put her arms around him “What decision, what do you need help with?”
“We’re going to take the band seriously from now on, no more fuckin about. We’ve got all the kit, we can use Mats Dad’s lockup to practice, all we need is to get on with it, but we need you and the girls to support us, can you do it?”
Sarah kissed him on the side of his head. She needed to hear this. Andy needed something positive to take him away from the life of working for Danny Pleasants, and this was it.
“Damn right, we can.”
*
“Put the tomatoes in the van, and I’ll get the cucumbers,” Shouted Matt's Dad. He’d given him a massive hug when he got home. He hadn’t seen his Dad in twenty years, not since he’d died. His Mum had survived though, and even though he became famous, he always made time for his parents and his Mum wanted for nothing, He’d always spoiled them rotten with his riches and wealth and she lived in a beautiful bungalow just outside of Scunthorpe when they were famous, but now they were back at the family home that Matt had grown up.
They were at the fruit and veg lockup at the rear of the house loading up the van ready for the market, and his Dad wanted to speak to him but wanted to time it right.
“Listen, son, me and your Mum have been talking to a Doctor from London. He reckons that the reason you don’t talk is that you have this thing called Autism. Now it’s nothing bad, it just means you like to be in an internal world, inside your skull and people with Autism are usually highly intelligent but don’t talk a lot, and in some cases, they don’t talk at all. Well, this doctor reckons he may be able to help. What ya reckon son? Do you fancy meeting him?
At that moment Ina walked into the lockup with a coffee and doughnut for Matt. She’d used the last of her money to get him this but had three Tarot readings booked for the afternoon that would replenish her coffers, but she regularly spent the last of her money on the man she loved. It was a strawberry frosted doughnut that Matt always liked, and Ina always bought him.
“Hi Bob”, she hugged Matt’s Dad as if he were her own Father, and he might as well have been as he loved her just like his own daughter.
“Arrr Ina, perfect timing. I was just talking to Matt about a Doctor that me and Janet have been talking to. He reckons Matt might have something called Autism and he might be able to help get Matt talking.”
Ina put her loving arms around her man and kissed him. “But what does Mat want? Do you wish to talk?”
Matt shrugged his shoulders, stirred his coffee, and opened the doughnut bag to smell the sweet smell of the strawberry frosting.
“I’ve just seen Sarah at the shops. She reckons you boys are gonna get serious about the band and use all that equipment over there.” She nodded to the corner of the lockup that housed all the musical instruments that Matt’s Dad had bought them years ago. It had been a while since it had been used, hidden away, covered in dust sheets. “Music’s good for the mind and soul. Maybe a bit of the Doctor and a bit of the band might just be what’s needed.”
*
“AARRRRGGHH” Screamed Garry’s first customer of the day. He’d struggled to remember how to cut and style hair and nipped the bloke’s ear with his scissors sending blood shooting over Garry’s favourite Flock of Seagull’s T-Shirt.
“What the fuck are you doing,” Screamed the customer as he put his hand on his bleeding ear and looked in the mirror to see how bad it was. Garry gave him a towel to cover the bleeding but the customer ran out of the shop shouting “wanker”.
“You okay honey?” Asked ‘Loose Larry’, the owner of the Hair Salon where Andy worked. Larry was as bent as a butcher’s hook and camp with it and loved Garry and Lucy, he always styled Lucy’s hair and nails for free. A great guy to be friends with but you wouldn’t bend over in the showers in front of him to pick up the soap. He was once imprisoned back in the mid-’60s for committing an act of buggery on his boyfriend when it was still illegal to be gay. He told the Judge before sentencing that he’d had more cocks than John Wayne’s rifle and couldn’t wait to give him one as well. Two years he got for that and whilst being led down to the cells, he stuck two fingers up to the Judge in one final act of defiance.
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“Yeah, I'm okay.” Sighed Garry “Just got my mind else ware”.
“Are you and Lucy Okay, I do worry about you both”. He sat next to Garry and handed him a coffee. “Have you been getting angry again?”
