Street Kid Read online

  Street Kid

  Street Kid

  A Rent Boy’s Tale

  Ned Williams

  Text Copyright © 2017 Ned Williams

  All Rights Reserved

  Revised 2019

  Paperback edition 2019

  ISBN: 9781790718559

  Imprint: Independently published

  Note on this edition

  The original version of Street Kid published in 2017 as an eBook was revised for the 2019 paperback edition. These revisions are included in this 2019 eBook edition. The revisions are of a minor nature comprising grammatical and layout changes.

  www.streetkidtale.weebly.com

  For my beloved Rabbit

  Contents

  Epilogue

  Part One – Aged 0-13 years

  A Very Normal Childhood

  You Dirty, Old Town

  Searching for Revenge

  A First, Tentative Step

  A Semi Regular

  Demands from School

  Some Full Regulars

  Rates and Brian

  Part Two – Aged 14 years

  Andy

  ‘Hell’

  Crisis Time

  ‘Alfio’s’

  ‘The Green Goddess’ – Etc.

  Making My Mark

  Four’s Company

  Part Three – Aged 15 years

  The ‘Evil’

  Prodigal Sons

  Aftermath

  Adventures

  Freedom

  Pimps

  Farmer Joe

  Further Adventures

  Pam

  First Love

  Sign Language

  The Clinic

  Update

  Part Four – Aged 16 years

  International Relations

  Marti and Matthew

  All in the Family

  Marti Revisited

  Racking

  All Change

  A Pregnant Pause

  A Pastoral Interlude

  Pop Goes My Weasel

  Before Leaving Home

  Adam’s ‘Evenings’

  Sheba’s Quest

  Catch Up

  Paul and Eric

  Part Five – Aged 17 years

  Party Time

  Leaving Home

  Flat Life

  A Painful Dilemma

  Back to Prison

  Oedipus Rides Again

  Once in a Lifetime

  Waiting

  A Motley Crew

  Part Six – Aged 18-19 years

  Shattering My Chains

  Three’s Company – or Not

  Going to Pot

  The Jigsaw is Completed

  Resurrected Demons

  Riding the Whirlwind

  Bright Lights – Big City

  Prologue

  19 years and beyond

  Acknowledgements

  My special thanks to Luke for suggesting the idea; to Lin and Loll for their constant enthusiasm and encouragement; to Veronica for giving up valuable time to proof read the text and finally, to Richard and Pete who gently badgered me into completing this epic.

  Epilogue

  “You see that large department store?” I said. Rabbit, my travelling companion, nodded. “Well, that’s where it was.” I gave a grand sweep with my left hand.

  “Right,” he replied. I could hear from the tone of his voice that he must have thought that I was plainly going fast around the bend.

  “Good. Now, right there, just about where that neon shop sign is, – you see it?” I continued.

  “Yes.” Obediently, his eyes followed the direction of my pointed finger.

  “Now, d’you see that window displaying sports gear? Well, there wasn’t a building there then. It used to be a small road – well, more like a cut–through really. And about half way down, on the right, was ‘The Green Goddess’ I told you about.”

  “Oh.” Rabbit stared dutifully at the front of the bland store and gave a nod of encouragement. “Right!” he said, although he was obviously frantically wracking his brains, trying to remember how significantly ‘The Green Goddess’ featured in my formative years. Any passers–by must have wondered what was so extraordinarily fascinating about a rather ordinary shop front which was causing such judicious scrutiny from two rather ordinary looking guys. Little did they know! How could they? They couldn’t, of course, unless they were privy to its rather peculiar history.

  “It was the coffee bar, where we often used to congregate. The Gang? Remember?” An ample look of realisation spread across his face. All his confusion evaporated and a convincing memory of my frequent verbal memoirs was triggered. To reinforce the reminiscence I continued, “It was one of the gang’s regular meeting places. The coffee bar ruled by the redoubtable Renata?” I prompted.

  “Ah, yes,” Rabbit smiled. “Got it!” He gazed at the shop front in an attempt to capture this golden nugget from my past. Because of the solid, unyielding building we now faced; this attempt must have seemed forlorn.

  This microcosm of the whole city’s alterations made me feel sad and extremely nostalgic. My youth hadn’t been lost – it had been bricked over.

  As a fully formed forty–five year old male, returning in the mid–nineteen–nineties, after some twenty–five year’s absence, to the centre of the city with a sympathetic friend, curious about my youth, it is almost incredible that these manicured, sanitised, socially acceptable streets – these yuppified alleyways were once witness to my debauched teenage. Everywhere and everything on this guided tour of my ancient monuments looked so ‘nice’. I began to wonder if my fellow observer thought I had invented the whole thing.

  Bright lights have now banished the once oppressive gloom; respectable cafés replace derelict houses ideally suited for hasty encounters. Warehouses and old community halls have been demolished and restructured as monstrous glass office blocks and gleaming, production line chain stores. Multi–storey car parks have usurped the strange buildings whose original purposes had long been forgotten. Everything now aired so respectable. The bland seventies, eighties and nineties have smothered – strangled – murdered – the colourful fifties and sixties.

  With frightening efficiency, the developers have fulfilled their sacred mission to create identikit city centres throughout this once ‘green and pleasant land’. In many ways it is a case of ‘good riddance’. But there is a John Betjeman side of me which hankers for those good old days of yore, full of fun, frolic and experience whose loss is personified by this vanished relic of my youth which now confronted us.

  My sympathetic comrade, Rabbit, must have used a great deal of his imagination to fill in those gaps, which my inner eye saw with such clarity. He didn’t give up. I watched him, as he eyed the stone monster with something akin to wonder.

  For myself, I felt a strange tingle. The buildings appeared to swim in my mind and dissolve. I felt a thrill as the inner eye of my mind superimposed itself on my physical one, a complete recreation of the alleyway as it once was. The past came out of the realms of recollection and, for a fraction of a second, pretended to be real and tangible.

  Part One - Aged 0-13 years

  A Very Normal Childhood

  Isuppose the adult I have become and the path I have taken is the ripe fruit which was seeded in my childhood. And it was a member of my family who gleefully planted this seed with evil relish.

  Born an only child, of the first few years of my life I have only the scantiest of recollections. Any images I still retain are of dubious reliability and reality as they could have stemmed from external influences from my much extended family. From the scraps of information grudgingly divulged by my mother, I have surmised that I was a fairly happy but unremarkable baby. Photographs, taken at the
time, show a bright eyed, bushy tailed infant happily playing with its mother. I suspect these images of blissful contentment were carefully staged for the camera, but I can’t be sure. Perhaps, at the time, there was a germ of potentiality for a happy family. If there was, it didn’t last very long. The cuddly puppy grew up a little and lost his ability to entice an “Ah, isn’t he sweet!” from admiring adults.

  Babies are sexless creatures – but they soon grow and begin to show signs of what they are to become. As I grew, my mother couldn’t get away from the fact that I had committed a grave sin for which I could never be forgiven. I had the misfortune to be born a boy. She had set her heart on bringing a little girl into the world and had even selected a name for her; Janet. When, at nine and three quarter pounds, I popped out, she didn’t even know what to call me. I was a nameless blob. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly reminded of this deliberate act of betrayal on my part.

  From the age of about six (or it could have been even younger) until just before my teenage years, my father used, or rather, abused his privileged position of trust by ‘having a bit of fun’ with me – at least twice a week. This ‘fun’ never extended much beyond masturbation and oral sex but for a little boy who, even if I do say it myself, was rather sensitive – it was bad enough. He always impressed upon me the importance of not telling anyone else, “Especially your mother. She wouldn’t understand”. Like a fool, I obeyed.

  How it all started, I honestly can’t remember. Most people’s first intimate experience is indelibly stamped on their memory – but not mine. I have always had sex. It has been part of my upbringing. To me, from the age of six, it was as natural as eating, walking and sleeping. I didn’t and couldn’t see anything wrong in it. It was simply a part of my childhood.

  It is interesting to note that, according to my mother, as a baby, I didn’t take kindly to a dummy. She tried various tricks to induce me into taking it, but I steadfastly refused. Apparently, I’d spit it out each time she tried to coax me into chewing the wretched thing. She even tried coating it with sugar. As soon as I had licked off this outer layer, out it would go. Today, I am not very fond of sweets – or cake. Could this distaste, and all that followed, have had a bearing on my current dislike?

  In a strange sort of way, by the time I reached the age of about seven, I had fully accepted these ‘games’ with my father as part of growing up. It was part of my initiation into the world of the grown–ups. I think I must have realised it was wrong or I wouldn’t have obeyed his command to keep shtum so willingly. By now, even at my tender age, I felt empowered because I had come to know, by instinct, these were ‘grown–up’ things in which my father engaged me so furtively. It was ‘our little secret’. Also, because it was virtually the only show of affection I ever received from him, I felt honoured and hankered after repeat performances. (This was at a time when such things were never spoken about so fear and ignorance stopped me mentioning anything about these ‘games’. Even at seven years of age, I thought I would not be believed – that I would be the one who would be punished. ‘Times,’ thank God, ‘they are a–changin’’) I was bribed (or rather, paid) with a couple of bars of chocolate, which, although he supplied the actual cash, I had to trot off to the local off–licence to purchase myself! And, before you jump to the wrong conclusion – he was my natural father.

  Looking at myself in the few family photographs, taken about this time, I see a scrawny looking kid, grinning at the camera. There was very little going for him. From these snaps, I must be honest; I am puzzled as to what my father saw in me. All I had to offer was my age – or lack of it! My looks, such as they are, can hardly be detected in these scarce black and white time capsules.

  I truly believe my parents made a huge mistake by getting married. Neither showed any form of affection towards one another, in any way whatsoever. I don’t remember a single hug or kiss being exchanged. They tended to ignore each other. At one time they must have shared a certain amount of intimacy or yours truly wouldn’t have hatched into the world – but it must have been a long time ago and fairly infrequent. This lack of affection was also extended to myself. My father never embraced me and my mother, apart from ‘good night’ pecks or a brief kiss on my cheek when I left for school, seemed to refuse any open signs of love.