Larry had been like a big brother to him for years. Garry had once knocked out two members of the local Rugby team who sought fit to abuse Larry in his hair salon for being gay. He and Freddy had calmly walked into the local Rugby Club bar and without saying a word, he gave them both the hiding of their lives without any help from Freddy. The other Rugby club members just stood there, shocked at the level of violence that someone who worked at a hair salon could inflict on their mates.
“No, no, I’m okay with that now. I’m scared of losing Lucy though. Maybe I don’t deserve her. She’s too good for me.” Tears began welling up in his eyes.
“Fuck off,” replied Larry. “I adopted you two because I can see into your hearts. Lucy is full of love for you, but you seem to have your heart caged up babes, open your heart, and love will set you free.”
“Larry, there's something I have to tell Lucy, it's serious stuff, life and death stuff. If I tell her, she will think I'm mad, but if she believes me, she will go nuts, and maybe even finish with me, but if I don’t, then I'm doomed…so I'm going to tell you first…here goes…me and the lads sold our…
The door to the salon opened abruptly interrupting Garry, and in walked Lucy and Sarah like giggling schoolgirls eager to talk about the great news that Sarah had learned from Andy. Lucy rushed over to Garry and kissed and hugged him with all her might.
“Oh my God, there’s blood on you, what’s happened.”
Garry smiled. Larry was right, she loved him, which meant she would help him and the lads with their predicament.
Garry smiled whilst telling her. “I cut this blokes ear with me scissors and he ran out calling me a wanker.”
Lucy soaked the end of a towel in water and started to dab at the blood speckles on Garry’s T-Shirt. It was his favourite shirt, Lucy had bought him it due to his obsession with the Band ‘A Flock of Seagulls’. Larry and Andy had spent ages perfecting and copying the unique Hairstyle of the lead singer Mike Score and they’d practised endlessly on Freddy and Duckegg until they had it honed. Once perfected, Larry styled Garry’s hair the same and the three of them acted as a walking advertisement for Larry’s hair salon.
“Can’t blame him, I’d have called you worse,” laughed Lucy. “Sarah reckons Andy told her that you’re all getting serious about the band is this true?”
Shit thought Garry, what else has he told Sarah, fuck, if he’s told her about the Devil and his contract, how’s he going to explain that to Lucy, he hadn’t told her himself yet.
“Err yeah, definitely, err what else has he told you?”
“That we're all gonna be your groupies’ mate”. Laughed Sarah. She’d decided in her mind what hairstyle a partner of a famous musician would need and searched through the pile of fashion magazines that Larry collected in the Salon. “Andy wants a practice tomorrow night at the lockup, the sooner the better, I think. Danny Pleasants and his brain dead’s came around earlier putting pressure on Andy. There’s a big game tonight at the Cecil and Andy is dealing. The sooner you guys make it as musician’s the better, I just want Andy out of that life.
*
A frightening silence gripped the office as eyes widened and mouths sagged open. The chattering of dozens of typists and the clattering of their typewriter keys halted abruptly. Even the telephones stopped ringing as if the callers had psychically sensed that shit was about to hit the fan. Three of the girls who had cigarettes lit, suffered from minor burns as their smokes burned down to their fingers due to being too afraid or just stunned at what they had heard to move their cigs to the ashtray.
A lightning bolt of adrenaline shot through Lara’s body. She didn’t know whether it was fear or excitement at what she had done, but the feeling had unlocked something inside her that could never be locked away again. She realised what she had done and slammed the glass office door behind her and made herself comfortable at her desk with the entire office watching her. Knowing that she was about to be fired but regardless she began typing without a flying fuck to give.
The Silence was only broken an hour later when the fat little prick scurried away without the balls to face up to what he had done to cause this incident. He moved quickly through the office with his leather briefcase in hand and covered his embarrassed face with his bowler hat until he was safely away from the office.
Gloria had been the office manager at the steelworks for three years. It was during this time that she rightfully earned the nickname 7Up, but shortly after that incident, still full of regret, she fell madly in love with her best friend Duckegg, and a true romance blossomed between them.
Gloria gingerly waddled to the office reception to ensure Lord Dickhead, as he was known, was no longer in earshot. He was nowhere to be seen so she waddled over to the window that overlooked the car park and gave it a meticulous examination to check that his brand-new Rover car that he had bought with his promotion money was still there. It had gone and a streak of excitement flushed through her fat legs as she slowly made her way to her desk. She squeezed into her extra-large chair that had been reinforced god knows how many times and picked up the handset to her telephone and squeezed her fat forefinger into the dial and rang the security booth at the main gate.
Barry (Bazza) Smythe answered the phone, one of the infamous “Steel Works Seven” that had banged her against a wall two years earlier behind a local nightclub on a works outing. It wasn’t the first time he had given her one, he was the same age as her and she was giving it away freely back in the old school days when she’d had more balls on her nose than a circus seal, so they were well acquainted with each other.
“Baz, it's Gloria, has Lord Dickhead left site?”
“Yeah, just this minute left, looked a bit pissed off about summit, why what’s up?’
Lord Dickhead always treated everyone with contempt and the security staff the worse. He always claimed that they went to sleep on the night shift, which was true, but that was the way it had been since the steelworks opened a hundred years earlier so who was he to interfere with tradition, Baz hated him.
“Listen, this has just happened, but promise me you’ll tell no one.”
Lara worked as the personal secretary for the managing director. A good man to work for, firm but fair and always treated everyone with respect. However, he had been on sick leave for more than a month and his stand-in replacement, who had climbed the management ladder through dirty tricks and snivelling, had taken it upon himself to throw his weight around the offices and began to bully the office girls.
Until that very morning, he had gotten away with it, but his terrorising of the office had ended abruptly when Lara slammed down her files and marched into his office after he’d verbally abused a junior typist and made her cry. Lara’s blood boiled and her beauty and elegance turned into fire and brimstone as she nearly tore the managers' door off its hinges to get to him. She stopped suddenly in front of his desk and pointed her right forefinger at him as if aiming an invisible gun directly at his forehead.
“You listen to me you fat little short arsed bastard, if you ever start on anybody in this fucking office again, I’ll shove that desk right up your fucking arse.” She slammed the glass door behind her and sat back at her desk with the entire office gobsmacked and in shock.
Gloria finished her story with the pointless words, “for fucks sake Baz, don’t tell anybody about this.” It was a futile request. This was Scunthorpe Steelworks, a town within a town where everyone knows each other’s business, and gossip spread like a case of clap behind a nightclub wall.
“Won’t say a word, I promise.” And he put the phone down. His hand began to twitch, like a drug addict beginning to rattle for their next fix. This was big, a huge story that needed to be told and he was one of the biggest gossips on site. But he’d promised to keep it secret. Then his hand twitched some more as it involuntarily moved towards the telephone sat in front of him. It beckoned, it called ever so softly to him.
Fifteen seconds, that’s all it took for the weak pleb to give in and call his brother in the castings department, who just like Baz, likes to sleep during the shift with his feet up on the desk.
The call was answered, and he was awoken, and in less than four minutes and twenty-nine seconds, a new site record, the word was out and all the phones in Gloria’s office rang with excitement as the whole site wanted further details. “Was it true she hit him with a chair?” “Was it true she chucked a bucket of piss on him?” “Did she really throw him out the window?”
Lara sat at her desk in bewilderment at what was happening, the steelwork gossip machine had gone into full effect and Gloria decided there would be only one solution.
“Do not answer any more fucking phones.” She screamed at the top of her voice. “Union meeting, Furnace arms now, I’m calling an early day.” Rapturous cheers from twenty cigarette-smoking girls echoed around the smoke-filled office as they urgently grabbed their handbags and ran for the exit as quickly but as ladylike as possible before Gloria changed her mind. It was a stampede, to be honest, the small exit door that had seen Lord Dickhead out of not that long ago was now crammed with Scunthorpe’s finest as they clambered out of the office and nearly fell down the stairs and into the car park. Within ten minutes the Furnace Arms pub had been filled with laughter on a scale never before heard of in this town centre pub.