  My father maintained a firm hold over his wife by keeping her desperately short of cash for the housekeeping. As he had a fairly good job, I believe he must have had money stashed away but always cried poverty whenever she broached the subject of a raise.

  To augment her rather meagre income, she thought it prudent to take in washing and ironing from various neighbours and relations. Further, she took on part–time work in various local shops where she charmed the customers rotten to their faces and bitched ruthlessly about them behind their backs. The moment she began to have a certain degree of financial independence, numerous rows and silences broke out. My father, quick to see the danger, tried to reduce, proportionately, her weekly allowance. There were tears galore from her. In the end, her money was modified a little, but when she became unemployed, it was never adjusted back up.

  During all these uncertainties, I became a bit of a loner and a ‘latch key kid’ but without my own key. On my weekends and school holidays, I had to spend my spare time with my Grandmother and Aunt, on my mother’s side, who still shared a house. Their place was a haven of safety and warmth. My Gran was the Grand Old Matriarch of her disparate family and, whilst she lived, managed to keep the various warring factions together. Between her and my Aunt, I received a primitive form of familial love which was so grossly lacking in my own home.

  My father’s relationship with my mother had, for many years, resulted in separate bedrooms, separate lives and separate sexual desires. His principal craving was for the son and not the wife. I am also convinced he was seeing other men. Often, if I was out with him during a school holiday, he became agitated if we happened to bump into the ‘odd’ friend of his.

  From what I have learned subsequently, my father had a long–standing predilection for young men/boys. Whilst in the Services, he became very close to a fellow soldier. During the war, the young man was killed whilst standing beside my father. The young man’s body shielded my father from death. That is how I received my name – an inheritance from this dead youth: Steven. Perhaps he saw me as a substitute for his lost comrade. Perhaps it was guilt that he had survived and this other Steve hadn’t. Who knows? Who cares?

  My mother, even in front of the rest of her vast family, had given up all pretence of a happy marriage. Although my father remained in frosty silence as to his thoughts, my mother took every opportunity to run down her ‘beloved’ behind his back – and, on special occasions, when there was a family gathering, in front of his face as well. I was receiving very different signals from each of them. My mother, when I had done something wrong, always said, “That’s your father in you.” This, as far as she was concerned, being the biggest and worst put down – the ultimate insult – that she could summon. I was always used as a pawn in their bickering and quarrelling. My mother fought to win my affection as a way of getting back at my father rather than any genuine signal that she actually loved me. I was a very confused child who was being forced to grow up far too quickly.

  Naturally, all these observations have occurred to me after many years of hindsight. At the time, I simply knew I was not part of an ordinary family relationship because I saw how my friends and cousins were treated by theirs. Yes, I was very confused.

  As for my mother, well, she was always elsewhere. Relations, friends, work, it didn’t matter; she went anywhere and did anything to avoid being at home with her spouse. And, because of the sexual opportunities afforded by her absence, my father didn’t mind in the least. I don’t think she had any idea ‘our little secret’ was being performed on the very chairs and sofas she’d scrimped and saved to buy, or, in the working class, kitsch bathroom she had so lovingly decorated. I wonder what would have been
said had she known how often she’d rushed through the front door and dashed up to use the lavatory, not realising that the last thing to be flushed away was my father’s sperm, dutifully coaxed from his straining penis by her puny little brat of a son.

  Once a fortnight, I was given a real treat. My father (minus my mother) took me to a ‘News Theatre’ in the city centre. With her two banes removed, she took full advantage of the vacant house to entertain fragments of ‘her’ massive family. A thought has often occurred to me about that seedy little cinema. I don’t ever remember seeing a single female face in the audience. It was definitely an establishment catering for ‘Men Only’. Because of this, it could well have been, and most likely was, a pick–up place – and the fact that a grown man was in there with a six or seven year old boy must have caused the raising of some eyebrows as well as my father’s kudos. I dread to think what the cinema’s manager must have thought.

  These were not my only trips to the cinema. We had a local picture house, which showed mainstream films, and my mother (minus my father) took me there, but only once a month. Was this yet another battle for the control of my affections? The contrast between the ‘local’ and the ‘News Theatre’ couldn’t have been more marked. My father’s choice of entertainment made me uncomfortable, whilst my mother’s made me feel safe.

  By the time I began my sexual exploration of the city, my father’s choice of cinema had been demolished. I have never thought to enquire whether my mature suspicions about the place were well founded. Now, it’s too late. Like myself, my contemporaries have grown up or, perhaps, are dead from that evil spectre of gay happiness and, as I have lost all contact with them – I suppose I shall never know.

  As I have said, the resulting child became a bit of a loner. I was friendly and polite because my mother had hammered into me the ritual and courtesies of manners, (one of the few things for which I have to thank her) but I really only felt ‘complete’ in my own company.