*
“Ere Freddy, your Missus has just given her boss a good hiding and put him in hospital.”
“You what?” Came the confused reply.
The Court usher was an old mate of his, but the thick cunt had terrible timing. He and Duckegg were in Court, stood in front of the Magistrate representing a serial underwear thief called ‘Mad Malcolm.’ This was his twelve offence at this and Duckegg was giving his best to make him look innocent and misunderstood.
“It’s not that he poses a threat to the public your Honour, he’s no threat to anyone, he’s not even weird, he’s just ill and needs help.”
“Not Weird.” Came the sarcastic response from the Magistrate. “The defendant has yet again stolen underwear from the washing line of an Old Peoples Home. I would definitely say he has issues that can be seen as weird. I have no choice but to sentence him to six months imprisonment. Take him away.”
Neither Freddy nor Duckegg could give a fuck about Mad Malcolm, they just wanted to get away from the Magistrate and find out what was happening with Lara and to see if she was okay. Freddy picked up the court papers and eagerly rushed over to Suitcase, the Court usher that interrupted them both with the news about Lara.
Freddy and the lads went to school with Suitcase and knew him well. He got his nickname from always having a suitcase of nicked gear to sell. If you had something stolen to sell in Scunthorpe, then you would take it to Suitcase to fence and get rid of. In between the Court cases, he would be down in the cells doing deals with the local shoplifters for anything they had gotten away with before they were caught and hidden away for him to collect and give them a price on. If he liked the gear, he would give them cash there, and then they’d shove it up their jacksies so they had some cash to take to prison with them. It was one of Scunthorpe’s biggest mysteries on how he got the job as Court usher but widely suspected by many that money changed hands for him to get it.
“What the fuck was that about Suitcase? What’s happened to Lara?”
“I got a word from Bazza at the security gate at the steelworks. She’s on the run, hiding out at the Furnace Arms. There was blood splattered everywhere I heard. Armed Cops are on the Way.”
Without saying another word, both Freddy and Duckegg ran like hell for leather out of the Court and towards the Furnace Arms. Duckegg struggled to keep up at the pace that Freddy set after only ten feet of running and slowed down to a breathless walk stopping every few feet to get a breath. It was a ten-minute steady walk to the pub or a three-minute mad dash and Freddy ran like an Olympic athlete to get there not knowing what to expect.
He crashed through the pub door like a man possessed expecting Lara to be held out there like Butch & Sundance’s last stand against the Mexican Army, but instead of that, he was presented with Lara and Gloria dancing on top of tables to Abba’s Dancing Queen with the whole steelworks typing pool egging them on and cheering.
Lara clapped eyes on her beloved and jumped off the table with a beer bottle still in hand, in an ecstatic mood of partying and joy.
“Babes, have a drink with us.” And she gave him a kiss like no other and explained the truth about what had happened.
Ten minutes into the explanation and the front door crashed open and in pilled Andy, Matt, and Garry with baseball bats, sweating like blind lesbians in a fish market. They’d heard from a fella that knows Loose Larry, that knows a man in Skegness, who has a half-brother in Newcastle that’s related to Bazza and his brother that Lara was trapped in the Furnace Arms by a group of Millwall supporters that were in Scunthorpe for that evening's football game.
In one sense they were delighted that Bazza could spread more bullshit than a Politician on election day and that everything had been blown out of proportion, but what they had stepped over outside the door of the pub concerned them greatly.
Duckegg, ‘bless him,’ had given his all to run down to the pub, and just as he got to the door he’d collapsed in an exhausted and breathless heap. An old lady had stopped to kick him and rifle through his pockets just when his crew had run back out of the pub to help him. Gloria freaked out, I mean proper flipped. Thinking he was dying, she pushed everyone out of the way and kneeled next to him, and was just about to start giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when he caught his breath and opened his eyes. The eyes that looked back at him, showed love and concern. And he knew there and then just how much Gloria loved him.